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LIBRARY 

OF  THK 

University  of  California. 

Mrs.  SARAH  P.  WALSWORTH. 

Received  October,  1894. 
Accessions  No.Si^^2i^.      Class  No. 


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ILLUSTRATIONS 


HOLY     SCRIPTURES, 


DERIVED  PRINCIPALLY  FROM  THE 


MANNERS,   CUSTOMS,  RITES,   TRADITIONS,   FORMS   OF   SPEECH    ANTiaUITIES 
CLIMATE,  AND  WORKS  OF  ART  AND  LITERATURE, 


EASTERN    NATIONS; 

EMBODYING  ALL  THAT  IS  VALUABLE  IN  THE  WORKS  OF 

HARMER,    BURDER,    PAXTON,    AND    ROBERTS, 

AND  THE  MOST 

CELEBRATED  ORIENTAL  TRAVELLERS ; 

'  EMBRAQNG  ALSO  THE  SUBJECT  OF  THE 

FULFILMENT    OF    PROPHECY, 

AS  EXHIBITED  BY  KEITH  AND  OTHERS ; 
WITH  DESCRIPTIONS  OF  THE 

PRESENT  STATE  OF  COUNTRIES  AND  PLACES  MENTIONED  IN  THE  SACRED  WRITINGS,  ILLUSTRATED 
BY  NUMEROUS  LANDSCAPE  ENGRAVINGS,  FROM  SKETCHES  TAKEN  ON  THE  SPOT. 


REV.   GEORGE    BUSH,     jfV      OF  XH^       s 

PROFESSOR  OP  HEBREW  AND  ORIENTAL  LITERATURE  IN  THE  NEW  YORK  CITY  rNTVERSITY.  ''  *«  **  A    it 

13* 


PHILADELPHIA:  ^ 

PUBLISHED  BY    J.  B.    LIPPINCOTT  &  CO. 

1850. 

Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1836,  by  JOHN  C.  HOLBROOK,  in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District 

Court  of  Vermont. 

STEREOTYPED  BY  FRANCIS  F.  RIPLEY,  NEW  YORK. 


Sl'^-^f 


i^ 


4"^^ 


PREFACE.         H^^nr^ 


Next  in  worth  and  importance  to  the  possession,  is  doubtless  to  be  estimated  the  correct  interpretation  of  the  sacred 
volume.  Indeed,  it  is  the  latter  which  gives  its  value  to  the  former.  A  revelation  not  understood,  or  not  intelligible,  is 
no  revelation,  as  far  as  its  recipients  are  concerned.  The  position,  therefore,  that  the  meaning  of  the  Bible  is  the  Bible, 
we  consider  as  unquestionably  true,  and  consequently  any  new  accession  of  light,  which  goes  to  clear  up  its  obscurities, 
and  cause  its  genuine  sense  to  stand  forth  in  bolder  relieY  upon  the  inspired  page,  is  in  reality  enriching  us  with  a  larger 
amount  of  its  treasures,  and  virtually  bestowing  upon  us  added  communications  of  the  Divine  will.  In  this  view,  the 
progressive  elucidation  of  the  scriptures,  whether  by  the  expository  labours  of  critics,  the  researches  of  travellers,  or  the 
fulfilments  of  prophecy,  may  be  compared  to  the  gradual  rolling  away  of  the  morning  mist  from  a  splendid  landscape. 
As  the  sun  advances,  the  shades  retire,  and  new  and  interesting  features  of  the  scenery  are  continually  opening  upon  tha 
delighted  eye  of  the  spectator.  Or,  it  may  be  said  to  resemble  the  slow,  but  momentous  process  of  unfolding  the  ancient 
papyri,  which  the  ravages  of  time  and  fire  have  spared  among  the  ruins  of  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum.  Here,  as  every 
successive  word  and  letter,  which  can  be  redeemed  from  the  crisp  and  crumbling  texture  of  the  blackened  parchment, 
is  noted  down  with  the  most  scrupulous  care,  as  forming  a  part  of  the  continuous  record,  and  going  to  make  out  its  entire 
sense ;  so  the  sense  of  the  sacred  volume  is  gradually  elicited,  item  by  item,  and  needs  only  to  be  collected  and  treasured 
up  with  equal  solicitude,  in  order  to  constitute  a  possession  of  infinitely  more  value  than  the  choicest  literary  relics  of 
antiquity.  Perhaps  it  may  be  safely  affirmed,  that  the  materials  are  at  this  moment  in  existence,  for  the  satisfactory 
solution  of  nearly  every  doubtful  passage  of  holy  writ ;  but  the  great  desideratum  is  to  have  them  brought  together — to 
collect  them  from  their  wide  dispersion  over  a  countless  multitude  of  writings,  in  various  languages,  which  the  great 
majority  of  Christians  can  neither  procure  nor  understand.  It  is  only  in  this  way  that  they  can  be  made  really  available 
to  the  great  end  which  they  are  calculated  to  subserve ;  and  far  from  idle  are  the  claims  of  any  one  who  professes  to 
bring  from  scattered  sources  a  new  quota  to  the  general  stock  of  biblical  illustration. 

As  the  Bible,  in  its  structure,  spirit,  and  costume,  is  essentially  an  Eastern  book,  it  is  obvious  that  the  natural  phenomena, 
and  the  moral  condition  of  the  East,  should  be  made  largely  tributary  to  its  elucidation.  In  order  to  appreciate  fully 
the  truth  of  its  descriptions,  and  the  accuracy,  force,  and  beauty  of  its  various  allusions,  it  is  indispensable  that  the 
reader,  as  far  as  possible,  separate  himself  from  his  ordinary  associations,  and  put  himself,  by  a  kind  of  mental  transmi- 
gration, into  the  very  circumstances  of  the  writers.  He  must  set  himself  down  in  the  midst  of  oriental  scenery — gaze 
upon  the  sun,  sky,  mountains,  and  rivers  of  Asia — go  forth  with  the  nomade  tribes  of  the  desert — follow  their  flocks — 
travel  with  their  caravans — rest  in  their  tents— lodge  in  their  khans— load  and  unload  their  camels — drink  at  their 
watering-places — pause  during  the  heat  of  the  day  under  the  shade  of  their  palms — cultivate  the  fields  with  their  own 
rude  implements — gather  in  or  glean  after  their  harvests— beat  out  and  ventilate  the  grain  in  their  open  thrashing-floors — 
dress  in  their  costume— note  their  proverbial  or  idiomatic  forms  of  speech,  and  listen  to  the  strain  of  song  or  story,  with 
which  they  beguile  the  vacant  hours.  In  a  word,  he  must  surround  himself  with,  and  transfuse  himself  into,  all  the  forms, 
habitudes,  and  usages  of  oriental  life.  In  this  way  only  can  he  catch  the  sources  of  their  imagery,  or  enter  into  full 
communion  with  the  genius  of  the  sacred  penmen. 

While,  therefore,  we  readily  concede  the  very  high  importance  of  critical  and  philological  research  in  dissipating  the 
obscurities  of  the  scriptures,  and  fixing  their  exact  sense,  we  cannot,  at  the  same  time,  but  think  that  the  collatera* 
illustrations  derived  from  this  source,  are  deserving  of  at  least  equal  attention  from  the  student  of  revelation.  The  truth 
is,  the  providence  of  God,  which  is  never  more  worthily  employed  than  about  his  Word,  seems  now  to  be  directing  the 
eyes  of  his  servants,  as  with  pointed  finger,  to  the  immense  stores  of  elucidation  constantly  accumulating  from  this 
quarter.  The  tide  of  travel  within  a  few  years,  has  turned  remarkably  to  the  East.  Animated  either  by  the  noble  spirit 
of  missionary  enterprise,  of  commercial  speculation,  of  military  adventure,  or  laudable  curiosity,  men  of  intelligence  and 
observation  have  made  their  way  into  every  region  on  which  the  light  of  revelation  originally  shone ;  exploring  its 
antiquities,  mingling  with  its  inhabitants,  detailing  its  manners  and  customs,  and  displaying  its  physical,  moral,  and 
political  circumstances.  From  these  expeditions  they  have  returned  laden  with  the  rich  results  of  their  industry,  and 
the  labours  of  the  pen  and  the  pencil  have  made  thousands  partakers  of  the  benefit.  Somewhat  more  than  half  a 
century  ago,  when  the  justly  celebrated  Observations  of  Harmer  were  given  to  the  public,  the  range  of  materials  to 
which  he  had  access  was  comparatively  limited.  The  travels  of  Chardin,  Pococke,  Shaw,  Maundrell,  Pitts,  D'Arvieux, 
with  Russel's  Natural  History  of  Aleppo,  were  his  principal  authorities— authorities,  it  is  true,  which  have  not  yet  been 
wholly  superseded.  But  since  his  time,  what  an  immense  accession  has  the  department  of  oriental  travels  received' 
The  names  of  Volney,  Niebuhr,  Mariti,  Clarke,  Chateaubriand,  Porter,  Burckhardt,  Buckingham,  Morier,  Seetzen, 
De  Lamartine,  Laborde,  exhaust  but  a  small  part  of  the  list  of  eastern  tourists,  whose  labours  have  gone  to  make  us 
familiarly  acquainted  with  the  land  of  patriarchs,  prophets,  and  apostles.  How  desirable  that  the  scattered  gleams  of 
illustrative  light,  which  shine  in  th^ir  works,  should  be  concentrated  into  one  focus  of  illumination !  This  is  the  task 
which  we  have  essayed  in  the  present  volume. 


6  PREFACE. 

In  entering  upm  and  advancing  in  this  task,  we  have  been  more  and  more  impressed  with  the  remarkal.le  fact  of  the 
permanence  of  eastern  usages.  True  to  the  traditions  of  their  ancestors,  and  impenetrable  thus  far  to  the  spirit  of 
innovation,  their  manners  and  customs,  opinions  and  institutions,  retain  all  the  fixedness  of  their  mountains,  and  flow 
on  as  unvarying  as  the  course  of  their  streams.  To  the  question,  therefore,  whether  the  state  of  things  in  the  East,  as 
described  by  modern  travellers,  really  coincides  with  that  which  existed  at  the  time  the  scriptures  were  written,  so  that 
one  may  be  cited  as  conveying  a  correct  idea  of  the  other  ;•  we  may  reply,  in  the  words  of  Sir  John  Chardin,  one  of  the 
most  respectable  and  authentic  of  the  number:—"  I  have  written  nothing,"  says  he,  "  of  the  Indies,  because  I  lived  but 
five  years  there,  and  understood  only  fhe  vulgar  languages,  which  are  the  Indian  and  Persian,  without  the  knowledge  of 
that  of  the  Brahmins;  but,  nevertheless,  I  did  not  spend  my  time  there  in  idleness :  on  the  contrary,  as  the  winters  in 
tljat  country  will  not  permit  one  to  travel,  I  employed,  that  time  in  a  work  which  I  had  long  in  my  thoughts,  and  which 
I  may  call  my  favourite  design,  by  the  pleasure  wherewith  I  laboured  in  it,  and  the  profit  which  I  hope  the  public  will 
receive  thereby;  which  is  certain  notes  upon  very  many  passages  of  holy  scripture,  whereof  the  explication  depends  on 
the  knowledge  of  the  customs  of  the  eastern  countries ;  for  the  East  is  the  scene  of  all  the  historical  facts  mentioned  in 
the  Bible.  The  language  of  that  divine  book  (especially  of  the  Old  Testament)  being  oriental,  and  very  often  figurative 
and  hyperbolical,  those  parts  of  scripture  which  are  written  in  verse,  and  in  the  prophecies,  are  full  of  figures  and 
hyperboles,  which,  as  it  is  manifest,  cannot  be  well  understood  without  a  knowledge  of  things  from  whence  such  figures 
are  taken,  which  are  natural  properties  and  particular  manners  of  the  countries  to  which  they  refer.  I  discerned  this  in 
my  first  voyage  to  the  Indies:  for  I  gradually  found  a  greater  sense  and  beauty  in  divers  passages  of  scripture  than  I  had 
before,  by  having  in  my  view  the  things,  either  natural  or  moral,  which  explained  them  to  me  ;  ana  in  perusing  the 
different  translations  which  the  greatest  part  of  the  translators  of  the  Bible  had  made,  I  observed  that  every  one  of  them 
(to  render  the  expositions,  as  they  thought,  more  intelligible)  used  such  expressions  as  would  accommodate  the  phrase  to 
the  places  where  they  writ ;  and  which  did  not  only  many  times  pervert  the  text,  but  often  rendered  the  sense  obscure, 
and  sometimes  absurd  also.  In  fine,  consulting  the  commentators  upon  such  kind  of  passages,  I  found  very  strangp 
mistakes  in  them,  and  that  they  had  long  guessed  at  the  sense,  and  did  but  grope  (as  in  the  dark)  in  search  of  it.  And 
from  these  reflections  I  took  a  resolution  to  make  my  remarks  upon  many  passages  of  the  scriptures ;  persuading  myself 
that  they  would  be  equally  agreeable  and  profitable  for  use.  And  the  learned,  to  whom  I  communicated  my  design, 
encouraged  me  very  much,  by  their  commendations,  to  proceed  in  it ;  and  more  especially  when  I  informed  them,  that 
it  is  not  in  Asia,  as  in  our  Europe,  where  there  are  frequent  changes,  more  or  less,  in  the  form  of  things,  as  the  habits, 
buildings,  gardens,  and  the  like.  In  the  East  they  are  constant  in  all  things  ;  the  habits  are  at  this  day  in  the  same 
manner  as  in  the  precedent  ages ;  so  that  one  may  reasonably  believe,  that  in  that  part  of  the  world,  the  exterior  form  of 
things  (as  their  manners  and  customs)  are  the  same  now  as  they  were  two  thousand  years  since,  except  in  such  changes 
as  have  been  introduced  by  religion,  which  are,  nevertheless,  veryinconsiderable."^Prefaceto  Travels  in  Persia,  p.  6.) 
Morier,  an  eastern  traveller,  says,  "  The  manaers  of  the  East,  amid  all  the  changes  of  government  and  religion,  are  stil„ 
the  same;  they  are  living  impressions  from  an  original  mould;  and  at  every  step,  some  object,  some  idiom,  some  dress, 
or  some  custom  of  common  life,  reminds  the  traveller  of  ancient  times,  and  confirms,  above  all,  the  beauty,  the  accuracy^ 
and  the  propriety  of  the  language  and  the  history  of  the  Bible." 

This  very  striking  testimony  to  the  conformity,  or  rather  identity,  of  the  modern  with  the  ancient  usages  of  the 
East,  is  abundantly  confirmed  from  other  sources,  as  scarcely  a  traveller  has  set  foot  upon  oriental  soil,  without 
professing  himself  to  be  at  once  struck  with  the  remarkable  coincidence  between  the  picture  of  ancient  manners,  as 
drawn  in  the  sacred  writings,  and  the  state  of  things  which  actually  meets  his  eye.  This  steadfast  resistance  to  the 
spirit  of  innovation  and  change,  which  thus  remarkably  distinguishes  the  nations  of  the  East,  will  probably,  in  the 
providence  of  God,  remain  unsubdued,  till  it  shall  have  answered  all  the  important  purposes  of  biblical  elucidation, 
when  it  will  give  way  to  the  all-pervading,  all-regenerating  influence  of  the  Bible  itself,  borne  upon  the  bosom  of  a  new 
tide  of  civilization  and  improvement,  which  shall,  ere  long,  set  in  upon  the  East  from  the  nations  of  Europe,  and  the 
great  continent  of  the  West.  "  By  a  wonderful  provision  of  Providence,"  says  De  Lamartine,  "  who  never  creates 
wants  without  at  the  same  time  creating  the  means  of  satisfying  them,  it  happens,  that  at  the  moment  when  the  great 
crisis  of  civilization  takes  place  in  Europe,  and  when  the  new  necessities  resulting  from  it  are  revealing  themselves, 
both  to  governments  and  people,  a  great  crisis  of  an  inverse  order  takes  place  in  the  East,  and  a  vast  void  is  there  off"ered 
for  the  redundancy  of  European  population  and  faculties.  The  excess  of  life  which  is  overflowing  here,  may  and 
must  find  an  outlet  in  that  part  of  the  world ;  the  excess  of  force  which  overstrains  us,  may  and  must  find  employment 
in  those  countries,  where  the  human  powers  are  in  a  state  of  exhaustion  and  torpidtty,  where  the  stream  of  population  is 
stagnant  or  drying  up,  where  the  vitality  of  the  human  race  is  expiring." 

In  the  mean  time,  while  the  inevitable  doom  of  revolution  and  transformation  that  awaits  the  East,  lingers,  it  behooves 
us  to  make  the  most,  for  useful  purposes,  of  that  state  of  society  which  still  exists,  but  which,  ere  long,  will  have  passed 
away.  With  this  view,  we  have  endeavoured  to  imbody  in  the  present  volume  a  large  mass  of  oriental  illustration. 
The  work  is  strictly  of  an  eclectic  character.  Postponing  the  claims  of  originality  to  those  of  practical  utility,  the 
Editor,  after  arraying  before  him  the  amplest  store  of  materials  which  he  could  command,  set  himself  to  the  task  of 
selecting  and  arranging  the  most  valuable  portions  which  he  could  bring  within  the  limits  of  his  plan.  The  kindred 
works  of  Harmer,  Burder,  Paxton,  Taylor's  edition  of  Calmet,  scarcely  any  of  which  are  in  common  accessible  to  the 
majority  of  biblical  students,  have  been  diligently  gleaned,  and  all  their  important  contents  transferred  to  our  pages. 
As  these  works  are  not  likely  ever  to  be  reprinted  in  this  country,  there  appeared  no  other  way  to  arrest  their  progress 
lO  oblivion,  and  to  secure  a  larger  and  wider  circulation  to  the  valuable  matter  which  they  contain. 

But  the  range  of  selection  has  been  by  no  means  confined  to  the  works  now  mentioned.  So  prolific  has  been  the  press 
within  the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years,  of  books  of  eastern  travels,  illustrative  of  manners,  customs,  and  religion,  that  our 
resources  in  this  department  have  been  almost  indefinitely  multiplied.    But  to  one  work  in  particular— Roberts'  Oriental 


PREFACE.  "J 

Illustrations  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  collected  during  a  residence  of  nearly  fourteen  years  among  the  Hindoos— the 
Editor  desires,  as  an  act  of  justice,  to  which  he  is  sure  the  reader  will  most  heartily  respond,  to  express  his  very  deep 
obligations.  He  considers  himself  peculiarly  fortunate  in  meeting  with  this  work  just  as  he  was  entering  upon  his  own 
undertaking,  so  that  he  has  been  able  to  incorporate  it  nearly  entire  in  the  present  volume.  Though  abounding  chiefly 
in  illustrations  drawn  from  the  parabolical,  idiomatical,  and  proverbial  phraseolgy  common  in  the  East,  yet  his  notes  are 
so  pointed  and  pertinent  in  their  scope,  so  felicitous  and  graphic  in  their  turn  of  expression,  and  so  remarkable  for  the 
vividness  with  which  the  leading  idea  is  exhibited,  that  we  doubt  not  the  reader  will  find  in  this  part  alone  an  ample 
equivalent  for  the  cost  of  the  whole  volume.  The  Rev.  T.  H.  Home  says  he  feels  himself  "justified  in  recommending 
Mr.  Roberts' '  Illustrations,'  as  supplying  an  important  desideratum  in  biblical  literature.  They  furnish  to  very  many 
difficult  or  obscure  passages  satisfactory  explanations,  which  are  not  more  original  than  they  are  entertaining  and 
instructive."  "  Mr.  Roberts'  work,"  says  the  British  Critic,  "is  replete  with  interesting  matter,  and,  in  a  condensed 
form,  contains  more  illustrations  of  Holy  Writ  than  any  other  book  we  know  of.  He  richly  deserves  our  thanks,  and 
the  thanks  especially  of  those  who  are  not  able  to  possess  many  volumes  illustrative  of  the  oriental  rites  and  customs  to 
be  found  in  the  Bible.  We  have  only  to  add,  that  this  volume  is  worth  all  the  twopenny  trash  which  the  last  half  dozen 
years  have  given  birth  to." 

As  the  present  work  is  designed  to  be  marked  by  somewhat  of  the  same  Comprehensive  character  which  distinguishes 
the  other  biblical  works  lately  issued  from  the  press  of  the  Publishers,  the  illustrations  bear  upon  numerous  other  points 
than  those  relating  to  manners  and  customs.  Every  thing  of  a  purely  doctrinal  character,  about  which  the  different 
denominations  of  Christians  might  be  supposed  to  disagree,  has  been  studiously  excluded;  at  least  such  has  been  the 
Editor's  intention,  and  if  any  thing  should  be  met  with  that  seems  to  gainsay  this  declaration,  he  begs  it  maybe  set  down 
to  the  account  of  a  momentary  inadvertence,  rather  than  of  a  determinate  purpose.  But  with  this  exception,  he  has 
given  himself  as  much  latitude  in  the  selection  of  matter,  as  was  consistent  with  a  prevailing  unity  of  design  in  the 
structure  of  the  whole. 

The  subject  of  the  Fulfilment  of  Prophecy,  cannot  well  be  lost  sight  of  by  any  one  conversant  at  once  with  the  scriptures 
and  the  reports  of  modern  travellers.  The  topographical  descriptions  of  many  of  the  most  noted  places  of  scripture,  a 
department  to  which  particular  attention  has  been  given  in  the  ensuing  pages,  suggests  at  once  the  divine  predictions 
bearing  upon  their  future  doom.  The  researches  of  tourists,  both  skeptics  and  Christians,  have  poured  a  flood  of  light 
upon  this  subject.  It  is  perfectly  astonishing,  to  one  who  has  never  examined  the  subject,  to  find  how  literally  and  minutely 
the  prophetic  declarations  of  scripture  have  been  fulfilled,  so  that  even  infidel  travellers  and  historians,  as  Volney  and 
Gibbon,  in  their  accounts  of  nations  and  countries,  have  unwittingly  used  for  description,  almost  the  words  of  scripture 
in  which  the  events  are  foretold.  Volney,  particularly,  (one  of  the  bitterest  opposers  of  Christianity,)  in  his  published 
travels  in  the  East,  has  atforded,  unwillingly  and  unthinkingly,  a  wonderful  attestation  to  the  truth  of  the  Bible,  in  the 
relation  of  facts  which  came  under  his  own  eye.  There  needs  no  better  witness.  Indeed,  it  is  impossible  for  the  most 
determined  infidel  carefully  to  examine  and  weigh  this  subject,  and  not  be  forced  to  feel  that  the  Bible  is  divine ;  or,  in  the 
words  of  Bishop  Newton,  "  he  is  reduced  to  the  necessity,  either  to  renounce  his  senses,  deny  what  he  reads  in  the  Bible, 
and  what  he  sees  and  observes  in  the  world,  or  acknowledge  the  truth  of  prophecy,  and  consequently,  of  divine  revelation." 
The  researches  of  travellers  in  Palestine  have  been  abundant,  and  the  prophecies  thereby  verified  are  numerous  and 
distinct,  so  that  the  facts  may  be  related  literally  in  the  language  of  the  prophecy.  To  use  the  words  of  a  late  writer  in 
the  London  Gtuarterly  Review,  "  we  confess  that  we  have  felt  more  surprise,  delight,  and  conviction,  in  examining  the 
accounts  which  the  travels  of  Burckhardt,  Mangles,  Irby,  Leigh,  and  Laborde,  have  so  recently  given  of  Judea,  Edom,  &c. 
than  we  have  ever  derived  from  any  similar  inquiry.  It  seems  like  a  miracle  in  our  own  times.  Twenty  years  ago  we 
read  certain  portions  of  th.e  prophetic  scriptures,  with  a  belief  that  they  were  true,  because  other  similar  passages  had, 
in  the  course  of  ages,  been  proved  to  be  so,  and  we  had  an  indistinct  notion,  that  all  these  (to  us)  obscure  and  indefinite 
denunciations  iiad  been — we  knew  not  very  well  when  or  how — accomplished :  but  to  have  graphic  descriptions,  ground 
plans,  and  elevations,  showing  the  actual  existence  of  all  the  heretofore  vague  and  shadowy  denunciations  of  God  against 
Edom,  does,  we  confess,  excite  our  feelings,  and  exalt  our  confidence  in  prophecy,  to  a  height  that  no  external  evidence 

has  hitherto  done Here  we  have — ^bursting  upon  our  age  of  incredulity,  by  the  labours  of  accidental,  impartial, 

and  sometimes  incredulous"  (infidel)  "  witnesses— the  certainty  of  existing  facts,  which  fulfil  what  were  considered 
hitherto  the  most  vague  and  least  intelligible  of  the  prophecies.  The  value  of  one  such  contemporaneous  proof  is 
immense."  Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  in  regard  to  such  places  as  Babylon,  Nineveh,  Tyre,  Moab,  Edom,  and  others, 
the  providence  of  God  was  no  less  conspicuous  in  bringing  to  light,  in  these  latter  ages,  the  evidence  of  the  accomplishment 
of  those  prophecies,  than  formerly  in  working  the  accomplishment  itself.  The  valuable  labours  of  Keith  in  this  depart- 
ment, arranged  in  accordance  with  our  general  plan,  so  as  to  exhibit  the  commentary  under  its  appropriate  text,  will  be 
found  to  have  added  much  to  the  interest  and  profit  of  the  reader  in  perusing  our  pages. 

The  numerous  highly  finished  engravings,  executed  by  distinguished  artists,  from  sketches  taken  on  the  spot,  and 
accompanied,  for  the  most  part,  with  letter-press  descriptions  by  the  Rev.  T.  H,  Home,  originally  published  in  Finden's 
Landscape  Illustrations,  will  go  also  greatly  to  enhance  the  value  of  this  portion  of  the  illustrations. 

A  critical  note  is  occasionally  thrown  in,  where  the  point  of  a  passage  seemed  capable  of  a  happy  explication,  especially 
from  a  more  exact  analysis  of  the  import  of  the  original  terms.  Those  bearing  the  signature  of  the  Editor  will  perhaps 
usually  be  found  of  this  character,  and  for  any  seeming  infraction  in  this  of  his  general  plan,  he  solicits  the  indulgence 
not  unreasonably  claimed  for  a  favourite  mode  of  scripture  exposition.  They  are,  however,  for  the  most  part, "  few  and 
far  between." 

As  a  prominent  object  aimed  at  throughout  has  been,  not  only  to  increase  the  facilities  for  a  complete  understanding  of 
the  inspired  volume,  but  also  to  multiply  the  evidences,  and  vindicate  the  claims  of  its  divine  original,  a  portion  of  our 
pages  has  been  allotted  to  the  direct  consideration  of  infidel  objections  and  cavils.    The  most  important  extracts  of  this 


8 


PREFACE. 


description  have  been  taken  from  the  valuable  and  now  rare  "  Life  of  David,"  by  Chandler,  in  which  the  insinuations 
of  Bayle  against  the  character  of  David,  are  canvassed  and  refuted  with  distinguished  ability,  though  perhaps  somewhat 
more  verbosely  than  is  consistent  with  the  taste  either  of  modern  writers  or  readers. 

The  original  and  acute  remarks  of  Michaelis,  on  many  points  of  the  Mosaic  laws  and  ritual,  though  sometimes 
bordering  upon  the  fanciful,  disclose  a  profound  acquaintance  with  the  genius  of  the  East,  and  are  generally  entitled  to 
deep  attention. 

As  the  authorities  employed  in  the  preparation  of  the  ensuing  pages  are  usually  quoted  in  a  very  general  way — for 
*he  most  part  merely  by  citing  the  writer's  name — it  will  probably  be  rendering  an  important  service  to  many  of  our 
readers,  to  give  a  more  ample  view  of  the  sources  upon  which  we  have  drawn  for  materials.  The  list  is  by  no 
means  complete,  nor,  as  many  have  served  us  at  second  hand,  is  it  perhaps  practicable  or  necessary  that  it  should  bej 
but  the  most  important  and  valuable  will  be  found  here  grouped  together,  and  ordinarily,  by  turning  to  this  catalogue, 
the  entire  title,  including  edition  and  date,  of  any  work  cited  in  the  ensuing  pages  simply  by  the  author's  name,  will  be 
found.    Such  a  catalogue  may  be  of  service  for  other  purposes  than  those  connected  with  the  present  volume. 


Harmer's  Observations  on  Various  Passages  of  Scripture,  with  ad- 
ditions by  Adam  Clarke,  LL.  £>.,  4  vols.  8vo.    Charlestown,  1811. 

Paxton's  Illustrations,  3  vols.  8vo.    Edinburgh,  1^. 

Burder's  Oriental  Customs,  2  vols.  8vo.    London,  1816. 

"  Oriental  Literature,  with  Rosenmuller's  Additions,  2  vols. 

8vo.    London,  1822. 

Roberts'  Oriental  Illustrations,  8vo.    London,  1835. 

Calmet's  Dictionary,  Taylor's  Edition,  5  vols.  4to.    London,  1829. 

Shavf's  Travels  through  Barbary  and  the  Levant,  folio.  Lon.  1738. 

MAVSi>REL,h's  Journey  from  Aleppo  to  Jerusalem,  8vo.  Oxford,  1749. 

Volney's  Travels  through  Egypt  and  Syria,  8\o.  New  York,  1798. 

Mariti's  Travels  through  Cyprus,  Syria,  and  Palestine,  2  vols.  8vo. 
Dublin,  1793. 

Baron  De  Tott's  Memoirs  on  the  Turks  and  Tartars,  3  vols.  12mo. 
Dublin,  1785. 

RrssELL's  Natural  history  of  Aleppo,  2  vols.  4to.    London,  1794. 

Clarke's  Travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  12mo.    Philadelphia,  1817. 

Tournefort's  Voyage  to  the  Levant,  3  vols.  8vo.    London,  1741. 

Buckingham's  Travels  in  Mesopotamia,  2  vols.  8vo.    London,  1827. 
"  Travels  among  the  Arab  Tribes,  4to.    London,  1825. 

Bcrckhardt's  Travels  in  Arabia,  4to.    London,  1829. 

"  Travels  in  Nubia  and  Egypt,  ito.    London,  1822. 

Madden's  Travels  in  Turkey,  Egypt,  and  Palestine,  2  vols.  12mo. 
Pliiladelphia,  1830, 

Madox's  Excursions  in  the  Holy  Land,  Egypt,  Nubia,  Syria,  ^c, 
2vols.  8vo.    London,  1834. 

Callaway's  Oriental  Observations,  12mo.    London,  1825. 

Campbell's  African  Light,  12mo.    London,  1835. 

Anderson's  Tour  through  Greece,  12mo.    Boston,  1831. 

Hardy's  Notices  of  the  Holy  Land,  12mo.    London,  1835. 

Chateaubriand's  Travels,  8vo.    New  York,  1814. 


Keppel's  Narrative  of  a  Journey  from  India  to  England,  8vo. 
Philadelphia,  1827. 

Morier's  Journey  through  Persia,  8vo.    Philadelphia,  1816. 

Smith  and  Dwiqht's  Researches  in  Armenia,  2  vols.  12mo.  Boston, 
1833. 

Jowett's  Christian  Researches  in  Syria  and  the  Holy  Land,  8vo. 
London,  1825. 

Modern  Traveller,  Palestine,  Syria,  and  Asia  Minor,  3  vols.  12mo. 
Boston,  1830. 

Heeren's  Asiatic  Nations,  3  vols.  8vo.    Oxford,  1833. 

Waddington's  Travels  in  Ethiopia,  4to.    London,  1^7. 

HosKiNs'  Travels  in  Ethiopia,  4to.    London,  1835. 

Bdrnes's  Travels  in  Bokhara,  2  vols.  12mo.    Philadelphia,  1835. 

Munroe's  Summer  Ramble  in  Syria,  2  vols.  8vo.    London,  1835. 

Hogg's  Visit  to  Alexandria,  Damascus,  and  Jerusalem,  2  vols.  \2xBa. 
London,  1835. 

Wilkinson's  TViebes,  and  General  View  of  Egypt,  8vo.    London,  1835. 

ARfTNDELL's  Dtscovcries  in  Asia  Minor,  2  vols.  8vo.    London,  1834. 

De  Lamartine's  Pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land,  2  vols.  12mo.  Phila- 
delphia, 1835. 

Stackhouse's  History  of  the  Bible,  2  vols,  folio.    Londcn,  1755. 

Chandler's  Life  of  David,  2  vols.  8vo.    London,  1766. 

Michaelis's  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  Moses,  4  vols.  8vo.  Lon- 
don, 1814. 

Gleig's  History  of  the  Bible,  3  vols.  12mo.    New  York,  1831. 

Horsley's  Sermons,  8vo.    London,  1830. 

Pococke's  Theological  Works,  2  vols,  folio.    London,  1740. 

Newcome's  Minor  Prophets,  8vo.    Pontefract,  1809. 

Keith's  Evidence  of  Prophecy,  12mo.    New  York,  1833. 

Good's  Translation  of  Job,  8vo.    London,  1812. 

Finden's  Landscape  Illustrations.    London,  1835. 


The  importance  of  the  present  work  must  be  obvious,  and  being  altogether  illustrative,  without  reference  to  doctrineSj 
or  other  points  in  which  Christians  differ,  it  is  hoped  it  will  meet  with  favour  from  all  who  love  the  sacred  volume,  and 
that  it  will  be  sufficiently  interesting  and  attractive  to  recommend  itself,  not  only  to  professed  Christians  of  all  denomina- 
tions, but  also  to  the  general  reader.  The  arrangement  of  the  texts  illustrated  with  the  notes,  in  the  order  of  the  chapters 
and  verses  of  the  authorized  version  of  the  Bible,  will  render  it  convenient  for  reference  to  particular  passages,  while 
the  copious  Index  at  the  end,  will  at  once  enable  the  reader  to  turn  to  every  subject  discussed  in  the  volume. 

It  only  remains  for  the  Editor  to  remark,  that  he  would  by  no  means  be  held  responsible  for  the  truth  or  justice  of  every 
sentiment  advanced  by  way  of  interpretation  or  illustration  in  the  present  work.  He  hopes  not  to  be  considered  as 
adopting  himself  all  the  various  explications  of  scripture  which  he  has  yet  felt  it  his  duty  to  propound.  Many  of  them 
are  proposed  by  their  authors  themselves  merely  as  conjectures,  and  though  he  may  occasionally  have  entertainec 
doubts  of  their  correctness,  yet,  as  they  involved  only  points  of  minor  importance,  he  has  seldom  felt  himself  called  upon 
to  turn  aside  to  question  or  confute  them.  A  very  large  mass  of  obviously  true  or  highly  probable  illustration,  is  here 
presented  to  the  reader.  As  to  the  pertinency  or  verisimilitude  of  particular  portions,  he  will  of  course  exercise  a  due 
discrimination ;  he  cannot  be  expected  to  forego  his  own  judgment,  nor  will  he  find  it  necessary  to  presume  upon  that  of 
him  who  has  thus  endeavoured,  however  feebly,  to  minister,  by  so  great  a  variety  of  provision,  to  his  instruction  and 
pleasure.  ,  Q.  B. 

Nem  Yorkf  May  1st,  1836. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


HOLY   SCRIPTURES. 


GENESIS 


dliH 


Chap.  1.  Ver.  1.    In  the  beginning  God  created 
the  heavens  and  the  earth. 

Notwithstanding  the  industrious  attempts  of  many  skep- 
tical writers  to  array  the  evidence  deducible  from  geolo- 
gical discoveries  against  the  Mosaic  account  of  the  cre- 
ation, nothing  has  yet  been  advanced  to  invalidate  the 
testimony  of  the  inspired  record,  as  nothing  has  yet  been 
brought  to  show  that  its  statements,  when  rightly  under- 
stood, are  at  all  at  variance  with  any  of  the  clear  and  un- 
doubted results  of  scientific  research.  We  say,  when 
rightly  understood ;  for  that  the  conclusions  of  the  geolo- 
gist, even  the  most  legitimate  and  demonstrable,  may  be 
inconsistent  with  the  fo'pular  interpretation  of  the  sacred 
narrative,  we  by  no  means  deny ;  but  it  is  obvious  that 
such  interpretation  may  be  erroneous,  and  thart  all  that 
is  requisite  to  bring  the  two  departments  into  perfect  har- 
mony, may  be  the  fixing  of  the  genuine  sense  of  the  writer 
by  a  purely  philological  process.  Until,  therefore,  it  is  es- 
tablished beyond  controversy  that  the  language  of  Moses 
cannot,  by  any  possibility  of  fair  construction,  be  made  to 
tally  with,  or  at  least  not  to  contradict,  the  admitted  truths 
of  geological  science,  it  is  vain  to  charge  revelation  with 
uttering  oracles  at  variance  with  the  irrefragable  teach- 
ings of  nature.  But  this,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  never 
has  been,  and  we  are  confident  never  will  be,  done.  The 
material  fabric  of  the  universe  and  the  book  of  inspira- 
tion are  the  works  of  the  same  author,  and  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  truths  pertaining  to  the  one  cannot  be  at  war 
with  those  belonging  to  the  other.  The  following  remarks 
of  the  Rev.  Bartholomew  Lloyd,  Provost  of  Trinity  Col- 
lege, Dublin,  on  the  drift  of  the  sacred  penman  in  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis,  cannot  but  commend  themselves 
to  every  enlightened  reader :  "  The  sacred  writer  pre- 
faces his  history  of  God's  government  over  his  chosen 
people,  by  informing  us,  that  '  in  the  beginning  God  created 
the  heavens  and  the  earth,' and  it  seems  equallv  certain 
that  he  here  speaks  of  the  original  creation  of  all  things 
out  of  nothing.  This,  indeed,  is  a  great  subject,  and  though 
nothing  circumstantial  is  here  revealed  to  us  concerning 
it,  yet  the  sacred  importance  of  the  truth,  assured  to  us 
by  this  simple  expression,  is  every  way  suitable  to  the  prom- 
inent place  assigned  to  it ;  for  it  is  nothing  less  than  the 
authoritative  statement  of  the  first  and  fundamental  article 
of  all  true  religious  faith.  By  it  we  are  taught  that  self- 
existence  is  an  attribute  of  the  one  supreme  Being,  and 
that  all  things  besides  owe  their  existence  to  His  unlimited 
power.  How  necessary  it  was  to  mankind  to  have  an, 
authoritative  declaration  on  this  subject,  we  may  readily 
convince  ourselves  by  adverting  to  the  errors  into  which 
the  most  celebrated  men  of  all  antiquity  had  fallen,  who 
presumed  to  speculate  on  these  matters,  so  far  beyond  the 
reach  of  human  reason,  without  other  guidances.  Among 
these  erroneous  opinions,  or  rather  among  those  wild  con- 
jectures, we  find  the  following :— that  matter  was  eternal; 
that  the  Deity  was  the  soul  of  the  world;  agreeably  to 
which,  the  material  frame  of  nature  was  to  be  regarded 
as  his  body,  and  not  as  his  work.  Now,  in  this  his  first 
sentence,  the  inspired  writer  settles  definitively  what  we 
are  to  believe  on  this  subject,  by  stating  the  primary  rela- 


tion which  all  things  in  common  bear  to  the  supreme  Be- 
ing ;  and  with  this  information  he  forbears  from  mixing 
up  any  other  matter.  For  it  will  be  perceived  that  the  state- 
ment is  made  without  any  specification  of  time  or  other  cir- 
cumstance ;  seemingly,  because  no  addition  of  this  kind 
could  be  of  use  in  aiding  our  conceptions  of  a  truth  purely 
religious,  or  in  strengthening  our  faith  in  the  authority  on 
which  it  was  proposed ;  but  chiefly  because  it  was  the  sole 
object  of  the  writer,  in  this  first  sentence,  to  (^.aim  for  God 
the  creation  of  all  things  whatsoever,  and  that  this  claim 
must  remain  unshaken,  however  we  may  decide  on  other 
questions  which  may  be  raised  about  the  creation ;  such 
as  that  relative  to  the  time  when  it  occurred ;  how  long 
before  the  origin  of  the  human  race ;  whether  all  the  parts 
of  the  universe  were  brought  into  existence  simultaneous- 
Iv,  or  at  different  and  widely  distant  epochs.  It  is  plain, 
then,  that  in  this  place  the  sacred  writer  furnishes  no  helps 
for  the  decision  of  such  questions.  Let  us  look  to  what 
follows.  In  proceeding  to  those  arrangements  by  which 
the  earth  was  to  be  fitted  for  the  residence  and  support 
of  man,  and  the  other  inferior  tribes  by  which  it  was  then 
to  be  tenanted,  we  find  him  describing  its  preceding  condi- 
tion ;  informing  us  that  it  was  then  '  without  form  and 
void,'  and  that '  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep.' 
Now,  I  confess  that  this  always  seemed  to  me  very  like 
the  description  of  a  ruined  world :  and  if  such  was  the 
earth  at  that  time,  it  would  be  difficult  to  suppose  that  it 
had  not  existed  long  before.  But  this  is  not  all.  When 
he  does  come  to  tlje  work  of  the  six  days,  we  find  the  de- 
scription of  each  day's  work  introduced  by  an  expression 
of  a  particular  form,  and  concluded  by  another,  by  which 
it  appears  that  the  original  work  of  creation,  spoken  ol 
in  the  first  verse,  is  excluded  from  the  series  of  perform- 
ances belonging  to  those  days; — and,  if  excluded,  theri, 
perhaps,  removed  to  an  indefinite  distance;  for  had  it 
immediately  preceded,  we  might  naturally  expect  to  find 
it  spoken  of,  either  as  the  work  of  the  first  of  a  series  ol 
seven  days,  or  as  part  of  the  work  of  the  first  of  the  six 
days.  This,  then,  would  seem  to  remove  the  work  of  the 
original  creation  far  beyond  that  of  the  reconstruction  ol 
the  globe.  It  is  true,  that  nothing  is  exhibited  to  our  ima- 
ginations to  mark  the  interval  between  these  perform- 
ances ;  but  to  deny  that  there  was  such  an  interval,  and 
for  that  reason,  would  be  to  conclude  about  as  wisely  as 
the  peasant,  who  supposes  the  clouds  to  be  contiguous  to 
the  stars,  because  when  looking  up  he  discerns  nothing 
between  them." 

Dr.  Chalmers,  in  his  treatise  on  the  Evidences  of  Chris- 
tianity, speaks  to  the  same  effect.  "  Does  Moses  ever  say, 
that  when  God  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  he  did 
more,  at  the  time  alluded  to,  than  transform  them  out  of 
previously  existing  materials?  Or  does  he  ever  say,  that 
there  was  not  an  interval  of  many  ages  between  the  first  act 
of  creation,  described  in  the  first  verse  of  the  book  of  Gen- 
esis, and  said  to  have  been  performed  in  the  beginning, 
and  those  more  detailed  operations,  the  account  of  which 
commences  at  the  second  verse,  and  which  are  described 
to  us  as  having  been  performed  in  so  many  days  %  Or, 
finally,  does  he  ever  make  us  understand,  that  the  gener- 
ations of  man  went  further  than  to  fix  the  antiquity  of  th« 


10 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  1. 


species,  and  of  consequence  that  they  left  the  antiquity  of 
the  globe  a  free  subject  for  the  speculations  of  philoso- 
phers 1" 

"  We  do  not  know,"  says  Sharon  Turner,  "  and  we  have 
no  means  of  knowing,  at  what  point  of  the  ever-llowing 
eternity  of  that  which  is  alone  eternal— the  Divine  subsist- 
ence— the  creation  of  our  earth,  or  of  any  part  of  the  uni- 
verse began,  nor  in  what  section  of  it  we  are  living  now. 
All  that  we  can  learn  explicitly  from  revelation  is,  that 
nearly  6000  years  have  passed  since  our  first  parent  began 
to  be.  Our  chronology,  that  of  Scripture,  is  dated  from  the 
period  of  his  creation ;  and  almost  6000  years  have  elapsed 
since  he  moved  and  breathed  a  full-formed  man.  But 
what  series  of  time  had  preceded  his  formation,  or  in  what 
portion  of  the  anteceding  succession  of  time  this  was  effect- 
ed, has  not  been  disclosed,  ajid  cannot  by  any  effort  of  hu- 
man ingenuity  be  now  explored. — Creation  must  have  be- 
gun at  some  early  part  of  anteceding  eternity;  and  our 
earth  may  have  had  its  commencement  in  such  a  primeval 
era,  as  well  as  in  a  later  one." 

Professor  Hitchcock,  in  an  elaborate  and  very  able  essay 
on  the  connexion  between  Geology  and  the  Mosaic  History, 
(Biblic.  Reposit.  Oct.  1835,)  undertakes  to  establi:-h,  and 
we  tliink  with  entire  success,  the  following  positions,  which 
we  give  in  his  own  words: — "  In  the  first  place,  we  main- 
tain that  between  geology  and  revelation  there  are  several 
unexpected  and  remarkable  coincidences,  such  as  could 
have  resulted  (jnly  from  veracity  on  the  part  of  the  sacred 
historian;  and  that  the  points  of  agreement  are  far  more 
numerous  than  the  points  of  apparent  collision;  and,  there- 
fore, even  geology  alone  famishes  a  strong  presumptive 
evidence  in  favour  of  the  truth  of  the  Mosaic  history.  We 
maintain,  secondly,  that  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  is  a  por- 
tion of  Scripture  that  has  always  occasioned  much  difficulty 
in  its  interpretation,  apart  from  geology,  and  that  those  por- 
tions of  it  about  which  commentators  have  differed  most, 
are  the  very  ones  with  which  geology  is  supposed  to  come 
into  collision ;  so  that  in  fact  scarcely  any  new  interpreta- 
tion has  been  proposed  to  meet  the  geological  ditficulty. 
We  admit,  thirdly,  that  the  geological  dilficulty  is  real ; 
that  is,  the  established  facts  of  geology  do  teach  us  that  the 
earth  has  existed  through  a  vastly  longer  period,  anterior 
to  the  creation  of  man,  than  the  common  interpretation  of 
Genesis  allows.  We  maintain,  fourthly,  that  most  of  the 
methods  that  have  been  proposed  to  avoid  or  reconcile  the 
geological  difficulty  are  entirely  inadequate,  and  irrecon- 
cilably at  variance  either  with  geology  or  revelation.  We 
maintain,  fifthly,  that  at  least  one  or  two  of  these  proposed 
modes  of  reconciling  geology  and  Scripture,  although  not 
free  from  objections,  are  yet  so  probable,  that  without  any 
auxiliary  considerations,  they  would  be  sufficient,  in  the 
view  of  every  reasonable  man,  to  vindicate  the  Mosaic 
history  from  the  charge  of  collision  with  the  principles  of 
geology.  And  finally,  we  maintain,  that  though  all  these 
modes  of  reconciliation  should  be  unsatisfactory,  it  would 
be  premature  and  unreasonable  to  infer  that  there  exists 
any  real  discrepance  :  first,  because  we  are  by  no  means 
certain  that  we  fully  understand  every  part  of  the  Mosaic 
account  of  the  creation ;  secondly,  because  geology  is  so 
recent  a  science,  and  is  making  so  rapid  advances,  that 
we  may  expect  from  its  future  discoveries  that  some  more 
light  will  be  thrown  upon  cosmogony:  and  thirdly,  be- 
cause, as  geology  has  been  more  and  more  thoroughly  un- 
derstood, the  apparent  discrepances  between  it  and  reve- 
lation have  become  less  numerous." — B. 

Ver.  9.  And  God  said.  Let  the  waters  under  the 
heaven  be  gathered  together  unto  one  place,  and 
let  the  dry  land  appear  :  and  it  was  so. 

We  have  before  remarked,  that,  during  the  first  and  sec- 
ond days  of  the  creation,  the  earth  must  have  presented 
:o  the  view,  (had  any  human  eye  existed  to  look  upon  it,)  a 
solid  globe  of  spheroidal  form,  covered  with  a  thin  coat  of 
aqueous  fluid,  and  already  revolving  on  its  axis  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  solar  system.  We  are  fully  authorized  in  coming 
to  this  latter  conclusion,  from  the  distinct  mention  made  in 
the  record,  of  the  days,  comprising,  like  our  present  days, 
the  evening  and  the  morning,  with  the  darkness  and  the 
light  following  each  other  in  regular  succession.  The 
sun,  it  is  true,  had  not  yet  been  made  visibly  to  appear,  or 
to  shine  through  the,  as  yet,  cloudy  atmosphere.    It  was 


now  the  will  of  the  Creator  that  the  earth  should  no  longer 
be  ^Hnvisible"  under  its  watery  covering;  and,  according- 
ly, the  command  was  given,  that  "  the  waters  should  be 
gathered  together  unto  one  place,"  that  the  "  dry  land" 
might  appear.  In  considering  this  great  event,  it  becomes 
a  natural  and  fair  question,  as  it  has  been  left  open  to  us 
by  the  record,  as  to  the  mode  or  means  by  which  it  must 
have  taken  place.  The  well-poised  earth  had  already  be- 
gun to  revolve  upon  its  axis ;  and  the  laws  of  gravitation 
and  of  fluids  had  consequently  begun  to  act  in  our  system. 
By  these  laws,  it  was  impossible  that  the  waters  could  have 
been  gathered  together  by  accumulation,  or  above  the  gen 
eral  level,  as  the  solids  of  the  earth  might  have  been.  We 
can,  therefore,  come  to  no  other  conclusion  than  that  to 
which  we  are  also  led  by  various  parts  of  the  inspired  wri- 
tings, viz.  that  God  did  "  rend  the  depths  by  his  intelli- 
gence," and  formed  a  depression,  or  hollow,  on  a  part  of 
the  solid  globe,  within  which,  by  the  appointed  laws  of 
fluids,  the  "depths"  were  "gathered  together."  The  fol- 
lowing beautiful  reflections  on  this  part  of  our  subject  are 
from  the  enlightened  mind  of  Mr.  Granville  Penn,  who 
may,  indeed,  be  called  the  first  great  advocate  for  the 
Mosaic  Geology,  among  the  men  of  science  of  our  day. 
"  The  briefness  of  this  clatfse,  (Genesis  i.  9,)  and  the  nature 
of  the  subject,  have  caused  it  to  be  little  contemplated  in 
proportion  to  its  importance,  and  to  the  fulness  of  the  in- 
struction which  it  conveys ;  and,  therefore,  it  has  not  been 
observed  that  the  same  sublimity  which  is  universally  per- 
ceived in  the  clause, '  Let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light,' 
subsists  equally  in  this  clause ;  '  Let  the  waters  be  gathered 
together  unto  one  place,  and  let  the  Axy  land  be  seen,  and 
it  was  so.'  The  sentiment  of  sublimity  in  the  former 
clause,  results  from  the  contemplation  of  an  instantaneous 
transition  of  the  universe  from  the  profoundest  darkness 
to  the  most  splendid  light,  at  the  command  of  God.  All 
men  familiarly  apprehend  the  sadness  of  the  former,  and 
the  delight  of  the  latter ;  and  they  are,  therefore,  instantly 
sensible  of  the  glorious  nature  of  the  change  which  was  then 
so  suddenly  produced.  But  the  nature  of  the  change  which 
must  necessarily  have  taken  place,  in  suddenly  rendering 
visible  a  part  of  a  solid  globe,  the  universal  surface  of 
which  had  been,  overflowed  and  concealed  by  a  flood  of 
waters,  is  not  so  familiarly  or  ^o  instantly  apprehended ; 
the  mind,  therefore,  does  not  care  to  dwell  upon  it,  but  is 
contented  with  receiving  the  general  information  that  the 
sea  was  formed.  Hence,  both  commentators  and  geologists 
have  equally  failed  to  draw  the  immediate  and  necessary 
inference  from  the  revelation  of  that  great  and  undeniable 
geological  fact.''^ — Fairholme's  Geology,  p.  51 — 54. 

Ver.  14.  And  God  said,  Let  there  be  lights  in  the 
firmament  of  the  heaven,  to  divide  the  day  from 
the  night ;  and  let  them  be  for  signs,  and  for 
seasons,  and  for  days,  and  years :  15*  And  let 
them  be  for  lights  in  the  firmament  of  the  heav- 
en, to  give  light  upon  the  earth :  and  it  was  so. 
16.  And  God  made  two  great  lights ;  the  greater 
light  to  rule  the  day,  and  the  lesser  light  to  rule 
the  night:  he  made  the  stars  also.  17.  And 
God  set  them  in  the  firmament  of  the  heaven,  to 
give  light  upon  the  earth. 

It  is  admitted  that  the  Scriptures  generally  describe  the 
phenomena  of  the  natural  world  as  they  appear,  rather  than 
according  to  strict  scientific  truth.  Thus  the  sun  and  moon 
are  said  to  rise  and  set, — the  stars  to  fall, — and  the  moon  to 
be  turned  into  blood.  Consequently,  if  this  history  of  the 
creation  were  designed  to  describe  the  effects  of  the  six 
days'  work  as  they  would  have  appeared  to  a  spectator,  had 
one  been  present, — a  supposition  rendered  probable  from  its 
being  said, "  Let  the  dry  land  appear,"  (Heb.  be  seen,)  when 
as  yet  there  was  no  eye  to  see  it, — then  we  may  reasonably 
conclude  that  the  sun  was  formed  on  the  first  day,  or  per- 
haps had  been  created  even  before  our  earth,  and  w^as  in 
fact  the  cause  of  the  vicissitudes  of  the  three  first  days  and 
nights.  But  as  the  globe  of  the  earth  was  during  that  time 
surrounded  by  a  dense  mass  of  mingled  air  and  water,  the 
rays  of  the  sun  would  be  intercepted ;  only  a  dim  glimmer- 
ing l|ght,  even  in  the  daytime,  would  appear;  and  the 
bodies  of  the  heavenly  luminaries  would  be  entirely  hidden, 


Chap.  2. 


GENESIS, 


11 


just  as  they  now  are  in  a  very  cloudy  day.  Let  it  be  sup- 
posed then  that  on  the  fourth  day  the  clouds,  mists,  and  va- 
pours were  all  cleared  away,  and  the  atmosphere  made 
pure  and  serene ;  the  sun  of  course  would  shine  forth  in 
all  his  splendour,  and  to  the  eye  of  our  imagined  spectator 
would  seem  to  have  been  just  created ;  and  so  at  night  of 
the  moon  and  stars.  This  effect  of  the  Divine  power,  ac- 
cording to  the  USU3J  analogy  of  the  Scriptures,  is  descri- 
bed from  its  appearance,  and  the  language  employed,— 
"  let  there  be  lights  in  the  firmament,"— and— "  he  made  tWo 
great  lights,  and  set  them  in  the  firmament" — is  to  be  inter- 
preted on  the  principle  above  stated.  They  might  then  be 
said  to  be  "  made,"  because  they  then  first  began  to  be  visi- 
ble, and  to  perform  the  office  for  which  they  were  designed. 
The  original  word  for  "  made"  is  not  the  same  as  that  which 
is  rendered  "  create."  It  is  a  term  frequently  employed  to 
signify  constituted,  appointed,  set  for  a  particular  purpose  or 
use.  Thus  it  is  said  that  God  "  made  Joseph  a  father  to 
Pharaoh" — "  made  him  lord  of  Egypt" — "  made  the  Jordan  a 
border  between  the  tribes" — "  made  David  the  head  of  the 
heathen ;"  and  so  in  innumerable  other  instances.  As,  there- 
fore, the  rainbow  was  made  or  constituted  a  sign,  though  it 
might  have  existed  before,  so  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  may 
be  said  to  have  been  made  and  set  as  lights  in  the  firma- 
ment, on  the  fourth  day,  though  actually  called  into  exist- 
ence on  the  first,  or  previously. — Bush. 

Chap.  2.  ver.  18.    And  the  Lord  God  said,  It 

is  not  good  that  the  man  should  be  alone ;    I 
will  make  him  a  help-meet  for  him. 

This  is  the  polite  way  of  speaking  of  a  wife  in  the  East, 
though  it  must  be  confessed  that  they  associate  with  this 
term  too  much  of  the  idea  of  a  servant.  Does  an  aged 
person  advise  a  young  friend  to  get  married  ;  he  will  not 
say,  "  Seek  for  a  wife,"  but  "  Try  to  procure  a  thunive,  a 
help-meet."  A  man  who  repines  at  his  single  state,  says, 
"  I  have  not  any  female  help  in  my  house."  A  widower 
says,  "  Ah !  my  children,  I  have  now  no  female  help."  A 
man,  wishing  to  say  something  to  his  wife,  will  address 
her  as  follows:  "  My  help-meet,  hear  what  I  am  going  to 
say."  It  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  the  margin  has  for 
help-meet,  "  as  before  him ;"  and  this  gives  a  proper  view 
of  her  condition,  for  she  literally  has  to  stand  before  her 
husband  to  serve  him  on  all  occasions,  and  especially  when 
he  takes  his  food ;  she  being  then  his  servant.  Say  to  a 
woman,  "  Leave  thy  husband!"  she  will  reply,  "No,  no; 
I  will  stand  before  him." — Roberts. 

Ver.    19.    And  whatsoever  Adam   called   every 
living  creature,  that  was  the  name  thereof. 

The  verb  was  is  not  in  the  original  text ;  and,  therefore, 
the  sentence  may  run  in  the  present,  with  equal  propriety 
as  in  the  past;  and,  indeed,  according  to  the  genius  of  the 
language,  with  more  propriety  in  the  present — ^that  is  the 
name  thereof.  Hence  the  names  by  which  the  lower  ani- 
mals were  known  in  the  days  of  Moses,  were  those  which 
Adam  gave  them  in  Paradise ;  and  as  these  are  pure  He- 
brew, the  legitimate  conclusion  is,  that  Hebrew  was  the 
language  spoken  by  Adam  before  the  fall. 

This  argument  receives  an  accession  of  strength  from 
the  ideal  character  of  the  Hebrew  language.  It  is  admit- 
ted, that  all  languages  participate  more  or  less  of  the  ideal 
character ;  but  it  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  circumstan- 
ces by  which  the  Hebrew  is  distinguished.  A  number  of 
its  words,  as  in  other  languages,  are  mere  arbitrary  signs 
of  ideas;  but,  in  general,  they  derive  their  origin  from  a 
very  few  terms,  or  roots,  that  are  commonly  expressive  of 
some  idea  borrowed  from  external  objects ;  from  the  hu- 
man constitution ;  from  our  senses  or  our  feelings.  The 
names  of  men,  and  of  the  lower  animals,  and  the  names  of 
many  places,  particularly  in  the  remoter  ages,  allude  to 
some  remarkable  character  in  the  creature  named ;  or,  in 
reference  to  place,  to  some  uncommon  circumstance  or 
event.  Scarcely  a  proper  name  can  be  mentioned,  which 
alludes  not  to  something  of  this  kind.  To  give  a  few  ex- 
amples :  Kore,  the  partridge,  received  its  name  from  the 
verb  Kara,  to  call,  in  imitation  of  the  note  which  that  bird 
uses  in  calling  its  young.  The  camel  is  in  Hebrew,  Gamal, 
from  a  verb  of  the  same  form,  which  signifies  to  recom- 
pense, because  that  creature  is  remarkable  for  remember- 


ing and  revengmg  an  injur) .  The  Hebrews  call  the  scor- 
pion Akrab,  from  two  woi  ds  which  signify  to  kill  one's 
father ;  now,  both  Pliny  and  Aristotle  inform  us,  that  it  is 
the  character  of  that  creature  to  destroy  its  own  parents. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  20.  And  Adam  gave  names  to  all  cattle,  and 
to  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  to  every  beast  of  the 
field:  but  for  Adam  there  was  not  found  a 
help-meet  for  him. 

With  respect  to  the  original  language  which  Moses  de- 
scribes our  first  parents  as  making  use  of,  from  their  very 
first  creation,  we  are  nowhere  informed  in  what  manner 
they  first  acquired  it,  nor  how  it  was  communicated  to 
them.  It  is,  indeed,  probable  that  the  inspired  historian 
addressed  himself  to  those  who  were  much  less  skeptical 
on  such  subjects  than  ourselves ;  and  that  this  remarkable 
endowment,  peculiar  to  the  human  race,  and  by  which  they 
so  far  excel  all  other  created  beings,  was  never,  in  early 
times,  doubted  as  having  been  directly  communicated  from 
the  same  wise  and  provident  source  from  whence  the  hu- 
man race  itself  had  arisen ;  and  the  researches  of  the  wisest 
and  most  learned  men  of  all  ages  have  invariably  led  them 
to  the  same  natural  conclusion. 

We  have  no  direct  means  of  positive  knowledge  as  to 
what  relation  the  primitive  language  of  the  earth  may  have 
had  with  existing  tongues;  but,  in  the  absence  of  such 
evidence,  we  may  form  some  conjectures  on  the  subject, 
which  are  certainly  marked  with  the  highest  probability. 
In  the  first  place,  we  must  consider  that  the  numbers  of  the 
antediluvian  human  race,  and  their  consequent  divisions 
into  nations,  could  not  have  been  nearly  so  great  as  in  the 
present  day,  from  the  comparatively  short  period  they  had 
existed,  and  from  the  comparatively  unrefined  condition 
natural  to  a  primitive  race  of  beings,  on  whom  the  gift  of 
reason  was  obviously  bestowed  by  the  Creator  for  the  pur- 
poses of  exertion,  and  of  gradual  cultivation  and  improve- 
ment. We  must  not  here  suppose,  however,  with  too  many 
advocates  of  an  erring  philosophy,  that  man  was,  at  first, 
Laturally  savage,  or  in  the  state  we  now  find  the  wild  and 
uncultivated  natives  of  savage  countries;  or  that  religion 
and  knowledge  were,  in  the  first  days,  in  the  debased  con- 
dition we  now  too  often  find  them  in  the  remote  corners 
of  the  earth. 

The  savage  state  is  not  natural  to  man;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  brought  on  by  erring  from  the  true  path  of  know- 
ledge, in  which  both  Adam  and  Noah  must  have  brought 
up  their  first  descendants ;  and  which,  in  both  instances,  was 
communicated  in  a  direct  manner,  from  the  unerring  source 
of  every  good  which  mankind  now  enjoys.  In  considering 
the  progressive  stages  of  society,  we  are  too  apt  to  content 
ourselves  with  merely  looking  back,  from  our  own  times, 
into  the  darker  ages  of  barbarism,  and  thus  to  form  our 
ideas  on  the  false  supposition,  that  the  primitive  nature  of 
man  is  one  of  perfect  ignorance,  and  such  as  we  now  find 
among  the  savages  of  Africa  or  America:  whereas,  if  we 
trace  the  progress  of  society,  in  its  proper  and  natural 
course,  by  descending  from  the  creation,  and  from  the  deluge, 
instead  of  ascending  from  our  own  times,  we  shall  find  that 
the  primitive  state  of  mankind,  even  immediately  after  the 
creation,  was  one  of  intelligence  and  understanding,  if  not 
in  arts  and  sciences,  at  least  on  the  leading  point  of  religion, 
which  is,  of  all  others,  that  in  which  the  savage  falls  most 
short  of  the  civilized  man.  It  pleased  his  Creator  to  bestow 
upon  primitive  man  a  full  and  perfect  conception  of  the 
relation  in  which  he  stood  towards  the  Supreme  Being; 
and  it  was  in  order  to  preserve  a  knowledge  of  the  true 
religion  among  men,  that  a  certain  family  arid  race  were 
afterward  expressly  chosen ;  we  find,  accordingly,  that  to 
whatever  state  of  idolatrous  ignorance,  or  savage  barbari- 
ty, the  various  ancient  nations  of  the  earth  were,  from  time 
to  time,  reduced,  there  was  always  some  portion  of  the 
world,  and  especially  of  the  Jewish  race,  which  adhered  to 
the  true  faith,  and  which  was,  consequently,  preserved  from 
that  state  of  unnatural  debasement  from  which  man  has  a 
constant  tendency  and  desire  to  emancipate  himself.  It  is, 
therefore,  highly  probable  that,  as  we  hear  of  no  diversity 
of  language  on  the  earth  until  after  the  deluge,  the  whole 
primitive  race  was  "  of  one  language,  and  of  one  speech," 
and  that  that  language  must,  consequently,  have  been  the 


12 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  4. 


same  spoken  by  those  few  individuals  who  were  preserved 
from  the  flood. 

Now,  when  we  consider  the  great  scheme  of  the  Almighty, 
foretold  from  time  to  time,  from  the  days  of  Adam  to 
those  of  Abraham,  and  continued  from  thence,  in  a  well- 
defined  course  of  history,  to  our  own  times ;  when  we  con- 
sider the  wonderful  and  miraculous  events  that  were  fore- 
told, and  were  afterward  so  \iteial\y  fulfilled,  in  the  line 
of  the  chosen  people  of  God; — that,  through  them,  and 
through  their  language,  the  Inspired  Writings  of  the  early 
times  were  to  be  for  ever 'handed  down  to  the  generations 
of  men ;  that,  of  all  the  languages  of  the  earth,  the  Hebrew 
tongue,  like  the  Hebrew  people,  has  hitherto  withstood 
every  change  and  every  calamity ;  and  been,  like  them, 
miraculously  preserved  by  the  Almighty  will  for  a  great 
and  beneficent  end;  and  when  we  further  consider  the 
strong  analogy  and  filiation,  so  easily  traced,  in  all  the 
languages  of  the  earth,  to  the  Hebrew,  as  the  most  probable 
2>ostdiluvian  original  tongue; — when  all  these  considera- 
tions are  combined,  is  it  unreasonable  to  conclude  to  the 
high  probability  of  the  original  language  of  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  being  the  pure  and  original  tongue  first  commu- 
nicated to  man  by  his  Maker  %  In  considering,  then,  the 
language  of  the  Hebrews  as  the  most  probable  source  from 
whence  all  other  tongues  have  been  derived  ;  and  when  we 
trace  in  all  these  other  tongues  the  gradual  varieties  that 
have  arisen,  and  are  still  now  proceeding  in  the  dialects  of 
the  earth,  by  the  secondary  causes,  and,  seemingly,  trivial 
accidents,  by  which  the  different  shades  of  language  are 
brought  about,  are  we  not  justified  in  drawing  a  compari- 
son betweeen  the  miraculously  preserved  primitive  lan- 
guage, and  the  no  less  miraculously  preserved  chosen 
people,  who  are  the  constant  living  miracle,  bearing  unwill- 
ing witness  to  the  truth  of  Inspiration,  to  all  the  generations 
of  mankind  1  We  are  reminded,  that  it  was  repeatedly 
foretold  in  prophecy,  that  the  Hebrew  nation  should  be  dis- 
persed into  all  cotmtries ;  yet  that  they  should  not  be  swal- 
lowed up  and  lost  among  their  conquerors,  but  should 
subsist,  to  the  latest  times,  a  distinct  people ;  that,  "  though 
God  would  make  an  end  of  the  nations,  their  oppressors, 
He  would  not  make  an  end  of  them." — Fairholme. 

The  names  which  men  and  things  received  at  the  be- 
ginning of  time,  are  so  strikingly  similar  to  those  which 
they  bore  when  the  Hebrew  was  certainly  a  living  language, 
that  its  claim  to  the  honour  of  being  the  primeval  speech 
of  the  human  family,  can  scarcely  be  rejected.  It  is  ever 
reckoned  a  proof  of  similar  origin,  when  many  words  in 
any  two  languages  have  the  same  form,  the  same  sound, 
meaning,  and  reason.  But  the  names  of  the  first  genera- 
tions of  men,  like  those  of  the  lower  animals,  are  as  pure 
Hebrew  as  the  names  of  Peleg,  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Ja- 
cob, or  those  of  David  and  Solomon,  or  Malachi.  They 
have  the  Hebrew  form,  are  constructed  according  to  He- 
brew rules,  are  founded  on  certain  reasons,  like  Hebrew 
names;  and,  in  fine,  are  not  to  be  distinguished  in  any  one 
respect  from  pure  Hebrew, 

It  deserves  also  to  be  remarked,  that  the  reason  assign- 
ed for  these  names  will  not  correspond  with  any  other  lan- 
guage. The  garden  of  Paradise  was  called  Eden;  be- 
cause among  the  Hebrews  it  signifies  pleasure  or  delight. 
The  place  of  Cain's  exile  was  for  this  reason  called  the 
land  of  Nod,  from  a  root  which  signifies  to  wander. 
Adam  received  his  name  because  he  was  taken  out  of  the 
ground ;  but  if  the  term  for  ground  in  the  first  language 
had  been  terra,  or  yr?,  or  earth,  there  had  been  no  proprie- 
ty in  the  designation.  Eve  was  called  by  this  name,  be- 
cause she  was  the  mother  of  all  living ;  but  it  is  derived 
from  a  pure  Hebrew  verb  which  signifies  to  live ;  and  to 
this  relation  the  name  owes  all  its  propriety  and  signifi- 
cance. Cain  was  named  from  the  Hebrew  verb  Kana, 
to  possess,  because  his  mother  had  got  him  from  the  Lord ; 
and  in  this  instance  also,  the  name  is  inseparably  connect- 
ed with  the  Hebrew  root.  The  proper  name  Seth  is  de- 
rived from  the  Hebrew  verb  Shooth,  to  appoint;  because, 
said  our  first  mother,  God  hath  appointed  me  another  seed 
instead  of  Abel,  whom  Cain  slew.  The  same  mode  of 
reasonirig  might  be  carried  through  all  the  names  of  the 
Adamiiic  age;  but  these  instances  are  suflicient  to  show 
the  near  affinity,  if  not  the  positive  identity,  of  the  lan- 
gnac^e  which  Adam  spoke,  with  the  Hebrew  of  the  Old 
Testament. 

The  names  ascribed  by  the  inspired  writer  to  the  found- 


ers of  our  race,  are  not  interpretations  of  primitive  terms ; 
for  he  declares  they  are  the  very  names  which  were  given 
at  first ;  and  as  they  are  derivatives  from  pure  Hebrew 
verbs,  the  language  then  spoken  must  have  been  the  same 
in  substance  and  structure.  Had  they  been  translations, 
we  have  reason  to  think  the  same  method  would  have  been 
followed  as  in  several  instances  in  the  New  Testament, 
where  the  original  term  is  used,  and  the  interpretation 
avowedly  subjoined.  But  Moses  gives  not  a  single  hint  of 
his  translating  these  terms ;  he  asserts,  on  the  contrary, 
that  they  are  the  original  words  employed ;  and  the  truth 
of  his  assertion  is  rendered  indubitable  by  the  reasons 
assigned  for  their  imposition,  which  are  inseparably  con- 
nected with  the  Hebrew  language.  Nor  does  Moses,  in 
the  whole  course  of  his  history,  when  speaking  of  the 
names  of  persons  and  places,  utter  a  single  word  from 
which  we  can  infer  the  existence  of  an  earlier  language. 
When  the  minute  and  extensive  acquaintance  with  the 
natural  character  and  temper  of  the  numerous  animals  to 
which  our  first  father  gave  names  in  Paradise,  which  he 
certainly  had  not  time  to  acquire  by  his  own  industry,  and 
which  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  he  owed  to  intuition, 
is  considered,  we  must  admit,  that  the  language  in  which 
he  conversed  was  not  his  own  contrivance,  but  the  imme- 
diate gift  of  Heaven.  When  Jehovah  breathed  into  Adam 
and  Eve  the  breath  of  life,  he  inspired  them  in  the  same 
moment  with  the  knowledge  of  the  tongue  in  which  they 
were  to  express  their  thoughts.  A  similar  favour  was  be- 
stowed at  the  beginning  of  the  New  Testament  dispensa- 
tion, on  the  apostles  and  other  ministers  of  the  gospel ;  who 
were  inspired  in  a  moment  with  the  perfect  knowledge  of 
many  diflferent  languages. — Paxton. 

Chap,  4.  ver.  3.  And  in  process  of  time  it  came 
to  pass,  that  Cain  brought  of  the  fruit  of  the 
ground  an  offering  unto  the  Lord. 

The  margin*  reads,  "  at  the  end  of  days;"  and  this  is 
truly  Oriental.  "  When  the  days  are  ended,  I  will  fulfil 
my  promise."  "  After  those  days  are  ended,  I  shall  have 
peace."  "  When  the  days  come  round,  (in  their  circle,) 
I  will  do  that  for  you." — Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  If  thou  doest  well,  shalt  thou  not  be  ac- 
cepted ?  and  if  thou  doest  not  well,  sin  lieth  at 
the  door.  And  unto  thee  shall  be  his  desire, 
and  thou  shalt  rule  over  him. 

D'Oyly  and  Mant  interpret  this,  "  Your  sin  will  find  you 
out."  "'Thy  punishment  is  not  far  off'."  They  also  say  sin 
may  be  rendered  sin-offering  ;  and  several  other  com- 
mentators take  the  same  view,  and  think  this  is  its  true  and 
only  meaning.  The  victim  proper  for  a  sin-offering  was 
lying  at  the  door,  and  therefore  was  within  his  reach. 

There  are  some  who  affect  to  smile  at  the  idea  of  sin 
lying  at  the  door  :  it  is,  however,  an  Eastern  figure.  Ask 
a  man  who  is  unacquainted  with  Scripture,  what  he  un- 
derstands by  sin  lying  at  the  threshold  of  the  door ;  he  will 
immediately  speak  of  it  as  the  guilt  of  some  great  crime 
which  the  owner  had  committed.  A  man  accused  ot 
having  murdered  a  child,  would  be  accosted  in  the  follow- 
ing language : — "  If  you  have  done  this,  think  not  to  es- 
cape ;  no !  for  sin  will  ever  lie  at  your  door :  it  will  descend 
from  generation  to  generation."  To  a  man  accused  of 
having  committed  any  other  dreadfitl  crime,  it  would  be 
said,  "  Ah !  if  I  had  done  it,  do  I  not  know  sin  would  ever 
lie  at  my  door  V  The  idea  is  sin  personified  in  the  shape 
of  some  fierce  animal  crouched  at  the  door.  Its  criminality 
and  punishment  remain. 

If  Cain  had  done  well,  would  there  not  have  been  "  the 
excellency  1"  (see  margin  ;)  but  if  not  well,  then  sin,  like  a 
monster,  was  crouching  at  his  door.  Taking  the  other 
view  of  it,  seems  to  amount  to  this ;  now,  Cain,  if  thou 
doest  well,  that  will  be  thy  excellency,  thou  shalt  be  accept- 
ed :  but  if  thou  doest  not  well,  it  is  a  matter  of  no  very  great 
consequence,  because  there  is  a  sin-offering  at  thy  door. 


*  I  would  here  observe,  once  for  all,  that  I  have  gone  regularly 
through  the  marginal  readings,  and  have  found,  with  few  exception^ 
that  they  literally  agree  with  Eastern  language  in  idiom  anrl  figiire 
In  the  course  of  this  work,  most  of  them  will  be  illustrated ;  and  I 
think  few  readers  will  doubt  that  they  are  the  tsorrect  translations. 


14 


GENESIS, 


Chap.  8. 


nearer  than  Batoom  and  other  parts  of  the  eastern  coast 
of  the  Black  sea,  a  distance  of  seven  days  journey  of  a 
caravan,  or  about  130  miles  in  the  circuitous  route  that 
would  thus  be  taken.  But  might  not  a  dove  make  this 
iourney  in  a  day  1  Or  might  not  the  climate  then  have  been 
warmer  than  it  is  now  1  The  second  objection  is  drawn 
from  the  fact  that  sonle  of  the  old  versions  and  paraphra- 
ses, particularly  the  Chaldee  and  the  Syriac,  refer  "  the 
mountains  of  Ararat"  to  the  mountains  of  Kurdistan, 
where  there  is,  not  far  from  Jezeereh,  a  high  mountain 
called  Joody,  on  which  the  moslems  suppose  the  ark  to 
have  rested.  But  if  the  ark  rested  on  that,  the  posterity 
of  Noah  would,  most  likely,  have  descended  at  once  into 
Mesopotamia,  and  have  reached  Shinar  from  the  north  ; 
while,  from  the  vafley  of  the  Aras,  they  would  naturally 
have  kept  along  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  mountains  of 
Media,  until  they  reached  the  neighbourhood  of  Hamadan 
or  Kermanshah,  which  is  nearly  east  of  Babylon.  Such 
is  the  route  now  taken  every  day  by  all  the  caravans  from 
this  region  to  Bagdad.  The  Armenians  believe,  not  only 
that  this  is  the  mountain  on  which  the  ark  rested  after  the 
flood,  but  that  the  ark  still  exists  upon  its  top ;  though,  ra- 
ther from  supernatural  than  from  physical  obstacles,  no 
one  has  yet  been  able  to  visit  it.  A  devout  vartabtd,  their 
legends  relate,  once  attempted,  for  this  purpose,  to  ascend 
the  mountain.  "While  yet  far  from  the  top,  drowsiness 
came  upon  him,  and  he  awoke  at  the  bottom,  in  the  very 
spot  whence  he  had  started.  Another  attempt  resulted  only 
in  the  same  miraculous  failure.  He  then  betook  himself 
more  fervently  to  prayer,  and  started  the  third  time.  Again 
he  slept,  and  awoke  at  the  bottom ;  but  now  an  angel  stood 
before  him  with  a  fragment  of  the  ark,  as  a  token  that  his 
pious  purpose  was  approved  and  his  prayer  answered, 
though  he  could  never  be  allowed  to  reach  the  summit  of 
the  moimtain.  The  precious  gift  was  thankfully  received, 
and  is  to  this  day  carefully  preserved,  as  a  sacred  relic,  in 
the  convent  of  Echmiadzin. — Smith  &  Dwight. 

Ararat  forms  the  angle  of  an  immense  chain  of  moun- 
tains, on  the  loftiest  pinnacles  of  which  the  natives  of  the 
country  believe  that  part  of  the  ark  yet  remains.  It  is  a 
most  sublime  and  stupendous  object,  which  excites  in  the 
mind  of  the  beholder  the  mingled  emotions  of  admiration 
and  terror.  One  of  the  great  features  of  this  mountain  is 
the  immense  chasm  which  extends  nearly  half-way  down, 
over  which  impends  a  cliif,  discernible  at  a  great  distance, 
whose  enormous  masses  of  ice  are  from  time  to  time  precip- 
itated into  the  abyss  with  a  noise  resembling  the  loudest 
thunder.  "  Nothing,"  says  Mr.  Morier,  "  can  be  more 
beautiful  than  its  shape ;  more  awful  than  its  height. 
Compared  with  it,  all  the  other  mountains  sink  into  insig- 
nificance. It  is  perfect  in  all  its  parts :  no  hard  rugged 
features  :  no  imnatural  prominences ;  every  thing  is  in  har- 
mony;  and  all  combines  to  render  it  one  of  the  most  sub- 
lime objects  in  nature.  Spreading  originally  from  an  im- 
mense base,  its  slope  towards  the  summit  is  gradual,  until 
it  reaches  the  regions  of  the  snows,  when  it  becomes  more 
abrupt.  The  cone  is  surmounted  with  a  crown  of  ice, 
which  glitters  in  the  sun  with  a  peculiar  and  dazzling 
brightness.  As  a  foil  to  this  stupendous  work,  a  smaller 
hill  rises  from  the  same  base,  near  the  original  mass,  simi- 
lar to  it  in  shape  and  proportion,  and  in  any  other  situation 
entitled  to  rank  among  the  high  mountains.  The  moun- 
tain is  divided  into  three  regions  of  different  breadths. 
The  first,  composed  of  a  short  and  slippery  grass,  or  sand 
as  troublesome  as  the  quicksands  of  Africa,  is  occupied  by 
the  shepherds ;  the  second,  by  tigers  and  crows :  the  re- 
mainder, which  is  half  the  mountain,  is  covered  with  snow 
which  has  been  accumulating  ever  since  the  ark  rested 
npcm  it ;  and  these  snows  are  concealed  during  one  half  of 
the  year  in  very  dense  clouds."  This  stupendous  moun- 
tain, Mr.  Morier  and  his  party  endeavoured  to  scale ;  and 
after  excessive  fatigue  arrived  on  the  margin  of  eternal 
snow.  But  they  found  it  impossible  to  proceed  and  pen- 
etrate the  highest  region ;  and  not  easy  to  go  back.  At 
length,  utterly  exhausted,  they  reached  the  bottom,  and 
gave  thanks  to  God  for  their  safe  return. — Paxton. 

[The  remarkable  achievement  of  the  ascent  of  Mount 
Ararat,  has  at  length,  it  appears,  been  accomplished  by 
Professor  Parrot  of  England.  Taking  with  him  Mr. 
Behagel  as  mineralogist,  Messrs.  Hehn  and  Schiemann, 
medical  students  of  Moscow,  and  Mr.  Federow,  astron- 
omer of  St.  Petersburg,  he  commenced  his  journey  on 


the  20th  of  March,  1829,  and  arrived'at  Tiflis  on  the  6th 
of  June.  Owing  to  peculiar  circumstances  they  were  un- 
able to  leave  Titiis  till  the  first  of  September,  the  distance 
to  Mount  Ararat  being  by  the  road  about  280  wasts  (say 
200  miles.)  The  following  account  of  the  ascent,  extracted 
from  a  work  recently  published  by  Professor  Parrot,  at 
Berlin,  is  from  the  Foreign  (Quarterly  Review  for  June, 
1835.] 

At  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  12th  September, 
I  set  out  on  my  journey,  [from  the  Convent  of  St.  James' 
near  the  foot  of  the  mountain,]  accompanied  by  Mr.  Schie 
mann.  We  took  with  us  one  of  our  Cossacks  and  a  pea- 
sant of  Arguri,  who  was  a  good  huntsman,  and  our  route 
was  first  in  the  bottom  of  the  valley,  then  up  its  right  ac- 
clivity towards  the  spot  where  there  are  two  small  stone 
houses  standing  close  to  each  other ;  the  one  formerly  a 
chapel,  and  the  other  built  as  a  protection  for  a  spring 
which  is  considered  sacred. 

From  the  chapel  we  crossed  the  grassy  elevation,  which 
forms  the  right  declivity  of  the  cleft :  we  suffered  so  much 
from  the  heat  of  the  day,  that  our  Cossack,  who  would  prob- 
ably have  much  rather  been  seated  on  horseback  and  gal- 
loping about  on  the  steppes  for  three  days  than  scrambling 
over  the  rocks  for  a  couple  of  hours,  was  ready  to  sink 
from  fatigue,  and  we  were  obliged  to  send  him  back.  At 
about  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  when  we  also  were  much 
tired,  and  had  almost  reached  the  snowy  region,  we  chose 
our  night's  lodgings  in  the  clefts  of  the  rocks.  We  had  at- 
tained a  height  of  11,675  Paris  feet;  in  the  sheltered  places 
about  us  lay  some  new-fallen  snow,  and  the  temperature  of 
the  air  was  at  the  freezingpoint.  Mr.  Schiemann  and  I  haxi 
provided  ourselves  tolerably  well  for  such  an  undertaking ; 
besides,  the  pleasure  of  the  expedition  warmed  us ;  but  our 
athletic  Jagar,  Schak  of  Arguri,  (Isaac,)  was  quite  dejected 
froni  the  cold,  for  he  had  nothing  but  his  summer  clothing ; 
his  whole  neck  and  also  his  legs,  from  the  knee  to  the  san- 
dal, were  quite  bare,  and  his  head  was  only  covered  with 
an  old  handkerchief  I  had  neglected  to  think  about  his 
wardrobe  before  setting  out,  and,  therefore,  it  was  uiy  duly 
to  help  him  as  well  as  I  could:  but  as  neither  of  us  had 
much  clothing  to  spare,  I  wrapped  up  his  neck  and  his 
bare  limbs  in  sheets  of  blotting-paper  which  I  had  taken 
with  me  for  drying  plants,  and  this  was  a  great  relief  to 
him.  At  daybreak  we  pursued  our  journey  towards  the 
eastern  side  of  the  mountain,  and  soon  reached'the  declivity 
which  runs  immediately  from  the  summit ;  it  consists  en- 
tirely of  pointed  rocky  ridges  coming  down  from  above, 
and  leaving  between  them  ravines  of  considerable  depth, 
in  which  the  icy  mantle  of  the  summit  loses  itself,  and  gla* 
ciers  of  great  extent.  There  were  several  of  these  rocky 
ridges  and  clefts  of  ice  lying  between  us  and  the  side 
of  the  mountain  which  we  were  endeavouring  to  reach. 
When  we  had  J^ppily  surmounted  the  first  crest  and  the 
adjoining  beauffml  glacier,  and  reached  the  second  crest, 
Schak  had  no  courage  to  proceed.  His  benumbed  limbs 
had  not  yet  recovered  their  warmth,  and  the  icy  region 
towards  which  he  saw  us  hastening,  did  not  hold  out  much 
prospect  of  relief;  thus  one  remained  behind  from  heat 
and  the  other  from  cold — only  Mr.  Schiemann,  though  un- 
accustomed to  these  hardships,  did  not  for  an  instant  lose 
his  courage  or  his  desire  to  accompany  me,  but  shared  with 
alacrity  and  perseverance  all  the  difficulties  and  dangers* 
Ave  had  to  encounter.  Leaving  the  Jager  behind  us,  we 
crossed  the  second  glacier,  and  gained  the  third  rocky 
ridge.  Then  immediately  turning  off  in  an  oblique  direc- 
tion, we  reached  the  lower  edge  of  the  icy  crest,  at  a  height 
of  13,180  Paris  feet,  and  which  from  this  place  runs  with- 
out interruption  to  the  summit.  We  had  now  to  ascend 
this  declivity  covered  with  perpetual  snow.  Though  the 
inclination  was  barely  30  deg.,  this  was  a  sheer  impossi- 
bility for  two  men  to  accomplish  in  a  direct  line.  We  there- 
fore determined  to  advance  diagonally  towards  a  long 
pointed  ridge  which  runs  far  up  towards  the  summit.  "We 
succeeded  in  this  by  making  with  our  ice-poles  deep  holes 
in  the  ice  of  the  glacier,  which  was  covered  with  a  thin 
layer  of  new-fallen  snow,  too  slight  to  aflford  the  requisite 
firmness  to  our  steps.  "We  thus  reached  the  ridge,  and  ad- 
vanced directly  towards  the  summit  by  a  track  where  the 
new  snow  was  rather  deeper.  Though  we  might  by  great 
exertions  have  this  time  reached  the  goal  of  our  wishes, 
yet  the  fatigue  of  the  day  had  been  considerable,  and  as 
it  was  already  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  we  were 


Ghap.  8. 


GENESIS. 


la 


obliged  to  think  of  providing  a  lodging  for  the  approaching 
night.  We  had  attained  the  extreme  upper  ndge  of  the 
rocky  crest,  an  elevation  of  14,560  Paris  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea,  (the  height  of  the  top  of  Mount  Blanc,)  and 
yet  the  summit  of  Ararat  lay  far  above  us.  I  do  not  think 
that  any  insurmountable  obstacle  could  have  impeded  our 
farther  progress,  but  to  spend  the  few  remaining  hours  of 
day  light  in  reaching  this  point  would  have  been  worse 
than  madness,  as  we  had  not  seen  any  rock  on  the  summit 
which  could  have  afforded  us  protection  during  the  night ; 
independently  of  which,  our  stock  of  provisions  was  not 
calculated  to  last  so  long.  Having  made  our  barometrical 
observations,  we  turned  back,  satisfied  from  the  result 
that  the  mountain  on  this  side  was  not  inaccessible.  In 
descending,  however,  we  met  with  a  danger  which  we 
had  not  anticipated ;  for  if  in  the  descent  of  every  mountain 
you  tread  less  safely  than  in  going  up,  it  is  still  mpre  diffi- 
cult to  tread  firmly,  when  you  look  down  upon  such  a  sur- 
face of  ice  and  snow  as  that  over  which  we  had  to  pass  for 
more  than  a  werst,  and  where,  if  we  slipped  and  fell,  there 
was  nothing  to  stop  us  but  the  sharp-pointed  masses  of 
stone  in  which  the  region  of  eternal  ice  loses  itself  The 
danger  here  is  perhaps  rather  in  the  want  of  habit  than 
in  real  difficulties.  My  young  friend,  whose  courage  had 
probably  been  proof  against  severer  trials,  lost  his  presence 
of  mind  here— his  foot  slipped,  and  he  fell;  but,  as  he  was 
about  twenty  paces  behind  me,  I  had  time  to  thrift  my 
pole  firmly  in  the  ice,  to  take  a  sure  footing  in  my  capital 
snow-shoes,  and  while  I  held  the  pole  in  my  right  hand, 
to  catch  him  in  passing  with  my  left.  My  position  was 
well  chosen,  but  the  straps  which  fastened  my  ice-shoes 
broke,  and,  instead  of  being  able  to  stop  my  friend,  I  was 
carried  with  him  in  his  fall.  He  was  so  fortunate  as  to 
be  stopped  by  some  stones,  but  I  rolled  on  for  half  a  werst, 
till  I  reached  some  fragpienls  of  lava  near  the  lower  gla- 
cier. The  tube  of  my  barom^er  was  dashed  to  pieces 
— my  chronometer  burst  open,  and  covered  with  blood — 
every  thing  had  fallen  out  of  my  pockets,  but  I  escaped 
without  severe  injury.  As  soon  as  we  had  recovered  from 
our  fright,  and  thanked  God  for  our  prpvidential  escape, 
we  collected  the  most  important  of  our  effects,  and  con- 
tinued our  journey.  "We  were  soon  afterward  delighted 
to  hear  the  voice  of  our  good  Schak,  who  had  very  pru- 
dently waited  for  our  return.  Having  made  a  fire,  we 
passed  the  night  in  the  grassy  region,  and  on  the  third  day 
reached  the  convent,  where  we  were  regaled  with  an  ex- 
cellent breakfast.  We  however  took  care  not  to  tell  the 
Armenians  any  thing  about  our  accident,  as  they  would 
certainly  not  have  failed  to  ascribe  it  to  a  judgment  from 
Heaven  for  our  presumptuous  attempt  to  reach  the  summit, 
which  they  say  has  been  prohibited  to  mortals  by  a  divine 
decree  since  the  time  of  Noah.  All  the  Armenians  are 
firmly  persuaded  that  Noah's  ark  exists  to  the  present 
day  on  the  summit  of  Mount  Ararat,  and  that,  in  order  to 
preserve  it,  no  person  is  permitted  to  approach  it.  We 
learn  the  grounds  of  this  tradition  from  the  Armenian 
chronicles  in  the  legend  of  a  monk  of  the  name  of  James, 
who  was  afterward  Patriarch  of  Nissibus,  and  a  contempo- 
rary and  relative  of  St.  Gregory.  It  is  said  that  this  monk, 
in  order  to  settle  the  disputes  which  had  arisen  respecting 
the  credibility  of  the  sacred  books,  especially  with  refer- 
ence to  their  account  of  Noah,  resolved  to  ascend  to  the 
top  of  Ararat  to  convince  himself  of  the  existence  of  the 
ark.  At  the  declivity  of  the  mountain,  however,  he  had 
several  times  fallen  asleep  from  exhaustion,  and  found  on 
awaking  that  he  had  been  unconsciously  carried  down  to 
the  point  from  which  he  first  set  out.  God  at  length  had 
compassion  on  his  unwearied  though  fruitless  exertions, 
and  during  his  sleep  sent  an  angel  with  the  message, 
that  his  exertions  were  unavailing,  as  the  summit  was 
inaccessible ;  but  as  a  reward  for  his  indefatigable  zeal, 
he  sent  him  a  piece  of  the  ark,  the  verv  same  which  is 
now  preserved  as  the  most  valuable  relic' in  the  cathedral 
of  Etschmaidsin.  The  belief  in  the  impossibility  of  as- 
cending Mount  Ararat  has,  in  consequence  of  this  tradi- 
tion, which  is  sanctioned  by  the  church,  almost  become  an 
article  of  faith,  which  an  Armenian  would  not  renounce 
even  if  he  were  placed  in  his  own  proper  person  upon  the 
summit  of  the  mountain. 

[After  recovering  in  some  measure  from  the  effects  of 
his  fall  and  an  attack  of  fever  which  ensued,  the  profes- 
sor set  out  on  the  18th  September  to  make  a  second  at- 


tempt to  gain  the  summit,  taking  with  him  a  cross  ten  feet 
high,  which  it  was  proposed  to  set  up  on  the  top  of  the 
mountain,  with  an  inscription  in  honour  of  Field  Marsha* 
Count  Paskewitsch,  by  whose  victories  the  Russian  do- 
minions had  been  extended  to  this  point.  They  chose  this 
time  the  northeast  side  of  the  mountain,  by  which  the  way 
was  much  longer,  but  not  so  steep.  But  as  this  second 
attempt  also  failed,  wx  pass  over  the  account  of  it,  and  pro- 
ceed without  further  preface  to  the  third,  which  succeeded. 
They  however  erected  the  cross  on  an  almost  horizontal 
surface  covered  with  snow,  at  the  height  of  15,138  Paris 
feet  above  the  level  of  the  Euxine,  or  about  350  feet  higher 
than  the  summit  of  Mount  Blanc] 

In  the  meantime  the  sky  cleared  up,  the  air  became 
serene  and  calm,  the  mountain  too  was  more  quiet,  the 
noise  occasioned  by  the  falling  of  the  masses  of  ice  and 
snow  grew  less  frequent — in  short,  every  thing  seemed  to 
indicate  that  a  favourable  turn  was  about  to  take  place  in 
the  weather,  and  I  hastened  to  embrace  it  for  a  third  at- 
tempt to  ascend  the  mountain.  On  the  25th  September  I 
sent  to  ask  Stepan  whether  he  would  join  us,  but  he  de- 
clined, saying  that  he  had  suflered  too  much  from  the  for- 
mer excursion  to  venture  again  so  soon ;  he  however 
promised  to  send  us  four  stout  peasants  with  three  oxen  and 
a  driver.  Early  the  next  morning,  four  peasants  made 
their  appearance  at  the  camp  to  join  our  expedition,  and 
soon  alter  a  fifth,  w^ho  offered  himself  voluntarily.  To 
them  I  added  two  of  our  soldiers.  The  deacon  again  ac- 
companied us,  as  well  as  Mr.  Hehn,  who  wished  to  explore 
the  vegetation  at  a  greater  elevation ;  but  he  did  not  intend 
to  proceed  beyond  the  line  of  snow.  The  experience  of 
the  preceding  attempt  had  convinced  me  that  everything 
depended  on  our  passing  the  first  night  as  closely  as  possi- 
ble to  this  boundary,  in  order  to  be  able  to  ascend  and  re- 
turn from  the  summit  in  one  day,  and  to  confine  our  bag- 
gage to  what  was  absolutely  necessary.  We  therefore 
took  with  us  only  three  oxen,  laden  with  the  clothing,  wood, 

and  provisions.    I  also  took  a  cross  carved  in  oak 

We  chose  our  route  towards  the  same  side  as  before,  and, 
in  order  to  spare  ourselves,  Abowiam  and  I  rode  on  horse- 
back, wherever  the  rocky  nature  of  the  soil  permitted  it, 
as  far  as  the  grassy  plain  Kip-Giholl,  whence  we  sent  the 
horses  back.  Here  Mr.  Hehn  parted  from  us.  It  was 
scarcely  twelve  o'clock  when  we  reached  this  point,  and, 
after  taking  our  breakfast,  we  proceeded  in  a  direction 
rather  more  oblique  than  on  our  former  attempt.  The 
cattle  were,  however,  unable  to  follow  us  so  quickly.  We 
therefore  halted  at  some  rocks  which  it  would  be  impossi- 
ble for  them  to  pass — took  each  our  own  share  of  clothing 
and  wood,  and  sent  back  the  oxen.  At  half-past  five  in 
the  evening  we  were  not  far  from  the  snow  line,  and  con- 
siderably higher  than  the  place  where  we  passed  the  night 
on  our  previous  excursion.  The  elevation  at  this  point 
was  13,036  Paris  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  and  the 
large  masses  of  rock  determined  me  to  take  up  our  quar- 
ters here.  A  fire  was  soon  made,  and  a  warm  supper  pre- 
pared. I  had  some  onion  broth,  a  dish  which  I  would 
recommend  to  all  mountain  travellers  in  preference  to  meat 
broth,  as  being  extremely  warm  and  invigorating.  This 
being  a  fast-day,  poor  Abowiam  was  not  able  to  enjoy  it. 
The  other  Armenians,  who  strictly  adhered  to  their  rules 
of  fasting,  contented  themselves  with  bread  and  the 
brandy  which  I  distributed  among  them  in  a  limited  quan- 
tity, as  this  cordial  must  be  taken  with  great  caution,  espe- 
cially where  the  strength  has  been  previously  much  tried, 
as  it  otherwise  produces  a  sense  of  exhaustion  and  inclina- 
tion to  sleep.  It  was  a  magnificent  evening,  and,  with  my 
eyes  fixed  on  the  clear  sky,  and  the  lofty  summit  which 
projected  against  it,  and  then  again  on  the  dark  night 
which  was  gathering  far  below  and  around  me,  I  experi- 
enced all  those  delightful  sensations  of  tranquillity,  love, 
and  devotion,  that  silent  reminiscence  of  the  past,  that  sub- 
dued glance  into  the  future,  which  a  traveller  never  fails 
to  experience  when  on  lofty  elevations,  and  under  pleasing 
circumstances.  I  laid  myself  down  under  an  overhanging 
rock  of  lava,  the  temperature  of  the  air  at  4  1-2  degrees, 
which  was  tolerably  Avarm,  considering  our  great  height. 

At  daybreak  we  rose,  and  began  our  journey  at  half 
past  six.  We  crossed  the  last  broken  declivities  in  half  an 
hour,  and  entered  the  boundary  of  eternal  snow  nearly  at 
the  same  place  as  in  our  preceding  ascent.  In  consequence 
of  the  increased  warmth  of  the  weather,  the  new-fallen 


16 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  8. 


snow,  which  had  facilitated  our  progress  on  our  previous 
ascent,  had  melted  away,  and  again  frozen,  so  that,  in  spite 
of  the  still  inconsiderable  slope,  we  were  compelled  to  cut 
steps  in  the  ice.  This  very  much  embarrassed  our  ad- 
vance, and  added  greatly  to  our  fatigue.  One  of  the  pea- 
sants had  remained  behind  in  our  resting-place,  as  he  felt 
unwell;  two  others  became  exhausted  in  ascending  the 
side  of  ihe  glacier.  They  at  first  lay  down,  but  soon  re- 
treated to  our  quarters.  Without  being  disheartened  by 
these  difiiculties,  we  proceeded,  and  soon  reached  the  great 
cleft  which  marks  the  upper  edge  of  the  declivity  of  the 
large  glacier,  and  at  ten  o'clock  we  arrived  at  the  great 
plain  of  snow  which  marks  the  first  break  on  the  icy  head 
of  Ararat.  At  the  distance  of  a  werst,  we  saw  the  cross 
which  we  had  reared  on  the  19th  of  September,  but  it  ap- 
peared to  me  so  extremely  small,  probably  on  account  of 
its  black  colour,  that  I  almost  doubted  whether  I  should  be 
able  to  find  it  again  with  an  ordinary  telescope  from  the 
plain  of  the  Aiaxes.  In  the  direction  towards  the  summit, 
a  shorter  but  at  the  same  time  a  steeper  declivity  than  the 
one  we  had  passed  lay  before  us ;  and  between  this  and  the 
extreme  summit  there  appeared  to  be  only  one  small  hill. 
After  a  short  repose  we  passed  the  first  precipice,  which 
was  the  steepest  of  all,  by  hewing  out  steps  in  the  rock,  and 
after  this  the  next  elevation.  But  here,  instead  of  seeing 
the  ultimate  goal  of  all  our  difficulties,  immediately  before 
us  appeared  a  series  of  hills,  which  even  concealed  the 
summit  from  our  sight.  This  rather  abated  our  courage, 
which  had  never  yielded  for  a  moment  so  long  as  we  had 
all  our  difficulties  in  view,  and  our  strength,  exhausted  by 
the  labour  of  hewing  the  rock,  seemed  scarcely  commen- 
surate with  the  attainment  of  the  now  invisible  object  of  our 
wishes.  But  a  review  of  what  had  been  already  accom- 
plished, and  of  that  which  might  still  remain  to  be  done, 
the  proximity  of  the  series  of  projecting  elevations,  and  a 
glance  at  my  brave  companions,  banished  my  fears,  and 
we  boldly  advanced.  We  crossed  two  more  hills,  and  the 
cold  air  of  the  summit  blew  towards  us.  I  stepped  from 
behind  one  of  the  glaciers,  and  the  extreme  cone  of  Ara- 
rat lay  distinctly  before  my  enraptured  eyes.  But  one  more 
efibrt  was  necessar-y.  Only  one  other  icy  plain  was  to  be 
ascended,  and  at  a  quarter  past  three  on  the  27th  of  Septem- 
ber, O.  S.,  1829,  we  stood  on  the  summit  of  Mount  Ararat ! 
[Having  thus  happily  accomplished  his  fatiguing  and  per- 
ilous enterprise,  says  the  Review,  our  author's  first  wish 
and  enjoyment  was  repose;  he  spread  his  cloak  on  the 
ground,  and  sitting  down,  contemplated  the  boundless  but 
desolate  prospect  around  him.  He  was  on  a  slight  con- 
vex, almost  circular,  platform,  about  200  Paris  feet  in  di- 
ameter, which  at  the  extremity  declines  pretty  steeply  on 
all  sides,  particularly  towards  the  S.  E.  and  N.  E. ;  it  was 
the  silver  crest  of  Ararat,  composed  of  eternal  ice,  unbro- 
ken by  a  rock  or  stone.  Towards  the  east,  the  summit  de- 
clined more  gently  than  in  any  other  direction,  and  was 
connected  by  a  hollow,  likewise  covered  with  perpetual  ice, 
with  another  rather  lower  summit,  which  by  Mr.  Fede- 
row's  trigonometrical  measurement  was  found  to  be  187 
toises  distant  from  the  principal  summit.  On  account  of 
the  immense  distances  nothing  could  be  seen  distinctly. 
The  whole  valley  of  the  Araxes  was  covered  with  a  gray 
mist,  through  which  Erivan  and  Sardarabad  appeared  as 
small  dark  spots ;  to  the  south  were  seen  more  distinctly 
the  hills  behind  which  lies  Bayazeed ;  to  the  N.  W.  the 
ragged  top  of  Alaghes,  covered  with  vast  masses  of  snow, 
probably  an  inaccessible  summit ;  near  to  Ararat,  espe- 
cially to  the  S.  E.  and  at  a  great  distance  towards  the  west, 
are  numerous  small  conical  hills,  which  look  like  extinct 
volcanoes ;  to  the  E.  S.  E.  was  little  Ararat,  whose  head 
did  not  appear  like  a  cone,  as  it  does  from  the  plain,  but 
like  the  top  of  a  square  truncated  pyramid,  with  larger  and 
smaller  rocky  elevations  on  the  edges  and  in  the  middle ; 
but  what  very  much  surprised  Professor  Parrot  was  to  see 
a  large  portion  of  Lake  Goktschai,  which  appeared  in  the 
N.  E.  like  a  beautiful  shining  dark  blue  patch,  behind  the 
lofty  chain  of  mountains  which  encloses  it  on  the  south, 
und  which  is  so  high  that  he  never  could  have  believe<l 
that  he  should  have  been  able  from  the  top  of  Ararat  to 
see  over  its  summit  into  the  lake  behind  it.  Mr.  Parrot, 
having  allowed  himself  time  to  enjoy  this  prospect,  pro- 
ceeded to  observe  his  barometer,  which  he  placed  precisely 
in  the  middle  of  the  summit.  The  mercury  was  no  higher 
than  15  inches  3-4  of  a  line  Paris  measure,  the  tempera- 


ture being  3  7-lOths  below  the  freezing  point  of  the  centri- 
grade  thermometer.  By  comparing  this  observation  with 
that  which  Mr.  Federow  made  at  the  same  time  at  the  con- 
vent of  St.  James,  the  elevation  of  the  summit  appears  to 
be  10,272  Paris  feet  above  the  convent,  and,  adding  to  that 
the  height  of  the  latter,  the  top  of  Ararat  is  16,254  Paris 
feet,  nearly  five  wersts,  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  While 
the  professor  was  engaged  in  his  observations,  the  dea- 
con planted  the  cross,  not  precisely  on  the  summit,  where 
it  could  not  have  been  seen  from  the  plain,  as  it  was  only 
five  feet  high,  but  on  the  N.  E.  edge,  about  thirty  feet 
lower  than  the  centre  of  the  summit.  The  professor  and  his 
five  companions,  viz.  the  deacon,  two  Russian  soldiers,  and 
two  Armenian  peasants,  having  remained  three  quarters 
of  an  hour  on  the  summit,  commenced  their  descent,  which 
was  very  fatiguing;  but  they  hastened,  as  the  sun  was  go- 
ing down,  and  before  they  reached  the  place  where  the 
great  cross  was  erected,  it  had  already  sunk  below  the 
horizon.] 

It  was  a  glorious  sight  to  behold  the  dark  shadows 
which  the  mountains  in  the  west  cast  upon  the  plain^  and 
then  the  profound  darkness  which  covered  all  the  valleys, 
and  gradually  rose  higher  and  higher  on  the  sides  of  Ara- 
rat, whose  icy  summit  was  still  illuminated  by  the  beams 
of  the  setting  sun.  But  the  shadows  soon  passed  over  that 
also,  and  would  have  covered  our  path  with  a  gloom  that 
would  have  rendered  our  descent  dangerous,  had  not  the 
sacred  lamp  of  night,  opportunely  rising  above  the  eastern 
horizon,  cheered  us  witli  its  welcome  beams. 

[Having  passed  the  night  on  the  same  spot  as  on  their 
ascent,  where  they  found  their  companions,  they  arrived 
the  next  day  at  noon,  at  the  Convent  of  St.  James,  and  on 
the  following  day,  Sunday,  the  28th  of  September,  O.  S., 
they  offered  their  grateful  thanksgiving  to  Heaven  for  the 
success  of  their  arduous  enterprise,  perhaps  not  far  from 
the  spot  where  "  Noah  built  an  altar  to  the  Lord."] 

Ver.  11.  And  tlie  dove  came  in  to  him  in  thoj 
evening,  and,  lo,  in  lier  moutli  was  an  olive 
leaf  plucked  off     So  Noah  knew  that  the  wa*^ 
ters  were  abated  from  off  the  earth. 

The  olive  may  be  justly  considered  as  one  of  the  most 
valuable  gifts  which  the  beneficent  Creator  has  bestowed 
on  the  human  family.  The  oil  which  it  yields,  forms  an 
important  article  of  food ;  it  imparts  a  greater  degree  of 
pliancy  to  the  limbs,  and  agility  to  the  whole  body;  it 
assuages  the  agonizing  pain,  and  promotes,  by  its  sanative 
influence,  the  cure  of  wounds ;  it  alleviates  the  internal 
sufferings  produced  by  disease ;  it  illumines,  at  once,  the 
cottage  and  the  palace ;  it  cheers,  by  the  splendour  of  its 
combustion,  the  festive  meeting;  it  serves  to  expel  the 
deadly  poison  of  venomous  reptiles ;  it  was  used  in  conse- 
crating a  thing  to  the  service  of  God;  and  it  mingled, 
perhaps,  from  the  first  of  time,  by  the  command  of  Heaven, 
with  many  of  the  bloodless  oblations  which  the  worshipper 
presented  at  his  altar.  In  these  various  and  important 
uses,  we  may,  perhaps,  discover  the  true  reason  that  the 
dove  of  Noah  was  directed,  by  God  himself,  to  select  the 
olive  leaf  from  the  countless  variety  which  floated  on  the 
subsiding  waters  of  the  deluge,  or  bestrewed  the  slimy  tops 
and  declivities  of  Ararat,  as  the  chosen  symbol  of  return- 
ing peace  and  favour.  From  the  creation  of  the  world, 
the  fatness  of  this  tree  signally  displayed  the  divine  good- 
ness and  benignity;  and  since  the  fall  of  man,  it  symbolizes 
the  grace  and  kindness  of  our  heavenly  Father,  and  the 
precious  influences  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  healing  the  spir- 
itual diseases  of  our  degenerate  race,  and  in  counteracting 
the  deadly  poison  of  moral  corruption.  Hence,  the  people 
of  Israel  were  commanded  to  construct  their  booths,  at  the 
feast  of  tabernacles,  partly  with  branches  of  olive ;  and  all 
the  nations  of  the  civilized  world  Avere  secretly  directed,  by 
the  overruling  providence  of  Heaven,  to  bear  them  in  their 
hands  as  emblems  of  peace  and  amity.  The  olive  is  men- 
tioned as  the  sign  of  peace,  by  both  Livy  and  Virgil,  in 
several  parts  of  their  works,  but  one  instance  from  the 
latter  shall  suffice. 

"Turn  pater  ^neas  puppi  sic  fatur  ab  alta 
Paciferseque  manu  ramum  pretendit  olivs." 

jEn.  b.  viii.  1.  116. 

The  celebrated  navigator.  Captain  Cook,  found  that 
green  branches,  carried  in  the  hands,  or  stuck  in  the 


Chap.  9 — 11. 


GENESIS. 


17 


ground,  were  the  emblems  of  peace,  universally  employed 
and  understood  by  the  numerous  and  untutored  inhabitants 
of  the  South  Sea  islands.  The  origin  of  a  custom,  thus 
received  and  religiously  observed,  by  nations  dwelling  on 
opposite  sides  of  the  globe,  who  never  had  the  smallest 
intercourse  with  one  another,  must  be  sought  for  near  the 
beginning  of  time,  when  the  inhabitants  of  our  earth,  form- 
ing but  one  family,  lived  under  the  gentle  sway  of  their 
common  parent.  Dr.  Chandler,  indeed,  is  of  opinion,  that 
the  idea  of  reconciliation  and  peace  was  not  associated  with 
the  olive  branch  till  ages  long  posterior  to  the  deluge.  The 
olive  groves,  he  argues,  are  the  usual  resort  of  doves,  and 
other  birds,  that  repair  to  them  for  food ;  and  thus  endeav- 
ours to  find  a  natural  connexion  between  the  dove  of  Noah 
and  the  olive  leaf.  The  olive  might,  he  thinks,  be  the  only 
tree  which  had  raised  its  head  above  the  subsiding  waters, 
near  the  place  where  the  ark  was  floating,  although  it  is 
only  of  a  middling  height ;  but  if  the  dove  saw  a  great 
number  of  other  trees  above  the  water,  the  habits  of  the 
bird  naturally  led  it  to  the  olive  plantation  for  shelter  and 
food,  in  preference  to  all  others.  But  the  greater  part  of 
this  reasoning  avowedly  rests  upon  mere  assumption ;  and 
although  the  olive  grove  may  be  the  favourite  retreat  of 
the  dove,  how  are  we  to  account  for  the  olive  branch  being 
chosen  by  almost  every  nation,  from  the  remotest  times, 
for  the  symbol  of  reconciliation  and  peace  1  It  is  far  more 
probable,  that  the  dove  was  directed  by  the  finger  of  God 
to  prefer  the  olive  leaf,  or  a  sprig  of  olive  leaves,  as  being 
the  symbol  of  peace  with  which  Noah  was  already  acquaint- 
ed, or  that  it  might,  in  future,  be  the  token  of  reconciliation 
between  God  and  his  offending  creatures,  and  between  one 
nation  and  another. — Paxton, 

Chap.  9.  ver.  4.    But  flesh,  with  the  life  thereof, 
which  is  the  blood  thereof,  shall  ye  not  eat. 

Mr.  Bruce  has  given  a  very  extraordinary  account  of  the 
practice  of  eating  blood  in  Abyssinia.  This  custom,  so 
prevalent  in  several  places,  is  forbidden  in  the  scriptures. 
A  recital  of  the  narrative  will  probably  suggest  to  the 
reader  the  reasons  of  the  prohibition.  Mr.  Bruce  tells  us, 
that,  "not  long  after  our  losing  sight  of  the  ruins  of  this 
ancient  capital  of  Abyssinia,  we  overtook  three  travellers 
driving  a  cow  before  them:  they  had  black  goatskins 
upon  their  shoulders,  and  lances  and  shields  in  their 
hands ;  in  other  respects  they  were  but  thinly  clothed ; 
they  appeared  to  be  soldiers.  "  The  cow  did  not  seem 
to  be  fattened  for  killing,  and  it  occurred  to  us  all,  that  it 
had  been  stolen.  This,  however,  was  not  our  business, 
nor  was  such  an  occurrence  at  all  remarkable  in  a  country 
so  long  engaged  in  war.  We  saw  that  our  attendants 
attached  themselves,  in  a  particular  manner,  to  the  three 
soldiers  that  were  driving  the  cow,  and  held  a  short  con- 
versation with  them.  Soon  after,  we  arrived  at  the  hither- 
most  bank  of  the  river,  where  I  thought  we  were  to  pitch 
our  tent:  the  drivers  suddenly  tripped  up  the  cow,  and  gave 
the  poor  animal  a  very  rude  fall  upon  the  ground,  which 
was  but  the  beginning  of  her  sufferings.  One  of  them  sat 
across  her  neck,  holding  down  her  head  by  the  horns,  the 
other  twisted  the  halter  about  her  fore  feet,  while  the  third, 
who  had  a  knife  in  his  hand,  to  my  very  great  surprise,  in 
place  of  taking  her  by  the  throat,  got  astride  upon  her  belly, 
before  her  hind  legs,  and  gave  her  a  very  deep  wound  in 
the  upper  part  of  the  buttock.  From  the  time  I  had  seen 
them  throw  the  beast  upon  the  ground,  I  had  rejoiced, 
thinking  that  when  three  people  were  killing  a  cow,  they 
must  have  agreed  to  sell  part  of  her  to  us ;  and  I  was  much 
disappointed  upon  hearing  the  Abyssinians  say,  that  we 
were  to  pass  the  river  to  the  other  side,  and  not  encamp 
■vvhere  I  intended.  Upon  my  proposing  they  should  bar- 
gain for  part  of  the  cow,  my  men  answered,  what  they  had 
already  learned  in  conversation,  that  they  were  not  then 
to  kill  her :  that  she  was  not  wholly  theirs,  and  they  could 
not  sell  her.  This  awakened  my  curiosity;  I  let  my 
people  go  forward,  and  stayed  myself,  till  I  saw,  with  the 
utmost  astonishment,  two  pieces,  thicker  and  longer  than 
our  ordinary  beef  steaks,  cut  out  of  the  higher  part  of  the 
buttock  of  the  beast :  how  it  was  done  I  cannot  positively 
say,  because,  judging  the  cow  was  to  be  killed  from  the 
moment  I  saw  the  knife  drawn,  I  was  not  anxious  to  view 
that  catastrophe,  which  was  by  no  means  an  object  of  cu- 
riosity :  whatever  way  it  was  done,  it  surely  was  adroitly, 


and  the  two  pieces  were  spread  upon  the  outside  of  one  of 
their  shields.  One  of  them  still  continued  holding  the 
head,  while  the  other  two  were  busy  in  curing  the  wound. 
This,  too,  was  done  not  in  an  ordinary  manner.  The  skin, 
which  had  covered  the  flesh  that  was  taken  away,  was  left 
entire,  and  flapped  over  the  wound,  and  was  fastened  to 
the  corresponding  part  by  two  or  more  s]*all  skewers  or 

Eins.  Whether  they  had  put  any  thing  under  the  skin, 
etM'^een  that  and  the  wounded  flesh,  I  know  not ;  but,  at 
the  river-side  where  they  were,  they  had  prepared  a  cata- 
plasm of  clay,  with  which  they  covered  the  wound ;  they 
then  forced  the  animal  to  rise,  and  drove  it  on  before  them, 
to  furnish  them  with  a  fuller  meal  when  they  should  meet 
their  companions  in  the  evening."  (  Travels,  vol.  iii.  p.  142.) 
"  We  have  an  instance,  in  the  life  of  Saul,  that  shows  the 
propensity  of  the  Israelites  to  this  crime:  Saul's  army, 
after  a  battle,  Jlew,  that  is,  fell  voraciously  upon  the  cattle 
they  had  taken,  and  threw  them  upon  the  ground  to  cut  off 
their  flesh,  and  eat  them  raw ;  so  that  the  army  was  defiled 
by  eating  blood,  or  living  animals:  1  Sam.  xiv.  33.  To 
prevent  this,  Saul  caused  to  be  rolled  to  him  a  great  stone, 
and  ordered  those  that  killed  their  oxen,  to  cut  their  throats 
upon  that  stone.  This  was  the  only  lawful  way  of  killing 
animals  for  food;  the  tying  of  the  ox,  and  throwing  it 
upon  the  ground,  were  not  permitted  as  equivalent.  The 
Israelites  did  probably,  in  that  case,  as  the  Abyssinians  do 
at  this  day ;  they  cut  a  part  of  its  throat,  so  that  blood  might 
be  seen  on  the  ground,  but  nothing  mortal  to  the  animal 
followed  from  that  wound :  but,  after  laying  his  head  upon 
a  large  stone,  and  cutting  his  throat,  the  blood  fell  from  jn 
high,  or  was  poured  on  the  ground  like  water,  and  suffi- 
cient evidence  appeared  that  the  creature  was  dead,  before 
it  was  attempted  to  eat  it.  We  have  seen  that  the  Abyssi- 
nians came  from  Palestine  a  very  few  years  after  this,  and 
we  are  not  to  doubt,  that  they  then  carried  with  them  this, 
with  many  other  Jewish  customs,  which  they  have  con- 
tinued to  this  day."  (Bruce's  Travels,  vol.  iii.  p.  299.)  To 
corroborate  the  account  given  by  Mr.  Bruce,  in  these 
extracts,  it  may  be  satisfactory  to  affix  what  Mr.  Antes  has 
sqjd  upon  the  subject,  in  his  Observations  on  the  Man- 
ners and  Customs  of  the  Egj'ptians,  p.  17.  "When  Mr. 
Bruce  returned  from  Abyssinia,  I  was  at  Grand  Cairo.  I 
had  the  pleasure  of  his  company  for  three  months  almost 
every  day,  and  having,  at  that  time,  myself  an  idea  of 
penetrating  into  Abyssinia,  I  was  very  inquisitive  about 
that  coimtry,  on  hearing  many  things  from  him  which 
seemed  almost  incredible  to  me ;  I  used  to  ask  his  Greek 
servant  Michael,  (a  simple  fellow,  incapable  of  any  inven- 
tion,) about  the  same  circumstance,  and  must  say,  that  he 
commonly  agreed  with  his  master,  as  to  the  chief  points. 
The  description  Mr.  Bruce  makes  concerning  the  bloody 
banquet  of  live  oxen  among  the  natives,  he  happened 
never  to  mention  to  me,  else  I  could  have  made  the  same 
inquiry;  but  I  heard  not  onlv  this  servant,  but  many  eye- 
witnesses, often  speak  of  the  Abyssinians  eating  raw  meat." 
On  the  general  veracity  of  Bruce  as  a  traveller,  Madden 
observes,  "  Whatever  have  been  the  petty  jealousy  and 
egotism  of  Bruce,  he  was  an  enterprising  and  intelligent 
traveller ;  and  his  general  descriptions  are  better  entitled  to 
credit  than  those  of  the  travellers  who  have  reviled  him. 
Mr.  Coffin  has  just  arrived  here  after  a  residence  of  eighteen 
years  in  Abyssinia:  this  gentleman  assures  me,  that  those 
ipoints  in  his  travels  which  are  most  disputed  in  England, 
are  the  points  which  are  most  correct :  he  showed  me  how 
the  flesh  was  taken  from  the  glutaei  muscles  of  the  living 
bullock,  dissected  out  without  wounding  the  bloodvessels. 
Mr.  Coffin  performed  this  operation  here  upon  the  living 
animal,  in  presence  of  Lord  Prudhoe,  and  Mr.  Burton,  one 
of  our  most  intelligent  travellers." — Madden's  Travels. 

Vcr.  29.  And  all  the  days  of  Noah  were  nine 
hundred  and  fifty  years :  and  he  died. 

In  asking  the  age  of  a  child  or  a  man,  the  inquiry  is  not 
how  many  years,  but,  "Days  how  many?" — In  sp'eaking 
of  a  man  who  will  die  soon — "  Ah !  in  five  years  his  days 
will  be  gone.  That  young  man  has  gray  hairs ;  to  him  how 
many  days  1  he  has  seen  twenty-six  years." — Roberts. 

Chap.  1 1.  ver.  1.  And  the  whole  earth  was  of  one 

language,  and  of  one  speech. 
See  on  ver.  4,  and  on  chap.  2.  20. 


GENESIS 


Chap.  11, 


Ver.  3.  And  they  said  one  to  another,  Go  to,  let 
us  make  brick,  and  burn  them  thoroughly. 
And  they  had^  brick  for  stone,  and  slime  had 
they  for  mortar. 

The  soil  of  ancient  Assyria  and  Babylonia  consists 
of  a  fine  clay,  mixed  with  sand,  with  which,  as  the. waters 
of  the  river  retire,  the  shores  are  covered.  This  compost, 
when  dried  by  the  heat  of  the  sun,  becomes  a  hard  and 
solid  mass,  and  forms  the  finest  material  for  the  beautiful 
bricks  for  which  Babylon  was  so  celebrated.  We  all 
put  to  the  test  the  adaptation  of  this  mud  for  pottery,  by 
taking^  some  of  it  while  wet  from  the  bank  of  the  river,  and 
Then  moulding  it  into  any  form  we  pleased.  Having  been 
exposed  to  the  sun  for  half  an  hour,  it  became  as  hard  as 
stone.  These  remarks  are  important,  as  the  indications  of 
buildings  throughout  this  region  are  different  from  those 
of  other  countries,  the  universal  substitution  of  brick  for 
stone  being  observable  in  all  the  numerous  ruins  we  visit- 
ed, including  those  of  the  great  cities  of  Seleucia,  Ctesi- 
phon,  and  of  the  mighty  Babylon  herself,  for  which  we 
have  the  authority  of  Scripture,  that  her  builders  "  had 
brick  for  stone,  and  slime  had  they  for  mortar."  In  con- 
sequence of  this  circumstance,  the  ruins  now  before  us, 
which  our  guide  called  Mumliheh,  instead  of  showing 
fragments  of  pillars,  or  any  marks  by  which  we  might  con- 
jecture the  order  of  architecture,  exhibit  an  accumulation 
of  mounds,  which,  on  a  dead  flat,  soon  attract  the  eye  of  a 
traveller,  and  have  at  first  sight  the  appearance  of  sandy 
hillocks.  On  a  nearer  inspection  they  prove  to  be  square 
masses  of  brick,  facing  the  cardinal  points,  and,  though 
sometimes  much  worn  by  the  weather,  built  with  much  reg- 
ularity; the  neighbourhood  of  these  large  mounds  is 
strewed  with  fragments  of  tile,  broken  pottery,  and  manu- 
factured vitreous  substances.  Coins,  the  incontestible 
proofs  of  former  population,  are  generally  to  be  found. 
In  this  place,  they  are  so  abundant,  that  many  persons 
come  from  Bagdad  in  the  dry  season  to  search  for  them. 
Aboo  Nasir  told  us,  that  some  time  ago  he  found  a  pot 
full  of  coins,  and  Mr.  Hart  picked  up  two,  with  apparency 
Cufic  inscriptions,  but  their  characters  were  not  very  de- 
cipherable. Near  the  place  where  they  were  found,  was 
the  fragment  of  a  vessel  which  had  possibly  contained 
them. — Keppel. 

Ver.  4.  And  they  said,  Go  to,  let  us  build  us  a 
city,  and  a  tower,  whose  top  may  reach  unto 
heaven ;  and  let  us  make  us  a  name,  lest  we 
be  scattered  abroad  upon  the  face  of  the  whole 
earth. 

The  words  in  which  they  couched  their  daring  resolu- 
tion, "  Let  us  build  us  a  city,  and  a  tower,  whose  top  may 
reach  unto  heaven,"  mean  no  more  than  a  tower  of  ex- 
traordinary height.  Such  phrases  may  be  found  in  every 
language;  and  their  meaning  can  scarcely  be  misunder- 
stood. When  the  messengers  w^hom  Moses  employed  to 
examine  the  land  of  Canaan,  returned  and  made  their 
report,  they  described  the  cities  which  they  had  visited,  as 
great  and  walled  up  to  heaven :  and  Moses  himself,  in  his 
farewell  address  to  the  congregation,  repeats  it;  "Hear, 
O  Israel,  thou  art  to  pass  over  Jordan  this  day,  to  go  in  to 
possess  nations  ^m^ier  and  mightier  than  thyself,  cities 
great  and  fenced  up  to  heaven."  The  meaning  of  these 
phrases  plainly  is,  that  the  walls  of  those  cities  were  un- 
commonly strong  and  lofty.  That  the  builders  of  Babel 
meant  no  more,  is  further  evident  from  the  words  of  Jeho- 
vah, recorded  by  Moses.  "  Now  nothing  will  be  restrained 
from  them  which  they  have  imagined  to  do."  It  is  here 
plainly  admitted,  that  the  design  was  practicable,  and  had 
been  accomplished,  if  God  had  not  thought  proper  to 
interrupt  their  operations.  But  to  build  a  tower,  the  top  of 
which  should  actually  reach  unto  heaven,  is  beyond  the 
power  of  mortals.  The  opinion  of  Josephus  is  not  much 
mere  reasonable ;  that  their  design  Avas  to  raise  a  tower 
higher  far  than  the  summits  of  the  highest  mountains,  to 
defend  them  from  the  waters  of  a  second  flood,  of  which 
they  were  afraid.  Had  this  been  their  design,  they  would 
not  have  commenced  their  operations  on  the  level  plain, 
^".t  on  tne  top  of  Ararat,  where  the  ark  rested.  They  had 
the  aj^emn  promise  of  Jehovah,  that  he  would  no  more 


destroy  the  earth  by  water  ;  and  beheld  the  ratification  of 
it  in  the  radiant  bow  of  heaven,  placed  in  the  cloud  to 
quiet  the  fears  of  guilty  mortals.  If  the  Noachidag  had 
distrusted  the  promise  and  sign  of  heaven,  they  had  not 
descended  from  the  mountains,  where  only  they  could 
hope  for  safety  from  the  strength  and  height  of  their  tower, 
into  the  plains  of  Babylonia,  and  fixed  their  abode  between 
two  mighty  rivers,  to  whose  frequent  inundations  that 
province  is  exposed.  Nor  could  they  be  so  infatuated  as 
to  imagine,  that  a  tower  constructed  of  bricks,  whether 
hardened  in  the  sun,  or  burnt  in  the  fire,  could  resist  the 
waters  of  a  general  deluge,  whose  impetuous  assault,  as 
they  must  have  well  known,  the  strong  barriers  of  nature 
could  hardly  endure.  Equally  inadmissible  is  the  notion, 
that  they  constructed  this  tower  to  defend  them  from  the 
general  conflagration,  of  which  they  are  supposed  to  have 
received  some  obscure  and  imperfect  notices;  for  in  the 
destruction  of  the  world,  who  could  hope  to  find  safety  in  the 
recesses  of  a  tower,  or  on  the  summit  of  the  mouiitains  1 
they  would  rather  seek^for  refuge  from  the  devouring 
element,  in  the  profound  caverns  of  the  earth. 

But  it  is  vain  to  indulge  in  conjectures,  when  the  true 
reason  is  clearly  stated  in  the  page  of  inspiration  :  "  Let 
us  build  us  a  city,  and  a  tower,  whose  top  may  reach  unto 
heaven  ;  and  let  us  make  us  a  name,  lest  we  be  scattered 
abroad  upon  the  face  of  the  whole  earth."  These  words 
clearly  show,  that  their  object  in  building  the  tower  was, 
to  transmit  a  name  illustrious  for  sublime  conception  and 
bold  undertaking,  to  succeeding  generations.  In  this  sense, 
the  phrase,  to  make  one's  self  a  name,  is  used  in  other  parts 
of  Scripti-^-e.  Thus,  "  David  gat  him  a  name  when  he 
returned  from  smiting  of  the  Syrians  in  the  valley  of  salt;" 
and  the  prophet  informs  us,  that  the  God  of  Israel  "  led 
them  by  the  right  hand  of  Moses,  with  his  glorious  arm 
dividing  the  waters  before  them,  to  make  himself  an  ever- 
lasting name."  They  seem  also  to  have  intended  it  as  a 
beacon  or  rallying  point,  to  their  increasing  and  naturally 
diverging  families,  to  prevent  them  from  separating  in  the 
boundless  wilderness  into  independent  and  hostile  societies. 
This  may  be  inferred  from  these  words,  in  which  they 
further  explain  the  motive  of  their  undertaking:  'lest  we 
be  scattered  abroad  on  the  face  of  the  whole  earth."  They 
seem  to  have  anticipated  the  necessity,  and  dreaded  the 
consequences  of  dispersion;  and,  like  all  who  seek  to  avert 
evil  by  imlawful  means,  they  hastened,  by  the  rash  and 
impious  measure  which  they  adopted,  the  very  mischief 
they  sought  to  avoid.  To  build  a  city  and  a  tower  was 
certainly  no  crime  ;  but  to  do  this  with  a  view  merely  to 
transmit  an  illustrious  name  to  posterity,  or  to  thwart  the 
counsels  of  heaven,  was  both  foolish  and  wicked,  and 
justly  excited  the  displeasure  of  the  supreme  Judge,  who 
requires  his  rational  creatures  to  acknowledge  and  to 
glorify  him  in  all  their  undertakings. 

It  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  this  tower  was  also 
intended  for  idolatrous  purposes.  The  worship  of  fire 
began  in  a  very  remote  age,  and  most  probably  under  the 
direction  and  among  the  rebellious  followers  of  Nirarod. 
This  idea  receives  no  small  confirmation  from  the  numer- 
ous fire  towers  which  in  succeeding  ages  were  built  in 
Chaldea,  where  the  sacred  fire  was  kept,  and  the  religions 
rites  in  honour  of  the  sun  were  celebrated.  If  this  con- 
jecture be  well  founded,  it  accounts  in  the  most  satisfactory 
manner,  for  the  sudden  and  effectual  dispersion  of  the 
builders,  visibly  and  strongly  marking  the  first  combined  ?ct 
of  idolatry  after  the  flood,  of  which  we  have  any  notice,  with 
the  displeasure  of  the  true  God.  Guilty  of  the  same  crime 
which  procured  the  sudden  dispersion  of  the  first  settlers  ax 
Babel,  was  the  restorer  of  that  great  city,  when  he  proudly 
boasted,  "Is  not  this  great  Babylon  which  I  have  builded 
for  the  house  of  the  kingdom,  by  the  might  of  my  power, 
and  for  the  honour  of  my  majesty :"  and  he  was  in'^tanfly 
visited  with  a  similar  punishment,  but  proport'.oned  to  the 
greater  enormity  of  his  transgression;  for  the  place  should 
have  reminded  him  of  the  sin  and  punishment  of  his  fore- 
fathers, and  taught  him  to  guard  against  the  pride  and 
vanity  of  his  heart.  Nebuchadnezzar  was,  for  his  wici.-ed- 
ness,  driven  from  bis  throne  and  kingdom,  to  dwell  with 
the  beasts  of  the  field,  and  eat  grass  like  oxen,  "  till  seven 
times  passed  over  him ;"  till  the  sun  had  seven  times  passed 
over  his  appointed  circuit,  and  he  had  learned  "that  the 
most  High  ruleth  in  the  kingdom  of  men,  and  giveth  it  to 
whomsoever  he  will."    But  his  irreligious  ancestors  were 


Chap.  13. 


GENESIS. 


19 


punished  with  dispersion,  by  confounding  their  language. 
Till  this  memorable  event,  "the  inspired  writer  assures  us, 
the  whole  earth  was  of  one  language  and  one  speech. 
When  Jehovah  came  down  to  see  the  tower  which  the 
Babylonians  were  building,  he  said,  "  Behold,  the  people  is 
one,' and  they  have  all  one  language."  They  formed  one 
great  society,  and  conversed  in  the  tongue  which  they  had 
learned  from  those  who  lived  before  the  flood  ;  and  which 
was  the  only  language  spoken  on  earth  from  the  beginning 
of  the  world :  for  no  hint  of  any  confusion  of  language,  or 
even  material  diversity  of  speech,  before  the  building  of 
Babel,  is  given  in  the  sacred  volume.  It  is  exceedingly 
natural  to  suppose,  that  the  devout  Seth,  and  his  religious 
descendants,  would  preserve  with  care  the  family  tongue 
in  which  God  conversed  with  their  renowned  father;  in 
which  the  first  promise  was  given  to  sinners,  and  many 
subsequent  revelations  were  made.  The  language  of  our 
fathers  is  not  easily  changed,  if  we  were  so  disposed ;  but 
no  man  is  willing  to  change  it ;  and  a  religious  man  will 
be  yet  more  averse  to  relinquish  a  language  which  contains 
the  only  grounds  of  his  hope,  and  that  of  the  whole  human 
race.  We  may  therefore  conclude,  that  since  this  language 
had  so  many  claims  on  the  affectionate  care  of  Seth,  he 
would  certainly  hand  it  down,  with  the  gospel  it  contained, 
to  his  children,  that  they  might  teach  it  to  succeeding  gener- 
ations, till  it  was  received  by  his  celebrated  descendant 
Noah,  the  second  father  of  our  family.  For  the  same 
reasons,  which  were  daily  receiving  additional  strength, 
Shem  would  preserve  with  pious  care  the  sacred  deposit, 
till  he  delivered  it  into  the  hands  of  Abraham,  with  whom 
he  lived  about  two  hundred  years.  The  line  of  descent, 
by  which  the  primitive  language  might  be  transmitted  from 
Adam  to  Abraham,  and  from  this  patriarch  to  Moses,  is 
short  and  straight;  for  between  Adam  and  Noah  were 
only  eight  persons,  and  the  father  of  Noah  was  fifty-six 
years  old  when  Adam  died.  The  only  interruption  is  the 
confusion  of  tongues,  which  happened  after  the  flood.  But 
though  God  confounded  the  speech  of  mankind  at  Babel,  it 
is  not  said  he  extinguished  the  general  language ;  nor  that 
he  confounded  the  speech  of  any  but  the  colony  at  Babel. 
These  only  were  in  the  transgression,  and,  therefore,  these 
only  were  liable  to  the  punishment.  Noah,  and  the  rest  of 
his  family,  persevering  in  their  dutiful  obedience  to  God, 
undoubtedly  retained  their  language,  together  with  their 
ancient  habitations.  It  may  be  urged  that,  by  the  testimo- 
ny of  Moses,  the  Lord  confounded  at  Babel,  "the  language 
of  all  the  earth."  But  the  plain  of  Shinar  could,  with  no 
propriety,  be  called  the  whole  earth ;  nor  could  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Shinar,  by  any  figure  of  speech,  be  entitled  to  that 
name.  If  mankind  were  in  possession  of  a  great  part  of 
the  globe  when  the  tower  was  built,  by  what  rule  of  justice 
could  thev  be  punished  for  a  crime  in  which  they  had  no 
share,  and  of  which  multitudes  of  the  distant  settlers  could 
not  even  have  heard '?  "  Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth  do  right  V  The  truth  of  this  history  depends  upon 
two  terms,  which  admit  of  different  senses.  In  the  first 
verse  of  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Genesis,  the  sacred  histo- 
rian says.  The  whole  earth  was  of  one  language  and  of  one 
speech.  The  word  (Sd)  Col,  signifies  the  wJwle,  and  also 
every;  by  (y-is)  Arets,  is  often  meant  the  earth,  it  also  signi- 
fies a  land  or  province ;  and  occurs  frequently  in  this  latter 
acceptation.  In  this  very  chapter,  the  region  of  Shinar  is 
called  Arets  Shinar,  the  land  or  province  of  Shinar;  and 
the  land  of  Canaan,  Arets  Canaan,  the  country  of  Canaan. 
The  psalmist  uses  both  terms  in  precisely  the  same  sense  : 
"  Their  sound  is  gone  out  into  every  land,"  Col  Arets. 
The  words  of  Moses,  then,  ought  to  be  rendered,  Therefore 
is  the  name  of  it  called  Babel;  because  the  Lord  did  there 
confound  the  language  of  the  whole  land.  If  this  view  of 
the  text  be  just,  the  dispersion  was  a  partial  event,  and 
related  chiefly  to  the  sons  of  Cush,  whose  intention  was 
to  found  a  great,  if  not  a  universal  empire ;  but  by  this 
judgment  their  purpose  was  defeated.  The  language  of 
the  whole  country,  Mr.  Bryant  thinks,  was  confounded, 
by  causing  a  labial  failure,  so  that  the  people  could  not 
articulate.  It  was  not  an  aberration,  in  words  or  language, 
but  a  failure  and  incapacity  in  labial  utterance ;  for  God 
said,  "  Go  to,  let  us  go  down  and  confound,  noty,  their  lip, 
that  they  may  not  understand  one  another's  speech."  By 
this,  their  speech  was  confounded,  but  not  altered ;  for,  as 
soon  as  they  separated,  they  recovered  the  true  tenor  of 
pronunciation;  and  the  language  of  the  earth  continued, 


for  some  ages,  nearly  the  same.  This  appears,  from  many- 
interviews  between  the  Hebrews,  and  other  nations,  in 
which  they  spoke  without  an  interpreter.  Thus,  when 
Abraham  left  his  native  country  to  sojourn  in  the  land  of 
promise,  he  conversed  with  the  natives  in  their  own  lai  - 
guage,  without  difficulty,  though  they  were  the  descendants 
of  Canaan,  who,  for  his  transgression  at  Babel,  was  driven, 
by  the  divine  judgments,  from  the  chosen  residence  of  his 
family.  The  Hebrew  language,  indeed,  seems  to  ha^ve 
been  the  vernacular  tongue  of  all  the  nations  in  those  parts 
of  the  world ;  for  the  patriarchs,  and  their  descendants,  so 
late  as  the  days  of  Moses  and  Joshua,  conversed  familiarly 
with  the  inhabitants  of  Midian  and  Canaan,  without  the 
help  of  interpreters. — Paxton. 

Chap.  13.  ver.  3.  And  he  went  on  his  journeys 
from  the  south  even  to  Beth-el,  unto  the  place 
where  his  tent  had  been  at  the  beginning,  be- 
tween Beth-el  and  Hai. 

Abraham,  and  the  other  patriarchs,  led  a  wandering 
shepherd's  life  in  tents,  such  as  the  Arabs,  Turcomans, 
and  numerous  tribes  of  eastern  Asia,  lead  to  this  day  in  the 
same  countries.  Divided  into  tribes,  they  traverse  immense 
tracts  with  their  numerous  herds,  consisting  of  camels,  oxen, 
and  especially  sheep  and  goats ;  and  when  the  pasture  of 
a  district  is  exhausted,  the  tents  are  taken  down,  and  the 
whole  family,  or  the  whole  tribe,  removes  to  another  spot. 
"Each  of  these  tribes,"  says  Volncy,  "of  the  Bedouin 
Arabs  appropriates  to  itself  a  certain  tract,  which  it  consid- 
ers as  its  property.  They  difter  from  agricultural  nations 
pnly  so  far,  as  such  tracts  must  be  far  more  extensive  ti) 
procure  subsistence  for  their  flocks  all  the  year  round. 
One  man's  camps  distributed  over  such  a  tract,  form  a 
tribe  ;  they  traverse  the  whole  in  succession,  as  they  have 
consumed  with  their  flocks  the  pastures  in  one  place." 
The  following  account  by  Parsons  (Travels  from  Alep- 
po to  Bagdad,  p.  109)  of  the  movement  of  an  Arab  horde,  is 
illustrative  of  the  manners  of  the  old  patriarchs.  "  It  was 
entertaining  enough  to  see  the  horde  of  Arabs  decamp, 
as  nothing  could  be  more  regular.  First  went  the  sheep 
and  goatherds,  each  with  their  flocks  in  divisions,  accord- 
ing as  the  chief  of  each  family  directed ;  then  followed 
the  camels  and  asses,  loaded  with  the  tents,  furniture,  and 
kitchen  utensils ;  these  were  followed  by  the  old  men, 
women,  boys,  and  girls,  on  foot.  The  children  that  cannot  ^ 
walk  are  carried  on  the  backs  of  the  young  women,  or  the 
boys  and  girls ;  and  the  smallest  of  "the  lambs  and  kids 
are  carried  under  the  arms  of  the  children.  To  each  tent 
belong  many  dogs,  among  which  are  some  greyhounds ; 
some  tents  have  from  ten  to  fourteen  dogs,  and  from  twenty, 
to  thirty  men,  women,  and  children,  belonging  to  it.  The 
procession  is  closed  by  the  chief  of  the  tribe,  whom  they 
call  emir  and  father,  (emir  means  prince,)  mounted  on 
the  very  best  horse,  and  surrounded  by  the  heads  of  each 
family,  all  on  horses,  with  many  servants  on  foot.  Be- 
tween each  family  is  a  division  or  space  of  one  hundred 
yards,  or  more,  when  they  migrate ;  and  such  great  regu- 
larity is  observed,  that  neither  camels,  asses,  sheep,  ncr 
dogs,  mix,  but  each  keeps  to  the  division  to  which  it  be- 
longs, without  the  least  trouble.  They  bad  been  here 
eight  days,  and  were  going  four  hours  journey  to  the  north- 
west, to  another  spring  of  water.  This  tribe  consisted  of 
about  eight  hundred  and  fifty  men,  women,  and  children. 
Their  flocks  of  sheep  and  goats  were  about  five  thousand, 
besides  a''  great  number  of  camels,  horses,  and  asses. 
Horses  and  greyhounds  they  breed  and  train  up  for  sale : 
they  neither  kill  nor  sell  their  ewe  lambs.  At  set  times  a 
chapter  in  the  Koran  is  read  by  the  chief  of  each  family, 
either  in  or  near  each  tent,  the  whole  family  being  gather- 
ed roimd,  and  very  attentive." 

The  Compte  de  Ferkieres  Sauveboeup  describes  the 
manner  of  an  Arab  horde  moving  to  a  fresh  pasturage. 
"  Their  wandering  life,  without  ambition,  brings  to  the 
mind  of  the  traveller  that  of  the  ancient  patriarchs.  No- 
thing is  more  interesting  than  their  manner  of  changing 
their  abode.  Numerous  flocks,  which  precede  the  caravan, 
express  by  their  bleating,  their  joy  at  reluming  to  their 
old  pastures.  Some  beasts  of  burden,  guided  by  the  young 
men,  bear  the  little  ones  just  dropped,  and  not  able  to  trav- 
el; then  come  the  camels  carrying  the  baggage,  and  the 


20 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  I*. 


old  or  sick  women.  The  rest  go  on  foot,  carrying  their 
infants  on  their  backs  or  in  their  arms ;  and  the  men,  mount- 
ed on  the  horses,  armed  with  lances,  ride  round,  or  bring 
up  the  march  of  the  cattle,  which  loiter  behind,  browsing 
>  JO  long  a  time.  In  this  manner  the  Arabs  journey,  and 
find  their  homes,  their  hearths,  and  their  country,  in  every 
lace." — BuRDEK. 

Ver.  7.  And  there  was  a  strife  between  the  herd- 
men  of  Abram's  cattle  and  the  herdmen  of  Lot's 
cattle. 

How  often  have  I  been  reminded  of  the  strife  of  the  herd- 
men  of  the  scriptures,  by  seeing,  on  a  distant  plain,  a  num- 
ber of  shepherds  or  husbandmen  struggling  together  re- 
specting some  of  the  same  causes  which  promoted  strife  in 
the  patriarchal  age.  The  fields  are  not,  as  in  England, 
enclosed  by  fences ;  there  is  simply  a  ridge  which  divides 
one  from  another.  Hence  the  cattle  belonging  to  one  per- 
son find  no  difficulty  in  straying  into  the  field  of  another, 
and  the  shepherds  themselves  have  so  little  principle,  that 
they  gladly  take  advantage  of  it.  Nothing  is  more  com- 
mon than  for  a  man,  when  the  sun  has  gone  down,  thus  to 
injure  his  neighbour.  The  time  when  most  disputes  take 
place,  is  when  the  paddy,  or  rice,  has  been  newly  cut,  as 
the  grass  left  among  the  stubble  is  then  long  and  green. 
The  herdmen  at  that  time  become  very  tenacious,  and  wo 
to  the  ox,  if  within  reach  of  stick  or  stone,  until  he  shall 
get  into*  his  OAvn  field.  Then  the  men  of  the  other  party 
start  up  on  seeing  their  cattle  beaten,  and  begin  to  swear 
and  decla'-e  h»iw  often  the  others  have  done  the  saine  thing. 
They  now  approach  each  other,  vociferating  the  most  op- 
probrious epithets:  the  hands  swiftly  move  about  in  every 
direction ;  one  pretends  to  take  up  a  stone,  or  spits  on  the 
ground  in  token  of  contempt ;  and  then  comes  the  contest 
— the  long  hair  is  soon  dishevelled,  and  the  weaker  fall  be- 
neath their  antagonists.  Then  begins  the  beating,  biting, 
and  scratching,  till  in  their  cruel  rage  they  have  nearly 
destroyed  some  of  the  party.  The  next  business  is  with 
the  magistrate:  all  are  clamorous  for  justice;  and  great 
must  be  his  patience,  and  great  his  discernment,  to  find 
out  the  truth. 

Another  common  cause  of  strife  is  that  which  took  place 
between  the  herdmen  of  Gerar  and  those  of  Isaac.  Water 
is  at  all  times  very  precious  in  the  East,  but  especially  in 
the  dry  season ;  as  the  tanks  are  then  nearly  exhausted,  and 
what  remains  is  scarcely  fit  for  use.  At  that  time  recourse 
must  be  had  to  the  wells ;  which  are  often  made  at  the  ex- 
pense or  labour  of  five,  ten,  or  twenty  people.  Here,  then, 
is  the  cause  of  contention.  One  man  has  numerous  herds ; 
he  gets  i\veve  first,  and  almost  exhausts  the  well ;  the  others 
come,  and,  seeing  what  is  done,  begin  the  affray.  But  the 
most  common  cause  of  quarrel  is  when  the  owners  of  the 
well  have  to  irrigate  their  lands  from  the  same  source.  To 
prevent  these  contests,  they  have  generally  each  an  ap- 
pointed time  for  watering  their  lands ;  or,  it  may  be,  that 
those  who  get  there  first,  shall  have  the  privilege :  but  where 
there  is  so  little  integrity,  it  is  no  wonder  there  should  be 
so  much  strife. — Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  And  Lot  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  beheld 
all  the  plain  of  Jordan,  that  it  was  well  watered 
every  where,  before  the  Lord  destroyed  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah,  even  as  the  garden  of  the  Lord, 
like  the  land  of  Egypt,  as  thou  comest  unto 
Zoar. 

The  Jordan  flows  from  the  Lake  of  Genesareth  to  the 
Dead  Sea,  betAveen  two  ridges  of  moderately  high  moun- 
tains, in  a  valley  that  may  be  about  twelve  miles  in  breadth. 
This  valley  opens  at  Jericho,  and  encloses  within  it  the 
Dead  Sea,  which  is  surrounded  by  a  circle  of  mountains. 
Before  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  there  was, 
however,  no  lake  here ;  but  all  this  was  a  vallev,  which 
Moses  calls  the  vale  of  Siddim.  It  is  probable,  that  even 
at  that  time  there  was  a  lake  under  this  valley,  in  which 
the  Jordan  discharged  itself,  which  otherwise  could  have 
had  no  vent.  This  subterraneous  lake  was  covered  with 
a  thick  coat  of  earth,  on  which,  besides  Sodom  and  Gomor- 
rah, other  cities  stood.  This  being  the  nature  of  the 
ground,  it  could  never  be  deficient  in  the  requisite  moist- 


ure, and  besides  it  was  doubtless  watered  by  canals  sup- 
plied from  the  Jordan.  In  this  view  Moses  compares  ii 
with  Egypt,  which  was  watered  by  innumerable  canaLs 
led  from  the  Nile,  and  cultivated  like  a  garden. — Burder. 

Chap.  14.  ver.  3.  All  these  were  joined  together 
in  the  vale  of  Siddim,  which  is  the  salt  sea. 

The  lake  Asphaltites,  or  the  Dead  Sea,  is  enclosed  on 
the  east  and  west  with  exceeding  high  mountains ;  on  the 
north  it  is  bounded  with  the  plain  of  Jericho,  on  which 
side  it  receives  the  waters  of  the  Jordan ;  on  the  south  it  is 
open,  and  extends  beyond  the  reach  of  the  eye.  It  is  said 
to  be  twenty-four  leagues  long,  and  six  or  seven  broad ;  and 
is  fringed  with  a  kind  of  coppice  of  bushes  and  reeds.  In 
the  midst  of  this  border,  not  a  furlong  from  the  sea,  rises 
a  fountain  of  brackish  water,  which  was  pointed  out  to 
Maundrell  by  his  Arab  conductor ;  a  sure  proof  that  the 
soil  is  not  equally  impregnated  with  saline  particles.  The 
ground,  to  the  distance  of  half  an  hour  from  the  sea,  is 
uneven  and  broken  into  hillocks,  which  Mr.  Maundrell 
compares  to  ruinous  lime-kilns  ;  but  whether  these  might 
be  the  pits  at  Avhich  the  kings  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah 
were  overthrown  by  the  four  kings  who  invaded  their 
country,  he  could  not  determine. — Paxton. 

As  it  has  no  outlet,  Reland,  Pococke,  and  other  trav- 
ellers, have  supposed  that  it  must  throw  off  its  superfluous 
waters  by  some  subterraneous  channel;  but,  although  it 
has  been  calculated  that  the  Jordan  daily  discharges  into 
it  6,090,000  tons  of  water,  besides  what  it  receives  from  the 
Arnon  and  several  smaller  streams,  it  is  now  known,  that 
the  loss  by  evaporation  is  adequate  to  explain  the  absorption 
of  the  waters.  Its  occasional  rise  and  fall  at  certain  sea-, 
sons,  is  doubtless  owing  to  the  greater  or  less  volume  which 
the  Jordan  and  the  other  streams  bring  down  from  the 
mountains. — Modern  Traveller. 

The  water  of  the  lake  is  intensely  salt,  extremely  bitter 
and  nauseous,  and  so  heavy,  that  the  most  impetuous  winds 
can  scarcely  ruffle  its  surYace.  It  is  called  by  common 
writers  the  Dead  Sea,  because  it  nourishes  neither  animal 
nor  vegetable  life.  No  verdure  is  to  be  seen  on  its  banks, 
nor  fish  to  be  found  within  its  waters ;  but  it  is  not  true 
that  its  exhalations  are  so  pestiferous  as  to  kill  birds  that 
attempt  to  fly  over  it.  Mr.  Maundrell  saw  several  birds 
flying  about,  and  skimming  the  surface  of  its  waters,  with- 
out any  visible  harm.  The  same  fact  is  attested  by  Vol- 
ney,  who  states  it  as  no  uncommon  thing  to  see  swallows 
dipping  for  the  water  necessary  to  build  their  nests.  The 
true  cause  that  deprives  it  of  vegetables  and  animals,  is  the 
extreme  saltness  of  the  water,  which  is  vastly  stronger  than 
that  of  the  sea.  The  soil  around  it,  impregnated  also  with 
salt,  produces  no  plants ;  and  the  air  itself,  which  becomes 
loaded  with  saline  particles  from  evaporation,  and  which 
receives  also  the  sulphureous  and  bituminous  vapours,  can- 
not be  favourable  to  vegetation :  hence  the  deadly  aspect 
which  reigns  around  this  lake.  The  ground  about  it,  how- 
ever, is  not  marshy,  and  its  waters  are  limpid  and  incor- 
ruptible, as  must  be  the  case  with  a  dissolution  of  salt.  Mr. 
Maundrell  questions  the  truth  of  the  common  tradition, 
which  is  admitted  by  Volney  in  all  its  extent,  that  the 
waters  of  the  Dead  Sea  are  destructive  to  animal  existence, 
having  observed  among  the  pebbles  on  the  shore  two  or 
three  shells  of  fish,  resembling  oyster-shells.  [Mr.  Mad- 
den, however,  savs.  Travels,  vol.  2,  p.  210,  "  I  found  seve- 
ral fresh  water  shells  on  the  beach,  such  as  I  before  noticed 
on  the  Lake  of  Tiberias ;  and  also  the  putrid  reiiiains  of 
two  small  fish,  of  the  size  of  mullet ;  which  no  doubt  had 
been  carried  down  from  the  Jordan,  as  well  as  the  shells 
for  I  am  well  convinced,  both  from  my  own  observatioi 
and  from  the  accounts  of  the  Arabs,  that  no  living  creature 
is  to  be  found  in  the  Dead  Sea."]  That  respectable  travel- 
ler, willing  to  make  an  experiment  of  its  strength,  went 
into  it,  and  found  it  bore  up  his  body  in  swimming,  with  an 
uncommon  force ;  but  the  relation  of  some  authors,  thaJ 
men  wading  in  it  are  buoyed  up  to  the  top  as  soon  as  thi 
water  reaches  to  the  middle,  he  found  upon  experiment  un 
true.  Pococke,  however,  says :  "  I  was  much  pleased  wit] 
what  I  observed  of  this  extraordinary'  water,  and  stayed  ii 
it  near  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  I  found  I  could  lay  on  it  ii 
any  posture,  without  motion,  and  without  sinking.  It  ho- 
me up  in  such  a  manner,  that,  when  I  struck  in  swimming 
my  legs  were  above  the  water,  and  I  found  it  diflicult  tc 


•ft  I 


Chap.  14. 


GENESIS. 


21 


recover  my  feet.  I  did  not  care  to  venture  where  it  was 
deep,  though  these  eifects  would  probably  have  been  more 
remarkable  farther  in.  They  have  a  notion  that  if  any 
one  attempted  to  swim  over,  it  would  burn  up  the  body ; 
and  they  say  the  same  of  boats,  for  there  are  none  on  the 
lake."  Van  Egmont  and  Heyman  state,  that  on  swimming 
to  some  distance  from  the  shore,  they  found  themselves,  to 
their  great  surprise,  lifted  up  by  the  water.  "  When  I  had 
swam  to  some  distance,  I  endeavoured  to  sink  perpendicu- 
larly to  the  bottom,  but  could  not ;  for  the  water  kept  me 
continually  up,  and  would  certainly  have  throwm  me  upon 
my  face,  had  I  not  put  forth  all  the  strength  I  was  master  of, 
to  keep  myself  in  a  perpendicular  posture ;  so  that  I  walked 
in  the  sea  as  if  I  had  trod  on  firm  ground,  without  having 
occasion  to  make  any  of  the  motions  necessary  in  treading 
fresh  water ;  and  when  I  was  swimming,  I  was  obliged  to 
keep  my  legs  the  greatest  part  ot  the  time  out  of  the  water. 
My  fellow-traveller  was  agreeably  surprised  to  find  that 
he  could  swim  here,  having  never  learned.  But  his  case 
and  mine  proceeded  from  the  gravity  of  the  water,  as  this 
certainly  does  from  the  extraordinary  quantity  of  salt  in  it." 
—Modern  Traveller. 

About  six  in  the  morning,  says  Mr.  Madden,  I  reached 
die  shore,  and  much  against  the  advice  of  my  excellent 
?uide,  I  resolved  on  having  a  bath.  I  was  desirous  of 
ascertaining  the  truth  of  the  assertion,  that  "  nothing  sinks 
in  the  Dead  Sea."  I  swam  a  considerable  distance  from 
the  shore ;  and  about  four  yards  from  the  beach  I  was 
Deyond  my  depth :  the  water  was  the  coldest  I  ever  felt, 
and  the  taste  of  it  most  detestable ;  it  was  that  of  a  solution 
of  nitre,  mixed  with  an  infusion  of  quassia.  Its  buoyancy 
I  found  to  be  far  greater  than  that  of  any  sea  I  ever  swam 
in,  not  excepting  the  Euxine,  which  is  extremely  salt.  I 
could  lie  like  a  log  of  wood  on  the  surface,  without  stirring 
hand  or  foot,  as  long  as  I  chose ;  but  with  a  good  deal  of 
exertion  I  could  just  dive  sufficiently  deep  to  cover  all  my 
body,  but  I  was  again  thrown  on  the  surface,  in  spite  of 
my  endeavours  to  descend  lower.  On  coming  out,  the 
wounds  in  my  feet  pained  me  excessively ;  the  poisonous 
quality  of  the  waters  irritated  the  abraded  skin,  and  ulti- 
mately made  an  ulcer  of  every  wound,  which  confined  me 
fifteen  days  in  Jerusalem;  and  became  so  troublesome  in 
Alexandria,  that  my  medical  attendant  was  apprehensive 
of  gangrene. — Madden. 

The  question  of  its  specific  gravity,  indeed,  has  been 
set  to  rest  by  the  chymical  analysis  of  the  waters  made  by 
Dr.  Marcet,  and  published  in  the  London  Philosophical 
Transactions  for  1807.  In  1778,  Messrs.  Lavoisier,  Mac- 
quer,  and  Le  Sage,  had  concluded,  by  experiment,  that  a 
hundred  pounds  of  the  water  contain  forty-five  pounds  six 
ounces  of  salt ;  that  is,  six  pounds  four  ounces  of  common 
marine  salt,  and  thirty-eight  pounds  two  ounces  of  marine 
salt  with  an  earthy  base.  But  Dr.  Marcet's  more  accurate 
analysis  has  determined  the  specific  gravity  to  be  1,211, 
(that  of  the  fresh  water  being  1000,)  a  degree  of  density 
not  to  be  met  with  in  any  other  natural  wat^r ;  and  it  holds 
in  solution  the  following  salts,  in  the  stated  proportions  to 
100  grains  of  the  water :— 


Muriate  of  lime 

3,920  grains 

Muriate  of  magnesia 

10.246 

Muriate  of  soda 

10,360 

Sulphate  of  lime 

0,0M 

24,580 

So  that  the  water  of  the  lake  contains  about  one  fourth  of 
its  weight  of  salts,  supposed  in  a  state  of  perfect  desicca- 
tion ;  or  if  they  be  desiccated  at  the  temperature  of  180^ 
on  Fahrenheit's  scale,  they  will  amount  to  forty-one  per 
cent,  of  the  water.     Its  other  general  properties  are,  that, 

1.  As  stated  by  all  travellers,  it  is  perfectly  transparent. 

2.  Its  *.aste  is  extremely  bitter,  saline,  and  pungent.  3.  Re- 
age^^ts  demonstrate  in  it  the  presence  of  the  marine  and 
sulphuric  acids.  4.  It  contains  no  alumine.  5.  It  is  not 
saturated  with  common  salt.  6.  It  did  not  change  the  col- 
ours of  the  infusions  commonly  used  .o  ascertain  the  prev- 
alence of  an  acid  or  an  alkali,  such  as  litmus,  violet,  and 
tumeric. 

Mr.  Maundrell  neither  saw  nor  heard  of  the  apples  of 
Sodom,  so  frequently  mentioned  by  the  ancients  ;  nor  did 
he  discover  any  tree  near  the  lake,  from  which  a  fruit  of 
that  kind  might  be  expected.  It  is  a  production  which  ex- 
tets  only  in  the  imagination  and  song  of  the  poet ;  and  has 


perhaps  been  kept  up  so  long,  because  it  furnished  him 
with  a  good  allusion,  or  helped  him  to  a  beautiful  simile. 
Several  travellers,  however,  claim  the  honour  of  having 
discovered  that  far-famed  apple.  Hasselquist  says,  the 
apple  of  Sodom  is  not  the  fruit  either  of  a  tree  or  of  a  shrub, 
but  the  production  of  the  solanum  melongena  of  Linnaeus. 
It  is  found  in  great  abundance  round  Jericho,  in  the  vales 
near  the  Jordan,  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Dead  Sea. 
Its  apples  are  sometimes  full  of  dust ;  but  this  appears  only 
when  the  fruit  is  attacked  by. an  insect,  which  converts  the 
whole  of  the  inside  into  dust,  leaving  nothing  but  the  rind 
entire,  without  causing  it  to  lose  any  of  its  colour.  JNl, 
Seetzen  supposes  it  is  the  fruit  of  a  tree  which  grows  on 
the  plain  of  El  Gor,  near  the  southern  extremity  of  the 
Dead  Sea.  The  tree  resem-bles  a  fig-tree,  and  the  fruit  is 
like  the  pomegranate  :  it  struck  him,  that  this  fruit,  which 
hafe  no  pulp  or  flesh  in  the  inside,  but  only  a  species  of  cotton 
resembling  silk,  and  is  unknown  in  the  rest  of  Palestine, 
might  be  the  celebrated  apple  of  Sodom.  Chateaubriand 
imagines  that  he  has  made  the  interesting  discovery.  The 
shrub  which  bears,  in  his  opinion,  the  true  apple  of  Sodom, 
grows  two  or  three  leagues  from  the  mouth  of  the  Jordan  ; 
it  is  thorny,  and  has  small  taper  leaves ;  its  fruit  is  exactly 
like  the  little  Eg3T)tian  lemon,  both  in  size  and  colour :  be- 
fore it  is  ripe,  it  is  filled  Avith  a  corrosive  and  saline  juice ; 
when  dried,  it  yields  a  blackish  seed,  which  may  be  com- 
pared to  ashes,  and  which  resembles  loitter  pepper  in  taste. 
He  gathered  half  a  dozen  of  these  fruits,  but  nas  no  name 
for  them,  either  popular  or  botanical.  Next  comes  Mr. 
Jollifie.  He  found  in  a  thicket  of  brushwood,  about  half  a 
mile  from  the  plain  of  Jericho,  a  shrub  of  five  or  six  feet 
high,  on  which  grew  clusters  of  fruit,  about  the  size  of  a 
small  apricot,  of  a  bright  yellow  colour,  "which,  contrast- 
ing with  the  delicate  verdure  of  the  foliage,  seemed  like  the 
union  of  gold  and  emeralds.  Possibly,  when  ripe,  they 
may  crumble  into  dust  upon  any  violent  pressure."  Those 
which  this  gentleman  gathered  did  not  crumble,  nor  even 
retain  the  slightest  mark  of  indenture  from  the  touch ;  they 
would  seem  to  want,  therefore,  the  most  essential  character- 
istic of  the  fruit  in  question.  But  they  were  not  ripe.  This 
shrub  is  probably  the  same  as  that  described  by  Chateau- 
briand. Lastly,  Captains  Irby  and  Mangles  have  no  doubt 
that  they  have  discovered  it  in  the  oskar  plant,  which  they 
noticed  on  the  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea,  grown  to  the  sta- 
ture of  a  tree  ;  its  trunk  measuring,  in  many  instances,  two 
feet  or  more  in  circumference,  and  the  boughs  at  least  fif- 
teen feet  high.  The  filaments  enclosed  in  the  fruit,  some- 
what resemble  the  down  of  a  thistle,  and  are  used  by  the 
natives  as  a  stuffing  for  their  cushions ;  "  they  likewise 
twist  them,  like  thin  rope,  into  matches  for  their  guns, 
which,  they  assured  us,  required  no  application  of  sulphur 
to  render  them  combustible."  This  is  probably  the  same 
tree  that  M.  Seetzen  refers  to.  But  still,  the  correspondence 
to  the  ancient  description  is  by  no  means  perfect;  there 
being  little  resemblance  between  cotton  and  thistle-down, 
and  ashes  or  dust.  M.  Chateaubriand's  golden  fruit,  full 
of  bitter  seed,  comes  the  nearest  to  what  is  told  us  of  the 
deceitful  apple.  If  it  be  any  thing  more  than  a  fable,  it 
must  have  been  a  production  peculiar  to  this  part  of  Pales- 
tine, or  it  would  not  have  excited  such  general  attention. 
On  this  account,  the  oskar  and  the  solanum  seem  alike 
unentitled  to  the  distinction;  and  for  the  same  reason,  the 
pomegranate  must  altogether  be  excluded  from  considera- 
tion. The  fruit  of  the  solaniwi  melongena,  which  belongs 
to  the  same  genus  as  the  common  potato,  is  white,  resem- 
bling a  large  egg,  and  is  said  to  impart  an  agreeable  acid 
flavour  to  soups  and  sauces,  for  the  sake  of  which  it  is 
cultivated  in  the  south  of  Europe.  This  could  hardly  be 
what  Tacitus  and  Josephus  referred  to.  It  is  possible, 
indeed,  that  what  they  describe,  may  have  originated,  like 
the  oak-galls  in  this  country,  in  the  work  of  some  insect: 
for  these  remarkable  productions  sometimes  acquire  a  con- 
siderable size  and  beauty  of  colour.  Future  travellers 
will  be  inexcusable  if  they  leave  this  question  undecided. 
— Modern  Traveller. 

The  far-famed  fruit  of  the  tree  of  Sodom, "  which  tempts 
the  eye  and  turns  to  ashes  on  the  lips,"  is  nowhere  to  be 
found  on  the  western  shore;  and  Burckhardt  appears  to 
favour  the  opinion  of  its  having  only  an  imaginary  exist- 
ence: but  it  does  exist  in  the  vicinity  of  El  Ghor.  I  saw 
one  of  the  npples  at  Mar  Saba;  and,  perhaps,  the  only 
plant  in  Egypt  producing  this  fruit  I  discovered  at  Koum 


22 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  14. 


Omhos,  in  Upper  Eg}T)t,  growing  in  a  comer  of  the  small 
temple  of  Isis,  facing  the  Nile;  the  plant  was  not  quite  the 
height  of  the  Palma  Christi,  the  fruit  was  the  size  of  the 
pomegranate ;  indeed,  from  the  similarity  of  the  fruit  and 
leaves,  I  consider  the  Dead  Sea  apple  as  a  spurious  pome- 
granate. It  was,  indeed,  tempting  to  the  eye,  but  deceitful 
to  the  sense ;  on  opening  it,  it  was  quite  empty,  the  surface 
of  the  liud  having  only  a  light  floculent  sort  of  cotton 
atta^^hed  to  it,  which  was  destroyed  by  the  lightest  touch ; 
thii  was  the  true  Dead  Sea  apple  which  I  saw  in  Egypt, 
and  which  I  also  found  in  Mar  Saba;  albeit  Shaw  and 
Pococke  doubt  its  existence. — Madden. 

The  extreme  saltness  of  this  lake,  has  been  ascribed  by 
Volney  to  mines  of  fossil  salt  in  the  side  of  the  mountains, 
which  extend  along  the  western  shore,  and  from  time  im- 
memorial have  supplied  the  Arabs  in  the  neighbourhood, 
and  even  the  city  of  Jerusalem.  He  does  not  attempt  to 
invalidate  the  credit  of  the  Mosaic  narrative;  but  only 
insinuates,  that  these  saline  depositions  were  either  coeval 
with  the  mountains  in  which  they  are  found,  or  entered 
into  their  original  conformation.  The  extraordinary  fruit- 
fulness  of  the  vale  of  Siddim,  before  the  destruction  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  is  asserted  by  Moses  in  terms  so 
clear  and  precise,  that  the  veracity  of  the  sacred  writer 
must  be  overthrown,  before  a  reasonable  doubt  can  be 
entertained  of  the  fact.  No  disproportionate  quantity  of 
saline  matter,  could  then  have  been  present,  either  in  the 
soil  or  in  the  surrounding  mountains.  That  it  abounded 
with  bitumen,  some  have  inferred  from  the  assertion  of 
Moses,  that  the  vale  of  Siddim  was  full  of  slime  pits: 
where  the  Hebrew  word  chemar,  which  we  render  slime, 
others,  and  particularly  the  Seventy  interpreters,  render  i 
bitumen.  But  gophrith,  and  not  chemar,  is  the  word  that 
Moses  employs  to  denote  brimstone,  in  his  account  of  the  i 
judgment  which  overwhelmed  the  cities  of  the  plain;  and  i 
by  consequence,  brimstone  is  not  meant,  when  chemar  is 
used,  but  bitumen,  a  very  different  Substance.  Hence  the 
brimstone  which  now  impregnates  the  soil  of  the  salt  sea, 
and  banishes  almost  every  kind  of  vegetation  from  its 
shores,  must  be  regarded,  not  as  an  original,  but  an 
accidental  ingredient,  remaining  from  the  destruction  of 
the  vale  by  fire  and  brimstone  from  heaven.  The  same 
remark  applies  to  the  mines  of  fossil  salt,  on  the  surround- 
ing mountains;  the  saline  matter  was  deposited  in  the 
cavities  which  it  now  occupies  at  the  same  time,  else  the 
vale  of  Siddim,  instead  of  verdant  pastures,  and  abundant 
harvests,  had  exhibited  the  same  frightful  sterility  from 
the  beginning,  for  which  it  is  so  remarkable  in  modern 
times.  Bitumen,  if  the  Hebrew  word  chemar  denotes  that 
substance,  abounds  in  the  richest  soils ;  for  in  the  vale  of 
Shinar,  whose  soil,  by  the  agreement  of  all  writers,  is  fer- 
tile in  the  highest  degree,  the  builders  of  the  tower  of  Babel 
used  it  for  mortar.  The  ark  of  bulrushes  in  which  Moses 
was  embarked  on  the  Nile,  was  in  like  manner  daubed 
with  bitumen  (chemar)  and  pitch  ;  but  the  mother  of  Mo- 
ses, considering  the  poverty  of  her  house,  cannot  be  sup- 
posed to  have  procured  it  from  a  distance,  nor  at  any  great 
expense :  she  must  therefore  have  found  it  in  the" soil  of 
Egypt,  near  the  Nile,  on  whose  borders  she  lived.  It  is 
therefore  reasonable  to  suppose,  that  bitumen  abounded  in 
Goshen,  a  region  famed  for  the  richness  of  its  pastures. 
Hence  it  may  be  fairly  concluded,  that  the  vale  of  Siddim, 
before  its  destruction,  in  respect  of  natural  fertility,  re- 
sembled the  plain  of  Shinar,  and  the  land  of  Egypt  along 
the  Nile,  But  it  is  well  known,  that  wherever  brimstone 
and  saline  matter  abound,  there  sterility  and  desolation 
reign.  Is  it  not  then  reasonable  to  infer,  that  the  sulphu- 
reous and  saline  matters,  discovered  in  the  waters  and  on 
the  shores  of  the  Asphaltites,  are  the  relics  of  the  divine 
vengeance  executed  on  the  cities  of  the  plain,  and  not 
original  ingredients  in  the  soil.  If  we  listen  to  the  testi- 
mony of  the  sacred  writers,  what  was  reasonable  hypothe- 
sis rises  into  absolute  certainty.  Mo'^es  expressly  ascribes 
the  brimstone,  the  salt,  and  the  burning:  in  the  overthrow 
of  Sodom,  to  the  immediate  vengeance  of  Heaven ;  "  When 
they  see  the  plagues  of  that  land,  .  .  .  tRat  the  whole  land 
is  bnm^+one,  and  salt,  and  burning;  that  it  is  not  sown, 
norbeareth,  nor  any  grass  groweth  thereon,  (like  the  over- 
throw I  f  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  Admah  and  Zeboira, 
which  the  Lord  overthrew  in  his  anger,  and  in  his  wrath ;) 
even  all  nations  shall  say,  Wherefore  has  Ae  Lord  done 
thus  unto  this  land  ?    What  meaneth  the  heat  of  this  great 


anger"?"  In  this  passage,  the  brimstone,  salt,  and  burning, 
are  mentioned  as  true  and  proper  effects  of  the 'divine 
wrath;  and  since  this  fearful  destruciion  is  compared  to 
the  overthrow  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  the  brimstone  and 
salt  into  which  the  vale  of  Siddim  was  turned,  must  also 
be  the  true  and  proper  effects  of  divine  anger.  This,  in- 
deed, Moses  asserts  in  the  plainest  terms :  "  Then  the  Lord 
rained  upon  Sodom,  and  upon  Gomorrah,  brimstone  and 
fire  from  the  Lord  out  of  heaven  ;  and  he  overthrew  those 
cities,  and  all  the  plain,  and  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
cities,  and  that  which  grew  upon  the  ground."  But  since 
the  brimstone  and  the  fire  were  rained  from  heaven,  so 
must  the  salt,  with  which  they  are  connected  in  the  former 
quotation  :  and  this  is  the  opinion  received  by  the  Jewish 
doctors.  The  frightful  sterility  which  followed  the  brim- 
stone, salt,  and  burning,  in  the  first  quotation,  is  in  the 
same  manner  represented  as  an  effect  of  the  divine  judg-  ■ 
ment  upon  the  vale  of  Siddim;  "it  is  not  sown,  norbear- 
eth, nor  any  grass  groweth  thereon." — Paxton. 

Chateaubriand  says:  "Several  travellers,  and,  among 
others,  Troilo  and  d'Arvieux,  assert,  that  they  remark- 
ed fragments  of  walls  and  palaces  in  the  Dead  Sea.  This 
statement  seems  to  be  confirmed  by  Maundreil  and  Fa- 
tJier  Nau.  The  ancients  speak  more  positively  on  this  , 
subject.  Josephus,- employing  a  poetic  expression,  says, 
hat  he  perceived  on  the  banks  of  the  lake,  the  shades  of 
le  overwhelming  cities.  Strabo  gives  a  circumference  of 
sixty  stadia  to  the  ruins  of  Sodom,  which  are  mentioned 
also  by  Tacitus.  I  know  not  whether  they  still  exist;  but, 
as  the' lake  rises  and  falls  at  certain  seasons,  it  is  possible 
that  it  may  alternately  cover  and  expose  the  skeletons  of 
the  reprobate  cities."  Mr.  Jollitfe  mentions  the  same 
story.  "  We  have  even,"  he  says,  "  heard  it  asserted  with 
confidence,  that  broken  columns  and  other  architectural 
ruins  are  visible  at  certain  seasons,  when  the  water  is 
much  retired  below  its  usual  level ;  but  of  this  statement 
our  informers,  wheii  closely  pres-^ed,  could  not  adduce  any 
satisfactory  confirmation."  _  We  are  afraid  that,  notwith- 
standing the  authori  ^  of  Strabo,  we  must  class  this  legend 
with  the  dreams  of  imagination  ;  or  perhaps  its  origin  may 
be  referred  to  some  such  optical  delusion  as  led  to  the  mis- 
take respecting  the  supposed  isle^nd.  In  the  travels  ot 
Egmont  and  Heyman,  however,  there  is  a  statement  which 
may  throw  some  light  on  the  subject.  They  say  :  "  We 
also  saw  here  a  kind  of  jutty  or  prominence,  which  appear? 
to  have  been  a  heap  of  stones  from  time  to  time  thrown 
up  by  the  sea ;  but  it  is  a  current  opinion  here,  that  they 
are  part  of  the  ruins  of  one  of  the  towns  which  are  buried 
under  it."  The  bare  possibility,  that  any  wreck  of  the 
guilty  cities  should  be  brought  to  light,  is  sufficient  to  ex- 
cite an  intense  curiosity  to  explore  this  mysterious  flood, 
which,  so  far  as  appears  from  any  records,  no  bark  has 
ever  ploughed,  no  plummet  ever  sounded.  Should  permis- 
sion ever  be  obtained  from  the  Turks,  to  launch  a  vessel 
on  the  lake,  its  aavigation,  if  practicable,  would  probably 
lead  to  some  interesting  results. — Modern  Traveller. 

Ver.  10.  And  the  vale  of  Siddim  icas  full  of 
slime-pits ;  and  the  kings  of  Sodom  and  Go- 
morrah fled,  and  fell  there  :  and  they  that  re- 
mained fled  to  the  mountain. 


People  retired  to  the  movvtaivs  anciently  when  defeat- 
ed in  war :  they  do  so  still.  Dr.  Shaw  indeed  seems  to  sup- 
pose, that  there  was  no  greater  safety  in  the  hills  than  in 
the  plains  of  this  country  :  that  there  were  few  or  no 
places  of  difficult  access  ;  and  that  both  of  them  lay  equal- 
ly exposed  to  the  insults  and  outrages  of  an  enemy.  But 
in  this  point  this  ingenious  writer  seems  to  be  mistaken  ; 
since,  as  we  find  that  those  that  remained  of  the  armies 
of  the  kings  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  fled  to  the  mount- 
ains, in  the  days  of  Abraham,  Gen.  xiv.  10;  so  d'.'*  rvieux 
tells  us,  that  the  rebel  peasants  of  the  Holy  La:..',  who 
were  defeated  while  they  were  in  that  country  by  the 
Arabs,  in  the  plain  of  Goiiin,  fled  towards  the  mountains, 
whither  the  Arabs  could  not  pursue  them  at  that  time. 
So,  in  like  manner,  the  Archbishop  of  Tyre  tells  us,  that 
Baldwin  IV.  of  the  croisade  kings  of  Jerusalem,  rava- 
ging a  place  called  the  valley  of  Bacar,  a  country  remark- 
ably fruitful,  the  inhabitants  fled  to  the  mountains,  whither 
our  troops  could  not  easily  follow  them.    This  flying  to 


Chap.  14. 


GENESIS. 


23 


hills  and  mountains  for  safety,  is  frequently  alluded  to  in 
Scriptilre. — Harmjeh. 

Ver.  14.  And  when  Abram  heard  that  his  brother 
was  taken  captive,  he  armed  his  trained  ser- 
vants born  in  his  own  house,  three  hundred 
and  eighteen,  and  pursued  them  unto  Dan. 

If  we  should  turn  our  thoughts  to  the  strength  of  an 
Arab  emir,  or  the  number  of  men  they  command,  we  shall 
find  it  is  not  very  great,  and  that  were  Abraham  now  alive, 
jind  possessed  of  the  same  degree  of  strength  that  he  had 
in  his  time,  he  would  still  be  consid£red  as  a  prince  among 
them,  and  might,  perhaps,  even  be  called  a  mighty  prince, 
he  having  three  hundred  and  eighteen  servants  able  to 
1)3ar  arms,  Gen.  xiv.  14,  especially  in  the  Eastern  com- 
plimental  style  :  for  this  is  much  like  the  strength  of  those 
Arab  emirs  of  Palestine  dArvieux  visited.  There  were, 
according  to  him,  eighteen  emirs  or  princes  that  governed 
the  Arabs  of  Mount  Carmel ;  the  grand  emir,  or  chief  of 
these  princes,  encamped  in  the  middle,  the  rest  round  about 
him,  at  one  or  two  leagues  distance  from  him,  and  from 
each  other ;  each  of  these  emirs  had  a  number  of  Arabs 
particularly  attached  to  him,  who  called  themselves  his 
servants,  and  were  properly  the  troops  each  emir  com- 
manded when  they  fought;  and  when  all  these. divisions 
were  united,  they  made  up  between  four  and  five  thousand 
fighting  men.  Had  each  of  these  emirs  been  equal  in 
strength  to  Abraham,  their  number  of  fighting  men  must 
have  been  near  six  thousand,  for  three  hundred  and 
eighteen,  the  number  of  his  servants,  multiplied  by  eighteen, 
the  number  of  those  emirs,  make  five  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred and  twenty-four ;  but  they  were  but  between  four  and 
five  thousand,  so  that  they  had  but  about  two  hundred  and 
fifty  each,  upon  an  average.  Abraham  then  was  superior 
in  force  to  one  of  these  emirs.  But  though  Abraham  was 
a  man  of  power,  and  did  upon  occasion  make  war,  yet  I 
hope  a  remark  I  before  made  concerning  him  will  be  re- 
membered here,  that  is,  that  he  was  a  pacific  emir  not- 
withstanding, at  least,  that  he  by  no  means  resembled  the 
modern  Arabs  in  their  acts  of  depredation  and  violence. 
— Harmer, 

Ver.  15.  And  he  divided  himself  against  them, 
he  and  his  servants,  by  night,  and  smote  them, 
and  pursued  them  unto  Hobah,  which  is  on  the 
left  hand  of  Damascus. 

The  manner  in  which  the  Arabs  harass  the  caravans 
of  the  East,  is  described  in  the  same  page.  Chardin  tells 
us,  "  that  the  manner  of  their  making  war,  and  pillaging 
the  caravans,  is,  to  keep  by  the  side  of  them,  or  to  follow 
them  in  the  rear,  nearer  or  farther  off,  according  to  their 
forces,  which  it  is  very  easy  to  do  in  Arabia,  whidh  is  one 
great  plain,  and  in  the  night  they  silently  fali  upon  the 
camp,  and  carry  off  one  part  of  it  before  the  rest  are  got 
under  arms."  He  supposes  that  Abraham  fell  upon  the 
camp  of  the  four  kings,  that  had  carried  away  Lot,  pre- 
cisely in  the  same  Arab  manner,  and  by  that  means,  with 
unequal  forces,  accomplished  his  design,,  and  rescued  Lot. 
Gen.  xiv.  15,  he  thinks,  shows  this ;  and  he  adds,  that  it 
is  to  be  remembered,  that  the  combats  of  the  age  of 
Abraham  more  resembled  a  fight  among  the  mob,  than 
the  bloody  and  destructive  wars  of  Europe. — Harmer. 

Ver.  17.  And  the  king  of  Sodom  went  out  to 
meet  him. 

The  conduct  of  this  king,  of  Abraham,  bf  Lot,  of  Saul, 
of  the  father  of  the  prodigal,  and  of  many  others,  is  beauti- 
fully illustrated  by  the  manners  of  the  East,  at  this  day. 
Not  to  meet  a  friend,  or  an  expected  guest,  would  be  con- 
sidered as  rude  in  the  extreme.  So  soon  as  the  host  hears 
of  the  approach  of  his  visitant,  he  and  his  attendants  go 
forth  in  courtly  style ;  and  when  they  meet  him,  the  host 
addresses  him,  "  Ah  !  this  is  a  happy  day  for  me  ;  by  your 
favour  I  am  found  in  health."  He  will  then,  perhaps,  put 
his  arm  round  his  waist,  or  gently  tap  him  on  the  shoulder, 
as  they  proceed  towards  the  house.  When  at  the  door,  he 
againmalfes  his  boM',  and  politely  ushers  him  in;  and  the 
rest  joyfully  follow,  congratulating  each  other  on  the  hap- 
py meeting. — Roberts. 


Ver.  22.  And  Abram  said  to  the  king  of  Sodom, 
I  have  lifted  up  my  hand  unto  the  Lord,  the 
most  high  God,  the  possessor  of  heaven  and 
earth,  23.  That  I  will  not  take  from  a  thread 
even  to  a  shoe-latchet,  and  that  I  will  not  take 
any  thing  that  is  thine,  lest  thou  shouldest  say, 
I  have  made  Abram  rich. 

The  use  of  shoes  may  be  traced  to  the  patriarchal  age  ; 
Abraham  protested  to  the  king  of  Sodom,  after  his  victory 
over  Amraphel  and  his  associates,  "  I  have  lifted  up  mine 
hand  unto  the  Lord,  the  most  high  God,  the  possessor  of 
heaven  and  earth,  that  I  will  not  take  from  a  thread  even 
to  a  shoe-latchet."  And  when  the  Lord  appeared  to  Moses 
in  the  bush,  he  commanded  him  to  put  off  his  shoes  from 
his  feet,  for  the  place  on  which  he  stood  was  holy  ground.  In 
imitation  of  this  memorable  example,  the  priests  officiated 
in  the  temple  barefoot ;  and  all  the  orientals,  under  the 
guidance  of  tradition,  put  off  their  shoes  when  they  enter 
their  holy  places.  The  learned  Bochart  is  of  opinion,  that 
the  Israelites  used  no  shoes  in  Egj^pt ;  but  being  to  take  a 
long  journey,  through  a  rough  and  barren  wilderness,  God 
commanded  them  to  eat  the  passover  with  shoes  on  their 
feet ;  and  those  very  shoes  which  they  put  on  at  that  festi- 
val, when  they  were  ready  to  march,  he  suffered  not  to 
decay  during  the  whole  forty  years  they  traversed  the 
desert ;  and  to  increase  the  miracle,  Grotius  adopts  the 
idle  conceit  of  some  Jewish  writers,  that  their  clothes  en- 
larged as  they  grew  up  to  maturity,  and  their  shoes  also 
underwent  a  similar  enlargement.  This  was  not  impos- 
sible with  Jehovah,  but  it  seems  to  have  been  quite  unne- 
cessary, for  the  clothes  and  shoes  of  those  that  died,  might 
serve  their  children  when  they  grew  up ;  and  it  was  suf- 
ficiently wonderful,  without,  such  an  addition,  that  their 
clothes  should  not  decay,  nor  their  shoes  wear,  nor  their 
feet  swell,  by  travelling  over  hot  and  sandy  deserts  for  the 
long  period  of  forty  years.  It  only  remains  to  be  observed, 
on  this  part  of  the  subject,  that  no  covering  for  the  foot  can 
exclude  the  dust  in  those  parched  regions;  and  by  con- 
sequence, the  custom  of  washing  and  anointing  the  feet, 
which  is,  perhaps,  coeval  with  the  existence  of  the  human 
race,  is  not  to  be  ascribed  to  the  use  of  sandals.  What- 
ever covering  for  the  foot  may  be  used,  Chardin  declares, 
it  is  still  necessary  to  wash  and  anoint  the  feet  after  a 
journey.  It  is  also  the  custom  everywhere  among  the 
Asiatics,  to  carry  a  stafi'  in  their  hand,  and  a  handkerchief 
to  wipe  the  sweat  from  their  face.  The  handkerchiefs  are 
wrought  with  a  needle  ;  and  to  embroider  and  adorn  them, 
is  one  of  the  elegant  amusements  of  the  other  sex. — Paxton. 

To  lift  up  the  right  hand  with  the  fingers  towards  heav- 
en is  equivalent  to  an  oath.  Hence  Dr.  Boothroyd  has 
rendered  the  passage,  "  I  sivear  to  Jehovah."  To  lift  up 
the  hand  in  confirmation  of  any  thing  is  considered  a  most 
sacred  way  of  swearing.  In  Isaiah  Ixii.  8.  it  is  written, 
"  The  Lord  hath  sworn  by  his  right  hand."  It  is  an  in- 
teresting fact,  that  many  of  the  images  of  the  gods  of  the 
heathen  have  the  right  hand  lifted  up,  which  to  the  under- 
standing of  the  people,  says,  "  lavi  Cod;  I  am  truth-;  I  my- 
self;  I  am.  Fear  not.'"  Does  a  man  make  a  solemn  proni- 
ise,  and  should  the  person  to  whom  it  is  made  express  a 
doubt;  he  will  say,  "Lift  up  your  hand;''''  which  means, 
swear  that  you  will  perform  it. — Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  That  I  will  not  take  from  a  thread  even 
to  a  shoe-latchet,  and  that  I  will  not  take  any 
thing  that  is  thine,  lest  thou  shouldest  say,  I 
have  made  Abram  rich. 

This  may  refer  to  the  red  thread  worn  round  the  neck 
or  the  arm,  and  which  binds  on  the  amulet;  or  the  string 
with  Vv^hich  females  tie  up  their  hair.  The  latchet  I  sup- 
pose to  mean  the  thong  of  the  sandal,  which  goes  over  the 
top  of  the  foot,  and  betwixt  the  great  and  little  toes.  It  is 
proverbial  to  say,  should  a  man  be  accused  of  taking  away 
some  valuable  article,  which  belongs  to  another,  "  I  have 
not  taken  away  even  a  piece  of  the  thong  of  your  worn-out 
sandals." — Roberts. 

Chap.  1.5.  ver.  3.  And  Abram  said,  Behold,  tome 
thou  hast  given  no  seed :  and,  lo,  one  born  in 
my  house  is  mine  heir. 


24 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  16. 


Though  the  slaves  in  the  oriental  regions  were  treated 
with  more  severity  than  hired  servants,  their  condition 
was  by  no  means '  reckoned  so  degrading  as  in  modern 
times,  among  the  civilized  nations  of  the  west.  The  slave- 
master  in  the  East,  when  he  has  no  son  to  inherit  his 
wealth,  and  even  when  the  fortune  he  has  to  bequeath  is 
very  considerable,  frequently  gives  his  daughter  to  one  of 
his  slaves.  The  wealthy  people  of  Barbary,  when  they 
have  no  children,  purchase  young  slaves,  educate  them  in 
their  own  faith,  and  sometimes  adopt  them  for  their  own 
children.  This  custom,  so  strange  and  unnatural,  accord- 
ing to  our  modes  of  thinking,  may  be  traced  to  a  very 
remote  antiquity ;  it  seems  to  have  prevailed  so  early  as 
the  days  of  Abraham,  who  says  of  one  of  his  slaves,  "  One 
born  in  mine  house  is  mine  heir :"  although  Lot,  his  bro- 
ther's son,  resided  in  his  neighbourhood,  and  he  had  besides 
many  relations  in  Mesopotamia.  In  the  courts  of  eastern 
monarchs,  it  is  well  known,  that  slaves  frequently  rise  to 
the  highest  honours  of  the  state.  The  greatest  men  in  the 
Turkish  empire  are  originally  slaves,  reared  and  educated 
in  the  seraglio.  When  Maillet  was  in  Egypt,  there  was 
a  eunuch  who  had  raised  three  of  his  slaves  to  the  rank 
of  princes ;  and  he  mentions  a  Bey  who  exalted  five  or 
six  of  his  slaves  to  the  same  office  with  himself.  With 
these  facts  before  us,  we  have  no  reason  to  question  the 
veracity  of  the  inspired  writers,  who  record  the  extraor- 
dinary advancement  of  Joseph  in  the  house  of  Pharaoh, 
and  of  Daniel,  under  the  monarch  of  Babylon.  These 
sudden  elevations,  from  the  lowest  stations  in  society,  from 
the  abject  condition  of  a  slave,  or  the  horrors  of  a  dungeon, 
to  the  highest  and  most  honourable  offices  of  state,  are  quite 
consistent  with  the  established  manners  and  customs  of 
those  countries. — Paxton. 

Ver.  17.  And  it  came  to  pass,  that,  when  the  sun 
went  down,  and  it  was  dark,  behold  a  smoking 
furnace,  and  a  burning  lamp  that  passed  be- 
tween those  pieces. 

Several  eminent  critics  believe  the  lamp  of  fire  was  an 
emblem  of  the  Divine  presence,  and  that  it  ratified  the  cov- 
enant with  Abram.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  burn- 
ing lamp  or  fire  is  still  used  in  the  East  in  confirmation  of 
a  covenant.  Should  a  person  in  the  evening  make  a  solemn 
promise  to  perform  something  for  another,  and  should  the 
latter  doubt  his  word,  the  former  will  say,  pointing  to  the 
iiame  of  the  lamp,  "  That  is  the  witn£ss."  On  occasions  of 
greater  importance,  when  two  or  more  join  in  a  covenant, 
should  the  fidelity  of  any  be  questioned,  they  will  say,  "  We 
invoke  the  lamp  of  the  Temple"  (as  a  witness.)  When 
an  agreement  of  this  kind  has  been  broken,  it  will  be  said, 
"  Who  would  have  thought  this  1  for  the  lamp  of  the  Tem- 
ple was  invoked."  That^re  was  a  symbol  of  the  Divine 
presence,  no  one  acquainted  with  the  sacred  scriptures 
can  deny ;  and  in  the  literature  and  customs  of  the  East, 
the  same  thing  is  still  asserted.  In  the  ancient  writings, 
where  the  marriages  of  the  gods  and  demigods  are  des- 
cribed, it  is  always  said  the  ceremony  was  performed  in 
the  presence  of  the  god  of  fire.  He  was  the  witness.  But 
it  is  also  a  general  practice,  at  the  celebration  of  respecta- 
ble marriages  at  this  day,  to  have  a.  fire  as  a  witness  of  the 
transaction.  It  is  made  of  the  wood  of  the  Mango-tree,  or 
the  Aal  or  Arasu,  or  Panne  or  Paldsu.  The  fire  being 
kindled  in  the  centre  of  the  room,  the  young  coiiple  sit  on 
stools  ;  but  when  the  Brahmin  begins  to  repeat  the  incan- 
tations, they  arise,  and  the  bridegroom  puts  the  little  finger 
of  his  left  hand  roimd  the  little  finger  of  the  right  hand  of 
the  bride,  and  they  walk  round  the  fire  three  times  from 
left  to  right.  "  Fire  is  the  witness  of  their  covenant;  and 
if  they  break  it,  fire  will  be  their  destruction.^'  In  the 
Scanda  Purana,  the  father  of  the  virgin  who  was  to  be 
married  to  the  son  of  the  Rishi,  said  to  him,  "  Call  your 
son,  that  I  may  give  him  to  my  daughter  in  the  presence  of 
the  god  of  fire,  that  he  may  be  the  ^vitness;"  that  being 
done,  "  Ilsteyar  gave  his  daughter  Verunte  in  marriage, 
the  fire  being  the  witness." — Roberts. 

Chap.  16.  ver  2.    I    pray  thee,  go  in  unto  my 

maid ;  it  may  be  that  1  may  obtain  children  by 

her. 

The  Hebrew  has,  "  Be  builded  by  her."    When  a  wife 

has  been  for  some  time  considered  steril.  should  she  have 


a  child,  she  is  said  to  be  making  her  house  new,  ox  rather, 
she  has  caused  the  house  to  be  newly  built.  When  a  man 
marries,  "  he  is  making  a  new  house." — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  And  he  will  be  a  wild  man ;  his  hand 
will  he  against  every  man,  and  every  man's 
hand  against  him :  and  he  shall  dwell  in  the 
presence  of  all  his  brethren. 

The  phrase,  "  a  wild  man,"  it  is  well  known,  is  in  the 
original  text,  "  a  wild  ass  man,"  that  is,  a  man  like  a  wild 
ass  in  teniper  and  manners.  The  comparison  seems  to  re- 
fer, first  to  Ishmael  himself,  and  to  intimate  certain  lead- 
ing traits  in  his  character ;  and  then  to  his  offspring  in 
every  succeeding  age.  The  troops  of  onagers,  are  con- 
ducted by  a  leading  stallion,  that  prefers  the  most  arid  des- 
erts of  the  mountains,  keeps  watch  while  his  companions 
repose,  and  gives  the  signal  at  the  appearance  of  an  enemy. 
The  Nomades  of  Asia  report  of  these  animals,  that  the 
first  of  a  troop  which  sees  a  serpent  or  a  beast  of  prev, 
makes  a  certain  cry,  which  brings,  in  a  moment,  the  whole 
herd  around  him,  when  each  of  them  strives  to  destroy  it 
instantly.  Such  were  the  character  and  manners  of  Ish- 
mael. "He  was  the  first  prince  of  his  family,  the  founder 
of  a  powerful  nation,  of  a  rough,  wild,  and  untractable 
disposition.  Nor  was  this  all:  ambitious  of  supreme  au- 
thority, he  loved  to  place  himself  at  the  head  of  his  rising 
community,  to  regulate  its  affairs,  and  direct  its  operations ; 
and,  like  the  high-spirited  leader  of  the  onagers,  he  could 
brook  no  rival.  He  discovered  his  ruling  passion,  when  he 
was  but  a  stripling  in  the  house  of  his  father.  Determined  to 
maintain  his  prerogatives  as  the  elder  son,  and  provoked  to 
see  a  younger,  and  a  child  of  a  different  mother,  preferred 
before'  him,  he  gave  vent  to  his  indignation,  by  deriding  his 
brother,  and  the  feast  which  was  made  on  his  account. 
Expelled  for  his  imprudence  from  his  father's  house,  he 
made  choice  of  the  sandy  desert  for  his  permanent  resi- 
dence, and  required  the  tieads  of  all  the  families  around 
him,  either  to  acknowledge  his  supremacy,  and  treat  him 
with  the  highest  respect,  or  be  driven  from  his  station  and 
neighbourhood.  Wherever  he  pitched  his  tent,  he  expect- 
ed, according  to  a  custom  of  great  antiquity,  all  the  tents  to  be 
turned  with  their  faces  towards  it,  in  token  of  submission  ; 
that  the  band  might  have  their  eye  always  upon  their  mas- 
ter's lodging,  and  be  in  readiness  to  assist  him  if  he  were 
attacked.  In  this  manner  did  Ishmael  dwell  "  in  the  pres- 
ence,"— "before,"  Cry)  or,  "over  against  the  "faces  of  all 
his  brethren."  But  the  prediction  embraced  also  the  char- 
acter and  circumstances  of  his  descendants.  The  man- 
ners and  customs  of  the  Arabians,  except  in  the  article  of 
religion,  have  suffered  almost  no  alteration,  during  the 
long  period  of  three  thousand  years.  They  have  occupied 
the  same  country,  and  followed  the  same  mode  of  life, 
from  the  days  of  their  great  ancestor,  down  to  the  present 
times,  and  range  the  wide  extent  of  burning  sands  which 
separate  them  from  all  the  surrounding  nations,  as  rude,  and^ 
savage,  and  untractable  as  the  wild  ass  himself.  Claiming 
the  barren  plains  of  Arabia,  as  the  patrimonial  domain 
assigned  by  God  to  the  founder  of  their  nation,  they  con- 
sider themselves  entitled  to  seize,  and  appropriate  to  their 
own  use,  whatever  they  can  find  there.  Impatient  of  re- 
straint, and  jealous  of  their  liberty,  they  form  no  connex- 
ion with  the  neighbouring  states ;  they  admit  of  little  or 
no  friendly  intercourse,  but  live  in  a  state  of  continual 
hostility  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  tent  is  their 
dwelling,  and  the  circular  camp  their  city;  the  spontane- 
ous produce  of  the  soil,  to  which  they  sonietimes  add  a  lit- 
tle patch  of  corn,  furnishes  them  wath  means  of  subsist- 
ence, amply  sufficient  for  their  moderate  desires;  and  the 
liberty  of  ranging  at  pleasure  their  interminable  wilds, 
fully  compensates  in  their  opinion  for  the  want  of  all  other 
accommodations.  Mounted  on  their  favourite  horses,  th  e y 
scour  the  waste  in  search  of  plunder,  with  a  velocity  sur- 
passed only  by  the  wild  ass.  They  levy  contributions  on 
every  person  that  happens  to  fall  in  their  way ;  and  fre-^ 
quently  rob  their  own  countrymen,  with  as  little  ceiemonv 
as  they  do  a  stranger  or  an  enemy;  their  hand  is  still 
against  everv  man,  and  every  man's  hand  against  them. 
But  thev  do  not  alwa5^s  confine  their  predatory  excursions 
to  the  desert.  When  booty  is  scarce  at  home,  they  make 
incursions  into  the  territories  of  their  neighbours,  and  hav- 
ing robbed  the  solitary  traveller,  or  plundered  the  ciravaa. 


Chap.  18. 


GENESIS. 


25 


immediately  retire  into  the  deserts  far  beyond  the  reach  of 
their  pursuers.  Their  character,  drawn  by  the  pen  of  in- 
.spiration,  exactly  corresponds  with  this  view  of  their  dis- 
positions and  conduct :  "  Behold,  as  wild  asses  in  the  de- 
sert, go  they  forth  to  their  work,  rising  betimes  for  a  prey : 
the  wilderness  yieldeth  food  for  them  and  for  their  chil- 
dren." Savage  and  stubborn  as  the  wild  ass  which  inhabits 
the  same  wilderness,  they  go  forth  on  the  horse  or  the  drom- 
edary with  inconceivable  swiftness  in  quest  of  their  prey. 
Initiated  in  the  trade  of  a  robber  from  their  earliest  years, 
they  know  no  other  employment;  they  choose  it  as  the  bu- 
siness of  their  life,  and  prosecute  it  with  unwearied  activ- 
ity. They  start  before  the  dawn,  to  invade  the  village  or 
the  caravan ;  make  their  attack  with  desperate  courage,  and 
surprising  rapidity ;  and,  plunging  instantly  into  the  desert, 
escape  from  the  vengeance  of  their  enemies.  Provoked  by 
their  continual  insults,  the  nations  of  ancient  and  modern 
times  have  often  invaded  their  country  with  powerful  ar- 
mies, determined  to  extirpate,  or  at  least  to  subdue  them 
to  their  yoke ;  but  they  always  return  baffled  and  disap- 
pointed. The  savage"  freebooters,  disdaining  every  idea 
of  submission,  with  invincible  patience  and  resolution, 
maintained  their  independence ;  and  they  have  transmitted 
it  unimpaired  to  the  present  times.  In  spite  of  all  their 
enemies  can  do  to  restrain  them,  they  continue  to  dwell  in 
the  presence  of  all  their  brethren,  and  to  assert  their  right 
to  insult  and  plunder  every  one  they  meet  with  on  the  bor- 
ders, or  within  the  limits  of  their  domains. — Paxton. 

The  fate  of  Ishmael  is  here  identified  with  that  of  his 
descendants  :  and  the  same  character  is  common  to  them 
both.  The  historical  evidence  of  the  fact,  the  universal 
tradition,  and  constant  boa.st  of  the  Arabs  themselves,  their 
language,  and  the  preservation  for  many  ages  of  an  origin- 
al rite,  derived  from  him  as  their  primogenitor, — confirm 
the  truth  of  their  descent  from.  Ishmael.  The  fulfilment 
of  the^rediction  is  obvious.  Even  Gibbon,  while  he  at- 
tempts^ from  the  exceptions  which  he  specifies,  to  evade 
the  force  of  the  fact  that  the  Arabs  have  maintained  a  per- 
petual independence,  acknowledges  that  these  exceptions 
are  temporary  and  local;  that  the  body  of  the  nation  has 
escaped  the  yoke  of  the  most  powerful  monarchies ;  and 
that  "  tlie  arms  of  Sesostris  and  Cyrus,  of  Pompey  and 
Trajan,  could  never  achieve  the  conquest  of  Arabia." 
But  even  the  exceptions  which  he  specifies,  though  thev 
were  justly  stated,  and  though  not  coupled  with  such 
admissions  as  invalidate  them,  would  not  detract  from  the 
truth  of  the  prophecy.  The  independence  of  the  Arabs 
w^as  proverbial  in  ancient  as  well  as  in  modern  times ;  and 
the  present  existence,  as  a  free  and  independent  nation,  of 
a  people  who  derive  their  descent  from  so  high  antiquity, 
demonstrates  that  they  had  never  been  wholly  subdued,  as 
all  the  nations  around  them  have  unquestionably  been  ;  and 
that  they  have  ever  dwelt  in  the  presence  of  their  brethren. 
They  not  only  subsist  unconquered  to  this  day,  but  the 
prophesied  and  primitive  wildness  of  their  race,  and  their 
hostility  to  all,  remain  unsubdued  and  unaltered.  "  They 
are  a  wild  people;  their  ho,nd  is  against  every  man,  and 
every  man's  hand  is  against  them."  In  the  words  of  Gib- 
bon, which  strikingly  assinailate  with  those  of  the  prophecy, 
they  are  "  armed  against  mankind."  Plundering  is  their 
profession.  Their  alliance  is  never  courted,  and  can 
never  be  obtained ;  and  all  that  the  Turks,  or  Persians,  or 
any  of  their  neighbours  can  stipulate  for  from  them  is  a 
partial  and  purchased  forbearance.  Even  the  British,  who 
nave  established  a  residence  in  almost  every  country, 
have  entered  the  territories  of  the  descendants  of  Ishmael 
to  accomplish  only  the  premeditated  destruction  of  a  fort, 
and  to  retire.  It  cannot  be  alleged,  with  truth,  that  their 
peculiar  character  and  manner,  and  its  vtninterrupted  per- 
manency, is  the  necessary  result  of  the  nature  of  their 
country.  They  have  continued  wild  or  uncivilized,  and 
have  retained  their  habits  of  hostility  towards  all  the  rest 
of  the  human  race,  though  they  possessed  for  three  hun- 
dred years  countries  the  most  opposite  in  their  nature  from 
the  mountains  of  Arabia.  The  greatest  part  of  the  tem- 
perate zone  was  included  within  the  limits  of  the  Arabian 
conquests  ;  and  their  empire  extended  from  India  to  the 
Atlantic,  and  embraced  a  wider  range  of  territory  than 
ever  was  possessed  by  the  Romans,  those  boasted  rnasters 
of  the  world.  The  period  of  their  conquest  and  dominion 
was  sufficient,  imder  such  circumstances,  to  have  changed 
the  manners  of  any  people ;  but  whether  in  the  land  of 
4 


Shinar  or  in  the  valleys  cf  Spain,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tigris  or  the  Tagus,  in  Araby  the  Blessed  or  Araby  the 
Barren,  the  posterity  of  Ishmael  have  ever  maintained 
their  prophetic  character :  they  have  remained,  under  every 
change  of  condition,  a  wild  people ;  their  hand  has  still 
been  against  every  man,  and  every  man's  hand  against 
them.  The  natural  reflection  of  a  recent  traveller,  on 
examining  the  peculiarities  of  an  Arab  tribe,  of  which  he 
was  an  eyewitness,  may  suflice,  without  any  art  of  con- 
troversy, for  the  illustration  of  this  prophecy : — "  On  the 
smallest  computation,  such  must  have  beerf  tlie  manners  ot 
those  people  for  more  than  three  thousand  years:  thus  in 
all  things  verifying  the  prediction  given  of  Ishmael  at  his 
birth,  that  he,  in  his  posterity,  should  be  a  wild  man,  and 
always  continue  to  be  so,  though  they  shall  dwell  for  ever 
in  the  presence  of  their  brethren.  And  that  an  acute  and 
active  people,  surrounded  for  ages  by  polished  and  luxu- 
riant nations,  should,  from  their  earliest  to  their  latest 
times,  be  still  found  a  wild  people,  dwelling  in  the  presence 
of  all  their  brethren,  (as  we  may  call  these  nations,)  un- 
subdued and  unchangeable,  is,  indeed,  a  standing  miracle — 
one  of  those  mysterious  facts  which  establish  the  truth  ol 
prophecy,"    {Sir  Robert  K.  Porter.') — Keith. 

Ver.  14.  Wherefore  the  well  was  called  Beer- 
lahai-roi :  behold,  it  is  between  Kadcsh  and 
Bered.  • 

If  in  some  places  where  there  are  wells,  there  are  no 
conveniences  to  draw  any  water  with,  to  refresh  the  faint- 
ing traveller,  there  are  other  places  where  the  wells  are 
furnished  with  troughs,  and  other  contrivances,  for  the 
watering  cattle  that  want  to  drink.  Sir  John  Chardin  tells 
us  there  are  wells  in  Persia  and  in  Arabia,  in  the  driest 
places,  and  above  all  in  the  Indies,  with  troughs  and  basins 
of  stone  by  the  side  of  them.  He  supposes  the  well  called 
Beer-lahai-roi,  mentioned  Gen.  xvi.  14,  was  thus  furnished, 
I  do  not  remember  any  circumstance  mentioned  in  that  part 
of  the  patriarchal  history  that  proves  this ;  but  it  is  suffi- 
ciently apparent  there,  that  the  well  where  Rebecca  went  to 
draw  water,  near  the  city  of  Nahor,  had  some  convenience 
of  this  kind ;  as  also  had  the  Arabian  well  to  which  the 
daughters  of  Jethro  resorted.  Other  wxlls,  without  doubt, 
had  the  like  conveniences,  though  not  distinctly  mentioned, 
— Harmeh. 

Chap.  18.  ver.  1.  And  the  Lord  appeared  unto 
him  in  the  plains  of  Mamre :  and  he  sat  in  the 
tent  door  in  the  heat  of  the  day. 

In  the  time  of  Chandler  it  was  still  the  custom  of  eastern 
shepherds  to  sit  at  the  door  of  their  tents  in  the  heat  of  the 
day.  That  traveller,  "  at  ten  minutes  after  ten  in  the 
morning,"  was  entertained  with  the  view  of  a  plain  full  of 
booths,  with  the  Turcomans  sitting  by  their  doors,  under 
sheds  resembling  poriicoes,  or  by  shady  trees,  surrounded 
w^ith  flocks  of  goats.  In  the  same  situation  the  three  angels 
found  Abraham,  when  they  came  to  destroy  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah,  sitting  under  the  portico,  or  skirts  of  his  tent, 
near  the  door,  to  enjoy  the  refreshing  breeze,  and  superin- 
tend his  servants.  It  was  not  the  hottest  part  of  the  day, 
when  Chandler  saw  the  Turcoman  shepherds  sitting  at 
the  doors  of  their  booths;  it  was  soon  after  ten  in  the 
morning;  and  when  Abraham  was  sitting  at  his  tent  door, 
it  might  be  nearly  at  the  same  hour.  In  the  hottest  part  of 
the  day,  according  to  the  practice  of  those  countries,  the 
patriarch  had  been  retired  to  rest.  The  goats  of  the  Tur- 
comans were  feeding  around  their  huts;  and  if  Abraham's 
cattle,  which  is  extremely  probable,  were  feeding  around 
his  tent  in  the  same  manner,  it  accounts  for  the  expedition 
with  which  he  ran  and  fetched  a  calf  from  the  herd,  in 
order  tc  entertain  his  visitants. — Paxton. 

Often  has  my  mind  reverted  to  the  scene  of  the  good  ol(jI 
patriarch  sitting  in  the  door  of  his  tent  in  the- heat  of  the 
day.  When  the  sun  is  at  the  meridian,  the  wind  often 
becomes  softer,  and  the  heat  nv)re  oppressive ;  and  then 
may  be  seen  the  people  seated  in  the  doors  of  their  huts,  to 
inhale  the  breezes,  and  to  let  them  blow  on  their  almost 
naked  bodies. — Roberts. 

Ver.  2.  And  he  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  looked. 

To  lift  up  the  eyes  does  not  mean  to  look  vpu-ard,  but 


»6 


GENESIS, 


Chap.  IQ, 


to  look  directly  at  an  object,  and  that  earnestly.  A  man 
coming  from  the  jungle  might  say,  "  As  I  came  ihis  morn- 
ing, I  lifted  up  my  eyes,  and  behold,  I  saw  three  elephants." 
"  Have  you  seen  any  thing  to-day  in  your  travels  1" — "  I 
have  not  lifted  up  my  eyes."  "  I  do  not  see  the  thing  you 
sent  me  for,  sir.  — "Just  lift  up  your  eyes,  and  you  will 
soon  find  it." — Roberts. 

Ver.  4.  Let  a  little  water,  I  pray  you,  be  fetched, 
and  wash  your  feet. 

How  often,  in  passing  through  a  village,  may  we  see  this 
grateful  otRce  performed  for  the  weary  traveller  !  As  the 
people  neither  wear  shoes  nor  stockings,  and  as  the  sandal 
is  principally  for  the  defence  of  the  sole  of  the  foot,  the 
upper  part  soon  becomes  dirty.  Under  these  circumstances, 
to  have  the  feet  and  ankles  washed  is  very  refreshing,  and 
is  considered  a  necessary  part  of  Eastern  hospitality.  The 
service  is  always  performed  by  servants.  (John  xiii.  14.) — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  And  Abraham  hastened  into  the  tent  unto 
Sarah,  and  said.  Make  ready  quickly  three 
measures  of  fine  meal,  knead  it,  and  make 
cakes  upon  the  hearth.  7.  And  Abraham  ran 
unto  the  herd,  and  fetched  a  calf  tender  and 
good,  and  gave  it  unto  a  young  man  ;  and  he 
hasted  to  dress  it.  8.  And  he  took  butter  and 
milk,  and  the  calf  which  he  had  dressed,  and  set 
it  before  them  ;  and  he  stood  by  them  under  the 
tree,  and  they  did  eat. 

In  the  cities  and  villages  of  Barbary,  where  public  ovens 
are  established,  the  bread  is  usually  leavened ,  but  among 
the  Bedoweens  and  Kabyles,  as  soon  as  the  dough  is 
kneaded,'  it  is  made  into  thin  cakes,  either  to  be  baked  im- 
mediately upon  the  coals,  or  else  in  a  shallow  earthen  ves- 
sel like  a  fryingpan,  called  Tajen.  Such  were  the  un- 
leavened cakes^  which  we  so  frequently  read  of  in  Scrip- 
ture, and  those  also  which  Sarah  made  quickly  upon  the 
hearth.  These  last  are  about  an  inch  thick;  and  being 
commonly  prepared  in  woody  countries,  are  used  all  along 
the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea,  from  the  Palus-Moeotis  to  the 
Caspian,  inChaldea  and  in  Mesopotamia,  except  in  lowns. 
A  fire  is  made  in  the  middle  of  the  room ;  and  when  the 
bread  is  ready  for  baking,  a  corner  of  the  hearth  is  swept, 
the  bread  is  laid  upon  it,  and  covered  with  ashes  and  em- 
bers: in  a  quarter  of  an  hour  they  turn  it.  Sometimes 
they  use  small  convex  plates  of  iron :  which  are  most  com- 
mon in  Persia,  and  among  the  nomadic  tribes,  as  being 
the  easiest  way  of  baking,  and  done  with  the  least  ex- 
pense ;  for  the  bread  is  extremely  thin,  and  soon  prepared. 
The  oven  is  used  in  every  part  of  Asia;  it  is  made  in  the 
ground,  four  or  five  feet  deep,  and  three  in  diameter,  well 
plastered  with  mortar.  When  it  is  hot,  they  place  the 
bread  (Avhich  is  commonly  long,  and  not  thicker  than  a 
finger)  against  the  sides ;  it  is  baked  in  a  moment.  Ovens, 
Chardin  apprehends,  were  not  used  in  Canaan  in  the  pa- 
triarchal age ;  all  the  bread  of  that  time  was  baked  upon 
a  plate,  or  under  the  ashes;  and  he  supposes,  what  is 
nearly  self-evident,  that  the  cakes  which  Sarah  baked  on 
the  hearth,  were  of  the  last  sort,  and  that  the  shew-bread 
was  of  the  same  kind.  The  Arabs  about  mount  Carmel 
use  a  great  stone  pitcher,  in  which  they  kindle  a  fire ;  and 
when  it  is  heated,  they  mix  meal  and  water,  which  they 
apply  with  the  hollow  of  their  hands  to  the  outside  of  the 
pitciier ;  and  this  extremely  soft  paste,  spreading  itself,  is 
baked  in  an  instant.  The  heat  of  the  pitcher  having  dried 
up  all  the  moisture,  the  bread  comes  off  as  thin  as  our  wa- 
fers ;  and  the  operation  is  so  speedily  performed,  that  in 
a  very  little  time  a  sufficient  quantity  is  made.  But  their 
best  sort  of  bread  they  bake,  either  by  heating  an  oven,  or 
a  large  pitcher  half  full  of  little  smooth  shining  flints, 
upon  which  they  lay  the.dough,  spread  out  in  the  form  of 
a  thin  broad  cake.  Sometimes  they  use  a  shallow  earthen 
vessel,  resembling  a  fryingpan,  which  seems  to  be  the 
pan  mentioned  by  Moses,  in  which  the  meat-offering  was 
naked.  This  vessel.  Dr.  Shaw  informs  us,  serves  both  for 
haking  and  frying ;  for  the  bagreah  of  the  people  of  Bar- 
'  ary  differs  not  much  from  our  pancakes,  only,  instead 


of  rubbing  the  pan  in  Wiiich  they  fry  them  with  butier, 
they  rub  it  wiih  soap,,  to  make  them  like  a  honeycomb. 
If  these  accounts  of  the  Arab  stone  pitcher,  the  pan,  and 
the  iron  hearth  or  copper  plate,  be  attended  to,  it  will  not 
be  difficult  to  understand  the  laws  of  Moses  in  the  second 
chapter  of  Leviticus ;  they  will  be  found  to  answer  per- 
fectly well  to  the  description  which  he  gives  us  of  the  dif- 
ferent ways  of  preparing  the  meat-offerings.  The  pre- 
cepts of  Moses  evidently  bear  a  particular  relation  to  the 
methods  of  preparing  bread,  used  by  those  who  live  in 
tents,  although  they  were  sufficient  for  the  direction  of  his 
people  after  their  settlement  in  Canaan;  and  his  mention- 
ing cakes  of  bread  baked  in  the  oven,  and  wafers  that 
were  baked  on  the  outside  of  these  pitchers,  in  the  fourth 
verse,  with  bread  baked  on  a  plate,  and  in  a  pan,  in  the 
fifth  and  seventh  verses,  inclines  Mr.  Harmer  to  think,  the 
people  of  Israel  prepared  their  meat-offerings  in  their  tents, 
which  they  afterward  presented  at  the  national  altar,  ra- 
ther than  in  the  court  of  the  tabernacle. — Paxton. 

While  we  were  talking  of  the  Turcomans,  who  had  ' 
alarmed  us  on  our  way,  a  meal  was  preparing  within; 
and  soon  afterward,  warm  cakes  baked  en  the  hearth, 
cream,  honey,  dried  raisins,  butter,  lebben,  and  wheat 
boiled  in  milk,  were  served  to  the  company.  Neither  the 
Sheikh  himself  nor  any  of  his  family  partook  with  us,  but 
stood  around,  to  wait  upon  their  guests,  though  among 
those  who  sat  down  to  eat,  were  two  Indian  fakirs,  or  beg- 
gars, a  Christian  pilgrim  from  Jerusalem,  and  the  slaves 
and  servants  of  Hadjee  Abd-el-Rakhman,  all  dipping  their 
fingers  into  the  same  dish.  Coffee  was  served  to  us  in 
gilded  china  cups,  and  silver  stands  or  finjans,  and  the 
pipes  of  the  Sheikh  and  his  son  were  filled  and  offered  to 
those  who  had  none.  If  there  could  be  traced  a  resem- 
blance between  the  form  of  this  tent,  and  that  of  the  most 
ancient  buildings  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge,  our 
reception  there  no  less  exactly  corresponiied  to  the  picture 
of  the  most  ancient  manners,  of  which  we  have  any  detail. 
When  the  three  angels  are  said  to  have  appeared  (o  Abra- 
ham in  the  plains  of  Mamre,  he  is  represented  as  sitting 
in  the  tent-door  in  the  heat  of  the  day.  "  And  wVien  he  saw 
them,  he  ran  to  meet  them  from  the  tent-door,  and  bowed 
himself  towards  the  ground."  "  And  Abraham  hastened 
into  the  tent,  unto  Sarah,  and  said,  '  Make  ready  quickly 
three  measures  of  fine  meal,  knead  it,  and  make  cakes 
upon  the  hearth.'  And  he  took  butter  and  milk,  and  the 
calf  which  he  had  dressed,  and  set  it  before  them,  and. he 
stood  by  them  under  the  tree,  and  they  did  eat."  When 
inquiry  was  made  after  his  wife,  he  replied,  "  Behold,  she 
is  in  the  tent."  And  when  it  was  promised  him,  that  Sarah 
should  have  a  son,  it  is  said,  "  And  Sarah  heard  in  the 
tent-door,  which  was  behind  him."  The  angels  are  repre- 
sented, as  merely  passengers  in  their  journey,  like  our- 
selves :  for  the  rites  of  hospitality  were  shown  to  them, 
before  they  had  made  their  mission  known.  At  first  sight 
they  were  desired  to  halt  and  repose,  to  wash  their  feet,  as 
they  had  apparently  walked,  and  rest  beneath  the  tree, 
while  bread  should  be  brought  them  to  comfort  their 
hearts.  "And  after  that,"  said  the  good  old  patriarch, 
"shall  ye  pass  on,  for  therefore  are  ye  come  unto  your 
servant ;"  so  that  the  duty  of  hospitality  to  strangers  seems 
to  have  been  as  well  and  as  mutually  understood  in  the 
earliest  days,  as  it  is  in  the  same  country  at  present.  The 
form  of  Abraham's  tent,  as  thus  described,  seems  to  have 
been  exactly  like  the  one  in  which  we  sit;  for  in  both, 
there  -w  as  ashaded  open  front,  in  which  he  could  sit  in  the 
heat  of  the  day,  and  yet  be  seen  from  afar  ofl^;  and  the 
apartment  of  the  females,  where  Sarah  was,  when  he 
stated  er  to  be  within  the  tent,  was  immediately  behind 
this,  w  erein  she  prepared  the  meal  for  the  guests,  and' 
from  ^\  lence  she  listened  to  their  prophetic  declaration. — 
Buckingham. 

Chap.  19.  ver.  19.  Behold  now,  thy  servant  hath 
found  grace  in  thy  sight. 

Nothing  can  be  more  common  than  this  form  of  speech. 
Has  a  man  been  jjleading  with  another  and  succeeded  in 
his  request,  he  will  sav,  "  Ah  !  since  I  have  found  favour 
in  your  sight,  let  me  mention  another  thing."  "  My  lord, 
had  I  not  found Yavour  in  your  sight,  who  would  have 
helped  me  ?"  "  Happy  is  the  man  who  fmds  grace  in  your  \ 
sight  ["—Roberts. 


CiiAi'.  21. 


GENESIS, 


27 


Ver.  24.  Then  the  Lord  rained  upon  Sodom  and 
upon  Gomorrah  brimstone  and  fire  from  the 
Lord  out  of  heaven.  25,  And  he  overthrew 
those  cities,  and  all  the  plain,  and  all  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  cities,  and  that  which  grew  upon 
the  ground. 

With  regard  to  the  agents  employed  in  this  catastrophe, 
there  might  seem  reason  to  suppose  that  volcanic  phe- 
nomena had  some  share  in  producing  it ;  but  Chateau- 
briand's remark  is  deserving  of  attention,  "  I  cannot,"  he 
says,  "  coincide  in  opinion  with  those  who  suppose  the 
Dead  Sea  to  be  the  crater  of  a  volcano.  I  have  seen 
Vesuvius,  Solfatara,  Monte  Nuovo  in  the  lake  of  Fusino, 
the  peak  of  the  Azores,  the  Mamalif  opposite  to  Carthage, 
the  extinguished  volcanoes  of  Auvergne ;  and  remarked 
in  all  of  them  the  same  characters  ;  that  is  to  say,  moim- 
tains  excavated  in  the  form  of  a  tunnel,  lava,  and  ashes, 
which  exhibited  incontestible  proofs  of  the  agency  of  fire." 
After  noticing  the  very  diiferent  shape  and  position  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  he  adds:  "  Bitumen,  warm  springs,  and  phos-" 
phoric  stones,  are  found,  it  is  true,  in  the  mountains  of 
Arabia ;  but  then,  the  presence  of  hot  springs,  sulphur,  and 
asphaltos,  is  not  suificient  to  attest  the  anterior  existence  of 
a  volcano."  The  learned  Frenchman  inclines  to  adopt 
the  idea  of  Professors  Michaelis  and  Biisching,  that  Sod- 
om and  Gomorrah  were  built  upon  a  mine  of  bitumen ;  that 
lightning  kindled  the  combustible  mass,  and  that  the  cities 
sank  in  the  subterraneous  conflagration.  M.  Malte  Brun 
ingeniously  suggests,  that  the  cities  might  themselves  have 
been  built  of  bituminous  stones,  and  thus  have  been  set  in 
flames  by  the  fire  of  heaven.  We  learn  from  the  Mosaic 
account,  that  the  Vale  of  Siddim,  which  is  now  occupied 
by  the  Dead  Sea,  was  full  of  "  slime-pits,"  or  pits  of  bitu- 
men. Pococke  says :  "  It  is  observed,  that  the  bitumen 
floats  on  the  water,  and  comes  ashore  after  windy  weather ; 
the  Arabs  gather  it  up,  and  it  serves  as  pitch  for  all  uses, 
goes  into  the  composition  of  medicines,  and  is  thought  to 
have  been  a  very  great  ingredient  in  the  bitumen  used  in 
embalming  the  bodies  in  Egypt :  it  has  been  much  used 
for  cerecloths,  and  has  an  ill  smell  when  burnt.  It  is  prob- 
able that  there  are  subterraneous  fires  that  throw  up  this 
bitumen  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  where  it  may  form  itself 
into  a  mass,  which  may  be  broken  by  the  motion  of  the 
water  occasioned  by  high  winds ;  and  it  is  very  remarkable, 
that  the  stone  called  the  stone  of  Moses,  found  about  two  or 
three  leagues  from  the  sea,  which  burns  like  a  coal,  and 
turns  only  to  a  white  stone,  and  not  to  ashes,  has  the  same 
smell,  when  burnt,  as  this  pitch ;  so  that  it  is  probable,  a 
stratum  of  the  stone  under  the  Dead  Sea  is  one  part  of  the 
matter  that  feeds  the  subterraneous  fires,  and  that  this 
bitumen  boils  up  out  of  it."  To  give  force  to  this  last  con- 
jecture, however,  it  would  be  requisite  to  ascertain,  whe- 
ther bitumen  is  capable  of  being  detached  from  this  stone, 
in  a  liquid  state,  by  the  action  of  fire.  The  stone  in  ques- 
tion is  the  black  fetid  limestone,  used  at  Jerusalem  in  the 
manufacture  of  rosaries  and  amulets,  and  worn  as  a  charm 
against  the  plague.  The  effluvia  which  it  emits  on  friction, 
is  owing  to  a  strong  imprfegnation  of  sulphureted  hydro- 
gen. If  the  buildings  were  constructed  of  materials  of  this 
description,  with  quarries  of  which  the  neighbouring  moim- 
tains  abound,  they  would  be  easily  susceptible  of  ignition 
by  lightning.  The  scriptural  account,  however,  is  ex- 
plicit, that  "the  Lord  rained  upon  Sodom  and  upon  Go- 
morrah brimstone  and  fire  from  heaven;"  which  Ave  may 
safely  interprei  as  implying  a  shower  of  inflamed  sulphur, 
or  nitre.  At  tue  same  time  it  is  evident,  that  the  whole 
plain  underw  0  it  a  simultaneous  convulsion,  which  seems 
reterible  to  the  consequences  of  a  bituminous  ex  ^losion. 
In  perfect  accordance  with  this  view  of  the  cata.-trophe, 
we  find  the  very  materials,  as  it  were,  of  this  awful  vis- 
itation still  at  hand  in  the  neighbouring  hills;  from 
which  they  might  have  been  poured  down  by  the  agency 
of  a  thunder-storm,  without  excluding  a  supernatural  cause 
from  the  explanation  of  the  phenomena.  Captains  Irby 
and  Mangles  collected  on  the  southern  coast  lumps  of 
nitre  and  fine  sulphur,  from  the  size  of  a  nutmeg  up  to 
that  of  a  small  hen's  egg,  which,  it  was  evident  from  their 
situation,  had  been  brought  down  by  the  rain:  their  great 
deposite  must  be  sought  for,"  they  say,  "  in  the  cliff"."  Dr. 
Shaw  supposes  that  the  bitumen,  as  it  rises,  is  accompanied 


with  sulphur,  "  inasmuch  as  both  of  them  are  found  pro- 
miscuously upon  the  wash  of  the  shore."  But  his  conjec- 
ture is  not  founded  on  observation.  The  statement  he 
gives,  is  founded  on  hearsay  evidence ;  we  cannot,  there- 
fore, admit  him  as  (in  this  case)  an  original  authority, 
"  I  was  informed,"  he  says,  "  that  the  bitumen,  for  which 
this  lake  hath  been  always  remarkable,  is  raised,  at  certain 
times,  from  the  bottom,  in  large  liemispheres ;  which,  as 
soon  as  they  touch  the  surface,  and  so  are  acted  upon  by 
the  external  air,  burst  at  once  with  great  smoke  and  noise, 
like  the  pulvis  fulminans  of  the  chymists,  and  disperse 
themselves  round  about  in  a  thousand  pieces.  But  this 
happens  only  near  the  shore ;  for,  in  greater  depths,  the 
eruptions  are  supposed  to  discover  themselves  onl)^  in  such 
columns  of  smoke  as  are  now  and  then  observed  to  arise 
from  the  lake."  Chateaubriand  speaks  of  the  puffs  of 
smoke  "  which  announce  or  follow  the  emersion  of  asphal- 
tos, and  of  fogs  that  are  really  unwholesome  like  all  other 
fogs."  These  he  considers'  as  the  supposed  pestilential 
vapours  said  to  arise  from  the  bosom  of  the  lake.  But  it 
admits  of  question,  in  the  deficiency  of  more  specific  infor- 
mation, whether  what  has  been  taken  for  columns  of  smoke, 
may  not  be  the  effect  of  evaporation, — Modern  Traveller. 

Ver.  26,  But  his  wife  looked  back  from  behind 
him,  and  she  became  a  pillar  of  salt. 

"  From  behind  him."  This  seems  to  imply  that  she  was 
following  her  husband,  as  is  the  custom  at  this  day.  When 
men,  or  women,  leave  their  house,  they  never  look  back,  as 
"  it  would  be  very  unfortunate."  Should  a  husband  have 
left  any  thing  which  his  wife  knows  he  will  require,  she 
will  not  call  on  him  to  turn  or  look  back;  but  Avill  either 
take  the  article  herself,  or  send  it  by  another.  Should  a 
man  have  to  look  back  on  some  great  emergency,  he  will : 
not  then  proceed  on  the  business  he  was  about  to  transact. 
When  a  person  goes  along  the  road,  (especially  in  tht 
evening,)  he  will  take  great  care  not  to  look  back,  "because 
the  evil  spirits  would  assuredly  seize  him."  When  they 
go  on  a  journey,  they  will  not  look  behind,  though  the 
palankeen,  or  bandy,  should  be  close  upon  them ;  they  step 
a  little  on  one  side,  and  then  look  at  you.  Should  a  person 
have  to  leave  the  house  of  a  friend  after  sunset,  he  will  be 
advised  in  going  home  not  to  look  back:  "  as  much  as  pos- 
sible keep  your  eyes  closed  ;  fear  not."  Has  a  person 
made  an  offering  to  the  evil  spirits,  he  must  take  particular 
care  when  he  leaves  the  place  not  to  look  back.  A  female 
known  to  me  is  believed  to  have  got  her  crooked  neck  by 
looking  back.  Such  observations  as  the  following  may  be 
often  heard  in  private  conversation.  "Have  you  heard 
that  Comdran  is  very  ill  i"— "  No,  what  is  the  matter  with 
him  V — "  Matter !  why  he  has  looked  back,  and  the  evil 
spirit  has  caught  him." — Roberts. 

Chap.  21.  ver.  6.  And  Sarah  said,  God  hath  made 
me  to  laugh,  so  that  all  that  hear  will  laugh 
with  me. 

A  Avoman  advanced  in  years,  under  the  same  circum- 
stances, would  make  a  similar  observation :  "  I  am  made 
to  laugh."  But  this  figure  of  speech  is  also  used  on  any 
wonderful  occasion.  Has  a  man  gained  any  thing  he  did 
not  expect,  he  will  ask,  "  AVhat  is  this  ?  I  am  made  to 
laugh."  Has  a  person  lost  any  thing  which  the  moment 
before  he  had  in  his  hand,  he  says,  "  I  am  made  to  laugh." 
Has  he  obtained  health,  or  honour,  or  wealth,  or  a  wife,  or 
a  child,  it  is  said,  "  He  is  made  to  laugh."  "  Ah,  his 
mouth  is  now  full  of  laughter ;  his  mouth  cannot  contain  all 
that  laughter."  (Ps.  cxxivi.  2.) — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  And  the  child  grew,  and  was  weaned : 
and  Abraham  made  a  great  feast  the  same  day 
that  Isaac  was  weaned. 

When  the  time  has  come  to  wean  a  child,  a  fortunate 
day  is  looked  for,  and  the  event  is  accompanied  with  feast- 
ing and  religious  ceremonies.  Rice  is  given  to  the  child 
in  a  formal  way,  and  the  relations  are  invited  to  join  in 
i)ie  festivities.  For  almost  every  event  of  life  the  Hindoo? 
have  a  fixed  rule  from  which  they  seldom  deviate.  They 
wean  a  female  child  within  the  year,  "  because,  if  they  dil? 
not,  it  would  become  steril ;"  but  boys  are  often  allowed 
the  breast  till  they  are  three  years  of  age,— Roberts 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  21, 


Ver.  9.  And  Sarah  saw  the  son  of  Hagar  the 
Egyptian,  which  she  had  borne  unto  Abraham. 

It  is  not  uncommon  for  a  man  of  property  to  keep  a  con- 
cubine in  the  same  house  with  his  wife ;  and,  strange  as  it 
may  appear,  it  is  sometimes  at  the  wife's  request*  Per- 
haps she  has  not  had  any  children,  or  they  may  have  died, 
and  they  both  wish  to  have  one,  to  perform  their  funeral 
ceremonies.  By  the  laws  of  Menu,  should  a  wife,  during 
the  first  eight  years  of  her  marriage,  prove  unfruitful ;  or 
should  the  children  she  has  borne  be  all  dead  in  the  tenth 
year  after  marriage ;  or  should  she  have  a  daughter  onhj 
in  the  eleventh  year ;  he  may,  without  her  consent,  put  her 
away,  and  take  a  concubine  into  the  house.  He  must, 
however,  continue  to  support  her. — Roberts. 

Ver.  14.  And  Abraham  rose  up  early  in  the 
morning,  and  took  bread  and  a  bottle  of  water, 
and  gave  it  unto  Hagar,  (putting  it  on  her 
shoulder,)  and  the  child,  and  sent  her  away ; 
and  she  departed,  and  wandered  in  the  wilder- 
ness of  Beer-sheba.  15.  And  the  water  was 
spent  in  the  bottle,  and  she  cast  the  child  under 
one  of  the  shrubs.  16.  And  she  went,  and  sat 
her  down  over  against  him  a  good  way  off,  as 
it  were  a  bow-shot ;  for  she  said,  Let  me  not  see 
the  death  of  the  child.  And  she  sat  over  against 
him,  and  lifted  up  her  voice,  and  wept. 

Chardin  has  given  us,  at  large,  an  amusing  account  of 
these  bottles,  which,  therefore,  I  would  here  set  down. 
After  observing  that  the  bottle  given  to  Hagar  was  a  lea- 
ther one,  he  goes  on  thus:  "  The  Arabs,  and  all  those  that 
lead  a  wandering  kind  of  life,  keep  their  water,  milk,  and 
other  kind  of  liquors  in  these  bottles.  They  keep  in  them 
more  fresh  than  otherwise  they  would  do.  These  lea- 
ther bottles  are  made  of  goat  skins.  When  the  animal  is 
killed,  they  cut  off  its  feet  and  its  head,  and  they  draw  it 
in  this  manner  out  of  the  skin,  without  opening  its  belly. 
They  afterward  sew  up  the  places  where  the  legs  were 
cut  off,  and  the  tail,  and  when  it  is  filled,  they  tie  it  about 
the  neck.  These  nations,  and  the  country  people  of  Per- 
sia, never  go  a  journey  without  a  small  leather  bottle  of 
water  hanging  by  their  side  like  a  scrip.  The  great  leather 
bottles  are  made  of  the  skin  of  a  he-goat,  and  the  small 
ones,  that  serve  instead  of  a  bottle  of  water  on  the  road,  are 
made  of  a  kid's  skin.  Mons.  Dandilly,  for  want  of  ob- 
serving this,  in  his  beautiful  translation  of  Josephus,  has 
put  goat  skin  in  the  chapter  of  Hagar  and  Ishmael,  instead 
of  a  kid's  skin  bottle,  which,  for  the  reasons  assigned  above, 
must  have  been  meant."  He  reassumes  the  subject  in  ano- 
ther part  of  the  same  volume,  in  which  he  tells  us,  "that 
they  put  into  these  goat-skin  and  kid-skin  vessels  every 
thing  which  they  want  to  carry  to  a  distance  in  the  East, 
whether  dry  or  liquid,  and  very  rarely  make  use  of  boxes 
and  pots,  unless  it  be  to  preserve  such  things  as  are  lia- 
ble to  be  broken.  The  reason  is,  their  making  use  of 
beasts  of  carriage  for  conveying  these  things,  who  often 
fall  down  under  their  loading,  or  throw  it  down,  and  also 
because  it  is  in  pretty  thin  woollen  sacks  that  they  enclose 
v/hat  they  carry.  There  is  another  advantage,  too,  in  put- 
ting the  necessaries  of  life  in  these  skin  vessels,  they  are 
preserved  fresher  ;  the  ants  and  other  insects  cannot  make 
their  way  to  them ;  nor  can  the  dust  get  m,  of  which  there 
are  such  quantities  in  the  hot  countries  of  Asia,  and  so 
fine,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  coffer  impenetrable  to 
it ;  therefore  it  is  that  butter,  honey,  cheese,  and  other  like 
aliments,  are  enclosed  in  vessels  made  of  the  skins  of  this 
species  of  animals."  According  to  this,  the  things  that 
were  carried  to  Joseph  for  a  present,  were  probably  en- 
closed in  little  vessels  made  of  kid  skins ;  not  only  the  balm 
and  the  honey,  which  were  somewhat  liquid ;  biit  the  nuts 
and  the  almonds  too,  that  they  might  be  preserved  fresh, 
and  the  whole  put  into  slight  woollen  sacks. — Harmer. 

That  Ishmael  should,  when  just  ready  to  faint,  and  un- 
able to  proceed  onward  in  his  journey,  desire  to  lie  down 


•  I  knew  a  couple  witli  whom  this  occurred,  and  the  wife  deli<rhts 
in  nursing  and  bringing  up  the  offspring  of  her  husband's  concubine. 


under  some  tree,  where  he  might  be  in  the  shade,  was 
quite  natural :  in  such  a  situation  Thevenot  (Travels,  p. 
164)  fell  in  with  a  poor  Arab  in  this  wilderness,  just  ready 
to  expire.  "  Passing  by  the  side  of  a  bush,"  says  this 
writer,  "  we  heard  a  voice  that  called  to  us,  and  being  come 
to  the  place,  we  found  a  poor  languishing  Arab,  who  told 
us  that  he  had  not  eaten  a  bit  for  five  days ;  we  gave  him 
some  victuals  and  drink,  with  a  provision  of  bread  for  tAvo 
days  more,  and  so  went  on  our  way."  Ishmael  was,  with- 
out debate,  fourteen  years  old  when  Isaac  was  born,  (com- 
pare Gen.  xvi.  16,  with  chap.  xxi.  5,)  and  probably  seven- 
teen when  Isaac  was  weaned,  for  it  was  anciently  the 
custom  in  these  countries  to  suckle  children  till  they  were 
three  years  old,  and  it  still  continues  so ;  the  translation 
then  of  the  Septuagint  is  very  amazing,  for  instead  of 
representing  Abraham  as  giving  Hagar  bread,  and  a  skin 
bottle  of  water,  and  putting  them  upon  Hagar's  shoulder, 
that  version  represents  Abraham  as  putting  his  son  Ishmael 
on  the  shoulders  of  his  mother.  How  droll  the  represent- 
ation !  Young  children  indeed  are  wont  to  be  carried  so ; 
but  how  ridiculous  to  describe  a  youth  of  seventeen,  or 
even  fourteen,  as  riding  upon  his  mother's  shoulders,  when 
sent  upon  a  journey  into  the  wilderness,  and  she- loaded  at 
the  same  time  with  the  provisions.  Yet  unnatural  and  odd 
as  this  representation  is,  our  version  approaches  too  near 
to  it,  when  it  describes  Hagar  as  casting  the  youth  under 
one  of  the  shrubs :  which  term  agrees  well  enough  with 
the  getting  rid  of  a  half  grown  man  from  her  shoulders, 
but  by  no  means  with  the  maternal  affectionate  letting  go 
her  hold  of  him,  when  she  found  he  could  go  no  farther, 
and  desired  to  lie  down  and  die  under  that  bush :  for  that 
undoubtedly  was  the  idea  of  the  sacred  writer ;  she  left  off 
supporting  him,  and  let  him  gently  drop  on  the  ground, 
where  he  desired  to  lie.  In  a  succeeding  verse,  the  angel 
of  the  Lord  bade  her  lift  up  Ishmael,  and  hold  him  in  her 
hand,  support  him  under  his  extreme  weakness ;  she  had 
doubtless  done  this  before,  and  her  quitting  her  hold,  upon 
his  lying  down,  is  the  meaning  of  the  word  (i'r!t')  sha/ak, 
translated  casting,  that  word  sometimes,  indeed,  signify- 
ing a  sudden  and  rather  violent  quitting  hold  of  a  thing, 
but  at  other  times  a  parting  with  it  in  a  gentle  manner. 
It  may  also  be  wondered  at,  how  Hagar  came  to  give  way 
to  despair  at  that  time,  as  she  certainly  did ;  for  since  there 
were  several  shrubs  in  that  place,  we  may  suppose  it  was 
a  sure  indication  of  water,  and  that  therefore  maternal 
anxiety  would  rather  have  engaged  her  to  endeavour  to 
find  out  the  spring  w^hich  gave  this  spot  its  verdure.  But  it 
is  to  be  remembered,  that  though  Irwin  found  many  shrubs 
in  that  part  of  the  wilderness  through  which  he  travelled, 
yet  the  fountains  or  wells  there  were  by  no  means  equal 
in  number  to  the  spots  of  ground  covered  with  shrubs,  a 
latent  moisture  in  the  earth  favouring  their  growth,  where 
there  were  no  streams  of  water  above  ground :  she  might, 
therefore,  having  found  her  preceding  searches  vain,  verv 
naturally  be  supposed  to  have  given  up  all  hope  of  relief, 
when  the  angel  made  her  observe  where  there  was  water 
to  be  found,  upon  drinking  which  Ishmael  revived. — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  16.  And  she  went.tmd  sat  her  down  over 
against  him,  a  good  way  off,  as  it  were  a  bow- 
shot. 

This  is  a  common  figure  of  speech  in  their  anciei 
writings,  "  The  distance  of  an  arrow. — So  far  as  the  arroA  _ 
flies."  The  common  way  of  measuring  a  short  distance  is~ 
to  say,  "  It  is  a  call  off,"!  e.  so  far  as  a  man's  voice  can 
reach.  ^  "  How  far  is  he  off"'?"  "  O,  not  more  than  three 
calls,^'  i.  e.  were  three  men  stationed  within  the  reach  of 
each  other's  voices,  the  voice  of  the  one  farthest  off  would 
reach  to  that  distance. — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  And  God  opened  her  eyes,  and  she  sa\A', 
a  Avell  of  water :  and  she  went  and  filled  th« 
bottle  with  water,  and  gave  the  lad  drink. 

Few  Europe  an  readers  are,  probably,  able  to  form  ai 
adequate  idea  3f  the  horrors  of  such  a  situation  as  is  her^ 
described.  The  following  description  may  serve  to  paii 
to  us  the  terrors  of  the  desert,  and  the  danger  of  perishinl 
in  it  with  thirst.  "  The  desert  of  Mesopotamia  now  pre 
sents  to  our  eyes  its  melancholy  uniformity.     It  is  a  cor 


Chap.  21—23. 


GENESIS. 


29 


<inuation,  and,  as  it  were,  a  branch  of  the  Great  Arabian 
desert  on  the  other  side  of  the  Euphrates.  Saline  plants 
cover,  at  large  intervals,  the  burning  sand  or  the  dry  gyp- 
sum. Wormwood  spreads  here,  as  the  furze  in  Europe, 
over  immense  tracts,  from  which  it  excludes  every  other 
plant,  Agile  herds  of  gazelles  traverse  those  plains, 
where  many  wild  asses  forrt(erly  roved.  The  lion  con- 
cealed in  the  rushes  along  the  rivers  lies  in  wait  for  these 
animals ;  but  when  he  is  unable  to  seize  them,  to  appease 
his  hunger,  he  sallies  forth  with  fury,  and  his  terrible  roar- 
ing rolls  like  thunder  from  desert  to  desert.  The  water  of 
the  desert  is,  for  the  most  part,  bitter  and  brackish.  The 
atmosphere,  as  is  usual  in  Arabia,  is  pure  and  dry ;  fre- 
quently it  is  burning  in  the  naked  and  sandy  plains :  the 
corrupt  vapours  of  stagnant  waters  are  diffused  there ;  the 
exhalations  of  the  sulphureous  and  salt  lakes  increase  the 
pestilential  matter,  w  henever  any  interruption  of  equilib- 
rium sets  a  column  of  such  infected  air  into  rapid  motion, 
that  poisonous  wind  arises,  which  is  called  Samum  or 
Samyel,  which  is  dreaded  less  in  the  interior  of  Arabia 
than  on  the  frontiers,  and  especially  in  Syria  and  Mesopo- 
tamia, As  soon  as  this  dangerous  wind  arises,  the  air  im- 
mediately loses  its  purity,  the  sun  is  covered  with  a  bloody 
veil,  all  animals  fall  alarmed  to  the  jearth,  to  avoid  this 
burning  blast,  which  stifles  every  living  being  that  is  bold 
enough  to  expose  itself  to  it.  The  caravans  which  convey 
goods  backward  and  forward  from  Aleppo  to  Bagdad, 
and  have  to  traverse  these  deserts,  pay  a  tribute  to  the 
Arabs,  who  consider  themselves  as  masters  of  these  soli- 
tudes. They  have  also  to  dread  the  suffocating  wind,  the 
swarms  of  locusts,  and  the  want  of  water,  as  soon  as  they 
leave  the  Euphrates,"  A  French  traveller  affirms,  that  J[ie 
was  witness  to  a  scene  occasioned  by  the  want  of  water, 
the  most  terrible  that  can  be  imagined  for  a  man  of  feel- 
ing. It  was  between  Anah  and  Dryjeh.  The  locusts,  af- 
ter they  had  devoured  every  thing,  at  last  perished.  .The 
immense  numbers  of  dead  locusts  corrupted  the  pools, 
from  which,  for  want  of  springs,  they  were  obliged  to  draw 
water.  The  traveller  observed  a  Turk,  who,  with  despair 
in  his  countenance,  ran  down  a  hill,  and  came  towards 
him.  "  I  am,"  cried  he,  "the  most  unfortunate  man  in  the 
world  !  I  have  purchased,  at  a  prodigious  expense,  two 
hundred  girls,  the  most  beautiful  of  Greece  and  Georgia. 
I  have  educated  them  with  care;  and  now  that  they  are 
marriageable,  I  am  taking  them  to  Bagdad  to  sell  them  to 
advantage.  Ah !  they  perish  in  this  desert  for  thirst,  but 
I  feel  greater  tortures  than  they."  The  traveller  immedi- 
ately ascended  the  hill ;  a  dreadful  spectacle  here  present- 
ed itself  to  hira.  In  the  midst  of  twelve  eunuchs  and  about 
a  hundred  camels  he  saw  these  beautiful  girls,  of  the  age  of 
twelve  to  fifteen,  stretched  upon  the  ground,  exposed  to 
the  torments  of  a  burning  thirst  and  inevitable  death.  Some 
were  already  buried  in  a  pit  which  had  just  been  made; 
a  great  number  had  dropped  down  dead  by  the  side  of  their 
leaders,  who  had  no  more  strength  to  bury  them.  On  all 
sides  were  heard  the  sighs  of  the  dying ;  and  the  cries  of 
those  who,  having  still  some  breath  remaining,  demanded 
in  vain  a  drop  of  water.  The  French  traveller  hastened 
to  open  his  leathern  bottle,  in  which  there  was  a  little 
I  water.  He  was  already  going  to  present  it  to  one  of  these 
!  unhappy  victims.  "  Madman !"  cried  his  Arabian  guide, 
'  "  wouldst  thou  also  have  us  die  from  thirst '?"  He  immedi- 
ately killed  the  girl  with  an  arrow,  seized  the  bottle,  and 
threatened  to  kill  any  one  who  should  venture  to  touch  it. 
He  advised  the  slave-merchant  to  go  to  Dryjeh,  where  he 
would  find  water.  "  No,"  replied  the  Turk,  "  at  Dryjeh 
the  robbers  would  take  away  all  my  slaves,"  The  Arab 
dragged  the  traveller  away.  The  moment  they  were  re- 
tiring, these  unhappy  victims,  seeing  the  last  ray  of  hope 
vanish,  raised  a  dreadful  cry.  The  Arab  was  moved  with 
compassion ;  he  took  one  of  them,  poured  a  drop  of  water 
or.  her  burning  lips,  and  set  her  upon  his  camel,  with  the 
intention  of  making  his  wife  a  present  of  her.  The  poor 
girl  fainted  several  times,  when  she  passed  the  bodies  of 
her  companions,  who  had  fallen  down  dead  in  the  way. 
Our  traveller's  small  stock  of  water  was  nearly  exhausted, 
i  when  they  found  a  fine  well  of  fresh  and  pure  water;  but 
I  the  rope  was  so  short,  that  the  pail  would  not  reach  the 
j  surface  of  the  water.  They  cut  their  cloaks  in  strips,  tied 
I  •  them  together,  and  drew  up  but  little  water  at  a  time,  be- 
'.  cause  they  trembled  at  the  idea  of  breaking  their  weak 
i    rope,  and  leaving  their  pail  in  the  well.    After  such  dan- 


gers, they  at  last  arrived  at  the  first  station  in  Syria,— 

BURDER. 

Ver,  21.  And  he  dwelt  in  the  wilderness  of  Pa- 
ran  :  and  his  mother  took  him  a  wife  out  of  the 
land  of  Egypt. 

When  a  father  dies,  the  mother  begins  to  look  out  for  a 
wife  for  her  son,  though  he  may  be  very  young ;  and  her 
arrangements  will  generally  be  acceded  to. — Roberts. 

Ver.  28.  And  Abraham  set  seven  ewe-lambs  of 
the  flocks  by  themselves.  29.  And  Abimelech 
said  unto  Abraham,  What  meaii  these  seven 
ewe-lambs,  which  thou  hast  set  by  themselves  % 

30.  And  he  said,  For  these  seven  ewe-lambs 
shalt  thou  take  of  my  hand,  that  they  may  be 
a  witness  unto  me  that  I  have  digged  this  well. 

31.  Wherefore  he  called  that  place  Beer-she- 
ba ;  because  there  they  sware  both  of  them. 

Mr.  Bruce,  (  Travels,  vol.  i.  p.  199,)  relating  the  manner 
in  which  a  compact  was  made  between  his  partj''  and  some 
shepherds  in  Abyssinia,  says,  "  Medicines  and  advice  being 
given  on  my  part,  faith  and  protection  pledged  on  theirs, 
two  bushels  of  wheat  and  seven  sheep  were  carried  down 
to  the  boat." — Burder. 

Chap.  22.  ver.  3.  And  Abraham  rose  up  early  in 
the  morning,  and  saddled  his  ass,  and  took  two 
of  his  young  men  with  him,  and  Isaac  his  son, 
and  clave  the  wood  for  the  burnt-ofTering,  and 
rose  up,  and  went  unto  the  place  of  which  God 
had  told  him. 

There  is  no  ground  for  supposing  that  the  ancient  eastern 
saddles  were  like  our  modern  ones.  Such  were  not  known 
to  the  Greeks  and  Romans  till  many  ages  after  the  Hebrew 
judges.  "  No  nation  of  antiquity  knew  the  use  of  either 
saddles  or  stirrups,"  (Goguet;)  and  even  in  our  own  times, 
Hasselquist,  when  at  Alexandria,  says,  "  I  procured  an 
equipage  which  I  had  never  used  before ;  it  was  an  ass 
with  an  Arabian  saddle,  which  consisted  only  of  a  cushion, 
on  which  I  could  sit,  and  a  handsome  bridle."  But  even 
the  cushion  seems  an  improvement  upon  the  ancient  east- 
ern saddles,  which  were  probably  nothing  more  than  a  kind 
of  rug  girded  to  the  beast, — Burder, 

Chap.  23.  ver.  2.  And  Sarah  died  in  Kirjath-arba ; 
the  same  is  Hebron  in  the  land  of  Canaan: 
and  Abraham  came  to  mourn  for  Sarah,  and  to 
weep  for  her. 

'The  ancient  Greeks  were  accustomed  to  lay  out  the  body 
after  it  was  shrouded  in  its  grave-clothes ;  sometimes  upon 
a  bier,  which  they  bedecked  with  various  sorts  of  flowers. 
The  place  where  the  bodies  were  laid  out,  was  near  the 
door  of  the  house :  there  the  friends  of  the  deceased  attend- 
ed them  with  loud  lanstentations;  a  custom  which  still 
continues  to  be  observed  among  that  people.  Dr.  Chandler, 
when  travelling  in  Greece,  saw  a  woman  at  Megara,  sitting 
with  the  door  of  her  cottage  open,  lamenting  her  dead  hus- 
band aloud  ;  and  at  Zante,  a  woman  in  a  house  with  the 
door  open,  bewailing  her  little  son,  whose  body  lay  by  her 
dressed,  the  hair  powdered,  the  face  painted  and  bedecked 
with  gold  leaf  This  custom  of  mourning  for  the  dead, 
near  the  door  of  the  house,  was  probably  borrowed  from 
the  Syrians;  and  if  so,  it  will  serve  to  illustrate  an  obscure 
expression  of  Moses,  relative  to  Abraham  :  "  And  Sarah 
died  in  Kirjath-arba;  and  Abraham  came  to  mourn  for 
Sarah,  and  to  weep  for  her."  He  came  out  of  his  own 
separate  tent,  and  seating  himself  on  the  ground  near  the 
door  of  her  tent,  where  her  corpse  was  placed,  that  he 
might  perform  those  public  solemn  rites  of  mourning,  that 
were  required,  as  well  by  decency  as  affection,  lame»ted 
with  many  tears  the  loss  he  had  sustained. — Paxton. 


5u 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  24. 


Ver.  7.  And  Abraham  stood  up,  and  bpwed  him- 
self to  the  people  of  the  land,  even  to  the  chil- 
dren of  Heth. 

The  politeness  of  Abraham  may  be  seen  exemplified 
among  the  highest  and  the  lowest  of  the  people  of  the 
East:  in  this  respect,  nature  seems  to  have  done  for  them, 
what  art  has  done  for  others.  With  what  grace  do  all 
classes  bow  on  receiving  a  favour,  or  in  paying  their 
respects  to  a  superior !  Sometimes  they  bow  down  to  the 
ground ;  at  other  times  they  put  their  hands  on  their 
bosoms,  and  gently  incline  the  head;  they  also  put  the  right 
hand  on  the /ace  in  a  longitudinal  position;  and  sometimes 
give  a  long  and  graceful  sweep  with  the  right  hand,  from 
lYie  forehead  to  the  ground. — Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  That  he  may  give  me  the  cave  of  Mach- 
pelah,  which  he  hath,  which  is  in  the  end  of 
his  field :  for  as  much  money  as  it  is  worth  he 
shall  give  it  me,  for  a  possession  of  a  burying- 

place  among  you. 
$ 
This  IS  the  most  ancient  example  of  a  family  vault  or  an 
hereditary  sepulchre  in  a  cave.  In  the  southern  mountain- 
ous part  of  Palestine,  there  are  many  natural  caves  in  the 
rocks,  which  may  easily  be  formed  into  spacious  burying- 
places.  There  are  still  found  in  Syria,  Palestine,  and 
Ep-vpt,  many  such  sepulchral  caves,  which  have  been  fre- 
quently described  by  travellers  who  have  visited  those 
countries.  These  sepulchres  are  differently  contrived. 
Sometimes  they  descend  ;  only  those  which  are  made  in  the 
declivities  of  the  mountains,  often  go  horizontally  into  the 
rock.  In  Eg3T)t,  also,  there  are  many  open  sepulchres, 
which  run  horizontally  into  the  rock,  but  most  of  the  mum- 
my-pits are  open  perpendicularly,  and  you  must  let  your- 
self down  through  this  opening.  In  Palestine  and  Syria, 
on  the  contrary,  the  sepulchres  which  descend,  are  provided 
with  steps,  which  are  now  for  the  most  part  covered  with 
heaps  of  rubbish.  Many  of  them  consist  in  the  inside  of 
many  chambers  which  are  united  by  passages ;  in  some  of 
them  the  back  chambers  are  deeper  than  the  front  ones, 
and  you  are  obliged  to  descend  some  more  steps  to  come  to 
them.  These  chambers,  as  they  are  still  found,  are  pretty 
spacious  ;  in  most  of  them  recesses,  six  or  seven  feet  long, 
are  made  in;  he  walls  all  round,  to  receive  the  dead  bodies; 
in  others  stoi  e  slabs  of  the  same  length  are  fixed  against 
the  walls  ;  sometimes  several,  one  above  another,  on  which 
the  dead  bodies  were  laid;  in  some  few  there  are  stone- 
coffins,  whicli  are  provided  with  a  lid.  It  is  nearly  in  this 
manner  that  'he  arrangement  of  graves  is  prescribed  in  the 
Talmud ;  on'  v  there  is  always  to  be  an  antechamber  and  re- 
cesses made  m  the  walls  of  the  square  sepulchres,  the  num- 
ber of  which  may  be  ditferent. — Burder. 

Ver.  15.  My  lord,  hearken  unto  me  :  the  land  is 
loorth  four  hundred  shekels  of  silver;  what  is 
that  betwixt  me  and  thee  1  bury  therefore  thy 
dead. 

_  Respectable  people  are  always  saluted  with  the  dignified 
title,  "  My  lord ;"  hence  English  gentlemen  on  their  arrival, 
are  apt  to  suppose  they  are  taken  for  those  of  very  high 
rank.  The  man  of  whom  Abraham  oflered  to  purchase 
Machpelah,  affected  to  give  the  land.  "Nay,  my  lord, 
hear  me,  the  field  I  give  thee."  And  this  fully  agrees  with 
the  conduct  of  those,  who  are  requested  to  dispose  of  a  thing 
to  a  person  of  superior  rank.  Let  the  latter  go  and  ask  the 
price,  and  the  owner  will  say,  "  My  lord,  it  will  be  a  great 
favour  if  you  will  take  it."  "  Ah,  let  me  have  that  pleasure, 
my  lord."  Should  the  possessor  believe  he  will  one  day 
need  a  favour  from  the  great  man,  nothing  will  induce 
him  to  sell  the  article,  and  he  will  take  good  care  (through 
the  servants  or  a  friend)  it  shall  soon  be  in  his  house. 
Should  he,  however,  have  no  expectation  of  a  favour  in 
fiture,  he  will  say  as  Ephron,  "  The  thing  is  worth  so 
Ijiuch;  your  pleasure,  my  lord." — Roberts. 

Chap.  24.  ver.  2.  And  Abraham  said  unto  his 
eldest  servant  of  his  house,  that  ruled  over  all 


that  he  had.  Put,  I  pray  thee,  thy  hand  under 
my  thigh :  3.  And  I  will  make  thee  swear  by 
the  Lord,  the  God  of  heaven,  and  the  God  of 
the  earth,  that  thou  shalt  not  take  a  wife  unto 
my  son  of  the  daughters  of  the  Canaan ites, 
among  whom  I  dwell. 

The  present  mode  of  swearing  among  the  Mohammedan 
Arabs,  that  live  in  tents  as  the  patriaichs  did,  according  to 
de  l-a  Roque,  is  by  laying  their  hands  on  the  Koran.  They 
cause  those  who  swear  to  wash  their  hands  before  they  give 
them  the  book;  they  put  their  left  hand  imderneatii,  and 
the  right  over  it.  Whether,  among  the  patriarchs,  one  hand 
was  under,  and  the  other  upon  the  thigh,  is  not  certain; 
possibly  Abraham's  servant  might  swear  with  one  hand 
under  his  master's  thigh,  and  the  other  stretched  out  to 
Heaven.  As  the  posterity  of  the  patriarchs  are  described 
as  coming  out  of  the  thigh,  it  has  been  supposed,  this  cere- 
mony had  some  relation  to  their  believing  the  promise  of 
God,  to  bless  all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  by  means  of  one 
that  was  to  descend  from  Abraham. — Harmer. 

Ver.  1 1.  And  he  made  his  camels  to  kneel  down 
without  the  city  by  a  well  of  water,  at  the  time 
of  the  evening,  even  the  time  that  women  go  out 
to  draw  loater. 

It  is  the  work  oi  females  in  the  East  to  draw  w^ater  both 
morning  and  evening ;  and  they  may  be  seen  going  in 
groups  to  the  wells,  with  their  vessels  on  the  hip  or  the 
shoulder.  In  the  morning  they  talk  about  the  events  of ' 
the  past  night,  and  in  the  evening  about  those  of  the  day: 
many  a  time  would  the  story  of  Abraham's  servant  and  Re- 
becca, the  daughter  of  Bethuel,  be  repeated  by  the  women 
of  Mesopotamia  m  their  visits  to  the  well. — Roberts. 

The  women  among  the  orientals,  are  reduced  to  a  state 
of  great  subjection.  Irt  Barbary  they  regard  the  civility 
and  respect  which  the  politer  nations  of  Europe  pay  to  the- 
weaker  sex,  as  extravagance,  and  so  many  infringements 
of  that  law  of  nature,  which  assigns  to  man  the  pre-emi- 
nence. The  matrons  of  that  country,  though  they  are 
considered  indeed  as  servants  of  better  station,  yet" have 
the  greatest  share  of  toil  and  business  upon  their  hands. 
While  the  lazy  husband  reposes  under  some  neighbouring 
shade,  and  the  young  people  of  both  sexes  tend  the  flocks, 
the  wives  are  occupied  all  the  day  long,  either  in  toiling 
on  their  looms,  or  in  grinding  at  the  mill,  or  in  prepsiring 
bread  or  other  kind  of  farinaceous  food.  Nor  is  this  all  f 
for  to  finish  the  day,  "  at  the  time  of  evening,"  to  use  the 
words  of  the  sacred  historian,  "  even  at  the  time  that 
women  go  out  to  draw  water,"  they  must  equip  themselves 
with  a  pitcher  or  goat's  skin,  and  tying  their  sucking 
children  behind  them,  trudge  out  in  this  manner,  two  or 
three  miles,  to  fetch  •water. — Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  And  the  damsel  u^a^s  very  fair  to  look 
upon,  a  virgin ;  neither  had  any  man  known 
her :  and  she  went  down  to  the  well,  and  filled 
her  pitcher  and  came  up. 

The  vessel  that  the  Eastern  women  frequently  make  u?e' 
of,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  water,  is  described  as  like 
our  jars,  and  is,  it  seems,  of  earth.  Bishop  Pococke,  in 
his  journey  from  Acre  to  Nazareth,  observed  a  well, 
where  oxen  were  drawing  up  water,  from  whence  women 
carried  water  up  a  hill,  in  earthen  jars,  to  water  some 
plantations  of  tobacco.  In  the  next  page  he  mentions  the 
same  thing  in  general,  and  speaks  of  their  carrying  the  jars 
on  their  heads.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  this  kind 
of  vessel  was  appropriated  to  the  carrying  water  for  the 
purposes  of  agriculture,  it  might  do  equally  well  ■«  hen 
they  carried  it  for  domestic  uses.  Such  seems  to  have 
been  the  sort  of  vessels  in  Avhich  the  women  of  ancient 
times  fetched  water,  for  it  is  called  a  had  in  the  history  of 
Rebecca,  Gen.  xxiv.  14,  d-c.  and  I  have  elsewhere  shown, 
that  the  word  signifies  ajar  of  considerable  size,  in  which 
they  keep  their  rorn,  and  in  w^hich,  at  least  sometimes,  they 
fetched  their  water. 

Since  the  above  was  written,  I  have  observed  a  passage 


Chap.  24. 


GENESIS. 


31 


in  Dr.  Chandler's  Travels  in  Asia  Minor,  that  confirms 
and  illustrates  the  preceding  account ;  "  The  women," 
sa^'s  the  Doctor,  "  resort  to  the  fountains  by  their  houses, 
each  with  a  large  two-handled  earthen  jar,  on  the  back,  or 
thrown  over  the  shoulder,  for  water."  This  accotint  of  the 
jars  made  use  of  by  the  Greek  women  of  the  island  of 
Tenedos  may,  very  naturally,  be  understood  to  be  a  mod- 
ern, bat  accurate  comment  on  what  is  said  concerning 
Rebecca's  fetching  water.  The  Eastern  women,  according 
to  Dr.  Pococke,  sometimes  carry  their  jars  upon  their 
heads ;  but  Rebecca's  was  carried  on  her  shoulder.  In 
such  a  case,  the  jar  is  not  to  be  supposed  to  have  been  placed 
upright  on  the  shoulder,  but  held  by  one  of  the  handles, 
with  the  hand  over  the  shoulder,  and  suspended  in  this 
manner  on  the  back.  Held,  I  should  imagine,  by  the  right 
hand  over  the  left  shoulder.  Consequently,  when  it  was  to 
be  pre:;ented  to  Abraham's  servant,  that  he  might  drink  out 
of  it,  it  -;■  ^  ^^  "ently  moved  over  the  left  arm,  and  being 
susp'^  -3  hand,  while  the  other,  probably,  was 

placr  •  '  •  .;  t  jttom  of  the  jar,  it  was  in  that  position 
presc  ■  I  V /aham's  servant,  and  his  attendants,  ib 
drink  out  (  '.  She  said,  Drink,  my  lord:  and  she  hasted,  and 
let  doum  her  pitcher  upon  her  hand,  and  gave  him  drink. 
Ver.  18. — Harmer. 

Ver.  18.  And  s!:e  said,  Drink, my  lord:  and  she 
hasted,  and  let  down  her  pitcher  upon  her  hand, 
and  gave  him  drink. 

We  met  on  this  road  (from  Orfa  to  Bir)  with  seVferal 
wells,  at  which  the  young  women  of  the  neighbouring 
villages,  or  of  the  tribes  of  the  Curds  and  Turkomans, 
Who  were  wandering  in  these  parts,  watered  their  flocks. 
They  were  not  veiled  like  those  in  the  towns.  They  were 
well  made  and  beautiful,  though  tanned  by  the  sun.  As 
soon  as  we  accosted  them,  and  alighted  from  our  horses, 
they  brought  us  water  to  drink,  and  likewise  watered  our 
horses.  Similar  civilities  had  indeed  been  shown  to  me 
in  other  parts.  But  here  it  appeared  to  me  particularly 
remarkable,  because  Rebecca,  who  was  certainly  brought 
up  in  these  parts,  showed  herself  e-qually  obliging  to  trav- 
ellers. Perhaps  I  have  even  drank  at  the  same  well  from 
which  she  drew  water.  For  Haran,  now  a  small  place,  two 
days'  journey  to  the  south-south-east  of  Orfa,  which  is  still 
visited  by  Jews,  was  probably  the  town  wh^ch  Abraham  left 
to  remove  to  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  his  brother  Nahor's 
family  probably  remained  in  these  parts,  Leon.ird  Rauwolp, 
a  German  traveller,  who  visited  these  countries  about  two 
hundred  years  before,  observes,  in  his  Travels,  (part  i.  p. 
259,)  "  This  town  (Orfa)  is  supposed  by  some  to  have  been 
formerly  called  Haran,  from  which  the  holy  patriarch  Abra- 
ham, with  Sarah,  and  Lot,  his  brother's  son,  removed  by 
the  command  of  God;- so  that  the  abundant  well  is  still 
called  Abraham's  well,  at  which  his  servant  first  recog- 
nised Rebecca,  when  she  gave  him  and  his  camels  water 
to  drink  from  it.  The  water  of  this  well  has  more  of  a 
whitish  colour  than  others,  and  also,  as  I  drank  it  from  the 
well  in  the  middle  of  the  great  Khan,  had  a  peculiar  yet 
sweet  and  pleasant  taste."— Burder. 

Ver.  22.  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  the  camels  had 
done  drinking,  that  the  man  took  a  golden  ear- 
ring of  half  a  shekel  weight,  and  two  bracelets 
for  her  hands  of  ten  shekels  weight  of  gold. 

The  weight  of  the  ornaments  that  the  servant  of  Abra- 
ham put  upon  Ijlebecca  appears  to  us  rather  extraordinary. 
Sir  J.  Chardin  assures  us  as  heavy,  and  even  heavier,  were 
worn  by  the  women  of  the  East  when  he  was  there.  The 
ear-ring,  or  jewel  for  the  face,  weighed  half  a  shekel,  and 
the  bracelets  for  her  hands  ten  shekels,  Gen.  xxiv.  22, 
which,  as  he  justly  observes,  is  about  five  ounces.  Upon 
Which  he  tells  us,  "  the  women  weor  rings  and  bracelets  of 
as  great  weight  as  this,  through  all  Asia,  and  even  much 
heavier.  They  are  rather  manacles  than  bracelets.  There 
are  some  as  large  as  the  finger.  The  women  wear  sev- 
eral of  them,  one  above  the  other,  in  such  a  manner  as 
sometimes  to  have  the  arm  covered  with  them  from  the 
wrist  to  the  elbow.  Poor  people  wear  as  many  of  glass  or 
horn.  Thev  hardly  ever  take  them  ofif:  they  are  their 
riches." — Harmer. 


Ver.  43.  Behold,  I  stand  by  the  well  of  water ; 
and  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  w^hen  the  virgin 
Cometh  forth  to  draw  water,  and  I  say  to  her, 
Give  me,  I  pray  thee,  a  little  w^ater  of  thy 
pitcher  to  drink. 

It  is  still  the  proper  business  of  the  females  to  supply  the 
family  with  waten  I^^om  this  drudgery,  however,  the 
married  women  are  exempted,  unless  when  single  women 
are  wanting.  The  proper  time  for  drawing  water  in  those 
burning  climates,  is  in  the  morning,  o^  when  the  sun  is 
going  down;  then  they  go  forth  to  perform  that  humble 
office,  adorned  with  their  trinkets,  some  of  which  are  often 
of  great  value.  Agreeably  to  this  custom,  Rebecca  went  in- 
stead of  her  mother  to  fetch  water  from  the  well,  and  the 
servant  of  Abraham  expected  to  meet  an  unmarried  female 
there  who  might  prove  a  suitable  match  for  his  master's 
son.  In  the  East  Indies,  the  women  also  draw  water  at 
the  ptiblic  wells,  as  Rebecca  did,  on  that  occasion,  for 
travellers,  their  servants  and  their  cattle ;  and  women  or 
no  mean  rank  literally  illustrate  the  conduct  of  an  unfor- 
tunate princess  in  the  Jewish  History,  by  performing  the 
services  of  a  menial.  The  young  women  of  Guzerat  daily 
draw  water  from  the  wells,  and  carry  the  jars  upon  the  * 
head ;  but  those  of  high  rank  carry  them  upon  the  shoulder. 
In  the  same  way  Rebecca  carried  her  pitcher;  and  proba- 
bly for  the  same  reason,  because  she  was  the  daughter  of 
£m  eastern  prince. — Paxton. 

Ver.  47.  And  I  put  the  ear-ring  upon  her  face, 
and  the  bracelets  upon  her  hand. 

Nothing  is  more  common  than  for  heathen  females  tc 
have  a  ring  in  the  nose;  and  this  has  led  some  to  suppose^ 
that  the  jewel  here  alluded  to  was  put  into  that  member, 
and  not  on  the  face.  "  I  put  a  jewel  on  thy  forehead ;" 
Ez.  XV.  11.  The  margin  has,  for  forehead,  "nose."  It 
does  not  appear  to  be  generally  known,  that  there  is  an 
ornament  which  is  worn  by  females  in  the  East  on  the 
forehead.  It  is  made  of  thin  gold,  and  is  studded  with 
precious  stones,  and  called  Pattam,  which  signifies  dig- 
nity. Thus,  to  tie  on  the  Paitavi,  is  to  "  invest  with  high 
dignity."  Paiia^Istcre,  "  is  the  name  of  the  first  lawful 
wife  of  the  king."  In  the  Sathur-Agara'athe,  this  ornament 
is  called  'Uhe  ornament  of  the  forehead."  Tyentian  and 
Bennet  say  of  a  bride  they  saw  in  China,  "Her  headdress 
sparkled  with  jewels,  and  was  most  elegantly  beaded  with 
rows  of  pearls  encircling  it  like  a  coronet ;  from  which  a 
brilliant  angular  ornament  hung  over  her  forehead,  and 
between  her  eyebrows." — Roberts. 

Ver.  57.  And  they  said.  We  will  call  the  damsel, 
and  inquire  at  her  mouth. 

Do  people  wish  to  know  the  truth  of  any  thing  which 
has  been  reported  of  another,  they  say,  "  Let  us  go  and 
inquire  of  his  moulh.^' — "  Let  us  hear  the  birth  of  his 
mouth."  Do  servants  ask  a  favour  of  their  mistress,  she 
will  say,  "  I  know  not  what  will  be  the  birth  of  the  master's 
mouth;  I  will  inquire  at  his  mouth.''  So  the  mother  and 
brother  of  Rebecca  inquired  at  the  mouth  of  the  damsel, 
whether  she  felt  willing  to  go  with  the  man.  "  And  she 
said,  I  will  go." — Roberts. 

Ver.  59.  And  they  sent  away  Rebecca  their  sis- 
ter, and  her  nurse,  and  Abraham's  servant,  and 
his  men. 

How  often  have  scenes  like  this  led  my  mind  to  the 
patriarchal  age  !  The  daughter  is  about  for  the  frst  time 
to  leave  the  paternal  roof:  the  servants  are  all  in  confu- 
sion ;  each  refers  to  things  long  gone  by,  each  wishes  to  do 
something  to  attract  the  attention  of  his  young  mistress. 
One  says,  "  Ah  !  do  not  forget  him  who  nursed  you  when 
an  infant :"  another,  "  How  often  did  I  bring  you  the  beau- 
tiful lotus  from  the  distant  tank !  Did  I  not  always  conceal 
your  faults'?'.'  The  mother  comes  to  take  leave.  She 
weeps,  and  tenderly  embraces  her,  saying,  "  My  daugliter. 
I  shall  see  yoti  no  more ; — Forget  not  your  mother."  The 
brother  infolds  his  sister  in  his  arms,  and  promises  soor 
to  come  and  see  her.     The  father  is  aosorbed  in  thought^ 


S2 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  24—26, 


and  is  only  aroused  by  the  sobs  of  the  party.  He  then 
aiieciionately  embraces  his  daughter,  and  tells  her  not  to 
I'ear.  The  female  domestics  must  each  smell  of  the  poor 
girl,  and  the  men  louch  her  feet.  As  Rebecca  had  her  nurse 
to  accompany  her,  so,  at  this  day,  the  A'lja  (the  nurse)  who 
has  from  infancy  brought  up  the  bride,  goes  with  her  to  the 
new  scene.  She  is  her  adviser,  her  assistant,  and  friend; 
and  to  her  will  she  tell  all  her  hopes,  and  all  her  fears, — 

IIOBERTS. 

Yer.  60.  And  they  blessed  Rebecca,  and  said 
unto  her,  Thou  art  our  sister ;  be  thou  the 
mother  of  thousands  of  millions. 

From  the  numerous  instances  which  are  recorded  in  the 
scriptures,  of  those  who  were  aged,  or  holy,  giving  their 
blessing,  may  be  seen  the  importance  which  was  attached 
to  such  benedictions.  Has  a  son,  or  a  daughter,  to  leave 
a  father,  an  aged  friend,  or  a  priest,  a  blessing  is  always 
given.  To  be  the  mother  of  a  num^erous  progeny  is  con- 
sidered a  great  honour.  Hence  parents  olten  say  to  their 
daughters,  "  Be  thou  the  mother  of  thousands.''^  Beggars, 
also,  when  relieved,  say  to  the  mistress  of  the  house,  "  Ah ! 
madam,  niillions  will  come  from  you." — Roberts. 

Ver  64.  And  Rebecca  lifted  up  her  eyes ;  and 
when  she  saw  Isaac,  she  lighted  off  the  camel. 

It  was  always  customary,  in  all  the  East,  on  perceiving 
a  superior,  to  alight  from  tKe  animal  upon  which  they  were 
riding.  Anderson  and  Iverson  relate,  that  "  when  the 
governor  of  Mossul  and  his  suite  passed  our  caravan,  we 
were  obliged  to  alight  from  our  horses,  mules,  and  asses, 
and  lead  the  animals  till  they  had  gone  by."  Even  now, 
women  show  this  mark  of  respect  to  men,  Niebuhr  says, 
"  that  an  Arabian  lady  who  met  them  in  a  broad  valley  in 
the  desert  of  Mount  Sinai,  retired  from  the  road,  and  let 
her  servant  lead  the  camel  till  they  had  passed." — Burder. 

Ver,  65,  For  she  had  said  unto  the  servant,  What 
man  is  this  that  walketh  in  the  field  to  meet  us  ? 
And  the  servant  had  said.  It  is  my  master: 
therefore  she  took  a  veil,  and  covered  herself 

Rebecca's  covering  herself  with  a  veil,  when  Isaac  came 
to  meet  her,  Avhich  is  mentioned  Gen.  xxiv.  ()5,  is  to  be 
considered  rather  as  a  part  of  the  ceremonial  belonging  to 
the  presenting  a  bride  to  her  intended  husband,  than  an 
effect  either  of  female  delicacy,  or  desire  to  appear  in  the 
most  attractive  form.  The  eastern  brides  are  wont  to  be 
veiled  in  a  particular  manner,  when  presented  to  the  bride- 
groom. Those  that  give  us  an  account  of  their  customs, 
at  such  times,  take  notice  of  their  being  veiled  all  over. 
Dr.  Russell  gives  us  this  circumstance  in  his  account  of  a 
Maronite  wedding,  which,  he  saj'^s,  may  serve  as  a  speci- 
men of  all  the  rest,  there  being  nothing  materially  different 
in  the  ceremonies  of  the  difierent  sects. — Harmer, 

Chap.  25.  ver,  21,  And  Isaac  entreated  the  Lord 
for  his  wife,  because  she  was  barren. 

Under  similar  circumstances,  the  husband  and  the  wife 
fast  and  pray,  and  make  a  vow  before  the  temple,  that, 
should  their  desire  be  granted,  they  will  make  certain  gifts, 
(specifying  their  kind,)  or  they  will  repair  the  walls,  or 
add  a  new  wing  to  the  temple  ;  or  that  the  child  shall  be 
dedicated  to  the  deity  of  the  place,  and  be  called  by  the 
same  name.  Or  they  go  to  a  distant  temple  which  has 
obtained  notoriety  by  granting  the  favours  they  require,  I 
have  heard  of  husbands  and  wives  remaining  for  a  year 
togetner  at  such  sacred  places,  to  gain  the  desire  of  their 
hearts  ! — Roberts, 

Ver,  28,  And  Isaac  loved  Esau,  because  he  did 
eat  of  his  venison  ;  but  Rebecca  loved  Jacob, 

Margin,  "  Venison  was  in  his  mouth."  Has  a  man  been 
Bupported  by  another,  and  is  it  asked,  "  Why  does  Kandan 
love  Muttoo  1"  the  reply  is,  "  Because  Muttoo's  rice  is  in 
his  m.outh"  "  Why  have  you  such  a  regard  for  that  man  V 
— "  Is  not  his  rice  in  my  mouth  ?" — Roberts. 


Ver,  30.  And  Esau  said  to  Jacob,  Feed  me,  I 
pray  thee,  with  that  same  red  pottage. 

The  people  of  the  East  are  exceedingly  fond  of  pottage, 
which  they  call  Kool.  It  is  something  like  gruel,  and  is 
made  of  various  kinds  of  grain,  which  are  first  beaten  in  a 
mortar.  The  red  pottage  is  made  of  Kurakan,  and  other 
grains,  but  is  not  superior  to  the  other.  For  such  a  con- 
temptible mess,  then,  did  Esau  sell  his  birthright.  When 
a  man  has  sold  his  fields  or  gardens  for  an  insignificant 
sum,  the  people  say,  "  The  fellow  has  sold  his  land  for 
pottage"  Does  a  father  give  his  daughter  in  marriage  to  a 
low  caste  man,  it  is  observed,  "  He  has  given  her  for  pot- 
tage.'" Does  a  person  by  base  means  seek  for  some  paltry 
enjoyment,  it  is  said,  "  For  one  leaf*  of  pottage,  he  will 
do  nine  days'  work."  Has  a  learned  man  stooped  to  any 
thing  which  was  not  expected  from  him,  it  is  said,  "  The 
learned  one  has  fallen  into  the  pottage  pot."  Has  he  given 
instruction  or  advice  to  others—"  The  Lizard,  which  gave 
warning  to  the  people,  has  fallen  into  the  pottage  pot."  Of 
a  man  in  great  poverty,  it  is  remarked,  "  Alas !  he  cannot 
get  pottage."  A  beggar  asks,  "  Sir,  will  you  give  me  a 
little  pottage  ?"  Does  a  man  seek  to  acquire  great  things 
by  small  means — "  He  is  trying  to  procure  rubies  by  pot- 
tage." When  a  person  greatly  flatters  another,  it  is  common 
to  say,  "  He  praises  him  only  for  his  pottage."  Does  a  king 
greatly  oppress  his  subjects,  it  is  said,  "  He  only  governs 
for  the  pottage."  Has  an  individual  lost  much  money  by 
trade — "  The  speculation  has  broken  his  pottage  pot." 
Does  a  rich  man  threaten  to  ruin  a  poor  man,  the  latter 
wilf  ask,  "Will  the  lightning  strike 'my  pottage  pot?" — 
Roberts, 

Ver.  41,  And  Esau  said  in  his  heart.  The  days  of 
mourning  for  my  father  are  at  hand. 

When  the  father  (or  the  mother)  has  become  aged,  the 
children  sav,  "  The  day  for  the  lamentation  of  our  father 
is  at  hand,'  "  The  sorrowful  time  for  our  mother  is  fast 
approaching,"  If  requested  to  go  to  another  part  of  the 
country,  the  son  will  ask,  "  How  can  I  go  *?  the  day  of 
sorrow  for  my  father  is  fast  approaching,"  When'  the 
aged  parents  are  seriously  ill,  it  is  said,  "  Ah !  the  days  of 
mourning  have  come." — IRoeerts. 

Chap,  26,  ver,  15,  For  all  the  wells  which  his 
father's  servants  had  digged  in  the  days  of 
Abraham  his  father,  the  Philistines  had  stopped 
them,  and  filled  them  with  earth. 

To  stop  the  wells,  is  justly  reckoned  an  act  of  hostility. 
The  Canaanites,  envying  the  prosperity  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac,  and  fearing  their  power,  endeavoured  to  drive  them 
out  of  the  country,  by  stopping  "  up  all  the  wells  which  their 
servants  had  digged,  and  filling  them  with  earth."  The 
same  mode  of  taking  vengeance  on  enemies,  mentioned  in 
this  passage,  has  been  practised  in  more  recent  times. 
The  Turkish  emperors  give  annually  to  every  Arab  tribe 
near  the  road,  by  which  the  Mohammedan  pilgrims  travel 
to  Mecca,  a  certain  sum  of  money,  and  a  certain  number 
of  vestments,  to  keep  them  from  destroying  the  wells  which 
lie  on  that  route,  and  to  escort  the  pilgrims  across  their 
country.  D'Herbelot  records  an  incident  exactly  in  point, 
which  seems  to  be  quite  common  among  the  Arabs.  Gia- 
nabi,  a  famous  rebel  in  the  tenth  century,  gathered  a  num- 
ber of  people  together,  seized  on  Bassorah,  and  Caufa  ;  and 
afterward  insulted  the  reigning  caliph,  by  presenting  him- 
self boldly  before  Bagdad,  his  capital ;  after  which  he  re- 
tired by  little  and  little,  filling  up  all  the  pits  with  sand, 
which  had  been  dug  on  the  road  to  Mecca,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  pilgrims.  Near  the  fountains  and  wells,  the  robber 
and  assassin  commonly  took  his  station ;  and  in  time  of  war, 
the  enemy  placed  their  ambush,  because  the  flocks  and 
herds,  in  which  the  wealth  of  the  country  chiefly  consisted, 
were  twice  every  day  collected  to  those  places,  and  might 
be  seized  with  less  danger  when  the  shepherds  were  busily 
engaged  in  drawing  water.  This  circumstance,  which 
must  have  been  familiar  to  the  inhabitants  of  those  countries, 
is  mentioned  by  Deborah  m  her  triumphal  song:  "  They 


It  is  common  to  fold  a  large  leaf  so  as  to  hold  the  pottage. 


Chap.  27. 


GENESIS. 


hat  are  delivered  from  the  noise  of  archers  in  the  place  of 
the  drawing  of  water,  ihere  shall  they  rehearse  the  righteous 
acts  of  the  Lord."  But  a  still  more  perfect  commi  nt  on 
these  words  is  furnished  by  an  historian  of  the  croi:  ades, 
who  complains,  that  during  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  by  the 
Christian  armies,  numbers  of  their  men  were  daily  cut  oflf, 
and  their  cattle  driven  away  by  the  Saracens,  who  lay  in 
ambush  for  this  purpose  near  all  -the  fountains  and  water- 
ing places. — Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  And  Isaac  digged  again  the  wells  of 
water  which  they  had  digged  in  the  days  of 
Abraham  his  father;  for  the  Philistines  had 
stopped  them  after  the  death  of  Abraham :  and 
he  called  their  names  after  the  names  by  which 
his  father  had  called  them. 

This  would  appear  a  trifle  among  us,  because  water  is 
so  abundant,  that  it  is  scarcely  valued,  and  nobody  thinks 
of  perpetuating  his  name  in  the  name  of  a  well.  But  in 
those  deserts,  where  water  is  so  scarce,  and  wells  and 
springs  are  valued  more,  and  as  they  are  there  the  general 
permanent,  monuments  of  geography,  it  is  also  an  honour 
to  have  given  them  names. — Burder. 

Ver.  20.  And  the  herdmen  of  Gerar  did  strive 
with  Isaac's  herdmen. 

See  on  chap.  13.  7. 

4 

Ver.  31.  And  they  rose  up  betimes  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  sware  one  to  another :  and  Isaac  sent 
them  away,  and  they  departed  from  them  in 
peace. 

In  the  same  manner,  family  alliances  are  frequent  among 
the  Arabian  shepherds,  and  indeed  rendered  necessary,  by 
the  state  of  continual  warfare  in  which  they  live  with  the 
neighbouring  tribes.  The  eighteen  Arab  emirs  of  the  fam- 
ily which  d'Arvieux  visited,  kept  near  one  another,  en- 
camping at  no  greater  distance  from  their  chief  than  a 
league  or  two,  and  all  removing  together  every  month ,  some- 
times every  fortnight,  as  their  cattle  wanted  fresh  pasture, 
that  they  might  be  able  to  assemble  with  ease.  But  while 
Abraham  and  Isaac  cultivated  the  friendship  of  their  neigh- 
bours, entered  into  treaties  of  peace  and  amity  with  the 
kings  and  princes  of  Canaan,  and  entertained  them  in  their 
tents,— Ishmael,  animated  by  different  principles  and 
views,  commenced  a  course  of  action,  after  leaving  his 
father's  house,  so  new  and  unprecedented,  that  it  was  made 
,  the  subject  of  a  distinct  prediction.  Standing  on  the  verge 
of  a  burning  desert,  which  he  claimed  as  his  proper  inherit- 
ance, he  assumed  from  the  beginning  a  hostile  attitude, 
spurned  the  ties  of  peace  and  friendship,  and  laid  all  the 
surrounding  tribes  under  contribution.  When  he  drew 
upon  himself  and  his  adherents  the  resentment  of  the  fixed 
inhabitants,  and  was  afraid  to  risk  their  attack,  he  with- 
drew into  the  depths  of  the  great  wilderness,  where  none 
could  follow  him  with  hopes  of  success.  In  the  same  man- 
ner have  his  descendants  lived ;  when  threatened  with  an 
unequal  contest,  they  will  strike  their  tents  upon  less  than 
two  hours'  warning,  and  retire  immediately,  with  all  their 
effects,  into  the  deserts,  with  whose  wells  and  forage  they 
only  are  acquainted.  Within  those  impenetrable  barriers, 
which  are  for  ever  guarded  by  hunger  and  thirst,  the  Ara- 
bians regard  with  utter  contempt,  the  warlike  array  of  the 
most  powerful  nations. — Paxton. 

Chap.  27.  ver.  4.  And  make  me  savoury  meat, 
such  as  I  love,  and  bring  it  to  me,  that  I  may 
eat ;  that  my  soul  may  bless  thee  before  I  die. 

Our  version  of  Gen.  xxvii.  4,  7,  9,  14,  17,  31,  may  be 

presumed  to  have  given  us  the  true  sense  there  of  the  word 
translated  savoury,  though  it  is  undoubtedly  of  a  more  large 
and  less  determinate  signification.  That  it  is  of  a  more 
large  signification,  is  evident  from  hence,  that  a  kindred 
word  expresses  the  tasting  of  honey,  1  Sam.  xiv.  43 ;  and 
the  taste  of  manna,  which  tasted  lite  fresh  oil,  Numb.  xi. 
8,  and  like  wafers  made  with  hon£y,  Exod.  xvi.  31.  These 
5 


two  last  passages  are  easily  reconciled,  though  honey  and 
fresh  oil  are  by  no  means  like  each  other  in  taste,  when 
we  consider  the  cakes  of  the  ancients  were  frequently  a 
composition  of  honey,  and  oil,  and  flour;  consequently, 
in  lasting  like  one  of  these  wafers  or  thin  cakes,  it  might 
be  said  to  resemble  the  taste  of  both,  of  oil  mingled  with 
honey.  The  word  sinyiCD  matdniTneem,  then,  translated  sa- 
voury in  a  confined  sense,  signifies  generally  whatever  is 
gustful,  or  pleasing  to  the  taste,  whether  by  being  salt  and 
spicy,  which  the  English  word  savoury  means,  or  pleasant 
by  its  sweetness ;  or  by  being  acidulated.  However,  it  is 
very  probable,  that  in  this  accoimt  of  what  Isaac  desired, 
it  means  savoury,  properly  speaking,  since  though  one 
might  imagine,  that  in  so  hot  a  climate,  and  among  people 
wont  to  observe  so  much  abstemiousness  in  their  diet,  food 
highly  seasoned  should  not  be  in  request ;  yet  the  contrary 
is  known  to  be  fact.  Almost  all  the  dishes  of  the  people 
of  Aleppo,  Dr.  Russell  informs  us,  "  are  either  greasy  with 
fat,  or  butter,  pretty  high-seasoned  with  salt  and  spices ; 
many  of  them  made  sour  with  verjuice,  pomegranate,  or 
lemon  juice ;  and  onions  and  garlic  often  complete  the 
seasoning."  As  it  was  something  of  the  venison  kind 
Isaac  desired,  it  is  very  probable,  the  dish  he  wished  for 
was  of  the  savoury  sort.  Some  of  their  dishes  of  meat, 
however,  are  of  a  sweet  nature.  "  A  whole  lamb,  stuffed 
with  rice,  almonds,  raisins,  pistaches,  &c.  and  stewed,  is 
a  favourite  dish  with  them."  It  was  very  just  then,  in  our 
translators,  to  render  this  word  by  a  more  extensive  term 
in  Prov.  xxiii.  3,  "  When  thou  sittest  to  eat  with  a  ruler, 
consider  diligently  what  is  before  thee,"  v.  1.  "  Be  not  de- 
sirous of  his  dainties,  for  they  are  deceitful  meat,"  v.  3. 
It  is  translated  in  much  the  same  manner  in  v.  6,  dainty 
meats.  I  would  observe  further,  as  to  this  subject,  that 
there  is  a  great  propriety  in  Solomon's  describing  these 
dainty  meats  as  very  much  appropriated  to  the  tables  of 
rulers,  or  a  few  others  of  the  great,  since  the  food  of  the 
common  people  of  Aleppo,  a  large  and  rich  commercial 
city,  is  very  simple  and  plain  ;  for  Russell  tells  us,  ''bread, 
dibbs,  the  juice  of  grapes  thickened  to  the  consistence  of 
honey,  leban,  coagulated  sour  milk,  butter,  rice,  and  a  very 
little 'mutton,  make  the  chief  of  their  food  in  winter  ;  as 
rice,  bread,  cheese,  and  fruits,  do  in  the  summer."  De 
la  Roque  gives  much  the  same  account  of  the  manner  of 
living  of  the  Arabs,  whose  way  of  life  very  much  resem- 
bles that  of  the  patriarchs ;  "  roast  meat  being  almost  pecu- 
liar to  the  tables  of  their  emirs  or  princes,  and  lambs  or 
kids  stewed  whole,  and  stuffed  with  bread,  flour,  mutton 
fat,  raisins,  salt,  pepper,  saffron,  mint,  and  other  aromatic 
herbs."  I  would  only  add  further,  with  respect  to  the  meat 
Isaac  desired,  that  perhaps  his  desiring  Esau  to  take  his 
bow  and  arrows,  and  to  kill  him  some  venison, — an  ante- 
lope, or  some  such  wild  animal,  when  a  kid  from  his 
own  flock  would,  as  appears  from  the  event,  have  done  as 
well, — might  as  much  arise  from  the  sparingness  natural  to 
those  that  live  this  kind  of  life,  together  with  the  pleasure 
he  proposed  to  himself  from  this  testimony  of  filial  aflfec- 
tion  from  a  beloved  son,  as  from  the  recollection  of  some 
peculiar  poignant  flavour  he  had  formerly  perceived  in 
eating  the  flesh  of  wild  animals,  though  now  his  organs  of 
taste  were  so  much  impaired  as  not  to  perceive  the  differ- 
ence. So  Dr.  Shaw  observes,  that  "  the  Arabs  rarely  di- 
minish their  flocks,  by  using  them  for  food,  but  live  chiefly 
upon  bread,  milk,  butter,  dates,  or  what  they  receive  in 
exchange  for  their  wool." — Harmer. 

Ver.  19.  And  Jacob  said  unto  his  father,  I  am 
Esau  thy  first-born ;  I  have  done  according  as 
thou  badest  me :  arise,  I  pray  thee,  sit  and  eat 
of  my  venison,  that  thy  soul  may  bless  me. 

The  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans  sat  at  meals.  Ho- 
mer's heroes  were  ranged  on  separate  seats  along  the  wall, 
with  a  small  table  before  each,  on  which  the  meat  and 
drink  were  placed.  This  custom  is  still  observed  in  China, 
and  perhaps  some  other  parts  of  the  greater  Asia.  When 
Ulysses  arrived  at  the  palace  of  Alcinous,  the  king  dis- 
placed his  son  Laodamas,  in  order  to  seat  Ulysses  in  a 
magnificent  chair.  The  same  posture  was  preferred  by 
the  Egyptians  and  the  ancient  Israelites.  But,  afterward, 
when  men  became  soft  and  effeminate,  they  exchanged 
their  seats  for  beds,  in  order  to  drink  with  more  ease ;  yet 


34 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  27—29. 


even  then,  the  heroes  who  drank  sitting  were  still  thought 
entitled  to  praise  ;  and  those  who  accustomed  themselves  to 
a  primitive  and  severe  way  of  living,  retained  the  ancient 
posture.  The  custom  of  reclining  was  introduced  from  the 
nations  of  the  east,  and  particularly  from  Persia,  where  it 
seems  to  have  been  adopted  at  a  very  remote  period.  The 
Old  Testament  scriptures  allude  to  both  customs  :  but  they 
furnish  undeniable  proofs  of  the  sitting  posture,  long  before 
common  authors  took  notice  of  the  other.  It  was  the  cus- 
tom in  Isaac's  family  to  sit  at  meat ;  for  Jacob  thus  address- 
ed his  aged  father :  "  Arise,  I  pray  thee,  sit  and  eat  of  my 
venison,  that  thy  soul  may  bless  me."  At  the  entertain- 
ment which  Joseph  gave  his  brethren,  on  their  return  to 
Egypt,  they  seem  to  have  followed  the  custom  of  their  fa- 
thers;  for  "  they  sat  before  him,  the  first-born  according  to 
his  birthright,  and  the  youngest  according  to  his  youth." 
In  the  court  of  Saul,  many  ages  after  this,  Abner  sat  at  ta- 
ble by  his  master's  side  ;  and  David  also  had  his  place  al- 
lotted, to  him,  which  is  emphatically  called  his  seat.  As 
this  is  undoubtedly  the  most  natural  and  dignified  posture, 
so  it  seems  to  have  been  universally  adopted  by  the  first 
generations  of  men ;  and  it  was  not"  till  after  the  lapse  of 
many  ages,  and  degenerate  man  had  lost  much  of  the  firm- 
ness of  his  primitive  character,  that  he  began  to  lie  flat  up- 
on his  belly. — Paxton. 

Ver.  27.  And  he  came  near,  and  kissed  him :  and 
he  smelled  the  smell  of  his  raiment,  and  blessed 
him,  and  said,  See,  the  smell  of  my  son  is  as  the 
smell  of  a  field  which  the  Lord  hath  blessed. 

The  Orientals  endeavour  to  perfume  their  clothes  in 
various  ways.  They  sprinkle  them  with  sweet-scented 
oils,  extracted  from  spices,  they  fumigate  them  with  the 
most  valuable  incense  or  scented  wood,  and  also  sew  the 
wood  of  the  aloe  in  their  clothes.  By  some  of  these  means, 
Jacob's  clothes  were  perfumed.  Pliny  observes,  {Nat.  Hist. 
b.  xvii.  chap.  5,)  "  that  the  land,  after  a  long  drought, 
moistened  by  the  rain,  exhales  a  delightful  odour,  with 
which  nothing  can  be  compared :"  and  soon  after,  he  adds, 
"  that  it  is  a  sign  of  a  fruitful  soil,  when  it  emits  an  agreeable 
smell,  when  it  has  been  ploughed." — Burder. 

The  natives  are  universally  fond  of  having  their  gar- 
ments strongly  perfumed:  so  much  so,  that  Europeans  can 
scarcely  bear  the  smell.  They  use  camphor,  civet,  sandal 
wood  or  sandal  oil,  and  a  great  variety  of  strongly  scented 
waters.  It  is  not  common  to  salute  as  in  England :  they 
simply  smell  each  other;  and  it  is  said  that  some  people 
know  their  children  by  the  smell.  It  is  common  for  a 
mother  or  father  to  say,  *'  Ah  !  child,  thy  smell  is  like  the 
Sen-Paga-Poo."  The  crown  of  the  head  is  the  principal 
place  for  smMing.  Of  an  amiable  man,  it  is  said,  "  How 
sweet  is  the  smell  of  that  man !  the  smell  of  his  goodness  is 
universal." — Roberts. 

Chap.  28.  ver.  18.  And  Jacob  rose  up  early  in 
the  morning,  and  took  the  stone  that  he  had 
put  for  his  pillows,  and  set  it  up  for  a  pillar, 
and  poured  oil  upon  the  top  of  it. 

One  of  the  idols  in  the  pagoda  of  Juggernaut  is  described 
by  Captain  Hamilton  as  a  huge  black  stone.,  of  a  pyramidal 
form,  and  the  sommona  codom  among  the  Siamese  is  of  the 
same  complexion.  The  ayccn  Akbery  mentions  an  octago- 
nal pillar  of  black  stone  fifty  cubits  high.  Tavernier  ob- 
served an  idol  of  black  stone  in  the  pagoda  of  Benares, 
and  that  the  statue  of  Creeshna,  in  his  celebrated  temple 
fcf  Mathura,  is  of  black  marble.  It  is  very  remarkable, 
that  one  of  the  principal  ceremonies  incumbent  upon  the 
priests  of  these  stone  deities,  according  to  Tavernier,  is  to 
anoint  them  daily  with  odoriferous  oils :  a  circumstance 
which  immediately  brings  to  our  remembrance  the  similar 
practice  of  Jacob,  who,  after  the  famous  vision  of  the  celes- 
tial ladder,  took  the  stone  which  he  had  pvtfor  his  piJloiv,  and 
set  it  up  for  a  pillar,  and  poured  oil  upon  the  top  of  it.  It  is 
added,  that  he  called  the  name  of  that  place  Beth-el,  that 
is,  the  house  of  God.  This  passage  evinces  of  how  great 
antiquity  is  the  custom  of  considering  stones  in  a  sacred 
'vight,  as  well  as  the  anointing  them  with  consecrated  oil. 
From  this  condv.ct  of  Jacob,  and  this  Hebrew  appellative, 
the  learned  Bochart,  with  great  ingenuity  and  reason, 


insists  that  the  name  and  veneration  of  the  sacred  stones, 
called  baet/ijli,  so  celebrated  in  all  pagan  antiquity,  were 
derived.  These  baetyli  were  stones  of  a  round  form ;  they 
were  supposed  to  be  animated,  by  means  of  magical  incan- 
tations, with  a  portion  of  the  deity:  they  were  consulted  on 
occasions  of  great  and  pressing  emergency,  as  a  kind  of 
divine  oracles,  and  were  suspended,  either  round  the  neck, 
or  some  other  part  of  the  body.  Thus  the  setting  up  of  a 
stone  by  this  holy  person,  in  grateful  memory  of  the  celestial 
vision,  probably  became  the  occasion  of  the  idolatry  m  suc- 
ceeding ages,  to  these  shapeless  masses  of  unhewn  stone, 
of  which  so  many  astonishing  remains  are  scattered  up  and 
down  the  Asiatic  and  the  European  world. — Burder. 

Chap.  29.  ver.  1.  Then  Jacob  went  on  his  journey, 
and  came  into  the  land  of  the  people  of  the  east. 

The  margin  has,  "  lifted  up  his  feet ;"  which,  in  Eastern 
language,  signifies  to  walk  quickly — ^to  reach  out — to  be  in 
good  earnest — not  to  hesitate.  Thus  Jacob  journeyed  to 
the  East,  he  lifted  up  his  feet,  and  stretched  forth  in  good 
earnest,  having  been  greatly  encouraged  by  the  vision  of 
the  ladder,  and  the  promise,  "  Thy  seed  shall  be  as  the 
dust  of  the  earth." — Roberts.  i| 

Ver.  2.  And  he  looked,  and  behold,  a  well  in  the 
field,  and  lo,  there  ivere  three  flocks  of  sheep 
lying  by  it ;  for  out  of  that  well  they  watered 
the  flocks:  and  a  great  stone  was  upon  the 
well's  mouth. 

In  Arabia,  and  in  other  places,  they  are  wont  to  close 
and  cover  up  their  wells  of  water,  lest,  the  sand,  which  is 
put  into  motion  by  the  winds  there,  like  the  water  of  a 
pond,  should  fill  them,  and  quite  stop  them  up.  This  is 
the  account  Sir  J.  Chardin  gives  us  in  a  note  on  Ps.  Ixix. 
15.  I  very  much  question  the  applicableness  of  this  cus- 
tom to  that  passage,  but  it  will  serve  to  explain,  I  think, 
extremely  well,  the  view  of  keeping  that  well  covered 
with  a  stone,  from  which  Laban's  sheep  were  wont  to  be 
watered  ;  and  their  care  not  to  leave  it  open  any  time,  but 
to  stay  till  the  flocks  were  all  gathered  together,  before 
they  opened  it,  and  then,  having  drawn  as  much  water  as 
was  requisite,  to  cover  it  up  again  immediately,  Gen.  xxix. 
2,  8.  Bishop  Patrick  supposes  it  was  done  to  keep  the 
water  clean  and  cool.  Few  people,  I  imagine,  will  long 
hesitate  in  determining  which  most  probably  was  the  vicAV 
in  keeping  the  well  covered  with  so  much  care.  All  this 
care  of  theit  water  is  certainly  very  requisite,  since  thej' 
have  so  little,  that  Chardin  supposes,  "  that  the  strife  be- 
tween Abraham's  herdmen  and  Lot's  was  rather  about 
water,  than  pasturage ;"  and  immediately  after  observes, 
"  that  when  they  are  forced  to  draw  the  water  for  very 
large  flocks,  out  of  one  well,  or  two,  it  must  take  up  a  great 
deal  of  time." — Harmer. 

Ver.  2.  And  he  looked,  and  behold,  a  well  in  the 
field,  and  lo,  there  were  three  flocks  of  sheep 
lying  by  it ;  for  out  of  that  well  they  watered 
the  flocks :  and  a  great  stone  was  upon  the 
well's  mouth.  3.  And  thither  were  all  the 
flocks  gathered :  and  they  rolled  the  stone  from 
the  well's  mouth,  and  watered  the  sheep,  and 
put  the  stone  again  upon  the  well's  mouth  in 
his  place. 

To  prevent,  the  sand,  which  is  raised  from  the  parched 
surface  of  the  ground  by  the  winds,  from  filling  up  their 
wells,  they  were  obliged  to  cover  them  with  a  stone.  In 
this  mariner  the  well  was  covered,  from  which  the  flocks 
of  Laban  were  commonly  watered :  and  the  shepheids, 
careful  not  to  leave  them  open  at  any  time,  patientJy  wait 
ed  till  all  the  flocks  were  gathered' together,  before  the> 
removed  the  covering,  and  then  having  drawn  a  sufficient 
quantity  of  water,  they  replaced  the  stone  immediately. 
The  extreme  scarcity  of  water  in  these  arid  regions,  en- 
tirely justifies  such  vigilant  and  parsimonious  care  in  the 
management  of  this  precious  fluid ;  and  accounts  for  the 
fierce  contentions  about  the  possession  of  a  well,  which  so 
frequently  happened  between  the  shepherds  of  different 


Chap.  29. 


GENESIS. 


35 


masters.  But  after  the  question  of  right,  or  of  possession, 
was  decided,  it  would  seem  the  shepherds  were  often  de- 
tected in  fraudulently  watering  their  flocks  and  herds 
from  their  neighbour's  well.  To  prevent  this,  they  se- 
cured the  cover  with  a  lock,  which  continued  in  use  so 
late  as  the  davs  of  Chardin,  who  frequently  saw  such  pre- 
cautions used"  in  different  parts  of  Asia,  on  account  of  the 
real  scarcity  of  water  there..  According  to  that  intelli- 
gent traveller,  when  the  wells  and  cisterns  were  not  locked 
up,  some  person  was  so  far  the  proprietor,  that  no  one 
dared  to  open  a  well,  or  a  cistern,  but  in  his  presence. 
This  was  probably  the  reason,  that  the  shepherds  of  Pa- 
dan  aram  declined  the  invitation  of  Jacob  to  water  the 
flocks,  before  they  were  all  assembled;  either  they  had 
not  the  key  of  the  lock  which  secured  the  stone,  or  if  they 
had.  they  durst  not  open  it,  but  in  the  presence  of  Rachel, 
to  whose  father  the  well  belonged.  It  is  ridiculous  to  sup- 
pose the  stone  was  so  heavy  that  the  united  strength  of 
several  Mesopotamian  shepherds  could  not  roll  it  from  the 
mouth  of  the  well,  when  Jacob  had  strength,  or  address,  to 
remove  it  alone;  or,  that  though  a  stranger,  he  ventured 
to  break  a  standing  rule  for  watering  the  flocks,  which  the 
natives  did  not  dare  to  do,  and  that  without  opposition. 
The  oriental  shepherds  were  not  on  other  occasions  so 
passive;  as  the  violent  conduct  of  the  men  of  Gerar  sufli- 
ciently  proves. — Paxton. 

Ver.  7.  And  he  said,  Lo,  it  is  yet  high  day. 

Heb.  "  Yet  the  day  is  great."  Are  people  travelling 
through  places  where  are  wild  beasts,  those  who  are  timid 
will  keep  troubling  the  party  by  saying,  "  Let  us  seek  for 
a  place  of  safety  :"  but  the  others  reply,  "  Not  yet ;"  for 
"  the  day  is  great."  "  Why  should  I  be  in  such  haste  1  the 
day  is  yet  great."  When  tired  of  working,  it  is  remarked, 
"  Why,  the  day  is  yet  great." — "  Yes,  yes,  you  manage  to 
leav^e  ofi"  while  the  day  is  yet  great." — Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  Jacob  saw 
Rachel,  the  daughter  of  Laban  his  mother's 
brother,  and  the  sheep  of  Laban  his  mother's 
brother,  that  Jacob  went  near,  and  rolled  the 
stone  from  the  well's  mouth,  and  watered  the 
flock  of  Laban  his  mother's  brother. 

Twice  in  the  day  they  led  their  flocks  to  the  wells ;  at 
noon,  and  when  the  sun  was  going  down.    To  water  the 
flocks,  was  an  operation  of  much  labour,  and  occupied  a 
considerable  space  of  time.    It  was,  therefore,  an  office  of 
great  kindness  with  which  Jacob  introduced  himself  to  the 
notice  of  his  relations,  to  roll  back  the  stone  which  lay 
upon  the  mouth  of  the  well,  and  draw  water  for  the  flocks 
which  Rachel  tended.    Some  of  these  wells  are  furnished 
with  troughs  and  flights  of  steps  down  to  the  water,  and 
other  contrivances,  to  facilitate  the  labour  of  watering  the 
cattle.    It  is  evident  the  Avell  to  which  Rebecca  went  to 
draw  water,  near  the  city  of  Nahor,  had  some  convenience 
of  this  kind;  for  it  is  "written,  "Rebecca  hastened  and 
emptied  her  pitcher  into  the  trough,  and  ran  again  unto 
the  well  to  draw  water,  and  drew  for  all  his  camels."    A 
trough  was  also  placed  by  the  Avell,  from  which  the  daugh- 
ters of  Jethro  watered  his  flocks ;  and  if  we  may  judge 
from  circumstances,  was  a  usual  contrivance  in  every  part 
of  the  east.    In  modern  times,  Mr.  Park  found  a  trough 
near  the  well,  from  which  the  Moors  watered  their  cattle, 
in  the  sandy  deserts  of  Sahara.    As  the  wells  are  often 
very  deep,  from  a  hundred  and  sixty  to  a  hundred  and 
j    seventy  feet,  the  water  is  drawn  up  "with  small  leathern 
buckets,  and  a  cord,  which  travellers  are  often  obliged  to 
I    carry  along  with  them,  in  their  journey,  because  they 
j    meet  with   more  cisterns  and  wells  than   springs.     Dr. 
I    Richardson  saw  one  of  these  buckets  lying  beside  a  deep 
I    well  near  a  Christian  church  in  Egjrpt  to  draw  v/ater  for 
"1    the  congregation.     And   Buckingham   found  a  party  of 
'i   twelve  or  fifteen  Arabs  drawing  water  in  leathern  buckets 
i    by  cords  and  pulleys.     To  this  custom,  which  they  are 
'    forced  to  submit  to  by  the  scantiness  of  the  populatibn  in 
those  regions,  the  woman  of  Samaria  refers  m  her  answer 
to  our  Lord :   "  Sir,  thou  hast  nothing  to  draw  with  ;"  thou 
hast  no  bucket  and  cord,  as  travellers  commonly  have ; 


J 


"and  the  well  is  deep;  from  whence  then  hast  thou  that 
living  water  1" — P.^xton. 

Ver.  18.  And  Jacob  loved  Rachel;  and  said,  I 
will  serve  thee  seven  years  for  Rachel  thy 
younger  daughter. 

Because  he  had  no  money  or  other  goods  which  he 
could  give  to  the  father  for"  his  daughter.     For  among 
many  people  of  the  East,  in  ancient  and  modern  times,  we 
find  "it  customary,  not  for  the  bride  to  bring  a  dowry  to  the 
bridegroom,  but  the  bridegroom  must,  in  a  manner,  pur- 
chase the  girl  whom  he  intends  to  marry,  from  the  father. 
Therefore  Shechem  says,  (ch.  xxxiv.  12,)  to  Dinah's  father 
and  brothers,  "  Ask  me  never  so  much  dowry  and  gift,  and 
I  will  give  according  as  ye  .shall  say  unto  me :  but  give  me 
the  damsel  to  wife."   In  the  same  manner  Tacitus  relates, 
that  among  the  ancient  Germans,  the  wife  did  not  bring 
the  dowry  to  the  man,  but  the  man  to  the  woman.    "  The 
parents  and  relations  are  present,  who  examine  the  gifts, 
and  choose,  not  such  as  are  adapted  to  female  dress,  or  to 
adorn  the  bride,  but  oxen,  and  a  harnessed  horse,  a  shield, 
and  a  sword.    In  return  for  these  presents  he  receives  the 
wife."     This  custom  still  prevails  among  the  Bedouins. 
"  When  a  young  man  meets  with  a  girl  to  his  taste,  he 
asks  her  of  her  father  through  one  of  his  relations :  they 
now  treat  about  the  number  of  camels,  sheep,  or  horses, 
that  the  son-in-law  will  give  to  the  father  for  his  daughter; 
for  the  Bedouins  never  save  any  money,  and  their  wealth 
consists  only  in  cattle.    A  man  that  marries  must  therefore 
literally  purchase  his  wife,  and  the  fathers  are  most  fortu- 
nate who  have  many  daughters.     They  are  the  principal 
riches  of  the  family.    When,  therefore,  a  young  man 
negotiates  with  the  father  whose  daughter  he  intends  to 
marry,  he  says,  '  Will  you  give  me  your  daughter  for  fifty 
sheep,  six  camels,  or  twelve  cows'?'     If  he  is  not  rich 
enough  to  give  so  much,  he  offers  a  mare  or  foal.     The 
qualilies  of  the  girl,  the  family,  and  the  fortune  of  him  that 
intends  to  marry  her,  are  the  principal  considerations  in 
making  the  bargain."    {Cvstoms  of  the  Bedouin  Arabs,  by 
D'Arvieux,  p.  119.)    This  is  confirmed  by  Seetzen,  in  hi"s 
account  of  the  Arab  tribes  whom  he  visited  in  1808.     The 
ceremonies  at  the  marriage  of  a  wandering  Arab  are 
remarkable ;  a  young  Arab  knows  a  girl  who  pleases  him; 
he  goes  to  her  father,  and  makes  his  wishes  known  to  him. 
The  latter  speaks  to  his  daughter.    "  Daughter,"  says  he, 
"  there  is  one  who  asks  you  for  his  wife:  the  man  is  good, 
and  it  depends  upon  yourself  if  you  will  become  his  wife ; 
you  have  my  consent."    If  the  girl  refuses,  there  is  an  end 
of  the  matter ;  if  she  is  contented,  the  father  returns  to  his 
guest,  and  informs  him  of  the  happy  intelligence.    "  But," 
he  adds,  "  I  demand  the  price  of  the  girl."    This  consists 
of  five  camels ;  but  generally,  by  the  intervention  of  others, 
a  couple  more  are  added,  and  those  given  are  frequently 
miserable  enough. — Burder. 

Ver.  19.  And  Laban  said,  It  is  better  that  I  give 
her  to  thee,  than  that  I  should  give  her  to 
another  man :  abide  with  me. 

So  said  Laban,  in  reference  to  his  daughter  Rachel;  and 
so  say  fathers  in  the  East,  under  smiZar  circumstances.  The 
whole  aflfair  is  managed  in  a  business-like  way,  without  any 
thing  like  a  consultation  with  the  maiden.  Her  likes  and 
dislikes  are  out  of  the  question.  The  father  understands 
the  matter  perfectly,  and  the  mother  is  very  knowing; 
therefore  they  manage  the  transaction.  This  system,  how- 
ever, is  the  fruitful  source  of  that  general  absence  of  do- 
mestic happiness  which  prevails  there.  She  has,  perhaps, 
never  seen  the  man  with  whom  she  is  to  spend  her  days. 
He  may  be  young ;  he  may  be  aged  ;  he  may  be  repulsive 
or  attractive.  The  whole  is  a  lottery  to  her.  Have  the 
servants  or  others  whispered  to  her  something  about  the 
match  1  she  will  make  her  inquiries;  but  the  result  will 
never  alter  the  arrangements  :  for  though  her  soul  abhor 
the  thoughts  of  meeting  him,  yet  it  must  be  done.— 
Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  And  it  came  to  pass,  in  the  evening,  that 
he  took  Leah  his  daughter,  and  brought  her  to 
him ;  and  he  went  in  unto  her. 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  29—31. 


This  deceit  of  giving  Leah  to  Jacob  instead  of  Rachel 
was  the  more  easy,  because  the  bride  was  introduced  veil- 
ed to  the  bridegroom.  The  following  passage  from  Olea- 
rius  ( Travels  in  Persia)  is  particularly  applicable  here. 
"  If  they  are  people  of  any  consideration,  they  bring  up 
%heir  daughters,  locked  up  in  their  chambers,  to  hide  them 
from  view,  and  they  cannot  be  seen  by  the  bridegroom  till 
they  are  received  in  the  chamber.  In  this  manner  many 
a  one  is  deceived,  and  receives,  instead  of  a  handsome,  a 
deformed  and  ugly  girl,  nay,  instead  of  the  daughter,  some 
other  relation,  or  even  a  maid.  Also,  Avhen  the  bridegroom 
has  sat  down,  the  bride  is  seated  by  his  side  veiled,  and 
magnificently  dressed,  and  that  neither  may  see  the  other, 
a  piece  of  red  silk  is  drawn  between  them,  which  is  held  by 

two  boys." — ROSENMULLER. 

Ver.  24.  And  Laban  gave  unto  his  daughter  Leah, 
Zilpah  his  maid  for  z.  handmaid. 

Chardin  observes,  that  none  but  very  poor  people  marry 
a  daughter  in  the  East,  without  giving  her  a  female  slave 
for  a  handmaid,  there  being  no  hired  servants  there  as  in 
Europe.  So  Solomon  supposes  they  were  extremely  poor 
that  had  not  a  servant,    Prov.  xii.  9. — Harmer. 

Ver.  26.  And  Laban  said,  It  must  not  be  so  done 
in  our  country,  to  give  the  younger  before  the 
first-born. 

The  existence  of  this  rule,  and  its  application  to  practice, 
in  those  parts  of  the  world,  is  confirmed  by  the  Hindoo  law, 
v/hich  makes  it  criminal  to  give  the  younger  daughter  in 
marriage  before  the  elder;  or  for  a  younger  son  to  marry 
while  his  elder  brother  remains  unmarried. — Paxton. 

It  has  been  said,  (and  with  much  truth,)  that  could  Alex- 
ander revisit  India,  he  would  find  the  same  customs  and 
manners  that  prevailed  in  his  day.  From  age  to  age  the 
fashions  and  usages  are  carefully  and  reverently  adhered 
to.  When  the  eldest  daughter  is  deformed,  or  blind,  or 
deaf,  or  dumb,  then  the  you7igcr  may  be  given  first:  but 
under  other  circumstances  it  would  be  disgraceful  in  the 
extreme.  Should  any  one  wish  to  alter  the  order  of  things, 
the  answer  of  Laban  is  given.  Should  a  father,  however, 
have  a  very  advantageous  oflfer  for  a  younger  daughter,  he 
will  exert  all  his  powers  to  get  off  the  elder ;  but  until  this 
can  be  accomplished,  the  younger  will  not  be  married. 
Younger  brothers  are  sometimes  married  first,  but  even  this 
takes  place  but  very  seldom. — Roberts. 

Ver.  30.  And  he  went  in  also  unto  Rachel,  and 
he  loved  also  Rachel  more  than  Leah,  and 
served  with  him  yet  seven  other  years. 

Polygamy  was  productive  of  many  evils ;  and  particu- 
larly ^ave  occasion  for  jealousy  and  contention.  It  re- 
quired, indeed,  the  utmost  exertion  of  prudence  on  the  pan 
of  the  husband  so  to  conduct  himself  towards  his  wives,  as 
to  prevent  continual  strife  and  discord.  Wherever  the 
practice  obtains,  the  same  care  will  always  be  requisite. 
Thus  a  late  traveller,  (Sir  R.  K.  Porter's  Travels  in  Per- 
sia, vol.  ii.  p.  8,)  speaking  of  the  number  of  wives  a  Per- 
sian keeps,  says,  "  To  preserve  amity  between  these  ladies, 
which  had  so  excited  my  admiration,  our  communicative 
host  told  me,  that  himself,  in  common  with  all  husbands, 
who  preferred  peace  to  passion,  adhered  to  a  certain  rule, 
of  each  wife  claiming,  in  regular  rotation,  the  connubial 
attentions  of  her  spouse  :  something  of  this  kind  is  intima- 
ted in  the  domestic  history  of  the  ancient  Jewish  patriarchs, 
as  a  prevailing  usage  in  the  East,  after  men  fell  from  the 
order  of  nature  and  of  God,  into  the  vice  of  polygamy." — 
Birder. 

Ver.  35.  And  she  conceived  again,  and  bare  a 
son ;  and  she  said,  Now  will  I  praise  the  Lord  : 
therefore  she  called  his  name  Judah,  and  left 
bearing. 

Marein,  "  She  called  his  name  Praise,"—"  and  left  bear- 
ing." Heb.  "  stood  from  bearing."  Scriptural  names  have 
generally  a  meaning.  Thus,  Didvmus,  means  a  twin; 
Boanerges,  a  son  of  thunder ;  and"  Peter,  a  stone.    The 


names  of  the  Orientals  have  always  a  distinct  meaning. 
Thus,'  Ani  Muttoo,  the  precious  pearl ;  Pun  Amma,  the 
golden  lady;  Perrya  Amma,  the  great  lady;  Chinny 
Tamby,  the  little  friend;  Kanneyar,  the  gentleman  for  the 
eye.  Vast  numbers  of  their  children  are  named  after  their 
gods.  "  Stood  from  bearing."  When  a  mother  has  ceased 
to  bear  children,  should  a  person  say  it  is  not  so,  others 
will  reply,  "  She  stood  from  bearing  at  such  a  time." — 
Roberts. 

Chap.  30.  ver.  14.  And  Reuben  went,  in  the  days 
of  wheat-harvest,  and  found  mandrakes  in  the 
field,  and  brought  them  unto  his  mother  Leah. 
Then  Rachel  said  to  Leah,  Give  me,  I  pray 
thee,  of  thy  son's  mandrakes. 

This  plant  is  a  species  of  melon,  of  which  there  are  two 
sorts,  the  male  and  the  female.  The  female  mandrake  is 
black,  and  puts  out  leaves  resembling  lettuce,  though 
smaller  and  narrower,  which  spread  on  the  ground,  and 
have  a  disagreeable  scent.  It  bears  berries  something  like 
services,  pale  and  of  a  strong  smell,  having  kernels  within 
like  those  of  pears.  It  has  two  or  three  very  large  roots, 
twisted  together,  white  within,  black  without,  and^'covered 
with  a  thick  rind.  The  male  mandrake  is  called  Morion, 
or  folly,  because  it  suspends  the  senses.  It  produces  ber- 
ries twice  as  large  as  those  of  the  female,  of  a  good  scent, 
and  of  a  colour  approaching  towards  saffron.  Pliny  says, 
the  colour  is  white.  Its  leaves  are  large,  white,  broad, 
and  smooth,  like  the  leaves  of  the  beech-tree.  The  root 
resembles  that  of  the  female,  but  is  thicker  and  bigger, 
descending  six  or  eight  feet  into  the  ground.  Both  the 
smell  and  the  taste  are  pleasant;  but  it  stupifies  those  that 
use  it,  and  often  produces  phrensy,  vertigo,  and  lethargy, 
which,  if  timely  assistance  is  not  given,  terminate  in  coii- 
vulsions  and  death.  It  is  said  to  be  a  provocative,  and  is 
used  in  the  east  as  filters.  The  Orientals  cultivate  this 
plant  in  their  gardens,  for  the  sake  of  its  smell ;  but  those 
which  Reuben  found  were  in  the  field,  in  some  small 
copse  of  woo4  perhaps,  or  shade,  where  they  had  come  to 
maturity  before  they  were  found.  If  they  resemble  those 
of  Persia  rather  than  those  of  Eg\'pt,  which  are  of  a  ver} 
inferior  quality,  then  we  see  their  value,  their  superiority, 
and  perhaps  their  rarity,  which  induced  Rachel  to  pm 
chase  them  from  the  son  of  Leah.— Paxton. 

Ver.  20.  And  Leah  said,  God  hath  endowed  me 
with  a  good  dowry;  now  will  my  husband 
dwell  with  me,  because  I  have  borne  him  six 
sons. 

Should  it  be  reported  of  a  husband,  that  he  is  going  to 
forsake  his  wife,  after  she  has  borne  him  children,  people 
will  say,  "  She  has  borne  him  so^is ;  he  will  never,  never 
leave  her."  To  have  children  is  a  powerful  tie  upon  a 
husband.  Should  she,  however,  not  have  any,  he  is  almost 
certain  to  forsake  her. — Roberts. 

Ver.  30.  And  the  Lord  hath  blessed  thee  since 
my  coming. 

Heb.  "  at  my  foot."  By  the  labour  of  Jacob's  foot,  the 
cattle  of  Laban  had  increased  to  a  multitude.  Of  a  man 
who  has  become  rich  by  his  own  industry,  it  is  said,  "Ah! 
by  the  labour  ofhis  feet  these  treasures  have  been  acquired." 
"  How  have  you  gained  this  prosperitv  V  "  Bv  the  favour 
of  the  gods,  and  the  labour  of  my  feet."  "  How  is  it  the 
king  is  so  prosperous  V  "  By  the  labour  of  the  feet  of  his 
ministers.— Roberts. 

Chap.  31.  ver.  2.  And  Jacob  beheld  the  counte- 
nance of  Laban,  and,  behold,  it  was  not  towards 
him  as  before. 

Heb.  "  as  yesterday  and  the  dav  before."  See  also  mar- 
ginal reading  of  Isa.  xxx.  33.  Of  old,  "  from  yesterday. 
The  latter  form  of  speech  is  truly  Oriental,  and  means  tim 
gone  by.  Has  a  person  lost  the  friendship  of  another,  h 
will  say  to  him,  "  Thy  face  is  not  to  me  as  yesterday  and 
the  day  before."  Is  a  man  reduced  in  his  circumstance: 
he  says,  "  The  face  of  God  is  not  upon  me  as  yesterday 


mce^ 
yanM 


Chap.  31. 


GENESIS. 


37 


the  day  before.''''  The  future  is  spoken  of  as  to-dmj  and  to- 
morroio;  "  His  face  will  be  upon  me  to-day  and  to-morroioy 
which  means,  alicays.  "  I  will  love  thee  to-day  and  to-mor- 
row." "  Do  you  think  of  me  V — "  Yes,  to-day  and  to-mor- 
row." "  Modeliar,  have  you  heard  that  Tambati  is  trying 
to  injure  you'?" — "  Yes;  and  go  and  tell  him  that  neither 
tO-day  nor  to-morrow  will  he  succeed."  Our  Saviour  says, 
"  Behold,  I  cast  out  devils,  and  I  do  cures  to-day  and  to- 
morrow." A  messenger  came  to  inform  him  Herod  M'ould 
kill  him;  but  this  was  his  reply,  intimating  that  the  power 
could  never  be  taken  from  him.  Jacob  said  to  Laban,  "  My 
righteousness  answers  for  me  in  time  to  come ;"  but  the 
Hebrew  has  for  this,  "  to-morrow;"  his  righteousness  would 
be  perpetual.  In  Eastern  language,  therefore,  "yesterday 
and  the  day  before"  signify  time  past ;  but  "  to-day  and  to- 
morrow" time  to  conie.  (See  Ex.  xiii.  14.  Jos,  iv.  6.,  also 
xxii.  24.  margin.) — Roberts. 

Ver.  4.   And  Jacob  sent  and  called  Rachel  and 
Leah  to  the  field  unto  his  flock. 

Besides  those  that  live  wholly  in  tents,  numbers  of  the 
Eastern  people  spend  part  of  the  year  in  them.  I  have  ob- 
served it  particularly  in  the  accounts  of  Mesopotamia.  In 
that  country  Bishop  Pococke  tells  us,  he  fell  in  with  a  sum- 
mer village  of  country  people,  whose  huts  were  made  of 
loose  stones  covered  with  reeds  and  boughs ;  their  winter 
village  being  on  the  side  of  a  hill  at  some  distance,  consist- 
ing of  very  low  houses ;  and  that  they  chose  this  place  for 
the  convenience  of  being  with  their  cattle,  and  out  of  the 
high  road.  Five  pages  after,  he  observes,  that  many  of 
the  Curdeens  live  honestly  in  Mesopotamia  as  well  as 
Syria,  removing  in  summer  to  some  places  at  a  distance 
from  their  village,  where  they  live  under  tents,  generally 
in  places  retired  from  the  road,  to  avoid  the  injuries  of  the 
soldiery,  and  of  the  people  of  the  pacha.  May  not  this 
circumstance  serve  to  explain  a  passage  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, relating  to  this  country  1  In  Gen.  xxxi.  it  is  said, 
that  Jacob  sent  and  called  Rachel  and  Leah  to  his  flock, 
that  he  there  told  them  of  his  design  of  returning  from 
Mesopotamia  to  his  native  country,  and  that  upon  their 
consenting  to  go  with  him,  he  set  out  upon  this  journey  so 
silently,  that  Laban  had  no  notice  of  it,  until  the  third  day 
alter  ;  yet  it  appears;  that  he  had  all  his  effects  with  him, 
and  tents  for  the  accommodation  of  his  family ;  and  that 
Laban,  who  pursued  him,  had  tents  also  for  his  company. 
Here  one  is  surprised  to  find  both  parties  so  suddenly 
equipped  with  tents  for  their  accommodation  in  travelling, 
and  is  naturally  led  to  inquire,  why  Jacob  sent  for  his 
wives  to  his  flock  1  Bishop  Patrick's  account  of  the  last 
circumstance,  that  it  was  for  greater  secrecy,  and  perhaps 
to  avoid  the  danger  of  being  seized  upon  by  Laban  and  his 
sons,  will  hardly  be  thought  satisfactory.  Could  not  a 
husband  speak  to  his  wives  with  suflicient  privacy  in  La- 
ban's  house  1  Were  matters  come  to  such  an  extremity, 
that  Jacob  durst  not  venture  himself  within  the  doors  of 
his  uncle's  house,  for  fear  of  being  seized  upon,  and  made 
a  prisoner '?  And  in  fact  Jacob  seems  actually  to  have  com- 
municated his  intention  to  Rachel  in  her  father's  house  : 
for  when  he  sent  for  his  wives,  she  brought  her  father's 
teraphim  with  her,  which  she  would  by  no  means  have 

I  done,  had  she  been  unapprized  of  the  design.  The  case 
seems  to  have  been  thus.  While  Laban  and  his  daughters 
dwelt  in  a  house,  they  that  tended  the  flocks  had  tents  for 
their  accommodation.  Laban's  flocks  were  in  two  parcels, 
one  under  the  care  of  Jacob,  the  other  committed  to  the 
care  of  Laban's  sons,  three  days'  journey  off;  Jacob's  own 
afterward  were  also,  for  the  same  reason,  probably  at  an 
equal  distance.  At  the  time  of  shearing  sheep,  it  is  rea- 
sonable to  suppose,  that  more  and  better  tents  were  erected 
for  the  reception  and  entertainment  of  their  friends,  it  be- 
ing a  time  of  great  feasting,  1  Sam.  xxv.  4,  8,  36 ;  to  which 
they  were  wont  to  invite  their  friends,  2  Sam.  xiii.  25 ;  and 
the  feasts  being  held  at  a  distance  from  their  own  houses,  in 
the  places  where  the  sheep  were  fed,  as  appears  from  the 
passage  last  cited,  and  also  from  Gen.  xxxviii.  12.    Laban 

i  went  then  with  his  relations  at  the  time  of  sheep-shearing 

'  to  his  flocks ;  Jacob  at  the  same  time  shore  his  own  sheep, 
and  sent  to  his  wives  to  come  to  the  entertainment,  with  all 
those  utensils  that  they  had  with  them  of  his,  which  would 

,  be  wanted,  having  before  communicated  his  intention  to 
Rachel  his  beloved  wife.    This  w^s  a  fair  pretence  for 


the  having  all  his  household  stuff  brought  to  him,  which, 
according  to  the  present  Eastern  mode,  we  may  believe 
was  very  portable,  beds  not  excepted ;  and  having  told 
Leah  then  his  views,  in  the  company  of  Rachel,  and  both 
consenting  to  go  with  him,  he  had  every  thing  ready  for 
his  journey,  and  could  decamp  immediately,  taking  his 
flocks  and  herds  along  with  him.  Somebody,  upon  this, 
went  to  inform  Laban  of  Jacob's  departure,  who  being  at 
a  considerable  distance,  did  not  receive  the  news  till  the 
third  day.  This  accounts  at  once,  in  the  most  simple  and 
natural  way,  for  Jacob's  sending  for  his  wives  to  his  flock ; 
for  his  being  able  to  get  his  goods  together  without  jeal- 
ousy ;  and  for  his  and  his  father-in-law's  being  furnished 
witt  tents  for  the  journey. — Harmer. 

Ver.  7.  And  your  father  hath  deceived  me,  and 
changed  my  wages  ten  times :  but  God  suffer- 
ed him  not  to  hurt  me.  8.  If  he  said  thus.  The 
speckled  shall  be  thy  wages ;  then  all  the  cattle 
bare  speckled :  and  if  he  said  thus,  The  ring- 
streaked  shall  be  thy  hire ;  then  bare  all  the 
cattle  ring-streaked. 

The  flocks  which  ranged  the  fertile  pastures  of  Mesopo- 
tamia, seem  also  to  have  generally  produced  twins  every 
year.  Laban,  who  lived  in  that  country,  is  said  to  have 
changed  the  wages  of  Jacob  ten  times  in  the  space  of  six 
years ;  but  since  the  wages  of  Jacob  consisted  of  the  lambs 
and  the  kids,  they  could  not  have  been  changed  more  than 
six  times  in  six  years,  if  his  flock  had  brought  forth  only 
one  a-year.  Should  it  be  thought  that,  according  to  this 
rule,  tHe  wages  of  Jacob  must  have  been  changed  twelve 
times,  let  it  be  remembered,  that  the  flocks  of  Laban  had 
brought  forth  their  first  lambs  before  the  bargain  was  con- 
cluded between  him  and  Jacob,  and  by  consequence,  the 
latter  had  only  the  lambs  of  one  yeaning  that  year ;  and 
again,  the  flocks  had  yeaned  only  once  in  the  last  year  of 
his  abode  with  Laban,  because  he  was  compelled  to  leave 
the  service  of  his  envious  relative  before  the  close  of  the 
season,  and  consequently,  before  the  second  yeaning.  Thus 
the  flocks  yeaned  only  ten  times  from  the  date  of  their  « 
agreement,  till  the  departure  of  Jacob  to  his  own  country. 
Or,  we  may  consider  the  phrase  "  ten  times,"  as  a  definite 
for  an  indefinite  number ;  in  which  senscit  is  often  used  by 
the  sacred  writers.  Thus,  Jehovah  complains  of  his  an- 
cient people  whom  he  had  brought  out  of  Egypt,  that  they 
had  tempted  him  "  now  these  ten  times,"  that  is,  many  times, 
"  and  had  not  hearkened  to  his  voice."  Job  uses  it  in  the 
same  sense :  "  These  ten  times  have  ye  reproached  me," 
that  is,  ye  have  often  reproached  me.  In  the  same  man- 
ner, when  Jacob  complained  that  Laban  had  changed  his 
wages  ten  times,  he  might  only  mean  that  he  had  done  so 
frequently.  Had  we  therefore  no  stronger  proof,  that  the 
sheep  of  Laban  yeaned  twice  in  the  year,  the  fact  might 
seem  to  rest  merely  on  the  state  of  the  flocks  in  the  adjacent 
regions,  which,  it  cannot  be  doubted,  generally  yeaned  twins,  | 
and  for  the  most  part  twice  in  the  year.  A  stronger  proof, 
therefore,  may  be  drawn  from  these  words :  "  And  it  came 
to  pass,  whensoever  the  stronger  cattle  did  conceive,  that 
Jacob  laid  the  rods  before  the  eyes  of  the  cattle  in  the  gut- 
ters, that  they  might  conceive  among  the  rods.  But  when 
the  cattle  were  feeble,  he  put  them  not  in ;  so  the  feebler 
were  Laban's,  and  the  stronger  Jacob's."  Two  yeanings 
are  supposed  to  be  suggested  in  this  passage,  by  the  terms 
stronger  and  feebler ;  the  lambs  of  the  first  were  always 
stronger  than  those  of  the  second :  and  consequently,  they 
fell  to  Jacob  by  the  special  bounty  of  Heaven,  causing  the 
cattle,  not  by  any  law  of  nature,  but  by  an  act  of  Almighty 
power,  to  conceive  among  the  rods,  the  use  of  which  was 
merely  the  test  of  Jacob's  faith  in  the  divine  promise.  This 
is  evident,  by  the  sense  in  which  the  Syriac  interpreter,  and 
the  Chaldee"  Paraph rast  understood  the  text ;  for,  instead 
of  the  term  "  feebler,"  they  use  the  word  "  later,"  rendering 
the  clause,  "so  the  later  were  Laban's."  Jerome,  Aquila, 
and  other  expositors,  interpret  the  clause  in  the  same  man- 
ner. Kimchi  and  other  Jewish  writers  often  speak  of  the 
first  and  second  yeanings ;  referring  the  former  to  the  month 
Nisan,  which  corresponds  to  our  March  ;  and  the  latter  to 
the  month  Tisri,  which  nearly  corresponds  to^  September ; 
and  they  assert,  that  the  lanibs  of  the  first 'yeaning  are 
called  D-'-ia'p,  keshorim,  or  bound,  because  they  had  a  more 


38 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  31. 


compact  body;  and  those  of  the  second,  cd::];,  aeto^yhim, 
or  deficient,  "because  they  were  feebler.  The  autvTmnal 
lambs,  however,  were  preferred  by  many  before  the  vernal, 
and  the  winter  before  the  summer  lambs,  as  being  more 
vigorous  and  healthy.  But  it  must  be  confessed,  that  no 
certain  trace  of  two  yeanings  in  the  year  can  be  discover- 
ed in  the  sacred  volume.  The  fact  is  attested  by  many 
common  authors,  and  seems  necessary  to  account  for  the 
rapid  increase  of  oriental  stock,  and  the  prodigious  num- 
bers of  which  the  Syrian  flocks  consisted.  The  words  of 
M;)ses  may  refer,  at  least  with  equal  probability,  to  the  vig- 
orous and  healthy  constitution  of  the  ewes  which  Jacob  se- 
lected for  his  purpose ;  and  signify,  that  robust  mothers  pro- 
duced robust  lambs,  and  feeble  mothers  a  weak  and  spirit- 
less offspring.  Aware  of  the  advantages  of  a  vigorous  and 
healthy  stock,  especially  with  a  long  and  perilous  journey 
before  him,  "  Jacob  laid  the  rods  before  the  eyes  of  the 
stronger  ewes  in  the  gutters,  that  they  might  conceive  among 
the  rods ;  but  when  the  cattle  were  feeble,  he  put  them  not 
iu ;  so  the  feebler  were  Laban's,  and  the  stronger  Jacob's." 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  27.  Wherefore  didst  thou  flee  away  secretly, 
and  steal  away  from  me,  and  didst  not  tell  me, 
that  I  might  have  sent  thee  away  with  mirth, 
and  with  songs,  and  with  tabret,  and  with  harp  ? 

The  Easterns  used  to  set  out,  at  least  on  their  longer  jour- 
neys, with  music.  When  the  prefetto  of  Egypt  was  pre- 
paring for  his  journey,  he  complains  of  his  being  incom- 
moded by  the  songs  of  his  friends,  who  in  this  manner  took 
leave  of  their  relations  and  acquaintance.  These  valedic- 
tory songs  were  often  extemporary.  If  we  consider  them, 
as  they  probably  were  used  not  on  common  but  more  sol- 
emn occasions,  there  appears  peculiar  propriety  in  the  com- 
plaint of  Laban. — Harmer, 

Ver.  34.  Now  Rachel  had  taken  the  images,  and 
put  them  in  the  camel's  furniture,  and  sat  upon 
them.  And  Laban  searched  all  the  tent,  but 
found  them  not. 

Mounted  on  this  mild  and  persevering  animal,  (the 
camel,)  the  traveller  pursues  his  journey  over  the  sandy 
deserts  of  the  east,  with  speed  and  safety.  For  his  con- 
venience, a  sort  of  round  basket  is  slung  on  each  side  with 
a  cover,  which  holds  all  his  necessaries,  between  which 
he  is  seated  on  the  back  of  the  animal.  Sometimes  two 
long  chairs,  like  cradles,  are  hung  on  each  side  with  a 
covering,  in  which  he  sits,  or,  stretched  at  his  ease,  re- 
signs himself  to  sleep,  without  interrupting  his  journey. 
These  covered  baskets,  or  chairs,  are  the  camel's  furni- 
ture, where  Rachel  put  the  images  which  she  stole  from 
her  father, — Paxton. 

Yer.  35.  And  she  said  to  her  father.  Let  it  not 
displease  my  lord  that  I  cannot  rise  up  before 
thee ;  for  the  custom  of  women  is  upon  me. 
And  he  searched,  but  found  not  the  images. 

In  Persia,  a  son  never  sits  in  the  presence  of  his  father 
or  his  mother ;  even  the  king's  son  always  stands  before 
him;  and  is  regarded  only  as  the  first  of  his  servants. 
This  is  the  reason  that  Rachel  addressed  her  father  in 
these  words :  "  Let  it  not  displease  my  lord,  that  I  cannot 
rise  up  before  thee." — Paxton, 

Ver.  38.  This  twenty  years  have  I  been  with 
thee ;  thy  ewes  and  thy  she-goats  have  not  cast 
their  young,  and  the  rams  of  thy  flock  have  I 
not  eaten.  39.  That  which  was  torn  of  beasts  I 
brought  not  unto  thee ;  I  bare  the  loss  of  it :  of 
my  hand  didst  thou  require  it,  whether  stolen  by 
day,  or  stolen  by  night. 

The  shepherds  of  the  East  were  accountable  for  the  flocks 
under  their  pharge.  Of  this  fact,  the  following  extract  from 
the  Gentoo  laws,  furnishes  a  remarkable  proof:  "Cattle 
shall  be  delivered  over  to  the  cow-herd  in  the  morning ; 
the  cow-herd  sr  ^^  end  them  the  whole  day  with  grass  and 


water;  and  in  the  evening,  shall  re-deliver  them  to  the 
master,  in  the  same  manner  as  they  were  intrusted  to 
him ;  if,  by  the  fault  of  the  cow-herd,  any  of  the  cattle  be 
lost  or  stolen,  that  cow-herd  shall  make  it  good.  When 
a  cow-herd  has  led  cattle  to  any  distant  place  to  feed,  if 
any  die  of  some  distemper,  notwithstanding  the  cow-herd 
applied  the  proper  remedy,  the  cow-herd  shall  carry  the 
head,  the  tail,  the  fore-foot,  or  some  such  convincing  proof 
taken  from  that  animal's  body,  to  the  owner  of  the  cattle ; 
having  done  this,  he  shall  be  no  further  answerable ;  if  he 
neglects  to  act  thus,  he  shall  make  good  the  loss."  In  this 
very  situation  was  Jacob  with  Laban,  his  father-in-law,  as 
we  learn  from  his  memorable  expostulation,  addressed  to 
that  deceitful  and  envious  relation. — Paxton. 

Ver.  40.  Thus  I  was ;  in  the  day  the  drought 
consumed  me,  and  the  frost  by  night ;  %nd  my 
sleep  departed  from  mine  eyes. 

See  on  Jeremiah  3G.  30. 

Does  a  master  reprove  his  servant  for  being  idle,  he  will 
ask, "  What  can  I  do  1  the  heat  eats  me  up  by  day,  and  the 
cold  eats  me  up  by  night :  how  can  I  gain  strength  1  I  am 
like  the  trees  of  the  field :  the  sun  is  on  my  head  by  day, 
and  the  dew  by  night." — Roberts. 

In  the  midst  of  the  burning  deserts,  where  the  heat  is 
increased  tenfold  by  the  sandy  surface  on  which  it  beats, 
the  traveller  encounters  much  inconvenience,  and  even 
distress,  from  the  chilling  cold  of  the  night,  Mr.  Bruce, 
the  justly  celebrated  Abyssinian  traveller,  lost  all  his 
camels  in  one  night  by  the  cold,  in  the  deserts  of  Senaar. 
In  the  year  1779,  the  Bedouin  Arabs  plundered  an  Eng- 
lish caravan  in  the  desert,  between  Suez  and  Cairo.  Seven 
of  the  Europeans,  stripped  entirely  naked  by  their  inhu- 
man sailers,  in  the  hope  of  reaching  Cairo,  pushed  for- 
ward into  the  desert.  Fatigue,  thirst,  hunger,  and  the 
heat  of  the  sun,  destroyed  one  after  another ;  one  alone 
survived  all  these  horrors.  During  three  days  and  two 
nights,  he  wandered  in  this  parched  and  sandy  desert, 
frozen  at  night  by  the  north  wind,  (it  being  in  the  month 
of  January,)  and  burnt  by  the  sun  during  the  day,  with- 
out any  other  shade  but  "a  single  bush,  into  which  he 
thrust  his  head  among  the  thorns,  or  any  drink  but  his 
own  urine.  At  length,  on  the  third  day,  he  was  descried 
by  an  Arab,  who  conducted  him  to  his  tent,  and  took 
care  of  him  for  three  days,  with  the  utmost  humanity. 
At  the  expiration  of  that  time,  the  merchants  of  Cairo, 
apprized  of  his  situation,  procured  him  a  conveyance  to 
that  city,  where  he  arrived  in  the  most  deplorable  condi- 
tion. From  these  important  facts  we  may  conclude,  that 
even  in  those  parched  countries,  a  fire  in  the  night,  in  the 
middle  of  May,  might  be  very  requisite,  and  highly  ac- 
ceptable. The  hapless  wanderer,  whose  aifectmg  story 
Volney  records,  was  frozen  at  night  by  the  north  wind, 
and  burnt  by  the  dreadful  heat  of  the  sun  during  the  day; 
and  the  patriarch  Jacob  complains,  that  he  was  for  many 
years  exposed  to  similar  hardships  in  the  plains  of  Meso- 
potamia; "  In  the  day  the  drought  consumed  me,  and  the 
frost  by  night,"  Nothing  assuredly  was  remoter  from  the 
design  of  Volney,  a  proud  and  insolent  enemy  of  revela- 
tion, than  to  confirm  the  truth  of  Scripture  history;  his 
statement  clearly  proves,  that  Jacob's  complaint  was  not 
hastily  made,  but  strictly  agreeable  to  truth. — Paxton. 

Ver.  46.  And  Jacob  said  unto  his  brethren,  Gather 
stones  :  and  they  took  stones,  and  made  a  heap : 
and  they  did  eat  there  upon  the  heap. 

Our  version  of  Genesis  xxxi.  46,  represents  Jacob  as 
sitting,  with  his  relations  and  friends,  when  he  held  a 
solemn  feast,  on  a  heap  of  stones :  one  would  be  inclined 
to  suspect  the  justness  of  the  translation,  as  to  this  circum- 
stance, of  the  manner  in  which  he  treated  his  friends;  but 
it  is  made  less  incredible,  by  the  account  Niebuhr  has 
given  us,  in  the  first  volume  of  his  travels,  of  the  manner 
in  which  some  of  the  nobles  of  the  court  of  the  Iman  seated 
themselves,  when  he  visited  the  prince  at  Sana  of  Arabia, 
his  capital  city.  It  is  certain  the  particle  Sj?,  «/,  translated 
in  this  passage  iipoji,  sometimes  signifies  near  to,  or  some- 
thing of  that  sort ;  so  it  is  twice  Tised  in  this  sense,  Gen.  xvi. 
"  And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  found  her  bif  a  fountain  in 
the  way  to  Shur."    So  Gen.  xxiv.  13,  *'  Behold,  I  stand 


Chap.  32. 


GENESIS. 


39 


here  by  the  well  of  water,  and  the  daughters  of  the  men  of 
the  city  come  out  to  draw  water."  The  same  may  be  ob- 
served in  many  other  places  of  the  book  of  Genesis.  Con- 
sequently the  sitting  of  Jacob  and  Laban,  with  their  relations 
and  friends,  might  be  understood  to  have  been  only  near  the 
heap  of  stones,  which  was  collected  together  upon  this  oc- 
casion, and  designed  for  a  memorial  of  present  reconcilia- 
tion, and  reciprocal  engagement  to  preserve  peace  and 
amity  in  future  times :  but  their  actual  sitting  on  this  heap 
of  stones  may  perhaps  appear  somewhat  less  improbable, 
after  reading  the  following  passage  of  Niebuhr's  travels, 
relating  to  his  being  admitted  to  an  audience  of  the  Iman 
of  Yemen.  "  I  had  gone  from  my  lodgings  indisposed,  and 
by  standing  so  long,  found  myself  so  faint,  that  I  was 
obliged  to  ask  permission  to  quit  the  room.  I  found  near 
the  door  some  of  the  principal  officers  of  the  court,  who 
were  sitting  in  a  scattered  manner,  in  the  shade,  upon 
stones,  by  the  side,  of  the  wall.  Among  them  was  the 
nakib,  the  general,  or  rather  master  of  the  horse,  Gheir 
Allah,  with  whom  I  had  some  acquaintance  before.  He 
immediately  resigned  his  place  to  me,  and  applied  himself 
to  draw  together  stones  into  a  heap,  in  order  to  build  him- 
self a  new  seat."  This  management  to  us  appears  very 
strange ;  it  might  possibly  be  owing  to  the  extreme  heat  of 
that  time  of  the  year  in  that  country,  which  made  sitting 
on  the  ground  very  disagreeable ;  it  can  hardly  however 
be  supposed  that  they  sat  upon  the  heap  of  stones  that  had 
been  gathered  together  on  Mount  Gilead,  for  this  reason, 
since  high  grounds  are  cooler  than  those  that  lie  low; 
since  it  was  in  spring  time,  when  the  heat  is  more  mod- 
erate, for  it  was  at  the  time  of  sheep-shearing :  but  it  might 
be  wet,  and  disagreeable  sitting  on  the  ground,  especially 
as  they  were  not  furnished  with  sufficient  number  of 
carpets,  pursuing  after  Jacob  in  a  great  hurry ;  and  sev- 
eral countries  furnishing  stones  so  flat  as  to  be  capable  of 
being  formed  into  a  pavement,  or  seat,  not  so  uneasy  as  we 
may  have  imagined.  Mount  Gilead  might  be  such  a 
country.  It  might  also  be  thought  to  tend  more  strongly  to 
impress  the  mind,  when  this  feast  of  reconciliation  was 
eaten  upon  that  very  heap  that  was  designed  to  be  the 
lasting  memorial  of  this  renewed  friendship.  As  for  the 
making  use  of  heaps  of  stones  for  a  memorial^  many  are 
found  to  this  day  in  these  countries,  and  not  merely  by 
land,  for  they  have  been  used  for  sea  marks  too :  So  Nie- 
buhr,  in  the  same  volume,  tells  us  of  a  heap  of  stones 
placed  upon  a  rock  in  the  Red  Sea,  which  was  designed  to 
warn  them  that  sailed  there  of  the  danger  of  the  place,  that 
they  might  be  upon  their  guard. — Harmer. 

Ver.  55.  And  early  in  the  morning,  Laban  rose 
up,  and  kissed  his  sons  and  his  daughters,  and 
blessed  them  :  and  Laban  departed,  and  return- 
ed unto  his  place. 

Early  rising  is  a  universal  custom.  Thus,  in  every 
season  of  the  year,  the  people  may  be  seen  at  sunrise, 
strolling  in  all  directions.  At  the  time  of  the  heavy  dews, 
they  bind  a  part  of  the  robe  round  the  head,  which  also 
falls  on  the  shoulders.  When  a  journey  has  to  be  taken, 
were  they  not  to  rise  early,  they  would  be  unable  to  travel 
far  before  the  sun  had  gained  "its  meridian  height.  They 
therefore  start  a  little  before  daylight,  and  rest  under  the 
shade  during  the  heat  of  the  day.  Here  also  we  have 
another  instance  of  the  interesting  custom  of  blessing  those 
who  were  about  to  be  separated.  A  more  pleasing  scene 
than  that  of  a  father  blessing  his  sons  and  daughters  can 
scarcely  be  conceived.  The  fervour  of  the  language,  the 
expression  of  the  countenance,  and  the  affection  of  their 
embraces,  all  excite  our  strongest  svmpathy.  "  My  child, 
may  God  keep  thy  hands  and  thy  feet !"  "  May  the  beasts 
of  the  forest  keep"  far  from  thee !"  "  May  thy  wife  and  thy 
children  be  preserved !"  "  May  riches  and  happiness  ever 
be  thy  portion  !" — Roberts. 

Chap.  32.  ver.  7.  Then  Jacob  was  greatly  afraid, 
and  distressed :  and  he  divided  the  people  that 
loas  with  him,  and  the  flocks,  and  herds,  and 
the  camels,  into  two  bands. 

This  plan  seems  not  to  have  been  first  invented  by,  Ja- 
cob; but  it  may  be  conjectured  that  large  caravans  used  at 


that  time  to  take  this  precaution  against  hostile  attacks. 
Sir  H.  Blount  relates  in  his  Travels,  that  he  traveU.ed  with 
a  caravan  which  had  divided  itself  in  like  manner  into  two 
troops;  one  of  which  that  went  before,  feeing  attacked  bv 
robbers,  had  an  action  with  them,  and  were  plundered, 
whereas  the  other  escaped  uninjured. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  15.  Thirty  milch-camels  with  their  colts, 
forty  kine  and  ten  bulls,  twenty  she-asses  and 
ten  foals. 

Milch-camels,  among  the  Arabs,  constitute  a  principal 
part  of  their  riches ;  the  creature  being  every  way  so  ser- 
vicealfce,  that  the  providence  of  God  appears  peculiarly 
kind  and  wise  in  providing  such  a  beast  for  those  countries, 
where  no  other  animal  could  be  of  equal  use.    Niebuhr  re- 
lates, "  that  among  other  dishes  presented  to  him  by  the 
Arabs  at  Menayre,  there  was  also  camels'  milk.     That  it 
was  indeed  considered  cooling  and  healthy  in  these  hot 
countries,  but  that  it  was  so  clammy,  that  when  a  finger  is 
dipped  into  it,  and  drawn  up  again,  the  milk  hangs  down 
from  it  like  a  thread."     Host,  in  his  Account  of  Morocco  and 
Fez,  says,  "  that  the  Moors  also  drink  camels'  milk;  and 
when  they  have  milked  them  for  a  short  time,  they  suffigr 
the  young  camels  to  suck,  and  then  begin  to  milk  again, 
partly  to  share  it  with  the  young  camels,  and  partly  to 
make  the  camels  give  the  milk  better."  Pallas,  in  his  Rus- 
sian Travels,  says,  that  it  is  customary  among  the  Kirgise 
to  milk  the  camels :  "  their  milk  is  said  to  be  bluish,  thick, 
and  of  an  agreeable  taste.    The  Kirgise  consider  it  to  be 
very  wholesome  ;  and  it  is  also  said  that  a  more  intoxica- 
ting beverage  is  drawn  from  it  than  from  mares'  milk." 
In  fact,  the  camel  is  of  such  multifarious  use  to  the  Orien- 
tals, and  of  such  importance,  that  among  the  Bedouins, 
wealth  is  not  estimated  by  money,  but  by  the  number  of 
camels.     These  observations  are  confirmed  by  Seetzen,  in 
his  Account  of  the  Arab  Tribes.    "  No  animal  among  the 
Arabs  surpasses  the  camel  in  utility  ;  besides  the  whole- 
some diet  which  his  flesh,  his  milk,  and  their  products, 
afford  them,  they  turn  every  part  of  it  to  account.     Out  of 
its  hair,  they  manufacture  carpets,  large  strong  sacks  for 
corn,  &c.     Out  of  its  skin,  soles  (serbul,)  large  water  bot- 
tles (rawijch,)  two  of  which  are  a  load  for  a  camel,  and 
large  leather  sacks  (karpha,)  in  which  they  transport  and 
preserve  butter,  corn,  and  similar  articles ;  they  die  them  red 
on  the  outside ;  and  two  of  these  also  are  a  load  for  a  camel. 
They  likewise  cut  straps  out  of  the  skin,  and  out  of  five  or 
six  such  straps  .they  prepare  long,  tough  thongs,  which  they 
employ  in  drawing  up  water  fnm  deep  wells.     They 
also  stitch  the  skin  over  a  frame  of  bent  sticks,  and  thus 
form  large  vessels,  which  they  use  to  water  the  camels, 
and  which  are  called  Hhod.    "The  two  sinews  of  the  neck 
of  the  camel  (aelba)  serve  instead  of  ropes,  and  are  ex- 
tremely strong.     Their  dung  is  used  for  fuel.    Even  the 
urine  of  this  animal  is  of  utility  :  all  the  Arabs,  Nomades 
of  both  sexes,  and  likewise  many  Arab  peasants,  wash  the 
head  every  two  or  three  days  with  the  urine  of  the  female 
camel,  and  consider  this  to  be  very  healthy." — Rosenmuller. 
From  the  present  which  Jacob  made  to  his  brother  Esau, 
consisting  of  five  hundred  and  eighty  head  of  different 
sorts,  we  may  form  some  idea  of  the  countless  numbers  of 
great  and  small  cattle,  which  he  had  acquired  in  the  ser- 
vice of  Laban.     In  modern  times,  the  numbers  of  cattle  in 
the  Turcoman  flocks  which  feed  on  the  fertile  plains  ot 
Syria,  are   almost   incredible.     They  sometimes  occupy 
three  or  four  days  in  passing  from  one  part  of  the  country 
to  another.     Chardin  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  a  clan 
of  Turcoman  shepherds  on  their  march,  about  two  days' 
distance  from  Aleppo.     The  whole  country  was  covered 
with  them.     Many  of  their  principal  people,  with  whom  he 
conversed  on  the" road,  assured  him,  that  there  were  four 
hundred  thousand  beasts  of  carriage,  camels,  horses,  oxen, 
cows,  and  asses,  and  three  millions  of  sheep  and  goats. 
This  astonishing  account  of  Chardin,  is  confirmed  by  Dr. 
Shaw,  who  states  that  several  Arabian  tribes,  who  can 
bring  no  more  than  three  or  four  hundred  horses  into  the 
field,  are  possessed  of  more  than  so  many  thousand  camels, 
and  triple  the  number  of  sheep  and  black  cattle.     Russel,  in 
his  history  of  Aleppo,  speaks  of  vast  flocks-which  pass  that 
city  every  year,  of  wliich  many  sheep  are  sold  to  supply  the 
inhabitants.    The  flocks  jnd  herds  which  belonged  to  the 
Jewish  patriarchs,  were  not  more  numerous. — Paxton. 


40 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  32—34 


Ver.  19.  And  so  commanded  he  the  second,  and 
the  third,  and  all  that  followed  the  droves,  say- 
ing, On  tUis  manner  shall  ye  speak  unto  Esau, 
when  ye  find  him. 

I  almost  think  I  hear  Jacob  telling  his  servants  what 
they  were  to  say  to  Esau.  He  would  repeat  it  many  times 
over,  and  then  ask,  "  What  did  I  say  7"  until  he  had  com- 
pletely schooled  them  into  the  story.  They  would  be  most 
attentive ;  and  at  every  interval,  some  of  the  most  officious 
would  be  repeating  the  tale.  The  head  servant,  however, 
Would  be  specially  charged  with  the  delivery  of  the  mes- 
sage. When  they  went  into  the  presence  of  Esagi,  they 
would  be  very  particular  in  placing  much  stress  on  Jacob's 
saying,  "  the  present  is  sent  unto  my  lord  I''  and  this  would 
touch  his  feelings.  Servants  who  see  the  earnestness  of 
their  master,  imitate  him  in  this  when  they  stand  before 
the  person  to  whom  they  are  sent.  They  repeat  a  number 
of  little  things  respecting  him ;  his  great  sorrow  for  his 
offence,  his  weeping,  his  throwing  himself  into  the  dust, 
and  his  fearful  expressions.  Should  the  occasion,  how- 
ever, be  of  a  pleasing  nature,  they  mention  his  great  joy, 
and  his  anxiety  for  an  interview.  The  dependants  of 
Esau,  also,  would  hear  the  story,  and  every  now  and  then 
be  making  exclamations  at  the  humility  of  Jacob,  and  the 
value  of  his  present.  They  would  also  put  their  hands 
together  in  a  supplicating  posture,  for  Esau  to  attend  to  the 
request.  He,  feeling  himself  thus  acknowledged  as  lord, 
seeing  the  servants  of  his  brother  before  him,  and  knowing 
that  all  his  people  had  witnessed  the  scene,  would  consider 
himself  greatly  honoured.  In  this  Avay  many  a  culprit  in 
the  East  gains  a  pardon,  when  nothing  else  could  purchase 
it.  Should  the  offender  be  too  poor  to  send  a  present,  he 
simply  despatches  his  wife  and  children  to  plead  for  him ; 
and  they  seldom  plead  in  vain. — Roberts. 

Chap.  33.  ver.  3.  And  he  passed  over  before 
them,  and  bowed  himself  to  the  ground  seven 
times,  until  he  came  near  to  his  brother. 

There  is  something  very  touching,  and,  to  an  Eastern 
mind,  very  natural,  in  this  action  of  Jacob's.  His  arrange- 
ments, also,  may  be  seen  to  the  life,  at  this  day.  His  wives 
and  children  were  placed  behind  him :  they  would  be  in  a 
separate  group,  in  order  that  Esau  might  the  more  easily 
see  them.  He  would  then  walk  forward,  and  cast  himself 
on  the  earth,  and  rise  again,  till  he  had  bowed  seven  times ; 
after  which,  (as  he  would  walk  a  short  distance  every  time 
he  arose,)  he  would  be  near  to  his  brother.  Esau  could 
not  bear  it  any  longer,  and  ran  to  meet  him,  and  fell  on  his 
neck,  and  kissed  him,  and  wept.  Then  came  the  hand- 
maids and  their  children,  (I  think  I  see  them,)  and  bowed 
themselves  before  Esau ;  the  wives,  also,  according  to  their 
age,  and  their  children,  prostrated  themselves  before  him. 
What  with  the  looks  of  the  little  ones,  joined  with  those  of 
the  mothers,  Esau  could  not  help  being  moved. — Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  And  Jacob  said,  Nay,  I  pray  thee,  if 
now  I  have  found  grace  in  thy  sight,  then  re- 
ceive my  present  at  my  hand. 

It  is  the  custom  of  the  East,  when  one  invites  a  superior, 
to  make  him  a  present  after  the  repast,  as  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  his  trouble.  Frequently  it  is  done  before  it,  as  it 
is  no  augmentation  of  honour  to  go  to  the  house  of  an  in- 
ferior. They  make  no  presents  to  equals,  or  those  who  are 
below  themselves. — Burder. 

Not  to  receive  a  present,  is  at  once  to  show  that  the  thing 
desired  will  not  be  granted.  Hence,  nothing  can  be  more 
repulsive,  nothing  more  distressing,  than  to  return  the  gifts 
to  the  giver.  Jacob  evidently  laboured  under  this  impres- 
sion, and  therefore  pressed  his  brother  to  receive  the  gilts, 
if  he  had  found  favour  in  his  sight. — Roberts. 

Ver.  1 3.  And  he  said  unto  him.  My  lord  knoweth 
that  the  children  are  tender,  and  the  flocks  and 
herds  with  young  are  with  me :  and  if  men 
should  overdrive  them  one  day,  all  the  flock 
will  die. 


"  Their  flocks,"  says  Chardin,  speaking  of  those  who 
now  live  in  the  East  after  the  patriarchal  manner,  "  feed 
down  the  places  of  their  encampments  so  quick,  by  the 
great  numbers  which  they  have,  that  they  are  obliged  to 
remove  them  too  often,  which  is  very  destructive  to  their 
flocks,  on  account  of  the  young  ones,  which  have  not 
strength  enough  to  follow." — Habmer. 

Ver.  14.  Let  my  lord,  I  pray  thee,  pass  over  be- 
fore his  servant ;  and  I  will  lead  on  softly,  ac- 
cording as  the  cattle  that  goeth  before  me,  and 
the  children  be  able  to  endure,  until  I  come 
unto  my  lord  unto  Seir. 

People  having  taken  a  journey,  say,  "  We  came  to  tnis 
place  according  to  the  walking  of  our  feet."  "  It  was  done 
according  to  the  foot  of  the  children  ;"  which  means,  they 
did  not  come  in  a  palankeen,  or  any  other  vehicle,  but  on 
foot.  From  this  it  appears,  that  the  females,  and  the 
children,  performed  their  journey  on  foot,  and  that,  accord- 
ing to  their  strength. — Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  And  Esau  said,  Let  me  now  leave  with 
thee  some  of  the  folk  that  are  w^ith  me.  And 
he  said.  What  needeth  it  ?  let  me  find  grace 
in  the  sight  of  my  lord. 

As  Esau  had  received  valuable  gifts  from  his  brother, 
he  wished  to  make  some  present  in  return ;  and  having 
received  cattle,  it  would  not  have  looked  well  to  have  giv- 
en the  same  kind  of  gift  that  he  had  received ;  he  therefore 
offered  some  of  his  people,  (who  were  no  doubt  born  in  his 
house,)  as  a  kind  oi  recompense  for  what  he  had  received, 
and  as  a  proof  of  his  attachment. — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  And  he  bought  a  parcel  of  a  field,  where 
he  had  spread  his  tent,  at  the  hand  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Hamor,  Shechem's  father,  for  a  hundred 
pieces  of  money. 

There  is  very  great  reason  to  believe  that  the  eSj"  liest 
coins  struck  were  used  both  as  weights  and  money  and 
indeed  this  circumstance  is  in  part  proved  by  the  very 
names  of  certain  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  coins.  Thus 
the  Attic  mhia  and  the  Roman  libra  equally  signify  a 
pound ;  and  the  ararrip  {stater)  of  the  Greeks,  so  called  from 
weighing,  is  decisive  as  to  this  point.  The  Jewish  shekel, 
was  also  a  weight  as  well  as  a  coin :  three  thousand  she- 
kels, according  to  Arbuthnot,  being  equal  in  weight  and 
value  to  one  talent.  This  is  the  oldest  coin  of  which  we 
anywhere  read,  for  it  occurs  Gen.  xxiii.  16,  and  exhibits 
direct  evidence  against  those  who  date  the  first  coinage  of 
money  so  low  as  the  time  of  Croesus  or  Darius,  it  being 
there  expressly  said,  that  Abraham  weighed  to  Ephron  four 
hundred  shekels  of  silver,  current  money  with  the  merchant. 
Having  considered  the  origin  and  high  antiquity  of  coined 
money,  we  proceed  to  consider  the  stamp  or  impression 
which  the  first  money  bore.  The  primitive  race  of  men 
being  shepherds,  and  their  wealth  consisting  in  their  cattle, 
in  which  Abraham  is  said  to  have  been  rich,  for  greater 
convenience  metals  were  substituted  for  the  commodity  it- 
self. It  was  natural  for  the  representative  sign  to  bear  im- 
pressed the  object  which  it  represented ;  and  thus  accord- 
ingly the  earliest  coins  were  stamped  with  the  figure  of  an 
ox  or  a  sheep :  for  proof  that  they  actually  did  thus  impress 
them,  we  can  again  appeal  to  the  high  authority  of  scrip- 
ture :  for  there  we  are  informed  that  Jacob  bought  a  parcel 
of  a  field  for  a  hundred  pieces  of  moneif.  The  original 
Hebrew  translated  pieces  of  money,  is  kcsitoth,  which  sig- 
nifies lambs,  with  the  figure  of  which  the  metal  was  doubt- 
less stamped. — Maurice's  Indian  Antiquities. 

Chap.  34.  ver.  1.  And  Dinah  the  daughter  of 
Leah,  which  she  bare  unto  Jacob,  w^ent  out  to 
see  the  daughters  of  the  land.  2.  And  when 
Shechem  the  son  of  Hamor  the  Hivite,  prince 
of  the  country,  saw  her,  he  took  her,  and  lay 
with  her,  and  defiled  her. 


Chap.  34. 


GENESIS, 


41 


Voltaire  objects,  in  like  manner,  to  the  probability  of  the 
Old  Testament  history,  in  the  account  given  us  there  of 
the  dishonour  done  to  Dinah,  the  daughter  of  Jacob,  by  a 
Hivite  prince  in  Canaan,  Gen.  xxxiv.  1,  2,  who  he  sup- 

Eoses  was  too  young  to  have  suflered  such  an  injury,  or  to 
ave  excited  the  atiiactions  of  Shechem.  The  two  following 
citations  will  prove  there  was  nothing  incredible  in  it, 
and  that  an  ardent  young  Eastern  prince  may  be  sup- 
posed to  have  been  guilty  of  such  a  fact.  The  first  cita- 
tion shall  be  from  Niebuhr's  account  of  Arabia  :  "  I  have 
heard  speak  in  Persia  of  one  that  was  a  mother  at  thir- 
teen :  they  there  marry  girls  at  nine  years  of  age ;  and  I 
knew  a  man  whose  wife  was  no  more  than  ten  years  old 
when  the  marriage  was  consummated."  The  other  is 
from  Dr.  Shaw's  Travels  and  observations.  Speaking  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Barbary,  he  says,  "  The  men,  indeed, 
by  wearing  only  the  tiara,  or  a  scull  cap,  are  exposed  so 
much  to  the  sun,  that  they  quickly  attain  the  swarthiness 
of  the  Arab;  but  the  women,  keeping  more  at  home,  pre- 
serve their  beauty  until  they  are  thirty :  at  which  age  they 
begin  to  be  wrinkled,  and  are  usually  past  childbearing. 
It  sometimes  happens  that  one  of  these  girls  is  a  mother  at 
eleven,  and  a  grandmother  at  two-and-twenty."  If  they  be- 
come mothers  at  eleven,  they  might  easily  become  the  ob- 
jects of  attachment  at  ten,  or  thereabouts ;  and  this  cannot 
be  supposed  to  be  very  extraordinary,  when  the  daughter 
of  such  a  one  is  supposed  to  become  a  mother  too  by 
eleven.  It  cannot  then  be  incredible  that  Shechem  should 
cast  his  eyes  on  Dinah  at  ten  years  of  age,  and  should 
desire  to  marry  her  at  that  age ;  if  human  nature  in  the 
East  then  was  similar,  in  that  respect,  to  what  it  is  now. 
Bui  she  might  be  considerably  older  than  ten  when  this  af- 
fair happened,  for  aught  that  is  said  in  the  book  of  Genesis 
relative  to  this  matter. — Harmer. 

Ver.  11.  And  Shechem  said  unto  her  father,  and 
unto  her  brethren,  Let  me  find  grace  in  your 
eyes,  and  what  ye  shall  say  unto  me  I  will  give. 
12.  Ask  me  never  so  much  dowry  and  gift,  and 
I  will  give  according  as  ye  shall  say  tmto  me : 
but  give  me  the  damsel  to  wife. 

In  the  remote  ages  of  antiquity,  women  were  literally 
purchased  by  their  husbands ;  and  the  presents  made  to 
their  parents  or  other  relations  were  called  their  dowry. 
The  practice  still  continues  in  the  country  of  Shechem ; 
for  when  a  young  Arab  wishes  to  marrK-he  must  purchase 
his  wife ;  and  for  this  reason,  fathers,  among  the  Arabs, 
are  never  more  happy  than  when  they  have  many  daugh- 
ters. They  are  reckoned  the  principal  riches  of  a  house. 
An  Arabian  suitor  will  offer  fifty  sheep,  six  camels,  or  a 
dozen  of  cows  ;  if  he  be  not  rich  enougn  to  make  such  of- 
fers, he  proposes  to  give  a  mare  or  a  colt,  considering  in 
the  offer,  the  merit  of  the  young  woman,  the  rank  of  her 
family,  and  his  own  circumstances.  In  the  primitive  times 
of  Greece,  a  well-educated  lady  was  valued  at  four  oxen. 
When  they  agree  on  both  sides,  the  contract  is  drawn  up 
by  him  that  acts  as  cadi  or  judge  among  these  Arabs.  In 
some  parts  of  the  East,  a  measure  of  corn  is  formally  men- 
tioned in  contracts  for  their  concubines,  or  temporary 
wives,  besides  the  sum  of  money  which  is  stipulated  by 
way  of  dowry.  This  custom  is  probably  as  ancient  as 
concubinage,  with  %hich  it  is  connected ;  and  if  so,  it  will 
perhaps  account  for  the  prophet  Hosea's  purchasing  a  wife 
of  this  kind  for  fifteen  pieces  of  silver,  and  for  a  homer 
of  barley,  and  a  half  homer  of  barley. — Paxton. 

Ver.  21.  These  men  are  peaceable  with  us,  there- 
fore let  them  dwell  in  the  land,  and  trade  therein ; 
for  the  land,  behold,  it  is  large  enough  for 
them:  let  us  take  their  daughters  to  us  for 
wives,  and  let  us  give  them  our  daughters. 

The  shepherds  of  Syria  and  the  East  have,  from  the  re- 
motest antiquity,  carried  on  a  considerable  trade  with  the 
circumjacent  cities.  The  people  of  Aleppo  are  vStill  sup- 
plied with  the  greater  part  of  their  butter,  their  cheese, 
and  their  cattle  for  slaughter,  by  the  Arabs,  Kushwans, 
or  Turcomans,  who  travel  about  the  country  with  their 
flocks  and  herds,  as  did  the  patriarchs  of  old.  It  was  un- 
6 


doubtedly  by  trading  with  the  ancient  cities  of  Canaan  in 
such  articles  of  provision,  that  Abraham  became  so  rich 
in  silver  and  gold.  The  lucrative  commerce  which  Jacob 
his  grandson  carried  on  with  the  inhabitants  of  Shechem, 
is  mentioned  by  Hamor  their  prince,  and  urged  as  a  rea- 
son of  alliance  and  union :  "  these  men  are  peaceable  with 
us ;  therefore,  let  them  dwell  in  the  land,  and  trade  there- 
in; for  the  land,  behold  it  is  large  enough  for  them." 
While  the  wealth  of  the  country,  where  they  tended  thei7 
flocks  and  herds,  flowed  into  the  coffers  of  these  shephera 
princes,  in  a  steady  and  copious  stream,  their  simple  and 
frugal  manner  of  living,  required  but  little  expense  for  the 
support  of  their  numerous  households;  and  their  nomadic 
state  prevented  them  from  contracting  alliances,  or/orm- 
ing  connexions  of  an  expensive  nature.  Hence,  in  a  fcAV 
years  they  amassed  large  quantities  of  the  precious  metals ; 
they  multiplied  their  flocks  and  their  herds,  till  they  cov- 
ered the  face  of  the  country  for  many  miles;  they  en- 
gaged a  numerous  train  of  servants  from  the  surround- 
ing towns  and  villages,  and  had  servants  born  in  theii 
houses,  of  the  slaves  whom  they  had  purchased,  or  taken 
prisoners  in  war.  When  Abraham  heard  that  his  brother 
Lot  was  taken  captive  by  the  king  of  Shinar  and  his 
confederates,  he  armed  his  trained  servants  born  in  his 
house,  three  hundred  and  eighteen,  and  pursued  them  unto 
Dan.  The  truth  Of  the  scripture  accounts  is  verified  by 
the  present  state  of  the  Arabian  chieftains  in  those  very 
places  where  Abraham  and  his  descendants  formerly  wan- 
dered. By  the  unimpeachable  testimony  of  Russel,  they 
are  equally  rich,  and  powerful,  and  independent,  as  were 
these  renowned  patriarchs ;  they  are  surrounded  with  ser- 
vants and  retainers,  equally  numerous,  resolute,  and  faith- 
ful ;  they  are,  in  fine,  the  modern  patriarchs  of  the  East.  In 
Persia  and  in  Turkey,  where  the  country  is  full  of  Tur- 
coman shepherds,  their  chiefs  appear  with  a  great  train 
of  servants,  richly  clothed  and  mounted.  Chardin  fell  in 
with  one  of  these  pastoral  chieftains  between  Parthia  and 
Hyrcania,  whose  train  filled  him  at  once  with  surprise  and 
alarm.  The  Turcoman  had  more  than  ten  led  horses,  with 
harness  all  of  solid  gold  and  silver.  He  was  accompanied 
by  many  shepherds  on  horseback,  and  well  armed.  They 
treated  the  traveller  civilly,  and  answered  all  the  questions 
his  curiosity  prompted  him  to  put  to  them,  upon  their 
manner  of  life.  The  whole  country,  for  ten  leagues,  was 
full  of  their  flocks.  An  hour  after,  the  chieftain's  wives, 
and  those  of  his  principal  attendants,  passed  along  in  a 
line :  four  of  them  rode  in  great  square  baskets,  carried 
two  upon  a  camel,  which  were  not  close  covered.  The 
rest  were  on  camels,  on  asses,  and  on  horseback ;  most  of 
them  with  their  faces  unveiled,  among  whom  were  some 
very  beautiful  women.  From  this  display  of  pastoral  mag- 
nificence, which  Chardin  had  an  opportunity  of  contem- 
plating, we  are  enabled  to  form  a  very  clear  idea  of  the 
splendouF  and  elegance  in  which  Abraham  and  other  pa- 
triarchs lived;  and  of  the  beauty  which  the  sacred  histo- 
rian ascribes  to  Sarah,  Rebecca,  and  Rachel,  who  had  very 
fair  complexions, — Paxton. 

Ver.  24.  When  they  were  sore. 

Circumcision  in  infants  is  easy  and  soon  healed,  and 
some  have  thought,  that  in  adults,  it  was  worst  the  third 
day ;  but  Sir  John  Chardin  says,  that  he  had  heard  from 
divers  renegadoes  in  the  East,  who  had  been  circumcised, 
some  at  thirty  and  some  at  forty  years  of  age,  that  the  cir- 
cumcision had  occasioned  them  a  great  deal  of  pain,  and 
that  they  were  obliged  to  keep  their  bed  at  least  twenty  or 
twenty-two  days,  during  which  time  they  could  not  walk 
without  feeling  very  severe  pain ;  but  that  they  applied  no- 
thing to  the  wound  to  make  it  cicatrize,  except  burnt  paper. 

— BURDER. 

Ver.  27.  The  sons  of  Jacob  came  upon  the  slain 
and  spoiled  the  city,  because  they  had  defiled 
their  sister. 

Among  the  Bedouin  Arabs,  the  brother  finds  himself 
more  dishonoured  by  the  seduction  of  his  sister,  than  a 
man  by  the  infidelity  of  his  wife.  As  a  reason,  they  allege, 
"  that  a  wife  is  not  of  the  family,  and  that  they  are  obliged 
to  keep  a  wife  only  as  long  as  she  is  chaste ;  and  if  she  is 
not  she  may  be  sent  away,  and  is  no  longer  a  member  of 
the  family;  but  tha*,  -i  sister  constantly  remains  a  mH'S:>et 


42 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  34—36, 


of  the  family  ^  ind  even  if  his  sister  became  dissolute,  and 
was  defiled,  rxbody  could  hinder  her  from  still  being  his 
sister."  (D'Arvieux.)  This  is  confirmed  by Niebuhr.  "I 
learnt  at  Basra,  that  a  man  is  not  allowed  to  kill  his  wife, 
even  on  account  of  adultery;  but  that  her  father,  brother, 
or  any  of  her  relations,  were  suiFeredto  do  it  without  being 
punished,  or  at  least  paying  a  small  sum  as  an  atonement, 
because  her  relations  had  been  dishonoured  by  her  bad  be- 
haviour ;  but  that  after  this  satisfaction,  nobody  is  permitted 
to  reproach  the  family.  They  rememlDered  examples  of  it 
in  Basra  and  Bagdad ;  in  this  latter  place,  a  rich  merchant, 
a  few  years  since,  had  found  a  young  man  with  a  relation 
of  his,  and  not  only  hewed  her  in  pieces  on  the  spot,  but 
also,  by  witnesses  and  money,  caused  the  young  man,  who 
was  the  son  of  a  respectable  citizen,  to  be  hanged  the  same 
night  by  the  magistrates." — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  30.  And  Jacob  said  to  Simeon  and  Levi,  Ye 
have  troubled  me,  to  make  me  to  stink  among 
the  inhabitants  of  the  land. 

So  said  Jacob  to  Simeon  and  Levi.  Of  a  man  who  has 
lost  his  honour,  whose  fame  has  entirely  gone,  it  is  said, 
"  Ah  !  he  has  lost  his  smell— where  is  the  sweet  smell  of 
former  years  1"  "  Alas !"  says  an  old  man,  "  my  smell  is 
for  ever  gone." — Roberts. 

Chap.  35.  vcr.  2.  Then  Jacob  said  unto  his 
household,  and  to  all  that  were  with  him,  Put 
away  the  strange  gods  that  are  among  you,  and 
be  clean,  and  change  your  garments.    * 

The  household  of  Jacob  had  strange  gods  among  them, 
and  he  ordered  them  to  put  them  away,  and  to  make  them- 
selves clean,  and  to  change  their  garments  in  token  of  their 
purity.  When  people  have  been  to  any  unholy  place,  they 
always  on  returning  wash  their  persons  and  change  their 
garments.  No  man  can  go  to  the  temple,  wearing  a  dirty 
cloth :  he  must  either  put  it  on  clean,  or  go  himself  to  a 
tank  and  wash  it;  or  put  on  one  which  is  quite  new. 
Hence,  near  temples,  men  may  be  seen  washing  their 
clothes,  in  order  to  prepare  themselves  for  some  ceremony. 
(Exodus  xix.  10.)— Roberts. 

Ver.  4.  And  they  gave  unto  Jacob  all  the  strange 
gods  which  were  in  their  hand,  and  all  their 
ear-rings  which  were  in  their  ears;  and  Jacob 
hid  them  under  the  oak  which  was  by  Shechem. 

The  nose-jewel  is  another  ornament  peculiar  to  the  East, 
which  the  Jewish  females  were  accustomed  to  wear,  and 
of  which  the  Asiatic  ladies  are  extremely  fond.  It  is  men- 
tioned in  several  parts  of  scripture;  thus  the  prophet 
Ezekiel :  "  And  I  put  a  jewel  on  thy  foreheaa,"  or,  as  ]t 
should  have  been  rendered,  on  thy  nose.  This  ornament 
was  one  of  the  presents  which  the  servant  of  Abraham 
gave  to  Rebecca,  in  the  name  of  his  master :  "  I  put,"  said 
he,  "  the  ear-ring  upon  her  face ;"  more  literally,  I  put  the 
ring  on  her  nose.  They  wore  ear-rings  besides ;  for  the 
household  of  Jacob  at  his  request,  when  they  were  prepar- 
ing to  go  up  to  Bethel,  gave  him  all  the  ear-rings  which 
were  in  their  ears,  and  he  hid  them  under  the  oak  which 
was  by  Shechem,  The  difference  between  these  orna- 
ments is  clearly  stated  by  the  prophet:  "  I  put  a  jewt?  on 
thy  nose,  and  ear-rings  in  thine  ears."  The  nose-jewel, 
therefore,  was  different  from  the  ear-ring,  and  actually 
worn  by  the  females  as  an  ornament  in  the  East.  This  is 
confirmed  by  the  testimony  of  Sir  John  Chardin,  who  says, 
"It  is  the  custom  in  almost  all  the  East,  for  the  women  to 
wear  rings  in  their  noses,  in  the  left  nostril,  which  is  bored 
low  down  in  the  middle.  These  rings  are  of  gold,  and  have 
commonly  two  pearls  and  one  ruby  between  them,  placed 
in  the  ring ;  I  never  saw  a  girl  or  young  woman  in  Arabia, 
or  in  all  Persia,  who  did  not  wear  a  ring  after  this  man- 
ner in  her  nostril."  Some  writers  contend,  that  by  the  nose- 
jewel,  we  are  to  understand  rings,  which  women  attached 
to  their  forehead,  and  let  them  fall  down  upon  their  nose  ; 
but  Chardin,  who  certainly  was  a  diligent  observer  of  East- 
ern customs,  nowhere  saw  this  frontal  ring  in  the  East,  but 
everywhere  the  ring  in  the  nose.  His  testimony  is  sup- 
ported by  Dr.  Russel  who  describes  the  women  in  some  of 


the  villages  about  Aleppo,  and  all  the  Arabs  and  Chinga- 
nas,  (a  sort  of  gipsies,)  as  wearing  a  large  ring  of  silver 
or  gold,  through  the  external  cartilage  of  their  right  nos- 
tril. It  is  worn,  by  the  testimony  of  Egmont,  in  the  same 
manner  by  the  women  of  Egypt.  The  difference  in  the 
statements  of  these  travellers  is  of  little  importance,  and 
may  be  reconciled  by  supposing,  what  is  not  improbable, 
that  in  some  eastern  countries  they  wear  the  ring  in  the 
left,  and  in  others  in  the  right  nostril ;  all  agree  that  it  is 
worn  in  the  nose,  and  not  upon  the  forehead.  Some  re- 
mains of  this  custom  have  been  discovered  among  the 
Indians  in  North  America,  where  Clark  and  Lewis,  in 
their  travels  to  the  sources  of  the  Missouri,  fell  in  with 
some  tribes  that  wore  a  long  tapering  piece  of  shell,  or 
bead,  put  through  the  cartilage  of  the  nose. — Paxton. 

Ver.  8.  But  Deborah,  Rebecca's  nurse,  died,  and 
she  was  buried  beneath  Beth-el,  under  an  oak : 
and  the  name  of  it  was  called  Allon-bachuth. 

Savary,  speaking  of  the  Egyptian  women,  and  their 
manner  of  nursing  their  children,  says,  "  When  circum- 
stances compel  them  to  have  recourse  to  a  nurse,  she  is 
not  looked  upon  as  a  stranger.  She  becomes  pari  of  the 
family,  and  passes  the  rest  of  her  life  in  the  midst  of  the 
children  she  has  suckled.  She  is  honoured  and  cherished 
like  a  second  mother."  So  the  Syrian  nurse  continued 
until  her  death  with  Rebecca,  and  was  buried  with  great 
solemnity  of  mourning :  since  that  oak  was  from  that  time 
distinguished  by  the  name  of  the  Oak  of  Weeping. — Har- 

MER. 

Ver.  19.  And  Rachel  died,  and  was  buried  in  the 
way  to  Ephrath,  which  is  Beth-lehem;  20.  And 
Jacob  set  a  pillar  upon  her  grave :  that  is  the 
pillar  of  RacheFs  grave  unto  this  day. 

Th3  following  account  from  the  recent  and  valuable 
Trarch  in  Palestine,  by  Mr.  Buckingham,  on  the  subject 
of  Rachel's  tomb,  will"  be  found  highly  interesting.  "  In 
the  way,  on  the  right,  at  a  litt>  distance  from  the  road, 
is  hewn  the  reputed  tomb  of  Racliel,  to  which  we  turned 
"  off,  to  enter.  This  may  be  near  the  spot  of  Rachel's  inter- 
ment, as  it  is  not  far  from  Ephrath,  and  may  correspond 
well  enough  with  the  place  assigned  for  her  sepulchre  by 
Moses,  who  says,  in  describing  her  death  in  childbirth  of 
Benjamin,  '  and  Rachel  died,  and  was  buried  in  the  way 
to  Ephrath,  which-is  Bethlehem ;  and  Jacob  set  a  pillar 
upon  her  grave,  that  is  the  pillar  of  Rachel's  grave  unto 
this  day.'  Gen.  xxxv.  19.  Instead  of  a  pillar,  the  spot  is 
now  covered  by  a  Mohammedan  building,  resembling  in 
its  exterior  the  tombs  of  saints  and  scheiks  in  Arabia  and 
Egypt,  being  small,  square,  and  surmounted  by  a  dome. 
We  entered  it  on  the  south  side  by  an  aperture,  through 
which  it  was  difficult  to  crawl,  as  it  has  no  doorwav ;  and 
found  on  the  inside  a  square  mass  of  masonry  in  the  cen- 
tre, built  up  from  the  floor  nearly  to  the  roof,  and  of  such 
a  size  as  to  leave  barely  a  narrow  passage  for  walking 
around  it.  It  is  plastered  with  white  stucco  on  the  outer 
surface,  and  is  sufficiently  large  and  high  to  enclose  with- 
in It  any  ancient  pillar  that  might  have  been  found  on  the 
grave  of  Rachel.  This  central  mass  is  certainly  different 
from  any  thing  that  I  have  ever  observed  in  Arabian 
tombs ;  and  it  struck  me  on  the  spot,  as  by  no  means  im- 
probable, that  its  intention  might  have  originally  been  to 
enckse  either  a  pillar,  or  fragment  of  one,  which  tradition 
had  ])ointed  out  as  the  pillar  of  Rachel's  grave  :  and  that 
as  th3  place  is  held  in  equal  veneration  by  Jews,  by  Chris- 
tians, and  by  Mohammedans,  the  last,  as  lords  of  the  coun- 
try, might  have  subsequentlv  built  the  present  structure 
over  it  in  their  own  style,  and  plastered  the  high  square 
pillar  within.  Around  the  interior  face  of  the  walls,  is  an 
arched  recess  on  each  side,  and  over  every  part  of  the 
stucco  are  written  and  engraved  a  profusion  of  names  in 
Hebrew,  Arabic,  and  Roman  characters  ;  the  first  execu- 
ted i  1  curious  d»^vices,  as  if  a  sort  of  abracadabra."  P.  216. 
— Birder.     {See  Engraving.) 

Chap.  36.  ver.  6.  And  Esau  took  his  Avives,  and 
his  sons,  and  his  daughters,  and  all  the  persons 
of  his  house. 


Chap.  36. 


GENESIS. 


43 


The  Margin  has,  for  persons, "  souls."  Has  a  man  gone  to 
a  distant  place,  it  is  said,  "  Viravan,  and  all  the  souls  of  his 
house,  have  gone  to  the  far  country."  "  Have  you  heard 
that  the  old  man  and  thirty  souls  have  gone  on  a  pilgrim- 
age V  "  Sir,  I  can  never  get  rich,  because  I  have  fifteen 
souls  who  daily  look  to  me  for  their  rice." — Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  And  these  are  the  children  of  Zibeon ; 
both  Ajah,  and  Anah :  this  was  that  Anah  that 
found  the  mules  in  the  wilderness,  as  he  fed 
the  asses  of  Zibeon  his  father. 

The  Hebrews  ascribe  the  invention  of  mules  to  Anah, 
the  son  of  Zibeon,  whose  daughter,  Aholibamah,  was 
given  in  marriage  to  Esau.  "  This  was  that  Anah,  that 
found  the  mules  in  the  wilderness,  as  he  fed  the  asses  of 
Zibeon  his  father."  In  this  text,  Moses  evidently  censures 
the  misguided  and  preposterous  industry  of  Anah,  who, 
not  satisfied  with  the  numerous  flocks  and  herds  which  the 
bounty  of-  Providence  had  bestowed  on  his  family,  or,  per- 
haps, actuated  by  impure  and  licentious  motives,  contrived 
a  new  and  spurious  breed  of  animals  unknown  to  nature, 
and  contrary  to  the  laws  which  regulate  her  operations. 
Whatever  might  be  the  motive,  the  conduct  of  this  Horite 
prince  was  certainly  criminal.  We  cannot,  on  any  other 
supposition,  account  for  the  peculiar  and  emphatical  phrase 
which  Moses  employs :  "  This  was  that  Anah,  that  found 
the  mules  in  the  wilderness."  In  opposition  to  this  idea, 
Bochart  contends,  that  if  Anah  had  found  out  the  method 
of  procreating  mules,  the  sacred  historian  would  not  have 
said  he  found  them  ;  because  the  verb  (ni«d)  matsa,  among 
the  Hebrews,  does  not  signify  to  invent,  but  to  find  some- 
thing already  in  existence.  Nor  to  strengthen  this  con- 
jecture, is  it  sufiicient,  that  Anah  is  said  at  the  time  to 
have  tended  the  asses  of  Zibeon  his  father ;  for  mules  are 
not  procreated  of  asses  only,  but  of  an  ass  and  a  mare,  or 
of  a  horse  and  a  female  ass.  But  of  horses  or  wild  asses, 
by  whose  union  with  the  domestic  ass  a  mule  is  generated, 
no  mention  is  made  in  this  passage.  In  addition  to  these 
arguments,  our  author  insists  on  the  improbability,  that  the 
method  of  generating  mules  was  discovered  in  Idumea  at 
that  early  period ;  because,  the  use  of  these  animals  does 
not  seem  to  have  become  common  in  Judea,  till  the  reign 
of  David,  about  five  hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Anah. 
No  mention  is  made  of  mules  in  the  flocks  and  herds  of 
Abraham,  of  Isaac,  of  Job,  and  other  shepherd  princes  of 
the  East.  In  the  various  enumerations,  horses,  camels, 
asses,  oxen,  sheep,  and  goats,  are  expressly  mentioned,  but 
in  relation  to  mules,  the  profoundest  silence  is  uniformly 
observed ;  hence,  Bochart  argues,  that  the  origin  of  mules 
is  involved  in  great  uncertainty.  But  the  assertion  of  that 
[Celebrated  writer,  that  the  Hebrew  verb  (nsd)  matsa,  sig- 
inifies  only  to  find,  not  to  invent,  is  incorrect.  In  Leigh's 
Critica  Sacra,  it  signifies  also  to  procine  for  himself  by 
labour  and  industry;  and  in  Parknurst,  the  seventh  sense 
is,  to  obtain,  to  procure.  According  to  these  respectable 
authors,  the  text  may  be  rendered,  This  was  that  Anah, 
jrho,  by  labour  and  industry,  procured  for  himself  mules 
in  the  wilderness,  which  is  quite  consistent  with  the  com- 
mon exposition.  If  Anah  did  not  invent  the  method  of 
procreating  mules,  but  only  found  them  already  existing, 
what  can  the  sacred  writer  mean  by  the  emphatical  phrase. 
He,  Anah;  or,  as  in  our  version.  This  was  that  Anah? 
What  was  so  remarkable  or  important  in  a  person  merely 
finding  a  knot  of  mules  in  the  wilderness,  that  Moses 
should  reckon  it  necessary  to  use  such  emphatical  terms  1 
And  what  r  iason  can  be  given,  that  he  takes  not  the  smallest 
notice  of  those  who  found  horses,  or  camels,  or  asses  in  the 
wilderness,  although  some  individual  must  have  found  and 
reduced  them  to  a  state  of  servitude  1  Something  unusual 
and  peculiar  is  certainly  intended  in  the  phrase  which 
Moses  employs :  and  what  can  that  be,  but  the  invention  of 
a  new  breed  of  animals.  The  want  of  mules  in  the  numer- 
ous herds  of  the  patriarchs,  and  the  late  period  at  which 
they  came  into  general  use  among  the  Jews,  will  not  prove 
thai  Anah  was  not  the  in  venter  of  that  spurious  breed,  but 
only,  that  it  was  not  in  much  request  till  the  reign  of  David. 
That  the  procreation  of  mules  was  actually  discouraged 
among  the  holy  people,  we  have  the  highest  authority  for 
asserting.  The  God  of  Israel,  who  is  a  God  of  order  and 
not  of  confusion,  enacted  a  law,  which  he  introduces  with 
more  than  usual  solemnity,  not  indeed  to  prohibit  the  use 


of  mules  when  procreated,  but  the  rearing  of  them  :  "  Ye 
shall  keep  my  statutes.  Thou  shalt  not  let  thy  cattle 
gender  with  a  diverse  kind."  The  mules  which  David 
and  the  nobles  of  his  kingdom  rode,  were  therefore,  in  all 
probability,  imported  from  other  countries  where  they 
abounded,  long  before  the  time  of  that  illustrious  monarch. 
Bochart  offers  another  interpretation,  which  he  thinks  ought 
to  be  preferred ;  that  the  original  term  which  our  translators 
render  mules,  is  in  reality  the  name  of  a  people,  probably 
the  same  as  the  gigantic  Emim,  mentioned  in  the  fourteenth 
chapter  .of  Genesis.  The  Samaritan  Pentateuch,  accord- 
ingly reads  here,  (cn^Nn)  the  Emim;  and  the  Targum  in 
Genesis,  renders  the  term  by  (n-i'^d;)  giaiits ;  and  Aquila 
and  Symmachus  retain  the  Hebrew  name,  Emim ;  so,  that 
the  passage  should  be  rendered  :  This  is  that  Anah,  who 
found,  or  lighted  upon,  the  Emim  in  the  desert.  The  verb 
(nxd)  matsa,  when  spoken  of  enemies,  is  used  for  lighting 
upon  them,  or  even  attacking  them  suddenly  :  several  ex- 
amples of  which,  are  quoted  by  Parkhurst.  Thus,  Anah 
is  said  to  have  found  the  Emim,  or  to  have  fallen  upon 
them,  or  attacked  them  suddenly.  By  this  daring  exploit, 
which  was  greatly  celebrated  at  the  time  it  happened, 
whether  he  discomfited  these  gigantic  enemies  by  his 
valour,  or  eluded  the  snare  they  had  prepared  for  him  bv 
his  address,  he  transmitted  his  fame  to  succeeding  genwa- 
tions;  and  by  this  criterion  the  historian  distinguishes  him 
from  others  of  the  same  name. — Paxton. 

[But  for  this  interpretation  there  is  no  evidence  in  his- 
tory, and  we  shall  exhibit  as  more  plausible,  though  by  no 
means  conclusive,  the  opinion  of  Mr.  BxyanX,  {Observations 
upon  some  Passages  in  Scripture,  p.  26.)  There  is  reason 
to  think,  that  the  nature  of  these  thirsty  regions  above 
mentioned  is  alluded  to  in  the  history  of  Anah,  who  was 
of  the  family  of  Seir  the  Horite,  into  which  Esau  had 
married.  "  And  these  are  the  children  of  Zibeon"  (the 
son  of  Seir)  "  both  Aiah  and  Anah  :  this  was  that  Anah, 
who  found  mules  in  the  wilderness,  as  he  fed  the  asses  of 
Zibeon,  his  father."  Gen.  chap,  xxxvi.  ver.  24.  Why  the 
word  DD"',  Yamim,  is  here  rendered  mules,  I  know  not; 
and  why  in  some  other  versions  it  is  expressed  giants.  It 
manifestly  denotes  waters;  and  is  so  translated  in  the 
Syriac  version ;  and  by  aquas  calidas  in  the  Vulgate.  The 
translations  of  Aquila,  Theodotion,  and  Symmachus,  retain 
the  original  word,  which  they  express  in  Greek  characters 
lafjieiv,  or  laiiEiii,  as  if  it  were  a  proper  name.  The  word,  I 
make  no  doubt,  was  in  common  use  among  the  Edomites, 
and  Horites  of  Mount  Seir.  It  is  the  same  as  cd''  of  the 
scriptures,  and  as  the  word  Hammim,  by  which  baths  and 
waters  are  denoted  at  this  day  by  the  Arabians,  Persians, 
and  other  nations  in  the  east.  The  account  given  in 
scripture  is  short,  and  was  well  understood  by  the  persons 
to  whom  it  is  addressed,  and  undoubtedly  related  to  water. 
The  circumstance  mentioned  must  have  been  of  conse- 
quence, otherwise  there  would  have  been  no  necessity  to 
specify  the  person,  by  whom  it  was  eflfected.  We  should 
therefore  read,  that  instead  of  m^wZes  Anah  found  out  v-ater 
in  the  wilderness :  but  to  what  does  the  history  amount  1 
Every  known  spring  must  have  had  somebody  to  have  dis- 
covered it ;  so  that  Anah,  if  this  be  all,  did  no  more  than 
hundreds  had  done  before.  But  to  me  there  seems  to  be 
something  of  more  importance  in  the  account  than  at  first 
appears ;  and  for  that  reason  the  name  of  the  person  is 
recorded,  as  being  of  moment  to  those  who  lived  in  the 
vicinity  of  Edom,  and  were  acquainted  with  the  rites  of 
Midian.  It  is  to  be  observed,  that  the  sacred  writer,  in 
speaking  of  Anah's  first  discovery  of  these  waters,  does 
not  inform  us,  when,  or  where,  he  was  feeding  his  father's 
asses ;  but  only  that  the  event  took  place,  as  he  was  feeding 
them.  This  may  be  found  of  some  moment.  I  imagine, 
that  the  latent  purport  of  the  history  is  this.  As  Anah  was 
attending  thfese  animals,  in  the  desert,  he  observed  that 
faculty  with  which  they  were  endued,  of  snufimg  the 
moisture  of  the  air,  and  being  by  these  means  led  to  latent 
waters.  Accordingly,  either  by  the  intimation  of  tho.se 
which  he  fed,  or  by  the  traces  of  the  wild  brood,  he  wa? 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  those  resources.  And  as  those 
animals,  which  had  been  beneficial,  were  entitled  in  manj 
countries  to  a  particular  regard,  so  these  among  others 
met  with  uncommon  reverence  among  the  Horites  ol 
Mount  Hor,  and  the  people  of  Seir  :  for  they  were  looked 
•upon  as  the  instruments  of  Heaven,  towards  the  finding 
out  in  those  barren  wilds  the  greatest  blessing.    Hence 


44 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  37,  38. 


arose  a  town,  and  temple,  where  the  divinity  -was  wor- 
shipped under  this  emblem.  They  stood  in  a  valley  be- 
neath Mount  Hor,  which  was  a  part  of  the  mountains 
Kiddim,  upon  the  skirts  of  Edom.  Thus,  as  I  have  before 
mentioned,  what  was  natural  sagacity,  they  looked  upon  as 
a  supernatural  impulse,  an  intimation  from  Heaven.  And 
the  animal,  like  the  Apis  and  Mnevis  in  Egypt,  was  es- 
teemed a  living  emblem  of  the  Deity,  and  oracular.  From 
the  situation  of  Petora,  which  was  very  recluse,  the  place 
being  almost  surrounded  by  high  mountains,  we  may  sup- 
pose, that  the  water  was  first  found  out  in  the  manner 
above :  in  consequence  of  which  the  animal  was  looked 
upon  as  an  oracle,  and  accordingly  reverenced.  And 
when  the  false  prophet  proved  disobedient,  and  was  going 
to  utter  his  curses  against  God's  people,  he  was  terrified  by 
an  angel,  and  rebuked  by  the  beast  he  strode.  Instead  of 
that  divine  energy,  which  it  was  at  times  supposed  to  enjoy, 
and  for  which  at  Petora  it  was  in  an  idolatrous  manner 
reverenced,  God  gave  the  ass  a  human  voice,  a  far  supe- 
rior and  more  surprising  gift.  Hence  his  power  was 
shown  above  that  of  the  gods  of  Edom  and  Midian ;  and 
the  miracle  was  well  calculated,  in  respect  to  the  person 
on  whose  account  it  was  exhibited.  That  the  history  did 
not  relate  either  to  mules,  or  to  the  Emims,  but  on  the  con- 
trary, to  water  and  fountains,  may  be  seen  in  the  name  of 
the  person.  This  was  n:y,  Anah,  directly  from  ]>y,  Ain,  a 
fountain;  and  is  analogous  to  Ilriyaios  in  Greek,  and  Fon- 
tanus,  or  Fonteius,  in  Latin.  It  is  what  the  Greeks  called 
a  itETovoixatna^  and  was  bestowed  in  consequence  of  the 
discovery ;  and  is  applicable  to  nothing  else.] — B. 

Chap.  37.  ver.  3.  Now  Israel  loved  Joseph  more 
than  all  his  children,  because  he  was  the  son 
of  his  old  age:  and  he  made  him  a  coat  of 
many  colours. 

Rauwolf  says,  "  that  Turks  of  rank  at  Aleppo  dress 
their  sons,  when  they  are  a  little  grown,  and  can  walk,  in 
loose  coats  of  a  fine  texture,  in  which  various  colours  are 
woven,  and  which  look  very  handsome." — Rosenmuller. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  colours,  "pieces;"  and  it  is 
probable  the  coat  was  patch-work  of  different  colours.  For 
beautiful  or  favourite  children,  precisely  the  same  thing  is 
done  at  this  day.  Crimson,  and  purple,  and  other  colours, 
are  often  tastefully  sewed  together.  Sometimes  children  of 
the  Mohammedans  have  their  jackets  embroidered  with 
gold  and  silk  of  various  colours.  A  child  being  clothed  in  a 
garment  of  many  colours,  it  is  believed  that  neither  tongues 
nor  evil  spirits  will  injure  him,  because  the  attention  is 
taken  from  the  beauty  of  the  person,  to  that  of  the  garment. 
Children  seldom  wear  them  after  they  are  eight  years  of 
age ;  though  it  must  have  been  the  custom  among  the  an- 
cients referred  to  in  the  Bible  to  wear  them  longer,  as  we 
read  of  Tamar  having  "  a  garment  of  divers  colours  upon 
her ;  for  with  such  robes  were  the  king's  daughters  that 
were  virgins  apparelled." — Roberts, 

Ver.  10.  Shall  I,  and  thy  mother,  and  thy  brethren, 
indeed  come  to  bow  down  ourselves  to  thee  to 
the  earth. 

The  Hebrew  word  here  translated  bow  down,  (by  Lu- 
ther, anbelen,  i.  e.  worship,)  means  the  manner  customary 
in  all  Asia  of  testifying  respect  to  kings  and  princes,  by 
falling  on  the  knee,  and  stooping  till  the  forehead  touches 
the  ground.  Ovington  says,  "  The  mark  of  respect  which 
is  paid  to  kings  in  the  East  approaches  very  near  to  ado- 
ration. The  manner  of  saluting  the  Great  Mogul  is,  to 
touch  with  the  hand  first  the  earth,  then  the  bre.ast,  and  then 
to  lift  it  above,  which  is  repeated  three  times  in  succession 
as  you  approach  him." — Burder. 

Ver.  24.  And  they  took  him,  and  cast  him  into  a 
pit :  and  the  pit  was  empty,  there  was  no  water 
in  it. 

"What  is  here  meant  by  a  pit  is  an  empty  cistern  or  re- 
servoir dug  in  the  ground,  in  which  the  rain-water  is  col- 
lected, of  which  there  are  many  in  the  Arabian  deserts. 
Rauwolf,  in  the  account  of  his  Journey  i]iro%s;h  the  Desert 
of  Mesopotamia,  says,  "  That  the  camels,  besides  other 


necessaries,  were  chiefly  laden  with  water  to  refresh  them« 
selves  and  their  cattle  m  the  sultry  heat  of  the  sun,  as  they 
do  not  easily  meet  with  springs  or  brooks  in  crossing  the 
desert :  though  they  may  by  chance  meet  with  pits  or  cis 
terns,  which  are  for  the  most  part  'without  water,  which  only 
runs  into  them  from  the  rain."— Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  34.  And  Jacob  rent  his  clothes. 

This  ceremony  is  very  ancient,  and  is  frequently  men- 
tioned in  scripture.  Levi  {Rites  and  Ceremonies  of  the  Jews, 
p.  174)  says,  it  was  performed  in  the  following  manner  : 
"they  take  a  knife,  and  holding  the  blade  downward,  do 
give  the  upper  garment  a  cut  on  the  right  side,  and  then 
rend  it  a  hand's-breadth.  This  is  done  for  the  five  fol- 
lowing relations,  brother,  sister,  son,  or  daughter,  or  wife ; 
but  for  father  or  another,  the  rent  is  on  the  left  side,  and  in 
all  the  garments,  as  coat,  waistcoat,  &c." — Burder. 

Chap.  38.  ver.  14.  And  she  put  her  "widow's 
garments  off  from  her,  and  covered  her  with  a 
veil,  and  wrapped  herself,  and  sat  in  an  open 
place,  which  is  by  the  way  to  Timnath :  for 
she  saw  that  Shelah  was  grown,  and  she  was 
not  given  unto  hii^a  to  wife,. 

The  habit  of  eastern  females  was  also  suited  to  their 
station  ;  and  women  of  all  ages  and  conditions,  appeared 
in  dresses  of  the  same  fashion ;  only  a  married  woman 
wore  a  veil  upon  her  head,  in  token  of  subjection  ;  and  a 
widow  had  a  garment  which  indicated  her  widowed  state. 
The  daughters  of  a  king,  and  ladies  of  high  rank,  who 
were  virgins,  wore  a  garment  of  many  colours,  reaching, 
as  is  supposed,  to  the  heels  or  ankles,  with  long  sleeves 
down  to  the  wrists,  which  had  a  border  at  the  bottom,  and 
a  facing  at  the  hands,  of  a  colour  different  from  the  gar- 
ment :  it  was  likewise  embroidered  with  flowers,  which  in 
ancient  times,  was  reckoned  both  splendid  and  beautiful. 
Before  the  Jews  were  carried  captives  to  Babylon,  their 
wives  and  daughters  had  arrived  at  the  greatest  degree  of 
extravagance  in  dress.  The  prophet  Isaiah  gives  a  long 
list  of  the  vestments,  trinkets,  and  ornaments  in  use  among 
the  ladies  of  Israel,  in  that  remote  age ;  the  greater  part 
of  which,  it  is  extremely  diflicult  to  describe.  A  common 
prostitute  among  the  Jews  was  known,  as  well  by  the  pe- 
culiar vesture  she  wore,  as  by  having  no  covering  upon 
her  head,  and  her  eyebrows  painted  with  stibium,  w^hich 
dilated  the  hair,  and  made  the  eyes  look  black  and  beauti- 
ful. In  the  days  of  Jacob,  the  harlot  seemed  to  have  been 
distinguished  by  her  veil,  and  by  wrapping  herself  in  some 
peculiar  manner ;  for  these  are  the  circumstances  that  in- 
duced Judah  to  consider  Tamar  his  daughter-in-law  as  a 
woman  of  this  character:  When  Judah  saw  her,  he  thought 
her  to  be  a  harlot,  because  she  had  covered  her  face.  It 
may  be  justly  inferred  from  this  passage,  that  modest  wo- 
men did  not  constantly  wear  a  veil  in  those  days.  Rebecca, 
indeed,  put  a  veil  upon  her  face  when  she  met  Isaac  in  the 
field  :  but  it  was  a  part  of  the  marriage  ceremony  to  de- 
liver the  bride  covered  with  a  veil,  from  head  to  foot ;  and 
Rebecca,  in  this  instance,  only  followed  the  established 
custom  of  her  country.  Had  it  been  the  practice  of  modest 
women  in  that  age  to  cover  their  faces,  jn  the  presence  of 
the  other  sex,  she  would  not  have  needed  to  veil  herself 
when  her  future  husband  met  her  in  the  field.  She  seems  to 
have  had  no  veil  when  Abraham's  servant  accosted  her  at  the 
well ;  nor,  for  any  thing  that  can  be  discovered,  was  Rachel 
veiled  at  her  first  interview  with  Jacob  ;  or  if  they  did  ap- 

Eear  in  veils,  these  prevented  not  a  part  of  the  face  from 
eing  seen.  The  practice  of  wearing  veils,  except  at  the 
marriage  ceremony,  must,  therefore,  be  referred  to  a  later 
period,  and  was  perhaps  not  introduced  till  after  the  lapse 
of  several  ages.  These  observations  may  serve  to  illus- 
trate the  address  of  Abimelech  to  Sarah:  "Behold,  he 
is  to  thee  a  coverinfr  of  the  eyes,  unto  all  that  are  with  thee ; 
and  with  all  other."  Sarah,  you  have  not  been  used  to 
wear  the  veil  constantly  when  at  home,  as  a  person  of  your 
beauty  and  accomplishments  should  do,  and  by  that  cir- 
cumstance we  were  tempted  ;  but  now  I  insist  that  you  wear 
a  covering,  which,  by  concealing  your  beautiful  counte- 
nance, may  prevent  such  desires ;  and  henceforth  be  correct, 
(as  the  word  may  be  rendered,  that  is,  circumspect,)  and  do 


Chap.  38—41. 


GENESIS. 


45 


not  show  yourself;  or,  as  in  our  translation,  thus  she  was 
corrected,  reproved,  by  a  very  handsome  compliment  paid 
to  her  beauty,  and  a  very  handsome  present  paid  to  her 
brother,  as  Abraham  is  sarcaGtically  termed  by  Abimelech. 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  And  he  said,  What  pledge  shall  I  give 
thee  1  and  she  said.  Thy  signet,  and  thy  brace- 
lets, and  thy  staff  that  is  in  thy  hand  :  and  he 
gave  it  her,  and  came  in  unto  her :  and  she 
conceived  by  him. 

The  signet  used  by  kings  and  persons  of  rank  in  the  East 
was  a  ring  which  served  all  the  purposes  of  sealing.  All 
the  Orientals,  instead  of  signature  by  sign  manual,  use  the 
impression  of  a  seal  on  which  their  name  and  title  (if  they 
have  one)  is  engraved.  Among  intriguing  and  mali- 
cious people,  it  is  so  easy  to  turn  the  possession  of  a  man's 
seal  to  his  disgrace,  by  making  out  lalse  documents,  that 
the  loss  of  it  always  produces  great  concern.  This  shows 
how  much  Judah  put  himself  in  the  power  of  Tamar,  when 
he  gave  her  his  signet ;  and  one  reason  of  his  anxiety, 
**  Let  her  take  it  to  her,  lest  we  be  ashamed,"  may  therefore 
mean  something  beyond  the  mere  discovery  of  the  im- 
moral action ;  "  Lest  by  some  undue  advantage  taken  of 
the  signet,  I  maybe  endangered."  In  an  Indian  court, 
the  monarch  still  takes  the  ring  from  his  finger,  and  affixes 
it  to  the  decree,  and  orders  the  posts  to  be  despatched  to 
the  provinces,  as  in  the  reign  of  Ahasuerus.  When  an 
eajstem  prince  delivers  the  seal  of  empire  to  a  royal  guest, 
he  treats  him  as  a  superior ;  but  when  he  delivers  it  to  a 
subject,  it  is  only  a  sign  of  investiture  with  office.  Thus 
the  king  of  Egypt  took  otfhis  ring  from  his  hand  and  put 
it  upon  Joseph's  hand,  when  he  made  him  ruler  over  all 
his  dominions ;  and  the  king  of  Persia  took  off  the  ring 
which  he  had  taken  from  Haman  and  gave  it  unto  Mor- 
decai. — Paxton. 

Chap.  39.  ver.  6.  And  he  left  all  that  he  had  in 
Joseph's  hand  ;  and  he  knew  not  aught  he  had, 
save  the  bread  which  he  did  eat. 

All  resi)ectable  men  have  a  head  servant  called  a  Kani- 
ka-Pulli,  i.  e.  an  accountant,  in  whose  hands  they  often 
place  all  they  possess.  Such  a  man  is  more  like  a  rela- 
tion or  a  friend,  than  a  servant;  for,  on  all  important 
subjects,  he  is  regularly  consulted,  and  his  opinion  will 
have  great  weight  with  the  family.  When  a  native  gen- 
tleman has  such  a  servant,  it  is  common  to  say  of  him, 
"  Ah  !  he  has  nothing — all  is  in  the  hand  of  his  Kanika- 
^vMi." — "  Yes,  yes.  he  is  the  treasure  pot."  *'  He  knows 
of  nothing  but  the  food  he  eats." — Roberts. 

Chap.  40.  ver.  13.  Yet  within  three  days  shall 
Pharaoh  lift  up  thy  head,  and  restore  thee  unto 
thy  place :  and  thou  shalt  deliver  Pharaoh's 
cup  into  his  hand,  after  the  former  manner 
when  thou  wast  his  butler. 

The  ancients,  in  keeping  their  reckonings  or  accounts 
of  time,  or  their  list  of  domestic  officers  or  servants,  made 
use  of  tables  with  holes  bored  in  them,  in  which  they  put 
a  sort  of  pegs,  or  nails  with  broad  heads,  exhibiting  the 
particulars,  either  number  or  name,  or  whatever  it  was. 
These  nails  or  pegs  the  Jews  call  headS,  and  the  sockets 
of  the  heads  they  call  bosses.  The  meaning  therefore  of 
'Pharaoh's  Ufli7ig  up  his  head  is,  iha.t  Pharaoh  would  take 
out  the  peg,  which  had  the  cup-bearer's  name  on  the  top 
of  it,  to  read  it,  i.  e.  would  sit  in  judgment,  and  make  ex- 
amination into  his  accounts  ;  for  it  seems  very  probable 
that  both  he  and  the  baker  had  been  either  suspected  or 
accused  of  having  cheated  the  king,  and  that,  when  their 
accounts  were  examined  and  cast  up,  the  one  was  acquit- 
ted, while  the  other  was  found  guilty.  And  though  Joseph 
uses  the  same  expression  in  both  cases,  yet  we  may  observe 
that,  speaking  to  the  baker,  he  adds,  that  Pharaoh  shall  lift 
up  thy  head  from  off  thee,  i.  e.  shall  order  thy  name  to  be 
.struck  out  of  the  list  of  his  servants,  by  takins:  thy  peg  out 
of  the  socket. — Bibliotheca  Biblica,  cited  by  Stackhouse. 


Chap.  41.  ver.  40.  Thou  shalt  be  over  my  house, 
and  according  unto  thy  word  shall  all  my  peo- 
ple be  ruled :  only  in  the  throne  will  I  be 
greater  than  thou. 

Pococke,  when  he  describes  the  Egyptian  compliments, 
tells  us,  that  upon  their  taking  any  thing  from  the  hand  of 
a  superior,  or  that  is  sent  from  such  a  one,  they  kiss  it,  and 
as  the  highest  respect  put  it  to  their  foreheads.  This  is 
not  peculiar  to  those  of  that  country :  for  the  editor  of  the 
Ruins  of  Balbec  observed,  that  the  Arab  governor  of  that 
city  respectfully  applied  the  firman  of  the  Grand  Seignior 
to  his  forehead^  which  was  presented  to  him  when  he  and 
his  fellow-travellers  first  waited  on  him,  and  then  kissed 
it,  declaring  himself  the  Sultan's  slave's  slave.  Is  not  this 
what  Pharaoh  refers  to  in  Gen.  xli.  40'?  "  Thou  shalt  be 
over  my  house,  and  according  unto  thy  word,"  (or  on  ac- 
count of  thy  word,)  "  shall  all  my  people  kiss,"  (for  so  it  is 
in  the  original ;)  "  only  in  the  throne  will  I  be  greater  than 
thou :"  that  is,  1  imagine,  the  orders  of  Joseph  were  to  be 
received  with  the  greatest  respect  by  all,  and  kissed  by  the 
most  illustrious  of  the  princes  of  Egypt.  Drusius  might 
well  deny  the  sense  that  Kimchi  and  Grotius  put  on  these 
words,  the  appointing  that  all  the  people  should  kiss  his 
mouth.  That  would  certainly  be  reckoned  in  the  West, 
in  every  part  of  the  earth,  as  well  as  in  the  ceremonious 
East,  so  remarkable  for  keeping  up  dignity  and  state,  a 
most  strange  way  of  commanding  the  second  man  in  the 
kingdom  to  be  honoured.  It  is  very  strange  then  that 
these  commentators  should  propose  such  a  thought ;  and 
the  more  so,  as  the  Hebrew  word  "'d  pee  is  well  known 
to  signify  word,  or  commandment,  as  well  as  month.  As 
this  is  apparent  from  Gen.  xlv.  21 ;  so  also  that  the  prepo- 
sition bv  at,  often  signifies  according  to,  or  on  account  of, 
is  put  out  of  the  question  by  that  passage,  as  well  as  by 
Sam.  iv.  12,  Ezra  x.  9,  &c.  These  are  determinations  that 
establish  the  exposition  I  have  been  giving.  "  Upon  thy 
commandment,'^  or  when  thou  sendest  out  orders,  "  my 
people,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  shall  kiss,''  receiving 
them  with  the  profoundest  respect  and  obedience. — Harmeii. 

In  Psalm  ii.  12,  it  is  written,  "  Kiss  the  son,  lest  he  be 
angry,  and  ye  perish  from  the  way."  Bishop  Patrick  says 
on  this,  "  Kiss  the  son  ;  that  is,  submit  to  him,  and  obey 
him."  Bishop  Pococke  says,  "  The  Egyptians,  on  taking 
any  thing  from  the  hand  of*  a  superior,  or  that  is  sent  from 
him,  kiss  it;  and,  as  the  highest  respect,  put  it  to  their 
foreheads."  It  is  therefore  probable  that  Pharaoh  meant, 
that  all  should  submit  to  Joseph,  that  all  should  obey  him, 
and  pay  him  reverence,  and  that  only  on  the  throne  he 
himself^  would  be  greatest.  When  a  great  man  causes  a 
gift  to  be  handed  to  an  inferior,  the  latter  will  take  it,  and 
put  it  on  the  right  cheek,  so  as  to  cover  the  eyes  ;  then  on 
the  left ;  after  which  he  will  kiss  it.  This  is  done  to  show 
the  great  superiority  of  the  donor,  and  that  he  on  whom 
the  gift  is  bestowed  is  his  dependant,  and  greatly  reverences 
him.  When  a  man  of  rank  is  angry  with  an  inferior,  the 
latter  will  be  advised  to  go  and  kiss  his  feet ;  which  he  does 
by  touching  his  feet  with  his  hands,  and  then  kissing  them. 
When  the  Mohammedans  meet  each  other  after  a  long  ab- 
sence, the  inferior  will  touch  the  hand  of  the  superior,  and 
then  kiss  it.  All,  then,  were  to  kiss  Joseph,  and  acknow- 
ledge him  as  their  ruler. — Roberts. 

Ver.  42.  And  Pharaoh  took  off  his  ring  from  his 
hand,  and  put  it  upon  Joseph's  hand. 

That  is,  his  signet.  In  the  ring  there  is  generally  a  seal, 
on  which  the  name  of  the  sovereign  is  engraved.  This 
signet  is  dipped  in  a  coloured  matter,  and  impressed  over 
the  royal  orders,  instead  of  the  king's  title.  Whoever  is  in 
possession  of  this  seal,  can  issue  commands  in  the  name  of 
the  king.  What  is  said  in  this  text,  would  be  expressed  in 
modern  language  by,  "  Pharaoh  raised  Joseph  to  the  dig- 
nity of  grand  vizier.''  The  symbol  of  power  and  authority 
given  to  the  grand  vizier,  is  the  seal  of  the  sultan  with 
his  cipher,  which  is  intrusted  to  his  care.  The  signet  was 
considered,  in  the  East,  from  the  most  ancient  times,  as  the 
sign  of  delegated  power.  That  given  to  the  grand  vizier 
is  so  great,  that  no  officer  of  state,  no  minister,  dares  to 
resist,  or  even  to  contradict  his  orders,  without  risking  his 
head,  because  every  one  of  his  commands  is  obeyed,  as  if 


46 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  41 — 43, 


it  had  proceeded  from  the  throne,  or  from  the  mouth  of  the 
sultan.  He  likewise  receives  almost  royal  honours;  all 
about  him  bears  the  stamp  of  the  highest  honour,  power, 
and  splendour.  Liidecke,  in  his  Description  of  the  Turkish 
Empire,  says,  "  The  grand  vizier  is  the  principal  of  all 
the  ofticers  of  state,  and  his  dignity  is  similar  to  that  with 
which  Pharaoh  invested  Joseph.  He  is  called  Your  High- 
ness. The  emperor  scarcely  differs  from  him  except  in 
name.  There  is  nothing  at  the  European  courts  similar 
to  his  dignity,  and  the  premiers  ministres,  as  they  are 
called,  are  nothing  to  him.  Being  keeper  of  the  imperial 
signet,  he  always  has  it  suspended  round  his  neck.  The 
investing  him  with  it,  is  the  sign  of  his  elevation  to  office, 
and  the  taking  it  off,  of  his  discharge.  Without  further 
orders  or  responsibility,  he  issues  all  orders  for  the  em- 

Eire."  In  like  manner,  when  Alexander  the  Great,  on 
is  death-bed,  delivered  his  signet  to  Perdiccas,  it  was 
concluded  that  he  had  also  given  to  him  his  royal  powers, 
and  intended  him  for  his  successor.  (Curtius.) — The  ar- 
raying of  Joseph  in  fine  linen,  was  probably  a  part  of  the 
ceremony  of  investing  him  with  his  high  dignity.  Thus 
the  grand  vizier  on  the  day  of  his  appointment  is  invested 
with  a  double  golden  caftan,  or  robe  of  honour. — Rosen- 

MULLER. 

This  practice  is  still  common,  but  was  much  more  so 
in  former  times.  "  Aruchananan,  a  king,  once  became 
greatly  enamoured  with  a  princess  called  Alii,  and  desired 
to  have  her  in  marriage ;  but  being  in  doubt  whether  he 
should  be  able  to  have  her,  he  sent  for  a  woman  who  w^as 
well  skilled  in  palmistry !  She  looked  carefully  into  his 
hand,  and  declared,  'You  will  marry  a  princess  called 
Alii— you  shall  have  her.'  The  king  was  so  delighted, 
that  he  took  his  ring  off  his  finger,  and  put  it  upon  that  of 
the  fortuneteller.''^  Should  a  rich  man  be  greatly  pleased 
with  a  performer  at  a  comedy,  he  will  call  him  to  him,  and 
take  off  the  ring  from  his  finger,  and  present  it  to  him. 
Does  a  poet  please  a  man  of  rank ;  he  w'ill  take  the  ring 
off  his  finger,  and  put  it  on  his.  A  father  gives  his  son-in- 
law  elect  a  r'ng  from  off  his  finger.  When  the  bridegroom 
g.>es  to  the  ho!i?e  of  his  bride,  her  brother  meets  him,  and 
pears  water  on  his  feet ;  then  the  former  takes  a  ring  from 
off  his  finger,  and  puts  it  on  that  of  the  latter.  Does  one 
man  send  to  another  for  any  particular  article,  or  to  solicit 
a  favour,  and  should  he  not  have  time  to  write,  he  will 
give  his  ring  to  the  messenger,  and  say,  "  Show  this  in 
proof  of  my  having  sent  you  to  make  this  request."  Is  a 
master  at  a  distance,  and  does  he  wish  to  introduce  a  per- 
son to  the  notice  of  another;  he  says,  '•  Take  this  ring,  and 
YOU  "will  be  received."  Pharaoh's  ring  carried  with  it  the 
highest  mark  of  favour  towards  Joseph,  and  was  a  proof  of 
the  authority  conferred  on  him. — Roberts. 

Ver,  43.  And  he  made  him  to  ride  in  the  second 
chariot  which  he  had  ;  and  they  cried  before 
him.  Bow  the  knee :  and  he  made  him  ruler 
over  all  the  land  of  Egypt. 

As  to  magnificent  riding,  chariots  are  not  now  made  use 
of  in  the  East,  either  by  men,  or  even  the  fair  sex.  It  may 
be  difficult  to  say  what  this  is  owing  to :  whether  to  the  dif- 
ficulty of  their  roads,  or  to  the  clumsy  and  unmechanical 
manner  of  constructing  their  carriages ;  or  to  a  junction  of 
both  causes.  Certain  it  is,  that  they  are  not  now  used  in 
these  countries  :  and  the  magnificence  of  the  furniture  of 
their  horses  makes  up  the  want  of  pompous  chariots. 
Anciently,  however,  chariots  were  used  by  the  great: 
they  were  thought  most  deadly  machines  of  war ;  it  was 
courage  in  war  that  in  those  ruder  times  gave  dignity,  and 
seems  to  have  been  chiefly  looked  at  in  conferring  royal 
honours;  it  was  natural  then  for  their  kings  to  ride  in 
chariots,  as  their  great  warriors  at  that  time  in  common 
did ;  which  royal  chariots  were  without  doubt  most  highly 
ornamented.  In  the  most  magnificent  of  all  that  Pharaoh 
had,  but  one,  Joseph  was  made  to  ride.  But  when  chariots 
were  laid  aside  in  war,  their  princes  laid  aside  the  use  of 
them  by  degrees,  and  betook  themselves  to  horses,  as  upon 
the  whole  most  agreeable,  and  they  endeavoured  to  transfer 
the  pomp  of  their  chariots  to  them,  and  richly  indeed  they 
do  adorn  them. — Harmer. 

The  Hebrew  has  for  bow  the  knee,  ^^  Tender  Father,^'' 
which  I  believe  to  be  the  true  meaning.    Dr.  Adam  Clarke 


says  the  word  i->2n  abrec,  which  we  translate  bow  the  knee, 
might  as  well  be  translated  any  thing  else.  In  chapter  xlv. 
8,  Joseph  says  himself,  "  God  hath  made  me  a  father  to 
Pharaoh  J"  A  younger  brother  is  called  the  little  father ;  he 
being  the  next  in  authority.  The  king's  minister  (if  a 
good  man)  is  called  the  little  father.  There  are  five  per- 
sons who  have  a  right  to  this  parental  title.  Tlie  father 
himself,  a  king,  a  priest,  a  gooroo  or  teacher,  and  a  bene- 
factor. Joseph  was  indeed  the  father  of  the  Egyptians. — 
Roberts. 

Chap.  42.  ver.  15.  Hereby  ye  shall  be  proved: 
by  the  life  of  Pharaoh,  ye  shall  not  go  forth 
hence,  except  your  youngest  brother  come 
hither. 

Extraordinary  as  the  kind  of  oath  which  Joseph  made 
use  of  may  appear  to  us,  it  still  continues  in  the  East.  Mr. 
Hanway  says,  the  most  sacred  oath  among  the  Persians  is 
"  by  the  king's  head ;"  and  among  other  instances  of  it  we 
read  in  the  Travels  of  the  Ambassadors,  that  "there  were 
but  sixty  horses  for  ninety-four  persons.  The  mehemander 
(or  conductor)  swore  by  the  head  of  the  king,  (which  is  the 
greatest  oath  among  the  Persians,)  that  he  could  not  possi- 
bly find  any  more."  And  Thevenot  says,  "  his  subjects 
never  look  upon  him  but  with  fear  and  trembling ;  and 
they  have  such  respect  for  him,  and  pay  so  blind  an  obedi- 
ence to  a..,  ais  orders,  that  how  unjust  soever  his  commands 
might  be,  t^ey  perform  them,  though  against  the  law  both 
of  God  and  nature.  Nay,  if  they  swear  by  the  king^s  head., 
their  oath  is  more  authentic,  and  of  greater  credit,  than  if 
they  swore  by  all  that  is  most  sacred  in  heaven  and  upon 
earth."— Burder. 

Ver.  37.  And  Reuben  spake  unto  his  father,  say- 
ing, Slay  my  two  sons,  if  I  bring  him  not  to 
thee:  deliver  him  into  my  hand,  and  I  will 
bring  him  to  thee  again. 

Is  a  man  placed  in  great  difficulty,  and  does  he  make  a 
solemn  promise,  in  which  another  person  is  also  involved ; 
he  will  say,  "  Ah !  if  I  do  not  this  thing,  then  kill  my  chil- 
dren." "Yes,  my  lord,  my  children  shall  die  if  I  do  not 
accomplish  this  object."  "  Ah !  my  children,  your  lives 
are  concerned  in  this  matter." — Roberts. 

Chap.  43.  ver.  3.  And  Judah  spake  unto  him, 
saying,  The  man  did  solemnly  protest  unto  us, 
saying,  Ye  shall  not  see  my  face,  except  your 
brother  he  with  you. 

^  See  on  2  Sam.  14.  24. 

Ver.  7.  And  we  told  him  according  to  the  tenor 
of  these  words. 

The  margin  has,  for  words,  "  mouth."  Send  a  messenger 
with  a  message  to  deliver,  and  ask  him,  on  his  return, 
what  he  said,  he  will  reply,  "  According  to  your  mouth  .'"— 
Roberts. 

Ver.  18.  Seek  occasion  against  us,  and  fall  upon  us. 

The  margin  has  this,  "  Roll  himself  upon  us."  (Job 
XXX.  14.  Psa.  xxii.  8.  xxxvii.  5.  Prov.  xvi.  3.)  For  to  say 
a  man  rolls  himself  upon  another,  is  the  eastern  way  of 
saying  he  falls  upon  him.  Is  a  person  beaten  or  injured 
by  another  :  he  says  of  the  other,  "  He  rolled  himself  upon 
me."  Of  the  individual  who  is  always  trying  to  live  upon 
another,  who  is  continually  endeavouring  to  get  something 
out  of  him,  it  is  said,  "  That  fellow  is  for  ever  rolling  him- 
self upon  him."  So,  also,  "  I  will  not  submit  to  his  conduct 
any  longer;  I  will  beat  him,  and  roll  myself  upon  him." 
Has  a  man  committed  an  offence,  he  is  advised  to  go  to  the 
offended,  and  roll  himself  upon  him.  A  person  in  great 
sorrow,  who  is  almost  destitute  of  friends,  asks  in  his  dis- 
tress, "  Upon  whom  shall  I  roll  myself  7"  When  men  or 
women  are  in  great  misery,  they  wring  their  hands  and 
roll  themselves  on  the  earth.  Devotees  roll  themselves 
round  the  temple,  or  after  the  sacred  car. — Roberts. 


Chap.  44. 


GENESIS. 


47 


Ver.  19.  And  tho.y  came  near  to  the  steward  of 
Joseph's  house,  and  they  communed  with  him 
at  the  door  of  the  house. 

Who,  in  India,  lias  not  seen  similar  scenes  to  this"? 
When  people  come  from  a  distance  to  do  business,  or  to 
hava  an  interview  with  a  person,  they  do  not  (if  it  can  be 
avoided)  go  to  him  at  once,  but  try  to  find  out  the  head  ser- 
'  vant,  and  after  having  made  him  some  little  present,  try  to 
ascertain  the  disposition  of  his  master,  what  are  his  habits, 
his  possessions,  and  his  family.  Every  thing  connected 
with  the  object  of  their  visit  is  thoroughly  sifted^  so  that 
when  they  have  to  meet  the  individual,  they  are  complete- 
ly prepared  for  him ! — Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  And  they  made  ready  the  present  against 
Joseph  came  at  noon :  for  they  heard  that  they 
should  eat  bread  |here. 

Presents  are  commonly  sent,  even  to  persons  in  private 
station,  with  great  parade.  The  money  which  the  bride- 
grooms of  Syria  pay  for  their  brides,  is  laid  out  in  furni- 
ture for  a  chamber,  in  clothes,  jewels,  and  ornaments  of 
gold  for  the  bride,  which  are  sent  with  great  pomp  to  the 
bridegroom's  house,  three  days  before  the  wedding.  In 
Egypt  they  are  not  less  ostentatious;  every  article  of  fur- 
niture, dress,  and  ornament  is  displayed,  and  they  never 
fail  to  load  upon  four  or  five  horses,  what  might  easily  be 
carried  by  one :  in  like  manner,  they  place  in  fifteen  dishes, 
the  jewels,  trinkets,  and  other  things  of  value,  which  a 
single  plate  would  very  well  contain.  The  sacred  writer 
seems  to  allude  to  some  pompous  arrangement  of  this  kind, 
in  the  history  of  Joseph  :  "  And  they  made  ready  the  pres- 
ent against  Joseph  came  at  noon."  They  probably  sepa- 
rated into  distinct  parcels,  and  committed  to  so  many 
bearers,  the  balm,  the  honey,  the  spices,  the  myrrh,  the 
nuts,  and  the  almonds,  of  which  their  present  consisted. 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  29.  And  he  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  saw  his 
brother  Benjamin,  his  mother's  son,  and  said. 
Is  this  your  younger  brother,  of  whom  ye 
spake  unto  me?  And  he  said,  God  be  gra- 
cious unto  thee,  my  son. 

The  forms  of  salutation  in  the  East  wear  a  much  more 
serious  and  religious  air  than  those  in  use  among  the  na- 
tions of  Europe.  "  God  be  gracious  unto  thee,  my  son," 
were  the  words  which  Joseph  addressed  to  his  brother 
Benjamin.  In  this  country,  it  would  be  called  a  benedic- 
tion; but  Chardin  asserts,  that  in  Asia,  it  is  a  simple  salu- 
tation, and  used  there  instead  of  those  offers  and  assu- 
rances of  service  which  it  is  the  custom  to  use  in  the  West. 
The  Orientals,  indeed,  are  exceedingly  eloquent  in  wishing 
good  and  the  mercy  of  God  on  all  occasions  to  one  another, 
even  to  those  they  scarcely  know  ;  and  yet  their  compli- 
ments are  as  hollow  and  deceitful  as  those  of  any  other 
people.  This  appears  from  scripture,  to  have  been  always 
their  character  :  "  They  bless  with  their  mouths,  but  they 
curse  inwardly."  These  benedictory  forms  explain  the 
reason,  why  the  sacred  writers  so  frequently  call  the  salu- 
tation and  farewell  of  the  East,  by  the  name  of  blessing. 
—Paxton. 

"  God  be  gracious  unto  thee,  my  son,"  was  the  address  of 
Joseph  to  his  brother  Benjamin;  "and  in  this  way  do  people 
3f  respectability  or  years  address  their  inferiors  or  juniors. 
"  So7i,  give  me  a  little  water."  "  The  sun  is  very  hot ;  I 
will  rest  under  your  shade,  my  son." — Roberts. 

Ver.  32.  And  they  set  on  for  him  by  himself,  and 
for  them  by  themselves,  and  for  the  Egyptians, 
which  did  eat  with  him,  by  themselves:  be- 
cause the  Egyptians  might  not  eat  bread  with 
the  Hebrews ;  for  that  is  an  abomination  unto 
the  Egyptians.  33.  And  they  sat  before  him, 
the  first-born  according  to  his  birthright,  and 
the  youngest  according  to  his  youth :  and  the 
men  marvelled  one  at  another.     34.  And  ho 


took  and  sent  messes  unto  them  from  before 
him :  but  Benjamin's  mess  was  five  times  so 
much  as  any  of  theirs.  And  they  drank,  and 
were  merry  with  him. 

Public  entertainments  in  the  East,  are  not  all  conducted 
in  the  same  way.  At  Aleppo,  the  several  dishes  are 
brought  in  one  by  one  ;  and  after  the  company  has  eaten 
a  little  of  each,  they  are  removed ;  but  among  the  Arabs, 
the  whole  provisions  are  set  on  the  table  at  once.  In  Per- 
sia, where  the  last  custom  is  followed,  the  viands  are  dis- 
tributed by  a  domestic,  who  takes  portions  of  different 
kinds  out  of  the  large  dishes  in  wliich  they  are  served  up, 
and  lays  four  or  five  different  kinds  of  meat  in  one  smaller 
dish;  these  are  set,  furnished  after  this  manner,  before 
the  company ;  one  of  these  spaller  dishes  being  placed 
before  two  persons  only,  or  at  most  three.  The  same 
practice  obtains  at  the  royal  table  itself.  It  is  not  improba- 
ble that  the  ancient  Egyptians  treated  their  guests  in  a 
similar  way  ;  and  in  the  entertainment  given  by  Joseph  to 
his  brethren,  we  may  discover  many  points  of  resemblance. 
The  Persians  were  placed  in  a  row  on  one  side  of  the  room, 
without  any  person  before  them  ;  a  distinct  dish,  with  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  food,  was  set  before  every  guest;  circum- 
stances which  entirely  correspond  with  the  arrangement 
of  Joseph's  entertainment. — Paxton. 

Ver.  34.  And  he  took  and  sent  messes  unto  them 
from  before  him  :  but  Benjamin's  mess  was  five 
times  so  much  as  any  of  theirs.  And  they 
drank,  and  were  merry  with  him. 

The  manner  of  eating  among  the  ancients  was  not  for 
all  the  company  to  eat  out  of  one  and  the  same  dish,  but 
for  every  one  to  have  one  or  more  dishes  to  himself.  Th« 
whole  of  these  dishes  were  set  before  the  master  of  thw 
feast,  and  he  distributed  to  every  one  his  portion.  As  Jo- 
seph, however,  is  here  said  to  have  had  a  table  to  himself, 
we  may  suppose  that  he  had  a  great  variety  of  little  dishes 
or  plates  set  before  him ;  and  as  it  was  a  custom  for  great 
men  to  honour  those  who  were  in  their  favour,  by  sending 
such  dishes  to  them  as  were  first  served  up  to  themselves,  Jo- 
seph showed  that  token  of  respect  to  his  brethren  ;  but  tc 
express  a  particular  value  for  Benjamin,  he  sent  him  five 
dishes  to  their  one,  which  disproportion  could  not  but  be 
marvellous  and  astonishing  to  them,  if  what  Herodotus  tells 
us  be  true,  that  the  distinction  in  this  case,  even  to  Egyp- 
tian kings  themselves,  in  all  public  feasts  and  banquets,  was 
no  more  than  a  double  mess. — Stackhouse. 

Chap.  44.  ver.  1.  And  he  commanded  the  stew- 
ard of  his  house,  saying,  Fill  the  men's  sacks 
with  food,  as  much  as  they  can  carry,  and  put 
every  man's  money  in  his  sack's  mouth. 

There  are  two  sorts  of  sacks  taken  notice  of  in  the  his- 
tory of  Joseph,  which  ought  not  to  be  confounded  ;  one  for 
the  corn,  the  other  for  the  baggage.  There  are  no  w^ag- 
ons  almost  through  all  Asia  as  far  as  to  the  Indies  ;  eveif 
thing  is  carried  upon  beasts  of  burden,  in  sacks  oi  wool, 
covered  in  the  middle  with  leather,  the  better  to  majce  re- 
sistance to  water.  Sacks  of  this  sort  are  called  lambellit; 
they  enclose  in  them  their  things  done  up  in  large  parcels. 
It  is  of  this  kind  of  sacks  we  are  to  understand -t'hat  issaid 
here  and  all  through  this  history,  and  not  of  their  sacjiis  in 
which  they  carry  their  corn. — Harmer. 

Ver.  18.  Then  Judah  came  near  unto  him,  and 
said,  O  my  lord,  let  thy  servant,  I  pray  thee, 
speak  a  word  in  my  lord's  ears,  and  let  not 
thine  anger  burn  against  thy  servant :  for  thou 
art  even  as  Pharaoh. 

A  company  of  people  have  always  some  one  among 
them,  who  is  known  and  acknowledged  to  be  the  chief 
speaker ;  thus,  should  they  fall  into  trouble,  he  will  be  the 
person  to  come  forward  and  plead  with  the  superior.  He 
will  say,  "  My  lord,  I  am  indeed  a  very  ignorant  person,  and 
am  not  worthy  to  speak  to  vou :  were  I  of  high  caste,  perhaps 


48 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  44—46. 


my  lord  would  hear  me.  May  I  say  two  or  three  words  ?" 
(some  of  the  party  will  then  say,  "Yes,  yes,  our  lord  will 
hear  you.")  He  then  proceeds, — "  Ah,  rny  lord,  your  mercy 
is  known  to  all;  great  is  your  wisdom;  you  are  even  as  a 
king  to  us :  let,  then,  your  servants  find  favour  in  your 
sight."  He  then,  like  Judah,  relates  the  whole  affair,  for- 
getting no  circumstance  which  has  a  tendency  to  exculpate 
him  and  his  companions ;  and  every  thing  which  can  touch 
the  feelings  of  his  judge  will  be  gently  brought  before  him. 
As  he  draws  to  a  conclusion,  his  pathos  increases,  his  com- 
panions put  out  their  hands  in  a  supplicating  manner,  ac- 
companied by  other  gesticulations;  their  tears  begin  to 
flow,  and  with  one  voice  they  cry,  "  Forgive  us,  this  time, 
and  we  will  never  offend  you  more." — Roberts, 

Ver.  21.  And  thou  saidst  unto  thy  servant.  Bring 
him  down  unto  me,  that  I  may  set  mine  eyes 
upon  him. 

Has  a  beloved  son  been  long  absent,  does  the  father  anx- 
iously desire  to  see  him,  he  says,  "  Bring  him,  bring  him, 
chat  the  course  of  my  eyes  may  be  upon  him."  "  Ah,  my 
eyes,  do  you  again  see  my  son  1  Oh,  my  eyes,  is  not  this 
pleasure  for  youV — Robekts. 

Chap.  45.  ver.  2.  And  he  wept  aloud:  and  the 
Egyptians  and  the  house  of  Pharaoh  heard. 

Hebrew,  "  gave  forth  his  voice  in  weeping."  In  this 
way  do  they  speak  of  a  person  who  thus  conducts  himself: 
"  How  loudly  did  he  give  forth  his  voice  and  weep." 
"  That  child  is  for  ever  giving  forth  its  voice."  The  vio- 
lence of  their  sorrow  is  very  great,  and  their  voice  may  be 
heard  at  a  considerable  distance. — Roberts. 

"  This,"  says  Chardin,  "  is  exactly  the  genius  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Asia,  especially  of  the  women.  Their  sentiments 
of  joy  or  of  grief  are  properly  transports;  and  their  trans- 
ports are  ungoverned,  excessive,  and  truly  outrageous. 
When  any  one  returns  from  a  long  journey,  or  dies,  his 
family  burst  into  cries,  that  may  be  heard  twenty  doors  off; 
and  this  is  renewed  at  different  times,  and  continues  many 
days,  according. to  the  vigour  of  the  passion.  Especially 
are  these  cries  long  in  the  case  of  death,  and  frightful,  for 
*he  mourning  is  right  down  despair,  and  an  image  of  hell. 
I  was  lodged  in.  the  year  1676,  at  Ispahan,  near  the  Roval 
square  ;  the  mistress  of  the  next  house  to  mine  died  at  that 
time.  The  moment  she  expired,  all  the  family,  to  the  num- 
ber of  twenty-five  or  thirty  people,  set  up  such  a  furious 
erv,  that  I  w'as  quite  startled,  and  was  above  two  hours 
before  I  could  recover  myself.  These  cries  continue  a 
long  time,  then  cease  all  at  once;  they  begin  again  as  sud- 
denly, at  daybreak,  and  in  concert.  It  is  this  suddenness 
which  is  so  terrifying,  together  with  a  greater  shrillness 
and  loudness  than  one  could  easily  imagine.  This  enraged 
kind  of  mourning,  if  I  may  call  it  so,  continued  forty  days ; 
not  equally  violent,  but  with  diminution  from  day  to  day. 
The  longest  and  most  violent  acts  were  when  they  washed 
the  body,  when  they  perfumed  it,  when  they  carried  it  out 
to  be  interred,  at  making  the  inventory,  and  when  they  di- 
vided the  effects.  You  are  not  to  suppose  that  those  that 
were  ready  to  split  their  throats  with  crying  out,  wept  as 
much ;  the  greatest  part  of  them  did  not  shed  a  single  tear 
through  the  whole  tragedy."  This  is  a  very  distinct  de- 
scription of  eastern  mourning  for  the  dead :  they  cry  out 
too,  it  seems,  on  other  occasions ;  no  wonder  then  the  house 
of  Pharaoh  heard,  when  Joseph  wept  at  making  himself 
known  to  his  brethren.— Harmer. 

Ver.  14.  And  he  fell  upon  his  brother  Benjamin's 
neck,  and  wept ;  and  Benjamin  wept  upon  his 
neck.  15.  Moreover,  he  kissed  all  his  brethren, 
and  wept  upon  them ;  and  after  that  his  brethren 
talked  with  him. 

When  people  meet,  after  long  absence,  they  fall  on 
each  other's  shoulder  or  neck,  and  kiss  or  smell  the  part. 
A  husband,  after  long  absence,  kisses  or  smells  the  fore- 
head, the  eyes,  the  right  and  left  cheeks,  and  the  bosom,  of 
kis  wife. — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  And  Pharaoh  said  unto  Joseph,  Say 
unto  thy  brethren.  This  do  ye ;  lade  your  beasts. 


Nearly  all  the  merchandise,  which  goes  by  land,  is  car- 
ried by  beasts  of  burden ;  and,  no  doubt,  will  continue  to  be 
so  till  regular  roads  are  constructed.  Hence  may  be  seen 
hundreds  of  bullocks,  or  camels,  carrying  rice,  salt,  spices, 
and  other  wares,  traversing  the  forests  and  deserts  to  dis- 
tant countries.  Some  of  the  buffaloes  carry  immense  bur- 
dens, and  though  they  only  make  little  progress,  yet  they 
are  patient  and  regular  in  their  pace.  Bells  are  tied  pound 
the  necks  of  some  of  the  animals,  the  sound  of  which  pro- 
duces a  pleasing  effect  on  the  feelings  of  a  traveller,  who 
now  knows  that  he  is  not  far  from  some  of  his  fellows. 
The  sound  of  the  bells  also  keeps  the  cattle  together,  and 
frightens  off  the  wild  beasts. — Roberts. 

Chap.  46.  ver.  4.  I  will  go  down  with  thee  into 
Egypt ;  and  I  will  also  surely  bring  thee  up 
again :  and  Joseph  shall  put  his  hand  upon 
thine  eyes. 

A  father,  at  the  point  of  death,  is  always  very  desirous 
that  his  wife,  children,  and  grandchildren  should  be  with 
him.  Should  there  be  one  at  a  distance,  he  will  be  imme- 
diately sent  for,  and  until  he  arrives  the  father  will  mourn 
and  complain,  "  My  son,  will  you  not  come  1  I  cannot  die 
without  you."  When  he  arrives,  he  will  take  the  hands  of 
his  son,  and  kiss  them,  and  place  them  on  his  eyes,  his  face, 
and  mouth,  and  say,  "  Now  I  die." — Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  And  came  inio  Egypt,  Jacob,  and  all  his 
seed  with  him. 

In  this  way  descendants  are  spoken  of.  Has  a  man  been 
deceived  by  another,  he  will  be  asked,  "  How  could  you 
trust  him  1  did  you  not  know  him  to  be  bad  {veethe)  seed." 
"  That  fellow  is  of  the  seed  of  fiends."  "  The  reason  you 
see  such  good  things  in  that  youth  is,  that  he  is  of  good 
seed."  "  The  old  man  and  his  seed  have  all  left  this  village 
many  years  ago." — Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  For  every  shepherd  is  an  abomination 
unto  the  Egyptians. 

Cunpeus,  with  great  plausibility,  ascribes  this  detestation 
on  the  part  of  the  Egyptians,  to  the  ferocious  dispositions 
and  rebellious  conduct  of  the  shepherds  who  tended  their 
flocks  in  the  plains  and  marshes  of  lower  Egypt,  "  These," 
says  that  writer,  "were  active  and  able  men,  but  execrable 
to  all  the  Egyptians,  because  they  would  not  sufler  them  to 
lead  their  idle  course  of  life  in  security.  These  men  often 
excited  great  commotions,  and  sometimes  created  kings  for 
themselves.  It  was  on  this  account,  that  the  Romans,  in 
succeeding  times,  when  they  easily  held  the  rest  of  Egypt 
in  obedience,  placed  a  strong  garrison  in  all  these  parts. 
When  you  have  taken  the  most  exact  survey  of  all  circum- 
stances, you  will  find  this  was  the  reason  that  made  the 
Egyptians,  even  from  the  first,  so  ill  affected  to  shepherds ; 
because  these  sedentary  men  and  handicrafts  could  not 
endure  their  fierce  and  active  spirits.  Pharaoh  himself, 
when  he  had  determined  to  abate  and  depress  the  growing 
numbers  of  the  Israelites,  spake  to  his  subjects  in  this  man- 
ner :  *  The  Israelites  are  stronger  than  we ;  let  us  deal 
wisely,  that  they  increase  not,  lest,  when  war  arises,  they 
join  themselves  to  our  enemies,  and  take  up  arms  against 
us.'  But  this  view  does  not  account  for  the  use  of  the 
term  which  is  properly  rendered  abomination,  and  which 
indicates,  not  a  ferocious  and  turbulent  character,  which  is 
properly  an  object  of  dread  and  hatred,  but  a  mean  and 
despicable  person,  that  excites  the  scorn  and  contempt  of 
his  neighbours.  It  is  readily  admitted,  that  the  detestation 
in  which  shepherds  were  held  in  Eg>'pt,  could  not  arise 
from  their  employment  in  the  breeding  of  cattle ;  for  the 
king  himself,  in  the  days  of  Joseph,  had  very  numerous 
flocks  and  herds,  in  the  management  of  which  he  did  not 
think  it  unbecoming  his  dignity  to  take  a  lively  interest. 
This  is  proved  bv  the  command  to  his  favourite  minister ; 
'  If  thou  knowest  any  men  of  activity  among  them,  then 
make  them  rulers  over  my  cattle.'  Nor  were  his  numer- 
ous subjects  less  attentive  to  this  branch  of  industry ;  every 
one  seems  to  have  lived  upon  his  paternal  farm,  part  of 
which  was  converted  into  pasture.  Hence,  when  money 
failed  in  the  vears  of  famine,  'all  the  Egyptians  came  to 
Joseph  and  said,  Give  us  bre.id  ;  for  why  should  we  die  in 


Chap.  47—49. 


GENESIS. 


49 


thy  presence '?  for  the  money  faileth.  And  Joseph  said, 
Give  your  cattle,  and  I  will  give  you  bread  for  your  cattle, 
if  money  fail."  But  if  Pharaoh  and  all  his  subjects,  were 
themselves  engaged  in  the  rearing  of  stock,  a  shepherd 
could  not  be  to  them  an  object  of  general  abhorrence.  Be- 
sides, it  was  not  unlawful  in  Egypt  to  deprive  an  ox  or  a 
sheep  of  life,  and  feast  upon  the'  flesh  ;  for,  in  the  temples, 
these  animals  were  offered  in  sacrifice  every  day  ;  and  for 
what  purpose  did  the  Egyptians  rear  them  on  their  farms, 
but  to  use  them  as  food  1  The  contempt  in  which  this  or- 
der of  men  were  held,  could  not  then  be  owing  to  the  super- 
stition of  the  nation  in  general.  It  may  even  be  inferred 
from  the  command  of  Pharaoh  to  Joseph,  requiring  him  to 
appoint  the  most  active  of  his  brethren  rulers  over  his  cat- 
tle, that  the  ofi&ce  of  a  shepherd  was  honourable  among  the 
Egyptians ;  for  it  could  not  be  his  design  to  degrade  the 
brethren  of  his  favourite  minister.  This  idea  is  confirmed 
by  Diodorus,  who  asserts  that  husbandmen  and  shepherds 
were  held  in  very  great  estimation  in  that  country.  But 
that  writer  states  a  fact,  which  furnishes  the  true  solution 
of  the  difficulty — that  in  some  parts  of  Egypt,  shepherds 
were  not  suffered.  The  contempt  of  shepherds  seems, 
therefore,  to  have  been  confined  to  some  parts  of  the  king- 
dom ;  probably  to  ihe  royal  city,  and  the  principal  towns  in 
Upper  Egypt,  where  the  luxury  of  a  court,  or  the  wealth 
and  splendour  of  the  inhabitants,  taughtj  them  to  look  down 
with  contempt  and  loathing  upon  those  humble  peasants. 
But  the  true  reason  seems  to  be  stated  by  Herodotus,  who 
informs  us  that  those  who  worship  in  the  temple  of  the  The- 
ban  Jupiter,  or  belong  to  the  district  of  Thebes,  the  ancient 
capital  of  Egypt,  abstained  from  sheep  and  sacrificed  goats. 
But  sheep  and  oxen  were  the  animals  which  the  shepherds 
usually  killed  for  general  use.  It  was  natural,  therefore, 
for  that  superstitious  people  to  regard  with  abhorrence  those 
who  were  in  the  daily  practice  of  slaughtering  the  objects 
of  their  religious  veneration.  But  this  custom  was  con- 
fined to  the  district  of  Thebes ;  for,  according  to  the  same 
writer,  "  in  the  temple  of  Mendes,  and  in  the  whole  Men- 
desian  district,  goats  were  preserved  and  sheep  sacrificed." 
Shepherds,  therefore,  might  be  abhorred  in  one  part  of 
Egypt  and  honoured  in  another.  The  sagacious  prime 
minister  of  Egypt,  desirous  to  remove  his  brethren  from  the 
fascinations  of  wealth  and  power,  directed  them  to  give  such 
an  account  of  themselves,  that  the  counsellors  of  Pharaoh, 
from  their  dislike  of  the  mean  employment  in  which  they 
had  been  educated,  might  grant  their  request,  and  suffer 
them  to  settle  in  Goshen,  a  land  of  shepherds,  far  removed 
from  the  dangerous  blandishments  of  a  court. — Paxton. 

Chap.  47.  ver.  29.  And  the  time  drew  nigh  that 
Israel  must  die :  and  he  called  his  son  Joseph, 
and  said  unto  him,  If  now  I  have  found  grace 
in  thy  sight,  put,  I  pray  thee,  thy  hand  under 
my  thigh,  and  deal  kindly  and  truly  with  me ; 
bury  me  not,  I  pray  thee,  in  Egypt. 

See  on  chap.  24.  2,  3. 

Chap.  49.  ver.  3.  Reuben,  thou  art  my  first-born, 
my  might,  and  the  beginning  of  my  strength, 
the  excellency  of  dignity,  and  the  excellency  of 
power. 

It  is  generally  believed  that  the  first-bom  son  is  the 
strongest,  and  he  is  always  placed  over  his  brethren.  To 
him  the  others  must  give  great  honour,  and  they  must  not 
sit  in  his  presence  without  his  permission,  and  then  only 
behind  him.  When  the  younger  visits  the  elder,  he  goes 
with  great  respect,  and  the  conversation  is  soon  closed. 
Should  there  be  any  thing  of  a  particular  nature,  on  which 
he  desires  the  sentiments  of  his  elder  brother,  he  sends  a 
friend  to  converse  with  him.  The  younger  brother  will  not 
enter  the  door  at  the  same  time  with  the  elder;  he  must  al- 
ways follow.  Should  they  be  invited  to  a  marriage,  care 
will  be  taken  that  the  oldest  shall  go  in  the  first.  The 
younger  will  never  approach  him  with  his  wooden  sandals 
on,  he  must  take  them  off.  He  will  not  speak  to  the  wife 
of  the  elder,  except  on  some  special  occasion.  When  the 
father  thinks  his  end  is  approaching,  he  calls  his  children, 
and,  addressing  himself  to  the  elder,  says,  "  My  strength, 
|Dy  glory,  my  all  is  in  thee."    From  this  may  be  gained  an 


idea  of  the  importance  which  was  attached  to  the  "  birth- 
right."— Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  Judth,  thou  art  he  whom  thy  brethren 
shall  praise ;  thy  hand  shall  be  in  the  neck  of 
thine  enemies. 

The  oriental  conqueror  oflen  addressed  his  unfortunate 
captives  in  the  most  insulting  language,  of  which  the  pro- 
phet Isaiah  has  left  us  a  specimen :  "  But  I  will  put  it  (the 
cup  of  Jehovah's  fuify)  into  the  hand  of  them  that  afflict 
thee ;  which  have  said  to  thy  soul,  bow  down  that  we  may 
go  over."  And  their  actions  were  as  harsh  as  their  words 
were  haughty;  they  made  them  bow  down  to  the  very 
ground,  and  put  their  feet  upon  their  necks,  and  trampled 
them  in  the  mire.  This  indignity  the  chosen  people  of  God 
were  obliged  to  suffer:  "  Thou  hast  laid  thy  body  as  the 
ground,  and  as  the  street  to  them  that  went  over."  Conquer- 
ors of  a  milder  and  more  humane  disposition  put  their  hand 
upon  the  neck  of  their  captives,  as  a  mark  of  tneir  superior- 
ity. This  custom  may  be  traced  as  high  as  the  age  in 
which  Jacob  flourished;  for  in  his  farewell  blessing  to 
Judah,  he  thus  alludes  to  it:  "  Judah,  thou  art  he  whom 
thy  brethren  shall  praise ;  thy  hand  shall  be  in  the  neck  of 
thine  enemies."  This  benediction,  which  at  once  foretold 
the  victorious  career  of  that  warlike  tribe,  and  suggested 
the  propriety  of  treating  their  prisoners  with  moderation 
and  kindness,  was  fulfilled  in  the  person  of  David,  and  ac- 
knowledged by  him :  "  Thou  hast  also  given  me  the  necks 
of  mine  enemies,  that  I  might  destroy  them  that  hate  me." 
Traces  of  this  custom  may  be  discovered  in  the  manners 
of  other  nations.  Among  the  Franks  it  was  usual  to  put 
the  arm  round  the  neck,  as  a  mark  of  superiority  on  the 
part  of  him  by  whom  it  was  done.  When  Chrodin,  decli- 
ning the  oflice  of  mayor  of  the  palace,  chose  a  young 
nobleman  named  Goga'n,  to  fill  that  place,  he  immediately 
took  the  arm  of  the  young  man,  and  put  it  round  his  own 
neck,  as  a  mark  of  his  dependance  on  him,  and  that  he 
acknowledged  him  for  his  general  and  chief. — Paxton. 

Ver.  9.  Judah  is  a  lion's  whelp ;  from  the  prey, 
my  son,  thou  art  gone  up :  he  stooped  down, 
he  couched  as  a  lion,  and  as  an  aid  lion :  who 
shall  rouse  him  up? 

The  Hebrew  words  will  be  more  accurately  expressed  by 
the  following  translation : — 

a  young  lion  is  Judah, 

From  prey,  my  son,  art  thou  become  great ; 

He  bends  his  feet  under  him  and  couches 

Like  a  lion  and  like  a  Uoness ; 

Who  shall  rouse  him  upl 

Judah  is  compared  to  a  young  lion,  which  becomes  great 
by  prey,  and  which,  when  grown  up  and  satiated  with  booty, 
is  found  reposing  with  his  feet  bent  under  his  breast.  The 
lion  does  this  when  he  has  eaten  sufiiciently ;  he  then  does 
not  attack  passengers,  but  if  any  one  would  venture  to  rouse 
him  out  of  wantonness,  he  would  repent  of  his  temerity. 
The  meaning  of  the  image  is,  that  the  tribe  of  Judah  would 
at  first  be  very  warlike  and  valiant,  but  in  the  sequel,  satia- 
ted by  conquests  and  victories,  would  cease  to  attack  its 
neighbours,  yet  had  made  itself  so  terrible  that  nobody 
would  venture  to  attack  it.  Among  the  eastern  nations,  the 
lion  was  always  the  emblem  of  warlike  valour  and  might. 

— BURDER, 

Ver.  11.  Binding  his  foal  unto  the  vine,  and  his 
ass's  colt  unto  the  choice  vine. 

One  species  of  vine  is  not  less  distinguished  by  the 
luxuriance  of  its  growth,  than  by  the  richness  and  delicacy 
of  its  fruit.  This  is  the  Sorek  of  the  Hebrews,  which  the 
prophet  Isaiah  has  chosen  to  represent  the  founders  of  his 
nation — men  renowned  for  almost  every  virtue  which  can 
adorn  the  human  character:  "My  well-beloved  has  a 
vineyard  in  a  very  fruitful  hill,  and  he  planted  it  with 
Sorek,  or  the  choicest  vine."  It  is  to  this  valuable  species 
that  Jacob  refers,  in  his  prophetic  benediction  addressed  to 
Judah ;  and  the  manner  in  which  he  speaks  of  it  is  remark- 
able :  "  Binding  his  foal  unto  the  vine,  and  his  ass's  colt 
unto  the  choice  vine."  In  some  parts  of  Persia  it  was 
formerly  the  custom  to  turn  their  cattle  into  the  vinc;3'ard$ 


50 


GENESIS. 


Chap.  49 


after  the  vintage,  to  browse  on  the  vines,  some  of  which 
are  so  large,  that  a  man  can  hardly  compass  their  trunks 
in  his  arms.  These  facts  clearly  show,  ^at  agreeably  to 
the  prediction  of  Jacob,  the  ass  might  be  slcurely  bound  to 
the  vine,  and  without  damaging  the  tree  by  browsing  on 
its  leaves  and  branches.  The  same  custom  appears,  from 
the  narratives  of  several  travellers,  to  have  generally  pre- 
vailed in  the  Lesser  Asia.  Chandler  observed,  that  in  the 
vineyards  around  Smyrna,  the  leaves  of  the  vines  were 
decayed  or  stripped  by  the  camels,  or  herds  of  goats, 
which  are  permitted  to  browse  uport  them  after  the  vin- 
tage. When  he  left  Smyrna  on  the  thirtieth  of  September, 
the  vineyards  were  already  bare ;  but  when  he  arrived  at 
Phygela,  on  the  fifth  or  sixth  of  October,  he  found  its  terri- 
tory still  green  with  vines;  which  is  a  proof,  that  the 
vineyards  at  Sm  /"rna  must  have  been  stripped  by  the  cattle, 
which  delight  to  feed  upon  the  foliage.  This  custom  fur- 
nishes a  satisfactory  reason  for  a  regulation  in  the  laws  of 
Moses,  the  meaning  of  which  has  been  very  imperfectly 
understood,  which  forbids  a  man  to  introduce  his  beast 
into  the  vineyard  of  his  neighbour.  It  was  destructive  to 
the  vineyard  before  the  fruit  was  gathered  ;  and  after  the 
vintage,  it  was  still  a  serious  injury,  because  it  deprived 
the  owner  of  the  fodder,  which  was  most  grateful  to  his 
flocks  and  herds,  and  perhaps  absolutely  requisite  for  their 
subsistence  during  the  winter.  These  things  considered, 
we  discern  in  this  enactment,  the  justice,  wisdom,  and 
kindness  of  the  great  legislator:  and  the  same  traits  of 
excellence  might  no  doubt  be  discovered  in  the  most  ob- 
scure and  minute  regulation,  could  we  detect  the  reason 
on  which  it  is  founded. — Paxton. 

Ver.  14.  Issachar  is  a  strong  ass,  couching- down 
between  two  burdens:  15.  And  he  saw  that 
rest  was  good,  and  the  land  that  it  was  pleasant; 
and  bowed  his  shoulder  to  bear,  and  became  a 
servant  unto  tribute. 

The  ass  is  not  more  remarkable  for  his  power  to  sustain, 
".ban  for  his  patience  and  tranquillity  when  oppressed  by 
an  unequal  load.  Like  the  camel,  he  quietly  submits  to 
-Vie  heaviest  burden  ;  he  bears  it  peaceably,  till  he  can  pro- 
ceed no  farther ;  and  when  his  strength  fails  him,  instead 
of  resisting  or  endeavouring  to  throw  off  the  oppressive 
Aveight,  he  contentedly  lies  down,  and  rests  himself  under 
it,  recruits  his  vigour  with  the  provender  that  may  be  of- 
fered him,  and  then,  at  the  call  of  his  master,  proceeds  on 
his  journey.  To  this  trait  in  the  character  oi  that  useful 
animal,  the  dying  patriarch  evidently  refers,  when,  under 
the  afflatus  of  inspiration,  he  predicts  the  future  lot  and  con- 
duct of  Issachar  and  his  descendants.  "  Issachar  is  a  strong 
ass,  couching  down  between  two  burdens.  And  he  saw 
that  rest  was  good,  and  the  land  that  it  was  pleasant,  and 
bowed  his  shoulder  to  bear,  and  became  a  servant  unto  trib- 
ute." This  tribe,  naturally  dull  and  stupid,  should,  like 
'.he  creature  by  which  they  were  characterized,  readily 
.submit  to  the  vilest  master  and  the  meanest  service.  Al- 
.nough,  like  the  ass,  possessed  of  ability,  if  properly  exert- 
ed and  rightly  directed,  to  shake  off  the  inglorious  yoke  of 
r^ervitude,  they  would  basely  submit  to  the  insults  of  the 
Phenicians  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Samaritans  on  the 
other.  Issachar  was  a  strong  ass,  "  able,"  says  a  sprightly 
writer,  "  to  refuse  a  load,  as  well  as  to  bear  it ;  but  like 
the  passive  drudge  which  symbolized  him,  he  preferred 
inglorious  ease  to  the  resolute  vindication  of  his  liberty ;  a 
burden  of  tribute,  to  the  gains  of  a  just  and  well-regulated 
freedom  ;  and  a  yoke  of  bondage,  to  the  doubtful  issues  of 
war." — Paxton. 

"  Couching  down  between  two  burdens."  The  original 
word  rendered  "  burdens,"  we  believe,  after  careful  investi- 
gation, properly  signifies  the  double  partition  forming  the 
sides  of  a  stall  for  cattle  or  asses,  or  the  bars  and  timbers 
of  which  they  were  made.  A  similar  structure  was  erect- 
ed about  the  dwellings  of  the  Jews,  in  which  their  pots, 
kettles,  and  other  kitchen  utensils,  were  hung,  and  there- 
fore rendered  by  Gusset,  in  Ps.  68.  14,  "  pot-ranges."  This 
expression,  as  applied  to  a  region  of  country,  would  natu- 
rally be  supposed  to  imply  two  very  marked  and  conspicu- 
ous'limits,  as  for  instance  two  ranges  of  mountains  enclo- 
sing a  valley,  and  by  a  very  remarkable  coincidence  the 
iribe  of  Lsachar  received  for  its  lot,  in  the  distribution  of 


the  land,  the  fertile  and  delightful  vale  of  Esdraelon,  lying 
between  ranges  of  hills,  in  the  peaceful  and  industrious  oc- 
cupancy of  which  they  might  very  justly  be  likened  to  an 
ass  reposing  between  the  sides  of  his  stall.  "  Here,  on  this 
plain,^'  says  Dr.  Clarke, "  the  most  fertile  part  of  all  the  land 
of  Canaan,  which,  though  a  solitude,  we  found  like  one 
vast  meadow  covered  with  the  richest  pasture,  the  tribe  of 
Issachar  '  rejoiced  in  their  tents.' "  There  is  no  authority 
whatever  for  rendering  it  "burdens,"  which  seems  to  have 
been  suggested  solely  by  the  words  "  couching  between,"  as 
it  was  unnatural  to  suppose  that  if  an  ass  couched  betAveen 
any  two  objects,  it  would  of  course  be  between  two  bur- 
dens. But  as  the  blessings  of  several  of  the  other  sons  have 
respect  to  the  geographical  features  of  their  destined  in- 
heritance, it  is  natural  to  look  for  something  of  the  same 
kind  in  that  of  Issachar,  and  viewed  in  this  light  the  words 
yield  a  clear  and  striking  sense,  the  appropriateness  of  which 
to  the  matter  of  fact  is  obvious  to  every  eye.  Chal.  "  Is- 
sachar rich  in  substance,  and  his  possession  shall  be  be- 
tween the  bounds;"  Syr.  "  Issachar,  a  gigantic  man,  lying 
down  between  the  paths;"  Targ.  Jon.  "  He  shall  lie  down 
between  the  limits  of  his  brethren  ;"  Jerus.  Targ.  "  and  his 
boundary  shall  be  situated  between  two  limits." — "  He  saw 
that  rest  was  good."  Instead  of  interpreting  this  prediction 
with  many  commentators  to  the  disparagement  of  Issachar, 
as  though  he  were  to  be  addicted  to  ignominious  ease,  we 
understand  it  in  a  sense  directly  the  reverse,  as  intimating 
that  he  should  have  so  high  an  esteem  of  the  promised 
"  rest"  in  another  life,  that  he  should  give  himself  to  unre- 
mitting labour  in  this;  that  he  should  be  so  intent  upon 
"  inheriting  the  earth"  after  the  resurrection,  the  reversion 
of  the  saints,  that  he  should  willingly  subject  himself  to 
toil,  privation,  and  every  species  of  endurance,  with  a  view 
to  secure  the  exceeding  great  reward.  Thus  his  character 
would  correspond  with  his  name,  the  import  of  which  is, 
"  he  shall  bear  or  carry  a  reward." — Bush. 

Ver.  17.  Dan  shall  be  a  serpent  by  the  way,  an 
adder  in  the  path,  that  biteth  the  horse-heels, 
so  that  his  rider  shall  fall  backward. 

The  only  allusion  to  this  species  of  serpent,  (the  Cerastes, 
or  horned  snake,)  in  the  sacred  volume,  occurs  in  the 
valedictory  predictions  of  Jacob,  where  he  describes  the 
character  and  actions  of  Dan  and  his  posterity :  "  Dan 
shall  be  a  serpent  by  the  way,  an  adder  (ps'^Bir  sephiphon) 
in  the  path,  that  biteth  the  horse's  heels,  so  that  his  rider 
shall  fall  backward."  It  is  indisputably  clear,  that  the  pa- 
triarch intended  some  kind  of  serpent ;  for  the  circum- 
stances will  not  apply  to  a  freebooter  watching  for  his  prey. 
It  only  remains  to  investigate  the  species  to  which  it  be- 
longs. The  principal  care  of  the  Jewish  writers,  is  to  as- 
certain the  etymology  of  the  name,  about  which  their  sen- 
timents are  much  divided.  The  Arabian  authors  quoted 
by  Bochart,  inform  us,  that  the  Sephiphon  is  a  most  perni- 
cious reptile,  and  very  dangerous  to  man.  It  is  of  a  sandy 
colour,  variegated  with  black  and  white  spots.  The  par- 
ticulars in  the  character  of  Dan,  however,  agree  better 
with  the  Cerastes,  or  horned  snake,  than  with  any  other 
species  of  serpent.  It  lies  in  wait  for  passengers  in  the 
sand,  or  in  the  rut  of  the  wheels  on  the  highway.  From 
its  lurking-place,  it  treacherously  bites  the  horse's  heels, 
so  that  the  rider  falls  backward,  in  consequence  of  the 
animal's  hinder  legs  becoming  almost  immediately  torpid 
by  the  dreadful  activity  of  the  poison.  The  Cerastes  is 
equally  formidable  to  man  and  the  lower  animals ;  and 
the  more  dangerous,  because  it  is  not  easy  to  distinguish 
him  from  the  sand  in  which  he  lies  ;  and  he  never  spares 
the  helpless  traveller  who  unwarily  comes  within  his  reach. 
"  He  moves,"  says  Mr.  Bruce,  "  with  great  rapidity,  and 
in  all  directions,  forward,  backward,  and  sidewise.  When 
he  inclines  to  surprise  any  one  who  is  too  far  from  him,  he 
creeps  with  his  side  towards  the  person,  and  his  head  avert- 
ed, till,  judging  his  distance,  he  turns  round,  sj)rings  upon 
him,  and  fastens  upon  the  part  next  to  him  ;  for  it  is  no* 
true,  what  is  said,  that  the  Cerastes  does  not  leap  or  spring 
I  saw  one  of  them  at  Cairo,  crawl  up  the  side  of  a  box,  ir. 
which  there  were  many,  and  there  lie  still  as  if  hiding 
himself,  till  one  of  the  people  who  brought  them  to  us,  came 
near  him,  and  though  in  a  very  disadvantngeous  posture, 
sticking,  as  it  were,  perpendicular  to  the  side  of  the  box,  he 
leaped  near  the  distance  of  three  feet,  and  fastened  between 


Chap.  49. 


GENESIS. 


51 


the  man's  fore-finger  and  thumb,  so  as  to  bring  the  blood. 
The  fellow  showed  no  signs  of  either  pain  or  fear :  and  we 
kept  him  ^ith  us  fall  four  hours,  without  applying  any  sort 
of  remedy,  or  hi^  seeming  inclined  to  do  so.  To  make 
myself  assured  that  the  animal  was  in  its  perfect  state,  I 
made  the  man  hold  him  by  the  neck,  so  as  to  force  him  to 
open  his  mouth,  and  lacerate  the  thigh  of  a  pelican,  a  bird  I 
had  tamed,  as  big  as  a  swan.  The  bird  died  in  about  thirteen 
minutes,  though  it  was  apparently  affected  in  fifty  seconds; 
and  we  cannot  think  it  was  a  fair  trial,  because  a  very  few 
minutes  before,  it  had  bit,  and  so  discharged  a  part  of  its 
virus,  and  it  was  made  to  scratch  the  pelican  by  force, 
without  any  irritation  or  action  of  its  own."  These  ser- 
pents have  always  been  considered  as  extremely  cunning, 
both  in  escaping^heir  enemies  and  seizing  their  prey :  they 
have  even  been  called  insidious ;  a  character  which,  frorh 
the  preceding  statement,  they  seem  to  deserve.  The  Orien- 
tals call  him  the  Her  in  a-mbush  ;  for,  in  this  manner,  both 
the  Seventy  and  Samaritan  render  the  text  in  Genesis;  and 
this  appellation  well  agrees  with  his  habits.  Pliny  says, 
that  the  Cerastes  hides  its  whole  body  in  the  sand,  leaving 
only  its  horns  exposed,  w^hich  attract  birds,  who  suppose 
them  to  be  grains  of  barley,  till  they  are  undeceived,  too 
late,  by  the  darting  of  the  serpent  upon  them.  Ephraim, 
the  Syrian,  also  mentions  a  kmd  of  serpents  whose  heads 
only  are  seen  above  the  ground.  Like  the  Cerastes,  Dan 
was  to  excel  in  cunning  and  in  artifice,  to  prevail  against 
his  enemies,  rather  by  his  policy  in  the  cabinet  than  by  his 
valour  in  the  field.  But  all  the  Jewish  expositors  refer  the 
words  of  Jacob  to  Samson,  who  belonged  to  that  tribe,  and 
was  undoubtedly  the  most  illustrious  personage  of  whom 
they  could  boast.  This  remarkable  man,  Jehovah  raised 
up  to  deliver  his  chosen  people,  not  so  much  brhis  valour, 
although  his  actions  qlearly  showed,  that  he  was  by  no 
means  deficient  in  personal  courage,  as  by  his  artful  and 
unexpected  stratagems.  This  interpretation  has  been 
adopted  by  several  Christian  expositors;  while  it  has  been 
opposed  by  others  as  a  needless  refinement.  It  is  unneces- 
sary, and  perhaps  improper,  to  restrict  the  prediction  to 
Samson,  when  it  can  with  equal  propriety  be  applied  to  the 
whole  tribe.  Whether  the  words  of  Jacob,  in  this  instance, 
were  meant  to  express  praise  or  blame,  it  may  be  diflicult 
to  determine  ;  but,  if  the  deceitful  and  dangerous  character 
of  the  Cerastes,  to  which  Dan  is  compared,  be  duly  con- 
sidered, the  latter  is  more  probable. — Paxton. 

Ver.  22.  Joseph  is  a  fruitful  bough,  even  a  fruitful 
bough  by  a  well,  whose  branches  run  over  the 
wall. 

To  the  northward  and  westward  are  several  villages, 
interspersed  with  extensive  orchards  and  vineyards,  the 
latter  of  which  are  generally  enclosed  by  high  walls.  The 
Persian  vine-dressers  do  all  in  their  power  to  make  the 
vine  run  up  the  walls,  and  curl  over  on  the  other  side, 
which  they  do  by  tying  stones  to  the  extremity  of  the  ten- 
dril. The  vine,  particularly  in  Turkey  and  Greece,  is  fre- 
quently made  to  intwine  on  trellises,  around  a  well,  where, 
in  the  heat  of  the  day,  whole  families  collect  themselves, 
and  sit  under  the  shade.— Morier. 

All  this  falls  very  naturally  on  an  eastern  ear.  Joseph 
was  the  fruitful  bough  of  Jacob,  and  being  planted  near  a 
well,  his  leaf  would  not  wither,  and  he  would  bring  forth 
his  fruit  in  his  season.  Great  delight  is  taken  in  all  kinds 
of  creepers,  which  bear  edible  fruits,  and  the  natives  allow 
them  to  run  over  the  walls  and  roofs  of  their  houses.  The 
term  "branches"  in  the  verse  is  in  the  margin  rendered 
"  daucrkters  _;"  and  it  is  an  interesting  fact,  {and  one  vMch 
will  throw  light  on  some  other  passages,)  that  the  same  term 
is  used  here  to  denote  the  same  thing.  "  That  man  has 
only  one  Chede,  i.  e.  branch,  daughter."  "  The  youngest 
Chede  (branch)  has  got  married  this  daj?'  "  Where  are 
your  branches  V  "  They  are  all  married."  "  What  a 
young  branch  to  be  in  this  state  !— how  soon  it  has  given 
fruit !"  When  a  mother  has  had  a  large  family,  "  That 
branch  has  borne  plenty  of  fruit."  A  husband  will  say  to 
his  wife,  who  is  steril,  "  Of  what  use  is  a  branch  which 
bears  not  fruit  1"  The  figure  is  much  used  in  poetry. — 
Roberts. 

The  people  of  Israel,  and  other  oriental  nations  of  those 
days,  appear  to  have  bestowed  particular  attention  on  the 
CTiitivation  of  the  vine.    The  site  of  the  vineyard  was  care- 


fully chosen  m  f.elds  of  a  loose  crumbling  soil,  on  a  rich 
plain,  or  on  a  sic  ping  hill  rising  with  a  gentle  ascent ;  or, 
where  the  acclivity  was  very  steep,  on  terraces  supported 
by  masonry,  and  turned  as  much  as  possible  from  the 
setting  sun.  The  plot  was  enclosed  with  a  wall ;  the  stones 
and  other  encumbrances  were  removed,  and  the  choicest 
plants  were  selected  to  form  the  plantation.  Within  the 
vineyard,  low  walls  were  sometimes  raised  for  the  purpose 
of  supporting  the  vines ;  a  practice  which  seems  to  have 
been  adopted  before  the  days  of  Jacob ;  for  in  the  blessing 
of  Joseph,  he  speaks  of  it  in  a  manner  which  shows  that  it 
was  quite  familiar  to  the  vine-dresser:  "Joseph  is  a  fruit- 
ful bough,  even  a  fruitful  bough  by  a  well ;  whose  branches 
run  over  the  wall."  By  this  beautiful  image  then  it  appears, 
that  while  the  dying  patriarch  justly  appreciated  and  highly 
praised  the  admirable  qualities  of  liis  beloved  son,  he  inti- 
mated to  his  family  in  the  most  delicate  but  significant 
manner,  their  obligation  to  Joseph  for  the  protection  and 
comfort  they  enjoyed  under  his  government. — Paxton. 

Ver.  22.  Joseph  is  a  fruitful  bough,  even  a  fruitful 
bough  by  a  well,  whose  branches  run  over  the 
wall:  23.  The  archers  have  sorely  grieved 
him,  and  shot  at  him,  and  hated  him. 

I  have  shown,  in  preceding  observations,  that  vines 
in  Judea  sometimes  grow  against  low  stone  walls ;  but  I 
do  not  apprehend  the  ingenious  Mr.  Barrington  can  be 
right,  when  he  supposes,  in  a  paper  of  his  on  the  patriarchal 
customs  and  manners,  that  Joseph  is  compared  to  a  vine 
growing  against  the  wall,  Gen.  xlix.  22.  As  vines  are 
sometimes  planted  against  a  low  wall,  they  might  possibly 
be  planted  against  a  low  wall  surrounding  a  well :  though 
it  IS  difficult  to  guess,  why  a  wall  should  be  built  round 
a  well,  in  a  vineyard,  of  such  a  height  as  to  be  proper  for 
the  support  of  a  vine  ;  and  if  it  were,  why  archers  direct 
their  arrows  against  it,  when  it  would  be  so  easy  to  gather 
the  fruit  by  hand,  without  injury.  But  I  suppose  this  is 
not  an  exact  representation.  In  the  first  place,  a  vine  is 
not  mentioned;  it  is  only  a,  fruitful  tree,  in  general,  to 
which  Joseph  is  compared.  Secondly,  The  being  situated 
near  water,  is  extremely  conducive,  in  that  dry  and  hot 
country,  to  the  flourishing  of  vegetables  in  general ;  and 
trees  among  the  rest.  "  We  came,"  says  Maundrell,  "  to 
the  fountain  of  Elisha.  Close  by  the  fountain  grows  a 
large  tree,  spreading  into  boughs  over  the  water,  and  here 
in  the  shade  we  look  a  collation."  A  tree,  we  find,  planted 
near  plenty  of  water,  grows  there  to  a  large  size.  Thirdly, 
the  wild  Arabs  of  those  countries  are  great  plunderers  of 
fruit.  Maillet  assigns  that  as  the  reason  why  the  fruit  of 
the  land  of  Egvpt,  in  these  later  times,  is  not  better,  namely, 
that  they  are  wont  to  gather  it  before  it  is  properly  ripened, 
on  account  of  the  Arabs,  who  would  otherwise  rob  them  of 
it.  Fourthly,  It  is  very  well  known,  that  walls  easily  stop 
Arabs,  who  are  continually  on  horseback  in  their  roving 
about,  and  do  not  care  to  quit  them,  nor  are  used  to  climb 
walls.  They  had  no  better  way  then  to  get  the  fruit  of 
those  trees,  whose  luxuriant  boughs  ran  over  the  walls  of 
their  enclosures,  than  by  throwing  their  bludgeons  at  them, 
and  gathering  up  the  fruit  that  fell  on  the  outside  of  the 
wall.  To  these  things  should  be  added.  Fifthly,  That  the 
word  translated  arrotcs,  means,  not  only  those  things  that 
we  are  wont  to  call  arrows,  but  such  sticks  as  are  throwii 
by  the  hand,  as  well  as  those  missile  weapons  that  are 
darted  by  means  of  a  bow;  for  we  find  the  word  is  made 
use  of  to  express  the  staflf  of  a  spear,  1  Sam.  xvii.  7,  and 
consequently  any  piece  of  wood  long  in  proportion  to  its 
diameter,  especially  if  used  as  a  missile  instrument.  The 
lords  of  arrows  nnn  ^Sy^  baalee  chitseem,  for  that  is  the 
Hebrew  expression,  conformable  to  an  eastern  mode  of 
speech,  which  we  translate  archers,  is  a  natural  description 
of  the  wild  Arabs,  those  lords  of  bludgeons,  in  committing 
their  depredations  on  the  eastern  gardens  and  vineyards. 
But  this  manner  of  treating  the  vine  would  not  be  advan- 
tageous ;  bunches  of  grapes  are  bv  no  means  thus  to  be 
dislodged,  and  the  fall  would  spoil  the  fruit.  But  there  are 
other  trees  whose  fruit  might  thus  be  gathered;  among  the 
rest,  I  suppose  the  pomegranate,  whose  fruit  has  so  hard  a 
shell,  as  neither  to  be  injured  by  the  fall,  or  destroyed  by 
an  accidental  blow  of  the  sticks^ they_ used  for  pelting  the 
tree.  The  destroying  a  man  is  sometimes  compared  to  the 
cutting  down  a  tree :'  "  I  knew  not,"  said  the  Prophet  Jere- 


52 


GENESIS, 


Chap.  50. 


miah,  "  that  tiiey  had  devised  devices  against  me,  saying, 
Let  us  destroy  the  tree  with  the  fruit  thereof,  and  let  us  cut 
him  off  from  the  land  of  the  living,  that  his  name  may  be 
no  more  remembered,"  Jer.  xi.  19.  But  the  envious  brethren 
of  Joseph  did  not  imbrue  their  hands  in  his  blood,  they  did 
not  destroy  liim  as  men  destroy  a  tree  when  they  cut  it 
down,  but  they  terribly  distressed  him ;  they  sold  him  for 
a  slave  into  Egypt :  he  had  flourished  in  the  favour  of  his 
father  and  of  his  God,  like  a  tree  by  a  reservoir  of  water; 
but  they  for  a  time  dishonoured  him,  as  a  tree  is  disgraced 
by  the  breaking  its  boughs,  and  knocking  off  its  leaves,  by 
the  wild  Arabs,  who  want  to  derive  some  advantage  from 
battering  it  after  this  manner,  when  they  cannot  come  at  it 
to  destroy  it. — Harmer. 

Ver.  27.  Benjamin  shall  raven  as  a  wolf:  in  the 
mornings  he  shall  devour  the  prey,  and  at  night 
he  shall  divide  the  spoil. 

The  wolf  is  weaker  than  the  lion  or  the  bear,  and  less 
courageous  than  the  leopard;  but  he  scarcely  yields  to 
them  in  cruelty  and  rapaciousness.  So  Benjamin,  although 
not  destitute  of  courage  and  address,  nor  disinclined  to 
war,  possessed  neither  the  strength,  nor  the  manly  spirit  of 
Judah,  whose  symbol  was  the  lion's  whelp ;  but  yet  he  was 
greedy  of  blood,  and  delighted  in  rapine ;  and  in  the  early 
periods  of  Jewish  history,  he  distinguished  himself  by  an 
active  and  restless  spirit,  which  commonly,  like  the  wolf 
among  lambs  and  kids,  spent  itself  in  petty  or  inglorious 
v/arfare,  although  it  sometimes  blazed  forth  in  deeds  of 
heroic  valour,  and  general  utility.  He  had  the  honour  of 
giving  the  second  judge  to  the  nation  of  Israel,  who  deliv- 
ered them  from  the  oppressive  yoke  of  Moab ;  and  the  first 
king  who  sat  on  the  tnrone  of"  that  chosen  people,  whose 
valour  saved  them  from  the  iron  sceptre  of  Ammon,  and 
more  than  once  revenged  the  barbarities  of  the  uncircum- 
cised  Philistines  upon  their  discomfited  hosts.  In  the  de- 
cline of  the  Jewish  commonwealth,  Esther  and  Mordecai, 
who  were  both  of  this  tribe,  successfully  interposed  with 
the  King  of  Persia,  for  the  deliverance  of  their  brethren, 
and  took  their  station  in  the  first  rank  of  public  benefactors. 
But  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  ravened  like  wolves,  that  are  so 
ferocious  as  to  de/our  one  another,  when  they  desperately 
espoused  the  cause  of  Gibeah,  and  in  the  d.ishonourable 


and  bloody  feud,  reduced  their  own  tribe  to  the  very  brink 
of  ruin,  and  inflicted  a  deep  wound  on  the  other  members 
of  the  state. — Paxton. 

Chap.  50.  ver.  10.  And  they  came  to  the  thresh- 
ing-floor of  Atad,  which  is  beyond  Jordan ;  and 
there  they  mourned  with  a  great  and  very  sore 
lamentation :  and  he  made  a  mourning  for  his 
father  seven  days. 

See  on  chap.  45.  3. 

Ver.  26.  So  Joseph  died,  being  a  hundred  and  ten 
years  old:  and  they  embalmed  him,  and  he 
was  put  in  a  coffin  in  Egypt. 

The  people  of  the  East  do  not  in  general  put  their  dead 
in  a  coffin ;  they  simply  fold  up  the  corpse  in  a  mat.  When 
dying,  the  head  is  always  placed  towards  the  south,  and  in 
the  grave  also  in  the  same  direction.  When  a  person  is 
very  ill,  should  another  ask  how  he  is,  he  will  reply,  "  Ah ! 
his  head  is  towards  the  south ;"  meaning  there  is  no  hope. 
— Roberts. 

When  Joseph  died,  he  was  not  only  embalmed,  but  put 
in  a  coffin.  This  was  an  honour  appropriated  to  persons 
of  distinction,  coffins  not  being  universally  used  in  Egypt, 
Maillet,  speaking  of  the  Egyptian  repositories  of  the  dead, 
having  given  an  account  of  several  niches  that  are  found 
there,  says,  "  it  must  not  be  imagined  that  the  bodies 
deposited  in  these  gloomy  apartments  were  all  enclosed  in 
chests,  and  placed  in  niches ;  the  greatest  part  were  simply 
embalmed  and  swathed  after  that  manner  that  every  one 
hath  some  notion  of;  after  which  they  laid  them  one  by  the 
side  of  another  without  any  ceremony :  some  were  even 
put  into  these  tombs  without  any  embalming  at  all,  or  such 
a  slight  one,  that  there  remains  nothing  of  them  in  the 
linen  in  which  they  were  wrapped  but  the  bones,  and  those 
half  rotten."  Antique  cofl5ns  of  stone,  and  sycamore  wood, 
are  still  to  be  seen  in  Egypt.  It  is  said  that  some  were 
formerly  made  of  a  kind  of  pasteboard,  formed  by  folding 
and  gluing  cloth  together  a  great  number  of  times ;  these 
were  curiously  plastered  and  painted  with  hieroglyphics.— 
Thevenot. 


1 


EXODUS. 


•  Chap.  1.  ver,  14.  And  they  made  their  lives  bit- 
j         ter  with  hard  bondage,  in  mortar,  and  in  brick, 

and  in  all  manner  of  service  in  the  field :  all 
'         their  service,  wherein  they  made  them  serve, 

was  with  rigour. 

Of  a  bad  man  it  is  said,  in  the  East,  "  He  makes  the  lives 
of  his  servants  bitter."  Also,  "  Ah!  the  fellow :  the  heart 
of  his  wife  is  made  bitter,"  "  My  soul  is  bitter."  "  My 
heart  is  like  the  bitter  tree." — Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  And  he  said,  When  ye  do  the  office  of 
a  midwife  to  the  Hebrew  women,  and  see  them 
upon  the  stools,  if  it  be  a  son,  then  ye  shall  kill 
him ;  but  if  it  be  a  daughter,  then  she  shall  live. 

There  have  been  great  difficulties  started  in  the  nature  and 
use  of  the  instruments  here  rendered  stools,  (Heb.  stones.)  Ac- 
cording to  the  rendering  of  the  established  version,  it  would 
seem  that  they  were  designed  for  procuring  a  more  easy 
delivery  for  women  in  labour.  But  besides  that  stone  seats 
were  obviously  very  unfit  for  such  a  purpose,  the  Hebrew 
word  plainly  signifies  a  vessel  of  stone  for  holding  water, 
(Ex.  vii.  19.)  A  far  more  probable  interpretation,  we  think, 
is  made  out  by  referring  the  pronoun  them,  not  to  the  moth- 
ers, but  to  the  children.  The  sense  of  the  passage  would 
then  be  this : — "  When  ye  see  the  new-born  children,  for 
the  purpose  of  being  washed,  laid  in  the  troughs  or  vessels 
of  stone  for  holding  water,  ye  shall  destroy  the  boys."  A 
passage  from  Thevenot  seems  to  confirm  this  construction. 
"  The  kings  of  Persia  are  so  afraid  of  being  deprived  of 
that  power  which  they  abuse,  and  are  so  apprehensive  of 
being  dethroned,  that  they  destroy  the  children  of  their 
female  relations,  when  they  are  brought  to  bed  of  boys,  by 
putting  them  into  an  earthen  trough,  where  they  sufier  them 
to  starve ;"  that  is,  probably,  under  pretence  of  preparing  to 
wa,sh  them,  they  let  them  pine  away  or  destroy  them  in  the 
water. — B. 

Ver.  19.  And  the  midwives  said  unto  Pharaoh, 
Because  the  Hebrew  women  are  not  as  the 
Egyptian  women ;  for  they  are  lively,  and  are 
delivered  ere  the  midwives  come  in  unto  them. 

Oriental  women  suflfer  little  from  parturition ;  for  those 
of  better  condition  are  frequently  on  foot  the  day  after  de- 
livery, and  out  of  all  confinement  on  the  third  day.  They 
seldom  call  midwives,  and  when  they  do,  they  are  some- 
times delivered  before  they  come  to  their  assistance ;  the 
poorer  sort,  while  they  are  labouring  or  planting,  go  aside, 
deliver  themselves,  wash  the  child,  lay  it  in  a  cloth,  and 
return  to  work  again.  The  same  facility  attended  the  He- 
brew women  in  Egypt;  and  the  assertion  of  the  midwives 
seems  to  have  been  literally  true. — Paxton. 

Chap.  2.  ver.  5.  And  the  daughter  of  Pharaoh 
:;ame  down  to  wash  herself  at  the  river ;  and 
her  maidens  walked  along  by  the  river's  side. 

All  this  is  very  natural.  "Wherever  there  is  a  river,  or 
a  tank,  which  is  known  to  be  free  from  alligators,  there  fe- 
males go  in  companies  to  some  retired  place  to  bathe.  There 
are  so-  many  ceremonies,  and  so  many  causes  for  dejile- 
rnent,  among  the  Hindoos,  that  the  duty  has  often  to  be  at- 
tended to.  In  the  Scanda  Purana,  the  beautiful  daughter 
of  Mougaly  is  described  as  going  to  the  river  with  her 
maidens  to  bathe. — Roberts. 

Chap.  3.  ver.  5.  And  he  said,  Draw  not  nigh 
hither:  put  off  th}?- shoes  from  off  thy  feet ;  ifor 
the  place  whereon  thou  standest  is  holy  ground. 


See  on  Gen.  14.  23. 

No  heathen  would  presum-e  to  go  on  holy  ground,  or  en- 
ter a  temple,  or  any  other  sacred  place,  without  first  taking 
off"  his  sandals.  Even  native  Christians,  on  entering  a 
church  or  chapel,  generally  do  the  same  thing.  No  res- 
pectable man  would  enter  the  house  of  another  without 
having  first  taken  oflf  his  sandals,  which  are  generally  left 
at  the  door,  or  taken  inside  by  a  servant. — Roberts. 

Chap.  7.  ver.  1.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses, 
See,  I  have  made  thee  a  god  to  Pharaoh :  and 
Aaron  thy  brother  shall  be  thy  prophet. 

A  man  who  is  afraid  to  go  into  the  presence  of  a  king, 
or  a  governor,  or  a  great  man,  will  seek  an  interview  with 
the  minister,  or  some  principal  character ;  and  should  he 
be  much  alarmed,  it  will  be  said,  "  Fear  not,  friend  ;  I  will 
make  you  as  a  god  to  the  king."  "  What !  are  you  afraid, 
of  the  collector]  fear  not;  you  will  be  as  a  god  to  him." 
"  Yes,  yes,  that  upstart  was  once  much  afraid  of  the  great 
ones ;  but  now  he  is  like  a  god  among  them." — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  For  they  cast  down  every  man  his  rod, 
and  they  became  serpents:  but  Aaron's  rod 
swallowed  up  their  rods. 

The  rods  of  the  magicians  were  hardly  travelling  staves, 
but  doubtless  such  as  they  bore  by  virtue  of  their  office  as 
priests  and  servants  of  God.  The  Roman  augurs  were, 
m  the  like  manner,  accustomed  to  carry  a  staff  called  li.- 
tures,  which  was  crooked  at  the  top,  as  described  by  Cice- 
ro {on  Divination,  b.  i.  chap.  17.)  That  these  staves  were 
a  Roman  invention,  is  improbable ;  they  were  derived, 
like  others  of  their  sacred  customs,  from  the  religion  of 
older  nations. — Burder. 

Ver.  18.  And  the  fish  that  is  in  the  river  shall 
die,  and  the  river  shall  stink ;  and  the  Egyp- 
tians shall  loathe  to  drink  of  the  water  of  the 
river. 

There  are  few  wells  in  Egypt,  but  their  waters  are  not 
drank,  being  unpleasant  and  unwholesome ;  the  water  of 
the  Nile  is  what  they  universally  make  use  of  in  this  coun- 
try, which  is  looked  upon  to  be  extraordinarily  whole- 
some, and  at  the  same  time,  extremely  delicious.  "  The 
water  of  Egypt,"  says  the  Abbe  Mascrier,  "  is  so  delicious, 
that  one  would  not  wish  the  heat  should  be  less,  nor  to  be 
delivered  from  the  sensation  of  thirst.  The  Turks  find  it 
so  exquisitely  charming,  that  they  excite  themselves  to 
drink  of  it  by  eating  salt.  It  is  a  common  saying  among 
them,  that  if  Mohammed  had  drank  of  it,  he  would  have 
begged  of  God  not  to  have  died,  that  he  might  always  have 
done  it.  They  add,  that  whoever  has  once  drank  of  it,  he 
ought  to  drink  of  it  a  second  time.  This  is  what  the  peo- 
ple of  the  country  told  me,  when  they  saw  me  return  from 
ten  years'  absence.  When  the  Egyptians  undertake  the 
pilgrimage  of  Mecca,  or  go  out  of  their  country  on  any 
other  account,  they  speak  of  nothing  but  the  pleasure  they 
shall  find  at  their  return  in  drinking  the  Nile  water.  There 
is  nothing  to  be  compared  to  this  satisfaction;  it  surpasses 
in  their  esteem  that  of  seeing  their  relations  again,  and 
their  families.  Agreeably  to  this,  all  those  that  have  tasted 
of  this  water  allow  that  they  never  met  with  the  like  in 
any  other  place.  In  truth,  when  one  drinks  of  it  the  first 
time,  it  seems  to  be  some  water  prepared  by  art.  It  has 
something  in  it  inexpressibly  agreeable  and  pleasing  to  the 
taste ;  and  we  ought  to  give  it  perhaps  the  same  rank 
among  waters,  which  champaigne  has  among  wines.  I 
must  confess,  however,  it  has,  to  my  taste,  too  much  sweet- 
ness. But  its  most  valuable  quality  is,  that  it  is  infinitely 
salutary.    Drink  it  in  what  quantities  you  will,  it  never  ia 


54 


EXODUS. 


Chap.  8. 


theleast  incommodes  you.  This  is  so  true,  that  it  is  no  un- 
common thing  to  see  some  persons  drink  three  buckets  of 
it  in  a  day,  without  finding  the  least  inconvenience.  .  . 
"When  I  give  such  encomiums  to  the  water  of  Egypt,  it  is 
right  to  observe,  that  I  speak  only  of  that  of  the  Nile,  which 
indeed  is  the  only  water  there  which  is  drinkable.  Well- 
water  is  detestable  and  unwholesome ;  fountains  are  so  rare, 
that  they  are  a  kind  of  prodigy  in  that  country;  and  as  for 
the  rain-water,  it  would  be  in  vain  to  attempt  preserving  that, 
jsince  scarce  any  falls  in  Egypt."  The  embellishments  of 
a  Frenchman  may  be  seen  here,  but  the  fact,  however,  in 
general  is  indubitable.  A  person  that  never  before  heard 
of  this  delicacy  of  the  water  of  the  Nile,  and  the  large 
quantities  that  on  that  account,  are  drank  of  it,  will,  I  am 
very  sure,  find  an  energy  in  those  words  of  Moses  to  Pha- 
raoh, Exod.  vii.  18,  The  Egyptian  shall  loathe  to  drink  of  the 
icater  of  the  river ^  which  he  never  observed  before.  They 
will  loathe  to  drink  of  that  water  which  they  used  to  prefer 
to  all  the  waters  of  the  universe,  loathe  to  drink  of  that 
which  they  had  been  wont  eagerly  to  long  for  ;  and  will 
rather  choose  to  drink  of  well-water,  which  is  in  their 
country  so  detestable.  And  as  none  of  our  commentators, 
that  I  know  of,  have  observed  this  energy,  my  reader,  I 
hope,  will  not  be  displeased  that  I  have  remarked  it  here. 
— Harmer. 

Ver.  19.  And  that  there  may  be  blood  through- 
out all  the  land  of  Egypt,  both  in  vessels  of 
wood,  and  in  vessels  of  stone. 

Perhaps  these  words  do  not  signify,  that  the  water  that 
had  been  taken  up  into  their  vessels,  was  changed  into 
blood.  The  water  of  the  Nile  is  known  to  be  very  thick 
and  muddy,  and  they  purify  it  either  by  a  paste  made  of 
almonds,  or  by  filtrating  it  through  certain  pots  of  white 
earth,  which  is  the  preferable  way,  and  therefore  the  pos- 
session of  one  of  these  pots  is  thought  a  great  happiness. 
Now,  may  not  the  meaning  of  this  passage  be,  that  the  wa- 
ter of  the  Nile  should  not  only  look  red  and  nauseous,  like 
blood  in  the  river,  but  in  their  vessels  too,  when  taken  up 
in  small  quantities;  and  that  no  method  whatever  of  puri- 
fying it  should  take  place,  but  whether  drank  out  of  vessels 
of  wood,  or  out  of  vessels  of  stone,  by  means  of  which  they 
were  wont  to  purge  the  Nile  water,  it  should  be  the  same, 
and  should  appear  like  blood  1  Some  method  must  have 
.been  used  in  very  early  days  to  clarify  the  water  of  the 
Nile ;  the  mere  letting  it  stand  to  settle,  hardly  seems  suffi- 
cient, especially  if  we  consider  the  early  elegance  that  ob- 
tained in  Egypt.  So  simple  an  invention  then  as  filtrating 
vessels  may  easily  be  supposed  to  be  as  ancient  as  the  time 
of  Moses ;  and  to  them  therefore  it  seems  natural  to  sup- 
pose the  threatening  refers. — Harmer. 

The  changing  of  the  river  into  blood,  in  colour,  I  saw 
partially  accomplished.  For  the  first  four  or  five  days  of 
the  Nile's  increase  the  waters  are  of  a  muddy  red,  owing 
to  their  being  impregnated  with  a  reddish  coal  in  the  upper 
country ;  as  this  is  washed  away,  the  river  becomes  of  a 
greenish  yellow  for  four  or  five  days.  "When  I  first  ob- 
served this,  I  perceived  that  the  animalculse  in  the  water 
were  more  numerous  than  at  any  other  period ;  even  the 
Arabs  Avould  not  drink  the  water  without  straining  it 
through  a  rag :  "  And  the  river  stank,  and  the  Egyptians 
could  not  drink  of  the  water  of  the  river." — Madden, 

Chap.  8.  ver.  4.  And  the  frogs  shall  come  up, 
both  on  thee,  and  upon  thy  people,  and  upon 
all  thy  servants. 

This  loathsome  plague  extended  to  every  place,  and  to 
every  class  of  men.  The  frogs  came  up  and  covered  the 
land  of  Egypt;  they  entered  into  their  houses,  and  into 
their  bed-chambers ;  they  crawled  upon  their  persons,  upon 
their  beds,  and  into  their  kitchen  utensils.  The  whole 
country,  their  palaces,  their  temples,  their  persons — all  was 
polluted  and  hateful.  Nor  was  it  in  their  power  to  wash 
away  the  nauseous  filth  with  which  they  were  tainted,  for 
every  stream  and  every  lake  was  full  of  pollution.  To  a 
people  who  affected  the  most  scrupulous  purity  in  their 
persons,  their  habitations,  and  manner  of  living,  nothing 
almost  can  be  conceived  more  insufferable  than  this  plague. 
The  frog  is,  compared  with  many  other  reptiles,  a  harm- 
.^ss  animal ;  it  neither  injures  by  its  bite  nor  by  its  poison ; 


but  it  must  have  excited  on  that  occasion,  a  disgust  which 
rendered  life  an  almo-t  insupportable  burden.  The  eye 
was  tormented  with  beholding  the  march  of  their  impure 
legions,  and  the  ear  with  hearing  the  harsh  tones  of  their 
voices:  the  Egyptians  could  recline  upon  no  bed  where  they 
were  not  compelled  to  admit  their  cold  and  filthy  embrace ; 
thev  tasted  no  food  which  was  not  infected  by  their  touch ; 
and  they  smelled  no  perfume,  but  the  foetid  stench  of  their 
slime,  or  the  putrid  exhalations  emitted  from  their  dead 
carcasses.  The  insufl!erable  annoyance  of  such  insignificant 
creatures  illustriously  displayed  the  power  of  God,  while  it 
covered  the  haughty  and  unfeeling  persecutors  of  his  peo- 
ple with  confusion,  and  filled  them  with  utter  dismay. 
How  much  the  Egyptians  endured  from  this  visitation,  is 
evident  from  the  haste  with  which  Pharaoh  sent  for  Moses 
and  Aaron,  and  begged  the  assistance  of  their  prayers : 
"  Entreat  the  Lord  that  he  may  take  away  the  frogs  from 
me  and  from  my  people;  and  1  Avill  let  the  people  go  that 
they  may  do  sacrifice  unto  the  Lord."  Reduced  to  great 
extremity,  and  receiving  no  deliverance  from  the  pretended 
miracles  of  his  magicians,  he  had  recourse  to  that  God, 
concerliing  whom  he  had  so  proudly  demanded,  "  Who  is 
Jehovah,  that  I  should  obey  his  voice  to  let  Israel  gol" 
Subdued  and  instructed  by  adversity,  he  implores  his 
compassion,  and  acknowledges  the  glory  of  his  name ;  but, 
as  the  event  proved,  not  with  a  sincere  heart :  "  Then  said 
Moses,  Glory  over  me ;"  an  obscure  phrase,  which  is  ex- 
plained by  the  next  clause,  "  when  shall  I  entreat  for  thee  1" 
that  is,  according  to  some  writers,  although  it  belongs  not 
to  thee,  Pharaoh,  to  prescribe  to  me  the  time  of  thy  deliver- 
ance, which  entirely  depends  on  the  will  and  pleasure  of 
God  alone ;  yet  I,  who  am  a  prophet,  and  the  interpreter 
of  his  will,  grant  thee,  in  his  name,  the  choosing  of  the 
time  when  this  plague  shall  be  removed.  But  this  inter- 
pretation is  more  ingenious  than  solid.  Moses  intends  ra- 
ther to  suggest  an  antithesis  between  the  perverse  boasting 
of  the  proud  monarch,  and  the  pious  glonation  of  the  hum- 
bled penitent,  who  was  now  reduced  to  cry  for  mercy. 
Thus  far,  said  Moses,  thou  hast  trusted  in  thine  own  pow- 
er ;  then,  fascinated  with  the  deceitful  miracle  of  the  ma- 
gicians, thou  hast  perversely  exalted  thyself  against  the 
God  of  heaven ;  now  rather  glory  that  thou  hast  in  me  an 
intercessor  with  God,  whose  prayers  for  thy  deliverance  he 
will  not  refuse  to  hear :  and  in  proof  that  he  is  the  only 
true  God,  and  that  I  bear  his  commission,  fix  thou  the  time 
of  deliverance. 

"  And  he  said.  To-morrow,  And  he  said.  Be  it  according 
to  thy  word :  that  thou  mayst  know,  that  there  is  none  like 
unto  the  Lord  our  God."  To-morrow,  said  Pharaoh :  but 
why  not  to-day  7  It  was  to  be  expected,  that  the  vexed  and 
humbled  monarch  would  ask  for  instant  relief.  It  is  prob- 
able, the  king  had  called  Moses  and  Aaron  in  the  evening, 
and  that  he  durst  not  ask  the  promised  deliverance  on  the 
same  day,  because  he  thought  it  was  not  to  be  obtained 
without  inany  prayers.  Whatever  might  be  the  true  reason 
of  Pharaoh's  procrastination,  the  renowned  Calvin  seems 
to  have  no  ground  for  his  opinion,  that  his  only  reason  was, 
after  obtaining  his  desire,  to  depart  as  formerly  from  his 
engagement  to  let  the  people  go ;  and  that  Moses,  content 
with  his  promise,  retired  to  intercede  with  Jehovah  in  his 
favour.  That  great  man  was  persuaded,  that  the  plague 
was  immediately  removed,  not  sufl^ered  to  continue  till  next 
day.  It  is  better,  however,  to  abide  by  the  obvious  mean- 
ing of  the  clear  and  precise  terms  used  on  that  occasion, 
both  by  the  king  and  the  prophet:  "  and  he  said.  To-mor- 
row. And  he  said.  Be  it  according  to  thy  word."  Moses 
and  Aaron,  it  is  true,  "  went  out  from  Pharaoh,  and  imme- 
diately cried  unto  the  Lord,  because  of  the  frogs  which  he 
had  brought  against  Pharaoh."  But  it  is  not  said,  the  Lord 
immediately  removed  the  plague ;  but  only,  that  he  "  did 
according  to  the  word  of  Moses."  Now,  Moses  had  prom- 
ised relief  next  day,  in  the  clearest  terms,  and  we  have 
every  reason  to  suppose,  that  his  intercession  proceeded 
upon  his  promise  ;  therefore,  when  the  Lord  did  according 
to  the  word  of  Moses,  he  removed  the  frogs  on  the  next  day. 
They  were  not,  however,  swept  away,  like  the  locusts 
which  succeeded  them,  but  destroyed,  and  left  on  the  face 
of  the  ground.  They  were  not  annihilated,  nor  resolved 
into  mud,  nor  marched  back  into  the  river,  from  whence 
they  had  come ;  but  left  dead  upon  the  ground,  to  prove  the 
truth  of  the  miracle, — that  they  had  not  died  by  the  hands 
of  men,  but  by  the  power  of  God ;  that  the  great  deliverance 


Chap.  9. 


EXODUS. 


5.:> 


was  not  like  the  works  of  the  magicians,  a  lying  wonder, 
but  a  real  interposition  of  almighty  power,  and  an  effect  of 
divine  goodness.  The  Egyptians  were,  therefore,  reduced 
to  the  necessity  of  collecting  them  into  heaps,  which  had 
the  effect  of  more  rapidly  disengaging  the  putrid  effluvia, 
and  thus  for  a  time,  increasing  ,jthe  wretchedness  of  the 
country.  Their  destruction  was  probably  followed  by  a 
pestilence,  which  cut  off  many  of  the  people,  in  addition  to 
those  that  died  in  consequence  of  the  grievous  vexations 
they  endured  from  their  loathsome  adversaries ;  for,  in  one 
of  the  songs  of  Ziou,  it  is  said,  "  He  sent  frogs,  which  de- 
stroyed them ;"  laid  waste  their  lands,  and  infected  them- 
selves wiih  pestilential  disorders.  In  another  Psalm,  the 
sweet  singer  of  Israel  brings  the  frogs  which  destroyed  the 
Egyptians,  from  the  land ;  whereas,  Moses  avers,  they  were 
produced  by  the  river :  "  Their  land  brought  forth  frogs  in 
abundance,  in  the  chambers  of  their  kings;"  but  the  differ- 
ence is  only  apparent,  and  may  be  easily  reconciled ;  for 
the  Psalmist  may  be  understood  as  referring,  not  to  any 
kind  of  land,  but  to  the  miry  soil  on  the  banks,  or  the  mud 
in  the  bottom  of  the  river.  But  the  truth  is,  he  uses  a  term, 
which  signifies  a  region  or  country,  comprehending  both 
land  and  water.  His  true  meaning  then  is.  Their  land  or 
country,  of  which  the  Nile  is  a  part,  brought  forth  frogs : 
lor  the  land  of  Egypt  certainly  produces  whatever  the  Nile 
contains.  Were  it  necessary  to  prove  so  clear  a  position, 
the  words  of  Moses  might  be  quoted,  in  which  he  reminds 
the  people  of  Israel,  that  they  came  in  the  course  of  their 
journeyings  to  Jobath,  a  land  of  rivers ;  and  the  sublime 
ascription  of  Habakkuk :  "  Thou  didst  cleave  the  earth 
with  rivers."  The  sea  itself,  belongs  as  it  were  to  the 
neighbouring  countries ;  for  it  is  said,  that  Solomon  con- 
structed a  fleet  "  in  the  land  of  Edom;"  that  is,  in  the  sea 
which  washed  the  shores  of  Edom. 

It  has  been  inquired,  why  David  in  the  same  passage 
says,  the  frogs  penetrated  into  the  chamber-s  of  their  kings. 
The  answer  is  easy :  the  plural  is  often  used  for  the  singu- 
lar in  Hebrew :  thus  the  Psalmist  himself:  "  "We  will  go 
into  his  tabernacles ;"  although  there  was  but  one  taber- 
nacle where  the  people  of  Israel  assembled  for  religious 
worship.  The  servants  of  Nebuchadnezzar  accused  the 
three  children  in  these  terms :  "  they  do  not  worship  thy 
gods,"  meaning  only  the  golden  image,  which  the  king  had 
set  up  in  the  plain  of  Dura.  The  language  of  David,  there- 
fore, in  the  text  under  consideration,  meant  no  more  than 
the  king's  palace.  Some  interpreters  propose  another  solu- 
tion :  That  the  kingdom  of  Egypt  was  at  that  time  divided 
into  a  number  of  small  independent  states,  governed  each 
by  its  own  prince,  and  that  all  of  them  were  equally  sub- 
jected to  the  plague  ;  but  although  it  must  be  granted  that 
this  country  was  in  succeeding  ages,  divided  into  a  number 
of  small  principalities,  no  evidence  has  been  adduced  in 
support  of  such  a  state  of  things  in  the  time  of  Moses ;  on 
the  contrary,  the  whole  tenor  of  his  narrative  leads  to  the 
opposite  conclusion.  Nor  is  it  unreasonable  to  suppose, 
that  the  principal  grandees  of  Egypt,  many  of  whom  were 
persons  of  great  power  and  influence  in  the  state,  received 
from  the  royal  Psalmist  the  title  of  kings ;  it  is  certainly 
not  more  incongruous,  than  to  give  the  title  of  princes 
to  the  merchants  of  Tyre ;  or  the  title  of  kings  to  the  princes 
of  Assyria.  The  meaning  of  the  j)assage  then,  is  briefly 
this  the  potent  monarch  of  Egypt,  in  the  midst  of  his  vas- 
sal ,>rinces,  in  the  innermOvSt  recesses  of  his  palace,  could 
find  no  means  of  defence  against  the  ceaseless  intrusion  of 
the  impure  vermin  which  covered  the  face  of  his  dominions, 
and  equally  infested  the  palaces  of  the  rich,  and  the  cottages 
of  the  poor ;  the  awful  abode  of  the  king,  and  the  clay-built 
hovel  of  the  mendicant. — Paxton. 

Ver.  9.  And  Moses  said  unto  Pharaoh,  Glory 
c^ver  me :  when  shall  I  entreat  for  thee,  and  for 
thy  servants,  and  for  thy  people,  to  destroy  the 
frogs  from  thee  and  thy  houses,  that  they  may 
remain  in  the  river  only  ? 

The  margin  has,  for  "  glory,"  "  honour,"  and  for  "  over 
me,"  "  against  me."  Pharaoh  had  besought  Moses  to  pray 
that  the  Lord  might  take  away  the  frogs,  and  Moses  wish- 
ed the  king  to  have  the  honour  or  glory  (in  preference  to 
niraself)  of  appointing  a  time  when  he  should  thus  pray  to 
me  Lord  to  take  them  awiy.    This  was  not  only  compli- 


mentary to  Pharaoh,  but  it  would  have  a  strong  tendency 
to  convince  him  that  the  Lord  had  heard  the  prayer  of  Mo- 
ses, because  he  himself  had  appointed  the  time.  The  Tamui 
translation*  has  this,  "  Let  the  honour  be  to  you  (or  over 
me)  to  appoint  a  time  when  I  shall  pray." — Roberts, 

Ver.  16.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  Say 
unto  Aaron,  Stretch  out  thy  rod,  and  smite  the 
dust  of  the  land,  that  it  may  become  lice  throug  ■.• 
out  all  the  land  of  Egypt. 

The  learned  have  not  been  agreed  in  their  opinion  con- 
cerning the  third  of  the  plagues  of  Egypt:  Exod.  viii.  16, 
&c.  Some  of  the  ancients  suppose  that  gTiats,  or  some  an- 
imals resembling  them,  were  meant ;  whereas  our  transla- 
tors, and  many  of  the  moderns,  understand  the  original 
word  o-'jr  ki7meem,  as  signifying  lice.  Bishop  Patrick,  m 
his  commentary,  supposes  that  Bochart  has  suflftciently 
proved,  out  of  the  text  itself,  that  our  version  is  right,  since 
gnats  are  bred  in  fenny  places,  he  might  have  said  with 
truth,  and  with  much  greater  energy  of  argument,  in  wa- 
ter, whereas  the  animals  Moses  here  speaks  of,  were 
brought  out  of  the  dust  of  the  earth.  A  passage  I  lately 
met  with,  in  Vinisaur's  account  of  the  expedition  of  oiir 
King  Richard  the  First  into  the  Holy  Lancf,  may,  perhaps, 
give  a  truer  representation  of  this  Egyptian  plague,  than 
those  that  suppose  they  were  gnats,  or  those  that  suppose 
they  were  lice,  that  God  used  on  that  occasion,  as  the  in- 
strument of  that  third  correction.  Speaking  of  the  march- 
ing of  that  army  of  Croisaders,  from  Cayphas  to  where  the 
ancient  Caesarea  stood,  that  writer  informs  us,  that  each 
night  certain  worms  distressed  them,  commonly  called  tar- 
rentes,  which  crept  upon  the  ground,  and  occasioned  a  very 
burning  heat  by  most  painful  punctures.  They  hurt  no- 
body in  the  day  time,  but  when  night  came  on  they  ex- 
tremely pestered  them,  being  armed  with  stings,  conveying 
a  poison  which  quickly  occasioned  those  that  were  wound- 
ed by  them  to  swell,  and  was  attended  with  the  most  acuto 
pains. — Harmer. 

Chap.  9.  ver.  8.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses 
and  unto  Aaron,  Take  to  you  handfuls  of  ashes 
of  the  furnace,  and  let  Moses  sprinkle  it  to- 
wards the  heaven  in  the  sight  of  Pharaoh. 

When  the  magicians  pronounce  an  imprecation  on  ai. 
individual,  a  village,  or  a  country,  they  take  ashes  of  cow's 
dung,  (or  from  a  common  fire,)  and  throw  them  in  the  air, 
saying  to  the  objects  of  their  displeasure,  such  a  sickness, 
or  such  a  curse,  shall  surely  come  upon  you. — Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  And  the  hail  smote  throughout  all  the 
land  of  Egypt  all  that  was  in  the  field,  both 
man  and  beast ;  and  the  hail  smote  every  herb 
of  the  field,  and  brake  every  tree  of  the  field. 

I  do  not  apprehend  that  it  is  at  all  necessary  to  suppose, 
that  all  the  servants,  and  all  the  cattle  of  the  Egyptians, 
that  were  abroad  at  the  time  the  hail  fell,  which  Moses 
threatened,  and  which  was  attended  with  thunder  and 
lightning,  died ;  it  is  sufficient  to  suppose  they  all  felt  the 
hailstones,  and  that  several  of  them  were  killed.  This 
was  enough  to  justify  the  words  of  Moses,  that  it  should  be 
a  "  grievous  hail,  such  as  had  not  fallen  before  in  Egypt 
from  its  foundation."  For  though  it  hails  sometimes  in 
Egypt  as  well  as  rains,  as  Dr.  Pococke  found  it  hailed  at 
Fioume,  when  he  was  there  in  February;  and  thunders 
too,  as  Thevenot  says  it  did  one  night  in  December,  when 
he  was  at  Cairo ;  yet  fatal  effects  are  not  wont  to  follow  in 
that  country,  as  appears  from  what  Thevenot  says  of  this 
thunder,  which,  he  tells  us,  killed  a  man  in  the  castle  there, 
though  it  had  never  been  heard  before  that  thunder  had 
killed  anybody  at  Cairo.  For  divers  people  then  to  have 
been  killed  by  the  lightning  and  the  hail,  besides  cattle, 
was  an  event  that  Moses  might  well  say  had  never  happened 
there  before,  from  the  time  it  began  to  be  inhabited.     I  will 

*  Which  is  made  from  the  original ;  and  the  genius  of  the  language  i3 
every  way  more  suited  to  the  Hebrew,  than  ours.  And  nearly  all  the 
orientalisms  in  the  marginal  references  of  the  English  Bible  are  in* 
serted  in  the  textoiitis  Tamul  translation. 


ft6 


EXOD0S. 


Chaf.  10—11. 


»  ©niy  add,  that  Moses,  by  representing  this  as  an  extraordi- 
nary hail_  supposed  that  it  did  sometimes  hail  there,  as  it  is 
found  in  fact  to  do,  though  not  as  in  other  countries :  the 
not  raining  in  Egypt,  it  is  well  known,  is  to  be  understood 
in  the  same  manner. — Harmer. 

Chap.  10.  ver.  11,  Not  so:  go  now  ye  that  are 
men,  and  serve  the  Lord  :  for  that  ye  did  de- 
sire. And  they  were  driven  out  from  Pha- 
raoh's presence. 

Among  natives  of  rank,  when  a  person  is  very  impor- 
tunate or  troublesome,  when  he  presses  for  something 
which  the  former  are  not  willing  to  grant,  he  is  told  to 
begone.  Should  he  still  persist,  the  servants  are  called, 
and  the  order  is  given,  "  Drive  that  fellow  out."  He  is 
then  seized  by  the  n£ck,  or  taken  by  the  hamds,  and  dragged 
from  the  premises  ;  he  all  the  time  screaming  and  bawling 
as  if  they  were  taking  his  life.  Thus  to  be  driven  out  is 
the  greatest  indignity  which  can  be  offered,  and  nothing 
but  the  most  violent  rage  will  induce  a  superior  to  have 
recourse  to  it,— Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  And  the  Lord  turned  a  mighty  strong 
west  wind,  which  took  away  the  locusts,  and 
cast  them  into  the  Red  Sea ;  there  remained 
not  one  locust  in  all  the  coasts  of  Egypt. 

It  was  not  the  purpose  of  God  to  complete  every  punish- 
ment at  once,  but  to  carry  on  these  judgments  in  a  series, 
and  by  degrees  to  cut  off  all  hopes,  and  every  resource 
upon  which  the  Egyptians  depended.  By  the  hail  and 
thunder  and  fire  mingled  with  rain,  both  the  flax  and 
barley  were  entirely  ruined,  and  their  pastures  must  have 
been  greatly  injured.  The  wheat  and  rye  were  not  yet  in 
ear;  and  such  was  the  fertility  of  the  soil  in  Egypt,  that  a 
T-ery  short  time  would  have  sufficed  for  the  leaves  of  the 
trees,  and  the  grass  of  the  field,  to  have  been  recruited. 
To  complete,  therefore,  these  evils,  it  pleased  God  to  send 
a  host  of  locusts,  to  devour  every  1-eaf  and  blade  of  grass, 
which  had  been  left  in  the  former  devastation,  and  what- 
ever was  beginning  to  vegetate.  It  is  hard  to  conceive 
how  v/ide  the  mischief  extends,  when  a  cloud  of  these 
insects  comes  upon  a  country.  They  devour  to  the  very 
root  and  bark,  so  that  it  is  a  long  time  before  vegetation 
can  be  renewed.  How  dreadful  their  inroads  at  all  times 
were,  may  be  known  from  a  variety  of  authors,  both 
ancient  and  modern.  They  describe  them  as  being  brought 
by  one  wind,  and  carried  off  by  another.  They  swarm 
greatly  in  Asia  and  Africa.  In  respect  to  Europe,  Theve- 
not  tells  us,  that  the  region  upon  the  Boristhenes,  and 
particularly  that  inhabited  by  the  Cossacks,  is  greatly 
infested  with  locusts,  especially  in  a  dry  season.  They 
come  in  vast  clouds,  which  extend  fifteen  and  sometimes 
eighteen  miles,  and  are  nine  to  twelve  in  breadth.  The 
air,  by  their  interposition,  is  rendered  quite  obscure,  how- 
ever bright  the  day  may  have  been  before.  In  two  hours 
they  devour  all  the  corn,  where-.^er  they  settle,  and  often  a 
famine  ensues.  At  night,  when  they  repose  upon  the 
earth,  the  ground  is  covered  with  them  four  inches  deep, 
or  more  :  and  if  a  carriage  goes  over  them,  and  they  are 
mashed  under  foot,  the  smell  of  them  is  scarcely  to  be 
borne,  especially  when  they  are  reduced  to  a  state  of 
putrefaction.  They  come  from  Circassia,  Mingrelia,  and 
Tartary,  on  which  account  the  natives  rejoice  in  a  north 
or  northeast  wind,  which  carries  them  into  the  Black  Sea, 
where  they  perish.  The  vast  region  of  Asia,  especially 
the  southern  part,  is  liable  to  their  depredations.  China 
is  particularly  infested  with  them;  and  the  natives  use 
various  means  to  obviate  the  evil,  which  is  generally  too 
powerful  to  be  evaded.  But  the  most  fearful  account's  are 
from  Africa,  where  the  heat  of  the  climate,  and  the  nature 
of  the  soil  in  many  places,  contribute  to  the  production  of 
these  animals  in  astonishing  numbers.— Burder. 

Ver.  21,  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  Stretch 
out  thy  hand  towards  heaven,  that  there  may  be 
darkness  over  the  land  of  Egypt,  even  dark- 
ness which  may  be  felt. 

When  the  magicians  deliver  their  predictions,  they 


stretch  forth  the  right  hand  towards  heaven,  to  show  that 
they  have  power,  and  that  God  favours  them.  The  Tamul 
translation  has  this,  "  darkness  which  causeth  to  feel;"  i.  e. 
so  dark  that  a  man  is  obliged  to  feel  for  his  way,  and  untii 
he  shall  have  so  felt,  he  cannot  proceed.  Thus  the  dark- 
ness was  so  great,  that  their  eyes  were  not  ol  aiij  use  j  they 
were  obliged  to  grope  for  their  way. — Roberts. 

[This  is  probably  a  correct  view  of  the  passage,  as  a 
darkness  consisting  of  thick  clammy  fogs,  of  vapours  and 
exhalations  so  condensed  as  to  be  perceived  by  the  organs 
of  touch,  would  have  extinguished  animal  life  in  a  few 
Moments.] — B. 

Ver,  28,  And  Pharaoh  said  unto  him.  Get  thee 
from  me,  take  heed  to  thyself,  see  my  face  no 
more :  for  in  that  day  thou  seest  my  face,  thou 
shalt  die. 

Has  a  servant,  an  agent,  or  an  officer,  deeply  offended 
his  superior,  he  will  say  to  him, "  Take  care  never  to  see  my 
face  again ;  for  on  the  day  you  do  that,  evil  shall  come  up- 
on you."  "  Begone,  and  m  future  never  look  in  this  face" 
pointing  to  his  own. — Roberts, 

Chap.  11.  ver.  2,  Speak  now  in  the  ears  of  the 
people,  and  let  every  man  borrow  of  his  neigh- 
bour, and  every  woman  of  her  neighbour, 
jewels  of  silver,  and  jewels  of  gold. 

Dr,  Boothroyd,  instead  of  borrow,  translates  "ask."  Dr. 
A.  Clarke  says,  "  request,  demand,  require."  The  Israel- 
ites wished  to  go  three  days'  journey  into  the  wilderness, 
that  they  might  hold  a  feast  unto  the  Lord.  When  the 
Orientals  go  to  their  sacred  festivals,  they  always  put  on 
their  best  jewels.  Not  to  appear  before  the  gods  in  such  a 
way,  they  consider  would  be  disgraceful  to  themselves  and 
displeasing  to  the  deities.  A  person,  whose  clothes  or 
jewels  are  indifferent,  will  borrow  of  his  richer  neigh- 
bours ;  and  nothing  is  more  common  than  to  see  poor  peo- 
ple standing  before  the  temples,  or  engaged  in  sacred  cere- 
monies, well  adorned  with  jewels.  The  almost  pauper 
bride  or  bridegroom  at  a  marriage  may  often  be  seen  deck- 
ed with  gems  of  the  most  costly  kind,  which  have  been 
borrowed  for  the  occasion.  It  fully  accords,  therefore, 
with  the  idea  of  what  is  due  at  a  sacred  or  social  feast,  lo 
be  thus  adorned  in  their  best  attire.  Under  these  circum- 
stances, it  would  be  perfectly  easy  to  borrow  of  the  Egyp- 
tians their  jewels,  as  they  themselves,  in  their  festivals, 
would  doubtless  wear  the  same  things.  It  is  also  recorded, 
the  Lord  gave  them  "  favour  in  the  sight  of  the  Egj^ptians." 
It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  fully  known  to  the  He- 
brews, that  they  were  going  finally  to  leave  Eg}'pt:  they 
might  expect  to  return;  and  it  is  almost  certairi  that,  if 
their  oppressors  had  known  they  were  not  to  return,  they 
would  not  have  lent  them  their  jewels. 

The  Lord,  however,  did  say  to  Moses,  in  chap,  iii,  11., 
that  He  would  "  bring  forth  the  children  of  Israel  out  of 
Egypt,"  and  that  they  should  worship  Him  upon  that  moun- 
tain ;  but  whether  Moses  fully  understood  Him  is  not  cer- 
tain. But  the  Lord  knew ! — certainly  He  did.  And  as 
a  father,  or  a  master,  who  saw  his  children,  or  slaves,  de- 
prive each  other  of  their  rightful  pay,  (as  the  Egyptians  did 
the  Israelites,)  had  a  right  to  give  to  the  injured  what  they 
had  been  unjustly  deprived  of:  so  the  Lord,  in  whose  hands 
are  all  things,  who  daily  takes  from  one,  and  gives  to  an- 
other; and  who  builds  up,  or  destroys,  the  families  of  the 
earth ;  would  have  an  undoubted  right  to  give  to  the  He- 
brews that  property  of  which  the  Egyptians  had  so  unjustly 
and  cruelly  deprived  them. — Roberts. 

Ver.  5,  And  all  the  first-born  in  the  land  of  Egypt 
shall  die,  from  the  first-born  of  Pharaoh  that 
sitteth  upon  his  throne,  even  unto  the  first-born 
of  the  maid-servant  that  is  behind  the  mill ; 
and  all  the  first-born  of  beasts. 

In  the  first  ages,  they  parched  or  roasted  their  grain ; 
a  practice  which  the  people  of  Israel,  as  we  learn  from  the 
scriptures,  long  continued ;  afterward  they  pounded  it  in 
a  mortar,  to  which  Solomon  thus  alludes :  "  Though  thou 
shouldst  bray  a  fool  in  a  mortar  among  wheat,  with  a  pes^ 


Chap.  12. 


EXODUS. 


57 


tie,  yet  will  not  his  foolishness  depart  from  him."  This  was 
succeeded  by  mills,  similar  to  the  handmills  formerly  used 
in  this  country;  of  which  there  were  two  sorts:  the  first 
were  large,  and  turned  by  the  strength  of  horses  or  asses  : 
the  second  were  smaller,  and  wrought  by  men,  commonly 
by  slaves  condemned  to  this  hard  labour,  as  a  punishment 
for  their  crimes.   Chardin  remarks  in  his  manuscript,  that 
the  persons  employed  are  generally  female  slaves,  who  are 
least  regarded,  or  are  least  fit  for  any  thing  else :  for  the 
work  is  extremely  laborious,  and  esteemed  the  lowest  em- 
ployment about  the  house.    Most  of  their  corn  is  ground 
by  these  little  mills,  although  they  sometimes  make  use  of 
large  mills,  wrought  by  oxen  or  camels.    Near  Ispahan, 
and  some  of  the  other  great  cities  of  Persia,  he  saw  water- 
mills  ;  but  he  did  not  meet  with  a  single  windmill  in  the 
East.    Almost  every  family  grinds  their  wheat  and  barley 
at  home,  having  two  portable  millstones  for  that  purpose; 
'  of  which  the  uppermost  is  turned  round  by  a  small  handle 
of  wood  or  iron,  that  is  placed  in  the  rim.  When  this  stone 
is  large,  or  expedition  is  required,  a  second  person  is  called' 
in  to  assist ;  and  as  it  is  usual  for  the  women  only  to  be 
'(  concerned  in  this  employment,  who  seat  themselves  over 
)  against  each  other,  with  the  millstone  between  them,  we 
I  may  see  the  propriety  of  the  expression  in  the  declaration 
;  of  Moses:  "  And  all  the  first-born  in  the  land  of  Egypt 
shall  die,  from  the  first-born  of  Pharaoh,  that  sitteth  upon 
his  throne,  even  unto  the  first-born  of  the  maid-servant, 
that  is  behind  the  mill."     The  manner  in  which  the  hand- 
mills  are  worked,  is  well  described  by  Dr.  Clarke :  "  Scarce- 
ly had  we  reached  the  apartment  prepared  for  our  recep- 
i  tion,  when  looking  from  the  window,  into  the  courtyard 
belonging  to  the  house,  we  beheld  two  women  grinding  at 
!  the  mill,  in  a  manner  most  forcibly  illustrating  the  saying 
1  of  our  Saviour :    '  Two  women  shall  be  grinding  at  the 
i  mill,  the  one  shall  be  taken  and  the  other  left.'  They  were 
I  preparing  flour  to  make  our  bread,  as  it  is  always  cusiom- 
j  ary  in  the  country  when  strangers  arrive.  The  two  women, 
I  seated  upon  the  ground  opposite  to  each  other,  held  between 
them  two  round  flat  stones,  such  as  are  seen  in  Lapland, 
and  such  as  in  Scotland  are  called  querns.     In  the  centre 
©f  the  upper  stone  was  a  cavity  for  pouring  in  the  corn; 
!  and  by  the  side  of  this,  an  upright  wooden  handle  for  mov- 
j  ing  the  stone.     As  this  operation  began,  one  of  the  women 
opposite  received  it  from  her  companion,  who  pushed  it 
i  towards  her,  who  again  sent  it  to  her  companion;    thus 
||  communicating  a  rotatory  motion  to  the  upper  stone,  their 
I  left  hands  being  all  the  while  employed  in  supplying  fresh 
I  corn,  as  fast  as  the  bran  and  flour  escaped  from  the  sides 
of  the  machine."-PAXTON. 

Chap.  12.  ver.  11,  And  thus  shall  ye  eat  it; 
with  your  loins  girded,  your  shoes  on  your 
feet,  and  your  staff  in  your  hand:  and  ye  shall 
eat  it  in  haste  ;  it  is  the  Lord's  passover. 

When  people  take  a  journey,  they  have  always  their 
I  loins  well  girded,  as  they  believe  that  they  can  walk  much 
'  faster  and"  to  a  greater  distance.  Before  the  palankeen 
*>earers  take  up  their  load,  they  assist  each  other  to  make 
tight  a  part  of  the  sali  or  robe  round  the  loins.  When  men 
are  about  to  enter  into  an  arduous  undertaking,  bystanders 
sav,  "  Tie  your  loins  loell  up  J'  (Luke  xii.  35.  Eph.  vi.  4. 
1  Pet.  i.  13.)— Roberts. 

They  that  travel  on  foot  are  obliged  to  fasten  their  gar- 
ments at  a  greater  height  from  their  feet  than  they  are 
wont  to  do  at  other  times.  This  is  what  some  have  under- 
stood to  be  meant  by  the  girding  their  loins :  not  simply 
their  having  girdles  about  them,  but  the  wearing  their  gar- 
ments at  a  greater  height  than  usual.  There  are  two  ways 
of  doing  this.  Sir  J.  Chardin  remarks,  after  having  inform- 
ed us  that  the  dress  of  the  eastern  people  is  a  long  vest, 
leaching  down  the  calf  of  the  leg,  more  or  less  fitted  to  the 
b  idy,  and  fastened  upon  the  loins  by  a  girdle,  which  goes 
three  or  four  times  round  them.  "  This  dress  is  fastened 
hi2;her  up  two  ways:  the  one,  which  is  not  much  used,  is 
to  draw  up  the  vest  above  the  girdle,  just  as  the  monks  do 
when  they  travel  on  foot ;  the  other,  which  is  the  common 
way,  is  to  tuck  up  the  foreparts  of  their  vest  into  the  girdle, 
and  so  fasten  them.  All  persons  in  the  East  that  journey 
on  foot  always  gather  up  their  vest,  by  which  they  walk 
viiore  commodiously,  having  the  leg  and  knee  unburdened 
did  unembarrassed  by  the  vest,  which  they  are  not  when 


i 


8 


that  hangs  over  them."  And  after  Ibis  manner  he  supposes 
the  Israelites  were  prepared  for  their  going  out  of  Egypt, 
when  they  ate  the  first  passover,  Exod.  xii.  11.  He  takes 
notice,  in  the  same  passage,  of  the  singularity  of  their  hav 
ing  shoes  en  their  feet  at  that  repast.  They  in  common,  h'% 
observes,  put  otf  their  shoes  when  they  eat,  for  which  h«' 
assigns  two  reasons:  the  one,  that  as  they  do  not  use  tables 
and  chairs  in  the  East,  as  in  Europe,  but  cover  their  floors 
with  carpets,  they  might  not  soil  those  beautiful  pieces  of 
furniture ;  the  other,  because  it  would  be  troublesome  to 
keep  their  shoes  upon  their  feet,  they  sitting  crosslegged 
on  the  floor,  and  having  no  hinder  quarters  to  their  shoes, 
which  are  made  like  slippers.  He  takes  no  notice  in  this 
note,  of  their  having  to  eat  this  passover  with  a  staff"  in  their 
hand ;  but  he  elsewhere  observes,  that  the  eastern  people 
very  universally  make  use  of  a  staflf  when  they  journey 
on  foot;  and  this  passage  plainly  supposes  it. — EIatimer. 

Ver.  34.  And  the  people  took  their  dough  before 
it  was  leavened,  their  kneading-troughs  being 
bound  up  in  their  clothes  upon  their  shoulders. 

The  dough,  we  are  told,  which  the  Israelites  had  prepared 
for  baking,  and  on  which  it  should  seem  they  subsisted  af- 
ter they  left  Egypt  for  a  month,  was  carried  away  by  them 
in  their  kneading-troughs  on  their  shoulders,  Exod.  xii.  34. 
Now,  an  honest  thoughtful  countryman,  who  knows  how 
cumbersome  our  kneading-troughs  are,  and  how  much  less 
important  they  are  than  many  other  utensils,  maybe  ready 
to  wonder  at  this,  and  find  a  difficulty  in  accounting  for  it. 
But  this  wonder  perhaps  may  cease,  when  he  comes  to  un- 
derstand, that  the  vessels  which  the  Arabs  of  that  country 
make  use  of,  for  kneading  the  unleavened  cakes  they  pre-, 
pare  for  those  that  travel  in  this  very  desert,  are  only 
small  wooden  bowls  ;  and  that  they  seem  to  use  no  other 
in  their  own  tents  for  that  purpose,  or  any  other,  these 
bowls  being  used  by  them  for  kneading  their  bread,  and 
afterward  serving  up  their  provisions  when  cooked :  for 
then  it  will  appear,  that  nothing  could  be  more  convenient 
than  kneading-troughs  of  this  sort  for  the  Israelites,  in  their 
journey.  I  am,  however,  a  little  doubtful,  whetlier  these 
were  the  things  that  Moses  meant  by  that  word  which  our 
version  renders  kneading-troughs ;  since  it  seems  to  me, 
that  the  Israelites  had  made  a  provision  of  corn  sufficient 
for  their  consumption  for  about  a  month,  and  that  they 
were  preparing  to  bake  all  this  at  once :  now  their  own 
little  wooden  bowls,  in  which  they  were  wont  to  knead  the 
bread  they  wanted  for  a  single  day,  could  not  contain  all 
this  dough,  nor  could  they  well  carry  a  number  of  these 
things,  borrowed  of  the  Egyptians  for  the  present  occasion, 
with  them.  That  they  had  furnished  themselves  with  corn 
sufficient  for  a  month,  appears  from  their  not  wanting 
bread  till  they  came  into  the  wilderness  of  Sin  ;  that  the 
eastern  people  commonly  bake  their  bread  daily,  as  they 
want  it,  appears  from  an  observation  I  have  already  made, 
and  from  the  history  of  the  patriarch  Abraham  ;  and  that 
they  were  preparing  to  bake  bread  sufficient  for  this  pur- 
pose at  once,  seems  most  probable,  from  the  universal  bus- 
tle they  were  in,  and  from  the  much  greater  conveniences 
for  baking  in  Egypt  than  in  the  wilderness,  w^hich  are 
such,  that  though  Dr.  Shaw's  attendant  sometimes  baked 
in  the  desert,  he  thought  fit,  notwithstanding,  to  carry  bis- 
cuit with  him,  and  Thevenot  the  same.  They  could  not 
well  carry  such  a  quantity  of  dough  in  those  wooden 
bowls,  which  they  used  for  kneading  their  bread  in  com- 
mon. What  is  more.  Dr.  Pococke  tells  us,  that  the  Arabs 
actually  carry  their  dough  in  something  else :  for,  after 
having' spoken  of  their  copper  dishes  put  one  within  an- 
other, and  their  wooden  bowls,  in  which  they  make  their 
bread,  and  which  make  up  all  the  kitchen  furniture  of  an 
Arab,  even  where  he  is  settled ;  he  gives  us  a  description 
of  a  round  leather  coverlet,  which  they  lay  on  the  ground, 
and  serves  them  to  eat  off",  which,  he  says,  has  rings  round 
it,  by  which  it  is  drawn  together  with  a  chain  that  has  a 
hook  to  it  to  hang  it  by.  This  is  drawn  together,  he  says, 
and  sometimes  they  carry  in  it  their  meal  made  into  dough ; 
and  in  this  manner  they  bring  it  full  of  bread,  and,  when 
the  repast  is  over,  carry  it  away  at  once,  with  all  that  is  left. 

Whether  this  utensil  is  rather  to  be  understood  by  the 
word  ni-KK'n  misharoth,  translated  hieading-t roughs,  than 
the  Arab  wooden  bowl,  I  leave  my  reader  to  determine.  I 
would  only  remark,  that  there  is  nothing,  in  the  other  three 


58 


EXODUS. 


Chap.  13—15. 


places,  in  which  the  word  occurs,  to  contradict  this  expla- 
nation. These  places  are  Exod.  viii.  3,  Deut.  xxviii.  5,  17, 
in  the  two  last  of  which  places  it  is  translated  store.  It  is 
more  than  a  little  astonishing,  to  find  Grotius,  in  his  com- 
ment on  Exod.  xii.  31),  explaining  that  verse  as  signifying, 
that  they  baked  no  bread  in  their  departing  from  Egypt, 
but  stayed  till  they  came  to  Succoih,  because  they  had  not 
time  to  stay  till  it  was  leavened  in  Egypt ;  when  it  is  cer- 
tain that  they  were  so  hurried  out  of  Egypt,  as  to  be  desired 
not  to  stay  to  bake  unleavened  bread;  nor  can  we  imagine 
they  would  stay  till  leaven  put  into  it  at  Succoth,  had  pro- 
duced its  eifect''in  their  dough,  since  travellers  now  in  that 
desert  often  eat  imleaveaed  bread,  and  the  precepts  of  Mo- 
ses, relating  to  their  commemoration  of  their  going  out  of 
Egypt,  suppose  they  ate  unleavened  bread  for  some  time. 
Succoih,  the  first  station  then  of  the  Israelites,  which  Dr. 
Shaw  supposes  was  nothing  more  than  some  considerable 
encampment  of  Arabs,  must  have  been  a  place  where  there 
was  a  considerable  quantity  of  broom,  or  other  fuel,  which 
is  not  to  be  found  in  that  desert  everywhere.— Harmbr. 

Chap.  13.  ver.  18.  But  God  led  the  people  about, 
.  through  the  way  of  the  wilderness  of  the  Red 
Sea :  and  the  children  of  Israel  went  up  har- 
nessed out  of  the  land  of  Egypt. 

The  margin  of  our  translation  remarks,  that  the  word 
rendered  harnessed,  in  Exodus  xiii.  18,  signifies  hj  fives,  hui 
when  it  adds,  five  in  a  rank,  it  seems  to  limit  the  sense  of 
the  term  very  unnecessarily,  as  it  may  as  well  signify  five 
men  in  a  company,  or  their  cattle  tied  one  to  another  in 
strings  of  five  each.  If  there  were  600,000  footmen,  be- 
'sides  children,  and  a  mixed  multitude,  together  with  cattle, 
the  marching  of  five  only  abreast,  supposing  only  one  yard 
for  each  rank  to  move  in,  would  make  the  whole  length  of 
this  enormous  file  of  people  more  than  sixty-eight  miles. 
If  we  should  suppose  two  such  columns,  and  place  the  chil- 
dren, mixed  multitude,  and  cattle  between  them,  the  length 
then  of  this  body  of  people  would  be  above  thirty-four 
miles.  At  the  same  time  we  cannot  conceive  any  reason 
for  such  a  narrow  front,  on  the  one  hand,  in  such  a  wide 
desert,  nor,  on  the  other,  why  they  are  described  as  march- 
ing five  abreast,  if  there  were  many  such  columns.  It 
would  seem  in  such  a  case,  to  be  a  circumstance  that  re- 
quired no  particular  notice.  Pitts  tells  us,  that  in  the  march 
of  the  Mohammedan  pilgrims  from  Egypt,  through  this 
very  desert,  they  travel  with  their  camels  tied  four  in  a 
parcel,  one  after  the  other,  like  so  many  teams.  He  says  also 
that  usually  three  or  four  of  the  pilgrims  diet  together.  If  we 
will  allow  that  like  circumstances  naturally  produce  like 
eflfects,  it  will  appear  highly  probable,  that  the  meaning  of 
the  word  used  in  the  passage  of  Exodus  is,  that  they  went 
up  out  of  Egypt  with  their  cattle,  in  strings  of  five  each ;  or 
that  Moses  ordered  that  five  men  with  their  families  should 
form  each  a  little  company,  that  should  keep  together,  and 
assist  each  other,  in  this  difficult  march.  In  either  of  these 
senses  we  may  understand  the  term,  in  all  the  other  places 
in  which  it  appears;  whereas  it  is  not  natural  to  suppose 
they  all  went  out  of  Egypt  properly  armed  for  war,  and  it 
is  idle  to  say,  as  some  have  done,  that  they  were  girded 
about  the  loins,  that  is  always  supposed  to  be  done  by  the 
eastern  people  when  they  journey.  Not  to  say  that  the 
kindred  word  continually  signifies  five,  and  this  word 
should  in  course  signify  that  they  were,  somehow  or  other, 
formed  into  fives,  companies  of  five  men  each,  or  companies 
that  had  e.B,c\y  five  beasts,  which  carried  their  provisions  and 
Other  necessaries,  fastened  to  each  other. — Harmer. 

Chap.  15.  var.  20.  And  Miriam  the  prophetess, 
the  sister  of  Aaron,  took  a  timbrel  in  her  hand ; 
and  all  the  women  went  out  after  her  with  tim- 
brels and   nih.  dances. 

Lady  M,  W.  Montague,  speaking  of  the  eastern  dances, 
says,  "Their  manner  is  certainly  the  same  that  Diana  is 
said  to  have  dance  1  on  the  banks  of  Eurotas.  The  great 
lady  still  leads  the  dance,  and  is  followed  by  a  troop  of 
j-^oung  girls,  who  indlate  her  steps,  and  if  she  sings,  make 
iip  the  chorus.  Th(i  tunes  are  extremely  gay  and  lively, 
yet  with  something  ii  them  wonderfnllv  soft.  Their  steps 
arc  varied  according  to  the  pleasure  of  her  that  leads  the 


dance,  but  always  in  exact  time,  and  infinitely  more  agree- 
able than  any  of  our  dances."  {Letters,  vol,  ii.  p.  45.)  This 
gives  us  a  difierent  apprehension  of  the  meaning'  of  these 
words  than  we  should  otherwise  form.  "  Miriam  the 
prophetess,  the  sister  of  Aaron,  took  a  timbrel  in  her  hand, 
and  all  the  women  went  out  after  her,  with  timbrels  and 
dances."  She  led  the  dance,  and  they  imitated  her  steps, 
which  were  not  conducted  by  a  set  well-known  form,  but 
extemporaneous.  Probably  David  did  not  dance  alone 
before  the  Lord  when  the  ark  was  removed,  but  led  the 
dance  in  the  same  authoritative  kind  of  way.  (2  Sam.  vi. 
14,    Judges  xi,  34,     1  Sam,  xviii,  6.) — Burcer. 

Ver.  25.  And  he  cried  unto  the  Lord  ;  and  the 
Lord  showed  him  a  tree,  which  when  he  had 
cast  into  the  waters,  the  waters  were  made 
sweet :  there  he  made  for  them  a  statute  and  an 
ordinance,  and  there  he  proved  them. 

This  water,  which  was  bitter  or  brackish,  (Dr.  Shaw 
says  the  latter,)  was  thus  made  sweet  by  the  casting  in  of 
the  tree.  Some  suppose  it  was  a  bitter  wood,  such  as 
quassia,  which  corrected  the  water.  Water  is  often  brack- 
ish in  the  neighbourhood  of  salt-pans  or  the  sea,  and  the 
natives  correct  it  by  throwing  in  it  the  wood  called  Perrao- 
Nelli,  Phylanthus  Emblica.  Should  the  water  be  very 
bad,  they  line  the  well  with  planks  cut  out  of  this  tree.  In 
swampy  grounds,  or  when  tnere  has  not  been  rain  for  a 
long  time,  the  water  is  often  muddy,  and  very  unwhole- 
some. But  Providence  has  again  been  bountiful  by  giving 
to  the  people  the  Teatta  Maram,  Strychnos  Potatorum, 
All  who  live  in  the  neighbourhood  of  such  water,  or  who 
have  to  travel  where  it  is,  always  carry  a  supply  of  the 
nuts  of  this  tree.  They  grind  one  or  two  of  them  on  the 
side  of  an  earthen  vessel :  the  water  is  then  poured  in,  and 
the  impurities  soon  subside. — Roberts, 

"  Ei-vah  is  a  large  village  or  town,  thick  planted  with 

E aim-trees ;  the  Oasis  Parva  of  the  ancients,  the  last  m- 
abited  place  to  the  west  that  is  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
Egypt ;  it  yields  senna  and  coloquintida.  The  Arabs  call* 
El-vah,  a  shriib  or  tree,  not  unlike  our  hawthorn,  either  in 
form  or  flower.  It  was  of  this  wood,  they  say,  that  Moses' 
rod  was  made,  when  he  sweetened  the  waters  ol"  Marah. 
With  a  rod  of  this  wood  too,  they  say,  Kaled  Ibn  el  Waalid, 
the  great  destroyer  of  Christians,  sweetened  these  waters 
at  El-vah,  once  bitter,  and  gave  it  the  name  from  this 
miracle.  A  number  of  very  fine  springs  burst  from  the 
earth  at  El-vah,  which  renders  this  small  spot  verdant  and 
beautiful,  though  surrounded  with  dreary  deserts  on  every 
quarter :  it  is  situated  like  an  island  in  the  midst  of  the 
ocean."  (Bruce.) — Our  colonists,  who  first  peopled  some 
parts  of  America,  corrected  the  qualities  of  the  water  they 
found  there,  by  infusing  in  it  branches  of  sassafras ;  and  it 
is  understood  that  the  first  inducement  of  the  Chinese  to 
the  general  use  of  tea,  was  to  correct  the  water  of  their 
rivers.  That  other  water  also  stands  in  some  need  of  cor- 
rection, and  that  such  correction  is  applied  to  it,  appears 
from  the  custom  of  Egypt,  in  respect  to  the  water  of  the 
Nile.  "  The  water  of  the  Nile,"  says  Niebuhr,  "  is  always 
somewhat  muddy;  but  by  rubbing  with  bitter  almonds, 
prepared  in  a  particular  manner,  the  earthen  jars  in  which 
It  is  kept,  this  water  is  rendered  clear,  light,  and  salutary," 
— Burder. 

We  travelled,  says  Burckhardt,  over  uneven,  hilly  ground, 
gravelly  and  flinty.  At  one  hour  and  three  quarters,  we 
passed  the  well  of  Howara,  around  which  a  few  date-trees 
grow.  Niebuhr  travelled  the  same  route,  but  his  guides 
probably  did  not  lead  him  to  this  well,  which  Hes  among 
hills  about  two  hundred  paces  out  of  the  road.  The  water 
of  the  well  of  Howara  is  so  bitter,  that  men  cr  i,not  drink 
it ;  and  even  camels,  if  not  very  thirsty,  refuse  to  taste  it. 
This  well  Burckhardt  justly  supposes  to  be  the  Marah  of 
the  Israelites;  and  in  this  opinion  Mr.  Leake,  Gesenius, 
and  Rosenmiiller,  concnr.  From  Ayoun  Mousa  to  the 
well  of  Howara  we  had  travelled  fifteen  hours  and  a  quar- 
ter. Referring  to  this  distance,  it  appears  probable  that 
this  i,  the  desert  of  three  days  mentioned  in  the  scriptures 
to  have  been  crossed  by  the  Israelites  immodiaiely  after 
their  passing  the  Red  Sea;  and  at  the  end  of  Avhich  they 
arrived  at  Marah.  In  moving  with  a  whole  nation,  the 
march  may  well  be  supposed  to  have  occupied  three  daysj 


Chap,  lb 


EXODUS. 


59 


and  the  fc.t'er  well  at  Marah,  which  was  sweetened  by  Mo- 
ses, corresponds  exactly  to  that  at  Howara.  This  is  the 
usual  route  to  Mount  Sinai,  and  was  probably,  therefore, 
li'.at  which  the  Israelites  took  on  their  escape  from  Egypt, 
j)rovided  it  be  admitted  that  they  crossed  the  sea  at  Suez, 
a.s  Niebuhr,  with  good  reason,  conjectures.  There  is  no 
other  road  of  three  days'  march  in  the  way  from  Suez  to- 
wards Sinai,  nor  is  there  any  other  well  absolutely  bitter 
on  the  whole  of  this  coast.  The  complaint  of  the  bitterness 
of  the  water  by  the  children  of  Israel,  who  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  the  sweet  water  of  the  Nile,  are  such  as  may  be 
daily  heard  from  the  Egyptian  servants  and  peasants^^rho 
travel  in  Arabia.  Accustomed  from  their  youth  to  the  ex- 
cellent water  of  the  Nile,  there  is  nothing  which  they  so 
much  regret  in  countries  distant  from  Egypt;  nor  is  there 
aiiv  eastern  people  who  feel  so  keenly  the  want  of  good 
v.aier,  as  the  present  natives  of  Egypt.  With  respect  to  the 
i;ieans  employed  by  Moses  to  render  the  waters  of  the  well 
su  eet,  I  have  frequently  inquired  among  the  Bedouins  in 
d  liferent  parts  of  Arabia,  whether  they  possessed  any  means 
I'f  effecting  such  a  change,  by  throwing  wood  into  it,  or  by 
i\uy  other  process;  but  1  never  could  learn  that  such  an 
ii!i  was  known.  At  the  end  of  three  hours  we  reached 
Wady  Gharendel,  which  extends  to  the  northeast,  and  is 
almost  a  mile  in  breadth,  and  full  of  trees.  The  Arabs 
told  me  that  it  may  be  traced  through  the  whole  desert,  and 
that  it  begins  at  no  great  distance  from  El  Arysh,  on  the 

i  Mediterranean  ;  but  I  had  no  means  of  ascertaining  the 
truth  of  this  statement.  About  half  an  hour  from  the  place 
where  we  halted,  in  a  southern  direction,  is  a  copious 
spfing,  with  a  small  rivulet,  which  renders  the  valley  the 
J)rincipal  station  on  this  route.  The  water  is  disagreeable, 
and  if  kept  for  a  night  in  the  water  skins,  it  turns  bitter  and 
spoils,  as  I  have  myself  experienced,  having  passed  this 
way  three  times.  If,  now,  we  admit  Bir  Howara  to  be  the 
Marah  of  Exodus,  (xv.  23,)  then  Wady  Gharendel  is  prob- 
ably Elim,  with  its  well  and  date-trees ;  an  opinion  enter- 
tained by  Niebuhr,  who,  however,  did  not  see  the  bitter 
well  of  Howara.  The  non-existence,  at  present,  of  twelve 
wells  at  Gharendel,  must  not  be  considered  as  evidence 
against  the  just-stated  conjecture ;  for  Niebuhr  says,  that 
his  companions  obtained  water  here  by  digging  to  a  very 
small  depth,  and  there  was  great  plenty  of  it  when  I  passed. 
Water,  in  fact,  is  readily  found*  by  digging,  in  every  fertile 
valley  in  Arabia,  and  wells  are  thus  easily  formed,  which 
are  filled  up  agam  by  the  sands. 

The  Wady  Gharendel  contains  date-trees,  tamarisks, 
acacias  of  different  species,  and  the  thorny  shrub  Gharkad, 
the  Pegan-um  retusum  of  Forskal,  which  is  extremely  com- 
Imon  in  this  peninsula,  and  is  also  met  with  in  the  sands  of 
the  Delta  on  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean.  Its  small 
'red  berry,  of  the  size  of  a  grain  of  a  pomegranate,  is  very 
juicy  ancl  refreshing,  much  resembling  a  ripe  gooseberry 
m  taste,  but  not  so  sweet.  The  Arabs  are  very  fond  of  it. 
The  shrub  Gharkad  delights  in  a  sandy  soil,  and  reaches 
its  maturity  in  the  height  of  summer,  when  the  ground  is 
parched  up,  exciting  an  agreeable  surprise  in  the  traveller, 
at  finding  so  juicy  a  berry  produced  in  the  driest  soil  and 
season.  Might  not  the  berry  of  this  shrub  have  been  used 
by  Moses  to  sweeten  the  waters  of  Marah  1  [The  Hebrew 
in  Ex.  XV.  25,  reads  :  "  And  the  Lord  showed  him  a  tree, 
and  he  cast  into  the  waters,  and  they  became  sweet."  The 
Aiabic  translates,  "  and  he  cast  of  it  into  the  waters,"  &c.] 
As  this  conjecture  did  not  occur  to  me  when  I  was  on  the 
spot,  I  did  aot  inquire  of  the  Bedouins,  whether  they  ever 
Sweetened  the  water  with  the  juice  of  berries,  which  would 
pr  iuably  effect  this  change  in  the  same  manner  as  the  juice 
Of  pomegranate  grains  expressed  into  it. — Calmet. 

Chap.  16.  ver.  13.  And  it  came  to  pass,  tliat  at 
even  the  quails  came  up,  and  covered  the  camp  ; 
and  in  the  morning-  the  dew  lay  round  about 
the  host. 

Tt  is  evident  from  the  history  of  Moses,  that  the  demands 
of  Israel  were  twice  supplied  with  quails  by  the  miraculous 
interposition  of  divine  providence.  The  "first  instance  is 
recorded  in  the  book  of  Exodus,  and  is  described  in  these 
words ;  *'  I  have  heard  the  murmurings  of  the  children  of 
Israel :  speak  unto  them,  saying.  At  even  ye  shall  eat  flesh, 
and  in  the  morning  ye  shall  be  filled  with  bread ;  and  ye 
shall  know  that  I  am  the  Lord  your  God.    And  it  came  to 


pass,  that  at  even  the  quails  came  up,  and  covered  the 
camp."  From  these  words  it  appears,  that  the  quails  were 
sent  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  people,  at  the  same  time  the 
manna  began  to  be  showered  down  from  heaven,  around 
their  encampment  in  the  desert  of  Sin ;  and  it  is  clear,  from 
the  beginning  of  the  chapter,  that  this  event  took  place  soon 
after  their  departure  from  Egypt,  upon  the  fifteenth  day  of 
the  second  month,  before  they  came  to  mount  Sinai.  This 
miracle  was  repeated  at  Kibroth-hattaavah,  a  place  three 
days'  journey  beyond  the  desert  of  Sinai ;  but  they  struck 
their  tents  before  Sinai,  in  the  second  year  after  their  de- 
parture from  Egypt,  on  the  twentieth  day  of  the  second 
month;  so  that  a  whole  year  intervened  between  the  first 
and  second  supply.  In  the  first  instance,  the  quails  were 
scattered  about  the  camp  only  for  one  day;  but  in  the  sec- 
ond, they  came  up  from  the  sea  for  a  whole  month.  They 
only  covered  the  camp  at  their  first  appearance ;  but  when 
they  came  the  second  time,  they  lay  round  about  it  to  the 
distance  of  a  day's  journey.  No  signs  of  divine  wrath  at- 
tended the  first  miracle;  but  the  second  was  no  sooner 
wrought,  than  the  vengeance  of  their  offended  God  over- 
took these  incorrigible  sinners :  "  While  the  flesh  was  yet 
between  their  teeth,  ere  it  was  chewed,  the  wrath  of  the 
Lord  was  kindled  against  the  people ;  and  the  Lord  smote 
the  people  with  a  very  great  plague."  Hence  it  is  evident, 
that  the  sacred  historian  records  two  different  events.;  of 
which,  the  one  was  more  stupendous  than  the  other,  and 
seemed  to  Moses  so  extraordinary,  that  on  receiving  the 
divine  promise,  he  could  not  refrain  from  objecting :  "  The 
people,  among  whom  I  am,  are  six  hundred  thousand  foot- 
men; and  thou  hast  said,  I  will  give  them  flesh,  that  they 
may  eat  a  whole  month.  Shall  the  flocks  and  the  herds  be 
slain  for  them  to  sufllice  them  1  Or  shall  all  the  fish  of  the 
sea  be  gathered  together  for  them  to  suffice  themi"  Moses 
had  seen  the  power  of  Jehovah  successfully  exerted  in 
feeding  his  people  with  flesh  for  one  day;  but  he  could 
scarcely  imagine,  from  whence  supplies  of  the  same  kind 
could  be  drawn  for  a  whole  month.  That  eminent  servant 
of  Jehovah,  astonished  at  the  greatness  of  the  promised 
favour,  seemed  to  forget  for  a  moment,  that  with  God  all 
things  are  possible. 

The  quails  were  scattered  around  the  camp  of  Israel,  in 
the  most  astonishing  numbers :  "  He  rained  flesh  also  upon 
them  as  dust,  and  feathered  fowls  like  as  the  sand  of  the 
sea."  The  holy  Psalmist  had  used  the  metaphorical  word 
to  rain,  in  relation  to  the  manna,  in  a  preceding  verse,  both 
to  intimate  its  descent  from  heaven,  and  its  prodigious 
abundance.  And  because  a  single  metaphor  is  not  sufli- 
cient  to  give  us  a  just  idea  of  the  sudden  and  extraordinary 
supplies  which  descended  on  the  tents  of  Israel,  they  are 
compared  to  the  dust  of  the  field,  and  to  the  sand  of  the  sea, 
which  cannot  be  numbered.  To  suggest  at  once  the  count- 
less myriads  of  these  birds,  and  the  ease  with  which  they 
are  caught,  it  is  added :  "  He  let  it  fall  in  the  midst  of  their 
camp  round  about  their  habitations."  The  account  of  Moses 
is  still  more  striking.  "  And  there  went  forth  a  wind  from 
the  Lord,  and  brought  quails  from  the  sea,  and  let  them  fall 
by  the  camp,  as  it  were  a  day's  journey  on  this  side,  and  as 
it  were  a  day's  journey  on  the  other  side,  round  about  the 
camp,  and  as  it  were  two  cubits  high  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth."  Hence,  these  birds  covered  the  whole  camp  and  the 
surrounding  waste,  to  the  distance  of  a  day's  journey  on 
every  side.  The  only  ambiguity  lies  in  the  phrase,  "a 
day's  journey ;"  whether  it  means  the  space  over  which  an 
individual  could  travel  in  one  day,  in  which  case  it  would 
be  much  greater — or  the  whole  army  could  traverse,  which 
would  be  much  less.  If  the  journey  of  an  individual  is  in- 
tended, it  might  be  about  thirty  rniles;  but  if  the  sacred 
historian  refers  to  the  whole  army,  a  third  part  of  this 
space  is  as  much  as  they  could  march  in  one  day  in  the 
sandy  desert,  under  a  vertical  sun.  In  the  opinion  of  Bo- 
chart,  this  immense  cloud  of  quails  covered  a  space  of  at 
least  forty  miles  diameter ;  for  a  day's  journey  is  at  least 
twenty  miles.  Ludolf  thinks,  it  ought  to  be  reduced  to  six- 
teen miles ;  and  others,  to  half  that  number,  because,  Moses 
refers  to  the  march  of  Israfel  through  the  desert,  encumber- 
ed with  their  women  and  children,  their  flocks  and  herds, 
and  the  baggage  of  the  whole  nation;  which  must  have 
greatly  retarded  their  movements,  and  rendered  the  short 
distance  of  eight  miles  more  than  sufficient  for  a  journey 
of  one  day.  It  is  equally  doubtful,  whether  the  distance 
mentioned  by  Moses,  must  be  measured  from  the  centre,  or 


J^... 


50 


EXODUS. 


Chap.  16 


from  the  extremities  of  the  encampment;  it  is  certain, 
however,  that  he  intends  to  state  the  countless  nmnbers  of 
these  birds  which  fell  around  the  tents  of  Israel. 

Some  interpreters  have  doubted,  whether  the  next  clause 
refer  to  the  amazing  multitude  of  these  birds  which  strewed 
the  desert,  or  to  the  facility  with  which  they  were  caught ; 
the  wind  let  them  fall  by  the  camp — "  as  it  were  two  cubits 
high  upon  the  face  of  the  earth."  The  Seventy,  and  after 
them  the  Vulgate,  render  it,  They  flew,  as  it  were  two  cu- 
bits high  above  the  earth.  Others  imagine,  the  quails  were 
piled  one  above  another  over  all  that  space,  to  the  height  of 
two  cubits;  while  others  suppose,  that  the  heaps  which 
were  scattered  on  the  desert  with  vacant  spaces  between,  for 
the  convenience  of  those  that  went  forth  to  collect  them, 
rose  to  the  height  of  two  cubits.  The  second  opinion  seems 
entitled  to  the  preference ;  for  the  phrase  "  to  rain,"  evi- 
dently refers  to  these  birds  after  they  had  fallen  to  the 
ground,  upon  which  they  lay  Numerous  as  the  drops  of  rain 
from  the  dense  cloud.  Besides,  the  people  could  scarcely 
have  gathered  ten  homers  a  piece,  in  two  days,  if  they  had 
not  found  the  quails  lying  upon  the  ground ;  for  a  homer  is 
the  largest  measure  among  the  Jews,  and  contains  nearly 
six  pints ;  according  to  some  Hebrew  writers,  the  load  of 
an  ass,  from  whose  name  the  term  is  supposed  to  be  deriv- 
ed.— Paxton. 

V'er.  15.  And  when  the  children  of  Israel  saw  it, 
they  said  one  to  another,  It  is  manna ;  for  they 
wist  not  what  it  was.  And  Moses  said  unto 
them,  This  is  the  bread  which  the  Lord  hath 
given  you  to  eat. 

"We  cannot  mistake  in  this  description  the  natural  pro- 
duction which  is  called,  in  all  the  European  languages, 
manna.  Manna  is  the  common  name  for  the  thick,  clam- 
ray,  and  sweet  juice,  which  in  the  southern  countries  oozes 
from  certain  trees  and  shrubs,  partly  by  the  rays  of  the  sun, 
partly  by  the  puncture  of  some  kinds  of  insects,  and  partly 
by  artificial  means.  The  manna  common  in  our  druggists' 
shops,  comes  from  Calabria  and  Sicily,  where  it  oozes  out 
of  a  kind  of  ash-tree,  from  the  end  of  June  to  the  end  of  July, 
when  the  bicada  appears,  an  insect  at  first  sight  resembling 
the  locust,  but  is  distinguished  from  it  by  a  thorn  under  the 
belly,  with  which  it  punctures  this  tree.  The  juice  issuing 
from  this  wound,  is  in  the  night  fluid,  and  looks  like  dew, 
but  in  the  morning  it  begins  to  harden.  But  the  European 
manna  is  not  so  good  as  the  oriental,  which  is  gathered  in 
particular  in  Syria,  Arabia,  and  Persia ;  partly  from  the 
oriental  oak,  and  partly  from  a  shrub,  which  is  called  in 
Persia,  Terengabin  or  Terendschabin.  Rauwolf  says,  that 
the  manna  grains  resemble  coriander  seeds,  as  mentioned 
in  the  Mosaic  account ;  and  this  is  confirmed  by  several 
modern  travellers.  Gmelin  remarks,  that  the  manna  is  as 
white  as  snow,  and  consists  of  grains  like  coriander  seeds. 
The  peasants  about  Ispahan  gather  it  at  sunrise,  holding 
a  sieve  under  the  branch,  into  which  the  grains  fall  when 
the  branches  are  struck  with  a  stick ;  if  the  gathering  it  be 
put  off"  till  after  sunrise,  no  manna  can  be  obtained,  because 
it  melts. — BuRDER. 

The  Wady  el  Sheikh,  the  great  valley  of  western  Sinai, 
is  in  many  parts  thickly  overgrown  with  the  tamarisk  or 
tarfa,  {Hedysarun  ALJiagi  of  Linn.)  It  is  the  only  valley  in 
'he  peninsula  of  Sinai  where  this  tree  grows,  at  present,  in 
any  great  quantity;  though  small  bushes  of  it  are  here  and 
here  met  with  in  other  parts.  It  is  from  the  tarfa  that  the 
.nanna  is  obtained.  This  substance  is  called  by  the  Be- 
douins mann,  and  accurately  resembles  the  description  of 
manna  given  in  the  scriptures.  In  the  month  of  June,  it 
drops  from  the  thorns  of  the  tamarisk  upon  the  fallen  twigs, 
?eaves,  and  thorns  which  always  cover  the  ground  beneath 
that  tree  in  the  natural  state  ;  the  manna  is  collected  before 
sunrise,  when  it  is  coagulated  ;  but  it  dissolves  as  soon  as 
the  sun  shines  upon  it.  The  Arabs  clean  away  the  leaves, 
dirt,  etc.  which  adhere  to  it,  boil  it,  strain  it  through  a  coarse 
piece  of  cloth,  and  put  it  in  leathern  skins  :  in  this  way  they 
preserve  it  till  the  following  year,  and  use  it  as  they  (io  ho- 
ney, to pouroverunleavened  bread, orto dip theirbread  into. 
I  could  not  learn  that  they  ever  made  it  intocakes  or  loaves. 
The  manna  is  found  only  in  years  when  copious  rains  have 
fallen  ;  sometimes  it  is  not  produced  at  all.  I  saw  none  of 
it  among  the  Arabs,  but  I  obtained  a  small  piece  of  the 
last  year's  produce,  in  the  convent  (of  Mount  Sinai,)  where, 


having  been  kept  in  the  cool  shade  and  moderate  tempera, 
ture  of  that  place,  it  had  become  quite  solid,  and  formed  a 
small  cake ;  it  became  soft  when  kept  some  time  in  the 
hand ;  if  placed  in  the  sun  for  five  minutes,  it  dissolved ; 
but  when  restored  to  a  cool  place,  it  became  solid  again  in 
a  quarter  of  an  hour.  In  the  season  at  which  the  Arabs 
gather  it,  it  never  acquires  that  state  of  hardness  which  will 
allow  of  its  being  pounded,  as  the  Israelites  are  said  to  have 
done,  in  Num.  xi.  8.  Its  colour  is  a  dirty  yellow,  and  the 
piece  which  I  saw  was  still  mixed  with  bits  of  tamarisk 
leaves ;  its  taste  is  agreeable,  somewhat  aromatic,  and  as 
sweet  as  honey.  If  eaten  in  any  considerable  quantity,  it 
is  said  to  be  slightly  purgative. 

The  quantity  of  manna  collected  at  present,  even  in  sea- 
sons when  the  most  copious  rains  fall,  is  trifling,  perhaps 
not  amounting  to  more  than  five  or  six  hundred  pounds. 
It  is  entirely  consumed  among  the  Bedouins,  who  consider 
it  the  greatest  dainty  which  their  country  affords.  The  har- 
vest is  usually  in  June,  and  lasts  for  about  six  weeks.  In 
Nubia,  and  in  every  part  of  Arabia,  the  tamarisk  is  one  of 
the  most  common  trees  ;  on  the  Euphrates,  on  the  Astabo- 
ras,  in  all  the  valleys  of  the  Hedjaz  and  the  Bedja,  it  grows 
in  great  plenty.  It  is  remarked  by  Niebuhr,  that  in  Meso- 
potamia, manna  is  produced  by  several  trees  of  the  oak  spe- 
cies; a  similar  fact  was  confirmed  to  me  by  the  son  of  a 
Turkish  lady,  who  had  passed  the  greater  part  of  his  youth 
at  Erzerum  m  Asia  Minor;  he  told  me  that  at  Moush,  a 
town  three  or  four  days  distant  from  Erzerum,  a  substance 
is  collected  from  the  tree  which  produces  the  galls,  exactly 
similar  to  the  manna  of  the  penmsula  in  taste  and  consist- 
ence, and  that  it  is  used  by  the  inhabitants  instead  of  honey. 

BURCKHARDT. 

The  notion,  however,  that  any  species  of  vegetable  gum 
is  the  manna  of  the  scriptures,  appears  so  totally  irreconci- 
lable with  the  Mosaic  narrative,  that,  notwithstanding  the 
learned  names  which  may  be  cited  in  support  of  the  con- 
jecture, it  cannot  be  safely  admitted  as  any  explanation  of 
the  miracle.  It  is  expressly  said,  that  the  manna  was 
rained  from  heaven ;  that  when  the  dew  was  exhaled,  it 
appeared  lying  on  the  surface  of  the  ground, — "  a  small, 
round  thing,  as  small  as  the  hoar-frost," — "like  coriander 
seed,  and  its  colour  like  a  pearl ;"  that  it  fell  but  six  days 
m  the  week,  and  that  a  double  quantity  fell  on  the  sixth 
day;  that  what  was  gathered  on  the  first  five  days  became 
offensive  and  bred  worms  if  kept  above  one  day,  while  that 
which  was  gathered  on  the  sixth  day  kept  sweet  for  two 
days ;  that  the  people  had  never  seen  it  before,  which  could 
not  possibly  be  the  case  with  either  wild-honey  or  gum- 
arabic  ;  that  it  was  a  substance  which  admitted  of  being 
ground  in  a  handmill  or  pounded  in  a  mortar,  of  being 
made  into  cakes  and  baked,  and  that  it  tasted  like  wafers 
made  with  honey ;  lastly,  that  it  continued  falling  for  the 
forty  years  that  the  Israelites  abode  in  the  wilderness,  but 
ceased  on  their  arriving  at  the  borders  of  Canaan.  To 
perpetuate  the  remembrance  of  the  miracle,  a  pot  of  the 
manna  was  to  be  laid  up  by  the  side  of  the  ark,  which 
clearly  indicates  the  extraordinary  nature  of  the  produc- 
tion. In  no  one  respect  does  it  correspond  to  the  modern 
manna.  The  latter  does  not  fall  from  heaven,  it  is  not 
deposited  with  the  dew,  but  exudes  from  the  trees  w^hen 
punctured,  and  is  to  be  found  only  in  the  particular  spots 
where  those  trees  abound ;  it  coiild  not,  therefore,  have 
supplied  the  Israelites  with  food  in  the  more  arid  parts  of 
the  desert,  where  they  most  required  it.  The  gums,  more- 
over, flow  only  for  about  a  month  in  the  year ;  they  neither 
admit  of  being  ground,  pounded,  or  baked ;  they  do  not  melt 
in  the  son ;  they  do  not  breed  worms ;  and  they  are  not 
peculiar  to  the  Arabian  wilderness.  Others  have  supposed 
the  manna  to  have  been  a  fat  and  thick  honey-dew,  and 
that  this  was  the  wild-honey  which  John  the  Baptist  lived 
upon, — a  supposition  worthy  of  being  ranked  with  the 
monkish  legend  of  St.  John's  bread,  or  the  locust-tree,  and 
equally  showing  an  entire  ignorance  of  the  nature  of  the 
country.  It  requires  the  Israelites  to  have  been  constantly 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  trees,  in  the  midst  of  a  wilderne.'^s 
often  bare  of  all  vegetation.  Whatever  the  manna  was,  it 
was  clearly  a  substitute  for  bread,  and  it  is  expressly  called 
meat,  or  food.  The  abundant  supply,  the  periodical  sus- 
pension  of  it,  and  the  peculiarity  attaching  to  the  sixth 
day's  supply,  it  must  at  all  events  be  admitted,  were  ureter 
natural  facts,  and  facts  not  less  extraordinary  than  that  the 
substance  also  should  be  of  an  unknown  and  peculiar  de- , 


Chap.  17—19. 


EXODUS. 


61 


scription.  The  credibility  of  the  sacred  narrative  cannot 
receive  the  slightest  addition  of  evidence  from  any  attempt 
to  explain  the  miracle  by  natural  causes.  That  narrative 
would  lead  any  plain  reader  to  expect  that  the  manna 
should  no  longer  be  foimd  to  exist,  having  ceased  to  fall 
upwards  of  3,000  years.  As  to  the  fact  that  the  Arabs  give 
that  name  to  the  juice  of  the  tarfa,  the  value  of  their  au- 
thority may  be  estimated  by  the  pulpit  of  Moses  and  the 
footstep  of  Mohammed's  camel.  The  cause  of  Revelation 
has  less  to  fear  from  the  assaults  of  open  infidels,  than  from 
such  ill-judged  attempts  of  skeptical  philosophers,  to  square 
the  sacred  narrative  by  their  notions  of  probability.  The 
giving  of  the  manna  was  either  a  miracle  or  a  fable.  The 
proposed  explanation  makes  it  a  mixture  of  both.  It  ad- 
mits the  fact  of  a  Divine  interposition,  yet  insinuates  that 
Moses  gives  an  incorrect  or  embellished  account  of  it.  It 
requires  us  to  believe,  that  the  scripture  history  is  at  once 
true  and  a  complete  misrepresentation,  and  that  the  golden 
vase  of  manna  was  designed  to  perpetuate  the  simple  fact, 
that  the  Israelites  lived  for  forty  years  upon  gum-arabic  ! 
The  miracle,  as  related  by  Moses,  is  surely  more  credible 
than  the  explanation. — Modern  Traveller. 

Ver.  16.  Gather  of  it  every  man  according  to  his 
eating-;  an  omer  for  every  man,  (Heb.  a  head,) 
according  to  the  number  of  your  persons  ;  take 
ye  every  man  for  them  which  are  in  his  tents. 

A  man,  when  offering  money  to  the  people  to  induce 
the;m  to  do  something  for  him,  says,  "  To  every  head,  I  will 
give  one  fanam."  In  time  of  sickness  or  sorrow,  it  is  said, 
"Ah  !  to  every  head  there  is  now  trouble."  "  Alas  !  there 
is  nothing  left  for  any  head."  *'  Yes,  yes,  he  is  a  good 
master:  to  every  head  he  has  given  a  cow."  "  What  did 
you  pay  your  coolies'?"—*'  To  every  head  one  fanam." — 
Roberts. 

Chap.  17.  ver.  1.  And  all  the  congregation  of 
the  children  of  Israel  journeyed  from  the  wil- 
derness of  Sin,  after  their  journeys,  according 
to  the  commandment  of  the  Lorb,  and  pitched 
in  Rephidim :  and  there  was  no  water  for  the 
people  to  drink. 

At  twenty  minutes'  walk  from  the  convent  of  El  Erbayn, 
•  a  block  of  granite  is  shown  as  the  rock  out  of  which  the 
water  issued  when  struck  by  the  rod  of  Moses.  It  is  thus 
described  by  Burckhardt :  "**  It  lies  quite  insulated  by  the 
side  of  the  path,  which  is  about  ten  feet  higher  than  the 
lower  bottom  of  the  valley.  The  rock  is  about  twelve  feet 
in  height,  of  an  irregular  shape,  approaching  to  a  cube. 
There  are  some  apertures  upon  its  surface,  through  which 
the  water  is  said  to  have  burst  out;  they  are  about  twenty 
in  number,  and  lie  nearly  in  a  straight  line  round  the  three 
Sides  of  the  stone.  They  are  for  the  most  part  ten  or  twelve 
inches  long,  two  or  three  inches  broad,  and  from  one  to  two 
inches  deep,  but  a  few  of  them  are  as  deep  as  four  inches. 
Every  observer  must  be  convinced,  on  the  slightest  exami- 
nation, that  most  of  these  fissures  are  the  work  of  art ;  but 
three  or  four  perhaps  are  natural,  and  these  may  have  first 
drawn  the  attention  of  the  monks  to  the  stone,  and  have  in- 
duced them  to  call  it  the  rock  of  the  miraculous  supply  of 
water.  Besides  the  marks  of  art  evident  in  the  holes  them- 
selves, the  spaces  between  them  have  been  chiselled,  so  as 
to  make  it  appear  as  if  the  stone  had  been  worn  in  those 
parts  by  the  action  of  the  water ;  though  it  cannot  be  doubt- 
ed, that  if  water  had  flowed  from  the  Assures,  it  must  gen- 
erally have  taken  quite  a  diiferent  direction.  One  travel- 
ler saw  on  this  stone  twelve  openings,  answering  to  the 
number  of  the  tribes  of  Israel ;  another  describes  the  holes 
as  a  foot  deep.  They  were  probably  told  so  by  the  monks, 
and  believed  what  they  heard,  rather  than  what  they  saw. 
About  150  paces  farther  on  in  the  valley,  lies  another  piece 
of  rock,  upon  which  it  seems  that  the  work  of  deception 
was  first  begun,  there  being  four  or  five  apertures  cut  in  it, 
similar  to  those  on  the  other  block,  but  in  a  less  finished 
state.  As  it  is  somewhat  smaller  than  the  former,  and  lies 
in  a  less  conspicuous  part  of  the  valley,  removed  from  the 
ptiblic  path,  the  monks  thought  proper,  in  process  of  time, 
to  assign  the  miracle  to  the  other.    As  the  rock  of  Moses 


has  been  described  by  travellers  of  the  fifteenth  centuiy, 
the  deception  must  have  originated  among  the  monks  of  an 
earlier  period.  As  to  the  present  inhabitants  of  the  con- 
vent and  of  the  peninsula,  they  must  be  acquitted  of  any 
fraud  respecting  it,  for  they  conscientiously  believe  that  it 
is  the  very  rock  from  whence  the  water  gushed  forth.  la 
this  part  of  the  peninsula,  the  Israelites  could  not  have  suf- 
fered from  thirst.  The  upper  Sinai  is  full  of  wells  and 
springs,  the  greater  part  of  which  are  perennial ;  and  on 
whichever  side  the  pretended  rock  of  Moses  is  approached, 
copious  sources  are  found  within  an  hour  of  it."  The  fact, 
that  this  part  of  the  peninsula  abounds  with  perennial 
springs,  which  is  attested  by  every  traveller,  proves  deci- 
dedly that  this  cannot  be  the  vale  of  Rephidim.  It  is  aston- 
ishing to  find  such  travellers  as  Shaw  and  Pococke  credu- 
lously adopting  this  imbecile  legend.  "  Here,"  says  the 
former, "  wes^iZZsee  that  extraordinary  antiquity,  the  rock  of 
Meribah,  which  hath  continued  down  to  this  day,  without  the 
least  injury  from  time  or  accident.  It  is  a  block  of  granite 
marble,  about  six  yards  square,  lying  tottering  as  it  were,  and 
loose  in  the  middle  of  the  valley,  and  seems  to  have  former- 
ly belonged  to  Mount  Sinai,  which  hangs  in  a  variety  of  pre- 
cipices all  over  this  plain.  The  icaterstohich  gtished  out,  and 
the  stream  which  flowed,  (Psalm  Ixxviii.  20,)  have  hollowed, 
across  one  corner  of  this  rock,  a  channel  about  two  inches 
deep  and  twenty  wide,  appearing  to  be  incrustated  all  over, 
like  the  inside  of  a  teakettle  that  hath  been  long  in  use. 
Besides  several  mossy  productions  that  are  still  preserved 
by  the  dew,  we  see  all  over  this  channel  a  great  number  of 
holes,  some  of  them  four  or  five  inches  deep,  and  one  or 
two  in  diameter,  the  lively  and  demonstrative  tokens  of 
their  having  been  formerly  so  many  fountains.  It  likewise 
may  be  further  observed,  that  art  or  chance  could  by  no 
means  be  concerned  in  the  contrivance,  for  every  circum- 
stance points  out  to  us  a  miracle,  and,  in  the  same  manner 
with  the  rent  in  the  rock  of  Mount  Calvary,  at  Jerusalem, 
never  fails  to  produce  a  religious  surprise  in  all  who  see  it." 
That  this  rock  is  as  truly  the  Rock  of  Meribah,  as  the 
spot  alluded  to  is  Mount  Calvary,  may  be  freely  admitted ; 
but  the  surprise  which  they  are  adapted  to  awaken  in  an 
intelligent  observer,  is  at  the  credulity  of  travellers.  "  These 
supernatural  mouths,"  says  Sir  F.  Henniker,  "  appear  to 
me  common  crevices  in  the  rock :  they  are  only  two  inches 
in  depth,  and  their  length  is  not  confined  to  the  water- 
course. That  the  incrustation  is  the  effect  of  water,  I  have 
not  the  slightest  doubt,  for  the  rocks  close  at  hand,  where 
water  is  still  dripping,  are  marked  in  the  same  manner  : 
and  if  a  fragment  of  the  cliff"  were  to  fall  down,  we  .should 
scarcely  distinguish  between  the  two.  I  therefore  doubt  the 
identity  of  the  stone,  and  also  the  locality ;  for,  in  this 
place,  the  miracle  would  be  that  a  mountain  so  lofty  as 
Mount  Sinai  should  be  without  water !" — Modern  Trav- 
eller. 

Ver.  16.  For  he  said,  Because  the  Lord  hath 
sworn  that  the  Lord  will  have  war  v/ith 
Amalek  from  generation  to  generation. 

Literally,  "  Because  the  hand  of  the  Lord  is  upon  the 
throne."  These  words  are  susceptible  of  a  very  diflTerent 
meaning,  which  has  not  escaped  the  notice  of  some  valua- 
ble commentators:  "For  he  said.  Because  his  hand  hath 
been  against  the  throne  of  the  Lord,  therefore,  will  he  have 
war  with  Amalek  from  generation  to  generation."  The 
prophet  is  there  giving  a  reason  of  the  perpetual  war 
which  Jehovah  had  just  proclaimed  against  that  devoted 
race  ;  their  hand  had  been  against  the  throne  of  the  Lord, 
that  is,  they  had  attacked  the  people  whom  he  had  chosen, 
and  among  whom  he  had  planted  his  throne ;  disregarding, 
or  probably  treating  with  contempt,  the  miraculous  signs  of 
the  divine  presence  which  led  the  way,  and  warranted  the 
operations  of  Israel ;  they  attempted  to  stop  their  progress, 
and  defeat  the  promise  of  Heaven ;  therefore  they  dared 
to  lift  their  hand  against  the  throne  of  God  himself,  and 
were  for  their  presumption,  doomed  to  the  destruction 
which  they  intended  for  others.  Hence,  the  custom  of 
laying  the  hand  upon  the  gospels,  as  an  appeal  to  God,  if 
not  the  contrivance  of  modern  superstition,  is  derived  from 
the  practice  of  some  obscure  Gentile  nation,  and  has  no 
claim  whatever  to  a  more  reputable  origin. — Paxton. 

Chap.  19.  ver.  1.  In  the  third  month,  when  the 


62 


EXODUS. 


Chap.  19. 


children  of  Israel  were  gone  forth  out  of  the 
land  of  Eg-ypt,  the  same  day  came  they  into  the 
wilderness  of  Sinai. 
We  were  near  twelve  hours  in  passing  the  many  wind- 
ings and  difficult  ways  which  lie  betwixt  the  deserts  of  Sin 
and  Sinai.  The  latter  is  a  beautiful  plain,  more  than  a 
league  in  breadth,  and  nearly  three  in  length,  lying  open 
towards  the  N.E.,  where  we  entered  it,  but  is  closed  up  to  the 
southward  by  some  of  the  lower  eminences  of  Mount  Sinai, 
in  this  direction,  likewise,  the  higher  parts  of  it  make  such 
encroachments  on  the  plain,  that  they  divide  it  into  two, 
each  of  them  capacious  enough  to  receive  the  whole  en- 
campment of  the  Israelites.  That  which  lieth  to  the  east- 
ward of  the  mount,  may  be  the  desert  of  Sinai,  properly  so 
called,  where  Moses  smo  the  angel  of  the  Lord  in  the  burning 
bush,  when  he  was  guarding  the  flocks  of  Jethro.  The  con- 
vent of  St.  Catharine  is  built  over  the  place  of  this  divine 
appearance:  it  is  near  three  hundred  feet  square,  and 
more  than  forty  in  height,  being  partly  built  with  stone, 
partly  with  mud  only  and -mortar  mixed  together.  The 
more  immediate  place  of  the  Shekinah  is  honoured  with  a 
little  chapel,  which  this  old  fraternity  of  St.  Basil  hath  in 
such  esteem  and  veneration,  that,  in  imitation  of  Moses, 
they  put  off"  their  shoes  from  off  their  feet,  when  they  enter 
or  approach  it.  This,  with  several  other  chapels,  dedica- 
ted to  particular  saints,  are  included  within  the  church,  as 
ihey  call  it,  of  the  Transfiguration,  which  is  a  large  beau- 
tiful structure,  covered  with  lead,  and  supported  by  two 
rows  of  marble  columns.  The  floor  is  very  elegantly  laid 
out  in  a  variety  of  devices  in  Mosaic  work  ;  of  the  same 
workmanship,  likewise,  are  both  the  floor  and  the  walls  of 
the  presbyterium,  upon  the  latter  whereof  is  represented 
the  figure  of  the  Emperor  Justinian,  together  with  the  his- 
tory of  the  transfiguration.  On  the  partition,  which  sepa- 
rates the  presbyterium  from  the  body  of  the  church,  there 
is  placed  a  small  marble  shrine,  whereon  are  preserved  the 
scull  and  one  of  the  hands  of  St.  Catharine.  Mount  Sinai 
hangs  over  this  convent,  being  called  by  the  Arabs,  Jebbel 
Mousa,  the  mountain  of  Moses,  and  sometimes  only,  by 
way  of  eminence,  El  Tor,  the  mountain.  St.  Helena  was 
at  the  expense  of  the  stone  staircase,  that  was  formerly  car- 
ried up  entirely  to  the  top  of  it ;  but,  at  present,  as  most  of 
these  steps  are  either  removed,  washed  out  of  their  places, 
or  defaced,  the  ascent  up  to  it  is  very  fatiguing,  and  entire- 
ly imposed  on  their  votaries  as  a  severe  penance.  How- 
ever, at  certain  distances,  the  fathers  have  erected,  as  so 
many  breathing  places,  several  little  chapels,  dedicated  to 
one  or  omer  of  their  samis.  who  are  always  invoked  on 
these  occasions ;  and,  after  some  small  oblation,  are  en- 
gaged to  lend  their  assistance.  The  summit  of  Mount 
Sinai  is  somewhat  conical,  and  not  very  spacious,  where 
the  Mohammedans,  as  well  as  the  Christians,  have  a  small 
chapel  for  public  worship.  Here  we  were  shown  the  place 
where  Moses  fasted  forty  days ;  where  he  received  the  law  ; 
where  he  hid  himself  from  the  face  of  God ;  where  his 
hand  was  supported  by  Aaron  and  Hur,  at  the  battle  with 
Amalek.  After  we  had  descended,  with  no  small  difficul- 
ty, down  the  western  side  of  this  mountain,  we  came  into 
the  other  plain  formed  by  it,  which  is  Rephidim. — Shaw. 

The  Arabs  call  Jebbel  Musa,  the  mount  of  Moses,  all  that 
range  of  mountains  at  the  exterior  extremity  of  the  valley 
of  Paran  ;  and  to  that  part  of  the  range  on  which  the  con- 
vent of  St.  Catharine  stands,  they  give  the  name  of  Tur 
Sina.  This  similarity  of  name,  owing  most  probably  to 
tradition,  affords  ground  for  presuming,  that  the  hill  which 
we  had  now  reached  was  the  Sinai  of  the  Jews,  on  which 
Moses  received  the  law.  It  is,  indeed,  not  easy  to  compre- 
hend how  such  a  multitude  of  people  as  the  Jews,  who  ac- 
companied Moses  out  of  Egypt,  could  encamp  in  those 
narrow  gullies,  amid  frightful  and  precipitous  rocks. 
But,  perhaps,  there  are  plains  on  the  other  side  of  the  moun- 
tain, that  we  know  not  of.  Two  German  miles  and  a  half 
up  the  mountain  stands  the  convent  of  St.  Catharine.  The 
body  of  this  monastery  is  a  building  one  hundred  and  twen- 
ty feet  in  length,  and  almost  as  many  in  breadth.  Before 
it  stands  another  small  building,  in  which  is  the  only  gate 
of  the  convent,  which  remains  always  shut,  except  when 
the  bishop  is  here.  At  other  times,  whatever  is  introduced 
within  the  convent,  whether  men  or  provisions,  is  drawn 
I'p  to  the  roof,  in  a  basket,  with  a  cord  and  a  pulley.  The 
whole  building  is  of  hewn  stone,  which,  in  such  a  desert. 


must  have  cost  prodigious  expense  and  pains.  Next  day 
our  scheichs  brought  me  an  Arab,  whom  they  qualified 
with  the  title  of  scheich  of  Mount  Sinai.  Under  the  con- 
duct of  this  newly-created  lord  of  Sinai,  with  our  scheichs, 
I  attempted  to  clamber  to  the  summit  of  that  mountain.  It 
is  so  steep,  that  Moses  cannot  have  ascended  on  the  side 
which  I  viewed.  The  Greeks  have  cut  a  flight  of  steps  up 
the  rock,  Pococke  reckons  three  thousand  of  these  steps 
to  the  top  of  the  mountain,  or,  rather,  bare-pointed  rocK, 
Five  hundred  steps  above  the  convent  we  found  a  charm- 
ing spring,  which,  by  a  little  pains,  might  be  improved  into 
a  very  agreeable  spot.  A  thousand  steps  higher,  a  chapel, 
dedicated  to  the  Blessed  Virgin;  and  five  hundred  above 
this,  two  other  chapels,  situated  in  a  plain,  which  travellers 
enter  by  two  small  gates  of  mason  work.  Upon  this  plain 
are  two  trees,  under  which,  at  high  festivals,  the  Arabs  are 
regaled  at  the  expense  of  the  Greeks.  My  Mohammedan 
guides,  imitating  the  practice  which  they  had  seen  the  pil- 
grims observe,  kissed  the  images,  and  repeated  their  pray- 
ers in  the  chapels.  They  would  accompany  me  no  farther, 
but  maintained  this  to  be  the  highest  accessible  peak  of  the 
mountain ;  whereas,  according  to  Pococke,  I  had  yet  a 
thousand  steps  to  ascend.  I  was,  therefore,  obliged  to  re- 
turn, and  content  myself  with  viewing  the  hill  of  St.  Catha- 
rine at  a  distance. — Niebuhr. 

After  reposing  in  the  convent  and  its  delightful  garden, 
the  first  duty  of  a  pilgrim  is,  to  climb  the  summit  of  tlie 
Djebel  Mousa,  or  mountain  of  Moses,  the  road  to  which  be- 
gins to  ascend  immediately  behind  the  walls  of  the  convent. 
Regular  steps  (it  is  said,  to  the  number  of  15,000)  have  been 
cut  all  the  way  up ;  but  they  are  now  either  entirely  de- 
stroyed, or  so  much  damaged  by  the  winter  torrents,  as*  to 
be  of  very  little  use.  They  are  ascribed  to  the  munificence 
of  the  Empress  Helena.  "  After  ascending  for  about  twen- 
ty-five minutes,"  says  Burckhardt,  "  we  breathed  a  short 
time  under  a  large  impending  rock,  close  by  which  is  a 
small  well  of  water,  as  cold  as  ice.  At  the  end  of  three 
quartej-s  of  an  hour's  steep  ascent,  we  came  to  a  small  plain, 
the  entrance  to  which  from  below  is  through  a  stone  gate- 
way, which  in  former  times  was  probably  closed  :  a  little 
beneath  it,  stands,  amid  the  rocks,  a  small  church  dedica- 
ted to  the  Virgin.  On  the  plain  is  a  larger  building  of  rude 
construction,  which  bears  the  name  of  the  convent  of  St. 
Elias:  it  was  lately  inhabited,  but  is  now  abandoned,  the 
monks  repairing  here  only  at  certain  times  of  the  year  to 
read  mass.  Pilgrims  usually  halt  on  this  spot,  where  a  tall 
cypress-tree  grows  by  the  side  of  a  stone  tank,  which  re- 
ceives the  winter  raiiis.  On  a  large  rock  in  the  plain  are  < 
several  Arabic  inscriptions,  engraved  by  pilgrims  three  or 
four  hundred  years  ago  ;  I  saw  one  also  in  the  Syriac  lan- 
guage. According  to  the  Koran  and  Moslem  traditions, 
it  was  in  this  part  of  the  mountain,  which  is  called  Djebel 
Oreb,  or  Horeb,  that  Moses  communicated  with  the  Lord. 
From  hence  a  still  steeper  ascent  of  half  an  hour,  the  steps 
of  which  are  also  in  ruins,  leads  to  the  summit  of  Djebel 
Mousa,  where  stands  the  church  which  forms  the  principal 
object  of  the  pilgrimage  :  it  is  built  on  the  very  peak  of 
the  mountain,  the  plane  of  which  is  at  most  sixty  paces  in 
circumference.  The  church,  though  strongly  built  with 
granite,  is  now  greatly  dilapidated  by  the  unremitted  at- 
tempts of  the  Arabs  to  destroy  it ;  the  door,  roof,  and  wal!i 
are  greatly  injured. 

Some  ruins  round  the  church  indicate  that  a  much  larger 
and  more  solid  building  once  stood  here ;  and  the  rock  ap- 
pears to  have  been  cut  perpendicularly  with  great  labour,  to 
prevent  any  other  approach  to  it  than  by  the  southern  side 
The  view  from  this  summit  must  be  very  grand,  but  i 
thick  fog  prevented  me  from  seeing  even  the  nearest  moun- 
tains.   About  thirty  paces  from  the  church,  on  a  some 
what  lower  peak,  stands  a  poor  mosque,  without  any  orn? 
ments,  held  in  great  veneration  by  the  Moslems,  and  thi 
place  of  their  pilgrimage.     It  is  frequently  visited  by  th^ 
Bedouins,  who  slaughter  sheep  in  honour  of  Moses,  anfl 
who  make  vows  to  him,  and  entreat  his  intercession  ill 
heaven  in  their  favour.  There  is  a  feast-day  on  which  the' 
Bedouins  come  hither  in  a  mass,  and  offer  their  sacrifices, 
I  was  told  that  formerly  they  never  approached  the  place 
without  being  dressed  iii  the  Ihram,  or  sacred  mantle,  with 
which  the  Moslems  cover  their  naked  bodies  on  visilini^ 
Mecca,  and  which  then  consisted  only  of  a  napkin  tie^l 
round  the  middle  ;  but  this  custom  has  been  abandoned  for  | 
the  last  forty  years.  Foreign  Moslem  pilgrims  often  repaiir '' 


i 


Chap.  19—21. 


EXODUS. 


63 


.  to  the  spot ;  and  even  Mohammed  Ali  Pasha,  and  his  son 
'  Tousoun  Pasha,  gave  notice  that  ihey  intended  to  visit  it, 
!  but  they  did  not  keep  their  promise.  Close  by  the  loolpath, 
in  the  ascent  from  St.  Elias  to  this  summit,  and  at  a  small 
distance  from  it,  a  place  is  shown  in  the  rock,  which  some- 
what resembles  the  print  of  the  forepart  of  the  foot;  it  is 
staled  to  have  been  made  by  Mohammed's  foot  when  he 
visited  the  mountain.  We  found  the  adjacent  part  of  the 
rock  sprinkled  with  blood,  in  consequence  of  an  accident 
which  happened  a  few  days  before  to  a  Turkish  lady  of 
rank,  who  was  on  her  way  from  Cairo  to  Mecca,  with  her 
son,  and  who  had  resided  for  some  weeks  in  the  convent, 
duiia?  Avhich  she  had  made  the  tour  of  the  sacred  places, 
barefooted,  although  she  was  old  and  decrepit.  In  altempt- 
i!!g  to  kiss  the  mark  of  Mohammed's  foot,  she  fell,  and 
woanded  her  head,  but  not  so  severely  as  to  prevent  her 
from  pursuing  her  pilgrimage.  Somewhat  below  the 
I  mosque  is  a  fine  reservoir,  cut  very  deep  in  the  granite 
y  i-ock,  for  the  reception  of  rain-water. 
'  Mr.  Fazakerley  says,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  scene 
more  desolate  and  terrific  then  that  which  is  discovered 
fi  om  the  summit  of  Sinai.  A  haze  limited  the  prospect, 
land,  except  a  glimpse  of  the  sea  in  one  direction,  nothing 
fjwas  within  sight  but  snow,  and  huge  peaks  and  crags  of 
naked  granite.  Sir  F.  Henniker  describes  it  as  a  "  sea  of 
desolation."  "  It  would  seem,"  he  says,  "  as  if  Arabia  Pe- 
liLva  had  once  been  an  ocean  of  lava,  and  that  while  its 
waves  were  running  literally  mountains  high,  it  was  com- 
manded suddenly  to  stand  still."  He  did  not  ascend  the 
Djchel  Katerin ;  but  the  former  traveller  did,  and  speaks 
of  it  in  the  following  terms :  "  The  view  from  hence  is  of 
tlie  same  kind,  only  much  more  extensive  than  from  the 
toj)  of  Sinai:  it  commands  the  two  seas  (gulfs)  of  Akaba 
ami  Suez  ;  the  island  of  Tiraan  and  the  village  of  Tor  were 
l^oiuted  out  to  us:  Sinai  was  far  below  us;  clouds  prevent- 
lmI  our  seeing  the  high  ground  near  Suez:  all  the  rest, 
wiierever  the  eye  could  reach,  was  a  vast  wilderness,  and 
.1  confusion  of  granite  mountains  and  valleys  destitute  of 
verdure."  Burckhardt  thus  describes  the  country  as  seen 
from  this  fame  summit:  "  From  this  elevated  peak,  a  very 
extensive  view  opened  before  us,  and  the  direction  of  the 
ui ill-rent  surrounding  chains  of  mountains  could  be  dis- 
tinctly traced.  The  upper  nucleus  of  the  Sinai,  composed 
r.Luost  entirely  of  granite,  forms  a  rocky  wilderness  of  an 
i '  ri^gular  circular  shape,  intersected  by  many  narrow  val- 
Icvs,  and  from  thirty  to  forty  miles  in  diameter.  It  con- 
tains the  highest  mountains  of  the  peninsula,  whose  shag- 
C^v  and  pointed  peaks,  and  steep  and  shattered  sides,  ren- 
der it,  clearly  distinguishable  from  all  the  rest  of  the  coun- 
w  V  in  view.  It  is  upon  this  highest  region  of  the  peninsu- 
la, that  the  fertile  valleys  are  found,  which  produce  fruit- 
trees  :  they  are  principally  to  the  west  and  southwest  of  the 
f-iinvenr,  at  three  or  four  hours' distance.  Water,  too,  is 
<t'.  ways  found  in  plenty  in  this  district,  on  which  account  it 
is  the  place  of  refuge  of  all  the  Bedouins,  when  the  low 
country  is  parched  up."-MoDERN  Traveller. 

Ver.  1 3.  There  shall  not  a  hand  touch  it,  but  he 
shall  surely  be  stoned,  or  shot  through. 

"To  be  stoned  to  death  was  a  most  grievous  and  terrible 
infliction.  When  the  offender  came  within  four  cubits  of 
t!ie  place  of  execution,  he  was  stripped  naked,  only  leaving 
a  covering  before,  and  his  hands  being  bound,  he  M^as  led  up 
to  the  fatal  place,  which  was  an  eminence  twice  a  man's 
liin2:ht.  The  first  executioners  of  the  sentence  were  the 
A\iuiesses,  who  generally  pulled  off"  their  clothes  for  the 
purpose:  one  of  them  threw  him  down  with  great  violence 
upon  his  loins :  if  he  rolled  upon  his  breast,  he  was  turned 
upon  his  loins  again,  and  if  he  died  by  the  fall  there  was 
an  end  ;  but  if  not,  the  other  witness  took  a  great  stone, 
and  dashed  upon  his  breast,  as  he  lay  upon  his  back;  and 
then,  if  he  was  not  despatched,  all  the  people  that  stood  by 
threw  stones  at  him  till  he  died," — Lewis's  Origines 
HcbrcccB. 

Chap.  20.  ver.  5.  Thou  shalt  not  bow  dowTi  thy- 
self to  them,  nor  serve  them :  for  I  the  Lord 
thy  God  am  a  jealous  God,  visiting  the  iniquity 
of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third 
and  fourth  generation  of  them  that  hate  me. 


It  is  universally  believed  that  children  suffer  fur  the 
iniquities  of  their  ancestors,  through  many  geneiations. 
"  I  wonder  why  Tamban's  son  was  born  a  cripple  T'— "  You 
wonder !  why,'  that  is  a  strange  thing ;  have  you  not  heard 
what  a  vile  man  his  grandfather  was  1"  "  Have  you  heard 
that  Valen  has  had  a  son,  and  that  he  is  born  blind  T' — "  I 
did  not  hear  of  it,  but  this  is  another  proof  of  the  sins  of  a 
former  birth."  "  What  a  wdcked  wretch  that  Venasi  is  ! 
alas  for  his  posterity,  great  will  be  their  sufferings."  "  Evil 
one,  why  are  you  going  on  in  this  way  ;  have  you  no  pity 
for  your  seed  1"  "  Alas !  alas !  I  am  now  suffering  for  the 
sins  of  my  fathers."  When  men  enjoy  many  blessings,  it 
is  common  to  say  of  them,  "  Yes,  yes,  they  are  enjoying 
the  good  deeds  of  their  fathers."  "  The  prosperity  .i  my 
house  arises  from  the  virtues  of  my  forefathers."  In  the 
Scanda  Purana  it  is  recorded,  "  The  soul  is  subject  to 
births,  deaths,  and  sufferings.  It  may  be  born  on  the  earth, 
or  in  the  sea.  It  may  also  appear  in  ether,  fire,  or  air. 
Souls  may  be  born  as  men,  as  beasts  or  birds,  as  grass  oi 
trees,  as  mountains  or  gods."  By  these  we  are  reminded 
of  the  question,  "  Who  did  sin,  this  man  or  his  parents, 
that  he  was  born  blind  1"  "Jesus  answered.  Neither  hath 
this  man  sinned,  nor  his  parents." — Roberts. 

Ver.  18.  And  all  the  people  saw  the  thunderings, 
and  the  lightnings,  and  the  noise  of  the  trum- 
pet, and  the  mountain  smoking :  and  when  the 
people  saw  it,  they  removed  and  stood  afar  off 

Large  splinters  of  wood,  either  of  a  resinous  nature  m 
themselves,  or  perhaps  prepared  in  some  cases  by  art,  are 
made  use  of  in  the  Levant  instead  of  flambeaux  ;  and  if 
they  are  in  use  in  these  times,  in  which  great  improve- 
ments have  been  made  in  all  the  arts  of  life,  it  is  natural  to 
suppose  they  were  in  use  anciently,  particularly  among 
the  peasants,  shepherds,  and  travellers  of  the  lower  class. 
Dr.  Richard  Chandler  found  lighted  brands  made  use  of 
in  Asia  Minor,  by  some  villagers,  instead  of  torches,  and 
he  refers  to  Virgil,  representing  the  Roman  peasants  as 
preparing,  in  his  days,  the  same  sort  of  flambeaux,  in 
winter  time,  for  their  use.  If  they  still  continue  in  use  in 
the  East,  there  is  reason  to  believe  they  were  used  an- 
ciently, and  indeed,  it  seems  to  be  a  torch  of  this  kind,  that 
is  meant  by  the  Hebrew  word  -\^th  lappced,  which  our 
translators  sometimes  render  firebrand,  sometimes  lamp, 
thus  confounding  things  that  are  very  distinct,  and  which 
are  expressed  by  different  words.  I  would  remark  further, 
that  as  this  word  is  made  use  of,  Exod.  xx.  18,  and  a  very 
diflTerent  word  is  used  to  express  lightning  in  the  Hebrew, 
it  is  unfortunate  that  our  version  should  render  it  lightning 
there,  when  it  is  to  be  imderstood,  I  apprehend,  of  the 
flaming  of  the  trees  on  Mount  Sinai,  on  that  memorable 
occasion,  whole  trees  flaming  around  the  Divine  presence, 
bearing  some  resemblance  to  the  torches  made  of  splinters 
of  wood,  which  were  made  use  of  on  less  august  occasions : 
"  All  the  people  saw  the  thunderings,  and  the  trees  flaming 
like  so  many  torches,  and  the  noise  of  the  trumpet,  and  the 
mountain  smoking;  and  when  the  people  saw  it,  they  rt^- 
moved  and  stood  afar  off'."  Lightning  is  understood  "here 
without  doubt,  and  that  the  trees  were  set  on  fire  by  the 
lightning  will  hardly  be  contested;  on  the  other  hand,  if 
the  w^ord  directly  meant  lightning,  still  it  is  evidently  sup- 
posed the  trees  and  shrubs  were  fired  by  it;  from  whence 
else  would  have  come  the  smoked  But  as  the  word  signi- 
fies torches,  not  flashes  of  lightning,  it  should  not  have 
been  translated  here  lightning,  differently  from  w^hat  it 
properly  signifies.  Agreeable  to  this  account  is  the  descrip- 
tion given  us,  Exod.  xix.  18,  "  And  Mount  Sinai  was  alto- 
gether on  a  smoke,  because  the  Lord  descended  upon  it  in 
fire :  and  the  smoke  thereof  ascended  as  the  smoke  of  a 
furnace,  and  the  whole  mount  quaked  greatly." — Harmer. 

Chap.  21.  ver.  10.  If  he  take  him  another  wife  : 
her  food,  her  raiment,  and  her  duty  of  marriage, 
shall  he  not  diminish. 

Though  flesh  meat  is  not  wont  to  be  eaten  by  these  nations 
so  frequently  as  with  us  in  the  West,  or  in  such  quantities, 
yet  people  of  rank,  who  often  have  it  in  their  repasts,  are 
ibnd  of  it,  and  even  those  in  lower  life,  when  it  can  be  pro- 
cured. Our  translation  then  does  not  express  the  spirit  of 
the  Mosaic  precept,  relating  to  the  superindu^ng  a  second 


64 


EXODUS. 


Chap.  22l 


:i 


wife  in  the  lifetime  of  the  first,  Exod.  xxi.  10.  "  Her  food, 
her  raiment,  and  her  duty  of  marriage,  shall  he  not  dimin- 
ish ;  in  the  original  it  is,  herfiesh^  her  raiment,  &c.  meaning 
thai  he  should  not  only  afford  her  a  sufficient  quantity  of 
food  as  before,  but  of  the  same  quality,  The  feeding  "her 
With  bread,  with  herbs,  with  milk,  &c.  in  quantities  not 
only  sufficient  to  maintain  life,  but  as  much  as  numbers  of 
poor  people  contented  themselves  with,  would  not  do,  if  he 
took  away  the  Jlcsh,  and  others  of  the  more  agreeable  arti- 
cles of  food  he  had  before  been  wont  to  allow  her. — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  20.  And  if  a  man  smite  his  servant,  or  his 
maid,  with  a  rod,  and  he  die  under  his  hand ; 
he  shall  surely  be  punished.  21.  Notwith- 
standing, if  he  continue  a  day  or  two,  he  shall 
not  be  punished :  for  he  is  his  money. 

The  people  of  Israel,  like  all  the  nations  of  antiquity, 
had  the  power  of  life  and  death  over  their  slaves;  for  sla- 
very proceeded  from  the  right  of  conquest,  when  the  vic- 
tors, instead  of  putting  their  enemies  to  death,  chose  rather 
to  give  them  their  lives,  that  they  might  have  the  benefit  of 
their  services.  Hence  it  was  supposed  that  the  conqueror 
always  reserved  the  power  of  taking  away  their  lives,  if 
they  committed  any  thing  worthy  of  death  ;  and  that  he  ac- 
quired the  same  power  over  their  children,  because  they 
had  never  been  born,  if  he  had  not  spared  the  father,  and 
transmitted  it  when  he  alienated  his  slave.  Such  is  the 
foundation  of  the  absolute  power  claimed  by  the  Orientals 
over  the  unhappy  persons  whom  they  detained  in  slavery. 
It  must  be  granted,  that  such  reasons  never  can  justify  the 
exorbitant  power  of  a  slaveholder,  or  even  his  right  to 
deprive  his  fellow-creature  of  his  liberty,  who  has  been 
guilty  of  no  adequate  crime.  The  claims  of  Israel  rested 
upon  different  grounds,  the  positive  grant  of  Jehovah  him- 
self, who  certainly  has  a  right  to  dispose  of  his  creatures 
as  he  pleases.  But  among  that  people,  the  power  of  the 
master  was  limited  by  laws,  which  secured  the  safety  and 
comfort  of  the  slave,  perhaps  as  much  as  that  condition 
could  possibly  admit.  Though  the  Israelitish  master  had 
the  power  of  life  and  death,  it  has  been  alleged  by  some  wri- 
ters, that  he  seldom  abused  it ;  for  his  interest  obliged  him 
to  preserve  his  slave,  who  made  a  part  of  his  riches.  This 
is  the  reason  of  the  law.  That  he  should  not  be  punished 
who  had  smitten  a  servant,  if  he  continued  alive  a  day  or 
two  after.  He  is  his  money,  says  the  lawgiver,  to  show 
that  the  loss  of  his  property  was  deemed  a  sufficient  punish- 
ment ;  and  it  may  be  presumed,  in  this  case,  that  the  mas- 
ter only  intended  his  correction.  But  if  the  slave  died  un- 
der the  strokes,  it  was  to  be  supposed  the  master  had  a  real 
design  to  kill  him,  for  which  the  law  commanded  him  to 
be  punished.  But  considerations  of  interest  are  too  feeble  a 
barrier  to  resist  the  impulse  of  passions,  inflamed  by  the 
consciousness  and  exercise  of  absolute  power  over  a  fellow- 
mortal.  The  wise  and  benevolent  restraints  imposed  upon 
a  master  of  slaves,  by  the  law  of  Moses,  clearly  prove  that 
he  very  often  abused  his  power,  or  was  in  extreme  danger 
of  doing  so  ;  for  laws  are  not  made  for  the  good,  but  for  the 
evil-doer. — Paxton. 

Chap.  22.  ver.  5.  If  a  man  shall  cause  a  field  or 
vineyard  to  be  eaten,  and  shall  put  in  his  beast, 
and  shall  feed  in  another  man's  field ;  of  the 
best  of  his  own  field,  and  of  the  best  of  his 
own  vineyard,  shall  he  make  restitution. 


Bee  on  Gen.  49.  11. 

Chandler  observes,  (Travels  in  Asia  Minor,)  that  the 
tame  cattle  were  very  fond  of  vine  leaves,  and  were  per- 
mitted to  eat  them  in  the  autumn.  "  We  remarked,"  he 
says,  '*  about  Smyrna,  the  leaves  were  decayed,  or  stripped 
by  the  camels  and  herds  of  goats,  which  are  admitted  to 
browse  after  the  vintage."  If  those  animals  are  so  fond  of 
vine  leaves,  it  is  no  wonder  that  Moses,  by  an  express  law, 
forbad  a  man's  causing  another  man^s  vtneyard  to  be  eaten 
hi  putting  in  his  beast.  The  turning  any  of*  them  in  before 
the  fruit"  was  gathered,  must  have  occasioned  much  mis- 
chief-, and  even  afler  it  must  have  been  an  injury,  as  it 
would  ha\{g  been  eating  up  another's  feed. — Harmer. 


Ver.  6.  If  fire  break  out,  and  catch  in  thorns,  so 
that  the  stacks  of  corn,  or  the  standing  corn,  or 
the  field,  be  consumed  therewith;  he  that 
kindleth  the  fire  shall  surely  make  restitution. 

It  is  a  common  management  in  the  East,  to  set  the  dry 
herbage  on  fire  before  the  autumnal  rains,  which^fires,  for 
want  of  care,  often  do  great  damage.  Moses  has  taken 
notice  of  fires  of  this  kind,  and  by  an  express  law  has  pro- 
vided, that  reparation  shall  be  made  for  the  damage  done 
by  those  who  either  maliciously  or  negligently  occasioned  it. 
Chandler,  speaking  of  the  neighbourhood  of  Smyrna,  says, 
"  In  the  latter  end  of  July,  clouds  began  to  appear  from  the 
south ;  the  air  was  repeatedly  cooled  by  showers  which  had 
fallen  elsewhere,  and  it  was  easy  to  foretell  the  approach- 
ing rain.  IViis  was  the  season  for  conswuing  the  dry  herbage 
and  iindergrovjth  on  the  mountains :  and  we  often  saw  the 
fire  blazing  in  the  wind,  and  spreading  a  thick  smoke 
along  their  sides."  He  also  relates  an  incident  to  which 
he  was  an  eyewitness.  Having  been  employed  the  latter 
end  of  August,  in  taking  a  plan  at  Troas,  one  day  after 
dinner,  says  he,  a  Turk  coming  to  us,  "  emptied  the  ashes, 
from  his  pipe,  and  a  spark  of  fire  fell  unobserved  in  the 
grass,  which  was  long,  parched  by  the  sun,  and  inflamma- 
ble like  tinder.  A  brisk  wind  soon  kindled  a  blaze,  which 
withered  in  an  instant  the  leaves  of  the  bushes  and  trees  in 
its  way,  seized  the  branches  and  roots,  and  devoured  all 
before  it  with  prodigious  crackling  and  noise.  We  were 
much  alarmed,  as  a  general  conflagration  of  the  country 
seemed  likely  to  ensue."  After  exerting  themselves  for 
an  hour,  they  at  length  extinguished  it.  It  is  an  im- 
propriety worth  correcting  in  this  passage,  where  the  word 
stacks  of  corn  is  used  rather  than  shocks,  v/hich  is  more  con- 
formable to  custom,  as  the  heaps  of  the  East  are  only  the 
disposing  of  corn  into  a  proper  form  to  be  immediately 
trodden  out.  The  stacking  of  corn,  in  our  agricultural  lan- 
guage means,  the  collecting  corn  in  the  straw  into  heaps, 
larger  or  smaller  as  it  happens,  designed  to  continue  for 
some  considerable  space  of  time.  They  are  not  wont  to . 
stack  corn,  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  in  those  countries.- 
The  term  shock,  by  which  the  word  a'">nj  gadeesh  is  translated! 
in  two  other  places,  is  less  exceptionable,  but  not  perfectly' 
expressive  of  the  original  idea.  We  put  together,  or  heap 
up  our  corn,  not  fully  ripe,  in  parcels  which  are  called 
shocks,  that  it  may  more  perfectly  ripen  after  being  cut, 
but  the  original  word  trni  gadeesh,  means  a  heap  of  corn, 
fully  ripe,  see  Job  v.  26;  means,  in  a  word,  the  heaps  of  the 
eastern  threshing-floors,  ready  to  be  trodden  out. — Harmer. 

Ver.  26.  If  thou  at  all  take  thy  neighbour's  rai- 1 
ment  to  pledge,  thou  shalt  deliver  it  unto  him  I 
by  that  the  sun  goeth  down :  27.  For  that  is  ' 
his  covering  only ;  it  is  his  raiment  for  his  skin : 
wherein  shall  he  sleep?  and  it  shall  come  to 
pass,  w^hen  he  crieth  unto  me,  that  I  will  hear : ; 
for  I  am  gracious.  ? 

The  clothes  which  the  Orientals  wear  by  day,  serve  them^ 
as  bed-clothes  for  the  night.  Does  a  man  wish  to  retire  to3 
rest,  he  needs  not  to  trouble  himself  about  the  curtains,  he| 
requires  not  the  bed-steps,  he  does  not  examine  whether| 
his  bolsters  or  pillows  are  in  order,  he  is  not  very  particu-| 
lar  about  the  adjustment  of  his  sheets  and  counterpane;  hei 
throws  a  mat  on  the  floor,  places  his  little  travelling  bag  or' 
turban  for  a  pillow,  takes  off  his  cloth,  (which  is  general]/.: 
about  nine  yards  long,)  puts  one  end  under  him;  then' 
covers  his  feet,  and  folds  the  rest  round  his  body,  leaving' 
the  upper  end  to  cover  his  face.  Thus  may  be  seen  coolie*' 
in  the  morning,  stretched  side  by  side,  having,  during 
the  night,  defied  all  the  stings  of  their  foes,  the  moschetoes. 
— Roberts. 

The  upper  garment  of  the  Israelites  was  a  large  square 
cloth  which  folded  round  the  whole  body,  and  served  the 
poor  as  a  bed-covering  during  the  night.  Less  altera- 
tion than  could  have  been  expected  has  taken  place  in 
the  d^'-ess  of  the  eastern  people.  This  garment  was  still 
found  by  Shaw  in  the  eighteenth  century,  among  the  Be- 
douin Arabs  in  the  north  of  Africa,  under  the  Arabiajl 
name  of  Hyke,  i.  e.  texture,  covering.  In  fair  weathet 
this  cloth  is  therefore  mostly  worn  on  the  shoulders,  a» 


Chap.  23—24. 


EXODUS. 


Niebuhr  observes  in  his  Description  of  Arabia.  "  It  will 
not,  perhaps,  be  imagined,"  says  he,  "  that  the  above-men- 
tioned little  clothing  constitutes  the  whole  bedding  of  a 
common  Arab.  He  spreads  out  his  great  girdle,  and  so  he 
has  a  bed  to  lie  down  upon  :  with  the  cloth  which  he  wears 
on  his  shoulders,  he  covers  his  whole  body  and  face,  and 
sleeps  naked  between  these  two  cloths,  quite  happy  and 
contented." — Rosenmuller. 

In  all  parts  of  Southern  Africa,  the  skin  cloak  is  the 
covering  of  males  and  females  by  day,  and  that  in  which 
they  sleep  by  night :  they  have  no  other  bed-clothes.  The 
Hottentot  cloak  is  composed  of  sheep  skins,  retaining  the 
wool  on  the  inside  of  it,  in  which  he  sleq)s  comfortably 
under  a  bush  or  tree  wherever  he  goes.  Deprive  him  of 
that  covering,  and  he  would  find  himself  most  uncomfort- 
ably placed.  It  would  be  a  cruel  act.  The  nations  farther 
in  the  interior,  have  cloaks  made  from  hides  of  oxen  or 
cows,  which  they  have  a  method  of  rendering  soft  and 
pliable,  and  use  exactly  for  the  same  purposes  as  the  others, 
viz.  for  clothing  and  for  sleeping  in.  The  Israelites  sleep- 
ing in  the  wilderness  in  this  simple  manner,  would  be 
always  ready  to  remove  when  the  trumpet  intimated  the 
moving  of  the  pillar  of  fire ;  like  the  dogs,  when  they  shook 
themselves,  they  might  be  said  to  be  dressed  and  ready  to 
march.  The  God  who  gave  such  a  humane,  considerate 
law  to  the  Israelites,  might  well  be  called  a  gracious  God, 
—African  Light. 

Chap.  23.  ver.  4.  If  thou  meet  thine  enemy's  ox 
or  his  ass  going  astray,  thou  shalt  surely  bring 
it  back  to  him  again. 

Among  the  Hindoos,  malice  often  finds  its  victim  in  a 
dumb  animal.  If  the  wretch  cannot  revenge  himself  on 
the  man,  he  will  on  his  beast.  The  miscreant  watches  till 
the  cattle  go  astray,  or  the  owner  shall  be  out  of  the  way, 
when  he  pounces  upon  the  innocent  ox  or  cow,  and  cuts  off 
the  tail.  Hence  may  be  seen,  in  every  village,  cattle  which 
thus  proclaim  the  diabolical  passions  of  man. — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  Three  times  in  the  year  all  thy  males 
shall  appear  before  the  Lord  God. 

To  those  that  may  wonder  how  Jerusalem  could  receive 
such  multitudes,  as  were  obliged  by  the  Jewish  law  to  at- 
tend there  three  times  a-year,  and  as  we  know  did  some- 
times actually  appear  in  it,  I  would  recite  the  account  that 
Pitts  gives  of  Mecca,  the  sacted  city  of  the  Mohammedans, 
and  the  number  he  found  collected  together  there,  for  the 
celebration  of  their  religious  solemnities,  in  the  close  of  the 
17th  century.  This  city,  he  tells  us,  he  thought  he  might 
safely  say,  had  not  one  thousand  families  in  it  of  constant 
inhabitants,  and  the  buildings  very  mean  and  ordinaiy. 
That  four  caravans  arrive  there  every  year,  with  great 
numbers  of  people  in  each,  and  the  Mohammedans  say, 
there  meet  not  fewer  than  seventy  thousand  souls  at  these 
solemnities ;  and  that  though  he  could  not  think  the  num- 
ber quite  so  large,  yet  that  it  is  very  great.  How  such 
numbers  of  people,  with  their  beasts,  could  be  lodged  and 
entertained  in  such  a  little  town  as  Mecca,  is  a  question  he 
thus  answers.  "  As  for  house-room,  the  inhabitants  do 
straiten  themselves  very  much,  in  order  at  this  time  to 
make  their  market.  As  for  such  as  come  last,  after  the 
town  is  filled,  they  pitch  their  tents  without  the  town,  and 
there  abide  until  they  remove  towards  home.  As  for  pro- 
vision, they  all  bring  sufficient  with  them,  except  it  be  of 
flesh,  which  they  may  have  at  Mecca ;  but  all  other  provi- 
sions, as  butter,  honey,  oil,  olives,  rice,  biscuit,  &c.  they 
bring  with  them,  as  much  as  will  last  through  the  wilder- 
ness, forward  and  backward,  as  well  as  the  time  they  stay 
at  Mecca ;  and  so  for  their  camels  they  bring  store  of  prov- 
ender, &c.  with  them."  The  number  of  Jews  that  assem- 
bled at  Jerusalem  at  their  passover  was  much  greater :  but 
had  not  Jerusalem  been  a  much  larger  city  than  Mecca  is, 
as  in  truth  it  was,  yet  the  present  Mohammedan  practice 
of  abiding  imder  tents,  and  carrying  their  provisions  and 
bedding  with  them,  will  easily  explain  how  they  might  be 
accommodated. — Burder, 

Ver.  19.  Thou  shalt  not  seethe  a  kid  in  his 
mother's  milk. 

The  Jewish  legislator  three  times  forbids  his  people  to 
9 


"  seethe  a  kid  in  his  mother's  milk."  The  meaning  of  this 
law  has  been  greatly  disputed,  although  the  terms  in  which 
it  is  couched,  are  sufficiently  clear  and  precise.  It  is  the 
opinion  of  some  writers,  that  the  prohibition  refers  to  a  kid 
in  the  womb  of  its  mother,  which  in  that  state  is  nourished 
only  with  milk ;  but  the  opinion  of  Clemens,  that  the  people 
of  Israel  had  been  in  the  practice  of  eating  the  foetus  of  a 
goat,  which  this  precept  was  intended  to  prohibit,  is  sup- 
ported by  no  proof.  The  disgusting  custom  of  eating  the 
foetus  of  a  sow,  is  indeed  mentioned  by  Plutarch ;  but  we 
have  no  proof  that  it  was  known  to  epicures  in  the  times  of 
Moses.  Other  expositors  imagine,  that  the  Jews  were  by 
this  precept  forbidden  to  takeaway  the  life  of  a  kid,  before 
it  was  eight  days  old,  when,  according  to  them,  it  may  sub- 
sist without  the  aid  of  its  mother's  milk.  This  exposition 
is  supposed  to  be  confirmed  by  another  precept :  "  When  a 
bullock,  or  a  sheep,  or  a  goat  is  brought  forth,  then  it  shall 
be  seven  days  under  the  dam ;  and  from  the  eighth  day, 
and  thenceforth,  it  shall  be  accepted  for  an  offering  made 
by  fire  unto  the  Lord."  But  si^ce  the  law,  which  prohibited 
the  people  of  Israel  to  offer  in  sacrifice,  "  the  young  of  the 
herd,  or  of  the  flock,"  before  the  eighth  day,  is  immediately 
subjoined  to  the  precept  concerning  the  oblation  of  the  first 
ripe  fruits,  and  the  first-born,  in  the  twenty-second  chapter 
of  Exodus  ;  so,  in  the  twenty-third  and  thirty-fourth  chap- 
ters, the  law  which  forbids  to  seethe  a  kid  in  his  mother's 
milk,  follows  the  same  precept ;  and  by  consequence,  not 
only  the  sacred,  but  also  the  common  use  of  the  kid,  is  pro- 
hibited before  the  eighth  day.  Such  is  the  opinion,  and 
the  reasoning  by  which  it  is  supported ;  but  it  must  be  evi- 
dent to  every  reader,  that  a  kid  is  as  much  in  his  mother's 
milk  all  the  time  he  is  suckled,  as  during  the  first  eight 
days ;  nor  can  any  reason  be  imagined,  why  he  may  not 
be  said  to  be  in  his  mother's  milk  on  the  seventh  day  from 
his  birth,  rather  than  on  the  eighth  or  the  ninth.  Others 
are  of  opinion,  that,  according  to  this  precept,  a  sucking 
kid  was  at  no  time  to  be  slain,  either  for  sacred  or  common 
use.  The  she-goat  suckles  her  young  about  three  months ; 
and  till  this  period,  it  was  not  to  be  subjected  to  the  sacri- 
ficing knife.  But  it  is  very  improbable,  that  the  Jews  were 
forbidden  the  use  of  a  kid  for  so  long  a  time ;  for  that  which 
the  law  permits  to  be  offered  in  sacrifice  to  God,  may  surely 
be  eaten  by  his  people.  Nor  was  any  species  of  food  pro- 
hibited by  the  law,  out  for  ceremonial  impurity.  But  that 
cannot  be  reckoned  legally  unclean,  which  the  law  permits 
to  be  offered  in  sacrifice  at  the  altar.  He  permitted  a  suck- 
ing kid  or  lamb,  to  be  offered  on  the  eighth  day ;  a  sure 
proof  they  were  not  reckoned  unclean,  while  they  remained 
under  the  dam.  The  prophet  Samuel  offered  a  sucking 
lamb  as  a  burnt-offering  to  the  Lord  on  a  day  of  public 
humiliation ;  and  God  condescended  to  give  them  a  strong 
proof  of  his  acceptance,  in  utterly  discomfiting  their  ene- 
mies, by  a  furious  tempest  of  thunder  and  lightning.  If, 
therefore,  a  sucking  kid  might  be  offered  in  sacrifice  to 
God,  it  might  be  used  as  food  by  his  people.  Nor  is  their 
opinion  more  tenable,  who  say,  that  by  this  law  the  dam 
and  her  suckling  were  not  to  be  slain  at  the  same  time. 
To  cherish  kind  and  humane  feelings  among  the  chosen 
seed,  Jehovah  forbade  them  to  kill  a  cow,  a  sheep,  or  a 
goat,  on  the  same  day  with  their  young ;  but  the  precept 
under  consideration  cannot  naturally  bear  such  a  meaning. 
Had  this  been  the  design  of  Moses,  why  did  he  not  say  in 
plain  terms.  Thou  shalt  not  seethe  a  kid  and  his  mother  at 
the  same  time  1  He  must,  therefore,  have  meant  what  the 
words  naturally  suggest,  that  a  kid  is  not  to  be  seethed  in 
the  milk  of  his  mother.  The  barbarous  custom  to  which 
the  lawgiver  alludes,  probably  existed  in  some  neighbour- 
ing countries,  and  particularly  in  Egypt,  from  whose  iron 
yoke  they  had  just  been  delivered ;  either  because  the  flesh 
dressed  in  this  manner  was  more  tender  and  juicy,  than 
when  roasted  with  fire,  or  boiled  in  water ;  or,  which  is 
more  probable,  while  at  the  feast  of  ingathering,  they  gave 
thanks  to  God  for  the  mercies  they  had  received,  and  ex- 
pressed their  dependance  upon  him  for  future  blessings, 
they  were  not  to  expect  his  favour  by  imitating  the  super- 
stitious rites  of  the  heathens,  among  whom  they  had  lived 
so  long,  who  at  the  end  of  their  harvest  seethed  a  kid  in 
his  mother's  milk,  and  sprinkled  the  broth  in  a  magical 
way  upon  their  gardens  and  fields,  to  render  them  more 
fruitful  next  season. — Paxton. 

Chap.  24.  ver.  28.  And  I  will  send  hornets  be- 


66 


EXODUS. 


Chap.  24—25. 


fore  thee,  which  shall  drive  out  the  Hivite,  the 
Canaanite,  and  the  Hiltite,  from  before  thee. 

Another  insect  which  Heaven  has  sometimes  employed 
to  avenge  the  quarrel  of  his  covenant,  is  the  hornet ;  which 
is  a  larger  species  of  wasp.  The  irascible  temper  and  poi- 
sonmis  sting  of  the  wasp,  are  too  well  known  to  require  de- 
scription ;  they  have  been  mentioned  by  the  natural  histo- 
rians, and  celebrated  by  the  poets  of  every  age  and  coun- 
try. In  three  parallel  places  of  scripture,  the  sacred  wri- 
ter mentions  the  hornet  which  Jehovah  sent  before  his 
people,  to  expel  the  Canaanites  from  their  habitations : 
"  And  I  will  send  hornets  before  thee,  which  shall  drive 
out  the  Hivite,  the  Canaanite,  and  the  Hittite  from  before 
thee."  This  promise  was  afterward  renewed  a  short  time 
before  that  people  passed  the  Jordan :  "  Moreover,  the 
Lord  thy  God  will  send  the  hornet  among  them,  till  they 
that  are  left,  and  hide  themselves  from  thee,  be  destroyed." 
Both  these  promises,  we  learn  from  Joshua,  were  punctu- 
ally fulfilled  :  "  And  I  sent  t^e  hornet  before  you,  which 
drave  them  out  from  Defore  you,  even  the  two  kings  of  the 
Amorites,  but  not  with  thy  sword,  nor  with  thy  bow."  At 
what  particular  time  during  the  wars  of  Joshua,  the  Lord, 
in  fulfilment  of  his  promise,  sent  the  hornet  against  the  in- 
habitants of  Canaan,  and  what  impression  its  attack  made 
upon  the  enemies  of  Israel,  we  are  nowhere  informed  in 
scripture.  On  this  account,  several  writers  of  great  emi- 
nence consider  the  words  of  Moses  as  a  metaphor,  denoting 
the  terror  of  the  Lord,  or  some  remarkable  disease  which 
he  commissioned  to  lay  waste  the  country  before  the  armies 
of  Israel.  But  neither  the  words  of  Moses  nor  Joshua,  be- 
tray the  smallest  indication  of  metaphor :  and  in  a  plain 
narration,  we  are  never,  without  the  most  obvious  neces- 
sity, to  depart  from  the  literal  sense.  The  inspired  histo- 
rian could  not  mean  the  terror  of  the  Lord,  as  Augustine 
is  inclined  to  suppose ;  for  he  had  mentioned  this  in  the 
verse  immediately  preceding :  "  I  will  send  my  fear  before 
thee,  and  will  destroy  all  the  people  to  whom  thou  shalt 
come,  and  I  will  make  all  thine  enemies  turn  their  backs 
unto  thee."  Upon  which  it  is  added,  "  And  I  will  send 
hornets  before  thee."  Nor  could  any  particular  disease  be 
intended ;  for  no  disease  was  ever  called  by  this  name. 
Junius  gives  a  different  version :  I  will  send  before  thee 
fear  or  disease  as  a  hornet ;  but  the  comparative  particle 
as,  is  not  in  the  text,  and  must  not  be  supplied  by  the  ca- 
price of  translators.  The  words  of  Joshua  are  express, 
without  either  metaphor  or  comparison :  "  I  have  sent  the 
hornet  before  you."  It  is  no  valid  objection  to  the  literal 
sense,  that  the  circumstances  of  time  and  place  are  not 
mentioned  by  the  sacred  writer,  for  this  is  by  no  means  an 
unusual  omission  in  the  rapid  narrative  of  an  inspired  his- 
torian. To  mention  but  one  example :  the  patriarch  Ja- 
cob gave  to  his  son  Joseph  a  portion  of  land,  which  he  took 
from  the  Amorite  by  force  of  arms ;  but  when  or  in  what 
place  this  battle  was  fought,  we  are  not  informed.  The 
hornet,  it  is  probable,  marched  before  the  armies  of  Israel, 
till  the  five  nations  that  had  been  doomed  for  their  numer- 
ous and  long-continued  crimes  to  destruction,  were  sub- 
dued ;  which  rendered  such  a  circumstantial  detail  unne- 
cessary and  improper.  But  who  can  believe,  say  they, 
that  the  hornets  of  Canaan  were  so  vexatious  to  the  inhab- 
itants, that  they  were  forced  to  abandon  their  dwellings, 
and  seek  for  other  habitations  1  The  testimony  of  an  in- 
spired writer  ought  to  silence  all  such  objections ;  but,  in 
reality,  the  same  thing  has  not  unfrequently  happened  in  the 
liistory  of  the  world.  Both  Athenoeus  and  Eustatheus  in- 
tbrm  us,  that  the  people  about  Paeonia  and  Dardania  were 
compelled  by  frogs  to  forsake  their  native  country,  and  fix 
their  abode  in  a  distant  region.  If  Pliny  may  be  credited, 
the  ancient  city  of  Troy  was  forced  to  open  her  gates,  after 
a  war  often  years,  not  so  much  by  the  victorious  arms  of 
the  Greeks,  as  by  an  innumerable  host  of  mice,  which 
compelled  the  Trojans  to  desert  their  houses,  and  retire  to 
the  neighbouring  mountains ;  and  in  Italy,  whole  nations 
were  driven  from  their  possession  by  the  same  destructive 
creature,  which  in  immense  mimbers  ov^erran  their  fields, 
devoured  every  green  thing,  and,  grubbing  up  the  roots, 
converted  some  of  the  fairest  regions  of  that  country  into 
an  mhospitable  waste.  The  Myusians,  according  to  Pau- 
Fanias,  were  forced,  by  swarms  of  gnats,  to  desert  their 
f'itv;  and  the  Scythians  beyond  the  Ister,  are  recorded  to 
liave  been  expelled  from  their  country  by  countless  my- 


riads ( ;  bees.  But,  since  the  wasp  is  more  vexatious  than 
the  bee,  its  sting  more  severe,  and  its  hostility  more  viru- 
lent— it  is  by  no  means  incredible,  that  many  of  the  Ca- 
naanites were  fo.-ced,  by  so  formidable  an  enemy,  to  re- 
move beyond  the  reach  of  their  attack. — Paxton. 

Chap.  25.  ver.  5.  And  rams'  skins  died  red,  and 
badgers'  skins,  and  shittim-wood. 

To  enter  into  the  history  of  this  animal  is  unnecessary, 
as  it  is  mentioned  in  scripture  only  on  account  of  its  skin. 
This  part  of  the  animal  seems  to  have  been  in  great  re- 
quest among  the  people  of  Israel,  for  it  is  mentioned  among 
the  valuable  articles  which  they  were  permitted  to  offer  for 
the  tabernacle :  "  Rams'  skins  died  red,  and  badgers'  skins." 
These  last  formed  the  exterior  covering  of  that  splendid 
structure,  and  of  all  the  sacred  utensils,  which  the  Levites 
were  commanded  to  spread  over  them  during  their  march. 
Of  these  also  the  shoes  of  the  mystical  bride  were  formed, 
when,  according  to  the  representation  of  the  prophet,  she 
was  richly  adorned  for  the  marriage.  Jehovah  had  chosen 
Israel  to  be  his  peculiar  people,  and  had  bestowed  upon 
them  innumerable  favours,  but  they  had  become  ungrate- 
ful and  perfidious,  like  a  woman  who  proves  inconstant 
and  unfaithful  to  her  husband,  who  had  raised  her  from 
the  meanest  condition,  to  the  greatest  affluence  and  splen- 
dour :  "  Thou  becamest  mine.  Then  I  washed  thee  with 
water ;  yes,  I  thoroughly  washed  away  thy  blood  from  thee, 
and  I  anointed  thee  with  oil.  I  clothed  thee  also  with 
broidered  work,  and  shod  thee  with  badgers'  skin  ;  and  I 
girded  thee  about  with  fine  linen,  and  I  covered  thee  with 
silk."  In  this  passage,  badgers'  skin  is  mentioned  as  a 
very  precious  and  splendid  substance,  such  as  might  be 
made  into  shoes  for  ladies  of  the  highest  rank,  and  worn 
on  their  marriage  day;  while,  in  the  book  of  Exodus,  it  is 
represented  as  very  coarse  and  homely,  fit  only  to  be  made 
a  covering  for  the  tabernacle,  and  its  furniture,  during  the 
journeys  of  the  tribes.  These  very  different  representa- 
tions cannot  easily  be  reconciled,  and  involve  the  subject 
in  doubt  and  uncertainty.  And  indeed  the  original  word 
(tynn)  tahash,  which  our  translators  render  badgers'  skins, 
is  of  very  uncertain  meaning.  It  is  evident  from  scripture, 
that  it  was  a  kind  of  skin  which,  being  capable  of  resisting 
rain,  was  manufactured  by  the  people  of  Israel  into  cover- 
ings for  the  tabernacle  and  its  furniture,  and  into  shoes 
for  persons  of  the  highest  rank  in  the  state.  But  the  inspir- 
ed writers  furnish  no  details  from  which  it  can  be  inferred, 
to  what  animal  it  originally  belonged ;  it  is  even  extremely 
doubtful,  whether  the  word  rendered  badger,  denotes  an 
animal  at  all.  The  Seventy  interpreters  considered  it 
merely  as  the  name  of  a  colour,  and  uniformly  translate  it 
hyacinth,  or  hyacinthine.  In  this  opinion,  they  were  fol- 
lowed by  all  the  ancient  translators  of  the  scripture,  with- 
out one  exception  ;  and  the  same  idea  has  been  adopted  by 
the  learned  Bochart,  and  other  eminent  moderns.  The 
reasons  on  which  their  interpretation  is  founded,  seem  to 
be  quite  conclusive.  In  the  first  place,  no  evidence  can  be 
found  that  the  badger  ever  existed  in  Palestine,  Arabia,  or 
Egypt.  Dr.  Shaw  made  particular  inquiry,  but  could  hear 
of  no  such  animal  in  Barbary.  Harmer  was  unable  to 
discover  in  modern  travellers,  the  smallest  traces  of  the 
badger  in  Egypt,  or  in  any  of  the  adjacent  countries ;  Buf- 
fon  represents  it  as  unknown  in  that  part  of  Asia.  So  little 
was  the  badger  known  to  the  ancients,  that  the  Greeks  had 
not  a  word  in  their  language  by  which  to  express  it ;  and 
the  Latin  term  which  is  supposed  to  denote  this  animal, 
is  extremely  doubtful.  But  if  the  badger  is  not  a  native 
of  the  East,  if  it  is  not  to  be  found  m  those  countries,  from 
whence  could  the  people  of  Israel  in  the  wilderness,  pro- 
cure its  skin  to  cover  the  tabernacle  1  It  is  an  animal  of 
small  size,  and  is  nowhere  found  in  great  numbers  ;  and, 
by  consequence,  its  skin  could  not,  in  remote  times,  more 
than  at  present,  constitute  an  article  of  commerce  in  the 
ports  of  Egypt,  and  come  at  last  into  the  possession  of  that 
people.  The  exterior  covering  of  the  tabernacle,  and  its 
bulky  utensils,  must  have  required  a  greater  number  of 
skins  than  could  be  procured  even  in  the  native  country 
of  the  badger;  and  therefore,  it  must  have  been  formed  of 
leather,  fabricated  from  the  skin  of  some  other  animal, 
which  not  only  existed,  but  also  abounded  in  Egypt,  and 
the  adjacent  countries.  The  coarseness  of  the  leather, 
fabricated  of  badgers'  skin,  which  in  the  East  is  reluctantly 


Chap.  26. 


EXODUS. 


67 


employed  for  the  meanest  purposes  of  life,  forbids  us  to 
consider  it  as  the  material  of  which  the  elegant  1ft oes  of 
an  oriental  lady  are  formed.  When  the  prophet  says  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord,  "  I  clothed  thee  also  with  broidered 
work,  and  shod  thee  with  badgers'  skin,  and  I  girded  thee 
about  with  fine  linen,  and  I  covered  thee  with  silk,"  he 
certainly  meant,  that  the  shoes,  corresponding  to  the  other 
parts  of  the  dress,  were  formed  of  costly  materials.  The 
Targum  accoriingly  translates  the  passage,  "  I  put  pre- 
cious shoes  upon  tny  feet ;"  but  this  could  be  said  with  no 
propriety  of  shoes  made  of  badgers'  skins.  Nor  can  it  be 
supposed,  that  the  skin  of  an  animal,  which  the  law  of 
Moses  pronounces  unclean,  strictly  enjoins  the  people  of 
Israel  not  to  touch,  or  if  they  did  happen  to  touch  it,  not  to 
worship  at  the  tabernacle,  till  the  ceremonial  pollution  which 
they  accidentally  contracted  was  removed  according  to  the 
precept, — would  be  employed  to  cover  that  sacred  struc- 
ture, and  its  consecrated  utensils,  and  that  the  Levites 
should  be  obliged  c  ften  to  handle  it  in  performing  the  du- 
ties of  their  office.  The  sacred  implements  of  Jewish  wor- 
ship, certainly  were  defended  from  the  injuries  of  the  wea- 
ther by  the  skins  of  clean  beasts,  which  were  easily  pro- 
cured, and  that  in  sufficient  numbers,  even  in  the  wilder- 
ness. This  idea,  so  conformable  to  the  spotless  purity  re- 
quired in  the  ceremonial  law,  has  been  adopted  and  main- 
tained by  all  the  earlier  Jewish  writers,  whose  authority 
in  matters  of  this  kind  is  entitled  to  great  respect.  Many 
disputes  indeed  have  been  agitated  among  them,  in  relation 
to  the  particular  animal  employed ;  but  none  of  them  be- 
fore the  time  of  Jarchi,  who  flourished  about  the  middle  of 
the  eleventh  century,  supposed  that  it  was  the  skin  of  the 
badger.  These  considerations  leave  no  room  for  doubt 
in  the  mind  of  the  writer,  that  the  original  term  denotes 
neither  the  badger,  nor  any  other  animal,  but  merely  a 
colour.  What  particular  colour  is  meant,  it  may  not  be 
easy  to  ascertain ;  but  when  it  is  considered,  that  the  peo- 
ple of  rank  and  fashion  in  the  East,  were  accustomed  to 
appear  in  purple  shoes,  it  is  extremely  probable,  that  pur- 
ple was  the  colour  intended  by  the  sacred  writer.  The 
Chaldee  Paraphrast  accordingly,  expounds  the  words  of 
the  Song,  "  How  beautiful  are  thy  feet  with  shoes,"  how 
beautiful  are  the  feet  of  Israel,  when  they  go  up  to  appear 
three  times  before  the  Lord  in  purple  sandals  !  The  Ro- 
man emperors,  and  the  kings  of  Persia,  reserved  by  a  for- 
mal edict,  shoes  of  a  purple  colour  for  their  own  use  ;  and 
it  is  said,  red  shoes  were  among  the  insignia  of  the  an- 
cient kingdom  of  Bulgaria.  Hence,  Isaac  Comnenus,  the 
Roman  emperor,  deprived  the  patriarch  of  Constantinople 
of  his  dignity,  because  he  presumed  to  put  on  shoes  of  a 
crimson  colour,  although  these  were  formerly  worn  at 
Rome  by  persons  of  the  senatorial  order. — Paxton. 

Ver.  10.  And  they  shall  make  an  ark  o/shittim- 
wood :  two  cubits  and  a  half  shall  be  the  length 
thereof  and  a  cubit  and  a  half  the  breadth 
thereof,  and  a  cubit  and  a  half  the  height 
thereof. 

Concerning  the  shitta  tree,  mentioned  by  the  prophet 
Isaiah  with  the  cedar  and  the  myrtle,  different  opinions  are 
entertained  by  commentators.  The  name  is  derived  from 
the  Hebrew  verb  Shata,  to  decline  or  turn  to  and  fro^  hav- 
ing for  the  plural  Shittim.  It  is  remarkable  for  being  the 
wood  of  which  the  sacred  vessels  of  the  tabernacle  were 
made.     The  Seventy  interpreters  generally  render  it  by 

'  the  term  a<TriT:ia,  incorruptible.  Theodotion,  and  after  him 
the  Vulgate,  translate  it  by  Spina,  a  thorn.  The  shittim- 
wood,  says  Jerome,  resembles  the  white  thorn  in  its  colour 
and  leaves,  but  not  in  its  size ;  for  the  tree  is  so  large,  that 
it  affijrds  very  long  planks.    Hasselquist  also  says  it  grows 

I  in  Upper  Egypt,  to  the  size  of  a  large  tree.  The  wood  is 
hard,  tough,  smooth,  without  knots,  and  extremely  beauti- 

■  ful.  This  kind  of  wood  grows  only  in  the  deserts  of  Ara- 
bia ;  but  in  no  other  part  of  the  Roman  empire.  In  another 
place  he  remarks,  it  is  of  an  admirable  beauty,  solidity, 
strength,  and  smoothness.  It  is  thought  he  means  the 
black  acacia,  the  only  tree  found  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia. 
This  plant  is  so  hard  and  solid,  as  to  become  almost  incor- 
ruptible. Its  wood  has  the  colour  of  the  Lotus  tree  ;  and 
60  large,  that  it  furnishes  plank  twelve  cubits  long.  It  is 
very  thorny,  and  even  its  bark  is  covered  with  very  sharp 


thorns ;  and  hence  it  perhaps  had  the  Hebrew  name  Shatn 
from  making  animals  decline  or  turn  aside  by  the  shar}>. 
ness  of  its  spines.  The  interpretation  now  given,  seems 
to  be  confirmed  by  the  following  remark  of  Dr.  Shaw ; 
"  The  acacia  being  by  much  the  largest  and  the  most  com- 
mon tree  of  these  deserts,  we  have  some  reason  to  conjec- 
ture, that  the  shittim-wood,  of  which  the  several  utensils  of 
the  tabernacle  were  made,  was  the  wood  of  the  acacia. 
This  tree  abounds  with  flowers  of  a  globular  figure,  and  of 
an  excellent  smell ;  which  is  another  proof  of  its  being  the 
shitta  tree  of  the  scriptures,  which,  in  the  prophecies  of 
Isaiah,  is  joined  with  the  myrtle  and  other  sweet-smelling 
plants."  Besides,  we  have  no  reason  to  conclude,  that  the 
people  of  Israel  possessed  any  species  of  wood  for  making 
the  utensils  of  the  tabernacle,  but  what  they  could  procure 
in  the  desert;  but  the  desert  produces  none' in  the  quantity 
required,  except  the  acacia.  In  one  place  they  found  seven- 
ty-two palm-trees:  but  the  sacred  writer  distinguishes  them 
by  their  vulgar  name ;  therefore  they  could  not  be  the  same 
tree ;  nor  is  the  palm,  which  is  a  soft  spongy  wood,  at  ail 
fit  for  the  purpose, — for  the  nature  of  the  utensils,  as  the 
ark  of  the  testimony  and  the  mercy-seat,  required  wood  ol 
a  fibre  the  hardest,  the  most  beautiful  and  durable  which 
could  be  found,  had  it  been  in  their  power  to  make  a  choice ; 
and  these  are  the  very  characters  of  the  acacia.  To  these 
important  qualities  may  be  added,  the  fragrant  odour  emit- 
ted by  this  wood,  which  to  Orientals  who  delight  in  rich 
perfumes,  must  have  been  a  powerful  recommendation. 
But  if  the  acacia  was  perfectly  suited  to  the  purpose  of  Mo- 
ses, and  if  the  desert  produces  no  other,  as  Dr.  Shaw  de- 
clares, the  shittim-wood  mentioned  in  the  scriptures  must 
be  the  acacia  of  the  natural  historian. — Paxton. 

Chap.  26.  ver.  1.  Moreover,  thou  shalt  make  the 
tabernacle  with  ten  curtains  of  fine  twined  linen, 
and  blue,  and  purple,  and  scarlet :  ivith  cher- 
ubims  of  cunning  work  shalt  thou  make  them. 

It  seems  that  the  tabernacle,  as  it  was  ordered  in  the  plan 
given,  might  be  called  a  tent  or  a  house,  because  it  had 
wooden  walls  or  partitions  like  a  house,  and  curtains  and 
hangings  like  a  lent ;  but  as  it  externally  resembled  a  tent, 
and  that  a  common  oblong  tent,  such  as  those  of  the  Arabs, 
for  the  most  part,  now  are,  and  the  wooden  walls  were 
without  a  roof,  and  properly  only  supports  for  the  many 
curtains  and  hangings  which  spread  over  them,  it  is  better 
and  more  properly  called  a  tent.  Even  the  ordinary  tent*; 
of  the  wandering  tribes  of  the  East  have  at  least  two  main 
divisions ;  the  innermost  or  hindmost  is  for  the  women  ; 
and,  among  the  Orientals,  it  is  in  this  sense  sacred,  i.  e. 
parted  oflf,  inaccessible.  The  first  space  is  divided  from 
the  innermost  only  by  a  curtain,  and  is  for  the  men  ;  what 
is  found  in  the  tents  of  the  common  people  is  found  also, 
but  far  more  rich  and  splendid,  in  the  tents  of  the  men  of 
rank.  The  tent  of  an  emir  or  prince  has  more  conveniences ; 
the  inrfermost  space  is  only  accessible  to  himself,  or  to  those 
whom  he  especially  honours  :  into  the  first  space,  or  outer 
tent,  others  may  come.  The  furniture  is  costly,  the  floor 
is  covered  with  a  rich  carpet,  and  a  stand,  with  the  censer 
and  coals,  on  which  incense  is  strewed.  Here  we  have  the 
simple  idea  after  which  this  royal  tent,  this  abode  of  God, 
who  was  at  the  same  time  king  of  the  Hebrew  people,  was 
made.  It  was  not  to  be  a  house  or  a  palace,  but  a  tent,  and 
that  with  all  the  magnificence  which  the  skill  of  the  He- 
brews in  architecture  could  erect.  The  boards  for  the 
standing  walls  were  covered  with  plates  of  gold;  twenty 
boards,  which  served  as  pillars  to  the  supporters,  standing 
upright,  joined  together,  each  three  feet  broad  and  twenty 
high,  made  on  each  side  the  length,  and  eight  the  breadth, 
so  that  eight-and-forty  such  boards,  twenty  in  the  length  on 
each  side,  and  eight  for  the  breadth  of  the  back  wall,  (for 
the  front  side  had  only  a  curtain,)  resting  upon  two  silver 
sockets,  formed  the  partition.  This  oblong  quadrangle  was 
separated  into  two  parts  or  divisions ;  the  innermost,  or  the 
most  holy  ;  and  the  front,  or  the  holy.  The  innermost  was 
properly  the  dwelling  of  the  Lord,  the  front  one  was  more 
for  his  service.  The  inner  division  was  very  considerable, 
sixty  feet  long,  twenty  feet  broad,  and  twenty  high  ;  and, 
as  over  this  extensive  frame-work  several  covers  were 
spread,  which  hung  down  on  three  sides,  (that  is,  all  round 
except  at  the  entrance,)  this  also  gave  the  tent  a  greatei 
appearance,  so  that  it  was  undoubtedly  distinguished  b} 


68 


EXODUS. 


Chap.  26—29. 


its  size.  In  the  coverings  of  the  tents,  the  Orientals,  who 
are  fond  of  magnificence,  regard  both  the  stuff  and  the 
colour :  this  royal  tent  was  to  be  distinguished  in  both  par- 
ticulars. The  curtain,  which  lay  immediately  under  the 
beams,  was  the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  costly.  On  the 
finest  linen  stuff  were  embroidered  cherubims  of  the  most 
beautiful  colours,  dark  blue,  purple,  and  scarlet.  Thus 
the  tents  of  eastern  princes,  even  in  our  days,  are  distin- 
guished by  most  beautiful  colours.  Olearius,  accompany- 
ing the  ambassadors  of  Holstein  Gottorf,  who  were  invited 
by  the  Persian  monarch  to  a  hunting  party,  found  in  an  Ar- 
menian village  many  tents,  ready  for  the  reception  of  the 
company,  which  afforded  a  pleasing  sight  on  account  of 
their  manifold  colours.  Over  the  under  curtain  a  cover- 
ing of  goats'  hair  was  spread,  which  is  the  usual  covering 
of  the  Arabian  tents,  commonly  coarse,  but  here  of  the 
finest  texture ;  and,  that  these  coverings  might  not  be  in- 
jured by  the  sand  or  dust,  two  others,  made  of  skins,  were 
laid  over  them.  The  portable  temple  of  the  Israelites  had, 
indeed,  in  its  whole  arrangement,  a  resemblance  with  the 
temples  of  other  nations  of  antiquity.  As  they  had  spacious 
forecourts,  so  had  the  tabernacle  an  oblong  quadrangular 
forecourt,  two  hundred  feet  long,  and  one  hundred  broad, 
which  was  formed  by  the  hangings  or  curtains  which  hung 
on  pillars.  The  tabernacle  itself  was  divided  into  two 
parts,  the  holy  and  the  most  holy ;  in  the  latter  was  the  ark 
of  the  covenant,  with  the  symbols  of  the  divine  qualities, 
the  cherubims;  and  no  human  being  dared  to  enter  this 
especially  sanctified  place,  except  the  high-priest,  once  a 
year,  (oii  the  feast  of  reconciliation.)  Thus,  also,  in  many 
Grecian  temples,  the  back  part  was  not  to  be  entered  by 
anybody.  (Lackemacher's  Antiq.  Grsecor.  Sacr.)  This 
]iart,  where,  in  the  heathen  temples,  the  statue  of  the  deity 
was  placed,  was  generally  towards  the  west,  and  the  en- 
trance towards  the  east.  (Spencer  de  Leg.  Hebrgeor.  Ritual.) 
In  the  same  manner  the  entrance  of  the  tabernacle  was 
towards  the  east,  and,  consequently,  the  most  holy  place 
to  the  west.  In  the  most  holy,  a  solemn  darkness  reigned, 
as  in  most  of  the  ancient  temples.  A  richly-worked  cur- 
tain divided  the  most  holy  from  the  holy,  and  thus,  in  the 
Egyptian  temples,  the  back  part,  where  the  sacred  animal 
to  which  the  temple  was  dedicated,  was  kept,  was  divided 
from  the  front  part  by  a  curtain  embroidered  with  gold. — 

ROSENMULLER. 

Ver.  36.  And  thou  shalt  make  a  hanging  for  the 
door  of  the  tent,  of  blue,  and  purple,  and  scar- 
let, and  fine  twined  linen,  wrought  w^ith  needle- 
work. 

We  passed  Lahar,  close  to  a  small  valley,  where  we 
found  several  snug  encampments  of  the  Eelauts,  at  one  of 
which  we  stopped  to  examine  the  tent  of  the  chief  of  the  o/!>aA, 
or  family.  It  was  composed  of  a  wooden  frame  of  circu- 
lar laths,  which  were  fixed  on  the  ground,  and  then  cover- 
ed over  with  large  felts,  that  were  fastened  down  by  a  cord, 
ornamented  by  tassels  of  various  colours.  A  curtain,  cu- 
riously worked  by  the  w^dmen,  with  coarse  needle-work  of 
various  colours,  was  suspended  over  the  door.  In  the  king 
of  Persia's  tents,  magnificent  perdahs,  or  hangings  of  nee- 
dle-work, are  suspended,  as  well  as  on  the  doors  of  the 
great  mosques  in  Turkey ;  and  these  circumstances  com- 
bined, will,  perhaps,  illustrate  Exodus  xxvi.  36. — Morier. 

Chap.  27.  ver.  20.  And  thou  shalt  command  the 
children  of  Israel,  that  they  bring  thee  pure 
oil-olive  beaten  for  the  light,  to  cause  the  lamp 
to  burn  always. 

By  the  expression  oil-olive,  this  oil  is  distinguished  from 
other  kinds.  The  addition  beaten,  indicates  that  it  is  that 
oil  obtained  from  olives  pounded  in  a  mortar,  and  not 
pressed  from  olives  in  the  oil-mill.  The  oil  obtained  from 
pounded  olives  is,  according  to  Columella's  observation, 
much  purer  and  better  tasted,  does  not  emit  much  smoke, 
and  has  no  offensive  smell. — Burder, 

Chap.  28.  ver.  33.  And  beneath,  upon  the  hem  of 
it,  thou  shalt  make  pomegranates  of  blue,  and 


of  purple,  and  o/ scarlet,  round  about  the  hem 
fnereof;  and  bells  of  gold  between  them  round 
about. 

The  bell  seems  to  have  been  a  sacred  utensil  of  very 
ancient  use  in  Asia.  Golden  bells  formed  a  part  of  the  orna- 
ments of  the  pontifical  robe  of  the  Jewish  high-priest,  with 
which  he  invested  himself  upon  those  grand  and  peculiar 
festivals,  when  he  entered  into  the  sanctuary.  That  robe  was 
very  magnificent,  it  was  ordained  to  be  of  sky-blue,  and  the 
border  of  it,  at  the  bottom,  was  adorned  with  pomegranates 
and  gold  bells  intermixed  equally,  and  at  equal  distances. 
The  use  and  intent  of  these  bells  is  evident  from  these 
words  :  "  And  it  shall  be  upon  Aaron  to  minister,  and  his 
sound  shall  be  heard  when  he  goeth  in  unto  the  holy  place 
before  the  Lord,  and  when  he  cometh  out,  that  he  die  not." 
The  sound  of  the  numerous  bells  that  covered  the  hem  ot 
his  garment,  gave  notice  to  the  assembled  people  that  the 
most  awful  ceremony  of  their  religion  had  commenced. 
When  arrayed  in  this  garb,  he  bore  into  the  sanctuary  the 
vessel  of  incense ;  it  was  the  signal  to  prostrate  themselves 
before  the  Deity,  and  to  commence  those  fervent  ejacula- 
tions which  were  to  ascend  with  the  column  of  that  incense 
to  the  throne  of  heaven.  "One  indispensable  ceremony 
in  the  Indian  Pooja  is  the  ringing  of  a  small  bell  by  the 
officiating  brahmin.  The  women  of  the  idol,  or  dancing 
girls  of  the  pagoda,  have  little  golden  bells  fastened  to  their 
feet,  the  soft  harmonious  tinkling  of  which  vibrates  in 
unison  with  the  exquisite  melody  of  their  voices."  (Mau- 
rice's Indian  Antiquities.)  "  The  ancient  kings  of  Persia, 
who,  in  fact,  united  in  their  own  persons  the  regal  and 
sacerdotal  office,  were  accustomed  to  have  the  fringes  of 
their  robes  adorned  with  pomegranates  and  golden  bells. 
The  Arabian  courtesans,  like  the  Indian  women,  have 
little  golden  bells  fastened  round  their  legs,  neck,  and 
elbows,  to  the  scund  of  which  they  dance  before  the  king. 
The  Arabian  princesses  wear  golden  rings  on  their  fingers, 
to  which  little  bells  are  suspended,  as  well  as  in  the  flowing 
tresses  of  their  hair,  that  their  superior  rank  may  be  known, 
and  they  themselves,  in  passing,  receive  the  homage  due  to 
their  exalted  station."-CALMET. 

Ver.  41.  And  thou  shaU  put  them  upon  Aaron 
thy  brother,  and  his  sons  with  him ;  and  shalt 
anoint  them,  and  consecrate  them,  and  sanctify 
them,  that  they  may  minister  unto  me  in  the 
priest's  office. 

The  Hebrew  has  for  "consecrate,"  "fill  their  hands." 
See  also  Judges  xvii.  5,  12,  and  1  Kings  xiii.  33,  and  many 
other  places  where  the  word  "  consecrate"  is  in  the  margir. 
rendered  ^'fill  the  hand''  Is  it  not  a  remarkable  fact  that 
the  word  Kai-Reppi,  which  signifies,  in  Tamul,  to  conse- 
crate a  priest,  also  means  io  fill  the  hand  ?  When  a  layman 
meets  a  priest,  he  puts  his  hands  together  as  an  act  of 
reverence,  and  the  priest  stretches  out  his  right  hand,  as  if 
full  of  something,  and  says,  "  Blessings."— Roberts. 

Chap.  29.  ver.  22.  Also  thou  shalt  take  of  the 
ram  the  fat  and  the  rump. 

Or  the  large  tail  of  one  species  of  the  eastern  sheep. 
Russell,  {Hist,  of  Aleppo,  p.  51,)  afler  observing  that  thev 
are  in  that  country  much  more  numerous  than  those  with 
smaller  tails,  adds,  "  this  tail  is  very  broad  and  large,  ter- 
minating in  a  small  appendix  that  turns  back  upon  it.  It 
is  of  a  substance  between  fat  and  marrow,  and  is  not  eaten 
separately,  but  mixed  with  the  lean  meat  in  many  of  their 
dishes,  and  also  often  used  instead  of  butter.  A  common 
sheep  of  this  sort,  without  the  head,  feet,  skin,  and  entrails 
weighs  about  twelve  or  fourteen  Aleppo  rotoloes,  of  which 
the  tail  is  usually  three  rotoloes  or  upwards  ;  but  suc'.v  as 
are  of  the  largest  breed,  and  have  been  fattened,  will  some- 
times weigh  above  thirty  rotoloes,  and  the  tail  of  these  ten. 
These  very  large  sheep,  being  about  Aleppo  kept  up  in 
yards,  are  in  no  danger  of  injuring  their  tails  :  but  in  some 
other  places,  where  they  feed  in  the  fields,  the  shepherds 
are  obliged  to  fix  a  piece  of  thin  board  to  the  under  part  of 
their  tail,  to  prevent  its  being  torn  by  bushes  and  thistles, 
as  it  is  not  covered  underneath  with  thick  wool  like  the 


Chap.  38. 


EXODUS. 


69 


upper  part.  Some  have  small  wheels  to  facilitate  the 
dragging  of  this  board  after  them."  A  rotoloe  of  Aleppo 
is  five  pounds.  With  this  agrees  the  account  given  by  the 
Abbe  Mariti,  {Travels  through  Cyprus.)  "The  mutton  is 
iuicy  and  tender.  The  tails  of  some  of  the  sheep,  which 
are  remarkably  fine,  weigh  upwards  of  fifty  pounds."  This 
ghows  us  the  reason  why,  in  the  levitical  sacrifices,  the  tail 
was  always  ordered  to  be  consumed  by  fire. — Burder. 

Ver,  24.  For  I  will  cast  out  the  nations  before 
thee,  and  enlarge  thy  borders:  neither  shall 
any  man  desire  thy  land,  when  thou  shalt  go 
up  to  appear  before  the  Lord  thy  God  thrice 
in  the  year. 

I  find  in  Exod.  xxxiv.  24,  a  very  remarkable  promise  of 
God,  which  could  hardly  have  been  fulfilled  in  the  common 
course  of  providence,  and  without  a  miracle,  unless  the 
Israelites  and  other  neighbours  had  in  their  wars  observed 
a  certain  law  of  truce,  quite  strange  to  us,  and  which  I 
only  know  from  the  customs  of  the  Arabs.  Moses  com- 
mands all  the  males  of  Israel  to  leave  their  homes  thrice 
a  year,  and  celebrate  a  festival  for  a  week  at  the  place 
where  the  tabernacle  should  be  erected;  assuring  them, 
withal,  that  during  this  period,  no  rtmn  should  desire  their 
land;  and  that,  therefore,  however  distant  their  abodes 
might  be  from  the  sanctuary,  they  might  undertake  this 
journey  with  perfect  safety.'  According  to  the  present 
course  of  things  in  the  world,  this  is  quite  incomprehensi- 
ble. Were  all  the  males  to  leave  certain  parts  of  the 
country,  and  still  more,  the  fortified  cities,  the  greatest  of 
all  wonders  would  be,  the  enemy  with  whom  the  nation 
happened  to  be  at  war,  refraining  from  seizing  the  oppor- 
tunity to  occupy  the  fortresses, — to  plunder  and  burn  the 
open  country,— and  to  forage  the  corn-fields.  And  it  is 
most  obvious,  that  the  danger  of  all  this  will  be  still 
greater  among  nations  who  do  not  maintain  settled  peace 
with  each  other ;  of  which  description  were  the  marauding 
Arabs:  or  who  carry  on  war  rather  by  incursions  than 
regular  campaigns,  and  have  no  other  object  than  to  make 
booty  in  money,  produce,  women,  and  children.  Shall  we 
then  venture  so  to  expound  the  words  of  Moses,  as  if  he 
had  promised  a  periodical  miracle  from  God,  which 
should,  for  three  weeks  every  year,  convert  all  the  enemies 
of  the  Israelites  into  statues  1  A  promise  so  incredible, 
will,  perhaps,  not  appear  to  be  necessary,  when,  to  illus- 
trate this  point,  we  call  in  the  aid  of  the  customs  of  the 
Arabs,  who  are  Abraham's  descendants,  and  the  immediate 
brethren  of  the  Israelites.  In  all  their  wars,  and  even 
amid  their  family  feuds,  during  the  holy  month,  in  which 
they  solemnized  the  festival  at  Mecca,  they  had  a  truce. 
Mohammed's  greatest  transgression  is,  that  he  is  said  to  have 
broken  this  truce.  Yet,  in  the  Koran,  he  has  commanded 
his  followers  to  keep  it  only  when  their  adversaries  keep  it ; 
and  he  permits  them  to  fight  against  the  enemy  during  the 
holy  month,  only  when  he  makes  the  first  attack.  Thus 
we  see,  in  like  manner,  from  1  Kings  xii.  27,  that  among 
the  Israelites,  during  the  high  festivals,  a  suspension  of 
arms  .took  place ;  and  the  ten  tribes  who  had  revolted  from 
the  family  of  David,  might,  without  hinderance,  have  kept 
the  feast  "at  Jerusalem,  and  would  have  done  so,  had  not 
Jeroboam,  for  political  reasons,  endeavoured  to  prevent 
them.  The  Judahites,  therefore,  did  not  put  any  obstacle 
in  their  way  ;  and  they  would  the7i  have  been  in  as  perfect 
security  at  Jerusalem,  as,  before  Mohammed's  time,  every 
Arab  during  the  holy  month  was  at  Mecca.  It  would  ap- 
pear, then,  that  the  nations  related  to  the  Israelites,  paid 
equal  respect  to  the  worship  of  God,  and  made  a  truce 
during  war,  whenever  the  people  celebrated  a  festival. 
But  probably  the  Canaanites  were,  both  in  religion  and 
manners,  so  difierent  from  the  Israelites,  that  they  did  not 
observe  any  such  truce  ;  for  Moses  expressly  says  on  this 


occasion,  that  God  would  destroy  the  Canaanites;  and 
then,  no  other  people  would  conceive  any  desire  to  attack 
the  land  of  Israel  during  the  seasons  of  the  festivals. 

Now  such  a  law  of  nations  once  introduced,  God  might 
fulfil  his  promise  in  the  common  course  of  providence,  and 
without  the  aid  of  a  miracle.  This  sacred  truce,  which  is, 
however,  quite  unsuitable  to  the  more  connected  operations 
of  modern  warfare,  was  likewise  probably  the  cause, 
wherefore  the  commandment  respecting  the  Sabbath  could 
be  given  without  any  particular  limitation.  For  on  that 
day,  all  labour  was  prohibited.  Moses  does  not,  indeed, 
expressly  specify  fighting,  marching,  intrenching ;  but 
neither  does  he  expressly  except  them.  Now  although,  in 
a  rational  consideration  "df  the  matter,  the  justice  of  these 
exceptions,  in  cases  of  necessity,  is  manifest ;  this  silence 
seems,  nevertheless,  to  be  a  defect  in  the  law ;  and  a  nation 
who  in  this  point  had  even  the  smallest  scruple  of  con- 
science, would  make  but  a  poor  figure  in  war.  We  see 
in  fact,  that  after  the  Babylonish  captivity,  when,  as  St 
Paul  says,  (Heb.  viii.  7—13,)  the  law  began  to  be  useless 
from  its  antiquity,  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath  became 
very  prejudicial  to  the  Jews  in  their  wars  with  the  Syrians 
and  Romans.  For  the  former  on  the  Sabbath  attacked 
them,  and  burnt  thousands  of  them  in  a  cave,  without  their 
making  any  resistance:  and  the  latter,  in  their  first  siege 
of  Jerusalem  under  Pompey,  carried  on  the  works  of  in- 
vestment undisturbed,  and  only  guarded  against  attempt- 
ing to  storm  the  city,  because  against  a  storm  the  Jews  de- 
fended themselves  even  on  the  Sabbath.  But  since,  before 
the  captivity,  we  never  find,  that  in  their  numerous  wars, 
the  Sabbath  had  been  detrimental  to  the  Jews,  or  that  any 
of  their  enemies  availed  himself  of  the  advantage  it  gave 
him ;  the  Israelites  must  either,  from  ancient  and  undoubt- 
ed usage,  have  known  that  the  commandment  concerning 
the  Sabbath  did  not  extend  to  the  operations  of  war;  or 
else,  betwixt  them  and  all  the  neighbouring  nations  there 
must  on  this  day  have  been  a  sacred  truce.  Among  the  latter, 
this  day,  which  the  Israelites  dedicated  to  the  Creator  of  the 
heavens  and  the  earth,  was  probably  sacred  to  Saturn,  to 
whom  the  Phoenicians  paid  the  highest  veneration;  be- 
cause, before  his  being  raised  to  divine  honours,  or  num- 
bered among  the  stars,  he  is  said  to  have  been  king  of  their 
country.  According  to  the  testimony  of  Diodorus  Siculus, 
they  accounted  him  the  chief  of  the  planets  ;  and  the  Ara- 
bians had,  in  like  manner,  dedicated  to  him  their  national 
temple,  the  Caaba  at  Mecca. — Michaelis. 

Chap.  38.  ver.  8.  And  he  made  the  laver  o/ brass 
and  the  foot  of  it  of  brass,  of  the  looking-glasses 
of  the  women  assembling,  which  assembled  at 
the  door  of  the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation. 

The  eastern  mirrors  were  made  o( polished  steel,  and  for 
the  most  part  convex.  If  they  were  thus  made  in  the 
country  of  Elihu,  the  image  made  use  of  by  him  will 
appear  very  lively.  "  Hast  thou  with  him  spread  out  the 
sky,  which  is  strong,  and  as  a  molten  looking-glass  T' 
(Job  xxxvii.  18.)  Shaw  informs  us,  that  "  in  the  Levant 
looking-glasses  are  a  part  of  female  dress.  The  Moorish 
women  in  Barbary  are  so  fond  of  their  ornaments,  and 
particularly  of  their  looking-glasses,  which  they  hang  upon 
their  breasts,  that  they  will  not  lay  them  aside,  even  when, 
after  the  drudgery  of  the  day,  they  are  obliged  to  go  two  or 
three  miles  with  a  pitcher,  or  a  goat's  skin,  to  fetch  water." 
The  Israelitish  women  used  to  carry  their  mirrors  with 
them,  even  to  their  most  solemn  place  of  worship.  The 
word  mirror  should  be  used  in  the  passages  here  referred 
to,  rather  than  those  which  are  inserted  in  the  present 
translation  of  the  Bible.  To  speak  of  looking  glasses  made 
of  steel,  and  glasses  molten,  is  palpably  absurd ;  whereas  the 
term  mirror  obviates  every  difficulty,  and  expresses  the 
true  meaning  of  the  original. — Burder. 


LEVITICUS. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  4.  And  if  thou  bring  an  oblation  of  a  meat- 
offering baken  in  the  oven,  it  shall  be  unleaven- 
ed cakes  of  fine  flour  mingled  with  oil,  or  un- 
leavened wafers  anointed  with  oil. 

What  attracted  our  attention  most  this  stormy  day,  was 
the  apparatus  for  warming  us.  It  was  the  species  of  oven 
called  tannoor,  common  throughout  Armenia  and  also  in 
Syria,  but  converted  here  for  purposes  of  warmth  into  what 
is  called  a  tandoor.  A  cylindrical  hole  is  simk  about  three 
feet  in  the  ground  in  some  part  of  the  room,  with  a  flue  en- 
tering it  at  the  bottom  to  convey  a  current  of  air  to  the  fire 
which  heats  it.  For  the  emission  of  smoke  no  other  pro- 
vision is  made  than  the  open  sky-light  in  the  terrace.  When 
used  for  baking  bread,  the  dough,  being  flattened  to  the 
thickness  of  common  pasteboard,  perhaps  a  foot  and  a  half 
long  by  a  foot  broad,  is  stuck  to  its  smooth  sides  by  means 
of  a  cushion,  upon  which  it  is  first  spread.  It  indicates,  by 
cleaving  off",  when  it  is  done,  and  being  then  packed  down 
in  the  family  chest,  it  lasts  at  least  a  month  in  the  winter, 
and  ten  days  in  the  summer.  Such  is  the  only  bread 
known  in  the  villages  of  Armenia ;  and  even  the  cities  of 
Erivan  and  Tebriz  offer  no  other  variety  than  a  species 
perhaps  only  twice  as  thick,  and  so  long  that  it  might  almost 
be  sold  by  the  yard.  To  bake  it,  the  bottom  of  a  large  oven 
is  covered  with  pebbles,  (except  one  corner,  where  a  fire  is 
kept  constantly  burning,)  and  upon  them  when  heated,  the 
sheets  of  dough  are  spread.  The  convenience  of  such  thin 
bread,  where  knives  and  forks  are  not  used,  and  spoons  are 
rare,  is,  that  a  piece  of  it  doubled  enables  you  to  take  hold 
of  a  mouthful  of  meat  more  delicately  than  with  your  bare 
fingers ;  or,  when  properly  folded,  helps  you  to  convey  a 
spoonful  safely  to  your  mouth,  to  be  eaten  with  the  spoon 
itself.  When  needed  for  purposes  of  warmth,  the  tannoor 
is  easily  transformed  into  a  tandoor.  A  round  stone  is  laid 
upon  the  mouth  of  the  oven,  when  well  heated,  to  stop  the 
draught ;  a  square  frame,  about  a  foot  in  height,  is  then 
placed  above  it;  and  a  thick  coverlet,  spread  over  the 
whole,  lies  upon  the  ground  around'it,  to  confine  the  warmth. 
Thjp  family  squat  upon  the  floor,  and  warm  themselves  by 
extending  their  legs  and  hands  into  the  heated  air  beneath 
it,  while  the  frame  holds,  as  occasion  requires,  their  lamp 
or  their  food.  Its  economy  is  evidently  great.  So  full  of 
crevices  are  the  houses,  that  an  open  fireplace  must  con- 
sume a  great  quantity  of  fuel,  and  then  almost  fail  of 
warming  even  the  air  in  its  immediate  vicinity.  The  tan- 
door heated  once,  or  at  the  most  twice  in  twenty-four  hours, 
by  a  small  quantity  of  fuel,  keeps  one  spot  continually 
warm  for  the  relief  of  all  numb  fingers  and  frozen  toes. 

The  house,  apparently  the  best  in  the  village,  was  built 
throughout,  floor,  walls,  and  terrace,  of  mud.  Fortunately, 
as  its  owner  had  two  wives,  it  had  two  rooms.  The  one 
assigned  us,  being  the  principal  family  apartment,  was  of 
course  filled  with  every  species  of  dirt,  vermin,  and  litter; 
and  withal,  as  they  were  in  the  midst  of  the  process  of  bak- 
ing, the  insufferable  smoke  of  the  dried  cow-dung  which 
heated  their  tannoor,  or  cylindrical  oven,  detained  us  a 
long  time  before  we  could  take  possession.  Persuaded  at 
last  by  impatience  that  the  bread  must  be  done,  I  entered, 
and  found  our  host  and  chief  muleteer  shaking  their  shirts 
in  the  oven,  to  dislodge  the  "crawling  creatures"  that  in- 
habited them.  Though  new  to  us  then,  we  afterward  found 
reason  to  believe  that  this  use  of  the  tannoor  is  common, 
and  for  it  alone  we  have  known  it  to  be  heated.  In  such 
ovens  was  our  bread  baked,  by  being  stuck  upon  their  sides, 
*ind  tnough  we  would  fain  have  quieted  our  fastidiousness 
by  imagining  that  they  were  purified  by  fire,  the  nature  of 
trie  fuel  of  which  that  was  almost  invariably  made,  left 
little  room  upon  which  to  found  such  a  conception.    And 


as  for  the  loathsome  company  of  which  our  host  and  mule- 
teer had  thus  attempted  to  rid  themselves,  we  found  them 
too  constantly  affecting  our  senses  to  think  of  imagining 
them  away;  for  the  traveller  can  hardly  journey  a  day 
here,  or  in  any  part  of  Turkey,  without  their  annoying 
him,  and  his  only  relief  is  in  a  constant  change  of  his  linen. 
The  apartment  was  finally  cleared  and  swept,  but  the  old 
man  could  give  us  neither  carpet  nor  mat,  and  our  own 
painted  canvass  and  travelling  carpets  were  all  that  cover- 
ed the  ground  on  which  we  sat  and  slept. — Smith  and 

DWIGHT. 

Mr.  Jackson,  in  his  Journey  over  land  from  India,  gives 
an  account  of  an  eastern  oven,  equally  instructive  and 
amusing,  as  it  confirms  the  statements  of  ancient  travellers, 
and  shows  the  surprising  expertness  of  the  Arabian  women 
in  baking  their  bread.  "  They  have  a  small  place  built 
with  clay,  between  two  and  three  feet  high,  having  a  hole 
at  the  bottom  for  the  convenience  of  drawing  out  the  ashes, 
something  similar  to  a  lime-kiln."  The  oven,  (which  he 
thinks  the  most  proper  name  for  this  place,)  is  usually 
about  fifteen  inches  wide  at  top,  and  gradually  widening 
to  the  bottom.  It  is  heated  with  wood;  and  when  suffi- 
ciently hot,  and  perfectly  clear  from  the  smoke,  having 
nothing  but  clear  embers  at  the  bottom,  which  continue  to 
reflect  great  heat,  they  prepare  the  dough  in  a  large  bowl, 
and  mould  the  cakes  to  the  desired  size  on  a  board,  or 
stone,  placed  near  the  oven.  After  they  have  kneaded  the 
cake  to  a  proper  consistence,  they  pat  it  a  little,  then  toss 
it  about  with  great  dexterity  in  one  hand,  till  it  is  as  thin 
as  they  choose  to  make  it.  They  then  wet  one  side  of  it 
with  water,  at  the  same  time  wetting  the  hand  and  arm 
with  which  they  put  it  into  the  oven.  The  side  of  the  cake 
adheres  fast  tothe  side  of  the  oven,  till  it  is  sufficiently 
baked,  when,  if  not  paid  proper  attention  to,  it  would 
fall  down  among  the  embers.  If  they  were  not  exceedingly 
quick  at  this  work,  the  heat  of  the  oven  would  burn  their 
arms ;  but  they  perform  it  with  such  an  amazing  dexterity, 
that  one  woman  will  continue  keeping  three  or  four  cakes 
in  the  oven  at  once,  till  she  has  done  baking.  This  mode, 
he  adds,  requires  not  half  the  fuel  that  is  consumed  in.Eu- 
rope. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  9.  And  the  meat-offering  that  is  baken  in 
the  oven,  and  all  that  is  dressed  in  the  frying- 
pan,  and  in  the  pan,  shall  be  the  priest's  that 
offereth  it. 

Our  translation  of  this  passage,  presents  a  confusioa 
more  easily  perceived  than  regulated  by  the  general  read- 
er : — "  And  all  the  meat-offering  that  is  baken  in  the  oven, 
and  all  that  is  dressed  in  the  f  ryingpan,  and  in  the  pan, 
shall  be  the  priest's  that  offers  it."  It  is  evident  that  here 
are  three  terms  used,  implying  three  different  manners  of 
dressing  food. — Do  we  understand  theml  The  term, 
"  meat-offering"  is  certainly  unfortunate  here,  as  it  raises 
the  idea  of  flesh-meat,  without  just  reason,  to  say  the  least, 
especially  as  it  stands  connected  with  baking  in  the  oven, 
nun.  Passing  this,  the  folloMang  sentence,  also,  as  it  stands 
connected,  expresses  a  meat-offering,  dressed  in  a  frying- 
pan,  nttrniD  ;  and  then  we  have  another  kind  of  meat-oflfer- 
ing,  dressed  in  the  pan,  nana.  Of  what  nature  is  this  pan  1 
To  answer  this  question,  we  must  dismiss  the  flesh-meat. 
Whether  the  following  extract  from  Denon  may  contribute 
assistance  on  this  subject,  is  submitted  with  great  defer- 
ence. It  is  his  explanation  of  his  plate  lxxxv.  "  The 
manner  of  making  macaroni,  in  Egypt. — The  manufactory, 
and  the  shop  for  selling  it,  are  both  at  once  in  the  street ; — 
an  oven,  over  which  a  great  plate  of  copper  is  heated ;  the 
maker  sheds  on  it  a  thin  and  liquid  paste,  which  is  strain- 
ed through  the  holes  in  a  kind  of  cup  which  he  passes  uj 


r 


Chap.    7- 


LEVITICUS, 


71 


and  down  on  the  plate :  after  a  few  minutes,  the  threads 
of  paste  are  hardened,  dried,  and  baked,  by  a  uniform  de- 
gree of  heat,  maintained  without  intermission,  by  an  equal 
quantity  of  branches  of  palm-tree,  by  which  the  oven  is 
kept  constantly  heated.  The  same  degree  of  heat  is  given 
in  the  same  space  of  time  to  an  equal  quantity  of  macaroni; 
which  is  perpetually  renewed  on  the  plate,  and  sold  direct- 
ly as  it  is  made." — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  12.  If  he  offer  it  for  a  thanksgiving,  then  he 
shall  offer  with  the  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving 
unleavened  cakes  mingled  with  oil,  and  un- 
leavened wafers  anointed  with  oil,  and  cakes 
mingled  with  oil,  of  fine  flour,  fried. 

With  the  exception  of  two  rare  cases,  oil  was  order- 
ed to  accompany  every  meal-offering,  in  order  to  its  being 
therewith  prepared,  and  baked  into  cakes.  With  this 
law,  in  so  far  as  it  is  perhaps  typical,  and  regards  a  holy 
ceremony,  I  have  here  nothing  to  do,  because  I  consider  it 
merely  with  respect  to  its  political  influence  in  the  state  ; 
and  that,  among  a  people  brought  out  of  Egypt  into  Pales- 
tine, and  still  always  hankering  after  Egypt,  was  important. 
It  imperceptibly  attached  them  to  their  new  country,  and 
served  to  render  even  the  idea  of  a  future  residence  in 
Egypt,  irksome ;  while  it  also  imperceptibly  gave  them  an 
inclination  to  cultivate  the  olive-tree,  for  which  nature 
seems  to  have  pre-eminently  adapted  Palestine.  In  the 
greatest  part  of  Egypt,  according  to  Strabo,  no  olives  were 
cultivated.  It  was  only  in  the  Heracleotic  canton,  that 
they  came  to  such  perfection  as  that  oil  could  be  made  from 
them.  In  the  gardens  around  Alexandria,  (which,  how- 
ever,, did  not  exist  in  the  time  of  the  ancient  kings,  that 
part  of  the  country  being  an  uncultivated  waste  till  the 
reign  of  Alexander  the  Great,)  there  were  olive-trees,  but 
no  oil  was  made.  The  consequence  of  this  want  of  oil 
was,  (as  it  still  is,)  that  in  Egypt  they  made  use  of  butter,  as 
we  do,  and  also  of  honey,  in  their  pastry :  and  even  at  this 
day,  travellers,  going  from  Egypt  into  Ara*bia,  carry  butter 
along  with  them ;  although,  indeed,  it  is  not  very  tempting 
to  the  appetite,  because,  in  consequence  of  the  great  heat,  it 
generally  melts  in  the  jars  by  the  way.  In  those  parts  of 
Arabia  likewise,  which  the  Israelites  traversed,  and  in 
which  they  might,  perhaps,  have  thought  of  settling  as  wan- 
dering herdsmen;  scarcely  any  olives  were  produced.  The 
oil  of  Palestine,  on  the  other  hand,  was  not  only  most 
abundant,  but  also  peculiarly  excellent ;  and  Hasselquist 
prefers  it  even  to  that  of  Provence.  By  this  gift  of  na- 
ture, stony  places  and  mountains,  which  would  otherwise 
have  been  barren,  became  not  only  useful,  but  even  more 
productive,  than  the  best  fields  could  be  made.  The  only 
part  of  Palestine  which  Strabo,  that  much  misquoted  au- 
thor, describes  as  imfruitful,  is  that  about  Jerusalem;  and 
it  really  is  so,  in  regard  to  the  production  of  grain :  but 
still  the  Jews  say,  that  an  acre  about  Jerusalem  was  for- 
nierly  of  much  more  value  that  in  any  other  part  of  Pales- 
tine. This  I  should  not  believe  on  their  word,  if  any  de- 
gD|e  of  improbability  attached  to  it ;  for  Jewish  accounts 
frrnn  hearsay  and  oral  tradition,  have  little  weight  with 
me.  But  as  long  as  Palestine  was  properly  cultivated,  an 
acre  near  Jerusalem,  from  its  produce  in  wine  and  oil, 
must  naturally  have  been  more  profitable,  than  as  a  corn- 
field. We  need  only  call  to  mind  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
which  lay  to  the  east  of  the  city.  An  acre  planted  with 
olives  or  vines,  however  rocky  and  arid  the  soil  may  be, 
will  very  easily  be  made  worth  ten  times  as  much  as  an 
acre  of  the  richest  corn-land. — The  account  given  by  Abul- 
feda,  in  his  Description  of  Syria,  confirms  this  statement ; 
for  he  says,  that  the  country  about  Jerusalem  is  one  of  the 
hiost  fertile  in  Palestine.  Let  us  now  represent  to  ourselves 
the  effects  of  a  law  which  enjoined,  that  the  pastry  of  of- 
ferings should  be  baked  with  oil,  (and,  therefore,  not  with 
butter,)  and  that  to  every  meal-offering  so  much  oil  should 
be  added.  The  priests,  who,  among  the  Hebrews,  were 
persons  of  distinction  by  birth,  were  accustomed  to  oil-pas- 
try; and  as  their  entertainments  were  generally  offering- 
feasts,  the  people  thus  became  acquainted  with  it.  Now, 
what  people  have  once  tasted  as  a  luxury  at  a  feast,  and 
found  savoury,  or  heard  of  as  eaten  by  the  great,  they 
begin  first  to  imitate  sparingly,  and  then,  if  they  can,  more 
and  more  frequently  in  their  daily  meals.    This  was  an 


infallible  means  to  accustom  the  Israelite?,  to  oil-pastry, 
with  which,  whoever  is  once  acquainted,  will  always  pre- 
fer it  to  that  made  with  butter.  For  if  the  oil  is  fresh  and 
good,  it  tastes  much  better ;  to  which  add,  that  as  butter  is 
very  liable  to  spoil,  it  then  communicates  to  pastry,  and 
every  other  sort  of  meat,  a  disagreeable  by-taste. — The 
worst  faults  in  cookery  arisf  from  bad  butter.  This  is  a 
general  maxim  with  our  German  housewives,  particularly 
in  Southern  Germany.  The  natural  consequences,  then, 
of  the  use  of  oil-pastry,  as  now  mentioned,  were,  in  the  first 
place,  that  the  olive-tree,  which  formed  so  principal  a 
source  of  the  riches  of  the  new  country  of  the  Israelites, 
came  to  be  more  carefully  cultivated,  and  thus  its  natural 
treasures  properly  improved ;  and,  in  the  next  place,  that 
the  people  at  length  lost  their  desire  of  returnmg  back  to 
Egypt.  That  in  the  time  of  Moses,  they  .often  thought  of 
Egypt  with  regret,  and  were  even  inclined  to  return  to 
their  ancient  bondage,  we  know  from  his  own  accounts. 
Indeed,  Xheiv penchant  for  this  their  ancient  country  was  so 
strong  and  permanent,  that  he  found  it  necessary  to  intro- 
duce into  the  fundamental  and  unalterable  laws  of  ihe  gov- 
ernment, as  affecting  the  king,  an  express  ordinance  against 
all  return  to  Egypt,  Deut.  xvii.  16.  No  sooner,  however, 
would  the  Israelite  become  rightly  acquainted  with  the  chief 
of  nature's  gifts  to  his  new  country,  and  accustomed  to  the 
use  of  wine  and  oil,  than  his  longing  after  a  country,  which 
produced  neither,  would  totally  cease.  In  fact,  the  object 
which  the  statutes,  now  considered,  most  probably  had  in 
view,  was  so  completely  attained,  that, 

1.  Butter  was  entirely  disused  among  the  Israelites.  In 
the  whole  Hebrew  Bible,  which  contains  so  many  other 
economical  terms,  we  do  not  once  find  the  word  for  butter ; 
for  7\H'0T\^  which  in  Job  xx.  17.  xxix.  6.  Deut.  xxxii.  14. 
Judg.  V.  25.  Isa.  vii.  15,  16,  22,  is  commonly  so  translated, 
does  not  mean  butter,  but  thick  milk.  It  would  therefore 
appear,  that  butter  had  been  as  rarely  to  be  seen  in  Pales- 
tine, as  it  now  is  in  Spain  ;  and  that  "the  people  had  made 
use  of  nothing  but  oil  in  their  cookery,  as  being  more  de- 
licious. The  reason  why  the  LXX.  have  improperly  ren- 
dered it  butler,  was  this ;  that  their  Greek  version  was 
made  by  Egyptian  Jews,  who,  from  the  want  of  oil  in  their 
new  country,  were  accustomed  to  the  use  of  butter  only. 

2.  From  the  time  of  Joshua  until  the  destruction  of  their 
government,  the  desire  of  returning  to  Egypt  never  once 
arose  among  the  Israelites.  It  was  only  after  Nebuchad- 
nezzar had  destroyed  Jerusalem,  and  when  the  remnant  of 
the  people  no  longer  thought  themselves  secure  against 
similar  disasters  within  Palestine,  that,  contrary  to  the  di- 
vine prohibition,  the  Jews  took  refuge  in  Egypt,  Jer.  xlii. 
xliv. ;  and  when  the  kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes' was  destroy- 
ed, and  Samaria  conquered  by  the  Assyrians,  many  of  the 
Israelites,  as  we  must  infer  from  Hosea,  in  like  manner 
withdrew  thither. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  26.  Moreover,  ye  shall  eat  no  manner  of 
blood,  whether  it  be  of  fowl,  or  of  beast,  in  any 
of  your  dwellings. 

With  the  prohibition  of  fat,  we  find  in  tioo  passages 
(Lev.  iii.  17,  and  vii.  26,  27,)  another  prohibition  joined, 
that  of  eating  blood;  which,  however,  occurs  also  in  f.vc 
other  passages,  (Lev.  xvii.  10 — 14.  xix.  26.  Deut.  xii.  16, 
23,  24.  XV.  23 ;)  and  was  binding,  not  only  on  the  Israelites 
themselves,  but  also  on  all  foreigners  living  among  them, 
under  the  penalty  of  death :  Lev.  xvii.  10.  This  unusuallv 
frequent  recurrence  of  the  prohibition,  together  with  the 
punishment  of  extirpation  from  among  the  people,  annexed 
to  the  transgression  of  it ;  and  the  denunciation  of  God's 
JDeculiar  vengeance  against  every  man  who  should  eat 
blood,  is  quite  sufficient  to  show,  that  the  legislator  must 
have  been  more  interested  in  this,  than  in  the  other  prohi- 
bitions relative  to  unclean  meats,  and  likewise  that  the 
Israelites  had  had  peculiar  temptations  to  transgress  it. 
These  we  really  should  not  have,  were  blood  forbidden  to 
us ;  and  one  should  think  that  the  person  who  had  not, 
from  infancy,  eaten  blood,  would  rather  have  an  antipathy 
at  it.  Bloodpuddings,  it  is  true,  (like  goose  and  hare,)  boiled 
black,  we  eat  with  great  relish ;  but  I  cannot  recollect  to 
have  found  any  person  pre-eminently  fond  of  them,  but  in 
the  single  case  of  their  being  quite  fresh  ;  and  that  would 
be  the  precise  case,  in  which,  to  a  person  not  previously 
accustomed  to  eat  them,  they  would  at  first  be  most  likely 


72 


LEVITICUS. 


Chap.  11. 


to  cause  sensations  of  abhorrence.  Add  to  this,  that  blood- 
puddings  of  ox-blood  are  by  no  means  so  savoury,  as  ours 
made  of  swine's  blood  are;  which  cannot,  however,  be  here 
in  question.  For  they  have  something  of  a  mealy  taste ; 
which,  mdeed,  is  very  perceptible,  when  ox-blood  is  fraud- 
ulently mixed  with  swine's  blood.  The  temptation,  there- 
fore, which  the  Israelites  had  had  to  violate  this  law,  must 
have  proceeded  from  anothef  cause,  than  from  an  appetite 
for  blood ;  and  so  much  the  more  so,  as  the  eating  of  blood 
would  appear  to  have  never  been  a  custom  of  their  ances- 
tors; for  even  the  Arabs,  who  are  descended  from  Abraham, 
do  not  eat  blood ;  and  Mohammed  (as  we  have  seen,)  has 
forbidden  them  to  taste  of  idol-oflerings  and  blood  of  beasts 
strangled,  torn,  or  dead,  and  of  swine's  flesh.  But  before 
I  proceed  to  state  the  cause  of  this  so  remarkably  rigid 
prohibition  of  blood,  I  must  observe,  that  it  only  extended 
to  the  blood  of  quadrupeds  and  birds ;  for  the  blood  of  fishes 
was,  on  the  contrary,  permitted  to  be  eaten  ;  Lev.  vii.  26, 
xvii.  13.  This  point  is  so  clear,  that  even  our  modern 
Jews,  who  in  most  things  overstretch  the  law  of  Moses, 
make  no  conscience  of  eating  carp  stewed  in  their  own 
blood.  I  now  come  to  notice  the  reason  of  this  prohibition, 
which  we  find  so  urgently  repeated.  It  is  connected  with 
one  of  the  grand  objects,  which  the  Hebrew  legislator 
always  had  in  view,  namely,  the  exclusion  of  all  manner  of 
idolatry  from  among  his  people.  Eating  of  blood,  or  rather 
drinking  it,  was  quite  customary  among  the  pagan  nations 
of  Asia,  in  their  sacrifices  to  idols,  and  in  the  taking  of 
oaths.     This,  indeed,  was  so  much  an  Asiatic,  and  in  a 

Particular  manner,  a  Phoenician  usage,  that  we  find  the 
Loman  writers  taking  notice  of  it,  as  something  outlandish 
at  Rome,  and  peculiar  to  these  nations;  and  as  in  the 
Roman  persecutions,  the  Christians  were  compelled  to 
burn  incense,  so  were  they,  in  the  Persian,  to  eat  blood. 
In  the  West  the  one,  and  in  the  East  the  other,  was  re- 
garded as  expressive  of  conversion  to  heathenism;  because 
both  were  idolatrous  practices.  It  was  for  this  very  reason, 
that  Moses  now  prohibited  blood  so  rigidly,  and  under  the 
pain  of  death,  not  only  among  the  Israelites  themselves, 
but  among  all  foreigners  that  lived  within  their  land  ;  and 
in  order  to  render  the  prohibition  the  more  sacred,  and  the 
more  revered,  by  connecting  with  it  a  moral  implication, 
God  declared,  (Lev.  xvii.  11 — 14,)  That  the  Israelites,  on 
account  of  the  sins  which  they  daily  committed,  and  tohich 
could  never  be  fully  expiated  by  offerings  on  the  altar,  owed  to 
him  all  the  blood  of  the  beasts  which  they  slaughtered,  and  were 
7iot  to  eat  of  it,  becaiose  it  was  destined  as  an  atonement  for 
their  sins.  But  for  this  very  reason  also,  because  it  was  an 
idolatrous  usage  among  the  neighbouring  nations,  were 
the  Israelites  in  the  greater  danger  of  being  led,  by  eating 
blood,  into  idolatry,  from  their  great  propensity  to  that 
universally-prevalent  crime,  and  not  from  mere  fondness 
for  blood  as  a  desirable  article  of  food.  In  regard  to  many 
other  heathenish  customs,  Moses  acted  quite  otherwise, 
consecrating,  instead  of  prohibiting  them,  by  commanding 
that  they  should  be  kept  up,  under  an  altered  signification, 
in  honour  of  the  true  God ;  but  it  is  not  to  be  wondered 
that  he  should  not  have  done  so  with  regard  to  the  drink- 
ing of  blood  in  sacrifices  and  oaths,  but  rather  have 
forbidden  the  use  of  it  altogether.  The  eating  of  blood  is 
a  matter  of  indifference  in  a  moral  view,  and,  if  not  carried 
to  excess,  in  a  medical  view  also.  It  will  not  make  a  man 
cruel  and  pitiless ;  nor  yet  will  it  occasion  disease  and 
death.  But  drinking  of  blood  is  certainly  not  a  becoming 
ceremony  in  religious  worship.  It  is  not  a  very  refined 
custom,  and  if  often  repeated,  it  might  probably  habituate 
a  people  to  cruelty,  and  make  them  unfeeling  with  regard 
to  blood  ;  and  certainly  religion  should  not  give,  nor  even 
have  the  appearance  of  giving,  any  such  direction  to  the 
manners  of  a  nation.  Add  to  this,  that  it  is  actually 
dangerous  to  drink  blood ;  for  if  taken  warm,  and  in  large 
quantity,  it  may  prove  fatal;  particularly  ox-blood,  which, 
by  coagulating  in  the  stomach,  causes  convulsions  and 
sudden  death,  and  was  with  this  view  given  to  criminals 
in  Greece,  as  a  poisoned  draught.  It  is  true,  the  blood  of 
other  animals  may  not  always  produce  the  same  effects ; 
but  still,  if  it  is  not  in  very  small  quantity,  its  effects  will  be 
hurtful.  At  any  rate,  the  custom  of  "drinking  blood  in 
sacrifice,  and  in  taking  oaths,  may,  from  imprudence, 
sometimes  have  the  same  effects  which  Valerius  Maximus 
ascribes  to  it,  in  the  case  of  Themistocles ;  only  that  he 
purposely  drank  as  much  during  a  sacrifice,  as  was  suffi- 


cient to  kill  him  ;  which  others  might  also  do  from  inad- 
vertence, or  from  superstitious  zeal.  This  was  sufficient 
reason  to  keep  Moses  irom  making  the  drinking  of  blood 
a  part  of  religious  worship ;  and  this  being  the  case,  it  was, 
as  a  heathen  rite,  on  his  principles,  necessarily  prohibited 
in  the  strictest  terms.  Nor  need  we,  after  this,  be  surprised 
to  find  the  eating  of  blood  forbidden,  not  only  in  the  Acts 
of  the  Apostles,  (chap.  xv.  20 — 29,)  but  also  among  the 
Arabs,  and  in  the  Koran,  and  classed  with  the  offerings 
made  to  idols :  for  it  actually  was  a  part  of  idolatrous 
worship  very  common  in  the  East. — Michaelis. 

*  CHAPTER  XI. 

Ver.  2.  Speak  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  saying, 
These  are  the  beasts  which  ye  shall  eat  among 
all  the  beasts  that  are  on  the  earth. 

Of  the  laws  relative  to  clean  and  unclean  beasts,  which 
are  recorded  in  Lev.  xi.  and  Deut.  xiv.,  the  following  may, 
perhaps,  serve  as  an  abstract,  sufficient  for  a  reader  wliu) 
has  not  to  observe  them,  but  means  only  to  contemplate 
them  philosophically. 

In  regard  to  quadrupeds,  Moses  reduces  the  previous  cus- 
toms of  the  Israelites,  together  with  the  additional  ordi- 
nances which  he  found  it  necessary  to  make,  into  a  very 
simple  and  natural  system.  According  to  him.  All  beasts 
that  have  their  feet  completely  cloven,  above  as  well  as  below, 
and  at  the  same  time  chew  the  cud,  are  clean.  Those  which 
have  neither,  or  indeed  want  one  of  these  distinguishing 
marks,  are  unclean.  That  in  so  early  an  age  of  the  world, 
we  should  find  a  systematic  division  of  quadrupeds  so  ex- 
cellent, as  never  yet,  after  all  the  improvements  in  natural 
history,  to  have  become  obsolete,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  be 
still  considered  as  useful  by  the  greatest  masters  .of  the 
science,  cannot  but  be  looked  upon  as  truly  wonderful. 
In  the  case  of  certain  quadrupeds,  however,  a  doubt  may 
arise,  whether  they  do  fully  divide  the  hoof,  or  ruminate. 
For  example,  whether  the  hare  ruminates  or  not,  is  so  un- 
decided, that  if  we  put  the  question  to  any  two  sportsmen, 
we  shall  rarely  receive  the  same  answer.  In  such  cases, 
to  prevent  difficulties,  a  legislator  must  authoritatively  de- 
cide ;  by  which  I  do  not  mean,  that  he  is  to  prescribe  to 
naturalists  what  their  belief  should  be,  but  only  to  deter- 
mine, for  the  sake  of  expounders  or  judges  of  the  law,  what 
animals  are  to  be  regarded  as  ruminating  or  parting  the 
hoof.  The  camel  ruminates,  but  whether  it  fully  parts  tlie 
hoof,  is  a  question  so  undecided,  that  we  do  not,  even  in 
the  Memoirs  of  the  Academy  of  Paris,  find  a  satisfactory 
answer  to  it  on  all  points.  The  foot  of  the  camel  is  actu- 
ally divided  into  two  toes,  and  the  division  even  below  is 
complete,  so  that  the  animal  might  be  accounted  clean ; 
but  then  it  does  not  extend  the  whole  length  of  the  foot,  but 
only  to  the  forepart ;  for  behind  it  is  not  parted,  and  we 
find,  besides,  under  it,  and  connected  with  it,  a  ball  on 
which  the  camel  goes.  Now,  in  this  dubious  state  of  cir- 
cumstances, Moses  authoritatively  declares,  (Lev.  xi.  4,) 
that  the  camel  has  not  the  hoof  fully  divided.  It  would  ap- 
pear as  if  he  had  meant  that  this  animal,  heretofore  ac- 
counted clean  by  the  Ishmaelites,  Midianites,  and  all  Jhe 
rest  of  Abraham's  Arabian  descendants,  should  not  be  eaten 
by  the  Israelites;  probably  with  a  view  to  keep  them,  by 
this  "means,  the  more  separate  from  these  nations,  with 
whom  their  connexion,  and  their  coincidence  in  manners, 
was  otherwise  so  close;  and  perhaps  too,  to  prevent  them, 
from  conceiving  any  desire  to  continue  in  Arabia,  or  to! 
devote  themselves  again  to  their  favourite  occupation  of 
wandering  herdsmen.  For  in  Arabia,  a  people  will  always 
be  in  an  uncomfortable  situation,  if  they  dare  not  eat  the- 
flesh  and  drink  the  milk  of  the  camel. 

With  regard  Xo  fishes,  Moses  has  in  like  manner  made  a 
very  simple  systematic  distinction.  All  that  have  scales  and 
fins  are  clean :  all  others  unclean. 

Of  birds,  without  founding  on  any  systematic  distriDU- 
tion,  he  merely  specifies  certain  sorts  as  forbidden,  thereby 
permitting  allothers  to  be  eaten;  but  what  the  prohibited 
Ijirds  are,  it  is,  from  our  ignorance  of  the  language,  in 
some  instances  impossible  to  ascertain ;  and  the  Jews,  who 
still  consider  the  Mosaic  law  as  obligatory,  are  here  placed 
in  the  awkward  predicament  of  not  understanding  a  statute 
which  they  have  to  observe,  and  of  expoimding  it  merely 
bv  guess. 
'  Insects,  serpents,  worms,  &c.  are  prohibited ;  and  Moses 


I 


Chap.  13. 


LEVITICUS. 


73 


IS  especially  careful  to  interdict  the  use  of  various  sorts  of 
lizards ;  which,  of  course,  must  have  been  eaten  in  some 
parts  of  Egypt,  or  by  the  people  in  the  adjacent  countries ; 
but  concerning  which,  I  must  admit,  that  I  have  not  met 
with  any  account  besides.  There  is,  indeed,  as  we  find 
from  Hasselauist's  Travels  in  Palestine,  (under  the  cla,ss 
Amphibia,  Ivii.)  one  species  of  lizard  in  that  country,  viz. 
the  Gecko,  which  is  poisonous ;  so  much  so,  that  its  poison 
Icills  when  it  happens  to  be  among  meat.  This  is  not  the 
t;ase  with  the  poison  of  serpents,  which  is  only  noxious  in 
A  wound,  and  may,  as  well  as  the  animals  themselves, 
which  are  edible,  be  safely  taken  into  the  stomach,  if  only 
the  mouth  be  perfectly  sound,  and  free  from  bloody  spots. 
Tliis  Lacerta  Gecko  must  certainly  not  have  been  eaten  by 
any  of  the  neighbouring  nations,  and  Moses  had  therefore 
no  occasion  to  prohibit  it.  With  regard,  however,  to  those 
winged  insects,  which  besides  four  walking  legs,  {Pedes 
saltatorii,)  Moses  makes  an  exception,  and  under  the  de- 
nomination of  locusts,  declares  them  clean  in  all  their  four 
stages  of  existence,  and  under  as  many  different  degrees  of 
hardness.  In  Palestine,  Arabia,  and  the  adjoining  coun- 
ix*es,  locusts  are  one  of  the  most  common  articles  of  food, 
ana  the  people  would  be  very  ill  off  if  they  durst  not  eat 
them.  For  when  a  swarm  of  them  desolates  the  fields,  they 
prove,  in  some  measure,  themselves  an  antidote  to  the 
famine  which  they  occasion ;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  poor 
people  look  forward  with  anxiety  to  the  arrival  of  a  swarm 
of  locusts,  as  yielding  them  sustenance  without  any  trouble. 
They  are  not  only  eaten  fresh,  immediately  on  their  ap- 
pearance ;  but  the  people  collect  them,  and  know  a  method 
of  preserving  them  for  a  long  time  for  food,  after  they  have 
dried  them  in  an  oven. 

I'he  law  further  prohibited  the  touching  the  carcass  of 
any  unclean  beast,  Lev.  xi.  8,  24,  25,  27,  31.  This,  how- 
ever, does  not  mean  that  a  carcass  was,  in  a  literal  sense, 
never  to  be  touched,  (for  then  it  must  always  have  been  in 
the  way,  and  we  shall  see  in  the  sequel  that  it  was  expressly 
ordered  to  be  buried ;)  but  only,  that  the  person  who  touch- 
ed it,  was  to  be  deemed  unclean  until  the  evening.  To 
strangers  who  dwelt  among  the  Israelites,  unclean  beasts 
were  not  forbidden:  for  certainly  the  legislator  never 
thought  of  making  his  prohibition  of  certain  meats  a  moral 
law,  by  which  every  man,  of  whatever  nation,  was  to  be 
bound  to  regulate  his  conduct.  If  his  design  in  these  sta- 
tutes was  to  separate  the  Israelites  from  other  nations,  it 
must  have  been  his  wish  and  intention  to  prohibit  the  for- 
mer from  the  use  of  those  very  meats  which  were  eaten  by 
the  latter ;  and  had  the  people  in  any  of  the  surrounding 
countries  deemed  all  such  meats  unclean,  Moses  would 
probably  have  given  a  set  of  laws  on  this  subject  quite  dif- 
ferent from  those  which  he  did  give.  When  a  commander 
gives  his  soldiers  a  cockade  to  distinguish  them  from  other 
troops,  he  by  no  means  wishes  that  everybojdy  should  in- 
discriminately wear  it,  but  would  rather  have  it  taken  from 
any  foreigner  who  should  mount  it.  The  law  relative  to 
clean  and  unclean  beasts  was  never,  not  even  under  the 
Old  Testament,  a  precept  of  religion  w^hich  every  individual, 
to  whatever  nation  he  belonged,  was  bound  to  observe  for 
the  sake  of  his  eternal  salvation ;  it  was  only,  if  I  may  so 
term  it,  a  cockade  for  the  Israelites ;  but  still  one  that  they 
could  not  omit  wearing  without  committing  a  trespass  of  a 
divine  commandment ;  and  indeed  it  was  so  firmly  pinned 
upon  them  by  their  earliest  education,  that  it  must  certainly 
have  been  difficult  for  them  ever  to  lay  it  aside. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  33.  And  every  earthen  vessel  whereinto  any 
of  them  falleth,  whatsoever  is  in  it  shall  be  un- 
clean ;  and  ye  shall  break  it. 

This  refers  to  any  unclean  or  dead  animal  falling  into 
or  touching  an  earthen  vessel.  Most  of  the  cooking  uten- 
sils of  the  Hindoos  are  of  earthen  ware.  Should  an  un- 
clean, or  dead  animal,  or  insect,  touch  or  fall  into  tliem, 
they  must  be  broken.  Nay,  should  a  person  of  low  caste 
get  a  look  at  the  cooking  vessels  of  a  Brahmin,  or  one  of 
the  Saiva  sect,  they  will  immediately  be  broken  ;  and  no 
small  portion  of  abuse  be  poured  upon  the  offending  indi- 
vidual. Should  an  unfortunate  dog,  in  his  prowlings,  find 
his  way  into  the  kitchen,  and  begin  to  lick  the  vessels,  wo 
be  to  him !  for  he  Avill  not  only  have  hard  words,  but  hard 
blows ;  and  then  follows  the  breaking  of  the  vessels.  On 
10 


this  account,  the  Brahmins,  and  others,  concea^  their  earth 
en  ware  when  not  in  use. — Roberts. 

Ver.  35.  And  every  thing  whereupon  any  part 
of  their  carcass  falleth  shall  be  unclean ;  whether 
it  he  oven,  or  ranges  for  pots,  they  shall  be 
broken  down  ;  for  they  are  unclean,  and  shall 
be  unclean  unto  you. 

The  scarcity  of  fuel  in  the  East  mduces  the  people  to  be 
very  frugal  in  using  it.  Rauwolff  gives  the  following  ac- 
count of  their  management:  "  They  make  in  their  tents  or 
houses  a  hole  about  a  foot  and  a  half  deep,  wherein  they 
put  their  earthen  pipkins  or  pots,  with  the  meat  in  them, 
closed  up,  so  that  they  are  in  the  half  above  the  middle. 
Three  fourth  parts  thereof  they  lay  about  with  stones,  and 
the  fourth  part  is  left  open,  through  which  they  fling  in 
their  dried  dung,  which  burns  immediately,  and  gives  so 
great  a  heat  that  the  pot  groweth  so  hot  as  if  it  had  stood 
in  the  middle  of  a  lighted  coal  heap,  so  that  they  boil  their 
meat  with  a  little  fire,  quicker  than  we  do  ours  with  a  great 
one  on  our  hearths."  As  the  Israelites  must  have  had  as 
much  occasion  to  be  sparing  of  their  fuel  as  any  people, 
and  especially  when  journeying  in  the  wilderness,  Mr. 
Harmer  considers  this  quotation  as  a  more  satisfactory 
commentary  on  this  passage  than  any  which  has  been  giv- 
en.— BURDER. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  3.  And  the  priest  shall  look  on  the  plague 
in  the  skin  of  the  flesh :  and  when  the  hair  in 
the  plague  is  turned  white,  and  the  plague  in 
sight  he  deeper  than  the  skin  of  his  flesh,  it  is 
a  plague  of  leprosy :  and  the  priest  shall  look 
on  him,  and  pronounce  him  unclean. 

The  leprosy,  a  contagious  and  dreadful  disorder,  which 
slowly  consumes  the  human  body,  which  is  common,  par- 
ticularly in  Egypt  and  Syria,  but  is  also  met  with  in  other 
hot  countries,  generally  manifests  itself  first  in  the  manner 
described  in  the  text.  Peysonnel,  a  French  physician, 
who  was  sent  by  his  government,  in  the  year  1756,  to  the 
island  of  Gaudaloupe,  to  examine  the  leprosy  which  had 
appeared  there,  writes  in  his  report  of  3d  February,  1757,  (in 
Michaelis  Mosaic  Law,  part  iv.  p.  224  :)  "  The  commence- 
ment of  the  leprosy  is  imperceptible  ;  there  appear  only  a 
few  dark  reddish  spots  on  the  skin  of  the  whites;  in  the 
blacks  they  are  of  a  coppery  red.  These  spots  are  at  first 
not  attended  with  pain,  or  any  other  symptom,  but  they  can- 
not be  removed  by  any  means.  The  disease  increases  im- 
perceptibly, and  continues  for  some  years  to  be  more  and 
more  manifest.  The  spots  become  larger,  and  spread  in- 
discriminately over  the  skin  of  the  whole  body  :  they  are 
sometimes  rather  raised,  though  flat;  when  the  disease 
increases,  the  upper  part  of  the  nose  swells,  the  nostrils  dis- 
tend, and  the  nose  itself  becomes  soft.  Swellings  appear 
on  the  jaw-bones,  the  eyebrows  are  elevated,  the  ears  grow 
thick,  the  ends  of  the  fingers,  as  well  as  the  feet  and  toes, 
swell,  the  nails  grow  scaly,  the  joints  on  the  hands  and 
feet  separate  and  die  off";  on  the  palms  of  the  hands  and 
the  soles  of  the  feet  there  are  deep  dry  ulcers,  which  rapid- 
ly increase,  and  then  vanish  again.  In  short,  when  the 
disease  reaches  its  last  stage,  the  patient  becomes  horrible, 
and  falls  to  pieces.  All  these  circumstances  come  on  very 
slowly,  for  many  years  are  often  required  before  they  all 
occur ;  the  patient  has  no  severe  pain,  but  he  feels  a  kind 
of  numbness  in  his  hands  and  feet.  These  persons  are  not 
hindered,  during  the  time,  in  any  of  the  functions  of  na- 
ture, they  eat  and  drink  as  usual,  and  even  when  some  of 
their  fingers  and  toes  die  off",  the  loss  of  the  member  is  the 
only  consequence,  for  the  wound  heals  of  itself  without  at- 
tention or  medicine.  But  when  the  poor  people  reach  this 
last  period  of  the  disease,  they  are  horribly  disfigured  and 
most  worthy  of  pity.  It  has  "been  observed,  that  this  dis- 
ease has  other  dreadful  properties,  such,  in  fact,  that  it  is 
hereditary,  and,  therefore,  some  families  are  more  afflicted 
with  it  than  others ;  secondly,  that  it  is  infectious,  and  that 
it  is  propagated  by  persons  sleeping  together,  or  even  hav- 
ing long-continued  intercourse ;  thirdly,  that  it  is  incurable, 
or,  at  least,  that  no  means  to  cure  it  have  been  discovered. 


74 


LEVITICUS. 


Chap.  !?> 


A  very  well-grounded  fear  of  being  infected  with  this  cruel 
disease,  the  difficulty  of  recognising  the  persons  attacked 
with  it,  before  the  disorder  has  attained  its  height;  the 
length  of  time  that  it  remains  secret,  from  the  care  of  the 
patients  to  conceal  it ;  the  uncertainty  of  the  symptoms  at 
the  beginning,  which  should  distinguish  it  from  other  dis- 
orders, excited  extraordinary  claims  among  all  the  inhabit- 
ants of  this  island.  They  were  suspicious  of  each,  because 
virtue  and  rank  were  no  protection  agai^J^st  this  cruel 
scourge.  They  called  this  disease  the  leprosy,  and  pre- 
sented to  the  commander  and  governor  several  petitions, 
in  which  they  represented  all  the  above  circumstances ;  the 
general  food,  the  uneasiness  caused  in  this  newly-settled 
country;  the  inconveniences  and  the  hatred  which  such  in- 
culpations produced  among  them ;  the  laws  which  had  been 
made  against  lepe.rs,  and  their  exclusion  from  civil  society. 
They  demanded  a  general  inspection  of  all  those  who 
were  suspected  of  having  this  disease,  in  order  that  those 
who  were  found  to  be.  infected  might  be  removed  into  a 
particular  hospital,  or  some  separate  place."  All  that 
these  people  required,  and  which  was  also  granted  them, 
we  find  to  be  prescribed  in  the  laws  relative  to  the  leprosy, 
contained  in  the  thirteenth  chapter. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  38.  If  a  man  also  or  a  woman  have  in  the 
skin  of  their  flesh  bright  spots,  even  white  bright 
spots ;  39.  Then  the  priest  shall  look :  and,  be- 
hold, if  the  bright  spots  in  the  skin  of  their  flesh 
be  darkish  white;  it  is  a  freckled  spot  that 
groweth  in  the  skin :  he  is  clean. 

The  Hebrew  word  here  translated  "freckled  spot,"  is 
Bohak,  and  the  Arabs  still  use  the  same  word  to  denote  a 
kind  of  leprosy,  of  which  Niebuhr  says,  "  Bohak  is  neither 
contagious  nor  dangerous.  A  black  boy  at  Mocha,  who 
was  affected  with  this  eruption,  had  here  and  there  on  his 
body  white  spots.  "We  were  told  that  the  use  of  sulphur 
had  relieved  this  boy  for  a  time,  but  had  not  entirely 
removed  the  disease."  He  adds,  subsequently,  from  Fors- 
kaVs  papers,  the  following  particulars :  "  On  the  15th  of 
May,  1765,  I  myself  first  saw  the  eruption  called  bohak  in 
a  Jew  at  Mocha.  The  spots  of  this  eruption  are  of  unequal 
size ;  thev  do  not  shine,  are  imperceptibly  higher  than  the 
skin,  and  do  not  change  the  colour  of  the  hair.  Their 
colour  is  a  dirty  white,  or  rather  reddish.  The  rest  of  the 
skin  of  the  patient  I  saw  was  darker  than  the  inhabitants  of 
the  country  usually  were,  but  the  spots  were  not  so  white 
as  the  skin  of  a  European  when  it  is  not  tanned  by  the  sun. 
The  spots  of  this  eruption  do  not  appear  on  the  hands  or 
near  the  navel,  but  on  the  neck  and  face,  yet  not  that  part 
of  the  face  where  the  hair  grows  thick.  They  spread 
gradually.  Sometimes  they  remain  only  two  months, 
sometimes  one  or  two  years,  and  go  away  by  degrees  of 
themselves.  This  disorder  is  neither  contagious  nor  he- 
reditary, and  does  not  cause  any  bodily  inconvenience." 
Hence  it  appears  why  a  person  affected  with  the  bohak  is 
declared  in  the  above  law  not  to  be  unclean, — Rosen- 
muller. 

Ver.  45.  And  the  leper  in  whom  the  plague  is, 
his  clothes  shall  be  rent,  and  his  head  bare,  and 
ho,  shall  put  a  covering  upon  his  upper  lip,  and 
shall  cry,  Unclean,  unclean. 

Thf  prophet  Ezekiel,  in  reference  to  the  death  of  his 
wife,  was  ordered  not  to  "  cry,"  neither  to  cover  the  lips  ; 
(the  margin  has,  "  upper  lip.")  The  prophet  Micah  (iii.  7) 
describes  the  confusion  and  sorrow"  of  those  who  had  by 
their  wickedness  offended  the  Lord.  "  Then  shall  the  seers 
be  ashamed,  and  the  diviners  confounded  :  yea,  they  shall 
all  cover  their  lips,  for  there  is  no  answer  of  God."  Margin 
again  has,  "  upper  lip."  All  these  passages  refer  to  the 
sorrow  of  those  concerned.  A  person  in  deep  distress  puts 
his  hand  over  his  mouth,  and  hangs  down  his  head,  as  if 
looking  on  the  ground.  When  a  man  suddenly  claps  his 
hand  on  his  mouth,  it  denotes  great  sorrow  or  surprise. 
To  put  the  fingers  in  a  line  with  the  nose,  conveys  the  idea 
of  silence  and  submission.  "Why  is  your  hand  on  your 
mouth T'— "Not  for  joy."  "But  why'l" — "My  son,  my 
son,  my  wicked  son !  He  has  gone  with  the  evil  ones  to 
ihe  distant  country."     "  Ah,  friend,  why  is  your  hand 


there  %" — "  Alas,  the  tigers  got  among  my  cattle  last  night, 
and  great  is  the  slaughter."  "  The  king  is  angry  with 
Raman — his  hand  is  now  on  his  mouth."  "  I  may  well  put 
my  hand  on  my  mouth ;  I  have  been  taken  by  the  neck,  and 
driven  from  the  presence  of  my  lord.  My  requests  have 
all  been  denied."    Job  xxi.  5. — Roberts. 

Ver.  47,  The  garment  also  that  the  plague  of 
leprosy  is  in,  whether  it  be  a  woollen  garment, 
or  a  linen  garment ;  48.  Whether  it  be  in  the 
the  warp,  or  woof,  of  linen,  or  of  woollen, 
whether  in  a  skin,  or  in  any  thing  made  of 
skin :  49.  And  if  the  plague  be  greenish  or 
reddish  in  the  garment,  or  in  the  skin,  either  in 
the  warp,  or  in  the  woof,  or  in  any  thing  of 
skin ;  it  25  a  plague  of  leprosy,  and  shall  be 
showed  unto  the  priest :  50.  And  the  priest 
shall  look  upon  the  plague,  and  shut  up  it  that 
hath  the  plague  seven 


The  two  statutes  of  Moses  relative  to  the  leprosy  of 
clothes  and  houses,  may  appear  to  us  at  first  view  very 
strange,  because  in  Europe  we  have  never  heard  of  any 
such  leprosy,  and  the  name  immediately  suggests  to  us  the 
idea  of  something  akin  to  human  leprosy.  Learned  men 
who  write  upon  the  Bible  in  their  closets,  sometimes  know 
nothing  but  books ;  being  quite  unacquainted  with  nature, 
and  often  with  their  own  houses,  in  which,  perhaps,  the 
Mosaic  leprosy  may  actually  be ;  and  they  are  too  much 
wrapped  up  in  themselves  to  think  of  asking  the  unlearned 
about  such  things.  Perhaps  the  leprosy  in  question  does 
not,  properlv  speaking,  fall  to  be  treated  under  the  present 
head,  but  under  the  statutes  of  police  respecting  buildings, 
manufactures,  and  clothes.  Here,  however,  it  will  be 
looked  for;  and  although  it  were  not,  I  must  nevertheless 
offer  some  general  remarks  on  both  the  laws  given  by  Mo- 
ses respecting  it,  which  would  lose  their  eflfect,  were  I  to 
separate  the  one  from  the  other.  In  the  first  place  then, 
when  we  hear  of  the  leprosy  of  clothes  and  houses,  Ave  must 
not  be  so  simple  as  to  imagine  it  the  very  same  disease 
which  is  termed  leprosy  in  man.  Men,  clothes,  and  stones, 
have  not  the  same  sort  of  diseases ;  but  the  names  of  hu- 
man diseases  are,  by  analogy,  or  as  the  grammarian  terms 
it,  by  a  figure  of  speech,  applied  to  the  diseases  of  other  things. 
In  Berne,  for  instance,  they  speak  of  the  cancer  of  build- 
ings, but  then  that  is  not  the  distemper  so  called  in  the  hu- 
man body.  The  cancer  of  buildings,  is  with  equal  proprie- 
ty a  Swiss,  as  the  leprosy  of  buildings  is  a  Hebrew,  expres- 
sion. The  late  Dr.  Forskal  wrote  me  from  Egypt,  that 
two  sorts  of  diseases  of  certain  trees  proceeding  from  in- 
sects, are  there  termed  leprosy ;  but  I  do  not  print  the  words 
of  his  letter,  because  I  am  aware  that  a  fuller  account  of 
this  matter  will  be  found  in  the  Diary  of  his  Travels,  which 
is  very  soon  to  be  published,  and  which  I  should  not  wish 
to  anticipate.  Hasselquist  likewise,  has,  in  p.  221  of  his 
Travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  spoken  of  a  leprosy  in  the  fig- 
trees. 

In  the  second  place,  although  Moses  gives  laws  relative 
to  the  leprosy  in  clothes  and  houses,  we  must  not  imagine, 
considering  that  he  lets  not  fall  a  single  word  on  the  sub- 
ject, that  any  such  leprosy  could  infect  man.  Of  this  Mo- 
ses is  so  far  from  being  afraid,  that  we  find  him,  on  the 
contrary ,  when  a  house  lies  under  the  suspicion  of  leprosy, 
commanding  all  the  articles  of  furniture  to  be  removed  out 
of  it,  previous  to  its  inspection,  that  the  priest  may  not  be 
obliged  to  pronounce  them  unclean.  If  there  adhered  to 
the  walls  any  poisonous  matter  that  could  pass  to  humanj 
beings,  and  infect 
strange  injunction 
case  of  a  house  ir 

bring  out  everv  article  within  it  previous  to  its  being  exam-^ 
ined,  that  it  might  not  be  declared  infected.  What  else 
would  the  consequence  be,  than  the  direct  propagation  of 
the  infection  1  It  would  be  the  very  same,  though  in  a  less 
degree,  if  the  house-leprosv  infected  man.  But  Avill  those 
who  have  alreadvanv  knowledge  of  Moses  as  a  legislator, 
suppose  him  capable  of  committing  such  an  oversight  ? 

The  leprosy  of  clothes  is  described  in  Lev.  xiii.47— 59,  as 
consisting  of  green  or  reddish  spots  that  remain  in  spite  of 
washing,  and  still  spread ;  and  by  which  the  cloth  becomes 


nice    IIICIIJ      UllCJCaU.         il      liH.lt,     miin^iv-vx     iv/ 

sonous  matter  that  could  pass  to  humanj 
t  them  with  leprosy,  this  wouM  be  a  veryi 
m  indeed.  Let  us  only  conceive,  in  thM 
infected  with  the  plague,  orders  given  to' 


Chap.  14. 


LEVITICUS. 


75 


bald,  or  bare,  sometimes  on  the  one  side,  sometimes  on  the 
other.  This  Moses  terms  dropping  or  losing  the  hair ;  that  is, 
if  we  are  to  give  the  literal  truth  of  the  Hebrew  text,  in  a 
passage  which  might  have  its  diflicullies  to  a  man  of  learning, 
if  he  knew  nothing  of  the  manufacture  of  woollen.  These 
symptoms  too,  of  leprosy, are  said  to  be  found  sometimes  only 
in  ihe  warp,  and  at  other  times  only  in  the  woof.  To  a  per- 
son who  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  manufactures  of  woollen, 
linen,  or  leather,  but  with  books  only,  this  must  doubtless  be 
obscure ;  or,  at  most,  he  will  be  led  to  think  of  specks  of  rot- 
tenness, bul  still  without  being  rightly  satisfied.  I  have  not 
been  able  lo  obtain  complete  information  on  this  subject; 
b,;'L  in  regard  to  wool,  and  woollen  stuffs,  I  have  consulted 
t!i  '  'greatest  manufacturer  in  the  electorate  of  Hanover;  and 
he  informs  me,  that  what  he  has  read  in  my  German  Bible, 
ai  t  his  passage,  will  be  found  to  hold  good,  at  any  rate  with 
n '^^ard  to  woollen  articles ;  and  that  it  proceeds  from  what 
i^  ealled  dead  wool,  that  is,  the  wool  of  sheep  that  have  died 
by  disease,  not  by  the  knife;  that  such  wool,  if  the  disease 
has  been  but  of  short  duration,  is  not  altogether  useless,  but 
in  a  sheep  that  has  been  long  diseased,  becomes  extremely 
bad,  and  loses  the  points;  and  that,  according  to  the  estab- 
lished usage  of  honest  manufacturers,  it  is  unfair  to  man- 
ufacture dead  wool  into  any  article  worn  by  man  ;  because 
vermin  are  so  apt  to  establish  themselves  in  it,  particular- 
ly when  it  is  worn  close  to  the  body  and  warmed  thereby. 
When  I  told  him,  that  in  the  countries,  with  a  view  to 
which  I  questioned  him,  the  people,  for  want  of  linen  and 
from  poverty,  had  always  worn,  and  still  wear,  woollen 
stuffs  next  the  skin,  he  stated  it  as  his  opinion  that  there 
the  disagreeable  effect  just  mentioned,  must  take  place  in  a 
still  higher  degree  than  in  countries  where,  according  to 
our  German  fashion,  which  would  there  be  a  luxury,  a 
linen  shirt  is  worn  between  the  woollen  clothes  and  the 
body.  He  added,  that  dead  wool  was  usually  manufactur- 
ed into  sacks  and  horse-cloths ;  and  he  expressed  his  wish 
for  a  statute,  in  the  style  of  Moses,  which  should  discour- 
age the  use  of  dead  wool,  or  inflict  a  punishment  on  those 
who  either  sold  it,  or  knowingly  manufactured  it  into  hu- 
man clothing. — I  am  likewise  informed  by  Hamburghers, 
that  in  their  neighbourhood,  many  frauds  are  committed 
with  dead  wool,  from  its  being  sold  for  good  wool ;  in  con- 
sequence of  which,  the  stuffs  rrfade  of  it  not  only  become 
very  soon  bare,  but  full  first  of  little  depressions,  and  then 
of  holes. 

These  accounts  serve  to  render  this  law  pretty  intelligi- 
ble, as  far  as  regards  wool  and  woollen  stuffs.  We  sec  how 
the  disease  may  appear  sometimes  only  in  the  warp,  and 
sometimes  only  in  the  woof,  from  good  wool  being  used  for 
the  one,  and  diead  wool  for  the  other.  Whether  this  dead 
wool  will,  in  process  of  time,  infect  good  wool,  I  do  not 
know;  but  to  bring  into  complete  discredit  and  disuse, 
stuffs,  which  so  soon  become  threadbare,  and  burst  out  in 
holes,  and  at  the  same  time  so  readily  shelter  vermin,  al- 
though they  cannot  proceed  from  the  wool  itself,  but  only 
find  it  a  very  suitable  breeding-place,  unquestionably  be- 
comes the  duty  of  legislative  policy.  How  this  end  could 
be  attained,  without  destroying  stuffs  thus  manufactured 
contrary  to  law,  our  present  system  of  police  can  scarcely 
conceive ;  and  in  that  early  age  of  the  world,  when  every 
thing  was  yet  in  its  infancy, — when  merchants  were  not  so 
knowing  as  now, — and  when  among  the  petty  independent 
tribes,  there  was  no  police  established  for  manufactures, 
nor  any  boards  of  inspection,  the  trick  of  using  dead  wool 
was  probably  more  frequent  than  at  present ;  while  yet  the 
cause  of  its  effects  was  but  imperfectly  known ;  and  these 
effects  in  those  climates  must  have  been  still  worse  than 
with  us,  particularly  in  Egypt,  which  breeds  such  abun- 
dance of  vermin.  The  best  remedy  was,  in  the  language 
of  Moses,  to  destroy  the  leprous  article :  for  that  would  soon 
make  every  one  careful  to  manufacture  nothing  either  for 
himself,  or  for  sale,  that  might  be  pronounced  leprous ;  and 
people  would  soon  observe  where  the  fault  lay,  when  they 
were  losers,  and  found  no  sale  for  their  goods,  in  conse- 
quence of  former  purchasers  having  suffered  by  them. 
The  prohibition  of  dead  wool,  although  the  legislator  be 
ever  so  fully  satisfied  that  it  is  entirely  to  blame  for  the  ef- 
fects in  question,  is  not  sufficient  of  itself;  for  it  will  still  be 
privately  manufactured  and  then  denied,  particularly 
where  there  is  no  board  of  survey.  But  where  the  stuff,  in 
which  leprous  symptoms  make  their  appearance,  is  destroy- 
ed in  spite  of  the  owner,  every  one  will  become  attentive 


to  guard  against  such  a  loss.  Moses  therefore  enjoined, 
Jirst,  that  the  place  on  which  there  were  marks  of  leprosy 
that  no  washing  could  obliterate,  should  be  torn  out ;  and 
then,  if  the  leprosy  still  recurred  a  second  time,  that  the 
whole  piece  should  be  burnt.  With  regard  to  leather  and 
linen,  I  can  say  nothing  with  historical  certainty  :  because 
I  know  no  great  wholesale  manufacturer  or  merchant  in 
either  line,  and  I  do  not  choose  to  trouble  my  reader  with 
conjectures,  because  they  may  occur  to  himself,  just  as  well 
as  to  me.  Perhaps,  however,  my  book  may  find  some 
readers  better  acquainted  with  such  persons  than  I  can  be 
here  in  Gottingen,  and  who  may  hereafter  communicate 
with  me  on  the  subject ;  for  which  purpose,  I  particularly 
request  the  attention  of  my  readers  in  Holland,  where  I  am 
inclined  to  think  the  best  judges  may  be  found.  Now  that 
the  origin  of  the  evil  has  been  traced  in  wool,  there  will  be 
no  great  difficulty  in  carrying  on  the  investigation  further. 
Only  I  must  deprecate  closet-accounts,  and  learned  con- 
jectures. It  is  only  from  those  who  are  acquainted  with 
the  manufacture  or  sale  of  linen,  leather,  and  furriery,  on 
a  large  scale,  that  I  look  for  any  useful  information. — Mi- 

CHAELIS. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Ver.  4.  Then  shall  the  priest  command  to  take 
for  him  that  is  to  be  cleansed  two  birds  alive 
and  clean,  and   cedar-wood,  and  scarlet,  and 


Interpreters  have  not  been  able  to  determine  in  what 
parts  of  scripture,  the  Hebrew  term  (-i>bs)  tsippor,  ought  to 
be  translated  sparrow.  Some  suppose  that  Moses  intends 
this  bird  in  the  law  concerning  the  purification  of  the  lep- 
rosy :  "  Then  shall  the  priest  command  to  take  for  him 
that  is  to  be  cleansed,  two  birds  alive."  One  of  these  birds 
was  to  be  killed  over  running  water ;  and  the  living  bird, 
after  certain  ceremonies  described  in  the  law,  was  ordered 
to  be  let  loose  into  the  open  field.  The  same  ceremonies 
were  commanded  to  be  observed  in  cleansing  the  leprous 
house.  Jerome  and  many  succeeding  interpreters,  render 
the  word  a^-^^o^  used  in  the  law,  sparrows.  But  it  is  evident 
from  an  attentive  perusal  of  the  fourth  verse,  that  it  signi- 
fies birds  in  general.  "  Then  shall  the  priest  command  to 
take  for  him  that  is  to  be  cleansed,  tv^o  birds  alive  and 
clean."  Now,  if  the  sparrow  was  a  clean  bird,  there  could 
be  no  use  in  commanding  a  clean  one  to  be  taken,  since 
every  one  of  the  species  was  ceremonially  clean  ;  bui  if  it 
was  unclean  by  law,  then  it  could  not  be  called  clean.  The 
term  here  must  therefore  signify  birds  in  general,  of  which 
some  were  ceremonially  clean,  and  some  unclean  ;  which 
rendered  the  specification  in  the  command,  proper  and 
necessary.  From  the  terms  of  the  law  it  appears,  that  any 
species  of  clean  birds  might  be  taken  on  such  occasions, 
domestic  or  wild ;  provided  only  they  were  clean,  and  the 
use  of  them  conceaed  by  the  laws  of  Moses  to  the  people, 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  33.  And  the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses  and 
unto  Aaron,  saying-,  34.  When  ye  be  come  into 
the  land  of  Canaan,  which  I  give  to  you  for  a 
possession,  and  I  put  the  plague  of  leprosy  in 
a  house  of  the  land  of  your  possession ;  35.  And 
he  that  owneth  the  house  shall  come  and  tell 
the  priest,  saying,  It  seemeth  to  me  there  is  as 
it  were  a  plague  in  the  house. 

The  house-leprosy  is  said  in  Lev.  xiv.  33 — 57,  to  consist 
of  greenish  or  reddish  dimples,  which  appear  on  the  walls, 
and  continually  spread  wider  and  wider ;  and  its  nature 
would  probably  hare  been  understood  long  ago,  but  for  the 
prevalence  of  the  notion  of  its  being  a  disease  communica- 
ble to  man,  which  notion  arose  from  taking  the  word  lepra-' 
sy  in  too  literal  a  sense.  The  bare  description  of  it  given 
by  Moses  is  so  clear,  that,  I  have  known  more  than  one 
example  of  children,  who,  shortly  after  reading  it;,  having 
had  occasion  to  go  into  the  cellar,  where,  with  terror,  they 
thought  they  had  observed  it  on  the  walls,  on  their  return, 
described  it  distinctly  or  figuratively  to  their  parents,  and 
were  laughed  at  for  their  pains.  Laughed  at  they  certainly 
ought  not  to  have  been,  but  instructed.   Their  acu^e  vision 


76 


LEVITICUS. 


Chap.  14. 


had  shown  them  what  many  a  learned  man  has  in  vain 
sought  to  find  out.  In  short,  what  we  usually  term  the  Salt- 
petre, that  appears  on  walls,  has  much  the  same  symptoms 
as  the  Mosaic  house-leprosy,  and  is  at  the  same  time  attend- 
ed with  such  noxious  eifects  as  require  the  attention  of  a 
well-regulated  police.  I  expressed  this  idea  first  in  my  12th 
Cluestion  to  the  Arabian  Travellers;  but  I  did  so  very 
briefly,  and  as  addressing  men  of  sense  and  skill.  I  have 
not  yet,  however,  received  any  answer,  because  Forskal, 
the  person  to  whose  province  the  question  belonged,  is 
dead,  and  his  journal  is  not  yet  printed.  The  oftener,  how- 
ever, I  consider  the  matter,  I  am  the  more  impressed  with 
the  probability  of  this  idea.being  the  true  one,  and  here  is 
the  place  to  expatiate  more  fully  upon  it.  Our  walls  and 
houses  are  often  attacked  with  something  that  corrodes 
and  consumes  them,  and  which  we  commonly  denominate 
Saltpetre.  Its  appearances  are  nearly  as  Moses  describes 
them,  only  that  we  seldom  find  the  spots  greenish  or  red- 
dish, although  I  think  I  have  met  with  them  of  the  latter 
colour.  As,  however,  I  cannot  exactly  recollect  where,  I 
must  appeal  to  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Professor  Bekmann, 
who,  on  my  asking  him,  informed  me  that  he  had  seen  an 
instance  of  reddish  ones  at  Lnibeck.  With  us,  this  disease 
of  walls  is  most  frequently  found  in  cellars,  but  it  also  as- 
cends into  the  higher  parts  of  buildings,  particularly  in  the 
case  of  a  privy  being  directly  under  the  wall,  or  where  any 
other  sort  of  filth  can  affect  it.  In  my  native  city,  Halle,  it 
is  extremely  common,  because  the  soil  of  all  the  country 
around  is  full  of  what  is  called  saltpetre;  which  is  scraped 
off  from  the  turf  walls  of  the  cottages,  by  people  who  make 
it  their  business  to  collect  it.  Properly  speaking,  it  is  not 
saltpetre,  but  it  contains  the  acid  from  which  saltpetre  is 
prepared.  Wherever  any  part  of  these  walls,  that  is  preg- 
nant with  this  substance,  is  suffered  to  remain,  it  always 
effloresces  anew ;  and  such  parts  the  collectors  take  care 
to  leave,  when  they  repair  the  cottages  with  new  earth, 
that  after  a  few  years  they  may  find  a  fresh  crop  on  the 
walls.  But  I  have  never  seen  it  to  such  a  degree  as  at 
Eisleben,  in  the  church  in  which  Luther  was  baptized.  In 
the  year  1757,  I  observed,  on  the  left  side  of  the  choir  of 
that  church,  a  gravestone,  I  think  of  marble,  and  dated 
in  the  present  century,  in  which  the  inscription,  though 
deeply  cut,  was  in  many  places,  by  reason  of  numberless 
dimples,  scarcely  legible,  while  I  read  with  perfect  ease 
other  two  inscriptions,  four  times  as  old.  On  my  asking 
the  sexton  the  reason  of  this,  he  said,  the  saltpetre  had  come 
into  the  stone,  and  told  me  a  great  deal  more  about  it,  which 
I  did  not  sufficiently  attend  to,  because  I  had  no  idea  of  its 
ever  being  useful  to  me  in  explaining  the  Bible,  In  Bern, 
Mr.  Apothecary  Andrea  heard  the  people  complain  of  a 
disease  that  in  an  especial  manner  attacked  sandstone,  so 
as  to  make  it  exfoliate,  and  become  as  it  were  cancerous. 
They  call  it  the  Gall,  and,  in  like  manner,  ascribe  it  to  the 
saltpetre  contained  in  the  stone.  The  Society  of  Natural- 
ists at  Dantzig  some  time  ago  proposed  a  prize  question  on 
the  Causes  of  the  Destructive  Corrosion  of  Walls  by  Saltpetre, 
and  on  the  Means,  not  onhj  of  preventing  it  in  New  Buildings, 
but  of  curing  it  in  Old.  It  was  answered,  among  others, 
by  Mr.  Pastor  Luther,  who  obtained  the  prize :  but  his 
essay,  although,  as  the  best,  it  might  merit  that  distinction, 
has  nevertheless  given  but  little  satisfaction  to  those  who 
are  versed  in  the  subject,  and  particularly  to  Mr.  Professor 
Bekmann,  as  we  see  from  the  third  volume  of  his  Physical 
and  (Economical  Library,  p.  574. 

It  is  not,  properly  speaking,  saltpetre  that  is  in  these  walls 
and  buildings,  but  an  acid  of  nitre,  from  which,  by  the  ad- 
dition of  a  fixed  alkali,  we  can  make  saltpetre.  But  the 
disease  is  likewise  owing  sometimes  to  other  acids,  to  the 
acid  of  sea-salt,  for  instance,  as  Professor  Bekmann  informs 
me  ;  and,  from  other  experiments,  Mr.  Andrea  has  found 
the  component  parts  of  the  efflorescence,  to  approach  very 
near  to  those  of  Epsom  salt,  that  is,  vitriolic  acid  and  mag- 
nesia.— See  Bekmann's  Biblioth.  above  quoted,  vol.  iv.  p. 
250.  The  detrimental  effects  of  this  efflorescence  in  walls, 
or,  if  I  may  use  the  common  name,  of  this  saltpetre,  are  the 
following : — 

1.  The  walls  become  mouldy,  and  that  to  such  a  degree, 
as,  in  consequence  of  the  corrosion  spreading  farther  and 
farther,  at  least  to  occasion  their  tumbling  down.  Perhaps, 
however,  this,  at  least  in  most  parts  of  Germany,  is  the 
most  tolerable  evil  attending  the  disease ;  for  it  is  certain, 
that  many  houses  affected  with  it  last  to  a  great  age ;  only 


that  the  plaster  of  them  requires  very  frequent  repairing, 
because  the  lime  with  which  they  are  coated,  blisters,  as  it 
is  called,  that  is,  detaches  itself  from  the  wall,  swells,  and 
then  falls  off.  I  myself  lived  in  a  house  at  Halle,  that  was 
more  than  a  hundred  years  old,  and  may  probably  stand  a 
hundred  years  longer ;  in  which,  nevertheless,  the  saltpe- 
tre had  on  one  side,  at  a  period  beyond  all  remembrance, 
penetrated  as  far  as  the  second  story.  The  walls,  hoM^ever, 
were  from  three  to  four  feet  thick,  and  really  of  excellent 
stone ;  for  which,  indeed,  Halle  is  remarkable.  In  other 
places,  this  evil  may  no  doubt  be  more  serious ;  and  I  very 
much  suspect,  that  such  may  have  been  the  case  in  the 
damp  parts  of  Egypt,  where  the  Israelites  dwelt.  When  I 
figure  to  myself  those  marshes,  which  the  Greeks  called 
Bucolia,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Nile,  and  the  great  quantity  of 
saltpetre,  or  at  any  rate,  of  salt  akin  thereto,  which  Egypt 
produces,  I  cannot  help  thinking,  that  the  saltpetre  in  build- 
ings, must  have  been  much  more  destructive  there  than 
with  us.  Only  our  travellers  very  seldom  go  into  the  mar- 
shy districts,  but  rather  to  Alexandria,  Cairo,  and  along  the 
Nile  as  far  as  Assouan,  where  the  soil  is  quite  different ; 
and,  of  course,  we  can  expect  from  them  no  information 
relative  to  the  matter.  Even  the  way  along  the  coast,  from 
Damietta  to  Alexandria,  of  which  Abulfeda  gives  such  a 
beautiful  description,  is,  as  far  as  I  recollect,  described  by 
no  other  traveller.  As  my  work  has  had  the  good  fortune 
to  find  numerous  readers  in  Holland,  of  whom,  perhaps, 
some  have  it  in  their  power  to  obtain  more  particular  in- 
formation concerning  those  parts,  I  have  to  request,  that 
they  will  take  some  pains  for  that  purpose,  and  have  the 
goodness  to  communicate  to  me  whatever  accounts  they 
may  procure,  that  are  authentic,  and  illustrative  of  the 
subject, 

2.  Many  things  that  lie  near  walls  affected  with  saltpetre, 
thereby  suffer  damage,  and  are  spoiled.  I  have  myself  seen 
great  piles  of  books  nearly  ruined  from  this  cause,  and  it 
is  the  same  with  other  articles  that  cannot  bear  dampness, 
and  acids.  The  loss  here  may  often  be  greater  and  more 
considerable,  than  by  the  slow  decay  of  the  building  itself; 
for  it  shows  itself  very  perceptibly  in  the  course  of  a  few 
years,  by  rendering  such  articles  often  perfectly  useless. 

3.  If  the  saltpetre  be  strong  in  those  apartments  wherein 
people  live,  it  is  pernicious  to  health,  particularly  where 
they  sleep  close  to  the  wall.  Of  this,  I  had  long  ago  a 
general  notion,  at  Halle,  from  observing  that  such  apart- 
ments were  not  usually  inhabited ;  but  Professor  Bekmann 
has  just  informed  me  of  a  remarkable  case  of  a  person, 
who,  by  occupying  a  room  infected  by  saltpetre,  was  seized 
with  {Salzflusse)  saline  defiuctions,  which  the  physicians 
ascribed  to  the  apartment  alone.  This  unfortunate  patient, 
who  could  not  procure  himself  any  better  abode,  he  had 
often  visited  in  company  with  a  physician,  whose  attend- 
ance he  had  procured  for  him.  Those  people  among  us, 
who  are  in  good  circumstances,  or  not  quite  poor,  may 
avoid  the  effects  of  the  saltpetre  corrosion,  which  seldom 
ascends  higher  than  the  lowest  story,  by  living  in  the  sec- 
ond floor,  which  is  not  so  apt  to  be  affected  by  it,  and  using 
the  ground-floor  for  kitchen,  waiting-parlour,  &c.  &c.  But 
in  a  country  where  there  was  but  little  knowledge  of  archi- 
tecture, and  where  they  were  obliged  to  be  satisfied,  in 
general,  with  houses  of  W  one  story,  the  pernicious  effects 
of  the  house-leprosy  could  not  be  thus  averted. 

The  consideration  of  these  circumstances  will  render  the 
Mosaic  ordinances  on  this  subject  easily  intelligible.  Their 
object  was  to  check  the  evil  in  the  very  bud ;  to  extiroate 
it  while  it  was  yet  extirpable,  by  making  every  one,  from 
the  loss  to  which  it  would  subject  him,  careful,  to  prevent 
his  house  from  becoming  affected  with  leprosy,  which  he 
could  easily  be,  where  the  houses  had  no  damp  stone  cellars 
below  ground;  and  thus  also,  to  place  not  only  himself  in 
perfect  security,  but  his  neighbours  also,  who  might  ver; 
reasonably  dread  having  their  houses  contaminated  b 
the  infection.    For  this  purpose,  Moses  proceeded  in  th 
following  manner : — 

1.  In  the  first  place,  he  ordained  that  the  owner  of  a 
house,  when  any  suspicious  spots  or  dimples  appeared  oH 
the  walls,  should  be  bound  to  give  notice  of  it,  in  ordejj 
that  the  house  might  be  inspected  by  a  person  of  skill ;  anfli 
that  person,  as  in  the  case  of  human  leprosv,  was  to  be  the 
priest,  whose  duty  it  was  to  apply  himself  to  (he  study  of 
such  things.  Now  this  would  serve  to  check  the  mischi^^ 
in  its  very  origin,  and  to  make  every  one  attentive  to  ol 


I 


Chap.  16. 


LEVITICUS. 


77 


serve  it.  If  we  had  any  such  regulations  in  oar  newly- 
!  founded  cities,  it  is  probable  that  the  saltpetre  would  never 
•  acquire  suc'h  a  footing  as  it  does.  The  cause  of  its  estab- 
lishment anywhere  would  soon  be  discovered  and  remov- 
ed, instead  of  its  being,  as  it  now  is,  in  our  cities,  suffered 
to  increase  to  such  a  degree  as  to  vitiate  the  whole  atmo- 
sphere. 

2.  On  notice  being  given,  the  priest  was  to  inspect  the 
house,  but  the  occupant  had  liberty  to  remove  every  thing 
previously  out  of  it ;  and  that  this  might  be  done,  the  priest 
was  empowered  to  order  it  ex  officio;  for  whatever  was 
found  within  a  house  declared  unclean,  became  unclean 
along  with  it.  Thus  much  is  clear,  that  the  legislator  did 
not  suppose  that  the  furniture  of  an  infected  house  could 
contaminate  any  other  place,  else  would  he  not  have  al- 
lowed its  removal,  while  the  matter  was  doubtful ;  but  here 
PI  >bably  he  yielded  to  the  fears  of  the  people,  (as  every 
Jet,nslator  should  do  in  such  cases,  instead  of  saying.  There 
can  be  no  infection  here,  and  ye  must  believe  so  ;  for  the  dread 
of  infection,  whether  well  founded  or  not,  is  an  evil  against 
which  we  are  fain  to  be  secure ;  and  if  a  legislator  neglects 
to  make  us  so,  we  will  either  take  forcible  measures  to  ef- 
fect security,  or  else  take  fright,  and  shut  ourselves  up  :) 
or  perhaps  he  only  meant  to  compel  the  possessor  of  a 
house,  to  a  more  honest  intimation  of  the  very  first  suspi- 
cious symptoms  of  the  evil.  For  if  he  gave  no  such  inti- 
mation, and  his  house,  on  being  broke  into,  either  at  the  re- 
quest of  a  neighbour,  or  any  other  informer,  interested  in 
making  a  discovery,  happened  to  be  found  unclean,  its 
whole  contents  became  unclean  of  course. 

3.  If,  on  the  first  inspection,  the  complaint  did  not  ap- 
pear wholly  without  foundation,  but  suspicious  spots  or 
dimples  were  actually  to  be  seen,  the  house  was  to  continue 
shut  up  for  eight  days,  and  then  to  be  inspected  anew.  If, 
in  this  interval,  the  evil  did  not  spread,  it  was  considered 
as  having  been  a  circumstance  merely  accidental,  and  the 
house  was  not  polluted ;  but  if  it  had  spread,  it  was  not  ac- 
counted a  harmless  accident,  b'ut  the  real  house-leprosv ; 
and  the  stones  affected  with  it,  were  to  be  broken  out  of  the 
wall,  and  carried  to  an  unclean  place  without  the  citv ; 
and  the  walls  of  the  whole  house  were  scraped  and  plaster- 
ed anew.  These  are  the  very  same  things  that  must  be 
done  at  this  day,  if  we  want  to  clear  a  house  of  the  saltpe- 
ire-evil.  The  stone  or  spot  which  produces  it,  must  be  ab- 
solutely removed :  and  the  scraping,  and  fresh  plastering, 
is  also  necessary ;  for  it  is  in  the  very  lime  that  the  saltpe- 
tre, (or,  to  speak  more  properly,  the  acid  of  nitre,)  estab- 
lishes itself  most  firmly.  In  our  large  buildings,  indeed, 
it  is  not  just  necessary  to  new-plaster  the  whole  house  ;  but 
the  houses  of  the  Hebrews  were  very  small ;  and  even  the 
temple  of  Solomon  itself,  built  some  centuries  posterior  to 
the  time  of  Moses,  notwithstanding  all  the  fame  of  its  mag- 
nificence, was  by  no  means  nearly  so  large  as  many  a  house 
in  Gottingen ;  although  certainly  we  cannot  boast  of  palaces, 
and  have  only  good  bourgeois  houses. 

4.  If,  after  this,  the  leprosy  broke  out  afresh,  the  whole 
house  was  to  be  pulled  down,  and  the  materials  carried  to 
an  unclean  place  without  the  city.  Moses,  therefore,  it 
would  appear,  never  suffered  a  leprous  house  to  stand. 
The  injury  which  such  houses  might  do  to  the  health  of 
the  inhabitants,  or  to  the  articles  they  contained,  was  of  more 
consequence  in  his  estimation,  than  the  buildings  them- 
selves. Those  to  whom  this  appears  strange,  and  who  la- 
ment the  fate  of  a  house  pulled  down  by  legal  authority, 
probably  think  of  large  and  magnificent  houses  like  ours, 
of  many  stories  high,  which  cost  a  great  deal  of  money,  and 
in  the  second  story  of  which,  the  people  are  generally  se- 
cure from  all  danger  of  the  saltpetre  ;  but  I  have  already 
mentioned,  that  the  houses  of  those  days  were  low,  and  of 
very  little  value. 

5.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  house,  being  inspected  a 
second  time,  was  found  clean,  it  was  solemnly  so  declared, 
and  an  offering  made  on  the  occasion ;  in  order  that  every 
one  might  know  for  certain,  that  it  was  not  infected,  and 
the  public  be  freed  from  all  fears  on  that  score. 

By  this  law  many  evils  were  actually  prevented, — the 
spreading  of  the  saltpetre-infection,  and  even  its  beginning ; 
for  the  people  would  guard  against  those  impurities  whence 
it  arose,  from  its  being  so  strictly  inquired  into  ; — the  dan- 
ger of  their  allowing  their  property  or  their  health  to  suf- 
fer in  an  infected  house,  from  mere  carelessness  ; — the  dif- 
ficulty of  making  (among  the  Hebrews  it  would  have  been, 


their  slaves,  but  among  us  it  would  be)  our  hired  servants, 
or  perhaps  our  children's  preceptor,  occupy  an  infected 
apartment  that  was  for  no  other  use,  and  sleep  close  to  an 
unwholesome  wall.  With  such  a  law,  no  man  can  have 
any  just  ground  of  dissatisfaction  ;  and  we  might  at  all 
events  ask,  why  we  have  it  not  put  in  force  in  newly-built 
cities'?  It  is  certainly  very  singular,  that  in  this  country, 
or,  at  any  rate,  in  some  places  of  it,  we  have  a  law,  which 
is  a  most  complete  counterpart  to  it.  No  doubt  our  house- 
leprosy  is  not  attended  with  the  same  evils  as  it  was  among 
the  Hebrews,  by  reason  of  the  change  of  circumstances, 
and  because  tne  saltpetre,  being  necessary  for  the  manu- 
facture of  gunpowder,  is  otlen  scraped  off;  and  herein  we 
have  a  strong  example  of  the  diversity  occasioned  in  legis- 
lative policy,  by  difference  of  time  and  climate.  We  hav^e 
occasion  for  great  quantities  of  saltpetre,  in  consequence  of 
the  invention  of  gunpowder ;  and,  as  in  some  parts  of  Ger- 
many where  the  soil  abounds  with  it,  such  as  the  circle  of  the 
Saal,  in  the  dutchy  of  Magdeburg,  the  cottages  of  the  peas- 
ants have,  from  time  immemorial,  had  their  walls  built 
only  of  earth,  in  which,  by  reason  of  tbat  want  of  cleanli- 
ness, in  many  respects,  which  prevails  in  country  villages, 
the  saltpetre  establishes  itself,  and  effloresces ;  there  is  an 
ancient  consuetudinary  law,  that  the  collectors  of  this  sub- 
stance may  scrape  it  off;  which  they  can  do  without  any 
damage  whatever  to  the  houses ;  only  they  take  care  never 
to  scrape  it  off  to  the  very  roots,  nor  dare  the  occupants  of 
the  l^ouses  extirpate  it  altogether.  The  walls  are  so  thick, 
and  so  often  cleaned  by  this  operation,  that,  for  my  part  at 
least,  I  never  heard  that  the  health  of  the  people  was  affect- 
ed by  the  saltpetre ;  and  in  the  houses  themselves,  though 
inhabited  by  very  substantial  tenants,  there  is  not  much  to 
spoil. — At  the  same  time,  I  should  be  glad  to  be  more  fully 
informed  by  any  physician  of  that  country,  whether  he  had 
ever  traced  any  pernicious  effects  to  the  cause  in  question  1 

— MiCHAELIS. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  10.  But  the  goat  on  which  the  lot  fell  to  be 
the  scape-goat,  shall  be  presented  alive  before 
the  Lord,  to  make  an  atonement  with  him,  and 
to  let  him  go  for  a  scape-goat. 

When  a  person  is  sick  he  vows  on  his  recovery  to  set  a 
goat  at  liberty,  in  honour  of  his  deity.  Having  selected  a 
suitable  one  from  his  flocks,  he  makes  a  slit  in  the  ear,  or 
ties  a  yellow  string  round  its  neck,  and  lets  it  go  whitherso- 
ever it  pleases.  Whoever  sees  the  animal  knows  it  to  be 
a  Nate-kadi,  the  vowed  goat,  and  no  person  will  molest  it. 
Sometimes  two  goats  are  thus  made  sacred ;  but  one  of 
them  will  be  offered  soon,  and  the  other  kept  for  a  future 
sacrifice.  But  it  is  not  merely  in  time  of  sickness  that  they 
have  recourse  to  this  practice :  for  does  a  man  wish  to 
procure  a  situation,  he  makes  a  similar  vow.  Has  a  per- 
son heard  that  there  are  treasures  concealed  in  any  place, 
he  vows  to  Virava  (should  he  find  the  prize)  to  set  a  goat 
at  liberty,  in  honour  of  his  name.  When  a  person  has 
committed  what  he  considers  a  great  sin,  he  does  the  same 
thing ;  but  in  acidition  to  other  ceremonies,  he  sprinkles 
the  animal  with  water,  puts  his  hands  upon  it,  and  prays 
to  be  forgiven. — Roberts. 

The  Aswamedha  Jug  is  an  ancient  Indian  custom,  in 
which  a  horse  was  brought  and  sacrificed,  with  some  rites 
similar  to  those  prescribed  in  the  Mosaic  law.  "  The 
horse  so  sacrificed  is  in  place  of  the  sacrificer,  bears  his 
sins  with  him  into  the  wilderness,  into  which  he  is  turned 
adrifl,  (for,  from  this  particular  instance,  it  seems  that  the 
sacrificing  knife  was  not  always  employed,)  and  becomes 
the  expiatory  victim  of  those  sins."  Mr.  Halhed  observes, 
that  this  ceremony  reminds  us  of  the  scape-goat  of  the 
Israelites ;  and  indeed  it  is  not  the  only  one  in  which  a 
particular  coincidence  between  the  Hindoo  and  Mosaic 
systems  of  theology  may  be  traced.  To  this  account  may 
be  subjoined  a  narrative  in  some  measure  similar  from 
Mr.  Bruce.  "  We  found,  that  upon  some  dissension,  the 
garrison  and  townsm-en  had  been  fighting  for  several  days, 
in  which  disorders  the  greatest  part  of  the  ammunition  in 
the  town  had  been  expended,  but  it  had  since  been  agreed 
on  by  the  old  men  of  both  parties,  that  nobody  had  been  to 
blame  on  either  side,  but  the  whole  wrong  was  the  woik  of 
a  camel.  A  camel,  therefore,  was  seized,  and  brought 
without  the  town,  and  there  a  number  on  both  sides  ha\  »ng 


78 


LEVITICUS. 


Chap.  17,  18 


met,  they  upbraided  the  camel  with  every  thing  that  had 
been  either  said  or  done.  The  fM,mel  had  killed  men  ;  he 
had  threatened  to  set  the  town  on  fire ;  the  camel  had 
threatened  to  burn  the  aga's  house  and  the  castle ;  he  had 
cursed  the  grand  seignior  and  the  sheriff  of  Mecca,  the 
sovereigns  of  the  two  parties ;  and,  the  only  thing  the  poor 
animal  was  interested  in,  he  had  threatened  to  destroy  the 
wheat  that  was  going  to  Mecca.  After  having  spent  great 
part  of  the  afternoon  in  upbraiding  the  camel,  whose  mea- 
sure of  iniquity,  it  seems,  was  near  full,  each  man  thrust 
him  through  with  a  lance,  devoting  him  Mis  maif^ibus  et 
diris,  by  a  kind  of  prayer,  and  with  a  thousand  curses  upon 
his  head,  after  which  every  man  retired,  fully  satisfied  as 
to  the  wrongs  he  had  received  from  the  camel .'" — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Ver.  7.  And  they  shall  no  more  offer  their  sacri- 
fices unto  devils,  after  whom  they  have  gone 
a-whoring-.  This  shall  be  a  statute  for  ever 
unto  them  throughout  their  generations. 

The  Hebrew  word  Seirim,  here  translated  devils,  (field 
devils,)  properly  signifies  woolly,  hairy,  in  general ;  whence 
it  is  used  as  well  for  he-goats,  as  also  for  certain  fabulous 
beings  or  sylvan  gods,  to  whom,  as  to  the  satyrs,  the  popu- 
lar belief  ascribed  the  form  of  goats.  But,  in  the  above 
passage,  he-goats  are  probably  meant,  which  were  ob- 
jects of  divine  honour  among  the  Egyptians,  under 'the 
name  of  Mendes,  as  emblems  of  the  fructifying  power  of 
nature,  or  of  the  frtictifying  power  of  the  sun.  From  this 
divinity,  which  the  Greeks  compared  with  their  Pan,  a 
province  in  Egypt  had  its  name.  Goats  and  he-goats,  says 
Herodotus,  are  not  slaughtered  by  the  Egyptians  whom  we 
have  mentioned,  because  they  consider  Pan  as  one  of  the 
oldest  gods.  But  painters  as  well  as  statuaries  represent 
this  deity  with  the  face  and  the  legs  of  a  goat,  as  the  Greeks 
used  to  represent  Pan.  The  Mandeseans  pay  divine  honour 
to  he-goats  and  she-goats ;  but  more  to  the  former  than  to 
the  latter. — Rosenmuller. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Ver.  6.  None  of  you  shall  approach  to  any  that 
is  near  of  kin  to  him,  (Heb.  remnant  of  flesh,) 
to  uncover  their  nakedness. 

In  his  statutes  relative  to  marriage,  and  sometimes,  also, 
in  other  parts  of  his  law,  Moses  expresses  near  relationship, 
either  by  the  single  word,  -iNtr,  (Sheer)  pars,  scil.  carnis,  or 
more  fully  by  the  two  words,  -^v::  -iNtt?,  Sheer-basar,  pars 
carnis,  {part  or  remainder  of  flesh.)  The  meaning  of  these 
terms  has  been  the  subject  of  much  controversy.  Some 
would  translate  ihexo.  flesh  of  flesh;  others,  remn/int  of  flesh. 
But  those  that  say  most  of  their  etymology,  are  in  general 
not  so  much  oriental  philologists,  as  divines  and  lawyers ; 
and  yet  we  should  rather  like  to  have  an  illustration  of  any 
obscure  etymological  question,  from  those  who  unite  with 
the  knowledge  of  Hebrew,  an  acquaintance  with  its  kin- 
dred eastern  languages.  There  are  some  also,  who  would 
make  this  distinction  between  Sheer,  and  Sheer-basar,  that 
the  former  means  only  persons  immediately  connected  loith 
us,  such  as  children,  parents,  grandchildren,  grandparents, 
and  husbands  or  wives ;  and  the  latter,  those  who  are  related 
to  us  only  mediately,  but  in  the  nearest  degree,  such  as,  our 
brothers  and  sisters,  who  are,  properly  speaking,  our  father'' s 
flesh.  Others  again  think,  that  Sheer-basar  means  nothing 
but  children  and  grandchildren.  These  conjectures,  how- 
ever, are  by  no  means  consonant  to  the  real  usage  of  the 
language,  in  the  Mosaic  laws  themselves ;  for  in  Levit. 
XXV.  48,  49,  Slieer-basar  follows  as  the  name  of  a  more 
remote  relation,  after  brother,  paternal  uncle,  or  paternal 
uncle's  son;  and  in  Num.  xxvii.  8 — 11,  it  is  commanded, 
that  "  if  a  man  die  without  sons,  his  inheritance  shall  be 
given  to  his  daughters ;  if  he  have  no  daughters,  it  shall 
pass  to  his  brothers,  of  whom,  if  he  has  none,  then  to  his 
paternal  uncles ;  and  if  these  are  also  wanting,  it  shall 
then  be  given  unto  his  nearest  Sheer  in  his  family.''^  It  is 
manifest  that,  in  this  passage.  Sheer  includes  those  relations 
that  follow  in  succession  to  a  father's  brother.  If  the 
reader  wishes  to  know  what  these  words  etymologically 
signify,  I  shall  here  just  state  to  him  my  opinion,  but  with- 
out repeating  tjie  grounds  on  which  it  rests.    Sheer  means, 


1.  a,  remtiant;  2.  the  remnant  of  a  meal;  3.  a  piece  of  a/riy 
thing  eatable,  such  as  flesh  ;  4.  a  piece  of  any  thing  in  gen- 
eral. Hence  we  find  it  subsequently  transferred  to  rela- 
tionship in  the  Arabic  language ;  in  which,  though  with  a 
slight  orthographical  variation,  that  nearest  relation  is 
call-ed  Tair  or  Thsair,  whom  the  Hebrews  denominate 
Goel.  In  this  way.  Sheer,  even  by  itself,  would  signify  i 
relation. — Basar,  commonly  rendered  flesh,  is  among  th«. 
Hebrews  equivalent  to  body ;  and  may  thence  have  been 
applied  to  signify  relationship.  Thus,  thou  art  my  flesh,  or 
body,  (Gen.  xxix.  14,)  means,  thou  art  my  near  kinsman. 
When  both  words  are  put  together,  Sheer-basar,  they  may 
be  rendered  literally,  corporeal  relation,  or  by  a  half  Hu. 
brew  phrase,  kinsman  after  the  flesh.  In  their  derivation, 
there  are  no  further  mysteries  concealed,  nor  any  thing 
that  can  bring  the  point  in  question  to  a  decision ;  and 
what  marriages  Moses  has  permitted  or  commanded,  we 
cannot  ascertain  from  Sheer-basar,  frequent  and  extensive 
as  is  its  use  in  his  marriage-laws :  but  must  determine, 
from  his  own  ordinances,  in  which  he  distinctly  mentions 
what  Sheer-basar,  that  is,  what  relations,  are  forbidden  to 
marry. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  16.  Thou  shalt  not  uncover  the  nakedness 
of  thy  brother's  wife :  it  is  thy  brother's  naked- 
ness. 1 8.  Neither  shalt  thou  take  a  wife  to  her 
sister,  to  vex  her,  to  uncover  her  nakedness,  be- 
sides the  other  in  her  life-time. 

With  regard  to  the  marriages  mentioned  in  this  chapter, 
there  arises  the  question,  whether  Moses  only  prohibits  the 
marriages  which  he  expressly  mentions,  or  others  besides, 
not  mentioned,  where  the  degree  of  relationship  is  the  same  1 
This  question,  which  is  of  so  great  importance  in  the  mar- 
riage laws  of  Christian  nations,  and  which,  from  our  im- 
perfect knowledge  of  oriental  customs,  has  been  the  sub- 
ject of  so  much  controversy*properly  regards  the  following 
marriages  never  mentioned  by  Moses,  viz. 

1.  With  a  brother's  daughter. 

2.  A\  ith  a  sister's  daughter. 

3.  With  a  maternal  uncle's  widow. 

4.  With  a  brother's  son's  widow. 

5.  With  a  sister's  son's  widow. 

6.  With  a  deceased  wife's  sister. 

These  marriages  we  may,  perhaps,  for  brevity's  sake,  be 
allowed  to  denominate  the  six  marriages,  or  the  consequen- 
tial marriages.  They  are  as  near  as  those  mentioned  in 
the  foregoing  article,  and  prohibited.  Moses  never  men- 
tions them  in  his  marriage  statutes ;  yet  the  ground  of  his 
prohibitions  is  nearness  of  relationship.  The  question, 
therefore,  is,  Are  these  marriages  to  be,  or  not  to  be,  con- 
sidered as  prohibited,  by  just  inference  from  the  letter  of  his 
laws 'i  In  my  opinion,  they  an  not;  and  in  proving  this,  I 
will  most  willingly  concede  to  those  of  a  contrary  opinion, 
a  multitude  of  objections  against  their  consequences,  as  de- 
duced from  the  letter  of  the  Mosaic  statutes ;  such,  for  in- 
stance, as  this,  that  according  to  the  pri7iciple  of  judicial 
her^ieneutics,  prohibitions  are  not  to  be  extended  beyond  thf 
letter  of  the  lau) ;  for  I  readily  acknowledge  that  this  rule, 
how  valid  soever  in  our  law,  is  nevertheless  not  universal 
and  not  always  safely  applicable  to  veiy  ancient  laws,  if  we 
wish  to  ascertain  the  true  meaning  and  opinion  of  the  law- 
giver :  Or  this,  again,  that  in  these  marriages  there  is  no 
violation  of  Respectus  parentela  ;  for  I  have  already  admit- 
ted that  that  principle,  to  which  the  Roman  lawyers  appeal, 
was  not  the  foundation  of  the  Mosaic  prohibitions.  I  will 
go  yet  one  step  further  in  courtesy,  and  promise  to  appeal 
on  no  occasion  whatever  to  the  common  opinion  of  the  Jews, 
or  to  those  examples  of  ancient  Jewish  usage,  whereby  the 
marriages  here  mentioned  are  permitted ;  for  all  the  Jewish 
expositors,  and  all  the  examples  they  can  produce,  are 
much  too  modern  for  me  to  found  upon,  where  the  question 
is  concerning  the  true  meaning  of  a  law  given  some  hun- 
dred, or  rather  thousand  years  before  them.  So  much 
generosity  on  my  part,  many  readers  would,  perhaps,  not 
have  anticipated ;  but  I  owe  nothing  less  to  impartialitjj, 
and  the  love  of  truth.  My  reasons,  then,  for  denying,  arid 
protesting  against  the  conclusions  in  question,  ar^  iz  iol-' 
lowing : — 

1.  Moses  does  not  appear  to  have  framed  or  given  hi? 
I  marriage  laws  with  any  view  to  our  deducing,  or  acting 


Chap.  19,  20 


LEVITICUS. 


79 


upon,  conclusions  which  we  might  think  fit  to  deduce  from 
them :  for  if  this  was  his  view,  he  has  made  several  repetitions 
in  theui,  that  are  really  very  useless.  What  reason  had  he, 
for  example,  after  forbidding  marriage  with  a  father's  sis- 
ter, to  forbid  it  also  with  a  mother's,  if  this  second  prohibi- 
tion was  included  in  the  first,  and  if  he  meant,  without  say- 
ing a  word  on  the  subject,  to  be  understood  as  speaking,  not 
of  particular  marriages,  but  of  degrees  ^ 

3.  Moses  has  giv^en  his  marriage  laws  in  two  different 
places  of  the  Pentateuch,  viz.  in  both  the  xviii.  and  xx. 
chapters  of  Leviticus  ;  but  in  the  latter  of  these  passages 
we  find  only  the  very  same  cases  specitied,  which  had  been 
specified  in  the  former.  Now,  had  they  been  meant  mere- 
ly as  examples  of  degrees  of  relationship,  it  would  have 
been  more  rational  to  have  varied  them;  and  if  it  had  been 
said,  for  instance,  on  the  first  occasion,  Thou  shall  nol  mar- 
rtj  Ihyfalher^s  sisler,  to  have  introduced,  on  the  second,  the 
converse  case,  and  said.  Thou  s/utll  nol  marry  thy  brother's 
daughter.  This,  however,  is  not  done  by  Moses,  who,  in 
the  second  enactment,  just  specifies  thefather^s  sister^  as  be- 
fore ;  and  seems,  therefore,  to  have  intended  that  he  should 
be  understood  as  having  in  his  view  no  other  marriages 
than  those  which  he  expressly  names;  unless  we  choose  to 
interpret  his  laws  in  a  manner  foreign  to  his  own  meaning 
and  d-esign. 

3.  If,  in  opposition  to  this,  the  advocates  of  the  contrary 
opinion  urge,  that  the  six  consequential  marriages  are  just 
as  near  as  those  expressly  prohibited  ;  my  answer  is,  that 
though  here  they  may  seem  to  be  in  the  right,  there  is  yet, 
according  to  the  customs  of  the  Hebrews,  so  great  a  dis- 
tinction between  these  two  classes  of  marriages,  that  any 
conclusion  drawn  from  the  one  to  the  other,  is  entirely  nu- 
gatory.   For, 

(1.)  In  the  Jirst  place,  among  the  oriental  nations,  the 
niece  was  regarded  as  a  more  distant  relation  than  the 
aunt.  The  latter,  whether  fathers'  or  mothers'  sister,  her 
nephew  might  see  unveiled,  in  other  words,  had  much 
nearer  access  to  her ;  whereas  the  former,  whether  bro- 
thers' or  sisters'  daughter,  could  not  be  seen  by  her  uncle 
without  a  veil.  Now,  this  distinction  refers  to  the  very 
essence  of  'le  prohibitions ;  for  it  is  not  the  natural  degree 
of  relationship,  but  the  right  of  familiar  intercourse,  that 
constitutes  the  danger  of  corruption.  If,  therefore,  these 
laws  were  given  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  early  de- 
bauchery under  the  hope  of  marriage,  with  an  aunt,  and 
with  a  niece,  they  are  by  no  means  on  the  same  footing ;  for 
to  the  former,  by"  the  law  of  relationship,  an  Israelite  had  a 
degree  of  access,  which  in  the  case  of  the  latter  was  not  per- 
mitted. Both  stood  in  the  same  degree  of  affinity  accord- 
ing to  the  genealogical  tree,  but  not  so  by  the  intimacy  of 
intercourse  permitted  with  them. 

(2.)  In  the  second  place,  there  was  a  difference  equally 
great,  or  even  greater,  made  between  the  paternal  uncle's 
widow  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  widow  of  the  maternal 
uncle,  or  of  the  brother's  or  sister's  son,  on  the  other.  For 
if  by  that  ancient  law,  of  which  the  Levirate-marriage  may 
be  a  relic,  the  widow  was  regarded  as  part  of  the  in- 
heritance,— I,  in  the  event  of  my  father  being  dead,  receiv- 
ed his  brother's  widow  by  inheritance,  but  not  my  mother's 
brother's,  because  he  belonged  to  a  different  family  ;  nor  yet 
could  I  thus  receive  the  widow  of  my  brother  or  sister's  son, 
because  inlieritances  do  not  usually  ascend ;  or,  at  any  rate, 
an  inheritance  of  this  kind  ;  to  make  use  of  which,  a  man 
must  necessarily  not  be  old,  ifthe  person  who  has  left  it  was 
young.  In  the  case,  therefore,  of  the  prohibited  marriages 
specified  by  Moses,  there  was  by  the  ancient  law  an  expec- 
tancy, and  by  the  Levirate-law  it  become  a  duty,  to  marry 
the  widow  of  a  paternal  uncle,  who  had  died  childless,  and 
to  raise  up  seed  to  him;  but  in  the  case  of  the  marriages 
not  prohibited  by  Moses,  there  could  be  no  room  for  either. 
If,  by  reason  of  this  distinction,  there  be,  in  regard  to  the 
brother's  son's  widow,  as  belonging  to  one  familv,  the  least 
doubt  remaining  in  the  mind  of  the  reader,  I  hope  to  re- 
move it  likewise,  into  the  bargain.  V/ere  I  to  receive  her 
by  inheritance,  it  must  be  presupposed  that  she  would  have 
first  fallen  naturally  to  my  father,  and  only  in  consequence 
of  his  being  no  longer  alive,  have  devolved  upon  me,  one 
degree  more  distant.  But  any  inheritance  so  abominable 
as  that  of  a  son's  widow  devolving  to  his  father,  we  can 
scarcely  figure  to  ourselves ;  although  Thamar,  from  re- 
sentment and  despair,  conceived  the  idea  of  her  having 
suck  a  claim,  and  contrived  by  secret  artifice  to  enforce  it, 


Gen.  xxxviii.  Rather  would  she  fall  to  her  husband's  bro- 
ther, and  were  he  not  alive,  naturally  devolve  to  his  son. 
It  is  therefore  manifest,  that  the  father's  brother  could  never 
have  had  that  expectancy  of  his  brother's  son's  widow, 
which  might  be  attended  with  such  pernicious  consequen- 
ces as  I  have  already  remarked. 

4.  The  strongest  and  most  decisive  argument  against  the 
conseqiiential  system^  and  the  reckoning  by  degrees,  is  drawn 
from  the  case  of  marriage  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister; 
The  relationship-  here  is  as  near  as  that  of  a  brother's 
widow ;  and  yet  Moses  prohibits  the  marriage  of  a  bro- 
ther's widow,  and  permits  that  of  a  deceased  wife's  sister, 
or  rather  (which  makes  the  proof  still  stronger,)  he  presup- 
poses it  in  his  laws  as  permitted ;  and  consequent] v^  wished 
to  be  understood  as  forbidding  only  those  marriages  which 
he  expressly  specifies,  and  not  others  of  the  like  proximity, 
thougn  unnoticed.  The  reader  who  is  not  satisfied  v.  iih 
these  remarks,  may  consult  the  7th  chapter  of  my  Treatise 
on  the  Marriage  Laws,  where  he  will  find  many  particu- 
lars more  fully  detailed.  But  here  I  cannot  say  move, 
without  dwelling  too  long  on  one  part  of  my  subject. — Mi- 

CHAELIS. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Ver.  9.  And  when  ye  reap  the  harvest  of  your 
land,  thou  shalt  not  wholly  reap  the  corners 
of  thy  field,  neither  shalt  thou  gather  the  glean- 
ings of  thy  harvest. 

The  right  of  the  poor  in  Israel  to  glean  after  the  reapers, 
was  thus  secured  oy  a  positive  law.  It  is  the  opinion  of 
some  writers,  that  although  the  poor  were  allowed  the  lib- 
erty of  gleaning,  the  Israelitish  proprietors  were  not  oblig- 
ed to  admit  them  immediately  into  the  field,  as  soon  as  the 
reapers  had  cut  down  the  corn,  and  bound  it  up  in  sheaves, 
but  when  it  was  carried  off;  they  might  choose  also  among 
the  poor,  whom  they  thought  most  deserving  or  most  ne- 
cessitous. These  opinions  receive  some  countenance,  from 
the  request  which  Ruth  presented  to  the  servant  of  Boaz, 
to  permit  her  to  glean  "  among  the  sheaves ;"  and  from  the 
charge  of  Boaz  to  his  young  men,  "  let  her  glean  even 
among  the  sheaves  ;"  a  mode  of  speaking  which  seems  to 
insinuate,  that  though  they  could  not  legally  hinder  Paith 
from  gleaning  in  the  field.,  they  had  a  right",  if  they  chose 
to  exercise  it,  to  prohibit  her  from  gleaning  r.mong  the 
sheaves,  or  immediately  after  the  reapers. — Paxton. 

Ver.  28.  Ye  shall  not  rnake  any  cuttings  in  your 
flesh  for  the  dead,  nor  print  any  marks  upoji 
you :  I  am  the  Lord. 

The  heathen  print  marks  on  their  bodies,  (by  puncturing 
the  skin,)  so  as  to  represent  birds,  trees,  and  the  gods  they 
serve.  Some  also,  especially  the  sacred  females  of  the  tem- 
ples, have  representations  on  their  arms  of  a  highly  offen- 
sive nature.  All  Hindoos  have  a  black  spot,  or  some  other 
mark,  on  their  foreheads.  And  the  true  followers  of  Siva 
rub  holy  ashes  every  morning  on  the  knees,  loins,  navel, 
arms,  shoulders,  brow,  and  crown  of  the  head. — Roberts. 

Ver.  29.  Do  not  prostitute  thy  daughter,  to  cause 
her  to  be  a  whore ;  lest  the  land  fall  to  whore- 
dom, and  the  land  become  full  of -wickedness. 

Parents,  in  consequence  of  a  vow  or  some  other  circum- 
stance, often  dedicate  their  daughters  to  the  gods.  They 
are  sent  to  the  temple,  at  the  age  of  eight  or  ten  years,  to 
be  initiated  into  the  art  of  dancing  before  the  deities,  and 
of  singing  songs  in  honour  of  their  exploits.  From  that  pe- 
riod these  dancing  girls  remain  in  some  sacred  building  neai 
the  temple  ;  and  when  they  arrive  at  maturity,  (the  parents 
being  made  acquainted  with  the  fact,)  a  feast  is  made,  and 
the  poor  girl  is  given  into  the  embraces  of  some  influential 
man  of  the  establishment.  Practices  of  the  most  disgusting 
nature  then  take  place,  and  the  young  victim  becomes  a 
prostitute  for  life. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XX. 
Ver.  2.  Ao-ain  thou  shalt  say  to  the  children  of 
Israel,  Whosoever  he  he  of  the  children  of  Is- 


8C 


LEVITICUS. 


Chap.  20. 


rael,  or  of  the  strangers  that  sojourn  in  Israel, 
that  giveth  any  of  his  seed  unto  Molech,  he 
shall  surely  be  put  to  death :  the  people  of  the 
land  shall  stone  him  with  stones. 

One  of  the  most  common  punishments  in  use  among  the 
Jews,  was  stoning,  which  appears  to  have  been  a  most 
grievous  and  terrible  infliction:  "when  the  criminal  ar- 
rived within  four  cubits  of  the  place  of  execution,  he  was 
stripped  naked,  only  leaving  a  covering  before ;  and  his 
hands  being  bound,  he  was  led  up  to  the  fatal  spot,  which 
was  an  emmence  about  twice  the  height  of  a  man.  The 
first  executioners  of  the  sentence,  were  the  witnesses,  who 
generally  pulled  off  their  clothes  for  that  purpose :  one  of 
them  threw  him  down  with  great  violence  upon  his  loins ; 
if  he  rolled  upon  his  breast,  he  was  turned  upon  his  loins 
again  :  and  if  he  died  by  the  fall,  the  sentence  of  the  law 
was  executed  ;  but  if  not,  the  other  witness  took  a  great 
stone  and  dashed  it  on  his  breast  as  he  lay  upon  his  back ; 
and  then,  if  he  was  not  despatched,  all  the  people  that 
stood  by,  threw  stones  at  him  till  he  died."— Lewis. 

Ver.  25.  Ye  shall  therefore  put  difference  between 
clean  beasts  and  unclean,  and  between  unclean 
fowls  and  clean :  and  ye  shall  not  make  your 
souls  abominable  by  beast,  or  by  fowl,  or  by 
any  manner  of  living  thing  that  creepeth  on 
the  ground,  which  I  have  separated  from  you 
as  unclean. 

The  Mosaic  ordinances  respecting  clean  and  unclean 
beasts,  other  authors  refer  to  the  head  of  Ecclesiastical 
Laws;  but  as  they  relate,  not  to  any  ceremonies  of  religious 
worship,  but  merely  to  matters  of  a  secular  nature,  I  choose 
rather  to  treat  of  them  under  the  head  of  Police  Law,  as 
one  would  naturally  do  in  the  case  of  any  other  laws,  that 
prohibited  the  use  of  certain  meats.  And  first  of  all,  I 
must  illustrate  the  terms  clean  and  unclean,  as  applied  to 
beasts ;  because  we  are  apt  to  consider  them  as  implying  a 
division  of  animals  with  which  we  are  entirely  unacquaint- 
ed, and  then  to  wonder  that  Moses,  as  an  historian,  in 
describing  the  circumstances  of  the  deluge,  w^hich  took 
place  many  centuries  before  the  era  of  his  own  laws, 
should  mention  clean  and  unclean  beasts,  and,  by  so  doing, 
presuppose  that  there  was  such  a  distinction  made  at  that 
early  period.  The  fact  however  is,  that  we  ourselves, 
and  indeed  almost  all  nations,  make  this  very  distinction, 
although  we  do  not  express  it  in  these  terms.  Clean  and 
unclean  beasts  is  precisely  tantamount  to  beasts  usual  and 
not  usual  for  food.  And  how  many  animals  are  there  not 
poisonous,  but  perfectly  edible,  which  yet  we  do  not  eat, 
and  at  the  flesh  of  which,  many  among  us  would  feel  a 
strong  abhorrence,  just  because  we  have  not  been  accus- 
tomed to  it  from  infancy  1 

What  Moses  did  in  regard  to  this  matter,  was,  in  the 
main,  nothing  more  than  converting  ancient  national  cus- 
tom into  positive  law.  The  very  same  animals  had,  for 
the  most  part,  previously  been  to  the  Israelites  or  their 
ancestors,  clean  or  unclean,  that  is,  usual  or  unusual  for 
food ;  and  we  find  that  even  in  Joseph's  time,  the  Eg)'p- 
tians,  who  had  different  customs  with  regard  to  meats,  and 
observed  them,  very  rigidly,  could  not  so  much  as  eat  at 
the  same  table  with  the  Israelitish  patriarchs.  Gen.  xliii.  32. 
These  ancestorial  usages  Moses  now  prescribed  as  express 
laws;  excluding,  perhaps,  some  animals  formerly  made 
use  of  for  food,  and  reducing  the  whole  into  what,  upon  the 
principles  of  physiology,  was  actually  a  very  easy  and  nat- 
ural system ;  concerning  which,  as  I  shall  have  to  speak  in 
the  sequel,  I  only  observe  at  present,  that  its  limits  were, 
perhaps,  before  trespassed,  both  on  the  side  of  prohibition 
and  permission.  As  soon  as  we  know  what  is  the  real 
meaning  of  clean  and  unclean  beasts,  many  errors,  some  of 
them  ludicrous,  and  from  which,  even  men  of  great  learn- 
ing have  not  been  wholly  exempt,  instantly  vanish.  The 
word  unclean,  applied  to  animals,  is  no  epithet  of  degrada- 
tion :  of  all  animals,  man  was  the  most  unclean,  that  is, 
human  flesh  was  least  of  all  things  to  be  eaten ;  and  such 
is  the  case,  in  every  nation  not  reckoned  among  cannibals. 
The  lion  and  the  horse  are  unclean  beasts,  but  were  to  the 
Hebrews  just  as  little  the  objects  of  contempt  as  they  are  to 


us.  It  is  another  mistake  to  imagine  that  the  Jews  durst 
not  have  any  unclean  animals  in  their  houses,  nor  have 
any  thing  to  do  with  them ;  and  hence  has  arisen  our 
strange  German  proverb,  Like  a  sow  in  a  Jew^s  house.  But 
let  us  only  recollect  the  instances  of  the  ass  and  camel,  the 
common  beasts  of  burden  among  the  Hebrews,  in  addition 
to  which,  in  later  times,  we  have  the  horse.  All  the  three 
species  w^ere  unclean.  Even  the  keeping  of  swine,  as  arti- 
cles of  trade,  was  as  little  forbidden  to  the  Jews  as  dealing 
in  horses,  which  they  carried  on  very  commonly. 

The  main  design  of  Moses,  in  converting  the  ancient 
national  customs  of  the  Hebrews  into  immutable  laws, 
might,  no  doubt,  be,  to  keep  them  more  perfectly  separate 
from  other  nations.  They  were  to  continue  a  distinct 
people  by  themselves,  to  dwell  altogether  in  Palestine, 
without  spreading  into  other  countries,  or  having  too  much 
intercourse  with  their  inhabitants ;  in  order  to  prevent  their 
being  infected,  either  with  that  idolatry,  which  was  then 
the  sensus  communis  of  all  mankind,  or  with  the  vices  of  the 
neighbouring  nations,  among  whom  the  Canaanites  were 
particularly  specified.  The  first  of  these  objects,  the  pre- 
vention of  idolatry,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  worship  of 
one  only  God,  was  the  fundamental  maxim  of  the  Mosaic 
legislation,  and  t^e  second,  namely,  the  preservation  of  his 
people  from  the  contagion  of  various  vices,  previously  un- 
common among  them,  such  as  bestiality,  sodomy,  incest, 
incestuous  marriages,  which  are  always  destructive  to  the 
happiness  of  a  country,  divinations,  human  sacrifices,  &c. 
&c. ;  together  with  the  maintaining  among  them  their 
present  morals,  if  but  tolerably  good,  must  be  an  object  of 
great  importance  with  every  legislator,  if  a  profligate 
race,  such  as  Moses  and  the  RouMn  writers  describe  the 
Canaanites  to  have  been,  happen  to  live  in  their  vicinity. 
And  this  Moses  himself  seems  to  point  out  as  his  object,  in 
the  xxth  chapter  of  Leviticus,  ver.  25, 26,  and  that  too  after 
warning  the  Israelites  against  imitating  the  Canaanites  in 
the  vices  now  mentioned:  "Ye  shall,"  says  he,  "distin- 
guish beasts  clean  and  unclean,  and  birds  clean  and  un- 
clean, from  each  other,  and  not  defile  yourselves  by 
four-footed,  flying,  or  creeping  creatures,  which  I  have 
separated  as  unclean ;  ye  shall  be  holy  to  me,  for  I  Jeho- 
vah am  holy,  and  have  separated  you  from  other  peoples, 
to  be  mine  own." 

The  distinction  of  clean  and  unclean  meats  may  be  a 
very  effectual  means  of  separating  one  nation  from  another. 
Intimate  friendships  are,  in  most  cases,  formed  at  table ; 
and  with  the  man,  with  whom  I  can  neither  eat  or  drink, 
let  our  intercourse  in  business  be  what  it  may,  I  shall  sel- 
dom become  so  familiar,  as  with  him  whose  guest  I  am, 
and  he  mine.  If  we  have,  besides,  from  education,  an 
abhorrence  of  the  food  which  others  eat,  this  forms  a  new 
obstacle  to  closer  intimacy.  Now,  all  the  neighbours  of 
the  Israelites  did  make  use  of  meats,  which  were  forbidden 
to  them  from  their  infancy.  The  Eg}^ptians  differed  most 
from  them  in  this  respect :  for  they  had  from  immemorial 
ages,  a  still  more  rigorous  system  of  national  laws  on  this 
point,  which  restrained  them  even  more  strongly  from 
intercourse  with  foreigners.  Some  of  the  animals  which 
the  Israelites  ate,  were  among  them  not  indeed  unclear, 
but  yet  sacred,  being  so  expressly  consecrated  to  a  deity, 
that  they  durst  not  be  slaughtered  ;  because,  according  to 
the  Egyptian  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls,  a  man 
could  not  but  be  afraid  of  devouring  his  OAvn  forefathers, 
if  he  tasted  the  flesh  of  those  beasts,  in  which  the  souls  of 
the  best  of  men  usually  resided.  Even  before  the  ancestors 
of  the  Israelites  descended  into  Egj'pt,  this  had  proceeded 
so  far,  that  the  Egyptians  not  only  could  not  eat  the  same 
sort  of  food,  but  could  not  even  so  much  as  sit  at  the  same 
table  with  Hebrews,  Gen.  xliii.  32 ;  and  these  wandering 
herdsmen,  who  ate  the  flesh  of  goats,  sheep,  and  oxen, 
which  were  all  forbidden  in  one  or  other  of  the  provinces  of| 
Egypt,  were  so  obnoxious  to  them,  that  they  would  noM 
allow  them  to  live  among  them,  but  assigned  "them  a  sepa-1 
rate  part  of  the  country  for  a  residence.  Gen.  xlvi.  33,  34. 
An  Egyptian  durst  not  so  much  as  use  a  vessel,  in  which 
a  foreigner  ate  his  impure  victuals ;  still  less  durst  he  kiss 
a  foreigner:  although  I  will  not  venture  to  assert,  that  this 
last  command  was,  in  all  cases,  inviolably  observed,  where 
a  tawny  Egyptian  found  a  fair  Grecian  alone,  how  impure 
soever  her  food  rendered  her. — We  may  therefore  conjec- 
ture, that  Moses  here  borrowed  somewhat  from  the  legis- 
lative policy  of  the  Egyptians,  and  with  a  view  to  a  mort 


Chap.  21—24. 


LEVITICUS. 


51 


complete  and  permanent  separation  of  the  two  peoples, 
made  that  a  law  among  the  Israelites,  which  before  was 
nothing  else  than  a  custom  of  their  fathers. 

Besides  this  main  object,  there  might,. no  doiibt,  in  the 
case  of  certain  animals,  interfere  dietetical  considerations 
to  influence  Moses  ;  only  we  are  not  to  seek  for  them  in  all 
the  prohibitions  relative  to  unclean  beasts.  In  regard  to 
that  respecting  swine's  flesh,  they  are  pretty  obvious ;  and 
every  prudent  legislator  must  endeavour  either  to  divert 
by  fair  means  a  people  in  the  circumstances  and  climate 
of  the  Israelites,  from  the  use  of  that  food,  or  else  express- 
ly interdict  it.  For  whoever  is  affected  with  any  cutane- 
ous disease,  were  it  but  the  common  itch,  if  he  wishes  to 
be  cured,  must  abstain  from  swine's  flesh.  It  has  likewise 
been  long  ago  observed,  that  the  use  of  this  food  produces  a 
peculiar  susceptibility  of  itchy  disorders.  Now,  throughout 
the  whole  climate  under  which  Palestine  is  situated,  and 
for  a  certain  extent  both  south  and  north,  the  leprosy  is  an 
endemic  disease ;  and  with  this  disease,  which  is  pre-emi- 
nently an  Egyptian  one,  the  Israelites  left  Egypt  so  terribly 
overrun,  that  Moses  found  it  necessary  to  enact  a  variety 
of  laws  respecting  it ;  and  that  the  contagion  might  l>e 
weakened,  and  the  people  tolerably  guarded  against  its  in- 
fluence, it  became  requisite  to  prohibit  them  from  eating 
swine's  flesh  altogether.  This  prohibition,  however,  is  suf- 
ficiently distinguished,  from  all  others  of  the  kind,  in  these 
two  respects  ;  in  the  first  place,  the  Arabs,  who  eat  other 
sorts  of  food  forbidden  the  Jews,  yet  hold  swine's  flesh  to  be 
imclean  ;  and,  in  conformity  with  their  ideas,  Mohammed 
forbade  the  use  of  it  in  the  Koran :  in  the  second  place, 
every  physician  will  interdict  a  person  labouring  under 
any  cutaneous  disease,  from  eating  pork  ;  and  it  has  been 
remarked  of  our  Germany — a  country  otherwise  in  gener- 
al pretty  clear  of  them, — that  such  diseases  are  in  a  pecu- 
liar manner  to  be  met  with  in  those  places  where  a  great 
deal  of  pork  is  eaten. 

Some  have  been  inclined  to  discover  moral  reasons  for 
the  laws  in  question,  and  to  ascribe  to  the  eating  of  certain 
animals  a  specific  influence  on  the  moral  temperament. 
Thus  the  camel  is  extremely  revengeful ;  and  it  has  been 
pretended,  that  it  is  their  eating  camels'  flesh  so  frequently, 
that  makes  the  Arabs  so  prone  to  revenge.  But  of  this 
there  is  too  little  proof  Other  nations  in  the  south  of  Eu- 
rope, charged  with  the  same  national  passion,  and  who 
either,  as  in  the  case  with  the  Italians,  have  a  pleasure  in 
<  revenge,  even  in  secret  revenge,  or,  like  the  Portuguese, 
are,  by  a  strange  point  of  honour,  necessitated  to  the  ex- 
ercise of  implacable  revenge,  neither  eat  the  flesh  nor 
drink  the  milk  of  camels.  Perhaps  the  vindictive  propen- 
sity of  the  Arabs  is  rather  an  effect  of  climate,  or  of  tneir 
point  of  honour  in  regard  to  blood-avengement,  than  of 
eating  camels'  flesh.  At  the  same  time,  I  do  not  entirely 
I  deny  the  influence  of  food  on  the  moral  temperament ;  but 
t  I  am  by  no  means  yet  convinced,  that  the  daily  use  of  cer- 
tain kinds  of  animal  food  will  ever  so  far  alter  it,  as  to 
give  a  legislator  reason  to  prohibit  them ;  nor  yet  can  I 
believe,  that  eating  the  flesh  of  any  animal  directly  in- 
spires us  with  the  passions  of  that  animal,  although  it  may 
operate  upon  us  in  other  respects. — Michaelis. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Ver.  18.  For  whatsoever  man  he  he  that  hath  a 
blemish,  he  shall  not  approach ;  a  blind  man, 
or  a  lame,  or  he  that  hath  a  flat  nose,  or  any- 
thing superfluous. 

Among  the  heathen,  persons  of  the  most  respectable 
appearance  were  appointed  to  the  priesthood ;  and  the 
emperor,  both  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  was  both 
king  and  priest.    Considering  the  object  of  r^igious  wor- 

I  ship,  it  is  not  possible  tliat  too  much  circumspection  can  be 
maintained  in  every  part  of  it.  If  great  men  deem  it  re- 
proachful to  have  things  imperfect  presented  to  them,  it 
may  most  reasonably  be  supposed  that  such  offerings  would 
be  rejected  with  anger  by  God.  The  general  opinion  was, 
that  a  priest  who  was  defective  in  any  member  was  to  be 
avoided  as  ominous.  At  Elis,  in  Greece,, the  judges  chose 
the  finest  looking  man  to  carry  the  sacred  vessels  of  the 
deity :  he  that  was  next  him  in  beauty  and  elegance  led 

I    the  ox ;  and  the  third  m  personal  beauty  carried  the  gar- 

I    Unds,  ribands,  wine, and  the  other  things  used  in  sacrifice. 

i  11 


Among  most  nations  of  antiquity,  persons  who  had  bodily 
defects  were  excluded  from  the  priesthood.  Among  the 
Greeks  "  it  was  required,  that  whoever  was  admitted  to 
this  oflfice  should  be  sound  and  perfect  in  all  his  members, 
it  being  thought  a  dishonour  to  the  gods  to  be  served  by  any 
one  that  was  lame,  maimed,  or  any  other  way  imperfect ; 
and  therefore  at  Athens,  before  their  consecration,  they 
were  w^cAtij,  i.  e.  perfect  and  entire,  jieither  having  any  de- 
fect, nor  any  thing  superfluous."  Potter.  Seneca  says, 
"  that  Metelius,  who  had  the  misfortune  to  become  blind, 
when  he  saved  the  Palladium  from  the  flames,  on  the  burn- 
ing of  the  temple  of  Vesta,  was  obliged  to  lay  down  the 
priesthood  :"  and  he  adds,  "  Every  priest  whose  body  is  not 
faultless,  is  to  be  avoided  like  a  thing  of  bad  omen." 
Sacerdos  non  integri  corporis  quasi  mali  ominis  est  vitandus 
est.  M.  Sergius,  who  lost  his  right  hand  in  defence  of  his 
country,  could  not  remain  a  priest  for  that  reason.  The 
bodily  defects  which  disqualified  a  virgin  from  becoming 
a  vestal  are  named  by  A.  Gellius,  Noct.  Alt.  i.  chap.  12. 

ROSENMULLER. 

Even  those  of  the  seed  of  Aaron  who  had  any  personal 
defect,  were  not  allowed  to  take  a  part  in  the  offerings 
of  the  Lord.  The  priesthood  among  the  Hindoos  is 
hereditary,  but  a  deformed  person  cannot  perform  a  cere- 
mony in  the  temple  ;  he  may,  however,  prepare  the  flowers, 
fruits,  oils,  and  cakes,  for  the  offerings,  and  also  sprinkle 
the  premises  with  holy  water.  The  child  of  a  priest 
being  deformed  at  the  birth  will  not  be  consecrated.  A 
priest  having  lost  an  eye  or  a  tooth,  or  being  deficient  in 
any  member  or  organ,  or  who  has  not  a  wife,  cannot  per- 
form the  ceremony  called  Teevasam,  for  the  manes  of  de- 
parted friends.  Neither  will  his  incantations,  or  prayers, 
or  magical  ceremonies,  have  any  effect. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Ver.  22.  And  when  ye  reap  the  harvest  of  your 
land,  thou  shalt  not  make  clean  riddance  of 
the  corners  of  thy  field  when  thou  reapest,  nei- 
ther shalt  thou  gather  any  gleaning  of  thy  har- 
vest :  thou  shalt  leave  them  unto  the  poor,  and 
to  the  stranger:  I  am  the  Lord  your  God. 

Fields  in  the  East,  instead  of  hedges,  have  ridges.  In  the 
corners  they  cannot  easily  work  with  the  plough,  and  there- 
fore prepare  that  part  with  a  man-vetty,  i.  e.  an  earth-cutter, 
or  large  kind  of  hoe.  The  corn  in  these  corners  is  seldom 
yery  productive,  as  the  ridge  for  some  time  conceals  it 
from  the  sun  and  other  sources  of  nourishment,  and  the 
rice  also,  in  the  vicinity,  soon  springing  up,  injures  it  by 
the  shade.  Under  these  circumstances,  the  people  think  but 
little  of  the  corners,  and  were  a  person  to  be  very  particular, 
he  would  have  the  name  of  a  stingy  fellow.  From  this 
view,  it  appears  probable,  that  the  command  was  given,  in 
order  to  induce  the  owner  to  leave  the  little  which  was 
produced  in  the  corners  for  the  poor.  No  farmer  will 
allow  any  of  his  family  to  glean  in  the  fields,  the  pittance 
left  is  always  considered  the  property  of-the  poor.  In  car- 
rying the  sheaves,  all  that  falls  is  taken  up  by  the  gleaners. 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Ver.  16.  And  he  that  blasphemeth  the  name  ot 
the  Lord,  he  shall  surely  be  put  to  death,  and 
all  the  congregation  shall  certainly  stone  him ; 
as  well  the  stranger,  as  he  that  is  born  in  the 
land,  when  he  blasphemeth  the  name  of  the 
LORD,  shall  be  put  to  death. 

Among  most  nations  blasphemy  is  regarded  as  one  ot 
the  greatest  crimes,  and  punished  capitally.  Whether  in 
this  they  act  rationally,  and  what  force  there  is  in  the  ob- 
jection, that  blasphemy  does  not  hurt  God,  I  shall  not  here 
stop  to  inquire  ;  as,  perhaps,  some  notice  of  these  points 
will  be  taken  in  my  proposed  essay  on  the  Intention  ot 
Punishments;  and,  therefore,  I  proceed  to  observe,  that  in 
the  Mosaic  polity,  whereby  God  became  both  King  ana 
Lawgiver  of  the  Israelites,  and  where,  of  course,  blasphe- 
my was  a  crime  against  the  state,  we  find  it,  in  like  man- 
ner, considered  as  a  capital  crime,  and  the  punif^iment  ot 
stoning  annexed  to  it ;  Lev.  xxiv.  10 — 14.    Nor  was  th« 


82 


LEVITICUS. 


Chap,  24. 


circumstance  of  the  blasphemer  being  a  foreigner,  to  make 
any  difference  in  the  punishment.  Indeed,  this  was  actually 
the  case,  on  the  occasion  of  the  punishment  of  this  crime 
being  first  settled.  A  man,  whose  father  was  an  Egyptian, 
but  his  mother  a  woman  of  Israel,  had,  in  a  quarrel  with 
an  Israelite,  blasphemed  Jehovah,  He  was,  after  an  inquiry 
into  the  mind  of  God,  adjudged  to  be  stoned ;  and  the  edict 
published  on  this  occasion,  concludes  with  these  words, 
"  One  uniform  law  shall  you  all  have,  foreigners  as  well 
as  natives  ;  for  I  am  Jehovah  your  God."  Allowing  that 
a  foreigner  does  not  believe  in  our  God,  although,  indeed, 
with  regard  to  the  God  of  Israel  this  was  not  likely  to  hap- 
pen, because  paganism  was  syncretistic,  and  did  not  deny 
the  divinity  of  other  gods  ;  and,  besides,  the  Israelites  be- 
lieved in  the  God  who  created  the  world,  and  whom  we 
know,  and  acknowledge  from  reason,  without  revelation ; 
but  allowing,  I  say,  a  foreigner  to  be  an  infidel,  still  he  has 
no  right  to  insult  the  people,  under  whose  protection  he 
lives,  by  blaspheming  the  object  of  their  veneration,  and 
whose  name  they  hold  supremely  sacred. 

It  is  with  hesitation,  and  not  without  danger,  that  I 
venture  to  adopt  a  Jewish  explanation,  which  has  been 
commonly  ridiculed  as  a  piece  of  mere  superstition,  in 
regard  to  this  law,  in  Lev.  xxiv.  16,  which  declares,  that 
whoever  shall  utter  the  name  Jehovah  shall  die ;  the 
whole  congregation  shall  stone  him:  foreigner  as  well  as 
native  shall  die,  if  he  utter  the  name  Jehovah,  Instead  of 
utter,  we  may  translate  curse,  for  the  Hebrew  word  Nakab 
(3p))  signifies  both,  and  then  we  shall  have  the  blasphemer 
spoken  of  a  second  time ;  but  to  this  translation  there  seems 
to  be  this  objection,  that  the  16th  verse  would  thus  be  no- 
thing but  a  needless  repetition  of  the  preceding  one.  Thus 
much  is  certain,  that  at  a  very  ancient  period,  long  be- 
fore the  birth  of  Christ,  the  Jews  understood  the  law  be- 
fore us,  as  if  it  prohibited  them  from  uttering  the  name 
Jehovah,  which  the  true  God  had  given  himself  as  his 
nomen  proprium,  on  any  other  than  solemnly-sacred,  or 
at  any  rate  sacred,  occasions ;  and,  of  course,  from  ever 
naming  him  at  all  in  common  life.  The  Greek  version 
ascribed  to  the  persons  called  the  Seventy  Interpreters,  and 
which  was  made  at  least  250  years  before  Christ,  here  ren- 
ders, "  Whoever  nameththe  name  of  the  Lord  shall  die;" 
and  we  see  that,  by  this  time,  the  Jews  were  accustomed, 
wherever  they  found  the  word  Jehovah  in  the  Bible,  to  pro- 
nounce, instead  of  it,  the  name  Adonai,  (>3in)  or  Lord :  for, 
in  place  of  Jehovah,  (nin'')  the  Seventy  always  put,  b  Kvpiog. 
Philo,  who  lived  in  the  time  of  Christ,  explains  the  passage, 
connecting  it  with  the  preceding  verse,  in  the  following 
terms,  "  Strange  gods  are  not  to  be  blasphemed,  lest  men 
should  be  accustomed  to  think  meanly  of  the  Deity.  But 
if  any  one,  (I  do  not  say  blaspheme,  for  that  is  not  here  in 
question,  but)  even  so  much  as  utter  unseasonably  the  name 
of  the  Lord  of  men  and  gods,  he  shall  die."  We  may, 
therefore,  approve  of  this  explanation,  or  not,  as  we  please ; 
but  we  must  not  look  upon  it  as  a  piece  of  superstition 
originating  with  the  Jews,  who  lived  after  the  destruction 
of  Jerusalem,  and  whose  opinions,  in  regard  to  the  Mosaic 
law,  I  do  not,  for  the  most  part,  so  much  as  notice.  This 
prohibition  of  uttering  the  name  of  God,  whether  it  please 
us  or  not,  does  not,  by  any  means,  appear  altogether  im- 
probable ;  for  it  is  in  conformity  with  the  customs  and 
legislative  policy  of  the  Egyptians,  who  had  secret  names 
for  their  gods,  which  it  was  lawful  for  the  priests  alone  to 

f)ronounce ;  no  man  being  permitted  to  do  so  in  common 
ife.  And,  in  like  manner,  Rhadamanthus,  who  herein 
wished  to  imitate  the  Egyptians,  would  not,  on  occasions 
of  taking  oaths,  allow  the  names  of  the  gods  to  be  mention- 
ed, but  only  those  of  the  animals  consecrated  to  them,  such 
as  dogs,  rams,  geese,  &c. 

Nor  would  I  be  disposed  to  maintain,  that  no  advantage 
could  flow  from  such  a  prohibition.  For  in  the  first  place, 
that  name  of  the  Deity,  which  was  considered  as  his  proper 
name,  would  be,  at  any  rate,  thereby  guarded  from  profa- 
nations and  misapplications,  which  sometimes  leave  behind 
them  ludicrous  and  contemptuous  impressions,  that  can 
never  be  effaced  ;  and,  in  an  age  when  polytheism  was  so 
prevalent,  this  was  a  matter  of  much  more  importance  than 
at  present ;  for  then  God  was  not,  as  with  us  in  Germany, 
equivalent  to  a  nom,en  proprium,  but  every  god,  whether 
true  or  false,  had  his  own  peculiar  name ;  and  hence  we 
"find  Mo'ies  addressing  the  God  who  appeared  to  him,  and 
who  declared  himseH"  the  "  God  of  his  fathers,"  and,  of 


course,  the  creator  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  the  only  true 
God  ;  and  asking  him  what  answer  he  should  return  to 
the  Israelites,  if  they  wished  to  know  what  Was  his  name, 
Exod.  iii.  13, 

In  the  second  place,  a  name  of  the  deity,  which  is  never 
mentioned  in  common  life,  will  have  something  extremely 
solemn  in  it,  particularly  where  it  is  so  significant,  as  was 
the  word  Jehovah.  It  will,  of  course,  in  worship,  in  prayer, 
and  in  the  case  of  an  oath,  make  so  much  the  deeper  im- 
pression ;  and  thut,  with  respect  to  the  last  of  these,  may 
serve  to  prevent  perjury,  or,  at  least,  to  make  it  but  rare : 
for  whatever  is  unknown  and  uncommon,  affects  the  human 
heart  with  terror  and  with  awe.  In  fact,  I  myself  believed 
that  this  law  ought  to  be  understood  in  this  way,  when  I  was 
translating  the  book  of  Leviticus,  about  three  years  ago ; 
but  since  that  time,  the  consideration  of  the  great  severity 
of  the  punishmept  has  raised  a  doubt  in  my  mind  on  this 
point.  Moses  prohibits  naming  the  name  Jehovah ;  but 
was  that  to  be  a  capital  crime  1  If  so,  where  was  there 
any  gradation  of  punishments ;  stoning  being-  thus  the 
punishment  of  the  blasphemer  of  God,  and  of  the  man  also 
who  but  uttered  his  name  1 — But  this  doubt  becomes  still 
weightier,  when  we  read  both  verses,  namely,  verses  15 
and  16  of  Lev.  xxiv.  together.  And  here  I  must  acknow- 
ledge a  mistake  in  my  translation  :  for  the  words  in  ver.  15, 
"  he  shall  bear  his  sin,"  I  rendered  periphrastically,  "  he 
shall  atone  for  his  crime,"  because  I  adhered  to  the  com 
mon  opinion,  that  they  related  to  the  stoning,  which  was 
adjudged  as  the  punishment  of  the  blasphemer.  If,  how- 
ever, I  translate  the  passage  quite  literally  thus,  "  Whoever 
blasphemeth  his  God,  shall  bear  his  sin.  Whoever  utters 
the  name  Jehovah,  shall  die;  the  whole  congregation  shall 
stone  him ;"  it  looks  as  if  the  utterer  of  the  name  was  to  be 
punished  differently  from,  and  more  severely  than,  the 
blasphemer;  as,  indeed,  Philo  has  remarked,  though  with 
quite  another  view.  But  then,  it  is  to  be  considered,  fur- 
ther, that  the  crime  is  not  so  much  as  distinctly  expressed 
unless  we  explain  the  16th  verse  by,  and,  in  some  measure, 
include  it  in,  the  one  before  it.  The  verb  Nakab  may  as 
well  mean  to  write,  as  to  utter ;  and,  therefore,  even  wri- 
ting the  name  Jehovah,  might  seem  to  have  been  prohibit- 
ed; and  yet  Moses  has  done  that  in  every  page  of  his  wri- 
tings. Let  it,  however,  be  rendered  utter ;  was  then  all  ut- 
terance of  the  name  Jehovah  forbidden  1  How  then  was 
it  to  be  used,  and  for  what  purpose  did  God  assume  it  1 , 
This  law,  then,  is  surely  to  be  understood  with  some  limi- 
tation 1  But  with  what  limitation  1  Was  the  priest  alone 
to  utter  the  name,  as  the  Jews  think  1  or  durst  laymen  also 
utter  it,  if  they  only  did  so  in  a  holy  manner  1  Durst  it  be 
mentioned  in  an  oath,  or  in  prayer  1  Was  it  permitted  in 
instructing  children  1  or  was  only  the  inconsiderate  use  of 
it  prohibited'?  With  regard  to  all  this,  we  find  nothing  in 
this  law,  and  yet  it  is  the  only  one  that  treats  on  this  sub- 
ject ;  nor  is  it  like  other  laws,  illustrated  by  usage  ;  for  the 
name  Jehovah  was  new,  and  it  was  Moses  who  first  dis- 
tinguished the  God  who  sent  him,  by  this  philosophically 
sublime  and  expressive  title.  Here,  then,  we  should  have 
some  crime,  to  whichthepunishmentof  death  was  annexed, 
and  yet  it  was  not  rightly  understood  what  it  was,  nor 
wherein  it  consisted. 

These  doubts  have  prompted  me  to  connect  the  16tt 
verse  more  closely  with  the  15th ;  so  that  to  vtt^r  the  nnm^ 
Jehovah,  becomes  equivalent    to    uttering  it  in  blasphc' 
my ;  and  this  explanation  is  the  more  probable,  because  in 
the  story  which  gave  occasion  to  the  law,  we  find,  ver.  IL 
that  the  Egyptian  had  uttered  the  name,  and  blasphemed. 
The  meaning  then  of  the  words,  of  which  I  shall  first  give 
a  literal  translation  thus, — A  man,  a  man,  (that  is,  any  man 
whatever,  whether  native  or  stranger,)  who  blasphemeth  his 
God,  shall  bear  his  sin,  find  whoever  uttereth  the  natne  Jeho- 
vah shall  die ;  the  whole  congregation  shall  stone  him — will  be 
the  following :  "  If  any  man  blaspheme  God,  the  God  whom 
he  deems  his  God,  (th'e  Israelite,  the  true,  and  the  heathen , 
a  false  God,)  it  is  a  heinous  sin.    It  is  a  sin  even  in  the  hea  •' 
then,  to  blaspheme  what,  according  to  his  own  opinion,  is3 
god.     Such  a  person  shall  not  escape  his  judge;  althoughf 
the  magistrate  has  no  right  to  interfere  in  the  matter,  bu!^ 
must  leave  it  to  the  true  or  false  God,  that  he  may  be  his' 
own  judge.     It  is,  besides,  uncertain  whom  the  man  may 
have  meant,  when  he  cursed  God,  and  here  the  law  as-^ 
sumes  the  milder  supposition.    But  if  any  one,  in  blaspht 
ming,  expressly  mention  the  name  Jehovah,  so -that 


1 


Chap.  24. 


LEVITICUS. 


83 


uoubt  can  remain,  whether  he  meant  to  blaspheme  the  true 
or  a  false  God,  lie  shall  be  stoned  to  death." 

In  this  way  the  criminal  law,  with  respect  to  blasphe- 
mers, woald  undergo  a  very  material  alteration ;  nor  would 
it  be  ^very  blaphemy,  but  only  that  which  was  distinguish- 
vA  by  a  certain  specific  aggravation,  that  incurred  capital 
inunshment ;  all  other  cases  being  left  to  the  judgment  of 
God,  because  the  blasphemer  cannot  be  convicted  of  having 
blasphemed  the  true  God,  and  because  God  is  certainly 
•dble  to  avenge  himself,  if  he  think  fit,  without  having  oc- 
casion for  our  aid;  Judg.  vi.  30,  31.  And  this  appears 
quite  suitable  to  the  spirit  of  those  times,  and  is  a  great  mit- 
iiraiion  of  the  rigour  of  the  law.  In  our  times,  a  legislator 
\\  (jiild,  perhaps,  grant  to  the  blasphemer  the  salvo  of  not 
bein<<  in  his  right  mind. — At  any  rate,  blasphemy,  inferred 
merely  by  deductions,  or  what  is  called  blasphemous  doc- 
trine, could  not  be  punished  by  the  law.  In  later  times,  the 
Jews  were  extremely  prone  to  construe  every  thing  that 
did  not  please  them,  at  once  into  blasphemy;  and  their 
Zealots,  as  they  were  called,  arrogated  to  themselves  the 
right  of  punishing  on  the  spot,  and  without  the  smallest 
judicial  inquiry,  any  supposed  blasphemy  ;  although  per- 
naps  they  had  stopped  their  ears  against  it,  and  were,  there- 
fore, but  bad  judges  of  its  real  nature.  Both  the  one  and 
the  other  of  these  measures  are  repugnant  to  the  Mosaic 
statute.  Even  the  utterlr  of  aggravated  blasphemy  was 
not  put  to  death  on  the  spot,  but  taken  into  custody,  until 
God  could  be  consulted  as  lo  his  fate.  We  must  not,  there- 
fore, charge  the  Mosaic  law  with  those  illegal  outrages,  to 
which  the  zeal  of  the  later  Jews  prompted  them  to  resort. — 
jMichaelis. 

Ver.  19.  And  if  a  man  cause  a  blemish  in  his 
neighbour :  as  he  hath  done,  so  shall  it  be  done 
unto  him ;  20.  Breach  for  breach,  eye  for  eye, 
tooth  for  tooth:  as  he  hath  caused  a  blemish 
in  a  man,  so  shall  it  be  done  to  him  again. 

In  cases  of  corporal  injuries  done  to  free  persons,  (for  the 
same  rule  did  not  extend  to  servants,  they  being  less  pro- 
tected members  of  the  community,)  that  far  severer  law  of 
retaliation  operated,  whose  language  is,  "  Eye  for  eye,  and 
tooth  for  tooth ;"  and  upon  that  law  I  must  here  expatiate 
more  fully,  because  it  is  so  far  removed  from  our  laws,  that 
il  sometimes  appears  to  us  really  barbarous,  or,  as  others 
would  say,  unchristian.  Barbarous,  however,  it  was  not ; 
for  those  very  nations  of  antiquity  whom  we  look  upon  as 
most  civilized,  viz.  the  Athenians  and  Romans,  had  this 
n  law  in  the  days  of  their  freedom.  But  the  singular  cir- 
cumstance respecting  it  is,  that  it  is,  strictly  speaking,  only 
suited  to  a  free  people,  and  where  the  poorest  citizen  has 
equal  rights  with  the  greatest  man  that  can  injure  him  ;  al- 
though, no  doubt,  it  may  subsist  under  an  aristocracy  and 
a  monarchy  also,  as  long  as  no  infringement  is  made  on 
liberty,  and  on  the  equality  of  the  lowest  with  the  highest, 
in  point  of  rights.  Where,  however,  the  eye  of  a  nobleman 
is  of  more  value  than  that  of  a  peasant,  it  would  be  a  very 

Ereposterous  and  inconvenient  law ;  and  where,  for  the 
enefit  of  the  great,  attempts  might  out  of  friendship  be 
made  to  pervert  justice,  it  is  much  more  consonant  to  equity, 
in  the  case  of  such  corporal  injuries,  to  leave  the  determi- 
nation of  the  punishment  to  the  decision  of  the  judge.  It 
would  seem  that  Moses  retained  the  law  of  retaliation,  from 
a  more  ancient,  and  a  very  natural,  law  of  usage.  It  will 
be  well  worth  our  while  to  hear  what  he  himself  says  on 
the  subject  of  a  lav/,  so  strange  to  us,  and  yet  so  common 
among  ancient  free  nations.  His _^rsf  statute  respecting  it, 
clearly  presupposes  retaliation  as  consuetudinary,  and  only 
applies  it  to  the  very  special  case  of  a  pregnant  woman  be- 
ing pushed,  by  two  men  quarrelling  w'ith  each  other,  and 
therebv  receiving  an  injury ;  the  man  who  pushed  her,  be- 
ing adjudged  to  pay  "  life  for  life,  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for 
tooth,  hand  for  hand,  foot  for  foot,  brand  for  brand,  wound 
for  wound,  bruise  for  bruise,"  Exod.  xxi.  23 — 25.  The 
second  statute  likewise  occurs  but  incidentally;  when,  on 
occasion  of  blasphemy  uttered  by  an  Egyptian,  it  was  or- 
damed  that  both  Israelites  and  strangers  should  have  one 
and  the  same  criminal  law ;  and  it  is  added,  by  way  of  ex- 
ample, "  Whoever  shall  injure  his  neighbour  in  his  person, 
shall  receive  even  as  he  hath  given  :  eye  for  eye,  wound 
'  for  wound,  tooth  for  tooth;  even  as  he  hath  injured  another, 


so  shall  it  be  done  to  himself  in  return ;"  Lev.  xxiv.  19, 20. 
What  Moses  then  says  (incidentally,  in  fact,  and  presup- 
posing a  more  ancient  law  of  usage)  concerning  the  pun- 
ishment of  retaliation,  I  understand  under  the  two  follow- 
ing limitations : — 

1.  When  the  injury  is  either  deliberate,  or  at  east  in  con- 
sequence of  our  fault ;  (an  instance  of  which  last  is  that 
mentioned  above,  from  Exod.  xxi.  23,  where  a  woman  is 
hurt  by  two  men  fighting ;  an  act  of  outrage  of  which  they 
ought  not  to  have  been  guilty ;)  but  not  where  there  is 
either  no  fault,  or  at  any  rate  but  an  inadvertence ;  as 
w^here  one  man  pushes  out  another's  eye  undesignedly. 
This  limitation  every  one  will  admit,  who  remembers  thy* 
Moses  was  so  far  from  meaning  to  punish  unpremeditated 
homicide  by  the  law  of  retaliation,  that  he  established  an 
asylum  for  the  unfortunate  manslayer,  to  secure  him  from 
the  fury  of  the  Goel. 

2.  The  person  who  suflfered  any  personal  injury,  retained 
(for  he  is  nowhere  deprived  of  it)  the  natural  right  of  ab- 
staining, if  he  chose,  from  all  complaint,  and  even  of  re- 
tracting a  complaint  already  made,  and  remitting  the  pun- 
ishment, if  the  other  compounded  with  him  for  what  we 
should  call  a  pecuniary  indemnity,  or,  to  use  the  Hebrew 
expression,  a  ransom.  Not  to  mention  that  this  right  is 
quite  natural  and  obvious,  and  scarcely  requires  to  be  no- 
ticed in  a  penal  statute,  it  maybe  observed,  that  among  the 
Israelites  such  pecuniary  expiations  had  been  previously 
common,  even  m  the  case  of  deliberate  murder,  as  they 
still  are  among  the  Orientals,  and  that  in  this  case  alone 
did  Moses  find  it  necessary  to  prohibit  the  acceptance  of 
any  such  compensation ;  Numb.  xxxv.  31.  If  it  was  ^Jus- 
tomary  in  cases  of  deliberate  murder,  we  may  conclude 
with  certainty,  that  it  would  frequently  be  accepted  for  the 
loss  of  a  tooth  or  an  eye ;  but  as  Moses  did  not  prohibi.t 
this,  we  must  suppose  that  the  ancient  usage  still  continued 

to  prevail.  ' 

But  is  not  the  punishment  of  retaliation  extremely  rude  1 
Does  it  not  savour  strongly  of  ancient  barbarism  1  and 
must  not  every  legislator,  who  out  of  philanthropy  wishes 
the  nobleman  to  preserve  his  own  eyes,  though  he  may  pre- 
viously havebeaten  outthoseof  theworthlesspeasant,natur- 
ally  keep  at  as  great  a  d  istance  here  as  possible  from  the  brutal 
law  of  ancient  times  1  And  was  not  Moses  then  very  much 
to  blame,  I  will  not  say  in  giving  such  a  law,  for  that  can- 
not be  laid  to  his  charge,  but  in  retaining  it  from  ancient 
usage  % 

Let  us  listen  with  candour,  to  what  may  be  said  both  for 
and  against  this  species  of  punishment. 
I.  In  favour  of  it,  then,  we  may  observe — 

1.  That  it  is  the  first  punishment  that  will  naturally  oc- 
cur to  every  legislator  when  left  to  himself;  nor  can  any 
one  justly  complain,  that  that  should  happen  to  himsell', 
which  he  has  done  to  another:  for  he  hasjcertainly  cause 
to  be  thankful,  that  he  does  not  suffer  more :  since  not  only 
self-revenge,  as  authorized  by  Xhe.  jus  nature,  but  also  pun- 
ishments in  civil  society  generally  go  much  greater 
lengths,  and  retaliate  for"  evils  that  have  been  sufiered, 
perhaps  tenfold. 

2.  That  it  has  a  more  powerful  effect  than  any  other 
punishment  in  deterring  from  personal  injuries ;  and  is, 
indeed,  almost  the  only  adequate  means  of  attaining  this 
end  of  punishment.  Pecuniary  punishments  will  not  be 
very  formidable  to  the  man  of  opulence,  particularly  if 
they  are  regulated  by  the  rank  of  the  person  injured ;  nor 
will  they,  of  course,  ^o  much  to  promote  the  security  of  the 
poor  :  nay,  even  though  corporal  punishments  be  legal,  if 
they  only  rest  with  the  discretion  of  the  judge,  (and  here, 
that  is  a  very  alarming  and  despotically-sounding  expres- 
sion.) not  only  is  not  the  security  of  the  poor  man  thereby 
promoted,  because  the  judge's  discretion  is  generally  pretty 
favourable  to  the  great,  but  his  humiliation  becomes,  in  fact, 
only  the  greater.  Should  the  nobleman,  for  instance,  put 
out  the  eye  of  a  peasant,  and  the  judge  estimate  the  loss  at 
1000  rix-'dollars,  which,  though  a  sum  pretty  considerable 
in  itself,  can  give  the  former  but  little  concern  ;  but  the 
peasant,  on  the  other  hand,  who  puts  out  a  nobleman's  eye, 
be  dragged  to  the  gallows  in  a  cart,  though  quite  ready  to 
pay  him  the  same  sum,  which  indeed  many  a  peasant,  in 
some  countries,  could  very  easily  raise;  such  an  inequality 

in  the  Jaw  would,  to  a  man  of  spirit,  who  feels  his  bands,  . 

and  who  is  both  able  and  willing  to  defend  his  country  with 
them,  prove  rather  intolerable.   Under  such  a  law,  can  the 


84 


LEVITICUS. 


Chap.  24 


man  in  an  humble  station  possibly  have  that  security  for 
sound  limbs,  that  he  must  wish,  and  has  a  right  to  demand, 
from  the  community  1  When,  on  the  contrary,  the  greatest 
and  richest  man  in  the  land  knows,  that  if  he  puts  out  the 
eye  of  a  peasant,  the  latter  has* a  right  to  insist  that  Ms  eye 
be  put  out  in  return,  that  a  sentence  to  that  eifect  will  actu- 
ally be  pronounced,  and  the  said  punishment  inflicted,  with- 
out the  least  respect  to  his  rank,  or  his  noble  eye  being  con- 
sidered as  one  whit  better  than  the  peasant's  ;  and  that  he 
lias  no  possible  way  of  saving  it,  but  by  humbling  himself 
before  the  other,  as  deeply  as  may  be  necessary  to  work 
upon  his  compassion,  and  make  him  relent,  besides  paying 
him  as  much  money  as  he  deems  a  satisfactory  compensa- 
tions for  his  loss ;  every  one  will  be  convinced  (without  my 
swearing  to  prove  it)  that  the  nobleman  will  bethink  him- 
self, before  he  put  out  any  one's  eye.  The  argument  is 
precisely  the  same  in  the  case  of  othf  r  injuries,  down  to 
the  loss  of  a  tooth ;  concerning  which  the  ancient  jus  ta- 
lmas came  at  last  to  teach  so  differeut  a  doctrine. 

If  here  it  be  objected,  (and  no  djubt  the  objection  has 
weight,)  that  notwithstanding  the  'exclusion  of  the  jus  ta- 
lionis,  from  our  law,  and  its  superior  mildness  in  all  re- 
spects, we  scarcely  ever  see  an  instance  of  an  eye  put  out 
in  deliberate  malice ;  I  be^  leave  to  observe  in  answer, 
that  this  is,  in  fact,  to  be  ascribed  in  a  great  measure,  to 
the  superior  mildness  and  refinement  of  our  manners :  but 
such  manners  are  not  found  in  all  nations;  they  certainly 
were  not  found  in  the  ancient  nations  that  approached 
nearer  to  ihe  state  of  nature;  nor  yet  do  we  find  them  among 
the  people  of  southern  countries ;  whose  rage  is  more  ma- 
licious, and  loves  to  leave  a  lasting  memorial  behind  it,  in 
those  on  whom  it  is  vented.  By  the  gradually  refined  man- 
ners, therefore,  of  our  more  northerly  regions,  we  can 
hardly  expect  that  the  ancient  law  of  retaliation,  should  in 
southern  nations  have' been  regulated.  Add  to  this,  that 
among  us,  since  the  introduction  of  luxury  and  more  effemi- 
nate education,  or  in  consequence  of  hereditary  disease, 
the  nobleman  has  very  seldom  sucli  bodily  strength  as  to 
be  a  match  for  a  peasant ;  and  if  it  came  to  the  driving 
Cut  of  teeth  or  eyes,  would  run  the  risk  of  losing  two  of 
eilner,  before  the  latter  lost  one.  There  are,  besides,  to  be 
taken  into  consideration  several  other  fortunate  circum- 
stances, which  though  not,  properly  speaking,  connected  with 
our  law, -serve  nevertheless  to  remedy  its  defects.  For  in- 
stance, most  of  the  people  of  distinction  among  us  are  at  the 
same  time  servants  to  the  sovereign,  and  as  such  have  both 
honour  and  revenues,  and  would  sink  into  a  sort  of  nothing- 
ness if  they  lost  their  posts  ;  but  such  are  the  humane  ideas 
of  many  sovereigns,  that  they  would  no  longer  retain  in 
their  service  the  person  who  had  put  out  a  poor  man's  eye, 
unless  circumstances  appeared  that  were  highly  allevialive 
of  the  outrage,  or  that  he  made  a  satisfactory  compensation 
for  it.  But  the  advantage  which  7/;c  thus  derive  from  our 
manners  is  not  to  be  met  with  in  every  democracy  or  aristoc- 
racy; for  there,  as  posts  are  conferred  either  by  laws,  or  by 
votes,  of  which  no  individual  is  ashamed,  so  neither  are 
they  taken  away  without  legal  authority. 

3.  That  in  the  state  of  nature  every  man  has  a  right  to 
take  revenge  at  his  own  hand  for  any  deliberate  personal 
injury,  such  as  the  loss  of  an  eye,  &c.  is  perhaps  undenia- 
ble. In  fact,  by  the  law  of  nature  such  revenge  might  be 
carried  still  further :  but  if  it  be  confined  within  the  limits 
of  strict  retaliation,  the  law  of  nature  at  any  rate  (for  of 
morality  I  do  not  now  speak)  can  certainly  have  nothing 
to  object  against  it.  Now,  in  tne  state  of  civil  society,  every 
man  divests  himself  of  the  right  in  question;  but  then  he 
justly  expects,  in  return,  that  society  will,  after  proper  in- 
quiry, duly  exercise  revenge  in  his  room.  Morality  may  say 
,  what  it  will  to  our  revenge,  (and  certainly  it  does  not  abso- 
k  tely  condemn  it,)  but  we  are  all  naturally  vindictive,  and 
tJM  tc  such  a  degree,  that  when  we  are  grossly  injured  we 
feel  a  most  irksome  sort  of  disquietude  and  feverish  heat, 
until  we  have  gratified  our  revenge.  Now,  when  creatures, 
thus  constituted,  are  the  citizens  of  any  government,  can  we 
imagine  that  they  will  ever  give  up  the  prerogative  of  re- 
venge, without  looking  for  some  equivalent  in  return '?  If 
the  state  means  to  withhold  that  equivalent,  and  yet  pro- 
hibit the  exercise  of  revenge,  it  must  begin  by  regenerating 
human  nature:  or,  if  it  be  said,  that  God  and  his  grace 
can  alone  effect  such  a  change,  and  that  whoever  lays  open 
his  heart  to  grace,  will  never  desire  revenge,  I  can  only 
say,  that  we  must  then  figure  to  ourselves  a  stale  consisting 


of  none  but  people  all  truly  regenerated  ;  but  such  a  state 
the  world  has  never  yet  seen. 

4.  If  the  law  of  re^iZiafton,  were  abrogated,  nothing  could 
be  more  natural,  if  the  lower  classes  had  not,  by  long  con- 
straint and  oppression,  become  too  much  humbled,  than 
for  the  poor  man,  who  had  received  any  personal  injury, 
still  to  revenge  it  at  his  own  hand,  and  more  especially  to 
lie  in  wait  for  his  rich  oppressor,  at  whom  he  could  not 
come  with  open  force,  and  put  out  his  eye,  with  as  little 
warning  and  ceremony  as  he  had  done"  his.  And  what 
could  in  such  a  case  be  done  ;  were  justice  to  be  observed, 
and  the  poor  man  who  only  requited  the  injury  he  had  re- 
ceived, to  experience  no  severer  punishment  than  he  who 
set  him  the  example  1  It  might,  no  doubt,  be  said,  that  his 
conduct,  in  thus  lying  in  wait,  and  in  deliberately  avenging 
his  own  quarrel,  in  contempt  of  a  legal  prohibition,  aggra- 
vated his  guilt  in  every  respect;  t)ut  where  the  injured 
person,  aware  that  the  laws  gave  him  no  reparation,  only 
didm  instanti,  what  every  man  of  spirit  would  very  natu- 
rally do,  andw'hat,  if  he  did  not  go  beyond  blows,  even  our 
laws  would  excuse  him  for  doing — if  he  only  flew  with  all 
possible  fury  upon  the  person  who  had  put  out  his  eye,  and 
tried  to  put  out  his  in  return ;  we  should  not,  perhaps,  think 
him  deserving  of  so  severe  a  punishment  for  having  thus 
requited  like  for  like,  as  the  person  who  had  begun  the 
quarrel.  Now  this  immediate  s^lf-revenge  would,  among 
a  people  who  retained  any  feeling  of  their  dignity,  and 
their  natural  equality  with  even  the  most  distinguished  of 
their  fellow-citizens,  be  the  usual  plan  :  and  if  no  one  at- 
tempts any  such  thing,  we  can  scarcely  impute  it  to  the  re- 
fined manners  of  the  brawny  peasantry,  and  even  of  the 
very  lowest  of  the  people,  but  rather  to  the  melancholy  cir- 
cuniistance,  of  their  having  become  too  tame,  and  having 
forgotten  that  they  are  not  slaves,  but,  in  point  of  rights, 
on  a  footing  of  equality  with  the  rest  of  their  countrymen. 

5.  Even  our  own  laws  admit  the  right  of  retaliation,  and 
that  too,  in  rather  an  equivocal  case,  and  where  an  injury 
is  not  actually  done,  but  only  intended,  and  perhaps  not 
even  that.  They  allow  us,  in  the  case  of  having  been  ca- 
lumniated, to  sue  the  person  who  has  falsely  and  mali- 
ciously charged  us  with  any  crime,  for  the  same  penalty, 
which  the  crime  itself  incurs  according  to  the  laws.  No 
doubt,  judgment  is  rarely  pronounced  in  terms  of  our  com- 
plaint, and  much  here  depends  on  the  discretion  of  the 
judge  ;  but  still  it  is  clear,  that  the  laws,  in  authorizing  any 
such  suit,  presuppose  the  equity  of  the  ji/s  talionis. 

II.  The  chief  arguments  against  the  law  in  question 
may,  perhaps, be  found  comprehended  Under  the  following 
objections,  which  are  usually  urged  against  it. 

1.  There  are  many  injuries,  where  it  would  be  absurd 
to  give  the  sufferer  a  right  to  retaliation  :, in  the  cate  of 
adultery,  for  instance,  to  permit  the  injured  husband  to 
sleep  with  the  wife  of  the  adulterer  in  return.  In  regard 
to  this  objection,  however,  some  misconception  seems  to  lie 
at  bottom.  It  is  not  every  description  of  injuries  that  we 
here  speak  of,  but  only  of  personal  injuries :  nor  yet  of  any 
retaliation  that  the  sufferer  himself  may  choose  to  exact, 
such,  for  instance,  as  thrusting  out  another's  eyes  or  teeth : 
but  only  of  a  punishment  that  depends  upon,  and  is  to  be 
inflicted  by  the  magistrate.  "Were  any  person  to  deduce 
all  sorts  of  punishments  from  the  jus  talionis,  this  objec- 
tion would  hold  :  but  it  does  not  hold  in  the  case  of  a  legis- 
lator appointing  the  puriishment  of  retaliation  for  persona^ 
injuries. 

2.  In  many  cases  it  is  difficult  to  requite  just  as  much 
and  no  more,  than  has  been  suffered ;  for  instance,  where 
a  man  has  thrust  out  one  of  another  man's  teeth,  he  may 
in  suffering  retaliation,  very  easily  lose  tm-o  teeth  by  on* 
stroke.  In  like  manner,  it  would  be  diflScult  to  inllict  i 
wound  of  exactly  the  same  size  and  depth  with  that  given 
and  neither  larger  nor  deeper.  And  what  shall  be  done 
where  a  man,  having  but  one  eye,  happens  to  thrust  ou 
one  of  his  neighbour's'?  Shall  he' lose  his  only  eye  by  wai 
of  retaliation  7  This  would  be  to  make  him  suffer  a  mucl 
more  serious  injury  than  he  had  caused  :  for  now  he  wonlc 
be  quite  blind,  whereas  he  had  only  made  the  other  one 
eyed,  like  himself  Here  I  will  make  much  greater  con 
cessions  than  the  opponents  of  the  law  of  retaliation  ar* 
wont  to  demand.  For  had  they  known  human  nature,  the;" 
would  have  stated  in  addition,  and  I.  for  my  own  part,  read 
ily  grant  them,  that  punishment  by  retaliation  is  in  almos 
every  case,  a  much  more  sensible  evil,  than  the  origina 


di 


HAP.  24. 


LEVITICUS. 


8$ 


injury:  for  every  pain  and  every  evil  to  which  we  look 
ibrward,  is,  by  mere  anticipation  and  fear,  aggravated 
more  than  a  hundred  fold ;  the  pang  of  a  moment  is  ex- 
tended to  hours,  days,  weeks,  &c. ;  and  when  it  actually 
takes  placCj  every  individual  part  of  the  evil  is  felt  in  the 
utmost  perfection,  by  both  soul  and  body,  in  consequence 
i)f  its  being  expected.  The  adversaries  of  the  lex  talio- 
nis  were  bad  philosophers,  when,  with  all  their  benevo- 
ence,  this  observation  escaped  them. — But  after  all,  it 
;p-ould,  even  in  conjunction  with  what  went  before,  form 
10  objection  to  the  law  in  question  ;  for  this,  in  fact,  is  no- 
hing  more  than  what  commonly  takes  place  in  all  pun- 
ishments, and  in  all  the  variety  of  revenge  that  we  dread, 
jven  in  the  state  of  nature.  If  I  had,  in  that  state,  beat  out 
.;he  eye  of  one  of  my  neighbours,  I  should  ahvays  be  afraid 
:hat  he,  or  his  son,  or  his  father,  or  his  brother,  or  some 
Dther  friend,  or,  perhaps  some  person  hired  for  the  purpose, 
might  lie  in  wait  for  me,  and  beat  out  one  of  mine  in  re- 
turn; and,  under  this  unnecessary  fear,  I  should  really  and 
truly  be  much  more  unhappy,  than  the  man  whose  eye  I 
beat  out;  in  my  very  dreams,  I  should,  who  knows  how  of- 
ten, lose  an  eye  with  pain  and  horror ;  and  although,  when 
r  awoke  again,  I  found  myself  possessed  of  it,  I  should,  at 
first,  be  uncertain,  perhaps,  whether  it  had  been  a  dream 
or  not ;  and,  stupified  with  fear,  in  the  darkness  of  the 
night,  I  should  be  anxious  to  try  whether  it  could  see  or 
not.  Nay,  not  only  should  I  be  afraid  of  this,  but  well 
aware  that  revenge  always  studies  to  retaliate  beyond  what 
it  suffers,  I  should  anticipate  a  more  serious  injury  than  I 
had  caused,  the  loss  of  an  eye  perhaps  for  a  tooth,  or  even 
the  loss  of  life  itself,  in  short,  every  thing  that  is  bad :  and, 
under  these  continual  apprehensions,  I  should  be  extremely 
miserable,  even  though  the  injured  person  might  never  ac- 
tually retaliate  the  injury.  Should  he  ever  get  me  into  his 
hands,  and  repay  me  merely  according  to  the  jus  talionis, 
this  would  be  a  fresh  addition  to  my  misery ;  unless,  in- 
deed, it  might  be  said,  that  I  ought  to  look  upon  it  as  good 
luck,  because  I  should  no  longer  have  to  live  in  perpetual 
leri'or.  Now  these  are  nothing  inore  than  the  terrors  of 
conscience,  that  natural  and  awful  avenger  of  all  the  crimes 
we  commit,  and,  in  the  mythologies  of  the  Greeks  and  Ro- 
mans, represented  under  the  ijnage  of  the  Furies ;  and 
thus,  for  wise  ends,  hath  nature  constituted  our  minds,  to 
prevent  us  from  injuring  one  another.  Even  in  the  case 
of  murder,  it  is  precisely  the  same.  Whoever,  in  the  state 
of  nature,  has  perpetrated  that  crime,  will  continually  be 
in  fear  of  the  son  or  friend  of  the  deceased,  as  his  Goel; 
will,  while  awake,  fancy  a  hundred  times  that  he  sees 
him,  and  tremble  at  the  thoughts  of  him,  how  distant  so- 
ever he  may  be;  and  will  be  as  often  disturbed  when 
asleep,  by  seeing  him  in  his  dreams,  and  thinking  that  he 
feels  him  giving  him  the  fatal  stab.  In  a  word,  he  will, 
jboth  sleeping  and  waking,  die  a  thousand  deaths.  If  he 
think  this  unjust,  and  too  severe,  let  him  blame  God  and 
nature,  for  having  annexed  such  variety  of  wretchedness 
to  the  commission  of  guilt ;  and  blame  himself  for  being 
such  a  fool  as  to  let  such  stuff  come  into  his  imagination. 

If,  again,  it  is  committed  by  a  member  of  civil  society, 
and  if  (which  is  the  mildest  punishment  of  all  those  now  in 
use)  it  costs  him  his  head,  he  certainly,  in  suffering  even 
this  retaliation,  suffers  much  more  than  the  person  whom 
he  murdered ;  who  had  only  a  few  minutes  agony,  which 
his  rage,  in  self-defence,  would  scarcely  let  him  feel; 
whereas  he,  in  his  prison,  anticipates  his  death  for  weeks, 
and  feels  in  imagination,  which  aggravates  every  evil,  the 
sword  of  justice  every  moment  on  his  neck  ;  and  at  last, 
when  he  is  actually  brought  out  to  execution,  is  so  much 
overwhelmed  by  the  previous  feelings  of  death,  that  there 
have  been  instances  of  malefactors,  who,  having  a  pardon 
given  them  on  the  scaffold,  were  already  so  near  death, 
that  they  could  not  be  saved  even  by  blood-letting,  but  died. 
las  thoroughly  as  if  they  had  actually  been  beheaded.  But 
thus  to  die  of  agony,  is  a  much  more  terrible  death  than  to 
die  of  mere  wounds  by  the  hand  of  a  murderer.  This  pb- 
jection,  therefore,  amounts  to  nothing  at  all ;  only  there  is 
another,  which  it  is  understood  to  imply,  viz.  that  the  inju- 
rious party  is  under  no  obligaliovv  to  suffer  more  evil  than  he 
has  (lone ;  and  this  was  actually  the  reasoning  of  the  phi- 
losopher Favorinus,  whom  A.  Gellius  intrt)duces  as  speak- 
ing on  this  subject,  in  his  Nodes  Atticre.  But  what  igno- 
•rance  doth  such  reasoning  show  of  all  the  laws  that  have 
been  introduced  into  all  nations,  and  above  all,  that  any 


man  may,  from  his  own  feelings,  know  of  the  nature  of  re- 
venge, if  he  pay  but  ever  so  little  attention  to  what  passes 
within  him.  The  injurious  party  has  no  right  to  demand 
that  the  retaliation  to  which  he  subjects  himself,  shall  not 
exceed  the  injury ;  for  upon  the  same  principle  on  which 
he  did  an  injury  to  another,  without  any  precedent  or  prov- 
ocation, may  the  sufferer,  following  his  example,  requite 
him,  in  terms  of  his  own  law,  with  ten  times,  or  ten  thou- 
sand times,  as  great  an  injury.  The  relations  between  no- 
thing and  something,  and  between  something  and  infmity, 
are  alike :  they  both  surpass  all  numeration.  As  to  the 
morality  of  such  a  procedure,  and  whether  God  approves 
of  evils  being  thus  infinitely  increased,  I  am  not  here  con- 
cerned with  deciding.  The^resent  question  relates  not  to 
an  evil  infinitely  augmented,  but  only  of  one  requited  with 
some  addition.  If,  however,  the  injurious  party  have  it 
requited  him  even  in  an  infinite  degree,  he  can  have  no- 
thing more  to  sav,  than  that  as  he  had  done,  so  had  he  suf- 
fered, wrong,  feul  putting  this  infinity  entirely  out  of 
the  question  ;  in  all  the  circumstances  wherein  human  be- 
ings can  be  placed  together,  proceeding  from  the  rudest 
state  of  nature,  and  what  is  a  relic  of  it,  the  consuetudinary 
law  of  duelling,  through  every  stage  of  society,  un^l  we 
arrive  at  the  best-regulated  commonwealth,  it  holds  as  a 
fundamental  principle,  that  the  man  who  has  caused  evil 
to  another,  has  no  reason  to  complain  if  he  should  suffer  a 
greater  evil  in  return.  In  the  state  of  nature,  self-revenge 
goes  certainly  much  beyond  the  offence,  and  would  go  infi- 
nite lengths,  if  not  restrained  at  last  by  pity,  or  by  con- 
tempt of  its  victim,  or  by  the  suggestions  of  magnanimity. 
In  the  old  German  proverb,  which  is  strongly  expressive 
of  a  national  idea,  it  is  said,  (Auf  eine  Maulschelle  gehort 
ein  Dolch,)  "  Every  blow  has  its  dagger."  The  point  of 
honour,  in  duelling,  insists  on  revenge  with  the  sword ; 
and  the  whip,  with  the  pistol ;  but  where  people's  ideas  are 
not  so  artificial,  they  find  a  satisfaction  in,  and  plume  them- 
selves on,  having  given  for  OTie  blow,  two  or  more  in  return. 
— In  the  state  of  civil  society,  the  design  of  punishment  is  to 
deter  from  crimes;  for  which  purpose,  a  bare  requital  in 
kind  will  not  be  sufficient,  because  the  criminal  may  hope 
to  escape  detection,  or  to  escape  from  justice,  and  of  course 
his  fear  of  punishment  is  by  its  uncertainty  materially 
lessened ;  and  hence  punishments  are  here  much  more 
severe,  and  by  one  example,  many  thousands  are  deterred 
from  a  repetition  of  the  crime :  so,  that  unless  a  man  chooses 
to  take  the  consequences,  and  to  serve  the  public  as  an 
example  in  terrorem,  he  must  abstain  from  injuring  his 
neighbour.  In  the  case  of  theft,  restitution,  with  considera- 
ble additions,  would  not  be  accounted  too  severe,  but  on 
the  contrary  a  very  mild  punishment  for  the  crime ;  and 
vet  here  more  is  given  back  than  was  taken  away. — But 
1  here  stop  short,  because  I  mean  to  offer  some  general 
remarks  on  the  relation  of  punishments  to  crimes,  in  the 
Essay  which  I  have  already  mentioned  my  intention  of 
adding  as  an  Appendix  to  this  work.  This  observation 
only  shall  I  yet  offer  in  the  meantime.  The  objection  ar- 
gues not  only  against  the  retaliation  of  personal  injuries, 
now  the  suijject  of  dispute,  but  against  all  punishments 
whatever,  which  consist  of  any  evil  that  is  at  all  a  matter 
of  feeling,  or  which,  by  fear  and  anticipation,  may  become 
aggravations  of  such  evils ;  and  many  inferences  flow  from 
it,  which  to  the  objector  himself  must  appear  very  strange, 
and  would  go  at  any  rate  to  destroy  all  the  security  of  hu- 
man life.  Assassination,  for  instance,  and  child-murder, 
would  on  this  principle  be  mere  trifles,  and  by  no  means 
worthy  of  being  punished  with  death.  The  assassin  might 
say,  "  The  person,  whom  I  murdered,  did  not  know  what 
befell  him.  Jffe  was  no  sooner  stabbed  than  he  fell;  and  he 
died,  without  knowing  it,  altogether  unexpectedly,  and  in 
the  midst  of  joy ;  and  if  I  must  die  on  his  account,  let  my 
death  be  equally  easy  and  unexpected.  I  only  beg  that 
people  may  not  take  it  into  their  heads  to  declare  me  an  out- 
law, else  shall.  I  at  every  step  be  accompanied  with  the 
dread  of  death,  and,  in  imagination,  die  a  hundred  thou- 
sand times  instead  of  once." — The  child-murderer,  again, 
might  say  all  this,  and  thus  much  more :  "  The  child  whom 
I  despatched,  knew  nothing  of  the  worth  and  enjoyroent 
of  life,  and  had  been  in  a  state  of  such  obscure  sensibilities, 
that  his  pain  was  next  to  nothing ;"  thus  insinuating,  that 
whenever  he  himself  should  happen  to  come  into  the  same 
state,  that  is,  to  return  to  his  mother's  womb  and  be  born 
again,  by  a  sort  of  Pythagorean  Metempsychosis,  he  might 


86 


LEVITICUS. 


Chap.  24. 


then  be  punished  for  the  crime  in  question ;  but  that,  till 
then,  justice  required  his  punishment  to  be  delayed,  because 
to  make  him  die  at  present,  would  be  doing  him  very  great 
injustice. 

3.  The  law  of  retaliation  is  barbarous.  I  do  not  see  why 
it  should  be  considered  as  more  barbarous  than  hanging 
or  beheading ;  and  with  the  very  same  justice  with  w^hich 
this  assertion  is  made,  it  may  in  like  manner  be  asserted, 
that  to  demand  payment  of  a  debt  is  base  and  avaricious, 
or  that  every  punishment  which  is  less  severe  than  that  of 
like  for  like,  is  tit  only  for  a  state  where  the  people  are  op- 
pressed and  enslaved.  The  one  assertion  is  just  like  the 
other,  and  neither  of  them  proves  any  thing.  The  latter 
indeed  would,  in  these  times,  manifest  a  stronger  tone  of 
sympathy,  and  perhaps  more  truth,  than  in  former  ages. 

4.  The  sight  of  so  many  mutilated  persons  who,  by  the 
law  of  retaliation,  had  had  an  eye  beat  out,  or  a  hand  chop- 

Sed  off,  or  a  nose  bitten  away,  &,c.  &c.,  would  be  extremely 
isagreeable;  and  would  notonlybeapunishment  tothe cul- 
prits themselves,  but  to  every  person  of  the  least  degree  of 
sensibility,  and  especially  to  the  fair  sex  at  the  time  of  con- 
ception, when  they  are  afraid  of  having  their  imaginations 
aftected  by  disgusting  objects.  This  I  readily  grant;  but  I 
believe,  at  the  same  time,  that  where  other  circumstances, 
and  the  character  of  the  people  are  the  same,  these  are 
sights  that  will  be  much  more  rarely  seen  where  the  lex 
talionis  is  established,  than  where  it  is  not.  For  everyone 
will  then  be  the  more  careful  to  avoid  wounding  or  maim- 
ing his  neighbour,  in  a  quarrel,  or  in  a  passion ;  and  cer- 
tainly nobody  will  attempt  any  such  thing  after  deliberate 
premeditation,  when  he  knows  that  he  must  himself  lose 
the  same  member  of  his  body,  of  which  he  deprives  his 
neighbour.  Besides,  it  is  certain  that  the  law  of  retaliation 
will  be  but  seldom  enforced,  and  be  chiefly  confined  to 
threatenings,  and  measures  m  terrorem.  The  man  who  has 
beat  out  the  eye  or  tooth  of  another,  or  cut  oif  his  arm,  will  be 
at  all  possible  pains  to  obtain  his  forgiveness,  and  a  remis- 
sion of  the  legal  punishment.  He  will  humble  himself  be- 
fore him,  and  beg  his  pardon;  not  as  we  see  sometimes 
done,  with  an  air  of  proud  contempt ;  but  even  the  man  of 
highest  rank  will  heartily  do  so  before  the  meanest  of  his 
dependants ;  will  ever  after  honour  him  as  his  forgiver, 
and  at  the  same  time  gladly  make  him  any  pecuniar)-  re- 
compense in  his  power.  In  such  a  case,  the  sufferer  of 
the  injury  will  be  compassionate  and  generous,  or,  if  not 
sufficiently  either  the  one  or  the  other,  at  any  rate  he  will 
have  as  much  Ipve  of  money  as,  when  the  violence  of 
his  revenge  has  been  a  little  mitigated  by  the  humiliation 
and  entreaties  of  his  adversary,  to^  accept  the  proffered 
peace-offering,  and  let  self-interest  settle  the  account  be- 
tween them.  Men  are  naturally  vindictive ;  but  whenever 
we  meet  with  humble  apologies,  and  the  injurious  person 
throws  himself  on  our  mercy,  we  are  in  general  sufficiently 
inclined  to  forget  our  wrongs  ;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  to 
some  people  it  is  nothing  less  than  intolerable  punishment 
to  hear  such  apologies,  and  they  forget  the  injuries  they 
have  suffered,  merely  when  they  know  that  their  author 
regrets  them.  Even  those  whose  sentiments  are  not  so  re- 
fined, will  still,  when  their  fury  is  abated,  yield  to  the 
power  of  gold.  It  was  thus  that  at  Rome  the  lex  talionis 
came  gradually  into  perfect  desuetude,  and  gave  place  to  a 
pecuniary  compefisation,  depending  on  the  discretion  of 
the  praetor  ;  and  that,  though  there  had  been  nothing  else, 
was  one  bad  consequence  of  the  change;  for  to  a  free  man, 
the  discretion  of  a  judge  is  a  term  that  sounds  very  sus- 
piciously. 

5.  Sound  morality  cannot  approve  of  that  revenge,  which 
nothing  short  of  a  repetition  of  the  same  injury  will  satisfy, 
and  which  insists  on  beating  out  the  eye  of  another,  if  he 
has  beaten  out  ours.  This  too  I  readily  admit ;  but  then 
morality  and  civil  law  are  not  one  and  the  same  thing; 
and  the  latter,  as  long  as  it  has  to  do  with  people  who  are 
not  all  paragons  of  perfect  virtue,  must  tolerate  many 
things  on  account  of  hardness  of  .heart,  to  avoid  greater 
evils.  Thus,  for  instance,  as  long  as  the  greatest,  or  the 
greater  part  of  the  people  are  still  prone  to  revenge,  the 
law  must  give  injured  persons  the  means  of  obtaining  sat- 
isfaction for  their  wrongs,  else  will  the  consequence  be, 
that  they  will  take  revenge  ai  their  own  hands;  and  thus, 
instead  of  authoritative  punishments,  none  other  will  be 
known  than  that  of  personal  revenge,  which  is  always 
dangerous,  by  being  carried  beyond  due  bounds,  and  often 


affects  the  innocent,  and  provokes  to  fresh  acts  of  ven- 
geance. To  this,  however,  we  must  add  what  has  been 
already  observed,  that  although  those,  who  are  in  the  least 
injured,  will  inexorably  abide  by  the  law  of  retaliation, 
they  will  still  be  satisfied  with  professions  of  repentance, 
with  apologies,  and  with  pecuniary  compensations.  The 
law  does  not  peremptorily  command  an  injured  person  tc 
avail  himself  of  the  right  of  retaliation,  without  any  alter- 
native. It  only  fixes  the  punishment  to  which  the  author 
of  an  injury  must  submit,  if  he  cannot  compound  matters 
with  the  injured  party.  It  thus  deters  from  outrages,  be- 
cause every  one  must  be  afraid,  lest  the  sufterer  insist  upon 
his  right,  and  in  the  case  of  personal  mutilation,  compei 
the  person  who  has  caused  it,  to  agree  to  such  terms  oJ 
compensation,  as  he  would  otherwise  have  refused  to  offer. 
6.  Christ,  in  his  sermon  on  the  mount,  condemns  that 
revenge  which  requires  eye  for  eye,  and  tooth  for  tooth ; 
(Matt.  V.38,  39;)  and  consequently  the  law  of  retaliation  ir 
unchristian.  This  is,  in  fact,  the  same  objection  with  the 
preceding,  and  therefore  already  answered.  Christ  does  not 
'  find  fault  with  the  Mosaic  statute  of  eye  for  eye,  and  tooth 
for  tooth ; — fuT  he  has  throughout  his  whole  sermon  nothing 
to  do  with  Moses,  and  neither  expounds  nor  controvert? 
his  doctrines — he  only  condemns  the  bad  morality  of  the 
Pharisees,  which  they  thought  fit  to  propound  in  his  words. 
In  the  present  instance,  these  expositors,  confounded,  as 
on  many  other  occasions,  civil  law  and  morality  together; 
and  when  the  moral  question  was.  How  far  may  I  be  al- 
lowed to  carry  my  resentment,  and  gratify  my  thirst  for 
revenge'?  they  answered  in  the  words  which  Moses  ad- 
dressed, not  tothe  injured,\iX\i  to  the  injuring  party,  or  to 
the  judge,  and  said,  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth.  That  Christ 
has  no  intention  of  controverting,  or  censuring  the  lawsol 
Moses,  but  merely  the  expositions  of  the  Pharisees,  is 
manifest,  from  comparing  his  own  doctrine  with  that  ol 
Moses.  Moses  addresses  the  magistrate,  or  the  delinquent 
who  has  mutilated  his  neighbour,  and  says.  Thou,  delin^ 
quent,  art  bound  to  give  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth ;  and 
thou,  judge,  to  pro7iou7ice  sentence  to  that  effect.  Christ,  on 
the  other  hand,  manifestly  addresses  the  person  injured, 
and  forbids  him  to  be  vindictive ;  Ye  hate  heard,  that  it 
is  said,  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth  ;  but  I  command  you  not 
to  requite  evil ;  but  whoever  strikes  you  on  the  right  cheeky . 
offer  to  him  also  the  left.  How  this  last  clause  is  to  be  un- . 
derstood ;  whether  it  prohibits  suing  for  revenge,  and , 
whether  one  should  actually  hold  up  the  left  cheek  to  the , 
person  who  has  slapped  the  right,  it  is  not  my  business  here 
to  decide,  because  I  am  not  explaining  the  sermon  on  the, 
mount.  But  as  long  as  a  people  is  not  composed  of  citi- 
zens, whose  temper  and  conduct  are  altogether  in  conform- 
ity to  the  doctrine  of  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  civil  laws, 
which  do  not,  as  Christ  himself  says,  permit  many  things, 
on  account  of  the  hardness  of  the  people's  hearts,  and  which 
presuppose  such  an  exalted  pitch  of  perfect  virtue,  will  be 
improper  and  unwise.  I  am  far  from  meaning,  by  Avhat  Ij 
have  now  said  in  defence  of  the  lex  talionis,  to  assert 
that  it  is  the  only  proper  punishment  in  the  case  of  personal  ^ 
injuries,  or  that  it  ought  to  be  introduced  into  every  state, 
in  which  it  is  not  yet  in  use  ;  but  only  that  where  it  already, 
operates,  and  especially  in  the  Mosaic  policy,  it  does  not 
merit  censure.  Here  also  it  ought  to  be  considered,  that 
the  same  style  of  law  is  not  equally  suitable  to  every  state. 
To  southern  countries  the  law  of  retaliation  appears  to  be 
better  adapted,  and,  in  some  respects,  more  necessary,  than 
to  northern;  because  in  southern  countries,  such  as  Italy, 
Portugal,  Palestine,  and  Arabia,  the  desire  of  revenge  is 
generally  more  violent,  and  of  longer  duration,  than  with 
us  in  the  50th  degree  of  latitude,  who  sooner  forgive  and 
forget  injuries,  and  are  really  magnanimous  in  our  revenge. 
Where  it  is  once  established,  as  where  Moses  found  it 
already  in  force,  it  is  dangerous  to  attempt  its  abrogation, 
because  the  people  accustomed  to  it  might  not  be  willing 
to  give  it  up,  and  would,  of  course,  enforce  it  themselves. 
But  to  introduce  it  among  us  would  appear  to  be  needless ; 
because  we  hear  of  or  see  so  few  in.stances  of  personal  in- 
juries ;  for  though  we  have  people  among  us  who  want  an 
eye,  there  are  none  who  owe  the  loss  of  it  to  deliberate 
rnalice,  nor  is  it  by  any  means  a  trait  of  our  national  char- 
acter, that  we  delight  in  inflicting  permanent  injuries  on 
one  another.  A  German  is  commonly  too  magnanimous 
to  think  of  any  such  thing.  Blows  he  will  give,  and  show 
his  superiority  over  his  enemy ;  but  even  the  peasant  in  the  ' 


Chap.  25. 


LEVITICUS. 


87 


utmost  violence  of  rage,  and  though  he  hardly  knows  of  any 
particular  punishment  for  such  an  offence,  will  not,  at  any 
rate,  willingly  beat  out  his  neighbour's  eye,  or  think  of 
giving  him  any  such  lasting  mark  of  his  revenge,  as  the 
inhabitant  of  a  southern  country,  or  that  rare  character 
among  us,  to  whom,  in  lower  Saxony,  the  epithet  glupisch 
is  applied,  would  exult  in  having  left  behind  him.  Ex- 
cept in  cases  of  necessity,  it  is  always  a  hazardous  and 
doubtful  experiment  to  alter  laws,  or  to  increase  the  se- 
verity of  punishments ;  and  with  regard  to  uncommon 
crimes,  a  legislator  will  always  decline  taking'  any  notice 
of  them,  or  will,  at  any  rate,  make  no  new  laws  in  relation 
to  them,  lest  he  should  thus  only  make  them  known ;  he 
will  think  it  better  to  let  them  quietly  rest  under  the  an- 
cient national  abhorrence,  with  which  they  are  regarded. 
Thus  as  we  are  not  accustomed  to  the  law  of  retaliation,  it 
would  appear  to  us  cruel,  and  no  injured  person  would, 
for  fear  of  the  universal  outcry  it  would  raise  against 
him,  attempt  commencing  an  action  to  enforce  it :  so  that, 
as  frequently  happens  in  such  cases,  the  increased  severity 
of  the  punishment  would  prove  nothing  else  than  a  sort  of 
impunity  to  the  person  who  had  committed  the  crime.  The 
more  nearly  that  a  people  approaches  to  a  state  of  nature, 
the  more  suitable  to  their  circumstances  is  the  law  of  re- 
taliation :  in  like  manner,  it  agrees  better  with  a  democra- 
cy, than  with  any  of  the  other  forms  of  government :  al- 
though, no  doubt,  to  these  it  can  accommodate  itself,  and 
did  subsist  in  Rome  under  a  strong  mixture  of  aristocracy. 
The  following  distinction,  likewise,  which  has  not,  per- 
hajps,  been  theoretically  considered,  is  a  very  striking  one. 
"Wiiere  every  citizen  is  a  soldier,  and  defends  his  country 
with  the  strength  of  his  arm,  the  law  in  question  may  an- 
swer well  enough;  but  where  there  is  one  particular  class 
of  men,  who  follow  the  profession  of  arms,  whether  as 
hired  soldiers,  according  to  our  present  system,  or,  accord- 
ing to  the  feudal  plan  in  the  middle  ages,  as  gentlemen, 
with  land  given  them  in  fee  instead  of  pay,  there,  at  least, 
if  crimes  were  very  frequent,  it  could  not  be  conveniently 
enforced  without  many  exceptions.  For  if  the  soldier  had 
an  eye  dug  out,  or  his  right  arm,  hand,  or  thumb,  mutilated, 
he  would  not  only  be  punished  himself,  but  his  country 
would  also  suffer,  in  his  being  rendered  unfit  for  its  defence. 
Here,  therefore,  there  would  require  to  be  one  law  for  the 
protectors,  and  another  for  the  protected ;  at  least,  unless 
soldiers  could  be  had  in  more  than  sufficient  numbers. 
Many  dlher  dangers  of  the  same  kind  would  attend  an 
alteration  of  the  law;  which  is,  in  every  case,  a  very 
hazardous  experiment.  At  the  same  time,  I  readily  own, 
that  in  cases  of  personal  injury,  I  have  no  great  partiality 
for  the  pleasure  of  the  judge,  but  would  infinitely  prefer  the 
decision  of  laws,  that  should  place  the  high  and.  the  low  on 
an  equal  footing,  and  estimate  the  tooth  of  a  peasant  at  the 
same  rate  with  that  of  a  lord,  particularly  where  the  former 
must  gnaw  crusts,  and  the  latter  can  have  crumb  if  he 
chooses. — MicHAELis, 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Ver.  23.  The  land  shall  not  be  sold  for  ever  ;  for 
the  land  is  mine ;  for  ye  are  strangers  and  so- 
journers with  me.  24.  And  in  all  the  land  of 
your  possession,  ye  shall  grant  a  redemption  for 
the  land.  25.  If  thy  brother  be  waxen  poor, 
and  hath  sold  away  some  of  his  possession,  and  if 
any  of  his  kin  come  to  redeem  it,  then  shall  he 
redeem  that  which  his  brother  sold.  26.  And 
if  the  man  have  none  to  redeem  it,  and  himself 
'.  be  able  to  redeem  it ;  27.  Then  let  him  count 
the  years  of  the  sale  thereof,  and  restore  the 
overplus  unto  the  man  to  whom  he  sold  it ;  that 
he  may  return  unto  his  possession.  28.  But 
if  he  be  not  able  to  restore  it  to  him,  then  that 
which  is  sold  shall  remain  in  the  hand  of  him 
that  hath  bought  it  until  the  year  of  jubilee: 
and  in  the  jubilee  it  shall  go  out,  and  he  shall 
return  unto  his  possession. 

Moses  declared  God,  who  honoured  the  Israelites  by  call- 
ing himself  their  king,  the  sole  lord-proprietary  of  all  the 


land  of  promjse,  in  which  he  was  about  to  settle  them  by 
his  most  special  providence;  while  the  people  were  to  be 
merely  his  tenants,  and  without  any  right  to  alienate  their 
possessions  in  perpetuity,  Lev.  xxv.  23.  It  was,  indeed, 
allowable  for  a  proprietor  to  sell  his  land  for  a  certain  pe- 
riod ;  but  every  fiftieth  year,  which  Moses  denominated 
the  year  of  jubilee,  it  returned  without  any  redemption 
to  its  ancient  owner,  or  his  heirs.  Hence  Moses  very  just- 
ly observes,  that  this  was  a  sale,  not  of  the  land,  but  only  ol 
its  crops,  between  the  period  of  sale  and  the  year  of  jubi- 
lee. It  was  reasonable  that  the  value  of  a  field  should  be 
estimated  higher  or  lower,  according  as  it  came  to  sale  at 
a  longer  or  shorter  period  preceding  that  year ;  and  Moses 
therefore  admonished  the  Israelites,  (Lev.  xxv.  14 — 16,) 
against  taking  unjust  advantage  of  the  ignorant  and  simple 
in  this  particular  on  such  occasions.  This  purchase  of 
crops,  however,  must  have  been  a  very  profitable  specula- 
tion, because  no  man  would  lay  out  his  money  for  such  a 
length  of  time,  and  encounter  all  risks,  (that  of  war  not 
excepted,)  as  he  was  obliged  to  do,  unless  he  purchased  at 
a  very  cheap  rate.  It  was  not  in  his  power  to  rid  himselt 
of  those  risks,  by  abandoning  the  bargain,  as  a  lessee  may 
his  lease,  and  re-demanding  the  money  expended,  because 
at  the  year  of  jubilee  all  debts  became  instantly  extin- 
guished. He  would,  therefore,  always  take  care  to  pur- 
chase on  such  terms,  as,  allowing  for  the  very  worst  that 
could  happen,  might  secure  him  from  loss,  and  even  yield 
him  some  profit — at  least  the  interest  of  his  money,  prohib- 
ited as  all  usury  was  by  the  law.  Hence,  and  as  a  con- 
sequence of  the  principle,  that  the  lands  were  to  feed  those 
to  whose  families  they  belonged,  there  was  established  a  law 
of  redenrption,  or  right  of  re-purchase,  which  put  it  in  the 
power  of  a  seller,  if  before  the  return  of  tjie  year  orf  jubilee 
nis  circumstances  permitted  him,  to  btfir  back  thfi  yet  re- 
maining crops,  after  deducting  the  amotmt  of  those  already 
reaped  by  the  purchaser,  at  the  same  ptice  for  which  they 
were  originally  sold :  and  of  this  right,  even  the  nearest 
relation  of  the  seller,  or,  as  the  Hebrews  termed  him,  his 
Goel,  might  likewise  avail  himself,  if  he  had  the  means. 
Lev.  xxv.  24—28. 

The  advantages  of  this  law,  if  sacredly  observed,  would 
have  been  great.  It  served,  in  \\ve  first  place,  to  perpetuate 
that  equality  among  the  citizens,  which  Moses  at  first  es- 
tablished, and  which  was  suitable  to  the  spirit  of  the  democ- 
racy, by  putting  it  out  of  the  power  of  any  flourishing  citi- 
zen to  become,  by  the  acquisition  of  exorbitant  wealth, 
and  the  accumulation  of  extensive  landed  property,  too 
formidable  to  the  state,  or  in  other  words,  a  little  prince, 
whose  influence  could  carry  every  thing  before  it,— In  the 
second  place,  it  rendered  it  impossible  that  any  Israelite 
could  be  born  to  absolute  poverty,  for  every  one  had  his 
hereditary  land  ;  and  if  that  was  sold,  or  he  himself  from 
poverty  compelled  to  become  a  servant,  at  the  coming  of 
the  year  of  jubilee  he  recovered  his  property.  And  hence, 
perhaps,  Moses  might  have  been  able  with  some  justice  to 
say,  what  we  read  in  most  of  the  versions  of  Deut.  xv.  4, 
There  will  not  he  a  poor  man  among  you.  I  doubt,  how- 
ever, whether  that  be  the  true  meaning  of  the  original 
words.  For  in  the  11th  verse  of  this  same  chapter,  he  as- 
sures them  that  they  should  never  he  vnthout  poor ;  to  pre- 
vent which,  indeed,  is  impossible  for  any  legislator,  be- 
cause, in  spite  of  every  precaution  that  laws  can  take,  some 
people  win  become  poor,  either  by  misfortunes  or  mis- 
conduct. But  here,  if  a  man  happened  to  be  reduced  to 
poverty,  before  the  expiry  of  fifty  years,  either  he  himself, 
or  his  descendants,  had  their  circumstances  repaired  by  the 
legal  recovery  of  their  landed  property,  which  though  in- 
deed small,  then  became  perfectly  free  and  unincumbered, 
— In  the  third  place,  it  served  to  prevent  the  strength  of  the 
country  from  being  impaired,  by  cutting  off  one,  and  per- 
haps the  greatest  cause  of  emigration,  viz.  poverty.  No 
Israelite  needed  to  leave  his  home  on  that  ground.  Here, 
to  be  sure,  the  extraordinary  case  of  any  public  calamity 
that  might  make  the  lands  lose  their  value,  must  be  except- 
ed. But  it  was  enough  that  in  ordinary  cases  the  law  took 
away  the  chief  inducement  to  emigration,  by  such  a  judi- 
cious provision  as  made  it  the  interest  of  the  people  to  re- 
main contented  at  home. — In  the  fourth  place,  as  every 
man  had  his  hereditary  land,  this  law,  by  its  manifest  ten- 
dency to  encourage  marriage,  rather  served  to  promote  the 
population  of  the  country,  than  to  impair  it. — In  the  fifth. 
place,  the  land  being  divided  into  numerous  small  portions, 


S8 


LEVITICUS. 


Chap.  26. 


each  cultivated  by  the  father  of  a  family,  acquainted  with 
it  from  his  infancy,  and  naturally  attached  to  it  as  the  in- 
alienable property  of  his  family,  could  not  fail  in  conse- 
quence of  this  law,  to  be  better  managed,  and  more  produc- 
tive, than  large  estates  in  the  hands  of  tenants  and  day- 
labourers  could  ever  have  been. — And,  lastly,  this  institu- 
tion served  to  attach  every  Israelite  to  his  country  in  the 
strongest  manner,  by  suggesting  to  him  that,  if  he  had  to 
fight  in  its  defence,  he  would  at  the  same  time  be  defending 
his  own  property,  which  it  was,  moreover,  out  of  his  power 
to  convert  into  money,  wherewith  he  might  betake  himself 
to  a  more  peaceful  habitation  elsewhere. — Michaelis. 

CHAPTER  XXVI, 
Ver.  33.  And  I  will  scatter  you  among  the  heathen, 
and  will  draw  out  a  sword  after  you  ;  and  your 
land  shall  be  desolate,  and  your  cities  waste. 

By  the  concurring  testimony  of  all  travellers,  Judea  may 
now  be  called  a  field  of  ruins.  Columns,  the  memorials  of 
ancient  magnificence,  now  covered  with  rubbish,  and  buried 
Under  ruins,  may  be  found  in  all  Syria.  From  Mount 
Tabor  is  beheld  an  immensity  of  plains,  interspersed  with 
hamlets,  fortresses,  and  heaps  of  ruins.  The  buildings  on 
that  mountain  were  destroyed  and  laid  waste  by  the  Sultan 
of  Egypt  in  1290,  and  the  accumulated  vestiges  of  succes- 
sive forts  and  ruins  are  now  mingled  in  one  common  and 
ext(>nsive  desolation.  Of  the  celebrated  cities  Capernaum, 
Bethsaida,  Gadara,  Tarichea,  and  Chorazin,  nothing  re- 
mains but  shapeless  ruins.  Some  vestiges  of  Emmaus  may 
still  be  seen.  Cana  is  a  very  paltry  village.  The  ruins  of 
Tekoa  present  only  the  foundations  of  some  considerable 
buildings.  The  city  of  Nain  is  now  a  hamlet.  The  ruins 
f.f  the  ancient  Sapphura  announce  the  previous  existence 
of  a  large  city,  and  its  name  is  still  preserved  in  the  appel- 
lation of  a  miserable  village  called  Sephoury.  Loudd,  the 
ancifnt  Lydda  and  Diospolis,  appears  like  a  place  lately 
ravaged  by  fire  and  sword,  and  is  one  continued  heap  of 
rubbish  and  ruins.  Ramla,  the  ancient  Arimathea,  is  in 
almost  as  ruinous  a  state.  Nothing  but  rubbish  is  to  be 
found  within  its  boundaries.  In  the  adjacent  country  there 
are  found  at  every  step  dry  wells,  cisterns  fallen  in,  and 
rast  vaulted  reservoirs,  which  prove  that  in  ancient  times 
mis  town  must  have  been  upwards  of  a  league  and  a  half 
in  circumference.  Caesarea  can  no  longer  excite  the  envy 
of  a  conqueror,  and  has  long  been  abandoned  to  silent  deso- 
lation. The  city  of  Tiberias  is  now  almost  abandoned, 
and  its  subsistence  precarious;  of  the  towns  that  bordered 
on  Its  lake  there  are  no  traces  left.  Zabulon,  once  the  rival 
of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  is  a  heap  of  ruins.  A  few  shapeless 
stones,  unworthy  the  attention  of  the  traveller,  mark  the 
site  of  the  Saffre.  The  ruins  of  Jericho,  covering  no  less 
than  a  square  mile,  are  surrounded  with  complete  desola- 
tion ;  and  there  is  not  a  tree  of  any  description,  either  of 
palm  or  balsam,  and  scarcely  any  verdure  or  bushes  to  be 
seen  about  the  site  of  this  abandoned  city.  Bethel  is  not  to 
be  found.  The  ruins  of  Sarepta,  and  of  several  large  cities 
in  its  vicinity,  are  now  "mere  rubbish,  and  are  only  dis- 
tinguishable as  the  sites  of  towns  by  heaps  of  dilapidated 
stones  and  fragments  of  columns."  But  at  Djerash,  (sup- 
posed to  be  the  ruins  of  Gerasa,)  are  the  magnificent  re- 
mains of  a  splendid  city.  The  form  of  streets,  once  lined 
with  a  double  row  of  columns,  and  covered  with  pavement 
Still  nearly  entire,  in  which  are  the  marks  of  the  chariot- 
wheels,  and  on  each  side  of  which  is  an  elevated  pathway — 
two  theatres  and  two  grand  temples,  built  of  marble,  and 
others  of  inferior  note — ^baths — bridges — a  cemetery  with 
many  sarcophagi,  which  surrounded  the  city — a  triumphal 
arch— a  large  cistern— a  picturesque  tomb  fronted  with 
columns,  and  an  aqueduct  overgrown  with  wood — and  up- 
wards of  two  hundred  and  thirty  columns  still  standing 
amid  deserted  ruins,  without  a  city  to  adorn— all  combine 
in  presenting  to  the  view  of  the  traveller,  in  the  estimation 
of  those  who  were  successively  eyewitnesses  of  them  both, 
"  a  much  finer  mass  of  ruins"  tha!n  even  that  of  the  boasted 
Palmyra.  But  how  marvellously  are  the  predictions  of 
their  desolation  verified,  when  in  general  nothing  but  ruin- 
ed ruins  form  the  most  distinguished  remnants  of  the  cities 
of  Israel ;  and  when  the  multitude  of  its  towns  are  aliuost 
all  left,  with  many  a  vestige  to  testify  of  their  number,  but 
without  a  marl'  to  tell  their  name. — Keith.  I 


Ver.  34.  Then  shall  the  land  enjoy  her  sabbaths, 
as  long  as  it  lieth  desolate,  and  ye  be  in  your 
enemies'  land ;  even  then  shall  the  land  rest, 
and  enjoy  her  sabbaths. 

A  single  reference  to  the  Mosaic  law  respecting  the  Sa]> 
batical  year  renders  the  full  purport  of  this  prediction  pen 
fectly  intelligible  and  obvious.  "  But  in  the  seventh  vear 
shall  be  a  Sabbath  of  rest  unto  the  land ;  thou  shalt  neither 
sow  thy  field  nor  prune  thy  vineyard."  And  the  land  of 
Judea  hath  even  thus  enjoyed  its  Sabbaths  so  long  as  it 
hath  lain  desolate.  In  that  country,  where  every  spot  was 
cultivated  like  a  garden  by  its  patrimonial  possessor,  where 
every  little  hill  rejoiced  in  its  abundance,  where  every  steep 
acclivity  was  terraced  by  the  labour  of  man,  and  where  the 
very  rocks  were  covered  thick  with  mould,  and  rendered 
fertile ;  even  in  that  selfsame  land,  with  a  climate  the  same, 
and  with  a  soil  unchanged,  save  only  bv  neglect,  a  dire 
contrast  is  now,  and  has  for  a  lengthened,  period  of  time 
been  displayed,  by  fields  untilled  and  unsown,  and  by  waste 
and  desolated  plains.  Never  since  the  expatriated  descend- 
ants of  Abraham  were  driven  from  its  borders,  has  the  land 
of  Canaan  been  so  "  plenteous  in  goods,"  or  so  abundant  in 
population,  as  once  it  was ;  never,  as  it  did  for  ages  unto 
them,  has  it  vindicated  to  any  other  people  a  right  to  its 
possession,  or  its  own  title  of  the  land  of  promise — it  has 
rested  from  century  to  century ;  and  while  that  marked, 
and  stricken,  and  scattered  race,  who  possess  the  recorded 
promise  of  the  God  of  Israel,  as  their  charter  to  its  final 
and  everlasting  possession,  still  "ic  in  the  land  of  their  ene- 
mies, so  long  their  land  lieth  desolate."  There  may  thus  al- 
most be  said  to  be  the  semblance  of  a  sympathetic  feeling 
between  this  bereaved  country  and  banished  people,  as  il 
the  land  of  Israel  felt  the  miseries  of  its  absent  children^ 
awaited  their  return,  and  responded  to  the  undying  love 
they  bear  it  by  the  refusal  to  yield  to  other  possessors-  the 
rich  harvest  of  those  fruits,  with  which,  in  the  days  of  their 
allegiance  to  the  Most  High,  it  abundantly  blessed  them, 
And  striking  and  peculiar,  without  the  shadow  of  even  a 
semblance  upon  earth,  as  is  this  accordance  between  the 
fate  of  Judea  and  of  the  Jews,  it  assimilates  as  closely,  and; 
may  we  not  add,  as  miraculously,  to  those  predictions  re- 
specting both,  which  Moses  uttered  and  recorded  ere  the: 
tribes  of  Israel  had  ever  set  a  foot  in  Canaan.  The  land 
shall  be  left  of  them,  and  shall  enjoy  her  rest  while  she  lieth 
desolMe  without  them. 

To  the  desolate  state  of  Judea  every  traveller  bears  wit- 
ness. The  prophetic  malediction  was  addressed  to  the 
mountains  and  to  the  hills,  to  the  rivers  and  to  the  valleys; 
and  the  beauty  of  them  all  has  been  blighted.  Where  the 
inhabitants  once  dwelt  in  peace,  each  under  his  own  vine 
and  under  his  own  fig-tree,  the  tyranny  of  the  Turks,  and 
the  perpetual  incursions  of  the  Arabs,  the  last  of  a  long  list 
of  oppressors,  have  spread  one  wide  field  of  almost  un- 
mingled  desolation.  The  plain  of  Esdraelon,  naturally 
most  fertile,  its  soil  consisting  of  "fine  rich  black  mould," 
level  like  a  lake,  except  where  Mount  Ephraim  rises  in  its 
centre,  bounded  by  Mount  Hermon,  Carmel,  and  Mount 
Tabor,  and  so  extensive  as  to  cover  about  three  hundred 
square  miles,  is  a  solitude  "  almost  entirely  deserted  ;  the 
country  is  a  complete  desert."  Even  the  vale  of  Sharon  is 
a  waste.  In  the  valley  of  Canaan,  formerly  a  beautiful, 
delicious,  and  fertile  valley,  there  is  not  a  mark  or  vestige 
of  cultivation.  The  country  is  continually  overrun  with 
rebel  tribes  ;  the  Arabs  pasture  their  cattle  upon  the  spon- 
taneous produce  of  the  rich  plains  with  which  it  abounds. 
Every  ancient  landmark  is  removed.  Law  there  is  none. 
Lives  and  property  are  alike  unprotected.  The  valleys 
are  untilled,  the  mountains  have  lost  their  verdure,  the 
rivers  flow  through  a  desert  and  cheerless  land.  All  the* 
beauty  of  Tabor  that  man  could  disfigure  is  defaced  ;  im- 
mense ruins  on  the  top  of  it  are  now  the  only  remains  of  a 
once  magnificent  city;  and  Carmel  is  the  habitation  of  wild 
beasts.  "  The  art  of  cultivation,"  says'Volney,  "  is  in  the 
most  deplorable  state,  and  the  countryman  must  sow  with 
the  musket  in  his  hand ;  and  no  more  is  sown  than  is  neces- 
sary for  subsistence."  "  Everyday  I  found  fields  abandoned 
by  the  plough."  In  describing  his  journey  through  Galilee, 
Dr.  Clarke  remarks,  that  the  earth  was  covered  with  sweh 
a  variety  of  thistles,  that  a  complete  collection  of  them- 
would  be  a  valuable  acquisition  to  botany.    Six  new  spCi-* 


Chap.  2—10. 


NUMBERS. 


8* 


cies  of  that  plant,  so  significant  of  wildness,  were  discovered 
by  himself  in  a  scanty  selection.  *'  From  Kane-Leban  tcTi 
Beer,  amid  the  ruins  of  cities,  the  country,  as  far  as  the  eye 
of  the  traveller  can  reach,  presents  nothing  to  his  view  but 
naked  rocks,  mountains,  and  precipices,  at  the  sight  of 
which  pilgrims  are  astonished,  balked  in  their  expectations, 
and  almost  startled  in  their  faith."  "  From  the  centre  of  the 
neighbouring  elevations  (around  Jerusalem)  is  seen  a  wild, 
rugged,  and  mountainous  desert ;  no  herds  depasturing  on 
the  summit,  no  forests  clothing  the  acclivities,  no  waters 
flowing  through  the  valleys ;  but  one  rude  scene  of  savage 
melancholy  waste,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  ancient  glory 
of  Judea  bows  her  head  in  widowed  desolation."  It  is 
needless  to  multiply  quotations  to  prove  the  desolation  of  a 
country  which  the  Turks  have  possessed,  and  which  the 
Arabs  have  plundered  for  ages.  Enough  has  been  said  to 
prove  that  the  larid  mourns  and  is  laid  waste,  and  has  be- 
come as  a  desolate  wilderness. — Keith. 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Ver.  28.  Notwithstanding,  no  devoted  thing  that 


a  man  shall  devote  unto  the  Lord,  of  all  that 
he  hath,  both  of  man  and  beast,  and  of  the  field, 
of  his  possession,  shall  be  sold  or  redeemed : 
every  devoted  thing  is  most  holy  unto  the  Lord. 

Whatever  has  been  devoted  to  the  gods  can  never  be 
sold,  redeemed,  or  applied  to  any  other  purpose.  In  every 
village  there  are  chroniclers  of  strange  events,  of  the  visita- 
tions of  the  gods  on  men  who  did  not  act  fairly  and  tru'.y 
with  their  devoted  things.  There  is  a  story  generally  re- 
ceived of  "  a  deranged  man,  who  in  a  lucid  interval  made 
a  vow  that  he  would  give  his  gold  beads  to  the  temple  ot 
Siva,  and  he  became  quite  well.  After  this  he  refused  to 
perform  his  voW,  and  he  died."  "  Another  person,  who  was 
very  ill  of  a  fever,  devoted  a  goat  to  the  gods,  and  imme- 
diately became  well ;  but  some  time  after  he  refused  the 
gift,  and  his  fever  returned."  When  a  child  becomes  sick, 
the  parents  forthwith  inquire,  "  Have  we  given  all  the 
things  we  devoted  to  the  gods'?"  The  medical  man  also 
(when  the  disease  baffles  his  skill)  inquires,  "  Have  you 
given  all  the  things  you  devoted  to  the  gods  T'— Roberts. 


NUMBERS 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  31.    All  they  that  were  numbered  in  the 

camp  of  Dan,  were  a  hundred  thousand  and 

fifty  and  seven  thousand  and  six  hundred :  they 

>  shall  go  hindmost  with  their  standards.  34.  And 

the  children  of  Israel  did  according  to  all  that 

.        the  Lord  commanded  Moses :  so  they  pitched 

■  -'J     by  their  standards,  and  so  they  set  forward, 

every  one  after  their  families;  according  to  the 

house  of  their  fathers. 

Mr.  Harmer  thinks  the  standards  of  the  tribes  were  not 
fiags,  but  little  iron  machines  carried  on  the  top  of  a  pole, 
in  which  fires  were  lighted  to  direct  their  march  by  night, 
and  so  contrived,  as  sufficiently  to  distinguish  them  from 
pne  another.  This  is  the  kind  of  standard  by  which  the 
Turkish  caravans  direct  their  march  through  the  desert  to 
JMecca,  and  seems  to  be  very  commonly  used  by  travellers 
in  the  East.  Dr.  Pococke  tells  us,  that  the  caravan  with 
which  he  visited  the  river  Jordan,  set-out  from  thence  in 
the  evening  soon  after  it  was  dark  for  Jerusalem,  being 
lighted  by  chips  of  deal  full  of  turpentine,  burning  in  a 
round  iron  frame,  fixed  to  the  end  of  a  pole,  and  arrived 
at  the  city  a  little  before  daybreak.  But  he  states  also, 
*  t^at  a  short  time  before  this,  the  pilgrims  were  called  be- 
fore the  governor  of  the  caravan,  by  means  of  a  white  stand- 
ard that  was  displayed  on  an  eminence  near  the  camp,  in 
order  to  enable  him  to  ascertain  his  fees.  In  the  Mecca 
caravans,  they  use  nothing  by  day,  but  the  same  moveable 
>eacons  in  which  they  burn  "those  fires,  which  distinguish 
the  different  tribes  in  the  night.  From  these  circumstances, 
fiarmer  concludes,  that,  "  since  travelling  in  the  night  must 
as  general  be  most  desirable  to  a  great  multitude  in  that  des- 
jert,  and  since  we  may  believe  that  a  compassionate  God  for 
the  most  part  directed  Israel  to  mov^e  in  the  night,  the  stand- 
Urds  of  the  twelve  tribes  were  moveable  beacons,  like  those 
.of  the  Mecca  pilgrims,  rather  than  flags  or  any  thing  of 
that  kind."  At  night  the  camp  was  illuminated  by  large 
yood  fires  ;  and  a  bituminous  substance  secured  in  small 
Gages  or  beacons,  formed  of  iron  hoops,  stuck  upon  poles, 
threw  a  brilliant  light  upon  the  surrounding  objects. — 
Munroe's  Summer  Ramble  in  Syria. 
12 


CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  2.  Every  one  that  hath  an  issue,  and  wh^t 
soever  is  defiled  by  the  dead. 

All  who  attend  a  funeral  procession,  or  ceremony,  be- 
come unclean,  and  before  they  return  to  their  houses  must 
wash  their  persons  and  their  clothes.  Neither  those  in  the 
sacred  office,  nor  of  any  other  caste,  can,  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, attend  to  any  religious  ceremonies.  They  can* 
not  marry,  nor  be  present  at  any  festivity,  nor  touch  a  sa- 
cred book.  A  person  on  hearing  of  the  death  of  a  son,  or 
other  relative,  immediately  becomes  unclean.  The  Brah- 
mins are  unclean  twelve  days ;  those  of  the  royal  family, 
sixteen  days ;  the  merchants,  twenty-two ;  and  all  other 
castes,  thirty-two  days. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VL 
Ver.  26.  The  Lord  Jift  up  his  countenance  upon 
thee,  and  give  thee  peace. 

"  As  I  came  along  the  road,  I  met  Raman,  and  he  lifted 
up  his  fa(U:,  upon  me;  but  I  knew  not  the  end;"  which 
rneans,  he  looked  pleasantly.  Does  a  man  complain  of 
another  who  has  ceased  to  look  kindly  upon  him,  he  says, 
"  Ah  !  my  friend,  you  no  longer  lift  up  your  countenance 
upon  me." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  7.  But  when  the  congregation  is  to  be 
gathered  together,  ye  shall  blow,  but  ye  shall 
not  sound  an  alarrn. 

The  form  of  the  republic  established  by  Moses  was  demo- 
cratical.  Its  head  admitted  of  change  as  to  the  name  and 
nature  of  his  office ;  and  we  find  that,  at  certain  times,  it 
could  subsist  without  a  general  head.  If,  therefore,  we 
would  fully  understand  its  constitution,  we  must  begin,  not 
from  above,  but  with  the  lowest  description  of  persons  that 
had  a  share  in  the  government.  From  various  passages 
of  the  Pentateuch,  we  find  that  Moses,  at  making  known- 
any  laws,  had  to  convene  the  whole  congregation  of  Is- 
rael, (Snp  or  mj?;)  and,  in  like  manner,  in  the  book  of 
Joshua,  we  see,  that  when  Diets  were  held,  the  whole  con* 


90 


NUMBERS. 


Chap.  10. 


gregation  were  assembled.  If  on  such  occasions  every  in- 
dividual had  had  to  give  his  vote,  every  thing  would  cer- 
tainly have  been  democratic  in  the  highest  degree ;  but  it 
is  scarcely  conceivable  how,  without  very  particular  regu- 
lations made  for  the  purpose,  (which,  however,  we  nowhere 
find,)  order  could  have  been  preserved  in  an  assembly  of 
600,000  men,  their ,votes  accurately  numbered,  and  acts  of 
violence  prevented.  If,  however,  we  consider  that,  while 
Moses  is  said  to  have  spoken  to  the  whole  congregation^  he 
could  not  possibly  be  heard  by  600,000  people,  (for  what 
human  voice  could  be  sufficiently  strong  to  be  so  %)  all  our 
fears  and  difhculiies  will  vanish ;  for  this  circumstance 
alone  must  convince  any  one  that  Moses-coukl  only  have 
addressed  himself  to  a  certain  number  of  persons  deputed 
to  represent  the  rest  of  the  Israelites.  Accordingly,  m 
Numij.  -.  IG.  we  find  mention  made  of  such  persons.  In 
contradistinction  to  the  common  Israelites,  they  are  there 
denominated  Kerm  Hiieda,  (myn  isi^p)  that  is,  "  those  wont 
to  be  called  to  the  convention."  In  the  xvi.  chapter  of  the 
same  book,  ver.  2,  they  are  styled,  Nes'ie  Eda  Kerue  Aloed, 
(iy\a>KT>pmy  i«>a';)  that  is,  "  chiefs  of  the  community,  that 
are  called  to  the  convention."  I  notice  this  passage  par- 
ticularly, because  it  appears  from  it,  that  250  persons  of 
this  description,  who  rose  up  against  Moses,  became  to  him 
objects  of  extreme  terror ;  which  they  could  not  have  been, 
ifl  their  voices  had  not  been,  at  the  same  time,  the  voices  of 
their  families  and  tribes.  Still  more  explicit,  and  to  the 
point,  is  the  passage,  Deut.  xxix.  9,  where  Moses,  in  a 
speech  to  the  whole  people,  says,  "  Ye  stand  this  day  all  of 
you  before  the  Lord  your  God,  your  heads,  your  tribes, 
(thatis,  chiefs  of  tribes,)  your  elders,  your  scribes,  all  Israel, 
infants,  wives,  strangers  that  are  in  your  camp,  from  the 
hewer  of  wood  to  the  drawer  of  water."  Now  as  Moses  could 
not  possibly  speak  loud  enough  to  be  heard  by  two  millions 
and  a  half  of  people,  (for  to  so  many  did  the  Israelites 
amount,  women  and  children  included,)  it  must  be  manifest 
that  the  first-named  persons  represented  the  people,  to  whom 
they  again  repeated  the  word  of  Moses.  Winether  these 
representatives  were  on  every  occasion  obliged  to  collect 
and  lee  are  the  sense  of  their  constituents,  or  whether,  like 
the  members  of  the  English  House  of  Commons,  they  acted 
in  the  plenitude  of  their  oWn  power  for  the  general  good, 
without  taking  instructions  from  their  constituents,  I  find 
nowhere  expressly  determined  ;  but  methinks,  from  a  pe- 
rusal of  the  Bible,  I  can  scarcely  doubt  that  the  latter  was 
the  case. 

"Who  these  representatives  were,  may  in  some  measure 
be  understood  from  Josh,  xxiii.  2.,  and  xxiv.  1.  They 
would  seem  to  have  been  of  two  sorts.  To  some,  their 
office  as  judges  gave  a  right  to  appear  in  the  assembly ; 
and  these  were  not  necessarily  of  the  same  family  in  which 
they  exercised  that  office.  Others,  again,  had  a  seat  and  a 
voice  in  the  Diet,  as  the  heads  of  families. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  31.  And  he  said.  Leave  us  not,  I  pray  thee ; 
forasmuch  as  thou  knowest  how  we  are  to 
encamp  in  the  wilderness,  and  thou  mayest  be 
to  us  instead  of  eyes. 

An  aged  father  says  to  his  son,  who  wishes  to  go  to  some 
other  village,  "My  son,  leave  me  not  in  my  old  age;  you 
are  now  my  eyes."  "  You  are  on  the  look-out  for  me,  your 
eyes  are  sharp."  It  is  said  of  a  good  servant,  "  he  is  eyes  to 
his  master." — Robert.s. 

When  Moses  begged  of  Hobab  not  to  leave  Israel,  be- 
cause they  were  to  encamp  in  the  wilderness,  and  he  might 
be  to  them  instead  of  eyes.  Numb.  x.  31,  he  doubtless  meant 
that  he  might  be  a  guide  to  them  in  the  difficult  journeys 
they  had  to  take  in  the  wilderness:  for  so  Job,  when  he 
wou.d  express  his  readiness  to  bring  forward  on  their 
journey  those  that  were  enfeebled  with  sickness,  or  hurt  by 
accidents,  and  to  guide  them  in  their  way  that  were  blind 
or  ignorant  of  it,  says,  "  I  was  eyes  to  the  blind,  and  feet 
was  I  to  the  lame,"  Job  xxix.  1.5.  Evervbody,  accord- 
ingly, at  all  acquainted  with  the  nature  of  such  deserts  as 
Israel  had  to  pass  through,  must  be  sensible  of  the  great 
importance  of  having  some  of  the  na'ives  of  that  cormtry 
for  guides:  they  know  where  water  is  to  be  found,  and  can 
lead  to  places  proper,  on  that  account,  for  encampments. 
Without  their  help,  travelling  would  be  much  more  diffi- 
cult in  these  deserts,  and  indeed  often  fatal.  The  import- 
ance of  having  these  Arab  guides  appears,  from  such  a 


number  of  passages  in  books  of  travels,  that  every  ono 
whose  reading  has  at  all  turned  this  way,  must  be  apprized 
of  them  ;  for  which  reason  I  shall  cite  none  in  particular. 
The  application  then  of  Moses  to  Hobab  the  Midianite, 
that  is,  to  a  principal  Arab  of  the  tribe  of  Midian,  would 
have  appeared  perfectly  just,  had  it  not  been  for  this 
thought,  that  the  cloud  of  the  Divine  Presence  went  before 
Israel,  and  directed  their  marches ;  of  what  consequence 
then  could  Hobab's  journeying  with  them  hel  A  man 
would  take  more  upon  himself  than  he  ought  to  do,  that 
should  affi;-m  the  attendance  of  such  a  one  as  Hobab  was 
of  no  use  to  Israel,  in  their  removing  from  station  to 
station :  it  is  very  possible,  the  guidance  of  the  cloud  might 
not  be  so  minute  as  absolutely  to  render  his  offices  of  no 
value.  But  I  will  mention  another  thing,  that  will  put  the 
propriety  of  this  request  of  Moses  quite  out  of  dispute. 
The  sacred  history  expressly  mentions  several  journeys 
undertaken  by  parties  of  the  Israelites,  while  the  main 
body  laid  still :  so  in  Numb.  xiii.  we  read  of  a  party  that 
was  sent  out  to  reconnoitre  the  land  of  Canaan ;  in  chap. 
XX.  of  the  messengers  sent  from  Kadesh  unto  the  king  of 
Edom ;  in  chap.  xxxi.  of  an  expedition  against  the  idola- 
trous Midianites;  of  some  little  expeditions,  in  the  close  of 
chap.  XXX.;  and  more  journeys  of  the  like  kind,  were  with- 
out doubt  undertaken,  which  are  not  particularly  recounted. 
Now  Moses,  foreseeing  something  of  this,  might  well  beg 
the  company  o^  Hobab,  not  as  a  single  Arab,  but  as  a 
prince  of  one  of  their  clans,  that  he  might  be  able  to  apply 
to  him  from  time  to  time,  for  some  of  his  people,  to  be  con- 
ductors to  those  he  should  have  occasion  to  send  out  to 
different  places,  while  the  body  of  the  people,  and  the  cloud 
of  the  Lord,  continued  unmoved. 

Nor  was  their  assistance  only  wanted  in  respect  to  water, 
when  any  party  of  them  was  sent  out  upon  some  expedi- 
tion;  but  the  whole  congregation  must  have  had  frequent 
need  of  them,  for  directions  where  to  find  fuel.  Manna 
continually,  and  sometimes  water,  were  given  them  mirac- 
ulously ;  their  clothes  also  were  exempted  from  decay 
while  in  the  wilderness;  but  fuel  was  wanted  to  warm 
them  some  part  of  the  year,  at  all  times  to  bake  and  seethe 
the  manna,  according  to  Exod.  xvi.  23,  and  was  never  ob- 
tained but  in  a  natural  way,  that  we  know  of:  for  this  then 
they  wanted  assistance  of  such  Arabs  as  were  perfectly 
acquainted  with  that  desert.  So  Thevenot,  describing  his 
travelling  in  this  very  desert,  says,  on  the  night  of  the  25th 
of  January  they  rested  in  a  place  where  was  some  broom, 
for  that  their  guides  never  brought  them  to  rest  anywhere, 
willingly  we  are  to  suppose,  but  in  places  where  they  could 
find  some  fuel,  not  only  to  warm  them,  but  to  prepare  their 
coffee  and  mafrouca.  He  complains  also  of  their  resting- 
place  on  the  night  of  the  28th  of  January,  on  account  of 
their  not  being  able  to  find  any  wood  there,  not  so  much  as 
to  boil  coffee.  A  like  complaint  he  makes  of  the  night 
between  the  eighth  and  ninth  of  February,  Avhen  not  being 
able  to  get  into  Suez,  he  was  obliged  to  lie  without  the 
gates  till  it  was  day,  suffering  a  great  deal  of  cold,  because 
they  had  no  wood  to  make  a  fire.  Moses  hoped  Hobab 
would  be  instead  of  eyes  to  the  Israelites,  both  with  respect 
to  the  guiding  their  parties  to  wells  and  springs  in  the 
desert,  and  the  giving  the  people  in  general  notice  where 
they  might  find  fuel :  for  though  they  frequently  make  use 
in  this  desert  of  camels'  dung  for  fuel,  this  could  not,  we 
imagine,  wholly  supply  their  wants ;  and  in  fact,  we  find 
the  Israelites  sought  about  for  other  firing! — Harmer. 

Ignorance  is  a  kind  of  blindness  often  no  less  fatal  than  , 
privation  of  sight;  and  partial,  or  deficient  information,  is 
little  better  than  ignorance:  so  we  find  Moses  saying  to 
Hobab,  "Leave' us  not,  I  pray  thee;  forasmuch  as  thou 
knowest  how  we  ought  to  encamp  in  the  wilderness,  and 
thou  mayest  be  to  us  instead  of  eyes,"  Niimb.  x.  31.  The 
necessity  and  propriety  of  such  a  guide,  Avill  appear  from 
considerations  easily  gathered  from  the  following  '.xtract; 
and  the  description  of  a  person  of  this  character  will  be 
interesting,  though  it  cannot  be  equally  interestipg  to  iw 
who  travel  on  hedge-bounded  turnpike  roads,  as  to  an  indi- 
vidual about  to  take  his  passage  across  the  great  desert. 
If  it  be  sa-d,  in  the  case  of  Moses,  the  angel  who  conducted 
the  camp  might  have  appointed  its  stations  without  the  as- 
sistance of  Hobab;  we  answer,  it  might  have  been  so;  but. 
as  it  is  now  the  nsral  course  of  Providence  to  act  by  means,] 
even  to  accomplish  the  most  certain  events;  and  as  nO  mail 
who  has  neglected  any  mean,  has  now  the  smallest  right  '"^ 


Chap.  U. 


NUMBERS. 


91 


expect  an  interposition  of  Providence  on  his  tchalf,  so  we 
strongly  query,  whether  it  would  not  have  been  a  failing, 
of  presumption,  in  Moses,  had  he  omitted  this  application 
tu  Hobab;  or  indeed,  any  other,  suggested  by  his  good 
sense  and  understanding.  " 

"  A^  hybeer  is  a  guide,  from  the  Arabic  word  hubbar,  to 
inform,  "instruct,  or  direct,  because  they  are  used  to  do  this 
oilice  to  the  caravan  travelling  through  the  desert,  in  all  its 
directions,  whether  to  Egypt  and  back  again,  the  coast  of 
the  Red  Sea,  or  the  countries  of  Sudan,  and  the  western 
extremities  of  Africi.  They  are  we??-  of  great  considera- 
!ion,  knowing  perfectly  the  situation  and  properties  of  all 
kinds  of  water,  to  be  met  on  the  route,  the  distances  of 
wells,  whether  occupied  by  enemies  or  not,  and  if  so,  the 
way  to  avoid  them  with  the  least  inconvenience.  It  is  also 
necessary  to  them  to  know  the  places  occupied  by  the 
simoom,  and  the  seasons  of  their  blowing  in  those  parts  of 
the  desert;  likewise  those  occupied  by  moving  sands.  He 
^^enerally  belongs  to  some  powerful  tribe  of  Arabs  inhabit- 
ing^ these  deserts,  whose  protection  he  makes  use  of,  to  as- 
sisi  his  caravans,  or  protect  them  in  time  of  danger;  and 
handsome  rewards  are  always  in  his  power  to  distribute  on 
.such  occasions;  but  now  that  the  Arabs  in  these  deserts 
are  everywhere  without  government,  the  trade  between 
Abyssinia  and  Cairo  given  over,  that  between  Sudan  and 
the  metropolis  much  diminished,  the  importance  of  that 
oliice  o(hybeer,  and  its  consideration,  is  fallen  in  proportion, 
and  with  these  the  safe  conduct;  and  we  shall  see  presently 
a  caravan  cut  off  by  the  treachery  of  the  very  hybeers  that 
conducted  them,  the  first  instance  of  the  kind  that  ever  hap- 
pened." (Bruce.) — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

■  Ver.  5.  We  remember  the  fish  which  we  did  eat 
in  Egypt  freely;  the  cucumbers,  and  the  mel- 
ons, amd  the  leeks,  and  the  onions,  and  the  garlic. 

_To  an  Englishman  the  loss  of  these  articles  would  not 
^ive  much  concern,  and  he  is  almost  surprised  at  the  Israel- 
>ites  repining  at  their  loss,  as  at  the  loss  of  great  delicacies. 
The  people  of  the  East  do  not  in  general  eat  flesh,  nor  even 
fish,  so  that  when  they  can  procure  it  they  consider  it  a 
delicacy.  Cucumbers  are  eaten  in  abundance  in  hot  wea- 
ther, and  melons  are  most  delicious  and  plentiful.  I  have 
never  seen  leeks  in  the  East,  and  I  am  doubtful  whether 
they  are  to  be  found ;  but  whether  or  not,  there  is  much 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  translation  of  the  word. 
P'Oyly  and  Mant  have  a  quotation  to  this  effect : — "  Whe- 
ther the  following  word,  rendered  leeks,  have  that  significa- 
tion, may  be  doubted.  Some  think  it  was  the  lotus,  which 
is  a  water  plant,  a  kind  of  water-lily,  which  the  Egyptians 
used  to  eat  during  the  heats  of  summer."  In  the  Universal 
History,  (vol.  i.  p.  486,)  it  is  said,  that  those  "  Egyptians 
who  dwelt  in  the  marshes,  fed  oil  several  plants  which  an- 
nually grow,  particularly  the  lotus,  of  which  they  made  a 
sort  of  bread."  .  Of  the  Arabs  also,  (in  the  same  work,)  it 
is  recorded—"  They  make  a  drink  of  the  Egyptian  lotus, 
which  is  very  good  for  inward  heat."  The  Tamul  name 
of  the  lotus  is  the  Tamari.  The  Materia  Medica,  under 
the  article  Nelumbium  Speciosum,  says  this  plant  is  the 
true  lotus  of  the  Egyptians,  and  the  Nymphea  Nilufer  of 
Sir  William  Jones.  Its  beautiful  and  fragrant  flower  is 
sacred  to  Lechimy,  the  goddess  of  Maga  Vishnoo.  It  has 
a  bulbous  root,  and  is  highly  esteemed  as  an  article  of  food. 
As  it  grows  in  tanks,  it  can  only  be  had  in  the  hottest  wea- 
ther, when  the  water  is  dried  up;  and,  in  this  we  see  a 
most  gracious  provision  in  allowing  it  to  be  taken  when 
most  required.  Its  cooling  qualities  are  celebrated  all  over 
India,  and  the  Materia  Medica  says  of  it,  "  This  is  an  ex- 
cellent root,  and  is  also  prescribed  medicinally,  as  cooling 
and  demulcent."  The  natives  eat  it  boiled,  or  in  curry,  or 
make  it  into  flour  for  gruels.  I  am,  therefore,  of  opinion, 
that  it  was  the  lotus  of  Egypt  respecting  which  the  Israel- 
ites were  murmuring. — Roberts. 

Whoever  has  tasted  onions  in  Egypt  must  allow  that 
none  can  be  had  bel'er  in  any  part  of  the  universe.  Here 
they  are  sweet,  in  other  countries  they  are  nauseous  and 
strong;  here  they  are  soft,  whereas  in  "the  north,  and  other 
parts,  they  are  hard  of  digestion.  Hence  they  cannot  in 
any  place  be  eaten  with  less  prejudice  and  more  satisfaction 
than  in  Egypt.   They  eat  them  roasted,  cut  into  four  pieces, 


with  some  bits  of  roasted  meat,  which  the  Turks  in  Egypt 
call  kobab,  and  with  this  dish  they  are  so  delighted,  that  I 
have  heard  them  wish  they  might  enjoy  it  in  paradise. 
They  likewise  make  soup  of  them  in  Egypt,  cutting  the 
onions  in  small  pieces ;  this  I  think  one  of  the  best  dishes 
I  ever  eat. 

By  melons  we  are  probably  to  understand  the  water-me- 
lon, which  the  Arabians  call  batech.  It  is  cultivated  on  the 
banks  of  the  Nile,  in  the  rich  clayey  earth  which  subsides 
during  the  inundation.  This  serves  the  Egyptians  for  meat, 
drink,  and  physic.  It  is  eaten  in  abundance  during  the 
season,  even  by  the  richer  sort  of  people ;  but  the  common 
people,  on  whom  providence  has  bestowed  nothing  but  pov- 
erty and  patience,  scarcely  eat  any  thing  but  these,  and  ac- 
count this  the  best  time  of  the  year,  as  they  are  obliged  to 
put  up  with  worse  fare  at  other  seasons.  This  fruit  like- 
wise serves  them  for  drink,  the  juice  refreshing  these  poor 
creatures,  and  they  have  less  occasion  for  water  than  if 
they  were  to  live  on  more  substantial  food  in  this  burning 
climate. — Hasselquist. 

Among  the  different  kinds  of  vegetables,  which  are  ot 
importance  to  supply  the  want  of  life,  or  to  render  it  more 
agreeable,  he  tells  us,  is  the  melo7is,  which,  without  dispute, 
is  there  one  of  the  most  salutary  and  common  among  them. 
All  the  species  that  they  have  in  Europe,  and  in  the  sea- 
ports of  the  Mediterranean,  are  to  be  found  in  Egypt.  Be- 
sides them,  there  is  one,  whose  substance  is  green  and  very 
delicious.  It  grows  round  like  a  bowl,  and  is  commonly 
of  an  admirable  taste.  There  are  also  water-melons,  ex- 
tremely good.  But  above  all  the  rest,  at  Cairo,  and  its 
neighbourhood,  they  boast  of  a  species  of  melons,  pointed 
at  each  end,  and  swelling  out  in  the  middle,  which  the  peo- 
ple of  the  country  call  abdelarins.  This  is  an  Arabian 
word,  which  signifies  the  slave  of  sweetness.  In  fact,  these 
melons  are  not  to  be  eaten  without  sugar,  as  being  insipid 
without  it.  Macrisi  says,  this  last  kind  was  formerly  trans- 
ported hither,  by  a  man  whose  name  they  bear.  They 
give  it  to  the  sick,  to  whom  they  refuse  all  other  kinds  ol 
fruit.  The  rind  is  very  beautifully  wrought;  its  figure 
very  singular ;  as  well  as  the  manner  of  ripening  it,  which 
is  by  applying  a  red-hot  iron  to  one  of  its  extremities.  The 
people  of  the  country  eat  it  green  as  well  as  ripe,  and  in 
the  same  manner  as  we  eat  apples.  These  melons,  of  a 
foreign  extraction,  continue  two  whole  months,  and  grow 
nowhere  else  in  Egypt.  They  say  the  •same  species  is 
found  in  Cyprus.— Maillet. 

Ver.  6.  But  now  our  soul  is  dried  away ;  there 
is  nothing  at  all,  besides  this  manna,  before  our 
eyes. 

In  great  hunger  or  thirst  the  people  say,  "  Our  soul  is 
withered."  '*  More  than  this,  sir,  I  cannot  do ;  my  spirit  is 
withered  within  me."  "  What !  when  a  man's  soul  is  with- 
ered, is  he  not  to  complain  V — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  And  the  people  went  about,  and  gathered 
it,  and  ground  it  in  mills,  or  beat  it  in  a  mor-  ■ 
tar,  and  baked  it  in  pans,  and  made  cakes  of  it : 
and  the  taste  of  it  was  as  the  taste  of  fresh  oil. 

The  eastern  mill  consists  of  two  circular  stones,  about 
eighteen  inches  in  diameter,  and  three  inches  th:'  ;k.  The 
top  stone  has  a  handle  in  it,  and  works  round  a  pivot,  which 
has  a  hole  connected  with  it  to  admit  the  corn.  The  mor- 
tar also  is  much  used  to  make  rice  flour.  It  is  a  block  ot 
wood,  about  twenty  inches  high  and  ten  inches  in  diameter, 
having  a  hole  scooped  out  in  the  centre.  The  pestle  is  a 
stick  of  about  four  feet  long,  made  of  iron-wood,  having 
an  iron  hoop  fixed  to  the  end. — Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  Gather 
unto  me  seventy  men  of  the  elders  of  Israel, 
whom  thou  knowest  to  be  the  elders  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  officers  over  them;  and  bring  them 
unto  the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation,  that 
they  may  stand  there  with  thee. 

Moses  established  in  the  wilderness  another  institution, 
which  has  been  commonly  held  to  be  of  a  judicial  nature; 


94 


NUMBERS. 


Chap.  12,  13. 


thousand  cities ;  and  by  the  testimony  of  Josephus,  seven 
hundred  and  fitty  myriads  of  people,  without  including 
the  inhabitants  of  Alexandria.  From  this  statement  it 
must  be  evident,  that  in  order  to  supply  the  many  thou- 
sands of  Israel  with  quails  for  a  whole  month,  no  act  of 
creation  was  necessary  ;  but  only  a  strong  breeze,  to  direct 
the  flight  of  those  innumerable  flocks,  which  encumber  the 
African  continent,  to  the  camp  of  Israel.  We  read  that 
our  Lord  muliiplied  the  loaves  and  the  fishes,  when  he 
fed  the  attending  multitudes ;  but  no  inspired  writer  insin- 
uates, that  Jehovah  created  or  multiplied  the  quails  with 
which  he  sustained  his  people  in  the  wilderness.  He  had 
only  to  transport  them  on  the  wings  of  the  wind,  from  the 
vale  of  Egypt,  and  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea.  It  was  in- 
deed a  stupendous  miracle,  to  collect  such  immense  num- 
bers, to  bring  them  into  the  desert  precisely  at  the  time 
which  he  had  appointed,  and  to  let  them  fall  about  the 
camp,  that  they  might  be  gathered  by  his  people  ;  but  the 
provision  itself  existed  already  in  the  stores  of  common 
providence,  and  required  only  "to  be  conveyed  to  the  spot 
where  it  was  needed. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Ver.  14.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  If  her 
father  had  but  spit  in  her  face,  should  she  not 
be  ashamed  seven  days  ?  Let  her  be  shut  out 
ifrom  the  camp  seven  days,  and  after  that  let  her 
be  received  in  again. 

Miriam  had  greatly  offended  God,  and,  therefore,  she 
was  to  be  as  a  daughter,  whose  father  had  spit  jn  her  face. 
In  Deuteronomy  xxv.  9,  the  widow  was  to  spit  In  the  face, 
of  her  late  husband's  brother,  if  he  refused  to  marry  her. 
And  Job  (xxx.  10)  in  his  great  misery  says  of  his  ene- 
mies, "they  spare  not  to  spit  in  my  "face;"  and  in  ref- 
erence to  our  Saviour,  they  did  "  spit  in  his  face."  The 
most  contemptuous,  the  most  exasperating  and  degrading 
action,  which  one  man  can  do  to  another,  is  to  spit  in 
his  face.  A  person  receiving  this  insult  is  at  once  worked 
up  to  the  highest  pitch  of  anger,  and  nothing  but  the 
rank  or  power  of  the  individual  will  prevent  him  from 
seeking  instant  revenge.  Indeed,  such  is  the  enormity 
attached  to  this  offence,  that  it  is  seldom  had  recourse  to, 
except  in  extreme  cases.  A  master,  whose  slave  has  deeply 
offended  him,  will  not  beat  him,  (for  that  would  defile  him,) 
but  he  spits  in  his  face.  When  his  anger  is  at  the  greatest 
height,  he  will  not  even  condescend  to  do  that,  but  order  a 
fellow-servant,  or  some  one  near,  to  spit  in  his  face.  Is  a 
person  too  respectable  for  this  indignity ;  then  the  offended 
individual  will  spit  upon  the  ground.  Schoolmasters,  also, 
when  very  angry  with  a  scholar,  do  not,  as  in  England,  be- 
gin to  beat  him,  but  spit  in  his  face,  or  order  some  one  else 
to  do  it.  To  a  person  making  use  of  offensive  language, 
bystanders  say,  "  Spit  in  his  face." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Ver.  23.  And  they  came  unto  the  brook  of  Esh- 
col,  and  cut  down  from  thence  a  branch  with 
one  cluster  of  grapes,  and  they  bare  it* between 
two  upon  a  staff:  and  the^/  brought  of  the  pome- 
granates, and  of  the  figs. 

It  appears  that  the  cultivation  of  the  vine  was  never 
abandoned  in  this  country.  The  grapes,  which  are  white, 
and  pretty  large,  are,  however,  not  much  superior  in  size 
to  those  of  Europe.  This  peculiarity  seems  to  be  confined 
to  those  in  this  neighbourhood,  for  at  the  distance  of  only 
six  miles  to  the  south,  is  the  rivulet  and  valley  called 
Escohol,  celebrated  in  scripture  for  its  fertility,  and  for 

Producing  very  large  grapes.  In  other  parts  of  Syria,  also, 
have  se(^n  grapes  of  such  an  extraordinary  size,  that  a 
bunch  of  them  would  be  a  sufficient  burdenfor  one  man. 
It  is  not  at  all  surprising,  therefore,  that  when  the  spies, 
sent  by  Moses  to  reconnoitre  the  promised  land,  returned 
to  give  him  an  account  of  its  fertility,  it  required  two  of 
them  to  carry  a  bunch  qjgrapes,  which  they  brought  with 
them  suspended  from  at^le  placed  upon  their  shoulders. 
(Mariti.)  Many  eyewitnesses  assure  us,  that  in  Pales- 
tine the  vines,  and  bunches  of  grapes,  are  almost  of  an  in- 
credible size.    Stephen  Schultz  relates,  "  At  Beitdjin,  a 


village  near  Ptolemais,  we  took  our  supper  under  a  large 
vine,  the  stem  of  which  was  nearly  a  foot  and  a  half  in  di- 
ameter, the  height  about  thirty  feet,  and  covered  with  its 
branches  and  shoots  (for  the  shoots  must  be  supported)  a 
hut  more  than  fifty  feet  long  and  broad.  The  bunches  ol 
these  grapes  are  so  large  that  they  weigh  from  ten  to  tw^elve 
pounds,  and  the  grapes  may  be  compared  to  our  plums. 
Such  a  bunch  is  cut  off  and  laid  on  a  board,  round  which 
they  seat  themselves,  and  each  helps  himself  to  as  many 
as  he  pleases."  Forster,  in  his  Hebrew  Dictionary,  (under 
the  word  Eshcol,)  says,  "  that  he  knew  at  Nurnburg,  a 
monk  of  the  name  of  Acacius,  whohad  resided  eight  years 
in  Palestine,  and  had  also  preached  at  Hebron,  where  he 
had  seen  bunches  of  grapes  which  were  as  much  as  twc 
men  could  conveniently  carry."  Christopher  Neitzschutz, 
who  travelled  through  Palestine  in  the  year  1634,  speaking 
of  his  excursions  on  the  Jewish  mountains,  says,  "  These 
mountains  are  pretty  high  on  the  right,  and  most  beautifully 
situated ;  and  I  can  say  with  truth,  that  I  saM'  and  ate  ol 
bunches  of  grapes  which  were  each  half  an  ell  long,  and 
the  grapes  two  joints  of  a  finger  in  length."  Reland  says, 
"  that  a  merchant,  who  lived  several  years  at  Rama,  as- 
sured him  that  he  had  there  seen  bunches  of  grapes  which 
weighed  ten  pounds  each."  Vines  and  grapes  ol  an  extra- 
ordinary size  are  found  in  other  parts  of  the  East.  Strabo 
says,  "  that  in  the  Margiana,  a  country  southwest  of  the 
Caspian  sea,  now  called  Ghilan,  there  are  vines  which  two 
men  can  scarcely  span,  the  bunches  of  which  are  of  extra- 
ordinary length."  Olearius,  in  1637,  saw  in  this  part 
vines,  the  stem  of  w^hich  was  as  thick  as  a  man's  body.  At 
Iran,  he  states,  there  is  a  kind  of  grapes  called  Enkuri  ali 
deresi,  which  are  of  a  brown  red  colour,  and  as  large  as 
Spanish  plums.  The  carrying  of  a  bunch  of  grapes  be- 
tween two  men  was  not  merely  for  its  weight,  but  that  it 
might  be  brought  uninjured,  and  without  being  crushed, 
into  the  Israelite  camp. — Rosenmuller. 

The  pomegranate,  the  mains  punica  of  the  Romans,  the 
poa  or  pnia  of  the  Greeks,  and  the  Rimon  of  the  Hebrews, 
is  a  kind  of  apple-tree,  whose  fruit  is  covered  without,  with 
a  rind  of  a  veddish  colour,  and  which,  opening  lengthwise, 
shows  red  grains  full  of  juice  resembling  wine,  with  little 
kernels.  The  Hebrew  term  Rimon,  which  expresses  both 
the  tree  and  the  fruit,  from  Rama,  to  project,  seems  to  have 
its  name  from  the  strong  projection  or  reflection  of  light 
either  from  the  fruit  or  from  the  starlike  flower  with  six 
leaves,  or  rays,  at  the  top  of  the  apple.  The  Greek  name 
port,  which  denotes  the  tree,  and  poioKos,  the  fruit,  by  which 
the  Seventy  render  the  word  Rimon,  aim  perhaps  at  the 
same  thing,  being  derived  from  pew  to  flow.  We  learn 
from  Dr.  Shaw,  that  August  produces  the  first  ripe  pome- 
granates, some  of  which  are  three  or  four  inches  in  diam- 
eter, and  of  a  pound  weight.  The  pomegranate,  or  malum 
punicum,  as  originally  brought  from  Phoenicia,  was  for- 
merly numbered  among  the  most  delicious  fruits  which  the 
earth  produces.  That  from  Arabia  is  large,  full  of  juice, 
and  highly  flavoured.  The  juice  especially,  when  express- 
ed from  the  seeds  and  interior  film,  by  which  the  bitter 
flavour  is  avoided,  is  a  delicate  beverage :  and  one  of  those 
pomegranates  will  sometimes  fill  a  small  basin.  The  high 
estimation  in  which  it  was  held  by  the  people  of  Israel, 
may  be  inferred  from  its  being  one  of  the  three  kinds  of 
fruit  brought  by  the  spies  from  Eshcol,  to  Moses  and  the 
congregation  in  the  wilderness ;  and  from  its  being  spec'- 
fied  by  that  rebellious  people  as  one  of  the  greatest  lu«urie<5 
they  enjoyed  in  Egv'pt,  the  want  of  which  they  felt  so  so- 
verely  in  the  sandy  desert.  The  pomegranate,  classed  by 
Moses  with  wheat  and  barley,  vines  and  figs,  oil  olive  and 
honey,  was,  in  his  account,  one  principal  recommendation 
of  the  promised  land.  But  no  circumstance  more  clearly 
proves  the  value  which  the  Orientals  nut  upon  this  fruit,  than 
the  choice  which  Solomon  makes  of  it  to  represent  certain 
graces  of  the  church  :  "  Thy  temples  are  like  a  piece  of 
pomegranate  within  thy  locks ;"  and  in  the  thirteenth  verse, 
the  children  of  God  are  compared  to  an  orchard  of  pome- 
granates with  pleasant  fruits.  Three  sorts  of  pomegranates 
are  used  in  Syria,  the  sour,  the  sweet,  and  another  of  ar. 
intermediate  taste,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  a  grateful  acid- 
ity to  their  sauces  or  liquids.  A  very  refreshing  draught, 
such  as  the  Syrians  use  in  hot  weather,  composed  of  wine 
mixed  with  the  juice  of  the  pomegranate,  it  would  seem,  the 
spouse  proposed  to  make  for  her  beloved  :  "  I  would  cause 
thee  to  drink  of  spiced  wine  of  the  juice  of  my  pomegrU' 


Chap.  13—18. 


NUMBERS, 


95 


ftate  ;"  a  delicious  and  cooling  beverage  to  the  parched  in- 
habitant of  the  equatorial  regions ;  or  perhaps  she  means 
a  species  of  wine  made  of  pomegranate  juice,  which  we 
learn  from  Chardin,  is  drank  in  considerable  quantities  in 
the  East,  and  particularly  in  Persia.  Which  of  these  is 
really  intended,  it  is  not  easy  to  determine.  Liquors  of 
this  kind  are  still  very  common  in  the  East.  Sherbet, 
which  is  a  syrup,  chiefly  that  of  lemons  mixed  with  water, 
is  used  by  persons  of  all  ranks. 

"I  think,"  says  Mr.  Harmer  in  a  note,  "  it  is  highly  prob- 
able, that  in  the  time  of  remote  antiquity,  pomegranate 
juice  was  used  in  those  countries  where  lemon  juice  is  now 
used,  with  their  meat,  and  in  their  drinks ;  and,  that  it  was 
not  till  afterward,  that  lemons  came  among  them.  I  know 
not  how  else  to  account  for  the  mention  of  pomegranates,  in 
describing  the  fruitfulness  of  the  Holy  Land :  they  would 
not  now,  I  think,  occur  in  such  descriptions ;  the  juice  of 
lemons  and  oranges  have  at  present  almost  superseded  the 
use  of  that  of  pomegranates."  But  the  opinion  of  this  re- 
spectable writer,  is  opposed  by  no  less  an  authority  than  Dr. 
Russel,  who  spent  many  years  in  Syria,  and  wrote  the  na- 
tural history  of  that  country.  According  to  that  able  his- 
torian, lemons  have  by  no  means  superseded  the  pomegra- 
nate ;  the  latter  is  more  easily  preserved  through  the  win- 
ter, and  is  often  in  cookery  preferred  to  the  lemon.  In 
describing  the  fruitfulness  of  a  country,  the  pomegranate 
would  be  mentioned ;  and  it  is  diligently  cultivated  even 
where  lemons  are  plenty.  What  Chardin  calls  Roubnar, 
he  would  not  understand  to  be  wine ;  Rab-al-nar  is' the  in- 
spissated juice  of  the  pomegranate,  or  the  juice  of  grapes 
preserved  with  sugar, — Paxton. 

Ver.  32.  The  land,  through  which  we  have  gone 
to  search  it,  is  a  land  that  eateth  up  the  inhabit- 
ants thereof. 

Of  a  very  unhealthy  place  it  is  said,  "  That  evil  country 
eats  up  all  the  people.  "  We  cannot  remain  in  these 
parts,  the  land^s  eating  us  up."  "  I  go  to  that  place  !  never ! 
it  will  eat  me  up."  Of  England  it  is  said,  in  reference  to 
her  victories,  "  She  has  eaten  up  all  countries." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Ver.  9.    Only  rebel  not  ye  against   the  Lord, 

neither  fear  ye  the  people  of  the  land :  for  they 

are  bread  for  us  :  their  defence  is  departed  from 

them,  and  the  Lord  w  with  us ;  fear  them  not. 

Hebrew,  "  shadow."  A  poor  man  says  of  his  rich  friend, 
"  He  is  my  shadow  ;"  i.  e.  he  is  my  defence.  "  My  sha- 
dow is  gone;"  meaning,  he  has  lost  his  defence.  "Alas  ! 
those  poor  people  have  lost  their  shadow." — Roberts. 

Literally,  their  shadow,  a  metaphor  highly  expressive  of 
protection  and  support  in  the  sultry  eastern  countries. 
The  Arabs  and  Persians  have  the  same  word  to  denote  the 
same  thing:  using  these  expressions,  "  May  the  shadow  of 
thy  prosperity  be  extended."    "  May  the  shadow  of  thy 
prosperity  be  spread  over  the  heads  of  thy  well-wishers." 
"May  thy  protection  never  be  removed  from  my  head; 
May  God  extend  thy  shadow  eternally." 
At  court,  when  mention  is  made  of  the  sultan,  the  appella- 
tion of  alem-peTiah,  refuge  of  the  world,  is  usually  added  to 
his  title  of  padisha,  or  emperor.     His  loftiest  title,  and  the 
most  esteemed,  because  given  to  him  by  the  kings  of  Per- 
sia, is  zil-ullah,  shadow  of  God. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Ver.  6.  And  Moses  spake  unto  the  children  of 
Israel,  arid  every  one  of  their  princes  gave  him 
\  a  rod  apiece,  for  each  prince  one,  according  to 

their  fathers'  houses,  even  twelve  rods :  and  the 
rod  of  Aaron  was  among  their  rods.  7.  And 
Moses  laid  up  the  rods  before  the  Lord  in  the 
tabernacle  of  witness.  8.  And  it  came  to  pass, 
that  on  the  morrow  Moses  virent  into  the  taber- 
nacle of  witness  ;  and.  Heboid,  the  rod  of  Aaron, 
for  the  house  of  Levi,  was  budded,  and  brought 
forth  buds,  and  bloomed  blossoms,  and  yielded 
almonds. 

See  on  Jer.  1.  11,  12. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Ver.  16.  And  those  that  are  to  be  redeemed,  from 
a  month  old  shalt  thou  redeem,  according  to 
thine  estimation,  for  the  money  of  five  shekels, 
after  the  shekel  of  the  sanctuary,  which  is 
twenty  gerahs. 

According  to  Leo  of  Modena,  this  was  performed  in  the 
following  manner.  When  the  child  is  thirty  days  old,  the 
father  sends  for  one  of  the  descendants  of  Aaron ;  several 
persons  being  assembled  on  the  occasion,  the  father  brings 
a  cup,  containing  several  pieces  of  gold  and  silver  coin. 
The  priest  then  takes  the  child  into  his  arms,  and  address- 
ing himself  to  the  mother,  says,  "  Is  this  thy  son  1"  Mo- 
ther. "  Yes."  Priest.  "  Hast  thou  never  had  another  child, 
male  or  female,  a  mi.scarriage  or  untimely  birth'?"  Mo- 
ther. "No."  Priest.  "This  being  the  case,  this  child,  as 
first-born,  belongs  to  me."  Then  turning  to  the  father,  he 
says,  "  If  it  be  thy  desire  to  have  this  child,  thou  must  re- 
deem it."  Father.  "  I  present  thee  with  this  gold  and  sil- 
ver for  this  purpose."  Priest.  "  Thou  dost  wish,  therefore, 
to  redeem  the  child  1"  Father.  "  I  do  wish  so  to  do."  The 
priest  then  turning  himself  to  the  assembly,  says,  "  Very 
well:  this  child,  as  first-born,  is  mine,  as  it  is  written  in 
Bemidbar,  Numb,  xviii.  16,  7%ou  shalt  redeem  the  first-born 
of  a  month  old  for  five  shekels;  but  I  shall  content  myself 
with  this  in  exchange."  He  then  takes  two  gold  crowns,  or 
thereabouts,  and  returns  the  child  to  his  parents. — Burder. 

Ver.  19.  All  the  heave-offerings  of  the  holy 
things,  which  the  children  of  Israel  offer  unto  * 
theiliORD,  have  I  given  thee,  and  thy  sons  and 
thy  daughters  with  thee,  by  a  statute  for  ever : 
it  is  a  covenant  of  salt  for  ever  before  the  Lord 
unto  thee,  and  to  .thy  seed  with  thee. 

Among  other  descriptions  of  a  covenant,  there  is  one 
which  demands  explanation.  Numb,  xviii.  19,  "  The  oflTer- 
ings  I  have  given  to  thee,  and  thy  sons  and  thy  daughters 
with  thee,  by  a  statute  for  ever;  it  is  a  covenant  of  salt,  for 
ever,  before  the  Lord."  2  Chr.  xiii.  5,  "  Ought  you  not  to 
know  that  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  gave  the  kingdom  over 
Israel  to  David,  for  ever,  to  him,  and  to  his  sons,  by  a  covc- 
7uint  of  salt  ?"  It  is  very  properly,  as  we  suppose,  suggested, 
in  answer  to  the  inquiry,  What  means  this  covenant  of 
salt 7  that  salt  preserves  from  decay  and  putrefaction;  it 
maintains  a  firmness  and  durability.  There  is  a  kind  of 
salt  so  hard,  that  it  is  used  as  money,  and  passes  from  hand 
to  hand  no  more  injured  than  a  stone  would  be,  says  Mr. 
Bruce.  Salt  may  therefore  very  properly  be  made  an  em- 
blem of  perpetuity. 

But  the  covenant  of  salt  seems  to  refer  to  an  agreement 
made,  in  which  salt  was  used  as  a  token  of  confirmatif  n. 
We  shall  give  an  instance  from  Baron  du  Tott.  "  He, 
(Moldovanji  Pacha,)  was  desirous  of  an  acquaintance  with  ■ 
me,  and  seeming  to  regret  that  his  business  would  not  per- 
mit him  to  stay  long,  he  departed,  promising  in  a  short 
time  to  return.  I  had  already  attended  him  half  way  down 
the  staircase,  when  stopping,  and  turning  briskly  to  one  of 
my  domestics  who  followed  me,  '  Bring  me  directly,'  said 
he,  '  some  bread  and  salt.''  I  was  not  less  surprised  at  this 
fancy,  than  at  the  haste  which  was  made  to  obey  him: 
What  he  requested  was  brought ;  when,  taking  a  little  salt 
between  his  fingers,  and  putting  it  with  a  mysterious  air  on 
a  bit  of  bread,  he  ate  it  with  a  devout  gravity,  assuring  me 
that  I  might  now  rely  on  him.  I  soon  procured  an  expla- 
nation of  this  significant  ceremony;  but  this  same  man, 
when  become  vizier,  was  tempted  to  violate  this  oath  thus  _ 
taken  in  my  favour.  Yet  if  this  solemn  contract  be  not 
always  religiously  observed,  it  serves,  at  least,  to  moderate 
the  spirit  of  vengeance  so  natural  to  the  Turks."  The  Ba- 
ron adds  in  a  note :  "  The  Turks  think  it  the  blackest  in- 
gratitude, to  forget  the  man  from  whom  we  have  received 
food  :  which  is  signified  by  the  bread  and  salt  in  this  cere- 
mony."—(Baron  du  Tott,  part  i.  page  214.)  The  Baron 
alludes  to  this  incident  in  part  iii.  page  36.  Moldovanji 
Pacha,  being  ordered  to  obey  the  Baron,  was  not  pleased 
at  it.  "  I  did  not  imagine  I  ought  to  put  any  great  confi- 
dence in  the  mysterious  covenant  of  the  bread  and  salt,  b]/ 
which  this  man  had  formerly  vowed  inviolable  friendship  tu 


96 


NUMBERS. 


Chap.  20. 


me."  Yet  he  "  dissembled  his  discontent,"  and  "  his  pee- 
vishness only  showed  itself  in  his  first  letters  to  the  Porte." 
It  will  now,  we  suppose,  appear  credible,  that  the  phrase  "  a 
covenant  of  salt"  alludes  to  some  custom  in  ancient  times; 
and  without  meaning  to  symbolize  very  deeply,  we  take  the 
liberty  of  asking,  whether  the  precept.  Lev.  ii.  13,  "  With 
all  thine  oiferings  thou  shalt  ofier  salt,"  may  have  any  ref- 
erence to  ideas  of  a  similar  nature  1  Did  the  custom  of 
feasting  at  a  covenant-making  include  the  same  1  accord- 
ing to  the  sentiment  of  the  Turks  hinted  at  in  the  Baron's 
note.  We  ought  to  notice  the  readiness  of  the  Baron's  do- 
mestics, in  proof  that  they,  knowing  the  usages  of  their 
country,  well  understood  what  was  aboui  to  take  place. 
Also,  that  this  covenant  is  nsuallij  punctually  observed, 
and  where  it  is  not  punctually  observed,  yet  it  has  a  re- 
straining influence  on  the  party  who  has  made  it ;  and  his 
non-observance  of  it  disgraces  him. 

We  proceed  to  give  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  power 
of  this  covenant  of  salt  over  the  mind :  it  seems  to  imply 
a  something  attributed  to  salt,  which  it  is  very  difficult  for 
us  completely  to  explain,  but  which  is  not  the  less  real  on 
that  account :  "  Jacoub  ben  Lairh,  the  founder  of  a  dynasty 
of  Persian  princes  called  the  Saftarides,  rising,  like  many 
others  of  the  ancestors  of  the  princes  of  the  East,  from  a 
very  low  state  to  royal  power,  being  in  his  first  setting  out 
in  the  use  of  arms,  no  better  than  a  freebooter  or  robber,  is 
yet  said  to  have  maintained  some  regard  to  decency  in  his 
depredations,  and  never  to.  have  entirely  stripped  those 
that  he  robbed,  always  leaving  them  something  to  soften 
their  affliction.  Among  other  exploits  that  are  recorded 
of  him,  he  is  said  to  have  broken  into  the  palace  of  the 
prince  of  that  country,  and  having  collected  a  very  large 
booty,  which  he  was  on  the  point  of  carrying  away,  he 
found  his  foot  kicked  something  which  made  hmi  stumble ; 
he  imagined  it  might  be  something  of  value,  and  putting  it 
to  his  mouth,  the  belter  to  distinguish  what  it  was,  his 
tongue  soon  informed  him  it  was  a  himp  of  salt.  Upon  this, 
according  to  the  morality,  or  rather  superstition,  of  the 
country,  where  the  people  considered  salt  as  a  symbol  and 
pledge  of  hosplMity,  he  was  so  touched,  that  he  left  all  his 
booty,  retiring  without  taking  away  any  thing  with  him. 
The"  next  morning,  the  risk  they  had  run  of  losing  many 
valuable  things  being  perceived,  great  was  the  surprise, 
and  strict  the  inquiry,  what  could  be  the  occasion  of  their 
being  left.  At  length  Jacoub  was  found  to  be  the  person 
concerned  ;  who  having  given  an  account,  very  sincerely, 
of  the  whole  transaction  to  the  prince,  he  gained  his  es- 
teem so  effectually,  that  it  might  be  said,  with  truth,  that  it 
was  his  regard  for  salt  that  laid  the  foundation  of  his  after 
fortune.  The  prince  employing  him  as  a  man  of  courage 
and  genius  in  many  enterprises,  and  finding  him  successful 
in  all  of  them,  he  raised  him,  by  little  and  little,  to  the 
chief  posts  among  his  troops;  so  that,  at  that  prince's 
death,  he  found  himself  possessed  of  the  command  in  chief, 
and  had  such  interest  in  their  affections,  that  they  pre- 
ferred his  interests  to  those  of  the  children  of  the  deceased 
prince,  and  he  became  absolute  master  of  that  province, 
from  whence  he  afterward  spread  his  conquests  far  and 
wide."— (D'Herbelot,  Bibl.  Orient,  p.  466.  Also,  Harmer's 
Obs.) — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Ver.  19.  And  the  children  of  Israel  said  unto  him, 
We  will  go  by  the  highway ;  and  if  I  and  my 
cattle  drink  of  thy  water,  then  I  will  pay  for  it : 
I  will  only  (without  doing  any  thing  else)  go 
through  on  my  feet. 

The  scarcity  of  water,  and  the  great  labour  and  expense 
cf  digging  away  so  much  earth,  in  order  to  reach  it,  ren- 
der a  well  extremely  valuable.  As  the  water  is  often  sold 
at  a  very  high  price,  a  number  of  good  wells  yield  to  the 
proprietor  a  large  revenue.  Pitts  was  obliged  to  purchase 
water  at  sixpence  a  gallon;  a  fact  which  illustrates  the 
force  of  the  offer  made  by  Moses  to  Edom  ;  "  If  I,  and  my 
cattle,  drink  of  thy  water,  then  will  I  pay  for  it."  It  is  prop- 
erly mentioned  as  a  very  aggravating  circumstance  in 
the  overthrow  of  Jerusalem,  that  the. ruthless  conqueror 
forced  the  Jews  to  purchase  with  money,  the  water  of  their 
own  wells  and  the  wood  of  their  own  trees:  "We  have 
drunken  our  water  for  money;  our  wood  is  sold  unto 


us."  Even  a  cup  of  cold  water  cannot  always  be  obtained 
in  Syria,  without  paying  a  certain  price.  It  is  partly  on 
this  account  our  Lord  promises,  "Whosoever  shall  give 
to  drink  unto  one  of  those  little  ones,  a  cup  of  cold  water, 
in  the  name  of  a  disciple,  should  in  no  wise  lose  his  reward  " 
— Paxton. 

How  little  do  the  people  of  England  understand /eeZm^Zjf 
those  passages  of  scripture  which  speak  of  want  of  water, 
oi paying  for  that  necessary  fluid,  and  of  the  strife  for  such 
a  valuable  article  as  a  well !  So  we  read,  "  Abraham  re- 
proved Abimelech,  because  of  a  well  of  water,  which 
Abimelech's  servants  had  violently  taken  away."  Gen.  xxi. 
25.  So,  chap.  xxvi.  20 :  "  The  herdsmen  of  Gerar  did 
strive  with  Isaac's  herdsmen  ;  and  he  called  the  well  Esekf 
contention." — To  what  extremities  contention  about  a  sup- 
ply of  water  may  proceed,  we  learn  from  the  following  ex- 
tracts : — "  Our  course  lay  along  shore,  betwixt  the  main- 
land and  a  chain  of  little  islands,  with  which,  as  likewise 
with  rocks  and  shoals,  the  sea  abounds  in  this  part;  and 
for  that  reason,  it  is  the  practice  with  all  these  vessels  to 
anchor  every  evening :  we  generally  brought  up  close  to 
the  shore,  and  the  land-breeze  springing  up  about  midnight, 
w^afted  to  us  the  perfumes  of  Arabia,  with  which  it  was 
strongly  impregnated,  and  very  fragrant ;  the  latter  part  ot 
it  carried  us  off  in  the  morning,  and  continued  till  eight, 
when  it  generally  fell  calm  for  two  or  three  hours,  and 
after  that  the  northerly  wind  set  in,  after  obliging  us  to 
anchor  under  the  lee  of  the  land  by  noon ;  it  happened  that 
one  morning,  when  we  had  been  driven  by  stress  of  weather 
into  a  small  bay,  called  Birk  Bay,  the  country  around  it 
being  inhabited  by  the  Budoes,  [Bedow^eens]  the  Noquedah 
sent  his  people  on  shore  to  get  water,  for  which  it  is  always 
customary  to  pay." 

Tliis  extract,  especially  illustrates  the  passage,  Num.  xx. 
17,  19; — "  We  will  not  drink  of  the  water  of  the  wells : — 
if  I,  and  my  cattle,  drink  of  thy  water,  then  will  I  pay  for 
it." — This  is  always  expected ;  and  though  Edom  might  in 
friendship  have  let  his  brother  Israel  drink  gratis,  had  he 
recollected  their  consanguinity,  yet  Israel  did  not  insist  on 
such  accommodation.  How  strange  would  it  sound  in 
England,  if  a  person  in  travelling,  should  propose  to  pay 
for  drinking  water  from  the  wells  by  the  road-side  !  Never- 
theless, still  stronger  is  the  expression.  Lam.  v.  4 ;  "  We 
have  drank  our  own  water  for  money ;"  we  bought  it  of  our 
foreign  rulers ;  although  we  were  the  natural  proprietors 
of  the  wells  which  furnished  it. — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  22.  And  the  children  of  Israel,  et'en  the 
whole  congregation,  journeyed  from  Kadesh, 
and  came  unto  mount  Hor,  23.  And  the  Lord 
spake  unto  Moses  and  Aaron  in  mount  Hor,  by 
the  coast  of  the  land  of  Edom,  saying,  24.  Aaron 
shall  be  gathered  unto  his  people  :  for  he  shall 
not  enter  into  the  land  which  I  have  given  unto 
the  children  of  Israel,  because  ye  rebelled 
against  my  word  at  the  water  of  Meribah. 
25.  Take  Aaron  and  Eleazar  his  son,  and 
bring  them  up  unto  mount  Hor :  26.  And  strip 
Aaron  of  his  garments,  and  put  them  upon 
Eleazar  his  son ;  and  Aaron  shall  be  gathered 
VMto  his  people,  and  shall  die  there.  27.  And 
Moses  did  as  the  Lord  commanded :  and  they 
went  up  into  mount  Hor  in  the  sight  of  all  the 
congregation.  28.  And  Mose*  stripped  Aaron 
of  his  garments,  and  put  them  upon  Eleazar 
his  son ;  and  Aaron  died  there  in  the  top  of  the 
mount:  and  Moses  and  Eleazar  came  down 
from  the  mount. 

The  evidence  already  adduced  leaves  unquestionable  the 
possibility  that  excavations  in  rocks  may  continue  unim- 
paired for  many  ages.  That  monuments  so  extremely  an- 
cient as  the  days  of  Moses  and  Aaron  should  still  bear 
their  testimony  to  facts  of  other  times,  is  too  wonderful  to 
be  received  without  due  circumspection. — If  they  were  re- 
ferred to  buildings,  to  structures  erected  by  human  power, 
they  would  be  something  more  than  dubious :   but  this 


^. 


Chap.  21. 


NUMBERS. 


97 


hesitation  does  not  apply  to  chambers  cut  in  rocks,  or  on 
the  sides  of  rocky  mouniains  :  it'  the  identity  of  such  places 
can  be  established,  their  antiquity  need  occasion  no  difficul- 
ty ;  if  the  tomb  of  Aaron  be  not  the  tomb  of  any  other  per- 
son, it  may  be  admitted  to  all  the  honours  of  the  distant  age 
to  which  it  is  ascribed.  The  rock  and  the  mountain  origi- 
nated with  the  world,  and  will  endure  to  the  end  of  time. 
At  least,  it  is  proper  that  what  is  said  of  the  tomb  of  Aaron, 
'  should  find  its  place  in  a  work  like  the  present. 

Our  travellers  left  Petra,  and  taking  a  south-westerly 
direction,  arrived  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Hor,  by  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  They  climbed  the  rugged  ascent, 
and  found  "a crippled  Arab  hermit,  about  eighty  years  of 
age,  the  one  half  of  which  time  he  had  spent  on  the  top  of  the 
mountain,  living  on  the  donations  of  the  few  Mohammedan 
pilgrims  who  resort  thither,  and  the  charity  of  the  native 
shepherds,  who  supply  him  with  water  and  milk.  He  con- 
ducted us  into  the  small  white  building,  crowned  by  a 
cupola,  that  contains  the  tomb  of  Aaron.  The  monument 
is  of  stone,  about  three  feet  high,  and  the  venerable  Arab, 
having  lighted  a  lamp,  led  us  down  some  steps  to  a  chamber 
below,  hewn  out  of  the  rock,  but  containing  nothing  ex- 
traordinary. Against  the  walls  of  the  upper  apartment, 
where  stood  the  lomb,  were  suspended  beads,  bits  of  cloth 
and  leather,  votive  offerings  left  by  the  devotees ;  on  one 
side,  let  into  the  wall,  we  were  shown  a  dark  looking 
stone,  that  was  reputed  to  possess  considerable  virtues 
in  the  cure  of  diseases,  and  to  have  formerly  served  as  a 
seat  to  the  prophet." — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Ver.  6.  And  the  Lord  sent  fiery  serpents  among 
the  people,  and  they  bit  the  people  :  and  much 
people  of  Israel  died. 

The  seraph,  to  a  biblical  student,  is  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting creatures  that  has  yet  fallen  under  our  notice.  It 
bears  the  name  of  an  order  among  the  hosts  of  heaven, 
whom  Isaiah  beheld  in  vision,  placed  above  the  throne  of 
Jehovah  in  the  temple ;  the  brazen  figure  of  this  serpent, 
is  supposed  to  be  a  type  of  our  blessed  Redeemer,  who  was 
for  our  salvation  lifted  up  upon  the  cross,  as  the  serpent 
was  elevated  in  the  camp  of  Israel,  for  the  preservation  of 
that  people.  It  is  the  only  species  of  serpent  which  the  al- 
mighty Creator  has  provided  with  wings,  by  means  of 
which,  instead  of  creeping  or  leaping,  it  rises  from  the 
ground,  and,  leaning  upon  the  extremity  of  its  tail,  moves 
wi|h  great  velocity.  It  is  a  native  of  Egypt,  and  the  des- 
ert's of  Arabia ;  and  receives  its  name  from  the  Hebrew 
verb  saraph,  which  signifies  to  burn,  in  allusion  to  the  vio- 
lent inflammation  which  its  poison  produces,  or  rather  its 
fiery  colour,  wbich  the  brazen  serpent  was  intended  to  rep- 
resent. Bochart  is  of  opinion,  that  the  seraph  is  the  same 
as  the  hydrus,  or,  as  Cicero  calls  it,  the  serpent  of  the  wa- 
ters. For,  in  the  book  of  Isaiah,  the  land  of  Egypt  is  call- 
ed the  region  from  whence  come  the  viper  and  flying  ser- 
aph, or  burning  serpent,  ^lian  says,  they  come  from 
the  deserts  of  Libya  and  Arabia,  to  inhabit  the  streams  of 
the  Nile  ;  and  that  they  have  the  form  of  the  hydrus. 

The  existence  of  winged  serpents  is  attested  by  many 
writers  of  modern  times.  A  kind  of  snakes  were  discover- 
ed among  the  Pyrenees,  from  whose  sides  proceeded  carti- 
lages in  the  form  of  wings ;  and  Scaliger  mentions  a  peas- 
ant who  killed  a  serpent  of  the  same  species  which  attack- 
ed him,  and  presented  it  to  the  king  of  France.  Le  Blanc, 
as  quoted  by  Bochart,  says,  at  the  head  of  the  lake  Chia- 
may,  are  extensive  wooj^s  and  vast  marshes,  which  it  is  very 
dangerous  to  approach,  because  they  are  infested  by  very 
large  serpents,  which,  raised  from  the  ground  on  wings  re- 
sembling those  of  bats,  and  leaning  on  the  extremity  of 
their  tails,  move  with  great  rapidity.  They  exist,  it  is"  re- 
ported, about  these  places  in  so  great  numbers,  that  they 
have  almost  laid  waste  the  neighbouring  province.  And, 
in  the  same  work,  Le  Blanc  affirms  that  he  has  seen  some 
of  them  of  immense  size,  which,  when  hungry,  rushed  im- 
petuously on  sheep  and  other  tame  animals.  But  the  origi- 
nal term  ri3i!;r!  Moopheph,  does  not  always  signify  flying 
with  wings ;  it  often  expresses  vibration,  swinging  back- 
ward and  forward,  a  tremulous  motion,  a  fluttering;  and 
this  is  precisely  the  motion  of  a  serpent,  when  he  springs 
from  one  tree  to  another.  Niebuhr  mentions  a  sort  of  ser- 
pents at  Bassorah,  which  they  call  Heie  thiare.  "  Thev 
13  ' 


commonly  keep  upon  the  date  trees ;  and  as  it  would  be  la- 
borious for  them  to  come  down  from  a  very  high  tree,  in 
order  to  ascend  another,  they  twist  themselves  by  the  tail 
to  a  branch  of  the  former,  which  making  a  spring  by  the 
motion  they  give  it,  throws  them  to  the  branches  of  the  sec- 
ond. Hence  it  is,  that  the  modern  Arabs  call  them  fly- 
ing serpents,  Heie  thiare.  Admiral  Anson  also  speaks  of 
the  flying  serpents,  that  he  met  with  at  the  island  of  Cluibo ; 
but,  which  were  without  wings."  From  this  account  it 
may  be  inferred,  that  the  flying  serpent  mentioned  in  the 
prophet,  was  of  that  species  of  serpents  which,  from  their 
swift  darting  motion,  the  Greeks  c?i\\  Acontias,  and  the  Ro- 
mans, Jacuius.  The  seraph  is  classed  by  the  Hebrews, 
among  those  animals  which  emit  an  offensive  odour ; 
which  corresponds  with  the  character  given  of  the  hydrus 
by  the  poet:  '•  graviter  spirantibus  hydris."  This  circum- 
stance is  confirmed  by  ^lian,  who  states,  that  in  Corcvra, 
the  hydras  turn  upon  their  pursuers,  and  exhale  from  their 
lungs  an  air  so  noisome,  that  they  are  compelled  to  desist 
from  the  attack.  It  is  an  obvious  objection  to  these-  argu- 
ments, that  the  hydrse  are  produced,  and  reared  in  marshy 
places  ;  not  in  burning  and  thirsty  deserts,  where  the  peo- 
ple of  Israel  murmured  because  they  could  find  no  water. 
But,  although  that  people  might  find  no  water  to  drink,  it 
will  not  follow,  that  the  desert  contained  no  marshy  place, 
or  muddy  pool,  where  the  hydrse  might  lurk.  Besides,  it 
is  well  known,  that  when  water  fails,  these  serpents  do  not 
perish,  but  become  chersydri,  that  is,  seraphim  or  burners, 
^lian  says  they  live  a  long  time  in  the  parched  wilder- 
ness, and  lie  in  wait  for  all  kinds  of  animals.  These  cher- 
sydri, it  is  extremely  probable,  were  the  serpents  which  bit 
the  rebellious  Israelites :  and  in  this  state  they  were  more 
terrible  instruments  of  divine  vengeance  ;  for,  exasperated 
by  the  want  of  water,  and  the  intense  heat  of  the  season, 
they  injected  a  deadlier  poison,  and  occasioned  to  the  mis- 
erable sufferer  more  agonizing  torments.  The  time  of  the 
year  when  Jehovah  sent  these  serpents  among  his  people, 
proves  that  this  is  no  vain  conjecture.  According  to  Ni- 
cander,  the  hydrae  become  chersydri,  and  beset  the  path  of 
the  traveller  about  the  dog  days.  Now,  Aaron  died  on  the 
first  day  of  the  fifth  month,  that  is,  the  month  Abib,  which 
corresponds  with  the  nineteenth  day  of  July.  The  Israelites 
mourned  for  him  thirty  days ;  immediately  after  which, 
they  fought  a  baUle  with  Arad,  the  Canaanite,  and  destroy- 
ed his  country :  then  recommencing  their  journey,  they 
murmured  for  want  of  water,  and  the  serpents  were  sent. 
This,  then,  must  have  happened  about  the  end  of  August; 
the  season  when  the  hydras  become  seraphim,  and  inflict 
the  most  cruel  wounds.  Nor  is  it  a  fact,  that  the  frightful 
solitudes  which  Israel  traversed,  were  totally  destitute  of 
water;  for,  in  their  fourth  journey  they  came  to  the  river 
Arnon ;  in  the  fifth,  to  Beer,  a  well  greatly  celebrated  in 
scripture;  and  soon  after  the  death  of  Aaron,  they  arrived 
at  a  region  watered  by  numerous  streams.  In  these  irrig- 
uous  places,  which  were  at  no  great  distance  from  the 
camp  of  Israel,  the  hydrse  might  be  produced,  and  sent  to 
chastise  the  rebellious  tribes.  The  words  of  Moses  also 
seem  to  countenance  the  idea,  that  the  hydrse  employed  on 
this  occasion,  were  not  generated  on  the  spot,  but  sent  Irom 
a  distance:  "And  the  Lord  sent  fiery  serpents,  or  sera- 
phim, among  the  people."  From  these  words  it  is  natural 
to  conclude,  that  they  came  from  that  "land  of  rivers," 
through  which  the  congregation  had  lately  passed.  Nor 
will  this  be  reckoned  too  long  a  journey,  when  it  is  recol- 
lected that  they  travelled  from  both  the  Libyan  and  Arafcian 
deSerts,  to  the  streams  of  the  Nile.  They  inflicted  on  this 
memorable  occasion,  an  appropriate  chastisement  on  the 
perverse  tribes.  That  rebellious  people  had  opened  their 
mouth  against  the  heavens;  they  had  sharpened  their 
tongues  like  serpents;  and  the  poison  of  asps  was  under 
their  lips  :  therefore  they  were  made  to  suffer,  by  the  burn- 
ing poison  of  a  creature  which  they  so  nearly  resembled. 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  The  princes  dig-ged  the  well,  the  nobles 
of  the  people  digged  it,  by  the  direction  of  the 
lawgiver,  with  their  staves.  And  from  the 
wilderness  they  went  to  Mattanah. 

Michaelis  observes  on  this  passage,  that  Moses  seems  to 
have  promised  the  Israelites  that  they  would  discover  in 
this  neighbourhood,  and  that  by  ordinary  human  industry 


^8 


NUMBERS. 


Chap.  22—24. 


and  skill,  a  spring  hitherto  unknown ;  and  that  this  promise 
was  fulfilled.  The  discovery  of  springs,  which  olten  flow 
at  a  considerable  depth  below  the  surface  of  the  earth,  is  of 
great  importance  to  a  country  so  poor  in  water  as  Arabia. 
Often  a  spot  that  is  dry  above'has  even  subterraneous  lakes, 
to  reach  which  it  is  necessary  to  dig  to  some  depth.  We 
have  a  remarkable  instance  in  a  part  of  Africa  which  Shaw 
describes  at  the  end  of  the  eighth  chapter  of  his  geographi- 
cal remarks  on  Algiers:—"  The  villages  of  Wadreag  are 
supplied  in  a  particular  manner  with  water:  they  have, 
properly  speaking,  neither  fountains  nor  rivulets  ;  but  by 
digging  wells  to  the  depth  of  a  hundred,  and  sometimes  two 
hundred  fathoms,  they  never  want  a  plentiful  stream.  In 
order,  therefore,  to  obtain  it,  they  dig  through  different  layers 
of  sand  and  gravel  till  they  come  to  a  flaky  stone,  like 
slate,  which  is  known  to  lie  immediately  above  the  bahar 
iaht  el  erd,  or  the  sea  below  the  ground,  as  they  call  the 
abyss.  This  is  easily  broken  through,  and  the  flux  of  wa- 
ter, which  follows  the  stroke,  rises  generally  so  suddenly, 
and  in  such  abundance,  that  the  person  let  down  for  this 
purpose  has  sometimes,  though  raised  up  with  the  greatest 
dexterity,  been  overtaken  and  suffocated  by  it."  In  some 
parts  of  Arabia,  as  at  Faranard  in  the  valley  of  Dsch iron- 
del,  water  is  found,  according  to  Niebuhr,  on  digging  only 
a  foot  and  a  half  deep. — Rosenmuller. 

CHAPTER  XXIL 

Ver.  4.  And  Moab  said  unto  the  elders  of  Midian, 
Now  shall  this  company  lick  up  all  that  are 
round  about  us,  as  the  ox  licketh  up  the  grass 
of  the  field. 

A  native  gentleman,  who  has  many  people  depending 
upon  him,  says,  "  Yes,  they  are  all  grazing  upon  me." 
"  If  I  am  not  careful,  they  will  soon  graze  up  all  I  have." 
Of  people  who  have  got  all  they  can  out  of  one  rich  man, 
and  who  are  seeking  after  another,  "  Yes,  yes,  they  have 
done  grazing  there,  and  are  now  looking  out  for  another 
place."  "  These  bulls  are  grazing  in  every  direction." — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  Come  now  therefore,  I  pray  thee,  curse 
me  this  people  ;  for  they  are  too  mighty  for  me: 
perad venture  I  shall  prevail,  that  we  may  smite 
them,  and  that  I  may  drive  them  out  of  the 
land :  for  I  wot  that  he  whom  thou  blessest  is 
blessed,  and  he  whom  thou  cursest  is  cursed. 

The  Orientals,  in  their  wars,  have  always  their  magi- 
cians with  them  to  curse  their  enemies,  and  to  mutter  in- 
cantations for  their  destruction.  Sometimes  they  secretly 
convey  a  potent  charm  among  the  opposing  troops,  to 
cause  their  destruction.  In  our  late  war  with  the  Burmese, 
the  generals  had  several  magicians,  who  were  much  en- 
gaged in  cursing  our  troops;  but,  as  they  did  not  succeed, 
a  number  of  witches  were  brought  for  the  same  purpose. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  21.  And  Balaam  rose  up  in  the  morning, 
and  saddled  his  ass,  and  went  with  the  princes 
of  Moab. 

We  learn  from  Niebuhr,  that  in  Egypt  the  asses  are 
very  handsome,  and  are  used  for  riding  by  the  greater  part 
of  the  Mohammedans,  and  by  the  most  distinguished  women 
of  that  country.  The  same  variety  serves  for  the  saddle 
m  Persia  and  Arabia ;  and  must  therefore  have  been  com- 
mon in  Palestine.  They  are  descended  from  tamed  ona- 
pers,  which  are  taken  young,  and  sold  for  a  high  price  to 
the  nobles  of  Persia,  and  the  adjacent  countries,  for  their 
studs.  They  cost  seventy-five  ducats;  and  Tavernier 
s^ays,  that  fine  ones  are  sold  in  Persia  dearer  than  horses, 
even  to  a  hundred  crowns  each.  He  distinguishes  them 
properly  from  the  baser  race  of  ordinary  asses,  which  are 
employed  in  carrying  loads.  These  saddle  asses,  the  issue 
of  onagers,  are  highly  commended  by  all  travellers  into 
the  Levant.  Like" the  wild  ass,  they  are  extremely  swift 
ftnd  rapid  in  their  course ;  of  a  slender  form,  and  animated 
i'ait.  They  have  vigorous  faculties,  and  can  discern  ob- 
slacles  readily ;  at  the  sight  of  danger  they  emit  a  kind 


of  cry  ;  they  are  obstinate  to  excess,  when  beaten  behind^ 
or  when  they  are  put  out  of  their  way,  or  when  attempts 
are  made  to  control  them  against  their  will :  they  are  also 
familiar  and  attached  to  their  master.  These  particulars 
exactly  correspond  with  several  incidents  in  the  history 
of  Balaam's  ass;  from  whence  it  may  be  inferred,  that 
he  rode  one  of  the  superior  breed,  and  by  consequence, 
was  a  person  of  considerable  wealth  and  eminence  in  his 
own  country.  The  high  value  which  people  of  rank 
and  fashion  in  the  East  set  upon  that  noble  race  of  asses, 
excludes  them  from  the  purchase  of  the  commonalty,  and 
restricts  the  possession  of  them  to  the  great,  or  the  affluent. 
This  fact  is  confirmed  by  the  manner  in  which  the  sacred 
writers  express  themselves  on  this  subject. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Ver.  21.  The  Lord  his  God  is  with  him,  and  the 
shout  of  a  king  is  among  them. 

When  people  pass  along  the  road,  if  they  hear  a  great 
noise  of  joy  or  triumph,  they  say,  "  This  is  like  the  shout 
of  a  king."  "  What  a  noise  there  was  in  your  village  last 
evening  !  why,  it  was  like  the  shout  of  a  king." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Ver.  6.  As  the  valleys  are  they  spread  forth,  as 
gardens  by  the  river's  side;    as  the  trees  of 
lign-aloes  which  the  Lord  hath  planted,  and 
as  cedar-trees  beside  the  waters. 

Gabriel  Sionita,  a  learned  Syrian  Maronite,  thus  describes 
the  cedars  of  Mount  Lebanon,  which  he  had  examined  on 
the  spot.  "  The  cedar-tree  grows  on  the  most  elevated  part 
of  the  mountain ;  is  taller  than  the  pine,  and  so  thick,  that 
five  men  together  could  scarce  fathom  one.  It  shoots  out 
its  branches  at  ten  or  twelve  feet  from  the  ground;  they 
are  large,  and  distant  from  each  other,  and  are  perpetually 
green.  The  cedar  distils  a  kind  of  gum,  to  which  different 
effects  are  attributed.  The  wood  of  it  is  of  a  brown  colour, 
very  solid,  and  incorruptible  if  preserved  from  wet ;  it 
bears  a  small  apple,  like  that  of  the  pine.  De  la  Roque  re- 
lates some  curious  particulars  concerning  this  tree,  which 
he  learned  from  the  Maronites  of  Mount  Libanus  :  "  The 
branches  grow  in  parallel  rows  round  the  tree,  but  lessen 
gradually  from  the  bottom  to  the  top,  shooting  out  parallel 
to  the  horizon,  so  that  the  tree  is,  in  appearance,  similar  to 
a  cone.  As  the  snows,  which  fall  in  vast  quantities  on  this 
mountain,  must  necessarily,  by  their  weight  on  such  a  vast 
surface,  break  down  these  branches,  nature,  or  rather  the 
God  of  nature,  has  so  ordered  it,  that  at  the  approach  of 
winter,  and  during  the  snowy  season,  the  branches  erect 
themselves,  and  cling  close  to  the  body  of  the  tree,  and  thus 

Srevent  any  body  of  snow  from  lodging  on  them."  Maun- 
rell,  who  visited  Mount  Libanus  in  1697,  gives  the  follow- 
ing description  of  the  cedars  still  growing  there  :  "  These 
noble  trees  grow  among  the  snow,  near  the  highest  part  of 
Lebanon,  and  are  remarkable,  as  well  for  their  own  age 
and  largeness,  as  for  those  frequent  allusions  to  them  in 
the  word  of  God.  Some  of  them  are  very  old,  and  of  a 
prodigious  bulk ;  others  younger,  and  of  a  smaller  size. 
Of  the  former  I  could  reckon  only  sixteen,  but  the  latter 
are  very  numerous.  I  measured  one  of  the  largest,  and 
found  it  twelve  yards  and  six  inches  in  girth,  and  yet  sound ; 
and  thirty-seven  yards  in  the  spread  of  its  branches.  At 
about  five  or  six  yards  from  the  ground  it  was  divided  into 
five  limbs,  each  of  which  was  equal  to  a  great  tree." 

The  aloe-tree  here  meant  is  the  aloe  which  grows  in  the 
East  Indies,  to  the  height  of  eight  or  ten  feet,  and  (not  to 
be  confounded  with  the  aloe-plant  originally  from  Amer- 
ica) its  stem  is  the  thickness  of  a  thigh.  At  the  top  grow.s 
a  tuft  of  jagged  and  thick  leaves,  which  is  broad  at  the 
bottom,  but  becomes  gradually  narrower  towards  the  point, 
and  is  about  four  feet  long;  the  blossom  is  red,  intermingled 
with  yellow,  and  double  like  cloves.  From  this  blossom 
comes  a  red  and  white  fruit,  of  the  size  of  a  pea.  This 
tree  has  a  very  beautiful  appearance,  and  the  wood  has  ?o 
fine  a  smell,  that  it  is  used  for  perfume.  The  Indians  con- 
sider this  tree  as  sacred,  and  are  used  to  fell  it  with  various 
religious  ceremonies.  The  Orientals  consider  this  aloe  as 
a  tree  of  Paradise,  on  which  account  the  Dutch  call  it 
the  tree  of  Paradise.    Therefore,  Rabbi  Solomon  Jarctti 


Chap.  31  -^35. 


NUMBERS. 


99 


explains  the  Hebrew  word  as    '  myrrh  and  sanderswood, 
which  God  planted  in  the  garden  of  Eden." — Rosenmuller. 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 
Ver.  50.  We  have  therefore  brought  an  oblation 
for  the  Lord,  what  every  man  hath  gotten,  of 
jewels  of  gold,  chains,  and  bracelets,  rings, 
ear-rings,  and  tablets,  to  make  an  atonement  for 
our  souls  before  the  Lord. 

There  is  not  a  man  in  a  thousand  who  does  not  wear  an 
ear-ring  or  a  finger-ring,  for  without  such  an  ornament  a 
J;person  would  be  classed  among  the  most  unfortunate  of 
jlnis  race.  Some  time  ago  a  large  sacrifice  was  made  for 
the  purpose  of  removing  the  cholera  morbus,  when  vast 
numbers  came  together  with  their  oblations.  The  people 
seemed  to  take  the  greatest  pleasure  in  presenting  their  ear- 
rinses,  finger-rins:s,  bracelets,  and  other  ornaments,  because 
they  were  dearer  to  them  than  money,  and  consequently 
were  believed  to  be  more  efficacious  in  appeasing  the  gods. 
When  people  are  sick,  they  vow  to  give  a  valuable  jewel 
to  their  god  on  being  restored. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 
Ver.  55.  Then  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  those 
which  ye  let  remain  of  them  shall  be  pricks  in 
your  eyes,  and  thorns  in  your  sides,  and  shall 
vex  you  in  the  land  wherein  ye  dwell. 

People  in  the  East,  in  consequence  of  their  light  clothing, 
of  the  exposed  state  of  their  feet,  and  the  narrowness  of  the 
paths,  have  a  great  dread  of  thorns.  Those  who  carry  the 
alankeen,  or  who  travel  in  groups,  often  cry  aloud,  MuUu, 
nllul  A  thorn,  a  thorn  !  The  sufferer  soon  throw^s  him- 
If  on  the  earth,  and  some  one,  famous  for  his  skill,  ex- 
tracts the  thorn.  Does  a  person  see  something  of  a  distress- 
ing nature,  he  says,  "  That  was  a  thorn  in  my  eyes."  A 
father  says  of  his  bad  son,  "  He  is  to  me  as  a  thorn."  "  His 
vile  expressions  were  like  thorns  in  my  body."  A  person 
going  to  live  in  an  unhealthy  place,  or  where  there  are 
quarrelsome  people,  is  said  to  be  going  "  to  the  thorny  des- 
ert."— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 
Ver.   19.    The  revenger  of  blood  himself  shall 
slay  the  murderer :  when  he  meeteth  him  he 
shall  slay  him. 

fc  The  interest  of  the  common  safety  has  for  ages  estab- 
fehed  a  law  among  the  Arabians,  which  decrees  that  the 
Tblood  of  every  man  who  is  slain  must  be  avenged  by  that 
of  his  murderer.  This  vengeance  is  called  tar,  or  retalia- 
tion, and  the  right  of  exacting  it  devolves  on  the  nearest 
a-kin  to  the  deceased.  So  nice  are  the  Arabs  on  this  point 
of  honour,  that  if  one  neglects  to  seek  his  retaliation,  he  is 
disgraced  for  ever.  He  therefore  watches  every  opportu- 
nity of  revenge  ;  if  his  enemy  perish  from  any  other  cause, 
•^till  he  is  not  satisfied,  and  his  vengeance  is  directed  against 
the  nearest  relation.  These  animosities  are  transmitted 
as  an  inheritance  from  father  to  children,  and  never  cease 
but  by  the  extinction  of  one  of  the  families:  unless  they  agree 
to  sacrifice  the  criminal,  or  purchase  the  blood  for  a  stated 
price  in  money  or  in  fiocks.  Without  this  satisfaction, 
there  is  neither  peace,  nor  truce,  nor  alliance  between 
them,  nor  sometimes  even  between  whole  tribes.  There 
Is  blood  between  us,  say  they,  on  every  occasion ;  and  this 
^-Ypression  is  an  insurmountable  barrier. — Volney. 

"  Among  the  Bedouin  Arabs,"  says  D'Arvieux,  "  the  re- 
venge of  blood  is  implacable.  If  one  man  has  killed  an- 
other, the  friendship  between  the  two  families  and  their 
descendants  is  dissolved.  If  an  opportunity  should  occur 
to  join  in  some  common  interest,  or  if  one  family  propose 
a  marriage  to  the  other,  they  answer  quite  coolly,  *  You 
know  that  there  is  blood  between  us,  we  cannot  accept  your 
proposal,  and  must  consider  our  honour.'  They  do  not 
forgive  each  other  till  they  have  had  their  revenge,  with 
which,  however,  they  are  not  m  haste,  but  wait  for  time 
and  opportunity."  This  is  confirmed  by  Niebuhr,  Descrip- 
tion of  Arabia.    "  The  Arabs  seldom  wish  to  see  the  mur- 


derer put  to  death  by  the  magistrates,  or  take  his  life  them- 
selves, because  they  would  deliver  his  family  from  a  bad 
mernber,  and,  consequently,  from  a  great  burden.  The 
family  of  the  person  murdered  generally  reserve  to  them- 
selves the  right  to  declare  war,  as  it  were,  against  the 
murderer  and  his  relations.  But  an  honourable  Arab 
must  observe  some  equality  of  strength ;  it  would  be  con- 
sidered disgraceful  if  a  strong  person  should  attack  one 
old  or  sick,  or  many,  a  single  individual.  They  are,  how- 
ever, permitted  to  kill  even  the  most  distinguished,  and, 
as  it  were,  the  support  of  the  family :  for  they  require  that 
he  in  particular,  who  is  considered  as  the  chief,  and  who 
acknowledges  himself  as  such,  should  have  a  watchful  eye 
on  the  conduct  of  all  the  members.  The  murderer  is, 
however,  arrested  by  the  magistrates,  and  released  again, 
after  paying  a  certain  sum,  for  instance,  two  hundred  dol- 
lars. This  is,  probably,  the  reason  why  the  law  is  not 
abolished.  After  this,  every  member  of  both  families 
must  live  in  constant  fear  of  anywhere  meeting  his  enemy, 
till  at  length  one  of  the  family  of  the  murderer  is  killed. 
There  have  been  instances  that  similar  family  feuds  have 
lasted  fifty  years,  or  more,  because  they  do  not  challenge 
each  other  to  single  combat,  but  fight  only  when  opportu- 
nity offers.  A  man  of  consequence  at  Loheia,  who  used 
to  visit  us  frequently,  besides  the  usual  Arabian  weapon, 
that  is,  a  broad  and  sharp-pointed  knife,  always  carried  a 
small  lance,  which  he  hardly  ever  put  out  of  his  hands, 
even  in  the  company  of  his  friends.  As  we  were  not  ac- 
customed to  see  such  a  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  other 
Arabs,  and  inquired  about  it,  he  complained  that  some 
years  before  he  had  had  the  misfortune  to  have  one  of  his 
family  killed.  The  injured  family  had  then  reserved  to 
revenge  themselves  in  single  combat,  of  the  murderer  or 
his  relations.  One  of  his  enemies,  and  the  very  one  whom 
he  principally  feared,  was  also  in  this  town.  He  once 
met  him  m  our  house  also,  armed  with  a  lance.  They 
might  have  terminated  their  quarrel  immediately,  but  they 
did  not  speak  one  word  to  each  other,  and  much  less  diit 
any  combat  ensue.  Our  friend  assured  us,  that  if  he  should 
meet  his  enemy  in  the  open  country,  he  must  necessarily 
fight  him  ;  but  he  owned  at  the  same  time,' that  he  strove 
to  avoid  this  opportunity,  and  that  he  could  not  sleep  in 
peace  for  fear  of  being  surprised."  After  the  bombardment 
of  Mocha  by  the  French,  and  when  peace  was  already 
concluded,  the  captain  of  a  French  ship  was  stabbed  before 
his  own  door,  where  he  sat  asleep,  by  an  Arab  soldier,  one 
of  whose  relations  had  been  killed  by  a  bomb. — Rdsen- 

MULLER. 

I  must  now  speak  of  a  person  quite  unknown  in  our  law, 
but  very  conspicuous  in  tne  Hebrew  law,  and  in  regard  to 
whom  Moses  has  left  us,  I  might  almost  say,  an  inimitable, 
but,  at  any  rate,  an  unexampled  proof  of  legislative  wisdom. 
In  German,  we  may  call  him  by  the  name  which  Luther 
so  happily  employs,  in  his  version  of  the  Bible,  Der  Blut- 
rdcher,  the  blood-avenger ;  and  by  this  name  we  must 
here  understand  "  the  nearest  relation  of  a  person  mur- 
dered, Avhose  right  and  duty  it  was  to  seek  after  and  kill 
the  murderer  with  his  own  hand ;  so  much  so,  indeed,  that 
the  neglect  thereof  drew  after  it  the  greatest  possible  infa- 
my, and  subjected  the  man  who  avenged  not  the  death  of 
his  relation,  to  unceasing  reproaches  of  cowardice  or 
avarice."  If,  instead  of  this  description,  the  reader  pre- 
fers a  short  definition,  it  may  be  to  this  effect;  "the  nearest 
relation  of  a  person  murdered,  whose  right  and  duty  it  war? 
to  avenge  the  kinsman's  death  with  his  own  hand."  Among 
the  Hebrews,  this  person  was  called  Sk),  GoU,  according, 
at  least,  to  the  pronunciation  adopted  from  the  pointed 
Bibles.  The  etymology  of  this  word,  like  most  forensic 
terms,  is  as  yet  unknown.  Yet  we  cannot  bu^  be  curious 
to  find  out  whence  the  Hebrews  had  derived  the  name, 
which  they  applied  to  a  person  so  peculiar  to  their  own 
law,  and  so  totally  unknown  to  ours.  Unquestionably  the 
verb  bm,  Gaal,  means  to  bicy  off,  ransom,  redeem ;  but  th  is 
signification  it  has  derived  from  the  noun  ;  for  original Iv 
it  meant  to  pollute,  or  stain.  If  I  might  here  mention  a 
conjecture  of  my  own,  Goel  of  blood,  (for  that  is  the  term  at 
full  length,)  implies  blood-stained ;  and  the  nearest  kin^^^ 
man  of  a  murdered  person  was  considered  as  stained  wit'" 
his  blood,  until  he  had.  as  it  were,  washed  away  the  sta*-  - 
and  revenged  the  death  of  his  relation.  The  name,  thej- 
fore,  indicated  a  person  who  continued  in  a  state  of  dl" 
honour,  until  he  again  rendered  himself  honourable,  bj 


100 


NUMBERS. 


Chap. 


the  exercise  and  accomplishment  of  revenge  ;  and  in  this 
very  light  do  the  Arabs  regard  the  kinsman  of  a  person 
murdered.  It  was  no  doubt  afterward  used  in  a  more  ex- 
tensive sense,  to  signify  the  nearest  relation  in  general,  and 
although  there  was  no  murder  in  the  case ;  just  as  in  all 
languages,  words  are  gradually  extended  far  beyond  their 
etymological  meaning.  Etymology  may  show  the  circum- 
stances from  which  they  may  have  received  their  signifi- 
cation ;  but  it  is  by  no  means  a  definition  suited  to  all  their 
derivative  meanings,  else  would  it  be  prophetic.  In  Arabic, 
this  personage  is  called  Tair,  or  according  to  another  pro- 
nunciation, Thsair.  Were  this  Arabic  word  to  be  written 
Hebraically,  it  would  be  ^av,  {Shaer)  that  is,  the  survivor. 
It  appears,  therefore,  according  to  its  derivation,  to  be 
equivalent  to  the  surviving  relation,  who  teas  bound  to  avenge 
the  death  of  a  murdered  person.  The  Latin  word,  Superstes, 
expresses  this  idea  exactly.  In  Arabic  writings,  this  word 
occurs  ten  times  for  once  that  we  meet  with  Goel  in  He- 
brew ;  for  the  Arabs,  among  whom  the  point  of  honour 
and  heroic  celebrity,  consists  entirely  in  the  revenge  of 
blood,  have  much  more  to  say  of  their  blood-avenger  than 
the  Hebrews ;  among  whom,  Moses,  by  the  wisdom  of  his 
laws,  brought  this  character  in  a  great  measure  into  obliv- 
ion. The  Syrians  have  no  proper  name  for  the  blood- 
avenger,  and  are  of  course  obliged  to  make  use  of  a 
circumlocution,  when  he  is  mentioned  in  the  Bible.  Hence 
they  must  either  not  have  been  acquainted  with  the  office 
itself,  or  have  lost  their  knowledge  of  it  at  an  early  period, 
during  their  long  subjection  to  the  Greeks,  after  the  time 
of  Alexander  the  Great. 

If  this  character,  with  which  the  Hebrews  and  Arabs 
were  so  well  acquainted,  be  unknown  to  us,  this  great  dis- 
similarity is  probably  not  to  be  ascribed  to  the  effects  of 
difference  of  climate,  but  rather  to  the  great  antiquity  of 
these  nations.    Nations,  how  remote  soever  in  their  situa- 
tion, yet  resemble  each  other  while  in  their  infancy,  much 
in  the  same  way  as  children  in  every  country  have  certain 
resemblances  in  figure  and  manners,  proceeding  from  their 
age,  by  which  we  can  distinguish  them  from  adults  and 
old  people ;  and  of  this  infancy  of  mankind,  or,  to  speak 
more  properly,  of  that  state  of  nature,  whence  they  soon 
pass  into  the  state  of  civil  society,  the  blood-avenger  seems 
to  me  to  be  a  relic.     Let  us  figure  to  ourselves  a  people 
without  magistrates,  and  where  every  father  of  a  family 
is  still  his  own  master.     In  such  a  state,  men's  lives  would 
of  necessity  be  in  the  highest  degree  insecure,  were  there 
no  such  blood-avenger  as  we  have  above  described.    Ma- 
gistrate, or  public  judicial  tribunal,  to  punish  murder,  there 
is  none ;  of  course  acts  of  murder  might  be  daily  perpe- 
trated, were  there  no  reason  to  dread  punishment  of  ano- 
ther description.     For  their  own  security,  the  people  would 
be  forced  to  constitute  the  avengement  of  blood  an  indis- 
pensable duty,  and  not  only  to  consider  a  murderer  as  an 
outlaw,  but  actually  to  endeavour  to  put  him  to  death,  and 
whithersoever  he  might  flee,  never  to  cease  pursuing  him, 
until  h^  became  the  victim  of  vengeance.     As,  however, 
every  one  would  not  choose  to  undertake  the  dangerous  of- 
fice of  thus  avenging  a  murder,  the  nearest  relations  of  the 
unfortunate  sufi"erer  would  find  it  necessary  to  undertake 
it  themselves.     It  would  naturally  be  deemed  a  noble  deed, 
and  the  neglect  of  it,  of  course,  highly  disgraceful,  and  just- 
ly productive  of  such  infamy  and  reproach  as  blood  alone 
could  wash  away.    Nor  would  any  one  obstruct,  but  rather 
aid  them,  in  the  prosecution  of  their  revenge,  if  he  had  a 
proper  regard  to  his  own  security.     Allowing,  however, 
that  the  murderer's  relations  were  to  protect  him  against 
the  blood-avenger,  or  to  revenge  his  death  by  a  fresh  murder 
in  their  turn,  this  would  still  be  a  proof  that  they  regarded 
such  revenge  as  an  honourable  duty,  and  that  they  would 
liave  looked  upon  the  family  of  the  murdered  person  as 
despicable  cowards,  if  they  had  left  his  death  unrevenged. 
And  this  is  in  fact  the  language  of  nature  among  nations 
who  have  not  even  the  most  remote  connexion  with  the 
Hebrews  and  Arabs.     I  remember  to  have  read  somewhere 
in  Labat's  Voyages,  that  the  Caraibs  practise  the  same  sort 
of  revenge,  and  that  it  gives  rise  to  family  contests  of  long 
tluration,  because  the  friends  of  the  murderer  take  his 
pirt,  and  revenge  his  death  on  the  relatives  of  the  first  vic- 
tim.    We  can  scarcely  conceive  the  human  race  in  a  more 
perfect  state  of  nature  than  immediately  after  the  deluge, 
when  only  Noah  and  bis  three  sons  were  on  the  face  of  the 
carih.    Each  of  them  was  independent  of  the  other ;  the 


father  was  too  old  to  be  able  to  enforce  obedience,  had  s.v.y 
of  them  been  refractory ;  and  besides,  a  fether  is  not  expect- 
ed to  inflict  capital  nunishment  on  his  sons  or  grandsons. 
Add  to  this,  that  Noah's  sons  and  their  families  were  not 
to  continue  all  together,  and  to  form  one  commonwealih, 
but  to  spread  themselves  in  perfect  independence  over  the 
whole  earth.  In  order,  therefore,  to  secure  their  lives,  Gud 
himself  gave  this  command,  Gen.  ix.  5,  6:  "  Man's  blood 
shall  not  remain  unrevenged  ;  but  whoever  killeth  a  moji, 
be  it  man  or  beast,  shall  in  his  turn  be  put  to  death  by  other 
men."  If  the  reader  wishes  to  know  more  of  this  passage, 
which  has  been  generall)''  misunderstood,  and  held  out  as 
containing  a  precept  still  obligatory  on  magistrates,  let  hint 
consult  my  Covimentationes  ad  leges  divinas  dc  peena  Hovii- 
cidii,  in  Part  I.  of  my  Syntagma  Commentationum.  Here, 
the  only  difference  from  the  law  now  under  consideration 
is,  that  God  imposes  this  duty,  not  upon  the  nearest  relation, 
but  on  mankind  in  general,  as  bound  to  provide  for  their 
common  security,  and  that  he  gives  every  individual  a  right 
to  put  a  murderer  to  death,  although  we  hav^e  no  connex- 
ion with  the  person  murdered — a  law  which  remained  in 
force,  until  mankind  introduced  civil  relations,  made  laA\  s, 
nominated  magistrates,  and  thus  established  a  better  secu- 
rity to  the  lives  as  well  as  the  property  of  individuals. — 

MiCHAELIS. 

Ver.  25.  And  the  congregation  shall  deliver  thei 
slayer  out  of  the  hand  of  the  revenger  of  blood, ! 
and  the  congregation  shall  restore  him  to  thei 
city  of  his  refuge,  whither  he  was  fled :  and  hei 
shall  abide  in  it  unto  the  death  of  the  high-i 
priest,  which  was  anointed  with  the  holy  oil.    | 

Moses  found  the  Goel  already  instituted,  and  speaks  of; 
him  in  his  laws  as  a  character  perfectly  known,  and  there-' 
fore  unnecessary  to  be  described  ;  at  the  same  time  that  lie, 
expresses  his  fear  of  his  frequently  shedding  innocent 
blood.  But  long  before  he  has  occasion  to  mention  him  as: 
the  avenger  of  murder,  he  introduces  his  name  in  his  laws 
relating  to  land,  as  in  Lev.  xxv.  25,  2G,  where  he  gives  bini| 
the  right  of  redeeming  a  mortgaged  field ;  and  also  in  thei 
law  relative  to  the  restoration  of  any  thing  iniquitouslyj 
acquired.  Num.  v.  8.  The  only  book  that  is  possibly  more! 
ancient  than  the  Mosaic  law,  namely,  the  book  of  J()b,| 
compares  God,  who  will  re-demand  our  ashes  from  the 
earth,  with  the  Goel,  chap.  xix.  25.  From  this  term,  thC; 
verb  h*<i,  which  otherwise  signifies  properly  to  pollute,  had! 
already  acquired  the  signification  of  redeeming,  settivg  free, 
vindicating,  in  which  we  find  Moses  often  using  it,  beforc' 
he  ever  speaks  of  the  blood-avenger,  as  in  Gen.  xlviii.  15. 
Exod.  vi.  6.  Lev.  xxv.  25,  30,  33.  xxvii.  20,  &c. ;  and  even 
re-purchase  itself  is,  in  Lev.  xxv.  31.  32,  thence  termed 
n^NJ  geulla.  Derivatives  in  any  language  follow  their 
primitives  but  very  slowly  :  and  when  verba  denomi/iinHra 
descend  from  terms  of  law,  the  law  itself  must  be  ancient. 
In  the  first  statute  given  by  Moses  concerning  the  pur'ish- 
ment  of  murder,  immediately  after  the  departure  of  the 
Israelites  from  Egypt,  although  he  does  not  mention  the 
Goel  by  name,  he  yet  presupposes  him  as  well  knov>-n. 
For  he  says,  God  will,  for  the  man  who  has  unintentionally 
killed  another,  appoint  a  place  to  which  he  may  flee,  Exod. 
xxi.  12,  13.  There  must,  of  course,  have  been  some  one 
who  pursued  him,  and  who  could  only  be  stopped  by  the 
unhappy  man  reaching  his  asylum.  At  any  rate,  he  need- 
ed not  to  flee  from  justice ;  and  it  was  quite  enough  if  the 
magistrate  acquitted  him,  after  finding  him  innocent.  The 
first  passage  in  which  Moses  expressly  speaks  of  the  Goel, 
as  the  avenger  of  blood,  is  in  the  xxxvth  chapter  of  Num- 
bers :  but  even  there  he  certainly  does  not  institute  his 
office,  but  only  appoints  (and  that  too  merely  by-tbe-by, 
while  he  is  fixing  the  inheritances  of  the  Levites^  certain 
cities  of  refuge,  to  serve  as  asyla  from  the  pursuit  of  the 
blood-avenger,  (ver.  12,)  for  which  there  was  no  necessity, 
had  there  been  no  such  person.  In  the  second  statute, 
Deut.  xix.  6,  he  manifests  great  anxiety  lest  the  Goel 
should  pursue  the  innocent  slayer  in  a  rage,  and  overtake 
him,  when  the  place  of  refuge" happened  to  be  too  far  dis- 
tant. Now  these  are  evidently  the  ordinances  of  a  legislator 
not  instituting  an  office  before  unknown,  but  merely  guard- 
ing against  the  danger  of  the  person  who  happened  to  hold 
it,  being  led  by  the  violence  of  prejudice  ct  passion,  to 


(^HAP.  35. 


NUMBERS 


101 


abuse  its  rights — that  is,  in  the  case  in  question,  being 
hurried,  by  a  false  refinement  of  ideas  on  the  score  of 
honour,  to  shed  the  blood  of  an  innocent  man.  I  think  I 
can  discover  one  trace  of  the  terrors  which  the  GoH  occa- 
sioned, as  early  as  the  history  of  the  patriarchal  families. 
When  Rebecca  learned  that  Esau  was  threatening  to  kill 
his  brother  Jacob,  she  endeavoured  to  send  the  latter  out 
of  the  country,  saying,  "  Why  should  I  be  bereft  of  you 
both  in  one  day  1"  Gen.  xxvii.  45.  She  could  not  be  afraid 
of  the  magistrate  punishing  the  murder;  for  the  patriarchs 
were  subject  to  no  superior  in  Palestine ;  and  Isaac  was 
much  too  partial  to  Esau,  for  her  to  entertain  any  expecta- 
tion, that  he  would  condemn  him  to  death  for  it.  It  would, 
therefore,  appear,  that  she  dreaded  lest  he  should  fall  by 
the  hand  of  the  blood-avenger,  perhaps  of  some  Ishmaelite. 
Now  to  this  Goiil  although  Moses  leaves  his  rights,  of  which 
indeed  he  would  in  vain  have  endeavoured  to  deprive  him, 
considering  that  the  desire  of  revenge  forms  a  principal 
trait  in  the  character  of  southern  nations ;  he  nevertheless 
avails  himself  of  the  aid  of  certain  particulars  of  those 
rights,  in  order  to  bring  the  prevalent  ideas  of  honour  un- 
der the  inspection  of  the  magistrate,  without  hurting  their 
energy,  and  to  give  an  opportunity  of  investigating  the 
circumstances  of  the  crime  meant  to  be  avenged,  before  its 
punishment  should  be  authorized. 

We  see  that  sacred  places  enjoyed  the  privileges  of 
asyla :  for  Moses  himself  took  it  for  granted,  that  the  mur- 
derer would  flee  to  the  altar,  and,  therefore,  he  commanded 
that  when  the  crime  was  deliberate  and  intentional,  he 
should  be  torn  even  from  the  altar,  and  put  to  death,  Exod. 
I  xxi.  14.     Among  the  Arabs  we  find  that  revenge  likewise 
i  ceased  in  sacred  places,  as  for  instance  (long  before  Mo- 
'  hammed's  time)  m  the  country  round  about  Mecca,  par- 
ticularly during  the  holy  month  of  concourse.     In   such 
places,  therefore,  honour  did  not  bind  the  avenger  to  put  a 
murderer  to  death.— Now  Moses  appointed,  as  places  of 
refuge,  six  cities,  to  which  ideas  of  sanctity  were  attached, 
because  they  were  inhabited  by  the  priests,  Numb.  xxxv. 
9 — 35.    Deut.  xix.  1 — 10.   To  these  every  murderer  might 
llee,  and  they  were  bound  to  protect  him,  until  the  circum- 
i stances  of  the  case  should  be  investigated;  and,  in  order 
;that  the  Goel  might  not  lie  in  wait  for  him,  or  obstruct  his 
{flight,  it  was  enjoined,  that  the  roads  to  these  six  cities 
! should  be  kept  in  such  a  state,  that  the  unfortunate  man 
might  meet  with  no  impediment  in  his  way,  Deut.  xix.  3. 
I  do  not  by  this  understand,  such  a  state  of  improvement 
as  is  necessary  in  our  highways  on  account  of  carriages, 
but,  1.  That  the  roads  were  not  to  make  such  circuits,  as 
that  the  Goel  could  overtake  the  fugitive  on  foot,  or  catch 
'jhim  by  lying  in  wait,  before  he  reached  an  asylum;  for, 
|in  fact,  the  Hebrew  word'  (:i3)  properly  signifies  to  make 
^{Straight ;  2.  That  guide-posts  were  to  beset  up,  to  prevent 
i'him  from  mistaking  the  right  way;   and,   3.  That  the 
bridges  were  not  to  be  defective ;— in  short,  that  nothing 
should  retard  his  flight.     If  the  Goel  happened  to  find  the 
fugitive  before  he  reached  an  asylum,  and  put  him  to 
•death,  in  that  case  Moses  yielded  to  the  established  preju- 
i  idices  respecting  the  point  of  honour.     It  was  considered  as 
«jdone  in  the  ardour  of  becoming  zeal,  and  subjected  him  to 
'ino  inquisition,  Deut.  xix.  6.    If  he  reached  a  place  of 
s  refuge,  he  was  immediately  protected,  and  an  inquiry  was 
"then  made,  as  to  his  right  to  protection  and  asylum;  that 
'  is,  whether  he  had  caused  his  neighbour's  death  undesign- 
!  edly,  or  was  a  deliberate  murderer.    In  the  latter  case  he 
i-  was  judicially  delivered  to  the  Goel,  who  might  put  him  to 
death  in  whatever  way  he  chose,  as  we  shall  state  at  more 
length,  under  the  head  of  capital  punishments.     Even 
,  although  he  had  fled  to  the  altar  itself,  which  enjoyed  the 
^ius  asyli  in  the  highest  degree,  it  could  not  save  him,  if  he 
K  had  committed  real  murder,  Deut.  xix.  14.     If,  however, 
the  person  was  killed  accidentally,  and  unintentionally,  the 
;  author  of  his  death  continued  in  the  place  of  refuge,  and 
.;  the  fields  belonging  to  it,  which  extended  to  the  distance  of 
V.  1,000  ells  all  around  the  walls  of  Levitical  cities  ;  and  he 
(  was  there  secure,  in  consequenc|Jr*f  the  sanctitv  of  the 
i  place,  without  any  reflection  upon  me  honour  of  the  Goel, 
;;  even  in  the  opinion  of  the  people.    But  further  abroad  he 
-  durst  not  venture ;  for  if  the  Goel  met  with  him  without 
i;  :the  limits  of  the  asylum,  Moses  paid  no  respect  to  the  pop- 
>  ;Ular  point  d'honneur ;  he  might  kill  him  without  subjecting 
i  '^miself  to  any  criminal  accusation.    The  expression  of 
3  iMo  es  is,  It  is  no  blood,  or  blood-guilt,  Numb.  xxxv.  26,  27. 


This  confinement  to  one  place  may,  perhaps,  be  thought 
a  hardship:  but  it  was  impossible 'in  any  other  way  to 
secure  the  safety  of  an  innocent  manslayer,  without 
attacking  the  popular  notions  of  honour ;  that  is,  without 
making  a  law  which  would  have  been  as  little  kept  as  are 
our  laws  against  duelling.  But  by  this  exile  in  a  strange 
city,  Moses  had  it  besides  in  view,  to  punish  that  impru- 
dence which  had  cost  another  man  his  life  ;  and  we  shall, 
in  the  sequel,  meet  with  more  instances  of  the  severity  of 
his  laws  against  such  imprudences.  Allowing  that  it  was 
an  accident  purely  blameless,  still  its  disagreeable  conse- 
quences could  not  fail  to  make  people  more  on  their  guard 
against  similar  misfortunes ;  a  matter  to  which,  in  many 
cases,  our  legislators,  and  our  police-regulations,  pay  too 
little  attention.  For  that  very  reason,  Moses  prohibited 
the  fugitive  from  being  permitted,  by  any  payment  of  a 
fine,  to  return  home  to  his  own  city  before  the  appointed 
time,  Numb.  xxxv.  32.  His  exile  in  the  city  of  refuge 
continued  until  the  death  of  the  high-priest.  As  soon  as 
that  event  took  place,  the  fugitive  mJght  leave  his  asylum, 
and  return  to  his  home  in  perfect  security  of  his  life,  "under 
the  protection  of  the  laws.  It  is  probable  that  this  regula- 
tion was  founded  on  some  ancient  principle  of  honour 
attached  to  the  office  of  the  Goel;  of  which,  however,  I 
have  not  been  able  to  find  any  trace  remaining.  It  would 
seem  as  if  the  death  of  the  priest,  or  principal  person  in 
the  nation,  had  been  made  the  period  beyond  which  the 
avengement  of  blood  was  not  to  extend,  in  the  view  of  thus 
preventing  the  perpetual  endurance  of  family  enmities  and 
outrages.  We  shall  perhaps  hereafter  find  an  opportunity 
of  giving  a  more  particular  illustration  of  this  point. 

By  these  regulations,  borrowed  from  those  very  notions 
of  honour  which  influenced  the  Goel,  Moses  did  not,  it  is 
true,  effect  the  complete  prevention  of  the  shedding  of  inno- 
cent blood,  (for  so  Moses  terms  it,  in  the  case  of  the  GoeVs 
killing  the  innocent  manslayer  in  his  flight ;)  for  civil  laws 
cannot  possibly  prevent  all  moral  evil ;  nor  yet  was  he  able 
to  protect  the' man  who  had  through  mere  inadvertence 
deprived  another  of  his  life,  from  all  the  vexatious  conse- 
quences of  such  a  misfortime :  but  thus  much  he  certainly 
did  effect,  that  the  Goel  could  but  very  rarely  kill  an  inno- 
cent man,  and  that  a  judicial  inquiry  always  preceded  the 
exercise  of  his  revenge  ;  and  that  inquiry,  even  when  it 
terminated  in  condemnation,  drew  after  it  no  fresh  blood- 
shed on  the  part  of  the  murderer's  family,  because  every 
one  knew  that  no  injustice  was  done  him.  Of  course,  ten 
murders  did  not  now  proceed  from  one,  as  was  the  case 
when  the  Goiil's  procedure  was  altogether  arbitrary,  and 
subject  to  no  restraint.  It  would  appear  that  Moses  had 
thus  completely  attained  the  object  of  his  law.  At  least,  in 
the  history  of  the  Israelitish  nation,  we  find  no  examples  of 
family  enmities  proceeding  from  the  avengement  of  blood,  oi 
of  murders  either  openly  or  treacherously  perpetrated  from 
that  national  idea  of  honour ;  and  but  one  single  instance 
of  the  abuse  oi'Goelism,  or  rather  where  it  was  used  merely 
for  a  pretext,  and  the  transaction  carried  on  in  complete 
opposition  to  the  acknowledged  principles  of  honour.  This 
instance  we  find  in  the  history  of  David,  in  which  the 
three  following  particulars  relative  to  this  subject  deserve 
notice. 

1.  David,  in  his  elegy  on  the  death  of  Saul  and  Jonathan, 
seems,  in  one  of  his  expressions,  to  allude  to  the  avenge- 
ment of  blood.  The  Arabs,  in  their  poems,  very  commonly 
observe,  that  no  dew  falls  on  the  place  where  a  murder  has 
been  committed,  until  the  blood  has  been  avenged;  and 
David  thus  exclaims.  Ye  mountains  of  Gilboa,  on  you  fall 
neither  deiv  nor  rain,  2.  Sara.  i.  21 ;  which  was  as  mucn  as 
saying,  the  Philistines  may  look  for  my  avengement  of  the 
death  of  Saul  and  Jonathan.  This,  however,  is  merely  a 
poetical  allusion ;  for  the  law  of  Goelism  did  not  extend  to 
those  slain  in  battle. 

2.  Joab  assassinated  Abner  under  the  pretext  of  revenge 
for  his  having  killed  Asahel  his  brother  in  battle,  2  Sam. 
iii.  19 — 23.  iii.  22 — 27.  This,  however,  was  a  mere  pre- 
text ;  for  Joab's  only  obje(?t  was  to  get  that  man  put  out  of 
the  way,  whom  David  had  appointed  to  the  chief  command 
of  the  war.  He  afterward  acted  in  the  same  manner  to 
Amasa,  who  had  killed  no  brother  of  his,  but  had  been  only 
guilty  of  the  same  crime  of  getting  himself  made  general- 
issimo to  Absalom,  2  Sam.  xvii.  25.  xx.  10.  David,  when 
he  lay  on  his  death-bed,  made  this  remark  on  Joab's  con- 
duct in  these  two  instances,  that  blood  shed  in  war  was  not, 


i02 


NUMBERS 


Chap.  36. 


according  to  the  Hebrew  ideas  of  honour,  to  be  avenged  in 
peace ;  and  that  he  therefore  regarded  Joab  as  a  wilful  mur- 
derer :  and  he  gave  it  in  charge  to  Solomon  his  son  to  have 
nim  punished  as  such,  1  Kings  ii.  5,  6 

3.  When  we  take  a  connected  view  of  the  whole  story 
related  in  2  Sam.  xiii.  37  to  xiv.  20,  we  should  almost  sup- 
pose that  David  had  for  a  time  pursued  his  son  Absalom, 
on  account  of  his  murdering  his  elder  brother,  not  so  much 
in  discharge  of  his  duty  as  a  king,  as  in  the  capacity  of 
Gotl,  and  that  the  idea  of  his  honour,  as  such,  had  prevent- 
ed him  from  forgiving  him.  Absalom  stayed  out  of  tlie 
country  with  the  king  of  Geshur,  and  yet  David  withdrew 
for  a  time  in  quest  of  him,  chap.  xiii.  39.  This  is  proper- 
ly not  the  business  of  a  magistrate,  who  is  not  required  to 
punish  a  murderer  who  has  fled  from  the  country,  but  of  a 
Goel. 

Allowing,  however,  that  I  were  here  in  a  mistake,  thus 
much  still  is  certain  from  chap.  xiv.  10,  11,  that  there  was 
yet  a  Gotl ;  that  to  mothers  he  was  an  olaject  of  terror ;  and 
that  David,  on  some  occasions,  took  upon  him  to  prohibit 
him  by  an  arbitrary  decree  from  pursuing  an  actual  mur- 
derer, when  there  were  any  particular  circumstances  in 
the  case.  So  much  concerning  the  rights  of  the  Goel,  as 
modified  by  the  Mosaic  statute.  There  is  yet  to  be  noticed 
one  additional  circumstance  relative  to  it,  entirely  conform- 
able to  oriental  ideas  of  honour,  and  of  great  importance 
to  the  security  of  lives.  Moses  (Numb.  xxxv.  31)  positive- 
ly prohibits  the  receiving  of  a  sum  of  money  from  a  mur- 
derer in  the  way  of  compensation.  By  the  ancient  Arabian 
manners,  too,  we  have  seen  that  this  was  deemed  disgrace- 
ful, tlere,  therefore,  Moses  acted  quite  differently  from 
Mohammed,  and,  as  will  be  universally  acknowledged, 
much  more  judiciously. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  31.  Moreover,  ye  shall  take  no  satisfaction 
for  the  life  of  a  murderer,  which  is  guihy  of 
death ;  but  he  shall  be  surely  put  to  death. 

Moses  absolutely  forbids  the  acceptance  of  any  compen- 
sation for  the  life  of  a  murderer.  Through  the  influence 
of  money  it  appears  that  punishment  was  often  evaded  in 
.'jome  countries,  and  probably  till  this  time  among  the  Jews. 
The  Baron  du  Tott  tells  us,  that  in  case  of  a  duel,  if  one 
of  the  parties  is  killed,  the  other  is  tried  for  the  offence, 
and  if  condemned,  "  the  criminal  is  conducted  to  the  place 
of  punishment ;  he  who  performs  the  office  of  execution- 
er takes  on  him  likewise  that  of  mediator,  and  negotiates 
till  the  last  moment  with  the  next  of  kin  to  the  deceased, 
or  his  wife,  who  commonly  follows,  to  be  present  at  the 
execution.  If  the  proposals  are  refused,  the  executioner 
performs  the  sentence ;  if  they  are  accepted,  he  reconducts 
the  criminal  to  the  tribunal  to  receive  his  pardon." — Bur- 

DER, 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

V"er.  8.  And  every  daughter,  that  possesseth  an 
inheritance  in  any  tribe  of  the  children  of  Israel, 
shall  be  wife  unto  one  of  the  family  of  the  tribe 
of  her  father,  that  the  children  of  Israel  may 
enjoy  every  man  the  inheritance  of  his  fathers. 

The  assertion  that  no  Israelite  durst  marry  out  of  his 
tribe,  and  which  we  find  repeated  in  a  hundred  books,  is  a 


silly  fiction,  directly  confuted  by  the  Mosaic  writings* 
Even  the  high-priest  himself  was  not  obliged  to  confine  him- 
.self  to  his  own  tribe ;  nothing  more  being  enjoined  him, 
than  to  look  out  for  an  Israelitish  bride.  It  was  only  in  the 
single  case  of  a  daughter  being  the  heiress  of  her  father's 
land,  that  she  was  prohibited  from  marrying  out  of  her 
tribe,  in  order  that  the  inheritance  might  not  pass  to  ano- 
ther tribe,  Num.  xxxvi.  From  that  law,  it  clearly  follows, 
that  any  Israelitess  that  had  brothers,  and  of  course  was 
not  an  heiress,  might  marry  whomsoever  she  pleased,  and 
to  me  it  is  incomprehensible  how  this  chapter  should  ever 
have  been  quoted  as  a  proof  of  the  assertion,  that  the  Israel- 
ites durst  not  marry  out  of  their  tribes.  A  strange  over- 
sight has  been  comniitted,  in  support  of  this  erroneous  opin- 
ion, which  was  devised  for  the  purpose  of  proving  (what 
scarcely  required  a  proof)  that  Jesus  was  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah  ;  for,  say  its  advocates,  "  Had  not  Mary  his  true  mo- 
ther been  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  Joseph,  a  descendant  of 
David's,  could  not  have  married  her."  Here,  by  the  way, 
they  might  improve  the  proof,  and  make  it  still  more  sub- 
servient to  their  purpose,  by  adding  that  Mary  must  have 
been  an  heiress,  and  consequently,  for  that  reason,  durst 
not  marry  out  of  her  tribe.  But  how  surprising  is  it,  that 
such  incongruous  blunders  could  possibly  have  been  com- 
mitted 1  Luke  expressly  says,  chap.  i.  36,  that  Mary  and 
Elizabeth  were  relations,  and  Elizabeth's  husband  was  a 
priest.  Hence  her  connexion  with  Mary  is  a  most  manifest 
proof,  that  Israelites  of  one  tribe  might  marry  into  another, 
and  that  a  priest,  for  instance,  might  marry  a  virgin  of  the 
house  of  Judah,  or  a  descendant  of  Judah  marry  the  daugh- 
ter of  a  Levite. 

It  was  even  in  the  power  of  an  Israelite  ^o  marry  a  wo- 
man born  a  heathen  :  although  this  also  is  denied  by  those 
who  press  upon  Moses  a  law  of  their  own.  The  statute  in 
Deut.  xxi.  10 — 14,  already  illustrated,  puts  this  liberty  be- 
yond a  doubt :  and  he  who  disputes  it,  confounds  two 
terms  of  very  diflferent  import  and  extent,  heathen  and  Ca- 
Tiaanite.  An  Israelite  might  certainly  marry  a  heathen 
woman,  provided  she  no  longer  continued  an  idolatress;, 
which,  however,  she  could  not,  as  a  captive  and  slave  with- 
in Palestine,  have  been  even  previously  suffered  to  be  ;  but 
all  marriages  with  Canaanitish  women  was,  by  the  statute 
Exod.  xxxiv.  16,  prohibited.  In  that  statute,  Moses  had  it 
particularly  in  view  to  prevent  the  Canaanites,  who  were 
both  an  idolatrous,  and  a  very  wicked  race,  from  continu- 
ing to  dwell  in  Palestine,  and  by  intermarriages  with  Is- 
raelites, at  last  becoming  one  people  with  them :  for  he 
dreaded  lest  they  should  infect  them  with  their  vices  and 
superstitions.  Should  I  here  be  asked,  "  Wherein  then  did, 
Solomon  sin,  who,  in  1  Kings,  xi.  1,2,  is  certainly  censured 
for  marrying  heathens?"  my  answer  would  be,  (1.)  that 
among  the  wives  and  concubines  whom  he  took,  there  were 
Sidoni^ns,  who  belonged  to  the  race  of  Canaanites,  and 
these  were  expressly  forbidden  ;  (2.)  that,  contrary  to  the 
positive  prohibition  of  Moses,  he  kept  a  great  seraglio ; 
(3.^  that  he  permitted  hi.s  wives  to  practise  idolatry ;  and, 
(4.)  that  he  was  himself  led  into  it  also :  as  we  have  only 
to  read  down  to  verse  8,  to  be  convinced.  I  have  only 
further  to  observe,  what  I  remarked  before,  that  the  peo- 
ple of  Israel  must,  in  consequence  of  the  toleration  of  po- 
lygamy, have  been  in  a  slate  of  continual  decrease,  had 
not  marriages  with  foreigners,  and  particularly  with  the 
captive  daughters  of  the  neighbouring  people,  been  per- 
mitted.— Michaelis. 


..All 


DEUTERONOMY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  19.  And  when  we  departed  from  Horeb,  we 
went  through  all  that  great  and  terrible  wilder- 
ness, which  ye  saw  by  the  way  of  the  mountain 
of  the  Amorites,  as  the  Lord  our  God  com- 
manded us ;  and  we  came  to  Kadesh-barnea. 

The  divine  blessing  has  not  bestowed  the  same  degree  of 
fruitfulness  on  every  part  of  Canaan.  This  fertile  country 
is  surrounded  by  deserts  of  immense  extent,  exhibiting  a 
dreary  waste  of  loose  and  barren  sand,  on  which  the  skill 
and  industry  of  man  are  able  to  make  no  impression. 
The  only  vegetable  productions  which  occasionally  meet 
the  eye  of  the  traveller  in  these  frightful  solitudes,  are  a 
coarse  sickly  grass,  thinly  sprinkled  on  the  sand ;  a  plot  of 
senna,  or  other  saline  or  bitter  herb,  or  an  acacia  bush ; 
even  these  but  rarely  present  themselves  to  his  notice,  and 
afford  him  little  satisfaction  when  they  do,  because  they 
warn  him  that  he  is  yet  far  distant  from  a  place  of  abun- 
dance and  repose.  Moses,  who  knew  these  deserts  well, 
calls  them  "great  and  terrible,"  "a  desert  land,"  "the 
waste  howling  wilderness."  But  the  completest  picture  of 
the  sandy  desert  is  drawn  by  the  pencil  of  Jeremiah,  in 
which,  with  surprising  force  and  brevity,  he  has  exhibited 
every  circumstance  of  terror,  which  the  modern  traveller 
details  with  so  much  pathos  and  minuteness;  "  Neither  say 
they,  Where  is  the  Lord  that  brought  us  up  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt,  that  led  us  through  the  wilderness,  through  a 
laud  of  deserts  and  of  pits,  through  a  land  of  drought,  and 
of  the  shadow  of  death,  through  a  land  that  no  man  passed 
through,  and  where  no  man  dwelt  1" — Paxton. 

Ver.  44.  And  the  Amorites,  which  dwelt  in  that 
mountain,  came  out  against  you,  and  chased 
you,  as  bees  do,  and  destroyed  you  in  Seir,  even 
unto  Hormah. 

It  is  said  of  numerous  armies,  that  they  are  like  bees ; 
and  of  a  multitude,  who  go  to  chastise  a  few,  "  Yes,  they 
came  upon  us  as  bees."  To  a  person  who  has  proved  "a 
man  of  numerous  connexions,  "  Yes,  you  will  have  them 
as  bees  upon  you."  Of  any  thing  which  has  come  sud- 
denly, and  in  great  numbers,  "  Alas,  these  things  come  as 
bees  upon  us." — Roberts. 

The  bee  is  represented  by  the  ahcients,  as  &  vexatious, 
and  even  a  formidable  adversary ;  and  the  experience  of 
every  person  who  turns  his  attention  to  the  temper  and 
habits  of  that  valuable  insect,  attests  the  truth  of  their  asser- 
tion. They  were  so  troublesome  in  some  districts  of  Crete, 
that,  if  we  may  believe  Pliny,  the  inhabitants  were  actually 
compelled  to  forsake  their  habitations.  And,  according  to 
^lian,  some  places  in  Scythia,  beyonxl  the  Ister,  were  for- 
merly inaccessible,  on  account  of  the  numerous  swarms  of 
bees  by  which  they  were  infested.  The  statements  of  these 
ancient  writers  is  confirmed  by  Mr.  Park,  in  the  second 
volume  of  his  Travels.  Some  of  his  associates  imprudently 
attempted  to  rob  a  numerous  hive,  which  they  foimd  in 
their  way.  The  exasperated  little  animals  rushed  out  to 
defend  their  property,  and  attacked  the  spoilers  with  so 
much  fury,  that  they  quickly  compelled  the  whole  com- 
pany, men,  horses,  and  asses,  to  scamper  off  in  all  direc- 
tions. The  horses  were  never  recovered,  and  a  number 
of  the  asses  were  so  severely  sttmg  that  they  died  next  day: 
and  so  great  was  the  loss  our  intrepid  traveller  sustained 
in  the  engagement,  that  he  despondingly  concluded  his 
jouriiey  was  at  an  end.  The  allusion  of  Moses,  therefore, 
to  thiir  fierce  hostility,  in  the  beginning  of  his  last  words 
to  Israel,  is  both  just  and  beautiful :  "  And  the  Amorites 
which  dwelt  in  that  mountain  came  out  against  you,  and 
chased  you  as  bees  do,  and  destroyed  you  in  Seir,  even 


unto  Hormah."  The  Amorites,  it  appears,  were  the  most 
bitter  adversaries  to  Israel,  of  all  tha  nations  of  Canaan; 
like  bees  that  are  easily  irritated,  that  attack  with  great 
fury,  and  increasing  numbers,  the  person  that  dares  to 
molest  their  hive,  and  persecute  him  in  his  flight,  to  a  con- 
siderable distance — the  incensed  Amorites  had  collected 
their  hostile  bands,  and  chased,  with  considerable  slaughter, 
the  chosen  tribes  from  their  territory.  The  Psalmist  also 
complains,  that  his  enemies  compassed  him  about  like 
bees ;  fiercely  attacking  him  on  every  side.  The  bee, 
when  called  to  defend  her  hive,  assails  with  fearless  in- 
trepidity the  largest  and  the  most  ferocious  animal ;  and 
the  Psalmist  found  from  experience,  that  neither  the  purity 
of  his  character,  the  splendour  of  his  rank,  nor  the  great- 
ness of  his  power,  were  sufficient  to  shield  him  from  the 
covered  machinations,  or  open  assaults,  of  his  cruel  and 
numerous  enemies. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  11.  For  only  Og  king  of  Bashan  remained 
of  the  remnant  of  giants ;  behold,  his  bedstead 
was  a  bedstead  of  iron :  is  it  not  in  Rabbath  of 
the  children  of  Ammon  ?  nine  cubits  was  the 
length  thereof,  and  four  cubits  the  breadth  of 
it,  after  the  cubit  of  a  man. 

This  is  a  very  curious  account  of  a  giant  king:  his  bed- 
stead was  made  of  iron,  and  we  are  able  to  ascertain  its 
exact  length,  nine  cubits,  i.  e.  "  after  the  cubit  of  a  man." 
This  alludes  to  the  eastern  mode  of  measuring  from  the 
tip  of  the  middle  finger  to  the  elbow,  which  will  be  found 
to  be  in  general  eighteen  inches.  Thus  his  bedstead  was 
thirteen  feet  six  inches  in  length,  and  six  feet  in  breadth. 
The  hawkers  of  cloth  very  seldom  carry  with  them  a  yard 
wand ;  they  simply  measure  from  the  eWow  to  the  tip  of  the 
middle  finger,  counting  two  lengths  of  that  for  a  yard. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  I  pray  thee,  let  me  go  over,  and  see  the 
good  land  that  is  beyond  Jordan,  that  goodly 
mountain,  and  Lebanon. 

The  beauties  of  Lebanon  seem  to  have  left  a  deeper 
impression  in  the  mind  of  D'Arvieux.  "  After  travelling 
six  hours  in  pleasant  valleys,"  says  that  writer,  "and  over 
mountains  covered  with  different  species  of  trees,  we 
entered  a  small  plain,  on  a  fertile  hill  wholly  covered  with 
walnut-trees  ana  olives,  in  the  middle  of  which  is  the  vil- 
lage of  Eden.— In  spite  of  my  weariness,  I  could  not  but 
incessantly  admire  this  beautiful  country.  It  is  truly  an 
epitome  of  the  terrestrial  paradise,  of  which  it  bears  the 
name.  Eden  is  rather  a  hamlet  than  a  village.  The 
houses  are  scattered,  and  separated  from  each  other  by 
gardens,  which  are  enclosed  by  walls  made  of  stones  pileicl 
up  without  mortar.  We  quitted  Eden  about  eight  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  and  advanced  to  mountains  so  extremely 
high,  that  we  seemed  to  be  travelling  in  the  middle  regions- 
of  the  atmosphere.  Here  the  sky  was  clear  and  seren«= 
above  us,  while  we  saw  below  us  thick  clouds  dissolving 
in  rain,  and  watering  the  plains.  After  three  hours  of  la 
borious  travelling,  we  arrived  at  the  famous  cedars  abou* 
eleven  o'clock.  We  counted  twenty-three  of  them.  The 
circumference  of  these  trees  is  thirty-six  feet.  The  bark 
of  the  cedar  resembles  that  of  the  pine ;  the  leaves  and 
cone  also  bear  considerable  resemblance.  The  stem  Is 
upright,  the  wood  is  hard,  and  has  the  reputation  of  being 
incorruptible.  The  leaves  are  long,  narrow,  rough,  very 
green,  ranged  in  tufts  along  the  branches ;  they  shoot  in 
spring,  and  fall  in  the  beginning  of  winter.  Its  flowers  and 
fruit  resemble  those  of  the  pine.    From  the  full  grown 


104 


DEUTERONOMY. 


Chap.  4—6. 


trees,  a  fluid  trickles  naturally,  and  without  incision  •,  this 
is  clear,  transparent,  whitish,  and  after  a  time  dries  and 
hardens:   it  is  supposed  to  possess  great  virtues. — The 
place  where  these  gi^t  trees  are  stationed,  is  in  a  plain  of 
nearly  a  league  in  circumference,  on   the  summit  of  a 
mount  which  is  environed  on  almost  all  sides  by  other 
mounts,  so  high  that  their  summits  are  always  covered 
with  snow.     This  plain  is  level,  the  air  is  pure,  the  heav- 
ens always  serene.     On  otie  side  of  this  plain  is  a  fright- 
ful precipice,  from  whence  flows  a  copious  stream,  which, 
descending  into  the  valley,  forms  a  considerable  part  of 
the  Holy  River,  or  Nahar  Kadisha.     The  view  along  this 
valley  is  interesting;  and  the  crevices  of  the  rocks  are 
filled  with  earth  of  so  excellent  a  quality,  that  trees  grow 
in  them;  and  being  continually  refreshed  with  the  vapours 
rising  from  the  streams  below,  attain  to  considerable  di- 
mensions.   Nor  is  the  sense  of  smelling  less  gratified  than 
*hat  of  sight,  by  the  fragrance  diffiised  from  the  odoriferous 
plants  around."   He  afterward  says, "  the  banks  of  the  river 
appeared  enchanted.     This  stream  is  principally  formed 
by  the  source  which  issues  below  the  cedars,  but  is  contin- 
ually augmented  by  a  prodigious  number  of  rills  and 
fountains,  which  fall  from  the  mountain,  gliding  along  the 
clefts  of  the  rocks,  and  forming  many  charming  natural 
cascades,  which  communicate  cooling  breezes,  and  banish 
the  idea  of  being  in  a  country  subject  to  extreme  heat.     If 
to  these  enjoyments  we  add  that  of  the  nightingale's  song, 
it  must  be  g'ranted  that  these  places  are  infinitely  agree- 
able."    The  cedars  which  he  visited,  encircle  the  region 
of  perpetual  snow.     Lebanon  is  in  this  part  free  from 
rocks,  and  only  rises  and  falls  with  small  easy  uneven- 
nesses,  but  is  perfectly  barren  and  desolate.     The  ground, 
where  not  concealed  by  the  snow,  for  several  hours'  riding 
appeared  to  be  covered  with  a  sort  of  white  slate,  thin  and 
smooth.    Yet  these  dreary  summits  are  not  without  their 
use  ;  they  serve  as  a  conservatory  for  abundance  of  snow, 
which,  thawing  in  the  heat  of  summer,  furnishes  ample 
supplies  of  water  to  the  rivers  and  fountains  in  the  valleys 
below.    In  the  snow,  he  saw  the  prints  of  the  feet  of  sev- 
eral wild  beasts,  which  are  the  sole  proprietors  of  these 
upper  parts  of  the  mountain.    Maundrell  found  only  six- 
teen cedars  of  large  growth,  and  a  natural  plantation  of 
smaller  ones,  which  were  very  numerous.     One  of  the 
largest  was  twelve  yards  six  inches  in  girth,  and  thirty- 
seven  yards  in  the  spread  of  its  boughs.   At  six  yards  from 
the  ground,  it  was  divided  into  five  limbs,  each  equal  to  a 
great  tree.   Dr.  Richardson  visited  them  in  1818,  and  found 
a  small  clump  of  large  and  tall  and  beautiful  trees,  which  he 
pronounces  the  most  picturesque  productions  of  the  vege- 
table world  that  he  had  ever  seen.    In  this  clump  are  two 
generations  of  trees;  the  oldest  are  large  and  massy,  rear- 
ing their  heads  to  an  enormous  height,  and  spreading  their 
branches  to  a  great  extent.     He  measured  one,  not  the 
largest  in  the  clump,  and  found  it  thirty-two  feet  in  cir- 
cumference.   Seven  of  these  trees  appeared  to  be  very  old, 
the  rest  younger,  though,  for  want  of  space,  their  branches 
are  not  so  spreading.     This  statement  sheds  a  clear  and 
steady  light  on  those  passages  of  scripture  which  refer 
to  Lebanon ;  and  enables  us  to  reconcile  with  ease  several 
apparent  contradictions.     So  famous  was  this  stupendous 
mountain  in  the  days  of  Moses,  that  to  be  permitted  to  see 
it,  was  the  object  of  his  earnest  desires  and  repeated 
prayers;  and  as  the  strongest  expression  of  his  admiration, 
he  connects  it  in  his  addresses  to  the  throne  of  his  God, 
with  Zion,  the  future  seat  of  the  divine  glory.    "  I  pray 
thee,  let  me  go  over  and  see  the  good  land  that  is  beyond 
Jordan ;  that  goodly  mountain  and  Lebanon." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  20.  But  the  Lord  hath  taken  you,  and 
brought  you  forth  out  of  the  iron  furnace,  even 
out  of  Egypt,  to  be  unto  him  a  people  of  in- 
heritance, as  7/e  are  this  day. 

It  has  been  observed  by  chymical  writers,  not  only  that 
iron  melts  slowly  even  in  the  most  violent  fire,  but  also 
that  it  ignites,  or  becomes  red-hot,  long  before  it  fuses : 
and  any  one  may  observe  the  excessive  brightness  of  iron 
when  red,  or  rather  7chile  hot.  Since,  therefore,  it  requires 
the  strongest  fire  of  all  metals  to  fuse  it,  there  is  a  peculiar 
propriety  in  the  expression,  a  furnace  for  iron,  or  an  iron 
furnace,  for  violent  and  sharp  affiictions. — Burder. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  14.  But  the  seventh  day  is  the  sabbath  of 
the  Lord  thy  God  :  in  it  thou  shalt  not  do  any 
work,  thou,  nor  thy  son,  nor  thy  daughter,  nor 
thy  man-servant,  nor  thy  maid-servant,  nor 
thine  ox,  nor  thine  ass,  nor  any  of  thy  cattle, 
nor  thy  stranger  that  is  within  thy  gates ;  that 
thy  man-servant  and  thy  maid-servant  may  rest 
as  well  as  thou. 

In  order  to  render  the  situation  of  slaves  more  tolerable, 
Moses  made  the  three  following  decrees  for  their  benefit. 

1.  On  the  sabbath  dav  they  were  to  be  exempted  from 
all  manner  of  work.  Of  course  every  week  they  enjoyed 
one  day  of  that  rest  which  is  so  suitable  to  the  nature  of  the 
human  frame,  and  so  requisite  to  the  preservation  of  health 
and  strength,  Exod.  xx.  10.  Deut.  v.  14,  15.  In  the  laUcr 
of  these  passages  it  is  expressly  mentioned,  that  one  design 
of  the  sabbath  was  to  give  a  day  of  rest  to  slaves,  and  the 
Israelites  are  reminded  of  their  own  servitude  in  Egypt, 
when  they  longed  in  vain  for  days  of  repose. 

2.  The  fruits  growing  spontaneously  during  the  sab- 
batical year,  and  declared  the  property  of  none,  were  des- 
tined by  Moses  for  the  slaves  and  the  indigent. 

3.  The  Israelites  were  wont,  at  their  high  festivals,  to 
make  feasts  of  their  tithes,  firstlings,  and  sacrifices ;'  indeed 
almost  all  the  great  entertainments  were  offering-feasts. 
To  these,  by  the  statutes  of  Deut.  xii.  17,  18  and  xvi.  11, 
the  slaves  were  to  be  invited.  Such  occasions  were  there- 
fore a  sort  of  saturnalia  to  them :  and  we  cannot  but  extol 
the  clemency  and  humanity  of  that  law,  which  procured 
them  twice  or  thrice  a-year  a  few  days'  enjoyment  of  those 
luxuries,  which  they  would  doubtless  relish  the  more,  the 
poorer  their  ordinary  food  might  be. 

It  was  a  part  of  the  good  treatment  due  to  domestic  ani- 
mals, that  they  were  to  be  allowed  to  share  the  enjoyment  of 
the  sabbatical  rest.  On  the  people's  own  account  this  was 
no  doubt  necessary;  because  in  general  beasts  can  perform 
no  work  without  man's  assistance :  but  still  Moses  expressly 
declares  that  his  commandment  respecting  the  sabbath  had 
a  direct  reference  to  the  rest  and  refreshment  of  beasts  as 
well  as  of  man.  His  words  are,  "  On  the  seventh  day  thou 
shalt  rest  from  thy  labour;  that  thine  ox  and  thine  ass  ma}r 
also  rest,  and  thy  servant  and  strangqr  may  be  refreshed," 
Exod.  xxiii.  12.  xx.  10.  Deut.  v.  14.  In  fact,  some  such 
alternation  of  labour  and  rest  seems  necessary  to  the  pres- 
ervation of  beasts :  for  those  that  perform  the  same  kind 
of  work  day  after  day,  without  any  interruption,  soon  be- 
come stupid  and  useless.  At  least,  we  see  this  the  case 
with  horses  :  and  the  reader  will  not  take  it  amiss,  that  a 
town-bred  writer,  having  better  access  to  observe  the  effects 
of  labour  on  them,  than  on  oxen,  should  prefer  taking  an 
example  from  the  former.  A  horse  that  has  to  travel  three 
German  miles  every  day  will  not  hold  out  long :  but,  with 
intervening  days  of  rest,  in  the  same  time,  he  will  be  able 
to  go  over  a  much  greater  space  without  injury.  He  will, 
for  example,  in  ten  days  travel  thirty-five  German  miles, 
with  three  resting  days,  that  is,  at  the  rate  of  five  miles 
each  day  of  the  other  seven.  This  fact  is  so  well  known, 
that  in  riding  schools,  one  or  tAvo  days  of  rest,  besides  Sun- 
day, are  usually  allowed  to  the  horses,  in  order  to  preserve 
their  spirit  and  acrfvity ;  whereas  the  post-horses,  which 
are  constantly  at  work,  soon  become  stiff  and  unserviceable. 
The  case  is  probably  the  same  with  other  beasts  of  burden, 
although  they  do  not  require  so  many  intervals  of  rest  as 
horses.  And  hence  the  good  treatment  of  beasts  enjoined 
in  the  Mosaic  law,  and  the  sabbatical  rest  ordained  for 
their  refreshment,  was  highly  expedient,  even  in  an  eco- 
nomical point  of  view,  and  wisely  suited  to  the  circum- 
stances ot  a  people,  whose  cattle  formed  the  principal  part 
of  their  subsistence. — Michaelis. 

CHAPTER  VL 
Ver.  7.  And  thou  shalt  teach  them  diligently  unto 
thy  children. 

If  you  inquire  how  a  good  schoolmaster  teaches  his  pu- 
pils, the  answer  will  be,  very  koormeyana,  i.  e.  "  sharply, 
makes  sharp,  they  are  full  of  points."    A  man  of  a  keen 


Chap.  6—8. 


DEUTERONOMY. 


105 


and  cultivated  mind,  is  said  to  be  full  of  points.    "  He  is 
wt'U  sharpened." — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  And  thou  shalt  bind  them  for  a  sign  upon 
thy  hand,  and  they  shall  be  as  frontlets  be- 
tween thine  eyes. 

I  look  upon  the  words  in  Deut.  vi.  8,  as  not  properly  a 
law,  but  an  admonition;  because  they  merely  occur  in  an 
harangue  which  Moses  addressed  to  the  people.  The 
Orientals  make  great  use  of  amulets ; — a  subject  on  which 
I  cannot  here  expatiate,  but  of  which  I  generally  treat  un- 
der Art.  26,  of  my  Hebrew  Antiquities.  These  amulets 
C(jnsist  sometimes  of  jewels  and  other  ornaments,  and  some- 
times of  certain  sentences,  or  unintelligible  lines,  and  Abra- 
cadabra, written  on  billets,  or  embroidered  on  pieces  of 
linen.  Some  such  things  the  Israelites,  in  those  days,  seem 
to  have  worn  on  their  foreheads,  and  on  their  hands  ;  and 
the  Mohammedans  do  so  still.  For  how  often  do  we  find  on 
their  breasts  a  passage  from  the  Koran,  which  is  said  to 
make  them  invulnerable,  or  rather  actually  does  so ;  for 
this  I  know  for  certain,  that  no  Turk,  wearing  any  such 
billet,  was  ever  yet  slain  or  M^ounded  in  battle,  excepting 
ill  the  single  case  (which,  indeed,  they  themselves  except) 
ol'  his  death-hour  being  come,  according  to  the  decree  of 
God.  It  would  appear,  that  with  regard  to  these  embroi- 
dered phylacteries,  the  Israelites,  in  the  days  of  Moses,  did 
not  entertain  such  superstitious  ideas,  (else  would  he  prob- 
ably have  forbidden  them,)  but  only  wore  them  as  orna- 
ments, and  for  fashion's  sake.  As  Moses,  therefore,  wished 
to  exhort  the  Israelites  to  maintain  the  remembrance  of 
his  laws  in  every  possible  way,  and,  in  a  particular  man- 
ner, to  impress  it  on  the  hearts  of  their  children,  he  sug- 
gested to  them  a  variety  of  expedients  for  the  purpose ;  and 
this  among  others,  that  if  they  chose  to  wear  any  embroi- 
dered ornament  on  the  hand  or  forehead,  it  should  not  con- 
sist of  any  thing  useless,  and  still  less  of  any  superstitious 
nonsense,  but  rather  of  sentences  out  of  the  laws,  which 
their  children  would  thus  be  in  the  way  of  learning.  If, 
however,  the  fashion  changed,  and  embroidery  was  no 
more  worn,  the  Israelites  were  no  longer  bound  to  wear 
embroidered  linen,  or  billets  inscribed  with  sentences  from 
the  Mosaic  law;  and  that  the  Jews,  during  the  time  of 
prayer,  still  use  them  under  the  name  of  Thefdlin,  pro- 
ceeds from  a  misconception  of  the  statute  in  question.  A 
further  detail  on  this  subject,  with  the  proofs  that  the  words 
of  Moses  in  this  passage  are  not  to  be  understood  as  only 
f]2:urative,  I  cannot  here  give :  but  I  give  it,  as  I  have 
said,  in  my  Hebrew  Antiquities.  To  most  of  the  read- 
ers of  the  present  work,  who  may  be  desirous  of  having 
a  philosophical  glance  at  the  ancient  laws  of  mankind, 
researches  merely  antiquarian  would  not  afford  much 
gratification. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  9.  And  thou  shalt  write  them  upon  the  posts 
of  thy  house,  and  on  thy  gates. 

The  observation  made  in  the  beginning  of  the  preceding 
article  is  equally  applicable  to  the  subject  of  the  present 
one.    The  words  of  Moses  in  Deut.  vi.  9,  immediately  fol- 
lowing those  just  illustrated,  are  in  like  manner  to  be  under- 
stood, not  as  a  positive  injunction,  but  as  an  exhortation  to 
inscribe  his  laws  on  the  door-posts  of  their  houses.     In 
Syria  and  the  adjacent  countries,  it  is  usual  at  this  day  to 
place  inscriptions  above  the  doors  of  the  houses,  not,  as 
the  vulgar  among  us  do,  in  doggerel  rhyme,  but  consisting 
of  passages  from  the  Koran,  or  from  the  best  poets  ;  and 
some  of  them,  that  are  quoted  in  books  of  travels,  are  truly 
elegant.     This  must  now  be  a  very  ancient  practice,  as  It 
existed  in  the  time  of  Moses,    For  when  he  exhorts  the 
Israelites  to  take  every  opportunity  in  inculcating  his  laws 
on  their  children,  we  find  him  suggesting  to  them  this  as 
one  means  of  doing  so  ;  "  Write  them  on  the  doors  of  your 
touses,  and  on  the  gates  of  your  cities."    In  these  words 
we  have  not  properly  a  statute ;  for  if  the  Israelite  did  not 
choose  to  have  an  inscription  over  his  door,  he  had  no  oc- 
casion to  make  one;  but  they  are  merely  introduced  in  an  ex- 
t|  hortatory  discourse  to  the  people,  as  furnishing  an  instance 
'   of  the  means  which  they  might  take,  to  impress  the  laws 
upon  the  minds  of  their  posterity  in  their  earliest  years. 
Among  us,  where,  by  the  aid  of  printing,  books  are  so 
abundantly  multiplied,  and  may  be  put  into  the  hands  of 
14 


every  child,  such  measures  would  be  quite  superfluous; 
but  if  we  would  enter  into  the  ideas  of  Moses,  we  must 
place  ourselves  in  an  age,  when  the  book  of  the  law  could 
only  come  into  the  hands  of  a  few  opulent  people. — Mi- 
chaelis. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  20.  Moreover,  the  Lord  thy  God  will  send 
the  hornet  among  them,  until  they  that  are  left, 
and  hide  themselves  from  thee,  be  destroyed. 

To  the  people  of  England  this  may  appear  a  puerile 
way  of  punishing  men,  but  they  should  recollect  that  the 
natives  of  the  East  wear  scarcely  any  clothes,  having,  gen- 
erally speaking,  only  a  piece  of  cloth  round  their  loins. 
They  are,  therefore,  much  more  exposed  than  we  are  to 
the  sting  of  insects.  The  sting  of  the  hornet  and  wasp  of 
those  regions  is  much  more  poisonous  than  in  Europe,  and 
the  insect  is  larger  in  size.  I  have  heard  of  several  who 
died  from  having  a  single  sting;  and  not  many  days  ago, 
as  a  woman  was  going  to  the  well  "  to  draw  water,"'  a  hor- 
net stung  her  in  the  cheek,  and  she  died  the  next  day.  I 
have  many  times  seen  the  hornet  attack  and  kill  the  taran- 
tula. Under  large  verandahs  the  former  may  be  seen  fly- 
ing near  the  roof,  searching  in  every  direction  for  his  foe, 
and  never  will  he  leave  them,  till  he  has  accomplished  his 
destruction.  Sometimes  they  both  fall  from  the  roof  to- 
gether, when  the  hornet  may  be  seen  thrusting  his  sting 
most  furiously  in  the  tarantula,  and  it  is  surprising  to  see 
with  what  dexterity  the  former  eludes  the  bite  of  the  latter. 
The  people  often  curse  each  other  by  saying,  Unsuttar- 
Aniverum-KuUive  Kuttam,  i.  e.  "  May  all  around  thee  be 
stung  by  the  hornet!"  (meaning  the  person  and  his  rela- 
tions.) The  toddy  drawers  use  this  imprecation  more  than 
other  people,  because  the  hornet's  nest  is  generally  found  in 
the  top  of  the  palmirah  or  cocoa-nut  tree,  whence  they  pro- 
cure tne  toddy.  When  they  ascend,  iheir  hands  and  feet 
being  engaged,  they  cannot  defend  themselves  against  their x 
attacks.  The  god  Siva  is  described  as  having  destroyed 
many  giants  by  hornets. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  7.  For  the  Lord  thy  Godbringeth  thee  into 
a  good  land;  a  land  of  brooks  of  water,  of 
fountains,  and  depths  that  spring  out  of  valleys 
and  hills. 


The  account  which  has  been  now  given  of  the  soil  and 
productions  of  Canaan,  will  enable  the  reader  to  perceive 
with  greater  clearness,  the  force  and  justice  of  the  prom- 
ise made  by  Moses  to  his  nation,  a  little  before  he  died : 
"  The  Lord  thy  God  bringeth  thee  into  a  good  land;  a  land 
of  brooks  of  water,  of  fountains  and  depths,  that  spring  out  of 
valleys  and  hills ;  a  land  of  wheat  and  barley,  and  vines,  and 
fig-trees,  and  pomegranates,  a  land  of  oil  olive,  and  honey," 
If  to  the  natural  fertility  of  this  highly-favoured  country  be 
added,  the  manner  in  which  it  was  divided  among  the  tribes 
of  Israel,  it  will  furnish  an  easy  and  satisfactory  answer  to 
the  question  which  the  infidel  has  often  put :  "  How  could 
so  small  a  country  as  Canaan  maintain  so  immense  a  popu- 
lation, as  we  find  in  the  writings  of  the  Old  Testament '?" 
That  rich  and  fertile  region  was  divided  into  small  inheri- 
tances, on  which  the  respective  proprietors  lived  and  reared 
their  families.  Necessity,  not  less  than  a  spirit  of  industry, 
required  that  no  part  of  the  surface  capable  of  cultivation 
should  be  sufiered  to  lie  waste.  The  husbandman  carried  his 
improvements  up  the  sides  of  the  steepest  and  most  rugged 
mountains,  to  the  very  top ;  he  converted  every  patch  of 
earth  intoavineyard,oroliveplantation  ;  he  covered  the  bare 
rocks  with  soil,  and  thus  turned  them  into  fruitful  fields ; 
where  the  steep  was  too  great  to  admit  of  an  inclined  plane, 
he  cut  away  the  face  of  the  precipice,  and  built  walls  around 
the  mountain  to  support  the  earth,  and  planted  his  terraces 
with  the  vine  and  the  olive.  These  circles  of  excellent 
soil  were  seen  rising  gradually  from  the  bottom  to  the  top 
of  the  mountains,  where  the  vine  and  the  olive,  shading 
the  intermediate  rocks  with  the  liveliest  verdure,  and  bend- 
ing under  the  load  of  their  valuable  produce,  amply  reward- 
ed the  toils  of  the  cultivator.  The  remains  of  <hose  hang- 
ing gardens,  those  terrace  plantations,  after  the  lapse  of  so 
many  'jenturies,  the  revolutions  of  empire,  am',  the  long  de- 


106 


DEUTERONOxMY. 


Chap.  S, 


cline  of  industry  among  the  miserable  slaves  that  now  oc- 
cupy that  once  highly-favoured  land,  may  still  be  disiincily 
traced  on  the  hills  and  mountains  of  Judea.  Every  sywt  of 
ground  was  in  this  manner  brought  into  a  state  of  cuUiva- 
tion;  every  particle  of  soil  was  rendered  productive;  and 
by  turning  a  stream  of  water  into  every  field  where  it  was 
practicable,  and  leading  the  little  rills  into  which  they  di- 
vide it,  to  every  plantation,  every  tree,  and  every  plant,  "they 
secured,  for  the  most  part,  a  constant  succession  of  crops. 

*'  Thus  much  is  certain,"  says  Volney,  "  and  it  is  the  ad- 
vantage of  hot  over  cold  countries,  that  in  the  former, 
wherever  there  is  v/ater,  vegetation  may  be  perpetually 
maintained;  and  made  to  produce  an  uninterrupted  suc- 
cession of  fruits  to  flowers,  and  flowers  to  fruiis.  In  cold, 
nay  even  in  temperate  climates,  on  the  contrary,  nature, 
benumbed  for  several  months,  loses  in  a  steril  slumber 
the  third  part,  or  even  half  the  year.  The  soil  which  has 
produced  grain,  has  not  time  before  the  decline  of  sum- 
mer heat  to  mature  vegetables;  a  second  crop  is  not  to  be 
expected;  and  the  husbandman  sees  himself  condemned 
to  a  long  and  fatal  repose.  Syria  is  exempt  from  these  in- 
conveniences;  if,  therefore,  it  so  happens,  that  its  produc- 
tions are  not  such  as  its  natural  advantages  would  lead  us 
to  expect,  it  is  less  owing  to  its  physical  than  to  its  political 
slate." — Paxton. 

Ver.  8.  A  land  of  wheat,  and  barley,  and  vines, 
and  fig-trees,  and  pomegranates :  a  land  of  oil- 
olive,  and  honey. 

If  Palestine  were  now  cultivated  and  inhabited  as  much 
as  it  was  formerly,  it  would  not  be  inferior  in  fertility  and 
agreeableness  to  any  other  country.  The  situation  and 
nature  of  the  country  favour  agriculture,  and  amply  re- 
ward the  farmer.  Between  the  31st  and  32d  degrees  of 
north  latitude,  it  is  sheltered  towards  the  south  by  lofty 
mountains,  which  separate  it  from  the  sandy  deserts  of 
Arabia ;  breezes  from  the  Mediterranean  cool  it  from  the 
west  side ;  the  high  Mount  Lebanon  keeps  ofl^  the  north 
wind,  and  Mount  Hermon  the  northeast.  Mountains 
which  decline  into  hills,  are  favourable  for  the  cultivation 
of  the  vine  and  olive,  and  the  breeding  of  cattle  ;  the  plains 
and  valleys  are  watered  by  innumerable  streams.  The 
fame  of  the  fertility  of  Palestine,  and  its  former  riches  in 
corn,  wine,  and  dates,  is  even  immortalized  by  ancient 
coins  which  are  still  in  existence.  But  since  the  land  has 
been  several  times  devastated,  greatly  depopulated,  and 
come  under  the  Turkish  dominion,  and  the  Arab  tribes, 
who  rove  about  it,  not  only  make  it  insecure  for  natives 
and  strangers,  but  also  have  continual  feuds  among  each 
other,  agriculture  has  decreased,  and  the  country  has  ac- 
quired its  present  desert  appearance,  particularly  near  the 
roads ;  but  the  traces  of  its  original  fertility  and  beauty  are 
not  even  now  wholly  obliterated.  As  a  proof,  we  may  ad- 
duce the  following  passage  from  D'Arvieux.  "  "We  left 
the  road  to  avoid  the  Arabs,  whom  it  is  always  disagreea- 
ble to  meet  with,  and  reached,  by  a  side  path,  the  summit 
of  a  mountain,  where  we  found  a  beautiful  plain.  It  must 
be  confessed,  that  if  one  could  live  secure  in  this  country, 
it  would  be  the  most  agreeable  residence  in  the  world,  part- 
ly on  account  of  the  pleasing  diversity  of  mountains  and 
valleys,  partly  on  account  of  the  salubrious  air  which  Ave 
breathe  th^re,  and  which  is  at  all  times  filled  with  balsam- 
ic odours  from  the  wild  flowers  of  these  valleys,  and  from 
the  aromatic  herbs  on  the  hills.  Most  of  the  mountains 
are  dry  and  arid,  and  more  rock  than  mould  adapted  for 
cultivation  ;  but  the  industry  of  its  old  inhabitants  had  tri- 
umphed over  the  defects  of  the  soil.  They  had  hewn  these 
rocks  from  the  foot  to  the  summit  into  terraces,  carried 
mould  there,  as  on  the  coast  of  Genoa,  planted  on  them  the 
fig,  olive,  and  vine ;  sowed  corn  and  all  kinds  of  pulse, 
M'^hich,  favoured  by  the  usual  spring  and  autumnal  rains, 
by  the  dew  which  never  fails,  by  the  warmth  of  the  sun 
and  the  mild  climate,  produced  the  finest  fruit,  and  most 
excellent  corn.  Here  and  there  you  still  see  such  terraces, 
which  the  Arabs,  who  live  in  the  neighbouring  villages, 
keep  up,  and  cultivate  with  industry.  We  then  came 
through  a  valley  about  six  hundred  feet  long;  and,  to  judge 
from  the  fineness  and  fresh  verdure  of  the  grass,  it  appear- 
ed to  be  an  excellent  pasture  ;  at  the  end  of  which  we  found 
R  deeper,  longer,  broader,  and  by  far  more  agreeable  val- 
ey  than  the  former,  in  which  the  soil  was  so  rich  and  fer- 


tile, and  so  covered  with  plants  and  fruit-trees,  that  it 
seemed  to  be  a  garden  cultivated  by  art."  Remains  of  the 
practice  of  making  terraces  on  the  hills  for  the  purpose  of 
cultivation,  were  also  found  by  Maundrell,  as  he  states  in 
the  account  of  his  journey  from  Aleppo  to  Jerusalem.  The 
produce  of  Palestine  is  still  considerable,  not  only  serving 
for  the  supply  of  the  inhabitants,  but  also  affording  an  over- 

Elus  for  exportation.  Corn  and  pulse  are  excellent  in  their 
ind,  and  much  corn  is  annually  sent  from  Jaffa  to  Con- 
stantinople. Though  the  Mohammedan  religion  does  not 
favour  the  cultivation  of  the  vine,  there  is  no  want  of  vine- 
yards in  I'alestine.  Besides  the  large  quantities  of  grapes 
and  raisins  which  are  daily  sent  to  the  markets  of  Jerusa- 
lem and  other  neighbouring  places,  Hebron  alone,  in  the 
first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  annually  sent  three 
hundred  camel  loads,  that  is,  nearly  three  hundred  thou- 
sand weight  of  grape-juice  or  honey  of  raisins  to  EgA'pt. 
The  cotton  which  is  grown  on  the  plains  of  Ramie  and 
Esdraelon,  is  superior  to  the  Syrian,  and  is  exported  partly 
raw  and  partly  spun.  Numerous  herds  of  oxen  and  sheep 
graze  on  the  verdant  hills  of  Galilee,  and  on  the  well-wa- 
tered pastures  of  the  northern  valley  of  the  Jordan.  Count- 
less swarms  of  wild  bees  collect  honey  in  the  trees  and  clefts 
of  the  rock ;  and  it  is  still  literally  true  that  Palestine 
abounds  in  milk  and  honey. — Rosenmuller. 

It  is,  I  think,  highly  probable,  that  in  the  time  of  the  most 
remote  antiquity,  pomegranate  juice  was  used,  in  those 
countries  where  lemon  juice  is  now  used^  with  their  meat, 
and  in  their  drinks,  and  that  it  was  not  till  afterward,  that 
lemons  came  among  them :  I  know  not  how  else  to  account 
for  the  mention  of  pomegranates  in  describing  the  fruitful- 
ness  of  the  Holy  Land,  Deut.  viii.  7, 8 ;  Numb.  xx.  5.  They 
would  not  now,  I  think,  occur  in  such  descriptions :  the 
juice  of  lemons  and  oranges  have,  at  present,  almost  super- 
seded the  use  of  that  of  pomegranates.  Sir  John  Chardin 
supposes  that  this  pomegranate  wine  means,  wine  made  of 
that  fruit ;  which  he  informs  us  is  made  use  of  in  consid- 
erable quantities,  in  several  places  of  the  East,  and  particu- 
larly in  Persia:  his  words  are,  On  fait,  en  diverses  parts 
de  I'Orient,  du  vin  de  grenade,  nomme  roubnar,  qu'on 
Iransporte  par  tout.  II  y  en  a  sur  tout  en  Perse.  My  reader 
must  determine  for  himself,  whether  pomegranate  wine,  or 
wine  commonly  so  called  mixed  with  pomegranate  juice, 
was  most  probably  meant  here.  The  making  the  first  ol 
these  was  a  fact  unknown  to  me,  till  I  saw  this  manuscript, 
I  confess,  though  it  seems  it  is  made  in  such  large  quanti- 
ties as  to  be  transported. — Harmer. 

Hasselquist,  in  the  progress  of  his  journey  from  Acre  to 
Nazareth,  tells  us,  that  he  found  "  great  numbers  of  bees, 
bred  thereabouts,  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  inhabitants. 
They  make  their  bee-hives,  with  little  trouble,  of  clay,  four 
feet  long,  and  half  a  foot  in  diameter,  as  in  Egypt.  "  They 
lay  ten  or  twelve  of  them,  one  on  another,  on  the  bare 
ground,  and  build  over  every  ten  a  little  roof"  Mr. 
Maundrell,  (observing  also  many  bees  in  the  Holy  Land,) 
takes  notice,  "  that  by  their  means  the  most  barren  places 
of  that  country  in  other  respects  became  useful,  perceiving 
in  many  places  of  the  great  salt-plain  near  Jericho,  a  smell 
of  honey  and  wax,  as  strong  as  if  he  had  been  in  an  apia- 
ry." Hasselquist  also  tells  us,  that  he  ate  olives  at  Joppa, 
(upon  his  first  arrival  in  the  Holy  Land,)  which  were  said 
to  grow  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  near  Jerusalem ;  and  that, 
independent  of  their  oiliness,  they  were  of  the  best  kind  he 
had  tasted  in  the  Levant.  As  olives  are  frequently  eaten 
in  their  repasts,  the  delicacy  of  this  fruit  in  Judea  ought 
not  to  be  forgotten ;  the  oil  that  is  gotten  from  these  trees 
much  less,  because  still  more  often  made  use  of  In  the 
progress  of  his  journey,  he  found  several  fine  vales  abound- 
ing with  olive-trees.  He  saw  also  olive-trees  in  Galilee, 
but  none  farther,  he  says,  than  the  mountain  where  it  is 
supposed  our  Lord  preached  his  sermon. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  9.  A  land  wherein  thou  shalt  eat  bread  with- 
out scarceness,  thou  shalt  not  lack  any  thing' 
in  it :  a  land  whose  stones  are  iron,  and  out  of 
whose  hills  thou  mayest  dig  brass. 

Iron  is  the  only  mineral  which  abounds  in  these  moun- 
tains, (Lebanon,)  and  is  found  in  :hose  of  Kesraouan,  and 
of  the  Druzes,  in  great  abundance.  Every  summer  the  in- 
habitants work  those  mines,  whizi  are  simply  ochreous. 


Chap.  11. 


DEUTERONOMY 


lor 


Report  says,  there  was  anciently  a  copper-mine  near  Alep- 
po, which  Volney  thinks  must  have  been  long  since  aban- 
doned :  he  was  also  informed  by  the  Druzes,  that  in  the 
declivity  of  the  hill  formerly  mentioned,  a  mineral  was 
discovered  w' hich  produced  both  lead  and  silver ;  but  as 
such  a  discovery  would  have  proved  the  ruin  of  the  whole 
district,  by  attracting  the  attention  of  the  Turks,  they  quick- 
Iv  destroyed  every  vestige  of  it.  These  statements  estab- 
lish the  Accuracy  of  Moses,  in  the  account  which  he  gave 
his  nation  of  the  promised  inheritance:  "A  land  whose 
stones  are  iron,  and  out  of  whose  mountains  thou  mayest 
dig  brass."  A  different  temperature  prevails  in  different 
parts  of  these  mountains ;  hence,  the  expression  of  the  Ara- 
bian poets,  That  Lebanon  bears  winter  on  his  head,  sprmg 
upon  his  shoulders,  and  autumn  in  his  bosom,  while  sum- 
mer lies  sleeping  at  his  feet. — Paxton. 

Ver.  15.  Who  led  thee  through  the  great  and  ter- 
rible wilderness,  wherein  were  fiery  serpents, 
and  scorpions,  and  drought ;  where  there  was 
no  water ;  who  brought  thee  forth  water  out  of 
the  rock  of  flint. 

The  sacred  historian  gives  here  a  most  accurate  and 
luminous  description  of  an  African  desert.  It  is  not  only 
descriptive  of  that  desert  at  the  north  end  of  Africa,  in 
which  the  Israelites  sojourned  for  forty  years,  but  equally 
so  of  those  at  the  southern  end,  on  its  western  side,  the 
greater  part  of  which,  for  about  two  thousand  miles  along 
the  coast,  is  covered  with  deep  sand.  A  desert  is  great 
when  it  is  extensive ;  and  such  a  desert  may  be  called  ter- 
rible, from  the  anxiety,  dread,  or  fear,  which  it  causes  to 
the  persons  travelling  in  it,  from  what  they  experience, 
and  from  their  doubts  as  to  the  result.  He  comes  to  pools, 
but  he  finds  that  they  are  like  broken  cisterns,  which, 
though  they  once  contained  water,  contain  none  now ;  it 
has  sunk  into  the  ground.  He  observes  two  rows  of  trees 
anA  bushes  at  a  distance,  which  raises  hope  in  his  mind, 
expecting  there  to  find  a  river.  He  hastens  to  the  spot ; 
but  on  reaching  the  banks,  he  finds  the  stream  is  dried  up, 
not  a  drop  of  water  is  visible,  for  it  only  runs  after  rains. 
He  then  digs  a  few  feet  under  the  surface  in  the  bed  or 
channel  of  the  river,  in  hopes  of  reaching  some  remnant  of 
its  waters,  but  finds  his  labour  is  fruitless  ;  the  water  has 
either  sunk  beyond  his  reach,  or  has  been  exhaled  into  the 
heavens.  He  has  no  expectation  of  relief  from  a  shower 
falling  that  evening,  or  week,  or  month,  for  it  is  a  land  of 
DROUGHT,  as  no  rain  hjis  fallen  for  the  preceding  six,  twelve, 
or  eighteen  months.  Would  it  be  surprising  to  hear  the 
traveller's  assistants  express  themselves  thus — "  This  is 
indeed  a  great  and  terrible  wilderness,  a  land  of  drought, 
where  no  water  is  !"  There  were  also  fiery  serpents,  and 
scorpions.  It  is  believed  in  Africa  that  the  most  poisonous 
serpents  were  in  the  most  arid  parts,  and  where  the  heat 
was  greatest.  In  such  parts  I  uniformly  found  the  scor- 
pions most  numerous.  The  knowledge  of  this  being  the 
case  might  render  the  wilderness  through  which  the  Is- 
raelites travelled,  more  terrible  to  them. — African  Light. 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Ver.  10.  For  the  land  whither  thou  goest  in  to 
possess  it,  is  not  as  the  land  of  Egypt,  from 
whence  ye  came  out,  where  thou  sowedst  thy 
seed,  and  wateredst  it  with  thy  foot,  as  a  garden 
of  herbs. 

To  water  a  large  garden  requires  three  men,  one  of 
whom  stands  on  a  lever  near  the  well,  (which  has  a  rope 
and  a  bucket  attached  to  it;)  on  this  he  moves  backward 
or  forward,  as  the  bucket  has  to  ascend  or  descend.  Ano- 
ther person  stands  on  the  ground  near  the  well,  to  pour  the 
water  into  a  basin.  From  this  a  channel,  of  about  eight 
inches  deep  and  nine  broad,  runs  through  the  garden  ;  and 
.  connected  with  it  are  smaller  water-courses,  which  go  to 
the  different  beds  and  shrubs.  The  business  of  the  third 
person,  then,  is  to  convey  the  water  to  its  destined  place, 
which  he  does  by  stopping  the  mouth  of  eadi  course  (where 
sufficient  water  has  been  directed)  with  a  little  earth ;  so 
that  it  flows  on  to  the  next  course,  till  the  whole  be  water- 
ed.   On  those  herbs  or  shrubs  which   require  an  extra 


quantity  he  dashes  ilie  water  plentifidly  with  his  foot  I — 
Roberts. 

The  custom  of  watering  with  the  foot.  Dr.  Shaw  thus 
explains,  from  the  present  practice  of  the  Egyptians: 
"  When  their  various  sorts  of  pulse,  safranon,  musca,  mel- 
ons, sugar-canes,  &c.  (all  of  which  are  commonly  planied  in 
rills)  require  to  be  refreshed,  they  strike  out  the  pings  that 
are  fixed  in  the  bottoms  of  the  cisterns,  [wherein  ihey  pre- 
serve the  water  of  the  Nile,]  and  then  the  water  gushing 
out  is  conducted  from  one  rill  to  another  by  the  gardener, 
who  is  always  ready  as  occasion  requires,  to  stop  and  di- 
vert the  torrent,  by  turning  the  earth  against  it  with  hisfoot^ 
and  opening  at  the  same  time,  with  his  mattock,  a  new 
trench  to  receive  it.  This  method  of  conveying  moisture 
and  nourishment  to  a  land  rarely  or  never  refreshed  with 
rain,  is  often  alluded  to  in  the  holy  scriptures  ;  where  also 
it  is  made  the  distinguishing  quality  betwixt  Egypt  and  the 
land  of  Caiman,  Deut.  xi.  10,  11."  Mr.  Parkhurst  is  in- 
clined to  adopt  another  interpretation  of  the  expression, 
watering  with  the  foot.  He  says,  "  it  seems  more  probable 
that  Moses  alluded  to  drawing  up  water  with  a  machine 
which  was  worked  hj  the  foot.  Such  a  one,  Grotius  long 
ago  observed,  that  Philo,  who  lived  in  Egypt,  has  describ- 
ed as  used  by  the  peasants  of  that  country  in  his  time  ;  and 
the  ingenious  and  accurate  Niebuhr,  has  lately  given  us  a 
representation  of  a  machine  which  the  Egyptians  make  use 
of  for  watering  the  lands,  and  probably  the  same,  says  le, 
that  Moses  speaks  of.  They  call  it  sakki  tdir  beridsjei,,  or 
an  hydraulic  machine  worked  fry  the  feet." — Burdkr. 

In  the  gardens  in  Africa,  into  which  they  can  lead  water 
for  irrigation,  they  have  small  trenches  between  each  row 
of  plants,  made  by  a  rake  or  hoe.  The  water  being  led  into 
the  first  trench,  runs  along  it  until  it  reaches  the  other  end, 
when  a  slave,  with  his  foot,  removes  any  mould  which 
might  have  slid  into  the  little  trench,  that  it  may  have  a  free 
unobstructed  course  ;  then  again  clearing  a  way  for  it  with 
his  foot  round  the  end  of  the  second  row  of  plants,  the  wa- 
ter freely  runs  into  the  next  trench ;  and  in  this  way  1  have 
seen  a  slave  lead  the  httle  stream  from  one  trench  to  ano- 
ther, zigzag,  over  the  whole  garden  ;  which  is  much  easier 
done  with  the  foot  than  by  stooping  down  and  doing  it  with 
the  hands.  The  first  time  I  witnessed  this  operation^  it 
cleared  up,  to  my  satisfaction,  the  meaning  of  the  above 
text. — African  Light. 

Sometimes  the  drought  of  summer  renders  frequent  wa- 
terings necessary  even  in  Judea.  On  such  occasions,,  the 
water  is  drawn  up  from  the  wells  by  oxen,  and  carried  by 
the  inhabitants  in  earthen  jars,  to  refrigerate  their  planta- 
tions on  the  sides  of  the  hills.  The  necessity  to  which  the 
Jewish  husbandman  is  occasionally  reduced,  to  water  his 
grounds  in  this  manner,  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  words 
of  Moses,  which  distinguish  the  Holy  Land  from  Egypt,  by 
its  drinking  rain  from  heaven,  while  the  latter  is  watered 
by  the  foot.  The  inspired  prophet  alludes,  in  that  passage, 
not  to  gardens  of  herbs,  or  other  cultivated  spots  on  the 
steep  declivities  of  the  hills  and  mountains,  where,,  in  so 
warm  a  climate  as  that  of  Canaan,  the  deficiency  of  rain 
must  be  supplied  by  art,  but  to  their  corn-fields  ;  which,  in 
Egypt,  are  watered  by  artificial  canals,  in  the  manner  just 
described ;  in  Canaan,  by  the  rain  of  heaven.  The  lands 
of  Egypt,  it  must  be  granted,  are  supplied  with  water  by 
the  overflowing  of  the  Nile,  and  are  so  saturated  with  moist- 
ure, that  they  require  no  more  watering  for  the  producing 
of  corn,  and  several  other  vegetables ;  while  the  gardens 
require  fresh  supplies  every  three  or  four  days.  But  then 
it  is  to  be  remembered,  that  immense  labour  was  requisite 
to  conduct  the  waters  of  the  river  to  many  of  their  lands ; 
and  those  works  of  the  ancient  kings  of  Egypt,  by  whicK 
they  distributed  the  streams  of  the  Nile  through  their 
whole  country,  are  celebrated  by  Maillet,  as  the  most  mag- 
nificent and  the  most  admirable  of  their  undertakings; 
and  those  labours  which  they  caused  their  subjects  to  under- 
go, doubtless  were  designed  to  prevent  much  heavier,  to 
which  they  must  otherwise  have  submitted.  The  words  of 
Moses,  addressed  to  the  people  of  Israel,  probably  contain- 
ed a  significancy  and  force  of  which  we  can  form  but  a 
very  imperfect  idea,  and  which  has  not  of  late  been  at  all 
understood.  Maillet  was  assured,  that  the  large  canal 
which  filled  the  cisterns  of  Alexandria,  and  is  at  least  fif- 
teen leagues  long,  was  entirely  paved,  and  its  sides  were 
lined  with  brick,  which  were  as  perfect  as  in  the  days  of 
the  Romans.    If  bricks  were  used  in  the  constructioK  of 


lOS 


DEUTERONOMY. 


Chap.  11— 13. 


their  more  ancient  canals,  a  supposition  extremely  proba- 
ble ;  and  if  ttiose  made  by  the  people  of  Israel  were  design- 
ed for  purposes  of  this  kind, — they  must  have  heard  with  a 
peculiar  satisfaction,  that  the  country  to  which  they  were 
going,  required  no  canals  to  be  dug,  no  bricks  to  be  prepar- 
ed for  paving  and  lining  them,  in  order  to  water  it ;  .  a- 
bours  which  had  so  greatly  imbittered  their  lives  in  Egypt. 
This  idea  is  favoured  by  the  account  which  Moses  gives  of 
their  former  servitude :  hard  bondage,  in  mortar  and  brick; 
is  joined  with  other  services  of  the  field,  among  which 
may  be  numbered  the  digging  and  cleansing  of  their  canals ; 
and  in  this  view,  the  mortar  and  brick  are  very  naturally 
joined  with  those  laborious  and  standing  operations.— Pax- 
ton. 

Ver.  11.  But  the  land,  whither  ye  go  to  possess 
it,  is  a  land  of  hills  and  valleys,  and  drinketh 
water  of  the  ram  of  heaven. 

The  striking  contrast,  in  this  short  but  glowing  descrip- 
tion, between  the  land  of  Egypt,  where  the  people  of  Israel 
had  so  long  and  cruelly  sufiered,  and  the  inheritance  prom- 
ised to  their  fathers,  where  Jehovah  reserved  for  them  and 
their  children  every  blessing  that  a  nation  can  desire,  must 
have  made  a  deep  impression  upon  their  minds.  In  Egypt, 
the  eye  is  fatigued  with  wandering  over  an  immense'feit 
plain,  intersected  with  stagnant  canals,  and  studded  with 
mud-walied  towns  and  cottages ;  seldom  refreshed  with  a 
single  shower ;  exhibiting,  for  three  months,  the  singular 
spectacle  of  an  extensive  sheet  of  water,  from  which  the 
towns  and  villages  that  are  built  upon  the  higher  grounds, 
are  seen  like  islands  in  the  midst  of  the  ocean — marshy  and 
rank  with  vegetation  for  three  others — and  parched  and  "dusty 
the  remainder  of  the  year.  They  had  seen  a  population  of 
naked  and  sun-burnt  peasants,  tending  their  buffaloes,  or 
driving  their  camels,  or  sheltering  themselves  from  the 
overwhelming  heat  beneath  the  shade  of  the  thinly  scattered 
date  or  sycamore  trees ;  below,  natural  or  artificial  lakes, 
cultivated  fields,  and  vacant  groimds  of  considerable  ex- 
tent— overhead,  a  burning  sun,  darting  his  oppressive 
rays  from  an  azure  sky,  almost  invariably  free  from 
clouds.  In  that  "  weary  land,"  they  were  compelled  to 
water  their  corn-fields  with  the  foot,  a  painful  and  labori- 
ous employment,  rendered  necessary  by  the  want  of  rain. 
Those  vegetable  productions  which  require  a  greater  quan- 
tity of  moisture  than  is  furnished  by  the  periodical  inun- 
dations of  the  Nile,  they  were  obliged  to  refresh  with  water 
drawn  out  of  the  river  by  machinery,  and  lodged  afterward 
in  capacious  cisterns.  When  the  melons,  sugar-canes,  and 
other  vegetables  that  are  commonly  disposed  in  rills,  re- 
quired to  be  refreshed,  they  struck  out  the  plugs  which 
are  fixed  in  the  bottom  of  the  cisterns ;  and  then  the  water 
gushing  out,  is  conducted  from  one  rill  to  another  by  the 
husbandman,  who  is  always  ready,  as  occasion  requires,  to 
stop  and  divert  the  torrent,  by  turning  the  earth  against  it 
with  his  foot,  opening  at  the  same  time  with  his  mattock  a 
new  trench  to  receive  it.  Such  is  the  practice  to  which 
Moses  alludes;  and  it  continues  to  be  observed  without  va- 
riation to  this  day.  But  from  this  fatiguing  uniformity  of 
surface,  and  toilsome  method  of  watering  their  grounds, 
the  people  of  Israel  were  now  to  be  relieved ;  they  were 
going  to  possess  a  land  of  hills  and  valleys,  clothed  with 
woods — beautiful  and  enriched  with  fountains  of  water- 
divided  by  rivers,  streams,  and  brooks,  flowing  cool  and 
pure  from  the  summits  of  their  mountains— and,  with  little 
attention  from  the  cultivator,  exciting  the  secret  powers  of 
vegetation,  and  scattering  plenty  wherever  they  came.  The 
highlands,  which  are  not  cultivated  Dy  irrigation,  are  to 
this  day  more  prized  in  the  East  than  those  which  must  be 
watered  by  means  of  dikes  and  canals ;  both  because  it  re- 
quires no  labour,  which  in  the  low  country  is  necessary,  to 
watch  the  progress  of  the  water  through  "the  channels,  in 
order  to  give  it  a  proper  direction,  and  because  every  ele- 
vation produces  an  agreeable  change  of  temperature,  where 
the  hills  display  the  loveliness  of  paradise,  while  the  plains 
are  burnt  up  with  insufferable  heat. — Paxton. 

Ver.  19.  And  ye  shall  teach  them  your  children, 
speaking  of  them  when  thou  sittest  in  thy 
house,  and  when  thou  walkest  by  the  way, 
when  thou  liest  down,  and  when  thou  risest  up. 


When  a  heathen  sits  down,  he  makes  mention  of  the 
name  of  his  god.  Thus,  the  worshippers  of  Siva  say, 
when  they  sit  down,  "Siva,  Siva:"  and  when  they  arise, 
they  repeat  the  same  name.  At  night,  when  thev  retire  to 
rest,  also  when  they  arise  in  the  morning,  or  when  they 
stumble  in  the  way,  they  utter,  "  Siva,  Siva."  They  have 
a  proverb  to  the  same  purport,  "  When  I  stumtte  in  the 
way,  I  know  only  to  mention  thy  holy  name."— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XII.  * 

Ver.  31.  Thou  shalt  not  do  so  unto  the  Lord 
thy  God :  for  every  abomination  to  the  Lord 
which  he  hateth  have  they  done  unto  their 
gods ;  for  even  their  sons  and  their  daughters 
they  have  burnt  in  the  fire  to  their  gods. 

See  on  chap.  18.  10. 

Some  have  doubted  whether  parents  could  be  so  cruel  as 
to  compel  their  offspring  to  pass  through  the  fire,  or  to  be 
burnt  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  gods ;  but  we  have  only  to  look 
at  modern  India,  at  the  numerous  infants  thrown  into  the 
sacred  waters,  and  at  the  burning  alive  of  widows  on  the 
funeral  pile  of  their  husbands,  to  see  what  human  nature 
is  capable  of  doing.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that, 
though  the  British  legislature  has  covered  itself  with  un- 
fading honour  in  abolishing,  by  law,  these  fiendish  practi- 
ces, there  are  still  those  of  a  private  nature.  Not  long  ago 
there  were  two  children  offered  to  the  cruel  goddess  Kali ; 
and  one  of  the  supposed  perpetrators  was  arraigned  and 
tried  before  the  Supreme  Court,  but  escaped  for  want  of 
evidence. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Ver.  5.  And  that  prophet,  or  that  dreamer  of 
dreams,  shall  be  put  to  death ;  because  he  hath 
spoken  to  turn  you  away  from  the  Lord  your 
God,  which  brought  you  out  of  the  land  6[ 
Egypt,  and  redeemed  you  out  of  the  house  of 
bondage,  to  thrust  thee  out  of  the  way  which 
the  Lord  thy  God  commanded  thee  to  walk 
in :  so  shalt  thou  put  the  evil  away  from  the 
midsf  of  thee. 

The  Hindoos  may  be  called  a  nation  of  dreamers;  they 
are  often  elevated  or  depressed  by  the  gay  or  sorrowful 
scenes  of  their  sleeping  hours.  The  morning  is  the  time 
for  the  young  and  the  old  to  tell  their  wondrous  stories,  and 
many  a  sage  prognostication  is  then  delivered  to  the  atten- 
tive hearers.  Men  and  women  often  take  long  journeys, 
perform  arduous  penances,  and  go  through  expensive  cere- 
monies, from  no  other  cause  than  a  dream.  The  crafty 
Bramin  finds  this  to  be  a  powerful  medium  of  access  to  the 
superstition  and  purses  of  the  people.  How  many  a  splendid 
temple  has  been  built  or  repaired ;  how  many  a  rest-house 
erected ;  how  many  a  costly  present  has  been  the  result  of  a 
real  or  pretended  dream !  Mendicants,  pandarams,  priests, 
and  devotees,  have  all  had  their  profitable  revelations  from 
the  gods.  Does  a  needy  impostor  wish  to  have  a  good  berth 
and  a  settled  place  of  abode,  he  buries  an  idol  in  some  lone- 
ly place,  and  atthe  expiration  of  about  twelve  months  he  has 
a  dream,  and  a  vision  into  the  bargain,  for  the  god  actual- 
ly appears  to  him  when  he  is  not  asleep,  and  says,  "Go  to 
such  a  place,  and  you  will  find  my  image  :  there"  long,  long 
has  it  been  in  disgrace ;  but  now  you  must  build  a  temple 
to  my  glory."  The  knave  affects  to  be  greatly  excited,  and 
relates  the  whole  as  a  profound  secret  to  a  few  of  his  se- 
lect friends.  The  story  soon  gets  abroad,  and  numbers  of 
people  beg  of  him  to  go  to  the  sacred  place  in  search  of  the 
deity.  At  last  he  consents ;  but  expresses  many  a  fear,  as 
they  proceed,  that  he  has  been  deceived,  or  that  his  or  their 
unbelief  will  hinder  him  from  finding  out  the  place,  li 
approaching  the  scene  of  operation,  he  hesitates,  thinks  he 
cannot  be  far  off—"  the  country  had  just  such  an  appear- 
ance in  his  dream:"  he  then  says,  "  Dig;"  and  numbers  of 
the  people  fall  to  work  in  good  earnest.  After  some  time^ 
he  shakes  his  head,  repeats  his  incantations,  and  says;,  "  Ic 
is  not  here."  He  then  points  to  the  real  spot,  and  again  his 
gulled  attendants  commence  their  meritorious  operations. 
At  last  the  god  is  found,  and  the  multitude  make  the  wel- 


Chap.  13—15. 


DEUTERONOxMY. 


109 


kin  ring  with  their  shouts  cf  joy.  The}'  fall  before  the 
gi-ave  impostor,  and  worship  at  his  feet.  His  object  is 
gained  ;  money  and  materials  come  in  on  every  hand  ;  and 
shortly  after  a  temple  and  its  goodly  courts  arise,  in  which 
he  dwells  for  life. 

Tha  good  or  evil  of  dreams  is  minutely  described  in 
some  of  their  scientific  works  •,  and  it  is  not  a  little  amusing 
to  see  that  some  of  their  notions  agree  with  the  English, 
and  especially  with  those  of  the  inhabitants  of  North  Brit- 
ai^^i.  Does  a  man  dream  about  the  sun,  moon,  the  gods,  a 
mountain,  river,  well,  gold,  precious  stones,  father,  child, 
mother,  elephant,  horse,  car,  temple,  Bramin,  lotus,  flesh 
of  animals,  flowers,  fruits,  swan,  cow,  fowl,  toddy ;  or  that 
he  has  his  hands  tied,  or  is  travelling  in  a  palanquin;  that 
the  gods  are  making  ceremonies ;  that  he  sees  a  beautiful 
and  fair  woman,  arrayed  in  white  robes,  coming  into  his 
house ;  that  his  house  is  on  fire  ;  that  he  sees  a  chank,  or 
lamp,  or  full  water-pot ;  that  he  roasts  and  eats  his  own 
flesh; — he  will  be  a  king:  that  he  wears  new  cloth;  that  he 
plays  in  the  mud ;  that  he  climbs  trees ;  that  swarms  of 
ants  creep  over  his  body  ; — these  are  all  good — "  he  will 
have  great  felicity."  But  to  dream  the  gods  laugh,  dance, 
run,  sing,  weep,  or  clap  their  hands,  is  for  the  country  very 
evil.  That  you  see  a  crow,  eagle,  hawk,  ass,  black  cobra 
capella,  pig,  monkey,  jackal,  or  salt,  curds,  milk,  sandals, 
butter,  lime,  cotton,  mud,  red  flowers,  firewood,  a  black 
dog,  a  devil,  a  giant,  a  water-melon,  jack-fruit,  pumpkin, 
a  hare,  an  alligator,  a  bear,  a  tiger,  a  ghost ;  that  you  go 
to,  or  come  from,  the  sea ;  that  the  teeth  fall  out ;  that  the 
hand  is  broken ;  that  you  wear  dirty  clothes ;  that  the  walls 
of  the  temple  fall ;  that  you  miss  your  way;  that  you  tr£<Vel 
towards  the  south ;  that  you  fall  into  a  pit ;  or  that  you  see 
a  company  of  serpents ; — these  are  all  evil  tokens.  To 
avert  the  evil  implied  by  those  dreams,  (and  a  thousand 
others  not  enumerated,)  a  person  must  make  oflTerings  to 
the  Bramins,  and  give  articles  of  food.  Alms  must  be 
bestowed  on  the  poor,  and  on  the  Pandarams  and  other 
religious  mendicants,  and  the  person  must  bathe  in  holy 
■water.  Let  him  also  listen  to  the  song  of  Paratham,  and 
all  the  malignity  of  his  nightly  visitations  shall  be  removed. 
— Roberts.  ^ 

Ver.  6.  If  thy  brother,  the  son  of  thy  mother,  or 
thy  son,  or  thy  daughter,  or  the  wife  of  thy 
bosom,  or  thy  friend,  which  is  as  thine  own 
soul,  entice  thee  secretly,  saying-,  Let  us  go  and 
serve  other  gods,  which  Ihou  hast  not  known, 
thou,  nor  thy  fathers. 

These,  and  many  other  passages,  show  how  much  the 
tQYmbosom  is  used  in  the  scriptures,  and  that  it  generally 
denotes  something  of  great  value  or  security,  affection  and 
happiness.  Any  thing  which  is  valuable  or  dear  to  a  per- 
son is  said  to  be  madeyWa,  i.  e.  in  his  bosom.  When  a 
husband  wishes  to  express  himself  affectionately  to  his  wife, 
he  says,  "  Come  hither,  thou  wife  of  my  bosom."  Is  she 
dead,  "  Ah  !  I  have  lost  the  wife  of  my  bosom."  In  the 
Scanda  Purana,  the  goddess  of  Vishnoo  is  said  to  rest  in 
the  bosom  of  the  god  "  Vishnoo,  whose  bosom  is  the  abode 
of  Lechimy."  To  a  father  it  is  said  respecting  a  bad  son, 
"  Notwithstanding  this,  you  press  him  to  your  bosom  ;" — 
and  of  a  flatterer,'  "  He  would  cause  the  child  to  fall  from 
the  bosom  of  its  mother."  (See  on  Luke  xvi.  22.) — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Ver.  1.   Ye  are  the  children  of  the  Lord  your 
God.     Ye  shall  not  cut  yourselves,  nor  make 
any  baldness  between  your  eyes  for  the  dead. 

Not  only  common  readers,  but  even  the  learned  them- 
selves appear  to  be  perplexed  about  the  meaning  of  that 
prohibition  of  the  law  of  Moses,  contained  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  first  verse  of  the  14th  of  Deuteronomy,  Ye  shall 
not  cut  yourself,  nor  make  any  baldTiess  between  your  eyes  for 
the  dead ;  but  it  seems  to  be  clearly  explained  by  a  passage 
of  Sir  John  Chardin,  as  to  its  expressing  sorrow,  though°it 
is  probable  the  idolatrousness  of  the  practice  may,  at  this 
distance  of  time,  be  irrecoverably  lost.  Sir  John  tells  us, 
"that  black  hair  is  most  esteemed  among  the  Persians,  as 
well  on  the  head,  as  on  'he  eyebrows,  and  in  the  beard. 
That  the  largest  and  thickest  eyebrows  are  the  most  beau- 


tiful, especially  when  they  are  of  such  a  size  as  to  touch 
one  anoiher.  The  Arab  women  have  the  most  beautiful 
eyebrows  of  this  sort.  The  Persian  women,  when  they 
have  them  not  of  this  colour,  tinge  them,  and  rub  them 
with  black,  to  make  them  the  larger.  They  also  make  in 
the  lower  part  of  the  forehead,  a  little  below  the  eyebrows, 
a  black  spot,  in  form  of  a  lozenge,  not  quite  so  large  as  the 
nail  of  the  little  finger."  This  is  probably  not  of  a  lasting 
nature,  but  quickly  wears  oft'.  These  notions  of  beauty 
diflfer  very  much  from  those  of  the  ladies  of  Europe. 
None  of  tiiem,  I  think,  are  fond  of  having  their  eyebrows 
meet ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  take  pains  to  keep  the  separation 
between  them  very  distinct.  But  if  the  eastern  people  are 
of  a  different  opinion,  it  is  not  at  all  surprising,  that  at  the 
same  time  that  they  laid  aside  the  hair  of  their  heads,  with 
their  more  artificial  ornaments,  in  a  time  of  mourning,  they 
should  make  a  space  bald  between  their  eyes  too,  since  it 
was  their  pride  to  have  them  meet  when  in  a  joyful  state, 
and  even  to  join  them  with  a  black  perishable  spot,  rather 
than  have  an  interruption  appear  between  the  eyebrows. 
But  as  the  sacred  writers  admitted  the  making  their  heads 
bald  in  mourning,  while  Moses,  forbids  not  only  idolatrous 
cuttings  of  the  flesh,  but  this  making  the  space  bald  between 
the  eyebrows,  it  appears  there  was  something  of  idolatry  in 
this  too,  as  M'ell  as  in  those  cuttings,  though  it  is  not  easily 
made  out.  After  this  circumstance,  relating  to  eastern 
beauty,  is  known,  the  addition  to  bishop  Patrick's  account 
of  the  heathens  being  wont  to  shave  the  eyebrows,  in  times 
of  mourning,  will,  I  presume,  give  no  pleasure:  "  Or,"  says 
this  worthy  writer,  "  (which  some  think  is  the  meaning  of 
between  the  eyes,)  the  hair  in  the  forepart  of  the  head,  or 
near  the  temples,  as  R.  Solomon  interprets  it.  Which 
seems  to  be  the  meaning  of  the  Hierusalem  Targum,  which 
translates  it,  'Ye  shall  not  make  any  baldness  in  the  house 
of  your  countenance.' " — Harmer. 

Ver.  4.  These  are  the  beasts  which  ye  shall  eat ; 
the  ox,  the  sheep,  and  the  goat. 

See  on  Lev.  11.  2.  y 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Ver.  6.  For  the  Lord  thy  God  blesseth  thee,  as 
he  promised  thee:  and  thou  shall  lend  unto 
many  nations,  but  thou  shall  not  borrow ;  and 
thou  shalt  reign  over  many  nations,  but  they 
shall  not  reign  over  thee. 

From  the  numerous  allusions  in  the  sacred  writings,  to 
the  subject  of  lending  and  of  usury,  it  is  easy  to  perceive 
that  this  was  a  very  common  practice  among  the  ancients 
of  the  East.  There  are  thousands  at  this  day  who  live  on 
the  interest  of  a  very  small  capital,  and  thousands  who 
make  immense  fortunes  by  nothing  but  lending.  So  soon 
as  a  man  has  saved  a  small  sum,  instead  of  locking  it  up 
in  his  box,  it  goes  out  to  interest  at  the  rate  of  twelve,  and 
sometimes  twenty,  per  cent.  People  of  great  property,  on 
account  of  their  anxiety  to  put  out  every  farthing,  often 
leave  themselves  in  considerable  difficulty.  Children  are 
taught,  in  early  life,  the  importance  of  this  plan :  hence, 
striplings  may  be  heard  to  boast  that  they  have  such  and 
such  sums  out  at  interest.  This  propensity  often  places 
government  in  circumstances  of  great  loss  m  reference  to 
their  shroflTs,  or  native  treasurers.  They  lend  out  money 
from  the  chest  to  a  great  amount,  merely  to  gain  the  inter- 
est. "  Ah !  you  shall  lend  money  to  many  people,"  is  one 
of  the  blessings  pronounced  on  a  youthful  pair.  When  a 
person  acquires  a  new  situation,  when  a  man  is  prosperous, 
it  is  said,  "  He  will  lend  to  many  people;"  which  means,  he 
will  be  rich,  and  have  much  influence. — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  But  thou  shalt  open  thy  hand  wide  unto 
him,  and  shalt  surely  lend  hhn  sufficient  for 
his  need,  in  that  which  he  wanteth. 

Of  a  liberal  man,  it  is  said,  "He  has  an  open  hand." 
"  That  man's  hand  is  so  open,  all  will  soon  be  gone."  When 
a  poor  man  asks  a  favour  of  a  rich  man,  in  the  presence 
of  another,  the  bystanders  will  say,  "  Open  your  hand 
wide  to  him."  i\"^person  who  has  been  refused  a  favour, 
says,  on  his  return,  "  Alas !  he  would  not  open  his  hand ; 
no,  not  a  little." — Roberts. 


110 


DEUTERONOMY. 


Chap.  16. 


Ver.  16.  And  it  shall  be,  if  he  say  unto  thee, 
I  will  not  go  away  from  thee,  (because  he 
loveth  thee  and  thy  house,  because  he  is  well 
with  thee,)  17.  Then  thou  shalt  take  an  awl, 
and  thrust  it  through  his  ear  unto  the  door, 
and  he  shall  be  thy  servant  for  ever :  and  also 
unto  thy  maid-servant  thou  shalt  do  likewise. 
18.  It  shall  not  seem  hard  unto  thee,  when 
thou  sendest  him  away  free  from  thee ;  for  he 
hath  been  worth  a  double  hired  servant  to  thee, 

•  in  serving  thee  six  years :  and  the  Lord  thy 
God  shall  bless  thee  in  all  that  thou  doest. 

Moses  specifies  two  periods,  at  which  the  Hebrew  ser- 
vant was  to  regain  his  freedom ;  the  seventh  year,  Exod. 
xxi.  and  Deut.  xv ;  and  the  fiftieth,  or  year  of  jubilee, 
Lev.  XXV.  How  these  periods  are  reconcijed  with  each 
other,  considering  that  the  year  of  jubilee  must  always 
have  immediately  followed  a  sabbatical  year,  and  that  of 
course  the  servants  must  have  been  already  free,  before  its 
arrival,  deserves  inquiry.  Here  then  all  depends  upon 
the  sense  in  which  Moses  understands  the  seventh  year ; 
whether  as  the  sabbatical  year,  in  which  the  land  lay  fallow, 
»r  as  the  seventh  year  from  the  time  when  the  servant  was 
Dought  1  Maimonides  was  of  the  latter  opinion,  and  to 
me  also  it  appears  the  more  probable.  For  Moses  uni- 
formly calls  it  the  severith  year,  without  using  the  term  sab- 
batical year.  What  then  is  more  natural  than  to  under- 
stand the  seventh  year  of  servitude  ]  And  besides,  when 
he  describes  the  sabbatical  year  in  Lev.  xxv.  1 — 7,  we 
find  not  a  word  of  the  manumission  of  servants.  The  ap- 
parent inconsistency  of  the  two  laws  thus  ceases.  The 
servant  was  regularly  restored  to  freedom  after  six  years' 
service  ;  but  supposing  him  bought  in  the  forty-sixth  year 
of  the  Jewish  calculation,  that  is,  four  years  before  the  jubi- 
lee,  he  did  not,  in  that  case,  wait  seven  years,  but  received 
his  freedom  in  the  year  of  jubilee,  and  with  it  the  land  he 
might  have  sold.  In  this  way  Moses  took  care  that  too 
great  a  proportion  of  the  people  should  not  be  slaves  at  one 
time,  and  thus  the  state,  instead  of  free  citizens  to  defend  it 
with  arms  in  their  hands,  have  only  the  protection  of  a 
number  of  unarmed  servants.  There  might  still  be  other 
cases  in  which  a  slave  only  recovered  his  freedom  in  the 
riftieth  year.  For  instance,  if  a  man  was  sold  for  debt,  or 
for  theft,  and  the  sum  which  he  had  to  pay  exceeded  what 
a  servant  sold  for  six  years  was  worth,  it  is  certainly  con- 
formable to  reason  that  the  said  debtor  or  thief  should  have 
been  sold  for  a  longer  period,  at  least  for  twice  six  years  : 
but  still,  in  that  case,  his  servitude  would  cease  on  the 
coming  of  the  jubilee,  when  every  thing  reverted  to  its 
former  state.  It  has  been  generally  supposed,  that  those 
servants  who  did  not  choose  to  accept  their  freedom  in  the 
seventh  year,  and  of  whom  I  shall  immediately  speak,  be- 
came free  at  the  year  of  jubilee.  Here,  however,  a  doubt 
has  occurred  to  me,  Avhether  any  such  servant  could,  after 
he  had  become  so  much  older,  have  ventured  to  accept 
freedom  in  the  fiftieth  year;  and  whether  he  would  not 
rather  wish  and  expect,  that  the  master  to  whose  service 
he  had,  from  attachment,  generously  sacrificed  his  best 
days,  should  keep  and  maintain  him  in  his  old  age  1  At 
the  same  time,  it  occurs  to  me  to  observe,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  in  the  fiftieth  year  every  Israelite  received  the 
land  he  had  sold :  so  that  the  servant,  who  before  refused 
his  freedom,  because  he  had  nothing  to  live  on,  might  now 
accept  it  with  joy,  when  his  paternal  inheritance  returned 
to  him  quite  unincumbered. 

Moses,  as  I  have  just  remarked  by  the  way,  presupposes 
it  a  possible  and  probable  case,  that  a  servant,  who  had  a 
goo«J  master,  miglit  wish  to  remain  with  him  constantly 
durm;^  fe,  without  seeking  to  be  free  ;  particularly  if  he 
had  lived  in  contvbemin  with  one  of  his  master's  female 
slaves,  and  had  children  by  her,  from  whom,  as  well  as 
from  hims'  T,  he  must  separate,  if  he  left  his  master's  house. 
In  .such  a  care,  he  permits  the  servant  to  bind  himself  for 
ever  to  thf  service  of  the  master,  with  whose  disposition 
he  had  by  six  years'  experience  become  acquainted.  But, 
in  order  to  guard  against  all  abuse  of  this  permission,  it 
was  necessary  that  the  transaction  should  be  gone  about 
judicially,  ani  that  the  magistrate  should  know  of  it.    The 


servant  was  therefore  brought  before  the  magistrate,  ana 
had  his  ear  bored  at  his  master's  door.  It  does  not  belong 
to  my  present  subject,  but  to  that  of  Hebrew  antiquities,  Co 
enter  into  a  particular  illustration  of  this  custom,  which, 
in  Asia,  where  men  generally  wear  ear-rings,  was  not  un- 
common, and  was,  besides,  among  the  other  Asiatic  nations  a 
mark  of  slavery;  and,  therefore,  I  here  merely  remark,  that 
it  was  the  intention  of  Moses,  that  every  Hebrew  who  wished 
to  continue  a  servant  for  life,  should,  with  the  magistrate  s 

Erevious  knowledge,  bear  a  given  token  thereof  in  his  own 
ody.  He  thus  guarded  against  the  risk  of  a  master  hav- 
ing it  in  his  power  either  to  pretend  that  his  servant  had 
promised  to  serve  him  during  life,  when  he  had  not ;  or, 
by  ill  usage,  during  the  period  that  he  had  him  in  his  ser- 
vice, to  extort  any  such  promise  from  him.  I  may  further 
ohservQ,  en  passant,  that  the  statute  of  Moses  made  boring 
the  ears  in  some  degree  ignominious  to  a  free  man ;  be- 
cause it  became  the  sign  whereby  a  perpetual  slave  was  to 
be  known.  And  if  the  Israelites  had,  for  this  reason, 
abandoned  the  practice,  Moses  would  not  have  been  dis- 
pleased. Indeed,  this  was  probably  the  very  object  which 
he  had  in  view  to  get  imperceptibly  effected  by  his  law  ; 
for  in  the  wearing  of  ear-rings,  superstition  was  deeply 
concerned.  They  were  very  frequently  consecrated  to 
some  of  the  gods,  and  were  thus  considered  as  amulets  to 
prevent  the  sounds  of  enchantment  from  entering  the  ear 
and  proving  hurtful.  If,  however,  the  servant  was  willing 
to  accept  his  freedom,  not  only  was  it  necessarily  granted 
him,  but  Moses  besides  ordained  in  one  of  his  latter  laws, 
as  an  additional  benefit,  that  the  master,  instead  of  send- 
ing him  empty  away,  should  make  him  a  present  of  sheep, 
fruits,  oil,  and  wine,  to  enable  him  to  begin  housekeeping 
anew,  Deut.  xv.  13 — 15.  On  this  occasion  he  observes, 
that  such  a  servant  does  his  master  twice  as  much  service 
as  a  servant  hired  by  the  day;  which  I  thus  understand. 
If  a  man  bought  a  servant  for  six  years,  he  only  paid  half 
as  much  as  a  hireling  would  in  that  period  have  received 
beside^  his  maintenance :  because  the  purchase  money  was 
necessarily  paid  down  on  the  spot,  and  the  purchaser  had 
to  run  the  risk  of  his  servant  dying  before  the  term  of  his 
service  was  ^cpired.  But  when  this  risk  was  passed,  and 
the  servant  had  actually  earned  him  his  daily  hire,  his 
master  was  bound,  in  recompense  of  the  advantages  he 
thus  brought  him,  to  grant  him  some  little  gratification. 
At  the  same  time,  Moses  reminds  the  Israelites  that  their 
forefathers  had  all  been  slaves  in  Egypt,  and  that  therefore 
it  was  their  duty  to  act  with  kindness  towards  those  of  their 
brethren,  whose  fate  it  was  to  feel  the  hardships  of  bondage. 

MiCHAELIS.      * 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

•Ver.  16.  Three  times  in  a  year  shall  all  thy  males 
appear  before  the  Lord  thy  God  in  the  place 
which  he  shall  choose ;  in  the  feast  of  unleav- 
ened bread,  and  in  the  feast  of  weeks,  and  in 
the  feast  of  tabernacles :  and  they  shall  not  ap- 
pear before  the  Lord  empty. 

Moses  instituted  other  festivals  besides  the  Sabbath ;  and 
three  of  them,  which  we  usually  denominate  High  Festivals, 
were  distinguished  from  the  Sabbath  and  all  other  holy- 
days,  by  this  remarkable  difference,  that  they  lasted  ior 
seven,  one  of  them,  indeed,  for  eight,  successive  days ;  nrui 
that  all  the  males  in  Israel  were  then  obliged  to  assemble 
at  the  place  where  the  sanctuary  stood.  That  every  peo- 
ple interested  in  the  preservation  of  their  religion,  must 
set  apart,  I  will  not  say  a  day,  but  certainly  a  specific  time 
for  divine  worship,  is  obvious.  This  is  a  point,  the  proofs 
of  which  I  willingly  leave  to  theology,  or  even  to  philo- 
sophical ethics,  from  which  I  may  here  assume  it  as  well 
understood.  But  besides  this,  (and  here  I  must  beg  leave, 
as  it  is  more  agreeable  to  present  usage,  to  employ  the  wor«l 
days  for  times,  without  meaning,  by  day,  either  the  precise 
period  of  24  hours,  or  that  from  sunrise  to  sunset,)  there  is 
a  necessity  for  days  of  rest  and  pleasure.  By  unintermitted 
labour,  the  body  becomes  weakened,  loses  that  activity  and 
vigour  which  the  alternations  of  labour,  rest,  and  amuse 
ment,  produce,  and  grows  soon  old.  Bodily  labour  other- 
wise, no  doubt,  increases  strength ;  and  the  peasant  who 
works  with  his  hands,  will  always  be  a  stronger  man  than 
the  person  who  folds  them  across  his  breast,  or  only  write* 


i 


Chap.  16. 


DEUTERONOMY. 


in 


|L^witIi  them ;  but  then  it  must  not  be  unceasing  labour,  and 
"without  repose,  or  else  it  will  have  the  contrary  effect. 
The  man  who  is  obliged  to  toil  day  after  day  without  in- 
termission, and  especially  if  he  lias  done  so  from  infancy, 
becomes  in  a  manner  cramped,  stiff,  and  awkward,  at  all 
other  bodily  exercises;  continues,  as  it  were  naturally,  of 
small  siatu're,  and,  like  a  horse  daily  hacked,  is  premature- 
ly worn  out.  Alternation  is  the  grand  maxim  of  dietet- 
ics; which,  indeed,  holds  good  so  universally,  that  the 
very  best  rules  of  diet  prescribed  by  the  ablest  physician, 
will  be  found  in  most  cases  detrimental,  if  too  strictly  ob- 
served. Even  the  exercises  which  serve  to  strengthen  and 
refresh  us,  if  we  constantly  use  any  one  of  them  without 
variation,  such  as  walking  or  riding,  will  become  irksome 
and  hurtful,  if  we  are  obliged  to  take  it  every  day  without 
intermission.  The  daily  runner,  who  knows  no  intervals 
of  rest,  will  not,  it  is  true,  be  affected  with  hypochondria, 
but  will,  nevertheless,  feel  his  health  otherwise  impaired. 
The  postillion,  who  rides  every  day,  Sunday  not  excepted, 
commonly  grows  old  before  his  time  ;  and  his  whole  figure 
.shows,  that  he  has  not  had  a  healthy  occupation.  We  see 
this,  even  in  countries  where  posts  travel  so  intolerably 
slow,  that  the  violence  of  the  motion  can  certainly  not  be 
blamed  for  the  injury  which  incessant  riding  occasions  to 
their  health.  The  trooper  in  the  field,  and  the  sportsman 
in  the  chase,  ride  perhaps  more  and  harder,  and  that  too  in 
all  weathers,  but  yet  we  do  not  remark  in  them  the  appear- 
ances of  premature  old  age  and  decrepitude,  visible  in  the 
postillion,  who  sits  on  horseback  day  after  day,  and  must 
soon  be  discharged  in  consequence  of  his  infirmities.  Put- 
ting all  this,  however,  out  of  the  question,  that  man  can 
have  no  enjoyment  of  life,  who  is  obliged  to  toil  perpetual- 
ly, and  in  the  'same  irksome  uniformity  of  employment. 
Yet  every  man  ought  to  have  some  enjoyment  of  life,  were 
it  only  for  a  single  day  of  recreation  occasionally :  where- 
fore else  is  he  in  the  world  1  If  he  never  tastesthe  pleas- 
ures of  life;  he  soon  dwindles  into  wrinkled  insignificance. 
Nor  is  It  merely  rest  from  his  daily  toil  that  he  ought,  in 
justice,  to  enjoy  on  such  occasions  ;  but  he  should  have  it 
m  his  power  to  sport  away  the  time  in  social  enjoyment, 
in  feasting,  dancing,  or  whatever  else  is  most  agreeable  to 
his  taste,  if  not  contrary  to  good  morals.  By  this  variety 
of  pleasure,  the  mind  is  roused  from  its  usual  dull  uni- 
formity, enlivened,  and  restored ;  the  powers  of  the  body 
are  renovated ;  and  it  becomes  more  supple,  and  fitted  for 
greater  exertion.  In  short,  the  common  man  throws  off 
the  slave,  the  porter,  the  hind,  the  tailor ;  and  the  man  of 
learning  the  dull  pedant.  It  were  cruel  to  deprive  even 
the  slave  of  a  share  in  such  enjoyments,  for  they  are,  as  it 
A^ere,  a  recompense  for  the  hardships  of  his  life  ;'and  every 
man  who  lives,  manifestly  has  a  right  to  partake  in  them  : 
and  it  were  no  less  foolish  than  cruel ;  for  his  health,  viva- 
city, and  bodily  vigour  will  suffer  in  consequence  of  such 
privations.  It  is,  therefore,  prudent  to  allow  him  seasons 
of  recreation :  although  selfish  and  tyrannical  masters,  who 
only  look  to  immediate  advantages,"  are,  from  their  igno- 
rance of  human  nature,  and  the  effects  of  unceasing  labour, 
sometimes  inclined  to  be  of  a  different  opinion. 

In  this  way,  the  three  annual  festivals  were,  in  fact,  so 
many  additional  and  prolonged  seasons  of  pleasure,  in  which 
the  people  were  to  indulge  themselves,  exclusive  of  the 
weekly  enjoyment  of  the  Sabbath.  Seven  successive  days  ] 
.spent  in  such  a  manner,  serve  as  a  recreation  both  to  body 
and  mind,  and  we  think  ourselves  after  them,  as  it  were, 
regenerated.  To  bodily  health,  such  relaxations  undoubt- 
edly contribute ;  for  that  man  will  always  have  more 
strength  and  activity,  who,  from  his  youth,  has  occasion- 
ally mingled  in  the  cheerful  dance,  than  the  person  who 
has  been  subjected  to  unvaried  and  uninterrupted  labour. 
For  that  particular  sort  of  labour,  the  latter  may.  no  doubt, 
manifest  great  strength  ;  but  he  will  become  stiff,  and  in  all 
other  applications  of  his  bodily  powers,  awkward,  and  al- 
most as  if  lamed.  This  is  a  dietetical  remark,  in  regard 
to  which,  we  find  a  coincidence  of  opinion,  between  learned 
phvsicians  and  those  officers  who  have  to  enlist  or  select 
soldiers.  And  as  to  the  mind,  by  festivities  of  this  nature, 
it  likewise  becomes  better  humoured,  and  more  cheerful : 
We  return  to  our  ordinary  labours  with  more  spirit  and 
activity,  after  spending  a  whole  week  in  the  enjoyment  of 
the  pleasures  of  such  extraordinary  occasions ;  which,  how- 
ever, certainly  must  not  be  the  constant  business  of  our 
"Whole  lives,  but  only  that  of  festal  seasons.  Hence  it  seems 


to  have  been  one  of  the  great  objects  of  the  Mosaic  polity, 
that  every  individual,  without  exception,  should,  along 
with  the  evils,  occasioually  taste  also  the  pleasures  of  life; 
the  legislator  having  taken  care,  that  not  even  the  poorest 
persons,  not  even  the  very  slaves,  should  be  excluded  from 
sharing  in  these,  during  the  festivals.  The  words  which, 
without  once  thinking  of  any  thing  learned,  or  of  the  sub» 
ject  of  the  present  work,  I  have,  in  the  poem  entitled  3Toses, 
and  annexed  to  the  second  edition  of  my  "  Poetical  Sketch 
of  the  Ecclesiastes  of  Solomon,"  put  into  the  mouth  of  Mo- 
ses, when  he  is  entreating  Pharaoh  for  a  three-days  festival 
to  the  Israelites,  will,  perhaps,  be  found  to  express,  with 
tolerable  accuracy,  his  real  ideas  on  this  point,  as  far  as 
the  tenor  of  his  laws  enables  us  to  portray  them. 

But  three  days  rest  they  ask,  to  keep  the  feast 
Commanded  by  their  God;  through  all  the  year,  besides, 
Thy  duteous  slaves.    They  seek  not  to  rebel 
Against  thy  sway ;  e'en  though  the  sacred  rest 
Of  Sabbath,  in  thy  house  of  bondage  dire. 
They  ne'er  enjoy.    And  canst  thou  then  withhold 
From  these  pooi  slaves,  this  respite  from  their  toils'? 
Or  grudge,  that  they  should  taste  the  sweets  of  life 
For  three  short  day-s,  and  then,  as  too  much  blest, 
Serve  thee  for  ever? 

But  without  reference  to  this  point,  the  institution  of  the 
three  high  festivals  had,  in  many  other  respects,  salutary 
influences  on  the  community.  The  most  important  of  these, 
and  what  the  legislator,  without  doubt,  had  principally 
in  his  view,  was,  that  the  whole  people  would  thus  become 
more  closely  connected  together,  learn  to  regard  each  other 
as  fellow-citizens  and  brethren,  and  not  be  so  likely  to  be 
perpetually  splitting  into  different  petty  states.  They  con- 
sisted, as  has  been  already  mentioned,  of  twelve  tribes,  of 
which  eaph  had  its  own  common  weal,  and  sometimes  one 
was  jealous  of  another.  The  consequences  of  this  might 
have  been,  coiisidering  the  narrow-minded  patriotism  of 
those  ancient  times,  that  they  might  have  hated,  and,  in 
process  of  time,  been  completely  alienated  from  each  other. 
The  yearly  festivals  had  the  greatest  possible  effect  in  pre- 
venting this  misfortune.  For  while  the  Israelites  thus  fre- 
quently assembled  all  together  for  the  purposes  of  religiou.v 
worship  and  social  enjoyment,  they  learnt  to  be  more  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  each  other, "and  laid  the  foundations- 
of  firm  friendships.  That  such  friendships  often  have  their 
origin  in  social  intercourse  of  this  kind,  and  that  when  peo- 
ple are  met  at  the  festive  board,  many  little  grudges  are 
forgotten  or  removed,  is  an  ancient  and"  well-known  obser- 
vation. If,  on  a  day  of  mirth  and  jollity,  we  experience 
pleasure  in  the  society  of  others,  we  naturally  wish  for  its  fre- 
quent repetition ;  we  seek  fresh  opportunities  of  intercourse 
with  them,  and  thus  form  friendships  before  we  are  aware. 
It  was,  indeed,  only  specially  commanded,  that  OT^7e5  should 
go  to  the  Israelitish  festivals ;  but  fathers,  no  doubt,  gratified 
their  daughters,  by  taking  them  along  with  them  to  these 
solemnities,  which  con.sisted  in  dancing,  and  entertain- 
ments; and  thus  the  men  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  all 
the  young  beauties  of  the  different  tribes.  This  must  nat- 
urally have  occasioned  intermarriages  of  one  tribe  with 
another,  by  which  the  interests  of  families  belonging  to 
different  tribes  would  become  more  and  more  closely  con- 
nected, and  thus  the  twelve  petty  states,  be  not  merely 
nominally,  but  really,  and  from  social  love,  united  into 
one  great  people.  If  any  of  the  tribes  happened  to  be  jeal- 
ous of  each  other,  or,  as  was  sometimes  the  case,  involved 
in  civil  war,  still  their  meeting  together  in  one  place  for 
the  purposes  of  religion  and  sociality,  had  a  tendency  to 
prevent  their  being  completely  alienated,  and  forming 
themselves  into  two  or  more  unconnected  states :  and  even 
though  this  had  at  any  time  happened,  it  gave  them  an  op- 
portunity of  again  ceinenting  their  differences  and  re-unit- 
ing. This  is  so  correctly  true,  that  the  separation  of  the 
ten  tribes  from  the  tribe  of  Judah  under  Rehoboam  and  Jer- 
oboam, could  never  have  been  permanent,  had  not  the 
latter  abrogated  one  part  of  the  law  of  Moses  relative  to 
the  festivals.  In  every  case  it  is  quite  a  sufl^cient  recom- 
mendation of  any  measure  of  legislative  policy,  when  ex- 
perience has  proved  that  the  evil,  which  it  was  its  object 
to  prevent,  could  n(3t  possibly  have  taken  place  without  an 
abrogation  of  the  law;  and' that  the  destroyer  or  revolu- 
tionizer  of  the  state,  could  not  have  effected  his  purpo-^e, 
without  annulling  the  statutes  that  regard  religion;  diff.- 
cult  though  it  always  be  to  manage  such  an  attempt  without 


112 


DEUTERONOMY. 


Chap.  16. 


discomposing  and  exasperating  the  minds  of  the  people. 
Now,  Jeroboam  immediately  perceived,  that  the  ten  tribes 
would  one  day  re-unite  with  the  tribe  of  Judah,  and  sub- 
ject themselves  again  to  the  rightful  sovereign  of  the  house 
of  David,  if  they  continued  to  frequent  the  high  festivals  at 
Jerusalem ;  which,  by  reason  of  the  suspension  of  arms, 
at  the  holy  place,  would  still  have  been  quite  in  their  power 
with  perfect  safety :  and,  therefore,  in  order  to  maintain 
his  own  authority,  and  to  perpetuate  the  separation,  he  pro- 
hibited the  annual  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  and,  contrary 
to  the  law  of  Moses,  appointed  two  places  for  divine  ser- 
vice, within  his  own  territories,  (1  Kings  xii.  27 — 30;)  in 
which,  no  doubt,  the  true  God  was  worshipped,  but,  in  or- 
der to  gratify  the  propensity  of  the  Israelites  to  idolatry, 
it  was  under  the  similitude  of  a  golden  calf.  In  order  to 
make  still  surer  of  his  point,  he  transferred  the  celebraiion 
of  the  feast  of  tabernacles,  and  probably  of  the  other  two  fes- 
tivals likewise,  to  a  different  season  from  that  appointed  by 
Moses ;  making  it  a  month  later,  (1  Kings  xii.  33  ;)  in  do- 
ing which,  he  very  likely  availed  himself  of  the  harvest 
and  vintage  being,  in  the  tract  adjacent  to  Lebanon,  and 
which  extended  through  the  mountains,  sometimes  a  little 
later  than  in  the  other  parts  of  Palestine. 

Another  effect  of  these  festivals  regarded  the  internal 
commerce  of  the  Israelites.  I  will  not  positively  assert,  that 
Moses  had  this  effect  in  his  view  ;  but  God,  who  instructed 
him  as  to  the  laws  which  he  was  to  enact,  certainly  fore- 
saw all  the  future  uses  of  those  laws  ;  and  it  was  an  object 
in  AzsAaew,  though  Moses  might  not  have  known  it.  From 
the  annual  conventions  of  the  whole  people  of  any  country 
for  religious  purposes,  there  generally  arise,  without  any 
direct  intention  on  their  part,  annual  fairs  and  internal 
commerce  ;  for,  even  if  it  were  for  no  other  purpose,  mer- 
ciiants,  who  are  always  on  the  watch  to  espy  and  embrace 
every  favourable  opportunity  of  a  sale,  will  resort  thither, 
in  order  to  dispose  of  their  commodities.  That  our  yearly 
fairs  in  Germany  originally  arose  in  this  manner,  is  evi- 
dent from  the  name,  which  the  principal  ones  bear,  Mcssen, 
or  Masses.  In  ancient  Catholic  times,  masses  were  said 
on  certain  days  in  particular  places,  in  memory  of  different 
saints ;  as,  for  instance,  on  the  Wednesday  fifter  Easter, 
near  Querfurt,  in  the  place  called  the  Asses-mead ov^,  from 
the  Ass,  which  is  so  much  celebrated  in  the  history  of  the 
church ,  and,  as  many  people  assembled  for  devotion  on 
such  occasions,  merchants,  who  had  various  wares  to  sell, 
likewise  made  their  appearance;  and  so  from  the  masses 
then  read  by  the  Catholic  priests,  arose  what  we  now,  in 
mercantile  language,  denominate  Messen.  Our  country, 
therefore,  is  indebted  to  religion,  or  rather  to  religious  meet- 
ings, not  indeed  enjoined  by  God,  but  merely  devised  by 
men,  for  a  great  part  of  its  trade  and  commerce  ;  which 
still  subsists,  long  after  people  destitute  of  education  have 
ceased  to  know  wherefore  our  great  yearly  fairs,  that  are 
of  such  impoi'tance,  have  been  called  "Messen. 

Among  the  Mohammedans  similar  festivals  have  had 
the  very  same  effect ;  for,  notwithstanding  the  difhculties 
of  travelling  through  the  deserts,  and  the  dangers  to  which 
the  caravans  are  exposed  from  banditti,  and  the  great  in- 
tolerance of  Islamism,  which  is  such,  that  no  uncircumcised 
person  dare  approach  Mecca,  without  the  risk  of  circum- 
cision ;  not  to  mention  the  perpetual  variation  of  the  time 
of  the  pilgrimage  thither,  in  consequence  of  their  strange 
mode  of  reckoning  by  lunar  years; — circumstances  which, 
anywhere  else,  would  ruin  the  most  flourishing  fairs — still 
the  annual  pilgrimage  of  the  Mohammedans  to  Mecca,  has 
given  birth  to  one  of  the  greatest  markets  in  the  world, 
where  people  from  the  extremities  of  the  East  and  of  the 
"West,  meet  for  the  purpose  of  trade  and  commerce.  Now 
the  very  same  effects,  and  to  a  still  higher  degree,  must, 
without  any  effort  on  the  part  of  the  legislator,  have  resulted 
from  the  high  festivals  of  the  Israelites,  to  which  the  whole 
people  were  bound  to  assemble  ;  and  more  particularly,  as 
far  as  regards  internal  trade,  which  is  always  the  most 
essential  branch  of  commerce  to  any  people.  Let  us  only 
figure  to  ourselves,  what  would  follow  from  such  festivals 
being  once  set  a-going.  Every  man  would  bring  along 
with  him  every  portable  article  which  he  could  spare,  and 
wished  to  turn  into  money;  and,  as  several  individuals 
would  go  from  the  same  place,  they  would  contrive  various 
expedi'Mits  to  render  their  goods  portable  :  for  they  would, 
for  ony  thing,  have  to  carry  the  ipsa  corpora  of  their  tithes, 
.hat  were  to  be  consumed  during  the  festivals ;  not  to  men- 


tion other  articles  necessary  to  their  accommodation,  ani 
which  would  require  means  of  conveyance  (or,  as  I  migw 
perhaps  more  properly  term  them,  voitures)  expensive  in 
the  regions  of  the  East;  for  they  consist,  not  as  with  us,  of 
wagons  and  horses,  but  of  asses  and  camels ;  beasts  ol- 
burden  which  are  highly  serviceable  in  promoting  the 
commerce  of  Arabia,  and  the  neighbouring  country  ol 
Palestine.  There  never  could  be  any  want  of  buyers, 
when  the  whole  people  were  convened ;  and  the  wholesale 
merchants  would  soon  find  it  for  their  advantage  to  attend 
and  purchase  the  commodities  offered  to  sale  by  individ- 
uals, especially  manufactured  articles ;  nor  would  the 
owners  of  goods,  as  they  must  require  money  to  make 
good  cheer  on  such  occasions,  hold  them  at  unreasonable 
rates.  Whoever  wished  to  buy  any  particular  articles, 
would  wait  the  festivals,  in  order  to  have  a  choice ;  and 
this  too  would  lead  great  merchants  to  attend  with  all 
manner  of  goods  for  sale,  for  which  they  could  hope  to 
find  purchasers.  That  Moses  was  by  no  means  anxious  to 
engage  the  Israelites  actively  in  foreign  commerce,  I  have 
already  admitted.  The  most  important  species  of  com- 
merce, however — that  whereby  every  man  has  it  in  his 
power  to  convert  at  a  particular  place  whatever  he  can 
spare,  that  is  at  all  portable,  into  money,  and  with  that 
money  to  buy,  at  first  hand,  whatever  he  wants  from  any 
other  quarter — must  have  been,  by  means  of  their  festivals, 
much  brisker  among  the  Israelites,  than  we  could  ever 
hope  to  see  it  in  Europe  on  such  occasions.  That  people, 
having  a  national  religion  from  God,  and  having  God 
himself  for  their  king,  enjoyed,  in  this  respect,  an  advan- 
tage, which  no  other  people  ca7i  enjoy :  for  if  it  is  not  God, 
but  only  the  sovereign,  who  enjoins  a  pilgrimage  to  a  fes- 
tival, every  one  who  can,  will  endeavour  lo  get  quit  of  the 
trouble  of  the  journey,  or,  at  best,  to  make  it  with  reluc- 
tance ;  and  if  religious  imposture  is  resorted  to,  in  order  to 
enforce  attendance,  the  fraud  will  soon  be  discovered,  and 
the  political  artifice  thereby  come  to  naught. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  18,  Judges  and  officers  shalt  thou  make 
thee  in  all  thy  gates,  which  the  Lord  thy  God 
giveth  thee,  throughout  thy  tribes:  and  they 
shall  judge  the  people  with  just  judgment. 

Among  the  persons  that  appear  in  the  Israelitish  Diet, 
besides  those  already  mentioned,  we  find  the  Schoterim, 
(n-'Tiiic)  or  scribes.     They  were  different  from  the  judges ; 
for  Moses  had  expressly  ordained  (Deut.  xvi.  18)  that  in 
every  city  there  should  be  appointed,  not  only  judges,  but 
Schoterim  likewise.     It  is  very  certain  that  Moses  had  not 
originally  instituted  these  officers,  but  already  found  them 
among  the  people  while  in  Egypt.    For  when  the  Israelites 
did  not  deliver  the  required  tale  of  bricks,  the  Schoterim 
were  called  to  account,  and  punished ;   Exod.  v.  6—14. 
Now,  as  satar  in  Arabic,  signifies  to  write ;  and  its  deriva- 
tive, Mastir,  a  person  whose  duty  it  is  to  keep  accounts,  and. 
collect  debts,  I  am  almost  persuaded  that  these  Schoterim 
must  have  been  the  officers  who  kept  the  genealogical 
tables  of  the  Israelites,  with  a  faithful  record  of  births, 
marriages,  and  deaths  ;  and,  as  they  kept  the  rolls  of  fam- 
ilies, had,  moreover,  the  duty  of  apportioning  the  public 
burdens  and  services  on  the  people  individually.   An  office 
exactly  similar,  we  have  not  in  our  governments,  because 
they  are  not  so  genealogically  regulated ;  at  least  we  do 
not  institute  enumerations  of  the  people  by  families.     But 
among  a  people  whose  notions  were  completely  clannish, 
and  among  whom  all  hereditary  succession,  and  even  all 
posthumous  fame,  depended  on  genealogical  registers,  this 
must  have  been  an  office  fully  as  important  as  that  of  a 
judge.     In  Egypt,  the  Levites  had  not  yet  been  consecratecf ' 
and  set  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  tribes;  there,  of  course^ 
the  Schoterim  must  have  been  chosen  ejther  out  of  evei 
family,  or,  perhaps,  merely  according  to  the  opinion  enter 
tained  of  their  fitness  for  the  office.    In  the  time  of  th« 
kings,  however,  we  find  them  generally  taken  from  th< 
tribe  of  Levi ;    1  Chron.  xxiii.  4.     2  Chron.  xix.  8— 11^ 
xxxiv.  13.     This  was  a  very  rational  procedure,  as  th« 
Levites  devoted  themselves  particularly  to  study;    and 
among  husbandmen  and  unlearned  people,  few  were  likely 
to  be  so  expert  at  writing,  as  to  be  intrusted  with  the  keep-' 
ing  of  registers  so  important.     Add  to  this,  that  in  latei 
times,  the  genealogical  tables  were  kept  in  the  tempk 
We  find  these  Schoterim  mentioned  in  many  other  pas 


Chap.  17,  18. 


DEUTERONOMY. 


lis 


sages  besides  those  quoted  above.  In  Numb.  xi.  16,  they 
are  the  persons  of  respectability  from  among  whom  the 
supreme  senate  of  70  is  chosen.  In  Deut.  i.  15,  mention  is 
made  of  Schoterim  appointed  by  Moses  in  the  wilderness, 
although  the  people  had  previously  had  such  magistrates 
in  Egypt ;  most  probably  he  only  filled  the  places  of  those 
who  were  dead.  In  Deut.  xx.  5,  we  see  them  charged 
with  orders  to  those  of  the  people  that  were  selected  to  go 
to  war ;  which  is  perfectly  suited  to  my  explanation  of  the 
nature  of  their  office.  In  Deut.  xxix.  10,  xxxi.  28,  Josh, 
viii.  33,  xxiii.  2,  we  find  them  as  representatives  of  the 
people  in  the  Diets,  or  when  a  covenant  with  God  is  en- 
tered into.  In  Josh.  i.  10,  they  appear  as  the  officers  who 
communicated  to  the  people  the  general's  orders  respecting 
military  affairs ;  and  this,  again,  corresponds  to  the  prov- 
ince of  muster-masters.  In  2  Chron.  xxvi.  11,  we  have 
the  chief  Sckoter,  under  whose  command  the  whole  army 
stands  after  the  general,  if  indeed  he  himself  he  not  so.  In 
1  Chron.  xxvii.  1,  the  name  of  the  office  alone  is  men- 
tioned.— MiCHAELlS. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Ver.  16.  But  lie  shall  not  multiply  horses  to  him- 
self, nor  cause  the  people  to  return  to  Egypt, 

^  to  the  end  that  he  should  multiply  horses  ;  for- 
asmuch as  the  Lord  hath  said  unto  you,  Ye 
shall  henceforth  return  no  more  that  way. 

The  king  was  not  to  keep  a  strong  body  of  cavalry,  nor 
an  immoderate  number  of  horses.  As  Palestine  was  a 
mountainous  country,  and  on  the  more  level  side  bounded 
by  the  Arabian  deserts,  in  which  an  enemy's  cavalry  could 
not  advance  for  want  of  forage,  a  powerful  cavalry  was 
almost  unnecessary  for  its  defence ;  and  nothing  but  the 
spirit  of  conquest  could  prompt  any  king  to  violate  the 
prohibition  of  Moses.  But  how  little  such  a  spirit  accord- 
ed with  the  views  of  their  divine  lawgiver,  we  have 
already  seen,  in  treating  of  the  boundaries  of  the  land. 
For  agricultural  purposes,  the  Israelites  made  no  use  of 
horses  ;  but  only  (which  in  an  economical  point  of  view  is 
far  more  profitable)  of  oxen  and  asses.  The  latter  were 
also  most  commonly  employed  as  beasts  of  burden  in  trav- 
elling; but  the  people  made  most  of  their  journeys  on  foot. 
A  king,  therefore,  could  have  no  occasion  for  a  great 
number  of  horses,  unless  he  had  it  in  view  to  carry  on 
foreign  wars. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  17.  Neither  shall  he  multiply  wives  to  him- 
self, that  his  heart  turn  not  away :  neither  shall 
he  greatly  multiply  to  himself  silver  and  gold. 

The  king  was  not  to  take  many  wives,  ver.  17.  This 
lav/  stands  most  in  need  of  illustration ;  for  as  Moses  did 
not  forbid  polygamy  to  the  Israelites  in  general,  it  could 
not  be  his  intention  to  confine  the  king  within  narrower 
limits,  m  this  respect,  than  the  citizen.  Most  probably, 
therefore,  Moses  had  no  objectiian  to  his  having  /bwr  wives, 
as  seems  to  have  been  allowed  to  every  Israelite.  Even 
the  high-priest,  Jehoiada,  of  whom  the  Bible  always  gives 
a  good  character,  gave  tioo  wives  to  King  Joash :  nor  did 
he  think  that  in  this  he  was  trespassing  the  Mosaic  precept, 
of  which  he  was  by  his  office  the  authentic  expounder; 
2  Chron.  xxiv.  3. — But  the  oriental  seraglio  now  goes  far 
beyond  this  moderate  polygamy.  There,  more  for  state 
than  for  connubial  purposes,  grant  multitudes  of  women 
are  brought  together,  and  compelled  to  be  miserable. 
Now  it  is  only  this  excessive  polygamy,  this  seraglio,  as  a 
part  of  royal  state,  that  Moses  appears  to  have  forbidden. 
The  nature  of  the  thing  itself  shows,  that  it  tends  to  make 
kings  effeminate  ;  and  history  confirms  this  to  a  much 
greater  extent  than  could  have  been  presupposed.  That  it 
exposes  a  reigning  family  to  ^e  danger  of  becoming  ex- 
tinct, we  have  at  present  a  proof  in  the  Turkish  empire ; 
for  of  the  house  of  Othman  there  are  so  few  heirs  remain- 
ing, that  now  (1774)  while  I  am  adding  this  remark  for  the 
second  edition,  they  are  apprehensive  of  losing  the  very 
last  of  them  in  infaiicy. — The  imitation  of  the  practice  too, 
by  people  of  rank  and  opulence,  carries  polygamy  to  such 
a  pitch,  that,  as  contributing  to  the  depopulation  of  a  coun- 
tiv,  it  is  much  more  destructive  than  even  the  pestilence. 
To  the  Mosaic  polity  it  was  peculiarly  unsuitable,  for  this 
15 


special  reason,  that  the  most  beautiful  women  of  all  nations 
are  collected  for  a  seraglio :  and  Moses,  as  he  expressly 
mentions,  was  afraid  lest  such  foreign  beauties  should  win 
the  heart  of  the  king,  and  make  him  a  proselyte  to  idolatry; 
and  that  his  fears  were  not  groundless,  the  example  of  Sol- 
omon is  a  striking  proof.  No  law  of  Moses  was  less  ob- 
served than  this.  It  would  appear  that  Saul  had  a  seraglio, 
and  that  too  belonging  to  him  as  king ;  for  David  (2  Sam. 
xii.  8)  is  said  to  have  succeeded  to  it.  David,  before  he 
was  King,  had,  besides  Michal,  other  two  wives,  Abigail 
and  Ahinoam,  2  Sam.  ii.  2.  His  first  wife,  Michal,  had 
indeed  been  taken  from  him  by  his  father-in-law  ;  but  he 
received  her  again  while  king  of  Judah.  But  after  he  had 
reigned  some  years  in  Hebron,  we  find  him,  besides  these, 
in  possession  of  four  new  wives,  Maacha,  Haggith,  Abital, 
and  Eglah,  2  Sam.  iii.  2 — 8.  This,  however,  was  but  a 
moderate  superabundance  for  the  king  of  a  single  tribe,  con- 
sidering, that  seven  years  after,  when  he  could  less  plead 
youth  and  passion  in  excuse,  we  find  him,  as  king  of  all 
Israel,  with  still  more  wives  and  concubines,  2  Sam.  v.  13; 
the  latter,  indeed,  in  such  numbers^  that  on  his  flight  from 
Absalom,  he  left  ten  of  them  to  look  after  the  palace,  2  Sam. 
XV.  16. — To  what  excess  Solomon,  the  father  of  but  one 
son,  carried  polygamy,  is  known  to  every  one  who  has  but 
heard  of  the  Bible.  It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  he  could 
have  knoxon  all  the  inmates  of  his  seraglio ;  indeed  it  re- 
quired a  good  memory  to  have  been  able  to  call  them  by 
their  names.  After  his  time,  we  have,  in  the  books  of  the 
Chronicles,  accounts  of  the  polygamy  of  the  kings,  not 
indeed  on  such  an  immoderate  and  magnificent  scale,  but 
still  far  exceeding  the  degree  permitted  by  Moses". — Mi- 
chaelis. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ver.  10.  There  shall  not  be  found  among  you 
any  one  that  maketh  his  son  or  his  daughter  to 
pass  through  the  fire,  or  that  useth  divination, 
or  an  observer  of  times,  or  an  enchanter,  or  a 
witch. 

All  idolatrous  ceremonies,  and  even  some  which,  though 
innocent  in  themselves,  might  excite  suspicions  of  idolatry, 
were  prohibited.  Of  these,  human  sacrifices  are  so  con- 
spicuous, as  really  the  most  abominable  of  all  the  crimes  to 
which  superstition  is  capable  of  hurrying  its  votaries,  in  de- 
fiance of  the  strongest  feelings  of  humanity,  that  I  must 
expatiate  a  little  upon  them.  For  this  species  of  cruelty  is 
so  unnatural,  that  to  many  readers  of  the  laws  of  Moses^  it 
has  appeared  incredible.  Against  no  other  sort  of  idola- 
try, are  the  Mosaic  prohibitions  so  rigorous,  as  against  this; 
and  yet  we  find  that  it  continued  among  the  Israelites  to  a 
very'late period;  for  even  the  prophets  Jeremiah  and  Eze- 
kiel,  who  survived  the  ruin  of  the  state,  and  wrote  in  the 
beginning  of  the  Babylonish  captivity,  take  notice  of  it,  and 
describe  it,  not  as  an  antiquated  or  obsolete  abomination,  but 
as  what  was  actually  in  use  but  a  little  before,  and  even 
during  their  own  times.  For  a  father  to  see  his  children 
suffering,  is  in  the  highest  degree  painful;  but  that  he 
should  ever  throw  them  to  the  flames,  appears  so  utterly 
improbable,  that  we  can  Jiardly  resist  the  temptation  of  de- 
claring any  narrative  of  such  inhuman  cruelty  an  absolute 
falsehood.  But  it  is  nevertheless  an  undoubted  fact,  that 
the  imitation  of  the  neighbouring  nations,  of  which  Moses 
expresses  such  anxious  apprehensions  in  his.  laws,  had,  in 
spite  of  all  the  punishments  denounced  against  it,  kept  up 
the  abominable  custom  of  offering  children  in  sacrifice ; 
and  hence  we  see  how  necessary  it  was  to  enact  the  most 
rigorous  laws  against  the  idolatry,  which  required  sacrifi- 
ces of  such  a  nature.  The  lives  of  children  were  to  be  se- 
cured against  the  fury  of  avaricious  priests,  and  the  fears 
of  silly  fools;  and  if  the  punishments  of  the  law  did  not 
completely  produce  that  effect,  we  can  hardly  avoid  think- 
ing, how  much  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  they  were  not  more 
severe.  To  many,  both  Jewish  and  Christian  expositors, 
it  has  appeared  so  incredible  that  the  Israelites  should  have 
sacrificed  their  own  children,  that  wherever,  in  the  laws, 
or  in  the  history,  they  find  the  expression,  making  their  sons 
pass  thro^tgh  the  fire  to  Moloch,  (for  it  was  chiefly  to  th'at  god 
that  human  sacrifices  were  offered,)  they  are  fain  to  explain 
it  on  the  more  humaneprincipleof  their  merely  dedicating 
their  sons  to  Moloch,  and  in  token  thereof,  making  them 
pass  between  two  sacrifice-fires^    In  confirmatioc  of  thas  ide;a, 


il4 


DEUTERONOMY, 


Chap.  18. 


the  Vulgate  version  of  Deut.  xviii.  10,  may  be  adduced ; 
Qui  kistret  filium  suum  aut  Jiliam,  ducens  per  ignem.  In 
this  way,  the  incredible  barbarity  of  human  sacrifices  would 
appear  to  have  no  foundation  in  truth ;  and  I  very  readily 
admit,  that  of  some  other  passages,  such  as  Lev.  xviii.  21. 
2  Kings  xxi.6.  xxiii.  10.  Jer.  xxxii.  35,  an  explanation  on  the 
«ame  principle  may  be  given  with  some  show  of  truth. — 
More  especially  with  regard  to  the  first  of  these  passages, 
.1  may  remark,  as  Le  Clerc  has  done  before  me,  that  we  find 
a  variety  of  lection  which  makes  a  material  alteration  of 
the  sense ;  for  instead  of  (■^"'^lyn")  Haobir,  to  cause  to  pass 
through,  the  Samaritan  text,  and  the  LXX.,  read  (^"2)7n) 
Haabid,  to  cause  to  serve,  or,  to  dedicate  to  the  service  of.  In 
my  German  version,  I  have,  on  account  of  this  uncertain- 
ty, here  made  use  of  the  general  term  Weihem,  to  dedicate, 
as  the  Vulgate  had  already  set  me  the  example,  in  render- 
ing the  clause,  De  semine  tuo  non  dabis,  ut  consecretur  idolo 
Moloch.  I  was  the  less  inclined  to  employ  the  term  burn 
here,  because  no  mention  is  made  of  fire,  transire  facere 
fer  ignem,  as  in  other  passages  ;  but  it  is  merely  said,  tran- 
sire facere.  At  the  same  time  I  really  believe,  from  the 
strain  of  other  passages  to  be  mentioned  immediately,  that 
burning  is  here  meant. — With  regard,  in  like  manner,  to 
2  Chron.  xxviii.  3,  where  it  is  expressly  said,  that  Ahaz 
had,  in  imitation  of  the  abominable  practice  of  the  nations 
whom  Jehovah  drove  out  before  the  Israelites,  burnt  his  sons 
with  fire,  the  weighty  objection  may  be  made,  that  there  is 
a  various  reading,  and  that,  instead  of  (^y^^i)  Veibor,  he 
burnt,  almost  all  the  ancient  versions,  such  as  the  LXX., 
Syriac,  Chaldee,  and  Vulgate,  had  read  (~>35;">i)  Veiober,  he 
'made  to  pass  through,  by  the  mere  transposition  of  the  sec- 
ond radical  into  the  place  of  the  first.  The  following 
passages,  however,  are  decisive  of  the  reality  of  sacrifi- 
cing their  children. 

1.  Ezek.  xvi.  21,  (where  we  find  the  first-mentioned  ex- 
pression,) Thou  hast  slain  my  sons,  and.  given  them,  to  cause 
them  pass  through  to  them.  Here  it  is  evident  thai,  to  pass 
through,  or  to  cause  to  pass  through  the  fire,  can  be  nothing 
else  than  burning,  because  the  sons  were  previously  slain. 

2.  The  passages  where  the  word  (jpv)  Saraf,  to  burn,  is 
used ;  and  where  no  suspicion  of  any  various  reading  can 
take  place  ;  Deut.  xii.  31.  Jer.  vii.  31.  xix.  5. 

'3.  Psalm  cvi.  37,  38.  "  Their  sons  and  daughters  they 
sacrificed  unto  devils.  They  shed  the  innocent  blood  of 
iJieir  children,  and  offered  it  to  the  gods  of  Canaan,  and 
the  land  was  profaned  with  blood." 

The  punishment  of  those  who  offered  human  sacrifices 
was  stoning;,  and  that,  as  I  think,  so  summarily,  that  the 
bystanders,  when  any  one  was  caught  in  such  an  act,  had 
alright  to  stone  him  to  death  on  the  spot,  without  any  judi- 
cial inquiry  whatever.  Whatever  Israelite,  says  Moses,  in 
Lev.  XX.  2,  or  stranger  dwelling  among  you,  gives  oiie  of  his 
children  to  Moloch,  shall  die  ;  his  neighbours  shall  stone  him,  to 
d^ath.  These  are  not  the  terms  in  which  Moses  usually 
speaks  of  the  punishment  of  stoning  judicially  inflicted ;  but, 
all  the  people  shall  stone  him ;  the  hands  of  the  witnesses'  shall  be 
the  first  upon  him.  Besides,  what  follows  a  little  after,  in 
verses  4  and  5,  does  not  appear  to  me  as  indicative  of  any 
thing  like  a  matter  of  judicial  procedure ;  If  the  neigh- 
hours  shut  their  eyes,  and  will  not'see  him  giving  his  children 
to  Moloch,  nor  put  him  to  dea.th,  God  himself  loill  be  the  aven- 
ger of  his  crime.  I  am  therefore  of  opinion,  that  in  regard 
to  this  most  extraordinary  and  most  unnatural  crime, 
which,  however,  could  not  be  perpetrated  in  perfect  secre- 
cy, Moses  meant  to  give  an  extraordinary  injunction,  and 
to  let  it  be  understood,  that  whenever  a  parent  was  about 
to  sacrifice  his  child,  the  first  person  who  observed  him 
was  to  hasten  to  its  help,  and  the  people  around  were  in- 
rtantly  to  meet,  and  to  stone  the  unpatural  monster  to  death. 
In  fact,  no  crime  so  justly  authorizes  extrajudicial  ven- 
geance, as  this  horrible  cruelty  perpetrated  on  a  helpless 
child ;  in  the  discovery  of  which  we  are  always  sure  to 
have  either  the  lifeless  victim  as  a  proof,  or  else  the  living 
testimony  of  a  witness  who  is  beyond  all  suspicion ;  and 
where  the  mania  of  human  sacriifices  prevailed  to  such  a 
pitch  as  among  the  Canaanites,  and  got  so  completely  the 
netter  of  all  the  feelings  of  nature,  it  was  necessary  to 
( ounteract  its  effects  by  a  measure  equally  extraordinary 
mid  summary. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  11.  Or  a  charmer,  or  a  consulter  with  fa- 
joaih'ar  spijits,  or  a  wizard,  or  a  necromaricer. 


Sorcery  is  the  fruitful  source  of  numerous  evils  in  the 
East.  Charms  and  counter-charms  call  for  the  ingenuity, 
the  property,  the  hopes,  and  fears  of  thousands.  They  are 
often  used  lo  efi'eci  ihe  most  diabolical  purposes,  and  many 
a  seduction  is  attributed  to  their  supernatural  power.  The 
prophet  Isaiah  gives  a  description  of  the  voice  of  a  famil- 
iar spirit,  and  of  its  proceedmg  like  a  whisper  from  the 
dust.  "  Thou  shalt  be  brought  down,  and  shalt  speak  out 
of  the  ground,  and  thy  speech  shall  be  low  out  of  the  dust, 
and  thy  voice  shall  be  as  of  one  that  hath  a  familiar  spirit, 
out  of  the  ground,  and  thy  speech  shall  whisper  out  of  the 
dust."  Isa.  xxix.  4.  The  margin  has,  for  whisper,  "  peep 
or  chirp."  Lev.  xix.  31.  1  Sam.  xxviii.  7.  The  deluded 
Hindoos,  in  great  emergencies,  have  recourse  to  familiar 
spirits,  for  the  purpose  of  knowing  how  they  may  avoid  the 
evil  which  is  expected,  or  has  in  part  already  come.  In 
the  distraction  of  their  minds,  they  run  to  the  "  consulter 
with  familiar  spirits,"  make  known  their  desperate  case, 
and  entreat  him  to  lend  his  assistance.  Those  "  wizards 
that  peep  and  that  mutter,"  and  who  seek  "  for  the  living 
to  the  dead,"  Isa.  viii.  19,  are  generally  frightful  in  their 
persons,  and  disgusting  in  their  manners.  See  the  aged 
impostor,  with  a  staff  in  his  hand:  his  person  bent  by 
years  ;  his  wild,  piercing,  cat-like  eye ;  a  scowling,  search- 
ing look;  a  clotted  beard ;  a  toothless  mouth  ;  dishevelled 
hair  ;  a  mumbling  unearthly  voice  ;  his  more  than  half-na- 
ked body,  covered  with  ashes;  a  wild  unsteady  gait,  joined 
with  the  other  insignia  of  his  office; — give  a  fearful  inliu- 
ence  to  his  infernal  profession.  A  man  who  is  in  distress, 
and  who  has  resolved  to  consult  with  a  familiar  spirit, 
sends  for  two  magicians:  the  one  is  called  the  Mavihera- 
vdthe,  i.  e.  he  who  repeats  the  incantations;  the  other,  the 
Anjanam-Pdrkeravan,  i.  e.  he  who  looks,  and  who  answers 
to  the  questions  of  the  former.  His  hand  is  rubbed  with 
the  Anjanam,  which  is  made  of  the  burnt  bones  of  the 
sloth,  and  the  scull  of  a  virgin  ;  and  when  the  ceremonies 
have  commenced,  he  looks  steadily  into  his  hand,  and  can 
never  wink  or  take  off  his  eyes  till  all  shall  be  finished. 
On  the  ground  are  placed  rice,  cocoa-nuts,  plantains,  areca 
nuts,  betel  leaves,  milk,  camphire,  and  frankincense.  The 
chief  magician  then,  with  a  loud  voice,  begins  to  invoke  the 
nine  gods — Ammon,  Pullidr,  Scandan,  Aiyenar,  lyaner, 
Veerapatteran,  Anjana,  Anuman,  Viraver.  He  then  falls 
to  the  earth  (as  do  all  present)  nine  times,  and  begins  to 
whisper  and  "mutter,"  while  his  face  is  in  the  "dust," 
and  he  who  looks  in  the  hand  "  peeps"  and  stares  for  the 
beings  who  have  to  appear.  All  then  stand  up,  and  the 
first  wizard  asks  the  second,  "  What  do  you  see  V  He  re- 
plies, "  My  hand  is  cracked,  has  opened,  and  I  see  on  the 
groimd."  "What  else  do  you  see?" — "All  around  me  is 
light — come,  Pulliar,  come."  "  He  comes  !  he  comes  !" 
(His  person,  shape,  and  dress,  are  then  described.)  The 
other  eight  gods  are  now  entreated  to  appear ;  and  as  they 
approach,  the  second  person  says,  "They  come!  they 
come  !"  and  they  are  invited  to  be  seated  in  the  places  pre- 
pared for  them.  The  first  magician  then  inquires  of  the 
assembled  gods,  what  is  the  cause  of  the  affliction,  adversi- 
ty, or  danger  of  the  person,  for  whom  the  ceremonies  have 
been  instituted  1  He  who  "  peeps"  in  the  hand  then  re- 
plies, and  mentions  the  name  of  the  evil  spirit,  who  has 
produced  all  the  mischief  The  malignant  troubler  is 
summoned  to  appear,  and  to  depart ;  but  should  he  refuse, 
he  is  bound,  and  carried  off  by  the  gods.  Is  it  not  probable 
that  Saul,  and  the  woman  who  had  "  a  familiar  spirit  at 
Endor,"  were  engage^  in  a  similar  way  1  Saul  was  in 
great  distress,  for  the  Lord  would'  neither  answer  him  "  by 
dreams,  nor  by  Urim,  nor  by  prophets;"  and  being  wound 
up  to  desperation,  he  determined  to  consult  "  with  familiar 
spirits."  He  took  "  two  men"  with  him,  who  were  proba- 
bly qualified  like  the  two  used  by  the  Hindoos.  From  the 
fear  which  the  woman  showed,  it  is  probable  her  incanta- 


tions had  not  exactly  answered  her  expectations,  because  . 

ytce"  when  she  saw  Samuel,  pr 
vingthat  she  did  not  expect  to  see  him,  and  that,  therefore, 


"  she  cried  with  a  loud  voice"  when  she  saw  Samuel,  prt> 


he  was  sent  by  some  other  power;  Saul  inquired,  "  What 
sawest  thou  1"  which  agrees  with  the  question  proposed  by 
the  first  magician  to  his  assistant,  as  to  what  he  saw  through 
the  crack  of  his  hand  in  the  earth.  The  witch  then  replied 
to  Saul,  "  I  saw  gods  ascending  out  of  the  earth,"  which 
naturally  reminds  u^>  of  the  nine  gods  which  are  believed 
to  ascend  after  the  incantations  of  the  wizard.  Saul  then 
asked,  "  What  form  is  he  of  1"  and  the  witch  said  he  was 


J 


Ghap.  19—21. 


DEUTERONOMY. 


115 


old,  and  covered  with  a  mantle,  which  also  finds  a  parallel 
in  the  description  of  "  the  shape  and  dress"  given  of  Pulliar 
by  the  second  magician.  I  am,  therefore,  of  opinion,  that 
God  allowed  Samuel  to  come  to  Saul,  or  sent  him ;  and 
that  the  witch  was  confounded  and  terrified  at  the  result  of 
her  incantations. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Ver.  14.  Thou  shalt  not  remove  thy  neighbour's 
land-mark,  which  they  of  old  time  have  set  in 
thine  inheritance,  which  thou  shalt  inherit  in  the 
land  that  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee  to  pos- 
sess it. 

When  the  sons  of  Israel  had  conquered  the  land  of  prom- 
ise, it  was,  by  the  divine  command,  surveyed  and  divi- 
ded by  lot,  first  among  the  twelve  tribes ;  and  then  the  por- 
tion of  each  tribe  was  laid  out  in  separate  inheritances, 
according  to  the  number  of  the  families  composing  the 
tribe  ;  and  thus  every  man  in  the  nation  had  his  field,  which 
he  was  directed  to  cultivate  for  the  support  of  himself  and 
his  family.  To  prevent  mistake  and  litigation,  these  fields 
were  marked  off  by  stones  set  up  on  the  limits,  which 
could  not  be  removed  without  incurring  the  wrath  of  heav- 
en. The  divine  command,  in  relation  to  this  matter, 
runs  in  these  terms.  "  Thou  shalt  not  remove  thy  neigh- 
bour's land-mark,  which  they  of  old  time  have  set  in  thine 
inheritance,  which  thou  shalt  inherit  in  the  land  which  the 
Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee  to  possess."  In  Persia,  land- 
jnarks  are  still  used:  in  the  journey  from  Arzroum  to 
Amasia,  Morier  found  the  boundaries  of  each  man's  pos- 
session, here  and  there,  marked  by  large  stones.  Land- 
marks were  used  in  Greece  long  before  the  age  of  Homer ; 
for  when  Minerva  fought  with  Mars,  she  seized  with  her 
powerful  hand,  a  piece  of  rock,  lying  in  the  plain,  black, 
rugged  and  large,  which  ancient  men  had  placed  to  mark 
-he  boundary  of  the  field. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XX. 
Ver.  19.  When  thou  shalt  besiege  a  city  a  long 
time,  in  making  war  against  it  to  take  it,  thou 
shalt  not  destroy  the  trees  thereof  by  forcing 
an  axe  against  them :  for  thou  mayest  eat  of 
theni,  and  thou  shalt  not  cut  them  do\vn,  (for 
the  tree  of  the  field  is  man's  life,)  to  employ 
them  in  the  siege. 

Can  it  be  a  matter  of  surprise  that  the  Orientals  have  a 
great  aversion  to  cut  down  any  tree  which  bears  fruit,  when 
it  is  known  that  they  principally  live  on  vegetable  produc- 
tions 1  Ask  a  man  to  cut  down  a  cocoa-nut  or  palmirah 
tree,  and  he  will  say,  (except  when  in  want,  or  to  oblige  a 
great  person,)  "  What !  destroy  that  which  gives  me  food? 
from  which  I  have  thatch  for  my  house  to  defend  me  from 
the  sun  and  the  rain '?  which  gives  me  oil  for  my  lamp,  a 
ladle  for  my  kitchen,  and  charcoal  for  my  fire?  from  which 
I  have  sugar  for  my  board,  baskets  for  my  fruits,  a  bucket 
for  my  well,  a  mat  for  my  bed,  a  pouch  for  my  betel  leaf, 
leaves  for  my  books,  a  fence  for  my  yard,  and  a  broom  for 
my  house'?  Destroy  such  a  tree  1  Go  to  some  needy  wretch 
who  has  pledged  his  last  jewel,  and  who  is  anxious  to  eat 
his  last  meal." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Ver.  6.  And  all  the  elders  of  that  city,  that  are 
next  unto  the  slain  ma?i,  shall  wash  their  hands 
over  tlie  heifer  that  is  beheaded  in  the  valley. 

When  a  great  man  refuses  to  grant  a  favour  to  a  friend 
or  relation,  the  latter  asks,  "  What !  are  you  going  to  wash 
your  hands  of  me?"  "  Ah  !  he  has  washed  bis  hands  of 
all  his  relations ;"  which  means,  he  will  not  have  any  thing 
more  to  do  with  them ;  he  is  entirely  free,  and  will"  not  be 
accountable  for  them.  Hence  the  Tamul  proverb,  Avon 
elldtilum  kai  kaluvi  nitkerdn,  i.  e.  "  He  has  washed  his 
hands  of  all."— Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  Then  thou  shalt  bring  her  home  to  thy 
house,  and  she  shall  shave  her  head,  and  pare 
her  nails;   13.  And  she  shall  put  the  raiment 


of  her  captivity  from  off  her,  and  shall  remain 
in  thy  house,  and  bewail  her  father  and  her 
mother  a  full  month :  and  after  that  thou  shalt 
go  in  unto  her,  and  be  her  husband,  and  she 
shall  be  thy  wife. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  pare  her  nails,  "  or  suffer  7C 
GROW  ;"  which  is,  I  doubt  not,  the  true  meaning.  This  wo- 
man was  a  prisoner  of  war,  and  was  about  to  become  the 
wife  of  the  man  who  had  taken  her  captive.  Having  thus 
been  taken  from  her  native  land,  having  had  to  leave  her 
earliest  and  dearest  connexions,  and  now  to  become  the 
wife  of  a  foreigner,  and  an  enemy,  she  would  naturally  be 
overwhelmed  with  grief.  To  acquire  a  better  view  of  hei 
state,  let  any  woman  consider  herself  in  similar  circum- 
stances. She  accompanies  her  husband,  or  father,  to  the 
battle ;  the  enemy  becomes  victorious,  and  she  is  carried 
off  by  the  hand  of  a  ruthless  stranger,  and  obliged  to  sub- 
mit to  his  desires.  Poignant  indeed  would  be  the  sorrow 
of  her  mind*.  The  poor  captive  was  to  "  shave  her  head"  in. 
token  of  her  distress,  which  is  a  custom  in  all  parts  of  the 
East  at  this  day.  A  son  on  the  death  of  his  father,  or  a 
woman  on  the  decease  of  her  husband,  has  the  head  shaved 
in  token  of  sorrow.  To  shave  the  head  also,  is  a  punish- 
ment inflicted  on  females  for  certain  crimes.  The  fair 
captive,  then,  as  a  sign  of  her  misery,  was  to  shave  her 
head,  because  her  father  or  mother  was  among  the  slain, 
or  in  consequence  of  having  become  a  prisoner  of  war. 
It  showed  her  sorrow  ;  and  was  a  token  of  her  submission. 
(See  also  Job  i.  20.  See  on  2  Chronicles  xvi.  14.  Isa.  vii. 
20,  and  xviii.  2.)  But  this  poor  woman  was  to  suffer  her 
nails  to  grow,  as  an  additional  emblem  of  her  distress. 
That  it  does  not  mean  she  was  to  pare  her  nails,  as  the 
text  has  it,  is  established  by  the  custom  in  the  East,  of  al- 
lowing them  to  grow,  when  in  sorrow.  The  marginal 
reading,  therefore,  would  have  been  much  better  for  the 
text.  When  people,  either  in  the  church  or  state,  are  per- 
forming penance,  or  are  in  captivity,  or  disgrace,  or  pris- 
on, or  are  devotees,  they  suffer  their  nails  to  grow ;  and 
some  may  be  seen;  as  were  those  of  the  monarch  of  Baby- 
lon, in  his  sorrow,  "  like  birds'  claws,"  literally  folding 
round  the  ends  of  the  fingers,  or  shooting  through  the  backs 
of  their  hands.  But  when  men  fast,  which  is  sometimes 
done  for  one  or  two  years,  or  when  husbands  fast  during 
their  wives'  first  pregiiancy,  they  suffer  their  nails  to  grow ; 
also  a'female,  when  in  sorrow  from  other  causes,  does  not 
"pare  her  nails"  until  she  has  performed  the  ceremony  call- 
ed Antherette. — Roberts. 

There  is  a  passage  in  Deuteronomy  xxi.  12,  about  the 
sense  of  which  our  translators  appear  to  have  been  extreme- 
ly uncertain :  translating  one- clause  of  the  12th  verse,  a^ul 
pare  her  nails,  in  the  text ;  and  the  margin  giving  the  claust; 
a  quite  opposite  sense,  "  suffer  to  grow."  So  that,  according 
to  them,  the  words  signify,  that  the  captived  woman  should 
be  obliged,  in  the  case  referred  to  by  Moses,  to  pare  her 
nails,  or,  to  suffer  them  to  gr(hc,  but  they  could  not  tell  which 
of  th6sei  two  contradictory  things  the  Jewish  legislator  re- 
quired; the  Jewish  doctors  are,  in  like  manner,  divided  in 
their  opinion  on  this  subject.  To  me  it  seems  very  plain, 
that  it  was  not  a  management  of  afl^iction  and  mourning 
that  was  enjoined;  such  an  interpretation  agrees  not  witli 
the  putting  off  the  raiment  of  her  captivity ;  but  then  I  very 
much  question  whether  the  paring  her  nails  takes  in  the 
whole  of  the  intention  of  Moses.  The  precept  of  the  law 
was,  that  she  should  make  her  nails:  so  the  Hebrew  words 
literally  signify.  Making  her  nails,  signifies  making  her 
nails  neat,  beautifying  them,  making  them  pleasing  to  the 
sight,  or  scmething  of  that  sort :  dressing  them  is  the  word 
our  translators  have  chosen,  according  to  the  margin.  The 
2  Sam.  xix.  24,  which  the  critics  have  cited  on  this  occa- 
sion, plainly  proves  this  :  "  Mephibosheth,  the  son  of  Saul, 
came  down  to  meet  the  king,  and  had  neither  made  his 
feet,  nor  made  his  beard,  nor  washed  his  clothes,  from  the 
day  the  kingdeparted,  until  the  day  he  came  again  m  peace." 
It  is  the  same  word  with  that  in  the  text,  and  our  translator  «j 
have  rendered  it  in  one  clause  dressed,  in  the  margin  of 
Deut.  xxi.  dressed  his  feet:  and  in  the  other  trimmed,  nor 
trimmed  his  heard.  Making  the  feet,  seems  here  to  mean 
washing  the  feet,  paring  their  nails,  perhaps  anointing,  or 
otherwise  perfuming  them,  as  he  was  a  prince;  see  Luke 
vii.  46.  As  making  his  beard  may  mean  combing,  curling, 


16 


DEUTERONOMY. 


Chap.  22. 


perfuming  it ;  every  thing,  in  a  word,  that  those  that  were 
people  of  distinction,  and  in  a  state  of  joy,  were  wont  to  do. 
Making  her  ruiils,  undoubtedly  means  paring  them  ;  but  it 
must  mean  too  every  thing  else  relating  to  them,  that  was 
wont  to  be  done  for  the  beautifying  them,  and  rendering 
them  beautiful.  We  have  scarcely  any  notion  of  any  thing 
else  but  paring  them ;  biit  the  modern  eastern  women  have ; 
they  stain  them  with  the  leaves  of  an  odoriferous  plant, 
which  they  call  Al-henna,  of  a  red,  or,  as  others  express  it, 
a  tawny  saffron  colour.  But  it  may  be  thought,  that  is  only 
a  modern  mode  of  adorning  their  nails  :  Hasselquist,  how- 
ever, assures  us,  it  was  an  ancient  oriental  practice.  "  The 
Al-henna,"  he  tells  us,  "  grows  in  India,  and  in  Upper  and 
Lower  Egypt,  flowering  from  May  to  August.  The  leaves 
are  pulverized,  and  made  into  a  paste  with  water:  they 
bind  this  paste  on  the  nails  of  their  hands  and  feet,  and 
keep  it  on  all  night.  This  gives  them  a  deep  yellow,  which 
is  greatly  admired  by  the  eastern  nations.  The  colour 
lasts  for  three  or  four  weeks,  before  there  is  occasion  to  re- 
new it.  The  custom  is  so  ancient  in  Egypt,  that  I  have 
seen  the  nails  of  mummies  died  in  this  manner.  The  pow- 
der is  exported  in  large  quantities  yearly,  and  may  be 
reckoned  a  valuable  commodity."  It  appears  by  this  to  be 
a  very  ancient  practice ;  and  since  mummies  were  before 
the  time  of  Moses,  this  custom  of  dying  the  nails  might  be 
as  ancient  too ;  though  we  do  not  suppose  the  mummies  Has- 
selquist saw,  with  their  nails  thus  coloured,  were  so  old  as 
his  time. 

If  it  was  practised  in  Egypt  before  the  law  was  given, 
we  may  believe  the  Israelites  adopted  it,  since  it  appears 
to  be  a  most  universal  custom  now  in  the  eastern  coun- 
tries :  Dr.  Shaw  observing  that  all  the  African  ladies  that 
can  purchase  it,  make  use  ©f  it,  reckoning  it  a  great  beauty ; 
as  we  learn  from  Rauwolff,  it  appears  also  to  the  Asiatic 
females.  I  cannot  but  think  it  most  probable  then,  that 
making  the  nails,  signifies  tinging  as  well  as  paring  them. 
Paring  alone,  one  would  imagine  too  trifling  a  circum- 
stance to  be  intended  here.  No  commentator,  however, 
that  I  know  of,  has  taken  any  notice  of  ornamenting  the 
nails  by  colouring  them.  As  for  shaving  the  head,  which 
is  joined  with  making  the  nails,  it  was  a  rite  o.f  cleansing, 
as  appears  from  Lev.  xiv.  8,  9,  and  Num.  vi.  9,  and  used 
by  those  v/ho,  after  having  been  in  an  afflicted  and  squalid 
state,  appeared  before  persons  to  whom  they  desired  to 
render  themselves  acceptable,  and  who  were  also  wont  to 
change  their  raiment  on  the  same  occasion.  See  Gen.  xli. 
14. — Harmer. 

Ver.  17.  But  he  shall  acknowledge  Ihe  son  of 
the  hated  for  the  first-born,  by  giving  him  a 
double  portion  of  all  that  he  hath:  for  he  zsthe 
beginning  of  his  strength;  the  right  of  the 
first-born  is  his. 

Next  to  the  father,  the  first-born  of  a  family  possessed 
the  greatest  rights.  There  were  not,  however,  in  a  family 
as  many  first-born  as  mothers ;  in  other  words,  fo  be  so 
called,  It  was  not  enough  that  a  man  should  be  the  first 
Irait  of  the  mother,  or,  as  the  Hebrews  term  it,  Pheter  Re- 
ckem,  (om  -itas)  but  that  he  should,  at  the  same  time,  be  the 
first  son  of  bis  father,  who  was  called  Becor,  (-»^33)  ai.d  the 
hegimiing  of  his  strength.  The  law  of  Deut.  xxi.  15 — 17, 
places  this  beyond  dAubt,  and  the  familv  history  of  Jacob 
confirms  it.  For  though  Jacob  had  four  wives,  and  chil- 
dren by  them  all,  yet  he  gave  the  birthright  to  one  son  only, 
1  Chron.  v.  1,  2.  That  right  Reuben  had  forfeited  by  a 
great  crime  ;  but  if  he  had  not  done  so,  he  would  certainly 
have  been  considered  as  the  only  first-born,  as  he  alone  is 
indeed  called  so  in  the  history,  Gen.  xlix.  3.  If,  instead  of 
this,  the  first  son  of  every  mother  had  been  denominated 
the  first-born,  it  would  have  been  impossible  that,  among  a 
people  consisting  of  600,000  adult  males,  and  where  there 
mast  have  been  at  least  300,000  males  above  20  years  of 
age,  there  could  be  numbered  no  more  than  22,000  first- 
born of  a  month  old,  and  above  it;  because  this  would  have 
required  that  every  mother,  one  with  another,  had  brought 
40  (but  because  it  is  so  incredible  I  will  write  the  word  at 
length,  /or^y)  children  into  the  world.  In  my  Dissertation, 
r>e  Censihis  Uebrdornm,  to  which  I  here  refer  the  reader, 
I  have  illustrated  this  point  at  greater  length.  How  the  mat- 
ter was  settled  when  a  father  had  his  first-born  son  by  a 


widow,  that  had  had  children  by  her  former  marriage,  1 
do  not  historically  know  ;  but  this'much  is  certain,  that  such 
son  could  not  be  called  Pheter  Bechem,  the  first-fruit  of 
the  mother ;  and,  therefore,  could  be  none  of  the  first-born 
who,  by  the  Levitical  law,  (Exod.  xiii.  12.  Numb.  iii.  40— 
51,)  were  consecrated  to  the  Lord ;  but  still  he  probably 
enjoyed  the  rights  of  a  first-born  in  relation  to  his  brothers. 
This,  however,  was  a  case  that  could  rarely  occur,  because 
it  appears  that  the  Hebrews  seldom  married  widows  who 
had  been  mothers  ;  although  I  do  find  one  example  of  such 
a  marriage.  Besides  his  double  share  of  the  inheritance, 
the  first-born  in  patriarchal  families  had  great  privileges, 
and  a  sort  of  authority  over  his  l^rethren  ;  just  as  at  present 
an  Arab  emir  is,  for  the  most  part,  only  the  first-born  oj 
the  first-horn  of  his  family,  and,  as  such,  rules  a  horde,  com- 
posed merely  of  his  kinsmen.  This  was  also  the  case  under 
the  Mosaic  polity,  though  with  some  limitation  in  point  of 
authority ;  and  hence  we  find  in  the  genealogies  of  the  first 
book  of  Chronicles,  the  first-bom  is  often  likewise  termed 
the  head  (iPfs-^n)  of  the  family ;  and  in  chap.  xxvi.  10,  it  is 
stated  as  a  circumstance  somewhat  singular  and  unusual, 
that  a  father  constituted  one,  who  was  not  a  first-born, 
the  head.  How  much  further  these  rights  extended,  I  know 
not,  excepting  only  in  this  particular,  that  the  first-born  was 
only  the  head  of  the  lesser  family. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  19.  Then  shall  his  father  and  his  mother 
lay  hold  on  him,  and  bring  him  out  unto  the 
elders  of  the  city,  and  unto  the  gate  of  his  place. 

The  gates  of  cities,  in  these  days,  and  for  many  ages  af- 
ter, were  the  places  of  judicature  and  common  resort. 
Here  the  governors  and  elders  of  the  city  went  to  hear 
complaints,  administer  justice,  make  conveyances  of  titles 
and  estates,  and,  in  short,  to  transact  all  the  public  afiairs  of 
the  place.  And  from  hence  is  that  passage  in  the  Psalmist, 
"  They  shall  not  be  ashamed  when  they  speak  to  their  ene- 
mies in  the  gate."  (Ps.  cxxvii.  5.)  It  is  probable  that  the 
room,  or  hall,  where  the  magistrates  sat,  was  over  the  gate, 
because  Boaz  is  said  to  go  up  to  the  gate  ;  and  the  reason 
of  having  it  built  there,  seems  to  have  been  for  the  con- 
venience of  the  inhabitants,  who,  being  all  husbandmen, 
and  forced  to  pass  and  repass  every  morning  and  evening 
as  they  went  and  came  from  their  labour,  might  be  more 
easily  called,  as  they  went  by,  whenever  they'were  wanted 
to  appear  in  any  business.— Burder. 

Ver.  23.  His  body  shall  not  remain  all  night 
upon  the  tree,  but  thou  shalt  in  anywise  bury 
him  that  day. 

An  Englishman  is  astonished  in  the  East,  to  see  how  soon 
after  death  the  corpse  is  buried.  Hence  a  new-comer,  on 
hearing  of  the  death  of  a  servant,  or  native  officer,  who 
died  in  the  morning,  and  who  is  to  be  interred  in  the  even- 
ing, is  almost  disposed  to  interfere  with  what  is  to  him  ap- 
parently a  barbarous  practice.  When  the  cholera  prevails, 
it  is  truly  appalling  to  see  a  man  in  one  hour  in  health,  and 
the  next  carried  to  his  long-home.  The  reason  assigned 
for  this  haste  is  the  heat  of  the  climate. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Ver.  4.  Thou  shalt  not  see  thy  brother's  ass  oi 

his  ox  fall  down  by  the  way,  and  hide  thysel 

from  them :  thou  shalt  surely  help  him  to  li( 

them  up  again. 

Whoever  saw  a  beast  tottering  or  lying  under  the  weighl? 
of  his  burden,  was  bound  to  help  him ;  and  that  with  the 
same  exertion  and  perseverance  as  the  owner  himself  was 
doing,  or  would  have  done.    Nor  durst  he  (for  this  the, 
words  of  Moses  seem  to  imply)  desist,  but  irith  the  owner 
that  is,  until  the  owner  himself  left  the  beast,  seeing  hin 
past  relief,  Exod.  xxiii.  5.    Both  these  were  incumbent  di? 
ties  even  when  the  beast  belonged  to  an  enemy;  and  thi 
passages  above  referred  to,  expressly  mention  tlie  ox  an( 
ass  of  an  enemy.     This  is  reasonable ;  for  we  expect  tha 
even  our  enemy  will  be  hurnane  enough  to  foreget  his  en< 
mity,  and  give  us  his  aid  in  a  time  of  need,  or,  at  any  rate 
that  he  will  not  be  so  little  as  to  extend  his  enmity  to  i 
beast  quite  innocent  of  our  quarrel,  and  that  lies  in  distre 


Chap.  22. 


DEUTERONOMY. 


117 


before  his  eyes.  What  we  expect,  we  should  do  in  our 
turn ;  and  if  we  will  not  listen  to  the  suggestions  of  moral 
obligation,  still  we  must  see,  that  among  a  nation  of  hus- 
bandmen and  herdsmen,  it  was  a  matter  of  great  import- 
ance to  preserve  the  lives  of  work-beasts.  And  upon  the 
same  principle,  we  might  perhaps  be  enjoined  to  extinguish, 
if  need  were,  a  fire  in  our  enemy's  house,  as  if  it  were  our 
own.  How  humane  soever  this  law  of  Moses  may  appear, 
we  must  at  the  same  time  recollect,  that  it  was  not  given  to 
a  people  like  ourselves,  but  to  a  people  among  whom  every 
individual  generally  had  cattle ;  so  that  they  could  not  but  be 
iniliienced  by  the  great  duty  of  reciprocity,  which  among  us, 
at  least  in  towns,  does  not  here  hold,  because  but  few  have 
cattle. — Amon^  the  Israelites,  none  almost  could  be  so  unac- 
c  nstomed  to  their  management,  or  to  their  relief  in  distress,  as 
our  town's-people  are.  This  last  circumstance  is  peculiarly 
deserving  of  notice.  I  grant  that  such  a  law  would,  in  Ger- 
]nany,  be  a  very  strange  one,  if  accompanied  with  no  limita- 
tion to  certain  classes  of  the  community ;  for  he  who  is  not 
from  his  infancy  conversant  withbeasts,  seldom  acquires  the 
confidence  or  dexterity  requisite  for  their  aid  when  in  dan- 
ger, without  hurting  himself  He,  perhaps,  sits  perfectly  well 
(ai  horseback,  and  can  do  all  that  belongs  to  a  good  rider, 
when  mounted;  but  to  help  up  with  a  horse  fallen  down 
uncier  his  load,  or  to  stop  one  that  has  run  off,  would  not 
be  his  forte. — Add  to  this,  that  among  us,  neither  the  ox, 
nor  the  ass,  but  the  horse  alone,  is  so  honourable,  that  a 
gentleman  could  help  up  with  him,  without  demeaning  him- 
self, and  being  laughed  at.  But  among  a  nation  of  farm- 
ers, who  ploughed  with  oxen  and  asses,  and  where  there 
were  no  hereditary  noblesse,  such  a  foolish  idea,  which  a 
legislator  must  have  attended  to,  could  have  no  place. 

We  shall  find  that  Moses,  throughout  his  laws,  mani- 
fests even  towards  animals  a  spirit  of  justice  and  kind- 
ness, and  inculcates  the  avoidance,  not  only  of  actual 
cruelty,  but  even  of  its  appearance.  A  code  of  civil  law 
does  not,  indeed,  necessarily  provide  for  the  rights  of  ani- 
mals, because  they  are  not  citizens ;  but  still,  the  way  in 
'Which  animals  are  treated,  so  strongly  influences  the  man- 
ners and  sentiments  of  a  people  even  towards  their  fellow- 
creatures,  (for  he  who  habitually  acts  with  cruelty  and  want 
of  feeling  to  beasts,  will  soon  become  cruel  and  hard-heart- 
'cd  to  men,)  that  a  legislator  will  sometimes  find  it  necessary 
;to  attend  to  it,  to  prevent  his  people  from  becoming  savage. 

MiCHAELIS, 

Ver.  6.  If  a  bird's-nest  chance  to  be  before  thee 
in  the  way  in  any  tree,  or  on  the  ground, 
whether  they  be  young  ones  or  eggs,  and  the 
dam  sitting  upon  the  young  or  upon  the  eggs, 
thou  shalt  not  take  the  dam  with  the  young, 
7.  But  thou  shalt  in  anywise  let  the  dam  go, 
,  and  take  the  young  to  thee ;  that  it  may  be  well 
with  thee,  and  that  thou  mayest  prolong  thy 
days. 

It  is  the  command  of  Moses,  that  if  a  person  find  a 
bird's-nest  in  the  way,  whether  on  a  tree  or  on  the  ground, 
•though  he  may  take  the  eggs,  or  the  young,  he  shall  not 
take  the  mother,  but  always  allow  her  to  escane.  It  is  clear 
that  he  here  speaks,  not  of  those  birds  whicli  nestle  upon 
people's  property;  in  other  words,  that  he  does  not,  for  in- 
.'stance,  prohibit  an  Israelite  from  totally  destroying  a  spar- 
jrow's  or  a  swallow's  nest,  that  might  happen  to  be  trouble- 
jsome  to  him,  or  to  extirpate  to  the  utmost  of  his  power  the 
birds  that  infested  his  field  or  vineyard.  He  merely  en- 
joins what  one  was  to  do  on  finding  such  nests  on  the  v:mj, 
that  is,  loithout  one's  property :  thus  guarding  against  either 
the  utter  extinction,  or  too  great  diminution  of  any  species 
of  bird  indigenous  to  the  country.  And  this  in  some  coun- 
jtries  is  still,  with  respect  to  partridges,  an  established  rule  ; 
which,  without  a  special  law,  is  observed  by  every  real 
sportsman,  and  the  breach  of  which  subjects  him  to  the  re- 
proaches of  his  brethren.  ]Nor  would  any  further  illustra- 
^tion  be  necessary,  if  Moses  spoke  only  of  edible  birds,  and 
^as  if  merely  concerned  for  their  preservation.  But  this  is 
,not  the  case.  His  expression  is  so  general,  that  we  must 
'needs  understand  it  of  all  birds  whatever,  even  those  that 
;are  most  destructive,  besides  what  are  properly  birds  of 
|prey.  And  here  many  readers  may  think  it  strange,  that 
i Moses  should  be  represented  as  providing  for  the  preser- 


vation of  noxious  birds;  yet,  in  fact,  nothing  can  be  more 
conformable  to  legislative  wisdom,  especially  on  the  intro- 
duction of  colonies  into  a  new  country.  To  extirpate,  or 
even  to  persecute,  to  too  great  an  extent,  any  species  of 
birds  in  such  a  country,  from  an  idea,  often  too  hastily  en- 
tertained, of  its  being  hostile  to  the  interests  of  the  inhabit- 
ants, is  a  measure  of  very  doubtful  policy.  It  ought,  in 
general,  to  be  considered  as  a  part  of  Nature's  bounty,  be- 
stowed for  some  important  purpose  ;  but  what  that  is,  we 
certainly  discover  too  late,  when  it  has  been  extirpated,  and 
the  evil  consequences  of  that  measure  are  begun  to  be  felt. 
In  this  matter,  the  legislator  should  take  a  lesson  from  the 
naturalist.  Linnagus,  whom  all  will  allow  to  be  a  perfect 
master  in  the  science  of  natural  history,  has  made  the  above 
remark  in  his  Dissertation,  entitled,  Historia  Naimralis  cui 
Bono  ?  and  gives  two  remarkable  examples  to  confirm  it : 
the  one,  in  the  case  of  the  Little  Crmo  of  Virginia,  {Gracv^ 
la  Quiscnla,)  extirpated,  at  great  expense,  on  account  of  its 
supposed  destructive  effects,  and  which  the  inhabitants 
would  soon  gladly  have  re-introduced  at  double  expense; 
the  other,  in  that  of  the  Egyptian  Vulture,  orRacham,  (  Vultur 
Percnopterus,  Linn.)  In  the  city  of  Cairo,  every  place  is  so 
full  of  dead  carcasses,  that  the  stench  of  them  would  not  fail 
to  produce  putrid  diseases;  and  where  the  caravans  trav^el,. 
dead  asses  and  camels  are  always  lying.  The  liacham, 
which  molests  no  living  thing,  consumes  these  carcasses,  and 
clears  the  country  of  them  ;  and  it  even  follows  the  track  of 
the  caravan  to  Mecca,  for  the  same  purpose :  and  so  grate- 
ful are  the  people  for  theserviceit  thusdoesthecountry,that 
devout  and  opulent  Mohammedans  are  wont  to  establish 
foundations  for  its  support,  by  providing  for  the  expense  of  a 
certain  number  of  beasts  to  be  daily  killed,  and  given  every 
morning  and  evening  to  the  immense  flocks  of  Radiants 
that  resort  to  the  place  where  criminals  are  executed,  and 
rid  the  city,  as  it  would  seem,  of  their  carcasses  in  like  man- 
ner. These  eleemosjmary  institutions,  and  the  sacred  re- 
gard shown  to  these  birds  by  the  Mohammedans,  are  like- 
wise testified  by  Dr.  Shaw,  in  his  Trave.'s.  These  exam- 
ples serve  pretty  strongly  to  show,  that  in  respect,  at  least, 
to  birds,  we  ought  to  place  as  much  confidence  in  the  wis- 
dom and  kindness  of  Nature,  as  not  rashly  to  extirpate  any 
species  which  she  has  established  in  a  country,  as  a  great, 
and,  perhaps,  indispensable  blessing.  Limit  its  numbers 
we  certainly  may,  if  they  incommode  us  ;  but  still  so  as 
that  the  race  shall  not  become  extinct.  Of  quadrupeds  and 
insects  I  say  nothing,  because;  with  regard  to  them,  we  have 
not  such  experience  to  guide  us.  No  inconvenience  has 
arisen  in  England,  nor  even  in  th''-  populous  part  of  Ger- 
many between  the  Weser  and  the  Oder,  from  the  loss  of 
the  wolves ;  although  I  cannot  understand,  but  must  leave 
it  to  naturalists  to  find  out,  how  it  should  happen,  that,  in^ 
any  country,  beasts  of  prey  can  be  extirpated  with  less  in- 
convenience than  birds ;  wild  cats,  for  instance,  and  to 
bring  that  parallel  closer,  than  owls,  both  of  which  live 
upon  mice  1  There  are  yet  three  peculiar  circumstances 
to  be  noted,  which  would  naturally  make  the  Israelitish 
legislator  singularly  attentive  to  the  preservation  of  birds. 

1.  He  was  conducting  a  colony  of  people  into  a  coun- 
try with  which  they  were  unacquainted,  and  where  they 
might  very  probably  attempt  to  extirpate  any  species  of 
bird  that  seemed  troublesome,  without  adverting  to  its  real 
importance ;  just  as  the  Virginian  colonists  did,  in  the  case 
of  their  crow. 

2.  Palestine  is  situated  in  a  climate  producing  poisonous 
snakes  and  scorpions,  and  between  deserts  and  mountains, 
from  which  it  would  be  inundated  with  those  snakes,  if 
the  birds  that  lived  on  them  were  extirpated. 

3.  From  the  same  deserts  too,  it  would  be  overwhelmed 
with  immense  multitudes  of  locusts  and  mice,  if  it  were  des- 
titute of  those  birds,  that  resort  thither  to  feed  on  them ;  not 
to  mention  the  formidable  swarms  of  flies  in  the  East,  and 
particularly  in  Palestine,  of  which  I  have  taken  notice  in 
my  Dissertation  on  this  law. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  8.  When  thou  buildest  a  new  house,  then 
thou  shalt  make  a  battlement  for  thy  roof,  that 
thou  bring  not  blood  upon  thy  house,  if  any 
man  fall  from  thence. 

The  roof  is  always  flat,  and  often  composed  of  branches 
of  wood  laid  across  rude  beams,  and  to  defend  it  from  the 
injuries  of  the  weather,  to  which  it  is  peculiarly  exposed 


118 


DEUTERONOMY 


Chap.  23. 


in  the  rainy  season,  it  is  covered  with  a  stitmg  plaster  of 
terrace.  It  is  surrounded  by  a  wall  breast  high,  which 
forms  the  partition  with  the  contiguous  houses,  and  pre- 
vents one  from  falling  into  the  street  on  the  one  side,  or  into 
the  court  on  the  other.  This  answers  to  the  battlements 
which  Moses  commanded  the  people  of  Israel  to  make  for 
the  roof  of  their  houses,  for  the  same  reason.  "  When 
thou  buildest  a  new  house,  then  thou  shalt  make  a  battle- 
ment (npya)  for  thy  roof,  that  thou  bring  not  blood  upon 
thy  house,  if  any  man  fall  from  thence."  Instead  of  the 
parapet  wall,  some  terraces  are  guarded,  like  the  galleries, 
with  balustrades  only,  or  latticed  work.  Of  the  same 
kind,  probably,  was  the  lattice  or  net,  as  the  term  (p22rff 
shebaca)  seems  to  import,  through  which  Ahaziah,  the 
king  of  Samaria,  fell  down  into  the  court.  This  incident 
proves  the  necessity  of  the  law  which  Jehovah  graciously 
dictated  from  Sinai,  and  furnishes  a  beautiful  example  of 
his  naternal  care  and  goodness ;  for  the  terrace  was  a  place 
where  many  offices  of  the  family  were  performed,  and  bu- 
sine«:s  of  no  little  importance  was  occasionally  transacted. 
Rahab  concealed  the  spies  on  the  roof,  with  the  stalks  of 
flux  which  she  had  laid  in  order  to  dry;  the  king  of  Israel, 
according  to  the  custom  of  his  country,  rose  from  his  bed, 
and  walked  upon  the  roof  of  his  house,  to  enjoy  the  refresh- 
ing breezes  of  the  evening;  upon  the  top  of  the  house,  the 
prophet  conversed  with  Saul,  about  the  gracious  designs  of 
God,  respecting  him  and  his  family;  to  the  same  place, 
Peter  retired  to  offer  up  his  devotions ;  and  in  the  feast  of 
tabernacles,  under  the  government  of  Nehemiah,  booths 
were  erected,  as  well  upon  the  terraces  of  their  houses,  as 
in  their  courts,  and  in  the  streets  of  the  city.  In  Judea,  the 
inhabitants  sleep  upon  the  tops  of  their  houses  during  the 
heats  of  summer,  in  arbours  made  of  the  branches  of  trees, 
or  in  tents  of  rushes.  When  Dr.  Pococke  was  at  Tiberias 
in  Galilee,  he  was  entertained  by  the  sheik's  steward,  and 
with  his  company  supped  upon  the  lop  of  the  house  for 
coolness,  according  to  their  custom,  and  lodged  there  like- 
wise, in  a  sort  of  closet  of  about  eight  feet  square,  formed 
of  wicker-work,  plastered  round  towards  the  bottom,  but 
v/ithout  any  door,  each  person  having  his  cell.  In  like 
manner,  the  Persians  take  refuge  during  the  day  in  sub- 
terraneous chambers,  and  pass  the  night  on  the  flat  roofs  of 
their  houses. — Paxton. 

We  have  repeated  intimations  in  scripture,  of  a  custom 
which  would  be  extremely  inconvenient  in  England ; — 
that  of  sleeping  on  the  top  Of  the  house,  exposed  to  the 
open  air,  and  sky:  so  we  read,  "  Samuel  came  to  call  Saul 


about  the  spring  of  the  day,  not  to — but  on — the  top  of  the 
house ;  and  communed  with  him  on  the  house-top  " 


So 


Solomon  observes,  "  It  is  better  to  dwell  in  a  corner  on  the 
house-top,  than  with  a  brawling  Avoman  in  a  wide  street." 
The  same  idea  may  be  noticed  elsewhere.  "  It  has  ever 
t)een  a  custom  with  them,  [the  Arabs  in  the  East,]  equally 
connected  with  health  and  pleasure,  to  pass  the  nights  in 
summer  upon  the  house-tops,  which  for  this  very  purpose 
are  made  flat,  and  divided  from  each  other  by  walls.  We 
found  this  wav  of  sleeping  extremely  agreeable ;  as  we 
thereby  enjoyed  the  cool  air,  above  the  reach  of  gnats  and 
vapours,  without  any  other  covering  than  the  canopy  of  the 
heavens,  which  unavoidably  presents  itself  in  different 
pleasing  forms,  upon  every  interruption  of  rest,  when  si- 
lence and  solitude  strongly  dispose  the  mind  to  contempla- 
tion." (Wood's  Balbec,  Introduction.)  "  I  determined  he 
should  lodge  in  a  kiosque,  on  the  top  of  my  house,  where  I 
Icept  him  till  his  exaltation  to  the  patriarchate,  which,  after 
a  long  negotiation,  my  wife's  brother  obtained,  for  a  pretty 
large  sum  of  money,  to  be  paid  in  new  sequins."  (Baron 
du  Tott.)  The  propriety  of  the  Mosaic  precept  (Deut.  xxii. 
8,)  which  orders  a  kind  of  balustrade,  or  parapet,  to  sur- 
round the  roof,  lest  any  man  should  fall  from  thence,  is 
strongly  enforced  by  this  relation  ;  for,  if  we  suppose  a  per- 
son to  rise  in  the  night,  without  being  fully  awake,  he 
might  easily  kill  himself  by  falling  from  the  roof.  Some- 
fhing  of  the  kind  appears  in  the  history  of  Amaziah, 
2  Kings  i.  2.  In  several  places  scripture  hints  at  grass 
gro  jv  ing  on  the  house-tops,  but  which  comes  to  nothing. 
The  following  quotation  will  show  the  nature  of  this  :  "  In 
the  morning  the  mastei  of  the  house  laid  in  a  stock  of 
earth;  which  was  carried  up,  and  spread  evenly  on  the 
top  v^r  the  house,  which  is  flat.  The  whole  roof  is  thus 
fo.mfd  of  mere  earth,  laid  on,  and  rolled  hard  and  flat. 
On  t.bi-  lop  of  every  house  is  a  large  stone  roller,  for  the 


purpose  of  hardening  and  flattening  this  layer  of  made  soil, 
so  that  the  rain  may  not  penetrate :  but  upon  this  surface, 
as  may  be  supposed,  grass  and  weeds  grow  freely.  It  is  to 
such  grass  that  the  Psalmist  alludes,  as  useless'  and  bad." 
(Jowett's  Christian  Researches  in  Syria.)  There  is  also 
mention  of  persons  on  the  house-top  hastily  escaping  from 
thence  without  entering  the  house  to  secure  their  properly 
— as  if  hastily  awaked  out  of  sleep,  or,  &c.  by  the  clamours 
of  an  invading  enemy.— Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  10.  Thou  shalt  not  plough  with  an  ox  and 
an  ass  together. 

Le  Clerc  and  some  others  think  that  this  text  is  to  be  ta- 
ken in  a  symbolical  sense,  and  that  intermarriages  with 
pagans  and  unbelievers  are  forbidden  by  it,  Maimonides 
and  the  Jewish  rabbles  are  of  opinion,  that  this  prohibition 
was  given  in  consequence  of  the  ox  being  a  clean,  and  the 
ass  an  unclean  animal.  But  no  other  interpretation  need 
be  sought  than  that  which  arises  from  the  humanity  shown 
to  animals  in  various  parts  of  the  Mosaic  laws.  The  ass 
is  lower  than  the  ox,  and  when  in  a  yoke  together  must 
bear  the  principal  weight,  and  that  in  a  very  painful  posi- 
tion of  the  neck ;  his  steps  are  unequal,  and  his  strength  is 
inferior,  which  must  occasion  an  irregular  draught,  and 
great  oppression  to  both.  The  ass  is  a  stubborn,  refractory, 
and,  in  these  countries,  a  spirited  creature ;  the  ox,  on  the 
contrary,  is  gentle,  tractable,  and  patient :  writers  on  agri- 
culture, therefore,  have  given  the  same  precept  as  Moses ; 
and  Calpurnius  says  generally,  Ne  pecora  quidem  jugo 
nisi  paria  succedant. — "  Let  no  cattle  be  yoked  together 
except  they  match."  Cruel  and  unnatural'as  this  practice 
is,  we  may  suppose  it  was  not  uncommon;  for  we  find  it 
alluded  to  in  the  Artlularia  of  Plautus,  act  i.  s.  4.  Old 
Euclio,  addressing  himself  to  Megadorus,  says.  Nunc  si 
filiam  locassem  meam  tibi,  in  mentem  venit.  Te  bovem 
esse,  et  me  esse  asellum,  ubi  tecum  conjunctus  sim.  "  If  I 
were  to  give  my  daughter  to  you,  it  occurs  to  me,  that  Avhen 
we  had  formed^  this  alliance,  I  should  be  the  ass,  and  you 

the  ox." — BuRDERi 

In  the  sandy  fields  of  Syria  and  Egypt,  where  deep 
ploughing,  by  draining  off"  the  moisture  necessary  to  vege- 
tation, would  be  hurtful,  a  single  ass  is  occasioiially  seen 
drawing  the  plough.  The  implement  employed,  is  made 
to  correspond  with  the  strength  of  the  animal ;  it  is  so  light, 
"  that  a  man  of  moderate  strength,"  says  Dr.  Russel,  "  may 
easily  carry  it  with  one  hand ;  a  little  cow,  or  at  most  two, 
and  sometimes  only  an  ass,  is  sufficient  to  draw  it."  But 
this  is  done  only  in  very  light  soils  ;  where  the  ground  is 
stiffer,  and  a  deeper  furrow  required,  two  beasts  are  yoked 
together  in  one  plough.  In  Syria,  where  the  distinction 
between  clean  and  unclean  beasts  did  not  exist,  and  where 
unnatural  associations  were  disregarded,  they  very  often 
joined  an  ox  and  an  ass  in  the  same  yoke.  But  the  law  of 
Moses  prohibited,  by  an  express  statute,  such  incongruous 
mixtures:  "  Thou  shalt  not  plough  with  an  ox  and  an  ass 
together."  The  chosen  people  might  employ  them  both  iir 
tilling  their  ground  ;  but,  in  every  instance,  they  were  to 
be  joined  only  with  those  of  their  own  species.  This  pre-  ■ 
cept  embraced  at  once,  the  benefit  of  the  tribes,  and  the 
comfort  of  their  cattle.  The  benevolent  legislator  would 
not  have  animals  of  unequal  strength,  and  of  discordant 
habits  and  dispositions,  forced  into  a  union  to  which  they 
are  naturally  averse,  and  where  the  labour  could  not  be 
equally  divided.  But  Jehovah,  whose  care  extends  to  the 
happiness  even  of  an  ox  or  an  ass,  had  certainly  a  higher, 
object  in  view.  He  meant,  by  this  prohibition,  to  instruct 
his  people  to  preserve,  with  solicitude,  the  unaffected  sim- 
plicity of  the  patriarchal  ages,  in  their  manner  of  living ; 
to  avoid  unnatural  associations  among  themselves,  and  un- 
due familiarity  with  the  idolatrous  nations  around  them,  by 
contracting  marriages  with  them,  entering  into  alliances, 
or  engaging  in  extensive  mercantile  transactions,  still  more, 
by  joining  in  the  impure  rites  of  their  worship.  To  this 
moral  aspect  of  the  law,  the  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles 
evidently  refers  in  his  charge  to  the  Corinthians:  "  Be  ye 
not  unequally  yoked  together  with  unbelievers;  for  what 
fellowship  hath  righteousness  with  unrighteousness  ?  and 
what  communion  hath  light  with  darkness," — Paxton, 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Ver.  19.  Thou  shalt  not  lend  upon  usury  to  thy 


Chap.  24. 


DEUTERONOMY. 


\\d. 


brother ;  usury  of  money,  usury  of  victuals, 
usury  of  any  thing  that  is  lent  upon  usury. 
20.  Unto  a  stranger  thou  may  est  lend  upon 
usury;  but  unto  thy  brother  thou  shalt  not  lend 
upon  usury :  that  the  Lord  thy  God  may  bless 
thee  in  all  that  thou  settest  thy  hand  to  in  the 
land  whither  thou  goest  to  possess  it. 
See  on  Lev.  25.  26. 

Ver.  24.  When  thou  comest  into  thy  neighbour's 
vineyard,  then  thou  mayest  eat  grapes  thy  fill, 
at  thine  own  pleasure ;  but  thou  shah  not  put 
any  in  thy  vessel.  25.  When  thou  comest 
into  the  standing  corn  of  thy  neighbour,  then 
thou  mayest  pluck  the  ears  with  thy  hand; 
but  thou  shalt  not  move  a  sickle  unto  thy 
neighbour's  standing  corn. 

If  a  man  was  passing  along  another's  field,  he  was  allow- 
ed to  pluck  ears  of  corn  to  eat,  but  forbidden  to  use  the 
1  sickle,  Deut.  xxiii.  25.  This  pretty  much  accords  with 
:,  what  is  common  among  ourselves  ;  for  no  owner  of  a  field, 
;  unless  he  wishes  to  render  himself  ridiculous  by  his  nig- 
gardliness, will  hinder  a  passenger  from  plucking  his  ears 
of  corn,  and  eating  them.  But  the  liberty  of  the  stranger, 
by  the  Mosaic  law,  perhaps  extended  still  further :  for  if 
the  i)oor  man  had  plucked  up  whole  handfuls  of  ears,  and 
I  carried  them  off,  I  do  not  thence  see  how  he  could  have 
been  found  punishable,  or  how  it  could  have  been  prevent- 
ed. I  do  not  take  upon  me  absolutely  to  decide  the  point, 
because  the  law  is  very  briefly  expressed.  I  only  remark, 
that  this  very  law,  which  among  us  would  be  very  unjust 
and  pernicious,  had  quite  another  aspect  among  a  people 
consisting  entirely  of  husbandmen  :  for  where  every  citi- 
2en,  or,  in  other  words,  every  one  belonging  to  the  nation, 
has  his  own  land,  one  will  not  be  apt,  from  avarice,  to  tear 
up  another's  corn,  because  he  must  expect  that  his  neigh- 
bour will  retaliate  in  like  manner  upon  his.  It  will,  there- 
fore, most  probably  be  only  as  he  travels  along,  that  he  will 
eat  a  few  ears  for  pleasure,  and  that  may  readily  be  allow- 
ed him.  In  the  verse  immediately  preceding,  (Deut.  xxiii. 
24,)  Moses  has  an  ordinance  respecting  vineyards,  which 
may  to  us  appear  more  singular,  and  to  bear  harder  on  their 
owners.  The  stranger  that  came  into  another's  vineyard, 
was  authorized  to  eat  as  many  grapes  as  he  pleased,  only 
he  might  not  carry  any  off  in  his  basket,  or  other  such  ves- 
sel. To  my  illustration  of  this  law,  I  must  premise,  that  I 
am  not  a  native  of  a  wine  country ;  having  been  born  at 
Halle,  on  the  extreme  verge  of  the  wine  district  of  Germa- 
ny, and  where  vineyards  are  so  rare,  that  under  such  a  law 
they  could  not  possibly  exist.  In  such  a  climate,  every  indi- 
vidual bunch  of  grapes  is  not  indeed  a  rarity,  (for  that  I  can- 
not say  of  my  native  country,)  but,  at  any  rate,  an  article 
of  sale,  arid  worth  money.  Perhaps,  therefore,  a  native  of 
a  more  southern  region,  where  wine  is  produced  in  greater 
abundance,  would  be  able  to  explain  this  part  of  the  Mosaic 
law  better,  and  would  find  it  more  agreeable  to  justice. 
But  besides  all  that  persons  acquainted  with  wine  countries 
could  say,  there  is  this  additional  circumstance  here  to  be 
attended  to,  and  which  is  quite  inapplicable  to  all  mir  wine 
countries,  viz.  that  every  Israelite  had  his  paternal  land; 
and  if  he  lived  in  a  district  where  wine  was  grown,  (which 
was  the  case  in  most  parts  of  Palestine,  the  country  being 
mountainous,)  he  probably  had  a  vineyard  of  his  own,  as 
well  as  his  neighbour.  The  right,  therefore,  to  eat  one's 
fill  in  another's  vineyard,  was,  in  most  cases,  merely  a 
jm  reciprocum :  and  thus  I  might  with  freedom  satisfy 
my  appetite,  wherever  I  saw  grapes  before  me  ;  single 
bunches  being  there  no  article  of  sale.  This  to  travellers 
was  a  gratification  always  acceptable,  and  a  piece  of  cour- 
tesy that  cost  the  owners  but  little ;  and  to  those  who  had 
no  land,  that  is,  to  the  poor,  it  was  a  sort  of  alms,  or,  at 
least,  a  comfort,  that  they  could  thus  satisfy  their  appetite 
without  being  chargeable  with  theft,  or  injustice.  If  the 
owner  of  a  vineyard  found  them  too  assiduous,  or  their 
visits  too  frequently  repeated,  there  was  nothing  in  the  law 
that  hindered  him  fr6m  enclosing  it,  or  turning  them  out. 
Only  they  could  not  be  declared  thieves,  if  they  but  plucked 


the  grapes,  and  ate  thftj)  wjthin  the  vineyard.  We  shall 
frequently  see,  that  the  laws  of  Moses  manifest  a  certain 
degree  of  indulgence  and  kmdnesstothe  cravings  of  nature; 
which,  far  from  wishing  to  lurture,  they  v/ould  not  even 
have  exposed  to  any  temptation,  that  might  lead  a  man  to 
theft.  This  is  a  point  of  great  importance  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  moral  character  of  a  people.  Hunger,  or  ap- 
petite, often  hurries  a  man  of  the  most  honourable  princi- 
ples to  devour  grapes  and  other  eatables  that  are  not 
watched;  if  his  conscience  make  this  theft,  the  great 
boundary  that  distinguishes  the  man  of  honour  from  the 
thief,  is  in  a  manner  overstepped,  and  if  this  happen  often, 
he  will  at  last  become  a  thief  in  a  higher  sense,  having 
lost  all  conscience  and  regard  to  character.  It  is,  therefore, 
certainly  better,  if  it  can  be  done  without  any  material  in- 
jury to  property,  to  allow  him  the  liberty  of  eating  a  little 
of  such  things,  in  order  to  keep  him  a  conscientious,  hon- 
ourable man.  Legislators  sometimes  attend  but  too  little 
to  moral  niceties  of  this  nature ;  and  yet  it  is  possible  there- 
by to  corrupt  a  whole  people,  and  rob  them  of  their  honesty. 
Moses,  on  the  other  hand,  Avould  give  no  sanction  to  the 
practice  of  free  pasturage,  although  he  gave  his  laws  to  a 
people  sprung  from  wandering  herdsmen,  to  whose  cattle^ 
the  whole  country  where  they  lived  was  a  common ;  and 
herein  he  is  a  most  perfect  antipode  to  our  laws  of  indis- 
criminate pasturage,  which  prove  so  great  a  misfortune  to 
Germany.  Whoever  drove  his  cattle  into  another's  field 
or  vineyard,  and  fed  therein,  was  obliged  to  pay  a  grazing 
rent ;  but  whether  for  the  whole  year,  or  only  for  the  pre- 
cise  time  of  occupation,  I  am  uncertain,  Exod.  xxii.  How- 
ever favourable,  therefore,  he  may  have  been  to  the  poor, 
in  authorizing  them  to  pluck  a  few  ears  of  corn,  or  to  glean 
what  was  left  in  the  fields,  he  by  no  means  thought  it  just 
that,  by  any  law  of  free  pasturage,  a  man  should  be  obstruct- 
ed in  using  his  field  as  his  own  property  solelv,  and  in 
turning  it  to  the  best  account,  even  after  harvest.  Whoever 
has  heard  the  complaints  of  economists  against  commons, 
which  with  us,  without  injustice  to  individuals,  it  is  so 
diflicult  to  abolish,  while  yet  they  so  eflfectually  obstruct  the 
full  improvement  of  the  fields,  will  perceive  the  importance 
and  the  wisdom  of  this  law,  the  enforcing  of  which  was 
P  attended  with  no  difl&culty  after  the  conquest  of  a  new 
country. — Michaelis, 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Ver.  10.  When  thou  dost  lend  thy  brother  any 
thing,  thou  shalt  not  go  into  his  house  to  fetch 
his  pledge.  11.  Thou  shalt  stand  abroad,  and 
the  man  to  whom  thou  dost  lend  shall  bring  out 
the  pledge  abroad  unto  thee.  12.  And  if  the 
man  he  poor,  thou  shalt  not  sleep  with  his 
pledge :  13.  In  any  case  thou  shalt  deliver  him 
the  pledge  again  when  the  sun  goeth  down, 
that  he  may  sleep  in  his  own  raiment,  and 
bless  thee :  and  it  shall  be  righteousness  unto 
thee  before  the  Lord  thy  God. 

Among  the  Israelites  in  the  time  of  Moses,  it  must  have 
been  very  common  to  lend  on  pledge — and  that,  according 
to  the  meaning  of  the  word,  in  natural  law,  which  allows 
the  creditor,  in  the  case  of  non-payment,  to  appropriate  the 
pledge  to  his  own  behoof,  without  any  authoritative  inter- 
position of  a  magistrate,  and  to  keep  it  just  as  rightfully  as 
if  it  had  been  bought  with  the  sum  which  has  been  lent  for 
it,  and  which  remains  unpaid.  But  while  pledges  are  un- 
der no  judicial  regulation,  much  extortion  and  villany 
may  be  practised,  when  the  poor  man  who  wishes  to  bor- 
row is  in  straits,  and  must  of  course  submit  to  all  the  terms 
imposed  by  the  opulent  lender.  This  we  know  from  daily 
experience:  the  persons  who  lend  money  extrajudicially. 
on  pledge,  being  generally  odious  or  contemptible  usurers. 
Among  a  poor  people,  such  as  wq  must  suppose  every 
people  to  be  in  their  infancy,  the  evils  of  pledging  are  still 
more  oppressive.  The  poor  man  often  finds  himself  under 
a  far  greater  necessity  of  borrowing,  than  we  can  easily 
imagine,  because  there  is  nothing  to  be  earned;  and  the- 
husbandman,  who  has  had  a  bad  harvest,  or  his  crop 
destroyed  by  hail,  or  locusts,  must  often  borrow,  not  money, 
but  bread,  or  else  starve.    In  such  cases,  he  will  give  in 


120 


DEUTERONOMY. 


Chap.  25. 


pledge,  whatever  the  rich  lender  requires,  however  greatly 
it  may  be  to  his  loss.  Nor  has  he,  like  borrowers  in  our 
days,  many  articles  which  he  can  dispense  with,  and 
pledge  ;  such  as  superfluous  apparel,  numerous  shirts,  and 
changes  of  linen,  household  furniture,  and  various  little 
luxuries,  that  are  become  fashionable  among  our  poorest 
people ;  but  he  must  instantly  surrender  things  of  indispen- 
sable use  and  comfort,  such  as  the  clothes  necessary  to 
keep  him  warm,  his  implements  of  husbandry,  his  cattle, 
and  (who  could  suppose  it '?)  his  very  children.  Here  the 
avaricious  lender  on  pledge  cannot  but  be  most  heartily 
detested,  and  incur  the  universal  execration  of  the  people. 
And  hence,  in  the  book  of  Job,  whibh  giv^s  us  some  views 
of  Arabian  manners,  such  as  they  were  a  little  before  the 
departure  of  the  Israelites  from  Egypt,  when  the  picture  of 
a  villain  is  drawn,  the  author  does  not  forget,  as  one  trait 
of  his  character,  to  represent  him  as  a  lender  upon  fledge. 
Thus  in  chap.  xxii.  6,  xxiv.  7.  He  extorts  fledges  without 
having  lent,  (an  act  of  extreme  injusiice,  which,  however, 
may  take  place  when  the  pledge  is  given,  before  the  loan  is 
paid  down,)  and  makes  his  debtors  go  naked  ;  probably  be- 
cause he  has  taken  their  most  necessary  clothes  in  pledge, 
and  as  unfeelingly  as  illegally  detained  them. — In  chap, 
xxiv.  3.  He  takes  the  widow's  ox  for  a  fledge ;  so  that  she 
cannot  plough  her  land,  to  gain  the  needfuffor  clearing  off 
the  debt;  and  the  ox,  thus  pledged  perhaps  for  a  trifle,  if  it 
cannot  be  redeemed  on  the  day  of  payment,  becomes  the 
certain  property  of  the  greedy  creditor.  But  the  poor  widow 
thus  loses  ten  times  as  much  as  he  unjustly  gains,  unless  he 
yet  think  fit  to  repair  the  injury  done  to  her  land ;  for  she 
can  now  no  more  cultivate  it,  and  must  be  every  day 
plunging  deeper  in  debt  and  misery. — At  ver.  9.  He  takes 
even  the  infant  of  the  needy  for  a  fledge,  and,  of  course,  if 
not  duly  redeemed,  keeps  it,  for  bond-service,  however 
disproportioned  to  its  value  the  loan  may  have  been.  Mo- 
ses by  no  means  attempts  to  abolish  the  practice  of  extra- 
judicial pledging,  or  to  make  such  regulations,  as  we  have 
in  our  laws,  whereby  the  pledge,  under  what  agreement 
soever  given,  may  be  sold  to  the  highest  bidder,  while  of 
the  price  the  creditor  can  only  receive  the  real  amount  of 
his  debt.  These  are  inventions  to  be  found  only  in  the 
more  elaborate  laws  of  nations  further  advanced  in  opu- 
lence and  refinement;  and  which,  in  the  present  situation 
of  the  Israelites,  would  have  been  impracticable  and  una- 
vailing. Indeed,  among  a  people  so  poor,  they  must  have 
proved  detrimental,  had  it  been  possible  to  put  them  in 
practice:  for  no  one  would  have  been  inclined  to  lend  a 
trifle  (and  to  a  poor  borrower  even  trifles  are  important) 
on  pledge,  under  so  many  formalities,  and  when  the  way 
to  arrive  at  payment,  instead  of  being  short  and  simple, 
was  through  the  interference  of  a  magistrate.  In  this  way 
a  needy  person  must  always  have  found  it  diificult,  if  not 
impossible,  to  obtain  a  loan,  particularly  a  small  one: 
which,  among  a  poor  people,  is  just  as  great  an  evil,  as  can 
arise  from  fraudulent  practices  in  pledging.  It  will  not, 
therefore,  be  imputed  to  Moses  as  a  fault,  that  his  statutes 
contain  not  those  legal  refinements,  which  probably  were 
not  then  invented,  and  which  even  yet  may  be  said  rather 
to  be  in  record  in  our  statute  books,  than  to  be  in  our  prac- 
tice. They  would  have  been  dangerous  to  his  people,  and 
peculiarly  oppressive  to  the  poor.  He  let  fledge  remain 
m  its  proper  sense,  pledge  ;  and  thus  facilitated  the  obtain- 
ing of  loans  :  satisfying  himself  with  making  laws  against 
some  of  the  chief  abuses  of  pledging. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  13.  In  any  case  thou  shalt  deliver  him  the 
pledge  again  when  the  sun  goeth  down,  that 
he  may  sleep  in  his  own  raiment,  and  bless 
thee :  and  it  shall  be  righteousness  unto  thee 
before  the  Lord  thy  God. 

The  Talmudists  enumerate  eighteen  several  garments, 
which  belonged  to  the  full  dress  of  an  ancient  Jcav.  A 
woollen  shirt  was  worn  next  the  skin,  although  some  had 
shirts  of  linen  in  which  they  slept,  because  these  were 
more  cleanly  and  wholesome.  But  this  part  of  their  dress 
is  to  be  distinguished  from  the  caffetan  or  shirt,  which  the 
oridegroom  and  the  bride  sent  to  each  other  ;  which  they 
wore  over  their  clothes  at  their  solemn  festivals  ;  and  in 
which  they  were  at  last  buried.  Next  to  it  was  the  coat, 
which  reached  to  their  feet,  and  was  accounted  a  modest 


and  honourable  article  of  dress.  This  greatly  aggravated 
the  indignity  which  the  king  of  Ammon  offered  to  the  am- 
bassadors of  David,  by  cutting  off  their  garments  in  the 
middle  to  their  buttocks ;  he  insulted  them  b}  spoiling  the 
most  esteemed  part  of  their  dress ;  he  exposed  them  tc 
shame,  by  uncovering  their  nakedness,  as  they  seem  to 
have  worn  no  breeches  under  their  upper  garments.  The 
tunic  was  the  principal  part  of  the  Jewish  dress ;  it  was 
made  nearly  in  the  form  of  our  present  shirt.  A  round 
hole  was  cut  at  top,  merely  to  permit  the  head  to  pass 
through.  Sometimes  it  had  long  sleeves,  which  reached 
down  to  the  wrists;  at  other  times  short  sleeves,  which 
reached  to  the  elbow ;  some  had  very  short  sleeves,  which 
reached  only  to  the  middle  of  the  upper  arm,  and  some  had 
no  sleeves  at  all.  The  tunic  was  nearly  the  same  with  the 
Roman  stola ;  and  was,  in  general,  girded  round  the  waist, 
or  under  the  breast,  with  the  zona  or  girdle.  Descending 
to  the  ground,  and  floating  round  the  feet,  it  was,  in  the 
days  of  our  Lord,  a  distinguishing  badge  of  the  prond 
Pharisee:  "  Beware  of  the  scribes,"  said  he,  "  who  love  to 
walk  in  long  robes,"  in  tunics  at  full  length,  and  reaching 
to  the  ground.  These  coats  were  collared  at  the  neck,  and 
fringed  at  the  bottom.  Over  the  tunic  they  wore  a  blanket, 
which  the  Arabs  call  a  hyke,  and  is  the  very  same  wiih  the 
plaid  of  the  Scotch  Highlanders.  These  hykes  are  of  dif- 
ferent sizes,  and  of  different  quality  and  fineness.  They 
are  commonly  six  yards  long,  and  five  or  six  feet  broad  ; 
serving  the  Kabyle  and  Arab  for  a  complete  dress  in  the 
day  ;  and  "  as  they  sleep  in  raiment,"  like  the  Israelites  of 
old,  it  serves  likewise  for  their  bed  and  covering  by  night. 
It  is  a  loose  but  troublesome  garment,  frequently  discom- 
posed, and  falling  upon  the  ground ;  so  that  the  person  who 
wears  it,  is  every  moment  obliged  to  tuck  it  up,  and  fold  il 
anew  about  his  body.  This  shows  the  great  use  of  a  girdle 
whenever  they  are  concerned  in  any  active  employment, 
and  by  consequence  the  force  of  the  scripture  injunction, 
alluding  to  that  part  of  the  dress,  to  have  our  loins  girded, 
in  order  to  set  about  it  with  any  reasonable  prospect  of 
success.  The  method  of  wearing  these  garments,  and  the 
use  they  are  put  to  at  other  times  in  serving  as  coverlets  to 
*  their  beds,  should  induce  us  to  take  the  finer  sorts  of  them, 
at  least  such  a&are  worn  by  the  ladies  and  persons  of  dis- 
tinction, to  be  the  fsflus  of"  primitive  times.  Ruth's  veil, 
which  held  six  measures  of  barley,  might  be  of  a  similar 
fashion,  and  have  served,  upon  extraordinary  occasions, 
for  the  same  use  ;  as  were  also  the  clothes,  or  upper  gar- 
ments, worn  by  the  Israelites,  in  which  they  folded  up 
their  kneading  troughs,  as  the  Arabs  and  others  do  to  this 
day,  things  of  similar  burden  and  encumbrance,  in  their 
hykes.  It  is  very  probable,  likewise,  that  the  loose  folding 
garment,  the  toga  of  the  Romans,  was  of  this  kind  ;  for  il 
we  may  form  our  opinion  from  the  drapery  of  their  statues, 
this  is  no  other  than  the  dress  of  the  Arabs,  when  they  ap- 
pear in  their  hykes. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Ver.  4.  Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  when  he 
treadeth  out  the  corn. 

The  custom  of  thrashing  com  by  the  trampling  of  bul- 
locks, still  prevails  in  the  East.  The  floor  is  made  in  the 
open  air,  of  cows'  dung  and  clay.  In  its  centre  a  post  is 
driven  into  the  ground,  and  the  corn  is  placed  in  order 
around  it;  and  the  bullocks,  being  fastened  to  the  post, 
begin  to  move  in  the  circle,  enjoying  themselves,  as  they 
work,  by  eating  the  corn. — Roberts. 

This  statute,  which  has  been  seldom  sufliciently  under- 
stood, establishes,  in  the  first  place,  certain  rights,  as  belong- 
ing even  to  the  beasts  which  man  uses  for  the  purpose  of 
labour.  We  must  not  here  think  of  our  mode  of  thrashing, 
but  on  that  used  in  the  East,  where  the  corn  being  laid  o'n 
the  thrashing-floor,  is  trodden  out  by  oxen  or  asses,  or  by 
thrashing-wagons  and  thrashing-planks  drawn  over  it  by 
oxen.  Here,  then,  Moses  commands  that  no  muzzle  be  put 
on  the  ox,  but  that  he  be  allowed,  as  long  as  he  is  employed 
in  thrashing,  to  eat  both  of  the  grain  and  straw.  It  appeans 
that  an  ancient  consuetudinary  usage  which  Moses  adopted 
in  his  written  law,  had  established  this  as  nothins:  more 
than  equitable;  for  we  find  it  still  observed  in  places  of 
the  East,  where  the  Mosaic  law  is  not  in  force  ;  as,  for  in- 
stance, according  to  Dr.  Russel's  testimony,  at  Aleppo, 
among  the  Arabs  that  dwell  in  that  neighbourhood ;  anc 


Chap.  25, 


DEUTERONOMY. 


121 


likewise,  even  among  the  inhabitants  of  the  coast  of  Mala- 
bar. Russell,  in  his  Natural  History  of  Aleppo,  says,  that 
there  beef  is  pretty  good  at  all  seasons,  but  particularly  ex- 
cellent in  summer,  because,  to  this  day,  the  inhabitants 
sacredly  adhere  to  the  ancient  custom  of  allowing  the  ox, 
while  thrashing,  to  eat  as  much  as  he  chooses.  In  the  pe- 
riodical accounts  of  the  INIalabar  mission,  we  are  told  that 
they  have  a  proverb  to  this  effect,  "  What  an  ox  thrashes, 
is  his  profit."  The  people  of  the  most  ancient  ages,  in  gen- 
eral, gave  the  ox  a  high  preference  above  other  beasts,  on 
account  of  his  great  and  indispensable  usefulness  in  agri- 
culture, and  conferred  upon  him,  as  man's  assistant,  many 
privileges,  insomuch  that  mythology  speaks  of  a  time  when 
it  was  unlawful  to  kill  him.  T  believe,  however,  that  the 
statute  before  us  does  not  extend  to  oxen  only,  but  includes 
also  other  beasts  employed  by  man  in  thrashing ;  for  Moses 
is  wont  to  represent  general  principles,  by  particular  and 
well-known  examples.  This  point,  however,  is  too  incon- 
siderable to  occupy  more  room  in  its  illustration,  else  might 
I  quote  Isa.  xxx.  24,  in  proof  that  the  ass  had  the  same  right 
as  the  ox ;  for  as  to  the  horse,  he  was  not  then  used  in  hus- 
bandry. 

The  origin  of  this  benevolent  law  with  regard  to  beasts, 
is  seemingly  deducible  from  certain  moral  feelings  or  sen- 
timents prevalent  among  the  people  of  the  early  ages.  They 
thought  it  hard  that  a  person  should  be  employed  in  the 
collection  and  preparation  of  edible  and  savoury  things, 
and  have  them  continually  before  his  eyes,  without  being 
once  permitted  to  taste  them ;  and  there  is  in  fact  a  degree 
of  cruelty  in  placing  a  person  in  such  a  situation;  for  the 
sight  of  suchdamties  is  tormenting,  and  the  desire  to  partake 
of  them  increases  with  the  risk  of  the  prohibition.  If  any 
of  my  readers  has  a  heart  so  devoid  of  sensibility  towards 
the  feelings  of  his  inferiors,  that  he  can  form  no  idea  of  any 
thing  torturous  in  such  circumstances,  let  him  endeavour 
to  recollect  from  the  heathen  mythology,  the  representations 
which  the  Greek  and  Roman  poets  gave  of  the  torments  of 
hell;  such  as  tables  spread  with  the  most  costly  dainties, 
and  placed  before  the  eyes  of  the  damned,  without  their  be- 
ing permitted  so  much  as  to  touch  them;  or  again,  the  water 
in  which  thirsty  Tantalus  was  immersed  to  his  lips,  and 
which  fled  from  him  whenever  he  bowed  to  taste  it.  Add 
to  this,  that  by  prohibitions  of  this  nature,  the  moral  char- 
acter of  servants  and  day-labourers,  to  the  certain  injury 
of  their  master's  interest,  seldom  fails  to  become  corrupted ; 
for  the  provocation  of  appetite  at  the  sight  of  forbidden  grat- 
ification will,  with  the  greater  number,  undoubtedly  over- 
power all  moral  suggestions  as  to  right  and  wrong.  They 
will  learn  to  help  themselves  without  leave,  that  is,  in  other 
words,  (for  although  not  in  civil,  yet  in  moral  law,  it  is 
theft,)  they  will  learn  to  steal ;  and  if  the  attempt  is  frequent- 
ly repeated,  the  wall  of  partition  between  right  and  wrong, 
which  was  at  first  so  formidable  to  conscience,  is  at  length 
broken  through :  they  soon  learn  to  go  greater  and  greater 
lengths,  and  thus  in  this  school  are  bred  arrant  thieves. 
Our  laws,  it  is  true,  pay  no  attention  to  such  things ;  but 
still,  the  voice  of  nature,  if  we  will  but  listen  to  it,  will 
teach  us,  that  in  evei'y  country,  servants  imagine,  that  to 
steal  eatables  is  no  crime ;  or,  as  the  saying  is  in  Upper 
Saxony,  that  "  what  goes  into  the  mouth,  brings  no  sin  with 
it."  Here  they  are  certainly  quite  in  the  wrong :  and  among 
a  people  that  had  already  a  taste  for  foreign  and  expensive 
luxuries,  such  a  benevolent  law  as  that  now  under  consid- 
eration, could  not  be  introduced,  without  the  complete  de- 
struction of  domestic  economy  ;  although  indeed,  after  all, 
cooks  and  butlers  cannot  well  be  prohibited  from  tasting 
the  dishes  and  the  wine  of  which  they  have  the  charge. 
But  without  dwelling  on  what  our  modern  luxury  renders 
necessary  in  this  matter,  I  only  say,  that  to  the  people  of 
the  East,  in  those  times  of  ancient  simplicity,  it  appeared 
very  cruel  to  debar  a  slave  or  a  hireling  from  tasting  of  the 
food  which  he  had  under  his  hand.  When  Job  wishes  to 
describe  a  perfect  monster  of  insensibility  and  hardhearted- 
ness,  he  says,  "  The  hungry  carry  his  sheaves ;  immured 
in  workhouses  they  prepare  his  oil ;  they  tread  his  wine- 
presses, and  yet  they  thirst."  Job  xxiv.  10,  11.  I  seldom 
appeal  to  Jewish  testimonies,  or,  to  speak  more  accurately, 
to  the  Talmud  and  Rabbins,  because  they  are  too  recent 
for  illustration  of  the  Mosaic  statutes ;  but  here  I  cannot 
altogether  overlook  the  following  Jewish  doctrine,  laid 
down  in  the  BoM  Mezia,  fol.  83.  "  The  workman  may  law- 
fully eat  of  what  he  works  among ;  in  the  vintage  he  may 
16 


eat  of  grapes ;  when  gathering  figs,  he  may  partake  of 
them;  and  in  harvest  he  may  eat  of  the  ears  of  corn.  Of 
gourds  and  dates  he  may  eat  the  value  of  a  denarius  ;"  that 
is,  of  four  groschen,  or  one  fourth  of  a  florin.  The  mention 
of  this  specific  sum,  which  was,  perhaps,  rather  too  great  an 
allowance,  seems  to  have  proceeded  from  the  circumstance 
of  the  Jews  reckoning  a  denarius  the  price  of  a  day's  la- 
bour, because  it  was  introduced  so  lately  before  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem.  I  quote  the  passage,  however,  not  for 
proof,  but  merely  as  a  relic  of  ancient  manners  among 
the  Jews. 

This  kindness,  then,  the  Hebrews  and  Arabs  extended 
unto  oxen,  to  which,  by  reason  of  their  great  utility  in  agri- 
culture, they  conceived  that  they  were  bound  to  manliest 
a  certain  degree  of  gratitude.  And  therefore  when  Moses, 
in  terms  of  this  benevolent  custom  ordained,  that  the  ox 
was  not  to  be  muzzled  while  thrashing,  it  would  seem  that 
it  was  not  merely  his  intention  to  provide  for  the  welfare  of 
that  animal,  but  to  enjoin  with  the  greater  force  and  effect, 
that  a  similar  right  should  be  allowed  to  human  labourers, 
whether  hirelings  or  slaves.  He  specified  the  ox,  as  the 
lowest  example,  and  what  held  good  in  reference  to  him, 
was  to  be  considered  as  so  much  the  more  obligatory  in 
reference  to  man.  That  he  wished  to  be  understood  in 
this  way,  we  have  the  less  reason  to  doubt,  from  this  con- 
sideration, that  in  the  sequel  we  shall  meet  with  other  stat- 
utes, in  which  he  carries  his  attention  to  the  calls  of  hunger 
so  far,  as  to  allow  the  eating  of  fruits  and  grapes  in  other 
people's  gardens  and  vineyards,  without  restraint.  It  would 
appear,  therefore,  that  not  only  servants,  but  also  day-la- 
bourers, might  eat  of  the  fruits  they  gathered,  and  drink  of 
the  must  which  they  pressed.  The  wages  of  the  latter 
seems  to  have  been  given  them  over  and  above  their  meat, 
and,  in  consideration  of  this  privilege,  to  have  been  so  much 
the  less  ;  for  with  a  labourer,  who  found  his  own  victuals, 
and  yet  had  the  right  of  eating  and  drinking  of  whatever 
came  under  his  hands,  a  master  would  have  stood  on  a  very 
disadvantageous  footing.  In  fact,  if  they  did  not  aflford  food 
to  day-labourers,  it  would  be  impossible  to  understand  how 
the  value  of  a  servant  could  be  compared  with  the  hire  of 
a  labourer,  Deut.  xv.  18,  and  found  double ;  for  that  a 
master  maintained  his  servants,  is  unquestionable.  But  it 
they  likewise  gave  the  labourer  his  victuals,  the  value  of  a 
servant,  and  the  wages  of  a  labourer,  might  be  compared. 

— MiCHAELIS. 

Ver.  9.  Then  shall  his  brother's  wife  come  onto 
him  in  the  presence  of  the  elders,  and  loose  his 
shoe  from  off  his  foot,  anSf  spit  in  his  face,  and 
shall  answer  and  say,  So  shall  it  be  done  unto 
that  man  that  will  not  build  up  his  brother's 
house. 

The  last  mark  of  disrespect,  which  is  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  the  East,  is  to  spit  in  the  face  of  another.  Chardin 
observes,  that  spitting  before  any  one,  or  spitting  upon 
the  ground  in  speaking  of  any  one's  actions,  is,  through 
the  East,  an  expression  of  extreme  detestation.  It  is,  there- 
fore, prescribed  by  the  law  of  Moses,  as  a  mark  of  great 
disgrace  to  be  fixed  on  the  man  who  failed  in  his  duty  to 
the  house  of  his  brother.  To  such  contemptuous  treat- 
ment, it  will  be  recollected,  our  blessed  Redeemer  sub- 
mitted in  the  hall  of  the  high-priest,  for  the  sake  of  his 
people.  The  practice  has  descended  to  modem  times ;  for 
m  the  year  1744,  when  a  rebel  prisoner  was  brought  before 
Nadir  Shah's  general,  the  soldiers  were  ordered  to  spit  in 
his  face  ;  which  proves  that  the  savage  conduct  of  the  Jews 
corresponded  with  a  custom  which  had  been  long  establish- 
ed over  all  the  East. — Paxton. 

Ver.  13.  Thou  shalt  not  have  in  thy  bag  divers 
weights,  a  great  and  a  small. 

The  prophet  Micah  also  speaks  of  "the  bag  of  deceitful 
weights."  As  in  former  times,  so  now,  much  of  the  busi- 
ness in  the  East  is  transacted  by  travelling  merchants. 
Hence  all  kinds  of  spices,  and  other  articles,  are  taken 
from  one  village  to  another  by  the  Moors,  Avho  are  in  those 
regions,  what  the  Jews  are  in  "the  West.  The  pedler  comes 
to  your  door,  and  vociferates  the  names  of  his  wares  ;  and, 
so  soon  as  he  catches  your  eye,  begins  to  exhibit  bis  very 


m 


DEUTERONOMl^. 


Chap.  27. 


cheap,  and  valuable  articles.  Have  you  agreed  as  to  the 
price,  he  then  produces  the  bag  of  "  divers  weights,"  and 
after  fumbling  some  time  in  it,  he  draws  forth  the  weight 
by  wliich  he  has  to  sell;  but,  should  he  have  to  purchase 
any  thing  of  you,  he  will  select  a  heavier  weight.  The 
man  who  is  not  cheated  by  this  trader,  and  his  "  bag  of 
divers  weights,"  must  be  blessed  with  more  keenness  than 
most  of  his  fellows.— Roberts, 

CHAPTER  XXVIL 

Ver.  2.  And  it  shall  be,  on  the  day  when  you 
shall  pass  over  Jordan  unto  the  land  which  the 
Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee,  that  thou  shalt  set 
thee  up  great  stones,  and  plaster  them  with 
plaster:  3.  And  thou  shalt  write  upon  them 
7,  all  the  words  of  this  law,  when  thou  art  passed 
over,  that  thou  mayest  go  in  unto  the  land  which 
the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee,  a  land  that 
flovveth  with  milk  and  honey;  as  the  Lord 
God  of  thy  fathers  hath  promised  thee. 

The  book  of  the  law,  in  order  to  render  it  the  more  sa- 
cred, was  deposited  beside  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  Deut. 
xxxi.  26;  and  we  find  the  same  procedure  likewise  ob- 
served afterward  with  regard  to  other  laws,  such  as  that 
which  was  made  on  the  first  establishment  of  regal  author- 
ity, or,  in  other  words,  the  compact  between  the  king  and 
the  estates,  1  Sam.  x.  26 ;  but  I  cannot  precisely  determine 
whether  that  was  kept  in  the  holy  of  holies  beside  the  ark, 
or  only  in  the  holy  place.  The  guardians  of  the  law,  to 
whom" was  intrusted  the  duty  of  making  faithful  transcripts 
of  it,  were  the  priests,  Deut.  xxvii.  19.  But  Moses  did  not 
account  even  this  precaution  suflicient  for  the  due  preser- 
vation of  his  law  in  its  original  purity ;  for  he  commanded 
that  it  should  besides  be  engraven  on  stones,  and  these 
stones  kept  on  a  mountain  near  Sichem,  in  order  that  a 
genuine  exemplar  of  it  might  be  transmitted  even  to  the 
latest  generations,  Deut.  xxvii.  1 — 8.  In  his  ordinance  for 
this  purpose,  there  are  one  or  two  particulars  that  require 
illustration.  He  commanded  that  the  stones  should  be 
coated  with  lime ;  but  this  command  would  have  been  quite 
absurd  had  his  meaning  only  been,  that  the  laws  should 
be  cut  through  this  coating ;  for  after  this  unnecessary  trou- 
ble, they  could  by  no  means  have  been  thus  perpetuated 
with  such  certainty,  nor  have  nearly  so  long  resisted  the 
effects  of  wind  and  weather,  as  if  at  once  engraven  in  the 
stones  themselves.  K^nicott,  in  his  Second  Dissertation 
on  the  printed,  Hebrew  Text,  p.  77,  supposes  that  they  might 
have  been  cut  out  in  black  marble,  with  the  letters  raised, 
and  the  hollow  intervals  between  the  black  letters  filled  up 
with  a  body  of  white  lime,  to  render  them  more  distinct 
and  conspicuous.  But  even  this  would  not  have  been  a 
good  plan  for  eternizing  them:  because  lime  cannot  long 
withstand  the  weather,  and  whenever  it  began  to  fall  off  in 
any  particular  place,  the  raised  characters  would,  by  a 
variety  of  accidents,  to  which  writing  deeply  engraved  is 
not  liable,  soon  be  injured,  and  become  illegible.  No  one 
that  wishes  to  write  any  thing  in  stone,  that  shall  descend 
to  the  most  remote  periods  of  time,  will  ever  think  of  giving 
a  preference  to  characters  thus  in  relief.  And  besides, 
Moses,  if  this  was  his  meaning,  has  expressed  himself  very 
indistinctly ;  for  he  says  not  a  word  of  the  colour  of  the 
stone,  on  which,  however,  the  whole  idea  turns.  I  rather 
suppose,  therefore,  that  Moses  acted  in  thisniatter  with  the 
same  view  to  future  ages,  as  is  related  of  Sostratus,  the  ar- 
chitect of  the  Pharos,  who,  while  he  cut  the  name  of  the 
then  king  of  Egypt  in  the  outer  coat  of  lime,  took  care  to 
engrave  his  own  name  secretly  in  the  stone  below,  in  order 
that  it  might  come  to  light  in  after  times,  when  the  plaster 
with  the  king's  name  should  have  fallen  off.  In  like  man- 
ner, Moses,  in  my  opinion,  commanded  that  his  laws  should 
be  cut  in  the  stones  themselves,  and  these  coated  with  a 
thick  crust  of  lime,  that  the  engraving  might  continue  for 
many  ages  secure  from  all  the  injuries  of  the  weather  and 
atmosphere,  and  then,  when  by  the  decay  of  its  covering  it 
should,  after  hundreds  or  thousands  of  years,  first  come  to 
light,  serve  to  show  to  the  latest  posterity  whether  they  had 
suffered  any  chang:e.  And  was  not  the  idea  of  thus  pre- 
serving an  inscription,  not  merely  for  hundreds,  but  for 
thousands  of  years,  a  conception  evceedingly  sublime  1    It 


is  by  no  means  impossible  that  these  stones,  if  again  di&- 
covered,  might  be  found  still  to  contain  the  whole  engra- 
ving perfectly  legible.  Let  us  only  figure  to  ourselves  what 
must  have  happened  to  them  amid  the  successive  :levas- 
tations  of  the  country  in  which  they  were  erected.  The 
lime  would  gradually  become  irregularly  covered  with 
moss' and  earth  ;  and  now,  perhaps,  the  stones,  by  the  soil 
increasing  around  and  over  them,  many  resemble  a  little 
mount;  and  were  they  accidentally  disclosed  to  our  view, 
and  the  lime  cleared  away,  all  that  was  inscribed  on  them 
3500  years  ago  would  at  once  become  visible.  Probably, 
however,  ;his  discovery,  highly  desirable  though  it  would 
be  both  to  literature  and  religion,  being  in  the  present  state 
of  things,  and  particularly  of  the  Mosaic  law,  now  so  long 
abrogated,  not  indispensably  necessary,  it  is  reserved  for 
some  future  age  of  the  w-orld.  What  Moses  commanded, 
merely  out  of  legislative  prudence,  and  for  the  sake  of  his 
laws,  as  laws,  God,  who  sent  him,  may  have  destined  to 
answer  likewise  another  purpose  ;  and  may  choose  to  bring 
these  stones  to  light  at  a  time  when  the  laws  of  Moses  are 
no  longer  of  any  authority  in  any  community  whatever. 
Thus  much  is  certain,  that  nowhere  in  the  Bible,  is  any 
mention  made  of  the  discovery  of  these  stones,  nor  indeed 
any  further  notice  taken  of  them,  than  in  Josh.  viii.  30 — 35, 
where  their  erection  is  described ;  so  that  we  may  hope  they 
will  yet  be  one  day  discovered.  Moses'  whole  procedure 
in  this  matter,  is  precisely  in  the  style  of  ancient  nations, 
who  generally  took  the  precaution,  now  rendered  unneces- 
sary by  the  invention  of  printing,  to  engrave  their  laws  in 
stones;  only  that  he  studied,  by  a  new  contrivance,  to  give 
to  his  stony  archives  a  higher  degree  of  durability  than 
was  ever  thought  of  by  any  other  legislator.  What  was  to 
be  inscribed  on  the  stones,  whether  the  whole  Pentateuch, 
or  only  the  book  of  Deuteronomy,  or  but  the  blessings  and 
curses  pronounced  in  Deut.  chap,  xxvii,  or  merely  the  ten 
commandments  alone,  has  been  the  subject  of  a  controver- 
sy, for  particulars  concerning  which,  I  again  refer  the 
reader  to  Kennicott's  Second  Dissertation.  In  my  judg- 
ment, the  expression,  all  the  words  of  this  law,  implies,  at 
least,  that  all  the  statutory  part  of  the  Mosaic  books  was  to 
be  engraved  on  the  stones,  which  is  far  from  being  impos- 
sible, if  we  make  but  a  distinction  between  the  stones  and 
the  altar,  which  must,  no  doubt,  have  been  too  small  for 
that  purpose.  It  is  well  known  that  iij  very  ancient  times, 
nations  were  wont  to  engrave  their  laws  in  stones ;  and 
the  Egyptians  had  recourse  to  stone  pillars  (o-rr/Auts)  for 
perpetuating  their  discoveries  in  science,  and  the  history 
of  their  country.  All  these  circumstances  considered,  to- 
gether with  this  above  all,  that  the  Israelites  had  just  come 
out  of  Egypt,  where  writing  in  stone  was  employed  for  so 
many  further  purposes,  (although,  indeed,  hieroglyphic 
characters  were  used  which  Moses  prohibited,  because, 
when  not  understood,  they  might  give  a  handle  to  idolatry,\ 
I  do  not  see  why  the  phrase,  all  tJie  words  of  thislaw,  should 
not  be  left  in  its  full  force,  nor  what  should  oblige  us  to 
limit  it,  with  Dr.  Kennicott,  merely  to  the  decalogue.— 

MiCHAELIS. 

Ver.  15.  Cursed  he  the  man  that  maketh  any 
graven  or  molten  image,  an  "abomination  unto 
the  Lord,  the  work  of  the  hands  of  the  crafts- 
man, and  putteth  it  in  a  secret  place.  And  all 
the  people  shall  answer  and  say,  Amen. 

The  images  of  the  Hindoos  are  generally  made  of  cop- 
per or  stone,  but  some  are  of  silver  or  gold.  It  is  not  easy 
to  find  out  the  difference  betwixt  the  gravenund  molten  im- 
age, except  the  firsi  mean  that  which  has  been  produced 
by  the  chisel  from  stone,  and  the  second  that  which  has 
been  cast  in  a  mould  by  the  action  of  fire.  These  images, 
however,  have  all  of  them  to  be  graven,  or  filed,  before 
they  are  consecrated. — Roberts, 

Ver.  17.  Cursed  he  he  that  remoyeth  his  neigh- 
bour's land-mark  :  and  all  the  people  shall  say, 
Amen. 

Fields  in  the  East  have  not  fences  or  hedges,  as  in  Eng- 
land, but  a  rid2:e,  a  stone,  or  a  post;  and,  consequently,  it 
is  not  very  difficult  to  encroach  on  the  property  of  another 
Should  a  man  not  be  very  careful,  his  neighbour  will  take 


Chap.  28,  29. 


DEUTERONOMY. 


123 


away  a  liltle  every  year,  and  keep  pushing  his  ridge  into 
the  "other's  ground.  Disputes  of  the  most  serious  nature 
ofien  occur  on  this  account,  and  call  for  the  greatest  dili- 
gence and  activity  of  the  authorities.  An  injured  man  re- 
peats to  his  aggressor  the  proverb,  "  The  serpent  shall  bite 
iuiu  who  steps  over  the  ridge,"  i.  e.  he  who  goes  beyond. 
the  landmark. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Ver.  5.  Blessed  shall  he  thy  basket  and  thy  store. 

Ileb.  "  dough  or  I'neading- trough."  Eastern  farmers  have 
large  baskets  made  of  Palmirah  leaves,  or  other  materials, 
foi  the  purpose  of  keeping  their  grain:  they  will  contain 
1  rom  one  hundred  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  parrahs.  These 
buckets,  then,  were  to  be  blessed  ;  they  were  not  to  be  injur- 
ed by  animals,  nor  robbed  by  man.  But  corn  is  also  kept 
ill  a  store  which  is  made  of  sticks  and  clay,  in  a  circular 
I'orm.  This  little  building  is  always  elevated,  to  keep  the 
H-rain  from  the  damp,  and  is  situated  near  to  the  house. 
When  beggars  have  been  relieved,  they  often  say,  "  Ah  ! 
may  the  place  where  you  make  ready  your  food  ever  be 
blessed."  "May  the  rice-pot  ever  prosper."  Thus,  that 
which  corresponds  with  the  "  kneading-trough"  of  the  He- 
biews,  has  also  its  benediction. — Roberts. 

Hasselquist  informs  us,  that  baskets  made  of  the  leaves 
of  the  palm-tree  are  used  by  the  people  of  the  East  on  jour- 
neys, and  in  their  houses.  Harmer  conjectures  that  such 
baskets  are  referred  to  in  these  words,  and  that  the  store 
>iit,mifies  their  leathern  bags,  in  both  which  they  used  to 
carry  things  in  travelling. — Burder. 

Ver.  13.  And  the  Lord  shall  make  thee  the 
head,  and  not  the  tail ;  and  thou  shalt  be  above 
only,  and  thou  shalt  not  be  beneath ;  if  that 
thou  hearken  unto  the  commandments  of  the 
Lord  thy  God,  which  I  command  thee  this 
day,  to  observe  and  to  do  them. 

The  prophet  Isaiah,  chap.  ix.  14,  says,  "  The  Lord  will 
cut  off  from  Israel  head  and  tail :"  meaning,  no  doubt,  those 
who  were  high,,  and  those  who  were  low.  It  is  amusing  to 
hear  men  of  rank  in  the  East  speak  of  their  dependants  as 
tails.  Has  a  servant  not  obeyed  his  master,  the  former 
asks,  "  Who  are  you  1  are  you  the  head  or  tail  1"  Should 
a  person  begin  to  partake  of  food  before  those  of  high 
caste,  it  is  asked,  "  What!  is  the  tail  to  begin  to  wag  be- 
fore the  head  V    A  husband,  when  angry  with  his  wife, 

.  inquires,  "  What  are  you  1  are  you  the  head  or  the  tail  1" 

,  -Roberts. 

*"  Ver.  24.  The  Lord  shall  make  the  rain  of  thy 
land  powder  and  dust:  from  heaven  shall  it 
come  down  upon  thee,  until  thou  be  destroyed. 

It  may  be  of  use  to  inquire  a  little  into  the  nature  and 
properties  of  such  a  kind  of  rain ;  in  which  the  following 
extracts  may  assist  us.  "  Sometimes  there  [in  India]  the 
wind  blows  very  high  in  those  hot  and  dry  seasons— rais- 
ing up  into  the  air  a  very  great  height,  thick  clouds  of  dust 
and  sand.  .  .  .These  dry  showers  most  grievously  annoy  all 
those  among  whom  they  fall ;  enough  to  smite  them  all  with 
a  present  blindness  ;  filling  their  eyes,  ears,  nostrils  ;  and 
their  mouths  are  not  free,  if  they  be  not  also  well  guarded  : 
searching  every  place,  as  well  within,  as  without,  our  tents 
or  houses ;  so  that,  there  is  not  a  little  keyhole  of  any  trunk, 
or  cabinet,  if  it  be  not  covered,  but  receives  some  of  that 
dust  into  it;  the  dust  forced  to  find  a-  lodging  anywhere, 
everywhere,  being  so  driven  and  forced  as  it  is  by  the  ex- 
treme violence  of  the  wind."  (Sir  T.  Roe's  Embassy.)  To 
the  same  purpose  speaks  Herbert.  "  And  now  the  danger 
is  past,  let  me  tell  you,  most  part  of  the  last  night  we  crossed 
over  an  inhospitable  sandy  desert,  where  here  and  there  we 
beheld  the  ground  covered  with  a  loose  and  flying  sand, 
which  by  the  fury  of  the  winter  weather  is  accumulated  in- 
to such  heaps,  as  upon  any  great  wind  the  track  is  lost ;  and 
passengers  (too  ofc)  overwhelmed  and  stifled;  yea,  camels, 
norses,  mules,  and  other  beasts,  though  strong,  swift,  and 
.steady  in  their  going,  are  no'  able  to  shift  for  themselves, 
but  perish  without  recovery  :  those  rolling  sands,  when  agita- 
ted by  the  winds,  move  and  remove  more  like  sea  than  land, 


and  render  the  way  very  dreadful  to  passengers.  Indeed 
in  Ihis  place  I  thought  that  curse  fulfilled,  (Dent,  xxviii. 
24,)  where  the  Lord,  by  Moses,  threatens  instead  of  rain 
to  give  showers  of  dust."  These  instances  are  in  Persia: 
but  such  storms  might  ha  known  to  the  Israelites ;  as,  no 
doubt,  they  occur,  also,  on  the  sandy  deserts  of  Arabia, 
east  of  Judea :  and  to  this  agrees  Toumefort,  who  men- 
tions the  same  thing — "  At  Ghetsci  there  arose  a  lem];est  of 
sand  :  in  the  same  mangier  as  it  happens  sometimes  i7i  Arabia, 
and  in  Egypt,  especially  in  the  spring.  It  was  raised  by  a 
very  hot  south  wind,  which  drove  so  much  sand,  that  one 
of  the  gates  of  the  Caravansary  was  half  stopped  up  with 
it  ;  and  the  way  could  not  be  found,  being  covered  over, 
above  a  foot  deep,  the  sand  lying  on  all  hands.  This  sand 
was  extremely  fine,  and  salt ;  and  was  very  troublesome  to 
our  eyes,  even  in  the  Caravansary,  where  all  our  baggage 
was  covered  over  with  it.  The  storm  lasted  from  noon  to 
sunset;  and  it  was  so  very  hot  the  night  following,  without, 
any  wind,  that  one  could  hardly  fetch  breath,  which  in  my 
opinion  was  partly  occasioned  by  the  reflection  of  the  hot 
sand.  Next  day  I  felt  a  great  pain  in  one  eye,  which 
made  it  smart,  as  if  salt  had  been  melted  into  it,"  &c. 
This  may  give  us, a  lively  idea  of  the  penetrating  powers 
of  the  dust  of  the  land  of  Egypt ;  which  (Exod.  viii.  16) 
was  converted  into  lice : — also,  chap.  ix.  8,  of  the  effect  of 
the  ashes  of  the  furnace,  which  Moses  took,  and  sprinkled 
"  up  towards  heaven,  and  it  became  a  bile,  breaking  forth 
in  blains  upon  man  and  beast." — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  27.  The  Lord  will  smite  thee  with  the 
botch  of  Egypt,  and  with  the  emerods,  and  with 
the  scab,  and  with  the  itch,  whereof  thou  canst 
not  be  healed. 

This  is  a  complaint  which  is  far  more  common,  and 
more  formidable  in  the  East,  than  in  England.  Those 
who  live  on  bad  food,  or  reside  in  the  vicinity  of  a  swamp, 
are  the  most  subject  to  it.  See  the  poor  object  with  a  small 
piece  of  cloth  round  his  loins,  a  staff*  in  his  hand,  his  body 
"  from  the  sole  of  his  foot  unto  his  crown"  literally  cover- 
ed with  sores,  an  imploring  piteous  look,  a  weak  tremu- 
lous voice,  and  bowing  to  the  earth  to  excite  your  charity. 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  39.  Thou  shalt  plant  vineyards,  and  dress 
them,  but  shalt  neither  drink  of  the  wine,  nor 
gather  the  grapes;  for  the  worms  shall  eat 
them. 

This  threatening  has  often  been  fulfilled  to  the  great 
disappointment  and  injury  of  the  inhabitants  of  those  coun- 
tries where  wine  is  produced  or  consumed.  An  insect, 
called  the  vine  weevil,  which  is  a  small  beautiful  beetle, 
is  extremely  hurtful  to  the  vines.  The  caterpillar,  which 
mines  or  cuts  the  leaves  of  the  vine,  has  no  feet ;  and  yet,  by 
a  singular  expedient,  can  make  a  progressive  motion  in  all 
positions,  and  even  over  the  smoothest  and  most  polished 
bodies.  It  advances  its  body  out  of  its  oval  pod,  (constructed 
of  the  two  outer  skins  of  a  vine  leaf,)  forms  a  kind  of  hil- 
lock of  silk,  and,  by  means  of  a  thread  which  attaches  it  to 
it,  draws  its  pod  or  case  to  the  hillock.  It  continually  re- 
peats the  same  operation,  and  in  this  (laborious)  manner 
advances  pros:ressively.  The  traces  of  its  progress  are 
maiked  by  hillocks  of  silk  at  the  distance  of  half  a  line  from 
each  other.  Its  food  is  the  parenchyma  or  pith  of  the  vine 
leaf,  between  the  two  epidermes,  of  which  it  eats  out  its 
oval  habitation  or  pod.  When  it  is  taken  out  of  its  habita- 
tion, it  never  attempts  to  make  a  new  one  :  it  writhes  about 
very  much,  but  can  make  no  progressive  motion;  and  after 
having  overspread  the  place  in  which  it  is  with  threads  of 
silk,  in  an  irregular  manner,  it  dies  at  the  end  of  twenty- 
four  hours. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Ver.  23.  And  that  the  whole  land  thereof  is  brim- 
stone, and  salt,  and  burning. 

When  a  place  is  noted  for  being  unhealthy,  or  the  land 
very  unfruitful,  it  is  called  a  kenthaga  poomy,  a  place  or 
country  of  brimstone.    Trincomalee,  and  some  other  pla- 


124 


DEUTERONOMY. 


Chap.  30—32. 


ces,  have  gained  this  appellation  on  account  of  the  heat 
and  sterility  of  the  soils. — Roberts. 

The  effect  of  salt,  where  it  abounds,  on  vegetation,  is  de- 
scribed by  burning.  '*  Thus  Volney,  speaking  of  the  borders 
of  the  Asphaltic  Lake,  or  Dead  Sea,  says,  "  the  true  cause 
of  the  absence  of  vegetables  and  animals,  is  the  acrid  salt- 
ness  of  its  waters,  which  is  infinitely  greater  than  that  of 
the  sea.  The  land  surrounding  the  lake  being  equally  im- 
pregnated with  that  saltness,  refuses  to  produce  plants  ;  the 
air  itself,  which  is  by  evaporation  loaded  with  it,  and  which 
moreover  receives  vapours  of  sulphur  and  bitumen,  cannot 
suit  vegetation;  whence  the  dead  appearance  which  reigns 
around  the  lake."  Hence  the  ancient  custom  of  sowing  an 
enemy's  city,  when  taken,  with  salt,  in  token  of  perpetual 
desolation.  Judges  ix.  45.  And  thus  in  aftertimes,  the 
city  of  Milan  was  burnt,  razed,  sown  with  salt,  and  plough- 
ed, by  the  exasperated  emperor  Frederick  Barbarossa. — 
Border.  f 

CHAPTER  XXX. 
Ver.  14.  But  the  word  is  very  nigh  unto  thee,  in 
thy  mouth,  and  in  thy  heart,  th^at  thou  mayest 
do  it. 

"Z^ca  a  person  pretend  that  he  cannot  understand  an- 
other, that  he  must  make  additional  inquiries,  it  will  be 
said,  "Do  you  not  understand!  In  thy  mouth  are  the 
words."  Should  a  child  at  school  be  troublesome  to  the  mas- 
ter, he  will  peevishly  exclaim.  In  thy  mouth  are  the  words; 
meaning  the  inquiry  was  unnecessary,  that  the  subject  was 
well  understood. — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  I  call  heaven  and  earth  to  record  this 
day  against  you,  that  I  have  set  before  you  life 
and  death,  blessing  and  cursing  :  therefore 
choose  life,  that  both  thou  and  thy  seed  may 
live. 

In  solemn  oaths,  people  point  to  the  clouds,  to  the  earth, 
to  the  grass,  to  the  herbs,  to  the  trees,  as  witnesses  to  the 
truth  of  what  they  have  said.  "  O  ye  clouds  above !  have  I 
not  said  the  truth  1  Ah  !  well  do  you  know  it :  speak  to  this, 
unbeliever."  "  Ah !  these  trees  can  bear  testimony  to  my 
veracity."  When  mariners  are  at  sea,  they  appeal  to  it, 
or  to  Varuna  the  god.  In  storms,  they  say  to  the  water, 
"  O  mother !  be  calm." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 
*     Ver.  2.  My  doctrine  shall  drop  as  the  rain,  my 
speech  shall  distil  as  the  dew;  as  the  small 
rain  upon  the  tender  herb,  and  as  the  showers 
upon  the  grass. 

Oriental  writers  often  speak  of  beautiful  language  as 
dropping  upon  the  hearers.  The  Hebrew  has  for  "  proph- 
esy," in  Micah  ii.  6,  "  drop."  The  same  word  is  used 
for  drops  of  rain,  for  tears,  or  for  the  dew  dropping  from 
flowers.  When  a  man  has  received  consolation  from  an- 
other, he  says,  "  His  words  were  like  rain  upon  the  scorch- 
ed corn."  Of  a  beautiful  speaker,  and  an  appropriate  sub- 
ject, "  Ah !  his  speech  is  like  the  honey  rain,  upon  the  pan- 
dal  bower  of  sugar." — Roberts. 

Ver.  5.  Their  spot  is  not  the  spot  of  his  children. 

There  may  be  here  an  allusion  to  the  marks  which  the 
worshippers  of  particular  idols  had  on  different  parts  of 
their  bodies,  particularly  on  their  foreheads.  The  differ- 
ent sects  of  idolaters  in  the  East  are  distinguished  by 
their  sectarian  marks,  the  stigma  of  their  respective  idols. 
These  sectarian  marks,  particularly  on  the  forehead, 
amount  to  nearly  one  hundred  among  the  Hindoos,  and  es- 
pecially among  the  two  sects,  the  worshippers  of  Siva 
and  the  worshippers  of  Vishnoo.  In  many  cases  these 
marks  are  renewed  daily;  for  they  account  it  irreligious  to 
perform  any  sacred  rite  to  their  god  without  his  mark  on 
the  forehead.  The  marks  are  generally  horizontal  and 
perpendicular  lines,  crescents,  circles,  leaves,  eyes,  (Sr.c.  in 
red,  black,  white,  and  yellow.  It  is  pleasing  to  see  the 
Hindoos  every  morning  perform  their  ablutions  in  the  sa- 


cred lakes,  and  offer  an  innocent  sacrifice  under  the  solemn 
grove.  After  having  gone  through  their  religii^as  cere- 
monies, they  are  sealed  by  the  officiating  Bramin  with  the 
mark  either  of  Vishnoo  or  Siva,  the  followers  of  whom 
respectively  form  the  two  great  sects  among  the  Hindoos. 
The  mark  is  impressed  on  the  forehead  with  a  composition 
of  sandal-wood  dust  and  oil,  or  the  ashes  of  cow-dung  and 
turmeric :  this  is  a  holy  ceremony,  which  has  been  adopted 
in  all  ages  by  the  eastern  nations,  however  differing  in  re- 
ligious profession. — Forbes. 

Ver.  10.  He  found  him  in  a  desert  land,  and  in 
the  waste  howling  wilderness;  he  led  him  about, 
he  instructed  him,  he  kept  him  as  the  apple  of 
his  eye. 

Where  the  wild  beasts  are,  is  called  the  place  of  howl- 
ing. Thus  relations,  when  their  friends  are  on  a  journey, 
say,  "  Ah !  they  are  noAv  in  the  place  of  howling."  "  My 
friend,  go  not  through  the  howling  desert."  Precious 
things  are  spoken  of  as  being  the  apple  of  the  eye.  Affec- 
tionate husbands  say  to  their  wives,  "  En  Jean  mulli,"  i.  e. 
"  apple  of  my  eye."  Of  a  beloved  child,  in  relation  to  his 
parents,  it  is  said,  "  He  is  the  apple  of  their  eye." — Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  11.  As  an  eagle  stirreth  up  her  nest,  fiut- 
tereth  over  her  young,  spreadeth  abroad  her 
wings,  taketh  them,  beareth  them  on  her  wings. 

It  is  pretended  by  some  writers,  that  when  the  eaglets 
are  somewhat  grown,  the  mother  kills  the  weakest  or  the 
most  voracious  of  them ;  but  were  the  fact  admitted,  it  is 
no  satisfactory  proof  that  she  is  without  natural  affection. 
It  is  well  known  that  several  animals  of  the  mildest  dispo- 
sitions forsake  their  young,  when  they  find  it  impossible 
to  provide  for  their  subsistence.  The  parent  eagles,  says 
Buffon,not  having  sufficient  for  themselves,  seek  to  reduce 
their  family ;  and  as  soon  as  the  young  ones  are  strong 
enough  to  fly  and  provide  for  themselves,  they  chase  them 
from  the  nest,  and  never  permit  them  to  return.  The  ac- 
count of  this  celebrated  naturalist  so  far  agrees  M"ith  the 
statement  of  the  sacred  writer;  according  to  whom,  the 
eagle  stirreth  up  her  nest,  that  is,  rouses  her  young  from  their 
sloth  and  inactivity,  and  provokes  them  to  try  their  wings 
by  fluttering  about  her  nest.  When  she  sees  them  indiffer- 
ent to  her  admonitions,  or  afraid  to  follow  her  example, 
"  she  spreadeth  abroad  her  wings  ;  taketh  them,  and  bear- 
eth them  upon  her  wings."  The  remarkable  circumstance 
of  bearing  them  upon  her  wings,  is  alluded  to  in  another 
part  of  scripture  :  "  Ye  have  seen,"  said  Jehovah  to  Israel,  • 
"  what  I  did  unto  Egypt,  and  how  I  bare  you  on  eagles' 
wings,  and  brought  you  unto  myself"  Many  passages  in 
the  writings  of  ancient  authors  countenance  the  idea,  that 
the  eagle  actually  takes  up  her  timid  young  ones,  and  bears 
them  on  her  wings  till  they  venture  to  fly.  jElian  says, 
that  when  Tilgamus,  a  Babylonian  boy,  fell  from  the  top 
of  a  tower,  before  he  reached  the  ground,  an  eagle  received 
and  bore  him  up  on  her  back.  A  similar  story  is  recorded 
in  the  writings  of  Pausanias,  who  tells  us,  that  an  eagle 
flew  under  Aristimenes,  who  was  cast  by  the  Lacedemo- 
nians from  the  top  of  a  tower,  and  carried  him  on  her  wings 
till  he  reached  the  ground  in  safety.  These  stories,  although 
the  mere  creatures  of  imagination,  show  that  the  idea  cf  . 
the  eagle  bearing  a  considerable  weight  on  her  wings,  was 
familiar  to  the  ancients.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  that  she 
wafts  her  unfledged  young  through  the  void  of  heaven,  or 
to  distant  places;  the  meaning  probably  is,  that  she  aids 
with  her  wings  their  feeble  and  imperfect  attempts  to  fly, 
till,  imboldened  by  her  example,  and  their  own  success, 
they  fearlessly  commit  themselves  to  the  air.  So  did  Jeho- 
vah for  his  chosen  people :  when  they  w^re  slumbering 
in  Goshen,  or  groaning  in  despair  of  recovering  their  free- 
dom, he  sent  liis  servant  Moses  to  rouse  them  from  their 
inglorious  sloth,  to  assert  their  liberty,  and  to  break  their 
chains  upon  the  heads  of  their  oppressors.  He  carried 
them  out  of  Egypt,  and  led  them  through  the  wilderness 
into  their  promised  inheritance.  He  tanght  them  to  know 
their  strength  :  he  instructed  them  in  the  art  of  war;  he 
led  them  to  battle,  and  by  his  almighty  arm  routed  their 
enemies. — Paxton. 


Chap.  32—34. 


DEUTERONOMY. 


125 


Ver.  13.  He  made  him  ride  on  the  high  places 
of  the  earth,  that  he  might  eat  the  increase  of 
the  fields ;  and  he  made  him  to  suck  honey  out 
of  the  rock,  and  oil  out  of  the  flinty  rock. 

This  must  mean  the  procuring  of  it  from  the  olive-trees 
growing  there.  Maundrell,  speaking  of  the  ancient  fertil- 
ity and  cultivation  of  Judea,  says,  "  the  most  rocky  parts 
of  all,  which  could  not  well  be  adjusted  for  the  production 
of  corn,  might  yet  serve  for  the  plantation  of  vines  and 
olive-trees,  which  delight  to  extract,  the  one  its  fatness,  the 
other  its  sprightly  juice,  chiefly  out  of  such  dry  and  flinty 
places."--- BuRDER. 

In  Africa  the  bees  deposits  their  honey  on  the  trunks  of 
trees  and  on  rocks.  Trees  in  some  countries  being  scarce, 
the  honey  in  most  parts  is  found  upon  the  front  of  rocks  or 
cliffs,  plastered  on  the  outside,  having  a  covering  of  wax 
to  protect  it  from  intruders.  This  outside  coating,  after  a 
short  exposure  to  the  weather,  assumes  nearly  the  same 
colour  as  the  rock,  which,  at  a  little  distance,  cannot  easily 
be  distinguished  from  the  rock,  so  that  a  person  making  an 
incision  with  a  knife,  and  putting  his  mouth  to  it  to  suck  it, 
were  a  person  a  little  way  off"  to  notice  some  of  the  honey 
dropping  from  his  chin,  would  believe  that  he  saw  a  man 
sucking  honey  from  a  rock ;  so  that  the  scripture  method 
of  ex:pressing  it  is  very  beautiful. — African  Light. 

Ver.  15.  But  Jeshu run  waxed  fat,  and  kicked: 
thou  art  waxen  fat,  thou  art  grown  thick,  thou 
art  covered  with  fat?iess ;  then  he  forsook  God 
which  made  him,  and  lightly  esteemed  the 
Rock  of  his  salvation. 

This  does  not  appear  to  mean  that  Jeshurun  had  become 
fat  in  person,  but  fat  or  proud  in  spirit.  Thus,  of  people 
who  have  risen  from  obscurity,  and  who  conduct  them- 
selves proudly,  it  is  said,  "  They  have  become  fat."  To 
hear,  "  how  fat  that  man  is  now,"  might  lead  a  stranger  to 
suppose  it  was  meant  so  literally ;  whereas  the  individual 
alluded  to  may  be  as  meagre  as  one  of  Pharaoh's  lean 
cattle. — Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  Thy  shoes  shall  be  iron  and  brass. 

The  Hebrew  word  here  translated  slioes,  signifies  bolts. 
The  proper  translation  of  this  word  is,  thy  bolts  shall  be  iron 
and  brass :  that  is,  thy  cities  must  be  strong  and  secure 
against  your  enemies.  To  understand  the  force  of  these 
words,  \ve  must  knoM'  that  in  the  East,  and  even  in  modern 
times,  the  locks  and  bolts  of  houses,  and  even  of  city  gates, 
were  of  wood.  "  Their  doors  and  houses,"  says  Rauwolff", 
"  are  mostly  closed  with  wooden  bolts,  which  are  hollow 
within;  to  open  which  they  have  wooden  keys,  which  are 
a  span  long,  and  a  thumb  thick,  and  have  on  one  side,  5,  6, 
7,  8,  9,  &c.  short  nails  or  strong  wires,  so  placed  as  to  catch 
in  others  that  fit  into  them,  and  thus  move  the  bolt  back- 
ward and  forward."  Thevenot  observes,  "  all  their  locks 
and  keys  are  made  of  wood;  they  have  none  of  iron,  not 
even  those  of  the  city  gates,  which  are,  therefore,  also 
opened  walhout  keys."  He  describes  the  keys  like  Rau- 
wolff,  and  adds,  that  the  door  may  be  opened  without  the 
kej,  by  smearing  the  finger  with  clay. — Rosenmuller. 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Ver.  22.  And  of  Dan  he  said,  Dan  is  a  lion's 
whelp ;  he  shall  leap  from  Bashan. 

Although  the  lion  fearlessly  meets  his  antagonist  in  the 
open  field,  in  this  respect  diflfering  from  leopards  and  some 
other  beasts  of  prey,  that  never  openly  attack  the  fated  vic- 
tim, yet  this  bold  and  noble  animal  often  descends  to  strat- 
agem and  ambuscade :  "  He  couches  in  his  den,  and  abides 
in  the  covert  to  lie  in  wait."  He  ws.tches  thi-  approach  of 
his  victim  with  cautious  attention,  carefully  avoiding  the 
least  noise,  lest  he  should  give  warning  of  his  presence  and 
designs.  Such  has  the  glowing  pencil  of  David  painted 
the  insidious  conduct  of  the  murderer :  "  He  lieth  in  wait 
secretly  as  a  lion  in  his  den  :  he  lieth  in  wait  to  catch  the 
poor — ^^he  croucheth  and  humbleth  himself,  t^iaX  the  poor 
may  fall  by  his  strong  ones."  "  Like  as  a  lion  t.iat  is  greedy 


of  his  prey,  and  as  it  were  a  young  lien  lurking  in  secret 
places."  From  his  lurking-place,  he  commonly  leaps  upon 
the  victim  at  one  spring.  So,  in  the  farewell  prediction 
of  Moses,  it  is  foretold,  "  Dan  is  a  lion's  whelp,  he  shall 
leap  from  Bashan."  This  fact  is  attested  by  all  the  ancient 
historians :  Aristotle  asserts,  that  when  the  Hon  judges  him- 
self within  reach,  he  throws  himself  upon  his  prey;  Pliny 
says,  he  leaps  with  a  bound  ;  and  Solinus,  when  he  is  in 
full  pursuit,  he  springs  forward  upon  thfe  game.  When 
he  leaps  on  his  prey,  says  Buffbn,  he  makes  a  spring  of 
twelve  or  fifteen  feet.  In  the  same  manner  acted  Dan-, 
proceeding,  as  it  were,  by  a  single  bound,  from  the  one 
extremity  of  Canaan  to  the  other,  he  invaded  the  city  of 
Laish,  which,  after  its  reduction,  he  called  by  his  own 
name. — Paxton. 

Ver.  24.  And  of  Asher  he  said.  Let  Asher  be 
blessed  with  children ;  let  him  be  acceptable  to 
his  brethren,  and  let  him  dip  his  foot  in  oil. 

The  juice  of  the  grape,  it  is  well  known,  is  expressed  in 
the  East  by  treading,  an  operation  which  Dr.  Chandler 
had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  near  Smyrna.  Black  grapes 
were  spread  on  the  ground  in  beds,  and  exposed  to  the  sun 
to  dry  for  raisins ;  while  in  another  part,  the  juice  was  ex- 
pressed for  wine,  a  man  with  feet  and  legs  bare,  treading 
the  fruit  in  a  kind  of  cistern,  with  a  hole  or  vent  near  the 
bottom,  and  a  vessel  beneath  it  to  receive  the  liquor.  When 
a  few  clusters  of  grapes  are  to  be  squeezed,  it  may  be  done 
commodiously  enough  by  the  hand ;  in  this  Avay,  Pharaoh's 
butler  supposed  he  took  the  grapes  and  pressed  them  into 
his  master's  cup.  This,  it  is  true,  was  only  a  visionary 
scene,  but  we  must  suppose  it  was  agreeable  to  the  custom 
of  the  country.  But  when  a  large  quantity  of  juice  was 
required,  the  grapes  were  subjected  in  the  wine-press  to 
the  feet  of  a  treader.  Oil  of  olives  was  expressed  in  the 
same  way,  before  the  invention  of  mills.  The  existence  of 
this  practice  in  Palestine,  is  ascertained  by  that  threatening 
in  the  prophecies  of  Micah :  "  Thou  shalt  sow,  but  thou 
shalt  not  reap ;  thou  shalt  tread  the  olives,  but  shalt  not 
anoint  thee  with  oil;  and  sweet  Avine,  but  shalt  not  drink 
wine."  But  unequivocal  traces  of  it  may  be  discovered  in 
ages  long  anterior  to  the  days  of  that  prophet ;  for  in  the 
blessing  of  Asher,  we  find  Moses  praying:  "  Let  Asher  dip 
his  foot  in  oil."  Whether  any  preparation  was  used  in 
those  ancient  times  to  facilitate  the  expression  of  the  juice, 
we  are  not  informed ;  but  it  is  certain  thai  mills  are  now 
used  for  pressing  and  grinding  the  olives  which  grow  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Athens,  and  probably  in  other  eastern 
countries.  These  mills  are  in  the  town,  aiid  not  in  the  spot 
where  the  olives  grow;  and  seem  to  be  used  in  consequence 
of  its  being  found,  that  the  mere  weight  of  the  human  body 
is  insuflficient  for  the  purpose  of  etfeclually  extracting  the 
oil. — Paxton.  "^ 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
Ver.  1.  And  Moses  went  up  from  the  plains  of 
Moab  unto  the  mountain  of  Nebo,  to  the  top  of 
Pisgah,  that  is  over  against  Jericho :  and  the 
Lord  showed  him  all  the  land  of  Gilead,  unto 
Dan. 

Mr.  Buckingham,  travelling  through  the  mountains  of 
Gilead,  says,  "  We  were  now  in  a  land  of  extraordinary 
richness,  abounding  with  the  most  beautiful  prospects, 
clothed  with  thick  forests,  varied  with  verdant  slopes,  and 
possessing  extensive  plains  of  a  fine  red  soil,  now  covered 
with  thistles  as  the  best  proof  of  its  fertility,  and  yielding 
in  nothing  to  the  celebrated  plains  of  Zabulon  and  Esdrae- 
lon,  in  Galilee  and  Samaria.  We  continued  our  way  to 
the  northeast,  through  a  country,  the  beauty  of  which  so 
surprised  us,  that  we  often  asked  each  other,  what  were  our 
sensations ;  as  if  to  ascertain  the  reality  of  what  we  saw, 
and  persuade  each  other,  by  mutual  confession  of  our  de- 
light, that  the  picture  before  us  was  not  an  optical  illusion. 
The  landscape  alone,  which  varied  at  every  tuin,  and 
gave  us  new  beauties  from  very  ditferent  points  of  view, 
was,  of  itself,  worth  all  the  pains  of  an  excursion  to  the 
eastward  of  Jordan  to  obtain  a  sight  of;  and  the  park-like 
scenes,  that  sometimes  softened  the  romantic  wildness  of 
the  general  character  as  a  whole,  reminded  us  of  similar 
spots  in  less  neglected  lands." 


JOSHUA. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  1.  Now,  after  the  death  of  Moses,  the  ser- 
vant of  the  Lord,  it  came  to  pass,  that  the  Lord 
spake  unto  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun,  Moses' 
minister,  saying,  2.  Moses  my  servant  is  dead : 
ngw  therefore  arise,  go  over  this  Jordan,  thou, 
and  all  this  people,  unto  the  land  which  I  do 
give  to  them,  even  to  the  children  of  Israel. 

The  conquest  of  Canaan,  by  the  Israelites,  having  so  oft- 
en been  the  subject  of  cavil  among  the  enemies  of  revela- 
tion, and  being  adverted  to  in  terms  of  approbation  above, 
may  properly  be  considered  in  this  place.     Their  conduct 
in  this  affair  is  satisfactorily  vindicated  by  Mr.  Townsend, 
m  his  "  Old  Testament  historically  and  chronologically  ar- 
ranged," from  which  we  transcribe  the  following  pas- 
sages : — God,  the  great  governor,  who  possesses  all  power 
over  his  creatures,  and  may  justly  punish  those  who  vio- 
late his  laws,  in  that  manner  which  to  his  wisdom  may 
seem  most  impressive  and  useful,  commanded  the  Israel- 
ites to  exterminate  the  Canaanites,  as  th^  just  retribution 
for  their  crimes  and  idolatries.    God  might  have  destroyed 
them  by  famine,  by  earthquake,  by  pestilence :    He  might 
have  drowned  by  a  local  deluge,  or  consumed  them  by  fire 
from  heaven ;  instead  of  these,  he  commissioned  the  people 
of  Israel  to  root  them  out  by  the  sword.     In  so  doing,  the 
Almighty  not  only  demonstrated  to  the  whole  world  his 
hatred  of  the  corruptions  and  pollutions  of  superstition,  but 
he  more  particularly  enforced  on  the  Israelites  the  purity 
of  his  law,  the  certainly  of  their  own  punishment  if  they 
apostatized,  and  the  freedom  from  temporal  evil  which 
they  should  consequently  enjoy  if  they  persevered  in  their 
allegiance  to  hhn,  their  sovereign.     Lest  this  invasion  of 
Canaan  by  the  Israelites,  however,  should  be  drawn  into 
precedent  by  other  nations,  for  ambition  or  religious  perse- 
cution ;  they  were  assured  by  continued  and  powerful  mira- 
cles, that  their  cause  was  just,  that  they  should  be  successful, 
and  that  they  were  not  subject  at  that  period  to  the  common 
laws  of  nations.     The  people  of  Israel  was  the  sword  of 
God,  the  great  magistrate  of  earth,  and  they  were  no  more 
to  be  condemned  in  thus  acting  in  conformit}''  to  the  com- 
mands of  God,  than  the  executioner  can  be  who  fulfils  the 
last  sentence  of  the  law.     Before,  then,  other  nations  in- 
vade theterritory  of  their  neighbours  on  the  same  supposed 
authority   as  the   Israelites,   the  same  commission  from 
heaven  must  be  given  ;  and  that  commission  must  be  au- 
thenticated by  miracles    equally  evident,  perpetual,  and 
wonderful.    Many,  however,  have  not  been  satisfied  with 
this  argument;  and  would  discard  the  doctrine  of  the  pecu- 
liar providence,  which  regulated  by  a  visible  theocracy 
the  conduct  of  the  chosen  people  :  they  would  defend  the 
invasion  of  Palestine  on  other  grounds.     They  would 
judge  of  the  transactions  of  that  period,  (regardless  of  the 
peculiar  circumstances  under  which  they  took  place,)  by 
modern  ideas,  and  the  present  law  of  nations.    Some  sup- 
pose that  the  conduct  of  the  Israelites  was  solely  defensi- 
ble, on  the  supposition  that  there  had  been  a  partition  of 
the  whole  earth  by  the  sons  of  Noah ;  and  that  Canaan  had 
been  allotted  to  Shem :  the  sons  of  Shem,  therefore,  were  jus- 
tified in  claiming  their  ancient  inheritance  from  the  Ca- 
naanites, who  were  descended  from  Ham.    Others  have 
asserted  that  the  Canaanites  commenced  the  war  by  at- 
tacking the  Israelites :  an  assertion  that cannotbe  defended 
from  the  history.    While  others  have  affirmed,  without 
any  well-gi' unded  arguments,  that  the  Israelites,  as  a  wan- 
dering people,  having  no  certain  home,  were  justified  in 
forcibly  invading,  and  taking  possession  of  an  adjoining 
territory.     Rut  Michaelis  is  of  opinion  that  the  right  of  the 
Israelites  originated  in  their  being  actually  the  proprietors 


of  Canaan,  of  which  they  had  been  unjustly  dispossessed 
by  the  intruding  and  hostile  Canaanites. 

The  laws  of  nations  are  always  the  same.  If  any  na- 
tion, or  tribe,  or  part  of  a  tribe,  take  possession  of  an  un- 
known, undiscovered,  unoccupied,  or  uninhabited  coun- 
try, the  right  of  properly  vests  in  them;  they  are  its  proprie- 
tors and  owners.  After  the  deluge,  the  world  might  be 
said  to  be  in  this  state ;  and  Michaelis  has  endeavoured  to 
prove,  that  the  ancestors  of  Abraham  were  the  original 
occupiers  of  the  pasture  land  of  Canaan.  Canaan,  there- 
fore, by  the  law  of  nations,  as  well  as  by  the  promises  of 
God,  was  the  lot  of  Abraham's  inheritance,  and  the  right- 
ful land  of  his  descendants.  The  Canaanite  and  the  Periz-' 
zite  had  only  just  established  themselves  in  Canaan  when 
Abraham  removed  from  Haran  to  that  country ;  and  were 
so  weak  and  few  in  number,  that  they  never  interfered 
with  the  right  of  sovereignty  assumed  and  exerted  by 
Abraham.  The  Canaanites  were  merchants  and  adven- 
turers who  had  been  originally  settled  near  the  borders  of 
the  Indian  Ocean ;  and  who,  having  been  dispossessed  by 
the  Cuthic  Sidonians,  had  migrated  westward,  to  form  es- 
tablishments on  the  seacoasts  of  Palestine,  and  carry  on 
commerce  with  the  herdsmen  who  traversed  it.  They 
were  for  some  time  contented  with  their  factories  on  the 
seacoasts,  but  they  gradually  obtained  possession  of  the 
inland  country.  The  Perizzites,  too,  were  a  warlike  tribe, 
who  now  first  made  their  appearance  in  Canaan ;  they  had 
originally  inhabited  the  northeast  of  Babylonia.  Wheth- 
er they  had  been  dispossessed  of  their  settlements ;  whether 
they  were  seeking  new  establishments ;  or  for  whatever 
purpose  they  were  now  in  Palestine,  they  gave  no  inter- 
ruption to  the  progress  of  Abraham,  although  Abraham 
entered  upon  the  Holy  Land  and  continued  his  journey 
ings  with  a  large  retinue,  and  as  a  powerful  prince.  He 
took  possession  of  Canaan  as  the  territory  of  his  ances- 
tors; not  indeed  as  a  fixed  habitation,  but  as  a  pasture  land 
adapted  to  his  numerous  flocks  and  herds.  He  traversed 
the  whole  country  as  a  proprietor,  without  a  competitor. 
He  had  the  power  of  arming  three  hundred  and  eighteen 
of  his  own  servants,  born  in  his  own  house;  and  it  is 
most  probable  that  he  had  others  who  are  not  enumerated. 
He  declared  war  as  an  independent  prince  of  this  country 
against  five  neighbouring  princes;  and  formed  an  alliance 
with  Abimelech,  as  an  equal  and  as  a  sovereign.  It  is 
true,  he  purchased  land  of  the  Canaanitish  family  of  Heth, 
but  this  was  because  the  Hittites  had  gradually  made  a 
more  fixed  settlement  in  that  part  of  the  country;  their 
intrusion  had  not  been  at  first  prevented  by  the  ancestors 
of  Abraham;  and  by  this  sufferance  they  made  that  dis- 
trict their  peculiar  property.  As  Abraham  thus  traversed 
and  possessed  Canaan,  with  undisputed  authority,  so  too  ■ 
did  Isaac  and  Jacob  in  like  manner.  No  one  opposed 
their  right:  They  exercised,  as  Abraham  had  done  'be- 
fore them,  sovereign  power;  they  never  resigned  that 
power;  nor  gave  up  toothers  the  property  of  that  land, 
which  now,  by  long  prescription,  as  well  as  by  the  promise 
of  God,  had  become. entirely  their  own. 

The  ancestors,  then,  of  the  Israelites,  Michaelis  argues, 
were  either  the  sole  sovereigns,  or  the  most  powerful  of 
those  princes  who  possessed,  in  early  ages,  the  Holy  Land. 
By  the  famine  which  occurred  in  the  days  of  Joseph,  they 
were  compelled  to  leave  their  own  country,  and  take  ref- 
uge in  Egypt :  yet  they  never  lost  sight  of  the  sepulchre  of 
their  fathers.  And  though  we  do  not  read  that  acts  of 
ownership  were  continued  to  maintain  and  perpetuate  their 
right,  we  can  have  but  little  doubt,  that  something  of  the 
kind  took  place,  for  Jacob  was  taken  from  Egypt  to  be 
buried  there;  Joseph  assured  them  that  they  should  re-' 
turn;  and  the  Egyptians,  their  oppressors,  a  kindred 
branch  of  the  powerful  tribes  which  had  by  this  time  en- 
tirely taken  possession  of  Palestine,  kept  them  in  bond- 


Chap.  2,  3. 


JOSHUA. 


127 


age,  and  refused  to  let  them  go,  lest  they  should  claim  the 
inheritance  of  their  fathers.  If  this  claim  of  the  Israelites 
can  be  proved  to  be  well  founded,  they  would  have  been 
entitled,  by  the  law  of  nations,  forcibly  to  take  possession  of 
the  Holy  Land;  and  it  will  be  interesting  to  observe  how 
.he  merciful  providence  of  God  afforded  them  the  opportu- 
nity of  successfully  regaining  their  lawful  inheritance, 
ancl  at  the  same  time  accomplishing  his  own  divine  pur- 
poses, to  the  fulfilment  of  his  prophecies,  and  to  the  hap- 
piness and  security  of  his  church.  The  Israelites  may  be 
considered  as  the  servants  and  ministers  of  God,  punish- 
ing the  idolatry  of  the  Canaanites,  and  instituting  in  its 
place,  in  the  midst  of  an  apostate  world,  the  religion  of  the 
one  true  God.  In  every  victory  they  obtained,  they  must 
have  admired  the  faithfulness  of  that  promise  which  had 
foretold  their  entire  possession  of  this  land;  and  they  must 
have  been  persuaded,  that  if  they  served  other  gods,  they 
would  bring  down  upon  themselves  the  punishments  pre- 
dicted by  Moses. — Vide  Michaelis,  Comment.  <S:c.  vol.  i. 
book  ii.  ch.  iii.  p.  155,  &c. ;  Horae  Mosaicae,  vol.  i.  p. 
458 ;  Faber's  Origin  of  Pag.  Idol.  vol.  iii.  p.  561,  &c. — 
Townsend's  Old  Testament,  vol.  j.  pp.  411   ■416. — Criti- 

CA    BiBLICA. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  1.  And  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun  sent  out  of 
Shittim  two  men  to  spy  secretly,  saying,  Go 
view  the  land,  even  Jericho.  And  they  went, 
and  came  into  a  harlot's  house,  named  Rahab, 
and  lodged  there. 

Most  of  the  eastern  cities  contain  one  caravansary  at  least, 
for  the  reception  of  strangers;  smaller  places,  called  choul- 
tries, are  erected  by  charitable  persons,  or  munificent 
princes,  in  forests,  plains,  and  deserts,  for  the  accommo- 
dation of  travellers.  Near  them  is  generally  a  well,  and 
a  cistern  for  the  cattle :  a  bramin  or  faquir  often  resides 
there  to  furnish  the  pilgrim  with  food,  and  the  few  necessa- 
ries he  may  stand  in  need  of  When  benighted  in  a  dreary 
solitude,  travellers  in  India  were  thus  certain,  within  a 
moderate  distance,  to  find  one  of  these  buildings  appro- 
priated for  their  accommodation,  and  were  often  supplied 
with  the  necessaries  of  life  gratis.  (Forbes.)  Dr.  Franklin 
says,  that  among  the  Indians  of  North  America,  there  is  in 
every  village  a  vacant  dwelling,  called  the  stranger's  house. 
Hither  ihe  traveller  is  led  by  two  old  men,  who  procure  him 
victuals,  and  skins  to  repose  on,  exacting  nothing  for  the 
entertainment.  Among  the  ancients,  women  generally 
kept  houses  of  entertainment.  "  Among  the  Egyptians,  the 
women  carry  on  all  commercial  concerns,  and  keep  tav- 
erns, while  the  men  continue  at  home  and  weave."  Herod- 
otus asserts,  that  "the  men  were  the  slaves  of  the  women 
in  Egypt,  and  that  it  is  stipulated  in  the  marriage  contract, 
that  the  woman  shall  be  the  ruler  of  her  husband,  and  that 
he  shall  obey  her  in  all  things." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  15.  And  as  they  that  bare  the  ark  were 
come  unto  Jordan,  and  the  feet  of  the  priests 
that  bare  the  ark  were  dipped  in  the  brim  of 
the  water,  (for  Jordan  overfloweth  all  his  banks 
all  the  time  of  harvest.) 

The  largest  and  most  celebrated  stream  in  Palestine,  is 
the  Jordan.  It  is  much  larger,  according  to  Dr.  Shaw, 
than  all  the  brooks  and  streams  of  the  Holy  Land  united 
together ;  and,  excepting  the  Nile,  is  by  far  the  most  con- 
siderable river,  either  of  the  coast  of  Syria  or  of  Barbary. 
He  computed  it  to  be  about  thirty  yards  broad,  and  found 
it  nine  feet  deep  at  the  brink.  This  river,  which  divides 
the  country  into  two  unequal  parts,  has  been  commonly 
said  to  issue  from  two  fountains,  or  to  be  formed  by  the 
junction  of  two  rivulets,  the  Jor  and  the  Dan  ;  but  the  as- 
sertion seems  to  be  totally  destitute  of  any  solid  foundation. 
The  Jewish  historian,  Josephus,  on  the  contrary,  places  its 
source  at  Phiala,  a  fountain  which  rises  about  fifteen  miles 
from  Cesarea  Philippi,  a  little  on  the  right  hand,  and  not 
much  out  of  the  w^ay  to  Trachonitis.  It  is  called  Phiala,  or 
the  Vial,  from  its  roimd  figure  ;  its  water  is  always  of  the 
same  depth,  the  basin  being  brimful,  without  either  shrink- 


ing or  overflowing.  From  Phiala  to  Panion,  which  was 
long  considered  as  the  real  source  of  Jordan,  the  river  flbw? 
under  ground.  The  secret  of  its  subterraneous  course  was 
first  discovered  by  Philip,  the  tetrarch  of  Trachonitis,  who 
caststraws  intothe  fountain  of  Phiala,  Avhichcame  out  again 
at  Panion.  Leaving  the  cave  of  Panion,  it  crosses  the 
bogs  and  fens  of  the  lake  Semichonitis ;  and  after  a  course 
of  fifteen  miles,  passes  ifhder  the  city  of  Julias,  the  ancient 
Bethsaida;  then  expands  into  a  beautiful  sheet  of  water, 
named  the  lake  of  Gennesareth  ;  and  after  flowing  a  long 
way  through  the  desert,  empties  itself  mto  the  lake  Ai^phal- 
tites,  or  Dead  Sea.  As  the  cave  Panion  lies  at  the  foot  of 
mount  Lebanon,  in  the  northern  extremity  of  Canaan,  and 
the  lake  Asphaltites  extends  to  the  southern  extremity,  the 
river  Jordan  pursues  it  course  through  the  whole  extent  of 
the  country  from  north  to  south,  li  is  evident  also,  from 
the  history  of  Josephus,  that  a  wilderness  or  de?ert  c«f  con- 
siderable extent,  stretched  along  the  river  Jordan  in  the 
times  of  the  New  Testament ;  which  was  undoubtedly  the 
wilderness  mentioned  by  the  evangelists,  v.here  John  the 
Baptist  came  preaching  and  baptizing.  The  Jordan  has  a 
considerable  depth  of  water.  Chateaubriand  makes  it 
six  or  seven  feet  deep  close  at  the  shore,  and  about  fifty 
paces  in  breadth  a  considerable  distance  from  its  entrance 
mto  the  Dead  Sea.  According  to  the  computation  of  Vol- 
ney,  it  is  hardly  sixty  paces  wide  at  the  mouth ;  but  the 
author  of  Letters  from  Palestine,  states  that  the  stream, 
when  it  enters  the  lake  Asphaltites,  is  deep  and  rapid, 
rolling  a  considerable  volume  of  waters ;  the  width  ap- 
pears from  two  to  three  hundred  feet,  and  the  current  is 
so  violent,  that  a  Greek  servant  belonging  to  the  author 
who  attempted  to  cross  it,  though  strong,  active,  and  an  ex- 
cellent swimmer,  found  the  undertaking  impracticable. 
It  maybe  said  to  have  two  banks,  of  which  the  inner  marks 
the  ordinary  height  of  the  stream;  and  the  outer,  its  ancient 
elevation  during  the  rainy  season,  or  the  melting  of  the 
snows  on  the  summits  of  Lebanon.  In  the  days  of  Joshua, 
and  it  is  probable  for  many  ages  after  his  time,  the  har- 
vest was  one  of  the  seasons  when  the  Jordan  overflows  1 
his  banks.  This  fact  is  distinctly  recorded  by  the  sacreii 
historian :  "  And  as  they  that  bare  the  ark  were  come  unto 
Jordan,  and  the  feet  of  the  priests  that  bare  the  ark.  were 
dipped  in  the  brim  of  the  water  (for  Jordan  overfloweth  all 
his  banks  all  the  time  of  harvest.")  This  happens  in  the 
first  month  of  the  Jewish  year,  which  corresponds  with 
March.  But  in  modern  times,  (whether  the  rapidity  of  the 
current  has  worn  the  channel  deeper  than  formerly,  or 
whether  its  waters  have  taken  some  other  direction,)  the 
river  seems  to  have  forgotten  his  ancient  greatness.  When 
Maundrell  visited  Jordan  on  the  thirtieth  of  March,  the 
proper  time  for  these  inundations,  he  could  discern  no  sign 
or  probability  of  such  overflowing  ;  nay,  so  far  was  it  from 
overflowing,  that  it  ran,  says  our  author,  at  least  two  yards 
below  the  brink  of  its  channel.  After  having  descended 
the  outer  bank,  he  went  about  a  furlong  upon  the  level 
strand,  before  he  came  to  the  immediate  bank  of  the  river. 
This  inner  bank  was  so  thickly  covered  with  bushes  and 
trees,  among  which  he  observecl  the  tamarisk,  the  willoAV, 
and  the  oleander,  that  he  could  see  no  water  till  he  had 
made  his  way  through  them.  In  this  entangled  thicket,  so 
conveniently  planted  near  the  cooling  stream,  and  remote 
from  the  habitations  of  men,  several  kinds  of  wild  beasts 
were  accustomed  to  repose  till  the  swelling  of  the  river 
drove  them  from  their  retreats.  This  circumstance  gave 
occasion  to  that  beautiful  allusion  of  the  prophet :  "  He 
shall  come  up  like  a  lion,  from  the  swelling  of  Jordan, 
against  the  habitation  of  the  strong."  The  figure  is  highly 
poetical  and  striking.  It  is  not  easy  to  present  a  more  ter- 
rible image  to  the  mind,  than  a  lion  roused  from  his  den 
by  the  roar  of  the  swelling  river,  and  chafed  and  irritated 
by  its  rapid  and  successive  encroachments  on  his  chosen 
haunts,  till  forced  to  quit  his  last  retreat,  he  ascends  to  the 
higher  grounds  and  the  open  country,  and  turns  the  fierce- 
ness of  his  rage  against  the  helpless  sheep-cots,  or  the  un- 
suspecting villages.  A  destroyer  equally  fierce,  and  cruel, 
and  irresistible,  the  devoted  Edomites  were  to  find  in  Nebu- 
chadnezzar and  his  armies.  The  water  of  the  river,  at 
the  time  of  Mr.  Maundrell's  visit,  was  very  turbid,  and  too 
rapid  to  allow  a  swimmer  to  stem  its  course.  Its  breadth 
might  be  about  twenty  yards ;  and  in  depth,  it  far  exceeded 
his  height.  The  rapidity  and  depth  of  the  river,  which  are 
admitted  by  every  traveller,  although  the  volume  of  water 


128 


JOSHUA. 


Chap.  3. 


seeiris  now  to  be  much  diminished,  illustrate  those  parts 
of  scripture,  which  mention  the  fords  and  passages  of  Jor- 
dan. It  no  longer  indeed  rolls  down  into  the  Salt  Sea  so 
majestic  a  stream  as  in  the  days  of  Joshua,  yet  its  ordinary 
depth  is  still  about  ten  or  twelve  feet,  so  that  it  cannot 
even  at  present  be  passed  but  at  certain  places.  Of  this 
well-known  circumstance,  the  men  of  Gilead  took  advan- 
tage in  the  civil  war,  which  th«y  were  compelled  to  wage 
Vv^ith  their  brethren:  "The  Gileadites  took  the  passages 
of  Jordan  before  the  Ephraimites :  .  .  .  then  they  took  him, 
and  slew  him  at  the  passages  of  Jordan."  The  people  of 
Israel,  under  the  command  of  Ehud,  availed  themselves  of 
the  same  advantage  in  the  war  with  Moab :  "  And  they 
went  down  after  him,  and  took  the  fords  of  Jordan  towards 
Moab,  and  suffered  not  a  man  to  pass  over,"  But  although 
the  state  of  this  river  in  modern  times,  completely  justifies 
the  incidental  remarks  of  the  sacred  writers,  it  is  evident, 
that  Maundrell  was  disconcerted  by  the  shallowness  of  the 
stream,  at  the  time  of  the  year  when  he  expected  to  see  it 
overflowing  all  its  banks ;  and  his  embarrassment  seems 
to  have  increased,  when  he  contemplated  the  double  margin 
within  which  it  flowed.  This  difficulty,  which  has  perhaps 
occurred  to«ome  others,  may  be  explained  by  a  remark 
which  Dr.  Pococke  has  made  on  the  river  Euphrates. 
"  The  bed  of  the  Euphrates,"  says  that  writer,  "was  meas- 
ured by  some  English  gentlemen  at  Beer,  and  found  to  be 
six  hundred  and  thirty  yards  broad ;  but  the  river  only- 
two  hundred  and  fourteen  yards  over ;  that  they  thought  it 
to  be  nine  or  ten  feet  deep  in  the  middle ;  and  were  in- 
formed, that  it  sometimes  rises  twelve  feet  perpendicularly. 
He  observed  that  it  had  an  inner  and  outer  bank ;  but  says, 
it  rarely  overflows  the  inner  bank :  that  when  it  does,  they 
sow  watermelons  and  other  fruits  of  that  kind,  as  soon  as 
the  water  retires,  and  have  a  great  produce."  From  this 
passage,  Mr.  Harmer  argues  ;  "  Might  not  the  overflow- 
ings of  the  Jordan  be  like  those  of  the  Euphrates,  not  an- 
nual, but  much  more  rare  V  The  difficulty,  therefore, 
will  be  completely  removed,  by  supposing  that  it  does  not, 
like  the  Nile,  overflow  every  year,  as  some  authors  by  mis- 
take had  supposed,  but,  like  the  Euphrates,  only  in  some 
particular  years;  but  when  it  does,  it  is  in  the  time  of  har- 
vest. If  it  did  not  in  ancient  times  annually  overflow  its 
hanks,  the  majesty  of  God  in  dividing  its  waters,  to  make 
way  for  Joshua  and  the  armies  of  Israel,  was  certainly  the 
more  striking  to  the  Canaanites ;  who,  when  they  looked 
upon  themselves  as  defended  in  an  extraordinary  manner 
by  the  casual  swelling  of  the  river,  its  breadth  and  rapidity 
being  both  so  extremely  increased,  yet,  found  it  in  these 
circumstances  part  asunder,  and  leave  a  way  on  dry  land 
for  the  pec^le  of  Jehovah. 

The  casual  overflowing  of  the  river,  in  Mr.  Harmer's 
opinion,  seems  to  receive  some  confirmation  from  a  pas- 
sage in  Josephus,  where  that  writer  informs  his  readers, 
that  the  Jordan  was  sometimes  swelled  in  the  spring,  so 
as  to  be  impassable  in  places  where  people  were  wont  to 
go  over  in  his  time ;  for,  speaking  of  a  transaction  on 
the  fourth  of  the  month  Dystrus,  which  answers  to  our 
March,  or,  as  others  reckon,  to  February,  he  gives  an 
account  of  great  numbers  of  people  who  perished  in  this 
river,  into  which  they  were  driven  by  their  enemies ; 
which,  by  the  circumstances,  appears  to  have  happened 
in  a  few  days  after  what  was  done  on  the  fourth  of  Dystrus. 
But  the  solution  offered  by  this  respectable  author  is  rather 
strained  and  unsatisfactory.  The  inspired  writer  of  the 
book  of  Joshua  uses  language  on  that  subject,  which  natu- 
rally suggests  the  idea  of  periodical  inundations :  "  Jordan 
overfloweth  all  his  banks  all  the  time  of  harvest."  The 
present  time  certainly  indicates  the  general  habit  of  the 
subject  to  which  it  refers,  and  in  this  case,  what  commonly 
happens  to  the  river.  It  may  be  swelled  in  the  spring  occa- 
sionally ;  but  it  is  not  easy  to  discover  a  reason  for  the  gen- 
eral remark  of  the  sacred  writer,  if  the  inundations  in  the 
time  of  harvest  were  not  annual.  The  causes  of  these  in- 
undations, the  melting  of  the  snows  on  the  top  of  Lebanon, 
and  the  former  and  latter  rain,  uniformly  take  place  at 
their  appointed  seasons  ;  but  a  steady  periodical  cause  will 
certainly  produce  a  corresponding  effect.  But  if  this  rea- 
soning be  just,  why  did  not  Maundrell  see  the  effect  when 
he  visited  the  river  at  the  appointed  time  1  This  question 
may  be  answered  by  another,  Why  do  the  inundations 
even  of  the  Nile  sometimes  fail  1  The  reason  is  obvious  ; 
the  rains  in  Abyssinia  are  not  every  season  equally  copious. 


In  the  same  manner,  if  the  snows  on  Lebanon,  and  the 
periodical  rains,  are  less  abundant  in  some  seasons,  it  will 
easily  account  for  the  state  of  the  river  when  it  was  visited 
by  Maundrell.  Admitting  the  fact,  that  the  volume  of  wa- 
ter in  the  Jordan  is  diminished,  and  that  he  never  overflows 
his  banks  as  in  ancient  times,  that  intelligent  traveller  him- 
self has  sufficiently  accounted  for  the  circumstance :  some 
of  the  waters  may  be  drained  off  by  secret  channels,  which 
is  not  uncommon  in  those  parts  of  the  world ;  and  if  the 
rapidity  of  the  current  be  so  great  that  he  could  not  swim 
against  it,  the  depth  of  the  channel  must  be  greatly  increas- 
ed since  the  days  of  Joshua  and  the  Judges.  To  these,, 
some  other  causes  of  considerable  power  may  be  added ; 
the  present  state  of  Lebanon,  now  for  a  long  time  deprived 
of  its  immense  forests  of  cedar,  which  formerly  exerted  a 
powerful  attraction  on  the  humidity  of  the  atmosphere,  and 
served  to  accumulate  the  snows  on  the  Sannin,  while  they 
screened  from  the  burning  rays  of  the  sun,  the  fountains 
and  rills  that  fed  the  Jordan  and  his  tributary  streams :  and 
the  great  extent  to  which  the  declivities  of  that  noble  moun- 
tain have  been  subjected  to  the  arts  of  cultivation,  by  the 
Maronites,  and  other  nations,  who  have  taken  refuge  in  its 
sequestered  retreats  from  the  intolerable  oppression  of  the 
Turks,  by  which  its  numerous  streams  have  been  still 
further  diminished, — must,  it  is  imagined,  produce  a  very 
sensible  difference  in  the  volume  of  water  which  that  river, 
once  so  celebrated  for  its  full  and  majestic  tide,  now  pours 
into  the  Salt  Sea.  Still,  however,  taking  the  mean  depth 
of  the  stream  during  the  whole  year  at  nine  feet,  and  ad- 
mitting that  it  runs  about  two  miles  an  hour,  the  Jordan 
will  daily  discharge  into  the  Dead  Sea,  about  6,090,000  tons 
of  water. 

But  although  these  causes  must  have  produced  a  consid- 
erable diminution  in  the  swellings  of  Jordan,  we  have  the 
authority  of  a  recent  traveller  for  asserting,  that  they  still 
take  place  at  the  appointed  season,  and  exhibit  a  scene  of 
no  inconsiderable  grandeur.  In  winter,  the  river  overflows 
its  narrow  channel,  which  between  the  two  principal  lakes 
is  not  more  than  sixty  or  eighty  feet  broad,  and,  swelled  by 
the  rains,  forms  a  sheet  of  water  sometimes  a  quarter  of  a 
league  in  breadth.  The  time  of  its  overflowing  is  gener- 
ally in  March,  when  the  snows  melt  on  the  mountain  of 
the  Shaik  ;  at  which  time,  more  than  any  other,  its  waters 
are  troubled  and  of  a  yellow  hue,  and  its  course  impetu- 
ous. The  common  receptacle  into  which  the  Jordan 
empties  his  waters,  is  the  lake  Asphaltites,  from  whence 
they  are  continually  drained  off  by  evaporation.  Some 
writers,  unable  to  find  a  discharge  for  the  large  body  of 
water  which  is  continually  rushing  into  the  lake,  have  been 
inclined  to  suspect,  it  had  some  communication  with  the 
Mediterranean ;  but,  besides  that  we  know  of  no  snch  gulf, 
it  has  been  demonstrated  by  accurate  calculations,  that 
evaporation  is  more  than  sufficient  to  carry  off'  the  waters 
of  the  river.  It  is  in  fact  very  considerable,  and  frequently 
becomes  sensible  to  the  eye,  by  the  fogs  with  which  the  lake 
is  covered  at  the  rising  of  the  sun,  and  which  are  after- 
ward dispersed  by  the  heat. 

How  large  the  common  receptacle  of  the  Jordan  was, 
before  the  destruction  of  Sodom,  cannot  now  be  determined 
with  certainty;  but  it  was  much  smaller  than  at  present; 
the  whole  vale  of  Siddim,  which,  before  that  awful  catas- 
trophe, was  crowded  Avith  cities,  or  covered  with  rich  and 
extensive  pastures,  and  fields  of  corn,  being  now  buried  in 
the  waters  of  the  lake.     The  course  of  the  stream,  which  is,™ 
to  the  southward,  seems  clearly  to  indicate,  that  the  origin- 1 
al  basin  was  in  the  southern  part  of  the  present  sea.    But,  a 
although  the  waters  of  the  river  at  first  presented  a  much  1 
less  extended  surface  to  the  action  of  the  sun  and  the  at- 
mosphere, still  a  secret  communication  between  the  lake  ■. 
and  the  Mediterranean,  is  not  perhaps  necessary  to  account 
for  their  discharge.    By  the  admission  of  Volney,  evapo-    , 
ration  is  more  than  sufficient  to  carry  them  off  at  present :  and 
if  to  this  be  added,  the  great  quantity  of  water  consumed 
in  the  cities,  and  required  by  the  cultivator,  to  refresh  his 
plantations  and  corn-fields,  under  the  burnrng  rays  of  an 
oriental  sun,  it  is  presumed,  a  cause  equal  to  the  effect  is 
provided.     This  is  not  a  mere  conjecture,  unsupported  by 
historical  facts ;  for  only  a  very  small  portion  of  the  Bar- 
rady,  the  principal  river  of  Damascus,  escapes  f)om  the 
gardens  that  environ  the  citv,  through  which  it  is  con- 
ducted in  a  thousand  clear  and  winding  streams,  to  main- 
tain their  freshness  and  verdura — PaxtOn. 


Chap.  5—9. 


JOSHUA. 


129 


CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  15.  And  the  captain  of  the  Lord's  host 
said  unto  Joshua,  Loose  thy  shoe  from  off  thy 
foot;  for  the  place  whereon  thou  standest  is 
holy.     And  Joshua  did  so. 

Every  person  that  approaches  the  royal  presence  in  the 
East,  is  obliged  to  take  off  his  shoes,  because  they  consider 
as  sacred  the  ground  on  which  the  king  sits,  whom  they  dig- 
nify with  the  title  of  the  Shadow  of  God.  Allusive  to  this 
.-custom,  perhaps,  is  the  command  given  to  Joshua :  "  Loose 
hyshoe  from  off  thy  foot;  for  the  place  whereon  thou  standest 
IS  holy.  And  Joshua  did  so."  And  so  strictly  was  this  cus- 
om  observed,  that  the  Persians  look  upon  the  omission  of  it 
as  the  greatest  indignity  that  can  be  offered  to  them.  The 
king  (says  Morier)  is  never  approached  by  his  subjects  with- 
out frequent  inclinations  of  the  body :  and  when  the  person 
mtroduced  to  his  presence  has  reached  a  certain  distance, 
he  waits  until  the  king  orders  him  to  proceed ;  upon  which 
he  leaves  his  shoes,  and  walks  forward  with  a  respectful  step 
to  a  second  spot,  until  his  majesty  again  directs  him  to  ad- 
vance. The  custom  which  is  here  referred  to,  not  only 
constantly  prevailed  all  over  the  East,  from  the  earliest 
ages,  but  continues  to  this  day.  To  pull  off  the  sandals, 
or  slippers,  is  used  as  a  mark  of  respect,  on  entering  a 
mosque  or  temple,  or  the  room  of  any  person  of  distinction ; 
in  which  case  they  were  either  laid  aside,  or  given  to  a 
servant  to  bear.  Ives  {Travels,  p.  75)  says,  that,  "  at  the 
doors  of  an  Indian  pagoda,  are  seen  as  many  slippers  and 
sandals  as  there  are  hats  hanging  up  in  our  churches." 
The  same  custom  prevails  among  the  Turks.  Maundrell 
describes  exactly  the  ceremonials  of  a  Turkish  visit, 
on  which  (though  a  European  and  a  stranger)  he  was 
obliged  to  comply  with  this  custom. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver,  26.  And  Joshua  adjured  them  at  that  time, 
saying,  Cjirsed  be  the  man  before  the  Lord 
that  riseth  up  and  buildeth  this  city  Jericho : 
he  shall  lay  the  foundation  thereof  in  his  first- 
born, and  in  his  youngest  so7i  shall  he  set  up 
the  gates  of  it. 

It  appears  from  the  following  passage  from  Strabo's 
Geography  of  Troy,  (b.  xiii.  chap.  1.  §  42,)  that  it  was  not 
unusual  in  remote  antiquity  to  pronounce  a  curse  upon 
those  who  should  rebuild  a  destroyed  city.  "  It  is  believed 
that  those  who  might  have  afterward  wished  to  rebuild 
Ilium,  were  deterred  from  building  the  city  in  the  same 
place,  either  by  what  they  had  suffered  there,  or  because 
Agamemnon  had  pronounced  a  curse  against  him  that 
should  rebuild  it.  For  this  was  an  ancient  custom.  Thus 
Croesus,  after  he  had  destroyed  Sidene,  into  which  the  ty- 
rant Glaucias  had  thrown  himself,  uttered  a  curse  upon 
him  who  should  rebuild  the  walls  of  that  place."  Zonaras 
says,  that  the  Romans  pronounced  a  curse  upon  him  who 
should  rebuild  Carthage.  Joshua's  curse  on  the  rebuilder 
of  Jericho,  was  fulfilled,  according  to  1  Kings  xvi.  34,  on 
one  Hiel,  who  lost  his  eldest  son,  Abiram,  when  he  laid  the 
foundation,  and  his  youngest  son,  Segub,  when  he  built  the 

gate. — -ROSENMULLER. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  6.  And  Joshua  rent  his  clothes,  and  fell  to 
the  earth  upon  his  face  before  the  ark  of  the 
Lord  until  the  even-tide,  he  and  the  elders  of 
Israel,  and  put  dust  upon  their  heads. 

Joshua  and  the  elders  of  Israel  were  in  great  distress, 
because  they  had  been  defeated  by  the  men  of  Ai,  and  be- 
cause they  saw  in  that  a  token  of  the  divine  displeasure. 
They  therefore  fell  prostrate  before  the  ark  of  the  Lord, 
and  put  dust  on  their  heads  as  an  emblem  of  their  sorrow. 
(1  Sam.  iv.  12.  2  Sam.  i.  2.  Neh.  ix.  1.)  How  often  is  the 
mind  afFectingly  thrown  back  on  this  ancient  custom  by 
similar  scenes  at  this  day !  See  the  poor  object  bereft  of 
wife,  children,  property,  friends ;  or  suffering  under  some 
deep  affliction  of  body :  he  sits  on  the  ground,  with  his 
eyes  fixed  thereon,  a  dirty  rag  round  his  loins,  his  arms 
17 


folded,  his  jewels  laid  aside,  his  hair  dishevelled  and  cov- 
ered with  dust,  and  bitterly  bemoaning  his  condition,  say- 
ing, lyol  iyol  iyol — "  Aias  1  alas!  alasl" — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  4.  They  did  Avork  wilily,  and  went  and  made 
as  if  they  had  been  ambassadors,  and  took  old 
sacks  upon  their  asses,  and  wine-bottles,  old, 
and  rent,  and  bound  up. 

Chardin  informs  us  that  the  Arabs,  and  all  those  that  lead 
a  wandering  life,  keep  their  water,  milk,  and  other  liquors, 
in  leathern  bottles.  "  They  keep  in  them  more  fresh  than 
otherwise  they  Avould  do.  These  leathern  bottles  are  made 
of  goat-skins.  When  the  animal  is  killed,  they  cut  off  its  feet 
and  its  head,  and  they  draw  it  in  this  manner  out  of  the 
skin,  without  opening  its  belly.  They  afterward  sew  up 
the  places  where  the  legs  were  cut  ofi;  and  the  tail,  and 
when  it  is  filled,  they  tie  it  about  the  neck.  These  nations, 
and  the  countrypeople  of  Persia,  never  go  a  journey 
without  a  small  leathern  bottle  of  water  hanging  by  their 
side  like  a  scrip.  The  great  leathern  bottles  are  made  of 
the  skin  of  a  he-goat,  and  the  small  oneSj'that  serve  in- 
stead of  a  bottle  of  water  on  the  road,  are  made  of  a  kid's  • 
skin."  These  bottles  are  frequently  rent,  when  old  and 
much  used,  and  are  capable  of  being  repaired  by  being 
bound  up.  This  they  do,  Chardin  says,  "  sometimes  by 
setting  in  a  piece  ;  sometimes  by  gathering  up  the  wounded 
place  in  the  manner  of  a  purse  ;  sometimes  they  put  in  a 
round  flat  piece  of  wood,  and  by  that  means  stop  the  hole." 
Maundrell  gives  an  account  exactly  similar  to  the  above. 
Speaking  of  the  Greek  convent  at  Bellmount,  near  Tr^)oli, 
in  Syria,  he  says,  "  the  same  person  whom  we  saw  officia- 
ting at  the  altar  in  his  embroidered  sacerdotal  robe,  brought 
us  the  next  day,  on  his  own  back,  a  kid  and  a  goat-skin  of 
wine,  as  a  present  from  the  convent."  These  bottles  are 
still  used  in  Spain,  and  called  borrachas.  Mr.  Bruce  gives 
a  description  of  the  girba,  which  seems  to  be  a  vessel  of  the 
same  kind  as  those  now  mentioned,  only  of  dimensions 
considerably  larger.  "  A  girba  is  an  ox's  skin,  squared,  and 
the  edges  sewed  together  very  artificially,  by  a  double 
seam,  which  does  not  let  out  water,  much  resembling  that 
upon  the  best  English  cricket  balls.  An  opening  is  left  at 
the  top  of  the  girba,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  bunghole 
of  a  cask  ;  around  this  the  skin  is  gathered  to  the  size  of  a 
large  handful,  which,  when  the  girba  is  full  of  water,  is 
tied  round  with  whip-cord.  These  girbas  generally  con- 
tain about  sixty  gallons  each,  and  two  of  them  are  the  load 
of  a  camel.  They  are  then  all  besmeared  on  the  outside 
with  grease,  as  well  to  hinder  the  water  from  oozing 
through,  as  to  prevent  its  being  evaporated  by  the  heat  of 
the  sun  upon  the  girba,  which,  in  fact,  happened  to  us> 
twice,  so  as  to  put  us  in  imminent  danger  of  perishing  with 
thirst." — Burder. 

Ver.  23.  Now  therefore  ye  are  cursed  ;  and  there 
shall  none  of  you  be  freed  from  being  bond- 
men, and  hewers  of  wood,  and  drawers  of  wa- 
ter, for  the  house  of  my  God. 

In  the  kingdom  of  Algiers,  the  women  and  children  are 
charged  with  the  care  of  their  flocks  and  their  herds,  with 
providing  food  for  the  family,  cutting  fuel,  fetching  water, 
and  when  their  domestic  affairs  allow  them,  with  tending 
their  silk  worms.  The  daughters  of  the  Turcomans  in 
Palestine,  are  employed  in  the  same  mean  and  laborious 
offices.  In  Homer,  Andromache  fed  the  horses  of  her  he- 
roic husband.  It  is  probable,  the  cutting  of  wood  was  an- 
other female  occupation.  The  verv  great  antiquity  of  these 
customs,  is  confirmed  by  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  who  com- 
plains that  the  children  were  sent  to  gather  wood  for  idol- 
atrous purposes ;  and  in  his  Lamentations,  he  bewails  the 
oppressions  which  his  people  suffered  from  their  enemies, 
in  these  terms:  "  They  took  the  young  men  to  grind,  and 
the  children  fell  under  the  wood.''  Hence  the  servile  con- 
dition to  which  the  Gibeonites  were  reduced  by  Joshua,  for 
imposing  upon  him  and  the  princes  of  the  congregation,  ap- 
pears to  have  been  much  more  severe  than  we  are  apt  at 
first  to  suppose :  "  Now,  therefore,  ye  are  cursed,  and  there 
shall  none  of  you  be  freed  from  being  bondmen,  and  hew- 
ers of  vood.,  and  drawers  of  water,  for  the  house  of  my  God." 


130 


JOSHUA. 


Chap.  10. 


The  bitterness  of  their  doom  did  not  consist  in  being  sub- 
jected to  a  laborious  service,  for  it  was  the  usual  employ- 
ment of  women  and  children  ;  but  in  their  being  degraded 
from  the  characteristic  employment  of  men,  that  of  bearing 
arms,  and  condemned  with  their  posterity  for  ever  to  the 
employment  of  females. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  6.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Joshua,  Be  not 
afraid  because  of  them ;  for  to-morrow,  about 
this  time,  will  I  deliver  them  up  all  slain  be- 
fore Israel:  thou  shalt  hough  their  horses, 
and  burn  their  chariots  with  fire. 

With  the  enemy's  horses,  the  Israelites  had  a  different 
procedure  from  other  booty.    For  their  direction,  indeed, 
on  this  point,  they  had  no  general  and  permanent  law,  pre- 
scribed them,  but  merely  the  order  from  God,  issued  by 
Joshua  (x.  6)  before  the  battle  at  the  waters  of  Merom ; 
according  to  which  order,  they  were  naturally  led  to  regu- 
late their  conduct  in  aftertimes.     In  their  wars  before  the 
reign  of  Sol(jmon,  they  made  no  use  of  horses,  though 
some  of  their  enemies  did ;  and  this  same  cavalry  of  their 
enemies  was  wont  to  be  very  formidable,  and  sometimes 
gave  them  the  superiority  of  the  Israelites  in  the  plains. 
At  the  same  time,  the  event  has  often  shown,  that  a  brave, 
steady,  close  infantry,  without  the  support  of  horse,  will 
stand  the  shock  of  hostile  cavalry  without  the  smallest  dis- 
order ;  of  which,  although  our  cavalry  is  far  more  formi- 
dable by  reason  of  their  close  charge,  modern  history  fur- 
nishes examples.     Indeed,  on  one  occasion,  besides  more 
than  20,000  infantry,  David  took,  I  know  not  whether  1700, 
or  7000  cavalry,  prisoners ;  their  retreat  across  the  Eu- 
phrates having  been  probably  cut  off,  or  that  they  were 
compelled  to  surrender  for  want  of  subsistence.    But  when 
the  Israelites  did  get  a  booty  of  horses,  they  did  not  know 
what  use  to  make  of  them.     Their  husbandry  was  carried 
on  in  the  ancient  way,  and  to  much  more  advantage,  with 
oxen,  which  are  not  so  expensive  to  maintain ;  and  to  this 
their  whole  rural  economy  was  directed.    In  war,  they  did 
not  employ  cavalry,  and  would  have  been  bad  horsemen ; 
and  for  travelling,  they  commonly  made  use  of  the  ass,  to 
which  whoever  is  accustomed  from  his  youth,  will  not  wil- 
lingly venture  to  ride  a  mettled  horse,  particularly  such  a 
one  as  is  employed  in  war.    Horses,  therefore,  were  to 
them  quite  a  useless  sort  of  plunder,  unless  they  had  sold 
them,  which  was  not  advisable,  because  their  enemies,  in 
a  roundabout  way,  might  have  bought  them  again.    It  was 
far  better  policy  for  them  to  diminish  as  far  as  possible  this 
race  of  animals,  by  means  of  which  their  enemies  might, 
.on  some  occasions,  obtain  a  manifest  advantage  over  them; 
just  as  the  Romans  put  the  elephants  of  their  enemies  to 
death,  because  they  had  no  desire  to  make  use  of  this  for- 
eign and  dubious  expedient  to  help  them  to  victory,  and 
yei  saw  that  elephants  might  sometimes  be  dangerous  to 
tiieir  troops.    In  the  first  engagement  which  the  Israelites 
had  with  an  enemy  whose  cavalry  and  war-chariots  made 
him  formidable,  God  commanded  them  to  hough  or  ham- 
string, that  is,  to  cut  the  thigh-sinew  of  the  horses  which 
they  took;  and  they  did  so,  Josh.  x.  6 — 9.    From  ignorance 
of  military  affairs,  most  expositors  have  understood  this 
command  as  if  it  meant,  not  that  the  horses  should  be  kill- 
ed, but  merely  lamed  in  the  hmd-legs,  and  then  let  go  :  and 
into  this  mistake,  by  following  Bochart,  as  he  had  Kimchi, 
I  was  led  in  the  first  edition  of  this  work. — I  have  never 
been  in  war,  and  know  just  as  little  of  the  veterinary  art ; 
nor  have  I  ever  seen  a  ham-strung  horse.    But  a  horse  so 
treated,  must,  instead  of  running  off,  fall  instantly  back- 
ward, and  writhe  about  miserably  till  he  die,  which  gen- 
erally happens  from  loss  of  blood,  by  the  stroke  of  the  sabre 
cutting  the  artery  of  the  thigh.     This  is  still,  as  military 
people  have  since  informed  me,  the  plan  adopted  to  make 
those  horses  that  are  taken,  but  cannot  be  easily  brought 
away,  unserviceable  to  the  enemv  again.    They  ham-string 
them,  which  can  be  done  in  an  instant;  and  they  generally 
die  of  the  wound,  by  bleeding  to  death ;  but  though  they 
should  not,  the  wound  never  heals ;  so  that  if  even  the  en- 
emy recover  them  alive,  he  is  forced  to  despatch  them :  and 
every  compassionate  friend  of  horses,  who  has  ever  seen 
one  in  that  situation,  will  do  so,  in  order  to  terminate  his 
misery.    There  is,  therefore,  no  foundation  for  Kimchi's 


opinion,  that  mere  landing  was  enjoined,  because  it  would 
be  wrong  to  put  an  animal  unnecessarily  to  death.  For 
thus  to  lame  a  horse  that  would  still  live,  in  my  opinion, 
would  rather  have  been  extreme  cruelty;  because,  being 
then  useless,  nobody  would  be  likely  to  give  him  any  food, 

MiCHAELIS. 

Ver.  11.  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  fled  from 
before  Israel,  and  were  in  the  going  down  to 
Belh-horon,  that  the  Lord  cast  down  great 
stones  from  heaven  upon  them  unto  Azekah, 
and  they  died:  they  were  more  which  died 
with  hailstones,  than  they  whom  the  children 
of  Israel  slew  with  the  sword. 

Some  writers  are  of  opinion  that  this  was  hail,  larger 
and  more  violent  than  usual;  others  maintain  that  Joshua 
is  to  be  understood  literally,  of  a  shower  of  stones.  Such 
a  circumstance,  so  far  from  being  impossible,  has  several 
times  occurred.  The  Romans,  who  looked  upon  showers 
of  stones  as  very  disastrous,  have  noticed  many  instances 
of  them.  Under  the  reign  of  Tullius  Hostilius,  when  it 
was  known  to  the  people  of  Rome  that  a  shower  of  stones 
had  fallen  on  the  mountain  of  Alba,  at  first  it  seemed  in- 
credible. They  sent  out  proper  persons  to  inquire  into  this 
prodigy,  and  it  was  found  that  stones  had  fallen  after  the 
same  manner  as  a  storm  of  hail  driven  by  the  wind.  Some 
time  after  the  battle  at  Cannoe,  there  was  seen  upon  the  same 
mountain  of  Alba  a  shower  of  stones,  which  continued  for 
two  days  together.  In  1538,  near  a  village  in  Italy  called 
Tripergola,  after  some  shocks  of  an  earthquake,  there  was 
seen  a  shower  of  stones  and  dust,  which  darkened  the  air 
for  two  days,  after  which  they  observed  that  a  mountain 
had  risen  up  in  the  midst  of  the  Lucrine  Lake. — Burder. 

A  similar  phenomenon  in  modern  times  is  thus  described 
in  Com.  Porter's  Letters  from  Constantinople  and  its  En- 
virons, (vol.  J.  p.  44,)  as  having  occurred  in  the  summer 
of  1831  :— 

"  We  had  got  perhaps  a  mile  and  a  ^alf  on  our  way 
when  a  cloud  rising  in  the  west,  gave  indications  of  an  ap- 
proaching rain.  In  a  few  minutes  we  discovered  some- 
thing falling  from  the  heavens  with  a  heavy  splash,  and  of 
a  whitish  appearance.  I  could  not  conceive  what  it  was, 
but  observing  some  gulls  near,  I  supposed  it  to  be  them 
darting  for  fish ;  but  soon  after  discovered  that  they  were 
large  balls  of  ice  falling.  Immediately  we  heard  a  sound 
like  rumbling  thunder,  or  ten  thousand  carriages  rolling 
furiously  over  the  pavement.  The  whole  Bosphorus  was 
in  a  foam,  as  though  heaven's  artillery  had  been  discharged 
upon  us  and  our  frail  machine.  Our  faie  seemed  inevita- 
ble, our  umbrellas  were  raised  to  protect  us ;  the  lumps  of 
ice  stripped  them  into  ribands.  We  fortunately  had  a  bul- 
lock's hide  in  the  boat,  under  which  we  crawled  and  saved 
ourselves  from  further  injury.  One  man,  of  the  three 
oarsmen,  had  his  hand  literally  smashed  ;  another  much 
injured  in  the  shoulder ;  Mr.  H.  received  a  severe  blow  in 
the  leg;  my  right  hand  was  somewhat  disabled,  and  alf 
more  or  less  injured.  A  smaller  kaick  accompanied,  with 
my  two  servants.  They  were  both  disabled,  and  are  now 
in  bed  with  their  wounds;  the  kaick  was  terribly  bruised. 
It  was  the  most  awful  and  terrific  scene  that  I  ever  wit- 
nessed, and  God  forbid  that  I  should  be  ever  exposed  to 
such  another.  Balls  of  ice  as  large  as  my  two  fists,  fell 
into  the  boat,  and  some  of  them  came  with  such  violence 
as  certainly  to  have  broken  an  arm  or  leg,  had  thev  struck 
us  in  those  parts.  One  of  them  struck  the  blade  of  an  oar 
and  split  it.  The  scene  lasted,  may  be,  five  minutes;  but 
it  was  five  minutes  of  the  most  awful  feeling  that  I  ever  ex- 
perienced. When  it  passed  over,  we  found  the  surround- 
ing hills  covered  with  masses  of  ice,  I  cannot  call  it  hail ; 
the  trees  stripped  of  their  leaves  and  limbs,  and  every  thing 
looking  desolate.  We  proceeded  on  our  course,  however, 
and  arrived  at  our  destination,  drenched  and  awe-struck. 
The  ruin  had  not  extended  so  far  as  Candalie,  and  it  was 
difficult  to  make  them  comprehend  the  cause  of  the  ner- 
vous and  agitated  condition  in  which  we  arrived  ;  the  Reis 
Effendi  asked  me  if  I  was  ever  so  agitated  when  in  action  ? 
I  answered  no,  for  then  I  had  something  to  excite  me,  and 
human  means  only  to  oppose.  He  asked  the  minister  if  he 
ever  was  so  a  ffected  in  a  gale  of  wind  at  sea  7  He  answered 
no,  for  then  he  could  exercise  his  skill  to  disarm  or  render 


Chap.  10—17. 


JOSHUA. 


19\ 


harmless  the  elements.  He  asked  him  why  he  siculd 
be  afiected  now  1  He  replied,  '  From  the  awful  idea  of 
being  crushed  to  death  by  the  hand  of  God  with  stones  from 
heaven,  when  resistance  would  be  vain,  and  where  it  would 
be  impious  to  be  brave.'  He  clasped  his  hands,  raised  his 
eyes  to  heaven,  and  exclaimed,  '  God  is  great !' 

"  Up  to  this  hour,  late  in  the  afternoon,  I  have  not  reco- 
vered my  composure ;  my  nerves  are  so  affected  as  scarcely 
to  be  able  to  hold  my  pen,  or  communicate  my  ideas.  The 
scene  was  awful  beyond  all  description.  I  have  witnessed 
repeated  earthquakes ;  the  lightning  has  played,  as  it  were, 
about  my  head ;  the  wind  roared,  and  the  waves  have  at 
one  moment  thrown  me  to  the  sky,  and  the  next  have  sunk 
me  into  a  deep  abyss.  I  have  been  in  action,  and  seen  death 
and  destruction  around  me  in  every  shape  of  horror;  but 
1  never  before  had  the  feeling  of  awe  which  seized  upon  me 
on  this  occasion,  and  siill  haunts,  and  I  feel  will  ever  haunt 
me.  I  returned  to  the  beautiful  village  of  Buyucdere. 
The  sun  was  out  in  all  its  splendour ;  at  a  distance  all 
looked  smiling  and  charming ;  but  a  nearer  approach  dis- 
covered roofs  covered  with  workmen  repairing  the  bro- 
ken tiles;  desolated  vineyards,  and  shattered  windows. 
My  porter,  the  boldest  of  my  family,  who  had  ventured  an 
instant  from  the  door,  had  been  knocked  down  by  a  hail- 
stone, and  had  they  not  dragged  him  in  by  the  heels,  would 
have  been  battered  to  death.  Of  a  flock  of  geese  in  front 
of  our  house,  six  were  killed,  and  the  rest  dreadfully  man- 
gled. Two  boatmen  were  killed  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
village,  and  I  have  heard  of  broken  bones  in  abundance. 
Many  of  the  thick  brick  tiles  with  which  my  roof  is  cover- 
ed, are  smashed  to  atoms,  and  my  house  was  inundated  by 
the  rain  that  succeeded  this  visitation.  It  is  impossible  to 
convey  an  idea  of  what  it  was.  Imagine  to  yourself,  how- 
ever, the  heavens  suddenly  froze  over,  and  as  suddenly 
broken  to  pieces  in  irregular  masses,  of  from  half  a  pound 
to  a  pound  weight,  and  precipitated  to  the  earth.  My  own 
servants  weighed  several  pieces  of  three  quarters  of  a 
pound ;  and  many  were  found  by  others  of  upwards  of  a 
pound.  There  were  many  which  fell  around  the  boat  in 
which  I  was,  that  appeared  to  me  to  be  as  large  as  the  swell 
of  the  large  sized  water  decanter.  You  may  think  this 
romance.  I  refer  to  the  bearer  of  this  letter,  who  was  with 
me,  and  witnessed  the  scene,  for  the  truth  of  every  word 
it  contains," — Letters  from  Constantinople. 

Ver.  12.  Then  spake  Joshua  to  the  Lord  in  the 
day  when  the  Lord  delivered  up  the  Amorites 
before  the  children  of  Israel,  and  he  said  in 
the  sight  of  Israel,  Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon 
Gibeon;  and  thou,  Moon,  in  the  valley  of 
Ajalon. 

{See  Engraving.) 

Ver.  21.  And  all  the  people  returned  to  the 
camp  to  Joshua  at  Makkedah  in  peace :  none 
moved  his  tongue  against  any  of  the  children 
of  Israel. 

When  a  person  speaks  of  the  fear  to  which  his  enemy  is 
reduced,  he  says,  "Ah!  he  dares  not  now  to  shake  his 
tongue  against  me."  "  He  hurt  you  !  the  fellow  will  not 
shake  his  tongue  against  you." — Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  And  said  unto  the  captains  of  the  men  of 
war  which  went  with  him,  Come  near,  put 
your  feet  upon  the  necks  of  these  kings.  And 
they  came  "near,  and  put  their  feet  upon  the 
necks  of  them. 

See  on  2  Sam.  44.  21. 

This  in  the  East  is  a  favourite  way  of  triumphing  over 
a  fallen  foe.  In  the  history  of  the  battles  of  the  gods,  or 
giants,  particular  mention  is  made  of  the  closing  scene, 
how  the  conquerors  went  and  trampled  on  their  enemies. 
When  people  are  disputing,  should  one  be  a  little  fSressed, 
and  the  other  begin  to  triumph,  the  former  will  say,  "  I 
will  tread  upon  thy  neck,  and  after  that  beat  thee."  A  low- 
caste  man  insulting  one  who  is  high,  is  sure  to  hear  some 
one  say  to  the  offended  individual,  "  Put  your  feet  on  his 
neck."  (See  on  Isa.  xviii.  2,  7.)— Roberts. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 
Ver.  12.  Now  therefore  give  me  this  mountain, 
whereof  the  Lord  spake  in  that  day ;  for  thou 
heardest  in  that  day  how  the  Anakims  were 
there,  and  that  the  cities  we7e  great  and  fenced ; 
if  so  be  the  Lord  will  be  with  me,  then  I  shall 
be  able  to  drive  them  out,  as  the  Lord  said. 

The  mountainous  parts  of  the  Holy  Land  are  so  far 
from  being  inhospitable,  unfruitful,  or  the  refuse  of  the 
land  of  Canaan,  that  in  the  division  of  this  country,  the 
mountain  of  Hebron  was  granted  to  Caleb  as  a  particular 
favour ;  "  Now,  therefore,  give  me  this  mountain  of  which 
the  Lord  spake  in  that  day."    In  the  time  of  Asa,  the  "  hilt 
country  of  Judah"  mustered  five  hundred  and  eighty  thou- 
sand men  of  valour ;  an  argument  beyond  dispute,  that  the 
land  was  able  to  maintain  them.   Even  in  the  present  times, 
though  cultivation  and  improvement  are  exceedingly  neg- 
lected, while  the  plains  and  valleys,  although  as  fruitful  as 
ever,  lie  almost  entirely  desolate,  every  little  hill  is  crowded 
with  inhabitants.     If  this  part  of  the  Holy  Land  was  com- 
posed, as  some  object,  only  of  naked  rocks  and  precipices, 
why  is  it  better  peopled  than  the  plains  of  Esdraelon,  Rama, 
Acre,  or  Zabulon,  which  are  all  of  them  extremely  fertile 
and  delightful  1    It  cannot  be  urged  that  the  inhabitants 
live  with  more  safety  on  the  hills  and  mountains,  ihan  on 
the  plains,  as  there  are  neither  walls  nor  fortifications  to 
secure  their  villages  and  encampments ;  and  except  in  the 
range  of  Lebanon,  and  some  other  mountains,  few  or  no 
places  of  difficult  access ;  so  that  both  of  them  are  equally 
exposed  to  the  insults  of  an  enemy.    But  the  reason  is  ob- 
vious ;   they  find  among  these  mountainous   rocks  and 
precipices,  sufficient  convenience  for  themselves,  and  much 
greater  for  their  cattle.     Here  they  have  bread  to  the  full, 
while  their  flocks  and  their  herds  browse  upon  richer  herb- 
age, and  both  man  and  beast  quench  their  thirst  from 
springs  of  excellent  water,  which  is  but  too  much  wanted, 
especially  in  the  summer  season,  through  all  the  plains  of 
Syria.     This  fertility  of  Canaan  is  fully  confirmed  by 
writers  of  great  reputation,  whose  impartiality  cannot  be 
justly  suspected.      Tacitus  calls  it  a  fruitful  soil,  uber 
solum ;  and  Justin  affirms,  that  in  this  country  the  purity 
of  the  air,  and  the  fertility  of  the  soil,  are  equally  admira- 
ble: Sed  non  minor  loci  ejus  apricitatis  quam  ubertatis 
admiratio  est.    The  justice  of  these  brief  accounts,  Dr. 
Shaw,  and  almost  every  modern  traveller,  fully  verifies. 
When  he  travelled  in  Syria  and  Phenicia,  in  December 
and  January,  the  whole  country,  he  remarks,  looked  ver- 
dant and  cheerful ;  and  the  woods  particularly,  which  are 
chiefly  planted  with  the  gall-bearing  oak,  were  every- 
where bestrewed  with  a  variety  of  anemonies,  ranuncu- 
lusses,  colchicas,  and  mandrakes.   Several  pieces  of  ground 
near  Tripoli  were  full  of  licorice ;  and  at  the  mouth  of  a 
famous  grotto  he  saw  an  elegant  species  of  the  blue  lily, 
the  same  with  Morrison's  lilium  Persicum  florens.    In  the 
beginning  of  March,  the  plains,  particularly  between  Jaffa 
and   Rama,  were  everywhere  planted  with  a  beautiful 
varietv  of  fritillaries,  tulips  of  innumerable  hues,  and  a 
profus'ion  of  the  rarest  and  most  beautiful  flowers ;  while 
the  hills  and  the  mountains  were  covered  with  yellow 
pollium,  and  some  varieties  of  thyme,  sage,  and  rosemary. 
— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Ver.  16.  And  all  the  Canaanites  that  dwell  in 
the  land  of  the  valley  have  chariots  of  iron, 
loth  they  who  are  of  Bethshean  and  her  towns, 
and  they  who  are  of  the  valley  of  Jezreel. 


The  warriors  of  primitive  times  were  carried  to  the  firld 
in  chariots,  drawn  for  the  most  part  by  two  horses.  The 
custom  of  riding  and  fighting  upon  horses,  was  not  intro- 
duced into  Greece,  and  the  regions  of  Asia  bordering  on 
the  Hellespont,  till  some  time  after  the  Trojan  war:  for 
Homer,  whose  authority  in  such  cases  is  indisputable, 
alwavs  conducts  his  heroes  to  battle  in  chariots,  never  on 
horseback.  In  what  age  the  chariot  was  first  used  in  battle, 
cannot  now  be  ascertained ;  but  by  the  help  of  the  sacred 
volume,  we  can  trace  the  practice  to  a  very  remote  an- 
tiquity, for  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  Canaan  aj)pear, 


132 


JOSHUA. 


Chap.  18—24. 


from  the  number  of  armed  chariots  which  they  possessed, 
when  Joshua  invaded  their  country,  to  have  been  trained 
to  that  mode  of  warfare  long  before.  "  And  the  children 
of  Joseph  said.  The  hill  is  not  enough  for  us ;  and  all  the 
Canaanites  that  dwell  in  the  land  of  the  valley  have  char- 
iots of  iron,  both  they  who  are  of  Bethshean  and  her  towns, 
and  they  who  are  of  the  valley  of  Jezreel."  This  by  no 
means  intimates,  that  the  chariots  were  made  of  iron,  but 
only  that  they  were  armed  with  it.  Such  chariots  were  by 
the  ancients  called  currus  falcati,  and  in  Greek  Spezwofvpai. 
They  had  a  kind  of  scythes,  of  about  two  cubits  long,  fast- 
ened to  long  axle-trees  on  both  wheels  ;  these  being  driven 
swiftly  through  a  body  of  men,  made  great  slaughter,  mow- 
ing them  down  like  grass  or  corn.  The  efficacious  resist- 
ance which  the  Canaanites,  from  their  chariots  of  iron, 
opposed  to  the  arms  of  Israel,  is  emphatically  remarked 
by  the  sacred  historian :  "  And  the  Lord  was  with  Judah, 
and  they  drave  out  the  inhabitants  of  the  mountain,  but 
could  not  drive  out  the  inhabitants  of  the  valley,  because 
they  had  chariots  of  iron."  The  native  princes  of  Canaan, 
/nlly  aware  of  the  great  advantages  to  be  derived  from  this 
rpecifcs  of  force,  in  combating  the  armies  of  Israel,  which 
consisted,  as  has  been  already  observed,  entirely  of  infantry, 
continued  to  improve  it  with  a  care  and  diligence  propor- 
tioned to  its  importance.  In  the  time  of  the  judges,  not 
long  after  the  death  of  Joshua,  Jabin  the  king  of  Canaan, 
sent  nine  hundred  chariots  of  iron  into  the  field  against  the 
people  of  Israel :  and  in  a  succeeding  war,  between  this 
people  and  their  inveterate  enemies  the  Philistines,  the 
latter  met  them  in  the  fiel^  with  "  thirty  thousand  chariots, 
and  six  thousand  horseme'n,  and  people  as  the  sand  which 
is  on  the  seashore  for  multitude." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ver.  25.  Gibeon,  and  Ramah,  and  Beeroth. 

The  oriental  geographers  speak  of  Ramah  as  the  metrop- 
olis of  Palestine ;  and  ev^ery  appearance  of  its  ruins  even 
laow  confirms  the  opinion  of  its  having  been  once  a  consid- 
erable city.  Its  situation,  as  lying  immediately  in  the  high 
road  from  Jaffa  to  Jerusalem,  made  it  necessarily  a  place 
of  great  resort ;  and  from  the  fruitfulness  of  the  country 
around  it,  it  must  have  been  equally  important  as  a  mili- 
larj'  station  or  a  depot  for  supplies,  and  as  a  magazine  for 
the  collection  of  such  articles  of  commerce  as  were  export- 
ed from  the  coast.  In  its  present  state,  the  town  of  Ramah 
is  about  the  size  of  Jaffa,  in  the  extent  actually  occupied. 
The  dwellings  of  this  last,  however,  are  crowded  together 
around  the  sides  of  a  hill,  while  those  of  Ramah  are  scat- 
tered widely  over  the  face  of  the  level  plain  on  which  it 
stands.  The  style  of  building  here  is  that  of  high  square 
houses,  with  flattened  domes  covering  them  ;  and  some  of 
the  old  terraced  roofs  are  fenced  around  with  raised  walls, 
in  which  are  seen  pyramids  of  hollow  earthenware  pipes, 
as  if  to  give  air  and  light,  without  destroying  the  strength 
of  the  wall  itself  The  inhabitants  are  estimated  at  little 
more  than  five  thousand  persons,  of  whom  about  one  third 
are  Christians  of  the  Greek  and  Catholic  communion,  and 
the  remaining  two  thirds  Mohammedans,  chiefly  Arabs ; 
the  men  of  power  and  the  military  being  Turks,  and  no 
Jews  residing  there.  The  principal  occupation  of  the 
people  is  husbandry,  for  which  the  surrounding  country  is 
highly  favourable,  and  the  staple  commodities  produced 
by  them  are  corn,  olives,  oil,  and  cotton,  with  some  soap  and 
coarse  cloth  made  in  the  town.    There  are  still  remains 


of  some  noble  subterranean  cisterns  at  Ramah,  not  inferior 
either  in  extent  or  execution  to  many  of  those  at  Alexan- 
dria :  they  were  intended  for  the  same  purpose,  namely,  to 
serve  in  time  of  war  as  reservoirs  of  water." — Buckingham. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Ver.  7.  But  they  shall  be  snares  and  traps  unto 

you,  and  scourges  in  your  sides,  and  thorns  in 

your  eyes,  until  ye  perish  from  off  this  good 

land  which  the  Lord  your  God  hath  given  you. 

"What!"  says  a  wife  to  her  angry  husband,  "am  la 
thorn  in  your  eyes  1"  "  Alas !  alas  !  he  has  seen  another  ; 
I  am  now  a  thorn  in  his  eyes."  "  Were  I  not  a  thorn  in  his 
eyes,  his  anger  would  not  burn  so  long."  "  My  old  friend 
Tamban  never  looks  at  my  house  now,  because  it  gives 
thorns  to  his  eyes." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Ver.  12.  And  I  sent  the  hornet  before  you,  which 
drave  them  out  from  before  you,  even  the  tw(» 
kings  of  the  Amorites ;  but  not  with  thy  sword, 
nor  with  thy  bow. 

See  on  Ex.  24.  28. 

Ver.  32.  And  the  bones  of  Joseph,  which  the 
children  of  Israel  brought  up  out  of  Egypt, 
buried  they  in  Shechem,  in  a  parcel  of  ground 
which  Jacob  bought  of  the  sons  of  Hamor,  the 
father  of  Shechem,  for  a  hundred  pieces  of  sil 
ver :  and  it  became  the  inheritance  of  the  chil 
dren  of  Joseph. 

Joseph  was  not  interred  in  Shechem,  but,  according  to 
the  ancient  custom,  in  a  field  adjoinmg.  Probably  the 
other  children  of  Jacob  received  the  like  honour,  each 
tribe  taking  care  to  bury  its  ancestor,  either  at  Machpelah, 
or  elsewhere  in  the  land  of  Canaan.  Josephus  asserts  that 
it  was  so,  upon  the  credit  of  an  ancient  tradition.  St.  Ste- 
phen confirms  the  relation.  Acts  vii.  16.  Savages  consider 
the  tombs  of  their  ancestors  as  titles  to  the  possession  of  the 
lands  which  they  inhabit.  This  country  is  ours,  say  they  ; 
the  bones  of  our  fathers  are  here  laid  to  rest.  When  they 
are  forced  to  quit  it,  they  dig  them  up  with  tears,  and  carry 
them  off  with  every  token  of  respect.  About  thirty  miles 
below  the  falls  of  "St.  Anthony,  (saj^s  Carver,)  in  North 
America,  several  bands  of  the  Naudowessie  Indians  have 
a  burying-place,  where  these  people,  though  thev  have  no 
fixed  residence,  living  in  tents,  and  abiding  but  a  few 
months  on  one  spot,  always  contrive  to  deposite  the  bones 
of  their  dead.  At  the  spriiig  equinox  these  bands  annually 
assemble  here  to  hold  a  grand  council  with  all  the  othei 
bands ;  wherein  they  settle  their  operations  for  the  ensuing 
year.  At  this  time,  in  particular,  they  bring  with  them 
their  dead,  for  interment,  bound  up  in  buffaloes'  skins.  If 
any  of  these  people  die  in  the  cummer,  at  a  distance  from 
the  burying-ground,  and  they  find  it  impossible  to  remove 
the  body  before  it  would  putrify,  they  bum  the  flesh  from 
the  bones,  and  preserving  the  latter,  bur}'  them  in  the 
I  manner  described. — Burder. 


JUDGES. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Ver.  7.  Threescore  and  ten  kings,  having  their 
thumbs  and  their  great  toes  cut  off 

The  Hebrew  has  this,  "  the  thumbs  of  their  hands  and 
of  their  feet."  The  Hindoos  call  the  thumb  the  reria-viril, 
the  great  finger  of  the  hand,  and  the  large  toe  is  named  the 
great  finger  of  the  foot.  This  punishment  was  exceeding- 
ly common  in  ancient  times,  and  was  inflicted  principally 
on  those  who  had  committed  some  flagrant  oflTence  with 
their  hands  and  their  feet.  Thus,  those  convicted  of  for- 
gery, or  numerous  thefts,  had  their  thumbs  cut  off.  The 
practice  is  abolished,  but  its  memory  will  remain,  as  it  is 
now  one  of  the  scarecrows  of  the  nursery  and  domestic  life  : 
"  If  you  steal  any  more,  I  will  cut  off  your  thumbs."  "  Let 
me  find  out  the  thief,  and  I  will  soon  have  his  thumbs." — 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  1 7.  And  he  broug-ht  the  present  unto  Eglon 
king  of  Moab :  and  Eglon  was  a  very  fat  man. 
18.  And  when  he  had  made  an  end  to  offer  the 
present,  he  sent  away  the  people  that  bare  the 
present. 

See  on  Gen.  43.  45. 

There  is  often  in  the  East  a  great  deal  of  pomp  and  pa- 
rade in  presenting  their  gifts.  "  Through  ostentation,"  says 
Maillet,  "  they  never  fail  to  load  upon  four  or  five  horses 
what  might  easily  be  carried  by  one.  In  like  manner  as 
to  jewels,  trinkets,  and  other  things  of  value,  they  place  in 
fifteen  dishes,  what  a  single  plate  would  very  well  hold." 
Something  of  this  pomp  seems  to  be  referred  to  in  this  pas- 
sage, where  we  read  of  making  an  end  of  offering  the  pres- 
ent, and  of  a  number  of  people  who  conveyed  it.  This  re- 
mark also  illustrates  2  ICings  viii.  9.  So  Hazael  went  to 
meet  him,  and  took  a  present  with  him,  even  of  every  good 
thing  of  Damascus,  forty  camels^  burden. — Harmer. 

Ver.  19.  But  he  himself  turned  again  from  the 
quarries  that  we^-e  by  Gilgal,  and  said,  I  have 
a  secret  errand  unto  thee,  O  king :  who  said. 
Keep  silence.  And  all  that  stood  by  him  went 
out  from  him. 

From  a  circumstance  mentioned  by  Mr.  Bruce,  it  ap- 
pears that  Ehud  acted  in  strict  conformity  to  the  customs 
of  the  time  and  place,  so  that  neither  the  suspicion  of  the 
king  nor  his  attendants  should  be  excited  by  his  conduct. 
It  was  usual  for  the  attendants  to  retire  when  secret  mes- 
sages were  to  be  delivered.  "  I  drank  a  dish  of  coffee,  and 
told  him,  that  I  was  a  bearer  of  a  confidential  message  from 
All  Bey  of  Cairo,  and  wished  to  deliver  it  to  him  without 
witnesses,  whenever  he  pleased.  The  room  was  accord- 
ingly cleared  without  delay,  excepting  his  secretary,  who 
was  also  going  away,  when  t  pulled  him  back  by  the  clothes, 
saying,  stay,  if  you  please;  we  shall  need  you  to  write  the 
answer." — Burder. 

Ver.  20.  And  Ehud  came  unto  him ;  and  he  was 
sitting  in  a  summer-parlour,  which  he  had  for 
himself  alone. 

Dr.  Shaw  tells  us,  their  doors  are  large,  and  their  cham- 
bers spacious;  conveniences,  as  he  observes,  very  well 
adapted  to  those  hotter  climates.  But  when  Eglon  is  rep- 
resented as  receiving  Ehud  and  Death,  in  a  parlour  of 
cooling,  as  it  is  called,  in  the  margin  of  Judges  iii.  20,  or 
rather  in  a  chamber  of  cooling^  something  more  seems  to  be 


meant  than  merely  its  having  a  large  door,  or  bemg  spa- 
cious ;  at  least  there  are  iiow  other  contrivances  in  the  East, 
to  give  coolness  to  particular  rooms,  which  are  very  com- 
mon ;  and  though  the  time  in  which  Eglon  lived,  is  ac- 
knowledged to  be  of  very  remote  antiquity,  yet  we  are  to 
remember  he  was  a  prince,  and  in  the  palaces  of  such  these 
contrivances  without  doubt  began.  The  doctor  is  silent 
upon  this  point,  but  Russell  has  given  us  the  following  ac- 
count of  one  of  their  methods  of  cooling  rooms.  Their 
great  houses  at  Aleppo  ai'e  composed  of  apartments  on  each 
of  the  sides  of  a  square  court,  all  of  stone ;  and  consist  of 
a  ground  door,  which  is  generally  arched,  and  an  upper 
story,  which  is  flat  on  the  top,  and  either  terraced  with  hard 
plaster,  or  paved  stone  ;  above-stairs  is  a  colonnade,  if  not 
round  the  whole  court,  at  least  fronting  the  West,  off  from 
which  are  their  rooms  and  kiosques ;  these  latter  are  a  sort 
of  wooden  divans,  that  project  a  little  way  from  their  other 
buildings,  and  hang  over  the  street ;  they  are  raised  about 
a  foot  and  a  half  higher  than  the  floor  of  the  room,  to  which 
they  are  quite  open,  and  by  having  windows  in  front  and 
on  each  side,  there  is  a  great  draught  of  air,  which  makes 
them  cool  in  the  summer,  the  advantage  chiefly  intended 
by  them.  They  have  another  way  of  cooling  their  rooms 
in  Egypt.  It  is  done  by  openings  at  the  top,  which  let  the 
fresh  air  into  them.  Egmont  and  Hey  man,  as  well  as 
Maillet,  make  mention  of  them,  but  the  last-mentioned  au- 
thor gives  the  most  distinct  account  of  these  contrivances : 
they  make,  he  tells  us,  their  halls  extremely  large  and 
lofty,  with  a  dome  at  the  top,  which  towards  the  North  has 
several  open  windows ;  these  are  so  constructed  as  to  throw 
the  north  wind  down  into  these  rooms,  and  by  this  means, 
though  the  country  is  excessively  hot,  they  can  make  the 
coolness  of  these  apartments  such  as,  oftentimes,  not  to  be 
borne  without  being  wrapped  in  furs.  Egmont  and  Hey- 
man  speak  of  chambers  cooled  after  this  manner,  as  well 
as  halls.  Eglon's  appears  to  have  been  a  chamber,  and 
what  Shaw  calls  an  olee,  which  gives  a  propriety  to  the 
mention  that  is  made  of  Ehud's  passing  through  the  porch, 
which  no  interpreter  before  the  doctor  has,  that  I  know  of, 
remarked :  but  whether  it  was  cooled  by  a  kiosque,  as  they 
are  called  at  Aleppo,  or  by  an  Egyptian  dome,  or  by  some 
contrivance  distinct  from  both,  is  of  no  consequence  to  de- 
termine. That  some  contrivance  to  mitigate  the  extreme 
heat  of  that  climate  began  early  to  obtain,  in  the  palaces  pi 
princes,  is  natural  to  believe  ;  that  it  began  as  early  as  the 
time  of  Eglon,  this  passage  puts  out  of  all  doubt.  It  was 
the  more  necessary,  as  Eglon  appears  to  have  kept  his 
court  at  Jericho,  where  the  heat  is  so  excessive,  that  it  has 
proved  fatal  to  some  even  in  March. — Harmer. 

Ver.  25.  And  they  tarried  till  they  were  ashamed ; 
and,  behold,  he  opened  not  the  doors  of  the 
parlour :  therefore  they  took  a  key  and  open- 
ed them;  and,  behold,  their  lord  was  fallen 
down  dead  on  the  earth. 

The  wooden  locks  commonly  used  in  Egypt,  "  consist  of 
a  long  hollow  piece  of  wood,  fixed  in  the  door,  so  as  to  slide 
backward  and  forward,  which  enters  a  hole  made  for  it 
in  the  doorpost,  and  is  there  fastened  by  small  bolts  of  iron 
wire,  which  fall  from  above  into  little  orifices  made  for  them 
in  the  top  of  the  lock.  The  key  is  a  long  piece  of  wood, 
having  at  the  end  small  pieces  of  iron  wire  of  diflferent 
lengths,  irregularly  fixed  in,  corresponding  in  number  and 
direction  with  the  bolts  which  fall  into  the  lock ;  these  it  litt> 
upon  being  introduced  into  the  lock,  which  it  then  pulls 
back.  The  bolts  of  wire  differ  in  number  from  three  to 
fourteen  or  fifteen,  and  it  is  impossible  to  guess  at  the  num- 
ber a  lock  contains',  or  at  the  direction  in  which  they  are 
placed." — Turner's  Journal  o^ a  Ton:  in  the  Levant. 


134 


JUDGES 


Chap.  4. 


Ver.  31,  And  after  him  was  Shamgar  the  son  of 
Anath,  which  slew  of  the  Philistines  six  hun- 
dred men  with  an  ox-goad:  and  he  also  de- 
livered Israel. 

Mr.  Maundrell  has  an  observation  which  at  once  ex- 
plains this  transaction,  and  removes  every  difficulty  from 
the  passage.  He  says,  "  the  countrypeople  were  now  every- 
where at  plough  in  the  fields,  in  order  to  sow  cotton.  It 
was  observable,  that  in  ploughmg  they  used  goads  of  an  ex- 
traordinary size  ;  upon  measuring  of  several,  I  found  them 
about  eight  feet  long,  and  at  the  bigger  end  six  inches  in 
circumference.  They  were  armed  at  the  lesser  end  with 
a  sharp  prickle  for  driving  the  oxen,  at  the  other  end  with 
a  small  spade,  or  paddle  of  iron,  strong  and  massy,  for 
cleansing  the  plough  from  the  clay  that  encumbers  it  in 
working.  May  we  not  from  hence  conjecture,  that  it  was 
with  such  a  goad  as  one  of  these,  that  Shamgar  made  that 
prodigious  slaughfer  related  of  him,  Judges  iii.  21.  I  am 
confident  that  whoever  should  see  one  of  these  mstruments, 
would  judge  it  to  be  a  weapon  not  less  fit,  perhaps  fitter, 
than  a  sword  for  such  an  execution.  Goads  of  this  sort  I 
saw  always  used  hereabouts,  and  also  in  Syria  ;  and  the 
reason  is,  because  the  same  single  person  both  drives  the 
oxen,  and  also  holds  and  manages  the  plough ;  which 
makes  it  necessary  to  use  such  a  goad  as  is  above  described, 
to  avoid  the  encumbrance  of  two  instruments." — Burdkr. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  6.  And  she  sent  and  called  Barak  the  son  of 
Abinoam  out  of  Kedesh-naphtali,  and  said  unto 
him,  Hath  not  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  com- 
manded, saying,  Go,  and  draw  towards  Mount 
Tabor,  and  take  with  thee  ten  thousand  men  of 
the  children  of  Naphtali,  and  of  the  children  of 
Zebulun  ? 

Arriving  at  the  top,  we  found  ourselves  on  an  oval 
plain,  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  its  greatest  length, 
covered  with  a  bed  of  fertile  soil  on  the  west,  having  at  its 
eastern  end  a  mass  of  ruins,  seemingly  the  vestiges  of 
churches,  grottoes,  strong  walls,  and  fortifications,  all  deci- 
dedly of  some  antiquity,  and  a  few  appearing  to  be  the 
works  of  a  very  remote  age.  First  were  pointed  out  to  us 
three  grottoes,  two  beside  each  other,  and  not  far  from  tAVo 
cisterns  of  excellent  water;  which  grottoes  are  said  to  be 
the  remains  of  the  three  tabernacles  proposed  to  be  erected 
by  St.  Peter,  at  the  moment  of  the  transfiguration,  when 
Jesus,  Elias,  and  Moses,  were  seen  talking  together.  In 
one  of  these  grottoes,  which  they  call  more  particularly  the 
Sanctuary,  there  is  a  square  stone  used  as  an  altar ;  and  on 
the  sixth  of  August  in  every  year,  the  friars  of  the  convent 
come  from  Nazareth,  with  tlieir  banners  and  the  host,  to 
say  mass  here  ;  at  which  period  they  are  accompanied  -by 
all  the  Catholics  of  the  neighbourhood,  who  pass  the  night 
in  festivity,  and  light  large  bonfires,  by  a  succession  of 
which  they  have  nearly  iDared  the  southern  side  of  the 
mountain  of  all  the  wood  that  once  clothed  it.  Besides 
these  grottoes,  no  particular  history  is  assigned  to  any  other 
of  the  remains,  though  among  them  there  seem  to  have  been 
many  large  religious  buildings.  The  whole  of  these  ap- 
pear to  have  been  once  enclosed  with  a  strong  wall,  a  large 
portion  of  which  still  remains  entire  on  the  north  side, 
having  its  firm  foundation  on  the  solid  rock.  This  ap- 
peared to  me  the  most  ancient  part.  Traditions  here  speak 
of  a  city  built  on  the  top,  which  sustained  a  five  years' 
siege,  drawing  its  supplies  byskirmish  from  different  parts 
of  the  fertile  plains  below,  aiid  being  furnished  with  water 
from  two  excellent  cisterns  still  above ;  but  as  no  fixed 
period  is  assigned  to  this  event,  it  may  probably  relate  to 
the  siege  of  Vespasian.  As  there  still  remained  the  frag- 
ments of  a  wall  on  the  southeast  angle,  somewhat  higher 
than  the  rest,  we  ascended  it  over  heaps  of  fallen  buildings, 
and  enjoyed  from  thence  a  prospect  truly  magnificent,  want- 
ing only  the  verdure  of  spring  to  make  it  beautiful  as  well 
as  grand.  Placing  my  compass  before  me,  we  had  on  the 
northwest  a  view  of  the  Mediterranean  sea,  whose  blue  sur- 
face filled  up  an  open  space  left  by  a  downward  bend  in  the 
outline  of  the  western  hills :  to  west-northwest  a  smaller 
portion  of  its  waters  were  seen  :  and  on  the  west  again  the 


slender  line  of  its  distant  horizon  was  just  perceptible  over 
a  range  of  land  near  the  seacoast.  From  west  to  south 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon  extended  over  a  vast  space,  being 
bounded  on  the  south  by  the  range  of  hills,  generally 
considered  to  be  the  Hermon,  whose  dews  are  poeti- 
cally celebrated.  Psalm  cxxxiii.  3,  and  having  in  the 
same  direction,  nearer  the  foot  of  Tabor,  the  springs  of 
Ain-el-Sherrar,  which  send  a  perceptible  stream  through 
its  centre,  and  form  the  brook  Kishon  of  antiquity.  Psalm 
Ixxxiii.  9.  From  southeast  to  the  east  is  the  plain  of  Gali- 
lee, being  almost  a  continuation  of  Esdraelon,  and,  like  it, 
appearing  to  be  highly  cultivated,  being  now  ploughed  for 
seed  throughout.  Benearth  the  range  of  this  supposed 
Hermon  is  seated  Endor,  famed  for  the  witch  who  raised 
the  ghost  of  Samuel,  to  the  terror  of  the  affrighted  Saul ;  and 
Nain,  equally  celebrated  as  the  place  at  which  Jesus  raised 
the  only  son  of  a  widow  from  death  to  life,  and  restored 
him  to  his  afflicted  parent.  The  range  which  bounds  the 
eastern  view  is  thought  to  be  the  mountains  of  Gilboa, 
where  the  sam.e  Saul,  setting  an  example  of  self-destruction 
to  his  armour-bearer  and  his  three  sons,  fell  on  his  own 
sword,  rather  than  fall  wounded  into  the  hands  of  the  un- 
circumcised,  by  whom  he  was  defeated.  The  sea  of  Tibe- 
rias, or  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth,  famed  as  the  scene  of 
many  miracles,  is  seen  on  the  northeast,  filling  the  hollow 
of  a  "deep  valley,  and  contrasting  its  light  blue  waters  with 
the  dark  brown  shades  of  the  barren  hills  by  which  it  is 
hemmed  around.  Here,  too,  the  steep  is  pointed  out  down 
which  the  herd  of  swine,  who  were  possessed  by  the  legion 
of  devils,  ran  headlong  into  the  sea.  In  the  same  direction, 
below,  on  the  plain  of  Galilee,  and  about  an  hour's  distance 
from  the  foot  of  Mount  Tabor,  there  is  a  cluster  of  buildings, 
used  as  a  bazar  for  cattle,  frequented  on  Mondays  only. 
Somewhat  farther  on  is  a  rising  ground,  from  which  it  is 
said  that  Christ  delivered  the  long  and  excellent  discourse, 
called  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  and  the  whole  view  in 
this  quarter  is  bounded  by  the  high  range  of  Gebel-el-Telj, 
or  the  Mountain  of  Snow,  whose  summit  M'as  at  this  mo- 
ment clothed  with  one  white  sheet,  without  a  perceptible 
breach  or  dark  spot  in  it.  The  city  of  Saphet,  supposed 
to  be  the  ancient  Bethulia,  a  city  said  to  be  seen  far  and 
near,  and  thought  to  be  alluded  to  in  the  apophthegm  which. 
says,  "  a  city  set  on  a  hill  cannot  be  hid,"  is  also  pointed 
out  in  this  direction :  but  though  the  day  was  clear,  I  could 
not  distinguish  it,  its  distance  preventing  its  being  defined, 
from  hence  without  a  glass.  To  the  north  were  the  stony 
hills  over  which  we  had  journeyed  hither,  and  these  com- 
pleted this  truly  grand  and  interesting  panoramic  view.. 
— Buckingham. 

Van  Egmont  and  Heyman  give  the  following  account  of 
Tabor  : — "  This  mountain,  though  somewhat  rugged  and' 
difficult,  we  ascended  on  horseback,  making  several  cir- 
cuits round  it,  which  took  u*--  about  three  quarters  of  an 
hour.  It  is  one  of  the  highf'st  in  the  whole  country,  being 
thirty  stadia,  or  about  four  English  miles,  a  circumference 
that  rendered  it  more  famous.  And  it  is  the  most  beauti- 
ful I  ever  saw,  with  regard  to  verdure,  being  everywhere 
decorated  with  small  oak-trees,  and  the  ground  universally 
enamelled  with  a  variety  of  plants  and  flowers,  except  oh 
the  south  side,  where  it  is  not  so  fully  covered  with  verdure.. 
On  this  mountain  are  great  numbers  of  red  partridges,  and 
some  wild-boars ;  and  we  were  so  fortunate  as  to  see  the 
Arabs  hunting  them.  We  left,  but  not  without  reluctance, 
this  delightful  place,  and  found  at  the  bottom  of  it  a  mean 
village,  called  Deboura,  or  Tabour,  a  name  said  to  be  de- 
rived from  the  celebrated  Deborah  mentioned  in  Judges." 
Pococke  notices  this  village,  which  stands  on  a  rising, 
ground  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Tabor  westward;  and  the 
learned  traveller  thinks,  that  it  may  be  the  same  as  the  Da- 
berath,  or  Daberah,  mentioned  in  the  book  of  Joshua,  as  on 
the  borders  of  Zebulun  and  Issachar.  "  Any  one,"  he  adds, 
"  who  examines  the  fourth  chapter  of  Judges,  may  see  that' 
this  is  probably  the  spot  where  Barak  and  Deborah  met  at 
Mount  Tabor  with  their  forces  and  went  to  pursue  Sisera ; 
and  on  this  account,  it  might  have  its  name  from  that  great 
proph'^tess,  who  then  judged  and  governed  Israel ;  for  Jo- 
sephus  relates,  that  Deborah  and  Barak  gathered  the  army 
together  at  this  mountain."  This  point  Josephus  was  not. 
required  to  prove,  as  the  sacred  history  contains  explicit  in- 
formation on  this  head,  to  which  the  Jewish  historian  was 
incapable  of  adding  a  single  particular.  The  name  of  the 
village  seems,  however,  more  probably  to  be  derived  from 


Chap.  4. 


JUDGES. 


135 


the  mountain,  than  from  the  prophetess.  Deborah,  the 
name  of  the  place  where  she  dwelt,  and  to  which  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  came  up  to  her  for  judgment,  was  between 
Ramah  and  Bethel  in  Mount  Ephraim,  and  consequently 
much  farther  to  the  south.  Whereas  in  Deboura,  or  Da- 
bour,  we  have  the  very  Dabor  or  Thaboor  of  the  scrip- 
tures, with  only  that  slight  corruption  which  the  Hebrew 
names  receive,  as  pronounced  by  the  Arabs.  The  moun- 
tain itself  they  call  Djebel  Towr.— Modern  Traveller. 

Ver.  10.  And  Barak  called  Zebulun  and  Naph- 
tali  to  Kedesh;  and  he  went  up  with  ten  thou- 
sand men  at  his  feet:  and  Deborah  went  up 
with  him. 

The  phrase  "  men  at  his  feet,"  did  not,  I  believe,  refer  to 
any  particular  class  of  soldiers,  but  applied  to  all,  whether 
they  foiight  in  chariots,  on  horses,  or  on  foot.  This  form  of 
speech  is  used  in  eastern  books  to  show  how  many  obey  or 
serve  under  the  general.  It  may  be  taken  from  the  action  of 
a  slave  being  prostrate  at  the  feet  of  his  master,  denoting 
submission  or  obedience.  In  this  way  devotees,  when  ad- 
dressing the  gods,  always  speak  of  themselves  as  being  at 
their  feet.  When  the  Orientals  speak  of  his  Majesty  of 
Britain,  they  often  allude  to  the  millions  who  are  at  his 
feet.  The  governors,  generals,  or  judges  in  the  East,  are 
said  to  have  the  people  of  such  countries,  or  armies,  or  dis- 
tricts, at  their  feet.  Nay,  it  is  common  for  masters,  and 
{)eople  of  small  possessions,  to  speak  of  their  domestics  as 
)eing  at  their  feet.  It  is  therefore  heard  every  day,  for 
"  I  will  send  my  servants,"  e-nrkdl-adiyila,  "  those  at  my 
feet." — Roberts, 

Ver.  18.  And  Jael  went  out  to  meet  Sisera,  and 
said  unto  him,  Turn  in,  mv  lord,  turn  in  to 
me ;  fear  not.  And  when  he  had  turned  in 
unto  her  into  the  tent,  she  covered  him  with  a 
mantle. 

The  Arabs  are  not  so  scrupulous  as  the  Turks  about 
their  women ;  and  though  they  have  their  harem,  or  yo- 
men's  apartment,  in  the  tent,  they  readily  introduce  their 
acquaintances  into  it,  or  those  strangers  whom  they  take 
under  their  special  protection.  Pococke's  conductor,  in  his 
journey  to  Jerusalem,  led  him  two  or  three  miles  to  his 
tent,  where  he  sat  with  his  wife  and  others  round  a  fire. 
The  faithful  Arab  kept  him  there  for  greater  security,  the 
wife  being  always  with  him ;  no  stranger  ever  daring  to 
come  into  the  women's  apartment  unless  introduced.  We 
discover  in  this  custom,  the  reason  of  Jael's  invitation  to 
Sisera,  when  he  was  defeated  by  Barak:  "  Turn  in,  my 
lord,  turn  in  to  me,  fear  not."  She  invited  him  to  take  ref- 
uge in  her  own  division  of  the  tent,  into  which  no  stran- 
ger might  presume  to  enter ;  and  where  he  naturally  sup- 
posed himself  in  perfect  safety. — Paxton. 

There  is  an  apparent  treachery  in  the  conduct  of  Jael  to 
Sisera ;  and  it  appears  from  the  following  account  as  if  the 
inhabitants  of  that  country  were  still  actuated  by  the  same 
principle  of  interested  dissimulation.  "  It  was  about  noon 
when  we  reached  the  small  village  of  Deborah,  where  we 
alighted  to  refresh,  not  suspecting  that  the  treachery  for 
which  it  is  traditionally  infamous,  both  in  holy  and  profane 
records,  was  still  to  be  found  here  at  so  distant  a  period. 
We  entered  into  this  village,  and,  like  the  unfortunate  Sis- 
era, demanded  only  a  little  water  to  drink,  for  with  every 
thing  else  our  scrip  was  well  provided.  It  was  furnished 
to  us,  as  we  desired,  with  provender  for  our  beasts,  and  the 
offer  of  all  that  the  village  possessed.  While  the  animals 
were  feeding,  I  was  desirous  of  ascending  to  the  summit  of 
Mount  Tabor,  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  extensive  view 
which  it  commands.  Our  guide  from  the  convent  offering 
to  accompany  me,  we  took  with  us  a  man  from  the  village, 
who  promised  to  facilitate  our  ascent  by  directing  us  to  the 
easiest  paths ;  and  taking  our  arms  with  us,  while  my 
servant  and  the  muleteer  remained  below  to  take  care  of 
the  beasts,  we  all  three  set  out  together ;  by  forced  exer- 
tions we  reached  the  summit  in  about  half  an  hour.  In  our 
descent  from  Moimt  Tabor  we  entered  a  grotto,  in  which 
there  had  formerly  been  a  church,  and  had  scarcely  got 
within  it,  before  we  heard  the  rushing  of  persons  before 
the  outer  part  of  the  passage  by  which  we  had  entered.  On 
turning  round  to  ascertain  the  cause  of  this  noise,  we  ob- 


served five  or  six  armed  men,  three  of  whom  we  recog- 
nised to  be  those  who  had  made  such  oflers  of  their  hospi- 
tality in  the  village  of  Deborah  below.  They  called  out 
to  us  in  a  loud  voice,  that  if  we  attempted  the  slightest 
resistance  we  should  be  murdered,  but  that  if  we  submit- 
ted to  be  quietly  stripped,  no  violence  should  be  offered  to 
our  persons.  -  There  was  no  time  for  parley,  though  my 
companions  at  first  cried  for  mercy,  but  as  I  rushed  out 
with  my  musket  cocked,  and  presented,  they  instantly  fol- 
lowed me,  and  an  unexpected  discharge  drove  our  assail- 
ants to  seek  shelter  behind  the  masses  of  rock  near  the 
cave.  A  regular  skirmish  now  commenced,  in  which  we 
kept  up  a  retreating  fire,  and  often  exposed  ourselves  to 
their  shot,  for  the  sake  of  getting  to  our  mules  at  the  foot  of 
the  hill.  During  a  full  hour  of  this  kind  of  running  fight, 
none  of  our  party  was  hurt.  From  the  first  it  seemed 
evident  to  us  that  we  had  been  betrayed  by  our  Deborah' 
guide,  and  our  notion  was  at  length  confirmed  by  his  going 
over  to  the  assailing  party,  and  using  his  arms  against  us. 
Fortunately,  and  justly  too,  this  man  was  himself  wounded 
by  a  ball  from  my  musket,  and  when  he  fell  shrieking,  on 
the  side  of  the  hill,  his  companions  hastened  to  his  relief, 
while  we  profited  by  the  alarm  of  the  moment  to  continue 
our  retreat,  and  rejoin  our  mules  below.  Here  we  drew  off 
at  a  short  distance  from  the  village  of  Deborah,  and,  with 
arms  in  our  hands,  being  exhausted  and  fatigued,  refreshed 
ourselves  beneath  a  tree  ;  but  we  had  not  yet  remounted, 
when  a  large  party,  professing  to  be  from  the  sheik  of 
Deborah,  a  village  consisting  only  of  a  few  huts,  came  to 
sequester  our  beasts,  for  what  they  called  the  public  service. 
We  treated  this  with  a  proper  degree  of  warmth,  and 
threatened  death  to  the  first  that  shouW  dare  to  lay  hands 
on  any  thing  belonging  to  us :  so  that  the  brave  villagers 
kept  aloof." — Buckingham. 

Ver.  19.  And  he  said  unto  her,  Give  me,  I  pray 
thee,  a  little  water  to  drink ;  for  I  am  thirsty. 
And  she  opened  a  bottle  of  milk,  and  gave  him 
drink,  and  covered  him. 

The  method  of  making  butter  in  the^East,  illustrates  the 
conduct  of  Jael,  the  wife  of  Heber,  described  in  the  book 
of  Judges :  "  And  Sisera  said  unto  her.  Give  me,  I  pray 
thee,  a  little  water  to  drink,  for  I  am  thirsty :  and  she  open- 
ed a  bottle  of  milk,  and  gave  him  drink,  and  covered  him." 
In  the  song  of  Deborah,  the  statement  is  repeated :  "  He 
asked  water,  and  she  gave  him  milk,  she  brought  forth 
butter  in  a  lordly  dish."  The  word  (nNon  hemah)  which 
our  translators  rendered  butter,  properly  signifies  cream ; 
which  is  undoubtedly  the  meaning  of  it  in  this  passage,  for 
Sisera  complained  of  thirst,  and  asked  a  little  water  to 
quench  it,  a  purpose  to  which  butter  is  but  little  adapted. 
Mr.  Harmer  indeed  urges  the  same  objection  to  cream, 
which,  he  contends,  few  people  would  think  a  very  proper 
beverage  for  one  that  was  extremely  thirsty;  and  con- 
cludes, that  it  must  have  been  buttermilk  which  Jael,  who 
had  just  been  churning,  gave  to  Sisera.  But  the  opimon 
of  Dr.  Russell  is  preferable,  that  the  hemah  of  the  scrip- 
tures, is  probably  the  same  as  the  haymak  of  the  Arabs, 
which  is  not,  as  Harmer  supposed,  simple  cream,  but 
cream  produced  by  simmering  fresh  sheeps^  milk  for  some 
hours  over  a  slow  fire.  It  could  not  be  butter  newly  churn- 
ed, which  Jael  presented  to  Sisera,  because  the  Arab  but- 
ter is  apt  to  be  foul,  and  is  commonly  passed  through  a 
strainer  before  it  is  used  ;  and  Russell  declares,  he  never 
saw  butter  offered  to  a  stranger,  but  always  haymak:  nor 
did  he  ever  observe  the  Orientals  drink  buttermilk,  but  al- 
ways leban,  which  is  coagulated  sour  milk,  diluted  with 
water.  It  was  leban,  therefore,  which  Pococke  mistook  lor 
buttermilk,  with  which  the  Arabs  treated  him  in  the  Holy 
Land.  A  similar  conclusion  maybe  drawn  concerning  the 
butter  and  milk  which  the  wife  of  Heber  presented  to  Sise- 
ra; they  were  forced  cream  or  haymak,  and  leban,  or  coag- 
ulated sour  milk  diluted  with  water,  which  is  a  common 
and  refreshing  beverage  in  those  sultry  regions. — Paxton. 

Ver.  21.  Then  Jael  Heber's  wife  took  a  nail  oi 
the  tent,  and  took  a  hammer  in  her  hand,  and 
went  softly  unto  him,  and  smote  the  nail  into 
his  temples,  and  fastened  it  into  the  ground: 
(for  he  was  fast  asleep  and  weary:)  so  he  died. 


136 


JUDGES. 


Chap.  5. 


Shaw,  describing  the  tents  of  the  Bedouin  Arabs,  says, 
"  these  tents  are  kept  firm  and  steady,  by  bracing  or  stretch- 
ing down  their  eaves  with  cords  tied  down  to  hooked  wood- 
en pins  well  pointed,  which  they  drive  into  the  ground  with 
a  mallet ;  one  of  these  pins  answering  to  the  nail,  as  the 
mallet  does  to  the  hammer,  which  Jael  used  in  fastening 
to  the  ground  the  temples  of  Sisera." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  6.  In  the  days  of  Shamgar  the  son  of  Anath, 
in  the  days  of  Jael,  the  highways  were  unoc- 
cupied, and  the  travellers  walked  through  by- 
ways. 

There  are  roads  in  these  countries,  but  it  is  very  easy  to 
turn  out  of  them,  and  go  to  a  place  by  winding  about  over 
the  lands,  when  that  is  thought  safer.  Dr.  Shaw  takes  no- 
tice of  this  circumstance  in  Barbary,  where,  he  says,  they 
found  no  hedges,  or  mounds,  or  enclosures,  to  retard  or 
molest  them.  To  this  Deborah  doubtless  refers,  though 
the  doctor  does  not  apply  this  circumstance  to  that  passage, 
when  she  says,  "  In  the  days  of  Shamgar,  the  son  of  Anath, 
in  the  days  of  Jael,  the  highways  were  unoccupied,  and  the 
travellers  walked  through  byways,"  or  crooked  ways,  ac- 
cording to  the  margin.  Judges  v.  6.  The  account  Bishop 
Pococke  gives  of  the  manner  in  which  that  Arab,  under 
whose  care  he  had  put  himself,  conducted  him  to  Jerusa- 
lem, illustrates  this  with  great  liveliness,  which  his  lordship 
tells  us  was  by  night,  and  not  by  the  highroad,  but  through 
the  fields ;  "  and  I  observed,"  says  he,  "  that  he  avoided  as 
much  as  he  could  going  near  any  village  or  encampment, 
and  sometimes  stood  still,  as  I  thought,  to  hearken."  And 
just  in  that  manner  people  were  obliged  to  travel  in  Judea, 
in  the  days  of  Shamgar  and  Jael. — Harmer. 

Ver.  10,  Speak,  ye  that  ride  on  white  asses,  ye 
that  sit  in  judgment,  and  walk  by  the  way. 

The  ancient  Israelites  preferred  the  young  ass  for  the 
saddle.  It  is  on  thfs  account,  the  sacred  writers  so  fre- 
quently mention  riding  on  young  asses  and  on  ass  colts. 
They  must  have  found  them,  from  experience,  like  the 
young  of  all  animals,  more  tractable,  lively,  and  active, 
than  their  parents,  and,  by  consequence,  better  adapted  to 
this  employment.  Buffbn  remarked  particularly  of  the 
young  ass,  that  it  is  a  gay,  nimble,  and  gentle  animal, 
"  and  therefore,  to  be  preferred  for  riding  to  the  same  ani- 
mal, when  become  lazy  and  stubborn  through  age."  "  In- 
deed the  Hebrew  name  of  the  young  ass,  ~cy,"  from  a  root 
which  signifies  to  rouse  or  excite,  "  is  expressive  of  its 
character  for  sprightliness  and  activity."  On  public  and 
solemn  occasions,  they  adorned  the  asses  which  they  rode, 
with  rich  and  splendid  trappings.  "  In  this  manner,"  says 
an  excellent  writer  of  Essays  on  Sacred  Zoology,  "  the 
magistrates  in  the  time  of  the  Judges,  appear  to  have  rode 
in  state.  They  proceeded  to  the  gate  of  their  city,  where 
they  sat  to  hear  causes,  in  slow  procession,  mounted  on 
asses  superbly  caparisoned  with  white  cloth,  which  cover- 
ed the  greater  part  of  the  animal's  body.  It  is  thus  that  we 
must  interpret  the  words  of  Deborah  :  '  Speak,  ye  that  ride 
on  white  asses,'  on  asses  caparisoned  with  coverings  made 
of  white  woollen  cloth,  'ye  that  sit  in  judgment,  and  walk,' 
or  march  in  state,  '  by  the  way.'  The  colour  is  not  that  of 
the  animal,  but  of  his  hiran  or  covering,  for  the  ass  is  com- 
monly dun,  and  not  white."  No  doubt  can  be  entertained 
in  relation  to  the  existence  of  the  custom  alluded  to  in  this 
quotation.  It  prevails  among  the  Arabs  to  the  present  day ; 
but  it  appears  rather  unnatural,  to  ascribe  the  colour  of  a 
covering  to  the  creature  that  wears  it.  "We  do  not  call  a  man 
white  or  black,  because  he  happens  to  be  dressed  in  vest- 
ments of  white  or  black  cloth  ;  neither  did  the  Hebrews. 
The  expression  naturally  suggests  the  colour  of  the  animal 
itself,  not  of  its  trappings;  and  the  only  point  to  be  ascer- 
tained, is,  whether  the  ass  is  found  of  a  white  colour. 
BufTon  informs  us,  that  the  colour  of  the  ass  is  not  dun  but 
flaxen,  and  the  belly  of  a  silvery  white.  In  many  instances 
the  silvery  white  predominates  ;  for  Cartw right,  who  trav- 
elled into  the  East,  affirms  that  he  beheld  on  the  banks  of 
the  Euphrates,  great  droves  of  wild  beasts,  among  which 
were  many  wild  asses  all  white.  Oppian  describes  the 
wild  ass,  as  having  a  coat  of  silvery  white ;  and  the  one 


which  professor  Gmelin  brought  from  Tartary,  was  of  the 
same  colour.  White  asses,  according  to  Morier,  come 
from  Arabia ;  their  scarcity  makes  them  valuable,  and  gives 
them  consequence.  The  men  of  the  law  count  it  a  dignity, 
and  suited  to  their  character,  to  ride  on  asses  of  this  colour. 
As  the  Hebrews  always  appeared  in  white  garments  at 
their  public  festivals  and  on  days  of  rejoicing,  or  when  the 
courts  of  justice  were  held ;  so,  they  naturally  preferred 
white  asses,  because  the  colour  suited  the  occasion,  and 
because  asses  of  this  colour  being  more  rare  and  costly, 
were  more  coveted  by  the  great  and  wealthy.  The  same 
view  is  taken  of  this  question  by  Lewis,  who  says,  the 
asses  in  Judea  "  were  commonly  of  a  red  colour ;  and 
therefore  white  asses  were  highly  valued,  and  used  by  per- 
sons of  superior  note  and  quality."  In  this  passage,  he 
clearly  speaks  of  the  colour  of  the  animals  themselves,  not 
of  their  coverings. — Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  They  that  are  delivered  from  the  noise 
of  archers  in  the  places  of  drawing  water. 

Dr.  Shaw  mentions  a  beautiful  rill  in  Barbary,  which  is 
received  into  a  large  basin,  called  shrub  we  krub,  drink 
and  away,  there  being  great  danger  of  meeting  there  with 
rogues  and  assassins.  If  such  places  are  proper  for  the 
lurking  of  murderers  in  times  of  peace,  they  must  be 
proper  for  the  lying  in  ambush  in  times  of  war :  a  circum- 
stance that  Deborah  takes  notice  of  in  her  song.  Judges  v. 
11.  But  the  writer  who  is  placed  first  in  that  collection, 
which  is  entitled  Gesta  Dei  per  Francos,  gives  a  more 
perfect  comment  still  on  that  passage :  for,  speaking  of  the 
want  of  water,  which  the  Croisade  army  so  severely  felt, 
at  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  he  complains,  that  besides  their 
being  forced  to  use  water  that  stunk,  arwi  barley  bread, 
their  people  were  in  continual  danger  from  the  Saracens, 
who,  lying  hid  near  all  the  fountains,  and  places  of  water, 
everywhere  destroyed  numbers  of  them,  and  carried  ofi* 
their  cattle.  To  which  may  be  added  a  story  from  William 
of  Tyre,  relating  to  Godfrey,  Duke  of  Lorrain,  afterward 
king  of  Jerusalem,  whxj,  stopping  short  of  Antioch  five  or 
six  miles,  to  which  place  he  was  returning,  in  order  to 
take  some  refreshment  in  a  pleasant  grassy  place  near  a 
fountain,  was  suddenly  set  upon  by  a  number  of  horsemen 
of  the  enemy,  who  rushed  out  of  a  reedy  fenny  place  near 
them,  and  attacked  the  duke  and  his  people. — Harmer. 

Ver.  17.  Gilead  abode  beyond  Jordan  :  and  Avhy 
did  Dan  remain  in  ships  ?  Asher  continued 
on  the  seashore,  and  abode  in  his  breaches. 

Though  the  coast  of  that  part  of  Syria  which  is  denomi- 
nated Palestine,  is  not  remarkable  for  the  number  of  its 
ports,  yet  besides  Joppa,  St.  John  d'Acre,  Caipha  under 
Mount  Carmel,  and  a  few  others  that  might  be  named, 
there  are  some  creeks,  and  small  convenient  places,  where 
little  vessels,  and  such  are  those  that  are  used  for  fishing, 
may  shelter  themselves,  and  land  what  they  take,  though 
there  are  very  few  rivers  on  all  that  coast.  To  these  places 
Deborah  seems  to  refer,  when  she  says,  Asher  continued  on 
the  seashore,  and  abode  in  his  breaches,  or  creeks,  as  it  is 
translated  in  the  margin. — Harmer, 

Ver.  21.  The  river  of  Kishon  swept  them  away, 
that  ancient  river,  the  river  Kishon.  O  my 
soul,  thou  hast  trodden  down  strength. 

The  Kishon,  whose  furious  current  swept  away  the 
routed  legions  of  Sisera,  though  mentioned  in  scripture  as 
a  river,  is  only  a  small  stream,  except  when  swelled  by  the 
rain  or  melting  snow.  "  That  ancient  river"  pursues  his 
course  down  the  middle  of  the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  and  then 
passing  close  by  the  side  of  Mount  Carmel,  falls  into  the 
sea  at  a  place  named  Caipha.  When  Maundrell  crossed 
this  stream,  on  his  way  to  Jerusalem,  its  waters  were  low 
and  inconsiderable  ;  but  in  passing  along  the  side  of  the 
plain,  he  observed  the  tracts  of  many  tributary  rivulets  fall- 
ing down  into  it  from  the  mountains,  by  which  it  must  be 
greatly  swelled  in  the  rainy  season.  It  was  undoubtedly 
at  the  season  when  the  Kishon,  replenished  by  the  streams 
of  Lebanon,  becomes  a  deep  and  impetuous  torrent,  that 
the  bands  of  Sisera  perishea  in  its  waters.  The  Kishon, 
like  several  other  streams  in  Palestine,  does  not  run  with 


Chap.  6. 


a  full  current  into  the  sea,  except  in  the  time  of  the  rains, 
but  percolates  through  the  sands  which  interpose  between 
it  and  the  Mediterranean.  It  has  been  immortalized  in  the 
song  of  Deborah  and  Barak:  "  The  kings  came  and  fought; 
then  fought  the  kings  of  Canaan  in  Tanach  by  the  waters 
of  Megiddo ;  they  took  no  gain  of  money.  They  fought 
from  heaven;  the  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against 
Sisera."  The  confederate  kings  took  no  gain  for  money  ; 
they  were  volunteers  in  the  war,  stimulated  only  by  hatred 
and  revenge.  But  they  strove  in  vain ;  the  hosts  of  heaven 
fought  for  Israel ;  the  stars  in  their  courses,  against  the 
powerful  bands  of  Jabin.  By  the  malignant  influences  of 
the  heavenly  bodies,  by  the  storms  of  hail,  thunder,  and 
rain,  produced,  it  is  probable,  by  the  power,  and  directed 
by  the  sagacity  of  holy  angels,  the  confident  hopes  of  Sisera 
were  blasted,  and  a  mark  of  eternal  infamy  stamped  upon 
his  name.  From  heaven,  says  the  Chaldee  Paraphrast, 
from  heaven,  the  place  where  the  stars  go  forth,  war  was 
commenced  against  Sisera ;  the  God  of  heaven  shot  forth 
his  arrows,  and  discomfited  the  hostile  armies;  and  the 
river  of  Kishon,  swelled  over  all  its  banks  by  the  furious 
tempests,  engaged  also  in  the  warfare,  by  the  command  of 
its  sovereign  Lord,  and  swept  the  fugitives  awav.  For 
this  stroke  of  vengeance,  the  Kishon  was  ordained  of  old: 
and  this  is  the  reason  the  inspired  bard  applies  to  it  the 
distinguishing  epithet  in  the  text :  "  The  river  of  Kishon 
swept  them  away;  that  ancient  river,  the  river  Kishon.  O 
my  soul,  thou  hast  trodden  down  strength."— Paxton. 

.    Ver.  25.  He  asked  water,  and  she  gave  him  milk ; 
she  brought  forth  butter  in  a  lordly  dish. 

Though  the  bowls  and  dishes  of  the  vulgar  Arabs  are  of 
wood,  those  of  their  emirs  are,  not  unfrequently,  of  copper, 
tinned  very  neatly :  La  Roque  takes  notice  of  this  circum- 
stance in  more  places  than  one.  I  have  met  with  a  like 
account,  I  think,  in  other  travellers.  May  we  not  believe 
that  the  vessel  which  Jael  made  use  of,  to  present  butter- 
milk to  Sisera,  and  which  Deborah  in  her  hymn  calls  a 
lordly  dish,  or  a  dish  oi  nobles,  was  of  this  sort"?  Her  hus- 
band certainly  was  an  Arab  emir;  the  working  of  metals 
much  more  ancient  than  her  time,  Gen.  iv.  22;  and  the 
mere  size  of  the  vessel  hardly  could  be  the  thing  intended. 
La  Roque,  indeed,  tells  us,  that  the  fruits  that  were  brought 
in  at  the  collation,  that  the  grand  emir  of  the  Arabs,  whom 
he  visited,  treated  him  with,  were  placed  in  a  large  painted 
basin  of  wood ;  its  being  painted  was,  without  doubt,  a 
mark  of  honour  set  on  this  vessel  of  the  grand  emir,  which 
distinguished  it  from  the  wooden  bowls  of  the  commonalty; 
but  a  painted  wooden  vessel  would  have  been  not  so  proper 
for  buttermilk,  as  one  of  copper  tinned,  which  therefore 
most  probably  was  the  sort  Jael  used. — Harmer. 

Speaking  of  the  hospitable  manner  in  which  he  was 
received  at  a  house  in  Tronyen  in  Norway,  Dr.  Clarke 
says,  "  If  but  a  bit  of  butter  be  called  for  in  one  of  these 
houses,  a  mass  is  brought  forth  weighing  six  or  eight 
pounds ;  and  so  highly  ornamented,  being  turned  out  of 
moulds,  with  the  shape  of  cathedrals  set  off  with  Gothic 
spires,  and  various  other  devices,  that,  according  to  the 
language  of  our  English  farmers'  wives,  we  should  deem 
it  almost  a  pity  to  cut  it.  Throughout  this  part  of  Norway, 
the  family  plate  of  butter  seemed  to  be  the  state  dish  of  the 
house :  wherever  we  sat  down  to  make  a  meal,  this  ofFer- 
T  ing  was  first  made,  as  in  the  tents  of  the  primeval  Arabs, 
;  when  Jael,  the  wife  of  Heber  the  Kenite,  brought  forth 
butter  in  a  lordly  dish." — Burder. 

Ver.  30.  Have  they  not  sped  ?  have  they  not  di- 
vided the  prey  ;  to  every  man  a  damsel  or  two  ; 
to  Sisera  a  prey  of  divers  colours,  a  prey  of  di- 
vers colours  of  needle-work,  of  divers  colours 
of  needle- work  on  both  sides,  meet  ioi  \h.Q  necks 
of  them  that  take  the  spoil  1 
See  on  Is.  3.  18. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  19.  And  Gideon  went  in,  and  made  ready  a 
kid,  and  unleavened  cakes  of  an  ephah  of  flour : 
the  flesh  he  put  in  a  basket,  and  he  put  the 
18 


JUDGES.  ISr 

broth  in  a  pot,  and  brought  it  out  unto  him 
under  the  oak,  and  presented  it. 

All  roasted  meat  is  a  delicacy  among  the  Arabs,  and 
rarely  eaten  by  them,  according  to  La  Roque ;  sieit-cd  meat 
also  is,  according  to  him,  only  to  be  met  with  among  them 
at  feasts,  and  great  tables,  such  as  those  of  princes,  and 
consequently  a  delicacy  also ;  the  common  diet  being  only 
boiled  meat,  with  rice  pottage  and  piliaw.     This  is  agree- 
able to  Dr.  Pococke's  account  of  an  elegant  entertainment 
he  met  with  at  Baalbeck,  where  he  tells  us  they  had  for, 
supper  a  roasted  fowl,  piliaw,  stewed  meat,  with  the  soup, 
&c. ;  and  of  a  grand  supper  prepared  for  a  great  man  of 
Egypt,  where  he  was  present,  and  which  consisted,  he  tells 
us,  of  piliaw,  a  small  sheep  boiled  whole,  a  lamb  roasted 
in  the  same  manner,  roasted  fowls,  and  many  dishes  of 
stewed  meat  in  soup,  &c.     This  soup,  in  which  the  stewed 
meat  is  brought  to  table,  or  something  very  much  like  it, 
was,  we  believe,  the  broth  that  Gideon  presented  to  the 
angei,  whom  he  took  Tor  a  mere  mortal  messenger  of  God. 
Many  a  reader  may  have  wondered  why  he  should  bring 
out  his  broth ;  they  may  have  been  ready  to  think  it  would 
have  been  better  to  have  kept  that  within,  and  have  given 
it  to  the  poor  after  the  supposed  prophet,  whom  he  desired 
to  honour,  should  be  withdrawn,  but  these  passages  explain 
it :  the  broth,  as  our  translators  express  it,  was,  I  imagine, 
the  stewed  savoury  meat  he  had  prepared,  with  such  sort 
of  liquor  as  the  eastern  people  at  this  day  bring  their 
stewed  meat  in,  to  the  most  elegant  and  honourable  tables. 
What  then  is  meant  by  the  flesh  put  into  the  basket,  Judg. 
vi.  19 1  "  And  Gideon  went  in,  and  made  ready  a  kid,  and 
unleavened  cakes  of  an  ephah  of  flour ;  the  flesh  he  put  in 
a  basket,  and  he  put  the  broth  in  a  pot,  and  brought  it  out 
to  him  under  the  oak,  and  presented  it."    The  preceding^ 
quotations  certainly  do  not  decipher  this  perfectly  ;  but  I 
have  been  inclmed  to  think,  there  is  a  passage  in  Dr.  Shaw 
that  entirely  unravels  this  matter,  and  affords  a  perfect 
comment  on  this  text.    It  is  in  his  preface:  "Besides  a 
bowl  of  milk,  and  a  basket  of  figs,  raisins,  or  dates,  which 
upon  our  arrival  were  presented  to  us,  to  stay  our  appetites, 
the  master  of  the  tent  where  we  lodged,  fetched  us  from  his 
flock,  according  to  the  number  of  our  company,  a  kid  or  a 
goat,  a  lamb  or  a  sheep,  half  of  which  was  immediately 
seethed  by  his  wife,  and  served  with  cuscasoe ;  the  rest  was 
made  kabab,  i.  e.  cut  into  pieces  and  roasted;  which  we 
reserved  for  our  breakfast  or  dinner  next  day."    May  we 
not  imagine  that  Gideon  presenting  some  slight  refresh- 
ment to  the  supposed  prophet,  according  to  the  present 
Arab  mode,  desired  him  to  stay  till  he  could  provide  some- 
thing more  substantial  for  him ;  that  he  immediately  killed 
a  kid,  seethed  part  of  it,  made  kabab  of  another  part  of  it, 
and  when  it  was  ready,  brought  the  stewed  meat  in  a  pot, 
with  unleavened  cakes  of  bread  which  he  had  baked ;  and 
kabab  in  a  basket  for  his  carrying  away  with  him,  and 
serving  him  for  some  after  repast  in  his  journey  1   Nothing 
can  be  more  conformable  to  the  present  Arab  customs,  or  a 
more  easy  explanation  of  the  text ;  nothing  more  conve- 
nient for  thft  carriage  of  the  reserved  meat  than  a  light 
basket ;  so  Thevenot  informs  us  he  carried  his  ready  dressed 
meat  with  him  in  a  maund.  What  others  may  think  of  the 
passage  I  know  not,  but  I  never  could,  till  I  met  with  these 
remarks,  account  for  his  bringing  the  meat  out  to  the  angel 
in  a  basket.   As  for  Gideon's  leaving  the  supposed  prophet 
under  a  tree,  while  he  was  busied  in  his  house,  instead  of 
introducing  him  into  some  apartment  of  his  habitation,  and 
bringing  the  repast  out  to  him  there,  we  have  seen  some- 
thing of  it  under  the  last  observation ;  I  would  here  add, 
that  not  only  Arabs  that  live  in  tents,  and  their  dependants, 
practise  it  still,  but  those  also  that  live  in  houses,  as  did 
Gideon.    Dr.  Pococke  frequently  observed  it  among  the 
Maronites,  and  was  so  struck  with  this  conformity  of  theirs 
to  ancient  customs,  that  he  could  not  forbear  taking  partic- 
ular notice  of  it :  laymen  of  quality  and  ecclesiastics,  the 
patriarchs  and  bishops,  as  well  as  poor  obscure  priests,  thus 
treating  their  guests. — Harmer. 

Ver.  37.  Behold,  I  will  put  a  fleece  of  wool  in  the 

floor ;  a7id  if  the  dew  be  on  the  fleece  only,  and 

it  be  dry  upon  all  the  earth  besides,  then  shall 

I  know  that  thou  wilt  save  Israel  by  my  hand, 

I  as  thou  hast  said. 


138 


JUDGES. 


Chap.  7 


In  Palestine,  as  in  Greece  and  Italy,  the  floor  was  for  the 
most  part  in  the  open  air.  Thus  the  thrashing-floor  of 
Gideon  appears  to  have  been  an  open  uncovered  space,  upon 
which  the  dews  of  heaven  fell  without  interruption,  "I 
will  put  a  fleece  of  wool  in  the  floor,  and  if  the  dew  be  on 
the  fleece  only,  and  it  be  dry  on  all  the  earth  besides,  then 
shall  I  know  that  thou  wilt  save  Israel  by  my  hand  as 
thou  hast  said,"  But  a  barn,  or  covered  space,  had  b6en 
unfit  for  such  an  experiment.  The  thrashing-floor  of 
Araunah  the  Jebusite,  seems  also  to  have  been  an  open 
area,  else  it  had  not  been  a  proper  place  for  erecting  an 
<  altar,  and  offering  sacrifice.  In  the  prophecies  of  Hosea, 
the  idolaters  of  Israel  are  compared  to  the  chaff  that  is 
driven  with  the  whirlwind  out  of  the  floor.  Hence  it  was 
designed. y  prepared  in  a  place  to  which  the  wind  had  free 
access  on  all  sides ;  and  from  this  exposed  situation  it  de- 
rived its  name  in  Hebrew.  In  Greece,  the  same  kind  of 
situation  was  chosen ;  for  Hesiod  advises  his  farn^^r  to 
thrash  his  corn  in  a  place  well  exposed  to  the  wind.  From 
this  statement,  it  appears  that  a  thrashing-floor  (rendered  in 
our  translation  a  void  place)  might  .well  be  formed  near 
the  gale  of  Samaria,  which  was  built  on  the  summit  of  a 
hill;  and  afforded  a  very  convenient  place  for  the  kings  of 
Israel  and  Judah  giving  audience  to  the  prophets. — Pax- 
ton. 

Ver.  38.  And  it  was  so :  for  he  rose  up  early  on 
the  morrow,  and  thrust  the  fleece  together,  and 
wringed  the  dew  out  of  the  fleece,  a  bowl  full 
of  water. 

It  may  seem  a  httle  improbable  to  us  who  inhabit  these 
northern  climates,  where  the  dews  are  inconsiderable,  how 
Gideon's  fleece,  in  one  night,  should  contract  such  a  quan- 
tity, that  when  he  came  to  wring  it,  a  bowl  full  of  water  was 
produced.  Irwin,  in  his  voyage  up  the  Red  Sea,  when  on 
the  Arabian  shores,  says,  "difficult  as  we  find  it  to  keep 
ourselves  cool  in  the  daytime,  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  defend 
our  bodies  from  the  damps  of  the  night,  when  the  wind 
is  loaded  with  the  heavest  dews  that  ever  fell ;  we  lie  exposed 
to  the  whole  weight  of  the  dews,  and  the  cloaks  in  which  we 
wrap  ourselves,  are  as  wet  in  the  morning  as  if  they  had  been 
immersed  in  the  sea." — Burder. 

Ver.  4.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Gideon,  The 
people  are  yet  too  many;  bring  them  down 
unto  the  water,  and  I  will  try  them  for  thee 
there ;  and  it  shall  be,  that  of  whom  I  say  unto 
thee,  This  shall  go  with  thee,  the  same  shall 
go  with  thee ;  and  of  whomsoever  I  say  unto 
thee,  This  shall  not  go  with  thee,  the  same 
shall  not  go.  5.  So  he  brought  down  the  peo- 
ple unto  the  water  :  and  the  Lord  said  unto 
Gideon,  every  one  that  lappeth  of  the  water 
with  his  tongue,  as  a  dog  lappeth,  him  shall 
thou  set  by  himself;  likewise  every  one  that 
boweth  down  upon  his  knees  to  drink.  6.  And 
the  number  of  them  that  lapped,  putting  their 
hand  to  their  mouth,  were  three  hundred  men  : 
but  all  the  rest  of  the  people  bowed  down  upon 
their  knees  to  drink  water. 

The  Arabs  lap  their  milk  and  pottage,  but  not  their  water. 
On  the  contrary,  D'Arvieux  tells  us,  that  after  they  have 
eaten,  they  rise  from  table,  and  go  and  drink  large  draughts 
out  of  a  pitcher,  or,  for  want  of  that,  out  of  a  leathern  bottle, 
which  they  hand  to  one  another  round  and  round.  Few  of 
'  the  Israelites,  if  they  did  in  common  sup  their  milk  and  pot- 
tage out  of  their  hands,  as  the  Arabs  do,  would  have  been 
disposed  to  lap  water  in  the  same  manner,  if  they  drank  too 
as  the  Arabs  now  drink.  Two  considerations  more  will 
complete  the  illustration  of  this  part  of  the  history  of  Gideon. 
The  one  is.  that  the  eastern  people  are  not  wont  to  drink 
standing.  Busbequius,  the  imperial  ambassador  at  Con- 
stantmople,  in  his  celebrated  letters  concerning  the  eastern 
people,  affirms  this  in  a  very  particular  manner ;  the 
other,  that  the  lapping  with  their  hands  is  a  very  expe- 
ditious way  of  takmg  in  liquids.  "  They  are  not  restrained 
in  their  choice,"   says  Dr.   Russell.      "  When  they  take 


water  with  the  palms  of  their  hands,  they  naturally  places 
themselves  on  their  hams  to  be  nearer  the  water;  but  when 
they  drink  from  a  pitcher,  or  gourd,  fresh  filled,  they  do  not 
sit  down  on  purpose  to  drink,  but  drink  standing,  and 
very  often  put  the  sleeve  of  their  shirt  over  the  mouth  of 
the  vessel,  by  way  of  strainer,  lest  small  leeches  might  have 
been  taken  up  with  the  water.  It  is  for  the  same  reason 
they  often  prefer  taking  water  with  the  palm  of  the  hand,  to 
the  lapping  it  from  the  surface.  D'Arvieux,  in  that  accu- 
rate account^  of  the  Arabs  of  Mount  Carmel,  expressly 
takes  notice  of  this,  observing  that  this  may  be  the  reason 
why  spoons  are  so  universally  neglected  among  the  Arabs, 
as  a  man  would  eat  upon  very  unequal  terms  with  a  spoon, 
among  those  that  use  the  palms  of  their  hands  instead  of 
them.  Until  I  met  with  this  passage  of  Busbequius,  I  could 
not  tell  what  to  make  of  that  particular  circumstance  of  the 
history  of  the  Jewish  judge,  that  all  the  rest  of  the  people 
bowed  down  upon  their  knees  to  drink  water.  It  appeared' 
to  me  rather  the  putting  themselves  into  an  attitude  to  lap 
water,  than  any  thing  else :  as  I  supposed  the  words  signi- 
fied that  they  kneeled  down  by  the  side  of  some  water  in 
order  to  drink.  But  the  matter  is  now  clear :  three  hun- 
dred men,  immediately  upon  their  coming  to  the  water, 
drank  of  it  in  the  quickest  manner  they  could,  in  order  to 
be  ready  without  delay  to  follow  Gideon;  the  rest  took  up 
water  in  pitchers,  or  leathern  bottles,  or  some  kind  of  vessel, 
and  bending  down  so  as  to  sit  jointly  upon  their  heels  and 
knees,  or  with  their  knees  placed  upright  before  them, 
either  of  which  might  be  called  bowing  their  knees  to  drink, 
though  the  last  is  the  posture  Busbequius  refers  to,  they 
handed  these  drinking  vessels  with  ceremony  and  slowness 
from  one  to  another,  as  they  were  wont  to  do  in  common, 
which  occasioned  their  dismission.  So  two-and-twenty 
thousand  of  those  that  were  faint-hearted  were  first  sent 
away ;  then  all  the  rest,  excepting  three  hundred  men  of 
peculiar  alacrity  and  despatch,  the  most  proper  for  the 
business  for  which  they  were  designed,  but  visibly  unequa. 
to  the  task  of  opposing  the  Midianites ;  and  without  some 
miraculous  interposition  of  God,  absolutely  unequal,"-— 
Harmer, 

A  dbg  lappeth  by  means  of  forming  the  end  of  his  tongue 
into  the  shape  of  a  shallow  spoon,  by  which  he  laves  or 
throws  up  the  water  into  his  mouth.  The  Hottentots  have 
a  curious  custom,  resembhng  the  dog  and  the  three  hun- 
dred chosen  men  of  Gideon's  army.  On  a  journey,  imme- 
diately on  coming  to  water,  they  stoop,  but  no  farther 
than  what  is  sufficient  to  allow  their  right  hand  to  reach 
the  water,  by  which  they  throw  it  up  so  dexterously,  that 
their  hand  seldom  approaches  nearer  to  their  mouth  than 
a  foot ;  yet  I  never  observed  any  of  the  water  to  fall  down 
upon  their  breasts.  They  perform  it  almost  as  quickly  a* 
the  dog,  and  satisfy  their  thirst  in  half  the  time  taken  by 
another  man,  I  frequently  attempted  to  imitate  this  practice, 
but  never  succeeded,  always  spilling  the  water  on  my  clothes, 
or  throwing  it  against  some  other  part  of  the  face,  instead 
of  the  mouth,  which  greatly  amused  the  Hottentot  spectators, 
who  then,  perhaps  for  the  first  time,  perceived  that  there 
was  some  art  in  it, — African  Light. 


CHAPTER  Vn. 

Ver.  12.  And  the  Midianites,  and  the  AmaleKites, 
and  all  the  children  of  the  East,  lay  along  in 
the  valley  like  grasshoppers  for  multitude  ;  and 
their  camels  were  without  number,  as  the  sand 
by  the  seaside  for  multitude. 

This  animal  remembers  an  injury  long,  and  seizes  witn 
great  keenness  a  proper  opportunity  of  revenge.  A  camel's 
anger  is,  among  the  Arabians,  a  proverb  for  an  irreconci- 
lable enmity.  They  estimate  their  riches  by  the  number 
of  their  camels.  They  can  sustain  great  labour  and  fatigue 
upon  the  poorest  means  of  subsistence ;  travelling  four  or 
five  days  without  water,  while  half  a  gallon  of  beans  and 
barley,  or  a  few  balls  made  of  the  flour,  will  sustain  him 
f  )r  a  whole  day.  Dr.  Shaw  says,  that  before  drinking,  they 
disturb  the  water  with  their  feet,  first  of  all  thrusting  their 
heads  a  great  way  above  the  nostrils  into  the  water,  and 
then,  after  the  manner  of  pigeons,  make  several  successive 
draughts.  "  Nature  has  furnished  the  camel  with  parts  and 
qualities  adapted  to  the  office  he  is  employed  to  discharge, 


Chap.  7—9. 


JUDGES. 


139 


The  driest  thistle  and  the  barest  thorn  is  all  the  food  this 
useful  quadruped  requires;  and  even  thise,  to  save  time, 
he  eats  while  advancing  on  his  journey,  without  stopping, 
or  occasioning  a  moment  of  delay.  As  it  is  his  lot  to  cross 
immense  deserts,  where  no  water  is  found,  and  countries 
not  even  moistened  with  the  dew  of  heaven,  he  is  endued 
■with  the  power,  at  one  watering-place,  to  lay  in  a  store, 
with  which  he  supplies  himself  for  thirty  days  to  come. 
To  contain  this  enormous  quantity  of  fluid,  nature  has 
formed  large  cisterns  within  him,  from  which,  once  filled,: 
he  draws  at  pleasure  the  quantity  he  wants,  and  pours  it 
into  his  stomach,  with  the  same  effect  as  if  he  then  drew  it 
from  a  spring;  and  with  this  he  travels  patiently  and  vig- 
orously all  day  long ;  carrying  a  prodigious  load  upon  him, 
through  countries  infected  with  poisonous  winds,  and  glow- 
ing with  parching  and  never-cooling  sands."    (Bruce.)— 

BUHDER. 

Ver.  13.  And  when  Gideon  was  come,  behold, 
i  there  was  a  man  that  told  a  dream  unto  his  fel- 
low, and  said,  Behold,  I  dreamed  a  dream,  and, 
lo,  a  cake  of  barley-bread  tumbled  into  the  host 
of  Midian,  and  came  unto  a  tent,  and  smote  it 
that  it  fell,  and  overturned  it,  that  the  tent  lay- 
along. 

Barley-bread  is  in  some  regions  of  Persia  commonly 
used  by  the  lower  orders.  It  must  not  however  be  omitted, 
that  in  making  bread,  barley  was  used  before  any  other 
sort  of  corn ;  for  it  is  reported,  says  Artemidorus,  that  this 
was  the  first  food  which  the  gods  imparted  to  mankind  ; 
and  it  was,  according  to  Pliny,  the  most  ancient  sort  of  pro- 
vision. But  in  more  civilized  ages,  to  use  the  words  of  the 
same  author,  barley-bread  came  to  be  the  food  of  beasts 
only ;  yet  it  was  still  used  by  the  poorer  sort,  who  were  not 
able  to  furnish  their  tables  with  better  provisions;  and  in 
the  Roman  camp,  as  Vegetius  and  Livy  inform  us,  soldiers 
who  had  been  guilty  of  any  offence,  were  fed  with  barley, 
instead  of  bread  corn.  An  example  of  this  punishment  is 
recorded  in  the  history  of  the  second  Punic  war.  The 
cohorts  that  lost  their  standards,  had  an  allowance  of  bar- 
ley assigned  by  Marcellus.  And  Augustus  Cesar  com- 
monly punished  the  cohorts  which  gave  way  to  the  enemy, 
by  a  decimation,  and  allowing  them  no  provision  but  barley. 
So  mean  and  contemptible,  in  the  estimation  of  the  numer- 
ous and  well-appointed  armies  of  Midian,.  was  Gideon, 
with  his  handful  of  undisciplined  militia ;  but  guided  by 
the  wisdom,  and  supported  by  the  power  of  the  living  God, 
he  inflicted  a  deserved  and  exemplary  punishment  on  these 
proud  oppressors.  The  meagre  barley-cake  was  put  into 
the  hand  of  Midian  by  the  God  of  armies,  as  a  punishment 
for  disobedience  of  orders,  not  to  make  a  full  end  of  his 
j  chosen  people.  "  And  when  Gideon  was  come,  behold, 
there  was  a  man  that  told  a  dream  unto  his  fellow,  and 
said.  Behold,  I  dreamed  a  dream,  and  lo,  a  cake  of  barley- 
bread  tumbled  into  the  host  of  Midian,  and  came  unto  a 
tent,  and  smote  it  that  it  fell,  and  overturned  it,  that  the 
tent  lay  along.  And  his  fellow  answered  and  said.  This 
is  nothing  else  save  the  sword  of  Gideon,  the  son  of  Joash, 
a  man  of  Israel ;  for  into  his  hand  hath  God  delivered 
Midian,  and  all  the  host." — Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  And  he  divided  the  three  hundred  men 
into  three  companies,  and  he  put  a  trumpet  in 
every  man's  hand,  with  empty  pitchers,  and 
lamps  within  the  pitchers. 

Though  it  must,  one  would  think,  be  much  more  con- 
venient to  carry  water  in  skins  or  leathern  bottles,  when 
water  must  be  carried,  and  accordingly,  such  we  find  are 
generally  made  use  of  in  the  East  in  travelling;  yet,  what- 
ever the  cause  may  be,  they  sometimes  content  themselves 
with  earthen  jars.  Thus  we  find,  in  the  beginning  of  Dr. 
Chandler's  expeditions,  in  search  of  the  antiquities  of  these 
countries,  though  he  was  equipped  under  the  direction  of  a 
Jew  of  that  countrv,  of  such  eminence  as  to  act  as  the  Brit- 
ish consul  at  the  JDardanelles,  and  was  attended  at  first  by 
him,  yet  the  vessel  in  which  their  water  was  to  be  carried, 
was  an  earthen  jar,  which  not  only  served  them  in  the 
wherry  in  which  they  coasted  some  of  the  nearer  parts  of 


Asia  Minor,  but  was  carried  upon  the  ass  of  a  poor  peasant, 
along  with  other  luggage,  when  they  made  an  excursion 
from  the  seaside  up  into  the  country,  to  visii  the  gieat  luin 
at  Troas.  This  may  serve  to  remove  our  wonder  thai 
Gideon  should  be  able  to  collect  three  hundred  water-jars 
from  among  ten  thousand  men,  for  we  have  no  reason  to 
suppose  the  method  he  was  to  make  use  of,  to  surprise  the 
Midianites,  was  not  suggested  to  him  before  he  dismissed  all 
the  army  to  the  three  hundred.  In  an  army  of  ten  thousand 
Israelitish  peasants,  collected  together  on  a  sudden,  there 
might  be  many  goat-skin  vessels  for  water,  but  many  might 
have  nothing  better  than  earthen  jars,  and  three  hundred 
water-jars,  collected  from  the  whole  army,  were  sufficient 
to  answer  the  views  of  divine  Providence. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  7.  And  Gideon  said,  Therefore,  when  the 
Lord  hath  delivered  Zebah   and    Zalmunna 
into  my  hand,  then  I  will  tear  your  flesh  Avith 
the  thorns  of  the  wilderness,  and  with  briers. 

Thus  did  Gideon  threaten  the  inhabitants  of  Succoth ; 
and  thus  do  masters,  fathers,  and  schoolmasters,  swear 
they  will  punish,  those  who  have  offended  them.  To  see 
the  force  of  the  figure,  it  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  the 
people  are  almost  in  a  state  of  nudity.  To  tear  a  man's 
naked  body,  therefore,  with  briers  and  thorns,  would  be  no 
small  punishment.  See  poor  travellers  sometimes,  who,  in 
consequence  of  a  wild  beast,  or  some  other  cause,  have  to 
rush  into  the  thicket ;  before  they  can  get  out  again,  in  con-, 
sequence  of  thorns,  they  are  literally  covered  Avith  blood. 
There  have  been  instances  where  a  master,  in  his  anger,, 
has  taken  the  jagged  edge  of  the  palmirah  branch,  to  tear 
the  naked  body  of  his  slave,  and  nothing  can  be  more 
common  than  to  threaten  it  shall  be  done  to  those  who 
have  given  offence.  People  also  often  menace  each  other 
with  the  repetition  of  the  old  punishment  of  tying  the  naked 
body  in  a  bundle  of  thorns,  and  rolling  it  on  the  ground. — 
Roberts. 

This  threat  probably  relates  to  a  cruel  method  of  torture 
used  in  those  times  for  putting  captives  to  death,  by  laying 
briers  and  thorns  on  their  naked  bodies,  and  then  drawing- 
over  them  some  heavy  implements  of  husbandry.  Drij- 
sius  thinks,  that  pensons  put  to  death  in  this  manner  were 
laid  naked  on  thorns  and  briers,  and  then  trampled  on. — 

BURDER. 

Ver.  18.  As  ihoxxart,  so  wer eihey\  each  one  re- 
sembled the  children  of  a  king. 

Of  a  person  who  is  beautiful  or  of  a  fair  complexion, 
who  is  courageous  and  stately  in  his  gait,  it  is  said  in  the 
East,  "  He  is  like  the  son  of  a  king."  "  He  is  as  the  so\\ 
of  Mannaaihon  (Cupid.")  "  He  is  the  ^on  of  a  god." — 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  8.  The  trees  went  forth  on  a  time  to  anoinl 
a  king  over  them ;  and  they  said  unto  the  olivv-^.- 
tree.  Reign  thou  over  us. 

The  people  of  the  East  are  exceedingly  addicted  to  apo- 
logues, and  use  them  to  convey  instruction  or  reproof, 
which  with  them  could  scarcely  be  done  so  well  in  any 
other  way.  Has  a  man  been  told  a  secret,  he  says,  in  re- 
peating it,  for  instance,  "  A  tree  told  me  this  morning,  that 
Kandan  offered  a  large  bribe  to  the  Modeliar,  lo  get  Mut- 
too  turned  out  of  his  situation."  Does  a  man  of  low  caste 
wish  to  unite  his  son  in  marriage  to  the  daughter  of  one 
who  is  high,  the  latter  will  say,  "  Have  you  heard  that  the 
pumpkin  wants  to  be  married  to  the  plantain  tree"?"  Is  a 
wife  steril,  "  The  cocoa-nut  tree  in  Viraver's  garden  does 
not  bear  any  fruit."  Has  a  woman  had  children  by  im- 
proper intercourse,  it  is  said  of  her  husband's  garden, 
"  Ah,  the  palmirah-trees  are  now  giving  cocoa-nuts." 
Has  a  man  given  his  daughter  in  marriage  to  another 
who  uses  her  unkindly,  he  says,  "  I  have  planted  the  sugar- 
cane by  the  side  of  the  margossa  (bitter)  tree." — Roberts. 

Ver.  27.  And  they  went  out  into  the  fields,  and 
gathered  their  vineyards,  and  trode  the  grafes^^ 


140 


JUDGES. 


Chap.  9— 11. 


and  made  merry,  and  went  into  the  house  of 
their  god,  and  did  eat  and  drink,  and  cursed 
Abimelech. 

In  the  East  they  still  tread  their  grapes  after  the  ancient 
manner.  "  August  20,  1765,  the  vintage  (near  Smyrna) 
was  now  begun,  the  juice  (of  the  grapes)  was  expressed  for 
wine ;  a  man,  with  his  feet  and  legs  bare,  was  treading  the 
fruit  in  a  kind  of  cistern,  with  a  hole  or  vent  near  the  bot- 
tom, and  a  vessel  beneath  to  receive  the  liquor."  (Chand- 
ler's Travels  in  Greece.) — Border. 

Ver.  33.  Then  may  est  thou  do  to  them  as  thou 
shalt  find  occasion. 

The  Hebrew  has,  "  As  thy  hand  shall  find."  (1  Sam. 
X.  7,  margin.)  In  asking  a  favour,  it  is  common  to  say, 
*'  You  must  not  deny  me,  sir ;  but  as  your  hand  finds  op- 
portunity, so  you  must  assist  me." — "  Well,  my  friend, 
when  I  have  the  opportunity  of  the  hand,  I  will  assist  you." 
"  The  man  has  assisted  me  according  to  the  opportimity  of 
his  hand ;  what  can  he  do  more  V — Roberts, 

Ver.  36.  And  when  Gaal  saw  the  people,  he  said 
to  Zebul,  Behold,  there  come  people  down  from 
the  top  of  the  mountains.  And  Zebul  said 
unto  him,  Thou  seest  the  shadow  of  the  mount- 
ains as  if  they  were  men. 

Our  translation  of  the  book  of  Judges,  from  the  Hebrew, 
represents  Zebul  as  saying  to  Gaal,  upon  his  being  alarm- 
ed at  seeing  troops  of  men  making  to  him.  Thou  seest  the 
skadows  of  Uve  mountains  as  if  they  were  men;  whereas, 
Josephus  represents  him  as  telling  him,  he  mistook  the 
shadow  of  the  rocks  for  men.  A  commentator  might  be  at 
a  loss  to  account  for  this  change,  that  had  not  read  Doub- 
dan's  representation  of  some  part  of  the  Holy  Land,  in 
which  he  tells  us,  that  in  those  places  there  are  many  de- 
tached rocks  scattered  up  and  down,  some  growing  out  of 
the  ground,  and  others  are  fragments,  broken  ofi'  from 
rocky  precipices,  the  shadow  of  which,  it  appears,  Jose- 
pljus  thought  might  be  most  naturally  imagined  to  look 
like  troops  of  men  at  a  distance,  rather  than  the  shadow  of 
the  mountains. — Shaw. 

The  dreariness  of  the  far-stretching  ruins  was  dismally 
increased  by  the  shadowy  hour  of  our  approach;  and  be- 
ing again  in  the  region  of  the  Bactriani  descents,  our  own 
flitting  shades,  as  we  passed  between  old  mouldering  walls 
and  the  moonlight,  sometimes  bore  an  alarming  interpre- 
tation. Our  mehmander  was  ready  to  embattle  every 
frowning  heap  with  a  murderous  legend. — Sir  R,  K.  Por- 

TEE. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  4.  And  he  had  thirty  sons  that  rode  on  thirty 
ass-colts,  and  they  had  thirty  cities,  which  are 
called  Havoth-jair  unto  this  day,  which  are  in 
the  land  of  Gilead. 

To  ride  upon  an  ass  was,  in  the  days  of  the  Judges,  a 
mark  of  distinction,  to  which  it  is  probable  the  vulgar 
might  not  presume  to  aspire.  This  is  evident  from  the 
brief  notices  which  the  inspired  historian  gives  of  the  great- 
ness and  richness  of  Jair,  the  Gileadite,  one  of  these  judges : 
"  he  had  thirty  sons  that  rode  on  thirty  ass-colts;  and  they 
had  thirty  cities,  which  are  called  Havoth-jair  unto  this 
day. "  Abdon  the  Pirathonite,  another  of  these  judges, 
'•  had  forty  sons  and  thirty  nephews,  that  rode  on  three- 
score and  ten  ass-colts. "  It  is  reasonable  to  suppose,  that 
the  manners  and  customs  of  the  chosen  tribes  underwent 
a  change  when  the  government  became  monarchical,  and 
the  fascinating  pleasures  of  a  court  began  to  exert  their 
usual  influence;  still,  however,  the  ass  kept  his  place  in 
the  service  of  the  great,  Mephibosheth,  the  grandson  of 
Saul,  rode  on  an  ass ;  as  did  Ahithophel,  the  prime  minister 
of  David,  and  the  greatest  statesman  of  that  age.  Even  no 
late  as  the  reign  of  Jehoram,  the  son  of  Ahab,  the  services 
of  this  animal  were  required  by  the  wealthy  Israelite :  the 
Shunamite,  a  person  of  high  rank,  saddled  her  ass,  and 
ifode  to  Carmel,  the  residence  of  Elisha,  to  announce  the 


death  of  her  son  to  the  prophet,  and  to  solicit  his  assist- 
ance.— Paxton, 

Ver.  8.  And  that  year  they  vexed  and  oppressed 
the  children  of  Israel  eighteen  years. 

The  Hebrew  has,  "  crushed."    Of  a  severe  master  it  is 
said,  "  He  crushes  his  servants.  "    "  Ah !  my  lord,  crush 
me  not."    "When  will  the  king  cease  to  crush  his  peo- 
y  pie  7  " — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Ver.  30.  And  Jephthah  vowed  a  vow  unto  the 
Lord,  and  said.  If  thou  shalt  without  fail  de- 
liver the  children  of  Ammon  into  my  hands, 
31.  Then  it  shall  be,  that  whatsoever  cometh 
forth  of  the  doors  of  my  house  to  meet  me,  when 
I  return  in  peace  from  the  children  of  Ammon, 
shall  surely  be  the  Lord's,  and  I  will  offer  it 
up  for  a  burnt-offering. 

One  species  of  vow  called  Cherem,  (for  which,  in  Ger- 
man, we  generally  use  the  terms  Bann,  Verbannen,  &c. ; 
but  in  a  thing  altogether  foreign  to  us,  I  rather  choose  to 
abide  by  the  Hebrew  word,)  was,  from  ancient  usage,  more 
sacred  and  irremissible  than  all  others.  Moses  nowhere 
mentions  what  Cherem  was,  nor  by  what  solemnities  or 
expressions  it  was  distinguished  from  other  vows ;  but  pre- 
supposes all  this  as  already  well  known.  But  from  Lev. 
xxvii.  21,  every  one  must  see,  that  there  was  a  difference 
between  a  Cherem  and  other  vows ;  for  if  a  man  had  vow- 
ed his  field,  and  omitted  to  redeem  it,  it  devolved  unto  God 
in  the  same  way  as  the  field  of  Cherem,  for  ever,  and  be- 
yond the  power  of  future  redemption ;  and  in  ver.  28,  29, 
it  is  expressly  ordained,  that  a  Cherem  can  never  be  re- 
deemed like  other  vows,  but  continues  consecrated  to  God ; 
and  if  it  be  a  man,  that  he  shall  be  put  to  death.  I  have  al- 
ready stated,  that  of  the  formalities  which  distinguished  the 
Cherem  from  common  vows,  we  know  nothing  ;  nor  does 
the  etymology  of  the  term  at  all  aid  our  conjectures,  for 
the  radical  word  in  Arabic  means,  to  consecrate ;  but  every 
thing  vowed  or  devoted,  was  consecrated.  The  species  of 
Cherem  with  which  we  are  best  acquainted,  was  the  previ- 
ous devotement  to  God  of  hostile  cities,  against  which  they 
intended  to  proceed  with  extreme  severity  ;  and  that  wiih 
a  view  the  more  to  inflame  the  minds  of  the  people  to  war. 
In  such  cases,  not  only  were  all  the  inhabitants  put  to  death, 
but  also,  according  as  the  terms  of  the  vow  declared,  no 
booty  was  made  by  any  Israelite  ;  the  beasts  were  slain ; 
what  would  not  burn,  as  gold,  silver,  and  other  metals,  was 
added  to  the  treasure  of  the  sanctuary ;  and  every  thing 
else,  with  the  whole  city,  burnt,  and  an  imprecation  pro- 
nounced upon  any  attempt  that  should  ever  be  made  to  re- 
build it.  Of  this  tJie  history  of  Jericho  (Josh.  vi.  17—19, 
21—24,  and  vii.  1, 12—26)  furnishes  the  most  remarkable 
example.  In  Moses'  lifetime  we  find  a  similar  vow  against 
the  king  of  Arad,  Numb.  xxi.  1 — 3.  The  meaning,  how- 
ever, as  we  see  from  the  first-mentioned  example,  was  not, 
that  houses  might  never  again  be  built  on  the  accursed  spot; 
for  to  build  a  city,  here  means  to  fortify  it.  Joshua  him- 
self seems  to  explain  it  thus ;  for  in  his  curse  he  makes 
use  of  this  expression,  "  Cursed  be  he  who  rebuilds  this 
city  Jericho ;  for  his  first-born  son  shall  he  found  it,  and  for 
his  latest,  set  up  its  gates."  The  beginning,  therefore,  of 
the  building  of  a  city,  is  to  found  it ;  which  can  hardly  be 
to  lay  the  foundation  stone  of  a  single  house,  (for  who, 
whether  Hebrew  or  not,  ever  called  that  founding  a  city  1) 
but  of  the  city  walls;  and  its  conclusion,  isto  set  up  its  gates. 
The  history  still  further  confirms  this,  as  the  meaning  of 
the  term  to  build  ;  Jericho  was  so  advantageously  situated 
for  all  manner  of  trade,  because  near  the  usual  passage 
a,cross  the  Jordan,  that  it  could  not  long  remain  a  place  en- 
tirely desolate.  In  fact,  as  early  as  the  time  of  the  Judges, 
Jericho,  or,  as  it  was  then  called,  the  city  of  palms,  ap-^ 
peared  again  as  a  town,  subdued  by  the  Moabites;  (Judg.l 
iii.  13,  compared  with  Deut.  xxxiv.  3;)  and  in  David's  time,  | 
we  have  unquestionable  proof  of  ti  e  existence  of  a  city  of* 
the  name  of  Jericho.  See  2  Sam.  x.  5.  But  notwithstand- 
ing all  this,  Joshua's  imprecation  was  not  yet  trespassed; 
but,  at  least  100  years  after  David's  death,  Jericho  was  first 
rebuilt  (that  is,  fortified)  by  Hiel  the  Bethelite ;  and  in  lay- 


Chap.  12. 


JUDGES. 


141 


ing  its  foundation  he  lost  his  first-born  son,  and  in  setting 
up  the  gates,  his  youngest,  1  Kings  xvi.  34. 

If  an  Israelitish  city  introduced  the  worship  of  strange 
gods,  it  was  in  like  manner  to  be  devoted,  or  consecrated  to 
God,  and  to  remain  unrebuilt  for  ever ;  Deul.  xiii.  16 — 18. 
In  these  cases,  therefore,  consecrated,  or  devoted,  is  nearly 
equivaleu.  to  the  Latin  phrase,  ejus  caput  Jovi  sacrum  esto, 
or  sacer  esto.  The  consecration  of  the  transgressor  to  God 
made  the  remission  of  his  punishment  impossible.  It  is 
easy  to  perceive,  that  this  master-piece  of  legislative  policy- 
ought  never  to  have  its  importance  lessened  by  an  injudi- 
cious application  to  common  crimes,  that  do  not  affect  the 
principles  of  the  constitution :  and  therefore,  so  much  the 
greater  was  the  abuse  which  Saul  made  of  the  Cherem, 
when,  in  issuing  an  arbitrary  inconsiderate  order,  he  swore 
that  whoever  trespassed  it  should  die ;  this  was,  in  fact, 
making  the  offender  against  his  whim,  a  Cherem ;  and  ac- 
cordingly we  see,  that  the  people  did  not  mind  the  oath  of 
their  king,  but  insisted  on  saving  Jonathan,  whom,  because 
he  had  eaten  a  little  honey,  his  father  had  devoted  to  death. 
1  Sam.  xiv.  24 — 45.  But  a  still  grosser  abuse  of  the  Che- 
rem, proceeding  from  imitation  of  foreign  and  heathenish 
practices,  w^e  shall  probably  find  in  the  history  of  Jephthah, 
'  Judges,  chap.  xi.  This  brave  barbarian,  an  illegitimate 
child,  and  without  inheritance,  who  had  from  his  youth 
i  been  a  robber,  and  was  now,  from  being  the  leader  of  ban- 
ditti, transformed  into  a  general,  had  vowed,  if  he  con- 
j  quered  the  Ammonites,  to  make  a  burnt-offering  to  the 
\  Lord  of  whatever  should  first  come  out  of  his  house  to  meet 
'<  him,  on  his  return.  This  vow  was  so  absurd,  and  at  the 
i  same  time  so  contrary  to  the  Mosaic  law,  that  it  could  not 
j  possibly  have  been  accepted  of  God,  or  obligatory.  For, 
what  if  a  dog,  or  an  ass,  had  first  met  him"?  Could  he  have 
offered  it  ?  By  the  law  of  Moses  no  unclean  beast  could  be 
brought  to  the  altar ;  nor  yet  even  all  clean  ones ;  but  of 
quadrupeds,  only  oxen,  sheep,  and  goats.  Or,  what  if  a 
man  had  first  met  him"?  Human  sacrifices  Moses  had 
most  rigidly  prohibited,  and  described  as  the  abomination 
of  the  Canaanites ;  of  which  we  shall  afterward  say  more, 
under  criminal  law ;  but  Jephthah,  who  had  early  been 
driven  from  his  home,  and  had  grown  up  to  manhood 
among  banditti  in  the  land  of  Tob,  might  not  know  much 
of  the  laws  of  Moses,  and  probably  was  but  a  bad  lawyer, 
and  jqst  as  bad  a  theologian.  The  neighbouring  nations 
used  human  sacrifices:  the  Canaanites,  especially,  are  hy 
Moses  and  the  other  sacred  writers  often  accused  of  this 
abominable  idolatry,  of  which  we  find  still  more  in  the 
Greek  and  Latin  authors ;  and  possibly,  therefore,  Jephthah, 
when  he  made  the  vow,  may  have  thought  of  being  met, 
not  merely  by  a  beast,  but  by  a  slave,  whom,,  of  course,  he 
would  sacrifice,  after  the  heathen  fashion.  His  words  are, 
"  If  thou  givest  the  Ammonites  into  my  hands,  whatever 
first  Cometh  forth  from  my  house  to  meet  me  on  my  happy 
return  from  the  Ammonites,  shall  be  the  Lord's,  and  I  will 
bring  it  to  him  as  a  burnt-offering." — Most  unfortunately, 
his  only  daughter  first  came  out  to  congratulate  him :  and 
I  the  ignorant  barbarian,  though  extremely  afl^ected  at  the 
!  sight,  was  yet  so  superstitious,  and  so  unacquainted  with 
the  religion  and  laws  of  his  country,  as  to  suppose  he 
could  not  recall  his  vow.  His  daughter  too  was  heroic 
enough  to  fulfil  it,  on  her  part ;  requesting  only  two  months 
respite,  for  the  romantic  purpose  of  going  with  her  com- 
panions into  lonely  dales,  there  to  lament  that  she  must 
die  a  virgin.  Then,  after  two  months'  absence,  this  hap- 
less maid,  who,  either  from  ambition  or  superstition,  was 
a  willing  victim  to  her  father's  inconsiderate  vow,  actually 
returned ;  and  Jephthah,  it  is  said,  did  with  her  as  he  had 
vowed ;  which  cannot  well  mean  any  thing  else,  than  that 
he  put  her  to  death,  and  burnt  her  body  as  a  burnt-offering. 
The  greater  number  of  expositors,  indeed,  would  fain  ex- 
plain the  passage  differently,  because  they  look  upon  Jeph- 
thah as  a  saint,  who  could  not  have  done  any  thing  so  abom- 
inable. "  Human  sacrifices,"  say  they,  "  are  clearly  con- 
trary to  the  law  of  Moses."— Very  true. — But  how  many 
tilings  have  ignorance  and  superstition  done  in  the  world, 
thai  expressly  contradict  the  law  of  God  !  Have  we  not, 
among  Christians,  seen  persecutions  and  massacres  on  ac- 
,  count  of  religion,  with  various  other  atrocities,  and  abom- 
inable proceedings,  that  are  just  as  directly  repugnant  to 
the  gospel,  as  any  human  sacrifice  could  be  to  the  laws  of 
]  Moses  1—"  But  would  the  high-priest  have  accepted  such 
!j  an  offering,  and  brought  it  to  the  altar  V'—l  certainly  be- 


lieve not ;  but  we  find  not  a  word  spoken  of  the  high-priest, 
but  only  of  Jephthah.  What  if  he  had  performed  the  sacri- 
fice himself?  This  would  certainly  have  been  a  trans- 
gression of  the  Levitical  law ;  which  enjoined  that  every 
offering  should  be  made  by  the  hand  of  the  priest,  and  at 
the  place  where  the  tabernacle  and  altar  stood.  But  that 
injunction  had,  on  numberless  occasions,  been  violated  by 
the  Israelites,  and  had,  by  the  opposite  usage,  become  al- 
most abrogated.  Jephthah,  who,  from  superstitious  igno- 
rance, was,  in  the  sacrifice  of  his  daughter,  after  the  Ca- 
naanitish  fashion,  about  to  perpetrate  a  most  abominable 
act,  forbidden  not  only  by  the  law  of  his  country,  but  also 
by  the  law  of  nature,  might  very  well  have  been  guilty  of 
the  lesser  fault,  now  actually  a  very  common  one,  of  ma- 
king his  offering  in  the  country  beyond  Jordan,  of  which  he 
was  himself  master.  Amid  all  the  doubts  that  we  start 
concerning  this  clearly-related  story,  we  do  not  consider 
who  Jephthah  was ;  a  fugitive  from  his  country,  who,  in  for- 
eign lands,  had  collected  and  headed  a  band  of  robbers; 
nor  yet  where  he  now  ruled,-^beyond  Jordan,  in  the  land 
of  Gilead.  And  a  still  more  important  circumstance  men- 
tioned in  the  chapter  (xii.)  immediately  following  our  sto- 
ry, has  been  most  inadvertently  overlooked.  Immediately 
after  his  victory  over  the  Ammonites,  Jephthah  went  to  war 
with  the  tribe  of  Ephraim  :  but  the  tabernacle  was  at  Shi- 
loh,  within  the  limits  of  that  tribe ;  and  the  .high-priest, 
therefore,  could  certainly  have  had  no  concern  with  an  of- 
fering that  Jephthah  meant  to  make  on  account  of  his  suc- 
cess, nor  would  it  have  been  brought  to  the  altar  at  Shiloh, 
but  made  in  the  land  where  Jephthah  himself  ruled.  It  is 
unaccountable,  that  not  a  single  expositor  should  have  at- 
tended to  this  war  with  the  Ephraimites :  but  that  the  one 
half  of  them  should  be  so  simple  as  to  deny,  that  Jephthah 
did  offer  up  his  daughter,  because  the  high-priest  would 
not  have  accepted  the  offering:  and  the  other,  in  other 
respects  more  correct  in  their  opinion,  so  obliging,  as  to 
obviate  that  objection,  by  presuming  that  the  high-priest 
must  have  been  deposed  for  making  such  an  offering. — 
This,  however,  is  a  controversy  into  which  I  will  not  enter 
further,  because  it  does  not  deserve  it.  That  carelessness 
is  too  gross,  which  forgets  the  end  of  the  eleventh  chapter, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth. — Michaelis. 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Ver.  3.  And  when  I  saw  that  ye  delivered  me  not, 
I  put  my  life  in  my  hancls,  and  passed  over 
against  the  children  of  Ammon. 

The  Ephraimites  had  found  fault  with  Jephthah  because 
he  did  not  call  them  to  war  against  the  Ammonites,  but  he 
vindicated  himself,  and  addressed  them  in  the  language  of 
the  verse,  as  a  proof  of  his  courage,  and  that  he  had  been 
exposed  to  danger.  The  Hindoos  use  the  same  figure ;  and 
the  idea  appears  to  be  taken  from  a  man  carrying  some- 
thing very  precious  in  his  hands,  and  that  under  circum- 
stances of  great  danger.  When  a  son  who  has  been  long 
absent  returns  home,  his  father  says,  "  My  son  has  returned 
from  the  far  country  with  his  life  in  his  hand;"  which 
means,  he  has  passed  through  many  dangers.  "  Last  night, 
as  I  went  home  through  the  place  of  evil  spirits,  I  put  my 
life  in  my  hands."  "  The  other  day,  in  passing  through 
the  forest,  I  put  my  life  in  my  hands,  for  the  beasts  were 
near  to  me  in  every  direction."  "  Danger !  truly  so ;  I  put 
my  life  in  my  bosom."  "  O  that  divine  doctor!  my  son  was 
at  the  point  of  death,  but  he  brought  his  life  in  his  hand." — 
Roberts, 

Ver.  14.  And  he  had  forty  sons,  and  thirty 
nephews,  that  rode  on  threescore  and  ten  ass- 
colts  :  and  he  judged  Israel  eight  years. 

To  an  Englishman,  this  may  appear  almost  incredible, 
but  we  have  a  great  number  of  similar  cases.  A  man  oi 
property  has  as  many  wives  as  he  thinks  proper  to  support; 
and  such  is  the  state  of  morals,  that  he  finds  no  difficulty 
in  procuring  them.  I  have  known  men  who  have  had,  in 
each  of  the  neighbouring  villages,  a  wife  or  concubine. 
Santherasega,  Modeliar  of  Oodeputty,  who  has  been  dead 
about  thirty  vears,  had  two  wives  and  six  concubines,  who 
bare  to  him  thirty  children.  The  old  man  is  described  as 
being  of  large  stature,  and  as  having  indulged  in  strong  ' 


143 


JUDGES. 


Chap.  13.  14. 


kinds  of  food. — A  friend  of  mine  in  Manilla  knew  a  man 
who  was  the  father  of  forty  children. — Lieutenant-colonel 
Johnson  says  (in  his  '  Travels  through  Persia)  of  the  king, 
"  The  number  of  his  cidldren  I  could  not  exactly  ascertain: 
it  is  generally  agreed  that  he  has  at  least  sixty  boys  and 
sixty  girls  living ;  and  many  persons  add,  that  there  are  an 
equal  number  deceased,  so  that  their  total  number  must 
kave  been  two  hundred  and  forty.  He  has  already  given 
HI  marriage  twelve  of  his  daughters ;  and  about  twenty-five 
of  the  elder  of  his  sons  are  governors  of  the  principal  prov- 
inces and  cities  of  the  empire.  Preparations  of  fireworks, 
&c.  were  at  this  time  making  at  the  palace  to  celebrate  the 
nuptials  of  one  of  his  sons,  which  were  to  take  place  in 
about  three  weeks." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Yer.  5.  For,  lo,  thou  shalt  conceive,  and  bear  a 
son ;  and  no  razor  shall  come  on  his  hea^ :  for 
the  child  shall  be  a  Nazarite  unto  God  from 
the  womb. 

Tbis  command  was  given  to  the  wife  of  Manoah,  the 
fatLt  1-  of  Samson,  who  had  previously  been  steril.  Han- 
nah, the  mother  of  Samuel,  was  also  steril,  "  and  she  vowed 
a  v-iw,  and  said,  O  Lord  of  hosts,  if  thou  wilt  indeed  look 
on  -ne  affliction  of  thy  handmaid,  and  remember  me,  and 
not  forget  thy  handmaid,  but  will  give  unto  thy  hand- 
maid a  man-child,  then  I  will  give  him  unto  the  Lord  all 
the  ays  of  his  life,  and  there  shall  no  razor  come  upon  his 
head."  (Numbers  vi.  5.  Acts  xviii.  18.)  All  who  are 
married  in  the  East,  have  an  intense  desire  for  children. 
It  is  considered  disgraceful,  and  a  mark  of  the  displeasure 
of  the  gods,  to  have  a  childless  house.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, husbands  and  wives  perform  expensive  cere- 
monies ;  and  vow,  that  should  the  gods  favour  them  with 
a  son,  "  no  razor  shall  come  upon  his  head,"  (i.  e.  except- 
ing "the  corners,")  until  he  shall  be  ten  or  twelve  years 
of  age.  In  all  schools,  boys  may  be  seen  with  elf-locks  of 
ten  jr  twelve' years  standing,  giving  a  testimony  to  the 
solicitude,  superstition,  and  affection  of  the  parents,  and  a 
memorial  of  the  favour  of  their  deities. — Roberts. 

Ver.  1":^  So  Manoah  took  a  kid  with  a  meat- 
ofTeriij?-,  and  offered  it  upon  a  rock  unto  the 
Lord:  and  the  angel  did  wonderously ;  and 
ManoaVt  and  his  wife  looked  on.  20.  For  it 
came  tc  pass,  when  the  flame  went  up  towards 
heaven  ^ua:,  off  the  altar,  that  the  ang-el  of  the 
Lord  asceii':ied  in  the  flame  of  the  altar  :  and 
Manoah  and  his  wife  looked  on  it,  and  fell  on 
their  faces  to  the  ground. 

The  circumstances  in  the  histories  of  Gideon  and  Manoah 
are  well  illustrated,  by  some  things  mentioned  occasionally 
by  Doubdan,  in  the  account  of  his  journey  to  the  Holy- 
Land,  for  he  speaks  of  many  rocks  which  he  found  rising 
up  out  of  the  earth  there,  and  some  as  parts  of  great  rocks 
fallen  down.  Some  of  them  are  described  in  such  a  manner, 
as  shows  they  resembled  altar-tombs,  or  altars.  Speaking 
of  his  return  from  a  town  called  St.  Samuel,  to  Jerusalem, 
by  a  way  leading  to  the  sepulchres  of  the  judges  of  Israel, 
he  tells  us,  (p.  98,  99,)  that  he  found  them  in  a  great  field 
planted  with  vines,  in  which  were  great  rocks,  which  rose 
out  of  the  earth ;  among  them,  one,  near  the  wayside,  was 
so  large,  as  to  be  hollowed  out  into  several  rooms,  in 
whose  sides  were  long  and  narrow  holes  cut  out,  proper 
for  placing  the  dead  in,  even  with  the  floor.  When  he 
was  at  Joppa,  waiting  to  embark,  upon  his  return,  he 
describes  himself  and  his  companion  as  placing  them- 
sei'.vs,  after  they  had  walked  until  they  were  tired,  on  the 
beach,  viewing  some  Greek  pilgrims,  who  were  also  wait- 
ing to  take  ship,  and  who  amused  themselves  with  dancing 
on  the  shore,  as  placing  themselves  in  the  shade  of  a  great 
rock,  newly  fallen  down  from  the  moimtains,  (p.  4.5.5.) 
Rocks  appear  in  this  countrv  :  some  in  their  original  situ- 
ation, rising  out  of  the  ground  ;  others  are  fragments,  that 
have  been  detached  from  rockv  eminences,  and  have  fallen 
down  on  the  ground  below.  Of  this  considerable  number 
of  rocks,  some  were  flat,  or  nearly  flat,  on  the  top,  so  as 


conveniently  to  be  used  for  altars.    There  are  some  such 
now  found  in  that  country. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Ver.  7.  And  he  went  down  and  talked  with  the 
woman  ;  and  she  pleased  Samson  well.  8.  And 
after  a  time  he  returned  to  take  her. 

Ten  or  twelve  months  commonly  intervened  between 
the  ceremony  of  espousals,  and  the  marriage  ;  during  this 
interval,  the  espoused  wife  continued  with  her  parents, 
that  she  might  provide  herself  with  nuptial  ornaments 
suitable  to  her  station.  This  custom  serves  to  explain  a 
circumstance  in  Samson's  marriage,  which  is  involved  in 
some  obscurity:  "  He  went  down,"  says  the  historian,  "  and 
talked  with  the  woman,  (whom  he  had  se^n  at  Timnath,) 
and  she  pleased  him  well."  These  words  seem  to  refer  to 
the  ceremony  of  espousals ;  the  following  to  the  subsequent 
marriage,  "  And  after  a  time  he  returned  to  take  her."' 
Hence,  a  considerable  time  intervened  between  the  espou- 
sals, and  their  actual  union. — Paxton. 

V^er.  8.  And,  behold,  there  was  a  swarm  of  bees 
and  honey  in  the  carcass  of  the  lion. 

The  bee  is  a  gregarious  insect,  living  in  a  state  of 
society,  and  subject  to  a  regular  government.  From  this 
circumstance,  its  Hebrew  name  mm,  from  a  root  which 
signifies  to  speak,  to  rule,  to  lead,  is  derived.  It  is  an 
opinion  commonly  received  among  the  ancients,  that  bees 
were  propagated  in  two  ways,  either  by  those  of  their  own 
species,  or  in  the  cavities  of  a  dead  carcass.  Their  opinion 
is  beautifully  stated  by  Virgil  in  these  lines : 

"Hie  vero  subitum  ac  dictu  mirablle  monstrum 
Aspiciunt,  liquefacta  boum  per  viscera  t.oto 
Stridere  apes  utero  et  ruptis  effervere  costis, 
Immensas  que  trahi  nubes  jamque  arbore  summa 
Confluere,  et  lentis  uvam  demittere  ramis." 

*'  But  here  they  behold  a  sudden  prodigy,  and  wondrous  to 
relate,  bees  through  all  the  belly,  burn  amid  the  putrid 
bowels  of  the  cattle,  pour  forth  with  the  fermenting  juices 
from  the  burst  sides,  and  in  immense  clouds  roll  .along, 
then  swarm  together  on  the  top  of  a  tree,  and  hang  down 
in  a  cluster  from  the  bending  boughs."  This  opinion, 
however,  is  directly  contradicted  by  another,  which  was 
held  by  some  writers  of  the  greatest  reputation  in  ancient 
times.  Aristotle  taught,  that  the  bee  will  not  light  upon  a 
dead  carcass,  nor  taste  the  flesh.  Varro  asserts,  that  she 
never  sits  down  in  an  unclean  place,  or  upon  any  thing 
which  emits  an  unpleasant  smell.  They  are  never  seen, 
like  flies,  feeding  on  blood  or  flesh ;  while  wasps  and 
hornets  all  delight  in  such  food,  the  bee  never  touches  a 
dead  body.  So  much  they  dislike  an  impure  smell,  that 
when  one  of  them  dies,  the  survivors  immediately  carry 
out  the  carcass  from  the  hive,  that  they  may  not  be  aii- 
noyed  by  the  effluvia.  The  discovery  which  Samson  made, 
when  he  went  down  to  Timnath,  may  seem  to  contradict 
the  latter,  and  confirm  the  former  opinion  :  "  And  after 
time,  he  returned  to  take  her,  and  he  turned  aside  to  se 
the  carcass  of  the  lion  ;  and  behold  there  was  a  swarm  oi_ 
bees,  and  honey  in  the  carcass  of  the  lion."  But  it  is  not" 
said  the  swarm  was  generated  there,  but  only  that  Samson 
found  them  in  the  carcass  ;  nor  is  it  said  that  the  lion  had 
been  recently  killed,  and  that  the  carcass  was  in  a  state  o£ 
putrefaction:  the  contrary  seems  to  be  intimated  by  the 
phrase  after  a  time,  literally,  after  days,  one  of  the  most 
common  expressions  in  scripture  for  a  year.  Hence  the 
lion  was  killed  a  whole  year  before  this  visit  to  Timnath, 
when  he  discovered  the  swaim  in  the  carcass.  But  the 
flesh  of  the  carcass,  which  Samson  lefl  in  the  open  field  at 
whole  year,  the  prey  of  wild  beasts  and  ravenous  birds" 
must  have  been  entirely  consumed  long  before  his  return 
or  so  completely  dried  by  the  violent  heat  of  the  sun,  tha' 
n  thing  but  the  skeleton,  or  exsiccated  frame,  remained. 
Within  the  bare,  or  withered  enclosure  of  the  bones,  which 
had  exhaled  their  last  putrid  effluvia,  the  swarm,  in  perfect 
consistency  with  their  usual  delicacy,  might  construct  their 
cells  and  deposite  their  honey.  This  conjecture  is  con- 
firmed by  the  testimony  of  Herodotus,  who  declares  thai 
bees  have  swarmed  in  dry  bones. — Paxton. 


i 


I 


Chap.  15. 


JUDGES. 


143 


Ver.  12.  And  Samson  said  unto  them,  I  will  now 
put  forth  a  riddle  unto  you :  if  ye  can  certainly 
declare  it  me  within  the  seven  days  of  the 
feast,  and  find  it  out,  then  I  will  give  you  thirty 
shefets  and  thirty  change  of  garments. 

It  is  customary  for  the  Turks  and  Moors,  according  to 
Dr.  Shaw,  to  wear  shins  of  linen,  or  cotton,  or  gauze, 
under  their  tunics  ;  but  the  Arabs  wear  nothing  but  wool- 
len. This  is  frequently  the  case  also  with  the  Arabs  of 
Palestine,  it  seems,  though  D'Arvieux  gives  a  contrary  ac- 
count of  the  Arabs  of  the  camp  of  the  grand  emir  whom 
he  visited ;  for  Egmont  and  Heyman  assure  us,  that  they 
saw  several  Arabian  inhabitants  of  Jaffa  going  along  al- 
most naked,  the  greatest  part  of  them  without  so  much  as 
a  shirt  or  a  pair  of  breeches,  though  some  wore  a  kind  of  a 
mantle;  as  for  the  children  there,  they  ran  about  almost  as 
naked  as  they  were  born,  though  they  had  all  little  chains 
about  their  legs  as  an  ornament,  and  some  of  silver. — Har- 

JVIER. 

Many  of  the  Arabian  inhabitants  of  Palestine  and  Bar- 
bary  wear  no  shirts,  but  go  almost  entirely  naked,  or  with 
only  a  cloth  cast  about  their  bodies,  or  a  kind  of  mantle.  It 
is  not  improbable,  that  the  poorer  inhabitants  of  Judea  were 
clothed  in  much  the  same  manner  as  the  Arabs  of  those 
countries  in  modern  times,  having  no  shirts,  but  only  a 
sort  of  mantle  to  cover  their  naked  bodies.  If  this  be  just, 
it  greatly  illustrates  the  promise  of  Samson  to  give  his 
companions  thirty  sheets,  or,  as  it  is  more  properly  rendered 
in  the  margin  of  our  Bibles,  thirty  shirts,  if  they  could  dis- 
cover the  meaning  of  his  riddle.  It  cannot  easily  be  im- 
agined they  were  what  we  call  sheets,  for  Samson  might 
have  slain  thirty  Philistines  near  Askelon,  and  not  have 
found  one  sheet ;  or  if  he  slew  them  who  were  carrying 
their  beds  with  them  on  their  travels,  as  they  often  do  in 
present  times,  the  slaughter  of  fifteen  had  been  sufficient, 
for  in  the  East,  as  in  other  countries,  every  bed  is  provided 
with  two  sheets;  but  he  slew  just  thirty,  in  order  to  obtain 
thirty  sediuim,  or  shirts.  If  this  meaning  of  the  term  be 
admitted,  the  deed  of  Samson  must  have  been  very  provo- 
king to  the  Philistines ;  for  since  only  people  of  more  easy 
circumstances  wore  shirts,  they  were  not  thirty  of  the  com- 
mon people  that  he  slew,  but  thirty  persons  of  figure  and 
consequence.  The  same  word  is  used  by  the  prophet 
Isaiah,  in  his  description  of  the  splendid  and  costly  dress 
in  which  people  of  rank  and  fashion  then  delighted,  ren- 
dered in  our  translation  fine  linen ;  which  seems  to  place 
it  beyond  a  doubt  that  they  were  persons  of  rank  that  fell 
tby  the  hand  of  Samson  on  that  occasion. 

But  it  is  by  no  means  improbable,  that  these  sheets  were 
the  hykes  or  blankets  already  described,  which  are  worn 
by  persons  of  all  ranks  in  Asia.  (See  on  Deut.  24.  13.) 
Pococke,  who  gives  a  description  of  this  vestment,  and  of 
the  way  in  which  it  is  wrapped  about  the  body,  which  does 
not  materially  differ  from  the  account  of  it  in  a  preceding 
section,  particularly  observed,  that  the  young  people,  and 
the  poorer  -ort  about  Faiume,  had  nothing  on  whatever, 
but  this  blanket;  hence  it  is  probable,  that  the  young  man 
was  clothed  in  this  manner  who  followed  our  Saviour  when 
he  was  taken,  having  a  linen  cloth  cast  about  his  naked 
body.  "  When  the  young  man,"  who  came  to  apprehend 
Jesiis,  "  laid  hold  of"  him,  "  he  left  the  linen  cloth,  and  fled 
^rom  them  naked:"  but  this  language  by  no  means  re- 

f 'quires  us  to  suppose  that  he  was  absolutely  naked,  but  only 
that  he  chose  rather  to  quit  his  hyke  or  plaid,  than  run  the 
risk  of  being  made  a  prisoner,  although  by  doing  so  he 
,  became  unduly  exposed.  This  view  is  confirmed  by  the 
observations  formerly  made  on  the  hyke  and  tunic;  and  by 
the  state  of  the  weather,  which  was"  so  cold,  that  the  ser- 
vants of  the  high-priest  were  compelled  to  kindle  a  fire  in 
!  the  midst  of  the  hall  to  warm  themselves.  It  is  very  im- 
probable, that  he  would  go  into  the  garden  on  such  a  night 
so  thinly  clothed;  and  we  have  no  reason  to  think  he  was 
so  poor,  that  this  linen  cloth  was  the  only  article  of  clothing 
j  in  his  possession.  But  Mr.  Harmer,  and  other  expositors, 
I  considering  that  the  apostles  were  generally  poor  men,  and 
I  that  the  poor  in  those  countries  had  often  no  other  covering 
tthan  this  blanket,  rather  suppose,  that  the  terrified  disciple 
\  lied  away  in  a  state  of  absolute  nudity.  But  if  it  was  the 
I  apostle  John,  where  was  he  furnished  with  clothes  to 
1  appear  almost  immediatelv  after  in  the  high-priest's  hall  7 


This  difficulty  Mr.  Harmer  endeavours  to  remove  by  sup- 
posing, that  from  the  garden  he  might  go  to  his  usual  place 
of  residence  in  the  city,  and  clothe  himself  anew  before  he 
went  to  the  palace. — Paxton. 

Ver.  15.  And  it  came  to  pass  on  the  seventh  day, 
that  they  said  to  Samson's  wife.  Entice  thy 
husband,  that  he  may  declare  unto  us  the  rid- 
dle, lest  we  burn  thee  and  thy  father's  house 
with  fire :  have  ye  called  us  to  take  that  we 
have  ?  is  it  not  so  ? 

The  marriage  feast  was  of  old,  frequently  protracted  to 
the  length  of  seven  days ;  for  so  long  Samson  entertained 
his  friends  at  Timnath.'  To  this  festival,  Laban  is  thought 
by  many  divines  to  refer,  in  his  answer  to  Jacob's  com- 
plaint, that  he  had  imposed  Leah  upon  him  instead  of 
Rachel;  "Fulfil  the  week  of  the  marriage,  and  we  will 
give  thee  this  also."  This  feast  was  callea  the  nuptial  joy, 
with  which  no  other  was  to  be  intermixed;  all  labour 
ceased  while  it  continued,  and  no  sign  of  mourning  or  sor- 
row was  permitted  to  appear.  It  may  be  only  further 
observed,  tnat  even  in  modern  times,  none  but  very  poor 
people  give  a  daughter  in  marriage  without  a  female  slave 
for  a  handmaid,  as  hired  servants  are  scarcely  known  in 
the  oriental  regions.  Hence  Laban,  who  was  a  man  of 
considerable  property  in  Mesopotamia,  "gave  unto  his 
daughter  Leah,  Zilpah  his  maid,  for  a  handmaid;"  and 
"  to  Rachel  his  da^jghter,  Bilhah  his  handmaid,  to  be  her 
maid."  In  Greece  also,  the  marriage  solemnity  lasted 
several  days.  On  the  third  day,  the  bride  presented  her 
bridegroom  with  a  robe ;  gifts  were  likewise  made  to  the 
bride  and  bridegroom,  by  the  bride's  father  and  friends ; 
these  consisted  of  golden  vessels,  beds,  couches,  plates,  ami 
all  sorts  of  necessaries  for  housekeeping,  which  were  car- 
ried in  great  state  to  the  house  by  women,  preceded  by  a 
person  carrying  a  basket,  in  the  manner  usual  at  proces- 
sions, before  whom  went  a  boy  in  white  vestments,  with  a 
torch  in  his  hand.  It  was  also  customary  for  the  bride- 
groom and  his  friends  to  give  presents  to  the  bride,  after 
which,  the  bridegroom  had  leave  to  converse  freely  with 
her,  and  she  was  permitted  to  appear  in  public  without  her 
veil.  The  money,  says  Dr.  Russell,  which  the  bridegrooms 
of  Aleppo  pay  for  their  brides,  is  laid  out  in  furniture  for 
a  chamoer,  in  clothes,  jewels,  or  ornaments  of  gold,  for  the 
bride,  whose  father  makes  some  addition,  according  to  his 
circumstances :  which  things  are  sent  with  great  pomp  to 
the  bridegroom's  house  three  days  before  the  wedding. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  And  he  said  unto  her,  Behold,  I  have 
not  told  it  my  father  nor  my  mother,  and  shall 
ItelHnhee? 

In  all  parts  of  the  world,  I  believe,  people  are  pretty 
much  aliKe  as  to  their  capability  of  keeping  secrets.  The 
Hindoos,  however,  improperly  reflect  upon  the  female  sex 
in  their  proverb,  "  To  a  woman  tell  not  a  secret."  .  That 
secret  must  be  great  indeed  which  will  prevent  a  son  or 
daughter  from  telling  it  to  the  father  or  mother.  The 
greatest  proof  of  confidence  is  to  say,  "  I  have  told  you 
what  I  have  not  revealed  to  my  father."  In  proof  of  the 
great  affection  one  has  for  another,  it  is  said,  "He  has  told 
things  to  him  that  he  would  not  have  related  to  his  parents." 
"My  friend,  do  tell  me  the  secret." — "Tell  youl  yes, 
when  I  have  told  my  parents." — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Ver.  4.  And  Samson  went  and  caught  three  hun- 
dred foxes,  and  took  firebrands,  and  turned  tail 
to  tail,  and  put  a  firebrand  in  the  midst  be- 
tween two  tails. 

The  book  of  Judges  contains  a  singular  anecdote,  of  the 
mischief  which  Samson  did  by  means  of  this  animal  to  the 
property  of  his  enemies.  He  "  went  and  caught  three  hun- 
dred foxes,  and  took  firebrands,  and  turned  tail  to  fail,  and 
put  a  firebrand  in  the  midst,  between  two  tails ;  and  when 
he  had  set  the  brands  on  fire,  he  let  them  go  into  the  stand- 
ing corn  of  the  Philistines,  and  burnt  up  both  tte  shocks, 


144 


JUDGES. 


Chap.  16. 


and  also  the  standing  corn,  with  the  vineyards  and  olives." 
On  reading  this  curious  statement,  the  infidel  asks  with  an 
air  of  triumph,  How  could  Samson  procure  so  many  foxes 
m  so  short  a  time  1  To  this  question  it  may  be  answered, 
the  concurring  testimony  of  travellers  clearly  proves,  that 
the  land  of  promise  abounded  with  foxes.  The  same  fact 
is  suggested  by  the  prediction  of  David,  that  his  enemies 
.should  become  the  prey  of  foxes ;  and  by  the  invitation  of 
Solomon  already  quoted  from  the  Song.  Some  districts 
and  cities  in  that  country,  take  their  name  from  the  fox ;  a 
sure  proof  of  their  numbers  in  those  parts :  "  Thus,  the 
land  of  Shual,  mentioned  in  the  first  book  of  Samuel,  sig- 
nifies the  land  of  the  fox  ;"  and  Hazarshual,  the  name  of  a 
city,  belonging  to  the  tribe  of  Judah,  or  Simeon,  means  the 
fox's  habitation.  Besides,  the  term  foxes,  in  the  opinion 
of  Bochart,  embraces  the  thoes,  a  species  of  wolf,  which 
very  much  resemble  the  fox,  and  are  extremely  numerous 
in  Judea,  particularly  about  Cesarea.  Bellonius  asserts, 
that  they  may  be  seen  in  troops  of  two  or  three  hundred, 
prowling  about  in  quest  of  their  prey ;  and  Morizon,  who 
travelled  in  Palestine,  says,  that  foxes  swarm  in  that  coun- 
try, and  that  very  great  numbers  of  them  lurk  in  hedges 
and  in  ruinous  buildings.  To  find  so  many  of  these  ani- 
mals, therefore,  could  be  no  great  difficulty  io  a  person  ac- 
customed to  the  chase,  as  this  renowned  Israelite  may  be 
reasonably  supposed  to  have  been.  Nor  is  it  said,  that 
Samson  caught  all  these  foxes  in  one,  or  even  in  two  days ; 
a  whole  week,  or  even  a  month,  might  be  spent  in  the  cap- 
ture, for  any  thing  that  appears  to  the  contrary.  Add  to 
this,  that,'  although  Samson  himself  m%ht  be  a  most  expert 
hunter,  we  have  no  reason  to  think  he  caught  all  these  ani- 
mals alone.  So  eminent  a  personage  as  the  chief  magis- 
trate of  Israel  might  employ  as  many  people  as  he  pleased, 
in  accomplishing  his  purpose.  When,  for  example,  it  is 
said,  that  Solomon  built  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  no  man 
supposes,  that  he  executed  the  work  with  his  own  hands  ; 
he  only  caused  the  work  to  be  done  :  and,  in  the  same  man- 
ner, Samson  may  be  said  to  do  what  he  only  commanded 
to  be  done,  or  assisted  in  doing.  Nor  can  it  be  reasonably 
denied,  that  the  God  who  made  the  world,  and  by  his  spe- 
cial providence,  watched  over  the  prosperity  of  his  ancient 
people,  and  intended,  at  this  time,  to  deliver  them  from 
their  enemies,  could  easily  dispose  matters,  so  as  to  facili- 
tate or  secure  the  capture  of  as  many  foxes,  as  the  design 
of  Samson  required.  In  this  singular  stratagem,  he  is 
thought,  by  some  writers,  to  have  had  two  things  in  view ; 
at  once,  to  deliver  his  country  from  those  noxious  animals, 
and  to  do  the  greatest  possible  mischief  to  his  enemies.  No 
kind  of  animals  could  be  more  suited  to  his  purpose,  espe- 
cially when  coupled  together  in  this  manner ;  for  they  run 
long  and  swiftly,  not  in  a  direct  line,  but  with  many  wind- 
ings, so  that,  while  they  dragged  in  opposite  directions,  they 
.spread  the  fire  over  all  the  fields  of  the  Philistines  with  the 
greater  rapidity  and  success,  and  were  at  the  same  time 
prevented  from  getting  into  the  woods,  or  holes  in  the 
rocks,  where  the  firebrands  had  been  extinguished,  and 
the  stratagem  rendered  ineffectual. — Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  And  he  was  sore  athirst,  and  called  on 
the  Lord,  Thou  hast  given  this  great  deliver- 
ance into  the  hand  of  thy  servant :  and  now 
shall  I  die  for  thirst,  and  fall  into  the  hand  of 
the  uncircumcised  ?  19.  But  God  clave  a  hol- 
low place  that  was  in  the  jaw,  and  there  came 
water  thereout ;  and  when  he  had  drunk  his 
spirit  came  again,  and  he  revived :  wherefore 
he  called  the  name  thereof  Bn-hakkore,  which 
is  in  Lehi  unto  this  day. 

The  impression  ordinarily  received  from  this  passage 
by  the  English  reader,  viz.  that  a  fountain  was  opened  in 
the  jaw-bone,  the  instrument  of  Samson's  victory,  is  proba- 
bly erroneous.  From  a  preceding  verse  in  this  chapter  it 
appears  that  the  Philistines  had  gone  up,  and  pitched  in 
Judah,  and  spread  themselves  in  Lehi.  But  as  it  happens 
Jjchi  is  the  original  word  for  jaw,  or  jaw-bone,  and  our 
translators,  following  some  of  the  ancient  versions,  have 
confounded  the  name  of  the  place  with  that  of  the  object 
from  which  it  was  derived.  There  is  no  good  reason  to 
suppose  that  the  hollow  place  was  cloven  in  the  jaw  itself, 


for  what  can  be  understood  by  God's  cleaving  a  cavity 
which  was  already  in  the  bone  1  For  if  he  clave  a  cavity 
previously  existing,  would  not  the  water  naturally  run 
through  it  and  empty  itself  upon  the  ground  1  But  let  the 
word  Lehi  stand  untranslated,  and  all  is  plain.  ^  A  certain 
cavity  in  the  earth,  in  the  place  called  Lehi,  ^^'^s  miracu- 
lously cloven  and  opened,  and  a  refreshing  fountain  of  wa- 
ter gushed  forth,  which  continued  thenceforth  to  flow  down 
to  the  time  when  the  history  was  written.  This  was  call- 
ed, in  memory  of  the  circumstance  which  gave  rise  to  it, 
"  En-hakkore,"i.  e.  the  well  or  fountain  of  him  that  cried. — B. 
All  that  this  passage  affirms  is,  that  in  the  place  where 
Samson  then  was,  and  which,  from  this  transaction,  he  called 
Lehi,  or  the  Jaw-bone,  there  was  a  hollow  place  which  God 
clave,  from  whence  a  fountain  flowed,  which  relieved 
Samson  when  ready  to  perish,  and  which  continued  to 
yield  a  considerable  supply  of  water,  at  the  time  this  sa- 
cred book  was  written,  and  possibly  may  flow  to  this  day. 
Doubdan,  in  one  single  day,  when  he  visited  the  countr}"- 
about  Jerusalem,  met  with  two  such  places.  On  Easter 
Monday,  the  first  of  April,  1652,  he  set  out,  he  informs  us, 
with  about  twenty  in  company,  to  visit  the  neighbourhood  of 
Jerusalem.  They  went  the  same  road  the  two  disciples 
are  supposed  to  have  taken,  when  our  Lord  joined  them, 
when  he  made  their  hearts  burn  within  them.  A  convent 
was  afterward  built  in  the  place  where  our  Lord  is  ima- 
gined to  have  met  them.  Only  some  pieces  of  the  walls  of 
freestone  are  now  remaining,  with  some  walls  and  half- 
broken  arches,  and  heaps  of  rubbish,  together  with  a  great 
cistern  full  of  water,  derived  partly  from  rain,  and  partly 
from  the  springs  in  the  mountain  there,  particularly  from 
a  most  beautiful  and  transparent  fountain,  a  little  above  it, 
which  breaks  out  at  the  farther  end  of  the  grotto,  naturally 
hollowed  out  in  the  hard  rock,  and  which  is  overhung 
with  small  trees,  where  they  made  a  considerable  stop  to 
refresh  themselves.  The  water  of  this  spring  running  by 
a  channel  into  the  cistern,  and  afterward  turning  a  mill 
which  was  just  by  the  cistern,  and  belonged  to  the  monas- 
tery, and  from  thence  flowed,  as  it  still  does,  into  the  tor- 
rent-bed of  that  valley,  from  whence  David  collected  the 
five  smooth  stones,  of  which  one  proved  fatal  to  Goliath. 
Here  we  see  a  hollow  place,  a  grotto,  in  which  the  God 
of  nature  had  divided  the  rock  for  the  passage  of  the  water 
of  a  beautiful  spring.  It  was  a  grotto  in  Lehi,  in  which 
God,  on  this  occasion,  made  the  water  to  gush  out,  and  run 
in  a  stream  into  the  adjoining  coimtry,  where  the  exhaust- 
ed warrior  stood. — Burdjer. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  6.  And  Delilah  said  to  Samson,  Tell  me,  I 
pray  thee,  wherein  thy  great  strength  lieth,  and 
wherewith  thou  mightest  be  bound  to  afflict 
thee.  7.  And  Samson  said  unto  her,  If  they 
bind  me  with  seven  green  withes  that  were 
never  dried,  then  shall  I  be  weak,  and  be  as 
another  man. 

That  is,  any  kind  of  pliant,  tough  wood,  twisted  in  the 
form  of  a  cord  or  rope.     Such  are  used  in  many  countries^ 
formed  out  of  osiers,  hazle,  &c.     In  Ireland,  very  long  and 
strong  ropes  are  made  of  the  fibres  of  bog- wood,  or  th^ 
larger  roots  o/  the  fir,  which  is  often  dug  up  in  the  bogs  or 
mosses  of  that  country.    In  some  places,  they  take  the  skia 
of  the  horse,  cut  it  lengthwise  from  the  hide,  into  thongs 
about  two  inches  broad  ;  and  after  having  laid  them  in  salt 
for  some  time,  take  them  out  for  use.     This  is  frequently 
done  in  the  country  parts  of  Ireland;  and  is  chiefly  use 
for  agricultural  purposes,  particularly  for  drawing  th« 
plough  and  the  harrow,  instead  of  iron  chains. — Buhder. 

Ver.  7.  And  Samson  said  unto  her,  If  they  bind 
me  with  seven  green  withes  that  were  never 
dried,  then  shall  I  be  weak,  and  be  as  another 
man.  j 

People  in  England  would  be  much  surprised  to  see  what 
powerful  ropes  are  made  from  the  withes  of  shrubs  or  trees. 
While  they  are  in  a  green  state,  they  are  stronger  than  ^ 
any  other  ropes  that  are  made  in  the  country.  Wild  ele- 
phants, or  bufl^aloes  just  caught,  generally  have  their  legs 
bound  with  green  withes. — Roberts. 


alt 

i 

j 

1 


Ghap.  19. 


JUDGES, 


145 


Ver,  19,  And  she  made  him  sleep  upon  her 
knees. 

It  is  very  amusing  to  see  a  full-grown  son,  or  a  husband, 
asleep  on  his  mother's  or  wife's  knees.  The  plan  is  as 
follows:  the  female  sits  cross-legged  on  the  carpet  or  mat, 
and  the  man  having  laid  himself  down,  puts  his  head  in  her 
lap,  and  she  gently  taps,  strokes,  sings,  and  sooths  him  to 
sleep. — Roberts. 

Ver.  21.  But  the  Philistines  took  him,  and  put 
out  his  eyes,  and  brought  him  down  to  Gaza, 
and  bound  him  with  fetters  of  brass ;  and  he 
did  grind  in  the  prison-house. 

With  the  Greeks  and  Asiatics,  the  way  of  putting  out 
the  eyes,  or  blinding,  was  not  by  pulling  or  cutting  out  the 
eyes,  as  sc^e  have  imagined ;  but  by  drawing,  or  holding 
a  red-hot  iron  before  them.  This  method  is  still  in  use  in 
Asia.  According  to  Chardin,  however,  the  pupils  of  the 
eyes'  were  pierced  and  destroyed  on  such  occasions.  But 
Thevenot  says,  that  "  the  eyes  in  these  barbarous  acts  are 
taken  out  whole,  with  the  point  of  a  dagger,  and  carried  to 
the  king  in  a  basin."  He  adds,  that,  "  as  the  king  sends 
whom  he  pleases  to  do  that  cruel  oifice,  some  princes  are 
so  butchered  by  unskilful  hands,  that  it  costs  them  their 
lives."  In  Persia  it  is  no  unusual  practice  for  the  king  to 
punish  a  rebellious  city  or  province  by  exacting  so  many 
pounds  of  eyes ;  and  his  executioners  accordingly  go  and 
scoop  out  from  every  one  they  meet,  till  they  have  the 
weight  required. — Burder. 

The  custom  of  daily  grinding  their  corn  for  the  family, 
shows  the  propriety  of  the  law  :  "  No  man  shall  take  the 
nether  or  the  upper  millstone  to  pledge,  for  he  taketh  a 
man's  life  to  pledge  ;"  because  if  he  take  either  the  upper 
or  the  nether  millstone,  he  deprives  him  of  his  daily  pro- 
vision, which  cannot  be  prepared  without  them,  and,  by 
cc  nsequence,  exposes  him  and  all  his  house  to  utter  destruc- 
tion. That  complete  and  perpetual  desolation  which,  by 
the  just  allotment  of  heaven,  is  ere  long  to  overtake  the 
mystical  Babylon,  is  clearly  signified  by  the  same  precept : 
"  The  sound  of  the  millstone  shall  be  heard  no  more  at  all 
in  thee."  The  means  of  subsistence  being  entirely  destroyed, 
no  human  creature  shall  ever  occupy  the  ruined  habitations 
more.  In  the  book  of  Judges,  the  sacred  historian  alludes, 
with  characteristic  accuracy,  to  several  circumstances  im- 
plied in  that  custom,  where  he  describes  the  fall  of  Abim- 
elech.  A  woman  of  Thebez,  driven  to  desperation  by 
his  furious  attack  on  the  tower,  started  up  from  the  mill 
at  which  she  Avas  grinding,  seized  the  upper  millstone, 
(nann'^s)  and  rushing  to  the  top  of  the  gate,  cast  it  on  his 
head,  and  fractured  his  skull.  This  was  the  feat  of  a 
woman,  for  the  mill  is  worked  only  by  females :  it  is  not  a 
piece  of  a  millstone,  but  the  rider,  the  distinguishing  name 
of  the  upper  millstone,  which  literally  rides  upon  the  other, 
and  is  a  piece  or  division  of  the  mill :  it  was  a  stone  of  "  two 
feet  broad,"  and  therefore  fully  sufficient,  when  thrown 
from  such  a  height,  to  produce  the  effect  mentioned  in  the 
narrative.  It  displays  also  the  vindictive  contempt  which 
suggested  the  punishment  of  Samson,  the  captive  ruler  of 
Israel.  The  Philistines,  with  barbarous  contumely,  com- 
pelled him  to  perform  the  meanest  service  of  a  female  slave ; 
they  sent  him  to  grind  in  the  prison,  but  not  for  himself 
alone ;  this,  although  extremely  mortifying  to  the  hero,  had 
been  more  tolerable ;  they  made  him  grinder  for  the  prison, 
1  while  the  vilest  malefactor  was  permitted  to  look  on  and 
join  in  the  cruel  mockery  of  his  tormentors.  Samson,  the 
ruler  and  avenger  of  Israel,  labours,  as  Isaiah  foretold  the 
virgin  daughter  of  Babylon  should  labour :  "  Come  down, 
and  sit  in  the  dust,  O  virgin  daughter  of  Babvlon ;  there 
is  no  throne,  (no  seat  for  thee,)  O  daughter  of  the  Chal- 
deans .  .  .  Take  the  millstones  and  grind  meal,"  but  not 
with  the  wonted  song :  "  Sit  thou  silent,  and  get  thee  into 
darkness,"»there  to  conceal  thy  vexation  and  disgrace. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  25.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  their  hearts 
were  merry,  that  they  said,  Call  for  Sanxson, 
that  he  may  make  us  sport. 

I     "  By  this  time  all  the  kaavy  in  that  house  was  exhausted, 
the  drinkers  therefore  removed  to  another,  and  Staus,  the 
'  19 


prisoner,  was  told  to  follow ;  his  legs  were  then  tied  together, 
and  he  was  told  to  jump,  while  they  laughed  and  shouted, 
See,  our  meat  is  jumping.  He  asked  if  this  was  the  place 
where  he  was  to  die.  No,  his  master  replied ;  but  these 
things  were  always  done  with  foreign  slaves.  Having  seen 
him  dance,  they  now  ordered  him  to  sing;  he  sung  a 
hymn;  they  bade  him  interpret  it,  and  he  said  it  was,  in 
praise  of  God.  They  then  reviled  his  God ;  their  blasphe- 
mies shocked  him,  and  he  admired  in  his  heart  the  won- 
derful indulgence  and  long-suffering  of  God  towards  them." 
(Southdey's  Brazil.)  Don  Gabriel  de  Cardenas  gives  an 
account  nearly  similiar  of  the  treatment  of  prisoners  by  the 
Iroquois  Indians.  He  describes  the  sufferings  of  ather 
Bresano,  a  Spanish  priest,  who  had  the  misfortune  to  be 
captured  by  them.  As  soon  as  he  arrived  at  the  place  of 
assembly,  they  inflicted  many  wounds,  and  treated  him  in 
the  most  cruel  manner  ;  as  soon  as  the  warriors  appeared, 
he  was  commanded  to  sing  like  the  other  prisoners ;  he  was 
also  commanded  to  dance  :  in  vain  he  excused  himself  on 
the  plea  of  inability.  Forced  into  the  middle  of  the  circle 
by  these  barbarians,  he  was  by  one  ordered  to  sing,  by 
another  to  dance ;  if  he  persisted  in  keeping  silence,  he 
was  cruelly  beaten,  and  when  he  attempted  to  comply  with 
their  requests,  his  treatment  was  nearly  the  same.  For 
upward  of  a  month  during  their  revels,  he  endured  the 
most  exquisite  sufferings,  which  were  to  have  been  termi- 
nated by  his  being  burnt  to  death,  had  not  one  of  the  chiefs 
mitigated  his  s'^ntence,  and  delivered  him  to  an  old  woman 
in  place  of  her  grandson,  who  had  been  killed  some  yeais 
before. — Burder. 

Ver.  27.  Now  the  house  was  full  of  men  and 
women ;  and  all  the  lords  of  the  Philistines 
were  there :  and  there  were  upon  the  roof  about 
three  thousand  men  and  women,  that  beheld 
while  Samson  made  sport. 

The  method  of  building  in  the  East,  may  assist  us  in  ac- 
counting for  the  particular  structure  of  the  temple  or  house 
of  Dagon,  and  the  great  number  of  people  that  were  buried 
in  its  ruins,  by  pulling  down  the  two  principal  pillars  upon 
which  it  rested.  About  three  thousand  persons  crowded 
the  roof,  to  behold  while  the  captive  champion  of  Israel 
made  sport  to  his  triumphant  and  unfeeling  enemies.  Sam- 
son, therefore,  must  have  been  in  a  court  or  area  beneath'; 
and  consequently,  the  temple  will  be  of  the  same  kmd  with 
the  ancient  reitevri,  or  sacred  enclosures,  which  were  only 
surrounded,  either  in  part  or  on  all  sides,  with  some  plain 
or  cloistered  buildings.  Several  palaces  and  dou-wanas,  as 
the  halls  of  justice  are  called  in  these  countries,  are  built 
in  this  fashion,  in  whose  courts,  wrestlers  exhibit  for  the 
amusement  of  the  people,  on  their  public  festivals  and  re- 
joicings ;  while  the  roofs  of  these  cloisters  are  crowded 
with  spectators,  that  behold  their  feats  of  strength  and 
agility.  When  Dr.  Shaw  was  at  Algiers,  he  frequently 
saw  the  inhabitants  diverted  in  this  manner,  upon  the  root 
of  the  dey's  palace  ;  which,  like  many  more  of  the  same 
quality  and  denomination,  has  an  advanced  cloister  over 
against  the  gate  of  the  palace,  made  in  the  form  of  a  large 
pent-house,  supported  only  by  one  or  two  contiguous  pillars 
in  the  front,  or  else  in  the  centre.  In  such  open  structures 
as  these,  the  great  officers  of  state  distribute  justice,  and 
transact  the  public  affairs  of  their  provinces.  Here,  like- 
wise, they  have  their  public  entertainments,  as  the  lords  ol 
the  PhiHstines  had  in  the  temple  of  their  god.  Supposing, 
therefore,  that  in  the  house  of  Dagon,  was  a  cloistered 
building  of  this  kind,  the  pulling  down  of  the  front  or  centre 
pillars  which  supported  it,  would  alone  be  attended  with 
the  catastrophe  which  happened  to  the  Philistines. — Pax- 
ton. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Ver.  8.  And  he  arose  early  in  the  morning  on  the 
fifth  day  to  depart ;  and  the  damsel's  father  said. 
Comfort  thy  heart,  I  pray  thee.  And  they 
tarried  until  afternoon,  and  they  did  eat  both  ot 
them. 

"Until  aflernoon."  Hebrew,  "till  the  day  declined." 
In  this  way  also  do  the  people  of  the  East  speak,  when  the 
sun  has  passed  the  meridian;  "  I  shall  not  go  till  the  sur 


146 


JUDGES. 


Chap.  19. 


decline  ;"  "  I  must  not  go  till  the  declining  time." — Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  27.  And  her  lord  rose  up  in  the  morning, 
and  opened  the  doors  of  the  house,  and  went 
out  to  go  his  way ;  and,  behold,  the  woman  his 
concubine  was  fallen  down  at  the  door  of  the 
house,  and  her  hands  were  upon  the  threshold. 
28.  And  he  said  unto  her.  Up,  and  let  us  be 
going:  but  none  answered.  Then  the  man 
took  her  up  upon  an  ass,  and  the  man  rose  up, 
and  gat  him  unto  his  place.  29.  And  when 
he  was  come  into  his  house,  he  took  a  knife, 
and  laid  hold  on  his  concubine,  and  divided 
her,  together  w'vOd  her  bones,  into  twelve  pieces, 
and  sent  her  into  all  the  coasts  of  Israel.  30.  And 
it  was  so,  that  all  that  saw  it  said.  There  was 
no  such  deed  done  nor  seen,  from  the  day  that 
the  children  of  Israel  came  up  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt  unto  this  day  :  consider  of  it,  take  ad- 
vice, and  speak  your  minds. 

The  interpreters  say  little  or  nothing  of  the  real  views 
of  the  Levite,  in  thus  cutting  to  pieces  the  body  of  his  con- 
cubine, and  sending  a  part  to  each  tribe  of  Israel.  They 
only  say  that  the  Levite  was  induced  to  this  seeming  out- 
rage, merely  "  to  excite  a  general  indignation  against  the 
authors  of  so  black  a  crime ;  that  he  committed  no  sin  in 
thus  maltreating  a  dead  body,  though  it  was  his  own  con- 
cubine's ;  as  being  so  far  from  having  any  intention  to  offer 
it  the  least  indignity,  that  he  only  considered  the  reparation 
of  the  ignominy  with  which  his  concubine  had  been  treated : 
and  that,  after  all,  the  success  fully' justified  his  action  and 
conduct."  It  is  certain  that  the  Levite's  motives  were  good 
and  regular:  he  intended  to  unite  the  whole  nation  in 
vengeance  of  a  crime  in  which  it  was  interested,  and  which 
covered  it  with  infamy;  but  it  was  not,  as  some  have 
thought,  the  horror  of  the  spectacle  Which  the  Levite  held 
forth  to  the  view  of  everybody,  which  produced  this  effect, 
and  constrained  their  minds;  that  is,  it  was  not  the  sight  of 
these  human  limbs,  thus  cut  and  torn  to  pieces,  which  made 
the  Jews  conspire,  and  obliged  them  to  take  a  striking  ven- 
geance of  so  black  a  crime. 

The  bare  relation  of  an  outrage  so  enormous,  was  suffi- 
cient to  put  the  whole  nation  to  the  necessity  of  exacting 
punishment  for  an  infamy  of  this  nature :  natural  equity 
spoke  for  the  Levite ;  the  most  sacred  rights  were  violated 
to  the  utmost ;  never  was  adultery  more  glaringly  commit- 
ted, or  more  insolently  countenanced :  it  had  involved  a 
whole  tribe ;  a  general  and  universal  punishment,  therefore, 
was  indispensably  necessary ;  the  text  of  scripture  is  ex- 
press in  a  hundred  places ;  and  the  Israelites  could  not  be 
ignorant.  But  they  might  be  checked  by  the  extent  of  the 
punishment ;  by  the  great  number,  the  credit,  the  forces  and 
powerof  the  offenders;  by  the  natural  commiseration  which 
is  felt  for  those  who  are  of  the  same  blood ;  in  a  word,  by 
an  aversion  to  destroy  a  city,  and  to  involve  it  utterly  in  the 
vengeance  due  to  it.  To  oblige  the  nation  to  hear  none  of 
these  reasons,  the  Levite  sought  and  seized  a  method 
which  might  bind  it,  and  by  no  means  allow  it  to  avoid  his 
pursuits;  which,  in  short,  might  put  them  to  the  indispen- 
sable necessity  of  espousing  his  and  his  concubine's*  inter- 
ests, or  to  speak  more  properly,  of  taking  up  the  cause  of 
both.  The  only  part,  then,  which  he  had  to  take,  was  to 
cut  in  pieces  either  the  body  of  his  wife,  as  he  did,  or  else 
that  of  an  ox,  or  other  like  ani&al,  which  had  been  either 
devoted,  or  offered  in  sacrifice,  and  to  send  a  part  of  it  to 
each  tribe.  In  consequence  of  this,  every  tribe  entered  into 
a  covenant  and  indissoluble  engagement  with  them,  to  see 
justice  done  him,  for  the  injury  he  had  received.  This  is 
what  the  interpreters  of  scripture  seem  not  to  have  known, 
and  which  it  is  necessary  to  explain.  The  ancients  had 
several  ways  of  uniting  themselves  together  by  the  strictest 
ties,  and  these  ties  lasted  for  as  long  as  the  parties  had  stipu- 
lated. Among  these,  there  were  two  principal ;  both  ad- 
mirably well  described  in  the  sacred  books.  The  first  is 
Jhat  sacrifice  of  Abraham,  the  circumstances  of  which  are 
mentioned,  Gen.  xv.  9,  &c.    The  second  is  as  follows : — A 


bullock  was  oflTered  in  sacrifice,  or  devoted:  it  was  cut  in 
pieces  and  distributed;  all  who  had  apiece  of  this  sacrificed 
or  devoted  bullock,  were  from  thenceforward  connected, 
and  were  to  concur  in  the  carrying  on  the  afiair  which  had 
given  place  to  the  sacrifice.  But  this  sacrifice  or  devoting, 
and  this  division,  was  variously  practised,  which  also  pro- 
duced engagements  somewhat  different.  If  he  who  was  at 
the  expense  of  the  sacrifice  or  devoting,  were  a  public  per- 
son, in  a  high  office — a  king,  for  instance,  a  prince,  or  judge 
— that  is  to  say,  a  chief  magistrate,  or  had  the  principal 
authority  in  a  city,  or  state ;  he  sent,  of  his  own  accord,  a 
piece  of  the  victim  or  animal  devoted,  to  all  who  were  sub- 
ject to  him ;  and  by  this  act  they  were  obliged  to  enter  intc 
his  views,  to  obey'him,  and  to  execute  his  orders  without 
examination,  or  pretending  difficulty  or  incapacity.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  the  sacrifice  were  offered  by  a  private  person, 
those  only  who  voluntarily  took  a  piece  of  the  sacrificed  or 
devoted  portions,  entered  into  a  strict  engagement^o  espouse 
the  interest  of  him  who  sacrificed  or  devoted,  and  to  em- 
ploy therein  their  fortunes  and  their  persons.  Connexions 
of  this  kind  derived  their  force  from  the  deities  in  honour 
of  whom  the  sacrifice  was  offered,  or  the  devotion  made  : 
from  the  true  God,  when  the  devotion  was  made  by  the 
Jews ;  from  idols,  when  the  sacrifice  was  offered  by  the 
gentiles.  The  devotion  was  adopted  by  the  Jews,  and  th'? 
sacrifice  by  the  pagans.  This  diflference  betwixt  them,  pro- 
duced a  second  :  the  Jews  were  content  to  invoke  and  take 
to  witness  the  Lord  ;  whereas  the  pagans  never  failed  to 
place  in  the  midst  of  them,  upon  an  altar  of  green  turf,  the 
deities  who  presided  over  their  covenant ;  and  these  kind 
of  deities  were  called  common,  because  in  fact  they  were 
the  common  deities  of  all  who  are  thus  united,  and  receiv- 
ed in  common  the  honours  which  they  thought  proper  to 
pay  them. 

These  facts  place  the  Levite's  intents  in  their  full  light. 
His  cutting  in  pieces  the  body  of  his  concubine,  was  an 
anathema,  a  devoting  which  he  made  to  the  Lord ;  and 
his  sending  a  part  of  the  pieces  to  each  tribe,  clearly  signi- 
fied that  he  considered  all  the  tribes  as  subject  to  the  same 
anathema.  God  authorized  these  kinds  of  consecrations. 
The  scripture  is  full  of  examples,  which  represent  some- 
times persons,  sometimes  whole  nations,  whon*  he  had  him- 
self smitten  with  a  curse.  He  would  have  no  sacrifices, 
however,  of  human  victims ;  but  he  approved  of  devotions 
to  death  :  and  yet,  to  consider  both  in  certain  points  of  view, 
they  amounted  nearly  to  the  same  thing.  Again,  devotion 
to  death  was  a  much  stronger  obligation  than  the  promise 
of  a  sacrifice.  A  sacrifice  vowed  might  be  dispensed  with, 
and  redeemed ;  whereas,  so  soon  as  the  anathema  was  pro- 
nounced, the  party  was  for  ever  bound,  and  there  was  no 
room  for  redemption.  Lev.  xxvii.  28,  29.  It  is  certain  that 
the  Levite  had  a  right  to  devote  his  wife  to  death,  while 
she  lived  ;  much  more  reasonably,  then,  might  he  devote 
her  body  when  dead.  It  is  so  much  the  more  probable  that 
he  really  did  so,  as  there  was  no  other  method  of  devotion 
and  anathema  that  could  induce  the  whole  nation  to  be 
bound  to  declare  itself  in  his  favour.  This  anathema,  as 
has  been  already  remarked,  extended  not  only  to  the  body 
of  his  wife,  but  also  to  the  twelve  tribes,  whom  he  involved 
in  it,  in  case  they  took  not  effectual  means  to  avenge  both 
the  indignity  which  the  Benjamites  of  Gibeah  would  have 
offered  him,  and  the  horrible  outrages  which  they  had 
committed  upon  his  concubine.  What  confirms  this  opin- 
ion, is,  that  m  fact  the  twelve  tribes  assembled  subscribed 
to  this  devotion.  First,  by  taking  up  arms,  as  they  did. 
Secondly,  by  swearing  before  the  ark,  not  to  return  to  their 
tents  or  "into  their  houses,  till  they  had  punished  the  offend- 
ers. Judges  XX.  8,  9.  Thirdly,  by  putting  to  the  sword  all 
that  remained  in  the  city  of  Gibeah,  both  man  and  beast, 
and  burning  all  the  cities  and  iovpas  of  Benjamin,  Judges 
XX.  48.  Fourthly,  by  swearing  with  an  imprecation,  not 
to  give  their  daughters  in  marriage  to  the  children  of  Ben- 
jamin, and  by  cursing  him  who  should  do  so,  ch.  xxi.  1 — 18. 
Fifthly,  and  lastly,  by  engaging  themselves  by  a  terrible 
oath,  to  kill  every  Israelite  who  should  not  lake  arms  against 
the  Benjamites,  ib.  ver.  5. 

These  are  all  of  them  marks  of  anathema  and  devoting; 
and  it  would  be  to  shut  one's  eyes  to  the  light,  not  to  discern 
in  them  the  most  express  anathemas  and  devotions.  Some,'^ 
perhaps,  will  object,  that  a  private  individual,  as  was  this 
Levite,  could  not,  of  his  own  authority,  subject  to  the  anath- 
ema his  whole  nation.    It  is  true,  this  Levite  could  devote 


Chap.  1—2. 


RUTH. 


147 


to  death  only  his  wives,  his  children,  and  his  slaves,  and 
submit  to  the  anathema  only  his  fields,  vineyards,  houses, 
household  stuff,  and,  in  short,  his  goods  and  what  belonged 
to  him.  His  authority  extended  no  further.  Only  a  judge 
of  the  Israelites,  or  their  king,  or  perhaps  the  high-priest, 
could  do  this.  So  that  the  Levite  had  no  intention  to  devote 
his  whole  nation,  as  he  devoted  the  body  of  his  concubine. 
He  included  his  authority  within  its  natural  bounds ;  he 
contented  himself  with  declaring,  by  the  sending  the  flesh 
and  limbs  of  his  concubine,  that  the  whole  nation  was  sub- 
ject to  the  anathema:  this  anathema  was  pronounced  by 
God  himself,  and  clearly  declared  in  the  law  ;  if  just  meas- 
ures were  not  taken  to  punish  in  a  body  the  infamous 
crimes  of  the  Benjamites,  these  crimes  no  way  yielded  to 
those  of  the  inhabitants  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  so  sol- 
emnly anathematized.  A  like  fate,  therefore,  was  to  await 
them. 

God  had  expressly  forbidden  adultery,  and  had  placed  it 
in  the  number  of  those  crimes,  of  which  the  simple  fact 
rendered  the  offenders  accursed.  They  were  not  only  to 
be  put  to  death,  (Lev.  xx.  10 ;  Deut.  xxii.  22,  &c.,)  but  also 
to  perish  from  among  God's  people,  Lev.  19 ;  that  is,  they 
were  to  be  cut  off  from  the  synagogue ;  they  could  no  longer 
pretend  to  the  promises  of  the  covenant,  or  the  prerogatives 
of  true  and  faithful  Israelites ;  in  a  word,  they  were  to  be 
excommunicated  and  anathematized.  The  nation,  there- 
fore, could  not  leave  unpunished  the  crimes  of  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Gibeah,  without  charging  themselves  with  the 
crime,  and  whatever  was  attached  to  it.  The  Levite,  bv 
announcing  the  crime,  by  declaring  the  obligation  which 
there  lay  to  punish,  and  by  placing  in  full  view  the  anathe- 
ma which  they  incurred  who  should  refuse  to  league,  to 
contribute  to  the  effectual  punishment,  did  nothing  more 
than  he  might  do  ;  nothing  inconsistent  with  his  condition, 
his  rank,  his  quality,  his  dignity  :  he  was  even  obliged  to 
do  so  by  his  function  of  Levite  :  he  explained  the  text  of 
the  law,  2  Esdras  viii.  9.    There  was,  properly  speaking, 


no  other  method  than  that  which  he  took,  to  specify  the 
greatness  of  the  crime  of  the  inhabitants  of  Gibeah  ;  and 
he  confined  himself  to  that.  The  whole  nation  mstantly 
understood  it  as  a  universal  anathema,  without  being  in- 
formed of  the  nature  of  the  crime  which  had  incurred  it. 
Thus,  it  is  remarkable,  that  all  the  tribes  expressly  assem- 
bled at  Mizpeh,  to  know  of  the  Levite  what  was  the  mat- 
ter. He  answered,  "  That  the  Benjamites  of  Gibeah  had 
threatened  to  kill  him,  unless  he  consented  to  their  in- 
famous passion  ;  that,  moreover,  they  had  injured  his  con- 
cubine with  so  mad  and  incredible  a  brutality,  that,  in 
short,  she  had  died  of  it."  Judg.  xx.  3 — 5.  tlpon  this, 
every  one  was  convinced  of  the  reality  of  the  anathema, 
and  they  not  only  all  obliged  themselves  by  oath  not  to  re- 
turn to  their  houses,  without  chastising  the  inhabitants  of 
Gibeah,  in  a  manner  suitable  to  the  extent  and  blackness 
of  their  crime,  ver.  10 ;  but  also  to  treat,  in  like  manner, 
all  those  of  the  nation  who  should  not  march  with  the 
army  of- the  Lord  against  the  Benjamites  of  Gibeah,  ch. 
xxi.  5 ;  which  was,  in  fact,  executed  with  regard  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Jabesh  Gilead,  who  were  all  put  to  the  sword, 
without  regard  to  sex  or  age,  ver.  10.  Thus  is  tlje  anathe- 
ma sufficiently  made  out. — Critica  Biblica. 

CHAPTER  XXL 

Ver.  19.  Then  they  said,  Behold,  there  is  a  feast 
of  the  Lord  in  Shiloh  yearly,  in  a  place  which 
is  on  the  north  side  of  Beth-el,  on  the  east  side 
of  the  highway  that  goeth  up  from  Beth-el  to 
Shechem,  and  on  the  south  of  Lebonah, 

"  On  the  east  side."  The  Hebrew  has, "  towards  the  sun- 
rising."  Does  a  person  ask  the  way  to  a  place  which  lies 
towards  the  east,  he  will  be  told  to  go  to  the  rising  place, 
to  the  rising  sky.  If  to  the  west,  walk  for  the  departed  place, 
the  gone  down  place. -rRoBERTa, 


RUTH. 


CHAPTER  L 
Ver.  11.  Are  there  any  more  sons  in  my  womb? 

,  Sc  said  Naomi  to  the  widows  of  her  sons  who  were  fol- 
lowing her.  When  a  mother  has  lost  her  son,  should  his 
widow  only  come  occasionally  to  see  her,  the  mother  will 
be  displeased,  and  affect^to  be  greatly  surprised  when  she 
does  come.  "  Do  I  again  see  you !"  "  Is  it  possible !"  "  Are 
there  any  more  sons  in  my  womb  1"  But  the  mother-in-law 
also  uses  this  form  of  expression  when  she  does  not  wish  to 
see  the  widow. — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  Where  thou  diest,  will  I  die,  and  there 
will  I  be  buried :  the  Lord  do  so  to  me,  and 
more  also,  if  aught  but  death  part  thee  and  me. 

Tbe  dreadful  practice  of  widows  burning  themselves  on 
the  funeral  pile  with  the  dead  bodies  of  their  husbands,  has 
made  the  declaration  of  the  text  familiar  to  the  native  mind. 
Hence  a  wife,  when  her  husband  is  sick,  should  he  be  in 
danger,  will  say,  "  Ah !  if  he  die,  I  also  will  die  ;  I  will 
go  with  him ;  yes,  my  body,  thou  also  shalt  be  a  corpse." 
A  slave,  also,  to  a  good  master,  makes  use  of  the  same 
language.  Husbands  sometimes  boast  of  the  affection  of 
their  wives,  and  compare  them  to  the  eastern  stork,  which 
if  it  lose  its  mate  in  the  night  is  said  immediately  to  shriek 
and  die. — Roberts. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  2.  And  Ruth  the  Moabitess  said  unto  Naomi, 
Let  me  now  go  to  the  field,  and  glean  ears  of 
corn  after  him  in  whose  sight  I  shall  find  grace. 
And  she  said  unto  her,  Go,  my  daughter. 

The  word  glean  comes  from  the  French  glaner,  to  gather 
ears  or  grains  of  corn.  This  was  formerly  a  general  cus- 
tom in  England  and  Ireland :  the  poor  went  into  the  fields, 
and  collected  the  straggling  ears  of  corn  after  the  reapers; 
and  it  was  long  supposed  that  this  was  their  right,  and  that 
the  law  recognised  it :  but  although  it  has  been  an  old 
custom,  it  is  now  settled  by  a  solemn  judgment  of  the 
Court  of  Common  Pleas,  that  a  right  to  glean  in  the  har- 
vest-field cannot  be  claimed  by  any  person  at  common  law. 
Any  person  may  permit  or  prevent  it  in  his  own  grounds. 
By  certain  acts  of  Henry  VIII.,  gleaning  and  leasing  are 
so  restricted,  as  to  be,  in  fact,  prohibited  in  that  part  of  the 
united  kingdom. — Burder. 

Ver.  4.  And,  behold,  Boaz  came  from  Bethlehem, 
and  said  unto  the  reapers,  The  Lord  be  with 
you.  And  they  answered  him,  The  Lord 
bless  thee. 

He  went  into  the  field  to  see  how  his  workmen  per- 
formed  their  service,  and  to   encourage  them  by  his 


w 


RUTH. 


Chap.  2. 


presence.  Though  he  was  both  rich  and  great,  he  did 
not  think  it  beneath  him  to  go  into  his  field,  and  personally 
inspect  his  servants.  Thus  Homer  represents  a  king 
among  his  reapers,  with  his  sceptre  in  his  hand,  and  dis- 
covering great  cheerfulness  on  the  occasion. 


iaai\evs  6'  sv  rotcn  viwTrr) 


JlKrjTtTpov  ex"^^  eS'TIKSi  ct'  oyfiov  yv^ocrvvos  Krjp. 

Iliad,  xviii.  ver.  556,  557. 

Amid  them,  staff  in  hand,  the  master  stood 
Enjoying  mute  the  order  of  the  field, 
WhQe,  shaded  by  an  oak,  apart,  his  train. 
Prepared  the  banquet.    (  Cowper.) — Burder. 

The  reapers  go  to  the  field  very  early  in  the  morning, 
and  return  home  betimes  in  the  afternoon.  They  carry 
provisions  along  with  them,  and  leathern  bottles,  or  dried 
bottle-gourds,  filled  with  water.  They  are  followed  by 
their  own  children,  or  by  others,  who  glean  with  much 
success;  for  a  great  quantity  of  corn  is  scattered  in  the 
reaping,  and  in  their  manner  of  carrying  it.  The  greater 
part  of  these  circumstances,  are  discernible  in  the  manners 
of  the  ancient  Israelites.  Ruth  had  not  proposed  to  Naomi, 
her  mother-in-law,  to  go  to  the  field,  and  glean  after  the 
reapers ;  nor  had  the  servant  of  Boaz,  to  whom  she  applied 
for  leave,  so  readily  granted  her  request,  if  gleaning  had 
not  been  a  common  practice  in  that  country.  When  Boaz 
inquired  who  she  was,  his  overseer,  after  informing  him, 
observes,  that  she  came  out  to  the  field  in  the  morning ; 
and  that  the  reapers  left  the  field  early  in  the  afternoon,  as 
Dr.  Russel  states,  is  evident  from  this  circumstance,  that 
Ruth  had  time  to  beat  out  her  gleanings  before  evening. 
They  carried  water  and  provisions  with  them ;  for  Boaz 
invited  her  to  come  and  drink  of  the  water  which  the 
voung  men  had  drawn ;  and  at  meal-time,  to  eat  of  the 
bread,  and  dip  her  morsel  in  the  vinegar.  And  so  great 
was  the  simplicity  of  manners  in  that  part  of  the  world, 
and  in  those  times,  that  Boaz  himself,  although  a  prince  of 
high  rank  in  Judah,  sat  down  to  dinner,  in  the  field,  with 
his  reapers,  and  helped  Ruth  with  his  own  hand.  Nor 
ought  we  to  pass  over  in  silence,  the  mutual  salutation  of 
Boaz  and  his  reapers,  when  he  came- to  the  field,  as  it 
strongly  marks  the  state  of  religious  feeling  in  IsraeUat  the 
time,  and  furnishes  another  proof  of  the  artless,  the  happy, 
and  unsuspecting  simplicity,  which  characterized  the  man- 
ners of  that  highly  favoured  people.  "  And,  behold,  Boaz 
came  from  Bethlehem,  and  said  unto  the  reapers.  The  Lord 
be  with  you.  And  they  answered  him.  The  Lord  bless 
thee."  Such  a  mode  of  salutation  continued  among  that 
people  till  the  coming  of  Christ ;  for  the  angel  saluted 
Mary  in  language  of  similar  import:  "Hail,  highly  fa- 
voured, the  Lord  is  with  thee ;  blessed  art  thou  among 
Avomgn."  It  appears  from  the  beautiful  story  of  Ruth,  that 
in  Palestine,  the  women  lent  their  assistance  in  cutting 
down  and  gathering  in  the  harvest ;  for  Boaz  commands 
her  to  keep  fast  by  his  maidens : — the  women  in  Syria 
shared  also  in  the  labours  of  the  harvest;  for  Dr.  Russel 
informs  us,  they  sang  the  Ziraleet,  or  song  of  thanks,  when 
the  passing  stranger  accepted  their  present  of  a  handful  of 
corn,  and  made  a  suitable  return. — Paxton. 

Ver.  14.  And  Boaz  said  unto  her,  At  meal-time 
come  thou  hither,  and  eat  of  the  bread,  and  dip 
thy  morsel  in  the  vinegar. 

When  Boaz  is  represented  as  having  provided  vinegar 
for  his  reapers,  into  which  they  might  dip  their  bread,  and 
kindly  invited  Ruth  to  share  with  them  in  the  repast,  we 
are  not  to  understand  it  of  simple  vinegar,  but  vinegar 
mingled  with  a  small  portion  of  oil,  if  modern  manage- 
ments in  the  Levant  be  allowed  to  be  the  most  natural 
comment  on  those  of  antiquity.  For  even  the  Algerines 
indulge  their  miserable  captives  with  a  small  portion  of  oil 
to  the  vinegar  they  allow  them  with  their  bread,  according 
to  the  account  Pitt  gives  of  the  treatment  he  and  his  com- 
panions received  from  them,  of  which  he  complains  with 
some  asperity.  What  the  quality  of  the  bread  was,  that 
the  reapers  of  Boaz  had,  may  be  uncertain,  but  there  is  all 
imaginable  reason  to  suppose  the  vinegar  into  which  they 
dipped  it,  was  made  more  grateful  by  the  addition  of  oil. — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  14.  And  she  sat  beside  the  reapers:  and  he 


reached  her  parched  corn,  and  she  did  eat,  and 
was  sufficed,  and  left. 

"  To-day  we  crossed  the  valley  of  Elassar,  and  bathed  in 
the  hot-baths  of  Solomon,  situated  on  the  southern  side, 
nearly  at  the  bottom,  near  some  corn-fields,  where  one  of 
our  Arabs  plucked  some  green  ears  of  corn,  parched  them 
for  us,  by  putting  them  in  the  fire,  and  then,  when  roasted, 
rubbed  out  the  grain  in  his  hands."  (Macmichel.)  "  After 
a  ride  of  two  hours  from  the  valley  of  Zebulon,"  says 
Korte,  "we  came  to  a  place  where  the  disciples  of  the 
Lord  are  said  to  have  plucked  and  eaten  ears  of  corn  on 
the  sabbath  day.  The  wheat  in  this  country  is  not  difler- 
ent  from  ours,  only  the  grains  are  as  hard  as  a  stone  from 
the  heat,  and  therefore  not  so  good  to  eat  as  with  us.  But 
in  Egypt,  in  the  Holy  Land,  and  in  all  Syria,  there  grows 
a  kind  of  beans,  or  peas,  which  are  superior  to  our  peas ; 
the  stalk  grows  almost  like  the  lentil:  in  the  pod,  which  is 
very  thick,  and  mostly  hangs  in  bunches,  there  is  general- 
ly only  one  grain.  This  kind  is  eaten  green  in  the  coun- 
try, and  also  in  the  towns,  whither  they  are  brought  in 
bunches:  when  they  are  too  old,  they  are  roasted  over 
coals,  and  so  eaten,  when  they  taste  better.  This  is  doubt- 
less the  parched  corn  mentioned  in  the  book  of  Ruth,  and 
several  other  places." — Rosenmuller. 

They  have  other  ways  of  preparing  their  corn  for  food, 
besides  making  it  into  bread.  Burgle  is  very  commonly 
used  among  the  Christians  of  Aleppo ;  which  is  wheat  boil- 
ed, then  bruised  in  a  mill  so  as  to  separate  it  from  the 
husk,  after  which  it  is  dried,  and  laid  up  for  use.  The 
drying  of  burgle,  though  mentioned  by  some  writers  as  a 
modern  operation,  seems  to  throw  light  on  a  remarkable 
passage  in  the  history  of  David  ;  the  concealment  of  his  two 
spies  in  a  well  whose  mouth  was  covered  with  corn.  The 
custom  of  exposing  corn  in  this  way,  must  have  been  very 
common  in  Judea,  else  it  had  rather  excited  suspicion  in 
the  minds  of  the  pursuers,  than  diverted  their  attention  from 
the  spot  where  the  spies  were  concealed.  That  the  well's 
mouth  was  covered  on  that  occasion  with  burgle  or  boiled 
wheat,  is  exceedingly  probable  ;  for  Dr.  Russel  observes, 
that  in  preparing  it  after  it  has  been  softened  in  warm  wa- 
ter, it  is  commonly  laid  out  in  the  courtyard  to  dry.  It 
could  not  be  flour  or  meal;  for  they  grindit  only  in  small 
quantities,  and  as  they  want  it,  and  never  are  known  to  ex- 
pose it  in  this  way.  Bishop  Patrick  supposes  it  was  corn 
newly  thrashed  out,  she  pretended  to  dry;  but  if  this  was 
practised  at  all,  of  which  we  have  no  evidence,  it  was  by 
no  means  common,  and  therefore  calculated  rather  to  be- 
tray, than  to  conceal  the  spies.  Besides,  the  same  word  is 
used  to  signify  corn  beaten  in  a  mortar  with  a  pestle,  not 
on  the  barn-floor  with  a  thrashing  instrument;"  now  burgle 
is  actually  pounded  in  this  manner.  It  was  therefore  bur- 
gle or  boiled  wheat,  which  D'Arvieux  expressly  says  is 
dried  in  the  sun  ;  adding  that  they  prepare  a  whole  year's 
provision  of  it  at  once.  Wheat  and  barley  were  prepared 
in  the  same  way  by  the  ancient  Romans;  which  renders  it 
very  probable  that  the  custom  was  universal  among  the 
civilized  nations  of  antiquity.  -This  is  the  reason  that  nei- 
ther the  exposure  of  the  corn,  nor  the  large  quantity,  pro- 
duced the  least  suspicion;  every  circumstance  accorded 
with  the  public  usage  of  the  country,  and  by  consequence, 
the  preparation  of  this  species  of  food  is  as  ancient  as  the 
days  of  David.  Sawick  is  a  different  preparation,  and 
consists  of  corn  parched  in  the  ear ;  it  is  made,  as  well  of 
barley  and  rice,  as  of  wheat.  It  is  never  called,  in  the  in- 
spired volume,  parched  flour  or  meal,  but  always  parched 
corn ;  and  consequently,  seems  to  remain  after  the  roasting, 
and  to  be  eaten  in  the  state  of  corn.  In  confirmation  of  this 
idea,  we  may  quote  a  fact  stated  by  Hasselquist,  that  in 
journeying  from  Acre  to  Sidon,  he  saw  a  shepherd  eating 
his  dinner,  consisting  of  half-ripe  ears  of  wheat  roasted, 
which  he  ate,  says  the  traveller,  with  as  good  an  appetite 
as  a  Turk  does  his  pillaw.  The  same  kind  of  food,  ho 
says,  is  much  used  in  Egypt  by  the  poor ;  they  roast  the 
ears  of  Turkish  wheat  or  millet ;  but  it  is  in  his  account 
far  inferior  to  bread.  Dr.  Shaw  is  of  a  diflferent  opinion ; 
he  supposes  the  kali,  or  parched  corn  of  the  scriptures,' 
which  he  translates  parched  pulse,  means  parched  cicers. 
But  we  frequently  read  in  scripture  of  dried  or  parched; 
corn ;  and  the  word  used  in  those  passages  is  most  natural- 
ly to  be  understood  of  corn,  and  not  of  pulse.  Besides, 
Rauwolf  asserts  that  cicers  are  used  in  the  East  only  as  a 


Chap.  3,  4. 


RUTH. 


i^ 


part  of  the  dessert  after  their  meals.  But  it  cannot  be  rea- 
sonably supposed,  that  Boaz  would  entertain  his  reapers 
with  things  of  this  kind;  or  that  those  fruits  which  in  mod- 
ern times  are  used  only  in  desserts,  formed  the  principal 
part  of  a  reaper's  meal,  in  the  field  of  so  wealthy  a  propri- 
etor. This,  however,  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Shaw  requires  to 
be  supposed ;  for  it  is  said  in  the  inspired  record,  "  He 
reached  Ruth  parched  corn,  and  she  did  eat,  and  was  suf- 
ficed, and  left.'^ — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  2.  And  now  is  not  Boaz  of  our  kindred, 
with  whose  maidens  thou  wast  ?  Behold,  he 
winnoweth  barley  to-night  in  the  thrashing- 
floor. 

In  these  regions  much  of  the  agricultural  labour  is  per- 
formed in  the  night.  The  sun  is  so  hot,  and  so  pernicious, 
that  the  farmers  endeavour,  as  much  as  possible,  to  avoid 
its  power.  Hence  numbers  plough  and  irrigate  their  fields 
and  gardens  long  after  the  sun  has  gone  down,  or  be- 
fore it  rises  in  the  morning.  The  wind  is  also  generally 
stronger  in  the  night,  which  might  induce  Boaz  to  prefer 
that  season.  From  the  next  two  verses  we  learn  that  he 
took  his  supper  there,  and  slept  among  the  barley.  Corn 
in  the  East  is  not  kept  in  stacks,  but  after  being  reaped,  is, 
in  a  few  days,  thrashed  on  the  spot.  The  thrashing-floor 
is  a  circle  of  about  forty  feet  in  diameter,  and  consists 
generally  of  clay,  and  cowdung,  without  wall  or  fence. 
Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  necessary  for  some  of  the 
people  to  sleep  near  the  corn,  till  all  shall  have  been 
thrashed  and  taken  home. — Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  And  when  Boaz  had  eaten  and  drunk, 
and'  his  heart  was  merry,  he  went  to  lie  down 
at  the  end  of  a  heap  of  corn :  and  she  came 
softly,  and  uncovered  his  feet,  and  laid  her  down. 

Margin  to  the  fourth  verse,  "  lift  up  the  clothes  that  are 
on  his  feet."  All  inferiors,  all  servants,  sleep  at  the  feet  of 
their  master.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  those  who  have 
a  great  favour  to  procure,  to  go  to  the  house  of  the  rich, 
and  sleep  with  the  head  at  his  door,  or  in  the  verandah. 
Thus,  when  he  arises  in  the  morning,  he  finds  the  suppliant 
at  his  door.  Should  a  master  wish  to  dismiss  his  servants, 
they  often  say,  "  My  lord,  turn  us  not  away ;  how  many 
years  have  we  slept  at  your  feetT' — Roberts, 

Ver.  9.  And  he  said,  Who  art  thou?  And  she 
answered,  I  am  Ruth  thy  handmaid:  spread 
therefore  thy  skirt  over  thy  handmaid ;  for  thou 
art  a  near  kinsman. 

The  prophet  Ezekiel,  in  describing  the  Jewish  church 
as  an  exposed  infant,  mentions  the  care  of  God  in  bringing 
her  up  with  great  tenderness,  and  then,  at  the  proper  time, 
marrying  her;  which  is  expressed  in  the  same  way  as  the 

request  of  Ruth  :  "  I  spread  my  skirt  over  thee" "  and 

thou  becamest  mine."  Dr.  A.  Clarke  says,  "Even  to  the 
present  day,  when  a  Jew  marries  a  woman,  he  throws  the 
skirt  or  end  of  his  talith  over  her,  to  signify  that  he  has 
taken  her  under  his  protection."  I  have  been  delighted,  at 
the  marriage  ceremonies  of  the  Hindoos,  to  see  among 
them  the  same  interesting  custom.  The  bride  is  seated  on 
a  throne,  surrounded  by  matrons,  having  on  her  veil,  her 
gayest  robes,  and  most  valuable  jewels.  After  the  thali 
has  been  tied  round  her  neck,  the  bridegroom  approaches 
her  with  a  silken  skirt,  (purchased  by  himself,)  and  folds  it 
round  her  several  times  over  the  rest  of  her  clothes.  A 
common  way  of  saying  he  has  married  her,  is,  "  he  has 
given  her  the  koori,"  has  spread  the  skirt  over  her.  There 
are,  however,  those  who  throw  a  long  robe  over  the  shoul- 
ders of  the  bride,  instead  of  putting  on  the  skirt.  An  angry 
husband  sometimes  says  to  his  wife,  "  Give  me  back  my 
skirt,"  meaning,  he  wishes  to  have  the  marriage  compact 
dissolved.  So  the  mother-in-laAV,  should  the  daughter  not 
treat  her  respectfully,  says,  "  My  son  gave  this  woman  the 
koori,  skirt,  and  has  made  her  respectable,  but  she  neglects 
me."  The  request  of  Ruth,  therefore,  amounted  to  nothing 
'n^ore  than  that  Boaz  should  marry  her. — Roberts. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  1.  Then  went  Boaz  up  to  the  gate,  and  sat 
him  down  there :  and,  behold,  the  kinsman  of 
whom  Boaz  spake  came  by ;  unto  whom  he 
said.  Ho,  such  a  one !  turn  aside,  sit  down  here. 
And  he  turned  aside,  and  sat  down. 

The  word  gate  is  often  used  in  'scripture,  to  denote  the 
place  of  public  assemblies  where  justice  is  administered. — 
This  definition  of  the  word  gate,  in  its  first  sense,  agrees 
exactly  with  the  usages  of  the  Hindoos.  People,  therefore, 
who  understand  it  literally,  as  meaning  always  a  gate  fixed 
in  the  walls  of  the  city,  do  not  comprehend  its  meaning. 
At  the  entrance  of  every  town  or  village,  there  is  a  public 
building,  called  a  rest-house,  where  travellers  remain,  and 
where  people  assemble  to  hear  the  news,  or  talk  over  the 
affairs  of  the  place.  There  mav  be  seen  many  a  Boaz 
asking  for  the  advice  of  his  relations  and  friends,  and 
many  an  Abraham  as  he  sat  "  at  the  gate  of  his  city,"  bar- 
gaining "  for  the  field,"  and  "  the  cave  of  Machpelah,"  in 
which  to  bury  his  beloved  Sarah.— Roberts. 

Ver.  2.  And  he  took  ten  men  of  the  elders  of  the 
city,  and  said.  Sit  ye  down  here.  And  they  sat 
down. 

Among  the  Hebrews,  and,  before  them,  among  the  Ca- 
naanites,  the  purchase  of  any  thing  of  consequence  was 
concluded,  and  the  price  paia,  publicly,  at  the  gate  of  the 
city,  as  the  place  of  judgment,  before  all  that  went  out  and 
in.  Gen.  xxiii.  Ruth  iv. — As  those  who  wanted  amuse- 
ment, and  to  pass  away  the  time,  were  wont  to  sit  in  the 
gates,  purchases  there  made  could  always  be  testified  by 
numerous  witnesses.  Their  care  to  have  them  so  attested, 
might,  perhaps,  be  a  relic  of  the  custom  of  the  times  pre- 
ceding the  invention  of  the  art  of  writing;  (which,  by  the 
way,  took  place  probably  not  very  long  before  the  days  of 
Abraham ;)  and  it  did  not  even  after  that  period  cease  to  be 
useful,  because  among  the  Hebrews  writing  not  being  very 
common,  the  memory  of  witnesses  had  often  to  supply  the 
place  of  a  document  of  purchase.  At  the  same  time,  it 
would  seem  that  such  documents  were  not  altogether  unu- 
sual. For  the  xxiii.  chapter  of  Genesis  is  in  its  style  'so 
different  from  that  of  Moses  on  other  occasions,  and  has  so 
much  of  the  appearance  of  the  record  of  a  solemn  jurid- 
ical procedure,  that  it  almost  seems  to  be  a  deed  of  pur- 
chase. From  Ruth  iv.  7,  we  learn  another  singular  usage 
on  occasions  of  purchase,  cession,  and  exchange,  viz.  that 
the  transference  of  alienable  property  had,  in  earlier  times, 
been  confirmed  by  the  proprietor  plucking  off  his  shoe,  and 
handing  it  over  to  the  new  owner.  We  see  at  the  same 
time,  that  in  the  age  of  David  this  usage  had  become  anti- 
quated; for  the  writer  introduces  it  as  an  unknown  custom 
of  former  times,  in  the  days  of  David's  great-grandfather. 
I  have  not  been  able  to  find  any  further  trace  of  it  in  the 
East;  nor  yet  has  the  Danish  travelling  mission  to  Arabia, 
as  Captain  Niebuhr  himself  informs  me.  Bynseus,  in  his 
book,  De  Calceis  Hebrceornm^  treats  of  it  at  great  length; 
but,  excepting  the  mere  conjectures  of  modern  literati,  he 
gives  no  account  of  the  origin  of  this  strange  symbol  of  the 
transfer  of  property.  In  the  time  of  Moses  it  was  so  famil- 
iar, that  barefooted  was  a  term  of  reproach,  and  probably 
signified  a  man  that  had  sold  every  thing,  a  spendthrift, 
and  a  bankrupt ;  and  we  see  from  Deut.  xxv.  9,  10,  that 
Moses  allowed  it  to  be  applied  to  the  person  who  would  not 
marry  his  brother's  widow.  Could  it  have  been  an  Egyptian 
custom,  as  we  do  not  find  it  again  in  the  East  1  The  Egyp- 
tians, when  they  adored  the  Deity,  had  no  shoes  on ;  and 
of  this  the  Pythagoreans  gave  the  following  explanation  : 
"  The  philosopher,  who  came  naked  from  his  mother's 
womb,  should  appear  naked  before  his  Creator ;  for  God 
hears  those  alone  who  are  not  burdened  with  any  thing 
extrinsic. " — Among  the  Egyptians  too,  barefooted  was 
equivalent  to  naked,  and  naked  synonymous  with  having  no 
property,  but  one's  self.  This  same  custom  of  pulling  off 
the  shoe,  and  that  at  the  gate  before  all  who  went  out  and 
in,  was  also  usual  in  important  cases  of  the  exchange  or 
resignation  of  propertv;  as  for  instance,  (to  take  the  exam- 
ple just  quoted  from  Ruth  iv.  7,  9,)  when  the  nearest  kins- 
man abandoned  his  right  of  redemption  to  a  distant  rela- 
tion ;  and  we  may,  perhaps,  thence  conclude,  that  a  simi- 


150 


RUTH. 


Chap.  4. 


lar  form  took  place  in  cases  of  great  donations,  when  not 
made  on  a  sick-bed,  but  by  persons  in  health. — Michaelis. 

Ver.  7.  Now  this  was  the  manntr  in  former  time 
in  Israel,  concerning  redeeming,  and  concern- 
ing changing,  for  to  confirm  all  things ;  a  man 
plucked  off  his  shoe,  and  gave  it  to  his  neigh- 
bour; and  ih\s*  was  a  testimony  in  Israel. 
8.  Therefore  the  kinsman  said  unto  Boaz,  Buy 
it  for  thee.     So  he  drew  off  his  shoe. 

See  on  Matt.  22.  24. 

The  simple  object,  therefore,  in  taking  off  the  shoe,  was 
to  confirm  the  bargain:  it  was  the  testimony  or  memorial 
of  the  compact.  In  Deuteronomy  it  is  mentioned  that  the 
brother  of  a  deceased  husband  shall  marry  the  widow,  but 
should  he  refuse,  then  the  widow  is  to  "  go  up  to  the  gate 
unto  the  elderfj  and  say,  My  husband's  brother  refuseth  to 
raise  up  unto  his  brother  a  name  in  Israel ;  he  will  not 
perform  the  duty  of  my  husband's  brother."  Then  the 
elders  were  to  call  the  man,  and  if  he  persisted  in  his  re- 
fusal, the  woman  was  to  come  forward  "  and  loose  his  shoe 
from  off  his  foot,  and  spit  in  his  face ;  was  to  answer  and 
say,  So  shall  it  be  done  unto  that  man  that  will  not  build 
up  his  brother's  house. "  From  that  time  the  man  was  dis- 
graced, and  whenever  his  person  or  establishment  was 
.spoken  of,  it  was  contemptuously  called  "  the  house  of  him 
that  hath  his  shoe  loosed. "  To  be  spit  at  in  the  face  is 
the  most  degrading  ceremony  a  man  can  submit  to.  This 
was  done  by  the  widow  to  her  husband's  brother,  and  she 
CONFIRMED  his  iguomiuy  by  taking  off  his  shoe.  But  this 
taking  off  the  shoe  (as  we  shall  hereafter  see)  may  also 
allude  to  the  death  of  her  husband,  whose  shoes  were  taken 
off  and  of  no  further  use  to  him.  And  as  she  said,  when 
she  had  taken  off  the  shoe  from  her  husband's  brother's 
foot  "thus  shall  it  be  done  unto  that  man  that  will  not 
build  up  his  brother's  house,"  may  mean,  he  also  shall 
soon  follow  his  brother,  and  have  his  shoes  taken  off  his 
Icei  '1  death.  When  Ramar  had  to  go  to  reside  in  the 
desefu  for  fourteen  years,  his  brother  Parathan  was  very 
unwilling  for  him  to  go;  and  tried,  in  every  possible  way, 
to  dissuade  him  from  his  purpose.  But  Ramar  persisted  in 
his  resolution,  having  fuUy  made  up  his  mind  to  take  his 
departure.  When  the  brother,  seeing  that  his  entreaties 
were  in  vain,  said,  "  Since  you  are  determined  to  go,  promise 
me  iaithfully  to  return."     Then  Ramar,  having  made  the 

{)romise,  gave  his  shoes  to  Parathan  as  a  confirmation  of 
lis  vow.  Does  a  priest,  a  father,  or  a  respectable  friend, 
resolve  to  go  on  a  pilgrimage  to  some  distant  country ; 
some  one  will  perhaps  say,  "Ah  !  he  will  never  return,  he 
intends  to  remain  in  those  holy  places.  "  Should  he  deny 
it,  then  they  say,  "  Give  us  your  shoes  as  a  witness  of  your 
promise,"  and  having  done  so,  never  will  he  break  it.  An 
affectionate  widow  never  parts  with  her  late  husband's 
shoes:  they  are  placed  near  her  when  she  sleeps,  she 
kisses  and  puts  her  head  upon  them,  and  nearly  every  time 
after  bathing,  she  goes  to  took  at  them.  These,  therefore, 
are  the  "  testimony,"  the  melancholy  confirmation  of  her 
husband's  death. — Roberts. 

Ver.  10  Moreover,  Ruth  the  Moabitess,  the  wife 
of  Mahlon,  have  I  purchased  to  be  my  wife,  to 
raise  up  the  name  of  the  dead  upon  his  in- 
heritance, that  the  name  of  the  dead  be  not  cut 
off  from  among  his  brethren,  and  from  the  gate 
of  his  place  :  ye  are  witnesses  this  day. 

I  now  proceed  to  the  explanation  of  a  singular  law, 
which  I  must  however  preface,  with  entreating,  in  behalf  of 
the  lawgiver,  that  it  may  not  be  considered  as  an  inven- 
tion of  his  own;  as  it  was  in  fact  several  centuries  older 
than  his  laws,  and  as  he  very  much  limited  and  mitigated 
its  operation.  The  law  I  mean,  is  what  has  been  termed 
the  Levirate  law  :  in  obedience  to  which,  when  a  man  died 
without  issue,  his  brother  was  obliged  to  marry  the  widow 
he  left,  and  that  with  this  express  view,  that  the  first  son 
produced  from  the  marriage  should  be  ascribed,  not  to  the 
natu  al  father,  but  to  his  deceased  brother,  and  become  his 
heir.    This  has  been  denominated  Levi  rate-marriage,  from 


the  word  Ijevir,  which  though  it  appears  not  in  the  ancient 
classic  authors,  but  only  in  the  Vulgate  and  the  Pandects, 
is  nevertheless  really  an  old  Latin  word,  and  is  explained 
by  Festus  to  signify  a  husband's  brother.  The  Hebrews 
had  in  like  manner  an  ancient  law  term,  which  we  meet 
not  with  elsewhere,  {py^  Jaba/ii,)  of  the  very  same  import ; 
Avhence  come  nn2->  {Jebemet,)  a  brother's  u-ife,  and  nni  {Jeb- 
bem,)  to  marry  such  a  person.  The  ChalJlee,  Syriac,  and 
Samaritan  versions  of  the  Bible  do  indeed  retain  this  word, 
but  it  is  not  otherwise  at  all  current  in  these  languages, 
nor  can  we  find  in  them  the  least  trace  of  an  etymology  for 
it,  and  in  the  Arabic  tongue  it  is  altogether  unknown. 
This  is  often  the  case  with  respect  to  the  Hebrew  law 
terms.  The  Hebrew  language  alone  has  them,  and  with- 
out all  etj-mology,  while  in  the  kindred  languages,  they  are 
ei.her  not  to  be  found  at  all,  or  m  quite  a  diflerent  sense. 
How  that  happens  I  am  ignorant,  with  this  exception,  that 
I  frequently  remark,  in  like  manner,  among  ourselves,  an- 
cient law  terms,  whose  etymology  is  obscure,  because  old 
words  have  been  retained  in  law,  while  the  language  has 
in  other  respects  undergone  alterations.  The  law  which 
obliged  a  man  to  marry  the  widow  of  his  childless  brother, 
was  much  more  ancient  than  the  time  of  Moses ;  having 
been  in  use  in  Palestine  among  the  Canaanites,  and  the 
ancestors  of  the  Israelites,  at  least  more  than  250  years 
previous  to  the  date  of  his  law,  and  indeed  with  such  rig- 
our, as  left  a  person  no  possible  means  of  evading  it,  how- 
ever irksome  and  odious  compliance  with  it  might  appear 
to  him.  The  law,  however,  was  unquestionably  attended 
with  great  inconveniences :  for  a  man  cannot  but  think  it 
the  most  unpleasant  of  all  necessities,  if  he  must  marry  a 
woman  whom  he  has  not  chosen  himself  Must,  in  mat- 
ters of  love  and  marriage,  is  a  fearful  word,  and  almost 
quite  enough  to  put  love  to  flight,  even  where  beauty  ex- 
cites it.  We  see,  likewise,  that  the  brother,  in  some  in- 
stances, had  no  inclination  for  any  such  marriage,  (Gen. 
xxxviii.  Ruth  iv.)  and  stumbled  at  this,  that  the  first  son 
produced  from  it  could  not  belong  to  him.  Whether  a 
second  son  might  follow,  and  continue  in  life,  was  very 
uncertain ;  and  among  a  people  who  so  highly  prized  gene- 
alogical immortality  of  name,  it  was  a  great  hardship  for  a 
man  to  be  obliged  to  procure  it  for  a  person  already  dead, 
and  to  run  the  risk,  meanwhile,  of  losing  it  himself.  Nor 
was  this  law  very  much  in  favour  of  the  morals  of  the  other 
sex ;  for  not  to  speak  of  Tamar,  who,  in  reference  to  it, 
conceived  herself  justified  in  having  recourse  to  a  most 
infamous  action,  I  will  here  only  observe,  that  what  Ruth 
did,  (chap.  iii.  6—9,)  in  order  to  obtain,  for  a  husband,  the 
person  whom  she  accounted  as  the  nearest  kinsman  of  her 
deceased  husband,  is,  to  say  the  least,  by  no  means  conform- 
able to  that  modesty  and  delicacy  which  we  look  for  in  the 
other  sex.  A  wise  and  good  legislator  could  scarcely  have 
been  inclined  to  patronise  any  such  law.  But  then  it  is  not 
advisable  directly  to  attack  an  inveterate  point  of  honour ; 
because  in  such  a  case,  for  the  most  part,  noihing  is  gain- 
ed ;  and  in  the  present  instance,  as  the  point  of  honour 
placed  immortality  of  name  entirely  in  a  man's  leaving  de- 
scendants behind  him,  it  was  so  favourable  to  the  increase 
of  population,  that  it  merited  some  degree  of  forbearance 
and  tenderness.  Moses,  therefore,  left  the  Israelites  still 
in  possession  of  their  established  right,  but  at  the  same  time 
he  studied  as  much  as  possible  to  guard  against  its  rigour 
and  evil  effects,  by  limiting  and  moderating  its  operation 
in  various  respects. 

In  the  y?r5<  place,  he  expressly  prohibited  the  marriage  of 
a  brother's  widow,  if  there  were  children  of  his  own  alive. 
Before  this  time,  brothers  were  probably  in  the  practice  of 
considering  a  brother's  widow  as. part  of  the  inheritance, 
and  of  appropriating  her  to  themselves,  if  unable  to  buy  a 
wife,  as  the  Mongols  do;  so  that  this  was  a  very  necessary 
prohibition.  For  a  successor  precsumptivus  in  thoro,  whom 
a  wife  can  regard  as  her  future  husband,  is  rather  a  dan- 
gerous neighbour  for  her  present  one's  honour;  and  if  she 
happen  to  conceive  any  predilection  for  the  younger  bro- 
ther,  her  husband,  particularly  in  a  southern  climate,  will 
hardly  be  secure  from  the  risk  of  poison. 

In  the  second  place,  he  allowed,  and  indeed  enjoined, 
the  brother  to  marry  the  widow  of  his  childless  brother 
but  if  he  was  not  disposed  to  do  so,  he  did  not  absolutely 
compel  him,  but  left  him  an  easy  means  of  riddance  ;  for 
he  had  only  to  declare  in  court,  that  he  had  no  inclination 
to  marry  her,  and  then  he  was  at  liberty.    This,  it  is  true, 


Chap.  4. 


RUTH. 


151 


jjubjected  hnn  to  a  punishment  which  at  first  appears  suf- 
ftcienily  severe:  Uie  flighted  widow  had  a  right  to  revile* 
him  in  courc  as  much  as  she  pleased ;  and  from  his  pulling 
off  his  shoe,  and  delivering  it  to  the  widow,  he  received  the 
appellation  of  Ba-esok,  which  any  body  might  apply  to 
himwii-hout  beiUj^  Jiaole  to  a  prosecution.  A  little  consid- 
eration, however,  will  show  that  this  punishment  was  not 
so  severe  in  reality  as  in  appearance.  For  if  Baresole  is 
once  undersiood,  accbrding  to  the  usage  of  the  language, 
to  mean  nothing  more  than  a  man  who  has  given  a  woTimn 
Ike  rejusal,  it  is  no  longer  fell  as  a  term  of  great  reproach, 
and  any  one  will  rather  endure  it,  than  have  his  own  re- 
fusal talked  of  To  be  once  in  his  lifetime  solemnly  abused 
in  a  public  court  by  a  woman,  is  at  any  rate  much  easier 
to  be  borne,  than  the  same  treatment  from  a  man,  or  extra- 
judicially ;  and  if,  besides,  the  cause  is  known,  and  that  the 
court  allows  her  this  liberty,  in  order  to  give  free  vent  to 
her  passion,  because  the  man  will  not  marry  her  according 
10  her  wish;  the  more  violent  the  emotions  of  her  rage  are, 
the  more  flattering  to  him  must  they  prove  ;  and  he  will 
go  out  of  court  with  more  pride  than  if  she  had  excused 
him  from  marrying  her,  with  much  coolness,  or  without 
any  emotion  at  all. — I  have  often  heard  vain  fops  mention 
in  company,  how  many  women  in  o^Aer  places  would  glad- 
ly have  married  them,  and  were  greatly  enraged  that  thev 
would  not  take  them.  On  persons  of  this  description,  such 
a  judicial  punishment  would  indeed  have  been  very  justly 
bestowed.  But  it  is  at  worst  more  flattering  than  even  the 
very  politest  language  with  which  a  lady  begs  leave  to  de- 
cline an  offer  of  marriage,  or  but  distantly  yields  to  it.  A 
legislator,  in  ordaining  a  punishment  of  this  nature,  could 
hardly  have  had  it  in  view  to  insist  very  particularly  on 
the  observance  of  a  statute,  that  but  ratified  an  old  custom 
by  way  of  a  compliment.  If  it  had  been  a  point  in  which 
he  was  interestei,  he  would  have  ordained  a  very  different 
punishment. 

3.  The  person  whose  duty  it  was  to  marry  a  childless 
widow,  was  the  brother  of  her  deceased  husband,  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  word,  as  the  story  in  Gen.  xxxviii.  clear- 
ly shows.  I  would  not  have  thought  it  necessary  to  make 
'his  remark,  had  not  the  contrary  opinion  been  maintained 
m  a  Dissertation  delivered  here  at  Gottingen,  in  which  it 
is  asserted,  that  the  word  brother^  in  Deut.  xxv.  5 — 10,  is  to 
be  taken  in  a  general  sense,  and  means  a  relation^  exclu- 
ding the  real  brother.  The  law,  however,  only  extended  to 
a  brother  living  in  the  same  city  or  country,  not  to  one  re- 
siding at  a  greater  distance.  Nor  did  it  affect  a  brother 
having  already  a  wife  of  his  own.  At  least,  if  it  had  its 
origin  in  this,  that  by  reason  of  the  dearness  of  young  wo- 

•  The  Hebrew  expression  in  Deut.  xxv.  9,  >>3B3  npT>i  has  been  by 
some  so  understood,  as  if  the  widow  had  a  right  to  spit  in  his  face.  And 
no  doubt  it  may  signify  as  much  ;  but  then  that  act  in  a  pubhc  court  is 
so  indecent,  that  if  any  other  interpretation  is  admissible,  this  one  ouglit 
not  to  be  adopted.  Now  there  are  two  others :  1.  She  shall  spit  before 
his  face.  The  Arabs,  at  this  day,  when  they  wish  to  affront  any  one, 
spit,  and  cry  J^' ;  even  people  of  rank  do  so,  just  as  the  common  peo- 

Sle  do  with  us.  This  account  we  find  even  in  lexicons  ;  but  I  know  it 
esides,  from  the  information  furnished  both  by  Solomon  Negri,  a  na- 
tive Arab,  and  by  travellers.  2.  p-\>  may  also  mean  to  revile ;  proper- 
ly Bilem  evomere,  which  signification  is  famihar  in  Arabia ;  only  that, 
according  to  the  usual  rule,  the  Hebrew  Jod  must  be  changed  into  Van, 
and  the  word  written  Varak. 


men,  often  only  one  brother  could  marry,  and  the  others 
also  wished  to  do  the  same,  it  could  only  affect  such  as 
were  unmarried ;  and  in  the  two  instances  that  occur  in 
Gen.  xxxviii.  and  Ruth  iv.  we  find  the  brother-in-law, 
whose  duty  it  was  to  marry,  apprehensive  of  its  proving 
hurtful  to  himself  and  his  inheritance,  which  could  hardly 
have  been  the  case,  if  he  had  previously  had  another  wife, 
or  (but  that  was  at  least  expensive)  could  have  taken  one 
of  his  own  choice.  When  there  was  no  brother  alive,  or 
when  he  declined  the  duty,  the  Levirate-Jaw,  as  we  see 
from  the  book  of  Ruth,  extended  to  the  next  nearest  rela- 
tion of  the  deceased  husband,  as  for  instance,  to  his  pater- 
nal uncle,  or  nephew ;  so  that  at  last,  even  pretty  remote 
kinsmen,  in  default  of  nearer  ones,  might  be  obliged  to  un- 
dertake it.  Boaz  does  not  appear  to  have  been  very  nearly 
related  to  Ruth,  as  he  did  not  so  much  as  know  who  site 
was,  when  he  fell  in  love  with  her,  while  she  gleaned  in 
his  fields.  Nor  did  she  know  that  he  was  any  relation  to 
her,  until  apprized  of  it  by  her  mother-in-law.  Among  the 
Jews  of  these  days,  Levirate-marriages  have  entirely  ceased ; 
so  much  so,  that  in  the  marriage  contracts  of  the  very 
poorest  people  among  them,  it  is  generally  stipulated,  that 
the  bridegroom's  brothers  abandon  all  those  rights  to  the 
bride,  to  which  they  could  lay  claim  by  Deut,  xxv, — Mi- 
ch aelis, 

Ver.  11.  And  all  the  people  ihsit  were  in  the  gate, 
and  the  elders,  said,  We  are  witnesses.  The 
Lord  make  the  woman  that  is  come  into  thy 
house  like  Rachel  and  like  Leah,  which  two 
did  build  the  house  of  Israel;  and  do  thou 
worthily  in  Ephratah,  and  be  famous  in  Beth- 
lehem. 

The  marriage  ceremony  was  commonly  performed  in  a 
garden,  or  in  the  open  air ;  the  bride  was  placed  under  a 
canopy,  supported  by  four  youths,  and  adorned  with  jewels 
according  to  the  rank  of  the  married  persons ;  all  the  com- 
pany crying  out  with  joyful  acclamations,  Blessed  be  he 
that  Cometh.  It  was  anciently  the  custom,  at  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  ceremony,  for  the  father  and  mother,  and  kin- 
dred of  the  woman,  to  pray  for  a  blessing  upon  the  parties. 
Bethuel  and  Laban,  and  the  other  members  of  their  family, 
pronounced  a  solemn  benediction  upon  Rebecca  before  her 
departure :  "  And  they  blessed  Rebecca,  and  said  unto  her, 
thou  art  our  sister,  be  thou  the  mother  of  thousands  of  mil- 
lions ;  and  let  thy  seed  possess  the  gate  of  those  that  hate 
them."  And  in  times  long  posterior  to  the  age  of  Isaac, 
when  Ruth  the  Moabitess  was  espoused  to  Boaz,  "  All  the 
people  that  were  in  the  gate,  and  the  elders,  said,  we  are 
witnesses.  The  Lord  make  the  woman  that  is  come  into 
thine  house  like  Rachel  and  like  Leah,  which  two  did 
build  the  house  of  Israel ;  and  do  thou  worthily  in  Ephratah, 
and  be  famous  in  Bethlehem."  After  the  benedictions,  the 
bride  is  conducted,  with  great  pomp,  to  the  house  of  her 
husband ;  this  is  usually  done  in  the  evening ;  and  as  the 
procession  moved  along,  money,  sweetmeats,  flowers,  and 
other  articles,  were  thrown  among  the  populace,  which 
they  caught  in  cloths  made  for  such  occasions,  stretched  in 
a  particular  manner  upon  frames. — Paxton. 


THE    FIRST    BOOK   OF    SAMUEL. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Ver.  1.  Now  there  was  a  certain  man  of  Rama- 
thaim-zophim,  of  mount  Ephraim,  and  his  name 
was  Elkanah,  the  son  of  Jeroham,  the  son  of 
Elihu,  the  son  of  Tohn,  the  son  of  Zuph,  an 
Ephrathite:  2.  And  he  had  two  wives;  the 
name  of  the  one  was  Hannah,  and  the  name  of 
the  other  Peninnah. 

How  much  soever  some  may  have  denied  it,  nothing 
is  more  certain,  than  that  by  the  civil  laws  of  Moses 
a  man  was  allowed  to  have  more  wives  than  one.  No 
doubt,  all  the  proofs  of  this  fact,  which  it  is  usual  to  adduce, 
are  not  valid ;  and  to  the  maintainers  of  the  opposite  opin- 
ion, it  may  be  an  easy  matter  to  controvert  such  as  are 
weak  or  inaccurate ;  but  the  following  arguments  appear 
to  me  to  place  the  matter  beyond  all  doubt. 

1.  It  is  certain  that  before  the  time  of  Moses,  polygamy 
was  in  use  among  the  ancestors  of  the  Israelites,  and  that 
even  Abraham  and  Jacob  lived  in  it.  It  is  also  certain, 
that  it  continued  in  use  after  the  time  of  Moses.  I  will  not 
interrupt  the  text  with  a  multitude  of  examples ;  but  there 
are  two  of  such  weight  as  to  merit  particular  notice. — One 
of  them  we  find  in  1  Chron.  vii.  4,  where  not  only  the  five 
fathers,  named  in  the  preceding  verse,  but  also  their  de- 
scendants, forming  a  tribe  of  36,000  men,  had  lived  in  polyg- 
amy, which  also  shows,  by  the  way,  that  it  must  have  been 
more  common  in  some  families  than  in  others. — The  other 
occurs  in  2  Chron.  xxv.  3,  where  we  see  the  high-priest 
himself,  who  was  of  course  the  authentic  expounder  of  the 
Mosaic  statutes,  taking  for  Joash,  who  clave  to  him  as  a 
son,  two  wives,  which  shows  that  he  had  not  at  any  rate 
looked  upon  bigamy  as  prohibited  by  the  law  of  Deut.  xvii. 
17.  As  then,  Moses,  adhering  to  established,  usage,  no- 
where prohibited  a  man's  taking  a  second  or  a  third  wife, 
along  with  the  first,  it  is  clear  that,  as  a  civil  right,  it  con- 
tinued allowable ;  for  what  has  hitherto  been  customary, 
and  permitted,  remains  so,  in  a  civil  sense,  as  long  as  no 

Eositive  law  is  enacted  against  it.  Therefore,  the  objection 
ere  made,  that  Moses  nowhere  authorizes  polygamy,  by  an 
express  statute,  amounts  to  nothing ;  more  especially  when 
it  is  considered,  that,  as  we  shall  immediately  see  under 
Nos.  2,  3,  4,  it  is  implied  in  three  several  texts,  that  he  ac- 
tually did  authorize  it.  But  although  he  had  not  done  so, 
his  silent  acquiescence  in,  and  non-prohibition  of,  the  prac- 
tice previously  held  lawful,  is  quite  enough  to  sanction  our 
opinion  of  his  having  left  it  still  allowable  as  a  civil  right. 
And, 

2.  This  proof  becomes  still  stronger,  when  we  remark 
how  very  common  polygamy  must  have  been  at  the  very 
time  when  Moses  lived  and  gave  his  laws.  For,  when 
Moses  caused  the  Israelites  to  be  numbered,  he  found 
603,550  males  above  20  years  of  age.  Now,  according  to 
political  calculations,  the  proportion  of  those  under  20,  to 
those  above  it,  is  in  general  reckoned  as  12  to  20,  or,  at  any 
rate,  as  12  to  15 ;  but  admitting,  in  the  present  case,  that 
it  was  but  as  10  to  20,  to  the  above  number  of  adult  males, 
we  should  thus  have  still  to  add  a  half  more,  or  301,775, 
for  those  under  20,  besides  22,000  Levites  that  were  reck- 
oned separately  ;  so  that  the  whole  number  of  males  must 
have  amounted  to  at  least  927,325.  Now  among  all  this 
people,  we  find  from  Numb.  iii.  43,  that  there  were  no  more 
than  22,273  first-born  males,  of  a  month  old  and  upward ; 
that  is,  only  one  first-born  among  42 :  so  that,  had  the  Is- 
raelites lived  in  monogamy,  it  would  follow  that  every 
marriage  had  on  an  average  given  birth  to  42  children, 
which,  however,  is  hardly  possible  to  be  conceived ;  whereas 
if  every  Israelite  had  four  or  more  wives,  it  was  very  pos- 
sible that  of  every  father  on  an  average  that  number  might 


have  sprung,  and,  of  course,  of  42  Israelites,  there  would 
be  but  one  first-born.  At  the  same  time,  this  being  the  case, 
polygamy  must  certainly  have  gone  great  lengths,  and  been 
very  universally  practised  among  them ;  and  if  it  was  so, 
and  Moses  forbade  it  by  no  law,  it  is  obvious  that  it  con- 
tinued allowable  as  a  civil  right.  If  in  this  deduction  there 
appear  any  thing  dubious  or  obscure,  I  must  refer  the  reader 
to  my  Dissertation,  De  Censibus  HebrcBorum,  in  paragraphs 
4,  5,  and  6  of  which,  I  have  considered  this  argument  at 
greater  length. 

3.  The  law  of  Deut.  xxi.  15 — 17,  already  explained, 
presupposes  the  case  of  a  man  having  two  wives,  one  of 
whom  he  peculiarly  loves,  while  the  other,  whom  he  hates, 
is  the  mother  of  his  first-born.  Now  this  is  the  very  case 
which  occurs  in  Genesis,  in  the  history  of  Jacob,  and  his 
wives  Leah  and  Rachel ;  and  this  law  ordains,  that  in  such 
a  case  the  husband  was  not  to  bestow  the  right  of  primo- 
geniture upon  the  son  of  the  favourite  wife,  but  to  acknow- 
ledge as  his  first-born  the  son  that  actually  was  so. 

4.  The  law  of  Exod.  xxi.  9,  10,  in  like  manner  already 
explained,  expressly  permits  the  father,  who  had  given  his 
son  a  slave  for  a  wife,  to  give  him,  some  years  after,  a 
second  wife,  of  freer  birth ;  and  prescribes  how  the  first 
was  then  to  be  treated.  The  son  was  bound  to  pay  her 
matrimonial  duty  as  often  as  she  could  have  claimed  it 
before  his  second  marriage  ;  and,  therefore,  if  he  did  so, 
the  marriage  still  subsisted.  If  he  refused,  the  marriage 
immediately  ceased,  and  the  woman  received  her  liberty. 
When  Moses,  in  Lev.  xviii.  18,  prohibits  a  man  from  mar- 
rying the  sister  of  his  wife,  to  vex  her  while  she  lives,  it 
manifestly  supposes  the  liberty  of  taking  another  wife 
besides  the  first,  and  during  her  lifetime,  provided  only  it 
was  not  her  sister.  But  because  the  sense  of  this  passage 
has  been  much  disputed,  and  others,  in  opposition  to  the 
plain  words  of  Moses,  consider  it  as  a  general  prohibition 
of  polygamy ;  as  I  cannot  with  propriety  expatiate  fully  on 
their  explanation  here,  I  must  refer  the  reader  to  my  Dis- 
sertation already  quoted.  On  the  Mosaic  Statutes  prohibitory 
of  Marriages  betwixt  Near  Relations. 

It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  Moses  permitted  po- 
lygamy willingly,  or  as  a  matter  of  indifference  in  either  a 
moral  or  a  political  view,  but,  as  Christ  expresses  it,  merely 
on  account  of  the  hardness  of  the  people's  hearts.  In  other 
words,  he  did  not  approve  it,  but  found  it  advisable  to  toler- 
ate it,  as  a  point  of  civil  expediency.  His  first  book,  which 
is  entirely  historical,  includes  many  particulars  that  are  by 
no  means  calculated  to  recommend  polygamy.  According 
to  him,  God,  even  at  the  very  time  when  the  rapid  popula- 
tion of  the  earth  was  his  great  object,  gave  to  the  first  man 
but  one  wife,  although  it  is  evident  that  with /oiir  wives,  he 
could  have  procreated  more  children  than  with  one  ;  and 
when,  in  consequence  of  the  flood,  the  earth  was  to  be  re- 
duced anew  to  its  original  state  in  this  respect,  and  God 
resolved  to  preserve  alive  only  Noah  and  his  three  sons, 
we  still  find  that  each  of  them  had  but  one  wife  with  him. 
Now  had  God  approved  of  polygamy,  he  would  have  com- 
manded each  of  JVoah's  sons  to  marry  as  many  wives  as 
possible,  and  take  them  with  him  into  the  ark.  From  these 
two  historical  facts,  the  natural  proportion  between  the  sexes, 
which,  where  population  is  numerous,  cannot  be  discovered 
without  much  trouble,  becomes  at  once  obvious  ;  and  this 
very  proportion,  considering  that  we  actually  find  much 
about  the  same  number  of  men  as  of  women  fit  for  the  mar- 
ried state,  is  the  strongest  possible  argument  against  polyg- 
amy ;  the  lawfulness  or  unlawfulness  of  which,  as  Mon- 
tesquieu very  justly  observes,  resolves  itself,  properly 
speaking,  into  a  question  of  arithmetic.  Moses  did  not 
permit  eunuchs  to  be  made  among  the  Israelites.  Indeed  he 
went  so  far  as  to  prohibit  even  the  castration  of  cattle,  Lev. 
xxii.  24;  and  besides  this,  a  eunuch  that  came  from  another 
country  to  reside  among  the  Israelites,  was  by  a  special 


Chap  1. 


1    SAMUEL. 


153 


statute  excluded  from  ever  .becoming  one  of  the  people  of 
God,  that  is,  was  incapable  of  enjoying  the  privileges  and 
rights  of  an  Israelite,  both  sacred  and  civil,  Deut.  xxiii,  2. 
This  was  an  ordinance  highly  unfavourable  to  polygamy. 
We  commonly  find  polygamy  and  eunuchism  going  to- 
gether; and  in  those  countries  in  which  the  former  pre-- 
vails,  such  as  Turkey,  Persia,  and  China,  there  are  thou- 
sands, and  even  millions  of  eunuchs.  Where  so  many  of 
the  males  that  are  born,  can  never  become  husbands  and 
obtain  wives,  it  is  nothing  less  than  merciful  to  place  them 
beyond  the  temptation  of  longing  for  a  wife  ;  and,  in  early 
infancy,  before  ihey  know  what  has  befallen  them,  to  assign 
them  that  intermediate  state,  in  which,  without  properly 
belonging  to  either  sex,  they  are  to  live,  and  earn  their 
bread.  Besides,  where  polygamy  is  carried  to  great  lengths, 
there  is  in  the  nature  of  the  case  an  imperious  necessity  for 
rigilant  watchers  of  their  chastity.  In  a  word,  without 
(uni^chs,  a  great  seraglio  cannot  be  guarded;  and  of 
course,  a  law  prohibiting  castration  imperceptibly  counter- 
acts polygamy.  This  is  also  an  observation  of  M.  de  Fre- 
mont val. 

It  would  appear,  that  in  the  course  of  time,  polygamy 
had  very  much  decreased  among  the  Israelites,  and  become 
rather  uncommon.  Solomon,  in  Prov.  xxxi.  10 — 31,  in  his 
description  of  that  wife  whom  he  accounted  a  blessing  to 
her  husband,  represents  her  entirely  as  a  mater-familias, 
that  is,  the  mistress  and  ruler  of  the  whole  household ; 
which  a  wife  in  the  state  of  polvgamy  can  never  be,  being 
destined  solely  for  her  husband  s  bed,  and  having  no  per- 
mission to  concern  herself  at  all  about  domestic  economy. 
It  would  therefore  seem,  that  although  Solomon  himself 
lived  in  boundless  polygamy,  his  subjects  were  contented 
with  one  wife.  Besides,  had  polygamy  continued  as  com- 
mon as  in  the  days  of  Moses,  the  price  of  wives  would  have 
advanced  in  proportion  to  the  increased  value  of  other 
commodities  ;  but  we  find  that  in  the  time  of  the  prophet 
Hosea,  a  wife  was  still  the  same  as  the  medium  rate  in  the 
time  of  Moses ;  for  that  was  about  30  shekels ;  and  Hosea 
(iii.  2)  bought  Ms  for  15  shekels, -and  15  ephahs  of  barley. 
Every  thing  else  had  risen  in  price,  (as  I  have  shown  m 
my  Dissertation,  De  pretiis  rerum  apud  Hebmos,  in  the  3d 
Part  of  the  Commentaria  of  the  Gottingen  Society  of  Sci- 
ences,) except  wives ;  and  consequently,  polygamy,  which 
makes  them  scarce  and  dear,  must  have  been  much  dimin- 
ished, or  have  ceased  almost  altogether  among  the  Israel- 
ites. That  it  ceased  entirely  after  the  return  of  the  Jews 
from  the  Babylonish  captivity,  is,  indeed,  certain ;  but  with 
that  fact  we  have  here  nothing  to  do,  as  it  was  neither  an 
article  nor  an  effect  of  the  Mosaic  law,  but  proceeded  from 
Qther  accidental  causes. 

But  how  came  it  to  pass  that  Moses,  who  certainly  did 
jnot  approve  of  polgyamy,  and  counteracted  its  increase  by 
Various  impediments,  did  not  rather  at  once  prohibit  it  al- 
together 1  This  is  indeed  an  important  question,  and  has 
not  hitherto  received  a  satisfactory  answer.  Many  of 
IVJontesquieu's  readers  will  perhaps  think,  that  nothing  can 
be  easier  than  lo  answer  it  fully  in  the  following  .terms  : 
"  The  lawfulness  or  unlawfulness  of  polygamy  depends 
^entirely  on  the  proportion  of  females  born  to  that  of  males, 
or  is,  as  Montesquieu  very  properly  terms  it,  a  problem  of 
arithmetic.  Now  in  Asia  there  are  many  more  females 
than  males,  and  consequently,  polygamy  should  be  there 
permitted  for  the  very  same  reason  for  which  it  is  prohib- 
ited in  Europe.  Where  the  numbers  of  both  sexes  are 
equal,  there  both  nature  and  arithmetic  prescribe  monoga- 
ifliy ;  but  where  the  procedure  of  nature  is  different,  and 
■^everal  girls  are  born  for  one  boy,  there  she  allows,  or,  I 
.should  rather  say,  there  she  authorizes  polygamy."  Here, 
however,  and  in  what  he  says  of  Asia,  Montesquieu  is  un- 
doubtedly mistaken.  For  without  very  clear  proofs,  and 
without  having  accurate  enumerations,  and  birth-lists,  of 
all  the  Asiatic  nations,  who  will  believe  either  him  or  any 
other  traveller,  asserting  that,  in  regard  to  the  proportion 
of  the  sexes  born,  the  procedure  of  nature  in  Asia,  partic- 
ularly in  Turkey,  Persia,  China,  and  Japan,  is  altogether 
different  from  what  we  find  it  in  Europe  %  It  cannot  be 
supposed  that  the  circumstance  of  these  countries  lying 
j  more  to  tfie  east  than  our  European  regions,  can  have  any 
i  effect  in  this  respect ;  for  the  difference  of  climate  depends 
I  not  on  the  easterly  or  westerly,  but  on  the  southerly  or 
'  northerly  position  of  a  country ;  in  other  words,  not  on  the 
degree  of  longitude,  but  of  latitude.  Now,  Minorca  lies 
20 


under  the  39th  degree  of  latitude,  and  of  course,  some  de- 
grees more  to  the  south  than  Constantinople,  and  the  coun- 
tries between  the  Black  and  Caspian  Seas,  whence  the 
Turks  and  Persians  purchase  young  women  for  their  se- 
raglios, but  in  the  very  same  latitude  with  a  great  part  of 
Turkey,  Persia,  China,  and  Japan ;  and  yet  this  Island, 
according  to  Armstrong's  account,  in  letter  15th,  of  his  his- 
tory of  it,  had,  in  the  year  1742,  exclusive  of  the  English 
garrison,  15,000  male  inhabitants,  and  but  only  12,000  fe- 
male. Now,  how  can  we  believe,  after  this,  that  under  the 
very  same  climate,  but  farther  eastward,  nature  should,  on 
the  contrary,  produce  more  persons  of  the  other  sex  than 
of  ours,  merely  because  there  it  is  noon,  when  the  sun  but 
begins  to  rise  on  Minorca"?  The  English  colonies  in 
America  have,  part  of  them  at  least,  a  still  more  southerly 
position ;  but  even  there,  no  other  proportion  of  births,  in 
the  two  sexes,  has  been  remarkea,  than  what  is  found  in 
England  itself.  The  whole  mistake,  into  which  even  the 
venerable  Montesquieu  himself  has  been  betrayed,  proceeds 
from  this,  that  in  some  of  the  great  capitals  of  Asia,  there 
are  a  great  many  more  women  than  men,  owing  to  the 
residence  of  monarchs  and  people  of  fortune,  who  keep 
great  seraglios,  for  which  girls  are  purchased  in  other 
places,  and  brought  to  the  metropolis.  It  does  not,  however, 
thence  follow,  that  in  Asia  there  are  more  females  borft 
than  males,  but  only  that  the  former  being  more  numerous 
in  the  rich  cities,  are  in  the  provinces,  whence  they  are 
bought,  less  so,  in  the  very  same  proportion.  Mr.  Porter, 
the  British  ambassador  at  Constantinople,  makes  this  re- 
mark in  the  Philosophical  Transactions,  vol.  xlix.  art. 
21st ;  so  that  it  is  not  matter  of  speculation,  but  of  experi- 
ence. But  the  conclusion  drawn  from  the  oriental  cap- 
itals, to  the  state  of  whole  countries,  in  regard  to  the  pro- 
portion of  the  sexes,  is  much  in  the  same  style  a^'ould  be 
that  of  the  traveller,  who  on  seeing  a  German  army  of 
100,000  troops,  and  remarking  that  there  was  scarcely  one 
woman  with  it  to  ten  men,  should  go  home  and  assert  that 
he  had  discovered,  that  in  Germany  there  were  ten  times 
as  many  males  born  as  females.  I  am  therefore  of  opinion, 
that  with  regard  to  the  polygamy  allowed  among  the  Is- 
raelites, we  can  say  nothing  else  than  what  Christ  has  said 
on  the  subject  of  divorce.  Moses  tolerated  it  on  account  of 
their  hardness  of  heart,  and  because  it  would  have  been 
found  a  difficult  matter  to  deprive  them  of  a  custom  al- 
ready so  firmly  established.  The  Egyptian  monarchs  en- 
deavoured to  prevent  the  multiplication  of  the  Israelites, 
and  for  this  purpose,  went  so  far  as  to  order  all  their  male 
children,  as  soon  as  born,  to  be  thrown  into  the  Nile;  and 
yet  Moses  found  polygamy  among  them,  which,  of  course, 
could  not  have  been  prohibited  by  the  Egyptian  govern- 
ment. A  people,  whose  children  a  tyrant  drowned  to  hin- 
der their  mcrease,  while  yet  he  dared  not  to  check  their 
polygamy,  must  have  clung  very  closely  to  that  privilege, 
and  not  have  been  likely  to  surrender  it  without  rebelling. 
Whether  the  climate  may  have,  in  any  degree,  contribu- 
ted to  produce  this  hardness  of  heart,  I  will  neither  confi- 
dently affirm  nor  deny,  so  long  as  we  are  destitute  of  what 
I  would  call  a  geographical  history  of  polygamy  and  mo- 
nogamy, which  a  person  might  survey  at  a  short  glance ; 
for  thus  much  is  certain,  that  in  the  most  northerly  regions 
of  Siberia  and  Tartary,  there  are  nations  that  live  in  po- 
lygamy ;  and  in  the  very  warmest  climates,  on  the  contra- 
ry, we  find  Christians,  and  even  nations,  satisfied  with  mo- 
nogamy. If  the  former  is  more  prevalent  towards  the 
south,  we  must  bear  in  mind,  that  in  regard  to  laws,  though 
much  depends  on  climate,  yet  every  thing  does  not,  but  still 
more  on  accidental  circumstances  ;  and  that  ancient  usage, 
or  religion,  may  have  a  very  powerful  influence  on  the  na- 
ture of  the  law.  But  should  even  the  climate  actually 
cause  a  difference  in  the  point  in  question,  and  make  it 
more  difficult  to  put  a  stop  to  polygamy,  by  law,  among 
southern  than  northern  nations,  because  they  are  naturally 
more  addicted  to  it ;  still  the  cause  thereof  would  not  be 
referable  to  any  inequality  in  the  proportion  of  the  sexes, 
but  to  the  earlier  puberty  of  southern  nations,  and  the  ear- 
lier violence  of  libidinous  propensities  therewith  connect- 
ed. The  natural  consequence  of  these  early  and  strong 
feelings  of  love,  are  early  marriages  ;  the  wife,  in  such  a 
case,  can  hardly  be  more  than  two  years  younger,  and  the 
appropriated  concubine  is  perhaps  even  older  than  the  boy 
that  becomes  her  husband:  and  when  he  has  reached  his 
25*h  or  30th,  and  still  more,  his  37th  year,  which  Aristotle 


154 


1  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  1. 


fixed  as  the  fittest  time  for  a  man  to  marry,  his  wife,  or 
concubine,  particularly  if  she  has  borne  many  children,  has 
by  that  time  become  too  old  for  him,  and  then  he  either 
meditates  a  divorce,  or  taking  a  younger  wife  in  addition 
to  the  former.  This  last  is  indeed  the  least  of  the  two 
evils  for  the  unfortunate  first  wife  ;  and  the  legislator  who 
wishes  that  she,  particularly  if  a  slave,  that  can  have  no 
will  of  her  own,  may  experience  the  least  possible  hard- 
ship or  injustice,  will  in  this  view  tolerate  polygamy.  In- 
deed if  he  were  to  prohibit  it,  it  is  probable  the  people 
w^ould  not  submit  to  the  privation  without  some  disturb- 
ance.— If  what  I  have  now  said,  merely  by  way  of  conjec- 
ture, be  correct,  the  consideration  of  climate  might  have 
had  some  influence  with  Moses  in  his  toleration  of  polyga- 
my, as  a  civil  right;  for  Palestine  is  certainly  to  be  num- 
bered among  southern  climates,  although  indeed  the  Israel- 
ites, at  the  time  when  Moses  may  be  said  to  have  taken 
them  under  his  protection,  had.  been  accustomed  to  a 
country  somewhat  farther  south,  and  much  warmer. 

There  is  yet  another  circumstance  to  be  taken  into  the 
account,  which  made  polygamy  in  Palestine  more  tolerable 
in  a  political  light,  than  among  us,  where  it  would  soon 
depopulate  ?.  country,  because  we  have  not,  as  was  then  the 
case,  any  opportunity  of  purchasing,  or  of  carrying  off  as 
captiv^es,  the  young  women  of  other  natijns.  The  laws  of 
war,  in  those  days,  gave  the  victors  a  right  to  make  slaves 
of  young  women,  and  these  they  might  employ  for  the 
purposes  of  polygamy,  without  thereby  depriving  any  Is- 
raelite of  a  wife  borri  to  him  among  his  own  people.  No 
doubt  this  was  a  very  severe  war  law,  and  detrimental  to 
the  general  interests  of  mankind :  but  it  w^as  once  estab- 
lished, and  although  the  Israelites  had  not  acted  up  to  it, 
their  neighbours  would  not  therefore  have  lost  any  oppor- 
tunity of  doing  so,  which  the  fortune  of  war  put  into  their 
power.  It  must  also  be  considered  thai  the  Israelites  lived 
in  the  vicinity  of  a  poor  people,  whose  daughters  they  could 
purchase:  for  nature  has  been  so  unkind  to  Arabia,  that 
most  of  its  inhabitants  must  always  be  in  a  state  of  indi- 
gence, with  the  exception  of  any  particular  family  or  city 
that  may  happen  to  be  enriched  by  trade,  or  by  singular 
good-fortune  in  rearing  sheep.  Mr.  Wood  in  his  Essay  on 
the  original  genius  of  Homer,  has  given  a  very  faithful 
description  of  the  natural  poverty  of  Arabia,  which,  after 
all  the  improvements  it  can  receive  from  fortune  and  art, 
uniformly  sinks  back  to  its  original  state;  and  Mr.  Nie- 
buhr  has  orally  given  me  an  account  of  the  poverty  of 
the  Arabs,  which  far  exceeded  even  what  I  should  have 
expected. 

Although  the  Mosaic  laws  do  not  prohibit  more  than  one 
wife,  still  they  did  not  thereby  authorize  polygamy  in  the 
whole  extent  of  the  word,  and  that  a  man  might  have  as 
many  wives  as  he  pleased.  This  is  not  perhaps  altogether 
the  consequence  of  those  statutes,  which  enjoined  the  hus- 
band to  perform  the  conjugal  rites  with  every  wife  within 
stated  periods ;  for  Moses,  (as  we  have  already  seen,) 
most  expressly  prohibited  even  the  future  king/rom  having 
many  loives.  (Deut.  xvii.  17:)  and  of  course,  that  could  not 
but  be  forbidden  to  the  people  at  large.  But  if  more  than 
one  wife  was  allowed,  and  many  forbidden,  the  question 
comes  to  be,  what  is  meant  by  many  *?  And  to  that  ques- 
tion I  can  only  give  what  may  be  called  a  probable  answer, 
and  to  this  effect:  that  by  many  seems  to  be  meant  more 
than  four,  that  number  being  permitted,  but  not  more. 
This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Talmud  and  the  Rabbins,  of 
which  the  reader  will  find  a  more  detailed  account  in 
Selden  de  TJxore  Hebraica.  To  their  testimony  and  opinion 
I  would  indeed  pay  but  little  respect,  in  most  points  relating 
to  the  original  Mosaic  jurisprudence :  but  here  they  seem 
for  once  to  be  in  the  right.  For  Mohammed,  who  generally 
follows  the  ancient  Arabian  usages,  in  the  fourth  chapter 
of  the  Koran,  also  fixes  four  as  the  number  of  wives  to  be 
allowed,  and  commands  that  it  be  not  exceeded :  and  be- 
fore the  time  of  Moses,  there  would  seem  to  have  likewise 
been  an  ancient  usage,  in  the  patriarchal  families,  which 
limited  polygamy  to  this  same  number,  and  which  may 
also  have  continued  among  the  Jews  and  Arabs.  "We 
have  reason  to  presume  that  this  was  the  case  from  a  pas- 
sage in  Gen.  chap.  xxxi.  50.  Jacob  had  four  wives,  Leah, 
Rachel,  and  their  two  maids.  Laban,  his  father-in-law, 
was  so  little  an  enemy  to  polygamy,  that  instead  of  one  of 
his  daughters,  whom  Jacob  wished  to  have,  he  contrived 
by  a  piece  of  artifice,  and  contrary  to  Jacob's  inclination, 


to  force  them  both  upon  him.  But  notwithstanding  this, 
we  find  him  in  this  passage  requiring  Jacob  to  take  an  oath 
that  he  would  not  take  any  more  wives.  He  seems  to  hav<» 
thought  with  the  poet, 

Est  modus  in  rebus,  sunt  certi  denique  fines : 

nnd  this  modus  was,  in  his  opinion,  what  Jacob  already 
hadj/oiir  wives.  Now  as  Moses  does  not  explain  what  he 
calls  many,  he  must,  from  such  established  custom,  have 
presupposed  it  perfectly  known. — Michaelis. 

Marriage  is  evidently  meant  by  scripture  and  reason,  to 
be  the  union  of  one  man  with  one  woman.  When  God 
said,  "  It  is  not  good  that  the  man  should  be  alone ;"  he 
promised  him  the  help  only  of  a  single  mate:  "  I  will  make 
him  a  help-meet  for  him."  This  gracious  promise  he 
soon  performed  in  the  formation  of  one  woman ;  a  clear 
intimation  of  his  will  that  only  one  man  and  one  woman 
should  be  joined  in  wedlock.  This  design  Adam  recog- 
nised, and  acknowledged  in  express  terms :  and  his  decla- 
ration was  certainly  meant  as  a  rule  for  his  descendants  in 
every  succeeding  age :  "  Therefore  shall  a  man  leave  his 
father  and  his  mother,  and  shall  cleave  unto  his  wife,  and 
they  shall  be  one  flesh."  These  quotations,  whict  are  all 
couched  in  terms  of  the  singular  number,  are  inc  nsistent 
with  the  doctrine  of  polygamy.  The  original  appointment 
was  confirmed  by  our  Lord  in  these  words  :  "  Have  ye  not 
read,  that  he  which  made  them  at  the  beginning,  made  them 
male  and  female ;  and  said,  for  this  cause,  shall  a  man 
leave  father  and  mother,  and  shall  cleave  to  his  m- ife ;  and 
they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh  1  Wherefore  they  are  no 
more  twain,  but  one  flesh."  The  apostle  is  not  less  de- 
cisive in  his  direction  to  the  churches:  "Nevertheless,  to 
avoid  fornication,  let  every  man  have  his  own  wife  ;  and 
let  every  woman  have  her  own  husband."  But  though 
the  law  is  so  decisive,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  polygamy 
was  introduced  soon  after  the  creation;  Lamech,  one  of 
the  descendants  of  Cain,  and  only  the  sixth  person  from 
Adam,  married  two  wives  ;  he  was  probably  the  first  who 
ventured,  in  this  respect,  to  transgress  the  law  of  his  Maker. 
This  unwarrantable  practice,  derived  from  the  antedilu- 
vian world,  seems  to  have  become  very  common  soon 
after  the  flood ;  for  it  is  mentioned  as  nothing  remarkable 
that  Sarah,  when  she  despaired  of  having  childre;i,  took 
her  handmaid  Hagar,  and  gave  her  to  Abraham  her 
husband,  by  whom  she  had  a  son.  Both  Esau  and  Jacob 
had  a  number  of  wives ;  and  that  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the 
practices  which  Moses  suffered  to  remain  among  his  people, 
because  of  the  hardness  of  their  hearts,  prohibiting  only  the 
high-priest  to  have  more  than  one  wife. 

Every  transgression  of  the  divine  law  is  attended  by  its 
corresponding  punishment.  Polygamy  has  proved  in  all 
ages,  and  in  all  countries  where  it  has  been  suffered,  a 
teeming  source  of  evil.  The  jealousy  and  bitter  conten- 
tions in  the  family  of  Abraham,  and  of  his  grandson  Jacob, 
which  proceeded  from  that  cause,  are  well  known ;  and 
still  more  deplorable  were  the  dissensions  which  convulsed 
the  house,  and  shook  the  throne  of  David.  Such  mischiefs 
are  the  natural  and  necessary  effects  of  the  practice ;  for 
polygamy  divides  the  affections  of  the  husband,  and  by 
consequence,  generates  incurable  jealousies  and  conten- 
tions among  the  unhappy  victims  of  his  licentious  desires. 
To  prevent  his  abode  from  becoming  the  scene  of  unceas- 
ing confusion  and  uproar,  he  is  compelled  to  govern  it,  as 
the  oriental  polygamist  still  does,  with  despotic  authority, 
which  at  once  extinguishes  all  the  rational  and  most 
endearing  comforts  of  the  conjugal  state.  The  husbantj 
is  a  stem  and  unfeeling  despot;  his  harem,  a  group  of 
trembling  slaves.  The  children  espouse,  with  an  ardour 
unknown  to  those  who  are  placed  in  other  circumstances, 
the  cause  of  their  own  mother,  and  look  upon  the  children 
of  the  other  wives  as  strangers  or  enemies.  They  regard 
their  common  father  with  indifference  or  terror;  while 
they  cling  to  their  own  mother  with  the  fondest  aflfection, 
as  the  only  parent  in  whom  they  feel  any  interest,  or  from 
whom  they  expect  any  suitable  return  of  attention  and 
kindness.  This  state  of  feeling  and  attachment,  is  attested 
by  every  writer  on  the  manners  of  the  East ;  and  accounts 
for  a  way  of  speaking  so  common  in  the  scriptures :  **  It  is 
my  brother,  and  the  son  of  my  mother."  "  They  were  my 
brethren,"  said  Gideon,  "the  sons  of  my  mother;  as  the 
Lord  liveth,  if  ye  had  saved  them  alive,  I  would  not  slay 
you."    It  greatly  aggravated  the  aflliction  of  David,  that 


Chap.  2. 


1  SAMUEL. 


155 


he  had  become  an  alien  to  his  mother's  children  ;  the  en- 
mity of  his  brethren,  the  children  of  hi?  father's  other 
wives,  or  his  more  distant  relatives,  gave  him  less  con- 
cern ;  "  I  am  become  a  stranger  to  my  brethren,  and  an 
alien  to  my  mother's  children."  The  same  allusion  occurs 
in  the  complaint  of  the  spouse:  "Look  not  upon  me,  be- 
cause I  am  black,  because  the  sun  hath  looked  upon  me : 
my  mother's  children  were  angry  with  me ;  they  made  me 
the  keeper  of  the  vineyards."  The  children  of  one  wife, 
scarcely  looked  upon  the  children  of  the  other  wives  as 
their  brothers  and  sisters  at  all ;  and  they  scarcely  felt 
more  regard  for  their  father.  An  Oriental,  in  consequence 
of  this  unnatural  practice,  takes  little  notice  of  an  insult 
oflered  to  his  father ;  but  expresses  the  utmost  indignation 
when  a  word  is  spoken  to  the  disadvantage  of  his  mother. 
To  defame  or  to  curse  her,  is  the  last  insult  which  his 
enemy  can  offer  ;  and  one  which  he  seldom  or  never  for- 
gives. "  Strike,"  cried  an  incensed  African  to  his  antagonist, 
"  but  do  not  curse  my  mother." — Paxton. 

Ver.  2.  And  he  had  two  wives ;  the  name  of  the 
one  was  Hannah,  and  the  name  of  the  other 
Peninnah. 

The  names  the  eastern  people  give  to  women  and  slaves, 
appear  to  us  to  be  oftentimes  not  a  little  odd ;  something  of 
the  same  kind  may,  however,  be  remarked  in  the  scrip- 
tures, though  they  are  there  more  frequently  of  the  devout 
kind.  The  author  of  the  History  of  AH  Bey  mentions  a 
female,  whose  name,  Laal,  signified  ruby.  One  of  the  wives 
of  Elkanah,  the  father  of  the  prophet  Samuel,  seems  to 
have  been  named  in  the  same  way,  for  such  was  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  Peninnah.  The  plural  word  peninim 
signifies  rubies,  or  precious  stones  that  are  red.  Lam.  iv.  7. 
If  both  these  ladies  were  called  by  names  that  in  their 
respective  languages  signified  a  ruby,  probably  both  one 
and  the  other  were  so  denominated,  either  from  the  florid- 
ness  of  their  complexion,  or  the  contrary  to  a  ruby  teint : 
for  it  may  be  understood  either  way. — Burder. 

Ver.  11.  And  she  vowed  a  vow,  and  said,  O 
Lord  of  hosts,  if  thou  wilt  indeed  look  on  the 
affliction  of  thy  handmaid,  and  remember  me, 
and  not  forget  thy  handmaid,  but  wilt  give  unto 
thy  handmaid  a  man-child,  then  I  will  give 
him  unto  the  Lord  all  the  days  of  his  life,  and 
there  shall  no  razor  come  upon  his  head. 

Among  these  vows  of  abstinence,  may  be  classed  those 
c. "  IS'azaritism,  although  they  have  also  something  in  com- 
n  on  with  the  first  species,  and  are,  as  it  were,  a  mixture  of 
both  kinds.  A  Nazarite,  during  the  continuance  of  his 
vow,  durst  drink  no  wine  nor  strong  drink ;  nor  eat  of  the 
fruit  of  the  vine,  either  grapes  or  raisins ;  nor  come  near 
any  dead  body ;  or  otherwise  wittingly  defile  himself.  He 
was  also  obliged  to  let  his  hair  grow.  At  the  termination 
of  the  period  of  his-  vow,  he  had  to  make  certain  offerings 
prescribed  by  Moses,  and  what  other  offerings  he  had 
vowed  besides  ;  as  also  to  cut  off  his  hair,  and  burn  it  on 
the  altar,  and  then  first  drink  wine  again  at  the  offering- 
feast.  These  ordinances,  however,  rather  belong  to  the 
ceremonial  law,  than  to  the  Mosaical  jurisprudence,  of 
which  I  here  treat.  It  is  only  necessary  to  attend  to  this 
further  circumstance,  that  vows  of  Nazaritism  were  not  an 
original  institution  of  Moses,  but  of  more  ancient,  and 
probably  of  Egyptian,  origin ;  and  that,  in  his  laws,  he  only 
gives  certain  injunctions  concerning  them,  partly  to  estab- 
lish the  ceremonies  and  laws  of  such  vows,  and  partly  to 
prevent  people  from  making  them  to,  or  letting  their  hair 
grow  in  honour  of,  any  other  than  the  true  God.  What 
typical  views  he  may  have  had  in  the  ceremonies  he  pre- 
scribed, it  forms  no  part  of  my  present  subject,  in  which  I 
nverely  consider  the  Mosaic  laws  on  the  principles  of  juris- 
prudence, but  rather  belongs  to  theology,  to  ascertain.  But 
that  before  the  Mosaic  law  was  given  there  had  been  Naza- 
rites  among  the  Israelites,  is  manifest  from  the  following 
circumstance:  The  ordinance  of  Moses  concerning  the 
Nazarites,  which  stands  in  chap.  vi.  of  Numbers,  was 
given  in  the  second  year  after  the  departure  from  Egypt ; 
but  in  an  earlier  law  concerning  the  sabbatical  year,  which 


was  made  in  the  Jirst  year,  Moses  adopts  a  figurative  ex- 
pression from  Nazaritism,  calling  the  vines,  which  in  that 
year  were  not  to  be  pruned,  Nazarites,  Lev.  xxv.  5.  The 
thing  itself  must,  therefore,  have  been  already  in  use,  and 
that  for  a  long  period ;  because  such  figurative  expressions, 
particularly  in  agriculture,  gardening,  and  rural  economy, 
do  not  succeed  to  the  proper  signification  even  of  the  most 
familiar  and  best-known  terms,  till  after  a  lapse  of  many 
years.  The  vow  of  Nazaritism  was  not  necessarily,  nor 
usually,  of  perpetual  endurance;  and  hence  Moses  ordain- 
ed what  offerings  should  be  made  at  its  termination  or  dis- 
continuance. In  latter  times,  it  is  true,  we  have,  in  the 
case  of  Samson,  an  example  of  a  person  devoted  by  his 
parents  to  be  a  Nazarite  for  life  ;  but  even  here,  Nazaritism 
was  not  understood  in  its  whole  extent,  as  prescribed  in  the 
Mosaic  law;  for  Samson  plainly  deviated  from  it,  when 
he  attacked  and  defeated  the  Philistines,  from  whose  dead 
bodies  a  strict  Nazarite  must  have  fled,  to  avoid  defilement. 
Of  such  perpetual  Nazaritism,  however,  Moses  does  not  at 
all  treat  in  his  laws;  and,  of  course,  does  not  say  whether, 
like  other  vows,  it  could  have  been  redeemed,  had  it  proved 
a  hardship  to  a  son  to  abstain  from  wine  all  his  life.  Ac- 
cording to  the  analogy  of  the  other  laws  of  Moses  on  this 
subject,  it  should  have  been  redeemable. — Michaelis. 

It  frequently  happens  after  the  birth  of  a  son,  that  if 
the  parent  be  in  distress,  or  the  child  sick,  or  that  there  be 
any  other  cause  of  grief,  the  mother  makes  a  vow,  that  no 
razor  shall  come  upon  the  child's  head  for  a  certain  portion 
of  time,  and  sometimes  for  all  his  life.  1  Sam.  i.  II.  If  the 
child  recovers,  and  the  cause  of  grief  be  removed,  and  if 
the  vow  be  but  for  a  time,  so  that  the  mother's  vow  be  ful- 
filled, then  she  shaves  his  head  at  the  end  of  the  time  pre- 
scribed, makes  a  small  entertainment,  collects  money  and 
other  things  from  her  relations  and  fAends,  which  are  sent 
as  Tiezers  (offerings)  to  the  mosque  at  Kerbelah,  and  are 
there  consecrated.    Numbers  vi. — Morier. 

Ver.  12.  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  she  continued 
praying  before  the  Lord,  that  Eli  marked  her 
mouth. 

Hannah,  the  wife  of  Elkanah,  was  steril,  but  she  had  an 
intense  desire  to  be  the  mother  of  a  "  man-child,"  and  she 
went  to  the  "  temple  of  the  Lord"  to  vow,  if  he  would  give 
her  one,  that  she  would  "  give  him  unto  the  Lord  all  the 
days  of  his  life — there  shall  no  razor  come  upon  his  head." 
How  often  do  we  witness  a  similar  scene.  See  the  afflicted 
wife  prostrate  in  the  dust  before  the  temple  of  her  god  :  she 
earnestly  entreats  the  deity  to  give  unto  her  a  "male  child,'* 
"  Ah  !  then  will  my  husband  love  me~then  will  my  neigh- 
bours cease  to  reproach  me — Ah  !  my  god,  a  male  child,  a 
male  child— he  shall  be  called  by  thy  name— and  sacred 
shall  be  his  hair." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  1.  And  Hannah  prayed,  and  said,  My  heart 
rejoiceth  in  the  Lord  ;  my  horn  is  exalted  in 
the  Lord. 

In  this  and  many  other  parts  of  scripture,  mention  is  made 
of  the  exaltation  of  the  horn.  Colonel  Light  thus  describes 
the  dress  of  the  Druses.  "  The  females  of  both  Maronixs 
and  Druses  appear  in  a  coarse  blue  jacket  and  petticoat, 
without  stockings,  their  hair  platted,  hanging  down  in  long 
tails  behind.  On  their  heads  they  wore  a  tin  or  silver  coni- 
cal tube  about  twelve  inches  lorig,  and  perhaps  t-wace  the 
size  of  a  common  post-horn  ;  over  which  was  thrown  a 
white  piece  of  linen,  that  completely  enveloped  their  body, 
and  gives  a  most  singular  and  ghost-like  appearance.  Upon 
Mount  Lebanon  the  wife  of  the  emir  sometimes  made  hex 
appearance  in  the  costume  of  the  country,  adorned  with  a 
golden  horn  on  her  head,  enriched  with"  precious  stones, 
instead  of  the  ordinary  one  of  the  other  women  of  the  coun- 
try."— Burder. 

"One  of  the  most  extraordinary  parts  of  the  attire  of  the 
female  Druses  is  a  silver  horn,  sometimes  studded  with 
jewels,  worn  on  their  heads  in  various  positions,  distin- 
gruishing  their  different  conditions.  A  married  womaij 
has  it  affixed  on  the  right  side  of  the  head,  a  widow  on  i^* 
left,  and  a  virgin  is  pointed  out  by  its  being  placed  on  tbi 
very  crown;  over  this  silver  projection  the  long  veil  t 


156 


1  SAMUEL. 


ChAjP.  4 


thrown,  with  which  they  so  completely  conceal  their 
faces,  as  rarely  to  leave  more  than  one  eye  visible."— 
Macmichel. 

This  woman,  who  was  a  Christian,  wore  on  her  head 
a  hollow  silver  horn,  rearing  itself  upward  obliquely 
from  her  forehead,  being  four  or  five  inches  in  diameter 
at  the  root,  and  pointed  at  its  extreme. — Buckingham. 

About  two  years  ago,  some  of  our  Indian  ships  brought 
over  a  number  of  Sepoys,  who  did  duty  as  marines  on  the 
voyage ;  these  were  newly  clothed  in  England,  and  pre- 
sented to  the  king.  Perhaps  there  were  but  few,  possibly 
not  one,  who,  having  the  opportunity  of  seeing  these  soldiers, 
made  the  same  observations  as  the  writer  of  this  article, 
respecting  the  helmets  worn  on  their  heads.  These  helmets 
appeared  to  be  made  of  stout  leather,  or  other  strong  sub- 
stance ;  they  were  oval  and  nearly  flat,  like  the  trencher 
caps  worn  at  our  universities :  in  the  centre  rose  a  head- 
piece, or  crown,  ornamented  with  feathers,  &c.  and  on  the 
front,  directly  over  the  forehead,  was  a. steel  Horn,  rising  as 
it  were  from  a  short  stem,  and  then  assuming  the  form  of 
one  of  our  extinguishers,  used  to  extinguish  the  light  of  a 
::andle. 

It  appeared,  also,  that  the  comparison  of  such  a  military 
horn  to  the  horn  of  a  reem,  (the  unicorn  of  our  translators,) 
the  rhinoceros,  was  extremely  applicable  :  for  having  seen 
the  great  rhinoceros  at  the  menagerie  at  Versailles,  we  rec- 
ollected the  resemblance  perfectly.  Whether  we  should 
be  justified  in  referring  this  part  of  dress  to  the  military 
only,  may  be  questioned ;  because  Hannah,  for  instance, 
.says,  "  My  horn  is  exalted."  I  Sam.  ii.  1.  But  women,  oc- 
casionally, might  adopt,  as  parts  of  dress,  ornaments  not 
altogether  unlike  this  horn,  even  if  this  form  of  speech  were 
not  derived  originally  from  the  soldiers'  dress,  and  trans- 
ferred to  a  notorious  disposition  of  mind ;  or  to  other  in- 
stances. This  also  diminishes  the  apparent  strangeness 
of  Zedekiah's  conduct,  1  Kings  xxii.  11,  who  made  himself 
HORNS  of  iron,  and  said,  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  With  these" 
military  insignia,  "  shalt  thou  push  the  Syrians  until  thou 
hast  consumed  them."  We  are  apt  to  conceive  of  these 
horns,  as  projecting,  like  bulls'  horns,  on  each  side  of  Zede- 
kiah's head.  How  different  from  the  real  fact !  Zedekiah, 
though  he  pretended  to  be  a  prophet,  did  not  wish  to  be 
thought  mad,  to  which  imputation  such  an  appearance 
would  have  subjected  him :  whereas,  he  only  acted  the 
hero, — the  hero  returning  in  military  triumph :  it  was  little 
more  than  a  flourish  with  a  spontoon.  In  corroboration  of 
this  idea,  let  us  hear  Mr.  Bruce,  who  first  elucidated  this 
subject  by  actual  observation : — 

"  One  thing  remarkable  in  this  cavalcade,  which  I  ob- 
served, was  the  headdress  of  the  governors  of  provinces. 
A  large  broad  fillet  was  bound  upon  their  forehead,  and 
tied  behind  their  head.  In  the  middle  of  this  was  a  horn, 
or  conical  piece  of  silver,  gilt,  about  four  inches  long,  much 
in  the  shape  of  our  common  candle  extinguishers.  This  is 
called  kern  {\'^\>)  or  horn,  and  is  only  worn  in  reviews,  or 
parades  after  victory.  This  I  apprehend,  like  all  other  of 
their  usages,  is  taken  from  the  Hebrews,  and  the  several 
allusions  made  in  scripture  to  it,  arises  from  this  practice  : 
— '  I  said  to  the  wicked.  Lift  not  up  the  horn,'  — '  Lift  not 
up  your  horn  on  high  ;  speak  not  with  a  stiff  neck.'  — '  The 
horn  of  the  righteous  shall  be  exalted  with  honour.'  "—Tay- 
lor in  Calmet. 

Ver.  5.  They  that  were  full  have  hired  out  them- 
selves for  bread. 

A  man  of  high  caste,  or  one  who  was  once  in  affluence, 
will  almost  as  soon  die  as  work  for  food;  and,  generally 
speaking,  such  is  the  pity  felt  for  those  people,  that  there 
are  alvi'ays  some  who  will  give  a  trifle  to  supply  their 
wants.  It  is  a  phrase  indicative  of  great  misery  to  say, 
"  The  once  rich  man  is  now  hiring  himself  out  for  conjee," 
(gruel.) — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  He  raiseth  up  the  poor  out  of  the  dust, 
and  Hfteth  up  the  beggar  from  the  dunghill,  to 
set  them  among  princes,  and  to  make  them  in- 
herit the  throne  of  glory. 

In  preparing  their  victuals,  the  Orientals  are,  from  the 
extreme  scarcity  of  wood  in  many  countries,  reduced  to 
use  cowdung  for  fuel.     At  Aleppo,  the  inhabitants  use 


wood  and  charcoal  in  their  rooms,  but  heat  their  bath? 
with  cowdung,  the  parings  of  fruit,  and  other  things  of  a 
similar  kind,  which  they  employ  people  to  gather  lor  that 
purpose.  In  Egypt,  according  to  Pitts,  the  scarcity  oi 
wood  is  so  great, "that  at  Cairo  they  commonly  heat  iheir 
ovens  with  horse  or  cow  dung,  or  dirt  of  the  streets  ;  what  \ 
wood  they  have,  being  brought  from  the  shores  of  the 
Black  Sea,  and  sold  by  weight.  Chardin  attests  the  same 
fact :  "  The  eastern  people  always  used  cowdung  for  ba- 
king, boiling  a  pot,  and  dressing  all  kinds  of  victuals  that 
are  easily  cooked,  especially  in  countries  that  have  but 
little  wood ;"  and  Dr.  Russel  remarks,  in  a  note,  that  "  the 
Arabs  carefully  collect  the  dung  of  the  sheep  and  camel,  as 
well  as  that  of  the  cow;  and  that  the  dung,  offals,  and  other 
matters  used  in  the  bagnios,  after  having  been  new  gather- 
ed in  the  streets,  are  carried  out  of  the  city,  and  laid  in 
great  heaps  to  dry,  where  they  become  very  offensive. 
They  are  intolerably  disagreeable,  while  drying,  in  the 
town  adjoining  to  the  bagnios ;  and  are  so  at  all  times  when 
it  rains,  though  they  be  stacked,  pressed  hard  together,  and 
thatched  at  top."  These  statements  exhibit,  in  a  very  strong 
light,  the  extreme  misery  of  the  Jews,  who  escaped  from 
the  devouring  sword  of  Nebuchadnezzar :  "  They  that 
fed  delicately,  are  desolate  in  the  streets ;  they  that  were 
brought  up  in  scarlet,  embrace  dunghills."  To  embrace 
dunghills,  is  a  species  of  wretchedness,  perhaps  unknown 
to  us  in  the  history  of  modern  warfare ;  but  it  presents  a 
dreadful  and  appalling  image,  when  the  circumstances  to 
which  it  alludes  are  recollected.  What  can  be  imagined 
more  distressing  to  those  who  lived  delicately,  than  to  wan- 
der without  food  in  the  streets^  What  more  disgusting 
and  terrible  to  those  who  had  been  clothed  in  rich  and  splen- 
did garments,  than  to  be  forced  by  the  destruction  of  their 
palaces,  to  seek  shelter  among  stacks  of  dung,  the  filth  and 
stench  of  which  it  is  almost  impossible  to  endure.  The 
dunghill,  it  appears  from  holy  writ,  is  one  of  the  common 
retreats  of  the  mendicant,  which  imparts  an  exquisite  force 
and  beauty  to  a  passage  in  the  song  of  Hannah :  "  He 
raiseth  up  the  poor  out  of  the  dust,  and  lifleth  the  beggar 
from  the  dunghill,  to  set  them  among  princes,  and  to  make 
them  inherit  the  throne  of  glory."  The  change  in  the  cir- 
cumstances of  that  excellent  woman,  she  reckoned  as  great, 
(and  it  was  to  her  not  less  unexpected,)  as  the  elevation  of 
a  poor  despised  beggar,  from  a  nauseous  and  polluting 
dunghill,  rendered  ten  times  more  foetid  by  the  intense  heat 
of  an  oriental  sun,  to  one  of  the  highest  and  most  splendid 
stations  on  earth. — Paxton. 

Ver.  24.  Nay,  my  sons ;  for  yt  is  no  good  report 
that  I  hear:  ye  make  the  Lord's  people  to 
transgress. 

This  affectionate  form  of  speech  may  be  heard  in  the 
mouth  of  every  father.  Thus,  it  is  not  common  to  mention 
the  name,  but  my  eldest,  my  youngest  son,  (or  some  other 
epithet  to  designate  the  one  he  wants.)  "  My  sons,  listen  to 
the  voice  of  your  father."  In  passing  through  a  village,  a 
man  or  woman  maybe  heard  in  every  corner  bawling  out, 
"  Maganea,"  i.  e.  O  son,  or  "  Magalea,"  O  daughter,  "  come 
hither ;  I  want  you." — Roberts. 

Ver.  31.  Behold,  the  days  come  that  I  will  cut 
off  thine  arm,  and  the  arm  of  thy  father's 
house,  that  there  shall  not  be  an  old  man  in  thy 
house. 

People,  in  cursing  each  other,  say,  "  In  thy  family  may 
there  never  be  an  old  man,"  meaning,  may  all  die  in  youth. 
"  Alas!  alas  !  there  has  not  been  an  old  man  in  that  family 
for  many  generations." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  12.  And  there  ran  a  man  of  Benjamin  out 
of  the  army,  and  came  to  Shiloh  the  same  day, 
with  his  clothes  rent,  and  with  earth  upon  his 
head. 

He  indulged  his  grief  to  a  violent  degree,  beating  his 
breast,  and,  among  his  other  exclamations,  frequently  mnde 
use  of  one,  very  illustrative  of  that  ancient  act  of  grie* 


Chap.  4 — 7. 


1    SAMUEL. 


157 


heaping  ashes  on  the  /lead.  He  said,  Ahi  cheh  hak  be  ser-e- 
mun  amed,  What  earth  has  come  on  my  head  1  repeating 
this  with  a  constant  intermixture  of  Ah,  wahi,  which  he 
would  continue  to  repeat  for  above  fifty  limes,  in  a  whining 
piteous  voice,  lowering  its  tone  till  it  became  scarcely  audi- 
ble, and  then  continuing  it  solo  voce,  until  he  broke  out 
again  into  a  new  exclamation. — Morier. 

Ver.  13.  And  when  he  came,  lo,  Eli  sat  upon  a 
seat  by  the  wayside  watching:  for  his  heart 
trembled  for  the  ark  of  God.  And  when  the 
man  came  into  the  city,  and  told  it,  all  the  city 
cried  out. 

Sitting  on  a  cushion  is,  with  the  Orientels,  an  expression 
of  honour,  and  the  preparing  a  seat  for  a  person  of  distinc- 
tion seems  to  mean,  laying  things  of  this  kind  on  a  place 
where  such  a  one  is  to  sit.  "  It  is  the  custom  of  Asia,^'  Sir 
J.  Chardin  informs  us,  "  for  persons  in  common  not  to  go 
into  the  shops  of  that  country,  which  are  mostly  small,  but 
there  are  wooden  seats,  on  the  outside,  where  people  sit 
down,  and  if  it  happens  to  be  a  man  of  quality,  they  lay  a 
cushion  there."  He  also  informs  us,  "  that  people  of  qual- 
ity cause  carpets  and  cushions  to  be  carried  everywhere, 
that  they  like,  in  order  to  repose  themselves  upon  them 
more  agreeably."  When  Job  speaks  of  his  preparing  his 
seat,  ch.  xxix.  7,  it  is  extremely  natural  to  understand  him 
of  his  sending  his  servants,  to  lay  a  cushion  and  a  car- 
pet on  one  of  the  public  seats  there,  or  something  of  that 
sort,  as  Sir  John  supposes ;  but  I  do  not  imagine  a  seat  in 
the  street,  means  a  seat  by  a  shop.  Job  is  speaking  evi- 
dently of  his  sitting  there  as  a  ruler  among  his  people. 
Eli's  seat  by  the  wayside,  was  a  seat  adorned,  we  may 
believe,  after  the  same  manner.  He  did  not  sit  in  a  man- 
ner unbecoming  so  dignified  a  personage. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  4.  Then  said  they,  What  shall  he  the  tres- 
pass-offering which  we  shall  return  to  him  ? 
They  answered,  Five  golden  emerods,  and  five 
golden  mice,  according  to  the  number  of  the 
lords  of  the  Philistines  :  for  one  plague  was  on 
you  all,  and  on  your  lords.  5.  Wherefore  ye 
shall  make  images  of  your  emerods,  and  images 
of  your  mice  that  mar  the  land  ;  and  ye  shall 
give  glory  unto  the  God  of  Israel :  peradven- 
ture  he  will  lighten  his  hand  from  off  you, 
and  from  off  your  gods,  and  from  off  your  land. 

This  animal  (the  mouse)  is  so  very  diminutive,  that  the 
Jewish  naturalist  places  it  among  the  reptiles,  refusing  it 
the  honour  of  appearing  among  the  quadrupeds.  But, 
small  and  apparently  insignificant  as  it  is,  in  the  oriental 
regions  it  often  produces  greater  calamities  than  are  expe- 
rienced from  all  the  beasts  of  prey  with  which  they  are  in- 
fested. Formidable  by  its  activity,  its  voraciousness,  and 
its  countless  numbers,  it  lays  waste  the  fields  of  Palestine 
and  Syria,  devours  their  harvests,  and  spreads  famine  and 
wretchedness  among  the  helpless  inhabitants.  The  extent 
and  severity  ofthe  distress  in  which  its  ravages  frequently  in- 
volve the  people  of  those  countries,  are  sufliciently  attested 
by  the  offering  of  five  golden  mice,  from  the  lords  of  the 
Philistines,  to  appease  the  wrath  of  God,  and  a  vert  the  plague 
under  which  they  had  so  greatly  suffered.  The  account  of 
this  transaction  is  recorded  in  the  first  book  of  Samuel,  and 
runs  in  these  terms :  "  Then  said  they,  what  shall  be  the 
trespass-offering  which  we  shall  return  to  him  1  They  an- 
swered, Five  golden  emerods,  and  five  golden  mice,  accord- 
ing to  the  number  of  the  lords  of  the  Philistines :  for  one 
plague  was  on  you  all,  and  on  your  lords.  Wherefore  ye 
shall  make  images  of  your  emerods,  and  of  your  mice  that 
martheland;  and  ye  shall  give  gloryuntothe  God  of  Israel: 
perad  venture  he  will  lighten  his  hand  from  off  you,  and  from 
off  your  gods,  and  from  off  your  land."  These  words  un- 
doubtedly intimate,  that  Palestine  was  very  often  visited  by 
this  scourge,  and  that  the  sufferings  of  its  inhabitants  were 
very  severe,  Thedevastationsof  thislittle  destructive  crea- 
ture were  so  frequent,  so  extensive,  and  followed  by  con- 
sequences so  dreadful,  that  even  the  unenlightened  Philis- 


tines considered  them  as  an  immediate  judgment  from  God 
himself.  But  this  terrible  scourge  was  not  peculiar  to  Pal- 
estine: Strabo  mentions  that  so  vast  a  multitude  of  mice 
sometimes  invaded  Spain,  as  to  produce  a  destructive  pesti- 
lence ;  and  in  Cantabria,  the  Romans,  by  setting  a  price 
on  a  certain  measure  of  these  animals,  escaped  With  diffi- 
culty from  the  same  calamity.  In  other  parts  of  Italy,  the 
number  of  field-mice  was  so"  great,  that  some  ofthe  inhab- 
itants were  forced  to  leave  the  country.  In  Thrace,  the 
frogs  and  mice  sometimes  united  their  hordes,  and  com- 
pelled the  inhabitants  to  seek  new  settlements.  In  modern 
times,  instances  of  the  same  calamity  are  not  wanting. 
About  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  innumerable 
swarms  of  locusts  and  mice,  during  four  successive  years, 
so  completely  ravaged  that  country,  as  to  produce  almost 
a  total  failure  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  So  great  and 
general  was  the  distress  of  the  people,  that  a  kind  of  peni- 
tential council  was  held  at  Naplouse,  in  the  year  1120,  for 
the  reformation  of  manners,  and  to  invoke  the  mercy  of 
the  Almighty,  who  had  been  provoked  by  their  sins  to  in- 
flict upon  them  such  terrible  judgments. — Paxton. 

Ver.  5.  Wherefore  ye  shall  make  images  of  your 
emerods,  and  images  of  your  mice  that  mar  the 
land ;  and  ye  shall  give  glory  unto  the  God  of 
Israel. 

This  command  was  given  by  the  heathen  priests  and  di- 
viners to  the  Philistines,  who  were  smitten  with  emerods, 
and  whose  land  was  nearly  destroyed  by  the  mice.  It  is  a 
remarkable  fact,  that  when  the  Hindoos  ar^  afllicted  in  any 
particular  member,  (or  in  the  person  generally,)  they  make 
an  image  to  represent  the  afflicted  part,  and  send  it  to  the 
temple  of  Kanda  Swamy,  the  Scandan  of  Bengal,  in  order 
to  get  relieved  from  their  trouble.  The  temple  of  Kattara- 
gam  (sacred  ■  to  Scandan)  is  famous,  in  all  parts  of  the 
East,  for  the  cures  which  have  been  performed  by  the  deity 
there.  Hence  may  be  seen  pilgrims  at  its  shrine,  suffering 
under  every  kind  of  disease,  "who  have  walked,  or  have 
been  carried,  from  an  immense  distance.  The  images 
presented  are  generally  made  of  silver,  and  I  have  seven 
of  them  in  my  possession,  which  are  offerings  in  the 
famous  temple  already  mentioned.  The  first  represents  a 
boy  with  a  very  large  belly,  which  has  probably  been  pre- 
sented by  the  parents  for'their  child  labouring  undei  that 
(very  common)  complaint.  The  second  is  that  of  an  in- 
fant, probably  sent  by  a  mother  who  had  a  sick  infant,  or 
who,  being  herself  in  a  state  of  pregnancy,  had  some  fears 
respecting  the  future.  The  third  is,  I  suppose,  intended 
to  represent  an  old  man,  who  may  have  made  a  vow  in  his 
sickness,  that  he  would  present  an  image  of  silver  to  the 
temple,  should  he  recover. — Roberts.    {See  Engraving.^ 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  5,  And  Samuel  said,  Gather  all  Israel  to 
Mizpeh,  and  I  will  pray  for  you  unto  the  Lord. 

Aware  ofthe  dangers  and  calamities  of  war,  ancient  Is- 
rael were  accustomed  to  perform  very  solemn  devotions 
before  they  took  the  field:  and  it  would  seem,  they  had 
certain  places  particularly  appropriated  to  this  purpose. 
Samuel  convened  the  people  to  Mizpeh,  in  order  to  pre- 
pare, by  a  solemn  address  to  the  throne  of  Jehovah,  for  the 
war  which  they  meditated  against  the  Philistines.  "  And 
Samuel  said.  Gather  all  Israel  to  Mizpeh,  and  I  will  pray 
for  you  unto  the  Lord."  At  other  times,  they  asked  coun- 
sel of  God  by  the  Urim  and  Thummim,  or  by  a  prophet  of 
the  Lord.  Such  a  custom  was  common  in  Eg\'pt,  when 
Pococke  visited  that  country.  Near  Cairo,  says  that  trav- 
eller, beyond  the  mosque  of  Sheik  Duisse,  and  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  a  burial-place  ofthe  sons  of  some  pashas,  on  a 
hill,  is  a  solid  building  of  stone  about  three  feet  wide,  built 
with  ten  steps,  being  at  the  top  about  three  feet  square,  on 
which  the  sheik  mounts  to  pray  on  an  extraordinary  oc- 
casion, as  when  all  the  people  go  out  at  the  beginning  of  a 
war;  and  also  when  the  Nile  does  not  rise  as  they  expect  it 
should ;  and  such  a  place,  they  have  without  ail  the  towns 
of  Turkey. — Paxton. 

Ver.  6.  And  they  gathered  together  to  Mizpeh, 
and  drew  water,  and  poured  it  out  before  the 


158' 


1   SAMUEL. 


Chap.  7— -9. 


Lord,  and  fasted  on  that  da5^  and  said  there, 
We  have  sinned  against  the  Lord. 

Samuel  had  been  reproving  the  people  for  their  sins,  and 
exhorting  them  to  repent,  and  come  to  Mizpeh  to  fast  and 
pray,  and  confess  their  sins.  They  complied  with  his  di- 
rections, and  in  confirmation  of  the  solemn  vows,  they 
poured  out  water  before  the  Lord,  to  show  that  their  words 
and  promises  had  gone  forth,  and  were  "  as  water  spilt  on 
the  ground,  which  cannot  be  gathered  up  again."  To  pour 
water  on  the  ground  is  a  very  ancient  way  of  taking  a 
solemri,  oath  in  the  East.  When  the  god  Vishnoo,  in  the 
disguise  of  a  dwarf,  requested  the  giant  Maha-Ville  (Bali) 
to  grant  him  one  step  of  his  kingdom,  the  favour  was  con- 
ceded, and  CONFIRMED  by  Maha-Ville  pouring  out  water 
before  the  dwarf.  But  in  that  ancient  work,  "the  Scanda 
Purcina,  where  the  account  is  given  of  the  marriage  of  the 
god  Siva  with  Parvati,  it  is  said  of  the  father,  "  He  placed 
the  hand  of  the  goddess  Parvati,  genitress  of  the  world,  in 
the  hand  of  Parama  Easuran,  (Siva,)  and,  pouring  out  the 
WATER,  said,  '  I  give  her  with  a  joyful  heart.' "  This,  there- 
fore, was  also  done  in  confirmation  of  the  compact.  The 
children  of  Israel,, in  their  misery,  came  before  the  Lord  : 
they  wept,  they  fasted,  and  prayed,  and  made  their  solemn 
vows ;  and,  in  confirmation  of  their  promises,  they  "poured 
out  water  before  the  Lord ! " — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Ver.  6.  But  the  thing  displeased  Samuel,  when 
they  said,  Give  us  a  king  to  judge  us.  And 
Samuel  prayed  unto  the  Lord. 

Hebrew,  "  was  evil  in  the  eyes  of  Samuel."  When  any 
thing  gives  displeasure  to  another,  it  is  said  to  be  evil  in  his 
eyes.  "  This  thing  is  evil  in  his  sight."  "  Alas  !  my  lord, 
I  am  evil  in  your  sight !" — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  7.  Then  said  Saul  to  his  servant,  but,  behold, 

if  we  go,  what  shall  we  bring  the  man  ?  for 

the  bread  is  spent  in  our  vessels,  and  there  is 

not  a  present  to  bring  to  the  man  of  God :  what 

^         have  we? 

In  no  quarter  of  the  world,  is  the  difference  of  ranks  in 
society  maintained  with  more  scrupulous  exactness  than 
in  Asia.  The  intercourse  among  the  various  classes  of 
mankind,  which  originate  in  the  unequal  distributions  of 
creating  wisdom,  or  providential  arrangement,  is  regulated 
by  laws,,  which,  like  those  of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  suf- 
fer almost  no  change  from  the  lapse  of  time,  or  the  fluc- 
tuation of  human  affairs.  To  these  laws,  which  have  ex- 
tended their  influence  far  beyond  the  limits  of  the  East,  the 
sacred  writers  make  frequent  allusions.  No  mark  of  es- 
teem is  more  common  through  all  the  oriental  regions, 
none  more  imperiously  required  by  the  rules  of  good  breed- 
ing, than  a  present.  WheA  Mr.  Maundrell  and  his  party 
waited  upon  Ostan,  the  basha  of  Tripoli,  he  was  obliged 
to  send  his  present  before  him  to  secure  a  favourable  re- 
ception. It  is  even  reckoned  uncivil  in  that  country,  to 
make  a  visit  without  an  offering  in  the  hand.  The  no- 
bility, and  officers  of  government,  expect  it  as  a  kind  of  trib- 
ute due  to  their  character  and  authority ;  and  look  upon 
themselves  as  affronted,  and  even  defrauded,  when  this 
compliment  is  omitted.  So  common  is  the  custom,  that  in 
familiar  intercourse  among  persons  of  inferior  station,  they 
seldom  neglect  to  bring  a  flower,  an  orange,  a  few  dates  or 
.•A±.snes,  or  some  such  token  of  respect,  to  the  person  whom 
they  visit.  In  Egypt  the  custom  is  equally  prevalent :  the 
visits  of  that  people,  which  are  very  frequent  in  the  course 
of  the  year,  are  always  preceded  by  presents  of  various 
kinds,  according  to  their  station  and  property.  So  essential 
to  human  and  civil  intercourse  are  presents  considered  in 
the  East,  that,  says  Mr.  Bruce,  "  whether  it  be  dates  or 
diamonds,  they  are  so  much  a  part  of  their  manners,  that 
without  them  an  inferior  will  never  be  at  peace  in  his  own 
.nind,  or  think  that  he  has  a  hold  of  his  superior  for  his 
favour  or  protection."  Sir  John  Chardin  affirms,  that  "the 
custom  of  making  presents  to  the  great,  was  universal  in 
the  East ;  and  that  every  thing  is  received  even  by  the  great 


lords  of  the  country,  fruit,  pullets,  a  lamb.  Every  one  gives 
what  is  most  at  hand,  and  has  a  relation  to  his  profession ; 
and  those  who  have  no  particular  profession,  give  money. 
As  it  is  accounted  an  honour  to  receive  presents  of  this 
sort,  they  receive  them  in  public ;  and  even  choose  to  do  it 
when  they  have  most  company."  "  Throughout  the  East," 
says  Du  Tott,  '■  gifts  are  always  the  mark  of  honour." 
This  custom  is,  perhaps,  one  of  the  most  ancient  in  the 
world.  Solomon  evidently  alludes  to  it  in  that  proverb: 
"  A  man's  gift  maketh  room  for  him,  and  bringeth  him 
before  great  men."  We  recognise  it  in  the  reply  of  Saul 
to  his  servant,  when  he  proposed  to  consult  the  prophet 
Samuel  about  the  object  of  their  journey:  "  If  we  go,  what 
shall  we  bring  the  man  of  God  1  for  the  bread  is  spent  in 
our  vessels,  and  there  is  not  a  present  to  bring  to  the  man 
of  God.  What  have  we  V  Saul  was  inclined  at  first  to 
offer  the  seer,  who  was  at  the  same  time  the  chief  magis- 
trate in  Israel,  a  piece  of  bread,  till  he  recollected  it  was 
all  spent,  and  then  agreed  to  present  him  with  "  the  fourth 
part  of  a  shekel  of  silver,"  in  value  about  a  sixpence.  It 
could  not  then  be  their  design,  by  offering  such  a  trifle,  to 
purchase  his  services,  but  merely  to  show  him  that  custom- 
ary mark  of  respect  to  which  he  was  entitled.  Nor  were 
the  prophets  of  the  Lord  a  set  of  mercenary  pretenders  to 
the  knowledge  of  future  events,  who  sold  their  services  to 
the  anxious  mquirer  for  a  large  reward.  Had  they  refused 
to  accept  of  such  presents,  they  would  have  been  guilty  of 
transgressing  an  established  rule  of  good  manners,  and  of 
insulting  the  persons  by  whom  they  were  offered.  When 
Elisha  refused,  with  an  oath,  to  accept  of  the  present  which 
Naaman  the  Syrian  urged  him  to  receive,  it  was  not  be- 
cause he  thought  it  either  unlawful  or  improper  to  receive 
a  gift,  for  he  did  not  hesitate  to  accept  of  presents  from  his 
owti  people  ;  nor  was  the  prophet  regardless  of  an  estab- 
lished custom,  which  offended  no  precept  of  the  divine 
law,  or  disposed  to  wound,  without  necessity,  the  feelings 
of  the  Syrian  grandee  ;  but  because  he  would  not  put  it  in 
the  power  of  Naaman  to  say  he  had  enriched  the  prophet 
of  Jehovah ;  and  by  this  act  of  self-denial,  it  is  probable  he 
was  desirous  of  recommending  the  character  and  service 
of  the  true  God  to  that  illustrious  stranger. — Paxton. 

Such  as  are  prejudiced  against  the  sacred  history,  and 
unacquainted  with  eastern  customs,  may  be  ready,  from 
the  donations  to  the  prophets,  to  imagine  they  were  a  mer- 
cenary set  of  people,  and  rudely  to  rank  them  with  cunning 
men  and  fortunetellers,  who  will  not  from  principles  of 
benevolence  reveal  those  secrets,  or  foretel  those  future 
events,  of  the  knowledge  of  which  they  are  supposed  to  be  ■ 
possessed  ;  but  demand  of  the  anxious  inquirer  a  large  re- 
ward. This,  however,  will  make  impressions  on  none  but 
those  who  know  not  the  oriental  usages,  which  Maundrell 
long  since  applied,  with  such  clearness  and  force,  to  one 
of  the  most  exceptionable  passages  of  the  Old  Testament,, 
that  he  has  sufficiently  satisfied  the  mind  upon  this  point. 
As  he  has  expressly  applied  it  to  a  passage  of  scripture,  it 
would  not  have  been  agreeable  to  my  design  to  have  men- 
tioned this  circumstance,  had  I  not  had  some  additional 
remarks  to  make  upon  this  head,  which  possibly  may  not 
be  ungrateful  to  the  curious  reader,  and  which  therefore  1 
shall  here  set  down.  I  suppose  my  reader  acquainted  with 
Maundrell ;  but  it  will  be  proper,  Yor  the  sake  of  perspicu- 
ity, first  to  recite  at  full  length  that  passage  in  him  I  refer  t  ■). 

"  Thursday,  March  11.  This  day  we  all  dined  at  Con- 
sul Hastings's  house ;  and  al\er  dinner  went  to  wait  upon 
Ostan,  the  basha  of  Tripoli,  having  first  sent  our  present, 
as  the  manner  is  among  the  Turks,  to  procure  a  propitious 
reception.  It  is  counted  uncivil  to  visit  in  this  country 
withc^ut  an  ofl^ering  in  hand.  All  great  men  expect  it  as  a 
kind  of  tribute  due  to  their  character  and  authority;  and 
look  upon  themselves  as  affronted,  and  indeed  defrauded, 
when  this  compliment  is  omitted.  Even  in  familiar  visits, 
among  inferior  people,  you  shall  seldom  have  them  come 
without  bringing  a  flower,  or  an  orange,  or  some  other  such 
token  of  their  respect  to  the  person  visited :  the  Turks  in 
this  point  keeping  up  the  ancient  oriental  customs  hinted 
1  Sam.  ix.  7.  If  we  go,  says  Saul,  what  shall  we  bring  th€ 
man  of  GodI  there  is  not  a  present,  &c.  which  words  are 
questionless  to  be  understood  in  conformity  to  this  eastern 
custom,  as  relating  to  a  token  of  respect,  arid  not  a  price  of 
divination." 

Maundrell  does  not  tell  us  what  the  present  was  which 
they  made  Ostan.    It  will  be  more  entirely  satisfying  to 


Chap.  9. 


1    SAMUEL. 


159 


the  mind  to  observe,  that  in  the  East  they  not  only  univer- 
sally send  before  them  a  present,  or  carry  one  with  them, 
especially  when  they  visit  superiors,  either  civil  or  ecclesi- 
astical ;  but  that  this  present  is  frequently  a  piece  of  money, 
and  that  of  no  very  great  value.  So  Dr.  Pococke  tells  us, 
that  he  presented  an  Arab  sheik  of  an  illustrious  descent, 
on  whom  he  waited,  and  who  attended  him  to  the  ancient 
Hierapolis,  with  a  piece  of  money,  which  he  was  told  he 
expecLed  ;  and  that  in  Egypt  an  aga  being  dissatisfied  with 
the  present  he  made  him,  he  sent  for  the  doctor's  servant, 
and  told  him,  that  he  ought  to  have  given  him  a  piece  of 
cloth,  and,  if  he  had  none,  two  sequins,  worth  about  a  guinea, 
must  be  brought  to  him,  otherwise  he  should  see  him  no 
more,  with  which  demand  he  complied.  In  one  case  a 
j)iece  of  money  was  expected,  in  the  other  two  sequins  de- 
manded. A  trifling  present  of  money  to  a  person  of  dis- 
tinction among  us  would  be  an  affront ;  it  is  not  however, 
it  seems,  in  the  East.  Agreeably  to  these  accounts  of 
Pococke,  we  are  told  in  the  travels  of  Egmont  and  Heyman, 
that  the  well  of  Joseph  in  the  castle  of  Cairo  is  not  to  be 
seen  without  leave  from  the  commandant ;  which  having 
obtained,  they,  in  return,  presented  him  with  a  sequin. 
These  instances  are  curious  exemplifications  of  Mr.  Maun- 
drell's  account  of  the  nature  of  some  of  the  eastern  presents, 
and  ought  by  no  means  to  be  omitted  in  collections  of  the 
kind  1  am  now  making.  How  much  happier  was  the  cul- 
tivation of  Mr.  Maundrell's  genius  than  of  St.  Jerome's ! 
Though  this  father  lived  so  many  years  in  the  East,  and 
might  have  advantageously  applied  the  remains  of  their 
ancient  customs  to  the  elucidation  of  scripture,  to  which, 
if  he  was  a  stranger,  he  must  have  been  an  egregiously 
negligent  observer ;  yet  we  find  him,  in  his  comment  on 
Micah  iii.  11,  roundly  declaring,  that  by  a  prophet's  re- 
ceiving money,  his  prophesying  became  divination.  And 
when  he  afterward  mentions  this  case  of  Saul's  application 
to  Samuel,  as  what  he  fojresaw  might  be  objected  to  him, 
he  endeavours  to  avoid  'the  difficulty,  by  saying,  We  do 
not  find  that  Samuel  accepted  it,  or  that  they  even  ventured 
to  offer  it ;  or  if  it  must  be  supposed  that  he  received  it,  that  it 
was  rather  to  be  considered  as  money  presented  to  the  taber- 
nacle, than  the  reward  of  prophesying.  How  embarrassed 
was  the  saint  by  a  circumstance  capable  of  the  most  clear 
explanation  !  Fond  of  allegorizing,  he  neglected  the  surest 
methods  of  interpretation,  for  which  he  had  peculiar  ad- 
vantages ;  how  different  are  the  rewards  of  divination, 
which  were  to  be  earned,  from  the  unconditional  presents 
that  were  made  to  persons  of  figure  upon  being  introduced 
into  their  presence !  Before  I  quit  this  observation,  I  can- 
not forbear  remarking,  that  there  are  other  things  present- 
ed in  the  East,  besides  money,  which  appear  to  us  extremely 
low  and  mean,  unworthy  the  quality  of  those  that  ofi'er 
them,  or  of  those  to  whom  they  are  presented ;  and  conse- 
quently that  we  must  be  extremely  unqualified  to  judge  of 
these  oriental  compliments.  In  what  light  might  a  Euro- 
pean wit  place  the  present  of  a  governor  of  an  Egyptian 
village,  who  sent  to  a  British  consul  fifty  eggs  as  a  mark 
of  respect,  and  that  in  a  country  wherethey  are  so  cheap  as 
to  be  sold  at  the  rate  of  ten  for  a  penny  ? — Harmer. 

A  present  always  precedes  the  man  who  is  to  ask  a  fa- 
vour. Those  who  come  on  a  complimentary  visit,  or  to 
ask  a  favour,  always  present  a  lime,  or  a  nosegay,  with  a 
graceful  bow,  to  propitiate  their  benefactor. — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  Now  the  Lord  had  told  Samuel  in  his 


The  priests  have  a  remarkable  custom  of  whispering 

something  in  the  ear  of  those  who  are  to  be  initiated. 

When  a  boy  has  reached  the  age  of  eight,  he  is  eligible  to 

have  the  IJhatheasum  whispered  in  his  right  ear.     The 

I  communication  is  generally  made  in  the  Grandam  lan- 

!   guage,  which,  of  course,  is  not  understood:  they  do,  how- 

I   ever,  sometimes  speak  in  familiar  speech ;  but  it  will  never 

I  be  repeated,  for  the  priest  assures  him,  should  he  do  this, 

j   his  head  will  split  in  two.     This  ceremony  is  believed  to 

j   have  the  power  of  a  charm,  and  to  possess  talismanic  in- 

I   fluence.    It  is  sometimes  very  expensive,  but  the  benefits 

are  believed  to  be  so  great  as  to  warrant  the  expense. — 

Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  And  Samuel  said  unto  the  cook,  Bring- 
the  portion  which  I  gave  thee,  of  which  I  said 


unto  thee,  S^.  t  it  by  ih^e.  24.  And  the  cook 
took  up  the  sJi0!J;dr".  and  that  which  was  upon 
it,  and  set  it  be:bro  Saul.  And  Samuel  said, 
Behold  that  which  is  left !  set  it  before  thee, 
and  eat :  for  unto  this  time  hath  it  been  kept 
for  thee,  since  I  said,  1  have  invited  the  people. 
So  Saul  did  eat  with  Samuel  that  day. 

The  shoulder  of  a  lamb  well  roasted,  and  covered  with 
butter  and  milk,  is  another  d?  \cacy,  which  the  oriental 
greatly  value.  This  explains  the  reason  why  Samuel  or- 
dered it  to  oe  set  before  his  future  sovereign,  as  well  as 
what  that  was  which  was  upon  it,  the  butter  and  milk  of 
which  the  sacred  historian  takes  so  particular  notice. — 
This  was  by  no  means  a  contemptible  dish  for  a  royal  enter- 
tainment, as  some  have  alleged;  but  on  the  contrary,  one 
of  the  most  delicious  which  could  be  set  before  the  future 
anointed  of  Jehovah.  It  appears  from  the  accounts  of 
travellers,  that  lamb  is,  in  those  parts  of  the  world,  ex- 
tremely delicate.  One,  says  Chardin,  must  have  eaten  of 
it  in  several  places  of  Persia,  Media,  and  Mesopotamia, 
and  of  their  kids,  to  form  a  conception  of  the  moisture, 
taste,  delicacy,  and  fat  of  this  animal;  and  as  the  eastern 
people  are  no  friends  of  game,  nor  of  fish,  nor  fowls,  their 
most  delicate  food  is  the  lamb  and  the  kid.  It  is  therefore 
not  without  reason,  the  sacred  writers  often  speak  of  the 
lamb  and  the  kid,  as  the  most  agreeable  food  in  those 
countries ;  and  that  the  holy  Psalmist  celebrates  the  bless- 
ings of  salva'ion,  and  particularly  the  spiritual  comforts  of 
the  heaven-born  soul,  under  the  figure  of  "  marrow  and 
fatness." — Paxton. 

Ver,  25.  And  when  they  were  come  down  from 
the  high  place  into  the  city,  Samuel  communed 
with  Saul  upon  the  top  of  the  house.  26.  And 
they  arose  early :  and  it  came  to  pass,  about 
the  spring  of  the  day,  that  Samuel  called  Saul 
to  the  top  of  the  house,  saying,  Up,  that  I  may 
send  thee  away.  And  Saul  arose,  and  they 
went  out  both  of  them,  he  and  Samuel,  abroad. 

Egmont  and  He5rman  tell  us,  that  at  Caipha,  at  the  foot 
of  Mount  Carmel,  "  the  houses  are  small  and  flat-roofed, 
where,  during  the  summer,  the  inhabitants  sleep  in  arbours 
made  of  the  boughs  of  trees."  They  mention  also  tents  of 
rushes  on  the  flat  roofs  of  the  houses  at  Tiberias,  which 
are  doubtless  for  the  same  purpose,  though  they  do  not  say 
so.  Dr.  Pococke  in  like  manner  tells  us,  "that  when  he 
was  at  Tiberias  in  Galilee,  he  was  entertained  by  the 
sheik's  steward,  the  sheik  himself  having  much  company 
with  him,  but  sending  him  provisions  from  his  own  kitch- 
en, and  that  they  supped  on  the  top  of  the  house  for  cool- 
ness, according  to  their  custom,  and  lodged  there  likewise, 
in  a  sort  of  closet,  about  eight  feet  square,  of  a  wicker-work, 
plastered  round  towards  the  bottom,  but  without  any  door, 
each  person  having  his  cell."  In  Galilee  then  we  find  they 
lodged  a  stranger,  whom  they  treated  with  respect,  on  the 
top  of  the  house,  and  even  caused  him  to  sup  there.  Thi"^ 
was  the  latter  end  of  May.  This  writer  is  more  distinct 
than  the  others  on  this  point,  and  I  have  recited  his  ac- 
count at  large,  because  it  may  perhaps  lead  to  the  true  ex- 
planation of  1  Sam.  ix.  25,  26,  which  verses  tell  us,  that 
after  they  descended  from  the  high  place,  Samuel  con- 
versed with  Saul  (ijn  Vj?  til  haggag)  on  the  house-top;  and 
that  at  the  spring  of  the  day  Samuel  called  Saul  to  the 
housetop ;  or,  as  it  may  be  equally  well  translated,  on  the 
housetop;  that  is,  Samuel  conversed  with  him  for  coolness 
on  the  housetop  in  the  evening,  and  in  the  mornirg  called 
Saul,  who  had  lodged  there  all  night,  and  was  not  got  up, 
saying.  Up.,  that  1  may  send  thee  away.  The  Septuagini 
seem  to  have  understood  it  very  much  in  this  light,  for  they 
thus  translate  the  passage,  And.  they  spread  a  bed  for  Saul 
on  the  housetop^  and  he  slept ;  which  shov/s  how  suitable  this 
explanation  is  to  those  that  are  acquainted  with  eastern 
customs.  As  it  is  represented  in  our  translation,  Samuel 
called  Saul  to  the  housetop  in  the  morning;  but  no  account 
can  be  easily  given  for  this ;  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
for  secrecy,  for  he  did  not  anoint  then,  but  after  he  had  lefll 
Samuel's  house,  for  which  transaction  the  prophet  ex- 


160 


1   SAMUEL. 


Chap.  10—14; 


pressly  required  secrecy,  "  As  they  were  going  down  to 
the  end  of  the  city,  Samuel  said  to  Saul,  bid  the  servant 
pass  on  before  us,  and  he  passed  on,  but  stand  thou  still 
awhile,  that  I  may  show  thee  the  word  of  God."  This 
sleeping  on  the  terraces  of  their  houses  is  only  in  summer- 
time. By  this  then  we  may  determine,  in  the  general,  that 
this  secret  inauguration  of  Saul»was  in  that  part  of  the  year. 
Dr.  Shaw  has  cited  this  passage  concerning  Samuel  and 
Saul,  when  mentioning  the  various  uses  to  which  the  peo- 
ple of  the  East  put  the  flat  roofs  of  their  houses,  though 
without  explaining  it;  but  he  has  not  mentioned,  among  the 
other  scriptures,  that  relating  to  Nebuchadnezzar,  who  is 
described  by  the  prophet  as  Avalking  on  the  roof  of  his 
palace,  and  taking  a  view  of  Babylon,  when  he  fell,  upon 
surveying  that  mighty  city,  into  that  haughty  soliloquy 
which  brought  after  it  a  dreadful  humiliation.  This  is  rhe 
more  to  be  regretted,  because  though  many  have,  all  have 
not  considered  the  passage  in  this  light.  Our  own  translation 
in  particular  has  not,  but  renders  the  words,  "  He  walked  in 
the  palace  of  the  kingdom  of  Babylon,"  Dan.  iv.  29,  and 
has  thrown  the  other  reading  ''upon  the  palace,"  into  the 
margin,  as  less  preferable.  But  to  those  that  are  acquaint- 
ed with  eastern  customs,  who  recollect  the  passage,  which 
Dr.  Shaw,  it  seems,  did  not,  there  cannot  be  any  doubt  how 
it  is  to  be  understood.  "Sur  la  terrasse,"  says  Sir  J. 
Chardin,  in  his  MS.  note  on  this  place,  "  pour  le  plaisir  de 
la  vue,  pour  de  la  considerer  la  ville,  et  pour  prendre  la 
frais,  et  c'est  ce  que  prouve,  le  verset  suivant."  That  is, 
he  walked  upon  the  terrace,  for  the  pleasure  of  the  pros- 
pect, to  take  a  view  of  the  city,  and  to  enjoy  the  fresh  air, 
which  the  following  verse  proves.  Nothing  can  be  more 
natural  than  this  interpretation. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ver.  5,  When  thou  art  come  hither  to  the  city, 
thou  shalt  meet  a  company  of  prophets  coming- 
down  from  the  high  place,  with  a  psaltery,  and 
a  tabret,  and  a  pipe,  and  a  harp  before  them ;  and 
they  shall  prophesy. 

The  prophets  in  the  ordinary  modes  of  prophesying, 
were  accustomed  to  compose  their  hymns  to  some  musical 
instrument ;  and  there  could  be  but  little  difficulty  in  adapt- 
ing their  effusions  to  a  measure  which  required,  probably, 
no  great  restrictions  in  a  language  so  free  and  uncontrolled 
as  the  Hebrew.  The  Jews  conceived  that  music  calmed 
the  passions,  and  prepared  the  mind  for  the  reception  of 
the  prophetic  influence.  It  is  probable,  that  the  prophets 
on  these  occasions  did  not  usually  perform  themselves  on 
the  musical  instruments,  but  rather  accompanied  the  strains 
of  the  minstrel  with  their  voice. — (Lowth.)  It  has  been  the 
practice  of  all  nations  to  adapt  their  religious  worship  to 
music,  which  the  fabulous  accounts  of  antiquity  derived 
from  heaven, — Burder. 

Yer.  27.  But  the  children  of  Belial  said,  How 
shall  this  man  save  us?  And  they  despised 
him,  and  brought  him  no  presents :  but  he  held 
his  peace. 

See  on  Ps.  76.  11. 

CHAPTER  XL 

Ver.  2.  Then  Nahash  the  Ammonite  came  up, 
and  encamped  against  Jabesh-gilead :  and  all 
the  men  of  Jabesh  said  unto  Nahash,  Make  a 
covenant  with  us,  and  we  will  serve  thee.  2.  And 
Nahash  the  Ammonite  answered  them,  On  this 
condition  will  I  make  a  covenant  with  you,  that 
I  may  thrust  out  all  your  right  eyes. 

This  cruel  practice  was  very  common,  formerly,  in  the 
East,  and  even  yet  prevails  in  some  places.  Mr.  Hanway 
gives  several  instances  of  it.  "  Mohammed  Khan,  (not 
long  after  I  left  Persia,)  his  eyes  were  cut  out."  Page  224. 
"  The  close  of  this  hideous  scene  of  punishment,  was  an 
order  to  cut  out  the  eyes  of  this  unhappy  man :  the  soldiers 
were  dragging  him  to  this  execution,  while  he  begged. 
With  bitter  cries,  that  he  might  rather  suffer  death."  'Page 


203.  "  Sadoc  Aga  had  his  beard  cut  off,  his  face  was 
rubbed  with  dirt,  and  his  eyes  were  cut  out."  Page  204. 
"  As  we  approached  Astrabad,  we  met  several  armed 
horsemen,  carrying  home  the  peasants  whose  eyes  had 
been  put  out,  the  blood  yet  running  down  their  faces.* 
Page  201.  Chardin  relates  an  instance  of  a  king  of  Imi- 
retta,  who  lived  in  this  condition.    Page  160. — Burder. 

Ver.  4.  Then  came  the  messengers  to  Gibeah  of 
Saul,  and  told  the  tidings  in  the  ears  of  the 
people :  and  all  the  people  lifted  up  their  voices, 
and  wept. 

See  on  Jer,  6.  1. 

CHAPTER   XII. 

Ver.  16.  Now  therefore  stand  and  see  this  great 
thing  which  the  Lord  will  do  before  your  eyes. 
17.  /5  i^  not  wheat-harvest  to-day  ?  I  will  call 
unto  the  Lord,  and  he  shall  send  thunder  and 
rain ;  that  ye  may  perceive  and  see  that  your 
wickedness  is  great,  which  ye  have  done  in 
the  sight  of  the  Lord,  in  asking  you  a  king. 

Though  the  summer  in  Syria  is  commonly  dry,  the 
heavens  are  sometimes  overcast,  and  a  smart  thunder- 
shower  suddenly  rushes  down  to  refresh  the  parched  soil. 
One  of  these  fell  at  Aleppo  in  the  night  between  the  first 
and  second  of  July,  1743 ;  but  it  was  regarded  as  a  yery 
uncommon  occurrence  at  that  season.  It  is  probably  still 
more  extraordinary  at  Jerusalem;  for  Jerome,  who  lived 
long  in  Palestine,  denies,  in  his  commentary  on  Amos, 
that  he  had  ever  seen  rain  in  those  provinces,  and  espe- 
cially in  Judea,  in  the  end  of  June,  or  in  the  month  of  July. 
It  may,  however,  occasionally  tall,  though  Jerome  had 
never  seen  it,  as  it  did  at  Aleppo,  while  Dr.  Russel  resided 
in  that  city.  But  such  an  occurrence  by  no  means  inval- 
idates the  proof  which  ihe  prophet  Samuel  gave  of  his 
divine  mission,  when  he  called  for  thunder  and  rain  from 
heaven  in  the  time  of  wheat-harvest ;  since  a  very  rare 
and  unusual  event  immediately  happening  without  any 
preceding  appearance  of  it,  upon  the  prediction  of  a  person 
professing  himself  to  be  a  prophet  of  the  Lord,  and  giving 
it  as  an  attestation  of  his  sustaining  that  character,  is  a  suf- 
ficient proof  that  his  affirmation  is  true,  although  a  similar 
event  has  sometimes  happened  without  any  such  declared 
interposition  of  God,  and  therefore  universally  understood 
to  be  casual  and  without  design.  Nor  should  it  be  forgotten, 
that  this  thunderstorm  in  the  laook  of  Samuel,  seems  to  have 
happened  in  the  daytime,  while  the  people  of  Israel  were 
celebrating  the  accession  of  Saul  to  the  throne;  a  circum- 
stance which,  from  its  singularity,  added  considerable 
energy  to  this  event,  and,  perhaps,  was  to  them  a  sufficient 
proof  of  the  miraculous  interference  of  Jehovah.  Dr. 
Russel  informs  us,  that  the  rains  in  those  countries  usually 
fall  in  the  night,  as  did  those  extraordinary  thunderstorms 
already  mentioned,  which  happened  in  the  month  of  July 
— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  18.  And  another  company  turned  the  way 
to  Beth-horon  :  and  another  company  turned  t.o 
the  way  of  the  border  that  looketh  to  the  valley 
of  Zeboim,  towards  the  wilderness. 
See  on  Jer.  12.  9. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Ver.  25.  And  all  ^Aey  o/ the  land  came  to  a  wood; 

and  there  was  honey  upon  the  ground. 
See  on  Ps.  81.  16. 

Ver,  26.  And  when  the  people  were  come  into 
the  wood,  behold,  the  honey  dropped. 

Bees,  in  the  East,  are  not,  as  in  England,  kept  in  hives : 
they  are  all  in  a  wild  state.  The  forests  literally  flow  with 
honey;  large  combs  may  be  seen  hanging  on  the  trees  as 
you  pass  along,  full  of  honey.  Hence  this  article  is  cheap 
and  plentiful,  and  is  much  lised  by  the  Vedahs  to  preserve 


Chap.  15—17. 


1  SAMUEL. 


IGl 


the  flesh  of  animals  they  catch  in  the  chase.  The  ancient 
poets  take  great  pleasure  in  speaking  of  the  value  of  milk 
and  honey.— Roberts, 

CHAPTER  XV. 

'-ti-fm^ev.  9.  But  Saul  and  the  people  spared  Agag, 
and  the  best  of  the  sheep,  and  of  the  oxen,  and 
of  the  failings,  and  the  lambs. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  "  fatlings,"  of  the  "  second 
sort"  This  curious  way  of  designating  the  quality  of 
animals  finds  an  exact  parallel  among  the  Hindoos.  They 
do  not  usually  compare,  as  we  do,  by  good,  better,  best;  but 
first,  second,  or  third  sort.  An  animal  of  the  finest  pro- 
portions is  said  to  be  of  the  first  sort ;  the  next,  of  the 
second ;  and  the  last,  the  third.  All  the  productions  of  art 
and  nature  are  compared,  as  to  their  value,  in  the  same 
way.  They  tell  us  there  are  three  kinds  of  fruit  they  pre- 
fer to  all  others  :  first,  gold ;  second,  precious  stones ;  and 
third,  land. — Roberts. 

Ver.  33.  And  Samuel  said,  As  thy  sword  hath 
made  women  childless,  so  shall  thy  mother  be 
childless  among  women.  And  Samuel  hewed 
Agag  in  pieces  before  the  Lord  in  Gilgal. 

See  on  Ezra  4.  14. 

Criminals  were  sometimes  hewed  in  pieces,  and  their 
mangled  bodies  given  as  a  prey  to  ravenous  beasts.  This 
punishment  seems  to  have  been  extremely  common  in 
Abyssinia,  when  Mr.  Bruce  was  there,  and  was  probably 
handed  down  from  the  founders  of  that  kingdom:  "  Coming 
across  the  market-place,"  says  the  traveller,  "  I  had  seen 
Za  Mariam,  the  Ras's  doorkeeper,  with  three  men  bound, 
one  of  whom  he  fell  a-hacking  to  pieces  in  my  presence  ; 
and  upon  seeing  me  running  across  the  place,  stopping  my 
nose,  he  called  me  to  stay  till  he  should  despatch  the 
other  two,  for  he  wanted  to  speak  with  me,  as  if  he  had 
been  engaged  about  ordinary  business ;  that  the  soldiers, 
in  consideration  of  his  haste,  immediately  fell  upon  the 
other  two,  whose  cries  were  still  remaining  in  my  ears ; 
that  the  hyenas  at  night  would  scarcely  let  me  pass  in  the 
streets,  when  I  returned  from  the  palace;  and  the  dogs  fled 
into  my  house,  to  eat  pieces  of  human  carcasses  at  their 
leisure."  This  account  elucidates  the  mode  of  execution 
adopted  by  the  prophet  Samuel,  in  relation  to  Agag,  the 
king  of  Amalek :  "  And  Samuel  said,  (-upnd)  As  (or,  in 
the  same  identical  mode)  thy  sword  hath  made  women 
childless,  so  shall  thy  mother  be  childless  among  women. 
And  Samuel  hewed  Agag  in  pieces  before  the  Lord  in 
Gilgal."  This  was  not  a  sudden  and  passionate  act  of 
vengeance,  but  a  deliberate  act  of  retributive  justice. 
That  savage  chieftain  had  hewed  many  prisoners  to  death; 
and  therefore,  by  the  command  of  Jehovah,  the  judge  of  all 
the  earth,  he  is  visited  with  the  same  punishment  which  he 
had  cruelly  used  towards  others. — Paxton. 

In  Light's  Travels,  we  are  informed,  that  "  Djezzar  had 
reason  to  suspect  fraud  in  the  conduct  of  some  of  the 
ofticers  of  the  seraglio  :  and,  as  he  could  not  discover  the 
offenders,  he  had  between  fifty  and  sixty  of  them  seized, 
stripped  naked,  and  laid  on  the  ground  :  and  to  each  was 
placed  a  couple  of  janizaries,  who  were  ordered  to  hew 
them  in  pieces  with  their  swords." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Ver.  6.  And  he  had  greaves  of  brass  upon  his 
legs,  and  a  target  of  brass  between  his  shoulders. 

These  were  necessary  to  defend  the  legs  and  feet  from 
the  iron  stakes  placed  in  the  way  by  the  enemy,  to  gall 
and  wound  their  opponents.  They  were  a  part  of  ancient 
military  harness,  and  the  a-rtifices  made  use  of  by  contend- 
ing parties  rendered  the  precaution  important,— Burder. 

Ver.  7.  And  the  staff  of  his  spear  was  like  a 
weaver's  beam ;  and  his  spear's  head  loeighed 
six  hundred  shekels  of  iron ;  and  one  bearing 
a  shield  went  before  him. 

The  oriental  warrior  had  a  person  who  went  before  him 
21 


in  the  hour  of  danger,  whose  office  it  was  to  bear  the  great 
massy  buckler,  behind  which  he  avoided  the  missile 
weapons  of  his  enemy.  Goliath  had  his  armour-bearer 
carrying  a  shield  before  him,  when  he  came  up  to  defy  the 
armies  of  Israel.  When  David  went  first  to  court,  he  was 
made  armour-bearer  to  Saul ;  and  Jonathan  had  a  young 
man  who  bore  his  armour  before  him  in  the  day  of  battle. 
Besides  the  large  and  ponderous  buckler,  the  gigantic 
Philistine  had  another  ol  smaller  size  called  cidoti^  which 
we  render  target  in  one  part  of  our  version,  and  shield  in 
another.  It  might  either  be  held  in  the  hand  when  the 
warrior  had  occasion  to  use  it,  or,  at  other  times,  be  con- 
veniently hung  about  his  neck,  and  turned  behind ;  and, 
therefore,  the  historian  observes  he  had  "  a  target  of  brass 
between  his  shoulders," — Paxton, 

Ver.  1 8.  And  carry  these  ten  cheeses  unto  the 
captain  of  their  thousand,  and  look  how  thy 
brethren  fare. 

The  art  of  coagulating  milk,  and  converting  it  into 
cheese,  was  known  among  the  Syrian  shepherds,  from  the 
remotest  times.  Instead  of  runnet,  they  turn  the  milk, 
especially  in  the  summer  season,  with  sour  buttermilk,  the 
flowers  of  the  great-headed  thistle,  or  wild  artichoke  ;  and, 
putting  the  curds  afterward  into  small  baskets  made  with 
rushes,  or  with  the  dwarf  palm,  they  bind  them  up  close, 
and  press  them.  These  cheeses  are  rarely  above  two  or 
three  pounds  weight ;  and  in  shape  and  size,  resemble  our 
penny  loaves.  Oriental  cheeses  are  sometimes  of  so  very 
soft  a  consistence,  after  they  are  pressed,  and  even  when 
they  are  set  upon  the  table,  that  they  bear  a  very  near  re- 
semblance to  curds,  or  to  coagulated  milk,  which  forms  a 
very  considerable  part  of  eastern  diet.  But  the  ten  cheeses 
which  David  carried  to  the  camp  of  Saul,  seem  to  have 
been  fully  formed,  pressed,  and  sutficiently  dried,  to  admit 
of  their  being  removed  from  one  place  to  another,  without 
the  frames  in  which  they  were  made. — Paxton, 

The  sons  of  Jesse  \^ere  serving  in  the  army  of  Saul ; 
and  as  he  probably  had  not  heard  from  them  for  some 
time,  he  sent  their  brother  David  to  take  a  present  to  the 
captain,  to  induce  him  to  be  kind  to  his  sons ;  also  to  bring 
a  pledge,  or  token,  from  his  sons  themselves,  to  assure  him 
that  they  were  well.  A  person  in  a  distant  country  sends 
to  those  who  are  interested  in  his  welfare  a  ring,  a  lock  of 
hair,  or  a  piece  of  his  nail.  This  is  his  "  pledge"  of  health 
and  prosperity.  A  man  who  has  returned  from  a  far  coun- 
try, in  calling  upon  an  old  friend  (should  he  not  be  at  home) 
will  leave  a  handkerchief  as  a  token,  to  testify  that  he  had 
called. — Roberts. 

The  Vulgatg  illustrates  this  passage  by  translating  the 
Hebrew  words,  decem  formellas  casei,  ten  little  baskets  of 
cheese,  or,  ten  cheeses  made  in  such  baskets.  To  this  day, 
in  Barbary,  "  after  turning  the  milk  with  the  flowers  of  the_ 
great-headed  thistle,  or  wild  artichoke,  they  put  the  curds 
into  small  baskets,  made  with  rushes  or  with  the  dwarf 
palm,  and  bind  them  up  close  and  press  them."  (Shaw.) 
"Another  offeted  me  milk  in  baskets;  a  circumstance  that 
astonished  me.  What,  exclaimed  I,  milk  in  baskets!  These 
baskets,  he  continues,  are  very  pretty,  and  fabricated  with 
reeds  so  closely  interwoven,  that  they  will  hold  water,  and 
were  afterwards  of  much  service  to  me  for  that  use," 
(Vaillant.)  "  In  the  evening  they  sent  us  in  return  some 
baskets  of  milk.  These  baskets  were  made  from  a  species 
of  cyperus,  a  strong  reedy  grass  that  grew  in  the  springs 
of  Zaure  Veld.  The  workmanship  was  exceedingly  clever 
and  neat,  and  the  texture  so  close  that  they  were  capable  of 
containing  the  thinnest  fluid."  (Barrow.)  "  The  girls  also 
twist  cotton  yam  for  fringes,  and  prepare  canes,  reeds,  and 
palmetto  leaves,  as  the  boys  also  do,  for  basket  making: 
but  the  making  up  the  baskets  is  the  men's  work,  who  first 
die  the  materials  of  several  curious  lively  colours,  and  then 
mix  and  weave  them  very  prettily.  They  weave  little  bas- 
kets like  cups  also  very  neat,  with  the  twigs  wrought  so 
very  fine  and  close,  as  to  hold  any  liquor  without  anymore 
to  do,  having  no  lacker  or  varnish:  and  they  as  ordinarily 
drink  out  of  these  woven  cups,  as  out  of  their  calabashes, 
which  they  paint  very  curiously.  They  make  baskets  ol 
several  sizes  for  carrying  their  clothes,  or  other  uses,  with 
great  variety  of  work;  and  so  firm,  that  you  may  crush 
them,  or  throw  them  about  how  you  will,  almost  with  little 
or  no  damage  to  them." — Burder. 


162 


1   SAMUEL. 


Chap.  17. 


Ver.  20.  And  David  rose  up  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  left  the  sheep  with  a  keeper,  and  took, 
and  went,  as  Jesse  had  commanded  him :  and 
he  came  to  the  trench  as  the  host  was  going 
forth  to  the  fight,  and  shouted  for  the  battle. 

After  the  introduction  of  trumpets  into  Greece,  her  ar- 
mies generally  began  the  attack  at  the  sound  of  this  war- 
like instrument ;  but  the  Lacedemonians  were  particularly 
remarkable  for  beginning  their  engagements  with  the  soft 
tones  of  the  flute,  which  were  intended  to  render  the  com- 
batants cool  and  sedate,  and  enable  them  to  march  with  a 
firm  and  majestic  step  against  their  enemies.  In  the  armies 
of  Israel,  the  courage  of  the  soldiers  was  roused  and  sus- 
tained by  a  concert  of  various  instruments;  in  which  were 
distinguished  the  martial  sounds  of  the  silver  trumpet,  and 
the  gentler  notes  of  the  harp  and  the  psaltery.  In  the  be- 
ginning of  their  onset,  they  gave  a  general  shout  to  en- 
courage and  animate  one  another,  and  strike  terror  into 
their  enemies.  This  circumstance  is  distinctly  stated  in 
the  first  book  of  Samuel :  "  And  David  rose  up  early  in 
the  morning,  and  left  the  sheep  with  a  keeper,  and  took, 
and  went,  as  Jesse  had  commanded  him ;  and  he  came  to 
the  trench,  as  the  host  was  going  forth  to  the  fight,  and 
shouted  for  the  battle.  For  Israel  and  the  Philistines  had 
put  the  battle  in  array,  army  against  army."  This  custom 
seems  to  have  been  used  by  almost  every  nation  under 
heaven  ;  and  is  mentioned  by  all  writers,  who  treat  of 
martial  affairs.  Homer  compares  the  confused  noise  of 
two  armies  in  the  heat  of  battle,  to  the  deafening  roar  of 
torrents  rushing  With  impetuous  force  from  the  mountains 
into  subjacent  valleys. 

In  the  wars  which  the  Hebrews  prosecuted  in  Canaan, 
and  in  the  surrounding  countries,  the  generals  fought  at 
the  head  of  their  armies,  performing  at  once  the  part  of  a 
private  soldier,  and  the  various  duties  of  a  resolute  cap- 
tain. In  the  heroic  ages,  the  Grecian  generals  exposed 
their  persons  in  the  same  way.  Homer,  in  all  his  battles, 
places  the  principal  officers  in  the  front,  and  calls  them 
Tpi)naj(^ai  and  rpi^iioi^  because  they  fought  before  their  ar- 
mies. Thus  when  he  led  up  the  Trojans,  the  godlike  Paris 
fought  at  their  head ;  and  when  Achilles  sends  out  his  sol- 
diers to  defend  the  Grecian  ships,  having  allotted  to  the  rest 
of  his  officers  their  several  posts,  he  places  Patroclus  and 
Automedon,  as  chief  commanders,  before  the  front. — Pax- 

-ON. 

Ver.  23.  And  as  he  talked  with  them,  behold, 
there  came  up  the  champion  (the  Philistine  of 
Gath,  Goliath  by  name)  out  of  jjfie  armies  of 
the  Philistines,  and  spake  according  to  the 
same  words :  and  David  heard  them.  24.  And 
all  the  men  of  Israel,  when  they  saw  the  man, 
fled  from  him,  and  were  sore  afraid. 

The  ancient  Hebrews,  like  the  nations  around  them, 
were  wholly  unacquainted  with  the  refinements  of  modern 
warfare.  From  the  age  of  Abraham,  the  renowned  fa- 
ther of  their  tribes,  they  had  little  other  business  to  employ 
their  leisure  hours,  but  feeding  their  flocks  and  herds,  or 
tilling  a  few  acres  of  land  in  the  districts  which  they  visited, 
except  in  Egypt,  where  their  severe  bondage  was  still  more 
unfavourable  to  the  cultivation  of  military  habits.  In  such 
circumstances,  the  defence  of  their  flocks  and  herds  from 
the  violence  of  roving  hordes,  which  occasionallv  scoured 
the  country  in  quest  of  spoil,  generally  produced  the  only 
wars  in  which  they  engaged.  The  rapid  history  of  the 
patriarchs  records  a  sufficient  number  of  incidents,  to  show, 
that  how  rude  and  unpolished  soever  they  may  be  deemed, 
they  were  by  no  means  deficient  in  personal  courage ;  and 
in  the  expedition  of  Abraham  against  the  confederate  kings, 
we  can  discern  the  rudimentsof  that  military  conduct,  which 
has  ^o  often  siiice  his  time  filled  the  world  with  admiration 
or  dismay.  It  will  be  readilv  admitted,  that  when  the 
chosen  people  went  up  out  of  Egypt,  where  they  had  been 
long  and  cruelly  oppressed,  and  in  consequence  of  their 
miseries  had  contracted  the  abject  and  cowardly  disposi- 
tions of  the  slave,  they  were  quite  incapable  of  warlike 
enterprises;  but  when  their  ^inds  recovered  that  vigour 
and  elevation  which  the  fr'-.edom  and  hardships  of  the  wil- 


derness inspired,  they  discovered  on  many  trying  occasions, 
a  boldness  and  resolution  which  were  never  surpassed  by 
any  of  their  antagonists.  Till  the  reign  of  David,  the  ar- 
mies of  Israel  were  no  better  than  a  raw  and  undisciplined 
militia ;  and  the  simplicity  of  their  behaviour  sufficiently  # 
appears  from  the  story  of  Goliath,  who  defied  all  the  \p,r-* 
riors  that  fought  under  the  banners  of  Saul ;  and  with  a 
haughty  look,  and  a  few  arrogant  words,  struck  them  with 
so  great  a  terror  that  they  fled  before  him.  But  the  troops 
of  the  surrounding  kingdoms  were  neither  more  courage- 
ous nor  more  skilful  in  the  use  of  arms,  which  is  evident 
from  the  history  of  David's  captains,  the  first  of  whom  en- 
gaged, single  handed,  three  hundred  men,  and  slew  them  at 
one  time.  And  this  is  not  the  only  instance  of  such  daring 
and  successful  valour  ;  he  was  one  of  three  warriors  who 
defended  a  plot  of  barley,  after  the  people  had  fled,  eigainst 
the  whole  force  of  the  Philistines,  whom  they  routed  with 
prodigious  slaughter,  after  a  desperate  conflict.  Nor  is 
the  sacred  historian  justly  chargeable  with  transgressing 
the  rules  of  probability  in  such  relations,  which,  however 
strange  and  incredible  they  may  appear  to  us,  exactly  ac- 
cord with  the  manners  of  the  times  in  which  he  wrote. 
Homer  often  introduces  Achilles,  Hector,  and  other  heroes 
engaging,  and,  by  the  valour  of  their  own  arm,  putting 
to  flight  whole  squadrons  of  their  enemies.  Such  feats 
are  by  no  means  uncommon  in  the  history  of  the  rude 
and  unpolished  nations,  who,  in  the  revolution  of  a  few 
ages,  became  not  less  celebrated  for  their  steady  and  dis- 
ciplined heroism  in  the  field,  than  for  the  sagacity  of  their 
measures  in  the  cabinet.  Under  the  banners  of  David,  a 
prince  of  a  truly  heroic  mind,  the  tribes  of  Israel  often  put 
to  flight  vast  numbers  of  their  enemies^  and  became  a  terror 
to  all  the  circumjacent  kingdoms. — Paxton. 

Ver.  34.  And  David  said  unto  Saul,  Thy  servant 
kept  his  father's  sheep,  and  there  came  a  lion 
and  a  bear,  and  took  a  lamb  out  of  the  flock. 

Although  the  lion  is  the  terror  of  the  forest,  and  has  been 
known  to  scatter  destruction  over  the  fairest  regions  of  the 
East ;  yet  he  is  often  compelled  to  yield  to  the  superior 
prowess  or  address  of  man.  When  Samson,  the  champion 
of  Israel,  went  down  to  Timnath,  a  city  belonging  to  the 
tribe  of  Dan,  situated  in  the  valley  of  Sorek,  so  renowned 
for  the  excellence  of  its  vines,  a  young  lion  roared  against 
him ;  "  and  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  came  mightily  upon  him, 
and  he  rent  him  as  he  would  have  rent  a  kid,  and  he  had 
nothing  in  his  hand."  In  this  > instance,  the  lion  was  only 
giving  the  usual  signal  for  the  attack  which  he  meditated, 
and  consequently  his  kindling  passions  had  not  reached 
their  highest  excitement;  but  it  appears  from  the  authentic 
page  of  history,  that  the  prey  is  sometimes  rescued  from 
his  devouring  jaws,  when  his  fury  is  excited  to  the  highest 
degree  of  intensity.  To  this  circumstance,  the  prophet 
Amos  refers,  in  that  part  of  his  prophecy  where  he  de- 
scribes the  extreme  difficulty  with  which  a  few  of  the 
meaner  and  poorer  inhabitants  of  Samaria,  should  escape 
from  the  power  of  their  enemies:  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord, 
as  the  shepherd  taketh  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  lion,  two 
legs  or  a  piece  of  an  ear,  so  shall  the  children  of  Israel  be 
taken  out  that  dwell  in  Samaria."  The  daring  intrepidity, 
the  admirable  presence  of  mind,  and  great  strength  of  Da- 
vid, when  he  tended  his  father's  flocks  in  the  wilderness, 
were  subjected  to  a  severe  trial,  by  the  attack  of  a  lion, 
which  he  thus  relates  to  Saul :  "  Thy  servant  kept  his  fa- 
ther's sheep;  and  there  came  a  lion  and  a  bear,  and  took  a 
lamb  out  of  the  flock;  and  I  went  out  after  him,  and  smote 
him,  and  delivered  it  out  of  his  mouth ;  and  when  he  rose 
against  me,  I  caught  him  by  his  beard,  and  smote  him,  and 
slew  him :  thy  servant  slew  both  the  lion  and  the  bear." 
In  these  words,  the  youthful  shepherd  indisputably  details 
the  particulars  of  two  exploits  performed  on  different  occa- 
sions ;  for  the  lion  and  the  bear  never  hunt  in  company. 
Like  the  greater  part  of  other  wild  beasts,  they  prowl  alone, 
rejecting  the  society  of  even  one  of  their  own  species.  "  It 
is  not  therefore  to  be  supposed,  they  will  associate  on  such 
occasions  with  other  animals.  A  careless  reader  might 
imagine  that  David  encountered  them  both  at  the  same 
time,  and  Castalio  has  been  so  inconsiderate  as  to  make 
the  text  speak  this  language;  for  he  translates  it,  There 
came  a  lion,  una  cum,  together  or  in  company  with  a  bear. 
But  are  We  to  suppose,  that  these  two  animals,  contrary  tw 


Chap.  17. 


I    SAMUEL. 


163 


their  nature,  entered  into  partnership  on  this  occasion,  and 
that  to  seize  upon  one  poor  lamb,  and  divide  it  between 
theml  Or  if  no  miracle  was  wrought  in  the  case,  but 
the  victory  was  achieved  by  the  natural  strength  and  reso- 
ld liition  of  David,  aided  by  the  good  providence  of  God,  how 
many  hands  must  we  suppose  him  to  have  had,  in  order  at 
once  to  seize  two  such  animals,  to  smite  them  both,  and  to 
rescue  the  lamb"  from  their  jaws  1  How  was  it  possible 
for  a  single  youth,  for  at  that  time  he  was  not  more  than 
twenty  years  of  age,  to  encounter  with  success  two  of  the 
strongest  and  fiercest  beasts  that  range  the  forest  1  Or  if 
David  vanquished  these  terrible  depredators,  not  by  his 
own  courage  and  address,  but  by  the  miraculous  assistance 
of  heaven,  still  the  difficulty  is  not  removed ;  for  he  could 
have  no  warrant  from  such  a  victory  to  encounter  Goliath. 
It  became  him  to  enter  the  lists  with  the  giant,  depending 
upon  the  ordinary  assistance  of  God,  and  the  usual  vigour 
of  his  own  arm,  not  upon  a  miracle,  which  God  had  not 
promised.  To  avoid  these  inconveniences,  it  is  necessary 
to  admit,  that  David  mentions  two  different  rencounters, 
one  with  a  lion,  and  another  with  a  bear;  in  both  which  he 
succeeded  in  rescuing  the  prey  from  the  devourer.  This 
hypothesis  has  the  advantage  of  being  perfectly  consistent 
with  the  text;  for  the  particle  rendered  and,  is  often  dis- 
junctive, and  ought  to  be  translated  or.  Thus,  in  the  law 
of  the  passover,  it  is  commanded,  "  Ye  shall  take  it  out 
from  the  sheep  or  from  the  goats ;"  and  in  the  precept  for 
securing  reverence  to  parents,  "  He  that  smiteth  his  father 
or  his  mother,  shall  surely  be  put  to  death ;"  "  and  he  that 
curseth  his  father  or  his  mother,  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death;"  in  all  which,  the  connecting  particle  is  the  same. 
But  by  the  law  of  Moses,  only  one  lamb,  or  one  kid,  was  to 
be  taken  for  each  household,  not  two;  and  if  a  person 
smote,  or  cursed  one  of  his  parents,  he  was  guilty  of  death ; 
in  these  cases,  therefore,  the  particle  is  properly  rendered 
or ;  and  by  consequence,  may  be  so  rendered  in  the  text 
under  consideration.  The  words  of  David  would  then  run 
thus:  There  came  a  lion  or  a  bear,  and  took  a  lamb  out  of 
the  flock.  This  version  is  also  required  by  the  verb, 
which,  instead  of  being  in  the  plural,  as  the  conjunctive 
particle  demands,  is  in  the  singular  number,  which  clear- 
ly indicates  a  disjunctive  sense.  This  is  confirmed  by  the 
next  verse,  in  which  David  speaks  of  them  in  the  singular 
number :  "  And  I  went  out  after  him,  and  smote  him,  and 
delivered  it  out  of  his  mouth ;  and  when  he  rose  against 
me,  I  caught  him  by  his  beard,  and  smote  him,  and  slew 
him."  If  these  two  animals  had  been  in  company,  he 
could  with  no  propriety  have  spoken  of  them  in  tnis  man- 
ner. The  meaning  therefore  is,  there  came  a  lion  on  one 
occasion,  and  on  another  a  bear,  and  took  each  a  lamb  out 
of  the  flock ;  and  he  went  out  against  each  of  them  and  res- 
cued the  lamb  from  his  mouth.  Thus,  by  the  favour  of 
Providence,  did  the  future  shepherd  of  Israel,  on  two  dif- 
ferent occasions,  slay  both  the  lion  and  the  bear.  Nor 
ought  this  to  be  reckoned  an  achievement  beyond  the 
power  of  a  single  combatant ;  for  an  ancient  poet  only  ad- 
mits it  to  be  extremely  dangerous,  and  almost  beyond  the 
powers  of  man,  to  deliver  the  prey  from  the  mouth  of  a 
hungry  lion,  but  does  not  venture  to  pronounce  it  imprac- 
ticable : — 

"Esurienti  leoni  ex  ore  exculpere  praedam." 
Nor  is  any  mistake  imputable  to  David,  when  he  speaks  of 
seizing  a  bear  by  the  beard ;  for  the  original  term  sometimes 
denotes  the  chin ;  as  in  this  precept  of  the  ceremonial  law : 
"  If  a  man  or  woman  have  a  plague  upon  the  head  or  beard; 
then  the  priest  shall  see  the  plague."  He,  therefore,  seized 
the  l.on  by  his  beard,  and  the  bear,  that  was  not  favoured 
with  this  "ornament,  by  the  chin ;  which  entirely  removes 
the  difficulty. — Paxton. 

Ver.  38.  And  Saul  armed  David  with  his  ar- 
mour, and  he  put  a  helmet  of  brass  upon  his 
head ;  also  he  armed  him  with  a  coat  of  mail. 

A  principal  piece  of  defensive  armour  entitled  to  our  no- 
tice, is  the  nelmet,  which  protected  the  head.  This  has  been 
used  from  the  remotest  ages  by  almost  every  nation  of  a 
martial  spirit.  The  champion  of  the  Philistines  had  a 
helmet  of  brass  upon  his  head,  as  had  also  the  king  of  Is- 
rael, who  commanded  the  armies  of  the  living  God.  This 
martial  cap  was  also  worn  by  the  Persians  and  Ethiopians 


in  the  day  of  battle.  The  Grecian  helmets  were  very  often 
made  of  the  skins  of  beasts  ;  but  the  helmet  of  the  Jewish 
warrior  seems  to  have  been  uniformly  made  of  brass  or 
iron ;  and  to  this  sort  of  casque  only,  the  sacred  writer 
seems  to  refer.  In  allusion  to  this  piece  of  defensive  ar- 
mour, Paul  directs  the  believer  to  put  on  for  a  helmet 
the  hope  of  salvation,  which  secures  the  head  in  every  con- 
test, till  through  him  that  loved  him,  he  gain  a  complete 
victory  over  all  his  enemies.  That  well-grounded  hope 
of  eternal  life,  which  is  attended  with  ineffable  satisfaction, 
and  never  disappoints  the  soul,  like  a  helmet  of  brass  shall 
guard  it  against  fear  and  danger,  enable  it  patiently  to  en- 
dure every  hardship,  and  fortify  it  against  the  most  furious 
and  threatening  attacks  of  Satan  and  all  his  confederates. 
Such  adversaries,  this  solid  hope  is  not  less  calculated  to 
strike  with  dismay,  than  was  the  helmet  of  an  ancient  war- 
rior in  the  day  of  battle  his  mortal  foes,  by  its  dazzling 
brightness,  its  horrific  devices  of  Gorgons  and  Chimeras, 
and  its  nodding  plumes  which  overlooked  the  dreadful 
cone. — Paxton. 

Ver.  43.  And  the  Philistine  said  unto  David,  Am, 
I  a  dog,  that  thou  comest  to  me  with  staves  ? 
And  the  Philistine  cursed  David  by  his  gods. 

Men  of  high  caste  will  not  strike  those  who  are  of  low 
caste  with  the  hand,  because  the  touch  would  defile  them  : 
they  therefore  beat'them  with  a  stick  or  some  other  weapon. 
Hence  to  offer  to  strike  any  person  with  a  stick  is  very 
provoking,  and  the  person  so  struck  will  ask,  "  Am  I  a 
dog  1"  When  a  man  wishes  to  make  another  angry,  he 
pretends  to  be  looking  for  a  stick,  which  will  produce  a 
similar  question  and  feeling.  Sometimes,  however,  they 
only  repeat  the  proverb,  "  Take  up  a  stick,  and  the  dog  will 
run  off.  As  did  the  Philistines,  so  do  these  people  curse 
each  other  by  their  gods.  The  imprecations  are  generally 
of  such  a  kind  as  it  would  be  improper  to  repeat.  The  ex- 
tremes of  filthiness,  of  sin  and  hell,  are  put  under  contribu- 
tion, to  furnish  epithets  and  allusions  for  their  execrations. 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  44.  And  the  Philistine  said  to  David,  Come 
to  me,  and  I  will  give  thy  flesh  unto  the  fowls 
of  the  air,  and  to  the  beasts  of  the  field. 

The  rhodomontade  of  Goliath  is  still  the  favourite  way 
of  terrifying  an  enemy.  "  Begone,  or  I  will  give  thy  flesh 
to  the  jackals."  "  The  crows  shall  soon  have  thy  carcass." 
"Yes,  the  teeth  of  the  dogs  shall  soon  have  hold  of  thee." 
"  The  eagles  are  ready."— Roberts. 

Ver.  51.  Therefore  David  ran,  and  stood  upon 
the  Philistine,  and  took  his  sword,  and  drew  it 
out  of  the  sheath  thereof,  and  slew  him,  and  cut 
off  his  head  therewith.  And  when  the  Philis- 
tines saw  their  champion  was  dead,  they  fled. 

The  ancient  Grecians  frequently  committed  their  cause 
to  the  issue  of  a  single  combat,  and  decided  their  quarrels 
by  two  or  more  champions  on  each  side ;  and  their  kings 
and  great  commanders  were  so  eager  in  the  pursuit  of 
glory,  and  so  tender  of  the  lives  of  their  subjects,  that  they 
frequently  sent  challenges  to  their  rivals,  to  end  the  quar- 
rel by  a  single  encounter,  that  by  the  death  of  one  of  them, 
the  effusion  of  more  blood  might  be  prevented.    Ancient 
history  contains  many  remarkable  instances  of  such  com- 
bats;  Xanthus,  king  of  BcEotia,  challenged  the  king  of 
Attica,  to  terminate  the  dangerous  war  in  which  their 
states  were  engaged  in  this  way,  and  lost  his  life  >n  the 
contest;    and    Pittacus,  the    famous   Mitylenian,    hilled 
Phryno  the  Athenian  general,  in  a  single  combat.    This 
custom  was  not  unknown  in  Palestine  and  other  tastern 
countries,  for  the  champion  of  the  Philistines  challenged 
the  armies  of  Israel,  to  give  him  a  man  to  fight  with  him  ; 
and  when  he  fell  by  the  valour  of  David,  his  countrymen, 
struck  with  dismay,  immediately  deserted  their  standards, 
and  endeavoured  to  save  themselves  by  flight'     The  chal- 
lenge given  on  those  occasions,  was  generally  couched  in 
the  most  insolent  language,  and  delivered  with  a  very  con- 
temptuous  air.     Thus,   Homer   makes   one   chief  address 
another  in  these  terms :  "  Bold  as  thou  art,  too  prodigal  of 


164 


1  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  18. 


ife,  approach  and  enter  the  dark  gates  of  death,"    But 
his  is  a  tame  spiritless  defiance,  compared  with  the  proud 
ind  insulting  terms  which  Goliath  addressed  to  his  young 
and  inexperienced  antagonist:  "  Come  to  me,  and  I  will 
give  thy  flesh  to  the  fowls  of  the  air  and  the  beasts  of  the 
field;"  or  the  bold  and  manly,  but  devout  reply   of  the 
youthful  warrior :  "  Thou  comest  to  me  with  a  sword,  and 
w'th  a  spear,  and  with  a  shield,  but  I  come  to  thee  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  the  armies  of  Israel, 
whom  thou  hast  defied.     This  day  will  the  Lord  deliver 
thee  into  my  hand,  and  I  will  smite  thee,  and  take  thy 
head  from  thee,  and  I  will  give  the  carcasses  of  the  hosts  of 
the  Philistines  this  day  unto  the  fowls  of  the  air,  and  to  the 
wild  beasts  of  the  earth;  that  all  the  earth  may  know  that 
there  is  a  God  in  Israel."    The  Philistines  no  sooner  saw 
their  champion  fallen,  and  his  head  severed  from  his  body, 
than,  seized  with  a  panic  fear,  they  fled,  and  the  armies  of 
Israel  pursued  with  loud  acclamations.    Another  instance 
of  panic  which  struck  the  army  of  the  Philistines,  a  short 
time  before,  when  Jonathan  and  his  armour-bearer  fell 
upon  their  garrison  and  put  them  to  flight,  is  described  in 
these  terms :  "  And  there  was  trembling  in  the  host,  in  the 
field,   and  among  all  the  people;   the  garrison  and   the 
spoilers,  they  a/so  trembled ;  and  the  earth  quaked ;  so  it 
was  a  very  great  trembling."    In  the  Hebrew,  it  is  a  trem- 
^Ung  of  God ;  that  is,  a  fear  which  God  sent  upon  them, 
and  consequently  which  the  strongest  mind  could  not  reason 
down,  nor  the  firmest  heart  resist.     This  fear,  the  Greeks 
and  other  heathen  nations  called  a  panic ;  because  Pan, 
one  of  their  gods,  was  believed  to  be  the  author  of  it. 
Bacchus,  in  his  Indian  expedition,  led  his  army  into  some 
defiles,  where  he  was  surrounded  by  his  enemies,  and  re- 
duced to  the  last  extremity.    By  the  advice  of  Pan,  his 
lieutenant-general,  he  made  his  army  give  a  sudden  shout, 
which  struck  the  enemy  with  so  great  astonishment  and 
terror,  that  they  fled  with  the  utmost  precipitation.    Hence, 
it  was  ever   afterward  called  a  panic,  and  supposed  to 
come  directly  from  heaven.    It  is  thus  expressed  by  Pindar : 
"  When  men  are  struck  with  divine  terrors,  even  the  chil- 
dren of  the  gods  betake  themselves  to  flight."    The  flight 
of  the  Syrians,  in  the  reign  of  Jehoram,  king  of  Israel, 
was  produced  by  a  panic,  which  so  completely  unmanned 
them,  that,  says  the  sacred  historian,   "  all  the  way  was 
full  of  garments  and  vessels,  which  the  Syrians  had  cast 
away  in   their    haste."     The   flight  of  Saladin's  army, 
which  was  defeated  by  Baldwin  IV.  near  Gaza,  in  the 
lime  of  the  crusades,  was  marked  with  similar  circum- 
stances of  consternation  and  terror.     To  flee  with  greater 
expedition,  they  threw  away  their  arms  and  clothes,  their 
coats  of  mail,  their  greaves,  and  other  pieces  of  armour, 
and  abandoned  their  bagg^age,  and  fled  from  their  pursuers, 
almost  in  a  state  of  complete  nudity. — Paxton. 

Ver.  55.  And  when  Saul  saw  David  go  forth 
against  the  Philistine,  he  said  unto  Abner,  the 
captain  of  the  host,  Abner,  whose  son  is  this 
youth  ?  And  Abner  said,  As  thy  soul  liveth, 
O  king,  I  cannot  tell. 

It  is  a  favourite  way  of  addressing  a  person  by  saying, 
"  You  are  the  son  of  such  a  person,"  or,  "  Is  he  not  the  son 
of  such  a  man  V  How  Saul  could  have  forgotten  David, 
is  im.possible  to  account  for.  "When  a  person  has  to  ask  a 
number  of  questions,  though  he  know  well  the  name,  of  the 
individual  he  has  to  address,  he  often  begins  by  asking, 
*'  Whose  son  are  you  1"  Many  people  never  go  by  their 
proper  name  :  they  are  known  by  the  son  of  such  a  person, 
as  Nellindderin  Maggan,  i.  e.  the  son  of  Nellindder. — Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  57.  And  as  David  returned  from  the  slaugh- 
ter of  the  Philistine,  Abner  took  him,  and 
brought  him  before  Saul,  with  the  head  of  the 
Philistine  in  his  hand. 

On  some  occasions  the  victor  cut  off  the  head  of  his  ene- 
my, and  carried  it  in  triumph  on  the  point  of  a  spear,  and 
presented  it,  if  a  person  of  inferior  rank,  to  his  prince  or 
the  commander-in-chief.  Barbarossa,  the  dey  of  Algiers, 
returned  in  triumph  from  the  conquest  of  the  kingdom  of 
Cucco,  with  the  head  of  the  king,  who  had  lost  his  life  in 


the  contest,  carried  before  him  on  a  lance.  Mr.  Harmer 
thinks  it  probable  that  the  Philistines  cut  off"  the  head  of 
Saul,  whom  they  found  among  the  slain,  on  Gilboa,  to  car- 
ry it  in  triumph  on  the  point  of  a  spear  to  their  principal 
city,  according  to  the  custom  of  those  times  ;  and  that  Da- 
vid, in  a  preceding  war,  severed  the  head  of  Goliath  from 
his  body,  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  it  to  Saul,  in  the 
same  manner,  on  the  point  of  a  lance.  The  words  of  the 
inspired  historian  do  not  determine  the  mode  in  which  it 
was  presented  ;  we  must  therefore  endeavour  to  form  oup 
opinion  from  the  general  custom  of  the  East.  The  words 
of  the  record  are :  "  And  as  David  returned  from  the 
slaughter  of  the  Philistine,  Abner  took  him  and  brought 
him  before  Saul,  with  the  head  of  the  Philistine  in  his 
hand."  It  is  scarcely  to  be  supposed  that  the  youthful  war- 
rior was  introduced  with  the  sword  in  the  one  hand,  and 
the  head  of  his  enemy  in  the  other,  like  one  of  our  execu- 
tioners holding  up  the  head  of  a  traitor ;  it  is  more  reason- 
able to  imagine,  says  Mr.  Harmer,  that  he  appeared  in  a 
more  graceful  and  warlike  attitude,  bearing  on  the  point 
of  a  lance  the  head  of  his  adversary.  But  it  must  be  con 
fessed  that  the  other  idea,  after  all  that  respectable  writer 
has  said,  is  more  naturally  suggested  by  the  words  of  the 
inspired  historian.  It  is  a  common  practice  in  Turkey  to 
cut  ofif  the  heads  of  enemies  slain  in  battle,  and  lay  them  in 
heaps  before  the  residence  of  their  emperor,  or  his  princi- 
pal oflScers.  In  Persia  Mr.  Hanway  saw  a  pyramid  of 
human  heads  at  the  entrance  of  Astrabad.  They  were  . 
the  heads  of  Persians  who  had  rebelled  against  their  sov- 
ereign. This  barbarous  custom  may  be  traced  up  to  a 
very  remote  antiquity ;  and  it  was  probably  not  seldom  re- 
duced to  practice  in  the  various  governments  of  Asia. 
When  Jehu  conspired  against  Ahab,  he  commanded  the 
heads  of  his  master's  children,  seventy  in  number,  to  be  cut 
ofif,  and  brought  in  baskets  to  Jezreel,  and  "  laid  in  two 
heaps  at  the  entering  in  of  the  gate  until  the  morning." 
The  renowned  Xenophon  says,  in  his  Anabasis,  that  the 
same  custom  was  practised  by  the  Chalybes  ;  and  Herod- 
otus makes  the  same  remark  in  relation  to  the  Scythians. 
— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ver.  4.  And  Jonathan  stripped  himself  of  the  robe 
that  was  upon  him,  and  gave  it  to  David,  and 
his  garments,  even  to  his  sword,  and  to  his  bow, 
and  to  his  girdle. 

See  on  Est.  6.  7,  8. 

An  ancient  mode  of  ratifying  an  engagement,  was 
by  presenting  the  party  with  some  article  of  their  own 
dress;  and  if  they  were  warriors,  by  exchanging  their 
arms.  The  greatest  honour  which  a  king  of  Persia  can 
bestow  upon  a  subject,  is  to  cause  himself  to  be  disrobed, 
and  his  habit  given  to  the  favoured  individual.  The  cus- 
tom was  probably  derived  from  the  Jews  ;  for  when  Jona- 
than made  his  covenant  with  David,  "  he  stripped  himself 
of  the  robe  that  was  upon  him,  and  gave  it  to  David,  and 
his  garments ;  even  to  his  sword,  and  to  his  bow,  and  to 
his  girdle." — In  a  similar  way,  Julus,  and  the  other  Trojan 
chiefs,  confirmed  their  solenin  engagements  to  Nisus  and 
Euryalus :  "  Thus  weeping  over  him,  he  speaks ;  at  the 
same  time  divests  his  shoulders  of  his  gilded  sword — On 
Nisus  Mnestheus  bestows  the  skin  and  spoil  of  a  grim 
shaggy  lion  ;  trusty  Alethes  exchanges  with  him  his  hel- 
met." This  instance  proves,  that  among  the  ancients,  to 
part  with  one's  girdle  was  a  token  of  the  greatest  confi- 
dence and  aflfection ;  in  some  cases  it  was  considered  as 
an  act  of  adoption.  The  savage  tribes  of  North  America, 
that  are  certainly  of  Asiatic  origin,  ratify  their  covenants 
and  leagues  in  the  same  way ;  in  token  of  perfect  recon- 
ciliation, they  present  a  belt  of  wampum. — Paxton. 

Ver.  6.  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  came,  when 
David  Avas  returned  from  the  slaughter  of  the 
Philistine,  that  the  women  came  out  of  all  the 
cities  of  Israel,  singing  and  dancing,  to  meet 
king  Saul,  with  tabrets,  with  joy,  and  with  in- 
struments of  music. 

Has  a  long  absent  son  returned,  is  a  person  coming  who 
has  performed  some  great  exploit,  are  tne  bride  and  bride* 


Chap.  19. 


1  SAMUEL. 


161 


groom  with  their  attendants  expected ;  then,  those  in  the 
house  go  forth  with  tabrets  and  pipes  to  meet  them,  and 
greet  them,  and  conduct  them  on  the  way.  When  a  great 
man  is  expected,  the  people  of  the  village  always  send  the 
tabrets  and  pipes  to  meet  him.  It  is  amusing  to  see  with 
what  earnestness  and  vehemence  they  blow  their  instru- 
ments, or  beat  their  tom-toms,  and  stamp  along  the  load. — 
Roberts. 

The  dancing  and  playing  on  instruments  of  music,  be- 
fore persons  of  distinction,  when  they  pass  near  the  dwell- 
ing-places of  such  as  are  engaged  in  country  business,  still 
continue  in  the  East.  When  the  Baron  de  Tott  was  sent  by 
the  French  government,  to  inspect  the  factories  of  that  na- 
tion in  the  Levant,  having  proceeded  from  Egypt  to  the 
maritime  cities  of  Syria,  he  went  from  them  to  Aleppo, 
and  returnmg  from  thence  to  Alexandretta,  in  order  to  visit 
Cyprus,  and  some  other  places  of  which  he  has  given  an 
account  in  his  memoirs,  he  tells  us,  that  between  Aleppo 
and  Alexandretta,  he  saw,  on  a  sudden,  the  troop  the  gov- 
ernor of  Aleppo  had  sent  with  him,  to  escort  him,  turn 
back  and  ride  towards  him.  "  The  commander  of  the  de- 
tachment then  showed  me  the  tents  of  the  Turcomen, 
pitched  on  the  banks  of  the  lake,  near  which  we  were  to 
pass.  It  was  no  easy  task  to  keep  my  company  in  good 
spirits,  within  sight  of  six  or  seven  thousand  Asiatics, 
whose  peaceable  intentions  were  at  least  doubtful."  "I 
took  care  to  cover  my  escort  with  my  small  troop  of  Euro- 
peans ;  and  we  continued  to  march  on,  in  this  order,  which 
nad  no  very  hostile  appearance,  when  we  perceived  a  mo- 
tion in  the  enemy's  camp,  from  which  several  of  the  Tur- 
comen advanced  to  meet  us,  and  I  soon  had  the  musicians 
of  the  different  hordes,  playing  and  dancing  before  me  all 
thef^ime  we  were  passing  by  the  side  of  their  camp."  The 
translation  does  not  determine,  whether  these  musicians 
were  of  the  male  or  female  sex;  but  I  doubt  not  but  that  it 
would  appear,  on  consulting  the  original  French,  that  they 
were  women  that  played  and  danced  before  M.  de  Tott, 
the  French  inspector,  while  passing  along'  the  side  of  that 
large  encampment.  We  cannot  after  this  wonder  at  the 
account  of  the  sacred  historian,  that  when  Saul  and  David 
were  returning  from  the  slaughter  of  Goliath,  the  great  hero 
of  the  Philistines,  the  ii-omen  came  out  of  all  the  cities  of 
Israel,  singing  and  dancing  to  meet  King  Saul,  with  tabrets, 
with  joy,  and  with  instruments  of  music.  That  is,  as  I  ap- 
prehend, the  women  of  the  several  villages  of  Israel  near 
which  he  passed,  in  returning  to  his  settled  abode,  univer- 
sally paid  him  the  honour  of  singing  and  playing  before  him 
for  some  considerable  way,  while  he  passed  along  in  the 
road  near  to  them.  All  Israel  were  engaged  in  rural  em- 
ployments, as  Veil  as  these  Turcomen.  De  Tott  ascribes 
the  honours  paid  him  by  these  Asiatics  to  the  hope  of  a  re- 
ward :  "  I  took  leave  of  them,  by  presenting  them  with  that 
reward,  the  hope  of  which  had  brought  them  to  attend  us, 
and  with  which  they  were  very  civil  to  go  away  contented." 
I  would  remark,  that  the  eastern  princes  sometimes  cause 
money  to  be  scattered  in  processions  on  joyful  occasions, 
according  to  this  very  writer ;  however,  the  satisfaction  that 
succeeded  great  terror,  upon  the  death  of  Goliath,  was 
enough  to  engage  the  Israelitish  women  universally  to  ppy 
this  honour  to  their  own  king,  and  an  heroic  youth  of  their 
own  nation,  who  had  been  the  instrument  of  effecting  such 
a  great  salvation  for  their  country,  without  any  lucrative 
considerations  whatever.— Harmer. 

When  leaving  the  city  of  Lattakoo,  to  visit  the  king  of 
the  Matslaroos,  on  the  confines  of  the  great  southern  Za- 
hara  desert,  a  party  of  men  was  returning  from  a  distant 
exped  ition,  afler  an  absence  of  several  months.  The  news 
of  their  approach  had  reached  the  town,  and  the  women 
were  hastening  to  meet  them.  On  joining  the  party,  they 
marched  at  their  head,  clapping  their  hands,  and  singing 
with  all  their  might,  till  they  arrived  at  their  homes  in  the 
town.  On  witnessing  this  scene,  my  mind  was  carried 
back  three  thousand  years,  to  the  very  occurrence  recorded 
in  the  above  passage.  The  occasion,  no  doubt,  was  a  joy- 
ful one  to  the  females,  some  of  whom  had  their  husbands, 
and  others  their  fathers  and  brothers,  in  the  expedition,  for 
whose  safety  they  were  interested,  and  had  been  anxiously 
concerned.  The  same  must  have  been  the  case  with  re- 
spect to  the  Israelitish  women,  while  Saul's  army  were  re- 
turning victorious  from  the  Philistine  war. — African  Light. 

Ver.  25.  And  Saul  said.  Thus  shall  ye  say  to  Da- 


vid, The  kingf  desireth  not  any  dowry,  but  a 
hundred  foreskins  of  the  Philistines,  to  be 
avenged  of  the  king's  enemies.  But  Saul 
thought  to  make  David  fall  by  the  hand  of  the 
Philistines. 

In  the  remote  ages  of  antiquity,  women  were  literally 
purchased  by  their  husbands;  and  the  presents  made  to 
their  parents  or  other  relations  were  called  their  dowry. 
The  practice  still  continues  in  the  country  of  Shechem ; 
for  when  a  young  Arab  wishes  to  marry,  he  must  purchase 
his  wife;  and  for  this  reason,  fathers,  among  the  Arabs, 
are  never  more  happy  than  when  they  have  many  daugh- 
ters. They  are  reckoned  the  principal  riches  of  a  touse. 
An  Arabian  suiter  will  offer  fifty  sheep,  six  camels,  cr  * 
dozen  of  cows ;  if  he  be  not  rich  enough  to  make  such  of- 
fers, he  proposes  to  give  a  mare  or  a  colt;  considering  in 
the  offer,  the  merit  of  the  young  woman,  the  rank  of  her 
family,  and  his  own  circumstances.  In  the  primitive 
times  of  Greece,  a  well-educated  lady  was  valued  at  four 
oxen.  When  they  are  agreed  on  both  sides,  the  contract 
is  drawn  up  by  him  that  acts  as  cadi  or  judge  among  these 
Arabs.  In  some  parts  of  the  East,  a  measure  of  corn  is 
formally  mentioned  in  contracts  for  their  concubines,  or 
temporary  wives,  besides  the  sum  of  money  which  is  stipu- 
lated by  way  of  dowry.  This  custom  is  probably  as  an- 
cient as  concubinage,  with  which  it  is  connected ;  and  if  so, 
it  will  perhaps  account  for  the  prophet  Hosea's  purchasing 
a  wife  of  this  kind,  for  fifteen  pieces  of  silver,  and  for  a 
homer  of  barley,  and  a  half  homer  of  barley.  When  the 
intended  husband  was  not  able  to  give  a  dowry,  he  offered 
an  equivalent.  The  patriarch  Jacob,  who  came  to  Laban 
with  only  his  staff,  offered  lo  serve  him  seven  years  for 
Rachel ;  a  proposal  which  Laban  accepted.  This  custom 
has  descended  to  modern  times;  for  in  Cabul,  the  young 
men  who  are  unable  to  advance  the  required  dowry,  "  live 
with  their  future  father-in-law  and  earn  their  bride  by  their 
services,  without  ever  seeing  the  object  of  their  \Vishes." 
Saul,  instead  of  a  dowry,  required  David  to  bring  him  a 
hundred  foreskins  of  the  Philistines,  under  the  pretence  of 
avenging  himself  of  his  enemies.  This  custom  has  pre- 
vailed in  latter  times ;  for  in  some  countries  they  give  their 
daughters  in  marriage  to  the  valiant  men,  or  those  whoN 
should  bring  them  so  many  heads  of  the  people  with  whom 
they  happen  to  be  at  war.  It  is  recorded  of  a  nation  in 
Caramania,  that  no  man  among  them  was  permitted  to 
marry,  till  he  had  first  brought  the  head  of  an  enemy  to  the 
king.  Aristotle  admits,  that  the  ancient  Grecians  were  ac- 
customed to  buy  their  wives ;  but  they  no  sooner  began  to 
lay  aside  their  barbarous  manners,  than  this  disgusting 
practice  ceased,  and  the  custom  of  giving  portions  to  their 
sons-in-law,  was  substituted  in  its  place.  The  Romans 
also,  in  the  first  ages  of  their  history,  purchased  their  wives ; 
but  afterward,  they  required  the  wife  to  bring  a  portion  to 
the  husband,  that  he  might  be  able  to  bear  the  charges  of 
the  matrimonial  state  more  easily. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Ver.  12.  So  Michal  let  David  down  through  a 
window;  and  he  went,  and  fled;  and  escaped. 
13.  And  Michal  took  an  image,  and  laid  it  m 
the  bed,  and  put  a  pillow  of  goats'  hair  for  his 
bolster,  and  covered  iMvith  a  cloth.  14.  And 
when  Saul  sent  messengers  to  take  David,  she 
said,  He  is  sick.  15.  And  Saul  sent  the  mes- 
sengers again  to  see  David,  saying,  Bring  him 
up  to  me  in  the  bed,  that  I  may  s.ay  him 
16.  And  when  the  messengers  were  come  in 
behold,  there  was  an  image  in  the  bed,  with  a 
pillow  of  goats'  hair  for  his  bolster.  17.  And 
Saul  said  unto  Michal,  Why  hast  thou  deceived 
me  so,  and  sent  away  mine  enemy,  that  he  is 
escaped  ?  And. Michal  answered  Saul,  He  said 
unto  me,  Let  me  go ;  why  should  I  kill  thee  ? 

An  accident  led  me  into  a  train  of  thought,  relating  to 
that  piece  of  furniture  the  Romans  called  a  canopeum,  and 


166 


1  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  20,21, 


which  is  said  to  denote  a  canopy  or  pavilion  made  of  net- 
work, which  hung  about  beds,  and  was  designed  to  keep 
away  gnats,  which  are  someiimes  insupportably  trouble- 
some to  the  more  delicate.  I  recollected  that  it  is  at  this 
time  used  in  the  East ;  and  that  if  it  may  be  supposed  to 
have  obtained  so  early  there  as  the  time  of  King  Saul,  it 
may  very  happily  illustrate  the  above  passage  of  scripture, 
of  which  our  commentators  have  given  a  very  unsatisfac- 
tory account.  I  should  suppose  a  canopeum,  or  guard 
against  gnats,  is  what  is  meant  by  the  word  translated  a 
pillow  of  goals'  hair,  f  cannot  conceive  what  deception 
could  arise  from  the  pillow's  being  stutfed  with  goats'  nair, 
or  for  making  a  truss  of  goats'  hair  serve  for  a  pillow.  This 
last  must  have  been,  on  the  contrary,  very  disagreeable  to 
a  sick  man ;  especially  one  who,  having  married  a  princess, 
must  be  supposed  to  have  been  in  possession  of  agreeable  ac- 
commodations of  life,  such  at  least  as  were  used  at  that  time, 
und  in  that  country.  A  piece  of  fine  net-work  to  guard 
L.o  from  gnats,  and  other  troublesome  insects,  that  might 
■irtfnib  the  repose  of  a  sick  man,  was  extremely  natural,  if 
tiiC  use  of  them  was  as  early  as  the  days  of  Saul.  It  is  in 
one  place  translated  a  thick  cloth,  in  another,  a  sieve ;  now 
a  cloth  of  a  nature  fit  to  use  for  a  sieve,  is  just  such  a  thing 
as  I  am  supposing,  a  fine  net-work  or  gauze  like  cloth. 
Here  it  is  translated  a  pillow,  but  for  no  other  reason,  but 
because  it  appeared  to  be  something  relating  to  the  head ; 
but  a  canopeum  relates  to  the  head  as  well  as  a  pillow, 
laeing  a  canopy  Suspended  over  the  whole  bed,  or  at  least 
so  far  as  to  surround  the  head,  and  such  upper  part  of  the 
body  as  might  be  uncovered.  Modern  canopies  of  this 
nature  may  be  of  other  materials :  they  may  be  of  silk  or 
thread,  but  goats'  hair  was  in  great  use  in  those  earlier 
ages,  and  may  be  imagined  to  have  been  put  to  this  use  in 
those  times,  as  our  modern  sieves  still  continue  frequently 
to  be  made  of  the  hair  of  animals. 

After  this  preparatory  remark,  I  would  produce  a  proof, 
that  this  kind  of  defence  against  gnats  is  used  in  the  East. 
'•  Among  the  hurtful  animals  that  Egypt  produces,"  says 
Maillet,'"  those  that  we  call  gnats  ought  not  to  be  forgotten. 
If  their  size  prevents  all  apprehensions  of  dangerous  acci- 
dents from  them,  their  multitudes  make  them  insupportable. 
The  Nile  water,  which  remains  in  the  canals  and  the  lakes, 
into  which  it  makes  its  way  every  year,  produces  such  a 
prodigious  quantity  of  these  insects,  that  the  air  is  often 
darkened  by  them.  The  nighttime  is  that  in  which  people 
are  most  exposed  to  receive  punctures  from  them ;  and  it 
is  with  a  view  to  guard  themselves  from  them,  that  they 
sleep  so  much  here  on  the  tops  of  their  houses,  which  are 
flat-roofed.  These  terraces  are  paved  with  square  flat 
stones,  very  thin  ;  and  as  in  this  country,  they  have  no  ap- 
prehensions from  rain  or  fogs,  they  are  wont  to  place  their 
beds  on  these  roofs  every  night,  in  order  to  enjoy  their  re- 
pose more  undisturbedly  and  coolly,  than  they  could  any- 
where else.  Gnats  seldom  rise  so  high  in  the  air.  The 
agitation  of  the  air  at  that  height  is  too  much  for  them ; 
they  cannot  bear  it.  However,  for  greater  precaution, 
persons  of  any  thing  of  rank  never  fail  to  have  a  tent  set 
up  in  these  terraces,  in  the  midst  of  which  is  suspended 
a  pavilion  of  fine  linen,  or  of  gauze,  which  falls  down  to 
the  ground,  and  encloses  the  mattress.  Under  the  shelter 
of  this  pavilion,  ^hichrthe  people  of  the  country  call  na- 
'Mousie,  from  the  word  namous,  which  in  their  language 
signifies  Jly,  or  gnat,  people  are  secured  against  these  in- 
sects, not  only  on  the  terraces,  but  everywhere  else.  If 
they  were  to  make  use  of  them  in  Europe,  I  do  not  doubt 
but  that  people  that  sleep  in  the  daytime,  and  above  all  the 
sick,  would  find  the  advantage  of  them ;  for  it  must  be 
acknowledged,  that  in  summer-time  those  small  insects, 
which  introduce  themselves  into  all  places,  are  insupporta- 
ble to  people  that  would  take  their  repose,  and  much 
more  so  to  those  that  are  ill."  No  curious  carved  statue, 
which  indeed  one  can  hardly  imagine  was  to  be  found  in 
the  house  of  David,  was  necessary;  any  thing  formed  in  a 
tolerable  resemblance  of  the  body  of  a  man  was  sufficient 
for  this  deception,  covered  over  with  the  coverlet  belonging 
to  the  mattress  on  which  it  was  laid,  and  where  the  bead 
should  have  been  placed,  being  covered  all  over  with  a 
pavijion  of  goats'  hair,  through  which  the  eye  could  not 
penetrate.  A  second  visit,  with  a  more  exact  scrutiny, 
.iiscovered  the  artifice. 

There  is  another  passage  in  which  the  word  occurs,  and 
in  the  same  sense.    It  is  in  the  account  the  historian  gives 


us  of  the  real  cause  of  the  death  of  Benhadad,  the  king  of 
Syria,  2  Kings  viii.  15 ;  "  And  it  came  to  pass  on  the  mor- 
row, that  he  took  a  thick  cloth,  and  dipped  it  in  water,  and 
spread  it  over  his  face,  so  that  he  died :  and  Hazael  reigned 
in  his  stead."  If  Hazael  stifled  him,  why  all  this  parade  % 
the  drawing  the  pillow  from  under  his  head,  and  clapping 
it  over  his  mouth,  would  have  been  sufficient.  Why  the 
procuring  a  thick  cloth,  according  to  our  translators ']  why 
the  dipping  it  in  water  1  It  is  the  same  word  (I'-ns  kebeer) 
with  that  in  Samuel,  and,  it  is  reasonable  therefore  to  sup- 
pose, means  the  same  thing,  a  gnat  pavilion.  The  dipping 
it  in  water  may  well  be  supposed  to  be  under  the  pretence 
of  coolness  and  refreshment.  So  Pitts  tells  us,  that  the 
people  of  Mecca  "  do  usually  sleep  on  the  tops  of  the  houses 
for  the  air,  or  in  the  streets  before  their  doors.  Some  lay 
the  small  bedding  they  have  on  a  thin  mat  on  the  ground ; 
others  have  a  slight  frame,  made  much  like  drink-stalls,  ou 
which  we  place  barrels,  standing  on  four  legs,  corded  with 
palm  cordage,  on  which  they  put  their  bedding.  Before 
they  bring  out  their  bedding,  they  sweep  the  streets,  and 
water  them.  As  for  my  own  part,  I  usually  lay  open  with- 
out any  bed-covering,  on  the  top  of  the  house  ;  only  I  took 
a  linen  cloth,  dipped  in  the  water,  and  after  I  had  v/rung  it, 
covered  myself  with  it  in  the  night :  and  when  I  awoke,  if  I 
should  find  it  dry,  then  I  would  wet  it  again  -,  and  thus  I 
did  two  or  three  times  in  a  night."  In  like  manner, 
Niebuhr  tells  us,  in  his  description  of  Arabia,  that  "  as  ii 
is  excessively  hot,  in  the  summer-time,  on  the  eastern 
shore  of  the  Persian  gulf,  and  they  do  not  find  that  the  dew 
there  is  unwholesome,  they  sleep  commonly  in  the  open 
air."  He  goes  on,  "in  the  island  of  Charedsj,  I  never 
enjoyed  my  repose  better  than  when  the  dew  moistei^i 
my  bed  in  the  night."  Hazael  then  had  a  fair  pretence 
to  oflfer  to  moisten  the  gnat  pavilion,  if  Benhadad  did 
not  himself  desire  it,  on  the  account  of  his  extreme  heat, 
which  might  prove  the  occasion  of  his  death,  while  the  dis- 
temper itself  was  not  mortal.  Whether  the  moisture  of 
that  piece  of  furniture  proved  at  that  time  destructive  from 
the  nature  of  the  disease,  or  whether  Hazael  stifled  him 
with  it,  we  are  not  told  by  the  historian,  and  therefore 
cannot  pretend  absolutely  to  determine.  Conjecture  is  not 
likely  to  be  very  favourable  to  Hazael. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Ver.  30.  Then  Saul's  anger  was  kindled  against 
Jonathan,  and  he  said  unto  him,  Thou  son  ot 
the  perverse  rebellious  woman,  do  not  I  know 
that  thou  hast  chosen  the  son  of  Jesse  to  thine 
own  confusion,  and  unto  the  confusion  of  thy 
mother's  nakedness. 

In  the  East,  when  they  are  angry  with  a  person,  they 
abuse  and  vilify  his  parents.  Saul  thought  of  nothing  bu, 
venting  his  anger  against  Jonathan,  nor  had  any  design  to 
reproach  his  wife  personally ;  the  mention  of  her  was  only 
a  vehicle  by  which,  according  to  oriental  modes,  he  was 
to  convey  his  resentment  against  Jonathan  into  the  minds 
of  those  about  him. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Ver.  9.  And  the  priest  said,  The  sw.ord  of  Goliath 
the  Philistine,  whom  thou  slewest  in  the  valley 
of  Elah,  behold,  it  is  here,  wrapped  in  a  cloth 
behind  the  ephod :  if  thou  wilt  take  that,  take 
it ;  for  there  is  no  other  save  that  here.  And 
David  said.  There  is  none  like  that ;  give  it  me. 

To  the  jewels  of  silver  and  gold,  which  the  Hebrew 
soldier  was  accustomed  to  bring  as  a  free-will  6flering 
into  the  treasury  of  his  God,  must  be  added  the  armour  ot 
some  illustrious  foe,  which,  in  gratitude  for  his  preserva- 
tion, he  suspended  in  the  sanctuary.  The  sword  of  Go- 
liath was  wrapped  up  in  a  cloth,  and  deposited  behind  the 
ephod  ;  and  in  a  succeeding  war,  the  Philistines  proving 
victorious,  took  their  revenge  by  depositing  the  armour  of 
Saul  in  the  temple  of  Ashtaroth.  The  custom  of  dedica- 
ting to  the  gods  the  spoils  of  a  conquered  enemy,  and  placing 
them  in  their  temples  as  trophies  of  victory  and  testimonies 
of  gratitude,  is  verv  ancient,  and  universally  received  in 
Asia  and  Greece.   Hector  promises  to  dedicate  his  enemy's 


Chap.  22,  23. 


1  SAMUEL. 


167 


armour  in  the  temple  of  Apollo,  if  he  would  grant  him  the 
victory :  "  But  if  I  shall  prove  victorious,  and  Apollo 
vouchsafe  me  the  glory  to  strip  off  his  armour,  and  carry 
it  to  sacred  Trov,  then  will  I  suspend  it  in  the  temple  of 
the  far-darting  Apollo."  Virgil  alludes  to  this  custom  in 
his  description  of  the  temple,  where  Latinus  gives  audi- 
ence to  the  ambassadors  of -£neas  : 

"  Multaque  prseterea  sacris  in  postibus  arma,"  &c. 

JSn.  lib.  vii.  1.  183. 

"  Besides,  on  the  sacred  doorposts,  many  arms,  captive 
chariots,  and  crooked  cimeters  are  suspended,  helmets, 
crested  plumes,  and  massy  bars  of  gates,  and  darts,  and 
shields,  and  beaks  torn  from  ships."  Nor  was  it  the  cus- 
tom only  to  dedicate  to  heaven  the  weapons  taken  from  an 
enemy;  when  the  soldier  retired  from  the  tumults  of  war 
to  the  bosom  of  his  family,  he  frequently  hung  up  his  own 
arms  in  the  temple,  as  a  grateful  acknowledgment  of  the 
protection  he  had  received,  and  the  victories  he  had  won. 
In  this  custom,  the  Greeks  and  Romans  imitated  the  Asiatic 
nations,  and  particularly  the  Hebrews ;  for  when  David 
resigned  the  command  of  his  armies  to  his  generals,  he 
laid  up  his  arms  in  the  tabernacle,  where  they  continued 
for  several  ages ;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  his  conduct 
in  this  respect,  was  followed  by  many  of  his  companions  in 
arms.  When  Joash,  one  of  his  descendants,  was  crowned, 
Jehoiada  the  high-priest,  imder  whose  care  he  had  been 
educated,  delivered  to  the  captains  of  hundreds,  spears, 
and  bucklers,  and  shields,  that  had  been  King  David's, 
which  were  in  the  house  of  God. — P.4Xton. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
Ver.  6.  When  Saul  heard  that  David  was  dis- 
covered, and  the  men  that  were  with  him,  (now 
Saul  abode  in  Gibeah  under  a  tree  in  Ramah, 
having  his  spear  in  his  hand,  and  all  his  ser- 
vants were  standing  about  him.) 

Though  mean  people  in  travelling  might  make  use  of 
trees  for  shelter  from  the  heat,  we  may  perhaps  think  it 
almost  incredible  that  kings  should  not  imagine  that  either 
proper  houses  would  be  marked  out  for  their  reception  ;  or 
if  that  could  not  be  convenientlv  done  in  some  of  their 
routes,  that  at  least  they  would  have  tents  carried  along 
with  them,  as  persons  of  more  than  ordinary  rank  and 
condition  are  supposed  by  Dr.  Shaw  now  to  do.  For  these 
reasons  we  may  possibly  have  been  extremely  surprised  at 
that  passage  concerning  Saul,  1  Sam.  xxii.  6,  Now  Swul 
aiode  in  Gibeah,  under  a  tree  in  Ramah,  or,  according  to  the 
margin,  under  a  grove  in  a  high  place,  having  his  spear  in 
his  hand,  and  all  his  servants  were  standing  about  him. 
Yet  strange  as  this  may  appear  to  us,  it  is  natural  enough 
according  to  the  present  customs  of  the  East,  where  we 
know  the  solemnity  and  awfulness  of  superiority  is  kept  up 
as  high  as  ever.  Thus  when  Dr.  Pococke  was  travelling 
in  the  company  of  the  governor  of  Faiume,  who  was 
treated  with  great  respect  as  he  passed  along,  they  passed 
one  night,  he  tells  us,  in  a  grove  of  palm-trees.  The 
governor  might,  no  doubt,  had  he  pleased,  have  lodged  in 
some  village;  but  he  rather  chose  a  place  which  we  think 
very  odd  for  a  person  of  figure.  The  position  of  Saul, 
Which  was  on  a  high  place  according  to  the  margin, 
reminds  me  of  another  passage  of  this  author,  where  he 
gi-'-es  us  an  account  of  the  going  out  of  the  Caya,  or  lieu- 
tenant of  the  governor  of  Meloui,  on  a  sort  of  Arab  expe- 
dition, towards  a  place  where  there  was  an  ancient  temple, 
attended  by  many  people  with  kettledrums  and  other 
music :  the  doctor  visited  that  temple,  and  upon  his  return 
from  it  went  to  the  caya,  he  says,  "whose  carpets  and 
cushions  were  laid  on  a  height,  on  which  he  sat  with  the 
standard  by  him,  which  is  carried  before  him  when  he 
goes  out  in  this  manner,  I  sat  down  with  him,  and  coffee 
was  brought;  the  sadar  himself,  came  after  as  incognito." 
Saul  seems,  by  the  description  given,  as  well  as  by  the  fol- 
lowing part  of  the  history,  to  have  been  pursuing  after 
David,  and  stopping,  to  have  placed  himself,  according  to 
the  present  oriental  mode,  in  the  posture  of  chief  Whether 
the  spear  in  his  hand,  or  at  his  hand,  as  it  might  be  trans- 
lated according  to  Noldius,  and  as  appears  by  the  use  of 
that  prefix  in  Ezek,  x.  15,  was  the  same  thing  to  Saul's 
I,  people  that  the  standard  was  to  those  of  the  caya,  I  know 
1      not;  if  it  was,  there  is  a  third  thing  in  this  text  illustrated 


by  the  dot.  tor's  accounts,  the  stopping  under  a  tree  or  grove; 
the  stopping  on  a  high  place;  and  the  sacred  historian's 
remark,  that  he  had  his  spear  by  him.  It  is  certain,  that 
when  a  long  pike  is  carried  before  a  company  of  Arabs,  it 
is  a  mark  that  an  Arab  sheik,  or  prince,  is  there,  which 

Eike  is  carried  before  him ;  and  when  he  alights,  and  the 
orses  are  fastened,  the  pike  is  fixed,  as  appears  by  a  story 
in  Norden. — Harmer. 

Ver.  18.  And  the  king  said  to  Doeg,  Turn  thou, 
and  fall  upon  the  priests.  And  Doeg  the 
Edomite  turned,  and  he  fell  upon  the  priests, 
and  slew  on  that  day  fourscore  and  five  persons 
that  did  wear  a  linen  ephod. 

In  ancient  times,  persons  of  the  highest  rank  and  station 
were  employed  to  execute  the  sentence  of  the  law.  The) 
had  not  then,  as  we  have  at  present,  public  executioners ; 
but  the  prince  laid  his  commands  on  any  of  his  courtiers 
whom  he  chose,  and  probably  selected  the  person  for  whom 
he  had  the  greatest  favour.  Gideon  commanded  Jether, 
his  eldest  son,  to  execute  his  sentence  on  the  kings  of 
Midian :  the  king  of  Israel  ordered  the  footmen  who  stood 
around  him,  and  were  probably  a  chosen  body  of  soldiers 
for  the  defence  of  his  person,  to  put  to  death  the  priests  of 
the  Lord ;  and  when  they  refused,  Doeg,  an  Edomite,  one 
of  his  principal  officers.  Long  after  the  days  of  Saul,  the 
reigning  monarch  commanded  Beniah,  the  chief  captain 
of  his  armies,  to  perform  that  duty.  Sometimes  the  chief 
magistrate  executed  the  sentence  of  the  law  with  his  own 
hands;  for  when  Jether  shrunk  from  the  duty  which  his 
father  required,  Gideon,  at  that  time  the  supreme  magis- 
trate in  Israel,  did  not  hesitate  to  do  it  himself  In  these 
times  such  a  command  would  be  reckoned  equally  barba- 
rous and  unbecoming;  but  the  ideas  which  were  entertained 
in  those  primitive  ages  of  honour  and  propriety,  were  in 
many  respects  extremely  different  from  ours.  In  Homer, 
the  exasperated  Ulysses  commanded  his  son  Telemachu'' 
to  put  to  death  the  suiters  of  Penelope,  which  was  imme- 
diately done.  The  custom  of  employing  persons  of  high 
rank  to  execute  the  sentence  of  the  law,  is  still  retained  in 
the  principality  of  Senaar,  where  the  public  executioner  is 
one  of  the  principal  nobility  ;  and,  by  virtue  of  his  office, 
resides  in  the  royal  palace. — Paxton, 

CHAPTER  XXin. 

Ver.  16.  And  Jonathan  Saul's  son  arose,  and 
went  to  David  into  the  wood,  and  strengthened 
his  hand  in  God. 

A  passage  in  the  Travels  of  Pietro  della  Valle,  which 
bears  a  strong  resemblance  to  this  part  of  David's  history, 
considerably  illustrates  it  Speaking  of  his  passing  through 
a  forest  or  wood  in  Mazanderan,  a  province  of  Persia,  into 
which  they  entered  on  the  11th  of  February,  and  com- 
plaining of  the  moisture  and  heaviness  of  the  roads  there, 
he  tells  us,  "  We  did  at  length  master  them,  but  with  so 
much,  difficulty  that  we  could  not  get  forward  above  two 
leagues  that  day,  and  night  overtook  us  before  we  got 
through  the  forest.  We  endeavoured  to  find  some  place 
of  retreat  in  different  parts,  to  which  the  barking  of  dogs, 
or  noise  made  by  other  animals,  seemed  to  guide  us.  But 
at  last,  finding  no  inhabited  place  near  us,  we  passed  the 
night  in  the  same  forest,  among  the  trees,  under  which  we 
made  a  kind  of  intrenchment  with  our  baggage,  in  a  place 
where  we  found  many  leaves  that  had  fallen  from  the 
trees.  These  served  us  for  a  carpet  and  for  bedding  both, 
without  any  other  tent  than  the  branches  of  the  great  trees 
there,  through  which  the  moonshine  reached  us,  and  made 
a  kind  of  pavilion  of  cloth  of  silver.  There  was  no  want 
of  wood  for  the  making  a  great  fire,  any  more  than  of  pro- 
visions for  supper,  which  we  sent  for  from  the  nearest 
village  in  the  forest,  seated  by  the  highway-side,  where, 
after  some  contest  with  the  people,  of  a  savage  and  sus- 
picious temper,  who  were  ready  to  come  to  blows  with  my 
messengers,  without  knowing  any  reason  why  they  should; 
they,  after  coming  to  a  right  understanding  with  us,  be- 
came very  civil,  would  have  lodged  us,  and  made  us 
presents :  but  on  our  refusal  on  account  of  the  distance  of 
the  way,  the  chief  person  of  the  town,  with  other  principal 
inhabitants,  came  of  their  own  accord  to  our  camp,  laden 


168 


1  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  23—25: 


with  good  meat,  and  other  provisions,  and  spent  the  night 
with  us  with  great  gayety.  They  even  brought  us  a  coun- 
try musician,  who  regaled  us  during  supper,  and  all  night 
,ong,  with  certain  forest  songs,  in  the  language  of  the 
country,  that  is,  of  Mazanderan,  where  a  coarse  kind  of 
Persian  is  spoken,  sung  to  the  sound  of  a  miserable  violin, 
which  was  sufficiently  tiresome." — Harmes. 

Ver.  19.  Then  came  up  the  Ziphites  to  Saul  to 
Gibeah,  saying,  Doth  not  David  hide  himself 
with  us  in  strongholds  in  the  wood,  in  the  hill 
of  Hachilah,  which  is  on  the  south  of  Jeshimon? 

The  margin  has,  for  south,  "on  the  right  hand."  "  The 
Hebrews  express  the  east,  west,  north,  and  south,  by  words 
which  signify  before,  behind,  left,  and  right,  according  to 
the  situation  of  a  man  with  his  face  turned  towards  the 
south."  In  the  same  way  do  the  Hindoos  speak  on  this 
subject,  the  north  is  shown  by  the  left,  the  south  by  the 
right  hand,  the  face  being  considered  to  be  towards  the  east. 
When  the  situation  of  any  thing  is  spoken  of,  it  is  always 
mentioned  in  connexion  with  the  cardinal  points.  Often, 
when  people  wish  to  give  intelligence  respecting  any  thing, 
they  begin  by  asking  a  question  which  conveys  the  inform- 
ation required.  Thus  the  situation  of  poor  David  was 
described  by  asking  a  question.  "  Have  not  the  elephants 
been  ravaging  the  fields  of  Tamban  last  night  T'  is  a 
question  asked  when  such  a  circumstance  has  taken  place. 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  29.  And  David  went  up  from  thence,  and 
dwelt  in  strongholds  at  En-gedi. 

The  village  of  Engedi,  situated  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Jericho,  derives  its  name  from  the  Hebrew  word  (r*;)  Ain, 
a  fountain,  and  ("ni)  a  kid.  It  is  suggested  by  the  situation 
among  lofty  rocks,  which,  overhanging  the  valleys,  seem 
to  threaten  the  traveller  with  immediate  destruction.  A 
fountain  of  pure  water  rises  near  the  summit,  which  the 
inhabitants  call  Engedi,  the  fountain  of  the  goat,  because 
it  is  hardly  accessible  to  any  other  creature. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Ver.  8.  And  when  Saul  looked  behind  him,  Da- 
vid stooped  with   his  face   to  the  earth,  and 
bowed  himself 

"  Some  time  after  this,  the  ambassador  had  his  public 
audience,  when  we  saw  the  king  in  great  splendour :  he 
was  decked  in  all  his  jewels,  with  his  crown  on  his  head, 
his  bazubends  or  armlets  on  his  arms,  seated  on  his  throne. 
We  approached  him,  bowing  after  our  own  manner  ;  but 
the  Persians  bowed  as  David  did  to  Saul,  who  stooped  with 
his  face  to  the  earth,  and  bowed  himself.  1  Sam.  xxiv.  8. 
That  is,  not  touching  the  earth  with  the  face,  but  bowing 
with  their  bodies  at  right  angles,  the  hands  placed  on  the 
knees,  and  the  legs  somewhat  asunder.  It  is  only  on 
remarkable  occasions  that  the  prostration  of  the  Rouee 
Zemeen,  the  face  to  the  earth,  is  made,  which  must  be  the 
falling  upon  the  face  to  the  earth,  and  worshipping  as 
Joshua  did." — Morier. 

Ver.  12.  The  Lord  judge  between  me  and  thee, 
and  the  Lord  avenge  me  of  thee  :  but  my  hand 
shall  not  be  upon  thee. 

The  attitudes  and  expression  of  respect,  which  the  rules 
of  good-breeding  require  from  the  Oriental,  are  far  more 
diversified  and  servile  than  ours ;  yet  he  uses  a  freedom 
with  his  equals,  and  even  with  persons  of  superior  condi- 
tion, which  we  are  uniformly  taught  to  regard  as  im- 
proper. It  is  reckoned  among  us  a  sure  mark  of  vulgarity, 
in  any  person  to  mention  his  own  name  before  that  of  his 
equal ;  and  an  instance  of  great  arrogance  to  name  himself 
before  hi?  superior  ;  but  in  the  East,  it  is  quite  customary 
for  the  speaker  to  name  himself  first.  This  was  also  the 
habitual  practice  in  Israel,  and  quite  consistent  with  their 
notions  of  good-breeding :  for  David,  who  had  been  long 
at  the  court  of  Saul,  and  could  be  no  stranger  to  the  rules 
of  ffood  manners,  addressed  his  sovereiern  in  these  words: 
"  The  Lord  judge  between  me  and  thee  ;"  and  this  at  a  time 


too,  when  he  treated  that  prince  with  great  reverence;  for 
"  he  stooped  with  his  face  to  the  earth,  and  bowed  himself 
immediately  before.  In  the  same  manner,  Ephron  the 
Hittite  replied  to  the  patriarch  Abraham,  who  was  at  least 
his  equal,  more  probably  his  superior  :  "  My  lord,  hearken 
unto  me  ;  the  land  is  worth  four  hundred  shekels  of  silver ; 
what  is  that  between  me  and  thee  T*  Hence  David  was 
guilty  of  no  rudeness  to  Saul,  in  naming  hiriiself  first ;  his 
conduct  was  quite  agreeable  to  the  modern  ceremonial  of 
eastern  courts,  at  least  to  that  of  Persia,  which  seems  to 
have  been  established  soon  after  the  flood. — Paxton. 

Ver.  14.  After  whom  is  the  king  of  Israel  come 
out  ?  after  whom  dost  thou  pursue  ?  after  a  dead 
dog,  after  a  flea  ? 

It  is  highly  contemptible  and  provoking  to  compare  a 
man  to  a  dead  dog.  Has  a  servant  offended  his  master; 
he  will  say,  "  Stand  there  and  be  like  a  dead  dog  to  me." 
Does  a  creditor  press  much  for  his  money ;  the  debtor  will 
say,  "  Bring  your  bond,  and  then  he  is  a  dead  dog  to  me." 
"  I  care  as  much  for  that  fellow  as  for  a  dead  dog."  "  I  w^ll 
tell  you  what  that  fellow  is  worth  ;  a  dead  dog !" — RoBERf  s. 

Ver.  16.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  David  had 
made  an  end  of  speaking  these  words  unto 
Saul,  that  Saul  said,  Is  this  thy  voice,  my  son 
David  1  And  Saul  lifted  up  his  voice  and  wept. 

When  a  man  in  great  sorrow  is  spoken  of,  it  is  said, 
"  Ah,  how  he  did  lift  up  his  voice  and  weep !"    '*  Alas,  how 
great  is  their  trouble,  they  are  all  lifting  up  the  voice." 
— Roberts.  '  ' 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Ver.  1.  And  Samuel  died;  and  all  the  Israelites 
were  gathered  together,  and  lamented  him,  and 
buried  him  in  his  house  at  Ramah.     And  Da- 
vid arose,  and  went  down  to  the  wilderness  of 

Paran. 

/ 

While  walking  out  one  evening,  a  few  fields'  distance 
from  Deir  el  Kaner,  with  Hanna  Doomani,  the  son  of 
my  host,  to  see  a  detached  garden  belonging  to  his  father, 
he  pointed  out  to  me,  near  it,  a  small  solid  stone  building, 
apparently  a  house ;  very  solemnly  adding,  "  Kahbar  beify," 
the  sepulchre  of  our  family.  It  had  neither  door  nor 
window.  He  then  directed  my  attention  to  a  considerable 
number  of  similar  buildings,  at  a  distance ;  which  to  the 
eye  are  exactly  like  houses,  but  which  are  in  fact  family 
mansions  for  the  dead.  Perhaps  this  custom  may  have 
been  of  great  antiquity;  and  may  serve  to  explain  some 
scripture  phrases.  The  prophet  Samuel  was  buried  in 
his  house  at  Ramah :  it  could  hardly  have  been  his  dwell- 
inghouse,  compare  1  Kings  ii.  34,  Job  xxx.  23.  Possibly 
also  the  passages  in  Prov.  ii.  18,  19,  and  vii.  27,  and  ix.  18, 
describing  the  house  of  a  wanton  woman,  may  have  drawn 
their  imagery  from  this  custom. — Jowett. 

Ver.  5.  Go  to  Nabal,  and  greet  him  in  my  name. 
Job  xxix.  8.  The  aged  arose  and  stood  up. 
Acts  xxviii.  10.  Who  also  honoured  me  with 
many  honours. 

In  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  we  have  some  striking 
examples  of  what  may  be  termed  good-breeding.  Look  at 
the  patriarchs  and  others  in  their  renunciation  of  self,  their 
anxiety  to  please,  to  show  respect  to  the  aged,  and  learned, 
the  dignified,  or  those  of  the  sacerdotal  character ;  listen  to 
their  affecting  eulogies  and  their  touching  appeals,  and 
then  say,  have  we  not  in  them  some  of  the  most  pleasing 
instances  of  gentility  and  good-breeding  1  On  their  great 
anniversary  festivals,  the  Hindoos  always  send  to  "  greet" 
each  other.  Has  a  son  or  daughter  got  married ;  has  a 
"  male  child"  been  bom ;  has  prosperity  attended  the  mer- 
chant in  his  pursuits ;  does  a  traveller  pass  through  a  town 
or  village  where  some  of  his  friends  or  acquaintances  re- 
side: then,  those  concerned  send  greeting  expressive  of 
their  joy,  and  best  wishes  for  future  prosperity.  See  them 
on  receiving  company.    A  servant,  or  friend,  stands  at  tht 


Chap.  25. 


1  SAMUEL. 


169 


gate  to  watch  for  the  approach  of  the  guests,  and  to  give 
notice  to  the  master  of  the  house.  When  they  appi  ">ach 
the  premises  the  host  goes  out  to  meet  them,  and  bow.  and 
expresses  his  joy  at  seeing  them ;  he  then  puts  his  arm  over 
their  shoulders,  or  takes  them  by  the  hand,  and  conducts 
them  into  the  house.  When  they  retire  also,  he  always 
accompanies  them  to  the  gate,  and  expresses  the  great  joy 
he  has  had  in  their  company.  Before  people  take  their 
food  they  always  wash  their  hands,  feet,  and  mouth ;  and 
when  they  sit  down,  they  take  their  places  according  to  rank 
and  seniority.  Should  any  man  presume  to  sit  down  "  in 
the  highest"  place  when  he  has  not  a  title  to  it,  he  will  be 
sure  (as  in  the  parable)  to  hear  the  master  say  to  him,  in 
respect  to  "a  more  honourable  man,"-" Give  this  man 
place ;"  and  then,  "  with  shame,"  he  will  be  compelled  "  to 
take  the  lowest"  place.  In  supplying  the  guests,  the  chief 
person  present  is  always  served  the  first,  and  generally  by 
the  hands  of  the  host  himself  They  are  also  particular 
as  to  the  order  of  serving  up  their  viands  and  condiments ; 
to  set  on  the  table  certain  articles  first  would  be  there  con- 
sidered as  much  out  of  place  as  it  is  in  England  to  set  on 
the  dessert  before  the  more  substantial  dishes.  Epicures  at 
home  would  smile,  and  pout  the  lip,  at  the  vegetable  feast 
of  a  Saiva  man.  His  first  course  consists  of  pulse,  green 
gram,  rice,  trnd  ghee,  or  butter ;  the  second,  of  numerous 
curries,  and  -ickles  made  of  half-ripe  fruits,  vegetables, 
and  spices :  tlid  third,  an  acid  kind  of  broth ;  the  fourth, 
curds,  honey,  and  rice  ;  the  fifth,  a  rich  supply  of  mellow 
fruits.  From  this  humble  repast  the  guests  arise  with  more 
pleasure  and  at  less  expense  of  health,  than  the  luxurious 
Englishman  does  from  his  half-medicated  meal,  to  which 
science  is  now  the  footman,  and  a  few  French  terms  its 
fashionable  vocabulary.  When  the  visiters  have  taken 
what  they  require,  the  principal  person  arises  from  his  seat, 
and  all  present  follow  nis  example. — Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  And  Nabal  answered  David's  servants, 
and  said,  Who  is  David  ?  and  who  is  the  son 
of  Jesse  %  There  be  many  servants  now-a-days 
that  break  away  every  man  from  his  master. 

When  a  man  has  gained  some  ascendency  over  others, 
or  when  he  assumes  authority  which  is  offensive  to  some 
one  present,  it  will  be  inquired,  by  way  of  contempt,  as 
Nabal  did  respecting  David,  "  Who  is  he'?  and  whose  son 
is  he  1"— Roberts. 

Ver.  16,  They  were  a  wall  unto  us,  both  by 
nig-ht  and  day,  all  the  while  we  were  with  them 
keeping  the  sheep. 

This  was  said  of  David  and  his  men,  who  had  been  kind 
unto  the  servants  of  Nabal,  and  had  probably  been  a  defence 
to  them  while  they  had  been  in  the  wilderness  tending  their 
sheep.  And  the  same  figure  is  also  used  among  us,  in  ref- 
erence to  those  who  have  been  a  defence  to  others.  "  Ah ! 
my  friend  ;  you  have  been  a  mathil,  i.  e.  a  wall,  unto  me." 
"  Alas !  my  wall  is  fallen,"  means,  th»  friend  is  dead,  or  be- 
come weak.  "  What  care  I  for  that  jackal  1  I  have  a  good 
wall  before  me." — Roberts. 

"V  er.  23.  And  when  Abigail  saw  David,  she  hasted, 
and  lighted  off  the  ass,  and  fell  before  David  on 
her  face,  and  bowed  herself  to  the  ground. 

A  rider  was  expected  to  dismount,  when  he  met  a  person 
of  more  elevated  rank.    Under  the  influence  of  this  ancient 
i  custom,  the  Egyptians  dismount  from  their  asses,  when 
i  they  approach  the  tombs  of  their  departed  saints;  and  both 
:  Christians  and  Jews  are  obliged  to  submit  to  the  same  Qer- 
emony.    Christians  in  that  country  must  also  dismoiint 
wh..n  they  happen  to  meet  with  officers  of  the  army.    In 
Palestine,  the  Jews,  who  are  not  permitted  to  ride  on  horse- 
back, are  compelled  to  dismount  from  their  asses  and  pass 
by  a  Mohammedan  on  foot.     This  explains  the  reason  that 
Achsah,  the  daughter  of  Caleb,  and  Abigail  the  wife  of 
'  Nabal,  alighted  from  their  asses ;  it  was  a  mark  of  respect 
which  the  former  owed  to  her  father,  and  the  latter  to  Da- 
vid, a  person  of  high  rank  and  growing  renown.    It  was 
tindoubtedly  for  the  same  reason,  that  Rebecca  alighted 
from  the  camel  on  which  she  rode,  when  the  servant  in- 
23 


formed  her,  that  the  stranger  whom  she  descried  at  a  dis- 
tance in  the  field,  was  his  master ;  and  that  Naaman,  the 
Syrian  grandee,  alighted  from  his  chariot,  at  the  approach 
of  Gehazi,  the  servant  of  Elisha. — Paxton. 

Ver.  29.  Yet  a  man  is  risen  to  pursue  thee,  and 
to  seek  thy  soul :  but  the  soul  of  my  lord  shall 
be  bound  in  the  bundle  of  life  with  the  Lord 
thy  God ;  and  the  souls  of  thine  enemies,  them 
shall  he  sling  out,  as  out  of  the  middle  of  a 
sling. 

Any  thing  which  is  important  or  valuable  is  called  a 
kattu,  i.  e.  "  a  bundle,  a  pack,  a  bale."  A  young  man  who 
is  enamoured  of  a  female,  is  said  to  be  "  bound  up  in  the 
kattu,  bundle,  of  love."  Of  a  just  judge  the  people  say,  "  He 
is  bound  up  in  the  bundle  of  justice."  When  a  man  is  very 
strict  in  reference  to  his  caste,  "  he  is  bound  up  in  the  bun- 
dle of  high  caste."  When  a  pesson  is  spoken  to  respecting 
the  vanities  or  impurities  oi  his  system,  he  often  replies, 
"  Talk  not  to  me,  I  am  bound  up  in  the  bundle  of  my  reli- 
gion." "  Why  do  those  people  act  so  1— Because  they  are 
bound  up  in  the  bundle  of  desire."  David,  therefore,  was 
to  be  bound  up  in  the  bundle  of  life— nothing  was  to  harm 
him. — Roberts. 

Ver.  35.  So  David  received  of  her  hand  thai 
which  she  had  brought  him,  and  said  unto  her, 
Go  up  in  peace  to  thy  house :  see,  I  have  heark- 
ened to  thy  voice,  and  have  accepted  thy  person. 

Does  a  person  ask  a  favour  of  his  superior ;  it  will  not 
be,  in  general,  said  in  reply,  "  I  grant  your  request ;"  or, 
**  You  shall  have  your  desire :"  but,  Nan  un  muggatli  parf- 
tain,  "  I  have  seen  thy  face."  Has  a  man  greatly  offended 
another,  and  does  he  plead  for  mercy ;  the  person  to  whom 
offence  has  been  given  will  say,  "  I  have  seen  thy  face ;" 
which  means,  that  he  is  pardoned.  Should  a  friend  in- 
quire, "Well,  what  punisnment  do  you  intend  to  inflict  on 
that  fellow  7"  he  will  reply,  "  I  have  seen  his  face."  In  ap- 
plying fcr  help,  should  there  be  a  denial,  the  applicant  will 
ask,  "  In  whose  face  shall  I  now  look  T'  When  a  man 
has  nearly  lost  all  hope,  he  says,  "  For  the  sake  of  the 
face  of  God  grant  me  my  request." — Roberts. 

Ver.  36.  And  Abigail  came  to  Nabal ;  and,  be- 
hold, he  held  a  feast  in  his  house,  like  the  feast 
of  a  king :  and  Nabal's  heart  was  merry  within 
him,  for  he  was  very  drunken  :  wherefore  she 
told  him  nothing,  less  or  more,  until  the  morn- 
ing light. 

Sheep-shearing  is  an  operation  to  which  allusion  is  more 
frequently  made  in  the  sacred  volume.  The  wool  in  very 
remote  times  was  not  shorn  with  an  iron  instrument,  but 
plucked  off"  with  the  hand.  From  the  concurrent  testi- 
mony of  several  writers,  the  time  when  it  is  performed  in 
Palestine,  falls  in  the  month  of  March.  If  this  be  ad- 
mitted, it  fixes  the  time  of  the  year  when  Jacob  departed 
from  Laban  on  his  return  to  his  father's  house,  for  he  left 
him  at  the  time  he  went  to  shear  his  sheep.  In  like  man- 
ner, the  sheep  of  Nabal  were  shorn  in  the  spring;  for 
among  the  presents  which  Abigail  made  to  David,  five 
measures  of  parched  corn  are  mentioned.  But  we  Iriow, 
from  other  passages  of  scripture,  that  they  were  accus- 
tomed to  use  parched  com  when  it  was  full  grown,  but 
not  ripe  ;  for  the  people  of  Israel  were  commanded  in  the 
law  not  to  eat  parched  corn  nor  green  ears,  until  the  self- 
same day  they  had  made  an  offering  to  the  Lord.  This 
time  seems  to  have  been  spent  by  the  eastern  swains,  in 
more  than  usual  hilarity.  And  it  may  be  inferred  from 
several  hints  in  the  scriptures,  that  the  wealthier  proprietors 
invited  their  friends  and  dependants  to  sumptuous  entertain- 
ments. Nabal,  on  that  joyous  occasion,  which  the  servants 
of  David  called  a  good,  or  festive  day,  although  a  churlish 
and  niggardly  man,  "held  a  feast  in  his  house,  like  the 
feast  of  a  king;"  and  on  a  similar  occasion,  Absalom  treat- 
ed his  friends  and  relations  in  the  same  magnificent  style 
.'he  modern  Arabs  are  more  frugal  and  parsimonious; 


m 


1  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  26. 


yet  their  hearts,  so  little  accustomed  to  expand  wii  i  joyous 
leelings,  acknowledge  the  powerful  influence  of  increasing 
wealth,  and  dispose  them  to  indulge  in  greater  jollity  than 
usual.  On  these  occasions,  they  perhaps  kill  a  lamb,  or  a 
goat,  and  treat  their  relations  and  friends ;  and  at  once  to 
testify  their  respect  for  their  guests,  and  add  to  the  luxury 
of  the  feast,  crown  the  festive  board  with  new  chee!>e  and 
milk,  dates  and  honey. — Paxton. 

Ver.  41.  And  she  arose,  and  bowed  herself  on 
her  face  to  the  earth,  and  said,  Behold,  let  thy 
handmaid  be  a  servant  to  wash  the  feet  of  the 
servants  of  my  lord. 

# 
The  necessity  for  washing  the  feet  in  the  East  has  been 
attributed  to  their  wearing  sandals  ;  but  it  is  very  requisite, 
according  to  Sir  John  Chardin,  let  the  covering  of  the  feet 
be  of  what  kind  it  will.  "  Those  that  travel  in  the  hot 
countries  of  the  East,"  he  tells  us,  "  such  as  Arabia  is,  be- 
gin, at  their  arriving  at  the  end  of  their  journey,  with  pull- 
ing off  the  coverings  of  their  feet.  The  sweat  and  the  dust, 
which  penetrate  all  sorts  of  coverings  for  the  feet,  produce 
a  filth  there,  which  excites  a  very  troublesome  itching. 
And  though  the  eastern  people  are  extremely  careful  to 
preserve  the  body  neat,  it  is  more  for  refreshment  than 
cleanliness,  that  they  wash  their  feet  at  the  close  of  their 
journey." 

According  to  DArvieux,  the  little  yellow  morocco  boots, 
worn  by  the  Arabs,  which  are  made  very  light,  so  as  that 
they  may  walk  in  them  afoot,  and  even  run  in  them,  are 
yet  so  tight  as  not  to  be  penetrated  by  water ;  but  none  of 
the  eastern  coverings  for  the  foot,  it  seems,  can  guard 
against  the  dust ;  consequently  this  custom  of  washing  the 
feet  is  not  to  be  merely  ascribed  to  their  use  of  sandals ; 
a  circumstance  that  has  not,  I  think,  been  attended  to,  and 
which  therefore  claims  our  notice.— Harmer, 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
Ver.  5,  And  David  rose,  and  came  to  the  place 
where  Saul  had  pitched ;  and  David  beheld  the 
place  where  Saul  lay,  and  Abner  the  son  of 
Ner,  the  captain  of  his  host :  and  Saul  lay  in 
the  trench,  and  the  people  pitched  round  about 
him. 

The  encampments  of  Israel  in  Canaan  seem  to  have 
been  opened  and  unguarded  on  all  sides.  When  David  rec- 
onnoitred the  camp  of  Saul,  the  king  "  lay  in  the  trench, 
and  all  the  people  pitched  round  about  him."  The  Hebrew 
term  magal  never  signifies  a  ditch  and  rampart,  as  our 
translators  seem  to  have  understood  it,  biit  achariolor  wag- 
on way,  or  highway,  or  the  rut  of  a  wheel  in  the  ground. 
Nor  is  it  to  be  understood  of  a  ring  of  carriages,  as  the  mar- 
ginal reading  seems  to  suppose,  and  as  Buxtorf  interprets 
the  word;  for  it  is  not  probable  that  Saul  would  encumber 
his  army  with  baggage  in  so  rapid  a  pursuit,  nor  that  so 
mountainous  a  country  was  practicable  for  wagons.  It 
seems  then  simply  to  mean,  the  circle  these  troops  formed, 
in  the  midst  of  which,  as  being  the  place  of  honour,  Saul 
reposed.  An  Arab  camp  is  always  circular,  when  the  dis- 
positions of  the  ground  will  permit,  the  chieftain  being  in 
the  middle,  and  the  troops  at  a  respectable  distance  around 
him.  Their  lances  are  fixed  near  them  in  the  ground,  all 
the  day  long,  ready  for  action.  This  was  precisely  the 
form  and  arrangement  of  Saul's  camp,  as  described  by  the 
sacred  historian.  As  it  is  a  universal  custom  in  the  East 
to  make  the  great  meal  at  night,  and  consequently  to  fall 
into  a  deep  sleep  immediately  after  it,  a  handful  of  resolute 
men  might  easily  .beat  up  a  camp  of  many  thousands.  This 
circumstance  undoubtedly  facilitated  the  decisive  victory 
which  Gideon  obtained  over  the  combined  forces  of  Midian. 
—  Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  The  Lord  forbid  that  I  should  stretch 
forth  my  hand  against  the  Lord's  anointed; 
but  I  pray  thee,  take  thou  now  the  spear  that 
is  at  his  bolster,  and  the  cruse  of  water,  and  let 
us  go. 


Thus  did  Saul  sleep,  with  his  head  on  the  bolster,  and 
a  vessel  of  water  by  his  side ;  and  in  this  way  do  all  east- 
ern travellers  sleep  at  this  day.  The  bolster  is  round,  about 
eight  inches  in  diameter,  and  twenty  in  length.  In  travel- 
ling, it  is  carried  roiled  up  in  the  mat  on  which  the  OAvner 
sleeps.  In  a  hot  climate,  a  draught  of  water  is  very  re- 
freshing in  the  night ;  hence  a  vessel  filled  with  water  is 
always  near  where  a  person  sleeps. — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  Then  David  went  over  to  the  other  side, 
and  stood  on  the  top  of  a  hill  afar  off,  a  great 
space  being  between  them :  1 4.  And  David 
cried  to  the  people,  and  to  Abner  the  son  of 
Ner,  saying,  Answerest  thou  not,  Abner?  Theui; 
Abner  answered  and  said.  Who  art  thou  that. 
criest  to  the  king  1 

The  establishment  of  a  colony  of  Jews  in  Abyssinia,  is 
an  event  sufficiently  vouched  for  by  history ;  and  among 
other  things,  it  has  had  the  etFect  of  preserving  in  that 
country  many  usages  of  the  Jews  of  Judea,  traces  of  which 
we  find  in  the  historical  books  of  scripture.  The  remote 
situation  of  this  country,  with  our  very  imperfect  knowl- 
edge of  it,  has  rendered  what  evidence  i,t  furnishes  obscure, 
and  consequently  feeble :  nevertheless  we  find,  occasionally, 
instances  of  such  close  conformity  with  scripture  inci- 
dents, that  their  resemblance  strikes  even  the  least  obser- 
vant. This  has  been  stated  in  strong  terms  by  Mr.  Salt, 
one  of  our  latest  travellers  into  Abyssinia  ;  and  has  been 
lourd  not  less  remarkable  by  Mr.  Pearce,  who  resided 
there  reveral  years.  It  will  be  elucidated  by  the  following 
extracts,  which  scarcely  admit  of  additional  remarks. 
"  While  the  army  er.iained  encamped  on  this  spot,  Mr. 
Pearce  went  out  on  an  excurs.ion  with  Badjerund  Tesfos 
and  Shalaka  Lafsgee,  and  others  ci  ;ne  Ras's  people,  for 
the  purpose  of  carrymg  oif  some  cattle  which  were  known 
to  be  secreted  in  the  neighbourhood.    In  this  object  the 

Earty  succeeded,  getting  possession  of  more  than  three 
undred  oxen  ;  but  this  was  effected  with  very  considera- 
ble loss,  owing  to  a  stratagem  put  in  practice  by  Guebra 
Guro,  and  about  fourteen  of  his  best  marksmen,  who  had 
placed  themselves  in  a  recumbent  position  on  the  over- 
hanging brow  of  a  rock,  which  was  completely  inaccessi- 
ble, whence  they  picked  oflT  every  man  that  approached 
within  musketshot.  At  one  lime  Mr.  Pearce  was  so  near 
to  this  dangerous  position,  that  he  could  understand  every 
word  said  by  Guebra  Guro  to  his  companions;  and  he 
distinctly  heard  him  ordering  his  men  not  to  shoot  at  either 
him  (Mr.  Pearce)  or  Ayto  Tesfos,  calling  out  to  them  at 
the  same  time  with  a  strange  sort  of  savage  politeness,  to 
keep  out  of  the  range  of  his  matchlocks,  as  he  was  anxious 
that  no  harm  should  personally  happen  to  them ;  address- 
ing them  very  kindly  by  the  appellation  of  friends.  Oa 
Mr.  Pearce's  relating  this  incident  to  me,  I  was  instantly 
struck  with  its  similarity  to  some  of  the  stories  recorded  in 
the  Old  Testament,  particularly  that  of  David,  '  standing 
on  the  top  of  a  hill  afar  off",  and  crying  to  the  people  ana 
to  Abner,  at  the  mouth  of  the  cave,  Answerest  thou  not, 
Abner  %  and  now  see  where  the  king's  spear  is,  and  the 
cruse  of  water  at  his  bolster.'  The  reader  conversant  in 
scripture  cannot  fail,  I  conceive,  to  mark,  in  the  course  of 
this  narrative,  the  general  resemblance  existing  through- 
out, between  the  manners  of  this  people  and  those  of  the 
Jews  previously  to  the  reign  of  Solomon ;  at  which  pe- 
riod the  connexions  entered  into  by  the  latter  with  for- 
eign princes,  and  the  luxuries  consequently  introducei" 
seem  in  a  great  measure  to  have  altered  the  Jewish  cha 
acter.  For  my  own  part,  I  confess,  that  I  was  so  mucj 
struck  with  the  similarity  between  the  two  nations,  durin] 
my  stay  in  Abyssinia,  that  I  could  not  help  fancying  r 
litnes  that  I  was  dwelling  among  the  Israelites,  and  that 
had  fallen  back  some  thousand  years  upon  a  period  whe 
the  king  himself  was  a  shepherd,  and  the  princes  of  th 
land  went  out,  riding  on  mules,  with  spears  and  slings,  " 
combat  against  the  Philistines.  It  will  be  scarcelv  nee  ^ 
sary  for  me  to  observe,  that  the  feelings  of  the  Abyssin- 
ians  towards  the  Galla  partake  of  the  same  inveterate  spirit 
of  animosity  which  appears  to  have  influenced  the  Israel 
ites  with  regard  to  their  hostile  neighbours."  Taylor  ' 
Calmet. 


Chap.  27. 


1   S^AMUEL. 


^7 


Ver.  19.  If  the  Lord  have  stirred  thee  up  against 
me,  let  him  accept  an  offering. 

The  Hebrew  has,  for  accept,  "  smell."  Valuable  gifts 
are  said  to  have  a  pleasant  smell.  A  man,  also,  of  great 
property,  "  has  an  agreeable  smell."  "  Why  are  you 
taking  this  siiiall  present  to  the  great  man  1  it  has  not  a 
good  smell."  "  Alas !  I  have  been  with  my  gifts  to  the 
Modeliar,  but  he  will  not  smell  of  them;"  .which  means,  he 
will  not  accept  them. — Roberts. 

Ver.  20.  Now  therefore,  let  not  my  blood  fall  to 
the  earth  before  the  face  of  the  Lord  :  for  the 
king  of  Israel  is  come  out  to  seek  a  flea,  as 
when  one  doth  hunt  a  partridge  in  the  mount- 
ains. 

Thus  did  David  compare  himself  to  a  flea,  to  show  his 
insignificance  before  the  king.  When  a  man  of  rank  de- 
votes his  lime  and  talents  to  the  acquirement  of  any  thing 
which  is  not  of  much  value,  it  is  asked,  "  Why  does  he 
trouble  himself  so  much  about  a  flea  1"  In  asking  a  favour, 
should  it  be  denied,  it  will  be  said,  "  Ah !  my  lord,  this  is 
as  a  flea  to  you."  "  Our  head  man  gave  me  this  ring  the 
other  day,  but  now  he  wishes  to  have  it  again ;  what  is  this  1 
it  is  but  a  flea."  When  poor  relations  are  troublesome, 
the  rich  say,  "As  the  flea  bites  the  long-haired  dog,  so  are 
you  always  biting  me."  Should  an  opulent  man  be  redu- 
ced to  poverty  his  friends  forsake  him,  and  the  people  say, 
*'  Yes,  the  same  day  the  dog  dies  the  fleas  leave  him." — 
Roberts. 

We  find  only  two  allusions  to  the  partridge  in  the  holy 
scriptures.  The  first  occurs  in  the  history  of  David,  where 
he  expostulates  with  Saul  concerning  his  unjust  and  foolish 
pursuit :  "  The  king  of  Israel  is  come  out  to  seek  a  flea,  as 
when  one  doth  hunt  a  partridge  on  the  mountains."  The 
other  in  the  prophecies  of  Jeremiah  :  "  As  the  partridge  sit- 
leth  on  eggs,  and  hatcheth  them  not ;  so  he  that  getteth  riches, 
and  not  by  right,  shall  leave  them  in  the  midst  of  his  days, 
and  at  his  end  shall  be  a  fool."  The  Hebrew  name  for  the 
partridge  is  (m-^^p)  kore,  from  the  verb  kara  to  cry,  a  name 
suggested  by  the  narsh  note  of  that  bird.  Bochart  indeed 
denies  that  kore  signifies  the  partridge ;  he  thinks  the 
woodcock  is  intended,  because  the  kore  of  which  David 
speaks  in  the  first  quotation,  is  a  mountain  bird.  But  that 
excellent  writer  did  not  recollect  that  a  species  of  partridge 
actually  inhabits  the  mountains,  and  by  consequence  his 
argument  is  of  no  force.  Nor  is  the  opinion  of  others  more 
tenable,  that  the  kore  hatches  the  eggs  of  a  stranger,  because 
Jeremiah  observes,  "  she  sitteth  on  eggs  and  hatcheth  them 
not ;"  for  the  passage  only  means,  that  the  partridge  often 
fails  in  her  attempts  to  bring  forth  her  young.  To  such 
disappointments  she  is  greatly  exposed  from  the  position  of 
her  nest  in  the  ground,  where  her  eggs  are  often  spoiled  by 
wet,  or  crushed  by  the  foot.  The  manner  in  which  the 
Arabs  hunt  the  partridge  and  other  birds,  affords  an  excel- 
liMit  comment  on  the  complaint  of  David  to  his  cruel  and 
rmrelenting  sovereign;  for  observing  that  they  become 
languid  and  fatigued  after  they  have  been  hastily  put  up 
two  or  three  times, they  immediately  run  in  upon  them  and 
knock  them  down  with  their  bludgeons.  It  was  precisely 
in  this  manner  that  Saul  hunted  David ;  he  came  suddenly 
upon  him,  and  from  time  to  time  drove  him  from  his  hiding- 
places,  hoping  at  last  to  make  him  weary  of  life,  and  find 
an  opportunity  of  effecting  his  destruction.  When  the 
prophet  says  the  partridge  sitteth  on  eggs,  and  hatcheth 
them  not,  the  male  seems  to  be  understood  ;  because  both 
the  verbs  are  masculine,  and  the  verb  yalad  in  the  mascu- 
Kne  gender  cannot  signify  to  lay  eggs.  The  red  partridges 
of  Prance,  says  Buffbn,  appear  to  differ  from  the  red  par- 
tridges of  Egypt;  because  the  Egyptian  priests  chose  for 
the  emblem  of  a  well-regulated  family,  two  partridges,  the 
one  male,  the  other  female,  sitting  or  brooding  together. 
And  by  the  text  in  Jeremiah,  it  seems  that  in  Judea  the 
male  jjartridge  sat  as  well  as  the  female.  But  while  the 
V[  incubation  of  other  birds,  which  are  by  no  means  so  atten- 
tive, is  generally  crowned  with  success,  the  hopes  of  the 
partridges  are  frequently  disappointed  by  circumstances 
already  noticed,  which  she  can  neither  see  nor  prevent.— 
Paxton. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Ver.  2.  And  David  said  to  Achish,  Surely  thou 
shalt  know  what  thy  servant  can  do.  And 
Achish  said  to  David,  Therefore  will  I  make 
thee  keeper  of  my  head  for  ever. 

The  head  is  always  spoken  of  as  the  principal  part  of  the 
body,  and  when  a  man  places  great  confidence  in  another, 
he  say;s,  "  I  will  make  him  the  keeper  of  my  life  or  head." 
An  injured  man  expostulating  with  another,  to  whom  he 
has  been  kind,  asks,  "  Why  is  this  %  have  I  not  been  the 
keeper  of  your  life."  A  good  brother  is  called,  "  the  life- 
keeping  brother."  But  any  thing  valuable  also  is  spoken 
of  as  being  on  the  head. — Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  And  Achish  said,  Whither  have  ye  made 
a  road  to-day  ?  And  David  said,  Against  the 
south  of  Judah,  and  against  the  south  of  the 
Jerahmeelites,  and  against  the  south  of  the 
Kenites. 

After  the  expedition  was  over,  David  returns  to  Achish, 
and  upon  being  asked  where  he  had  made  his  incursion, 
David  answers  :  Against  the  south  of  Judah,  and  against 
the  south  of  the  Jerahmeelites,  and  against  the  south  of  the 
Kenites.  Mr.  Bayle,  not  with  extreme  good  manners,  calls 
this  A  LIE.  But,  with  his  leave,  the  answer  was  literally 
true,  but  ambiguous;  for  all  those  people  dwelt  on  the 
south  of  Judah,  &c.  Achish,  through  self-partiality,  under- 
stood the  answer  to  mean,  that  the  incursion  was  made  on 
the  southern  borders  of  Judah,  the  Jerahmeelites  and  Kenites 
themselves,  though  David  asserted  no  such  thing.  David 
therefore  was  not  guilty  of  any  falsity ;  and  if  he  was  in 
any  thing  to  blame,  it  was  for  giving  an  ambiguous  answer 
to  a  question  to  which  he  was  not  obliged  to  give  any  direct 
reply.  Mr.  Bayle  says,  "  This  conduct  was  very  unjusti- 
fiable, in  that  he  deceived  a  king  to  whom  he  had  oW.iga- 
tions."  But  David's  answer  was  not  such  as  necessarily 
to  impose  on  Achish,  and  therefore  it  may  be  as  truly  said^ 
that  Achish  put  a  deceit  upon  himself,  as  that  David  de- 
ceived him.  I  allow  he  intended  to  conceal  from  Achish 
who  the  people  were  that  he  invaded,  and  this  he  did,  not 
by  a  lie,  but  by  an  answer  true  in  fact.  The  precise  deter- 
mined truth  was,  that  he  had  made  an  incursion  on  the 
south  of  Judah  and  the  Kenites.  The  Amalekites  dwelt 
on  the  south  of  Judah,  and  the  Kenites  lived  intermingled 
with  them,  till  they  removed  by  Saul's  order,  when  he  was 
sent  to  destroy  the  Amalekites,  and  probably  returned  to 
their  former  dwellings,  after  that  expedition  was  over.  It 
is  certain  at  least,  that  they  were  much  in  the  same  situa- 
tion as  before;  viz.  on  the  south  of  Judah,  and  at  no  great 
distance  from  the  country  of  the  Amalekites ;  and  therefore 
Achish  might  as  reasonably  have  understood  David's  an- 
swer to  mean,  that  he  invaded  the  Amalekites  and  neigh- 
bouring hordes,  who  dwelt  beyond  the  south  parts  of  Judah, 
as  that  he  invaded  the  southern  parts  of  the  very  country 
of  Judah.  For  the  original  words  will  equally  bear  this 
double  version :  against  the  country  south  of  Judah,  &c. 
and,  against  the  south  country  of  Judah.  If  Achish  took 
David  in  a  wrong  sense,  I  do  not  see  that  David,  in  his  cir- 
cumstances, was  obliged  to  undeceive  him.  For  as  he 
had  done  Achish  no  injury  in  the  expedition  against  the 
Amalekites,  &c.  so  neither  did  he,  in  permitting  him  qui- 
etly to  impose  on  himself.  Whereas,  had  he  convinced 
Achish  of  his  mistake,  he  would  have  endangered  his  own 
life,  and  the  destruction  of  all  his  people.  The  greatest 
and  best  casuists  have  allowed,  that  ambiguous  answers 
are  not  always  criminal,  but  sometimes  justifiable,  and  par- 
ticularly in  the  critical  situation  in  which  David  now  was. 
Thus  Grotius.:  "  When  any  word,  or  sentence,  admits  of 
more  significations  than  one,  whether  from  common  use,  or 
the  custom  of  art,  or  by  any  intelligible  figure ;  and  if  the 
sense  of  one's  own  mind  agrees  to  any  one  of  these  inter- 
pretations, it  is  no  lie,  though  we  should  have  reason  to 
think,  that  he  who  hears  us  should  take  it  in  the  other. 
Such  a  manner  of  speaking  should  not  be  used  rashly ;  but 
it  may  be  justified  by  antecedent  causes ;  as  when  it  is 
for  the  instruction  of  him  who  is  committed  to  our  care,  of 
when  it  is  to  avoid  an  imjust  interrogation ;  i.  e.  as  Grono-- 
vius  erolains  it,  such  an  interrogation,  which,  if  we  gav« 


171^. 


1  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  28. 


a  simple  plain  answer  to,  would  hazard  our  own  safety,  or 
that  of  other  innocent  persons."  Of  this  sentiment  were 
Socrates,  Plato,  Xenophon,  Cicero,  the  Stoics,  Aristotle, 
Cluintilian,  and  others  mentioned  by  Grotius ;  and  it  may 
oe  reasonably  expected,  that  those  who  condemn  David 
for  his  ambiguous  answers  to  Achish,  should  fairly  prove, 
that  they  are  ia  their  nature,  and  therefore  always,  crimi- 
nal ;  or  in  what  circumstances  they  are  so ;  or  that  there  is 
somewhat  in  thisanswer  of  David  that  peculiarly  renders 
it  so.  Mr.  Bayle  thinks  he  savs  something  very  considera- 
ble, when  he  says,  "  that  he  deceived  ,a  king  to  whom  he 
had  obligations ;  others  charge  him  with  ingratitude,  be- 
cause he  deceived  his  patron  and  benefactor."  This  woald 
be  an  objection  of  some  weight,  if  it  could  be  proved  that  he 
deceived  him  to  his  real  injury  or  that  of  his  country.  But 
this,  as  hath  been  shown,  cannot  be  proved.  A  man  may 
lawfully  conceal  his  sentiments,  on  some  occasions,  even 
from  a  real  friend  and  benefactor,  who  asks  him  questions, 
which,  if  clearly  answered,  may  be  prejudicial  to  his  in- 
terest. 

Bat  he  had  obligations  to  Achish,  who  was  his  patron 
and  benefactor.  What  were  these  great  obligations,  and 
in  what  respects  was  Achish  a  benefactor  to  David  *?  Why, 
he  allowed  him,  and  his  followers,  a  safe  retreat  into  his 
country  from  the  persecutions  of  Saul,  for  about  sixteen 
months;  first,  at  Gath  his  capital,  and  soon  after,  upon 
David's  request,  at  Ziglag.  But  with  what  view  did 
Achish  allow  him  this  retreat  1  Not  with  the  noble  gener- 
ous view  of  giving  refuge  to  a  brave  man,  ungratefully 
persecuted,  and  driven  into  exile  by  the  unrelenting  mal- 
ice of  an  arbitrary  prince ;  but  merely  from  political  mer- 
cenary considerations ;  to  detach  so  great  a  general,  and 
so  brave  a  body  of  soldiers,  from  the  interest  of  their  coun- 
try, and  to  prevent  their  joining  with  the  Hebrew  army  in 
the  defence  of  it,  against  that  invasion  which  the  Philistines 
were  now  meditating,  and  to  engage  him  in  actual  hostili- 
ties with  his  own  nation,  that  he  might  make  him  and 
them  perpetual  and  irreconcilable  enemies  to  each  other. 
This  appears  from  what  Achish  said,  either  to  himself,  or 
■  some  of  the  Philistine  princes,  upon  the  invasion  of  the 
Geshurites,  «&c.  He  hath  made  his  people  Israel  utterly 
to  abhor  him,  therefore  he  shall  be  my  servant  for  ever. 
Both  Achish  and  David  seem  to  have  acted  merely  upon 
political  principles  in  this  affair,  and  their  obligations  to 
each  other  to  be  pretty  equal.  David  fled  for  protection  to 
Achish,  but  with  no  design  to  assist  him  agamst  the  He- 
brews. Achish  received  Da-vid,  not  out  of  any  love  and 
friendship  to  him,  but  to  serve  himself,  by  engaging  David 
and  his  forces  against  the  Hebrews,  and  thereby  to  put  him 
under  a  necessity  of  continuing  in  his  service  for  ever. 
They  both  appear  to  act  with  great  confidence  in  each 
other,  without  either  letting  the  other  into  their  secret  and 
real  views ;  and  therefore  as  Achish  was  under  no  obliga- 
tion to  David  for  his  retiring  to  Gath,  David  was  really 
under  as  little  to  Achish  for  the  reception  he  gave  him  ; 
for  as  David  would  not  have  put  himself  under  his  pro- 
tection, but  to  serve  his  own  purposes ;  so  neither  would 
Achish  have  received  him,  had  he  not  had  his  own  views 
of  advantage  in  doing  it.  David's  deceiving  Achish  there- 
fore received  no  aggravation  from  any  ingratitude  in  David 
towards  him ;  but  the  shelter  Achish  gave  him  was  upon 
the  mean,  dishonourable,  perfidious  principle,  of  making 
David  a  detestable  traitor  to  his  king  and  country. — Chand- 
ler, 

CHAPTER  XXVni. 

Ver.  1 .  And  it  came  to  pass  in  those  days,  that  the 
Philistines  gathered  their  armies  together  for 
warfare,  to  fight  with  Israel.  And  Achish  said 
unto  David,  Know  thou  assuredly,  that  thou 
shalt  go  out  with  me  to  battle,  thou  and  thy 
men.  2.  And  David  said  to  Achish,  Surely 
thou  shalt  know  what  thy  servant  can  do.  And 
Achish  said  to  David,  Therefore  will  I  make 
thee  keeper  of  my  head  for  ever. 

Soon  after  these  transactions,  while  David  yet  remained 
jnthe  territories  of  the  Philistines,  they  formed  their  army 
to  invade  the  Hebrews,  when  Achish  said  to  David : 
fciow  thou  assuredly,  that  thou  and  thy  men  shall  go  with 


me  to  the  camp ;  his  troops  being  now  increased  by  a  party 
from  the  tribe  of  Manasseh.  David  answered  him :  There- 
fore thou  shalt  know  what  thy  servant  witl  do ;  i.  e.  as 
some  interpret  the  words :  Achish  met  with  a  cheerful 
compliance  from  David ;  and  Mr.  Bayle  aiiirms,  that  it 
was  not  owing  to  David,  that  he  did  not  fight  under  the 
standard  of  this  Philistine  prince,  against  the  Israelites,  in 
the  unhappy  war  wherein  Saul  perished;  or,  as  he  further 
says,  that  when  the  Philistines  had  assembled  their  forces, 
David  and  hisbrave  ad  venturers  joined  the  army  of  Achich, 
and  would  have  fought  like  lions  against  their  brethren,  if 
the  suspicious  Philistines  had  not  forced  Achish  to  dis- 
miss them.  I  am  extremely  glad,  however,  that  the  prin- 
ces of  the  Philistines,  who  may  reasonably  be  supposed  to 
know  as  much  of  David's  dispositions  and  views  as  any 
modern  writers  can  do,  were  of  a  quite  different  opinion 
from  Mr.  Bayle  and  his  followers ;  who  instead  of  believ- 
ing with  Achish  and  Mr.  Bayle,  that  David  would  have 
been  so  very  fierce  against  his  own  people,  made  no  doubt 
but  he  would  have  fought  like  a  lion,  or  a  tiger,  against 
Achish  and  the  Philistines.  And  indeed  David's  answer 
to  Achish  implies  nothing  like  a  cheerful  compliance  with 
him,  to  engage  with  his  forces  against  his  own  people. 
Achish  did  not  directly  ask  this,  and  therefore  David  had 
no  occasion  to  make  the  promise.  The  demand  was  only 
that  he  would  go  to  the  camp.  And  the  answer  was,  that 
he  would  there  make  Achish  witness  to  his  conduct.  But 
this  was  so  far  from  promising  that  he  would  employ  his 
men,  as  Achish  promised  himself,  as  that  it  seems  rather 
to  imply  a  kind  of  denial ;  and  would  appear,  I  believe, 
very  unsatisfactory  to  most  persons  in  like  circumstances : 
"  You  shall  see  what  I  will  do.  I  make  no  promise,  but  I 
will  go  with  you  to  the  camp,  where  you  yourself  will  be 
judge  of  my  conduct."  An  evidently  cold  and  evasive 
answer. 

Thus  far  there  appears  to  be  nothing  blameablein  David's 
conduct,  and  it  is  worthy  of  observation,  that  David's  going 
to  the  camp  was  not  his  own  forward  officious  proposal  to 
Achish,  but  the  order  of  Achish  to  him,  which  he  was  not  then 
in  circumstances  to  dispute,  and  which,  in  his  situation,  he 
was  forced  to  obey ;  and  therefore  it  is  not  true,  that  David 
voluntarily  oflfered  his  assistance  against  Saul  and  the  He- 
brews, to  the  Philistine  army.  If  he  was  in  any  thing  to  blame, 
it  was  for  throwing  himself  in  the  power  of  the  Philistines. 
But  he  thought  that  this  was  the  only  method  left  him  for 
the  preservation  of  his  life  from  the  power  and  malice  of 
Saul,  who  was  therefore  in  reality  responsible  for  David's 
conduct  in  this  instance,  and  the  real  cause  of  that  embar- 
rassment, in  which  he  now  unhappily  found  himself.  His 
situation  was  undoubtedly  very  delicate  and  difficult,  and 
it  hath  been  thought  impossible  for  him  to  have  performed 
an  honourable  part,  let  him  have  acteflhow  he  would  ;  and 
that  in  his  circumstances,  he  would  not  have  deserved  a 
much  better  character,  had  he  betrayed  his  benefactor  for 
the  sake  of  his  country,  than  he  would,  had  he  betrayed  his 
country  for  the  sake  of  his  benefactor.  But  it  hath  been 
shown,  that  David  owed  Achish  little  thanks  for  the  refuge 
he  gave  him,  and  that  his  debt  of  gratitude  on  this  account 
was  too  small,  to  prevent  him  from  exerting  himself  in  his 
country's  service,  whenever  he  had  an  opportunity.  But 
supposing  his  obligations  to  Achish  were  real,  yet  surely 
the  affection  and  duty  he  owed  his  country  were  infinitely 
superior  to  any  demands  of  friendship  and  gratitude  thai 
Achish  could  have  upon  him.  I  will  therefore  suppose 
that  David  was  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  acting  contrary 
to  the  gratitude  he  owed  Achish,  or  the  natural  affisction 
and  duty  he  owed  his  country.  And  can  there  be  a  mo- 
ment's doubt,  whether  private  affection  should  not  g-ive 
place  to  public  1  Or,  whether  one  particular  acciden- 
tal obligation  to  the  avowed  enemy  of  a  man's  country,  and 
that  greatly  lessened  by  political  views  of  interest  in  him 
who  conferred  it,  should  not  yield  to  innumerable  obliga- 
tions, arising  out  of  nature,  constant  and  immutable,  and 
which  to  counteract  would  argue  the  most  detestable  base- 
ness, perfidy,  and  iniquity  1  Had  David  therefore  been 
reduced  to  the  hard  nccessitv  of  fighting  against  Achish,  or 
his  country,  though  the  alternative  would  have  been  gra- 
ting to  a  gienerous  mind ;  yet  his  preferring  his  duty,  which 
he  owed  to  his  country,  to  his  personal  obligations  to 
Achish,  was  right  in  itself,  would  have  been  truly  heroic, 
and  deserved  immortal  applause  and  commendation.  Such 
was  the  virtue  of  the  ancient  Romans,  that  they  would 


Chap.  28. 


1  SAMUEL. 


173 


have  sacrificed  the  love  of  father,  son,  brother,  the  nearest 
relations  by  blood  and  affinity,  the  obligations  of  friend- 
ship, and  even  life  itself,  to  their  affection  to  their  country. 
And  would  they  have  scrupled,  or  thought  it  dishonour- 
able, to  have  sacrificed  some  personal  obligations  to  an 
avowed  enemy  of  it,  when  such  sacrifice  was  necessary  to 
it.s  preservation  and  safety  7 

But  it  is  possible,  that  if  David  had  continued  with  the 
Pliilistine.army,  he  might  not  have  been  reduced  to  the 
necessity  of  employing  his  arras  against  either  his  country, 
or  the  Philistines.  May  we  not  suppose,  that  before  the 
engagement,  David  might  have  proposed  terms  of  peace, 
in  order  to  prevent  if?  Might  he  not  have  told  Achish, 
that  notwithstanding  his  personal  obligations  to  him,  he 
li;;d  none  to  the  Philistines  in  general,  and  therefore  could 
not  stand  still,  and  see  his  countrymen  destroyed  by  the 
Philistine  forces  1  That  unless  they  would  give  over  the 
expedition,  he  should  think  himself  obliged  to  join  the  army 
of  Saul,  and  do  his  utmost  to  prevent  their  destruction  1 
And  would  not  this  have  been  acting  like  a  man  of  honour, 
a  lover  of  his  country,  and  been  consistent  with  any  grati- 
tude that  he  owed  to  Achish  for  his  protection  1  This,  I 
think,  I  may  safely  affirm,  that  it  is  in  all  views  of  policy 
impossible  that,  as  Mr.  Bayle  asserts,  he  could  have  fought 
under  the  standard  of  the  Philistine  princes  against  the 
Israelites.  For  as  he  had  in  immediate  view  the  throne  of 
Israel,  had  he  fought  in  the  Philistine  army  against  his 
own  nation,  it  must  have  irritated  all  the  tribes  of  Israel 
against  him,  and  according  as  Achish  wished,  made  all  his 
people  abhor  him  for  ever ;  whereby  he  would  have  cut 
off  every  possible  prospect  of  succeeding  to  the  crown. 
But  David  was  too  pruaent  a  man  to  take  such  a  step,  and 
if  Achish  endeavoured,  by  forcing  him  into  his  camp,  to 
ensnare  and  ruin  him  with  his  own  nation ;  as  he  well 
knew  the  intention  of  Achish,  he  had  a  right  to  guard 
against  it,  to  counteract  policy  by  policy,  and  though 
obliged  to  give  an  answer,  to  give  him  such  a  one,  as 
.should  leave  himself  at  liberty  to  act  as  prudence  and  duty 
should  direct  him.  And  finally,  had  he  turned  his  arms 
against  the  Philistines,  he  might  have  shoMTi  his  gratitude 
to  Achish,  without  injuring  his  country,  by  affording  him 
protection  in  his  turn,  and  securing  his  person,  and  the 
lives  of  many  of  his  people,  had  the  Israelites  been  victo- 
rious in  the  engagement.  However,  Achish  had  such  an 
opinion  of  his  interest  in  David's  friendship,  that  he  took  his 
answer  in  good  part,  and  concluding  that  he  was  entirely 
gained  over  to  his  interest,  and  the  more  effectually  to  se- 
cure and  encourage  him,  promises  him:  "  I  will  make  you 
keeper  of  my  head  for  ever:"  you  shall  be  always  near 
me,  and  have  the  charge  of  my  person.  David  made  no 
reply,  but  kept  himself  entirely  upon  the  reserve,  without 
idisclosing  the  real  sentiments  of  his  mind.  He  followed 
Achish  with  his  forces,  who  marched  into  the  territories 
of  the  Hebrews,  and  encamped  at  Shunem,  in  the  tribe  of 
Naphtali ;  while  Saul,  with  his  army,  pitched  their  tents 
on  the  famous  mountains  of  Gilboa. — Chandler. 

Ver.  7.  Then  said  Saul  unto  his  servants,  Seek 
me  a  woman  that  hath  a  familiar  spirit,  that  I 
may  go  to  her,  and  inquire  of  her.  And  his 
servants  said  to  him,  Behold,  there  is  a  woman 
that  hath  a  familiar  spirit  at  En-dor.  8.  And 
Saul  disguised  himself,  and  put  on  other  rai- 
ment, and  he  went,  and  two  men  with  him,  and 
they  came  to  the  woman  by  night ;  and  he  said, 
1  pray  thee,  divine  unto  me  by  the  familiar 
spirit,  and  bring  me  him  up  whom  I  shall  name 
unto  thee.  9.  And  the  woman  said  unto  him, 
i  Behold,  thou  knowest  what  Saul  hath  done, 
how  he  hath  cut  off  those  that  have  familiar 
spirits,  and  the  wizaras,  out  of  the  land  :  where- 
fore then  layest  thou  a  snare  for  my  life,  to 
cause  me  to  die?  10.  And  Saul  sware  to  her 
by  the  Lord,  saying,  As  the  Lord  liveth,  there 
shall  no  punishment  happen  to  thee  for  this 
thing.  1 1 .  Then  said  the  woman,  Whom.shall 
I  bring  up  unto  thee  ?     And  he  said,  Bring  me 


up  Samuel.  12.  And  when  the  woman  saw 
Samuel,  she  cried  with  a  loud  voice :  and  the 
woman  spake  to  Saul,  saying,  Why  hast  thou 
deceived  me?  for  thou  art  Saul.  13.  And  the 
king  said  unto  her,  Be  not  afraid:  for  what 
sawest  thou  ?  And  the  woman  said  unto  Saul, 
I  saw  gods  ascending  out  of  the  earth. 

How  long  the  profession  of  necromancy,  or  the  art  of 
i  raising  up  the  dead,  in  order  to  pry  into  future  events,  or 
!  to  be  informed  of  the  fate  of  the  living,  has  obtained  in  the 
j  world,  we  have  no  indications  from  hiVtory.  We  perceive 
I  no  footsteps  of  it  in  the  ages  before  the  flood,  apd  yet  it  is 
'  strange  that  a  people,  abandoned  to  all  kind  of  wickedness 
in  a  manner,  could  keep  themselves  clear  of  this ;  but  our 
account  of  these  times  is  very  short.  The  first  express 
mention  that  we  meet  with  of  magicians  and  sorcerers  is 
almost  in  the  beginning  of  the  book  of  Exodus,  where 
Moses  is  soliciting  the  deliverance  of  the  children  of  Israel 
out  of  Egypt ;  and  therefore  Egypt,  which  affected  to  be 
the  mother  of  most  occult  sciences,  is  supposed  to  have  been 
the  inventress  of  this.  From  Egypt  it  spread  itself  into  the 
neighbouring  countries,  and  soon  infected  all  the  East ;  for, 
as  it  imderiook  to  gratify  man's  inquisitiveness  and  super- 
stitious curiosity,  it  could  not  long  want  abetters.  From 
Egypt,  it  is  certain  that  the  Israelites  brought  along  with 
them  no  small  inclination  to  these  detestable  practices,  and 
were  but  too  much  addicted  to  them,  notwithstanding  all 
the  care  that  the  state  had  taken  to  suppress  them,  and  the 
provision  which  God  had  made,  by  establishing  a  method 
of  consulting  him,  to  prevent  their  hankering  after  them. 
The  injunction  of  the  law  is  very  express : — "  When  thou 
art  come  into  the  land  which  the  Loru  thy  God  giveth  thee, 
thou  shalt  not  learn  to  do  after  the  abominations  of  those 
nations.  There  shall  not  be  found  among  you  any  that 
useth  divination,  or  an  observer  of  times,  or  an  enchanter, 
or  a  witch,  or  a  charmer,  or  a  consulter  with  familiar 
spirits,  or  a  wizard,  or  a  necromancer ;  for  all  that  do 
these  things  are  an  abomination  to  the  Lord."  And  there- 
fore their  punishment  was  this : — "  A  man  or  a  woman  that 
hath  a  familiar  spirit,  or  that  is  a  wizard,  shall  surely  be  put 
to  death:  they  shall  stone  them  with  stones,  their  blood  shall 
be  upon  them."  Nor  was  it  only  the  practisers  of  such  vile 
arts,  but  those  likewise  that  resorted  to  them  upon  any  oc- 
casion, that  were  liable  to  the  same  punishment;  for  "  the 
soul  that  turneth  after  such  as  have  familiar  spirits,  and 
after  wizards,  to  go  a-whoring  after  them,  I  will  even  set 
my  face  against  that  soul,  and  will  cut  him  off  from  among 
his  people,  saith  the  Lord."  Such  was  the  severity  of  the 
Jewish  laws  against  those  who  either  practised  or  encour- 
aged any  manner  of  magical  arts ;  and  it  must  be  said  in 
Saul's  commendation,  that  he  had  put  the  laM's  in  execu- 
tion against  such  vile  people ;  he  had  destroyed  and  drove 
away  those  that  had  familiar  'spirits,  and  the  wizards  out 
of  the  land ;  and  yet,  (observe  the  weakness  as  well  as 
wickedness  of  the  man !)  when  himself  fell  into  distress, 
and  had  abundant  reason  to  believe  that  God  had  forsaken 
him,  he  flees  to  one  of  these  creatures  for  relief,  and  re- 
quests of  her  to  raise  up  his  old  friend  Samuel,  as  expecting, 
very  probably,  some  advice  from  him :  but,  whether  this 
was  really  done  or  not,  or,  if  done,  in  what  manner  it  was 
effected,  are  points  that  have  so  much  exercised  the  heads 
and  pens,  both  of  ancient  and  modern,  both  of  Jewish  and 
Christian  writers,  that  little  or  nothing  new  can  be  said 
upon  them ;  and  therefore  all  that  I  shall  endeavour  to  do, 
will  be,  to  reduce  their  several  sentiments  into  as  narrow  a  ' 
compass,  and  to  state  them  in  as  fair  a  light,  as  I  can,  by 
inquiring  into  these  three  particulars: — 

1.  Whether  there  was  a  real  apparition. 

3.  What  this  apparition  (if  real)  was ;  and, 

3.  By  what  means,  and  for  what  purposes,  it  was  effected. 

1.  It  cannot  be  denied,  indeed,  but  that  those  who  explode 
the  reality  of  the  apparition,  and  make  it  to  be  all  nothing 
but  a  cheat  and  juggle  of  the  sorceress,  have  found  out 
some  arguments  that,  at  first  sight,  make  a  tolerable  ap- 
pearance. They  tell  us  that  the  sacred  history  never  once 
makes  mention  of  Saul's  seeing  Samuel  with  his  own  eyes 
It  informs  us,  indeed,  that  Saul  knew  him  by  the  descrip- 
tion M^hich  the  woman  gave,  and  that  he  held,  for  some 
considerable  time,  a  conversation  with  him ;  but  since  it  is 
nowhere  said  that  he  really  saw  him,  "  why  might  not  the 


tU 


1  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  28, 


woman  couiterfeit  a  voice,  say  they,  and  pretend  it  was 
Samuel's  1  Wiien  Saul  asked  her  to  raise  him  up  Samuel, 
i.  e.  to  disturb  the  ghost  of  so  great  a  prophet,  she  might 
think  he  was  no  common  man ;  and  when  he  swore  unto 
her  by  the  Lord,  that  he  would  defend  her  from  all  danger, 
he  gave  her  intimation  enough  that  he  was  the  king.  The 
crafty  woman  therefore  having  picked  up  the  knowledge 
of  this,  might  retire  into  her  closet,  and  there,  having  her 
familiar,  i.  e.  some  cunning  artful  man,  to  make  proper 
responses,  in  a  different  voice,  might  easily  impose  upon 
one  who  was  distracted  with  anxious  thoughts,  and 
had  already  shown  suflicient  credulity,  in  thinking  there 
was  any  efficacy  in  magical  operations  to  evocate  the  dead. 
The  controversy  betAveen  Saul  and  David  every  one  knew  ; 
nor  was  it  now  become  a  secret,  that  the  crown  was  to  de- 
volve upon  the  latter ;  and  therefore  that  part  of  the  dis- 
course, which  passed  between  Saul  and  Samuel,  any  man 
of  a  common  genius  might  have  hit  off,  without  much  diffi- 
culty. Endor  was  not  so  far  distant  from  Gilboa  or  Shunem, 
but  that  the  condition  of  the  two  armies  might  easily  be 
known,  and  that  the  Philistines  were  superior  both  in 
courage  and  numbers ;  and  therefore  his  respondent,  with- 
out all  peradventure,  might  prognosticate  Saul's  defeat ; 
and  though  there  was  some  hazard  in  the  last  conjecture, 
viz.  that  he  and  his  sons  would  die  in  battle  ;  yet  there  was 
this  advantage  on  the  side  of  the  guess,  that  they  were  all 
men  of  known  and  experienced  valour,  who  would  rather 
sacrifice  their  lives  than  turn  their  backs  upon  their  ene- 
mies." Upon  the  whole,  therefore,  the  maintainers  of  this 
system  conclude,  that  as  there  is  no  reason,  so  there  was  no 
necessity,  for  any  miraculous  interposition  in  this  affair, 
since  this  is  no  more  than  what  any  common  gipsy,  with 
another  in  confederacy  to  assist  her,  might  do  to  any 
credulous  person  who  came  to  consult  her. 

They  who  undertake  to  oppose  this  opinion  lay  it  down 
for  a  good  rule,  in  the  interpretation  of  scripture,  that  we 
should,  as  far  as  we  can,  adhere  to  the  primary  sense  of 
the  words,  and  never  have  recourse  to  any  foreign  or  sin- 
gular explications,  but  where  the  literal  is  inconsistent, 
either  with  the  dictates  of  right  reason,  or  the  analogy  of 
faith.  Let  any  indifferent  person  then,  say  they,  take  into 
his  hand  the  account  of  Saul's  consulting  this  sorceress,  and 
upon  the  first  reading  it  he  must  confess,  that  the  notion 
which  it  conve5''s  to  his  mind,  is  that  of  a  real  apparition ; 
and  since  the  passages  that  both  precede  and  follow  it,  are 
confessedly  to  be  taken  in  their  most  obvious  meaning,  why 
should  a  strange  and  forced  construction  be  put  upon  this  1 
Apparitions  indeed  are  not  very  common  things ;  but  both 
Sacred  and  profane  history  inform  us,  that  they  are  realities, 
as  the  examples  of  Moses  and  Elias,  conversing  with  our 
•Saviour  on  the  mount,  and  the  several  bodies  of  saints, 
which  slept,  coming  out  of  their  graves  after  his  resurrec- 
tion, and  appearing  unto  many,  do  abundantly  testify. 
It  is  owned,  indeed,  that  according  to  the  series  of  the  nar- 
ration, Saul  did  not  see  the  spectre  (be  it  what  it  will)  so  soon 
as  the  woman  did,  because,  probably,  the  woman's  body,  or 
some  other  object,  might  interpose  between  him  ana  the 
first  appearance;  or  perhaps,  because  the  vehicle  which 
Samuel  assumed  upon  this  occasion,  was  not  as  yet  con- 
densed enough  to  be  visible  to  Saul,  though  it  was  to  the 
woman:  but,  that  he  did  actually  see  him  is  manifest, 
because,  when  he  perceived  (which  word  in  the  original 
signifies  seeing  so  as  to  be  assured  of  our  object)  that  it  was 
Samuel,  he  stooped  with  his  face  to  the  ground,  and  bowed 
himself,  which  a  man  is  not  apt  to  do  to  bare  ideas  or  im- 
aginations. 

Persons  of  this  woman's  character,  who  are  under  the 
displeasure  of  the  government,  generally  affect  obscurity, 
live  privately,  and  are  Httle  acquainted  with  affairs  of  state ; 
but  suppose  her  to  have  been  ever  so  great  a  politician,  and 
ever  so  intimate  with  what  had  passed  between  Saul  and 
Samuel  heretofore,  ever  so  well  assured  that  God  had 
rejected  him,  and  elected  David  in  his  stead ;  yet  how 
could  she  come  to  the  knowledge  of  this,  viz.,  that  the 
battle  should  be  fought  the  next  day,  the  Israelites  be  routed, 
Saul  and  his  sons  slain,  and  their  spoils  fall  into  the  ene- 
my's hands ;  since  each  of  these  events  (even  in  the  present 
situation  of  Saul's  affairs)  were  highly  casual  and  uncer- 
tain 1  For  mis:ht  not  this  prince  lose  a  battle  without  losing 
his  lifel  Or  if  he  himself  fell  in  the  action,  why  must  his 
three  sons  be  all  cut  off  in  the  same  day  1  Whatever  de- 
monstrations of  innate  bravery  he  had  given  in  times  past, 


after  such  severe  menaces  as  he  now  received  from  the  ap- 
parition, prudence,  one  would  think,  would  have  put  him 
upon  providing  for  his  safety,  either  by  chicaning  with  the 
enemy,  or  retiring  from  the  field  of  battle,  without  going 
to  expose  himself,  his  sons,  and  his  whole  army,  to  certain 
and  inevitable  death.  These  are  things  which  nd  human 
penetration  could  reach,  and  which  only  he  whb  is  the  ab- 
solute and  Almighty  ruler  of  all  causes  and  events,  could 
either  foresee  or  predict.  But  the  truth  is,  those  menacing 
predictions,  how  proper  soever  for  a  messenger* sent  from 
God  to  utter,  were  highly  imprudent  either  in  this  witch's, 
or  her  accomplice's,  mouth:  for  since  they  knew  nothing 
of  futurity,  and  were,  at  the  best,  but  put  to  conjecture,  it  is 
much  more  reasonable  to  believe,  that  at  such  a  juncture 
as  this,  they  would  have  bethought  themselves  of  flattering 
the  king,  and  giving  him  comfort,  and  promising  success, 
and  not  of  thundering  out  such  comminations  against  him 
as  might  probably  incense  him,  but  could  do  them  no  good. 
They  could  not  but  know  that  the  temper  of  most  kings  is, 
to  hate  to  hear  shocking  truths,  and  to  receive  with  the  ut- 
most despite  those  that  bring  them  ill  news :  and  there- 
fore it  is  natural  to  suppose,  that  had  these  threatening  re- 
plies been  of  the  woman's  or  her  confederate's  forming, 
they  would  have  given  them  quite  another  turn,  and  not 
ran  the  hazard  of  disobliging  the  king  to  no  J)urpose,  by 
laying  an  additional  load  of  trouble  upon  him.  The  truth 
is,  the  woman,  by  her  courteous  entertainment  of  Saul, 
seems  to  be  a  person  of  no  bad  nature;  and  therefore,  if 
she  had  an  accomplice,  who  understood  to  make  the  most 
of  his  profession,  his  business,  at  this  time,  must  have  been 
to  sooth  and  cajole  the  king,  which  would  have  both  put 
money  in  his  pocket,  and  saved  the  credit  of  his  predictions. 
For,  had  he  foretold  him  of  success  and  victory,  and  a 
happy  issue  out  of  all  his  troubles,  he  and  the  woman  had 
been  sure  of  reputation,  as  well  as  further  rewards,  in  case 
it  had  happened  to  prove  so  ;  and  if  it  had  not  (since  no  one 
was  privy  to  their  communion)  the  falsehood  of  the  predic- 
tion upon  Saul's  defeat  and  death,  must,  in  course,  have 
been  buried  with  him. 

From  these  reasons  then  we  may  infer,  that  the  woman, 
in  this  transaction,  did  not  impose  upon  Saul,  since  he  had 
a  plain  sight  of  the  apparition  ;  what  the  apparition  fore- 
told him,  was  above  human  penetration ;  and  (upon  the 
supposition  of  a  juggle)  the  witch  and  her  confederate 
would  have  certainly  acted  clean  contrary  to  what  they 
did.     And  so  the  next, 

2,  Inquiry  meets  us,  namely,  What  this  apparition  wasi 
Some  of  the  ancient  doctors,  both  of  the  Jewish  and  Chris- 
tian church,  have  made  an  evil  angel  the  subject  of  this 
apparition,  in  pure  regard  to  the  honour  of  God.  "  God, 
say  they,  had  sufficiently  declared  his  hatred  against  nec- 
romancy, and  all  kinds  of  witchcraft,  in  the  severe  laws 
which  he  enacted  against  them ;  but  it  is  certainly  denying 
himself,  and  cancelling  his  own  work,  to  seem  in  the  least 
to  countenance  or  abet  them,  as  he  necessarily  must  do,  if, 
upon  the  evocation  of  an  old  hag,  any  messenger  is  permit' 
ted  to  go  from  him.  Far  be  it  from  us  therefore  to  have 
such  conceptions  of  God.  He  is  holy,  and  just,  and  uni- 
form in  all  his  ways ;  and  therefore  this  coming  at  a  call, 
and  doing  the  witch's  drudgery,  must  only  appertain  to 
some  infernal  spirit,  who  might  possibly  find  his  account 
in  it  at  last.  It  was  one  of  this  wicked  crew,  that  either 
assumed  a  phantom,  or  a  real  body,  appeared  in  a  mantle 
like  Samuel,  spake  articulately,  and  held  this  conversation 
with  Saul ;  which,  considering  his  knowledge  and  foresight 
of  things,  he  was  well  enough  qualified  to  do,  notwithstand- 
ing the  sundry  predictions  relating  to  future  contingencies, 
which  are  contained  in  it."  How  far  the  honour  of  God 
is  concerned  in  this  transaction,  will  more  properly  fall 
under  our  next  inquiry:  in  the  mean  time,  I  cannot  but 
observe,  that  whatever  incongruity  may  be  supposed  in  the 
real  appearance  of  Samuel,  it  is  not  near  so  much,  as  to 
find  one  of  the  apostate  spirits  of  hell  expressing  so  much 
zeal  for  the  service  of  the  God  of  heaven,  and  upbraidin" 
Saul  with  those  very  crimes  which  he  himself  tempt 
him  to  commit ;  as  to  find  this  wicked  and  impure  spirj 
making  use  of  the  name  of  God  (that  sacred  and  treme 
dous  name,  whose  very  pronunciation  was  enough  to  mal 
him  quake  and  shiver")  no  less  than  six  times,  in  this  inter- 
course with  Saul,  without  any  manner  of  uneasiness  or 
hesitation ;  as  to  find  this  angel  of  darkness  and  father  of 
lies,  prying  into  the  womb  of  futurity,  anc  determining  th 


Ghap.  28. 


1  SAMUEL. 


175 


most  casual  events  positively  and  precisely.  We  do  not 
indeed  deny  but  that  the  devil's  knowledge  is  vastly  supe- 
•  rior  to  that  of  the  most  accomplished  human  understand- 
ing; that  his  natural  penetration,  joined  with  his  long 
experience,  is  such,  that  the  greatest  philosophers,  the 
subtlest  critics,  and  the  most  refined  politicians,  are  mere 
novices  in  comparison  of  him ;  yet  what  genius,  (however 
exacted  and  improved,)  without  a  divine  revelation,  could 
(as  we  said  before)  be  able  to  foretel  things  that  were 
lodged  in  God's  own  breast,  viz.  the  precise  time  of  the 
two  armies  engaging,  the  success  and  consequence  of  the 
victory,  and  the  very  names  of  the  persons  that  were  to 
fall  in  battle.  This  is  what  the  apparition  plainly  revealed 
to  Saul:  and  yet  this,  we  dare  maintain,  is  more  than 
any  finite  understanding,  by  its  own  mere  capacity,  could 
ever  have  been  able  to  find  out.  But  (without  this  multi- 
tude of  arguments)  if  we  are  to  take  the  scripture  in  its 
plain  and  literal  sense,  read  we  over  the  story  of  Saul  and 
the  witch  of  Endor  ever  so  often,  we  shall  not  so  much  as 
once  find  the  devil  mentioned  in  it.  And  therefore  it  is 
somewhat  wonderful  that  he  should  be  brought  upon  the 
stage  by  many  learned  men,  merely  to  solve  a  difficulty 
which,  upon  examination,  appears  to  be  none  at  all.  But 
now  on  the  other  hand,  it  appears  that  through  the  whole 
narration,  Samuel  is  the  only  thing  that  is  mentioned. 
It  is  Samuel  whom  Saul  desires  to  be  called  up ;  Samuel, 
who  appeared  to  the  woman ;  Samuel,  whom  the  woman 
describes ;  Samuel,  whom  Saul  perceives  and  bows  him- 
self to,  with  whom  he  converses  so  long,  and,  because  of 
whose  words,  he  was  afterward  so  sore  afraid.  The 
scripture  indeed  speaks  sometimes  according  to  the  ap- 
pearance of  things,  and  may  call  that  by  the  name  of  Sam- 
uel, which  was  only  the  semblance  or  phantom  of  him : 
but  that  this  cannot  be  the  sense  of  the  matter  here,  we 
have  the  testimony  of  the  wise  son  of  Sirach,  (an  excellent 
interpreter  of  canonical  scriptures,)  who  tells  us  expressly, 
that  Samuel,  after  his  death,  prophesied  and  showed  the 
king  his  end ;  pursuant  to  what  we  read  in  the  version  of 
the  Septuagint,  viz.  that  Saul  asked  counsel  of  one  that 
had  a  familiar  spirit,  and  Samuel  answered  him.  So  that, 
upon  the  whole,  we  may  be  alloAved  to  conclude,  that  it 
was  the  real  soul  of  Samuel,  clothed  in  some  visible  form, 
which,  at  this  time,  appeared  to  the  king  of  Israel :  but  by 
what  means,  or  for  what  purposes,  it  appeared,  is  the  other 
question  we  are  now  to  determine. 

3.  Several  of  the  fathers  of  the  Christian  church  were  of 
opinion,  that  the  devil  had  a  certain  limited  power  over 
the  souls  of  the  saints,  before  Jesus  Christ  descended  into 
hell,  and  rescued  them  from  the  tyranny  of  that  prince  of 
darkness.  St.  Austin,  in  particular,  thinks  that  there  is  no 
absurdity  in  saying,  that  the  devil  was  as  able  to  call  up 
Samuel's  soul,  as  he  was  to  present  himself  among  the 
sons  of  God,  or  set  our  Saviour  on  one  of  the  pinnacles  of 
the  temple ;  and  a  learned  Jewish  doctor  supposes  that 
devils  have  such  a  power  over  human  souls,  for  the  space 
of  a  year  after  their  departure,  as  to  make  them  assume 
what  bodies  they  nlease;  and  thereupon  he  concludes,  (but 
very  erroneously,)  that  it  was  not  a  year  from  the  time  of 
Samuel's  death  to  his  appearance.  But  these  are  such 
wild  and  extravagant  fancies  as  deserve  no  serious  confu- 
tation. It  is  absurd  to  say  that  the  souls  of  saints  (such  as 
we  are  now  speaking  of)  were  ever  in  hell,  and  more 
absurd  to  say,  that  if  they  are  in  heaven  it  is  in  the  power 
of  any  magical,  nay,  of  anv  diabolical  incantation,  to  call 
them  "down  from  thence.  Great,  \f  ithout  all  doubt,  is  the 
power  of  apostate  angels ;  but  miserable,  we  may  say, 
would  the  state  of  the  blessed  be,  if  the  other  had  any 
license  to  disturb  their  happiness,  when,  and  as  long  as 
they  pleased:  "For  God  forbid,"  says  Tertullian,  "that  we 
should  believe  the  soul  of  any  holy  man,  much  less  of  a 
prophet,  should  be  so  far  under  his  disposal,  as  to  be  brought 
up  at  pleasure  by  the  power  of  the  devil."  Since  the  devil 
then  has  no  power  to  disturb  the  happiness  of  souls  depart- 
ed, this  apparition  of  Samuel  could  not  proceed  from  any 
magical  enchantments  of  the  sorceress,  but  must  have  been 
effected  by  the  sole  power  and  appointment  of  God,  who  is 
the  sovereign  Lord,  both  of  the  living  and  of  the  dead :  and, 
accordingly,  we  may  observe  from  the  surprise  which  the 
woman  discovered  upon  Samuel's  sudden  appearing,  that 
the  power  of  her  magic  was  not  concerned  therein,  but 
:  that  it  was  the  effect  of  some  superior  hand.  The  scripture 
i   'dates  the  matter  thus :  "  When  the  woman  saw  Samuel, 


she  cried  with  a  loud  voice,  lard  the  woman  spake  unto 
Saul,  !  laying.  Why  hast  thou  deceived  me,  for  thou  art 
Saul  1  And  the  king  said  anto  her.  Be  not  afraid,  what 
sawest  thoul  And  the  woman  said  unto  Saul,  1  saw  gods 
ascending  out  of  the  earth."  Now  it  is  plain  from  this  nar- 
ration, that  the  woman  saw  something  she  was  not  accus- 
tomed to  see.  Her  necromancy  had  ordinary  power  over 
demons  only,  or  such  wretched  spirits  as  were  submitted 
to  the  devil's  tyranny;  but,  on  this  occasion,  she  saw  an 
object  so  august,  so  terrible,  so  majestic,  so  contrary  indeed 
to  any  thing  she  had  ever  raised  before,  and  that  coming 
upon  her  before  she  had  begun  her  enchantments,  that  she 
could  not  forbear  being  frightened,  and  crying  out  with  a 
loud  voice,  as  being  fully  satisfied  that  the  apparition 
came  from  God. 

"  But  since  the  scripture  assures  us,  that  God  had 
wholly  withdrawn  himself  from  Saul,  and  would  answer 
him,  neither  by  prophets  nor  by  dreams;  how  can  we 
imagine  that  he  should,  all  on  a  sudden,  become  so  kind 
as  to  send  Samuel  to  him,  or  that  Samuel  should  be  in 
any  disposition  to  come,  when  it  was  impossible  for  him 
to  do  any  good  by  his  coming  1"  Now  there  seems  to  be 
some  analogy  between  God's  dealing  with  Saul  in  this 
particular,  and  his  former  treatment  of  the  prophet  Ba- 
laam. Balaam  was  for  disobeying  the  orders  which  God 
had  given  him  to  bless  the  Israelites ;  and  was  searching 
into  magical  secrets  for  what  he  could  not  obtain  of  God, 
viz.  a  power  to  change  into  curses  the  blessings  which  God 
pronounced  by  his  mouth.  In  this  case  there  was  but 
small  likelihood  that  God  would  continue  to  communicate 
himself  to  a  person  so  unworthy  of  any  extraordinary  rev- 
elation ;  and  yet  he  did  it :  but  then,  it  was  with  a  design 
to  reveal  to  him  those  very  miseries  from  which  his  mer- 
cenary mind  was  so  desirous  to  rescue  the  Midianites. 
The  application  is  easy:  and  it  further  suggests  this 
reason  why  God  appointed  Samuel  at  this  time  to  appear 
unto  Saul,  viz.  that  through  him  he  might  give  him  a 
meeting,  where  he  least  of  all  expected  one;  and  might 
show  him  that  the  fate  which  his  own  disobedience  had 
brought  upon  him  was  determined ;  that  there  was  no  re- 
versing the  decrees  of  heaven,  no  procuring  aid  against 
the  Almighty's  power,  no  fleeing  (though  it  were  to  hell) 
from  his  presence,  no  hiding  himself  in  darkness  from  his 
inspection ;  with  whom  darkness  is  no  darkness  at  all,  but 
the  night  is  as  clear  as  the  day,  and  the  darkness  and  light 
are  both  alike.  That  the  soiils  of  men  departed  have  a 
capacity,  and,  no  doubt,  an  inclination  to  be  employed  in 
the  service  of  men  alive,  as  having  the  same  nature  and 
affections,  and  being  more  sensible  of  our  infirmities  than 
any  pure  and  abstracted  spirits  are,  can  hardly  be  contest- 
ed ;  that  in  their  absent  state,  they  are  imbodied  with 
aerial,  or  ethereal  vehicles,  which  they  can  condense  or 
rarify  at  pleasure,  and  so  appear,  or  not  appear  to  human 
sight,  is  what  some  of  the  greatest  men,  botn  of  the  heathen 
and  Christian  religion,  have  maintained;  and  that  frequent 
apparitions  of  this  kind  have  happened  since  the  world 
began,  cannot  be  denied  by  any  one  that  is  conversant  in 
its  history :  if  therefore  the  wisdom  of  God  (for  reasons 
already  assigned)  thought  proper  to  despatch  a  messenger 
to  Saul  upon  this  occasion,  there  may  be  some  account 
given  why  the  soul  of  Samuel  (upon  the  supposition  it  was 
left  to  its  option)  should  rather  be  desirous  to  be  sent  upon 
that  errand.  For,  whatever  may  be  said  in  diminution  of 
Saul's  religious  character,  it  is  certain  that  he  was  a  brave 
prince  and  commander ;  had  lived  in  strict  intimacy  with 
Samuel ;  professed  a  great  esteem  for  him  in  all  things ; 
and  was  by  Samuel  not  a  little  lamented,  when  he  had 
fallen  from  his  obedience  to  God.  Upon  these  considera- 
tions we  may  imagine,  that  the  soul  of  Samuel  might  have 
such  a  kindness  for  him  as  to  be  ready  to  appear  lo  him  in 
the  depth  of  his  distress,  in  order  to  settle  his  mind,  by 
telling  him  the  upshot  of  the  whole  matter,  viz.  that  he 
should  lose  the  battle,  and  he  and  his  sons  be  slain  ;  that 
so  he  might  give  a  specimen  (as  the  Jews  love  to  speak  in 
commendation  of  him)  of  the  bravest  valour  that  was  ever 
achieved  by  any  commander ;  fight  boldly  when  he  was 
sure  to  die ;  and  sell  his  life  at  as  dear  a  price  as  possible  ; 
that  so,  in  his  death,  he  might  be  commemorated  with 
honour,  and  deserve  the  threnodia  which  his  son-in-law- 
made  on  him ;  "  The  beauty  of  Israel  is  slain  upon  tht. 
high  places  ;  how  are  the  mighty  fallen !  From  the  blood 
of  the  slain,  from  ^he  fat  of  the  mighty,  the  bow  of  Jona- 


176 


1   SAMUEL. 


Chap.  29. 


than  turned  not  back,  and  the  sword  of  Saul  turned  not 
empty.  How  are  the  mighty  fallen  in  the  midst  of  the 
battle !"— Stackhouse. 

Ver.  14.  And  he  said  unto  her,  What  form  is  he 
of?  And  she  said,  An  old  man  cometh  up ; 
and  he  is  covered  with  a  mantle.  And  Saul 
perceived  that  it  was  Samuel,  and  he  stooped 
with  his  face  to  the  ground,  and  bo  wed.  himself. 

In»augury  it  seems  to  have  been  usual  to  represent  those 
who  were  to  be  consulted,  and  whose  oracular  declarations 
were  to  be  received,  as  covered  with  a  mantle,  or  some 
garment.  This  certainly  gave  an  appearance  of  mystery 
to  such  transactions.  Thus  it  appears  the  Roman  acted, 
according  to  what  Plutarch  says  in  his  Life  of  Numa. 
"  Taking  with  him  the  priests  and  augurs,  he  went  up  to 
the  capitol,  which  the  Romans  at  that  time  called  the  Tar- 
peian  Rock.  There  the  chief  of  the  augurs  covered  the 
head  of  Numa,  and  turned  his  face  towards  the  south."  It 
appears  from  Livy  that  the  augur  covered  his  own  head, 
not  that  of  Numa.  The  augur  always  wrapped  up  his 
head,  in  a  gown  peculiar  to  his  office,  when  he  made  his 
observations. — Burder, 

Ver.  20.  Then  Saul  fell  straightway  all  along  on 
the  earth,  and  was  sore  afraid,  because  of  the 
words  of  Samuel :  and  there  was  no  strength  in 
him  ;  for  he  had  eaten  no  bread  all  the  day,  nor 
all  the  night. 

When  people  are  under  the  influence  of  great  sorrow  or 
fear,  they  always  do  the  same  thing,  and  roll  themselves 
along,  making  bitter  lamentations.  And  when  men  have 
escaped  great  danger,  they  roll  themselves  on  the  earth  to 
the  distance  of  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  after  the  car  of  the  tem- 
ple, in  performance  of  their  vow. — Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  But  he  refused,  and  said,  I  will  not  eat. 
But  his  servants,  together  with  the  woman, 
compelled  him ;  and  he  hearkened  unto  their 
voice ;  so  he  arose  from  the  earth,  and  sat  upon 
the  bed. 

Saul,  no  doubt,  on  account  of  his  sorrow  and  fear,  refused 
to  eat,  as  do  others  under  similar  circumstances  at  this  day. 
But  when  people  are  angry  also  they  decline  taking  their 
food.  Should  the  wife  not  bring  the  dinner  to  her  lord!  at 
the  proper  time,  or  should  it  not  be  properly  prepared,  he 
declares  he  will  not  partake  of  it,  and  that  he  has  made  up 
his  mind  to  die  of  hunger.  She  entreats  him  by  the  love 
she  bears  for  him,  she  touches  his  feet  with  her  hands,  and 
strokes  his  chin,  but  no !  he  has  made  up  his  mind ;  die  he 
will.  "  She  shall  have  no  more  trouble."  The  afflicted 
woman  then  runs  to  call  the  mother  or  sisters  of  her  inex- 
orable lord,  who  has  determined  to  commit  suicide  by  star- 
vation. They  all  come  round  him,  but  his  eyes  are  fixed 
on  the  ground,  and  there  are  the  viands  just  as  left  by  his 
weeping  wife.  Then  commence  their  tender  entreaties, 
backed  by  the  eloquence  of  tears  ;  the  mother,  the  sisters, 
the  wife,  all  beseech  him  to  take  a  little,  and  then  the 
matron,  from  whose  hand  he  has  often  been  fed  before, 

Euts  a  little  into  his  mouth,  and  it  is  merely  to  please  them 
e  begins  to  eat. — Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  And  the  woman  had  a  fat  calf  in  the 
house ;  and  she  hasted,  and  killed  it,  and  took 

•  flour  and  kneaded  it,  and  did  bake  unleavened 
bread  thereof:  25.  And  she  brought  it  before 
Saul,  and  before  his  servants ;  and  they  did  eat. 
Then  they  rose  up,  and  went  away  that  night. 

This  calf  was  killed,  dressed,  cooked,  and  eaten  in  as 
short  a  time  as  possible ;  which  might  be  called  for  from 
the  necessity  of  the  guest.  But  it  is  evident  from  other  pas- 
sages that  it  was  a  custom  to  kill,  cook,  and  eat  an  animal 
in  a  very  short  time.  The  heat  of  the  climate  certainly 
prevents  flesh  from  being  kept  many  hours,  but  there  is  no 
need  to  put  the  animal  on  the  fire  while  its  flesh  is  still 


warm.  The  people  affect  to  be  disgusted  with  us  for  keep- 
ing  fowls  six  or  eight  hours  before  they  are  cooked,  and 
say  we  are  fond  of  eating  chettareyche,  i.  e.  dead  flesh: 
There  are  some  Englishmen  who  become  so  accustomed 
to  these  things,  that  they  have  the  chicken  grilled,  and  on 
their  table,  which  a  quarter  of  an  hour  before  was  playing 
in  their  yard. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Ver.  1.  Now  the  Philistines  gathered  together  all 
their  armies  to  Aphek :  and  the  Israelites 
pitched  by  a  fountain  which  is  in  Jezreel. 

The  Archbishop  of  Tyre  tells  us,  (^Gesta  dei,)  that 
the  Christian  kings  of  Jerusalem  used  to  assemble  their 
forces  at  a  fountain  between  Nazareth  and  Sepphoris,  which 
was  greatly  celebrated  on  that  accoimt.  This  being  looked 
upon  to  be  nearly  the  centre  of  their  kingdom,  they  could 
from  thence,  consequently,  march  most  commodiously  to 
any  place  where  their  presence  was  wanted.  He  mentions 
also  another  fountain  near  a  town  called  Little  Gerinum, 
which,  he  says,  was  the  ancient  Jezreel ;  near  this  Saladin 
pitched  his  camp,  for  the  benefit  of  its  waters,  while  Bald- 
win, king  of  Jerusalem,  had,  as  usual,  assembled  his  army 
at  the  first-mentioned  place.        » 

Of  the  fountain  Ain-el-Scanderoni,  Buckingham  re- 
marks, "  This  is  a  modern  work ;  the  charitable  gift,  per- 
haps, of  some  pious  Mussulman,  being  well  built,  with  a 
cistern  beneath  an  arch,  whence  issue  two  streams,  and  over 
which  is  an  Arabic  inscription  of  several  lines.  It  has, 
besides,  a  square  platform,  walled  in,  for  prayers,  shelter, 
or  refreshment,  and  a  flight  of  steps  ascending  to  it,  with  a 
dome  of  a  sepulchre,  now  partly  buried  by  the  falling  in  of 
adjacent  ruins." — Burder. 

Ver.  2.  And  the  lords  of  the  Philistines  passed 
on  by  hundreds  and  by  thousands  ;  but  David 
and  his  men  passed  on  in  the  rearward  with 
Achish.  3.  Then  said  the  princes  of  the  Phi- 
listines, What  do  these  Hebrews  here  ?  And 
.  Achish  said  unto  the  princes  of  the  Philistines, 
Is  not  this  David,  the  servant  of  Saul  the  king 
of  Israel,  which  hath  been  with  me  these  days, 
or  these  years,  and  I  have  found  no  fault  in 
him  since  he  fell  unto  me  unto  this  day? 

The  situation  of  Saul's  mind,  after  this 'adventure,  must 
have  been  very  anxious  and  distressed,  as  he  received  no 
directions  from  Samuel  how  to  behave  in,  or  extricate 
himself  out  of,  the  difficulties  in  which  he  found  himself 
involved.  Nor  were  David's  circumstances  much  easier, 
who  had  been  pressed  into  the  Philistine  camp  and  service 
by  Achish,  whereby  he  was  reduced  to  the  greatest  straits, 
and  scarce  knew  how  to  behave  himself,  consistently  with 
the  confidence  which  that  prince  placed  in  him,  the  duty 
he  owed  to  his  own  country,  and  his  own  interest  and 
views,  as  an  expectant  of  the  crown  and  kingdom  of  Is- 
rael But  happily  for  David,  providence  extricated  him 
from  th'is  embarrassment ;  for  as  the  troops  of  the  Philis- 
tines were  passing  in  review  before  their  principal  officers, 
David  also  with  his  corps  marched  in  the  rear,  under  the 
command  of  Achish  J^ing  of  Gath.  This  gave  great  un- 
easiness to  the  Philistine  princes,  who  immediately  expos- 
tulated with  Achish,  and  said.  What  business  havethese 
Hebrews  in  our  army'?  Achish  answered:  Is  not  this  the 
gallant  David,  formerly  the  servant  and  officer  of  Saul  the 
king  of  Israel ;  who,  to  save  himself  from  the  persecution 
and  cruelty  of  his  ungrateful  master,  hath  put  himself  un- 
der my  protection,  and  of  whose  fidelity  and  attachment  to 
my  person  and  service,  I  have  had  long  experience  1  For 
though  he  hath  been  with  me  now  a  considerable  time,  I 
have  not  had  the  least  reason  to  suspect  his  integrity,  or 
find  fault  with  his  conduct.  But  this  was  far  from  remov- 
ing the  jealousy  of  the  Philistine  officers,  who,  highly  dis- 
pleased with  Achish  for  what  they  judged  his  ill-placed 
confidence  in  David,  said  in  great  anger  to  him:  Com- 
mand this  man  immediately  to  retire  from  the  army,  and 
to  go  back  to  Ziklag,  the  place  thou  hast  appointed  for  his 
residence.  We  will  not  suffer  him  to  go  with  us  to  the 
battle,  lest  in  the  engagement  he  should  turn  his  forces 


Chap.  30. 


1  SAMUEL. 


17 


against  us.  Poi  wh|t  more  effectual  method  can  he  take 
to.reconcile  him^^elf  to  his  former  master,  than  by  lending 
his  assistance  to  defeat  and  destroy  our  army  1  Is  not  this 
that  very  David  whose  praises  were  publicly  celebrated  in 
songs  and  dances  1  And  in  honour  of  whom  the  Israelitish 
women  cried  out  in  triumph :  Saul  hath  slam  his  thousands, 
and  David  his  ten  thousands.  Such  a  man  is  too  danger- 
ous to  trust  in  our  present  critical  situation.  Achish  find- 
ing the  princes  peremptorily  fixed  in  their  resolution  not 
to  permit  David  and  his  forces  to  go  with  them  to  the  en- 
gagement, immediately  sent  for  him,  and  said,  "  By  the  life 
of  Jehovah,  I  acknowledge  thy  integrity  in  the  whole  of  thy 
conduct  towards  me,  and  there  is  nothing  that  I  more  en- 
tirely approve,  or  more  sincerely  wish,  than  thy  continu- 
ance in  the  army,  and  joining  with  us  in  the  engagement, 
for  I  have  nothing  to  reproach  thee  with,  from  the  time 
thou  didst  first  put  thyself  under  my  protection,  to  the  present 
day.  But  the  lords  of  the  Philistines  have  not  that  opink)n 
of  thy  attachment  to  our  interest  and  cause  that  I  have,  so 
that  i  am  forced  to  dismiss  thee  from  thy  attendance.  You 
must  therefore  return  peaceably,  and  are  allowed  by  them 
to  do  it  in  safety,  to  the  town  I  have  given  you,  because 
your  longer  continuance  with  us  is  disagreeable  to  them, 
and  may  be  attended  with  very  dangerous  consequences." 
David,  with  seeming  displeasure  replied,  "  What  have  I 
done  to  incur  their  displeasure,  or  what  hast  thou  found  in 
thy  servant,  ever  since  1  have  been  with  thee,  to  forfeit  thy 
confidence  and  favour'?  Etowever,  since  it  is  their  pleas- 
ure, I  must  submit,  and  will  not,  in  obedience  to  their  order, 
fight  against  the  enemies  of  my  lord  the  king."  Achish 
told  him,  that  "  he  was  so  far  from  entertaining  any  sus- 
picion of  him,  that  he  esteemed  him  for  his  integrity  and 
worth,  and  regarded  him  as  an  angel,  or  messenger  "from 
God,  immediately  sent  to  his  assistance ;  but  that  as  the 
princes  of  the  Philistines  had  resolved  that  lie  should  not 
go  with  them  to  the  battle,  he  could  not  but  order  him  to 
march  away  by  daybreak  with  his  master's  servants  to  the 
place  he  had  appointed  for  him  and  his  followers."  David 
accordingly  returned  with  his  troops  into  the  territories  of 
the  Philistines,  while  their  army  penetrated  farther  into 
the  dominions  of  Saul,  and  encamped  at  Jezreel. 

It  appears  from  the  answer  given  by  David  to  Achish, 
as  I  have  rendered  the  words,  that  David  was  not  in  the 
least  displeased  at  his  being  dismissed,  but  gladly  took 
Achish  at  his  word,  and  laid  hold  of  the  first  opportunity 
of  disengaging  himself  from  the  service  in  which  that 
prince  expected  his  assistance.  However,  if  we  take 
David's  answer  in  that  sense,  which  is  given  it  in  our  ver- 
sion :    "  What  -have  I  done that  I  may  not  go  fight 

against  the  enemies  of  my  lord  the  king  V  it  will  appear 
to  be  a  very  prudent  one,  and  such  as  became  the  circum- 
stances in  which  he  then  found  himself,  by  which  he 
promised  nothing,  and  laid  himself  under  no  manner  of 
engagement.  It  was  a  general,  ambiguous,  and  cautious 
one ;  in  which  he  neither  denies  what  the  Philistines  sus- 
pected, that  he  would  fall  off  to  Saul  in  the  battle,  nor 
makes  the  least  mention  of  his  readiness  to  fight  with  the 
Philist\'nes  against  Saul  and  the  Hebrew  army.  He  only 
asks,  why  he  should  be  refused  to  fight  againsl^the  enemies 
of  the  king  1  If  he  had  some  obligations  to  him,  to  the 
Philistines  he  had  none.  Against  the  enemies  of  Achish 
he  wou!d  have  fought,  where  he  could  have  done  it  with 
honour;  where  he  could  not,  as  a  man  of  honour,  he  must 
have  refused  it.  Against  the  enemies  of  the  Philistines, 
neither  his  inclination,  or  duty,  or  interest,  would  have 
permitted  him  to  fight ;  and  the  Philistines  themselves  did 
aot  think  his  personal  obligations  to  Achish  a  sufficient 
security  for  his  assisting  them ;  and  even  Achish  himself 
c^ems  to  have  been  at  last  in  some  doubt,  whether  or  not  he 
rould  depend  on  him,  when  he  says  to  him:  "Rise  up 
e'ctr?,y  in  the  morning,  Avith  thy  master's  servants  that  are 
coiris  with  thee  ;"  hereby  more  than  intimating,  that  he 
could,  not  but  consider  Saul  as  David's  king  and  master, 
and  all  David's  forces  as  servants  to  Saul;  and  actually 
urging  this  as  a  reason  for  their  immediate  departure  from 
him.  Had  David  made  such  a  speech  to  Achish,  previous 
to  his  dismission,  or  to  the  Philistine  princes  to  prevent 
their  dismissing  him,  it  would  have  looked  as  though  he 
had  been  uneasy  at  his  not  being  suffered  to  assist  them  in 
th^  engagement.  But  as  they  had  determined  he  should 
not  go  with  them  to  battle,  and  Achish  had  peremptorily 
ordered  him  to  march  off;  David,  who  could  not  but  be 
23 


highly  pleased  that  he  was  now  wholly  extricated  from 
the  difticulties  he  was  involved  in,  artfully  chose  to  ex- 
press himself  to  Achish  in  such  terms,  which,  though  they 
implied  a  real  truth,  yet  might  lead  Achish  to  put  a  further 
meaning  on  them  than  David  intended,  in  order  to  give 
Achish  the  highest  opinion  of  his  zeal  for  his  service;  by 
a  general  assurance,  that  he  was  always  ready  to  assist 
him  against  his  enemies,  though  he  was  now  dismissed  by 
the  lords  of  the  Philistines  in  a  very  reproachful  and  dis- 
honourable manner.  I  would  further  observe,  that  if  there 
is  any  thing  wrong  in  David's  ambiguous  reply  to  Achish, 
we  should  make  the  proper  allowances  for  the  circum- 
stances of  the  times,  when  morality  was  not  carried  to  that 
noble  height,  as  it  is  by  the  clearer  light  of  the  gospel 
revel ition.  It  appears  from  many  instances  in  the  Old 
Testament,  that  the  greatest  men  did  not  think  these  am- 
biguous evasive  answers,  in  any  degree,  or,  as  I  appre- 
hend, at  all  criminal;  especially  ^en  the  preservation 
of  life  depended- on  it.  Let  it  therefore  be  allowed,  with 
all  my  heart,  that  David,  in  his  equivocal  answers,  did 
what,  according  to  our  present  sentiments  of  morality,  in 
this  very  enlightened  and  conscientious  age,  was  not  so 
perfectly  agreeable  to  the  stricter  rules  of  it;  he  Aight  still 
be  an  excellent  man  for  the  times  he  lived  in;  when  such 
equivocations  were  generally  allowed  of,  almost  univer- 
sally practised,  and  by  no  means  thought  inconsistent  with 
true  religion  and  virtue,  but  rather  in  many  cases  neces- 
sary and  commendable. — Chandler. 

CHAPTER  XXX. 
Ver.  8.  And  David  inquired  at  the  Lord,  saying. 
Shall  I  pursue  after  this  troop?  shall  I  over- 
take them  ?  And  he  answered  him,  Pursue : 
for  thou  shalt  surely  overtake  ihem,  and  with- 
out fail  recover  all. 

The  chosen  people  of  Jehovah,  not  less  eager  than  others 
to  know  the  issue  of  their  military  expeditions,  or  if  heaven 
regarded  their  undertakings  with  a  favourable  eye,  had 
frequent  recourse  to  the  holy  oracle ;  they  consulted  the 
prophet  of  the  Lord ;  they  offered  sacrifices,  and  consulted 
with  the  high-driest  who  bore  the  Urim  and  Thummim  in 
his  breastplate,  by  means  of  which  he  discovered  the  will  of 
the  Deity;  or,  presenting  himself  at  the  altar  of  incense, 
received  the  desired  response  by  an  audible  voice  from  the 
most  holy  place.  The  son  of  Jesse,  in  a  time  of  great  dis- 
tress and  perplexity,  consulted  the  oracle  by  means  of  an 
ephod,  a  part  of  sacerdotal  vestments :  "  And  David  said 
to  Abiathar  the  priest,  Abimelech's  son,  I  pray  thee,  bring 
me  hither  the  ephod;  and  Abiathar  brought  hither  the 
ephod  to  David.  And  David  inquired  at  the  Lord,  saying. 
Shall  I  pursue  after  this  troop  1  shall  I  overtake  them  1  And 
he  answered  him,  Pursue  ;  for  thou  shalt  surely  overtake 
them,  and  without  fail  recover  all."  Here  was  no  bright- 
ening of  arrows,  after  the  custom  of  superstitious  heathens; 
no  consulting  with  images,  nor  inspecting  of  intestines, 
from  which  nothing  but  vague  conjecture  can  result ;  but  a 
devout  and  humble  application  to  the  throne  of  the  true  God ; 
and  the  answer  was  in  every  respect  worthy  of  his  charac- 
ter; it  was  clear  and  precise,  at  once  authorizing  the  pur- 
suit, and  promising  complete  success;  or  forbidding  them, 
in  plain  terms,  to  prosecute  their  designs. — Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  And  they  found  an  Egyptian  in  the  field, 
and  brouofht  him  to  David,  and  gave  him  bread, 
and  he  did  eat:  and  they  made  him  drink  wa- 
ter; 12.  And  they  gave  him  a  piece  of  a  cake 
of  figs,  and  two  clusters  of  raisins :  and  when 
he  had  eaten,  his  spirit  came  again  to  him ;  for 
he  had  eaten  no  bread,  nor  drunk  any  water, 
three  days  and  three  nights. 

Thevenot  says,  "  At  about  five  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
when  passing  by  the  side  of  a  bush,  we  heard  a  voice  that 
called  to  us,  and  being  come  to  the  place,  we  found  a  poor 
languishing  Arab,  who  told  us,  that  he  had  not  eaten  a  bit 
for  five  days:  we  gave  him  some  victuals  and  drink,  with 
a  provision  of  bread  for  two  days  more."  This  was  on  the 
journey  from  Suez  to  Tor. — Burder. 


178 


1    SAMUEL. 


Chap.  80. 


Ver.  16.  And  when  he  had  brought  him  ciown, 
behold,  they  were  spread  abroad  upon  all  the 
earth,  eating  and  drinking,  and  dancing,  be- 
cause of  all  the  great  spoil  that  they  had  taken 
out  of  the  land  of  the  Philistines,  and  out  of  the 
land  of  Judah. 

This  is  said  of  the  Amalekites,  after  they  had  spoiled 
Ziklag.  Parkhurst  says,  under  in  on  the  above,  also  on 
1  Kings  xii.  32,  "  It  plainly  denotes  dancing  round  in  cir- 
cles ;"  and  he  believes  the  word  "  is  applied  to  the  celebra- 
tion of  religious  feasts,  whether  in  honour  of  the  true  God, 
or  of  idols,"  and  he  cites  several  passages  in  support  of  his 
opinion.  When  the  heathen  worship  their  demon  gods, 
they  dance  in  circles  round  the  sacrifices,  throw  themselves 
into  the  most  violent  contortions;  the  arms,  head,  and  legs, 
appear  as  if  they  were  In  convulsions.  They  throw  them- 
selves suddenly  on  the  ground,  then  jump  up,  and  again  join 
in  the  circular  dance. — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  And  David  smote  them  from  the  twilight 
even*  unto  the  evening  of  the  next  day ;  and 
there  escaped  not  a  man  of  them,  save  four  hun- 
dred young  men  which  rode  upon  camels, 
and  fled. 

There  were  two  reasons,  exclusive  of  all  religious  con- 
siderations, that  fully  justified  David  in  this  attack  upon  the 
Amalekites.  He  now  resided  among  the  Philistines,  in 
whose  country  these  Amalekites  had  made  great  depreda- 
lions,  while  the  Philistines  themselves  were  engaged  in  war 
with  the  Hebrews,  and  incapable  of  defending  their  own 
frontiers.  He  was  their  ally,  obliged  to  act  in  their  favour, 
and  behaved  like  a  soldier  of  honour  in  avenging  the  in- 
juries that  had  been  done  them.  This  insult  of  David 
therefore  upon  the  Amalekites  was  not  unprovoked,  if  we 
consider  his  connexion  with  the  Philistines ;  much  less,  if 
we  add  to  this,  the  loss  he  himself  and  his  men  sustained. 
For  surely  the  burning  of  the  city  where  he  dwelt,  the  lead- 
ing captive  into  slavery  his  own  wives,  and  the  wives  and 
children  of  above  six  hundred  persons,  and  the  making  a 
booty  of  all  their  substance,  must  have  been  the  highest 
provocation  to  men,  that  had  any  feeling  of  natural  affec- 
tion. David  and  his  soldiers  thought  it  so ;  and  if  it  be 
lawful  to  put  to  death  incendiaries,  women  and  children 
stealers,  thieves,  robbers,  and  vagabonds ;  David's  execu- 
ting this  vengeance  on  the  Amalekites  for  their  treachery 
in  making  this  invasion,  and  committing  these  unprovoked 
violences,  while  neither  the  Philistines  nor  Hebrews  could 
defend  their  territories,  was  a  deserved  and  necessary  se- 
verity.— Chandler. 

Ver.  21.  And  they  went  forth  to  meet  David,  and 
to  meet  the  people  that  were  with  him ;  and 
when  David  came  near  to  the  people,  he  saluted 
them. 

This  was  a  usual  mode  of  honouring  persons  of  dignity. 
"Before  any  person  of  rank  enters  a  city,  it  is  usual  for 
him  to  be  received  by  a  deputation.  If  his  rank  is  very 
considerable,  the  Peeshwaz  is  sent  to  a  great  distance.  A 
thousand  men  were  sent  to  meet  the  prince,  halfwav  be- 
tween Ispahan  and  Sheeraz,  a  hundred  miles."  (Wa- 
nng's  Tour  to  Sheeraz.)  "  At  this  place  (Jerusalem)  two 
Turkish  officers,  mounted  on  beautiful  horses,  sumptuous- 
ly caparisoned,  came  to  inform  us,  th  it  the  governor,  hav- 
ing intelligence  of  our  approach,  had  sent  them  to  escort  us 
into  town."    (Clarke's  Travels.) — Burder. 

"  Saluted  them."  Hebrew,  "  asked  them  how  they  did." 
It  is  in  the  East,  as  in  England,  a  Qommon  mode  of  saluta- 
tion to  inquire  after  the  health.  They  do  not,  however, 
,  answer  in  the  same  unhesitating  way.  When  a  man  has 
perfectly  recovered  from  a  fit  of  sickness,  he  will  not  say, 
•'  I  am  quite  well,"  because  he  would  think  that  like  boasV 
ing,  and  be  afraid  of  a  relapse;  he  would,  therefore,  say, 
"  I  am  a  little  better— not  quite  so  ill  as  I  was :"  sometimes, 
when  the  question  is  asked,  he  will  reply,  "Can  you  not 
^ee  for  yourself?  what  answer  can  I  givel"  To  say  you 
look  well,  or  have  become  stout,  is  very  annoying.  A  short 
time  after  my  arrival  in  Ceylon,  a  very  stout  Brai":Q 


paid  me  a  visit,  and  on  my  saying  he  looked  remarkably 
well,  he  fell  mto  a  great  rage  and  left  the  room.  I  ept- 
plained  to  him  afterward  that  I  did  not  mean  any  offence, 
and  he  said  it  was  very  unfortunate  to  be  addressed  in  such 
language. — Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  For  who  will  hearken  unto  you  in  this 
matter  ?  but  as  his  part  is  that  goeth  down  to 
the  battle,  so  shall  his  part  be  that  tarrieth  by 
the  stuff:  they  shall  part  alike. 

In  Greece,  "  the  whole  booty  was  brought  to  the  general, 
who  had  the  first  choice,  divided  the  remainder  among 
those  who  had  signalized  themselves,  according  to  their 
rank  and  merits,  and  allotted  to  the  rest  equal  portions ; 
thus  in  the  Trojan  war,  when  the  captive  ladies  were  to 
be  chosen,  Agamemnon,  in  the  first  place,  took  Astynome, 
the  -daughter  of  Chryses ;  next  Achilles  had  Hippodamia, 
daughter  to  Brises  ;  then  Ajax  chose  Tecmessa,  and  so  of 
the  rest;  Achilles  therefore  complains  of  Agamemnon, 
that  he  had  always  the  best  part  of  the  booty,  while  him- 
self, who  sustained  the  burden  of  the  war,  was  content  with 
a  small  piltapce."  From  the  time  of  David,  the  Hebrew 
warriors,  as  well  those  who  went  to  the  field,  as  those  who 
guarded  the  baggage,  shared  alike;  the  law  is  couched 
in  these  terms  :  "  As  his  part  is  that  goeth  down  to  the  bat- 
lie,  so  shall  his  part  be  that  tarrieth  by  the  stuff."  But  a 
more  satisfactory  account  of  the  mode  in  which  the  spoils 
of  vanquished  nations  were  divided  among  the  Hebrews, 
is  recorded  in  the  book  of  Numbers.  The  whole  booty 
taken  from  the  Midianites,  was  brought  before  Moses,  an'd 
Eliezer  the  priest,  and  the  princes  of  the  tribes  ;  they,  by 
the  divine  command,  divided  it  into  two  parts,  between  the 
army  and  the  congregation ;  of  the  army's  half  they  took 
"  one  soul  of  five  hundred,  both  of  the  persons,  and  of  the 
beeves,  and  of  the  asses,  and  of  the  sheep,  and  gave  it  unto 
Eliezer  the  priest,  for  a  heave-offering  of  the  Lord  ;"  and 
of  the  congregation's  half  they  took  "  one  portion  of  fifty, 
of  the  persons,  of  the  beeves,  of  the  asses,  and  of  the  flocks, 
of  all  manner  of  beasts,  and  gave  them  unto  the  Levites." 
This  law  probably  continued  in  force  till  the  captivity  ;  and 
according  to  its  provisions,  were  the  spoils  of  succeeding 
wars  distributed  ;  for  the  regulation  which  David  establish- 
ed, referred  only  to  this  question,  whether  the  soldiers,  who' 
from  weakness  were  obliged  to  remain  with  the  baggage, 
should  have  an  equal  share  of  the  booty,  with  their  brethren 
in  arms  who  had  been  engaged.  Before  the  spoils  were 
distributed,  the  Greeks  considered  themselves  obliged  to 
dedicate  a  part  of  them  to  the  gods,  to  whose  assistance  they 
reckoned  themselves  indebted  for  them  all.  This  custom, 
also,  they  borrowed  from  the  Orientals  ;  for  the  Hebrews, 
in  dividing  the  spoils  of  Midian,  separated  a  portion  for  the 
service  of  the  tabernacle ;  and  the  practice,  so  reasonable 
in  itself,  being  imitated  by  the  surroundmg  nations,  at  last 
found  its  way  into  Greece  and  other  countries  of  Europe. 
But  besides  the  public  offerings  of  the  nation,  the  soldiers 
oflen  of  their  own  accord,  consecrated  a  partof  their  spoils 
to  *he  God  of  battles:  they  had  several  methods  of  doing 
this. ;  at  cne  time  they  collected  them  into  a  heap,  and 
consumed  them  with  fire ;  at  another,  they  suspended  their 
offerings  in  the  temples.  Pausanias,  the  Spartan,  is  re- 
ported to  have  consecrated  out  of  the  Persian  spoils,  a  tripod 
to  Delphian  Apollo,  and  a  statue  of  brass,  seven  cubits  long, 
to  Olympian  Jupiter.  The  origin  of  these  customs  is  easily 
discernible  in  the  manners  of  the  Hebrews.  After  the  rich 
and  various  spoils  of  Midian  were  divided,  the  officers  of 
the  army,  penetrated  with  gratitude  that  they  had  not  lost  a 
man  in  the  contest,  "  presented  an  oblation  to  the  Lord, 
jewe]s  of  gold,  chains,  and  bracelets,  rings,  ear-rings,  and 
tablets,  to  make  atonement,"  as  they  piously  expressed  it, 
"  for  their  souls  before  the  Lord."  But  the  city  of  Jericho 
and  all  its  inhabitants,  except  Rahab  and  her  family,  were 
devoted  to  utter  destruction,  as  an  offering  to  the  justice 
and  holiness  of  God,  whom  they  had  incensed  by  their 
crimes ;  "  And  the  city,"  said  Joshua,  "  shall  be  accursed, 
even  it,  and  all  that  are  therein,  to  the  Lord;  only  Rahab 
the  harlot  shall  live,  she  and  all  that  are  wath  her  in  the 
house,  because  she  hid  the  messengers  that  Avere  sent.  .  .  . 
But  all  the  silver  and  gold,  and  vessels  of  brass  and  iron, 
are  consecrated  unto  the  Lord;  they  shall  come  into  the 
treasury  of  the  Lord.  .  .  .  And  they  burnt  the  city  with  fire, 
and  all  that  was  therein ;  only  the  silver,  and  the  gold, 


Jhap.  31. 


1  SAMUEL. 


179 


and  the  vessels  of  brass  and  of  iron,  they  put  in  the  treas- 
ury of  the  house  of  the  Lord."  When  the  demands  of  reli- 
gion were  satisfied,  the  Grecian  soldiers  commonly  reserved 
articles  of  extraordinary  value  which  they  had  obtained,  as 
a  present  to  their  a^eneral  or  commander  of  their  party.  To 
this  mark  of  respect,  Deborah  perhaps  alludes  in  the  words 
which  she  puts  mto  the  mouth  of  Sisera's  mother  and  her 
attendants :  "  Have  they  not  sped  1  have  they  not  divided 
the  prey ;  to  every  man  a  damsel  or  two ;  to  Sisera,  a  prey 
of  divers  colours,  a  prey  of  divers  colours  of  needle-work, 
of  divers  colours  of  needle-work  on  both  sides,  meet  for 
the  necks  of  them  that  take  the  spoil."  "  It  has  been,"  says 
Malcom,  "  the  invariable  usage  of  all  Asiatic  conquerors, 
from  the  monarch  who  subdues  kingdoms,  to  the  chief  that 
seizes  a  village,  to  claim  some  fair  females  as  the  reward 
df  his  conquest." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

Ver.  8.  And  it  came  to  pass  on  the  morrow, 
when  the  Philistines  came  to  strip  the  slain, 
that  they  found  Saul  and  his  three  sons  fallen 
in  Mount  Gilboa.  9.  And  they  cut  off  his 
head,  and  stripped  off  his  armour,  and  sent  into 
the  land  of  the  Philistines  round  about,  to  pub- 
lish it  in  the  house  of  their  idols,  and  among 
the  people. 

It  was  the  practice  of  ancient  warriors  to  strip  the  dead 
bodies  of  their  enemies  on  the  field  of  battle,  after  the  vic- 
t'ory  was  secured,  and  the  pursuit  had  ceased ;  and  not  sat- 
isfied with  this,  they  often  treated  them  in  the  most  brutal 
manner,  basely  revenging  the  injuries  which  they  had  re- 
ceived from  them  while  living,  by  disfiguring  their  remains, 
and  exposing  them  to  scorn  anci  ignominy.  When  the 
Philistines  came  to  strip  the  dead  that  fell  in  the  battle  on 
the  mountains  of  Gilboah,  they  found  Saul  and  his  three 
sons  among  the  slain.  But  instead  of  respecting  his  rank 
and  valour,  they  "  cut  off  his  head,  and  stripped  off  his  ar- 
mour, which  they  put  in  the  house  of  Ashtaroth ;  and  they 
fastened  his  body,  and  the  bodies  of  his  sons,  to  the  wall  of 
Beth-shan."  Capital  oflfenceswere  sometimes  punished  by 
throwing  the  criminal  upon  hooks,  which  were  fixed  in 
the  wall  below,  where  they  frequently  hung  in  the  most  ex-, 
quisite  tortures,  thirty  or  forty  hours  before  they  expired. 
It  is  probable  that  the  bodies  of  Saul  and  his  sons  were 
fixed  to  such  hooks  as  were  placed  there  for  the  execution 
of  the  vilest  malefactors ;  but  whatever  be  in  this,  it  was 
certainly  meant  as  one  of  the  greatest  indignities  which 
they  could  offer  to  the  remains  of  an  enemy  whom  they  both 
feared  and  detested. 

The  ancient  Greeks  treated  the  dead  bodies  of  their  ene- 
mies in  a  manner  equally  indecent  and  inhuman.  They 
mangled,  dismembered,  dragged  them  about  the  field  of 
battle,  and  suffered  them  to  lie  unburied  for  a  long  time, 
and  even  to  become  the  prey  of  savage  beasts  and  raven- 
ous fowls.  No  instance  of  this  kind  is  more  remarkable 
than  that  of  the  brave,  the  generous,  but  unfortunate 
Hector,  whose  dead  body  suffered  every  mdignity  which 
the  infuriate  rage  of  Achilles,  or  the  ferocious  brutality  of 
his  myrmidons,  could  invent.  Nay,  the  whole  army  joined 
in  the  brutish  and  barbarous  insult ;  which  shows  that  it 
was  their  constant  practice,  and  regarded  as  quite  consist- 
ent with  virtue  and  honour.  Tydeus  is  not  treated  with 
more  respect  in  Statius;  and  in  Virgil,  the  body  of  Mezen- 
tius  is  cruelly  lacerated,  for  though  he  only  received  two 


wounds  Ironi  .^neas,  we  find  his  breastp'/ate  afterward 
pierced  through  in  twelve  places.  These  instances,  to 
which  many  others  might  be  added,  prove  that  it  was  the 
common  practice  of  ancient  warriors.  In  the  heroic  ages 
too,  the  conquerors  compelled  their  enemies  to  pay  a  large 
sum  of  money  for  permission  to  bury  their  dead.  Hector's 
body  was  redeemed  from  Achilles ;  and  that  of  Achilles 
was  redeemed  from  the  Trojans  for  the  same  price  he  had 
received  for  Hector.  And  Virgil  introduces  Nisus  dis- 
suading his  friend  Euryalus  from  accompanying  him  into 
danger,  lest,  if  he  were  slain,  there  should  be  no  person  to 
recover  by  fight,  or  redeem  his  body.  These  statements 
prove,  that  it  was  a  common  practice  in  the  primitive  ages, 
to  redeem  the  dead  body  of  a  warrior ;  and  if  this  was  neg- 
lected or  refused,  it  was  frequently  suffered  to  remain  un- 
buried. But,  in  succeeding  times,  it  was  considered  as  the 
greatest  impiety,  as  the  indubitable  mark  of  a  savage  or 
ungenerous  temper,  to  deny  the  rites  of  burial  to  an  enemy. 
The  more  civilized  Grecians  reckoned  it  a  sacred  duty  to 
bury  the  slain,  a  debt  which  they  owed  to  nature ;  and  they 
seldom  or  never  neglected  it,  or  refused  their  permission  to 
pay  it,  except  on  extraordinary  and  unusual  provocations. 
It  was  a  very  aggravating  circumstance  in  the  desolations 
of  Jerusalem,  so  feelingly  described  by  the  pen  of  Asaph, 
that  the  dead  bodies  of  her  inhabitants  remained  unburied , 
and  the  terms  in  which  he  mentions  it,  prove  that  the  He- 
brews had  the  same  acute  feelings,  relative  to  this  subject, 
as  the  most  refined  nations  of  antiquity :  "  O  God,  the 
heathen  are  come  into  thine  inheritance ;  thy  holy  temple 
have  they  defiled ;  they  have  laid  Jerusalem  on  heaps. 
The, dead  bodies  of  thy  servants  have  they  given  to  be 
meat  unto  the  fowls  of  the  heaven,  the  flesh  of  thy  saints 
unto  the  beasts  of  the  earth.  Their  blood  have  they  shed 
like  water  round  about  Jerusalem ;  and  there  was  none  to 
bury  them." — Paxton. 

Ver.  10.  And  they  put  his  armour  in  the  house 
of  Ashtaroth;  and  they  fastened  his  body  to 
the  wall  of  Beth-shan. 

Three  Bakhtiarees  had  been  condemned  to  death  by  the 

Erince  for  robbery ;  one  was  beheaded,  and  the  second 
lown  up ;  the  third  weis  cut  in  half,  and  the  two  parts  of 
his  body  hung  on  two  of  the  most  frequented  gates  of  the 
city  as  a  warning  to  other  thieves.  The  horrid  spectacle 
was  displayed  for  three  days.  It  illustrates,  in  some  de- 
gree, an  ancient  custom  exemplified  in  the  case  of  Saul,  1 
Sam.  31.  10,  whose  body  was  fastened  to  the  wall  of  Beth- 
shan  by  the  Philistines.  Shekch-kerden  is  the  technical 
name  for  this  punishment,  which  consists  in  cutting  the 
body  in  two  lengthwise,  with  a  sword,  beginning  between 
the  legs,  and  terminating  in  the  side  of  the  neck  above  the 
shoulder, — Morier. 

Ver.  12.  All  the  valiant  men  arose,  and  went  all 
night,  and  took  the  body  of  Saul,  and  the  bodies 
of  his  sons,  from  the  wall  of  Beth-shan,  and 
came  to  Jabesh,  and  burnt  them  there. 

The  Chaldeeand  other  versions  render  the  words,  "  and 
they  burnt  or  kindled  a  light  or  lamp  over  them  there,  as 
they  are  accustomed  to  burn  over  kings."  Upon  which  a 
rabbi  observes,  that  this  has  reference  to  a  custom,  deliver- 
ed down  from  their  ancestors,  of  burning  the  beds  and  other 
utensils  of  the  dead  upon  their  graves,  or  to  the  burning  of 
spices  over  them.    See  Jer.  xxxiv.  5. — Burdee. 


THE   SECOND  BOOK  OF  SAMUEL. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  2.  It  came  even  to  pass  on  the  third  day, 
that,  behold,  a  man  came  out  of  the  camp  from 
Saul,  with  his  clothes  rent,  and  earth  upon  his 
head :  and  so  it  was,  when  he  came  to  David, 
that  he  fell  on  the  earth,  and  did  obeisance. 

In  several  passages  of  scripture  mention  is  made  of  dust 
strewed  on  the  head,  as  a  token  of  mourning,  or  earth,  or 
ropes  carried  on  the  head,  as  a  token  of  submission.  The 
following  instance  is  remarkably  analogous  to  these  acts  of 
humiliation :  "  He  then  descended  the  mountain,  carrying, 
as  is  the  custom  of  the  country,  for  vanquished  rebels,  a 
stone  upon  his  head,  as  confessing  himself  guilty  of  a  capi- 
tal crime."    (Bruce.) — Burder. 

Ver.  10.  And  I  took  the  crown  that  ^'^5  upon  his 
head,  and  the  bracelet  that  was  on  his  arm,*  and 
have  brought  them  hither  unto  my  lord. 

A  bracelet  is  commonly  worn  by  the  oriental  princes,  as 
a  badge  of  power  and  authority.  When  the  calif  Cayem 
Bemrillah  granted  the  investiture  of  certain  dominions  to 
an  eastern  prince,  he  sent  him  letters  patent,  a  crown,  a 
chain,  and  bracelets.  This  was  probably  the  reason  that 
the  Amalekite  brought  the  bracelet  which  he  found  on 
Saul's  arm,  along  with  his  crown,  to  David,  It  was  a  royal 
ornament,  and  belonged  to  the  regalia  of  the  kingdom. 
The  bracelet,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  was  worn  both  by 
men  and  women  of  difTerenl  ranks  ;  but  the  original  word, 
in  the  second  book  of  Samuel,  occurs  only  in  tM'o  other 
places,  and  is  quite  different  from  the  term,  which  is  em- 
ployed to  express  the  more  common  ornament  known  by 
that  name.  And  besides,  this  ornament  was  worn  by  kings 
and  princes  in  a  different  manner  from  their  subjects.  It 
was  fastened  above  the  elbow  ;  and  was  commonly  of  great 
value.  The  people  of  Israel  found  the  bracelet  among  the 
spoils  of  Midiajij  when  they  destroyed  that  nation  in  the 
time  of  Moses  ;  but  it  will  be  remembered,  that  they  killed 
at  the  same  time  five  of  their  kings.  The  prophet  Isaiah, 
indeed  mentions  the  kind  of  bracelet,  which  Mr.  Harmer 
considers  as  the  peculiar  badge  of  kings,  in  his  description 
of. the  wardrobe  of  a  Jewish  lady,  which  proves,  that  in  the 
age  when  he  flourished,  it  was  not  the  exclusive  decoration 
of  regal  personages,  but  had  been  assumed,  and  was  often 
worn  by  persons  of  inferior  rank  ;  but  it  is  by  no  means 
improbable,  that  the  extravagance  of  the  female  sex  in  his 
time,  which  seems  to  have  arisen  to  an  unprecedented 
height,  might  have  confounded,  in  some  measure,  the  dis- 
tinctions of  rank,  by  inducing  the  nobility  of  Judah  to  af- 
fect the  state  and  ornamenrs  of  their  princes.  Persons  of 
distinction  in  various  countries  of  the  East,  wore  chains  of 
silver  and  gold  ;  and  not  satisfied  with  this,  ostentatiously 
displayed  their  wealth  and  rank,  by  suspending  chains  of 
the  same  precious  metals  about  the  necks  of  their  camels. 
Silver  chains,  according  to  Pococke,  hung  from  the  bridles 
of  the  seven  military  agas  in  Egypt,  to  the  breastplates  of 
their  horses.  The  camels  of  the  kings  of  Midian,  whom 
Gideon  discomfited,  were,  agreeably  to  this  custom,  adorn- 
ed with  chains  of  gold. — Paxton, 

Margin,  "  My  coat  of  mail,  or  my  embroidered  coat." 
The  marginal  reading  here  probably  conveys  the  true 
meaning  of  the  Hebrew.  Saul,  for  his  personal  security, 
most  likely  wore  a  close  coat,  made  of  rings,  or  oilets,  in 
the  nature  of  a  coat  of  mail.  Montfaucon  {Supplement, 
vol.  iii.  p.  397)  thus  represents  a  combat  between  a  person 
on  horseback  and  another  on  foot.  "  The  horseman,  repre- 
sented on  an  Etruscan  vase,  of  Cardinal  Gualtieri's,  is 
armed  in  such  a  sinsrular  manner,  that  I  thought  it  neces- 


sary to  give  the  figure  here.  This  horseman  is  mounted 
on  a  naked  horse,  with  only  a  bridle,  though  the  horse 
seems  to  have  something  on  his  neck,  which  passes  between 
his  two  ears,  but  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  what  it  is. 
The  armour  also  of  this  horseman  is  as  extraordinary  as 
that  of  the  Sarmatian  horsemen  on  Trajan's  pillar.  His 
military  habit  is  very  close,  and  fitted  to  his  body,  and  cov- 
ers him  even  to  his  wrist,  and  below  his  ancles,  so  that  ?iis 
feet  remain  naked,  which  is  very  extraordinary.  For,  I 
think,  both  in  the  ancient  and  modern  cavalry,  the  feet  were 
a  principal  part  which  they  guarded:  excepting  only  the 
Moorish  horse,  who  have  for  their  whole  dress  only  a  short 
tunic,  which  reaches  to  the  middle  of  the  thigh :  and  the 
Numidians,  who  ride  quite  naked,  upon  a  naked  horse,  ex- 
cept a  short  cloak  which  they  have,  fastened  to  their  neck, 
and  hanging  loose  behind  them,  in  warm  weather,  and 
■which  they  wrap  about  themselves  in  cold  weather.  Our 
Etruscan  horseman  here  hath  his  feet  naked,  but  he  hath 
his  head  well  covered,  with  a  cap  folded  about  it,  and  large^ 
slips  of  stuff  hanging  down  from  it.  He  m  ears  a  collar  of 
round  stones.  The  close-bodied  coat  he  wears  is  wrought 
all  over  with  zigzags,  and  large  points,  down  to  the  girdle, 
which  is  broad,  and  tied  round  the  middle  of  his  body ; 
the  same  flourishing  is  continued  lower  down  his  habit, 
quite  to  his  ankle,  and'  all  over  his  arms,  to  his  wrist." 
Something  similar  to  this  might  be  the  military  dress  of 
Saul. — Burder. 

Ver.  15.  And  David  called  one  of  the  young  men, 
and  said,  Go  near,  and  fall  upon  him.  And 
he  smote  him  that  he  died. 

Others  were  condemned  to  be  slain  with  the  sword,  which 
was  by  decapitation,  executed  in  the  manner  used  in  mod- 
ern times.  Such  was  the  punishment  which  David  inflict- 
ed on  the  Amalekite,  for  putting  Saul  to  death.  It  seems 
also  to  be  the  usual  punishment  in  Abyssinia,  for  taking 
away  the  life  of  a  king:  for  Socinios,  an  Abj^ssinian  mon- 
arch, being  informed  that  one  Mahardin,  a  Moor,  had 
been  the  first  to  break  through  that  respect  due  to  a  king,  bv 
wounding  Za  Denghel,  his  predecessor,  at  the  baitle  of 
Bartcho,  he  ordered  him  to  be  brought  at  noonday  before 
the  gate  of  his  palace,  and  his  head  to  be  then  struck  off 
with  an  axe,  as  a  just  atonement  for  violated  majesty.  The 
punishment  of  strangling,  as  described  by  the  Jewish  wri- 
ters, resembled  the  Turkish  punishment  of  the  bowstring, 
rather  than  the  present  mode  of  executing  by  the  gibbet. 
The  offender  Avas  placed  up  to  the  loins  in  dung,  and  a  nap- 
kin was  twisted  about  his  neck,  and  drawn  hard  by  the  wit- 
nesses, till  he  was  dead.  Those  who  had  committed  great 
and  notorious  offences,  and  who  deserved  to  be  made  pub- 
lic examples,  were  hanged  upon  a  tree  after  they  had  actu- 
ally suffered  the  death  to  which  they  were  condemned; 
which  shows,  that  this  punishment  was  not  the  same  with 
the  Roman  crucifixion,  in  which  the  malefactors  were 
nailed  to  the  gibbet,  and  left  to  expire  by  slow  and  excru- 
ciating torments.  The  Hebrew  custom  was  no  more  than 
hanging  up  their  bodies  after  they  were  dead,  and  expo- 
sing them  for  some  time  to  open  shame.  For  this  purpose, 
a  piece  of  timber  was  fixed  in  the  ground,  out  of  which 
came  a  beam,  to  which  the  hands  of  the  sufferer  were  tied, 
so  that  his  body  hung  in  the  posture  of  a  person  on  the 
cross.  When  the  sun  set,  the  body  was  taken  down ;  for 
the  law  says,  "  He  that  is  hanged  on  a  tree,  is  accursed  of 
God  ;"  not  that  the  criminal  was  accursed  because  he  was 
hanged,  but  he  was  hanged  because  he  was  accUrsed.— 
Paxton. 

Ver.  12.  And  they  mourned  and  wept,  and  fasted 
until  even  for  Saul,  and  for  Jonathan  his  son 


Chap.  1. 


2   SAMUEL. 


181 


and  for  the  people  of  the  Lord,  and  for  the 
house  of  Israel ;  because  they  were  fallen  by 
the  sword. 

Thus  did  David,  and  those  that  were  with  him,  weep 
and  fast  until  the  evening,  because  the  "  mighty  were  fall- 
en," and  because  "the  weapons  of  war"  had  perished. 
When  a  father  or  mother  "  falls  on  the  ground,"  the  children 
have  stated  periods  when  they  weep  and  fast  in  memory 
of  their  dead.  On  the  day  of  the  full  moon,  those  who  have 
lost  their  mothers  fast  until  the  sun  come  to  the  meridian, 
and  in  the  evening  they  take  milk  and  fruit.  For  a  father, 
the  sons  fast  on  the  new  moon  in  the  same  way  as  for  the 
mother. — Roberts.  ■ 

Ver.  18.  (Also  he  bade  them  teach  the  children 
ofJudah  the  use  of  the  bow:  behold,  it  is  writ- 
ten in  the  book  of  Jasher.) 

These  words  have  been  generally  understood  of  Jona- 
than teaching  the  children  of  Judah  the  use  of  the  bow. 
But  a  better  interpretation  of  the  passage,  probably  is,  that 
the  bow  is  the  name  of  the  lamentation  which  David  ut- 
tered over  Jonathan  ;  and  that  it  is  so  denominated,  because 
he  met  his  death  from  the  bow.  The  following  extract, 
describing  a  funeral  procession  of  women,  to  commemorate 
the  death  of  a  merchant,  named  Mahomet,  at  Cosire, 
where  he  was  murdered  by  two  Arabs,  who  attacked  him 
with  swords,  will  illustrate  this  representation.  Speaking 
of  the  murder  of  Mahomet,  Mr.  Irwin,  ( Travels,  p.  254,) 
says,  "  The  tragedy  which  was  lately  acted  near  Cosire, 
gave  birth  to  a  mournful  procession  of  females,  which 
passed  through  the  different  streets  of  Gmnah,  and  uttered 
dismal  cries  for  the  death  of  Mahomet,  In  the  centre  was 
a  female  of  his  family,  who  carried  a  naked  sword  in  her 
hand,  to  intimate  the  weapon  by  which  the  deceased  fell. 
At  sundry  places  the  procession  stopped,  and  danced  round 
the  sword  to  the  music  of  timbrels  and  tabours.  They  paused 
a  long  time  before  our  house,  and  some  of  the  women 
made  threatening  signs  to  one  of  our  servants,  which  agrees 
with  the  caution  we  received  to  keep  within  doors.  It 
would  bft  dangerous  enough  to  face  this  frantic  company, 
whose  constant  clamour  and  extravagant  gestures  gave 
them  all  the  appearance  of  the  female  bacchanals  of  Thrace, 
recorded  of  old."  From  this  custom  of  carrying  in  the  fu- 
neral procession  the  weapon  by  which  the  deceased  met 
death,  it  seems  likely  that  the  lamentations  of  David  over 
Jonathan  might  have  been  called  Tke  Bmo,  and  sung  by 
the  men  of  Judah  in  funeral  procession. — Border. 

Ver.  21.  Ye  mountains  of  Gilboa,  let  there  be  no 
dew,  neither  let  there  be  rain  upon  you,  nor 
fields  of  offerings :  for  there  the  shield  of  the 
mighty  i|  vilely  cast  away. 

The  want  of  rain  in  the  East  is  partly  compensated  by 
the  copious  dews  which  fall  in  the  night,  to  restore  and  re- 
fresh the  face  of  nature.  The  sacred  writers  were  too 
much  alive  to  the  beauties  of  nature,  too  keen  and  accurate 
observers  of  the  works  and  operations  of  their  God,  not  to 
avail  themselves  of  this  part  of  the  divine  arrangements  to 
give  us  a  visible  and  lively  conception  of  the  purity  and  in- 
fluence of  his  blessing.  In  the  sublime  benediction  which  the 
dying  patriarch  pronounced  on  the  future  inheritance  of  Jo- 
seph, the  dew  occupies  a  prominent  place,  clearly  indicating 
its  incalculable  value  in  the  mind  of  an  Oriental :  "  And  of 
Joseph  he  said,  blessed  of  the  Lord  be  his  land,  for  the  pre- 
cious things  of  heaven,  for  the  dew,  and  for  the  deep  that 
coucheth  beneath."  When  the  holy  Psalmist  many  ages 
afterward  poured  out  the  sorrows  of  his  heart  over  the  fall- 
en house  of  Saul,  he  deprived  the  spot  where  the  king  and 
nis  sons  fell,  of  the  dew,  the  rain,  and  the  fields  of  offerings, 
as  the  greatest  curse  which  his  lacerated  feelings  could  de- 
vise :  "  Ye  mountains  of  Gilboa,  let  there  be  no  dew,  nei- 
ther let  there  be  rain  upon  you,  nor  fields  of  offerings ;  for 
vhere  the  shield  of  the  mighty  is  vilely  cast  awav."  So  silent. 
Irresistible,  and  swift,  is  the  descent  of  the  dew  on  every 
field  and  on  every  blade  of  grass,  that  Hushai,  David's 
"riend,  selects  it  as  the  most  appropriate  phenomenon  in 
nature  to  symbolize  the  sudden  onset  of  an  enemy  ;  "We 
will  light  upon  him  as  the  dew  falleth  on  the  ground." 


When  the  chosen  peopk-  were  scattered  among  the  rivers 
of  Babylon,  they  resembled  a  %ld  burnt  up  by  the  scorch- 
ing sun  ;  but  the  favour  and  ble^sing  of  heaven  are  prom- 
ised to  restore  them  to  the  high  estate  from  which  they  had 
fallen.  "  For  thy  dew  is  as  the  dew  of  herbs,  and  the  earth 
shall  cast  out  the  dead."  Although  they  were  dried  and 
withered  as  the  grass,  yet  he  promises  to'  revive,  refresh, 
and  strengthen  them  by  the  power  of  his  spirit  and  the 
riches  of  his  grace.  The  dewdrops  of  the  morning  are 
not  more  pure  and  insinuating,  more  lovely  and  ornament- 
al, when  they  descend  on  the  tender  grass,  than  the  doc- 
trines of  inspiration  in  the  heart  and  conduct  of  a  genuine 
Christian.  This  idea  is  beautifully  expressed  by  Moses  in 
his  dying  song  ;  "  My  doctrine  shall  drop  as  the  rain,  my 
speech  shall  distil  as  the  dew,  as  the  small  rain  upon  the 
lender  herb,  and  as  the  showers  upon  the  grass."  The  mu- 
tual regard  which  ought  to  animate  the  people  of  God  is 
compared  to  the  dew  which  moistens  the  hill  of  Hermon  and 
clothes  it  with  verdure.  The  drops  of  dew  are  countless 
and  brilliant,  glittering  over  all  the  field,  cheering  the  heart 
of  the  husbandman,  and  stimulating  his  exertions ;  not  less 
abundant,  illustrious,  and  encouraging,  were  the  first  con- 
verts to  the  Christian  faith,  after  the  ascension  of  Christ. 
That  splendid  manifestation  of  almighty  grace  was  cele- 
brated many  ages  before  in  the  songs  of  Zion  :  "  Thy  peo- 
ple shall  be  willing  in  the  day  of  thy  power,  in  the  beauties 
of  holiness  from  the  womb  of  the  rnorning :  thou  hast  the 
dew  of  thy  youth."  But  it  too  frequently  happens  that  the 
glory  of  the  church,  as  well  as  the  attainments  of  her  chil- 
dren, suffers  a  mournful  decline,  anjl  passes  rapidly  away: 
and  what  emblem  more  appropriate  can  be  chosen  to  indi- 
cate such  a  change  than  the  sudden  evaporation  of  the  dcM^s, 
by  the  kindling  rays  of  a  vertical  sun  1  "  O  Ephraim, 
what  shall  I  do  unto  thee  1  O  Judah,  w^hat  shall  I  do  unto 
thee  1  for  your  goodness  is  as  a  morning  cloud,  and  as  the 
early  dew  "it  goeth  away." 

The  shield  was morehighly  valued  by  the  ancients  than 
all  their  other  armour.  It  was  their  delight  to  adorn  it 
with  all  kinds  of  figures,  of  birds  and  beasts,  especially 
those  of  generous  natures,  as  eagles  and  lions :  they  embla- 
zoned upon  its  capacious  circle  the  effigies  of  their  gods, 
the  forms  of  celestial  bodies,  and  all  the  works  of  nature. 
They  preserved  it  with  the  most  jealous  care ;  and  to  lose 
it  in  the  day  of  battle  was  accounted  one  of  the  greatei-t 
calamities  that  could  befall  them,  worse  than  defeat,  or  even 
than  death  itself;  so  great  was  their  passion  for  what  i«- 
termed  military  glory,  and  the  estimation  in  which  it  wa.' 
held,  that  they  had  a  profound  regard  for  all  sorts  of  arms 
the  instruments  by  which  they  attained  it ;  and  to  leave  then 
in  the  hands  of  their  enemies,  to  give  them  for  a  pledge,  o 
dispose  of  them  in  a  dishonourable  way,  was  an  indelibl- 
disgrace  both  in  Greece  and  at  'Rome,  for  which  they  coul  i 
hardly  ever  atone.  But  these  sentiments  were,  not  confined 
to  Greece  and  Rome ;  among  no  people  were  they  carried 
higher  than  among  the  Jews.  To  cast  away  the  shield  in 
the  day  of  battle,  they  counted  a  national  disgrace,  and  a 
fit  subject  for  public  mourning..  This  affecting  circum- 
stance was  not  omitted  in  the  beautiful  elegy  which  David, 
a  brave  and  experienced  soldier,  composed  on  the  death  of 
Saul  and  the  loss  of  his  army  :  "  The  shield  of  the  mighty 
was  vilely  cast  away."  On  that  fatal  day,  when  Saul  and  the 
flower  of  Israel  perished  on  the  mountains  of  Gilboa,  many 
of  the  Jewish  soldiers  who  had  behaved  with  great  bravery 
in  former  battles,  forgetful  of  their  own  reputation  and 
their  country's  honour,  threw  away  their  shields,  and  fled 
from  the  field.  The  sweet  singer  of  Israel  adverts  tp  that 
dishonourable  conduct,  with  admirable  and  touching  pathos: 
"  Ye  mountains  of  Gilboa,  let  there  be  no  dew,  neither  let 
there  be  rain  upon  you,  nor  fields  of  offerings ;  for  there  the 
shield  of  the  mighty  is  vilely  cast  away,  the  shield  of  Saui, 
as  though  he  had  not  been  anointed  with  oil."  The  apos- 
tle has  availed  himself  of  this  general  feeling  in  his  epist'e 
to  the  Hebrews,  to  encourage  them  in  the  profession  of  the 
gospel,  and  in  a  courageous,  firm,  and  constant  adherence 
to  the  truth :  "  Cast  not  away  therefore  your  confidence." 
Abide  without  wavering  in  the  profession  of  the  faith, 
and  in  the  firm  belief  of  the  truth  ;  and  aim  at  the  full  as- 
surance of  the  grace  of  faith,  which,  as  a  spiritual  shield, 
should  be  sought  with  unwearied  diligence,  and  retained 
with  jealous  care. — Paxton. 

Ver.  23.    Saul   and   Jonathan   icere  lovely  and 


•82 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap  2 


pleasant  in  their  lives,  and  in  their  death  they 
were  not  divided :  they  were  swifter  than  eagles, 
they  were  stronger  than  lions. 

The  military  exercises  of  the  Hebrews  resembled  those 
of  other  nations  around  them.  Swiftness  of  foot  was  high- 
ly valued,  as  it  gave  the  warrior  a  great  advantage  over 
liis  slower  and  more  unwieldy  antagonist.  It  is  accord- 
ingly mentioned  to  the  honour  of  Asahei,  one  of  David's 
captains,  that  he  was  swifter  of  foot  than  a  wild  roe ;  and 
the  sweet  singer  of  Israel,  in  his  poetical  lamentation  over 
vhose  two  great  captains,  Saul  and  Jonathan,  takes  partic- 
ular notice  of  this  warlike  quality:  "  They  were  sv/iiter 
than  eagles,  stronger  than  lions."  Nor  were  the  ancient 
Greeks  less  attentive  to  a  qualification  which  the  state  of 
the  military  art  in  those  days  rendered  so  valuable.  The 
footraces  in  the  Olympic  games  were  instituted  by  warlike 
^^^'eftains,  for  the  very  purpose  of  inuring  their  subjects  to 
i.ie  fatigues  of  war,  and  particularly  of  increasmg  their 
speed,  which  was  regarded  as  an  excellent  qualification  m 
a  warrior,  both  because  it  served  for  a  sudden  attack  and 
a  nimble  retreat.  Homer,  fully  aware  of  its  value  in  an- 
cient warfare,  says,  that  swiftness  of  foot  is  one  of  the  most 
excellent  endowments  with  which  a  man  can  be  favoured. 
To  invigorate  the  frame,  on  the  strength  and  firmness  of 
which  the  victory  almost  entirely  depended  in  primitive 
limes,  the  Hebrew  captains  are  said  to  have  exercised  their 
soldiers  in  lifting  great  weights.  After  the  defeat  of  Saul, 
which  seems  to  have  been  chiefly  eflfected  by  the  skill  and 
valour  of  the  enemy's  archers,  David  commanded  his  offi- 
cers to  instruct  their  troops  in  the  use  of  the  boAv,  which, 
though  employed  by  the  Hebrew  warriors  from  the  earliest 
times,  appears  to  have  been  rather  neglected  till  that  terri- 
ble catastrophe  taught  them  the  necessity  of  forming  a  body 
of  skilful  archers,  which  might  enable  them  to  meet  their 
'"nemies  in  the  field  on  equal  terms.  The  Hebrew  youth 
were  also  taught  to  hurl  the  javelin,  to  handle  the  spear, 
zmd  to  use  the  sling,  in  which  many  of  them  greatly  ex- 
celled.— Paxton. 

Ver.  26.  I  am  distressed  for  thee,  my  brother 
Jonathan :  very  pleasant  hast  thou  been  unto 
me :  thy  love  to  me  was  wonderful,  passing  the 
love  of  women. 

Than  the  love  of  women ;  or,  as  the  word  is  frequently 
rendered,  wives.  This  figure  hath  been  censured,  as  not 
well  chosen,  and  insinuations  dropped  highly  to  the  dis- 
honour of  the  two  noble  friends.  But  the  expression  gives 
no  countenance  to  it.  It  fippears  to  me,  that  there  was 
somewhat  in  the  conduct  of  Michal,  David's  wife,  in  too 
hastily  consenting  to  be  married  to  Phalti,  that  gave  occa- 
sion to  this  comparison.  It  is  certain  from  her  behaviour 
to  him,  at  the  bringing  the  ark  to  Jerusalem,  that  she  had 
not  that  high  esteem  and  affection  for  him,  that  she  ought 
to  have  had,  as  she  took  this  opportunity  so  bitterly  to 
reproach  him.  It  is  certain  also,  that  her  marriage  to 
Phalti  must  have  been  preceded  by  a  divorce  from  David; 
otherwise  her  second  marriage  would  have  been  real  adul- 
tery :  and  her  consenting  to.  a  divorce,  though  by  her 
father's  order,  showed  great  want  of  affection  and  fidelity 
to  David.  On  this  supposition,  no  comparison  could  be 
better  chosen,  nor  more  tenderly  and  delicately  expressed. 
The  brother's  love  to  him,  as  a  friend,  was  more  generous 
and  constant  than  the  sister's,  though  a  wife.  The  com- 
pliment to  Jonathan  was  very  high,  and  just;  and  the 
concealing  the  sister's  name,  was  truly  polite. 

He  who  can  read  this  excellent  composure  without 
admiration  and  pleasure,  must  be  totally  destitute  of  all 
true  taste.  The  lamentation  over  the  slain  heroes  of  Israel, 
in  the  beginning,  and  several  times  repeated;  the  manner 
in  which  he  expresses  his  anguish,  at  the  thought  of  the 
defeats  being  published  in  the  cities  of  the  Philistines,  and 
the  triumphs  of  the  daughters  of  the  uncircumcised  upon 
account  of  it;  his  passionately  wishing  that  neither  dews 
nor  rains  might  ever  fall  on  the  mountains  of  Gilboa,  and 
the  fields  surrounding  them,  in  which  the  slaughter  of  the 
Israelites  happened;  his  recounting  the  past  victories  of 
Saul  and  Jonathan,  who  never  drew  a  bow,  or  brandished 
a  sword,  but  it  proved  fatal  to  their  enemies,  to  heighten 
the  glory  of  their  character,  and  set  forth  in  a  more  lively 


manner  the  sad  reverse  of  their  condition  ;  his  comparing 
them,  the  one  to  an  eagle  for  swiftness,  the  other  to  a  lion 
for  strength  and  valour ;  the  honourable  mention  of  their 
mutual  affection  while  they  lived,  and  dying  bravely  to- 
gether in  the  field  of  battle;  the  exclamation  to  the  daugh- 
ters of  Israel  to  mourn  over  Saul,  and  the  reasons  he  gives 
for  it;  his  celebrating  the  mutual  lender  friendship  between 
himself  and  Jonathan :  in  a  word,  this  elegy,  in  every  part 
of  it,  both  in  sentiment  and  expression,  hath  all  the  charms 
with  which  the  spirit  of  poetry  can  adcrn  it ;  shoM^s  the 
richness  of  David's  genius,  and  will  be  a  monument  to  his 
praise  throughout  all  generations. — Chandler. 

CHAPTER  11.  V 
Ver.  4.  And  the  men  of  Judah  came,  and  there 
they  anointed  David  king  over  the  house  of 
Judah.  And  they  told  David,  saying,  That 
the  men  of  Jabesh-gilead  were  they  thai  buried 
Saul.  5.  And  David  sent  messengers  unto  the 
men  of  Jabesh-gilead,  and  said  unto  them, 
Blessed  be  ye  of  the  Lord,  that  ye  have  show- 
ed this  kindness  unto  your  lord,  even  unto 
.  Saul,  and  have  buried  him.  6.  And  now  the 
Lord  show  kindness  and  truth  unto  you :  and 
I  also  will  requite  you  this  kindness,  because 
ye  have  done  this  thing.  7.  Therefore  now 
let  your  hands  be  strengthened,  and  be  ye  val- 
,  iant :  for  your  master  Saul  is  dead,  and  also  the 
house  of  Judah  have  anointed  me  king  over 
them.  8.  But  Abner  the  son  of  Ner,  captain 
of  Saul's  host,  took  Ishbosheth  the  son  of  Saul, 
and  brought  him  over  to  Mahanaim :  9.  And 
he  made  him  king  over  Gilead,  and  over  the 
Ashurites,  and  over  Jezreel,  and  over  Ephraim, 
and  over  Benjamin,  and  over  all  Israel.  1 0.  Ish- 
bosheth, Saul's  son,  icas  forty  years  old  when 
he  began  to  reign  over  Israel,  and  reigned  two 
years.  But  the  house  of  Judah  followed  Da- 
vid. 11.  And  the  time  that  David  was  king 
in  Hebron,  over  the  house  of  Judah,  was  seven 
years  and  six  months. 

David  was  now  thirty  years  old ;  had  in  many  instances 
shown  his  courage,  fortitude,  moderation,  and  patience ; 
had  been  inured  by  a  long  persecution,  and  series  of  dis- 
appointments and  distresses,  to  submission  to  God,  and 
trust  in  his  power  and  goodness ;  and  had  experienced  the 
care  of  the  Almighty,  in  the  protection  afFqrded  him,  under 
the  innumerable  dangers  to  which  the  jealousy  and  enmity 
of  Saul  had  exposed  him.  As  he  had  under  all  his  difli- 
culties  strengthened  himself  in  God,  left  his  fate  to  the 
divine  disposal,  and  was  determined  never  to  hasten  his 
accession  to  the  throne  by  any  acts  of  treason  and  violence  ; 
God  now  began  to  reward  his  singular  virtue,  and  from  a 
fugitive  and  exile  he  was  made  king  over  the  most  power- 
ful of  all  the  tribes,  by  their  unsolicited  and  voluntary  con- 
sent ;  as  an  earnest  of  what  God  had  in  further  reserve  for 
him, — the  kingdom  over  all  his  people.  From  hence  it 
appears,  how  unreasonably  it  hath  been  alleged,  that  David 
had  no  pretension  to  the  sovereignty,  either  by  right  of  in- 
heritance, which  was  claimed  by  Ishbosheth,  a  remaining 
son  of  Saul,  nor  by  popular  election,  but  by  the  clandestine 
appointment  of  an  old  Levite,  which  inspired  him  with 
hopes,  of  which  by  arms  and  intrigues  he  obtained  the 
fruition.  Mr.  Bayle  also  censures  the  conduct  of  David  in 
the  measures  he  took  to  secure  himself  the  crown.  For  he 
informs  us,  that  David  had  gained  the  principal  men  of 
the  tribe  of  Judah  by  presents ;  and  that  had  not  Abner 
prevented  it,  there  is  no  doubt  but  he  would  have  become 
king  over  all  Israel,  by  the  same  method,  viz.  by  gaining 
the  principal  persons  by  presents.  It  is  acknoAvledged  that 
David  had  no  pretension  to  the  sovereignty  by  right  of  in- 
heritance ;  and  in  this  respect  Saul  had  no  more  right  than 
David;  nor  Isl.nosheth  than  either  of  them;  the  hereditary 
1  ight,  if  any  such  there  was,  being  vested  in  Mephiboshetl^ 


I 


Chap.  2. 


2  SAMUEL. 


18S 


Saul's  grandson,  b}'  his  eldest  son  Jonathan.    And,  thus,  I 
doubt  not,  MephiDosheth  himself  thought ;  at  least  Saul's 
family  certainly  did.     For  when  David  asked  Ziba  where 
Mephibosheth  was,  Ziba  answered :  "  He  abideth  at  Jeru- 
salem ;  for  he  said,  to-day  shall  the  house  of  Israel  restore 
me  the  kingdom  of  ray  father."    Whether  this  charge  was 
true  or  false,  it  is  evident  that  Mephibosheth,  or  his  family, 
thought  the  right  of  succession  to  the  kingdom  of  Israel 
belonged  to  him,  as  it  most  unquestionably  did,  if  the  suc- 
cession had  been  made  hereditary  in  Saul's  family.    Be- 
sides, if  Saul  himself,  as  some  affirm,  had  only  the  show  of 
a  popular  election,  he  had  no  real"  popular  election  at  all, 
and  therefore  no  right  to  the  crown,  and  therefore  Ishbo- 
sheth  could  derive  no  right  from  him  to  succeed  him.    Ish- 
bosheth  further  doth  not  appear  to  have  had,  either  the 
show  or  reality  of  a  popular  election ;  no,  nor  the  clandestine 
appointment  of  the  old  Levite,  which  both  Saul  and  David 
had.     He  was  the  mere  creature  of  Abner,  the  captain  of 
Saul's  host ;  who,  ambitious  of  retaining  the  power  in  his 
own  hand,  took  Ishbosheth,  and,  by  military  force,  made 
him  king  over  Israel ;  without,  as  far  as  appears,  the  choice 
or  consent  of  the  eleven  tribes,  and  in  direct  opposition  to 
he  choice  and  consent  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  the  most  con- 
siderable and  powerful  of  all,  and  the  inclination  of  the 
whole  body  of  the  people.     Ishbosheth  therefore  was   a 
usurper  in  every  respect,  in  prejudice  of  the  right  heir ; 
and  David,  and  "every  man  in  Israel,  had  a  natural  right  to 
oppose  him,  and  prevent  his  establishment  in  the  kingdom. 
Mr.  Bayle  says,  that  David  did  not  pretend  that  Ishbosheth 
reigned  by  usurpation ;  for  he  allowed  him  to  be  a  righteous 
man,  and  therefore  a  lawful  king.    But  this  reasoning  will 
not  hold  good,  if  Mr.  Bayle's  own  account  of  David  be 
true.     He  allows  David  to  have  been  one  of  the  greatest 
men  in  the  world,  commends  him  for  his  conspicuous  piety, 
and  extols  him  as  a  son  of  holiness  in  the  chi^rch.     And 
yet  he  tells  us,  that  David  acted  like  an  infidel,  and  most 
ambitious  prince  ;  and  that  his  policy  and  prudence  were 
such,  as  he  can  never  persuade  himself  to  think  that  the 
strict  laws  of  equity,  and  the  severe  morals  of  a  good  ser- 
vant of  God  can  possibly  approve ;  and  that  his  actions  were 
not  those  of  a  samt.     I  therefore  say,  that  according  to  Mr. 
Bayle,  a  person  may  have  a  general  character  for  a  saint  and 
a  righteous  man,  and  yet,  in  some  particular  actions,  may 
act  contrary  to  the  character  of  both  ;  and  that  therefore  it 
doth  not  follow,  that  because  David  allowed  Ishbosheth  to  be 
a  righteous  man,  therefore  he  allowed  him  to  be  a  lawful 
'   king.     Ishbosheth  was  undoubtedly  a  righteous  man,  with 
respect  to  his  murderers,  whom  he  had  never  injured ; 
ana  probably  in  his  private  character  he  might  be  a  man 
of  virtue.     But  at  the  same  time  David  could  not  but  know, 
that  he  reigned  in  every  view  by  usurpation,  and  that  con- 
sequently he  was  in  this  respect  a  very  unrighteous  man. 
The  right  of  David  to  the  crown  was  indisputable,  and  the 
highest  by  which  any  man  could  claim  it.     When  Saul 
was  made  king,  the  crown  was  not  made  hereditary  in  his 
family,  and  the  same  power  that  made  him  king,  be  that 
what  it  will,  declared,  that  his  kingdom  should  not  stand, 
or  be  perpetuated  in  his  family,  but  be  transferred  to  his 
neighbour.    Upon  the  death  of  Saul  therefore,  the  throne 
oecame  vacant,  and  the  people  were  at  full  liberty,  under 
the  direction  of  God,  to  choose  whom  they  pleased.     The 
tribe  of  Judah  unanimously  chose  David"  for  their  king, 
and  it  is  highly  probable,  that  the  M^hole  body  of  the  nation 
would  have  fallen  in  with  him,  had  they  not  been  prevented 
by  the  influence  of  Abner.     This  Abner  himself  more  than 
intimates,  when  in  order  to  bring  over  the  eleven  tribes  to 
David,  he  puts  them  in  remembrance,  saying :  "  Ye  fought 
for  David  in  tinges  past  to  be  king  over  you,"  viz.  even  in 
Saul's  time,  who  was  abhorred  and  detested  by  many  of 
'.he  principal  men  for  his  tyranny.     Nay,  we  are  expressly 
mformed,  that  the  princes,  and  captains  of  hundreds  and 
thousands,  and  great  parties  from    the   Benjamites,  Gib- 
eonites,  Gadites,  the  tribe  of  Judah  and  Manasseh  revolted 
\0  him,  even  before  the  battle  in  which  Saul  was  slain,  day 
by  day,  till  it  was  a  great  host,  like  the  host  of  God.     These 
were  voluntary  in  the  offer  of  the  crown  to  David,  and  no 
jtind  of  bribes  or  force  employed  by  him  to  bring  them  to 
submission.     The  whole  nation  was  in  motion,  and  nothing 
prevented  their  unanimously  declaring  for  him,  but  the 
opposition  of  Abner  in  favour  of  Ishbosheth. 
.    But  did  not  David  gain  in  particular  the  tribe  of  Judah 
Jfr  bribes  or  presents  1    Mr.  Bayle  affirms  he  did :  The 


whole  tribe  of  Judah,  of  which  he  had  gained  the  principu 
men  by  presents,  acknowledged  him  for  king.     The  histor~ 
only  says,  that  he  once  made  presents  to  such  of  the  elders 
of  Judah,  as  were  his  friends,  consisting  of  part  of  the  spoil 
he  took  from  the  Amalekites,  after  the  recovery  of  the  prej" 
they  had  taken  from  Ziklag  ;  and  probably  that  very  part 
which  the  Amalekites  had  taken  from  Judah,  the  south  o 
which  they  had  just  invaded.     But  if  these  elders  of  Judah 
were  his  friends,  before  he  sent  them  this  present,  then  he 
did  not  gain  them  by  sending  them  these  presents,  and  their 
making  him  king  was  not  because  he  made  them  a  pres- 
ent, but  from  the  greatness  of  their  affection  for  him  before. 
When  Mr.  Bayle  adds,  there  is  no  doubt,  had  not  Abner 
prevented  it,  but  he  would  have  been  king  of  all  Israel,  by 
the  same  method  of  presents  ;  I  think  there  is  great  reason 
to  doubt  of  it ;  for  David  doth  not  appear  to  have  been  in 
circumstances  to  give  .such  presents ;  nor  did  they  seem  to 
desire  or  want  them,  being  led  by  their  own  inclinations 
and  sense  of  interest  and  duty  at  last  to  submit  to  him. 
David  was  certainly  a  man  of  a  generous  disposition,  and 
liberal  in  his  favours  ;  and  this  temper  I  never  so  much  as 
suspected  to  be  criminal,  unworthy  a  great  and  good  prince, 
or  a  real  saint ;  and  if  by  a  prudent  liberality  he  could  se- 
cure his  own  rights,  I  think  he  acted  much  more  like  a 
saint,  than  if  he  had  recovered  them  by  force,  without  ever 
first  attempting  to  do  it  by  the  gentler  methods  of  liberality 
and  goodness.     The  true  reason  of  the  tribe  of  Judah's 
falling  in  with  him,  and  the  readiness  of  the  other  tribes 
to  acknowledge  him  as  king,  was  his  excellent  character 
as  a  brave  and  generous  soldier,  under  whom  they  them- 
selves had  formerly  served ;  and  especially  his  designation 
by  God  to  the  royal  dignity,  having  been  anointed  king  by 
Samuel,  according  to  the  express  order  of  God.     It  was  this 
latter  consideration,  that  led  him  to  ask  the  divine  direc- 
tion upon  Saul's  death,  what  measures  he  should  take  to 
secure  his  succession.     The  very  question :  "  Shall  I  go  up 
to  any  of  the  cities  of  Judah  1    would  have  been  highly 
indecent,  had  he  not  had  the  divine  promise  and  assistance 
to  depend  on.     His  claim,  by  virtue  of  Samuel's  unction, 
was  his  only  claim,  was  universally  known  to  the  people  oi 
Israel,  and  the  avowed  reason  why  they  at  last  advanced 
him  to  the  throne.     It  was  known  to  Jonathan  his  friend. 
Saul  himself  was  no  stranger  to  it.     I  know,  says  he,  that 
thou  shalt  be  surely  king,  and  that  the  kingdom  of  Israel 
shall  be  established  in  thy  hand.     It  was  known  even  to 
private  persons.    Nabal's  wife  confesses  this  appointment 
of  God.    Abner  terrified  Ishbosheth  by  putting  him  in  mind 
of  it.     "  So  do  God  to  Abner,  and  more  also,  except,  as  the 
Lord  hath  sworn  to  David,  even  so  I  do  to  him,  to  translate 
the  kingdom  from  the  house  of  Saul,  and  to  set  up  the 
throne  of  David  over  Israel."    He  declares  the  same  in  his 
message  to  the  elders  of  Israel.     The  Lord  hath  spoken  of 
David,  saying,  "  By  the  hand  of  my  servant  David  I  will 
save  my  people  Israel  out  of  the  hands  of  the  Philistines, 
and  out  of  the  hand  of  all  their  enemies."    And  when  they 
came  to  make  him  king,  this  was  the  grand  inducement  to 
it.    "  In  time  past,  when  Saul  was  king  over  us,  thou  wast 
he  that  leddest  out  and  broughtest  in  Israel,  and  the  Lord 
said  to  thee:  Thou  shalt  feed  my  people  Israel,  and  thou 
shalt  be  captain  over  Israel ;  and  they  anointed  David  king 
over  Israel,  according  to  the  word  of  the  Lord  by  Samuel." 
So  that  this  was  the  foundation  of  his  claim,  was  univer- 
sally known,  and  justified  his  pretensions  to,  and  contest 
for,  the  crown  after  the  death  of  Saul. 

To  this  contest  David  was  forced,  by  Ishbosheth's  usur- 
pation, supported  by  the  authority  arid  influence  of  Abner, 
a  near  relation  of  Saul,  and  who  had  been  his  general.  Ii 
lasted  above  seven  years,  and  Mr.  Bayle  is  extremely  dis- 
pleased with  poor  David,  and  censures  him  very  severely  on 
this  account.  He  says,  "  That  as  Abner  preserved  by  his 
fidelity  eleven  whole  tribes  for  Ishbosheth,  the  same  thing 
happened  as  would  have  happened  between  two  infidel  and 
most  ambitious  princes.  David  and  Ishbosheth  made  inces- 
sant war  on  one  another,  to  try  which  of  the  two  could  get 
the  other's  share,  in  order  to  enjoy  the  whole  kingdom  with- 
out division."  But  the  real  question,  by  which  David's  con- 
duct is  to  be  determined,  is  :  Did  the  free  election  of  the  tribe 
of  Judah,  neither  bought  by  bribes,  nor  forced  by  power,  give 
David  a  right  to  be  king  over  it ;  and  did  his  appointment  by 
God  to  succeed  Saul,  and  rule  over  all  Israel,  give  him  a  just 
claim  to  enjoy  the  whole  kingdom,  without  division  1  I  think 
in  both  cases  he  had  an  indisputable  right,  and  consequent 


1 84 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap. 


ly  he  might,  consistently  even  with  the  character  of  a  saint, 
defend  and  maintain  his  right.  Ishbosheth  therefore,  by 
keeping  David  out  of  part  of  the  kingdom,  and  endeavour- 
ing by  arms  to  dispossess  him  of  the  whole,  might  well 
enough  deserve  Mr.  Bayle's  character  of  an  infidel  and 
ambitious  prince ;  and  David,  endeavouring  only  to  secure 
what  he  had,  and  to  recover  what  he  was  unjustly  kept  out 
of,  may  still  pass  for  a  very  good  believer,  and  doth  not 
seem  to  have  had  any  more  ambition  in  him,  than  what 
was  honourable  and  virtuous.  If  wars  are  in  their  nature 
■Liilawful,  David's  character  as  a  saint  will  greatly  suffer  by 
his  carrying  on  the  war  with  Ishbosheth.  '  But  it  wars  are 
in  any  case  lawful,  it  must  be  when  waged  for  supporting 
those  just  and  important  rights,  which  cannot  be  secured 
without  them.  Such  were  certainly  the  rights  of  David, 
and  therefore  his  maintaining  the  war  against  Ishbosheth, 
was  both  his  interest  and  duty,  and  doth  not  in  the  least  di- 
minish the  glory  of  this  son  of  holiness  in  the  church.  The 
promise  of  God  to  David,  that  he  should  |ge  king  of  Israel, 
was  not  a  promise  to  make  him  so  by  extraordinary  and 
miraculous  methods,  but  in  the  use  of  all  prudential  and 
proper  ones  ;  and  if  he  actually  employed  arms  when  ne- 
cessary to  vindicate  his  just  claims,  and  prudence  and  pol- 
icy to  turn  every  event  to  his  advantage,  it  only  shows 
that  he  was  born  for  empire,  worthy  of  a  kingdom,  and  a 
man  after  God's  own  heart ;  or  fit  for  the  purposes  for 
'vhich  God  raised  him  to  the  throne.  And  though  these 
methods  should  have  been,  to  all  appearance,  like  those 
which  wicked  men,  or  infidel  and  most  ambitious  princes, 
make  use  of  to  obtain  their  ends,  they  may  for  all  that  be 
very  just  and  honourable.  For  infidel  and  wicked  princes 
may  sometimes  pursue  lawful  ends,  and  be  forced  to  main- 
tain their  rights  by  policy  and  arms.  And  therefore  unless 
the  means  which  David  used  were  base  and  criminal,  or 
employed  for  wicked  and  unjustifiable  purposes,  they  may 
be  allowed  to  be,  to  external  appearance,  the  same  with 
what  wicked,  ambitious,  infidel  princes  use,  and  yet  be 
agreeable  to  the  rules  of  justice  and  honour. — Chandler. 

Ver.  5.  And  David  sent  messengers  unto  the  men 
of  Jabesh-g-ilead,  and  said  unto  them,  Blessed 
he  ye  of  the  Lord,  that  ye  have  showed  this 
kindness  unto  your  lord,  even  unto  Saul,  and 
have  buried  him. 

The  bodies  of  Saul  and  his  sons  were  burnt  by  the  men 
of  Jabesh-gilead.  Two  of  the  thirty-two  charities  of  the 
Hindoos  are,  to  burn  the  bodies  of  those  whose  relations 
cannot  do  it,  and  to  pay  for  the  beating  of  the  tom-toms  to 
the  place  of  burning.  It  is  therefore  considered  a  work  of 
great  merit  to  perform  the  funeral  rites  for  a  respectable 
stranger,  or  for  those  whose  relations  are  not  able  to  meet 
the  expenses.  Hence  may  be  seen  the  funerals  of  those 
who  have  lived  in  poverty,  or  who  have  seen  better  days, 
conducted  with  great  pomp,  because  the  reward  is  great  to 
him  who  advances  the  money,  and  because  he  receives 
great  praise  from  the  people.— Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  And  Joab  said  to  Amasa,  Art  thou  in 
health,  my  brother  ?  And  Joab  took  Amasa  by 
the  beard  with  the  right  hand  to  kiss  him. 

Dr.  Shaw  takes  no  notice  of  their  taking  hold  of  the 
beard  in  order  to  kiss,  but  Thevenot  does,  saying,  that 
among  the  Turks  it  is  a  great  affront  to  take  one  by  the 
beard „  unless  it  be  to  kiss  him,  in  which  case  they  often  do 
it.  Whether  he  means  by  kissing  him,  kissing  his  beard, 
or  no*  I  do  not  know;  but  Joab's  taking  Amasa  by  the 
be{  Tf  s  iiss  htm,  2  Sam.  xx.  9,  seems  to  be  designed  to 
express  his  taking  his  beard  to  kiss  it ;  at  least  this  is 
agreeable  to  the  customs  of  those  that  now  live  in  that 
country ;  for  D' Ar  vieux,  describing  the  assembling  together 
of  several  of  the  petty  Arab  princes  at  an  entertainment, 
tells  us,  that  "  All  the  "emirs  came  just  together  a  little  time 
after,  accompanied  by  their  friends  and  attendants,  and 
after  the  usual  civilities,  caresses,  kissings  of  the  beard, 
and  of  the  hand,  which  every  one  gave  and  received  ac- 
cording to  his  hand  and  dignity,  they  sat  down  upon  mats." 
He  elsewhere  speaks  of  the  women's  kissing  their  husbands' 
beards,  and  children  those  of  their  fathers,  and  friends 
reciprocally  saluting  one  another  in  this  manner  ;  but  the 


doing  it  by  their  emirs  more  exactly  answers  this  history- 
of  Joab  and  Amasa,  and  in  this  stooping  posture  he  could 
much  better  see  to  direct  the  blow,  than  if  he  had  only  hel^ 
his  beard,  and  raised  himself  to  kiss  his  face. — Harmbr. 

Ver.  18.  And  there  were  three  sons  of  Zeruiali 
there,  Joab,  and  Abishai,  and  Asahel ;  an^ 
Asahel  was  as  light  of  foot  as  a  wild  roe. 

The  name  of  the  antelope  in  the  Hebrew  scripture,  '^3 
>3s  {tsehif)  and  in  the  version  of  the  Seventy  Aop^caj,  {dorcas. 
In  our  version,  the  original  term  is  translated  roe  and  roe 
buck;  but  Dr.  Shaw,  and  others,  have  proved  by  severa. 
conclusive  arguments,  that  it  is  not  the  roe,  but  the  ante- 
lope, which  the  sacred  writers  intend.  The  former  is 
extremely  rare  in  the  oriental  regions,  while  the  latter  is 
common  in  every  part  of  the  Levant.  But  is  it  to  be  sup- 
posed, that  the  sacred  writers  would  borrow  their  figures 
from  creatures  which  are  either  not  known  at  all  in  Pales- 
tine and  the  surrounding  countries,  or  but  rarely  seen , 
while  they  had  not  even  a  name  for  an  animal,  which,  in 
large  herds  of  several  thousands,  fed  in  their  fields,  and 
around  their  dwellings  1  Such  a  supposition  would  con- 
tradict some  of  the  strongest  laws  which  regulate  the 
operations  of  the  human  mind,  and  is  therefore  quiie 
inadmissible.  It  is  equally  absurd  to  suppose  that  tbe 
Jewish  legislator,  when  he  regulated  by  fixed  laws  the 
food  of  his  people,  would  mention  a  creature  which  tlicy 
probably  had  never  sf^en,  of  which  perhaps  they  had  not 
even  heard,  which  was  not  to  be  found  in  the  deserts  ovei 
which  they  had  to  travel,  nor  in  the  country  they  were  to 
possess ;  while  he  omitted  one  of  daily  occurrence,  which  • 
was  found  everywhere,  in  the  wilderness  and  in  the  culti- 
vated field,  on  the  mountains  and  in  the  plains ;  whose 
flesh  was  greatly  esteemed,  and,  by  consequence,  could  not 
fail  to  become  an  important  article  of  subsistence.  These 
considerations  are  of  themselves  sufiicient  to  establish  the 
superior  claims  of  the  antelope  to  a  place  in  the  sacred 
volume.  The  arguments  which  have  been  drawn  from 
the  etymological  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  terms  n3s  and 
"«3s,  and  the  authority  of  the  Septuagint,  although  of  infe- , 
rior  importance,  are  not  destitute  of  weight.  The  first  of 
these  names  suggests  the  idea  of  a  very  gregarious  animal ; 
but  this  is  not  the  character  of  the  roes,  for,  instead  of  a.s.so- 
ciating  in  herds,  they  live  in  separate  families;  while  the 
antelopes  are  commonly  found  in  very  large  herds,  some- 
times to  the  number  of  two  or  three  thousand  together.  * 
The  second  term,  '>dx,  primarily  signifies  beauty ;  and  when 
put  for  the  concrete,  as  in  this  instance,  by  a  very  common 
figure  of  speech  in  Hebrew,  has  the  force  of  a  superlative, 
and  signifies  a  thing  or  animal  of  uncommon  beauty.  Thus 
the  land  of  Canaan  is,  in  the  prophet,  styled  ■'Sxn  pN,  the 
land  of  beauty;  or,  as  it  is  rendered  by  oiir  translators,  the 
glory  of  all  lands.  The  tscbi,  therefore,  is  an  animal  that 
excels  in  beauty  ;  which  exactly  corresponds  with  all  the 
accounts  that  natural  historians  have  given  us  of  the  ante- 
lope. Both  the  roe  and  the  antelope,  it  must  be  admitted, 
are,  in  the  general  opinion  of  mankind;  very  beautiful 
animals;  but  the  preference  is  commonly  given  to  the 
latter.  Buffon  says,  the  figure  of  the  small  antelopes  is 
elegant,  and  their  members  are  finely  proportioned  to  their 
size ;  and  make  prodigious  bounds.  The  Septuagint  uni- 
formly translate  the  terms,  n3s  and  ""^x,  by  r^o^^-af ;  and  tlie 
correctness  of  their  translation  is  attested  by  Luke,  for  he 
mentions  "  a  certain  disciple"  who  resided  "  at  Joppa, 
named  Tabitha,  which,  by  interpretation,  is  called  Dorca.«:." 
The  name  Tabitha  is  formed  by  a  slight  alteration  from 
the  Chaldee  noun  n-'^i:  (  Tabia,)  and  this  from  the  Hebrew 
term  ^yi  (tsebi.)  The  Hebrew  term  signifies,  as  has  been 
already  observed,  a  creature  of  surpassing  beauty ;  Dorcas, 
its  divinely  attested  equivalent,  limiting  somewhat  the 
general  signification,  denotes  a  creature  remarkable  foi 
the  fineness  of  its  eves;  and  from  this  last  circumstance,  it 
is  conjectured  that  Tabitha  received  her  name.  But  while 
the  eyes  of  the  roe  have  attracted  no  -particular  attention, 
so  far  as  the  writer  has  observed,  the  antelope  has  been 
celebrated  for  the  fineness  of  its  eyes  in  all  the  countries  of 
the  East.  Their  beauty,  according  to  Dr.  Shaw,  is  pro- 
verbial there  to  this  day  ;  and  it  is  still  the  greatest  com- 
pliment which,  in  these  countries,  can  be  paid  to  a  fine 
Avoman,  to  sav, "  You  have  the  eyes  of  an  antelope."  From 
Bochart,  and"  other  authors,  we  learn  that  it  was  equal}}'     • 


Chap.  3. 


2  SAMUEL. 


185 


celebrated  by  the  ancients  for  the  acuteness  of  its  vision ; 
its  eyes,  they  pretend,  never  become  bleared ;  it  sees  in  the 
dark ;  it  sleeps  with  both  eyes  open,  or,  as  others  will  have 
it,  with  one  eye  open  and  another  shut.  These  circum- 
stances appear  to  be  much  more  applicable  to  the  antelope, 
which  is  a  quadruped  well  known,  than  to  the  roe,  which 
is  either  not  known  at  all,  or  very  rare,  in  those  parts  of 
the  world.  The  natives  of  Syria  make  a  distinction  be- 
tween the  antelopes  of  the  mountain,  and  those  of  the  plain. 
Dr.  Russel,  who  gives  us  this  information,  says,  "the 
former  is  the  most  beautifully  formed,  its  back  and  sides 
are  of  a  dark  brown  colour,  and  it  bounds  with  surprising 
agility ;  the  latter  is  of  a  much  lighter  colour,  its  limbs  are 
not  so  cleanly  turned,  and  it  is  neither  so  strong,  nor  so 
active ;  both,  however,  are  so  fleet,  that  the  greyhounds, 
though  reckoned  excellent,  cannot,  without  the  aid  of  the 
falcon,  come  up  with  them,  except  in  soft  deep  ground." 
This  is  probably  the  reason,  that  the  sacred  writers  fre- 
quently mention  the  "  antelope  upon  the  mountains,"  and 
not  siinply  the  antelope,  when  they  allude  to  surpassing 
beauty  of  form,  or  amazing  rapidity  of  motion.  The 
swiftness  of  this  beautiful  creature,  has  been  celebrated  by 
writers  of  every  age,  in  terms  of  high  admiration.  Its 
exquisite  symmetry,  its  active  form,  and  the  delicate  turn 
of  its  limbs,  clearly  show,  that  it  is  intended  by  its  Maker 
to  hold  a  distinguished  place  among  the  fleetest  animals 
that  scour  the  desert.  Sir  John  Malcom  says,  it  may  be 
termed  the  fleetest  of  quadrupeds.  It  seems  rather  to 
vanish,  than  to  run  from  the  pursuer,  and  when  closely 
pressed,  bounds  with  so  great  agility,  that  it  hardly  seems 
to  touch  the  ground  in  its  career.  Oppian  calls  it  the 
swiftest  species  of  goat;  and  according  to  ^Elian,  it  equals 
the  whirlwind  in  speed.  He  outruns  the  antelope,  said  the 
Arabians,  when  they  wished  to  pay  the  highest  compliment 
to  the  youthful  warrior.  To  this  trait  in  its  character,  the 
sacred  writers  often  allude.  The  surprising  agility  which 
Asahel,  the  brother  of  Jdab,  displayed  in  his  pursuit  of 
Abner,  drew  this  eulogium  from  the  sacred  historian : 
"  And  Asahel  was  light  of  foot,  as  one  of  the  antelopes  that 
are  in  the  field."  Another  allusion  to  the  amazing  speed 
of  that  animal,  occurs  in  the  description  of  the  warlike 
qualifications  which  distinguished  a  troop  of  Gadites  in 
the  service  of  David :  "  They  were  men  of  might,  men  of 
war,  fit  for  the  battle,  that  could  handle  shield  and  buckler, 
whose  faces  were  like  the  faces  of  lions,  and  were  as  swift 
as' the  roes  (the  antelopes)  upon  the  mountains." — Paxton. 

Ver.  28.  So  Joab  blew  a  trumpet,  and  all  the  peo- 
ple stood  still,  and  pursued  after  Israel  no  more, 
neither  fought  they  any  more. 

See  on  2  Sam.  18.  16. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  12.  And  Abner  sent  messengers  to  David  on 

his  behalf,  saying,  Whose  is  the  land  ?  saying 

I  also,  Make  thy  league  with  me,  and,  behold, 

my  hand  shall  be  with  thee,  to  bring  about  all 

Israel  unto  thee. 

Though  Abner,  with  the  eleven  tribes,  asserted  Ishbo- 
sheth's  cause  for  several  years,  yet  he  saw  that  his  interest 
greatly  declined,  and  that  he  should  not  long  be  able  to 
support  him,  as  his  forces  were  worsted  in  every  rencoun- 
ter; while  David  prospered  in  all  his  affairs,  his  party 
li  was  continually  increasing,  and  every  thing  seemed  to  con- 
j  spire  to  crown  his  wishes,  and  soon  put  him  in  possession 
of  the  kingdom  over  all  Israel.     This  was  the  opportunity 
that  Abner  had  waited  for,  to  bring  about  that  revolution  in 
favour  of  David,  which  he  had  continually  in  his  view, 
and  was  determmed  to  effect,  upon  the  first  occasion  that 
:  presented  itself.     He  soon  found  one,  that  he  immediately 
closed  with.     Saul  had  a  concubine,  whose  name  was  Ris- 
pah,  and  Ishbosheth,  having  found  out  that  Abner  had  been 
too  intimate  with  her,  took  an  oppo'tunity  to  reproach  him 
on  that  affair,  and  with  an  air  of  displeasure  said  to  him : 
i  Why  hast  thou  gone  in  unto  my  father's  concubine  1     Ab- 
■  ner,  enragsd  to  be  thus  called  to  an  account,  said  to  Ish- 
i  bosheth  with  indignation:  "  What,  am  I  to  be  used  in  so 
1  contemptuous  and  disagreeable  a  manner,   as  tho'iffh  I 
*<ire  as  insignificant  as  a  dog's  head,  and  thus  han<rh  i'v 
24 


questioned,  as  though  I  had  been  guilty  of  a  heinous 
crime,  concerning  this  woman,  whicii  you  reprove  me  for 
having  been  too  free  with!  What,  this  to  me,  who,  in  op- 
position to  the  tribe  of  Judah,  have  advanced  you  to  the 
throne,  have  been  so  firm  and  faithful  a  friend  to  the  house 
of  Saul  thy  father,  his  brethren,  and  adherents,  and  have 
not  delivered  thee,  as  I  could  easily  have  done,  into  the 
hands  of  David !  »  Too  long  have  I  already  resisted  the 
appointment  of  God,  and  may  I  fall  under  his  heaviest 
curse,  except  I  perform  to  David,  what  the  Lord  hath 
sworn  to  David ;  even  to  translate  the  kingdom  from  the 
house  of  Saul,  and  to  establish  his  throne  over  all  Israel 
and  Judah,  from  Dan  even  to  Beershebah !"  This  threat- 
ening so  terrified  the  unhappy  prince,  that  he  could  not 
answer  him  a  word,  as  he  knew  he  was  absolutely  in  Ab- 
ner's  power,  and  had  too  much  reason  to  fear  that  he  would 
put  his  threatening  too  soon  in  execution.  He  did  it  with- 
out delay,  and  sent  private  messengers  to  David  to  offer 
him  his  service,  and  say  to  him :  "  To  whom  doih  the 
government  over  the  country  of  Israel  belong  1  Even  to 
thyself.  Enter  therefore  into  an  agreement  with  me,  and 
I  will  lend  thee  my  assistance,  to  bring  over  all  the  tribes 
of  Israel  to  thy  interest  V  David,  in  return  to  his  message, 
sent  him  word,  he  was  willing  to  enter  into  a  treaty ;  but 
would  have  no  interview  with  him,  but  upon  condition 
that  he  should  bring  Michal,  Saul's  daughter,  with  him, 
when  he  admitted  him  to  an  audience.  He  sent  at  the  same 
time  messengers  to  Ishbosheth,  to  demand  that  Michal,  his 
wife,  whom  he  purchased  for  a  hundred  foreskins  of  the 
Philistines;  i.  e.  at  the  hazard  of  his  life,  should  be  imme- 
diately delivered  to  him ;  who  had  by  force  been  taken 
from  him,  and  married  to  Phaltiel,  the  son  of  Laish.  Here 
David  also  falls  under  censure,  as  manifesting,  in  this 
instance,  a  too  sensual  disposition;  and  Mr.  Bayle  speaks 
of  this  affair  in  such  a  manner,  as  shows  that  he  greatly 
disapproved  it.  For  he  says  that  Michal,  Saul's  daughter, 
was  David's  first  wife,  that  she  was  taken  from  him  during 
his  disgrace,  that  he  successively  married  several  others,  and 
yet  demanded  the  first  again  ;  adding,  to  enhance  David's 
offence,  that  to  restore  her  to  him,  they  were  obliged  to 
force  her  from  a  husband,  who  loved  her  greatly,  and 
followed  her  as  far  as  he  could,  weeping  like  a  child.  I 
confess  I  cannot  help  smiling  at  this  last  observation,  nor 
perceive  that  it  is  to  the  purpose ;  for  I  can  never  imagine, 
that  because  one  man  loves  another  man's  wife  very  dearly, 
that  therefore  the  husband  has  no  right  to  reclaim  her ;  or 
should  relinquish  her,  because  the  man  cries  like  a  child 
at  parting  with  her.  I  think  David  was  most  cwtainly  in 
the  right  to  demand  her;  for  whatever  may  be  said  as  to 
his  other  wives,  he  had  certainly  the  strongest  claim  to  this ; 
for  he  had  purchased  her  for  a  hundred  foreskins  of  the 
Philistines.  And  supposing  there  was  nothing  of  a  sensual 
disposition  that  influenced  David  in  this  instance,  there 
might  be  other  very  substantial  reasons  to  induce  him  to 
insist  upon  her  being  sent  to-him.  He  purchased  her  at 
the  hazard  of  his  life,  and  she  was  a  living  proof  of  his 
military  valour  and  ability.  She  was  his  predecessor's 
daughter,  and  he  did  not  probably  choose  to  lose  the  hon- 
our and  advantage  of  the  alliance.  It  might  conciliate 
some  of  Saul's  family  and  tribe  to  his  interest,  when  they 
saw  one  of  his  daughters  owned  and  treated  as  David  s 
wife,  and  that  he  did  not  pursue  his  resentment  to  Saul,  to 
the  injury  or  disgrace  of  any  of  the  branches  of  his  family. 
There  was  also  a  real  generosity  in  the  thing,  both  to  her 
and  Saul ;  in  that  he  received  her  after  she  had  been 
another  man's;  remembering  probably  how  once  he  owed 
his  life  to  her  affection,  and  knowing  that  she  was  partly  sep- 
arated from  him  by  her  father's  authority :  whereas  many 
princes,  for  much  less  provocations  of  a  wife's  father, 
would  have  turned  off  their  consorts  in  revenge  of  them, 
and  even  put  them  to  death  for  having  b€en  married  to 
another.  In  consequence  of  this  demand  made  to  Abner 
and  Ishbosheth,  she  was  immediately  put  into  Abner's 
hands :  who,  to  prepare  things  for  an  accommodation  with 
David,  went  and  assembled  all  the  elders  of  Israel,  and 
said  to  them  :  "You  have  formerly  oftentimes  expressed 
your  desire,  that  David  might  be  king  over  you.  You 
have  now  an  opportunity  to  gratify  your  own  inclinations 
in  this  respect;  and  what  should  engage  you  to  advance 
him  to  the  throne  is,  that  God  himself  hath  pointed  out  to 
you  the  man,  a  he  hath  declared:  By  the  hand  of  my  ser- 
var!  Davir*  T  will  save  my  people  Israel  out  of  the  hand  Oi 


,i::<-^^- 


186 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  3. 


the  Philistines,  and  out  o'f  me  hand  of  all  their  enemies;" 
intimating  hereby  the  incapacity  of  Ishbosheth,  and  that  it 
was  both  their  interest  and  duty  to  transfer  the  kingdom 
and  government  to  David ;  would  be  happy  for  themselves, 
and  an  instance  of  obedience  to  their  God.  He  went  also 
and  applied  himself  particularly  to  the  tribe  of  Benjamin, 
to  which  Saul's  family  belonged,  and  persuaded  them,  by 
the  same  kind  of  arguments,  to  fall  In  with  the  general 
sense  of  all  the  other  tribes,  and  concur  with  them  in  ad- 
vancing David  to  the  throne. — Chandler. 

Ver.  21.  And  Abner  said  unto  David,  I  will  arise 
and  g"o,  and  Avill  gather  all  Israel  unto  my  lord 

J.  the  king,  that  they  may  make  a  league  with 
thee,  and  that  thou  mayest  reign  over  all  that 
thy  heart  desireth.  And  David  sent  Abner 
away  ;  and  he  went  in  peace. 

Having  settled  this  important  point  to  his  mind,  he  took 
Michal,  and  waited  with  her  on  David  at  Hebron,  attended 
with  twenty  persons  of  rank  in  his  retinue,  whom  David 
favourably  received,  and  for  whom  he  made  a  royal  enter- 
tainment; and  having  fixed  the  terms  of  accommodation 
between  them,  Abner  took  his  leave,  and  at  parting  told 
the  king,  "  I  will  go  and  assemble  all  Israel  together  to  my 
lord,  whom,  I  now  acknowledge  for  my  sovereign  and 
king,  that  they  may  all  of  them  submit  to  thine  authority 
and  government,  upon  such  terms  as  .shall  be  judged  hon- 
ourable on  both  sides,  and  that,  according  to  the  utmost 
wishes  of  thy  heart,  thou  mayest  reign  over  us  all,  and  the 
kingdom  may  be  established  in  thy  house  and  family." 
Abner  then  took  his  leave,  and  went  away  pleased  and 
happy,  to  bring  about  the  revolution  he  had  projected  and 

Eromised.  Here  Mr.  Bayle  is  out  of  all  patience,  and  after 
aving  told  us  that  Abner,  being  discontented  with  the 
king  his  master,  resolved  to  dispossess  him  of  his  dominions, 
and  deliver  them  up  to  David,  adds  :  "  David  gives  ear  to 
the  traitor,  and  is  willing  to  gain  a  kingdom  by  intrigues 
of  this  nature.  Can  it  be  said  that  Aese  are  the  actions  of 
a  saint  1  I  own  there  is  nothing  in  all  this,  but  what  is 
agreeable  to  the  precepts  of  policy,  and  the  methods  of  hu- 
man prudence;  but  I  shall  never  be  persuaded,  that  the 
strict  laws  of  equity,  and  the  severe  morals  of  a  good 
servant  of  God,  can  approve  such  conduct."  There  are 
.some  persons  whom  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  please.  In 
a  former  note  Mr.  Bayle  heavily  censures  David,  that  he 
had  maae  incessant  war  on  Ishbosheth,  like  a  very  am- 
bitious and  even  infidel  prince ;  and  now,  he  ceases  even 
to  be  a  saint,  and  shows  he  is  destitute  of  the  severe  morals 
of  a  good  servant  of  God,  because  he  took  the  first  oppor- 
tunity, and  the  only  means  that  were  in  his  power,  to  put  a 
stop  to  the  war,  and  prevent  the  further  effusion  of  blood, 
by  a  general  and  solid  peace.  What,  I  wonder,  would  Mr. 
Bayle  have  had  David  to  have  done,  when  Abner  sent  his 
first  proposals  for  an  accommodation  1  Ought  he  to  have 
immediately  rejected  them,  reproached  Abner  as  a  traitor 
to  his  prince,  told  him  he  would  enter  into  no  terms  of 
peace  with  him,  nor  his  master,  but  reduce  them  both,  with 
all  the  eleven  tribes  that  adhered  to  them,  by  force  of 
arms'?  Had  David  done  this,  would  not  all  the  world  have 
reproached  him  for  folly,  thus  to  hazard,  by  continuing  the 
war,  what  he  could  so  certainly  and  easily  obtain  by  the 
voluntary  offer  of  Abner  1  Would  he  not  have  been  justly 
censured  for  delighting  in  blood,  for  pursuing  by  the  sword, 
what  he  could  secure  by  treaty  and  accommodation  1  Or, 
would  Mr.  Bayle  have"  had  David  sent  to  Ishbosheth,  and 
informed  him  of  Abner's  treachery,  and  advised  him  to  the 
proper  methods  of  preventing  it  1  This,  perhaps,  Mr. 
Bayle  might  have  commended  as  an  act  of  exceeding  great 
geiierositv,  and  Ishbosheth  might  have  thought  himself 
greatly  obliged  to  David  for  such  an  instance  of  friendship. 
But  how  would  the  tribe  of  Judah  have  stood  affected  to 
him  1  Would  they  not  have  concluded  him  unworthy  to 
be  their  prince,  who  no  better  understood  his  own  interest 
or  theirs,  by  his  rejecting  a  measure,  which  every  pruden- 
tial consideration,  which  humanity,  and  the  love  that  he 
owed  to  his  people,  obliged  him  immediately  and  thank- 
fully to  embrace  1  David  had  no  other  choice  left  him,  but 
either  to  fall  in  with  Abner's  offer,  or  prolong  the  calam- 
'ties  of  the  civil  war;  except  Mr.  Bavie  thought  he  was 
obliged,  upon  discovering  Abner's  treachery,  to  have  in- 


formed Ishbosheth  of  it,  and  sent  him  at  the  same  time  an 
offer  of  resigning  the  crown  of  Judah  to  him,  and  all  his 
pretensions  to  be  king  over  all  Israel.  It  ]s  plain  David 
was  not  of  this  sentiment,  but  thought  his  own  right  was 
better  than  Ishbosheth's,  and  therefore  made  use  of  that 
method  to  secure  it,  which  he  was  persuaded  that  the  strict 
laws  Oi  equity,  and  the  severe  morals  of  a  good  servant  ot 
God,  did  not  in  the  least  prohibit  and  condemn.  And  I 
confess,  I  do  not  see  any  just  reason  for  this  censure  of  Mr. 
Bayle's,  or  in  what  David  acted,  by  accepting  Abner's 
proposals,  contrary  to  the  strictest  laws  of  equity,  or  the 
severe  morals  of  a  good  servant  of  God.  To  David  be- 
longed the  throne  by  the  appointment  of  God  ;  and  Abner, 
by  advancing  Ishbosheth,  and  beginning  a  civil  war  in  the 
kingdom,  acted  contrary  to  his  duty  to  God,  the  allegiance 
he  owed  David,  the  laws  of  hereditary  succession,  and  the 
peace  and  happiness  of  his  country.  Here  Abner  was  ex- 
tremely criminal,  and  every  moment  he  continued  to  sup- 
port Ishbosheth,  he  supported  an  unnatural  rebellion,  and 
acted  contrary  to  his  own  conviction,  by  keeping  David 
out  of  the  possession  of  the  kingdom,  which  he  knew  and 
confessed  God  had  sworn  to  give  him.  Through  a  regard 
to  Saul's  family,  and  more  to  his  own  ambition,  he  deter- 
mined to  defer  David's  possession  as  long  as  he  could ;  till 
at  length,  finding  that  Ishbosheth  was  unworthy  of  the 
throne,  and  incapable  of  government ;  that  David  would 
finally  prevail,  probably  tired  out  with  the  calamities  of  the 
civil  war,  and,  I  doubt  not,  willing  to  make  some  good 
terms  for  himself,  he  took  hold  of  the  first  opportunity  to 
break  with  Ishbosheth,  and  reconcile  himself,  and  the  whole 
nation,  to  David.  In  this  Abner  certainly  acted  as  right  a 
part,  as  he^  who  having  supported  a  usurpation  and  real 
rebellion,  at  length  returns  to  his  duty,  deserts  the  pre- 
tender, and  submits  himself  to  his  lawful  prince.  Though 
the  motives  to  such  an  alteration  of  conduct  may  not  be 
altogether  quite  honourable,  the  conduct  itself  is  certainly 
right ;  and  the  only  possible  means,  by  which  such  a  per- 
son can  atone  for  his  past  guilt,  is  to  lay  down  his  arms, 
and  put  an  end  to  the  usurpation,  and  thereby  restore  the 
public  peace.  Mr.  Bayle,  with  great  indignation,  calls 
Abner  the  traitor  But  did  ever  any  one  imagine,  that  the 
deserting  a  usurper,  and  submitting  to  a  man's  lawful 
prince,  really  constituted  him  a  traitor  to  his  lawful  prince? 
Rather,  doth  he  not  cease  to  be  a  traitor  to  him,  when  he 
declares  for  his  rightful  sovereign  'I  Ishbosheth  was  Ab- 
ner's king,  as  Mr.  Bayle  tells  us;  but  it  was  a  king  he  had 
treasonably  made,  and  whom  he  had  supported  by  violence, 
in  opposition  to  the  order  of  God,  and  without  any  pretence 
of  right  and  justice.  If  therefore  the  making  him  king  was 
wrong,  the  deserting  him,  and  bringing  over  the  tribes  to 
David,  was  right.  And  the  easy  method  by  which  Abner 
effected  this  revolution,  and  the  cordial  manner  in  which 
the  whole  nation  submitted  to  David,  is  a  demonstration 
that  they  approved  Abner's  change,  and  were  glad  to 
accept  David  for  their  king.  For  ,no  sooner  had  Abner  a 
conference  with  the  elders  of  Israel,  and  put  them  in  mind 
that  they  had  formerly  desired  David  for  their  king,  and 
that  the  Lord  had  resolved  to  deliver  them  from  the  Phi- 
listines, and  the  hand  of  their  enemies,  by  the  hand  of 
David  ;  but  instantly  all  the  tribes  came  to  Hebron,  all  the 
men  of  war,  with  a  perfect  heart,  and  all  Israel  with  one 
heart,  to  make  him  King,  and  accordingly  anointed  him 
king  over  Israel.  In  this  whole  affair,  David's  conduct,  to 
me,  seems  perfectly  honourable.  He  received  a  rebel 
general  to  his  favour  upon  his  submission,  agrees  with 
him  that  he  should  bring  in  all  the  tribes  to  do  what  they 
desired  to  do,  and  were  bound  by  the  order  of  God  to  do, 
even  to  make  him'  king  over  them,  that  hereby  he  might 
have  the  peaceable  possession  of  the  whole  kingdom. 
Abner  had  openly  told  Ishbosheth  of  his  design.  Abner 
sent  messengers  to  David,  and  not  David  to  Abner,  on  the 
affair.  It  was  Abner  who  conferred  with  the  princes  of 
Israel,  and  came  openly  to  David  at  Hebron  to  agree  upon 
proper  measures.  David  carried  on  no  secret  intrigues 
to  bring  over  Abner  and  the  eleven  tribes  to  his  party. 
He  only  consented  to  a  just  proposal  that  was  made  him  of 
recovering  his  own  right,  without  invading  the  real  right 
of  a  single  person;  and  indeed  it  was  the  only  method  he 
could  tpke,  and  he  would  not  have  acted  like  a  saint,  or  a 
wise  riid  just  prince,  had  he  not  hereby  put  an  end  to  the 
civil  war,  secured  his  own  rights,  and  restored  and  estab 
li  bed  the  peace  and  prosp  rity  of  his  people. — Chandle«» 


CHAP.  4. 


2  SAMUEL. 


187 


Ver.  31.  And  David  said  to  Joab,  and  to  all  the 
people  that  were  with  him,  Rend  your  clothes, 
and  gird  you  with  sackcloth,  and  mourn  before 
Abner.  And  King  David  himself  followed  the 
bier. 

The  word  here  translated  the  bier  is  in  the  original  the  bed : 
{)\\  these,  persons  of  quality  used  to  be  carried  forth  to  their 
graves,  as  common  people  were  upon  a  bier.  Kings  were 
sometimes  carried  out  upon  beds  very  richly  adorned ;  as 
Josephus  tells  us  that  Herod  was ;  he  says  the  bed  was  all 
gilded,  set  with  precious  stones,  and  that  it  had  a  purple 
'jover  curiously  wrought, — Patrick. 

Ver.  33.  And  the  king  lamented  over  Abner,  and 
said,  Died  Abne*  as  a  fool  dieth  ?  34.  Thy 
hands  were  not  bound,  nor  thy  feet  put  into  fet- 
ters :  as  a  man  falleth  before  wicked  men,  so 
fellest  thou.  And  all  the  people  wept  again 
over  him. 

See  on  Rev.  2.  17. 

The  feet  as  well  as  the  hands  of  criminals  are  wont  to 
be  secured,  some  how  or  other,  by  the  people  of  the  East, 
when  they  are  brought  out  to  be  punished,  to  which  there 
seems  to  be  a  plain  allusion  in  the  Old  Testament.     Thus 
when  Irwin  was  among  the  Arabs  of  Upper  Egypt,  where 
he  was  very  ill  used,  but  his  wrongs  afterward  redressed 
by  the  great  sheik  there,  who  had  been  absent,  and  who, 
it  seems,  was  a  man  of  exemplary  probity  and  virtue  ;  he 
tells  us,  that  upon  that  sheik's  holding  a  great  court  of 
justice,  about  Irwin's  affairs  and  those  of  his  companions, 
the  bastinado  was  given  to  one  of  those  who  had  injured 
them,  which  he  thus  describes  in  a  note,  page  271 :  "  The 
prisoner  is  placed  upright  on  the  ground,  with  his  hands 
and  feet  bound  together,  while  the  executioner  stands  be- 
fore him,  and,  with  a  short  stick,  strikes  him  with  a  smart 
motion  on  the  outside  of  his  knees.    The  pain  which  arises 
from  these  strokes  is  exquisitely  severe,  and  which  no  con- 
stitution can  support  for  any  continuance."    As  the  Arabs 
are  extremely  remarkable  for  their  retaining  old  customs, 
we  have  just  grounds  of  believing,  that  when  malefactors 
in  the  East  were  punished,  by  beating,  and  perhaps  with 
death  by  the  sword,  their  hands  were  bound  together,  and 
also  their  feet.     How  impertinent,  according  to  this,  is  the 
interpretation  that  Victorinus  Strigelius  gives  of  2  Sam.  iii. 
84 !  as  he  is  cited  by  Bishop  Patrick  in  his  Commentary  on 
those  words:  "  The  king  lamented  over  Abner,  and  said, 
Died  Abner  as  a  fool  dieth  1     Thy  hands  were  not  bound, 
nor  thy  feet  put  into  fetters;  as  a  man  falleth  before  wicked 
men,  so  fellest  thou.    And  all  the  people  wept  again  over 
him."    "  Strigelius,"  says  the  Bishop,  "  thinks  that  David, 
in  these  words,  distinguishes  him  from  those  criminals, 
Avhose  hands  being  tied  behind  them,  are  carried  to  execu- 
tion ;  and  from  those  idle  soldiers,  who  being  taken  captive 
in  war,  have  fetters  clapped  upon  their  legs,  to  keep  them 
from  running  away.     He  was  none  of  these ;  neither  a 
notorious  offender,  nor  a  coward."    Patrick  adds,  "  The 
plain  meaning  seems  to  be,  that  if  his  enemy  had  set  upon 
him  openly,  he  had  been  able  to  make  his  part  good  with 
him."     How  impertinent  the  latter  part  of  what  Strigelius 
says !  how  foreign  from  the  thought  of  David,  not  to  say 
inconsistent  with  itself,  the  explanation  of  the   English 
prelate  !     What  is  meant  appears  to  be  simply  this  :   Died 
Abner  as  a  fool,  that  is,  as  a  bad  man,  as  that  word  fre- 
quently signifies  in  the  scriptures  1    Died  he  as  one  found 
on  judgment  to  be  criminal,  dieti:  ?    No !     Thy  hands,  O 
Abner !  were  not  bound  as  being  found  such,  nor  thy  feet 
confined ;  on  the  contrary,  thou  wert  treated  with  honour 
bv  him  whose  business  it  was  to  judge  thee,  and  thy  attach- 
ment to  the  honse  of  Saul  esteemed  rather  generous  than 
culpable :  as  the  best  of  men  may  fall,  so  fellest  thou,  by 
he  sword  of  treachery,  not  of  justice! — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  2.  And  Saul's  son  had  two  men  that  were 
captains  of  bands ;  the  name  of  the  one  was 
Baanah,  and  the  name  of  the  other  Rechab, 


the  sons  of  Rimmon  a  Beerothite,  of  the  children 
of  IBenjamin. 

This  is  added  to  show  us  that  these  two  regicides  were 
not  only  officers  in  the  king's  army,  but  of  the  same  tribe 
with  Saul,  and  therefore  had  more  ties  than  one  upon  them, 
to  be  honest  and  faithful  to  his  family.  For  there  is  rea- 
son to  believe  that  Saul,  who  lived  in  the  borders  of  Benja- 
min, conferred  more  favours  upon  that  tribe  than  any  other, 
and  might  therefore  justly  expect,  both  to  him  and  his,  a 
greater  esteem  and  fidelity  from  those  of  his  own  tribe  than 
from  others.  This  patronymic  is  therefore  very  properly 
prefixed  to  the  names  of  Rechab  and  Baanah,  to  show  what 
vile  ungrateful  villains  they  were,  and  how  justly  they  de- 
served the  severe  and  exemplary  punishment  which  Davi4 
inflicted  on  them. — Stackhouse. 

Ver.  5.  And  the  sons  of  Rimmon  the  Beerothite, 
Rechab  and  Baanah,  went,  and  came  about  the 
heat  of  the  day  to  the  house  of  Ish-bosheth, 
who  lay  on  a  bed  at  noon.  6.  And  they  came 
thither  into  the  •  midst  of  the  house,  as  though 
they  would  have  fetched  wheat ;  and  they  smote 
him  under  the  fifth  rib :  and  Rechab  and  Baa- 
nah his  brother  escaped. 

The  females  engaged  in  this  operation,  endeavoured  to 
beguile  the  lingering  hours  of  toilsome  exertion  with  a 
song.  We  learn  from  an  expression  of  Aristophanes,  pre- 
served by  Athenseus,  that  the  Grecian  maidens  accom- 
panied the  sound  of  the  millstones  with  their  voices.  This 
circumstance  imparts  an  additional  beauty  and  force  to 
the  description  of^the  prophet :  (Isa.  xlvii.  1.)  The  light  of 
a  candle  was  no  more  to  be  seen  in  the  evening ;  the  sound 
of  the  millstones,  the  indication  of  plenty  ;  and  the  song  of 
the  grinders,  the  natural  expression  of  joy  and  happiness, 
were  no  more  to  be  heard  at  the  dawn.  The  grinding  of 
corn  at  so  early  an  hour,  throws  light  on  a  passage  of  con- 
siderable obscurity  :  "  And  the  sons  of  Rimmon  the  Beero- 
thite, Rechab  and  Baanah,  went  and  came  about  the  heat 
of  the  day  to  the  house  of  Ishbosheth,  who  lay  on  a  bed  at 
noon  ;  and  they  came  thither  into  the  midst  of  the  house, 
as  though  they  would  have  fetched  wheat,  and  they  smote 
him  under  the  fifth  rib  ;  and  Rechab  and  Baanah  his  bro- 
ther escaped."  It  is  still  a  custom  in  the  East,  according 
to  Dr.  Perry,  to  allow  their  soldiers  a  certain  quantity  of  corn, 
with  other  articles  of  provisions,  together  with  some  pay: 
and  as  it  was  the  custom  also  to  carry  their  corn  to  the  mill  at 
break  of  day,  these  two  captains  very  naturally  went  to  the 
palace  the  day  before,  to  fetch  wheat,  in  order  to  distribute 
it  to  the  soldiers,  that  it  might  be  sent  to  the  mill  at  the  ac- 
customed hour  in  the  morning.  The  princes  of  the  East, 
in  those  days,  as  the  history  of  David  shows,  lounged  in 
their  divan,  or  reposed  on  their  conch,  till  the  cool  of  the 
evening  began  to  advance.  Rechab  and  Baanah,  therefore, 
came  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  when  they  knew  that  Ishbo- 
sheth their  master  would  be  resting  on  his  bed ;  and  as  it 
was  necessary,  for  the  reason  just  given,  to  have  the  corn  the 
day  before  it  was  needed,  their  coming  at  that  time,  though 
it  might  be  a  little  earlier  than  usual,  created  no  suspicion, 
and  attracted  no  notice. — Paxton. 

It  is  exceedingly  common  for  people  to  recline  on  their 
couches  in  the  heat  of  the  day.  Hence,  often,  when  you 
call  on  a  person  at  that  time,  the  answer  is,  "  The  master 
is  asleep.''  Captain  Basil  Hall  speaks  of  the  inhabitants 
of  South  America  having  the  same  custom.  The  old  Ro- 
mish missionaries  in  China  used  to  take  their  siesta  with  a 
metal  ball  in  the  hand,  which  was  allowed  to  project  over 
the  couch;  beneath  was  a  brass  dish,  so  that  as  soon  as  the 
individual  was  asleep  the  fingers  naturally  relaxed  their 
grasp,  and  let  the  ball  fall,  and  the  noise  made  awoke  him 
from  his  slumbers. — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  And  David  cornmanded  his  young  men, 
and  they  slew  them,  and  cut  off  their  hands  and 
their  feet,  and  hanged  them  up  over  the  pool  in 
Hebron.  But  they  took  the  head  of  Ish- 
bosheth, and  buried  it  in  the  sepulchre  of  Abner 
in  Hebron. 


us 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  5 


In  times  of  tumult  and  disorder,  they  frequently  cut  off 
the  hands  and  feet  of  people,  and  afterward  exposed  them, 
as  well  as  the  head.  Lady  M.  W.  Montague  speaking  of 
the  Turkish  ministers  of  state  says,  "  if  a  minister  dis- 
please the  people,  in  three  hours'  time  he  is  dragged  even 
from  his  master's  arms ;  they  cut  off  his  hands,  head,  and 
feet,  and  throw  them  before  the  palace  gate,  with  all  the 
respect  in  the  world,  while  the  sultan  (to  whom  they  all 
profess  an  unlimited  adoration")  sits  trembling  in  his  apart-, 
ment.^'  Thus  were  the  sons  oi  Rimmon  served  for  slaying 
ishbosheth. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  3.  So  all  the  elders  of  Israel  came  to  the 

■  king  to    Hebron ;  and    King  David   made  a 

^  league  with  them  in  Hebron  before  the  Lord  : 

and  they  anointed    David   king   over    Israel. 

4.   David  was  thirty  years  old  when  he  began 

to  reign,  and  he  reigned  forty  years. 

In  the  foregoing  history  we  have  seen  the  various  steps, 
by  which  providence  brought  David  to  the  quiet  possession 
of  the  throne  of  Israel ;  an  event  that,  to  all  human  proba- 
bility, seemed  the  most  unlikely,  as  the  family  of  Saul,  his 
predecessor,  was  very  numerous,  all  the  forces  of  the  king- 
dom under  his  command,  and  large  bodies  of  them  fre- 
quently employed  by  him  to  accomplish  David's  destruc- 
tion. But  God's  purposes  must  stand,  and  he  will  do  all 
his  pleasure.  He  had  assured  Saul,  by  the  mouth  of 
Samuel  his  prophet,  that  he  had  sought  him,  a  man  after 
HIS  ow^f  heart,  and  commanded  him  to  be  captain  over  his 
people.  This  character  has  been  thought,  by  some  wri- 
ters, to  denote  the  highest  degree  of  moral  purity,  and  that 
therefore  it  could  not,  with  truth  or  justice,  be  ascribed  to 
David,  who  was  certainly  guilty  of  some  very  great  of- 
fences, and  hath  been  plentifully  loaded  with  others,  which 
he  was  entirely  free  from  the  guilt  of.  Every  one  knows, 
that  in  a  literal  translation  of  words  from  one  language  to 
another,  the  original  and  the  literal  version  may  convey 
very  different  ideas ;  and  should  any  one  assert,  that  what 
the  version  properly  imports  is  the  genuine  meaning  of  the 
original,  he  would  betray  his  ignorance  and  want  of  learn- 
ing, and  all  his  reasonings  from  such  an  assertion  would 
be  inconclusive  and  false.  A  good  man,  upon  the  exchange 
of  London,  means,  a  responsible  and  wealthy  man,  who  is 
able  to  answer  his  pecuniary  obligations,  and  whose  credit 
is  every  way  unexceptionable,  though  his  character  for 
morals  may  be  extremely  bad.  But  this  is  not  the  mean- 
ing of  the  Greek  word  ayaQo^,  and  but  seldom,  or  ever,  of 
the  Latin  word  bomts ;  and  should  any  one  argue,  that  such 
a  man  was  ayados  or  bonus,  according  to  the  common  ac- 
ceptation of  those  words  in  Greek  and  Latin,  because  in 
the  English  phrase  he  is  called  a  good  man,  he  would  ex- 
pose hiinself  for  his  ignorance  and  simplicity.  A  man  af- 
ter God's  own  heart,  in  English,  if  we  interpret  the  expres- 
v'^ion  in  the  strictest  and  highest  sense,  undoubtedly  denotes 
a  character  irreproachable  and  pure,  without  spot  or  blem- 
ish. But  doth  it  follow  that  this  is  the  meaning  of  the 
Hebrew  expression,  and  that  David,  because  he  is  so  called, 
was  intended  to  be  represented  as  a  man  of  the  highest 
purity  %  This  is  presuming  on  a  meaning,  that  the  expres- 
sion by  no  means  necessarily  conveys,  and  taking  for  grant- 
ed what  ought  to  be  proved,  and  what  every  man,  who  un- 
derstands the  original  language,  knows  to  be  mistaken. 
The  immediate  occasion  of  these  words  of  Samuel  to  Saul 
was,  Saul's  disobedience  in  sacrificing,  contrary  to  the  ex- 
press orders  he  had  received  from  God  by  this  great  prophet, 
not  to  offer  sacrifices  till  he  should  come,  and  give  him  the 
proper  directions  for  his  behaviour.  The  pretence  was 
piety,  but  the  real  cause  was  impatience,  pride,  and  con- 
tempt of  the  prophet ;  who  not  coming  just  at  the  time  Saul 
expected,  he  thought  it  beneath  him  to  wait  any  longer  for 
him  ;  and  imagined,  that  a^  king,  all  the  rites  of  religion, 
and  the  ministers  of  it,  were  to  be  subjected  to  his  direction 
and  pleasure.  But  when  Samuel  came,  notwithstanding 
his  plea  of  devotion,  and  the  force  he  put  upon  himself, 
Samuel  plainly  tells  him:  Thou  hast  done  foolishly,  thou 
hast  no!  kept  the  commandment  of  the  Lord  thy  God,'  which 
he  commanded  thee;  for  now  would  the  Lord  have  estab- 
lished thy  kingdom  upon  Israel  for  ever.    But  now  thy 


kingdom  shall  not  continue.  The  Lord  hath  sought  him, 
•<:3:i'70  «yN,  a  man  after  his  own  heart ;  he  shall  be  captain  over 
his  people,  because  thou  hast  not  kept  that  which  the  Lord 
hath  commanded  thee.  It  is  evident  here,  that  the  man 
after  God's  own  heart  stands  in  opposition  to  the  character 
of  Saul,  who  is  described  as  acting  foolishly,  by  breaking 
the  commandment  of  God  by  his  prophet,  and  rejected  by 
him,  i.  e.  deprived  of  the  succession  to  the  crown  in  his 
family,  on  account  of  his  folly,  presumption,  and  disobe- 
dience. And  it  therefore  means  one  who  should  act  pru- 
dently, and  obey  the  commandments  of  God  delivered  him 
by  his  prophets,  and  whom  therefore  God  would  thus  far 
approve  and  continue  to  favour.  Thus  the  expression  is 
actually  interpreted  by  the  Chaldee  paraphrase  :  The  m.an 
who  doth  my  will;  and  by  St.  Paul  to  the  Jews  at  Antioch, 
who  says,  that  when  God  hath  removed  Saul,  he  raised 
them  up  David  to  be  their  king ;  to  whom  he  gave  testimo- 
ny, and  said :  I  have  found  David,  the  son  of  Jesse,  a  man 
after  my  own  heart,  who  shall  execute  my  will.  There 
are  therefore  two  senses,  which  are  evidently  implied  in 
this  character  of  the  man  after  God's  own  heart ;  a  man, 
who  should  faithfully  execute  the  will  of  God  according 
as  he  was  commanded,  and  who  on  that  account,  and  so 
far,  should  be  the  object  of  his  approbation.  And  in  one 
or  other,  or  both  these  senses,  we  find  the  expression  al- 
ways used.  Thus  David,  recounting  the  singular  favours 
of  God  towards  himself,  says  ;  For  thy  word's  sake,  i^Vn', 
according  to  thy  heart,  i.  e.  thy  will  and  pleasure,  hast  thou 
done  all  these  great  things.  In  another  place  God  saith  to 
the  Jews :  I  will  give  you  pastors,  inSo,  according  to  my  heart : 
pastors  who  shall  answer  the  purposes  for  which  I  sent 
them,  and  act  agreeable  to  their  office,  as  the  words  imme- 
diately following  explain  it :  Who  shall  feed  you  with 
knowledge  and  understanding.  Thus  also  the  Psalmist : 
The  Lord  grant  thee  according  to  thy  heart,  i.  e.  as  the  next 
words  explain  it:  Fulfil  all  thy  counsel;  give  thee  thy 
Avishes,  and  by  his  favour  prosper  all  thy  designs.  In  like 
manner,  when  Jonathan  said  to  his  armour-bearer :  "  Come, 
let  us  go  over  to  the  garrison  of  these  uncircumcised,"  his 
armour-bearer  said  to  him  :  Do  all  that  is  in  thy  heart.  Do 
whatever  thou  desirest  and  approves!.  Turn  thee.  Be- 
hold, I  am  with  thee  according  to  thy  heart ;  in  every  thing 
in  which  thou  canst  desire,  or  command  my  concurrence. 
These  remarks  may  be  confirmed  by  some  other  forms  of 
expression  of  the  like  nature.  Thus  God  tells  Eli :  "  I  will 
raise  me  up  a  faithful  priest,  that  shall  do  according  to  what 
is  in  my  heart  and  my  soul,"  i.  e.  what  I  command,  and  what 
I  approve.  When  Jehu,  king  of  Israel,  had  cut  off  the 
whole  house  and  family  of  Ahab,  whom  God  for  his  nu- 
merous crimes  had  doomed  to  destruction,  God  said  to  him : 
"  Thou  hast  done  well,  in  executing  that  which  is  right  in 
my  eyes,  and  hast  done  unto  the  house  of  Ahab,  according 
to  all  that  was  in  my  heart,"  i.  e.  every  thing  I  proposed,  and 
commanded  thee  to  do.  And  yet  in  the  very  next  verse, 
Jehu  is  described  as  a  very  bad  prince ;  for  he  took  no  heed 
to  walk  in  the  law  of  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  with  all  his 
heart,  nor  departed  from  the  sins  of  Jeroboam,  who  made 
Israel  to  sin.  So  Moses  tells  the  people  :  "  By  this  ye  shall 
know,  that  the  Lord  hath  said  to  me  to  do  all  these  things,* 
and  that  they  are  not  from  my  own  heart ;"  i.  e.  that  I  havej 
not  acted  by  my  own  suggestions,  and  according  to  my  ownl 
pleasure;  and  he  commands  them  :  "  Ye  shall  remember 
all  the  commandments  of  the  Lord  and  do  them,  and  not 
seek  after  your  own  heart,  and  your  own  eyes,"  what  is 
agreeable  to  your  passions,  and  pleasing  to  your  vanity. 
Many  more  places  might  be  mentioned  to  the  same  purpose ; 
but  from  those  already  alleged,  the  reader  will  see,  that 
David  is  characterized  as  a,  man  after  God^s  own  heart,  not 
to  denote  the  utmost  height  of  purity  in  his  moral  charac- J 
ler,  as  a  private  man,  which  by  no  means  enters  into  th(rB 
meaning  of  the  expression,  and  which  in  no  one  single  in-B 
stance  is  intended  by  it;  but  to  represent  him  as  one,  \rho 
in  his  public  character,  as  king  of  Israel,  was  fit  for  the  jnir* 
poses  to  which  God  advanced  him,  and  who  knew  he  would 
faithfully  execute  the  commands  he  should  give  him  by  his 
prophets;  and  who  on  this  account  should  be  favoured  and 
approved  of  God,  and  established,  himself  and  family,  on  the 
throne  of  Israel.  He  was,  I  doubt  not,  upon  the  whole,  a 
really  virtuous  and  religious  man,  according  to  the  dispen- 
sation he  was  under;  and  he  certainly  was  a  wise,  a  just, 
a  munificent  and  prosperous  prince  ;  bnt  yet  he  had  his 
faults,  and  those  great  ones,  in  his  private  character;  and 


Chap,  5. 


2   SAMUEL. 


189 


these  faults  were  not  inconsistent  with  his  character  of  be- 
ing a  man  according  to  God's  heart ;  for  if  he  was  such  a 
prince  as  God  intended  him  to  be,  faithfully  executing 
his  orders,  and  bringing  to  pass  those  great  events,  which 
lie  was  raised  up  by  God  to  be  the  instrument  of  accom- 
plishing; he  thus  far  acted  according  to  the  hearty  i.  e.  the 
purpose  and  will  of  God,  and  thereby,  in  this  respect,  ren- 
dered himself  well  pleasing  and  acceptable  to  him.  The 
particular  purposes  for  which  God  advanced  him  to  the  throne 
were,  that  by  his  steady  adherence  to  the  one  true  God,  and 
the  religion  which  he  was  pleased  to  establish  by  Moses, 
he  might  be  an  illustrious  example  to  all  his  posterity  that 
should  reign  after  him :  and  here  he  was  absolutely  with- 
out blemish,  and  a  man,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  expres- 
sion, after  God's  own  heart ;  as  he  never  departed  from  his 
Gcxl,  by  introducing  the  deities  of  other  nations,  or  permit- 
ling  and  encouraging  the  impious  rites  which  they  per- 
formed in  honour  of  them.  On  this  account  his  heart  is 
said  to  be  perfect  with  the  Lord  his  God,  because  his  heart 
was  never  turned  away  after  other  gods ;  and  it  is  spoken 
to  the  honour  of  the  good  princes  of  his  house,  who  reigned 
after  him,  that  they  did  that  which  was  right  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Lord,  as  did  David  their  father ;  and  of  the  idola- 
trous princes,  it  is  mentioned  as  the  greatest  reproach  to 
them,  that  their  hearts  were  not  perfect  with  the  Lord  their 
God,  as  the  heart  of  David  their  father.  During  the  reign 
of  Saul,  little  regard  was  shown  by  him  to  the  institutions 
of  religion,  and  he  acted  as  though  he  was  independent  of 
the  God  of  Israel,  and  therefore  seldom  or  never  inquired 
of  him,  how  he  was  to  act  in  the  affairs  of  government,  at 
the  ark,  from  whence  God,  as  peculiarly  present  in  it,  had 
promised  to  give  the  proper  answers  to  those  who  rightly 
consulted  him.  As  the  ark  itself  had  no  fixed  residence, 
and  some  of  the  principal  services  of  religion  could  not,  for 
that  reason,  be  regularly  and  statedly  performed,  David 
was  raised  up  to  be  king  over  God's  people,  that  he  might 
provide  a  rest  for  his  ark,  where  it  should  perpetually  con- 
tinue, to  which  all  the  people  might  resort,  where  all  the 
solemn  festivals  might  be  celebrated,  and  the  whole  wor- 
ship of  God  might  be  constantly  performed,  according  to 
the  prescriptions  of  the  law  of  Moses.  David  fully  answer- 
ed this  purpose  by  fixing  the  ark  at  Jerusalem,  settling  all 
the  necessary  ceremonies  and  forms  of  worship  for  perpet- 
ual observance,  and  composing  sacred  hymns  and  psalms, 
that  should  be  sung  in  honour  of  the  true  God,  providing 
the  expenses,  and  many  of  the  costly  materials,  that  were 
necessary  to  build  and  adorn  the  house  of  God,  which  he 
himself  had  proposed  to  erect,  but  which  God  reserved  for 
his  son  and  successor  to  raise  up ;  and  regulating  the  order, 
that  was  to  be  observed  among  all  the  various  persons,  that 
were  to  be  employed  in  the  daily  services  of  the  ark  and 
temple  ;  a  full  and  ample  account  of  which  is  transmitted 
to  us  in  the  first  book  of  Chronicles.  It  must  not  be  omit- 
ted also,  that  there  was  yet  another  end  of  providence,  in 
David's  appointment,  to  be  king  over  Israel ;  that,  accord- 
ing to  God's  promise  concerning  him,  he  might  save  his 
people  Israel  out  of  the  hand  of  the  Philistines,  and  out  of 
the  hand  of  all  their  enemies ;  and  further,  that  by  him  he 
might  accomplish  the  more  ancient  promises  which  God 
had  made  to  Abraham,  in  their  full  extent,  of  giving  to  his 
seed  the  whole  country,  from  the  river  of  Egypt,  unto  the  great 
river,  the  river  Euphrates.  Here  also  David  answered  the 
intentions  of  providence  in  his  advancement,  as  he  subdued 
the  Philistines,  and  made  them  tributary  to  his  crown ;  as 
he  cleared  his  kingdom  of  all  the  remains  of  the  nations 
that  had  formerly  possessed  it,  or  reduced  them  mto  entire 
:  subjection,  or  made  them  proselytes  to  his  religion  ;  and  as 
the  consequence  of  just  and  necessary  wars,  conquered  all 
the  neighboiiring  nations,  garrisoned  them  by  his  victori- 
ous troops,  and  put  it  out  of  their  power  to  disturb  his  peo- 
ple for  many  years,  and  left  to  his  son  and  successor  a  forty 
years' peace,  "and  dominion  over  all  the  kingdoms,  from 
the  river  Euphrates,  unto  the  land  of  the  Philistines,  and 
j  unto  the  border  of  Egypt,  who  brought  presents  and  served 
1  Solomon  all  the  days  of  his  life.  And  finally,  God  raised 
\  him  up  to  exalt  the  glory  of  his  people  Israel,  and  render 
i  them  a  flourishing  and  happv  people,  by  the  Avisdom  and 
i  justice  of  his  government.  He  chose  David  his  S(;rvant, 
to  feed  Jacob  his  people,  and  Israel  his  inheritance.  So  he 
(fed  them  according  to  the  integrity  of  his  heart,  and  sfuided 
i  them  by  the  skilfulness  of  his  hands,  i.  e.  he  governed  them 
'  With  integrity,  prudence  and  courage  ;  for  he  reigned  over 


all  Israel,  and  executed  judgment  and  justice  among  ali- 
bis people.  See  here,  reader,  the  true  portrait  ot  the  man, 
after  God's  own  heart,  who  fulfilled  all  his  pleasure,  who 
amid  all  the  idolatries  of  the  nations  around  him,  never 
wickedly  apostatized  from  the  worship  of  his  God,  and  was 
an  amiable  example  of  a  steady  adherence  to  those  forms 
of  religion,  which  God  had  prescribed  to  all  the  princes 
his  successors  ;  who,  though  king,  subjected  himself  to  God 
the  supreme  king  of  Israel,  and  faiihiully  executed  the 
commands  he  received  from  him ;  who  made  his  people 
triumph  in  the  numerous  victories  he  obtained,  by  the  di- 
rections, and  under  the  conduct  of  God  himself;  who  en- 
larged their  dominions,  and  put  them  into  possession  of  all 
the  territories  God  had  promised  to  their  forefathers ;  and 
who  amid  all  the  successes  that  were  granted  him.  the 
immense  riches  he  had  gathered  from  the  spoils  of  his 
conquered  enemies,  and  the  sovereign  power  with  which 
he  was  invested,  never  degenerated  into  despotism  and 
tyranny,  never  oppressed  his  people;  but  governed  them 
with  integrity,  ruled  over  them  with  moderation  and  pru- 
dence, impartially  distributed  justice,  left  an  established 
durable  peace,  and  fixed  the  whole  administration,  both 
civil  and  religious,  upon  the  most  substantial  and  durable 
foundation.  In  these  instances  he  was  the  true  vicegerent 
of  God,  'on  whose  throne  he  sat,  and  all  whose  pleasure,  in 
these  great  instances,  he  faithfully  performed.  If  therefore 
David's  private  moral  character  was  worse  than  it  will  be 
ever  proved  to  be,  he  might  be  still  a  man  after  God's  own 
heart,  in  the  proper  original  sense  of  the  expression  ;  and 
the  attempt  to  prove  that  he  was  not  possessed  of  the  height 
of  moral  purity,  is  an  impertinent  attempt  to  prove  David 
not  to  be,  what  the  sacred  history  never  asserted  him  to 
be. — Chandler. 

Ver.  6.  And  the  king  and  his  men  went  to  Jeru- 
salem unto  the  Jebusites,  the  inhabitants  of  the 
land  :  which  spake  unto  David;  saying,  Except 
thou  take  away  the  blind  and  the  lame,  thou 
shalt  not  come  in  hither  :  thinking,  David  can- 
not come  in  hither.  7.  Nevertheless  David 
took  the  strong  hold  of  Zion  ;  the  same  is  the 
city  of  David.  8.  And  David  said  on  that 
day,  Whosoever  getteth  up  to  the  gutter,  and 
smiteth  the  Jebusites,  and  the  lame  and  the 
blind,  that  are  hated  of  David's  soul,  he  shall 
be  chief  and  captain.  Wherefore  they  said, 
The  blind  and  the  lame  shall  not  come  into 
the  house. 

1  CHRONICLES,  CHAPTER  XI. 
Ver.  5.  And  the  inhabitants  of  Jebus  said  to  Da- 
vid, Thou  shalt  not  come  hither.  Neverthe- 
less David  took  the  castle  of  Zion,  which  is  the 
city  of  David.  6.  And  David  said,  Whosoever 
smiteth  the  Jebusites  first  shall  be  chief  and 
captain.  So  Joab  the  son  of  Zeruiah  went  first 
up,  and  was  chief. 

The  words  inhabitants  of  Jebus,  which  are  not  in  the 
original  of  Samuel,  are  not  in  the  Vat.  copy  of  the  lxx.  in 
Chronicles;  but  the  Alexandrian  translates  regularly  ac- 
cording to  the  present  Hebrew  text.  In  Samuel  there  is  a 
clause  or  two  in  the  speech  of  the  Jebusites,  which  is  omit- 
ted in  Chronicles  for  brevity;  as  the  history  in  Chronicles 
is  regular,  and  the  sense  complete  without  it.  But  though 
the  history  be  regular  and  very  intelligible  in  Chronicles, 
yet  the  additional  clauses  in  Samuel  make  the  history  there 
remarkably  perplexed;  and  (as  Dr.  Delany  observes)  en- 
cumber it  with  more  difficulties  than  are  ordinarily  to  be 
met  with.  In  full  proportion  to  the  difliculties  has  been  the 
number  of  different  interpretations;  and  yet  there  seems  to 
be  very  suflicient  room  for  offering  another  interpretation, 
in  some  material  points  differing  from  them  all.  The  words 
in  Samuel,  so  far  as  the  text  in  Chronicles  coincides,  are 
clear  and  determinate  in  their  meaning,  "  And  the  inhab- 
itants of  Jebus  said  to  David,  Thou  shalt  not  come  hither." 
But  the  succeeding  words  in  Samuel  are  very  difficult ;  or, 


190 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  5. 


at  least,  have  been  variously  interpreted.  The  present  Eng- 
lish translation  is,  "  Except  thou  take  away  the  blind  and 
the  lame,  thinking,  David  cannot  come  in  hither."  The 
chief  difiiculty  here  lies  in  determining  who  are  these  blind 
and  lame;  whether  Jebusites,  or  the  Jebusite  deities,  called 
Uiitd  and  lame  by  way  of  derision.  The  latter  opinion  has 
been  maintained  by  some  considerable  writers  ;  but  seems 
indefensible.  For  however  David  and  the  Israelites  might 
be  disposed  to  treat  such  idols  with  scorn  and  contempt,  it 
is  not  at  all  likely  the  Jebusites  should  revile  their  own  dei- 
ties; and  we  must  remember,  that  these  deities  are  sup- 
posed to  be  here  called  blind  and  lame  by  the  Jebusites 
themselves.  But,  admitting  them  to  be  idol  deities,  what 
meaning  can  there  be  in  the  Jebusites  telling  David,  "  he 
should  not  come  into  the  citadel,  unless  he' took  away  the 
deities  upon  the  Avails'?"  If  he  could  scale  the  walls,  so  as 
to  reach  these  guardian  deities,  he  need  not  ask  leave  of 
the  Jebusites  to  enter  the  citadel.  But,  (which  is  much 
more  difficult  to  be  answered,)  what  can  possibly  be  the 
meaning  of  the  last  line,  "  Wherefore  they  said,  the  blind 
and  the  lame  shall  not  come  into  the  house  ?"  For,  who 
said  1  Did  the  Jebusites  say,  their  own  deities  (before  ex- 
pressed by  the  blind  and  the  lame)  should  not  come  into 
the  house,  should  not  (according  to  some)  come  where 
they  were,  or,  should  not  (according  to  others)  come 
into  the  house  of  the  Lord  1 — Or,  could  these  deities  say, 
David  and  his  men  should  not  come  into  the  house  1  The 
absurdity  of  attributing  such  a  speech,  or  any  speech,  to 
these  idols,  is  too  clear  to  need  illustration;  and  it  is  a 
known  part  of  their  real  character,  that  they  have  mouths, 
but  speak  not.  But,  though  these  deities  could  not  de- 
nounce these  words,  yet  the  Jebusites  might ;  and  it  is  pos- 
sible (it  has  been  said)  that  the  blind  and  the  lame,  in  this 
latter  part  of  the  sentence,  may  signify  the  Jebusites;  not 
any  particular  Jebusites,  so  maimed ;  but  the  Jebusites  in 
general,  called  blind  and  lame,  for  putting  their  trust  in 
blind  and  lame  idols.  This  seems  loo  refined  an  interpre- 
tation ;  and  we  may  safely  conclude — that  the  same  expres- 
sion of  the  blind  and  lame  means  the  same  beings  in  the 
two  different  parts  of  the  same  sentence.  It  has  been  fur- 
ther observed,  that  these  blind  and  lame  are  here  spoken 
of  as  different  from  the  Jebusites,"  Whosoever  smiteth  the 
Jebusites,  and  the  lame  and  the  blind ;"  and  if  they  were 
different,  it  requires  no  great  skill  at  deduction  to  deter- 
mine they  were  not  the  same.  Perhaps  then  these  blind 
and  lame  were,  in  fact,  a  few  particular  wretches,  who 
laboured  under  these  infirmities  of  blindness  and  lameness ; 
and  therefore  v^ere  different  from  the  general  body  of  the 
Jebusites.  But  here  will  it  not  be  .demanded  at  once — how 
can  we  then  account  rationally  for  that  bitterness  with 
which  David  expresses  himself  here  against  these  bli7id 
and  lame;  and  how  it  was  possible,  for  a  man  of  David's 
humanity,  to  detest  men  for  mere  unblameable,  and  indeed 
pitiable,  "infirmities  1  And  lastly,  the  authors  of  the  Uni- 
versal History,  in  their  note  on  this  transaction,  mention 
the  following,  as  the  first  plausible  argument  against  the 
literal  acceptation — "  How  could  David  distinguish  the  halt, 
or  the  lame,  or  the  blind,  from  able  men,  when  posted 
upon  lofty  walls  ;  since  those  infirmities  are  not  discernible 
but  near  at  hand  T'  This,  it  must  be  allowed,  would  be  a 
difficulty  indeed,  if  David's  information  here  had  been 
only  from  his  eyesight.  But  this  objection  immediately 
vanishes,  when  we  reflect,  that  the  Jebusites  are  said  in  the 
text  to  have  told  David — the  blind  and  the  lame  should  keep 
them  off:  for  certainly  David  could  easily  conceive  the 
men,  who  were  placed  upon  the  walls  to  insult  him,  were 
blind  and  lame;  when  he  was  told  so  by  the  Jebusites 
themselves ;  and  told  so,  to  render  this  insult  of  theirs  the 
greater. 

Having  thus  mentioned  some  of  the  present  interpreta- 
tions, it  may  be  now  proper  to  submit  another  to  the  judg- 
ment of  the  reader.  I  shall  first  give  what  seems  to  be  the 
true  interpretation  of  this  passage  ;  and  then  siibjoin  the 
several  arguments  in  defence  of  it.  "  And  the  inhabitants 
of  Jebus  said  to  David,  Thou  shalt  not  come  hither ;  for 
the  blind  and  the  lame  shall  keep  thee  off,  by  saying,  David 
shall  not  come  hither.  But  David  took  the  strong  hold  of 
Sion,  which  is  the  city  of  David.  And  David  said  on  that 
day.  Whosoever  (first)  smiteth  the  Jebusites,  and  through 
the  subterraneous  passage  reacheth  the  lame  and  the  blind, 
that  are  hated  of  David's  soul,  because  the  blind  and  the 
lame  continued  to  say,  he  shall  not  come  into  this  house" — 


shall  be  chief  captain.  That  the  connected  particles  (on  »3 
ki  ivi)  rendered  except,  in  Samuel,  signify  for  in  this 
place,  is  evident,  because  the  words  following  are  rather 
causal  than  objective ;  and  we  have  several  instances  of 
this  sense  of  the  two  particles  given  usby  Noldius:  thus 
Prov.  xxiii.  18,  they  are  rendered /or  in  the  English  trans- 
lation; and  so  in  the  English,  Greek,  Syriac,  and  Arabic 
versions  of  Lam.  v.  22.  That  the  verb  {ys^vr\  esirek) 
rendered  to  take  away,  is  not  here  the  infinitive,  but  the 
preler  of  Hiphil,  is  apparent  from  the  sense ;  that  it  has 
been  so  considered,  is  certain  from  the  Masoretic  point- 
ing, as  De  Dieu  and  other  critics  have  observed :  and  we 
see  it  is  translated  as  such  by  the  LXX.  in  the  plural  num- 
ber, avrerriaav.  From  this  version,  then,  and  from  the  plu- 
rality of  the  two  nouns,  which  are  necessarily  the  nomi- 
natives to  this  verb,  we  may  infer,  that  it  was  originally 
"liniDn  {esiruk)  to  keep  off,  the  vau  having  been  dropped  here 
as  in  many  other  places.  Enough  having  been  said  of 
the  number,  let  us  now  consider  the  tense  of  this  verb ; 
which  being  preter,  some  have  translated  it  by  a  word  ex- 
pressive of  time  past.  But  the  sense  necessarily  requires 
it  to  be  translated  as  future  in  other  languages,  though  it 
be  more  expressive  in  the  original  in  the  preter  tense,  it 
being  agreeable  to  the  genius  of  the  Hebrew  language  fre- 
quently to  speak  of  events  yet  future,  as  having  actually 
happened,  when  the  speaker  would  strongly  express  the 
certainty  of  such  event.  This  observation  is  peculiarly  ap- 
plicable to  the  case  here.  For  this  castle  of  mount  Sion 
had  never  yet  been  taken  by  the  Israelites,  though  they  had 
dwelt  in  Canaan  about  four  hundred  years ;  as  we  learn 
from  the  sacred  history.  Josh.  xv.  63 ;  Judg.  i.  21 ;  xix.  10 ; 
and  from  Josephus,  lib.  vii.  cap.  3.  The  Jebusites,  then, 
absolutely  depending  on  the  advantage  of  their  high  situa- 
tion and  "the  strength  of  their  fortification,  (which  had  se- 
cured them  against  the  Israelites  so  many  hundred  years.) 
looked  upon  this  of  David's  as  a  vain  attempt,  which  there- 
fore they  might  safely  treat  with  insolence  and  raillery. 
Full  of  this  fond  notion,  they  placed  upon  the  walls  of  tlie 
citadel  the  few  blind  and  lame  that  could  be  found  among 
them,  and  told  David,  "  He  should  not  come  thither;  for 
the  blind  and  lame"  were  sufficient  to  keep  him  off:  which 
they  (these  weak  defenders^  should  effectnally  do,  only 
"by  their  shouting,  David  shall  not  come  hither."  That 
the  blind  and  tiie  lame  were  contemptuously  placed  upon 
the  walls  by  the  Jebusites,  as  before  described,  we  are  as- 
sured not  only  by  the  words  of  the  sacred  history  before  us, 
but  also  by  the  concurrent  testimony  of  Josephus.  Now 
that  these  blind  and  lame,  who  appear  to  have  been  placed 
upon  the  walls,  were  to  insult  and  did  insult  David  in  the 
manner  before  mentioned,  seems  very  evident  from  the 
words —  The  blind  and  the  lame  shall  keep  thee  off  BY  SAY- 
ING, etc.  and  also  from  the  impossibility  of  otherwise  ac- 
counting for  David's  indignation  against  these  (naturally 
pitiable)  wretches.  And  the  not  attending  to  this  remark- 
able circumstance  seems  one  principal  reason  of  the  per- 
plexity so  visible  among  the  various  interpreters  of  this  pas- 
sage. It  is  very  remarkable,  that  the  sense  before  given  to 
TY'Dn  DN  13  (ki  im  esirek,)  "  For  the  blind  and  the  lame  shall 
keep  thee  off,"  is  confirmed  by  Josephus  in  the  place  just 
cited.  And  it  is  further  remarkable  that  the  same  sense  is 
given  to  these  words  in  the  English  Bible  of  Coverdale, 
printed  in  1535,  in  which  they  are  rendered,  ^Tf'ou  sftalt 
not  come  ftitftcr,  but  tf)c  bUnti  nntr  lame  s\)n\  tirnbe  tl;e 
aiuaie.  This  is  one  great  instance  to  prove  the  credit  due 
to  some  parts  of  this  very  old  English  version ;  as  the  sense 
of  this  passage  seems  to  have  been  greatly  mistaken  both 
before  and  since.  That  it  has  been  changed  for  the  worse 
since  that  edition,  is  very  evident;  and  that  it  was  improp- 
erly rendered  before  appears  from  Wickliff's  MS.  version 
of  1383,  where  we  read — STftou  sljalt  not  entre  !)fliui*:  no 
but  tljou  Iro  n\uei?  bli)ntr  men  anti  lame,  etc.  .  After  this  addi- 
tional clause  of  Samuel,  in  the  speech  of  the  Jebusites,  iIk* 
two  histories  agree  in  saying.  "  David  took  the  stronghold 
of  Sion,  which  was  afterward  called  the  city  of  David." 
By  this  strong  hold  of  Sion,  or  city  of  David,  we  are  led 
by  the  words  of  the  text  to  understand— not  the  fortress  or 
citadel  (which  was  not  yet  taken,  as  appears  from  the 
order  of  the  history  in  both  chapters)— but  the  town  of  the 
Jebusites,  or  city  of  David,  which  was  spread  over  the 
wide  hill  of  Sion  :  and  is  what  Josephus  means  when  he 
tells  us— David  first  took  the  lower  town,  the  town  which 
lay  beneath  the  citadel ;  after  which  he  tells  us,  thai  the 


Chap.  5. 


2  SAMUEL. 


191 


citadel  remained  yet  to  be  taken,  lib.  vii.  cap.  3.    The  two 
chapters  having  agreed  in  this  circumstance  of  David's 
making  himselt  master  of  the  town  or  city,  they  now  vary 
as  before;  and  here  also  the  history  in  Chronicles  is  regu- 
lar, though  it  takes  no  notice  of  some  further  circumstan- 
ces relating  to  the  blind  and  the  lame :  and  indeed  the  latter 
circumstances  were  to  be  omitted  of  course,  as  the  historian 
chose,  for  brevity,  to  omit  the  former.    But  as  to  Samuel, 
there  is  in  that  book  a  deficiency  of  several  words,  which 
are  necessary  to  complete  the  sense;  which  words  are  pre- 
served in  the  text  of  Chronicles,    And  as  the  difficulty 
here  olso  lies  entirely  in  the  text  of  Samuel,  let  us  see 
whether  it  may  not  be  cleared  up  to  satisfaction.    David 
having  now  possessed  himself  of  the  strong  town  of  the 
Jebusites,  situate  upon  the  hill  of  Sion,  proceeds,  the  same 
day,  to  attack  the  citadel  or  fortress;  which  was  considered 
by"the  Jebusites  as  impregnable.  And  probably  the  Israelites 
v/ould  have  thought  so  too,  and  David  had  retired  from 
before  it,  like  his  forefathers,  if  he  had  not  possessed  himself 
by  stratagem,  when  he  found  he  could  not  storm  or  take  it 
by  open  force.    For  this  seems  in  fact  to  have  been  the 
case;  and  the  history  of  this  success  may  be  properly  intro- 
duced by  a  similar  case  or  two.    And  first.  Dr.  Prideaux 
(in  his  Connexion,  part  i.  book  2)  tells  us  of  the  city  of 
Babylon, — that  when  it  was  besieged  by  Cyrus,  the  inhabit- 
ants, thinking  themselves  secure  in  their  walls  and  their 
stores,  looked  on  the  taking  of  the  city  by  a  siege  as  an  im- 
practicable thing  ;  and  therefore  from  iJie  top  of  their  walls 
scoffed  at  Cyrus,  and  derided  him  or  every  thing  he  did 
towards  it.    (A  circumstance  most  exactly  parallel  to  that 
of  the  history  before  us.)    But  yet,  that  Cyrus  broke  down 
the  great  bank  or  dam  of  the  river,  both  where  it  ran  into 
the  city,  and  where  it  came  out ;  and  as  soon  as  the  channel 
of  the  river  was  drained,  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  while 
Belshazzar  was  carousing  at  the  conclusion  of  an  annual 
festival,  "  the  troops  of  Cyrus  entered  through  these  pas- 
sages in  two  parties,  and  took  the  city  by  surprise."    And 
there  is  a  second  remarkable  case  related  by  Polybius, 
which  will  further  illustrate  the  present  history;  and  was 
commiiiiicited  to  me  by  a  learned  friend.     "  Rabatamana," 
says  Polybius,  "  a  city  of  Arabia,  could  not  be  taken,  till 
one  of  the  prisoners  showed  the  besiegers  a  subterraneous 
passage,  through  which  the  besieged  came  down  for  water." 
Now  this  fortress  of  the  Jebusites  seems  to  have  been  cir-  . 
cumstanced  like  Rabatamana;  in  having  also  a  subterra- 
neous passage  which  is  called  in  the  original  -i"':s  (tzenur,) 
a  word  which  occurs  but  once  more  in  the  Bible,  and  does 
not  seem  commonly  understood  in  this  place.     The  English 
version  calls  it  the  gutter— the  Vulgate,  fistulas— Yatahlus, 
cariales — Jun.  and  Ti;em.  emissarium — Poole,  t^ihis  aquce — 
and  Bochart,  alveus,  &c.    But  not  to  multiply  quotations, 
most  interpreters  agree  in  making  the  word  signily  some- 
thing hollow,  and  applying  it  to  water :  just  the  case  of  the 
subterraneous  passage,  or  great  hollow,  of  Rabatamana, 
thrbngh  which  men  could  pass  and  repass  for  water.     That 
this  "^iis  (tzenur)  in  the  text  was  such  an  underground  pas- 
sage might  be  strongly  presumed  from  the  text  itself;  but 
it  is  proved  to  have  been  so  by  Josephus.    For,  speaking  of 
this  very  transaction,  he  calls  them  subterraneous  cavities, 
putting  this  interpretation  upon  a  very  solid  footing.     That 
the  preposition  3,  rendered  in,  prefixed  to  -ii;:5  (tzenur,) 
sometimes  signifies  by,  is  evident  from  Noldius;  and  that  it 
signifies  so  in  this  place  is  certain  from  the  nature  of  the 
context,  and  the  testimony  of  Josephus,  who  expresses  it 
thus :  the  verb  T^nN>  (iamru,)  rendered,  they  said,  in  this 
sentence  is  very  properly  future ;  as  Hebrew  verbs  in  that 
tense  are  known  to  be  frequentative,  or  to  express  the  con- 
tinuance of  doin^  anything;  and  therefore  that  tense  is 
with  great  propriety  used  here  to  express  the  frequent 
repetition  of  the  insolent  speech  used  by  the  blind  and  the 
lame  upon  the  walls j^f  the  fortress.    It  only  remains  here 
to  make  an  observation  or  two  on  the  reward  proposed  by 
David,  and  the  person  who  obtained  it.    The  text  of  Chron- 
icles tells  us,  "  David  said.  Whosoever  smiteth  the  Jebu- 
sites first,  shall  be  chief  and  captain,  or  head  and  prince." 
We  are  to  recollect,  that  Joab  the  son  of  Zeruiah  (David's 
sister)  had  been  general  of  his  army,  during  the  civil  war, 
I  between  the  men  of  Judah  under  David,  and  the  Israelites 
commanded  by  Abner,  in  favour  of  Ishbosheth  the  son  of 
Saul:  but  that  the  Israelites,  having  now  submitted  to 
'David,  he  was  king  over  the  whole  twelve  tribes.     David, 
we  know,  frequently  endeavoured  to  remove  Joab  from 


his  command  of  the  army,  on  account  of  his  haughtiness, 
and  for  several  murders  ;  but  complained,  that  this  son  of 
Zeruiah  was  too  hard  for  him.     One  of  these  attempts  of 
David  seems  to  have  been  made  at  the  time  Israel  came  iii 
to  David,  by  the  persuasion  of  Abner ;  when  it  is  probable 
the  condition  on  Abner's  side  was  to  have  been  made 
David's  captain-general:  and  perhaps  Joab  suspected  so 
much,  and  therefore  murdered  him.    The  next  attempt 
seems  to  have  been  made  at  the  taking  this  strong  citadel 
of  the  Jebusites.    For  David  proposes  the  reward  absolute- 
ly to  every  officer  of  his  army,  "Whosoever  smiteth  the 
Jfbusiies  first ;"  i.  e.  whosoever  will  ascend  first,  put  him- 
self at  the  head  of  a  detachment,  and  march  up  through  the 
subterraneous  passage  into  the  citadel,  shall  be  head  and 
captain.    This  proposal,  we  may  observe,  was  general; 
and  yet,  how  much  soever  David  might  wish  Joab  safely 
removed,  it  is  reasonable  to  think  that  he  made  Joab  the 
first  offer.    And,  we  find,  that  however  dangerous  and 
dreadful  this  enterprise  appeared,  yet  Joab  hsd  prudence 
enough  to  undertake  it,  and  courage  enough  to  execute  it : 
and  Joab  went  up  first,  or  at  the  head  of  a  party,  and  was 
accordingly  declared   head,  or  chief  captain,  or  (in  the 
modern  style)  captain-general  of  the  united  armies  of  Israel 
and  Judah.    It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  men  of  Israel  ex- 
pected, that  though  Abrfer  their  general  had  been  basely 
murdered  by  Joab,  yei  David's  chief  captain  should  be 
chosen  from  among  them;  or  at  least  that  they  should  have 
a  chance  for  that  iirst  post  of  honour,  as  well  as  the  men  of 
Judah.    And  if  they  had  declared  any  expectation  of  this 
kind,  David  seems  to  have  taken  the  wisest  step  for  de- 
termining so  important  a  point — by  declaring,  that  neither 
relation,  nor  fortune,  nor  friendship  should  recommend 
upon  the  occasion ;  but,  as  the  bratest  man  and  the  best 
soldier  ought  to   be  commander-in-chief,  so  this  honour 
should  be  the  reward  of  the  greatest  merit;  that  there  was 
nowa  fair  opportimity  pfsignalizingthemselves  inthe  taking 
this  important  fortress;  and  therefore  his  resolution  was— 
that  Whosoever  v-ould  head  a  detachment  up  this  subterra- 
neous passage,  and  should  first  make  himself  master  of  the 
citadel,  by  that  passage,  or  by  scaling  the  walls,  or  by  any 
other  method,  should  be  head  and  captain,  i.  e.  captain- 
general.    It  is  remarkable,  that  the  text  in  Samuel  is  very 
incomplete  in  this  place:  David's  proposal  to  the  army  is 
just  begun,  and  a  circumstance  or  two  mentioned ;  but  "the 
reward  proposed,  and  the  person  rewarded,  are  totaJv 
omitted.    We  may  presume  the  text  coiild  not  have  been 
thus  imperfect  originally,  since  no  ellipsis  can  supply  Avhat 
is  here  wanting;  and  therefore  the  words  in  the  coinciding 
chapter  in  Chronicles,  which  regularly  fill  up  this  omis- 
sion, were  doubtless  at  first  also  in  Samuel,  and  are  there- 
fore to  be  restored :   the  necessity  of  thus  restoring  the 
words  not  found  in  the  present  copies  of  Samuel  is  ap- 
parent. 

And  the  English  version  of  these  texts  in  Samuel  is — 
"  And  they  spoke  unto  David,  saying.  Thou  shalt  liot  come 
hither ;  for  the  blind  and  the  lame  shall  keep  thee  ofl^,  by 
saying,  David  shall  not  come  hither.  But  David  took  the 
strong  hold  of  Sion,  which  is  the  city  of  David.  And  Da- 
vid said  on  that  day.  Whosoever  (first)  smileth  the  Jebusites,^ 
and  by  the  subterraneous  passage  reacheth  the  blind  and  tho" 
lame,  which  are  hated  of  David's  soul,  (because  the  blind 
and  the  lame  continued  to  say.  He  shall  not  come  into  this 
house) — shall  be  head  and  captain.  So  Joab  the  son  of 
Zeruiah  went  up  first,  and  was  head — or  captain-general."' 
The  English  version,  then,  of  these  texts  in  Chronicles  is — 
"  And  the  inhabitants  of  Jebus  said  to  David,  Thou  shalt 
not  come  hither.  But  David  took  the  strong  hold  of  Sion, 
which  is  the  city  of  David.  And  David  said,  Whosoever 
first  smiteth  the  Jebusites,  shall  be  head  and  captain.  So 
Joab  the  son  of  Zeruiah  went  up  first,  and  was  chief  cap- 
tain."   (Kennicott.) — Critica  Biblica. 

Ver.  9.  So  David  dwelt  in  the  fort,  and  called  it, 
The  city  of  David :  and  David  built  round 
about,  from  Milo  and  inward. 

The  old  city  founded  by  the  Jebusites  before  Abraham 
arrived  in  Canaan,  is  styled  by  some  writers  the  city  ot 
Melchizedek,  not  because  he  was  the  founder,  but  because  it 
was  the  seat  of  his  government.  This  ancient  city  was  so 
strongly  fortified  both  by  nature  and  art,  that  the  people  of 
Israel  could  not  drive  oiit  the  Jebusites,  its  original  inhabit- 


192 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap,  5. 


ants,  but  were  reduced  to  live  with  them  at  Jerusalem, 
The  armies  of  Israel  indeed  seized  the  city ;  but  the  Jebu- 
sites  kept  possession  of  the  strong  fort  which  defended  the 
town,  till  the  reign  of  David,  who  took  it  by  storm,  and 
changed  its  name  to  the  city  of  David,  to  signify  the  im- 
portance of  the  conquest,  and  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of 
the  event.  Having  chosen  Jerusalem  for  the  place  of  his 
residence  and  the  capital  of  his  kingdom,  he  adorned  the 
fortress  with  a  royal  pahice  for  his  own  accommodation, 
and  a  variety  of  other  buildings;  which,  from  the  continual 
additions  made  to  them  in  succeeding  reigns,  increased  to 
the  size  of  a  considerable  city,  and  covered  nearly  the 
whole  of  mount  Sion.  The  largeness  of  the  city  of  David 
may  be  inferred  from  the  expression  of  the  sacred  histo- 
rian ;  "David  built  round  about  from  Millo  and  inward." 
This  passage,  and  particularly  the  word  Millo,  has  greatly 
exercised  the  genius  and  divided  the  sentiments  of  com- 
mentators; and  is  therefore  entitled  to  more  particular 
notice.  Thai  Millo  was  situated  in  the  city  of  David,  the 
inspired  historian  expressly  asserts :  and  by  consequence,  it 
must  either  have  been  upon  mount  Sion  or  in  its  immedi- 
ate vicinity.  It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  the  inspired  writer 
of  David's  history  could  not  allude  to  Millo  itself,  which 
was  not  then  in  existence,  but  to  the  place  where  it  after- 
ward stood ;  for  Millo  was  not  built  till  the  succeeding 
reign.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  public  building,  where  the 
king  and  his  princes  met  in  council  about  affairs  of  state  ; 
for  in  the  passage  already  quoted  from  the  first  book  of 
Kings,  it  is  connected  with  the  house  of  the  Lord  and  the 
royal  palace.  The  words  of  the  historian  are  ;  "  And  this 
is  the  reason  of  the  levy  (or  tax)  which  king  Solomon 
raised ;  for  to  build  the  house  of  the  Lord  and  his  own 
house,  and  Millo,  and  the  wall  of  Jerusalem,  and  Hazor, 
and  Megiddo,  and  Gezer."  But  every  ground  of  hesitation 
is  removed  by  the  sacred  writer  of  the  second  book  of  Kings, 
who  calls  it  expressly  "  the  house  of  Millo."  That  it  was 
a  public  building,  in  one  of  whose  apartments  the  council 
of  state  met  to  deliberate  upon  public  affairs,  is  rendered 
extremely  probable  by  one  of  the  kings  of  Judah  losing  his 
life  there  by  the  hands  of  his  princes ;  for  we  are  told,  that 
"  the  servants  of  king  Joash  arose  and  made  a  conspiracy, 
and  slew  him  in  the  house  of  Millo,"  whither  he  had  prob- 
ably come  to  consult  with  his  princes  and  other  principal 
persons  upon  some  affairs  of  state.  This  interpretation  is 
greatly  strengthened  by  a  passage  in  the  book  of  Judges, 
which  informs  us,  that  "  all  the  men  of  Shechem  gathered 
together,  and  all  the  house  of  Millo,  and  went  and  made 
Abimelech  king."  The  city  of  Shechem  then  had  also  its 
house  of  Millo,  and  a  great  number  of  persons  connected 
with  it,  whom  the  sacred  writer  distinguishes  from  the  men 
of  the  city.  Now  since  both  were  concerned  in  making 
Abimelech  king,  it  is  natural  to  conclude,  that  the  men  of 
the  city  were  the  inferior  inhabitants,  and  the  house  of 
Millo  tlie  governors  of  the  place :  both  of  whom  on  this 
occasion  met  in  the  senate-house,  to  set  the  crown  upon  the 
head  of  their  favourite. 

The  house  of  Millo  upon  mount  Sion,  appears  to  have 
been  a  place  of  great  strength,  and  essentially  connected 
;vith  the  defence  of  Jerusalem ;  fof  when  Hezekiah  dis- 
covered that  Sennacherib  meditated  the  reduction  of  his 
capital,  "  he  strengthened  himself,  and  built  up  all  the  Avail 
that  was  broken,  and  raised  it  up  to  the  towers,  and  another 
wall  without,  and  repaired  Millo  in  the  city  of  David,  and 
made  darts  and  shields  in  abundance."  From  the  intimate 
connexion  between  the  repairing  of  Millo  and  the  making 
of  darts  and  other  implements  of  war,  it  has  been  conjec- 
tured by  some  writers,  that  one  part  of  that  public  building 
was  occupied  as  an  armory;  in  which  there  is  nothing 
improbable.  It  is  necessary,  however,  before  leaving  this 
part  of  the  subject,  to  state  another  opinion  that  has  been 
advanced  concerning  Millo,  by  several  men  of  genius  and 
learning.  They  suppose  that  Solomon  filled  up  a  deep  val- 
ley or  hollow,  that  separated  the  hill  of  Sion  and  the  site 
of  the  ancient  city  from  mount  Moriah,  upon  whose  sum- 
mit he  built  the  temple  of  Jehovah,  and  made  a  plain  level 
road  from  the  one  to  the  other.  The  execution  of  this  stu- 
pendous work,  they  contend,  may  be  inferred  from  the 
root  of  the  word  Millo,  which  signifies  "to  fill  up;"  and 
from  a  passage  in  2d  Chronicles,  where  it  is  said,  the  king 
made  terraces  to  the  hou'^e  of  the  Lord,  and  to  the  king's 
palace.  The  word  which  is  here  rendered  terraces,  may 
be  translated  as  in  the  margin,  stays  or  supports.    But  nei- 


ther of  these  senses  amounts  to  a  sufficient  proof,  that  the 
teri'aces  were  made  by  filling  up  the  hollow  between  mount 
Sion  and  mount  Moriah.  That  Solomon  planned  and  ex- 
ecuted a  noble  and  magnificent  way  from  the  royal  palace 
on  mount  Sion,  to  the  temple  on  mount  Moriah,  which 
excited  the  admiration  of  all  that  saw  it,  is  attested  in  plain 
terms  by  the  sacred  writer;  "And  when  the  queen  ot 
Sheba  had  seen  all  Solomon's  wisdom,  and  the  house  which 
he  had  built,  .  .  ,  and  his  ascent  by  which  he  went  up  unto 
the  house  of  the  Lord,  there  was  no  more  spirit  in  her." 
This  passage  also  proves,  that  although  the  declivity  on  each 
side  was  easy,  the  road  was  not  perfectly  level,  for  Solomon 
went  up  an  ascent  to  the  house  of  the  Lord.  The  same 
circumstance  is  mentioned  in  another  book,  where  the  sa- 
cred writer  speaks  of  "  the  causey  of  the  going  up."  And 
we  read,  that  Joash  was  slain  in  the  house  of  Millo,  which 
goes  down  to  Silla.  The  term  Silla,  is  thought  by  some 
learned  commentators,  to  have  the  same  meaning  as  Mes- 
silah,  which  signifies  a  causey  or  cast  up  way ;  and  conse- 
quently, that  between  the  two  mounts  Sion  and  Moriah,  were 
two  declivities,  one  towards  the  temple  or  moxmt  Moriah, 
the  other  towards  the  palace  or  mount  Sion.  The  last  is 
supposed  to  be  the  descent  of  Silla,  near  which  stood  the 
house  of  Millo.  From  this  statement  it  is  clear,  that  the 
house  of  Millo  stood  on  the  east  side  of  mount  Sion,  at  the 
upper  end  of  the  causey  which  goes  down  to  Silla,  and  the 
royal  palace  on  the  opposite  side.  When,  therefore,  the  sa- 
cred historian  says,  David  built  round  about  from  Millo 
and  inward,  or  as  the  original  word  may  be  rendered,  "  to 
the  house,"  he  seems  to  intimate,  that  I)avid  built  round 
about  from  the  place  where  Millo  was  afterward  erected 
by  Solomon,  or  where  more  probably  the  senate-house,  or 
Millo  of  the  Jebusites,  had  stood,  which  was  pulled  down  to 
make  room  for  the  more  sumptuous  edifice  of  Solomon,  to 
his  own  house  ;  so  that  David  built  from  one  part  of  mount 
Sion,  quite  round  to  the  opposite  point.  Hence,  the  resi- 
dence of  David,  even  in  the  reign  of  that  renowned  mon- 
arch, began  to  assume  the  size  and  splendour  of  a  city,  and 
to  be  justly  entitled  to  the  appellation  which  it  receives 
from  the  sacred  historian. — Paxton, 

Ver.  19.  And  David  inquired  of  the  Lord,  say- 
ing-, Shall  I  go  up  to  the  Philistines  ?  wilt  thou 
deliver  them  into  my  hand?  And  the  Lord 
said  unto  David,  Go  up ;  for  I  will  doubtless 
deliver  the  Philistines  into  thy  hand. 

I  cannot  here  help  observing,  in  honour  of  the  Hebrew 
oracle,  that  its  answers  were  such,  as  became  the  character 
of  the  true  God,  who  hath  all  events  at  his  disposal,  and 
cannot  be  mistaken  as  to  those  which  he  expressly  fore- 
tels.  Let  any  one  compare  it  with  the  heathen  oracles, 
and  he  will  be  forced  to  acknowledge,  that  they  were 
shuffling,  ambiguous,  and  vague ;  and  the  answers  they  gave 
of  so  uncertain  a  nature,  so  equivocal  and  deceitful,  as  that 
they  might  be  interpreted  in  two  direct  contrary  senses, 
might  be  equally  true  of  two  contrary  events,  and  evidently 
demonstrated,  that  they  who  gave  them  out  kncAv  no  more 
of  those  events  on  which  they  were  consulted,  than  they 
who  inquired  about  them,  who  were  often  deceived  in  the 
application  of  them  to  their  own  destruction.  Thus  Croe- 
sus was  foretold  by  Apollo,  that  if  he  made  war  with  the 
Persians,  he  should  overturn  a  great  empire ;  which  Croesus 
interpreting  in  his  own  favour,  made  war  upon  Cyrus, 
and  thereby  put  an  end  to  his  own  empire ;  after  which, 
he  severely  reproached  Apollo  for  deceiving  him.  And  j 
thus  Pyrrh'us,  king  of  Epirus,  who  is  said,  upon  the  credit  \ 
of  an  ambiguous  oracle  of  the  same  Apollo,  to  have  en- 
gaged in  war  with  the  Romans,  was  entirely  defeated  by 
them,  and  forced  at  last  to  retire  with  great  disgrace  and 
loss  into  his  OAvn  dominions.  Whereas,  the  answers  of  the 
Hebrew  oracle  had  one  plain  obvious  certain  meaning, 
that  needed  no  interpretation,  that  no  one  could  possibly 
mistake  the  meaning  of,  and  that  was  never  found,  in  one 
single  instance,  to  deceive  or  disappoint  those  who  de- 
pended on,  and  directed  themselves  by  the  order  of  it.  Do 
this,  or,  Do  not  this,  was  the  peremptory  form,  in  which  they, 
who  consulted  it,  were  answered  ;  which,  in  the  judgment 
of  Cicero,  was  the  manner  in  which  the  rrscles  of  Gcv'> 
ought  to  be  delivered.— Chandler. 


Ghap.  6. 


2  SAMUEL. 


193 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  2.  And  David  arose,  and  went  with  all  the 
people  that  were  with  him  from  Baale  of  Ju- 
dah,  to  bring  up  from  thence  the  ark  of  God, 
whose  name  is  called  by  the  name  of  The 
Lord  of  Hosts,  that  dwelleth  between  the 
cherubims. 

David  being  now  at  rest,  in  peace  at  home,  and  free  from 
rfll  foreign  wars,  applied  himself  to  make  some  necessary 
regulations  in  religion,  and  a  proper  provision  for  the  more 
stated  performance  of  the  solemnities  of  divine  worship. 
The  ark,  which  was  the  emblem  of  the  divine  presence, 
where  God  dwelt  between  the  cherubim,  v/as  now  at  Kir- 
jath-jearim,  in  the  house  of  Abinidab  on  the  hill ;  where  it 
was  placed,  when  the  Philistines  had  sent  it  back,  after 
they  had  taken  it  in  the  battle,  in  which  Hophni  and  Phin- 
eas,  the  sons  of  Eli,  perished,  and  great  part  of  the  Hebrew 
army  were  cut  off.  The  time  of  its  continuance  here  was 
about  forty-six  years,  except  when,  on  some  particular  oc- 
casions, it  was  removed,  as  once  in  Saul's  time,  when  he 
fought  his  first  battle  against  the  Philistines.  As  David 
had  now  fixed  his  own  residence  at  Jerusalem,  and  intend- 
ed it  for  the  capital  of  his  whole  kingdom,  he  was  resolved 
to  do  every  thing  in  his  power,  that  could  contribute  to  the 
splendour,  dignity,  and  safety  of  it.  His  first  care  was  to 
secure  it  the  presence  and  protection  of  the  God  of  Is- 
rael ;  and  accordingly,  he  provided  a  proper  habitation  and 
residence  for  his  ark,  and  pitched  for  it  a  tent,  where  it 
might  continually  remain  throughout  all  future  ages.  The 
ark  was  a  small  chest,  made  of  shittim-wood,  two  cubits 
and  a  half,  or  a  yard  and  a  half  and  one  inch  long,  a  cubit 
and  a  half,  or  two  feet  nine  inches  broad,  and  overlaid 
within  and  without,  with  pure  gold.  On  the  top  of  the  ark 
was  placed  a  seat,  or  cover,  called  mDn,  O^acrrr^piov,  the  mer- 
cy-seat, as  we  render  the  word,  or,  the  propitiatory  cover,  be- 
cause the  blood  of  the  propitiatory  sacrifice  was  sprinkled 
on,  and  before  it.  In  this  ark  were  placed  the  two  tables 
of  stone,  on  which  the  ten  commandments  were  engraven, 
called  the  testimony ;  because  God  testified  and  declared, 
these  ten  commandments  were  essential  and  unalterable 
laws  of  his  kingdom.  On  this  account*  the  ark  is  called, 
The  ark  of  the  testimony.  In  the  order  to  make  it,  God 
.  says :  "  Let  them  make  me  a  sanctuary,  that  I  may  dwell 
among  them."  Here,  God  tells  Moses :  "  I  will  meet  with 
thee,  and  I  will  commune,  with  thee,  from  above  the  mercy- 
seat,  from  between  the  two  cherubims,  of  all  things,  which 
I  will  give  thee  in  commandment,  unto  the  children  of  Is- 
rael; and  I  will  appear  in  the  cloud  upon  the  mercy-seat." 
Hence  the  ark  was  considered  as  the  house,  the  sanctuary, 
and  temple  of  God,  where  he  resided;  and  God  is  described 
as  dwelling  between,  or  rather  above  the  cherubim ;  not 
because  the  Hebrews  were  so  stupid  as  to  imagine  any  per- 
sonal residence  of  God  in  the  ark,  or  that  he  could  be  con- 
fined to  any  particular  place,  whom  they  well  knew  the 
heaven,  even  the  heaven  of  heavens,  could  not  contain ; 
much  less  any  house  that  could  be  erected  for  him  by  hu- 
man hands;  but  because  the  cloud  and  glory,  which  ap- 
peared there,  were  the  visible  emblems  of  his  gracious 
presence  with  them,  and  of  his  peculiar  inspection  and 
care  ov«r  them ;  or,  as  Joshua  tells  them,  whereby  they 
should  know,  that  the  living  God  was  among  them,  even  the 
Lord  of  the  whole  earth ;  viz.  to  protect  and  prosper  them. 
That  the  majesty  of  this  ark  or  portable  temple  of  God, 
might  be  preserved  inviolable,  God  ordered  a  tabernacle  to 
be  prepared  for  its  reception,  and  a  veil  to  be  placed  before 
the  ark,  to  separate  the  holy  place,  where  the  ark  was  fix- 
ed, from  the  other  part  of  the  tabernacle,  where  Aaron  and 
his  sons  were  to  minister  continually  before  God.  Besides 
this,  there  was  a  spacious  court  prepared  round  about  the 
tabernacle  and  the  altar,  where  the  congregation  were  al- 
lowed to  enter,  and  present  their  offerings  at  the  door  of  the 
tabernacle,  before  the  Lord.  At  the  door  of  the  tabernacle 
of  the  congregation  the  daily  burnt-offering  was  to  be  of- 
■  fared,  where  God  promised  to  meet  with  the  children  of  Is- 
S  rael,  to  sanctify  it  by  his  glor}"-,  and  to  dwell  among  the 
fl  children  of  Israel,  and  be  their  God,  i.  e.  their  almighty 
guardian,  and  protector.  Here  also  were  to  be  brought  all 
their  various  kinds  of  sacrifices,  in  reference  to  which  the 
charge  was  so  strict,  as  that  God  commanded,  that  whoever 


didnot  bring hissacrifice  to  the  door  of  the  tabernacle,  there 
to  offer  it  to  the  Lord,  should  be  cut  off  from  his  people :  the 
most  effectual  provision  this,  that  could  possibly  be  made 
against  idolatry,  as  it  struck  at  the  root  of  all  idol  worship ; 
and  which,  had  they  observed  the  command,  must  have 
prevented  the  introduction  of  any  other  god,  in  opposition 
to  Jehovah,  the  true  God,  who  dwelt  in  the  ark,  and  on 
whose  altar  their  sacrifices  must  have  been  offered  by  his 
priests,  who  resided  in  the  tabernacle.    Hither  also,  as  lo 
the  temple  of  God,  the  religious  Hebrews  loved  to  resort, 
not  only  to  present  their  sacrifices,  but  to  join  in  the  cele- 
bration of  the  divine  praises,  and  the  singing  those  sacred 
songs,  that  were  composed  in  honour  of  the  true  God,  to 
offer  up  their  supplications  to  him,  and  to  make  and  pay 
their  vows  before  him ;  and  their  appearance  at  the  taber- 
nacle for  these  purposes,  where  the  ark  of  tTie  presence  re- 
sided, was  styled,  appearing  before  God,  coming  before  his 
presence,  frequenting  his  courts,  abiding  in  his  house,  and 
the  like ;  because  they  saw  there  his  power  and  glory,  or 
the  glorious  manifestartion  of  his  power  and  majesty,  which 
were  frequently  given,  as  the  immediate  token  of  God's  ac- 
cepting their  sacrifices,  thanksgivings,  and  prayers.    From 
these  observations  it  appears,  that  this  ark  of  God  was  of 
the  highest  importance  in  the  Hebrew  republic,  as  it  was  a 
standing  memorial  for  Jehovah,  the  one  true  God,  the  God 
of  Israel,  the  centre  of  all  the  public  solemnities  of  religion, 
the  place  where  the  whole  nation  was  to  pay  their  homage 
and  adoration  to  him,  where  he  appeared  propitious  and 
favourable  to  his  people,  where  they  were  to  inquire  of 
him,  and  wait  for  his  direction ;  and  that  the  presence  of  it 
was  essentially  necessary,  wherever  the  public  solemni- 
ties of  worship  were  to  be  performed ;  and  that  Jerusalem 
could  never  have  been  fixed  on  for  these  sacred  services, 
nor  the  visible  emblems  of  the  divine  Majesty  and  pres- 
ence, in  the  cloud  and  glory,  have  ever  been  expected  in  it, 
unlessthis  ark  had  been  translated  to,  and  settled  there,  as 
the  place  of  its  future  and  fixed  residence.     These  were 
some  of  the  considerations  that  induced  David  to  remove 
it  into  the  new  city  that  he  had  built,  but  there  were  others 
also  that  the  very  law  of  Moses  suggested  to  him.    God 
had  by  him  commanded  the  Hebrews,  that  "  unto  the  place 
which  the  Lord  their  God  had  chosen  out  of  all  the  tribes,  to 
put  his  name  there,  even  unto  his  habitation  should  they 
seek,  and  thither  they  should  come,  and  thither  should  they 
bring  their  burnt  ofierings,  their  sacrifices,  their  tithes  and 
heave  offerings,  their  vows,  their  free-will  offerings,  and 
the  firstlings  of  their  herds  and  flocks,  and  that  there  they 
should  eat  before  the  Lord  their  God,  and  rejoice  in  all  that 
they  put  their  hand  to,  they  and  their  household,  wherein 
the  Lord  their  God  had  blessed  them."    He  further  prom- 
ised them,  that  after  they  had  passed  over  Jordan,  and 
dwelt  in  the  land,  which"  he  had  given  them  to  inherit ; 
then,  "  there  should  be  a  place,  which  the  Lord  their  God 
would  choose,  to  dwell  tkere,  and  that  there  they  should 
bring  their  burnt-offerings,  and  all  their  choice  vows,  and 
that  there  they  should  rejoice  before  the  Lord  their  God, 
they,  and  their  sons,  and  their  daughters,  and  their  men- 
servants,  and  their  maid-servants,  and  the  Levite  that  was 
with  them  in  their  gates,  and  do  all  that  he  commanded 
them;"  and  that  here,  and  nowhere  else,  they  should  eat  the 
passover,  and  appear  three  times  in  it  every  year,  before 
the  Lord  their  God ;  at  the  feast  of  unleavened  bread,  the 
feasts  of  weeks,  and  the  feast  of  tabernacles ;  and  that  here 
they  were  to  apply  for  determining  their  principal  causes 
and.  controversies":  in  a  word,  that  this  very  place,  which 
the  Lord  should  ehoose,  should  be  the  capital  of  the  whole 
kingdom,  the  principal  seat  of  all  their  public  solemnities, 
and  the  perpetual  residence  of  the  supreme  courts  of  justice 
and  equity. 

During  all  the  preceding  periods  of  the  Hebrew  republic, 
no  such  place  had  been  chosen  and  appointed  by  God ;  the 
ark  itself  had  no  settled  and  fixed  habitation,  but  removed 
from  place  to  place,  as  convenience  or  necessity  required ; 
and  the  several  judges  and  supreme  officers,  that  presided 
over  and  judged  the  people,  had  their  particular  cities, 
where  they  resided,  and  administered  justice  to  those  who 
applied  to  them.  In  this  unsettled  state  of  the  republic, 
many  and  great  inconveniences  must  have  necessarily 
arisen,  and  the  most  significant  and  important  solemnities 
of  the  national  religion  were  absolutely  incapable  of  being 
performed,  according  to  the  prescription  of  the  law  of  God 
by  Moses. 


194 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  6. 


The  honour  of  making  the  necessary  settlement  in  these 
things,  and  perfecting  the  civil  polity,  and  the  ceremonial 
of  the  Hebrew  worship,  was  reserved  for  David;  who 
when  he  had  retaken  Jerusalem  from  the  Jebusites,  had 
considered  the  strength  and  convenience  of  its  situation, 
had  enlarged  it  with  new  buildings,  adorned  it  with  pal- 
aces, erected  a  magnificent  one  for  himself,  had  well  forti- 
fied it  wath  walls  and  bulwarks,  and  chosen  it  for  his  own 
residence;  was  in  hope  that  this  was  the  place  God  had 
now  chosen  to  dwell  in,  and  immediately  formed  the  great 
design  of  translating  the  ark  of  God  into  it,  and  providing  a 
suitable  habitation  for  its  future  rest;  that  this  emblem  of 
God's  immediate  presence  might  be  perpetually  near  him, 
where  he  himseli  might  constantly  worship  in  the  courts 
of  his  tabernacle,  where  all  the  solemn  sacrifices  might  be 
statedly  oifered,  and  the  aflfairs  in  general  of  the  whole 
kingdom,  relating  to  religion  and  justice,  for  the  future,  be 
transacted  with  regularity,  order,  and  dignity.  In  pursu- 
ance of  this  great  design,  he  first  gathered  together  all  the 
chosen  men  of  Israel,  thirty  thousand  men,  consisting  of  the 
captains  of  thousands,  and  hundreds,  and  all  the  princes ; 
and  said  to  them,  thus  assembled  at  Jerusalem :  "  II  it  seem 
good  unto  you,  and  it  be  approved  of  by  the  Lord  our  God, 
let  us  send  abroad  unto  our  brethren  everywhere,  that  are 
left  in  all  the  land  of  Israel,  and  with  them  to  the  priests 
and  Levites  which  are  in  their  cities  and  suburbs,  that  they 
may  gather  themselves  together  unto  us,  and  let  us  bring 
up  to  us  the  ark  of  God ;  at  which  we  but  seldom  inquired 
in  the  days  of  Saul."  To  this  proposal  the  congregation 
unanimously  agreed.  David  accordingly  sent  messengers 
to  Israel,  throughout  all  his  dominions,  from  Sichor,  or 
the  Egyptian  Nile,  the  most  southern  boundary  of  his  king- 
dom, to  the  entrance  of  Hemath.  northward,  near  the  rise 
of  Jordan.  When  the  assembly  were  met,  David  led  them 
to  Baalah,  which  is  Kirjath-jearim,  and  which  belonged  to 
t.he  tribe  of  Judah  ;  and  from  thence  they  conveyed  the  ark 
of  God,  "  where  his  name  was  invocated,  even  the  name 
Jehovah  Zebaoth,  or  Lord  of  hosts,  who  sits  upon  the  cher- 
ubim, that  were  over  the  ark."  They  had  prepared  a  new 
ferriage,  drawn  by  oxen,  for  the  conveyance  of  it,  which 
Jzzah  and  Ahio  the  sons  of  Abinidab  drove  to  Abinidab's 
hoitse ;  and  then  placing  the  ark  upon  it,  they  attended  on 
it ;  Ahio  marching  before  the  ark,  and  Uzzah  on  one  side 
of  it.  When  the  procession  began,  David,  with  all  the 
house  6f  Israel,  gave  the  highest  demonstrations  of  satisfac- 
tion and  pleasure,  playing  before  the  Lord  on  all  manner 
of  instruments,  made  of  fir-wood,  even  on  harps,  and  on 
psalteries,  and  on  timbrels,  and  on  cornets,  and  on  cymbals. 
But  the  joy  of  David  and  his  people  on  this  solemn  occa- 
sion was  soon  interrupted.  For  when  the  procession  was 
advanced  as  far  as  Nachon's  thrashing-floor,  the  oxen 
stumbled,  and  thereby  shook  the  ark ;  on  which  Uzzah, 
fearing  probably  it  might  be  thrown  off  the  carriage,  very 
rashly  laid  hold  of  the  ark  of  God  with  his  hand,  in  order 
to  support  it ;  not  considering,  that  as  he  was  but  a  Levite, 
he  was  forbidden  to  touch  it  under  penalty  of  death,  and 
that,  as  it  was  the  dwelling  of  God,  and  immediately  under 
his  protection,  he  could  and  would  have  preserved  it  from 
falling,  without  Uzzah's  officious  care  to  prevent  it.  For 
this  violation  of  the  law,  Uzzah  was  immediately  struck  by 
the  hand  of  God,  and  fell  down  dead  by  the  ark. 

God  smote  him,  as  the  text  says,  for  his  error,  or  as  we 
have  it  in  the  margin,  for  his  rashness ;  and  as  this  is  the 
first  instance  that  we  have  of  the  violation  of  this  prohibi- 
tion of'  the  Levites,  from  touching  any  thing  sacred  under 
the  penalty  of  death,  the  punishment  of  it  shows  that  the 
prohibition  was  really  divine,  and  th^t  as  the  penalty  of 
death  was  incurred,  it  was  justly  inflicted,  as  an  example 
to  others,  and  to  preserve  a  due  reverence  for  the  divine 
institutions.  Besides,  God  had  particularly  appointed  the 
manner  in  which  the  ark  should  be  removed  from  place  to 
place;  not  upon  a  carriage  drawn  by  oxen,  but  by  order- 
ing that  the  sons  of  Kohath  should  carry  it  on  their  shoul- 
ders, by  the  staves,  that  were  put  into  the  rings,  on  the 
vides  of  the  ark;  and  their  neglecting  to  do  it  on  this  sol- 
emn occasiot  and  consulting  their  ease  more  than  their 
duty,  by  placing  it  -^n  a  carriage  drawn  by  oxen,  was  an 
offence  of  no  small  aggravation,  as  it  was  on  innovation  con- 
trary to  the  express  order  of  the  law.  This  David  himself 
afterward  acknowledges,  and  assigns  it  as  the  reason  of 
the  punishment  inflicted  upon  Uzzah,  and  as  he  himself 
and  the  whole  house  of  Israel  were  present  at  this  solem- 


nity, and  it  was  impossible  that  the  nature  and  cause  of 
Uzzah's  death  could  have  been  concealed.  The  history 
expressly  says,  that  God  smote  him  for  his  rashness,  in  lay- 
ing hold  of  what  he  ought  not  to  have  touched;  or  for  his 
error  in  thinking  God  was  not  able  to  protect  and  secure 
it ;  and  David  affirms,  that  the  Lord  had  made  a  breach 
upon  Uzzah,  and  in  commemoration  of  it  calk-cI  the  name 
of  the  place,  Perez-uzzah,  i.  e.  the  breach  of  Uzzan ;  a  plain 
evidence,  that  he  knew  his  death  to  be  extraordinary,  and 
inflicted  by  the  immediate  hand  of  God ;  this  is  further  evi- 
dent from  the  terror  David  was  in  upon  account  of  this  ex- 
traordinary accident,  and  his  desisting  for  this  reason  from 
the  resolution  he  had  formed  of  introducing  the  ark  into 
Jerusalem.  David  "  was  afraid  of  the  Lord  that  day,  and 
said :  How  shall  the  ark  of  the  Lord  come  to  me  '?"  I  am 
at  a  loss  what  method  to  take  to  bring  the  ark,  with  safety 
to  myself  and  people,  into  Jerti-salem.  Every  circumstance 
in  this  transaction  shows  that  Uzzah's  death  was  a  divine 
punishment,  and  had  he  died  by  any  other  hand,  it  must 
have  been  known  to  many  that  were  present,  as  he  died  in 
open  day  light,  and  in  the  view  of  thousands  who  attended 
in  this  solemn  procession. 

Should  it  be  said,  that  if  the  Lord  would  have  saved  the 
ark,  because  he  could ;  it  may  be  also  urged,  that  he  would 
have  brought  it  to  any  place  where  he  intended  it  to  be,  be- 
cause he  could  have  done  it,  and  that  therefore  David  was 
impertinently  officious  in  removing  it  himself:  the  answer 
is;  that  as  God  had  forbidden  the  ark  to  be  touched,  on 
any  occasion,  by  the  Levites,  under  penaky  of  death,  it  was 
an  assurance,  that  in  all  its  movements  he  would  take  it 
under  his  especial  protection,  and  that  as  he  was  able  to 
secure  it  against  every  hazard,  without  human  assistance, 
so  he  certainly  would  do  it.  But  God  never  promised  to 
remove  it  himself  from  place  to  place,  but  expressly  gave 
that  service  in  charge  to  the  Levites;  and  therefore  it  doth 
not  follow,  that  because  he  himself  could,  therefore  he 
would  remove  it,  because  he  expressly  ordered  it  to  be 
done  by  others.  But  Uzzah's  intention  was  certainly  good, 
and  therefore  the  alleged  crime  certainly  pardonable ;  the 
seeming  exigency  precluding  all  reflection.  But  this  seem- 
ing exigency  was  no  real  one,  and  his  acting  without 
reflection,  an  aggravation  of  his  fault;  especially  as  he 
committed  this  offence,  in  consequence  of  a  former.  Uz- 
zah knew,  or  might  have  known,  that  the  ark  was  never  to 
be  moved  in  any  carriage,  btit  on  the  shoulders  of  the 
Levites;  and  had  it  been  thus  removed,  the  accident  would 
not  have  happened  to  the  ark,  and  his  rashness  in  touching, 
and  the  punishment  he  suffered  for  it,  would  have  been 
both  prevented.  His  good  intention  therefore  here  coirid 
be  of  no  avail.  It  was  no  excuse  for  his  ignorance,  if  he 
was  really  ignorant,  because  he  might,  and  ought  to  have 
known  better ;  nor  for  his  presumption,  and  such  it  must 
have  been,  if  he  could  not  plead  ignorance  for  his  error, 
because  this  was  in  its  nature  a  high  aggravation  of  his 
fault.  And  light  as  l^is  offence  may  seem,  yet  when  it  is 
considered  in  all  its  consequences,  and  what  an  encourage- 
ment it  might  have  given  for  the  introduction  of  other 
innovations,  contrary  to  the  institutions  of  the  law  of 
Moses,  had  this  offence  been  passed  by  with  impunity  :  it 
was  no  wonder  that  God  should  manifest  his  displeasure 
against  it,  by  punishing  with  death,  what  he  bad  forbidden 
under  the  penalty  of  it ;  thereby  to  prevent  aLL  future 
attempts  to  make  anv  changes  in  that  constitution  which 
he  had  established.  But  "supposing  that  the  ark  had  been 
overturned  for  want  of  this  careful  prevention,  might  not 
Uzzah,  with  greater  plausibility,  have  been  smote  for  his 
omission,  than  he  was  for  his  commission  1"  That  is,  might 
not  God  have  more  plausibly  punished  Uzzah  for  omitting 
what  he  had  strictly  forbidden  him  to  do  under  pain  of 
death,  and  what  therefore  it  could  never  be  his  duty  to  do; 
than  for  committing  what  it  was  unlawful  by  God's  own 
command  for  him  to  commit,  and  which  he  had  made  the 
commission  of  a  capital  crime  1  What  some  critics  may 
think  of  this,  I  know  not;  I  cannot  for  my  life  conceive, 
how  Uzzah  could  have  been  more  plausibly,  or  reasonably 
punished  for  omitting  what  it  was  his  duty  to  omit,  than  for 
committing  what  he  was  obliged  never  to  commit.  The 
very  contrary  seems  to  me  to  be  true,  because  he  who  doth 
not  commit  an  illegal  action  can  never  deserve  punishment 
on  that  account;  whereas  he,  who  actually  doth  such  an 
illegal  action,  becomes  thereby  guilty,  and  liable  to  th« 
punishment  denounced  against  it. 


Chap.  6. 


2   SAMUEL. 


195 


During  the  march,  David,  in  order  to  render  it  more 
solemnly  religious,  sacrificed,  at  proper  intervals,  oxen 
and  fallings;  and  though  the  ark,  with  its  proper  furniture, 
must  have  been  of  a  considerable  weight,  and  the  service 
of  the  Levites,  in  carrying  it  such  a  length  of  way  on  their 
shoulders,  as  from  Obed-Edom's  house  to  mount  Sion, 
could  not  but  be  very  difficult;  yet  the  history  observes, 
that  God  helped  the  Levites,  by  enabling  them  to  bring  it 
*o  its  appointed  place,  and  preserving  them  from  every 
unhappy  accident,  till  they  had  safely  deposited  it;  in 
grateful  acknowledgment  of  which  they  presented  an  of- 
fering unto  God  of  seven  bullocks  and  seven  rams.  As 
the  procession  was  accompanied  with  vocal  as  well  as  im- 
strumental  music,  David  had  prepared  a  proper  psalm  or  ode 
(Ps.  68)  to  be  sung  by  the  chanters,  the  several  parts  of  which 
M^ere  suited  to  the  several  divisions  of  the  march,  and  the 
whole  of  it  adapted  to  so  sacred  and  joyful  a  solemnity ;  as 
will  appear  by  a  careful  perusal  and  examination  of  it.  I 
hope  my  reader  will  not  be  displeased,  if  I  give  him  a  short 
and  easy  paraphrase  of  this  excellent  composure. 

Mlien  the  Ark  was  taken  up  on  the  shoulders  of  the  Levites. 
Ver.  1.  Arise,  O  God  of  Israel,  and  in  thy  just  displeasure 
execute  thy  vengeance  upon  the  enemies  of  thy  people,  and 
let  all  who  hate  them  be  put  to  flight,  and  never  prevail 
against  them. 

2.  Drive  them  before  thee,  and  scatter  them,  as  smoke 
is  dispersed  by  the  violence  of  the  wind,  and  let  all  their 
power  and  strength  die  away  and  dissolve,  as  wax  melts 
away  before  the  fire. 

3.  But  let  thy  righteous  people  be  glad,  exult  in  the  pres- 
ence and  under  the  protection  of  thee  their  God,  and  in  the 
triumph  of  their  joy  cry  out : 

4.  "  Sing  psalms  of  thanksgiyings  to  God.  Celebrate  his 
name  and  glory  with  songs  of  Praise.  Prepare  ye  his  way, 
and  let  all  opposition  cease  before  him,  who  rode  through 
the  deserts,  and  guided  his  people  with  the  cloud  by  day, 
and  the  flame  of  fire  by  night.  His  name  is  Jah,  the  tre- 
mendous being.    And  O  exult  with  joy  before  him. 

5.  "  He  is  the  orphan's  father,  who  will  protect  and  pro- 
vide for  him.  He  is  the  judge  and  avenger  of  the  widow, 
will  vindicate  her  cause,  and  redress  her  injuries,  even  that 
God,  who  is  present  with  us  in  his  holy  sanctuary. 

G.  "  He  it  IS  who  increases  the  solitary  and  desolate  into 
numerous  families,  and  restores  to  liberty,  and  blesses  with 
an  abundance,  those  who  are  bound  in  chains,  but  makes 
those  who  are  his  refractory  implacable  enemies,  dwell  as 
in  a  dry  and  desert  land,  by  destroying  their  families  and 
fortunes,  and  utterly  blasting  their  prosperity." 
When  the  Procession  began. 

7.  How  favourably  didst  thou  appear,  O  God,  for  thy 
f)eople  in  ancient  times  !  How  powerful  was  that  protec- 
tion, which  thou  didst  graciously  afford  them  !  when  thou 
didst  march  before  them  at  their  coming  out  of  Egypt,  and 
guidedst  them  through  the  wilderness ! 

8.  The  earth  shook,  the  very  heavens  dissolved  at  thy 
presence,  even  Sinai  itself  seemed  to  melt,  the  smoke  of  it 
ascending  as  the  smoke  of  a  furnace,  when  thou  the  God  of 
Israel  didst  in  thine  awful  majesty  descend  upon  it, 

9.  Thou,  O  God,  didst  rain  down,  in  the  most  liberal 
manner,  during  their  passage  through  the  desert,  bread 
and  flesh  as  from  heaven,  and  didst  thereby  refresh,  satisfy, 
and  confirm  thine  inheritance,  fatigued  with  their  marches, 
£«nd  in  the  utmost  distress  tor  want  of  food. 

10.  Such  was  the  abundance  provided  for  them,  that  they 
dwelt  in  the  midst  of  the  manna  and  quails,  in  heaps  sur- 
rounding them  on  everv  side.  Thy  poor  and  distressed 
people  were  thus  liberally  supplied  by  thy  wonderful  and 
never-failing  goodness. 

11.  And  not  only  were  they  thus  miraculously  fed  by  thy 
benevolent  hand,  but  made  to  triumph  over  all  their  ene- 
mies, who  molested  and  opposed  them.  For  thou  gavest 
forth  the  order  to  attack.  Thou  didst  assure  them  of 
success,  leddest  them  forth  against  their  adversaries, 
and  their  victories  were  celebrated  by  large  numbers  of 
matrons  and  virgins,  who  shouted  aloud,  and  sang  these 
joyful  tidings : 

19.  "  The  kings  of  armies  fled  away.  They  fled  away 
utterly  discomfited,  and  they  who  abode  with  their  families 
in  their  tents,  received  their  shares  in  the  spoils  of  their 
conquered  enemies. 

13.  "  Though  when  you  were  slaves  to  the  Egyptians, 


employed  in  the  servile  drudger}--  of  attending  their  pots 
ana  bricks,  you  appeared  in  the  most  sordid  and  reproach- 
ful habits,  and  took  up  your  dwellings  in  the  most  Avretched 
and  miserable  huts;  yet  now  you  are  enriched  with  the 
gold  and  silver. of  your  conquered  enemies,  possessed  of 
their  tents,  and  arraved  with  garments  shining  and  beauti- 
ful, you  resemble  the  dove's  feathers,  in  which  the  gold 
and  silver  colours  mixed  with  each  other,  give  a  very 
pleasing  and  lovely  appearance." 

14.  When  the  Lord  thus  scattered  and  overcame  kings 
for  the  sake  of  his  inheritance,  how  were  thy  people  re- 
freshed !  How  great  was  the  joy  thou  gavest  them  in 
Salmon,  where  they  obtained,  beheld,  and  celebrated  the 
victory ! 

When  the  Procession  came  in  view  of  Mount  Sion. 

15.  Is  Bashan,  that  high  hill  Bashan,  with  its  rough  and 
craggy  eminences,  is  this  the  hill  of  God,  which  he  hath 
chosen  for  his  residence,  and  where  his  sanctuary  shall 
abide  hereafter  for  ever  1 

16.  Why  look  ye,  O  ye  craggy  hills,  with  an  envious 
impatience  1  See,  there  is  the  hill,  which  God  hath  cho- 
sen and  desired  to  dwell  in.  Assuredly  the  Lord  will 
inherit  it  for  ever. 

17.  The  angels  and  chariots  of  God,  who  attend  this 
solemnity,  and  encompass  the  ark  of  his  presence,  are  not 
only,  as  at  the  giving  of  his  law,  ten  thousand,  but  twice 
ten  thousand,  and  thousands  of  thousands.  God  is  in  the 
midst  of  them,  as  formerly  on  thee,  O  Sinai,  and  will 
constantly  reside  in  his  sanctuary  on  mount  Sion,  and 
as  the  guardian  of  it,  by  his  almighty  power  continue  to 
defend  it. 

When  the  Ark  ascended  Sion,  and  was  deposited  in  David^s 
Taberna,cle. 

18.  Thus  hast  thou  now,  O  God,  ascended  the  heights  of 
Sion's  hill,  and  taken  possession  of  it,  as  thy  future  favour- 
ite dwelling,  after  having  subdued  our  adversaries,  and 
delivered  our  captive  brethren  from  the  power  of  their 
enslavers.  Thou  hast  received  gifts  from  men,  even  from 
our  inveterate  enemies,  by  enriching  us  with  their  spoil, 
subjecting  them  as  tributaries  to  my  crown,  and  enabling 
me  by  them  to  provide  a  habitation  for  our  God,  and  in 
this  joyful  manner  to  attend  thine  entrance  into  it. 

19.  O  blessed  be  Jehovah.  From  day  to  day  he  supports 
his  people,  and  like  a  father  bears  them  up,  and  protects 
them  from  all  destructive  evils. 

20.  He  is  that  God  to  whom  we  owe  all  our  past  salva- 
tions, and  from  whom  alone  we  can  expect  all  we  may 
hereafter  need.  For  under  his  direction  are  all  the  outgo- 
ings of  death,  so  that  he  is  able  to  preserve  his  people  from 
the  approaches  of  it,  when  their  inveterate  enemies  medi- 
tate and  resolve  their  destruction. 

21.  But  vain  and  impotent  shall  be  their  power  and 
malice.  God  will  avenge  himself  on  their  devoted  heads, 
and  their  strength  and  craft  shall  not  be  able  to  protect 
them  from  his  indignation,  if  they  continue  wickedly  to 
disturb  me  in  the  possession  of  that  kingdom,  to  which  l;e 
hath  advanced  me. 

22.  23.  For  this  end,  he  raised  me  to  the  throne,  and 
assured  me  that  I  should  deliver  his  people  from  the  Phi- 
listines, and  from  the  hand  of  all  their  enemies.  Let  them 
therefore  begin  their  hostilities  when  they  please,  God  will 
appear  for  me,  as  he  did  in  former  times  for  our  fore- 
fathers, and  my  victories  over  them  shall  be  as  signal  anr! 
complete,  as  that  over  Pharaoh  and  his  army,  who  were 
destroyed  in  the  sea,  through  which  he  safely  led  his  peo- 
ple; or  as  over  Og  the  king  of  Bashan,  the  slaughter  of 
whose  army  was  so  great,  as  that  our  victorious  troops 
were  forced  to  trample  over  their  slaughtered  and  bloodv 
bodies,  and  even  our  very  dogs  licked  up  their  blood,  and 
feasted  on  the  carnage. 

While  tie  sacrifices  were  offering,  which  concluded  the  whole 
solemnity,  they  closed  the  anthem  with  the  following  xerses. 

24.  Thy  people  have  now,  O  God,  seen  thy  marches,  the 
triumphant  marches  of  my  God  and  king,  present  in  his 
holy  sanctuary,  into  the  tabernacle  prepared  for  it,  amid 
the" loudest  acclamations  of  the  whole  assembly. 

25.  The  procession  was  led  by  a  chosen  band  of  singers, 
the  players  on  instruments  came  behind  them,  and  in  the 
midst  of  them  a  virgin  train,  who  accompanied  their  tim- 
brels with  the  harmony  of  their  voices,  and  sung : 


196 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  6. 


26.  "  O  celebrate  the  praises  of  God  in  this  united  con- 
gregation of  our  tribes.  Celebrate  the  praises  of  Jehovah, 
all  you  who  are  descended  from  Israel,  your  great  and 
fruitful  progenitor." 

27.  Even  Benjamin  himself  was  present,  who,  though 
the  smallest  of  our  tribes,  had  so  far  tne  pre-eminence  over 
the  rest,  as  to  give  the  first  king  and  ruler  to  the  people  ; 
even  he  was  present,  and  rejoiced  to  see  the  honour  done 
to  Jerusalem,  and  the  crown  established  on  my  head. 
Here  the  princes  of  Judah  attended,  with  the  supreme 
council  of  that  powerful  tribe ;  with  the  princes  of  Zebu- 
Ion,  and  those  of  Naphtali;  who  from  their  distant  borders 
joined  the  procession;  all  unanimously  consenting  that 
Jerusalem  should  become  the  seat  of  worship,  and  capital 
of  my  Icingdom. 

28.  It  is  thy  God,  O  Israel,  who  hath  thus  advanced 
thee,  as  a  nation,  to  thy  present  state  of  dignity  and  power. 
Strengthen,  O  God,  the  foundation  of  our  happiness,  and 
by  thy  favour  render  it  perpetual. 

29.  As  the  ark  of  thy  presence  is  now  fixed  in  Jerusalem, 
protect  it  by  thy  power,  and  let  the  kings  of  the  earth  bring 
their  gifts,  present  their  offerings,  and  pay  their  adoration 
at  thy  altar. 

30.  O  rebuke  and  break  the  power  of  the  Egyptian  croc- 
odile, his  princes  and  nobles,  who  pay  homage  to  their 
bulls,  and  all  his  people,  who  stupidly  worship  their  calves, 
and  dance  in  honour  of  them  to  the  tinkling  sounds  of 
instruments  and  bells.  Trample  under  foot  their  silver- 
plated  idols,  and  utterly  disperse  the  people  who  delight  in 
war, 

31.  Let  the  princes  of  Egypt  come  and  worship  at  thy 
sanctuary,  and  the  far-distant  Ethiopia  accustom  herself  to 
lift  up  her  hands  in  adoration  of  thy  majesty. 

32.  O  may  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  celebrate,  in 
sacred  songs,  the  majesty  of  our  God.  Let  all  sing  the 
praises  of  our  Jehovah. 

33.  He  is  the  omnipresent  God,  the  proprietor  and  Lord 
of  the  heaven  of  heavens,  which  he  spread  ottt  of  old.  He 
makes  the  clouds  his  chariot  when  he  rides  through  the 
heavens,  and  storms  and  tempests,  thunders  and  lightnings, 
the  instruments  of  his  vengeance  against  his  enemies. 
When  he  sends  forth  his  voice  in  the  mighty  thunder,  how 
awful  and  astonishing  that  voice  ! 

34.  Ascribe  to  him  that  almighty  strength  which  belongs 
to  him.  Though  his  empire  is  universal,  his  kingdom  is 
peculiarly  exaked  over  Israel,  by  whom  alone  he  is  ac- 
knowledged as  the  true  God,  and  who  manifests  the  great- 
ness of  his  power  in  the  clouds  of  heaven, 

35.  O  God,  the  God  of  Israel,  how  terrible  is  thy  majesty, 
when  thou  comest  forth  from  thy  heavenly  and  earthly 
sanctuaries,  for  the  destruction  of  thine  enemies,  and  the 
defence  of  thy  people.  It  is  he  who  inspires  them  with 
strength  and  courage,  and  renders  them  a  mighty  and 
powerful  nation.  Eternal  blessing  and  praise  be  ascribed 
unto  our  God, 

I  think  the  division  I  have  made  of  this  psalm,  into  its 
several  parts,  is  natural  and  easy,  which  the  subject  mat- 
ter of  it  points  out,  and  which  renders  the  whole  of  it  a 
regular,  well-connected,  and  elegant  composure.  With- 
out this,  or  some  such  method,  it  appears  to  me  broken, 
and  its  parts  independent  on  each  other ;  the  expressions 
will  be  many  of  them  unintelligible,  and  the  occasion  and 
propriety  of  them  scarcely  discernible.  The  very  learned 
Michaelis  acknowledges  the  difficulties  attending  this  psalm, 
and  I  suspect  my  own  strength,  when  I  attempt  to  do  what 
lie  thought  above  his  much  greater  abilities,  I  have  how- 
ever done  my  best,  and  submit  the  whole  to  the  candour  of 
niy  readers. 

I  shall  now  conclude  by  making  a  few  observations  on 
the  whole  anthem.  And  I  would  first  lake  notice  of  the 
great  and  glorious  subject  of  this  hymn.  It  is  the  God  of 
the  Hebrews,  and  designed  to  celebrate  his  praises,  on  ac- 
count of  the  perfections  of  his  nature,  and  the  operations  of 
his  providence.  And  with  what  dignity  is  he  described! 
How  high  and  worthy  the  character  given  him,  in  every 
respect  suitable  to  his  infinite  majesty,  and  the  moral 
rectitude  and  purity  of  his  nature  !  How  grand  are  the 
descriptions  of  him  as  the  omnipresent  God,  inhabiting  his 
smictuariesbolh  in  heaven  and  earth !  as  the  orisrinal  self-ex- 
isting being,  which  his  name  Jehovah  signifies;  the  tre- 
jwendous  being,  worthy  of  all  adoration  and  reverence,  in- 
•isded  in  the  name  of  Jah!  as  the  almighty  God,  encom- 


passed with  thousands  and  ten  thousands  of  angels,  and 
innumerable  chariots,  that  stand  ready  prepared  in  the 
armory  of  heaven !  that  rides  through  the  heavens  in  his 
majesty,  whose  voice  is  in  the  thunder,  Avho  makes  the 
clouds  and  vapours  of  heaven  subservient  to  his  pleasure, 
and  at  whose  presence  the  earth,  the  heavens  dissolve,  and 
the  highest  hills  seem  to  melt  away  like  wax  !  Descriptions 
the  most  sublime  in  their  nature,  and  that  tend  to  strike  the 
mind  with  a  holy  reverence  and  awe.  And  as  to  his 
moral  character,  and  providential  government  of  the  world, 
he  is  represented  as  the  righteous  God,  the  hater  and  punish- 
er  of  incorrigible  wickedness,  the  father  of  the  fatherless, 
the  judge  of  the  widow,  that  blesses  men  with  numerous 
families,  that  breaks  the  prisoner's  chains,  and  restores  him 
to  his  liberty;  the  God  and  guardian  of  his  people,  the 
great  disposer  of  victory,  and  giver  of  national  prosperity ; 
the  supreme  author  of  every  kind  of  salvation,  and  ay 
having  death  under  his  absolute  command,  and  directing 
the  outgoings  of  it  by  his  sovereign  will.  This  was  the 
God  of  the  ancient  Hebrews.  This  is  the  God  whom  Da- 
vid worshipped,  and  whom  all  wise  and  good  men  must 
acknowledge  and  adore.  Nor  is  there  one  circumstance  or 
expression  in  this  noble  composure,  derogatory  to  the 
majesty  and  honour  of  the  supreme  being,  or  that  can  con- 
vey a  single  sentiment  to  lessen  our  esteem  and  venera- 
tion for  him.  Let  any  one  compare,  with  this  psalm  of  Da- 
vid, the  ancient  hymns  of  the  most  celebrated  poets  on  their 
deities,  how  infinitely  short  will  they  fall  of  the  grandeur 
and  sublimity  which  appear  in  every  part  of  it.  Strip  the 
hymn  of  Callimachus  on  Jove  of  the  poetry  and  language, 
and  the  sentiments  of  it  will  appear  generally  puerile  and 
absurd,  and  it  could  not  be  read  without  the  utmost  con- 
tempt.     Jove    with   him,  that  aicv    ava^,  asi    ueyni,    (^iraffrroAoj 

ovpaviSrjai,  that  perpetual  king,  ever  great,  and  lawgiver 
to  the  celestial  deities,  as  he  calls  him,  was  born,  he  can't 
tell  where,  whether  in  Mount  Ida,  or  Arcadia,  washed  on 
his  birth  in  a  river  of  water,  to  cleanse  him  from  the  de- 
filements he  brought  into  the  world  with  him,  had  his  navel 
string  fall  from  him,  sucked  the  dugs  of  a  goaf,  and  ate 
sweet  honey,  and  so  at  last  he  grew  up  to  be  the  supreme 
God.  No  despicable  ballad  can  contain  more  execrable 
stuff  than  this,  and  some  other  like  circumstarces  that  he 
relates  of  him ;  circumstances  that  render  utterly  incredible 
what  he  says  of  him,  as  never  dying,  giving  laws  to  the 
gods,  obtaining  heaven  by  his  power  and  strength,  gov- 
erning kings  and  princes,  and  the  inspector  of  their 
actions,  the  giver  of  riches  and  prosperity,  wisdom  and 
virtue,  strength  and  power.  That  a  mortal-born  baby 
should  grow  up  to  become  the  one  supreme  and  immortal 
God,  or  an  infant  nursed  in  Crete  should  rise  to  be  the 
king  of  heaven,  or  one  who  gloried  in  his  adulteries, 
should  be  constituted  lawgiver  to  the  celestial  deities,  oi 
he  whose  character  was  stained  with  the  vilest  impurities, 
should  be  the  giver  of  virtue;  are  absurdities,  that  one 
would  think  it  was  impossible  for  any  one  to  digest.  How 
free  are  the  hymns  of  David  from  all  such  absurd,  dishon- 
ourable, and  impious  descriptions  of  God !  Every  senti- 
ment he  conveys  of  him  is  excellent  and  grand,  worthy  s 
being  of  infinite  perfection,  and  the  supreme  Lord  anc 
governor  of  the  universe.  It  would  be  easy  to  enlarge  or 
this  subject.  We  may  further  take  notice  of  the  propriet) 
of  these  historical  incidents,  that  the  Psalmist  takes  notice 
of  in  this  sacred  composure,  and  how  the  whole  of  it  ij 
calculated  to  promote  the  true  spirit  of  piety  and  rationa 
devotion.  The  ark,  that  was  now  translating  to  its  fixec 
seat  in  Jerusalem,  was  the  same  ark  that  accompanied  th( 
Hebrews  in  the  wilderness,  where  God  was  in  a  peculiai 
manner  present,  where  Moses  consulted  God,  where  h*; 
received  answers  from  him,  and  whence  he  received  hi. 
directions;  and  who  gave  him  manifest  tokens  of  his  spe- 
cial protection  and  favour,  in  the  miraculous  works  he 
performed  for  them.  Hence  David  puts  them  in  mind  oi 
God's  going  before  them  in  the  wilderness,  of  the  terroi 
of  his  majesty  on  monnt  Sinai,  of  the  manna  and  quail? 
he  rained  down  on  them  as  from  heaven,  of  the  viciorief 
he  gave  them  over  their  enemies,  and  his  enriching  them 
with  the  spoils  of  their  conquered  forces  and  countries  ;  tc 
excite  in  them  a  relierious  hope  and  trust,  that  God  would 
protect  Jerusalem,  which  was  to  be  the  future  residence  oj 
the  ark  of  his  presence,  and  bless  the  whole  nation  with 
prosperity,  if  they  continued  firm  in  their  allegiance  to  and 
worship  "of  him.    On  this  account  the  hymn  is  calculated 


Chap.  6. 


2   SAMUEL. 


197 


to  celebrate  his  praises  for  these  ancient  wonders  of  his 
power  and  goodness  wrought  in  their  favour,  as  well  as  for 
that  present  state  of  national  grandeur  and  prosperity  to 
which  he  had  advanced  them  under  David's  government; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  excite  their  fear  of  his  dis- 
pleasure, if  they  went  on  in  their  trespasses,  and  proved  a 
corrupt  and  wicked  people.  Well  might  this  grand  assem- 
bly be  glad  and  rejoice  before  their  God,  sing  praises  to  his 
name,  ascribe  all  power  and  dominion  to  him,  whose  excel- 
lency, whose  majesty  and  government,  were  peculiarly  over 
Israel  on  earth,  and  who  rules  in  heaven,  and  manifests 
his  power  in  the  clouds  thereof.  I  would  just  add,  that  the 
several  ascriptions  of  glory  to  God,  and  the  frequent  ex- 
hortations to  bless  him,  with  which  the  psalm  abounds, 
give  an  agreeable  relief  to  the  mind,  are  added  with  great 
propriety,  and  render  the  whole  composure  more  pleasing 
and  solemn.  It  was  customary,  as  has  been  observed, 
among  the  gentiles,  to  celebrate  the  supposed  advent  of 
their  gods,  at  particular  times,  and  to  particular  places, 
•with  the  greatest  demonstrations  of  joy ;  but  David  had 
much  nobler  reasons  for  introducing  the'  ark  into  the  tab- 
ernacle he  had  prepared  for  it  at  Jerusalem,  with  all  the 
pomp  and  splendour,  and  public  festivity  and  joy,  that  could 
possibly  be  shown  on  the  occasion.  The  whole  procession 
was  in'honour  of,  and  a  national  instance  of  homage  paid 
to  the  true  God.  By  the  ark's  being  fixed  at  Jerusalem, 
that  God,  who  honoured  the  ark  with  the  tokens  of  his  pres- 
ence, made  Jerusalem  his  perpetual  habitation,  became 
the  immediate  guardian  and  protector  of  the  new-built  city, 
and  thereby  peculiarly  concerned  for  its  prosperity  and 
peace.  This  is  represented  as  the  language  of  God  himself 
"  The  Lord  hath  chosen  Sion.  He  hath  desired  it  for  his 
habitation.  This  is  my  rest  for  ever.  Here  will  I  dwell, 
for  I  have  desired  it.  I  will  abundantly  bless  her  provis- 
ions.   Her  saints  shall  shout  aloud  for  joy." — Chandler. 

Ver.  3.  And  they  set  the  ark  of  God  upon  a  new 
cart,  and  brought  it  out  of  the  house  of  Abina- 
dab  that  was  in  Gibeah :  and  Uzzah  and  Ahio, 
the  sons  of  Abinadab,  drave  the  new  cart. 

! 

The  history  of  conveyance  by  means  of  vehicles,  carried 
or  drawn,  is  a  subject  too  extensive  to  be  treated  of  fully 
here.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  that  after  man  had  accus- 
tomed cattle  to  submit  to  the  control  of  a  rider,  and  to  sup- 
port the  incumbent  weight  of  a  person,  or  persons,  whether 
the  animal  were  ox,  camel,  or  horse,  that  the  next  step 
was  to  load  such  a  creature,  properly  trained,  with  a  litter, 
or  portable  conveyance ;  balanced,  perhaps,  on  each  side. 
This  might  be  long  before  the  mechanism  of  the  wheel  was 
employed,  as  it  is  still  practised  among  pastoral  people. 
Nevertheless,  we  find  that  wheel-carriages  are  of  great  an- 
tiquity ;  for  we  read  of  wagons  so  early  as  Gen.  xlv.  19, 
.  and  military  carriages,  perhaps,  for  chiefs  and  officers,  first 
of  all,  in  Exodus  xiv.  25:  "  The  Lord  took  off"  the  chariot 
wheels  of  the  Egyptians :"  and  as  these  were  the  fighting 
strength  of  Egypt,  this  agrees  with  those  ancient  writers, 
who  report  that  Egypt  was  not,  in  its  early  state,  intersect- 
ed by  canals,  as  in  later  ages;  after  the  formation  of 
which,  wheel-carriages  were  laid  aside,  and  little  used, 
if  at  all.  The  first  mention  of  chariots,  we  believe,  occurs 
Genesis  xli.  43 :  "  Pharaoh  caused  Joseph  to  ride  {recab)  in 
the  second  chariot  {marecabetK)  that  belonged  to  him." 
This,  most  likely,  was  a  chariot  of  state,  not  an  ordinary 
or  travelling,  but  a  handsome  equipage,  iDecoming  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  monarch's  person  and  power.  We  find, 
as  already  hinted.  Gen.  xlv.  19,  that  Egypt  had  another 
kind  of  wheel-carriage,  better  adapted  to  the  conveyance 
of  burdens ;  "  Take  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt  (ni^jp  ogeluth) 
wagons,  wheel-carriages,  for  conveyance  of  your  little  ones 
and  your  women  :"  these  were  family  vehicles,  for  the  use 
of  ihe  feeble;  including,  if  need  be,  Jacob  himself :  accord- 
ingly, we  read  (verse  27)  of  the  wagons  which  Joseph  had 
:  sent  to  carr ,  him,  (Jacob,)  and  which  perhaps  the  aged  pa- 
triarch knew  by  their  construction  to  be  Egypt-built;  for, 
so  soon  as  he  sees  them,  he  believes  the  reports  from  that 
country,  though  he  had  doubted  of  them  before  when  de- 
'  livered  to  him  by  his  sons.  This  kind  of  chariot  deserves 
attention,  as  we  find  it  afterward  employed  on  various  oc- 
casions in  scripture,  among  which  are  the  following:  first, 
it  was  intended  by  the  princes  of  Israel  for  carrying  parts 
of  the  sacred  utensils;  Numb.  vii.  3:  "  They  brought  their 


offering — six  covered  wagons  {ogeluth)  and  twelve  oxen  ;" 
— (two  oxen  to  each  wagon.)  Here  these  wagons  are  ex- 
pressly said  to  be  covered ;  and  it  should  appear  that  they 
were  so  generally;  beyond  question  those  sent  by  Joseph 
for  the  women  of  Jacob's  family  were  so ;  among  other  pur- 
poses, for  that  of  seclusion.  Perhaps  this  is  a  radical  idea 
in  their  name;  as  gal  signifies  circle^  these  wagons  might 
be  covered  by  circular  headings,  spread  on  hoops,  like 
those  of  our  own  wagons  ;  what  we  call  a  tilt.  Consider- 
able importance  attaches  to  this  heading,  or  tilt,  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  curiosity  of  the  men  of  Belhshemesh,  1  Sam.  vi. 
7,  where  we  read  that  the  Philistines  advised  to  make  a 
new  covered  wagon,  or  cart  (ogeleh;) — and  the  ark  of  the 
Lord  was  put  into  it — and,  no  doubt,  was  carefully  cover- 
ed over — concealed — secluded  by  those  who  sent  it; — it 
came  to  Bethshemesh ;  and  the  men  of  that  town  who  were 
reaping  in  the  fields,  perceiving  the  cart  coming,  went  and 
examined  what  it  contained :  "  and  they  saw  the  very  (hn) 
ark,  and  were  joyful  in  seeing  it."  Those  who  first  exam- 
ined it,  instead  of  carefully  covering  it  up  again,  as  a  sa- 
cred utensil,  suffered  it  to  lie  open  to  common  inspection, 
which  they  encouraged,  in  order  to  triumph  in  the  votive 
offerings  ft  had  acquired,  and  to  gratify  profane  curiosity; 
the  Lord,  therefore,  punished  the  people,  (verse  19,)  "be- 
cause they  had  inspected— ;/ne^Z  iido  (2)  the  ark."  This 
affords  a  clear  view  of  the  transgression  of  these  Israelites, 
who  had  treated  the  ark  with  less  reverence  than  the  Phi- 
listines themselves ;  for  those  heathen  conquerors  had  at 
least  behaved  to  Jehovah  with  no  less  respect  than  they  did 
to  their  own  deities;  and  being  accustomed  to  carry  them 
in  covered  wagons,  for  privacy,  they  maintained  the  same 
privacy  as  a  mark  of  honour  to  the  Gfod  of  Israel.  The  Le- 
vites  seemed  to  have  been  equally  culpable  with  the  com- 
mon people ;  they  ought  to  have  conformed  to  the  law, 
and  not  to  have  suffered  their  triumph  on  this  victorious 
occasion  to  beguile  them  into  a  transgression  so  contrary 
to  the  very  first  principles  of  the  theocracy.  That  this 
word  ogcleh  describes  a  covered  wagon,  we  learn  from 
a  third  instance,  that  of  Uzzah,  2  Sam.  vi.  3,  for  we  can- 
not suppose,  that  David  could  so  far  forget  the  dignity  of 
the  ark  of  the  covenant,  as  to  suffer  it  to  be  exposed,  in  a 
public  procession,  to  the  eyes  of  all  Israel;  especially  after 
the  punishment  of  the  people  of  Belhshemesh.  "  They 
carried  the  ark  of  God,  on  a  new  ogelch — covered  cart" 
— and  Uzzah  put  forth  [his  hand,  or  some  catching  in- 
strument] to  the  ark  of  God,  and  laid  hold  of  it,  to  stop 
its  advancing  any  farther,  but  the  oxen  harnessed  to  the 
car*,  going  on,  they  drcAV  the  cart  away  from  the  ark,  and 
the  whole  weight  of  the  ark  falling  out  of  the  cart  unex- 
pectedly, on  Uzzah,  crushed  him  to  death  — "and  he  died 
on  the  spot,  with  the  ark  of  God"  upon  him.  And  David 
called  the  place  "the  breach  of  Uzzah" — that  is,  where 
Uzzah  was  broken — crushed  to  death.  See  now  the  pro- 
portionate severity  of  the  punishments  attending  profs- 
nation  of  the  ark.  1.  The  Philistines  suffered  by  diseases, 
from  which  they  were  relieved  after  their  oblations. 
2.  The  Bethshemites  also  sufl^ered,  but  not  fatally,  by  dis- 
eases of  a  different  nature,  which,  after  a  time,  passed  off. 
These  were  inadvertences.  But,  3.  Uzzah,  who  ought  to 
have  been  fully  instructed  and  correctly  obedient,  who  con- 
ducted the  procession,  who  was  himself  a  Levite — this  man 
was  punished  fatally  for  his  remissness — his  inattention  lo 
the  law;  which  expressly  directed  that  the  ark  should  be 
carried  on  the  shoulders  of  the  priests,  the  Kohathites, 
Numb.  iv.  4,  19,20,  distinct  from  those  things  carried  in 
ogeluth — covered  wagons,  chap.  vii.  9.  That  this  kind  of 
wagon  was  used  for  carrving  considerable  weights  and 
even  cumbersome  goods,  (and  therefore  was  fairly  analo- 
gous to  our  Own  wagons — tilted  wagons,)  we  gather  from 
the  expression  of  the  Psalmist,  xlvi.  9 : — 

He  maketh  wars  to  cease  to  the  end  of  the  earth  , 
The  bow  he  breaketh  ;  and  cutteth  asunder  the  spear ; 
The  chariots  (ogeluth)  he  burneth  in  the  fire. 

The  writer  is  mentioning  the  instruments  of  war — the 
bow — the  spear;  then,  he  says,  the  wagons  (plural)  which 
used  to  return  home  loaded  with  plunder,  these  share  the 
fate  of  th"ir  companions,  the  bow  and  the  spear;  and  are 
burned  h-  .he  fire,  the  very  idea  of  the  classical  allegory, 
peace  burning  the  implements  of  war,  introduced  here  with 
the  happiest  effect:  not  the  general's  marecabelh ;  but  the 
plundering  wagons.  This  is  still  more  expressive,  if  these 
wagons  carried  captives ;  which  we  know  they  did  in  other 


198 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  6. 


tastances,  women  and  children.  "The  captive-carrying 
wagon  is  burnt."  There  can  be  no  stronger  description  of 
the  effect  of  peace ;  and  it  closes  the  period  with  peculiar 
emphasis. — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  6.  And  when  they  came  to  Nachon's  thrash- 
ing-floor, Uzzah  put  forth  his  hand  to  the  ark 
of  God,  and  took  hold  of  it ;  for  the  oxen  shook 
it.  7.  And  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled 
against  Uzzah,  and  God  smote  him  there  for 
his  error ;  and  there  he  died  by  the  ark  of  God. 

Happy  were  it  for  us,  if  we  could  account  for  the  opera- 
tions of  God,  with  the  same  facility  that  we  can  for  the 
aciions  of  his  saints  ;  but  his  counsels  are  a  great  deep,  and 
hi.-  judgments  (just  though  they  be)  are  sometimes  obscure, 
and  past  finding  out.  For  what  shall  we  say  to  the  fate  of 
Uzzah  1  or  what  tolerable  cause  can  we  assign  for  his  sud- 
den and  untimely  end'?  It  was  now  near  seventy  years  since 
„.i .  Israelites  had  carried  the  ark  from  place  toplace,  and 
i>^  long  a  disuse  had  made  them  forget  the  manner  of  doing 
ir.  In  conformity  to  what  they  had  heard  of  the  Philis- 
tines, they  put  it  into  a  new  cart,  or  wagon,  but  this  was 
against  the  express  direction  of  the  law,  which  ordered  it 
to  be  borne  upon  men's  shoulders.  It  is  commonly  sup- 
posed that  Uzzah  was  a  Levite,  though  there  is  no  proof  of 
It  from  scripture  ;  but  supposing  he  was,  he  had  no  right  to 
attend  upon  the  ark ;  that  province,  by  the  same  law,  was 
restramed  to  those  Levites  only  who  were  of  the  house  of 
Kohath :  nay,  put  the  case  he  had  been  a  Kohathite  by 
birth,  yet  he  had  violated  another  command,  which  prohib- 
ited even  these  Levites,  (though  they  carried  it  by  staves 
upon  their  shoulders,)  upon  pain  of  death,  to  touch  it  with 
.heir  hands :  so  that  here  was  a  threefold  transgression 
.of  the  divine  will  in  this  method  of  proceeding.  The  ark, 
fas  some  say,)  by  Uzzah's  direction,  was  placed  in  a  cart ; 
Uzzah,  without  any  proper  designation,  adventures  to  at- 
tend it ;  when  he  thought  it  in  danger  of  falling,  offi- 
ciously he  put  forth  his  hand,  and  laid  hold  on  it,  (all  vio- 
lating of  th  '  divine  commands  !)  and  this  (as  is  supposed) 
not  so  much  oui  of  reverence  to  the  sacred  symbol  of  God's 
presence,  as  out  of  diffidence  of  his  providence,  as  unable 
to  preserve  it  from  overturning.  The  truth  is,  this  ark 
had  so  long  continued  in  obscurity,  that  the  people,  in  a 
manner,  had  almost  lost  all  sense  of  a  divine  power  residing 
m  it,  and  therefore  approached  it  with  irreverence.  This 
is  implied  in  David's  exhortation  to  Zadock  and  Abiathar, 
after  this  misfortune  upon  Uzzah.  "  Ye  are  the  chief  of 
tlie  fathers  of  the  Levites,  sanctify  yourselves  therefore, 
both  ye  and  your  brethren,  that  you  may  bring  up  the  ark 
of  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  unto  the  place  that  I  have  pre- 
]  "ed  for  it ;  for,  because  ye  did  it  not  at  the  firsts  the  Lord 
our  God  made  a  breach  upon  us,  for  that  we  sought  him  not 
after  the  due  order."  What  wonder  then,  if  God,  being 
minded  to  testify  his  immediate  presence  with  the  ark,  to 
retrieve  the  ancient  honour  of  that  sacred  vessel,  and  to 
curb  all  licentious  profanations  of  it  for  the  future,  should 
single  out  one  that  was  the  most  culpable  of  many,  one 
who,  in  three  instances,  was  then  violating  his  commands, 
to  be  a  monument  of  his  displeasure  against  either  a  wilful 
ignorance  or  a  rude  contempt  of  his  precepts,  be  they  ever 
so  seemingly  small ;  that  by  such  an  example  of  terr'  ^  he 
might  inspire  both  priests  and  people  with  a  sacred  dread 
of  his  majesty,  and  a  profound  veneration  for  his  mysteries. 
—  Stackhouse. 

Ver.  13.  And  it  was  so,  that  when  they  that  bare 
the  ark  of  the  Lord  had  gone  six  paces,  he 
sacrificed  oxen  and  fatlings. 

From  these  words,  some  would  infer,  that  David,  having 
measured  the  ground  between  Obed-edom's  house,  and  the 
place  he  had  built  for  the  reception  of  the  ark,  had  altars 
raised,  at  the  distance  of  every  six  paces,  whereon  he  caused 
sacriQces  to  be  offered  as  the  ark  passed  by.  But  it  is  easy 
to  imagine  what  a  world  of  confusion  this  would  create  in 
the  procession,  and  therefore  the  more  rational  construction 
i<,  that  after  those  who  carried  the  ark  had  advanced  six 
paces,  without  any  such  token  of  divine  wrath  as  Uzzah 
had  undergone,  then  did  they  offer  a  sacrifice  to  God,  which 
might  consist  of  several  living  creatures,  all  sacrificed  and 


offered  up  at  once.  But  even  supposing  that,  at  set  distan- 
ces, there  were  sacrifices  all  along  the  way  that  they  went ; 
yet  we  are  to  know  that  it  was  no  unusual  thing  for  hea- 
thens to  confer  on  their  gods,  nay,  even  upon  their  empe- 
rors, the  same  honours  that  we  find  David  here  bestowing 
upon  the  ark  of  the  God  of  Israel.  For  in  this  manner 
(as  Suetonius  tells  us)  was  Otho  received— Cum  per  omne 
iter,  dextra  finistraque,  oppidatim  victimse  csderentur :  and 
the  like  he  relates  of  Caligula — Ut  a  miseno  movit,  inter 
altaria,  et  victimas,  ardentesque  ta^das,  dencissimo  ac 
laetissimo  obviorum  agmine  incessit.-^STACKHousE. 

Ver.  14.  And  David  danced  before  the  Lord 
with  all  his  might ;  and  David  ivas  girded  with 
a  linen  ephod. 

In  the  oriental  dances,  in  which  the  women  engage  by 
themselves,  the  lady  of  highest  rank  in  the  company  takes 
the  lead;  and  is  followed  by  her  companions,  who  imitate 
her  steps,  and  if  she  sings,  make  up  the  chorus.  The  tunes 
are  extremely  gay  and  lively,  yet  with  something  in  them 
wonderfully  soft.  The  steps  are  varied  according  to  the 
pleasure  of  her  who  leads  the  dance,  but  always  in  exact 
time.  This  statement  may  enable  us  to  form  a  correct  idea 
of  the  dance,  which  the  women  of  Israel  performed  under 
the  direction  of  Miriam,  on  the  banks  of  the  Red  Sea.  The 
prophetess,  we  are  told,  "  took  a  timbrel  in  her  hand,  and 
all  the  women  went  out  after  her,  with  timbrels  and  dan- 
ces." She  led  the  dance,  while  they  imitated  her  steps, 
which  were  not  conducted  according  to  a  set,  well-known 
form,  as  in  this  country,  but  extemporaneous.  The  conjec- 
ture of  Mr.  Harmer  is  extremely  probable,  that  David  did 
not  dance  alone  before  the  Lord,  when  he  brought  up  the 
ark,  but  as  being  the  highest  in  rank,  and  more  skilful  than 
any  of  the  people,  he  led  the  religious  dance  of  the  males. 
— JPaxton. 

Ver.  16.  And  as  the  ark  of  the  Lord  came  into 
the  city  of  David,  Michal,  Saul's  daughter,  look- 
ed through  a  window,  and  saw  King  David 
leaping  and  dancing  before  the  Lord  ;  and  she 
despised  him  in  her  heart.  17.  And  they 
brought  in  the  ark  of  the  Lord,  and  set  it  in 
his  place,  in  the  midst  of  the  tabernacle  that 
David  had  pitched  for  it :  and  David  offered 
burnt-offerings  and  peace-offerings  before  the 
Lord.  18.  And  as  soon  as  David  had  made 
an  end  of  offering  burnt-offerings  and  peace- 
offerings,  he  blessed  the  people  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  of  hosts.  19.  And  he  dealt  among 
all  the  people,  eve7i  among  the  whole  multitude* 
of  Israel,  as  well  to  the  women  as  men,  to  every 
one  a  cake  of  bread,  and  a  good  piece  of  flesh, 
and  a  flagon  of  wine.  So  all  the  people  de- 
parted every  one  to  his  house.  20.  Then  Da- 
vid returned  to  bless  his  household.  And  Mi- 
chal, the  daughter  of  Saul,  came  out  to  meet 
David,  and  said,  How  glorious  was  the  king  of 
Israel  to-day,  who  uncovered  himself  to-day  in 
the  eyes  of  the  handmaids  of  his  servants,  as 
one  of  the  vain  fellows  shamelessly  uncovereth 
himself! 

When  this  public  transaction  of  removing  the  ark  was 
happily  concluded,  the  pious  prince  retired  to  his  palace, 
to  bless  his  own  family  and  household,  and  share  with  them 
the  public  joy.  But  an  unexpected  accident  interrupted  the 
plea.sure  he  promised  himself,  and  could  not  but  greatly 
affect  him,  as  it  arose  from  one,  from  whom  he  had  no 
reason  to  expect  the  contemptuous  treatment  that  she  gave 
him.  As  the  ark  of  the  Lord  was  just  entered  into  the  city 
of  David,  or  mount  Sion,  Michal,  Saul's  daughter,  looked 
through  a  window  of  the  palace  to  behold  the  procession, 
saw  David  dancing  with  great  spirit  and  earnestness,  and 
viewed  him  with  contempt;  or,  as  the  text  says,  she  de- 
spised him  in  her  heart ;  and  when,  after  the  solemnity. 


Chap.  6. 


2  SAMUEL. 


199 


David  was  returned  to  his  habitation,  she  came  out  to  meet 
him,  and,  with  indignation  and  a  sneer,  said  to  him,  "  How 
glorious  was  the  king  of  Israel  to-day,  who  openly  showed 
himself  to-day  to  the  eyes  of  the  handmaids  of  his  servants, 
as  one  of  the  vain  persons  openly  shows  himself  I"  David's 
answer  to  her  was  severe,  but  just.  "  Have  I  descended  be- 
neath the  dignity  of  my  character,  as  king  of  Israel,  by 
diviesting  myself  of  my  royal  robes,  appearing  publicly 
among  my  people,  and,  like  them,  dancing  and  playing  be- 
fore the  ark  1  It  was  before  the  Lord,  who  chose  me  be- 
lore  thy  father,  and  before  all  his  house,  to  appoint  me 
ruler  over  the  people  of  the  Lord.  Therefore  will  I  play 
on  my  iiarp  before  the  Lord;  and  if  this  be  to  make  myself 
cheap  and  contemptible,  I  will  be  more  so  than  this ;  and 
how  high  soever  be  my  condition  as  king,  1  will  always 
be  humble  in  the  judgment  I  form  of  myself;  and  as  for 
those  maid-servants  of  whom  thou  speakest,  I  shall  be 
honoured  among  them  ;  the  very  meanest  of  the  people 
wiil  respect  me  the  more  for  my  popularity,  when  they  see 
me  condescend  to  share  in  their  sacred  mirth,  and  express 
it  in  the  same  manner,  by  which  they  testify  their  own  joy 
in  the  public  solemnities."  In  this  he  acted  as  a  wise  and 
politic,  as  well  as  a  religious  prince;  for  in  ancient  times 
dancing  itself  was  in  use,  as  a  religious  ceremony,  and  in 
testimony  of  gratitude  and  joy,  in  public  solemnities.  Thus 
Miriam,  the  prophetess,  took  a  timbrel  in  her  hand,  and  all 
the  womf-n  vi^ent  out  after  her  with  timbrels  and  with 
dances,  to  celebrate  their  deliverance  from  Pharaoh,  his  de- 
struction in  the  Red  Sea,  and  their  own  safe  passage  through 
the  waters  of  it.  So  also  Jephthah's  daughter  met  her  father 
with  timbrels  and  dances,  to  congratulate  his  victory  over 
the  Ammonites,  and  God's  having  taken  vengeance  for 
him  of  those  enemies.  Thus  at  the  yearly  feast  of  the 
Lord  at  Shiloh,  the  virgins  of  the  place  came  out  to  dance 
in  dances.  It  was  used  also  frequently  among  the  gentiles, 
by  the  greatest  personages  in  honour  of  the  gods,  and  re- 
commended by  the  greatest  philosophers,  as  a  thing  highly 
decent  and  becoming  in  itself. 

But  though  David  acted  from  a  truly  religious  zeal,  yet 
De  had  been  very  severely  censured  for  his  habit  and  be- 
haviour on  this  occasion  ;  being  dressed,  as  it  hath  been 
represented,  in  a  linen  ephod,  and  "  dancing  before  the 
Lord,  in  such  a  frantic  indecent  manner,  that  he  exposed 
his  nakedness  to  the  bystanders."  Mr.  Bayle  in  the  first 
part  of  his  remarks,  expresses  himself  in  a  more  cautious 
and  temperate  manner,  and  (|pth  not  pass  his  judgment, 
whether  David  discovered  his  nakedness  or  not ;  but  says, 
that  "if  he  did  discover  it,  his  action  might.be  deemed 
ill,  morally  speaking  ;  but  if  he  did  no  more  than  make 
himself  contemptible  by  his  postures,  and  by  not  keeping 
up  the  majesty  of  his  character,  it  was  but  ari  imprudence 
at  most,  and  not  a  crime."  He  adds,  that  "  it  ought  to  be 
considered,  on  what  occasion  it  was  that  he  danced.  It 
was  when  the  ark  was  carried  to  Jerusalem,  and  conse- 
quently the  excess  of  his  joy  and  of  his  leaping,  testified  his 
attachment  and  sensibility  for  sacred  things."  I  shall  just 
remark  here,  that  if  David  did  really  discover  his  naked- 
ness on  this  occasion,  yet  if  it  was  merely  accidental,  and 
without  any  design,  it  could  not  be  deemed  ill,  morally 
speaking,  by  any  good  judge  of  morality.  I  apprehend 
also  that  Mr.  Bayle  doth  not  know  enough  of  David's  man- 
ner of  dancing,  and  the  postures  he  made  use  of,  to  be  sure 
that  he  rendered  himself  deservedly  ridiculous  by  the  use 
of  them  ;  because  persons  may  dance  in  a  very  brisk  and 
lively  manner,  without  any  postures  that  shall  deserve 
contempt,  and  because  there  is  no  word  in  the  original,  that 
is  made  use  of  to  express  David's  behaviour  in  this  pro- 
cession, that  either  implies,  or  will  justify  such  a  supposi- 
tion. 

The  case  which  Mr.  Bayle  mentions  from  Ferrand  of 
St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  is  so  perfectly  different  from  that  of 
David,  as  that  it  should  not  have  been  related  by  him  in 
the  article  of  David,  at  least  without  some  mark  of  disap- 
probation. St.  Francis  voluntarily  stripped  himself  stark 
naked,  in  the  presence  of  many  persons,  met  together  to  be 
witness  to  his  absolute  renunciation  of  his  paternal  inher- 
i'ance.  This  was  the  downright  madness  of  enthusiasm. 
David,  on  the  contrary,  divested  himself  only  of  his  royal 
dress,  and  put  on  such  a  habit,  as  effectually  preserved 
him  from  everv  thing  of  indecency  and  absurdity  in  his 
appearance.  For  he  was  clothed  in  a  double  garment;  a 
lobe  of  fine  linen,  with  a  linen  ephod.    These  two  gar- 


ments are  expressly  distinguished  in  the  account  of  the  vest- 
ments tf  the  high-priesis :  "Thou  shaU  take  garments  and 
put  upon  Aaron,  (and  as  we  well  render  it,)  ihe  ephod,  and 
the  robe  of  the  ephod."  And  again  :  "  Thet-e  are  the  gar- 
ments, which  they  shall  make,  the  breastplate,  and  the 
ephod,  and  the  robe."  The  fabric  of  them  was  different ; 
the  ephod  being  made  of  gold,  blue,  purpk,  and  scarlet; 
but  the  robe  formed  all  of  blue.  The  shape  of  them  was 
also  different ;  the  ephod  teaching  only  to  the  knees,  but 
the  robe  flowing  down  so  as  to  cover  the  feet;  called  there- 
fore by  the  LXX.  vo^r)(m^  and  the  Vulgate  version,  stola. 
The  robe  also  had  no  division  in  it  throughout,  but  was 
made  whole  and  round,  with  an  opening  in  the  middle  of 
it,  on  the  top,  so  that  it  was  impossible  that  any  part  of  the 
body  could  be  seen  through  it ;  or  that  David,  in  dancing, 
could  expose  to  view,  what  decency  required  him  to  con- 
ceal ;  especially  as  the  ephod  was,  on  this  occasion,  thrown 
over  it,  and  certainly  tied  with  a  girdle,  as  the  priest's 
ephod  always  was.  With  these  linen  garments  David 
clothed  himself  on  this  solemnity,  both  out  of  reverence 
for  God,  and  for  conveniency ;  because  they  were  cooler, 
and  less  cumbersome  than  his  royal  habit,  and  would  not 
occasion  that  large  perspiration,  which  the  exercise  of 
dancing  would  otherwise  have  produced.  And  however 
improper  such  a  long  flowing  robe,  girt  round  with  a  girdle, 
may  be  thought  for  a  man  dancing  with  all  his  might,  yet 
it  is  certain  that  David  did  dance  in  such  a  one,  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  think  it  could  be  anywise  inconvenient  to 
him.  For,  though  the  robe  was  close,  i.  e.  had  no  opening 
from  the  breast  to  the  feet,  and  was  girt  round  with  the 
ephod,  yet  it  was  large  and  wide,  and  flowing  at  the  lower 
end ;  and  hanging  down  in  various  folds,  gave  room  suffi- 
cient for  the  full  exercise  of  the  feet  in  dancing.  And  of 
this  every  one  will  have  full  conviction,  who  frequents 
any  of  our  polite  assemblies,  in  which  he  will  see  many  fair 
ones  dance,  like  the  king  of  Israel,  with  all  their  might, 
without  any  great  inconvenience  from  the  flowing  habits, 
which  so  greatly  adorn  them. 

It  may  be  further  observed,  that  this  robe  was  worn  by 
kings,  their  children,  priests,  Levites,  and  prophets,  when 
they  appeared  on  very  solemn  occasions,  which  also  cov- 
ered over  their  other  garments.  Thus  Samuel  is  repre- 
sented as  covered  with  a  robe  or  mantle,  as  we  render  it. 
All  the  Leviies,  that  bare  the  ark,  and  the  singers,  aid 
Chenaniah,  the  master  of  the  carriage,  or  of  those  wno 
carried  the  ark,  appeared  in  it  on  this  very  occasion.  Kings' 
daughters  were  clothed  in  the  same  habit.  The  princes 
of  the  sea  wore  them.  And  even  God  himself  is  repre- 
sented, clad  with  zeal,  as  with  a  robe.  As  David  therefore 
dressed  himself  on  this  occasion,  with  a  long  flowing  linen 
robe,  instead  of  the  robe  of  stale,  proper  to  him  as  king  of 
Israel,  which  was  made  of  different,  and  much  richer  ma- 
terials ;  he  was  scornfully  insulted  by  Saul's  daughter,  not 
for  exposing  his  nakedness  to  the  spectators,  which  he  no 
more  did,  nor  could  do,  than  all  the  rest  of  the  attendants, 
who  wore  the  same  habit,  but  for  uncovering  himself  in 
the  eyes  of  the  handmaids  of  his  servants,  i.  e.  appearing 
openly  before  the  meanest  of  the  people,  in  a  dress,  wholly 
unworthy,  as  she  thought,  the  character  and  majesty  of  the 
king  of  Israel.  Nor  was  this  all ;  for  it  appears,  by  part  of 
David's  answer  to  Michal,  that  she  was  particularly  offend- 
ed with  his  playing  publicly  on  the  harp;  and,  probably, 
she  mimicked  and  ridiculed  him,  by  the  attitude  in  v/hich 
she  put  herself  on  this  occasion.  For,  in  answer  to  her 
reproach,  David  says  to  her,  "  It  was  before  the.  Lord  that  I 
uncovered  myself  ....  therefore  I  will  play  before  the 
Lord,"  i.  e.  look  on  it  with  what  contempt  you  please,  yet  as 
I  openly  played  on  my  harp  in  the  presence,  and  in  honour 
of  God,  I  glory  in  it,  and  will  continue  to  do  it,  when  any 
fair  opportunity  presents  itself.  His  particularly  mention- 
ing joto?/mif  6e/(9r^  the  Lord,  plainly  shows,  that  there  was 
somewhat,  in  the  nature  and  "manner  of  her  reproach,  that 
gave  occasion  to  it. 

Besides,  it  should  be  remarked,  that  the  eastern  princes, 
out  of  affectation,  and  to  strike  the  people  with  greater  rev- 
erence, seldom  appeared  in  public,  and  whenever  they 
did,  not  without  great  pomp  and  solemnity ;  as  is  the  cus- 
tom among  them  to  this  day.  Michal  therefore  unquestion- 
ably thought,  that  David  made  himself  too  cheap,  by  thus 
discovering  himself  to  public  view,  without  anv  royal  pomp, 
or  marks  of  distinction,  and  familiarly  mixing  himself 
with  the  attendants  on  this  solemnity,  as  though  he  had 


200 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  7. 


been  one  of  them,  and  not  the  king  of  Israel.  And  the 
meaning  of  Michal's  words  in  this  view  will  be :  JJow  glo- 
rious was  the  king  of  Israel  to-day,  who  uncovered,  i.  e. 
stripped  himself  of  his  majesty,  and  all  the  ensigns  of  his  royal 
dignity,  and  openly  exposed  himself  to  the  most  public  view 
of  the  meanest  of  the  people,  as  a  vain  thoughtless  person, 
who,  without  a  proper  habit,  or  regard  to  character,  expo- 
ses himself  to  public  ridicule  and  scorn ! 

Mr.  Bayle  seems  to  be  pretty  much  of  Michal's  opinion, 
when  he  says,  "  It  would  be  thought  very  strange,  in  any 
part  of  Europe,  if,  on  a  day  of  procession  of  the  holy  sac- 
rament, the  kings  should  dance  in  the  streets  with  nothing 
but  a  small  girdle  on  their  bodies."  It  may  be  so,  but  the 
observation  is  nothing  to  the  purpose,  because  David  did 
not  dance  in  the  streets  in  this  manner,  as  he  insinuates. 
Besides,  Mr.  Bayle  could  not  but  know,  that  customs  vary, 
and  that  the  same  customs  may  be  thought  very  venerable 
and  ridiculous,  in  different  nations,  and  at  different  times. 
However  solemn  and  sacred  the  procession  of  the  sacra- 
ment might  have  seemed  here,  two  or  three  centuries  ago, 
and  may  at  this  day  appear  in  popish  countries,  it  would 
now  seem  a  most  contemptible  and  absurd  farce  in  this  na- 
tion. We  should  look  with  indignation  and  scorn,  to  see 
a  crowned  head  holding  the  stirrup  or  bridle  of  a  triple- 
mitred  monk's  horse,  or  humbly  bending  to  kiss  his  toe ;  or 
emperors  and  princes  carrying  wax  candles  in  their  hands, 
in  company  of  a  set  of  shorn  baldpated  priests,  or  devoutly 
praying  befoi;e  a  dead  log  of  wood,  or  going  in  pilgrimage 
to  consecrated  statues,  and  kiss  thresholds,  and  venerate 
the  relics  of  dead  bodies;  and  yet,  despicable  as  these 
practices  are  in  themselves,  they  have  been  used,  and  some 
of  them  continue  in  other  nations  to  be  used  to  this  day ; 
and  have  been,  and  are  now,  so  far  from  being  thought 
strange  or  ridiculous,  as  that  they  were,  and  are  still  es- 
teemed very  high  and  laudable  instances  of  piety  and  de- 
votion. 

If  we  examine  the  words  themselves,  by  which  Michal 
reproached  David,  they  can  never  be  fairly  so  interpreted, 
as  to  mean  that  indecency,  which  some  writers  would  be 
glad  to  find  in  them ;  and  as  to  David's  answer,  it  is  utterly 
inconsistent  with  such  a  meaning.     David  said  to  Michal, 
"  It  was  before  the  Lord."    What  was  before  the  Lord  1 
What,  his  discovering  his  nakedness  1     The  very  consid- 
eration of  his  being  before  the  Lord  would  have  prevented 
it,  as  he  knew  that  such  an  indecency,  in  the  solemnities  of 
divine  worship,  was  highly  offensive  to  God,  and  prohibit- 
ed under  penalty  of  death.    Again  he  says,  "  Therefore 
will  I  play  before  the  Lord,"  i.  e.  play  upon  my  harp; 
which  must  refer  to  her  reproaching  him,  as  appearing  like 
a  common  harper  ;  for  it  would  be  no  answer  to  her,  had 
she  reproached  him  for  that  scandalous  appearance,  which 
some  would  make  him  guilty  of.    Further  he  adds  :  "And 
I  will  be  more  vile  than  this,  and  will  be  base  in  my  own 
sight."     I  will  not  scruple  to  submit  to  lower  services  than 
this,  in  honour  of  God  ;  and  notwithstanding  my  regal  dig- 
nity, will  not  think  myself  above  any  humiliations,  how 
great  soever  they  may  be,  that  may  testify  my  gratitude  and 
submission  to  him  ; — expressions  these  which  evidently 
show,  that  what  she  called  David's  uncovering  himself, 
was  what  he  had  designedly  done,  and  not  an  accidental 
involuntary  thing,  without  design,  and  contrary  to  his  in- 
tention.    And  had  he  designedly  exposed  his  nakedness, 
or  even  without  design,  how  could  he  have  made  himself 
more  vile,  or  rendered  himself  more  worthy  of  censure  and 
reproach  1    Upon  the  whole,  that  David  danced  so,  as  to 
discover  What  he  ought  to  have  concealed,  is  an  invidious 
surmise,  that  no  man  of  learning  or  candour  will  affirm, 
and  which  has  nothing  in  the  grammatical  sense  of  the  ex- 
pressions made  use  of  to  support  it,  and  is  in  its  nature  im- 
possible, from  the  make  and  form  of  the  garments  he  was 
clothed  with, 

I  shall  only  add,  that  when  the  scripture  says,  "  There- 
fore INIichal,  Saul's  daughter,  had  no  child  to  the  day  of  her 
death,"  it  doth  not  seem  to  be  remarked,  as  though  it  was 
a  punishment  on  her  for  this  contempt  of  David,  unless  he 
voluntarily  lefc  her  bed,  for  so  heinous  and  undeserved  an 
insult;  but  as  a  reproach  on  herself  for  her  barrenness,  she 
having  never  had  any  children  by  David ;  barrenness  being 
accounted  as  reproachful  and  dishonourable  a  circum- 
stance, as  could  befall  a  married  woman.  So  that  she  had 
little  reason  to  reproach  her  husband,  when  she  was  liable 
lo  a  much  greater  reproach  herself.— Chandler. 


Ver.  19.  And  he  dealt  among  all  the  people,  even 
among  the  whole  multitude  of  Israel,  as  well 
to  the  women  as  men,  to  every  one  a  cake  of 
bread,  and  a  good  piece  of  flesh,  and  a  flagon 
of  wine.  So  all  the  people  departed  every  one 
to  his  house. 

The  entertainer  at  a  feast,  occasionally  dismissed  his 
guests  with  costly  presents.  Lysimachus  of  Babylon  hav- 
ing entertained  Hemerus  the  tyrant  of  the  Babylonians  and 
Seleucians,  with  three  hundred  other  guests,  gave  every  man 
a  silver  cup,  of  four  pounds  weight.  When  Alexander 
made  his  marriage  feast  at  Susa  in  Persia,  he  paid  the 
debts  of  all  his  soldiers  out  of  his  own  exchequer,  and  pre-  - 
sented  every  one  of  his  guests,  who  were  not  fewer  than 
nine  thousand,  with  golden  cups.  The  master  of  the  house 
among  the  Romans,  used  also  to  give  the  guests  certain 
presents  at  their  departure,  or  to  send  them  after  they  were 
gone,  to  their  respective  habitations.  It  is  probable  that 
this  custom,  like  many  others  which  prevailed  in  Greece 
and  Rome,  was  derived  from  the  nations  of  Asia  ;  for  the 
sacred  writers  allide  repeatedly  to  a  similar  custom,  which 
closed  the  religious  festivals  or  public  entertainments 
among  the  chosen  people  of  God,  When  David  brought 
up  the  ark  from  the  house  of  Obed-edom,  into  the  place 
which  he  had  prepared  for  it,  he  offered  burnt-offerings 
and  peace-offerings  before  the  Lord.  And  as  soon  as  the 
solemnity  was  finished,  "  he  dealt  among  all  the  people, 
even  among  the  whole  multitude  of  Israel,  as  well  to  the 
women  as  men,  to  every  one  a  cake  of  bread,  and  a  flag- 
on of  wine." — Paxton. 

Dr.  Chandler  and  his  associates,  received  presents  from 
the  Greeks  of  Athens,   consisting  of  perfumed  flowers, 
pomegranates,  oranges,  and  lemons,  pastry,  and  other  arti- 
cles.    The  presents  made  by  David  were  no  doubt  very 
different.    Leavened  and  unleavened  bread,  the  flesh  whicifi 
remained  from  the  peace-offerings,  and  some  of  the  wine 
then  presented.    (Josephus.)     The  rabbins  suppose  that 
the  word  we  translate,  a  good  piece  of  flesh,  signifies  th-j 
sixth  part  of  an  animal.    Without,  hoM'ever,  admitting  the 
propriety  of  this  assertion,  it  may  lead  to  the  true  explana- 
tion of  'the  word.    Maillet  affirms,  that  a  sheep,  with  a 
proper  quantity  of  rice,  which  answers  the  purpose  of  bread 
very  frequently  in  the  East,  will  furnish  a  good  repast  for 
sixty  people.     If  now  the  ^leople  of  the  JeAvish  army  were 
divided  into  tens,  as  it  seems  they  were,  who  might  mess 
together,  and  lodge  under  one  and  the  same  teni,  as  it  is 
highly  probable,  from  every  tenth  man's  being  appointed  to 
fetch  or  prepare  provision  for  their  fellow-soldiers,  accord- 
ing to  what  we  read,  Judges  xx.  10,  then  the  sixth  part  of 
a  sheep  would  be  sufficient  for  the  men  at  one  repast,  and 
be  sufficient  for  one  mess  or  tent  of  soldiers ;  and  from  this 
particular  case  it  may  come  to  signify,  in  general,  a  suffi- 
cient portion  for  each  person,  which,  indeed,  seems  to  be 
the  meaning  of  our  translators,  when  they  render  the  word 
a  good  piece  of  flesh — enough  for  an  ample  repast.     The 
other  part  of  this  royal  and  sacred  donation  was  a  flagon 
of  wine,  perhaps  a  gourd  full  of  wine  is  meant.    The  shells 
of  gourds  are  used  to  this  day  in  the  eastern  parts  of  the 
world  for  holding  quantities  of  wine  for  present  spending, 
and  particularly  in  sacred  festivals.     So  when  Dr.  Richard 
Chandler  was  about  leaving  Athens,  he  tells  us,  he  supped 
at  the  customhouse,  where  "the  archon  provided  a  gourd 
of  choice  wine,  and  one  of  the  crew  excelled  en  the  lyre." 
And  describing  a  panegyris,  or  general  sacred  assembly  of 
the  Greeks  in  the  Lesser  Asia,  he  informs  us,  "  that  the 
church  was  only  stones  piled  up  for  walls,  without  a  roo'", 
and  stuck  on  this  solemnity  with  wax-candles  lighted,  acil 
small  tapers,  and  that  after  fulfilling  their  religious  duties, 
it  is  the  custom  of  the  Greeks  lo  indulge  in  festivity;  at 
which  time  he  found  the  multitude  sitting  under  half-tents, 
with  a  store  of  melons  and  grapes,  besides  lambs  and  sheep 
to  be  killed,  wine  in  gourds  and  skins,  and  other  necessary 
provision."    What  the  size  of  the  gourds  that  ancientl> 
grew  in  that  country  was,  or  what  that  of  those  that  are 
now  found  there,  may  not  be  quite  certain.     But  a  gourd 
full  of  wine,  for  each  person,  was  abundantly  sufficient  for 
a  joy  that  required  attention  to  temperance.-^HAHMER. 
CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  18.  Then  went  King  David  in,  and  sat  bo- 


Chap.  8. 


2  SAMUEL. 


201 


fore  the  Lord,  and  he  said,  Who  am  I,  O  Lord 
God  1  and  what  is  my  house,  that  thou  hast 
brought  me  hitherto? 

Pococke  has  given  the  figure  of  a  person  half  sitting  and 
half  kneeling,  that  is,  kneeling  so  as  to  rest  the  most  mus- 
cular part  of  his  body  on  his  heels.  This,  he  observes,  is 
the  manner  in  which  inferior  persons  sit  at  this  day  before 
great  men,  and  is  considered  as  a  very  humble  posture. 
In  this  manner,  probably,  David  sat  before  the  Lord,  when 
he  went  into  the  sanctuary,  to  bless  him  lor  his  promise 
respecting  his  family. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Ver.  2  And  he  smote  Moab,  and  measured  them 
with  a  line,  casting  them  down  to  the  ground ; 
even  with  two  lines  measured  he  to  put  to 
death,  and  Avith  one  full  line  to  keep  alive:  and 
so  the  Moabites  became  David's  servants,  and 
brought  gifts. 

See  on  2  Sam.  12.31. 

David  had  scarce  ended  his  wars  with  the  Philistines, 
but  he  was  engaged  in  another  with  the  Moabites,  of  which 
the  scripture  history  gives,  as  I  understand  it,  the  following 
account.  "  He  also  smote  Moab,  and  he  measured  them  by 
a  line,"  i.  e.  in  one  tract  of  the  coiintry,to  throw  them  down 
level  with  the  ground.  Then  he  measured  out  two  tracts, 
one  to  put  to  death,  and  one  full  tract  to  preserve  alive;  and 
Moab  became  David's  servants,  bringing  him  gifts.  When 
he  had  beat  the  Moabites,  he  ordered  a  general  survey  to 
be  made  of  the  whole  country ;  in  one  part  or  tract  of 
which  he  levelled  Moab  with  the  ground,  i.  e.  razed  so 
many  of  their  towns  and  fortresses,  as  he  thought  neces- 
sary to  secure  his  conquest.  He  then  proceeded  to  ani- 
madvert on  the  inhabitants,  measuring  out  two  tracts,  or 
parts  of  the  country,  one  line  or  tract  for  death,  and  the 
lUiness  01  a  ane,  a  very  large  tract  of  the  courtry,  to  keep 
alive,  i.  e.  to  cut  off  the  inhabitants  of  the  one,  those  who 
had  been  most  active  in  the  war  against  him,  and  to  pre- 
serve the  far  larger  part  of  them  alive ;  and  thus  made  the 
whole  nation  tributary  to  his  crown.  Who  was  the  ag- 
gressor in  these  two  last  actions,  the  scripture  history  doth 
not  determine.  Some  authors  s^em  inclined  to  give  David 
the  credit  of  it,  though  without  any  shadow  of  proof  I 
apprehend  the  contrary  may  be  collected  from  what  the 
Psalmist  says:  "That  Edom,  Moab,  Ammon,  Amalek,  the 
Syrians  under  Hadadezer,  and  other  nations,  had  consult- 
ed together  with  one  consent  to  cut  off  Israel  from  being  a 
nation;  and  that  the  name  of  Israel  might  be  no  more  in 
remembrance.  This  seems  plainly  to  refer  to  the  history 
of  the  wars  with  these  very  nations,  related  in  Samuel. 
Against  such  a  cruel  confederac/ as  this,  David  had  a  right 
to  defend  himself,  and  to  take  such  a  vengeance  on  his 
enemies,  as  was  necessary  to  his  own  and  his  people's  fu- 
ture safety.  If  this  powerful  league,  to  extirpate  the  Is- 
raelites, was  a  justifiable  compact,  because  Israel  was  a 
common  enemy,  who  ravaged  ad  libitum,  not  from  the 
common  misunderstanding  of  states,  but  from  an  insatiable 
appetite  for  blood  and  murder,  as  some  writers  choose  to 
represent  them ;  it  will  certainly  follow,  that  there  may  be 
occasions  that  will  justify  this  severe  execution,  in  the 
utter  excision  of  nations ;  and  that  if  the  Moabites,  Amal- 
ekites,  Philistines,  and  other  nations,  were  common  ene- 
mies to  the  Hebrews,  and  ravaged  them,  ad  libitum,  from 
an  insatiable  appetite  for  blood  and  murder,  David  had  a 
right  to  extirpate  them,  whenever  he  could,  without  de- 
serving the  charge  of  barbarity,  and  a  blood-thirsty  spirit. 
This  was  certainly  the  character  of  many  of  the  enemies 
of  the  Hebrew  nation,  but  can  never  be  applicable  to  the 
Hebrews  themselves.  It  is  allowed,  that  they  were  to 
maintain  a  perpetual  hostility  with,  and  extirpate,  if  they 
could,  the  seven  nations,  because  God  had  proscribed 
them,  and  their  own  prosperity,  and  almost  being,  d*epend- 
ed  on  it.  But  as  to  the  Edomites,  Moabites,  and  Ammon- 
ites, they  were  expressly  forbid  to  meddle  with  them,  and 
invade  any  of  their  territories,  by  beginning  hostilities 
against  them.  And  from  the  whole  history  of  the  Hebrew 
nation,  from  their  first  settJement  in  Canaan,  to  .heir  de- 
striiction  bv  Nebuchadnezzar,  there  is  scarce  one  instance 


to  be  produced,  of  their  invading  the  neighbouring  nations, 
without  being  first  attacked  by  them,  or  of  their  plundering 
them  any  further  than  as  their  victories  over  them,  gained 
in  their  own  defence,  gave  them  a  right  to  it,  by  the  com- 
mon usages  and  laws  of  war.  During  the  period  preceding 
the  regal  government,  we  read  of  nothing  almost  but  their 
grievous  oppressions  by  the  Moabites,  Ammonites,  Amal- 
ekites,  Midianites,  Philistines,  and  other  neighbouring 
nations,  who  forced  them  into  dens,  mountains,  and  strong- 
holds, deprived  them  of  all  manner  of  arms  for  their 
defence,  and  destroyed  the  increase  of  their  lands,  so  that 
there  was  no  sustenance  for  Israel,  neither  sh^ep,  nor  ox, 
nor  ass.  But  we  have  not  a  single  intimation  of  the 
Hebrews  invading,  plundering,  and  destroying  them.  And 
indeed  it  was  not  possible  that  as  a  nation  they  could, 
during  this  long  period,  make  any  considerable  invasions 
upon  the  neighbouring  states.  For  they  had  no  kings,  no 
settled  government,  no  generals  and  captains  to  lead  them, 
nor  standing  armies  to  protect  ihem  ;  God,  in  a  very  ex- 
traordinary manner,  and  at  particular  seasons,  being 
pleased  to  raise  them  up  proper  persons,  to  give  them  some 
temporary  relief  from  those  who  enslaved  and  despoiled 
them;  which  made  them  at  last  resolve  to  have  a  king, 
who  might  be  always  ready  to  protect  and  defend  them. 
They  were  in  themselves  an  easy  quiet  people,  never 
inured  to  war,  employed  in  husbandry,  and  raising  of 
cattle;  and  so  far  from  being  a  common  enemy  to  all  the 
nations  round  them,  as  that  they  took  every  method  to  cul- 
tivate their  friendship,  taking  their  daughters  to  be  their 
wives,  and  giving  their  daughters  to  their  sons,  forsaking 
their  own  God,  and  following  after  the  gods  of  eA^ery 
neighbouring  nation.  And  yet  they  were  almost  perpetu- 
ally under  oppression,  and  their  too  great  fondness  to  be 
on  good  terms  with  their  oppressors,  was  the  very  reason 
why  God  sold  them  into  their  enemies'  hands,  and  suffered 
them  so  often  to  groan,  by  turns,  under  the  yoke  of  every 
petty  state,  that  had  a  mind  to  enslave  them.  And  as  for 
David,  he  had  hitherto  been  engaged  in  no  wars  against 
any  of  his  neighbours,  except  two  defensive  ones  against 
the  Philistines;  who,  upon  his  first  accession  to  the  throne 
of  Israel,  invaded  his  dominions,  with  an  intention  to  de-^ 
prive  him  of  his  kingdom,  or  render  him  and  his  people 
wholly  dependant  on  their  power.  If  therefore  the  Moab- 
ites joined  in  the  confederacy  with  the  Ammonites,  Edom- 
ites, Philistines,  and  others,  to  extirpate  the  Hebrew  nation, 
David  treated  themwith  comparative  lenity  and  moderation, 
if  he  cut  off  even  two  thirds  of  them,  whom  he  found  inarms 
against  him ;  and  especially,  if  he  put  to  the  sword  but  one 
half  of  them,  who  intended  his  utter  destruction,  and  the 
entire  extirpation  of  his  people.  And  as  this  is  certain,  that 
the  Amalekites,  Philistines,  Moabites,  and  other  nations, 
were  perpetual  and  inveterate  enemies  to  the  Hebrews, 
and  invaded  them  whenever  they  were  able,  the  Hebrews 
had  a  right  to  make  reprisals,  to  attack  them  on  every 
occasion  that  offered,  and  to  treat  them  with  that  severity, 
that  was  necessary  to  their  own  peace  and  safety  for  the 
future.  I  may  add,  what  Bishop  Patrick  and  others  ob- 
serve, that  the  Jewish  writers  affirm,  that  David  exercised 
this  severity  on  the  Moabites,  because  they  had  slain  his 
parents  and  brethren,  whom  he  committed  to  the  custody 
of  the  king  of  Moab,  during  his  exile.  But  I  lay  no  great 
stress  on  this  tradition,  as  it  is  wholly  unsupported  by  the 
scripture  history  ;  and  because  David's  treatment  of  them 
is  sufl5ciently  justified  by  the  ancient  law  of  nations  ;  as  to 
which  my  reader  will  be  abundantly  satisfied  by  consulting 
Grotius. — Chandler. 

The  war  laws  of  the  Israelites  are  detailed  by  Moses  in 
the  twentieth  chapter  of  Deuteronomy.  I  shaU  at  present 
only  take  notice  of  those  particulars  that  relate  to  the 
course  they  were  to  pursue  towards  foreign  nations,  and 
postpone  those  that  regard  levies,  the  division  of  phmder, 
&c.  until  I  come  to  treat  of  private  law.  Of  a  declaration 
of  war,  before  proceeding  to  hostilities,  Moses  says  nothing; 
and,  therefore,  seems  not  to  have  deemed  it  so  indispensably 
necessary  as  the  Romans  did.  The  disputes  concerning 
its  necessity  are  so  well  known,  that  I  shall  not  trouble 
my  readers  w^ith  anv  remarks  upon  them.  At  present,  we 
do  not  consider  this  solemnity  as  at  all  essential  to  the 
lawfulness  of  a  w^ar,  but  commence  hostilities  without  any 
previous  announcerhent  of  our  intention,  whenever  we 
conceive  that  the  injuries  offered  us  require  them.  Moses 
appears  (Numb,  xxxi.)  to  have  done  the  same;  and  to  have 


202 


2   SAMUEL. 


Chap.  8. 


auacked  the  iVidianites,  without  giving  them  tine  to  arm ; 
and  hence  ( v^er.  49)  he  did  not  lose  a  single  man,  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  incomprehensible.     The  word 
K2:«,  so  o  'ten  repeated  in  that  chapter,  and  probably  wrong 
pointed  by  the  Jews,  signifies  in  Arabic,  an  inroad,  or 
attack  by  surprise.     On  the  other  hand,  it  was  the  injunc- 
tion of  Moses,  that  a  hostile  city  should  be  summoned 
before  an  attack,  and  if  it  surrendered  without  fighting, 
that  its  inhabitants  should  have  their  lives  granted,  upon 
the  condition  of  becoming  tributaries.     If,  however,  a  city 
should  make  resistance,  then  all  the  men  m  it  were  to  be 
put  to  the*sword  ;  and  the  women  and  children  to  become 
captives  to  the  Israelites.    The  former  of  these  particulars, 
viz.  massacring  all  the  men,  stamps  their  war  law  wiih  a 
much  greater  degree  of  severity  than  is  manifested  in  ours; 
for  although  we  must  take  into  the  account,  that  among 
ancient  nations  all  the  males  who  could  bear  aims  actually 
did  so  when  it  was  necessary,  and  that  there  was  no  such 
distinccion  between  soldier  and  citizen  as  among  us ;  yet 
even  in  the  case  of  a  city  being  taken  by  storm,  we  are 
wont  to  give  quarter ;  and  no  Frenchmaia  will  have  any 
anxiety  to  be  rernmded  that  bois-le-d'uc  forms  a  solitary  ex- 
neption  to  this  practice.     Still,  however,  it  is  not  conirary 
to  the  law  of  nature,  if  we  get  the  upper  hand,  to  kill  our 
enemy,  who  either  himself  bears  arms  m  order  to  kill  us, 
or  hires  others  in  his  room  for  that  purpose.     The  Israel- 
ites could  not  regulate  their  conduct  by  our  more  merciful 
law  of  nationfi,  which  is,  by  several  thousand  years,  of 
later  date ;  but  they  acted  precisely  as  their  vanquished 
foes  would  have  done,  had  they  been  lucky  enough  to 
have  been  the  conquerors;  and  they  therefore  merit  the 
praise  of  magnanimity,  if,  to  lessen  the  evils  of  war,  we 
see  them  refraining  in  the  smallest  degree  from  insisting 
on  requital  of  like  for  like  to  the  utmost.     The  enemies 
with  whom  the  Israelites  had  to  do,  were  wont  not  mere'y 
to  put  the  vanquished  to  death,  but  at  the  same  time  to 
exercise  great  cruelties  upon  them.     The  Bible  is  full  of 
relations  to  this  purport.     Sometimes  infants  and  sucklings 
were  massacred,  and  their  bodies  collected  into  heaps;  for 
which  we  find  in  Hebrew  a  particular  term,  v^t;  some- 
times pregnant  women  were  ripped  up,  2  Kings  viii.  12. 
Amos  i.  13  ;  sometimes  people  were  laid  upon  thorns,  and 
put  to  death  with  thrashing  wains,  Judg.  viii.  7 — 16.  Amos 
].  3.     Sometimes  even  royal  princes  were  burnt  alive, 
2  Kings  iii.  27.     I  will  not  relate  all  the  cruelties  of  those 
nations  with  whom  the  Israelites  had  to  carry  on  war, 
and  might,  according  to  the  law  of  nature,  have  repaid 
like  for  like.     The  law  of  nations,  according  to  which  the 
Israelites  had  to  act,  was  made  by  those  nations  themselves ; 
for  this  law  is  founded  on  the  manners  of  nations,  and  on 
the  permission  which  we  have  to  treat  others  as  they  treat 
us.     If  we  do  not  choose  to  confine  our  attention  to  the  de- 
tails given  in  scripture,  we  may  resort  to  profane  history, 
■where  w^e  shall  find  the  Romans  (who  behaved  to  their 
enemies  much  more  harshly  than  we  do)  complaining  of 
the  barbarous  conduct  of  the  Carthaginians  towards  their 
prisoners ;   and  these  Carthaginians^  were  the  direct  de- 
scendants of  those  Canaanites,  and  had  an  Asiatic  law  of 
nations.     We  need  not,  therefore,  now  wonder  that  David 
(2  Sam.  viii.  2)  should  have  made  the  vanquished  Moab- 
iies  lie  down  together  on  the  ground,  and  with  a  measuring- 
line  have;  marked  off  two  thirds  of  them  for  death,  and 
spared  the  remaining  third,  after  being  thus  subjected  to  the 
fear  of  sharing  the  fate  of  their  brethren.     He  acted  here 
with  more  clemency  than  the  Moj^ic  law  prescribed,  by 
which  he  would  have  been  justified  in  putting  them  all  to 
death.     For  as  to  the  assertion  of  some  writers,  that  the 
severe  law  of  Moses  on  this  point  did  not  extend  beyond 
the  Canaanites,  it  is  contrary  to  the  clearest  evidence  ;  for 
Moses  expressly  says,  (Deut.  xx.  15, 16,  compared  with  13,) 
"  Thus  shalt  thou  do  unto  those  cities  which  are  far  from 
thee,  and  not  of  the  cities  of  these  nations;  but  of  those  na- 
tions whose  land  Jehovah  giveth  thee,  thou  shalt  let  nothing 
that  breatheth  live."    David  acted  with  much  greater  se- 
verity (2  Sam.  xii.  31)  to  the  inhabitants  of  Rabbah,  the 
Aramonitish  capital.     He  put  them  all  to  death  together, 
and  that  with  most  painful  and  exquisite  tortures ;  which, 
however,  were  not  unusual  in  other  countries  of  the  East'. 
But  we  must  consider  how  very  different  this  war  was 
from  other  wars.    The  Ammonites  had  not  only  resisted  to 
the  last  extremity,  (which  alone  by  the  Mosaic  law  was 
sufficient  to  justify  the  victors  in  putting  them  to  death,) 


but  they  had,  moreover,  by  their  gross  contempt  of  the  am- 
bassadors whom  David  had  sent  with  the  best  intentions, 
been  guilty  of  a  most  outrageous  breach  of  the  law  of 
nations,  and  manifested  their  implacable  haired  against 
the  Israelites.  They  shaved  half  their  beards,  (an  insult 
which,  according  lo  the  account  of  D  Arvieux,  the  Arabs  of 
the  present  day  reckon  as  great  an  evil  as  death  itself,)  and 
then  they  cut  off  the  lower  half  of  their  garments,  and  in 
this  ignominious  plight  sent  them  back  into  their  own- 
country.  Nor  was  this  so  much  the  particular  act  of  the 
Ammcnilish  king,  as  of  his  principal  subjects,  who  had 
incited  him  to  it,  (2  Sam.  x.  3,)  which  so  much  the  more 
clearly  demonstrated  their  universal  enmity  against  the 
Israelites ;  and  a  violation  of  the  law  of  nations  so  very 
unusual  justly  provoked  them  to  take  severer  revenge,  than 
they  were  wont  to  exercise  in  common  wars. 

If  we  admit  the  maxim,  that  the  law  both  of  nature  and 
nations  allows  me  to  treat  my  enemies  as  they,  if  victorious, 
would  have  treated  me,  the  story  in  1  Sam.  xi.  2  furnishes 
a  strong  vindication  o:  David's  conduct.    These  same  Am- 
monites had,  in  the  beginning  of  his  predecessor's  reign, 
been  so  extremely  cruel  as  to  grant  to  the  Israelitish  city, 
Jabesh,  which  they  had  invested,  and  which  was  inclined 
to  surrender  without  resistance,  no  other  terms  of  capilu- 
lation  than  that,  by  way  of  insult  to  the  Israeliies  in  general, 
all  its  inhabitants  should  submit  to  have  their  right  eyes 
put  out.    Now  to  an  enemy  of  this  description,  and  who  at 
last  seized  their  ambafeadors,  whose  persons  the  laws  both 
of  nations  and  nature  hold  sacred,  could  any  punishment  in 
use  in  the  East,  have  been  too  crueU — We  find,  hov.evcr, 
that  the  character  of  the  Ammonites  was  the  same  in  every 
age.     The  prophet  Amos  (i.  13)  speaks  of  them  as  ripping 
up  the  bellies  of  women  with  child,  not  in  the  fury  of  a 
storm,  but  deliberately,  in  order  to  lessen  the  number  of  the 
Israelites,  and  thus  to  enlarge  th^ir  -wn  borders.     If  these 
acts  of  David,  then,  appear  to  js,  I  will  not  say  severe, 
(for  who  will  deny  thatl  or  who  that  lives  in  our  days 
would  not  wish  to  have  acted  diflferently  in  his  place  ?)  but 
unjust,  it  is  owing,  either  to  our  confounding  the  modern 
with  the  ancient  law  of  nations,  or  with  the  law  of  nature 
itself;  and  thus  judging  of  them  by  quite  a  diflTerent  rule 
from  that  Avhich  we  are  wont  to  apply  to  similar  actions, 
which  we  know  from  our  youth.     I  may  at  any  rate  put 
this  question,  "  Has  a  magistrate  a  right  to  proceed  more 
severely  against  a  band  of  robbers  than  one  nation  against 
another,  that  has  behaved  with  as  much  hostility  and  cru- 
elty as  robbers  can  do  ?" — If  it  is  answered,  "  Yes,  for  the 
robbers  are  subjects  ;" — then  would  robbers,  particularly  if 
natives  of  foreign  lands,  in  order  to  escape  painful  deaths, 
have  only  to  declare,  that  they  wish  to  be  considered  not 
as  subjects,  but  as  enemies;  since  they  do  not  generally 
desire  the  protection  of  the  magistrate,  but  have  their 
abode  in  the  forests.    But  on  such  banditti  we  inflict,  not 
merely  capital  punishment,  but  that  punishment  aggra- 
vated by  torture;  as,  for  instance,  breaking  on  the  wheel. 
Now,  if  this  is  not  unjust,  and  if  a  robber,  even  though  a 
foreigner,  cannot  with  effect  urge  against  it  the  plea  of 
wishing  to  be  treated  as  an  enemy;  certainly  David's  pro- 
cedure towards  the  Ammonites,  who  had  in  fact  been 
more  cruel  to  the  Israelites  than  most  modern  banditti  are 
wont  to  be,  should  not  be  condemned  as  absolutely  unjust; 
although,  no  doubt,  it  would  have  been  much  more  laud- 
able if  he  had  displayed  greater  clemency  and  magnanimity. 
Further;  as  we  in  our  childish  years  read  the  Roman  au- 
thors, Avho  think  and  write  with  great  partiality  for  their 
countrymen,  we  are  commonly  impressed  with  very  fa- 
vourable ideas  of  the  moderation  and  equity  of  the  Roman 
people  in  war.    But  these  ideas  are  by  no  means  just ;  for 
the  Romans,  except  when  their  own  interest  required  the 
contrary,  were  a  severe  people ;  and  with  so  much  the 
worse  reason,  that  their  wars,  in  which  they  manifested 
such  inexorable  severity,  were  for  the  most  part  unjust. 
This  people,  of  whose  war  laws  we  are  apt  to  think  so 
highly,  for  a  long  time,  even  to  the  days  of  Caesar,  ma.ssa- 
cred  their  prisoners  in  cold  blood,  whenever  they  survived 
the  disgrace  of  the  triumph ;  and  they  very  frequently  put 
to  death  the  magistrates  and  citizens  of  conquered  cities, 
after  making  them  undergo  a  flagellation,  which,  perhaps, 
in  point  of  physical  pain,  was  not  different  from  the  pun- 
ishments inflicted  by  David  on  the  Ammonites,    haccra.re 
corporavirgis  is  the  phrase  in  which  it  is  described  by  Livy, 
who  remarks,  that  by  reason  of  these  inexorable  ie  reriliixs, 


Chap.  8 


2   SAMUEL. 


mz 


fot  which  VI  e  know  nothing  in  oar  wars,)  some  cities  de-  j 
fended  themselves  to  the  last  extremity,  rather  than  submit. 
Thus  acted  the  Romans  towards  those  nations  that  certainly  • 
were  not  Ammonites  in  cruelty,  or  in  the  malice  of  their  I 
injuries.  And  if,  nevertheless,  not  contented  with  keeping 
silence  on  the  subject,  we  re-echo  the  Latin  writers  in  iheir 
phrases  of  Roman  justice  and  mercy,  why  should  David  be 
called  an  oppressor  and  a  barbarian,  because  to  the  very 
,scum  of  cruel  and  inhuman  enemies,  who  from  universal 
national  haired  had  so  grossly  and  unjustly  violated  the 
.sacred  rights  of  ambassadors,  he  acted  with  rigour,  and 
put  them  to  painful  deaths'?  There  seems  here  to  be  an 
unfairness  in  our  way  of  judging,  which  David  does  not 
deserve,  merely  because  he  is  an  Oriental,  and  because  on 
other  occasions  the  Bible  speaks  so  much  in  his  praise. 
This  severity  has,  nevertheless,  always  been  a  stigma  on 
the  character  of  David,  with  those  who  do  not  attend  to 
the  arbitrary  and  variable  nature  of  the  law  of  nations, 
and  judge  of  it  according  to  the  very  humane  war  laws  of 
modern  times.  Hence  some  friends  of  religion  have  been 
at  pains  to  represent  his  conduct  in  a  more  humane  point 
of  view  than  it  is  described  in  the  Bible  itself.  The  late 
Professor  Dantz  of  Jena,  published  a  Dissertation,  De 
mitigata  Davidis  in  Ammonitax  Crudelitate,  which  expe- 
rienced the  highest  approbation  both  in  and  out  of  Germany, 
because  people  could  not  imagine  a  war  law  so  extremely 
different  from  modern  manners,  as  that  which  the  common 
interpretation  of  2  Sam.  xii.  31  implies.  Of  that  passage 
he  gives  this  explanation ;  that  David  merely  condemned 
his  Ammonitish  captives  to  severe  bodily  labours;  to  hew- 
ing and  sawing  of  wood  ;  to  burning  of  bricks,  and  work- 
ing in  iron  mines.  But  how  much  soever  this  exposition 
may  be  approved,  it  has  but  little  foundation:  it  does  great 
violence  to  the  Hebrew  words,  of  which,  as  this  is  not  the 
place  to  complain  philologicajly,  I  must  be  satisfied  with 
observing,  that  it  takes  them  in  a  very  unusual,  and  till 
then  unknown,  acceptation  ;  and  for  this  no  other  reason 
is  assigned,  than  that  David  had  previously  repented  of  his 
sins  of  adultery  and  murder;  and  being  in  a  state  of  grace, 
could  not  be  supposed  capable  of  .such  cruelties.  But  a 
proof  like  this,  taken  from  the  king's  being  in  a  state  of 
regeneration,  is  quite  indecisive.  We  must  previously 
solve  the  question,  whether,  considering  the  times  in  Avhich 
he  lived,  and  the  character  of  the  enemy,  who  had  given 
such  proofs,  to  what  atrocities  their  malignant  dispositions 
towards  the  Israelites  would  have  carried  them,  had  they 
been  the  victors,  the  punishment  he  inflicted  on  them  was 
too  severe  ?  or  else  from  the  piety  of  a  king,  I  might  in 
like  manner  demonstrate,  in  opposition  to  facts,  that  such 
and  such  malefactors  were  not  broken  on  the  wheel,  but 
that  they  must  only  have  gone  to  the  wheel,  in  order  to 
draw  water.  But  allowing  even  that  David  carried  sev^er- 
ity  of  punishment  too  far,  it  is  entirely  to  be  ascribed  to 
the  rude  manners  of  his  age  :  as  in  the  case  of  still  more 
blameless  characters,  even  of  Abraham  himself,  we  find 
that  the  customs  of  their  times  betrayed  them  into  sins  of 
ignorance,  although  some  of  their  contemporaries  ques- 
tioned the  lawfulness  of  the  acts  which  involved  those  sins. 
It  is  further  to  be  remarked,  that  towards  the  most  crue' 
foes  of  the  Israelites,  and  who  had  besides  done  himself 
an  injury  altogether  unparalleled,  David  would  have  been 
acting  with  more  mildness  than  the  Mosaic  law  authorized, 
even  towards  any  common  enemy,  if  he  had  only  condemn- 
ed the  Ammonites  to  servile  labours.  And  besides  this,  those 
labours  which  Dantz  alleges,  are,  some  of  them  at  least, 
not  at  all  suited  to  the  circumstances  of  either  the  country 
or  the  people.  Firewood,  for  instance,  is  so  scarce  in 
Palestine,  that  a  whole  people  certainly  could  not  have 
been  converted  into  hewers  and  sawyers  of  wood.  For 
the  sanctuary  and  the  altar,  the  Gibeonites  had  it  already 
in  charge  to  provide  wood;  while  the  common  people 
throughout  the  country  principally  made  use  of  straw,  or 
dried  dung,  for  fuel.  When  Solomon,  many  years  after, 
made  the  timber  required  for  the  temple  to  be  felled,  it  was 
bvthe  heads  of  the  remnant  of  the  Canaanites  ;  and  there- 
fore the  Ammonites  were  not  employed  in  it. — In  Pales- 
tine, again,  mines  of  different  sorts  were  wrought.  Now, 
of  all  mines,  none  are  more  wholesome  to  work  in  than 
those  of  iron ;  because  that  metal  is  very  friendly  to 
the  human  constitution,  is  actuallv  mixed  wuth  our  blood, 
(as  experiments  made  with  blood  clearly  show.)  is  often 
.used  in  medicine,  and  is  almost  never  hurtful  to  us,  ex- 


cept when  forged  into  edgetools  and  weapons.  Hence  it 
has  been  observed,  that  in  iron-works  and  lorges,  we  gen- 
erally find  the  healthiest  and  longest-lived  penple.  Othef 
sorts  of  mines,  on  the  contrary,  by  reason  of  the  lead  and 
arsenic  which  they  contain,  are  very  often  unwholesome, 
and  even  fatal  to  life.  Can  it  then  be  believed  that  David 
would  have  condemned  a  people  that  he  wanted  lo  punish, 
to  labour  in  iron-works,  wherein  they  were  sure  to  enjoy  a 
long  life  of  health  and  activity,  while,  perhaps,  his  own 
native  subjects  had  to  labour  in  unw^holesome  mines  Ibr  the  » 
more  precious  metals'?  A  king  who  had  ixjines  in  his 
dominions,  and  wished  to  use  them  for  the  purjoses  of 
punishment,  would  probably  have  heard  what  sorts  of  ihem 
were  favourable,  and  what  hostile  to  health,  and  not  have 
gone  so  preposterously  to  work.  The  applause  bestowed 
on  this  dissertation  of  Dantz,  from  the  humanity  it  dis- 
played, was  probably  what  moved  the  late  Wahner  to  write 
a  dissertation  of  a  similar  tendency,  which  was  published 
at  Gottingen  in  the  year  1738,  under  the  following  title, 
David  Moabitarum  Victor  crudeliuvmumero  eximikir .  But 
it  could  not  obtain  equal  approbation,  because  in  the  con- 
duct of  David  towards  the  Moabites,  2  Sam.  viii.2,  there  is 
less  appearance  of  cruelty;  inasmuch  as  he  merely  enfor- 
ced the  war  law  as  prescribed  by  Moses,  and  indeed  far 
less  rigorously.  Wahner  gives  three  different  and  new 
explanations  of  the  passage,  according  to  which  none  of 
the  vanquished  Moabites  were  put  to  death;  but  they  are 
all  somewhat  forced  :  and  there  was  no  necessity,  by  a  dif- 
ferent translation  of  the  text,  to  free  David  from  the  charge 
of  cruelty;  for  in  putting  bul  two  thirds  of  them  to  death, 
he  acted  unquestionably  with  one  third  more  clemency 
than  the  Mosaic  law  required. — The  war  which  Saul  car- 
ried on  against  the  Amalekites,  and  in  which  to  the  utmost 
of  his  power  he  extirpated  the  whole  people,  sparing  only 
their  king,  is  yet  blamed,  not  on  account  of  its  rigour, 
but  for  the  conqueror's  clemency  to  the  king,  1  Sam.  xv. 
But  I  wall  not  by  any. means  adduce  this  for  an  example; 
but  merely  appeal  to  the  precepts  of  Moses,  the  rigour  of 
which  David  so  much  relaxed,  in  the  cases  of  the  Moabites. 

— MiCHAELlS. 

Ver.  13.  And  David  gat  him  a  name  when  he 
returned  from  smiting  of  the  Syrians  in  the 
Valley  of  Salt,  being  eighteen  thousand  men. 

These  great  successes  over  the  Syrians  and  Edomites 
greatly  heightened  the  reputation  and  character  of  David; 
or,  as  the  historian  observes,  he  got  himself  a  name  when 
he  returned  from  smiting  the  Syrians,  and  Edomites,  in  the 
Valley  of  Salt.  He  was  regarded  and  celebrated  by  all 
the  neighbouring  princes  and  states,  as  a  brave  command- 
er, and  glorious  prince  and  conqueror.  To  get  a  name, 
in  the  eastern  style,  doth  not  mean  to  be  called  by  this  or 
the  other  particular  name,  which  is  a  ridiculous  interpre- 
tation of  the  words,  but  to  be  spoken  of  with  admiration 
and  praise,  as  an  excellent  prince,  and  a  fortunate  victo- 
rious soldier.  Thus  it  is  joined  with  praise,  •'  I  will  make 
you  a  name,  and  &  praise  among  all  people."  It  is  said 
of  God  himself,  upon  account  of  the  signs  and  wonders 
he  wrought  in  Egypt.  "  Thou  hast  made  thee  a  name  at 
this  day;"  which  our  version  in  another  place  renders: 
"  Thou  hast  gotten  thee  renown  at  this  day."  Thus  David 
got  himself  a  name,  i.  e.  ^s  God  tells  him  by  Nathan  the 
prophet:  "  I  was  with  thee  wheresoever  thou  wentest,  and 
[J have  cut  off  all  thine  enemies  out  of  thy  sighi,  and  have 
made  thee  a  great  name,  like  unto  the  name  of  the  great 
men  that  are  in  the  earth,"  i.  e.  made  thee  to  be  esCeemed 
and  reverenced  in  all  countries  round  about,  as  a  mighty 
prince  and  successful  warrior ;  a  name  that  he  must  have 
had  even  from  the.  Syrians,  and  all -his  enemies  whom  he 
subdued  by  his  conduct  and  valour. 

There  is  som«  difficulty  in  this  short  history  of  the  con- 
quest nf  the  Edomites.  In  rhe  book  of  Chronicles,  it  is 
said,  that  Abishai,  the  son  of  Zeruiah,  smote  Edom  in  the 
Valley  of  Salt,  eighteen  thousand  men.  1  Chron.  xviii.  12 
In  the  60th  Psalm,  Title,  that  when  Joab  returned,  he 
smote  of  Edom,  in  the  Valley  of  Salt,  twelve  thousand 
men.  In  the  book  of  Samuel,  2  Sam.  viii.  13,  that  David 
got  himself  a  name,  when  he  returned  from  smiring  the 
Syrians,  in  the  Valley  of  Salt.  Pan  of  this  difficulty  is 
easily  obviated,  as  the"  rout  and  slaughter  of  the  Edomitish 
army,  in  which  they  lost  six  thousand  of  their  men,  was 


mi 


2   SAMUEL. 


Chap.  8—10. 


begun  by  David  and  Abishai.  And  as,  after  Joab's  joining 
the  army,  twelve  thousand  more  of  tiic  Edomites  were 
cut  off,  the  slaughter  of  those  twelve  thousand  is  ascribed 
to  Joab,  which,  with  six  thousand  cut  off  under  David  and 
Abishai,  before  Joab  came  up  with  his  reinforcement,  make 
up  the  number  eighteen  thousand;  the  whole  eighteen 
thousand  bein^  ascribed  to  David,  as  they  were  cut  off  by 
his  army,  that  fought  under  him;  and  to  Abishai,  who  was 
chief  commander  under  him  in  this  action ;  so  that  what 
-was  done  by  the  one,  was  done  by  the  other  also.  But  there 
is  also  another  difficulty,  how  to  reconcile  the  two  different 
accounts ;  the  one,  that  David  smote  the  Syrians,  the  other, 
that  he  smote  the  Edomites,  in  the  Valley  of  Salt.  The 
altering  the  pointing  of  the  words,  as  we  have  them  in 
Samuel,  and  the  repeating  a  single  word,  airo  koivov,  from  the 
first  part  of  the  account,  will  entirely  remove  this  difficulty ; 
and  I  render  the  passage  thus:  David,  got  himself  a  nanie, 
when  he  returned  from  smiting  the  Syrians,  in  the  Valley 
of  Salt,  bv  smiting  eighteen  thousand  men.  Or,  he  got 
himself  a  name  in  the  Valley  of  Salt,  by  smiting  eighteen 
thousand  men,  after  he  returned  from  srniting  the  Syrians. 
And  without  this  repetition  of  the  word  hod  smiting,  or  nan^ 
by  smiting,  the  construction  and  sense  is  quite  imperfect.  Le 
Clerc,  F.  Houbigant,  and  others,  add  this  supplement,  and 
this  alone  renders  all  the  other  emendations  of  the  learned 
Father  quite  unnecessary.  The  version  of  the  Vulg.  Latin 
conftrms  the  interpretation,  which  thus  renders  the  place : 
I^ecit  sibi  quoque  David  nomen  cum,  reverteretur  capta  Syria, 
in  valle  Salinarum,  ccejis  decern  et  octo  millibus.  "  David 
also  got  him  a  name  when  he  returned  from  the  capture  of 
Syria,  having  slain  eighteen  thousand  men." — Chandler. 

Ver.  16.  And  Jehoshaphat,  the  son  of  Ahilud, 
was  recorder. 

That  is,  as  is  generally  believed,-  remembrancer  or 
writer  of  chronicles,  an  employment  of  no  mean  estima- 
tion in  the  eastern  world,  where  it  was  customary  with 
kings  to  keep  daily  registers  of  all  the  transactions  of  their 
reign  :  and  a  trust,  which,  whoever  discharged  to  purpose, 
must  be  let  into  the  true  springi  and  secrets  of  action,  and 
consequently  must  be  received  into  the  utmost  confidence. 
— Border. 

Ver.  18.  And  Benaiah,  the  son  of  Jehoiada,  was 
over  both  the  Cherethites  and  the  Pelethites : 
and  David's  sons  were  chief  rulers. 

These  guards  are  called  in  the  text,  the  Cherethites  and 
the  Pelethites,  but  what  they  were  is  variously  conjectured. 
That  they  were  soldiers  is  evident  from  their  being  men- 
tioned as  present  at  the  proclamation  of  King  Solomon 
against  Adonijah,  which  could  not  evidently  have  been 
done  without  some  armed  force  to  protect  the  persons 
that  proclaimed  him:  and  that  they  were  not  common 
soldiers,  but  the  constant  guards  of  David's  person,  is 
manifest  from  the  title  of  EM/zaro^tJAax-Ej,  keepers  of  the  body, 
which  Josephus  gives  them.  Some  are  of  opinion  that 
they  were  men  of  gigantic  stature;  but  we  find  no  ground 
for  that,  though  they  were  doubtless  proper  and  robust  men, 
(as  we  speak,)  and  of  known  fidelity  to  their  prince,  2  Sam. 
XV.  18,  and  xx.  7.  Others  again  think  that  they  were 
Philistines ;  but  it  is  hardly  supposable,  that  David  would 
have  any  of  these  hated,  uncircumcised  people  to  be  his 
bodyguard ;  neither  can  we  believe  that  Israelitish  soldiers 
would  have  took  it  patiently  to  see  foreigners  of  that  nation 

fiut  in  such  places  of  honour  and  trust.  It  is  much  more 
ikely,  then,  tbat  they  were  some  select  men  of  the  tribe  of 
Judah,  which  had  their  names  from  the  families  they 
sprung  from,  one  of  which  is  mentioned,  1  Sam.  xxx.  14, 
and  the  other,  1  Chron.  ii.  33,  unless  we  will  come  into  the 
notion  of  others,  who,  as  they  find  that  there  were  men  of 
this  denomination  among  the  Philistines,  think  that  these 
guards  of  David's,  which  were  originally  of  his  own  tribe, 
had  these  exotic  names  given  them  from  some  notable 
exploit  or  signal  victory  gained  over  the  Philistines  of  this 
name,  as  (in  1  Sam.  xxx.  14)  we  have  express  mention 
of  one  action  against  them. — Stackhouse. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  11.   Then  said  Ziba  unto  the  king,  Accord- 
ing to  all  that  my  lord  the  king  hath  command- 


ed his  servant,  so  shall  thy  servant  do.     As  for 
Mephibosheth,  said  the  king,  he  shall  eat  at 
my  table,  as  one  of  the  king's  sons. 
See  on  2  Kings  9.  11. 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ver.  4.  Wherefore  Hanun  took  David's  servants, 
and  shaved  off  the  one  half  of  their  beards,  and 
cut  off  their  garments  in  the  middle,  even  to 
their  buttocks,  and  sent  them  away. 

This  was  one  of  the  greatest  indignities  that  the  malice 
of  man  could  invent  in  those  countries,  where  all  people 
thought  their  hair  so  great  an  ornament,  that  some  would 
have  rather  submitted  to  die,  than  part  with  it.  What  a 
foul  disgrace  and  heavy  punishment  this  was  accounted  in 
ancient  times,  we  may  learn  from  Nicholaus  Damascenus, 
as  mentioned  by  Stobaeus,  (Tit.  42.)  who  says,  that  among 
the  Indians  the  king  commanded  the  greatest  offenders  to 
be  shaven,  as  the  heaviest  punishment  that  he  could  inflict 
upon  them ;  and,  to  the  like  purpose,  Plutarch  (in  Egesil) 
tells  us,  that,  whenever  a  soldier,  among  the  Lacedemo- 
nians, was  convicted  of  cowardice,  he  was  obliged  to  go  with 
one  part  of  his  upper  lip  shaved,  and  the  other  not.  Nay, 
even  at  this  day,  no  greater  indignity  can  be  offered  to  a 
man  of  Persia,  than  to  cause  his  beard  to  be  shaved ;  and 
therefore,  Tavernier,  in  his  travels,  relates  the  story,  that 
when  the  Sophi  caused  an  ambassador  of  Aurengzeb's 
to  be  used  in  this  manner,  telling  him  that  he  was  not  wor- 
thy to  wear  a  beard,  the  emperor  (even  in  the  manner  as 
David  here  did)  most  highly  resented  the  affront  that  was 
done  to  him  in  the  person  of  his  ambassador.  And,  as 
shaving  David's  ambassadors  was  deservedly  accounted  a 
grievous  affront,  so  the  cutting  off  half  the  beard  (which 
made  them  look  still  more  ridiculous)  was  a  great  addition 
to  it,  where  beards  were  held  in  great  veneration;  and 
where  long  habits  down  to  the  heels  were  worn,  especially 
by  persons  of  distinction,  without  any  breeches  or  drawers, 
the  cutting  their  garments,  even  to  the  middle,  thereby  to 
expose  their  nakedness,  was  such  a  brutal  and  shameless 
insult,  as  would  badly  become  a  man  of  David's  martial 
spirit,  and  just  sentiments  of  honour,  to  have  tamely  passed 
by. — Stackhouse. 

The  customs  of  nations  in  respect  to  this  part  of  the  hu- 
man countenance,  have  differed,  and  still  do  differ,  so  wide- 
ly, that  it  is  not  easy,  among  us,  who  treat  the  beard  as  an 
encumbrance,  to  coiiceive  properly  of  the  importance  which 
is  attached  to  it  in  the  East.  The  Levitical  laws  have 
noticed  the  beard,  but  the  terms  in  which  most  of  them  are 
expressed,  are  somewhat  obscure;  i.  e.  they  are  obscure  to 
us,  by  the  very  reason  of  their  being  familiar  to  the  persons 
to  whom  they  were  addressed.  Perhaps  the  following  quota- 
tions may  contribute  to  throw  a  light,  at  least  upon  some  of  ^ 
them :  "  The  first  care  of  an  Ottoman  prince,  when  he  comes 
to  the  throne,  is,  to  let  his  beard  gro^o,  to  which  Sultan  Mus- 
tapha  added,  the  dying  of  it  black,  in  order  that  it  might 
be  more  apparent  on  the  day  of  his  first  appearance,  when 
he  was  to  gird  on  the  sabre  ;  a  ceremony  by  which  he 
takes  possession  of  the  throne,  and  answering  the  corona- 
tion among  us."  (Baron  du  Tott.)  So,  De  la  Motraye 
tells  us,  "  that  the  new  Sultan's  beard  had  not  been  per- 
mitted to  grow,  but  only  since  he  had  been  proclaimed 
emperor :  and  was  very  short,  it  being  customary  to  shave 
the  Ottoman  princes,  as  a  mark  of  their  subjection  to  the 
reigning  emperor,"  "  In  the  year  1764,  Kerim  Khan  sent 
to  demand  payment  of  the  tribute  due  for  his  possessions  in 
Kermesir :  but,  Mir  Mahenna  maltreated  the  officer  who 
was  sent  on  the  errand,  and  caused  his  beard  to  be  cut  of. 
Kerim  Khan  then  sent  a  strong  army  against  him,  which 
conquered  Bender  Risk,  and  all  the  territories  of  Mir  Ma- 
henna." (Niebuhr.)  This  will  remind  the  reader  of  the  in- 
sult offered  to  the  ambassadors  of  David,  by  Hanun,  (2  Sam. 
X.)  which  insult,  however,  seems  to  have  had  a  peculiarity 
m  it— of  shaving  one  half  of  the  beard ;  i.  e.  the  beard  on 
one  side  of  the  face.  On  this  subject,  we  iran'^late  from 
Niebuhr  (French  edit.)  the  following  remarks:  "The 
Orientals  have  divers  manners  of  letting  the  beard  grow; 
the  .Tews,  in  Turkey,  Arabia,  and  Persia,  preserve  iheir 
beard  from  their  youth;  and  it  differs  from  that  of  the 
Christians  and  Mohammedans,  in  that  they  do  not  shave  it 


Chap.  10. 


2  SAMUEL. 


205 


either  at  the  aers,  or  the  temples.  The  Arabs  keep  their 
whiskers  very  short ;  some  cut  them  off  entirely;  but  they 
never  shave  off  the  beard.  In  the  mountains  of  Yemen, 
where  strangers  are  seldom  seen,  it  is  a  disgrace  to  appear 
shaven ;  they  supposed  our  European  servant,  who  had 
only  whiskers,  had  committed  some  crime,  for  which  we  had 
punished  him,  by  cutting  off  his  beard.  On  the  contrary,  the 
Turks  have  commonly  long  whiskers ;  the  beard  among 
them  is  a  mark  of  honour.  The  slaves  and  certain  domes- 
tics of  the  great  lords,  are  forced  to  cut  it  off,  and  dare  not 
keep  any  part  of  it,  but  whiskers ;  the  Persians  have  long 
whiskers,  and  clip  their  beard  short  with  scissors,  which 
has  an  unpleasant  appearance  to  strangers.  The  Kurdes 
shave  the  beard,  but  leave  the  whiskers,  and  a  band  of 
hair  on  the  cheeks."  "  The  true  Arabs  have  black  beards, 
yet  some  old  men  die  their  white  beards  red ;  but  this  is 
thought  to  be  to  hide  their  age  ;  and  is  rather  blamed  than 
praised.  The  Persians  blacken  their  beards  much  more ; 
and,  probably,  do  so  to  extreme  old  age,  in  order  to  pass 
for  younger  than  they  really  are.  The  Tuiks  do  the  same 
in  some  cases.  [How  differently  Solomon  thought !  Prov. 
XX.  29,  '  The  glory  of  young  men  is  their  strength,  and  the 
beauty  of  old  men  is  the  gray  head.'] — When  the  younger 
Turks,  after  having  been  shaven,  let  their  beards  grow, 
they  recite  afatha,  [or  kind  of  prayer,]  which  is  considered 
as  a  vow  never  to  cut  it  off;  and  when  any  one  cuts  off  his 
beard,  he  maybe  very  severely  punished,  (at  Basra,  at  least,  to 
300  blows  with  a  stick.)  He  would  also  be  the  laughing-stock 
of  those  of  his  faith.  A  Mohammedan,  at  Basra,  having 
shaved  his  beard  when  drunk,  fled  secretly  to  India,  not  daring 
to  return,  for  fear  of  public  scorn,  and  judicial  punishment." 

"  Although  the  Hebrews  took  great  care  of  their  beards, 
to  fashion  them  when  they  were  not  in  mourning,  and  on 
the  contrary,  did  not  trim  them  when  they  were  in  mourn- 
ing, yet  I  do  not  observe  that  their  regard  for  them  amount- 
ed to  any  veneration  for  their  beard.  On  the  contrary,  the 
Arabians  have  so  much  respect  for  their  beards,  that  they 
look  on  them  as  sacred  ornaments  given  by  God,  to  distin- 
guish them  from  women.  They  never  shave  them  :  no- 
thing can  be  more  infamous  thaii  for  a  man  to  be  shaved  ; 
they  make  the  preservation  of  their  beards  a  capital  point 
of  religion,  Tsecause  Mohammed  never  cut  off  his :  it  is 
likewise  a  mark  of  authority  and  liberty  among  them,  as 
well  as  among  the  Turks;  "the  Persians,  who  clip  them, 
and  shave  above  the  jaw,  are  reputed  heretics.  The  razor 
is  never  drawn  over  the  grand  seignior's  face  :  they  who 
serve  in  the  seraglio,  have  their  beard  shaved,  as  a  sign  of 
servitude  :  they  do  not  suffer  it  to  grow  till  the  sultan  has 
set  them  at  liberty,  which  is  bestowed  as  a  reward  upon 
them,  and  is  always  accompanied  with  some  emploA'menl. 
Unmarried  young  men  may  cut  their  beards ;  but"  when 
married,  especially  if  parents,  they  forbear  doing  so,  to 
yhow  that  they  are  become  wiser,  have  renounced  the  van- 
ides  of  youth,"  and  think  now  of  superior  things.  When 
they  comb  their  beards,  they  hold  a  handkerchief  on  their 
knees,  and  gather  carefully  the  hairs  that  fall :  and  when 
they  have  got  together  a  proper  quantity,  they  fold  them 
up  in  paper,  and  carry  them  to  the  place" where  they  bury 
the  dead.  Among  them  it  is  more  infamous  for  any  one 
to  have  his  beard  cut  off,  than  among  us  to  be  publicly 
whipped,  or  branded  with  a  hot  iron.  Many  men  in  that 
country  would  prefer  death  to  such  a  punishment.  The 
wives  kiss  their  husbands'  beards,  and  children  their  fa- 
thers', when  they  come  to  salute  them  :  the  men  kiss  one 
another's  beards  reciprocally,  when  they  salute  in  the 
streets,  or  come  from  a  journey. — They  say,  that  the  beard 
is  the  perfection  of  the  human  face,  which  would  be  more 
disfis-nred  by  having  this  cut  off,  than  by  losing  the  nose. 

".They  admire  and  envy  those,  who  have  fine  beards  : 
'  Pray  do  but  see,'  they  cry,  '  that  beard  ;  the  very  sight  of 
it  would  persuade  any  one,  that  he,  to  whom  it  belongs,  is 
an  honest  man-.'  If  anybody  with  a  fine  beard  is  guilty  of 
an  unbecoming  action,  'What  a  disadvantage  is  this,'  they 
say,  '  to  such  a  beard !  How  much  such  a  beard  is  to  be 
pitied!'  If  thev  would  correct  anv  one's  mistakes,  they 
will  tell  him,  '  For  shame  of  your  beard  !  Does  not  the 
confusion  that  follows  light  on  your  beard  1'  If  they  en- 
treat any  one,  or  use  oaths  in  affirming  or  denying  any 
thing,  they  say,  '  I  conjure  you  by  your  heard, — by  the  life 
of  your  beard, — to  grant  me  this,' — or,  'by  your  beard, 
-his  is,  or  is  not,  so.'  They  say  further,  in  the  way  of  ac- 
knowledgment, '  May  God  preserve  your  blessed  beard ! 


May  God  pour  out  his  blessings  on  your  bea^d''  And, 
in  comparisons,  '  This  is  more  valuable  than  one's  beard.' " 
MoBurs  des  Arabes,  par  M.  D'Arvieux,  chap.  vii.  These 
accounts  may  contribute  to  illustrate  several  passages  oi 
scripture. 

The  dishonour  done  by  David  to  his  beard,  of  letting  his 
spittle  fall  on  it,  (1  Sam.  xxi,  13,)  seems  at  once  to  have 
convinced  Achish  of  his  being  distempered  :  q.  d.  "  No  man 
in  good  health,  of  body  and  mind,  would  thus  defile  what 
we  esteem  so  honourable  as  his  beard."  If  the  beard  be 
thus  venerated,  we  perceive  the  import  of  Mephibosheth's 
neglect,  in  his  not  trimming  it,  2  Sam.  xix.  24.  We  con- 
ceive, also,  that  after  the  information  given  us,  as  above, 
that  men  kiss  one  another's  beards,  when  they  salute  in  the 
streets,  or  when  one  of  them  is  lately  covie  from  a  jovrney  ; 
we  may  discover  traces  of  deeper  dissimulation  in  the  be- 
haviour of  Joab  to  Amasa  (2  Sam.  xx.  9)  than  we  have 
heretofore  noticed  :  "  And  Joab  held  in  his  right  hand  the 
beard  of  Amasa,  that  he  might  give  it  a  Jdss." — No  wonder 
then,  that  while  this  act  of  friendship,  of  gratulation  after 
long  absence,  occupied  Amasa's  attention,  he  did  not  per- 
ceive the  sword  that  was  in  Jonb's  left  hand.  The  action 
of  Joab  was,  indeed,  a  high  compliment,  but  neither  sus- 
picious nor  unusual;  and  to  this  compliment  Amasa  pay- 
mg  attention,  and,  no  doubt,  returning  it  with  answerable 
politeness,  he  could  little  expect  the  fatal  event  that  Joab's 
perfidy  produced.  Was  the  behaviour  of  Judas  to  Jesus 
something  like  this  behaviour  of  Joab  to  Amasa'? — a  wor- 
thy example  worthily  imitated ! — With  this  idea  in  our 
minds,  let  us  hear  the  Evangelists  relate  the  story  ;  Matt, 
xxvi.  49,  "  And  coming  directly  to  Jesus,  he  said.  Hail 
[joy  to  thee]  Rabbi !  and  kissed  him :"  so  says  Mark  xiv. 
45.  But  Luke  seems  to  imply,  that  Judas  observed  a  more 
respectful  manner,  in  his  salutation.  Jesus,  according  to 
Matthew,  before  he  received  the  kiss  from  Judas,  had  time 
to  say,  "  Friend  [in  what  manner]  unto  what  purpose  art 
thou  come  1"  And  while  Judas  was  kissing  him — suppose 
his  beard — Jesus  might  easily,  and  very  aptly  express  him- 
self, as  Luke  relates,  "  Ah  !  Judas,  betrayest  thou  the  Son 
of  Man  by  a  kiss  7"  The  cutting  off  the  beard  is  mention- 
ed (Isaiah  xv.  2)  as  a  token- of  mourning;  and  as  such  it 
appears  to  be  very  expressive,  Jer.  xli.  5  :  "  Fourscore  men 
came  from  Samaria,  having  their  beards  shaven,  and  their 
clothes  rent." — See,  also,  chap,  xlviii.  37.  Is  not  this  cus- 
tom somewhat  illustrated  by  the  idea  which  the  Arabs  at- 
tached to  the  shaven  servant  of  Niebuhr,  i.  e.  as  a  kind  ot 
pimishment  suffered  for  guilt,  expressed  or  implied?.— 
Taylor  in  Calmet. 

While  the  Orientals  had  their  emblems  of  honour,  and 
tokens  of  regard,  they  had  also  peculiar  customs  expressive 
of  contempt  or  dislike  ;  of  which  the  first  I  shall  mention 
is  cutting  off  the  beard.  Even  to  talk  disrespectfully  of  a 
Persian's  beard,  is  the  greatest  insult  that  can  be  offered  to 
him,  and  an  attempt  to  touch  it  would  probably  be  followed 
by  the  instant  death  of  the  offender.  Cutting"  off  the  beard 
is  reckoned  so  great  a  mark  of  infamy  among  the  Arabs, 
that  many  of  them  would  prefer  death  to  such  a  dishonour.  ' 
They  set  the  highest  value  upon  this  appurtenance  of  the 
male ;  for  when  they  would  express  their  value  for  a  thing, 
they  say  it  is  worth  rnore  than  his  beard ;  they  even  beg  for 
the  sake  of  it,  "  By  your  beard,  by  the  life  of  your  beard, 
do." — Paxton. 

When  Peter  the  Great  attempted  to  civilize  the  Russians, 
and  introduced  the  manners  and  fashions  of  the  more  re- 
fined parts  of  Europe,  nothing  met  with  more  opposition 
than  the  cutting  off  their  beards,  and  many  of  those  who 
were  obliged  to  comply  with  this  command,  testified  such 
great  veneration  for  their  beards,  as  to  order  them  to  be 
buried  with  them.  Irwin  also,  in  his  voyage  up  the  Red 
Sea,  says,  that  at  signing  a  treaty  of  peace  with  the  vizier  of 
Yambo,  they  swore  by  their  beards,  the  most  solemn  oath 
they  can  take.  D'Arvieux  gives  a  remarkable  instance  of 
an  Arab,  who,  having  received  a  wound  in  his  jaw,  chose 
to  hazard  his  life  rather  than  to  suffer  his  surgeon  to  take 
off  his  beard. — Burder. 

This  shows,  according  to  the  oriental  mode  of  thinking, 
the  magnitude  of  the  affront  which  Hanan  offered  to  the 
ambassadors  of  David,  when  he  took  them  and  shaved  ofl 
the  one  half  of  their  beards.  It  was  still,  in  times  compar- 
atively modern,  the  greatest  indignity  that  can  be  offered 
in  Persia.  Shah  Abbas,  king  of  that  country,  enraged  that 
the  emperor  of  Hindostan  had  inadvertently  addressed  nimby 


206 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  U. 


a  title  far  inferior  to  that  of  the  great  Shah-in-Shah,  or  king 
of  kings,  ordered  the  beards  of  the  ambassadors  to  be  shaved 
off,  and  sent  them  home  to  their  master.  This  ignominious 
treatment  discovers  also  the  propriety  and  force  of  the  type 
of  hair  in  the  prophecies  of  Ezekiel ;  where  the  inhabitants 
af  Jerusalem  are  compared  to  the  hair  of  his  head  and 
beard,  to  intimate  that  they  had  been  as  dear  to  God  as  the 
beard  was  to  the  Jews ;  yet  for  their  wickedness  they  should 
be  cut  off  and  destroyed. — Paxton. 

Ver.  5.  When  they  told  it  unto  David,  he  sent  to 
meet  them,  because  the  men  were  greatly- 
ashamed  :  and  the  king  said,  Tarry  at  Jericho 
until  your  beards  be  grown,  and  then  return. 

It  is  customary  to  shave  the  Ottoman  princes,  as  a  mark 
of  their  subjection  to  the  reigning  emperor.  In  the  moun- 
tains of  Yemen,  where  strangers  are  seldom  seen,  it  is  a 
disgrace  to  appear  shaven.  The  beard  is  a  mark  of  au- 
thority and  liberty  among  the  Mohammedans,  as  well  as 
among  the  Turks:  the  Persians,  who  clip  the  beard,  and 
shave  above  the  jaw,  are  reputed  heretics.  They  who 
serve  in  the  seraglio,  have  thej^r  beards  shaven  as  a  sign 
of  servitude  :  they  do  not  suffer  it  to  grow  till  the  sultan  has 
set  them  at  liberty.  Among  the  Arabians  it  is  more  infa- 
mous for  any  one  to  have  his  beard  cut  off,  than  among 
us  to  be  publicly  whipped,  or  branded  with  a  hot  iron. 
Many  in  that  country  would  prefer  death  to  such  a  punish- 
nient.— (Niebuhr.)  At  length  Ibrahim  Bey  suffered  Ali, 
his  page,  to  let  his  beard  grow,  that  is  to  say,  gave  him  his 
freedom ;  for,  among  the  Turks,  to  want  mustaches  and  a 
beard  is  thought  only  fit  for  slaves  and  women  ;  and  hence 
arises  the  unfavourable  impression  they  receive  on  the  first 
sig:ht  of  a  European.     (Volney.) — Burder. 

Ver.  9.  When  Joab  saw  that  the  front  of  the  battle 
was  against  him  before  and  behind,  he  chose 
of  all  the  choice  men  of  Israel,  and  put  them  in 
array  against  the  Syrians:  10.  And  the  rest 
of  the  people  he  delivered  into  the  hand  of 
Abishai  his  brother,  that  he  might  put  them  in 
array  against  the  children  of  Ammon. 

Immediately  before  the  signal  was  given,  and  sometimes 
in  the  heat  of  battle,  the  general  of  a  Grecian  army  made 
an  oration  to  his  troops,  in  which  he  briefly  slated  the 
motives  that  ought  to  animate  their  bosoms;  and  exhorted 
them  to  exert  their  utmost  force  and  vigour  against  the 
enemy.  The  success  which  sometimes  attended  these 
harangues  was  wonderful;  the  soldiers,  animated  with 
fresh  life  and  courage,  returned  to  the  charge,  retrieved 
in  an  instant  their  affairs,  which  were  in  a  declining  and 
almost  desperate  condition,  and  repulsed  those  very  ene- 
mies by  whom  they  had  been  often  defeated.  Several  in- 
stances of  this  might  be  quoted  from  Roman  and  Grecian 
history,  but  few  are  more  remarkable  than  that  of  Tyrtceus, 
the  lame  Athenian  poet,  to  whom  the  command  of  the 
Spal"tan  army  was  given  in  one  of  the  Messenian  wars. 
The  Spartans  had  at  that  time  suffered  great  losses  in  many 
encounters ;  and  all  their  stratagems  proved  ineffectual,  so 
that  they  began  to  despair  almost  of  success,  when  the  poet, 
by  his  lectures  on  honour  and  courage, delivered  in  moving 
verse  to  the  army,  ravished  them  to  such  a  degree  with  the 
thoughts  of  dying  for  their  country,  that,  rushing  on  with 
a  furious  transport  to  meet  their  enemies,  they  gave  them 
an  entire  overthrow,  and  by  one  decisive  battle  brought 
the  war  to  a  happy  conclusion.  Such  military  harangue.s, 
especiallv  in  very  trying  circumstances,  are  perfectly  nat- 
ural, and  may  be  found  perhaps  in  the  records  of  "every 
nation.  The  history  of  Joab,  the  commander-in-chief  of 
David's  armies,  furnishes  a  striking  instance:  "When 
Joab  saw  that  the  front  of  the  battle  was  against  him,  before 
and  behind,  he  chose  of  all  the  choice  men  of  Israel,  and 
put  them  in  array  against  the  Syrians;  and  the  rest  of  the 
peopl"  he  delivered  into  the  hand  of  Abishai  his  brother, 
that  he  mia;ht  put  them  marrav  against  the  children  of  Am- 
mon. And  he  said.  If  the  Svriansbe  too  strong  for  me, 
then  thou  sha.lt  help  me;  but  if  the  children  of  Ammon  be 
too  s'ron?  for  thee,  then  I  will  come  and  help  thee.  Be  of 
jTood  cour^sc,  and  let  us  play  the  men  for  our  people,  and 
for  the  cities  of  our  God;  and  the  Lord  do  that  which 


seemeth  good  in  his  sight."  In  a  succeedmg  age,  the  king 
of  Judah  addressed  his  troops,  before  they  marched  against 
the  confederate  armies  of  Moab  and  Ammon,  in  terms  be- 
coming the  chief  magistrate  of  a  holy  nation,  and  calcula- 
ted to  make  a  deep  impression  on  their  minds :  "  And  as 
they  went  forth,  Jehoshaphat  stood  and  said.  Hear  me,  O 
Judah,  and  ye  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem:  Believe  in  the 
Lord  your  God,  so  shall  ye  be  established;  believe  his 
prophets,  so  shall  ye  prosper."  To  express  his  own  con- 
fidence in  the  protection  of  Jehovah,  and  to  inspire  his 
army  with  the  same  sentiments,  after  consulting  with  the 
people,  he  "appointed  singers  unto  the  Lord,  and  that 
should  praise  the  beauty  of  holiness,  as  they  went  out  be- 
fore the  army,  and  to  say.  Praise  the  Lord,  for  his  mercy 
endureth  for  ever."  This  pious  conduct  obtained  the  ap- 
probation of  the  living  and  true  God,  who  rewarded  the 
cheerful  reliance  of  his  people  with  a  complete  victory 
over  their  enemies,  unattended  by  loss  or  danger  to  them ; 
for  "  when  they  began  to  praise,  the  Lord  turned  every 
man's  sword  against  his  fellow,"  in  the  camp  of  the  confed- 
erates, till  not  one  escaped.  Animated  with  joy  and  grati- 
tude for  so  great  a  deliverance,  the  pious  king  returned  to 
Jerusalem  at  the  head  of  his  troops,  preceded  by  a  numer- 
ous band  of  music,  celebrating  the  praises  of  the  God  of 
battles.  A  custom  not  unlike  this,  and  perhaps  derived 
from  some  imperfect  tradition  of  it,  long  prevailed  in  the 
states  of  Greece.  Before  they  joined  battle,  they  sung  a 
hymn  to  the  god  of  war,  called  naiav  en^arripiog  -,  and  when 
victory  declared  in  their  favour,  they  sung  another  to  Apollo, 
termed  iraiav  eiriviKios. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Ver.  1.  And  it  came  to  pass,  after  the  year  was 
expired,  at  the  time  when  kings  go  forth  td 
battle,  that  David  sent  Joab,  and  his  servants 
with  him,  and  all  Israel. 

The  most  usual  time  of  commencing  military  operations 
was  at  the  return  of  spring ;  the  hardships  of  a  wintei 
campaign  were  then  unknown.  In  the  beginning  of  spring, 
says  Josephus,  David  sent  forth  his  commander-in-chief 
Joab,  to  make  war  with  the  Ammonites.  In  another  part 
of  his  works,  he  says,  that  as  soon  as  spring  was  begun, 
Adad  levied  and  led  forth  his  army  agamst  the  Hebre\\s. 
Antiochus  also  prepared  to  invade  Judea  at  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  spring;  and  Vespasian,  earnest  to  put  an  end 
to  the  war  in  Judea,  marched  with  his  whole  army  to  Anti- 
palris,  at  the  commencement  of  the  same  season.  The 
sacred  historian  seems  to  suppose,  that  there  was  one  par- 
ticular time  of  the  year  to  which  the  operations  of  war 
were  commonly  limited  :  "  And  it  came  to  pass,  after  the 
year  was  expired,  at  the  time  kings  go  forth  to  battle,  that 
David  sent  Joab  and  his  servants  and  all' Israel,  and  they 
destroyed  the  children  of  Ammon  and  besieged  Kabbah." 
The  kings  and  armies  of  the  East,  says  Chardin,  do  not 
march  but  when  there  is  grass,  and  when  they  can  en- 
camp, which  time  is  April.  But  in  modern  times,  this 
rule  is  disregarded,  and  the  history  of  the  crusades  records 
expeditions  and  battles  in  every  month  of  the  year. — Pax- 
ton. 

Ver.  2.  And  it  came  to  pass  in  an  evening-tide, 
that  David  arose  from  off  his  bed,  and  walked 
upon  the  roof  of  the  king's  house :  and  from  the 
roof  he  saw  a  woman  washing  herself:  and  the 
woman  was  very  beautiful  to  look  upon. 

The  place  of  greatest  attraction  to  an  oriental  taste  cer- 
tainly was  the  summer  bath.  It  seemed  to  comprise  every 
thing  of  seclusion,  elegance,  and  that  luxurious  enjoyment 
which  has  too  often  been  the  chief  occupation  of  some 
Asiatic  princes.  This  bath,  saloon,  or  court,  is  circular, 
with  avast  basin  in  its  centre,  of  pure  white  marble,  of  the 
same  shape,  and  about  sixty  or  seventy  feet  in  diameter. 
This  is  filled  with  the  clearest  water,  sparkling  in  the  sun, 
for  its  only  canopy  is  the  vault  of  heaven ;  but  rose-trees, 
with  other  pendent  shrubs,  bearing  flowers,  cluster  near  it: 
and  at  limes  their  waving  branches  throw  a  beautifully 
quivering  shade  over  the  excessive  brightness  of  the  water. 
Round  the  sides  of  the  court  are  two  ranges,  one  above  the 
other,  of  little  chambers,  looking  towards  the  bath,  and  fur- 


Chap.  11. 


2  SAMUEL. 


207 


nished  with  every  refinement  of  the  harem.  These  are  for 
the  accommociation  of  the  ladies  who  accompany  the  shah 
during  his  occasional  sojourns  at  the  Negauristan.  They 
undress  or  repose  in  these  before  or  after  the  delight  of 
bathing:  for  so  fond  are  they  of  this  luxury,  they  remain 
in  the  water  for  hours;  and  sometimes,  when  the  heat  is 
very  relaxing,  come  out  more  dead  than  alive.  But  in  this 
deliglitful  recess,  the  waters  flow  through  the  basin  by  a 
constant  spring;  thus  renewing  the  body's  vigour  by  their 
bracing  coolness:  and  enchantingly  refreshing  the  air, 
which  the  stin's  influence,  and  the  thousand  flowers  breath- 
ing around,  might  otherwise  render  oppressive  with  their 
incense.  The  royal  master  of  this  Hortus  Adonidis,  fre- 
quently takes  his  noonday  repose  in  one  of  the  upper 
chambers  which  encircle  the  saloons  of  the  bath:  and,  if  he 
be  inclined,  he  has  only  to  turn  his  eyes  to  the  scene  below, 
to  see  the  loveliest  objects  of  his  tenderness,  sporting  like 
Naiads  amidst  the  crystal  streams,  and  glowing  with  all 
the  bloom  and  brilliancy  which  belongs  to  Asiatic  youth. 
In  such  a  bath  court  it  is  probable  that  Bathshebawas  seen 
by  the  enamoured  king  of  Israel.  As  he  was  walking  at 
evening-tide  on  the  roof  of  his  palace,  he  might  undesign- 
edly have  strolled  far  enough  to  overlook  the  androon  of 
his  women,  where  the  beautiful  wife  of  Uriah,  visiting  the 
royal  wives,  might  have  joined  them,  as  was  often  the  cus- 
tom in  those  countries,  in  the  delights  of  the  bath. — Sir  R. 
K.  Porter. 

The  following  history  is,  in  some  points,  an  accurate 
counterpart  to  that  of  David.  "  Nour  Jehan  signifies  the 
light  of  the  world;  she  was  also  called  Nour  Mahl,  or  the 
light  of  the  seraglio :  she  was  wife  to  one  Sher  Afkan 
Khan,  of  a  Turcoman  family,  who  came  from  Persia  to 
Hindostan  in  very  indifferent"  circumstances.  As  she  was 
exquisitely  beautiful,  of  great  wit,  and  an  elegant  poetess, 
Jehangnire,  the  sultan,  was  resolved  to  take  her  to  himself 
He  sent  her  husband,  who  was  esteemed  the  bravest  man 
in  his  service,  with  some  troops,  to  command  in  Bengal, 
and  afterward  sent  another  with  a  greater  force  to  cut 
him  off".  When  he  was  killed,  Nour  Jehan  was  soon  pre- 
vailed upon  to  become  an  empress.  The  coin  struck  in 
Jehanguire's  reign,  with  the  signs  of  the  zodiac,  were  not, 
as  is  usually  thought  in  Europe,  done  by  his  empress's  or- 
der ;  nor  did  she  reign  one  day,  as  the  common  opinion  is, 
but  she  ruled  the  person  who  reigned  for  above  twelve 
years."    (Fraser.)— Burder. 

Ver.  4.  And  David  sent  messengers  and  took 
her :  and  she  came  in  unto  him,  and  he  lay 
with  her ;  (for  she  was  purified  from  her  Uri- 
el eanness  ;)  and  she  returned  unto  her  house. 

The  kings  of  Israel  appear  to  have  taken  their  wives 
with  very  great  ease.  This  is  quite  con,sistent  with  the  ac- 
count given  in  general  of  the  manner  in  which  eastern 
princes  form  matrimonial  alliances.  "The  king,  in  his 
marriage,  uses  no  other  ceremony  than  this  :  he  sends  an 
azagi  to  the  house  where  the  lady  lives,  where  the  officer 
announces  to  her,  it  is  the  king's  pleasure  that  she  should 
remove  instantly  to  the  palace.  She  then  dresses  herself 
in  the  best  manner,  and  immediately  obeys.  Thencefor- 
ward he  assigns  her  an  apartment  in  the  palace,  and  gives 
her  a  house  elsewhere  in  any  part  she  chooses.  Then 
when  he  makes  her  Ueghe,  it  seems  to  be  the  nearest  re- 
semblance to  marriage;  for  whether  in  the  court  or  the 
camp,  he  orders  one  of  the  judges  to  pronounce  in  his  pres- 
eiKte,  that  he,  the  king,  has  chosen  his  handmaid,  naming 
her,  for  his  queen :  upon  which  the  crown  is  put  on  her 
head,  but  she  is  not  anointed."— Burder. 

Ver.  25.  Then  David  said  unto  the  messenger, 
Thus  shalt  thou  say  unto  Joab,  Let  not  this 
thing  displease  thee,  for  the  sword  devoureth 
one  as  well  as  another:  make  thy  battle  more 
strong  against  the  city,  and  overthrow  it ;  and 
encourage  thou  him. 

It  has  been  asserted,  of  the  portion  of  scripture  before  us, 
4iat  it  tells  a  tale  of  little  else  besides  cruelties  and  crimes, 
'  many  of  them  perpetrated  by  David  himself;  and  it  has 
been  triumphantly  demanded  how  a  man  stained  with  so 


I 


many  vices,  can,  without  impiety,  be  styled  a  "  man  after 
God's  own  heart."  We  will  endeavour  to  meet  the  objec- 
tion, because  under  it  is  comprehended  all  that  the  infidel 
is  justified  in  urging  against  the  credibility  of  the  narrative. 
The  peculiar  term,  of  which  a  use  so  unworthy  is  made, 
was  applied,  it  will  be  recollected,  to  David,  while  that  per- 
sonage yet  lived  the  life  of  a  private  man,  and  kept  his  fa- 
ther's sheep.  It  was  employed,  moreover,  by  God  himself, 
as  distinguishing  the  future  from  the  present  king  of  Israel, 
not  in  their  individual  characters,  as  members  of  the  great 
family  of  mankind,  but  as  the  chief  rulers  of  God's  chosen 
people.  To  understand  its  real  import,  therefore,  all  that 
seems  necessary  is,  to  ascertain  the  particular  duties  of  the 
kings  of  Israel ;  and  no  man  who  is  aware  that  these  mon- 
archs  filled,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  phrase,  the  station 
of  Jehovah's  vicegerents,  can  for  a  moment  be  at  a  loss  in 
effecting  that  discovery.  The  kings  of  Israel  were  placed 
upon  the  throne,  for  the  purpose  of  administering  the  Di- 
vme  law,  as  that  had  been  given  through  Moses.  In  an  es- 
pecial degree,  it  was  their  duty  to  preserve  the  people  pure 
from  the  guilt  of  idolatry  ;  idolatry  being,  among  the  He- 
brews, a  crime  equivalent  to  high-treason  among  us;^ 
while,  on  all  occasions,  whether  of  foreign  war  or  domes- 
tic arrangements,  they  were  bound  to  act  in  strict  obedi- 
ence to  the  will  of  God,  as  that  might  be  from  time  to  time 
revealed  to  them.  Whether  this  should  be  done  by  Urim, 
by  the  voice  of  a  prophet,  or  some  palpable  and  immediate 
vision,  the  king  of  Israel  was  equally  bound  to  obey ;  and 
as  long  as  he  did  obey,  literally,  fully,  and  cheerfully,  he 
was,  in  his  public  capacity,  a  man  after  God's  own  heart. 

An  ordinary  attentive  perusal  of  the  preceding  pages 
will  show,  that  David,  as  compared  with  Saul,  (and  it  is  only  % 
with  reference  to  such  comparison,  that  the  phrase  under 
review  ought  to  be  regarded,)  was  strictly  worthy  of  the 
honourable  title  bestowed  upon  him.  Whatever  his  private 
vices  might  be,  in  all  public  matters  his  obedience  to  God's 
laws  was  complete  ;  indeed,  he  never  speaks  of  himself  in 
any  other  language  than  as  the  servant  or  minister  of  Je- 
hovah. No  individual  among  all  that  reigned  in  Jerusalem 
ever  exhibited  greater  zeal  against  idolatry  ;  of  the  Mosaic 
code  he  was,  in  his  official  capacity,  uniformly  observant ; 
and  to  every  command  of  God,  bywhomsoever  conveyed, 
he  paid  strict  attention.  Such  was  by  no  means  the  case 
with  Saul,  as  his  assumption  of  the  priestly  office,  and  his, 
conduct  towards  the  Amalekites,  demonstrate  ;  and  it  was 
simply  to  distinguish  him  from  his  predecessor,  as  one  on 
whose  steady  devotion  to  Divine  wishes  reliance  could  be 
placed,  that  God  spoke  of  him  to  Samuel,  in  the  terms  so 
frequently  misinterpreted.  If  it  be  further  urged  that  Da- 
vid's moral  conduct  was  far  from  being  perfect ;  that  his 
treatment  of  Joab,  after  the  mUrder  of  Abner,  w^as  weak ; 
his  behaviour  to  the  captive  Ammonites  barbarous;  Im 
conduct  in  the  case  of  Uriah,  the  Hittite,  infamous ;  and 
his  general  treatment  of  his  children  without  excuse;  wc 
have  no  wish,  as  we  profess  not  to  have  the  power,  absolute- 
ly to  deny  the  assertions.  His  receiving:  Joab  into  favour, 
while  his  hands  were  red  with  the  blood  of  Abner,  m.ay  be 
pronounced  as  an  act  of  weakness;  yet  it  was  such  ari  act 
as  any  other  person,  in  his  circumstances,  would  h»vebeen 
apt  to  perform.  Joab  was  a  distinguished  soldier,  highly 
esteemed  by  the  troops,  and  possessed  of  great  influence  in 
the  nation;  it  would  have  been  the  height  of  imprudence, 
had  David,  situated  as  he  was,  made  such  a  man  his  ene- 
my; but  that  he  wholly  disapproved  of  the  treacherous  deed 
which  Joab  had  done,  he  took  every  conceivable  means  to 
demonstrate.  He  conferred  a  species  of  public  funeral 
upon  the  murdered  man,  and  attended  it  in  person,  as  chief 
mourner.  The  treatment  of  the  captive  Ammonites  w^as 
doubtless  exceedingly  cruel ;  yet  its  cruelty  may  admit  of 
some  extenuation,  provided  we  take  one  or  tM'o  matters, 
as  they  deserve  to  be  taken,  into  consideration.  In  the 
first  place,  the  age  was  a  barbarous  one,  and  from  the  in- 
fluence of  the  times  in  which  he  lived,  it  would  be  folly  to 
expect  that  David  could  be  free.  In  the  next  place,' the 
tortures  inflicted  upon  the  Ammonites  are  not  to  oe  under- 
stood as  heaped  indiscriminately  upon  the  whole  body  of 
the  people.  The  magistrates  and  principal  men  were  alone 
".put  under  saws  and  harrows  of  iron,  and  made  to  pass 
through  the  brick-kiln."  And  these  suffered  a  fate  so  hor- 
rible, only  in  retaliation  for  similar  excesses  committed  by 
their  order  upon  certain  Hebrew  prisoners.  Besides,  the 
gross  and  unprovoked  indignities  heaped  upon  David's  am- 


208 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  11. 


bassadors  might  well  inflame  his  fury  to  the  highest  pitch ; 
since  then,  even  more  conspicuously  than  now,  the  per- 
sons of  envoys  were  considered  sacred,  especially  in  the 
East.  Without,  therefore,  attempting  to  excuse  such  ac- 
tions, as  no  enlightened  person  would  now.  under  any  prov- 
ocation, perpetrate,  we  must  nevertheless  repeat,  that  Da- 
vid's treatment  of  the  Ammonites  was  not  absolutely  devoid 
of  extenuating  circumstances  ;  an  assertion  which  cannot, 
we  feel,  be  hazarded  in  reference  to  that  monarch's  beha- 
viour towards  Uriah  the  Hittite.  Perhaps  there  is  not 
recorded  in  any  volume  &  series  of  crimes  more  gross  or 
inexcusable  than  those  of  which  we  are  now  bound  to  take 
notice.  Adultery  and  murder  are  terms  too  mild  for  them, 
inasmuch  as  the  particular  acts  of  adultery  and  murder 
implied  other  otfences  scarcely  less  heinous  than  them- 
selves. The  woman  abused  by  David  was  the  wife  of  a 
proselyte  from  a  heathen  nation,  whom  it  was  to  the  inter- 
est arid  honour  of  the  true  religion  for  the  chosen  head  of 
God's  nation  to  treat  with  marked  delicacy.  He  was,  more- 
over, a  brave  and  faithful  soldier;  so  brave  and  zealous 
in  his  master's  service,  that  even  when  summoned  by  the 
king  himself  to  the  capital,  he  refused  to  indulge  in  its  lux- 
uries, while  his  comrades  were  exposed  to  the  hardships 
of  war.  This  man  David  would  have  vitally  wronged,  by 
introducing  into  his  family  a  child  of  which  the  king  him- 
self Avas  the  father ;  and  failing  in  the  accomplishment  of 
a  design  so  iniquitous,  he  coolly  devised  his  death.  Again, 
that  the  deed  might  be  done  without  bringing  disgrace  upon 
himself,  he  ordered  his  general  to  place  this  gallant  soldier 
in  a  post  of  danger,  and,  deserting  him  there,  to  leave  him 
to  his  fate ;  and  when  all  had  befallen  as  he  wished,  his 
observation  was,  that  "  the  sword  devoured  one  as  well  as 
another."  These  several  occurrences,  summed  up,  as  they 
were,  by  the  abrupt  and  shameless  marriage  of  Bathsheba, 
combine  to  complete  a  concatenation  of  crimes,  of  which 
it  is  impossible  to  speak  or  think  without  horror ;  yet  is 
there  nothing  connected  with  them,  in  the  slightest  degree, 
mischievous  to  the  credibility  or  consistency  of  scripture. 
It  cannot,  with  any  truth,  be  asserted,  that  God  either  was, 
or  is  represented  to  have  been,  a  party  to  these  black  deeds. 
So  far  is  this  .from  being  the  case,  that  we  find  a  prophet 
sent  expressly  to  the  sinful  monarch,  to  point  out  to  nim  the 
enormity  of  his  offences,  and  to  assure  him  of  a  punish- 
ment, ">grievous  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of  defilement 
which  he  had  contracted.  But  as  David's  crimes  had  been 
committed  in  his  private  capacity,  so  his  punishment  was 
made  to  affect  his  private  fortunes.  His  own  children  be- 
came the  instruments  of  God's  anger,  and  heavier  domestic 
calamities  than  fell  upon  him,  no  man,  perhaps  has  ever 
endured.  His  only  daughter  (and,  as  such,  doubtless  his 
favourite  child)  is  ravished  by  her  brother  Amnon ;  the 
ravisher  is  murdered  by  his  brother  Absalom ;  Absalom 
revolts  against  his  father,  drives  him  from  his  capital,  and 
is  finally  slain  in  battle  fighting  against  him.  If  there  be 
not  in  this  enough  to  vindicate  the  honour  of  God,  we  know 
not  where  marks  of  Divine  displeasure  are  to  be  looked 
for ;  and  as  to  the  credibility  of  the  scriptural  narrative, 
that  appears  to  be  strengthened,  rather  than  weakened,  by 
the  detail  of  David's  fall.  No  fictitious  writer  would  have 
represented  one  whom  he  had  already  designated  as  *'  a 
man  after  God's  own  heart,"  and  whom  he  evidently  de- 
sires his  readers  to  regard  with  peculiar  reverence,  as  a 
murderer  and  adulterer.  It  is  the  province  of  a  narrator 
of  facts  alone  to  speak  of  men  as  they  were,  by  exposing 
the  vices  and  follies  even  of  his  principal  heroes ;  nor  is 
the  history  without  its  effect  as  a  great  moral  warning.  It 
teaches  the  important  lesson,  that  the  commission  of  one 
crime  seldom,  if  ever,  fails  to  lead  to  the  commission  of 
others;  while  it  furnishes  a  memorable  example  of  the 
clemency  which  forbids  any  sinner  to  despair,  or  regard 
himself  as  beyond  the  pale  of  mercy.  Of  David's  conduct 
towards  his  children,  it  seems  to  us  little  better  than  a  waste 
of  time  to  set  up  either  an  explanation  or  a  defence.  Ex- 
travagantly partial  to  them  he  doubtless  was;  so  partial  as 
to  pass  over  in  their  behaviour  crimes  which,  we  can  hard- 
ly believe,  would  have  been  passed  by,  had  others  besides  the 
members  of  his  own  family  committed  them.  It  is  indeed 
true,  that  the  law  of  Moses,  by  which  alone  David  pro- 
fessed to  be  guided,  is  not  very  explicit  as  to  the  punish- 
ment which  ougfht  to  have  been  awarded  to  Amnon  ;  but 
the  truth  we  suspect  to  be,  as  Josephus  has  given  it,  that 
David  abstained  from  bringing  him  to  a  public  trial  after 


his  outrage  to  Tamar,  because  the  feelings  of  the  father 
prevailed  over  those  of  the  magistrate.  In  like  manner, 
his  pardoning  Absalom's  crime,  in  defiance  of  the  law, 
which  expressly  enjoins  blood  to  be  shed  for  blood,  without 
redemption,  is  open  to  a  similar  charge;  yet  even  here, 
there  is  more  to  be  urged  in  the  king's  defence,  than  the 
mere  operation  of  natural  affection.  Absalom  took  shelter 
at  a  foreign  court  immediately  on  the  perpetration  of  the 
murder ;  it  might  not  be  in  David's  power  to  force  his  sur- 
render, and  hence  the  only  alternative  was,  to  leave  him  in 
exile,  among  heathen,  at  the  rfiranifest  hazard  of  the  cor- 
ruption of  his  religious  principles,  or  to  permit  his  return 
to  Jerusalem,  and  ultimately  to  receive  him  into  favour. 
With  respect,  again,  to  his  subsequent  indulgence  of  that 
prince — an  indulgence  to  which,  in  some  degree,  his  insur- 
rection deserves  to  be  traced  back — we  see  in  it  only  one 
more  proof  of  that  amiable  weakness  which  characterized 
all  the  monarch's  dealings  towards  his  family,  his  fondness 
for  every  member  of  which  unquestionably  led  him  into 
errors,  if  not  of  the  heart,  at  all  events  of  the  head.  Such 
errors,  however,  leave  but  trivial  blots  upon  the  general 
reputation  of  any  man.  They  proceed  from  a  good  princi- 
ple, even  when  carried  to  weakness,  and  will  be  sought  for 
in  vain  among  the  utterly  heartless,  profligate,  or  selfish  ; 
and  as  David  is  not  represented  in  scripture  as  either  a 
perfect  saint  or  a  perfect  hero,  we  see  no  reason  why  his 
strength  of  mind,  more  than  his  moral  character,  should  be 
vindicated  from  all  the  charges  which  may  be  brought 
against  it. — Gleig. 

Ver.  25.  Then  David  said  unto  the  messenger, 
Thus  shalt  thou  say  unto  Joab,  Let  not  this 
thing  displease  thee,  for  the  sword  devoureth 
one  as  well  as  another  :  make  thy  battle  more 
strong  against  the  city,  and  overthrow  it ;  and 
encourage  thou  him.  26.  And  w^hen  the  wife 
of  Uriah  heard  that  Uriah  her  husband  was 
dead,  she  mourned  for  her  husband.  27.  And 
when  the  mourning  was  passed,  David  sent 
and  fetched  her  to  his  house,  and  she  became 
his  Avife,  and  bare  him  a  son.  But  the  thing 
that  David  had  done  displeased  the  Lord. 

This  is  the  account  of  David's  fall,  as  related  in  scrip- 
ture; a  fall  attended  with  numerpus  circumstances  of 
heinous  aggravation,  an^  the  attempt  to  vindicate  his  con- 
duct, in  any  of  the  principal  parts  of  this  transaction, 
would  be  injurious  to  the  laws  of  truth  and  virtue.  But  if 
there  are  any  circumstances  of  alleviation,  that  can  be 
fairly  alleged,  justice  and  candour  require  that  they  should 
be  mentioned ;  as  well  as  to  own  and  admit  others,  that 
heighten  his  fault,  and  render  him  inexcusable.  And  I 
think  there  cannot  be  a  greater  pleasure,  than  what  arises 
to  a  good  mind,  from  being  able,  in  some  measure,  to 
apologize  for  actions,  in  some  particulars  of  them,  which 
upon  the  whole  are  bad,  and  extenuate  that  guilt,  where  it 
can  be  fairly  done,  which,  as  far  as  real,  ought  neither  to 
be  concealed  nor  defended.  There  are  some  crimes  pecu- 
liarly aggravated  by  previous  deliberate  steps  that  men 
take  to  commit  them;  when  they  lay  schemes'to  gratify 
bad  passions,  and  accomplish  purposes  they  know  to  be 
injurious  and  dishonourable.  David,  in  the  beginning  of 
this  transaction,  seems  to  be  entirely  free  from  every  charge 
of  this  kind.  He  did  not  so  much  as  know  who  she  was, 
much  less  that  she  was  a  married  woman,  when  he  first 
casually  saw  her;  and  the  passion  he  conceived  for  her, 
might,  for  any  thing  he  then  knew,  be  lawful,  and  such  as 
he  might,  without  any  oflfence,  allow  himself  in  the  gratifi- 
cation of  And  this  would  have  been  the  case,  under  the 
dispensation  in  which  he  lived,  had  she  been  a  single 
person.  David  therefore,  though  very  imprudently,  and  I 
think  in  some  degree  criminally,  did  not  deliberate  upon 
an  affair,  which  he  saw  no  immediate  reason  to  prohibit 
him  from  pursuing;  and  thereby  heightened  that  inclina- 
tion, which  he  ought  to  have  checked,  as  a  good  man,  till  . 
he  was  sure  he  had  a  right  to  indulge  it.  By  not  doing 
this,  it  became  too  strong  for  his  management;  and  Avhen 
he  had  been  informed  who  she  was,  yet  fired  with  tho 
imagination,  that  the  beautiful  object  he  beheld  had  raised 


Chaa  11. 


2  SAMUEL. 


209 


in  his  mind,  all  other  considerations  at  last  gave  way,  and 
he  immediately  resolved  to  gratify  his  desires,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  his  conscience,  honour,  and  duty.  He  instantly 
sends  for  Bathsheba,  she  immediately  complied  with  him, 
and  the  whole  affair  seems  to  have  been  completed  the 
very  evening  it  was  begun.  Every  one  must  see,  that  as 
David  had  but  little  time  for  deliberation,  it  was  not  very 
likely,  that  in  the  small  interval,  between  the  rise  of  his 
passion,  and  the  gratifying  it,  one  in  his  circumstances 
should  be  cool  enough  to  use  that  deliberation,  which  was 
necessary  to  bring  him  to  himself,  and  restrain  him  from 
the  crime  he  was  hurried  on  to  commit ;  and  that  therefore 
his  sin,  thus  far,  had  not  that  aggravation  which  it  would 
have  had,  if  there  had  been  more  time  and  leisure  for  him 
to  reflect,  and  had  he  pursued  his  criminal  inclinations, 
after  having  seriously  and  calmly  weighed  the  nature  and 
consequences  of  what  he  was  about  to  do,  and  used,  as  too 
many  others  in  like  cases  have  done,  fraud,  perfidy,  and 
force,  to  gratify  them.  To  say  there  was  no  time  for  any 
deliberation,  may  be  saying  too  much ;  for  there  is  scarce 
any  sin  so  suddenly  committed,  but  there  are  some  mo- 
ments for  reflection ;  but,  in  some  circumstances,  men  may 
be  so  hurried  away  by  a  sudden  gust  of  passion,  as  that 
they  may  be  wholly  incapacitated  by  it,  rightly  to  improve 
those  moments.  David  had  no  time  to  prevent  the  first 
rise  of  his  passion.  It  was  as  instantaneous  as  the  sight, 
and  he  might  not  think  himself  obliged  to  suppress  it,  till 
after  he  knew  Bathsheba  was  Uriah's  wife ;  so  that  all  the 
interval  he  could  have  for  reflection  was  only  that  between 
his  knowing  who  she  was,  and  his  actually  possessing  her; 
an  interval  too  entirely  engrossed  by  imagination  and  de- 
sire, to  leave  room  suflicient  for  the  exercise  of  reason,  or 
the  influence  of  any  good  principles  to  restrain  him.  If 
David  and  Bathsheba  had  been  casually  together,  a  more 
sudden  and  violent  gust  of  passion  could  not  have  hurried 
him  away,  without  allowing  him  some  time  for  delibera- 
tion, than  what  the  altitude,  in  which  he  first  saw  her, 
would  have  naturally  excited,  and  did  actually  excite ; 
which  swept  away  all  consideration  and  reflection  before 
it,  and  drove  him  down  a  precipice,  that  wellnigh  proved 
his  absolute  destruction.  I  cannot  help  adding,  that  Bath- 
sheba herself  seems  to  have  too  easily  yielded  to  the  king's 
inclination,  and  thereby  rendered  it  almost  impossible  for 
him  to  suppress  it.  For  the  history  informs  us,  that  David 
"  sent  messengers,  and  he  received  her,  and  she  came  in 
unto  him,  and  he  lay  with  her."  Her  compliance  seems 
voluntary,  unforced,  immediate.  But  she  went,  met  his 
passion,  indulged  it,  without,  as  appears,  any  reluctance, 
without  remonstrating  against  David's  attempt  upon  her 
honour ;  and  thereby  prevented  those  reflections,  that  her 
denial  and  resistance  might  have  occasioned  in  him,  and 
that  might  have  made  him  sensibleof  the  enormity  of  the 
crime,  and  preserved  him  from  the  commission  of  it. 
And  how  great  soever  this  sin  was,  David  is  not  the  only 
instance  of  men's  being  unhappily  betrayed  in  an  evil  hour, 
by  the  power  of  a  sudden  and  unexpected  temptation.  Too 
many  instances  may  be  produced,  even  of  habitually  good 
and  virtuous  persons  being  drawn  aside,  in  some  unguard- 
ed moment,  and  by  the  force  of  an  unthought-of  strong 
temptation,  into  the  commission  of  those  sins,  which,  in 
other  circumstances,  they  would  have  trembled  at,  and  ab- 
horred the  very  mention  and  thought  of. 

The  first  crime  thus  committed,  and  the  dreaded  conse- 
quences of  it  appearing,  the  unhappy  prince  found  himself 
involved  in  difficulties,  out  of  which  he  knew  not  how  to 
extricate  himself.  Conscious  guilt,  concern  for  his  own 
character,  regard  for  the  honoiir  of  the  fair  partner  of  his 
crime,  and  even  fear  of  his  own,  and  her  life ;  the  punishment 
of  their  adultery  being  death  ;  all  united,  to  put  him  on  form- 
ing some  contrivances  how  to  conceal  and  prevent  the  scan- 
dal of  it  from  becoming  public.  Hence,  all  the  little  tricks 
and  shifts  he  made  use  of  to  entice  the  injured  husband  to  his 
wife's  bed,  and  father  the  fruit  of  their  adultery  upon  him. 
Who  can  help  pitying  a  great,  and  I  will  venture  to  affirm, 
a  hitherto  virtuous  prince,  reduced  to  these  wretched 
expedients,  to  prevent  that  public  infamy,  which  he  now 
ipprehended  to  be  near  him,  and  dreaded  the  falling  under  1 
But  even  these  failed  him.  What  must  he  do  1  Where  can 
a  man  stop,  when  once  he  is  entangled  in  the  toils  of  vice, 
and  hath  presumptuously  ventured  into  the  paths  of  guilt  1 
Bathsheba  must  be  pres^ved  at  any  rate.  His  own  honour 
was  at  stake  to  prevent  her  destruction,  and  he  saw  but  one 
27 


way  to  secure  that  end,  wMch  he  thought  himself  obliged, 
at  any  hazard,  to  obtain.    If  Uriah  lived,  she  must  inevita- 
bly die.    Uriah  could  have  demanded  the  punishment,  and 
seems  to  have  been  a  soldier  of  that  roughness  of  temper, 
and  firmness  of  resolution,  as  that  he  would  have  prose- 
cuted his  vengeance  against  her  to  the  utmost.     The  law 
was  express  and  peremptory.    Which  of  the  two  must  be 
the  victim  1    Cruel  dilemma  !    It  is  at  last  determined  thai 
the  husband  should  be  sacrificed,  to  save  the  wife,  whom 
David's  passion  had  made  a  criminal;  and  had  he  forsaken 
her  in  this  dreadful  situation,  and  left  her  to  her  punish- 
ment, he  would  not  only  have  pronounced  sentence  of  death 
against  himself,  but  been  censured,  I  am  persuaded,  by  al- 
most every  man,  as  a  monster  of  perfidy,  baseness,  and 
ingratitude.   But  how  was  Uriah  to  be  got  rid  of  1   Poison, 
assassination,  or  a  false  charge  of  treason,  or  seme  secret 
way  of  destruction,  were  methods  which  the  eastern  princes 
were  well  acquainted  with.     David  was  above  them  all, 
and  had  a  kind  of  generosity  in  his  very  crimes.     The 
man  he  was  to  destroy  was  a  brave  soldier,  and  he  causes 
him  to  fall  in  the  bed  of  honour,  gloriously  fighting  against 
the  enemies  of  his  king  and  country ;  and  if  dying  in  the 
field  of  battle,  by  the  sword  of  an  enemy,  and  in  a  glorious 
action,  be  a  more  eligible  and  honourable  death,  than  the 
being  despatched  by  the  stab  of  a  stiletto,  the  tortures  of 
poison,  or  as  a  criminal  on  a  false  accusation  of  treason  ; 
the  causing  an  innocent  person  to  die  in  the  former  manner, 
though  this  hath  its  great  aggravation,  yet  is  not  so  base 
and  villanous  an  action,  as  destroying  him  by  any  one  of 
the  latter  methods;  and  had  David  had  recourse  to  any  of 
them  to  get  rid  of  a  worthy  man,  whom  he  had  criminally 
reduced  himself  to  an  almost  absolute  necessity  of  de- 
spatching, the  crime  would  have  been  of  a  more  horrid  die, 
and  justly  excited  a  higher  indignation  and  abhorrence. 
And  though  I  am  far  from  mentioning  these  particulars 
to  excuse   David's  conduct,   or   palliate  his  aggravated 
offences;  yet  the  circumstances  I  have  mentioned  excite 
my  compassion,  carry  in  the  nature  of  the  thing  some 
alleviation  of  his  crimes,  and  should  ever  be  remembered 
10  soften  the  pen  that  is  employed  in  describing  them. 
Having  thus,  by  accumulated  guilt,  taken  off  the  man 
that  he  dreaded  should  live,  David,  after  Bathsheba  had 
gone  through  the  usual  time  of  mourning,  took  her  to  his 
palace,  and  made  her  his  wife,  to  screen  her  from  a  prose- 
cution of  adultery,  to  secure  her  against  the  penalty  of 
death,  and  in  some  measure  to  repair  the  injury  he  had 
done  her,  by  his  criminal  commerce  with  her,  during  her 
former  husband's  life  ;  which,  as  a  plurality  of  wives  was 
not  forbidden  by  that  constitution  and  polity  he  lived  under, 
was  the  least  compensation  that  he  could  make,  and  which 
he  was  obliged  in  honour  and  justice  to  make  her.     One 
would  have  thought,  that  after  such  a  complication  of  ag- 
gravated crimes,  David,  upon  a  review  of  his  conduct, 
should  have  been  struck  with  remorse,  voluntarily  con- 
fessed his  sins  to  God,  and  humbly  entreated  from  him  the 
mercy  and  forgiveness  he  so  much  needed.     But  nothing 
of  this  appears  from  the  history.     He  rather  seems,  on  the 
contrary,  to  have  been  insensible  and  callous,  and  to  have 
enjoyed  his  new-acquired  pleasures,  without  any  uneasi- 
ness at  the  dreadful  expense  by  which  he  purchased  them. 
The  siege  of  Rabbah  went  on  successfully,  he  saw  no 
appearing  proofs  of  the  divine  displeasure  that  threatened 
him,  the  affairs  of  government  employed  much  of  his  time 
and  thoughts,  he  esteemed  himself  happy  in  the  preserva- 
tion of  Bathsheba,  and  at  full  liberty  to  gratify  the  ardent 
passion  he  had  conceived  for  her;   and  probably  might 
persuade  himself,  that  as  Uriah  was  a  Hittite,  the  taking 
away  his  wife  and  life  greatly  lessened  the  elggravation  of 
his  sin  ;  or,  that  as  king  of  Israel,  he  was  above  the  laws, 
and  that  however  criminal  such  actions  might  have  been 
in  others,  yet  that  the  royal  prerogative  and  power  mighf 
render  them  lawful  in  him,  or  at  least  so  extenuate  the  evil 
of  them,  as  that  they  would  pass  unobserved  by  God,  who 
had  solemnly  promised  him  the  establishment  of  the  throne 
and  kingdom  m  his  person  and  family. 

But  by  whatever  means  he  made  himself  easy,  the  his- 
tory informs  us,  that  "  the  thing  which  David  had  done 
displeased  the  Lord,"  who  resolved  to  show  his  abhor- 
rence  of  the  crime,  to  execute  on  him  a  vengeance  pro- 
portionable to  the  heinousness  and  guilt  of  it,  and  hereby 
to  rouse  his  conscience,  and  bring  him  to  those  acknowl- 
edgments of  his  sin,  as  might  prepare  him  for,  and  render 


210 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap   11. 


him  capable  of  that  forgiveness,  which,  how  much  soever 
he  needed  it,  he  was  greatly  unworthy  of.  He  was  pleased 
to  employ  Nathan  th^  prophet  on  this  solemn  occasion ; 
who,  by  an  artfully  composed  fable,  brought  the  king  to 
pronounce  his  own  condemnation,  even  without  suspecting 
or  intending  it.  Bathsheba  had  just  been  delivered  of  a 
son,  the  fruit  of  her  adulterous  commerce  with  David,  and 
who  was,  in  the  strictness  of  the  letter,  conceived  by  his 
mother  in  sin,  and  shapen  in  iniquity,  David  appears  to 
have  been  fond  of  the  child,  and,  in  the  midst  of  his  joy 
on  this  account,  Nathan  demands  an  audience,  and  ad- 
dresses him  with  the  following  complaint.  There  were 
two  men,  who  lived  in  the  same  city,  one  of  whom  was 
rich,  and  the  other  poqr.  The  rich  man  had  flocks  and 
herds  in  great  abundance  ;  but  the  poor  man  had  not  any 
thing,  save  only  one  little  ewe-lamb,  which  he  had  brought, 
and  nourished,  so  that  it  grew  up  together  with  him,  and 
with  his  children.  It  did  eat  of  his  morsel,  and  drank  of 
his  cup,  and  lay  in  his  bosom,  and  was  to  him  as  a  daugh- 
ter. And  there  came  a  certain  traveller  to  the  rich  man, 
and  he  begrudged  to  take  of  his  own  flock  and  his  own  herd, 
to  entertain  his  guest,  but  took  the  poor  man's  lamb,  and 
provided  for  the  traveller  that  came  to  him.  David  was 
extremely  incensed  against  the  man,  and  said  to  Nathan : 
"As  the  Lord  lives,  the  man  who  has  done  this  is  worthy 
of  death,  and  he  shall  restore  the  lamb  fourfold,  inasmuch 
as  he  hath  done  this  thing,  and  because  he  had  no  com- 
passion." "  Then  Nathan  said  to  David :  Thou  art  the  man. 
Thus  saith  the  Lord  God  of  Israel :  I  have  anointed  thee 
to  be  king  over  Israel,  and  delivered  thee  from  the  hand  of 
Saul.  I  gave  thee  also  thy  master's  house,  and  the  wives 
of  thy  master  into  thy  bosom,  and  gave  thee  the  house  of  Is- 
rael and  of  Judah ;  and  if  this  be  but  a  small  matter,  I  have 
also  added  to  thee  this  and  the  other  thing,  which  thou  well 
knowest.  Why  then  hast  thou  despised  the  commandment 
of  the  Lord,  to  do  this  wickedness  in  his  sight  1  Thou 
hast  smote  Uriah  the  Hittite  with  the  sword,  and  hast  taken 
his  wife  to  be  thy  wife,  and  hast  slain  him  by  the  sword  of 
the  children  of  Ammon.  Now  therefore  the  sword  shall 
never  depart  from  thy  house,  because  thou  hast  despised 
me,  and  hast  taken  the  wife  of  Uriah  the  Hittite  to  be  thy 
wife.  Thus  saith  the  Lord :  Behold,  I  will  raise  up  evil 
against  thee  out  of  thine  own  house,  and  will  take  thy 
Avives  before  thine  eyes,  and  will  give  them  to  thy  neigh- 
bour, and  he  shall  lie  with  thy  wives  before  the  sun. 
Though  thou  hast  done  this  secretly,  yet  I  will  do  what  I 
have  now  said,  before  all  Israel,  and  before  the  sun."  This 
dreadful  sentence  roused  the  conscience  of  David,  and 
from  the  fullest  conviction  of  the  heinousness  of  his  of- 
fence, he  immediately  made  this  acknowledgment  to  Na- 
than: "I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord."  Upon  this  in- 
genuous confession,  Nathan  immediately  replies:  "  The 
Lord  also  hath  put  away  thy  sin.  Thou  shalt  not  die. 
However,  since  by  this  deed  thou  hast  caused  the  enemies 
■A'  the  Lord  contemptuously  to  reject  him,  the  son  also 
that  is  born  unto  thee  shall  surely  die." 

When  Nathan  had  thus  boldly  and  faithfully  executed  his 
commission,  he  left  the  king,  and  the  lecture  which  he  read 
him  was  worthy  the  dignity  of  a  prophet's  character  and 
station,  and  such  as  became  the  majesty  of  him  to  whom  it 
was  given.  It  was  grave,  strong,  affecting,  insinuating, 
nnd  polite.  The  parable,  in  which  he  conveyed  to  him  his 
message  from  God,  is  dressed  up  with  all  the  circum- 
stances of  art,  tenderness,  and  delicacy,  to  move  compas- 
sion, and,  at  the  same  time,  to  force  from  him  that  dread- 
ful sentence  :  "  As  the  Lord  liveth,  the  man  that  hath  done 
this  thing  shall  surely  die,  because  he  did  this  thing,  and 
because  he  had  no  compassion ;"  thus  drawing  from  him  the 
sentence  of  his  own  condemnation,  even  before  he  perceived 
it.  But  how  home,  howbold  was  the  application,  when  Na- 
than said  to  the  king  :  "  Thou  art  the  man  ....  Where- 
fore hast  thou  despised  the  commandment  of  the  Lord  to 
('o  evil  in  his  sight'?  Thou  hast  killed  Uriah  the  Hittite 
with  the  sword,  and  hast  taken  his  wife."  How  dreadful 
also  was  the  sentence  pronounced  against  him  by  the  order 
(if  God !  Such  as  showed  the  height  of  his  abhorrence 
ff  the  crime,  and  his  displeasure  and  indignation  against 
him  that  committed  it.  But  how  did  the  unhappy  offender 
receive  this  bold  and  severe  remonstrance  1  Why,  no 
r.ooner  was  the  application  made,  but  he  falls  under  con- 
vi-'ior.,  acknowledges  his  offence  against  God,  and  owns 
himself  worthy  of  death  ;  and  the  psalms  he  penned  on  this 


occasion  show  the  deep  sense  he  had  of  the  guilt  hp  had 
contracted,  and  will  be  a  memorial  of  the  sincerity  of  his 
repentance  throughout  all  generations.  But  was  not  Da- 
vid's repentance  all  affectation  and  hypocrisy,  and  did  he 
not  bear  the  reproof,  and  humble  himself,  because  he  took 
care  not  to  disagree  with  his  best  friends;  or,  in  other 
words,  to  keep  fair  with  the  priests  and  Levitesl  But  it 
the  priests  and  Levites  were  such  kind  of  men,  as  some 
have  represented  them ;  ready  to  support  David  in  all  his 
measures  of  iniquity,  and  when  he  projected  any  scheme, 
were  never  wanting  in  their  assistance  to  him  ;  why  should 
any  one  of  them  give  him  any  trouble  in  this  affair '?  In 
what  had  he  disobliged  them,  by  killing  a  Hittite,  and 
debauching  his  wife  1  Or  why  should  they  disagree  with" 
him  about  a  transaction  that  no  way  related  to  them  1  I 
should  rather  think,  they  should  have  eudeavoured  to  have 
made  him  compound  with  them  for  a  round  sum  of  money, 
or  a  good  number  of  sheep  and  oxen  for  sacrifices,  that 
they  might  have  feasted  themselves  on  the  price  of  his  for- 
giveness; especially,  as  we  have  been  told,  that  this  same 
prophet,  "  Nathan,  was  a  great  lover  of  this  sort  of  food, 
and  very  angry  when  he  was  excluded  from  good  cheer." 
But  indeed  the  insinuation  itself  is  wholly  groundless ;  and 
let  any  man  read  through  the  reproof  that  Nathan  gave 
him,  and  the  direct  charge  of  murder  and  adultery  that  he 
urged  to  his  face,  and,  I  think,  he  cannot  but  be  convinced, 
that  David's  acknowledgment,  "  I  have  sinned  against  the 
Lord,"  could  proceed  from  nothingbut  a  real  and  deep  sense 
of  the  greatness  of  his  crime,  and  that  he  deserved  to  be  cut  of! 
by  the  hand  of  God  for  that  aggravated  transgression.  What 
further  effectually  refutes  this  suggestion  is,  that  his  bear- 
ing with  the  reproof,  and  humbling  himself  under  it,  did  not 
at  all  reconcile  Nathan  to  him,  who  left  him  with  a  threat- 
ening dreadful  in  its  nature,  enough  to  make  his  ears  tingle, 
and  his  heart  tremble  within  him  The  only  favourable 
thing  Nathan  said  to  him  was :  "  Thou  shalt  not  die ;"  but,  at 
the  same  time,  tells  him,  that  the  murder  he  had  been  guilty 
of  should  be  revenged  by  the  sword's  never  departing  from 
his  house,  and  his  adultery  retaliated  in  the  most  exemplary 
and  public  manner,  upon  his  own  wives ;  threatenings  that 
were  made  him,  before  he  owned  his  fault,  and  submitted 
himself;  and  therefore  his  submission  could  be  with  no 
view  of  reconciling  himself  to  Nathan,  because  that  prophet 
had  already  peremptorily  pronounced  his  punishment, 
which  David's  after  confession  did  not  in  the  least  mitigate 
or  alter ;  for  the  punishment  threatened  was  inflicted  to  the 
full ;  and  the  particular  nature  and  circumstances  of  it 
were  such,  and  the  events  on  which  it  depended  were  so 
distant  and  various,  as  that  no  human  wisdom  and  sagacity 
could  foresee  them,  or  secure  their  futurity ;  and  there- 
fore Nathan,  who  pronounced  his  doom,  must  have  been  im- 
mediately inspired  by  God,  who  foresaw  and  permitted  the 
means,  by  which  his  threatenings  should  be  punctually 
executed,  and  thus  brought  upon  David  all  the  evils  that 
his  prophet  had  foretold  should  certainly  befall  him.  The 
nature  of  his  repentance  my  reader  will  be  the  better 
enabled  to  judge  of,  if  he  carefully  reads  over  the  51st 
psalm,  which  he  certainly  penned  on  this  occasion.— 
Chandler. 

No  one  can  read  this  psalm,  but  must  see  all  the  charac- 
ters of  true  repentance  in  the  person  who  wrote  it,  and 
the  marks  of  the  deepest  sorrow  and  humiliation  for  the 
sins  of  which  he  had  been  gaiilty.  The  heart  appears  in 
every  line,  and  the  bitter  anguish  of  a  wounded  conscience 
discovers  itself  by  the  most  natural  and  affecting  symp- 
toms. How  earnestly  does  he  plead  for  mercy,  and  there- 
by acknowledge  his  own  unworthiness  !  How  ingenuous 
are  the  confessions  he  makes  of  his  offences,  and  ho^"' 
heavy  was  the  load  of  that  guilt  that  oppressed  him !  Tne 
smart  of  it  pierced  through  his  very  bones  and  marrow, 
and  the  torture  he  felt  was  as  though  they  had  been  broken, 
and  utterly  crushed  to  pieces.  He  owns  his  sins  were  of 
too  deep  a  die  for  sacrifices  to  expiate  the  guilt  of,  and  thai 
he  had  nothing  but  a  broken  heart  and  contrite  spirit  to  of- 
fer to  that  God,  whom  he  had  so  grievously  offended.  How 
earnest  are  his  prayers,  that  God  would  create  in  him  a 
clean  heart,  and  renew  a  right  spirit  within  him !  How 
doth  he  dread  the  being  deserted  of  God  !  How  earnestly 
deprecate  the  being  deprived  of  his  favour,  the  joy  of  his 
salvation,  and  the  aids  and  comforts  of  his  holy  spirit !  L«t 
but  this  psalm  be  read  without  pifcjudice,  an^  with  a  view 
only  to  collect  the  real  sentiments  expressed  in  it,  and  the 


Chap.  12. 


2  SAMUEL. 


211 


dispusitioa  of  heart  that  appears  throughout  the  whole  of 
It ;  and  no  man  of  candour,  I  am  confident,  will  ever 
suspect  that  it  was  the  dictate  of  hypocrisy,  or  could 
be  ptjnned  from  any  other  motive,  but  a  strong  conviction 
of  the  heinousness  of  his  offence,  and  the  earnest  desire  of 
God's  forgiveness,  and  being  restrained  from  the  commis- 
sion of  the  like  transgressions  for  the  future.  And  those 
who  run  not  upon  David's  character,  on  account  of  his  con- 
duct in  the  matter  of  Uriah,  though  they  cannot  too  hearti- 
ly detest  the  sin,  and  must  severely  censure  the  offender ; 
yet  surely  may  find  some  room  in  their  hearts  for  compas- 
sion towards  him,  when  they  consider  how  he  was  surpri- 
sed into  the  first  crime,  and  how  the  fear  and  dread  of  a 
discovery,  and  his  concern  for  the  life  of  the  woman  he 
had  seduced,  led  him  on,  step  by  step,  to  further  degrees  of 
deceit  and  wickedness,  till  he  completed  his  guilt  by  the 
destruction  of  a  great  and  worthy  man;  especially  when 
they  see  him  prostrate  before  God,  confessing  his  sin,  and 
supplicating  forgiveness;  and  even  exempted  by  God 
himself  from  the  punishment  of  death  he  had  incurred, 
upon  his  ingenuously  confessing,  "  I  have  sinned  against  the 
Lord ;"  an  evident  proof  that  his  repentance  was  sincere,  as 
it  secured  him  immediately  forgiveness  from  God,  whom 
he  had  offended. 

I  shall  conclude  this  article  by  the  remarks  which  Mr. 
Bavle  makes  on  it.  "  His  amour  with  the  wife  of  Uriah, 
and  the  orders  he  gave  to  destroy  her  husband,  are  two 
most  enormous  crimes.  But  he  was  so  grieved  for  them, 
and  expiated  them  by  so  admirable  a  repentance,  that  this 
is  not  the  passage  in  his  life,  wherein  he  contributes  the 
least  to  the  mstruction  and  edification  of  the  faithful.  We 
therein  learn  the  frailty  of  the  saints,  and  it  is  a  precept  of 
vigilance.  We  therein  learn  in  what  manner  we  ought  to 
lament  lor  our  sins,  and  it  is  an  excellent  model."  Let  me 
add,  that  the  wisdom  and  equity  of  the  law  of  Moses  evi- 
dently appears,  in  that  it  appointed  no  sacrifices  to  atone 
for  such  crimes,  the  pardoning  of  which  would  have  been 
inconsistent  with  the  peace  and  safety  of  civil  society; 
such  as  those  which  David  laments  in  this  psalm,  murder 
and  adultery.  Here  the  punishment  prescribed  by  the  law 
was  death,  and  David  had  no  other  way  of  escaping  it,  but 
by  the  undeserved  mercy  of  God.  This  God  was  pleased 
to  extend  to  him,  to  show  how  acceptable  the  sinner's  un- 
feigned repentance  will  be,  whatever  be  the  nature  and  ag- 
gravations of  his  offences;  and  if  we  learn  from  hence,  what 
the  scripture  calls  "the  deceitfulness  of  sin,"  to  be  cautious 
of  the  first  beginnings  of  it,  and  not  to  indulge  those  sensual 
appetites,  which,  when  given  way  to,  draw  men  insensibly 
into  crimes,  they  would  have  once  trembled  at  the  thoughts 
of  committing;  we  shall  make  the  best  and  wisest  improve- 
ment of  this  melancholy  part  of  David's  history,  and  be  real 
gainers  by  his  sins  and  sorrows. — Chandler, 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Ver.  11.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Behold,  I  will 
raise  up  evil  against  thee  out  of  thine  own 
house,  and  I  will  take  thy  wives  before  thine 
eyes,  and  give  them  unto  thy  neighbour,  and 
he  shall  lie  with  thy  wives  in  the  sight  of  this 
sun.  12.  For  thou  didst  i^  secretly ;  but  I  will 
do  this  thing  before  all  Israel,  and  before  the 
sun. 

The  words,  I  will  raise  up,  I  will  take,  I  will  do,  do  not 
I    denote  any  positive  actions  of  God,  as  if  he  prompted  wick- 
ed men  to  do  the  same  things  wherewith  he  threatens  Da- 
vid, insomuch  that,  without  such  prompting,  they  would  not 
have  done  them,  but  by  it  were  necessitated  to  do  them ; 
such  a  construction  as  this  is  injurious  to  the  divine  attri- 
butes, and  makes  God  the  author  of  evil:  but  the  true 
meaning  is,  that  God,  at  that  time,  saw  the  perverse  dispo- 
I  sition  of  one  of  his  sons,  and  the  crafty  wiliness  of  one  of 
1  his  counsellors,  which,  without  his  restraining  them,  would 
!   not  fail  to  create  David  no  small  uneasiness ;  and  therefore, 
1   because  David  had  violated  his  law,  and,  to  gratify  his  lust, 
had  committed  both  adultery  and  murder,  God  would  not 
:  interpose,  but  suffered  the  tempers  of  these  two  wicked  per- 
'  sons  to  follow  their  own  course,  and  have  their  natural 
swing;  whereupon  the  one,  being  ambitious  of  a  crown,  en- 
deavours to  depose  .his  father,  and  the  other,  willing  to 


make  the  breach  irreparable,  advised  the  most  detested 
thing  he  could  think  of.  This  indeed  was  the  very  thing 
that  God  had  foretold,  but,  without  any  imputation  upon 
his  attributes,  we  may  say,  that  God  can  so  dispose  and 
guide  a  train  of  circumstances,  that  the  wickedness  of  any 
action  shall  happen  in  this  manner,  rather  than  another, 
though  he  do  not  infuse  into  any  man  the  will  to  do  wick- 
edly. So  that  from  such  scripture  phrases  as  these,  we 
may  not  infer,  that  God  either  does,  or  can  do  evil,  but  only 
that  he  permits  that  evil  to  be  done,  which  he  foreknew 
would  be  done,  but  might  have  prevented,  had  he  pleased  ; 
or,  in  other  terms,  that  he  suffers  men,  naturally  wicked, 
to  follow  the  bent  of  their  tempers,  without  any  interposi- 
tion of  his  providence  to  restrain  them, — Stackhouse. 

Ver.  16.  David  therefore  besought  God  for  the 
child ;  and  David  fasted,  and  went  in  and  lay 
all  night  upon  the  earth.  17.  And  the  elders 
of  his  house  arose,  and  went  to  him,  to  raise 
him  up  from  the  earth:  but  he  would  not, 
neither  did  he  eat  bread  with  them:  1 8.  And 
it  came  to  pass  on  the  seventh  day,  that  the 
child  died.  And  the  servants  of  David  feared 
to  tell  him  that  the  child  was  dead ;  for  they 
said,  Behold,  while  the  child  was  yet  alive,  we 
spake  unto  him,  and  he  would  not  hearken 
unto  our  voice ;  how  will  he  then  vex  himself, 
if  we  tell  him  that  the  child  is  dead?  19.  But 
when  David  saw  that  his  servants  whispered, 
David  perceived  that  the  child  was  dead :  there- 
fore David  said  unto  his  servants,  Is  the  child 
dead  1  And  they  said.  He  is  dead.  20.  Then 
David  arose  from  the  earth,  and  washed,  and 
anointed  himself,  and  changed  his  apparel,  and 
came  into  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and  worship- 
ped :  then  he  came  to  his  own  house ;  and,  when 
he  required,  they  set  bread  before  him,  and  he 
did  eat. 


The  account  Sir  John  Chardin  gives  us  of  eastern 
mourning,  in  order  to  illustrate  Ecclesiasticus  xxxviii.  17, 
is  as  follows.  "  The  practice  of  the  East  is  to  leave  a  rela- 
tion of  the  deceased  person  to  weep  and  mourn,  till,  on  the 
third  or  fourth  day  at  farthest,  the  relations  and  friends  go 
to  see  him,  cause  him  to  eat,  lead  him  to  a  bath,  and  cause 
him  to  put  on  new  vestments,  he  having  before  thrown  him- 
self on  the  ground,"  &c.  The  surprise  of  David's  servants 
then,  who  had  seen  his  bitter  anguish  while  the  child  was 
sick,  arose  apparently  from  this,  that,  when  he  found  it  was 
dead,  he  that  so  deeply  lamented,  arose  of  himself  from  the 
earth,  without  staying  for  his  friends  coming  about  him, 
and  that  presently;  immediately  bathed  and  anointed  him- 
self, instead  of  appearing  as  a  mourner;  and,  afler  worship- 
ping God  with  solemnity,  returned  to  his  wonted  repasts 
without  any  interposition  of  others ;  which  as  now,  so  per- 
haps anciently,  was  made  use  of  in  the  East.  The  extrem- 
ity of  his  sorrows  for  the  child's  illness,  and  his  not  observ- 
ing the  common  forms  of  grief  afterward,  was  what  sur- 
prised his  servants.  Every  eye  must  see  the  genera 
ground  of  astonishment ;  but  this  passage  of  Chardin  gives 
great  distinctness  to  our  apprehensions  of  it.— Harmer. 

Ver.  20.  Then  David  arose  from  the  earth,  and 
washed,  and  anointed  himself,  and  changed  his 
apparel,  and  came  into  the  house  of  the  Lord 
and  worshipped:  then  he  came  to  his  own 
house ;  and,  when  he  required,  they  set  bread 
before  him,  and  he  did  eat.  21.  Then  said  his 
servants  unto  him,  What  thing  is  this  that  thou 
hast  done?  thou  didst  fast  and  weep  for  the 
child  while  it  was  alive ;  but  when  the  child 
was  dead,  thou  didst  rise  and  eat  bread. 

The  oriental  mourner  was  distinguished  bjrthe  slovenli- 
ness of  his  dress.    He  suffered  the  hair  of  his  head,  if  not 


212 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  12. 


cut  or  plucked  off  in  the  excess  of  his  grief,  to  hang  dishev- 
elled upon  the  shoulders;  he  neither  trimmed  his  beard, 
nor  washed  his  feet,  even  in  the  hottest  weather ;  he  did 
not  wash  his  shirt,  nor  any  of  the  linen  he  wore.  During 
the  whole  time  of  mourning,  he  refused  to  change  his 
clothes.  In  this  state  of  total  negligence,  it  appears  that 
David  mourned  for  his  infant  son ;  for  after  he  learned 
from  his  attendants  that  the  child  was  dead,  the  inspired 
historian  observes,  "  Then  David  arose  from  the  earth,  and 
washed  and  anointed  himself,  and  changed  his  apparel." — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  29.  And  David  gathered  all  the  people 
together,  and  went  to  Rabbah,  and  fought  against 
it,  and  took  it.  30.  And  he  took  their  king's 
crown  from  off  his  head,  (the  weight  whereof 
was  a  talent  of  gold  with  the  precious  stones,) 
and  it  was  set  on  David's  head :  and  he  brought 
forth  the  spoil  of  the  city  in  great  abundance. 
31.  Ajid  he  brought  forth  the  people  that  were 
therein,  and  put  them  under  saws,  and  under 
harrows  of  iron,  and  under  axes  of  iron,  and 
made  them  pass  through  the  brick-kiln :  and 
thus  did  he  unto  all  the  cities  of  the  children  of 
Ammon.  So  David  and  all  the  people  return- 
ed unto  Jerusalem. 

Josephus  tells  us,  that  the  men  were  put  to  death  by  ex- 
quisite torments.  And  this  hath  been  the  sentiment  of 
many  learned  commentators.  Supposing  this  interpreta- 
tion of  the  passage  to  be  true,  I  cannot  help  observing,  with 
Mr.  Le  Clerc,  on  the  place,  that  if  the  punishments  inflicted 
on  this  people  were  as  severe  as  they  are  represented  to  be, 
they  might  be  inflicted  by  way  of  reprisal.  That  learned 
commentator  thinks  that  they  were  such  as  the  Ammonites 
themselves  used,  and  that  when  they  were  conquered  by 
David,  he  used  them  in  the  same  manner  as  they  had  treat- 
ed their  Hebrew  prisoners.  It  is  very  certain  that  the 
Ammonites  used  them  with  great  severity.  Nahash,  the 
father  probably  of  this  Hanun,  in  the  wantonness  of  his 
cruelty,  would  not  admit  the  inhabitants  of  Jabesh  Gilead, 
under  Saul's  reign,  to  surrender  themselves  prisoners  to 
him,  but  upon  condition  of  their  every  one's  consenting  to 
have  their  right  eye  thrust  out,  that  he  might  lay  it  as  a 
reproach  upon  all  Israel ;  to  which,  consistently  enough, 
Josephus  adds,  that  he  treated  his  Hebrew  captives  with 
great  barbarity,  by  putting  out  their  right  eye,  to  prevent 
their  being  further  serviceable  in  defence  of  their  country  ; 
because  as  the  left  eye  was  hid  by  the  shield,  they  were 
rendered  by  the  loss  of  the  other  incapable  of  all  military 
duty.  Besides,  the  Ammonites  frequently  used  the  He- 
brews with  excessive  cruelty,  and  are  represented  by  the 
prophet,  as  ripping  up  their  women  with  child,  that  they 
might  enlarge  their  border,  i.  e.  prevent  the  Hebrews  from 
having  any  posterity  ever  after,  to  inhabit  the  cities  that 
had  been  taken  from  them.  Casaubon  also,  in  his  notes  upon 
Suetonius's  life  of  Caligula,  who  cruelly  used  to  saw  men 
asunder,  produces  other  examples  of  the  same  atrocious 
punishment,  and  thinks  it  was  common  among  the  eastern 
people.  And  if  these  severities  were  now  exercised  upon 
the  Ammonites  in  retaliation  for  former  cruelties  of  the 
like  nature,  they  certainly  had  no  right  to  complain ;  and 
it  will  greatly  lessen  the  horror  that  may  be  conceived 
upon  account  of  them,  and,  in  some  measure,  justify  David 
in  using  them.  Retaliations  of  this  kind  have  been  prac- 
tised by  the  most  civilized  nations.  Thus  the  Romans  re- 
venged the  death  of  the  brave  Regulus,  by  giving  up  the 
Carthaginian  captives  at  Rome  into  the  power  of  Marcia, 
the  wife  of  Regulus,  who  caused  them  to  be  shut  up,  two 
and  two,  in  great  chests  stuck  with  nails,  there  to  suffer  the 
same  torments  which  her  husband  had  endured  at  Carthage. 
If  to  this  we  add,  that  this  execution,  if  made  at  all,  which 
however  is  not  so  very  certain  as  some  are  willing  to  be- 
lieve, it  was  made  in  revenge  for  an  infamous  outrage  on 
majesty,  the  violation  of  the  law  of  nations,  the  bringing 
two  powerful  armies  to  invade  his  dominions,  the  great 
number  of  his  subjects  that  must  have  been  lost  in  these 
two  battles,  while  the  injuries  were  fresh  in  his  mind,  the 


persons  who  offered  them  present  to  his  view,  the  whole 
nation  engaged  in  an  unrighteous  war  in  vindication  of  the 
insult,  and  some  severe  animadversion  was  in  justice  due 
to  the  authors  and  abetters  of  such  repeated  acts  of  violence 
a^d  injustice.  The  character  of  an  ambassador  was  held 
sacred  and  inviolable  among  all  nations,  and  any  injuries 
offered  to  them  were  thought  deserving  the  most  exempla- 
ry punishments.  The  Roman  history  affords  us  many  re- 
markable instances  of  this  nature.  When  the  Tarentines 
had  affironted  the  Roman  ambassador,  Posthumius,  one  ot 
them,  whose  robe  a  drunken  Tarentine,  in  the  wantonness 
of  insolence,  had  defiled  by  urinating  against  it,  said  to  the 
citizens,  "  It  is  not  a  little  blood  that  must  wash  and  purify 
this  garment."  And  when  the  Romans  were  informed  ot 
this  outrage,  they  immediately  declared  war  against  ihem, 
took  their  ships  from  them,  dismantled  the  city,  first  made 
them  tributaries,  and  at  last  massacred  great  numbers  ot 
the  inhabitants,  and  sold  thirty  thousand,  who  escaped  the 
carnage,  for  slaves  to  the  best  bidder.  In  like  manner, 
when  the  Roman  deputies  were  treated  with  insolent  lan- 
guage only  by  the  Achaians,  though  they  offered  no  in- 
jury to  their  persons,  yet  the  Romans  revenged  it  by  the 
total  destruction  of  Corinth,  putting  all  the  men  to  the 
sword,  selling  the  women  and  children  for  slaves,  and 
burning  the  whole  city  to  the  ground. 

Let  me  add  here  also,  that  the  greatest  generals,  who 
have  been  remarkable  for  their  humanity  and  mildness  of 
disposition^-  have  sometimes  thought  themselves  obliged  to 
use,  in  terrorem,  great  severity  towards  their  prisoners.  Fa- 
bius  Maximus,  desirous  of  softening  and  tamirg  the  fierce 
and  turbulent  dispositions  of  the  people  of  Celtiberia,  now 
Arragon,  ■wfas  forced  to  do  violence  to  his  nature,  and  act 
with  an  apparent  cruelty,  by  cutting  off  the  hands  of  all 
those  M'ho  had  fled  from  the  Roman  garrisons  to  the 
enemy ;  that,  by  being  thus  maimed,  they  might  terrify 
others  from  revolting.  So  also  Lucullus  used  the  Thra- 
cians,  destroying  many  of  his  prisoners,  some  by  the  sword, 
others  by  fire,  and  as  to  others,  cutting  off  their  hands, 
which  the  barbarians  themselves  looked  on  as  an  instance 
of  great  inhumanity,  as  hereby  they  were  forced  to  outlive 
their  very  punishnients.  Many  more  instances  of  the  like 
nature  maybe  easily  produced ;  and  let  David's  conduct,  as 
a  general,  be  considered  with  the  same  candour  and  equity, 
as  we  would  consider  that  of  a  Roman  or  Grecian  com- 
mander, and  those  executions,  which  he  may  have  been 
supposed  to  have  ordered  on  particular  occasions  and  of- 
fenders, and  that  appear  to  have  the  character  of  great  se- 
verity and  cruelty,  will  be  found  capable  of  such  an  apolo- 
gy, as  will  greatly  lessen  the  blame  that  hath  been  so  liber- 
ally thrown  on  them,  and  no  more  be  considered  as  indi- 
cations of  a  disposition  naturally  inhuman  and  barbarous. 

I  think  the  punishment  of  crucifixion  is  one  of  the  most 
horrid  and  shocking  that  can  be  inflicted,  in  which  the 
hands  and  feet  are  pierced  through,  and  the  whole  body  is 
upon  the  stretch  and  rack,  and  the  person  crucified  dies  a 
lingering  and  exquisitely  painful  death ;  a  punishment  this, 
equally  cruel  and  inhuman,  with  David's  supposed  saws, 
and  harrows,  and  brick-kilns.  Now  supposing  that  David, 
instead  of  those  instruments  of  death,  had  crucified  the  Am- 
monites by  thousands  before  the  gates  of  Rabbah  ;  or  sup- 
posing, that  when  he  took  the  city,  he  had  condemned  all 
above  seventeen  years  old  to  mines,  or  distributed  them  by 
thousands  and  ten  thousands,  into  the  provinces  of  his  king- 
dom, to  be  leisurely,  and  in  cool  blood,  thrown  to  the  beasts, 
or  forced  to  murder  each  other  on  theatres,  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  his  blood-thirsty  people ;  would  not  Mr.  Bayle 
and  his  followers  have  cried  out :  Bella,  horrida  bella !  and 
censured  David's  conduct  herein  as  unworthy  a  saint,  and 
a  man  after  God's  own  heart.  And  yet  this  was  what  the 
gentle,  the  benevolent  Titus,  did  to  "the  Jews,  whom  the 
Romans,  by  their  cruelty  and  oppressions,  forced  to  take  up 
arms  against  them  ;  and  who  may  be  truly  said  to  have 
fought  for  their  liberties,  of  which  they  had  been  unjustly 
deprived.  Yet,  during  the  siege,  he  ordered  them  to  be 
scourged  and  crucified  before  the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  by 
hundreds  at  a  time,  and  in  such  large  numbers,  as  that  they 
wanted  room  to  place  the  crosses,  and  crosses  for  the  bodies 
of  those  they  condemned  to  crucifixion.  And  not  only  this, 
which  perhaps  may  be  thought  to  admit  of  some  apology, 
as  done  in  the  heat  and  fury  of  the  siege,  but  when  the 
siege  was  over,  and  all  instances  of  cruelly  should  have 
ceased,  he  murdered  them  wantonly,  and  in  "cool  blood,  for 


Chap.  12. 


2   SAMUEL. 


213 


the  diversion  of  the  provinces.  "When  he  was  at  Cesarea, 
he  threw  great  numbers  of  them  to  the  beasts,  and  made 
others  of  them  cut  each  other's  throats.  He  celebrated  his 
brother's  birthday  by  destroying  above  two  thousand  five 
hundred  of  them  by  the  same  methods,  and  with  the  ad- 
ditional cruelty  of  burning  many  of  ihem  alive ;  and  on 
his  father's  birthday  he  acted  with  the  same  barbarity  to- 
wards a  large  number  of  his  captives  at  Berytus.  The 
whole  of  them  amounted  to  97,000 ;  and  yet,  would  one 
think  it,  Titus  thought  he  was  a  man  after  God's  own  heart, 
or  that  he  executed  the  divine  pleasure  and  vengeance  on 
the  Jews;  for  when  he  viewed  the  city  after  his  conquest, 
he  publicly  said :  "  We  have  carried  on  the  war  agreeable 
to  God's  will,  or  under  his  favour.  It  is  God  who  pulled 
down  the  Jews  from  their  fortresses,  which  were  uncon- 
querable by  human  arms  and  engines." 

But  we  need'  not  these  examples  to  justify  David's  con- 
duct; for  the  more  carefully  I  consider  the  scripture  ac- 
count of  his  treatment  of  the  Ammonites,  I  am  the  more 
fully  convinced  that  he  did  not  execute  these  severities 
upon  them,  and  that  the  sacred  history,  fairly  interpreted, 
will  warrant  no  such  charge ;  and  I  will  now  venture  thus 
to  render  the  original  words,  "  He  brought  forth  the  inhab- 
itants of  it,  and  put  them  to  the  saw,  to  iron-mines,  and  to 
iron-axes,  and  transported  them  to  the  brick-kilns,"  or  ra- 
ther, to  the  brick  frame  and  bed,  to  make  and  carry  bricks. 
He  reduced  them  to  slavery,  and  put  them  to  the  most  ser- 
vile employments  of  sawing,  making  iron  harrows,  or 
rather  working  in  the  mines,  to  the  hewing  of  stones, 
and  making  and  carrying  of  bricks.  To  these  drudgeries, 
some  to  one,  and  some  to  another,  he  condemned  them,  or 
by  these  means  brought  them  into  entire  subjection,  and  put 
it  out  of  their  power  to  give  him  any  further  disturbance. 
This  interpretation  is  so  far  from  being  forced,  as  that  it  is 
entirely  agreeable  to  the  proper  sense  and  meaning  of  the 
original  words,  and  fully  vindicates  David  from  that  inhu- 
manity, by  which  some  have  characterized  the  man  after 
God's  own  heart.  The  bella,  horrida  bella,  all  here  vanish 
in  an  instant.  This  account  may  also  be  confirmed  by  the 
parallel  place  in  Chronicles,  where  the  historian  tells  us, 
that  David  brought  them  forth,  and,  as  I  would  render  the 
words,  divided  or  separated  them  to  the  saw,  to  the  mines 
and  axes;  agreeable  to  what  is  said  in  Samuel,  that  he  re- 
moved them  from  their  former  habitations  to  work  in  these 
servile  employments.  Or  they  may  be  rendered :  "  He  made 
them  to  cut  with  the  saw,  the  harr-ow,  and  the  axe,"  i.  c. 
condemned  them  to  these  slavish  employments.  Or  final- 
ly, some  interpreters  give  this  version :  "  He  ruled  over  them 
by  the  saw,  the  mine,"  &c.  kept  them  in  a  state  of  subjec- 
tion, by  putting  them  to  these  hard  labours. 

It  is'a  further  confirmation  of  the  foregoing  representa- 
tion, what  the  historian  adds :  "  Thus  did  David  unto  all  the 
cities  of  the  children  of  Ammon."  What  did  he  do  1  What ! 
put  them  to  death  throughout  all  their  cities,  by  those  ex- 
quisite methods  of  cruelty?  The  thing  is  impossible, 
for  then  he  would  have  totally  extirpated  them,  and  we 
should  never  have  heard  of  them  again,  as  a  nation,  in  his- 
tory. And  yet  it  is  certain,  that  within  a  very  few  years 
after  the  taking  of  Raboah,  this  very  city  existed,  and  was 
inhabited,  and  had  a  tributary  king  or  viceroy ;  even  Shobi, 
the  son  of  Nahash,  and  therefore  probably  the  brother  of 
Hanun,  who  offered  this  violence  to  David's  ambassadors. 
For  while  David  was  at  Mahanaim,on  the  other  side  Jordan, 
waiting  the  event  of  Absalom's  rebellion,  this  Shobi,  among 
other  of  David's  friends,  brought  him  very  large  supplies 
of  all  sorts  of  necessaries,  beds,  basins,  earthen  vessels, 
wheat,  barley,  flower,  parched  corn,  beans,  lentile,  parched 
pulse,  honey,  butter,  sheep,  and  cheese,  for  himself  and  peo- 
ple; for  they  said,  the  people  are  hungry  and  weary,  and 
thirsty  in  the  wilderness.  So  that  the  city  and  country 
were  both  inhabited,  and  the  lands  cultivated,  abounding 
with  plenty  of  all  necessaries  ;  and  therefore  there  could 
be  no  general  massacre,  or  very  large  destruction  of  the 
inhabitants,  bv  David.  Nor  is  it  at  all  probable,  that  had 
David  made  those  cruel  executions  among  the.  Ammonites, 
which  some  ascribe  to  him,  he  would  have  found  so  much 
friendship  from  them  in  his  distresses,  while  the  barbar- 
'  ities  he  exercised  on  them  were  fresh  in  their  memories; 
but  rather,  that  they  would  have  wished  his  destruction, 
and  at  least  have  waited  the  fortune  of  the  war,  that  threat- 
'  encd  David  with  entire  ruin,  and  not  have  supplied  him, 
,    for  fear  of  their  incurring  the  displeasure  of  Absalom, 


who  aimed  at  his  life,  that  he  might  usurp  his  throne,  and 
would  not  have  failed,  had  he  been  victorious,  to  have  exe- 
cuted a  severe  revenge  on  them,  for  the  assistance  they  gave 
him ;  especially  as  they  might  have  urged  a  very  plausible 
plea  for  their  not  assisting  him  ;  the  scarcity  of  the  inhab- 
itants by  the  late  executions,  had  that  been  really  the  case, 
and  the  impoverishment  of  their  lands,  for  want  of  hands 
to  cultivate  them,  and  by  the  ravages  committed  on  them, 
by  David's  army. 

Besides,  we  read  of  these  Ammonites,  and  the  inhab- 
itants of  Seir,  and  the  Moabites,  all  united,  and  bringing  a 
very  formidable  army  to  invade  the  dominions  of  Jehosha- 
phat.  And  though  this  was  many  years  after  their  being 
subdued  by  David,  yet  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  that  we 
hear  little  of  them  during  this  interval,  as  they  were  kept 
in  strict  subjection,  and  curbed  with  garrisons  by  the  succes- 
sors of  David  ;  just  as  the  Edomites,  during  the  same  pe- 
riod, who,  together  with  the  Moabites,  endeavoured  to  shake 
off  the  yoke  of  the  Hebrew  kings,  but  were  reduced  by 
them  to  their  former  subjection.  Now  it  is  altogether  in- 
credible, that  if  David  had  thus  utterly  extirpated  the  in- 
habitants of  these  countries,  as  some  represent  his  conduct, 
they  could,  in  one  hundred  and  forty  years  afterward, 
under  Jehoshaphat,  have  brought  such  a  multitude  of  men 
against  him,  as  forced  him  to  acknowledge,  in  his  prayer 
to  God,  that  "  he  had  no  might  against  that  great  company 
that  came  against  him,  and  that  he  knew  not  what  to  do  ;" 
ev^en  when  he  had  above  a  million  of  men,  mighty  men  of 
valour,  ready  prepared  for  the  war.  When  therefore  the 
history  says,"  thus  did  David  to  all  the  cities  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Ammon,"  the  meaning  can  only  be,  that  he  con- 
demned to  slavery,  not  the  v/hole  nation,  but  such  of  the 
people,  in  their  several  towns  and  cities,  as  he  had  done  to 
the  inhabitants  of  Rabbah,  who  had  been  the  advisers  of 
the  outrage,  or  principally  concerned  in  that  unrighteous- 
war,  which  they  carried  on  against  him  in  vindication  of 
it.  The  rest  lie  permitted  to  dwell  in  their  towns,  and 
cultivate  their  possessions,  and  appointed  over  them  Shobi, 
the  brother  of  Hanun,  king,  as  a  tributary  to  his  crown  ; 
and  I  doubt  not  in  graceful  remembrance  of  the  kindness 
he  formerly  received  from  Nahash,  Shobi's  father,  which 
was  also  the  real  reason  of  the  congratulatory  message  he  sent 
to  Hanun  his  eldest  son,  upon  his  accession  to  the  throne. 

I  would  further  observe,  that  as  David  certainly  had  a 
great  deal  of  generosity  and  goodness  in  his  natural  temper, 
the  sacred  writers,  who  have,  with  great  freedom  and  im- 
partiality, mentioned  his  faults,  and  who  have  transmitted 
to  us  this  account  of  his  treatment  of  the  Ammonites,  have 
passed  no  censure  on  him  for  having  exceeded  the  bounds 
of  humanity  and  justice,  in  the  punishment  he  inflicted 
on  them  :  and  from  hence  we  may,  I  apprehend,  justly  con- 
clude, either  that  it  was  not  so  severe,  as  it  hath  been  gen- 
erally thought,  or  that  there  were  some  peculiar  reasons 
wlfich  demanded  it,  and  which,  if  we  were  particularly 
acquainted  with  them,  would,  in  a  great  measure,  alleviate 
the  appearing  rigour  of  it;  or  that  the  law  of  nations,  and 
the  jus  belli,  then  subsisting,  admitted  such  kinds  of  execu- 
tions upon  very  extraordinary  occasions;  though  I  think 
there  are  scarce  any  that  can  fully  justify  them.  But  if 
the  account  which  I  have  given  of  this  affair  be,  as  I  think 
it  is,  the  true  one,  the  Ammonites  were  treated  just  as  they 
deserved,  and  according  to  what  was  practised  by  the  most 
civilized  nations,  and  all  exclamations  against  the  man 
after  God's  own  heart,  will  be  unreasonable  and  unjust. 

Mr.  Bayle,  among  others,  grievously  complains  on  this 
article,  "  Can  this  method,"  says  he,  "  of  making  war  be 
denied  to  be  blameworthy  1  tiave  not  the  Turks  and 
Tartars  a  little  more  humanity'?  If  a  vast  number  of 
pamphlets  daily  complain  of  the  military  executions  of  our 
own  time,  which  are  really  cruel,  and  highly  to  be  blamed, 
though  m.ild  in  comparison  of  David's  ;  what  would  not  the 
authors  of  those  pamphlets  say  at  this  day,  had  they  such 
usage  to  censure,  as  the  saws,  "the  harrows,  and  brick-kilns, 
of  David'?"  It  is  a  pity  this  learned  and  candid  criti* 
should  form  his  notion  of  the  cruelly  of  some  military  ex- 
ecutions by  a  set  of  pamphleteers,  a' sort  of  authors  not  al- 
ways of  the  best  information  and  credit.  But  what  if  these 
same  pamphlet  writers,  should  complain  of  the  cruelty  of 
certain  military  executions,  that  had  no  foundation  in  fact, 
but  only  in  their  misinterpretation  of  some  accounts  of 
them,  which  they  did  not  understand,  or  could  not  translate 
rightly  from  the  language  in  w^hich  they  were  written  1 


8U 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  13. 


Jr  «'hat  if  some  person,  assuming  the  character  of  a  critic, 
should  take  upon  trust  his  account,  from  these  very  respecta- 
ble pamphlet  writers,  of  the  cruelty  of  some  military  execu- 
tions, and  censure  the  authors  of  them,  as  worse  than  Turks 
and  Tartars,  without  ever  searching  himself  the  original  re- 
laters  of  them,  to  know  whether  the  account  of  the  pamphlet- 
eers were  genuine  or  not ;  what  censure  would  he  not  de- 
serve from  the  impartial  woild,  for  propagating  such  false 
and  groundless  stories  1  I  am  confident  Mr.  Bayle  never 
critically  examined,  in  the  original  language,  the  account 
of  these  military  executions  by  David,  for  if  he  had,  he 
would  certainly  have  found  reason,  at  least  to  have  sus- 
pended his  judgment,  if  not  entirely  to  have  altered  it.  I 
should  be  in  no  pain  for  David's  character,  if  I  could  as 
well  defend  him,  in  what  the  truth  of  history  obliges  me 
now  to  relate,  as  I  think  he  may  be  justified  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  Ammonites. — Chandler. 

Ver.  31.  And  he  brought  forth  the  people  that 
u-ere  therein,  and  put  them  under  saws,  and 
under  harrows  of  iron,  and  under  axes  of  iron, 
and  made  them  pass  through  the  brick-kiln : 
and  thus  did  he  unto  all  the  cities  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Ammon. 

It  seems  to  have  been  the  practice  of  eastern  kmgs,  to 
command  their  captives,  taken  in  war,  especially  those  that 
had,  by  the  atrociousness  of  their  crimes,  or  the  stoutness 
of  their  resistance,  greatly  provoked  Iheir  indignation,  to 
lie  down  on  the  ground,  and  then  put  to  death  a  certain 
part  of  them,  which  they  measured  with  a  line,  or  deter- 
mined by  lot.  This  custom  was  not  perhaps  commonly 
practised  by  the  people  of  God,  in  their  wars  with  the 
nations  around  them;  one  instance,  however,  is  recorded 
in  the  life  of  David,  who  inflicted  this  punishment  on  the 
Moabites:  "  And  he  smote  Moab,  and  measured  them  with 
a  Ime,  casting  them  down  to  the  ground ;  even  with  two 
lines  measured  he  to  put  to  death,  and  with  one  full  line  to 
keep  alive ;  and  so  the  Moabites  became  David's  servants, 
and  brought  gifts."  The  same  warlike  prince  inflicted  a 
still  more  terrible  punishment  on  the  inhabitants  of  Rabbah, 
the  capital  city  of  Ammon,  whose  ill-advised  king  had 
violated  the  law  of  nations,  in  oflfering  one  of  the  greatest 
possible  indignities  to  his  ambassadors :  '*  He  brought  out 
the  people  that  were  therein,  and  put  them  under  ftaws,  and 
under  harrows  of  iron,  and  under  axes  of  iron,  and  made 
them  pass  through  the  brick-kiln ;  and  thus  did  he  unto  all 
the  cities  of  the  children  of  Ammon."  Some  of  them  he 
sawed  asunder;  others  he  tore  in  pieces  with  harrows 
armed  with  great  iron  teeth ;  or  lacerated  their  bodies  with 
sharp  sickles  or  sharp  stones  ;  or  rather,  he  dragged  them 
through  the  place  where  bricks  were  made,  and  grated 
their  flesh  upon  the  ragged  sherds.  This  dreadful  punish- 
ment was  meant  to  operate  upon  the  fears  of  other  princes, 
and  prevent  them  from  violating  the  right  of  nations  in  the 
persons  of  their  ambassadors.  These  were  usually  persons 
of  great  worth  or  eminent  station,  who,  by  their  quality  and 
deportment,  i^iight  command  respect  and  attention  from 
their  very  enemies.  Ambassadors  were  accordingly  held 
sacred  among  all  people,  even  when  at  war;  and  what  in- 
juries and  affronts  soever  had  been  committed,  heaven 
and  earth  were  thought  to  be  concerned  to  prosecute  the 
injuries  done  to  them,  with  the  utmost  vengeance.  So  deep 
is  this  impression  engraved  on  the  human  n'i.nd,  that  the 
Lacedemonians,  who  had  inhumanly  murdered  the  Persian 
ambassadors,  firmly  believed  their  gods  would  accept  none 
of  their  oblations  and  sacrifices,  which  were  all  found  pol- 
luted with  direful  omens,  till  two  noblemen  of  Sparta  were 
sent  as  an  expiatory  sacrifice  to  Xerxes,  to  atone  for  the 
death  of  his  ambassadors  by  their  own.  That  emperor, 
indeed,  gave  them  leave  to  return  in  safety,  without  any 
other  ignominy  than  what  they  suffered  by  a  severe  reflec- 
tion on  the  Spartan  nation,  whose  barbarous  cruelty  he  pro- 
fessed he  would  not  imitate,  though  he  had  been  so  greatly 
provoked.  The  divine  vengeance,  however,  suffered  them 
not  to  go  unpunished,  but  inflicted  what  those  men  had  as- 
sumed to  themselves,  on  their  sons,  who  being  sent  on  an 
embassy  into  Asia,  were  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  the 
Athenians,  who  put  them  to  death:  which  Herodotus, 
who  relates  the  story,  considered  as  a  just  revenge  from 
heaven,  for  the  cruelty  of  the  Lacedemonians.     The  char- 


acter of  ambassadors  has  been  invested  with  such  inviolable 
sanctity,  by  the  mutual  hopes  and  fears  of  nations;  for  if 
persons  of  that  character  might  be  treated  injuriously,  the 
friendly  relations  between  different  states  could  not  be 
maintained ;  and  all  hopes  of  peace  and  reconciliation 
among  enemies,  must  be  banished  for  ever  out  of  the 
world.  But  these  considerations,  although  they  might  jus- 
tify David  in  demanding  satisfaction,  and  inflicting  condign 
punishment  on  the  king  of  Rabbah,  cannot  be  reckoned  a 
sufficient  excuse  for  such  severities.  They  may  therefore 
be  considered  as  a  proof,  that  he  was  then  in  the  state  of 
his  impenitence,  in  consequence  of  his  illicit  connexion 
with  Bathsheba,  when  the  mild,  and  gentle,  and  humane 
spirit  of  the  gospel  in  his  bosom,  had  suffered  a  mournful 
decline,  and  he  was  become  cruel  and  furious,  as  well  as 
lustful  and  incontinent.  The  captives  taken  by  Amaziah, 
in  his  war  with  Edom,  were  also  treated  with  uncommon 
severity,  for  "  he  took  ten  thousand  of  thera  alive,  and 
brought  them  to  the  top  of  a  rock,  and  cast  them  down,  so 
that  they  were  all  broken  in  pieces." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  6.  So  Amnon  lay  down,  and  made  himself 
sick. 

The  Asiatics  are  certainly  the  most  expert  creatures  I 
have  seen  in  feigning  themselves  sick.  Thus,  those  who 
wish  to  get  off  work,  or  any  duty,  complain  they  have  a 
pain  here,  and  another  there :  they  affect  to  pant  for  breath, 
roll  their  eyes,  as  if  in  agony;  and,  should  you  touch  them, 
they  shriek  out,  as  if  you  were  killing  them.  The  sepoys, 
and  those  who  are  servants  in  the  government  offices,  give 
great  trouble  to  their  superiors  by  ever  and  anon  complain- 
ing they  are  sick;  and  it  requires  great  discernment  to  find 
out  whether  they  are  so,  or  are  merely  affecting  it.  Their 
general  object  is  either  to  attend  a  marriage,  or  some 
religious  festival. — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  So  Tamar  went  to  her  brother  Amnon's 
house,  and  he  was  laid  down.  And  she  took 
flour,  and  kneaded  it,  and  made  cakes  in  his 
sight,  and  did  bake  the  cakes. 

In  the  most  considerable  houses  of  Persia,  they  kin^c 
their  fires,  not  under  a  chimney,  as  is  usual  with  us  in  fire- 
places, but  in  a  kind  of  oven,  called  tinnor,  about  two 
palms  from  the  ground,  formed  of  a  vase  of  burnt  clay,  in 
which  they  place  burning  coals,  charcoal,  or  other  com- 
bustible matter.  The  -smoke  from  the  coals  is  conveyed 
by  means  of  a  pipe  from  the  oven  under  ground ;  and  by 
means  of  another,  communicating  with  the  grated  bottom 
of  the  fire,  it  is  supplied  with  air.  Here  they  cook  their 
meat,  and  can  bake  their  cakes  on  a  flat  sheet  of  iron  laid 
over  the  tinnor,  in  little  more  than  an  instant  of  time. 
When  the  oven  is  not  thus  used,  they  place  a  plank  over  it 
in  the  shape  of  a  small  table,  which  they  cover  entirely, 
spreading  over  it  a  large  cloth  which  extends  on  all  sides 
to  the  ground,  over  a  part  of  the  floor  of  the  chamber.  By 
this  contrivance,  the  heat  being  prevented  from  diffusing 
itself  all  at  once,  it  is  communicated  insensibly,  and  so 
pleasantly  throughout  the  whole  apartment,  that  it  cannot 
be  better  compared  than  to  the  effect  of  a  stove.  Persons 
at  their  meals,  or  in  conversation,  and  some  even  sleeping, 
lie  on  the  carpets  round  this  table,  supporting  themselves 
against  the  walls  of  the  apartment  on  cushions  kept  for  the 
purpose,  which  likewise  serve  for  seats  in  this  country,  the 
tinnor  being  so  placed  as  to  be  equally  distant  from  the 
sides  of  the  room.  Thus  circumstanced,  those  to  whom 
the  cold  is  not  unpleasant,  put  their  legs  tinder  the  cloth  : 
others,  who  feel  it  more  sensibly,  their  hands  and  the  rest 
of  their  body.  By  bringing  their  extremities  thus  towards 
the  central  fire,  they  receive  thence  a  mild  and  renetraing 
warmth,  which  diffuses  itself  agreeably  over  their  whole 
body,  without  any  injury  to  the  head. — Burder. 

Let  it  not  appear  strange  that  a  king's  daughter  in  the 
reign  of  David,  was  employed  in  this  menial  service ;  for 
Dr.  Russel  says,  the  eastern  ladies  ot^en  prepare  cakes  and 
other  things  in  their  own  apartments  ;  and  some  few  par- 
ticular dishes  are  cooked  by  themselves,  but  not  in  theif 
apartments  ;  on  such  occasions  they  go  to  some  room  near 
the  kitchen.    The  eastern  bread  ii  made  in  small,  thin, 


Chap.  14. 


2  SAMUEL. 


215 


moist  cakes :  it  must  be  eaten  new,  and  is  unfit  for  use 
when  kept  longer  than  a  day.  Both  Russel  and  Rauwolf, 
however,  mention  several  kinds  of  bread  and  cakes ;  some 
which  aie  done  with  yolks  of  eggs ;  some  which  are  mixed 
Aviih  coriander  and  other  seeds;  and  some  which  are 
strewed  with  them ;  and  Pitts  describes  a  kind  of  biscuits, 
which  the  Mohammedan  pilgrims  carrj'  from  Egypt  to 
Mecca,  and  back  again,  perfectly  fresh  and  good.  The 
holy  scriptures  accord  with  the  narratives  of  modern  trav- 
ellers, in  representing  the  oriental  loaves  as  very  small, 
three  of  them  being  required  for  the  repast  of  a  single 
person  :  "  Which  of  you  shall  have  a  friend,  and  shall  go 
unto  him  at  midnight,  and  say  unto  him,  Friend,  lend  me 
ihreti  loaves :  for  a  friend  of  mine  in  his  journey  is  come 
to  me,  and  I  have  nothing  to  set  before  him  V  It  appears 
also  from  the  history  of  Abraham,  and  particularly  from 
his  entertaining  the  three  angels,  that  they  were  generally 
eaten  new,  and  baked  as  they  were  needed.  Sometimes, 
however,  they  were  made  to  keep  several  days ;  for  the 
shew-bread  might  be  eaten  after  it  had  stood  a  week  before 
the  Lord.  The  pretence  of  the  Gibeonites,  that  their  bread 
had  become  mouldy  from  the  length  of  the  road,  although 
it  was  taken  fresh  from  the  oven  when  they  left  home, 
proves,  that  bread  for  a  journey  was  made  to  keep  a  con- 
siderable time.  In  every  one  of  those  minute  circumstances, 
the  sacred  volume  perfectly  corresponds  with  the  statements 
of  modern  travellers. — Paxton, 

Ver.  17.  Then  he  called  his  servant  that  minister- 
ed unto  him. 

Eastern  masters  do  not  keep  their  Servants  at  the  distance 
usual  in  England.  The  affairs  of  the  family,  the  news  of 
the  day,  and  the  little  incidents  of  life,  are  mutually  dis- 
cussed", as  by  equals.  The  difference  between  them,  in 
reference  to  property,  is  sometimes  not  great ;  the  master 
has,  perhaps,  his  small  family  estate,  or  some  business 
which  produces  a  little  profit,  and  the  servant  is  content 
with  his  rice,  and  a  scanty  cloth  for  his  loins.  No  native 
who  can  afford  it  is  without  his  servant,  and  many  who 
can  scarcely  procure  food  for  themselves,  talk  very  largely 
about  their  domestics.  See  my  lord  seated  in  his  verandah, 
chewing  his  beetel,  and  cogitating  his  plans:  hear  him  at 
every  interval  say  to  his  attendant,  "  What  think  you  of 
thati"  "  Shall  I  succeed  1"  "  You  must  assist  me ;  I  know 
you  have  great  sense  :  let  this  prosper,  and  you  shall  have 
rings  for  your  ears,  and  a  turban  for  your  head.    Good : 

Eour  water  on  me."  They  go  to  the  well,  and  the  servant 
ales  about  a  hogshead  of  water  on  his  master's  head. 
They  go  to  the  house,  and  then  the  command  is,  "  Rub  my 
joints  and  limbs."  "  Ah!  bring  my  rice  and  curry."  That 
finished,  "  Bring  water  to  wash  my  mouth  ;  pour  it  on  my 
hands:  a  shroot  and  fire  bring;  fetch  my  sandals,  my 
turban,  umbrella,  and  beetel-box.  Let  us  depart."  Then 
may  be  seen  the  master  stepping  out  with  a  lordly  air,  and 
the  domestic  at  his  heels,  giving  advice,  or  listening  to  his 
master's  tales. — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  And  Tamar  put  ashes  on  her  head,  and 
rent  her  garment  of  divers  colours  that  was  on 
her,  and  laid  her  hand  on  her  head,  and  went 
on  crying". 

See  on  Mat.  11.  21. 

Ver.  21.  And  when  King-  David  heard  of  all 
these  things,  he  was  very  wroth. 

Mr.  Bayle,  who  takes  every  occasion  to  depreciate  the 
character  of  David,  says  that  "  his  indulgence  to  his  children 
exceeded  all  reasonable  bounds,  and  that  had  he  punished, 

I  as  the  crime  deserved,  the  infamous  action  of  his  son 
Amnon,  he  would  not  have  had  the  shame  and  uneasiness, 
to  see  another  person  revenge  the  injury  done  to  Tamar." 
I  suppose  he  means,  that  he  should  have  punished  Amnon 
with  death.     But  Amnon  was  David's  eldest  son,  and  heir 

:  apparent  to  his  throne  and  kingdom,  and  he  might  not  think 

:  it  prudent,  or  that  it  would  have  been  well  taken  by  the  na- 
tion, if  he  had  put  him  to  death  without  consulting  them. 
And  this  would  have  been  exposing,  in  the  most  public 

'  manner,  the  disgrace  of  his  own  family,  which  he  thought 
it  was  best  to  conceal,  as  far  as  he  was  able.    That  David 


did  not  punish  Amnon  in  some  very  exemplary  manner,  is 
more  than  Mr.  Bayle  could  be  sure  of.  There  are  some 
circumstances  that  make  it  very  probable  he  did.  The 
history  assures  us,  that  when  David  heard  of  the  affair,  he 
was  very  wroth.  And  it  is  very  natural  to  suppose  he  made 
Amnon  feel  the  effects  of  it.  He  seems  to  have  put  him 
under  arrest  and  confinement,  and  allovved  him  to  go  no- 
where without  his  express  leave.  For  when  Absalom  in- 
vited the  king  and  all  his  servants  to  go  to  his  sheepshear- 
ing  feast,  and  the  king  denied  him,  he  particularly  pressed 
him  to  let  Amnon  go  with  him  ;  which  shows,  that,  though 
all  the  other  sons  of  David  easily  obtained  leave  to  attend 
Absalom,  yet  that  Amnon  was  under  greater  restraint  than 
all  the  rest,  otherwise  there  would  have  been  no  need  for 
him  particularly  to  have  pressed  David  to  grant  Amnon 
leave  to  accompany  him,  or  reason  why  David  should  wiih 
difficulty  and  reluctance  grant  it.  This  was  two  full  years 
after  Amnon 's  affair  with  Tamar.  So  long  a  confinement 
as  this  to  a  king's  eldest  son,  was  itself  a  very  severe  pun- 
ishment, and  probably  attended  with  several  circumstances, 
that  rendered  it  peculiarly  grievous.  It  is  not  however 
consistent  with  candour  to  accuse  men  of  faults,  which 
there  is  no  real  proof  of,  and  especially  when  there  are 
some  intimations,  that  they  never  committed  them ;  or  to 
aggravate  them  beyond  the  real  demerit.  One  cannot  help 
observing  here,  how  David's  adultery  with  Bathsheba  was 
punished  by  his  son's  incest  with  his  sister  Tamar ;  and  as 
he  now  saw  the  threatenings  of  God  by  Nathan  beginning 
to  take  place,  he  had  too  much  reason  to  fear  they  should 
be  all  01  them  executed  to  the  full.  It  was  a  circumstance 
also  that  must  greatly  affect  him,  that  he  had  been,  though 
unwillingly,  a  sort  of  accessary  to  Amnon 's  crime,  by  yield- 
ing so  readily  to  Amnon's  desire,  of  having  his  sister  sent 
to  him ;  the  very  proposal  he  made  of  her  dressing  and  re- 
ceiving his  food  from  her,  seeming  enough  to  create  some 
suspicion  in  David,  that  he  had  some  design  upon  Tamar, 
which  he  ought  to  have  been  peculiarly  carenil  to  guard 
against.  But  probably  Amnon  had  never  offended  him, 
nor  given  any  occasion  to  suspect  him  capable  of  so  heinous 
a  crime,  as  he  was  now  meditating,  and  therefore  David 
more  easily  consented,  that  his  sister  should  have  the  liberty 
of  attending  him, — Chandler. 

Ver.  39.  And  the  soul  of  King-  David  long-ed  to 
go  forth  unto  Absalom :  for  he  was  comforted 
concerning  Amnon,  seeing  he  was  dead. 

The  Hebrew  has,  for  Imiged,  "was  consumed."  A  person 
labouring  under  an  intense  desire  for  the  possession  of  an 
object,  says,  "  My  soul  is  consumed  for  it,"  meaning  that 
his  spirit  is  wasting  away  by  the  intensity  of  his  wishes. 
"  My  life  is  burning  away  through  fear."  *'  My  spirit  is 
consuming  for  his  safety."— Roberts, 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Ver.  2.  And  Joab  sent  to  Tekoah,  and  fel\.hed 
thence  a  wise  woman,  and  said  unto  her,  I  pray 
thee,  feign  thyself  to  be  a  mourner,  and  put  on 
now  mourning  app^irel,  and  anoint  not  thyself 
with  oil,  but  be  as  a  woman  that  had  a  long 
time  mourned  for  the  dead. 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  that  the  Hindoos  do  not  put  on  what 
is  called  mourning  at  the  death  of  their  friends.  The 
relations  take  off  their  ear-rings  and  other  ornaments,  and 
neglect  the  dressing  of  their  hair.  A  woman,  on  the  death 
of  her  husband,  takes  off  the  thali  (equivalent  to  the  mar- 
riage ring)  fiom  her  neck ;  and  formerly  she  used  to  shave 
her  head;  but  in  all  other  respects  she  dresses  as  before. 
Those  who  are  sick,  as  they  suppose,  under  the  influence 
of  Saturn,  generally  wear  something  black,  or  have  marks 
of  that  colour  on  their  clothes,  as  they  believe  the  indispo- 
sition is  in  this  way  removed. — Roberts. 

Ointments  were  in  great  esteem  and  constant  use  among 
the  ancients,  as  the  means  of  cleanliness,  and  to  give  a 
grateful  odour  to  their  bodies,  as  these  ointments  were 
mixed  up  with  the  richest  perfumes.  At  their  festivals, 
especially  among  the  rich  and  prosperous,  they  used  them 
for  the  refreshment  of  their  guests,  and  to  render  the  enter- 
tainment more  acceptable  and  delightful.  But  as  great 
affliction  and  distress  naturally  create  negligence  of  person 


216 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  14. 


and  dress,  they  forbore  anointing  themselves  at  such  sea- 
sons, as  inconsistent  with  the  condition  of  mourners. — 
Chandler. 

Ver.  7.  And  so  they  shall  quench  my  coal  which 
is  left,  and  shall  not  leave  to  my  husband  neither 
name  nor  remainder  upon  the  earth. 

So  said  the  woman  of  Tekoah,  who  went  with  a  fictitious 
story  to  David,  in  order  to  induce  him  to  recall  Absalom. 
She  affected  to  be  a  widow,  and  said  that  one  of  her  sons 
had  killed  the  other,  and  that  now  the  family  demanded  his 
life  as  an  atonement  for  that  of  his  brother ;  and  she  said, 
that  if  they  succeeded  they  would  auENCH  her  coal.  But 
the  life  is  sometimes  called  the  light,  as  in  chap.  xxi.  17, 
which  in  the  margin  is  translated  "  candle,  or  lamp."  Both 
the  comparisons  include  the  idea  of  fire.  Formerly,  and 
even  now,  it  is  not  uncommon  for  travellers  to  have  to 
purchase  their  fire  before  they  can  cook  their  victuals. 
Hence  it  is  common,  when  neighbours  ask  for  a  light  in 
the  morning,  to  be  answered,  by  way  of  pleasantry,  "  You 
want  fire — well,  where  is  your  money  ?'  Children  in 
Ceylon  are  not  called  coals,  but  sparks.  It  is  said  of  a 
man  who  has  a  large  family,  "  He  has  plenty  of  porrekal, 
i.  e.  sparks."  Those  who  are  favoured  with  fme  children, 
are  said  to  have  large  sparks.  Of  those  whose  children 
are  all  dead,  "  Alas !  their  sparks  are  all  quenched."  To 
a  person  who  is  injuring  an  only  child,  it  is  said,  "  Ah ! 
leave  him  alone,  he  is  the  only  spark." — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  Then  thy  handmaid  said,  The  word  of 
my  lord  the  king  shall  now  be  comfortable :  for 
as  an  angel  of  God,  so  is  my  lord  the  king,  to 
discern  good  and  bad ;  therefore  the  Lord  thy 
God  will  be  with  thee. 

Thus  did  the  woman  of  Tekoah  compliment  David,  and 
thus  did  Mephibosheth  address  him,  when  he  had  been 
slandered  by  Ziba.  Great  men  are  often  compared  to  the 
messengers  (the  true  meaning  of  angel)  of  the  gods.  Thus 
men  of  great  wisdom  or  eloquence  are  said  to  be  like  the 
angels  of  the  gods.  "  Ah !  my  lord,  you  know  all  things  : 
you  are  one  of  the  angels  of  the  gods."  Sometimes  the 
person  will  not  address  you  in  a  direct  way,  but  speak  as ' 
to  a  third  person,  loud  enough  for  you  to  hear.  "Ah! 
what  wisdom  he  has ;  there  is  nothing  concealed  from  him. 
Whence  has  he  had  his  wisdom  %  from  the  gods — Yes,  yes, 
all  things  are  known  to  him."  Then  turning  to  you,  they 
look  humbly  in  your  face,  and  say,  "  My  lord,  there  are 
only  two  for  me :  God  is  the  first ;  but  you  are  the  second." 
— Roberts. 

The  compliments  which  they  addressed  to  their  princes, 
and  the  manner  in  which  they  spoke  of  them,  were  not 
less  hyperbolical.  The  address  of  the  wise  woman  of  Te- 
koah to  David,  furnishes  a  memorable  example  of  the  ex- 
travagant adulation  in  which  they  indulged,  and  which 
seems  to  have  been  received  with  entire  satisfaction  by  one 
of  the  wisest  and  holiest  of  men:  "As  an  angel  of  God, 
so  is  my  lord  the  king,  to  discern  good  and  bad;"  and 
again,  "  My  lord  is  wise  according  to  the  wisdom  of  an 
angel  of  God,  to  know  all  things  that  are  in  the  earth." 
Equally  hyperbolical  was  the  reply  of  a  Persian  grandee 
to  Chardin,  who  objected  to  the  price  which  the  king  had 
set  upon  a  pretty  rich  trinket :  "  Knew  that  the  kings  of 
Persia  have  a  general  and  full  knowledge  of  matters,  as 
sure  as  it  is  extensive ;  and  that  equally  in  the  greatest  and 
in  the  smallest  things,  there  is  nothing  more  just  and  sure 
than  what  they  pronounce."  This  incident  admirably 
shows  the  strong  prepossession  of  these  Asiatics  in  favour 
of  their  kings,  or  rather  of  their  own  slavery;  and  gives 
some  plausibility  to  the  remark  of  Mr.  Harmer,  that  theje 
may  be  more  of  real  persuasion  in  such  addresses  than  we 
are  ready  to  apprehend.  In  the  estimation  of  the  Persian 
L-ourlier,  the  knowledge  of  his  prince  was  like  that  of  an 
angel  of  God.  If  the  ancient  Egyptians  supposed  their 
princes  were  possessed  of  equal  knowledge  and  sagacity, 
which  is  not  improbable,  the  compliment  of  Judah  to  his 
brother  Joseph  was  a  very  high  one,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  couched  in  the  most  artful  terms:  "Thou  art  even 
as  Pharaoh;"  knowing,  and  wise,  and  equitable  as  he. 
But  it  cannot  be  inferred,  with  any  degree  of  certainty, 


from  these  customs,  that  either  the  Persian  grandee,  or 
the  brother  of  Joseph,  really  believed  such  compliments 
were  due.  The  former,  most  probably,  thought  it  incum- 
bent upon  him  to  support  the  dignity  of  his  master,  espe- 
cially in  the  presence  of  many  of  his  nobles,  or  expressed 
himself  in  such  extravagant  terms,  merely  in  compliance 
with  the  etiquette  of  the  court ;  and  as  for  Judah,  it  was 
his  desire  to  sooth  with  good  words  and  fair  speeches  the 
second  ruler  in  Egypt,  whose  resentment  he  knew  it  was 
death  to  incur;  and  no  compliment  could  be  supposed 
more  acceptable  to  an  Egyptian  grandee,  than  the  one 
which  he  paid  to  his  unknown  brother.  The  same  remark  • 
applies,  with  little  variation,  to  the  woman  of  Tekoah; 
her  design  was  to  sooth  the  mind  of  her  sovereign,  to 
mitigate,  and,  if  possibly,  td  extinguish  his  just  resentuTent 
of  the  atrocious  murder  which  Absalom  had  committed, 
and  procure  the  restoration  of  the  fratricide  to  his  country, 
and  the  presence  of  his  father. — Paxton. 

Ver.  24.  And  the  king  said.  Let  him  turn  to  his 
own  house,  and  let  him  not  see  my  face.  So 
Absalom  returned  to  his  own  house,  and  saw 
not  the  king's  face. 

Few  things  are  more  oflfensive  in  the  East  than  to  re- 
fuse to  show  yourself  to  those  who  come  to  see  you.  Send 
your  servant  to  say  you  are  engaged,  or  that  the  individual 
may  go,  and  he  will  be  distressed,  or  enraged,  and  not 
hesitate  to  express  his  feelings.  Should  there,  however, 
be  any  reason  to  hope,  he  will  wait  for  hours  at  your  door, 
nay,  he  will  come  day  after  day,  till  he  shall  have  seen 
your  face.  They  have  an  opinion,  that  if  they  once  gain 
admission  into  your  presence,  a  great  point  is  attained,  and 
so  it  is ;  for,  what  with  their  eloquence,  and  teats,  and 
abject  submissions,  they  seldom  fail  to  make  an  impres- 
sion. Even  low  people,  who  have  no  particular  business, 
often  call  upon  you  that  they  may  be  able  to  say  that  they 
have  seen  vour  face.  When  a  person  says  he  has  not  seen 
the  face  of  the  great  man,  it  means,  Ihathe  has  not  gained 
his  suit.  See  the  high  caste  native  passing  along  the  road  ;< 
an  humble  suppliant  is  there  to  attract  his  attention :  and  let 
him  turn  his  face  another  way,  and  it  is  a  dagger  through 
the  poor  man's  soul. — Roberts. 

Ver.  26.  And  when  he  polled  his  head,  (for  it  wns 
at  every  year's  end  that  he  polled  it ;  because 
the  hair  was  heavy  on  him,  therefore  he  polled 
it:)  he  weighed  the  hair  of  his  head  at  two 
hundred  shekels  after  the  king's  weight. 

See  on  1  Pet.  3.  3. 

The  eastern  ladies  are  remarkable  for  the  length,  and 
the  great  number  of  the  tresses  of  their  hair :  the  men 
there,  on  the  contrary,  wear  very  little  hair  on  their  heads 
now,  but  they  do  not  seem  always  to  have  done  so.  That 
the  eastern  women  now  are  remarkable  fbr  the  quantity  of 
the  hair  of  their  heads,  and  their  pride  in  adorning  it,  ap- 
pears from  the  quotation  from  Dr.  Shaw  under  a  preceding 
observation.  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague  abundantly 
confirms  it :  their  "  hair  hangs  at  fulllength  behind,"  she 
tells  us,  "  divided  into  tresses,  braided  with  pearl  or  riband, 
which  is  also  in  great  quantity.  I  never  saw  in  my  life  so 
many  fine  heads  of  hair.  In  one  lady^  I  have  counted  a 
hundred  and  ten  of  these  tresses,  all  natural ;  but  it  must 
be  owned  that  every  kind  of  beauty  is  more  common  here 
than  with  us."  The  men  there,  on  the  contrary,  shave  all 
the  hair  off"  their  heads,  excepting  one  lock ;  and  those 
that  wear  their  hair  are  thought  eifeminate.  I  have  met 
with  both  these  particulars  in  Sir  J.  Chardin.  As  to  the 
last,  he  says  in  his  note  on  1  Cor.  xi.  14,  that  what  the 
Apostle  mentions  there  is  the  custom  of  the  East :  the  raep 
are  shaved,  the  women  nourish  their  hair  with  great  fond- 
ness, which  they  lengthen  by  tresses  and  tufts  of  silk, 
down  to  the  heels.  The  young  men  who  wear  their  hair, 
in  the  East,  are  looked  upon  as  effeminate  and  infamous. 
It  appears  from  this  passage  of  the  Corinthians,  that  in 
the  days  of  St.  Paul,  the  women  wore  their  hair  long,  the 
men  short,  and  that  the  Apostle  thought  this  a  natural  dis- 
tinction. It  does  not  however  appear  it  was  always  thought 
so,  or,  at  least,  that  the  wearing  longhair  by  the  men  was 
thought  infamous,  since  it  was  esteemed  a  beauty  in  Absa- 


Chap.  15. 


2  SAMUEL. 


217 


lom,  2  Sam.  xiv.  26.  That  passage  is  curiouS;  and  requires 
some  consideration,  as  being  attended  with  some  diliicul- 
ties;  and,  lam  afraid,  somewhat  improperly  explained. 

The  weight  of  the  hair,  which  seems  to  be  enormously- 
great,  is  the  first  thing  that  occurs  to  the  mind.  Two  hun- 
dred shekels,  at  two  hundred  and  ninety  grains  each,  make 
forty-three  thousand  and  eight  hundred  grains.  This  is 
rather  more  than  one  hundred  ounces  avoirdupois,  for  four 
himdred  and  thirty-seven  grains  and  a  half  are  equal  to 
yuch  an  ounce.  It  is  a  very  good  English  head  of  hair, 
I  am  told,  that  weighs  five  ounces;  if  Absalom's  then 
weighed  one  hundred  ounces,  it  was  very  extraordinary. 
Some  veryjearned  men,  I  think,  have  believed  a  royal 
shekel  was  but  half  the  w^eight  of  the  sacred  shekel ;  be 
it  so ;  yet  fifty  ounces,  ten  times  the  weight  of  a  good 
British  head  of  hair,  seems  to  be  too  great  an  allowance. 
To  suppose,  as  some  have  done,  that  adventitious  matters, 
united  with  the  hair,  are  to  be  taken  in  to  make  up  the 
weight,  seems  to  me  not  a  little  idle :  what  proof  would 
this  have  been  of  his  possessing  an  extraordinary  fine  head 
of  hair,  since  it  would  be  possible  to  attach  to  the  hair  of 
a  man  half  bald,  substances  that  should  weigh  one  hundred 
ounces  '?  Commentators  then  should  by  no  means  talk  of 
the  oil,  the  fragrant  substances,  the  gold  dust,  with  which 
they  suppose  the  hair  might  be  powdered,  as  making  up 
this  weight ;  they  might  as  well  have  added  ornaments  of 
gold,  ribands,  or  what  answered  them,  artificial  tresses  of 
hair,  and  all  the  matters  that  are  now  in  different  methods 
fastened  to  the  hair :  but  would  not  this  have  been  ridicu- 
lous '?  It  is  more  reasonable  to  say,  the  present  reading 
may  be  faulty,  as  in  other  cases  there  have  frequently  been 
mistakes  in  numbers;  or  that  we  were  not  sure  what  num- 
ber of  grains  two  hundred  shekels,  after  the  king's  weight, 
was  equal  to  ;  than  to  attempt  to  remove  the  difficulty  by 
such  an  incompetent  method,  it  was  an  uncommonly  fine 
head  of  hair,  of  very  unusual  weight,  which  is  all  that  we 
know  with  certainty  about  it. 

The  shaving  off  all  this  hair,  for  so  the  original  word 
signifies,  is  a  second  thing  that  seems  very  strange.     It  was 
this  thought,  I  should  imagine,  that  led  our  translators  to" 
render  the  word  by  the  English  term  polled,  or  cut  short : 
for  it  seems  very  unaccountable,  that  a  prince  who  prided 
himself  so  much  in  the  quantity  of  his  hair,  should  annually 
shave  it  off"  quite  close ;  and  for  what  purpose  1  would  not 
the  shortening  of  it  have  relieved  him  from  its  excessive 
weight  1  not  to  say,  that  the  hair  of  one  year's  growth  can, 
in  the  common  course  of  things,  be  of  no  great  length,  or 
weigh  very  much.    The  word  elsewhere  signifies  to  shave 
off  all  the  hair ;  is  opposed  to  polling,  or  trimming  the  hair 
a  little  by  shortening  it;  and  was  necessary  in  order  to  gain 
the  knowledge  of  the  true  weight  of  the  hair.    Mourners 
shaved  themselves.  Job  i.  20 ;  and  those  that  had  been  in  a 
state  of  bitterness  when  they  presented  themselves  before 
kings,  as  appears  from  what  is  related  of  Joseph,  Gen. 
xli.  14;  if  then  "from  the  end  of  days,"  which  is  the  origi- 
nal expression,  may  be  understood  to  mean  at  the  end  of 
the  time  of  his  returning  to  his  own  house,  and  not  seeing 
i  the  king's  face,  instead  of  at  the  end  of  the  year,  then  the 
,  shaving  himself  may  be  thought  to  express  one  single 
i  action,  and  to  describe,  in  part,  the  manner  in  which  he 
presented  himself  before  the  king.    This  would  make  the 
prophetic  account  very  natural.    Butthenthe  word  133  kaied, 
translated  heavy,  must  be  understood  in  another  sense,  a 
sense  in  which  it  is»ometimes  used,  if  we  have  no  regard 
to  the  Masoretic  points,  namely,  as  signifying  in  glory,  or 
honour,  or  something  of  that  sort.    And  so  the  general 
meaning  of  the  passage  will  be^  "And  when  he  shaved  his 
head,  and  it  was  in  the  end  of  the  days,  of  the  days  of  his 
disgrace,  that  is,  at  the  time  in  which  he  was  to  shave, 
.  because  it  was  a  glory  upon  him,  and  he  shaved  himself 
and  weighed  the  hair  of  his  head,  two  hundred  shekels 
iafter  the  king's  weight."    But  does  not  St.  Paul  suppose, 
that  nature  teaches  us,  that  if  a  man  have  long  hair,  it  is 
shame  unto  him,  1  Cor.  xi.  14 1    He  certainly  does ;  Ab- 
salom's hair  however  is  evidently  spoken  of  in  the  book  of 
•Samuel,  as  what  was  thought  to  be  part  of  his  beauty,  2 
Sam.  xiv.  25 :  whether  it  was  that  they  had  different  notions 
3n  this  point  in  the  age  of  David ;  or  that  they  thought  it 
"ather  effeminate,  but  however  a  beauty. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Ver.  13.  And  there  came  a  messenger  to  David, 


saying,  The  hearts  of  the  men  of  Israel  are  after 
Absalom.  14.  And  David  said  unto  all  his  ser 
vants  that  werewith  him  at  Jerusalem,  Arise,  and 
let  us  flee ;  for  we  shall  not  else  escape  from 
Absalom :  make  speed  to  depart,  lest  he  over- 
take us  suddenly,  and  bring  evil  upon  us,  and 
smite  the  city  with  the  edge  of  the  sword. 

One  cannot  help  being  surprised,  at  first  view,  how  so 
excellent  a  prince  as  David  was,  who  had  exalted  the  king- 
dom of  Israel  to  so  high  a  degree  of  glory  and  power,  who 
had  subdued  and  rendered  tributary  all  the  neighbouring 
nations,  which  had  so  often  oppressed  them,  who  had  made 
the  best  and  wisest  regulations  for  the  honourable  perform- 
ance of  the  solemnities  of  their  public  worship,  who,  in 
the  whole  course  of  his  reign,  had  administered  justice  and 
judgment  to  all  his  people,  and  who  certainly  deserved  to 
be  loved  and  esteemed  by  all  ranks  and  degrees  of  them, 
for  the  happiness  they  enjoyed  under  his  government ;  I 
say,  one  cannot  help  wondering  at  the  sudden  revolution 
that  was  brought  about  in  favour  of  an  ungrateful  and  per- 
fidious son,  who  was  well  known  to  have  stained  his  hands 
with  the  blood  of  his  elder  brother.    But  there  were  many 
things  that  concurred  to  bring  it  about.    By  the  death  of 
Amnon  he  became  heir-apparent  to  the  crown,  and  being 
suspicious  that  the  king  his  father  might  exclude  him  from 
the  succession,  upon  the  account  of  his  character  and  crimes, 
he  resolved  to  stick  at  no  measures  to  obtain  his  ambitious 
views,  and  put  it  out  of  his  father's  power  to  set  him  aside. 
To  accomplish  thiSj  being  the  handsomest  man  in  Israel, 
he  showed  himself  everywhere  in  public,  to  captivate  with 
his  person  all  that  beheld  him.    He  then  set  up  a  princely 
equipage  to  attract  their  admiration  of  his  splendour  and 
magnificence.    He  treated  all  that  approached  him  with 
great  condescension  and  affability ;  and  as  any  were  ap- 
proaching the  city  from  the  other  tribes  of  Israel,  to  have 
their  causes  heard  before  the  king,  he,  in  the  most  friendly 
manner,  inquired  of  them,  of  what  tribe  they  were,  and 
hoped  their  cause  was  good ;   but  reproached  his  father 
with  remissness  of  government,  and  neglect  of  his  people  ; 
telling  them,  that  how  just  soever  their  cause  was,  they 
could  have  no  audience,  and  that  there  was  no  man  depu- 
ted of  the  king  to  hear  them ;  wishing,  for  their  sakes,  that 
he  was  con.stituted  a  judge  in  the  land,  that  every  man,  who 
had  any  suit  or  cause,  might  come  to  him,  and  have  imme- 
diate justice  done  him;  and  thus  persuaded  them  to  return 
home,  without  making  any  application  for  a  hearing,  dis- 
contented with  the  king's  government,  and  highly  pleased 
with  Absalom's  condescension  and  goodness;  greatly  dis- 
posed to  spread  disaffection  and  sedition  in  the  places  to 
which  they  respectively  belonged.     And  in  order  to  secure 
the  popularity  he  courted,  whoever  approached  him  to  pay 
their  respects  to  him,  as  the  king's  son,  he  familiarly  took  by 
the  hand  and  embraced  him.    By  these  means  he  w^on  the  af- 
fections of  great  numbers  among  all  the  tribes ;  who,  though 
probably  at  first  they  had  no  design  of  deposing  the  king,  and 
advancing  Absalom  in  his  room,  wished  to  see  hijin  intrust- 
ed with  the  principal  administration  of  affairs  under  his 
father,  and  were  willing  to  enter  into  any  measures  wdth 
him  to  obtain  it,  and  to  prevent  his  exclusion  from  the 
throne  after  his  father.     Besides  this,  he  sent  emissaries 
throughout  all  the  tribes  to  strengthen  his  interest,  and  to 
secure  a  good  body  of  men  to  join  him,  whenever  his  affairs 
required  their  assistance. 

Absalom  did  not  at  first  open  his  intentions  of  dethroning 
his  father,  but  wished  onl5ito  be  a  judge  in  the  land  ;  fol- 
low :ing  herein  the  crafty  counsel  of  Ahithophel,  who  was 
David's  chief  counsellor,  and  treated  by  him  as  his  intimate 
friend,  and  who  having  been  admitted  to  his  secrets,  proba- 
bly informed  Absalom  of  his  father's  design  to  exclude  him 
from  the  succession,  in  favour  of  one  of  his  younger  breth- 
ren ;  advising  him,  what  steps  he  should  take  in  order  to 
prevent  it.  His  appearance  to  countenance  the  rebellion 
allured  many  to  become  partners  in  it,  as  he  was  esteemed 
the  ablest  politician  in  the  kingdom.  What  added  further 
strength  to  it  was,  Amasa,  David's  own  nephew,  joined  the 
conspiracy,  and  putting  himself  at  the  head  of  the  rebel 
army,  who,  by  his  relation  to  the  king,  was  a  man  of  great 
consequence,  and  an  able  soldier,  and  who  therefore  would 
be  thought  by  many  incapable  of  entering  into  a  conspiracy 
against  his  uncle  to  dethrone  him,  without  some  very  great 


218 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  15. 


and  justifiable  causes.  It  may  be  added,  that  Absalom's 
carrymg  otf  with  him  two  hundred  of  the  principal  citizens 
of  Jerusalem,  and  retaining  them  with  his  followers  at 
lEebron,  where  the  standard  of  the  rebellion  was  first  set 
up,  added  to  the  credit  of  the  cause,  and  drew  in  many  to 
abet  and  support  it,  who  could  not  know  but  they  engaged 
voluntarily  in  Absalom's  party,  and  were  not  drawn  in  to 
espouse  his  interest  by  subtlety  and  force.  Nor  must  it  be 
forgot  here,  that  the  providence  of  God  permitted  the  con- 
spiracy to  go  on  without  discovery,  and  to  arise  to  that 
height,  as  to  drive  David  from  his  throne,  and  thus  bring 
on  him  the  punishments  he  had  threatened  him  with  by 
Nathan  the  prophet,  for  his  sin  in  the  matter  of  Bathsheba 
and  Uriah.  All  these  circumstances  together  considered, 
It  is  no  wonder  that  Absalom  should  draw  together  a  num- 
ber of  men  sufficient  to  oppose  and  oppress  his  father,  who 
suspected  nothing  of  the  conspiracy  formed  against  him, 
and  who  appears  to  have  had  no  part  of  his  army  with  him, 
but  some  of  his  officers  and  ordinary  guards,  and  which 
therefore  made  him  take  the  resolution  of  retiring  from 
Jerusalem,  to  prevent  his  being  surprised  by  a  superior  force, 
that  he  knew  himself  unable  to  lesist.  But  then  it  should 
be  considered,  that  this  sudden  insurrection  was  not  the 
effect  of  a  genera!  or  national  disaffection  to  his  person  and 
government.  This  is  evident  from  many  hints  in  the  sa- 
cred history.  The  best  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem 
were  firmly  attached  to  him,  and  followed  him  in  his  retreat 
from  the  capital,  and  all  the  country  through  which  he  went, 
showed  their  affection  to  him  by  loud  acclamations.  The 
Cherethites  and  Pelethites,  the  Gittites,  and  the  ablest  of  his 
officers,  continued  steadfast  in  their  attachment  to  him,  and 
followed  his  fortune.  The  tribes  on  the  other  side  Jordan 
gladly  received  him,  and  the  richest  persons  of  that  coun- 
try supplied  him  and  his  forces  with  all  necessary  provi- 
sions, and  he  soon  collected  among  them  an  army  suffi- 
cient to  check  the  rebels,  and  at  one  blow  to  crush  the 
lebellion.  And  this  was  no  sooner  known,  than  the  tribes 
in  general  were  all  in  motion  to  show  their  loyalty  to  the 
king,  and  restore  him  to  his  throne  and  government.  The 
truth  is,  that  David  was  surprised  unawares  and  unprovi- 
ded, by  a  wicked  and  impious  faction,  who  had,  by  their 
emissaries,  drawn  together  a  large  body  of  men,  wherever 
they  could  pick  them  up,  among  all  the  tribes ;  gaining 
over,  probably,  some  well-minded  persons,  by  lies,  and  slan- 
derous reports  of  the  king's  government,  and  such  others, 
as,  in  all  nations,  are  always  ready  to  enter  into  any 
measures  of  wickedness  and  violence,  in  hopes  of  making 
their  advantage  by  the  public  confusion  and  calamity,  by 
those  methods  which  are  constantly  practised  by  profligate 
conspirators,  in  order  to  gratify  their  pride,  ambition,  and 
revenge,  though  at  the  expense  of  the  religion,  liberties, 
and  prosperity  of  their  country.  And  it  is  therefore  no  won- 
der, that  this  rebellion,  which  was  evidently  contrary  to  the 
general  sense  and  inclination  of  the  people,  was  so  suddenly 
suppressed,  and  David's  restoration  to  his  throne  and  gov- 
ernment was  immediately  resolved  on  by  the  unanimous 
consent  of  all  the  tribes  of  Israel ;  whereby  God  was  gra- 
ciously pleased  to  put  an  end  to  his  troubles,  bringing  him 
in  safety  ifo  his  capital  and  palace,  and  preserving  his  life, 
till  he  happily  settled  the  succession  on  Solomon  his  son, 
the  wisest  of  princes,  and  the  most  prosperous  raona,rch  in 
the  world.— Chandler. 

Ver.  30.  And  David  went  up  by  the  ascent  of 
mount  Olivet,  and  wept  as  he  went  up,  and  had 
his  head  covered,  and  he  went  barefoot. 

Thus  did  David  conduct  himself  in  his  sorrow,  when 
Absalom  had  rebelled  against  him.  But  the  Hindoos  do 
not  cover  the  head  ;  they  take  a  part  of  their  robe  and 
cover  the  face.  In  going  to  a  funeral,  the  turban  is  gener- 
ally taken  off,  and  a  part  of  the  garment  is  held  over  the 
face.  Nor  is  this  merely  common  at  funerals,  for  on  all 
occasions  of  deep  sorrow  they  observe  the  same  thing.  At 
such  times,  also,  they  always  go  "  barefoot." — Roberts. 

This  was  an  indication  of  great  distress :  for  in  ancient 
times  the  shoes  of  great  and  wealthy  persons  were  made  of 
very  rich  materials,  and  ornamented  with  jewels,  gold,  and 
pilver.  When  any  great  cniamity  befell  them,  either  pub- 
lic or  private,  they  not  only  stripped  thenaselves  of  tnese 
ornaments,  but  of  their  very  shoes,  and  walked  barefoot. 


In  this  manner,  prisoners  taken  in  war  w-ere  forced  to  walk, 
both  for  punishment  and  disgrace. — Burder. 

Ver.  32.  And  it  came  to  pass,  that  when  David 
was  come  to  the  top  of  the  mount,  where  he 
worshipped  God,  behold,  Hushai  the  Archite 
came  to  meet  him  with  his  coat  rent,  and  earth 
upon  his  head:  33.  Unto  whom  David  said. 
If  thou  passest  on  with  me,  then  thou  shalt  be 
a  burden  unto  me :  34.  But  if  thou  return  to 
the  city,  and  say  unto  Absalom,  I  will  be  thy 
servant,  O  king;  as  I  have  been  thy  father's 
servant  hitherto,  so  toill  1  now  also  he  thy  ser- 
vant :  then  mayest  thou  for  me  defeat  the  coun- 
sel of  Ahithophel. 

Mr.  Bayle  calls  this  "  the  most  treacherous  piece  of  villa- 
ny  that  can  be  imagined."  But  he  might  have  spared  the 
reflection,  for  he  could  easily  have  produced  instances  of 
much  greater  villany  than  this,  practised  for  the  most  crim- 
inal and  execrable  purposes.  Hushai's  treachery  w^as  to 
prevent  the  effects  of  the  most  detestable  treachery,  and  an 
instance  of  loyalty  and  fidelity  to  his  king  and  country. 
His  villany  was  the  dictate  of  public  spirit  and  patriotism, 
and  to  counteract  the  plots  of  a  most  desperate  and  bloody 
villain,  who  advised  the  murder  of  a  father,  and  incest 
with  his  wdves,  in  support  of  an  unnatural,  ambiiious,  and 
desperate  son.  How  far  these  policies  of  princes  and  great 
men,  are  reconcileable  with  the  rules  of  those  rigid  casuists 
of  which  Mr.  Bayle  speaks,  I  pretend  not  to  determine. 
This  I  know,  that  without  these  and  the  like  stratagems, 
government  cannot  be  frequently  supported,  and  that  the 
most  nefarious  attempts  te  destroy  all  that  is  valuable  to 
mankind  can  never  be  defeated;  and  that  they  have  been 
practised  by  the  best  and  wisest  of  princes,  who  have  been 
so  far  from  being  blamed  on  account  of  them,  as  that  they 
have  been  recorded  as  the  proofs  of  their  wisdom,  and  re- 
•  gard  to  the  honour  and  interest  of  their  country.  And  this 
Mr.  Bayle  himself  confesses,  when  he  says,  that  "strata^ 
gems  of  this  nature  are  undoubtedly  very  laudable,  if  we 
judge  of  things  according  to  human  prudence,  and  the  pol- 
itics of  sovereigns."  If  David  therefore  acted  in  this  af- 
fair, according  to  the  rules  of  human  prudence,  and  the 
constant  policy  of  sovereigns,  why  should  he  be  censured 
n;iore  than  other  great  and  excellent  princes,  who  have  act- 
ed like  him  1  Especially  as  he  had  none  of  those  rigid 
casuists  about  him,  who  judged  this  conduct  unworthy  a 
saint,  and  an  honest  man.  Supposing  this  conduct  not  quite 
reconcileable  with  the  rules  of  rigid  casuistry,  yet,  if  David 
was  not  acquainted  with  them,  he  might  possibly  be  a  saint 
and  an  honest  man,  if  he  did  not  regard  them.  If  Hushai 
had  stabbed  Absalom  to  the  heart,  under  pretence  of  friend- 
ship, as  Brutus  did  Caesar,  must  not  those  who  defend  Bru- 
tus, defend  Hushai  tool  But  is  it  a  more  base  and  crimi- 
nal part,  by  pretences  of  friendship,  to  betray  a  tyrant's,  a 
usurper's,  a  parricide's  counsels,  than,  in  like  circumstances, 
to  assassinate  himl  I  leave  David's  censurers  fairly  to 
state  this  important  point  of  casuistiy :  Whether  it  be  in  it- 
self absolutely  unlawful  to  make  use  of  stratagems,  i.  e. 
arts  of  deception,  in  the  management  of  wars  between 
princes  and  states:  If  not,  in  what  instances  they  are  law- 
ful, and  reconcileable  with  the  rigid  yles  of  morality  and 
virtue.  "When  these  points  are  settled,  we  shall  be  the  bel- 
ter able  to  determine  concerning  the  morality  and  honesty 
of  David  and  his  friend  Hushai  in  the  instance  before  us; 
and,  till  this  is  done,  Mr.  Basic's  charges  will  appear  to  be 
uncandid  and  groundless.  I  have  only  to  add,  that  David's 
character,  as  a  man  after  God's  own  heart,  in  the  scripture 
sense  of  it,  by  no  means  implies,  that,  as  a  prince,  he  should 
always  act  according  to  the  rules  of  morality  laid  down  by 
rigid  casuists;  or,  that  he  should  not,  in  the  management 
of  his  wars,  and  defeating  unnatural  rebellions,  act  with  the 
U5ual  policy  of  wise  and  good  princes,  and  make  use  of 
proper  stratagems,  when  necessary  to  the  defence  of  his 
countrv,  and  the  safety  of  his  person. 

In  Cicero's  consulate,  the  conspiracy  of  Catiline  broke 
rut,  and  it  was  fully  discovered  by  that  great  consul's  vigi- 
lance, prudence,  and  policy.  Ambassadors  from  the  AUo- 
broges,  the  ancient  lahabitants  of  Savoy  and  Piedmont^ 
were  then  at  Ronx  »  solicit  the  senate  for  the  removal  ot 


,   Chap.  16, 


2  SAMUEL. 


aio 


their  grievances.  Umbrenius,  one  of  he  conspirators,  at- 
tempted to  bring  ov^er  these  ambaisado  s,  to  engage  in  the 
scheme  that  had  been  concerted  for  the  destruction  of 
Rome.  In  order  to  this  he  opened  to  them  the  nature  of 
the  conspiracy,  named  the  principal  persons  concerned  in 
it,  and  promised  them  every  thing  they  desired,  if  they 
would  engage  their  nation  to  join  with  them  in  support  of 
it.  The  ambassadors,  upon  considering  the  affair,  discov- 
ered the  whole  conspiracy  to  Fabius  Sanga,  as  they  had 
bjiin  informed  of  it  by  Umbrenius.  Sanga  immediately 
acquaints  the  consul  with  it,  and  introduced  the  ambassa- 
dors themselves  to  him.  What  doth  he  do  1  Why,  like  a 
very  wicked  and  ungodly  man,  as  the  s-crupulous  and 
righteous  Mr.  Bayle  to  be  sure  thought  him,  bid  them  car- 
ry on  the  pretence,  warmly  favouring  the  conspiracy,  go  to 
as  many  of  the  conspirators  as  they  could,  make  them  fair 
promises,  and  use  all  their  endeavours  fully  to  discover 
them.  The  ambassadors,  as  Cicero  ordered,  met  them, 
and  demanded  from  the  chief  of  them  an  oath,  to  be  signed 
wiih  their  own  hand,  that  their  countrymen  might  be  more 
easily  induced,  to  give  them  that  assistance  which  they  de- 
sired of  them.  They  all  but  one,  without  suspicion  of  any 
design,  signed  the  oath.  The  ambass9,dors  discovered  all 
to  Cicero,  who  immediately  seized  the  principal  conspira- 
tors, and  greatly  rejoiced,  that  as  the  conspiracy  was  dis- 
covered, the  city  was  delivered  from  the  danger  that  im- 
mediately threatened  it.  The  senate  thought  that  Cicero 
had  acted  a  noble  patriotic  part,  for  they  immediately  de- 
creed, that  public  thanks  should  be  given  to  him  in  the 
most  solemn  manner,  by  whose  virtue,  counsel,  and  provi- 
dence, the  republic  was  delivered  from  the  extremest  dan- 
gers; and  that  a  public  thanksgiving  should  be  rendered  to 
the  gods,  in  Cicero's  name,  for.  his  having  delivered  the 
city  from  being  laid  in  ashes,  the  citizens  from  a  massacre, 
and  Italy  from  a  war.  Now  did  Cicero  act  in  this  affair  as 
a  patriot  and  an  honest  man  1  Or  did  he,  by  this  policy, 
damn  himself,  and  damn  the  ambassadors'?  by  causing 
ihem  to  feign,  that  they  embraced  the  party  of  those  men, 
they  designed  effectually  to  destroy  1  What  censure  would 
he  not  have  undergone,  had  he  suffered  the  conspiracy  to 
lake  place,  and  his  country  to  be  ruined,  by  refusing  to 
make  use  of  that  policy  which  was  necessary  to  discover 
and  defeat  the  conspiracy  1  Cf  two  evils,  it  is  an  old  max- 
im, a  man  must  choose  the  least,  when  he  is  under  the  ne- 
cessity of  submitting  to  one.  Thus  were  David  and  Cicero 
circumstanced.  They  both  chose  the  patriotic  part;  and, 
as  Cicero  is  justly  celebrated  as  the  Father  and  Saviour  of 
his  country,  from  the  ruin  that  was  intended,  David  w^ill 
deserve  the  like  commendation,  for  defeating,  by  like  meas- 
ures, the  projects  of  impious  conspirators,  and  delivering 
the  nation  from  the  destruction  that  threatened  them, — 
Chandler. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Ver.  1 .  And  when  David  was  a  little  past  the  top 
of  the  hill,  behold,  Ziba  the  servant  of  Mephi- 
■:         bosheth  met  him,  with  a  couple  of  asses  sad- 

•  died,  and  upon  them  two  hundred  loaves  of 
bread,  and  a  hundred  bunches  of  raisins,  and  a 
hundred  of  summer  fruits,  and  a  bottle  of  wine. 

•  See  on  2  Kings  4.  8. 

Ziba  met  David,  according  to  the  sacred  historian,  2  Sam. 
'  xvi.  1,  with  a  couple  of  asses,  and  upon  them  two  hundred 
;  loaves  of  bread,  a  hundred  bunches  of  raisins,  a  hundred 
;  of  summer  fruits,  and  a  bottle  of  wine.  These  summer 
\  fruits  the  Septuagint  supposes  were  dates,  but  the  more 
common  opinion  is  that  they  were  figs,  which  it  seems  was 

■  that  also  of  the  Chaldee  paraphrast.  Grotius,  however, 
;  supposes  the  original  word  signifies  the  fruits  of  trees  in 
;  general.  I  cannot  adopt  any  of  these  opinions.  If  the 
;  notes  of  distinction  are  not  numerous  enough,  or  sufficiently 
;  clear,  to  determine  with  precision  what  the  fruit  was,  I 
'  believe  thev  are  sufficient  to  satisfv  us  that  these  authors 
;  were  mistaken.     We  may  gather  three  things  relating  to 

them:  that  ihty  were  of  some  considerable  size,  since  their 

•  quantity  was  estimated  by  tale;  that  they  came  before  the 

■  bean  season  was  ended,  for  after  this  we  find  that  the  inhab- 

■  vtants  of  the  country  beyond  Jordan  sent  to  David,  along 
I  with  other  provisions,  quantities  of  beans,  2  Sam.  xviii.  28, 
I  they  being  things,  according  to  Dr.  Shaw,  that,  after  they 


are  boiled  and  stewed  with  oil  and  garlic,  constitute  the 
principal  food,  in  the  spring,  of  persons  of  all  distinctions; 
and  they  were  thought  by  Ziba  a  suitable  refreshment  to 
those  that  were  travelling  in  a  wilderness,  where  it  was 
to  be  supposed  they  would  be  thirsty  as  well  as  hungry. 
Nothing  then  could  be  more  unhappy,  or  more  strongly 
mark  out  the  inattention  of  the  translators  of  the  Septuagint 
for  it  cannot  be  imagined  they  were  ignorant  of  these  maC 
ters,  than  the  rendering  this  word,  in  this  place,  dates, 
which  are  neither  produced  in  summer,  nor  suited  to  allay 
the  heat  of  that  season  :  Dr.  Pococke  observing  that  they 
are  not  ripe  till  November  ;  and  that  they  are  esteemed  of 
a  hot  nature.  Providence  seeming  to  have  designed  them, 
as  they  are  warm  food,  to  comfort  the  stomach,  he  thinks, 
during  the  cold  season,  in  a  country  where  it  has  not  given 
wine,  for  he  is  there  speaking  concerning  Egypt.  Wher 
then  I  find  that  watermelons  grow  spontaneously  in  thes<, 
hot  countries,  are  made  use  of  by  the  Arabs  of  the  Holy 
Land  in  summer  instead  of  water,  to  quench  their  thirst, 
and  are  purchased  as  of  the  greatest  use  to  travellers  in 
thirsty  deserts ;  and  that  cucumbers  are  very  much  used 
still  in  that  country  to  mitigate  the  heat :  I  am  very  much 
inclined  to  believe  these  summer  fruits  were  not  the  pro- 
duce of  trees,  but  of  this  class  of  herbs,  which  creep  along 
the  ground,  and  produce  fruits  of  a  coolmg  moisture,  and 
very  large  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  the  plant.  They 
could  scarcely  however  be  watermelons,  I  imagine,  because 
they  do  not  begin  to  gather  them  before  June  ;  but  cucum- 
bers, which  come  in  May,  and  were  actually  eaten  in  Gali- 
lee the  latter  end  of  that  month  by  Dr.  Pococke,  he  having 
stopped  at  an  Arab  tent,  where  they  prepared  him  eggs 
and  sour  milk,  he  tells  us,  cutting  into  it  raw  cucumbers 
as  a  cooling  diet  in  that  season,  which  he  found  very  hot  ■. 
cucumbers  continued  at  Aleppo  to  the  end  of  July,  and  are 
brought  again  to  market  in  September  and  October,  and 
consequently  are  contemporaries  with  grapes  and  olives, 
according  to  Jer.  xl.  10—12,  as  well  as  with  beans  and 
lentils.  Dr.  Russel  also  tells  us  fhat  the  squash  comes  in 
towards  the  end  of  September,  and  continues  all  the  year; 
but  that  the  orange-shaped  pumpion  is  more  common  in  the 
summer  months.  Of  one  or  other  of  these  kinds  of  fruit,  I 
should  think  the  writer  of  2  Sam.  designed  to  be  under- 
stood :  they  are  all  more  or  less  of  considerable  size  ;  they 
are  contemporary  with  beans;  and  fit  for  them  that  have 
to  travel  through  a  dry  wilderness,  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
spring,  when  the  weather  grows  hot,  as  Pococke  found  it, 
about  which  time,  from  the  circumstance  of  the  beans  and 
the  lentils,  it  is  plain  that  David  fled  from  Absalom.  If  this 
be  allowed,  it  will  appear  that  they  were  called  summer 
fruits,  from  their  being  eaten  to  allay  the  summer  heals ; 
not  frona  their  being  dried  in  the  summer,  as  Vatablus 
strangely  imagines;  nor  from  their  being  produced  only 
that  time  of  the  year;  for  this  passage  shows  that  they 
were  come  to  maturity  before  beans  went  out,  and  conse- 
quently before  summer. — Harmer. 

Ver.  3.  And  the  kinof  said.  And  where  is  thj 
master's  son  ?  And  Ziba  said  unto  the  king 
behold  he  abideth  at  Jerusalem:  for  he  said, 
to-day  shall  the  house  of  Israel  restore  me  the 
kingdom  of  my  father.  4.  Then  said  the  king 
to  Ziba,  Behold,  thine  are  all  that  pertained 
unto  Mephibosheth.  And  Ziba  said,  I  humbly 
beseech  thee  that  I  may  find  grace  in  thy  sight, 
my  lord,  O  king. 

Not  the  least  material  exception  that  objectors  make 
to  David's  conduct,  in  this  period  of  time,  is  his  making  i 
grant  of  Mephibosheth's  estate  to  a  perfidious  servant 
without  ever  giving  the  master  a  fair  hearing.  But,  how 
could  David  have  leisure  to  send  for  Mephibosheth  from 
mount  Olivet  to  Jerusalem,  and  inquire  into  the  merits  of 
the  cause  depending  between  him  and  his  servant,  when  he 
was  in  so  great  a  hurry,  and  under  flight  from  the  arms  of 
his  rebel  son'?  Or  how  could  he  suppose  that  Ziba  could 
have  dared  to  have  told  him  so  notorious  a  lie,  when  it 
might  in  a  short  time  be  disproved  1  Every  circumstance, 
in  short,  on  Ziba's  side,  looked  well,  but  none  on  his  mas- 
ter's. To  his  master,  David  had  been  extremely  kind,  m 
restoring  him  to  the  forfeited  estate  of  his  grandfather  Saul,. 


220 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  16 


and  in  allowing  him  to  eat  at  his  own  table,  as  one  of  the 
.king's  sons;  and  now,  at  the  general  rendezvous  of  his 
friends,  David  might  well  have  expected  that  the  person  to 
whom  he  had  extended  so  many  favours,  should  not  have 
been  so  negligent  of  his  duty,  as  to  absent  himself,  unless  it 
had  been  upon  some  extraordinary  business ;  and  therefore, 
when  Ziba  acquaints  him  with  the  occasion  of  his  absence, 
though  it  was  a  mere  fiction,  yet  with  David  it  might  find 
a  readier  credence,  because,  at  this  time,  he  had  reason  to 
mistrust  everybody ;  and  seeing  his  own  family  discon- 
certed and  broken,  might  think  the  crown  liable  to  fall  to 
any  new  claimant  that  could  pretend  to  the  same  right  of 
succession  that  Mephibosheth  might.  On  the  contrary, 
every  thing  appeared  bright  and  plausible  on  Ziba's  side. 
He,  though  but  a  servant,  came  to  join  the  king,  and  in- 
stead of  adhering  to  his  master's  pretended  schemes  of 
advancement,  had  expressed  his  duty  to  his  rightful  sov- 
ereign, in  bringing  him  a  considerable  present,  enough  to 
engage  his  good  opinion.  The  story  that  he  told  of  his 
master  likewise,  though  utterly  false,  was  cunningly  con- 
trived, and  fitly  accommodated  to  the  nature  of  the  times ; 
so  that,  in  this  situation  of  affairs,  as  wise  a  man  as  David 
might  have  been  induced  to  believe  the  whole  to  be  true, 
and  upon  the  presumption  of  its  being  so,  might  have  pro- 
ceeded to  pass  a  judgment  of  forfeiture  (as  in  most  eastern 
countries  every  crime  against  the  state  was  always  attend- 
ed with  such  a  forfeiture)  upon  Mephibosheth 's  estate,  and 
to  consign  the  possession  of  it  to  another.  All  that  David 
can  therefore  be  blamed  for,  in  this  whole  transaction,  is 
an  error  in  judgment,  even  when  he  was  imposed  upon  by 
the  plausible  tale  of  a  sycophant,  and  had  no  opportunity  of 
coming  at  the  truth ;  but  upon  his  return  to  Jerusalem, 
when  Mephibosheth  appears  before  him,  and  pleads  his 
own  cause,  we  find  this  the  decision  of  it, — "  Why  speakest 
thou  any  more  of  thy  matters  1  I  have  said,  thou  and  Ziba 
divide  the  land  :"  which  words  must  not  be  understood  as 
if  he  appointed  at  the  time  an  equal  division  of  the  estate 
between  Mephibosheth  and  his  servant,  (for  where  would 
the  justice  of  such  a  sentence  be  1)  but  rather,  that  he  re- 
voked the  order  he  had  given  to  Ziba,  upon  the  supposed 
forfeiture  of  his  master,  and  put  things  now  upon  the  same 
establishment  they  were  at  first.  "  I  have  said,"  i.e.  "  My 
first  grant  shall  stand,  when  I  decreed  that  Mephibosheth 
should  be  lord  of  the  whole  estate,  and  Ziba  his  steward  to 
manage  it  for  him."  Thus,  though  we  are  not  obliged  to 
vindicate  David  in  every  passage  of  his  life,  and  think 
some  of  the  crying  sins  he  was  guilty  of  utterly  inexcusa- 
ble, yet  (if  we  except  these)  we  cannot  but  think  that, 
although  he  was  a  very  tender  and  indulgent  parent,  yet  he 
was  no  encourager  of  vice  in  his  own  family,  or  tame  con- 
niver  at  it  in  others,  had  he  not  been  restrained,  by  reasons 
of  state,  sometimes  from  punishing  it ;  that  he  was  true  to 
his  promises,  just  in  his  distributions,  and  prudent,  though 
not  crafty,  in  his  military  transactions ;  *'  of  a  singular 
presence  of  mind,  (as  Josephus  speaks  of  him,)  to  make  the 
best  of  what  was  before  him,  and  of  as  sharp  a  foresight 
for  improving  of  all  advantages,  and  obviating  all  difficul- 
ties, that  were  like  to  happen ;"  tender  to  all  persons  in 
distress,  kind  to  his  friends,  forgiving  to  his  enemies,  and, 
when  at  any  time  he  was  forced  to  use  severity,  was  only 
in  retaliation  of  what  other  people  had  done  to  him. — 
Stackhouse. 

Ver.  13.  And  as  David  and  his  men  went  by  the 
way,  Shimei  went  along-  on  the  hill's  side  over 
ag-ainst  him,  and  cursed  as  he  went,  and  threw 
stones  at  him,  and  cast  dust. 

Who,  in  the  East,  has  not  oflen  witnessed  a  similar  scene  1 
Listen  to  the  maledictions :  they  are  of  such  a  nature  that 
evil  spirits  only  could  have  suggested  them.  Look  at  the 
enraged  miscreant :  he  dares  not  come  near  for  fear  of 
punishment,  but  he  stands  at  a  distance,  vociferates  his 
imprecaiions,  violently  throws  about  his  hands  ;  then  stoops 
to  the  ground,  and  takes  up  handfuls  of  dust,  throws  it  in 
the  air*  and  exclaims,  "  Soon  shalt  thou  be  as  that — thy 
mouth  shall  soon  be  full  of  it — look,  look,  thou  cursed  one, 
as  this  dust,  so  shalt  thou  be." — Roberts. 

In  the  East,  the  ris^ht  of  calling  an  offender  to  account  is 
claimed  either  by  the  person  who  receives  the  injury,  or 
bis  nearest  relation;  and  the  same  person,  with  the  per- 


mission or  connivance  of  his  people,  sustains  at  once  the 
character  of  party,  judge,  and  executioner.  In  such  a 
state  of  things,  we  are  not  to  be  surprised  if  the  exercise  of 
justice  be  often  precipitate  and  tumuhuary.  The  act  of 
the  Philistines,  inhuming  the  spouse  of  Samson  and  her 
father  with  fire,  was  entirely  of  this  character ;  not  the 
result  of  a  regular  sentence,  but  the  summary  vengeance 
of  an  incensed  multitude.  In  the  law  of  Moses,  the  right 
of  the  private  avenger  was  distinctly  recognised ;  but  to 
prevent  the  dreadful  effects  of  sudden  and  personal  ven- 
geance, cities  of  refuge  were  appointed  at  convenient  dis- 
tances through  the  land  of  promise,  to  which  the  manslayer 
might  flee  for  safety,  till  he  coul,d  be  brought  to  a  regular 
trial,  before  a  court  of  justice.  In  almost  every  part  of 
Asia,  those  who  demand  justice  against  a  criminal  throw 
dust  upon  him,  signifying  that  he  deserves  to  lose  his  life, 
and  be  cast  into  the  grave ;  and  that  this  is  the  true  inter- 
pretation of  the  action,  is  evident  from  an  imprecation  in 
common  use  among  the  Turks  and  Persians,  Be  covered 
with  earth;  Earth  be  upon  thy  head.  We  have  two  re- 
markable instances  of  casting  dust  recorded  in  scripture ; 
the  first  is  that  of  Shimei,  who  gave  vent  to  his  secret  hos- 
tility to  David,  when  he  fled  before  his  rebellious  son,  by 
throwing  stones  at  him,  and  casting  dust.  It  was  an  an- 
cient custom,  in  those  warm  and  arid  countries,  to  lay 
the  dust  before  a  person  of  distinction,  and  particularly 
before  kings  and  princes,  by  sprinkling  the  ground  with 
water.  To  throw  dust  into  the  air  while  a  person  was 
passing,  was  therefore  an  act  of  great  disrespect ;  to  do  so 
before  a  sovereign  prince,  an  indecent  outrage.  But  it  is 
clear  from  the  explanation  of  the  custom,  that  Shimei 
meant  more  than  disrespect  and  outrage  to  an  afliicted  king, 
whose  subject  he  was ;  he  intended  to  signify  by  that  action, 
that  David  was  unfit  to  live,  and  that  the  time  was  at  last 
arrived  to  offer  him  a  sacrifice  to  the  ambition  and  ven- 
geance of  the  house  of  Saul.— Paxton. 

Ver.  20.  Then  said  Absalom  to  Ahithophel,  Give 
counsel  among  you  what  we  shall  do.  21.  And 
Ahithophel  said  unto  Absalom,  Go  in  unto  thy 
father's  concubines,  which  he  hath  left  to  keep 
the  house ;  and  all  Israel  shall  hear  that  thou 
art  abhorred  of  thy  father. 

The  wives  of  the  conquered  king  were  always  the  prop- 
erty of  the  conqueror :  and,  in  possessing  these,  he  ap- 
peared to  possess  the  right  to  the  kingdom.  Herodolus^  b.  , 
iii,  cap.  68.  informs  us,  that  Smerdis  having  seized  on  the- 
Persian  throne,  after  the  death  of  Cambyses,  espoused  all 
the  wives  of  his  predecessor. 

The  choosing  or  confirming  of  a  new  king  in  Guinea, 
seldom  continues  long  in  dispute ;  for  the  eldest  son  no 
sooner  hears  of  the  king's  death,  than  he  immediately 
makes  his  interest  among  his  friends,  to  take  possession  of 
the  late  king's  court  and  wives :  and  succeeding  happily  ir 
these  particulars,  he  need  not  doubt  the  remainder,  for  th( 
commonalty  will  not  easily  consent  that  af;er  that  he  shslj 
be  driven  from  the  throne :  this  seems  somewhat  like  Atw 
salom's  design  on  his  father  David.  To  accomplish  this 
design,  the  younger  brother's  party  are  always  carefu' 
enough  that  he  is  near  at  hand,  in  order  to  take  possessioi| 
of  the  court.  (Bosman's  Guinea.)  The  name  of  Quiteva 
is  common  to  the  sovereign  lord  of  the  country  bordering 
on  the  river  Sofala  in  Ethiopia.  He  maintains  a  numbei 
of  wives,  the  chief  of  whom  are  his  near  relations,  ant 
are  denominated  his  queens  ;  the  residue  are  regardec 
merely  as  concubines.  As  soon  as  the  Q,uiteva  ceases  U 
live,  a  successor  is  chosen,  capable  of  governing  with  wis 
dom  and  prudence ;  and,  indeed,  should  he  be  deficient  h 
this  respect,  it  would  be  enough  that  a  majority  of  tb| 
king's  concubines  should  join  in  his  favour,  as  on  thes< 
the  possession  of  the  throne  depends.  He  therefore  re 
pairs  to  the  royal  palace,  where  he  meets  Avith  some  of  th( 
concubines  of  the  late  king,  and  with  their  consent  b€ 
seats  himself  on  the  throne  prepared  for  him  in  the  mid.st 
of  a  large  hall ;  when  seated  here,  a  curtain  is  drawn  he- 
fore  him  and  his  wives:  hence  he  issues  orders  for  hi? 
proclamation  through  the  streets  ;  this  is  the  signal  for  the 
people  to  flock  to  render  him  homage  and  swear  obedience, 
a  ceremony  which  is  performed  amid  great  rejoicings.— 

BURDER. 


Chap.  17. 


2   SAMUEL. 


221 


From  the  polygamy  of  the  Israelitish  monarcns,  there 
•\Tose  a  singular  law,  which  I  can  only  illustrate  by  exam- 
plea  from  the  Bible,  without  finding  any  thing  similar  in 
profane  history;  which,  however,  only  makes  these  exam- 
ples the  clearer.  It  consisted  in  this,  that  the  successor 
to  the  crown  inherited  the  seraglio  of  his  predecessor ; 
and  it  was  considered  as  a  step  to  the  throne,  even  to 
marry  the  mistresses  of  the  deceased  monarch.  In  this 
way,  David  succeeded  to  the  concubines  of  Saul,  although 
he  was  his  father-in-law,  2  Sam.  xii.  8.  And  after  he  had 
fled  from  Absalom,  Ahithophel,  who  is  described  as  a  man 
of  the  greatest  abilities,  as  well  as  the  greatest  wicked- 
ness, counselled  this  rebellious  son  to  lie  publicly  with  his 
father's  ten  concubines,  to  annihilate,  in  hesitating  minds, 
all  hope  of  a  reconciliation  between  them ;  2  Sam.  xvi. 
21 — 23.  Now  incest  is  such  an  abominable  crime,  and  so 
expressly  contrary  to  the  Mosaic  law,  that  such  proceedings 
must  have  been  followed  by  the  most  direful  consequences, 
if  these  concubines  had  not"  been  considered,  not  as  David's, 
but  as  the  king's  ;  and  as  belonging  to  the  state,  not  to  the 
individual ;  so  that  sleeping  with  them  formed  part  of  the 
ceremony  of  taking  possession  of  the  throne. — After  David's 
death,  Bathsheba,  the  mother  of  his  successor,  Solomon, 
was  entreated  by  his  brother  Adonijah,  to  obtain  the  royal 
permission  to  marry  Abishag,  the  Shunamite.  But  Solo- 
mon so  fully  saw  through  his  brother's  designs,  and  what 
effect  the  acceding  to  his  request  would  have  among  the 
people,  that  he  answered  his  mother,  "  Rather  ask  the 
kingdom  for  him  too,"  and  immediately  caused  him  to  be 
put  to  death,  1  Kings  ii.  13 — 25.  Of  the  origin  of  this 
strange  law  I  can  find  no  traces  in  the  great  kingdoms  of 
the  East ;  and  yet  most  certainly  these  kings  of  Israel,  as  yet 
but  novices  in  royalty,  must  have  derived  it,  not  from  Is- 
raelitish, but  foreign  usage.  It  could  scarcely  have  arisen 
in  an  hereditary  kingdom,  in  which  such  incestuous  proce- 
dure would  have  become  too  notorious  and  disgusting. 
Most  probably  it  first  arose  among  the  beggarly  elective 
monarchies  in  the  neighbourhood,  where  it  was  found  too 
expensive  to  provide  every  new  king  with  a  new  seraglio; 
perhaps  in  the  kingdom  of  Edom,  whose  needy  practices 
ihe  Israelites  were  wont  at  first  to  adopt.  After  Solomon's 
time,  I  find  no  further  traces  of  it. — Michaelis. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Ver.  8.  For,  said  Hushai,  thou  knowest  thy  fa- 
ther and  his  men,  that  they  be  mighty  men,  and 
they  be  chafed  in  their  minds,  as  a  bear  robbed 
of  her  whelps  in  the  field :  and  thy  father  is  a 
man  of  war,  and  will  not  lodge  with  the  people. 

The  Hindoos  are  as  much  afraid  of  bears  as  any  other 
animal  in  the  forest ;  hence,  when  the  letter-carriers  and 
j  others  have  to  travel  through  districts  infested  by  them,  they 
i  are  always  armed  with  a  crooked  knife,  in  the  shape  of  a 
I  sickle:  thus,  when  the  bear  is  preparing  to  give  them  a  hug, 
i  one  cut  from  the  instrument  will  send  it  off.  When  the  fe- 
i  male  is  robbed  of  her  whelps,  she  is  said  to  be  more  fierce 
I  than  any  other  animal :  hence,  many  sayings  refer  to  her 
:  rage,  and  are  applied  to  the  fury  of  violent  men.  "  I  will 
;  tear  thee  to  pieces  as  a  bear  which  has  cubbed."  "  Begone, 
!  or  I  will  jump  upon  thee  as  a  bear."  When  a  termagant 
:  goes  with  her  children  to  scold,  it  is  said,  "There  goes  the 
'  she-bear  and  her  whelps." — Roberts. 
1  The  furious  passions  of  the  female  bear  never  mount  so 
;  high,  nor  burn  so  fiercely,  as  when  she  is  deprived  of  her 
i  youn;?.  When  she  returns  to  her  den,  and  misses  the  ob- 
*  ject  of  her  love  and  care,  she  becomes  almost  frantic  with 
'  rac:e.  Disregarding  every  consideration  of  danger  to  her- 
self,  she  attacks  with  great  ferocity  every  animal  that  comes 
in  her  way;  and  in  the  bitterness  of  her  heart  will  dare  to 
:  attack  eveji  a  band  of  armed  men.  The  Russians  of  Kamt- 
;  schatka  never  venture  to  fire  on  a  young  bear  when  the 
;  mother  is  near :  for  if  the  cub  drop,  she  becomes  enraged 
1  to  a  degree  little  short  of  madness,  and  if  she  gets  sight  of 
'  the  enemy,  will  only  quit  her  revenge  with  her  life.  (Cook's 
Vdyages.)  A  more  desperate  attempt  can  scarcely  be  per- 
!  formed  than  to  carry  off  her  young  in  her  absence.  Her 
'  scent  enables  her  to  track  the  plunderer;  and  unless  he 
'.  has  reached  some  place  of  safety  before  the  infuriated  ani- 
mal overtake  him,  his  only  safety  is  in  dropping  one  of  the 
cubs,  and  continuing  to  flee ;  for  the  mother,  attentive  to 


its  safety,  carries  it  home  to  her  den  before  she  renews  the 

pursuit. — BURDER. 

Ver.  12.  So  shall  we  come  upon  him  in  some 
place  where  he  shall  be  found,  and  we  will  light 
upon  him  as  the  dew  falleth  on  the  ground. 

This  is  very  beautiful  and  expressive.  The  dew  in 
Palestine,  as  in, several  other  climates,  falls  fast  and  sudden, 
and  is  therefore  no  unapt  emblem  of  an  active,  expeditious 
soldiery.  It  was,  perhaps,  for  this  reason  that  the  Romans 
called  their  light-armed  forces  Rorarii.  The  dew  falls 
upon  every  spot  of  the  earth ;  not  a  blade  of  grass  escapes 
it.  A  numerous  army  resembles  it  in  this  respect.  It  is 
able  to  search  everywhere. — Burder. 

Ver.  13.  Moreover,  if  he  be  gotten  into  a  city, 
then  shall  all  Israel  bring  ropes  to  that  city, 
and  we  will  draw  it  into  the  river,  until  there 
be  not  one  small  stone  found  there. 

On  advancing,  the  chopdars  or  heralds  proclaimed  the 
titles  of  this  princely  cow-keeper,  Futty  Sihng,  in  the  usual 
hyperbolical  style.  One  of  the  most  insignificant  looking 
men  I  ever  saw,  then  became  the  destroyer  of  nations,  the 
leveller  of  mountains,  the  exhauster  of  the  ocearw  After 
commanding  every  inferior  mortal  to  make  way  for  this 
exalted  prince,  the  heralds  called  aloud  to  the  animal  cre- 
ation, Retire,  ye  serpents;  fly,  ye  locusts;  approach  not, 
guanas,  lizards,  and  reptiles,  while  your  lord  and  master 
condescends  to  set  his  foot  on  the  earth  !  Arrogant  as  this 
language  may  appear,  it  is  less  so  than  the  oriental  pageant- 
ry in  general.  The  sacred  writings  afford  many  instances 
of  such  hyperbole.  None  more  so  than  Hushai's  speech  to 
Absalom. — Forbes. 

Ver.  17.  Now  Jonathan  and  Ahimaaz  stayed  by 
En-rogel :  (for  they  might  not  be  seen  to  come 
into  the  city  :)  and  a  wench  went  and  told  them : 
and  they  went  and  told  King  David. 

■  In  the  East,  the  washing  of  foul  linen  is  performed  by 
women  by  the  sides  of  rivers  and  fountains.  Dr.  Chandler 
{Travels  in  Asia  Minor,  p.  21)  says,  that  "the  women  re- 
sort to  the  fountains  by  the  houses,  each  with  a  two-han- 
dled earthen  jar  on  her  back,  or  thrown  over  her  shoulder, 
for  water.  They  assemble  at  one  without  the  village  or 
town,  if  no  river  be  near,  to  wash  their  linen,  which  is  af- 
terward spread  on  the  ground  or  bushes  to  dry."  May  not 
this  circumstance,  says  Mr.  Harmer,  serve  to  confirm  the 
conjecture,  that  the  young  woman  that  was  sent  to  En-rogel, 
went  out  of  the  city  with  a  bundle  of  linen,  as  if  she  were 
going  to  wash  if?  Nothing  was  more  natural,  or  better 
calculated  to  elude  jealousy. — Burder. 

Ver.  19.  And  the  woman  took  and  spread  a 
covering  over  the  well's  mouth,  and  spread 
ground  corn  thereon ;  and  the  thing  was  not 
known. 

This  was  done  to  conceal  Jonathan  and  Ahimaaz,  who 
had  gone  down  the  well  to  escape  from  the  servants  of  Ab- 
salom. Wells  in  the  East  have  their  mouths  level  with  the 
ground,  hence,  nothing  is  more  easy  than  to  put  a  mat  or 
covering  over  the  opening  to  conceal  them  from  the  sight. 
Who  has  not  seen  corn  or  flour  spread  on  mats  in  the  sun 
to  dry  1  The  woman  affected  to  have  this  object  in  view 
when  she  spread  a  covering  over  the  well:  her  "  ground 
corn"  was  spread  thereon  to  dry  in  the  sun.  The  men 
were  in  the  well,  and  when  Absalom's  servants  came,  and 
inquired,  "  Where  is  Ahimaaz  and  Jonathan  ;"  she  said, 
"  They  be  gone  over  the  brook  of  water."  In  the  Kandian 
war  great  numbers  were  required  to  follow  the  army  as 
bearers,  cooks,  and  messengers,  and  such  was  the  aversion 
of  the  people  to  the  duty,  that  government  was  obliged  to 
use  force  to  compel  them  to  go.  And  it  was  no  uncommon 
thing,  when  the  officers  were  seen  to  approach  a  cottage,  for 
the  husband  or  sons  to  be  concealed  as  were  Ahimaaz  and 
Jon  athan . — R  oberts. 


2fe2 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap,  la 


Ver.  28.  Brought  beds,  and  basins,  and  earthen 
vessels,  and  wheat,  and  barley,  and  flour,  and 
parched  corn,  and  beans,  and  lentiles,  and  parch- 
ed 'pulse. 

Parched  corn  is  a  kind  of  food  still  retained  in  the  East, 
as  Hasselquist  informs  us :  "  On  the  road  from  Acre  to 
Seide,  we  saw  a  herdsman  eating  his  dinner,  consisting  of 
half-ripe  ears  of  wheat,  which  he  roasted  and  ate  with  as 
good  an  appetite  as  a  Turk  does  his  pillau.  In  Egypt  such 
food  is  much  eaten  by  the  poor,  being  the  ears  of  maize  or 
Turkish  wheat,  and  of  their  durra,  which  is  a  kind  of  millet. 
When  this  food  was  first  invented,  art  was  in  a  simple  state ; 
yet  the  custom  is  still  continued  in  some  nations,  where  the 
inhabitants  have  not  even  at  this  time  learned  to  pamper 
nature."  The  flour  of  parched  barley  is  the  chief  provision 
which  the  Moors  of  West  Barbary  make  for  travelling. 
It  is  indeed  much  used  as  a  part  of  their  diet  at  home. 
"  What  is  most  used  by  travellers  is  zumeet,  tumeet,  or 
flour  of  parched  barley  for  limereece.  They  are  ail  three 
made  of  parched  barley-flour,  which  they  carry  in  a  leath- 
ern satchel.  Zumeet  is  the  flower  mixed  with  honey,  but- 
ter, and  spice ;  tumeet  is  the  same  flour  done  up  with  origan 
oil ;  and  limereece  is  only  mixed  with  water,  and  so  drank. 
This  quenches  thirst  much  better  than  water  alone,  satiates 
a  hungry  appetite,  cools  and  refreshes  tired  and  weary 
spirits,  overcoming  those  ill  effects-  which  a  hot  sun  ancl 
fatiguing  journey  might  occasion."  (Jones.)  Mr.  Harmer 
proposes  this  extract  as  an  illustration  of  the  passage  now 
cited. — BuRDER. 

Ver.  29.  And  honey,  and  butter,  and  sheep,  and 
cheese  of  kine,  for  David,  and  for  the  people. 

This,  perhaps,  was  flesh  of  kine,  or  beef,  prepared  in 
such  a  manner  as  we  call  potted,  by  beating  and  bruising. 
The  eastern  people  in  modern  times  prepare  potted  flesh 
for  food  on  a  march  or  journey.  Thus  Busbequius,  speak- 
ing of  the  Turkish  soldiers  going  on  an  expedition  into 
Persia,  says,  "  Some  of  them  filled  a  leathern  bag  with  beef 
dried,  and  reduced  to  a  kind  of  meal,  which  they  use  with 
great  advantage,  as  afibrding  a  strong  nourishment."  And 
Dr.  Shaw  mentions  potted  flesh  as  part  of  the  provisions 
carried  with  him  in  his  journey  through  the  Arabian  des- 
erts.— BURDER. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ver.  8.  For  the  battle  was  there  scattered  over 
the  face  of  all  the  country :  and  the  wood  de- 
voured more  people  that  day  than  the  sword 
devoured. 

The  land  of  promise  cannot  boast,  like  many  other  coun- 
tries, of  extensive  woods ;  but  considerable  thickets  of  trees 
and  of  reeds  sometimes  arise  to  diversify  and  adorn  the 
scene.  Between  the  Lake  Samochonites  and  the  sea  of 
Tiberias,  the  river  Jordan  is  almost  concealed  by  shady 
trees  from  the  view  of  the  traveller.  When  the  waters  of 
the  Jordan  are  low,  the  Lake  Samochonites  is  only  a  marsh, 
for  the  most  part  dry  and  overgrown  with  shrubs  and  reeds. 
The  lake  of  Tiberias  is  bordered  with  reeds;  while  the 
banks  of  the  river  on  both  sides,  are  shaded  with  planes, 
alders,  poplars,  tamarisks,  and  reeds  of  different  kinds.  In 
these  thickets,  among  other  ferocious  animals,  the  wild 
boar  seeks  a  covert  from  the  burning  rays  of  the  sim. 
Large  herds  of  them  are  sometimes  to  be  seen  on  the  banks 
of  the  river,  near  the  sea  of  Tiberias,  lying  among  the  reeds, 
or  feeding  under  the  trees.  Such  moist  and  shady  places  are 
in  all  countries  the  favourite  haunts  of  these  fierce  and  dan- 
gerous animals.  Those  marshy  coverts  are  styled  woods 
in  the  sacred  scriptures ;  for  the  "wild  boar  of  the  wood  is  the 
name  which  that  creature  receives  from  the  royal  Psalmist : 
"  The  boar  out  of  the  wood  doth  waste  it;  "and  the  wild 
oeast  of  the  field  doth  devour  it."  The  wood  of  Ephraim, 
where  the  battle  was  fought  between  the  forces  of  Ab- 
salom and  the  servants  of  David,  was  probably  a  place 
of  the  same  kind ;  for  the  sacred  historian  observes,  that 
the  wood  devoured  more  people  that  day,  than  the  sword 
devoured.  Some  have  supposed  the  meaning  of  this  pas- 
sfige  to  be,  that  the  soldiers  of  Absalom  were  destroyed  by 
the  wild  beasts  of  the  wood ;  but  it  can  scarcely  be  supposed, 


thai  in  the  reign  of  David,  when  the  land  of  promise  was 
crowded  with  inhabitants,  the  wild  beasts  could  be  so  nu- 
merous in  one  of  the  woods  as  to  cause  such  a  destruction. 
But  if  their  numbers  had  been  so  great,  we  know  that,  un- 
less they  had  been  detained  contrary  to  their  natural  dis- 
positions by  the  miraculous  interposition  of  Heaven,  for 
the  purpose  of  executing  his  righteous  vengeance  on  the 
followers  of  Absalom,  tetimidated  by  the  approach  of  two 
hostile  armies,  and  still  more  by  the  tumult  of  the  battle, 
they  must  have  sought  their  safety  in  flight,  rather  than 
have  stayed  to  devour  the  discomfited  party.  Besides,  we 
do  not  hear  that  one  of  David's  men  perished  by  the  wood  : 
were  they  miraculously  preserved  ;  or,  were  the  wild  beasts 
able  to  distinguish  between  the  routed  army  and  the  victors, 
and  politic  enough  to  side  with  the  strongest  %  We  are  not 
without  an  express  revelation,  or  at  least  without  necessity, 
to  suppose  a  miraculous  interposition.  The  scene  of  the 
expeditions  which  the  Turks  undertook  against  Faccar- 
dine,  the  famous  emir,  in  the  fifteenth  century,  was  chiefly 
in  the  woods  of  mount  Lebanon,  which  all  travellers  agree 
furnish  a  retreat  to  numerous  wild  beasts,  yet  the  historian 
says  not  one  word  of  either  Turk  or  Maronite  being  injured 
by  them,  in  his  whole  narrative.  Absalom  himself  was 
the  only  person  who  properly  perished  by  the  wood;  being 
caught  by  the  hair  of  his  head,  of  which  he  had  been  so 
vain,  in  the  branches  of  a  large  oak,  where  Joab  found  him, 
and  thrust  him  through  with  a  dart.  But,  supposing  the 
wood  of  Ephraim  to  have  been  a  morass  covered  with  trees 
and  bushes,  like  the  haunts  of  the  wild  boar  near  the  banks 
of  Jordan,  the  difficulty  is  easily  removed.  It  is  certain 
that  such  a  place  has  more  than  once  proved  fatal  to  con- 
tending armies,  partly  by  suffocating  those  who  in  the  hurry 
of  flight  inadvertently  venture  over  places  incapable  of 
supporting  them,  and  partly  by  retarding  them  till  their 
pursuers  come  up  and  cut  them  to  pieces.  In  this  manner 
a  greater  number  of  men  than  fell  in  the  heat  of  battle  may 
be  destroyed.  The  archbishop  of  Tyre  informs  us,  that 
one  of  the  Christian  kings  of  Jerusalem  lost  some  of  his 
troops  in  a  marshy  vale  of  this  country,  from  their  igno- 
rance of  the  paths  which  lead  through  it,  although  he  had 
no  enemy  to  molest  his  march.  The  number  of  those  who 
died  was  small ;  but  in  what  numbers  would  they  have 
perished,  may  we  suppose,  had  they  been  forced  to  flee, 
like  the  men  of  Absalom,  before  a  victorious  and  exasper- 
ated enemy  %  Lewis  II.,  king  of  Hungary,  lost  his  life  in 
a  bog  in  his  own  kingdom,  in  the  sixteenth  century:  and 
according  to  Zozimus,  Decius  the  Roman  emperor  perish- 
ed in  a  fen,  with  his  whole  army.  It  may,  therefore,  be 
justly  concluded,  that  Absalom's  army  perished  neither  by 
the  trees  of  the  wood,  like  their  guilty  leader,  nor  by  the 
wild  beasts  which  occupied  its  recesses ;  but  by  the  deceit- 
ful quagmires  with  which  it  abounded. — Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  And  Joab  said  unto  the  man  that  told 
him,  And,  behold,  thou  sawest  him ;  and  why 
didst  thou  not  smite  him  there  to  the  ground  ? 
and  I  would  have  given  thee  ten  shekels  of  sil- 
ver, and  a  girdlfe. 

Among  us,  here  in  Europe,  the  distinction  between  hon- 
orary and  pecuniary  rewards  is  so  great,  that  we  often- 
times can  hardly  think  of  jumbling  them  together  as  an  ac- 
knowledgment of  public  services;  and  the  same  person 
that  would  receive  the  first  with  emotions  of  great  pleasure, 
would  think  himself  affronted  by  one  of  a  pecuniary  kind ; 
but  it  is  otherwise  in  the  East,  and  it  was  so  anciently.  De 
Tott  did  many  great  services  to  the  Turkish  empire,  in  the 
time  of  their  late  war  with  Russia,  and  the  Turks  were 
disposed  to  acknowledge  them  by  marks  of  honour.  "  His 
highness,"  said  the  first  minister,  speaking  of  the  grand 
seignior,  "  has  ordered  me  to  bestow  on  you  this  ;5ublic 
ma^rk  of  his  esteem,"  and,  at  the  same  time,  made  a  sign  io 
the  master  of  the  ceremonies  to  invest  me  with  the  pelisse; 
while  the  hasnadar  presented  me  with  a  purse  of  200  se- 
quins. The  lively  French  officer  was  hurt  by  the. offer  of 
the  sequins.  "  I  directly  turned  towards  those  who  had  ac 
companied  me,  and  showing  them  my  pelisse,  I  have  re  , 
ceived,  said  I,  with  gratitude,  this  proof  of  the  grand  seii:-' 
nior's  favour;  do  you  return  thanks  to  the  vizier  for  this 
purse,  it  is  his  gifl.  This  expedient,  which  I  preferred 
to  a  discussion  of  our  different  customs,  was  a  sufficient 


Chap.  18. 


*i  SAMUEL. 


223 


lesson  to  the  vizier,  at  the  same  time  that  it  disengaged  me 
from  the  embarrassment  of  oriental  politeness."  He  then 
in  a  note  adds,  "  This  Turkish  custom  of  giving  money  oc- 
casioned the  greatest  mortification  to  M.  De  Bonneval,  that 
a  man,  like  him,  could  receive.  The  ambassador  extraor- 
dinary, from  the  emperor,  who  in  the  Austrian  army  had 
been  in  an  inferior  station  to  the  refugee,  dined,  as  is  cus- 
tomary, with  the  vizier.  The  Porte  had  chosen  Kiathana, 
for  the  place  of  this  entertainment.  M.  De  Bonneval  had 
orders  to  repair  thither  with  the  corps  of  bombardiers,  of 
which  he  was  commander.  When  the  exercise  was  over, 
he  was  sent  for  by  the  vizier,  who  gave  him  a  handful  of 
.sequins,  which  his  situation  obliged  him  to  accept,  with 
submission."  Just  thus  we  find  Joab  would  have  rewarded 
an  Israelitish  soldier  of  his  army,  in  the  days  of  King  Da- 
vid, who  saw  Absalom  hanging  in  a  tree :  "  Why  didst  thou 
not  smite  him  there  to  the  ground,  and  I  would  have  given 
the«!  ten  shekels  of  silver,  and  a  girdle  V  2  Sam.  xviii.  11. 
The  girdle  would  have  been  an  honorary  reward,  like  De 
Tott's  ermined  vest;  the  ten  shekels,  or  half  crowns,  would 
have  been  a  pecuniary  recompense,  like  the  200  sequins  De 
Tott  disdained  to  receive.  I  may  add,  that  a  furred  robe, 
in  general,  is  no  distinguishing  badge  of  dignity,  for  it  may 
be  worn  by  wealthy  people  in  private  life,  who  can  bear 
the  ex[)ense ;  so  that  there  is  no  ground  to  suppose  Joab's 
giving  a  girdle  to  the  soldier  would  have  been  conferring 
some  military  honour,  somewhat  like  knighting  him,  as,  if 
I  remember  right,  some  have  imagined :  it  would  have 
been  simply  a  valuable  present,  and  enabling  him  in  after- 
time  to  appear  with  such  a  girdle  as  the  rich  wore,  instead 
of  the  girdle  of  a  peasant,  but  united  with  the  consciousness 
and  the  reputation  of  its  being  acquired  by  doing  some 
public  service,  and  not  the  mere  effect  of  being  descended 
from  a  wealthy  family.  The  apparatus  which  some  of  the 
eastern  people  make  use  of  to  gird  themselves  with  is  very 
mean.  The  common  Arabs,  according  to  De  la  Roque, 
use  a  girt  adorned  with  leather ;  and  their  women  make 
use  of  a  cord,  or  strip  of  cloth  :  but  some  of  the  A^ab 
girdles  are  very  rich,  according  to  this  writer.  The  girdle 
Joab  proposed  t^  give  was  doubtless  designed  by  him  to  be 
understood  to  be  one  of  such  value,  as  to  be  answerable  to 
the  supposed  importance  of  the  service  he  wished  the  man 
had  performed,  as  well  as  his  own  dignity.  So  Symon 
Simeonis,  an  Irish  traveller  to  the  Holy  Land,  in  the  year 
13'2-2,  tells  us,  "  That  the  Saracens  of  Egypt  rarely,  if  ever, 
girded  themselves  with  any  thing  but  a  towel,  on  which 
they  kneeled  to  say  their  prayers,  except  their  people  of 
figure,  who  wore  girdles  like  those  of  ladies,  very  broad, 
all  of  silk,  and. superbly  adorned  with  gold  and  silver,  in 
which  they  extremely  pride  themselves."  I  cannot  well 
finish  this  article  without  remarking,  from  what  the  French 
baron  says  concerning  himself,  what  strong  disagreeable 
impressions  of  an  erroneous  kind  may  be  made  upon  the 
mind  of  a  European  at  the  offering  some  of  the  Asiatic 
presents,  which  are  not  only  not  affronting  in  their  views, 
but  designed  to  do  those  honour  to  whom  they  are  pre- 
sented, since  De  Tott  could  not  get  the  better  of  it,  though 
he  perfectly  knew  the  innocency  of  the  intention,  and  had 
resided  long  enough,  one  would  have  thought,  in  the 
country,  to  have  destroyed  the  impression. — Harmer. 

To  loose  the  girdle  and  give  it  to  another,  was  among 
the  Orientals,  a  token  of  great  confidence  and  affection. 
Thus  to  ratify  the  covenant  which  Jonathan  made  with 
David,  and  to  express  his  cordial  regard  for  his  friend, 
among  other  things  he  gave  him  his  girdle.  A  girdle  curi- 
ously and  richly  wrought  was,  among  the  ancient  Hebrews, 
a  mark  of  honour,  and  sometimes  bestowed  as  a  reward  of 
merit ;  for  this  was  the  recompense  which  Joab  declared 
he  meant  to  bestow  on  the  man  who  put  Absalom  to  death : 
"  Whv  didst  thou  not  smite  him  there  to  the  ground,  and  I 
would  have  given  thee  ten  shekels  of  silver,  and  a  girdle." 
The  reward  was  certainly  meant  to  correspond  with  the 
importance  of  the  service  which  he  expected  him  to  per- 
form, and  the  dignity  of  his  own  station  as  commander-in- 
chief:  we  may  therefore  suppose  it  was  not  a  common 
one  of  leather,  or  plain  worsted,  but  of  costly  materials  and 
richly  adorned ;  for  people  of  rank  and  fashion  in  the  East 
wear  very  broad  girdles,  all  of  silk,  and  superbly  orna- 
mented with  gold  and  silver,  and  precious  stones,  of  which 
they  are  extremely  proud,  regarding  them  as  the  tokens 
of  their  superior  station,  and  the  proof  of  their  riches. — 
Paxton. 


Ver.  17.  And  they  took  Absalom,  and  cast  him 
into  a  great  pit  in  the  wood,  and  laid  a  very 
great  heap  of  stones  upon  him :  and  all  Israel 
fled  every  one  to  his  tent. 

To  mark  the  spot  where  the  chiefs  were  buried,  and  to 
remain  at  the  same  time  as  a  memorial  of  the  battle  in 
which  they  fell,  their  surviving  friends  raised  over  them  a 
heap  of  stones.  This  practice  may  be  traced  to  the  primi- 
tive ages  of  the  world ;  for  when  Absalom  was  defeated 
and  slain,  "  they  cast  him  into  a  great  pit  in  the  wood,  and 
laid  a  very  great  heap  of  stones  upon  him."  This  monu- 
mental heap  was  not  intended  to  indicate  that  Absalom 
deserved  to  be  stoned  as  a  rebellious  son,  but  merely  to 
mark,  according  to  a  very  common  and  a  very  ancient 
custom,  the  grave  of  that  ambitious  and  unnatural  prince. 
It  was  usual  in  the  East,  indeed,  to  distinguish  any  remark- 
able place  or  event  by  a  heap  of  stones.  All  the  Moham- 
medans that  go  in  pilgrimage  to  mount  Sinai,  visit  a  rock, 
on  which  the  form  of  a  camel's  foot  is  imprinted,  which  they 
foolishly  suppose  to  be  the  animal  that  Mohammed  rode  ; 
and,  therefore,  in  honour  of  their  prophet,  they  bring  ev^ery 
one  a  stone,  till,  by  continual  accumulation,  a  large  heap 
has  risen  near  the  place,  Jacob,  and  his  family  too,  raised 
a  heap  of  stones  in  commemoration  of  the  covenant  so  hap- 
pily concluded  between  him  and  Laban,  on  mount  Gilead. 
That  "  heap  of  witness"  informed  every  passenger  that  it 
was  raised  in  memory  of  some  interesting  event;  and  every 
relation  that  brought  a  stone  to  the  heap,  made  himself  a 
witness  to  the  agreement,  as  well  as  recommended  it  to  the 
attention  of  others.  The  surviving  warriors,  too,  might 
bring  every  man  his  stone,  in  token  of  their  respect  for  the 
deceased,  to  raise  a  monumental  heap  over  the  body  of  the 
hero  who  had  led  them  to  battle  and  to  victory,  which 
should  arrest  the  notice  of  the  passing  traveller,  and  bear 
witness  to  future  times  of  their  attachment  and  regret. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  Now  Absalom  in  his  lifetime  had  taken 
and  reared  up  for  himself  a  pillar,  which  is  in 
the  king's  dale :  for  he  said,  I  have  no  son  to 
keep  my  name  in  remembrance :  and  he  called 
the  pillar  after  his  own  name :  and  it  is  called 
Unto  this  day  Absalom's  Place. 

On  the  east,  we  came  to  the  reputed  tomb  of  Absalom, 
resembling  nearly,  in  the  size,  form,  and  the  decoration  of 
its  square  base,  that  of  Zacharias,  before  described ;  except 
that  it  is  sculptured  with  the  metopes  and  triglyphs  of  the 
Doric  order.  This  is  surmounted  by  a  sharp  conical  dome, 
of  the  form  used  in  our  modern  parasols,  having  large 
mouldings,  resembling  ropes  running  round  its  base,  and 
on  the  summit  something  like  an  imitation  of  flame.  The 
dome  is  of  masonry,  and  on  the  eastern  side  there  is  a 
square  aperture  in  it.  It  is  probable  that  this  monument 
really  occupies  the  place  of  that  mentioned  to  have  been 
set  up  by  him  whose  name  it  bears.  2  Sam.  xviii.  18.  Jo- 
sephus,  in  relating  the  same  circumstance,  calls  the  pillar 
a  marble  one ;  he  fixes  its  distance  at  two  furlongs  from 
Jerusalem,  and  says  it  was  named  Absalom's  Hand.— 
Buckingham. 

Ver.  24.  And  David  sat  between  the  two  gates : 
and  the  watchman  went  up  to  the  roof  over  the 
gate  unto  the  wall,  and  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and 
looked,  and  behold  a  man  running  alone. 

The  watchman,  in  a  time  of  danger,  seems  to  have  take^ 
his  station  in  a  tower,  which  was  built  over  the  gate  of  the 
city.  We  may  form  a  tolerably  distinct  idea  of  the  ancient 
towers  in  Palestine,  from  the  description  which  the  sacred 
historian  gives  us  of  one,  in  the  entrance  of  Mahanaim : 
"  And  David  sat  between  the  two  gates,  and  the  watchman 
went  up  to  the  roof  over  the  gate  unto  the  wall,  and  lifted 
up  his  eyes  and  looked,  and  behold  a  man  running  alone. 
The  watchman  cried  and  told  the  king;  and  the  king  said. 
If  he  is  alone,  there  is  tidings  in  his  mouth.  And  the 
watchman  saw  another  man  running ;  and  the  watchman 
called  unto  the  porter,  and  said,  Behold,  another  man  run- 


224 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  19. 


ning  alone ;  and  the  kine:  said,  He  also  bringeth  tidings." 
When  the  tidings  were  announced,  the  historian  observes, 
"  the  king  was  much  moved,  and  went  up  to  the  chamber 
over  the  gate  and  wept."  It  is  afterward  added,  "  Then 
the  king  arose  and  sat  in  the  gate  ;  and  they  told  unto  all 
the  people  saying,  Behold  th  ?  king  doth  sit  in  the  gate ;  and 
all  the  people  came  before  the  king,  for  Israel  had  fled 
every  man  to  his  tent."  From  this  description  it  appears, 
that  the  tower  in  the  entrance  of  Mahanaim,  had  two  pair 
of  gates,  at  some  distance  from  each  other;  in  a  small 
room,  which  was  often  found  bv  the  side  of  these  fortified 
gates,  the  door  of  which  opened  into  the  passage  between 
them,  sat  the  king,  waiting,  in  fearful  suspense,  the  issue 
of  the  contest,  for  it  cannot  be  supposed  he  sat  in  the  pas- 
sage itself,  which  had  been  at  once  unbecoming  his  dignity, 
and  incommodious  to  the  passengers  entering  or  leaving 
the  city.  "We  find  a  watchman  stationed  on  the  top  of  this 
tower,  to  which  he  Avent  up  by  a  staircase  from  the  passage, 
which,  like  the  roof  of  their  dwellinghouses,  was  flat,  for 
the  purpose  of  descrying  at  a  distance  those  that  were  ap- 
proaching the  place,  or  repelling  the  attacks  of  an  enemy. 
The  observations  made  by  the  watchman  were  not  com- 
municated by  him  immediately  to  the  king,  but  by  the 
intervention  of  a  warder  at  the  outer  gate  of  the  tower ; 
and  it  appears,  that  a  private  staircase  led  from  the  lower 
room  in  which  the  king  was  sitting,  to  the  upper  room 
over  the  gateway;  for  by  that  communication  he  retired  to 
give  full  vent  to  his  sorrow.  The  only  circumstance 
involved  in  any  doubt,  is  in  what  part  of  this  building  he 
sat,  (for  it  is  evident  he  continued  in  some  part  of  the  gate,) 
when  he  returned  his  thanks  to  the  array  for  their  exer- 
tions in  his  favo-ur ;  or  in  the  language  of  the  historian, 
"  spake  to  the  hearts  of  his  servants,"  and  received  their 
congratulations.  It  is  somewhat  uncertain  whether  he 
gave  audience  to  his  people  in  the  upper  room,  where  he 
lamented  in  strains  so  afiecting,  the  death  of  Absalom,  or 
in  the  little  chamber  between  the  two  gates,  where  he 
waited  the  arrival  of  the  messengers,  or  in  some  other  part 
of  the  building.  The  ancient  custom  of  sitting  in  the  gate 
on  solemn  occasions,  rather  favours  the  opinion,  that  Da- 
vid went  down  from  the  apartment  above  the  gate,  to  the 
chamber  in  the  side  of  the  passage.  This  custom,  which 
may  be  traced  to  the  remotest  antiquity,  is  still  observed  in 
the  East;  for  when  Pococke  returned  from  viewing  the 
town  of  ancient  Byblus,  the  sheik  and  the  elders  were 
sitting  in  the  gate  of  the  city,  after  the  manner  of  their 
ancestors. — Paxton. 

Ver.  25.  And  the  watchman  cried,  and  told  the 
king.  And  the  king  said,  If  he  be  alone,  there 
is  tidings  in  his  mouth.  And  he  came  apace, 
and  drew  near. 

This  was  said  by  David  when  the  watchman  told  him 
that  there  was  a  man  running  alone.  He  proved  to  be 
Ahimaaz,  who  had  escaped  from  the  well,  and  had  run  to 
tell  David,  "  All  is  well."  Is  a  man  se^  to  run  fast,  it  is 
said,  "Ah!  there  is  news  in  his  mouth."  "Why  have 
you  come  so  fast  T'— "  In  my  mouth  there  is  news."  To 
a  man  in  trouble  it  is  often  said,  "  Fear  not,  a  man  will 
soon  come  with  tidings  in  his  mouth." — Roberts. 

Ver.  32.  And  the  king  said  unto  Cushi,  Is  the 
young  man  Absalom  safe?  And  Cushi  an- 
swered, The  enemies  of  my  lord  the  king,  and 
all  that  rise  against  thee  to  do  thee  hurt,  be  as 
that  young  man  is. 

This  was  a  delicate  way  of  telling  David  that  the  rebel 
Absalom  was  dead,  A  person,  in  communicating,  by 
letter,  intelligence  of  the  death  of  a  friend,  does  not  always 
say,  in  so  many  plain  terms,  "  He  is  dead  ;"  but,  "  Would 
that  all  our  enemies  were  now  as  our  friend  Muttoo." 
"  Ah  !  were  they  all  as  he,  we  should  have  peace  in  our 
village."  A  son,  in  writing  to  an  uncle  concerning  the 
death  of  his  ftuher,  says,  "Ah!  the  children  of  "your 
brother  are  now  given  unto  the  Lord."  "  Would  that  our 
enemies  were  now  as  our  father ;  they  will  now  rejoice 
over  us." — Roberts. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

Ver.  13.  And  say  ye  to  Amasa,  Art  thou  not  of 
my  bone,  and  of  my  flesh  1  God  do  so  to  me, 
and  more  also,  if  thou  be  not  captain  of  the  host 
before  me  continually  in  the  room  of  Joab. 
14.  And  he  bowed  the  heart  of  all  the  men  of 
Judah,  even  as  the  heart  of  one  man ;  so  that 
they  sent  this  word  unto  the  king.  Return  thou, 
and  all  thy  servants. 

Mr.  Le  Clerc  and  others  object,  that  David's  resolution 
to  remove  Joab  from  the  chief  command  of  the  army, 
was  but  an  unthankful  return  for  the  victory  which  that 
officer  had  just  gained  him,  and  for  his  attachment  to  his 
interest  all  along,  and  therefore  David's  conduct  in  tl.is 
instance  was  imprudent  and  unaccountable.  What  Joab's 
share  in  obtaining  this  victory  was,  the  history  doth  not 
say,  Abishai  and  Ittai,  who  each  commanded  a  third  part 
of  the  forces,  might,  as  for  anything  that  appears,  as  much 
contribute  to  the  victory  over  the  rebels,  as  Joab.  But  be 
that  as  it  will,  the  imprudence  of  David's  conduct  is  effect- 
ually disproved  by  the  event ;  and  that  it  was  not  unac- 
countable is  certain,  because  of  the  evident  prudence  of  it; 
especially  if  it  be  true,  and  I  think  it  certainly  is  true,  that 
Joab  had  now  lost  the  favour  of  his  master,  of  which  the 
murder  of  Abner,  the  killing  cf  Absalom,  in  direct  con- 
tradiction to  David's  order,  and  lastly,  his  want  of  sympa- 
thy, and  his  indelicacy  in  the  present  instance,  were  the 
undoubted  causes.  And  surely  it  could  be  nothing  unac- 
countable, nor  argue  any  great  ingratitude,  to  turn  out  an 
imperious  general,  even  after  he  had  helped  to  gain  a  vic- 
tory, who  had  stained  his  laurels  by  the  treasonable  murder 
of  the  king's  own  son,  in  defiance  of  his  most  express  com- 
mand, and  then  instantly  threatened  him  with  a  fresh  rebel- 
lion, if  he  did  not  openly  appear  to  justify  and  approve  his 
crimes :  crimes,  that  a  successful  battle  few  will  think  to 
be  a  sufficient  atonement  for,  or  a  just  reason  to  exempt 
him  from  disgrace,  and  the  punishment  he  deserved.  The 
ancient  Roman  discipline  was  much  more  severe  and  rig- 
orous than  this,  and  a  victory  obtained,  if  contrary  to  the 
general's  orders,  was  punished  with  death.  When  T. 
Manlius,  the  son  of  Manlius  the  consul,  upon  a  challenge 
of  Metius,  one  of  the  generals  of  the  Latins,  with  whom 
the  Romans  were  then  at  war,  had  engaged  him  in  single 
combat,  slain  him,  taken  his  spoils,  and  presented  them 
in  triumph  to  his  father,  the  consul  immediately  ordered 
him  to  be  beheaded  in  sight  of  the  whole  army,  because  it 
was  an  express  breach  of  his  orders;  telling  his  son,  "  If 
thou  hast  any  thing  of  my  blood  in  thee,  thou  thyself  wilt 
not,  I  think,  refuse  to  restore,  by  thy  punishment,  that  mili- 
tary discipline,  which  hath  been  impaired  by  thy  offence." 
In  like  manner,  when  Papirius,  the  Roman  dictator,  had 
commanded  Fabius,  the  master  of  his  horse,  not  to  engage 
the  enemy  during  his  absence,  Fabius  being  informed  that 
the  army'of  the  Samnites  were  in  a  state  of  great  disorder, 
attacked  them  with  his  forces,  entirely  routed  them.  ?nd 
slew  twenty  thousand  of  them  on  the  field  of  battle.  The 
dictator,  upon  his  return  to  the  army,  in  a  council  of  officers, 
ordered  him  to  be  beheaded,  because  in  breach  of  the  rules 
of  war,  and  the  ancient  discipline,  he  had  dared,  contrary 
to  his  orders,  to  engage  with  the  enemy.  He  was  however 
at  last  saved  by  the  intercession  of  the  Roman  people. 
David's  removirig  Joab  from  his  command  was  a  much 
less  punishment  for  much  more  aggravated  crimes. 

As  to  the  promise  to  Amasa,  of  constituting  him  general 
in  Joab's  room,  the  prudence  of  this  may  be  also  easily 
vindicated.  For  Amasa  stood  in  the  same  degree  of  con- 
sanguinity to  David  as  Joab  did,  and  the  offer  to  him  ot 
making  him  captain-general  must,  as  it  has  been  well  ob- 
served, have  been  influenced  by  the  personal  qualities  of 
the  man,  the  importance  of  gaining  him  over,  he  being  a 
person  of  great  power  and  authority,  and  a  resentment 
against  Joab  for  the  murder  of  Abner  and  Absalom.  Be- 
sides, I  doubt  not  but  that  David  thought  he  should  now 
he  able  to  break  Joab's  power,  and  bring  him  to  an  ac- 
count for  his  repeated  assassinations  and  treasons,  as  well 
as  fix  Amasa  for  ever  in  his  interest,  by  placing  so  high 
a  degree  of  confidence  in  him,  as  to  give  him  the  com- 
mand of  all  the  forces  in  bis  kingdom.  This  hath  been 
frequently  the  method  by  which  great  men  have  endeav- 


Chap.  19. 


2  SAMUEL. 


225 


o'lred  to  gain  over  their  enemies,  .and  it  argues  a  real  gen- 
erosity of  soul,  of  which  little  minds  are  utterly  incapable, 
to  u'in  an  adversary  to  his  duty,  by  such  unexpected  instan- 
ces of  confidence  and  friendship.  When  Cinna,  the  grand- 
son of  Pompey,  and  other  great  men,  conspired  against 
Augustus,  he  not  only  pardoned  them,  but  nominated  Cinna 
consul  for  the  ensuing  year ;  and  Caesar  not  only  spared 
Brutus,  after  he  had  appeared  in  arms  against  him,  but 
took  him  into  favour  as  his  intimate  friend,  and  intrusted 
him  with  the  government  of  Gaul, — Chandler. 

Ver.  24.  And  Mephibosheth  the  son  of  Saul  came 
down  to  meet  the  king,  and  had  neither  dressed 
his  feet,  nor  trimmed  his  beard,  nor  washed  his 
clothes,  from  the  day  the  king  departed  until 
the  day  he  came  again  in  peace. 

They  almost  universally  die  them  black,  by  an  operation 
not  very  pleasant,  and  necessary  to  be  repeated  generally 
once  a  fortnight.  It  is  always  performed  in  the  hot  bath, 
where  the  hair  being  well  saturated,  takes  the  colour  better. 
A  thick  paste  of  khenna  is  first  made,  which  is  largely 
plastered  over  the  beard,  and  which,  after  remaining  an 
hour,  is  all  completely  washed  off,  and  leaves  the  hair  of  a 
very  strong  orange  colour,  bordering  upon  thatof  brickdust. 
After  this,  as  thick  a  paste  is  made  of  the  leaf  of  the  indigo, 
which  previously  has  been  pounded  to  a  fine  powder,  and 
of  this  also  a  deep  layer  is  put  upon  the  beard ;  but  this 
second  process,  to  be  taken  well,  requires  full  two  hours. 
During  all  this  operation  the  patient  lies  quietly  flat  upon 
his  back;  while  the  die  (more  particularly  the  indigo, 
which  is  a  great  astringent)  contracts  the  features  of  his 
face  in  a  very  mournful  manner,  and  causes  all  the  lower 
parts  of  the  visage  to  smart  and  burn.  When  the  indigo 
IS  at  last  washed  off,  the  beard  is  of  a  very  dark  bottle-green_, 
and  becomes  a  jet  black  only  when  it  has  met  the  air  for 
twenty-four  hours.  Some,  indeed,  are  content  with  the 
khenna  or  orange  colour ;  others,  more  fastidious,  prefer 
a  beard  quite  blue.  The  people  of  Bokhara  are  famous  for 
their  blue  beards. — Morier. 

Ver.  24.  And  Mephibosheth  the  son  of  Saul 
came  down  to  meet  the  king,  and  had  neither 
dressed  his  feet,  nor  trimmed  his  beard,  nor 
washed  his  clothes,  from  the  day  the  king  de- 
parted until  the  day  he  came  again  in  peace. 
25.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  he  was  come 
to  Jerusalem  to  meet  the  king,  that  the  king 
said  unto  him,  Wherefore  wentest  not  thou 
with  me,  Mephibosheth?  26.  And  he  an- 
swered, My  lord,  O  king,  my  servant  deceived 
me:  for  thyservant  said,  I  will  saddle  me  an 
ass,  that  I  may  ride  thereon,  and  go  to  the  king ; 
because  thy  servant  is  lame.  27.  And  he  hath 
slandered  thy  servant  unto  my  lord  the  king ; 
but  my  lord  the  king  is  as  an  angel  of  God : 
do  therefore  what  is  good  in  thine  eyes. 
28.  For  all  of  my  father's  house  were  but 
dead  men  before  my  lord  the  king :  yet  didst 
thou  set  thy  servant  among  them  that  did  eat 
at  thine  own  table.  What  right  therefore  have 
I  yet  to  cry  any  more  unto  the  king?  29.  And 
the  king  said  unto  him.  Why  speakest  thou  any 
more  of  thy  matters  ?  I  have  said,  Thou  and 
Ziba  divide  the  land.  30.  And- Mephibosheth 
said  unto  the  king,  Yea,  let  him  take  all,  foras- 
much as  my  lord  the  king  is  come  again  in 
peace  unto  his  own  house. 

This  conduct  of  David  to  Mephibosheth  is  objected 
against,  as.  a  very  ungenerous  and  unjust  action ;  in  that, 
when  Ziba's  accusation  against  Mephibosheth  was  found 
to  be  false,  instead  of  equitably  punishing  the  asperser  of 
innocence,  and  reinstating  Mephibosheth  in  his  former 
favour,  he  restored  him  but  half  the  forfeiture  for  his  sup- 
29 


posed  guilt,  leaving  the  villain  Ziba  in  the  quiet  possession' 
of  the  other  half,  as  the  reward  of  his  treachery.  Suppo- 
sing this  account  true,  that  Mephibosheth  had  but  half  his 
patrimony  restored  to  him,  there  might  be  reasons  of  state, 
reasons  of  great  prudence  and  equity,  that  might  induce 
David,  at  that  time,  to  give  this  check  "to  the  house  of  Saul ; 
especially  if  David  had  any  suspicion  that  Mephibosheth 
had  really  behaved  ill,  and  as  Shimei,  one  of  Saul's  family, 
had  used  him  with  peculiar  marks  of  indignity,  and  dis- 
covered that  they  wanted  only  the  opportunity  to  revenge 
themselves  on  him,  and  place  one  of  Saul's  house  upon  the 
throne  of  Israel.  But  I  think  there  is  great  reason  to  ques- 
tion, whether  the  behaviour  of  Mephibosheth  was  so  inno- 
cent as  hath  been  asserted,  during  the  progress  of  the  re- 
bellion. The  late  ingenious  and  learned  Mr.  Hallet  and 
others,  think  he  was  guilty -and  deserved  punishment ;  and 
after  having  reviewed  his  apology  to  David  for  not  accom- 
panying him  in  his  flight  from  Jerusalem,  with  the  utmost 
impartiality  and  care,  that  apology  doth  not  seem  to  me 
sufficient  wholly  to  exculpate  him.  "  For  what  is  the  apolo- 
gy he  makes  1  Why,  only  this ;  that  he  said,  "  he  would 
saddle  him  an  ass,  and  go  on  it  to  the  king,  because  he  was 
lame,  and  could  not  go  on  foot."  Why  then,  what  hinder- 
ed him  from  saddling  his  ass,  and  riding  afler  his  royal 
patron  and  benefactor  1  Surely  there  were  more  asses  than 
one  to  be  had  at  Jerusalem,  and  he  had  servants  enough 
of  his  own  to  have  saddled  one,  had  he  been  disposed  to  go 
after  David.  For  when  that  prince  was  restored,  he  found 
means  to  wait  on  him,  without  Ziba's  assistance;  and  I 
suppose,  the  same  means  might  have  been  found,  if  he  had 
pleased,  to  have  attended  David  when  he  fled,  as  well  as 
to  go  to  meet  him  when  he  returned.  He  pretends  indeed 
that  Ziba  deceived  him;  but  he  doth  not  say  how,  nor  offer 
any  proof  of  it ;  nor  could  he  deceive  him  about  the  get- 
ting him  an  ass,  because  he  could  have  got  one,  whether 
Ziba  would  procure  him  one  or  not.  So  that  his  justifica- 
tion was  as  lame  as  his  feet,  and,  as  far  as  I  can  judge,  is  but 
a  poor  shuffling  vindication  of  his  innocence.  He  seems  to 
me  to  have  been  very  well  pleased  to  stay  at  Jerusalem,  and 
wait  the  issue  of  the  rebellion,  as  not  knowing,  but  that  du- 
ring theconftision  of  affairs,  some  fortunate  circumstances 
might  arise,  by  which,  as  heir  to  Saul's  house,  he  might  be 
advanced  tothe  throneinthe  roomboth  of  David  and  his  re- 
bellious son;  The  only  circumstance  that  can  be  alleged  in 
his  favour  is,  that  he  did  not  take  the  usual  care  of  himself, 
as  to  his  cleanliness  and  dress,  but  appeared  in  the  squalid 
habit  of  a  mourner.  But  this  might  be  merely  political, 
and  would  equally  serve  to  excite  compassion  to  himselt 
among  the  peoplej.lo  see  Saul's  heir  reduced  to  this  forlorn 
condition ;  ana  to  provide  some  excuse  for  himself  to  Da- 
vid, should  his  affairs  at  last  take  a  favourable  turn,  and  to 
urge  as  an  argument  and  proof  of  his  affection  and  concern 
for  him,  during  the  continuance  of  his  troubles.  This  was 
a  well-known  custom  among  the  Romans,  and  other  na- 
tions, for  those  who  were  accused  of  any  crimes,  to  clothe 
themselves  with  a  black  garment,  to  let  their  beards  and 
hair  grow,  and  to  appear  in  a  negligent,  dirty  manner,  in 
order  to  raise  the  public  pity  in  their  behalf.  And  not  only 
thus,  but  the  friends  and  pa'trons  of  such  unhappy  persons, 
appeared  publicly  in  the  same  manner,  as  those  whose 
cause  they  espoused.  Thus  Cicero  tells  us,  that  the  whole 
senate,  and  all  good  men,  did  it  to  express  their  grief  on 
his  account,  and  the  better  to  obtain  his  recall  from  banish- 
ment. Yea,  this  very  art  hath  been  made  use  of  by  a  de- 
throned prince  to  obtain  the  recovery  of  his  crown  and 
kingdom.  Thus  Ptolemy  Philometor,  king  of  Egypt,  being 
driven  out  of  his  kingdom  by  his  brother  Physcon,  came 
attended  only  by  a  few  servants  to  Rome,  squalore  obsihis, 
covered  over  with  filth,  to  implore  the  assistance  of  the 
senate.  And  in  this  wretched  condition  he  presented  him- 
self before  them.  They  advised  him,  that  deporitis  fordi- 
bus,  laying  aside  his  wretched  habit,  lie  should  petition  for 
an  audience.  So  that  this  affectation  of  Mephibosheth,  oi 
appearing  at  Jerusalem  with  these  external  marks  of  grief, 
was  really  no  proof  of  his  affection  to  David,  but  might  be 
with  an  artful  intention  to  serve  himself.  Ziba's  charge 
against  him  was  direct  and  positive,  and  the  only  answer 
is,  that  Ziba  had  slandered  him.  So  that  here  are  two 
positive  assertions  contrary  to  one  another.  Ziba's  charge 
had  probability  to  support  it;  because  it  is  natural  to  sup- 
pose, that  Mephibosheth  might  think  that  he  had,  as  heir 
to  Saul,  some  claim  to  the  crown,  and  would  be  glad  of 


226 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  20 


any  occasion  to  recover  it,  that  he  might  not  be  beholden  to 
David's  generosity,  and  live  by  courtesy  at  his  table  ;  and 
that  he  might  mention  it  to  Ziba,  as  he  also  was  one  of 
Saul's  house  and  family.  Mephibosheth's  answer  to  the 
charge  had  nothing  satisfactory  in  it,  because  he  could 
never  want  an  ass,  or  a  servant  to  have  conveyed  him,  had 
he  desired  or  resolved  to  make  use  of  them.  Besides,  as 
Ziba's  carrying  provisions  to  David  plainly  showed  Ziba's 
belief  and  nope  of  David's  restoration,  he  must  know  that 
if  he  had  charged  Mephibosheth  falsely,  the  falsehood  must 
have  been  discovered  when  David  was  resettled  on  the 
throne  ;  and  that  being  convicted  of  calumniating  his  mas- 
ter, he  would,  in  all  probability,  have  been  so  far  from  hav- 
ing Mephibosheth's  whole  estate  confirmed  to  him,  as  that 
he  would  have  lost  his  maintenance  out  of  it  for  himself 
and  family.  And  indeed  David  himself  seems  to  me  not 
to  have  been  thoroughly  satisfied  with  Mephibosheth's  apol- 
ogy, by  the  answer  he  makes  him  :  "  "Why  speakest  thou 
any  more  about  thy  matters  ?"  Let  me  hear  no  more  of  thy 
affairs.  I  will  neither  regard  Ziba's  charge,  nor  your  vin- 
dication ;  an  answer  that  evidently  carries  an  air  of  cold- 
ness, indifference,  and  displeasure,  and  of  one  who  did  not 
choose  to  make  any  strict  inquiry  into  Mephibosheth's  con- 
duct, but  to  admit  his  excuse,  though  in  itself  insuflicient 
and  unsatisfactory;  and  he  therefore  only  adds  :  Thoiiand 
Zibadivide  the  land.  If  this  be  the  true  state  ofthecase,  asit 
appears  to  me  to  be,  David's  annulling  the  grant  to  Ziba,  so 
far  as  to  reinstate  Mephibosheth  in  the  possession  of  even 
half  the  land,  was  a  noble  instance  of  David's  generosity,  and 
of  the  grateful  remembrance  he  retained  of  Jonathan's  af- 
fection and  friendship  for  him.  But  I  must  question  the 
truth  of  the  account,  tl^jit  David  restored  to  Mephibosheth 
but  half  of  the  estate.  Ziba  had  been  an  old  servant  in 
Saul's  family,  who  had  fifteen  sons,  and  twenty  servants. 
To  him  David  had  said :  "  I  have  given  thy  master's  son 
all  that  pertaineth  to  Saul,  and  to  all  his  house.  Thou 
therefore  and  thy  sons  and  thy  servants  shall  till  the  land 
for  him,  and  bring  in  the  fruits,  that  thy  master's  son  may 
have  food  to  eat,  viz.  for  his  household  and  family.  As  foV 
Mephibosheth  himself,  he  shall  always  eat  at  my  table,  as 
one  of  the  king's  sons."  Ziba  therefore  was  to  take  care  of 
the  estate,  to  account  for  the  profits  of  it  to  Mephibosheth, 
and  to  be  himself  and  his  whole  family  maintamed  out  of 
the  annual  produce,  for  his  care  in  cultivating  it.  This 
was  a  proper  division  of  it  between  Mephibosheth,  as  lord 
of  the  estate,  and  Ziba  as  the  farmer  and  manager  of  it. 
What  now  is  the  determination  of  David,  upon  his  restora- 
tion to  the  throne  1  Mephibosheth  had  been  entirely  ousted 
upon  Ziba's  complaint ;  but  after  he  had  made  his  apology, 
David  said  to  him  :  "  I  have  said.  Thou  and  Ziba  divide 
the  land."  But  where  and  when  did  David  ever  say,  "  I 
give  each  of  you  a  moiety  of  the  estate  V  He  first  gave 
the  whole  in  property  to  Mephibosheth,  and  afterward  to 
Ziba ;  but  never  divided  it,  share  and  share  alike, between 
them.  And  yet,  "  I  have  said.  Thou  and  Ziba  divide  the 
land,"  must  refer  to  some  former  division  of  the  estate  by 
David's  order.  But  no  such  determination  or  order  is  to 
be  found,  but  in  that  original  one,  in  which  the  estate  was 
divided  between  Mephibosheth  in  property,  and  Ziba  as 
husbandman,  for  his  own  and  family's  maintenance.  So 
that  this  last  determination  of  David  was  so  far  from  taking 
away  one  half  of  the  estate  from  Mephibosheth,  that  it  was 
in  reality  confirming  the  original  grant,  and  restoring  him 
to  the  possession  of  the  whole,  upon  the  same  terms  on 
which  that  possession  was  originally  granted  him.  So  that 
if  David  was  too  hasty  in  giving  away  Mephibosheth's 
estate  to  Ziba,  he  was,  upon  better  recollection,  as  hasty  in 
restoring  it  to  him  ;  and  it  ought  to  be  acknowledged  as  a 
proof  of  his  inviolable  regard  to  his  oath  to  Jonathan,  since 
he  had  reason  for  just  suspicion,  that  his  son  had  been 
wauling  in  that  affection  and  fidelity  which  he  owed  him, 
as  his  generous  protector  and  benefactor.  And  though  by 
his  confirming  the  original  grant,  he  left  Ziba  and  his  fam- 
ily a  maintenance  out  of  the  estate,  it  was  not  as  the  reward 
of  his  treachery,  of  which  there  is  no  proof,  but  out  of  re- 
spect even  to  Saul,  of  whose  house  Ziba  was,  and  as  a  recom- 
pense for  his  faithful  adherence  to  him  in  his  distresses,  and 
that  seasonable  and  noble  supply  with  which  he  furnished 
him  and  his  followers,  when  he  was  forced  to  abandon  his 
rapital,  bv  the  unnatural  rebellion  of  his  son  Absalom. 
Hereby  David  did  more  than  full  justice  to  Mephibosheth, 
and  ^t  the  samt  time  rewarded  Ziba  by  continuing  him  on 


the  estate,  upon  the  former  conditions  of  possessing  it.  Mr 
Bayle  has  a  long  article  on  this  affair,  m  which  he  takes 
it  for  granted,  that  David  restored  Mephibosheth  but  one 
half  of  the  estate,  and  says,  "  that  some  interpreters  main- 
tain, that  Ziba's  accusation  was  not  unjust ;  or,  at  least,  that 
it  was  founded  on  so  many  probabilities,  that  it  might  be 
credited  without  passing  a  wrong  judgment ;"  but  there 
are  but  few,  says  he,  of  that  opinion  ;  and  he  affirms,  "that 
David  found  him  a  false  accuser."  But  Mr.  Bayle  offers 
not  a  single  proof  for  these  assertions,  and  he  who  relates 
the  different  opinions  of  others  concerning  any  fact,  and  de- 
clares on  the  unfavourable  side  of  it,  without  giving  his  rea- 
sons for  it,  doth  not  act  like  a  candid  critic,  but  with  the 
spirit  of  partiality  and  party.  I  must  therefore  leave  these 
particulars  to  the  judgment  of  the  more  candid  and  impartial 
reader,  when  he  hath  duly  considered  what  hath  been  said 
above  in  order  to  obviate  them ;  agreeing  at  the  same  time 
with  him,  that  if  Mephibosheth  was  unjustly  treated,  Da- 
vid's holiness  could  never  make  that  sentence  just,  though 
Pope  Gregory  hath  insisted  upon  it ;  and  that  to  conclude 
the  sentence  was  just,  merely  because  David  passed  it, 
though  it  was  unjust  in  itself,  is  to  establish  a  very  dangei- 
ous  principle. — Chandler. 

Ver.  29.  And  the  king  said  unto  him,  Why 
speakest  thou  any  more  of  thy  matters?  I 
have  said,  Thou  and  Ziba  divide  the  land. 

This  form  of  speech  is  exceedingly  common  when  a 
man  wishes  to  confirm  any  thing,  or  when  he  wants  to  give 
weight  to  a  promise.  To  show  that  all  will  be  fulfilled,  he 
says,  Ndn-chanrnain-nea,  "  Oh  !  I  have  said  it." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Ver.  1.  And  there  happened  to  be  there  a  man  of 
Belial,  whose  name  was  Sheba,  the  son  of 
Bichri,  a  Benjamite ;  and  he  blew  a  trumpet, 
and  said.  We  have  no  part  in  David,  neither 
have  we  inheritance  in  the  son  of  Jesse :  every 
man  to  his  tents,  O  Israel. 

When  slaves  are  liberated  from  their  owners,  they  say, 
"  We  have  no  pangu,  i.  e.  part,  in  them,  nor  they  in  us," 
It  is  also  very  common  to  mention  the  name  of  the  person, 
and  that  of  his  father ;  and  this  sometimes  implies  disgrace, 
especially  when  the  family  has  arisen  from  obscurity,  and 
therefore  to  allude  to  its  origin  is  to  insult  the  descendant>-.  1 
— Roberts.  | 

Ver.  1.  And  there  happened  to  be  there  a  man  of 
Belial,  whose  name  was  Sheba,  the  son  of 
Bichri,  a  Benjamite  ;  and  he  blew  a  trumpet, 
and  said,  We  have  no  part  in  David,  neither 
have  we  inheritance  in  the  son  of  Jesse  :  every 
man  to  his  tents,  O  Israel.  2.  So  every  man  of 
Israel  went  up  from  after  David,  and  followed 
Sheba  the  son  of  Bichri:  but  the  men  of  Judah 
clave  unto  their  king,  from  Jordan  e\'en  to  Je- 
rusalem. 

The  blame  of  this  new  rebellion  hath  been  charged  on 
David,  and  he  censured  for  thus  inadvertently  plunging 
himself  into  fresh  troubles,  by  suffering  himself  to  be  con- 
ducted home  by  a  deputation  from  the  tribe  of  Judah.  The 
learned  authors  of  the  Universal  History,  have  made  a 
like  observation  on  this  part  of  David's  conduct,  and  say, 
that  "  the  partiality,  which  he  showed  to  his  own  tribe,  in 
inviting  it  to  come  foremost  to  receive  him,  raised  such  a 
jealousy  in  the  other  ten,  as  ended  at  length  in  a  new 
revolt."  But  where  doth  the  history  justify  this  reflection, 
that  he  was  partial  to  his  own  tribe,  in  inviting  it  to  come 
foremost  to  receive  him  1  The  truth  is,  that  he  did  not  invite 
them  at  all  to  come  and  receive  him,  fill  he  had  been  in- 
formed by  expresses  from  all  the  other  tribes,  that  the> 
were  universally  in  motion  to  restore  him,  and  his  message 
to  them  only  was:  "  Why  are  ye  the  last  to  bring  back  the 
king  1"  Not,  why  are  ye  not  the  foremost  1  And  though 
the  other  tribes  complained  to  that  of  Judah,  "  Why  did 


Chap.  20. 


2  SAMUEL 


227 


ye  despise  us,  that  our  advice  should  be  first  had  in  bring- 
ing back  our  king  V  Yet  the  tribe  of  Judah  was  so  far 
from  coming  to  meet  the  king,  out  of  any  regard  to,  or 
contempt  of,  their  brethren,  that  the  very  zeal  and  move- 
ments of  those  tribes,  in  David's  favour,  was  the  principal 
motives  urged  by  him,  to  bring  back  the  tribe  of  Judah  to 
their  duly,  and  their  great  inducement  to  return  to  iheir 
allegiance  to  him.  This  was  paying  a  real  deference  to 
their  judgment,  and  what  they  ought  to  have  been  pleased 
with,  and  highly  applauded.  It  is  true,  that  the  tribes  all 
concurred  in  their  resolutions  to  restore  him,  and  were  taking 
the  proper  methods  to  effect  it,  yet  that  David  continued 
at  Mahanaim,  till  the  deputies  from  Judah  came  to  him 
there,  with  an  invitation  irom  the  whole  tribe  to  repair  to 
Jerusalem,  and  to  assure  him,  that  they  would  receive  him 
in  a  body  at  Gilgai,  and  prepare  every  thing  necessary  for 
his  passage  over  Jordan.  Nor  could  he  indeed  set  out  for 
Jerusalem,  till  he  had  received  certain  information,  that 
the  men  of  Judah,  and  Amasa,  who  was  in  possession  of 
it,  would  quietly  permit  him  to  return  to  it,  without  endan- 
gering his  own  person,  or  hazarding  the  peace  of  the  nation, 
should  he  attempt  to  reduce  the  city  by  force.  But  when 
he  knew  the  city  would  open  her  gates  to  him,  it  is  no 
wonder  he  should  resolve  immediately  to  begin  his  march 
to  it,  as  he  had  now  nothing  to  fear  from  that  quarter,  and 
imagined,  that  as  all  the  tribes  had  declared  for  him,  the 
sooner  he  acted  agreeably  to  their  desires,  they  would  be 
the  better  pleased,  and  without  the  formality  of  any  particu- 
lar invitations,  receive  him  with  open  arms,  wherever  he 
should  meet  them. 

The  pretence,  that  the  men  of  Judah  had  stolen  him 
away,  was  unreasonable  and  unjust.  For  while  he  was  at 
Mahanaim,  the  tribes  on  that  side  Jordan  all  declared  for 
him,  and  accompanied  him  to  the  passage  of  that  river, 
ana  went  over  with  him  to  join  the  rest  of  their  brethren, 
who  were  come  down  to  meet  him ;  so  that  when  they  were 
all  united  at  the  passage  of  the  river,  there  were  actually 
present,  by  large  deputations,  the  tribes  of  Judah,  Benjamin, 
and  five  others,  who  waited  on  him  in  his  march  to  Gilgai. 
The  truth  of  the  case  seems  to  be,  that  the  deputations 
from  the  more  distant  tribes,  not  being  able  to  get  farther 
than  Gilgai,  before  the  king's  arrival  there,  envied  the 
other  tribes,  and  particularly  that  of  Judah,  which  had  the 
principal  share  in  providing  every  thing  necessary  for  the 
King's  passage  over  Jordan,  and  laid  hold  of  the  first  op- 
portunity to  express  their  resentment  against  them.  This 
was  heightened  by  the  imprudent  haughty  answer,  which 
the  men  of  Judah  made  to  their  expostulation,  that  they 
had  a  peculiar  right  in  the  king,  as  he  was  near  akin  to 
them,  because  he  was  of  their  own  tribe  ;  and  seeming  to 
insinuate,  that  they  came  voluntarily,  but  that  the  other 
tribes  came  with  an  expectation  of  being  provided  for  at 
the  king's  expense,  and  hoping  some  donative  from  him,  as 
the  reward  of  their  submission  to  him.  This,  I  think,  is 
plainly  implied,  when  they  told  them  :  "  Have  we  eaten  at 
all  at  the  king's  cost 7  Or  hath  he  given  us  any  gift*?" 
Words  which  seem  to  carry  a  tacit  insinuation,  that  other 
tribes  expected  both.  This  reflection,  and  the  claim  of  a 
particular  interest  in  the  king,  disgusted  all  the  other  tribes 
in  general,  and  disposed  them  to  enter  into  violent  meas- 
ures to  revenge  themselves.  David,  upon  the  whole,  seems 
to  me  to  be  nowise  blameable  on  account  of  Sheba's  revolt, 
but  that  it  was  occasioned  by  misunderstandings  between 
the  tribes  themselves,  which  it  was  not  at  that  time  in  his 
power  to  prevent. — Chandler.  ^ 

Ver.  3.  And  David  came  to  his  house  at  Jerusa- 
iem;  and  the  king-  took  the  ten  women  his 
concubines,  whom  he  had  left  to  keep  the 
house,  and  put  them  in  ward,  and  fed  them,  but 
went  not  in  unto  them :  so  they  were  shut  up 
^  unto  the  day  of  their  death,  living  in  widow- 
'         hood. 

In  China,  when  an  emperor  dies,  all  his  women  are 
removed  to  an  edifice  called  the  Palace  of  Chastity,  situa- 
ted within  the  walls  of  the  palace,  in  which  they  are  shut 
up  for  the  remainder  of  their  lives. — Burder, 

Ver   9.  And  Joab  said  to  Amasa,  Art  thou  in 


health,  my  brother?    And  Joab  took  Amasa  by 
the  beard  with  the  right  hand  to  kiss  him. 

D'Arvieux  was  present  at  an  Arabian  entertainment,  to 
which  came  all  the  emirs,  a  little  while  after  his  arrival, 
accompanied  by  their  friends  and  attendants :  and  after  the 
usual  civilities,  caresses,  kissings  of  the  beard,  and  of  th-e 
hand,  which  every  one  gave  and  received  according  to  his 
rank  and  dignity,  sat  down  upon  mats.  It  was  in  this  way, 
perhaps,  that  Joab  pretended  to  testify  his  respect  for  Amasa, 
his  rival  in  the  favour  of  the  king;  he  took  him  by  the 
beard  to  kiss  him,  or  agreeably  to  the  custom  of  these 
emirs,  or  Arabian  chieftains,  to  kiss  the  beard  itself;  and 
in  this  stooping  posture  he  could  much  better  see  to  direct 
the  blow,  than  if  he  had  only  held  his  beard,  and  raised  him- 
self to  kiss  his  face;  while  Amasa,  charmed  by  this  high 
compliment,  which  was  neither  suspicious  nor  unusual, 
and  undoubtedly  returning  it  with  corresponding  politeness, 
paid  no  attention  to  the  sword  in  the  hand  of  his  murderer. 
it  is  extremely  probable  that  Judas  betrayed  his  Lord  in  the 
same  way,  by  kissing  his  beard.  The  evangelists  Matthew 
and  Mark  say,  that  he  came  directly  to  Jesus,  and  said, 
Hail,  Master,  and  kissed  him  ;  but  Luke  seems  to  hint,  that 
Judas  saluted  him  with  more  respect.  Jesus,  according  to 
Matthew,  had  time  to  say,  before  he  received  the  kiss  from 
Judas,  "  Friend,  wherefore  art  thou  come  1"  and  while 
Judas  was  kissing  his  beard,  Jesus  might  express  himself 
with  great  ease  and  propriety,  as  Luke  relates,  "Judas,  be- 
trayest  thou  the  Son  of  man  with  a  kiss  V — Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  Then  she  spake,  saying,  They  were 
wont  to  speak  in  old  time,  saying,  They  shall 
surely  ask  counsel  at  Abel :  and  so  they  ended 
the  matter. 

Intimating,  that  the  city  of  Abel  was  very  famous,  in 
ancient  times,  for  giving  advice,  and  determining  contro- 
versies. But  of  this  there  is  no  intimation  except  in  this 
place,  and  the  sense  seems  very  forced  and  unnatural.  I 
think  R.  S.  Jarchi's  exposition  leads  to  the  true  interpre- 
tation, which  our  learned  Bishop  Patrick  seems  also  to  ap- 
prove ;  who  observes,  that  the  word  nsts^n^  refers,  not  to  old 
time,  but  the  beginning  of  the  siege.  As  if  she  had  said, 
When  the  people  saw  thee  lay  siege  to  the  city,  they  said, 
surely  they  will  ask  us,  if  we  will  have  peace,  and  then  we 
shall  soon  come  to  an  agreement,  and  make  an  end  ;  put- 
ting Joab  in  mind  of  the  rule  in  the  law,  Deut.  xx.  10, 
which  commands  them  to  ofl!er  peace  to  the  cities  of  other 
nations,  when  they  came  to  besiege  them,  and  therefore 
much  more  to  a  city  of  their  own,  as  Abel  was.  This 
agrees  well  with  what  follows,  that  they  were  a  peaceable 
people,  and  faithful  to  their  prince,  and  therefore  would 
not  have  refused  to  yield  to  him  upon  summons. — Chand- 
ler. 

Ver.  23.  Now  Joab  was  over  all  the  host  of  Is- 
rael :  and  Benaiah  the  son  of  Jehoiada  was 
over  the  Cherethites  and  over  the  Pelethites. 

This  hath  occasioned  a  very  severe  reflection  on  David's 
honour  and  justice,  and  he  is  reproached  because  Joab 
was  continued  in  the  command,  and  not  a  single  syllable 
of  any  notice  taken  by  David  of  the  murder  of  Amasa, 
whom  he  himself  had  appointed  general ;  as  though  Da- 
vid had  acquiesced  in  the  murder,  and  confirmed  Joab  in 
the  command  of  the  army,  as  the  reward  of  it.  But  that 
David  greatly  resented  this  murder  of  Amasa,  is  evident 
from  his  last  advice  to  Solomon,  in  which  he  nobly  recom- 
mends, and  gives  it  in  charge  to  him,  to  do  justice  on  that 
bloody  assassin  for  the  murders  of  Abner  and  Amasa. 
David  was  not  now  able  himself  to  do  it,  and  Joab  was  too 
powerful  a  subject  to  be  brought  to  any  account.  We  have 
seen  that  he  had  insolence  enough,  after  Absalom's  death, 
to  threaten  the  king  with  a  new  revolt,  if  he  did  not  do  what 
he  ordered  him;  and  after  the  assassination  of  Amasa,  he 
usurped,  in  defiance  of  his  master's  appointment,  the  com- 
mand of  all  the  forces.  They  seem  to  have  had  an  affec- 
tion for  him  as  a  brave  and  successful  general ;  he  had  just 
now  restored  the  quiet  of  the  land,  by  entirely  queMing  the 
insurrection  under  Sheba,and  returned  to  Jerusalem,  with- 
out fear  of  the  king,  and  in  defiance  of  justice,  as  general- 


228 


2  SAMUEL 


Chap.  2t. 


issimo  of  the  army ;  and  continued  to  assume  this  rank, 
not  by  David's  order  and  inclination,  but  by  his  mere 
-  acquiescence  in  a  measure  that  was  contrary  to  his  will, 
but  which  he  was  not  able  to  set  aside.  It  should  be  ob- 
served to  David's  honour,  that  when  the  rebellion  under 
Absalom,  and  the  insurrection  by  Sheba,  were  entirely  sup- 
pressed, we  read  of  no  bloody  executions  for  treason  and 
rebellion.  David  resolved  that  no  one  should  be  put  to 
death  on  that  account.  He  was  all  mercy  and  forgive- 
ness. The  cursing  Shimei  was  reprieved.  The  suspected 
Mephibosheth  was  restored,  and  the  rebel  general  constitu- 
ted captain  of  the  forces  of  the  kingdom.  Had  he  been 
the  Nero  or  the  Turk  he  hath  been  figured  out  by  Mr. 
Bayle  and  others,  this  occasion  would  have  abundantly 
enabled  him  to  gratify  his  revenge,  and  satiate  himself 
with  blood.  Should  it  be  said,  that  David's  clemency  was 
owing  to  his  thinking  it  hazardous  to  make  examples  of 
any  of  them ;  and  his  not  being  able  to  do  it,  because  the 
revolt  was  general;  or,  to  his  policy,  considering  the  pre- 
cariousness  of  his  situation ;  the  answer  is  obvious,  that 
neither  of  these  suppositions  hath  any  probability  to  sup- 
port it.  TliCre  could  be  no  possible  hazard  in  executing 
Shimei,  and  such  others  as  had  been  the  principal  incen- 
diaries and  promoters  of  the  rebellion.  This  was  now 
totally  suppressed,  his  victorious  army  at  his  devotion,  and 
his  general  ready  to  support  him,  and  obey  him  even  in 
the  most  sanguinary  measures,  as  appears  from  his  conduct 
in  the  affair  of  Uriah ;  so  that  there  could  be  no  hazard  in 
his  making  proper  examples  of  just  indignation  and  ven- 
geance. David  knew  this,  and  said  to  Abishai :  "  Do  I  not 
know  that  I  am  this  day  king  over  Israel  1  restored  to  my 
power  and  authority  as  king  1  and  I  will  execute  it  at  my 
pleasure."  And  in  truth  he  could  have  none  to  control  him 
m  his  present  situation.  The  assertion  that  the  revolt  was 
general,  is  not  true  in  fact,  as  hath  been  elsewhere  proved. 
As  to  David's  policy,  that  it  induced  him  to  resolve  that  no 
one  should  be  put  to  death  on  account  of  the  rebellion,  I 
acknowledge  that  there  might  be  somewhat  in  this;  but 
then  it  could  not  arise  from  the  precariousness  of  his  situa- 
tion, of  which  there  is  no  appearance  or  proof;  for  he  was 
restored  by  the  almost  unanimous  consent  of  his  people; 
but  from  the  noble  policy,  which  never  influences  tyrants, 
but  is  inspired  by  benevolence  and  humanity,  that  sup- 
presses the  vindictive  spirit,  and  chooses  the  obedience 
which  arises  from  affection  and  esteem,  rather  than  that 
which  flows  from  fear,  and  is  enforced  by  severity.  Charges 
of  acting  from  criminal  and  unworthy  motives,  without 
facts  to  support  them,  deserve  no  regaVd  from  persons  of 
integrity  and  honour.  I  shall  only  further  observe,  that 
from  Nathan's  threatening  David,  to  the  suppression  of  the 
rebellion  under  Sheba,  by  which  the  punishment,  as  far  as 
it  related  personally  to  David,  was  accomplished,  were,  by 
the  marginal  chronology  of  our  Bible,  thirteen  years ;  which 
shows  how  groundless  the  observation  is  that  hath  been 
made,  as  to  this  melancholy  part  of  David's  history,  viz. 
that  it  would  not  be  easy  to  select  any  period  of  any  history 
more  bloody,  or  abounding  in  wickedness  of  more  various 
dies,  than  that  which  has  been  now  mentioned.  Instances 
succeed  so  quick,  that  the  relation  of  one  is  scarce  conclu- 
ded, but  fresh  ones  obtrude  upon  'our  notice.  Supposing 
this  observation  true,  how  do  the  vices  of  other  men,  or  the 
misfortunes  of  his  own  family,  affect  David,  as  a  man  after 
God's  own  heart  1  Or  is  he  the  first  good  man  who  hath 
been  unhappy  in  some  of  his  children  1  Or  whose  affection 
towards  them  hath  been  much  more  tender  and  passionate 
than  they  deserved '{  Insulting  great  and  good  men,  and 
holding  them  up  to  public  view,  as  objects  of  horror  and 
detestation,  from  those  crimes  of  their  family  which  gave 
them  the  greatest  anxiety,  is  what  virtue  abhors,  and  is 
shocking  even  to  humanity.  David  had  in  all  seventeen 
sons.  Two  of  them  were  profligates,  and  perished  by  their 
crimes.  As  to  the  rest ,  they  appear  to  be  worthy  men,  and 
were  employed  by  David  in  the  principal  departments  of 
the  administration ;  a  circumstance  that  shows  he  took 
^reat  care  of  their  education,  and  that,  upon  the  whole, 
he  was  very  far  from  being  unhappy  in  his  family.  The 
crimes  committed  by  the  two  eldest,  were  Amnon's  affair 
with  his  half-sister  Tamar;  Absalom's  murder  of  Amnon 
for  the  injury  done  his  sister;  hi]  impious  rebellion  against 
nis  lather;  and  his  public  incest  with  his  wives,  to  which 
Ahifhophel  advised  and  promoted  him.  These  were  the 
wickednesses  of  various  dies  complained  of,  to  which  may  be 


added,  the  murder  of  Absalom  by  Joab,  contrary  to  the 
king's  express  order.  These  instances,  as  related  in  the 
history,  succeed  so  quick,  as  that  the  account  of  one  is 
scarce  concluded,  but  fresh  ones  obtrude  upon  our  notice. 
But  then  the  relation  of  these  things  is  much  quicker  than 
the  succession  of  years  in  which  they  happened,  and  many 
events  intervened  between  the  commission  of  the  one  and 
the  other.  Between  Amnon's  rape,  and  his  murder  by 
Absalom,  were  more  than  two  years.  From  Absalom  s 
banishment,  to  his  being  restored  to  the  king's  presence, 
were  more  than  five  years,  and  from  this  to  his  rebellion 
and  death,  three  or  four ;  in  all  eleven  or  tM-elve  years. 
But  are  there  no  instances  in  history  to  be  found  of  more 
numerous  crimes,  and  as  various  dies,  committed  within  a 
much  shorter  period  of  time  1  Will  not  our  own  history 
furnish  us  with  such  an  instance  1 — From  the  year  1483  to 
1485,  i.  e.  in  less  than  three  years,  one  man,  Richard  duke 
of  Gloucester,  usurped  the  crown,  actually  murdered  the 
king  and  his  brother,  both  of  them  his  nephews;  poisoned 
his  own  queen,  to  make  way  for  an  incestuous  marriage 
with  his  niece,  imbrued  his  hands  in  the  blood  of  many  of 
the  English  nobility,  was  the  author  of  a  civil  war  in  the 
kingdom,  and  was  himself  slain  in  an  engagement  with  the 
duke  of  Richmond,  afterward  Henry  VII.  I  refer  the 
reader  for  another  instance  of  implicated  wickedness,  still 
of  a  more  terrible  nature,  in  Xerxes  the  Persian  emperor, 
related  at  large  by  Dr.  Prideaux  in  his  Connexion,  v.  i.  p. 
348,  &c.  and  it  would  be  easy  to  mention  several  others, 
both  in  the  Roman  and  eastern  histories,  to  show  the  rash- 
ness of  this  observation  on  which  I  have  been  remarking^. 
—Chandler. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Ver.  1.  Then  there  was  a  famine  in  the  days  of 
David  three  years,  year  after  year  ;  and  David 
inquired  of  the  Lord.  And  the  Lord  answer- 
ed, It  is  for  Saul,  and  for  his  bloody  house,  be- 
cause he  slew  the  Gibeonites.  2.  And  the  king 
called  the  Gibeonites,  and  said  unto  them  ;  (now 
the  Gibeonites  were  not  of  the  children  of  Is- 
rael, but  of  the  remnant  of  the  Amorites  :  and 
the  children  of  Israel  had  sworn  unto  theri ; 
and  Saul  sought  to  slay  them  in  his  zeal  to  tUt 
children  of  Israel  and  Judah ;)  3.  Wherefors 
David  said  unto  the  Gibeonites,  What  shall  I 
do  for  you ;  and  wherewith  shall  I  make  the 
atonement,  that  ye  may  bless  the  inheritance  of 
the  Lord?  4.  And  the  Gibeonites  said  unto 
him,  We  will  have  no  silver  nor  gold  of  Saul, 
nor  of  his  house ;  neither  for  us  shalt  thou  kill 
any  man  in  Israel.  And  he  said,  What  you 
shall  say,  that  will  I  do  for  you. 

We  now  enter  upon  a  part  of  David's  history  and  conduct, 
that  hath  been  thought  exceptionable  by  many  persons  of 
good  sense  and  sober  minds;  and  which  others  have  repre- 
sented as  a  masterpiece  of  wickedness,  and  for  which  they 
,have  censured  him  as  the  most  accomplished  hypocrite, 
and  a  perjured  and  profligate  villain.  It  will  therefore  be 
necessary  more  particularly  to  consider  it,  I  confess,  for 
my  own  "part,  that  I  think  it  one  of  the  most  unexception- 
able parts  of  his  behaviour  as  a  king,  and  an  illustrious 
proof  of  the  generosity  of  his  temper,  the  regard  he  paid  to 
his  oath  to  Saul,  and  the  friendship  he  owed  to  the  memory 
and  family  of  Jonathan.  That  the  reader  may  the  better 
|udge  of  this,  I  shall  give  the  history  just  as  it  i§  recorded 
in  the  Old  Testament  writings.  The  inhabitants  of  Gibeon, 
a  large  royal  city,  which,  after  the  division  of  the  country, 
was  yielded  to  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  were  Amorites  by 
birth  and  nation;  and  when  the  Hebrews,  under  Joshua, 
invaded  the  land  of  Canaan,  the  Gibeonites  hearing  what 
Joshua  had  done  to  Jericho  and  Ai,  and  fearing  for  their 
own  safety,  fraudulently  persuaded  the  Hebrews  to  enter 
into  a  league  with  them  ;  which  was  solemnly  ratified  by 
a  public  oath,  so  that  they  had  the  national  faith  for  the 
security  of  their  lives  and  properties ;  for  which  reason  the 


Chap.  21. 


SAMUEL. 


229 


children  of  Israel,  ".nen  they  came  to  tnej!  cijes,  and  un- 
derstood the  fraud,  aiurmured  against  the  princes,  because 
they  had.  made  a  league  with  them.  The  princes,  to 
appease  them,  said  to  them :  "  We  have  sworn  unto  them 
by  the  Lord  God  of  Israel,  therefore  we  may  not  touch 
them.  We  will  even  let  them  live,  lest  wrath  be  upon  us, 
because  of  the  oath  which  we  sware  to  them;"  and  they 
were  accordingly  spared,  but  condemned  to  servitude,  and 
made  hewers  of  wood,  and  drawers  of  water,  for  the  con- 
gregation, and  for  the  altar  of  the  Lord  perpetually,  in 
the  place  which  he  should  choose ;  i.  e.  wherever  the  tab- 
ernacle or  ark  should  reside.  But  Saul,  in  his  zeal  to  the 
children  of  Israel  and  Judah,  to  ingratiate  himself  with 
them,  under  the  specious  pretence  of  public  spirit,  to  enrich 
his  servants  and  soldiers,  and  to  appear  warm  and  active 
for  the  public  interest,  "sought  to  slay  them,  and  to  destroy 
them  from  remaining  in  any  of  the  coasts  of  Israel,"  and 
actually  put  many  of  them  to  death,  employing  those  of  his 
own  house  or  family  in  the  execution.  This  was  a  noto- 
rious violation  of  the  public  faith,  laid  the  nation  under  the 
guilt  of  perjury  and  murder,  and  subjected  them  to  the  dis- 
pleasure of  God,  who  is  the  righteous  avenger  of  these 
national  crimes,  but  seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  an 
affair  of  no  consequence,  or  rather  acquiesced  in  as  a  use- 
ful and  public-spirited  measure.  God,  however,  was  pleased 
to  make  inquisition  for  the  blood  which  had  been  thus  un- 
righteously shed,  and  sent  a  famine  upon  the  land,  which 
lasted  three  years,  in  the  third  of  which,  David,  moved  by 
50  extraordinary  a  calamity,  inquired  of  the  Lord  the 
cause  of  it,  and  was  answered  by  the  oracle,  that  it  was  for 
Saul,  and  his  bloody  house,  because  he  slew  the  Gibeonites. 
In  consequence  of  this,  David  sent  for  son>e  of  the  principal 
persons  who  had  escaped  the  massacre,  and  said  to  them : 
'  What  shall  I  do  for  you,  and  wherewithal  shall  I  make 
the  atonement,  that  ye  may  bless  the  inheritance  of  the 
Lord "?"  What  satismction  do  you  require  for  the  injuries 
that  have  been  done  you,  that  you  may  be  induced  to  pray 
for  the  prosperity  of  my  people  1  The  Gibeonites  answered 
him :  "  We  will  have  no  silver  or  gold  of  Saul,  nor  of  his 
house ;  neither  for  us  shalt  thou  kill  any  man  in  Israel." 
The  king  then  bid  them  ask  what  they  would  have,  and 
promised  that  he  would  do  it  for  them.  They  replied : 
'  The  man  that  consumed  us,  and  that  devised  against  us, 
that  we  should  be  destroyed  from  remaining  in  any  of  the 
soasts  of  Israel ;  let  seven  of  his  sons  be  delivered  unto  us, 
and  we  will  hang  them  up  unto  the  Lord  in  Gibeah  of  Saul, 
who  was  chosen  of  the  Lord."  The  king  immediately 
replied :  "  I  will  give  them ;"  and  in  consequence  of  it, 
sparing  Mephibosheth,  the  son  of  Jonathan,  and  all  the  male 
line  of  Saul,  who  had  any  claim  to,  or  were  capable  of 
contending  with  him  for  the  crown,  and  disturbing  him  in 
the  possession  of  it ;  he  delivered  to  them  the  two  bastard 
sons  of  Rizpah,  Saul's  concubine,  and  the  five  sons  of 
Micah,  his  youngest  daughter,  by  Adriel,  the  son  of  Bar- 
zillai,  the  Meholathite,  not  one  of  whom  was  capable  of 
succeeding  Saul,  especially  while  any  of  the  male  line,  and 
particularly  those  by  the  eldest  son,  were  alive.  Now,  at 
this  very  time,  Mephibosheth,  Jonathan's  eldest  son,  dwelt 
m  David's  family  at  Jerusalem ;  and  though  lame  in  his 
feet,  yet  he  was  sound  enough  to  be  the  father  of  a  son, 
named  Micah,  who  had  a  numerous  posterity,  the  descend- 
ants of  whom  continued  down  through  many  generations. 
In  this  account  the  reader  will  observe,  that  what  gave  rise 
to  this  execution  in  the  family  of  Saul,  was  a  three  years' 
famine.  The  famine  is  not  denied, .  The  cause  of  it,  some 
think,  was  the  preceding  intestine  commotions.  But  this 
is  highly  improbable ;  for  there  is  no  intimation  or  proba- 
bility, that  the  civil  war  continued  so  long  as  twelve 
months,  as  it  was  determined  by  a  single  battle,  and  as 
that  battle  was  certainly  fought  not  long  after  the  rebellion 
broke  out.  For  David  continued  in  the  plain  of  the  wil- 
derness, where  he  first  retreated,  and  which  was  not  far 
distant  from  Jerusalem,  till  he  was  informed  what  meas- 
ures Absalom  was  determined  to  follow.  These  were  fixed 
on  soon  after  that  rebel's  entrance  into  Jerusalem,  and  as 
soon  as  the  affair  would  admit,  put  in  execution.  Nay,  so 
soon  was  the  plan  of  operations  fixed,  that  Hushai,  David's 
friend,  who  continued  with  Absalom  at  Jerusalem,  sent  an 
express  to  David  to  acquaint  him,  that  he  had  defeated  the 
counsel  of  Ahithophel,  but  withal  to  advise  him,  not  to 
lodge  a  single  night  more  in  the  plains,  but  instantly  to 
pass  ovei  Jordan,  lest  he  and  all  his  people  should  be  swal- 


lowed up  by  a  stictig  detachment  from  the  rebel  army. 
David  immediately  hastened  to  and  passed  the  river,  and 
could  have  but  a  few  weeks  or  months  to  draw  together  his 
troops ;  for  Absalom  was  soon  after  him,  attacked  his 
father,  and  his  death  put  an  end  to  the  unnatural  rebellion. 
Besides,  the  country  in  general  must  have  been  free  from 
any  great  commotions;  for,  as  David  retreated  beyond 
Jordan,  collected  his  forces,  and  fought  the  rebels  in  the 
territories  of  the  tribes  on  that  side  the  river,  the  principal 
commotions  must  have  happened  there,  and  could  not  much  . 
affect  the  ten  tribes,  and  occasion  a  three  years'  famine 
throughout  that  whole  country. 

The  natural  cause  of  that  famine  was  the  want  of  the 
usual  rains,  and  the  violent  heat  and  drought  of  the  seasons 
during  that  period ;  for  it  is  observed  ot  Rizpah,  that  as 
soon  as  her  tw^o  sons  were  put  to  death,  she  spread  herself 
a  tent  upon  the  rock  where  they  were  hung  up  from  the 
beginning  of  harvest  until  water  dropped  on  them  out  of 
heaven,  i.  e.  till  the  rain  came,  which  had  been  so  long 
withheld,  and  it  thereby  appeared  that  the  displeasure  of 
God  towards  the  nation  was  fully  appeased.  But  though 
David  could  account  for  the  natural  cause  of  the  famine, 
yet  its  long  continuance  was  so  unusual  and  extraordinary 
an  event,  as  that  he  thought  himself  obliged  to  inquire  of 
the  Lord  for  the  reasons  of  it,  that  he  might  prevent,  if  he 
could,  the  further  continuance  of  it,  by  averting  the  dis- 
pleasure of  God,  of  which  the  famine  seemed  to  be  the  im- 
mediate eflfect.  Upon  his  inquiring,  he  was  answered,  that 
it  was  upon  the  account  of  "  Saul,  and  his  bloody  house, 
because  he  slew  the  Gibeoniles;"  after  which  the  historian 
immediately  informs  us,  that  "  Saul  sought  to  slay  them  in 
his  zeal  to  the  children  of  Israel  and  Judah ;"  and  the 
Gibeonites  themselves  complained  to  David,  that  Saul  was 
the  ma4i  that  "  consumed  them,  and  devised  against  them, 
that  they  should  be  destroyed  from  remaining  in  any  of  the 
coasts  of  Israel."  And  indeed  the  murder  of  these  poor 
people  was  an  action  suitable  to  Saul's  sanguinary  temper ; 
and  if  he  was  bloody  enough  to  put  to  the  sword,  without 
any  provocation,  a  whole  city  of  his  own  subjects,  what 
should  hinder  him  from  endeavouring  to  exterminate  these 
Amorites  out  of  the  land,  if  he  could  hereby  oblige  his  own 
people,  by  enriching  them  with  their  fields  and  vineyard^', 
and  thereby  better  establish  himself  and  his  family  in  the 
kingdom.  Samuel  indeed  is  not  anywhere  said  to  have 
charged  Saul  with  any  such  slaughter.  Probably  that 
prophet  was  dead  before  this  carnage  of  the  Gibgonites  hap- 
pened, and  therefore  it  was  no  wonder  he  never  charged 
Saul  with  it.  He  lived  long  enough  after  Samuel's  death 
to  perpetrate  this  crime,  when  it  would  not  be  in  Samuel's 
power  to  reproach  him  with  it.  If  Samuel  was  alive,  it  is 
absolutely  certain  that  he  never  visited  Saul,  and  so  could 
not  reproach  him  for  his  barbarity.  But  to  question  the 
fact  is  to  denv  the  history,  which  as  peremptorily  fastens  it 
on  Saul,  as  it  does  any  other  fact  whatsoever.  The  deed 
itself  was  a  perfidious  and  bloody  one  ;  the  destruction  of 
many  of  the  Gibeonites,  and  a  determined  purpose  wholly 
to  extirpate  the  remainder  of  them  out  of  the  country,  in 
violation  of  the  public  oath  and  faith  that  had  been  given 
them  for  their  security,  without  any  provocation  or  for- 
feiture of  life  on  their  part.  He  cut  them  off"  in  cold  blood, 
defenceless  and  unarmed,  though  they  were  serviceable  to 
the  nation,  and  many  of  them  appropriated  to  the  service  of 
God  and  of  his  tabernacle,  merely  for  secular  and  political 
views,  and  that  he  might  serve  himself,  by  gratifying  some  of 
the  tribes  among  whom  they  lived,  and  who  wanted  to  pos- 
sess themselves  of  their  cities  and  lands.  It  is  probable  his 
death  prevented  the  full  execution  of  this  barbarous  pur- 
pose, which  therefore  seems  to  have  been  begun  but  a  very 
little  while  before  it,  in  order  to  support  his  declining  inte- 
rest, and  ingratiate  himself  with  the  children  of  Israel  and 
Judah ;  with  Judah  particularly,  of  which  tribe  David  was, 
and  in  whose  territories  some  of  the  Gibeonitish  towns 
were,  to  whom  he  thought  the  expulsion  of  that  people 
might  be  agreeable,  and  so  might  be  a  means  of  retaining 
that  powerful  tribe  in  his  interest.  The  crime  therefore 
Vas  enormous  in  itself,  and  aggravated  with  the  most 
heinous  circumstances ;  and  which  all  civilized  nations, 
almost  in  all  ages,  have  looked  upon  with  horror,  and  as 
highly  deserving  the  divine  displeasure  and  vengeance. 
Antiphon,  one  of  the  principal  orators  of  Greece,  pleading 
for  the  bringing  a  murderer  to  justice,  against  whom  the 
evidence  was  not  so  full  as  was  desired,  but  the  circum- 


^32 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  21. 


bloody  house  1  In  the  beginning  of  David's  reign,  his  own 
unsettled  condition  for  seven  years  and  more,  when  Saul's 
family  disputed  the  crown  with  him,  and  could  none  of 
them  have  been  brought  to  justice  by  him ;  the  many  neces- 
sary wars  he  was  afterward  engaged  in,  and  perhaps  not 
thinking  himself  obliged  to  take  notice  of  Saul's  conduct 
during  his  reign,  or  his  very  tenderness  for  the  family  of 
his  predecessor  and  father-in-law,  might  all  concur  to  pre- 
vent any  public  inquisition  into  this  cruel  transaction,  or 
calling  any  of  the  offenders  to  an  account  for  it  in  the  com- 
mon course  of  justice.  And  God  permitted  things  to  take 
their  natural  course,  and  not  to  manifest  his  displeasure  on 
this  account,  till  it  could  be  done  in  such  a  manner,  as  should 
make  his  justice,  as  the  God  and  king  of  Israel,  more  con- 
spicuous, and  the  execution  of  his  vengeance  more  obser- 
vable and  awful,  and  as  should,  at  the  same  time,  most 
effectually  prevent  all  future  attempts  to  injure  or  extirpate 
that  unhappy  people. 

Particular  events  may  for  a  long  while  be  delayed,  and 
the  very  delay  of  them  may,  in  concurrence  with  the  opera- 
tions of  providence,  be  one  means  at  last  of  bringing  them 
to  pass  with  greater  observation,  and  more  convincing 
evidence  of  the  interposition  of  God  in  bringing  them  about, 
as  is  frequently  the  case  in  long-concealed  murders.  God 
therefore,  in  a  time  of  profound  peace,  when  David's  gov- 
ernment was  settled,  and  there  was  nothing  to  interrupt  the 
course  of  justice,  punishes  the  people  with  a  three  years' 
famine,  to  let  them  feel  his  displeasure,  to  render  them 
solicitous  to  know  the  cause  of  it,  and  take  the  proper 
methods  to  appease  it.  So  that  though  no  train  of  inter- 
vening and  unavoidable  circumstances  can  impede  the 
operations  of  providence,  or  prevent  what  God  is  deter- 
mined to  bring  to  pass,  yet  such  circumstances  may,  for  a 
very  considerable  while,  impede  the  operations  of  human 
justice ;  nevertheless,  how  long  soever  that  justice  may  be 
delayed,  it  will  certainly  at  last  take  place,  when  God 
judges  it  the  proper  season  to  execute  it,  and  when  such 
execution  shall  most  effectually  demonstrate  his  inspection, 
and  tend  to  secure  the  purposes  of  his  moral  providence  and 
government  over  mankind. 

It  is,  I  think,  more  than  obscurely  intimated,  in  those 
words  of  David  to  the  Gibeonites,  "  What  shall  I  do  for 
ycu,  and  wherewithal  shall  I  make  the  atonement,  that  ye 
may  bless  the  inheritance  of  the  Lord  V  that  they  had 
loudly  exclaimed  against  the  violation  of  the  public  faith, 
and  the  perfidy  and  cruelty  of  Saul  and  his  family,  who 
had  destroyed  them ;  and  demanded  that  some  satisfaction 
should  be  made  them,  and  had  invocated  the  vengeance  of 
God  against  their  murderers.  To  demand  satisfaction  they 
had  a  right,  as  the  vindices  sanguinis,  the  avengers  of  blood, 
or  the  near  relations  of  those  whom  Saul  had  cut  off;  and 
it  is  probable  that  they  took  occasion,  from  the  continuance 
of  the  famine  for  three  years,  to  renew  their  complaints  for 
the  injuries  they  had  suffered,  and  to  desire  that  justice 
might  be  done  them.  This  must  greatly  embarrass  David, 
as  Saul  and  his  sons  were  killed  in  battle,  and  no  satisfac- 
tion possibly  could  be  obtained  from  them ;  and  therefore, 
in  order  to  "know  the  real  cause  of  the  famine,  and  whe- 
ther any,  or  what  satisfaction  was  to  be  made  to  the  Gibeon- 
ites, he  determined  to  inquire  of  the  oracle,  and  govern 
himself  by  the  directions  of  it.  The  answer  he  received 
was,  that  the  famine  was  sent  for  Saul,  for  his  bloody  house, 
because  he  slew  the  Gibeonites. 

It  is  true,  that  the  oracular  response  did  not  in  words  dic- 
tate any  act  of  expiation  that  was  to  be  made  to  the  Gibeon- 
ites, but  only  mentioned  the  cause  of  the  famine.  And 
the  reason  is  plain,  because  when  it  was  known  that  the 
famine  was  sent  for  the  slaughter  of  these  poor  people  by 
Saul  and  his  bloody  house,  it  was  as  well  known  they  were 
to  have  some  justice  done  them  on  that  bloody  family,  for 
the  outrages  that  had  been  committed  on  them ;  for  David 
knew  that,  in  the  ordinary  course  of  justice,  the  shedding 
of  blood  was  only  to  be  atoned  for  by  the  shedding  of  his 
or  their  blood  on  whom  the  murder  was  chargeable.  So 
that  the  oracle  did  really  dictate,  though  not  in  words,  the 
necessity  of  an  expiation,  by  pointing  out  the  crime  for 
which  the  famine  was  sent.  And  thus  David  understood 
it.  when  sending  for  the  Gibeonites,  he  said  to  them :  "  What 
shall  I  do  for  you  1  Wherewith  shall  I  make  the  atone- 
ment 1"  i.  e.  the  atonement  for  the  blood  of  your  people,  that 
hath  been  unrighteously  shed.  The  Gibeonites  replied: 
"  We  will  have  no  silver  or  gold  of  Saul,  neither  for  us  shalt 


thou  kill  any  man  in  Israel."  No  compensation  could  be 
made  under  the  law,  for  wilful  murder,  by  silver  and  gold: 
and  indeed  nothing  could  have  argued  a  meaner  and  more 
sordid  disposition  in  these  people,  than  a  demand  of  money, 
in  satisfaction  for  the  massacre  committed  on  them ;  and 
though  the  nation  might  have  been,  and  certainly  was.  in 
some  respect  criminal,  for  permitting  Saul  to  cut  them  off, 
yet,  as  Saul  was  the  contriver  of  the  mischief,  and  his  fam- 
ily the  immediate  agents  who  destroyed  them,  they  did  not 
desire  that  any  one  person  in  Israel  should  be  put  to  death 
on  their  account,  which  was  an  argument  of  their  great 
moderation  and  regard  to  justice.  David  then  bid  them 
name  the  satisfaction  they  demanded,  and  promised  that  he 
would  give  it  them,  acting  herein  in  obedience  to  the  pro- 
phet's direction,  who,  as  Josephus  rightly  observes,  ordered 
him  to  grant  the  Gibeonites  whatsoever  satisfaction  they 
should  demand  of  him.  We  have  something  of  a  like  his- 
tory in  Herodotus,  who  tells  us,  that  after  the  Pelasgi  had 
murdered  their  Athenian  wives,  and  the  children  had  by 
them,  they  found  that  their  lands  became  barren,  their 
wives  unfruitful,  and  their  flocks  failed  of  their  usual  in- 
crease. On  this  account  they  sent  to  the  oracle  at  Delphos, 
to  know  by  what  means  they  might  obtain  deliverance  from 
these  calamities.  The  oracle  ordered  them  to  give  the 
Athenians  whatsoever  satisfaction  they  should  demand  of 
them.  The  Athenians  demanded,  that  they  should  deliver 
up  their  country  to  them,  in  the  best  condition  they  could. 
This  the  Pelasgi  promised  upon  a  certain  condition,  which 
they  thought  impossible.  However,  they  were  forced  in 
virtue  of  this  promise,  many  years  after,  to  surrender  it  to 
Miltiades,  some  of  them  making  no  resistance  to  his  forces, 
and  those  who  did,  were  besieged  and  taken  prisoners. — 
Chandler. 

Ver.  5.  And  they  answered  the  king,  The  man 
that  consumed  us,  and  that  devised  against  us 
that  we  should  be  destroyed  from  remaining 
in  any  of  the  coasts  of  Israel,  6.  Let  seven  men 
of  his  sons  be  delivered  unto  us,  and  we  will 
hang  them  up  unto  the  Lord  in  Gibeah  of 
Saul,  whom  the  Lord  did  choose.  And  the 
king  said,  I  will  give  them. 

It  appears  by  this,  that  the  demand  of  these  seven  per- 
sons, to  be  put  to  death,  was  by  order  of  God,  and  the  sac- 
rifice that  he  appointed  to  be  made  to  the  public  justice,  tc 
expiate  the  murders  committed  by  Saul,  for  they  were  to 
be  hung  up  to  the  Lord ;  i.  e.  in  obedience  to  his  will,  and 
to  appease  his  displeasure,  because  wilful  murders  are 
highly  offensive  to  God,  and  are  properly  to  be  expiated  by 
the  death  of  those  who  have  committed  them ;  in  which 
sense  every  offender  who  is  guilty  of  capital  offences,  ex- 
piates his  guilt  by  suffering  the  penalty  of  death,  and  there- 
by becomes  a  sacrifice  to  justice,  human  and  divine.  It  de- 
serves also  to  be  remarked,  that  the  Gibeonites  did  not  in- 
tend to  exterminate  the  family  of  Saul,  in  revenge  for  his 
intention  to  destroy  them  out  of  the  coasts  of  Israel,  but  only 
demanded  seven  of  his  sons,  and  left  the  choice  of  these 
seven  to  David  himself,  hereby  putting  it  out  of  their  power 
to  sacrifice  the  male  line  of  Saul  to  their  revenge,  and  giv- 
ing David  a  glorious  opportunity  to  show  how  religiously  he 
remembered  his  covenant  with  his  friend  Jonathan,  and 
that  no  policy  of  state  should  ever  induce  him  to  the  viola- 
tion of  it.  It  appears  from  hence,  that  David  could  not  in- 
stigate the  Gibeonites  to  make  this  request,  that  seven  of 
Saul's  sons  might  be  delivered  to  them,  that  they  might  kill 
them,  to  prevent  its  being  said  that  he  killed  them  for  their 
sakes,  and  that  the  Gibeonites  might  hereby  take  the  bl^me 
of  their  destruction  upon  themselves,  and  screen  David 
from  being  charged  with  that  murder  which  he  himsel/ 
had  contrived,  and  by  them  perpetrated.  For  if  the  Gibeon- 
ites had  acted  with  a  determined  purpose  to  cut  off  Saul's 
family,  they  would  have  named  their  men,  and  made  sure 
work  by  a  demand  of  Mephibosheth  and  his  family.  Or 
if  David  had  the  same  view,  he  would  have  prompted  the 
Gibeonites  to  have  asked  the  delivery  of  the  same  persons ; 
or,  when  the  choice  was  left  to  himself,  would  readily  have 
seized  the  opportunity  of  giving  up  those  that  he  appre- 
hended it  was  most  for  his  interest  to  get  rid  of  Indeed 
nothing  can  be  a  more  improbable  absurd  supposition  than 


Chap.  21. 


2  SAMUEL. 


233 


this  of  David's  instigating  the  Gibeonites  to  demand  seven 
of  Saul's  family  to  be  delivered  up  to  death,  as  an  expia- 
tion for  his  having  destroyed  many  of  them.  Whether 
there  was,  or  was  not,  such  a  massacre  of  them  by  Saul, 
must  be  universally  known  to  the  people  of  Israel.  For 
:5uch  an  execution  could  not  have  been  committed  in  a 
corner.  If  there  was  not,  how  could  the  Gibeonites  de- 
mand satisfaction  ]  For  what  could  they  demand  it  1  Or 
how  demand  it  from  the  house  of  Saul,  if  they,  and  all  the 
Deople  of  Israel  knew,  that  Saul  and  his  house  had  never 
aujured  them^  Or,  how  could  David  instigate  them  to  ask 
satisfaction  for  a  massacre,  that  he  and  all  his  people  knew 
had  never  been  committed  on  them  1  No  man  of  common 
sense  would  openly  pretend  a  reason  for  an  act  of  cruelty 
and  injustice,  which  had  not  the  shadow  of  a  reason  in  it, 
and  which  every  one  must  know  the  absolute  falsehood  of; 
and  it  must  have  been  much  less  exceptionable  to  all  Da- 
vid's subjects,  had  he  put  Saul's  family  to  death  by  an  act 
of  power,  and  openly  avowed,  that  he  did  it  to  secure  him- 
self and  his  own  family  on  the  throne,  than  to  cut  them  off 
by  such  a  barefaced  paltry  contrivance,  which  every  one 
must  see  through,  ana  which  could  not  diminish  the  guilt 
and  horror  of  the  fact,  but  only  serve  to  heighten  his  own 
impudence  and  wickedness,  and  expose  him  for  his  perfi- 
dy, subornation,  and  cruelty,  to  the  greater  abhorrence  of 
all  his  people.  And  indeed  it  is  acknowledged  that  a  more 
barefaced  deceit  was  never  exhibited ;  such  indeed  as  could 
only  have  been  attempted  among  the  poor  bigoted  Jews. 
But  I  would  observe,  that  as  this  transaction  was  carried 
on  in  an  open  public  manner ;  as  it  was  occasioned  by  a 
three  years'  famine ;  as  the  oracular  response  declared  the 
famine  was  sent  because  that  Saul  and  his  bloody  house 
had  consumed  the  Gibeonites ;  as  they  demanded  Saul's 
sons  for  an  expiation ;  and  David  delivered  them  up  for 
an  atonement ;  stupid  as  the  Jews  were,  it  was  too  barefaced 
a  deceit  to  pass  even  on  them ;  for  if  there  had  been  no 
massacre  of  the  Gibeonites  at  all,  nor  a  famine  of  three 
years'  continuance,  the  oracle  would  have  been  convicted 
of  an  immediate  lie,  and  could  never  have  persuaded  the 
people  into  the  belief  of  facts,  which  they  themselves  were 
absolutely  certain  never  existed.  If  David  was  so  vile  as  to 
attempt  this  deceit,  and  the  Jews  so  stupid  as  to  be  deluded 
by  it,  what  must  the  Gibeonites  be,  who  acted  in  this 
tragedy  by  David's  instigation,  charged  Saul  with  consu- 
ming and  destroying  them,  and  demanded  seven  of  hLs  sons 
as  victims'?  For  what '?  Why,  for  nothing;  for  destroy- 
ing and  consuming  them,  when,  in  reality,  they  knew  that 
he  did  not  destroy  and  consume  them,  and  all  the  nation 
knew  that  this  charge  against  Saul  was  an  imposture  and 
a  lie,  and  the  demand  of  his  sons  for  an  expiation  was  the 
highest  villany  and  impiety.  There  is,  I  believe,  no  man 
living  who  can  really  believe,  that  either  David  or  the  Gib- 
eonites could  be  thus  designedly,  shamelessly,  and  without 
inducement  wicked,  since  the  Gibeonites  were  to  have 
neither  gold  nor  silver  for  the  part  they  acted,  and  since 
David  might  have  cut  off  Saul's  family,  had  it  been  in  his 
heart  to  have  done  it,  and  assigned  reasons  for  it,  that 
would  have  carried  some  appearance  of  necessity  and  just- 
ice. If  Saul  was  in  reality  guilty  of  the  murder  of  these 
Gibeonites,  it  became  the  providence  of  God,  who  was  su- 
preme king  and  judge  in  Israel,  to  make  inquisition  for  the 
blood  that  was  shed,  and  manifest  his  displeasure  against 
><;uch  a  notorious  violation  of  the  public  faith  and  honour. 
Thu,s  also  will  David  be  fully  vindicated  from  the  charge 
.of  instigating  the  request  of  the  Gibeonites,  and  they 
from  the  iniquitous  imputation  of  concerting  with  him  so 
extremely  childish,  but  -yvicked  a  scheme,  of  cutting  off 
Saul's  posterity. 

It  hath  been  suggested  to  the  dishonour  of  David,  that 
m  consequence  of  this  request  of  the  Gibeonites,  which  he 
himself  m.ust  have  instigated,  David,  not  withheld  by  any 
motives  of  gratitude  towards  the  posterity  of  his  unhappy- 
father-in-law,  in  direct  violation  of  his  oath  to  Saul  at  the 
cave  of  Engedi,  granted  it ;  sparing  only  Mephibosheth, 
who  luckily  was  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  a  cripple,  and  so 
much  dependant  on  David,  that  he  had  no  room  for  appre- 
hension from  him.  He  therefore  reserved  Mephibosneth, 
in  memory  of  another  oath  between  him  and  his  father, 
Jonathan  ;  for  he  was  under  obligations  by  two  oaths,  and 
forgot  one,  and  remembered  the  other.  But  this  charge  is 
contrary  to  the  most  express  account  of  the  history,  and 
David's  conduct  in  this  affair  was  worthy  a  man  of  probity 
30 


and  honour,  and  consistent  with  the  strictest  regard  to  his 
oaths  both  to  Saul  and  Jonathan.  That  in  granting  the  re- 
quest to  the  Gibeonites,  he  directly  violated  his  oath  to  Saul 
at  the  cave  of  Engedi ;  or  cut  oflTthe  remainder  of  Saul's 
family,  in  defiance  of  the  solemn  oath  by  which  he  engaged 
to  spare  that  'mhappy  race,  needs  no  other  refutation  than 
the  oath  itself.  Saul  asked  David  to  swear  by  the  Lord, 
"  that  thou  wilt  not  cut  off  my  seed  after  me,  that  thou  Avilt 
not  destroy  my  name  out  of  my  father's  house."  David  gave 
him  his  oath  accordingly.  I  will  not  urge  here,  that  had 
Saul's  family  committed  crimes  worthy  of  death,  David's 
oath  would  have  been  no  reason  against  punishing  them 
according  to  their  deserts ;  and  such  punishment,  if  de- 
served, had  been  no  breach  of  his  oath.  But  I  shall  only 
observe,  that  if  David  did  not  cut  off  his  seed  after  him,  so 
as  to  destroy  his  name  out  of  his  father's  house,  he  did  not 
violate  his  oath  to  Saul.  Now  David  did  not  cut  off  one 
single  person  of  Saul's  family,  whose  death  had  the  least 
tendency  to  destroy  his  name  out  of  his  father's  house.  The 
seed  is  always  reckoned  by  the  males,  and  not  the  females 
of  a  family,  and  the  name  in  a  father's  house  could  only  be 
preserved  by  the  male  descendants.  But  David  gave  up 
only  the  son's  of  Saul's  concubine,  who  were  not  the  legal 
seed  of  Saul,  and  those  of  his  eldest  daughter,  Avho  could 
only  keep  up  Adriel's  name,  and  not  Saul's  ;  and  hereby 
conscientiously  observed,  without  the  least  violation,  his  oath 
to  Saul,  or  need  of  any  mental  reservation  to  help  him  out. 
To  this  it  is  objected,  that  if  the  seed  is  always  reckoned 
by  the  males,  and  not  the  females,  then  Jesus  Christ  could 
not  be  the  son  of  David,  because  he  did  not  descend  from 
David,  by  the  male  line,  but  from  the  female.  But  it  should 
be  observed,  that  the  son  by  a  daughter  is  as  really  the  son 
of  the  grandfather,  as  a  son  in  the  male  succession,  and 
that  the  only  difference  is,  that  the  succession  in  a  family 
is  kept  by  the  sons,  and  not  by  the  females,  who  by  marriage 
enter  into  other  families,  and  therefore  cannot  keep  up  the 
names  of  the  families  from  whence  they  sprang.  Jesus 
Christ  therefore  was  the  son  of  David,  though  only  so  by 
the  mother's  side  ;  and  as  he  was  not  to  keep  up  David's 
line  according  to  the  flesh,  it  was  expressly  predicted  of  him, 
by  a  double  prophecy,  that  he  should  be  of  the  female  line. 
The  one,  that  he  should  be  the  seed  of  the  woman ;  the 
other,  that  his  mother  should  be  a  virgin  ;  so  that  he  could 
not  have  been  that  son  of  David  who  was  to  be  the  Messiah, 
and  to  sit  on  his  throne  for  ever  and  ever,  had  he  been  Da- 
vid's son  by  an  earthly  father.  The  same  spirit  of  prophe- 
cy that  declared  he  should  be  David's  son,  as  expressly  de- 
clared that  he  should  be  so  by  the  mother ;  an  exception 
that  makes  no  alteration  in  the  general  rule  of  family 
successions,  which  were  constantly  among  the  Jews,  and 
almost  every  nation  in  the  world,  in  the  male  line,  and  not 
in  the  female.  Nor  is  it  true  that  he  spared  only  Mephi- 
bosheth, and  that  he  reserved  only  one  cripple,  from  whom 
he  could  have  no  apprehensions,  and  who  being  the  son  of 
Jonathan,  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  making  a  merit  of 
his  gratitude.  The  history  expressly  contradicts  this  as- 
sertion, for  Mephibosheth  had  a  son,  whom  he  called  Mi- 
cah,  who  was  now  old  enough  to  have  children,  and  had 
four  sons,  from  whom  descended  a  numerous  posterity. 
See  his  line  in  the  following  table  : — 

Saul,  Jonalh&n,  Mephibosheth,  or  Merib-baaJ, 

Micah, 

pitho^,  MeJech,Tare»,  Ab^z, 

Jehoadah, 

Alemeth,  Zimri,  Apmaveth, 

Moza, 

Binea, 

Kapha, 

Eleasah, 

Azel, 
t 

Azrikam  Bocheru,  Ishmael,  Sheariah,  Obadiah,  Ilanau. 

Eshck, 
Ulam,  Jeush,  Eliphelet, 
150  sons  and  grandsons. 


234 


2   SAMUEL. 


Chap.  21. 


0  faithless  David,  thus  to  leave  Saul  only  one  poor  crip- 
ple !  and  who,  not  withheld  by  any  moti  ves  of  gratitude,  and 
m  direct  violation  of  his  oath  to  Saul,  did  thus  wickedly 
cut  off  all  his  seed  after  him,  and  wholly  destroy  his  name, 
out  of  his  father's  house  !  It  appears  from  what  hath  been 
said  also,  that  when  it  is  insinuated  that  David  spared  Me- 
phibosheth,  oaly  because  as  a  cripple,  and  dependant  on 
David,  he  had  no  room  for  apprehension  from  him,  it  is 
mere  suggestion,  and  inconsistent  with  the  plainest  appear- 
ance to  the  contrary.  For  as  this  could  not  be  the  reason 
for  his  saving  Mephibosheth's  son  Micah,  and  his  family, 
it  is  not  likely  he  acted  from  it  in  sparing  Mephibosheth 
himself,  but  from  a  more  worthy  motive  towards  both,  out 

)f  regard  to  his  oath,  and  the  grateful  remembrance  he 
.-ilill  preserved  of  his  former  obligations  to,  and  friendship 
Avilh  Jonathan,  Mephibosheth's  father.  This  the  scripture 
asserts;  that  the  king  spared  Mephibosheth,  the  son  of  Saul, 
because  of  the  Lord's  oath  that  was  between  them,  between 
David  and  Jonathan  the  son  of  Saul. 

1  have  one  remark  more  to  make  on  this  part  of  the  his- 
tory, which  turns  out  to  David's  immortal  honour.  It  is 
observed,  that  some  certain  contemplations,  which  are  put 
into  David's  head,  calling  to  his  remembrance,  that  some 
of  Saul's  family  were  yet  living,  be  cdljcluded  it  expedient 
to  cut  them  off,  lest  they  should  hereafter  prove  thorns  in 
his  side ;  and  then  whenever  David  projected  any  scheme, 
a  religious  pretence,  and  the  assistance  of  the  priests,  were 
never  wanting.  But  for  this  charge  there  is  not  any  found- 
ation. For  Saul's  bastard  children,  and  the  children  by 
his  daughter,  could  never  be  thorns  in  David's  side,  any 
more  than  other  people,  or  the  other  branches  of  Saul's 
family,  because  incapable  of  the  crown ;  especially,  while 
there  continued  a  lineal  descent  in  the  male  line  from  Saul 
himself  David  therefore  could  not  be  guilty  of  all  this 
villany  and  folly  with  which  he  hath  been  charged,  for 
the  sake  of  cutting  off  Saul's  family,  lest  they  should 
be  thorns  in  his  side,  because  he  cut  off  none  but  those  who 
could  be  no  thorns  in  his  side,  and  suffered  all  those  to  live, 
who  alone  were  capable  of  proving  thorns  in  his  side ;  and 
therefore  David  projected  no  such  scheme  as  this  of  cutting 
off  Saul's  family ;  yea,  his  conduct  in  this  affair  was  di- 
rectly the  reverse  of  what  he  must  have  done  had  he  pro- 
jected any  such  scheme ;  and  therefore  I  must  conclude, 
tliat  as  no  such  scheme  was  ever  projected,  there  was,  and 
could  be,  no  occasion  for  a  religious  pretence,  or  tlie  assist- 
ance of  the  priests,  to  sanctify  and  accomplish  it.  There 
have  been,  I  acknowledge,  commotions  excited  in  states  by 
illegitimate  children,  and  by  descendants  in  the  female  line. 
But  I  know  of  no  instance,  in  ancient  or  modern  history, 
of  any  prince,  who  remembering  that  some  of  his  predie- 
cessor's  family,  who  might  dispute  with  him  his  crouTi  by 
their  descent,  were  living,  and  concluding  it  expedient  to 
cut  them'off,  lest  they  should  hereafter  prove  thorns  in  his 
side,  should,  to  answer  this  end,  cut  off  only  the  bastard 
children,  and  those  of  the  daughters,  and  leave  the  son  and 
grandson  of  his  predecessor  alive  to  propagate  their  de- 
scendants, and  in  them  claimants  to  his  crown,  and  thorns 
in  his  side,  to  all  generations.  Suspicious  and  jealous  ty- 
rants love  to  make  surer  work ;  but  David,  under  a  neces- 
sity of  delivering  up  some  of  his  predecessor's  family  to 
justice,  generously  preserved  the  claimants  to  his  crown 
alive,  and  delivered  up  those  only  from  whom  he  could 
have  nothing  to  fear,  as  having  no  kind  of  legal  right  to 
the  government  and  kingdom. 

Illustrious  prince !  Be  thy  name  and  memory  ever  re- 
vered, thy  generosity  ever  spoken  of  with  praise ;  who, 
when  forced  by  providence  to  give  up  to  justice  some  of 
the  guilty  family  of  thy  persecutor  and  sworn  enemy,  didst 
from  the  greatness  of  thy  mind,  thy  prevailing  humanity, 
thy  regard  to  thy  oath  to  one  who  sought  thy  life,  and  thy 
pleasing  remembrance  of  thy  once  loved  friend;  refuse  to  ciit 
off  the  seed  of  him  that  persecuted  thee,  and  to  destroy  his 
name  out  of  his  father's  house,  but  didst  nourish  his  seed 
in  thy  bosom,  maintain  it  in  thy  family,  suffer  it  to  increase 
and  prosper,  and  spread  itself  out  into  numerous  branches, 
even  when  policy  might  have  dictated  other  measures,  and 
a  wicked  craft  would  certainly  have  pursued  them.  Fresh 
be  thy  ^aurels  to  the  latest  posterity,  and  thine  unexampled 
generosity  ever  be  remembered  with  the  veneration  aud  es- 
1  teem,  which  it  claims  from  all  the  benevolent  and  virtuous 
part  of  mankind.  It  should  be  further  mentioned,  on  this 
ocp-asion,  to  David's  honour,  that  though  he  was  necessitated 


to  deliver  up  some  of  Saul's  family  to  justice,  to  give  satis- 
faction  to  the  injured  Gibeonites,  yet  that  he  took  the  first 
opportunity  to  pay  the  last  tokens  of  respect  that  could  be 
to  Saul  and  his  imhappy  family.  For  as  soon  as  ever  it- 
appeared,  that  the  natural  cause  of  the  famine  was  over,  by 
the  return  of  the  rains,  David  ordered  the  bones  of  Saul 
and  Jonathan  to  be  fetched  from  the  men  of  Jabesh-gilead, 
who  had  recovered  them  from  the  Philistines,  and  took 
them,  together  with  the  bones  of  those  that  had  been  hanged 
up,  and  buried  them  honourably  in  the  sepulchre  of  Kish, 
Saul's  father ;  whereby  he  showed,  that  he  had  no  inveter- 
ate enmity  to  Saul's  family,  but  was  pleased  with  the  op- 
portunity of  showing  respect  to  his  name  and  memory. 
This  whole  account  concludes  with  this  observation  of  the , 
historian  :  "  They  performed  all  that  the  king  commanded, 
and  after  that  God  was  entreated  for  the  land."  God  ap- 
proved his  generosity  to  the  family  and  remains  of  his 
enemy,  and  as  the  reward  of  it,  sent  prosperity  to  him  and 
his  people. — Chandler. 

Ver.  10.  And  Rizpah  the  daughter  of  Aiah  took 
sackcloth,  and  spread  it  for  her  upon  the  rock, 
from  the  beginning  of  harvest  until  water  drop- 
ped upon  them  out  of  heaven,  and  sufiered 
neither  the  birds  of  the  air  to  rest  on  them  by- 
day,  nor  the  beasts  of  the  field  by  night. 

Speaking  of  a  great  precipice  near  Bylan,  Mr.  Parsons 
says*"  three  loaded  camels  fell  down  the  precipice,  and 
were  killed  on  the  spot,  in  my  remembrance  ;  and  what  is 
very  remarkable,  in  less  than  thirty  hours  after  their  loads 
were  taken  off,  there  was  not  left  a  piece  of  flesh,  but  all 
was  devoured  by  the  vultures  in  the  dav,  and  the  beasts  oi 
prey,  mostly  jackals,  in  the  night."— Burder. 

By  a  passage  of  La  Roque,  it  appears,  that  if  the  usual 
rains  have  failed  in  the  spring,  it  is  of  great  benefit  to  have 
a  copious  shower,  though  very  late:  for  he  tells  us,  that 
when  he  arrived  at  Sidon,  in  the  end  of  June,  it  had  not 
rained  there  for  many  months,  and  that  the  earth  was  so 
extremely  dry,  that  the  cotton  plants,' and  the  mulberry- 
trees,  which  make  the  principal  riches  of  that  country, 
were  in  a  sad  condition,  and  all  other  thjngs  suffered  in 
proportion,  so  that  a  famine  was  feared,  which  is  generally 
followed  with  a  pestilence.  He  then  tells  us,  that  all  the 
sects  of  religion  which  lived  there  had,  in  their  various 
ways,  put  up  public  prayers  for  rain,  and  that  at  length  on 
the  very  day  that  the  Mohammedans  made  a  solemn  pro- 
cession out  of  the  city,  in  the  way  of  supplicating  for  mer- 
cy, all  on  a  sudden  the  air  thickened,  and  all  the  marks  ol 
an  approaching  storm  appeared,  and  the  rain  descended  in 
such  abundance,  that  all  those  that  attended  the  procession 
got  back  to  the  city  with  considerable  difiiculty,  and  in  dis- 
order. He  adds,  "that  the  rain  continued  all  that  day,  and 
part  of  the  night,  which  perfected  the  revival  of  the  plants, 
and  the  saving  of  the  productions  of  the  earth. 

La  Roque  is  evidently  embarrassed  with  this  fall  of  the 
rain  just  at  the  time  the  Mohammedans  were  presenting  ~ 
their  supplications,  when  neither  the  solemn  prayers  of 
the  Greek  bishop,  nor  those  of  the  Latin  monks,  nor  even 
the  exposing  of  the  Host  for  many  days,  had  been  thus  hon- 
oured :  "  At  last,"  said  he,  "  Heaven,"  which  bestows  its  fa- 
vours, when  and  how  it  pleases,  and  who  causes  it  to  rain 
on  the  unjust  and  the  infidel,  permitted  so  great  an  abun- 
dance of  rain  to  fall,"  (fee.  But  there  certainly  was  no  ocr 
casion  for  any  such  disquietude ;  there  was  no  dispute  which 
religion  was  most  excellent  involved  in  this  transaction, 
nor  does  any  thing  more  appear  in  it  than  this,  that  God, 
the  universal  parent,  having  at  length  been  sought  to  by  all, 
showered  down  his  mercies  upon  all.  But  the  intention  of 
these  papers  leads  me  to  remarks  of  a  different  kind.  This 
author  does  not  tell  us  when  this  rain  fell,  which  is  to  be 
regretted,  and  the  more  so,  as  he  is  often  exact  in  less  im- 
portant matters.  However,  it  could  not  be  before  the  end 
of  June,  N.  S.  for  he  did  not  arrive  at  Sidon  imtil  then;  and 
it  could  not  be  so  late  as  the  usual  time  of  the  descent  of 
the  autumnal  rains,  for  the  cotton  is  ripe  in  September,  un- 
til the  middle  of  which  month  those  rains  seldom  fall,  often 
later,  and  this  rain  is  supposed  to  have  been  of  great  service 
to  the  growing  cotton  ;  consequently,  these  general  prayers 
for  rain  could  not  refertoautumnal  showers,  but  a  late  spring 
rain,  which  probably  happened  soon  after  his  arrival,  or 


Chap.  22. 


2  SAMUEL. 


23# 


about  the  time  that  Dr.  Russel  tells  us  those  severe  Ihun- 
dershowers  fell  at  Aleppo,  which  I  have  before  taken  no- 
tice of,  that  is,  about  the  beginning  of  July,  O.  S.  And 
though  the  harvest  must  have  been  over  at  Sidon  by  the 
time  this  gentleman  arrived  there,  and  they  had,  therefore, 
nothing  then  to  hope  or  to  fear  for  as  to  that,  yet  as  the 
people  of  those  countries  depend  so  much  on  garden  stuff, 
the  in,spissated  juice  of  grapes,  figs,  olives,  &c.  they  might 
be  apprehensive  of  a  scarcity  as  to  these  too,  which  they 
might  hope  to  prevent  by  this  late  rain.  For  the  like  rea- 
son, such  a  rain  must  have  been  extremely  acceptable  in 
the  days  of  David.  And  it  must  have  been  more  so,  if  it 
<*ame  a  good  deal  earlier,  though  we  must  believe  it  to  have 
jeen  after  all  expectations  of  it  in  the  common  way  were 
over ;  and  such  a  one,  I  suppose,  was  granted.  Dr.  Dela- 
ny  indeed,  in  his  life  of  David,  tells  us,  that  the  Rabbins 
suppose  the  descendants  of  Saul  hanged  from  March,  from 
the  first  days  of  the  barley-harvest,  to  the  following  Octo- 
ber, and  he  seems  to  approve  their  sentiments.  Dr.  Shaw 
mentions  this  affair  only  cursorily ;  however,  he  appears  to 
have  imagined  that  they  hanged  until  the  rainy  season 
came  in  course.  But  surely  we  may  much  better  suppose 
it  was  such  a  rain  as  La  Roque  speaks  of,  or  one  rather 
earlier.  The  ground  Delany  goes  upon  is  a  supposition, 
that  the  bodies  that  were  hanged  up  before  the  Lord,  hung 
until  the  flesh  was  wasted  from  the  bones,  which  he  thinks 
is  affirmed  in  the  13th  verse  of  that  chapter;  but,  I  must 
confess,  no  such  thing  appears  to  be  affirmed  there;  the 
bodies  of  Saul  and  his  sons,  it  is  certain,  hanged  but  a  very 
little  while  on  the  wall  of  Beihshan  before  the  men  of  Ja- 
besh-gilead  removed  them,  which  yet  are  called  bones  ;— 
"  They  took  their  bones  and  buried  them,"  1  Sam.  xxxi.  13 ; 
the  seven  sons  of  Saul  then  might  hang  a  very  little  time 
in  the  days  of  King  David.  And  if  it  should  be  imagined 
that  the  flesh  of  Saul  was  consumed  by  fire,  verse  12,  and 
so  the  word  bones  came  to  be  used  in  the  account  of  their 
interment,  can  any  reason  be  assigned  why  we  should  not 
suppose  these  bodies  were  treated  afler  the  same  manner  1 
But  it  appears  that  the  word  bo7ies  frequently  means  the 
same  thing  with  corpse,  which  circumstance  also  totally  in- 
validates this  way  of  reasoning  :  so  the  embalmed  body  of 
Joseph  is  called  his  bones,  Gen.  1.  25,  26,  and  Exod.  xiii."l9 ; 
so  the  lying  prophet  terms  his  body,  just  become  breathless, 
his  bones:  "  when  I  am  dead,  then  bury  me  in  the  sepul- 
chre wherein  the  man  of  God  is  buried,  lay  my  bones  be- 
side his  bones,"  1  Kings  xiii.  31.  So  Josephus  tells  us  that 
Simon  removed  the  bones  of  his  brother  Jonathan  the  high- 
priest,  who  was  slain  by  Tryphon  when  he  was  departing 
out  of  that  country,  though  Simon  seems  to  have  removed 
the  body  as  soon  as  might  be  afler  Tryphon's  retirement. 

Such  a  late  spring  rain  would  have  been  attended,  as  the 
rain  at  Sidon  was,  with  many  advantages ;  and  coming  af- 
ter all  hope  of  common  rain  was  over,  and  presently  fol- 
lowing the  death  of  these  persons  on  the  other  hand,  would 
be  a  much  more  merciful  management  of  Providence,  and 
a  much  nobler  proof  that  the  execution  was  the  appoint- 
ment of  God,  and  not  a  political  stratagem  of  David,  than 
the  passing  of  six  months  over  without  any  rain  at  all,  and 
then  its  falling  only  in  the  common  track  of  things.  This 
explanation  also  throws  light  on  the  closing  part  of  this 
story, "  And  after  that  God  was  entreated  for  the  land."  Dr. 
Delany  seems  to  suppose  that  the  performing  these  funeral 
rites  was  requisite  to  the  appeasing  God:  but  could  that  be 
the  meaning  of  the  clause  1  Were  the  ignominy  of  a  death 
the  law  of  Moses  pronounced  accursed,  and  the  honour  of 
a  royal  funeral,  both  necessary  mediums  of  appeasing  the 
Almighty  1  Is  it  not  a  much  easier  interpretation  of  this 
clause,  The  rain  that  dropped  on  these  bodies  was  a  great 
mercy  to  the  country,  and  the  return  of  the  rains  in  due 
quantities  afterward,  in  their  season,  proved  that  God  had 
been  entreated  for  the  land '?— Harmer. 

Ver.  12.  And  David  went  and  took  the  bones  of 
Saul,  and  the  bones  of  Jonathan  his  son,  from 
the  men  of  Jabesh-g-ilead,  which  had  stolen 
them  from  the  streets  of  Beth-shan,  where  the 
Ptiilistines  had  hano-ed  them,  when  the  Phi- 
listines had  slain  Saul  in  Gilboa. 

^"Beth-shan."    Calmet  says  on  this,  "House,  or  temple 
w  the  tooth,  or  of  ivory ;  from  (no)  beth,  a  Muse,  and  (jv) 


shen,  a  tooth.  This  title  means,  no  doubt,  simply  the  tem- 
ple of  the  tooth,  but  we  have  no  reason  to  conclude  that  a 
TOOTH  only  was  worshipped  in  any  temple  in  Canaan  ;  it 
must  have  been  the  symbol  of  some  deity."  Calmet  then 
proceeds  to  show  that  this  may  have  been  the  god  Gjniesa 
of  the  East,  who  is  represented  w^h  an  elephant's  head, 
and  supposes  the  tusks  are  alluded  to  by  the  tooth.  I  am 
not  aware,  however,  of  any  such  distinction  being  maae  in 
that  deity,  and  think  it  unlikely  that  his  tusk  would  give 
the  name  to  a  temple.  Is  it  not  a  curious  fact,  that  the 
tooth  of  Buddha  is  the  most  sacred  and  precious  relic,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  inhabitants  of  Siam,  of  the  Burm?n  em- 
pire, and  of  Ceylon?  That  tooth  is  kept  in  the  temple  of 
Kandy,  the  capital  of  Ceylon.  Buddhism  is  the  religion  of 
China,  and  of  those  countries  alluded  to,  and  it  was  for- 
merly the  religion  of  multitudes  in  India. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
Ver.  6.  The  sorrows  of  hell  compassed  me  about; 
the  snares  of  death  prevented  me. 

This  is  an  allusion  to  the  ancient  manner  of  hunting, 
which  is  still  practised  in  some  countries,  and  was  perform- 
ed by  surrounding  a  considerable  tract  of  ground  by  a 
circle  of  nets,  and  afterward  contracting  the  circle  by  de- 
grees, till  they  had  forced  all  the  beasts  of  that  quarter  to- 
gether into  a  narrow  compass,  and  then  it  v/as  that  the 
slaughter  began.  This  manner  of  hunting  was  n.scd  in  Ita- 
ly of  old,  as  well  as  all  over  the  eastern  parts  of  the  -world, 
and  it  was  from  this  custom  that  the  poets  som.etimes  repre- 
sented death  as  surrounding  persons  with  her  necs,  ana  as 
encompassing  them  on  every  side.— Burder. 

Ver.  35.  He  teacheth  my  hands  to  war ;  so  that 
a  bow  of  steel  is  broken  by  mine  arms. 

The  bow  is  the  first  weapon  mentioned  in  the  holy  scrip- 
tures, and  seems  to  have  been  quite  familiar  to  the  imme- 
diate descendants  of  Abraham.  "  Take,"  said  Isaac,  "thy 
quiver  and  thy  bow,  and  go  out  to  the  field,  and  take  me 
some  venison.  Here  indeed  the  reference  is  to  hunting; 
but  we  learn  from  the  remark  of  Jacob  to  his  favourite  son, 
that  the  weapon  which  was  found  so  useful  in  his  art,  was 
soon  turned  against  our  species ;  and  it  still  continues  to 
maintain  its  place  in  some  countries,  among  the  instruments 
of  human  destruction. 

We  learn  from  Homer,  that  the  Grecian  bow  was  at  first 
made  of  horn,  and  tipped  with  gold.  But  th^  material  oi 
which  it  was  fabricated,  seems  for  the  most  part  to  have 
been  wood,  which  the  workman  frequently  adorned  with 
gold  and  silver.  One  of  these  ornamented  weapons  pro- 
cured for  Apollo,  a  celebrated  Cretan,  the  significant  name 
of  ApyvpoTo^og,  the  bearer  of  the  silver-studded  bow.  But 
the  Asiatic  warrior  often  used  a  bow  of  steel  or  brass,  which, 
on  account  of  its  great  stiffness,  he  bent  with  his  foot. 
Those  that  were  made  of  horn  or  wood  probably  required 
to  be  bent  in  the  same  way ;  for  the  Hebrew  always  speaks 
of  treading  his  bow,  when  he  makes  ready  for  the  battle  : 
and  to  tread  and  bend  the  bow  are  in  all  the  writings  of  the 
Old  Testament  convertible  phrases.  The  bow  of  steel  is 
distinctly  mentioned  by  the  Hebrew  bard  :  "  He  teaches  my 
hand  to  war,  so  that  a  bow  of  steel  is  broken  by  mine 
arms."  This  was  a  proof  of  great  strength,  and  of  uncom- 
mon success  in  "war,  which  he  ascribes  with  equal  piety  and 
gratitude  to  the  infinite  power  and  goodness  of  Jehovah. 
To  bend  the  bow,  was  frequently  proposed  as  a  trial  of 
strength.  Afler  Ulysses  had  bent  his  bow,  which  all  the 
suiters  of  Penelope  had  tried  in  vain,  he  boasted  to  his 
son  Telemachus  of  the  deed,  because  it  was  an  undenia- 
ble proof  that  he  had  not  lost  his  ancient  vigour,  in  which 
he  was  accustomed  to  glory.  Herodotus  relates,  that  when 
Cambyses  sent  his  spies  into  the  territories  of  Ethiopia, 
the  king  of  that  country,  -well  understanding  the  design  of 
their  visit,  thus  addressed  them ;  When  the  Persians  can 
easily  draw  bows  of  this  largeness,  then  let  them  invade  the 
Ethiopians.  He  then  unstrung  the  bow,  and  gave  it  to 
them  to  carry  to  their  master.  The  Persians  themselves, 
according  to  Xenophon,  carried  bows  three  cubits  m  length. 
If  these  were  made  of  steel  or  brass,  which  are  both  men- 
tioned* in  the  sacred  volume,  and  of  a  thickness  propor- 
tioned to  their  length,  they  must  have  been  very  dangerous 
weapons  even  in  close  fight;  and  as  such  they  are  repre- 
sented by  the  prophet  Isaiah;  "  Their  bows  also  shall  aasU 


236 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chaf.  22-^U, 


the  young  men  in  pieces;  and  they  shall  have  no  pity  on 
ihe  fruit  of  the  womb ;  their  eyes  shall  not  spare  children." 
In  time  of  peace,  or  when  not  engaged  with  the  enemy,  the 
oriental  warriors  carried  their  bow  in  a  case,  sometimes  of 
cloth,  but  more  commonly  of  leather,  hung  to  their  girdles. 
When  It  was  taken  from  the  case,  it  was  said,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Habakkuk,  to'be  "  made  quite  naked." — Paxton. 

Ver.  41.  Thou  hast  also  given  me  the  necks  of 
mine  enemies,  that  I  might  destroy  them  that 
hate  me. 

The  neck  is  often  used  for  the  whole  body,  and  in  threat- 
enings,  it  is  the  part  mentioned.  A  proprietor  of  slaves  is 
said  to  have  their  necks.  To  a  person  going  among 
wicked  or  cruel  people  it  is  said,  "  Go  not  there,  your 
puddara,  i.  e.  neck,  or  nape,  will  be  given  to  them,"  "  De- 
pend upon  it,  government  will  have  it  out  of  the  necks  of 
those  smugglers."  "  Have  you  paid  Chinnan  the  money  V 
"  No,  nor  will  I  pay  him."  "Whyl"  "Because  he  has 
had  it  out  of  my  neck."  When  two  men  have  been  fight- 
ing, the  conqueror  may  be  seen  to  seize  the  vanquished  by 
the  neck,  and  thrust  him  to  the  ground. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Ver.  16.  And  the  three  mighty  men  brake  through 
the  host  of  .the  Philistines,  and  drew  water  out 
of  the  well  of  Beth-lehem,  that  was  by  the  gate, 
and  took  it,  and  brought  it  to  David :  never- 
theless he  would  not  drink  thereof,  but  poured 
it  out  unto  the  Lord. 

There  is  an  account  very  similiar  to  this  in  Arrian's 
Life  of  Alexander.  Tunc  poculo  pleno,  sicut  oblatum  est 
Feddito :  non  solus,  inquit  bibere  sustineo,  nee  tam  exi- 
guum  devidere  omnibus  possum.  "  When  his  army  was 
greatly  oppressed  with  heat  and  thirst,  a  soldier  brought 
him  a  cup  of  water ;  he  ordered  it  to  be  carried  back,  say- 
ing, I  cannot  bear  to  drink  alone,  while  so  many  are  in 
want:  and  this  cup  is  too  small  to  be  divided  among  the 
whole.    Give  it  to  the  children  for  whom  you  brought  it," 

—  BURDER. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Ver.  1.  And  again  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was 
kindled  against  Israel,  and  he  moved  David 
against  them  to  say,  Go,  number  Israel  and 
Judah. 

Here  arises  the  question,  If  Moses  presupposed  the  law- 
fulness of  this  measure,  and  did  actually  twice  number  the 
people,  wherein  consisted  David's  sin  when  he  did  the 
same  1  Yet  the  Bible  says  that  he  actually  did  sin  in  this 
matter,  and  was  punished  for  it  by  God,  with  a  pestilence, 
which  lessened  the  sum  of  the  people  numbered,  by  70,000. 
The  history  of  this  event  is  given  in  2  Sam.  xxiv.  and 
1  Chron.  xxi. ;  and  these  passages  I  must  beg  the  reader  to 
peruse,  if  he  wishes  to  understand  what  follows.  The 
common  opinion  is,  that  David  offended  God  by  his  pride, 
and  his  desire  to  gratify  it,  by  knowing  over  how  many 
subjects  he  was  king.  This  is,  perhaps,  the  worst  expla- 
nation that  can  be  given  of  the  unlawfulness  of  his  order. 
Were  God  to  punish  by  pestilence  every  ambitious  motion 
in  the  hearts  of  kings,  and  every  sin  they  commit  in  thought, 
pestilences  would  never  cease.  It  must,  besides,  appear 
yery  strange  indeed,  how  such  a  man  as  Joab  should  have 
expressed  so  great  an  abhorrence  at  a  sin  that  consisted 
merely  in  pride  of  heart,  and  have  so  earnestly  dissuaded 
David  from  it.  Yet  he  thus  remonstrates  with  him,  say- 
ing, "  May  God  multiply  the  people  a  hundred-fold,  that 
the  king  may  see  it ;  but  wherefore  will  the  king  urge  this 
measure'?"  Or,  as  we  read  in  Chronicles,  "May  God 
piultiply  the  people  a  hundred-fold!  They  are  entirely 
devoted  to  the  king's  service.  But  whyseeketh  the  king  to 
do  this  1  and  why  should  guilt  be  brought  upon  Israel  ?" 
Notwithstanding  this  remonstrance,  however,  the  king, 
we  are  told  by  both  historians,  repeated  his  commai^d  with 
fo  much  rigour,  that  Joab  found  it  necessary  to  carry  it  into 
execution.  Now  Joab  was  not,  on  other  occasions,  a  man 
pf  narrow  conscience.    He  had  already  deliberately  plan- 


ned, and,  in  cold  blood,  perpetrated,  two  murders,  merely 
to  rid  himself  of  rivals.  And  when  David  gave  him 
the  hint  to  place  Uriah  in  the  post  of  danger,  he  was  by 
no  means  squeamish,  but  immediately  planned  and  com- 
menced an  attack,  in  which,  besides  Uriah,  a  great  num- 
ber of  his  bravest  soldiers  were  slain.  His  conscience, 
therefore,  could  not  be  incommoded  by  a  mandate  relative 
to  a  matter  in  itself  lawful,  and  where  the  sin,  in  whatever 
it  consisted,  lay  altogether  hid  in  the  king's  ambitious 
heart.  If  we  think  so,  we  must  look  upon  him  m  the  light 
of  a  court-chaplain,  and  a  semi-pietist ;  and  he  certainly 
was  neither.  What  he  hesitated,  therefore,  about  doing, 
must  have  appeared  in  his  own  eyes,  something  more 
serious  than  bare  murder.  Josephus,  however,  has  hit  upon 
an  idea,  which  may,  by  some,  be  thought  to  account  some- 
what more  probably,  than  the  opinion  now  mentioned,  for 
the  guilt  which  David  is  said  to  have  incurred  on  this  oc- 
casion. "  David,"  says  he,  "  made  the  people  be  numbered, 
without  exacting  for  the  sanctuary,  the  half-shekel  of  poll- 
tax  enjoined  by  the  Mosaic  law."  But  this  idea  loses  all  its 
weight,  if  I  am  right  in  my  opinion,  that  Moses  enjoined 
the  exaction  of  the  half-shekel,  not  upon  every  occasion  of 
a  census,  but  merely  on  the  first;  and  even  allowing  me  to 
be  wrong  in  this,  and  the  common  exposition  of  the  statute, 
in  the  time  of  Josephus,  to  be  the  more  correct  one,  still 
the  notion  of  Josephus  is  certainly  inadmissible  here.  For 
neither  in  Samuel  nor  Chronicles  do  we  find  the  least  men- 
tion of  the  half-shekel ;  nor  does  David  forbid  the  payment 
of  it,  but  only  orders  the  people  to  be  numbered  ;  so  that 
every  conscientious  person  had  it  in  his  power  to  pay  it  of 
himself,  and  the  hign-priest  to  demand  it  in  virtue  of  his 
office.  At  any  rate,  David's  census  appears,  in  this  re- 
spect, altogether  as  blameless  as  Moses^  second  one,  in  the 
account  of  which  (Numb,  xxvi.)  not  a  word  is  said  con- 
cerning the  poll-tax.  Nor  do  Joab  and  the  other  generals 
here  represent  to  the  king,  that  he  ought  to  order  the  pay- 
ment of  the  half-shekel,  but  only  intreat  him  to  desist  from 
the  census  itself.  And  finally,  David,  who  had  amassed  so 
many  millions  of  shekels,  (1  Chron.  xxix.)  and,  to  the  man- 
ifest prejudice  of  his  own  family,  destined  so  much  for 
building  a  temple,  must  actually  have  been  in  the  delirium 
of  a  hot  fever,  if,  contrary  to  all  his  other  views,  he  had 
not  had  a  desire  to  grant  for  the  future  erection  of  that 
edifice,  projected  by  himself,  the  half-shekel  payable  on 
the  census,  which  was  a  mere  trifle  compared  to  his  own 
donations,  and  came  not  out  of  his  own  purse. 

But  as  far  as  I  can  understand  the  story,  David  caused 
the  people  to  be  numbered,  neither  out  of  that  prudent 
solicitude  which  wiM  always  actuate  a  good  king,  nor  yet 
out  of  mere  curiosity,  but  that  by  means  of  such  a  census 
they  might  be  enrolled  for  permajient  military  service,  and 
to  form  a  standing  army ;  the  many  successful  wars  he  had 
already  carried  on,  having  filled  his  mind  with  the  spirit 
of  conquest.  We  find  at  least,  that  the  enumeration  was 
ordered  to  be  carried  on,  not  as  had  before  been  usual,  by 
the  priests,  but  by  Joab  and  the  other  generals ;  and  the 
very  term  here  used,  Safar,  (■\£r)  nuraeravii,  scripsit,  in- 
cludes also  in  itself  the  idea  of  numbering  for  military 
service,  and  is,  without  any  addition,  equivalent  to  our 
German  military  term,  enrolliren,  to  enrol,  or  muster. 
This,  indeed,  is  so  much  the  case,  that  Hassofer,  (iccn) 
the  scribe,  is  that  general  who  keeps  the  muster-rolls,  and 
marks  those  called  on  to  serve.  In  like  manner,  the  of- 
ficers are  termed  (cniso)  scribes.  David's  sin,  therefore, 
or  rather  (not  to  speak  so  theologically,  but  more  in  the 
language  of  politics)  his  injustice  and  tyranny  towards 
a  people  who  had  subjected  themselves  to  him  on  very  dif- 
ferent terms,  and  with  the  reservation  of  many  liberties 
consisted  in  this.  Hitherto,  the  ancient  and  natural  rule 
of  nations,  Quot  cives,  tot  milites,  had  certainly  been  so  far 
valid,  as  that,  in  cases  of  necessity,  every  citizen  was 
obliged  to  bear  arms  in  defence  of  the  state.  Such  emer- 
gences, however,  occurred  but  very  rarely;  and  at  other 
times  every  Israelite  was  not  obliged  to  become  a  soldier, 
and  in  peace,  for  instance,  or  even  during  a  war  not  very 
urgent,  subject  himself  to  military  discipline.  David  had 
made  a  regulation,  that,  exclusive  of  his  lifeguards,  calleii 
in  the  Bible,  Creti  and  Pleti,  24,000  men  should  be»on  duty 
every  month  by  turns  ;  so  that  there  were  always  288.000 
trained  to  arms"  within  the  year;  which  was  certainly  suf- 
ficient for  the  defence  of  the  coimtry,  and  for  commanding 
respect  fronv  the  neijjhbouring  nations,  especially  consid- 


Chap.  24. 


2   SAMUEL. 


2374 


ering  the  state  of  the  times,  and  the  advantages  in  point  of 
situation,  which  David's  dominions  enjoyed.  It  would  ap- 
pear, however,  that  he  did  not  think  this  enough.  Agitated, 
m  all  probability,  by  the  desire  of  conquest,  he  aspired  at 
the  establishment  of  a  military  government,  such  as  was 
that  of  Rome  in  after-times,  and  at  subjecting,  with  that 

view,  the  whole  people  to  martial  regulations;  that  so 
every  man  might  be  duly  enrolled  to  serve  under  such 
and  such  generals  and  officers,  and  be  obliged  to  perform 
military  duty  at  stated  periods,  in  order  to  acquire  the  use 
of  arms. 

Whether  such  a  measure,  if  not  absolutely  necessary  to 
the  preservation  of  the  state,  be  a  hardship  on  the  people, 
every  man  may  judge  from  his  own  feelings,  or  even  from 
the  most  recent  history  of  certain  nations.  For  even  in  a 
country  where  the  government  is  purely  monarchical,  and 
the  people  extremely  martial,  and  the  frontiers  of  which, 
from  the  uncompactness  of  its  territories,  are  not,  like  those 
of  the  Israelitish  empire,  surrounded  and  secured  by  moun- 
.  tains  or  deserts,  the  enrolment  of  every  individual  for  mil- 
itary service,  introduced  40  years  ago,  has  been  of  late 
spontaneously  abolished  by  a  very  warlike  sovereign,  be- 
cause he  found  that  it  was  too  oppressive,  and  furnished  a 
pretext  for  a  multitude  of  extortions.  Now  if  this  was  Da- 
vid's object,  it  is  easy  to  conceive,  that  Joab,  although  in 
Srivate  life  a  very  bad  character,  and  twice  guilty  of  mur- 
er,  might  yet  have  as  much  patriotism,  or  rather  political 
sagacity,  as  to  deprecate,  in  the  most  energetic  terms,  the 
execution  of  a  royal  mandate,  the  effect  of  which  would 
have  been  to  bring  a  free  people  under  the  worst  military 
despotism.  Very  bad  consequences  were  to  be  apprehend- 
ed, if  the  subjects  should  not  prove  sufficiently  patient  to 
submit  to  such  an  innovation.  The  army,  however,  devo- 
ted as  it  was  to  David,  and  approved  as  was  its  valour  in 
mnny  campaigns,  may,  perhaps,  have  effected  their  patient 
submission ;  and,  in  fact,  the  expression,  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  5,) 
And  they,  viz.  Joab,  and  the  other  generals  to  whom  the 
task  was  committed,  encamped  rear  Aroer,  appears  to  insin- 
uate, that  this  enumeration,  or  rather  this  enrolment  of  the 
people,  required  the  support  of  a  military  force. 

What  David  intended,  Uzziah,  his  successor,  in  the 
eighth  generation,  may  perhaps  have  accomplished.  The 
martial  measures  of  that  prince  (  2  Chron.  xxvi.  11 — 14^ 
are  not  commended;  the  prophet  Isaiah  (chap.  ii.  5 — 8) 
seems  rather  to  describe  them  in  the  language  of  censure; 
It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  the  enrolment  of  the 
whole  people  by  David,  and  by  Uzziah,  is  by  no  means  one 
and  the  same  thing.  The  former  ruled  over  a  powerful 
nation,  wherein  there  were  nearly  a  million  and  a  half  of 
people  able  to  bear. arms,  and  which  had  a  compact  and 
secure  frontier,  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Mediterranean : 
so  that,  for  the  safety  of  the  state,  no  such  oppressive  meas- 
ure was  requisite.  But  Uzziah  had  under  him  only  two 
tribes,  consisting  proKnbly  of  about  300,000  men,  and  his 
territories  were  not  rounded,  nor  the  frontiers  distinct  and 
strong.  Here,  therefore,  that  measure  might  be  necessary 
for  self-defence,  or,  at  any  rate,  admit  of  a  sufficient  apolo- 
gy, which,  in  David's  time,  was  quite  needless,  and  if 
strictly  enforced,  must  have  proved  absolutely  tyrannical. 

MiCHAELIS. 

From  several  passages  in  the  Old  Testament,  compared 
with  each  other,  it  appears  that  this  census,  or  numbering 
of  the  people,  was  a  sacred  action ;  as  the  money  was  to  be 
applied  to  the  service  of  the  temple.  It  was  not  like  that  in 
other  nations,  to  know  the  strength  of  the  government ;  for 
God  was  their  king  in  a  peculiar  manner,  and  promised  to 
protect  them  from  all  their  enemies,  and  to  multiply  them 
as  the  stars  of  the  sky,  while  they  obeyed  his  laws. — Da- 
vid's crime,  therefore,  seems  to  have  lain  in  converting  a 
sacred  action  to  a  civil  purpose.  He  was  culpable  both  in 
the  thing  itself,  and  in  the  manner  of  doing  it.  For  where- 
as by  the  rule  given  to  Moses,  in  the  passages  referred  to 
above,  they  were  to  number  the  males  from  twenty  years 
old  and  upward;  David  gave  orders,  that  all  should  be 
numbered,  who  were  fit  for  war,  though  under  that  age. 
This  must  haA^e  been  highly  criminal  in  David,  now  in  his 
old  age,  after  so  many  instances  of  the  Divine  favour  ex- 
pressed towards  him.  And  as  to  the  people,  their  offence 
seems  to  have  consisted  in  their  compliance  with  that  order. 
He  was  culpable  in  giving  the  order,  and  they  in  obeying  it. 
And  therefore  Joab,  who  was  sensible  of  this,  and  unwil- 
ling to  execute  the  command,  asks  David,  "  Why  he  would 


be  the  cause  of  trespass  in  Israel  ?"  For  by  that  means,  he 
reduced  them  to  the  difficulty  of  disobeying  God,  or  him- 
self, as  their  prince.  It  was"  doubtless  "their  duty  to  have 
obeyed  God;  but  we  find,  as  it  generally  happens  in  such 
cases,  that  the  majority,  at  least,  chose  to  obey  the  king. 
However,  it  appears  that  Joab  was  weary  of  the  office,  and 
did  not  go  through  it.  Probably  he  might  find  many  of  the 
people  uneasy,  and  averse  to  submit  to  the  order.  Besides, 
it  was  expressly  enjoined,  that  when  the  people  were  to  be 
numbered  from  twenty  years  old  and  upward,  the  Levites 
should  be  excepted,  as  being  appointed  for  the  service  of 
the  tabernacle.  And  as  they  were  not  called  out  to  war, 
so  they  had  no  share  in  the  land  of  Canaan  allotted  to  them, 
when  it  was  conquered  by  the  other  tribes;  who  were 
therefore  ordered  to  give  them  a  number  of  cities,  each 
tribe  out  of  their  portion,  which  was  accordingly  done. 
And  Josephus  assigns  that  reason  for  it,  when  he  says : — 
"  Moses,  because  the  tribe  of  Levi  were  exempted  from 
war  and  expeditions,  being  devoted  to  the  service  of  God, 
lest  being  needy  and  destitute  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  they 
should  neglect  the  care  of  their  sacred  function ;  ordered 
the  Hebrews,  that  when  by  the  will  of  God  they  possessed 
the  land  of  Canaan,  they'sho\ild  give  to  the  Levites  forty- 
eight  large  and  handsome  cities,  with  two  thousand  cubits 
of  land  round  the  walls."  But  David  seems  to  have  order- 
ed them  likewise  to  be  mustered,  with  a  military  view; 
which,  perhaps,  was  an  aggravation.  For,  it  is  said,  that 
when  Joab,  by  his  command,  numbered  the  people,  "  they 
were  eleven  himdred  thousand  men  that  drew  sword."  And 
it  is  added:  **But  Levi  and  Benjamin  counted  he  not 
among  them,  for  the  king's  word  was  abominable  to  Joab." 
So  that  it  looks  as  if  his  orders  were  to  count  them  with  the 
rest.  Indeed,  we  find  them  once  armed  upon  an  extraordi- 
nary occasion,  which  was  to  guard  the  temple  at  the  coro- 
nation of  Joash,  king  of  Judah.  For,  at  that  time,  they 
were  ordered  "  to  encompass  the  king  round  about,  every 
man  with  his  weapons  in  his  hand."  But  that  was  in  the 
temple,  where  the  rest  of  the  people  were  not  permitted  to 
enter.  And  besides  their  religious  function,  they  were 
sometimes  employed  in  other  civil  otfices.  So  David,  when 
he  was  making  preparations  for  building  the  temple,  ap- 
pointed six  thousand  of  them  for  officers  and  judges.  Gro- 
tius,  indeed,  observes,  with  regard  to  this  fact  of  David, 
that  he  declared  the  people  innocent :  which  he  seems  to 
have  concluded  from  what  David  says,  1  Chron.  xxi.  17. 
But  it  does  not  appear,  from  what  has  been  said  above,  that 
they  were  altogether  blameless,  though  not  equally  crimi- 
nal with  himself.  And  in  such  a  case,  the  equity  of  a  na- 
tional punishment  is  acknowledged  both  by  Philo  and 
Josephus,  in  the  passages  cited  from  them  by  Grotius.— 

ChITICA  BiBLlCA.  i| 

These  wars  being  thtts  happily  ended,  David  enjoyed  for 
some  time  a  settled- peace  and  prosperity,  without  any 
foreign  invasions  to  call  him  into  the  field,  or  domestic 
troubles  to  interrupt  him  in  the  affairs  of  government ;  but 
being  at  length  persuaded  and  prevailed  on  to  number  the 
people,  he  became  the  cause  of  trespass  to  Israel,  and 
brought  on  them  the  severe  punishment  of  a  pestilence. 
The  author  of  the  books  of  Samuel,  in  relating  this  affair, 
says :  "  That  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled  against 
Israel,"  and  he  moved  David  against  them  to  say,  "Go, 
number  Israel  and  Judah."  The  author  of  the  Chronicles 
differently  expresses  it.  '*  And  Satan  stood  up  against  Is- 
rael, and  provoked  David  to  number  Israel ;"  and  this  is 
objected  against  as  an  absurd  thing,  that  David  should  be 
said  to  be  moved  both  by  God  and  Satan  to  number  the 
people.  But  I  apprehend  this  difficulty  may  be  easily  re- 
moved, by  observing,  that  these  two  places  are  capable  of  a 
more  favourable  turn,  so  as  to  render  them  perfectly  recon- 
cileable  with  each  other,  according  to  the  genius  of  the 
language,  and  the  common  forms  of  expression  in  it.  The 
text  in  Samuel  may  be  thus  rendered:  "And  again  the 
anger  of  the  Lord  was'  kindled  against  Israel ;  for  he  moved 
David,"  or  "  David  was  moved  against  them  to  say.  Go, 
number  Israel  and  Judah ;"  active  verbs  in  the  third  person, 
being  frequently  to  be  rendered  as  impersonals,  and  not  to 
be  referred  to  the  nouns  immediately  foregoing;  and  thus 
the  text  will  be  fully  reconcileable  with  that  in  Chronicles, 
which  says,  that  "  Satan  moved  him  to  number  the  people." 
Or,  it  may  reasonably  be  supposed,  as  the  original  words 
we  render,  "  He  moved  David  against  them,"  are  the  same 
in  Samuel  and  the  Chronicles,  that  the  wo"d  Satan  hath 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chaf.  22— £4. 


the  young  men  in  pieces;  and  they  shall  have  no  pity  on 
ihe  fruit  of  the  womb ;  their  eyes  shall  not  spare  children." 
In  time  of  peace,  or  when  not  engaged  with  the  enemy,  the 
oriental  warriors  carried  their  bow  in  a  case,  sometimes  of 
cloth,  but  more  commonly  of  leather,  hung  to  their  girdles. 
When  It  was  taken  from  the  case,  it  was  said,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Habakkuk,  to'^be  "  made  quite  naked." — Paxton. 

Ver.  41.  Thou  hast  also  given  me  the  necks  of 
mine  enemies,  that  I  might  destroy  them  that 
hate  me. 

The  neck  is  often  used  for  the  whole  body,  and  in  threat- 
enings,  it  is  the  part  mentioned.  A  proprietor  of  slaves  is 
said  to  have  their  necks.  To  a  person  going  among 
wicked  or  cruel  people  it  is  said,  "  Go  not  there,  your 
friiddara,  i.  e.  neck,  or  nape,  will  be  given  to  them."  "  De- 
pend upon  it,  government  will  have  it  out  of  the  necks  of 
those  smugglers."  "  Have  you  paid  Chinnan  the  money  V 
"  No,  nor  will  I  pay  him."  "  Why  V  "  Because  he  has 
had  it  out  of  my  neck."  When  two  men  have  been  fight- 
ing, the  conqueror  may  be  seen  to  seize  the  vanquished  by 
the  neck,  and  thrust  him  to  the  ground. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Ver.  1 6.  And  the  three  mighty  men  brake  through 
the  host  of  .the  Philistines,  and  drew  water  out 
of  the  well  of  Beth-lehem,  that  was  by  the  gate, 
and  took  it,  and  brought  it  to  David :  never- 
theless he  would  not  drink  thereof,  but  poured 
it  out  unto  the  Lord. 

There  is  an  account  very  similiar  to  this  in  Arrian's 
Life  of  Alexander.  Tunc  poculo  pleno,  sicut  oblatum  est 
wadito :  non  solus,  inquit  bibere  sustineo,  nee  tam  exi- 
guum  devidere  omnibus  possum.     "  When  his  army  was 

freatly  oppressed  with  heat  and  thirst,  a  soldier  brought 
im  a  cup  of  water ;  he  ordered  it  to  be  carried  back,  say- 
ing, I  cannot  bear  to  drink  alone,  while  so  many  are  in 
want:  and  this  cup  is  too  small  to  be  divided  among  the 
whole.    Give  it  to  the  children  for  whom  you  brought  it," 

— BURDER. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Ver.  1.  And  again  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was 
kindle'd  against  Israel,  and  he  moved  Uavid 
against  them  to  say,  Go,  number  Israel  and 
Judah, 

Here  arises  the  question.  If  Moses  presupposed  the  law- 
fulness of  this  measure,  and  did  actually  twice  number  the 
people,  wherein  consisted  David's  sin  when  he  did  the 
same  ^  Yet  the  Bible  says  that  he  actually  did  sin  in  this 
matter,  and  was  punished  for  it  by  God,  with  a  pestilence, 
which  lessened  the  sum  of  the  people  numbered,  by  70,000. 
The  history  of  this  event  is  given  in  2  Sam.  xxiv.  and 
I  Chron.  xxi. ;  and  these  passages  I  must  beg  the  reader  to 
peruse,  if  he  wishes  to  understand  what  follows.  The 
<?ommon  opinion  is,  that  David  offended  God  by  his  pride, 
and  his  desire  to  gratify  it,  by  knowing  over  how  many 
subjects  he  was  king.  This  is,  perhaps,  the  worst  expla- 
nation that  can  be  given  of  the  unlawfulness  of  his  order. 
Were  God  to  punish  by  pestilence  every  ambitious  motion 
iri  the  hearts  of  kings,  and  every  sin  they  commit  in  thought, 
pestilences  would  never  cease.  It  mast,  besides,  appear 
yery  strange  indeed,  how  such  a  man  as  Joab  should  have 
expressed  so  great  an  abhorrence  at  a  sin  that  consisted 
merely  in  pride  of  heart,  and  have  so  earnestly  dissuaded 
David  from  it.  Yet  he  thus  remonstrates  with  him,  say- 
ing, "  May  God  multiply  the  people  a  hundred-fold,  that 
the  king  niay  see  it ;  but  wherefore  will  the  king  urge  this 
measure  1"  Or,  as  we  read  in  Chronicles,  "May  God 
inultiply  the  people  a  hundred-fold!  They  are  entirely 
devoted  to  the  king's  service.  But  whyseeketh  the  king  to 
clo  thisl  and  why  should  guilt  be  brought  upon  Israeli" 
Notwithstanding  this  remonstrance,  however,  the  king, 
we  are  to  id  by  both  historians,  repeated  his  commai»d  with 
po  much  rigour,  that  Joab  found  it  necessary  to  carry  it  into 
ejtecution.  Now  Joab  was  not,  on  other  occasions,  a  man 
pf  narrow  conscience.    He  had  already  deliberately  plan- 


ned, and,  in  cold  blood,  perpetrated,  two  murders,  merely 
to  rid  himself  of  rivals.  And  when  David  gave  him 
the  hint  to  place  Uriah  in  the  post  of  danger,  he  was  by 
no  means  squeamish,  but  immediately  planned  and  com- 
menced an  attack,  in  which,  besides  Uriah,  a  great  num- 
ber of  his  bravest  soldiers  were  slain.  His  conscience, 
therefore,  could  not  be  incommoded  by  a  mandate  relative 
to  a  matter  in  itself  lawful,  and  where  the  sin,  in  whatever 
it  consisted,  lay  altogether  hid  in  the  king's  ambitious 
heart.  If  we  think  so,  we  must  look  upon  him  in  the  light 
of  a  court-chaplain,  and  a  semi-pietist ;  and  he  certainly 
was  neither.  What  he  hesitated,  therefore,  about  doing, 
must  have  appeared  in  his  own  eyes,  something  more 
serious  than  bare  murder,  Josephus,  however,  has  hit  upon 
an  idea,  which  may,  by  some,  be  thought  to  account  some- 
what more  probably,  than  the  opinion  now  mentioned,  for 
the  guilt  which  David  is  said  to  have  incurred  on  this  oc- 
casion. "  David,"  says  he,  "  made  the  people  be  numbered, 
without  exacting  for  the  sanctuary,  the  half-shekel  of  poll- 
tax  enjoined  by  the  Mosaic  law."  But  this  idea  loses  all  its 
weight,  if  I  am  right  in  my  opinion,  that  Moses  enjoined 
the  exaction  of  the  half-shekel,  not  upon  every  occasion  of 
a  census,  but  merely  on  the  first;  and  even  allowing  me  to 
be  wrong  in  this,  and  the  common  exposition  of  the  statute, 
in  the  time  of  Josephus,  to  be  the  more  correct  one,  still 
the  notion  of  Josephus  is  certainly  inadmissible  here.  For 
neither  in  Samuel  nor  Chronicles  do  we  find  the  least  men- 
tion of  the  half-shekel ;  nor  does  David  forbid  the  payment 
of  it,  but  only  orders  the  people  to  be  numbered  ;  so  that 
every  conscientious  person  had  it  in  his  power  to  pay  it  of 
himself,  and  the  hign-priest  to  demand  it  in  virtue  of  his 
office.  At  any  rate,  David's  census  appears,  in  this  re- 
spect, altogether  as  blameless  as  Moses^  second  one,  in  the 
account  of  which  (Numb,  xxvi.)  not  a  word  is  said  con- 
cerning the  poll-tax.  Nor  do  Joab  and  the  other  generals 
here  represent  to  the  king,  that  he  ought  to  order  the  pay- 
ment of  the  half-shekel,  but  only  intreat  him  to  desist  from 
the  census  itself.  And  finally,  David,  who  had  amassed  so 
many  millions  of  shekels,  (1  Chron.  xxix.)  and,  to  the  man- 
ifest prejudice  of  his  own  family,  destined  so  much  for 
building  a  temple,  must  actually  have  been  in  the  delirium 
of  a  hot  fever,  if,  contrary  to  all  his  other  views,  he  had 
not  had  a  desire  to  grant  for  the  future  erection  of  that 
edifice,  projected  by  himself,  the  half-shekel  payable  on 
the  census,  which  was  a  mere  trifle  compared  to  his  own 
donations,  and  came  not  out  of  his  own  purse. 

But  as  far  as  I  can  understand  the  story,  David  caused 
the  people  to  be  numbered,  neither  out  of  that  prudent 
solicitude  which  wiM  always  actuate  a  good  king,  nor  yet 
out  of  mere  curiosity,  but  that  by  means  of  such  a  census 
they  might  be  enrolled  for  permanent  military  service,  and 
to  form  a  standing  army ;  the  many  successful  wars  he  had 
already  carried  on,  having  filled  his  mind  with  the  spirit 
of  conquest.  We  find  at  least,  that  the  enumeration  was 
ordered  to  be  carried  on,  not  as  had  before  been  usual,  by 
the  priests,  but  by  Joab  and  the  other  generals ;  and  the 
very  term  here  used,  Safar,  (-xfir)  numeravii,  scripsit,  in- 
cludes also  in  itself  the  idea  of  numbering  for  military 
service,  and  is,  without  any  addition,  equivalent  to  our 
German  military  term,  enroUiren,  to  enrol,  or  muster. 
This,  indeed,  is  so  much  the  case,  that  Hassofer,  (iccn) 
tlie  scribe,  is  that  general  who  keeps  the  muster-rolls,  and 
marks  those  called  on  to  serve.  In  like  manner,  the  of- 
ficers are  termed  (d'^bo)  scribes.  David's  sin,  therefore, 
or  rather  (not  to  speak  so  theologically,  but  more  in  the 
language  of  politics)  his  injustice  and  tyranny  towards 
a  people  who  had  subjected  themselves  to  him  on  very  dif- 
ferent terms,  and  with  the  reservation  of  many  liberties 
consisted  in  this.  Hitherto,  the  ancient  and  natural  rule 
of  nations,  Quot  cives,  tot  milites,  had  certainly  been  so  far 
valid,  as  that,  in  cases  of  necessity,  every  citizen  w^s 
obliged  to  bear  arms  in  defence  of  the  state.  Such  emer- 
gences, however,  occurred  but  very  rarely ;  and  at  other 
times  every  Israelite  was  not  obliged  to  become  a  soldier, 
and  in  peace,  for  instance,  or  even  during  a  war  not  very 
urgent,  subject  himself  to  military  discipline.  David  had 
made  a  regulation,  that,  exclusive  of  his  lifeguards,  calleu 
in  the  Bible,  Creti  and  Pleti,  24,000  men  should  benon  duty 
every  month  by  turns  ;  so  that  there  were  always  288,000 
trained  to  arms"  within  the  year;  which  was  certainly  suf- 
ficient for  the  defence  of  the  country,  and  for  commanding 
respect  frorw  the  nei^^hbouring  nations,  especially  consid- 


Chap.  24. 


2   SAMUEL. 


237* 


ering  the  state  of  the  times,  and  the  advantages  in  point  of 
situation,  which  David's  dominions  enjoyed.  It  would  ap- 
pear, however,  that  he  did  not  think  this  enough.  Agitated, 
m  all  probability,  by  the  desire  of  conq^uest,  he  aspired  at 
the  establishment  of  a  military  government,  such  as  was 
that  of  Rome  in  after-times,  and  at  subjecting,  with  that 
view,  the  whole  people  to  martial  regulations;  that  so 
every  man  might  be  duly  enrolled  to  serve  under  such 
and  such  generals  and  officers,  and  be  obliged  to  perform 
military  duty  at  stated  periods,  in  order  to  acquire  the  use 
of  arms. 

Whether  such  a  measure,  if  not  absolutely  necessary  to 
the  preservation  of  the  state,  be  a  hardship  on  the  people, 
every  man  may  judge  from  his  own  feelings,  or  even  from 
the  most  recent  history  of  certain  nations.  For  even  in  a 
country  where  the  government  is  purely  monarchical,  and 
the  people  extremely  martial,  and  the  frontiers  of  which, 
from  the  uncompactness  of  its  ferritories,  are  not,  like  those 
of  the  Israelitish  empire,  surrounded  and  secured  by  moun- 
.  tains  or  deserts,  the  enrolment  of  every  individual  for  mil- 
itary service,  introduced  40  years  ago,  has  been  of  late 
spontaneously  abolished  by  a  very  warlike  sovereign,  be- 
cause he  found  that  it  was  too  oppressive,  and  furnished  a 
pretext  for  a  multitude  of  extortions.  Now  if  this  was  Da- 
vid's object,  it  is  easy  to  conceive,  that  Joab,  although  in 
private  life  a  very  baa  character,  and  twice  guilty  of  mur- 
der, might  yet  have  as  much  patriotism,  or  rather  political 
sagacity,  as  to  deprecate,  in  the  most  energetic  terms,  the 
execution  of  a  royal  mandate,  the  effect  of  which  would 
have  been  to  bring  a  free  people  under  the  worst  military 
despotism.  Very  bad  consequences  were  to  be  apprehend- 
ed, if  the  subjects  should  not  prove  sufficiently  patient  to 
snibmit  to  such  an  innovation.  The  army,  however,  devo- 
ted as  it  was  to  David,  and  approved  as  was  its  valour  in 
many  campaigns,  may,  perhaps,  have  effected  their  patient 
submission;  and,  in  fact,  the  expression,  (2  Sam.  xxiv.  5,) 
And  they,  viz.  Joab,  and  the  other  generals  to  whom  the 
task  was  committed,  encamped  rear  Aroer,  appears  to  insin- 
uate, that  this  enumeration,  or  rather  this  enrolment  of  the 
people,  required  the  support  of  a  military  force. 

What  David  intended,  Uzziah,  his  successor,  in  the 
eighth  generation,  may  perhaps  have  accomplished.  The 
martial  measures  of  that  prince  (  2  Chron.  xxvi.  11 — 14) 
are  not  commended;  the  prophet  Isaiah  (chap.  ii.  5 — 8) 
seems  rather  to  describe  them  in  the  language  of  censure; 
It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that  the  enrolment  of  the 
whole  people  by  David,  and  by  Uzziah,  is  by  no  means  one 
and  the  same  thing.  The  former  ruled  over  a  powerful 
nation,  wherein  there  were  nearly  a  million  and  a  half  of 
people  able  to  bear  arms,  and  which  had  a  compact  and 
secure  frontier,  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  Mediterranean : 
so  that,  for  the  safety  of  the  state,  no  such  oppressive  meas- 
ure was  requisite.  But  Uzziah  had  under  him  only  two 
tribes,  consisting  probably  of  about  300,000  men,  and  his 
territories  were  not  rounded,  nor  the  frontiers  distinct  and 
strong.  Here,  therefore,  that  measure  might  be  necessary 
for  self-defence,  or,  at  any  rate,  admit  of  a  sufficient  apolo- 
gy, which,  in  David's  time,  was  quite  needless,  and  if 
strictly  enforced,  must  have  proved  absolutely  tyrannical. 

MiCHAEUS. 

From  several  passages  in  the  Old  Testament,  compared 
with  each  other,  it  appears  that  this  census,  or  numbering 
of  the  people,  was  a  sacred  action ;  as  the  money  was  to  be 
applied  to  the  service  of  the  temple.  It  was  not  like  that  in 
other  nations,  to  know  the  strength  of  the  government;  for 
God  was  their  king  in  a  peciiliar  manner,  and  promised  to 
protect  them  from  all  their  enemies,  and  to  multiply  them 
as  the  stars  of  the  sky,  while  they  obeyed  his  laws. — Da- 
vid's crime,  therefore,  seems  to  have  lain  in  converting  a 
sacred  action  to  a  civil  purpose.  He  was  culpable  both  in 
the  thing  itself,  and  in  the  manner  of  doing  it.  For  where- 
as by  the  rule  given  to  Moses,  in  the  passages  referred  to 
above,  they  were  to  number  the  males  from  twenty  years 
old  and  upward;  David  gave  orders,  that  all  should  be 
numbered,  -who  were  fit  for  war,  though  under  that  age. 
This  must  haA'-e  been  highly  criminal  in  David,  now  in  his 
old  age,  after  so  many  instances  of  the  Divine  favour  ex- 
pressed towards  him.'  And  as  to  the  people,  their  offence 
seems  to  have  consisted  in  their  compliance  with  that  order. 
He  was  culpable  in  giving  the  order,  and  they  in  o'oeying  it. 
And  therefore  Joab,  who  was  sensible  of  this,  and  unwil- 
lin-gto  execute  the  command,  asks  David,  "  Why  he  would 


be  the  cause  of  trespass  in  Israel  ?"  For  by  that  means,  he 
reduced  them  to  the  difficulty  of  disobeying  God,  or  him- 
self, as  their  prince.  It  was"  doubtless  their  duty  to  have 
obeyed  God;  but  we  find,  as  it  generally  happens  in  such 
cases,  that  the  majority,  at  least,  chose  to  obey  the  king. 
However,  it  appears  that  Joab  was  weary  of  the  office,  and 
did  not  go  throiigh  it.  Probably  he  might  find  many  of  the 
people  uneasy,  and  averse  to  submit  to  the  order.  Besides, 
it  was  expressly  enjoined,  that  when  the  people  were  to  be 
numbered  from  twenty  years  old  and  upward,  the  Levites 
should  be  excepted,  as  being  appointed  for  the  service  of 
the  tabernacle.  And  as  they  were  not  called  out  to  war, 
so  they  had  no  share  in  the  land  of  Canaan  allotted  to  them, 
when  it  was  conquered  by  the  other  tribes;  who  were 
therefore  ordered  to  give  them  a  number  of  cities,  each 
tribe  out  of  their  portion,  which  was  accordingly  done. 
And  Josephus  assigns  that  reason  for  it,  when  he  says: — 
"  Moses,  because  the  tribe  of  Levi  were  exempted  from 
war  and  expeditions,  being  devoted  to  the  service  of  God, 
lest  being  needy  and  destitute  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  they 
should  neglect  the  care  of  their  sacred  function ;  ordered 
the  Hebrews,  that  when  by  the  will  of  God  they  possessed 
the  land  of  Canaan,  they  sho\Tld  give  to  the  Levites  forty- 
eight  large  and  handsome  cities,  with  two  thousand  cubits 
of  land  round  the  walls."  But  David  seems  to  have  order- 
ed them  likewise  to  be  mustered,  with  a  military  view; 
which,  perhaps,  was  an  aggravation.  For,  it  is  said,  that 
when  Joab,  by  his  command,  numbered  the  people,  "  they 
were  eleven  hundred  thousand  men  that  drew  sword."  And 
it  is  added:  ♦'But  Levi  and  Benjamin  counted  he  not 
among  them,  for  the  king's  word  was  abominable  to  Joab." 
So  that  it  looks  as  if  his  orders  were  to  count  them  with  the 
rest.  Indeed,  we  find  them  once  armed  upon  an  extraordi- 
nary occasion,  which  was  to  guard  the  temple  at  the  coro- 
nation of  Joash,  king  of  Judah.  For,  at  that  time,  they 
were  ordered  "  to  encompass  the  king  round  about,  every 
man  with  his  weapons  in  his  hand."  But  that  was  in  the 
temple,  where  the  rest  of  the  people  were  not  permitted  to 
enter.  And  besides  their  religious  function,  they  were 
sometimes  employed  in  other  civil  offices.  So  David,  when 
he  was  making  preparations  for  building  the  temple,  ap- 
pointed six  thousand  of  them  for  ofl^cers  and  judges.  Gro- 
tius,  indeed,  observes,  with  regard  to  this  fact  of  David, 
that  he  declared  the  people  innocent:  which  he  seems  to 
have  concluded  from  what  David  says,  1  Chron.  xxi.  17. 
But  it  does  not  appear,  from  what  has  been  said  above,  that 
they  were  altogether  blameless,  though  not  equally  crimi- 
nal with  himself  And  in  such  a  case,  the  equity  of  a  na- 
tional punishment  is  acknowledged  both  by  iPhilo  and 
Josephus,  in  the  passages  cited  from  them  by  Grotius. — 
Critica  Biblica.  «^ 

These  wars  being  thtts  happily  ended,  David  enjoyed  for 
some  time  a  settled""  peace  and  prosperity,  without  any 
foreign  invasions  to  call  him  into  the  field,  or  domestic 
troubles  to  interrupt  him  in  the  affairs  of  government;  but 
being  at  length  persuaded  and  prevailed  on  to  number  the 
people,  he  became  the  cause  of  trespass  to  Israel,  and 
brought  on  them  the  severe  punishment  of  a  pestilence. 
The  author  of  the  books  of  Samuel,  in  relating  this  afllair, 
says :  "  That  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled  against 
Israel,"  and  he  moved  David  against  them  to  say,  "  Go, 
number  Israel  and  Judah."  The  author  of  the  Chronicles 
differently  expresses  it.  "  And  Satan  stood  up  against  Is- 
rael, and  provoked  David  to  number  Israel;"  and  this  is 
objected  against  as  an  absurd  thing,  that  David  should  be 
said  to  be  moved  both  by  God  and  Satan  to  number  the 
people.  But  I  apprehend  this  diflSculty  may  be  easily  re- 
moved, by  observing,  that  these  two  places  are  capable  of  a 
more  favourable  turn,  so  as  to  render  them  perfectly  recon- 
cileable  with  each  other,  according  to  the  genius  of  the 
language,  and  the  common  forms  of  expression  in  it.  The 
text  in  Samuel  may  be  thus  rendered:  "And  again  the 
anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled  against  Israel ;  for  he  moved 
David,"  or  "  David  was  moved  against  them  to  say.  Go, 
number  Israel  and  Judah ;"  active  verbs  in  the  third  person, 
being  frequently  to  be  rendered  as  impersonals,  and  not  to 
be  referred  to  the  nouns  immediately  foregoing;  and  thus 
the  text  will  be  fully  reconcileable  with  that  in  Chronicles, 
which  says,  that  "  Satan  moved  him  to  number  the  people." 
Or,  it  may  reasonably  be  supposed,  as  the  original  words 
we  render,  "  He  moved  David  against  them,"  are  the  same 
in  Samuel  and  the  Chronicles,  that  the  wo"d  Satan  hath 


S38 


2  SAMUEL. 


Chap.  24. 


been  omitted  by  some  careless  transcriber  in  the  text  in 
Samuel,  which  is  expressly  mentioned  in,  and  to  be  sup- 
plied from  that  of  Chronicles;  and  then  the  version  will  be, 
that  "  The  anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled  against  Israel, 
for  Satan  moved  David  to  number  the  people :"  and  very 
probably,  had  we  more  ancient  MSS.,  this  omission  in 
Samuel,  if  such,  would  be  rectified  by  them,  A  candid 
critic  will  make  some  allowances,  both  for  defects  and 
redundancies  in  books  of  that  great  antiquity,  which  the 
Old  Testament  books  confessedly  are ;  and  where  several 
of  those  books  treat  of  the  same  affairs,  will  have  the  good 
sense,  as  far  as  he  can,  to  supply  what  is  defective  in  one, 
by  what  appears  complete  in  the  other.  If  there  needs  a 
supplement  in  Kings  it  is  actually  found  in  Chronicles,  and 
therefore  should  be  inserted  from  thence.  This  would  cer- 
tainly be,  in  like  instances,  the  case  in  other  books,  and  it 
is  injustice  not  to  apply  the  same  fair  rules  of  criticism,  to 
remove  the  difficulties  that  may  occur  in  the  writings  of 
the  Old  Testament.  But  there  is  another  way  of  rendering 
and  understanding  this  passage,  viz.  "  For  he  moved  Da- 
vid," or,  "  David  was  moved  against  them,"  not,  as  in  our 
version,  To  say,  but  icn^,  dicendo,  by  saying,  "  Go  number 
Israel  and  Judah ;"  which  last  words  will  then  be,  not 
David's  to  his  officers,  which  follow  in  the  next  verse,  but 
his,  who  counselled  David  to  this  action.  And  thus  David's 
numbering  the  people  will  be,  neither  by  the  instigation  of 
God,  or  Satan,  as  that  word  means  the  Devil.  It  is  certain, 
that  God  never  instigated  and  said  to  David,  "  Go,  numbe*- 
the  people,"  For  if  God  had  commanded  this,  David's 
heart  would  never  have  smote  him  for  it.'Hor  would  he 
have  acknowledged  to  God,  "  I  have  sinned  greatly  in  that 
I  have  done."  Nor  would  Joab  have  remonstrated  against 
it,  nor  have  represented  it  to  the  king,  as  what  would  be  a 
cause  of  trespass  to  Israel,  if  he  had  known  that  David  had 
received  such  an  order  from  God.  Every  circumstance  in 
this  account  proves,  that  there  was  no  hand  or  direction  of 
God  in  this  affair.  And  if  the  Devil  had  bid  him  do  it,  I 
suppose  he  might  have  seen  the  cloven  foot,  and  would 
scarce  have  followed  the  measure  for  the  sake  of  the  ad- 
viser. And  yet  somebody  actually  said  to  him :  "  Go, 
number  the  people ;"  and  this  person  seems  to  have  been 
one  of  his  courtiers,  or  attendants ;  who,  to  give  David  a 
higher  notion  of  his  grandeur,  and  of  the  number  and 
strength  of  his  forces,  put  it  into  his  head,  and  persuaded 
him  to  take  the  account  of  them ;  who,  in  Chronicles,  is 
therefore  called  Satan,  or  an  adversary,  either  designedly 
or  consequentially,  both  to  David  and  his  people.  And  this 
will  exactly  agree  with  what  the  author  of  the  book  of 
Chronicles  says:  "An  adversary  stood  up  against  Israel, 
and  provoked,",  or,  as  the  wotd  is  rendered  in  Samuel, 
•'  mqfed  him  against  them."  Thus  Mr.  Le  Clerc  under- 
stands this  passage,  and  I  think  the  expressions  made  use 
of  seem  to  countenance  and  warrant  ihe  explication.  But 
it  is  said,  that  David's  numbering  the  people  is  oddly 
enough  imputed  to  him  as  a  great  sin  in  him  to  require ; 
for  he  was  but  a  passive  instrument  in  the  affair.  But  who 
do'h  not  know,  that  a  man  may  be  hanged  for  a  crime,  to 
which  his  indictment  says,  "  He  was  moved  by  the  Devil;" 
and  because  the  Devil  moved  him,  is  he  thereifore  a  passive 
InstiHiment,  and  free  from  guilt  1  Or  doth  the  being  per- 
suaded or  moved  by  another  to  do  a  bad  action,  render  the 
person  so  moved  a  passive  instrument,  or  would  it  excuse 
him,  in  a  court  of  justice,  from  the  punishment  due  to  his 
crimes  1 

It  is  further  objected,  that  David  was  but  the  instrument 
of  a  purpose,  confessedly  overruled  to  the  execution  of  that 
purpose  by  supernatural  influence,  and  that  to  punish  one 
in  such  circumstances,  would  be  just  as  if  we  should  con- 
vict a  knife  or  pistol,  and  discharge  the  criminal.  If 
David  was  the  mere  instrument  of  a  purpose,  and  overruled 
by  supernatural  influence  to  execute  it,  the  similitude  may 
be  allowed.  But  who  ever  confessed  that  David  was  over- 
ruled to  do  it  by  supernatural  power  1  David  himself  did 
not,  but  confesses  directly  the  contrary.  David's  heart 
smote  him,  and  he  said  unto  God,  "  Is  it  not  I  that  com- 
manded the  people  to  be  numbered  1  Am  not  I  the  person 
who  alone  is  accountable  for  it '?  Even  I  it  is  that  have 
t-inned  greatly,  and  done  evil  indeed,  and  very  foolishly." 
David  knew  it  was  his  own  act,  and  that,  whoever  advised 
or  instigated  him  to  it,  the  blame  was  his  own,  and  his  pun- 
ishment deserved.  A  confession  that  would  have  been 
absurd  and  false,  if  he  knew  that  the  influence  he  acted 


under,  was  really  supernatural,  or  such  as  he  could  not 
resist,  or  overrule.  But  as  David  did  not  know  this,  it  is 
impossible  any  one  else  should  know  it.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  history  to  support  the  assertion.  If  it  was  really 
Satan  that  moved  him,  he  moved  him  no  otherwise  than 
as  he  doth  all  other  men  to  that  which  is  wrong;  not  by 
influences  which  he  could  not  resist,  but  by  those  undue 
passions  and  affections  which  he  might  and  ought  to  have 
resisted.  But  if  the  measure  was  suggested  by  one  of  his 
own  counsellors,  as  really  seems  to  be  the  case,  it  was  his 
duty  to  have  overruled  it,  and  hearkened  to  the  better  ad- 
vice of  Joab,  who  told  him  of  the  danger  of  it,  and  would 
fain  have  dissuaded  him  from  executing  it.  The  truth 
is,  as  I  apprehend,  that  David's  prosperity  had  too  much 
elated  him,  and  that  being  advised  by  some  rash  imprudent 
courtiers  to  take  the  number  of  his  people,  that  he  might 
better  know  his  strength,  and  be  fully  acquainted  with  the 
power  and  grandeur  of  his  kingdom,  his  vanity,  in  this 
respect,  got  the  better  of  his  duty ;  on  which,  God  was 
pleased  to  check  the  rising  presumption  of  his  heart,  by  , 
letting  him  see  how  vain  his  dependance  on  his  forces 
was,  and  to  punish  him  and  them  for  their  violation  of  a 
law,  which  he  had  ordered  to  be  observed  under  the  se- 
verest penalty.  For,  among  other  commands  that  were 
given  by  God  to  Moses,  this  was  one  :  "  When  thou  takest 
the  sum  of  the  children  of  Israel,  after  their  number,  then 
shall  they  give  every  man  a  ransom  for  his  life,  unto  the 
Lord,  when  thou  numberest  them,  that  there  be  no  plague, 
among  them,  when  thou  numberest  them.  This  shall  they 
give ;  every  one  that  passeth  among  them  that  are  num- 
bered, half  a  shekel  shall  be  the  offering  of  the  Lord ;  every 
one  that  passeth  among"  them  that  are  numbered,  from 
twenty  years  old,  and  above,  shall  give  this  offering  to  the 
Lord."  David,  either  not  thinking  of  this  command,  or 
thinking  himself,  as  king  of  Israel,  exempt  from  it,  ordered 
the  people  to  be  numbered,  without  exacting  the  ransom 
from  each  of  them.  This  was  one  of  the  highest  stretches 
of  authority,  and  claiming  a  despotic  arbitrary  power  over 
the  people,  as  seems  plain  from  Joab's  words  to  him : 
"  Are  they  not  all  my  lord's  servants  V  Why  then  this 
badge  of  slavery,  to  subject  them  to  a  census  contrary  to 
the  law  of  Moses  7  It  was  indeed  assuming  a  prerogative 
that  God  reserved  to  himself,  and  a  violation  of  one  of  the 
standing  laws  of  the  kingdom,  for  the  capitation  tax  that 
God  had  appointed  to  be  taken,  whenever  they  were  num- 
bered, was  ordered  to  be  paid  for  the  service  of  the  taber- 
nacle, as  a  memorial,  that  God  was  their  supreme  governor 
and  king.  But  God,  to  support  the  dignity  of  his  own  con- 
stitution, and  to  put  David  in  mind,  that  though  king,  he 
was  still  to  limit  the  exercise  of  his  power  by  the  precepts 
of  the  law,  gives  him  by  the  prophet  the  option  of  three 
punishments,  of  which  David  chose  the  plague ;  recollect- 
ing probably,  at  last,  that  this  was  the  very  punishment 
threatened  by  God  to  the  violation  of  this  statute,  concern- 
ing the  numbering  the  people  ;  as  well  as  for  the  reason  he 
himself  alleges ;  "  Let  us  fall  now  into  the  hands  of  the 
Lord,  for  his  mercies  are  great."  ^ 

It  is  evident  from  the  history,  that  this  action  of  David 
was  looked  upon  as  a  very  wrong  step,  even  by  Joab,  who 
remonstrated  against  it,  as  apprehensive  of  the  bad  conse- 
quences that  might  attend  it ;  for  he  says,  "  The  Lord  make 
his  people  a  hundred  times  so  many  more  as  they  be.  B\it, 
my  lord  the  king,  are  they  not  all  my  lord's  servants  ? 
Why  then  doth  my  lord  require  this  thing  1  Why  will  he 
be  a  cause  of  trespass  to  Israeli"  And  therefore  Joab  counted 
not  Levi  and  Benjamin,  because  the  king's  word  was  abom- 
inable to  him.  Probably  we  do  not  understand  all  the 
circumstances  of  this  aflfair  ;  but  Joab's  censure  of  it,  who 
was  no  scrupulous  man,  shows  that  David's  conduct  in  it 
was  extremely  imprudent,  and  might  subject  his  people  to 
very  great  inconveniences.  But  is  it  not  strange,  that 
because  David  sinned  in  numbering  the  people,  therefore 
the  people  should  be  punished ;  since  of  the  three  punish- 
ments propounded  to  David  for  his  choice,  one  of  them 
must  necessarily  fall  upon  his  subjects  1  Possibly  this  dif- 
ficulty may  be  eased,  when  I  put  my  reader  in  mind,  that 
kings  are  no  otherwise  to  be  punished  in  their  regal  capa- 
cities, nor  oftentimes  to  be  brought  to  correct  the  errors  of 
their  administration,  but  by  public  calamities;  by  famine, 
pestilence,  foreign  wars,  domestic  convulsions,  or  some 
other  like  distresses  that  affect  their  people.  This  David 
thought  a  punishment ;  and  if  it  be  right  at  all  for  God  to 


Chap.  25. 


2  SAMUEL. 


239 


animadvert  on  the  conduct  of  princes,  or  to  show  his  dis- 
pleasure against  them  for  the  public  errors  of  their  admin- 
istration, it  must  be  right  and  fit  for  him  to  afflict  their  peo- 
ple ;  and  indeed  this  is  what  continually  happens  in  the 
common  course  of  providence,  and  the  observation  that, 
Quicquid  delirant  reges  plectuntur  Achivi, 

is  an  old  and  a  true  one.  And  if  this  be  a  difficulty,  it  af- 
fects natural  religion  as  well  as  revealed,  and  the  same 
considerations  that  will  obviate  the  difficulty  in  one  case, 
will  solve  it  also  in  the  other.  As  to  the  thing  itself,  that 
kings  are  no  otherwise  to  be  punished  in  their  regal  capaci- 
ties, but  by  public  calamities  which  affect  their  people,  it 
is,  I  apprehend,  so  self-evident  and  certain,  as  that  it  can 
need  no  proof  Whether  princes  profit  more  or  less,  or 
nothing,  by  the  misfortunes  of  their  subjects,  is  nothing  to 
this  argument.  Some  bad  kings  may  not  profit  by  it.  All 
good  kings  will.  The  people's  welfare,  however,  is  neces- 
sary to  the  prince's  prosperity,  and  secures  the  principal 
blessings  of  his  reign,  which  can  never  be  enjoyed  without 
it.  On  the  other  hand,  kin^s  must  be  affected  with,  and 
deeply  share  in  the  misfortunes  of  their  people  ;  because  a 
plague  or  a  famine,  or  a  hostile  invasion,  or  any  national 
calamity,  tends  to  destroy  the  peace  of  government,  or  to 
subvert^he  foundations  of  it,  lessens  the  revenues  of  princes, 
the  number  of  their  subjects,  the  profits  of  labour  and  in- 
dustry, and  interrupts  the  enjoyment  of  those  advantages 
and  pleasures,  which  regal  power  and  plenty  can  other- 
wise secure  to  the  possessors  of  them.  David  was  most 
sensibly  affected  with  his  people's  sufferings  under  that  pes- 
tilence which  his  imprudence  and  their  neglect  had  brought 
upon  them.  How  tenderly,  how  affectionately  doth  he 
plead  with  God  in  their  behalf !  "Even  I  it  is  that  have 
sinned.  But  as  for  these  sheep,  what  have  they  done !" 
What  a  noble  instance  of  public  spirit,  and  generous  con- 
cern for  the  safety  of  his  people,  doth  that  moving  and  pa- 
thetic expostulation  manifest,  which  he  made  when  he  saw 
the  angel  of  the  Lord  standing  between  heaven  and  earth, 
with  a  drawn  sword  in  his  hand,  stretched  out  over  Jerusa- 
lem, and  fell  down  with  his  elders,  all  clothed  in  sackcloth, 
upon  their  faces,  and  thus  affectionately  interceded  for 
them :  "  Let  thy  hand,  I  pray  thee,  O  Lord  my  God,  be 
on  me  and  on  my  father's  house,  but  not  on  thy  people,  that 
they  should  be  plagued."  Here  is  the  real  language  and 
spirit  of  a  genuine  zntjiriv  \ao>v,  a  true  shepherd  of  the  peo- 
ple, devoting  himself  and  family  as  a  sacrifice  to  God  for 
the  salvation  of  his  subjects. 

Besides,  in  this  case,  the  people  were  themselves  very 
culpable ;  for  the  command  was  absolute :  "  When  thou 
takest  the  sum  of  the  children  of  Israel,  then  shall  they  give 
every  man  a  ransom  for  his  soul."  And  therefore,  as  they 
knew  or  might  have  known,  that,  upon  being  numbered, 
they  were  to  pay  the  prescribed  ransom,  which  yet  they 
neglected  or  refused  to  do ;  as  partners  in  the  offence,  they 
justly  shared  in  the  penalty  inflicted.  It  is  allowed,  that 
the  tax  was  not  at  this  time  demanded  by  David ;  and  this 
was  his  sin,  in  setting  aside  a  positive  command  of  God, 
to  gratify  his  own  vanity  and  pride.  The  demanding  this 
tax  by  his  own  authority  might  have  created  a  national  dis- 
turbance, and  therefore  should  have  prevented  him  from 
numbering  his  people.  But  they  submitted  to  be  numbered, 
and  they  were  therefore  bound  to  pay  the  tax,  whether  Da- 
I  vid  demanded  it  of  them  or  not,  for  the  law  did  not  exempt 
j  them  from  the  payment,  if  he  who  numbered  them  did 
I  not  demand  it.  They  were  to  pay  it  as  a  ransom  for  their 
j  lives,  and  to  exempt  themselves  from  the  plague  ;  and  were 
therefore  punished  with  a  plague  for  their  neglect  and  dis- 
obedience. David  indeed  takes  the  guilt  upon  himself,  and 
declares  his  people  innocent  of  it :  "  As  for  these  sheep, 
what  have  they  done  1"  And  it  is  true,  that  the  order  to 
number  the  people  was  David's,  of  which  his  people  were 
wholly  innocent.  But  they  should  have  remonstrated 
against  the  thing,  or  voluntarily  paid  the  capitation  tax 
required  of  them ;  and  as  they  did  neither,  David  was,  as 
Joab  foretold  him,  a  cause  of  "trespass  to  Israel,  and  they 
could  not  plead  innocence,  as  a  reason  for  their  exemption 
from  punishment.  And  even  supposing  they  were  entirely 
free  from  all  blame  in  this  affair,  were  they  so  far  entirely 
free  from  all  other  transgressions,  as  that  it  was  injustice 
in  God  to  visit  them  by  a  pestilence  1  If  not,  God  did  them 
(  no  injustice  by  sending  that  pestilence  ;  and  therefore  not 
j      by  sending  it  at  that  time,  and  as  an  immediate  punishment 


of  David's  sin.  God,  by  virtue  of  his  supreme  authority 
over  mankind,  may  resume  life  whenever  he  pleases.  If 
there  be  no  sin,  the  resumption  of  life  will  be  no  punish- 
ment; if  there  be,  the  resumption  of  it  Avill  not  be  unjust, 
though  the  immediate  reason  of  that  resumption  may  be 
for  the  punishment  of  another ;  especially,  as  all  such  in- 
stances have  a  real  tendency  to  promote  the  public  good, 
and  to  preserve  alive,  in  the  minds  both  of  princes  and 
people,  that  reverence  for  Deity,  without  which  neither 
public  nor  private  virtue  can  subsist,  nor  the  prosperity  of 
kingdoms  ever  be  secured  and  established  upon  solid  and 
lasting  foundations. 

Upon  this  solemn  humiliation  of  David,  and  intercession 
with  God  for  his  people,  the  prophet  Gad  was  sent  to  him 
the  same  day,  with  an  order  that  he  should  rear  up  an  altar 
unto  the  Lord,  in  the  thrashing-floor  of  Araunah  the  Jebusite, 
the  hill  where  Solomon's  temple  was  afterward  built.  Da- 
vid accordingly  purchased  the  ground,  built  an  altar  unto 
the  Lord,  offered  burnt-offerings  and  peace-offerings,  where- 
by the  Lord  was  entreated  for  the  land,  and  the  plague, 
which  had  raged  from  Dan  to  Beersheba,  was  staye(tfrom 
Israel,  the  city  of  Jerusalem  being  mercifully  spared,  and 
exempted  from  this  dreadful  calamily.  After  this,  David, 
encouraged  by  the  gracious  token  God  had  given  him  of 
his  acceptance  at  this  thrashing-floor  of  Araunah,  by  the  fire 
from  heaven  that  consumed  his  burnt-offering,  continued 
to  offer  upon  the  altar  he  had  erected  in  this  place ;  and 
publicly  declared,  "  This  is  the  house  of  the  Lord  God,  this 
is  the  altar  of  the  burnt-offering  for  Israel ;"  hereby  conse- 
crating this  place  for  the  erection  of  the  temple,  and  to  be 
the  seat  and  centre  of  the  public  worship  for  all  the  tribes 
of  Israel.  On  the  whole,  if  they  who  object,  credit  the 
history  of  the  Old  Testament  in  this  part  of  it,  and  think  it 
true,  that  one  of  these  three  plagues  was  offered  to  David, 
as  the  punishment  of  his  offence;  that  he  chose  the  pesti- 
lence, that  it  came  accordingly,  and  was  removed  upon 
David's  intercession ;  they  are  as  much  concerned  to  ac- 
count for  the  difficulties  of  the  affair,  as  I  or  any  other 
person  can  be.  If  they  do  not  believe  this  part  of  the  histo- 
ry, as  the  sacred  writings  represent  it,  let  them  give  us  the 
account  of  it  as  it  stands  in  their  own  imagination;  and  tell 
us,  whether  there  was  any  plague  at  all,  how,  and  why  it 
came,  and  how  it  went  and  disappeared  so  all  of  a  sudden. 
In  their  account,  whatever  it  be,  David  will  stand  certainly 
clear  of  every  imputation ;  and,  according  to  the  scripture 
narration,  he  will  be  an  offender,  but  only  against  the  stat- 
ute law  of  the  kingdom,  as  usurping  an  "authority  and  dis- 
pensing power  that  did  not  belong  to  him,  but  not  against 
any  law  of  God,  of  original,  intrinsic,  and  immutable  obli- 
gation, as  far  as  we  can  judge  by  the  short  and  imperfect 
account  that  is  left  us  of  this  transaction  ;  and  so  may  still 
be  the  *'  man  after  God's  own  heart," — Chandler. 

Ver.  1 8.  And  Gad  came  that  day  to  David,  and 
said  unto  him,  Go  up,  rear  an  altar  unto  the 
Lord  in  the  thrashing-floor  of  Araunah  the 
Jebusite. 

Thrashing-floors,  among  the  ancient  Jews,  were  only,  a?! 
they  are  to  this  day  in  the  East,  round  level  plots  of  ground 
in  the  open  air,  where  the  corn  was  trodden  out  by  oxen, 
the  Libyc(B  arece  of  Horace,  ode  i.  1.  10.  Thus  Gideon's 
floor  {Judges  vi.  37)  appears  to  have  been  in  the  open  air ; 
as  was  likewise  that  of  Araunah  the  Jebusite  ;  else  it  would 
not  have  been  a  proper  place  for  erecting  an  altar  and  of- 
fering sacrifice.  In  Hosea  xiii.  3,  we  read  oithe  chajfaohich 
is  driven  by  the  whirhcind  Irom  the  floor.  This  circum- 
stance of  the  thrashing-floor's  being  exposed  to  the  agita- 
tion of  the  wind,  seems  to  be  the  principa,l  reason  of  its 
Hebrew  name;  which  maybe  further  illustrated  by  the 
direction  which  Hesiod  gives  his  husbandman,  to  thraah 
his  corn  in  a  place  well  exposed  to  the  wind.  From  the 
above  account  it  appears  that  a  thranhivg-floor  (rendered  in 
our  textual  translation  a  void  place)  might  well  be  near  the 
entrance  of  the  gate  of  Samaria,  and  that  it  might  afford  no 
improper  place  for  the  kings  of  Israel  and  Judah  to  hear  the 
prophets  in. — Burder, 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Ver.  23.  And  when  David  inquired  of  the  Lord 
he  said,  Thou  shalt  not  go  up ;  hut  fetch  a  com- 


240 


1  KINGS. 


Chap.  1. 


pass  behind  them,  and  come  upon  them  over 
ag-ainst  the  mulberry-trees.  24.  And  let  it  be, 
when  thou.hearest  the  sound  of  a  going  in  the 
tops  of  the  mulberry-trees,  that  then  thou  shalt 
bestir  thyself:  for  then  shall  the  Lord  go  out 
before  thee,  to  smite  the  host  of  the  Philistines. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  the  mulberry-tree  is  once  men- 
tioned in  the  scriptures.  If  Hasselquist  may  be  credited, 
it  scarcely  ever  grows  in  Judea,  very  little  in  Galilee,  bat 
abounds  "in  Syria  and  mount  Lebanon.  Our  translators 
have  rendered  the  original  term  Baca,  by  mulberry,  in  two 
difierent  passages :  "  And  when  David  inquired  of  the  Lord, 
he  said,  Thou  shalt  not  go  up,  but  fetch  a  compass  behind 
them,  and  come  upon  them  over  against  the  mulberry-trees 
(Becaim ;)  and  let  it  be,  when  thou  hearest  the  sound  of  a 
going  in  the  tops  of  the  mulberry-trees,  that  then  thou  shalt 
bestir  thyself."  And  the  words.  Who  passing  through  the 
valley  of  Baca,  make  it  a  pool ;  the  rain  also  filleth  the 
pools", — are  in  the  margin,  Who  passing  through  the  valley 
of  mulberry-trees.  The  Seventy,  in  Chronicles,  render  it 
pear-trees ;  in  which  they  are  followed  by  Aquila  and 
the  Vulgate.  Some  think  Baca,  in  the  eighty-fourth  Psalm, 
is  the  name  of  a  rivulet,  which  burst  out  of  the  earth,  at  the 
foot  of  a  mountain,  with  a  plaintive  murmur,  from  which 
it  derived  its  name.    But  it  is  more  probable,  that  Baca  is 


the  name  of  some  shrub  or  tree.  Those  who  translate  it 
•the  mulberry-tree,  to  illustrate  the  passage  in  the  psalm, 
pretend  it  grows  best  in  the  dry  ground ;  but  this  seems  to 
be  unfounded.  •  Marinus  imagines,  that  Baca  signifies  the 
mulberry-tree,  because  the  fruit  of  the  mulberry  exudes  a 
juice  resembling  tears.  Parkhurst  rather  thinks  that  Baca 
means  a  kind  of  large  shrub,  which  the  Arabs  likewise 
call  Baca,  and  which  probably  was  so  named  from  its  dis- 
tilling an  odoriferous  gum.  For  Baca  with  an  aleph,  seems 
to  be  related  to  Baca  with  a  Kay,  which  signifies  to  ooze,  to 
distil  in  small  quantities,  to  weep  or  shed  tears.  This  idea 
perfectly  corresponds  with  the  description  which  Celsius 
has  given  of  this  valley.  It  is  not,  according  to  him,  a 
place  abounding  with  fountains  and  pools  of  water,  but 
rugged  and  embarrassed  with  bushes  and  stones,  which 
could  not  be  passed  through  without  labour  and  suffering ; 
a  striking  emblem  of  that  vale  of  thorns  and  tears,  through 
which  all  believers  must  pass  to  the  heavenly  Jerusalem. 
The  great  uncertainty  among  interpreters  concerning  the 
real  meaning  of  the  term  Becaim,  has  induced  Mr.  Har- 
mer  to  hazard  a  conjecture,  that  the  tree  meant  in  this  pas- 
sage is  the  weeping-willow.  But  this  plant  is  not  found 
in  a  dry  sandy  vale,  where  the  thirsty  traveller  is  compelled 
to  dig  for  water,  and  to  form  cisterns  in  the  earth,  to  re- 
ceive the  rain  of  heaven.  In  such  a  situation,  we  expect  to 
find  the  pungent  aromatic  shrub  distilling  its  fragrant  gum ; 
not  the  weeping-willow,  the  favourite  situation  of  which 
is  the  watery  plain,  or  the  margin  of  the  brook. — Paxton. 


THE   FIRST  BOOK  OF  KINGS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  2.  Wherefore  his  servants  said  unto  him, 
Let  there  be  sought  for  my  lord  the  king  a 
young  virgin  ;  and  let  her  stand  before  the  king, 
and  let  her  cherish  him,  and  let  her  lie  in  thy 
bosom,  that  my  lord  the  king  may  get  heat. 

This  is  by  no  means  so  uncommon  a  thing  as  people  in 
England  suppose.  Men  of  seventy  years  of  age  and  up- 
wards often  take  a  young  virgin  for  the  same  purpose  as 
David  did,  and  no  other.  It  is  believed  to  be  exceedingly 
healUiful  for  an  aged  person  thus  to  sleep.  "  In  the  hot 
seas'n,  he  is  kept  cool,  and  in  the  cold  season,  warm,  by 
sleeping  with  a  young  person  ;  his  withered  body  derives 
nourishment  from  the  other."  Thus,  decrepit  men  may  be 
seen  having  a  young  female  in  the  house,  (to  whom,  gener- 
ally, they  are  hot  married,)  and  to  whom  they  bequeath  a 
considerable  portion  of  their  property. — Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  And  Adonijah  slew  sheep,  and  oxen,  and 
fat  cattle,  by  the  stone  of  Zoheleth,  which  is 
by  En-rogel,  and  called  all  his  brethren  the 
king's  sons,  and  all  the  men  of  Judah  the  king's 
servants. 

The  oriental  banquet,  in  consequence  of  the  intense  heat, 
is  often  spread  upon  the  verdant  turf,  beneath  the  shade  of 
a  tree,  where  the  streaming  rivulet  supplies  the  company 
with  wholesome  water,  and  excites  a  gentle  breeze  to  cool 
their  burning  temples.  The  vine  and  the  fig,  it  appears 
from  the  faithful  page  of  inspiration,  are  preferred  on  such 
joyous  occasions:  "In  that  dav,  saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts, 
shall  ye  call  every  man  his  neighbour  under  the  vine  and 
under  the  fig-tree."  To  fotmtains,  or  rivers,  says  Dr. 
Chandler,  the  Turks  and  the  Greeks  frequently  repair  for 


refreshment,  especially  the  latter  on  their  festivals,  when 
whole  families  are  seen  sitting  on  the  grass,  and  enjoying 
their  early  or  evening  repast,  beneath  the  trees  by  the  side 
of  a  rill.  And  we  are  assured  by  the  same  author,  that  in 
such  grateful  retreats  they  often  give  public  entertain- 
ments. He  visited  an  assembly  of  Greeks,  who,  after  cele- 
brating a  religious  festival,  were  sitting  under  half  tents, 
with  store  of  melons  and  grapes,  besides  lambs  and  sheep 
to  be  killed,  wine  in  gourds  and  skins,  and  other  necessary 
provisions.  Such  appears  to  have  been  the  feast  which 
Adonijah  gave  his  friends  at  En-rogel.  It  was  held  near  a 
well  or  fountain  of  water,  and  there  "  he  slew  sheep,  and 
oxen,  and  fat  cattle,  and  invited  his  brethren"  and  the  prin- 
cipal people  of  the  kingdom.  En-rogel  was  not  chosen  for 
secrecy,  for  it  was  in  the  vicinity  of  the  royal  city,  but  for 
the  beauty  of  the  surrounding  scenery.  It  was  not  a  mag- 
nificent cold  collation  ;  the  animals  on  which  they  feasted 
were,  on  the  contrary,  killed  and  dressed  on  the  spot  for 
this  princely  repast,  "in  Hindostan  feasts  are  "  given  in  the 
open  halls  and  gardens,  where  a  variety  of  strangers  are 
admitted,  and  much  familiarity  is  allowed.  This  easily 
accounts  for  a  circumstance  in  the  history  of  Christ,  which 
is  attended  with  considerable  difficulty;  the  penitent  Mary 
coming  into  the  apartment  and  anointing  his  feet  with  the 
ointment,  and  wiping  them  with  the  hair  of  her  head. 
This  familiarity  is  not  only  common,  but  far  from  being 
deemed  either  disrespectful  or  displeasing."  More  effect- 
ually to  screen  the  company  from  the  burning  sunbeams,  a 
large  canopy  was  spread  upon  lofty  pillars,  and  attached  by 
cords  of  various  colours  :  "  Some  of  these  awnings,"  says 
Forbes,  "  belonging  to  the  Indian  emperors,  were  very 
costlv,  and  distinguished  bv  various  names.  That  which 
belonged  to  the  emperor  Akber  was  of  such  magnitude  as 
to  contain  ten  thousand  persons;  and  the  erecting  of  it  em- 
ployed one  thousand  men  for  a  week,  with  the  help  of  ma- 
chines; one  of  these  awnings,  without  any  ornaments,  cost 
ten  thousand  rupees."    Similar  to  these  were  the  splendid 


Chap.  2. 


1  KINGS 


241 


hangings  under  which  Ahasuerus  the  king  of  Persia  enter- 
tained his  court.  They  "were  -^hiie,  green,  and  Ijlue, 
fastened  with  cords  of  fine  linen  and  purple,  to  silver  rings 
and  pillars  of  marble." — Paxton. 

Siloam  was  a  fountain  under  the  walls  of  Jerusalem, 
east,  between  the  city  and  the  brook  Kedron;  it  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  same  as  the  fountain  En-rogel,  or  the 
Fuller's  fountain.  "  The  spring  issues  from  a  rock,  and 
runs  in  a  silent  stream,  according  to  the  testimony  of  Jere- 
miah. It  has  a  kind  of  ebb  and  flood,  sometimes  discharg- 
ing its  current  like  the  fountain  of  Vaucluse;  at  others, 
retaining  and  scarcely  suiFering  it  to  run  at  all.  The  pool, 
or  rather  the  two  pools  of  the  same  name,  are  quite  close 
to  the  spring.  They  are  still  used  for  washing  linen  as 
formerly.  The  water  of  the  spring  is  brackish,  and  has  a 
very  disagreeable  taste  ;  people  still  bathe  their  eyes  with 
it,  in  memory  of  the  miracle  performed  on  the  man  born 
blind."    (Chateaubriand.)— BuRDER. 

Ver.  14.  Behold,  while  thou  yet  talkest  there 
with  the  king,  I  also  will  come  in  after  thee, 
and  confirm  thy  words. 

The  Hebrew  has  for  confirm,  "  fill  up."  "  I  wish  you  to 
go  and  inform  Tamban,  that  I  will  gladly  go  into  court 
and ^ZZ  up  all  his  words."  "  My  friend,  do  not  believe  that 
man's  words." — "  Not  believe  them  !  why,  his  words  have 
been  filled  up  by  many  people."  "  Well,  you  say  you  saw 
Muttoo  turn  his  cattle  last  night  into  vour  rice-fields,  what 
proof  have  you  1" — "  None,  my  lord,  I  was  alone,  and, 
therefore,  have  no  one  to  fill  up  my  words."  "  As  Venase 
was  coming  through  the  cinnamon  gardens,  that  notorious 
robber  Kalloway  met  him,  took  from  him  his  ear-rings, 
finger-rings,  and  five  gold  mohurs ;  but,  before  he  got  oflT, 
several  people  came  upj  who  knew  him  well,  so  that  there 
"ill  be  plenty  of  witnesses  to  fill  up  his  words," — Roberts. 

Vex.  16.  And  Bath-sheba  bowed,  and  did  obei- 
sance unto  the  king.  And  the  king  said,  AVhat 
wouldest  thou  1 

"When  a  husband  goes  on  a  journey,  or  when  he  returns, 
his  wife,  on  seeing  him,  puts  her  hands  together,  and  pre- 
sents them  to  him  as  an  act  of  obeisance.  When  she  has 
an  important  request  to  make,  she  does  the  same  thing ;  and 
it  is  surprising  to  see  the  weakness  of  him  who  pretends  to 
be  the  stronger  vessel,  for,  under  such  circumstances,  she 
will  gain  almost  any  thing  she  wants.  Hence,  the  force  of 
their  popular  proverb,  "  The  woman  who  regularly  makes 
obeisance  to  her  husband,  can  make  it  rain  whenever  she 

g leases."  When  Bathsheba  made  her  obeisance  to  the 
ing,  he  asked,  "  What  wouldest  thou  ?'  but,  the  Hebrew 
has  this,  "  What  to  thee  V  This  accords  with  the  idiom 
of  the  Tamul  language.  Thus  it  will  be  asked  of  a  person 
who  stands  with  his  hands  presented  to  a  great  man, 
uvimak-enna,  "  To  thee  what  1"  If  speaking  of  a  third 
person,  avanuk-enna,  "  To  him  whatl"  or,  literally,  "  Him 
to  what  V — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  5.  Moreover,  thou  "knowest  also  what  Joab 
the  son  of  Zeruiah  did  to  me,  and  what  he  did 
to  the  two  captains  of  the  hosts  of  Israel,  unto 
Abner  the  son  of  Ner,  and  unto  Amasa  the  son 
of  Jether,  whom  he  slew,  and  shed  the  blood  of 
war  in  peace,  and  put  the  blood  of  war  upon 
his  girdle  that  was  about  his  loins,  arid  in  his 
shoes  that  were  on  his  feet.  6.  Do  therefore 
according  to  thy  wisdom,  and  let  not  his  hoar 
head  go  down  to  the  grave  in  peace. 

David  having  settled  this  great  affair  of  Solomon's  suc- 
cession to  his  throne,  but  a  little  before  his  death  sends  for 
him,  and  gave  him  a  particular  charge,  in  reference  to  two 
state  criminals,  Joab  and  Shimei.  That  to  Joab  in  these 
words :  "  Thou  knowest  also  what  Joab  the  son  of  Zeruiah 
did  to  me,  and  what  he  did  to  the  two  captains  of  the  host 
of  Israel,  unto  Abner  the  son  of  Ner,  and  unto  Amasa  the 
son  of  Jether,  whom  he  slew,  and  shed  the  blood  of  war  in 
peace,  and  put  the  blood  of  war  upon  his  girdle  that  was 
31 


upon  his  loins,  and  in  his  shoes  that  were  upon  his  feet ;" 
i.  e.  treacherously,  and  under  pretence  of  peace  and  friend- 
ship, besprinkled  his  girdle  and  wet  his  shoes  with  the  blood 
of  these  two  generals,  as  though  he  had  slain  them  in  baule. 
"But  do  thou  according  to  thy  wisdom, and  let  not  his  hoar 
head  go  down  to  the  grave  in  peace."  Here  are  three 
murders  David  mentions  to  Solomon  as  the  ground  of  this 
charge,  not  to  let  him  die  a  natural  death.  The  one  inti- 
mated, "  thou  knowest  what  he  did  to  me,"  viz.  when  he 
cruelly  stabbed  Absalom,  contrary  to  my  immediate  orders ; 
the  two  others  expressly  mentioned,  those  of  Abner  and 
Amasa ;  on  these  accounts  he  advises  him  to  put  him  to 
death  ;  and  I  allow  David's  dying  advice,  or  rather  order, 
in  this  instance,  to  be  peremptory  and  absolute ;  and,  if  I 
understand  any  thing  of  justice  and  equity,  it  was  an  order 
worthy  of  a  good  king,  and  fit  to  be  given  in  the  last 
moments  of  his  life.  The  reader  will  remember,  that  the 
facts  are  these.  Upon  Abner's  reconciliation  with  David, 
and  bringing  over  the  people  to  his  interest,  Joab  out  of 
revenge  for  his  brother  Asahel's  death,  whom  Abner, 
forced  to  it  by  Asahel's  rashness,  had  unwillingly  slain, 
and  probably  envying  him  the  glory  of  settling  David  on 
the  throne  of  Israel,  and  afraid  of  his  being  placed  at  the 
head  of  the  Hebrew  army,  as  the  reward  of  so  signal  a 
service,  under  the  pretence  of  a  friendly  salutation,  m  the 
most  base  and  cowardly  manner,  stabbed  him  unexpectedly 
to  the  heart.  David  highly  resented  this  murder,  followed 
Abner's  corpse  to  the  grave",  and  to  show  what  part  he  would 
have  acted  immediately,  had  it  been  in  his  power,  says : 
"I  am  this  day  weak,  though  anointed  king;  and  these 
men,  the  sons  of  Zeruiah,  are  too  hard  for  me.  The  Lord 
.shall  reward  the  doer  of  evil  according  to  his  wickedness." 
AfieT  the  rebellion  under  Absalom  was  ended,  David 
thought  this  a  proper  opportunity  to  show  his  displeasure 
to  Joab ;  and  as  he  imagined  it  would  be  an  acceptable 
thing  to  the  people  of  Israel,  who  were  now  zealous  to 
restore  the  king  to  his  throne,  he  ordered  it  to  be  signified 
to  Amasa,  who  had  been  their  general  in  the  rebellion,  tliat 
he  would  constitute  him  captain-general  of  his  armies  in 
the  room  of  Joab,  and  actually  appointed  him,  as  such,  to 
assemble  the  forces  of  Judah,  and  suppress  the  new  insur- 
rection under  Sheba.  As  Amasa  was  returning  with  his 
troops,  Joab  meets  him,  and  with  a  compliment  and  a  kiss, 
thrust  his  sword  through  his  body,  and  laid  him  at  a  single 
blow  dead  at  his  feet;  and  immediately  usurped  the  com- 
mand of  the  army,  quelled  the  insurrection,  and  returned 
to  Jerusalem. 

And  now,  reader,  let  me  appeal  to  thy  conscience.  Were 
not  these  two  execrable  murders  deserving  of  punishment  1 
Was  the  cowardly  base  assassin  worthy  to  live  '?  If  he  was 
too  powerful  a  subject  for  David  to  bring  to  justice,  did  not 
David  do  well,  and  act  like  a  righteous  prince,  to  give  it  in 
charge  to  his  successor,  to  punish,  as  soon  as  ever  he  had 
power,  such  a  villain,  according  to  his  desert '?  Mr.  Bayle's 
judgment  is,  that  David  well  knew  that  Joab  deserved  death, 
and  that  the  suffering  the  assassinations,  with  which  that 
man's  hands  were  polluted,  to  go  unpunished,  was  a  flagrant 
injury  done  to  the  laws  and  to  justice.  With  what  truth 
then  can  it  be  said,  that  David  delivered  two  murders  in 
charge  to  his  son  Solomon  ;  one  of  them  to  be  executed  on 
his  old  faithful  general,  Joab  1  Was  it  charging  Solomon 
to  murder  a  man,  to  order  him  to  put  to  death  a  criminal, 
for  having  basely  committed  two  most  execrable  murders  1 
Or  is  the  doing  justice  on  murderers  and  assassins  commit- 
ting murder'?  Or  is  the  representation  just,  that  this  order, 
viz.  to  murder  Joab,  was  afterward  fulfilled  in  the  basest 
manner,  by  the  administrator  to  this  pious  testament  1 
Judge,  reader,  and  be  thyself  a  witness  to  the  manner  of 
Joab's  execution,  which  is  thus  stigmatized  with  the  epithet 
of  basest.  Solomon,  in  obedience  to  his  father's  directions, 
gives  orders  to  Benaiah  to  put  Joab  to  death  in  these  words  : 
"  Fall  on  him,  that  thou  mayest  take  away  the  innocent 
blood  which  Joab  shed,  from  me,  and  from  the  house  of 
my  father ;  and  the  Lord  shall  return  his  blood  upon  his 
own  head,  who  fell  upon  two  men,  more  righteous  and 
better  than  himself,  and  slew  them  with  the  sword,  my 
father  David  knowing  nothing  thereof."  Solomon  "vas  now 
king,  firmly  fixed  on  the  throne,  and  had  it  in  hi?  power  to 
execute  justice  on  the  greatest  offenders ;  and  rem  ^nbering, 
I  doubt  not,  how  Saul's  house  was  punished  f  r  the  in- 
nocent blood  of  the  Gibeonites  which  he  spilt,  hcT  iswilling 
to  secure  himself  and  family  from  a  like  vengf   nee.    He 


242 


1  KINGS. 


Crap.  2 


would  have  been  in  some  measure  chargeable  with  Joab's 
guilt,  had  he  refused  to  punish  it  when  it  was  in  his  power; 
and  especially,  as  he  had  it  in  charge  from  his  father  to 
execute  the  vengeance  on  him  that  his  crime  deserved. 
But  where  shall  we  here  fix  the  character  of  basest  1  What, 
on  Solomon's  command  to  take  away  the  guilt  of  innocent 
blood  from  himself  and  his  father's  house;  or  on  his 
ordering  the  execution  of  the  man  that  shed  it,  the  man 
that  slew  two  men,  more  righteous  and  better  than  himself; 
or  on  God's  returning  his  own  blood  upon  his  head  ;  or,  on 
his  ordering  Joab  to  be  slain  at  the  horns  of  the  altar,  and 
not  permitting  even  the  altar  of  God  himself  to  be  an  asy- 
lum for  murderers ;  or,  on  his  appointing  Benaiah,  the 
captain  of  his  host,  to  execute  justice  on  this  treacherous 
assassin  1  This  was  the  manner  in  which  Solomon  per- 
formed his  father's  orders,  in  an  open  public  manner, 
appealing  to  God  for  the  reasons  of  his  conduct,  and  by  a 
hand  too  honourable  for  the  wretch  that  fell  by  it.  And  is 
this,  what  it  hath  been  termed,  putting  a  man  to  death  in  the 
basest  manner  1  Is  not  this  condemning,  as  a  piece  of  vil- 
lany,  a  most  exemplary  instance  of  royal  justice,  and 
exhibited  in  such  a  manner  as  showed  a  regard  to  religion, 
conscience,  honour,  and  the  prosperity  of  his  government 
and  people  1 

But  in  order  to  show  David's  ingratitude  to  Joab  in 
ordering  Solomon  fo  punish  him  for  the  murder  of  Abner, 
it  hath  been  urged  that  it  appears,  that  Joab,  uniting  his 
revenge  with  the  dead,  acted  basely  for  David's  service. 
Supposing  it.  Doth  it  follow,  that  David's  ordering  the 
execution  of  a  base  and  treacherous  assassin  was  baseness 
and  ingratitude,  because  the  assassination  was  intended  for 
his  service  7  I  do  not  understand  this  morality,  I  should 
rather  raise  a  panegyric  upon  a  prince,  who  should  order  a 
treacherous  assassin  to  execution,  notwithstanding  the  pre- 
tence of  the  assassin's  intending  to  serve  him  by  the 
villany ;  than  on  one,  who  should  protect  a  villain  from 
the  punishment  of  treachery  and  murder,  because  he  in- 
tended to  serve,  or  actually  served  him  by  these  notorious 
crimes.  But  the  supposition  itself,  that  Joab  murdered 
Abner  for  David's  service  is  without  any  foundation,  and 
contradicted  by  the  whole  history  of  that  affair.  For  this 
asserts  once  and  again,  that  .Toab  murdered  Abner  in  re- 
venge for  his  brother  Asahel's  death.  And  as  to  his  ex- 
postulating with  David  on  the  imprudence  of  trusting 
Abner,  saying.  He  came  to  deceive  thee,  and  to  know  thy 
going  out,  and  thy  coming  in.  and  all  that  thou  dost;  David 
had  all  the  reason  in  the  world  to  look  on  this  change  against 
Abner  as  a  mere  calumny.  For  Abner,  before  ever  he  had 
waited  on  David,  had  brought  the  elders  of  Israel  to  a 
resolution  to  accept  of  David  for  their  king,  and  he  came 
to  inform  him  of  this  transaction.  Abner  went  also  to 
speak  in  the  ears  of  David  all  that  seemed  good  to  Israel, 
and  that  seemed  good  to  the  whole  house  of  Benjamin ; 
i.  e.  all  that  had  been  agreed  on  between  Abner  and  the 
tribes  in  reference  to  David.  So  that  Joab's  charge  of 
treachery  against  Abner  was  contrary  to  the  strongest  evi- 
dence of  his  integrity,  and  only  a  pretence  to  colour  over 
that  murder  of  him  which  he  intended.  Joab  knew  very 
well  the  intention  of  Abner's  interview  with  David ;  for  he 
was  informed  that  he  had  been  with  the  king,  and  that  he 
had  sent  him  away  in  peace  ;  and  he  expostulated  with  the 
king  for  thus  dismissing  him,  that  he  came  only  to  deceive 
him.  And  therefore  his  murdering  Abner  could  be  with 
no  mtention  to  serve  David,  but  to  execute  his  own  re- 
vel ge  and  serve  himself;  for  no  transaction  could  have 
been  at  that  time  more  directly  contrary  to  David's  interest, 
rs  the  tribes  would  naturally  resent  so  cruel  a  breach  of 
faith,  as  the  treacherous  assassination  of  their  own  general 
and  ambassador  to  David,  sent  by  them  to  fix  the  terms  on 
which  they  would  receive  him  for  their  king;  and  it  was  a 
thousand  to  one,  that,  in  their  fury,  they  had  not  broke  off 
all  treaty  with  him,  and  with  their  united  forces  opposed 
his  accession  to  the  throne  of  Israel.  What  prevented  this 
was,  David's  so  solemnly  and  publicly  clearing  himself  of 
having  any  hand  in  the  murder,  and  showing,  to  the  fullest 
satisfaction  of  the  people,  that  it  was  wholly  the  contrivance 
of  Joab,  and  perpetrated  by  him  without  his  privity  and 
consent. 

Had  Abner  lived  to  have  fini?hed  this  great  revolution 
in  favour  of  David,  and  actually  settled  him  on  the  throne 
of  Israel,  Abner  onsrht  in  iustice  to  have  continued  in  the 
command  of  the  army.    This  Joab  cotild  not  be  ignorant 


of,  and  therefore,  uniting  his  revenge  with  his  ambition,  he 
assassinated  Abner,  to  -free  himself  from  a  rival  in  power 
and  his  prince's  favour,  and  secure  himself  in  the  chief 
command.  He  acted  just  the  same  infamous  part  after- 
ward, when  he  assassinated  Amasa,  because  David  had 
promised  him  to  make  him  general  of  the  army  in  Joab's 
room;  and  this  strengthens  the  probability,  or  rather  renders 
it  certain,  that  he  murdered  Abner,  not  only  out  of  revenge 
for  his  brother's  death,  but  also  from  the  same  cause  of 
jealousy,  envy,  and  ambition.  And  indeed  Josephus  will 
not  so  much  as  allow,  that  even  the  revenging  Asahel's 
death  was  any  thing  more  than  a  pretence  for  Joab's  mur- 
dering Abner,  but  says,  that  the  true  cause  was,  his  being 
afraid  of  losing  the  generalship,  the  favour  of  his  master, 
and  being  succeeded  by  Abner  in  both. 

It  is  further  objected,  that  Joab  was  really  ill  used  in  the 
affair  of  Amasa.  But  to  me  it  appears,  that  he  was  used 
no  otherwise  than  he  deserved.  It  is  true  he  gained  the 
victory  over  the  rebels ;  but  the  merit  of  this  victory  he 
destroyed  by  a  base  and  infamous  murder,  contrary  to  the 
express  command  of  his  sovereign.  For  David  charged 
Joab  and  Abishai,  and  all  his  officers,  before  the  engage- 
ment :  Deal  gently,  for  my  sake,  with  the  young  man,  even 
with  Absalom.  Had  Joab  cut  him  off  in  the  heat  of  the 
battle,  he  would  have  had  somewhat  to  have  alleged  in 
his  defence.  But  nothing  could  argue  greater  insolence 
and  contempt  of  the  king's  order  than  Joab's  conduct  on 
this  occasion.  For  when  one  of  the  army  informed  him 
he  saw  Absalom  hanging  by  the  hair  in  a  tree,  Joab  re- 
plies :  "  Why  didst  thou  not  smite  him  there  to  the  ground, 
and  I  would  have  given  thee  ten  shekels  of  silver  and  a 
girdle  V  The  soldier  answered  him  with  a  noble  spirit  of 
loyalty:  "  Though  I  should  receive  a  thousand  shekels  of 
silver,  I  would  not  put  forth  my  hand  against  the  king's 
son :  for,  in  our  hearing,  the  king  charged  thee,  and  Abi- 
shai, and  Ittai,  saying.  Beware,  that  none  touch  the  young 
man  Absalom ;  otherwise  I  should  have  wrought  falsehood 
against  my  own  life,  and  thou  thyself  would  have  set  thyself 
against  me."  But  what  doth  the  loyal  Joab  do  after  this 
warning  1  He  said :  I  may  not  tarry  thus  with  thee.  Tell 
me  no  more  of  the  king's  orders.  I  have  something  else 
to  do;  and  immediately  he  took  three  darts  in  his  hand, 
and  thrust  them  through  the  body  of  Absalom,  while  he 
was  hanging  alive  in  the  midst  of  the  oak.  Could  there 
be  a  greater  insult  offered  to  the  king  than  this"?  Or^ 
a  more  treasonable  violation  of  his  orders'?  Or,  a  more 
deliberate  and  aggravated  murder  committed?  Would 
any  prince  have  endured  this  1  Or,  ought  he  to  have  par- 
doned even  a  victorious  general,  after  such  an  audacious 
cruel  instance  of  disobedience  1  But  not  content  with  this, 
he  carries  his  insolence  to  the  king  further,  and  keeps  no 
measures  of  decency  with  him.  For,  upon  David's  mourn 
ing  over  his  rebel  son,  Joab  imperiously  reproaches  him 
"  Thou  hast  showed  this  day  the  faces  of  all  thy  servants 
which  this  day  have  saved  thy  life,  and  the  lives  ofth} 
sons,  and  daughters,  and  wives ;  in  that  thou  lovest  thinf 
enemies,  and  hatest  thy  friends.  For  thou  hast  declared 
this  day,  that  thou  regardest  neither  princes  nor  servants ; 
for  this  day  I  perceive,  that  if  Absalom  had  lived,  and  all 
we  had  died  this  day,  then  it  had  pleased  thee  well ;"  and 
then,  to  complete  his  audacious  insolence,  threatens  with 
an  oath  to  dethrone  him,  if  he  did  not  do  as  he  ordered 
him,  "Now  therefore  arise,  go  forth,  and  speak  comfort- 
ably to  thy  servants ;  for  I  swear  by  the  Lord,  if  thou  go 
not  forth,  there  shall  not  tarry  one  with  thee  this  night ;  I  will 
cause  the  whole  army  to  revolt  from  thee  before  morning; 
and  that  will  be  worse  unto  thee  than  all  the  evil  that  befell 
thee  from  thy  youth  until  now,"  I  will  appeal  to  all  men, 
that  know  what  duty  or  decency  means,  whether  Joab,  after 
such  a  behaviour  to  his  sovereign,  was  fit  to  be  continued 
general  of  the  forces:  and,  whatever  might  be  his  merits 
in  other  respects,  whether  any  prince,  who  consulted  his 
own  honour  and  safety,  would  not  take  the  first  opportu- 
nity to  humble  and  break  him?  The  opportunity  came. 
Amasa,  the  general  of  the  rebel  army,  brought  Jerusalem 
and  Judah  back  to  their  allegiance,  and,  according  to  Da- 
vid's promise,  was  constituted  captain-general  in  the  room 
of  Joab.  In  defiance  of  this  appointment,  Joab,  to  get  rid  of 
hisrival,likeacowardand  poltron,  under  pretence  of  peace, 
and  a  friendly  salutation,  ripped  open  Amasa's  belly,  and 
shed  out  his  bowels  upon  the  ground.  But  it  is  said,  to  exten- 
uate Joab's  guilt,  that  he  confined  his  resentment  to  his  rival. 


Chap.  2. 


1    KINGS. 


243 


What  then'?  Is  a  cowardly  murder  to  be  pardoned,  be- 
cause committed  on  a  rival  1  Do  not  the  laws  of  God  and 
man  call  for  an  exemplary  punishment  of  such  an  atro-. 
cious  ofi'ender  ?  Are  not  such  treacherous  cruelties,  though 
practised  towards  a  rival,  offences  of  a  public  nature,  a 
Dreach  of  that  allegiance  which  men  owe  to  their  princes, 
and  a  capital  violation  of  the  sacred  laws  of  government  1 
David,  it  is  plain,  thought  so ;  and  though  Joab  was  too 
powerful  a  subject  for  him  to  call  to  an  immediate  account, 
yet  to  show  that  he  had  never  forgiven  it,  he  orders  Solo- 
mon, agreeable  to  all  the  rules  of  honour  and  justice,  to 
punish  him' as  he  deserved  for  his  numerous  treasons  and 
murders.  But  we  are  told  that  "  it  will  avail  nothing  to 
plead  the  private  faults  of  the  man.  We  are  now  to  con- 
sider him  as  relative  to  David  in  his  public  capacity,  as 
his  old  faithful  general,  who  powerfully  assisted  him  on 
all  occasions,  and  who  adhered  to  him  in  all  his  extremi- 
ties; in  which  light  ^we  must  loathe  the  master,  who  died 
meditating  black  ingratitude  against  so  faithful,  so  useful 
a  servant."  I  would  ask :  If  David  had  had  power,  and 
had  ordered  the  execution  of  Joab,  immediately  upon  the 
assassination  of  Abner,  or  of  Amasa,  whether  his  master 
David  ought  to  have  been  loathed  on  that  account,  because 
Joab  had  been  an  old  faithful  servant  1  If  it  should  be 
said,  that  he  ought  to  have  been  loathed  for  it,  the  doctrine 
advanced  is  this :  that  whatever  person  hath  been  an  old 
faithful  servant,  or  general,  to  any  prince,  and  powerfully 
assisted  him  upon  all  occasions ;  aftd  murders,  presuming 
on  his  own  power,  and  past  services,  through  malice,  re- 
venge, or  ambition,  by  a  secret  stab,  and  under  the  pre- 
tence of  friendship,  one  or  two  of  the  principal  officers  of 
the  kingdom;  the  prince,  whom  he  serves,  becomes  an 
object  of  loathing  and  abhorrence,  and  is  guilty  of  black 
ingratitude,  if  he  resolves  on  his  death,  and  actually  exe- 
cutes him,  as  such  a  base  and  treacherous  assassination 
deserves.  No  man,  I  believe,  will  coolly  assert  this.  If  it 
is  said,  that  David  ought  not  to  have  been  loathed,  but 
commended,  if  he  had  then  ordered  his  execution;  I  think 
it  cannot  be  true,  that  because  Joab  had  been  an  old  faith- 
ful general,  &c.,  we  ought  to  loathe  David  for  ingratitude, 
for  meditating  Joab's  punishment  while  he  lived,  and  ex- 
pressly ordering  it  just  before  his  death;  for  whatever  it 
was  just  for  him  to  do,  it  was  just  for  him  to  order  to  be 
done;  inasmuch  as  he  really  did  himself  what  Solomon  did 
by  his  order ;  and  because  an  act,  that  is  just  to-day,  can- 
not become  unjust  merely  by  being  deferred  till  to-morrow, 
or  the  most  convenient  opportunity  of  performing  it.  But 
it  is  said,  that  it  will  avail  nothing  to  plead  the  private 
faults  of  Joab.  What,  were  the  murder  of  Abner,  who 
had  just  brought  over  the  eleven  tribes  to  submit  to  David, 
and  the  assassination  of  Amasa,  appointed  general  of  the 
national  forces,  at  the  head  of  his  troops,  private  faults'? 
High  treason,  murder,  and  felony,  private  faults!  What 
then  can  be  public  ones,  and  what  faults  can  be  aggravated 
with  any  more  heinous  circumstances  than  these  1 

But  it  avails  nothing,  it  seems,  to  plead  these  private 
faults,  in  vindication  of  David's  ordering  him  to  be  put  to 
death  by  his  successor ;  because  we  are  to  consider  him  as 
relative  to  David  in  his  public  capacity.  Very  right: 
David  in  his  public  capacity  was  king  of  Israel,  and  Joab 
in  his  public  capacity  stood  related  to  him  as  his  general, 
and  assisted  him,  and  adhered  to  him  in  all  extremities. 
David  therefore,  in  his  public  capacity,  was  obliged,  by 
the  laws  of  God  and  man,  to  punish  "assassinations  and 
murders;  and  Joab,  in  his  public  capacity,  as  general, 
was  an  assassin  and  murderer;  and  therefore  David,  in 
his  public  capacity,  as  king,  was  obliged  to  punish  Joab 
with  death,  in  his  public  capacity,  as  general,  assassin, 
and  murderer.  If  Joab  had  been  his  faithful  general,  and 
frequently  assisted  David  in  his  extremities,  private  obli- 
gations are  in  their  nature  inferior,  and  ought  to  give  v/ay 
to  public  ones;  and  the  yielding  up  such  an  offender  to 
public  justice,  when  personal  obfigations  might  have  been 
pleaded  by  the  prince  in  his  favour,  was  a  nobler  sacrifice 
in  its  nature,  and  renders  David's  merits,  as  a  prince,  the 
more  illustrious,  and  himself  more  worthy  the  character 
of  the  man  after  God's  own  heart.  And  this  Mr.  Bayle 
thinks  David  ought  to  have  done  sooner,  and  says,  that 
notwithstanding  Joab  deserved  death,  yet  that  he  kept  his 
place;  he  was  brave,  he  served  the  king  his  master  faith- 
fully, and  to  good  purpose,  and  dangerous  discontents  might 
be  apprehended  if  he  attempted  to  punish  him.   These  were 


the  political  reasons  which  made  the  law  give  place  to  utility. 
But  when  David  had  no  further  use  for  that  general,  he 
gave  orders  that  he  should  be  put  to  death.  So  that  Mr. 
Bayle  blames  David,  not  for  ordering  Joab  to  be  put  to 
death  at  last,  but  for  deferring  to  do  it  so  long,  through 
reasons  of  policy,  and  ordering  it  only  when  those  rea.sons 
of  policy  subsisted  no  longer.  I  would  here  just  observe, 
that  what  Mr.  Bayle  calls  political  reasons  were  really 
reasons  of  necessity.  For  Joab  was  too  powerful  a  sub- 
ject to  bring  to  justice.  He  attempted  it  twice,  by  turning 
him  out  from  being  general.  But  he  restored  himself  to 
his  command  by  murder  and  treason,  in  spite  of  David, 
who  seized  the  very  first  opportunity,  after  Joab's  power 
was  broken,  of  ordering  his  execution. 

It  should  be  added  also  on  this  head,  that  whatever 
Joab's  past  services  were  to  David,  and  however  faithful  . 
he  had  formerly  been  to  him,  yet  he  had  now  been  engaged 
in  a  treasonable  conspiracy  against  him,  to  set  aside  the 
intended  succession  to  the  crown,  and  had  actually  pro- 
claimed Adonijah  king  of  Israel  during  his  father's  life ; 
altogether  without,  and  even  contrary  to  his  consent.  And 
it  is  allowed,  that  David  had  on  this  account  justifiable 
cause  for  chagrin.  And  it  is  certain,  that  Joab's  treason, 
in  endeavouring  to  depose  the  good  old  king,  and  advance 
an  ambitious  youth  into  his  throne,  was  just  reason  for 
chagrin.  And.  therefore  as  Joab  added  rebellion  to  mur- 
der, David  did  justly,  in  his  last  moments,  to  order  his 
execution  by  his  son  and  successor,  and  he  would  neither 
have  been  a  wise  or  a  righteous  prince,  had  he  forgotten 
or  refused  to  do  it.  When  it  is  said,  that  Joab  had  not 
appeardS  against  him  in  actual  hostility,  and  that  his  defec- 
tion may  admit  of  being  interpreted  into  a  patronisation  of 
that  particular  plan  for  the  succession,  rather  than  into  a  re- 
bellion against  David,  it  is  in  part  not  true  in  fact.  To  pro- 
claim any  person  king,  in  opposition  to  the  reigning  king,  is 
an  overt  act  of  rebellion,  ana  therefore  of  real  hostility.  This 
Joab  did,  and  had  not  the  design  been  seasonably  prevented, 
by  the  loyalty  and  prudence  of  Nathan,  further  hostilities 
must  have  been  immediately  committed;  David , himself 
at  least  confined,  and  Solomon,  his  intended  successor, 
actually  put  to  death.  The  plan  of  the  succession,  con- 
certed by  Joab,  in  favour  of  Adonijah,  was,  in  every  view 
of  it,  a  treasonable  one.  It  was  a  plan  formed  without  the 
consent  of  the  nation,  M'ithout  the  knowledge  of  David, 
and  the  appointment  of  God.  David  had,  a  considerable 
while  before  this,  solemnly  sworn  to  Bathsheba,  that  Solo- 
mon her  son  should  reign  after  him,  and  sit  upon  his  throne 
in  his  stead;  and  tells  all  the  nobles  and  oflicers  of  his 
kingdom,  that  as  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  had  chosen  him, 
among  the  sons  of  his  father,  to  be  king  over  all  Israel, 
so,  of  all  his  sons,  God  had  chosen  Solomon  to  sit  upon  the 
throne  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord  over  all  Israel.  To 
patronise  therefore  any  other  plan  of  succession,  and  ac- 
tually to  take  measures  to  execute  that  plan,  was  breaking 
oilt  into  open  rebellion  ;  and  the  favourers,  abetters,  pa- 
trons, and  aiders,  in  such  a  plan,  were  traitors  to  their  king 
and  country,  and  in  all  nations  would  have  been  punished 
as  such ;  and  should  it  be  pleaded  in  excuse  of  such  per- 
sons, that  their  defection  to  patronise  such  a  plan  of  suc- 
cession, was  not  a  rebellion,  it  would  be  treated  with  the 
contempt  it  deserved ;  and  as  a  defection  from  a  prince  is 
a  revolt  from  him,  and  a  revolt  a  rebellion,  they  would 
probably  be  told,  that  they  should  have  the  choice  of  t)eing 
hanged  for  a  defection,  or  rebellion,  just  as  they  pleased. 

I  shall  only  take  notice  further,  on  this  head,  that  David, 
in  his  lamentation  for  Abner,  had  declared  the  Lord  to  be* 
the  rewarder  of  evil-doers;  by  this  expression  referring 
the  punishment  of  Joab  to  the  Lord.  And  the  inference 
that  hath  been  made  from  hence  is,  that  David  having  en- 
joyed the  benefit  of  Joab's  services  through  his  life,  Jie 
having  been  his  right  hand  all  along,  gratitude,  after  sxich 
an  attachment,  ought  to  have  influenced  David  to  have  left 
him  to  the  justice  cf  God,  and  not  have  bequeathed  him 
death,  as  a  legacy  for  his  long  friendship.  But  David  did 
not  bequeath  him  death  for  his  friendship,  but  for  his  re- 
peated treasons  and  murders;  which  no  just  principle  of 
gratitude  will  ever  shelter;  since  no  services,  public  or 
private,  can  be  a  compensation  for  these  impious  violations 
of  the  laws  of  God  and  man,  and  ought  not  to  hinder  the 
progress  of  justice  in  the  execution  of  such  notorious  of- 
fenders; and  were  kings  and  princes  to  act  according  ti 
this  notion  of  gratitude,  the  peace,  order,  and  safety  of 


244 


1    KINGS. 


Chap.  2. 


society,  could  not  possibly  be  maintained.  Besides,  as  Da- 
vid declared  the  Lord  to  be  the  reAvarder  of  evil-doers,  so 
he  really  left  it  to  the  providence  of  God  to  reward  Joab, 
by  not  punishing  him  himself,  but  by  waiting  for  the  prop- 
er opportunity  to  give  him  his  reward,  when  it  could  be 
done  consistently  with  his  OM^n  safety,  and  the  peace  of  his 
kingdom.  Joab's  defection  or  rebellion  in  favour  of  Adoni- 
jah,  and  Solomon's  establishment  on  the  throne,  furnished 
this  opportunity,  and  the  providence  of  God,  by  these 
means,  brought  on  the  punishment  he  had  long  deserved. 
Let  Solomon  explain  his  father's  meaning  in  the  very  or- 
der he  gives  for  Joab's  execution.  The  king  said  to  Be- 
naiah :  "  Fall  upon  him  ....  that  thou  mayest  take  away 
the  innocent  blood  which  Joab  shed,  from  me  and  the  house 
of  my  father,  and  the  Lord  shall  return  his  blood  upon  his 
own  head,  who  fell  upon  two  men  more  righteous  and  bet- 
ter than  himself,  and  slew  them  with  the  sword.'  David 
therefore  left  Joab  to  the  justice  of  God,  and  God  execu- 
ted justice  on  him  by  Solomon's  order;  and  the  hand  of 
providence  was  very  remarkable  in  this  transaction;  in 
that,  had  Joab's  treason,  in  patronising  Adonijah's  usurpa- 
tion, succeeded,  Joab  would  have  escaped  with  impunity ; 
for  Adonijah,  no  doubt,  out  of  gratitude  to  Joab,  would 
have  forgiven  him  his  murders,  for  the  sake  of  his  servi- 
ces. David's  meaning,  therefore,  in  declaring  that  the 
Lord  would  reward  the  evil-doers,  could  be  no  other  than 
that  in  which  Solomon  understood  it :  That  though  Joab  was 
too  powerful  for  him,  at  that  time,  to  punish,  yet  that  God 
would  not  suffer  him  finally  to  escape ;  but  that,  sooner  or 
later,  in  the  course  of  his  providence,  he  would  bring  the 
punishment  on  him  which  he  so  richly  deserved.  And 
this  Joab  experienced,  since  the  very  measures  he  took  in 
the  close  of  David's  reign,  to  secure  himself  from  it,  fixed 
his  doom,  and  proved  his  destruction.  David's  conduct 
therefore,  in  this  instance,  is  no  proof  that  his  repentance 
for  his  sins  was  not  sincere,  nor  any  argument  that  he  had 
not  forgiven  his  enemies,  as  far  as  he  ought  to  do  it,  and 
did  not  die  in  charity  with  all  mankind,  as  far  as  that 
charity;  ought  to  be  extended.  If  a  prince's  charity  influ- 
ences him,  living  or  dying,  to  pardon  repeated  offences,  in- 
consistent with  the  public  safety  and  peace,  such  as  assas- 
^^inations  and  treasons,  it  is  folly  and  weakness,  and  not 
virtuous  charity ;  it  is  cruelty  to  his  people,  instead  of  real 
generosity  and  goodness.  David  had  not  this  charity,  and 
it  heightens  his  character  that  he  had  not.  His  last  charge 
to  Solomon  shows  his  inviolable  regard  to  justice,  by  posi- 
tively ordering  the  execution  of  a  murderer,  who  was  too 
powerful  for  himself  to  punish  ;  and  the  order  was  execu- 
ted by  Solomon,  in  a  manner  worthy  a  wise,  a  just,  and  a 
great  prince;  or,  worthy  the  son  of  such  a  father. — Chand- 


Ver.  7.  But  show  kindness  unto  the  sons  of  Bar- 
zillai  the  Gileadite,  and  let  them  be  of  those  that 
eat  at  thy  table :  for  so  they  came  to  me  when 
I  fled  because  of  Absalom  thy  brother. 

At  public  entertainments  in  the  courts  of  eastern  kings, 
many  of  tlieir  nobles  have  a  right  to  a  seat,  others  are  ad- 
mitted occasionally  by  special  favour.  In  this  sense  Chardin 
understands  the  dying  charge  of  David  to  his  successor,  to 
show  kindness  to  the  sons  of  Barzillai  the  Gileadite,  and  to 
let  them  be  of  those  that  should  eat  at  his  table.  He  means 
not  that  they  should  eat  at  his  tableat  every  meal,  or  on 
every  day,  but  only  on  days  of  public  festivity.  In  the 
same  light,  he  views  the  conduct  of  the  king  of  Babylon  to 
the  captive  monarch  of  Judah :  "  Evil-Merodach  spake 
kindly  to  Jehoiakim,  and  set  his  throne  above  the  throne 
of  the  kings  that  were  with  him  in  Babylon  ;  and  changed 
liis  prison-garments,  and  he  did  eat  bread  continually  be- 
fore him  all  the  days  of  his  life."  He  received  a  daily 
allowance  from  the  king  suitable  to  his  high  station,  and 
the  value  which  Evil-Merodach  had  for  him;  besides  this, 
he  had  a  seat  at  all  the  public  entertainments  of  the  court. 
The  eastern  custom  explains  the  reason  that  David  was 
not  expected  at  Saul's  table,  till  the  day  of  tbe  new  moon; 
he  did  not  sit  at  the  king's  table  every  day,  but  according 
to  established  usage,  he  had  a  right,  and  was  expected  to  be 
present  in  his  allotted  seat  on  the  day  of  a  public  and 
solemn  festival.  In  the  same  manner,  though  Mephibo- 
sheth  was  to  sit  at  David's  table  on  all  public  occasions, 


yet  he  wanted  the  produce  of  his  lands  for  food  at  other 
times.  It  was  therefore  very  proper  to  mention  ihe  cir- 
cumstances to  Ziba,  that  he  might  understand  it  would  be 
necessary  for  him  to  bring  the  produce  of  the  lands  to 
Jerusalem,  and  in  sufficient  quaniiiy  to  support  Mephibo- 
sheth  in  a  style  suitable  to  the  dignity  of  one  who  had  a 
right,  by  the  royal' grant,  to  appear  at  court,  and  sit  at  the 
king's  table  on  public  occasions:  "Thou,  therefore,  and 
thy  sons,  and  thy  servants,  shall  till  the  land  for  him;  and 
thou  shalt  bring  in  the  fruits,  that  thy  master's  son  may 
have  food  to  eat;  but  Mephibosheth  thy  master's  son  shall 
eat  bread  always  at  my  table." — Paxton. 

Ver.  8.  And,  behold,  thou  hast  with  thee  Shimei 
the  son  of  Gera,  a  Benjamite  of  Bahurim,  which 
cursed  me  with  a  grievous  curse  in  the  day 
when  I  went  to  Mahanaim  :  but  he  came  down 
to  meet  me  at  Jordan,  ancf  I  sware  to  him  by 
the  Lord,  saying,  I  will  not  put  thee  to  death 
with  the  sword.  9.  Now  therefore  hold  him 
not  guiltless;  for  thou  art  a  wise  man,  and 
knowest  what  thou  oughtest  to  do  unto  him ; 
but  his  hoar  head  bring  thou  down  to  the  grave 
with  blood. 

After  the  charge  to  Solomon,  to  execute  the  due  punish- 
ment on  Joab,  for  his  numerous  and  aggravated  crimes, 
David  gives  him  another,  relative  to  Shimei  the  Ben-  * 
jamite,  who,  as  hath  been  already  observed,  when  the  king 
was  in  his  flight  from  Jerusalem,  to  prevent  his  falling  into 
Absalom's  hands,  met  him,  railed  at,  and  cursed  David  in 
his  journey;  and  as  he  went  on,  had  the  further  insolence 
to  pelt  him  with  stones,  and  dust  him  with  dust,  crying 
out  to  the  king,  "  Come  out,  come  out,  thou  bloody  man, 
and  thou  man  of  Belial.  The  Lord  hath  returned  upon 
thee  all  the  blood  of  the  house  of  Saul,  in  whose  stead  thou 
hast  reigned  ;  and  the  Lord  hath  delivered  the  kingdom 
into  the  hand  of  Absalom  thy  son  ;  and  behold  thou  art 
taken  in  thy  mischief,  because  thou  art  a  bloody  man." 
This,  as  Mr.  Bayle  say^s,  is  a  small  specimen  of  the  abuses 
to  which  David  was  exposed  among  the  friends  of  Saul ; 
they  accused  him  of  being  a  man  of  blood,  and  looked  on 
the  rebellion  of  Absalom  as  a  just  punishment  for  the  mis- 
chiefs which  they  said  David  had  done  to  Saul  and  his 
whole  family.  But  surely  an  abuse  and  insult  of  a  more 
atrocious  and  insolent  nature  was  never  offered  to  a  prince; 
an  insult  the  viler,  as  it  had  no  foundation  in  reality  or 
truth  to  support  it.  He  twice  styles  him  a  bloody  man; 
and  tells  him,  that  because  he  had  reigned  in  the  stead  of 
Saul,  the  Lord  had  returned  on  him  all  the  blood  of  the 
house  of  Saul.  The  reader  will  observe,  that  this  transac- 
tion was  before  the  affair  of  the  Gibeonites;  and  therefore 
this  circumstance  could  not  enter  into  Shimei's  thoughts, 
nor  be  any  reason  for  his  charging  David  with  being  a 
bloody  man,  and  having  the  blood  of  Saul's  house  re- 
turned on  him.  Now,  in  what  other  respects  could  David 
be  guilty  of  the  blood  of  Saul's  house  1  Saul's  three  eldest 
sons  were  slain  with  him  in  a  battle  with  the  Philistines,  in 
which  David  was  not  present.  The  only  remaining  son 
that  Saul  had  was  Ishbosheth,  whom  Abner  made  king  in 
Saul's  room,  in  opposition  to  David,  who  was  raised  to  the 
throne  by  the  house  of  Judah.  Ishbosheth  w^as'  killed  by 
two  of  his  captains,  whom  David  put  to  death  for  that  trea- 
son and  murder ;  and  Mephibosheth,  the  son  of  Jonathan, 
the  only  remaining  one,  was  restored  to  his  patrimony, 
and,  in  all  things,  treated  as  one  of  David's  own  sons;  and 
Saul's  line  by  him,  the  eldest  branch,  continued  down 
through  many  generations.  The  charge  therefore  that 
David  was  a  bloody  man,  because  the  blood  of  the  house  of 
Saul  was  upon  him,  was  a  scandal  and  a  lie,  and  uttered  in 
the  madness  of  the  passion  and  malice  of  a  man,  who, 
being  of  Saul's  house  and  family,  was  enraged  to  see  that 
family  rejected  from  the  throne,  "and  David  advanced  to  i{ 
in  their  stead. 

Mr.  Bayle  himself  acknowledges,  that  the  friends  of  Saul 
carried  things  too  far  in  these  reproaches  against  David. 
And  vet,  as  though  he  had  made  too  large  a  concession  in 
his  favour,  he  doth,  in  a  manner,  retract  it,  by  adding:  "It 
is  true,  that,  by  the  testimony  of  God  him<=elf,  David  was  a 
man  of  blood,  for  which  reason  God  would  not  peimit  hun 


Ckap.  2. 


1   KINGS. 


245 


to  build  the  temple."  But,  by  Mr.  Bayle's  good  leave,  David 
was  not  a  man  of  blood,  by  any  testimooy  of  God  himself; 
nor  doth  either  of  the  places  he  cites  in  proof  of  it,  prove 
any  such  thing.  The  expression  which  Shimei  made  use 
of  to  revile  David  was,  hdn  o>m  »-n.  Thou  art  a  via/ii  of 
blood;  an  expression  always  used,  I  think,  in  a  bad  sense, 
to  denote  a  cruel  bloody  man.  But  God  never  gave  this 
character  to  David.  What  God  said  of  him  was  that  he 
had  been  a  man  of  wars,  n^iw  n-'mi  and  hast  shed  blood ; 
or,  as  it  is  elsewhere  expressed :  Thou  hast  shed  much  blood, 
and  hast  made  great  wars.  Now  the  shedding  of  blood  im- 
plies nothing  criminal,  except  it  be  shed  o;n  sine  causa, 
without  reason  or  cause ;  innocent  blood,  as  our  version  ren- 
ders ;  and  this  very  expression  is  used,  in  the  same  verse, 
in  the  criminal  and  in  the  good  sense,  to  denote  murder, 
and  the  justly  putting  the  murderer  to  death.  "Whoso 
sheddeth  man's  blood,  by  man  shall  his  blood  be  shed."  If 
then  David's  wars  were  just  and  necessary,  the  blood  he 
shed  in  them  was  n<5t  his  crime;  and  it  is  evident,  that 
when  David  told  his  son,  and  afterward  all  the  princes 
and  officers  of  his  kicgdom,  that  the  reason  why  God 
would  not  permit  him  to  build  his  house,  was  because  he 
had  shed  much  blood  in  his  wars ;  he  did  not  mention  it  to 
them  as  a  reproach,  or  any  crime  imputed  to  him  by  God. 
Indeed  this  could  not  be  the  case,  because,  immediately 
after  God  had  assigned  this  reason  why  he  would  not  per- 
mit him  to  do  it,  yet,  without  in  the  least  blaming  him,  he 
graciously  gave  him  a  proof  of  his  peculiar  favour,  by 
assuring  him,  that  his  son  should  build  his  house,  should 
long  enjoy  prosperity  and  peace,  and  that  the  throne  of  his 
kingdom  over  Israel  should  be  established  for  ever.  Mr. 
Bayle  urges  it  as  a  further  reason  of  David's  being  a  bloody 
man,  or  else  he  introduces  it  for  no  purpose  at  all,  that, 
to  appease  the  Gibeonites,  he  delivered  up  to  them  two 
sons,  and  five  grandsons  of  Saul,  who  were  all  seven  hanged. 
Had  Mr.  Bayle  told,  as  he  ought  to  have  d(me,  the  reason 
of  David's  delivering  them  up,  it  would  have  been  no  proof 
of  hisdelia:htinginblood.  He  did  it  not  by  choice,  but  by  ne- 
ces'^ity,  and  a  divine  order.  As  therefore  God  never  charged 
David  with  being  a  man  of  blood,  this  charge,  as  thrown  on 
him  by  Shimei,  was  false  and  injurious;  and  the  observa- 
tion, that  "  here  an  opportunity  may  be  taken  to  introduce 
a  circumstance,  which  is  so  far  material,  as  it  serves  to 
show,  that  the  sanctity  of  David  was  not  quite  so  univer- 
sally assented  to,  as  may  be  imagined,  while  he  was  living, 
and  his  actions  not  only  fresh  in  memory,  but  more  per- 
fectly known,  than  was  prudent  to  transmit  to  these  dis- 
tant ages,"  is  quite  groundless  and  injudicious.  For  how 
doth  the  being  reviled  and  cursed  by  one  interested  and 
disappointed  person,  and  charged  with  crimes  for  which 
there  is  no  foundation,  but  manv  strong  concurring  circum- 
stances to  show  the  falsehood  of  the  charge;  how  doth  this, 
I  say,  serve  to  prove,  that  David's  sanctity  was  not  so  uni- 
versally assented  to,  as  may  be  imagined  1  It  is  no  proof 
that  Shimei  himself  believed  the  truth  of  his  own  reproaches; 
nothing  being  more  common  than  for  men,  in  the  extrava- 
gance and  fury  of  passion,  to  vent  many  things,  which  they 
well  know  they  have  not  any  foundation  for  affirming: 
much  less  doth  it  serve  to  show  that  David  deserved  these 
reproaches ;  and,  least  of  all,  that  others  believed  them 
just,  and  had  as  bad  an  opinion  of  him,  as  Shimei  who 
reviled  him.  If  this  be  argument,  then  I  will,  to  the  fullest 
conviction,  demonstrate,  that  David's  sanctity  was,  while 
he  lived,  thought  as  great  as  any  body  imagines.  For,  in 
the  first  place,  Jonathan  tells  Saul :  "  He  hath  not  sinned 
against  thee,  his  works  have  been  to  thee  ward  very  good." 
In  the  next  place,  Saul,  his  professed  enemy,  acknowl- 
edges David's  innocence,  and  that  he  was  a  more  righteous 
man  than  himself,  and  that  in  persecuting  him,  "he  had 
played  the  fool,  and  erred  exceedinglv."  Nay,  Shimei 
nimself,  upon  whose  railing  against  David  this  notable 
observation  I  am  remarking  upon  is  grounded,  retracts  all 
he  had  said,  owns  himself  a  slanderer  and  a  liar,  and  begs 
pardon  for  his  abusive  impudence.  "  Let  not  my  lord  im- 
pute iniquity  unto  me,  nor  remember  what  his  servant  did 
perversely;'  for  thy  servant  doth  know  that  I  have  sinned." 
From  hence  I  argue:  If  Shimei's  reproaching  David  shows 
his  sanctity  was  not  quite  so  universally  assented  to,  as  may 
be  imagined,  while  he  was  living,  therefore,  a  fortiori, 
Jonathan's,  and  Saul's,  and  Shimei's  testimonv,  to  David's 
innocence  and  righteousness,  serves  to  show,  that  the  sanc- 
tity of  David  was  really  as  universally  assented  to,  as  hath 


been  imagined,  while  he  was  living,  and  all  his  actions 
fresh  in  memory.  I  must  beg  leave  also  to  add,  that  as 
Shimei  owned  himself  to  be  a  lying,  slanderous,  miquitous 
varlet,  and  that  the  charge  of  David's  being  "a man  of 
blood,  and  guilty  of  the  blood  of  Saul's  house,"  was  an  in- 
iquitous, perverse  calumny  ;  that  charge  destroys  its  own 
credit  and  truth  ;  and  instead  of  serving  to  show  that  Da- 
vid's sanctity  was  not  quite  so  universally  assented  to,  as 
may  be  imagined,  while  he  was  yet  living,  rather  serves  to 
show  that  it  was.  For,  as  there  are  several  unquestionable 
evidences  to  his  integrity  and  virtue,  of  persons  that  knew 
him  well,  and  were  his  contemporaries ;  as  friends  and 
enemies  have  given  their  united  testimony  in  his  favour, 
and  there  is  but  one  evidence  to  the  contrary,  and  that  a 
lying  one,  upon  record,  who  retracted  his  own  charge  pub- 
licly, and  begged  pardon  for  the  falsehood  of  it;  the  sanctity 
of  David's  character  in  the  opinion  of  the  public,  while  he 
lived,  stands  unimpeached ;  and  Shimei's  infamous  cal- 
umny against  him,  refuted  and  falsified  by  himself,  can 
never,  with  justice,  be  pressed  into  the  service  against 
David  to  defame  his  reputation.  As  to  the  suspicion  here 
thrown  in,  that  David's  "  actions,  when  fresh  in  memory, 
and  perfectly  known,  were  worse  than  have  been  repre- 
sented, or  was  prudent  to  transmit  to  these  distant  ages ;" 
surely  this  must  have  been  a  very  unreasonable  one,  if  the 
actions  that  have  been  transmitted  to  these  ages  are  such, 
as  justify  the  charges  brought  against  David,  and  the  splen- 
did character  given  him,  of  usurper,  ungrateful,  perfidious, 
perjured,  whose  conscience  was  his  slave  and  his  drudge, 
a  tyrant,  a  Nero  ;  in  a  word,  a  monster  and  a  devil.  Can 
he  be  painted  in  worse  colours  than  these  1  Or  do  the 
enemies  of  David  suspect  the  representations  they  have 
made  of  the  actions  recorded,  as  injurious  and  false,  and 
want  further  materials  to  bespatter  one  of  the  greatest  and 
best  of  princes  1  But  they  needed  no  further  memoirs  to 
assist  them.  For,  in  spite  of  Shimei,  and  though  he  had 
retracted  all  his  curses  and  calumnies,  yet  the  world  is 
told,  after  reciting  Shimei's  blasphemies:  "  This  is  pathetic, 
and  truly  characteristic  of  the  tyrant,"  to  whom  the  speech 
was  addressed.  But  David's  real  character  was  quite  the 
reverse  of  a  tyrant.  He  never  oppressed  his  subjects;  but 
when  he  reigned  over  Israel,  executed  justice  arid  judg- 
ment among  all  his  people;  and,  perhaps,  there  never  was 
a  prince  of  greater  humanity  and  clemency,  or  that  gave 
more  shining  and  disinterested  proofs  of  it,  than  Davtd, 
though  he  hath  been  characterized  as  the  vilest  of  men,  and 
the  worst  of  tyrants. 

Shimei  himself  was  one  illustrious  proof  of  this.  For 
when  David's  officers  would  have  effectually  silenced  his 
reproaches,  by  puUing  the  brawler  to  death,  as  he  reolly 
deserved,  what  saith  this  Nero  of  the  Hebrews  1  See, 
reader,  the  lineaments  of  his  blood-thirsty  disposition,  in 
his  reply  to  Abishai :  "  Let  him  curse,  f^or  if  the  Lord 
hath  said  unto  him,  curse  David,  who  shall  then  say, 
wherefore  hast  thou  done  so  ?  Behold,  my  son,  which 
came  forth  of  my  bowels,  seeketh  my  life.  How  much 
more  now  may  this  Benjamite  do  it  %  Let  him  alone,  and 
let  him  curse,  if  the  Lord  hath  bidden  him.  It  may  be  that 
the  Lord  will  look  on  my  affliction,  and  that  the  Lord  will 
requite  me  good  for  his  cursing  this  day."  In  this  grievous 
calamity,  David  could  not  but  see  the  hand  of  God,  it  was 
now  falling  heavy  on  him  for  his  great  sin  in  the  affair  of 
Uriah,  and  therefore  ascribes  the  curses  of  Shimei  to  his 
immediate  permission,  and,  in  some  measure,  even  to  his 
appointment;  as  he  was  now  reduced  to  that  low  condition, 
through  the  effect  of  his  displeasure,  as  that  this  wretch 
dared  to  pour  out  these  undeserved  calumnies  against  him. 
This  shows  the  moderation  and  great  command  of  his  tem- 
per, who  w^ould  deny  himself  the  vengeance  due  to  such  an 
outrageous  insult  on  his  pei-son  and  character.  Oh  !  how 
perfect  a  picture  doth  this  exhibit  to  us  of  a  Nero,  and  who 
can  help  discerning  and  admiring  the  happy  resemblance  ! 

But  it  was  not,  it  seems,  piety,  or  humanity  and  goodn'^ss 
of  heart  in  David,  but  policy  and  prudence,  that  prompted 
him  to  preserve  Shimei's  life.  For  so  we  are  told :  "  Some 
of  his  retinue  were  at  the  point  of  silencing  this  brawler 
with  the  ultima  ratio  regum;  but  David  prevented  it ;  wise- 
ly considering  mis  was  not  a  season  for  proceeding  to  ex- 
tremities." "Why,  what  was  there  in  the  season  to  prevent 
David  from  punishing  a  treasonable  reviler  and  brawler  as 
he  deserved  *?  What  would  David's  cause  and  interest 
have  suffered  by  permitting  a  single  person  to  be  put  to 


246 


1   KINGS. 


Chap.  2, 


death,  for  a  crime  that  made  him  worthy  of  it  1  There  is 
but  one  possible  inconveniency  that  would  have  attended  it, 
and  that  is,  there  would  have  been  wanting  one  noble  in- 
st.mce  of  his  generous  disposition,  and  the  government  of 
his  passions ;  which  is  now  recorded,  to  do  honour  to  his 
memory,  and  heighten  the  glory  of  his  truly  illustrious 
character.  But  supposing  that  this  was  not  a  season  for 
proceeding  to  extremities,  yet  when  David  recovered  his 
throne,  and  had  Shimei  fully  in  his  power,  this  surely  was 
a  season %r  David's  coming  to  any  just  extremities  that  he 
pleased,  and  he  did  not  want  very  powerful  advisers  to 
make  use  of  them ;  for  Abishai  said  to  him :  "  Shall  not 
Shimei  be  put  to  death  for  this,  because  he  hath  cursed  the 
Lord's  anointed  V  And  is  there  any  one  man  in  the  World, 
that  would  not  have  applauded  David's  justice,  in  ordering 
to  execution  a  wretch  that  had  cursed  and  pelted  him  with 
stones  in  his  adversity "?  It  is  true,  Shimei  owned  his  fault, 
and,  as  it  is  expressed,  reflecting  on  David's  vindictive  tem- 
per, came  to  make  his  submission,  and  petition  forgiveness. 
This  persuasion,  one  would  think,  would  certainly  have 
kept  Shimei  from  ever  coming  near  him,  and  forced  him 
to  seek  safety  by  flight.  I  should  rather  have  imagined, 
that,  reflecting  on  David's  merciful  and  forgiving  temper, 
and  the  experience  he  had  lately  of  it,  in  David's  not  per- 
mitting his  officers  to  cut  him  off,  when  he  was  actually 
cursing  and  stoning  him,  he  made  his  submission,  and  pe- 
titioned for  mercy.  If  David  had  been  the  vindictive  Nero, 
which  he  hath  been  represented  to  be,  Shimei's  owning  his 
fault  would  not  have  been  his  security,  and  he  would  have 
paid  dearly  for  the  scurrility  of  his  abusive  tongue  ;  espe- 
cially as  he  was  one  of  Saul's  family,  whom,  it  is  said,  lest 
they  should  hereafter  prove  thorns  in  his  side,  he  conclu- 
ded' it  expedient  to  cut  off".  But  notwithstanding  this  expe- 
diency, David  accepted  his  acknowledgments,  and  told  him 
with  an  oath :  Thou  shalt  not  die. 

But  what  shall  we  think,  it  is  said,  when  we  see  this 
Nero  of  the  Hebrews  die  in  a  manner  uniform  and  consist- 
ent with  the  whole  course  of  his  life  1  What  will  be  our 
reflections,  when  we  find  him,  with  his  last  accents,  deliv- 
ering two  murders  in  charge  to  his  son  Solomon?  One 
against  Jpab,  the  other  against  Shimei,  which  we  are  now 
t^  consider.  The  charge  that  David  gave  to  Solomon  con- 
cerning him  runs  thus :  "  And  behold  thou  hast  with  thee 
Shimei,  the  son  of  Gera,  a  Benjamite  of  Bahurim,  which 
cursed  me  with  a  grievous  curse,  in  the  day  when  I  went 
to  Mahanaim ;  but  I  swore  to  him  by  the  Lord,  saying,  I 
will  not  put  thee  to  death  with  the  sword.  Now  therefore 
hold  him  not  guiltless,  for  thou  art  a  wise  man,  and  know- 
est  what  thou  oughtest  to  do  unto  him ;  but  his  hoar  head 
bring  thou  down  to  the  grave  with  blood."  This  is  the 
ground  of  the  accusation  brought  against  David ;  that  when 
he  lay  on  his  death-bed,  where  all  mankind  resign  their  re- 
sentments and  animosities,  his  latest  breath  was  employed 
in  dictating  this  posthumous  murder  to  his  son  Solomon. 
My  reader  will  not  forget  who  Shimei  was;  of  the  house 
and  family  of  Saul ;  that  he  was  a  person  of  great  power 
and  influence  in  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  of  whom  he  had  a 
thousand  in  his  train,  when  he  made  his  submission  to  Da- 
vid upon  his  restoration ;  and  that  the  manner  in  which  he 
accosted  David,  when  fleeing  from  Jerusalem,  discovered 
the  inward  rancour  of  his  heart,  and  his  readiness  to  join 
in  any  measures  to  distress  and  disturb  his  government, 
and  cause  the  crown  to  revert  to  the  house  of  Saul.  There- 
fore David  puts  Solomon  in  mind,  that  Shimei  cursed  him 
vnth  a  grievous  curse,  in  the  day  that  he  went  down  to  Ma- 
hanaim; that  he  was  an  implacable  enemy  to  his  person 
and  family,  one  who  was  not  to  be  trusted,  and  would  not 
fail  to  show  his  hatred  upon  any  proper  occasion.  It  ap- 
pears further  by  the  expression:  "Behold  thou  hast  with 
thee  Shimei;"  that  he  was  now  in  Jerusalem;  and  that 
therefore  David  thought  this  a  proper  opportunity  of  confi- 
ning him,  that  he  might  not  spread  disaffection  to  Solo- 
mon's government,  among  those  of  his  own  tribe,  or  of  any 
of  the  other  tribes  of  Israel ;  a  precaution  the  more  neces- 
sary in  the  infancy  of  Solomon's  reign,  and  as  some  of  his 
brethren  were  inclined  to  dispute  with  him  the  succession 
to  the  crown ;  and  therefore  David  said :  "  ^ut  now  do  not 
thou  hold  him  guiltless;"  i.  e.  though  I  forgave  him,  and 
swore  to  him  that  he  should  not  die,  do  not  thou  let  him  go 
off,  do  not  leave  him  at  ^liberty,  nor  treat  him  as  an  inno- 
cent man,  that  is  reconciled  to  my  family,  and  thy  succes- 
sion in  the  throne  of  Israel.    He  is  Shimei  still,  and  wants 


nothing  but  a  fair  opportunity  to  declare  it.  He  is  now  with 
thee.  Hold  him  fast,  keep  him  continually  under  thine  eye 
to  prevent  his  doing  any  mischief;  and  if  thou  findest  him 
guilty  of  any  malpractices,  his  hoar  head  bring  thou  down 
to  the  grave  with  blood ;  cut  him  off  as  an  old  offender,  and 
dangerous  enemy,  to  secure  thy  own  peace,  and  the  safety 
of  thy  government. 

Further,  David's  telling  Solomon  that  he  sware  to  Shi- 
mei by  the  Lord,  that  he  would  not  put  him  to  death  for 
his  outrage  and  treason,  is  a  demonstrative  proof,  that  he 
did  not  advise  Solomon  to  put  him  to  death  for  the  crime 
that  he  himself  had  solemnly  forgiven  him.  For  can  any 
one  imagine,  that  David  should  tell  Solomon,  that  he  had 
sworn  by  the  Lord  not  to  put  Shimei  to  death,  and,  in  the 
same  breath,  order  him,  in  defiance  of  the  oath,  to  be  put  to 
death  by  Solomon  %  Common  decency  and  prudence  would 
have  made  him  conceal  the  circumstance  of  the  oath,  un- 
less he  intended  to  brand  himself  publicly  for  the  grossest 
perfidy  and  perjury;  or,  what  is  the  real  truth,  to  prevent 
Solomon  from  putting  Shimei  to  death,  in  resentment  for  a 
crime  for  which  he  had  solemnly  sworn  he  would  never 
execute  him;  and  therefore  it  may  be  allowed  Mr.  Bayle, 
that  strictly  speaking,  a  man,  who  promises  his  enemy  his 
life,  doth  "not  acquit  himself  of  that  promise,  when  he  or- 
ders him  to  be  put  to  death  by  his  will.  But  this  doth  not 
affect  David's  integrity,  who  either  never  promised  him  ab- 
solutely his  life,  or  never  gave  any  positive  orders  b}^  his 
will  to  execute  him.  I  add  therefore,  that  the  words  them- 
selves, when  rightly  rendered,  imply  no  such  order.  The 
common  rendering  of  them  is:  His  hoar  head  bring  thou 
doion  to  the  grave  with  blood.  But  it  is  a  better  interpreta- 
tion, and  supported  by  parallel  passages,  if  we  render  them, 
Bring  down  his  gray  hairs  to  the  grave  for  blood,  or  for  be- 
ing guilty  of  it.  Shimei  was  a  man  in  blood,  intentionally 
of  murdering  the  king,  and  who  actually  attempted  it  by 
stoning  him ;  and,  on  that  account,  deserved  to  be  put  to 
death.  Now,  though  David  could  not  order  Solomon  to 
put  him  to  death  for  this  attempt,  because  he  had  forgiven 
him,  yet  he  might  justly  urge  it,  as  a  reason  why  Solomon 
should  keep  a  constant  strict  guard  over  him,  in  order  to 
prevent  him  from  any  seditious  practices,  or  put  him  to 
death,  if  he  found  him  guilty  of  any.  The  authors  of  the 
critical  remarks  give  another  turn  Xo  the  words,  which  may 
be  justified  also  by  many  other  places  of  like  nature.  They 
would  have  the  middle  words  put  into  a  parenthesis,  and 
the  negative  particle  A  L  repeated  in  the  last  clause  from 
the  first;  thus:  "  Now  therefore  do  not  hold  him  guiltless 
(for  thou  art  a  wise  man,  and  knowest  what  thou  oughtest 
to  do  for  him,)  biit  do  not  bring  down  his  hoary  head  with 
blood."  I  would  propose  a  liitle  alteration  in  the  reading 
of  the  prefix  tJffw.  '"  Do  not  hold  him  guiltless,  (for  thou  art 
a  wise  man,)  nor  bring  down  his  hoary  head  Avith  blood." 
According  to  this  translation,  David's  direction  to  Solomon 
will  be:  That  he  should  not  put  Shimei  to  death  for  having 
cursed  him,  because  he  had  forgiven  him  upon  oath ;  but, 
at  the  same  time,  should  not  hold  him  guiltless;  leaving  it 
to  Solomon's  wisdom  to  inflict  a  proper  punishment  on  him, 
provided  it  was  not  a  capital  one.  If  David  had  intended 
that  Solomon  should  immediately  put  him  to  death,  there 
would  be  no  sense  nor  reason  in  what  David  adds:  "  Thou 
art  a  wise  man,  and  knowest  what  thou  oughtest  to  do  to 
him  ;"  which  is  evidently  the  same  thing  as  saying:  I  give 
thee  no  particular  directions  about  him,  only  observe  him. 
Thou  art  a  wise  man,  and  knowest  how  to  manage  him, 
and  to  thy  prudence  and  care  I  entirely  leave  him.  This 
is  the  natural  proper  meaning  of  the  expression,  which 
cannot  be  construed  into  any  other  sense,  without  doing 
violence  to  the  words.  Now,  to  what  purpose  was  it  to  tell 
Solomon,  that  he  knew  how  to  behave  to  Shimei,  if  David's 
command  was  immediately  to  cut  him  off,  and  Solomon  un- 
derstood him  in  this  sense  T*  The  thing  is  absurd  in  its  na- 
ture, and  there  can  be  no  meaning  in  a  charge  of  this  kind, 
viz.  giving  any  man  an  absolute  order  to  put  another  to 
death  for  a  crime,  and,  in  the  same  breath,  leaving  him  en- 
tirely to  the  management  of  his  own  wisdom  and  prudence, 
to  put  him  to  death  or  not.  If  he  gave  a  positive  order  for 
his  death,  he  did  not  leave  him  to  Solomon's  wisdom ;  and 
if  he  left  him  to  Solomon's  wisdom,  as  he  certainly  did,  he 
did  not  give  him  any  positive  order  for  his  death. 

It  is  certain  that  Solomon  did  not  understand  his  father 
in  this  sense,  of  putting  Shimei  to  death  for  his  treason  at 
Mahanaim;  but  only  that  he  should  have  a  watchful  eyei 


Chap.  2. 


1  KINGS. 


247 


over  him,  and  prevent  him  from  all  seditious  practices  for 
the  future.  For  what  doth  Solomon  do  after  his  father's 
deaths  What,  instantly  put  Shimei  to  death'?  No,  but  as 
a  wise  man,  who  knew  what  he  ought  to  do  to  him,  orders 
him  to  build  a  house  for  himself  at  Jerusalem  ;  where  he 
confines  him.  that  he  might  be  perpetually  under  his  inspec- 
tion, and  bound  him  by  an  oath  never  to  go  further  out  of 
it  than  to  the  brook  Kidron  ;  telling  him,  that  whenever  he 
passed  it,  he  should  surely  die.  This  is  further  evident 
from  the  different  manner  in  which  Solomon  treated  Joab 
and  Shimei.  Joab  he  immediately,  on  his  accession,  put 
to  death,  because  David  could  be  understood  in  no  other 
sensj,  in  the  charge  he  gave  concerning  him,  but  absolutely 
to  cut  him  off;  for  he  gives  no  intimation  that  he  had  par- 
doned him,  or  that  he  left  it  to  his  son's  prudence  to  do 
with  him  as  he  should  think  proper ;  but  says  peremptorily, 
after  recounting  the  two  murders  he  had  committed :  Do 
thou  according  to  thy  wisdom.  Do  justice  on  him,  and 
thereby  show  thyself  a  wise  man,  and  let  not  his  hoar  head 
go  down  to  the' grave  in  peace.  Now  if  the  charge  had 
been  the  same  in  reference  to  Shimei  as  it  was  to  Joab, 
what  should  have  prevented  Solomon  from  immediately 
executing  Shimei  as  well  as  Joab '?  Solomon  had  much 
less  to  apprehend  from  executing  Shimei,  than  Joab.  Joab 
had  an  interest  in  the  army,  and  had  David's  sons,  and  the 
high-priest  of  his  party,  which  Shimei  could  not  have,  as 
he  was  a  powerful  man  of  the  house  of  Saul :  a  circum- 
stance this,  however,  enough  to  incline  a  jealous  prince  to 
get  rid  of  him  if  he  fairly  could  do  it.  And  if  Solomon 
had  David's  positive  order  to  do  it,  the  regard  to  his  father's 
command,  and  the  rules  of  policy,  would  have  engaged  him 
to  have  immediately  executed  him.  But  this  Solomon,  in 
his  wisdom,  knew  lie  could  not  do ;  for  David  told  him 
that  he  had  pardoned  Shimei  to  prevent  his  execution,  be- 
cause his  offence  was  personal,  and  David  had  a  right  to 
forgive  it.  But  he  had  never  pardoned  Joab,  nor  in  justice 
could  do  it ;  because  he  was  guilty  of  death,  for  repeated 
murders,  by  the  laws  of  God  and  man.  Solomon  therefore 
acted  wisely  and  justly  in  putting  Joab  to  death,  and  show- 
ed his  prudence  in  reference  to  Shimei,  by  sparing  him ; 
but  honourably  confining  him,  that  he  might  have  the  prop- 
er security  for  his  future  good  behaviour.  But  to  this  it 
is  objected,  that  the  executing  Joab,  and  sparing  Shimei, 
was  owing  to  a  different  cause  from  what  I  have  now 
assigned.  For  Joab,  by  joining  the  party  of  Adonijah,  had 
furnished  the  pretence  for  putting  him  to  death,  which 
Shimei  doth  not  appear  to  have  done.  Joab  therefore  was 
assa.ssinated,  and  Shimei  watched.  But  this  contradicts 
the  history;  for  David,  in  his  order  to  put  Joab  to  death, 
mentions  not  one  word  about  his  being  of  Adonijah's  party, 
but  orders  him  to  be  cut  off  expressly  for  the  treacherous 
assassination  of  Abner  and  Amasa.  And  when  Solomon 
ordered  his  execution,  not  a  word  of  Adonijah ;  but  take 
away  the  innocent  blood  which  Joab  shed  from  me,  and 
from  the  house  of  my  father.  So  that,  as  the  cause  of 
Joab's  execution  was  not  his  being  of  Adonijah's  party,  so 
the  cause  of  Shimei's  being  spared,  cannot  be  said  to  be, 
because  he  was  not  of  Adonijah's  party.  The  true  reason 
of  their  treatment,  was  the  different  nature  of  their  crimes, 
and  the  difference  of  the  order  relating  to  them.  And  as 
Joab  was  put  to  death  for  repeated  murders,  by  the  express 
order  of  the  king,  it  is  with  great  injustice  that  his  death 
is  censured  as  an  assas,sination ;  especially  as  he  was  exe- 
cuted in  the  same  manner  as  state  criminals  at  that  time 
generally  were. 

Besides,  if,  as  hath  been  asserted,  David  had,  without 
any  condition,  and  by  a  positive  injunction,  ordered  Shimei 
to  be  put  to  death,  then  his  joining,  or  not  joining  Adonijah, 
had  been  a  circumstance  of  no  weight;  for,  whether  the  one, 
or  the  other,  Solomon  ought  not  to  have  ordered  him  to 
be  watched,  but  instantly  to  have  put  him  to  death,  as  he 
did  Joab.  And  if,  because  he  was  not  of  Adonijah's  party, 
Solomon  spared  him,  and  ordered  him  only  to  be  watched, 
then  Solomon  did  not  think  his  father's  order  to  be  an  order 
to  cut  him  off,  but  only  to  have  a  watchful  eye  over  him. 
For  David  knew  Shimei's  circumstances  as  well  as  Solo- 
mon, and  Solomon's  condxict  to  Shimei  is  an  abundant  ex- 
plication of  the  nature  of  his  father's  command,  and  how  he 
Jiimself  understood  it.  This  is  the  sentiment  of  F.  Houbi- 
'  pant,  who  doth  not  so  much  as  give  a  single  intimation  that 
Shimei  was  watched,  and  not  put  to  death,  because  he  wa^ 
not  of  Adonijah's  party  ;  but  absolutely  denies  that  David 


gave  any  order  at  all  to  Solomon  to  put  him  to  death  for 
the  crimes  which  he  had  pardoned  him,  but  only  to  watch 
his  conduct,  till  he  should  render  himself  guilty  by  some 
fresh  transgression.  And  when  upon  breaking  his  oath, 
he  was  sent  for  by  Solomon,  the  king  reproached  him  for 
his  perjury,  for  acting  contrary  to  the  condition  of  life, 
which  he  himself  acknowledged  to  be  just  and  equitable, 
and  for  the  wickedness  that  his  heart  was  privy  to  in  his 
conduct  to  his  father  David;  the  mercy  that  had  been 
shown  him,  in  the  pardon  of  that  offence,  aggra\%ing  his 
fresh  crime  in  violating  his  oath,  and  in  transgressing  ihe 
king's  command ;  a  crime  that  showed  he  was  of  a  restless 
spirit,  and  incapable  of  being  restrained  within  due  bounds 
by  the  most  solemn  oaths,  or  any  sense  of  interest,  gratitude, 
or  duty,  whatsoever.  Solomon  adds :  "  The  Lord  shall 
return  thy  wickedness  on  thine  own  head,  and  King  Solo- 
mon shall  be  blessed :  and  the  throne  of  David  shall  be 
established  before  the  Lord  for  ever  ;"  plainly  intimating, 
that  Solomon  now  cut  him  off,  as  an  act  of  prudence  and 
justice,  because  he  knew  him  to  be  a  turbulent  implacable 
enemy  to  his  person  and  government,  and  saw  it  necessary 
for  establishing  the  throne  of  David  before  the  Lord. 

I  would  further  add,  that  Shimei  himself,  sensible  of 
Solomon's  great  kindness  to  him,  approves  the  sentence 
pronounced  on  him,  and  therefore  the  charge  that  David 
gave  him,  promising  him  upon  oath  obedience  to  the  con- 
dition, on  which  his  life  was  afterward  to  depend.  "  The 
sentence  is  good.  As  my  Lord  the  king  hath  said,  so  will 
thy  servant  do."  It  doth  not  appear  that  Solomon  mention- 
ed one  word  about  Shimei's  cursing  David,  when  he  or- 
dered him  to  confine  himself  to  Jerusalem,  and  that  there- 
fore this  was  not  the  immediate  reason  why  he  confined 
him,  but  as  his  father  had  forewarned  him,  because  he 
thought  it  would  be  a  dangerous  thing  to'  suffer  a  person 
of  Shimei's  family,  tribe,  interest,  and  known  rancour  to 
his  crown  and  government,  to  be  entirely  at  liberty.  And, 
upon  this  supposition,  Shimei  could  not  but  own  the  justice 
of  the  sentence,  and  Solomon's  lenity  in  pronouncing  it. 
But  if  Shimei  had  any  apprehension  that  David  had  vio- 
lated his  oath  of  safety  to  nim  by  the  charge  he  gave  Solo- 
mon concerning  him,  or  that  Solomon  had  broken  it,  by 
making  his  life  depend  on  a  new  condition,  which  his  fa- 
ther had  never  obliged  him. to  come  under;  why  did  he 
not  plead  David's  oath  and  promise,  and  that  had  no  con- 
dition annexed  to  it,  when  he  appeared  before  Solomon ; 
that  the  annexing  a  new  condition  to  it  was  actually  re- 
versing it,  and  therefore  a  breach  of  oath  in  David,  if  he 
directed  it,  or  in  Solomon,  if  it  was  his  order  only,  and  not 
David's'?  And  though  David,  being  dead,  Shimei  could 
not  reproach  him  to  his  face,  yet  he  might  have  reproached 
him,  and  Solomon  himself  to  his  own  face,  for  this  breach 
of  oath,  if  there  had  been  any.  But  Shimei  urges  nothing 
of  all  this  in  favour  of  himself,  and  instead  of  reproaching 
David  or  Solomon,  acknowledges  the  king's  moderation, 
and  says:  The  sentence  is  good.  It  is  most  just  and  mer- 
ciful. As  my  lord  the  king  hath  said,  so  will  thy  servant 
do.  Shimei  therefore  knew,  either  that  he  had  an  absolute 
pardon  from  David,  or  that  he  had  forfeited  that  pardon, 
or  that,  whatever  was  the  purport  of  David's  oath  to  him, 
no  injustice  had  been  done  him,  cither  by  David's  charge 
to  Solomon,  or  by  Solomon's  executing  it.  The  adver- 
saries of  David  may  choose  which  they  please.  David's 
honour,  and  Solomon's  justice,  will  be  "abundantly  vindi- 
cated. 

Let  me  beg  the  candid  reader's  attention  to  another  re- 
mark: That  though  it  hath  been  positively  affirmed,  that 
David  guarantied  Shimei's  pardon  with  a  solemn  oath,  yet 
this  is  by  no  means  certain  from  the  history.  For  let  it  be 
observed,  that  after  Shimei's  confession  of  his  fault,  Abi- 
shai  said  to  David:  "  Shall  not  Shimei  be  put  to  death,  be- 
cause he  cursed  the  Lord's  anointed '?"  Meaning,  be  put  to 
death  instantly,  as  appears  by  David's  answer:  "Shall 
there  be  any  man  put  to  death  this  day  in  I<rael  *?  Do  I  not 
know  that  I  am  this  day  king  over  Israel '?"  Therefore  the 
king  said  to  Shimei:  "Thou  shalt  not  die;"  and  the  king 
swore  to  him,  viz.  that  he  should  not  then,  or  that  day.  or 
at  that  time,  be  put  to  the  sword.  And  it  is  observable, 
that  the  Arabic  version  expressly  mentions  this  circum- 
stance :  "  Thou  shalt  not  die  =i^'-n  this  day."  This  wzis 
certainly  all  that  the  king  declared  to  Abishai,  that,  as  he 
was  that  dav  restored  to  the  exercise  of  his  re^al  power,  no 
man  should  that  day  be  put  to  death ;  and  therefore  he 


248 


1  KINGS. 


Chap.  2. 


swore  to  Shimei,  that  he  should  not  then  die.  So  again, 
in  David's  direction  to  Solomon  about  Shimei,  the  same 
version  hath  the  same  word  :  "  I  sware  to  him  by  God :  I 
will  not  put  thee  to  the  sword  !=i'''7N  this  day.''  Thus  also 
Josenhus  understands  the  words.  He  assured  him,  says 
he,  that  he  should  suffer  nothing  at  that  time.  And  indeed 
nothing  further  can  be  certainly  collected  from  the  M^ords, 
as  they  stand  connected,  but  that  David  reprieved  Shimei 
from  immediate  execution,  and  left  him  at  liberty  to  call 
him  to  aai  account,  at  any  other  time,  for  the  outrage  and 
treason  that  he  had  been  guilty  of.  To  this  it  is  objected, 
that  probity  is  greatly  wounded  by  such  excuses.  By  what 
excuses  %  What,  by  excusing  David  from  breaking  a 
promise  that  he  never  made  ;  or,  for  putting  a  criminal  to 
death  whom  he  only  reprieved,  but  never  pardoned  1  The 
question  is,  whether  David  guarantied  Shimei's  pardon 
with  a  solemn  oath  1  Or,  sware  that  he  should  never  be 
put  to  death  for  cursing  and  stoning  him  7  The  history 
makes  it  somewhat  probable  that  David  never  swore  this, 
but  only  that  he  should  not  be  put  to  death  at  that  time,  as 
Joab  and  Abishai  thought  reasonable.  If  this  was  all  that 
David  promised,  David  broke  no  oath  in  afterward  order- 
ing him,  for  just?easons  of  state,  for  execution  ;  and  probi- 
ty is  not  at  all  wounded  by  thus  excusing  David,  because  it 
is  an  excuse  founded  in  truth.  Instances  enough  may  be 
produced,  even  in  our  own  nation,  of  offenders  being 
brought  to  justice,  after  a  very  considerable  reprieve,  per- 
fectly consistent  with  the  probity  and  equity  of  govern- 
ment. 

And  how  is  this  inconsistent  with  piety,  or  the  advice 
unworthy  a  just  and  religious  prince  on  his  death-bed  1  It 
is  true,  the  forgiveness  of  enemies  is  a  duty,  provided  they 
cease  to  become  our  enemies ;  but  no  man  is  obliged,  by 
any  law  that  I  kHow  of,  so  to  forgive  an  enemy,  continuing 
such,  as  not  to  take  the  proper  methods  to  guard  against  the 
effects  of  his  enmity,  and  bring  him  to  justice,  if  no  other 
method  will  prove  effectual.  Much  less  is  a  prince  obliged 
so  to  forgive  an  implacable  enemy  to  his  crown  and  govern- 
ment, and  one  who  is  likely  to  disturb  the  settlement  of  the 
crown  in  his  successor,  as  not  to  order  his  successor  to  be 
upon  his  guard  against  him,  and  punish  him,  when  guilty, 
according  to  his  demerits.  Such  a  caution  and  order  is 
what  he  owes  to  his  people  ;  and  he  may  die,  as  a  private 
person,  in  charity  with  all  mankind,  and  forgive  every  pri- 
vate injury  against  himself;  and  yet,  as  a  prince,  advise 
what  is  necessary  to  the  public  good,  and  even  the  execu- 
tion of  particular  persons,  if,  by  abusing  the  lenity  of  gov- 
ernment, and  the  respite  they  once  obtained,  they  should 
become  guilty  of  new  and  capital  offences.  David  may 
therefore  still  be,  the  man  after  God's  own  heart.  I  shall 
only  add,  that  it  is  a  very  uncharitable  and  groundless  sup- 
position of  Mr.  Bayle,  that  David  only  let  him  live,  first  to 
gain  the  glory  of  being  a  merciful  prince,  and  afterward, 
on  his  death-bed,  charged  his  son  to  put  him  to  death,  to 
avoid  being  reproached  to  his  face  of  having  broken  his 
word.  But  surely  David's  resolution,  that  no  man  in  Israel 
should  be  put  to  death  who  had  been  concerned  in  the  re- 
bellion, and  the  moderation  and  lenity  of  his  whole  reign 
over  his  people,  were  much  nobler  evidences  of  his  being 
a  merciful  prince,  than  his  sparing  Shimei,  whose  execu- 
tion, had  it  been  immediately  ordered,  all  the  world  would 
have  commended  as  an  exemplary  act  of  justit;e,  without 
the  least  impeachment  of  his  goodness  and  mercy.  Besides, 
if  David  was  so  false  and  unprincipled  a  wretch,  as  this 
supposes  him,  I  cannot  but  think  he  would  have  little  re- 
garded such  reproaches,  if  he  had  had  an  inclination,  in 
his  lifetime,  out  of  revenge  to  have  put  him  to  death ;  and 
if  he  was  so  cautious  of  these  reproaches  while  he  lived,  I 
can  scarce  think  he  would  have  given  an  order  that  should 
have  blasted  the  glory  of  that  character,  and  eternally 
stained  his  memory  with  the  complicated  guilt  of  hypocrisy, 
perfidy,  and  cruelty,  and  subjected  his  memory  to  them 
after  death.  Besides,  whose  reproaches  would  he  have 
been  afraid  of  7  What,  Shimei's  1  Surely  he  might  have 
put  him  to  death  by  the  hands  of  his  officers,  without  ever 
permitting  Shimei  to  reproach  him  to  his  face;  and  I  pre- 
sume few  of  his  courtiers  would  have  cared,  or  dared,  thus 
to  reproach  him.  The  truth  of  the  case  is — the  charge 
concerning  Shimei  could  not  be  given  till  David  had  estab- 
lished Solomon  on  his  throne.  It  concerned  Solomon  only, 
and  he  gave  him  the  caution,  because  necessary  to  the 
pRa<';e  and  security  of  his  future  reign ;  and  it  was  of  such 


a  nature,  as  to  deserve  no  reproach  while  he  lived,  and  to 
expose  him  to  no  just  reproach  after  his  death.  And  if  Mr. 
Bayle  cannot  prove,  that  David  died  immediately  after  this 
charge  to  Solomon  concerning  Shimei,  he  might  have  lived 
long  enough  to  be  reproached  for  it  lo  his  face  ;  and  there- 
fore it  could  not  be  to  avoid  this  reproach,  that  he  gf.ve  this 
charge  to  Solomon  towards  the  conclusion  of  i.:'?'  .1'  Je,  I 
cannot  help  therefore  thinking,  that  the  same  reasons  that 
led  him  to  spare  Shimei,  when  he  cursed  and  stoned  him, 
in  his  retreat  from  Jerusalem,  induced  him  to  spar?  him 
upon  his  return  to  it;  viz.  as  Mr.  Bayle  himself  expresses 
it — his  acknowledging  and  adoring  "the  hand  of  God,  in 
the  reproaches  with  which  that  furious  Benjamite  loaded 
him ;  and  that  as  God  had  done  what  he  scarce  allowed 
himself  to  hope  for,  looked  upon  his  affliction,  and  requited 
him  with  good  for  Shimei's  cursing,  he  was  resolved,  in 
imitation  of  his  God,  to  requite  Shimei  with  good,  and  to 
bless  the  man  who  had  reviled,  cursed,  and  despitefully 
used  him. — Chandler. 

Another  view  of  this  charge  to  Solomon  is  given  by 
Kennicott,  whose  remarks  are  well  deserving  attention. 
"  David  is  here  represented  in  our  English  version,  as 
finishing  his  life  with  giving  a  command  to  Solomon  to 
kill  Shimei ;  and  to  kill  him  on  account  of  that  very 
crime,  for  which  he  had  sworn  to  him  by  the  Lord,  he 
would  not  put  him  to  death.  The  behaviour  thus  imputed 
to  the  king  and  prophet,  should  be  examined  very  carefully, 
as  to  the  ground  it  stands  upon.  When  the  passage  is  duly 
considered,  it  will  appear  highly  probable  that  an  injury 
has  been  done  to  this  illustrious  character.  It  is  not  un- 
common in  the  Hebrew  language  to  omit  the  negative  in  a 
second  part  of  a  sentence,  and  to  consider  it  as  repeated, 
when  it  has  been  once  expressed,  and  is  follow^ed  by  the 
connecting  particle.  The  necessity  of  so  very  considerable 
an  alteration,  as  inserting  the  particle  not,  may  be  here 
confirmed  by  some  other  instances.  Thus  Psalm  i.  5, 
*  The  ungodly  shall  not  stand  in  the  judgment,  nor  (Heb. 
and,  signifying  and  not)  sinners  in  the  congregation  of  the 
righteous.'  (Psalm  ix.  18.  Psalm  xxxviii.  1 .  Psalm  Ixxv.  5. 
Prov.  xxiv.  12.)  If  then,  there  are  in  fact  many  such  in- 
stances, ihe  question  is,  whether  the  negative,' here  ex- 
pressed in  the  former  part  of  David's  command,  may  not 
be  understood  as  to  be  repeated  in  the  latter  part ;  and  iif  this 
may  be,  a  strong  reason  will  be  added  why  it  should  be  so 
interpreted.  The  passage  will  run  thus:  'Behold, thou  hast 
with  thee  Shimei,  who  cursed  me,  but  I  sware  to  himb}''  the 
Lord,  saying,  I  will  not  put  thee  to  death  by  the  sword. 
Now  therefore,  hold  him  not  guiltless,  (for  ibou  art  a  wise 
man,  and  knowest  what  thou  oughtest  to  do  unto  him)  but 
bring  not  down  his  hoary  head  to  the  grave  with  blood.' 
Now,  if  the  language  itself  will  admit  this  construction, 
the  sense  thus  given  to  the  sentence  derives  a  very  strong 
support  from  the  context.  For,  how  did  Solomon  under- 
stand this  charge  7  did  he  kill  Shimei  in  consequence  of  it  1 
Certainly  he  did  not.  For,  after  he  had  immediately  com- 
manded Joab  to  be  slain,  in  obedience  to  his  father,  he  sends 
for  Shimei,  and  knowing  that  Shimei  ought  to  be  well 
watched,  confines  him  to  a  particular  spot  in  Jerusalem  for 
the  remainder  of  his  life." — B. 

Ver.  16.  And  now  I  ask  one  petition  of  thee,  deny 
me  not.     And  she  said  unto  him,  Say  on. 

The  Hebrew  has  for  "  deny  me  not,"  "turn  not  away  my 
face."  When  a  man  has  gained  the  attention  of  the  person  to 
whom  he  wishes  to  speak,  he  generally  says  orn-kcalve-nwte' 
ram,  i.  e.  one  request  only,  to  show  he  is  not  going  to  give  him 
much  trouble,  and  to  ask  for  many  things.  Adonijah  said 
to  Bathsheba,  "  turn  not  away  my  face :"  under  similar 
circumstances  it  would  be  said  here,  "  Ah  !  do  not  make 
my  face  ashamed — Do  not  put  away  my  face — Reject  not 
my  face." — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  Bath-sheba  therefore  went  imto  king  Sol- 
omon, to  speak  unto  him  for  Adonijah.  And 
the  king-  rose  up  to  meet  her,  and  bowed  him- 
self unto  her,  and  sat  down  on  his  throne,  and 
caused  a  seat  to  be  set  for  the  king's  mother ; 
and  she  sat  on  his  right  hand. 

When  visited  bv  a  superior,  the  Persian  rises  hastily,  and 


Chap.  3. 


1    KINGS 


249 


meets  his  guest  nearly  at  the  door  of  the  apartment.  On 
*he  entrance  of  an  equal,  he  just  raises  himself  from  his 
?eat,  and  stands  nearly  erect :  but  to  an  inferior  he  makes 
ihe  motion  only  of  rising. — Morier. 

Ver.  23.  Then  King  Solomon  sware  by  the  Lord, 
saying,  God  do  so  to  me,  and  more  also,  if 
Adonijah  have  not  spoken  this  word  against  his 
own  life.  24.  Now  therefore,  as  the  Lord  liv- 
eth,  which  hath  established  me,  and  set  me  on 
the  throne  of  David  my  father,  and  who  hath 
made  me  a  house,  as  he  promised,  Adonijah 
phall  be  put  to  death  this  day.  25.  And  King 
Solomon  sent  by  the  hand  of  Benaiah,  the  son 
of  Jehoiada ;  and  he  fell  upon  him  that  he  died. 

Far  are  we  from  vindicating  Solomon  in  all  his  actions, 
any  more  than  David  in  the  matter  of  Uriah :  his  severity 
to  his  brother,  for  a  seemingly  small  offence,  looked  like 
revenge,  and  as  if  he  had  taken  the  first  opportunity  to  cut 
him  off  for  his  former  attempt  upon  the  kingdom  ;  and  yet 
we  cannot  bat  imagine,  from  Solomon's  Avords  to  his  mother, 
that  there  was  some  further  conspiracy  against  him,  though 
not  mentioned  in  holy  writ,  of  which  he  had  got  intelligence, 
and  in  which  Joab  and  Abiathar  were  engaged  ;  and  that 
he  looked  upon  this  asking  Abishag  in  marriage  as  the 
prelude  to  it,  and  the  first  overt  act,  as  it  were,  of  their  trea- 
son. It  is  certain,  that  they  thought  to  impose  upon  the  king, 
as  they  had  done  upon  his  mother,  and  carry  their  point, 
without  ever  discovering  the  malevolent  intent  of  it. 

The  wives  of  the  late  king  (according  to  the  customs  of 
the  East)  belonged  to  his  successor,  and  were  never  married 
to  any  under  a  crowned  head.  Abishag  was,  doubtless,  a 
beautiful  woman,  and  by  her  near  relation  to  David  might 
have  a  powerful  interest  at  court ;  Adonijah  might  therefore 
hope,  by  this  marriage,  to  strengthen  his  pretensions  to  the 
crown,  or,  at  least,  to  lay  the  foundation  for  some  future 
attempt,  upon  a  proper  opportunity,  either  if  Solomon 
should  die,  and  leave  a  young  son,  not  able  to  contest  the 
point  with  him,  or  if,  at  any  time,  he  should  happen  to  fall 
under  the  people's  displeasure,  as  his  father  had  done  before 
him.  This  might  be  Adonijah's  design,  and  Solomon,  ac- 
cordingly, might  have  information  of  it.  But,  supposing 
that  his  brother's  design  was  entirely  innocent,  yet  since  his 
request,  (according  to  the  customs  then  prevailing,)  was  con- 
fessedly bold  and  presumptuous,  and  had  in  it  all  the  ap- 
pearance of  treason,  it  was  none  of  Solomon's  business  to 
make  any  further  inquiry  about  it,  or  to  interpret  the  thing 
in  his  brother's  favour.  It  was  sufficient  for  him  that  the 
action  was  in  itself  criminal,  and  of  dangerous  consequence 
to  the  state,  for  it  is  by  their  actions,  and  not  intentions,  that 
all  offenders  must  be  tried.  Adonijah  indeed,  had  he  lived 
under  our  constitution,  would  have  had  a  fair  hearing 
before  conviction.  But  we  ought  to  remember,  that  in  the 
kingdoms  of  the  East  the  government  was  absolute,  and  the 
power  of  life  or  death  entirely  in  the  prince  :  so  that  Solo- 
mon, without  the  formality  of  any  process,  could  pronounce 
his  brother  dead ;  and  because  he  conceived  that  in  cases 
of  this  nature  delays  were  dangerous,  might  send  imme- 
diately and  have  him  despatched,  though  we  cannot  but 
say,  that  it  had  been  much  more  to  his  commendation  had 
he  showed  more  clemency,  and  spared  his  life. — Stackhouse. 

Ver.  26.  And  unto  Abiathar  the  priest  said  the 
king.  Get  thee  to  Anathoth,  unto  thine  own 
fields ;  for  thou  art  worthy  of  death ;  but  I  will 
not  at  this  time  put  thee  to  death,  because  thou 
barest  the  ark  of  the  Lord  God  before  David 
my  father,  and  because  thou  hast  been  afflicted 
in  all  Avherein  my  father  was  afflicted.  27.  So 
Solomon  thrust  out  Abiathar  from  being  priest 
unto  the  Lord  ;  that  he  might  fulfil  the  word 
of  the  Lord,  which  he  spake  concerning  the 
house  of  Eli  in  Shiloh. 

.  How  far  the  high-priest  Abiathar  was  concerned  in  the 
plot  against  Solomon,  the  sacred  history  does  not  particu- 
32 


larly  inform  us;  but  such  was  the  reverence  paid  to  the 
sacerdotal  character,  that  Solomon  would  have  hardly  dared 
to  have  deposed  such  a  one  from  his  office,  had  not  the 
constitution  of  the  nation  authorized  him  so  to  do.  The 
kings  in  the  East,  indeed,  soon  found  out  ways  to  make 
themselves  absolute;  but  it  looks  as  if,  at  the  first  establish- 
ment, the  king  was  at  the  head  of  the  HebreAV  republic,  and 
the  high-priest  his  subject,  and,  in  all  civil  affairs,  submitted 
to  his  correction :  insomuch  that,  when  any  one  abused 
the  power  of  his  office,  to  the  prejudice  of  the  commonweal, 
or  endangering  the  king's  person,  the  king  might  justly 
deprive  him  of  his  honours  and  titles,  of  his  temporalities 
and  emoluments,  and  even  of  life  itself.  And  therefore, 
when  Abiathar  by  his  conspiracy  had  merited  all  this, 
whatever  was  dependant  on  tne  crown  (as  all  the  revenues 
of  this  place,  as  well  as  the  liberty  of  officiating  in  it,  were 
dependant)  Solomon  might  lawfully  take  from  him;  but 
the  sacerdotal  character,  which  he  received  from  God,  and 
to  which  he  was  anointed,  this  he  could  not  alienate :  and 
therefore  we  may  observe,  that,  after  his  deprivation,  and 
even  when  Zadok  was  in  possession  of  his  place,  he  is 
nevertheless  still  mentioned  under  the  stvle  and  title  of  the 
priest.  The  truth  is,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  difference  be- 
tween depriving  a  man  of  the  dignity,  and  of  the  exercise 
of  his  function,  in  such  a  determinate  place:  between 
taking  from  him  an  authority  that  was  given  him  by  God, 
and  the  profits  and  emoluments  arising  from  it,  which  were 
originally  the  gift  of  the  crown.  The  former  of  these 
Solomon  could  not  do,  and  the  latter,  it  is  probable,  he  was 
the  rather  incited  to  do, 'out  of  regard  to  the  prophecy  of 
Samuel,  wherein  he  foretold  Eli  (from  whom  Aoiathar  was 
descended)  that  he  would  translate  the  priesthood  from  his 
to  another  family,  as  he  did  in  the  person  of  Zadok,  who 
was  of  the  house  of  Eleazar,  even  as  Eli  M^as  of  that  of 
Ithamar ;  so  that,  by  this  means,  the  priesthood  reverted  to 
its  ancient  channel. — Stackhouse. 

Ver.  34.  So  Benaiah  the  son  of  Jehoiada  went  up, 
and  fell  upon  him,  and  slew  him  ;  and  he  was 
buried  in  his  own  house  in  the  wilderness. 

This  refers  to  the  interment  of  Joab,  who  was  slain  by 
the  hands  of  Benaiah.  It  is  probable  that  Joab  had  buill 
this  house  for  the  purpose  of  being  buried  in  it,  as  it  is  not 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  would  erect  a  house  in  such 
a  place  to  be  the  habitation  of  the  living.  Children  or 
parents  often  build  a  house  in  a  retired  place,  over,  or  for 
the  remains  of  their  dead  ;  and  the  rest  of  the  family  also 
when  they  die  are  buried  there.  In  some  of  these  places 
may  be  seen  the  funeral  car,  or  palanquin,  in  Avhich  the 
corpse  was  taken  to  its  long  home,  suspended  from  the  roof. 
At  the  anniversary  of  the  death  of  a  father,  mother,  or  any 
other  near  relation,  the  friends  go  thither  to  perform  the 
annual  rites  for  the  benefit  of  their  manes.  Such  a  house, 
so  long  as  the  descendants  of  the  dead  interred  there  have 
the  power  to  prevent  it,  will  never  be  allowed  to  go  to  de- 
cay.— Roberts. 


Ver.  38. 
days. 


And  Shimei  dwelt  in  Jerusalem  many 


Ask  a  man  how  long  he  has  lived  in  the  village,  or  a 
priest  how  long  he  has  officiated  in  the  temple,  the  answer 
IS  not  a  long  time,  or  many  years,  but  veagu-ndl,  i.  e.  many 
days.  "  How  long  were  they  digging  that  tank  1" — "  Ah  ! 
many  days."  "  Who  built  that  temple  ?"— "  Ah  !  my  lord, 
how  can  I  tell  1  it  has  been  built  many  days."  "  I  hear  you 
were  at  the  taking  of  Seringapatam,  when  the  great  Tippoo 
Saib  was  slain." — "  Yes,  I  was."  "  How  long  is  that 
since  1" — "  I  cannot  really  tell,  but  many  days." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  4.  And  the  king  went  to  Gibeon  to  sacrifice 
there;  for  that  was  the  great  high  place:  a 
thousand  burnt-oflerings  did  Solomon  offer  upon 
that  altar. 

An  exception  has  been  taken  to  the  account  of  the  great 
quantity  of^  sacrifices  which  he  is  said  to  have  offered  on 
one  altar  only ;  but  without  recurring  to  any  miracle  for 
this,  or  without  supposing  this  fire,  which  originally  came 


250 


1    KINGS. 


Chap.  4. 


from  heaven,  was  more  strong  and  intense  than  any  com- 
mon fire,  and  therefore,  after  the  return  from  the  captivity, 
the  altar  (as  some  observe)  was  made  larger,  because  there 
wanted  this  celestial  flame:  without  any  forced  solution 
like  this,  we  have  no  reason  to  think  that  all  these  sacrifices 
were  offered  in  one  day.  The  king,  we  may  imagiue,  upon 
one  of  the  great  festivals,  went  in  procession  with  his  no- 
bles, to  pass  his  devotion  at  Gibeon,  where  was  the  taberna- 
cle and  the  brazen  altar,  MJ-hich  Moses  had  made.  Each 
of  the  great  festivals  lasted  for  seven  days;  but  Solomon 
might  stay  much  longer  at  Gibeon,  until,  by  the  daily  obla- 
tions, a  thousand  burnt-offermgs  were  consumed ;  and,  at 
the  conclusion  of  this  course  of  devotion,  he  might  offer  up 
his  ardent  prayer  to  God  for  wisdom,  and  God,  for  the  con- 
firmation of  his  faith,  might  appear  to  him  in  a  dream  by 
night,  and  have  that  converse  with  him,  that  the  scripture 
takes  notice  of. — Stackhouse. 

Ven.  7.  And  now,  O  Lord  my  God,  thou  hast 
made  thy  servant  king  instead  of  David  my 
father ;  and  I  am  hut  a  little  child :  I  know  not 
hoio  to  go  tut  or  come  in. 

So  said  Solomon  when  he  came  to  the  kingdom  of  his  fa- 
ther ;  and  so  say  men  here,  though  they  be  advanced  in 
years,  when  they  wish  to  speak  of  their  incapacity  for  any 
performance.  "  What  can  I  do  in  this  affair ;  I  am  but  a 
boy  of  yesterday's  birth  1"  When  a  man  pleads  for  for- 
giveness, he  says,  "  I  am  but  a  little  child,  it  was  my  igno- 
rance." Has  a  man  insulted  another  by  not  bowing  to  him, 
or  refusing  to  take  off  his  sandals  in  his  presence,  or  by  the 
use  of  some  improper  expressions ;  those  who  go  to  inter- 
cede for  him,  say,  "  Forgive  him,  sir,  he  is  but  an  infant  of 
yesterday."  A  person  wishing  to  compliment  a  holy  or 
learned  person,  says,  "  I  am  but  a  little  infant  when  com- 
pared with  you." — Roberts. 

Ver.  2.5.  And  the  king  said,  Divide  the  living 
child  in  two,  and  give  half  to  the  one,  and  half 
to  the  other. 

This  was  apparently  a  very  strange  decision  ;  but  Solo- 
mon saw  that  the  only  way  to  discover  the  real  mother  was 
by  the  affection  and  tenderness  she  would  necessarily  show 
to  her  offspring.  The  plan  was  tried,  and  succeeded;  and 
it  was  a  proof  of  his  sound  judgment,  penetration,  and  ac- 
quaintance with  the  human  heart,  if  not  of  his  extraordi- 
nary and  supernatural  wisdom.  There  are  several  similar 
decisions  recorded  by  heathen  writers.  Suetonius,  in  his 
Life  of  the  Emperor  Claudian,  whom  he  celebrates  for  his 
wonderful  sagacity  and  penetration,  tells  us,  that  this  em- 
peror discovered  a  woman  to  be  the  real  mother  of  a  young 
man,  whom  she  refused  to  acknowledge,  by  commanding 
her  to  marry  him,  the  proofs  being  doubtful  on  both  sides ; 
for,  rather  than  commit  incest,  she  confessed  the  truth. 
Diodorus  Siculus  also  informs  us,  that  Ariopharnes,  king 
of  Thrace,  being  appointed  to  decide  between  three  young 
men,  each  of  whom  professed  to  be  the  son  of  the  deceased 
king  of  the  Cimmerians,  and  claimed  the  succession,  dis- 
covered the  real  son,  by  ordering  each  to  shoot  an  arrow 
into  the  dead  body  of  the  king :  two  of  them  did  this  with- 
out hesitation ;  but  the  real  son  of  the  deceased  monarch 
refused. — Greenfield. 

The  great  merit  of  the  king  in  this  matter  was  finding 
out  the  true  mother.  "  A  woman  who  was  going  to  bathe 
left  her  child  to  play  on  the  banks  of  the  tank,  when  a  fe- 
male demon  who  was  passing  that  way  carried  it  off.  They 
both  appeared  before  the  deity,  and  each  declared  the  child 
was  her  own  :  the  command  was  therefore  given  that  each 
claimant  was  to  seize  the  infant  by  a  leg  and  an  arm,  and 
pull  with  all  their  might  in  opposite  directions.  No  sooner 
had  they  commenced  than  the  child  began  to  scream,  when 
the  real  mother,  from  pity,  left  off  pulling,  and  resigned 
her  claim  to  the  other.  The  judge  therefore  decided,  that 
as  she  only  had  shown  affection,  the  child  must  be  hers." 
The  decision  of  a  Hindoo  magistrate  in  the  case  of  some 
travellers  is  also  in  point.  "  Two  travellers  once  went 
into  a  rest-house  to  sleep ;  the  one  had  on  beautiful  ear- 
rings, the  other  had  none.  In  the  night  the  latter  arose, 
and  while  the  other  slept,  took  off  one  of  his  rings  and  put 
it  in  his  own  ear.    In  the  morning  the  former  finding  one 


of  his  rings  missing,  looked  at  his  companion  and  saw  it 
in  his  ear.  He  immediately  charged  him  with  the  theft, 
but  the  thief  retorted,  and  charged  him  with  having  stolea 
one  of  his  rings.  They  disputed  for  some  time,  and  at  last 
each  determined  to  make  his  complaint  before  a  magistrate: 
his  worship  patiently  heard  the  case,  but  as  each  swore  that 
the  other  was  the  thief,  and  as  neither  of  them  could  pro- 
duce a  witness,  he  was  at  a  loss  how  to  decide.  He  then 
took  one  of  them  into  a  private  apartment,  and  said,  I  can- 
not find  out  who  is  guilty,  but  as  I  perceive  the  rings  are 
worth  one  hundred  rupees,  I  will  sell  them ;  you  shall  each 
pay  a  fine  of  twenty-five  rupees,  and*  the  remaining  fifty 
you  may  divide  betwixt  yourselves.  The  man  replied,  '  I 
will  not  have  the  twenty-five  rupees;  they  are  my  own 
rings,  you  can  do  as  you  please.'  The  magistrate  then 
called  the  other  man  into  the  room,  and  proposed  the  same 
thing;  he  replied,  '  What  can  I  do,  my  lord,  I  must  sub- 
mit to  your  pleasure ;  I  accept  of  the  twenty-five  rupees.' 
His  worship  saw  that  the  man  was  much  pleased  with  the 
prospect  of  getting  the  rupees,  and  therefore  concluded  that 
he  was  the  thief  The  ring  was  then  given  to  the  other 
man,  who  was  the  rightful  owner." — Roberts. 

Ver.  26.  For  her  bowels  yearned  upon  her  son. 

The  Hebrew  has  for  yearned,  "  were  hot."  A  mother, 
in  lamenting  over  her  suffering  child,  says,  "  Ah  !  my 
bowels  are  hot  over  the  child."  "  My  bowels  burn  in  his 
misery."    "  My  heart  is  burnt  to  ashes." — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  7.  And  Solomon  had  twelve  officers  over  all 
Israel,  which  provided  victuals  for  the  king  and 
his  household :  each  man  his  month  in  a  year 
made  provision. 

The  eastern  people  to  this  day,  it  seems,  support  the 
expenses  of  government,  in  common,  by  paying  such  a  pro- 
portion of  the  produce  of  their  lands  to  their  princes.  These 
are  their  taxes.  No  wonder  it  was  so  in  remoter  ages.  Char- 
din  gives  us  this  account :  "  The  revenues  of  princes  in  the 
East  are  paid  in  the  fruits  and  productions  of  the  earth.  There 
are  no  other  taxes  upon  the  peasants."  The  twelve  officers  of 
Solomon  then,  mentioned  1  Kings  iv.  7 — 19,  are  to  be  con- 
sidered as  his  general  receivers.  They  furnished  food  for 
all  that  belonged  to  the  king ;  and  the  having  provisions 
for  themselves  and  attendants,  seems  to  have  tieen,  in  those 
times  of  simplicity,  all  the  ordinary  gratification  his  minis- 
ters of  state,  as  well  as  his  meaner  servants,  received.  Sil- 
ver, gold,  horses,  armour,  precious  vestments,  and  other 
things  of  value,  came  to  him  from  other  quarters :  partly  a 
kind  of  tribute  from  the  surrounding  princes,  partly  from 
the  merchants,  whom  he  suffered  to  pass  through  his  coun- 
try to  and  from  Egypt,  or  elsewhere,  partly  from  his  own 
commerce  by  the  Red  Sea.  The  horses  and  armour  he 
seems  to  have  distributed  among  the  most  populous  towns, 
who  were  to  find  horsemen  and  people  to  drive  chariots  to 
such  a  number  when  called  for  ;  and  out  of  the  silver,  and 
other  precious  things  that  came  to  him,  he  made  presents 
upon  extraordinary  occasions  to  those  that  distinguished 
themselves  in  his  service.  And  according  to  this  plan  of 
conducting  the  expenses  of  civil  government,  the  history  of 
Solomon  is  to  be  explained.  Comm^  ntators  have  not  al- 
ways had  this  present  to  their  minds  when  illustrating  'this 
part  of  scripture. — Harmer. 

Ver.  23.  Ten  fat  oxen,  and  twenty  oxen  out  of  the 
pastures,  and  a  hundred  sheep,  besides  harts, 
and  roe-bucks,  (antelopes,)  and  fallow-deer,  and 
fatted  fowl. 

•''  Harts."  Dr.  Shaw  (Trav.  p.  414)  understands  the 
original  '7^n  ayil  as  the  name  of  the  genus,  including  all  the 
species  of  the  deer  kind,  whether  they  are  disiinguished  by 
round  horns,  as  the  stag;  or  by  flat  ones,  as  the  fallow-deer; 
or  bv  the  smallness  of  the  braiiches,  as  the  roe. 

"  iPallow-deer."  The  Hebrew  ■Mnn'>  yachvmr,  rendered 
bubalus  by  the  Vulgate,  probably  denotes  the  bufalo ;  and 
though  the  "  flesh  of  a  buffalo  does  npt  seem  so  well  tasted  as 
beef,  being  harder  and  more  coarse,  yet  in  our  times  per- 


Chap.  4. 


1  KINGS. 


251 


sons  of  distinction,  as  well  as  the  common  people,  and  even 
the  European  merchants,  eat  a  good  deal  of  ii  in  countries 
where  that  animal  abounds."    (Niebuhr.) — Greknfield. 

The  flesh  of  the  antelope  is  very  grateful  to  the  taste  of 
an  Oriental.  It  is,  in  the  estimation  of  Arabian  writer.'?, 
the  most  delicious  and  wholesome  of  all  venison.  They 
pronounce  its  juices  better  than  these  of  any  other  wild 
animal,  and  more  adapted  to  the  human  constitution.  The 
sentiments  of  these  venerable  ancients,  are  confirmed  by 
the  testimony  of  several  intelligent  modern  authors.  Dr. 
Shaw  says,  ''  it  is  in  great  esteem  in  the  East  for  food,  hav- 
ing a  sweet  musky  taste,  which  is  highly  agreeable  to  their 
palates ;"  and  according  to  Dr.  Russel,  "  the  antelope  veni- 
son, during  the  winter,  or  sporting  season,  is  well  fla- 
voured, but  very  lean,  and  in  the  spring  is  fat,  and  of  a 
flavour  which  might  vie  with  English  venison."  These 
statements  account  for  its  being  daily  served  up  on  the 
sumptuous  table  of  Solomon  and  other  eastern,  princes. 
Besides,  the  antelope  has  all  the  marks  which  distinguished 
clean  animals  under  the  law  ;  it  both  divides  the  hoof  and 
chews  the  cud.  An  Israelite,  therefore,  might  lawfully  eat 
of  its  flesh,  although  he  was  not  permitted  to  offer  it  in 
sacrifice.  This  creature  belonged  to  the  class  of  clean 
leasts,  which  the  people  of  Israel,  as  well  during  their 
wanderings  in  the  desert,  as  after  their  settlement  in  the 
and  of  promise,  were  permitted  to  kill  wherever  they  could 
find  them,  and  use  for  the  subsistence  of  their  families, 
although,  at  the  time,  they  might  be  ceremonially  unclean. 
But  the  ox,  the  sheep,  and  the  goat,  which  some  writers 
distinguished  by  the  name  of  clean  cattle,  might  both  be 
lawfully  eaten  and  offered  in  sacrifice  ;  yet  while  the  cho- 
sen people  sojourned  in  the  wilderness,  they  were  forbid- 
den to  kill  any  of  these  animals,  although  intended  merely 
for  private  use,  except  at  the  door  of  the  tabernacle;  and  if 
ceremonially  unclean,  even  to  eat  of  their  flesh.  This 
regulation  occasioned  little  inconvenience  to  the  tribes  in 
the  desert,  where  they  lived  in  one  vast  encampment,  in 
the  midst  of  which  the  sacred  tent  was  pitched  ;  but  after 
their  settlement  in  Canaan,  their  circumstances  required 
either  an  alteration  in  the  law,  or  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
nation  should  abstain  altogether  from  the  use  of  flesh.  The 
permission  was  accordingly  enlarged;  while  they  were  still 
restricted  to  shed  the  blood  of  cattle  intended  for  sacrifice, 
only  before  the  national  altar,  they  were  permitted,  when 
too  far  from  the  tabernacle,  to  kill  those  which  they  de- 
signed merely  for  common  food,  in  any  of  their  cities,  or  in 
their  houses ;  even  the  ceremonial  regulation  was  abol- 
ished, and  in  private  clean  and  unclean  fared  alike.  This 
permission,  which  is  couched  in  very  express  terms,  is 
repeated  in  the  course  of  a  few  verses,  lest  the  suspicious 
mind  of  an  Israelite  might  suppose  that  Jehovah  envied 
his  people  the  enjoyment  of  what  he  had  given  them ;  and 
"  in  both  instances  it  is  illustrated  by  an  example  which 
must,  from  the  use  of  it,  have  been  familiar  to  the  Israel- 
ites:" "  The  unclean  and  the  clean  may  eat  thereof,  as  of 
the  (antelope,)  and  of  the  hart." — Paxton. 

The  great  number  of  beasts  required  daily  in  Solomon's 
kitchen,  will  by  no  means  be  found  incredible,  when  we 
compare  it  with  the  accounts  of  the  daily  consumption  of 
oriental  courts  in  modern  times,  and  the  prodigious  num- 
ber of  servants  of  an  Asiatic  prince.  Thus  Tavernier,  in 
his  description  of  the  seraglio,  says,  that  five  hundred  sheep 
and  lambs  were  daily  required  for  the  persons  belonging  to 
the  court  of  the  sultan. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  25.  And  Judah  and  Israel  dwelt  safely, 
every  man  under  his  vine  and  under  his  fig- 
tree,  from  Dan  even  to  Beer-sheba,  all  the  days 
of  Solomon. 

Plantations  of  trees  about  houses  are  found  very  useful 
in  hot  countries,  to  give  them  an  agreeable  coolness.  The 
ancient  Israelites  seem  to  have  made  use  of  the  same 
means,  and  probably  planted  fruit  trees  rather  than  other 
kinds,  to  produce  that  effect.  "  It  is  their  manner  in  many 
places,"  says  Sir  Thomas  Row's  chaplain,  speaking  of  the 
country  of " the  Great  Mogul,  "to  plant  about,  and  among 
their  buildings,  trees  which  grow  high  and  broad,  the 
shadow  whereof  keeps  their  houses  by  far  more  cool :  this 
I  observed  in  a  special  manner  when  we  were  ready  to  en- 
ter Amadavarj  for  it  appeared  to  us,  as  if  we  had  been  en- 


tering a  wood  rather  than  a  city,"  The  expression  in  the 
Old  Testament,  of  people  dwelling  under  their  vines  and 
their  Jig-irees,  seems  strongly  to  intimate,  that  this  method 
anciently  obtained  much  in  Judea ;  and  that  vines  and  fig- 
trees  were  what  were  commonly  used  in  that  country.  Nor 
was  this  management  at  all  to  be  wondered  at ;  as  the  an- 
cient patriarchs  found  it  very  agreeable  to  pitch  their  tents 
under  the  shade  of  some  thick  tree,  their  children  might 
naturally  be  disposed  to  plant  them  about  their  houses.  And 
as  it  was  requisite  for  them  to  raise  as  many  eatables  as  they 
could,  in  so  very  populous  a  country  as  that  was,  it  is  no 
wonder  they  planted  fig-trees,  whose  shade  was  thickened 
by* vines,  about  their  houses,  under  which  they  might  sit 
in  the  open  air,  and  yet  in  the  cool.  This  writer  mentions 
another  circumstance,  in  which  there  is  an  evident  simi- 
larity between  the  ancient  Jews  and  these  more  eastern 
people :  "  But  for  their  houses  in  their  aldeas,  or  villages, 
which  stand  very  thick  in  that  country,  they  are  generally 
very  poor  and  base.  All  those  country  dwellings  are  set 
up  close  together;  for  I  never  observed  any  house  there  to 
stand  single,  and  alone." 

The  account  the  Baron  De  Tott  gives  of  the  Egyptian 
villages,  shows  they  are  shaded  in  much  the  same  manner. 
"  Wherever  the  inundation  can  reach,  their  habitations  are 
erected  on  little  hills,  raised  for  that  purpose,  which  serve 
for  the  common  foundation  of  all  the  houses  which  stand 
together,  and  which  are  contrived  to  take  up  as  little  room 
as  possible,  that  they  may  save  all  the  ground  they  can  for 
cultivation.  This  precaution  is  necessary,  to  prevent  the 
water's  washing  away  the  walls,  which  are  only  of  mud. 
The  villages  are  always  surrounded  by  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  pointed  turrets,  meant  to  invite  thither  the  pigeons, 
in  order  to  collect  the  dung.  Every  village  has,  likewise, 
a  small  wood  of  palm-trees  near  it,  the  property  of  which 
is  common :  these  supply  the  inhabitants  with  dates  for  their 
consumption,  and  leaves  for  fabrication  of  baskets,  mats, 
and  other  things  of  that  kind.  Little  causeways,  raised, 
in  like  manner,  above  the  inundation,  preserve  a  commu- 
nication during  the  time  it  lasts."  Palm-trees,  according 
to  this,  are  planted  universally  about  the  Egyptian  villages; 
had  they  been  as  generally  about  the  Jewish  towns,  Jeri- 
cho would  hardly  have  been  called  the  city  of  palm-trees, 
by  way  of  distinction  from  the  rest.  It  appears  to  have 
been,  in  Judea,  rather  a  peculiarity.  But  the  Jewish  towns 
and  houses  might  be  wont  to  be  surrounded  by  other  trees, 
proper  for  their  use,  which  probably  were  vines  and  fig- 
trees,  which  furnished  two  great  articles  of  food  for  their 
consumption,  and  the  cuttings  of  their  vines  must  have 
been  useful  to  them  for  fuel.  That  plantations  of  some  sort 
of  trees  were  common  about  the  Jewish  towns,  may  be  de- 
duced even  from  the  term  -^D^  kopher,  used  in  their  lan- 
guage for  a  /illage,  which  is  derived  from  a  root  that  sig- 
nifies to  coit.r  or  hide. — Harmer. 

Immediately  on  entering,  I  was  ushered  into  the  court- 
yard of  the  Aga,  whom  I  found  smoking  under  a  vine, 
surrounded  by  horses,  servants,  and  dogs,  among  which  I 
distinguished  an  English  pointer. — Turner, 

Ver.  28.  Barley  also  and  straw  for  the  horses  and 
dromedaries  brought  they  unto  the  place  where 
the  officers  were,  every  man  according  to  his 
charge. 

Besides  provisions  for  themselves,  the  Orientals  are 
obliged  to  carry  food  for  the  beasts  on  which  they  ride,  or 
carry  their  goods.  That  food  is  of  different  kinds.  They 
make  little  or  no  hay  in  these  countries,  and  are  therefore 
very  careful  of  their  straw,  which  they  cut  into  small  bits, 
by  an  instrument  which  at  the  same  time  thrashes  out  the 
corn;  this  chopped  straw,  with  barley,  beans,  and  balls 
made  of  bean  and  barley-meal,  or  of  the  pounded  kernels 
of  dates,  are  what  they  are  wont  to  feed  them  with.  The 
officers  of  Solomon  are  accordingly  said  to  have  brought, 
every  man  in  his  month,  barley  and  straw  for  the  horses 
and  dromedaries,  I  Kings  iv.  28.  Not  straw  to  litter  them 
with,  there  is  reason  to  think,  for  it  is  not  now  used  in  those 
countries  for  that  purpose ;  but  chopped  straw  for  them  tc 
eat  alone  with  their  barley.  The  litter  they  use  for  them 
is  their  own  dung,  dried  in  the  sun,  and  bruised  between 
their  hands,  which  they  heap  up  again  in  the  morning, 
sprinkling  it  in  the  summer  with  fresh  water   to  keep  it 


252 


1  KINGS. 


Chap.  5, 


from  corrupting.  In  sonr.e  other  places  we  read  of  proven- 
der and  straw,  not  barley  and  straw :  because  it  may  be, 
other  things  were  used  for  their  food  anciently,  as  well  as 
now,  besides  barley  and  chopped  straw.  V^Sn  beleel,  one  of 
the  words  translated  provender.  Is.  xxx.  24,  implies  some- 
thing of  mixture,  and  the  participle  of  the  verb  Irom  which 
it  is  derived  is  used  for  the  mingling  of  flour  with  oil;  so 
the  verb  in  Judges  xix.  21,  may  be  as  well  translated,  "  he 
mingled  (food)  for  the  asses,"  oivan'?  s^-^t  veyabal  lechamo- 
reem,  as,  he  gave  them  provender,  signifying  that  he  mixed 
some  chopped  straw  and  barley  together  for  the  asses.  And 
thus  also  barley  and  chopped  straw,  as  it  lies  just  after  reap- 
ing unseparated  in  the  field,  might  naturally  be  expressed 
by  the  Hebrew  word  we  translate  provender,  which  signi- 
fies barley  and  straw  that  had  been  mingled  together,  and 
accordingly  seems  to  be  so,  Job  xxiv.  6,  "  They  reap  every 
one  his  corn  in  the  field" — "  Hebrew,  mingled  corn,  or 
dredge,"  says  the  margin.  What  ideas  are  usually  affixed 
to  secondary  translation,  I  do  not  know ;  but  Job  apparent- 
ly alludes  to  the  provender,  or  heap  of  chopped  straw  and 
corn  lying  mingled  together  in  the  field,  after  having  pass- 
ed under  the  thrashing  instrument,  to  which  he  compares 
the  spoils  that  were  taken  from  ihe  passengers,  so  early  as 
his  time,  by  those  that  lived  somewhat  after  the  present 
manner  of  the  wild  Arabs,  Avhich  spoils  are  to  them  what 
the  harvest  and  vintage  were  to  others.  To  this  agrees 
that  other  passage  of  Job  where  this  word  occurs,  ch.  vi.  5, 
"  Will  the  ox  low,  in  complaint,  over  his  provender  V  or 
fodder,  as  it  is  translated  in  our  version ;  when  he  has  not 
only  straw  enough,  but  mixed  with  barley. 

The  accurate  Vitringa,  in  his  commentary,  has  taken  no- 
tice of  that  word's  implying  something  of  mixture  which  is 
translated  provender  in  Is.  xxx.  24,  but  for  want  of  more 
nicely  attending  to  eastern  customs,  though  he  has  done  it 
more  than  most  commentators,  he  has  been  very  unhappy 
in  explaining  the  cause  of  it;  for  he  supposes  it  signifies  a 
mixture  of  siraw,  hay,  and  bran.     I  have  nowhere  observ- 
ed in  books  of  travels,  that  they  give  their  labouring  beasts 
bran  in  the  East,  and  hay  is  not  made  there ;  the  mixture 
that  is  meant,  if  we  are  to  explain  it  by  the  present  eastern 
usages,  is  chopped  straw  and  barley.    But  the  additional 
word  there  translated  clean,  and  in  the  margin  leavened, 
which,  Vitringa  observes,  is  the  proper  meaning  of  the 
word,  may  be  supposed  to  make  the  passage  difficult.    The 
Sepiuagint  seem  to  have  thought  the  words  signified  nothing 
more  than  straw  mingled  with  winnowed  barley :  and  if  the 
word  translated  provender,  though  originally  intended  to  ex- 
press mixture,  might  afterward  come  to  signify  uncompound- 
ed  food,  as  Vitringa  supposes,  the  passage  is  easily  decipher- 
ed; for  though  the  word  translated  clean  does  commonly 
signify  leavened^  or  made  sour,  yet  not  always;  signifying 
sometimes  mere  mixing,  as  in  Is.  Ixiii.  1,  where  it  is  used 
for  staining  a  garment  with  blood,  and  so  it  may  signify 
here,  as  the  Septuagint  seem  to  have  understood  the  pas- 
sage, chopped  straw,  leavened  or  mixed  with  barley.    But 
there  is  no  necessity  of  supposing  the  word  translated  prov- 
ender is  used  in  a  sense  different  from  its  common  and  an- 
cient meaning,  and  signifying uncompounded  meat  for  cat- 
tle ;  that  single  word  may  be  understood  to  mean  chopped 
straw  mingled  with  barley,  fiince  we  find  that  barley,  when 
given  to  beasts  of  labour,  is  sometimes  mingled,  or,  to  ex- 
press it  poetically,  leavened,  with  a  few  beans,  to  which 
therefore  the  prophet  might  refer.     The  wild  Arabs,  who 
are  extremely  nice  in  managing  their  horses,  give  them  no 
food  but  very  clean  barley.     The  Israelites  were  not  so 
scrupulous,  as  appears  from  the  passage  I  cited  relating  to 
the  provision  made  for  Solomon's  horses,  but  they  may 
nevertheless  think  the  cleanness  of  the  provender  a  very 
great  recommendation  of  it,  and  seem  to  have  done  so, 
since  Isaiah,  in  the  above-mentioned  passage,  speaks  of 
leavened  provender  winnowed  with  the  shovel  and  with 
the  fan.     It  is  not  the  more  important  to  them,  as  a  good 
deal  of  earth,  sand,  and  gravel,  are  wont,  notwithstanding 
all  their  precautions,  to  be  taken  up  with  the  grain,  in  their 
way  of  thrashing.    But  though  the  Israelites  were  not  so 
scrupulous  as  the  Arabs,  giving  their  beasts  of  burden 
straw  as  well  as  barley,  yet  it  must  have  been  much  more 
commodious  for  them  in  their  journeying  to  have  carried 
barley  alone,  or  balls  of  bean,  or  barley-meal,  rather  than 
a  quantity  of  chopped  straw,  with  a  little  other  provender 
of  a  better  kind;  and  accordingly  we  find  no  mention  made 
by  Dr.  Shaw,  of  any  chopped  straw  being  carried  with 


them  to  Mount  Sinai,  but  only  barley,  with  a  few  beans  in- 
termixed, or  the  flour  of  one  or  other  of  them,  or  both, 
made  into  balls  with  a  little  water.  The  Levile's  mention- 
ing therefore  his  having  straw,  along  with  other  proven- 
der, rather  conveys  the  idea  of  his  being  a  person  in  mean 
circumstances,  who  was  not  able  to  feed  his  asses  with  pure 
barley,  or  those  other  sorts  of  provender  that  eastern  trav- 
ellers are  wont  to  carry  with  them. — Harmer. 

In  the  East,  horses  are  still  fed  with  barley.  Hasselquist 
observes,  that  in  the  plain  of  Jericho,  the  Arabians  had 
sown  barley  for  their  horses.  They  are  very  careful  of 
their  straw,  which  they  cut  into  small  bits,  by  an  instru- 
ment which  at  the  same  time  thrashes  out  the  corn  :  this 
chopped  straw,  with  barley,  beans,  and  balls  made  of  bean 
and  barley-meal,  or  of  the  pounded  kernels  of  dates,  are 
what  they  usually  feed  their  beasts  with. — Maillet. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  6.  Now  therefore  command  thou  that  they 
hew  me  cedar-trees  out  of  Lebanon  ;  and  my 
servants  shall  be  with  thy  servants :  and  unto 
thee  will  I  give  hire  for  thy  servants  according 
to  all  that  thou  shalt  appoint :  for  thou  knowest 
that  there  is  not  among  us  any  that  can  skill  to 
hew  timber  like  unto  the  Sidonians. 

The  Hebrew  word  tin  aroz,  whence  the  Chaldee  and 
Syriac  nt-^s  arzo,  and  the  Arabic  and  Ethiopic  t-nn  arz,  and 
Spanish  alerze,  unquestionably  denotes  the  cedar;  it  is  thus 
rendered  by  the  Septuagint  and  other  Greek  versions  Kdp'i?, 
and  by  the  Vulgate  cedras;  and  the  inhabitants  of  motmt 
Lebanon  still  call  it  arz.  The  cedar  is  a  large  and  noble 
evergreen  tree,  and  according  to  Tournefort  makes  a  dis- 
tinct genus  of  plants,  but  it  is  comprehended  by  Linnaeus 
among  the  junipers. — Greenfield. 

The  cedar  grows,  it  is  true,  on  the  mountains  of  Amanus 
and  Taurus,  in  Asia  Minor,  but  it  does  not  there  attain  the 
height  and  strength  it  acquires  on  mount  Lebanon,  on  which 
account  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  have  been  renowned  from 
the  most  ancient  times.  But  the  cedar  woods,  which  for- 
merly covered  a  part  of  this  mountain,  have  long  ago 
vanished.  Only  on  the  northeast  side  is  a  small  wood, 
consisting  of  an  inconsiderable  number  of  small  thick 
cedars,  and  eight  or  nine  hundred  younger  ones.  The  old- 
est and  largest  cedars  are  distinguished  from  the  younger 
ones  chiefly  by  this,  that  the  laUer  grow  up  straight,  and 
their  boughs  branch  out  horizontally  from  the  stem,  but 
hang  down  a  little ;  and  in  these  two  particulars,  and  in 
general  in  their  whole  form,  entirely  resemble  our  Euro- 
pean pines  and  firs ;  whereas  the  old  cedars  have  a  short 
and  very  thick  trunk,  which  divides  not  far  from  the  root, 
into  three,  four,  or  five  large  arms,  which  grow  straight  up, 
and  are  very  thick ;  some  of  them  grow  together  for  about 
ten  feet.  "  These  trees,"  says  Rauwolf,  "  which  remain 
green  during  the  whole  year,  have  large  trunks,  which 
maybe  some  fathoms  thick,  and  as  high  as  our  firs;  but 
as  they  have  larger  arms,  according  to  which  the  stem 
bends,  this  takes  away  so  much  of  their  perpendicular 
height.  The  branches  spread  out  pretty  far  in  such  a 
beautiful  equality,  that  they  look  as  if  they  had  been  clippeo 
above,  and  made  even  with  particular  care.  It  may  easilj 
be  perceived  before  you  get  very  near  them,  that  there  is  f 
great  difference  between  these  and  other  resinous  tree 
Otherwise  they  nearly  resemble  larch-trees,  especially  in 
the  leaves,  which  are  small,  narrow,  and  shoot  out  as  close 
together." 

The  latest  accounts  of  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  are  giveh 
by  Mr.  John  Henry  Mayer,  who  visited  this  part  in  the 
summer  of  the  year  18113.  "  I  counted,"  says  he,  "  nine 
principal  cedar-trees,  which  were  distinguished  from  all 
the  others  by  their  thickness  and  age,  but  not  by  their  height, 
for  younger  ones  exceed  them  in  this  respect.  I  measured 
the  circumference  of  the  trunk  of  one  of  the  largest  with  a 
cord,  about  fouT  feet  from  the  ground,  and  found  it  ten 
French  ells  and  a  half  A  single  branch  was  thirty  steps 
in  length  to  the  end,  when  it  divided  into  small  twigs.  The 
trunk  of  five  of  the  largest  consists  of  three  or  four  division^, 
each  of  which  equals  in  circumference  the  stem  of  our 
largest  oaks.  The  cedar  itself,  probably,  belongs  to  the 
class  of  trees  with  acerose  leaves,  but  is  neither  a  pine,  nor 


CiiAP.  5—7. 


1    KINGS, 


253 


a  fir,  nor  a  larch,  though  the  young  cedars  are  like  the  lat- 
ter. The  broken  twigs  almost  resemble  the  elder,  and  the 
smell  puts  one  in  mind  of  the  arbor  vitge.  The  greatest 
beauty  of  these  trees  consists  in  their  stiff,  strong,  and  far- 
spreading  boughs ;  and,  what  no  other  kind  of  tree  has,  the 
briitjeness  of  the  wood,  even  of  the  smallest  and  tenderest 
twigs,  which  broke  like  glass,  particularly  the  old  ones. 
The  whole  wood,  probably,  does  not  contain  above  eight  or 
nine  hundred  trees,  large  and  small  included.  The  young 
and  middle-aged  ones  bore  fruit  of  the  size  of  an  egg,  which 
were  bright  green,  with  brown  rings  and  spots,  and  stood 
upright  on  the  small  twigs.  This  peculiarity  of  the  fruit 
of  the  cedar  also  distinguishes  it  from  other  trees  of  the 
same  genus:  in  other  respects, it  has  an  affinity  and  resem- 
blance to  them,  as  well  by  its  resinous  quality  as  its  form." 
Hardly  any  kind  of  wood  unites  so  many  good  qualities  for 
building  as  the  cedar :  its  wood  not  only  pleases  the  eye  by 
its  reddish  stripes,  and  exhales  an  agreeable  smell,  but  it  is 
hard,  and  without  knots,  and  is  never  eaten  by  worms,  and 
lasts  so  long,  that  some  persons  consider  it  as  imperishable. 
Hence  it  was  used  for  rafters  and  boards,  either  to  cover 
the  houses  or  floors:  it  was  also  employed  in  building  the 
principal  wall ;  and  combined  with  stones,  so  that,  for  in- 
stance, after  three  layers  of  stones,  there  followed  one  of 
cedar-wood.  1  Kings  vi.  36.  vii.  12.  Ezra  vi.  3, 4.  Some- 
times, too,  each  division  of  the  wall  was  built  alternately 
with  cedar-wood  and  stones,  so  that  first  a  course  of  wood, 
and  then  a  ccurse  of  stones,  extended  from  one  division  to 
the  other,  and  so  each  division  nearly  resembled  a  chess- 
board. The  temple  at  Jerusalem,  as  well  as  the  palace  of 
Solomon,  was  built  of  cedar;  and  in  the  latter  there  was 
such  a  quantity  of  this  wood,  that  it  was  called,  1  Kings 
vii.  3.  X.  10,  The  house  of  the  forest  of  Lebanon.  (Rosen- 
muUer.)— BuRDER. 

Ver.  9.  My  servants  shall  bring  them  down  from 
Lebanon  unto  the  sea ;  and  I  will  convey  them 
by  sea  in  floats  unto  the  place  that  thou  shalt 
appoint  me,  and  will  cause  them  to  be  dis- 
charg-ed  there,  and  thou  shalt  receive  them: 
and  thou  shalt  accomplish  my  desire  in  giving 
food  for  my  household. 

Bishop  Patrick  supposes,  "  that  they  conveyed  the  pieces 
of  timber  from  the  high  parts  of  the  mountains  to  the  river 
Adonis,  or  to  the  plain  of  Biblos."  "  By  floats  is  probably 
meant  that  the  pieces  of  timber  were  bound  together,  and 
so  drawn  through  the  rivers  and  the  sea."  In  exactly  the 
same  way,  timber  is  conveyed  in  all  parts  of  the  East. 
The  trees  are  cut  down  before  the  rainy  season,  all  the 
branches  are  lopped  off,  and  the  trunks  are  squared  on 
the  spot.  Notches  are  then  made  in  the  logs,  and  they  are 
tied  together  by  ropes  made  of  green  withes  gathered  in  the 
forests.  If,  however,  the  waters  of  the  rainy  season  should 
not  reach  the  spot  where  they  are  hewn  down,  they  are 
dragged  singly  to  the  place  where  it  is  known  that  in  the 
wet  monsoon  they  will  float.  Thus,  in  passing  through  re- 
mote forests  in  the  dry  season,  the  inexperienced  traveller,  in 
seeing  numerous  trees  felled  in  every  direction,  and  then 
again,  in  another  place,  a  large  collection  bound  together 
like  a  raft,  which  is  also  fastened  to  trees  that  are  still 
standing,  (to  prevent  it  from  being  lost  when  the  floods 
come,)  is  at  a  loss  to  know  how  it  can  be  got  to  the  river, 
or  to  the  sea ;  for  he  sees  no  track  or  path  except  that  which 
is  made  by  the  wild  beast:  he  knows  no  vehicle  can  ap- 
proach the  place,  and  is  convinced  that  men  cannot  carry 
It.  But  let  him  go  thither  when  the  rains  have  fallen,  and 
he  will  see  in  one  place  men  in  a  little  canoe  winding 
through  the  forest,  in  another  directing  a  float  with  some 
men  on  it  moving  gently  along ;  and  in  the  river  he  sees 
large  rafts  sweeping  down  the  stream,  with  the  dexterous 
Steersmen  making  for  some  neighbouring  town,,  or  the 
more  distant  ocean ;  and  then  may  be  seen  in  the  harbour 
immense  collections  of  the  finest  timber,  which  have  been 
brought  thither  "  by  sea  in  floats."  Sometimes  the  rains 
come  on  earlier  than  expected  ;  or  the  logs  may  not  have 
been  fastened  to  trees  still  standing ;  hence,  when  the  floods 
come,  they  naturally  move  towards  the  river;  and  then 
may  be  seen  noble  trees  whirling  and  tumbling  along  till 
they  reach  the  sea,  and  are  thus  lost  to  man. — Roberts. 
Two  methods  of  conveying  wood  in  floats  appear  to  have 


been  practised.  The  first  by  pushing  single  trunks  of  trees 
into  the  water,  and  suffering  them  to  be  carried  along  by 
the  stream.  This  was  commonly  adopted  as  it  regarded 
firewood.  The  other  was  ranging  a  number  of  planks  close 
to  each  other  in  regular  order,  binding  them  together,  and 
steering  them  down  the  current.  This  was  probably  the 
most  ancient  practice.  The  earliest  ships  or  boats  were 
nothing  else  than  rafts,  or  a  collection  of  deals  and  planks 
bound  together.  By  the  Greeks  they  were  called  Schedai, 
and  by  the  Latins,  Rates.  The  ancients  ventured  out  to  sea 
with  them  on  piratical  expeditions,  as  well  as  to  carry  on 
commerce  :  and  after  the  invention  of  ships,  they  were  still 
retained  for  the  transportation  of  soldiers,  and  of  heavy 
burdens.  Pliny,  lib.  vi.  cap.  56.  Strabo,  lib.  xvi.  Schefl^er, 
De  Militia  Navali  Veterum,  lib.  i.  cap.  3.  Pitisci,  Lexicon 
Antiquital.  Rom.  art.  Rates.  Solomon  entered  into  a  con- 
tract with  Hiram,  king  of  Tyre,  by  which  the  latter  was  to 
cause  cedars  for  the  use  of  the  temple  to  be  cut  down  on  the 
western  side  of  mount  Lebanon,  above  Tripoli,  and  to  be 
floated  to  Jaffa.  At  present  no  streams  run  from  Lebanon 
to  Jerusalem ;  and  the  Jordan,  the  only  river  in  Palestine 
that  could  bear  floats,  is  at  a  great  distance  from  the  cedar- 
forest.  The  wood,  therefore,  must  have  been  brought  along 
the  coast  by  sea  to  Jaffa. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  7.  And  the  house,  when  it  was  in  building, 
was  built  of  stone  made  ready  before  it  was 
brought  thither:  so  that  there  was  neither 
hammer,  nor  ax,  nor  any  tool  of  iron,  heard  in 
the  house  while  it  was  in  building. 

This  passage  is  illustrated  by  what  D'Arvieux  remarks 
of  Alexandria  in  Eg>'pt.  "  The  city  gates,  which  ai^  still 
standing,  have  a  magnificent  appeai-ance,  and  are  so  high 
and  broad,  that  we  may  infer  from  them  the  ancient  great- 
ness and  splendour  of  the  place.  They  properly  consist 
only  of  four  square  stones ;  one  of  which  serves  as  the 
threshold,  two  are  raised  on  the  sides,  and  the  fourth  laid 
across  and  resting  upon  them.  I  need  not  say  that  they 
are  of  great  antiquity  ;  for  it  is  well  known,  that  for  many 
centuries  past  such  immense  stones  have  not  been  used  in 
building.  It  is  a  matter  of  surprise  how  the  ancients  could 
raise  such  heavy  masses  from  the  stone  quarries,  remove 
them,  and  set  them  up.  Some  are  of  opinion  that  these 
stones  were  cast,  and,  probably,  only  consisted  of  a  heap  of 
small  stones,  which  were  united  by" the  fiiiest  cement ;  that 
at  the  place  where  they  were  wanted,  wooden  models  or 
moulds  were  made,  in  which  the  cement  and  stones  were 
mixed  together,  and  when  this  mass  became  dry  and  suf- 
ficiently firm,  the  mould  was  taken  off  by  degrees,  and  the 
stones  then  polished." — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  1 8.  And  the  cedar  of  the  house  within  was 
carved  with  knobs  and  open  flowers. 

The  people  of  the  East  are  exceedingly  profuse  in  their 
carved  work.  See  a  temple  ;  it  is  almost  from  its  founda- 
tion to  its  summit  a  complete  mass  of  sculpture  and  carved 
work.  Look  at  their  sacred  car  in  which  their  gods  are 
drawn  out  in  procession,  and  you  are  astonished  at  the 
labour,  taste,  and  execution  displayed  by  the  workmen  in 
carved  work  :  nay,  the  roof  and  doors  of  private  dwellings 
are  all  indebted  to  the  chisel  of  the  "  cunning  worlnnan." 
The  pillars  that  support  the  verandas,  their  chests,  theii 
couches,  (as  were  those  of  Solomon,)  the  handles  of  differ- 
ent instruments,  their  ploughs,  their  vessels,  (however  rude 
in  other  respects,)  must  be  adorned  by  the  skill  of  the 
carver. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VII.  ^ 

Ver.  7.  Then  he  made  a  porch  for  the  throne 
where  he  might  judge,  even  the  porch  of  judg- 
ment :  and  it  teas  covered  with  cedar  from  one 
side  of  the  floor  to  the  other. 

It  deserves  remark,  that  the  eastern  floors  and  ceilings 
are  JTist  the  reverse  of  ours.  Their  ceilings  are  of  wood ; 
ours  of  plaster  or  stucco-work;  their  floors  are  of  plaster  or 
of  painted  tiles,  ours  of  wood.    This  effectually  detects  a 


254 


1    KINGS. 


Chap.  7—10. 


mistake  of  Kimchi  and  R.  Solomon,  who,  according  to 
Buxtorf,  supposed  the  floor  of  the  porch  of  judgment  which 
Solomon  built  was  all  of  cedar ;  whereas  the  sacred  writer, 
1  Kings  vii.  7,  undoubtedly  meant  its  covering  a-top,  its 
ceiling,  was  of  cedar.  Indeed  here  in  the  West,  where 
these  Jewish  Rabbis  lived,  such  places  are  usually  built 
after  the  eastern  mode,  which  makes  their  mistake  so  much 
the  more  strange.  Westminster  Hall  is,  I  think,  paved 
with  stone  and  ceiled  with  wood  ;  and  such  without  doubt 
was  the  ceiling  and  the  pavement  of  the  porch  for  judgment 
which  Solomon  built,  and  which  was  erected  in  a  much 
hotter  climate. — H.4rmer. 

Ver.  10.  And  the  foundation  was  o/ costly  stones, 
even  great  stones,  stones  of  ten  cubits,  and 
stones  of  eight  cubits. 

In  the  ruins  of  Balbec,  stones  of  great  magnitude  are 
found.  "  But  what  is  still  more  astonishing,  is,  the  enor- 
mous stones  which  compose  the  sloping  wall.  To  the  west 
the  second  layer  is  formed  of  stones  which  are  from  twenty- 
eight  to  thirty-five  feet  long,  by  about  nine  in  height.  Over 
this  layer,  at  the  northwest  angle,  there  are  three  stones, 
which  alone  occupy  a  space  of  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  feet  and  one  half:  viz.  the  first,  fi'ty-eight  feet  seven 
inches;  the  second,  fifty-eight  feet  eleven;  and  the  third, 
exactly  fifty-eight  feet ;  and  each  of  these  are  twelve  feet 
thick.  These  stones  are  of  a  white  granite,  with  large 
i^hining  flakes,  like  gypse.  There  is  a  quarry  of  this  kind 
of  stone  under  the  whole  city,  and  in  the  adjoining  mount- 
ains, which  is  open  in  several  places  :  and,  among  others, 
on  the  right,  as  we  approach  the  city,  there  is  still  lying 
there  a  stone,  hewn  on  three  sides,  which  is  sixty-nine  feet 
two  inches  long,  tAvelve  feet  ten  inches  broad,  and  thirteen 
feet  three  in  thickness."    (Volney.) 

"  The  city  of  Jerusalem  is  utterly  unlike  any  other  place 
I  have  ever  seen.  Its  situation  upon  an  immense  rock, 
surrounded  by  valleys  that  seem  cut  out  by  the  chisel ;  the 
contrast  exhibited  between  the  extremest  degree  of  barren- 
ness and  the  extremest  degree  of  fertility,  which  border 
upon  each  other  here  almost  every  yard,  without  one  shade 
of  mitigated  character  on  either  side;  the  structure  of  the 
walls,  many  of  the  stones  in  which  are  fifteen  or  sixteen 
leet  long,  by  four  high  and  four  deep,  the  very  size  men- 
tioned of  the  hewn  stones  of  Solomon,  1  Kings  vii.  10;  the 
houses,  where  almost  every  one  is  a  fortress,  and  the  streets, 
where  almost  every  one  is  a  covered  way,  altogether 
formed  an  appearance  totally  dissimilar  from  that  of  any 
other  town  I  have  met  with  either  in  Europe  or  Asia." 
(Carlyle.)— BuRDER. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
.  Ver.  31.  If  any  man  trespass  against  his  neigh- 
bour, and  an  oath  be  laid  upon  him  to  cause 
him  to  swear,  and  the  oath  come  before  thine 
altar  in  this  house. 

Bishop  Patrick  alleges,  that  it  was  the  custom  of  all  na- 
tions to  touch  the  altar  when  they  made  a  solemn  oath, 
calling  God  to  witness  the  truth  of  what  they  said,  and  to 
punis>h  them  if  they  did  not  speak  the  truth :  and  he  sup- 
poses, that  Solomon  alludes  to  this  practice,  in  his  prayer 
at  the  dedication  of  the  temple :  "  If  any  man  trespass 
against  his  neighbour,  and  an  oath  be  laid  upon  him,  to 
cause  him  to  swear,  and  the  oath  come  before  thine  altar  in 
this  house."  But  the  royal  suppliant  says  not  one  word 
about  touching  the  altar ;  but  clearly  refers  to  the  general 
practice  of  standing  before  it,  for  his  words  literally  are : 
And  the  oath  come  (in^ro  ^jsV)  before  the  face  of  thiiie  al- 
tar. In  imitation  of  God's  ancient  people,  many  of  the  sur- 
rounding nations,  among  whom  Livy  and  other  celebrated 
writers  of  antiquity  mention  the  Athenians,  the  Cartha- 
ginians, and  the  Romans,  were  accustomed  to  stand  before 
the  altar  when  they  made  oath ;  but  it  does  not  appear  they 
laid  their  hand  upon  it,  and  by  consequence,  no  argument 
from  the  sacred  text,  nor  even  from  the  customs  of  these 
nations,  can  be  drawn  for  the  superstitious  practice  of  lay- 
ing the  hand  upon  the  gospels  and  kissing  them,  instead  of 
the  solemn  form  authorized  by  God  himself,  of  lifting  up 
the  right  hand  to  heaven.— Paxton. 


Ver.  44.  If  thy  people  go  out  to  battle  against 
their  enemy,  whithersoever  thou  shalt  send 
them,  and  shalt  pray  unto  the  Lord  towards  the 
city  which  thou  hast  chosen,  and  towards  the 
house  that  I  have  built  for  thy  name. 

"  By  a  decree  passed  in  the  eighteenth  year  of  the  Em- 
peror Adrian,  the  Jews  were  forbidden  not  only  to  enter 
into  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  (then  called  CElia,)  but  even  to 
turn  their  looks  towards  it ;  which  most  probably  had  a  ref- 
erence to  this  custom  of  turning  their  faces  towards  the  Holy 
City  at  their  prayers.  I  observed  that  Mecca,  the  country 
of  their  prophet,  and  from  which,  according  to  their  idea, 
salvation  was  dispensed  to  them,  is  situated  towards  the 
south,  and  for  this  reason  they  pray  with  their  faces  turned 
towards  that  quarter."  (Mariti.)  "  The  Mexicans  prayed 
generally  upon  their  knees,  with  their  faces  turned  toM^ards 
the  east,  and,  therefore,  made  their  sanctuaries  with  the 
door  to  the  west."  (Cullen's  Mexico.)  In  a  description  of 
the  people  of  the  Ganow  hills,  we  find  the  same  custom 
prevalent.  "  Their  mode  of  swearing  is  very  solemn :  the 
oath  is  taken  upon  a  stone,  which  they  first  salute,  then, 
with  their  hands  joined  and  uplifted,  their  eyes  steadfastly 
fixed  to  the  hills,  they  call  on  Mahadeva  in  the  most  solemn 
manner,  telling  him  to  witness  what  they  declare,  and  that 
he  knows  whether  they  speak  true  or' false.  They  then 
again  touch  the  stone,  with  all  the  appearance  of  the  utmost 
fear,  and  bow  their  heads  to  it,  calling  again  upon  Maha- 
deva. They  also,  during  their  relation,  look  steadfastly  to 
the  hills,  and  keep  their  right  hand  upon  the  stone.  When 
the  first  person  swore  before  me,  the  awe  and  reverence 
with  which  the  man  swore  forcibly  struck  me :  my  Moher- 
rir  could  hardly  write,  so  much  was  he  affected  by  the  so- 
lemnity. I  understand  their  general  belief  to  be,  that  their 
god  resides  in  the  hills ;  and  though  this  belief  may  seem  in- 
consistent with  an  awful  idea  of  the  divinity,  these  people 
appeared  to  stand  in  the  utmost  awe  of  their  deity,  from  the 
fear  of  his  punishing  them  for  any  misconduct  in  their  fre- 
quent excursions  to  the  hills."  (Asiatic  Researches.)  "  An 
hour  before  sunrise,  the  coffeegee  having  prepared  our 
coffee,  retired  into  a  corner  of  the  room,  and  having,  with- 
out the  least  reserve,  performed  the  necessary  ablutions, 
spread  his  garment  on  the  ground,  and  began  his  prayers: 
he  turned  himself  to  the  east,  and  though  several  persons 
entered  and  left  the  apartment  during  his  devotions,  he 
seemed  quite  absorbed,  and  rose,  and  knelt,  and  prostrated 
himself  with  as  much  appearance  of  piety  as  if  he  had  been 
praying  in  the  holy  temple  of  Mecca  itself."    (Macmichel.) 

BuRDER. 

Ver.  66.  On  the  eighth  day  he  sent  the  people 
away:  and  they  blessed  the  king,  and  went 
unto  their  tents  joyful  and  glad  of  heart,  for  all 
the  goodness  that  the  Lord  had  done  for  Da- 
vid his  servant,  and  for  Israel  his  people. 

The  Hebrew  has,  for  blessed,  "  thanked."  The  Tamul 
translation  has,  for  blessed,  "praised."  So  in  Joshua 
xxii.  33,  also  in  2  Sam.xxii.47,  and  in  all  other  passages 
where  the  word  occurs,  (when  used  in  reference  to  God,) 
it  is  rendered,  "  praise,"  or  "  praised."  The  word  bless, 
among  the  Hindoos,  is,  I  think,  not  used,  as  in  English, 
to  praise,  to  glorify,  but  to  confer  happiness,  to  convey  a  bene- 
dictio^i,  or  to  shoiv  good-will.  Si.  Paul  says,  "  Without  all 
contradiction,  the  less  is  blessed  of  the  greater ;"  and  this  I 
believe,  joined  with  greatness,  is  the  only  idea  the  Orientals 
attach  to  those  who  bless  others.  Hence  he  who  blesses 
another,  must  be  a  superior,  either  in  years,  rank,  or  sanctity. 
The  heathen  never  bless  their  gods. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  1.  And  when  the  queen  of  Sheba  heard  of 
the  fame  of  Solomon  concerning  the  name  of 
the  Lord,  she  came  to  prove  him  with  hard 
questions. 

The  Septuagint  has,  for  hard  questions,  annynam,  enig- 
mas, riddles.  The  Hindoos  (especially  their  females^  take 
great  delight  in  riddles,  apologues,  and  fables.  By  this 
method  they  convey  pleasure,  instruction,  or  reproof.    See 


Chap.  10. 


1  KINGS. 


255 


them  in  their  marriage  feasts,  or  in  their  "  evenings  at 
home ;"  how  pleasantly  thej^  pass  their  time,  in  thus  puzzling 
each  other,  and  calling  forth  the  talents  of  the  young. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  4.  And  when  the  queen  of  Sheba  had  seen 
all  Solomon's  wisdom,  and  the  house  that  he 
had  built,  5.  And  the  meat  of  his  table,  and  the 
sitting  of  his  servants,  and  the  attendance  of  his 
ministers,  and  their  apparel,  and  his  cup-bearers, 
and  his  ascent  by  which  he  went  up  unto  the 
house  of  the  Lord  ;  there  was  no  more  spirit 
in  her. 

By  these  words  we  may  understand  that  this  ascent  was 
consecrated  to  the  use  of  Solomon  alone.  Thus  we  are  told 
by  Sir  George  Staunton,  in  his  account  of  the  first  presenta- 
tion of  the  British  embassy,  that,  "  on  his  entrance  into  the 
tent,  the  emperor  of  China  mounted  immediately  the  throne 
by  the  front  steps,  consecrated  to  his  use  alone."  He  also 
informs  us,  that  "  one  highway  was  reserved  for  the  use  of 
the  emperar  alone  ;  this  was  rendered  perfectly  level,  dry, 
and  smooth :  cisterns  were  contrived  on  the  sides  of  the 
imperial  road,  to  hold  water  for  sprinkling  it  occasionally, 
in  order  to  keep  down  the  dust :  parallel  to  the  emperor  s, 
was  another  road,  not  quite  so  broad,  nor  swept  continually 
with  so  much  care,  but  perfectly  commodious  and  safe : 
this  was  intended  for  the  attendants  of  his  imperial  majesty : 
and  upon  this  the  British  embassy  was  allowed  to  pass.  All 
other  travellers  were  excluded  from  these  two  privileged 
roads,  and  obliged  to  make  out  a  path  wherever  they  were 
able." — BuRDER. 

Ver.  8.  Happy  are  thy  men,  happy  are  these 
thy  servants,  which  stand  continually  before 
thee,  and  that  hear  thy  wisdom. 

"  When  the  king"  (of  Persia)  "  is  seated  in  public,  his  sons, 
ministers,  and  courtiers,  stand  erect,  with  their  hands 
crossed,  and  in  the  exact  place  of  their  rank.  They  watch 
the  looks  of  the  sovereign,  and  a  glance  is  a  mandate.  If 
he  speak  to  them,  you  hear  a  voice  reply,  and  see  their  lips 
move,  but  not  a  motion  nor  gesture  betrays  that  there  is  an- 
imation in  any  other  part  of  their  frame."  "When  he  places 
himself  at  the  windows  of  his  palace,  his  domestics  take 
their  station  in  the  court  before  it,  hard  by  the  fountain 
which  plays  in  the  middle,  to  watch  the  looks  of  their  lord. 
f\.  principal  part  of  the  regal  state  in  Persia  consists  in  the 
number  of  the  men  who  stand  before  the  monarch ;  and 
we  learn  from  the  address  of  the  queen  of  Sheba  to  Solomon, 
that  he  was  not  indifferent  to  this  part  of  eastern  splendour. 
It  is  reckoned  an  act  of  great  humility  in  the  king  of  Persia, 
or  even  in  a  person  of  high  rank,  to  walk  on  foot,  this  being 
a  part  of  the  service  exacted  from  servants.  When  a 
prince  or  great  man  goes  abroad,  he  is  mounted  on  a  horse, 
and  always  attended  by  a  multitude  of  servants  on  foot,  one 
bearing  his  pipe,  another  his  shoes,  another  his  cloak,  a 
fourth  his  saddle-cloth,  and  so  on,  the  number  increasing 
with  the  dignity  of  the  master.  These  statements  impart 
great  force  to  the  remark  of  the  wise  man :  "  I  have  seen 
servants  upon  horses,  and  princes  walking  as  servants  upon 
the  earth." — Paxtok. 

Ver,  16.  And  King  Solomon  made  two  hundred 
targets  of  beaten  gold  ;  six  hundred  shekels  of 
gold  went  to  one  target. 

The  word  m-itsinnah,  used  for  those  martial  ensigns  of 

royal  dignity,  which  were  carried  before  King  Solomon, 

and  which  our  version  renders  tars^ets,  1  Kings  x.  16,  was 

supposed  by  the  Septuagintto  signify  spears  or  lances :  and 

,  as  the  word  is  to  be  understood  to  signify  some  sharp- 

-pointed  weapon,  it  may  be  more  natural  to  understand  it  of 

,  tL  lance,  than  of  a  defensive  piece  of  armour  with  a  short 

sharp-pointed  umbo  in  the  middle,  considering  that  shields 

,  of  gold  were  also  carried  before  this  prince,  at  solemn 

seasons.    One  can  hardly  find  a  disposition  to  admit,  that 

two  sorts  of  things  so  much  alike  as  targets  and  shields, 

should  be  meant  here;    and   if  such   similar  defensive 

■  pieces  of  armour  were  hardly  meant,  the  translation  of  the 


Septuagint  is  as^atural  as  any,  to  say  nothing  of  the  au- 
thority of  so  and(jpit  a  version,  in  which,  so  far  as  appears 
by  Lambert  Bos,  all  the  copies,  which  frequently  disagree 
in  other  matters,  concur.  But  whatever  we  may  think  of 
this  way  of  translating  the  original  word,  we  can  hardly 
suppose  such  martial  ensigns  of  honour  were  unknown  in 
the  time  when  this  translation  was  made.  It  is  certain  they 
now  appear  in  the  Levant.  Thus  Windus,  in  his  descrip- 
tion of  a  pompous  cavalcade  of  the  emperor  of  Morocco, 
tells  us,  that  after  several  parties  of  people  were  passed, 
"  came  Muley  Mahomet  Lariba,  one  of  the  emperor's  sons ; 
he  is  alcaid  of  the  stables,  or  master  of  the  horse :  there 
attended  him  a  guard  of  horse  and  foot,  at  the  head  of  w^hich 
he  rode  with  a  lance  in  his  hand,  the  place  where  the  blade 
joins  to  the  wood  covered  with  gold."  Soon  after  which 
came  the  emperor  himself. 

The  account  of  this  lance  seems  to  give  a  clear  illustra- 
tion, of  what  the  Septuagint  referred  to  in  their  translation 
of  this  passage  ;  if  not  of  the  original  of  the  Hebrew  his- 
torian. A  comparatively  modern  prince  of  Persia  seems 
to  have  emulated  this  piece  of  grandeur  of  Solomon,  and 
to  have  even  surpassed  it,  though  by  means  of  a  different 
kind  of  weapon  from  either  of  those  I  have  been  mentioning. 
According  to  d'Herbelot,  he  had  two  troops  of  horsemen, 
consisting  of  a  thousand  each ;  one  troop  carrying  maces 
of  gold,  each  of  which  weighed  one  thousand  drachms,  or 
thousand  crowns  of  gold ;  the  second,  maces  of  silver  of  the 
same  weight.  These  two  brigades  served  him  for  his  ordi- 
nary guard,  and  upon  extraordinary  ceremonies  each  of  these 
horsemen  carried  his  mace  upon  his  shoulder.  One  tenth 
part  of  the  number  would  have  been  extremely  majes- 
tic.— Harmer. 

Ver.  18.  Moreover,  the  king  made  a  great  throne 
of  ivory,  and  overlaid  it  with  the  best  gold. 

The  throne  of  Solomon  is  described  as  having  been  ex- 
tremely magnificent,  (1  Kings  x.  18,)  having  twelve  licos; 
but  on  what  part  of  it  these  ornamental  animals  were  placed 
is  not  easy  to  determine,  as  we  have  no  accurate  idea  of  its 
form  and  construction.  We  shall  therefore  now  merely 
extract  a  description  of  the  mogul's  throne,  which  we  finH 
had  divers  steps  also,  and,  on  the  top  of  its  ascent,  four  lions; 
wherein  it  seems  to  bear  a  partial  resemblance  to  Solomon's 
stately  seat  of  majesty.  "  And  further,  they  told  me,  that 
he  (the  mogul)  hath  at  Agra  a  most  glorious  throne  within 
his  palace,  ascended  by  divers  steps,  "which  are  covered 
with  plates  of  silver;  upon  the  top  of  which  ascent  stand 
four  lions,  upon  pedestals  of  curious  coloured  marble; 
which  lions  are  all  made  of  massy  silver,  some  part  of  them 
gilded  with  gold,  and  beset  with  precious  stones.  Those 
lions  support  a  canopy  of  fine  gold,  under  which  the  mogul 
sits  when  he  appears  in  his  greatest  state  and  glory." — 
(Sir  Thomas  Roe's  Voyage.) 

Thrones  were  of  different  kinds;  sometimes  they  resem- 
bled a  stool,  sometimes  a  chair,  sometimes  a  sofa,  and 
sometimes  they  were  as  large  as  a  bed.  One  of  the  thrones 
of  Tippoo  Saib  was  the  back  of  a  very  large  royal  tiger, 
made  of  gold,  studded  with  precious  stones ;  and  that  part 
of  his  back  which  was  employed  as  a  seat,  was  covered  with 
fine  chintses,  &c.  by  way  of  cushions. — Taylor  in  Calmet, 

Ver.  20.  And  twelve  lions  stood  there  on  the  one 
side,  and  on  the  other,  upon  the  six  steps :  there 
was  not  the  like  made  in  any  kingdom. 

In  after  ages  we  read  of  thrones  very  glorious  and  ma- 
jestic. AthanaBUs  saj'^s,  that  the  throne  of  the  Parthian 
kings  was  of  gold,  encompassed  with  four  golden  pillars, 
beset  with  precious  stones.  The  Persian  kings  sat  in  judg- 
ment under  a  golden  vine,  (and  other  trees  of  gold,)  the 
bunches  of  whose  grapes  were  made  of  several  sorts  of 
precious  stones.  To  this  article  mav  be  very  properly  an- 
nexed the  following  account  of  the  famous  peacock  thront 
of  the  Great  Mogul.  "  The  Great  Mogul  has  seven  thrones, 
some  set  all  over  with  diamonds;  others  with  rubies,  eme- 
ralds, and  pearls.  But  the  largest  throne  is  erected  in  the 
hall  of  the  first  court  of  the  palace;  it  is,  in  form,  like  one 
of  our  field-beds,  six  feet  long  and  four  broad.  I  counted 
about  a  hundred  and  eight  pale  rubies  in  collets  about  that 
throne,  the  least  whereof  weighed  a  hundred  carats ;  but 
there  are  some  that  weigh  two  hruidred.     Emeralds  I 


256 


1  KINGS. 


Chap.  10. 


counted  about  a  hundred  and  forty,  that  weighed  some 
threescore,  some  thirty  carats.  The  u^i|yBrpart  of  the  can- 
opy is  entirely  embroidered  with  pearls^d  diamonds,  with 
a  fringe  of  pearls  round  the  edge.  Upon  the  top  of  the 
canopy,  which  is  made  like  an  arch  with  four  panes,  stands 
a  peacock,  with  his  tail  spread,  consisting  entirely  of  sap- 
phires, and  other  proper  colaured  stones :  the  body  is  of 
beaten  gold,  enchased  with  numerous  jewels;  and  a  great 
ruby  adorns  his  breast,  to  which  hangs  a  pearl  that  weighs 
fifcy  carats.  On  each  side  of  the  peacock  stand  two  nose- 
gays, as  high  as  the  bird,  consisting  of  various  sorts  of 
flowers,  all  of  beaten  gold  enamelled.  When  the  king 
seats  himself  upon  the  throne,  there  is  a  transparent  jew^el,  - 
with  a  diamond  appendant,  of  eighty  or  ninety  carats 
weight,  encompassecf  with  rubies  and  emeralds,  so  sus- 
pended that  it  is  always  in  his  eye.  The  twelve  pillars  also 
that  uphold  the  canopy  are  set  round  with  rows  of  fair 
pearl,  and  of  an  excellent  water,  that  weigh  from  six  to  ten 
carats  a  piece.  At  the  distance  of  four  feet,  upon  each  side 
of  the  throne,  are  placed  two  umbrellas,  the  handles  of 
which  are  about  eight  feet  high,  covered  with  diamonds  ; 
the  umbrellas  themselves  being  of  crimson  velvet,  em- 
broidered and  fringed  wdth  pearl.  This  is  the  famous 
throne  which  Timur  began,  and  Shah  Johan  finished,  and 
is  really  reported  to  have  cost  a  hundred  and  sixty  millions 
and  five  hundred  thousand  livres  of  our  money."  (Taver- 
nier.) — Burder, 

Ver.  21.  And  all  King  Solomon's  drinking  ves- 
sels were  of  gold,  and  all  the  vessels  of  the  house 
of  the  forest  of  Lebanon  were  o/pure  gold ;  none 
were  of  silver :  it  Avas  nothing  accounted  of  in 
the  days  of  Solomon. 

The  magnificence  of  Solomon,  particularly  with  respect 
to  his  drinking  vessels,  has  not  been  exceeded  by  modern 
eastern  princes.  They  were  all  of  gold,  and  it  should 
.seem  of  the  purest  gold,  1  Kings  x.  2L  The  gold  plate  of 
the  kings  of  Persia  has  been  extremely  celebrated,  and  is 
mentioned  in  Sir  J.  Chardin's  note  on  this  passage  of  the 
sacred  historian  :  he  observes,  that  the  plate  of  the  king  of 
Persia  is  of  gold,  and  that  very  fine,  exceeding  the  standard 
of  ducats,  and  equal  to  those  of  Venice,  which  are  of  the 
purest  gold.  The  vessels  of  gold,  we  are  told  in  Olearius, 
were  made  by  the  order  of  Shah  Abbas,  esteemed  the  most 
glorious  of  the  princes  of  the  Sefi  royal  family,  who  died 
lG-29.  It  seems  that  he  caused  seven  thousand  two  hundred 
marks  of  gold  to  be  melted  upon  this  occasion ;  that  his 
successors  made  use  of  it  whenever  they  feasted  strangers; 
and  that  it  consisted  chiefly  of  dishes,  pots,  flagons,  and 
other  vessels  for  drinking.  A  French  mark  is  eight  of 
their  ounces,  and  is  but  four  grains  lighter  than  an  English 
ounce  troy.  Abbas  then  melted  on  this  occasion  near  thirty- 
six  thousand  English  troy  ounces  of  the  purest  gold,  or  al- 
most forty-one  three-fourths  Jewish  talents.  Astonishing 
magnificence  of  Persia  !  Nor  have  we  reason  to  think  that 
of  Solomon  was  inferior.  We  may  believe,  sure,  his  royal 
drinking  vessels  were  of  equal  weight,  w^hen  the  two  him- 
dred  targets  Solomon  made,  I  Kings  x.  IG,  weighed  but 
little  less  than  the  drinking  vessels  of  Shah  Abbas.  Sir 
J.  Chardin's  way  of  comparing  the  glory  of  Solomon,  with 
that  of  a  most  illustrious  monarch  of  Persia  of  late  ages, 
is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  eflficacious  methods  of  impres- 
sing the  mind  with  an  apprehension  of  the  magnificence  of 
this  ancient  Israelitish  king,  and,  at  the  same  time,  appears 
to  be  perfectly  just. — Harmer. 

.  Ver.  22.  For  the  king  had  at  sea  a  navy  of 
Tharshish  with  the  navy  of  Hiram :  once  in 
three  years  came  the  navy  of  Tharshish,  bring- 
ing gold  and  silver,  ivory,  and  apes,  and  pea- 
cocks. 

This  beautiful  bird,  which  is  now  familiarly  known  to 
perhaps  every  nation  of  Europe,  does  not  seem  to  have 
found  his  way  into  Palestine  before  the  reign  of  Solomon. 
That  rich  and  powerful  monarch,  added  to  his  unexam- 
pled wisdom,  a  taste  for  natural  history;  and  every  three 
years  his  fleets  returned  laden  with  the  most  curious  and 
valuable  products  of  distant  regions.     The  elegant  shape, 


the  majestic  mien,  and  the  splendid  plumageof  the  peacock, 
rendered  him  a  present  not  unbefitting  the  greatest  king 
the  world  had  ever  seen ;  and  the  servants  of  Solomon, 
stimulated  probably  not  more  by  a  sense  of  duty,  than  by  ' 
the  inclination  to  gratify  their  amiable  sovereign,  were  for- 
ward to  place  it  under  his  eye.  "  For  the  king  had  at  sea 
a  navy  of  Tharshish,  with  the  na\7  of  Hiram :  once  in  three 
years  came  the  navy  of  Tharshish,  bringing  gold  and  silver, 
ivory,  and  apes,  and  peacocks."  The  Hebrew  name  oi 
this  bird  is  (□■'on)  thochijivi,  which  the  Greek  interpreters, 
not  understanding,  left  without  explanation ;  but  the  Chal- 
dee,  the  Syriac,  and  other  translators,  render  it  the  peacock. 
The  origin  of  the  Hebrew  name  is  unknown ;  and  accord- 
ingly various  are  the  conjectures  in  which  the  learned  have 
indulged  their  imaginations,  or  critical  acumen.  Bocbart 
imagines  it  is  an  exotic  term  ;  and  changing  the  Hebrew 
(niiiin)  ihochiji'in  hy  'n\Y ersion  into  (ovmr)  cnthijim,  he  tra- 
ces it  to  aCushite  root,  intended  to  denote  the  native  coun- 
try of  the  peacock.  Nor  is  it  uncommon  for  an  animal  to  de- 
rive its  proper  name  from  the  place  of  its  original  residence. 
The  pheasant  is  indebted  for  her  name  to  the  Phasis,  a 
river  of  Colchus,  on  the  banks  of  which  she  first  drew  the 
attention  of  the  postdiluvian  tribes  ;  and  African  and  Nu- 
midian  birds  are  so  called  from  Africa  or  Numidia,  the 
country  where  they  were  hatched,  and  where  they  com- 
monly fixed  their  abode.  On  the  same  principle,  the  pea- 
cock himself  is  everywhere  called  by  the  ancients  the  bird 
of  Media  or  Persia,  in  which  the  land  of  Gush,  or  Cuth, 
was  situate,  because  he  came  originally  from  that  region. 
Aristophanes  calls  the  peacock  the  bird  of  Persia  ;  Suidas, 
the  bird  of  Media ;  and  Clemens  Psedagogus,  the  bird  of 
India.  Diodorus  observes,  that  Babylonia  produces  a 
very  great  number  of  peacocks  marked  with  colours  of 
every  kind.  In  the  opinion  of  Bochart,  India  is  the  true 
native  country  of  that  bird ;  but  it  is  frequently  mentioned 
as  a  native  of  Persia  and  Media,  because  it  was  first  imported 
from  India  into  these  countries,  from  whence  it  passed  into 
Judea,  Egypt,  and  Greece,  and  gradually  found  its  w^ay  into 
the  other  parts  of  the  globe.  Hence  the  peacocks,  which 
were  imported  in  the 'fleet  of  Solomon,  probably  came  from 
Persia;  for  in  that  long  voyage  of  three  years,  in  w^hich 
they  visited  Taprobane,  it  is  by  no  means  probable  they 
would  always  pursue  a  direct  couYse  ;  but  along  the  vari- 
ous windings  of  the  coast,  search  for  any  thing  that  suited 
their  purpose.  It  is  even  probable  that  they  sailed  up  the 
Persian  gulf,  and  touched  at  the  renowned  isles  of  the 
Pha-nicians,  Tyrus  or  Tylus,  and  Aradiis,  at  no  great  dis- 
tance from  Persia. 

The  elegance  of  the  peacock's  form,  and  the  brilliancy  of 
his  plumage,  seem  to  be  the  principal  reasons  which  indu- 
ced the  mariners  of  Solomon  to  bring  him  into  Palestine, 
and  that  the  sacred  historian  so  distinctly  mentions  the 
circumstance.  Nature,  according  to  the  remark  of  Var- 
ro,  has  certainly  assigned  the  pahn  of  beauty  to  the  pea- 
cock ;  but  since  the  introduction  of  the  ape  into  Palestine, 
an  animal  neither  distinguished  by  the  elegance  of  his 
form,  nor  the  brilliancy  of  his  colour,  is  mentioned  at  the 
same  time,  the  historian  might  intend  to  direct  the  reader's 
attention,  as  well  to  the  riches  and  splendour  of  Solo- 
mon, as  to  his  taste  for  rare  and  curious  articles  of  natural 
history.  In  the  Lesser  Asia,  and  in  Greece,  the  peacock  was 
long  held  in  high  estimation,  and  frequently  purchased  by 
the  great  and  the  wealthy,  at  a  very  great  price.  We  learn 
from  Plutarch,  that  in  the  age  of  Pericles,  a  person  at 
Athens  made  a  great  fortune  by  rearing  these  birds,  and 
showing  them  to  the  public,  at  a  certain  price,  every  new 
moon ;  and  to  this  exhibition,  the  curious  Greeks  crowded 
from  the  remotest  parts  of  the  country.  The  keeper  of 
these  birds,  the  same  author  informs  us,  sold  a  male  and 
female  for  a  thousand  drachms,  about  thirty-six  pounds  of 
our  money.  Peacocks  were  very  rare  in  Greece,  even  in 
the  time  of  Alexander,  who,  by  the  testimony  of  ./Elian, 
was  struck  with  astonishment  at  the  sight  of  these  birds  on 
the  banks  of  the  Indus ;  and  from  admiration  of  their  beauty, 
commanded  every  person  that  killed  one  of  them,  to  be 
severely  punished.  At  Rome,  as  the  same  historian  relates, 
when  Hortensius  first  killed  one  for  supper,  he  was 
brought  to  trial,  and  condemned  to  pay  a  fine.  Their  eggs, 
according  to  Varro,  w  ere  sold  in  his  time  at  five  denarii, 
or  more  than  three  shillings  a  piece  ;  and  the  birds  ihem- 
selv-es  commonly  at  about  two  pounds  of  our  money.  The 
same  writer  aflirms,  that  M.  A  ufidius  Luzco  derived  an 


Chap.  10—12. 


I  KINGS. 


257 


vearly  revenue  of  more  than  sixty  thousand  pieces  of  silver, 
which  amounts  to  four  hundred  and  sixty-eight  pounds 
fifteen  shillings  sterling,  from  the  sale  of  peacocks;  for  al- 
though their  flesh  is  not  better  tasted  than  that  of  a  domestic 
fowl,  they  were  sold  at  a  much  greater  price  on  account  of 
the  richness  and  brilliancy  of  their  plumes.  These  state- 
ments prove,  that  the  peacock  was  deemed,  in  remote  ages, 
a  present  not  unworthy  of  a  king. — Paxton. 

The  last  word  D'^on  tmkkiyeem,  of  those  paragraphs  which 
■describe  the  imports  of  Solomon's  navy  from  Tharshish,  is 
dubious  :  some  of  the  learned  have  thought  it  means  parrots, 
the  greatest  number,  peacocks.  What  led  some  of  the  curi- 
ous to  imagine  parrots  were  meant,  I  do  not  well  know ; 
but  there  is  a  passage  in  Hasselquist,  which  strongly  in- 
clines me  to  adopt  their  sentiment;  describing  the  com- 
merce of  the  people  of  Ethiopia,  he  says,  the  Abyssinians 
make  a  journey  every  year  to  Cairo,  to  sell  the  products 
of  their  country,  slaves,  gold,  elephants,  drugs,  monkeys, 
parrots,  &c.  As  Solomon's  navy  is  said  to  have  brought 
gold  and  silver,  elephants'  teeth,  and  apes,  and  peacocks, 
and  this  by  the  way  of  the  Red  Sea,  1  Kings  ix.  26,  which 
washes  the  east  of  Abyssinia,  one  would  imagine,  as  many 
of  the  other  particulars  tally  with  each  other,  that  instead  of 
peacocks^  the  true  translation  of  the  last  word  is  parrots. 
Religion  indeed  is  not  at  all  concerned  in  this  uncertainty ; 
but  it  is  a  matter  of  curiosity,  and  as  such  may,  with  great 
propriety,  be  taken  notice  of  in  these  papers. — Harmer. 

Ver.  28.  And  Solomon  had  horses  brought  out 
of  Egypt,  and  linen  yarn :  the  king's  merchants 
received  the  linen  yarn  at  a  price. 

Horses  were  conducted  to  foreign  markets  in  strings ;  a 
circumstance  "  favourable  to  those  interpreters,  who  would 
refer  the  whole  passage,  1  Kings  x.  28,  and  2  Chron.  i.  16, 
to  /lorses,  instead  of  linen  yarn,  which  seems  rather  to  break 
the  connexion  of  the  verses."  Some  are  therefore  inclined 
to  read,  "  And  Solomon  had  horses  brought  out  of  Egypt, 
even  strings  of  horses,  (literally,  draioings  out— prolonga- 
tions:) the  king's  merchants  received  the  strings,  i.e.  of 
horses,  in  commutation,  exchange,  or  barter.  And  a  chariot, 
or  set  of  chariot  horses,  {i.  e.  four,)  came  up  from  Egypt 
for  six  hundred  shekels  of  silver,  and  a  single  horse  for 
one  hundred  and  fifty." — And  these  he  sold  again,  at  a 
great  profit,  to  the  neighbouring  kings.  As  the  whole  con- 
text seems  rather  applicable  to  horses  than  to  linen  yarn, 
so  this  idea,  while  it  strictly  maintains  the  import  of  the 
words,  preserves  the  unity  of  the  passage.  The  Egyptian 
horses  were  held  in  great  estimation  in  Syria  .and  the 
neighbouring  countries.  The  breed  seems  to  have  been 
introduced  into  Egypt  at  a  very  remote  period ;  for  the 
cavalry  of  Pharaoh  was  numerous  and  completely  trained 
to  war,  when  the  people  of  Israel  were  delivered  from  his 
yoke :  "  But  the  Egyptians  pursued  after  them,  all  the 
horses  and  chariots  of  Pharaoh,  and  his  horsemen,  and  his 
army,  and  overtook  them  encamping  by  the  sea."  The 
dreadful  overthrow  which  Pharaoh  received  at  the  Red 
Sea,  did  not  prevent  his  successors  from  again  directing 
their  attention  to  the  rearing  of  horses  for  the  purpose  of 
war :  for  the  numerous  and  splendid  studs  of  Solomon 
were  chiefly  formed  of  Egyptian  horses ;  and  in  the  fifth 
year  of  his  son  Rehoboam,  Shishak,  king  of  Egypt,  invaded 
Canaan  "with  twelve  hundred  chariots,  and  threescore 
thousand  horsemen."  In  times  long  posterior,  the  prophet 
Jeremiah  addressed  the  forces  of  Pharaoh  Neco,  which  the 
king  of  Babylon  routed  near  the  Euphrates,  in  these  words : 
"  Harness  the  horses  ;  and  get  up,  ye  horsemen,  and  stand 
forth  with  your  helmets. — Come  up,  ye  horses ;  and  rage,  ye 
chariots ;  and  let  the  mighty  men  come  forth."  From  these 
passages,  it  may  be  certainly  inferred,  that  the  strength  of 
the  Egyptian  armies  chiefly  consisted  in  cavalry  and  chari- 
ots of  war.  The  Egyptian  warrior  adorned  the  neck  of  his 
charger  with  small  bells,  which  were  of  great  use  when 
he  had  to  engage  with  enemies  mounted  on  camels,  the 
noise  of  which  these  animals  cannot  endure.  In  allusion 
to  this  custom,  which  was  probably  adopted  by  Solomon, 
who  delighted  so  much  in  pomp  and  show,  it  is  promised, 
"upon  the  bells  of  the  horses  shall  be  written,  Holiness  to 
the  Lord."  The  Egyptian  horses  appear  to  have  been 
much  stronger  than  the  Syrian  breed,  and  by  consequence, 
much  more  useful  in  the  field.  On  this  account,  the  prophet 
Isaiah  tells  the  people  of  Israel,  that  "  the  Egyptians  were 


men,  and  not  God,  and  their  horses  were  flesh,  and  not 
spirit."  The  high  estimation  in  which  the  Egyptian  horses 
were  held,  and  the  eagerness  with  which  the  surrounding 
nations  purchased  them  at  exorbitant  prices,  might  be  one 
reason  for  enacting  the  law  which  forbade  the  chosen 
people  to  multiply  horses,  that  they  might  not  idly  waste 
their  substance,  and  especially,  that  they  might  not  return 
again  into  Egypt,  the  scene  of  their  grievous  oppression, 
even  for  the  purposes  of  commerce. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Ver.  36.  And  unto  his  son  will  I  give  one  tribe, 
that  David  my  servant  may  have  a  light  ahvays 
before  me  in  Jerusalem,  the  city  which  I  have 
chosen  me  to  put  my  name  there. 

The  houses  in  the  East  were,  from  the  remotest  antiquity, 
lighted  with  lamps ;  and  hence  it  is  so  common  in  scrip- 
ture to  call  everything  which  enlightens  the  body  or  mind, 
which  guides  or  refreshes,  by  the  name  of  a  lanip.  These 
lamps  were  sustained  by  a  large  candlestick  set  upon  the 
ground.  The  houses  of  Egypt,  in  modern  times,  are  never 
without  lights ;  they  burn  lamps  all  the  night  long,  and  in 
every  occupied  apartment.  So  requisite  to  the  comfort  of 
a  family  is  this  custom  reckoned,  or  so  imperious  is  the 
power  which  it  exercises,  that  the  poorest  people  would 
rather  retrench  part  of  their  food  than  neglect  it.  If  this 
custom  prevailed  in  Eg>'pt  and  the  adjacent  regions  of 
Arabia  and  Palestine  in  former  times,  it  will  impart  a 
beauty  and  force  to  some  passages  of  scripture,  which  have 
been  little  observed.  Thus,  in  the  language  of  Jeremiah, 
to  extinguish  the  light  in  an  apartment  is  a  convertible 

Jhrase  for  total  destruction  ;  and  if  it  was  the  practice  in 
udea,asin  modem  Egypt,  which  can  scarcely  be  doubted, 
to  keep  a  lamp  continually  burning  in  an  occupied  apart- 
ment, nothing  can  more  properly  and  emphatically  repre- 
sent the  total  destruction  of  a  city,  than  the  extinction  of 
the  lights.  "  1  will  take  from  them  the  light  of  a  candle; 
and  this  whole  land  shall  be  a  desolation  and  an  astonish- 
ment." Job  describes  the  destruction  of  a  family  among 
the  Arabs,  and  the  desolation  of  their  dwellings,  in  the  very 
language  of  the  prophet :  "  How  oft  is  the  candle  of  the 
wicked  put  out,  and  how  oft  cometh  their  destruction  upon 
them!"  Bildad  expresses  the  same  idea,  in  the  following 
beautiful  passage  :  "  Yea,  the  light  of  the  wicked  shall  be 
put  out,  and  the  spark  of  his  fire  shall  not  shine."  "  The 
light  shall  be  dark  in  his  tabernacle,  and  his  candle  shall  be 
put  out  with  him."  A  burning  lamp  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  chosen  symbol  of  prosperity,  a  beautiful  instance  of 
which  occurs  in  the  complaint  of  Job:  "Oh  that  I  were 
as  in  months  past,  as  in  the  days  when  God  preserved  me, 
when  his  candle  shined  upon  my  head,  and  when  by  his 
light  I  walked  through  darkness."  When  the  ten  tribes 
were  taken  from  Rehoboam,  and  given  to  his  rival,  Jeho- 
vah promised  to  reserve  one  tribe,  and  assigns  this  reason , 
"that  David  my  servant  may  have  a  light  always  before 
me  in  Jerusalem."—  Paxton. 

CHAPTER    XII. 

Ver.  11.  And  now  whereas  my  father  did  lade 
you  with  a  heavy  yoke,  I  will  add  to  your 
yoke :  my  father  hath  chastised  you  with  whips, 
but  I  will  chastise  you  with  scorpions. 

It  is  not  easy  to  know  which  to  admire  most,  the  folly  or 
the  tyranny  of  Rehoboam,  who  in  the  very  commencement 
of  his  reign,  threatened  to  lay  aside  the  whips  with  which 
his  father  had  chastised  the  people  of  Israel,  and  rule  them 
with  scorpions ;  it  was  adding  insult  to  cruelty.  Nor  is  the 
injurious  treatment  much  alleviated,  although  the  idea  of 
some  interpreters  were  admitted,  that  the  scorpion  was  the 
name  of  a  kind  of  whip  in  use  among  the  Jews,  armed 
with  points  like  the  tail  of  that  animal.  The  sting  of  the 
scorpion  occasioned  an  excruciating  pain,  although  death 
did  not  ensue.  This  is  attested  by  John,  in  the  book  of 
Revelation  :  "And  to  them  it  was  given  that  they  should  not 
kill  them,  but  that  they  should  be  tormented  five  months; 
and  their  torment  was  as  the  torment  of  a  scorpion,  when 
he  striketh  a  man."  And  so  intolerable  is  the  agony,  that 
it  is  added,  "  In  those  days  shall  men  seek  death,  and  shall 


253 


1  KINGS 


Chap.  13. 


not  find  it  j  and  shall  desire  to  die,  and  death  shall  flee  from 
them."  If  the  Jews  used  a  whip  which  they  called  a  scor- 
pion, it  must  have  been  because  it  occasioned  a  similar  tor- 
ment. If  these  things  are  properly  considered,  we  shall 
cease  to  wonder  at  the  instantaneous  revolt  of  the  ten 
tribes  ;  for  it  is  not  easy  to  conceive  an  address  more  cal- 
culated to  rouse  and  exasperate  the  bitter  passions  of  a  high- 
spirited  people,  than  the  puerile  and  wicked  speech  of 
Rehoboam.— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Ver.  2.  And  he  cried  against  the  altar  in  the 
word  of  the  Lord,  and  said,  O  altar,  altar,  thus 
saith  the  Lord,  Behold,  a  child  shall  be  born 
unto  the  house  of  David,  Josiah  by  name  ;  and 
upon  thee  shall  he  offer  the  priests  of  the  high 
places  that  burn  incense  upon  thee,  and  men's 
bones  shall  be  burnt  upon  thee. 

These  words  were  uttered  in  consequence  of  the  profana- 
tion of  the  altar,  and  the  wickedness  of  those  concerned. 
Has  a  man  brought  or  purchased  a  kid  for  sacrifice  to  his 
deity,  and  should  it  have  been  stolen,  he  goes  to  his  god  to 
tell  his  story,  and  then  says,  "  O  Swamy  !  may  the  bones 
and  the  body  of  him  who  stole  the  kid  intended  for  you,  be 
offered  up  to  you  as  a  sacrifice."  Whoever  walks  upon  ihe 
place  where  men's  bones  have  been  burnt,  becomes  im- 
pure.— Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  And  the  king  answered  and  said  unto  the 
man  of  God,  Entreat  now  the  face  of  the  Lord 
thy  God,  and  pray  for  me,  that  my  hand  may 
be  restored  me  again.  And  the  man  of  God 
besought  the  Lord,  and  the  king's  hand  was 
restored  him  again,  and  became  as  it  was  before. 

This  is  said  in  reference  to  the  hand  of  Jeroboam, 
which  had  become  stiff  in  consequence  of  the  violence  he 
had  offered  to  the  prophet.  The  face  of  the  Lord  was  to 
be  entreated.  Has  a  man  injured  another,  he  says,  "  Ah  ! 
my  lord,  forgive  me  for  the  sake  of  the  face  of  your  son." 
Or,  does  he  wish  another  to  intercede  for  him,  he  says, 
"  Ah  !  go,  and  beseech  his  face  for  me."  A  man,  whose 
name  was  Veatha-Veydthar,  was  once  asked  by  some 
prophet,  "  Who  is  the  greatest  god,  Siva  or  Vishnoo '?" 
The  man  then  stretched  forth  his  hand  towards  a  temple  of 
Vishnoo,  and  said,  "  He  is  the  greatest."  Immediately  his 
arm  became  stiff  and  withered.  The  prophet,  seeing  this, 
then  prayed  to  Siva,  and  his  hand  was  restored. — Roberts, 

Ver.  31.  And  it  came  to  pass,  after  he  had  buried 
him,  that  he  spake  to  his  sons,  saying,  When  I 
am  dead,  then  bury  me  in  the  sepulchre  wherein 
the  man  of  God  is  buried  ;  lay  my  bones  beside 
his  bones. 

His  object  in  making  this  request,  was  no  doubt  a  selfish 
one;  he  believed  the  deceased  was  a  good  man,  and  felt  a 
hope,  that  if  his  body  were  to  rest  near  him  it  would  be 
protected  from  insult,  and  that  with  him  he  would  share  the 
blessings  of  the  resurrection.  Wherever  the  body  or  the 
bones  of  Hindoo  or  Mohammedan  saints  are  buried,  there 
will  others  also  wish  to  be  interred.  Often,  when  men  think 
themselves  near  death,  they  say,  "  Take  care  that  you  bury 
me  near  '  .e  holy  man.  Ah !  remember  you  are  to  put  me 
near  to  *  -e  sacred  place."  The  idea  seems  to  be,  that  the 
spot  beiT  <  thus  sanctified,  neither  devils  nor  evil  spirits  can 
injure  them.  Numbers  are  carried  to  a  great  distance  to  be 
thus  interred. — Roberts, 

Not  far  from  this  is  another  large  mausoleum,  built  by 
Shah  Suleiman,  over  the  remains  of  a  mussulman  doctor 
of  the  name  of  Mollah  Hossein,  who  was  a  native  of  Con- 
sori,  a  large  town  of  Irak  Ajem,  three  days'  journey  from 
Ispahan.  Around  these  and  such  like  monuments  are,  in 
general,  to  be  seen  collections  of  minor  tombs ;  for  it  is  a 
received  opinion,  that  those  who  are  buried  in  the  vicinity 
of  a  holy  personage  will  meet  with  his  support  at  the  day 
of  resurrection. — Morier. 


Ver.  32.  For  the  saymg  which  he  cried  by  the 
word  of  the  Lord  against  the  altar  in  Bethel, 
and  against  all  the  houses  of  the  high  places 
which  are  in  the  cities  of  Samaria,  shal  surely 
come  to  pass. 

Leaving  Nablous,  the  road  lies  along  the  narrow  vale, 
and,  in  about  three  quarters  of  an  hour,  conducts  the  trav- 
eller to  a  copious  spring  of  good  water,  called  Beersheba. 
This,  Dr.  Richardson  says,  is  the  broadest  and  best  culti- 
vated part  of  the  valley ;  he  saw  the  natives  busily  engaged 
(May)  in  reaping  a  scanty  crop  of  barley.  Maundrell 
notices  a  village  on  the  left  of  the  road  (going  northward) 
called  Barseba,  deriving  its  name,  no  doubt,  from  this  well ; 
and,  half  an  hour  farther,  another  village,  which  he  calls 
Sherack.  After  leaving  Beersheba,  Dr.  Richardson's  ac- 
count makes  the  road  ascend.  "  In  about  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,"  he  says,  "  we  reached  the  top  of  the  hill ;  and  as  we 
wound  our  way  down  the  other  side,  had  an  excellent  view 
of  the  delightfully  situated  Sebaste.  In  a  few  minutes  we 
passed  a  ruined  aqueduct  of  Roman  architecture,  and 
pitched  our  tents  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  nearly  opposite 
to  its  unworthy  successor,  a  poor  village  of  the  same  name ; 
having  travelled  this  day  about  nine  hours."  This  makes 
the  distance  from  Khan  Leban  about  twenty-seven  miles, 
but  allowing  for  deviations  from  the  direct  track,  twenty- 
four  miles,  and  sixteen  hours,  or  forty-eight  miles  from 
Jerusalem.  Josephus,  however,  makes  it  but  one  day's 
journey  from  the  capital.  It  is  six  miles  beyond  Napolose; 
and  if  the  distance  of  the  latter  place  is  correctly  given  by 
our  authorities,  it  cannot  exceed  forty  miles.  Sebaste  is  the 
name  which  Herod  gave  to  the  ancient  Samaria,  the  impe- 
rial city  of  the  ten  tribes,  in  honour  of  Augustus  (Sebastos) 
Cesar,  when  he  rebuilt  and  fortified  it,  converting  the 
greater  part  of  it  into  a  citadel,  and  erecting  here  a  ncble 
temple.  "The  situation,"  says  Dr.  Richardson,  "is  ex- 
tremely beautiful,  and  strong  by  nature ;  more  so.  I  think, 
than  Jerusalem.  It  stands  on  a  fine,  large,  insulated  hill, 
compassed  all  around  by  a  broad  deep  valley,  and  when 
fortified,  as  it^  is  stated  to  have  been  by  Herod,  one  would 
have  imagined  that,  in  the  ancient  system  of  warfare, 
nothing  but  famine  could  have  reduced  such  a  place.  The 
valley  is  surrounded  by  four  hills,  one  on  each  side,  which 
are  cultivated  in  terraces  up  to  the  top,  sown  with  grain, 
and  planted  with  fig  and  olive  trees,  as  is  also  the  valley. 
The  hill  of  Samaria  likewise  rises  in  terraces  to  a  height 
equal  to  any  of  the  adjoining  mountains.  The  present  vil- 
lage is  small  and  poor,  and,  after  passing  the  valley,  the 
ascent  to  it  is  very  steep.  Viewed  from  the  station  of  oui 
tents,  it  is  extremely  interesting,  both  from  its  natural  situ- 
ation, and  from  the  picturesque  remains  of  a  ruined  convent 
of  good  Gothic  architecture. 

"  Having  passed  the  village,  towards  the  middle  of  the 
first  terrace,  there  is  a  number  of  columns  still  standing.  I 
counted  twelve  in  one  row,  besides  several  that  stood  apart, 
the  brotherless  remains  of  other  rows.  The  situation. is 
extremely  delightful,  and  my  guide  informed  me,  that  they 
belonged  to  the  serai,  or  palace.  On  the  next  terrace  there 
are  no  remains  of  solid  building,  but  heaps  of  stone,  and 
lime,  and  rubbish,  mixed  with  soil,  in  great  profusion. 
Ascending  to  the  third  or  highest  terrace,  the  traces  of 
former  buildings  Avere  not  so  numerous,  but  we  enjoyed  a 
delightful  view  of  the  surrounding  country.  The  eye  passed 
over  the  deep  valley  that  encompasses  the  hill  of  Sebaste, 
and  rested  on  the  mountains  beyond,  that  retreated  as  they 
rose  with  a  gentle  slope,  and  met  the  view  in  every  direc- 
tion, like  a  book  laid  out  for  perusal  on  a  reading-desk. 
This  -^'as  the  seat  of  the  capital  of  the  short-lived  and 
wicked  kingdom  of  Israel ;  and  on  the  face  of  these  mount- 
ains the  eye  surveys  the  scene  of  many  bloody  conflicts 
and  many  memorable  events.  Here  those  holy  meft  oi 
God,  Elijah  and  Elisha,  spoke  their  tremendous  warnirgs 
in  the  ears  of  their  incorrigible  rulers,  and  wrought  their 
miracles  in  the  sight  of  all  the  people.  From  this  lofiy 
eminence  we  descended  to  the  south  side  of  the  hill,  where 
we  saw  the  remains  of  a  stately  colonnade,  that  stretches 
along  this  beautiful  exposure  from  west  to  east.  Sixty 
columns  are  still  standing  in  one  row.  The  shafts  are  plain, 
and  fragments  of  Ionic  volutes,  that  lie  scattered  about,  tes- 
tify the  order  to  which  they  belonged.  These  are  probably 
the  relics  of  some  of  the  magnificent  structures  with  whick 


Chap.  14. 


1    KINGS. 


259 


Herod  the  Great  adorned  Samaria.  None  of  the  walls 
remain."  Mr.  Buckingham  mentions  a  current  tradition, 
that  the  avenue  of  columns  formed  a  part  of  Herod's  palace. 
According  to  his  account  there  were  eighty-three  of  these 
columns  erect  in  1816,  besides  others  prostrate;  all  without 
capitals.  Josephus  states,  that,  about  the  middle  of  the  city, 
Herod  built  "  a  sacred  place,  of  a  furlong  and  a  half  in 
circuit,  and  adorned  it  with  all  sorts  of  decorations ;  and 
therein  erected  a  temple,  illustrious  for  both  its  largeness 
and  beauty,"  It  is  probable  that  these  columns  belonged  to 
it.  On  the  eastern  side  of  the  same  summit  are  the  remains, 
Mr.  Buckmgham  states,  of  another  building,  "  of  which 
eight  large  and  eight  small  columns  are  still  standing,  with 
many  o  hers  fallen  near  them.  These  also  are  without 
capitals,  and  are  of  a  smaller  size,  and  of  an  inferior  stone 
to  the  others."  "  In  the  walls  of  the  humble  dwellings 
forming  the  modern  village,  portions  of  sculptured  blocks 
of  stone  are  perceived,  and  even  fragments  of  granite  pil- 
lars have  been  worked  into  the  masonry."  The  Gothic 
convent  refi'rred  to  by  Dr.  Richardson,  is  the  ruined  cathe- 
dral, attributed,  like  every  thing  else  of  the  kind  in  Pales- 
tine, to  the  Empress  Helena.  It  stands  east  and  west,  and 
is  about  one  hundred  feet  in  length,  by  fifty  in  breadth. — 
Modern  Traveller. 

>  CHAPTER  XIV. 

Ver.  3.  And  take  with  thee  ten  loaves,  and  crack- 
nels, and  a  cruise  of  honey,  and  go  to  him :  he 
shall  tell  thee  what  shall  become  of  the  child. 

When  they  consulted  a  prophet,  the  eastern  modes  re- 
quired a  present ;  and  they  might  think  it  was  right  rather 
to  present  him  with  eatables  than  other  things,  because  it 
frequently  happened  that  they  were  detained  some  time, 
waiting  the  answer  of  God,  dtring  which  hospitality  would 
require  the  prophet  to  ask  them  to  take  some  repast  with 
him.  And  as  the  prophet  would  naturally  treat  them  with 
some  regard  to  their  quality,  they  doubtless  did  then,  as  the 
Egyptians  do  now,  proportion  their  presents  to  their  avowed 
rank  and  number  of  attendants.  "  This  custom,"  (of  making 
presents,)  says  Maillet,  "  is  principally  observed  in  the  fre- 
quent visits  which  they  make  one  another  through  the  course 
of  the  year,  which  are  always  preceded  by  presents  of  fowls, 
sheep,  rice,  coffee,  and  other  provisions  of  different  kinds. 
These  visits,  which  relations  and  friends  make  regularly  to 
each  other,  were  in  use  among  the  ancient  Egyptians ;  and 
though  they  are  often  made  without  going  out  of  the  same 
city,  yet  they  never  fail  of  lasting  three  or  four  days,  and 
sometimes  eight.  They  carry  all  their  family  with  them, 
if  they  have  any ;  and  the  custom  is,  as  I  have  just  observed, 
to  send  presents  beforehand,  proportionable  to  their  rank, 
and  the  number  of  their  attendants."  In  other  cases,  the 
presents  that  anciently  were,  and  of  late  have  been  made  to 
personages  eminent  for  study  and  piety,  were  large  sums  of 
money  or  vestments.  Sums  of  money  are  presented  also  to 
others,  by  princes  and  great  personages.  Sir  John  Chardin 
observes,  in  his  MS.,  on  occasion  of  Joseph's  being  said  to 
have  given  Benjamin  three  hundred  pieces  of  silver.  Gen. 
xlv.  22,  that  the  kings  of  Asia  almost  always  make  presents 
of  this  kind  to  ambassadors,  and  other  strangers  of  consid- 
eration who  have  brought  them  presents.  So  the  Calif 
Mahadi,  according  to  D'Herbelot,  gave  an  Arab  that  had 
entertained  him  in  the  desert,  a  vest  and  a  purse  of  silver: 
as  to  vestments,  D'Herbelot  tells  us,  that  Bokhteri,  an  illus- 
trious poet  of  Cufah,  in  the  ninth  century,  had  so  many 
presents  made  him  in  the  course  of  his  life,  that  at  his 
death  he  was  found  possessed  of  a  hundred  complete  suits 
of  clothes,  two  hundred  shirts,  and  five  hundred  turbans. 

D'Arvieux  tells  us,  that  when  he  waited  on  an  Arab 
emir,  his  mother  and  sister,  to  gratify  whose  curiosity  that 
visit  was  made,  sent  him,  early  in  the  morning  after  his 
H  arrival  in  their  camp,  a  present  of  pastry,  honey,  fresh 
butter,  with  a  basin  of  sweetmeats  of  Damascus.  Sir  John 
Chardin  tells  us,  in  his  Travels,  of  an  officer  whose  busi- 
ness it  was  to  register  the  presents  that  were  made  to  his 
master  or  mistress  ;  and  I  have  since  found  the  same  prac- 
tice obtains  at  the  Ottoman  court:  for  Egmont  and  Heyman, 
speaking  of  the  presents  made  there  on  the  account  of  the 
circumcision  of  the  grand  seignior's  children,  tell  us  that  all 
these  donations  with  the  time  when,  and  on  what  occasion 
given,  were  carefully  registered  in  a  book  for  that  purpose. 


When  Dr.  Perry  travelled  in  Egypt,  ahd  visited  the  trmple 
at  Luxor,  he  says,  "  We  were  entertained  by  the  calif 
here  with  great  marks  of  civility  and  favour  ;  he  sent  us, 
in  return  of  our  presents,  several  sheep,  a  good  quantity  of 
eggs,  bardacks,"  &c.  These  bardacks  he  had  described  a 
little  before,  in  speaking  of  a  town  called  Keene:  "  Its  chief 
manufactory,"  he  there  tells  us,  "  is  in  bardacks,  to  cocl 
and  refresh  their  water  in,  by  means  of  which  it  drinks 
very  cool  and  pleasant  in  the  hottest  seasons  of  the  year. 
They  make  an  inconceivable  quantity  of  these,  which  they 
distribute  to  Cairo,  and  all  other  parts  of  Egypt.  They 
send  them  down  in  great  floats,  consisting  of  many  thou- 
sands, lashed  together  in  such  a  manner  as  to  bear  the 
weight  of  several  people  upon  them.  We  purchased  a 
good  many  of  them  for  the  fancy,  at  so  inconsiderable  a 

Erice  as  twenty  pence  a  hundred;  and  are  really  surprised 
ow  they  could  make  them  for  it." — Burder. 
The  presents  made  to  the  ancient  prophets  were  not 
always  of  the  same  kind  and  value;  an  inhabitant  of  Baal- 
shalisha  "brought  the  man  of  God  bread  of  the  first-fruits, 
twenty  loaves  of  barley,  and  full  ears  of  corn  in  the  husk." 
The  king  of  Israel  sent  a  present  by  his  wife  to  the  prophet 
Ahijah,  of  ten  loaves,  and  cracknels,  and  a  cruise  of  honey; 
which,  it  appears  from  other  statements,  was  not  deemed 
unworthy  of  an  eastern  king.  Some  commentators  are  of 
opinion,  that  it  was  a  present  fit  only  for  a  peasant  to  make, 
and  was  designedly  of  so  small  value,  to  conceal  the  rank 
of  the  messenger.  But  this  idea  by  no  means  corresponds 
with  the  custom  of  the  East ;  for  D'Arvieux  informs  us, 
that  when  he  waited  on  an  Arabian  emir,  his  mother  and 
sister  sent  him  a  present  of  pastry,  honey,  fresh  butter, 
with  a  basin  of  sweetmeats,  which  differs  very  little  from 
the  present  of  Jeroboam.  It  was  certainly  the  wish  of  the 
king,  that  his  wife  should  not  be  recognised  by  the  aged. 
pro|)het ;  but  the  present  she  carried,  though  not  intended 
to  discover  her,  was,  in  the  estimation  of  the  Orientals,  not 
unbecoming  her  rank  and  condition. — Paxton. 

Travellers  agree  that  the  eastern  bread  is  made  in  small, 
thin  moist  cakes,  must  be  eaten  new,  and  is  good  for  nothing 
when  kept  longer  than  a  day.  This,  however,  admits  of 
exceptions.  Dr.  Russel  of  late,  and  Rauw^olf  formerly, 
assure  us,  that  they  have  several  sorts  of  bread  and  cakes. 
Some,  Rauwolf  tells  us,  done  with  yelk  of  eggs,  some  mix- 
ed with  several  sorts  of  seeds,  as  of  sesamum,  Romish  co- 
riander, and  wild  garden  saffron,  which  are  also  strewed 
upon  it :  and  he  elsewhere  supposes  that  they  prepare  bis- 
cuits for  travelling.  Russel  also  mentions  this  strewing 
of  seeds  on  their  cakes,  and  says  they  have  a  variety  vf 
rusks  and  biscuits.  To  these  authors  let  me  add  Pitts,  who 
tells  us,  the  biscuits  they  carry  with  them  from  Egypt  will 
last  them  to  Mecca  and  back  again.  So  the  scripture 
supposes  their  loaves  of  bread  were  very  small,  three  of 
them  being  requisite  for  the  entertainment  of  a  single  per- 
son, Luke  xi.  5  ;  that  they  were  generally  eaten  new,  and 
baked  as  they  wanted  them,  as  appears  from  the  case  of 
Abraham ;  that  sometimes,  however,  they  were  made  so 
as  to  keep  several  days;  so  the  shew-bread  was  fit  food  after 
having  stood  before  the  Lord  a  week.  And  that  bread  for 
travellers  was  wont  to  be  made  to  keep  some  time,  ap- 
pears from  the  pretences  of  the  Gibeonites,  Josh.  ix.  12 ; 
and  the  preparations  Joseph  made  for  Jacob's  journey  into 
Egypt,  Gen.  xlv.  23.  In  like  manner,  too,  they  seem  to  have 
had  then  a  variety  of  eatables  of  this  kind,  as  the  Alep- 
pines  now  have.  In  particular,  some  made  like  those  on 
which  seeds  are  strewed,  as  we  may  collect  from  that  part 
of  the  present  of  Jeroboam's  wife  to  the  prophet  Ahijah, 
which  our  translators  have  rendered  cracknels,  1  Kings  xiv. 
iii.  Buxtorf  indeed  supposes  the  original  word  onpj  nak- 
kadeem,  signifies  biscuits,  called  by  this  name  either  because 
they  were  formed  into  little  buttons  like  some  of  our  ginger- 
bread, or  because  they  were  pricked  full  of  holes  after  a  par- 
ticularmanner.  The  last  of  these  two  conjectures,  I  imagine, 
was  embraced  by  our  translators  of  this  passage,  for  cracJ/- 
neh,  as  they  are  all  over  England  of  the  same  form,  are 
full  of  holes,  being  formed  into  a  kind  of  flourish  of  lattice- 
work. I  have  seen  some  of  the  unleavened  bread  of  our 
English  Jews,  made  in  like  manner,  in  a  net-work  form. 
Nevertheless,  I  think  it  more  natural  to  undierstand  the 
word  of  biscuits  spotted  with  seeds ;  for  it  is  used  elsewhere 
to  signify  works  of  gold  spotted  with  studs  of  silver;  and, 
as  it  should  seem,  bread  spotted  with  mould.  Josh.  ix.  5 — 12  ; 
how  much  more  natural  then  is  it  to  understand  the  word 


<  260 


1   KINGS. 


Chap.  15. 


of  cakes  spotted  with  seeds,  which  are  so  common,  that  not 
only  Rauwolf  and  Russel  speak  of  them  at  Aleppo,  but 
Han  way  tells  us,  too,  that  the  cakes  of  bread  that  were  pre- 
sented to  him  at  the  house  of  a  Persian  of  distinction,  were 
in  like  manner  sprinkled  with  the  seeds  of  poppies  and 
other  things,  than  of  cracknels,  on  account  of  their  being 
full  of  holes.  It  is  used  for  things  that  are  spotted  we  know, 
never  in  any  other  place  for  a  thing  full  of  holes.  Our 
translators  then  do  not  appear  to  have  been  very  happy  in 
the  choice  of  the  word  cracknels  here. — Harmer. 

Ver.  6.  And  it  was  so,  when  Ahijah  heard  the 
sound  of  her  feet,  as  she  came  in  at  the  door, 
that  he  said.  Come  in,  thou  wife  of  Jeroboam ; 
why  feignest  thou  thyself  to  be  another  ?  for  1 
a?n  §ent  to  thee  with  heavy  tidings. 

This  woman  disguised  herself  in  order  to  deceive  the 
prophet,  and  therefore  he  addressed  her  by  name,  to  show 
that  she  was  known  to  him.  Married  women  are  general- 
ly spoken  to  as  the  wife  of  such  a  person.  Supposing  a 
married  female  to  be  in  a  crowd,  and  a  man  on  the  outside 
wishes  to  speak  to  her,  he  will  say,  "  Come  hither,  wife 
of  Chinne  Tamby ;"  literally,  Chinne  Tamby's  wife,  hither 
come.    "  O !  Muttoo's  wife,  where  are  you  V    Should  a 

Eerson  have  to  speak  to  a  female  who  is  walking  before 
im,  he  will  not  call  her  by  name,  but  address  her,  "  Such 
a  one's  wife,  I  wish  to  speak  to  you."— Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  Therefore,  behold,  I  will  bring  evil  upon 
the  house  of  Jeroboam,  and  will  cut  off  from 
Jeroboam  him  that  pisseth  against  the  wall, 
and  him  that  is  shut  up,  and  left  in  Israel,  and 
will  take  away  the  remnant  of  the  house  of 
Jeroboam,  as  a  man  taketh  away  dung,  till  it 
be  all  gone. 

Sometimes,  when  a  successful  prince  has  endeavoured  to 
extirpate  the  preceding  royal  family,  some  of  them  have 
escaped  the  slaughter,  and  secured  themselves  in  a  fortress 
or  place  of  secrecy,  while  others  have  sought  an  asylum  in 
foreign  countries,  from  whence  they  have  occasioned  great 
anxiety  to  the  usurper.  The  word  shut  up,  strictly  speak- 
ing, refers  to  the  first  of  these  cases ;  as  in  the  preservation 
of  Joash  from  Athaliah  in  a  private  apartment  of  the  tem- 
ple. Such  appears  also  to  have  been  the  case  in  more  mod- 
ern times.  '•  Though  more  than  thirty  years  had  elapsed 
since  the  death  of  the  Sultan  Achmet,  father  of  the  new 
emperor,  he  had  not,  in  that  interval,  acquired  any  great 
information  or  improvement.  Shut  up  during  this  long  in- 
terval in  the  apartment  assigned  him,  with  some  eunuchs 
to  wait  on  him,  the  equality  of  his  age  with  that  of  the  prin- 
ces who  had  a  right  to  precede  him,  allowed  him  but  little 
hope  of  reigning  in  his  turn ;  and  he  had,  besides,  well- 
grounded  reasons  for  a  more  serious  uneasiness."  (Baron 
De  Tott.)  But  when  David  was  in  danger,  he  kept  himself 
close  in  Ziklag,  but  not  so  as  to  prevent  him  from  making 
frequent  excursions.  In  latter  times,  in  the  East,  persons 
of  royal  descent  have  been  left,  when  the  rest  of  a  family 
have  been  cut  off,  if  no  danger  was  apprehended  from  them, 
on  account  of  some  mental  or  bodily  disqualification.  Blind- 
ness saved  the  life  of  Mohammed  Khodabendeh,  a  Persian 
prince  of  the  sixteenth  century,  when  his  brother  Ismael 
put  all  the  rest  of  his  brethren  to  death.  —Harmer. 

We  find  divine  anger  threatening  to  "  cut  off  from  Jero- 
boam him  who  is  shut  up  and  left  in  Israel,"  1  Kings  xiv. 
10.  In  chap.  xxi.  21,  the  same  threat  is  made  against  Ahab; 
vide  also  2  Kings  ix.  8.  This  shutting  up  of  the  royal 
family  appears  sufliciently  strange  to  us ;  and  the  rather  as 
we  perceive  that  the  sons  of  David  the  king  enjoyed  liberty 
sufficient,  and  more  than  sufficient.  The  following  extracts 
will  throw  some  light  on  this  subject:  "  In  one  of  them  we 
find  the  royal  family  dwelling  together  on  a 'mountain, 
which,  though  a  place  of  confinement,  yet  had  some  ex- 
tent. In  the  other,  we  find  them  in  a  palace,  which  only  in 
name  differed  from  a  prison.  The  crown  being  heredi- 
tary in  one  family,  but  elective  in  the  person,  and  polyg- 
amy being  permitted,  must  have  multiplied  these  heirs 
very  much,  and  produced  "onstant  disputes;  so  that  it  was 
found  necessary  to  provide  a  remedy  for  the  anarchy  and  ef- 


fusion of  royal  blood,  which  was  otherwise  inevitably  to 
follow.  The  remedy  was  a  humane  and  gentle  one;  they 
were  confined  in  a  good  climate  upon  a  high  mountain,  and 
maintained  there  at  the  public  expense.  They  are  there 
taught  to  read  and  write,  but  nothing  else;  750  cloths  for 
wrapping  round  them  ;  3000  ounces  of  gold,  which  is  30,000 
dollars,  or  crowns,  are  allowed  by  the  state  for  their  main- 
tenance. These  princes  are  hardly  used,  and,  in  troublous 
times,  often  put  to  death  upon  the  smallest  misinformation. 
While  I  was  at  Abyssinia,  their  revenue  M^as  so  grossly 
misapplied,  that  some  of  them  were  said  to  have  died  witK 
hunger  and  of  cold,  by  the  avarice  and  hard-heartedness 
of  Michael  neglecting  to  furnish  them  necessaries.  Nor 
had  the  king,  as  far  as  I  could  discern,  that  fellow-feeling 
one  would  have  expected  from  a  prince  rescued  from  that 
very  situation  himself  Perhaps  this  was  owing  to  his  fear 
of  Ras  Michael. 

"  However  that  be,  and  however  distressing  the  situation 
of  those  princes,  we  cannot  but  be  satisfied  with  it,  when 
we  look  to  the  neighbouring  kingdom  of  Sennaar  or  Nubia. 
There  no  mountain  is  trusted  with  the  confinement  of  their 
princes,  but  as  soon  as  the  father  dies,  the  throats  of  all  the 
collaterals,  and  all  their  descendants  that  can  be  laidhold  of, 
are  cut;  and  this  is  the  case  with  all  the  black  states  in  the 
desert  west  of  Sennaar,  Dar  Four,  Sele,  and  Bagirma." 
(Bruce.)  We  see  now  how  Athaliah  might  destroy,  not 
merely  an  individual,  but  all  the  seed  royal,  (2  Kings  'xi.  1,) 
because,  if  she  found  access  to  the  palace  to  accomplish 
the  slaughter  of  any  one,  she  might  easily  cut  off  the  whole. 
This  also  renders  credible  the  slaughter  of  Ahab's  sons, 
seventy  young  persons  at  one  time.  They  were  kept  shut 
up,  it  seems,  in  Samaria,  where  their  keepers  became  their 
destro)rers.  How  far  the  same  confinement  might  take  place 
in  the  instance  of  the  sons  of  Gideon,  (Judges  ix.  2,  5,)  we 
cannot  determine ;  but  it  should  appear,  that  at  least  they 
were  kept  in  one  place  of  abode,  whether  that  place  were 
the  mansion  or  the  tower  of  their  father. — Taylor  in 
Calmet. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Ver.  2.  Three  years  reigned  he  in  Jerusalem. 
And   his   mother's   name  was  Maachah,  the 
daughter  of  Abishalom. 

^  It  has  been  conjectured  by  Mr.  Baruh,  that  the  phrase, 
*'  and  his  mother's  name  was,"  &c.  when  expressed  on  a 
king's  accession  to  the  throne,  at  the  beginning  of  his  his- 
tory, does  not  always  refer  to  his  natural  mother,  but  that 
it  is  a  title  of  honour  and  dignity,  enjoyed  by  one  of  the 
royal  family,  denoting  her  to  be  the  first  in  rank.  This  idea 
appears  we'll  founded  from  the  following  extracts:  "The 
Oloo  Kani  is  not  govei'ness  of  the  Crimea.  This  title,  the 
literal  translation  of  which  is,  great  queen,  simply  denotes 
a  dignity  in  the  harem,  which  the  khan  usually  confers  on 
one  of  his  sisters;  or  if  he  has  none,  on  one  of  his  davigh- 
ters,  or  relations.  To  this  dignity  are  attached  the  revenues 
arising  from  several  villages,  and  other  rights."  (Baron 
De  Tott.)  "  On  this  occasion  the  king  crowned  his  moth- 
er Malacotawit,  conferring  upon  her  the  dignity  and  title 
of  iteghe,  i.  e.  as  king's  mother,  regent  and  governess  of  the 
king  when  under  age."    (Bruce's  Travels.)— Burder. 

Ver.  18.  And  King  Asa  sent  them  to  Ben-hadad, 
the  son  of  Tabrimon,  the  son  of  Hezion,  king 
of  Syria,  that  dwelt  at  Damascus,  saying, 
19.  There  is  a  league  between  me  and  thee, 
and  between  my  father  and  thy  father  :  behold, 
I  have  sent  unto  thee  a  present  of  silver  and 
gold ;  come  and  break  thy  league  with  Baasha, 
king  of  Israel,  that  he  may  depart  from  me. 

I  will  not  push  my  remarks  on  the  presents  of  the  East 
any  further  here,  excepting  the  making  this  single  obser- 
vation more,  that  the  sending  presents  to  princes  to  induce 
them  to  help  the  distressed,  has  been  practised  in  these 
countries  in  late  times,  as  well  as  in  the  days  of  Asa,  of 
whom  we  read,  that  he  "  took  all  the  silver  and  the  gold 
that  were  left  in  the  treasures  of  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and 
the  treasures  of  the  king's  house,  and  delivered  them  into 
the  hand  of  his  servants:  and  king  Asa  sent  them  to  Benha- 


Chap.  16.  17. 


1    KINGS, 


261' 


dad  the  son  of  Tabrimon,  the  son  of  Hezion,  king  of  Syria, 
that  dwelt  at  Damascus,  saying,  There  is  a  league  between 
me  and  thee,  and  between  my  father  and  thy  father:  behold, 
I  have  sent  unto  thee  a  present  of  silver  and  gold;  come 
and  break  thy  league  with  Baasha,  king  of  Israel,  that  he 
may  depart  from  me."  To  us  it  appears  strange,  that  a 
present  should  be  thought  capable  of  inducing  one  prince 
to  break  with  another,  and  engage  himself  in  war ;  but  as 
it  was  anciently  thought  sufficient,  so  we  find  in  the  Gesta 
Dei  per  Francos,  that  an  eastern  nobleman,  that  had  the 
custody  of  a  castle  called  Hasarth,  quarrelling  with  his 
master,  the  prince  of  Aleppo,  and  finding  himself  obliged 
to  seek  for  foreign  aid,  sent  presents  to  Godfrey  of  Bouillon, 
to  induce  him  to  assist  him.  What  they  were  we  are  not 
told:  but  gold  and  silver,  the  things  Asa  sent  Benhadad, 
were  frequently  sent  in  those  times  to  the  crusade  princes, 
and  might  probably  be  sent  on  this  occasion  to'Godfrey. — 
Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  34.  In  his  days  did  Hiel  the  Bethelite  build 
Jericho  :  he  laid  the  foundation  thereof  in  Abi- 
ram  his  first-born,  and  set  up  the  gates  thereof 
in  his  youngest  so7i  Segub,  according  to  the 
word  of  the  Lord,  which  he  spake  by  Joshua 
the  son  of  Nun. 

See  on  Judges  11.  30,  31. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Ver.  1..  And  Elijah  the  Tishbite,  who  was  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Gilead,  said  unto  Ahab,  As  the 
Lord  God  of  Israel  liveth,  before  whom  I  stand, 
there  shall  not  be  dew  nor  rain  these  years,  but 
according  to  my  word. 

The  latter  rain  falls  in  the  middle  or  towards  the  end  of 
April,  from  which,  if  there  be  three  months  to  the  harvest, 
j  as  the  prophet  asserts,  it  ftiust  fall  in  the  middle  or  towards 
the  end  of  July.    But  at  present  in  Syria,  barley-harvest 
commences  about  the  beginning  of  May,  and  that,  as  well 
as  the  wheat-harvest,  is  finished  by  the  twentieth  of  the 
same  month.    In  Judea  the  harvest  is  still  more  early.    The 
rain,  therefore,  which  God  threatens  to  withhold  from  his 
people,  must  have  commonly  fallen  in  the  first  part  of  Feb- 
1  ruary.    That  a  quantity  of  snow  descends  at  Jerusalem  at 
this  time,  which  is  of  great  importance  to  the  succeeding 
,;  harvest,  by  making  the  fountains  to  overflow  a  little  afler- 
|;  ward,  is  confirmed  by  the  authority  of  Dr.  Shaw.    It  is  no 
^!  real  objection  to  this  view,  that  the  prophet  threatens  to 
;  withhold  the  rain;  for  the  great  difference  of  temperature 
,  Id  Palestine,  may  be  the  cause  that  it  snows  in  the  mount- 
ainous districts,  while  it  rains  in  other  parts  of  the  sailie 
country.    By  the  moderate  quantity  of  rain  or  snow  which 
falls  in  the  month  of  February,  the  reservoirs  of  water  on 
which  the  cities  of  Palestine  chiefly  depend,  are  filled,  and 
the  prospect  of  a  fruitful  and  plentiful  year  is  opened.    Of 
i  so  great  importance  to  the  subsistence  and  comfort  of  that 
people  are  these  rains,  that  upon  their  descent,  they  make 
siiiiilar  rejoicings  with  the  Egyptians  upon  the  cutting  of 
the  Nile.     The  prophet  evidently  refers  to  both  these  cir- 
cu instances;  to  the  succeeding  harvest,  in  these  words: 
"  the  piece  or  field  upon  which  it  rained  not,  withered  ;"  to 
the  state  of  the  cisterns  in  these :  "  so  two  or  three  cities 
wandered  into  one  city  to  drink  water,  but  they  were  not 
satisfied."    Hence,  Mr,  Harmer,  who  treats  Jerome  on  this 
occasion  with  undue  severity,  is  wrong  in  supposing  that 
the  inspired  writer  refers  to  the  single  circumstance  of  fill- 
'.  ing  their  cisterns  with  water.     He  refers  to  both,  and  this 
i  Jerome  distinctly  notices :  "  God  suspended  the  rain,"  says 
that  father,  "  not  only  to  punish  them  with  want  of  bread, 
but  also  wiih  thirst ;  for  in  those  countries  in  which  they  then 
resided,  excepting  a  few  fountains,  they  had  only  cistern- 
'  water ;  so  that  if  the  divine  anger  suspended  the  rains,  there 
was  more  danger  of  perishing  by  thirst  than  by  famine." 
Terome  certainly  committed  a  mistake  when  he  referred 
the  words  of  Amos  to  the  latter  rain ;  but  he  understood  as 
certainlv  the  true  extent  of  the  threatening. 

The  former  and  the  latter  rains  were,  in  the  days  of  Eli- 
jah, suspended  for  t.iree  years  and  six  months.    But  when 


the  prophet  said  to  'Ahab,  "  As  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  liv- 
eth, betbre  whom  I  stand,  there  shall  not  be  dew  nor  rain 
these  years,,  but  according  to  my  word ;"  he  could  not  mean, 
there  shall  be  no  rain  at  all  for  three  years ;  for  long  before 
their  termination,  the  whole  population  of  Israel  must  have 
miserably  perished.  It  is  not  uncommon  among  the  Ori- 
entals, to  express  a  great  deficiency  by  an  absolute  nega- 
tive. Thus  Philo  affirms,  that  in  Egypt  they  have  no  win- 
ter ;  by  which,  according  to  his  own  explanation,  he  meant 
no  hail,  no  thunder,  no  violent  storms  of  wind,  which  con- 
stitute an  eastern  winter.  Pliny  in  like  manner  affirms 
there  are  no  rains,  no  thunders,  no  earthquakes  in  that 
country ;  while  Maillet,  who  quotes  him,  asserts  that  he  had 
seen  it  rain  there  several  times,  and  that  there  were  two 
earthquakes  in  Egypt  during  his  residence.  His  idea 
therefore,  is  very  plausible,  that  Pliny  meant  only  to  state 
the  rare  occurrence  of  these  phenomena ;  that  it  seldom  feels 
the  power  of  the  earthquake,  and  when  it  does,  sutTers  but 
little  damage;  that  it  very  seldom  rains  or  thtmders,  al- 
though on  the  seacoast  the  rains  and  thunders  are  often 
very  violent ;  but  it  does  not  rain  there  as  in  other  parts  ot 
the  world.  This  account  of  the  rain  of  Egypt  is  confirmed 
by  the  testimony  of  two  English  travellers.  When  Pitts 
was  at  Cairo,  the  rain  descended  in  torrents,  and  the  streets 
having  no  kennels  to  carry  off'  the  water,  it  reached  above 
the  ankles,  and  in  some  places  much  higher.  In  Upper 
Egypt  it  rained  and  hailed  almost  a  whole  morning,  when 
Dr.  Pococke  was  there  in  the  month  of  February ;  and  the 
following  night  it  also  rained  very  hard.  These  authentic 
statements  unfold  thej.rue  meaning  of  the  prophet's  asser- 
tion, "  that  Egypt  has  no  rain ;"  he  must  be  understood  in 
the  same  qualified  sense  as  Pliny  and  other  writers.  In 
the  same  manner,  the  words  of  Elijah  to  Ahab  must  be  in- 
terpreted; they  only  mean,  that  the  dew  and  the  rain 
should  not  fall  in  the  usual  and  necessary  quantities.  Such 
a  suspension  of  rain  and  dew  was  sufficient  to  answer  the 
corrective  purposes  of  God,  while  an  absolute  drought  of 
three  years'  continuance,  must  have  converted  the  whole 
country  into  an  uninhabitable  Avaste.  But  such  a  destruc- 
tion is  not  intimated  in  the  scriptures ;  and,  we  may  con- 
clude from  the  inspired  narrative,  did  not  take  place. '  That 
guilty  people  were  certainly  reduced  in  the  righteous 
judgments  of  God  to  great  straits ;  but  still  they  were  able 
to  subsist  until  his  fierce  anger  passed  away,  and  mercy  re- 
turned to  bless  their  afflicted  habitations. — Paxton. 

Ver.  4.  And  it  shall  be,  that  thou  shalt  drink  of 
the  brook ;  and  I  have  commanded  the  ravens 
to  feed  thee  there. 

It  is  a  singular  circumstance,  that  the  raven,  an  unclean 
bird,  and  one  too  of  very  gross  and  impure  dispositions, 
was  chosen  by  Jehovah  to  provide  for  his  servant  Elijah, 
when  he  concealed  himself,  by  the  divine  command,  from 
the  fury  of  Ahab.  So  improbable  is  the  story  in  the  eat 
of  reason,  that  morose  and  voracious  ravens  should  be- 
come caterers  for  the  prophet,  that  some  interpreters  have 
maintained  that  the  origmal  word  denotes  merchants  or 
Arabians,  or  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  Arbo :  according 
to  this  interpretation,,the  promise  would  run,  "  I  have  com- 
manded the  Arabs,  or  Ihe  Orebim,  to  nourish  thee."  But  it 
is  easy  to  show  that  these  opinions  have  no  foundation  in 
scripttire  and  reason.  The  prophet  Ezekiel  indeed  de- 
scribes the  merchants  of  Tyre  by  the  phrase  (l^'^yn  oiy) 
arbi  mearobeha,  "  thy  merchants  who  transact  thy  busi- 
ness;" but  the  word  ore^m,  (o'^^'^y)  by  itself,  never  sig- 
nifies merchants.  Nor  had  God  said  in  general,  I  have 
commanded  the  merchants,  but  I  have  commanded  the 
merchants  of  this  or  that  place,  to  nourish  thee.  The  situa- 
tion of  the  place  in  which  the  miracle  happened,  refutes  the 
other  opinions  ;  for  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jordan,  where 
Elijah  concealed  himself,  were  no  Arabs,  no  Orebim,  and 
no  city  which  bore  the  name  of  Arbo.  Besides,  the  Arabs 
are  not  called  in  Hebrew  (Di3->y)  orebim,  but  (c^ij.) 
arbim,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Arbo,  if  any  city  of  that 
name  existed,  according  to  the  genius  of  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage, must  have  been  called  (a-iisiy)  arabojim,  not  orebim. 
Add  to  this,  Elijah  was  commanded  to  hide  himself  there; 
but  how  could  he  hide  himself,  if  the  inhabitants  of  the 
city  or  encampment  knew  of  his  retreat,  as  they  must  have 
done,  if  his  daily  subsistence  depended  upon  their  bounty. 
The  place  of  his  retreat  must  have  been  discovered  in  a 


262 


1  KINGS. 


Chap.  17. 


very  short  time  to  Ahab,  who  sought  him  with  g  eat  in- 
dusti  y  in  every  direction.  The  solemn  declaration  c  f  Oba- 
diah  to  the  prophet,  when  he  went  by  the  divine  command 
to  show  himself  to  the  king,  proves  how  impossible  it  was 
Tor  him  to  remain  concealed  in  the  inhabited  part  of  the 
country  :  "  As  the  Lord  thy  God  liveth,  there  is  no  nation 
or  kingdom  whither  my  lord  hath  not  sent  to  seek  thee ; 
and  when  they  said.  He  is  not  there,  he  took  an  oath  of  the 
kingdom  and'  nation,  that  they  found  thee  not."  Hence 
these /uj^reim  were  not  merchants,  nor  human  beings  of 
any  station  or  employment,  but  true  ravens;  and  so  the 
term  has  been  rendered  by  the  whole  Christian  church,  and 
by  many  Jewish  writers,  particularly  by  their  celebrated 
historian,  Josephus. 

These  voracious  and  impure  animals  received  a  com- 
mandment from  their  Maker  to  provide  for  his  prophet 
by  the  brook  Cherith,  near  its  confluence  with  the  Jordan. 
The  record  is  couched  in  these  terms :  "  Get  thee  hence 
and  turn  thee  eastward,  and  hide  thyself  by  the  brook 
Cherith,  that  is  before  Jordan:  and  it  shall  be  that  thou 
shalt  drink  of  the  brook;  and  I  have  commanded  the  ra- 
vens to  feed  thee  there."  In  the  history  of  providence, 
such  commands  are  by  no  means  uncommon :  the  locust, 
the  serpent,  and  the  fishes  of  the  sea,  have  all  in  their  turn 
received  the  charge  to  do  the  will  of  iheir  Almighty  Crea- 
tor. Thus  he  promised  to  Solomon  at  the  dedication  of 
the  temple:  "  It  I  command  the  locusts  to  devour  the  land 
— if  my  people,  which  are  called  by  my  name,  shall  hum- 
ble themselves,  and  pray,  and  seek  my  face,  and  turn  from 
their  wickedness  ;  then  will  I  hear  from  heaven,  and  will 
forgive  their  sin,  and  will  heal  their  land."  The  marine 
serpent  that  lurks  in  the  deepest  caverns  of  the  ocean,  in 
like  manner  hears  his  voice,  and  submits  to  his  authority ; 
for  Jehovah  directed  the  prophet  to  address  his  guilty  coun- 
trymen in  these  memorable  terms :  "  Though  they  be  hid 
from  my  sight  in  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  thence  will  I  com- 
mand the  serpent,  and  he  shall  bite  them."  Nor  was  the 
great  fish  which  he  prepared  to  swallow  up  the  refractory 
prophet,  less  prompt  in  its  obedience :  "  And  the  Lord 
spaiT!  unto  the  fish,  and  it  vomited  out  Jonah  upon  the  dry 
lajid  ''  His  providence  extends  its  powerful  influence  even 
to  Jianimate  objects :  "  I,  even  my  hands,  have  stretched 
out  the  heavens,  and  all  their  hosts  have  I  commanded." 
And  David,  in  the  Spirit,  complained  of  his  ancestors,  that 
"  they  believed  not  in  God,  and  trusted  not  in  his  salvation : 
though  he  had  commanded  the  clouds  from  above,  and 
opened  the  doors  of  heaven."  Even  the  furious  billows  of 
the  sea  dare  not  pass  the  line  which  his  finger  has  traced, 
without  his  permission :  "  I  made  the  cloud  the  garment 
thereof,  and  thick  darkness  a  swaddling  band  for  it,  and 
brake  up  for  it  my  decreed  place,  and  set  bars  and  doors, 
and  said,  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come,  but  no  farther;  and 
here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed."  The  inanimate 
and  irrational  parts  of  creation,  properly  speaking,  cannot 
receive  and  execute  the  commands  of  the  Almighty ;  they 
are  only  passive  instruments  employed  by  him  in  his  provi- 
dential dispensations,  to  produce  certain  efl^ects.  To  com- 
mand the  ravens  then,  is  to  make  use  of  them  in  providing 
for  the  necessities  of  his  servant;  to  impart  for  a  time  an 
instinctive  care  to  supply  him  with  Ibod,  to  which  they 
were  by  nature  entire  strangers,  and  which  they  ceased  to 
feel  when  the  end  was  accomplished.  A  command  to  sus- 
tain the  destitute  seer,  after  the  brook  of  which  he  drank 
was  dried  up,  was  addressed  in  a  very  diflferent  manner  to 
the  widow  of  Zarephath.  It  was  couchecj  in  words  ad- 
dressed to  her  understanding  and  heart,  while  the  secret 
power  of  Jehovah  inclined  her  to  yield  a  prompt  and  efli- 
cacious  obedience.  On  this  occasion,  a  number  of  ravens 
were  employed,  because  the  service  of  one  was  not  sufli- 
cient  to  supply  the  prophet  with  daily  food.  But  the  cir- 
cumstance entirely  accords  with  the  native  instincts  of 
that  bird ;  for  the  ravens  go  in  quest  of  their  prey  in  troops, 
and  share  in  common  the  spoils  of  the  chase.  iFollowing, 
therefore,  the  instincts  of  their  nature,  which  received  for 
a  time  a  peculiar  direction,  by  the  miraculous  interposition 
of  Jehovah,,  a  number  of  ravens  associated  together,  in 
order  to  supply  the  wants  of  Elijah,  whom  his  country  had 
abandoned  to  the  rage  of  an  impious  and  cruel  monarch : 
"  And  they  brought  him  bread  and  flesh  in  the  morning, 
and  bread  and  flesh  in  the  evening,  and  he  drank  of  the 
brook."  The  Septuagint,  in  many  copies,  read  the  pas- 
sage, "  They  brought  bread  in  the  morning,  and  flesh  in 


the  evening;"  but  the  common  reading  is  entitled  to  the 
preference.  It  gives  a  striking  display  of  divine  goodness, 
that  when  the  whole  resources  of  Israel  were  exhausted  by 
a  long  and  severe  famine,  the  prophet  of  the  Lord  was 
miraculously  and  abundantly  supplied  with  nutritious  food 
twice  every  day.  The  ravens  brought  it  in  the  evening 
and  in  the  morning,  which  were  the  stated  hours  of  repast 
among  the  Jews  and  other  oriental  nations. 

The  Hebrew  writers  eagerly  inquire  where  the  ravens 
foimd  the  provisions  to  supply  tlie  wants  of  Elijah;  and, 
as  may  be  supposed,  very  different  are  the  opinions  they 
advance;  but  on  this  question,  which  is  of  little  impor- 
tance, no  certainty  can  be  obtained.  The  scriptures  are 
silent  on  the  subject,  and  we  have  no  other  means  of  inform- 
ation. It  was  enough  for  the  prophet,  that  his  winged 
providers  regularly  supplied  his  necessities;  and  it  is  suf- 
ficient to  excite  our  admiration  of  the  power  and  goodness 
of  God,  and  our  confidence  in  his  providential  care,  with- 
out attempting  to  discover  what  the  divine  wisdom  has 
seen  meet  to  conceal.  On  another  occasion,  an  angel  was 
sent  from  heaven  to  supply  the  exhausted  prophet  with 
bread  and  water  in  the  desert;  which,  in  the  eye  of  rea- 
son, may  seem  to  be  a  more  becoming  messenger|of  the 
King  of  glory,  than  a  raven.  But  "  the  ways  of  Gcd  are 
not  as  our  ways,  nor  his  thoughts  as  our  thoughts ;"  he  did 
not  think  it  beneath  his  dignity  at  this  lime,  to  employ  the 
ravens  in  the  same  office  ;  and  he  per)iaps  intended  lo  teach 
us,  that  all  creatures  are  equally  subject  to  his  authority, 
and  fit  for  his  purpose.  When  he  gives  the  commandment, 
a  raven  is  as  successful  in  his  service,  according  to  the 
range  of  its  faculties,  as  an  angel;  and  we  must  not  pre- 
sume to  refuse  or  slight  his  aid,  how  mean  soever  the  agent 
he  condescends  to  employ.  The  Jewish  legislator  pla  'ed 
the  raven  in  the  list  of  unclean  birds,  whicli  imparted  pol- 
lution to  every  thing  they  touched ;  but  the  same  God  who 
gave  the  law,  had  a  right  to  repeal  or  suspend  it;  and  that 
he  did  suspend  it  for  atime  in  favourof  his  persecuted  ser- 
vant, cannot  be  reasonably  denied.  Nor  was  this  a  singu- 
lar instance  of  divine  clemency ;  for  the  observance  of 
ceremonial  institutions  often  yielded  to  urgent  necessity. 
The  Jews  were  forbidden  to  touch  a  dead  carcass  ;  but  Sam- 
sow  was  allowed,  for  a  special  purpose,  to  eat  of  the  honey 
which  he  found  in  the  dead  lion.  The  priests  only  we/e 
permitted  by  the  law  to  eat  the  shew-bread;  yet  David  and 
his  men  were  justified  by  our  Lord  himself  in  using  the 
consecrated  loaves,  when  no  other  could  be  procured. 

Many  are  the  reasons  assigned  by  different  writers,  for 
the  employment  of  ravens  on  this  occasion ;  but  they  are  j 
so  trifling,  or  so  fanciful,  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  state  j 
them;  the  true  reason  perhaps  was  to  convince  the  deject-  1 
ed  prophet,  that  although  his  nation  had  forsaken  him,  the 
God  whom  he  served  continued  to  watch  over  him  with 
unceasing  care ;  and  that  he  would  employ  the  most  un- 
promising means,  and  counteract  the  most  powerful  in- 
stincts, rather  than  suffer  him  to  want  the  necessaries  of 
life.  And  when  he  saw  those  voracious  birds,  the  cra- 
vings of  whose  appetite  are  seldom  entirely  satisfied,  part, 
of  their  own  accord,  with  their  favourite  provision,  morn- 
ing and  evening,  for  many  days,  and  bring  it  themselves 
to  the  place  of  his  retreat ;  he  could  not  mistake  or  disre- 
gard the  secret  influence  under  which,  they  acted.  The 
brook  Cherith,  on  whose  border  the  miracle  was  wrought, 
is  supposed  to  be  the  same  as  the  river  Kana,  mentioned 
in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  chapters  of  Joshua,  which 
watered  the  confines  of  Ephraim  and  Benjamin.  This 
brook  derived  its  name  Kana,  from  the  reeds,  which,  in 
great  abundance,  clothed  its  banks;  among  which  the 
prophet  found  a  secure  retreat  from  the  persecution  of  his 
enemies.  Its  other  name,  Cherith,  may  be  traced  to  the 
verb  Charah,  which  the  Greek  interpreters  render  to  feed, 
because  on  its  margin  the  prophet  was  fed  by  the  ravenr.. 
Were  this  conjecture  true,  the  name  must  have  been  given 
by  anticipation ;  for  which  no  satisfactory  reason  can  be 
assigned.  It  is  more  natural  to  suppose,  that,  as  the  verb 
commonly  signifies  to  dig,  aix  sometimes  to  rush  on  with 
violence,  thename  Cherith  alludes  to  the  violent  rapidity 
of  the  stream  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year,  or  to  the  deep 
pits  which,  like  many  other  torrents  in  those  regions,  it 
excavates  in  its  furious  course.  The  particular  situation 
of  this  brook  is  more  distinctly  marked  by  the  sacred  his- 
torian, who  says,  it  "  is  before  Jordan."  This  phrase 
seems  to  mean,  that  it  flowed  into  the  Jordan ;  ana  from 


Chap.  18. 


1  KINGS. 


263 


the  second  clause  of  the  verse  we  may  infer,  that  its  course 
lay  on  the  west  side  of  the  river,  because  it  is  said  by  God 
to  Elijah,  "Get  thee  hence,  and  turn  thee  eastward,  and 
hide  thyself  by  the  brook  Cherith,  that  is  before  Jordan :" 
for  Elijah  must  have  been  on  the  west  side  of  Jordan,  when 
he  va.s  commanded  to  go  eastward  to  a  stream  that  flowed 
j-c  the  Jordan  on  that  side. — Paxton. 

Some  suppose  ravens  to  be  a  mistranslation,  and  that  the 
promise  referied  to  a  people  who  were  to  feed  the  prophet. 
The  following  quotation  from  the  Scanda  Purana  does  not 
negative  the  opinion,  but  it  shows,  in  a  remote  period,  that 
birds  were  supposed  on  some  special  occasions  to  depart 
from  their  usual  habiis.  In  the  relation  of  the  events  of  great 
antiquity  among  the  heathen,  much  of  fable  must  be  ex- 
pected, but  there  is  often  a  glimmering  ray  of  light  in  the 
obscurity,  pointing  to  circumstances  which  assist  the  mind 
in  its  attainment  of  truth.  In  the  town  of  Kanche  (Con- 
jeveram)  it  is  said,  "  Of  the  birds,  there  is  a  sathaka  bird 
which  lakes  food  to  the  gods,  a  swan  which  gives  precious 
stones,  a  parrot  which  repeats  science,  and  a  cock  which 
crows  not  in  lime  of  trouble." — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  And  she  said,  As  the  Lord  thy  God 
liveth,  I  have  not  a  cake,  but  a  handful  of 
meal  in  a  barrel,  and  a  little  oil  in  a  cruise : 
and,  behold,  I  am  gathering  two  sticks,  that  1 
may  go  in  and  dress  it  for  me  and  my  son,  that 
we  may  eat  it,  and  die. 

So  said  the  widow  of  Zarephath  to  the  prophet  Elijah, 
How  often  ^o  we  see  females,  just  before  the  time  of  boil- 
ing their  rice,  strolling  about  in  search  of  a  few  sticks  to 
make  it  ready.  All  their  fires  are  made  of  wood,  (or  dried 
cows'  dung,)  and  in  a  country  where  there  is  so  much  jun- 
gle, and  so  little  rain,  they  seldom  trouble  themselves  before 
the  moment  they  require  it.  But  the  widow  said  that  she 
was  gathering  two  sticks;  and  it  is  not  a  little  singular  to 
find  that  the  Hindoos  often  use  the  same  number  when  it 
refers  to  many  things.  "  Well,  Venasi,  what  are  you  look- 
ing for  1"—"  I  am  looking  for  two  sticks  to  prepare  my 
rice,"  "  Child,  go  fetch  me  irendu-taddi,  two  sticks,  to 
make  ready  my  curry."  "  Alas!  I  cannot  find  two  sticks 
to  make  the  water  hot."  "  My  lord,  I  only  ask  for  two 
mouthfuls  of  rice."  "  Ah!  sir,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  re- 
)eat  two  words  in  your  ear,  I  shall  be  satisfied."  "  Good, 
lave  you  any  thing  more  to  say  V  "  No,  sir,"  "  Then  I 
have  not  two  words  for  that,"  (meaning,  he  does  not  object.) 
Any  person  who  has  been  in  the  East,  will  recognise,  in 
these  quotations,  a  figure  of  speech  he  has  heard  a  thou- 
sand times. — Roberts. 

The  corn  which  they  reserve  for  daily  use,  they  keep  in 
long  earthen  jars ;  because,  when  kept  in  sacks  or  barrels, 
it  is  liable  to  be  eaten  by  worms.  This  is  confirmed  by 
Norden,  who  tells  us,  that  when  he  was  travelling  in  Upper 
Egypt,  one  of  the  natives  opened  a  great  jar,  in  order  to 
show  him  how  they  preserved  their  corn  there.  In  some 
regions  of  the  East  Indies,  the  paddy,  or  rice  in  the  husk, 
is  also  preserved  in  large  earthen  jars,  that  are  kept  in  the 
house;  or  in  small  cylindrical  stores,  which  the  potters 
make  of  clay ;  the  mouth  is  covered  with  an  inverted  pot ; 
and  the  paddy  is  drawn  out  of  a  hole  at  the  bottom,  as  it  is 
wanted.  It  seems  to  have  been  in  one  of  these  earthen  jars 
that  the  woman  of  Zarephath  kept  her  corn,  of  which  she 
had  only  enough  left,  when  the  prophet  Elijah  applied  to 
her  for  a  morsel  of  bread,  to  make  a  handful  of  meal.  In 
our  translation,  the  original  term  (^^)  chad  is  rendered 
barrel ;  but  a  barrel,  properly  speaking,  it  could  not  be, 
because  a  vessel  of  that  sort  is  never  used  for  holding  corn 
in  those  regions.  Neither  could  it  be  a  chest,  although  this 
is  often  used  in  the  East  for  preserving  corn  ;  because  the 
Hebrew  term  is  quite  different.  In  the  second  book  of 
Kings  it  is  stated,  that  "  Jehoiada  the  priest  took  (p-^N  aron) 
a  chest,  and  bored  a  hole  in  the  lid  of  it,  and  set  it  beside 
the  altar."  The  same  word  is  employed  by  Moses,  to  de- 
note a  coffin;  but  most  generally,  to  "signify  the  chest,  or 
iirk  of  the  testimony,  on  which  the  cherubim  stood,  in  the 
holy  of  holies.  This  term,  among  the  Hebrews,  therefore, 
properly  signifieci  a  chest  made  of  wood ;  never  a  vessel  for 
holding  water.  But  (la)  chad  they  commonly  used  to  sig- 
•iify  a  jar  or  pitcher  for  holding  water;  which  was  made 
a  earth,  neve^  0*"  wood.    It  is  the  same  word  in  the  origi- 


nal, which  the  sacred  historian  employs,  to  denote  the 
vessels  in  which  Gideon's  army  concealed  their  torches, 
and  which  they  broke  wiih  a  clashing  terrific  noise,  when 
they  blew  with  their  trumpets.  Both  these  circumstances 
suppose  ihey  were  vessels  of  earth,  which  are  employed  in 
the  East  for  the  double  purpose  of  preserving  corn  and 
holding  water.  The  {-c)  chad  was  also  the  vessel  with 
which  Rebecca  went  out  to  fetch  water  from  the  v/ell; 
which,  in  our  translation,  is  rendered  pitcher.  But  the 
Orientals  never  carried  a  barrel  to  the  fountain,  nor  drew 
M-ater  with  a  wooden  vessel.  Hence,  the  barrel  in  which 
the  woman  of  Zarephath  kept  her  corn,  was  in  reality  an 
earthen  jar.  The  four  barrels  of  water,  then,  which  Eli- 
jah commanded  his  attendants  to  pour  on  the  sacrifice, 
should  have  been  translated  four  jars  or  pitchers;  for  the 
original  word  is  the  same  in  all  these  instances, — Paxton, 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ver.  5,  And  Ahab  said  unto  Obadiah,  Go  into 
the  land,  unto  all  fountains  of  water,  and  unto 
all  brooks :  peradventure  we  may  find  grass  to 
save  the  horses  and  mules  alive,  that  we  lose 
not  all  the  beasts.  6.  So  they  divided  the  land 
between  them,  to  pass  throughout  it :  Ahab 
went  one  way  by  himself,  and  Obadiah  went 
another  way  by  himself 

See  on  Est.  8,  10. 

Brooks  were  generally  the  most  likely  places  to  find  grass 
in  a  time  of  drought,  though  far  from  being  places  where 
they  might  be  certain  of  succeeding  ;  for  in  such  seasons, 
herbaceous  animals  generally  stop  near  fountains  of  water, 
and  feed  m  the  vicinity,  till  all  the  grass  be  consumed. 
Thus  travellers  are  often  greatly  disappointed,  who  natu- 
rally expect  to  find  grass  where  they  find  water ;  but  on 
reaching  the  spot  they  find  that  the  game  has  consumed 
every  blade  oi  grass.  However,  as  the  cattle  could  not 
graze  long  where  there  was  no  water,  it  was  the  wisest 
method  Ahab  could  pursue.  The  circumstance  shows 
the  simplicity  of  ancient  manners,  that  a  king  and  one  of 
his  principal  governors  should  go  at  the  head  of  such  ex- 
peditions. It  is  the  same  in  Africa  at  this  present  time  ; 
for  no  king  there,  nor  any  of  his  principal  chiefs,  would 
think  they  were  at  all  lessening  their  dignity  by  engaging 
in  an  expedition  either  in  search  of  water  or  grass.  Indeed, 
it  would  be  viewed  by  the  people  as  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant affairs  in  which  their  rulers  could  be  engaged,  and, 
did  they  succeed,  few  things  would  be  likely  to  render  them 
more  popular. — African  Light. 

It  appears  there  had  not  been  rain  for  three  years  and  six 
months,  which  must  have  had  a  fatal  efl^ect  on  vegetation. 
What  would  England  (situated  in  a  temperate  climate)  be 
under  such  circumsianceg  ?  In  droughts  in  the  East,  which 
have  lasted  from  six  to  ten  months,  how  often  have  we  seen 
men,  like  Obadiah,  going  along  in  marshy  places,  or  by  the 
sides  of  tanks,  in  search  of  grass  for  their  cattle  1  See  the 
poor  fellow  with  a  basket,  made  of  the  leaves  of  the  pal- 
mirah,  on  his  back,  a  little  instrument  (which  works  like 
a  Dutch  hoe)  in  his  hand  ;  he  strolls  from  fountain  to  brook, 
and  no  sooner  does  he  see  a  green  patch  of  verdure,  than 
he  runs  with  eagerness  to  the  spot !  Perhaps  he  meets  an- 
other in  search  of  the  same  thing,  when  each  declares  he 
had  the  first  view.  They  set  to  work,  snarling  at  each 
other,  and  dealing  out  all  kinds  of  abuse,  till  they  have 
cleared  the  place  of  every  green  blade.  Wherever  there 
is  a  stream  or  an  artificial  watercofcrse,  there  the  eye  is 
refreshed  with  delightful  verdure;  but  look  a  few  yards 
from  the  place,  and  you  see  the  withered  herbage,  appa- 
rently gone  beyond  recovery,  but  which,  in  a  few  hours, 
would  start  into  fresh  life,  if  visited  by  showers.  The  ef- 
fect of  rain  is  like  enchantment  on  the  scene,  and  the  Eng- 
lish stranger  is  often  reminded  of  the  green  fields  of  his  own 
native  land. — Roberts, 

Ver.  9.  And  he  said,  What  have  I  sinned,  that 
thou  wouldest  deliver  thy  servant  into  the  hand 
of  Ahab,  to  slay  me? 

Obadiah  asked  this  question  of  Elijah,  when  the  prophet 
wished  him  to  go  and  tell  Ahab,  his  bitter  enemv,  "  Behold, 
Elijah  is  here."    Thus,  a  person  requested  to  do  any  thing 


264 


1   KINGS. 


Chap.  18. 


which  implies  danger  or  difliculty,  asks,  Enna-polldppo- 
sey-thaTie?  "  What  evil  or  sin  have  I  done  1"  The  ques- 
tion is  also  asked,  when  a  man  is  visited  with  afiiiction, 
"  What  evil  has  he  done  T' — Rf  berts. 

Ver.  10.  As  the  Lord  thy  God  liveth,  there  is 
no  nation  or  kingdom  whither  my  lord  hath  not 
sent  to  seek  thee :  and  when  they  said,  He  is 
not  there,  he  took  an  oath  of  the  kingdom  and 
nation,  that  they  found  thee  not. 

People  in  England  would  be  astonished  and  appalled  at 
the  frequency  and  nature  of  the  oaths  of  the  heathen.  A 
man's  assertion  or  affirmation,  in  common  conversation,  is 
seldom  believed.  Thus,  men  may  be  heard  in  the  streets, 
in  the  fields,  or  bazaars,  and  children  in  the  schools  or 
the  play-grounds,  say,  "  Swear  you  will  do  this  ;  now  take 
an  oath  you  have  not  done  it."  Then  they  swear  by  the 
temple,  or  its  lamp,  by  their  parents,  or  children,  and  ap- 
peal to  their  deities  for  a  confirmation  of  the  assertion. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  Now  therefore  send,  and  gather  to  me 
all  Israel  unto  Mount  Carmel,  and  the  prophets 
of  Baal  four  hundred  and  fifty,  and  the  prophets 
of  the  groves  four  hundred,  which  eat  at  Jeze- 
bel's table. 

We  are  not,  I  apprehend,  to  suppose  that  these  eight 
htmdred  and  fifty  prophets,  or  even  the  four  hundred  of 
the  groves,  ate  at  the  royal  table,  where  Jezebel  herself  took 
her  refection ;  for  though  1  am  sensible  it  is  not  unusual 
in  the  East  for  servants  to  eat  at  the  same  table  where  their 
masters  have  eaten,  after  their  masters  have  done ;  and 
that  several  hundreds  eat  in  the  palaces  of  the  eastern  prin- 
ces ;  yet  it  could  never  be  thought  necessary  by  Jezebel  to 
have  four  hundred  chaplains  in  waiting  at  once  at  court. 
I  should  think  the  words  mean,  that  these  four  hundred 
prophets  of  the  groves  fed  daily  at  a  common  table,  in  or 
near  the  temple  of  that  idol  which  they  served,  and  which 
was  provided  for  at  the  expense  of  Jezebel,  living  there  in 
a  kind  of  collegiate  way,  as  the  prophets  of  Jehovah  appear 
to  have  done.  Their  business  was,  I  suppose,  to  sing  the 
praises  of  the  idols  they  worshipped ;  and  to  watch  from 
time  to  time  in  their  temples,  under  the  pretence  of  receiv- 
ing oracular  answers  to  the  inquiries  of  those  that  came  to 
consult  them ;  and,  it  may  be,  to  teach  the  worshippers  in 
■what  form  of  words  to  address  the  deity  they  served. — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  27.  And  it  came  to  pass  at  noon,  that  Elijah 
mocked  them,  and  said.  Cry  aloud ;  for  he  is  a 
god:  either  he  is  talking,  or  he  is  pursuing,  or 
he  is  in  a  journey,  or  peradventure  he  sleepeth, 
and  must  be  awaked. 

In  the  hottest  part  of  the  day  the  Orientals  retire  to  rest 
on  their  bed,  till  the  cool  of  the  evening  summons  them 
again  to  active  life.  "  The  heathens,"  says  Mr.  Blunt, 
"  assigned  all  the  properties  and  habits  of  man  to  their 
gods,  and  among  the  number,  that  of  reposing  at  midday. 
Hence  was  it  unlawful  to  enter  the  temples  at  that  hour, 
lest  their  slumbers  should  be  disturbed.  The  goatherd 
ventured  not  to  play  upon  his  pipe  at  noon,  for  fear  of 
awakening  Pan.  Hence,  too,  the  peculiar  force  of  the  de- 
rision with  which  Elijah  addressed  the  priests  of  Baal: 
*  And  it  came  to  p^s  at  noon,  that  Elijah  mocked  them, 

and  said.  Cry  aloud ;  for  he  is  a  god peradventure  he 

sleepeth,  and  must  be  awaked.'  Accordingly  we  read  that 
these  priests  did  not  despair  of  rousing  their  god,  and  indu- 
cing him  to  declare  himself,  '  till  the  time  of  evening  sacri- 
fice.' At  that  hour  the  period  allowed  for  repose  had  ter- 
minated: and  when  he  still  continued  deaf  to  their  cries, 
then,  and  not  till  then,  their  cause  became  altogether  hope- 
less."— Paxton. 

The  margin  has,  for  "  talking,"  "  meditatelh,"  and  for 
"pursuing,"  ^^  hath  a  pursuit.^'  This  keen  and  ingenious 
sarcasm  relates,  I  doubt  not,  to  their  god,  as  having  been 
accustomed  sometimes  to  sleep,  to  talk,  to  go  on  a  journey, 
or  to  join  in  the  pursuit.  That  the  Baal-peor  of  Assyria, 
Bi>d  the  Siva-lingam  of  India,  are  the  same,  is  certain. 


And  is  it  not  interesting  to  know  that  those  things  which 
are  attributed  to  Baal  are  also  attributed  to  Siva  1    "  Either 
he  is  talking."    The  margin  has,  for  "  talking,"  meditatelh. 
Dr.  A.  Clarke  says,  "  Perhaps  the  word  should  be  inter- 
preted as  in  the  margin,  he  meditateth,  he  is  in  a  profound 
revery,  he  is  making  some  godlike  projects,  he  is  consider- 
ing how  he  may  keep  up  his  credit  in  the  nation."    Siva 
was  once  absorbed  in  a  profound  meditation :  to  him  the 
time  appeared  only  as  a  moment,  but  to  the  world  as  ages,    j 
Universal  nature,  for  want  of  his  attention,  was  about  to 
expire.    Women  had  ceased  to  bear,  and  all  things  weie 
out  of  course.    The  god-s  and  men  became  alarmed,  and 
their  enemies  began  to  oppress  them.     All  were  afraid  to 
disturb  him  in  his  meditations,  till  Cama,  the  god  of  love,  I 
agreed  to  stand  before  him:  when  Siva,  being  aroused  j 
from  his  revery,  sent  fire  from  his  frontal  eye,  which  de-  i 
stroyed  the  intruder. 

"  "Or  he  is  pursuing."  The  Hebrew  has  this.  "  hath  a  pur- 
suit :"  on  which  Dr.  A.  Clarke  says,  "  he  may  be  taking 
his  pleasure  in  hunting."  Siva  is  described  as  taking 
great  pleasure  in  the  chase  ;  and  in  the  month  of  Septem- 
ber, his  image  and  that  of  Parvati,  his  wife,  are  taken  from  ' 
the  temple,  put  into  a  kead-agam,  or  car,  and  carried  on 
men's  shoulders  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  the  chase! 

"  Or  he  is  in  a  journey."  Siva  is  represented  as  taking 
longjourneys,  and  sometimes  for  very  discreditable  purposes, 

"  Peradventure  he  sleepeth."  Siva  often  did  this,  espe- 
cially when  he  took  the  form  of  a  cooly ;  for,  after  he  had 
performed  his  task,  he  fell  asleep  under  the  tree  called  the 
Konda  Maram.  Thus  the  prophet  mentioned  four  things, 
in  some  of  which  their  god  was  engaged,  and  consequent- 
ly, could  not  attend  to  their  requests.  But  it  was  manifestly 
improper,  if  he  were  thus  occupied,  for  them  to  disturb 
him :  yet  Elijah  said,  "  Cry  aloud,"  let  him  hear  you  j  he 
is  no  doubt  a  god. 

When  a  holy  person  before  the  temple,  or  in  any  sacred 
place,  is  meditating,  not  one  will  presume  to  disturb  him : 
how,  then,  could  they  interrupt  their  deity  %  When  en- 
gaged in  pleasure,  whether  of  the  chase  or  any  other 
amusement,  no  one  dares  to  interfere  with  the  great  man ; 
and  yet  Baal  was  to  be  called  from  his  pleasures.  It  is 
improper  to  interrupt  those  that  are  on  a  journey.  They 
have  an  object  in  view,  and  that  must  first  be  accomplish- 
ed. No  one  will  disturb  a  person  when  he  is  asleep— to 
them  it  seems  to  be  almost  a  sin  to  awake  a  man  from  his 
slumbers.  Where  is  your  master  1  "  Nittari,"  asleep ; 
and  then  you  may  walk  off  till  another  day.  Yet,  improper 
as  it  was  to  interfere  with  Baal  in  his  engagements,  the 
sarcastic  prophet  said,   "  Cry  aloud."    "  And  they  cried 

aloud,  and  cut  themselves with  knives."    Here,  also, 

the  devotees  may  be  seen  cutting  themselves  with  knives 
till  the  blood  stream  from  their  bodies,  or  suspended  with 
hooks  in  their  flesh  from  a  pole,  or  with  their  tongue  cut 
out,  or  practising  other  cruelties  on  themselves,  for  the  ex- 
piation of  their  sins,  or  the  glory  of  their  gods.— Roberts. 

Ver.  28.  And  they  cried  aloud,  and  cut  them- 
selves, after  their  manner,  with  knives  and  lan- 
cets, till  the  blood  gushed  out  upon  them. 

If  we  look  into  antiquity,  we  shall  find  that  nothing  was 
more  common  in  the  religious  rites  of  several  nations,  than 
this  barbarous  custom.  To  this  purpose  we  may  observe, 
that  (as  Plutarch  de  Superstitione  tells  us)  the  priests  of  Bel- 
lona,  when  they  sacrificed  to  that  goddess,  besmeared  the 
victim  with  their  own  blood.  The  Persian  magi  used  to 
appease  tempests,  and  allay  the  winds,  by  making  incisions 
in  their  flesh.  They  who  carried  about  the  Syrian  god- 
dess, cut  and  slashed  themselves  with  knives,  till  the  blood 
gushed  out.  This  practice  remains  in  many  places  at  the 
present  time,  and  frequent  instances  of  it  may  be  met  with 
m  modern  voyages  and  travels. — Burder. 

There  has  been  no  little  supposition  and  conjecture,  for 
what  reason  the  priests  of  Baal  "  cut  themselves,  after  their 
manner,  with  knives,  and  with  lancets,  till  the  blood  gushed 
out  upon  them."  1  Kins:s  xviii.  28.  This  seems,  by  the 
story,  to  have  been  after  Elijah  had  mocked  them,  (or,  at 
least,  while  he  was  "mocking  them,)  and  had  worked  up 
their  fervour  and  passions  to  the  utmost  height.  Mr. 
Harmer  has  touched  lightly  on  this,  but  has  not  set  it  in  so 
clear  a  view  as  it  seems  to  be  capable  of,  nor  has  he  given 
very  cogent  instances.    It  may  be  taken  as  an  instance  ol 


Chap.  18. 


1  KINGS. 


265 


earnest  entreaty,  of  conjuration,  by  the  most  powerful  marks 
of  affection  :  q.  d.  "  Dost  thou  not  see,  O  Baal !  with  what 
passion  we  adore  thee  1 — how  we  give  thee  most  decisive 
tokens  of  our  affection  1  We  shrink  at  no  pain,  we  decline 
no  disfigurement,  to  demonstrate  our  love  for  thee ;  and  yet 
thou  answerest  not !  By  every  token  of  our  regard,  answer 
us  !  By  the  freely  flowing  blood  we  shed  for  thee,  answer 
us !"  &c.  They  certainly  demonstrated  their  attachment  to 
Baal ;  but  Baal  did  not  testify  his  reciprocal  attachment  to 
them,  in  proof  of  his  divinity,  which  was  the  article  in 
debate  between  them  and  Elijah.  Observe,  how  readily 
these  still  bleeding  cuttings  would  identify  the  priests  of 
Baal  at  the  subsequent  slaughter;  and  how  they  tended  to 
justify  that  slaughter ;  being  contrary  to  the  law  that  ought 
to  have  governed  the  Hebrew  nation,  as  we  shall  see  pres- 
ently. As  the  demonstration  of  love,  by  cuttings  made  in 
the  flesh,  still  maintains  itself  in  the  East,  a  few  instances 
may  be  at  least  amusing  to  European  lovers,  without  fear 
of  its  becoming  fashioiiable  among  us.  "  But  the  most 
ridiculous  and  senseless  method  of  expressing  their  affec- 
tion, is  their  singing  certain  amorous  and  whining  songs, 
composed  on  purpose  for  such  mad  occasions ;  between 
every  line  whereof  they  cut  and  slash  their  naked  arms 
with  daggers :  each  endeavouring,  in  their  emulative  mad- 
ness, to  exceed  the  other  by  the  depth  and  number  of  the 
wounds  he  gives  himself  [A  lively  picture  this,  of  the 
singing,  leaping,  and  self-slashing  priests  of  Baal !]  Some 
Turks,  I  have  observed,  when  old,  and  past  the  follies 
which  possessed  their  youth,  show  their  arms,  all  gashed 
and  scarred  from  wrist  to  elbow ;  and  express  a  great  con- 
cern, but  greater  wonder,  at  their  past  simplicity."  The 
"  oddness  of  the  style  invited  me  to  render  some  of  the 
above  named  song^into  English : 

Could  I,  dear  ray  of  heavenly  light, 

Who  now  behind  a  cloud  dost  shine, 
Obtain  the  blessing  of  thy  sight, 
And  taste  thy  influence  all  divine; 

.     'Thus  would  I  shed  my  warm  heart's  blood, 
As  now  I  gash  my  veiny  arm  : 
Wouldst  thou,  but  like  the  sun,  think  good 
To  draw  it  upward  by  some  charm.' 

Another  runs  thus: 

'  O,  lovely  charmer,  pity  me  ! 

See  how  my  blood  does  from  me  fly  ! 
Yet  were  I  sure  to  conquer  thee. 

Witness  it,  Heaven  !  I'd  gladly  die.'  " 

(Aaron  Hill's  Travels.) 

This  account  is  confirmed  by  De  la  Motraye,  who  gives 
a  print  of  such  a  subject.  Lest  the  reader  should  think  that 
thi*  love,  and  its  tokens,  are  homages  to  the  all-subduing 
and  distracting  power  of  beauty  only,  we  add  Pitts'  ac- 
count of  the  same  procedure :  "  It  is  common  for  men  there 
to  fall  in  love  with  boys,  as  it  is  here  in  England  to  be  in  love 
with  women ;  and  I  have  seen  many,  when  they  have  been 
drunk,  give  themselves  deep  gashes  on  their  arms,  with  a 
knife,  saying, '  It  is  for  the  love  I  bear  to  such  a  boy!'  and 
I  assure  you,  I  have  seen  several,  who  have  had  their  arms 
full  of  great  cuts,  as  tokens  of  their  love,"  &c.  (Pitts'  Ac- 
count of  Mohammedism.)  This  custom  of  cutting  them- 
selves is  taken,  in  other  places  of  scripture,  as  a  mark 
of  affection :  so  Jer.  xlviii.  37,  "  Every  head  shall  be  bald, 
every  beard  clipped,  and  upon  all  hands,  cuttings  ;  and 
upon  the  loins,  sackcloth :"  as  tokens  of  excessive  grief  for 
the  absence  of  those  thus  regarded.  So,  chap.  xvi.  ver.  6, 
"  Both  the  great  and  the  small  shall  die  in  the  land  :  they 
sh^U  not  be  buried,  neither  shall  men  lament  for  them,  nor 
cut  themselves,"  in  proof  of  their  affection,  and  expression 
of  their  loss ;  "  nor  make  themselves  bald  for  them,"  by 
tearing  their  hair,  &c.  as  a  token  of  grief  So,  chap.  xli.  5, 
"  There  came  from  Samaria  fourscore  men,  having  their 
beards  shaven,  and  their  clothes  rent,  and  having  cut 
themselves,  with  offerings  to  the  house  of  the  Lord."  So, 
chap,  xlvii.  5,  "  Baldness  is  come  upon  Gaza :  Ashkelon  is 
cut  off,  with  the  residue  of  her  valleys ;  how  long  wilt  thou 
cut  thyself  7'^  rather,  perhaps,  how  deep,  or  to  what  length 
wilt  thou  cut  thyself  7  All  these  places  include  the  idea  of 
painful  absence  of  the  party  beloved.  Cuttings  for  the 
dead  had  the  same  radical  idea  of  privation.  The  law 
says.  Lev.  xix.  28,  and  Deut.  xiv.  1,  "Ye  are  the  children 
of  the  Lord  your  God ;  ye  shall  not  cut  yourselves,  nor 
make  any  baldness  between  your  eyes,  for  the  dead;"  i.  e. 

I  restrain  such  excessive  tokens  of  grief ;  sorrow  not  as  those 
without  hope,  if  for  a  dead  friend  ;  but  if  for  a  dead  idol, 


as  Calmet  always  takes  it,  then  it  prohibits  the  idolatrous 
custom,  of  which  it  also  manifests  the  antiquity.  Mr. 
Harmer  has  anticipated  us,  in  referring  "  the  wounds  in 
the  hands"  of  the  examined  prophet,  Zech.  xiii.  6,  to  this 
custom ; — the  prophet  denies  that  he  gave  himself  these 
wounds  in  token  of  his  affection  to  an  idol ;  but  admits  that 
he  had  received  them  in  token  of  affection  to  a  person.  It 
is  usual  to  refer  the  expression  of  the  apostle.  Gal.  vi.  17, 
"  I  bear  in  my  body  the  marks  {stigmata)  of  the  Lord 
Jesus,"  to  those  imprinted  on  soldiers  by  their  command- 
ers; or  to  those  imprinted  on  slaves  by  their  masters ;  but 
would  there  be  any  degradation  of  the  apostle,  if  we  re- 
ferred them  to  tokens  of  affection  towards  Jesus  1  q.  d.  "  Let 
no  man  take  upon  him  to  [molest,  fatigue,]  trouble  me  by 
questioning  my  pretensions  to  the  apostleship,  or  to  the 
character  of  a  true  lover  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  some  among 
you  Galatians  have  done ;  for  I  think  my  losses,  my  suffer- 
ings, my  scars,  received  in  the  fulfilment  of  my  duty  to  him, 
are  tokens  sufficiently  visible  to  every  man  whc  considers 
them  of  my  regard  to  him,  for  whose  sake  I  have  borne, 
and  still  bear  them:  I  shall  therefore  write  no  more  in  vin- 
dication of  my  character,  in  that  respect,  however  it  may 
be  impugned,' — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  33.  And  he  put  the  wood  in  order,  and  cut 
the  bullock  in  pieces,  and  laid  him  on  the  wood, 
and  said,  Fill  four  barrels  with  water,  and  pour 
it  on  the  burnt-sacrifice,  and  on  the  wood. 

See  on  1  Kings  17.  12. 

Ver.  41.  And  Elijah  said  unto  Ahab,  Get  thee 
up,  eat  and  drink;  for  there  is  a  sound  of 
abundance  of  rain. 

It  is  as  common  in  the  East  to  say  there  is  the  sound  of 
rain,  as  it  is  in  England  to  say  there  is  an  appearance  of 
rain.  Sometimes  this  refers  to  thunder,  as  the  precursor; 
and  at  other  times  to  a  blowing  noise  in  the  clouds,  which 
indicates  rain  is  at  hand.  In  the  vicinity  of  a  hill  or  tall 
trees,  the  sound  is  the  loudest;  and  it  is  worthy  of  notice, 
that  Elijah  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Mount  Carmel.- 

ROBERTS. 


Ver. 


It  up 
to  the 


And  Elijah  went  up  to  the  top  of  Carmel ;  and 
he  cast  himself  down  upon  the  earth,  and  put 
his  face  between  his  knees. 

David's  posture,  mentioned  1  Chron.  xvii.  16,  in  all 
probability  was  not  unlike  that  of  Elijah,  which  was  one 
of  most  earnest  supplication.  I  remember  being  present 
in  the  supreme  court  at  Matura,  when  the  prisoners  were 
brought  up  to  receive  their  sentences ;  and  when  a  Cinga- 
lese woman,  on  hearing  her  son's  condemnation  to  suffer 
death,  rushed  through  the  crowd,  and  presenting  herself 
before  the  bench,  in  the  very  posture  ascribed  to  Elijah,  en- 
treated, in  the  most  heart-rending  raimner,  that  his  life 
might  be  spared. — Callaway. 

Who,  in  the  East,  has  not  seen  the  natives  thus  sitting  on 
the  earth,  with  their  faces  between  their  knees  1  Those 
engaged  in  deep  meditation,  in  a  long  train  of  reasoning, 
when  revolving  the  past,  or  anticipating  the  future,  when  in 
great  sorrow  or  fatigue,  as  coolies  after  a  journey,  may  be 
seen  seated  on  the  ground  with  the  face  between  the  knees, 
"  This  morning,  as  I  passed  the  garden  of  Chinnan,  I  saw 
him  on  the  ground  with  his  face  between  his  knees ;  I  won- 
der what  plans  he  was  forming :  it  must  have  been  some- 
thing very  important  to  cause  him  thus  to  meditate."" 
"  Kandan  is  sick  or  in  trouble,  for  he  has  got  his  face  be- 
tween his  knees."  "  The  man  threatens  to  trouble  you." 
— "  He  trouble  me  !  I  shall  never  put  my  face  between  my 
knees  on  his  account."  "  Alas !  poor  woman,  she  must 
have  a  cruel  husband,  for  she  has  always  her  face  between 
her  knees."  Elijah  went  "  to  the  top  of  Carmel,"  to  medi- 
tate on  the  past  and  the  future:  there  he  was,  after  the  display 
of  God's  majesty  in  the  fire  from  heaven,  in  the  destruction 
of  the  priests,  and  in  the  certain  anticipation  of  rain,  with 
"  his  face  between  his  kneesP — Roberts. 

The  devout  posture  of  some  people  of  the  Levant  greatly 
resembles  that  of  Elijah.  Just  before  the  descent  of  the 
rain, "  he  cast  himself  down  upon  the  earth,  and  put  his  face 


266 


1  KINGS 


Chap.  19. 


between  his  knees."  Chardin  relates  that  the  dervises,  es- 
pecially those  of  the  Indies,  put  themselves  into  this  posture, 
in  order  to  meditate,  and  also  to  repose  themselves.  They 
tie  their  knees  against  their  belly  with  their  girdle,  and  lay 
their  heads  on  the  top  of  them,  and  this,  according  to  them, 
is  the  best  posture  for  recollection. — Harmer. 

Ver.  44.  And  it  came  to  pass  at  the  seventh  time, 
that  he  said,  Behold,  there  ariseth  a  little  cloud 
out  of  the  sea,  like  a  man's  hand,  And  he  said, 
Go  up,  say  unto  Ahab,  Prepare  thy  chariot, 
and  get  thee  down,  that  the  rain  stop  thee  not. 

That  is,  says  Bp.  Patrick,  Elijah  saw  such  abundance  of 
rain  coming  as  would  cause  floods,  and  render  the  way 
impassable,  if  Ahab  did  not  make  haste  home  :  and  accord- 
ingly, in  a  very  short  space  of  time  that  little  cloud  spread 
itself;  and  with  a  great  thickness  covered  the  face  of  the 
sky.  ' 

When  Elijah's  servant  reported  to  his  master,  that  he 
saw  a  little  cloud  arising  out  of  the  sea  like  a  man's  hand, 
he  commanded  him  to  go  up  and  say  unto  Ahab,  prepare 
thy  chariot,  and  get  thee  down,  that  the  rain  stop  thee  not. 
This  circumstance  was  justly  considered  as  the  sure  indi- 
cation of  an  approaching  shower,  for  it  came  to  pass,  in  the 
mean  while,  tha,t  the  heaven  was  black  with  clouds  and  wind, 
and  there  vms  a  great  rain.  Mr.  Bruce  has  an  observation, 
which  greatly  corroborates  this  relation.  He  says,  "  there 
are  three  remarkable  appearances  attending  the  inundation 
of  the  Nile:  every  morning,  in  Abyssinia,  is  clear,  and  the 
sun  shines  ;  about  nine,  a  small  cloud,  not  above  four  feet 
broad,  appears  in  the  east,  whirling  violently  round  as  if 
upon  an  axis;  but  arrived  near  the  zenith,  it  first  abates 
its  motion,  then  loses  its  form,  and  extends  itself  greatly, 
and  seems  to  call  up  vapours  from  all  opposite  quarters. 
These  clouds  having  attained  nearly  the  same  height,  rush 
against  each  other  with  great  violence,  and  put  me  always 
in  mind  of  Elijah's  foretelling  rain  on  mount  Carmel.  The 
air,  impelled  before  the  heaviest  mass,  or  swifi^t  mover, 
makes  an  impression  of  its  own  form  in  the  collection  of 
clouds  opposite,  and  the  moment  it  has  taken  possession  of 
the  space  made  to  receive  it,  the  most  violent  thunder  pos- 
sible instantly  follows,  with  rain  ;  and  after  some  hours  the 
sky  again  clears." — Burder, 

Ver.  45.  And  it  came  to  pass  in  the  mean  while, 
that  the  heaven  was  black  with  clouds  and 
wind,  and 'there  was  a  great  rain.  And  Ahab 
rode  out,  and  went  to  Jezreel. 

See  on  2  Kings  3.  16,  17. 

Ver.  46.  And  the  hand  of  the  Lord  was  on  Eli- 
jah :  and  he  girded  up  his  loins,  and  ran  before 
Ahab  to  the  entrance  of  Jezreel. 

See  the  man  wh«  has  to  run  a  race,  or  take  a  journey; 
he  girds  up  his  loins  with  a  long  robe  or  shawl.  Elijah, 
therefore,  thus  prepared  himself  to  run  before  the  chariot 
of  the  king.  Great  persons  have  always  men  running 
BEroRE  them,  with  an  ensign  of  office  in  their  hands. 
Elijah  probably  did  this  in  consequence  of  the  wonderful 
events  that  had  taken  place  :  fire  having  come  from  heaven, 
Baal's  priests  having  been  destroyed,  the  rain  having  de- 
scended, and  the  proud  kmg  his  enemy  having  been  recon- 
ciled, he  ran  before,  as  the  priest  of  the  Lord,  to  show  from 
whom  the  blessings  had  come. — Roberts. 
'  Hanway  tells  us,  that  Nadir  Shah,  when  he  removed  his 
camp,  was  preceded  by  his  running  footmen,  and  these  by 
his  chanters,  who  were  nine  hundred  in  number,  and  fre- 
quently chanted  moral  sentences,  and  encomiums  on  the 
Shah,  occasionally  proclaiming  his  victories  also. 

The  like  practice  obtained  among  the  inhabitants  of 
Mount  Libanus,  in  the  time  of  Pope  Clement  VIII.  for 
Dandini,  the  pope's  nuncio  to  the  Maronites,  says,  "  We 
were  always  accompanied  with  the  better  sort  of  people, 
wno  walked  on  foot  before  our  mules,  and  out  of  the  respect 
they  bore  to  the  pope,  and  in  honour  to  us,  they  would  sing 
certain  songs,  and  spiritual  airs,  which  they  usually  sung 
as  they  marched  before  the  patriarch,  and  other  persons  of 
quality."    It  was  not  confined,  according  to  this  account,  to 


mean  persons ;  but  persons  of  figure  went  before  him  in 
procession  Avith  songs. 

We  are  willing  to  suppose,  that  Elijah's  running  before 
Ahab's  chariot  to  the  gates  of  Jezreel,  was  not  unworthy  his 
prophetic  character ;  but  as  the  idea  of  the  mob's  running 
before  a  royal  coach  will  present  itself  to  some  minds,  when 
they  read  this  passage,  so  commentators  are  not  very  happy 
in  explaining  this  piece  of  the  history  of  Elijah.  Bishop 
Patrick  supposes  he  ran  before  Ahab  like  one  of  his  foot- 
men, in  which  he  showed  his  readiness  to  do  the  king  all 
imaginable  honour,  and  that  he  was  far  from  being  his 
enemy  :  would  it  however  have  become  Beckei,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  to  have  run  before  the  horse  of  Henry 
II.  to  show  he  was  not  his  enemy  *?  or  even  Friar  Peito 
before  Henry  VIII.  to  do  him  all  imaginable  honour"? 
But  if  Ahab  had  chanters  running  before  him,  like  Nadir 
Shah,  it  does  not  appear  at  all  contrary  to  the  rules  of  deco- 
rum, for  one  brought  up  to  celebrate  the  divine  praises,  to 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  them,  to  direct  them,  in  singing 
praise  to  him  that  was  then  giving  them  rain,  and  to  inter- 
mingle due  encemiums  on  the  prince  that  had  permitted  ihe 
extermination  of  the  priests  of  Baal ;  or  if  he  had  none 
such,  yet  if  it  had  been  practised  in  those  times,  and  was 
thought  graceful  and  becoming  a  prince,  nothing  forbade 
Elijah's  doing  it  alone :  and  perhaps  what  is  said  concerning 
the  singers  of  the  contemporary  king  of  Judah,  2  Chron, 
XX.  21,  23,  may  enable  us  to  guess,  whether  or  not  it  was  a 
practice  totally  unknown  at  that  time.  The  expression  of 
the  divine  historian,  that  the  hand  of  the  Lord  was  upon  him, 
perfectly  agrees  to  this  thought,  for  it  appears,  from  2  Kings 
iii.  15,  that  it  signifies  enabling  a  prophet  to  prophesy:  and 
consequently  we  are  rather  to  understand  these  wo'rds,  of 
God's  stirring  him  up  to  the  composing,  and  singing,  of  some 
proper  hymns  on  this  occasion,  than  the  mere  enabling  him 
to  run  with  greater  swiftness  than  his  age  would  otherwise 
have  permitted  him  to  do,  in  which  sense  alone,  I  think, 
commenta.tors  have  understood  that  clause. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Ver.  4.  But  he  himself  went  a  day's  journey  into 
the  wilderness,  and  came  and  sat  down  under 
a  juniper-tree:  and  he  requested  for  himself 
that  he  might  die;  and  said,  It  is  enough; 
now,  O  Lord,  take  away  my  life;  for  I  am 
not  better  than  my  fathers. 

The  juniper  is  mentioned  more  than  once  in  our  transla- 
tion of  the  scriptures;  but  the  opinions  of  learned  men  are 
much  divided,  concerning  the  shrub  or  tree  to  which  the 
inspired  writers  allude.  The  gadha  or  gadhat,  a  species 
of  tree  very  like  the  tamarisk,  which  grows  in  the  sandy 
deserts,  resemblej,  in  more  than  one  instance,  the  juniper 
in  our  translation.  It  flourishes  in  the  burning  wild;  its 
wood  is  extremely  proper  to  burn  into  charcoal,  which  has 
the  property  of  long  retaining  fire;  on  which  account,  it  is 
carried  into  the  cities  and  sold  for  fuel.  The  camel  is  very 
fond  of  its  leaves,  although  they  frequently  affect  him  with 
pains  in  his  bowels ;  and  under  its  shade,  the  wolf  so  com- 
monly lurks,  that  it  has  become  a  proverb  among  the 
Arabs,  '*  The  wolf  is  near  the  gadha."  But  from  these  cir- 
cumstances it  cannot  be  determined  with  certainty,  whether 
the  gadha  of  the  roving  Arab  be  the  same  with  the  juniper. 
The  Hebrew  word  for  the  plant  to  which  we  give  the  name 
of  juniper,  is  rothem,  from  the  verb  ratham,  to  bind  or  tie, 
on  account  of  the  toughness  or  tenacity  of  its  twigs.  In 
Parkhurst,  it  is  the  genista,  or  Spanish  broom,  which  emi- 
nently possesses  the  character  of  tenacity.  So  great  15 
their  flexibility,  that  the  Italians  still  weave  them  into  bas- 
kets. The  genista,  it  must  be  granted,  affords  but  a  poor 
shelter  to  the  weary  traveller  from  the  intense  heat  of  an 
oriental  sky;  while  the  prophet  Elijah,  exhausted  with  a 
long  and  precipitate  flight,  found  a  refreshing  shade  under 
the  spreading  branches  of  the  rothem.  But  the  remark  ap- 
plies with  equal,  if  not  greater  force,  to  the  juniper,  which 
in  this  country  never  rises  above  the  stature  of  an  humble 
shrub.  The  words  of  the  inspired  writer  are  by  no  means 
inconsistent  with  this  circumstance :  "  But  Elijah  went  a 
day's  journey  into  the  wilderness,  and  came  and  sat  down 
under  a  juniper-tree.— And  as  he  lay  and  slept  under  the 
jimiper-tree,  behold,  then  an  angel  touched  him  and  said 
unto  him.  Arise  and  eat."    The  passage  seems  to  import 


Chap    i9. 


1    KINGS, 


267 


that  the  prophet,  unable  to  proceed,  embraced  the  shelter  of 
a  genista,  which,  according  to  Bellonius,  grows  in  the  des- 
ert, for  want  of  a  better;  as  the  prophet  Jonah  was  glad  to 
screen  himself  from  the  oppressive  heat  of  the  sun  imder 
the  frail  covert  of  a  gourd.  But  in  reality,  the  genista,  in 
the  oriental  regions,  interposed  with  considerable  eflect  be- 
tween the  parched  wanderer  and  the  scorching  sunbeam. 
The  roots  of  the  rothem,  or  juniper,  as  we  translate  the 
term,  were  used  in  the  days  of  Job  for  food,  by  the  poorest 
of  the  people :  "  For  want  and  famine  they  were  solitary : 
fleeing  into  the  wilderness,  in  former  time  desolate  and 
wasie.  Who  cut  up  mallows  by  the  bushes,  and  juniper- 
roots,  (ve  shoresh  rethamim,)  for  their  meat."  But  this 
circumstance  determines  nothing ;  for  neither  the  roots  of 
juniper,  nor  of  genista,  nor  of  any  other  tree  in  those  des- 
erts, can  afford  a  salutary  nourishment  to  the  human  body : 
nor  can  any  modern  instance  be  found,  of  the  roots  of  juni- 
per or  genista  being  used  for  food.  Job  only  says  that  it 
was  done  in  times  of  extreme  wantj  when  the  famished 
poor  were  frequently  compelled  to  prolong  their  miserable 
existence  by  the  use  of  the  most  improper  ^bstances.  It  is 
certain  that  the  shoots,  the  leaves,  the  bark,  and  the  roots 
of  other  shrubs  and  trees,  have  been  eaten  among  many  na- 
tions, in  times  of  scarcity  and  famine.  Thus,  for  instance, 
Herodotus  informs  us,  that  when  the  routed  army  of  Xerx- 
es v/as  fleeing  from  Greece,  such  of  them  as  could  not 
meet  with  better  provision,  were  compelled  by  hunger  to 
eat  the  bark  and  leaves,  which  they  stripped  off*^all  kinds  of 
trees.  The  hungry  Laplander  devours  the  tops  and  bark 
of  the  pine  ;  and  even  in  Sweden,  the  poor  in  many  places 
are  obliged  to  grind  the  bark  of  birch-trees  to  mix  with 
their  corn,  to  make  bread  in  unfavourable  seasons.  The 
royal  Psalmist  mentions  the  coals  of  the  rethamim  as  af- 
fording the  fiercest  fire  of  any  combustible  matter  that  he 
found  in  the  desert,  and  therefore  the  fittest  punishment  for 
a  deceitful  tongue;  "What  shall  be  given  unto  thee,  or 
v/hat  shall  be  done  to  thee,  thou  false  tongue  1  Sharp  ar- 
rows of  the  mighty,  with  coals  of  juniper :"  the  wrath  of 
God,  like  a  keen  and  barbed  arrow  from  the  bow  of  the 
mighty,  shall  pierce  the  strongest  armour,  and  strike  deep 
into  the  hardest  heart,  and  like  the  fierce  and  protracted 
flame  of  the  juniper,  shall  torment  the  liar  with  unutterable 
anguish.  Now,  if  it  be  the  property  of  juniper  long  to  re- 
tain the  fire,  or  to  emit  a  vehement  flame,  it  is  not  less  the 
characteristic  of  genista:  for  according  to  Geierus,  as  quo- 
ted by  Parkhurst,  the  Spanish  genista,  or  rethama,  lignis 
aliis  vehementms  scintillet,  ardeat,  ac  strideat,  sparkles, 
burns,  and  crackles  more  vehemently  than  any  other  wood. 
The  people  of  Israel  in  their  journeys  through  the  wilder- 
ness, came  to  a  place  called  Rithma,  probably  from  the 
great  quantity  of  rethamim  growing  there.  In'traversing 
the  same  inhospitable  wilds,  Thevenot  and  his  fellow-trav- 
ellers were  compelled  to  gather  broom  for  warming  them- 
selves and  boiling  their  coffee.  This  greatly  corroborates 
the  opinion  of  Parkhurst,  that  the  rothem  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament is  not  properly  the  juniper,  but  Spanish  broom  ;  but 
although  his  opinion  is  extremely  probable,  our  imperfect 
acquaintance  with  the  natural  history  of  those  remote  coun- 
tries, renders  it  impossible  to  reach  a  satisfactory  conclu- 

i  sion. 

The  shade  of  rothem,  (whether  it  be  translated  the  juni- 

1  per,  or  the  genista,)  is  supposed  by  some  writers  of  great 

■  eminence  to  be  noxious.     This  circumstance  isonentioned 

;  only  for  the  purpose  of  vindicating  the  prophet  Elijah,  from 
the  imputation  of  wishing  to  put  an  end  to  his  existence, 
when  he  fled  for  his  life  into  the  wilderness.  He  went  on 
that  occasion  a  day's  journey  into  the  wilderness  of  Beer- 
sheba ;  and  sitting  dowm  under  a  juniper-tree,  fatigued 
with  his  journey,  and  oppressed  with  grief,  he  fell  asleep, 

:  after  having  requested  God  that  he  might  die. 

Grotius  imagines,  that  the  prophet  rested  under  the  shade 
of  the  juniper,  because  he  was  now  become  careless  of  his 

!,  health ;  and  he  cites  a  passage  from  Virgil,  as  a  proof  that 

i  ,'iie  shadow  of  this  tree  is  noxious. 

1  "  Solet  esse  gravis  cantantibus  umbra ; 

'       Juniperi  gravis  umbra ;  nocent  et  frugibus  umbrae  "  Eel.  x.  I.  7.5. 
But  his  conclusion  will  not  follow ;  because  Virgil  evident- 

;  ly  means,  that  the  shades  of  evening  are  hurtful ;  not  the 
^hade  of  the  juniper,  except  by  night,  when  the  shade  of 

,  every  tree  is  thought  by  natural  historians  to  be  injurious 

'  to  health.  If  the  shade  of  the  juniper  were  noxious,  it 
would  be  noxious  to  every  one,  and  not  merely  to  singers: 


And  how  could  it  be  hurtful  to  the  fruits  ?  They  do  not 
grow  under  it,  and  are  there  ore  not  exposed  to  its  deleteri- 
ous influence.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  the  shades  of  evening 
are  hurtful  to  the  fruits ;  but  how  the  shade  of  the  juniper 
^ould  be  noxious  to  them,  is  quite  inconceivable.  The 
poet,  indeed,  expressly  mentions  the  danger  of  reposing 
under  the  shade  of  that  tree ;  but  the  true  reason  seems  to 
be  this:  the  juniper  being  an  evergreen,  and  its  leaves 
growing  very  close,  extends  in  the  evening  a  more  damp 
and  chilly  shade,  than  perhaps  any  other  tree  in  that  part 
of  Italy.  So  little  afraid  were  the  Orientals  of  its  noxious 
qualities,  that  some  of  their  most  magnificent  cities  were 
imbosomed  in  a  grove  of  juniper-trees.  This  is  an  incon- 
testible  proof  that  they  did  not  find  their  effluvia  deadly,  nor 
even  injurious  to  health. 

Another  commentator  of  considerable  celebrity,  supposes, 
on  the  contrary,  that  Elijah  reposed  himself  under  the  ju- 
niper-tree, for  the  more  eflfectual  preservation  of  his  health ; 
the  shade  of  it  being,  according  to  him,  a  protection  from 
serpents ;  and  alleges,  that  it  was  the  custom  of  the  people 
in  that  part  of  the  world,  to  guard  themselves  by  such  pre- 
cautions against  the  bite  of  these  venomous  reptiles.  But 
this  opinion  seems  to  be  no  less  visionary  than  the  allega- 
tion of  Grotius.  Travellers  often  recline  beneath  the  shade 
of  a  spreading  tree  ;  but  in  all  their  narratives,  the  reason 
assigned  by  Peter  Martyr  is  never  once  mentioned.  Ac- 
cording to  Dioscorides,  the  glowing  embers  of  juniper 
wood,  not  the'shade  of  the  living  tree,  possessed  the  power 
of  driving  away  those  unwelcome  visitants.  The  most  ob- 
vious reason  is  in  this,  as  in  most  instances,  the  best :  Elijah 
flying  into  the  wilderness  from  the  rage  of  Jezebel,  became 
oppressed  with  the  burning  heat  of  the  day,  and  the  length 
of  the  road,  and  cast  himself  down  under  the  shade  of  the 
first  shrub  that  he  found.  Or,  if  it  was  in  his  power  to 
make  a  choice,  he  preferred  the  juniper  for  the  thickness 
of  its  covert,  without  any  apprehension  of  its  possessing 
either  a  deleterious  quality,  or  the  power  of  defending  him 
from  the  bite  of  the  serpent;  he  chose  it  merely  for  its 
shade,  where,  under  the  watchful  and  efficacious  protection 
of  Jehovah,  his  own  God,  and  the  God  of  his  people,  he 
sunk  into  quiet  repose.  To  suppose  that  he  repaired  to  the 
shade  of  the  juniper  with  the  view  of  ruining  his  health, 
and  shortening  his  days,  is  quite  inconsistent  with  every 
trait  in  the  character,  and  every  action  in  the  life  of  that 
holy  man.  So  far  from  harbouring  the  horrible  idea  of 
suicide,  although  certainly  tired  of  life,  he  prayed  to  his 
God  to  remove  him  from  the  disgusting  scene  of  idolatry 
and  oppression,  into  his  immediate  presence;  a  sure  proof 
he  neither  expected  nor  desired  that  favour  from  the  nox- 
ious exhalations  of  the  juniper.  To  this  may  be  added,  that 
the  question  is  not  yet  decided,  whether  it  was  a  juniper,  or 
what  particular  species  of  tree  it  really  was,  under  whose 
friendly  covert  the  weary  and  afflicted  prophet  sought  re- 
pose.— Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  Yet  I  have  left  me  seven  thousand  in 
Israel,  all  the  knees  which  have  not  bowed 
unto  Baal,  and  every  mouth  which  hath  not 
kissed  him. 

Things  which  have  been  sent  to  the  temples  to  be  pre- 
sented to  idols,  are,  when  returned,  kissed  by  the  people. 
Should  a  priest  give  areca-nuts,  beetel  leaves,  or  cakes, 
which  have  been  presented  to  the  gods,  the  person  receiving 
them  kisses  them.  When  a  devotee  has  touched  the  feet 
of  a  priest,  he  kisses  his  hands. — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  So  he  departed  thence,  and  found  Elisha 
the  son  of  Shaphat,  who  was  ploughing  with 
twelve  yoke  of  oxen  before  him,  and  he  with 
the  twelfth:  and  Elijah  passed  by  him,  and  cast 
his  mantle  upon  him. 

The  natives  use  the  ox  for  the  plough  and  all  other  agri- 
cultural purposes.  It  is  no  disgrace  for  a  great  man  to  fol- 
low the  plough  ;  and,  generally  speaking,  the  master  is  the 
first  to  commence  the  operations  of  the  season.  The  first 
day  is  always  settled  by  a  soothsayer,  or  a  book  of  fate. 
"  Elijah  passed  by  him,  and  cast  his  mantle  upon  him." 
By  this  act  Elisha  was  invested  with  the  sacred  office  ;  but 
it  is  probable  there  would  be  other  ceremonies,  and  a  more 


268 


1  KINGS. 


Chap.  20. 


pointed  address,  and  extended  conversation  than  that  re- 
corded in  the  verse.  When  a  Bramin  is  invested  with 
the  sacred  office,  both  in  the  first,  second,  and  third  initia- 
tions, he  is  always  covered  with  a  yellow  mantle,  and  in 
stich  a  way  as  to  prevent  him  from  seeing  any  object.  The 
sacred  string  also  is  put  over  his  right  shoulder,  (and  worn 
like  a  soldier's  belt,)  which  indicates  his  office.  Elisha 
said,  "  Let  me,  I  pray  thee,  kiss  my  father  and  my  mother, 
and  then  I  will  follow  thee."  And  Elijah  "  said  unto  him. 
Go  back  again  ;  for  what  have  I  done  to  thee  1"  The  an- 
swer of  Elijah  is  certainly  not  very  easy  to  be  understood. 
The  Hebrew  has,  instead  of  '•  go  back  again,"  "  go,  return ;" 
this  makes  good  sense,  especially  when  the  conjunction  is 
added,  "  go,  and  return."  The  Tamul  version  has  it  also 
in  that  way.  The  same  translation  has,  instead  of  "  for 
what  have  I  done  to  thee  7"  "  what  I  have  done  to  thee 
THINK ;"  literally,  "  I  to  thee  what  have  done,  think,"  I 
have  called  thee  according  to  the  Divine  command;  now 
thou  askest  to  take  leave  of  thy  father  and  mother:  take 
care  thou  art  not  led  aside  from  thy  calling ;  "  go,  and  re- 
turn," THINK  on  what  I  have  done  to  thee. — Roberts. 

Among  the  Persians,  the  principal  khalifas  or  teachers 
consider  the  sacred  mantle  as  the  symbol  of  their  spiritual 
power.  Though  the  khirka  or  mantle  was  in  general  only 
transferred  to  a  beloved  pupil,  at  the  death  of  his  master, 
.some  superior  saints  were  deemed  possessed  of  a  power, 
even  while  living,  to  invest  others  with  the  sacred  and 
mysterious  garment.  *'  When  the  khalifa  or  teacher  of  the 
soofFees  dies,  he  bequeaths  his  patched  garment,  which  is 
all  his  worldly  wealth,  to  the  disciple  whom  he  esteems  the 
most  worthy  to  become  his  successor,  and  the  moment  the 
latter  puts  on  the  holy  mantle,  he  is  vested  with  the  power 
of  his  predecessor."    (Malcolm.) — Burder. 

Ver.  26.  Therefore  their  inhabitants  were  of  small 
powder,  they  were  dismayed  and  confounded ; 
they  were  as  the  grass  of  the  field,  and  as  the 
green  herb,  as  the  grass  on  the  house-tops  and 
as  corn  blasted  before  it  be  grown  up. 

"  The  sam  wind,  as  described  to  me  by  an  old  inhabitant 
of  the  Dashtistan,  commits  great  ravages  in  this  district, 
particularly  at  Dashtiarjan,  hurtful  to  vegetation.  Ii  blows 
at  night,  from  about  midnight  to  sunrise,  comes  in  a  hot 
blast,  and  is  afterward  succeeded  by  a  cold  one.  About 
six  years  ago  there  was  a  sam  during  the  summer  months, 
which  so  totally  burnt  up  all  the  corn,  then  near  its  maturity, 
that  no  animal  would  eat  a  blade  of  it,  or  touch  any  of  its 
grain.  The  image  of  corn  blasted  before  it  be  grown  up, 
was  most  probably  taken  from  the  circumstance  now  men- 
tioned." (Morier.)  Sir  R.  K.  Porter  however  says,  that 
the  samiel,  though  hostile  to  human  life,  is  so  far  from 
being  prejudicial  to  the  vegetable  creation,  that  a  contin- 
uance of  it  tends  to  ripen  the  fruits.  These  accounts  may 
be  reconciled  by  observing,  that  the  former  relates  to  the 
corn,  and  the  latter  to  fruit,  and  that  it  may  refer  to  its 
gradual  approach  rather  than  its  sudden  attack.  If  any 
unfortunate  traveller,  too  far  from  shelter,  meets  the  blast, 
he  falls  immediately,  and  in  a  few  minutes  his  flesh  be- 
comes almost  black,  while  both  it  and  his  bones  at  once 
arrive  at  so  extreme  a  state <of  corruption,  that  the  smallest 
movement  of  the  body  would  separate  the  one  from  the 
other. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Ver.  7.  And  Isaiah  said,  Take  a  lump  of  figs : 
and  they  took  and  laid  it  on  the  bile,  and  he 
recovered. 

Whatever  the  disorder  was  with  which  Hezekiah  was 
afflicted,  the  remedy  prescribed  was  a  softening  plaster, 
designed  to  ripen  the  bile,  and  to  prepare  it  for  receiving 
such  assistance  as  to  discharge  it  with  ease  and  certainty. 
We  have  an  instance  of  a  similar  proceeding,  and  with  the 
same  design,  in  regard  to  the  plague,  related  by  Pitts  of 
himself.  "  The  plague  reigned  among  us; — soon  after  we 
got  ashore  at  Algiers,  I  was  seized  with  it,  but,  through  the 
divine  goodness,  escaped  death.  It  rose  under  my  arm, 
and  the  bile  which  usually  accompanies  the  plague,  rose 
on  my  leg.  After  it  was  much  swollen,  I  was  desirous  to 
have  it  lanced,  but  my  patroon  told  me  it  was  not  soft 


enough.  There  was  a  neighbour,  a  Spaniard  slav^e,  who 
advised  me  to  roast  an  onion,  and  apply  a  piece  of  it  dipped 
in  oil  to  the  swelling,  to  mollify  it ;  which  accordingly  I 
did.  The  next  day  it  became  soft,  and  then  my  patroon 
had  it  lanced,  and,  through  the  blessing  of  my  good  God,  I 
recovered." — Burder. 

Ver.  10.  And  Ben-hadad  sent  unto  him,  and  said, 
The  gods  do  so  unto  me,  and  more  also,  if  the 
dust  of  Samaria  shall  suffice  for  handfuls  for 
all  the  people  that  follow  me. 

It  is  an  interestkig  fact,  that  this  figure  of  speech,  in 
reference  to  the  dust  not  being  sufficient  to  fill  the  hands  of 
the  numerous  hosts  of  Benhadad,  is  in  common  use  at  this 
day.  In  the  story  called  Asuvdmea-thaiya-kathi,  it  was 
said  by  the  inhabitants  of  certain  countries,  who  were  ex- 
pecting an  invasion  from  a  king  who  had  already  con- 
quered the  "  eight  quarters," — "  We  had  belter  at  once  give 
up  our  possessions :  why  attempt  to  resist  such  hosts]  the 
dust  of  the  country  will  not  be  sufficient  to  furnish  a  hand- 
ful for  each  of  the  soldiers.  Ovvoru-pud-de-man-kdnu'ino  ? 
i.  e,  for  every  one  -will  there  be  a  handful  of  dusf?"  The 
people  of  the  village  of  Sandarippi  ask,  "  Why  do  the  in- 
habitants of  Batticotta  hate  and  despise  us  1  If  we  all  go 
against  them,  will  their  country  afford  a  handful  of  earth 
for  each  of  us  1"  The  people  of  the  two  large  villages  of 
Batticotta  and  Sandarippi  often  meet  to  play  at  rude  games, 
when  the  latter  are  generally  the  conquerors,  which  has 
led  to  great  animosity.  Hence  the  proverb,  "  Take  up  the 
stalk  of  a  cocoa-nut  leaf,  and  the  Batticottians  run ;"  and 
hence  the  saying  respecting  the  handfuls  of  earth.  Ben^ 
hadad  said,  "  The  gods  do  so  unto  me,  and  more  also." 
This  form  of  imprecation  or  prayer  is  very  common.  "  If 
I  do  not  ruin  that  fellow,  then  the  gods  do  so  to  me."  "  If  I 
kill  not  that  wretch,  then  may  the  gods  kill  me."  If,  there-  , 
fore,  the  dust  of  Samaria  be  sufficient  to  fill  the  hands  of 
each  of  my  soldiers,  then  may  my  dominions  be  subject  to 
the  same  fate.— Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  Ben-hadad 
heard  this  message,  as  he  was  drinking,  he  and 
the  kings  in  the  pavilions,  that  he  said  unto  his 
servants,  Set  yourselves  in  array  :  and  they  set 
themselves  in  array  against  the  city. 

The  word  n'^BC'  shaphcer,  which  we  trdiXisldiie  pavilion,  may, 
it  is  very  likely,  excite  the  notion  of  something  superior  to 
a  common  tent ;  so  our  translators  use  that  term  to  express 
the  superb  tent  of  a  king  of  Babylon,  Jer.  xliii.  10,  '*  He 
(Nebuchadnezzar)  shall  spread  his  royal  pavilion  over 
them."  A  mere  English  reader  will  be  surprised,  perhaps, 
when  he  is  told  that  the  word  nirjD  svccoth,  translated  pa- 
vilions, 1  Kings  XX.  12,  16,  signifies  nothing  more  than 
booths ;  and  more  still,  if  he  is  told  that  the  sacred  historian 
might,  possibly,  precisely  design  to  be  so  understood,  when 
describing  the  places  in  which  kings  were  drinking.  That 
the  word  signifies  those  slight  temporary  defences  from  the 
heat  which  are  formed  by  the  setting  up  the  boughs  of 
trees,  is  visible  by  what  is  said  Jonah  iv.  5,  and  Neh.  viii. 
16 ;  and  we  know  that  the  common  people  of  the  East  fre- 
quently sit  under  them  ;  but  it  may  be  thought  incredible 
that  princes  should  make  use  of  such,  as  the  term,  precisely 
taken,  seems  to  imply.  "  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  Ben- 
hadad  heard  this  message,  as  he  was  drinking,  he  and  the 
kings  in  the  pavilions,"  1  Kings  xx.  12.  "  But  Benhadad 
was  drinking  himself  drunk  in  the  pavilions,  he  and  the 
kings,  the  thirty  and  two  kings  that  helped  him,"  v.  16. 
In  the  margin  oiir  translators  have  put  the  word  tents  ;  but 
that  there  is  nothing  incredible  in  the  account,  if  we  should 
understand  the  prophetic  historian  as  meaning  booths,  prop- 
erly speaking,  will  appear,  if  we  consider  the  great  sim- 
plicity of  ancient  times,  and  the  great  delijjht  the  people  of 
the  East  take  in  verdure,  and  in  eating  and  drinking  under 
the  shade  of  trees;  especially  after  reading  the  following 
paragraph  of  Dr.  Chandler's  Travels  in  the  Lesser  Asia: 
"While  we  were  employed  on  the  theatre  of  Miletus,  the 
Aga  of  Suki,  son-in-law, "by  marriage,  to  Elez  Oglu,  crossed 
the  plain  towards  us,  attended  by  a  considerable  train  of 
domestics  and  officers,  their  vests  and  their  turbans  ol  va- 
rious and  lively  colours,  mounted  on  long-tailed  horses, 


Chap  20. 


1    KINGS. 


2G9 


with  showy  trappings  and  furniture.  He  returned  after 
hawking  to  Miletus ;  and  we  went  to  visit  him,  with  a 
present  of  cotfee  and  sugar ;  but  we  were  told  that  two  fa- 
vourite birds  had  flown  away,  and  that  he  was  vexed  and 
tired.  A  couch  was  prepared  for  him  beneath  a  shed,  made 
against  a  cottage,  and  covered  with  green  boughs,  to  keep 
otF  the  sun.  He  entered  as  we  were  standing  by,  and  fell 
down  on  it  to  sleep,  without  taking  any  notice  of  us."  A 
very  mean  place,  a  European  would  think,  to  be  prepared 
for  "the  reception  of  an  aga  that  made  so  respectable  a 
figure,  and  in  a  town  which,  though  ruinated,  still  had 
several  cottages,  inhabited  by  Turkish  families.  It  does 
not  appear  incredible  then,  that  Benhadad,  and  the  thirty- 
two  petty  kings  that  attended  him,  might  actually  be  drink- 
ing wine  beneath  such  green  sheds,  as  a  Turkish  aga,  of 
considerable  distinction,  chose  to  sleep  under,  rather  than 
in  an  adjoining  cottage,  or  rather  than  under  a  tent,  which 
he  otherwise  might  have  carried  with  him,  to  repose  under 
when  he  chose  to  rest  himself  Oriental  manners  are  very 
different  from  those  in  the  West. — Harmer. 

Ver.  27.  And  the  children  of  Israel  were  num- 
bered, and  were  all  present,  and  went  against 
them :  and  the  children  of  Israel  pitched  before 
them  like  two  Ifttle  flocks  of  kids  ;  but  the  Sy- 
rians filled  the  country. 

A  flock  of  goats  is  fewer  in  number  than  a  flock  of  sheep, 
because  the  former  are  given  to  wander  and  separate,  while 
the  latter,  more  gregarious  in  their  temper,  collect  into  one 
place.  This  is  the  reason,  says  Bochart,  that  the  sacred 
writer  compares  the  small  army  of  the  Israelites  to  a  flock 
of  goats  rather  than  to  a  flock  of  sheep.  While  seven  is 
always  used  by  the  Hebrews  to  denote  a  sufficient  or  com- 
plete number,  two  is  constantly  employed  to  signify  a  few, 
or  ver}''  few.  Thus  the  widow  woman  said  to  the  prophet, 
"  As  the  Lord  thy  God  liveth,  I  have  not  a  cake,  but  a 
handful  of  meal  in  a  barrel,  and  a  little  oil  in  a  cruise : 
and  behold,  I  am  gathering  two  sticks,  that  I  may  go  in  and 
dress  it  for  me  and  my  son,  that  we  may  eat  it  and  die." 
The  phrase  is  used  in  the  same  sense  by  the  prophet  con- 
cerning the  reduced  state  of  his  people:  "Yet  gleaning 
grapes  shall  be  left  in  it;  as  the  shaking  of  an  olive-tree, 
two  or  three  berries  in  the  top  of  the  uppermost  bough." 
Another  prophet  uses  it  in  relation  to  the  return  of  a 
small  number  of  the  captives  to  their  own  land  :  "  I  will 
take  you ;  one  of  a  city  and  two  of  a  family,  and  I  will  bring 
you  to  Zion."  And  Hosea  encourages  his  people  to  repent- 
ance with  the  promise,  "  After  two  days  will  he  revive  us  : 
in  the  third  day  he  will  raise  us  up,  and  we  shall  live  in  his 
sight,"  or,  within  a  very  short  time  he  will  deliver  them 
from  their  enemies.  The  sacred  historian  accordingly 
compares  the  armies  of  Israel  opposed  to  the  Syrians  to 
*'  two  little  flocks  of  kids ;"  two,  because  they  were  few  in 
number ;  little  flocks,  as  goats  from  their  roaming  dispo- 
sition always  are;  flocks  of  kids,  feeble  and  timid,  without 
resources  and  without  hope.  A  moi-e  complete  and  glowing 
I  picture  of  national  weakness,  even  the  pen  of  inspiration 
never  drew. — Paxton. 

Ver.  28.  And  there  came  a  man  of  God,  and  spake 
unto  the  king  of  Israel,  and  said,  Thus  saith 
the  Lord,  Because  the  Syrians  have  said,  The 
Lord  is  God  of  the  hills,  but  he  is  not  God  of 
the  valleys ;  therefore  will  I  deliver  all  this  great 
multitude  into  thy  hand,  and  ye  shall  know 
that  I  am  the  Lord. 

That  there  were  many  gods  who  had  each  their  particu- 
lar charge  and  jurisdiction,  that  some  presided  over  whole; 
countries,  while  others  had  but  particular  places  under  their 
tuition  and  government,  and  were  some  of  them  gods  of  the 
woods,  others  of  the  rivers,  and  others  of  the  moimtains, 
was  plainly  the  doctrme.  of  all  heathen  nations.  Pan  was 
reckoned  the  god  of  the  mountains,  for  which  reason  he 
was  styled  'Ooct/^arrjg,  mountain  traverser ;  and  in  like  man- 
ner, the  Syrians  might  have  a  conceit  that  the  god  of  Israel 
was  a  god  of  the  mountains,  because  Canaan,  they  saw,  was 
a  mountainous  land;  the  Israelites  delighted  to  sacrifice 
on  high  places ;  their  law,  they  might  have  heard,  was  given 


on  the  top  of  a  mountain ;  their  temple  stood  upon  a  famous 
eminence,  as  did  Samaria,  where  they  had  so  lately  received 
a  signal  defeat :  for  their  further  notion  was,  that  the  gods 
of  the  mountains  had  a  power  to  inject  a  panic  fear  into 
any  army,  whenever  they  pleased.  Nay,  that  they  did  not 
only  assist  with  their  influence,  but  actually  engaged  them- 
selves in  battle  in  behalf  of  their  favourites,  is  a  sentiment 
as  old  as  Homer. — Stackhouse. 

Ver.  30.  But  the  rest  fled  to  Aphek,  into  the 
city ;  and  there  a  wall  fell  upon  twenty  and 
seven  thousand  of  the  men  that  were  left.  And 
Ben-hadad  fled,  and  came  into  the  city,  into  an 
inner  chamber. 

See  on  ch.  22. 25. 

In  regard  to  this  passage,  we  are  not  to  suppose  that  this 
wall,  or  castle,  or  fort,  (as  it  may  be  rendered,)  fell  upon 
every  individual  one,  much  less  that  it  had  killed  every 
man  it  fell  on :  it  is  sufficient  to  justify  the  expression,  that 
it  fell  upon  the  main  body  of  these  seven  and  twenty  thou- 
sand, and  that  it  killed  some  and  maimed  others,  (for  the 
scripture  does  not  say  that  it  killed  all,)  as  is  usual  in  such 
cases.  Let  us  suppose  then,  that  these  Syrians,  after  their 
defeat  on  the  plains  of  Aphek,  betook  themselves  to  this 
fenced  city,  and  despairing  of  any  quarter,  mounted  the 
walls,  or  retired  into  some  castle,  with  a  resolution  to 
defend  themselves  to  the  last;  and  that  the  Israelitish  army 
coming  upon  them,  plied  the  walls  or  the  castle  on  everj 
side  so  warmly  with  their  batteries,  that  down  they  came  ai 
once,  and  killing  some,  wounding  others,  and  making  the 
rest  disperse  for  fear,  did  all  the  execution  that  the  text 
intends. 

Thus  we  may  account  for  this  event  in  a  natural  way ; 
but  it  is  more  reasonable  to  think  that  God,  upon  this  occa- 
sion, wrought  a  miracle ;  and  either  by  some  sudden  earth- 
quake or  violent  storm  of  wind,  overturned  these  walls,  or 
this  fortress,  upon  the  Syrians.  And  indeed,  if  any  time 
was  proper  for  his  almighty  arm  to  interpose,  it  was  at 
such  a  time  as  this,  when  these  blasphemous  people  had 
denied  his  sovereign  power  and  authority  in  the  government 
of  the  world,  and  thereby  in  some  measure  obliged  him,  in 
vindication  of  his  oM-n  honour,  to  give  them  a  full  demon- 
stration of  it,  and  to  show  that  he  was  the  God  of  the  plains 
as  well  as  of  the  mountains ;  that  he  could  as  effectually 
destroy  them  in  strongholds  as  in  the  open  field,  and  make 
the  very  walls,  wherein  they  trusted  for  defence,  the  in- 
struments of  their  ruin. 

This  Aphek,  or  Aphaca,  (as  it  is  called  by  profane  au- 
thors,) was  situated  in  Libanus,  upon  the  river  Adonis,  be- 
tween Heliopolis  and  Biblos,  and  in  all  probability  is  the 
same  that  Paul  Lucas,  in  his  voyage  to  the  Levant,  speaks 
of,  as  swallowed  up  in  a  lake  of  "Mount  Libanus,  about  nine 
miles  in  circumference,  wherein  there  are  several  houses, 
all  entire,  to  be  seen  under  water.  The  soil  about  this  place 
(as  the  ancients  tell  us)  was  very  bituminous,  which  seems 
to  confirm  their  opinion,  who  think  that  subterraneous 
fires  consumed  the  solid  suWance  of  the  earth,  whereon  the 
city  stoodjSO  that  it  was  subdued  and  sunk  at  once,  and  a  lake 
was  soon  formed  in  its  place. — Stackhouse. 

Ver.  31.  And  his  servants  said  unto  him.  Behold 
now,  we  have  heard  that  the  kings  of  the  house 
of  Israel  are  merciful  kings:  let  us,  I  pray 
thee,  put  sackcloth  on  our  loins,  and  ropes  upon 
our  heads,  and  go  out  to  the  king  of  Israel ; 
peradventure  he  will  save  thy  life. 

The  vanquished  foe,  in  testimony  of  his  submission,  hung 
his  sword  from  his  neck,  when  he  came  into  the  presence 
of  his  conqueror.  When  Bagdat  was  taken  by  the  Turks, 
in  the  year  1638,  the  governor's  lieutenant  and  principal 
officer  was  sent  to  the  grand  vizier,  with  a  scarf  about  his 
neck,  and  his  sword  wreathed  in  it,  which  is  accounted  by 
them  a  mark  of  deep  humiliation  and  perfect  submission, 
to  beg  for  mercy  in  his  own  and  his  master's  name.  His 
request  being  granted,  the  governor  came  and  was  intro- 
duced to  the  grand  seignior,  and  obtained,  not  only  a  con- 
firmation of  the  promise  of  life  that  had  been  made  him, 
but  also  various  presents  of  considerable  value.     These 


270 


1  KINGS. 


Chap.  21. 


circumstances  forcibly  recall  to  our  minds  the  message  of 
Benhadad,  after  his  signal  defeat,  to  the  king  of  Israel ;  the 

Eassage  runs  in  these  terms:  "  And  his  servants  said  unto 
im,  Behold  now,  we  have  heard  that  the  kings  of  the 
house  of  Israel  are  merciful  kings ;  let  us,  I  pray  thee, 
put  sackcloth  on  our  loms,  and  ropes  upon  our  heads,  and 
go  out  to  the  king  of  Israel ;  peradventure  he  will  save  thy 
life.  So  they  girded  sackcloth  on  their  loins,  and  put  ropes 
en  their  heads,  and  came  to  the  king  of  Israel,  and  said. 
Thy  servant  Benhadad  sai&h,  I  pray  thee,  let  me  live.  And 
he  said.  Is  he  yet  alive  1  he  is  my  brother."  The  servants 
of  Benhadad  succeeded  in  obtaining  a  verbal  assurance 
that  his  life  should  be  spared ;  but  a  surer  pledge  of  pro- 
tection was  to  deliver  a  banner  into  the  hand  of  the  sup- 
pliant. In  the  year  1099,  when  Jerusalem  was  taken  by  the 
crusaders,  about  three  hundred  Saracens  got  upon  the  roof 
of  a  very  lofty  building,  and  earnestly  begged  for  quarter, 
but  could  not  be  induced  by  any  prornise  of  safety  to  come 
down,  till  they  had  received  the  banner  of  Tancred,  one  of 
the  chiefs  of  the  crusaders,  as  a  pledge  of  life.  This  they 
reckoned  a  more  powerful  protection  than  the  most  solemn 
promise ;  Although  in  this  instance  their  confidence  was  en- 
tirely misplaced  ;  for  the  faithless  zealots  who  pretended  to 
fight  for  the  cross,  put  every  man  of  them  to  the  sword. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  34.  And  Ben-hadad  said  unto  him,  The 
cities  which  my  father  took  from  thy  father  I 
will  restore ;  and  thou  shalt  make  streets  for 
thee  in  Damascus,  as  my  father  made  in  Sama- 
ria. Then  said  Ahab,  I  will  send  thee  away 
with  this  covenant.  So  he  made  a  covenant 
with  him,  and  sent  him  away. 

When  the  king  of  Syria  had  obtained  security  for  his 
life,  and  assurance  of  being  restored  in  peace  to  his  throne, 
he  promised  in  return  for  such  great  and  unerpected  fa- 
vours, to  restore  the  cities  which  his  fat4ier  had  taken  from 
Israel,  and  to  permit  Ahab  to  make  streets  in  Damascus 
for  himself,  as  his  father  had  made  in  Samaria.  This  ex- 
traordinary privilege  of  making  streets  in  Damascus,  has 
exceedingly  puzzled  commentators.  Some  of  them  sup- 
pose the  word  hout&oth  signifies  market-places,  where  com- 
modities were  sold,  the  duties  on  which  should  belong  to 
Ahab ;  others  imagine  he  meant  courts  of  justice,  where 
the  king  of  Israel  should  have  the  prerogative  of  sitting  in 
judgment,  and  exercising  a  jurisdiction  over  the  Syrians ; 
others  think  they  were  a  sort  of  piazzas,  of  which  he  should 
receive  the  rents;  one  class  of  interpreters  understand  by 
the  word,  fortifications  or  citadels;  another  class  attempt 
to  prove,  that  palaces  are  meant,  which  Ahab  should  be 
permitted  to  build  as  a  proof  of  his  superiority.  The  priv- 
ileges which  we  know,  from  the  faithful  page  of  history, 
were  actually  granted  to  the  Venetians  for  their  aid,  by  the 
states  of  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem,  during  the  captivity  ot 
Baldwin  II.,  may  perhaps  explain,  in  a  more  satisfactory 
manner,  these  words  of  Benhadad.  The  instrument  by 
which  these  privileges  were  secured,  is  preserved  in  the 
history  of  William,  bishop  of  Tyre,  the  historian  of  the 
crusades,  from  which  it  appears,  they  were  accustomed  to 
assign  churches,  and  to  give  streets  in  their  towns  and 
cities,  with  very  ample  prerogatives  in  these  streets,  to  the 
foreign  nations  who  lent  them  the  most  effectual  assistance. 
The  Venetians  had  a  street  in  Acre,  with  full  jurisdiction 
in  it ;  and  in  what  this  consisted,  we  learn  from  the  deed 
of  settlement  just  mentioned ;  they  had  aright  to  have  in 
their  streets  an  oven,  a  mill,  a  bath,  weights,  and  measures 
for  wine,  oil,  and  honey;  they  had  also  a  right  to  judge 
causes  among  themselves,  together  with  as  great  a  juris- 
diction over  all  those  who  dwelt  in  their  street,  of  what 
nation  soever  they  might  be,  as  the  kings  of  Jerusalem  had 
over  others.  The  same  historian  informs  us,  that  the  Gen- 
oese also  had  a  street  in  that  city,  wiHi  full  jurisdiction  in 
it,  and  a  church,  as  a  reward  for  their  services,  together 
with  a  third  part  of  the  dues  of  the  port.  In  the  treaty  of 
peace  granted  by  Bajazet,  emperor  of  the  Turks,  to  Eman- 
uel, the  Greek  emperor,  it  was  siipulated  that  tho  latter 
should  grant  free  liberty  to  the  Turks  to  dwell  together  in 
one  street  of  Constantinople,  with  the  free  exercise  of  their 
own  religion  and  laws,  under  a  judge  of  their  own  nation. 
This  humiliating  condition  the  Greek  emperor  was  obliged 


to  accept;  and  a  great  number  of  Turks,  with  their  fami- 
lies, were  sent  out  of  Bithynia  to  dwell  in  Constantinople, 
where  a  mosq-ue  was  built  for  their  accommodation.  It  is 
not  improbable,  that  the  same  kind  of  privileges  that  were 
granted  to  the  Venetians,  the  Genoese,  and  the  Turks,  had 
been  granted  to  the  father  of  Benhadad,  by  the  king  of 
Israel,  and  were  now  offered  to  Ahab  in  Damascus,  in  the 
distressed  state  of  his  aifairs.  The  Syrian  monarch  prom- 
ised to  give  his  conqueror  a  number  of  streets  in  his  capital 
city,  for  the  use  of  his  subjects,  with  peculiar  rights  and 
privileges,  which  enabled  him  to  exercise  the  same  juris- 
diction there  as  in  his  own  dominions. — Paxton. 

Mr.  Harmer  has  remarked,  that  "  the  proposal  of  Benha- 
dad, as  to  the  making  and  possession  of  streets  in  Damascus, 
was  better  relished  by  Ahab,  than  understood  by  commen- 
tators ;"  some  of  whom  have  guessed  that  this  expression 
meant  the  erection  of  markets,  or  of  courts  of  judicature, 
or  of  piazzas,  or  of  citadels  and  fortifications,  &c.  Mr. 
Harmer  then  proceeds  to  narrate  the  privileges  granted  to 
the  Venetians,  in  recompense  for  their  aid,  by  the  states 
of  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem;  and  he  observes,  that  it  was 
customary  to  assign  churches,  and  to  give  streets,  in  their 
towns,  to  foreign  nations,  &c.  His  instances,  howev^er, 
are  rather  instances  of  rewards  for  services  performed, 
than  proofs  of  such  terms  as  conditions  of  peace :  proba- 
bly, therefore,  it  will  not  be  disagreeable  to  the  reader  to 
see  a  passage  still  more  applicable  to  the  history  of  Benha- 
dad, than  any  of  those  are  which  Mr.  Harmer  has  pro- 
duced; it  occurs  in  Knolles's  "  History  of  the  Turks,"  p. 
206.  "  Baiazet  having  worthily  relieued  his  besieged  citie; 
returned  againe  to  the  siege  of  Constantinople,  laying  more 
hardly  vnto  it  than  before,  building  forts  and  bulwarks 
against  it  on  the  one  side  towards  the  land ;  and  passing  ouer 
the  strait  of  Bosphorus,  built  a  strong  castle  vpon  that  strait 
ouer  against  Constantinople,  to  impeach  so  much  as  was 
possible,  all  passage  thereunto  by  sea.  This  streight  siege 
(as  most  write)  continued  also  two  yeres,  which  I  suppose 
by  the  circumstance  of  the  historic,  to  haue  been  part  of 
the  aforesaid  eight  yeres.  Emanuel,  the  besieged  Emperor, 
wearied  with  these  long  wars,  sent  an  embassador  to  Baiazet, 
to  intreat  with  him  a  peace ;  which  Baiazet  was  the  more 
willing  to  hearken  vnto,  for  that  he  heard  newes,  that 
Tamerlane,  the  great  Tartarian  Prince,  intended  shortly 
to  war  re  upon  him.  Yet  could  this  peace  not  be  obtained, 
but  upon  condition  that  the  Emperor  should  grant  free  liber- 
tie  for  the  Turks  to  dwell  together  in  one  street  of  Constan- 
tinople, with  free  exercise  of  their  own  religion  and  lawes, 
vnder  a  judge  of  their  own  nation;  and  further,  to  pay  vnto 
the  Turkish  king  a  yeerely  tribute  often  thousand  duckats. 
Which  dishonourable  conditions  the  distressed  Emperor  was 
glad  to  accept  of.  So  was  this  long  siege  broken  vp,  and 
presently  a  great  sort  of  Turks  with  their  families  were  sent 
out  of  Bithynia,  to  dwell  in  Constuntinople,  and  a  church 
there  built  for  them:  which  not  long  after  was  by  the  Eip- 
peror  pulled  downe  to  the  ground,  and  the  Turks  againe 
driuen  out  of  the  citie,  at  such  time  as  Baiazet  was  by  the 
mighty  Tamerlane  ouerthrowne  and  taken  prisoner."  The 
circumstances  of  these  two  stories  are  so  much  alike,  that 
it  merely  now  remains  to  notice  the  propriety  with  which 
our  translators  have  chosen  the  word  streets,  rather  than 
any  other  proposed  by  commentators. — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Ver.  2.  And  Ahab  spake  unto  Nahoth,  saying, 
Give  me  thy  vineyard,  that  I  may  have  it  for 
a  garden  of  herbs,  because  it  is  near  unto  my 
house :  and  I  will  sfive  thee  for  it  a  better  vine- 
yard than  it ;  or,  if  it  seem  good  to  thee,  I  will 
give  thee  the  worth  of  it  in  money. 

Our  first  parents  had  for  their  residence  a  beautiful  gar- 
den, which  may  have  had  some  influence  upon  their  imme- 
diate descendants,  in  giving  them  a  predilection  for  such 
situations.  People  in  England  will  scarcely  be  able  to  ap- 
preciate the  value  which  the  Orientals  place  on  a  garden. 
The  food  of  manv  of  them  consists  of  vegetables,  roots,  and 
fruits  ;  their  medicines,  also,  being  indigenous,  are  most  of 
them  produced  in  their  gardens.  Hence  they  ha /e  their 
fine  fruit  trees,  and  the  constant  shade;  and  here  they  have 
their  wells  and  places  for  bathing.  See  the  proprietor,  m 
his  undress  walking  around  his  little  douiain ;  his  fence 


Chap.  21. 


1  KINGS. 


271 


or  wall  is  so  high  no  one  can  overlook  him:  he  strolls 
about  to  smoke  his  shrjot,  to  pick  up  the  fruit,  and  cull  the 
flowers ;  he  cares  not  for  the  world ;  his  soul  is  satisfied 
with  the  scenes  around  him.  Ahab  wished  to  have  Na- 
both's  garden;  but  how  could  he  part  with  "the  inherit- 
ance" of  his  "  fathers  1"  There  was  scarcely  a  tree  which 
had  not  some  pleasing  associations  connected  with  it :  one 
was  planted  by  the  hand  of  a  beloved  ancestor,  another  in 
memory  of  some  great  event;  the  water  he  drank,  and  the 
fruit  he  ate,  were  from  the  same  sources  as  those  which 
refreshed  his  fathers.  How  then  could  he,  in  disobedience 
to  God's  command,  and  in  violation  of  all  those  tender 
feelings,  give  up  his  garden  to  Ahab  1  To  part  with  such 
a  place  is,  to  the  people  of  the  East,  like  parting  with  life 
iiseli'. — Roberts, 

Ver.  4.  And  he  laid  him  down  upon  his  bed,  and 
tufned  away  his  face,  ^nd  would  eat  no  bread. 

Thus  acted  the  puissant  monarch,  because  he  cowld  not 
get  Naboth's  garden.  See  the  creature  in  the  shape  of  a 
man  pouting  his  lip,  and  throwing  himself  on  his  bed,  and 
refusing  to  eat  food,  because  he  could  not  gain  his  wishes. 
The  domestics  brought  refreshment,  but  their  lord  would 
not  take  it;  and,  therefore,  they  went  to  queen  Jezebel,  to 
communicate  the  sorrowful  intelligence ;  and  she  imme- 
diately went  to  his  majesty  and  inquired,  "Why  is  thy 
spirit  so  sad,  that  thou  eatest  not  bread  V  and  he  told  his 
mournful  story.  How  often  do  we  see  full-grown  men 
acting  in  a  similar  way,  when  disappointed  in  their  wishes: 
go  near  them,  and  they  avert  their  faces ;  offer  them  food, 
they  will  not  eat;  and,  generally  speaking,  their  friends  are 
so  weak  as,  at  any  expense,  to  gratify  their  wishes. — Rob- 


Ver.  7.  And  Jezebel's  vinfe  said  unto  him,  Dost 
thou  now  govern  the  kingdom  of  Israel  ?  arise, 
and  eat  bread,  and  let  thy  heart  be  merry :  I 
will  give  thee  the  vineyard  of  Naboth  the  Jez- 
reelite. 

I  do  not  find  any  statute  that  prohibited  an  Israelite  from 
exchanging  his  inheritance ;  nor  was  there,  indeed,  in  such 
exchange,  unless  when  it  transferred  a  person  to  a  diiferent 
tribe,  any  thing  contrary  to  the  intention  of  the  law,  which 
was  to  prevent  his  latest  posterity  from  ever  being  altoge- 
ther denuded  of  their  land.  Perhaps,  therefore,  it  was  a 
piece  of  mere  crossness  in  Naboth  to  refuse,  in  such  un- 
courtly  terms,  not  only  to  sell,  but  even  to  exchange  his 
vineyard  with  King  'Ahab,  1  Kings  xxi.  7.  At  the  same 
time,  it  is  impossible  to  vindicate  the  despotic  measure,  to 
which  the  barbarous  wife  of  this  too  obsequious  monarch 
had  recourse  in  order  to  obtain  it ;  for  certainly  Naboth 
was  not  obliged  to  exchange  his  vineyard,  unless  he  chose. 

— MiCHAELIS. 

Ver.  8.  So  she  wrote  letters  in  Ahab's  name,  and 
sealed  thein  with  his  seal,  and  sent  the  letters 
unto  the  elders  and  to  the  nobles  that  were  in 
his  city  dwelling  with  Naboth. 

At  this  day,  in  the  East,  not  a  female  in  ten  thousand  is 
acquainted  with  the  art  of  writing ;  and  I  think  it  probable 
that  Ahab's  affectionate  queen  did  not  write  the  letters  with 
her  own  hand,  but  that  she  caused  it  to  be  done  by  others. 
It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  state  of  female  education,  in 
modern  times,  is  precisely  the  same  as  that  of  antiquity; 
for  I  do  not  recollect  any  female  in  the  scriptures,  except- 
ing Jezebel,  who  is  mentioned  as  being  concerned  in  the 
writing  of  letters.  The  talented  Hindoo  female,  Aviyar, 
has  left  wonderful  memorials  of  her  cultivated  mind;  and 
I  doubt  not,  when  female  education  shall  become  general 
in  the  East,  from  them  will  be  furnished  many  an  Aviyar, 
vto  bless  and  adorn  the  future  age. — Roberts. 

The  very  ancient  custom  of  sealing  despatches  with  a 
seal  or  signet,  set  in  a  ring,  is  still  retained  in  the  East. 
Pococke  says,  "in  Egypt  they  make  the  impression  of  their 
name  with  their  seal,  generally  of  cornelian,  which  they 
wear  on  their  finger,  and  Avhich  is  blacked  when  they  have 
occasion  to  seal  with  it."    Hanway  remarks,  that "  the  Per- 


sian ink  serves  not  only  for  writing,  but  for  subscribing 
with  their  seal ;  indeed,  "many  of  the  Persians  in  high  of- 
fice could  not  write.  In  their  rings  they  wear  agates, 
which  serve  for  a  seal,  on  which  is  frequently  engraved  their 
name,  and  some  verse  from  the  Koran."  Shaw  also  has  a 
remark  exactly  to  the  same  purpose. — Bcrder. 

Ver.  10.  And  set  two  men,  sons  of  Belial,  before 
him,  to  bear  witness  against  him,  saying,  Thou 
didst  blaspheme  God  and  the  king. 

Princes  never  want  instruments  to  execute  their  pleasure ; 
and  yet  it  is  strange,  that  among  all  these  judges  and  great 
men,  there  should  be  none  that  abhorred  such  a  villany. 
It  must  be  considered,  however,  that  for  a  long  while  they 
had  cast  off  all  fear  and  sense  of  God,  and  prostituted  their, 
consciences  to  please  their  king :  nor  dare  they  disobey* 
Jezebel's  commands,  who  had  the  full  power  and  govern- 
ment of  the  king,  (as  they  well  knew,")  and  could  easily  have 
taken  away  their  lives,  had  they  refused  to  condemn  Na- 
both,— Stackhouse. 

Ask  any  judge,  any  gentleman  in  the  civil  service  of 
India,  whether  men  may  not  be  had  in  any  village  to  swear 
any  thing  for  the  fraction  of  a  shilling  1  Jezebel  would 
not  find  it  difficult  to  procure  agents  to  swear  away  the  life 
of  Naboth  the  Jezreelite. — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  And  I  will  stretch  over  Jerusalem  the 
line  of  Samaria,  and  the  plummet  of  the  house 
of  Ahab ;  and  I  will  wipe  Jerusalem  as  a  man 
wipeth  a  dish,  wiping  it,  arid  turning  it  upside 
down. 

The  Vulgate  renders  this  clause,  Delebo  Jerusalem,  sicut 
deleri  solent  tabulce :  I  will  blot  out  Jerusalem  as  tablets  are 
wont  to  be  blotted  out.  It  is  a  metaphor  taken  from  the  an- 
cient method  of  writing.  They  traced  their  letters  with  a 
stile  on  boards,  thinly  spread  over  with  wax :  for  this  pur- 
pose one  end  of  the  stile  was  sharp,  the  other  end  blunt  and 
smooth ;  with  this  they  could  rub  out  what  they  had  written, 
and  so  smooth  the  place,  and  spread  back  the  wax,  as  to 
render  it  capable  of  receiving  any  other  words.  Thus  the 
Lord  had  written  down  Jerusalem,  never  intending  that 
its  name  or  memorial  should  be  blotted  out ;  but  now  the 
stile  is  turned,  and  the  name  Jerusalem  is  no  longer  to  be 

found, — BURDER, 

Ver.  15.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  Jezebel  heard 
that  Naboth  was  stoned,  and  was  dead,  that  Jez- 
ebel said  to  Ahab,  Arise,  take  possession  of  the 
vineyard  of  Naboth  the  Jezreelite,  which  he  re- 
fused to  give  thee  for  money:  for  Naboth  is  not 
alive,  but  dead. 

As  Naboth,  according  to  verse  10,  was  executed  as  a 
blasphemer  and  a  traitor,  his  property  did  not  go  to  his  re- 
lations, but  to  the  king.  Even  now,  in  the  Turkish  empire, 
and  in  Persia,  the  property  of  great  men  who  are  executed, 
falls  to  the  public  treasury,  or  the  governors  of  the  province 
seize  upon  it.  The  chans  now  enrich  themselves  with  the 
confiscated  property  of  criminals,  and  other  fines,  which 
formerly  fell  to  the  royal  treasury,  says  Gmelin,  in  his 
Travels  through  Persia  and  Northern  Persia. — Burder. 

Ver.  19.  Thus  saith  the*  Lord,  In  the  place  where 
dogs  licked  the  blood  of  Naboth  shall  dogs  lick 
thy  blood,  even  thine. 

There  is  a  great  dispute  among  the  learned,  as  to  the  ac- 
complishment of  this  prophecy.  At  the  first  it  was  no  doubt 
intended  to  be  literally  fulfilled,  but  upon  Ahab's  repent- 
ance, (as  we  find  below,)  the  punishment  was  transferred 
from  him  to  his  son  Jehoram,  in  whom  it  was  actually  ac- 
coinplished ;  for  his  dead  body  was  cast  into  the  portion  of 
the  field  of  Naboth  the  Jezreelite,  for  the  dogs  to  devour, 
2  Kings  ix.  25.  Since  Ahab's  blood  therefore  was  licked 
by  dogs,  not  at  Jezreel,  but  at  Samaria,  it  seems  necessary 
that  we  should  understand  the  Hebrew  word,  which  our 
translation  renders,  in  the  place  where,  not  as  denoting  the 


172 


1    KINGS. 


Chap.  22. 


place,  but  the  manner  in  which  the  thing  was  done ;  and 
so  the  sense  of  the  passage  will  be,  that  as  dogs  licked,  or 
in  like  manner,  as  dogs  licked  Naboth's  blood,  even  so 
shall  they  lick  thine,  observe  what  I  say,  even  thine. — 
Sj'ackhouse. 

Ver.  23.  And  of  Jezebel  also  spake  the  Lord, 
saying,  Tlie  dogs  shall  eat  Jezebel  by  the  wall 
of  Jezreel. 

This,  to  an  English  ear,  sounds  very  surprising ;  that 
during  the  time  of  a  single  meal,  so  many  dogs  should  be 
on  the  spot,  ready  to  devour,  and  should  so  speedily  de- 
spatch this  business,  in  the  very  midst  of  a  royal  city,  close 
under  the  royal  gateway,  and  where  a  considerable  train 
^  of  people  had  so  lately  passed,  and,  no  doubt,  many  were 
'continually  passing:  this,  to  an  English  reader,  appears 
extremely  unaccountable ;  but  we  find  it  well  accounted 
for  by  Mr.  Bruce,  whose  information  the  reader  will 
receive  with  due  allowance  for  the  different  manners  and 
ideas  of  countries ;  after  which,  this  rapid  devouring  of 
Jezebel  will  not  appear  so  extraordinary  as  it  has  hitherto 
done.  "  The  bodies  of  those  killed  by  the  sword  loere  hewn 
to  pieces,  and  scattered  about  the  streets,  being  denied  burial. 
I  was  miserable,  and  almost  driven  to  despair,  at  seeing  my 
hunting-dogs  twice  let  loose  by  the  carelessness  of  my 
servants,  bringing  into  the  courtyard  the  heads  and  arms  of 
slaughtered  men,  and  which  I  could  no  way  prevent,  but  by 
the  destruction  of  the  dogs  themselves :  the  quantity  of 
carrion,  and  the  stench  of  it,  brought  down  the  hyenas  in 
hundreds  from  the  neighbouring  mountains ;  and  as  few 
people  in  Gondar  go  out  after  it  is  dark,  they  enjoyed  the 
streets  to  themselves,  and  seemed  ready  to  dispute  the  pos- 
session of  the  city  with  the  inhabitants.  Often,  when  I  went 
home  late  from  the  palace,  and  it  was  this  time  the  king 
chose  chiefly  for  conversation,  though  I  had  but  to  pass  the 
corner  of  the  market-place  before  the  palace,  had  lanterns 
with  me,  and  was  surrounded  with  armed  men,  I  heard 
them  grufiting  by  twos  and  threes,  so  near  me  as  to  be 
afraid  they  would  take  some  opportunity  of  seizing  me  by 
the  leg.  A  pistol  would  have  frightened  them,  and  made 
them  speedily  run,  and  I  constantly  carried  two  loaded  at 
my  girdle  ;  but  the  discharging  a  pistol  in  the  night  would 
have  alarmed  every  one  that  heard  it  in  the  town,  and  it 
was  not  now  the  time  to  add  any  thing  to  people's  fears.  I 
at  last  scarcely  ever  went  out,  and  nothing  occupied  my 
thoughts  but  how  to  escape  from  this  blopdy  country,  by 
way  of  Sennaar,  and  how  I  could  best  exert  my  power  and 
influence  over  Yasine,  at  Ras  el  Feel,  to  pave  my  way,  by 
assisting  me  to  pass  the  desert,  into  Atbara.  The  king, 
missing  me.  at  the  palace,  and  hearing  I  had  not  been  at 
Ras  Michael's,  began  to  inquire  who  had  been  with  me? 
Ayto  Confu  soon  found  Yasine,  who  informed  him  of  the 
whole  matter.  Upon  this  I  was  sent  for  to  the  palace, 
where  I  found  the  king,  without  anybody  but  menial  ser- 
vants. He  immediately  remarked,  that  I  looked  very  ill, 
which,  indeed,  I  found  to  be  the  case,  as  I  had  scarcely  ate 
or  slept  since  I  saw  him  last,  or  even  for  some  days  before. 
He  asked  me,  in  a  condoling  tone,  what  ailed  me  ?  That 
besides  looking  sick,  I  seemed  as  if  something  had  ruffled 
me,  and  put  me  out  of  humour.  I  told  him,  that  what  he 
observed  was  true :  that  coming  across  the  market-place,  I 
had  seen  Za  Mariam,  the  Ras's  doorkeeper,  with  three  men 
bound,  one  of  whom  he  fell  a-hacking  to  pieces  in  my 
presence,  and  upon  seeing  me  running  across  the  place, 
stopping  my  nose,  he  called  me  to  stay  till  he  should  come 
and  despatch  the  other  two,  for  he  wanted  to  speak  with 
me,  as  if  he  had  been  engaged  about  ordinary  business ; 
that  the  soldiers,  in  consideration  of  his  haste,  immediately 
fell  upon  the  other  two,  whose  cries  were  still  remaining  in 
my  ears ;  that  the  hyenas,  at  night,  would  scarcely  let  me 
pass  in  the  streets,  when  I  returned  from  the  palace;  and  the 
dogs  fled  into  my  house  to  eat  pieces  of  human  carcasses  at  their 
leisure."    (Travels,  vol',  iv.,  page  81,  &c.) 

Without  supposing  that  Jezreel  was  pestered  with  hye- 
nas, like  Gondar,  though  that  is  not  incredible,  we  may 
now  easily  admit  of  a  sufficiency  of  do^s,  accustomed  to 
carnage,  which  had  pulled  the  body  of  Jezebel  to  pieces, 
nnd  had  devoured  it  before  the  palace  gate,  or  had  with- 
drawn with  parts  of  it  to  their  hiding-places.  But  perhaps 
the  mention  of  the  head,  hands,  and  feet,  being  left  on  the 
spot,  indicates  that  it  had  not  been  removed  by  the  dogs,  but 


was  eaten  where  it  fell,  (as  those  parts  adjoined  the  mem- 
bers most  likely  to  be  removed,)  so  that  the  prophecy  of 
Elijah  was  literally  fulfilled:  "In  the  portion  of  Jezreel, 
shall  dogs  eat  Jezebel."  This  account  illustrates  also  the 
readiness  of  the  dogs  to  lick  the  blood  of  Ahab,  1  Kings 
xxii.  38,  in  perfect  conformity  to  which  is  the  expression 
of  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  xv.  3,  "  I  will  appoint  over  them 

the  sword  to  slay,  and  the  dogs  to  tear,  and  the  fowls  of 

the  heaven,  and  the  beasts  of  the  earth,  [the  hyenas  of  Mr. 
Bruce,  perhaps,]  to  devour  and  destroy.'^  Mr.  Bruce's  ac- 
count also  explains  the  mode  of  execution  adopted  by  the 
prophet  Samuel,  with  regard  to  Agag,  king  of  the  Amalek- 
ites,  whom  Samuel  thus  addresses : — "  In  like  manner 
[literally,  in  like  procedure  as — i.  e.  in  the  same  identical 
mode  of  execution]  as  thy  sword  has  made  women  barren, 
so  shall  thy  mother  be  rendered  barren  [childless]  among 
women."  I  Sam.  xv.  33.  If  these  words  do  not  imply  that 
Agag  had  ripped  up  pregifant  women,  they  at  least  imply 
that  he  had  hewed  many  prisoners  to  death !  for  we  find  that 
"  Samuel  caused  Agag  to  be  hewed  in  pieces  before  the  face 
of  the  Lord  [probably  not  before  the  residence  of  Saul,  but 
before  the  tabernacle,  &c.]  in  Gilgal,"  directing  that  very 
same  mode  of  punishment  (hitherto,  we  suppose,  unadopted 
in  Israel)  to  be  used  towards  him,  which  he  had  formerly 
used  towards  others.  The  character  of  the  prophet  Samuel 
has  been  vilified  for  cruelty  on  account  of  this  history,  with 
how  little  reason  let  the  reader  now  judge ;  and  compare  a 
similar  retributive  act  of  justice  on  Adonibezek,  Judges  i.  7. 
—Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  27.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  Ahab  heard 
those  words,  that  he  rent  his  clothes,  and  put 
sackcloth  upon  his  flesh,  and  fasted,  and  lay  in 
sackcloth,  and  went  softly. 

See  the  man  who  goes  into  the  presence  of  a  superior ; 
he  takes  off  his  sandals,  and  walks  softly — he  has  a  timid 
air,  and  you  cannot  hear  his  fooi  tread  on  the  ground. 
When  a  dutiful  son  goes  to  his  father,  or  a  devotee  into 
the  presence  of  a  sacred  personage,  he  walks  in  the  same 
way.  Has  a  proud,  boasting  man,  been  humbled,  the  people 
say,  "  Ah  !  aha !  he  can  now  walk  mitha-vdka,"  i.  e.  softly. 
"What!  the  proud  Mutto  walk  softly;  whoever  expected 
thaf?" — Roberts. 

Going  softly  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  many  expres- 
sions of  mourning  commonly  used  among  the  eastern 
nations.  That  it  was  in  use  among  the  Jews  appears  from 
the  case  of  Ahab;  and  by  mistake  it  has  been  confounded 
with  walking  barefoot.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  very  slow, 
solemn  manner  of  walking,  well  adapted  to  the  state  of 
mourners  labouring  under  great  sorrow  and  dejection  of 
mind. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Ver.  11.  And  Zedekiah  the  son  of  Chenaanah 
made  him  horns  of  iron  ;  and  he  said.  Thus 
saith  the  Lord,  With  these  shalt  thou  push  the 
Syrians,  until  thou  have  consumed  them. 

The  Indian  soldier  wears  a  horn  of  steel  on  the  front  of 
his  helmet,  directly  over  the  forehead.  In  Abyssinia  the 
headdress  of  the  provincial  governors,  according  to  Mr. 
Bruce,  consists  of  a  large  broad  fillet  bound  upon  their 
forehead,  and  tied  behind  their  head.  In  the  middle  of  this 
rises  a  horn,  or  conical  piece  of  silver,  gilt,  about  four 
inches  long,  much  in  the  shape  of  our  common  candle  ex- 
tinguishers. This  is  called  kir^i,  a  slight  corruption  of 
the  Hebrew  word  keren,  a  horn,  and  is  only  worn  in  re- 
views, or  parades  after  victory.  The  crooked  manner  in 
which  they  hold  the  neck  when  this  ornament  is  on  their 
forehead,  for  fear  it  should  fall  forward,  seems  to  agree 
with  what  the  Psalmist  calls  speaking  with  a  stiff  neck : 
"  Lift  not  your  horn  on  high ;  speak  not  wiih  a  stiff  neck ;"', 
for  it  perfectly  shows  the  meaning  of  speaking  in  this  atti- 
tude, when  the  horn  is  held  exact  like  the  horn  of  a  uni- 
corn. An  allusion  is  made  to  this  custom  in  another  pas- 
sage :  "  But  my  horn  shalt  thou  exalt  like  the  horn  of  a 
unicorn."  To  raise  the  horn  was  to  clothe  one  with  au- 
thority, or  to  do  him  honour ;  to  loM'er  it,  cut  it  off,  or  take 
it  away,  to  deprive  one  of  power,  or  to  treat  him  with  dis- 
respect.   Such  were  the  "horns  of  iron"  which  Zedekiah 


Chap.  22. 


1  KINGS. 


273 


made  for  himself,  when  he  presumed,  in  the  name  of  Jeho- 
vah, to  flatter  his  prince  with  the  promise  of  victory  over 
his  enemies:  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,  with  these"  military 
insignia  "  shalt  thou  push  the  Syrians  until  thou  hast  con- 
sumed them."  They  were  military  ornaments,  the  symbols 
of  strength,  and  courage,  and  power. — Paxton. 

Ver.  1 6.  And  the  king  said  unto  him,  How  many 
times  shall  I  adjure  thee  that  thou  tell  me 
nothing  but  that  which  is  true  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord  ? 

In  England,  this  solemn  appeal  is  never  made  but  in 
cases  of  extremity ;  but  in  the  East,  the  most  trifling  cir- 
cumstance will  induce  a  person  to  say,  Unni-dni-uddukerain, 
"  By  thy  oath;"  or,  "  I  impose  it  upon  thee." — Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  And  Micaiah  said,  Behold,  thou  shalt 
see  in  that  day,  when  thou  shalt  go  into  an  inner 
chamber  to  hide  thyself. 

"  In  one  of  the  halls  of  the  seraglio  at  Constantinople," 
says  De  la  Motraye,  "  the  eunuch  made  us  pass  by  several 
little  chambers,  with  doors  shut,  like  the  cells  of  monks  or  nuns, 
as  far  as  I  could  judge  by  one  that  another  eunuch  opened, 
which  was  the  only  one  I  saw;  and  by  the  outside  of 
others.  Asan  Firally  Bashaw,  being  summoned  by  his 
friends,  came  out  of  a  little  house  near  the  towers,  where 
he  Ijad  been  long  hidden  in  his  harem,  which,  had  it  been 
suspected  by  the  mufti,  he  had  not  denied  his  fetfa  to  the 
emperor,  for  seizing  his  person,  even  there.  The  harems 
are  sanctuaries,  as  sacred  and  inviolable  for  persons  pur- 
sued by  justice  for  any  crime,  debt,  &c.  as  the  Roman 
Catholic  churches  in  Italy,  Spain,  Portugal,  &c.  Though 
the  grand  seignior's  power  over  his  creatures  is  such,  that 
he  may  send  some  of  his  eunuchs  even  there  to  apprehend 
those  who  resist  his  will.  The  harems  of  the  Greeks  are 
almost  as  sacred  as  those  of  the  Turks;  so  that  the  officers 
of  justice  dare  not  enter  without  being  sure  that  a  man  is 
there,  contrary  to  the  law :  and  if  they  should  go  in  and 
not  find  what  they  look  for,  the  women  may  punish,  and 
even  kill  them,  without  being  molested  for  any  infringe- 
ment of  the  law :  on  the  contrary,  the  relations  would  have 
a  right  to  make  reprisals,  and  demand  satisfaction  for  such 
violence." 

Those  who  have  not  seen  the  cells  of  monks,  or  nuns,  in 
foreign  countries,  may  conceive  of  a  long  gallery,  or  other 
spacious  apartment,  as  a  large  hall,  <Sic.  into  which  the 
doors  of  the  cells  open :  these  cells  consist  of  one  room  to 
each  person,  but  frequently  of  two  rooms,  one  of  which  is 
used  for  sleeping  in ;  the  other  for  less  retired  purposes, 
conversation,  &c.  Agreeably  to  this,  it  appears,  that  in  the 
East  also,  we  must  first  pass  through  a  long  hall,  or  gallery, 
before  we  can  enter  the  peculiar  abode  of  any  particular 
woman  of  the  harem.  We  may  first  apply  this  mode  of 
dwelling  to  a  circumstance  threatened  by  the  prophet 
Micaiah,  to  his  opponent  Zedekiah,  1  Kings  xxii.  25, 
"  Thou  shalt  go  into  an  inner  chamber  to  hide  thyself." 
Our  translators  have  put  in  the  margm,  "  from  chamber  to 
chamber."  The  Hebrew  is,  (mn  2  mn  cheder  be  cheder,) 
"  chamber  within  chamber,"  which  exactly  agrees  with  the 
description  extracted  ;  but  it  is  new  to  consider  this  threat 
as  predicting  that  Zedekiah  should  fly  for  shelter  to  a 
harem,  [as  we  find  Assan  Firally  Bashaw  had  done ;]  that 
his  fear  should  render  him,  as  it  were,  effeminate,  and  that 
he  should  seek  refuge  where  it  was  not  usual  for  a  man  to 
seek  it ;  where  the  "  officers  of  justice,"  nor  even  those  of 
conquerors,  usually  penetrated.  There  is  an  additional 
disgrace,  a  sting  in  these  words,  if  this  be  the  intention  of 
the  speaker,  stronger  than  what  has  hitherto  been  noticed 


in  them.  Is  not  something  similar  related  of  Benhadad, 
1  Kings  XX.  30,  "  He  fled,"  and  was  so  overcome  with  fear, 
that  he  hid  himself  in  "  a  chamber  within  chamber  1"  As 
it  is  very  characteristic  of  braggarts  and  drunkards  (see 
verses  16,  18,  &c.)  to  be  mentally  overwhelmed  when  in 
adversity,  may  we  not  suppose  "that  Benhadad  was  now 
concealed  in  the  harem  1  Following  circumstances  do  not 
militate  against  this  supposition.  That  the  word  cheder 
means  a  woman's  chamber,  appears  from  Judges  xv.  1, 
where  Samson  says,  "  I  will  go  to  my  wife  into  her  cham- 
ber" (mnnn.) — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  43.  And  he  walked  in  all  the  ways  of  Asa 
his  father ;  he  turned  not  aside  from  it,  doing 
that  which  was  right  in  the  eyes  of  the  Lord  : 
nevertheless  the  high  places  were  not  taken 
away ;  for  the  people  offered  and  burnt  incense 
yet  in  the  high  places. 

Many  of  old  worshipped  upon  hills  and  on  the  tops  of 
high  mountains ;  imagining  that  they  thereby  obtained  a 
nearer  communication  with  heaven.  Strabo  says  that  the 
Persians  always  performed  their  worship  upon  hills.  Some 
nations,  instead  of  an  image,  worshipped  the  hill  as  the 
deity.  In  Japan  most  of  their  temples  are  at  this  day  upon 
eminences ;  and  often  upon  the  ascent  of  high  mountains, 
commanding  fine  vicAvs,  with  groves  and  rivulets  of  clear 
water :  for  they  say,  that  the  gods  are  extremely  delighted 
with  such  high  aiid  pleasant  spots.  (Kaempfer's  Japan.) 
This  practice,  in  early  times,  was  almost  universal ;  ana 
every  mountain  was  esteemed  holy.  The  people  who  prose- 
cuted this  method  of  worship  enjoyed  a  soothing  infatuation, 
which  flattered  the  gloom  of  superstition.  The  eminencas 
to  which  they  retired  were  lonely  and  silent,  and  seemed 
to  be  happily  circumstanced  for  contemplation  and  prayer. 
They  who  frequented  them  were  raised  above  the  lower 
world,  and  fancied  that  they  were  brought  into  the  vicinity 
of  the  powers  of  the  air,  and  of  the  deity  who  resided  in  the 
higher  regions.  But  the  chief  excellence  for  which  they 
were  frequented  was,  that  they  were  looked  upon  as  the 
peculiar  places  where  God  delivered  his  oracles.  — Burder. 

Ver.  48.  Jehoshaphat  made  ships  of  Tharshish  to 
go  to  Ophir  for  gold ;  but  they  went  not :  for 
the  ships  were  broken  at  Ezion-geber. 

"  Suez,  which  was  the  Arsinoe  of  the  ancients,  is  situated 
at  the  top  of  the  Red  Sea :  it  stands  surrounded  by  the 
desert,  and  is  a  shabby,  ill-built  place  ;  the  ships  anchor  a 
league  from  the  town,  to  which  the  channel  that  leads  is 
very  narrow,  and  has  only  nine  or  ten  feet  depth  of  water; 
for  which  reason,  the  large  ships  that  are  built  here  must 
be  towed  down  to  the  road,  without  mast,  guns,  or  any 
thing  in  them ;  there  are  eight  of  them  lying  here,  which 
have  not  been  to  Juddah  this  year ;  one  of  them  is  at  least 
twelve  hundred  tons  burden,  being  as  lofty  as  a  hundred 
gun  ship,  though  not  longer  than  a  frigate ;  so  that  you 
may  judge  of  the  good  proportions  they  observe  in  the  con- 
struction of  their  ships;  the  timber  of  which  they  are  all 
built  is  brought  from  Syria  by  water,  to  Cairo,  and  from 
thence  on  camels.  This  fleet  sails  for  Juddah  every  year, 
before  the  Hadge ;  stays  there  two  or  three  months,  and 
returns  loaded  with  coffee :  this  is  so  material  an  article  in 
the  diet  of  a  mussulman,  that  the  prayers  and  wishes  01 
them  all  are  offered  up  for  its  safety :  and  I  believe,  next 
to  the  loss  of  their  country,  the  loss  of  their  coffee  would  be 
most  severely  felt  by  them.  The  greatest  part  of  it  is  sent 
to  Constantinople,  and  other  parts  of  Turkey,  but  a  small 
quantity  going  to  France  and  Iialy."  (Major  Rooke,  p.  73.) 
— Burder. 


THE   SECOND  BOOK   OF  KINGS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  2.  And  Ahaziah  fell  down  ihrough  a  lattice 
in  his  upper  chamber  that  was  in  Samaria,  and 
was  sick :  and  he  sent  messengers,  and  said 
unto  them.  Go,  inquire  of  Baal-zebub,  the  god 
of  Ekron,   whether   I   shall   recover   of  this 


In  the  eastern  countries  the  roofs  of  the  houses  were  flat, 
and  surrounded  with  a  battlement,  to  prevent  falling  from 
them,  because  it  was  a  customary  thing  for  people  to  walk 
upon  them,  in  order  to  take  the  air.  Now  in  this  battle- 
ment we  may  suppose  thut  there  were  some  wooden  latti- 
ces for  people  to  look  through,  of  equal  height  with  the  par- 
apet wall,  and  that  Ahaziah  negligently  leaning  on  it,  as  it 
was  rotten  and  infirm  it  broke  down,  and  let  him  fall  into 
the  court,  or  garden,  belonging  to  his  house.  Or  there  is 
another  way  wherein  he  might  fall.  In  these  flat  roofs 
there  was  generally  an  opening,  which  served  instead  of  a 
sky  light  to  the  house  below,  and  this  opening  might  be 
done  over  with  lattice-work,  which  the  king,  as  he  was 
carelessly  walking,  might  chance  to  step  upon  and  slip 
through.  Nor  is  there  any  absurdity  in  supposing  such  lat- 
tice-work in  a  king's  palace,  when  the  world  was  not  ar- 
rived to  that  height  of  art  and  curiosity  that  we  find  in  it 
now. — Stackhouse. 

Ver.  3.  Is  it  not  because  there  is  not  a  God  in  Is- 
rael, that  ye  go  to  inquire  of  Baal-zebub,  the 
god  of  Ekron  1 

We,  perhaps,  may  be  a  good  deal  surprised  to  find,  that 
the  driving  away  of  flies  should  be  thought  by  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  country  about  Ekron  so  important,  that  they 
should  give  a  name  to  the  idol  they  worshipped,  expressive 
of  that  property,  (Baal-zebub,  lord  of  the  fly ;)  more  especially 
when  this  was  not  the  only  quality  ascribed  to  him,  but  it 
was  supposed  the  power  of  predicting  such  momentous 
matters  as  the  continuance  of  the  life  of  great  princes,  or 
their  approaching  death,  did  also  belong  to  him ;  but  pos- 
sibly a  passage  in  Vinisauf  may  lessen  this  astonishment. 
Vinisauf,  speaking  of  the  army  under  our  Richard  the  First, 
a  little  before  he  left  the  Holy  Land,  and  describing  them 
as  marching  on  the  plain  not  far  from  the  seacoast,  towards 
a  place  called  Ybelin,  which  belonged  to  the  knights  hos- 
pitalers of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem,  pretty  near  Hebron,  says, 
"  The  army  stopping  a  while  there,  rejoicing  in  the  hope  of 
speedily  setting  out  for  Jerusalem,  were  assailed  by  a  most 
minute  kind  of  fly,  flying  about  like  sparks,  which  they 
called  cincinnellcB.  With  these  the  whole  neighbouring 
region  round  about  was  filled.  These  most  wretchedly 
infested  the  pilgrims,  piercing  with  great  smartness  the 
hands,  necks,  throats,  foreheads,  and  faces,  and  every  part 
that  was  uncovered,  a  most  violent  burning  tumour  follow- 
ing the  punctures  made  by  them,  so  that  all  that  they  stung 
looked  like  lepers."  He  adds,  "that  they  could  hardly 
guard  themselves  from  this  most  troublesome  vexation,  by 
covering  their  heads  and  necks  with  veils."  What  these 
fireflies  were,  and  whether  they  shone  in  the  dark,  and  for 
that  reason  are  compared  to  sparks  flying  about,  or  whether 
they  were  compared  to  them  on  the  account  of  the  burning 
heat  they  occasioned,  as  well  as  a  swelling  in  the  flesh  of  all 
they  wounded,  I  shall  not  take  upon  me  to  determine.  I 
woiild  only  observe,  Richard  and  his  people  met  with  them 
in  that  part  of  the  country,  which  seemed  to  be  of  the 
country  which  was  not  very  far  from  Ekron,  and  which 
peemed  to  be  of  much  the  same  general  nature — a  plain  not 
far  from  the  seacoast. 

Can  we  wonder,  after  this  recital,  that  those  poor  hea- 


then who  lived  in  and  about  Ekron,  derived  much  conso- 
lation from  the  supposed  power  of  the  idol  they  worshipped, 
to  drive  away  the  cincinnellae  of  that  country,  which  were 
so  extremely  vexatious  to  these  pilgrims  of  the  12th  century, 
and  occasioned  them  so  much  pain.  Lord  of  the  fly,  lord 
of  these  cincinnellae,  must  have  appeared  to  them  a  very 
pleasing,  a  very  important  title.  ■*'■ 

I  will  only  add,  that  Sandys,  in  his  travels  in  the  sam- 
country,  but  more  to  the  northward,  speaks  of  the  air 
appearing  as  if  full  of  sparkles  of  flre,  borne  to  and  fro 
with  the  wind,  after  much  rain  and  a  thunderstorm,  which 
appearance  of  sparkles  of  fire  he  attributes  to  infinite 
swarms  of  flies  that  shone  like  glow-worms  ;  but  he  gives 
not  the  least  intimation  of  their  being  incommoded  by  them. 
What  this  difference  was  owing  to,  it  is  quite  beside  the  de- 
sign of  these  papers  to  inquire ;  whether  its  being  about 
two  months  earlier  in  the  year,  more  to  the  northward,  or 
immediately  after  much  rain  and  a  thunderstorm,  was  a 
cause  of  the  innoxiousness  of  these  animals  when  Sandys 
travelled,  and  even  whether  the  appearance  Sandys  speaks 
of,  was  really  owing  to  insects,  or  to  any  effect  of  electricity, 
I  leave  to  others  to  determine. — Harmer. 

Ver.  4.  Now,  therefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord,  Thou 
shalt  not  come  down  from  that  bed  on  which 
thou  art  gone  up,  but  shalt  surely  die.  And 
Elijah  departed. 

This  expression  may  be  illustrated  by  what  Shaw  says 
of  the  Moorish  houses  in  Barbary,  (Travels,  p.  209,)  where, 
after  having  observed  that  their  chambers  are  spacious,  of 
the  same  length  with  the  square  court  on  the  sides  of  which 
they  are  built,  he  adds,  "  at  one  end  of  each  chamber  there 
is  a  little  gallery  raised  three,  four,  or  five  feet  above  the 
floor,  with  a  balustrade  in  the  front  of  it,  with  afeio  steps 
likewise  leading  up  to  it.  Here  they  place  their  beds;  a 
situation  frequently  alluded  to  in  the  holy  scriptures,  which 
may  likewise  illustrate  the  circumstance  of  Hezekiah's 
turning  his  face,  whenhe  prayed,  towards  the  wall,  (i.  e.  from 
his  attendants,)  2  Kings  xx.  2,  that  the  fervency  of  his  de- 
votion might  be  the  less  taken  notice  of  and  observed.  The 
like  is  related  of  Ahab,  (1  Kings  xxi.  4,)  though  probably 
he  did  thus,  not  upon  a  religious  account,  but  in  order  to 
conceal  from  his  attendants  the  anguish  he  was  in  for  hv 
late  disappointment." — Burder. 

Ver.  8.  And  they  answered  him.  He  was  a  hairy 
man,  and  girt  with  a  girdle  of  leather  abou. 
his  loins.  And  he  said,  It  is  Elijah  the  Tish 
bite. 

See  on  Matt.  3. 4 

Ver.  15.  And  the  angel  of  the  Lord  said  untc 
Elijah,  Go  down  with  him ;  be  not  afraid  oi 
him.  And  he  arose,  and  went  down  with  him 
unto  the  king. 

Sec  on  I  Sam.  17.  51. 

Ver.  16.  Therefore  thou  shalt  not  come  dowTi  off 
that  bed  on  which  thou  art  gone  up,  but  shalt 
surely  die. 

At  one  end  of  each  chamber  is  a  little  gallery,  raised 
three  or  four  feet  above  the  floor,  with  a  balustrade  in  front, 
to  which  thev  go  up  by  a  few  steps.  Here  they  place  their 
beds ;  a  situation  frequently  alluded  to  in  the  holy  scrip- 
tures. Thus  Jacob  addressed  his  undutiful  son,  in  his  last 
benediction :    "  Thou  wentest  up  to  thy  father's  bed,— hr 


Chap.  2. 


2   KINGS. 


275 


went  up  to  my  couch."  The  allusion  is  again  involved  in 
the  declaration  of  Elijah  to  the  king  of  Samaria:  "Now, 
therefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord,  Thou  shalt  not  come  down 
from  that  bed  on  which  thou  art  gone  up,  but  shalt  surely 
die."  And  the  Psalmist  sware  unto  the  Lord,  and  vowed 
unto  the  mighty  God  of  Jacob,  "  Surely  I  will  not  come 
into  the  tabernacle  of  my  house,  nor  go  up  into  my  bed, — 
until  I  find  out  a  place* for  the  Lord."  This  arrangement 
may  likewise  illustrate  the  circumstance  of  Hezekiah's 
"  turning  his  face  to  the  wall,  when  he  prayed,"  that  the 
greatness  of  his  sorrow,  and  the  fervour  of  his  -devotion, 
might,  as  much  as  possible,  be  concealed  from  his  attendants. 
The  same  thing  is  related  of  Ahab,  although  we  have  no 
reason  to  think  it  was  upon  a  religious  account,  but  in  order 
to  conceal  from  those  about  him  the  anguish  he  felt  for  his 
late  disappointment ;  or,  perhaps,  by  so  great  a  show  of 
sorrow,  to  provoke  them  to  devise  some  means  to  gratify 
his  wishes :  "  And  he  laid  him  down  upon  his  bed,  and 
turned  away  his  face,  and  would  eat  no  bread." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  3.  And  the  sons  of  the  prophets  that  were  at 
Bethel  came  forth  to  Elisha,  and  said  unto  him, 
Knowest  thou  that  the  Lord  will  take  away 
thy  master  from  thy  head  to-day  ?  And  he  said, 
Yea,  I  know  it ;  hold  ye  your  peace. 

The  expression  in  the  text  is,  "  Knowest  thou,  that  the 
Lord  will  take  away  thy  master  from  thy  head  to-day  1" 
where  the  sons  of  the  prophets  allude  to  their  manner  of 
sitting  in  their  school :  for  the  scholars  used  to  sit  below 
their  masters'  feet,  and  the  masters  above  over  their  heads, 
when  they  taught  them :  and  therefore  the  sense  of  the  words 
is,  that  God  would  deprive  Elisha  of  his  master  Elijah's  in- 
structions, viz,  by  a  sudden  death.  For  it  does  not  appear 
that  they  had  any  notion  of  his  translation ;  so  far  from  this, 
that  they  desired  leave  to  send  out  some  to  seek  for  him, 
"  if  peradventure  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  had  taken  him  up, 
and  cast  him  upon  some  mountain,  or  into  some  valley," 
ver,  16. — Stackhouse.  * 

Ver.  11.  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  still  went 
on,  and  talked,  that,  behold,  there  appeared  a 
chariot  of  fire,  and  horses  of  fire,  and  parted 
them  both  asunder ;  and  Elijah  went  up  by  a 
whirlwind  into  heaven. 

The  Hindoos  believe  their  supreme  god  Siva  sends  his 
angels,  with  a  green  chariot,  to  fetch  the  souls  of  those  who 
are  devoted  to  him ;  that  there  are  occasionally  horses,  but 
at  other  times  none.  "  The  holy  king  Tirru-Sangu  (i.  e. 
divine  chank)  was  taken  to  heaven,  body  and  soul,  without 
the  pain  of  dying."  When  a  man,  as  a  heathen,  is  very 
regular  in  his  devotions ;  or  when  he  reproves  others  for 
vice,  or  neglect  of  duty,  it  is  often  scornfully  asked, 
*'  What !  are  you  expecting  the  green  chariot  to  be  sent  for 
youT'  meaning,  "  Do  you,  by  your  devotions,  expect  to  go 
to  heaven  in  the  chariot  of  Siva  without  the  pain  of  dying  1" 
Does  a  man  act  with  great  injustice,  the  person  who  finds 
him  out  asks,  "  Will  you  get  the  green  chariot  for  thisl" 
Has  a  heathen  embraced  Christianity,  he  is  asked  the  same 
question.  "  Charity,  charity,"  says  the  beggar  at  your  door, 
"  and  the  green  chariot  will  be  sent  for  you." — Roberts. 

Ver.  1 2.  And  Elisha  saw  it,  and  he  cried,  My  fa- 
ther, my  father  !  the  chariot  of  Israel,  and  the 
horsemen  thereof  And  he  saAV  him  no  more  : 
and  he  took  hold  of  his  own  clothes,  and  rent 
them  in  two  pieces. 

The  words  of  Elisha  upon  this  occasion  are,  "  My  fa- 
ther, my  father !"  (so  they  called  their  masters  and  instruc- 
ters,)  "the  chariot  of  Israel,  and  the  horsemen  thereof." 
The  expression  alludes  to  the  form  of  the  chariot  and  horses 
that  he  had  just  then  beheld,  and  seems  to  imply,  "  That 
Elijah,  by  his  example,  and  counsel,  and  prayers,  and  pow- 
er with  God,  did  more  for  the  defence  and  preservation  of 
Israel,  than  all  their  chariots  and  horses,  and  other  warlike 
provisions :"  unless  we  may  suppose,  that  this  was  an  ab- 


rupt speech,  which  Elisha,  in  the  consternation  he  was  in, 
lett  unfinished,  and  so  the  sacred  history  has  recorded  it. — 
Stackhouse. 

Ver.  19.  And  the  men  of  the  city  said  unto  Eli- 
sha, Behold,  I  pray  thee,  the  situation  of  this 
city  is  pleasant,  as  my  lord  seeth :  but  the 
water  is  naught,  and  the  ground  barren. 

Margin,  "  causing  to  miscarry."  If  the  latter  reading  is 
allowed  to  be  more  just  than  the  former,  we  must  entertain 
a  different  idea  of  the  situation  of  Jericho  than  the  textual 
translation  suggests.  There  are  actually  at  this  time  cities 
where  animal  life  of  certain  kinds  pines,  and  decays,  and 
dies ;  and  where  that  posterity  which  should  replace  such 
loss  is  either  not  conceived;  or,  if  conceived,  is  not  brought 
to  the  birth ;  or  if  brought  to  the  birth,  is  fatal  in  delivery 
to  both  mother  and  oflTspring.  An  instance  of  this  kind  oc- 
curs in  Don  UUoa's  Voyage  to  South  America.  He  says 
of  the  climate  of  Porto  Bello,  that  "it  destroys  the  vigour  "of 
nature,  and  often  untimely  cuts  the  thread  of  life."  And  of 
Sennaar,  Mr.  Bruce  says,  that  "  no  horse,  mule,  ass,  or  any 
beast  of  burden,  will  breed  or  even  live  at  Sennaar,  or 
many  miles  about  it.  Poultry  does  not  live  there ;  neither 
dog  nor  cat,  sheep  nor  bullock,  can  be  preserved  a  season 
there.  They  must  go  all,  every  half  year,  to  the  sands. 
Though  every  possible  care  be  taken  of  them,  they  die  in 
every  place  where  the  fat  earth  is  about  the  town,  during 
the  fir^t  season  of  the  rains."  He  further  mentions,  that  the 
situation  is  equally  unfavourable  to  most  trees.— Burder. 

Ver.  20.  And  he  said,  Bring  me  a  new  cruise, 
and  put  salt  therein.  And  they  brought  it  to 
him. 

The  Hebrew,  tjelachU  {n-^rh^i)  is  used  to  denote  a  vessel 
of  some  capacity ;  a  vessel  to  be  turned  upside  down,  in 
order  that  the  inside  maybe  thoroughly  wiped,  (2  Kings  xxi, 
13;)  "I  will  wipe  Jerusalem,  as  a  man  wipeth  a  dish, 
turning  it  upside  down."  This  implies,  at  least,  that  the 
opening  of  such  a  dish  be  not  narrow  but  wide ;  that  the 
dish  itself  be  of  a  certain  depth ;  yet  that  the  hand  may 
readily  reach  to  the  bottom  of  it,  and  there  may  freely 
move,  so  as  to  wipe  it  thoroughly,  &c.  This  vessel  was 
capable  also  of  bearing  the  fire,  and  of  standing  conve- 
niently over  a  fire ;  for  we  read,  2  Chron.  xxiv.  13,  "  The 
priests,  &c.  boiled  parts  of  the  holy  offerings  in  pans  {tjelo^ 
chit,)  and  distributed  them  speedily  among  the  people." 
Meaning,  perhaps,  that  this  was  not  the  very  kind  of  boiler 
which  they  would  have  chosen,  had  time  permitted  a  choice ; 
but  that  haste,  and  multiplicity  of  business,  made  them  use 
whatever  first  came  to  hand,  that  was  competent  to  the  ser- 
vice. This  application  of  these  vessels,  however,  shows 
that  they  must  have  been  of  considerable  capacity  and 
depth ;  as  a  very  narrow  or  a  very  small  dish,  would  not 
have  answered  the  purpose  required.  [Or,  was  this  speedy 
distribution  of  these  viands,  because  they  were  best  eaten 
hot  X\  A  kind  of  dish  or  pan,  which  appears  to  answer 
these  descriptions,  is  represented  in  the  French  work,  en- 
titled Estampes  du  Levant,  in  the  hands  of  a  confectioner 
of  the  grand  seignior's  seraglio,  who  is  carrying  a  deep 
dish,  full  of  heated  viands,  (recently  taken  otf  the  fire,) 
upon  which  he  has  put  a  cover,  in  order  that  those  viands 
may  retain  their  heat  and  flavour.  His  being  described  on 
the  plate  as  a  confectioner,  leads  to  the  supposition  that  what 
he  carries  are  delicacies;  to  this  agrees  his  desire  of  pre- 
serving their  heat :  and  the  shape  of  the  vessel  is  evidently 
calculated  for  standing,  &c.  over  a  fire.  Moreover,  from 
its  form  it  may  easily  be  rested  on  i(s  side,  for  the  purpose 
of  being  thoroughly  -wiped ;  and  a  dish  used  to  contain 
delicacies,  is  most  likely  to  receive  such  attention;  for  the 
comparison  in  the  text  referred  to,  evidently  implies  some 
assiduity  and  exertion  to  wipe  from  the  dish  every  particle 
inconsistent  with  complete  cleanliness.  This  dish,  w'e 
suppose,  is  of  earth,  or  china; — that  is,  of  porcelain,  rather 
than  of  metal. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  see  the  import  of  Elisha's 
direction  to  the  men  of  Jericho,  (2  Kings  ii.  20.)  "  Bring 
me  a  new  ijelachU"— one  of  the  vessels  used  in  your 
cookery— in  those  parts  of  your  cookery  which  you  es- 
teem the  most  delicate:  a  culinary  vessel,  but  of  the  sju- 


276 


2  KINGS. 


Chap,  2. 


perior  kind :  "  and  put  salt  therein,'-  what  yoi,  constantly 
mingle  in  your  food,  what  readily  mixes  with  water  :  and 
this  shall  be  a  sign  to  you,  that  in  your  future  use  of  this 
stream,  you  shall  find  it  salubrious,  and  fit  for  daily  service 
in  preparing,  or  accompanying,  your  daily  sustenance. 
There  is  a  striking  picture  of  sloth,  sketched  out  very  sim- 
ply, but  very  strongly,  by  the  sagacious  Solomon,  (Prov, 
xix.  24,)  repeated  almost  verbatim,  chap.  xxvi.  15 : 

A  slothful  man  hideth  his  hand  in  the  tjelachit: 
But  will  not  re  bring  it  to  his  mouth. 

A  slothful  man  hideth  his  hand  in  the  tjelachit : — but 
It  grieveth  him  to  bring  it  again  to  his  mouth. 

Meaning,  he  sees  a  dish,  deep  and  capacious,  filled  with 
confectionary,  sweetmeats,  &c.  whatever  his  appetite  can 
desire  in  respect  to  relish  and  flavour ;  of  this  he  is  greedy. 
Thus  excited,  he  thrusts  his  hand — his  right  hand — deep 
into  the  dish,  loads  it  with  delicacies ;  but,  alas  !  the  labour 
of  lifting  it  up  to  his  mouth  is  too  great,  loo  excessive,  too 
fati^ing  :  he  therefore  does  not  enjoy  or  taste  what  is  be- 
fore him,  though  his  appetite  be  so  far  allured  as  to  desire, 
and  his  hand  be  so  far  exerted  as  to  grasp.  [This  is  the 
customary  mode  of  conveying  food  to  the  mouth  in  the 
East,  where  knives  and  forks  are  not  in  use.]  He  suffers 
the  viands  to  become  cold,  and  thereby  to  lose  their  flavour ; 
while  he  debates  the  important  movement  of  his  hand  to  his 
mouth,  if  he  does  not  rather  totally  forego  the  enjoyment, 
as  demanding  too  vast  an  action !"  Surely  this  picture  of 
sloth  is  greatly  heightened  by  this  notion  of  the  tjelachit. 
It  seems  to  be  sufficiently  striking,  that  two  words,  rendered 
by  our  translators  lap,  or  bosom,  (Prov.  xvi,  33,  chik,  and  the 
word  before  us,)  should  both  signify  vases,  or  vessels.  The 
first  denotes,  the  lot-vase,  used  for  containing  the  lot-peb- 
bles, &c.  to  be  drawn  out  by  the  hand :  the  other  a  dish  for 
meat ;  neither  of  them  referring  to  any  part  of  the  person, 
as  our  version  seems  to  imply ;  which  reads, 

A  slothful  man  hideth  his  hand  in  his  bosom, 
And  will  not  bring  it  to  his  mouth  again. 

The  powerful  picture  of  sloth,  painted  by  Solomon,  gives 
occasion  to  enlarge  somewhat  further  on  the  manner  of 
eating  among  the  Arabs ;  a  manner  that  seems  sufficiently 
rude  to  us,  but  which  those  who  practise  it  insist  is  more 
natural  and  convenient,  and  not  less  cleanly  than  our  own. 
"  Extending  their  forefinger  and  thumb,  (of  the  right  hand 
always — the  left  hand  is  reserved  for  less  honourable  uses,) 
they  say,"  observes  D'Arvieux,  "God  made  this  fork  before 
vou  made  your  steel  ones."  Mr.  Jackson  says,  "  The 
Moors  are,  for  the  most  part,  more  cleanly  in  their  persons 
than  in  their  garments.  They  wash  their  hands  before 
every  meal,  which,  as  they  use  no  knives  or  forks,  they  eat 
with  their  fingers:  half  a"  dozen  persons  sit  round  a  large 
bowl  of  cuscasoe,  and,  after  the  usual  ejaculation  (Bismil- 
lah  !)  '  In  the  name  of  God  !'  each  person  puts  his  hand  to 
the  bowl,  and  taking  up  the  food,  throws  it,  by  a  dexterous 
jerk,  into  his  mouth,  without  suffering  his  fingers  lo  touch 
his  lips.  However  repugnant  this  may  be  to  our  ideas  of 
cleanliness,  yet  the  hand  being  always  washed,  and  never 
touching  the  mouth  in  the  act  of  eating,  these  people  are  by 
no  means  so  dirty  as  Europeans  have  sometimes  hastily 
imagined.  They  have  no  chairs  or  tables  in  their  houses, 
but  sit  crosslegged  on  carpets  and  cushions ;  and  at  meals, 
the  dish  or  bowl  of  provisions  is  placed  on  the  floor."  (Ac- 
count of  Morocco,  p.  155.) 

That  a  thorough  sluggard  should  practise  this  "  dexter- 
ous jerk  of  the  hand,"  is  not  likely  to  have  entered  into  the 
contemplation  of  the  royal  sage,  'in  the  passages  illustrated 
above  :  and  to  say  truth,  the  latter  observation  seems  to  be 
couched  in  terms  much  stronger  than  the  former :  "  The 
sluggard  musters  up  just  strength  enough  to  plunge  his 
hand  into  the  bowl;  but  this  mighty  effort  exhausts  him, 
he  finds  his  weariness  (hn*?:)  too  great,  too  excessive,  to 
bring  it  up  to  his  mouth,  loaded  though  it  be  with  the  deli- 
cacies of  the  table."  There  is  a  force  in  the  word  rendered 
hide  or  plunge,  which  should  not  be  disregarded. — The 
sluggard  buries  deeply  his  hand : — it  being  customary  with 
such  characters  to  grasp  at  all,  and  more  than  all,  which 
they  can  hold.  Perhaps  the  action  of  a  less  polite  class 
than  that  principally  alluded  to  by  Mr.  Jackson,  may  best 
illustrate  this  reflection.  We  shall  therefore  add  the  fol- 
lowing from  Major  Rooke's  Travels  in  Arabia :  "  On  my 
first  going  on  board,  I  sat  down  with  the  Noquedah  and  his 
officers  to  supper,  the  floor  being  both  our  tables  and  chairs. 


on  which  we  seated  ourselves  in  a  circle,  with  a  large  bow\ 
of  rice  in  the  middle,  and  some  fish  and  dates  before  each  per- 
son :  here  I  likewise  found  that  knives  and  forks  were  useless 
instruments  in  eating,  and  that  nature  had  accommodated 
us  with  what  answered  the  same  purpose :  we  plunged  our 
hands  into  the  bowl,  rolled  up  a  handful  of  rice  into  a  ball, 
and  conveyed  it  to  our  mouths  in  that  form;  our  repast 
was  short,  and  to  that  succeeded  coffee  and  washing  ;  and 
on  their  parts  prayer,  in  which  they  were  very  frequent  and 
fervent," — Taylor  in  Calmet,' 

Ver.  23.  And  he  went  up  from  thence  unto  Beth- 
el :  and  as  he  was  going  up  by  the  way,  there 
came  forth  little  children  out  of  the  city,  and 
mocked  him,  and  said  unto  him,  Go  up,  thou 
bald-head ;  go  up,  thou  bald-head. 

Some  suppose  this  alludes  to  the  head  being  uncovered. 
I  was  not  a  little  astonished  in  the  East,  when  I  first  heard 
a  man  called  a  bald-head,  who  had  a  large  quantity  of  hair 
on  his  head :  and  I  found,  upon  inquiry,  it  was  an  epithet 
of  CONTEMPT  !  A  man  who  has  killed  himself  is  called  "  a 
bald-headed  suicide  !"  A  stupid  fellow,  "  a  bald-headed 
dunce."  Of  those  who  are  powerless,  "  What  can  those 
bald-heads  do  7"  Hence  the  epithet  has  often  been  applied 
to  the  missionaries.  Is  a  man  told  his  wife  does  not  manage 
domestic  matters  well,  he  replies,  as  if  in  contempt  of  him- 
self, "  What  can  a  bald-head  do  1  must  he  not  have  a 
wife  of  the  same  kindf  Let  a  merchant,  or  any  other 
person,  who  is  going  on  business,  meet  a  man  who  is  really 
bald,  and  he  will  assuredly  refuse  to  aUend  to  the  business ; 
and  pronounce,  if  he  dare,  some  imprecations  on  the  object 
of  his  hatred.  Sometimes  he  will  repeat  the  proverb,  "  Go, 
thou  bald-head,  pilferer  of  a  small  fish,  and  sucker  of  bones 
cast  away  by  the  goldsmith."  Call  a  man  a  motiiyan,  i.  e. 
bald-head,  (which  you  may  do,  though  he  have  much  hair,) 
and  then  abuse,  or  sticks  or  stones,  will  be  sure  to  be  your 
portion.  Thus  the  epithet  implies  great  scorn,  and  is  given 
to  those  who  are  weak  or  mean. — Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  And  he  went  up  from  thence  unto  Bethel, 
and  as  he  was  going  up  by  the  way,  there  came 
forth  little  children  out  of  the  city,  and  mocked 
him,  and  said  unto  him,  Go  up,  thou  bald-head  ; 
go  up,  thou  bald-head.  24.  And  he  turned 
back,  and  looked  on  them,  and  cursed  them  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord.  And  there  came  forth 
two  she-bears  out  of  the  wood,  and  tare  forty 
and  two  children  of  them. 

Bethel,  it  is  well  known,  was  one  of  the  cities  where 
Jeroboam  had  set  up  a  golden  calf,  a  place  strangely  ad- 
dicted to  idolatry,  and  whose  inhabitants  had  no  small 
aversion  to  Elisha,  as  being  the  servant  and  successor  of 
one,  who  had  been  a  professed  enemy  to  their  wicked  wor- 
ship, and  himself  no  less  an  opposer  of  it.  It  is  reasonable 
to  suppose,  therefore,  that  the  children  (if  they  were  child- 
ren, for  the  word  naarim  may  signify  groicn  youths  as  well) 
who  mocked  Elisha,  were  excited  and  encouraged  there- 
unto by  their  parents ;  and  therefore  the  judgment  was  just, 
in  God's  punishing  the  wickedness  of  these  parents  by  the 
death  of  their  children,  who,  though  they  suffered  in  this 
life,  had  the  happiness  to  be  rescued  from  the  danger  of  an 
idolatrous  education,  which  might  have  been  of  fatal  ten- 
dency* both  to  their  present  and  future  state.  In  the  mean 
time  it  must  be  acknowledged,  that  the  insolence  of  these 
mockers  (whether  we  suppose  them  children  or  youths) 
was  very  provoking,  forasmuch  as  they  ridiculed,  not  only 
a  man  whose  very  age  commanded  reverence,  but  a 
prophet  likewise,  whose  character,  in  all  ages,  was  ac- 
counted sacred,  nay,  and  even  God  himself,  whose  honour 
was  struck  at  in  the  reproaches  against  his  servant,  and 
that  too  in  one  of  his  most  glorious  and  wonderful  works, 
his  assumption  of  Elijah  into  heaven :  For,  "  Go  up,  thou 
bald-head,  go  up,  thou  bald-head,"  (besides  the  bitterness 
of  the  contempt  expressed  in  the  repetition  of  the  words,) 
shows  that  they  made  a  mere  jest  of  any  such  translation ; 
and  therefore,  "in  banter,  they  bid  Elijah  go  up,  whither,  as 
he  pretended,  his  friend  and  master  was  gone  before. 
These  provocations,  one  would  think,  were  enough  to 


Chap.  3. 


2   KINGS 


277 


draw  an  imprecation  from  the  prophet;  but  this  impreca- 
tion did  not  proceed  from  any  passion  or  private  resentment 
of  his  own,  but  merely  from  the  command  and  commission 
of  his  God  ;  who,  for  the  terror  and  caution  of  other  pro- 
fane persons  and  idolaters,  as  well  as  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  honour  and  authority  of  his  prophets,  "  confirmed 
the  wjrd  which  had  gone  out  of  his  servant's  mouth." 
.  The  Hire  is  to  be  said  of  the  destruction  which  Elijah 
called  down  from  heaven  upon  the  two  captains  and  their 
companies,  who  came  to  apprehend  him — that  he  did  this, 
not  out  of  any  hasty  passion  or  revenge,  but  purely  in  obe- 
dience to  the  Holy  Spirit,  wherewith  he  was  animated,  and 
in  zeal  for  the  honour  and  glory  of  God,  which  in  the  per- 
sson  of  his  prophet,  were  grossly  abused. — S  tackhouse. 

Ver.  34.  And  there  came  forth  two  she-bears  out 
of  the  wood,  and  tare  forty  and  two  children  of 
them. 

These  furious  animals  were  she-bears,  which,  it  is  prob- 
able, had  been  just  deprived  of  their  young;  and  now  fol- 
lowing the  uTipulse  of  their  outraged  feelings,  they  rushed 
from  the  wood  to  revenge  the  loss.  But  it  is  evident  their 
native  ferocity  was  overruled  and  directed  by  divine  prov- 
idence, to  execute  the  dreadful  sentence  pronounced  by  the 
prophet  in  his  name.  They  must,  therefore,  be  considered 
as  the  ministers  of  God,  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth,  commis- 
sioned to  punish  the  idolatrous  inhabitants  of  Bethel  and 
their  profligate  offspring,  who  probably  acted  on  this  occa- 
sion with  their  concurrence,  if  not  by  their  command.  He 
punished  in  a  similar  way  the  heathen  colonies  planted  by 
the  king  of  Assyria  in  the  cities  of  Samaria,  after  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  ten  tribes:  "  They  feared  not  the  Lord ;  there- 
fore the  Lord  sent  lions  among  them,  which  slew  some  of 
them."  When  he  punished  the  youths  of  Bethel,  (for  so 
the  phrase  liilLe  children  signifies  in  Hebrew,)  by  directing 
against  them  the  rage  of  the  she-bears,  he  only  did  what 
Moses  had  long  before  predicted,  and  left  on  record  for 
their  warning:  "And  if  ye  walk  contrary  unto  me,  and 
will  not  hearken  unto  me,  I  will  bring  seven  times  more 
plagues  upon  you,  according  to  your  sins.  I  will  also  send 
wild  beasts  among  you,  which  shall  rob  you  of  your  child- 
ren." Bethel  had  been  long  the  principal  seat  of  idolatry, 
and  its  attendant  vices;  and  to  all  their  aggravated  crimes, 
its  inhabitants  now  added  rude  and  impious  mockery  of  a 

f)erson  whom  they  knew  to  be  a  prophet  of  the  Lord,  revi- 
ing  with  blasphemous  tongues  the  Lord  God  of  Elijah, 
and  his  now  glorified  servant.  Baldness  was  reckoned  a 
very  great  deformity  in  the  East;  and  to  be  reproached  with 
it,  one  of  the  grossest  insults  an  Oriental  could  receive. 
Cesar,  who  was  bald,  could  not  bear  to  hear  it  mentioned 
in  jest.  It  is  one  of  the  marks  of  disgrace  which  Homer 
fixes  upon  Thersites,  that  he  had  only  a  few  straggling 
hairs  on  his  pyramidal  head.  Their  crime,  therefore, 
justly  merited  the  severest  punishment. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  4.  And  Mesha  king  of  Moab  was  a  sheep- 
master,  and  rendered  unto  the  king  of  Israel  a 
hundred  thousand  lambs,  and  a  hundted  thou- 
sand rams,  with  the  wool. 

This  was  a  prodigious  number  indeed;  but  then  we  are 
to  consider  that  these  countries  abound  with  sheep,  inso- 
much that  Solomon  offered  a  hundred  and  twenty  thou- 
sand at  the  dedication  of  the  temple,  2  Chron.  vii.  5,  and 
the  Reubenites  drove  from  the  Hagarens  a  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand,  1  Chron.  v.  7.  For,  as  Bochart  observes, 
their  sheep  frequently  brought  forth  two  at  a  time,  and 
sometimes  twice  a  year.  The  same  learned  man  remarks, 
that  in  ancient  times,  when  people's  riches  consisted  in 
cattle,  this  was  the  only  way  of  paying  tribute.  It  is  ob- 
served by  others  likewise,  that  this  great  number  of  cattle 
was  not  a  tribute,  which  the  Moabites  were  obliged  to  pay 
the  Israelites  every  year,  but  on  some  special  occasion  only, 
upon  the  accession  of  every  new  king,  for  instance,  when 
they  were  obliged  to  express  their  homage  in  this  manner, 
to  make  satisfaction  for  some  damages  that  the  Israelites 
should  at  any  time  suffer  from  their  invasions  or  revolts. — 
Stackhousb. 


Ver.  1 1.  And  one  of  the  king  of  Israel's  servants 
answered  and  said,  Here  is  Elisha  the  son  of 
Shaphat,  which  poured  water  on  the  hands  of 
Elijah. 

We  read,  Elisha  "  went  after  Elijah,  and  ministered  unto 
him ;"  which  simply  means  he  was  his  servant.  The  peo- 
ple of  the  East  use  their  fingers  in  eating,  instead  of  a  knife 
and  fork,  or  spoon ;  and  consequently  after,  (as  well  as 
before,)  they  are  obliged  to  wash  their  hands.  The  master, 
having  finished  his  meal,  calls  a  servant  to  pour  water  on 
his  hands.  The  domestic  then  comes  with  a  little  brass 
vessel  filled  with  water,  and  pours  it  on  the  hands  and  fin- 
gers till  he  hears  the  word  poUiam,  enough. — Roberts. 

There  is  a  description  of  Elisha  the  prophet,  by  a  part 
of  his  office  when  servant  to  Elijah,  which  appears  rather 
strange  to  us.  "  Is  there  not  here  a  prophet  of  the  Lord  T' 
says  King  Jehoshaphat ;  he  is  answered,  "  Here  is  Elisha 
ben  Shaphat,  wlio  poured  water  on  the  hands  of  Elijah,^* 
(3  Kings  iii.  11,)  i.  e.  who  was  his  servant  and  constant 
attendant.  So  Pitts  tells  us:  "The  table  being  removed, 
before  they  rise  (from  the  ground  whereon  they  sit,)  a  slave, 
or  servant,  who  stands  attending  on  them  with  a  cup  of 
water  to  give  them  drink,  steps  into  the  middle  with  a  basin, 
or  copper  pot  of  water,  something  like  a  coffee-pot,  and  a 
little  soap,  and  lets  the  water  run  upon  their  hands  one  after 
another,  in  order  as  they  sit."  Such  service  it  appears 
Elisha  performed  for  Elijah  :  what  shall  we  say  then  to  the 
remarkable  action  of  our  Lord,  "  who  poured  water  into  a 
basin,  and  washed  his  disciples'  feet,"  after  supper  ?  Was 
he  indeed  among  them  as  one  who  serveth  ?  On  this  subject, 
says  D'Ohsson,  "  Ablution,  Abdesth,  consists  in  washing  the 
hands,  feet,  face,  and  a  part  of  the  head  ;  the  law  mentions 
Jhem  by  the  term — 'the  three  parts  consecrated  to  ablu- 
tion.'   The  mussulman  is  generally  seated  on  the  edge 

of  a  sofa,  with  a  pewter  or  copper  vessel  lined  with  tin 
placed  before  him  upon  a  round  piece  of  red  cloth,  to  pre- 
vent the  carpet  or  mat  from  being  wet :  a  servant,  kneeling 
on  the  ground,  pours  out  water  for  his  master ;  another 
holds  a  cloth  destined  for  these  purifications.  The  person 
who  purifies  himself  begins  by  baring  his  arms  as  far  as 
the  elbow.  As  he  washes  his  hands,  mouth,  nostrils,  face, 
arms,  &c.,  he  repeats  the  proper  prayers. ...  It  is  probable 
that  Mohammed  followed  on  this  subject  the  book  of  Le- 
viticus." It  is  well  known  that  we  have  an  officer  among 
ourselves,  who,  at  the  coronation,  and  formerly  at  all  public 
festivals,  held  a  basin  of  water  for  the  king  to  wash  his 
hands  in,  after  dinner ;  but  it  is  not  equally  well  known, 
that  Cardinal  Wolsey,  one  time,  when  the  Duke  of  Buck- 
ingham held  the  basin  for  Henry  VIII.,  after  the  king  had 
washed,  put  his  own  hand  into  the  basin:  the  duke  re- 
senting this  intrusion,  let  some  of  the  water  fall  on  the 
habit  of  the  cardinal,  who  never  forgave  the  action,  but 
brought  the  duke  to  the  block,  in  consequence  of  his  re- 
sentment.— Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  15.  But  now  bring  me  a  minstrel.  And  it 
came  to  pass,  when  the  minstrel  played,  that 
the  hand  of  the  Lord  came  upon  him. 

The  music  of  great  men  in  civil  life,  has  been  sometimes 
directed  to  persons  of  a  sacred  character,  as  an  expression 
of  respect,  in  the  East;  perhaps  the  playing  of  the  minstrel 
before  the  prophet  Elisha  is  to  be  understood,  in  part,  at 
least,  in  something  of  the  same  manner.  When  Dr. 
Richard  Chandler  was  at  Athens,  the  archbishop  of  that 
city  was  upon  ill  terms  with  its  Vaiwode,  and  the  Greeks 
in  general  siding  with  the  Vaiwode,  the  archbishop  was 
obliged  to  withdraw  for  a  time ;  but  some  time  after,  when 
Chandler  and  his  fellow-travellers  were  at  Corinth,  they 
were  informed  that  the  archbishop  was  returned  to  Athens ; 
that  the  Bey  or  Vaiwode  had  received  him  kindly,  and 
ordered  his  musicians  to  attend  him  at  his  palace ;  and 
that  a  complete  revolution  had  happened  in  his  favour. 
Here  we  see  a  civil  magistrate,  who  had  been  displeased 
with  a  great  ecclesiastic,  sent  his  musicians  to  play  at  his 
archiepiscopal  palace,  in  honour  of  him  to  whom  this  ma- 
gistrate was  now  reconciled.  Elisha  might  require  that  a 
like  honour  should  be  done  to  him,  and  through  him  to  the 
God  whom  he  served,  who  had  been  sadly  neglected  and 
affronted  in  former  times  by  the  king  of  Israel.    The  pro- 


278 


2  KINGS. 


Chap.  4. 


priety  of  it  will  appear  in  a  still  stronger  light,  if  we  should 
suppose,  that  Elisha  commanded  the  minstrel  to  sing,  along 
with  his  music,  a  hymn  to  Jehovah,  setting  forth  his  being 
a  God  that  gave  rain,  that  preserved  such  as  were  ready  to 
perish,  the  giver  of  victory,  and  whose  power  was  neither 
limited  to  his  temple,  nor  to  the  Jewish  country  sacred  to 
him,  but  equally  operative  in  every  place.  The  coming  of 
the  spirit  of  prophecy  upon  Elisha,  enabling  him  to  declare 
a  speedy  copious  fall  of  rain  in  that  neighbourhood,  and  a 
com;^lete  victory  over  their  enemies,  immediately  upon  the 
submissive  compliance  of  this  idolatrous  prince  with  the 
requisition  of  the  prophet,  and  such  a  hymn  in  praise  of 
the  God  of  Israel,  seems  to  me  full  as  natural  an  interpre- 
tation, as  the  supposing  he  desired  the  minstrel  to  come  in 
order  to  play  some  soft  composing  tune,  to  calm  his  ruffled 
spirits,  and  to  qualify  him  for  the  reception  of  the  influences 
of  the  spirit  of  prophecy.  Was  a  warm  and  pungent  zeal 
against  the  idolatries  of  Jehoram  a  disqualifying  disposi- 
tion of  soul  1  and  if  it  were,  was  mere  music  the  happiest 
mode  of  inviting  the  divine  influences'?  Yet  after  this 
manner,  I  think,  it  has  been  commonly  explained.  Sing- 
ing was,  and  is,  so  frequently  joined  with  the  sound  of  musi- 
cal instruments  in  the  East,  that  I  apprehend  no  one  will 
think  it  strange,  that  I  suppose  the  minstrel  sung  as  well  as 
played  in  the  presence  of  Elisha:  and  when  it  is  recollect- 
ed that  their  songs  are  very  frequently  extemporaneous,  it 
is  natural  to  suppose  the  prophet  required  something  to  be 
sung,  suitable  both  to  his  character  and  to  the  occasion. — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  16.  And  he  said,  Thus  saith  the  Lord, 
Make  this  valley  full  of  ditches  :  17.  For  thus 
saith  the  Lord,  Ye  shall  not  see  wind,  neither 
shall  ye  see  rain ;  yet  that  valley  shall  be  filled 
with  water,  that  ye  may  drink,  both  ye,  and 
your  cattle,  and  your  beasts. 

A  shower  of  rain  in  the  East,  is  often  preceded  by  a 
whirlwind,  which  darkens  the  sky  with  immense  clouds 
of  sand  from  the  loose  surface  of  the  desert.  To  this  com- 
mon phenomenon,  the  prophet  alludes,  in  his  direction  to 
the  king  of  Israel,  who  Avas  marching  with  his  army 
against  Moab,  and  was  ready  to  perish  in  the  wilderness 
for  want  of  water :  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Make  this  val- 
ley full  of  ditches.  For  thus  saith  the  Lord,  Ye  shall  not 
see  wind,  neither  shall  ye  see  ram;  yet  that  valley  shall  be 
tilled  with  water,  that  ye  may  drink,  both  ye,  and  "your  cat- 
tle, and  your  beasts."  '  If  a  squall  had  not  commonly  pre- 
ceded rain,  the  prophet  would  not  have  said,  Ye  shall  not 
see  wind. — Paxton. 

Ver.  19.  And  ye  shall  smite  every  fenced  city, 
and  every  choice  city,  and  shall  fell  every  good 
tree,  and  stop  all  wells  of  water,  and  mar  every 
good  piece  of  land  with  stones. 

Commentators  take  no  pains,  that  I  know  of,  to  account 
for  that  part  of  the  punishment  of  the  king  of  Moab's  re- 
bellion, Ye  shall  mar  every  good  piece  of  land  with  stones  ; 
though  it  does  not  appear  very  easy  to  conceive  how  this 
was  to  be  done  to  any  purpose,  and  indeed  without  giving 
as  much  trouble,  or  more,  to  Israel,  to  gather  these  stones, 
and  carry  them  on  their  lands,  as  to  the  Moabites  to  gather 
them  up  again,  and  carry  them  off.  I  would  therefore  pro- 
pose it  to  the  learned  to  consider,  whether  we  may  not 
understand  this  of  Israel's  doing  that  nationally,  and  as 
victors,  which  was  done  by  private  persons  very  frequently 
in  these  countries  in  ancient  times,  by  way  of  revenge, 
and  which  is  mentioned  in  some  of  the  old  Roman  laws,  I 
think,  cited  by  Egmont  and  Heyman,  who,  speaking  of  the 
contentions  and  vindictive  temper  of  the  Arabs,  tell  us, 
they  were  ignorant,  however,  whether  they  still  retained 
the  method  of  revenge  formerly  common  among  them,  and 
which  is  called  c-/fOT£X((r//os,  mentioned  in  Lib.  ff.  Digest,  de 
extraord.  criminib.  which  contains  the  following  accoi^it. 
Jn  provhicia  Arabia,  &c.  That  is,  "  in  the  province  of 
Arabia,  there  is  a  crime  called  o^oTrsXiff/zo?,  or  fixing  of 
stones;  it  being  a  frequent  practice  among  them,  to  place 
stones  in  the  grounds  of  those  with  whom  they  are  at 
variance   as  a  warning,  that  any  person  who  dares  to  till 


that  field,  should  infallibly  be  slain,  by  the  contrivance  of 
those  who  placed  the  stones  there."  This  malicious  prac- 
tice, they  add,  is  thought  to  have  had  its  origin  in  Arabia 
Petraea.  If  the  Israelites,  as  victors,  who  could  prescribe 
what  laws  they  thought  proper  to  the  conquered,  placed 
such  stones  in  the  best  grounds  of  the  Moabites,  as  inter- 
dicting them  from  tillage,  on  pain  of  their  owners  being 
destroyed,  they  without  much  trouble  elFectually  marred 
such  fields  as  long  as  their  power  over  Moab  lasted,  which 
had  before  this  continued  some  time,  and  by  the  suppression 
of  this  rebellion  might  be  supposed  to  continue  long.  As 
it  was  an  ancient  practice  in  these  countries,  might  it  not 
be  supposed  to  be  as  ancient  as  the  times  of  Elisha,  and 
that  he  referred  to  it?  Perhaps  the  time  to  castaway  stones, 
and  the  time  to  gather  stones  together,  mentioned  by  the 
royal  preacher,  Eccles.  iii.  5,  is  to  be  understood  in  like 
manner,  of  giving  to  nations  with  which  there  had  been 
contests,  the  marks  of  perfect  reconciliation,  or  continuing 
upon  them  some  tokens  of  displeasure  and  resentment.  If 
we  suppose  the  latter  part  of  the  verse  is  exegetical  of  the 
former,  which  the  learned  know  is  very  common  in  the 
Hebrew  poetry,  it  will  better  agree  with  this  explanation, 
than  with  that  which  supposes,  that  the  casting  away  of 
stones,  nieSiXis  the  demolishing  of  houses,  atid  the  gathering 
them  together,  the  collecting  them  for  buildi'ng ;  since  the 
casting  away  of  stones  answers  to  embracing,  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  verse,  not  to  the  refraining  from  embracing.  It 
may  be  supposed  indeed  that  a  transposition  might  be  in- 
tended, such  a  one  as  appears  in  the  eighth  verse ;  but  it  is 
to  be  observed,  that  the  eighth  verse  finishes  this  catalogue 
of  different  seasons,  and  there  is  no  transposition  in  the 
other  particulars.  To  which  may  be  added,  that  this  ex- 
planation makes  the  casting  away  of  stones,  and  gathering 
them  together,  of  the  fifth  verse,  precisely  the  same  thing 
with  the  breaking  down  and  building  up  of  the  third:  the 
supposing  a  greater  variety  of  thought  here  will  be  no  dis- 
honour to  the  royal  poet. — Harmer. 

Ver.  27.  Then  he  took  his  eldest  son,  that  should 
have  reigned  in  his  stead,  and  offered  him  for 
a  burnt-offering  upon  the  wall.  And  there 
was  great  indignation  against  Israel :  And  they 
departed  from  him,  and  returned  to  their  own 
land. 

In  great  distress,  several  persons,  like  the  king  of  Moab, 
have  ofl^ered  their  own  children  upon  their  altars.  Euse- 
bius  and  Lactantius  mention  several  nations  who  used 
these  sacrifices.  Cesar  says  of  the  Gauls,  that  when  they 
were  afflicted  with  grievous  diseases,  or  in  time  of  war,  or 
great  danger,  they  either  offered  men  for  sacrifices,  or 
vowed  they  would  offer  them.  For  they  imagined  God 
would  not  be  appeased,  unless  the  life  of  a  man  were  ren- 
dered for  the  life  of  a  man. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  1.  Now  there  cried  a  certain  woman  of  the 
wives  of  the  sons  of  the  prophets  unto  Elisha, 
saying,  Thy  servant  my  husband  is  dead :  and 
thou°knoAvest  that  thy  servant  did  fear  the  Lord  : 
and  the  creditor  is  come  to  take  unto  him  my 
two  sons  to  be  bondmen. 

This  was  a  case  in  which  the  Hebrews  had  such  power 
over  their  children,  that  they  might  sell  them  to  pay  what 
they  owed ;  and  the  creditor  might  force  them  to  it.  Huet 
thinks  that  from  the  Jews  this  custom  was  propagated  to 
the  Athenians,  and  from  them  to  the  Romans. — Burder. 

The  Jewish  law  looked  upon  children  as  the  proper 
goods  of  their  parents,  who  had  power  to  sell  them  for 
seven  years,  as  their  creditors  had  to  compel  them  :o  do 
it,  in  order  to  pay  their  debts;  and  from  the  Jews  this  cus- 
tom was  propagated  to  the  Athenians,  and  from  them  to 
the  Romans.  The  Romans  indeed  had  the  most  absolute 
control  over  their  children.  By  the  decree  of  Romulus 
they  could  imprison,  beat,  kill,  or  sell  them  for  slaves;  but 
Numa  Pompilius  first  moderated  this,  and  the  emperor 
Diocletian  made  a  law,  that  no  free  persons  should  be  sold 
upon  account  of  debt.  The  ancient  Athenians  had  the  like 
jurisdiction  over  their  children,  but  Solon  reformed  this 


Chap.  4. 


2  KINGS. 


279 


cruel  custom ;  as  indeed  it  seemed  a  little  hard,  that  the 
children  of  a  poor  man,  who  have  no  manner  of  inherit- 
ance left  them,  should  be  compelled  into  slavery,  in  order 
lo  pay  their  deceased  father's  debts ;  and  yet  this  was  the 
custom,  as  appears  from  this  passage,  wherein  the  prophet 
does  not  pretend  to  reprove  the  creditor,  but  only  puts  the 
woman  in  a  method  to  pay  him.— -Stackhouse. 

Ver.  1  J.  Let  us  make  a  little  chamber,  I  pray 
thee,  on  the  wall ;  and  let  us  set  for  him  there 
a  bed,  and  a  table,  and  a  stool,  and  a  candle- 
stick ;  and  it  shall  be  \vhen  he  cometh  to  us, 
that  he  shall  turn  in  thither. 

To  most  of  these  houses  a  smaller  one  is  annexed,  which 
sometimes  rises  one  story  higher  than  the  house ;  and  at 
other  times  it  consists  of  one  or  two  rooms  only,  and  a 
terrace ;  while  others  that  are  built,  as  they  frequently  are, 
over  the  porch  or  gateway,  have,  if  we  except  the  ground- 
floor,  which  they  want,  all  the  conveniences  that  belong  to 
the  house  itself.  They  communicate  with  the  gallery  of 
the  house  by  a  door,  and  by  another  door,  which  opens 
immediately  from  a  privy  stair,  with  the  porch  or  street, 
without  giving  the  least  disturbance  to  the  house.  In  these 
back-houses,  as  they  may  be  called,  strangers  are  usually 
lodged  and  entertained ;  and  to  them  likewise  the  men  are 
wont  to  retire  from  the  hurry  and  noise  of  their  families,  to 
be  more  at  leisure  for  meditation  and  amusement;  and  at 
other  times,  they  are  converted  into  wardrobes  and  maga- 
zines. This  annexed  building  is  in  the  holy  scriptures 
named  (n^sjy)  aliah;  and  we  have  reason  to  believe,  that  the 
little  chamber  which  the  Shunamite  built  for  the  prophet 
Elisha,  whither,  as  the  text  informs  us,  he  retired  at  his 
pleasure,  without  breaking  in  upon  the  private  affairs  of 
the  family,  or  being  in  his  turn  interrupted  by  them  in  his 
devotions,  was  a  structure  of  this  kind.  It  is  thus  described 
by  the  Shunamite  herself:  "  Let  us  make  a  little  chamber, 
I  pray  thee,  on  the  wall ;  and  let  us  set  for  him  there  a  bed, 
and  a  table,  and  a  stool,  and  a  candlestick ;  and  it  shall  be, 
that  when  he  cometh  to  us,  that  he  shall  turn  in  thither. 
The  internal  communication  of  this  chamber  with  the  Shu- 
namite's  house,  may  be  inferred,  as  well  from  its  being 
built  upon  the  wall  which  enclosed  her  dwelling,  as  from 
her  having  so  free  access  to  it,  and  at  the  second  invitation, 
standing  in  the  door,  while  the  prophet  announced  to  her 
the  birth  of  a  son. — Paxton. 

They  did  not  then  among  the  ancients  sit  universally  as 
the  modern  inhabitants  of  the  East  now  do,  on  the  ground 
or  floor,  on  some  mat  or  carpet ;  they  sometimes  sat  on 
thrones,  or  seats  more  or  less  like  our  chairs,  often  raised 
so  high  as  to  require  a  footstool.  But  it  was  considered  as 
a  piece  of  splendour,  and  offered  as  a  mark  of  particular 
respect.  It  was  doubtless  for  this  reason  that  a  seat  of  this 
kind  was  placed,  along  with  some  other  furniture,  in  the 
chamber  which  the  devout  Shimamitess  prepared  for  the 
prophet  Elisha,  2  Kings  iv.  10,  which  our  version  has  very 
unhappily  translated  a  stool,  by  which  we  mean  the  least 
honourable  kind  of  seat  in  an  apartment ;  whereas  the 
original  word  meant  to  express  her  respect  for  the  prophet 
by  the  kind  of  seat  she  prepared  for  him.  The  word  is  nd3 
kissa,  the  same  that  is  commonly  translated  throne.  The 
candlestick  is,  in  like  manner,  to  be  considered  as  a  piece 
of  furniture,  suitable  to  a  room  that  was  magnificently  fitted 
up,  according  to  the  mode  of  those  times,  a  light  being  kept 
burning  all  night  long  in  such  apartments.  So  a  lamp  was 
kept  burning  all  night,  in  the  apartment  in  which  Dr. 
Richard  Chandler  slept,  in  the  house  of  a  Jew,  who  was 
vice-consul  for  the  English  nation,  at  the  place  whete  he 
first  landed,  when  he  proposed  to  visit  the  curious  ruins  of 
Asia  Minor.  Further,  we  are  told  by  De  la  Roque,  in  the 
account  given  of  some  French  gentlemen's  going  to  Arabia 
^elix,  page  43,  44,  that  they  found  only  mats  in  the  house 
of  the  captain  of  the  port  of  Aden,  where  they  were  honour- 
ably received,  which  were  to  serve  them  for  beds,  chairs, 
and  tables :  so  in  the  evening  they  brought  them  tapers 
without  candlesticks,  the  want  of  which  they  were  to  sup- 
ply as  well  as  they  could,  which  was  but  indifferently. — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  20.  And  when  he  had  taken  him,  and  brought 


him  to  his  mother,  he  sat  on  her  Knees  till  noon, 
and  the7i  died. 

The  heat,  in  eastern  countries,  is  often  so  excessive,  as 
to  prove  fatal  to  many  people.  To  this  cause  is  to  be 
attributed  the  death  of  the  child  at  Shunem,  in  the  days  of 
Elisha.  Egmont  and  Heyman  (vol.  i.  p.  333)  found  the 
air  about  Jericho  extremely  hot,  and  say  that  it  destroyed 
several  persons  the  year  before  they  were  there.  The 
army  of  King  Baldwin  IV.  suffered  considerably  from  this 
circumstance  near  Tiberias.  The  heat  at  the  time  Was  so 
unusually  great,  that  as  many  died  by  that  as  by  the  sword. 
After  the  battle,  in  their  return  to  their  former  encamp- 
ment, a  certain  ecclesiastic,  of  some  distinction  in  the 
church  and  in  the  army,  not  being  able  to  bear  the  vehe- 
mence of  the  heat,  was  carried  in  a  litter,  but  expired 
under  mount  Tabor.— (Harmer.)  The  child  of  the  Shu- 
namite here  spoken  of,  had  gone  to  the  reapers  in  the  field, 
(v.  12,)  where  he  suddenly  complained  of  headache,  (v.  19,) 
and  soon  after  died.  Probably  he  had  a  sun-stroke,  which 
was  very  natural  in  the  great  heat  which  prevails  in  those 
countries  at  harvest-time.  Monconys,  speaking  of  himself, 
says,  "  Towards  evening,  the  sun  had  struck  with  such  force 
on  my  head,  that  I  was  seized  wif  h  a  violent  fever,  and  obliged 
to  go  to  bed."  Werli  Von  Zember  relates  the  same  of  him- 
self and  his  companions.  "  After  we  had  been  obliged  to 
remain  a  long  time  in  this  court,  exposed  to  the  heat  ot  the 
sun,  we  almost  all  became  ill,  with  dreadful  headache,  giddi- 
ness, and  fever,  so  that  some  even  lost  their  senses."  Von 
Stammer  says,  "  When  we  came  into  the  desert,  between 
the  mountains,  I  was  seized  wtth  a  very  severe  inflamma- 
tory fever :  I  was  unable  to  remain  any  longer  on  the 
camel,  but  was  forced  to  lie  down  on  the  ground,  and 
became  so  ill,  that  they  scarcely  thought  I  was  alive." — 

ROSBNMULLER. 

Ver.  22.  And  she  called  unto  her  husband,  and 
said,  Send  me,  I  pray  thee,  one  of  the  young 
men,  and  one  of  the  asses,  that  I  may  run  to 
the  man  of  God,  and  come  again. 

The  saddle  ass  retaining  the  characteristic  perverseness 
of  his  kind,  is  apt  to  become  restiff  under  his  rider,  which, 
in  cases  that  require  haste,  renders  it  necessary  to  accele- 
rate his  speed  by  means  of  the  goad.  This,  according  to 
Pococke,  is  commonly  done  for  persons  of  rank  by  a  ser- 
vant on  foot.  This  method  of  travelling  seems  to  have  been 
quite  common  in  Palestine ;  for  the  Shunamite's  husband 
expressed  neither  surprise  nor  hesitation,  when  she  asked  for 
"one  of  the  young  men,  and  one  of  the  asses,  that  she  might 
run  to  the  man  of  God."  The  acknowledged  inability  of  the 
ass  to  carry  both  the  servant  and  his  mistress,  the  custom 
of  having  an  attendant,  whose  business  it  was  to  drive  the 
animal  forward,  and  the  eager  impatience  of  the  bereaved 
mother,  which  required  the  utmost  speed,  sufficiently  prove 
that  she  rode  the  ass  herself,  while  the  servant  attended  her 
on  foot,  or  mounted  perhaps  on  a  canrel,  which  persons  in 
his  condition  often  used  on  a  journey.  "  And  she  said  to 
her  servant.  Drive,  (or  lead,)  and  go  forward ;  slack  not 
riding  for  me,  except  I  bid  thee."  Put  him  to  the  utmast 
speed,  without  regarding  the  inconveniences  I  may  suffer. 
The  pronoun  thy,  it  has  been  thought,  is  very  improperly 
supplied  in  our  "translation,  as  it  leads  one  to  suppose  that 
the  servant  himself  was  the  rider.  But  although  no  men- 
tion is  made  of  the  circumstance,  it  is  not  perfectly  clear 
that  the  servant  was  not  mounted  on  this  occasion.  Tne 
phrase,  cease  not  to  ride,  (23-»S)  or  cease  not  riding,  natu- 
rally suggests  that  he  was  mounted.  The  ass  which  the 
Shunamite  saddled,  was  a  strong  animal,  as  the  name  given 
him  by  the  inspired  writer  imports;  and  if  we  may  believe 
Maillet,  the  asses  in  Egypt  and  Syria  have  nothing  of  that 
indolence  and  heaviness  which  are  natural  to  ours;  there- 
fore, if  the  servant  was  not  furnished  with  a  camel,  or  was 
not  a  running  footman  by  profession,  of  which  we  have  no 
proof,  the  ass  must  have  soon  left  him  far  behind,  and  ren- 
dered his  services  of  no  use.  When  the  inspired  writer 
says  the  Shunamite  saddled  ker  ass,  he  uses  a  phrase  which 
often  occurs  in  the  sacred  writings,  and  seems  to  compre- 
hend any  requisite  for  the  convenience  of  the  rider  and  the 
proper  management  of  the  animal.— Paxton. 


280 


2  KINGS. 


Chap.  4. 


Ver.  23.  And  he  said,  Wherefore  wilt  thou  go  to 
him  to-day  ?  it  is  neither  new  moon  nor  sab- 
bath.    And  she  said,  It  shall  be  well. 

Peter  Delia  Valle  assures  us,  that  it  is  now  customary  in 
Arabia  to  begin  their  journeys  at  the  new  moon.  When 
the  Shunamite  proposed  going  to  Elisha,  her  husband  dis- 
suaded her  by  observing  that  it  was  neither  new  moon  nor 
sabbath, — Burder. 

V"er.  24.  Then  she  saddled  an  ass,  and  said  to  her 
servant.  Drive,  and  go  forward ;  slack  not  thy 
riding  for  me,  except  I  bid  thee. 

See  on  Judg.  10.  4. 

Where  travellers  are  not  so  numerous  as  in  caravans, 
their  appearance  differs  a  good  deal  from  that  of  those  who 
journey  among  us.  To  see  a  person  mounted  and  attended 
by  a  servant  on  foot,  would  seem  odd  to  us  ;  and  it  would 
be  much  more  so  to  see  that  servant  driving  the  beast  before 
him,  or  goading  it  along :  yet  these  are  eastern  modes.  So 
Dr.  Pococke,  in  his  account  of  Egypt,  tells  us  that  the  man, 
the  husband,  I  suppose  he  means,  always  leads  the  lady's 
ass  there ;  and  if  she  has  a  servant,  he  goes  on  one  sid.e  : 
but  the  ass-driver  follows  the  man,  goads  on  the  beast,  and 
when  he  is  to  turn,  directs  his  head  with  a  pole.  The 
Shunamite,  when  she  went  to  the  prophet,  did  not  desire  so 
much  attendance,  only  requesting  her  husband  to  send  her 
an  ass,  and  its  driver,  to  whom  she  said,  "  Drive,  and  go 
forward,  slack  not  thy  riding  for  me,  except  I  bid  thee," 
2  Kings  iv.  24.  It  appears  from  the  eastern  manner  of  the 
women's  riding  on  asses,  that  the  word  is  rightly  translated 
drive,  rather  than  lead;  and  this  account  of  Dr.  Pococke 
VaI  also  explain  why  she  did  not  desire  two  asses,  one  for 
herself,  and  the  other  for  the  servant  that  attended  her. 
Solomon  might  refer  to  the  same,  when  he  says,  "  I  have 
seen  servants  upon  horses,  and  princes  walking  as  servants 
upon  the  earth,"  Eccl,  x.  7,  My  reader,  however,  will  meet 
with  a  more  exact  illustration  of  this  passage  in  its  proper 
place. — Harmer. 

Ver,  29.  Then  he  said  to  Gehazi,  Gird  up  thy 
loins,  and  take  my  staff  in  thy  hand,  and  go  thy 
way :  if  thou  meet  any  man,  salute  him  not ; 
and  if  any  salute  thee,  answer  him  not  again : 
and  lay  my  staff  upon  the  face  of  the  child. 

The  rod,  or  staff,  in  the  scriptures,  is  mentioned  as  an 
emblem  of  authority  over  inanimate  nature,  over  man,  and 
the  diseases  to  which  he  was  subject,  and  also  as  an  instru- 
ment of  correction  for  the  wicked.  The  Lord  commanded 
Moses,  "  Take  thy  rod,  and  stretch  out  thy  hand  upon  the 
waters  of  Egypt,  upon  their  streams,  upon  their  rivers,  and 
upon  their  ponds,  and  upon  all  their  pools  of  water,  that 
they  may  become  blood.''  The  magicians  of  the  heathen 
king  had  their  rods  also,  by  which  they  performed  many 
wonderful  things,  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  staff  of 
Elisha  was  of  the  same  nature,  and  for  the  same  purposes, 
as  the  "  rod  of  God,"  which  did  such  wonders  in  tne  nands 
of  Moses,  Gehazi,  though  he  had  the  emblem  of  his  mas- 
ter's office,  could  not  perform  the  miracle  :  and  no  wonder; 
for  the  moment  before  he  received  the  command  from 
Elisha,  he  showed  his  evil  disposition  to  the  mother  of  the 
dead  child ;  for  when  she  caught  the  prophet  "  by  the  feet," 
to  state  her  case,  he  went  '*  near  to  thrust  her  away." 

The  orou-mulle-pirambu  {i.  e.  a  cane  with  one  knot)  is 
believed  to  possess  miraculous  power,  whether  in  the  hand 
of  a  magician  or  a  private  individual.  It  is  about  the  size 
of  the  middle  finger,  and  must  have  only  one  knot  in  its 
wliole  length.  "  A  man  bitten  by  a  serpent  will  be  assu- 
redly cured,  if  the  cane  or  rod  be  placed  upon  him  :  nay, 
should  he  be  dead,  it  will  restore  him  to  life  !"  "  Yes,  sir, 
the  man  who  has  such  a  stick  need  fear  neither  serpents 
nor  evil  spirits."  A  native  gentleman  known  to  me  has 
the  staff  of  his  umbrella  made  of  one  of  these  rods,  and  great 
satisfaction  and  comfort  has  he  in  this  his  constant  com- 
panion. "  The  sun  cannot  smite  him  by  day,  neither  the 
moon  by  night;  the  serpents  and  wild  beasts  move  off 
^iriftly ;  and  the  evil  spirits  dare  not  come  near  to  him." — 

R«BERTS. 


This  command  to  salute  no  one,  naturally  calls  to  mind 
that  which  Jesus  gave  to  the  seventy  disciples.  Luke  x.  4, 
SaMe  no  oiie  by  the  way.  It  is  explained  by  the  custom  of 
the  East.  Serious  and  taciturn  as  the  natives  of  the  East 
usually  are,  they  grow  talkative  when  they  meet  an  ac-  < 
quaintance  and  salute  him.  This  custom  has  come  from 
Asia  with  the  Arabs,  and  spread  over  the  north  coast  of 
Africa.  A  modern  traveller  relates  the  reciprocal  saluta- 
tions with  which  those  are  received  who  return  with  the 
caravans.  "  People  go  a  great  way  to  meet  them ;  as  soon 
as  they  are  perceived,  the  questioning  and  salutation  be- 
gin, and  continue  with  the  repetition  of  the  same  phrases  : 
'  How  do  you  do  1  God  be  praised  that  you  are  come  in 
peace !  God  give  you  peace !  How  fares  it  with  you  V 
The  higher  the  rank  of  the  person  returning  home,  the 
longer  does  the  salutation  last." — Burder. 

Elisha's  enjoining  Gehazi  not  to  salute  any  that  he  met, 
or  to  return  the  salutation  of  such,  evidently  expresses  the 
haste  he  would  have  him  make  to  recover  the  child,  and 
bring  him  back  to  life.  For  the  salutations  of  the  East 
often  take  up  a  long  time.  "  The  manner  of  salutation,  as 
now  practised  by  the  people  of  Egypt,  is  not  less  ancient. 
The  ordinary  way  of  saluting  people,  when  at  a  distance, 
is  bringing  the  hand  down  to  the  knees,  and  then  carrying 
it  to  the  stomach.  Marking  their  devotedness  to  a  person 
by  holding  down  the  hand ;  as  they  do  their  affection  by 
their  after  raising  it  up  to  their  heart.  When  they  come 
close  together  afterward,  they  take  each  other  by  the  hand 
in  token  of  friendship.  What  is  very  pleasant,  is  to  see 
the  countrypeople  reciprocally  clapping  each  other's  hands 
very  smartly,  twenty  or  thirty  times  together,  in  meeting, 
without  saying  any  thing  more  than  Salamat  aiche  halcom ; 
that  is  to  say,  How  do  you  do  7  I  wish  you  good  health.  Il 
this  form  of  complimenting  must  be  acknowledged  to  be 
simple,  it  must  be  admitted  to  be  very  affectionate.  Per- 
haps it  marks  out  a  better  disposition  of  heart  than  all  the 
studied  phrases  which  are  in  use  among  us,  and  which 
politeness  almost  always  makes  use  of  at  the  expense  oi 
sincerity.  After  this  first  compliment  many  other  friendly 
questions  are  asked,  about  the  health  of  the  family,  men- 
tioning each  of  the  children  distinctly,  whose  names  they 
know,"  &c.  If  the  forms  of  salutation  among  the  ancient 
Jewish  peasants  took  up  as  much  time  as  those  of  the 
modern  Egyptians  that  belong  to  that  rank  of  life,  it  is  no 
wonder  the  prophet  commanded  his  servant  to  abstain 
from  saluting  those  he  might  meet  with,  when  sent  to 
recover  the  child  of  the  Shunamitess  to  life :  they  that  have 
attributed  this  order  to  haste  have  done  right';  but  they 
ought  to  have  shown  the  tediousness  of  eastern  compli-  , 
ments. — Harmer  . 

Salutations  at  meeting,  are  not  less  common  in  the  East 
than  in  the  countries  of  Europe ;  but  are  generally  con- 
fined to  those  of  their  own  nation,  or  religious  party. 
When  the  Arabs  salute  each  other,  it  is  generally  in  these 
terms :  Solum  aleikum,  peace  be  with  you  ;  laying,  as  they 
utter  the  words,  the  right  hand  on  the  heart.  The  answer 
is,  Aleikum  essalum,  with  you  be  peace ;  to  which  aged 
people  are  inclined  to  add,  "  and  the  mercy  and  blessing  of 
GoQ."  The  Mohammedans  of  Egypt  and  Syria  never 
sahite  a  Christian  in  these  terms  ;  they  content  themselves 
with  saying  to  them,  "Good-day  to  you,"  or,  "  Friend,  how 
do  you  do '?"  Niebuhr's  statement  is  confirmed  by  Mr. 
Bruce,  who  says,  that  some  Arabs,  to  whom  he  gave  the 
salam,  or  salutation  of  peace,  either  made  no  reply,  or  ex- 
pressed their  astonishment  at  his  impudence  in  using  such 
freedom.  Thus  it  appears,  that  the  Orientals  have  two 
kinds  of  salutations ;  one  for  strangers,  and  the  other  for 
their  own  countrymen,  or  persons  of  their  own  religious 

Profession.  The  Jews  in  the  days  of  our  Lord,  seem  to 
ave  generally  observed  the  same  custom;  they  would  not 
address  the  usual  compliment  of  "  Peace  be  to  you,"  to 
either  heathens  or  publicans  ;  the  publicans  of  the  Jewish 
nations  would  use  it  to  their  countrymen  who  were  pub- 
licans, but  not  to  heathens ;  though  the  more  rigid  Jew* 
refu.sed  to  do  it  either  to  publicans  or  heathens.  Our  Lord 
required  his  disciples  to  lay  aside  the  moroseness  of  Jews, 
and  cherish  a  benevolent  disposition  towards  all  around 
them  :  "  If  ye  salute  your  brethren  only,  what  do  ye  more 
than  others'?  Do  not"^even  the  publicans  so ?"  They  were 
bound  by  the  same  authority,  to  embrace  their  brethren  in 
Christ  with  a  special  affection,  yet  they  were  to  look  upon 
every  man  as  a  brother,  to  feel  a  sincere  and  cordial  inte- 


Chap.  5. 


2  KINGS. 


281 


rest  in  his  welfare,  and  to  express,  at  meeting,  their  benevo- 
lence, in  language  corresponding  with  the  feelings  of  their 
hearts.  This  precept  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  charge 
which  the  prophet  Elisha  gave  to  his  servant  Gehazi,  not 
to  salute  any  man  he  met,  nor  return  his  salutation ;  for  he 
wished  him  to  make  all  the  haste  in  his  power  to  restore 
.he  child  of  the  Shunamite,  who  had  laid  him  under  so 
many  obligations.  The  manners  of  the  country  rendered 
Elisha's  precautions  particularly  proper  and  necessary,  as 
the  salutations  of  the  East  often  take  up  a  long  time. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  39.  And  one  went  out  into  the  field  to  gather 
herbs,  and  found  a  wild  vine,  and  gathered 
thereof  wild  gourds  his  lapful,  and  came  and 
shred  them  into  the  pot  of  pottage:  for  they 
knew  them  not. 

Their  common  pottage  in  the  East  is  made  by  cutting 
their  meat  into  little  pieces,  and  boiling  them  with  rice, 
flour,  and  parsley,  all  which  is  afterward  poured  into  a 
proper  vessel.  This  in  their  language  is  called  Shoorba. 
Parsley  is  used  in  this  Shoorba,  and  a  great  many  other 
herbs,  in  their  cookery.  These  are  not  always  gathered 
out  of  gardens,  even  by  those  that  live  in  a  more  settled 
way  than  the  Arabs  :  for  Russel,  after  having  given  a  long 
account  of  the  garden  stuff  at  Aleppo,  tells  us,  that  besides 
those  from  culture,  the  fields  afford  bugloss,  mallow,  aspar- 
agus, which  they  use  as  potherbs,  besides  some  others  which 
they  use  in  salads.  This  is  the  more  extraordinary,  as  they 
have  such  a  number  of  gardens  about  Aleppo,  and  will 
take  off  all  wonder  from  the  story  of  one's  going  into  the 
fields,  to  gather  herbs,  to  put  into  the  pottage  of  the  sons  of 
the  prophets,  2  Kings  iv.  39,  in  a  time  when  indeed  Ahab, 
and  doubtless  some  others,  had  gardens  of  herbs ;  but  it  is 
not  to  be  supposed  things  were  so  brought  under  culture  as 
in  later  times. — Harmer. 

Ver.  39,  And  one  went  out  into  the  field  to  gather 
herbs,  and  found  a  wild  vine,  and   gathered 
thereof  wild  gourds  his  lapful,  and  came  and 
I  shred  them  into  the  pot  of  pottage:  for  they 

f '  knew  them  not.  40.  So  they  poured  out  for 
the  men  to  eat:  and  it  came  to  pass,  as  they 
were  eating  of  the  pottage,  that  they  cried  out 
and  said,  O  thou  man  of  God,  there  is  death  in 
the  pot :  and  they  could  not  eat  thereof. 

In  the  vales  near  Jordan,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jericho, 
not  far  from  the  Dead  Sea,  is  found,  growing  in  great  abun- 
dance, the  vine  of  Sodom,  a  plant,  from  the  fields  around 
that  devoted  city,  which  produces  grapes  as  bitter  as  gall, 
and  wine  as  deadly  as  the  poison  of  a  serpent.  This  dele- 
terious fruit  is  mentioned  by  Moses  in  terms  which  fully 
justify  the  assertion :  "  For  their  vine  is  of  the  vine  of 
Sodom,  and  of  the  fields  of  Gomorrah ;  their  grapes  are 
grapes  of  gall,  their  clusters  are  bitter,  their  wine  is  the 
poison  of  dragons,  and  the  cruel  venom  of  asps."  It  is 
probably  the  wild  vine,  a  species  of  gourd,  which  produces 
the  coloquintida,  a  fruit  so  excessively  bitter  that  it  cannot 
be  eaten ;  and  when  given  in  medicine,  proves  a  purgative 
so  powerful,  as  to  be  frequently  followed  by  excoriation  of 
the  vessels,  and  hemorrhage.  It  seems  therefore  to  have 
been  early,  and  not  without  reason,  considered  as  poisonous. 
It  was  of  this  wild  vine  the  sons  of  the  prophets  ate;  and 
its  instantaneous  effect,  together  with  their  knowledge  of 
its  violent  action,  easily  accounts  for  their  alarm.  Another 
species  of  wild  vine,  but  of  a  milder  character,  which 
grows  in  Palestine,  near  the  highways  and  hedges,  is  the 
;  Labrusca.  Its  fruit  is  a  very  small  grape,  which  becomes 
■  black  when  ripe  ;  but  often  it  does  not  ripen  at  all.  These 
are  the  wild  grapes  to  which  the  prophet  compares  the  in- 
'  nabitants  of  Jerusalem,  and  men  of  Judah :  "  And  he 
^ooked  that  it  should  bring  forth  grapes,  and  it  brought 
forth  wild  grapes."  They  are  also  the  sour  grapes  to  which 
another  inspired  prophet  alludes,  when  he  predicts  the  de- 
stroying judgments  that  were  coming  upon  his  rebellious 
I  people :  "  In  those  days  they  shall  say  no  more,  The  fathers 
1  nave  eaten  a  sour  grape,  and  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on 
36 


edge. — Everyman  that  eateth  the  sour  grape,  his  teeth  shall 
be  set  on  edge." — Paxton. 

Ver.  42.  And  there  came  a  man  from  Baal-shali- 
sha,  and  brought  the  man  of  God  bread  of  the 
first-fruits,  twenty  loaves  of  barley,  and  full  ears 
of  corn  in  the  husk  thereof:  and  he  said,  Give 
unto  the  people,  that  they  may  eat. 

See  on  1  Kings  14.  3, 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  in  the  husk,  "  in  his  scrip  or 
garment."  I  think  the  marginal  reading  is  better  than  the 
text.  In  what  was  the  man  to  carry  the  ears  of  corn  1  In 
what  may  be  seen  every  day — "  in  his  scrip  or  garment." 
In  the  mantle  (like  a  scarf)  the  natives  carry  many  things : 
thus  the  petty  merchant  takes  some  of  his  ware,  and  the 
traveller  nis  rice. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  6.  And  he  brought  the  letter  to  the  king  of 
Israel,  saying,  Now,  when  this  letter  is  come 
unto  thee,  behold,  I  have  thereioith  sent  Naa- 
man  my  servant  to  thee,  that  thou  may  est  re- 
cover him  of  his  leprosy. 

Schultens  observes  that,  "  the  right  understanding  of  this 
passage  depends  on  the  custom  of  expelling  lepers,  and 
other  infectious  persons,  from  camps  or  cities,  and  re- 
proachfully driving  them  into  solitary  places;  and  that 
when  these  persons  were  cleansed  and  readmitted  into  cities 
or  camps,  they  were  said  to  be  recollecti,  gathered  again 
from  their  leprosy,  and  again  received  into  that  society  from 
which  they  had  been  cut  off." — Burder. 

Ver.  1 1.  But  Naaman  was  wroth,  and  went  away, 
and  said,  Behold,  I  thought,  He  will  surely 
come  out  to  me,  and  stand  and  call  on  the  name 
of  the  Lord  his  God,  and  strike  his  hand  over 
the  place,  and  recover  the  leper. 

Naaman  thought  that  the  prophet  would  effect  his  cure 
sooner  and  more  certainly  if  he  touched  him  with  his  hand, 
and,  as  it  were,  invigorated  him  by  an  effusion  of  his  heal- 
ing power.  Then,  as  in  later  times,  those  who  effected 
such  miraculous  cures  were  accustomed  to  touch  the  pa- 
tient. Thus,  Jan  Mocquet  says,  "when  the  sick  were 
brought  to  the  sheik  of  the  Arabian  Santons,  (religious,) 
he  touched  either  their  right  arm  or  foot,  or  stroked  their 
breast  and  forehead,  after  money  had  been  offered  him." 
Among  all  nations  superstition  considers  the  touch  as  the 

Principal  requisite  of  a  miraculous  cure.  Hans  Egede,  in 
is  Greenland  Mission,  says,  '*  A  Greenland  man  and 
woman  requested  me  to  blow  upon  their  sick  child,  or  to 
lay  my  hands  upon  it:  they  hoped  that  it  would  recover. 
Many  more  sick  Greenlanders  begged  the  same  favour  from 
me,  because  they  considered  me  as  a  prophet,  whom  they 
believed  able  to  cure  the  sick  in  a  supernatural  manner." 

— R  OSENMULLER. 

When  ,  they  consulted  a  prophet,  the  eastern  modes 
required  a  present ;  and  they  might  think  it  was  right  rather 
to  present  him  with  eatables  than  other  things,  because  it 
frequently  happened  that  they  were  detained  there  some 
time,  waiting  the  answer  of  God,  during  which  time  hospi- 
tality would  require  the  prophet  to  ask  them  to  take  some 
repast  with  him.  And  as  the  prophet  would  naturally  treat 
them  with  some  regard  to  their  quality,  they  doubtless  did 
then,  as  the  Egyptians  do  now,  proportion  their  presents  to 
their  avowed  rank  and  number  of  attendants.  The  pres- 
ent of  Jeroboam's  wife  was  that  of  a  woman  in  affluent 
circumstances,  though  it  by  no  means  determined  her  to  be  a 
princess.  That  made  to  the  prophet  Samuel,  was  the  pre- 
sent of  a  person  that  expected  to  be  treated  like  a  man  in  low 
life ;  how  great  then  must  be  his  surprise,  first  to  be  treated 
with  distinguished  honour  in  a  large  company,  and  then  to 
be  anointed  king  over  Israel ! 

But  though  this  seems  to  have  been  the  original  ground 
of  presenting  common  eatables  to  persons  who  M'ere  visited 
at  their  own  houses,  I  would  by  no  means  be  understood  to 
aflirm  they  have  always  kept  to  this,  and  presented  eatables 


'28^ 


2   KINGS. 


Chap.  5. 


wheL  they  expected  to  stay  with  them  and  take  some  repast, 
and  other  things  when  they  did  not.  Accuracy  is  not  to 
be  expected  in  such  matters :  the  observation,  however,  nat- 
urally accounts  for  the  rise  of  this  sort  of  presents.  In 
other  cases,  the  presents  that  anciently  were,  and  of  late 
have  wont  to  be  made  to  personages  eminent  for  study  and 
piety,  were  large  sums  of  money,  or  vestments :  so  the  pres- 
ent that  a  Syrian  nobleman  would  have  made  to  an  Israel- 
itish  prophet,  with  whom  he  did  not  expect  to  stay  any 
time,  or  indeed  to  enter  in  his  house,  "  Behold,  I  thought.  He 
will  certainly  come  out  to  me,  and  stand,  and  call  on  the 
name  of  the  Lord  his  God,  and  strike  his  hand  over  the 
place,  and  recover  the  leper,"  consisted  of  ten  talents  of 
silver,  and  six  thousand  pieces  of  gold,  and  ten  changes  of 
raiment.  It  is  needless  to  mention  the  pecuniary  gratifica- 
tions that  have  been  given  to  men  of  learning  "in  the  East 
in  later  times ;  but  as  to  vestments,  D'Herbelot  tells  ns, 
that  Bokhteri,  an  illustrious  poet  of  Cufah,  in  the  ninth 
century,  had  so  many  presents  made  him  in  the  course  of 
his  life,  that  at  his  death  he  was  found  possessed  of  a  hun- 
dred complete  suits  of  clothes,  two  hundred  shirts,  and  five 
hundred  turbans. — Harmer. 

Ver.  9.  So  Naaman  came  with  his  horses  and 
with  his  chariot,  and  stood  at  the  door  of  the 
house  of  Elisha.  10.  And  Elisha  sent  a  mes- 
senger unto  him,  saying,  Go  and  wash  in  Jor- 
dan seven  times,  and  thy  flesh  shall  come  again 
to  thee,  and  thou  shalt  be  clean. 

Elisha's  not  appearing  to  receive  the  Syrian  general,  is 
ascribed  by  some  to  the  retired  course  of  life  which  the 
prophets  led;  but  then,  why  did  he  see  him,  and  enter 
into  conversation  with  him,  when  he  returned  from  his 
cure  1  I  should  rather  think,  that  it  was  not  misbecoming 
the  prophet,  upon  this  occasion,  to  take  some  state  upon 
him,  and  to  support  the  character  and  dignity  of  a  prophet 
of  the  most  high  God ;  especially,  since  this  might  be  a 
means  to  raise  the  honour  of  his  religion  and  ministry, 
>and  to  give  Naaman  a  Tighter  idea  of  his  miraculous  cure, 
when  he  found  that  it  was  neither  by  the  prayer  nor 
presence  of  the  prophet,  but  by  the  divine  power  and  good- 
,ness,  that  it  was  eifected. — Stackhouse. 

Ver.  18.  In  this  thing  the  Lord  pardon  thy  ser- 
vant, that  when  my  master  goeth  into  the  house 
of  Rimmon  to  worship  there,  and  he  leaneth  on 
my  hand,  and  I  bow  myself  in  the  house  of 
Rimmon;  when  I  bow  down  myself  in  the 
house  of  Rimmon,  the  Lord  pardon  thy  ser- 
vant in  this  thing. 

It  is  amusing  to  see  full-grown  men.  as  they  walk^along 
■  the  road,  like  schoolboys  at  home,  leaning  on  each  other's 
hands.  Those  who  are  weak,  or  sick,  lean  on  another's 
shoulder.  It  is  also  a  mark  of  friendship  to  lean  on  the 
shoulder  of  a  companion. — Roberts. 

Ver.  21.  So  Gehazi  followed  after  Naaman.  And 
when  Naaman  saw  him  running  after  him,  he 
lighted  down  from  the  chariot  to  meet  him,  and 
said.  Is  all  well  ? 

The  alighting  of  those  that  ride  is  considered  in  the  East 
AJ  an  expression  of  deep  respect ;  so  Dr.  Pococke  tells  us, 
that  they  are  wont  to  descend  from  their  asses  in  Egypt, 
when  they  come  near  some  tombs  there,  and  that  Christians 
and  Jews  are  obliged  to  submit  to  this.  So  Hasselquisl 
tells  Linnaeus,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  him,  that  Christians 
were  obliged  to  alight  from  their  asses  in  Egypt,  when  they 
met  with  commanders  of  the  soldiers  there.  This  he  com- 
plains of  as  a  bitter  indignity ;  but  they  that  received  the 
compliment,  without  doubt,  required  it  as  a  most  pleasing 
piece  of  respect.  Achsah's  and  Abigail's  alighting,  were 
without  doubt  then  intended  as  expressions  of  reverence  : 
but  is  it  to  be  imagined,  that  Naaman's  alighting  from  his 
chariot,  when  Gehazi  ran  after  him,  arose  from  the  same 
principle  1  If  it  did,  there  was  a  mighty  change  in  this 
haughty  Syrian  after  his  cure.  That  he  should  pay  such  a 
reverence  to  a  servant  of  the  prophet  must  appear  very 


surprising,  yet  we  can  hardly  think  the  historian  would 
have  mentioned  this  circumstance  so  very  distinctly  in  any 
other  view.  Rebecca's  alighting  from  the  camel  on  which 
she  rode,  when  Isaac  came  to  meet  her,  is  by  no  means  any 
proof  that  the  considering  this  as  an  expression  of  rev- 
erence, is  a  modern  thing  in  the  East;  it,  on  the  contrary, ' 
strongly  reminds  one  of  D'Arvieux's  account  of  a  bride's 
throwing  herself  at  the  feet  of  the  bridegroom  when  solemnly 
presented  to  him,  which  obtains  among  the  Arabs. 

We  met  a  Turk,  says  Dr.  Richard  Chandler,  in  his 
Asiatic  travels,  "  a  person  of  distinction,  as  appeared  from 
his  turban.  He  was  on  horseback  with  a  single  attendant. 
Our  janizary  and  Armenians  respectfully  alighted,  and 
made  him  a  profound  obeisance,  the  former  kissing  the  rim 
of  his  garment."  So  Niebuhr  tells  us,  that  at  Kahira, 
Grand  Cairo,  "  the  Jews  and  Christians,  who,  it  may  be, 
alighted  at  first  through  fear  or  respect,  when  a  Mohamme- 
dan with  a  great  train  on  horseback  met  them,  are  now 
obliged  to  pay  this  compliment  to  above  thirty  of  the  prin- 
cipal people  of  that  city.  When  these  appear  in  public,  they 
always  cause  a  domestic  to  go  before  to  give  notice  to  the 
Jews  and  Greeks,  and  even  the  Europeans  that  they  meet 
with,  to  get  ofl^  their  asses  as  soon  as  possible,  and  they  are 
qualified  on  occasion  to  force  them  with  a  great  club,  which 
they  always  carry  in  their  hands." — Harmer. 

Ver.  21.  So  Gehazi  followed  after  Naaman:  and 
when  Naaman  saw  him  running  after  him,  he 
lighted  down  from  the  chariot  to  meet  him,  and 
said,  Is  all  well  ?  [Heb.  margin,  Is  there  peace  ?] 
22.  And  he  said.  All  is  well. 

I  never  read  this  passage  without  fancying  a  Malabar 
man  running  after  the  chariot,  and  on  being  met  by  Naa- 
man, making  a  most  profound  bow,  and  uttering  the  word 
selarit,  peace — the  word  used  on  this  occasion,  and  still  in 
use  among  millions  in  the  East.— Callaway. 

Ver.  27.  The  leprosy  therefore  of  Naaman  shall 
cleave  unto  thee,  and  unto  thy  seed  for  ever. 
And  he  went  out  from  his  presence  a  leper  as 
white  as  snoAv. 

This  was  said  by  Elisha  to  Gehazi,  because  he  ran  after 
Naaman,  (who  had  been  cured  of  his  leprosy)  and  said,  his 
master  had  sent  him  to  take  "a  talent  of  silver,  and  two 
changes  of  garments,"  and  because  he  actually  took  posses- 
sion of  them.  There  is  an  account  in  the  Hindoo  book, 
called  Seythv^Purdna,  of  a  leper  who  went  to  Ramiserara 
to  bathe,  in  order  to  be  cured  of  his  complaint.  He  per- 
formed the  required  ceremonies,  but  the  priests  refused  his 
offerings.  At  last  a  Bramin  came:  in  the  moment  of 
temptation  he  took  the  money,  and  immediately  the  leprosy 
of  the  pilgrim  took  possession  of  his  body !  This  complaint 
is  believwl  to  come  in  consequence  of  great  sin,  and  there- 
fore no  one  likes  to  receive  any  reward  or  present  from  a 
person  infected  with  leprosy. 

There  are  many  children  born  white,  though    their 
parents  are  quite  black.     These  are  not  lepers,  but  albi- 
nos; and  are  the  same  as  the  white  negroes  of  Africa. 
To  see  a  man  of  that  kind  almost  naked,  and  walking  among 
the  natives,  has  an  unpleasant  effect  on  the  mind,  and  leads 
a  person  to  suspect  that  all  has  not  been  right.     Their  skiii^ 
has  generally  a.  slight  tinge  of  red,  their  hair  is  light,  thei 
eyes  are  weak :  and  when  they  walk  in  the  sun,  they  hanj 
down  their  heads.     The  natives  do  not  consider  this 
disease,  but  a  birth,  i.  e.  produced  by  the  sins  of  a  forme] 
birth.    It  is  believed  to  be  a  great  misfortune  to  have  { 
child  of  that  description,  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  tha| 
many  of  them  are  destroyed.     The  parents  of  such  an  ini 
fant  believe  ruin  will  come  to  their  family ;  and  ihe  pooi 
object,  if  spared,  has  generally  a  miserable  existence.    Hi 
name,  in  Tamul,  is  Pdndan  :  and  this  is  an  epithet  assign 
ed  to  those,  also.'who  are  not  white,  for  the  purpose  of  ma 
king  them  angrv.     The  general  name  for  Europeans  in  th| 
East  is  Pranky,' (which  is  a  corruption  of  the  word  Frank- 
Hence  these  white  Hindoos  are,  by  way  of  contempt,  calle< 
Pranky !    Should  a  man  who  is  going  to  transact  impor 
ant  business,  meet  one  of  them  on  the  road,  it  will  be  cob 
sidered  a  verv  bad  sign,  and  he  will  not  enter  into  tl 
transaction  till"  another  dav.   Should  a  person  who  is  giving 
a  feast  have  a  relation  of  that  description,  he  will  inviV 


Chap.  6. 


2  KINGS. 


S83 


him,  but  the  guests  will  not  look  upon  him  with  pleasure. 
Women  have  a  great  aversion  to  them,  and  yet  they  some- 
times marry  them;  and  if  they  have  children,  they  seldom 
take  after  the  father.  I  have  only  heard  of  two  white 
Hindoo  females;  which  leads  me  to  suspect  that  such  in- 
fants are  generally  destroyed  at  the  birth;  as,  were  they 
allowed  to  grow  up,  no  one  would  marry  them. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  12.  And  one  of  his  servants  said,  None,  my 
lord,  O  king  :  but  Elisha,  the  prophet  that  is  in 
Israel,  telleth  the  king  of  Israel  the  words  that 
thou  speakest  in  thy  bedchamber. 

It  is  not  to  be  doubted,  but  that  Naaman,  upon  his  return 
from  Samaria,  spread  the  fame  of  Elisha  so  much  in  the 
court  of  Syria,  that  some  of  the  great  men  there  might 
have  a  curiosity  to  make  a  further  inquiry  concerning 
him;  and  being  informed  by  several  of  his  miraculous 
works,  they  might  thence  conclude  that  he  could  tell  the 
greatest  secrets,  as  well  as  perform  such  works  as  were 
related  of  him;  and  that  therefore,  in  all  probability,  he 
was  the  person  who  gave  the  king  of  Israel  intelligence 
of  all  the  schemes  that  had  been  attempted  to  entrap  him. 
— Stackhouse. 

Ver.  15.  And  when  the  servant  of  the  man  of  God 
,  was  risen  early,  and  gone  forth,  behold,  a  host 

I  compassed  the  city,  both  with  horses  and  char- 
iots. And  his  servant  said  unto  him,  Alas,  my 
master!  how  shall  we  do?  16.  And  he  an- 
swered. Fear  not;  for  they  that  be  with  us  are 
more  than  they  that  Je  with  them.  17.  And 
Elisha  prayed,  and  said.  Lord,  I  pray  thee, 
open  his  eyes,  that  he  may  see.  And  the  Lord 
opened  the  eyes  of  the  young  man :  and  he 
saw,  and,  behold,  the  mountain  was  full  of 
horses  and  chariots  of  fire  round  about  Elisha. 

This  young  man,  it  is  supposable,  had  been  but  a  little 
while  with  his  master,  no  longer  than  since  Gehazi's  dis- 
mission, and  therefore  perhaps  had  not  yet  seen  any  great 
experiments  of  his  power  to  work  miracles;  or  if  he  had, 
the  great  and  imminent  danger  he  thought  his  master  in, 
(for  in  all  probability  he  had  learned  from  the  people  of  the 
town,  that  this  vast  body  of  men  were  come  to  apprehend 
him  only,)  might  well  be  allowed  to  raise  his  fear,  and  shake 
his  faith. 

It  must  be  allowed  that  angels,  whether  they  be  purely 
spiritual,  or  (as  others  think)  clothed  with  some  material 
form,  cannot  be  seen  by  mortal  eyes ;  and  therefore  as 
Elisha  himself,  without  a  peculiar  vouchsafement  of  God, 
could  not  discern  the  heavenly  host,  which,  at  this  time,  en- 
camped about  him ;  so  he  requests  of  God,  that,  for  the  re- 
moval of  his  fears,  and  the  confirmation  of  his  faith,  his 
servant  might  be  indulged  the  same  privilege :  nor  does  it 
seem  unlikely,  that,  from  such  accounts  as  these,  that  have 
descended  by  tradition,  that  notion  among  the  Greeks,  of  a 
certain  mist,  which  intercepts  the  sight  of  their  gods  from 
the  ke7i  of  human  eyes,  might  at  first  borrow  its  original. — 
Stackhoose. 

Ver.  25.  And  there  was  a  great  famine  in  Sama- 
ria: and,  behold,  they  besieged  it,  until  an  ass's 
head  was  sold  for  fourscore  pieces  of  silver,  and 
the  fourth  part  of  a  cab  of  doves'  dung  for  five 
pieces  of  silver.  • 

The  Tamul  translation  for  "  doves'  dung,"  is  "  doves' 
grain ;"  which  is  known  in  the  East  by  the  name  of  Kdra- 
f/ii7ine-pim.  Dr.  Boothroyd  translates  it "  a  cab  of  vetches," 
which  amounts  to  about  the  same  thing.  Bochart,  Dr. 
Clarke,  and  many  others,  believe  it  to  have  been  pulse. 
The  Orientals  are  exceeding  fond  of  eating  leguminous 
grains,  when  parched.  I  have  often  eaten  the  pulse  which 
pigeons  are  so  fond  of,  and  have  found  it  very  wholesome, 
either  in  puddings  or  soup;  (Lev.  xx.ii.  14,  Ruth  ii.  14, 
2  Sam.  xvii.  28;)  and  it  is  surprising  to  see  what  a  great 


distance  they  will  travel  on  only  that  food  and  water.  It 
was  therefore  in  consequence  of  the  famine,  that  this,  theii  • 

favourite,  and  generally  very  cheap,  sustenance,  was  so 
dear.  Of  what  use  would  "  a  cab  of  doves'  dung"  be  unto 
them '?  Some  say,  in  explanation,  it  was  good  for  manure ! 
What  were  they  to  live  upon  till  the  manure  had  produced 
the  grain  1 — Roberts. 

Among  the  Jews,  the  ass  was  considered  as  an  unclean 
animal,  because  it  neither  divides  the  hoof  nor  chews  the 
cud.    It  c.iuld  neither  be  used  as  food,  nor  offered  in  sa- 
crifice.    I'he  firstling  of  an  ass,  like  those  of  camels,  horses, 
and  other  unclean  animals,  was  to  be  redeemed  with  the 
sacrifice  of  a  lamb,  or  deprived  of  life.    In  cases  of  extreme 
want,  however,  this  law  was  disregarded ;  for  when  the 
Syrian  arnfiies  besieged  Samaria,  the  inhabitants  were  so 
reduced,  that  "  an  ass's  head  was  sold  for  fourscore  pieces 
of  silver."    Some  writers,  however,  contend,  that  the  term 
linn  hamor  does  not  signify  an  ass,  in  this  passage,  but  is  the 
same  as  ->Din  homer,  a  certain  measure  of  grain.    But  this 
view  of  the  passage  cannot  be  admitted.    We  know  what 
is  meant  by  the  head  of  an  ass ;  but  the  head  of  a  homer, 
or  measure  of  wheat  or  barley,  is  quite  unintelligible.    Nor 
could  the  sacred  writer  say  with  propriety,  that  the  city  was 
suffering  by  a  "  great  famine,"  while  a  homer  of  grain  was 
sold  for  eighty  pieces  of  silver ;  for  in  the  next  chapter  he 
informs  us,  thai,  after  the  flight  of  the  Syrians,  and  pro- 
visions of  every  kind,  by  the  sudden  return  of  plenty,  were 
reduced  to  the  lowest  price,  "  a  measure  of  fine  flour  (which 
is  the  thirtieth  part  of  a  homer)  was  sold  for  a  shekel,  and 
two  measures  of  barley  for  a  shekel,  in  the  gate  of  Sama- 
ria."   Besides,  had  the  historian  intended  a  measure  of 
com,  he  would  not  have  said  indefinitely,  a  homer  was  sold 
for  eighty  pieces  of  silver;  but  a  homer  of  wheat,  or  of 
barley,  or  of  oats,  which  are  not  of  the  same  value.    The 
prophet  accordingly  says,  in  the  beginning  of  the  next 
chapter,  "  a  measure  of  fine  flour  shall  be  sold  for  a  shekel, 
and  two  measures  of  barley  for  a  shekel :"  And  John,  in 
the  book  of  Revelation  ;  "  a  measure  of  wheat  for  a  penny, 
and'three  measures  of  barley  for  a' penny."    Our  transla- 
tors, therefore,  have  taken  a  just  view  of  this  text,  and  given 
a  correct  version.     It  is  reasonable  to  suppose,  that  the  ass 
was  not  the  last  to  suffer  in  the  siege  of  Samaria.    Hardly 
treated  in  times  of  peace  and  abundance,  he  must  have 
been  left  to  shift;  for  himself  in  such  circumstances,  in  a 
place  where  the  hunger  of  the  inhabitants  compelled  them 
to  devour  every  green  thing;  and  have  rapidly  sunk  into  a 
poor  and  wretched  condition.    How  great  must  that  famine 
have  been,  and  how  dreadful  the  distress  to  which  the  peo- 
ple were  reduced,  when  they  gave  three  times  the  price  of 
the  live  animal,  for  that  part  of  him  which  could  yield 
ihem  at  any  time  only  a  few  pounds  of  dry  and  unpalatable 
food,  but  v.hcn  emaciated  by  famine,  only  a  few  morsels  of 
carrion.     Extreme  must  have  been  the  sufferings  which 
extinguished  the  powerful  influence  of  religious  principle, 
and  natural  aversion  to  a  species  of  food  so  disagreeable 
and  pernicious;  and  not  only  prevailed  upon  them  to  use  it, 
but  even  to  devour  it  with  greediness. — Paxton. 

The  royal  city  of  Samaria  was  so  severely  distressed, 
when  a  certain  king  of  Syria  besieged  it,  that  we  are  told 
a7i  ass\-  head  then  sold  for  fourscore  pieces  of  silver,  and  the 
fourth  fart  of  a  cab  of  doves'  dung  for  five  pieces  :  this  last 
article  has  been  thought  to  be  so  unfit  for  food,  that  it  has 
been  very  commonly  imagined,  I  think,  that  a  species  of 
pulse  M^as  meant  by  that  term ;  nevertheless,  I  cannot  but 
think  it  much  the  most  probable,  that  proper  doves'  dung 
was  meant  by  the  prophetic  historian,  since,  though  it  can 
hardly  he  imagined,  it  was  bought  directly  for  food,  it  might 
be  bought  for  the  purpose  of  more  speedily  raising  a  supply 
of  certain  esculent  vegetables,  and  in  greater  quantities 
which  must  have  been  a  matter  of  great  consequence  t(! 
the  Israelites,  shut  up  so  straitly  in  Samaria.  Had  the 
kali  of  the  scriptures  been  meant,  how  came  it  to  pass  that 
the  common  word  was  not  made  use  of?  Josephus  and  the 
Septuagint  suppose  that  proper  doves'  dung  was  meant,  and 
the  following  considerations  may  make  their  sentiment  ap- 
pear far  from  improbable. 

All  allow  that  melons  are  a  most  refreshing  food,  in  those 
hot  countries.  And  Chardin  says,  "  melons  are  served  up 
at  the  tables  of  the  luxurious  almost  all  the  year ;  but  the 
proper  season  lasts  four  months,  at  which  time  they  are 
eaten  by  the  common  people.  They  hardly  eat  any  thing 
but  melons  and  cucumbers  at  that  time."    He  adds,  "  that 


2  KINGS. 


Chap.  7. 


during  these  four  melon  months,  they  are  brought  in  such 
quantities  to  Ispahan,  that  he  believed  more  were  eaten  in 
what  city  in  one  day,  than  in  all  France  in  a  month."  On 
the  other  hand,  he  tells  us,  in  another  volume,  that  they 
have  a  multitude  of  dove-houses  in  Persia,  which  they  keep 
up  more  for  their  dung  than  any  thing  else.  This  being 
the  substance  with  which  they  manure  their  melon-beds, 
and  which  makes  them  so  good  and  so  large.  Now  if 
melons  were  half  so  much  in  request  in  those  days  in  Judea, 
as  they  are  now  in  Persia,  it  might  be  natural  enough  to 
express  the  great  scarcity  of  provisions  there,  by  observing 
an  ass's  head,  which,  according  to  their  law  was  an  unclean 
animal,  sold  for  fourscore  pieces  of  silver ;  and  a  small 
•quantity  of  that  dung  that  was  most  useful  to  quicken  vege- 
tation, as  well  as  to  increase  those  productions  of  the  earth 
which  were  so  desirable  in  those  hot  climates,  that  a  small 
<iuantity,  I  say,  of  that  substance  should,  in  such  circum- 
stances, be  sold  for.  five  such  pieces.  At  least  it  is  probable 
thus  the  Septuagint  and  Josephus  understood  the  passage, 
if  we  should  think  it  incredible  that  melons  were  in  very 
common  use  in  the  days  of  Joram  king  of  Israel.  Josephus, 
in  particular,  says  this  dung  was  purchased  for  its  salt, 
which  can  hardly  mean  to  be  used,  by  means  of  some  prepa- 
ration, as  table  salt,  but  as  containing  salt  proper  for  ma- 
nuring the  earth.  The  prophet  Elisha,  in  that  very  age, 
put  salt  into  a  spring  of  water,  to  express  the  imparting  to 
it  the  quality  of  making  the  land  watered  by  it  fruitful, 
which  land  had  been  before  barren,  (2  Kings  ii.  19 — 22,)  to 
■which  event  Josephus  could  be  no  stranger.  It  has  been 
objected  to  this  interpretation :  that  if  the  doves'  dung 
was  for  manure^  (for  this  interpretation  is  not  a  new  one, 
but  wanted  to  be  better  illustrated,)  that  there  could  be  no 
room  for  growing  any  kind  of  vegetable  food  within  the 
walls  of  a  royal  city,  when  besieged ;  but  has  any  one  a 
right  to  take  this  for  granted'?  when  it  is  known  that  there 
is  a  good  deal  of  ground  unbuilt  upon  now  in  the  royal 
cities  of  the  East;  that  Naboth  had  a  vineyard  in  Jezreel, 
a  place  of  royal  residence  a  few  years  before ;  that  Samaria 
was  a  new-built  city;  and  that  in  the  time  of  distress,  every 
void  place  might  naturally  be  made  use  of  to  raise  a  species 
of  food,  that  with  due  cultivation,  in  our  climate,  is  brought 
to  perfection,  from  the  time  of  its  sowing,  in  four  months, 
and  at  the  same  time  is  highly  refreshing.  When  we  reflect 
on  these  things,  the  supposition  appears  not  at  all  improba- 
ble. We  do  not  know  when  the  siege  commenced,  or  how 
long  it  continued;  that  of  Jerusalem,  in  the  time  of  Zed- 
ekiah,  lasted  a  year  and  a  half;  but  the  time  that  this  dung 
was  purchased  at  so  dear  a  rate,  we  may  believe  was  early 
in  the  spring,  for  then  they  begin  to  raise  melons  at  Aleppo, 
and  as  they  were  then  so  oppressed  with  want,  it  is  probable 
that  it  was  not  long  after  that  they  were  delivered. 

This  explanation  will  appear  less  improbable,  if  we  rec- 
ollect the  account  already  given,  of  the  siege  of  Damietta, 
where  some  of  the  more  delicate  Egyptians  pined  to  death, 
according  to  Vitriaco,  though  they  had  a  sufficiency  of  corn^ 
for  the  want  of  the  food  they  were  used  to,  pumpions,  fkc. 
The  Israelites  might  be  willing  then,  had  their  stores  been 
more  abixndant  than  they  were  found  to  have  been,  to  add 
what  they  could  to  them,  and  especially  of  such  grateful 
eatables  as  melons,  and  such  like.— Harmer. 

Formerly  great  attention  v/as  paid  to  the  nurturing  and 
rearing  of  these  birds,  (pigeons,)  their  dung  bringing  in  a 
yearly  income,  from  the  produce  of  one  pigeon-house  alone, 
of  nearly  two  hundred  tomauns.  Among  other  uses  to 
which  the  small  remains  of  this  manure  is  applied,  it  is  laid 
on  the  melon-beds  of  Ispahan ;  and  hence  the  great  reputa- 
tion of  the  melon  of  that  district  for  its  unequalled  flavour. 
Another  use  of  the  dung  in  older  times  was  to  extract  salt- 
petre, for  the  purpose  of  making  gunpowder ;  which,  two 
centuries  ago,  had  only  just  been  put  into  the  Persian  list 
of  warlike  ammunition.— Sir  R.  K.  Porter. 

The  dung  of  pigeons  is  the  dearest  manure  that  the 
Persians  use:  and  as  they  apply  it  almost  entirely  for  the 
rearing  of  melons,  it  is  probably  on  that  account  that  the 
melons  of  Ispahan  are  so  much  finer  than  those  of  other 
cities.  The  revenue  of  a  pis:eon-honse  is  about  a  hundred 
tomauns  per  annum ;  and  the  great  value  of  this  dung, 
which  rears  a  fruit  that  is  indispensable  to  the  existence  of 
the  natives  during  the  great  heats  of  summer,  will  probably 
throw  some  Hsfht  upon  that  passage  in  scripture,  where,  in 
he  famine  of  Samaria,  the  fourth  part  of  a  cab  of  doves' 
dung  was  sold  for  five  pieces  oi'  silver.— Morier. 


Ver.  32.  But  Elisha  sat  in  his  house,  and  the  el- 
ders sat  with  him :  and  the  k'mg  sent  a  man 
from  before  him  :  but  ere  the  messenger  came 
to  him,  he  said  to  the  elders,  See  ye  how  this 
son  of  a  murderer  hath  sent  to  take  away  my 
head  ?  look,  when  the  messenger  cometh,  shut 
the  door,  and  hold  him  fast  at  the  door :  is  not 
the  sound  of  his  master's  feet  behind  him  ? 

See  on  Prov.  16. 14. 

This  form  of  speech  is  used  to  denote  the  rapid  approach 
of  a  person.  When  boys  at  school  are  making  a  great 
noise,  or  doing  any  thing  which  they  ought  not,  some  one 
will  say,  "  I  hear  the  sound  of  the  master's  feet."  Are  peo- 
ple preparing  triumphal  arches,  (made  of  leaves,)  or 
cleaning  the  rest-house  of  a  great  man,  some  of  them  keep 
saying,  "  Quick,  quick,  I  hear  the  sound  of  his  feet."  "  Alas, 
alas !  how  long  you  have  been  !  do  we  not  hear  even  the 
sound  of  the  judge's  feet  7" — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  10.  So  they  came,  and  called  unto  the  porter 
of  the  city ;  and  they  told  them,  saying,  We  came 
to  the  camp  of  the  Syrians,  and, behold,  there  icas 
no  man  there,  neither  voice  of  man,  but  horses 
tied,  and  asses  tied,  and  the  tents  as  they  were. 

From  the  circumstances  recorded  concerning  the  flight 
of  the  Syrians,  it  appears  to  have  been  remarkably  precipi- 
tate. That  they  were  not  altogether  unprepared  for  a  hasty 
departure  may  be  inferred  from  comparing  this  passage 
with  the  following  extract  (from  Memoirs  reMive  to  Egypt, 
p.  300.)  "As  soon  as  the  Arabs  are  apprehensive  oTan 
attack,  they  separate  into  several  small  camps,  at  a  great 
distance  from  each  other,  and  tie  their  camels  to  the  tents, 
so  as  to  be  able  to  move  oflf"  at  a  moment's  notice."  Such 
a  precaution  is  not  probably  peculiar  to  the  modern  Arabs, 
but  might  be  adopted  by  the  Syrian  army.  If  this  was  the 
case,  it  shows  with  what  great  fear  God  filled  their  minds, 
that  though  prepared  as  usual  for  a  quick  march,  they  were 
not  able  to  avail  themselves  of  the  advantage,  but  were 
constrained  to  leave  every  thing  behind  them  as  a  prey  to 
their  enemies. — Burder. 

Ver.  12.  And  the  king  arose  in  the  night,  and 
said  unto  his  servants,  I  will  now  show  you 
what  the  Syrians  have  done  to  us :  They  know 
that  we  be  hungry,  therefore  are  they  gone  oat 
of  the  camp  to  hide  themselves  in  the  field,  say- 
ing. When  they  come  out  of  the  city,  we  shall 
catch  them  alive,  and  get  into  the  city. 

In  the  history  of  the  revolt  of  Ali  Bey,  we  have  an  ac- 
count of  a  transaction  very  similar  to  the  stratagem  sup- 
posed to  have  been  practised  by  the  Syrians.  The  pacha 
of  Damascus  having  approached  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  found 
Sheik  Daher  encamped  there;  but  the  sheik  deferring  the 
engagement  till  the  next  morning,  during  the  night  divided 
his  army  into  three  parts,  and  left  the  camp  with  great  fires 
blazing,  all  sorts  of  provisions,  and  a  large  quantity  of 
spirituous  liquors,  giving  strict  orders  not  to  hinder  the 
enemy  from  taking  possession  of  the  camp,  but  to  come 
down  and  attack  just  before  the  dawn  of  day.  In  the  mid- 
dle of  the  night,  the  pacha  thought  to  surprise  Sheik  Daher, 
and  marched  in  silence  to  the  camp,  which,  to  his  great 
astonishment,  he  found  entirely  abandoned ;  and  imagined 
tlie  sheik  had  fled  with  so  much  precipitation,  that  he  could 
not  carry  ofl^  the  baggage  and  stores.  The  pacha  thought 
proper  to  stop  in  the  camp  and  refresh  his  soldiers.  They 
soon  fell  to  plunder,  and  drank  so  freely  of  the  liquors, 
that,  overcome  with  the  fatigue  of  the  day's  march,  and  the! 
fumes  of  the  spirits,  they  were  not  long  ere  they  sunk  intq 
a  profound  sleep.  At  that  time  two  sheiks,  who  were  watch- 
ing the  enemy,  came  silentlv  to  the  camp,  and  Daher  hav- 
ing repassed  "the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  meeting  them,  they  all 
rushed  into  the  camp,  and  fell  upon  the  sleeping  foe,  eight 
thousand  of  whom  they  butchered  on  the  spot;  and  ihd 
pacha,  with  the:  remainder  of  the  troops,  escaped  witi 


Chap.  8. 


2   KINGS. 


285 


much  difficulty  to  Damascus,  leaving  all  their  baggage 
in  the  hands  of  the  victorious  Daher, — Paxton, 

Ver.  15.  And  they  went  after  them  unto  Jordan; 
and,  lo,  all  the  way  was  full  of  garments  and 
vessels,  which  the  Syrians  had  cast  away  in 
their  haste :  and  the  messengers  returned,  and 
told  the  king. 

The  flight  of  the  Syrians,  in  the  reign  of  Jehoram,  king 
ot  Israel,  was  produced  by  a  panic,  which  so  completely 
immanned  them,  that,  says  the  sacred  historian,  "  all  the 
way  was  full  of  garments  and  vessels,  which  the  Syrians 
had  cast  away  in  their  haste."  The  flight  of  Saladin's 
army,  which  was  defeated  by  Baldwin  IV.  near  Gaza,  in 
the  time  of  the  crusades,  was  marked  with  similar  circum- 
stances of  consternation  and  terror.  To  flee  with  greater 
expedition,  they  threw  away  their  arms  and  clothes,  their 
coats  of  mail,  their  greaves,  and  other  pieces  of  armour,  and 
abandoned  their  baggage,  and  fled  from  their  pursuers,  al- 
most in  a  state  of  complete  nudity.— Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  the  man  of  God 

had  spoken  to  the  king,  saying.  Two  measures 

of  barley  for  a  shekel,  and  a  measure  of  fine 

flour  for  a  shekel,  shall  be  to-morrow,  about 

this  time,  in  the  gate  t)f  S«maria. 

In  ouV  rides  we  usually  went  out  of  town  at  the  Der- 

wazeh  Shah  Abdul  Ajzeem,  or  the  gate  leading  to  the  village 

i  of  Shah  Abdul  Azeem,  where  a  market  was  held  every 

morning,  particularly  of  horses,  mules,  asses,  and  camels. 

At  about  sunrise,  the  owners  of  the  animals  assemble  and 

exhibit  them  for  sale.    But,  besides,  here  were  sellers  of 

all  sorts  of  goods,  in  temporary  shops  and  tents;  and  this, 

perhaps,  will  explain  the  custom  alluded  to  in  2  Kings  vii. 

18,  of  the  sale  of  barley  and  flour  in  the  gate  of  Samaria. 

( Morier. ) — Burder. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  9.  So  Hazael  went  to  meet  him,  and  took  a 
present  with  him,  even  of  every  good  thing  of 
Damascus,  forty  camels'  burden,  and  came  and 
stood  before  him,  and  said,  Thy  son  Ben-hadad, 
king  of  Syria,  hath  sent  me  to  thee,  saying, 
Shall  I  recover  of  this  disease  ? 

See  on  Gen.  43.  25. 

These  animals,  when  not  loaded  beyond  their  strength, 
submit  with  great  patience.  "  When  they  are  to  be  loaded, 
they  bend  their  knees  at  the  voice  of  their  driver  :  but  if 
they  delay  doing  so,  thej  are  struck  with  a  stick,  or  their 
knees  forced  downward,  and  then,  as  if  constrained  and 
groaning  after  their  way,  thev  bend  their  knees,  put  their 
bellies  against  the  ground,  and  remain  in  that  posture  til!, 
afl;er  having  been  loaded,  they  are  commanded  to  rise."— 
Burder. 

The  Syrian  prince,  on  this  occasion,  in  which  he  felt  a 
particular  interest,  no  doubt  sent  Elisha  a  present  corres- 

fjondingwith  his  rank  and  magnificence;  but  it  can  scarce- 
ly be  supposed  that  so  many  camels  were  required  to  carry 
it,  or  that  the  king  would  send,  as  a  Jewish  writer  supposes 
he  did,  so  great  a  quantity  of  provisions  to  one  man.  The 
;meaning  of  this  passage  certainly  is,  that  the  various  arti- 
cles of  which  the  present  consisted,  according  to  the  modern 
custom  of  oriental  courts,  were  carried  on  a  number  of 
Icamels  for  the  sake  of  state,  and  that  not  fewer  than  forty 
were  employed  in  the  cavalcade.  That  these  camels  were 
not  fully  laden,  must  be  evident  from  this,  that  the  common 
load  of  a  Turkman's  camel  is  eight  hundred  pounds  weight ; 
and  consequently,  thirty-two  thousand  pounds  weight  is  the 
.proper  loading  of  forty  camels;  "if  they  were  only  of 
the  Arab  breed,  twenty  thousand  pounds  weight  was  their 
»  .proper  loading  ;"  a  present,  as  Mr.  Harmer  justly  remarks, 
too  enormous  to  be  sent  bv  any  one  person  to  another. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  12.  And  Hazael  said,  Why  weepeth  my 
lord?  And  he  answered,  Because  I  know  the 
evil  that  thou  wilt  do  unto  the  children  of  Is- 


rael :  their  strongholds  wilt  thou  set  on  fire, 
and  their  young  men  wilt  thou  slay  with  the 
sword,  and  wilt  dash  their  children,  and  rip  up 
their  women  with  child. 

This  piece  of  cruelty  has  in  some  instances  been  prac- 
tised on  men.  "  Soon  after  Djezzer  bought  the  Pashalik 
of  Damascus,  coming  to  gather  che  tribute  of  Jerusalem 
and  the  neighbourhood,  he  pitched  his  camp  at  the  village 
of  Yenin,  overlooking  the  plain  of  Esdraelon.  An  Arab 
woman  came  to  complain  to  him  that  one  of  his  soldiers 
had  drank  her  milk,  and  refused  to  pay  her.  He  went 
always  armed  with  a  sabre,  yategan,  and  pistols,  which, 
when  he  ate,  lay  by  his  side.  Taking  up  his  yategan, 
'  Follow  me,'  he  said, '  and  point  out  the  man.'  She  did  so, 
and  he  bade  her  be  sure,  as  a  mistake  would  cost  her  her 
life.  Having  asked  the  soldier  if  the  accusati(m  were  true, 
and  he  denying  it,  he  ripped  him  up,  and  the  milk  immedi- 
ately poured  out  of  his  bleeding  stomach.  Seeing  thus 
that  the  woman  was  right,  he  gave  her  two  sequins,  and 
sent  her  away.  The  soldier  he  left  dead  on  the  ground." 
(Turner.)  The  same  piece  of  cruelty  was  practised  by 
Timour.  It  is  said  that  Mohammed  the  Second  ripped  up 
fourteen  of  his  pages  to  find  a  melon. — Burder, 

Ver.  15.  And  it  came  to  pass  on  the  morrow,  that 
he  took  a  thick  cloth,  and  dipped  it  in  water, 
and  spread  it  on  his  face,  so  that  he  died :  and 
Hazael  reigned  in  his  stead. 

An  English  proverb  says,  "  Give  a  dog  an  ill  name,  and 
it  will  hang  him  :"  much  in  the  spirit  of  this  proverb  has 
been  the  general  treatment  of  the  character  of  Hazael, 
who,  because  he  calls  himself  "  a  dog,"  has  been  treated 
with  great  indignity.  Certainly,  Hazael  can  be  no  fa- 
vourite character  with  any  upright  mind ;  yet  perhaps  it  is 
but  justice  to  suggest  what  may  render  his  murder  of  his 
master.  King  Benhadad,  by  means  of  a  cloth  dipped  in 
water,  at  least  dubious,  without  calling  it  well-intended  on 
his  part.  In  reading  the  history,  (2  Kings  viii.  15,)  it  is 
nothing  less  than  natural  to  suppose,  that  Hazael  must 
have  had,  professedly  at  least,  some  fair  pretence,  some  ap- 
pearance of  propriety  in  the  action  ;  or  why  did  not  those 
in  attendance  on  their  sovereign  prevent  his  proceedings  1 
Was  Hazael  the  only  person  present,  or  in  waiting  on  the 
sick  king  1  It  is  by  no  means  likely ;  in  fact,  it  is  scarcely 
supposable;  but  if  we  conceive  that  Hazael  offered  to  the 
king  either  a  kind  of  remedy  usual  in  the  disorder,  which 
nevertheless  failed  to  cure  him ;  or  an  assistance,  of  which 
he  took  advantage  to  murder  his  master;  then  we  reduce 
his  behaviour  to  plausibility,  and  to  the  custom  of  the 
country  in  such  diseases.  Olsserve  also,  the  text  does  not 
say  expressly  he  did  kill  him ;  but  "  he  took  a  thick  cloth, 
and  dipped  it  in  water,  and  spread  it  over  the  king's  face, 
(or  person,)  and  he  died."  It  is  usually  said,  he  was  chilled 
to  death ;  but  on  reading  the  following  extracts,  we  shall 
probably  admit  that  this  is  an  English  notion,  resulting 
from  our  climate  and  manners,  &c.  applied  to  an  eastern 
disease,  and  to  a  country  wherein  both  climate  and  man- 
ners are  essentially  difl^erent.  If  it  be  said  Hazael  stifled 
the  king  by  means  of  the  cloth  spread  over  his  face,  it 
might  be  so ;  but  we  should  do  well  to  remark,  that  the 
easterns  are  accustomed  to  sleep  with  their  faces  covered; 
Iha*  Hazael  hardly  spread  it  over  the  king's  face  only ;  that 
it  does  not  appear  the  king  was  asleep ;  he  might  therefore 
have  removed  the  cloth,  had  he  thought  proper;  and  that 
whatever  the  cloth  was,  it  was  certainly  employed,  and  the 
whole  action  was  managed,  in  a  way  to  prevent  suspicion. 
Let  us  now  hear  Mr.  Bruce  : 

"  This  fever  prevailed  in  Abyssinia  in  all  low  grounds 
and  plains,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  all  rivers  which  run  in 
valleys ;  it  is  really  a  malignant  tertian,  which,  however, 
has  so  many  forms  and  modes  of  intermission,  that  it  is  im- 
possible for  one  not  of  the  faculty  to  describe  it.  It  is  not  in 
all  places  equally  dangerous ;  but  on  the  banks  and  neigh- 
bourhood of  Tacazze,  it  is  particularly  fatal.  The  valley 
where  the  river  runs  is  very  low  and  sultry,  being  full  of 
large  trees.  It  does  not  prevail  in  high  grounds  or  moun- 
tains, or  in  places  much  exposed  to  the  air.  This  fever  is 
called  NEDAD,  or  burning ;  it  begins  always  with  a  shivering 
and  headache,  a  heavy  tye.  and  an  inclination  to  vomit  • 


2  KINGS, 


Chap.  9. 


a  violent  heat  follows,  which  leaves  little  .ntermisSion,  and 
ends  generally  in  death  the  third  or  Jifth  day.  In  the  last 
stage  of  the  distemper,  the  belly  swells  to  an  enormous  size, 
or  sometimes  immediately  after  death,  and  the  body,  within 
an  instant,  smells  most  insupportably ;  to  prevent  which, 
they  bury  the  corpse  immediately  after  the  breath  is  out,  and 
often  within  the  hour.  The  face  has  a  remarkable  yellow 
appearance,  with  a  blackish  cast,  as  in  the  last  stage  of  a 
dropsy,  or  the  atrophy.  This  fever  begins  immediately 
with  the  sunshine  after  the  first  rains  ;  that  is,  while  there 
are  intervals  of  rain  and  sunshine ;  it  ceases  upon  the  earth 
being  thoroughly  soaked,  in  July  and  August,  and  begins 
again  in  September ;  but  now,  at  the  beginning  of  Novem- 
ber, it  ceases  everywhere.  Masuah  is  very  unwholesome, 
as,  indeed,  is  the  whole  coast  of  the  Red  Sea,  from  Suez  to 
Babelmandel ;  but  more  especially  between  the  tropics. 
Violent  fevers,  called  there  nedad,  make  the  principal 
figure  in  this  fatal  list,  and  generally  determine  the  third 
day  in  death.  If  the  patient  survives  till  the  fifth  day,  he 
very  often  recovers,  by  drinking  water  only,  and  throwing 
a  quantity  of  cold  water  upon  him,  even  in  his  bed,  where 
he  is  permitted  to  lie,  without  attempting  to  make  him  dry, 
or  to  change  his  bed,  till  another  deluge  adds  to  the  first." 
(Bruce's  Travels,)  vol.  iii.  p.  33. 

Do  not  these  extracts  render  it,  in  some  degree,  probable, 
that  Hazael,  besides  the  thick  cloth  soaked  in  water,  added 
other  chilling  remedies  1  in  doing  which  he  did  no  more 
than  is  customary  in  this  disease,  the  nedad ;  and,  if  this 
kind  of  fever,  or  one  allied  to  it,  were  Benhadad's  disease, 
Hazael  might  honestly  spread  a  refreshing  covering  over 
him.  Not  expecting  his  exaltation  to  royalty  so  instanta- 
neously, he  might  be  loyal  as  yet,  though  his  ambition  soon 
found  opportunity  to  be  otherwise.  The  circumstances  of 
the  rapid  approaches  of  death,  and'  of  immediate  burial 
after  death,  seem  very  favourable  to  Hazael's  instantly 
seating  himself  on  the  throne :  especially  if  Benhadad  haid 
no  son,  &c.  of  proper  age  to  be  his  successor. — Tayloh  in 
Calmkt. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Vor.  2.  And  when  thou  comest  thither,  look  out 
there  Jehu  the  son  of  Jehoshaphat,  the  son  of 
Nimshi,  and  go  in,  and  make  him  arise  up 
from  among  his  brethren,  and  carry  him  to  an 
inner  chamber :  3.  Then  take  the  box  of  oil, 
and  pour  it  on  his  head,  and  say,  Thus  saith 
the  Lord,  I  have  anointed  thee  king  over  Is- 
rael. Then  open  the  door,  and  flee,  and  tarry 
not. 

The  fortified  cities  in  Canaan,  as  in  some  other  countries, 
were  commonly  strengthened  with  a  citadel,  to  which  the 
inhabitants  fled  when  they  found  it  impossible  to  defend  the 
place.  The  whole  inhabitants  of  Thebes,  unable  to  resist 
the  repeated  and  furious  assaults  of  Abimelech,  retired  into 
one  of  those  towers,  and  bid  defiance  to  his  rage :  "  But 
there  was  a  strong  tower  within  the  city,  and  thither  tied 
all  the  men  and  women,  and  all  they  of  the  city,  and  shut  ii 
to  them,  and  gat  them  up  to  the  top  of  the  tower."  The 
extraordinary  strength  of  this  tower,  and  the  various  means 
of  defence  which  were  accumulated  within  its  narrow 
walls,  may  be  inferred  from  the  violence  of  Abimelech's 
attack,  and  its  fatal  issue:  "  And  Abimelech  came  unto  the 
tower,  and  fought  against  it,  and  went  hard  unto  the  door 
of  the  tower,  to  bum  it  with  fire.  And  a  certain  woman 
cast  a  piece  of  a  millstone  upon  Abimelech's  head,  and  all 
to  break  his  scull."  Thexity  of  Shechem  had  a  tower  of 
the  same  kind,  into  which  the  people  retired,  when  the 
same  usurper  took  it,  and  sowed  it  with  salt.  These  strong 
towers  which  were  built  within  a  fortified  city,  were  com- 
monly placed  on  an  eminence,  to  which  they  ascended  by 
a  flight  of  steps.  Such  was  the  situation  of  the  city  of  Da- 
vid, a  strong  tower,  upon  a  high  eminence  at  Jerusalem  ; 
and  the  manner  of  entrance,  as  described  by  the  sacred 
■writer :  "  But  the  gate  of  the  fountain  repaired  Shallum, 
tinto  the  stairs  that  go  down  from  the  city  of  David."  It  is 
extremely  probable,  that  Ramoth  Gilead,  a  frontier  town 
belonging  to  the  ten  tribes,  and  in  the  time  of  Jehu  in  their 
possession,  was  strengthened  by  one  of  these  inner  towers, 
Duilt  on  an  eminence,  with  en  approach  of  this  nature.    If 


?llsl 
be] 

'GIL 


this  conjecture  be  well  founded,  it  throw^s  light  upon  a  very 
obscure  passage,  where  the  manner  in  which  Jehu  was 
proclaimed  king  of  Israel,  is  described.  His  associates 
were  no  sooner  informed  that  the  prophet  had  anointed  him 
king  over  the  ten  tribes,  than  "  they  hasted  and  took  every 
man  his  garment,  and  put  it  under  him  on  the  top  of  the 
stairs,  and  blew  with  trumpets,  saying,  Jehu  is  king." 
Hence  the  stairs  were  not  those  within  the  tower,  by  which  j 
they  ascended  to  the  top;  but  those  by  which  they  ascended  I 
the  hill,  or  rising  ground  on  which  the  tower  stood;  the! 
top  of  the  stair  will  then  mean  the  landing-place  in  the  area 
before  the  door  of  the  tower,  and  by  consequence  the  most 
public  place  in  the  whole  city.  As  it  was  the  custom  of 
those  days  to  inaugurate  and  proclaim  their  kings  in  thei 
most  public  places,  no  spot  can  be  imagined  more  proper 
for  such  a  ceremony,  than  the  top  of  the  steps,  that  is,  the 
most  elevated  part  of  the  hill,  upon  which  stood  the  castla 
of  Ramoth  Gilead,  in  the  court  of  which,  numbers  of  people 
might  be  assembled,  waiting  the  result  of  a  council  of  war 
which  was  sitting  at  the  time,  deliberating  on  the  best 
method  of  defending  the  city  against  the  Syrians,  in  the 
absence  of  their  sovereign. — I'axton, 

Ver.  10.  And  the  dogs  shall  eat  Jezebel  in  the 
portion  of  Jezreel,  and  there  shall  he  none  to 
bury  her.     And.  he  opened  the  door  and  fled. 

The  Abbe  Poiret,  in  his  travels  through  Barbary,  tells  \ 
us,  that  the  severest  punishment  among  the  Arabs  is  to  ' 
cut  to  pieces  and  thrown  to  the  dogs.  "  After  this  the  queei 
of  Mira,  concerning  whom  so  many  surprising  stories  had 
been  told  of  her  poisoning  the  water  by  drugs  and  enchant- 
ments, was,  notwithstanding  the  knovTi  partiality  of  this 
king  for  the  fair  sex,  ordered  to  be  hewn  in  pieces  by  the 
soldiers,  and  her  body  given  to  the  dogs."  (Bruce.)— 
Border. 

Ver.  13.  Then  they  hasted,  and  took  every  maii 
his  garment,  and  put  it  under  him  on  the  top 
of  the  stairs,  and  blew  with  trumpets,  saying, 
Jehu  is  king. 

They  laid  down  their  garments  instead  of  carpets.  "  The 
use  of  carpets  was  common  in  the  East  in  the  remoter  ages 
The  kings  of  Persia  always  walked  upon  carpets  in  theii 

Ealaces.  Xenophon  reproaches  the  degenerate  Persians  ol 
is  time,  that  they  placed  their  couches  upon  carpets,  to  re- 
pose more  at  their  ease.  The  spreading  of  garments  in  the 
street  before  persons  to  whom  it  was  intended  to  show  par- 
ticular honour,  was  an  ancient  and  very  general  custom. 
Thus  the  people  spread  their  clothes  in  the  way  before  our 
Saviour,  Matthew  xxi.  8,  where  some  also  strewed  branches. 
In  the  Agamemnon  of  iEschylus,  the  hypocritical  Clytem- 
nestra  commands  the  maids  to  spread  out  carpets  before 
her  returning  husband,  that,  on  descending  from  his  char- 
iot, he  may  place  his  foot  on  a  "  purple-covered  path."  We 
also  find  this  custom  among  the  Romans.  When  Cato  of 
Utica  left  the  Macedonian  army,  where  he  had  become 
legionary  tribune,  tfee  soldiers  spread  their  clothes  in  the 
way.  (Plutarch's  Z/7/eo/'C«to.)  The  hanging  out  of  carpets, 
and  strewing  of  flowers  and  branches,  in  solemn  proces- 
sions, among  us,  is  a  remnant  of  the  ancient  custom.- 

ROSENMULLER. 

Ver.  28.  And  his  servants  carried  him  in  a  char- 
iot to  Jerusalem,  and  buried  him  in  his  sepul- 
chre with  his  fathers  in  the  city  of  David. 

What  does. this  funeral  chariot,  which  was  carried  by 
men,  mean  1  What  we  may  see  in  the  vicinity  of  a  large 
town  every  day  of  our  lives.  This  chariot,  or  thatidcli, 
(as  it  is  called  in  Tamul,)  is  about  six  feet  long,  three  feei 
broad,  and  in  the  centre  about  four  feet  in  height.     Thi 


i 


shape  is  various,  and  the  following  is  more  common  tha 
any  other.  The  draperv  is  of  white,  or  scarlet  cloth  ;  and^ 
the  whole  is  covered  with  garlands  of  flowers.  The  ser- 
vants then  carry  it  on  their  shoulders  to  the  place  of  sepul*' 
ture,  or  burning.— Roberts.    (^See  Engraving.) 

Ver.  30.  And  when  Jehu  was  come  to  Jezreel 
Jezebel  heard  of  ii ;  and  she  painted  her  fac 


Chap.  10. 


2  KINGS. 


287 


and  tired  her  head,  and  looked  out  at  a  window. 

31.  And  as  Jehu  entered  in  at  the  gate,  she 
said,  Hiid  Zimri  peace,  who  slew  his  master  ? 

32.  And  he  lifted  up  his  face  to  the  window, 
and  said,  Who  is  on  my  side  ?  who  ?  And 
there  looked  out  to  him  two  or  three  eunuchs. 

33.  And  he  said,  Throw  her  down. 

She  stained  her  eyes  with  stibium  or  antimony.  This  is 
a  custom  in  Asiatic  countries  to  the  present  day.  "  The 
Persians  differ  as  much  from  us  in  their  notions  of  beauty 
as  they  do  in  those  of  taste.  A  large,  soft,  and  languish- 
ing black  eye,  with  them,  constitutes  the  perfection  of 
beauty.  It  is  chiefly  on  this  account  that  the  women  use 
the  powder  of  antimony,  which,  although  it  adds  to  the 
vivacity  of  the  eye,  throws  a  kind  of  voluptuous  languor 
over  it,  which  makes  it  appear,  if  I  may  use  the  expression, 
dissolving  in  bliss.  The  Persian  women  have  a  curious 
custom  of  making  their  eyebrows  meet ;  and  if  this  charm 
be  denied  them,  they  paint  the  forehead  with  a  kind  of 
preparation  made  for  that  purpose."  (E.  S.  Waring's 
Tour  to  Sheeraz.)— BuRDER. 

In  the  evening  we  accompanied  them  on  shore,  and  took 
some  coffee  in  the  house  of  the  consul,  where  we  were  in- 
troduced to  the  ladies  of  his  family.  We  were  amused  by 
feeing  his  wife,  a  very  beautiful  woman,  sitting  crossleg- 
ged  by  us  upon  the  divan  of  his  apartment,  and  smoking 
tobacco  with  a  pipe  six  feet  in  length ;  her  eyelashes,  as 
well  as  those  of  all  the  other  women,  were  tinged  with  a 
black  powder  made  of  the  sulphuret  of  antimony,  and 
having  by  no  means  a  cleanly  appearance,  although  con- 
sidered as  essential  an  addition  to  the  decorations  of  a 
woman  of  rank  in  Syria,  as  her  ear-rings,  or  the  golden 
cinctures  of  her  ankles.  Dark  streaks  were  also  pencilled, 
from  the  corners  of  her  eyes,  along  the  temples.  This 
curious  practice  instantly  brought  to  our  recollections  cer- 
tain passages  of  scripture,  wherein  mention  is  made  of  a 
custom  among  oriental  women  of  ^^  putting  the  eyes  in  paini- 
ing ;"  and  which  our  English  translators  of  the  Bible, 
unable  to  reconcile  with  their  notions  of  a  female  toilet, 
have'rendered  '■' painthig  the  face." — Clarke. 

The  court  of  eastern  houses  is  for  the  most  part  sur- 
rounded with  a  cloister,  over  which,  when  the  house  has 
a  number  of  stories,  a  gallery  is  erected  of  the  same  di- 
mensions with  the  cloister,  having  a  balustrade,  or  else  a 
piece  of  carved  or  latticed  work,  going  round  about,  to 
prevent  people  from  falling  from  it  into  the  court.  The 
doors  of  the  enclosure  round  the  house,  as  already  men- 
tioned, are  made  very  small,  to  defend  the  family  from  the 
insolence  and  rapacity  of  Arabian  plunderers;  but  the 
doors  of  the  houses  very  large,  for  the  purpose  of  admit- 
ting a  copious  stream  of  fresh  air  into  their  apartments. 
The  windows  which  look  in  the  street,  are  very  high  and 
narrow,  and  defended  by  lattice-work;  as  they  are  only 
intended  to  allow  the  cloistered  inmate  a  peep  of  what  is 
passing  without,  while  she  remains  concealed  behind  the 
casement.  This  kind  of  window  the  ancient  Hebrews 
called  Arubah,  and  is  the  same  term  which  they  used  to 
express  those  small  openings,  through  which  pigeons  pass- 
ed into  the  cavities  of  the  rocks,  or  into  those  buildings 
which  were  raised  for  their  reception.  Thus  the  piophet 
demands :  "  Who  are  these  that  fly  as  a  cloud,  and  as  the 
doves  (onTii-^N-SN)  el  arubothehem,  to  their  small  or  narrow 
windows."  The  word  is  derived  from  a  root  which  sig- 
nifies to  lie  in  wait  for  the  prey;  and  is  very  expressive  of 
the  concealed  manner  in  which  a  person  examines,  through 
that  kind  of  window,  an  external  object.  Irwin  describes 
the>  windows  in  upper  Egypt,  as  having  the  same  form  and 
dimensions;  and  says  expressly,  that  one  of  the  windows 
of  the  houses  in  which  they  lodged,  and  through  which 
they  looked  into  the  street,  more  resembled  a  pigeon-hole, 
than  any  thing  else.  But  the  sacred  writers  mention 
another  kind  of  window,  which  was  large  and  airy:  it 
was  called  (p'?n)  halon^  and  was  large  enough  to  admit  a 
person  of  mature  age  being  cast  out  of  it;  a  punishment 
which  that  profligate  woman  Jezebel  suffered  by  the  com- 
mand of  Jehu,  the  authorized  exterminator  of  her  family. 
— Paxton. 

Dr.  Shaw,  after  having  observed  that  the  jealousy  of  the 
people  there  admits  only  of  one  small  latticed  window  into 


the  street,  the  rest  opening  into  their  own  courts,  says,  "  It 
is  during  the  celebration  only  of  some  zeeim,  as  they  call 
a  public  festival,  that  these  houses  and  their  latticed  win- 
dows or  balconies  are  letl  open.  For  this  being  a  time  or 
great  liberty,  revelling,  and  extravagance,  each  family  is 
ambitious  of  adorning  both  the  inside  and  outside  of  the 
houses  with  their  richest  furniture,  while  crowds  of  both 
sexes,  dressed  out  in  their  best  apparel,  and  laying  aside 
all  modesty  and  restraint,  go  in  and  out  where  they  please. 
The  account  we  have,  2  Kings  ix.  30,  of  Jezebel's  painting 
her  face,  and  tiring  her  head,  and  looking  out  at  a  win- 
dow, upon  Jehu's  public  entrance  into  Jezreel,  gives  us  a 
lively  idea  of  an  eastern  lady  at  one  of  these  zeenahs  or 
solemnities." — Harmer. 

Ver.  33.  And  he  said,  Throw  her  down.  So  they 
threw  her  down :  and  some  of  her  blood  was 
sprinkled  on  the  wall,  and  on  the  horses :  and 
he  trode  her  under  foot. 

While  the  above  particulars  were  relating,  it  was  a 
shuddering  glance  that  looked  down  from  the  open  side  of 
the  Ketkhoda's  saloon,  on  almost  the  very  spot  where  the 
unhappy  victims  had  breathed  their  last.  It  recalled  to  my 
remembrance  a  similar  window,  for  similar  purposes,  at 
Erivan,  where  the  governor  of  that  place  used  to  dispose 
of  his  malefactors  the  moment  sentence  was  pronounced. 
And  while  listening  to  the  hideous  details  of  a  sort  of  pun- 
ishment so  common  in  the  East,  I  could  not  but  recall  simi- 
lar descriptions  in  ancient  writers  on  these  countries,  which 
showed  how  old  had  been  the  practice  of  taking  offenders 
to  a  height,  and  casting  them  headlong,  sometimes  from  a 
rock,  at  others,  from  high  battlements,  and  often  from  a 
window  which  commanded  a  sufficient  steep.  We  have  a 
dreadful  picture  of  this  most  tremendous  mode  of  pun- 
ishment in  the  second  book  of  Kings.— Sir  R.  K.  Porter. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  1.  And  Ahab  had  seventy  sons  in  Samaria. 

To  those  who  are  unaccustomed  to  the  effects  of  polyga- 
my and  concubinage,  this  appears  a  very  remarkable  cir- 
cumstance. In  Homer,  old  King  Priam  is  represented  as 
having  fifty  sons  and  twelve  daughters.  Artaxerxes  Mne- 
mon,  king  of  Persia,  had,  by  his  concubines,  who  amount- 
ed to  three  hundred  and  sixty,  not  less  than  one  hundred 
and  fifteen  sons,  besides  three  by  his  queen.  "  Muley  Ab- 
dallah,  who  was  emperor  of  Morocco  in  1720,  is  said,  by 
his  four  wives,  and  the  many  thousand  women  he  had  in 
his  seraglio  during  his  long  reign,  to  have  had  seven  hun- 
dred sons,  able  to  moimt  a  horse;  but  the  number  of  his 
daughters  is  not  known."  (Stewart's  Journey  to  Mequi- 
nez.) — BuRDER, 

Ver.  6.  Then  he  wrote  a  letter  the  second  time  to 
them,  saying-,  If  ye  be  mine,  and  if  ye  will 
hearken  unto  my  voice,  take  ye  the  heads  of 
the  men  your  master's  sons,  and  come  to  me  to 
Jezreel  by  to-morrow  this  time.  (Now  the 
king's  sons,  being  seventy  persons,  were  with 
the  great  men  of  the  city,  which  brought  them 
up.) 

The  rich  hire  a  dedeh,  or  wet-nurse,  for  their  children.  If 
a  boy,  the  father  appoints  a  steady  man,  from  the  age  of 
two  years,  to  be  his  Meh,  who,  I  conjecture,  must  stand  in 
the  same  capacity  as  the  bringers-up  of  children  mentioned 
in  the  catastrophe  of  Ahab's  sons.  But  if  it  be  a  daughter, 
she  has  a  gees  sefeed,  or  white  head,  attached  to  her  for  the 
same  purpose  as  the  lakh.    (Morier.)— Burder. 

Ver.  8.  And  there  came  a  messenger,  and  told 
him,  saying,  They  have  brought  the  heads  of 
the  king's  sons.  And  he  said,  Lay  ye  them  in 
two  heaps  at  the  entering  in  of  the  gate  until 
the  morning. 

During  this  fight,  ten  tomauns  were  given  for  every  head 
of  the  enemy  that  was  brought  to  the  prince :  and  it  has 


288 


2  KINGS. 


Chap.  10. 


been  known  to  occur,  after  the  combat  was  over,  that  pris- 
oners have  been  put  to  death  in  cold  blood,  in  order  that 
the  heads,  which  are  immediately  despatched  to  the  king, 
and  deposited  in  heaps  at  the  palace-gate,  might  make  a 
*>\ore  considerable  show. — Morier. 

Arrived  ai  the  palace  of  the  pacha,  inhabited  by  the  dey, 
^he  first  object  that  struck  our  eyes  were  six  bleeding  heads, 
ranged  along  before  the  entrance  ;  and  as  if  this  dreadful 
sight  were  not  sufficient  of  itseif  to  harrow  up  the  soul,  it 
was  still  further  aggravated  by  the  necessity  of  stepping 
over  them,,  in  order  to  pass  into  the  court.  They  were  the 
heads  of  some  turbulent  agas,  who  had  dared  to  murmur 
against  the  dey.  (Pananti's  IS arr alive  of  a  Residence  in 
Algiers.)  "  The  pacha  of  Diarbech  has  sent  to  Constan- 
tmople  a  circumstantial  report  of  his  expedition  against 
the  rebels  of  Mardin.  This  report  has  been  accompanied 
by  a  thousand  heads,  severed  from  the  vanquished.  These 
sanguinary  trophies  have  been  exposed,  as  usual,  at  the 
gate  of  the  seraglio.  The  Tartar  who  brought  them  has 
obtained  a  pelisse  of  honour ;  presents  have  also  been  sent 
to  the  pacha."  {Literary  Panorama,  vol.  ix.  p.  289.)  A 
pyramid  of  heads,  of  a  certafti  number  of  feet  diameter, 
IS  sometimes  exacted  in  Persia ;  and  so  indifferent  are  the 
executioners  to  the  distresses  of  others,  that  they  Avill  select 
a  head  of  peculiar  appearance,  and  long  beard,  to  grace  the 
summit  of  it.  Sir  J.  Malcolm  says,  that  "  when  Timour 
.stormed  Ispahan,  it  was  impossible  to  count  the  slain,  but 
an  account  was  taken  of  seventy  thousand  heads,  which 
were  heaped  in  pyramids,  as  monuments  of  savage  re- 
venge." "  Three  weeks  before  our  arrival  at  Cattaro,  they 
(the  Montenegrines)  had  some  skirmishes  with  the  Turks, 
and  had  brought  home  several  of  their  heads,  which  were 
added  to  the  heap  before  the  bishop's  house."  (Dodwell's 
Tour  through  Greece.) — Burder. 

Ver.  12.  And  he  arose  and  departed,  and  came  to 
Samaria.  And  as  he  was  at  the  shearing-house 
in  the  way,  13.  Jehu  met  with  the  brethren  of 
Ahaziah,  king  of  Judah,  and  said,  Who  are  ye  ? 
And  they  answered,  We  are  the  brethren  of 
Ahaziah ;  arid  we  go  down  to  salute  the  child- 
ren of  the  king,  and  the  children  of  the  queen. 
14.  And  he  said,  Take  them  alive.  And  they 
took  them  alive,  and  slew  them  at  the  pit  of  the 
shearing-house,  even  two  and  forty  men :  neither 
left  he  any  of  them. 

Our  translators  suppose,  that  the  edifice  at  which  Jehu 
slew  the  brethren  of  Ahaziah,  king  of  Judah,  was  destined 
to  the  sole  purpose  of  shearing  of  sheep ;  but  as  I  apprehend, 
the  term  in  the  original  is  ambiguous,  which  is  accordingly 
literally  translated  in  the  margin,  the  house  of  shepherd's  bind- 
ing, it  might  be  better  to  use  some  less  determinate  word ; 
as  the  word,  I  am  ready  to  believe,  may  signify  the  binding 
sheep  for  shearing ,  the  binding  up  their  fleeces,  after  those 
tieeces  taken  from  the  sheep  beforehand  were  washed  ;  or 
the  binding  the  sheep  for  the  purpose  of  milking.  Whether 
it  was  erected  for  all  three  purposes,  or  if  only  for  one  of 
them,  then  for  which  of  the  three,  it  may  be  very  difficult 
precisely  to  say.  A  pit  near  such  a  building  must  be  use- 
ful in  any  of  the  three  cases,  for  the  affording  water  for  the 
sheep  that  were  detained  there  for  some  time,  in  the  first  and 
third  case,  to  drink;  and  for  the  washing  the  wool  in  the 
other.  If  the  intention  of  the  historian  had  been  to  de- 
scribe it  as  the  place  appropriated  to  the  shearing  of  sheep, 
it  would  have  been  natural  for  him  to  have  used  the  word 
that  precisely  expresses  that  operation,  not  such  a  general 
term  as  the  house  ofbindins.  All  know  that  sheep  must  be 
bound,  or  at  least  forcibly  "held,  in  order  to  be  shorn  ;  and 
it  appears  in  the  Travels  of  Dr.  Richard  Chandler  in  the 
Lesser  Asia,  that  "  the  shepherds  there,  sitting  at  the  mouth 
of  the  pen,  were  wont  to  seize  on  the  ewes  and  she-goats, 
each  by  the  hind  leg,  as  they  pressed  forward,  to  milk 
them  ■,  which  seizing  them,  sufficiently  shows  they  must  be 
held,  shackled,  or  somehow  bound,  when  milked. 

In  another  observation  I  have  taken  notice  of  the  readi- 
ness of  great  men,  in  the  East,  to  repose  themselves,  when 
fatigued,  under  the  shelter  of  roofs  of  a  very  mean  kind  ; 
ttie  brethren,  it  seems,  of  Ahnziah  anciently  did  the  same 
thing.    But  they  found  no  more  safely  in  this  obscure  re- 


treat, than  they  would  have  found  in  the  palaces  of  either 
Samaria  or  Jezreel.  The  slaying  them  at  the  pit,  near 
this  place,  seems  to  have  been  owing  to  a  custom  at  that 
time,  whether  arising  from  superstition,  lo  preserve  the 
land  from  being  defiled,  or  any  other  notion,  does  not  at  first 
sight  appear ;  but  it  was,  it  seems,  a  customary  thing  at 
that  time  to  put  people  to  death  near  water,  at  least  near 
where  water  was  soon  expected  to  flow,  as  appears  from 
1  Kings  xviii."40. — Harmer. 

Ver.  15.  And  when  he  was  departed  thence,  he 
lighted  on  Jehonadab  the  son  of  Rechab,  com- 
ing to  meet  him :  and  he  saluted  him,  and  said 
to  him,  Is  thy  heart  right,  as  my  heart  is  with 
thy  heart  ?  And  Jehonadab  answered,  It  is. ; 
If  it  be,  give  me  thy  hand.  And  he  gave  him 
his  hand ;  and  he  took  him  up  to  him  into  the 
chariot. 

A  very  solemn  method  of  taking  an  oath  in  the  East  is 
by  joining  hands,  uttering  at  the  same  time  a  curse  upon 
the  false  swearer.  To  this  form  the  wise  man  probably 
alludes  in  that  proverb :"  Though  hand  join  in  hand"— 
though  they  ratify  their  agreement  by  oath — "the  wicked 
shall  not  be  unpunished,  but  the  seed  of  the  righteous  shall 
be  delivered."  This  form  of  swearing  is  still  observed  in 
Egypt  and  the  vicinity ;  for  when  Mr.  Bruce  was  at  Shekh 
Ammer,  he  entreated  the  protection  of  the  governor  in  pros- 
ecuting his  journey,  when  the  great  people,  who  were  as- 
sembled, came,  and  after  joining  hands,  repeated  a  kind  of 
prayer,  of  about  two  minutes  long,  by  which  they  declared 
themselves  and  their  children  accursed,  if  ever  they  lifted 
up  their  hands  against  him  in  the  tell,  or  field,  in  the  des- 
ert ;  or  in  the  case  that  he  or  his  should  fly  to  them  for 
refuge,  if  they  did  not  protect  them  at  the  risk  of  their  lives, 
their  families,  and  their  fortunes  ;  or,  as  they  emphatically 
expressed  it,  to  the  death  of  the  last  male  child  among  them. 
The  inspired  writer  has  recorded  an  instance  of  this  form 
of  swearing  in  the  history  of  Jehu  :  "  And  when  he  was 
departed  thence,  he  lighted  on  Jehonadab,  the  son  of  Re- 
chab, coming  to  meet  him,  and  he  saluted  him,  and  said  to 
him.  Is  thy  heart  right,  as  my  heart  is  with  thy  heart ;  and 
Jehonadab  answered.  It  is.  If  it  be,  give  me  thy  hand.  And 
he  gave  him  his  hand,  and  he  took  him  up  unto  him  into  the 
chariot."  Another  striking  instance  is  quoted  by  Calmet 
from  Ockley's  history  of  the  Saracens.  Telha,  just  before 
he  died,  asked  one  of  Ali's  men  if  he  belonged  to  the  emperor 
of  the  faithful ;  and  being  informed  that  he  did,  "  Give  me 
then,  said  he,  your  hand,  that  I  may  put  mine  in  it,  and  by 
this  action  renew  the  oath  of  fidelity  which  I  have  already 
made  to  Ali." — Paxton. 

Deep  as  the  reverence  is  with  which  the  Orientals  treat 
their  princes,  yet  in  some  cases,  a  mode  of  treatment  oc- 
curs that  we  are  surprised  at,  as  seeming  to  us  of  the  West, 
too  near  an  approach  to  that  familiarity  that  takes  place 
among  equals  :  the  taking  a  new  elected  prince  by  the  hand, 
in  token  of  acknowledging  his  princely  character,  may 
probably  appear  to  us  in  this  light.  D'Herbelot,  in  explain- 
ing an  eastern  term,  which,  he  tells  us,,signifies  the  election 
or  auguration  of  a  calif,  the  supreme  head  of  the  Moham- 
medans, both  in  civil  and  ecclesiastical  matters,  tells  us, 
that  "  this  ceremony  consisted  in  stretching  forth  a  person's 
hand,  and  taking  that  of  him  that  they  acknowledged  for 
calif.  This  was  a  sort  of  performing  homage,  and  swear- 
ing fealty  to  him."  He  adds,  that  "  Khondemir,  a  cele- 
brated historian,  speaking  of  the  election  of  Othman,  the 
third  calif  after  Mohammed,  says,  that  Ali  alone  did  not 
present  his  hand  to  him,  and  that  upon  that  occasion  Ab- 
durahman,  who  had  by  compromise  made  the  election,  said 
to  him,  '  Ali !  he  who  violates  his  word  is  the  first  person 
that  is  injured  by  so  doing;'  upon  hearing  of  which  words, 
Ali  stretched  out  his  hand,  and  acknowledged  Othman  as 
calif" 

How  much  less  solemn  and  expressive  of  reverence  is 
this,  than  the  manner  of  paying  homage  and  swearing  feal- 
ty at  the  coronation  of  our  princes ;  to  say  nothing  of  the 
adoration  that  is  practised  in  the  Romish  church,  upon  the 
election  of  their  great  ecclesiastic  !  It  may  however  serve 
to  illustrate  what  we  read  concerning  Jehonadab,  the  head 
of  an  Arab  tribe  that  lived  in,  and  consequently  was  in 
some  measure  subject  to,  the  kingdom  of  Israel.     "  Jeho- 


i 


Chap.  11—13. 


2  KINGS. 


289 


nadab  came  to  meet  Jehu,  and  he  saluted  him ;  and  Jehu 
said  to  Jehonadab,  Is  thy  heart  right  as  my  heart  is  with 
thy  heart  1  and  Jehonadab  answered,  It  is.  And  he  said. 
If  it  be,  give  me  thy  hc7nd :  and  he  gave  him  his  hand, 
and  he  took  him  up  to  him  into  the  chariot."  This  giving 
him  the  hand  appears  not  to  have  been  the  expression  of 
private  friendship  ;  but  the  solemn  acknowledgment  of  him 
as  king  over  Israel.  Our  translators  seem  to  have  suppos- 
ed, by  their  way  of  expressing  matters,  that  Jehu  saluted, 
or  blessed  Jehonadab,  and  Bishop  Patrick  thought  it  was 
plain  that  it  ought  so  to  be  understood  ;  but  I  cannot  but  think 
It  most  natural  to  understand  the  words  as  signifying,  that 
Jehonadab  came  to  meet  Jehu  as  then  king  of  Israel ;  and 
to  compliment  him  on  being  acknowledged  king  of  the 
country  in  which  he  dwelt;  not  that  this  newly  anointed 
prince  first  saluted  him.  This  would  not  have  been  in 
character.  So  when  Jacob  was  introduced  to  Pharaoh,  he 
is  said  to  have  blessed  Pharaoh,  not  Pharaoh  Jacob,  Gen. 
xlvii.  7.  ^  The  words  therefore  should  have  been  translated, 
with  a  slight  variation,  after  some  such  manner  as  this, 
"  He  lighted  on  Jehonadab,  the  son  of  Rechab,  coming  to 
meet  him,  and  he,  Jehonadab,  saluted  him,  and  he,  Jehu, 
said  unto  him,  Is  thy  heart,"  &c. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XL 
Ver.  2.  But  Jehosheba,  the  daughter  of  king  Jo- 
ram,  sister  of  Ahaziah,  took  Joash  the  son  of 
Ahaziah,  and  stole  him  from  among  the  king's 
sons  which  were  slain  ;  and  they  hid  him,  even 
him  and  his  nurse,  in  the  bedchamber,  from 
Athaliah,  so  that  he  was  not  slain. 

A  bedchamber  does  not,  according  to  the  usage  of  the 
East,  mean  a  lodging  room,  but  a  repository  for  beds. 
Chardinsays,  "  In  the  East  beds  are  not  raised  from  the 
ground  with  posts,  a  canopy,  and  curtains ;  people  lie  on 
the  ground.  In  the  evening  they  spread  out  a  mattress  or 
two  of  cotton,  very  light,  of  which  they  have  several  in 
great  houses,  against  they  should  have  occasion,  and  a 
room  on  purpose  for  them."  From  hence  it  appears  that 
it  was  in  a  chamber  of  beds  that  Joash  was  concealed. — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  12.  And  he  brought  forth  the  king's  son,  and 
put  the  crown  upon  him,  and  gave  him  the  tes- 
timony :  and  they  made  him  king,  and  anoint- 
ed him ;  and  they  clapped  their  hands,  and  said, 
God  save  the  king. 

The  way  by  which  females  in  the  East  express  their 
joy,  is  by  gently  applying  one  of  their  hands  to  their  mouths. 
This  custom  appears  to  be  very  ancient,  and  seems  to  be 
referred  to  in  several  places  of  scripture.  Pitts,  describing 
the  joy  with  which  the  leaders  of  tneir  sacred  caravans  are 
received  in  -the  several  towns  of  Barbary  through  which 
they  pass,  says,  "  This  Emir  Hagge,  into  whatever  town 
he  comes,  is  received  with  a  great  deal  of  joy,  because  he 
is  going  about  so  religious  a  work.  The  women  get  upon 
the  tops  of  the  houses  to  view  the  parade,  where  they  keep 
striking  their  forefingers  on  their  lips  softly  as  fast  as  they 
can,  making  a  joyful  noise  all  the  while."  The  sacred 
writers  suppose  two  different  methods  of  expressing  joy  by 
a  quick  motion  of  the  hand:  the  clapping  of  the  hands,  and 
that  of  one  hand  only,  though  these  are  confounded  in  our 
translation.  The  former  of  these  methods  obtained  an- 
ciently, as  an  expression  of  malignant  joy ;  but  other  words, 
which  our  version  translates  clapping  the  hands,  signify, 
the  applying  of  only  one  hand  somewhere  with  softness,  in 
testimony  of  a  joy  of  a  more  agreeable  kind.  Thus  in 
2  Kings  xi.  12,  and  Psalm  xlvii.  1,  it  should  be  rendered 
in  the  singular.  Clap  your  hand,  and  as  the  word  implies 
gentleness,  it  may  allude  to  such  an  application  of  the  hand 
to  the  mouth  as  has  now  been  recited,— Burder. 

Ver.  14.  And  when  she  looked,  behold,  the  king 
stood  by  a  pillar,  as  the  manner  was,  and  the 
princes  and  the  trumpeters  by  the  king ;  and  all 
the  people  of  the  land  rejoiced,  and  blew  with 
trumpets :  and  Athaliah  rent  her  clothes,  and 
cried,  Treason,  treason ! 

n 


The  Orientals  looked  upon  a  seat  by  a  pillar  or  column 
as  a  particular  mark  of  respect.  In  the'  Iliad,  Homer  places 
Ulysses  on  a  lofty  throne,  by  a  pillar:  and  in  the  Odyssey, 
he  more  than  once  alludes  to  the  same  custom.  The  kings 
of  Israel  were,  for  ihe  same  reason,  placed  at  their  corona- 
tion, or  on  days  of  public  festivity,  by  a  pillar  in  the  house 
of  the  Lord.  Joash,  the  king  of  Judah,  stood  by  a  pillar 
when  he  was  admitted  to  the  throne  of  his  ancestors ;  and 
Josiah,  one  of  his  successors,  when  he  made  a  covenant 
before  the  Lord. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XIL 
Ver.  9.  But  Jehoiada  the  priest  took  a  chest,  and 
bored  a  hole  in  the  lid  of  it,  and  set  it  beside 
the  altar,  on  the  right  side  as  one  cometh  into 
the  house  of  the  Lord  :  and  the  priests  that 
kept  the  door  put  therein  aU  the  money  tho-t 
was  brought  into  the  houee  of  the  Lord. 
See  on  1  Kings  18.  33. 

Ver.  10.  And  it  was  so,  when  they  saw  that  there 

'    was  much  money  in  the  chest,  that  the  king's 

scribe  and  the  high-priest  came  up,  and  they 

put  up  in  bags,  and  told  the  money  that  was 

found  in  the  house  of  the  Lord. 

It  appears  to  have  been  usual  in  the  East  for  money  to  be 
put  into  bags,  which,  being  ascertained  as  to  the  exact  sum 
deposited  in  each,  were  sealed,  and  probably  labelled,  and 
thus  passed  currently.  Instances  of  this  kind  may  be  tra- 
ced in  the  scriptures,  at  least  so  far  as  that  money  was  thus 
conveyed,  and  also  thus  delivered,  from  superior  to  inferior 
officers,  for  distribution :  as  in  the  passage  referred  to  in 
this  article.  Major  Rennel  in  giving  an  abstract  of  the 
History  of  Tobit,  says,  "  we  find  him  again  at  Nineveh, 
from  whence  he  despatches  his  son  Tobias  to  Rages  byway 
of  Ecbatana,  for  the  money.  At  the  latter  place,  he  mar- 
ries his  kinswoman  Sara,  and  sends  a  messenger  on  to 
Rages,  The  mode  of  keeping  and  delivering  the  money 
was  exactly  as  at  present  in  the  East.  Gabriel,  who  kept 
the  money  in  trust,  '  brought  forth  bags,  which  were  sealed 
up,  and  gave  them  to  him,'  and  received  in  return  the 
handwriting  or  acknowledgment  which  Tobias  had  taken 
care  to  require  of  his  father  before  he  left  Nineveh.  The 
money,  we  learn,  was  left  in  trust,  or  as  a  deposite.  and  not 
on  usury,  and,  as  it  may  be  concluded,  with  Tobit's  seal  on 
the  bags.  In  the  East,  in  the  present  times,  a  bag  of  monev 
passes  (for  some  time  at  least)  currently  from  hand  to  hand, 
under  the  authority  of  a  banker's  seal,  without  any  exam- 
ination of  its  contents." — Burder, 

CHAPTER  XIIL 

Ver.  7.  Neither  did  he  leave  of  the  people  to  Je- 
hoahaz  but  fifty  horsemen,  and  ten  chariots,  and 
ten  thousand  footmen  ;  for  the  king  of  Syria 
had  destroyed  them,  and  had  made  them  like 
the  dust  by  thrashing. 

In  modem  Turkey,  the  custom  of  treading  out  the  corn 
by  oxen  is  still  practised.  This  is  a  much  quicker  way 
than  our  method  of  beating  out  the  corn  with  the  flail,  but 
less  cleanly  •  for,  as  it  is  performed  in  the  open  air,  upon 
any  round  level  plat  of  ground,  daubed  over  with  cow- 
dung,  to  prevent  as  much  as  possible  the  earth,  sand,  or 
gravel,  from  rising,  a  great  quantity  of  them  all,  notwith- 
standing these  precautions,  must  unavoidably  be  taken  up 
with  the  grain  ;  at  the  same  time  the  straw,  which  is  their 
only  fodder,  Ls  by  this  means  shattered  to  pieces.  To  this 
circumstance  the  sacred  historian  alludes,  with  great  force 
and  propriety,  in  his  brief  description  of  the  wretched 
state  to  which  the  kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes  had  been  re- 
duced by  the  arms  of  Hazael  king  of  Syria :  "  Neither  did 
he  leave  of  the  people  to  Jehoahaz  but  fifty  horsemen,  and 
ten  chariots,  and  ten  thousand  footmen ;  for  the  king  of 
Syria  had  destroyed  them,  and  had  made  them  like  the  dust 
by  thrashing." — JPaxton. 

Ver.  17.  And  he  said.  Open  the  window  eastward  ; 


290 


2   KINGS, 


Chap.  13—15. 


and  he  opened  it.  Then  Elisha  said,  Shoot : 
and  he  shot.  And  he  said,  The  arrow  of  the 
Lord's  deliverance,  and  the  arrow  of  deliver- 
ance from  Syria ;  for  thou  shalt  smite  the  Syri- 
ans in  Aphek  till  thou  have  consumed  tkem. 

It  was  an  ancient  custom  to  shoot  an  arrow,  or  cast  a 
spear,  into  the  country  which  an  army  intended  to  invade. 
Justin  says,  that  as  soon  as  Alexander  the  Great  had  arrived 
on  the  coasts  of  Ionia,  he  threw  a  dart  into  the  country  of 
the  Persians.  The  dart,  spear,  or  arrow,  thus  thrown,  was 
an  emblem  of  the  commencement  of  hostilities.  Virgil 
represents  Turnus  as  giving  the  signal  of  attack  by  throwing 
a  spear. 

Ecquis  erit  mecum,  O  Jiivenes,  qui  primus  in  hostem? 
En,  ait,  et  jaculum  intorquens  emittil  in  auras. 
Principium  pugnae ;  et  campo  sese  arduus  infert. 

Who  first,  he  cried,  with  me  the  foe  will  dare  1  > 

Then  hurl'd  a  dart,  tlie  signal  of  the  war.— (Pitt.) 

Servius,  in  his  note  upon  this  place,  shows  that  it  was  a 
custom  to  proclaim  war  in  this  way.  The  pater  patratus, 
or  chief  of  the  Feciales,  a  sort  of  heralds,  went  to  the  con- 
fines of  the  enemy's  country ;  and,  after  some  solemnities, 
said,  with  a  loud  voice,  "  I  wage  war  with  you,  for  such  and 
such  reasons ;"  and  then  threw  in  a  spear.  It  was  then  the 
business  of  the  parties  *thiis  defied,  or  warned,  to  take  the  '. 
."ubject  into  consideration;  and  if  they  did  not,  within  ' 
thirty  days,  come  to  some  accommodation,  the  war  was 
begun.*— BuRDER. 

Ver.  21.  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  were  buT}?^- 
ing  a  man,  that,  behold,  they  spied  a  band  of 
men ;  and  they  cast  the  man  into  the  sepulchre 
of  Elisha :  and  when  the  man  was  let  down, 
and  touched  the  bones  of  Elisha,  he  revived, 
and  stood  up  on  his  feet. 

With  us,  the  poorest  people  have  their  coffins ;  if  the  re- 
lations cannot  afford  them,  the  parish  is  at  the  expense.  In 
the  East,  on  the  contrarv,  they  are  not  at  all  made  use  of  in 
oui  times :  Turks  and  Christians,  Thevenot  assures  us, 
agree  in  this.  The  ancient  Jews  probably  buried  their 
dead  in  the  same  manner :  neither  was  the  body  of  our 
Lord,  it  seems,  put  into  a  coffin :  nor  that  of  Elisha,  whose 
bones  were  touched  by  the  corpse  that  was  let  down  a  little 
after  into  his  sepulchre,  (2  Kings  xiii.  21.)  It  is  no  objection 
to  this  account,  that  the  widow  of  Nain's  son  is  represented 
as  carried  forth  to  be  buried  in  a  Eop^? ,  or  bier,  for  the  pres- 
ent inhabitants  of  the  Levant,  who  are  well  knowm  to  lay 
their  dead  in  the  earth  unenclosed,  carry  them  frequently 
out  to  burial  in  a  kind  of  coffin  :  so  Ru.ssel  in  particular 
describes  the  bier  used  by  the  Turks  at  Aleppo  as  a  kind  of 
coffin,  much  in  the  forni  of  ours,  only  the  lid  rises  with  a 
ledge  in  the  middle.  Christians,  indeed,  that  same  author 
tells  us,  are  carried  to  the  grave  in  an  open  bier :  but  as  the 
most  Common  kind  of  bier  there  very  much  resembles  our 
coffins,  that  used  by  the  people  of  Nain  might  very  possibly 
be  of  the  same  kind,  in  which  case  the  word  Sopos'was  very 
proper. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Ver.  9.  And  Jehoash  the  king-  of  Israel  sent  to 
Amaziah  king  of  Judah,  saying,  The  thistle 
that  vi)(2s  in  Lebanon  sent  to  the  cedar  that  was 
in  Lebanon,  saying,  Give  thy  daughter  to  my 
son  to  wife :  and  there  passed  by  a  wild  beast 
that  was  in  Lebanon,  and  trode  down  the  thistle. 

We  have  here  another  beautiful  instance  of  the  way  in 
which  the  ancients  conveyed  instruction  or  reproof  in  par- 
ables, apologues,  or  riddles.  Jehoash,  the  king  of  Israel, 
the  author  of  the  parable,  compares  himself  to  a  cedar : 
and  Amaziah,  the  king  of  Judah,  to  a  thistle.  It  would  no 
doubt  be  very  annoying  to  Amaziah  to  be  represented  by  a 
thistle  !  and  his  opponent  by  a  cedar.  Some  years  ago,  two 
magistrates,  who  were  much  superior  to  their  predecessors, 
in  reference  to  the  wav  in  which  they  had  discharged  their 
duties,  were  appointed  to  take  charge  of  separate  districts. 


The  natives,  as  usual,  did  not  speak  plainly  as  to  their 
merits,  but  under  "  the  similitude  of  a  parable."  One  of 
the  districts  was  very  famous  for  the  banyan  tree,  the  fruit 
of  which  is  only  eaten  by  the  flying  fox,  birds,  and  mon- 
keys. The  people,  therefore,  to  show  how  much  better 
their  present  magistrate  was  than  the  former,  said,  "  Ah ! 
the  banyan  of  our  country  is  now  giving  the  fruit  of  the 
palmirah."  Those  of  the  other  district  {where  the  palmirah 
was  exceedingly  plentiful)  said  of  their  magistrate,  "  Have 
you  not  heard  that  our  palmirah  is  now  giving  mangoes  ?" 
Some  men  are  always  known  by  the  name  of  certain  trees. 
Thus,  a  person  who  is  tall,  and  stoops  a  little,  is  called  the 
cocoa-nut  tree,  and  he  who  has  long  legs  and  arms,  is  called 
the  banyan,  which  spreads  its  arms,  and  lets  fall  its  sup- 
porters to  the  ground.  It  is,  therefore,  not  very  improbable 
that  Jehoash  was  known  by  the  name  of  the  cedar,  and 
Amaziah  by  that  of  the  ^AisiZ^.— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Ver.  28.  And  he  did  that  which  was  evil  in  the 
sight  of  the  Lord;  he  departed  not  from  the 
sins  of  Jeroboam  the  son  of  Nebat,  who  made 
Israel  to  sin. 

See  on  2  Kings  2.  7. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  3.  But  he  w^alked  in  the  way  of  the  kings  of 
Israel ;  yea,  and  made  his  son  to  pass  through 
the  fire,  according  to  the  abominations  of  the 
heathen,  whom  the  Lord  cast  out  from  before 
the  children  of  Israel. 

Few  things  are  more  shocking  to  humanity  than  the  cus- 
tom of  which  such  frequent  mention  is  made  in  scripture, 
of  making  children,  &c.,  pass  through  fire  in  honour  of 
Moloch :  a  custom,  the  antiquity  of  which  appears  from 
its  having  been  repeatedly  forbidden  by  Moses,  as  Lev, 
xviii,  21,  and  at  length,  in  chap.  xx.  1—5,  where  the  ex 
pressions  are  very  strong,  of  "  giving  his  seed  to  Moloch.'* 
This  cruelty,  one  would  hope,  was  confined  to  the  stran- 
gers in  Israel,  and  not  adopted  by  any  native  Israelite;  yet 
we  afterward  find  the  kings  of  Israel,  themselves,  prac- 
tising this  superstition,  and  making  their  children  pass 
through  the  fire.  This  may  be  illustrated  by  an  instance : 
There  is  a  remarkable  variation  of  terms  in  the  history  of 
Ahaz,  who  (2  Kings  xvi.  3)  is  said  to  make  "  his  son  tc 

gass  through  the  fire,  according  to  the  abominations  of  the 
eathen,"  i.  e.  no  doubt,  in  honour  of  Moloch — which 
2  Chron.xxviii.  3,  is  expressed  by  "he  burned  his  childrer 
in  the  fire."  Now,  as  the  book  of  Chronicles  is  best  un- 
derstood, by  being  considered  as  a  supplementary  and  ex- 
planatory history  to  the  book  of  Kings,  it  is  somewhat  sin- 
gular, that  it  uses  by  much  the  strongest  word  in  this 
passage — for  the  import  rtf  ibor  ("^ys'^)  is,  generally,  to  con- 
sume, to  clear  off:  so  Psal.  Ixxxiii.  14,  "  as  the  fire  hirneth 
a  wood,"  so  Isaiah  i.  31 ;  and  this  variation  of  expression 
is  further  heightened,  by  the  word  son  (who  passed  through) 
being  singular  in  Kings,  but  plural  (sons)  in  Chronicles. 
It  .seems  very  natural  to  ask,  "  If  he  burned  his  children  in 
the  fire,  how  could  he  leave  any  posterity  to  succeed  him  1" 
We  know,  that  the  Rabbins  have  histories  of  the  manner 
of  passing  through  the  fires,  or  into  caves  of  fire ;  and 
there  is  an  account  of  an  image,  which  received  children 
into  its  arms,  and  let  them  drop  into  a  fire  beneath,  amid 
the  shouts  of  the  multitude,  the  noise  of  drums,  and  other 
instruments,  to  drown  the  shrieks  of  the  agonizing  infant, 
and  the  horrors  of  the  parents'  mind.  Waiving  further  al- 
lusion to  that  account  at  present,  we  think  the  following 
extract  may  afford  a  good  idea,  in  M^hat  manner  the  passing 
through,  or  over  fire,  was  anciently  perlbrmed :  the  atten- 
tive reader  will  notice  the  particulars.  "  A  still  more  as- 
tonishing instance  of  the  superstition  of  the  ancient  Indians, 
in  respect  to  the  venerated  fire,  remains  at  this  day  in  the 
grand  annual  festival  holden  in  honour  of  Darma  Rajah, 
and  called  the  feast  op  fi^e;  in  which,  as  in  the  ancient 
rites  of  Moloch,  the  devotees  walk  parcfoot  over  a  glowing 
Jire,  extending  forty  feet.  It  is  called  the  feast  of  fire,  be- 
cause thevtheh  walk  on  that  element.  It  lasts  eighteen 
days,  during  which  time,  those  that  make  a  vow  to  keep 
it,  "must  fastj  abstain  from  women,  lie  on  the  bare  ground, 


Chap.  17,  18. 


2  KINGS. 


291 


and  walk  on  a  brisk  fire.  The  eighteenth  day,  they  assem- 
ble, on  the  sound  of  instruments ;  their  heads  crowned  with 
/lowers,  the  body  bedaubed  with  saffron,  amd  follow  in  cadence 
the  figures  of  Darnia  RajaJi^  and  Drobede,  his  wife,  who  are 
carried  there  in  processioii :  M'hen  they  come  lo  the  fire, 
they  stir  it,  to  animate  its  activity,  and  take  a  little  of  the 
ashes,  with  which  they  rub  their  forehead,  and  when  the 
gods  have  been  three  tim£s  rowid  it,  they  walk  either  fast 
or  slow,  according  to  their  zeal,  over  a  very  hot  fire,  ex- 
lendmg  to  about  forty  feet  in  length.  Some  carry  their  chil- 
dren ill  their  arms,  and  others  lances,  sabres,  and  stand- 
ards. "  The  most  fervent  devotees  walk  several  times  over 
the  fire.  After  the  ceremony,  the  people  press  to  collect 
some  of  the  ashes  to  rub  their  foreheads  with,  and  obtain 
from  the  devotees  some  of  the  flowers  with  which  they 
were  adorned,  and  which  they  carefully  preserve."  (Son- 
nerat's  Travels,  vol.  i.  154.)  The  flowers,  then,  were  not 
burned. 

This  extract  is  taken  from  Mr.  Maurice's  "history  of 
Hindostan,"  and  it  accounts  for  several  expressions  used 
in  scripture :  such  as  causing  children  (very  young  per- 
haps) to  pass  through  fire,  as  we  see  they  are  carried  over 
the  fire,  by  which  means,  though  devoted,  or  consecrated, 
they  were  not  destroyed  ;  neither  were  they  injured,  except 
by  being  profaned.  Nevertheless,  it  might,  and  probably 
did  happen,  that  some  of  those  who  thus  passed,  were  hurt 
or  maimed  in  the  passing,  or  if  not  immediately  slain  by 
the  fire,  might  be  burnt  in  this  superstitious  pilgrimage,  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  contract  fatal  diseases.  Shall  we  sup- 
pose, then,  that  while  some  of  the  children  of  Ahaz  passed 
safely  over  the  fire,  others  were  injured  by  it,  and  injured 
even  to  death  ]  But  this  could  not  be  the  case  with  all  of 
them;  as  besides  Hezekiah,  his  successor,  we  read  of 
"  Maaseiah,  the  king's  son,"  2  Chron.  xxviii.  7.  Human- 
ity would  induce  us  to  hope  that  the  expression  "burned," 
should  be  taken  in  a  milder  sense  than  that  of  slaying  by 
Are ;  and,  perhaps,  this  idea  may  be  ju-stified,  by  remarking 
the  use  of  it — Exod.  iii.  2,  3,  "  the  bush  burned  with  fixe, 
yet  the  bush  was  not  consumed."  The  word,  therefore, 
being  capable  of  a  milder,  as  well  as  of  a  stronger  sense, 
like  our  English  word,  to  burn,  it  is  desirable,  if  fact  would 
permit,  to  take  it  in  the  milder  sense  in  this  instance  of 
Ahaz,  and  possibly  in  others.  Nevertheless,  as  the  cus- 
tom of  widows  burning  themselves  to  death,  with  the  body 
of  their  deceased  husbands,  not  only  continues,  bat  is  daily 
practised  in  India,  it  contributes  to  justify  the  harsher  con- 
struction of  the  word  to  burn;  as  the  superstitious  cruelty 
which  can  deprive  women  of  life,  may  easily  be  thought 
guilty  of  equal  barbarity  in  the  case  of  children,  [and 
moreover  the  drowning  of  children  in  the  Ganges,  as  an 
act  of  dedication,  is  common.] — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Ver.  10.  And  they  set  them  up  images  and  groves 
in  every  high  hill,  and  under  every  green  tree : 
11.  And  there  they  burnt  incense  in  all  the 
high  places,  as  did  the  heathen  whom  the 
Lord  carried  away  before  them;  and  wrought 
wicked  things  to  provoke  the  Lord  to  anger. 

Thus  did  the  wicked  Jews  imitate  the  heathen.  The 
whole  verse  might  be  a  description  of  the  localities,  and 
usages  of  modern  heathenism.  See  their  high  hills  ;  they 
are  all  famous  for  being  the  habitation  of  some  deity.  On 
the  summit  there  is  generally  a  rude  representation,  "formed 
by  nature,  or  the  distorted  imagination,  into  the  likeness  of 
a  god.  In  going  to  the  spot,  images  are  set  up  in  every  di- 
rection, as  so  many  sentinels  and  guides  to  the  sacred  ar- 
cana. See  the  Ficus  religiosa,  and  numerous  other  trees, 
under  which  various  symbols  of  idolatry  may  be  seen. 
Fastened  into  the  roots  of  one,  we  discover  the  trident  of 
Siva :  under  another,  an  emblem  of  Ganesa:  there  we  see 
a  few  faded  flowers,  a  broken  cocoa-nut,  an  altar,  or  the 
ashes  of  a  recent  tire. — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  And  they  caused  their  sons  and  their 
daughters  to  pass  through  the  fire. 

The  Tamul  translation  has  "  to  pass  or  tread onX)\e  fire." 
Deut.  xviii.  10.  2  Kings  xxiii.  lO.xxi.  6.  Lev.  xviii.  21.  Jer. 
xxxii.  35.  are  rendered   ''step  over"  the  fire.     To  begin 


with  Lev.  xviii.  21.  "  Thou  shaltnot  let  any  of  thy  seed 
pass  through  the  fire  to  Moloch ;  neither  shalt  thou  profane 
the  name  of  thy  God:  1  am  the  Lord."  The  marginal 
references  "  to  profane  the  name  of  thy  God,"  are  chap. 
xix.  12.  "  And  ye  shall  not  swear  by  my  name  falsely, 
neither  shalt  thou  profane  the  name  of  thy  God."  (See 
also  chap.  xx.  3.  xxi.  6.  and  xxii.  2.  32.  Ezek.  xxxvi.  20.) 
Connected  therefore,  with  passing  through  the  fire,  as  men- 
tioned in  Lev.  xviii.  21,  and  the  marginal  references,  it  is 
clear  that  the  name  of  God  was  profaned  by  swearing. 
The  Tamul  translation  of  Lev.  xviii.  21,  for  "  pass  through 
the  fire,"  has  "  step  over  the  fire,"  which  alludes  to  the 
oath  which  is  taken  by  stepping  over  the  fire.  It  is  a 
solemn  way  of  swearing  to  innocence,  by  first  making  a 
fire,  and  when  stepping  over  to  exclaim,  "  lam  not  guilty." 
Hence  the  frequency  of  the  question,  (when  a  man  denies 
an  accusation,)  "Will  you  step  over  the  firel"  But  so 
careful  are  the  heathen  in  reference  to  fire,  when  they  are 
not  on  their  oath,  that  they  will  not  step  over  it.  See  a  trav- 
eller on  his  journey;  does  he  come  to  a  place  where  there 
has  been  a  fire,  he  will  not  step  over  it,  but  walk  round  it, 
lest  any  evil  should  come  upon  him.  I  think  it,  therefore, 
probable,  from  the  words,  "  profane  the  name  of  thy  God," 
as  mentioned  in  connexion  with  passing  through  the  fire, 
and  from  the  eastern  custom,  that  the  ancient  idolaters  did 
take  a  solemn  oath  of  allegiance  to  their  gods,  or  of  their 
innocence  of  crime,  by  thus  stepping  over  the  fire. 

But  it  is  also  a  custom  among  these  heathen  to  pass 
through,  or  rather  to  walk  on,  the  fire.  This  is  done  some- 
times in  consequence  of  a  vow,  or  from  a  wish  to  gain 
popularity,  or  to  merit  the  favour  of  the  gods.  A  fire  is 
made  on  the  ground,  from  twenty  to  thirty  paces  in  length, 
and  the  individual  walks  on  it  barefoot,  backwards  and 
forwards,  as  many  times  as  he  may  believe  the  nature  of 
his  circumstances  require.  Some  say  that  these  devotees 
put  a  composition  on  their  feet,  which  prevents  them  from 
being  much  burnt ;  but  I  am  of  opinion  this  is  not  often  the 
case.  To  walk  on  the  fire  is  believed  to  be  most  acceptable 
to  the  cruel  goddess  Kali,  the  wife  of  Vyravar,  who  was  the 
prince  of  devils.  When  a  man  is  sick,  he  vows,  "  O  Kali, 
mother,  only  cure  me,  and  I  will  walk  on  fire  in  your  holy 
presence."  A  father,  for  his  deeply  afflicted  child,  vows, 
"  O  Kali,  or,  O  Vyravar,  only  deliver  him,  and  when  he 
is  fifteen  years  of  age,  he  shall  walk  on  fire  in  your  divine 
presence. — Roberts, 

Ver.  37.  And  the  statutes,  and  the  ordinances,  and 
the  law,  and  the  commandment,  which  he  wrote 
for  you,  ye  shall  observe  to  do  for  evermore ; 
and  ye  shall  not  fear  other  gods. 

The  most  prominent  effect  of  heathenism  on  the  minds 
of  its  votaries  is  fear  ;  and  no  wonder;  for  how  can  they 
love  deities  guilty  of  such  repeated  acts  of  cruelty,  injustice, 
falsehood,  dishonesty,  and  impurity  1  Strange  as  it  may 
appear,  European  descendants,  as  well  as  native  Christians, 
are  in  danger  of  fearing  the  gods  of  the  heathen.  There 
are  so  many  traditions  of  their  malignity  and  power,  that 
It  requires  strength  of  mind,  and,  above  all,  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ,  the  conqueror  of  devils,  to  give  a  perfect  victory 
over  it.  On  this  account  the  missionaries  sent  out  by  Den- 
mark, more  than  one  hundred  years  ago,  (and  some  of  their 


^° 


successors,)  have  not  approved  of  the  native  Christian 
studying  the  heathen  books  and  superstitions.  This,  how- 
ever, has  had  an  injurious  eflfect,  because  it  disqualified  the 
members  of  the  church  to  expo-^e  the  errors  of  heathenism 
to  the  people,  and  also  conveyed  an  idea  of  something  like 
inadequacy  in  the  Gospel  of  Christ  to  meet  such  a  system. 
In  view  of  this,  the  missionaries  of  the  present  day,  and 
many  of  their  converts,  have,  like  Ezekiel,  (chap'  viii.) 
looked  into  this  vile  arcana ;  have  dragged  the  monstrous 
transactions  to  light,  exposed  them  to  public  gaze,  and 
driven  from  the  field  of  argument,  the  proud  and.  learned 
Bramin. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XVIIL 

Ver.  8.  He  smote  the  Philistines,  eve':i  unto  Gaza, 
and  the  borders  thereof,  from  the  'lOwer  of  tho 
watchmen  to  the  fenced  city. 

See  on  Is.  14.  29. 


292 


2  KINGS. 


Chap.  18. 


Ver.  11.  And  the  king  of  Assyria  did  carry  away 
Israel  unto  Assyria,  and  put  them  in  Halah 
and  in  Habor  hy  the  river  of  Gozan,  and  in  the 
cities  of  the  Medes. 

For  the  following  narrative,  and  the  particular  applica- 
tion of  it,  great  commendation  is  due  to  the  learned  and 
intelligent  traveller.  After  describing  some  sculptured 
figures  which  he  had  just  seen,  he  says :  "  At  a  point  some- 
thing higher  up  than  the  rough  gigantic  forms  just  described, 
in  a  very  precipitous  cliff,  there  appeared  to  me  a  still  more 
interesting  piece  of  sculpture,  though  probably  not  of  such 
deep  antiquity.  Even  at  so  vast  a  height,  the  first  glance 
showed  it  to  have  been  a  work  of  some  age  accomplished 
in  the  art;  for  all  here  was  executed  with  the  care  and  fine 
expression  of  the  very  best  at  Persepolis.  I  could  not  re- 
sist the  impulse  to  examine  it  nearer  than  from  the  distance 
of  the  ground,  and  would  have  been  glad  of  GLueen  Semi- 
ramis's^ stage  of  packs  and  fardels.  To  approach  it  at  all 
was  a  business  of  difficulty  and  danger ;  however,  after 
much  scrambling  and  climbing,  I  at  last  got  pretty  far  up 
the  rock,  and  finding  a  ledge,  placed  myself  on  it  as  firmly 
as  I  could;  but  still  I  was  further  from  the  object  of  all  this 
peril  than  I  had  hoped :  yet  my  eyes  being  tolerably  long- 
sighted, and  my  glass  more  so,  I  managed  to  copy  the 
whole  sculpture  with  considerable  exactness.  It  con- 
tains fourteen  figures,  one  of  which  is  in  the  air.  The 
first  figure  (to  our  left  in  facing  the  sculpture)  carries  a 
spear,  and  is  in  the  fall  Median  habit,  like  the  leaders  of 
the  guards  at  Persepolis:  his  hair  is  in  a  similar  fashion, 
and  bound  with  a  fillet.  The  second  fignre  holds  a  bent 
bow  in  his  left  hand;  he  is  in  much  the  same  dress,  with 
the  addition  of  a  quiver  slung  at  his  back  by  a  belt  that 
crosses  his  right  shoulder,  and  his  wrists  are  adorned  with 
bracelets.  The  third  personage  is  of  a  stature  much  larger 
than  any  other  in  the  group,  a  usual  distinction  of  royalty 
in  oriental  description;  and,  from  the  air  and  attitude  of 
the  figure,  I  have  no  doubt  he  is  meant  to  designate  the 
king.  The  costume,  excepting  the  beard  not  being  quite 
so  long,  is  precisely  that  of  the  regal  dignity,  exhibited  in 
the  basreliefs  of  Nakshi-Roustan,  and  Persepolis:  a  mix- 
ture of  the  pontiff-king,  and  the  other  sovereign  personages. 
The  robe  being  the  ample  vesture  of  the  one,  and  the  dia- 
dem the  simple  band  of  the  other  :  a  style  of  crown  which 
appears  to  have  been  the  most  ancient  badge  of  supremacy 
of  either  king  or  pontiff.  But  as  persons  of  inferior  rank 
also  wore  fillets,  it  seems  the  distinction  between  theirs  and 
their  sovereigns,  consisted  in  the  material  or  colour.  For 
instance,  the  band  or  cydaris,  which  formed  the  essential 
part  in  the  old  Persian  diadem,  was  composed  of  a  twined 
substance  of  purple  and  white:  and  any  person  below  the 
royal  dignity  presuming  to  wear  those  colours  unsanctioned 
by  the  king,  was  guilty  of  a  transgression  of  the  law,  deem- 
ed equal  to  high  treason.  The  fillets  of  the  priesthood 
were  probably  white  or  silver ;  and  the  circlets  of  kings, 
in  general,  simple  gold.  Bracelets  are  on  the  wrists  of 
this  personage,  and  he  holds  up  his  hand  in  a  commanding 
or  admonitory  manner,  the  two  forefingers  being  extended, 
and  the  two  others  doubled  down  in  the  palm :  an  action 
also  common  on  the  tombs  at  Persepolis,  and  other  monu- 
ments just  cited;  his  left  hand  grasps  a  bow  of  a  different 
shape  from  that  held  by  his  oflic^er,  but  exactly  like  the  one 
on  which  the  king  leans  in  the  basrelief  on  the  tomb  at 
Nakshi-Roustan.  This  bow,  together  with  the  left  foot  of 
the  personage  I  am  describing,  rests  on  the  body  of  a  pros- 
trate man,  who  lies  on  his  back  with  outstretched  arms,  in 
the  act  of  supplicating  for  mercy.  This  unhappy  per- 
sonage, and  also  the  first  in  the  string  of  nine  which  ad- 
vance towards  the  king,  are  verv  much  injured:  however, 
enough  remains  of  the  almost  defaced  leader,  when  com- 
pared with  the  apparent  condition  of  the  succeeding  eight, 
to  show  that  the  whole  nine  are  captives.  The  hands  of 
all  are  tied  behind  their  backs,  and  the  cord  is  very  dis- 
tinct which  binds  the  neck  of  the  one  to  the  neck  of  the 
other,  till  the  mark  of  bondage  reaches  to  the  last  in  the 
line.  If  it  were  also  originally  attached  to  the  leader,  the 
cord  is  now  without  trace  there ;  his  hands,  however,  are 
evidentlv  in  the  same  trammels  as  his  followers.  The 
second  figure  m  the  procession  has  his  hair  so  close  to  his 
head,  that  it  appears  to  have  been  shaven,  and  a  kind  of 
caul  covers  it  trom  the  top  of  the  forehead  to  the  middle  of 


the  head.  He  is  dressed  in  a  short  tunic,  reaching  no  fur- 
ther than  the  knee;  a  belt  fastens  it  round  the  waist ;  his 
legs  are  bare.  Behind  this  figure  is  a  much  older  person, 
with  a  rather  poiilted  beard  and  bushy  hair,  and  a  similar 
caul  covers  the  top  of  his  head.  He  too  is  habited  in  a 
short  tunic,  with  something  like  the  rrouser,  or  booted  ap- 
pearance on  the  limbs  which  is  seen  on  some  of  the  figures 
at  Persepolis.  In  addition  to  the  binding  of  the  hands, 
the  preceding  figure,  and  this,  are  fastened  together  by  a 
rope  round  their  necks,  which  runs  onward,  noosing  all 
the  remaining  eight  in  one  string.  This  last-described 
person  has  the  great  peculiarity  attached  to  him,  of  the 
skirt  of  his  garment  being  covered  entirely  with  inscrip- 
tions in  the  arrow-headed  character.  Next  follows  one  m 
a  long  vestment,  with  full  hair,  without  the  caul.  Then 
another  in  a  short,  plain  tunic,  with  trousers.  Then  suc- 
ceeds a  second  long  vestment.  After  him  comes  one  in  a 
short  tunic,  with  naked  legs,  and,  apparently,  a  perfectly 
bald  head.  He  is  followed  by  another  in  long  vestments. 
But  the  ninth,  and  last  in  the  group,  who  also  is  in  the 
short  tunic  and  trouser,  has  the  singularity  of  wearing  a 
prodigious  high-pointed  cap;  his  beard  and  hair  are  much 
ampler  than  any  of  his  companions,  and  his  face  looks  of 
a  greater  age.  In  the  air,  over  the  heads  of  the  centre 
figures,  appears  the  floating  intelligence  in  his  circle  and 
car  of  sunbeams,  so  often  remarked  on  the  sculptures  of 
Nakshi-Roustan  and  Persepolis. 

"  Above  the  head  of  each  individual  in  this  basrelief  is  a 
compartment  with  an  inscription  in  the  arrow-headed  wri- 
ting, most  probably  descriptive  of  the  character  and  situa- 
tion of  each  person.  And  immediately  below  the  sculp- 
ture, are  two  lines  in  the  same  language,  running  the 
whole  length  of  the  group.  Under  these  again,  the  exca- 
vation is  continued  to  a  considerable  extent,  containing 
eight  deep  and  closely-written  columns  in  the  same  char- 
acter. From  so  much  labour  having  been  exerted  on  this 
part  of  the  work,  it  excites  more  regret  that  so  little  pro- 
gress has  yet  been  made  towards  deciphering  the  character. 
The  design  of  this  sculpture  appears  to  tally  so  well  with 
the  great  event  of  the  total  conquest  over  Israel,  by  Salma- 
neser,  king  of  Assyria,  and  the  Medes,  that  I  venture  to 
suggest  the  possibility  of  this  basrelief  having  been  made  to 
commemorate  that  final  achievement.  Certain  circum- 
stances attending  the  entire  captivity  of  the  ten  tribes, 
which  took  place  in  a  second  attack  on  their  nation,  when 
considered,  seem  to  confirm  the  conjecture  into  a  strong 
probability.  In  turning  from  this  account  in  the  scriptures, 
to  the  sculpture  on  the  rock,  the  one  seemed  clearly  to  ex- 
plain the  other.  In  the  royal  figure,  I  see  Salmaneser,  the 
son  of  the  renowned  Arbaces,  followed  by  two  appropriate 
leaders  of  the  armies  of  his  two  dominions,  Assyria  and 
Media,  carrying  the  spear  and  the  bow.  Himself  rests  on 
the  great  royal  weapon  of  the  East,  revered  from  earliest 
time  as  the  badge  of  supreme  power — Behold  I  do  set  my 
bow  in  the  cloud.  Besides,  he  tramples  on  a  prostrate  foe, 
not  one  that  is  slain,  but  one  who  is  a  captive :  this  person 
nothing  stretched  out  and  motionless,  but  extending  his. 
arms  in  supplication.  He  must  have  been  a  king,  for  on 
none  below  that  dignity  would  the  haughty  foot  of  an  east- 
ern monarch  condescend  to  tread.  Then  we  see  approach 
nine  captives,  bound,  as  it  were,  in  double  bonds,  in  sign 
of  a  double  oflfence.  We  may  understand  this  accumulated 
transgression,  on  recollecting  that  on  the  first  invasion  of 
Israel,  by  Tiglath-pileser,  he  carried  away  only  part  of 
three  tribes ;  and  on  the  second  by  Salmaneser,  he  not  only 
confirmed  Hoshea  on  the  throne,  but  spared  the  remaining 
people.  Therefore,  on  this  determined  rebellion  of  king 
and  people,  he  punishes  the  ingratitude  of  both,  by  putting 
both  in  the  most  abject  bonds,  and  bringing  away  the  Avhole 
of  the  ten  tribes  into  captivity ;  or,  at  least,  the  principal  of 
the  nation ;  in  the  same  manner,  probably,  as  was  after- 
ward adopted  byNebuchadnez7ar  of  Babylon,  with  regard 
to  the  inhabitants  of  Judea,  he  carried  away  all  from  Jeru- 
salem., and  all  the  princes,  and  all  the  mighty  men  of  valour^ 
even  ten  thousand  captives ;  and  all  the  craftsmen  and  smiths ; 
none  remained,  save  the  poorest  sort  of  people  of  the  land. 
2  Kings  xxiv.  14. 

"  Besides,  it  may  bear  on  our  argument,  to  remark,  that, 
including  the  prostrate  monarch,  there  are  precisely  ten 
captives:  who  might  be  regarded  as  the  representatives, 
or  heads,  of  each  tribe,  beginning  with  the  king,  who,  as- 
suredly, would  be  considered  as  the  chief  of  his:  and  end- 


Chap.  18. 


2   KINGS. 


293 


ing  with  the  aged  figure  at  the  end,  whose  high  cap  may 
hav^e  been  an  exaggerated  representation  of  the  mitre  worn 
by  the  sacerdotal  tribe  of  Levi;  a  just  punishment  of  the 
priesthood  at  that  time,  which  had  debased  itself  by  every 
species  of  idolatrous  compliance  with  the  whims,  or  rather 
^vickedness  of  the  people,  in  the  adoption  of  pagan  wor- 
ship. Hence,  having  all  walked  in  the  statutes  of  the 
heathen,  the  Lord  rejected  Israel,  and  delivered  them  into 
the  hand  of  the  spoilers.  Doubtless,  the  figure  with  the 
inscription  on  his  garments,  from  the  singularity  of  the 
appendage,  must  have  been  some  noted  personage  in  the 
liistory  of  the  event ;  and  besides,  it  seems  to  designate  a 
striking  peculiarity  of  the  Jews,  who  were  accustomed  to 
write  memorable  sentences  of  old,  in  the  form  of  phylacte- 
ries, on  different  parts  of  their  raiment.  What  those  may 
mean,  which  cover  the  garment  of  this  figure,  we  have  no 
means  of  explaining,  till  the  diligent  researches  of  the 
learned  may  be  able  to  decipher  the  arrow-headed  charac- 
ter, and  then  a  full  light  would  be  thrown  on  the  whole 
history,  by  expounding  the  tablets  over  every  head.  If  the 
aerial  form  above  were  ever  intended  to  represent  the 
heavenly  apparition  of  a  departed  king,  which  is  the  opin- 
ion of  some,  that  of  the  great  Arbaces  might  appear  here 
with  striking  propriety,  at  the  final  conquest  of  rebellious 
Israel.  Should  the  discoveries  of  time  prove  my  conjec- 
ture at  all  right,  this  basrelief  must  be  nearly  two  himdred 
years  older  than  any  which  are  ascribed  to  Cyrus,  at  Perse- 
polis  or  Pasargadse."  (Sir  R.  K.  Porter.) — Burder.  {See 
engraving,  pi.        no.        at  the  end  of  the  tolume.) 

Ver.  20.  Thou  sayest,  (but  thei/  are  but  vain 
words,)  I  have  counsel  and  streng-th  for  the  war. 
Now,  oil  whom  dost  thou  trust,  that  thou  rebel- 
lest  against  me? 

The  Hindoos  say  of  boasting  words,  or  those  which  do 
not  proceed  from  the  heart,  they  are  "  words  of  the  mouth;" 
but  to  speak  evil  of  a  person  is  called  a  chondu-chadi,  a  hint 
of  the  LIP. — Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  Now  therefore,  I  pray  thee,  give  pledges 
to  my  lord  the  king  of  Assyria,  and  I  will  de- 
i         liver  thee  two  thousand  horses,  if  thou  be  able 
on  thy  part  to  set  riders  upon  them. 

In  the  first  periods  of  the  Jewish  history,  the  armies  of 
Israel  consisted  all  of  footmen.  At  length  Solomon  raised 
a  body  of  twelve  thousand  horse,  and  fourteen  hundred 
chariots,  some  with  two,  and  others  with  four  horses  ;  but 
whether  that  magnificent  prince  intended  them  for  pomp  or 
war,  is  uncertain.  Infantry  was  also  the  chief  strength  of 
the  Greek  and  Roman  armies.  Cavalry  is  not  so  neces- 
sary in  warm  climates,  where  the  march  of  troops  is  less 
incommoded  with  bad  roads ;  nor  can  they  be  of  so  much 
use  in  mountainous  countries,  where  their  movements  are 
attended  with  great  difficulty  and  hazard.  The  eastern 
potentates,  however,  brought  immense  numbers  of  horse 
into  the  'field,  and  chiefly  trusted  to  their  exertions  for  de- 
fence or  conquest.  The  people  of  Israel,  who  were  ap- 
pointed to  "  dwell  alone,"  and  not  to  mingle  with  the  na- 
tions around  them,  nor  imitate  th&ir  policy,  were  expressly 
forbidden  to  maintain  large  bodies  of  cavalry;  and  they 
accordingly  prospered,  or  were  defeated,  as  they  obeyed  or 
transgressed  this  divine  command;  which  a  celebrated  au- 
thor observes,  cannot  be  justified  by  the  measures  of  human 
prudence.  Even  upon  political  reasons,  says  Warburton, 
the  Jews  might  be  justified  in  the  disuse  of  cavalry,  in  the 
defence  of  their  country,  but  not  in  conquering  it  from  a 
warlike  people,  who  abounded  in  horses.  Here,  at  least, 
the  exertion  of  an  extraordinary  providence  w^as  wonder- 
fully conspicuous.  The  kings  who  succeeded  Solomon 
certainly  raised  a  body  of  horse  for  the  defence  of  their 
dominions,  which  they  recruited  from  the  studs  of  Egypt, 
in  those  times  equally  remarkable  for  their  vigour  and 
beauty.  But  the  Jewish  cavalry  were  seldom  very  numer- 
ous; and  under  the  religions  kings  of  David's  line,  who 
made  the  divine  law  the  rule  of  their  policy,  they  were 
either  disembodied  altogether,  or  reduced  to  a  very  small 
number.  In  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  when  the  country  was 
invaded  by  the  king  of  Assyria,  the  .Tews  seem  to  have  had 
no  force  of  this  kind,  for.'said  Rabshakeh,  "Now,  there- 


fore, I  pray  thee,  give  pledges  to  my  lord,  the  king  of  As- 
syria, and  I  will  deliver  thee  two  thousand  horses,  if  thou 
be  able  on  thy  part  to  set  riders  upon  them." — Paxton. 

Ver.  28.  Then  Rabshakeh  stood,  and  cried  with 
a  loud  voice  in  the  Jews'  language,  and  spake, 
saying.  Hear  the  word  of  the  great  king,  the 
king  of  Assyria :  29.  Thus  saith  the  king,  Let 
not  Hezekiah  decei^^e  you ;  for  he  shall  not  be 
able  to  deliver  you  out  of  his  hand  :  30.  Neither 
let  Hezekiah  make  you  trust  in  the  Lord,  say- 
ing. The  Lord  will  surely  deliver  us,  and  this 
city  shall  not  be  delivered  into  the  hand  of  the 
king  of  Assyria.  31.  Hearken  not  to  Heze- 
kiah :  for  thus  saith  the  king  of  Assyria,  Make 
an  agreement  with  me  by  a  present,  and  come 
out  to  me,  and  then  eat  ye  every  man  of  his 
own  vine,  and  every  one  of  his  fig-tree,  and 
drink  ye  every  one  the  waters  of  his  cistern ; 
'  32.  Until  I  come  and  take  you  away  to  a  land 
like  your  own  land ;  a  land  of  corn  and  winf 
a  land  of  bread  and  vineyards,  a  land  of  oix 
olive  and  of  honey,  that  ye  may  live  and  not 
die :  and  hearken  not  unto  Hezekiah,  when  he 
persuadeth  you,  saying,  The  Lord  will  deliv- 
er us. 

It  must  be  owned  that  there  is  something  extremely  in- 
solent in  the  speeches  of  Rabshakeh  to  Hezekiah  and  his 
loyal  subjects,  (2  Kings  xviii. ;)  his  boastings,  both  as  to 
matter  and  manner,  appear  to  have  been  of  the  most  un- 
limited kind,  and  to  have  wanted  for  no  amplification  in 
the  capacity  of  the  speaker  to  bestow  on  them  :  he  describes 
his  master's  power  in  the  highest  terms,  and  even  beyond 
what  fidelity,  as  a  servant  to  the  king  of  Assyria,  inight 
have  required  from  him.  Probably  his  speeches  are  re- 
corded as  being  in  a  strain  somewhat  unusual,  and  it  will 
not  be  easy  to  find  their  equal :  nevertheless,  the  reader 
may  be  amused  by  the  following  portrait,  which  forms  no 
bad  companion  to  that  of  Rabshakeh:  if  it  may  not  rival 
that  in  expression,  it  falls  little  short  of  it,  and  is,  to  say  the 
least,  an  entertaining  representation  of  eastern  manners 
and  train  of  thought.  It  should  be  remarked,  that  Rabsha- 
keh was  speaking  openly,  in  defiance  to  enemies :  Hyat 
Saib  was  conversing  in  his  own  residence.  If,  wheji 
speaking  in  private,  he  was  thus  eloquent,  what  had  been 
his  eloquence,  had  Ije  been  employed  by  his  sovereign  in  a 
message  of  defiance '? 

Hyat  Saib,  the  jemadar,  or  governor  of  Baidanore, 
"  having  exhausted  his  whole  string  of  questions,  he  turned 
the  discourse  to  another  subject — no  less  than  his  great  and 
puissant  lord  and  master,  Hyder,  of  whom  he  had  endeav- 
oured to  impress  me  with  a  great,  if  not  a  terrible  idea; 
amplifying  his  honour,  his  wealth,  and  the  extent  and  opu- 
lence of  His  dominions  ;  and  describing  to  me,  in  the  most 
exaggerated  terms,  the  number  of  his  troops,  his  military 
talents,  his  vast,  and,  according  to  his  account,  unrivalled 
genius;  his  amazing  abilities  in  conquering  and  governing 
nations ;  and,  above  all,  his  amiable  qualities  and  splendid 
endowments  of  heart,  no  less  than  understanding. 

"  Having  thus,  with  equal  zeal  and  fidelity,  endeavoured 
to  impress  me  wath  veneration  for  his  lord  and  master,  and 
for  that  purpose  attributed  to  him  every  perfection  that  may 
be  supposed  to  be  divided  among  all  the  kings  and  generals 
that  have  lived  since  the  birth  of  Christ,  and  given  each 
their  due,  he  turned  to  the  English  government,  and  en- 
deavoured to  demonstrate  to  me  the  folly  and  inutility  of 
our  attempting  to  resist  his  progress,  w^hich  he  compared  to 
that  of  the  sea,  to  a  tempest,  to  a  torrent,  to  a  lion's  pace  and 
fury — to  every  thing  that  an  eastern  imagination  could  sug- 
gest as  a  figure  proper  to  exemplify  grandeur  and  irresist- 
ible power.  He  then  vaunted  of  his  sovereign's  successes 
over  the  English,  some  of  which  I  had  not  heard  of  before, 
and  did  not  believe  ;  and  concluded  by  assuring  me,  that  it 
was  Hyder's  determination  to  drive  all  Europeans  from 
Indostan,  which  he  averred  he  could  not  fail  to  do,  con- 
i  sidering  the  weakness  of  the  one,  and  the  boundless  power 


294 


2  KINGS. 


Chap.  19 


of  the  other. — He  expended  half  an  hour  in  this  manner 
and  discourse."  (Campbell's  Travels  to  India.) — Taylor  in 
Calmet. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Ver.  3.  And  they  said  unto  him,  Thus  saith  Hez- 
ekiah,  This  day  is  a  day  of  trouble,  and  of  re- 
buke, and  blasphemy  :  for  the  children  are  come 
to  the  birth,  and  there  is  not  strength  to  bring 
forth. 

When  a  person  has  all  but  accomplished  his  object,  when 
only  a  very  slight  obstacle  has  prevented  him,  it  is  then 
said,  "  The  child  came  to  the  birth,  but  there  was  not 
strength  to  bring  it  forth."  Some  time  ago,  an  opulent 
man  accused  another,  who  was  also  very  rich,  and  in  office, 
of  improper  conduct  to  the  government:  the  matter  was 
well  investigated  by  competent  authorities;  but  the  accused, 
by  his  superior  cunning,  and  by  bribes,  escaped,  as  by  the 
"skin  of  his  teeth;"  and  the  people  said,  "  Alas!  the  child 
came  to  the  mouth,  but  the  hand  could  not  take  it,"  When 
a  person  has  succeeded  in  gaining  a  blessing  which  he  has 
long  desired,  he  says,  "  Good,  good !  the  child  is  born  at 
last."  Has  a  person  lost  his  lawsuit  in  a  provincial  court, 
he  will  go  to  the  capital  to  make  an  appeal  to  a  superior 
court ;  and  should  he  there  succeed,  he  will  say,  in  writing 
to  a  friend,  "  Good  news,  good  news  !  the  child  is  born." 
When  a  man  has  been  trying  to  gain  an  office,  his  friend 
meeting  him  on  return,  does  not  always  ask,  "  Is  the  child 
born'?  or  did  it  come  to  the  birth "?"  but,  "  Is  it  a  male  or 
a  female  V  If  he  say  the  former,  he  has  gained  his  object; 
if  the  latter,  he  has  failed.— Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  Behold,  I  will  send  a  blast  upon  him, 
and  he  shall  hear  a  rumour,  and  shall  return  to 
his  own  land ;  and  I  will  cause  him  to  fall  by 
the  sword  in  his  own  land. 

See  on  Is.  37.  36. 

The  destruction  of  Sennacherib  and  his  army  appears  to 
have  been  effiscted  by  that  pestilential  wind  called  the  si- 
moom. 

At  Bagdad,  October  9,  1818,  Sir  R.  K.  Porter  informs  us, 
(Travels,  vol.  ii.  p.  229,)  the  master  of  the  khan  "told  me, 
that  they  consider  October  the  first  month  of  their  autumn, 
and  feel  it  delightfully  cool  in  comparison  with  July,  August, 
and  September;  for  that  during  forty  days  of  the  two  first- 
named  summer  months,  the  hot  wind  blows  from  the  des- 
ert, and  its  effects  are  often  destructive.  Its  title  is  very  ap- 
propriate, being  called  the  samiel,  or  baude  semoom,  the 
pestilential  wind.  It  does  not  come  in  continued  long  cur- 
rents, but  in  gusts  at  different  intervals,  each  blast  lasting 
several  minutes,  and  passing  along  with  the  rapidity  of 
lightning.  No  one  dare  stir  from  their  houses  while  this 
invisible  flame  is  sweeping  over  the  face  of  the  country. 
Previous  to  its  approach,  the  atmosphere  becomes  thick 
and  suffocating,  and  appearing  particularly  dense  near  the 
horizon,  gives  sufficient  warning  of  the  threatened  mischief 
Though  hostile  to  human  life,  it  is  so  far  from  being  preju- 
dicial to  the  vegetable  creation,  that  a  continuance  of  the 
samiel  tends  to  ripen  the  fruits.  I  inquired  what  became 
of  the  cattle  during  such  a  plague,  and  was  told  they  were 
seldom  touched  by  it.  It  seems  strange  that  their  lungs  should 
be  so  perfectly  insensible  to  what  seems  instant  destruction 
to  the  breath  of  man ;  but  so  it  is,  that  they  are  regularly 
driven  down  to  water  at  the  customary  times  of  day,  even 
when  the  b'asts  are  at  the  severest.  The  people  who  at- 
tend them  are  obliged  to  plaster  their  own  faces,  and  other 
parts  of  the  body  usually  exposed  to  the  air,  with  a  sort  of 
muddy  clay,  which,  in  general,  protects  them  from  its  most 
malignant  effects.  The  periods  of  the  winds'  blowing  are 
generally  from  noon  till  sunset;  they  cease  almost  entirely 
during  the  ni?ht;  and  the  direction' of  the  gusts  is  always 
from  the  northeast.  When  it  has  passed  over,  a  sulphuric, 
and  indeed  loathsome  smell,  like  putridity,  remains  for  a 
long  time.  The  poison  which  occasions  this  smell  must  be 
deadly ;  for  if  any  unfortunate  traveller,  too  far  from  shel- 
ter, meet  the  blast,  he  falls  immediately;  and  in  a  few 
minutes  his  flesh  becomes  almost  black,  while  both  it  and 
his  bones  at  once  arrive  at  so  extreme  a  state  of  corruption, 


that  the  smallest  movement  of  the  body  would  separate  the 
one  from  the  other."— Robinson. 

The  south  wind  in  those  arid  regions  blowing  over  an 
immense  surface  of  burning  sand,  becomes  so  charged  with 
electrical  matter,  as  to  occasion  the  greatest  danger,  and 
often  instant  death,  to  the  unwary  traveller.  A  Turk,  who 
had  twice  performed  the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca,  told  Dr. 
Clarke  that  he  had  witnessed  more  than  once  the  direful 
effects  of  this  hot  pestilential  wind  in  the  desert.  He  has 
known  all  the  water  dried  out  of  their  skin  bottles  in  an  in- 
stant, by  its  inflnence.  The  camels  alone  gave  notice  of 
its  approach,  by  making  a  noise,  and  burying  their  mouths 
and  nostrils  in  the  sand.  This  was  considered  as  an  infal- 
lible token  that  the  desolation  was  at  hand ;  and  those  who 
imitated  the  camels  escaped  suffocation. 

In  some  districts  it  commits  great  ravages,  and  at  times 
so  totally  burns  up  all  the  corn,  that  no  animal  will  eat  a 
blade  of  it,  or  touch  any  of  its  grain.  It  has  been  known, 
even  in  Persia,  to  destroy  camels  and  other  hardy  animals; 
its  effects  on  the  human  frame  are  represented  as  incon- 
ceivably dreadful.  In  sorae  instances  it  kills  instantaneous- 
ly ;  but  in  others  the  wretched  sufferer  lingers  for  hours,  or 
even  days,  in  the  most  excruciating  torture.  In  those  places 
where  it  is  not  liatal  to  life,  it  resembles  the  breath  of  a 
glowing  furnace,  destroys  every  symptom  of  vegetation, 
and  will,  even  during  the' night,  scorch  the  skin  in  the  most 
painful  manner.  In  the  sandy  desert  it  is  often  so  heated 
as  to  destroy  every  thing,  animal  and  vegetable,  with  which 
it  comes  in  contact.  In  the  inhabited  country  every  article 
of  furniture,  of  glass,  and  even  of  wood,  becomes  as  hot  as 
if  it  were  exposed  to  a  raging  fire.  In  Hindostan,  when  the 
hot  wind  blows,  the  atmosph"ere  for  many  hours  of  the  day 
becomes  insupportable ;  the  heavens  are  like  brass,  and  the 
earth  like  heated  iron.  At  such  times  ihe  miserable  in- 
habitants are  obliged  to  confine  themselves  in  dark  rooms, 
cooled  by  screens  of  matted  grass  kept  continually  watered. 
To  this  terrible  agent  the  prophet  alludes  in  his  prediction 
of  Sennacherib's  overthrow  :  "  Behold,  I  will  send  a  blast 
upon  him."  The  return  of  man  to  his  native  dust  is  as 
certain  and  speedy  as  the  blasting  of  a  tender  plant  by  the 
deadly  breath  of  the  simoom  :  "  For  the  wind  passeth'over 
it,  and  it  is  gone;  and  the  place  thereof  shall  know  it  no 
more." 

Campbell,  in  his  Travels,  most  significantly  calls  it  a 
horrid  wind,  whose  consuming  blasts  extend  their  ravages 
all  the  way  from  the  extreme  "end  of  the  Gulf  of  Cambaya 
up  to  Mosul.  It  carries  along  with  it  fleaks  of  fire,  like 
threads  of  silk;  instantly  strikes  dead  those  that  breathe  it, 
and  consumes  them  inwardly  to  ashes;  the  flesh  soon  be- 
coming black  as  a  coal,  and  dropping  off  the  bones.  The 
numbers  that  perish  by  its  fatal  influence  are  sometimes 
very  great.  Thevenot  states,  that  in  the  year  1665,  in  the 
month  of  July,  four  thousand  people  died  at  Bassora  by  that 
wind,  in  three  weeks'  time. 

By  this  powerful  and  terrific  agent,  invigorated  by  the 
arm,  and  guided  by  the  finger  of  Jehovah,  was  the  numer- 
ous army  of  the  proud  and  blaspheming  Sennacherib  de- 
stroyed under  the  walls  of  Libnan.  In  the  brief  statement 
of  Isaiah  it  is  said,  "  Then  the  angel  (or,  as  it  may  be  ren- 
dered, the  messenger)  of  the  Lord  went  forth,  and  smote 
in  the  camp  of  the  Assyrians  a  hundred  and  fourscore  and 
five  thousand  men."  'Now  this  angel  of  Jehovah  is  ex- 
pressly called,  in  verse  7th  of  the  same  chapter,  riiach,  a 
blast  or  wind;  which  can  hardly  leave  a  doubt  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  this  passage  is  to  be  understood. — Paxton. 

Ver.  24.  I  have  diofgedand  drunk  stranp-e  waters, 
and  with  the  sole  6f  my  feet  have  I  dried  up 
all  the  rivers  of  besieged  places. 

The  curious  Vitringa  admires  the  explanation  which 
Grotius  has  given,  of  that  watering  with  the  foot  by  which 
Egypt  was  distinguished  from  Judea,  derived  from  an  ob- 
servation made  onPhilo,  who  lived  in  Egypt,  Philo  having 
described  a  machine  used  by  the  peasants  of  that  country 
for  watering  as  Avrought  by  the  feet;  which  sort  of  water- 
ing Dr.  Shaw  has  since  understood  of  the  gardener's  put- 
ting a  stop  to  the  further  flowing  of  the  water  in  the  rill, 
in  which  those  things  were  planted  that  wanted  watering, 
by  turning  the  earth  against  it  with  his  foot.  Great  re- 
spect is  due  to  so  candid  and  ingenious  a  traveller  as  Dr 
Shaw;  I  must  however  own,  that  I  apprehend  that  mean- 


Chap.  19. 


2  KINGS. 


295 


ing  of  Moses  is  more  truly  represented  by  Grotius  than  the 
doctor.  For  Moses  seems  to  intend  to  represent  the  great 
labour  of  this  way  of  watering  by  the  foot,  which  the  work- 
ing that  instrument  really  was,  on  which  account  it  seems 
to  be  laid  aside  in  Egypt  since  the  time  of  Philo,  and  easier 
methods  of  raising  the  water  made  use  of;  whereas  the 
turning  the  earth  with  the  foot  which  Dr.  Shaw  speaks  of, 
is  the  least  part  of  the  labour  of  watering.  If  it  should  be 
remarked,  that  this  machine  was  not  older  than  Arcihme- 
des,  which  has  been  supposed,  I  would  by  way  of  reply  ob- 
serve, that  the  more  ancient  Egyptian  machines  might  be 
equally  wrought  with  the  foot,  and  were  undoubtedly  more 
laborious  still,  as  otherwise  the  invention  of  Archimedes 
would  not  have  brought  them  into  disuse.  But  though  I 
think  the  interpretation  of  Deut.  xi.  10,  by  Grotius,  is  pref- 
erable to  that  of  Dr.  Shaw,  I  readily  admit  that  the  doctor's 
thought  may  be  very  naturally  applied  to  these  words  of 
Sennacherib,  to  which  however  the  doctor  has  not  applied 
It ;  for  he  seems  to  boast  that  he  could  as  easily  turn  the 
water  of  great  rivers,  and  cause  their  old  channels  to  be- 
come dry,  as  a  gardener  stops  the  water  from  flowing  any 
longer  in  a  rill  by  the  sole  of  his  foot. 

And  as  the  gardener  stops  up  one  rill  and  opens  another 
with  his  mattock,  to  let  in  the  water,  so,  says  Sennacherib, 
I  have  digged  and  drank  strange  waters,  that  is,  which  did 
not  heretofore  flow  in  the  places  I  have  made  them  flow  in. 
This  is  the  easiest  interpretation  that  can,  I  believe,  be 
given  to  the  word  strange,  made  use  of  by  this  Assyrian 
prince,  and  makes  the  whole  verse  a  reference  to  the  east- 
ern way  of  watering :  I  have  digged  channels,  and  drank, 
and  caused  my  army  to  drink  out  of  new-made  rivers,  into 
which  I  have  conducted  the  waters  that  used  to  flow  else- 
where, and  have  laid  those  old  channels  dry  with  the  sole 
of  ray  foot,  with  as  much  ease  as  a  gardener  digs  channels 
in  his  garden,  and  directing  the  waters  of  a  cistern  into  a 
new  rill,  with  his  foot  stops  up  that  in  which  it  before  ran. 

In  confirmation  of  all  which,  let  it  be  remembered,  that 
this  way  of  watering  by  rills  is  in  use  in  those  countries 
Irom  whence  Sennacherib  came;  continued  down  from 
ancient  times  there,  without  doubt,  as  it  is  in  Egypt. 

The  understanding  those  words  of  the  Psalmist,  Ps.  Ixv. 
9,  Thou  visitest  the  earth  and  water  est  it,  thou  greatly  en- 
richest  it  with  the  rivers  of  God,  of  the  watering  it  as  by  a 
rill  of  water,  makes  an  easy  and  beautiful  sense ;  the  rain 
being  to  the  earth  in  general,  the  same  thing  from  God,  that 
a  watering  rill,  or  little  river,  is  to  a  garden  from  man. — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  26.  Therefore  their  inhabitants  were  of  small 
power,  they  were  dismayed  and  confounded ; 
thy  were  as  the  grass  of  the  field,  and  as  the 
green  herb,  as  the  grass  on  the  house-tops,  and 
as  corn  blasted  before  it  be  grown  up. 

The  Hebrew  has,  instead  of  small  power,  "  short  of  hand." 
This  figure  is  much  used  here,  and  is  taken  from  a  man 
trying  to  reach  an  object  for  which  his  arm  is  not  long 
enough.  When  it  is  wished  to  ascertain  what  is  a  man's 
capacity  or  power,  it  is  asked,  "  Is  his  arm  long  or  short  1" 
"  Let  me  tell  you,  friend,  Tamban  will  never  succeed ;  his 
arm  is  not  long  enough."  Of  feeble  people  it  is  said,  "  they 
have  short  hands." — Roberts. 

Ver.  28.  Because  thy  rage  against  me  and  thy 
tumult  is  come  up  into  mine  ears,  therefore  I 
will  put  my  hook  in  thy  nose,  and  my  bridle 
in  thy  lips,  and  I  will  turn  thee  back  by  the 
way  by  which  thou  earnest. 

A  person  says  of  his  deliverer  from  prison  or  danger, 
"  Ah  !  tlie  good  man  took  me  out  by  his  tote,"  i.  e.  hook.  A 
culprit  says  of  the  officers  who  cannot  catch  him,  "  Their 
hooks  are  become  straight."  The  man  who  cannot  drag 
another  from  his  secrecy,  says,  "  My  hook  is  not  sufiicient 
for  that  fellow." — Roberts. 

The  dromedary  differs  from  the  common  camel,  in  being 
of  a  finer  and  rounder  shape,  and  in  having  upon  its  back 
a  smaller  protuberance.  This  species  (for  the  former  sel- 
dom deviating  from  the  beaten  road,  travels  with  its  head 
at  liberty)  is  governed  by  a  bridle,  which  being  usually 
fastened  to  a  ring  fixed  in  its  nostrils,  may  very  well  illus- 


trate the  expression  which  the  sacred  writer  uses  concern- 
ing Sennacherib :  "  I  will  put  my  hook  in  thy  nose,  and 
my  bridle  in  thy  lips,  and  I  will  turn  thee  back  by  the  way 
by  which  thou  earnest."  These  words  refer  at  once  to  the 
absolute  control  of  heaven,  under  which  he  acted,  and  the 
swiftness  of  his  retreat. — Paxton. 

Ver.  35.  And  it  came  to  pass  that  night,  that  the 
angel  of  the  Lord  went  out,  and  smote  in  the 
camp  of  the  Ati^syrians  a  hundred  fourscore 
and  five  thousand :  and  when  they  arose  early 
in  the  morning,  behold,  they  were  all  dead 
corpses. 

Mr.  Boswell,  in  his  Life  of  Dr.  Johnson,- informs  us,  that 
it  was  a  subject  of  conversation  between  them,  in  what 
manner  so  great  a  multitude  of  Sennacherib's  army  was 
destroyed.  "  We  are  not  to  suppose,"  says  the  doctor,  in 
reply,  "that  the  angel  went  abroad  with  a  sword  in  his 
hand,  stabbing  them  one  by  one;  but  that  some  powerful 
natural  agent  was  employed ;  most  probably  ihe  samyel." 
Whether  the  doctor  had  noticed  some  picture  in  which  the 
angel  was  thus  employed,  is  uncertain;  but  it  should  seem, 
that  this  idea  is  common ;  and  even  Dr.  Doddridge  appears 
to  have  conceived  of  the  angel,  as  of  a  person  employed  in 
slaughter;  for  he  says,  in  a  note  on  the  passage  "(Matt, 
xxvi.  53)  where  our  Lord  mentions  that  his  Father  could 
furnish  him  twelve  legions  of  angels,  "  How  dreadfully 
irresistible  would  such  an  army  of  angels  have  been,  when 
one  of  these  celestial  spirits  was  able  to  destroy  185,000 
Assyrians  at  one  stroke  !"  Without  attempting  to  investi- 
gate the  power  of  celestial  spirits,  we  may  endeavour  to  pre- 
sent the  history  of  the  destruction  of  Sennacherib's  army, 
according  to  what,  in  all  probability,  was  the  real  fact ;  pre- 
mising that  simyel,  sumiel,  samyel,  sumoom,  simoom,  &c.  are 
different  names  for  the  same  meteor.  Mr.  Bruce's  account 
of  this  wonderful  natural  phenomenon,  affords  some  very 
interesting  particulars.  The  extracts  are  from  the  quarto 
edition  of  his  Travels. 

"  On  the  16th,  at  half  past  ten,  we  left  El  Mout,  [death.] 
At  eleven  o'clock,  while  we  contemplated  with  great  plea- 
sure the  rugged  top  of  Chiggre,  to  which  we  were  fast  ap- 
proaching, and  wnere  we  were  to  solace  ourselves  with 
plenty  of  good  water,  Idris  cried  out, '  Fall  upon  your  faces, 
for  here  is  the  simoom !'  I  saw  from  the  southeast  a  haze 
come,  in  colour  like  the  purple  part  of  the  rainbow,  but  not 
so  compressed  or  thick.  It  did  not  occupy  twenty  yards  in 
breadth,  and  was  about  twelve  feet  high  from  the  ground. 
It  was  a  kind  of  blush  upon  the  air,  and  it  moved  very  rap- 
idly, for  I  scarce  could  turn  to  fall  upon  the  ground,  with 
my  head  to  the  northward,  when  I  felt  the  heat  of  its  current 
plainly  upon  my  face.  We  all  lay  flat  on  the  ground,  as  if 
dead,  till  Idris  told  us  it  was  blown  over.  The  meteor,  or 
purple  haze,  which  I  saw,  was  indeed  passed,  but  the  light 
air  that  still  blew  was  of  heat  to  threaten  sufl^ocation.  For 
my  part,  I  found  distinctly  in  my  breast  that  I  had  imbibed 
a  part  of  it,  nor  was  I  free  of  an  asthmatic  sensation,  till  I 
had  been  some  months  in  Italy,  at  the  baths  of  Poretta,  near 
two  years  afterward.  A  universal  despondency  had  taken 
possession  of  our  people.  They  ceased  to  speak  to  one 
another,  and  when  they  did  it  was  in  whispers,  by  which  1 
easily  guessed  that  they  were  increasing  each  other's  fears, 
by  vain  suggestions,  calculated  to  sink  each  other's  spirits 
still  further.  This  phenomenon  of  the  simoom,  unexpected 
by  us,  though  foreseen  by  Idris,  caused  us  all  to  relapse 
into  our  former  despondency.  It  still  continued  to  blow  so 
as  to  exhaust  us  entirely,  though  the  blast  was  so  weak  as 
scarcely  would  have  raised  a  leaf  from  the  ground.  At 
twenty  minutes  before  five,  the  simoom  ceased,  and  a  com- 
fortable and  cooling  breeze  came  by  starts  from  the  north. 
We  had  no  sooner  got  into  the  plains  than  we  felt  great 
symptoms  of  the  simoom,  and  about  a  quarter  before  twelve, 
our  prisoner  first,  and  then  Idris,  cried  out,  The  simoovil  the 
simoom !  My  curiosity  would  not  .suffer  me  to  fall  down 
without  looking  behind  me ;  about  due  south,  a  little  to  the 
east,  I  saw  the  coloured  haze,  as  before.  It  seemed  now  to 
be  rather  less  compressed,  and  to  have  with  it  a  shade  of 
blue.  The  edges  of  it  were  not  defined  as  those  of  the 
former;  but  like  a,  very  thin  smoke,  with  about  a  yard  in 
the  middle,  tinged  with  these  colours.  We  all  fell  upon 
our  faces,  and  the  simoom  passed  with  a  gentle  ruffling 


296 


2  KINGS. 


Chap.  20. 


wind.  It  continued  to  blow  in  this  manner  till  near  three 
o'clock,  so  we  were  all  taken  ill  at  night,  and  scarcely 
strength  was  left  us  to  load  the  camels.  The  simoom,  with 
the  wind  at  southeast,  immediately  followed  the  wind  at 
north,  and  the  usual  despondency  that  always  accompanied 
it.  The  bhue  meteor,  with  which  it  began  passing  over  us 
about  twelve,  and  the  ruffiing  wind  that  followed  it,  con- 
tinued till  near  two.  Silence,  ahd  a  desperate  kind  of 
indifierence  about  life,  were  the  immediate  effects  upon  us; 
and  I  began,  seeing  the  condition  of  my  camels,  to  fear  we 
were  all  doomed  to  a  sandy  grave,  and  to  contemplate  it 
with  some  degree  of  resignation.  I  here  began  to  provide 
for  the  worst.  I  saw  the  fate  of  our  camels  fast  approach- 
ing, and  that  our  men  grew  weak  in  proportion:  our  bread, 
too,  began  to  fail  us,  although  we  had  plenty  of  camel's 
flesh  in  its  stead;  our  water,  though  to  all  appearance  we 
were  to  find  it  more  frequently  than  in  the  beginning  of 
our  journey,  was  nevertheless  brackish,  and  scarce  served 
the  purpose  to  quench  our  thirst;  and  above  all,  the  dreadful 
simoom  had  perfectly  exhausted  our  strength,  and  brought 
upon  us  a  degree  of  cowardice  and  languor  that  we  strug- 
gled with  in  vain." 

The  following  extract  is  from  D'Osbornville's  "  Essays, 
&c.  on  the  East :" — "  Some  enlightened  travellers  have 
seriously  written,  that  every  individual  who  falls  a  victim 
to  this  infection,  is  immediately  reduced  to  ashes,  though 
apparently  only  asleep ;  and  that  when  taken  hold  of  to  be 
awakened  by  passengers,  the  limbs  part  from  the  body  and 
remain  in  the  hand.  Such  travellers  would  evidently  not 
have  taken  these  tales  on  hearsay,  if  they  had  paid  a  proper 
attention  to  other  facts,  which  they  either  did  or  ougiit  to 
have  heard.  Experience  proves,  that  animals,  by  pressing 
their  nostrils  to  the  earth,  and  men,  by  covering  their  heads 
in  their  mantles,  have  nothing  to  fear  from  these  meteors. 
This  demonstrates  the  impossibility  that  a  poison  which 
can  only  penetrate  the  most  delicate  parts  of  the  brain  or 
lungs,  should  calcine  the  skin,  flesh,  nerves,  and  bones.  I 
acknowledge  these  accounts  are  had  from  the  Arabs  them- 
selves ;  but  their  picturesque  and  extravagant  expressions 
are  a  kind  of  imaginary  coin,  to  know  the  true  value  of 
which,  requires  some  practice." 

Notwithstanding  this  remark,  if  the  word  immediately 
were  exchanged  for  quickly,  the  purport  of  the  account 
might  be  almost  exactly  justified.  Our  author  proceeds — 
"  I  have  twice  had  an  opportunity  of  considering  the  effect 
of  these  siphons,  with  some  attention.  I  shall  relate  simply 
what  I  have  seen  in  the  case  of  a  merchant  and  two  travel- 
lers, who  were  struck  d.uring  their  sleep,  and  died  on  the 
spot.  I  ran  to  see  if  it  was  possible  to  afford  them  any  suc- 
cour, but  they  were  already  dead ;  the  victims  of  an  interior 
suffocating  fire.  There  were  apparent  signs  of  the  dissolu- 
tion of  their  fluids ;  a  kind  of  serous  matter  issued  from 
the  nostrils,  mouth,  and  ears ;  and  in  something  more  than 
an  hour,  the  whole  body  was  in  the  same  state.  However, 
as,  according  to  their  custom,  they  [the  Arabs]  were 'dili- 
gent to  pay  them  th*  last  duties  of  humanity,  I  cannot 
affirm  that  the  putrefaction  was  more  or  less  rapid  than 
usual  in  that  country.  As  to  the  meteor  itself,  it  may  be 
examined  with  impunity  at  the  distance  of  three  or  four 
fathoms;  and  the  country  people  are  only  afraid  of  being 
suprised  by  it  when  they  are  asleep ;  neither  are  such  acci- 
dents very  common,  for"  these  siphons  are  only  seen  during 
two  or  three  months  of  the  year ;  and  as  their  approach  is 
felt,  the  camp-guards  and  the  people  awake  are  always 
very  careful  to  rouse  those  that  sleep,  who  also  have  a 
general  habit  of  covering  their  faces  with  mantles." 

Any  seeming  contrariety  of  representation  between  Mr. 
Bruce  and  this  traveller  may  be  accounted  for,  by  suppo- 
sing that  in  different  deserts,  or  at  different  times,  (of  the 
year,  perhaps,)  these  meteors  are  more  or  less  fatal ;  but 
the  reader's  attention  is  desired,  particularly,  to  certain 
ideas  implied  in  these  descriptions:—!.  The  meteor  seems 
like  a  thin  smoke,  i.  e.  seen  by  daylight,  when  Mr.  Bruce 
travelled.  2.  It  passed  with  a  gentle  ruffling  wind.  3.  It 
was  some  hours  in  passing.  4.  It  affected  the  mind,  by  en- 
feebling the  body;  producing  despondency  and  cowardice. 
b.  It  is  dangerous  by  being  breathed.  6.  It  is  peculiarly 
fatal  to  persons  sleeping.  7.  Its  effects,  even  on  those  to 
whom  it  is  not  fatal,  are  debilitating  and  lasting.  8.  It  is 
felt ;  and  is  compared  to  a  suffocating  fire.  9.  Its  extent  is 
sometimes  considerable;  about  half  a  mile;  sometimes 
more,  sometimes  less.    10.  Colonel  Campbell  says,  at  the 


close  of  the  extract  from  him,  page  9,  that  "to  prevent 
drawing  it  in,  it  is  necessary  first  to  see  it,  which  is  not 
always  practicable."  No  doubt,  we  may  safely  add,  espe- 
cially by  night. 

These  particulars  respecting  the  nature  and  effects  of  the 
simoom,  will  illustrate,  by  comparison,  occurrences  record- 
ed 2  Kings,  chap  xix.,  and  Isaiah,  chap,  xxxvii. 

I.  "Behold,  I  will  send  a  blast  upon  him,"  (Sennacherib.) 
The  word  rendered  blast  (m-i  ruach)  does  not  impl)   a' 
vehement  wind ;  but  a  gentle  breathing,  a  breeze,  a  vapour, ' 
a  reek,  an  exhalation  ;  and  thus  agrees  perfectly  v/ith  the 
descriptions  extracted  above. 

II.  It  is  supposed  the  prophet  alludes  to  this  meteor,  Isa. 
chap.  XXX.  27,  "  The  Lord's  anger  is  burning,  or  devouring, 
fire ;"  ("  burning  with  his  anger" — ''his  tongue  is  a  devour- 
ing fire."  Eng.  Trans.)  And  ver.  33,  "  The  breath  of  the 
Lord,  like  a  stream  of  brimstone,  doth  kindle  it." 

III.  The  army  of  Sennacherib  was  destroyed  by  night. 
No  doubt  the  unwarrantable  pride  of  the  king  had  extended 
also  to  his  army,  (witness  the  arrogance  of  Rabshakeh,)  so 
that  being  in  full  security  the  officers  and  soldiers  were 
negligent;  their  discipline  was  relaxed;  the  "  camp-guards" 
were  not  alert ;  or,  perhaps,  they  themselves  were  the  first 
taken  off;  and  those  who  slept  not  wrapped  up,  imbibed  the 
poison  plentifully.  If  this  had  been  an  evening  of  dissolute 
mirth,  (no  uncommon  thing  in  a  camp,)  their  joy  (perhaps 
for  a  victory,  or  "the  first  night  of  their  attacking  the  city," 
says  Josephus)  became,  by  its  effects,  one  means  of  their 
destruction. 

IV.  If  the  Assyrians  were  not  accustom-ed  to  the  action 
of  this  meteor  at  home,  tliey  might  little  expect  it ;  and  bi/ 
night,  might  little  watch  for,  or  discern  it.  The  total 
number  of  Sennacherib's  army  is  not  mentioned  :  perhaps 
it  was  three  or  four  times  the  number  slain ;  that  it  w^as 
very  great,  appears  from  his  boastings  sent  to  Hezekiah. 
If  the  extent  of  the  meteor  was  half  a  mile,  or  a  mile,  in 
passing  over  a  camp,  it  might  destroy  many  thousandi;  cf 
sleepers;  while  those  on  each  side  of  its  course,  escap(!d  ; 
and  these,  "  rising  early  in  the  morning,"  discovered  vh  i 
slaughter  of  their  fellows  around  them.  The  destruction 
of  Cambyses'  army  of  50,000  men  going  for  Ethiopia,  is,  in 
some  respects,  not  unlike  this  destruction  of  the  Assyrians. 

V.  The  subsequent  languor,  despondence,  and  cowardice, 
attending  this  meteor,  contribute  to  explain  the  forced  re- 
turn of  Sennacherib  home ;  even  though  his  army  might 
be  very  numerous,  notwithstanding  this  diminution. 

Observe,  it  was  not  before  Jerusalem  that  this  event 
occurred,  but  to  the  south. 

VI.  The  Babylonish  Talmud  affirms,  that  this  destruc- 
tion of  the  Assyrians  was  executed  by  lightning;  and  some 
of  the  Targums  are  quoted  for  saying  the  same  thing. 
Josephus  says,  "  Sennacherib,  on  his  return  from  the' 
Egyptian  war,  found  his  army  which  he  had  left  under 
Rabshakeh,  almost  entirely  destroyed  by  a  judicial  pesti- 
lence, which  swept  away,  in  officers  and  common  soldiers, 
the  first  night  they  sat  down  before  the  city,  185,000  men." 

VII.  That  this  meteor  inflicts  diseases  where  it  is  not 
immediately  fatal,  Mr.  Bruce  himself  is  an  instance ;  he 
also  says, "  though  Syene,  by  its  situation,  should  be  healthy, 
the  general  complaint  is  a  weakness  and  soreness  in  the 
eyes;  generally  ending  in  blindness  of  one  or  both  eyes; 
you  scarce  ever  see  a  person  in  the  street  who  sees  with 
both  eyes.  They  say  it  is  owing  to  the  hot  wind  from  the 
desert ;  and  this  I  apprehend  to  be  true,  by  the  violent  sore- 
ness and  inflammation  we  were  troubled  with  in  our  return 
home,  through  the  great  desert,  to  Syene." — Taylor  in 
Calmet. 

CHAPTER  XX. 
Ver.  11.  And  Isaiah  the  prophet  cried  unto  the 
Lord;  and  he  brought  the  shadow  ten  degrees 
backward,  by  which  it  had  gone  down  in  the 
dial  of  Ahaz. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  world  it  is  certain  there  was  no 
distinction  of  time,  but  bv  the  light  and  darkness,  and  the 
whole  day  was  included  in  the  general  terms  of  the  evening 
and  morning.  The  Chaldeans,  many  ages  after  the  flood, 
were  the  first  who  divided  the  day  iiito  hours  ;  they  being 
the  first  who  applied  themselves  with  any  success  to  astrol- 
ogy. Sun-dials  are  of  ancient  use  :  but  as  they  were  of  no 
service  in  cloudy  weather  and  in  the  night,  there  was 


Chap.  20—23. 


2   KINOS. 


29r 


another  invention  of  measuring  the  parts  of  time  by  water  ; 
but  that  not  proving  sufficiently  exact,  they  laid  it  aside  for 
another  by  sand.  The  use  of  dials  was  earlier  among  the 
Greeks  than  the  Romans.  It  was  above  three  hundred 
years  after  the  building  of  Rome  before  they  knew  any 
thing  of  them :  but  yet  they  had  divided  the  day  and  night 
into  twenty-four  hours :  though  they  did  not  count  the 
hours  numerically,  but  from  midnight  to  midnight,  distin- 
guishing them  by  particular  names,  as  by  the  cock-crowing, 
the  dawn,  the  m'idday,  &c.  The  first  sun-dial  we  read  of 
among  the  Romans,  which  divided  the  day  into  hours,  is 
mentioned  by  Pliny,  as  fixed  upon  the  temple  of  Gluirmus 
by  L.  Papyrius,  the  censor,  about  the  twelfth  year  of  the 
wars  with'  Pyrrhus.  Scipio  Nasica,  some  years  after, 
measured  the  day  and  night  into  hours  from  the  dropping 
of  water. — Burder. 

Ver.  13.  And  Hezekiah  hearkened  unto  them, 
and  showed  them  the  house  of  his  precious 
things,  the  siker,  and  the  gold,  and  the  spices, 
and  the  precious  ointment,  and  all  the  house  of 
his  armour,  and  all  that  was  found  in  his  trea- 
sures :  there  was  nothing-  in  his  house,  nor  in 
all  his  dominion,  that  Hezekiah  showed  them 
not. 

The  display  which  Hezekiah  made  of  his  treasure  was 
to  gratify  the  ambassadors  of  the  king  of  Babylon.  It  ap- 
pears to  have  been  an  extraordinary  thing,  and  not  done 
but  upon  this  and  occasions  of  a  similar  nature  \  such 
probably  was  the  general  practice.  Lord  Macartney  in- 
forms us,  that  "  the  splendour  of  the  emperor  of  China  and 
his  court,  and  the  riches  of  the  mandarins,  surpass  all  that 
can  be  said  of  them.  Their  silks,  porcelain,  cabinets,  and 
other  furniture,  make  a  most  glittering  appearance.  These, 
however,  are  only  exposed  when  they  make  or  receive 
visits:  for  they  commonly  neglect  themselves  at  home,  the 
laws  against  private  pomp  and  luxury  being  very  severe." 

Vertomannus,  in  his  voyage  to  the  East,  describing  the 
treasure  of  the  king  of  Calicut,  says,  that  it  is  esteemed  so 
immense  that  it  cannot  be  contained  in  two  remarkably 
large  cellars  or  warehouses.  It  consists  of  precious  stones, 
plates  of  gold,  and  as  much  coined  gold  as  may  suffice  to 
lade  a  hundred  mules.  They  say  that  it  was  collected 
together  by  twelve  kings  who  were  before  him,  and  that  in 
his  treasury  is  a  coffer  three  spans  long  and  two  broad, 
full  of  precious  stones  of  incalculable  value.  This  custom 
for  the  eastern  princes  to  amass  enormous  loads  of  treasure, 
merely  for  show  and  ostentation,  appears  to  have  been 
practised  by  the  kings  of  Judea.  One  instance  of  it  at  least 
is  found  in  the  case  of  Hezekiah,  in  the  passage  now  re- 
ferred to. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Ver.  11.  Because  Manasseh  king  of  Judah  hath 
done  these  abominations,  and  hath  done  wick- 
edly above  all  that  the  Amorites  did,  which 
were  before  him,  and  hath  made  Judah  also  to 
sin  with  his  idols. 

Bodin  informs  us  from  Maimonides,  that  it  was  customary 
among  the  Amorites  to  draw  their  new-born  children 
through  a  flame;  believing  that  by  this  means  they  would 
escape  many  calamities ;  and  that  Maimonides  himself  had 
been  an  eyewitness  of  this  superstition  in  some  of  the 
nurses  of  Egypt. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Ver.  17.  Because  they  have  forsaken  me,  and 
have  burnt  incense  unto  other  gods,  that  they 
might  provoke  me  to  anger  with  all  the  works 
of  their  hands;' therefore  my  wrath  shall  be 
kindled  against  this  place,  and  shall  not  be 
quenched. 

**  Ah !     who  can  quench   the  wrath  of  my  enemy  *?" 

"Who  *?  O,  I  have  done  it  already,  for  his  anger  is  turned 

to  watep."    Does  a  person  reply  to  another  in  such  a  way 

as  to  increase  anger,  it  is  asked,  "  Will  ghee  (clarified  but- 

38 


ter)  quench  fire  1"  "  Do  not  cast  ghee  on  that  man's  pas- 
sions." "  I  beseech  you  to  try  to  make  peace  for  me." 
"  Peace  for  you  !  can  I  quench  his  wrath  1" — Robert!?. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Ver.  3.  And  the  king  stood  by  a  pillar,  and  made 
a  covenant  before  the  Lord,  to  walk  after  the 
Lord,  and  to  keep  his  commandments  and  his 
testimonies  and  his  statutes,  with  all  their  heart 
and  all  their  soul,  to  perform  the  words  of  this 
covenant  that  were  written*  in  this  book :  and 
all  the  people  stood  to  the  covenant 

See  on  2  Kings  11.  14. 

Ver.  7.  And  he  brake  down  the  houses  of  the 
Sodomites,  that  were  by  the  house  of  the  Lord, 
where  the  women  wove  hangings  for  the  grove. 

Very  large  hangings  are  used  in  the  temples,  some  of 
which  are  fastened  to  the  roof,  others  used  as  screens,  and 
others  to  cover  the  sacred  cars.  On  them  are  painted  the 
actions  of  the  gods,  as  described  in  the  books  Ramyanum 
and  the  Scanda  Purana ;  and  there  are  portrayed  things  of 
the  most  indecent  nature. — Roberts. 

In  the  history  of  Schemselouhar  and  the  prince  of  Per- 
sia, (Arabian  Nights'  Entertainment,)  when  the  former  was 
told  that  the  calif  was  coming  to  visit  her,  she  ordered  the 
paintings  on  silk,  which  were  in  the  garden,  to  be  taken 
down.  In  the  same  manner  are  paintings  or  hangings  said 
to  be  used  in  the  passage  referred  to.  The  authority  given 
for  this  custom  must  be  allowed  to  be  sufficient  to  vouch  for 
the  existence  of  the  practice  in  question,  to  whatever  ani- 
madversions the  work  itself  may  be  liable  in  any  other  point 
of  view. — Burder. 

Ver.  11.  And  he  took  away  the  horses  that  the 
kings  of  Judah  had  given  to  the  sun,  at  the  en- 
tering in  of  the  house  of  the  Lord,  by  the 
chamber  of  Nathan-melech  the  chamberlain, 
which  was  in  the  suburbs,  and  burnt  the  char- 
iots of  the  sun  with  fire. 

The  Hindoos  believe  that  the  sun  is  drawn  in  his  course 
by  seven  horses,  and  that  the  deity  sits  in  his  chariot  of  one 
wheel,  which  is  driven  by  Arunan.  Thus  may  be  seen  the 
sun  and  his  horses  represented  in  wood,  or  painted  on  the 
hangings  which  adorn  the  cars.  See,  then,  the  profligacy 
of  the  kings  of  Judah :  they  gave  horses  and  chariots  to 
the  sun  as  a  sign  of  their  attachment  to  that  system  of  idol- 
atry, and  to  procure  those  blessings  which  are  believed  to 
be  dispensed  by  the  gods  ;  for  it  must  be  observed,  that  such 
gifts  to  the  deities  and  their  temples  are  only  for  the  fulfil- 
ment of  some  vow  for  favours  received,  or  for  those  which 
are  earnestly  desired. — Roberts. 

By  those  horses,  cannot  well  be  understood,  as  the  greater 
part  of  modern  interpreters  maintain,  a  number  of  sculp- 
tured figures  of  gold,  silver,  or  brass,  which  had  been  pre- 
sented as  votive  offerings  to  the  heathen  deity.  The  words 
of  the  sacred  historian  certainly  refer  to  living  horses,  for 
he  simply  states,  that  Josiah  "  took  away  the  horses  that  the 
kings  of  Judah  had  given,  or  dedicated  to  the  sun :"  but  had 
the  figures  of  horses  been  intended,  the  clause,  to  corres- 

Eond  with  the  common  manner  of  the  sacred  writers,  must 
ave  run  in  these  terms.  He  took  away  the  horses  of  gold, 
of  silver,  or  of  brass ;  for  in  this  way  the  m6\ten  calf  of 
Aaron,  the  serpent  of  Moses,  and  the  lions  and  oxen  of 
Solomon,  are  distinguished  in  scripture  from  the  real  ani- 
mals. Nor  had  he  distinguished  in  one  statue  the  horses 
from  the  chariot;  nor  assigned  to  them  a  particular  station 
between  the  tefnple  and  the  house  of  Nathan-melech; 
because  they  were  parts  and  appendages  of  the  same  gen- 
eral figure."  Besides,  the  destruction  of  the  horses  was 
effected  by  one  operation,  and  the  chariots  by  another, 
which  shows  that  they  were  not  metallic  figures:  Josiah 
took  away,  or  (as  the  verb  is  rendered  in  other  parts)  de- 
stroyed the  horses,  but  he  burned  the  chariots  in  the  fire. 
These  horses  were  given  or  dedicated  to  the  sun,  to  be 
offered  in  sacrifice  to  that  luminary,  according  to  some 


2  KINGS. 


Chap.  25. 


writers;  or  kept  in  honour  of  Baal,  or  Apollo,  as  others 
imagine.  The  Jewish  writers  allege  that  the  priests  of  the 
sun 'led  them  forth  at  the  dawn,  with  great  pomp,  into  a 
large  area,  between  the  temple  and  the  house  of  Nathan- 
melech,  to  salute  their  god,  as  soon  as  he  appeared  above 
the  horizon. — Paxton. 

Ver.  21.  And  the  king  commanded  all  the  peo- 
ple, saying",  Keep  the  passover  unto  the  Lord 
your  God,  as  it  is  written  in  the  book  of  the 
covenant.  22.  Surely  there  was  not  holden 
such  a  passover  from  the  days  of  the  judges 
that  judged  Israel,  nor  in  all  the  days  of  the 
kings  of  Israel,  nor  of  the  kings  of  Judah. 

To  those  who  may  wonder  how  Jerusalem  could  receive 
such  multitudes,  as  were  obliged  by  the  Jewish  law  to  attend 
there  three  times  a  year,  and  as  we  know  did  sometimes 
actually  appear  in  it,  I  would  recite  the  account  that  Pitts 
gives  of  Mecca,  the  sacred  city  of  the  Mohammedans,  and 
the  number  of  people  he  found  collected  together  there,  for 
the  celebration  of  their  religious  solemnities,  in  the  close 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  This  city,  he  tells  us,  he 
thought  he  might  safely  say,  had  not  one  thousand  families 
in  it  of  constant  inhabitants,  and  the  buildings  very  mean 
and  ordinary.  That  four  caravans  arrive  there  every  year, 
with  great  numbers  of  people  in  each,  and  the  Mohamme- 
dans say,  there  meet  not  fewer  than  seventy  thousand  souls 
at  these  solemnities ;  and  that  though  he  could  not  think 
the  number  quite  so  large,  yet  that  it  is  very  great.  How 
such  numbers  of  people,  with  their  beasts,  could  be  lodged 
and  entertained  in  such  a  little  ragged  town  as  Mecca,  is  a 
question  he  thus  answers:  "  As  .for  houseroom,  the  inhab- 
itants do  straiten  themselves  very  much,  in  order  at  this 
time  to  make  their  market.  And  as  for  such  as  come  last, 
after  the  town  is  filled,  they  pitch  their  tents  without  the 
town,  and  there  abide  until  they  remove  towards'  home.  As 
for  provision,  they  all  bring  sufficient  with  them,  except  it 
be  of  flesh,  which  they  may  have  at  Mecca  ;  but  all  other 
provisions,  as  butter,  honey,  oil,  olives,  rice,  biscuit,  See.  they 
bring  with  them  as  much  as  will  last  through  the  wilder- 
ness, forward  and  backward,  as  well  as  the  time  they  stay 
at  Mecca;  and  so  for  their  camels  they  bring  store  of  prov- 
ender, &c.  with  them."  The  number  of  Jews  that  assem- 
bled at  Jerusalem  at  their  passover,  was  much  greater:  but 
had  not  Jerusalem  been  a  much  larger  city  than  Mecca  is, 
as  in  truth  it  was,  yet  the  present  Mohammedan  practice 
of  abiding  under  tents,  and  carrying  their  provisions  and 
bedding  with  them,  will  easily  explain  how  ihey  might  be 
accommodated.  Josephus  says,  that  in  one  year  the  num- 
ber of  lambs  slain  at  the  passover  amounted  to  five  hundred 
and  fifty-six  thousand  five  hundred,  and  that  ten  men  at 
least  ate  of  one  lamb,  and  often  many  more,  even  to  the 
number  of  twenty.  Taking  therefore  the  number  of  per- 
sons at  the  lowest  computation,  i.  e.  ten  to  one  lamb,  there 
must  have  been  present  this  year  at  Jerusalem,  not  less  than 
two  million  five  hundred  and  sixty-five  thousand  persons  ! — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  30.  And  his  servants  carried  him  in  a 
chariot  dead  from  Megiddo,  and  brought  him 
to  Jerusalem,  and  buried  him  in  his  own  sepul- 
chre. And  the  people  of  the  land  took  Jehoa- 
haz  the  son  of  Josiah,  and  anointed  him,  and 
made  him  king  in  his  father's  stead. 

See  on  ch.  9.  28. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

Ver.  7.  And  they  slew  the  sons  of  Zedekiah 
before  his  eyes,  and  put  out  the  eyes  of  Zede- 
kiah, and  bound  him  with  fetters  of  brass,  and 
carried  him  to  Babylon. 

This  was  probably  done  with  the  intention  of  rendering 
the  king  incapable  of  ever  reascending  the  throne.  Thus  it 
was  a  law  in  Persia  down  to  the  latest  time,  that  no  blind 
person  could  mount  the  throne.  Hence  the  barbarous  cus- 
tom, common  at  the  time  of  Chardin,  and  even  since,  of 
depriving  the  sons  and  male  relations  of  a  Persian  king, 
who  are  not  to  be  allowed  to  attain  the  government,  of  their 
sight.  Down  to  the  time  of  Abbas,  who  reigned  in  1642, 
this  was  done,  according  to  Chardin,  only  by  passing  a 
red-hot  copper  plate  before  the  eyes.  "  But  the  power  of 
vision  was  not  so  entirely  destroyed,  but  that  the  person 
blinded  still  retained  a  glimmering;  and  the  operation  was 
frequently  performed  in  so  favourable  a  manner,  that  still 
some  sight  remained.  During  the  reign  of  Abbas  II.,  one 
of  the  brothers  of  that  prince  once  visited  his  aunt  and  his 
nephew,  whose  palace  joins  the  residence  of  the  Dutch : 
as  he  expressed  a  wish  to  visit  these  strangers,  they  were 
informed  of  this,  and  they  were  invited  to  spend  an  after- 
noon, and  take  supper  with  them.  The  brother  of  the  king 
brought  several  other  blinded  princes  with  him,  and  when 
candles  were  introduced,  it  was  observed  that  they  were 
aware  of  it.  They  were  asked  if  they  saw  any"  thing. 
The  king's  brother  answeH"ed  in  the  affirmative,  an5  added, 
that  he  could  see  enough  to  walk  without  a  stick.  This 
was  unfortunately  heard  by  one  of  the  court  spies,  who 
were  employed  to  watch  all  the  motions  of  the  great  people. 
According  to  the  custom  of  these  people,  he  related  it  to 
the  king  in  a  malicious  manner,  and  so  that  he  could  not 
avoid  being  uneasy.  'How!'  cried  he, ' these  blind  peo- 
ple boast  they  can  see  1  I  shall  prevent  that ;'  and  imme- 
diately he  ordered  their  eyes  to  be  put  out  in  the  manner 
above  described.  This  "is  performed  by  entirely  putting 
out  the  eyes  with  the  point  of  a  dagger.  The  Persians," 
continues  Chardin,  "  consider  their  policy  towards  the 
children  of  the  royal  family,  as  humane  and  laudable ; 
since  they  only  depi^ive  them  of  their  sight,  and  do  not  put 
them  to  death,  as  the  Turks  do.  They  say  that  it  is  allow- 
able to  deprive  these  princes  of  their  sight,  to  secure  the 
tranquillity  of  the  state  ;  but  they  dare  not  put  them  to  death 
for  two  reasons ;  the  first  is,  because  the  law  forbids  to  spill 
innocent  blood  ;  secondly,  because  it  might  be  possible  that 
those  who  remained  alive  should  die  without  children,  and 
if  there  were  no  other  relations,  the  whole  legitimate  fami- 
ly would  become  extinct." — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  30.  And  his  alldwance  was  a  continual 
allowance  given  him  of  the  king,  a  daily  rate 
for  every  day,  all  the  days  of  his  life. 

The  other  guests  were  arranged  round  the  room,  accord- 
ing to  thqir  respective  ranks :  among  whom  was  an  old 
man,  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  Seffi  family,  whom  they 
called  Nawab,  and  who  took  his  seat  next  to  the  Ameen- 
ad-Dowlah.  Although  needy  and  without  power,  he  is 
always  treated  with  the  greatest  respect.  2  Sam.  ix.  1.  7. 
He  receives  a  daily  sursat,  or  allowance,  from  the  king, 
which  makes  his  case  resemble  that  of  Jehoiachin,  for  his 
allowance  was  a  continual  allowance  given  him  of  the 
king,  a  daily  rate,  all  the  days  of  his  life.  2  Kings  xxv.  30. 
Giving  to  the  Nawab  a  high  rank  in  society,  is  illustrative 
of  the  precedence  given  to  Jehoiaehin,  by  setting  his  throne 
above  the  throne  of  the  kings  that  were  with  him  in  Bab- 
ylon.— MOBIEB. 


THE   FIRST  BOOK  OF  CHRONICLES 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  34.  Now  Sheshan  had  no  sons,  but  daugh- 
ters: and  Sheshan  had  a  servant,  an  Egyptian, 
whose  name  was  Jarha.  35.  And  Sheshan 
gave  his  daughter  to  Jarha  his  servant  to  wife, 
and  she  bare  him  Attai. 

The  usages  of  the  East  differ  very  much  from  those  of 
the  West,  with  relation  to  the  more  than  kind  treatment  of 
their  servants ;  but  they  perfectly  agree  with  those  that  are 
referred  to  in  the  scriptures.  How  far  these  have  been 
taken  notice  of  in  explaining  passages  of  holy  writ,  I  do 
not  knowj  but  I  believe  the  gathering  up  together,  and 
presenting  them  in  one  view  to  my  reader,  will  be  a  sort  of 
novelty. 

They  marry  their  slaves  frequently  to  their  daughters,, 
and  that  when  they  have  no  male  issue,  and  those  daughters 
are  what  we  call  great  fortimes.  That  Hassan  of  whom 
Maillet  gives  a  long  account  in  his  eleventh  letter,  and  who 
was  kiaia  of  the  Asaphs  of  Cairo,  that  is  to  say,  the  colonel 
of  four  or  five  thousand  men  who  go  under  that  name,  was 
the  slave  of  a  predecessor  in  that  office,  the  famous  Kamel, 
and  married  his  daughter:  "  for  Kamel,"  savs  he,  "  accord- 
ing to  the  custom  of  the  country,  gave  him  one  of  his 
daughters  in  marriage,  and  left  him,  at  his  death,  one  part 
of  the  great  riches  he  had  amassed  together  in  the  course  of 
a  long  and  prosperous  life."  What  Sheshan  then  did,  was 
perhaps  not  so  extraordinary  as  we  may  have  imagined, 
but  perfectly  conformable  to  old  eastern  customs,  if  not  to 
the  arrangements  of  Moses ;  at  least  it  is,  we  see,  just  the 
same  with  what  is  now  practised. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  39.  And  they  went  to  the  entrance  of  Gedor, 
even  unto  the  east  side  of  the  valley,  to  seek 
pasture  for  their  flocks.  40.  And  they  found 
fat  pasture  and  good,  and  the  land  loas  wide, 
and  quiet,  and  peaceable;  for  Mgy  of  Ham  bad 
dwelt  there  of  old. 

Our  people,  who  are  extremely  watchful  over  their  pub- 
lic pastures',  to  guard  them  from  intruders,  and  so  ready  to 
go  to  law  with  their  next  neighbours  about  their  right  to 
common,  or  the  number  of  beasts  they  shall  feed  there, 
may  think  it  very  strange  that  Abraham  and  Lot,  the  Ken- 
iles  and  Rechabites,  should  have  been  permitted  to  move 
up  and  down,  and  feed  their  flocks  and  herds  unmolested, 
in  inhabited  countries  as  well  as  in  deserts. 

But  this  ancient  custom  still  continues  in  Palestine,  which, 
depopulated  as  it  is,  probably  has  as  many  inhabitants  in  its 
towns,  as  it  had  in  the  days  of  Abraham.  Nor  is  this  pe- 
culiar to  Palestine ;  there  are  many  that  live  in  Barbary, 
and  other  places,  in  the  same  manner.  And  as  the  Kenites 
and  Rechabites  lived  in  Palestine  in  tents,  and  pastured 
their  cattle  there  without  molestation,  when  the  country  was 
very  populous,  so  Maillet  assures  us,  that  great  numbers 
of  these  people  that  live  in  tents,  come  into  Egypt  itself  to 
pasture  their  cattle,  a  very  populous  country,"and  indeed 
the  Holland  of  the  Levant.  As  I  do  not  know  his  account 
has  ever  appeared  in  English,  I  will  here  give  it  to  the 
reader : — 

"  Besides  these  native  inhabitants  of  Egypt,  who  have 
fixed  habitations,  and  compose  those  numerous  and  popu- 
ous  villages  of  which  I  have  spoken  above,  there  are  also 
in  that  part  of  the  country  that  is  next  the  deserts,  and  even 
often  in  those  that  border  on  the  Nile,  a  sort  of  wandering 
people,  who  dwell  in  tents,  and  change  their  habitation,  as 
the  want  of  pasture  or  the  variety  of  the  seasons  lead  them. 
These  people  are  called  Bedotiin  Arabs;    and  we  may 


reckon  there  are  above  two  millions  of  them  in  Egypt. 
Some  keep  on  the  mountains,  and  at  a  distance  from  the 
cities  and  villages,  but  always  in  places  where  it  is  easy  for 
them  to  have  water.  Others  pitch  their  tents,  which  are 
very  low  and  poor,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  places  that  are 
inhabited,  where  they  permit  them  for  a  small  recompense 
to  feed  their  flocks.  They  even  give  them  up  some  lands 
to  cultivate  for  their  own  use,  only  to  avoid  having  any  mis- 
understanding with  people,  who  can  do  a  great  deal  of 
mischief  without  any  danger  of  having  it  returned  upon 
them.  For  to  avoid  everything  of  this  kind,  they  have 
nothing  to  do  but  to  penetrate  a  day's  journey  into  the  des- 
erts, where,  by  their  extreme  frugality,  and  by  the  knowl- 
edge they  have  of  places  of  water,  they  can  subsist  several 
months  without  great  difficulty.  There  is  not  a  more  pleas- 
ing sight  in  the  world,  than  the  beholding,  in  the  months  of 
November,  December,  and  January,  those  vast  meadows, 
where  the  grass,  almost  as  high  as  a  man,  is  so  thick  that 
a  bullock  laid  in  it  has  enough  of  it  without  rising,  within 
his  reach,  to  feed  on  for  a  whole  day,  all  covered  with  habi- 
tations and  tents,  with  people  and  herds.  And  indeed  it  is 
at  this  time  of  the  year  that  the  Bedouins  flock  into  Egypt, 
from  three  or  four  hundred  leagues  distance,  in  order  to 
feed  their  camels  and  horses  there.  The  tribute  which 
they  require  of  them  for  granting  this  permission,  they  pay 
with  the  produce  of  some  manufactures  of  their  wool,  or 
with  some  sheep,  which  they  sell,  as  well  as  their  lambs,  or 
some  young  camels,  which  they  dispose  of  As  to  what 
remains,  accustomed  as  they  are  to  extreme  frugality,  they 
live  on  a  little,  and  a  very  small  matter  is  sufficient  for  their 
support.  After  having  spent  a  certain  space  of  time  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  Nile,  they  retire  into  the  deserts,  from 
whence,  by  routes  with  which  they  are  acquainted,  they 
pass  into  other  regions,  to  dwell  there  in  like  manner  some 
months  of  the  year,  till  the  return  of  the  usual  season  calls 
them  back  to  Egypt." 

We  see  here  that  they  are  at  liberty  to  feed  their  cattle, 
not  only  in  the  deserts  adjoining  to  cultivated  countries, 
but  in  those  countries  themselves,  and  in  those  that  are  full 
of  people  too.  The  commons  then  of  these  countries  are 
not,  cannot  be,  appropriated  to  this  or  that  village,  this 
or  that  district,  but  lie  open  to  all,  nor  have  they  any  notion 
of  our  rights  of  commoning.  It  was  so  anciently  in  Israel, 
as  appears  by  the  case  of  the  Kenites  and  Rechabites,  as 
well  as  by  that  ancient  constitution  among  the  Jews,  ascri- 
bed by  them  to  Joshua,  and  which  is  the  first  of  ten  that  are 
supposed  to  have  been  established  by  him,  by  which  it  was 
lawful  to  feed  a  flock  in  the  woods,  everywhere,  without 
any  regard  to  the  division  of  the  lands  between  the  tribes, 
so  that  those  of  the  tribe  of  Naphtali  might  feed  a  flock  in 
the  woods  of  the  tribe  of  Judah.  These  usages  are  ex- 
tremely contrary  to  ours ;  the  observing  therefore  that  they 
continue  still  in  full  force  in  the  East,  may  be  requisite  to 
engage  us  to  admit  such  suppositions,  in  settling  the  Old 
Testament  history,  as  we  might  otherwise  hardly  be  willing 
to  allow. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  10.  And  in  the  days  of  Saul  they  made  war 
with  the  Hagarites,  who  fell  by  their  hand: 
and  they  dwelt  in  their  tents  throughout  all  the 
east  land  of  Gilead. 

The  shepherds  are  not  the  only  cFass  of  people  that  live 
in  tents  ;  many  Orientals  forsake  their  villages  at  the  ap- 
proach of  summer,  for  the  more  airy  and  refreshing  shelter 
which  they  affbrd.  This  custom,  which  may  be  traced  to 
an  antiquity  very  remote,  explains,  in  the  most  satisfactory 
manner,  an  incident  in  the  history  of  Jacob.  When  the 
patriarch,  in  consequence  of  a  divine  admonition,  had 
formed  the  resolution  to  return  from  Mesopotamia  to  his 


800 


1  CHRONi^CLES. 


Chap.  9—12. 


father's  house,  he  sent  for  Rachel  and  Leah  to  his  flocks, 
and  there  informed  them  of  his  design  ;  and  on  their  con- 
senting to  go  with  him,  he  set  out  upon  his  journey  so 
silently,  that  Laban  had  no  notice  of  it  till  the  third  day 
after  his  departure.  It  appears,  however,  that  he  carried 
all  his  effecis  with  him,  and  tents  for  the  accommodation  of 
his  family ;  and  that  Laban,  who  pursued  him,  had  tents 
also  for  the  use  of  his  followers.  The  reason  is,  it  was  the 
time  of  sheep-shearing,  when  the  masters  and  all  their  re- 
tainers commonly  lived  under  tents  in  the  open  fields ;  and 
had  the  greater  part,  if  not  the  whole  of  their  furniture  with 
them,  on  account  of  the  entertainments  which  were  given 
on  these  joyful  occasions.  Thus  was  Jacob  equipped  at 
once  for  his  journey,  and  Laban  for  the  pursuit.  It  is  not 
more  difficult  lo  account  for  the  intelligence  not  reaching 
Laban  till  the  third  day  after  Jacob's  escape.  Laban's 
flocks  were  in  two  divisions — one  under  the  care  of  Jacob, 
the  other  committed  to  the  care  of  Laban's  sons,  at  the 
distance  of  three  days'  journey;  and  Jacob's  own  flock, 
under  the  management  of  his  family,  were,  probably  for 
the  same  reason,  at  an  equal  distance.  Besides  this,  there 
might  be  other  circumstances  which  retarded  the  progress 
of  the  messenger,  which  the  sacred  historian  did  not  think 
it  necessary  to  state ;  the  fact  is  certain,  and  all  the  incidents 
of  the  story  are  natural  and  easy.  The  custom  of  living  in 
tents  was  not  confined  to  people  in  the  country;  persons  of 
<listinction  ofcen  retired  from  the  towns  into  the  fields,  and 
lived  under  tents  during  the  heats  of  summer.  Tahmasp, 
a  Persian  monarch,  used  to  spend  the  winter  at  Casbin, 
and  to  retire  in  the  summer  three  or  four  leagues  into  the 
country,  where  he  lived  intents  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Alou- 
vent,  a  place  famed  tor  its  cool  and  pleasant  retreats.  His 
successors  acted  in  the  same  manner,  till  the  time  of  Abbas 
the  Great,  who  removed  his  court  to  Ispahan. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  18.  (Who  hitherto  waited  in  the  king's  gate 
eastward:)  they  were  porters  in  the  companies 
of  tlie  children  of  Levi. 

This  gate  was  so  called,  because  Solomon  built  it  and 
the  rest  of  the  wall  on  that  side,  at  an  extraordinary  trouble 
and  expense,  raising  the  foundation  four  hundred  cubits, 
or  seven  hundred  and  twenty-nine  feet  seven  inches  from 
the  bottom  of  the  deep  valley  of  Kidron,  by  means  of  large 
stones,  twenty  cubits,  or  thirty-six  feet  five  inches  long,  and 
six  cubits,  or  ten  feet  ten  inches  high,  so  as  to  be  on  an 
equality  with  the  rest  of  the  surface.  When  Captain  Light 
visited  Jerusalem,  in  1814,  some  of  these  large  stones  seem 
to  have  been  remaining,  for  when  describing  the  Turkish 
aga's  house,  which  is  built  on  the  spot  where  the  house  of 
Pontius  Pilate  formerly  stood,  he  says,  "  what  attracted  my 
observation  most,  were  three  or  four  layers  of  immense 
stones,  apparently  of  the  ancient  town,  forming  part  of  the 
walls  of  the  palace."  The  ancients  delighted  in  building 
with  these  large  kinds  of  stones,  for  in  the  ruins  which  we 
have  of  ancient  buildings,  Ihey  arje  often  to  be  found  of 
great  magnitude.  Mr.  Wood,  in  his  Ruins  of  Palmyra 
and  Balbec,  states,  "that  the  stones  which  compose  the 
sloping  wall  of  the  latter  are  enormous ;  some  are  from 
twenty-eight  to  thirty-five  feet  long,  and  nine  feet  high. 
There  are  three  of  the  following  dimensions :  fifty-eight 
feet  high,  and  twelve  thick ;  they  are  of  white  granite,  with 
large  shining  flakes  like  gypsum." 

At  Bagdad,  the  gate  Al  Talism  is  "  now  bricked  up,  in 
honour  of  its  having  been  entered  in  triumph  by  the  Sultan 
Murad,  after  his  having  recovered  Bagdad  from  the  Per- 
sians, and  the  weak  grasp  of  the  unworthy  son  of  the  great 
Abbas.  In  consequence  of  this  signal  event,  the  portal  was 
Instantly  closed  on  the  victor  having  marched  through,  and 
from  that  day  has  never  been  reopened.  This  custom  of 
shutting  up  any  passage  that  has  been  peculiarly  honoured, 
that  it  may  not  be  profaned  by  vulgar  footsteps,  appears  to 
have  prevailed  very  generally  over  the  East.  I  found  an 
instance  of  it  at  Ispahan,  where  the  Ali  Copi  gate  is,  in  like 
manner,  held  sacred  for  a  similar  reason,"  (Sir  R.  K,  Por- 
ter.)— BURDER. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  9.  And  when  they  had  stripped  him,  they 
tcok  his  head,  and  his  armour,  and  sent  into 


the  land  of  the  Philistines  round  about  to  carry 
tidings  unto  their  idols,  and  to  the  people. 

After  Saul  had  fallen  on  Mount  Gilboa,  his  enemies 
"  stripped  him,  and  took  off  his  head,  and  sent  the  tidings 
to  their  idols."  When  the  heathen  of  the  present  day  gam 
a  victory  over  their  enemies,  they  always  take  the  tidings 
to  their  idols.  There  is  the  king,  and  there  his  general, 
and  troops,  and  priests,  and  people,  marching  in  triumph  to 
the  temple.  Then  they  relate  to  the  gods  all  their  proceed- 
ings ;  how  they  conquered  the  foe,  and  that  to  them  they 
have  come  to  give  the  glory.  But  this  practice  is  had  re- 
course to,  also,  in  the  common  affairs  of  life.  A  man  de- 
livered from  prison,  or  any  great  emergency,  always  goes 
to  his  gods,  to  carry  the  joyful  tidings.  Hear  them  relate 
the  story :  "  Ah  !  Swamy,  you  know  Muttoo  wanted  to  ruin 
me ;  he  therefore  forged  a  deed  in  my  name,  and  tried  to 
get  my  estates ;  but  I  resisted  him,  and  it  has  just  been  de- 
cided before  the  court,  that  he  is  guilty.  I  am  therefore 
come  to  praise  you,  O  Swamy !" — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Ver.  41.  Uriah  the  Hittite,  Zabad  the  son  of  Ahlai. 

Foreigners  resident  in  the  country  were  permitted  to 
serve  in  the  Jewish  armies,  and  they  sometimes  rose  to  a 
very  high  rank;  for  both  Uriah  and  Ittai,  who  seemed 
to  have  held  principal  commands  in  the  armies  of  David, 
were  aboriginal  Canaanites.  But  in  succeeding  ages,  the 
kings  of  Judah,  affecting  to  imitate  the  policy  of  the  sur- 
rounding potentates,  or  distrusting  the  omnipotent  protec- 
tion of  Jehovah,  occasionally  hired  large  bodies  of  foreign 
troops  to  fight  their  battles,  who,  like  mercenaries  of  later 
times,  after  expelling  the  invaders,  sometimes  turned  their 
arms  against  their  employers,  and  ravaged  the  country 
which  they  came  to  protect. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Ver.  8.  And  of  the  Gadites  there  separated  them- 
selves unto  David,  into  the  hold  to  the  wilder- 
ness, men  of  might,  and  men  of  war  fit  for  the 
battle,  that  could  handle  shield  and  buckler, 
whose  faces  were  like  the  faces  of  lions,  and 
were  as  swift  as  the  roes  upon  the  mountains. 

See  on  2  Sam.  2.  18. 

Ver.  15.  These  are  they  that  went  over  Jordan 
in  the  first  month,  when  it  had  overflown  all 
his  banks ;  and  they  put  to  flight  all  them  of 
the  valleys,  both  towards  the  east  and  towards 
the  west. 

See  on  Josh.  3.  15. 

Ver.  40.  Moreover,  they  that  were  nigh  them, 
even  unto  Issachar  and  Zebulun  and  Naphtali, 
brought  bread  on  asses,  and  on  camels,  and  on 
mules,  and  on  oxen ;  and  meat,  meal,  cakes  of 
figs,  and  bunches  of  raisins,  and  wine,  and  oil, 
'  and  oxen,  and  sheep  abundantly:  for  there  was 
j  oy  in  Israel. 

The  strong  and  docile  ox  was  also  taught  to  submit 
his  shoulder  to  the  heavy  burden ;  for,  at  the  accession  of 
David  to  the  throne  of  Israel,  the  people  brought  "  bread  on 
asses,  and  on  camels,  and  on  mules,  and  on  oxen.'*  He  is 
less  fitted,  indeed,  by  the  rotundity  of  his  form,  for  this  spe- 
cies of  labour,  than  for  those  just  mentioned.  But  although 
the  very  back  of  the  ox,  according  to  this  elegant  writer, 
declares  that  it  has  not  been  formed  to  receive  a  load,  yet 
the  concurring  testimony  of  past  ages  assures  us  that  it  is 
not  altogether  unfit  for  that  purpose.  iElian  observes,  that 
the  bull  submits  to  the  bier,  and  carries  a  boy  or  a  girl  on 
his  neck,  and  a  woman  on  his  back.  The  Roman  authors 
mounted  Bacchus  on  a  bull,  and  made  Europa  travel  in 
the  same  manner.  These  facts  prove,  that  it  was  by  no 
means  uncommon  to  use  the  ox  for  burdens  of  every  kind, 
and  even  for  the  saddle ;  a  custom  which  Mr.  Bruce  avers, 
is  still  practised  among  some  tribes.    In  Guzerat  the  oxen 


Chap.  17—21. 


1  CHRONICLES. 


301 


are  perfectly  white,  with  black  horns,  a  skin  delicately  soft, 
and  eyes  rivalling  those  of  the  antelope  in  brilliant  lustre. 
Those  reared  in  the  northern  part  of  the  province  are  no- 
ble animals,  superior  in  size,  strength,  and  docility ;  some 
of  them'  travel  with  a  hackery,  a  vehicle  for  the  convey- 
ance of  women  and  children,  from  thirty  to  forty  miles  a 
day ;  and  are  yoked  to  the  carriages  of  wealthy  Hindoos  in 
distant  parts  of  India.  In  sweetness  of  temper  and  gentle- 
ness of  manners  they  nearly  resemble  the  elephant.  Some 
of  these  oxen  are  valued  "at  nearly  two  hundred  pounds 
sterling. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Ver.  16.  And  David  the  king  came  and  sat  be- 
fore the  Lord,  and  said,  Who  am  I,  O  Lord 
God,  and  what  is  my  house,  that  thou  hast 
brought  me  hitherto  ? 

The  ceremonial  of  the  Orientals  does  not  end  with  the 
introduction  of  persons  to  one  another,  but  continues  during 
the  whole  visit.  The  most  scrupulous  attention  is  paid  by 
all  parties  to  the  established  tokens  of  respect ;  the  posture 
of  the  body,  the  part  of  the  room,  and  other  circumstances, 
are  all  regulated  by  custom,  to  whose  imperious  dictates 
they  have  implicitly  submitted  from  the  remotest  antiquity. 
One  of  the  postures  by  which  a  person  testifies  his  respect 
for  a  superior,  is  by  sitting  upon  his  heels,  which  is  consid- 
ered as  a  token  of  great  humility.  In  this  manner,  says 
Dr.  Pococke,  resting  on  their  hams,  sat  the  attendants  of 
the  English  consul,  when  he  waited  on  the  caia  of  the 
pacha  of  Tripoli.  It  was  in  this  humble  posture,  probably, 
that  David,  the  king  of  Israel,  sat  before  the  Lord  in  the 
sanctuary,  when  he  blessed  him  for  his  gracious  promise 
concerning  his  family ;  half  sitting  and  half  kneeling,  so  as 
to  rest  the  body  upon  the  heels.  This  entirely  removes  the 
ground  of  perplexity,  which  some  expositors  have  felt,  in 
their  attempts  to  elicit  a  meaning  from  the  phrase,  sitting 
before  the  Lord,  at  once  consistent  with  the  majesty  of  Je- 
hovah, and  the  humility  of  the  worshipper ;  for  this  attitude 
expressed  among  the  Orientals  the  deepest  humility,  and 
by  consequence,  was  every  way  becoming  a  worshipper  of 
the  true  God. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Ver.  9.  Now  when  Tou  king  of  Hamath  heard 
how  David  had  smitten  all  the  host  of  Hada- 
rezer  king  of  Zobah,  10.  He  sent  Hadoram  his 
son  to  King  David,  to  inquire  of  his  welfare, 
and  to  congratulate  him,  because  he  had  fought 
against  Hadarezer,  and  smitten  him ;  (for  Flada- 
rezer  had  war  with  Tou  ;)  and  ivith  him  all 
manner  of  vessels  of  gold  and  silver  and  brass. 

Here,  again,  we  have  a  beautiful  and  simple  picture  of 
eastern  manners.  Tou,  the  heathen  king,  sent  a  messenger 
to  compliment  David  on  his  success  over  his  enemies. 
Who,  in  the  East,  has  not  witnessed  similar  things  1  Has 
a  man  gained  a  case  in  a  court  of  law;  has  he  been  blessed 
by  the  birth  of  a  son;  has  he  given  his  daughter  in  mar- 
riage ;  has  he  gained  a  situation  under  government ;  has  he 
returned  from  a  voyage  or  a  journey,  or  finished  a  success- 
ful speculation  ; — then  his  friends  and  neighbours  send 
messengers  to  congratulate  him — to  express  the  joy  they 
feel  in  his  prosperity;  "so  much  so,  that,  had  it  come  to 
themselves,  their  pleasure  could  not  have  been  greater." — 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Ver.  1.  And  Satan  stood  up  against  Israel,  and 

provoked  David  to  number  Israel. 
See  on  2  Sam.  24.  1. 

Ver.  5.  And  Joab  gave  the  sum  of  the  number  of 
the  people  unto  David.  And  all  ^Ae?/ of  Israel 
were  a  thousand  thousand  and  a  hundred  thou- 
sand men  that  drew  sword  :  and  Judah  teas  four 


hundred  threescore  and  ten  thousand  men  that 
drew  sword. 

Few  things  in  history  are  more  surprising  than  the  great 
numbers  which  are  recorded  as  forming  eastern  armies , 
even  the  scripture  accounts  of  the  armies  that  invaded 
Judea,  or  were  raised  in  Judea,  often  excite  the  wonder  of 
their  readers.  To  parallel  these  great  numbers  by  those  of 
other  armies,  is  not  all  that  is  acceptalJfe  to  the  inquisitive  ; 
it  is  requisite  also  to  show  how  so  small  a  province  as  the 
Holy  Land  really  was,  could  furnish  such  mighty  armies 
of  fighting:  men  ;  with  the  uncertainty  of  the  proportion  of 
these  fighting  men  to  the  Mhole  number  of  the  nation  ;  in 
respect  to  which  many  unfounded  conjectures  have  escaped 
the  pens  of  the  learned.  This  includes  more  importance 
than  may  be  at  first  sight  attached  to  it,  because  it  is  well 
known  that  Josephus,  in  narrating  the  same  facts,  often  give§ 
different  numbers.  In  the  story  of  Abijah,  1  Kings  xv.  5, 
we  read  in  some  MSS.  40,000,  instead  of  400,000.  The 
question  is,  which  is  wrong'?  since  it  has  been  concluded 
that  both  could  not  be  right.  Besides  this,  the  answers  to 
those  who  question  the  possibility  of  the  Holy  Land  main- 
taining so  great  a  population  as  the  armies  mentioned  im- 
plies, have  usually  taken  the  proportion  which  Europe  fur- 
nishes of  fighting  men  to  the  mass  of  its  inhabitants ;  and 
very  erroneous  conclusions  (as  I  conceive)  have  been 
drawn  from  such  calculations.  It  must  be  admitted,  that 
the  passages  in  which  numbers  are  expressed  in  all  ancient 
writings,  and  by  parity  of  reason,  in  the  scriptures,  seem, 
more  than  many  others,  to  justify  suspicion  of  error  in  our 
present  copies ;  and  to  understand  them  correctly  requires 
much  attention  and  information ;  especially  when  such 
numbers  are  very  great.  Having  premised  this,  I  proceed 
to  attempt  two  particulars  :  first^  by  instances  of  nuitierous 
armies  which  have  been  occasionally  raised,  to  show  what 
may  be  done  by  despotic  power,  or  the  impulse  of  military 
glory ;  secondly,  to  show  that  the  composition  of  Asiatic 
armies  is  such  as  may  render  credible  those  numbers  wiiich 
express  their  gross  amount;  while  no  just  inference  re- 
specting the  entire  population  of  a  country  can  be  drawn 
from  the  numbers  stated  as  occasionally  composing  its  ar- 
mies. As  to  the  first  particular,  the  accounts  of  the  armies 
of  Semiramis,  of  Darius.andof  Xerxes,  are  in  everybody's 
hands,  but  as  these  are  not  without  suspicion  of  having 
been  enlarged,  either  purposely  by  misreport,  or  acciden- 
tally by  errors  in  copyists,  I  decline  them ;  and  rather  sub- 
mit to  the  reader's  attention  the  account  given  by  Knolles 
in  his  "  History  of  the  Turks,"  of  the  contending  armies 
of  Bajazet  and  Tamerla^ie.  It  is  no  bad  specimen  of  the 
"  I  will"  of  military  power,  of  the  cares  and  anxieties  at- 
tending on  the  station  of  command,  and  of  the  feelings  of 
great  minds  on  great  occasions. 

"  So,  marching  on,  Tamerlane  at  length  came  to  Bachi- 
chich,  where  he  staid  to  refresh  his  army  eight  dales,  and 
there  againe  took  a  generall  muster  thereof,  wherein  were 
found  (as  most  write) /owr  hundred  thousand  horse,  and  six 
hundred  thousand  fool ;  or,  as  some  others  that  were  there 
present  affirme,  three  hundred  thousand  horsemen,  and  fine 
himdred  thousand  foot  of  al  nations.  Vnto  whom  he  there 
gaue  a  generall  pay,  and,  as  his  manner  was,  made  vnto 
them  an  oration,  informing  them  of  such  orders  as  he  would 
haue  kept,  to  the  end  they  might  the  better  obserue  the 
same :  with  much  other  militarie  discipline,  whereof  he  was 
very  curious  with  his  captains.  At  which  time,  also,  it  was 
lawfull  for  euery  common  soldier  to  behold  him  with  more 
boldness  than  on  other  daies,  forasmuch  fts  he  did  for  that 
time,  and  such  like,  lay  aside  his  imperial  majestic,  and 
shew  himselfe  more  familiar  vnto  them "  Page  215. 

. . ."  Malcozzius  hauing  made  true  relation  vnto  Baiazet, 
was  by  him  demanded '  whether  of  the  two  armies  he  thought 
bigger  or  stronger  1'  for  now  Baiazet  had  assembled  a 
mightie  armie  of  three  hundred  thousand  men,  or,  as  some 
report,  of  three  hundred  thousand  horsemen  and  tn-o  hundred 
thousand  foot.  "Whereunto  Malcozzius,  hauing  before  cra- 
ued  pardon,  answered,  '  That  it  could  not  be,  but  that 
Tamerlane  might  in  reason  haue  the  greater  number,  for 
that  he  was  a  commander  of  farre  greater  countries,' 
Wherewith  proud  Baiazet  oflTended,  in  great  choller  replied, 
'  Out  of  doubt,  the  sight  of  the  Tartarian  hath  made  this 
coward  so  affraid,  that  he  thinketh  euery  enemie  to  be  two." 

216 "  All  which  Tamerlane,  walking  this  night  vp  and 

down  in  his  cainpe,  heard,  and  much  rrioiced  to  see  the 


302 


1   CHRONICLES. 


Ghap.  22—26. 


hope  chat  his  soldiers  had  alreadie  in  general  conceiued  of 
the  victorie.  Who  after  the  second  waich  returning  vnto 
his  pauillion,  and  there  casting  himself  upon  a  carpet,  had 
thought  to  haue  slept  a  while  ;  but  his  cares  not  suffering  him 
so  to  do,  he  then,  as  his  man?ierwas,  called  for  a  booke,  wherein 
was  contained  the  Hues  of  his  fathers  and  ancestors,  and  of 
other  valient  worthies,  the  which  he  vsed  ordinarily  to  read, 
as  he  thert,  did :  not  as  therwith  vainly  to  deceiue  the  time, 
bat  to  make  vse  thefeof,  by  the  imitation  of  that  which  was 
by  them  worthily  done,  and  declining  of  such  dangers  as 

they  by  their  rashness  or  ouersight  fel  into,"  Page  218 

[Vide  the  same  kind  of  occupation  of  Ahasuerus,  Esther 
vi.  1.] 

. . ."  My  will  is,"  said  Tamerlane,  "  that  my  men  come  for- 
w^ard  vnto  me,  as  soon  as  they  may,  for  I  will  aduance  for- 
ward with  an  hundred  thousand  footmen,  fiftie  thousand  vpon 
each  of  my  two  wings,  and  in  the  middest  of  ihem  forty 
thousand  of  my  best  horsemen.  My  pleasure  is,  that  after 
Ihey  haue  tried  the  force  of  these  men,  that  they  come  vnto 
my  avauntgard,  of  whom  I  wil  dispose,  and  fifty  thousand 
horse  more  in  three  bodies,  whom  thou  shalt  command: 
which  I  wil  assist  with  80,000  horse,  wherein  shal  be  mine 
own  person  :  hauing  100,000  footmen  behind  me,  who  shal 
march  in  two  squadrons:  and  for  my  arereward  I  appoint 
40,000  horse,  and  fiftie  thousand  footmen,  who  shal  not 
march,  but  to  my  aid.  And  I  wil  make  choice  of  10,000 
of  my  best  horse,  whom  I  wil  send  into  euery  place  where 
I  shai  thinke  needfull  within  my  armie,  for  to  impart  my 
commands."    (Knolles's  History  of  the  Turks,  page  218.) 

[It  is  impossible,  on  this  occasion,  not  to  recollect  the  im- 
mense army  led  by  Napoleon  Bonaparte  into  Russia,  ex- 
ceeding six  hundred  thousand  troops ;  also  the  forces  engaged 
around  Leipsic,  amounting  (including  both  sides)  to  half  a 
million  of  men.  Vide  Literary  Panorama,  for  Novem- 
ber, 1813.] 

It  may  be  said,  "  Such  mighty  empires  may  well  be 
supposed  to  raise  forces,  to  which  the  small  state  of  Judea 
was  incompetent;"  and  this  may  safely  be  admitted.  But 
what  was,  in  all  probability,  the  nature  and  composition  of 
the  Jewish,  as  of  other  eastern  armies,  we  may  learn  from 
the  following  relations,  which  contribute  to  strengthen  the 
credibility  of  the  greater  numbers  recorded  as  composing 
them.  I  shall  first  pfFer  what  Baron  De  Tott  reports  of 
the  armies  raised  by  the  cham  of  the  Crimea;  and  then, 
as  still  more  descriptive  of  Asiatic  armies,  especially  of 
those  raised  on  the  spur  of  an  occasion,  the  remarks  of 
M.  Volney:  "  It  maybe  presumed  that  the  rustic,  frugal 
iife,  which  these  pastoral  people  lead,  favours  population, 
while  the  wants  and  excesses  of  luxury,  among  polished 
nations,  strike  at  its  very  root.  In  fact,  it  is  observed,  that 
the  people  are  less  numerous  under  the  roofs  of  the  Crimea, 
and  the  province  of  Boodjack,  than  in  the  tents  of  the  No- 
guais.  The  best  calculation  we  can  make,  is  from  a  view 
of  the  military  forces  which  the  cham  is  able  to  assemble. 
"We  shall  soon  see  this  prince  raising  three  armies  at  the 
same  time ;  one  of  a  hu7idred  thousand  men,  which  he  com- 
manded in  person;  another  of  sixty  thousand^  commanded 
liy  the  calga ;  and  a  third  of  forty  thousand,  by  the  noo- 
radin.  He  had  the  power  of  raising  double  the  number, 
without  prejudice  to  the  necessary  labours  of  the  state. 

"  The  invasion  of  New  Servia,  which  had  been  de- 
termined on  at  Constantinople,  was  consented  to  in  the 
assembly  of  the  grand  vassals  of  Tartary,  and  orders 
were  expedited,  throughout  the  provinces,  for  the  necessary 
military  supplies.  Three  horsevienvfere  to  be  furnished  by 
eight  families,  which  number  was  estimated  to  be  sufficient 
for  the  three  armies,  which  were  all  to  begin  their  operations 
at  once.  That  of  the  nooradin,  consisting  of  forty  thov^ 
sa,nd  men,  had  orders  to  repair  to  the  Little  Don  ;  that  of  the 
calga,  of  sixty  thousand,  was  to  range  the  left  coast  of  the 
Boristhenes,  till  they  came  beyond  the  Orela;  and  that 
which  the  cham  commanded  in  person,  of  a  hundred  thou- 
sand, was  to  penetrate  into  New  Servia."    (De  Tott.) 

"  Sixty  thousand  men,  with  them,  are  very  far  from  being 
svnonymous  with  sixty  thousand  soldiers,  as  in  our  armies. 
That  of  which  we  are  now  speaking  affords  a  proof  of 
this;  it  might  amount,  in  fact,  to  forty  thousand  men,  which 
may  be  classed  as  follows: — Five  thousand  Mamlouk  cbly- 
^hy,  which  was  the  whole  effective  army ;  about  fifteen  hun- 
dred Barbary  Arnbs,  on  foot,  and  no  other  infantry,  for  the 
Turks  are  acquainted  with  none  ;  with  them  the  cavalry  is 
every  Ihirg.    Besides  these,  each  Mamlouk  having  in  his 


suite  tjvo  footmen,  armed  with  staves,  these  would  form  a 
body  of  ten  thousand  valets,  besides  a  number  of  servants 
and  serradgis,  or  attendants  on  horseback,  for  the  bey  and 
kachefs,  which  may  be  estimated  at  two  thousand  :  all  the 
rest  were  sutlers,  and  the  usual  train  of  followers.  Such 
was  this  army,  as  described  to  be  in  Palestine,  by  persons 
who  had  seen  and  followed  it.  The  Asiatic  armies  are 
mobs,  their  marches  ravages,  their  campaigns  mere  inroids, 
and  their  battles  bloody  frays.  The  strongest,  or  the  most 
adventurous  party,  goes  in  search  of  the  other,  which  not 
unfrequently  flies  without  offering  resistance  :  if  they  stind 
their  ground,  they  engage  pellmell,  discharge  their  car- 
bines, break  their  spears,  and  hack  each  other  with  their 
sabres;  for  they  rarely  have  any  cannon,  and  when  tley 
have,  they  are  but  of  little  service.  A  panic  frequently 
diffuses  itself  without  cause  :  one  party  flies,  the  other  pur- 
sues, and  shouts  victory ;  the  vanquished  submits  to  the  will 
of  the  conqueror,  and  the  campaign  often  terminates  without 
a  battle."    (Volney.) 

It  appears,  by  these  extracts,  that  the  numbers  which 
compose  the  gross  of  Asiatic  armies  are  very  far  from  de- 
noting the  true  number  of  soldiers,  fighting  men,  of  that 
army  ;  in  fact,  when  we  deduct  those  whose  attendance  is 
of  little  advantage,  it  may  be  not  ver^  distant  from  truth, 
if  we  say,  nine  out  of  ten  are  such  as,  in  Europe,  would  be 
forbid  the  army ;  nor  is  the  suggestion  absolutely  despica- 
ble, that  when  we  read  40,  instead  of  400,  the  true  fighting 
corps  of  soldiers  only  are  reckoned  and  stated.  However 
that  may  be,  these  authorities  are  sufficient  to  justify  the 
possibility  of  such  numbers  as  scripture  has  recorded,  being 
assembled  for  purposes  of  warfare;  of  which  purposes 
plunder  is  not  one  of  the  least,  in  the  opinion  of  those  who 
usually  auend  a  camp.  It  follows,  also,  that  no  conclusive 
estimate  of  the  population  of  a  kingdom  can  be  drawn  from 
such  assemblages,under  such  circumstances;  and  therefore, 
that  no  calculation  ought  to  be  hazarded  on  such  imperfect 
data. — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
Yer.  19.  Now  set  your  heart  and  your  soul  to 
seek  the  Lord  your  God :  arise,  therefore,  and 
build  ye  the  sanctuary  of  the  Lord  God,  to 
bring  the  ark  of  the  covenant  of  the  Lord,  and 
the  holy  vessels  of  God,  into  the  house  that  is 
to  be  built  to  the  name  of  the  Lord. 

In  all  heathen  temples,  there  are  numerous  vessels  of 
brass,  silver,  and  gold,  which  are  especially  holy.  Those, 
however,  of  the  highest  castes,  may  be  allowed  to  touch, 
and  even  borrow  them  for  certain  purposes.  Thus,  a 
native  gentleman,  who  is  going  to  give  a  feast,  borrows  the 
large  caldron  for  the  purpose  of  boiling  the  rice  ;  should 
his  daughter  be  about  to  be  married,  he  has  the  loan  of  the 
silver  salvers,  plates,  and  even  jewels ;  which,  however, 
must  all  be  purified  by  incense  and  other  ceremonies  when 
returned  to  the  temple.  "  The  ark"  finds  a  striking  illus- 
tration in  the  kcadagam  of  the  Hindoos, — a  model  of  which 
may  be  seen  in  the  house  of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society.  In 
it  are  placed  the  idols,  and  other  sacred  symbols,  which  are 
carried  on  men's  shoulders. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
Ver.  6.  Also  unto  Shemaiah  his  son  were  sons 
born,  that  ruled  throughout  the  house  of  their 
father  :  for  they  were  mighty  men  of  valour. 

It  has  been  a  frequent  complaint  among  learned  men, 
that  it  is  commonly  difficult,  and  oftentimes  impossible,  to 
illustrate  many  passages  of  the  Jewish  history,  referred  to 
in  the  annals  of  their  princes,  and  in  the  predictions  of  their 
prophets,  for  want  of  profane  historians  of  the  neighbouring 
nations,  of  any  great  anliquitv;  upon  which  I  have  been 
ready  to  think,  that  it  might  riot  be  altogether  vain  to  com- 
pare with  those  more  ancient  transactions,  events  of  a  later 
date  that  have  happened  in  those  countries,  in  nearly  simi- 
lar circumstances,  since  human  nature  is  much  the  same 
in  all  ages,  allowing  for  the  eccentricity  that  sometimes 
arises  from  some  distinguishing  prejudices  of  that  particular 
time.  The  situation  of  the  Christian  kings  of  Jerusalem, 
in  particular,  in  the  twelfth  century,  bears,  in  many  respects, 


Chap.  27. 


1  CHRONICLES. 


303 


a  strong  resemblance  to  that  of  the  kings  of  Judah ;  and  the 
history  of  the  crusades  may  serve  to  throw  some  light  on 
the  transactions  of  the  Jewish  princes.  At  least  the  com- 
paring them  together  may  be  amusing.  It  is  said  of  King 
Uzziah,  1  Chron.  xxvi.  6,  that  "  he  went  forth  and  warred 
against  the  Philistines,  and  broke  down  the  wall  of  Gath, 
and  the  wall  of  Jabneh,  and  the  wall  of  Ashdod,  and  built 
cities  about  Ashdod  and  among  the  Philistines."  Thus  we 
find,  in  the  time  of  the  crusades,  when  that  ancient  city  of 
the  Philistines,  called  Ashkelon,  had  frequently  made  in- 
roads into  the  territories  of  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem,  the 
Christians  built  two  strong  castles  not  far  from  Ashkelon ; 
and  finding  the  usefulness  cf  these  structures,  King  Fulk, 
in  the  spring  of  the  year  of  our  Lord  1138,  attended  by  the 
patriarch  of  Jerusalem  and  his  other  prelates,  proceeded  to 
build  another  castle,  called  Blanche  Guarda,  which  he 
garrisoned  with  such  soldiers  as  he  could  depend  upon, 
furnishing  them  with  arms  and  provisions.  These  watch- 
ing the  people  of  Ashkelon,  often  defeated  their  attempts, 
and  sometimes  they  did  not  content  themselves  with  being 
on  the  defensive,  but  attacked  them,  and  did  them  great 
mischief,  gaining  the  advantage  of  them.  This  occa- 
sioned those  who  claimed  a  right  to  the  adjoining  country, 
encouraged  by  the  neighbourhood  of  such  a  strong  place, 
to  build  many  villages,  in  which  many  families  dwelt, 
concerned  in  tilling  the  ground,  and  raising  provisions  for 
other  parts  of  their  territories.  Upon  this  the  people  of 
Ashkelon,  finding  themselves  encompassed  round  by  a 
number  of  inexpugnable  fortresses,  began  to  grow  very  un- 
easy at  their  situation,  and  to  apply  to  Egypt  for  help  by 
repeated  messages !  Exactly  in  the  same  manner  we  may 
believe  Uzziah  built  cities  about  Ashdod,  that  were  fortified 
to  repress  the  excursions  of  its  inhabitants,  and  to  secure  to 
his  people  the  fertile  pastures  which  lay  thereabout ;  and 
which  pastures,  I  presume,  the  Philistines  claimed,  and 
indeed  all  the  low  land  from  the  foot  of  the  mountains  to 
the  sea,  but  to  which  Israel  claimed  a  right,  and  of  a  part 
of  which  this  powerful  Jewish  prince  actually  took  posses- 
sion, and  made  settlements  for  his  people  there,  which  he 
thtis  guarded  from  the  Ashdodites:  "  He  built  cities  about 
Ashdod,  even  among  the  Philistines,"  for  so  I  would  ren- 
der the  words,  as  the  historian  appears  to  be  speaking  of 
the  same  cities  in  both  clauses.  Uzziah  did  more  than 
King  Fulk  could  do,  for  he  beat  down  the  walls  not  only  of 
Gath  and  Jabneh,  two  neighbouring  cities,  but  of  Ashdod 
itself,  which  must  have  cut  off"  all  thoughts  of  their  disturb- 
ing the  Jewish  settlers,  protected  by  strong  fortresses,  when 
they  themselves  lay  open  to  those  garrisons.  Ashkelon,  on 
the  contrary,  remained  strongly  fortified,  by  fortresses  built 
by  the  Christians. — Harmer. 

.  Ver.  1 3.  And  they  cast  lots,  as  well  the  small  as 
the  great,  according  tp  the  house  of  their  fa- 
thers, for  every  gate.  14.  And  the  lot  east- 
ward fell  to  Shelemiah.  Then  for  Zechariah 
his  son  (a  wise  counsellor)  they  cast  lots,  and 
his  lot  came  out  northward.  15.  To  Obed- 
edom  southward  ;  and  to  his  sons  the  house  of 
Asuppim.  16.  To  Shuppim  and  Hosah  the 
lot  came  forth  westward,  with  the  gate  Shal- 
lecheth,  by  the  causeway  of  the  going  up,  ward 
against  ward. 

Thus  the  gates  were  assigned  to  the  different  oflicers  by 
lot.  On  the  death  of  a  parent,  the  whole  of  his  fields  and 
gardens  are  often  divided  among  his  children,  and  great 
disputes  generally  arise  as  to  whom  shall  be  given  this  or 
that  part  of  the  property.  One  says,  "  I  will  have  the  field 
to  the  east."  "  No,"  says  another,  "  I  will  have  that :"  and  it 
is  not  till  they  have  quarrelled  and  exhausted  their  store  of 
ingenuity  and  abuse,  that  they  will  consent  to  settle  the 
matter  by  lot.  The  plan  they  take  is  as  follows :  they 
draw  on  the  ground  the  cardinal  points:  they  then  write 
the  names  of  the  parties  on  separate  leaves,  and  mix  them 
all  together:  a  little  child  is  then  called,  and  told  to  take  one 
leaf  and  place  it  on  any  point  of  the  compass  he  pleases  ; 
this  being  done,  the  leaf  is  opened,  and  to  the  person  whose 
name  is  found  therein  will  be  given  the  field  or  garden  which 
is  in  that  direction.  I  think  it  therefore  probable,  that  the 
lots  eastward,  westward,  northward,  and  southward,  -n  hich 


fell  to  Shelemiah,  Zechariah,  Obed-edom,  and  Shuppim, 
were  drawn  something  in  the  same  way. — Roberts. 

Ver.  27.  Out  of  the  spoils  won  in  battles  did  they 
dedicate  to  maintain  the  house  of  the  Lord. 

According  to  the  law  of  Moses,  the  booty  was  to  be 
divided  equally  between  those  who  were  in  the  battle,  and 
those  who  were  in  the  camp,  whatever  disparity  there 
might  be  in  the  number  of  each  party.  The  law  further 
requires,  that  out  of  that  part  of  the  spoils  which  was 
assigned  to  the  fighting  men,  the  Lord's  share  should  be 
separated  :  and  for  every  five  hundred  men,  oxen,  sheep, 
&c.  they  were  to  take  one  for  the  high-priest,  as  being  the 
Lord's  first-fruits,  and  out  of  the  other  moiety  belonging 
to  the  children  of  Israel,  they  were  to  give  for  every  fifty 
men,  oxen,  sheep,  &c.  one  to  the  Levites.  Among  the 
Greeks  and  Romans  the  plunder  was  brought  together  into 
one  common  stock,  and  divided  afterward  among  the  ofii- 
cers  and  soldiers,  paying  some  respect  to  their  rank  in  the 
distribution.  Sometimes  the  soldiers  made  a  reserve  of  the 
chief  part  of  the  booty,  to  present,  by  way  of  compliment,  to 
their  respective  generals.  The  gods  were  always  remem- 
bered. And  the  priests  had  suflicient  influence  to  procure 
them  a  handsome  lOfi'ering,  and  other  acceptable  presents. — 

BURDER. 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 
Ver.  25.  And  over  the  king's  treasures  was  Az- 
maveth  the  son  of  Adiel :  and  over  the  store- 
houses in  the  fields,  in  the  cities,  and  in  the 
villages,  and  in  the  castles,  was  Jehonathan  the 
son  of  Uzziah. 

Subterranean  granaries  were  common  in  the  East,  The 
following  is  a  detailed  account  of  those  now  used  by  the 
Moors : — After  the  harvest  they  used  to  enclose  their  corn 
in  subterraneous  granaries,  which  are  pits  dug  in  the  earth, 
where  the  corn  is  preserved  for  a  considerable  time.  This 
custom  is  very  ancient,  and  ought  to  be  general  in  all  warih 
countries,  inhabited  by  wandering  people.  To  secure  the 
corn  from  moisture,  they  line  these  pits  with  straw,  in  pro- 
portion as  they  fill  them,  and  cover  them  with  the  same  ; 
when  the  granary  is  filled,  they  cover  it  with  a  stone,  upon 
which  they  put  some  earth  in  a  pyramidal  form,  to  dis- 
perse the  water  in  case  of  rain.  Among  the  wealthier  part, 
the  fathers  commonly  fill  one  granary  at  the  birth  of  each 
child,  and  empty  it  at  their  marriage.     I  have  seen  coi:n 

E reserved  in  this  manner  during  five-and-twenty  years.  It 
ad  lost  its  whiteness.  When  by  motives  of  convenience, 
or  by  an  imperial  order,  the  Moors  are  obliged  to  change 
their  habitations,  not  being  able  to  carry  their  grain  with 
them,  they  leave  over  these  granaries  a  mark  of  stones 
heaped  together:  they  have  much  trouble  in  finding  them 
again.  It  is  the  custom  now  to  observe  the  earth  at  the 
rising  of  the  sun,  when  a  thick  vapoiir  ascends  from  them : 
they  then  discover  the  granary,  upon  which  the  sun  has  a 
marked  effect,  on  account  of  the  fermentation  of  the  corn 
which  is  shut  up. — Border. 

Ver.  28.  And  over  the  olive-trees,  and  the  syca- 
more-trees that  were  in  the  low  plains,  was 
Baal-hanan  the  Gederite :  and  over  the  cellars 
of  oil  was  Joash. 

When  our  translation  represents  Joash  as  over  the  cellars 
of  oil,  in  the  time  of  King  David,  1  Chron.  xxvii.  28,  they 
have  certainly  without  any  necessity,  and  perhaps  improp- 
erly, substituted  a  particular  term  for  a  general  expression. 
Joash  was  at  that  time,  according  to  the  sacred  historian, 
over  the  treasures  of  oil ;  but  whether  it  was  kept  in  cellars, 
or  in  some  other  way,  does  not  at  all  appear  in  the  original 
history.  The  modern  Greeks,  according  to  Dr.  Richard 
Chandler,  do  not  keep  their  oil  in  cellars,  but  in  large 
earthen  jars,  sunk  in  the  ground,  in  areas  before  their 
houses.  The  custom  might  obtain  among  the  Jews :  as  then 
it  was  needless,  it  must  be  improper  to  use  the  particular 
term  cellars,  when  the  original  uses  a  word  of  the  most 
general  signification.  It  is  certain  they  sometimes  buried 
1  their  oil  in  the  earth,  in  order  to  secrete  it  in  times  of  dan- 


S04 


1  CHRONICLES, 


Chap.  29. 


ger,  on  which  occasion  they  must  be  supposed  to  choose  the 
most  unlikely  places,  where  such  concealment  would  be 
least  suspected,  in  their  fields ;  whether  they  were  wont  to 
bury  it,  at  other  times,  in  their  courtyards,  cannot  be  so 
easily  ascertained. — Harmer. 

The  Egyptians  are  not  the  only  people  to  whose  palate 
the  fruit  of  the  sycamore  is  agreeable ;  Hasselquist,  the 
Swedish  traveller,  found  it  very  grateful  to  the  taste  ;  he 
describes  it  as  soft,  watery,  and  sweetish,  with  something 
of  an  aromatic  flavour.  The  fruit  of  this  tree  comes  to 
maturity  several  times  in  a  season ;  according  to  some  wri- 
ters not  fewer  than  seven  times,  althouglh  prolific  figs,  or 
such  as  are  perfectly  formed,  ripen  only  once.  Thus  the 
sycamore  produces  a  fresh  crop  of  agreeable,  and  not  un- 
wholesome fruit,  seven  times  a-year,  for  the  use  of  those 
that  dwell  under  its  shadow ;  a  boon  which  perhaps  no 
other  tree  in  the  garden  of  Nature  bestows  on  man.  Nor 
is  it  a  dangerous  or  a  laborious  task  to  gather  the  figs  ;  they 
seem  to  have  so  little  hold  of  the  parent  tree,  that  "  if  they 
be  shaken,  they  shall  even  fall  into  the  mouth  of  the  eater." 
The  disposition  of  the  fig-tree  to  part  with  her  untimely  or 
precocious  figs,  is  noticed  by  John,  in  the  book  of  Revela- 
tion :  "  And  the  stars  of  heaven  fell  unto  the  earth,  even 
as  a  fig-tree  casteth  her  untimelv  figs  when  she  is  shaken 
of  a  mighty  wind."  This  accounts  for  the  appointment  of 
a  particular  officer  in  the  reign  of  David,  whose  sole  duty 
it  was  to  watch  over  the  plantations  of  sycamore  and  olive- 
trees  :  "  And  over  the  olive-trees  and  the  sycamore-trees 
that  were  in  the  low  plains,  was  Baalhanan  the  Gederite." 
So  valuable  was  the  sycamore  in  the  land  of  Canaan, 
during  the  reign  of  David,  (from  which  undoubtedly  may 
be  inferred  the  high  estimation  in  which  it  was  held  in 
every  age,)  that,  in  the  commission  of  Baalhanan,  the  offi- 
cer charged  with  its  protection,  it  is  joined  with  the  olive, 
one  of  the  most  precious  gifts  which  the  God  of  nature  has 
bestowed  on  the  oriental  nations.  Hasselquist  found  the 
sycamore  growing  in  great  numbers  in  the  plains  and  fields 
of  Lower  Egypt,  which  verifies  the  accuracy  of  the  inspired 
writer ;  and  it  appears  from  the  same  traveller,  that  the 
olive  delights  in  similar  situations;  for,  in  his  journey  from 
Jaffa  to  Rama,  he  passed  through  fine  vales  abounding  with 
olive-trees. — Paxton. 

Ver.  80.  Over  the  camels  also  tvas  Obil  the  Ish- 
maelite :  and  over  the  asses  was  Jehdeiah  the 
Moronothite. 

Natural  historians  mention  two  varieties  of  this  animal, 
the  domestic  and  the  wild  ass ;  but  it  is  to  the  former  our 
attention  at  present  is  to  be  directed.  His  colour  is  gener- 
ally a  reddish  brown  ;  a  circumstance  to  which  he  owes 
his  name  in  the  Hebrew  text;  for  (-\>Dn)  Artwior  is  derived 
from  a  verb  which  signifies  to  be  red  or  dun.  This  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  predominating  colour  in  the  orien- 
tal regions  ;  but  we  learn  from  the  song  of  Deborah,  that 
some  asses  were  white,  and  on  this  account  reserved  for 
persons  of  high  rank  in  the  state.  The  term  (phn)  alhon 
is  another  name  for  that  creature,  from  a  root  which  signi- 
fies to  be  firm  or  strong ;  because  he  is  equal  to  a  greater 
load  than  any  animal  of  the  same  size.  Tp  this  quality 
Jacob  alluded  m  his  last  benediction  :  "  Issachar  is  a  strong 
ass,  couching  down  between  two  burdens."  Or,  it  may  re- 
fer to  the  stubborn  temper  for  which  he  is  remarkable,  and 
the  stupid  insensibility  which  enables  him  to  disregard  the 
severest  castigation,  till  he  has  accomplished  his  purpose. 
These  qualities  are  beautifully  described  by  Homer,  in  the 
11th  book  of  the  Iliad;  but  the  passage  is  too  long  to  be 
quoted. 

In  the  patriarchal  ages,  the  breed  of  this  animal,  which 
we  regard  with  so  much  unmerited  contempt,  was  greatly 


encouraged,  and  constituted  no  inconsiderable  portion  of 
wealth  among  oriental  shepherds.  It  is  on  this  account  the 
number  of  asses  in  the  herds  of  Abram,  and  other  patri- 
archs, is  so  frequently  stated  by  Moses,  in  the  book  of  Gen- 
esis. So  highly  were  they  valued  in  those  times  of  primi- 
tive simplicity,  that  they  were  formed  into  separate  droves, 
and  committed  to  the  management  of  princes,  and  other 
persons  of  distinction.  The  sacred  historian  informs  us, 
that  Anab,  a  Horite  prince,  did  not  think  it  unbecoming  his 
dignity  to  feed  the  asses  of  Zibeon  his  father :  and  that 
the  sons  of  Jacob  seized  the  asses  of  Shechem  and  his  peo- 
ple, and  drove  them  away,  with  the  sheep  and  the  oxen. 
During  the  seven  years  of  famine  that  wasted  the  land  of 
Egypt,  and  reduced  the  people  to  the  greatest  distress,  Jo- 
seph purchased  their  asses,  and  gave  them  corn  to  pre- 
serve them  alive.  When  the  people  of  Israel  subdued  the 
Midianites,  they  carried  away  "  threescore  and  one  thou- 
sand asses."  In  times  long  posterior,  Saul,  the  son  of  Kish, 
was  sent  in  quest  of  his  father's  asses,  which  had  strayed 
from  their  pasture ;  and  he  was  engaged  in  this  service 
when  the  prophet  Samuel  received  a  command  to  anoint 
him  king  over  Israel.  After  David's  accession  to  the  throne, 
and  the  Lord  had  given  him  rest  from  all  his  enemies,  he 
appointed  Jehdeiah  the  Meronothite,  a  prince  in  Israel,  to 
superintend  this  part  of  his  property.  Nor  was  this  animal 
unworthy  of  such  attention  and  care.  His  humility,  pa- 
tience, and  temperance,  qualities  in  which  he  greatly  excels, 
eminently  fitted  him  for  the  service  of  man.  His  great  value 
was  soon  discovered,  and  he  was  preferred  even  to  the 
horse,  for  many  domestic  purposes.  The  sons  of  Jacob 
employed  him  to  carry  burdens  of  every  kind ;  and  he 
seems  to  have  been  the  only  quadruped  they  took  with  them 
in  their  repeated  journeys  into  Egypt,  to  purchase  corn  for 
their  households;  and  their  descendants  continued  for 
many  ages  to  employ  him  in  the  same  manner.  The  fruits 
of  the  field,  the  produce  of  the  vineyard,  provisions  and 
merchandise  of  all  kinds,  were  carried  on  the  backs  oi 
asses. 

He  was  long  used  for  the  saddle  in  the  oriental  regions ; 
and  persons  of  high  rank  appeared  in  public,  mounted  on 
this  animal.  Those  which  the  great  and  wealthy  selected 
for  their  use,  were  larger  and  more  elegant  animals  than 
the  mean  and  unshapely  creature  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted. Dr.  Russel,  in  his  history  of  Aleppo,  mentions 
a  variety  of  the  ass  in  Syria,  much  larger  than  the  common 
breed ;  and  other  travellers  .say,  that  some  of  them  in  Per- 
sia are  kept  like  horses  for  the  saddle,  which  have  smooth 
hair,  carry  their  heads  well,  and  are  quicker  in  their  mo- 
tions than  the  ordinary  kind,  which  are  dressed  like  horses 
and  taught  to  amble  like  them. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Ver.  24.  And  all  the  princes,  and  the  mighty- 
men,  and  all  the  sons  likewise  of  King  David, 
submitted  themselves  mito  Solomon  the  king. 

The  Hebrew  has,  for  submitted,  "  Gave  the  hand  under." 
To  give  "  the  hand  under,"  is  a  beautiful  orientalism  to 
denote  submission.  See  the  man  who  wishes  to  submit  to  a 
superior;  he  stands  at  a  short  distance,  then  stooping,  he 
keeps  moving  his  hands  to  the  ground,  and  says,  "  I  submit, 
my  lord."  "  You  recollect  having  heard  that  Kandan  and 
Chinnan  had  a  serious  quarrel T' — "Yes,  I  heard  it." — 
"  Well,  they  have  settled  the  matter  now,  for  Chinnan 
went  to  hirn  last  evening,  and  '  gave  his  hand  under.' " 
"  The  Modeliar  is  no  longer  angry  with  me,  because  I 
have  put  down  my  hand  to  the  ground."  "  That  rebellious 
son  has,  for  many  years,  refused  to  acknowledge  his  father's 
authority,  but  he  has  at  last  put  his  hand  under,"  i.  e.  he 
has  submitted  to  him — has  become  obedient.— Roberts. 
{See  Engraving.^ 


THE   SECOND  BOOK   OF   CHRONICLES 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  16.  And  Solomon  had  horses  brought  out  of 
Egypt,  and  linen  yarn ;  the  king's  merchants 
received  the  linen  yarn  at  a  price. 

See  on  1  Kings  10.  28. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  12.  Also  the  Levites,  which  were  the  singers, 
all  of  them  of  Asaph,  of  Heman,  of  Jeduthun, 
with  their  sons  and  their  brethren,  being  array- 
ed in  white  linen,  having  cymbals  and  psalte- 
ries and  harps,  stood  at  the  east  end  of  the  altar, 
and  with  them  a  hundred  and  twenty  priests 
sounding  with  trumpets. 

No  person  in  Greece  and  Italy  appeared  at  an  entertain- 
ment in  black,  because  it  was  a  colour  reserved  for  times 
of  mourning,  but  always  in  white,  or  some  other  cheerful 
colour,  which  corresponded  with  the  joyous  nature  of  the 
occasion.  Such  were  the  garments  of  salvation  in  which 
the  people  of  Israel  celebrated  their  festivals,  or  entertained 
their  friends.  When  Solomon  brought  up  the  ark  of  the 
Lord  from  the  city  of  David,  and  placed  it  between  the 
cherubim  in  the  most  holy  place,  the  sons  of  Asaph,  of 
Heman,  and  Jeduthun,  and  their  brethren,  who  conducted 
the  songs  in  the  temple,  stood  at  the  east  end  of  the  altar, 
arrayed  in  vestures  of  fine  linen,  ^the  chosen  emblem  of 
purity  and  joy.  The  few  faithful  witnesses  that  remained 
in  Sardis,  and  had  not  defiled  their  garments,  were  prom- 
ised the  distinguishing  honour  of  walking  with  their  Sa- 
viour in  white.  And  to  encourage  them  in  their  steadfast 
adherence  to  the  cause  of  God  and  truth,  it  is  added, 
"  He  that  overcometh,  the  same  shall  be  clothed  in  white 
raiment."  On  the  mount  of  transfiguration,  the  raiment  of 
Christ  became  white  as  the  light ;  and  in  the  same  garb  of 
joy  and  gladness  the  angels  appear  at  his  resurrection. — 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  28.  If  there  be  dearth  in  the  land,  if  there 
be  pestilence,  if  there  be  blasting,  or  mildew, 
locusts,  or  caterpillars  ;  if  their  enemies  besiege 
them  in  the  cities  of  their  land ;  whatsoever  sore 
or  whatsoever  sickness  there  be. 

We  are  so  little  acquainted  with  the  various  species  of 
Qestructive  insects  that  ravage  the  eastern  countries,  that 
it  may  be  thought  extremely  difl[icult  to  determine  what 
kind  "\<^as  meant  by  Solomon,  in  his  prayer  at  the  dedication 
of  the  temple,  3  Chron.  vi.  28,  by  the  word  Cj-ion)  chaseel, 
which  our  version  renders  caterpillars,  and  which  is  distin- 
guished by  him  there  from  the  locusts,  which  genus  is  so 
remarkable  for  eating  up  almost  every  green  thing;  but 
a  passage  of  Sir  John  Chardin  may  probably  illustrate 
that  part  of  Solomon's  address  to  him  whom  he  considered 
as  the  God  of  universal  nature.  The  paragraph  of  Solo- 
mon's prayer  is  this :  When  heaven  is  shut  up,  and  there  is 
no  rain,  because  they  have  sinned  against  thee  ;  if  they  pray 

tov-iards  this  place,  &c If  there  be  in  the  land  famine, 

if  there  be  pestilence,  blasting,  mildew,  locusts,  or  if  there  he 
caterpillars ;  if  their  enemies  besiege  them  in  the  land  of  their 
cities,  &c Then  hear  thou  in  heaven  thy  dwelling- 
place,  and  forgive  and  do,  &c.  The  causes  of  famine, 
reckoned  up  here,  are  want  of  rain,  blasting,  mildew,  lo- 
custs, and  caterpillars,  according  to  our  translation :  with 
which  may  be  compared  the  followmg  passage  of  Ch'ardin, 
39 


in  the  second  tome  of  his  Travels :  "  Persia  is  subject  to 
have  its  harvest  spoiled  by  hail,  by  drought,  or  by  insects, 
either  locusts,  or  small  insects,  which  they  call  sim,  which 
are  small  white  lice,  which  fix  themselves  on  the  foot  of 
the  stalk  of  corn,  gnaw  it,  and  make  it  die.  It  is  rare 
for  a  year  to  be  exempt  from  one  or  the  other  of  these 
scourges,  which  afiect  the  ploughed  land  and  the  gar- 
dens," &c.  The  enumeration  by  Solomon,  and  that  of  this 
modern  writer,  though  not  exactly  alike,  yet  so  nearly  re- 
semble each  other,  that  one  would  be  inclined  to  believe 
these  small  insects  are  what  Solomon  meant,  by  the  word 
translated  caterpillars  in  our  English  version. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  13.  If  I  shut  up  heaven  that  there  be  no  rain, 
or  if  I  command  the  locusts  to  devour  the  land, 
or  if  I  send  pestilence  among  my  people. 

A  term  used  by  the  sacred  writers  to  signify  the  locust, 
is  (3jn)  hagab,  which  our  translators  render  sometimes  locust 
and  sometimes  grasshopper.  They  translate  it  locusts  in 
the  following  passage:  "  If  I  shut  up  heaven  that  there  be 
no  more  rain,  or  if  I  command  the  locusts  {hagab)  to  de- 
vour the  land,  or  if  I  send  a  pestilence  among  my  people  : 
if  my  people  shall  humble  themselves  and  pray  unto  me,  and 
seek  my  face,  then  will  I  hear  from  heaven,  and  will  forgive 
their  sin,  and  heal'their  land."  We  cannot  reasonably  doubt 
that  the  word,  in  this  place,  denotes  the  locust,  for  this  decla- 
ration was  made  in  answer  to  Solomon's  prayer  at  the  dedica- 
tion of  the  temple,  that  if  the  heaven  should  be  shut  up,  and 
there  should  be  no  rain ;  or  if  there  should  be  famine,  pesti- 
lence, blasting,  mildew,  locust,  or  caterpillar,  then  God  would 
hear  them  when  they  spread  forth  their  hands  towards  that 
holy  place.  It  must  also  be  remembered,  that  the  grass- 
hopper is  an  inoffensive  animal,  or  noxious  in  a  very  slight 
degree,  and  therefore  by  no  means  a  proper  subject  for 
deprecation  in  the  temple.  This  circumstance  also  shows, 
that  the  Hebrew  term  here  does  not  mean  the  cicada,  as 
some  writers  have  supposed  ;  for  though  the  noise  which 
they  make  is  extremely  disagreeable  and  disturbing,  as 
Chandler  complains,  it  is  not  an  insect  so  distressing  to  the 
Orientals,  as  to  admit  the  idea  that  it  was  a  subject  of  sol- 
emn prayer  at  the  dedication.  To  disturb  the  slumbers  of 
the  weary  traveller,  or  the  toil-worn  peasant,  and  to  devour 
the  fruits  of  the  earth,  and  plunge  the  inhabitants  of  a  coun- 
try into  all  the  horrors  of  famine,  are  evils  of  a  very  differ- 
ent magnitude. 

Hagab  is  rendered  grasshopper  in  the  twelfth  chapter 
of  Ecclesiastes ;  and  the  circumstances,  it  must  be  confess- 
ed, harmonize  with  the  character  of  those  creatures ;  for 
it  will  be  readily  admitted  that  their  chirping  must  be  dis- 
agreeable to  the  aged  and  infirm,  that  naturally  love  quiet, 
and  are  commonly  unable  to  bear  much  noise.  But  it  is 
more  probable  that  hagab  denotes  the  locust,  which  is  pro- 
verbially loquacious.  They  make  a  very  loud,  screaking, 
and  disagreeable  noise,  with  their  wings ;  if  one  begin, 
others  join,  and  the  hateful  concert  becomes  universal ;  a 
pause  then  ensues,  and,  as  it  were,  on  a  signal  given,  it 
again  commences;  and  in  this  manner  they  continue 
squalling  for  two  or  three  hours  without  intermission.  Mr. 
Harmer  is  of  opinion,  that  hagab  ought  to  be  rendered  lo- 
cust in  this  passage  too,  because  it  becomes  a  burden  by 
its  depredations,  and  desire  fails;  that  is,  every  green  thing 
disappears,  and  nature  puts  on  the  semblance  of  universal 
deadness:  and  such  istheaffecting  appearance  of  the  human 
body  in  extreme  old  age ;  it  resembles  a  tree  which  the  lo- 
cust has  stripped  of  its  leaves,  has  deprived  of  its  bark,  and 
left  naked  and  bare,  to  wither  in  the  blast,  and  moulder,  by 
degrees,  into  the  dust  from  whence  it  rose.  The  interpre- 
tation is  ingenious ;  but  the  common  meaning  seems  to  be 


306 


2  CHRONICLES. 


Chap.  9 


still  more  expressive,  and  is  certainly  more  affecting. 
Some  kinds  of  the  locust  are  very  small  and  light.  "Were 
the  cicada  not  to  be  classed  among  the  locust  tribes,  still 
the  figure  remains  in  all  its  force  and  beauty.  The  mi- 
nutest of  those  small  insects  becomes  a  burden  to  extreme 
old  age,  weighed  down  with  a  load  of  years,  and  worn  with 
toils  and  cares,  to  the  verge  tf  existence.  The  powers 
and  faculties  of  body  and  mind  are  equally  debilitated,  and 
the  relish  for  the  enjoyments  of  sense,  which  he  once  felt 
so  keenly,  is  extinguished  for  ever.  Some  insects  live  under 
a  regular  government,  and,  like  the  bee,  submit  to  the  au- 
thority of  a  chief;  but  the  wise  man  observes,  "  The  locusts 
have  no  king,  yet  they  go  forth  by  bands."  How  just  is 
this  remark  !  The  head  of  the  column,  when  the  army  is 
not  tossed  and  scattered  by  the  winds,  which  often  hap- 
pens, is  directed  by  their  voracious  desire  of  food ;  and 
the  rest  follow  in  long  succession,  under  the  influence  of 
the  same  instinct ;  but  the  devastations  they  commit  are  as 
methodical  and  complete,  as  if  they  acted  under  the  strict- 
est discipline. 

In  Barbary  and  Palestine,*  the  locusts  appear  about  the 
latter  end  of  March.  By  the  middle  of  April  their  num- 
bers are  so  increased,  that  in  the  heat  of  the  day  they  form 
themselves  into  large  and  numerous  swarms,  fly  in  the  air 
like  a  succession  of  clouds ;  and,  as  the  prophet  Joel  ex- 
presses it,  "  darken  the  sun."  When  a  brisk  gale  happens 
to  blow,  so  that  these  swarms  are  crowded  by  others,  or 
thrown  one  upon  another,  the  musing  and  intelligent  trav- 
eller obtains  a  lively  idea  of  the  Psalmist's  comparison : 
"  I  am  tossed  up  and  down  like  the  locust."  In  the  month 
of  May,  when  the  ovaries  of  those  insects  are  ripe  and  tur- 
gid, each  of  these  swarms  begins  gradually  to  disappear, 
and  retire  into  the  plains,  where  they  deposite  their  eggs. 
These  are  no  sooner  hatched  in  June,  than  each  of  the 
broods  collect  themselves  into  a  large  body,  sometimes  ex- 
tended more  than  a  furlong  on  every  side ;  and  then  march- 
ing directly  towards  the  sea,  they  suffer  nothing  to  escape 
them,  eating  up  every  thing  that  is  green  and  juicy,  from 
the  tender  and  lowly  vegetable,  to  the  coarse  leaf  and  bark 
of  the  vine  and  the  pomegranate.  In  prosecuting  their 
work  of  destruction,  they  keep  their  ranks  like  soldiers  in 
order  of  battle,  climbing  as  they  advance,  over  every  tree 
or  wall  that  stands  in  their  way ;  they  enter  into  the  very 
houses  and  bedchambers,  like  so  many  thieves.  It  is  im- 
possible to  stop  their  motions,  or  even  to  alter  their  line  of 
march ;  while  the  front  is  regardless  of  danger,  and  the 
rear  presses  on  so  close,  that  a  retreat  is  altogether  impos- 
sible. A  day  or  two  after  one  of  these  broods  is  in  motion, 
others  are  already  hatched  to  march  and  glean  after  them, 
gnawing  oflfthe  very  bark,  and  the  young  branches  of  such 
trees  as  had  before  escaped  with  the  loss  only  of  their  fruit 
and  foliage  ;  so  justly  have  they  been  compared  by  the 
prophet  to  a  great  army. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  24.  And  they  brought  every  man  his  pres- 
ent, vessels  of  silver,  and  vessels  of  gold,  and 
raiment,  harness,  and  spices,  horses,  and  mules, 
a  rate  year  by  year. 

Presents  of  vestments,  on  the  other  hand,  are  frequently 
made  in  these  countries  to  the  great,  and  those  that  are 
in  public  stations;  and  they  expect  them.  Thevenot  tells 
us,  it  was  a  custom  in  Egypt,  in  his  time,  for  the  consuls 
of  the  European  nations  to  send  the  bashaw  a  present  of  so 
many  vests,  and  so  many  besides  to  some  officers,  both 
when  a  new  bashaw  came,  or  a  new  consul  entered  his 
office,  as  were  rated  at  above  a  thousand  piasters.  Does 
not  this  last  account  remind  us  of  the  presents  that  were 
made  to  Solomon,  by  the  neighbouring  princes,  at  set  times, 
part  of  which,  we  are  expressly  told,  consisted  of  raiment  1 
2  Chron.  ix.  24.  This  may  be  thought  not  very  well  to 
agree  with  a  remark  of  Sir  J.  Chardin,  mentioned  under 
a  former  observation,  "  that  vestments  are  not  presented  by 
inferiors  to  superiors ;  or  even  by  an  equal  to  an  equal ;" 
but  there  is  really  no  inconsistency  ;  vestments  are  not  the 
things  that  are  chosen  by  those  that  would  make  a  present 
to  the  great,  in  common ;  but  they  may  be  ordered  to  be 
.sent  as  a  sort  of  a  tribute,  or  a  dne  which  the  superior 
claims. 
The  other  things  mentioned  in  that  passage  of  Chroni- 


cles, vessels  of  silver,  and  vessels  of  gold,  harness  and  spi- 
ces, horses  and  mules,  still  continue  to  be  thought  fit  pres- 
ents to  the  great.  So  Russel  tells  us,  in  his  account  of  the 
eastern  visits,  that  if  it  is  a  visit  of  ceremony  from  a  ba- 
shaw or  a  person  in  power,  a  fine  horse,  sometimes  with  fur- 
niture, or  some  such  valuable  thing,  is  made  a  present  to 
him  at  his  departure ;  and  the  Baron  Fabricius,  in  his  letters  - 
concerning  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  tells  us,  that  when  he 
was  seized  at  Bender,  the  house  being  set  on  fire,  the  rich 
presents  that  had  been  made  him,  consisting  of  tents,  sabres, 
saddles  and  bridles  adorned  with  jewels,  rich  housings  and 
harnesses,  to  the  value  of  200,000  crowns,  were  consumed. 
Of  the  rest,  the  vessels  of  silver  and  the  spices  may  be  il- 
lustrated by  that  story  of  D'Herbelot  concerning  Akhschid, 
the  commander  of  an  eastern  province,  who  is  said  to  have 
purchased  peace  of  Jezid,  general  of  the  troops  of  one  of 
the  califs,  by  sending  him  a  present  of  seven  hundred  thou- 
sand drachms  of  silver  in  ready  money ;  four  hundred  loads 
of  saffron,  which  that  country  produced  in  abundance  ;  and 
four  hundred  slaves,  who  each  of  them  carried  a  rich  tur- 
ban of  silk  in  a  silver  basin. — Harmer. 

Presents  of  dresses  are  alluded  to  very  frequently  in  the 
historical  books  of  scripture,  and  in  the  earliest  times : 
when  Joseph  gave  to  each  of  his  brethren  a  change  of  rai- 
ment, and  to  Benjamin  five  changes  of  raiment,  it  is  men- 
tioned without  particular  notice,  and  as  a  customary  inci- 
dent, (Gen.  xlv.  22,  23.)  Naaman  gave  to  Gehazi,  from 
among  the  presents  intended  for  Elisha,  w^ho  declined  ac- 
cepting any,  (as  we  have  seen  above,  some  persons  did,  on 
extraordinary  occasions,)  two  changes  of  raiment;  and 
even  Solomon,  king  as  he  was,  received  raiment  as  pres- 
ents, (2  Chron.  ix.  24.)  This  custom  is  still  maintained 
in  the  East :  it  is  mentioned  by  all  travellers ;  and  we  have 
merely  chosen  to  give  the  following  extract  from  De  la  Mo- 
traye,  in  nreference  to  what  might  easily  have  been  pro- 
duced from  others,  because  he  notices,  as  a  particularity, 
that  the  grand  seignior  gives  his  garment  of  honour  before 
the  wearer  is  admitted  to  his  presence;  but  the  vizier  gives 
his  honorary  dresses  after  the  presentation :  will  this  apply 
to  the  parable  of  the  wedding  garment,  and  to  the  behaviour 
of  the  king,  who  expected  to  have  found  all  his  guests  clad 
in  robes  of  honour!  (Matt.  xxii.  11.)  Is  any  thing  like 
this  management  observable,  Zech.  iu.l  Joshua  being  in- 
troduced to  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  not  to  the  Lord  himself, 
stood  before  the  angel  with  filthy  garments ;  but  he  ordered 
a  handsome  caffetan  to  be  given  him.  Jonathan,  son  of 
Saul,  divested  himself  of  his  robe,  and  his  upper  garment, 
even  to  his  sword,  his  bow,  and  his  girdle — partly  intending 
David  the  greater  honour,  as  having  been  apparel  Avorn  by 
himself;  but  principally,  it  may  be  conjectured,  .through 
haste  and  speed,  he  being  impatient  of  honouring  David, 
and  covenanting  for  his  affection.  Jonathan  would  not  stay 
to  send  for  raiment,  but  instantly  gave  him  his  own.  The 
idea  of  honour  connected  with  the  caffetan,  appears  also  in 
the  prodigal's  father, — "  bring  forth  the  best  robe."  We  find 
the  liberality  in  this  kind  of  gifts  was  considerable  :  Ezra 
ii.  69,  "  The  chief  of  the  fathers  gave  one  hundred  priests' 
garments."  Neh.  vii.  70,  "  The  Tirshatha  gave  five  hun- 
dred and  thirty  priests'  garments."  This  would  appear 
sufficiently  singular  among  us;  but  in  the  East,  where  to 
give  is  to  honour,  the  gift  of  garments,  or  of  any  other 
usable  commodities,  is  in  perfect  compliance  with  estab- 
lished sentiments  and  customs. 

"  The  vizier  entered  at  another  door,  and  their  .excel- 
lencies rose  to  salute  him  after  their  manner,  which  was 
returned  by  a  little  inclining  of  his  head ;  after  which  he 
sat  down  07i  the  corner  of  his  sofa,  which  is  the  most  hononr- 
ohle  place;  then  his  chancellor,  his  kiahia,  and  the  Chia- 
ouz  Bashaw,  came  and  stood  before  him,  till  coflfee  was 
brought  in;  after  which  M.  de  Chateauneuf  presented  M. 
de  Ferriol  to  him,  as  his  successor,  who  delivered  him  the 
king  his  master's  letters,  complimenting  him  as  from  his 
majesty  and  himself,  to  which  the  vizier  answered  very 
obligingly  ;  then  they  gave  two  dishes  of  coffee  to  their  ex- 
cellencies, with  sweetmeats,  and  afterward  the  perfumes 
and  sherbet ;  then  they  clothed  them  with  cafpetans  of  a 
silver  brocade,  with  large  ailk  flowers;  and  to  those  that 
were  admitted  into  the  apartments  with  them,  they  gave 
others  of  brocade,  almost  all  silk,  except  some  slight  gold  or 
silver  flowers;  according  to  the  custom  usually  observed 
towards  all  foreign  ministers. 

"Ca&etans  are  long  vests  of  gold  or  silver  brocadej 


Chap.  9—16. 


2  CHRONICLES 


307 


flowered  with  silk,  which  the  grand  seignior  and  the  viz- 
ier present  to  those  to  whom  they  give  audience :  the 
grand  seignior  before,  and  the  vizier  after  audience."  (De 
la  Motraye's  Travels.) — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  28.  And  they  brought  unto  Solomon  horses 
out  of  Egypt,  and  out  of  all  lands. 

The  people  of  Israel  were,  by  their  law,  forbidden  to 
ultiply  horses ;   for  which  several  reasons  may  be  as- 
signed.    The  land  of  Canaan,  intersected  in  almost  every 
direction  by  hills  and  mountains,  was  less  adapted  to  the 
rearing  of  horses  than  other  parts  of  Syria ;  but  the  prin- 
cipal reason  might  be,  to  discourage  the  art  of  war,  to 
which  mankind  in  all  ages  have  shown  so  strong  a  pro- 
pensity, which  is  so  hostile  to  the  interests  of  true  religion, 
of  which  they  were  the  chosen  depositaries,  and  prevent 
them  f'om  relying  for  the  defence  of  their  country,  rather 
on  the   ^rength  of  their  armies,  which,  in  the  East,  chiefly 
consistt>  of  cavalry,  than  on  the  promised  aid  of  Jehovah. 
This  wis    and  salutary  command,  however,  was  often  dis- 
regarded, •  ven  by  the  more  pious  kings  of  David's  line, 
who  imitated  the  princes  around  them  in  the  number  and 
excellence  of  their  horses.     Solomon  set  the  first  example 
of  transgressing  tha^  ->recept,  and  of  departing  from  the 
simpliciiy  of  his  fathers:  "  For  Solomon  gathered  together 
chariots  and  horsemen ;  and  he  had  a  thousand  and.  four 
hundred  chariots,  and  twelve  thousand  horsemen,  whom 
he  bestowed  in  the  cities  for  chariots,  and  with  the  king  at 
Jerusalem."    Josephus  informs  us  he  had  twenty  thousand 
horses,  Avhich  surpassed  all  others  in  beauty  and  swiftness. 
These  were  mounted  by  young  men  in  the  bloom  of  youth, 
excelling  all  their  countrymen  in  stature  and  comeliness, 
with  long  flowing  hair,  habited  in  rich  dresses  of  Tyrian 
purple,  their  hair  powdered  with  gold-dust,  which,  by  re- 
flecting the  beams  of  the  sun,  shed  a  dazzling  splendour 
around  their  heads.     It  was  the  practice  of  those  in  the 
highest  rank  of  society,  in  the  time  of  Josephus,  to  adorn 
their  persons  in  the  gorgeous  manner  he  describes;  and 
the  strong  partiality  which  the  historian  cherished  for  his 
country,  it  is  evident,  induced  him  to  transfer  the  extrava- 
gance of  his  own  age  to  the  time  of  Solomon.    The  same 
overweening  desire  to  exalt  the  power,  the  riches,  and  the 
splendour  of  his  nation,  in  the  most  brilliant  epoch  of  her 
history,  has  prevailed  upon  him  to  contradict  the  page  of 
inspiration  itself,  which  expressly  limits  the  number  of 
Solomon's  horses  to  twelve  thousand.     The  sacred  his- 
torian informs  us,  that  these  horses  were  purchased  in 
Egypt,  and  in  all  the  surrounding  countries,  by  the  Jew- 
ish merchants,  where  the  fame  of  so  great  a  king  procured 
them  easy  access,  and  liberal  encouragement.    It  is  extreme- 
ly probable  that  Solomon's  stud  was  replenished  from  re- 
gions lying  at  a  very  great  distance  from  Jerusalem ;  but 
the  sacred  writers  particularly  celebrate  the  breeds  of  As- 
syria, Togarmah,  and  Egypt.     The  horses  of  Togarmah 
were  brought  to  the  fairs  of  Tyre,  and  were  sufficiently 
numerous  and  valuable  to  attract  the  notice  of  Ezekiel, 
who  thus  addresses  the  merchant  city :  "  They  of  the  house 
of  Togarmah  traded  in  thy  fairs,  with  horses,  and  horsemen, 
and  mules."    These,  in  the  opinion  of  Bochart  and  other 
geographers,  were  the  Cappadocians,  whose  country  has 
been,  from  time  immemorial,  celebrated  for  its  superior 
breed  of  horses.     The  prophets  of  Jehovah  frequently  ad- 
vert to  the  admirable  qualities  of  the  Assyrian  charger. 
Isaiah,  describing  the  terrible  devastation  which  the  land 
of  Judea  was  doomed  to  suffer  by  the  Assyrian  armies, 
warns  his  people  that  their  horses'  hoofs  shall  be  counted 
like  flint — compact  and  durable  as  the  flinty  rock ;  qualities 
which,  in  times  when  the  shoeing  of  horses  was  unknown, 
must  have  been  of  very  great  importance.     The  value  of 
a  solid  hoof  has  not  escaped  the  notice  of  Homer's  muse, 
who  celebrates,  in  many  passages  of  his  immortal  poems, 
the  brazen-footed  horses.     In  the  admirable  instructions 
which  Virgil  communicates  to  the  Italian  husbandmen,  a 
solid  hoof  is  mentioned  as  indispensably  requisite  in  a  good 
'treed  of  horses.     The  amazing  rapidity  of  their  move- 
ments is  expressed  with  much  beauty  and  forc^  in  the 
next  clause  :  "  Their  wheels  shall  be  like  a  whirlwind ;" 
and,  with  equal  felicity,  in  these  w^ords  of  Jeremiah:  "  Be- 
hold, he  shall  come  up  as  clouds,  and  his  chariots  shall  be 
as  a  whirlwind;  his  horses  are  swifter  than  eagles."     The 
prophet  Habakkuk,  in  describing  the  same  quality,  uses  a 


different  figure,  but  one  equally  striking :  "  Their  horses 
also  are  swifter  than  the  leopards,  and  are  more  fierce  than 
the  evening  wolves ;  and  their  horsemen  shall  spread  them- 
selves, and  their  horsemen  shall  come  from  far ;  they  shall 
fly  as  the  eagle  that  hasieih  to  eat." — PaxtoN. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  5.  Ought  ye  not  to  know  that  the  Lord  God 
of  Israel  gave  the  kingdom  over  Israel  to  Da- 
vid for  ever,  even  to  him  and  to  his  sons  by  a 
covenant  of  salt  ? 

The  Orientals  were  accustomed  also  to  ratify  their  fed- 
eral engagements  by  salt.  This  substance  was,  among  the 
ancients,  the  emblem  of  friendship  and  fidelity,  and  there- 
fore used  in  all  their  sacrifices  and  covenants.  It  is  a  sa- 
cred pledge  of  hospitality  which  they  never  venture  to  vio- 
late. Numerous  instances  occur  of  travellers  in  Arabia, 
after  being  plundered  and  stripped  by  the  wandering  tribes 
of  the  desert,  claiming  the  protection  of  some  civilized  Arab, 
who,  after  receiving  nim  mto  his  tent,  and  giving  him  salt, 
instantly  relieves  his  distress,  and  never  forsakes  him  till 
he  has  placed  him  in  safety.  An  agreement,  thus  ratified, 
is  called  in  scripture,  "  a  covenant  of  salt."  The  obliga- 
tion which  this  symbol  imposes  on  the  mind  of  an  Oriental, 
is  well  illustrated  by  the  Baron  De  Tott  in  the  following 
anecdote:  One  who  was  desirous  of  his  acquaintance, 
promised  in  a  short  time  to  return.  The  baron  had  already 
attended  him  half  way  down  the  staircase,  when  stopping, 
and  turning  briskly  to  one  of  his  domestics.  Bring  me  di- 
rectly, said  he,  some  bread  and  salt.  What  he  requested 
was  brought ;  when,  taking  a  little  salt  between  his  fingers, 
and  putting  it  with  a  mysterious  air  on  a  bit  of  bread,  he 
ate  it  with  a  devout  gravity,  assuring  De  Tott  he  might 
now  rely  on  him. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  14.  And  they  buried  him  in  his  own  sepul- 
chres, which  he  had  made  for  himself  in  the 
city  of  David,  and  laid  him  in  the  bed  which 
was  filled  with  sweet  odours  and  divers  kinds 
of  spices  prepared  by  the  apothecaries'  art;  and 
they  made  a  very  great  burning  for  him. 

A  passage  from  Drummond's  Travels  ought  not  to  be 
omitted  here,  in  which  he  gives  an  account  of  the  manner 
in  which  a  large  quantity  of  spices  and  perfumes  was  made 
use  of,  to  do  honour  to  the  dead.  It  seems,  according  to  a 
tradition  that  prevailed  among  the  Turks,  *'  An  eminent 
prophet,  who  lived  in  Mesopotamia  many  ages  ago,  whose 
name  was  Zechariah,  was  beheaded  by  the  prince  of  that 
country,  on  account  of  his  virtuous  opposition  to  some  lewd 
scheme  of  his.  His  head  he  ordered  to  be  put  into  a  stone 
urn,  two  feet  square,  upon  the  top  of  which  was  an  inscrip- 
tion, importing  that  that  urn  enclosed  the  head  of  that  great 
prophet  Zechariah.  This  urn  remained  in  the  castle  of 
Aleppo  till  about  eight  hundred  years  ago,  when  it  was 
removed  into  an  old  Christian  church  in  that  city,  after- 
ward turned  into  a  mosque,  which  decaying,  another  was 
built  near  it,  and  the  place  where  the  head  was  deposited 
choked  up  by  a  wall."  About  forty  years  before  Mr. 
Drummond  wrote  this  account,  which  was  in  December, 
1748,  consequently  about  the  year  1708,  a  zealous  grand 
vizier,  who  pretended  to  have  been  admonished  in  a  dream 
to  remove  this  stone  vessel  into  a  more  conspicuous  place, 
had  it  removed  accordingly,  with  many  religious  cere^ 
monies,  and  affixed  in  a  conspicuous  part  of  a  mosque : 
and  in  the  close  of  all  it  is  said,  "  the  urn  was  opened,  and 
filled  with  spices  and  perfumes,  to  the  value  of  four  hun- 
dred pounds."  Here  we  see  in  late  times  honour  was  done 
to  the  supposed  head  of  an  eminent  saint,  by  filling  its  re- 
pository with  odoriferous  substances.  The  bed  of  sweet 
spices,  in  which  Asa  was  laid,,  seems  to  have  been  of  the 
same  kind,  or  something  very  much  like  it.  Might  not 
large  quantities  of  precious  perfumes,  in  like  manner,  be 
strewed,  or  designed  to  be  strewed,  about  the  body  of  our 
^ordl  This  would  require  large  quantifies.  Zechariah 
of  Mesopotamia  had  been  dead  so  long,  that  nothing  of  tins 
kind  could  be  done  with  any  view  to  preserve  his  head 


308 


2  CHRONICLES, 


Chap.  20—26. 


from  decay,  it  was  merely  to  do  him  honour;  the  spices 
used  by  the  Jews  in  burial  might  be  for  the  same  purpose. 
— Harmbr. 

CHAPTER  XX. 
Ver.  20.  And  they  arose  early  in  the  morning, 
and  went  forth  into  the  wilderness  cf  Tekoa : 
and  as  they  went  forth,  Jehoshaphat  stood  and 
said,  Hear  me,  O  Judah,  and  ye  inhabitants  of 
Jerusalem ;  believe  in  the  Lord  your  God,  so 
shall  you  be  established ;  believe  his  prophets, 
so  shall  ye  prosper. 
See  on  2  Sam.  10.  9,  10. 

Ver.    28.    And  they  came   to   Jerusalem   with 
psalteries  and  harps  and  trumpets,  unto   the 
house  of  the  Lord. 
See  on  1  Sam.  16.  20. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Ver.  20.  Thirty  and  two  years  old  was  he  when 
he  began  to  reign,  and  he  reigned  in  Jerusalem 
eight  years,  and  departed  without  being  de- 
sired ;  howbeit  they  buried  him  in  the  city  of 
David,  but  not  in  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings. 

The  burying  of  persons  in  their  cities  is  also  an  eastern 
manner  of  doing  them  honour.  They  are  in  common 
buried  without  the  walls  of  their  towns,  as  is  apparent, 
from  many  places  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament.  The  an- 
cient Jews  also  were  thus  buried  ;  but  sometimes  they  bury 
in  their  cities,  when  they  do  a  person  a  distinguished  hon- 
our. "  Each  side  of  the  road,"  says  the  author  of  the  His- 
tory of  the  piratical  states  of  Barbary,  "without  the  gate, 
IS  crowded  with  sepulchres.  Those  of  the  pacha  and  the 
deys  are  built  near  the  gate  of  Babalonet.  They  are  be- 
tween ten  and  twelve  feet  high,  very  curiously  white-wash- 
ed, and  built  in  the  form  of  a  dome.  Hali  Dey,  as  a  very 
eminent  mark  of  distinction,  was  buried  in  an  enclosed 
tomb  within  the  city.  For  forty  days  successively  his  tomb 
was  decorated  with  flowers,  and  surrounded  with  people, 
offering  up  prayers  to  God  for  his  soul.  This  dey  was  ac- 
counted a  saint,  and  a  particular  favourite  of  heaven,  be- 
cause he  died  a  natural  death  ;  a  happiness  of  which  there 
are  few  instances  since  the  establishment  of  the  deys  in 
Algiers."  No  comment  is  more  lively,  or  more  sure,  than 
this,  on  those  that  speak  of  the  burying  of  the  kings  of  the 
house  of  David  within  Jerusalem;  those  sepulchres,  and 
that  of  Huldah  the  prophetess,  being  the  only  ones  to  be 
found  there.  But  it  is  not  a  perfect  comment ;  for  it  is  to 
be  remembered  that  a  peculiar  holiness  belonged  to  Jeru- 
salem, as  well  as  the  dignity  of  being  the  royal  city,  but  no 
particular  sanctity  is  ascribed  to  Algiers,  by  those  people 
that  buried  Hali  Dey  there. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
Ver.  11.  But  Jehoshabeath,  the  daughter  of  the 
king,  took  Joash  the  son  of  Ahaziah,  and  stole 
him  from  among  the  king's  sons  that  were 
slain,  and  put  him  and  his  nurse  in  a  bedcham- 
ber. So  Jehoshabeath,  the  daughter  of  King 
Jehoram,  the  wife  of  Jehoiada  the  priest,  (for 
she  was  the  sister  of  Ahaziah,)  hid  him  from 
Athaliah,  so  that  she  slew  him  not. 

The  bedchamber  in  the  temple,  in  which  Jehosheba  hid 
Joash  in  the  days  of  Athaliah,  mentioned  2  Kings  xi.  2, 
and  2  Chron.  xxii.  11,  does  not  seem  to  mean  a  lodging- 
chamber,  but  a  chamber  used  as  a  repository  for  beds.  I  am 
indebted  to  Sir  John  Chardin  for  this  thought,  which  seems 
to  be  a  just  one  ;  for  the  original  words  niiSDn  -\nn3  bachadar 
hanmittolh,  signify  a  chamber  of  beds,  and  the  expression 
differs  from  that  which  is  used  when  a  lodging-chamber 
is  meant.  He  supposes  then  that  place  is  meant,  wher^ 
beds  are  kept :  for  in  the  East,  and  particularly  in  Persia 
and  Tuikey,  beds  are  not  raised  from  the  ground  with 


bedposts,  a  canopy,  and  curtains;  people  lie  on  the  ground. 
In  the  evening  they  spread  out  a  mattress  or  two  of  cotton, 
very  light,  &c.  Of  these  they  have  several  laid  up  in  great 
houses,  until  they  may  have  occasion  to  use  them,  and  have 
a  room  on  purpose  for  them.  In  a  chamber  of  beds,  the 
room  used  for  the  laying  up  beds,  it  seems  Joash  was  se- 
creted. Understand  it  how  you  will,  it  appears  that  people 
were  lodged  in  the  temple ;  and  if  any  lodged  there,  it  is  to 
be  supposed  at  particular  times  there  were  many,  especially 
the  relations  and  friends  of  the  high-priest.  Here  it  may 
be  right  to  consult  Neh.  xiii.  4,  5.  In  the  room  in  which 
beds  were  deposited,  not  a  common  bedchamber,  it  seems 
the  young  prince  lay  concealed.  Chardin  complains  the 
Vulgar  Latin  translation  did  not  rightly  understand  the 
story;  nor  have  others  represented  the  intention  of  the  sa- 
cred writer  perfectly,  if  he  is  to  be  understood  after  this 
manner.— Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Ver.  19.  And  he  set  the  porters  at  the  gates  of 
the  house  of  the  Lord,  that  none  which  was 
unclean  in  any  thing  should  enter  in. 

The  entrance  of  the  inner  chamber  of  a  Budhuist  temple 
is  usually  low  and  narrow ;  and  on  each  side  stands  a 
dreadful  looking  fellow  formed  of  clay,  and  above  the  size 
of  the  human  form,  with  a  huge  serpent  in  his  hand, 
seemingly  ready  to  lash  with  it  whoever  enters ;  but  in- 
tended chiefly,  I  believe,  to  admonish  such  as  come  unpre- 
pared. They  are  styled  moorakdrayo,  the  usual  word  for 
guards  or  servtinels. — Callaway. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Ver.  12.  And  other  ten  thousand  left  alive  did 
the  children  of  Judah  carry  away  captive,  and 
brought  them  unto  the  top  of  the  rock,  and  cast 
them  down  from  the  top  of  the  rock,  that  they 
all  were  broken  in  pieces. 

The  Greeks  and  Romans  condemned  some  of  their  crim- 
inals to  be  cast  down  from  the  top  of  a  rock.  In  the  time 
of  Piits,  the  inhabitants  of  Constantine,  a  town  of  Turkey, 
built  on  the  summit  of  a  great  rock,  commonly  executed 
their  criminals  who  had  been  guilty  of  more  atrocious 
crimes,  by  casting  them  headlong  from  the  cliff.  This  pun- 
ishment Amaziah,  the  king  of  Judah,  inflicted  on  ten  thou- 
sand Edomites,  whom  he  had  taken  captive  in  war :  "  Other 
ten  thousand  left  alive,  did  the  children  of  Judah  carry 
away  captive,  and  brought  them  to  the  top  of  the  rock,  and 
cast  them  down  from  the  top  of  the  rock,  and  they  all  were 
broken  in  pieces." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Ver.  1 0.  Also  he  built  towers  in  the  desert,  and 
digged  many  wells:  for  he  had  much  cattle, 
both  in  the  low  country  and  in  the  plain.s ; 
husbandmen  also,  and  vinedressers  in  the 
mountains,  and  in  Carmel :  for  he  loved  hus- 
bandry. 

The  Indians  build  pagodas,  not  to  be  used  as  temples,  but 
for  the  protection  of  their  flocks,  in  case  of  any  alarm. 
They  are  placed  in  the  fields,  and  surrounded  with  good 
walls.  Over  the  gates  they  raise  high  pyramids,  full  of 
pictures  of  their  gods ;  and  within  their  circuit  were  many 
little  chapels,  every  one  of  which  contained  an  idol.  In 
these  countries,  the  soldiers  are  very  ill  paid,  and  the  com- 
manders permit  them  to  take  what  they  can  get.  They 
therefore  often  seize  the  cattle,  when  the  shepherds  think 
least  of  it.    Travellers  a.so  retire  into  these  pagodas. 

BURDER. 

William  of  Tyre  describes  a  country  not  far  from  the 
Euphrates,  as  inhabited  by  Syrian  and.  Armenian  Chris- 
tians, who  fed  great  flocks  and  herds  there,  but  were  in  sub- 
jection to  the  Turks,  who,  though  few  in  number,  yet 
living  in  strong  places  among  them,  kept  theni  under,  and 
received  tribute  from  these  poor  peasants  who  inhabited  the 
villages,  and  employed  themselves  in  country  business.  I 
do  nSt  know  whether  this  may  not  give  us  a  truer  view  of 


Chap.  28. 


2  CHRONICLES. 


309 


the  design  of  those  towers  that  Uzziah  built  in  the  wilder- 
ness, mentioned  2  Chron.  xxvi.  10,  than  commentators  have 
done,  who  have  supposed  they  were  conveniences  made  for 
sheltering  the  shepherds  from  bad  weather,  or  to  defend 
them  from  the  incursions  of  enemies ;  for  they  might 
rather  be  designed  to  keep  the  nations  that  pastured  there 
in  awe  ;  to  prevent  their  disputing  with  his  servants  about 
wells,  and  also  to  induce  them  quietly  to  pay  that  tribute  to 
which  the  seventh  and  eighth  verses  seem  to  refer. — Harmer. 

Ver.  15.  And  he  made  in  Jerusalem  engines,  in- 
vented by  cunning  men,  to  be  on  the  towers 
and  upon  the  bulwarks,  to  shoot  arrows  and 
great  stones  withal :  and  his  name  spread  far 
abroad :  for  he  was  marvellously  helped  till  he 
was  strong. 

The  batteringram  was  an  engine  with  an  iron  head,  re- 
sembling the  head  of  a  ram,  with  which  they  beat  down  the 
enemies'  walls.  Of  this,  Potter  mentions  three  kinds ;  the 
first  was  plain  and  unartificial,  being  nothing  but  a  long 
beam  with  an  iron  head,  which  the  soldiers  drove  with  main 
force  against  the  wall ;  the  second  was  hung  with  ropes  to 
another  beam,  by  the  help  of  which  they  thrust  it  forward 
with  much  greater  force;  the  third  differed  from  the  former 
only  in  being  covered  with  a  testudo,  or  shroud,  to  protect 
the  soldiers  that  worked  it  from  the  darts  of  the  enemy. 
The  beam  was  sometimes  no  less  than  a  hundred  and 
twenty  feet  in  length,  and  covered  with  iron  plates,  lest 
those  who  defended  the  walls  should  set  it  on  fire ;  the  head 
was  armed  with  as  many  horns  as  they  pleased.  Josephus 
reports,  that  one  of  Vespasian's  rams,  the  length  of  which 
was  only  fifty  cubits,  which  came  not  up  to  the  size  of  sev- 
eral of  the  Grecian  rams,  had  a  head  as  thick  as  ten  men, 
and  twenty-five  horns,  each  of  which  was  as  thick  as  one 
man,  and  placed  a  cubit's  distance  from  the  rest ;  the  weight, 
hung  (as  was  customary)  upon  the  hinder  part,  was  no  less 
than  one  thousand  and  five  hundred  talents ;  when  it  was 
removed  from  one  place  to  another,  it  was  not  taken  in 
pieces  ;  a  hundred  and  fifty  yoke  of  oxen,  or  three  hundred 

fiair  of  horses  and  mules,  laboured  in  drawing  it ;  and  no 
ess  than  fifteen  hundred  Ttien  employed  their  utmost  strength 
in  forcing  it  against  the  walls.  At  other  times,  we  find 
these  rams  driven  upon  wheels.  Such  was  the  formidable 
engine,  of  which  the  prophet  warned  the  inhabitants  of 
Jerusalem,  and  which,  in  the  hands  of  the  Romans,  levelled 
at  last  the  walls  of  that  proud  metropolis  with  the  ground. 
To  this  may  be  added,  various  engines  for  casting  arrows, 
darts,  and  stones  of  a  larger  size ;  of  which  the  most  re- 
markable was  the  balista,  which  hurled  stones  of  a  size  not 
less  than  millstones,  with  so  great  a  violence  as  to  dash 
whole  houses  in  pieces  at  a  blow.  Such  were  the  engines 
which  Uzziah,  the  king  of  Judah,  planted  on  the  walls  and 
towers  of  Jerusalem,  to  defend  it  against  the  attacks  of  an 
invading  force :  "  And  he  made  in  Jerusalem  engines,  in- 
vented by  cunning  men,  to  be  on  the  towers,  and  upon  the 
bulwarks,  to  shoot  arrows  and  great  stones  withal."  Some 
of  these  inventions,  however,  had  been  in  use  long  before  ; 
for  in  the  reign  of  David,  the  batteringram  was  employed 
in  the  siege  of  Abel-Bethmaachah  :  "  They  cAst  up  a  bank 
against  the  city,  and  it  stood  in  the  trench ;  and  all  the  peo- 
ple that  were  with  Joab  battered  the  wall  to  throw  it  down." 
These  powerful  engines,  invented  by  Jewish  artists,  and 
worked  bv  the  skill  and  vigour  of  Jewish  soldiers,  were 
undoubtedly  the  prototypes  of  those  which  the  celebrated 
nations  of  Greece  and  Rome  afterward  employed  with  so 
much  success  in  their  sieges. — Paxton. 

Ver.  23.  So  Uzziah  slept  with  his  fathers,  and  they 
buried  him  with  his  fathers  in  the  field  of  the 
burial  which  belonged  to  the  kings ;  for  they 
said,  He  is  a  leper :  and  Jotham  his  son  reign- 
ed in  his  stead. 

The  kings  and  princes  of  the  oriental  regions  are  often 
subjected  to  trial  after  their  decease  by  their  insulted  and 
oppressed  people,  and  punished  according  to  the  degree  of 
their  delinquency.  While  the  chosen  people  of  God  were 
accustomed  to  honour  in  a  particular  maimer  the  memory 
of  those  kings  who  had  reigned  over  them  with  justice  and 


clemency,  they  took  care  to  stamp  some  mark  of  posthumous 
disgrace  upon  those  who  had  left  thie  world  under  their  dis- 
approbation. The  sepulchres  of  the  Jewish  kings  were  at 
Jerusalem;  where,  in  some  appointed  receptacle,  the  re- 
mains of  their  princes  were  deposited;  and  from  the  cir- 
cumstance of  these  being  the  cemetery  for  successive  rulers, 
it  was  said  when  one  died  and  was  buried  there,  that  he  was 
gathered  to  his  fathers.  But  several  instances  occur  in  the 
history  of  the  house  of  David,  in  which,  on  various  ac- 
counts, they  were  denied  the  honour  of  being  entombed 
with  their  ancestors,  and  were  deposited  in  some  other  place 
in  Jerusalem.  To  mark,  perhaps,  a  greater  degree  of  cen- 
sure, they  were  taken  to  a  small  distance  from  Jerusalem, 
and  laid  in  a  private  tomb.  Uzziah,  who  had,  by  his  pre- 
sumptuous attempt  to  seize  the  office  of  the  priesthood, 
which  was  reserved  by  an  express  law  for  the  house  ot 
Aaron,  provoked  the  wrath  of  heaven,  and  been  punished 
for  his  temerity  with  a  loathsome  and  incurable  disease, 
"  was  buried  with  his  fathers  in  the  field  of  the  burial 
which  belonged  to  the  kings ;  for  they  said.  He  is  a  leper." 
It  was  undoubtedly  with  a  design  to  make  a  suitable  impres- 
sion on  the  mind  of  the  reigning  monarch,  to  guard  him 
against  the  abuse  of  his  power,  and  teach  him  respect  for 
the  feelings  and  sentiments  of  that  people  for  whose  benefit 
chiefly  he  was  raised  to  the  throne,  that  such  a  stigma  was 
fixed  upon  the  dust  of  his  offending  predecessors.  He  was, 
in  this  manner,  restrained  from  evil,  and  excited  to  good, 
according  as  he  was  fearful  of  being  execrated,  or  desirous 
of  being  honoured  after  his  decease.  This  public  mark  of 
infamy  was  accordingly  put  on  the  conduct  of  Ahaz : 
"  They  buried  him  in  the  city,  even  in  Jerusalem,  but  they 
brought  him  not  into  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings  of  Israel," — 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Ver.  27.  And  Ahaz  slept  with  his  fathers,  and 
they  buried  him  in  the  city,  even  in  Jerusalem ; 
but  they  brought  him  not  into  the  sepulchres 
of  the  kings  of  Israei .  and  Hezekiah  his  son 
reigned  in  his  stead. 

The  Israelites  were  accustomed  to  honour  in  a  peculiar 
manner  the  memory  of  those  kings  who  had  reigned  over 
them  uprightly.  On  the  contrary,  some  marks  of  posthu- 
mous disgrace  followed  those  monarchs  who  left  the  world 
under  the  disapprobation  of  their  people.  The  proper  place 
of  interment  was  in  Jerusalem.  There,  in  some  appomted 
receptacle,  the  remains  of  their  princes  were  deposited : 
and,  from  the  circumstance  of  this  being  the  cemetery  for 
successive  rulers,  it  was  said,  when  one  died  and  was  so 
buried,  that  he  was  gathered  to  his  fathers.  Several  instan- 
ces occur  in  the  history  of  the  kings  of  Israel,  wherein,  on 
certain  accounts,  they  were  not  thus  interred  with  their 
predecessors,  but  in  some  other  place  in  Jerusalem.  So  it 
was  with  Ahaz,  who,  though  brought  into  the  city,  was  not 
buried  in  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings  of  Israel.  In  some 
other  cases,  perhaps  to  mark  out  a  greater  degree  of  cen- 
sure, they  were  taken  to  a  small  distance  from  Jerusalem. 
It  is  said  that  Uzziah  was  buried  with  his  fathers  in  the  field 
of  the  burial  which  belonged  to  the  kings  ;  for  they  said,  He  is 
a  leper.  (2  Chron.  xxvi.  23.)  It  was  doubtless  with  a  de- 
sign to  make  a  suitable  impression  on  the  minds  of  their 
kings  while  living,  that  such  distinctions  were  made  after 
their  decease.  They  might  thus  restrain  them  from  evil 
or  excite  them  to  good,  according  as  they  were  fearful  cf 
being  execrated,  or  desirous  of  being  honoured,  when  they 
were  dead.  The  Egyptians  had  a  custom  in  some  measure 
similar  to  this  ;  it  was  however  general  as  to  all  persons, 
though  it  received  very  particular  attention,  as  far  as  it 
concerned  their  kings.  It  is  thus  described  in  Franklin's 
History  of  Ancient  and  Modern  Egypt :  "  As  soon  as  a  man 
was  dead,  he  was  brought  to  his  trial.  The  public  accuser 
was  heard.  If  he  proved  that  the  deceased  had  led  a  bad 
life,  his  memory  was  condemned,  and  he  was  deprived  of 
the  honours  of  sepulture.  Thus,  that  sage  people  were 
affected  with  laws  which  extended  even  beyond  the  grave,  ^ 
and  every  one,  struck  with  the  disgrace  inflicted  on  the 
dead  person,  was  afraid  to  reflect  dishonour  on  his  own 
memory,  and  that  of  his  family.  But  what  was  singular, 
the  sovereign  himself  was  not  exempted  from  this  public 
inquest  upon  his  death.     The  public  peace  was  interested 


310 


EZRA 


Chap.  4. 


in  the  lives  of  their  sovereigns  in  their  administration,  and 
as  death  terminated  all  their  actions,  it  was  then  deemed 
for  the  public  welfare,  that  they  should  suffer  an  impartial 
^scrutiny  by  a  public  trial,  as  well  as  the  most  common  sub- 
ject. Even  some  of  them  were  not  ranked  among  the  hon- 
oured dead,  and  consequently  were  deprived  of  public 
burial.  The  Israelites  would  not  suffer  the  bodies  of  some 
of  their  flagitious  princes  to  be  carried  into  the  sepulchres 
appropriated  to  their  virtuous  sovereigns.  The  custom 
was  singular :  the  effect  must  have  been  powerful  and  in- 
fluential. The  most  haughty  despot,  who  might  trample 
on  laws  human  and  divine  in  his  life,  saw,  by  this  solemn 
investigation  of  human  conduct,  that  at  death  he  also  would 
be  doomed  to  infamy  and  execration." 

What  degree  of  conformity  there  was  between  the  prac- 
tice of  the  Israelites  and  the  Egyptians,  and  with  whom  the 
custom  first  originated,  may  be  difficult  to  ascertain  and 
decide,  but  the  conduct  of  the  latter  appears  to  be  founded 
on  the  same  principle  as  that  of  the  former,  and  as  it  is 
more  circumstantially  detailed,  affords  us  an  agreeable  ex- 
planation of  a  rite  but  slightly  mentioned  in  the  scriptures. 

— BURDER. 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 
Ver.  3.  He  took  counsel  with  his  princes  and  his 
mighty  men  to  stop  the  waters  of  the  fountains, 
which  were  without  the  city  ;  and  they  did  help 
him.  4.  So  there  was  gathered  much  people 
together,  who  stopped  all  the  fountains,  and  the 
brook  that  ran  through  the  midst  of  the  land, 
saying,  Why  should  the  kings  of  Assyria  come 
and  find  much  water  ? 

That  stream  which  flowed  fi'om  Siloam  is,  I  presume, 
the  brook  that  Hezekiah  speaks  of,  which  in  the  time  of  the 
crusades  was  not  attempted  to  be  stopped  up.  What  the 
cause  of  that  was  we  are  not  told,  but  it  seems  the  waters 
of  some  springs  without  the  city  were  conveyed  into 
Jerusalem  at  the  time ;  and  that  Solomon  in  his  reign  had 
attempted  to  do  the  like,  and  had  effected  it:  as  to  part  of 
the  water  of  the  springs  of  Bethlehem,  it  was  no  wonder 
then  that  Hezekiah  should  think  of  introducing  the  waters 
of  Siloam  in  like  manner  into  the  city,  in  order  at  once  to 
deprive  the  besiegers  of  its  waters,  and  benefit  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Jerusalem  by  them.  Probably  it  was  done  in  the 
same  manner  that  Solomon  brought  the  waters  of  Bethle- 


hem thither,  that  is,  by  collecting  the  water  of  the  spring 
or  springs  into  a  subterraneous  reservoir,  and  from  thence, 
by  a  concealed  aqueduct,  conveying  them  into  Jerusalem,' 
with  this  difference,  that  Solomon  took  only  part  of  the 
Bethlehem  water,  leaving  the  rest  to  flow  into  those  cele- 
brated pools  which  remain  to  this  day ;  whereas  Hezekiah 
turned  all  the  water  of  Siloam  into  the  city,  absolutely 
stopping  up  the  outlet  into  the  pool,  and  filling  it  up  with 
earth,  that  no  trace  of  it  might  be  seen  by  the  Assyriafta. 
Which  seems  indeed  to  be  the  account  of  the  sacred  writer, 
2  Chron.  xxxii.  30,  "  The  same  Hezekiah  also  stopped  the 
upper  watercourse  of  Gihon,  (which  is  another  name  for 
Siloam,)  and  brought  it  straight  down  to  the  west  side  of 
the  city  of  David."  Thus  onr  translators  express  it:  but 
the  original  may  as  well  be  rendered,  "  Hezekiah  stopped 
the  upper  going  out  (i^sio  motsa)  of  the  waters  of  Gihon,  and 
directed  them  underneath,  (n->;ar  lemattah,)  to  the  west  of  the 
city  of  David  ;"  and  so  Fagninus  and  Arias  Montanus  un- 
derstand the  passage ;  he  stopped  up,  that  is,  the  outlet  of 
the  waters  of  Gihon  into  the  open  air,  by  which  they  were 
wont  to  pass  into  .the  pool  of  Siloam,  anci  became  a  brook ; 
and  by  some  subterraneous  contrivance  directed  the  waters 
to  the  west  side  of  Jerusalem.— Harmer. 

Ver.  5.  Also  he  strengthened  himself,  and  built 
up  all  the  wall  that  was  broken,  and  raised  it 
up  to  the  toAvers,  and  another  wall  without,  and 
repaired  Millo  in  the  city  of  David,  and  made 
darts  and  shields  in  abundance. 

See  on  2  Sam.  5.  9. 

Ver.  8,  With  him  is  an  arm  of  flesh :  but  with 
us  is  the  Lord  our  God,  to  help  us,  and  to 
fight  our  battles.  And  the  people  rested  them- 
selves upon  the  words  of  Hezekiah,  king  of 
Judah. 

The  margin  has,  for  rested  upon,  "  leaned."  "  I  lean 
(from  sarukirathu)  on  the  words  'fthat  good  man."  "  Ail 
people  gladly  lean  on  the  words  of  '\aX  just  judge."  "  Who 
would  lean  on  the  words  of  that  faise  man  T'  "  Alas  !  we 
leaned  upon  his  words,  and  have  fallen  into  trouble."  "My 
husband,  have  I  not  leaned  upon  your  words  1  Yes,  and 
therefore  I  have  not  fallen." — Roberts. 


EZRA. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  1 4.  Now,  because  we  have  maintenance  from 
the  Tung's  palace,  and  it  Avas  not  meet  for  us  to 
see  the  king's  dishonour,  therefore  have  Ave  sent 
and  certified  the  king. 

Literally,  "  salted  with  the  salt  of  his  folaceJ^  Some 
have  supposed  that  the  words  refer  to  their  receiving  a 
?iipend  from  the  king  of  Persia,  which  was  wont  to  be 
paid  in  salt;  others  suppose  it  expresses  an  acknowledg- 
ment that  they  were  preserved  by  that  king's  protection,  as 
flesh  is  preserved  by  salt.  And  many  pieces  of  collateral 
learning  are  introduced  to  embellish  these  conceits.  It  is 
sufficient,  to  put  an  end  to  all  these  conjectures,  to  recite 
the  words  of  a  modern  Persian  monarch,  whose  court 
Chardin  attended  some  time  about  business.  "  Rising  in 
wrath  against  an  officer,  who  had  attempted  to  deceive  him, 
he  drew  his  sabre,  fell  upon  him,  and  hewed  him  in  pieces, 


at  the  feet  of  the  grand  vizier,  who  was  standing,  and 
whose  favour  the  poor  wretch  courted  by  this  deception. 
And  looking  fixedly  upon  him,  and  the  other  great  lords 
that  stood  on  each  side  of  him,  he  said,  with  a  tone  of  indig- 
nation, '  I  have  then  such  ungrateful  servants  and  traitors 
as  these  to  eat  my  salt.  Look  on  this  sword,  it  shall  cut  off 
all  these  perfidious  heads.'  "    (Tome  iii.  p.  149.) 

The  Persian  great  men  do  not  receive  their  salaries,  it  is 
well  known,  in  salt;  and  the  officer  that  was  killed  was 
under  the  immediate  protection  of  the  grand  vizier,  not  the 
prince:  our  English  version  has  given,  then,  the  sense, 
though  it  has  not  literally  translated  the  passage.  It  means 
the  same  thing  as  eating  one's  bread  signifies  hepe  in  the 
West,  but,  perhaps,  Avith  a  particular  energy.  I  beg  leave 
to  introduce  one  remark  here,  of  a  very  different  nature, 
that  we  may  learn  from  this  story,  that  Samuel's  hewing 
Agag  in  pieces,  though  so  abhorrent  from  our  customs,  dif- 
fers very  little,  in  many  respects,  from  this  Persian  execu- 
tion.  Samuel  was  a  person  of  high  distinction  in  Israel :  he 


Chap.  5—8. 


EZRA. 


311 


had  been  their  judge,  or  supreme  governor  under  God ;  he 
was  a  prophet  too ;  and  we  are  ready  to  think  his  sacred 
hands  should  not  have  been  employed  in  the  actual  shed- 
ding of  blood.  How  strange  would  it  be  in  our  eyes,  if  we 
should  see  one  of  our  kings  cutting  off  the  head  of  a  traitor 
with  his  own  hands ;  or  an  archbishop  of  Canterbury  stab- 
bing a  foreign  captive  prince !  But  different  countries  have 
very  different  usages.  Soliman,  king  of  Persia,  who  he-^- 
ed  this  unfaithful  officer  in  pieces,  reigned  over  a  much 
larger  and  richer  country  than  Judea,  and  at  the  same  time 
was  considered  by  his  subjects  as  sacred  a  person  as  Sam- 
uel ;  supposed  to  be  descended  from  their  prophet  Moham- 
med, to  reign  by  a  divine  constitution,  and  to  be  possessed, 
we  are  assured  by  this  writer  in  another  place,  of  a  kind  of" 
prophetic  penetration  and  authority. — I  have  said,  it  appears 
10  signify  the  same  thing  as  eating  one's  bread,  in  the  West, 
but,  probably,  with  some  particular  kind  of  energy,  mark- 
ing out  not  merely  the  obligations  of  gratitude,  but  the 
.strictest  ties  of  fidelity.  For  as  the  letter  was  written  not 
only  by  some  of  the  great  officers  on  the  western  side  of  the 
Euphrates,  but  in  the  name  of  the  several  colonies  of  peo- 
ple that  had  been  transplanted  thither,  the  Dinaites,  the 
Apharsathchites,  the  Tarpelites,  &c.  ver.  9,  10,  it  is  not  to 
be  supposed  these  tribes  of  people  all  received  their  food 
from  the  palace,  or  a  stipend  for  their  support ;  but  with 
great  adulation  they  might  pretend  they  considered  them- 
selves as  held  under  as  strong  engagements  of  fidelity  to 
the  kings  of  Persia,  as  if  they  had  eaten  salt  in  his  palace. 

The  following  story  from  D'Herbelot  will  explain  this,  if 
the  views  of  these  ancient  Persians  maybe  supposed  to  cor- 
respond with  those  of  the  Persians  of  the  ninth  century. 

Jacoub  ben  Laith,  the  founder  of  a  dynasty  of  Persian 
princes  called  the  Soffarides,  rising,  like  many  other  of  the 
ancestors  of  the  princes  of  the  East,  from  a  very  low  state 
to  royal  power,  being  in  his  first  setting  out  in  the  use  of 
arms  no  better  than  a  freebooter  or  robber,  is  yet  said  to 
have  maintained  some  regard  to  decency  in  his  depreda- 
tions, and  never  to  have  entirely  stripped  those  that  he  rob- 
bed, always  leaving  them  something  to  soften  their  afflic- 
tion. Among  other  exploits  that  are  recorded  of  him,  he 
is  said  to  "  have  broken  into  the  palace  of  the  prince  of  that 
country,  and  having  collected  a  very  large  booty,  which  he 
was  on  the  point  of  carrying  away,  he  found  his  foot  kick- 
ed something,  which  made  him  stumble.  He  imagined  it 
might  be  something  of  value,  and  putting  it  to  his  mouth, 
the  better  to  distinguish  what  it  was,  his  tongue  soon  in- 
formed him  it  was  a  lump  of  salt.  Upon  this,  according  to 
the  morality,  or  rather  superstition  of  the  country,  where 
the  people  considered  salt  as  a  symbol  and  pledge  of  hospi- 
tality, he  was  so  touched,  that  he  left  all  his  booty,  retiring 
without  taking  away  any  thing  with  him.  The  next  morn- 
ing, the  risk  they  had  run  of  losing  many  valuable  things, 
being  perceived,  great  was  the  surprise,  and  strict  the  jn- 
quiry,  what  should  be  the  occasion  of  their  being  left.  At 
length  Jacoub  was  found  to  be  the  person  concerned,  who 
having  given  an  account,  very  sincerely,  of  the  whole 
transaction  to  the  prince,  he  gained  his  esteem  so  effectual- 
ly, that  it  might  be  said  with  truth,  that  it  was  his  regard 
for  salt  that  laid  the  foundation  of  his  after  fortune.  The 
prince  employed  him  as  a  man  of  courage  and  genius  in 
many  enterprises,  and  finding  him  successful  in  all  of  them, 
he  raised  him,  by  little  and  little,  to  the  chief  posts  among 
his  troops,  so  that  at  that  prince's  death,  he  found  himself 
possessed  of  the  command  in  chief,  and  had  such  interest 
in  their  affections,  that  they  preferred  his  interests  to  those 
of  the  children  of  the  deceased  prince,  and  he  became  abso- 
lute master  of  that  province,  from  whence  he  afterward 
spread  his  conquests  far  and  wide."  When  the  Aphar- 
sathchites, the  Tarpelites,  and  the  other  transplanted  tribes, 
told  Artaxerxes,  the  Persian  monarch,  that  they  were  vsalt- 
edwith  the  salt  of  his  palace,  it  appears,  according  to  these 
things,  to  mean,  that  they  considered  themselves  as  eating 
his  bread,  on  account  of  being  put  and  continued  in  pos- 
session of  a  considerable  part  of  the  Jewish  country,  by  him 
and  his  predecessors;  and  that  their  engagements  of  fideli- 
ty to  him  were  indeed  as  strong,  as  if  they  had  eaten  salt 
in  his  palace. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  7.  They  sent  a  letter  unto  him,  wherein  was 
written  thus  :  Unto  Darius  the  king,  all  peace. 
The  people  of  the  East  are  always  very  particular  as  to 


the  way  in  which  they  commence  a  letter.  Thus,  they 
take  into  consideration  the  rank  of  the  individual  to  whom 
they  write,  and  keep  in  view  also  whftt  is  their  object. 
"  To  you  who  are  respected  by  kings."  "  To  him  who 
has  the  happiness  of  royalty."  "  To  the  feet  of  his  ex- 
cellency, my  father,  looking  towards  the  place  where  he 
is  worshipping,  I  write."  A  father  to  his  son  says,  "  Head 
of  all  blessings,  chief  of  life,  precious  pearl."  When  peo- 
ple meet  each  other  on  the  road,  they  say,  "  Salam,  peace 
to  you."  Or,  when  they  send  a  message,  or  ask  a  favour, 
it  is  always  accompanied  by  a  salam. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  2.  And  there  was  found  at  Achmetha,  in  the 
palace  that  is  in  the  province  of  the  Medes,  a 
roll,  and  therein  was  a  record  thus  written. 

This  passage  proves  the  great  antiquity  of  the  custom  of 
making  copies  to  be  deposited  in  the  archives,  of  the  impor- 
tant ordinances  of  the  magistrates,  and  particularly  of 
charters,  granted  either  to  individuals  or  whole  commu- 
nities. Thus,  in  an  inscription  on  an  ancient  marble, 
quoted  by  Thomas  Smith,  it  is  said  of  a  privilege  granted 
for  a  separate  sepulchre,  "  Of  this  inscription  two  copies 
have  been  made,  one  of  which  is  deposited  in  the  archives." 
In  the  same  manner,  elsewhere,  "  A  copy  of  this  inscription 
shall  be  deposited  in  the  archives." — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  11.  Also  I  have  made  a  decree,  that  who- 
soever shall  alter  this  word,  let  timber  be  pulled 
down  from  his  house,  and,  being  set  up,  let  him 
be  hanged  thereon. 

Lud.  de  Dieu  observes,  that  there  is  no  proper  construc- 
tion in  the  words  which  we  render,  and  being  set  up;  he 
would  therefore  translate  them,  after  the  Seventy,  "and 
standing,  let  him  be  beat  upon  it,"  or  "  whipped,''  as  the 
manner  was  among  the  Persians  and  other  nations.  Among 
the  Jews,  they  who  were  beaten,  did  not  stand,  but  lay 
down.  Deut.  xxv.  2.  If  a  greater  punishment  be  here 
meant,  then  he  makes  the  first  words  refer  to  the  Avood, 
and  the  latter  to  the  man.  *'  And  from  above,  let  it  fall 
upon  him :"  that  is,  the  stake  being  lifted  up,  shall  be  stuck 
into  his  body,  and  come  out  at  his  fundament.  This  was  a 
cruel  practice  among  the  eastern  people,  and  is  yet  con- 
tinued there. — Burder.  *• 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Ver.  21.  Then  I  proclaimed  a  fast  there  at  the  river 

of  Ahava,  that  we  might  afflict  ourselves  before 

our  God,  to  seek  of  him  a  right  way  for  us, 

and  for  our  little  ones,  and  for  all  our  substance. 

The  whole  valley  was  covered  with  the  tents  of  the  pil- 
grims ;  for  a  very  few,  compared  with  their  numbers, 
could  find  lodgings  in  the  building.  These  several  en- 
campments, according  to  their  towns  or  districts,  were 
placed  a  little  apart,  each  under  its  own  special  standard. 
Their  cattle  were  grazing  about,  and  the  people  who 
attended  them,  in  their  primitive  eastern  garbs.  Women 
appeared,  carrying  in  water  from  the  brooks,  and  children 
were  sporting  at  the  tent  doors.  Towards  evening,  this 
pious  multitude,  to  the  number  of  eleven  hundred  at  least, 
began  their  evening  orisons,  literally  shouting  their  prayers, 
while  the  singing  of  the  hymns,  responded  by  the  echoes 
from  the  mountains,  was  almost  deafening.  At  intervals, 
during  the  devotion,  matchlocks,  muskets,  and  pistols,  were 
repeatedly  fired,  division  answering  division,  as  if  it  were 
some  concerted  signal.  This  mixture  of  military  and 
religious  proceeding,  produced  an  effect  perfectly  novel 
to  a  European  eye,  in  the  nineteenth  century ;  though  it 
might  have  been  more  than  sufficiently  familiar  to  that  of 
a  knight-companion  in  the  thirteenth,  when  the  crusades 
covered  every  hauberk  with  a  pilgrim's  amice.  But  the 
recollection  of  what  country  I  saw  these  in,  conjured  up  a 
very  different  image.  I  was  in  the  land  of  the  Medes,  on  ^ 
the  very  spot  to  which  the  ten  tribes  were  brought  in  cap- 
tivitv  about  two  thousand  years  asro;  and  from  which,  in 
the  fulness  of  time,  the  scattered  remnants  were  collected, 
(after  the  first  return,  B.  C.  536,  by  command  of  Cyrus,) 
and  led  back  to  their  native  land,  on  the  decree  of  Arta- 


812 


EZRA. 


Chap.  9,  10. 


xerxes  the  king,  when  Ezra  gathered  them  together  to  the 
river  that  runneth  to  Ahava,  and  there  they  abode  in  their 
tents  three  days  :^nd  he  viewed  the  people  and  the  priests. 
And  he  proclaimed  a  fast  there,  that  they  might  afflict 
themselves  before  God,  to  seek  of  him  a  right  way  for  them, 
and  for  their  little  ones,  and  for  their  substance.    And  the 
Lord  was  entreated  of  them,  and  he  delivered  them  from 
the  iisnd  of  the  enemy,  and  of  such  as  lay  in  wait  by  the 
way.    And  Ezra,  and  those  with  him,  came  to  Jerusalem. 
We  see  in  this  account,  from  the  book  of  Ezra,  chap.  viii. 
that  the  wild  tribes  of  the  mountains  were  then  regarded 
as  banditti;  and  that  no  decrees  of  safe-conduct  from  the 
king  would  have  more  effect  in  those  days,  than  in  the 
present,  to  protect  a  rich  caravan  from  ambuscade  and 
depredation.     But  I  must  own,  there  are  some  points  of 
observation  in  the  encampment  before  me,  which  a  little 
disturbed  the  resemblance  between  its  holy  grouping,  and 
that  which  followed  the  really  pious  ordinance  of  the  sa- 
cred scribe  of  Israel.     The  Mohammedan  evening  prayer 
over,  all  was  noise  of  another  description ;  bustle  and  riot- 
ous merriment,  more  like  preparations  of  a  fair,  than  a 
worship  ;  showing  at  once  the  difference  in  spirit  between 
the  two  religions.     In  the  one,  the  moral  law  walked  hand 
in  hand  with  the  ceremonial ;  and  the  mandate  of  wor- 
shipping the  one  God,  in  purity  of  heart,  and  in  strictness 
of  practice,  was  unvaryingly  asserted  in  the  chastisement 
or  welfare  of  the  people ;  and  so  we  see  it  was  acknowl- 
edged by  the  seemly  and  humble  joy  under  pardon,  with 
which  the  recalled  Israelites  returned  to  the  land  of  their 
temple.    But  here  the  performance  of  certain  rites  seemed 
to  be  all  in  all.     The  preachers  of  the  multitude  holding 
forth,  that  as  they  advance  nearer  to  the  shrines  of  their 
pilgrimage,  so  in  due  proportion  their  sins  depart  from 
them;  and  thus  every  step  they  approach,  the  load  becomes 
lighter  and  lighter,  till  the  last  atom  flies  off  the  moment 
they  fall  prostrate  before  the  tomb  of  the  prophet,  or  saint : 
and  from  which  holy  spot  they  rise  perfectly  clear,  free,  and 
often  too  willing  to  commence  a  new  score,  to  be  as  readily 
wiped  away. — Sm  R,  K.  Porter. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  3.  And  when  I  heard  this  thing,  I  rent  my 
g-arment  and  my  mantle,  and  plucked  off  the 
hair  of  my  head  and  of  my  beard,  and  sat  down 
astonished.       »> 

Oriental  mourners  divested  themselves  of  all  ornaments, 
and  laid  aside  their  jewels,  gold,  and  every  thing  rich  and 
splendid  in  their  dress.  The  Grecian  ladies  were  directed 
in  this  manner  to  mourn  the  death  of  Achilles :  "  Not 
clothed  in  rich  attire  of  gems  and  gold,  with  glittering 
silks  or  purple."  This  proof  of  humiliation  and  submis- 
sion Jehovah  required  of  his  offending  people  in  the  wil- 
derness :  "  Therefore,  now  put  off  thy  ornaments  from 
thee,  that  I  may  know  what  to  do  unto  thee.  And  the 
children  of  Israel  stripped  themselves  of  their  ornaments 
by  the  Mount  Horeb."  Long  after  the  time  of  Moses,  that 
rebellious  nation  again  received  a  command  of  similar 
import :  "  Strip  you,  and  make  you  bare,  and  gird  sack- 
cloth upon  your  loins." — Paxton. 

Ver.  6.  And  said,  O  my  God !  I  am  ashamed  and 
blush  to  lift  up  my  face  to  thee,  my  God :  for 
our  iniquities  are  increased  over  our  head,  and 
our  trespass  is  grown  up  unto  the  heavens. 

"  Ah,  that  fellow's  sins  are  on  his  head :  how  numerous 


are  the  sins  on  his  head.  Alas  1  for  such  a  head  as  that. 
Who  can  take  them  from  his  head  1  His  iniquity  is  so 
great,  you  may  see  it  on  his  head."  Does  a  man  wish  to 
extenuate  his  crime,  to  make  himself  appear  not  so  great  a 
sinner  as  some  suppose,  he  asks,  "  What !  has  my  guilt 
grown  up  to  heaven  1  no  !  no  !"  "  Abominable  wretch, 
your  guilt  has  reached  to  the  heavens."  "  Can  you  call 
ttat  little,  which  has  grown  up  to  the  heavens  1"— Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  And  now  for  a  little  space  grace  hath 
been  showed  from  the  Lord  our  God,  to  leave 
us  a  remnant  to  escape,  and  to  give  us  a  nail 
in  his  holy  place,  that  our  God  may  lighten 
our  eyes,  and  give  us  a  little  reviving  in  our 
bondage. 

See  on  Isa.  22.  23. 

The  margin  has,  "  or  a  pin,"  that  is,  "  a  constant  and 
sure  abode."  It  is  worthy  oi  notice,  that  the  Tamul  trans- 
lation has  it,  "  a  hut  in  his  holy  place."  To  "  lighten"  the 
eyes  signifies  to  give  comfort,  to  strengthen,  to  refresh.  A 
father  says  to  his  son,  when  he  wishes  him  to  do  any  thing, 
"  My  child,  make  these  eyes  light."  "  O  woman,  enlighten 
my  eyes,  lest  I  be  swallowed  up  with  sorrow."  "  O  that  our 
eyes  were  clear !  who  will  take  away  the  darkness  from  my 
eyes  V — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  1.  Now  when  Ezra  had  prayed,  and  when 
he  had  confessed,  weeping  and  casting  himsell 
down  before  the  house  of  God,  there  assembled 
unto  him  out  of  Israel  a  very  great  congrega- 
tion of  men,  and  women,  and  children :  for  the 
people  wept  very  sore. 

People  on  their  arrival  from  England  are  astonished  at 
the  apparent  devotion  of  the  Hindoos,  when  they  see  them 
cast  themselves  down  before  their  temples.  Those  of  high 
rank,  and  in  elegant  attire,  do  not  hesitate  thus  to  prostrate 
themselves  in  the  dust,  before  the  people.  How  often,  as 
you  pass  along,  may  you  see  a  man  stretched  his  full  leng'h 
on  the  ground,  with  his  face  in  the  dust,  pouring  out  his 
complaint,  or  making  his  requests  unto  the  gods.  It  mat- 
ters not  to  him  who  or  what  may  be  near  him ;  he  heeds  not, 
and  moves  not,  till  his  devotions  are  finished. — Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  Then  all  the  men  of  Judah  and  Benjamin 
gathered  themselves  together  unto  Jerusalem 
within  three  days :  it  was  the  ninth  month,  and 
the  twentieth  day  of  the  month ;  and  all  the 
people  sat  in  the  street  of  the  house  of  God, 
trembling  because  of  this  matter,  and  for  the 
great  rain. 

What  a  marked  illustration  we  have  of  this  passage 
every  wet  monsoon.  See  the  people  on  a  court-day,  or 
when  they  are  called  to  the  different  offices  on  business. 
The  rain  comes  on ;  they  have  only  a  piece  of  cotton  round 
their  loins,  and  a  small"  leaf,  which  they  carry  over  their 
heads :  they  all  run  in  a  stooping  position  (as  if  that  would 
save  them  from  the  rain)  to  the  nearest  tree,  and  there  they 
sit  in  groups,  huddled  together,  and  trembling  "  for  the 
great  rain." — Roberts. 


NEHEMIAH 


CHAPTER  I. 
Ver.  11.  O  Lord,  I  beseech  thee,  let  now  thine 
ear  be  attentive  to  the  prayer  of  thy  servant, 
and  to  the  prayer  of  thy  servants,  who  desire 
to  fear  thy  name ;  and  prosper,  I  pray  thee, 
thy  servant  this  day,  and  grant  him  mercy  in 
the  sight  of  this  man :  for  I  was  the  king's  cup- 
bearer. 

Houbigant  supposes  that  Nehemiah  repeated  this  prayer, 
which  he  had  often  before  used,  now  again  in  silence, 
while  he  administered  the  cup  to  the  king  in  his  office. 
The  office  of  cupbearer  was  a  place  of  great  honour  and 
advantage  in  the  Persian  court,  because  of  the  privilege 
which  it  gave  him  who  bare  it,  of  being  daily  in  the  king's 
presence,  and  the  opportunity  which  he  had  thereby  of 
gaining  his  favour,  for  procuring  any  petition  he  should 
make  to  him.  That  it  was  a  place  of  great  advantage 
seems  evident  by  Nehemiah's  gaining  those  immense 
riches  which  enabled  him  for  so  many  years,  out  of  his 
own  purse  only,  to  live  in  his  government  with  great 
splendour  and  expense,  without  burdening  the  people. 
According  to  Xenophon,  the  cupbearer  with  the  Persians 
and  Medes  used  to  take  the  wine  out  of  the  vessels  into 
the  cup,  and  pour  some  of  it  into  his  left  hand,  and  drink 
it,  that  if  there  was  any  poison  in  it,  the  king  might  not 
be  hurt ;  and  then  he  delivered  it  to  him  upon  three  fingers. 

— BURDER. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  2.  Wherefore  the  king  said  unto  me,  Why 
is  thy  countenance  sad,  seeing  thou  art  not 
sick  ?  this  is  nothing  else  but  sorrow  of  heart. 

When  friends,  servants,  or  acquaintances,  have  a  request 
to  make,  or  a  secret  to  disclose,  they  walk  about  with  a 
gloomy  countenance,  and  never  speak  but  when  spoken  to. 
Their  object  is  to  induce  you  to  ask  what  is  the  matter, 
because  they  think  you  will  then  be  disposed  to  listen  to 
their  complaint. — Roberts, 

Ver.  7.  Moreover,  I  said  unto  the  king,  If  it 
please  the  king,  let  letters  be  given  me  to  the 
governors  beyond  the  river,  that  they  may  con- 
vey me  over,  till  I  come  into  Judah. 

No  person  of  consequence  travels  in  the  East  without  a 
letter,  or  kattali,  i.  e.  a  command  from  the  Rasa,  the  gov- 
ernor, the  collector,  or  officer  in  authority,  to  the  different 
chiefs  of  the  districts  through  which  he  may  have  to  travel. 
"Were  it  not  for  this,  there  would  often  be  a  difficulty  in 
getting  supplies,  and  there  would  generally  be  a  great  de- 
lay ;  the  officers  would  be  insolent  and  overbearing,  and 
the  purveyors  would  demand  thrice  the  sum  the  articles 
were  worth.  The  letters  in  question  are  generally  in 
duplicate,  so  that  one  precedes  the  traveller,  and  the  other 
is  in  his  possession.  Thus,  when  he  arrives  at  the  choultry 
or  rest-house,  there  will  always  be  people  to  receive  him, 
who  are  ready  to  furnish  him  with  supplies,  and  coolies  to 
help  him  on  his  journey.  Sometimes  they  declare  they 
are  in  the  greatest  want ;  they  cannot  get  rice,  they  have 
neither  fish  nor  fowls,  and  are  brought  to  the  lowest  ebb  of 
misery. — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  And  the  king  granted  me,  according  to 
the  good  hand  of  my  God  upon  me. 

The  hand  is  sometimes  taken  in  an  ill  sense  for  inflict- 
ing punishments,  and  sometimes  in  a  good  sense,  for  we 
extend  favours  to  men  with  the  hand.    Thus  DrOsius  ex- 
40 


plains  Psalm  Ixxxviii.  5,  cut  off  from  thy  hand,  that  is,  fall- 
en from  thy  grace  and  favour.  Pindar  thus  uses  the  Mnd 
of  God,  for  his  help  and  aid,  Qeov  civ  raAa^ui,  by  the  hand  of 
God :  which  the  scholiast  interprets,  by  the  power  and  help 
of  God.     Thus  Nehemiah  is  here  to  be  understood. — Bur- 

DER. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  3.  Now  Tobiah  the  Ammonite  was  by  him, 
and  he  said,  Even  that  which  they  build,  if  a 
fox  go  up,  he  shall  even  break  down  their  stone 
wall. 

When  men  deride  the  workmanship  of  a  mason,  they 
say,  "  Che!  why,  if  a  dog  or  a  jackal  run  against  that  wall, 
it  will  fall."  "  A. wall !  why,  it  will  not  keep  out  the  jack- 
als."— Roberts, 

Ver,  14.  And  I  looked,  and  rose  up,  and  said  unto 
the  nobles,  and  to  the  rulers,  and  to  the  rest  of 
the  people.  Be  not  ye  afraid  of  them :  remem- 
ber the  Lord  which  is  great  and  terrible,  and 
fight  for  your  brethren,  your  sons  and  your 
daughters,  your  wives  and  your  houses. 

The  ancients  appear  to  have  done  more  to  excite  the 
valour  of  their  soldiers,  than  merely  exhorting  them  to  be 
courageous.  This  will  appear  in  the  following  citation  .v 
"  A  circumstance  which  greatly  tends  to  inflame  them  with 
heroic  ardour,  is  the  manner  in  which  their  battalions  are 
formed.  They  are  neither  mustered  nor  imbodied  by 
chance :  they  fight  in  clans,  united  by  consanguinity,  a 
family  of  warriors :  their  tenderest  pledges  are  near  them 
in  the  field.  In  the  heat  of  the  engagement,  the  soldier 
hears  the  shrieks  of  his  wife,  and  the  cries  of  his  children. 
These  are  the  darling  witnesses  of  his  conduct ;  the  ap- 
plauders  of  his  valour,  at  once  beloved  and  valued.  The 
wounded  seek  their  mothers  and  their  wives:  undismayed 
at  the  sight,  the  women  count  each  honourable  scar,  and 
suck  the  gushing  blood :  they  are  even  hardy  enough  to 
mix  with  the  combatants,  administering  refreshment,  and 
exhorting  them  to  deeds  of  valour."  (Tacitus,  De  Mor. 
Germ.) — Border, 

Ver.  21.  So  we  laboured  in  the  work:  and  half 
of  them  held  the  spears,  from  the  rising  of  the 
morning  till  the  stars  appeared. 

Thus  did  the  people  labour  from  the  earliest  dawn  till 
the  latest  glimpse  of  evening  light.  "  Well,  Tarnby,  have 
you  found  your  cattle?"  "  Found  them?  no  !  and  I  wan- 
dered from  the  rising  east,  till  the  stars  appeared."  "At 
what  time  do  you  intend  to  leave  the  temple  1"  "  Not  till 
the  stars  appear."  "  When  do  you  expect  the  guests  1" 
"  Immediately  when  the  stars  appear." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  13.  Also  I  shook  my  lap,  and  said,  So  God 
shake  out  every  man  from  his  house,  and  from 
his  labour,  that  performeth  not  this  promise, 
even  thus  be  he  shaken  out  and  emptied. 

When  men  or  women  curse  each  other,  they  shake  the 
lap,  i.  e.  their  cloth,  or  robe,  and  say,  "  It  shall  be  so  with 
thee."  Does  a  man  begin  to  shake  his  mli,  or  waistcloth,  in 
the  presence  of  another,  the  other  will  say,  "  Why  do  you 
shake  your  cloth  here?  go  to  some  other  place."  "What! 
can  you  shake  your  lap  here  ?  do  it  not,  do  it  not."  "  Y^s, 
ves;  it  is  all  true  enough;  this  misery  has  come  upon  me 
through  that  wretched  i-^^rn  shrking  his  cloth  in  my  pres- 


314 


NEHEMIAIL 


Chap.  5. 


ence."  The  natives  always  carry  a  pouch,  made  of  the 
leaf  of  the  cocoa,  or  other  trees,  in  their  lap ;  in  one  part 
of  which  they  keep  their  money,  and  in  another  their  areca- 
nut,  betel  leaf,  and  tobacco.  It  is  amusing  to  see  how 
careful  they  arc  never  to  have  that  pouch  empty  ;  for  they 
have  an  idea,  that  soiong  as  a  single  coin  shall  be  found  in 
it,  (or  any  of  the  articles  alluded  to,)  the  attraction  will  be 
so  great,  that  the  contents  of  the  pouch  will  not  be  long 
without  companions.  See  the  Englishman,  who  wants  any 
thing  out  of  a  pouch  or  bag;  if  he  cannot  soon  find  the  ar- 
ticle he  requires,  he  shakes  out  the  whole  :  not  so  the  Hin- 
doo ;  he  will  fumble  and  grope  for  an  hour,  rather  than 
shake  out  the  whole.  "  Do  that !  why,  who  knows  how 
long  the  pouch  will  remain  empty  V  It  is  therefore  evi- 
dent, that  to  shake  the  lap  conveyed  with  it  the  idea  of  a 
curse. — Roberts. 

Instead  of  the  fibula  that  was  used  by  the  Romans,  the 
Arabs  join  together  with  thread,  or  with  a  wooden  bodkin, 
the  two  upper  corners  of  this  garment;  and  after  having 
placed  them  first  over  one  of  their  shoulders,  they  then 
fold  the  rest  of  it  about  their  bodies.  The  outer  fold  serves 
them  frequently  instead  of  an  apron,  in  which  they  carry 
herbs,  loaves,  corn,  and  other  articles,  and  may  illustrate 
several  allusions  made  to  it  in  scripture:  thus,  "One  of 
the  sons  of  the  prophets  went  out  into  the  field,  to  gather 
herbs,  and  found  a  wild  vine,  and  gathered  there  of  wild 
gourds,  his  lapful."  And  the  Psalmist  offers  up  his  prayer, 
that  Jehovah  would  "  render  unto  his  neighbours  seven- 
fold into  their  bosom,  their  reproach."  The  same  al- 
lusion occurs  in  our  Lord's  direction  to  his  disciples: 
"Give,  and  it  sliall  be  given  unto  you;  good  measure, 
pressed  down,  and  shaken  together,  and  running  over, 
shall  men  give  into  your  bosom."  It  was  also  the  fold  of  this 
robe  which  Nehemiah  shook  before  his  people,  as  a  signifi- 
cant emblem  of  the  manner  in  which  Grod  should  deal  with 
the  man  who  ventured  to  violate  his  oath,  and  promise  to 
restore  the  possessions  of  their  impoverished  brethren: 
*'  Also,  I  shook  my  lap,  and  said,  So  God  shake  out  every 
man  from  his  house,  and  from  his  labour,  that  performeih 
not  this  promise,  even  thus  be  he  shaken  out  and  emptied." 
— Paxton. 

He  shook  the  dust  out  of  the  foreskirts  of  his  garment, 
as  a  symbol  of  what  follows.  A  similar  rite  was  used  in 
the  case  of  peace  and  war,  when  the  Roman  ambassadors 
proposed  the  choice  of  one  to  the  Carthaginians,  as  having 
either  in  their  bosom  to  shake  out.  (Florus,  1.  ii.  c.  6.  Livy, 
1.  xxi.  c.  18.)  "  When  the  Roman  ambassadors  entered  the 
senate  of  Carthage,  they  had  their  toga  gathered  up  in  their 
bosom.  They  said,  We  carry  here  peace  and  war:  you 
may  have  which  you  will.  The  senate  answered.  You 
may  give  which  you  please.  They  then  shook  their  toga, 
and  said,  We  bring  you  war.  To  which  all  the  senate  an- 
swered, We  cheerfully  accept  it." — Burdeb. 

Ver.  14.  Moreover  from  the  time  that  I  was  ap- 
pointed to  be  their  g-overnor  in  the  land  of  Ju- 
dah,  from  the  twentieth  year  even  unto  the  two 
and  thirtieth  year  of  Artaxerxes  the  king,  that 
is,  twelve  years,  I  and  my  brethren  have  not 
eaten  the  bread  of  the  governor. 

Nehemiah  did  not  eat  that  bread  which  properly  be- 
longed to  him  as  the  governor.  When  the  Orientals  say 
they  eat  the  rice  of  a  person,  it  denotes  they  are  under  ob- 
ligations to  him.  People  who  have  formerly  been  em- 
ployed by  you  often  come  and  say,  "  Ah,  my  lord,  how 
long  it  is  since  I  had  the  pleasure  of  eating  your  rice." 
Those  who  are  in  the  service  of  the  government,  are  said 
to  eat  the  rice  of  the  king.  A  servant,  who  is  requested  to 
injure  his  master,  says,  "No,  no;  have  I  not  eaten  his  rice 
for  many  days  1"  Of  a  person  who  has  been  faithful  to  a 
superior,  it  is  said,  "  Yes,  yes;  he  has  eaten  his  rice,  or  he 
would  not  have  been  so  true  to  him." — Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  But  the  former  governors  that  had  been 
before  me  were  chargeable  unto  the  people,  and 
had  taken  of  them  bread  and  wine,  besides  forty 
shekels  of  silver ;  yea,  even  their  servants  bare 
rule  over  the  people :  but  so  did  not  I,  because 
i)f  the  fear  of  God. 


The  demanding  provisions  with  roughness  and  severity 
by  such  as  travel  under  the  direction  of  government,  or 
authorized  by  government  to  do  it,  is  at  this  day  so  prac- 
tised in  the  East,  as  greatly  to  illustrate  several  passa- 
ges of  scripture.    When  the  Baron  De  Tott  was  sent,  in 
1767,  to  the  cham  of  the  Tartars,  by  the  French  ministry, 
as  resident  of  France  with  that  Tartar  prince,  he  had  a 
mikmandar,  or  conductor,  given  him  by  the  pacha  of  Kot- 
chim,  upon  his  entering  the  Turkish  territories,  whose 
business  it  was  to  precede  and  prepare  the  way  for  him, 
as  is  usually  done  in  those  countries  to  ambassadors,  and 
such  as  travel  gratis,  at  the  expense  of  the  porte,  or  Turk- 
ish court.    This  conductor,  whose  name,  it  seems,  was  Ali 
Aga,  made  great  use  of  his  whip,  when  he  came  among 
the  poor  Greeks  of  Moldavia,  to  induce  them  to  furnish  out 
that  assistance    an/i  those  provisions  he  wanted  for  the 
baron ;  for  though  it  was  represented  as  travelling  at  the 
expense  of  the  porte,  it  was  really  at  the  expense  of  the 
inhabitants  of  those  towns  or  villages  to  which  he  came. 
The  baron  appears  to  have  been  greatly  hurt  by  that  mode 
of  procedure  with  those  poor  peasants,  and  would  rather 
have  procured  what  he  wanted  with  his  money,  which  he 
thought  would  be  sufficiently  efficacious,  if  the  command 
of  the  mikmandar  should  not  be  sufficient  without  the  whip. 
The  baron's  account  of  the  success  of  his  eftorls  is  a  very 
droll  one,  which  he  has  enlivened  by  throwing  it  into  the 
form  of  dialogues  between  himself  and  the  Greeks,  and 
Ali  Aga  and  those  peasants,  in  which  he  has  imitated  the 
broken  language  the  Greeks  made  use  of,  pretending  not 
to  understand  Turkish,  in  order  to  make  it  more  mirthful. 
It  would  be  much  too  long  for  these  papers,  and  quite  un- 
necessary for  my  design,  to  transcribe  these  dialogues;  it 
is  sufficient  to  say,  that  after  the  jealousy  of  the  poor  op- 
pressed Greeks  of  their  being  to  be  pillaged,  or  more  heavi- 
ly loaded  with  demands  by  the  Turks,  had  prevented  their 
voluntarily  supplying  the  baron  for  his  money,  Ali  Aga 
undertook  the  business,  and  upon  the  Moldavian's  pretend- 
ing not  to  understand  the  Turkish  language,  he  knocked 
him  down  with  his  fist,  and  kept  kicking  him  while  he  was 
rising;  which  brought  him  to  complain,  in  good  Turkish, 
of  his  beating  him  so,  when  he  knew  very  well  they  were 
poor  people,  who  were  often  in  want  of  necessaries,  and 
whose  princes  scarcely  left  them  the  air  they  breathed. 
"  Pshaw !  thou  art  joking,  friend,"  was  the  reply  of  Ali 
Aga,  "  thou  art  in  want  of  nothing,  except  of  oeing  well 
basted  a  little  oftener ;  but  all  in  good  time.    Proceed  we 
to  business.     I  must  instantly  have  two  sheep,  a  dozen  of 
fowls,  a  dozen  of  pigeons,  fifty  pounds  of  bread,  four  oques 
of  butter,  with  salt,  pepper,  nutmeg,  cinnamon,  lemons, 
wines,  salad,  and  good  oil  of  olive,  all  in  great  plenty." 
With  tears  the  Moldavian  replied,  "  I  have  already  told 
you  that  we  are  poor  creatures,  without  so  much  as  bread 
to  eat.    Where  must  we  get  cinnamon  V    The  whip,  it 
seems,  was  taken  from  under  his  habit,  and  the  Moldavian 
beaten  till  he  could  bear  it  no  longer,  but  was  forced  to  fly, 
finding  Ali  Aga  inexorable,  and  that  these  provisions  must 
be  produced;  and,  in  fact,  we  are  told,  the  quarter  of  an 
hour  was  not  expired,  within  which  time  Ali  Aga  required 
that  these  things  should  be  produced,  and  affirmed  to  the 
baron  that  they  would  be  brought  before  the  primate,  or 
chief  of  the  Moldavians  of  that  town,  who  had  teen  so  se- 
verely handled,  assisted  by  three  of  his  countrymen ;  all 
the  provisions  were  brought,  without  forgetting  even  the 
cinnamon. 

May  not  this  account  be  supposed  to  illustrate  that  pas- 
sage of  Nemehiah,  chap.  v.  15  :  The  former  governors  thai 
had  been  before  me,  were  chargeable  iinlo  the  people,  and  had 
taken  of  them  bread  and  witw,  besides  forty  shekels  of  silver  : 
yea^  even  their  servants  bare  rule  over  the  people  :  hit  so  did 
not  I,  because  of  the  fear  of  God.  It  is  evident  something 
oppressive  is  meant.  And  that  it  related  to  the  taking 
bread  from  them,  or  eatables  in  general,  together  with  wine, 
perhaps  sheep,  fowls,  pigeons,  butter,  fruit,  and  other  things, 
when  probably  they  were  travelling,  or  sojourning  in  some 
place  at  a  distance  from  home.  And  that  the  like  imperi- 
ous and  unrighteous  demand  had,  from  time  to  time,  been 
made  upon  them  by  the  servants  of  these  governors,  whom 
they  might  have  occasion  to  send  about  the  country.  1 
cannot  account  for  the  setting  down  the  precise  number  of 
forty,  when  speaking  of  shekels,  but  by  supposing  that  the 
word  besides,  here,  *>"«  acher,  should  have  been  translated 
afterward,  whicl  it  more  ccmmonly,  if  not  more  certainly, 


Chap.  6. 


NEHEMIAH, 


815 


signifies;  and  means,  that  afterward  ihey  were  wont  to 
commute  this  demand  for  provisions  into  money,  often 
amounting  to  forty  shekels.  It  is  certain  it  would  not  mean 
the  whole  annual  allowance  to  the  governor  by  the  children 
of  the  captivity  ;  that  would  have  been  much  too  small ;  nor 
could  it  mean  what  every  householder  was  to  pay  annually 
towards  the  governor's  support,  for  fifty  shekels  was  as 
much  as  each  mighty  man  of  wealth  was  assessed  at  by 
Menahem,  when  he  wanted  to  raise  a  large  sum  of  money 
for  the  king  of  Assyria,  and  when  Israel  was  not  in  so 
low  a  state  as  in  the  time  of  Nehemiah  :  it  must  then,  sure- 
ly, mean  the  value  of  that  quantity  of  eatables  and  wine 
they  might  charge  any  town  with,  when  single  towns  were 
charged  with  the  support  of  the  governor's  table  for  a  sin- 
gle repast,  or  a  single  day,  which  it  is  natural  to  suppose 
could  only  be  when  they  thought  fit  to  travel  from  place  to 
place.  This,  it  seems,  their  servants  took  the  liberty  too 
to  require,  when  they  were  sent  on  a  journey.  And  if  they 
that  belonged  to  the  "officers  of  the  king  of  Persia  enforced 
their  requisitions  in  a  manner  similar  to  that  made  use  of 
by  the  people  belonging  to  the  Turkish  governors  of  prov- 
inces, when  they  travel  on  a  public  account  among  the 
Greeks  of  Moldavia,  it  is  no  wonder  that  Nehemiah  ob- 
serves, with  emotion,  in  this  passage,  Yca^  even  their  ser- 
vants bare  rule  over  the  people :  but  so  did  not  I,  because  of 
tlie  fear  of  God. — Harmer. 

Ver.  17.  Moreover,  there  were  at  my  table  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  of  the  Jews  and  rulers,  besides 
those  that  came  unto  us  from  among  the  heathen 
that  are  about  us.  18.  Now  that  which  was 
prepared  for  me  daily  was  one  ox  and  six  choice 
sheep ;  also  fowls  were  prepared  for  me,  and 
once  in  ten  days  store  of  all  sorts  of  wine :  yet 
for  all  this  required  not  I  the  bread  of  the  gov- 
ernor, because  the  bondage  was  heavy  upon 
this  people. 

Nehemiah  calculated  the  expenses  of  his  table,  not  by 
the  money  he  paid,  but  by  the  provisions  consumed  by  his 
guests.  Such  is  still  the  practice  in  the  East.  So  De  la 
Motraye  informs  us  of  the  seraglio  at  Constantinople: 
"  One  may  judge  of  the  numbers  who  live  in  this  palace, 
by  the  prodigious  quantity  of  provisions  consumed  in  it 
yearly,  which  some  of  the  hattchis,  or  cooks,  assured  me 
amounted  to  more  than  30,000  oxen,  20,000  calves,  (30,000 
sheep,  16,000  lambs,  10,000  kids,  100,000  turkeys,  geese, 
and  goslings,  200,000  fowls  and  chickens,  100,000  pigeons, 
without  reckoning  wild-fowl  or  fish,  of  the  last  of  which 
he  only  named  130,000  calcam-bats,  or  turbots." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  5.  Then  sent  Sanballat  his  servant  unto  me, 
in  like  manner,  the  fifth  time,  with  an  open, 
letter  in  his  hand. 

A  letter  has  its  Hebrew  name  from  the  circumstance  of 
its  being  rolled  or  folded  together.  The  modern  Arabs  roll 
up  their  letters,  and  then  flatten  them  to  the  breadth  of  an 
inch,  and  instead  of  sealing  them,  paste  up  their  ends. 
The  Persians  make  up  their  letters  in  a  roll  about  six  inches 
long,  a  bit  of  paper  is  fastened  round  it  with  gum,  and 
sealed  with  an  impression  of  ink.  In  Turkey,  letters  are 
commonly  sent  to  persons  of  distinction  in  a  bag  or  purse ; 
to  equals  they  are  also  enclosed,  but  to  inferiors,  or  those 
who  are  held  in  contempt,  they  are  sent  open  or  unenclosed. 
This  explains  the  reason  of  Nehemiah's  observation : 
**  Then  sent  Sanballat  his  servant  unto  me,  with  an  open 
letter  in  his  hand."  In  refusing  him  the  mark  of  respect 
usually  paid  to  persons  of  his  station,  and  treating  him  con- 
temptuously, by  sending  the  letter  without  the  customary 
appendages,  when  presented  to  persons  of  respectability, 
Sanballat  offered  him  a  deliberate  insult.  Had  this  open 
letter  come  from  Geshem,  who  was  an  Arab,  it  might  have 
passed  unnoticed,  but  as  it  came  from  Sanballat,  the  gov- 
ernor had  reason  to  expect  the  ceremony  of  enclosing  it  in 
a  bag,  since  he  was  a  person  of  distinction  in  the  Persian 
G<  urt,  and  at  that  time  governor  of  Judea. — Paxton. 

Norden  tells  us,  that  when  he  and  his  company  were  at 


Essauen,  an  express  arrived  there,  despatched  by  an  Arab 
prince,  who  brought  a  letter  directed  to  the  reys,  (or  mas- 
ter of  their  barque,)  enjoining  him  not  to  set  out  with  his 
barque,  or  carry  them  any  farther,  adding,  that  in  a  day's 
time  he  should  be  at  Essauen,  and  there  would  give  his 
orders  relative  to  them.  "  The  letter,  however,  accord- 
ing to  the  usage  of  the  Turks,"  says  this  author, "  was 
open  ;  and  as  the  reys  was  not  on  board,  the  pilot  carried 
it  to  one  of  our  fathers  to  read  it."  Sanballat's  sending 
his  servant,  then,  with  an  open  letter,  which  is  mentioned 
Neh,  vi.  5,  doth  not  appear  an  odd  thing,  it  should  seem  ; 
but  if  it  was  according  to  their  usages,  why  is  this  circum- 
stance complained  of,  as  it  visibly  isl  Why  indeed  is  JL 
mentioned  at  all  %  Why !  because,  however  the  sending 
letters  open  to  common  people  may  be  customary  in  these 
countries,  it  is  not  according  to  their  usages  to  send  them 
so  to  people  of  distinction.  So  Dr.  Pococke,  in  his  account 
of  that  very  country  where  Norden  was  when  this  letter 
was  brought,  gives  us,  among  other  things,  in  the  57ih 
plate,  the  figure  of  a  Turkish  letter  put  into  a  satin  bag,  to 
be  sent  to  a  great  man,  with  a  paper  tied  to  it,  directed  and 
sealed,  and  an  ivory  button  tied  on  the  wax.  So  Lady 
Montague  says,  the  bassa  of  Belgrade's  answer  to  the  Eng- 
lish ambassador,  going  to  Constantinople,  was  brought  to 
him  in  a  purse  of  scarlet  satin.  The  great  emir,  indeed, 
of  the  Arabs,  according  to  D'Arvieux,  was  not  wont  to  en- 
close his  letters  in  these  bags,  any  more  than  to  have  them 
adorned  with  flourishes ;  but  that  is  supposed  to  have  been 
owing  to  the  unpoliteness  of  the  Arabs ;  and  he  tells  us, 
that  when  he  acted  as  secretary  to  the  emir,  he  supplied 
these  defects,  and  that  his  doing  so  was  highly  acceptable 
to  the  emir.  Had  this  open  letter,  then,  come  from  Geshem, 
who  was  an  Arab,  it  might  have  passed  unnoticed ;  but  as 
it  was  from  Sanballat,  the  enclosing  it  in  a  handsome  bag 
was  a  ceremony  Nehemiah  had  reason  to  expect  from  him, 
since  he  w;.s  a  person  of  distinction  in  the  Persian  court, 
and  then  governor  of  Judea  ;  and  the  noi  doing  it  was  the 
greatest  insult,  insinuating,  that  though  Nehemiah  was, 
according  to  him,  preparing  to  assume  the  royal  dignity,  he 
should  be  so  far  from  acknowledging  him  in  that  charac- 
ter, that  he  would  not  even  pay  him  the  compliment  due 
to  every  person  of  distinction.  Chardin  gives  us  a  like 
account  of  the  eastern  letters,  adding  this  circumstance, 
that  those  that  are  unenclosed  as  sent  to  common  peo- 
ple, are  usually  rolled  up ;  in  which  form  their  paper  com- 
monly appears.  A  letter  in  the  form  of  a  small  roll  of  pa- 
per, would  appear  very  odd  in  our  eyes,  but  it  seems  is  very- 
common  there.  If  this  is  the  true  representation  of  the  af- 
fair, commentators  have  given  but  a  poor  account  of  it.  San- 
ballat sent  him  a  message,  says  one  of  them,  "  pretend- 
ing, it  is  likely,  special  respect  and  kindness  unto  him,  in- 
forming him  what  was  laid  to  his  charge."  So  far  Mr. 
Harmer. 

Contrast  with  this  open  letter  to  Nehemiah  the  closed, 
rolled,  or  folded  letter,  sent  by  Sennacherib  to  Hezekiah, 
2  Kings  xix.  14.  We  read,  verse  9,  "  He  sent  messen- 
gers to  Hezekiah,  saying" — "  And  Hezekiah  received  the 
[sepher}  letter  at  the  hand  of  the  messenger,  and  read  it : 
and  Hezekiah  went  up  into  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and 
spread  it  before  the  Lord."  It  was  therefore  folded  or  roll- 
ed, and  no  doubt  enclosed  in  a  proper  envelope;  and  I 
would  not  be  certain  whether  this  action  of  taking  a  letter 
from  its  case  is  not  expressed  here  by  the  vioxAperesh,  which 
signifies  to  divide,  to  separate.  Consider  also  the  passage, 
Isaiah  xxix.  11 :  "  And  the  vision  shall  be  to  you,  as  the 
word  of  a  {sepher,  the  same  as  the  letter  spread  by  Hezekiah] 
letter  that  is  sealed — sealed  up  in  a  bag,  closely — which  is 
given  to  a  man  of  learning  to  read,  but  he  says, '  It  is  sealed' 
— how  should  I  know  what  information  it  contains  *?  I 
merely  can  discover  to  whom  it  is  directed ;"  while  the 
unlearned  cannot  even  read  the  address.  We  see  such 
occurrences  daily  in  the  streets  of  London:  messengers 
sent  with  letters,  Sesire  passengers  to  read  the  directions 
for  them.— Observe,  the  messengers  sent  to  Hezekiah  are 
described  as  saying,  when  in  fact,  they  say  nothing,  but 
only  deliver  a  letter  containing  the  message. — Taylor  in 
Calmet. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.    10.  Afterward  I  came  unto  the  house  of 
Shemaiah,  the  son  of  Delaiah,  the  son  of  Me- 
hetabeel,  who  was  shut  up ;  and  he  said,  Let  us 


S16 


NEHEMIAH, 


Chap.  7—13. 


meet  together  in  the  house  of  God,  within  the 
temple :  and  let  us  shut  the  doors  of  the  tem- 
ple :  for  they  will  come  to  slay  thee ;  yea,  in  the 
night  they  will  come  to  slay  thee. 

By  the  house  of  God,  withi7i  t/ie  temple,  (as  it  is  in  the  text, 
Nehem.  vi.  10,)  Shemaiah  certainly  meant  the  sanctuary  ; 
and  to  advise  Neheraiah  to  retreat  thither,  he  had  a  good 
pretence,  because  it  was  both  a  strong  and  a  sacred  place, 
being  defended  by  a  guard  of  Levites,  and,  by  its  holiness, 
privileged  from  all  rude  approaches ;  but  his  real  design 
herein  might  be,  not  only  to  disgrace  Nehemiah,  and  dis- 
hearten the  people,  when  they  saw  their  governor's  cow- 
ardice, but  to  prepare  the  way  likewise  for  the  enemies' 
assauUing  and  taking  the  city,  when  there  was  no  leader 
to  oppose  them ;  to  give  countenance  to  the  calumny  that 
had  been  spread  abroad,  of  his  affecting  to  be  made  king, 
because  he  fled  upon  the  report  of  it ;  and  perhaps,  by  the 
assistance  of  some  other  priests,  that  were  his  confederates, 
either  to  destroy  him,  or  to  secure  his  person  until  the  city 
was  jetrayed  into  the  enemies'  hands.— Stackhouse. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  1 .  Now  it  came  to  pass,  when  the  wall  was 
built,  and  I  had  set  up  the  doors,  and  the  porters, 
and  the  singers,  and  the  Levites  were  appointed, 
2.  That  I  gave  my  brother  Hanani,  and  Hana- 
niah  the  ruler  of  the  palace,  charge  over  Jeru- 
salem :  (for  he  was  a  faithful  man,  and  feared 
God  above  many.) 

ISTehemiah,  very  likely,  was  now  returning  to  Shushan,  to 
pve  the  king  an  account  of  the  state  of  affairs  in  Judea ; 
and  therefore  he  took  care  to  place  such  men  in  the  city  as 
he  knew  would  faithfully  secure  it  in  his  absence.  Hanani 
is  said  to  be  his  brother;  but  he  chose  his  officers,  not  out 
of  partial  views  to  his  own  kindred,  but  because  he  knew 
that  they  would  acquit  themselves  in  their  employment 
with  a  strict  fidelity.  Hanani  had  given  proof  of  his  zeal 
for  God  and  his  country,  in  his  taking  a  tedious  journey 
from  Jerusalem  to  Shushan,  to  inform  Nehemiah  of  the 
sad  state  of  Jerusalem,  and  to  implore  his  helping  hand  to 
relieve  it,  chap.  i.  And  the  reason  why  Nehemiah  put 
such  trust  and  confidence  in  Hananiah,  was,  because  he 
Avas  a  man  of  conscience,  and  acted  upon  religious  princi- 
ples, which  would  keep  him  from  those  temptations  to  per- 
fediousness,  which  he  might  probably  meet  with  in  his 
absence,  and  against  which  a  man  destitute  of  the  fear  of 
God  has  no  sufficient  fence. — Stackhouse. 

Ver.  3.  And  I  said  unto  them.  Let  not  the  gates 
of  Jerusalem  be  opened  until  the  sun  be  hot ; 
and  while  they  stand  by,  let  them  shut  the 
doors,  and  bar  them  :  and  appoint  watches  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem,  every  one  in  his 
watch,  and  every  one  to  be  over  against  his 
house. 

In  the  hot  countries  of  the  East,  they  frequently  travel 
in  the  night,  and  arrive  at  midnight  at  the  place  of  their 
destination,  Luke  xi.  5.  Mark  xiii.  35.  Probably  they 
did  not  therefore  usually  shut  their  gates  at  the  going 
down  of  the  sun,  if  they  did  so  at  all  through,  the  night, 
Thevenot  could  not,  however,  obtain  admission  into  Suez 
in  the  night,  and  was  forced  to  wait  some  hours  in  the  cold, 
without  the  walls,  Doubdan,  returning  from  the  river 
Jordan  to  Jerusalem,  in  1652,  tells  us,  that  when  he  and 
his  companions  arrived  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  they 
were  much  surprised  to  find  that  the  gates  of  the  city  were 
shut,  which  obliged  them  to  lodge  on  the  ground  at  the  door 
of  the  sepulchre  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  to  wait  for  the  re- 
turn of  day,  along  with  more  than  a  thousand  other  people, 
who  were  obliged  to  continue  there  the  rest  of  the  night,  as 
well  as  they.  At  length,  about  four  o'clock,  seeing  every- 
body making  for  the  city,  they  also  set  forward,  with  the 
design  of  entering  by  St.  Stephen's  gate ;  but  they  found  it 
'  shut,  and  above  two"  thousand  people,  who  were  there  in 
waiting,  without  knowing  the  cause  of  all  this.  At  first 
they  thought  it  might  be  too  early,  and  that  it  was  not  cus- 


tomary to  open  so  soon :  but  an  hour  afler  a  report  was 
spread  that  the  inhabitants  had  shut  their  gates  because  the 
peasants  of  the  country  about,  had  formed  a  design  of  pil- 
laging the  city  in  the  absence  of  the  governor  and  of  his 
guards,  and  that  as  soon  as  he  should  arrive,  the  gates 
should  be  opened. — Burder. 

Ver,  4.  Now  the  city  was  large  and  great,  but 
the  people  were  few  therein,  and  the  houses 
were  not  built. 

One  reason  why  the  bulk  of  the  Jews  (who  were  origin- 
ally pastural,  and  lovers  of  agriculture)  might  rather  choose 
to  live  in  the  country  than  at  Jerusalem,  was,  because  it  was 
more  suited  to  their  genius  and  manner  of  life ;  but  at  this 
time  their  enemies  were  so  enraged  to  see  the  walls  built 
again,  and  so  restless  in  their  designs  to  keep  the  city  from 
rising  to  its  former  splendour,  that  it  terrified  many  from 
coming  to  dwell  there,  thinking  themselves  more  safe  in 
the  country,  where  their  enemies  had  no  pretence  to  dis- 
turb them, — Stackhouse, 

CHAPTER  VIII, 
Ver.  10.  Then  he  said  unto  them.  Go  your  way, 
eat  the  fat,  and  drink  the  sweet,  and  send  por- 
tions unto  them  for  whom  nothing  is  prepared : 
for  this  day  is  holy  unto  our  Lord  :  neither  be 
ye  soxry ;  for  the  joy  of  the  Lord  is  your 
strength. 

The  eastern  princes,  and  the  eastern  people,  not  only 
invite  their  friends  to  feasts,  but  it  is  their  custom  to  sen'd 
a  portion  of  the  banquet  to  those  that  cannot  well  come  to 
it,  especially  their  relations,  and  those  in  a  state  of  mourning. 
This  sending  of  portions  to  those  for  whom  nothing  was 

Erepared,  has  been  understood  by  those  commentators  I 
ave  consulted,  to  mean  the  poor";  sending  portions,  how- 
ever, to  one  another,  is  expressly  distinguished  in  Esth. 
ix.  22,  from,  gifts  to  the  poor.  There  would  not  have  been 
the  shadow  of  a  difficulty  in  this,  had  the  historian  been 
speaking  of  a  private  feast,  but  he  is  describing  a  national 
festival,  where  every  one  was  supposed  to  be  equally  con- 
cerned :  those,  then, /or  tohom  nothing  loas prepared,  it  should 
seem,  means  those  that  were  in  a  state  of  mourning. 
Mourning  for  private  calamities  being  here  supposed  to 
take  place  of  rejoicing  for  public  concerns.  But  it  is  not 
only  to  those  that  are  in  a  state  of  mourning  that  provisions 
are  sometimes  sent ;  others  are  honoured  by  princes  in  the 
same  manner,  who  could  not  conveniently  attend  to  the 
royal  table,  or  to  whom  it  was  supposed  not  to  be  convenient. 
So  when  the  grand  emir  found  it  incommoded  Monsieur 
D'Arvieux  to  eat  with  him,  he  complaisantly  desired  him 
to  take  his  own  time  for  eating,  and  sent  him  what  he  liked 
from  his  kitchen,  and  at  the  time  he  chose.  And  thus, 
when  King  David  would  needs  suppose,  for  secret  reasons, 
loo  well  known  to  himself,  that  it  would  be  inconvenient  for 
Uriah  to  continue  at  the  royal  palace,  and  therefore  dis- 
missed him  to  his  own  house,  "  there  followed  him  a  mess 
of  meat  from  the  king,"  2  Sam,  xi,  8,  10.— Harmer. 

Ver.  37,  And  it  yieldeth  much  increase  unto  the 
kings  whom  thou  hast  set  over  us  because  of 
our  sins:  also  they  have  dominion  over  our 
bodies,  and  over  our  cattle,  at  their'  pleasure, 
and  we  are  in  great  distress. 

These  people  attribute  all  their  losses  and  afflictions  to 
their  sins.  Has  a  man  lost  his  wife  or  child,  he  says,  "  En- 
pdvatin-nemityam,  for  the  sake  of  my  sins,  this  evil  has 
come  upon  me."  "Why,  friend,  do  you  live  in  this 
strange  land  V  "  Because  of  my  sins."  No  people  can 
refer  more  to  sin  as  the  source  of  their  misery,  and  yet 
none  appear  more  anxious  to  commit  it,  "  The  sins  of  my 
ancestors,  the  sins  of  my  ancestors,  are  in  this  habitation, 
says  the  old  sinner,  who  wishes  to  escape  the  sight  of  his 
own, — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Ver.  15.  In  those  days  saw  I  in  Judah  .fr^we  tread- 
ing wine-presses  on  the  sabbath,  and  bringing 


Chap.  13. 


NEHEMIAH. 


317 


in  sheaves,  and  lading  asses;  as  also  wine,^ 
grapes,  and  figs,  and  all  manner  of  burdens,' 
which  they  brought  into  Jerusalem  on  the  sab- 
bath-day :  and  I  testified  against  them  in  the 
day  wherein  they  sold  victuals. 

In  peaceful  times,  the  press  in  which  the  grapes  and 
olives  were  trodden,  was  constructed  in  the  vineyard :  but 
in  time  of  war  and  danger,  it  was  removed  into  the  nearest 
city.  This  precaution  the  restored  cafjtives  were  reduced 
to  take  for  their  safety,  at  the  time  they  were  visited  by  Ne- 
hemiah.  In  a  state  of  great  weakness  themselves,  without 
an  efficient  government  or  means  of  defence,  they  were  ex- 
posed to  the  hostile  machinations  of  numerous  and  power- 
ful enemies.  For  this  reason,  many  of  the  Jews  brought 
their  grapes  from  the  vineyards,  and  trod  them  in  Jerusa- 
lem, the  only  place  of  safety  which  the  desolated  country 
alForded.  "  In  those  days,"  said  Nehemiah,  "  saw  I  in  Ju- 
dah,  some  treading  wine-presses  on  the  sabbath,  and  bring- 
ing in  sheaves,  and  lading  asses;  and  also  wine,  grapes, 
and  figs,  and  all  manner  of  burdens,  which  they  brought  in- 
to Jerusalem  on  the  sabbath-day."  Had  these  wine-presses 
been  at  a  distance  from  Jerusalem,  Nehemiah,  who  so 
strictly  observed  the  precept  of  resting  on  that  day,  would 
not  have  seen  the  violation  of  which  he  complains. 

Our  translators,  in  Mr.  Harmer's  opinion,  seem  to  have 
been  guilty  of  an  oversight  in  the  mterpretation  of  this 
verse,  which  plainly  supposes,  that  sheaves  of  corn  were 
brought  into  Jerusalem  at  the  very  time  men  were  treading 
the  wine-presses.  This,  he  observes,  is  a  strange  anachro- 
nism, since  the  harvest  there  was  finished  in  or  before  the 
third  month,  and  the  vintage  was  not  till  the  seventh.  But, 
it  may  be  replied  in  favour  of  our  translators,  that  by  Mr. 
Harmer's  own  admission,  they  have  at  present  a  species  of 
corn  in  the  East,  which  is  not  ripe  till  the  end  of  summer ; 
which  made  Rauwolf  say,  it  was  the  time  of  harvest  when 
he  arrived  at  Joppa,  on  the  thirteenth  of  September.  But 
if  they  have  such  a  species  of  corn  no\^,  it  is  more  than 
probable  they  had  it  then  ;  for  the  customs  and  manage- 
ment of  the  Orientals  suffer  almost  no  alteration  from  the 
lapse  of  time,  and  change  of  circumstances.  If  this  be  ad- 
mitted, the  difficulty  vanishes :  and  there  is  nothing  incon- 
gruous or  absurd  in  supposing  that  Nehemiah  might  see 
his  countrymen  bringing  this  late  grain  in  sheaves  from 
th'^  field,  to  tread  it  out  in  the  city,  for  fear  of  their  numer- 
ous and  malicious  foes,  who  might  have  set  upon  them,  had 
they  not  taken  this  precaution,  as  the  Arabs  frequently  do 
on  the  present  inhabitants,  and  seized  the  heaps  on  the 
barn-floor.  Mr.  Harmer  translates  the  Hebrew  term,  par- 
cels of  grapes  ;  but  as  the  word  signifies  a  heap  of  any  thing, 
it  may  with  equal  propriety  be  rendered  parcels  or  sheaves 
of  corn,  especially  as  grapes  are  mentioned  afterward.  It 
is  true,  our  author  makes  them  dried  grapes,  but  for  the 
word  dried  he  has  no  authority  from  the  original  text; 
there  is  no  good  reason,  therefore,  to  find  fault  with  our 
translators  in  this  instance. — Paxton, 

Though  the  conveniences  they  have  in  the  wine  coun- 
tries for  pressing  their  grapes,  were  frequently  in  peaceful 
times  in  their  vineyards,  yet  in  times  of  apprehension  these 
conveniences  were  often  in  the  cities  themselves.  Greece, 
to  the  present  day,  is  frequently  alarmed,  and  always  under 
apprehension  from  corsairs :  accordingly  we  find,  that  though 
the  pla"/a^'nns  of  olive-trees  belonging  to  Athens  are  large, 
and  at  some  distance  from  thence,  yet  the  mills  for  grind- 
ing and  pressing  the  olives  are  in  that  town;  and  this, 
though,  according  to  his  description,  the  great  olive-grove, 
or  wood  of  these  trees,  as  Dr.  Richard  Chandler  calls  it, 
watered  by  the  Cephissus,  is  about  three  miles  from  the 
city,  and  has  been  computed  as  at  least  six  miles  long.  The 
same  reason  that  can  induce  men  to  fetch  their  olives  from 
a  distance  into  their  towns,  must  operate  more  or  less  for- 
cibly with  regard  to  their  grapes.  This  was,  in  particular, 
the  state  of  things  at  the  time  Nehemiah  visited  the  chil- 
dren of  the  captivity.  They  had  many  enemies  about  them, 
and  those  very  spiteful;  and  they  themselves  were  very 
weak.  For  this  reason,  many  of  them  trod  their  grapes  in 
Jerusalem  itself:  "In  those  days  saw  I  in  Judah  some 


treading  winepresses  on  the  sabbath,  and  bringing  in 
sheaves,  and  lading  asses;  and  also  M-ine,  grapes,  and  figs, 
and  all  manner  of  burdens,  which  they  brought  into  Jeru- 
salem on  the  sabbath-day."  Had  these  wine-presses  been 
at  a  distance  from  Jerusalem,  he  that  so  strictly  observed 
the  precept  of  resting  that  day  would  not  have  seen  that 
violation  of  it.  They  appear,  by  that  circumstance,  as  well 
as  by  the  other  particulars  mentioned  there,  to  have  been 
within  the  walls  of  Jerusalem.  The  words  of  Nehemiah 
are  to  be  understood  as  signifying,  "  In  those  days  saw  I  in 
Judah  some  treading  wine-presses  on  the  sabbath,  and 
bringing  in  parcels  of  grapes  for  that  purpose  in  baskets, 
which  they  had  laden  on  asses,  and  also  jars  of  wine,  press- 
ed elsewhere,  dried  grapes  and  figs,  and  ail  manner  of  bur- 
dens of  victuals,  which  they  sold  on  the  sabbath:"  the 
squeezing  the  grapes  for  wine,  and  drying  them  for  raisins, 
being,  it  seems,  at  least  frequently  attended  to  at  one  and 
the  same  time.  So  when  Dr.  Chandler  set  out  from  Smyr- 
na to  visit  Greece,  in  the  end  of  August,  the  vintage  was 
just  begun,  "  the  black  grapes  being  spread  on  the  ground 
in  beds,  exposed  to  the  sun  to  dry  for  raisins ;  while  in  an- 
other part,  the  juice  was  expressed  for  wine,  a  man,  with 
feet  and  legs  bare,  treading  the  fruit  in  a  kind  of  cistern, 
with  a  hole  or  vent  near  the  bottom,  and  a  vessel  beneath  it 
to  receive  the  liquor."    (Travels  in  Greece.) 

If  the  same  custom  obtained  in  Judea  then,  which  it  seems 
is  practised  in  Greece  now,  and  that  the  vintage  was  just 
then  finishing,  Nehemiah  must  have  been  particularly 
galled;  for  it  seems  they  finish  their  vintage  with  dancing, 
and  therefore  I  presume  with  songs,  and  probably  music. 
For  speaking  of  the  Greek  dances,  of  which  some  are  sup- 
posed of  very  remote  antiquity,  and  of  one  in  particular, 
called  the  crane,  he  says,  "  the  peasants  perform  it  yearly 
in  the  street  of  the  French  convent,  where  he  and  his  com- 
panions lodged  at  that  time,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  vint- 
age; joining  hands,  and  preceding  their  mules  and  their 
asses,  which  are  laden  with  grapes  in  panniers,  in  a  very 
curved  and  intricate  figure ;  the  leader  waving  a  handker- 
chief, which  has  been  imagined  to  denote  the  clew  given 
by  Ariadne ;"  the  dance  being  supposed  to  have  been  in- 
vented by  Theseus,  upon  his  escape  from  the  labyrinth. 

Singing  seems  to  have  been  practised  by  the  Jews  in 
their  vineyards,  and  shouting  when  they  trod  the  grapes, 
from  what  we  read,  Isaiah  xvi.  10 :  but  whether  dancing 
too,  and  whether  they  carried  their  profanation  of  the  sal^ 
bath  this  length,  in  the  time  of  Nehemiah,  we  are  not  in- 
formed. Some  may  have  supposed  that  the  words  of  Jer- 
emiah, ch.  xxxi.  4,  5,  refer  to  the  joy  expressed  by  the  Jews 
in  the  time  of  vintage :  "  Again,  I  will  build  thee,  and  thoii 
shalt  be  built,  O  virgin  of  Israel ;  thou  shalt  again  be  adorn- 
ed with  thy  tabrets,  and  shalt  go  forth  in  the  dances  of  them 
that  make  merry.  Thou  shalt  yet  plant  vines  upon  the 
mountains  of  Samaria;  the  planters  shall  plant,  and  eat 
them  as  common  things."  Vines  and  dancing  are  here 
joined  together. — Burder, 

Ver.  25.  And  I  contended  with  them,  and  cursed 
them,  and  smote  certain  of  them,  and  plucked 
off  their  hair,  and  made  them  swear  by  God, 
saying,  Ye  shall  not  give  your  daughters  unto 
their  sons,  nor  take  their  daughters  unto  your 
sons,  or  for  yourselves. 

In  Judea,  the  punishment  of  infamy  consisted  chiefly  in 
cuuing  off  the  hair  of  evil-doers  :  yet  it  is  thought  that  pain 
was  added  to  disgrace,  and  that  they  tore  off  the  hair  with 
violence,  as  if  they  were  plucking  a  bird  alive.  This  is 
the  genuine  signification  of  the  Hebrew  word  used  by 
Nehemiah  in  describing  his  conduct  towards  those  Jews 
who  had  violated  the  law  by  taking  strange  wives:  "And 
I  contended  with  them,  and  smote  certain  of  them,  and 
plucked  off  their  hair."  This  kind  of  punishment  was 
common  in  Persia.  King  Ariaxerxes,  instead  of  pluck- 
ing off  the  hair  of  such  of  his  generals  as  had  been  guilty 
of  a  fault,  obliged  them  to  lay  aside  the  tiara.  The  Em- 
peror Domitian  caused  the  hair  and  beard  of  the  philoso- 
pher Apollonius  to  be  shaved. — Paxton. 


ESTHER 


CHAPTER  I. 
Ver.  5.  A.nd  when  these  days  were  expired,  the 
king-  made  a  feast  unto  all  the  people  that  were 
present  in  Shushan  the  palace,  both  unto  great 
and  small,  seven  days,  in  the  court  of  the  gar- 
den of  the  king's  palace ;  6.  Where  were  white, 
'  green,  and  blue  hangings,  fastened  with  cords 
01  fine  linen  and  purple  to  silver  rings  and  pil- 
ars of  marble  :  the  beds  loere  of  gold  and  silver, 
upon  a  pavement  of  red,  and  blue,  and  white, 
and  black  marble. 

In  the  houses  of  the  fashionable  and  the  gay,  the  lower 
part  of  rhe  walls  is  adorned  with  rich  hangings  of  velvet 
.or  damask,  tinged  with  the  liveliest  colours,  suspended  on 
hooks,  ur  taken  down  at  pleasure.  A  correct  idea  of  their 
richness  and  splendour  may  be  formed  from  the  description 
which  tiie  inspired  writer  has  given  of  the  hangings  in  the 
royal  garden  at  Shushan,  the" ancient  capital  of  Persia: 
"  Where  were  white,  green,  and  blue  hangings,  fastened 
with  cords  of  fine  linen  and  purple  to  silver  rings  and  pil- 
lars of  marble."  The  upper  part  of  the  walls  is  adorned 
with  the  most  ingenious  wreaihings  and  devices,  in  stucco 
and  fret-work.  The  ceiling  is  generally  of  wainscot,  paint- 
ed with  great  art,  or  else  thrown  into  a  variety  of  panels, 
with  gilded  mouldings.  In  the  days  of  Jeremiah  the  prophet, 
when  the  profusion  and  luxury  of  all  ranks  in  Judea  were 
at  their  height,  their  chambers  were  ceiled  with  fragrant 
and  costly  wood,  and  painted  with  the  richest  colours.  Of 
this  extravagance,  the  indignant  seer  loudly  complains: 
"  Wo  unto  him  that  saith,  I  will  build  me  a  wide  house 
and  large  chambers,  and  cutteth  him  out  windows  :  and  it 
is  ceiled  with  cedar,  and  painted  with  vermilion."  The 
floors  of  these  splendid  apartments  were  laid  with  painted 
tiles,  or  slabs  of  the  most  beautiful  marble.  A  pavement  of 
this  kind  is  mentioned  in  the  book  of  Esther  :  at  the  sump- 
tuous entertainment  which  Ahasuerus  made  for  the  princes 
and  nobles  of  his  vast  empire,  "  the  beds,"  or  couches, 
upon  which  they  reclined,  "  were  of  gold  and  silver,  upon 
a  pavement  of  red,  and  blue,  and  white,  and  black  marble." 
Plaster  of  terrace  is  often  used  for  the  same  purpose  ;  and 
the  floor  is  always  covered  with  carpets,  which  are,  for  the 
most  part,  of  the  richest  materials.  Upon  these^  carpets, 
a  range  of  narrow  beds,  or  mattresses,  is  often  placed 
along  the  sides  of  the  wall,  with  velvet  or  flamask  bolsters, 
for  the  greater  ease  and  convenience  of  the  company.  To 
these  luxurious  indulgences  the  prophets  occasionally  seem 
to  allude :  Ezekiel  was  commanded  to  pronounce  a  "  wo 
to  the  women  that  sew  pillows  to  all  arm-holes;"  and 
Amos  denounces  the  judgments  of  his  God  against  them 
"that  lie  upon  beds  of  ivory,  and  stretch  themselves 
upon  their  couches,  and  eat  the  lambs  out  of  the  flock,  and 
the  calves  out  of  the  midst  of  the  stall." — Paxton. 

To  give  some  idea  of  the  grandeur  of  this  feast,  we  may 
remark,  that  in  eastern  countries  their  houses  are  built 
round  a  court,  in  which,  upon  extraordinary  occasions, 
company  is  entertained,  being  strewed  with  mats  and  car- 
pets. And  as  the  court  lies  open  to  the  sky,  it  is  usual,  in 
the  summer,  to  have  it  sheltered  from  the  heat  of  the  sun, 
by  a  large  awning  or  veil,  which  bei^ig  extended  upon  ropes 
reaching  across  the  court,  from  one  side  of  the  top  of  the 
house  to  the  other,  may  be  folded  or  unfolded  at  pleasure. 
The  Psalmist  seems  to  allude  to  some  covering  of  this  kind, 
Ps.  104.  2 :  "  Who  stretchest  out  the  heavens  like  a  cur- 
tain." Is.  40.2.  (Shaw's  Travels,  p.  247.)  Now  the  Persian 
king  entertained  the  whole  city  of  Shushan,  great  and 
small,  for  seven  days  together,  in  the  court  of  the  garden 
of  the  king's  palace.    In  that  garden  we  must  suppose  a 


very  spacious  area,  probably  containing  many  acres,  cu- 
riously paved,  and  having  lofty  columns  of  marble,  erected 
in  rows  at  proper  distances;  to  the  tops  of  those  columns 
were  fixed  rings  of  silver,  through  which  they  drew  pur- 
ple cords  of  fine  linen,  across  from  row  to  row,  and  from 
pillar  to  pillar;  and  over  those  cords  they  spread  large 
sheets  of  delicate  calico,  possibly  painted  with  blue,  which 
would  make  a  very  splendid  and  beautiful  sky  over  all  the 
court,  and  a  delightful  shade  to  all  the  guests.  Instead  of 
mats  and  carpets,  they  had  beds,  or  couches,  of  gold  and 
silver,  to  sit  upon,  and  were  served  with  wine  in  vessels 
of  gold.  This  is  probably  the  idea  we  are  to  entertain  of 
the  furniture  of  this  gorgeous  banquet, — Taylor's  Concord- 
ance. 

Dr.  Russel  does  not  represent  the  pavement  of  the  courts 
as  all  mosaic  work,  and  equally  adorned,  but  he  tells  us, 
that  it  is  usually  that  part  that  lies  between  the  fountain  and 
the  arched  alcove  on  the  south  side,  that  is  thus  beautified, 
supposing  that  there  is  but  one  alcove  in  a  court;  howeverj 
it  should  seem  in  some  other  parts  of  the  East,  there  are 
several  of  these  alcoves  opening  into  the  court.  Maun- 
drell,  who  calls  them  duans,  in  his  account  of  the  houses  of 
Damascus,  says  expressly,  that  they  have  generally  several 
on  all  sides  of  the  court,  "being  placed  at  such  ditTerent 
points,  that  at  one  or  other  of  them  you  may  always  have 
either  the  shade  or  the  sun,  which  you  please."  Are  not 
the.se  alcoves,  or  duans,  of  which,  according  to  this,  there 
might  be  several  in  the  court  of  the  palace  of  Ahasuerus, 
what  the  sacred  writer  means  by  the  beds  adorned  with  sil- 
ver and  gold  1  Esth.  i.  6.  I  shall  elsewhere  show,  that  the 
bed  where  Esther  was  sitting,  and  on  which  Haman  threw 
himself,  must  more  resemble  the  modern  oriental  duans, 
or  divans,  than  the  beds  on  which  the  Romans  reclined  at 
their  entertainments  ;  and  consequently  it  is  more  natural 
to  understand  those  beds  of  these  alcoves,  or  duans,  richly 
adorned  with  gold  and  silver,  while  on  the  lower  variega- 
ted pavements  carpets  were  also  ,laid,  for  the  reception  of 
those  that  could  not  find  a  place  in  these  duans  ;  on  which 
pavements.  Dr.  Shaw  tells  us,  they  are  wont,  in  Barbary, 
when  much  company  is  to  be  entertained,  to  strew  mats  and 
carpets. — Harmer. 

Ver.  9.  Also  Vashti  the  queen  made  a  feast  for 
the  women  in  the  royal  house  which  belonged 
to  King  Ahasuerus. 

The  women  are  not  permitted  to  associate  with  the  other 
sex  at  an  eastern  banquet ;  but  they  are  allowed  to  enter- 
tain one  another  in  their  own  apartments.  When  Aha- 
suerus, the  king  of  Persia,  treated  all  the  people  of  his 
capital  with. a  splendid  feast,  Vashti,  the  queen,  we  are 
informed,  "  made  a  banquet  for  the  women  in  the  royal 
house,  which  belonged  to  King  Ahasuerus.  This,  observes 
Chardin,  is  the  custom  of  all  the  East ;  the  women  have 
their  feasts  at  the  same  time,  but  apart  from  the  men.  And 
Maillet  informs  us,  in  his  letters,  that  the  same  custom  is 
observed  in  Egypt.  This  is  undoubtedly  the  reason  that 
the  prophet  distinctly  mentions  "  the  voice  of  the  bride- 
groom, and  the  voice  of  the  bride ;"  he' means  that  the  noise 
of  nuptial  mirth  was  heard  in  diflferent  apartments.  The 
personal  voices  of  the  newly  married  pair  cannot  be  un- 
derstood, but  the  noisy  mirth  which  a  marriage  feast 
commonly  excites ;  for  in  Syria,  and  probably  in  all  the 
surrounding  cotmtries,  the  bride  is  condemned  to  absolute 
silence,  and  fixed  by  remorseless  etiquette  to  the  spot  where 
she  has  been  seated.  When  the  banquet  was  finished,  and 
the  guests  had  removed,  the  poor  came  in  and  ate  up  the 
fragments,  so  that  nothing  was  lost.  This  custom  will 
account  for  the  command  to  the  servants,  in  the  parable  of 
the  supper,  "  Go  out  quickly  into  the  streets  and  lanes  of 
the  city,  and  bring  in  hither  the  poor,  and  the  maimed. 


Chap.  1. 


ESTHER. 


319 


and  the  halt,  and  the  blind.  And  the  servant  said,  Lord,  it 
is  done  as  thou  hast  commanded,  and  yet  there  is  room. 
And  the  lord  said  unto  the  servant,  Go  out  into  the  high- 
ways, and  hedges,  and  compel  them  to  come  in,  that  my 
house  may  be  tiled."  These  poor  and  destitute  persons 
were  called  to  the  entertainment  only  before  the  time  when, 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  country,  they  were  expected 
to  attend. — Paxton. 

Females,  in  the  East,  never  have  their  feasts  in  the  same 
room  as  the  men,  because  it  would  be  highly  indecorous  to- 
wards their  lords,  and  they  would  not  be  able  to  go  to  those 
lengths  of  merriment,  as  when  alone.  On  meeting,  they 
embrace,  and  smell  each  other ;  and  after  they  are  seated, 
comes  the  betel-leaf,  the  chunam,  and  the  areca-nuts.  Have 
their  lords  given  them  any  new  jewels  or  robes ;  they  are 
tioon  mentioned,  as  a  proof  of  the  favour  they  are  in  ;  and 
alter  they  have  finished  their  food,  shroots  and  scandal 
become  the  order  of  the  day. — Roberts. 

It  may  be  taken  as  a  general  rule,  that  wherever  our 
translators  have  inserted  a  number  of  words  in  italic,  they 
have  been  embarrassed  to  make  sense  of  the  passage ;  and 
some  have  been  inclined  to  think,  that  in  proportion  to  the 
number  of  words  inserted,  is  the  probability  of  their  having 
missed  the  true  import  of  the  place.  Without  adopting  this 
notion,  we  may  venture  to  ask  the  reader,  whether  he  has 
been  satisfied  with  the  ideas  communicated  in  the  first 
chapter  of  Esther  1 — "The  king  made  a  feast  to  all  the 
people  that  were  present  at  Shushan,  the  palace;  both  unto 
great  and  small,  seven  days,  in  the  court  of  the  garden  of 
the  king's  palace  5  where  were  white,  green,  and  blue 
hangings,  fastened  with  cords  of  fine  linen,  and  purple,  to 
silver  rmgs  and  pillars  of  marble;  the  beds  were  of  gold, 
and  silver,  upon  a  pavement  of  red,  and  blue,  and  white, 
and  black  marble."  What  are  we  to  understand  by  all 
ihisi  hangings  fastened  to  silver  rings,  to  pillars  of  mar- 
ble 1  cords  made  of  fine  linen  1  beds  of  gold  and  silver, 
laid  on  the  pavement?  (fcc.  Commentators  give  very  little 
information  on  this  passage:  and  it  is  much  better  to  trust 
at  once  to  ourselves,  than  to  transcribe  their  conjectures. 

The  first  thing  observable  is  the  canopy  covering  the 
court :  it  was  of  white  canvass,  {carpas,  vs-^d-.)  the  braces  of 
it  were  blue,  (rins  n'7:3ni)  that  is,  the  cords,  <*tc.  used  to 
support  this  canopy,  and  to  keep  it  in  its  place,  properly 
extended,  &c.  over  head.  Secondly,  in  the  court  below 
were  pavilions,  platforms,  or  railed  divisions  [the  word 
chebeli  (^"^^n)  signifies  the  railed  deck  of  a  ship]  of  linen 
[or,  hung  with  linen]  and  of  aragaman,  [calico  1  fine 
cotton '?]  upon  railings  of  silver  pillars — smaller  pillars 
{galili,  i^^Sj)  silvered  over,  and  columns  of  white  marble ; 
and  the  divan  cushions  were  embroidered  with  gold  and 
silver :  these  were  placed  upon  mustabys  of  porphyry  (red 
marble)  and  white  marble,  and  round-spotted  marble,  and 
marble  with  wandering,  irregular  veins.  To  justify  this 
description,  w-e  shall  first  consider  the  canopy ;  the  reader 
will  judge  of  its  probability  and  use  by  the  following  quo- 
tations : — 

"  Among  the  ruins  remaining  at  Persepolis,  is  a  court, 
containing  many  lofty  pillars:  one  may  even  presume  that 
these  columns  did  not  support  any  architrave,  as  Sir  John 
Chardin  has  observed,  but  we  may  venture  to  suppose,  that 
a  covering  of  tapestry,  or  linen,  was  drawn  over  them,  to 
intercept  the  perpendicular  projection  of  the  sunbeams.  It 
is  also  probable  that  the  tract  of  ground  where  most  of  the 
columns  stand,  was  originally  a  court  before  the  palace, 
like  that  which  was  before  the  king's  house  at  Susa,  men- 
tioned Esther,  chap.  v.  and  through  which  a  flow  of  fresh 
air  was  admitted  into  the  apartments." — (Le  Bruyn.)  This 
idea  of  Le  Bruyn,  formed  almost  on  the  spot,  supports  our 
suggestion  of  a  canopy  covering  the  court.  It  is  confirmed 
also  by  the  custom  of  India.  We  have  been  told  by  a  gen- 
tleman from  whom  we  requested  information  on  this  sub- 
ject, that  "  at  the  festival  of  Burma  Rajah,  in  Calcutta,  the 
great  court  of  a  very  large  house  is  overspread  with  a 
covering  made  of  canvass,  lined  with  calico ;  and  this  lining 
is  ornamented  with  broad  stripes,  of  various  colou.'s,  in 
which  (in  India,  observe)  green  predominates.  On  occa- 
sion of  this  festival,  which  is  held  only  once  in  three  years, 
the  master  of  the  house  gives  wine  and  cake,  and  other 
refreshments,  to  the  English  gentlemen  and  ladies  who 
wish  to  see  the  ceremonies ;  he  also  gives  payment,  as  well 
as  hospitality,  to  those  who  perform  them."  That  such  a 
covering  would  be  necessary  in  hot  climates  we  may  easily 


suppose ;  nor  is  the  supposition  enfeebled  by  remarking, 
that  the  coliseum,  or  Flavian  amphitheatre,  at  Rome,  has 
still  remaining  on  its  walls  the  marks  of  the  masts,  or 
scaffoldings,  which  were  erected  when  that  immense  area 
was  covered  with  an  aw^ning,  as  it  was  during  the  shows 
exhibited  there  to  the  Roman  public.  The  word  rendered 
brace  (nns)  signifies  to  catch,  to  lay  hold  of,  to  connect;  it 
may  be  thought  that  these  braces  went  from  side  to  side  of 
the  house ;  were  fastened  to  proper  projections,  high  in  the 
sides  of  the  building;  and,  passing  under  the  white  canvass, 
blue  braces  must  have  had  an  ornamental  effect.  In  the 
lower  part  of  the  court  the  preparations  consisted  in  what 
may  be  called  a  railed  platform  on  a  mustaby :  what  these 
were  the  reader  will  understand,  by  an  extract  from  Dr. 
Russel's  History  of  Aleppo. 

"  Part  of  the  principal  court  is  planted  with  trees,  and 
flowering  shrubs ;  the  rest  is  paved.  At  the  south  end  is  a 
square  basin  of  water,  with  jetsd'eaux,  and  close  to  it,  upon 
a  stone  mustaby,  is  built  a  small  pavilion  :  or  the  mustaby 
being  only  railed  in,  an  open  divan  is  occasionally  formed 
on  it.  [Note,  a  mustaby  is  a  stone  platform,  raised  about 
two  or  three  feet  above  the  pavement  of  the  court.]  This 
being  some  steps  higher  than  the  basin,  a  small  fountain  is 
usually  placed  in  the  middle  of  the  divan,  the  mosaic  pave- 
ment round  which  being  constantly  wetted  by  the  jd  d'eau, 
displays  a  variety  of  splendid  colours,  and  the  water,  as 
it  runs  to  the  basin  through  marble  channels,  vhich  are 
rough  at  bottom,  produces  a  pleasing  murmur;  Where 
the  size  of  the  court  admits  of  a  larger  shrubbery,  tempo- 
rary divans  are  placed  in  the  grove,  or  arbours  are  formed 
of  slight  latticed  frames,  covered  by  the  vine,  the  rose,  or 
the  jasmine  ;  the  rose  shooting  to  a  most  luxuriant  height, 
when  in  full  flower,  is  elegantly  picturesque.  Facing  the 
basin,  on  the  south  side  of  the  court,  is  a  wide,  lofty,  arched 
alcove,  about  eighteen  inches  higher  than  the  pavement, 
and  entirely  open  to  the  court.  It  is  painted  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  apartments,  but  the  roof  is  finished  in  plain 
or  gilt  stucco ;  and  the  floor  round  a  small  fountain  is 
paved  with  marble  of  sundry  colours,  with  a  jet  d'eau  in 
the  middle.  A  large  divan  is  here  prepared,  but  being 
intended  for  the  summer,  chints  and  Cairo  mats  are  em- 
ployed instead  of  cloth,  velvet,  and  carpets.  It  is  called,  by 
way  of  distinction.  The  Divan,  and  by  its  north  aspect,  and 
a  sloping  painted  shed  projecting  over  the  arch,  being  pro- 
tected from  the  sun,  it  ofl^ers  a  delicious  situation  in  the  hot 
months.  The  sound,  not  less  than  the  sight,  of  \he  jetsd'eaux, 
is  extremely  refreshing;  and  if  there  be  a  breath  of  air 
stirring,  it  arrives  scented  by  the  Arabian  jasmine,  the 
henna,  and  other  fragrant  plants,  growing  in  the  shrubbery, 
or  ranged  in  pots  round  the  basin.  There  is  usually  on 
each  side  of  the  alcove  a  small  room,  or  cabinet,  neatly 
fitted  up,  and  serving  for  retirement.  These  rooms  are 
called  kubbe,  whence  probably  the  Spaniards  derived  their 
al  coba  which  is  rendered  by  some  other  nations  in  Europe, 
alcove.  In  another  part  t)r.  Russel  gives  a  print  of  a 
mustaby,  with  sundry  musicians  sitting  on  it,  on  which  he 
observes,  "The  front  of  the  stone  mustaby  is  fitted  with 
marble  of  different  colours.  Part  of  the  court  is  paved  in 
mosaic,  in  the  manner  represented  in  the  print."  This 
print  "shows,  in  miniature,  the  inner  court  of  a  great 
house.  The  doors  of  the  kaah,  and  part  of  the  cupola, 
appear  in  front ;  on  the  side,  the  high  arched  alcove,  or 
divan,  with  the  shed  above;  the  marble  facing  of  the  mus- 
taby, the  mosaic  pavement  between  that  and  the  basin,  and 
the  fountain  playing." 

This  account  of  Dr.  Russel's  harmonizes  perfectly  with 
the  history  in  Esther,  and  we  have  only  to  imagine  that  the 
railings,  or  smaller  pillars  of  the  divan,  on  the  mustaby  in 
the  palace  of  Ahasuerus,  were  of  silver,  (silver-gilt,)  while 
the  larger,  called  columns,  placed  at  the  corners,  or  else- 
where, were  of  marble;  the  flat  part  of  the  mustaby  also 
being  overspread  with  carpets,  &c.  on  which,  next  the  rail- 
ings, were  cushions  richly  embroidered,  for  the  purpose  of 
being  leaned  against.  These  things,  mentioned  in  the 
scripture  narration,  if  placed  according  to  the  doctor's  ac- 
count, enable  us  to  comprehend  the  whole  of  the  Bible  de- 
scription, and  justify  every  word  in  it.  That  the  last  three 
words  describe  three  different  kinds  of  marble,  of  which 
the  mustaby  of  Ahasuerus  was  composed,  is  evident  from 
the  signification  of  their  roots.  And  as  to  the  linen  which 
was  appended  to  the  railings,  with  its  accompanying  ara- 
gaman, we  may  ask,  if  this  word  signifies  jp^^r^Ze,  what  was 


320 


^    ESTHER. 


Chap.  1—5. 


the  subject  of  it,  silk,  worsted,  or  cotton'?  Was  it  the  chints 
of  Dr.  Russel  1  or  was  it  of  the  diaper  kind,  that  is,  figured 
'Jinen  1  or  was  it  calico  1  which,  on  the  whole,  we  think  it 
was. — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  11.  To  bring  Vashti  the  queen  before  the 
king,  witii  the  crown  royal,  to  show  the  people 
and  the  princes  her  beauty :  for  she  was  fair  to 
look  on. 

The  Persians,  on  festival  occasions,  used  to  produce  their 
women  in  public.  To  this  purpose  Herodotus  relates  a 
story  of  seven  Persians  being  sent  to  Aijtiyntas,  a  Grecian 
prince,  who  received  them  hospitably,  and  gave  them  a 
splendid  entertainment.  When,  after  the  entertainment, 
they  began  to  drink,  one  of  the  Persians  thus  addressed 
Amyntas:  "  Prince  of  Macedonia,  it  is  a  custom  with  us 
Persians,  whenever  we  have  a  public  entertainment,  to 
introduce  our  concubines  and  young  wives."  On  this  prin- 
ciple Ahasuerus  gave  command  to  bring  his  queen  Vashti 
into  the  public  assembly. — Burder. 

Ver.  12.  But  the  queen  Vashti  refused  to  come 
at  the  king's  commandment  by  his  chamber- 
lains :  therefore  was  the  king  very  wroth,  and 
his 'anger  burned  in  him. 

When  a  person  is  speaking  to  you,  on  almost  any  sub- 
ject, he  keeps  saying  every  moment,  "Be  not  angry,  my 
lord;"  or,  "Let  not  your  anger  burn."  Judah  said  to 
Joseph,  "Let  not  thine  anger  burn."  "Go  not  near  that 
man  ;  his  anger  is  on  fire."  "  Well,  well,  what  is  the  mat- 
ter with  that  fellow'?"  "  Not  much ;  some  one  has  put  the 
torch  to  his  anger."  "  Go,  throw  some  water  on  that  fire, 
or  it  will  not  soon  be  out." — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  9.  And  the  maiden  pleased  him,  and  she 
obtained  kindness  of  him  ;  and  he  speedily  gave 
her  her  things  for  purification,  with  such  things 
as  belonged  to  her,  and  seven  maidens,  which 
were  meet  to  be  given  her,  out  of  the  king's 
house :  and  he  preferred  her  and  her  maids 
unto  the  best  place  of  the  house  of  the  women. 

After  these  presents  followed  eleven  caroches  (coaches) 
full  of  young  maidens,  slaues  to  serue  the  bride :  these 
caroches  were  couered  and  shut,  and  either  of  them  at- 
tended by  eunuchs,  Moores :  after  these  followed  twenty- 
eight  virgins'  slaues,  attired  in  cloth  of  gold,  and  accom- 
panied by  twenty-eight  blacke  eunuchs  all  on  horsebacke, 
and  richly  clad.  After  which  were  seen  two  hundred  and 
forty  mules,  loaden  with  tents  of  tapestrie,  cloath  of  gold, 
sattm,  veluet,  with  the  ground  of  gold,  with  many  cushions, 
which  are  the  chaires  the  ladies  of  Turkic  use,  with  many 
other  rich  and  sumptuous  moueables.  (Knolles's  History 
of  the  Turks.)— Burder. 

Ver.  11.  And  Mordecai  walked  every  day  before 
the  court  of  the  women's  house,  to  know  how 
Esther  did,  and  what  should  become  of  her. 

The  apartments  of  the  women  are  counted  sacred  and 
inviolable,  over  all  the  East ;  it  is  even  a  crime  to  inquire 
what  passes  within  the  walls  of  the  harem,  or  house  of  the 
women.  Hence,  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  be  informed  of 
the  transactions  in  those  sequestered  habitations;  and  a 
man,  says  Chardin,  may  walk  a  hundred  days,  one  after 
-mother,  by  the  house  where  the  women  are,  and  yet  know 
.'.D  more  what  is  done  there  than  at  the  farther  end  of  Tar- 
tary.  This  sufficiently  explains  the  reason  of  Mordecai's 
conduct,  who  "  walked  every  day  before  the  court  of  the 
women's  house,  to  know  how  Esther  did,  and  what  should 
become  of  her."—  Paxton. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  7.  In  the  first  month,  (that  is  the  month  Ni- 
san,)  in  the  twelfth  year  of  King  Ahasuerus, 


they  cast  Pur,  that  is,  the  lot,  before  Haman, 
from  day  to  day,  and  from  month  to  month,  to 
the  twelfth  month,  that  is  the  month  Adar. 

It  was  customary  in  the  East,  by  casting  lots  into  an  urn, 
to  inquire  what  days  would  be  fortunate,  and  what  not,  to 
undertake  any  business  in.  According  to  this  superstitious 
practice,  Haman  endeavoured  to  find  out  ^vhat  time  in  the 
year  was  most  favourable  to  the  Jews,  and  what  most  un- 
lucky. First  he  inquired  what  month  was  most  unfortu- 
nate, and  found  the  month  Adar,  which  was  the  last  month 
in  the  year,  answerable  to  our  February.  There  was  no 
festival  during  this  month,  nor  was  it  sanctified  by  any  pe- 
culiar rites.  Then  he  inquired  the  day,  and  found  the  thir- 
teenth day  was  not  auspicious  to  them,  ver.  13.  Some  think 
there  were  as  many  lots  as  there  were  days  in  the  year,  and 
for  every  day  he  drew  a  lot ;  but  found  none  to  his  mind,  till 
he  came  to  the  last  month  of  all,  and  to  the  middle  of  it. 
Now  this  whole  business  was  governed  by  providence,  by 
which  these  lots  were  directed,  and  not  by  the  Persian  gods, 
to  fall  in  the  last  month  of  the  year ;  whereby  almost  a 
whole  year  intervened  between  the  design  and  its  execu- 
tion, and  gave  time  for  Mordecai  to  acquaint  Esther  with 
it,  and  for  her  to  intercede  with  the  king  for  the  reversing, 
or  suspending  his  decree,  and  disappointing  the  conspira- 
cy.— Patrick. 

Ver.  10.  And  the  king  took  his  ring  from  his 
hand,  and  gave  it  unto  Haman  the  son  of  Ham- 
medatha  the  Agagite,  the  Jews'  enemy. 

This  he  did  both  as  a  token  of  afiection  and  honour. 
With  the  Persians,  for  a  king  to  give  a  ring  to  any  one, 
was  a  token  and  bond  of  the  greatest  love  and  friendship 
imaginable.  It  may  be  this  was  given  to  Haman  to  seal 
with  it  the  letters  that  were  or  should  be  written,  giving  or- 
ders for  the  destruction  of  the  Jews.  Among  the  Romans, 
in  aftertimes,  when  any  one  was  put  into  the  equestrian  or- 
der, a  ring  was  given  to  him,  for  originally  none  but  knights 
were  allowed  to  wear  them.  It  was  sometimes  used  in  ap- 
pointing a  successor  in  the  kingdom:  as  when  Alexander 
was  dying,  he  took  his  ring  from  off  his  finger,  and  gave  it 
to  Perdiccas,  by  which  it  was  understood  that  he  was  to 
succeed  him. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  6.  And  the  king  said  unto  Esther  at  the 
banquet  of  wine,  What  is  thy  petition  ?  and  it 
shall  be  granted  thee :  and  what  is  thy  request  ? 
even  to  the  half  of  the  kingdom  it  shall  be  per- 
formed. 

The  time  of  drinking  wine  in  the  East,  is  at  the  begin- 
ning, not  at  the  close  of  entertainments,  as  it  is  with  us. 
Sir  John  Chardin  has  corrected  an  error  of  a  French  com- 
mentator, as  to  this  point,  in  his  manuscript  note  on  Esther 
V.  6.  It  seems  the  commentator  had  supposed  the  banquet 
of  wine  meant  the  dessert,  because  this  is  our  custom  in 
the  West ;  but  he  observes,  "  that  the  eastern  people,  on  the 
contrary,  drink  and  discourse  before  eating,  and  that  after 
the  rest  is  served  up,  the  feast  is  quickly  over,  they  eating 
very  fast,  and  every  one  presently  withdrawing.  They 
conduct  matters  thus  at  the  royal  table,  and  at  those  of  their 
great  men."  Dr.  Castell,  in  his  Lexicon,  seems  to  have 
been  guilty  of  the  same  fault,  by  a  quotation  annexed  to 
that  note. 

Chardin's  account  agrees  with  that  of  Olearius,  who  tells 
us,  that  when  the  ambassadors  he  attended  were  at  the  Per- 
sian court,  "  at  a  solemn  entertainment,  the  floor  of  the 
hall  was  covered  with  a  cotton  cloth,  which  was  covered 
with  all  sorts  of  fruits  and  sweetmeats,  in  basins  of  gold. 
That  with  them  was  served  up  excellent  Shiras  wme. 
That  after  an  hour's  time,  the  sweetmeats  were  removed, 
to  make  way  for  the  more  substantial  part  of  the  entertain- 
ment, such  as  rice,  boiled  and  roasted  mutton,  fowl,  game, 
&c.  That  after  having  been  at  table  an  hour  and  a  half, 
warm  water  was  brought,  in  a  ewer  of  gold,  for  washing ; 
and  grace  being  said,  they  began  to  retire  without  speaking 
a  word,  according  to  the  "custom  of  the  country,  as  also  did 


Chap.  6. 


ESTHER. 


321 


the  ambassadors  soon  after."  This  is  Olearius's  account, 
in  short :  by  which  it  appears,  that  wine  was  brought  first ; 
that  the  time  of  that  part  of  the  entertainment  was  double 
♦o  the  other ;  and  that  immediately  after  eating  they  with- 
drew. This  was  the  practice  of  the  modern  court  of  Per- 
sia, and  probably  might  be  so  in  the  days  of  Ahasuerus. 
Unluckily,  Diodati  and  Dr.  Castell  did  not  attend  to  this 
circumstance,  in  speaking  of  the  banquet  of  wine  prepared 
by  Clueen  Esther.— Harmer. 

Ver.  9.  Then  went  Haman  forth  that  day  joyful 
and  with  a  glad  heart :  but  when  Haman  saw 
Mordecai  in  the  king's  gate,  that  he  stood  not 
up,  nor  moved  for  him,  he  was  full  of  indig- 
nation against  Mordecai. 

This  is,  indeed,  a  graphic  sketch  of  eastern  manners. 
The  colours  are  so  lively  and  so  fresh,  that  they  might 
have  been  but  the  work  of  yesterday.  See  the  native  gen- 
tleman, at  the  head  of  his  courtly  train:  he  moves  along  in 
pompous  guise,  and  all  who  see  him  arise  from  their  seats, 
take  off  their  sandals,  and  humbly  move  in  reverence  to 
him.  To  some  he  gives  a  graceful  wave  of  the  hand ;  to 
others  not  a  word  nor  a  look.  Should  there  be  one  who 
neither  stands  up  nor  moves  to  him,  his  name  and  place  of 
abode  will  be  inquired  after,  and  the  first  opportunity 
eagerly  embraced  to  glut  his  revenge.  The  case  of  Mut- 
too-Chadde-Appa,  modeliar  of  the  Dutch  governor  Van 
de  Graaff's  gate,  is  illustrative  of  this  disposition.  A 
Moorman  of  high  bearing  and  great  riches  had  purchased 
the  rent  of  the  pearl  fishery  of  the  bay  of  Ondachy,  and, 
in  consequence,  \^as  a  person  of  great  influence  among  the 
people.  The  proud  modeliar  was  one  day  passing  along 
the  road,  where  was  seated  on  his  carpet  the  renter  of  the 
pearl  fisliery.  He  arose  not,  moved  not  to  him,  when  pass- 
ing by,  and  the  modeliar's  soul  was  fired  with  indignation. 
He  forthwith  resolved  upon  his  ruin,  and,  by  deeply-formed 
intrigues,  too  well  succeeded.  The  rent  was  taken  from 
the  Moorman ;  the  money  he  had  advanced  to  the  head- 
men, the  officers,  the  boatmen,  the  divers,  and  others,  was 
lost;  his  estates  were  sold;  and,  to  make  up  the  deficiency, 
he  himself  was  disposed  of  by  auction  for  four  hundred 
and  twenty-five  rix-dollars,  and  the  modeliar  became  the 
purchaser. — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  Haman  said  moreover,  Yea,  Esther  the 
queen  did  let  no  man  come  in  with  the  king 
unto  the  banquet  that  she  had  prepared  but 
myself;  and  to-morrow  am  I  invited  unto  her 
also  with  the  king. 

The  kings  of  Persia  very  seldom  admitted  a  subject  to 
their  table.  Athenaeus  mentions  it  as  a  peculiar  honour, 
which  no  Grecian  enjoyed  before  or  after,  that  Artaxerxes 
condescended  to  invite  'Timogoras,the  Cretan,  to  dine  even 
at  the  table  where  his  relations  ate ;  and  to  send  sometimes 
a  part  of  what  was  served  up  at  his  own ;  which  some  per- 
sons looked  upon  as  a  diminution  of  his  majesty,  and  a 
prostitution  of  their  national  honour.  Plutarch,  in  his  life 
of  Artaxerxes,  tells  us,  that  none  but  the  king's  mother, 
and  his  real  wife,  were  permitted  to  sit  at  his  table  ;  and 
he  therefore  mentions  it  as  a  condescension  in  that  prince, 
that  he  sometimes  invited  his  brothers.  Haman,  the  prime 
minister  of  Ahasuerus,  had  therefore  some  reason  to  value 
himself  upon  the  invitation  which  he  received,  to  dine 
•with  the  king:  "  Haman  said,  moreover,  Yea,  Esther  the 
queen  let  no  man  come  in  with  the  king,  into  the  banquet 
which  she  had  prepared,  but  myself;  and  to  morrow  am  I 
invited  unto  her  also  with  the  king."  The  same  ambitious 
minister  received  another  mark  of  great  distinction  from 
his  master :  "  The  king  took  his  ring  from  his  hand,  and 
gave  it  unto  Haman."  This  he  did,  both  as  a  token  of 
affection  and  honour ;  for  when  the  king  of  Persia  gives  a 
ring  to  any  one,  it  is  a  token  and  bond  of  the  greatest  love 
and  friendship.  "  Here  also,"  says  Mr.  Forbes,  "  we  see 
an  exact  description  of  the  mode  of  conferring  honour  on 
the  favourite  of  a  sovereign,  a  princely  dress,  a  horse,  and 
a  ring;  these  are  now  the  usual  presents  to  foreign  ambas- 
sadors, and  between  one  Indian  prince  and  another. — Pax- 
ton. 

41 


CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  1.  On  that  night  could  not  the  king  sleep; 
and  he  commanded  to  bring  the  book  of  rec- 
ords of  the  Chronicles;    and  they  were  read 
before  the  king. 

That  which  was  practised  in  the  court  of  Ahasuerus,  in 
the  passage  now  referred  to,  appears  to  have  been  customary 
in  the  Ottoman  porte.  "  It  was  likewise  found  in  the 
records  of  the  empire,  that  the  last  war  with  Russia  had 
occasioned  the  fitting  out  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  galliots, 
intended  to  penetrate  into  the  sea  of  Azoph:  and  the  par- 
ticulars mentioned  in  the  account  of  the  expenses  not  spe- 
cifying the  motives  of  this  armament,  it  was  forgotten  that 
the  ports  of  Azoph  and  Taganrag  stood  for  nothing  in  the 
present  war;  the  building  of  the  galliots  was  ordered,  and 
carried  on  with  the  greatest  despatch."    (Baron  De  Tott.) 

"  The  king  has  near  his  person  an  ofiicer,  who  is  meant 
to  be  his  historiographer ;  he  is  also  keeper  of  his  seal, 
and  is  obliged  to  make  a  journal  of  the  king's  actions,  good 
or  bad,  without  comment  of  his  own  upon  them.  This, 
when  the  king  dies,  or  at  least  soon  after,  is  delivered  to 
the  council,  who  read  it  over,  and  erase  every  thing  false 
in  it,  while  they  supply  every  material  fact  that  may  have 
been  omitted,  whether  purposely  or  not."  (Bruce.)— Burder. 

Ver.  7.  And  Haman  answered  the  king,  For  the 
man  whom  the  king  delighteth  to  honour,  8.  Let 
the  royal  apparel  be  brought  which  the  king 
useth  to  wear,  and  the  horse  that  the  king  rideth 
upon,  and  the  crown  royal  which  is  set  upon 
his  head :  9.  And  let  this  apparel  and  horse  be 
delivered  to  the  hand  of  one  of  the  king's  most 
noble  princes,  that  they  may  array  the  man 
withal  whom  the  king  delighteth  to  honour, 
and  bring  him  on  horseback  through  the  street 
of  the  city,  and  proclaim  before  him,  Thus  shall 
it  be  done  to  the  man  whom  the  king  delighteth 
to  honour. 

See  on  Matt.  11.21. 

Pitts  gives  an  account  of  a  cavalcade  at  Algiers,  upon  a 
person's  turning  Mohammedan,  which  is  designed  to  do  him, 
as  well  as  their  law,  honour.  "  The  apostate  is  to  get  on 
horseback,  on  a  stately  steed,  with  a  rich  saddle  and  fine 
trappings;  he  is  also  richly  habited,  and  hath  a  turban  on 
his  head,  IduI  nothing  of  this  is  to  be  called  his  own  ;  only 
there  are  given  him  about  two  or  three  yards  of  broadcloth, 
which  is  laid  before  him  on  the  saddle.  The  horse,  with 
him  on  his  back,  is  led  all  round  the  city,  which  he  is  sev- 
eral hours  in  doing.  The  apostate  is  attended  with  drums 
and  other  music,  and  twenty  or  thirty  sergeants.  These 
march  in  order,  on  each  side  of  the  horse,  with  naked 
swords  in  their  hands.  The  crier  goes  before,  with  a  loud 
voice  giving  thanks  to  God  for  the  proselyte  that  is  made." 
The  conformity  of  custom  in  the  instance  now  cited,  and  the 
passage  alluded  to  in  Esther,  must  appear  remarkable.— 
Burder. 

Herodotus  relates,  that  the  kings  of  Persia  had  horses 
peculiar  to  themselves,  that  were  brought  from  Armenia, 
and  were  remarkable  for  their  beauty.  If  the  same  law 
prevailed  in  Persia  as  did  in  Judea,  no  man  might  ride  on 
the  king's  horse,  any  more  than  sit  on  his  throne,  or  hold 
his  sceptre.  This  clearly  discovers  the  extent  of  Haman's 
ambition,  when  he  proposed  to  bring  **  the  royal  apparel 
which  the  king  used  to  wear,  and  the  horse  that  the  king 
rode  upon,  and  the  crown  which  is  set  upon  his  head." 
The  crown  royal  was  not  to  be  set  on  the  head  of  the  man, 
but  on  the  head  of  the  horse  ;  this  interpretation  is  allowed 
by  Aben  Ezra,  by  the  Targum,  and  by  the  Syriac  version. 
No  mention  is  afterward  made  of  the  crown,  as  set  upon  the 
head  of  Mordecai,  nor  would  Haman  have  dared  to  advise 
what,  by  the  laws  of  Persia,  could  not  be  granted.  But  it 
was  usual  to  put  the  crown  royal  on  the  head  of  a  horse 
led  in  state  ;  and  this  we  are  assured  is  a  custom  in  Peisia, 
as  it  is  with  the  Ethiopians,  to  this  day;  from  them  it  passed 
into  Italy;  for  the  horses  which  the  Romans  yoked  in  their 
triumphal  chariots  were  adorned  with  crowns. — Paxton. 


822 


ESTHER. 


Chap.  7—9. 


Very  few  English  readers  are  sufficiently  aware  of  the 
importance  attached  to  the  donation  of  robes  of  honour  in 
the  East.  They  mark  the  degree  of  estimation  in  which 
the  party  bestowing  them  holds  the  party  receiving  them  ; 
and  sometimes  the  conferring  or  the  withholding  of  them 
leads  to  very  serious  negotiation,  and  misunderstandings. 
"  The  prince  of  Shiraz,"  says  Mr.  Morier,  "  went  in  his 
greatest  state  to  Kalaat  Poushan,  there  to  meet  and  to  be 
invested  with  the  dress  of  honour,  which  was  sent  him  by 
the  king,  on  the  festival  of  No-Rouz.  Although  the  day  of 
the  festival  had  long  elapsed,  yet  the  ceremony  did  not  take 
place  until  this  time,  as  the  astrologers  did  not  announce  a 
day  sufficiently  fortunate  for  the  performance  of  an  act  of 
so  much  consequence  as  this  is  looked  upon  to  be  through- 
out Persia.  All  the  circumstances  attendant  upon  the  re- 
ception of  a  Kalaat  being  the  great  criterions  by  which  the 
public  may  judge  of  the  degree  of  influence  which  the  re- 
ceiver has  at  court,  every  intrigue  is  exerted  during  the 
preparation  of  the  Kalaat,  that  it  may  be  as  indicative  of  the 
royal  favour  as  possible.  The  person  who  is  the  bearer  of 
it,  the  expressions  used  in  the  firman,  which  announces  its 
having  been  conferred,  the  nature  of  the  Kalaat  itself,  are 
all  circumstances  that  are  examined  and  discussed  by  the 
Persian  public.  A  common  Kalaat  consists  of  a  caba,  or 
coat ;  a  kumTner-bund,  or  zone ;  a  gouch-peech,  or  shawl  for  the 
head : — when  it  is  intended  to  be  more  distinguishing,  a  sword 
or  a  dagger  is  added.  To  persons  of  distinction,  rich  furs 
are  given,  such  as  a  catabee,  or  a  conrdee ;  but  when  the  Ka- 
laat is  complete,  it  consists  exactly  of  the  same  articles  as  the 
present  which  Cyrus  made  to  Syennesis,  namely,  a  horse  with 
a  golden  bridle,  Xnrcov  x9'<^<^'^X"-^'^'"''^'i  ^  golden  chain,  arpEoSrov 
■\(pwovv ;  a  golden  sword,  dKivaKr)v  x9V(Tovv ;  besides  the  dress,  the 
nroXi\v  ViEpaiKhv,  which  is  complete  in  all  its  parts.  Such,  or 
nearly  such,  was  the  Kalaat  which  the  prince  went  out  to 
meet ;  and  consequently  he  gave  as  much  publicity  to  it  as 

he  could  devise The  prince  himself  was  conspicuous  at  a 

distance,  by  a  parasol  being  borne  over  his  head,  which,  to 
this  day,  is  a  privilege  allowed  only  to  royalty,  and  is  exem- 
plified by  the  sculptures  at  Persepolis,  where  the  principal 
personage  is  frequently  designated  by  a  parasol  carried  over 
him. . . .  The  road,  about  three  miles,  was  strewn  with  roses, 
and  watered ;  both  of  which  are  modes  of  doing  honour  to 
persons  of  distinction ;  and,  at  very  frequent  intervals,  glass 
vases,  filled  with  sugar,  were  broken  under  his  horses'  feet. 
The  treading  upon  su^ar  is  symbolical,  in  their  estimation, 
of  prosperity ;  the  scattering  of  flowers  was  a  ceremony 
performed  in  honour  of  Alexander,  on  his  entry  into  Baby- 
lon, and  has  perhaps  some  affinity  to  the  custom  of  cutting 
down  branches  off  the  trees,  and  strewing  them  in  the  way, 
as  was  practised  on  our  Saviour's  entry  into  Jerusalem, 
Mark  xi.  5.  The  other  circumstance,  '  the  spreading  of 
garments  in  the  way,'  is  used  in  the  scriptures  as  an- 
nouncing ;-oyalty." 

In  another  passage,  Mr.  Morier  observes,  that  the  Persian 
plenipotentiary  to  the  signature  of  a  treaty  with  Russia, 
"  at  first  was  at  a  loss  how  to  make  himself  equal  in  person- 
al distinctions  (and  numerous  titles)  to  the  Russian  nego- 
tiater ;  but  recollecting  that,  previous  to  his  departure,  his 
sovereign  had  honoured  him  by  a  present  of  one  of  his 
swords,  and  of  a  dagger  set  with  precious  stones,  to  wear 
which  is  a  peculiar  distinction  in  Persia ;  and  besides,  had 
•'lothed  him  with  one  of  his  own  shawl  robes,  a  distinction 
of  still  greater  value,  he  therefore  designated  himself  in  the 
preamble  of  the  treaty  as  endowed  with  the  special  gifts  of 
the  monarch,  lord  of  the  dagger  set  in  jewels,  of  the  sword 
adorned  with  gems,  and  of  the  shaivl  coat  already  worn. 
This  may  appear  ridiculous  to  us,  but  it  will  be  remem- 
bered that  the  bestowing  of  dresses  as  a  mark  of  honour 
amon^  eastern  nations,  is  one  of  the  most  ancient  customs 
recorded  both  in  sacred  and  profane  history.  We  may 
learn  how  great  was  the  distinction  of  giving  a  coat  already 
worn,  by  what  is  recorded  of  Jonathan's  love  for  David : 
'  And  Jonathan  stripped  himself  of  the  robe  that  was  upon 
him,  and  gave  it  to  David,  and  his  garments,  even  to  his 
sword,  and  to  his  bow,  and  to  his  girdle,'  (1  Sam.  xviii.  4 ;) 
and  also  in  the  history  of  Mordecai,  we  read,  'For  the  man 
whom  the  king  delighteth  to  honour,  let  the  royal  apparel 
fee  brought  which  the  king  used  to  wear,'  &c.  Esther  v.  7, 8." 
The  r  ?ader  will  be  pleased  with  these  additional  circum- 
stances and  authorities:  but,  perhaps,  he  will  do  well  to 
consider  the  sword,  the  bow,  and  the  girdle  of  Jonathan,  as 
viilitary  appendages,  and  as  peculiarly  referring  to  the  mil- 


itary exploits  of  David.  The  history  of  Mordecai  having 
taken  place  in  Persia,  every  custom  of  that  country,  by 
which  it  may  be  illustrated,  is  the  more  strictly  appropriate 
and  acceptable. — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
y er.  7.  And  the  king  arising  from  the  banquet 
of  Avine  in  his  wrath,  went  into  the  palace-gar- 
den :  and  Haman  stood  up  to  make  request  for 
his  life  to  Esther  the  queen ;  for  he  saw  that 
there  was  evil  determined  against  him  by  tht^ 
king. 

"  When  the  king  of  Persia,"  says  Tavernier,  "  orders  g 
person  to  be  executed,  and  then  rises,  and  goes  into  a  wo- 
man's apartment,  it  is  a  sign  that  no  mercy  is  to  be  hoped 
for."  But  even  the  sudden  rising  of  the  king  in  anger,  was 
the  same  as  if  he  had  pronounced  the  sentence  of  death. 
Olearius  relates  an  instance  of  it,  which  occurred  when  he 
was  in  Persia.  Schah  Sefi  once  felt  himself  ofiended  bv 
unseasonable  jokes,  which  one  of  his  favourites  allowed 
hirnself  in  his  presence.  The  king  immediately  rose  and 
retired,  upon  which  the  favourite  saw  that  his  life  was  for- 
feited. He  went  home  in  confusion,  and  in  a  few  hours 
afterward  the  king  sent  for  his  head. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  8.  Then  the  king  returned  out  of  the  palace- 
garden  into  the  place  of  the  banquet  of  wine  ; 
and  Haman  was  fallen  upon  the  bed  whereon 
Esther  was.  Then  said  the  king,  Will  he  force 
the  queen  also  before  me  in  the  house  ?  As  the 
word  went  out  of  the  king's  mouth,  they  cover- 
ed Haman's  face. 

The  majesty  of  the  kings  of  Persia  did  not  allow  male- 
factors to  look  at  them.  As  soon  as  Haman  was  so  con- 
sidered, his  face  was  covered.  Some  curious  correspon- 
dent examples  are  collected  together  in  Poole's  Synopsis,  in 
loc.  From  Pococke  we  find  the  custom  still  continues. 
Speaking  of  the  artifice  by  which  an  Egyptian  bey  was 
taken  off",  he  says,  "  A  man  being  brought  before  him  like 
a  malefactor  just  taken,  with  his  hands  behind  him  as  if 
tied,  and  a  napkin  put  over  his  head,  as  malefactors  com- 
monly have,  when  he  came  into  his  presence,  suddenly  shot 
him  dead." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Ver.  10.  And  he  wrote  in  the  king  Ahasuerus' 
name,  and  sealed  it  with  the  king's  ring ;  and 
sent  letters  by  posts  on  horseback,  and  riders 
on  mules,  camels,  and  young  dromedaries. 

See  on  Job  9.  25. 

Ver.  15.  And  Mordecai  went  out  from  the  pres- 
ence of  the  king  in  royal  apparel  of  blue  and 
white,  and  with  a  great  crown  of  gold,  and 
with  a  garment  of  fine  linen  and  purple :  and 
the  city  of  Shushah  rejoiced  and  was  glad. 

See  on  Dan.  5.  29. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  19.  Therefore  the  Jews  of  the  villages,  that  • 
dwelt  in  the  unviralled  towns,   made  the  four- 
teenth day  of  the  month  Adar  a  day  of  gladness 
and  feasting,  and  a  good  day,  and  of  sending 
portions  one  to  another. 

See  on  Nehem.  8.  10. 

On  the  first  of  the  Hindoo  month  of  July,  also  on  the  fiisl 
day  of  the  new  moon  of  their  October,  the  people  send  por- 
tions of  cakes,  preserves,  fruits,  oil,  and  clothes,  one  to 
another. — Roberts. 

The  eastern  princes  and  people  not  only  mvite  their 
friends  to  feasts,  but  "  it  is  their  custom  to  send  a  portion  of 
the  banquet  to  those  that  cannot  well  come  to  it,  especiallj' 


Chap.  10. 


ESTHER. 


32S 


iheir  relations,  and  those  in  a  state  of  mourning."  (Char- 
din.)  Thus  when  the  grand  emir  found  it  incommoded 
M.  D'Arvieux  to  eat  with  him,  he  desired  him  to  take  his 
own  time  for  eating,  and  sent  him  from  his  kitchen,  what 
he  liked,  and  at  the  time  he  chose. 

This  was  the  name,  after  the  Babylonish  captivity,  of  the 
vwelfth  month,  nearly  answering  to  our  February,  O.  S.  and 
perhaps  so  called  from  the  richness  or  exuberance  of  the 
earth  in  plants  and  flowers  at  that  season,  in  the  warm 
eastern  countries.  "  As  February  advances,  the  fields, 
which  were  partly  green  before,  now,  by  the  springing  up 
of  the  latter  grain,  become  entirely  covered  with  an  agree- 
able verdure  ;  and  though  the  trees  continue  in  their  leafless 
Slate  till  the  end  of  this  month,  or  the  beginning  of  March, 
yet  the  almond,  when  latest,  being  in  blossom  before  the 
middle  of  February,  and  quickly  succeeded  by  the  apricot, 
peach,  &c.  gives  the  gardens  an  agreeable  appearance. 
The  sprmg  now  becomes  extremely  pieasant."  (Russel's 
Nat.  Hist,  of  Aleppo.) — Burder. 

Ver.  26.  Wherefore  they  called  these  days  Purim, 
after  the  name  of  Pur. 

This  festival  was  to  be  kept  two  days  successively,  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  of  the  month  Adar,  ver,  21.  On 
both  days  of  the  feast  the  modern  Jews  read  over  the  Me- 
gillah,  or  book  of  Esther,  in  their  synagogues.  The  copy 
there  read  must  not  be  printed,  but  written  on  vellum,  in 
the  form  of  a  roll ;  and  the  names  of  the  ten  sons  of  Haman 
are  written  on  it  in  a  peculiar  manner,  being  ranged,  they 
say,  like  so  many  bodies  hanged  on  a  gibbet.  The  reader 
must  pronounce  all  these  names  in  one  breath.  Whenever 
Haman's  name  is  pronounced,  they  make  a  terrible  noise 
in  the  synagogue  :  some  drum  with  their  feet  on  the  floor, 
and  the  boys  have  mallets,  with  which  to  knock  and  make 
a  noise.  They  prepare  themselves  for  tneir  carnival  by  a 
previous  fast,  which  should  continue  three  days,  in  imita- 
tion of  Esther's,  Esther  iv.  16,  but  they  have  mostly  reduced 
.t  to  one  day. — Jennings, 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ver.  3.  For  Mordecai  the  Jew  was  next  unto  the 
king  Ahasuerus,  and  great  among  the  Jews, 
and  accepted  of  the  multitude  of  his  brethren, 
seeking  the  wealth  of  his  people,  and  sneaking 
peace  to  all  his  seed. 

Sir  John  Malcolm  tells  us,  that  the  sepulchre  of  Esther 
and  Mordecai  stands  near  the  centre  of  the  city  of  Hama- 
dan.  It  is  a  square  building,  terminated  by  a  dome,  with 
an  inscription  in  Hebrew  upon  it,  translated  and  sent  to 
him  by  Sir  Gore  Ouseley,  late  ambassador  to  the  court  of 
Persia.  It  is  as  follows :  "  Thursday,  fifteenth  of  the  month 
Adar,  in  the  year  4474  from  the  creation  of  the  world, 
\vas  finished  the  building  of  this  temple,  over  the  graves  of 
Mordecai  and  Esther,  by  the  hands  of  the  good-hearted 
brothers,^  Elias  and  Samuel,  the  sons  of  the  deceased  Ish- 
inael  of  Kashan." 

A  more  particular  and  recent  account  of  this  tomb  will 
be  found  in  the  following  extract:  "  This  tomb  is  regarded 
by  all  the  Jews,  who  yet  exist  in  the  empire,  as  a  place  of 
particular  sanctity ;  and  pilgrimages  are  still  made  to  it  at 
certain  seasons  of  the  year,  in  the  same  spirit  of  holy  peni- 
tence with  which,  in  former  times,  they  turned  their  eyes 
towards  Jerusalem.     Being  desirous  of  visiting  a  place, 


which  Christians  cannot  view  without  reverence,  I  sent  to 
request  that  favour  of  the  priest,  under  whose  care  it  is 
preserved.  He  came  to  me  immediately  on  my  message, 
and  seemed  pleased  with  the  respect  manifested  towards 
the  ancient  people  of  his  nation,  in  the  manner  with  which 
I  asked  to  be  admitted  to  their  shrine.  I  accompanied  the 
priest  through  ihe  town,  over  much  ruin  and  rubbish,  to  an 
enclosed  piece  of  ground,  rather  more  elevated  than  any  in 
its  immediate  vicinity.  In  the  centre  was  the  Jewish  tomb; 
a  square  building  of  brick,  of  a  mosque-like  form,  with  y 
rather  elongated  dome  at  the  top;  the  whole  seems  in  a 
very  decaying  state ;  falling  fast  to  the  mouldered  condition 
of  some  wall  fragments  around,  which,  in  former  times, 
had  been  connected  with,  and  extended  the  consequence  ox" 
the  sacred  enclosure.  The  door  that  admitted  us  into  th(; 
tomb  is  in  the  ancient  sepulchral  fashion  of  the  country, 
very  small;  consisting  of  a  single  stone  of  great  thickness, 
and  turning  on  its  own  pivots  from  one  side.  Its  key  is 
always  in  possession  of  tne  head  of  the  Jews,  resident  ai 
Haniadan ;  and  doubtless  has  been  so  preserved,  from  the 
time  of  the  holy  pair's  interment,  when  the  grateful  sons  of 
the  captivity,  whose  lives  they  had  rescued  from  universal 
massacre,  first  erected  a  monument  over  the  remains  of 
their  benefactors,  and  obeyed  the  ordinance  of  gratitude,  in 
making  the  anniversary  of  their  preservation,  a  lastinj? 
memorial  of  heaven's  mercy,  and  the  just  faith  of  Esther 
and  Mordecai.  '  So  God  remembered  his  people,  and  jus- 
tified his  inheritance.  Therefore  those  days  shall  be  untr 
them,  in  the  month  Adar,  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  day 
of  the  .same  month,  and  with  an  assembly,  and  joy,  ani! 
with  gladness  before  God,  according  to  the  generation  for 
ever  among  his  people.'  Esth.  x.  12,  13.  The  pilgrimage 
yet  kept  up,  is- a  continuation  of  this  appointed  assembling. 
And  thus  having  existed  from  the  time  of  the  event,  sucli 
a  memorial  becomes  an  evidence  to  the  fact,  more  convin- 
cing, perhaps,  than  even  written  testimony ;  it  seems  a  kind 
of  eyewitness.  The  original  structure,  it  is  said,  was  de- 
stroyed at  the  sacking  of  the  place,  by  Timour ;  and  soon 
after  that  catastrophe,  when  the  country  became  a  little 
settled,  the  present  unobtrusive  building  was  raised  on  the 
original  spot.  Certain  devout  Jews  of  the  city  stood  at  the 
expense  ;  and  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  (nearly 
five  hundred  after  its  re-erection,)  it  was  fully  repaired  by 
a  rabbi  of  the  name  of  Ismael.  On  passing  through  the 
little  portal,  which  we  did  in  an  almost  doubled  position, 
we  entered  a  small  arched  chamber,  in  which  are  vseen  the 
graves  of  several  rabbis  :  probably,  one  may  cover  the  re- 
mains of  the  pious  Ismael ;  and,  not  unlikely,  the  others 
may  contain  the  bodies  of  the  first  rebuilders,  after  the 
sacrilegious  destruction  by  Timour,  Having  trod  lightly 
by  their  graves,  a  second  door  of  such  very  confined 
dimensions  presented  itself  at  the  end  of  this  vestibule,  that 
we  were  constrained  to  enter  it  on  our  hands  and  knees,  and 
then  standing  up,  we  found  ourselves  in  a  larger  chamber, 
to  which  appertained  the  dome.  Immediately  under  its 
concave,  stand  two  sarcophagi,  made  of  a  very  dark  wood, 
carved  with  great  intricacy  of  pattern,  and  richness  of 
twisted  ornament,  with  a  line  of  inscription  in  Hebrew, 
running  round  the  upper  ledge  of  each.  Many  other 
inscriptions,  in  the  same  language,  are  cut  on  the  walls, 
while  one  of  the  oldest  antiquity,  engraved  on  a  slab  of 
white  marble,  is  let  into  the  wall  itself.  The  priest  assured 
me  it  had  been  rescued  from  the  ruins  of  the  first  edifice,  at 
its  demolition  by  the  Tartars;  and,  with  the  sarcophagi 
themselves,  was  preserved  on  the  same  consecrated  spot." 
(Sir  R,  K.  Porter.)— Burder. 


;^^|»^, 
^IP 


JOB. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  3.  His  substance  also  was  seven  thousand 
sheep,  and  three  thousand  camels,  and  five  hun- 
dred yoke  of  oxen,  and  five  hundred  she-asses, 
and  a  very  great  household ;  so  that  this  man 
was  the  greatest  of  all  the  men  of  the  east. 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  this  passage  female  asses  only 
are  enumerated;  the  reason  is,  because  in  them  great  part 
of' their  wealth  consisted;  the  males  being  few,  and  not 
held  in  equal  estimation.  "We  find  that  the  former  were 
chosen  for  riding  by  the  natives  of  these  parts  :  and  the  ass 
of  Balaam  is  distinguished  as  a  female.  They  were  prob- 
fibly  led  to  this  choice  from  convenience ;  for,  where  the 
country  was  so  little  fertile,  no  other  animal  could  subsist 
so  easily  as  this  :  and  there  was  another  superior  advantage 
in  the  female;  that  whoever  traversed  these  wilds  upon  a 
she-ass,  if  he  could  but  find  for  it  suflicient  browse  and  wa- 
'er,  was  sure  to  be  rewarded  with  a  more  pleasing  and  nu- 
tritious beverage. — Bryant. 

Ver,  4.  And  his  sons  went  and  feasted  in  their 
houses  every  one  his  day ;  and  sent  and  called 
for  their  three  sisters,  to  eat  and  to  drink  with 
them. 

Literally,  "  were  wont  and  held  a  banquet-house ;"  which 
is  not  exactly  an  English  idiom.  The  original  phrase  lit- 
erally signifies,  "a  banquet-house,"  or  "open  house  for 
feasting;"  and  hence  Tyndal  renders  it,  "made  bankettes;" 
which  is  not  perfectly  literal,  but  far  less  paraphrastic  than 
our  common  rendering,  "  went  and  feasted  in  their  houses." 
•Good. 

Ver.  5.  And  it  was  so,  when  the  days  of  their 
feasting  were  gone  about,  that  Job  sent  and 
sanctified  them,  and  rose  up  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  offered  burnt-ofl!erings  according  to 
the  number  of  them  all :  for  Job  said,  It  may  be 
that  my  sons  have  sinned,  and  cursed  God  in 
their  hearts.     Thus  did  Job  continually. 

The  feasting  continued  till  they  had  been  at  each  other's 
house  in  turn.  Something  like  this  is  practised  by  the 
Chinese,  who  have  their  co-fraternities,  which  they  call  the 
brotherhood  of  the  month;  this  consists  of  thirty,  according 
to  the  number  of  days  therein,  and  in  a  circle  they  go  every 
day  to  eat  at  one  another's  houses  by  turns.  If  one  man 
have  not  conveniences  to  receive  the  fraternity  in  his  own 
house,  he  may  provide  for  it  at  another ;  and  there  are  many 
public-houses  very  well  provided  for  this  purpose. — Bur- 

DER. 

Ver.  7.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Satan,  Whence 
comest  thou  ?  Then  Satan  answered  the  Lord, 
and  said,  From  going  to  and  fro  in  the  earth, 
and  walking  up  and  down  in  it. 

In  our  common  version,  "From  going  to  and  fro ;"  but 
this  is  not  the  exact  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  b3>w;  which, 
as  is  well  observed  by  Schultens,  imports  not  so  much  the 
act  of  going  forward  and  backward,  as  of  making  a  cir- 
cuit or  circumference;  of  going  round  about.  It  is  hence 
justly  rendered  in  the  Spanish,  "  De  cercar  por  la  tierra" 
"  From  encircling  or  encompassing  the  earth ;"  to  which 
is  added,  in  the  Chaldaic  paraphrase,  "  to  examine  into 
the  works  of  the  sons  of  man."    The  Hebrew  verb  wtf  is 


still  in  general  use  among  Arabic  writers,  and,  in  every 
instance,  implies  the  same  idea  of  gyration,  or  ciicuuiaro- 
bulation. — Good. 

Ver.  10.  Hast  thou  not  made  a  hedge  about  him, ' 
and  about  his  house,  and  about  all  that  he  hath 
on  every  side?     Thou  hast  blessed  the  work 
of  his  hands,  and  his  substance  is  increased  in 
the  land. 

It  is  said  of  a  man  who  cannot  be  injured,  "  Why  at- 
tempt to  hurt  him  1  is  there  not  a  hedge  about  him  ?"  "  You 
cannot  get  at  the  fellow,  he  has  a  strong  hedge  about  him." 
"  Yes,  yes;  the  modeliar  has  become  his  hedge." — Rob- 
erts. 

To  give  the  original  verb  the  full  force  of  its  meaning,  it 
should  be  derived  from  the  science  of  engineering,  and  ren- 
dered, "  Hast  thou  not  raised  a  palisado  about  him  1"  The 
Hebrew  verb  nssr  implies,  to  fence  with  sharp  spikes,  pali- 
sades, or  thorns ;  and  hence  the  substantive  tr^'^ir:'  is  used  for 
spikes,  palisades,  or  thorns  themselves.  The  Arabian  wri- 
ters employ  the  same  term,  and  even  the  same  idiom,  still 
more  frequently  than  the  Hebrews.  In  the  Arabic  version 
of  the  passage  before  us,  the  metaphor  is  varied  still 
further;  but  the  observations  thus  ofiered  will  render  the 
variation  not  diflicult  of  comprehension :  thus,  instead  of 
being  interpreted  as  above,  "  Hast  thou  not  made  a  fence 
about  him  V  it  is  translated  in  the  Arabic  copy,  "  Hast 
thou  7iot  protected  him  with  thy  hand  ?"  The  Syfiac  runs 
to  the  same  effect,  while  the  Chaldee  paraphrast 'translates, 
"  Hast  thou  not  overcovered  him  with  thy  word  ?" 

In  the  latter  clause  of  this  verse,  the  words,  "  increased 
in  the  land,"  are,  in  the  Hebrew,  "  overflowed  the  land." 
Our  common  version  merely  gives  the  sense  of  the  original, 
without  the  figure,  whose  force  and  elegance  render  it 
highly  worthy  of  being  retained.  The  Hebrew  (v^b)  peraz 
does  not  simply  mean  to  increase,  but  to  burst  or  break  forth 
as  a  torrent ;  and  hence  to  overflmo  or  exundate  its  boun- 
daries. The  word  is  used  in  the  same  rendering  in  many 
parts  of  the  Bible,  in  which  it  cannot  be  otherwise  trans- 
lated. The  following  instance  may  suffice,  from  the  stan- 
dard English  text,  2  Sam.  v.  20:  "  The  Lord  hath  broken 
forthupon  mine  enemies  before  me,  as  the  breach  of  waters  : 
therefore  he  called  the  name  of  that  place  Baal-vERAVAM." 
The  Arabians  employ,  to  ihis  hour,  the  very  same  term  to 
express  the  mouth  or  embouchure,  the  most  rapirt  and  irre- 
sistible part  of  a  stream,  in  proof  of  which,  Golius,  with 
much  pertinency,  brings  the  following  couplet  from  Gjan- 
hari,  the  whole  of  which  is  highly  applicable,  and  where 
the  word  mouth,  in  the  second  line,  is  in  the  original  ex- 
pressed by  this  very  term : — 

"His  rushing  wealth  o'erflowed  him  with  its  heaps : 
So,  at  its  mouth,  the  mad  Euphrates  sweeps." 

Dr.  Stock  has  caught  something  of  the  idea,  though  it  bt 
not  so  clearly  expressed  as  it  might  have  been: 

"  And  his  possessions  burst  out  through  the  land." 
So  the  versions  of  Junius  and  Tremellius,  and  ^Piscator, 
"  Et  pecns  ejus  in  multitudinem  eruperit  in  terra^' — "  And 
his  cattle,  for  multit^ide,  have  burst  forth  through  the  land." 
nspa  substance  or  possession,  is  often  used  for  cattle,  as  the 
earliest  substance  or  possession.  So  cattle,  among  our- 
selves, is  said  by  the  etymologists  to  be  derived  from  capi' 
talia. — Good. 

Ver.  12.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Satan,  Behold, 
all  that  he  hath  is  in  thy  power ;  only  upon 
himself  put  not  forth  thine  hand.  So  Sataa 
went  forth  from  the  presence"  of  the  Lord. 


Chap.  1. 


JOB 


325 


The  subject  proposed  by  the  writer  of  the  ensuing  poem 
is  the  trial  and  triumph  of  the  integrity  of  Job;  a  character 
of  whose  origin  no  certain  documents  have  descended  to 
as,  but  who,  at  the  period  in  question,  was  chief  magistrate, 
or  emir,  as  we  should  style  him  in  the  present  day,  of  the 

» city  of  Uz  ;  powerful  and  prosperous  beyond  all  the  sons  of 
the  East,  and  whose  virtue  and  piety  were  as  eminently 
distinguished  as  his  rank.  Of  the  four  characters  intro- 
duced into  the  poem,  as  his  frifends,  Eliphaz,  Bildad, 
Zophar,  and  Elihu,  the  first  three  are  denominated,  in  all 
the  Greek  translations  of  the  poem,  kings  of  the  respective 
cities  or  districts  to  which  their  names  are  prefixed  ;  and 
the  last  is  particularized,  in  the  Chaldee  paraphrase,  as  a 
relation  of  Abraham,  and  was  probably,  therefore,  a  des- 
cendant of  Buz,  the  second  son  of  Nahor,  the  brother  of 
Abraham,  as  conjectured  by  Bochart.  There  are  some 
Critics,  however,  and  of  great  distinction  for  learning  and 
piety,  who,  in  opposition  to  these  biographical  remarks, 
contend  that  the  whole  of  the  poem,  as  well  in  its  charac- 
ters as  in  its  structure,  is  fabulous.  Such  especially  is  the 
opinion  of  Professor  Michaelis,  whose  chief  arguments 
are  derived  from  the  nature  of  the  exordium,  in  which 
Satan  appears  as  the  accuser  of  Job;  from  the  temptations 
and  sufferings  permitted  by  the  great  Governor  of  the 
world  to  befall  an  upright  character ;  from  the  roundness 
of  the  numbers  by  which  the  patriarch's  possessions  are 
described,  as  seven  thousand,  three  thousana,  one  thousand, 
and  five  hundred ;  and  from  the  years  he  is  said  to  have 
lived  after  his  recovery  from  disease.  It  may  perhaps  be 
thought  to  demand  a  more  subjugating  force  than  is  lodged 
in  these  arguments,  to  transmute  into  fable  what  has  uni- 
formly been  regarded  as  fact,  both  in  Europe  and  Asia,  for 
perhaps  upwards  of  four  thousand  years ;  which  appears 
to  have  descended  as  fact,  in  a  regular  stream  of  belief,  in 
the  very  country  which  forms  the  scene  of  the  history,  from 
the  supposed  time  of  its  occurrence  to  the  present  day  ;  the 
chief  character  in  which  is  represented  as  having  had 
an  actual  existence,  and  is  often  associated  with  real  char- 
acters, as  Noah,  Abraham,  Ismael,  Isaac,  Jacob,  and  So- 
lomon, in  various  parts  of  the  book  which  is  there  held 
most  sacred,  and  which,  so  far  as  it  is  derived  from  nation- 
al history  or  tradition,  is  entitled  to  minute  attention  ;  and 
(which  should  seem  long  since  to  have  settled  the  question 
definitely)  a  character  which,  precisely  in  the  same  man- 
ner, is  associated  with  real  characters  in  the  authoritative 
pages  of  the  Old  Testament.  "  It  is  altogether  incredible," 
observes  M.  Michaelis,  "  that  such  a  conversation  ever  took 
place  between  the  Almighty  and  Satan,  who  is  supposed  to 
return  with  news  from  the  terrestrial  regions."    But  why 

.should  such  a  conversation  be  supposed  incredible  1  The 
attempt  at  wit  in  this  passage  is  somewhat  out  of  place ;  for 
the  interrogation  of  the  Almighty,  "  Hast  thou  fixed  thy 
view  upon  my  servant  Job,  a  perfect  and  upright  man  f" 
instead  of  aiming  at  the  acquisition  of  news,  is  intended  as 
a  severe  and  most  appropriate  sarcasm  upon  the  fallen 
spirit.  "  Hast  thou,  who,  with  superior  faculties  and  a 
rnore  comprehensive  knowledge  of  my  will,  hast  not  con- 
tinued perfect  and  upright,  fixed  thy  view  upon  a  subordi- 
nate being,  far  weaker  and  less  informed  than  thyself,  who 
has  continued  so  1"  The  attendance  of  the  apostate  at  the 
tribunal  of  the  Almighty  is  plainly  designed  to  show  us,  that 
good  and  evil  angels  are  equally  amenable  to  him,  and 
equally  subject  to  his  authority ; — a  doctrine  common  to 
every  part  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  scriptures,  and,  ex- 
cept in  the  mythology  of  the  Parsees,  recognised  by  perhaps 
every  ancient  system  of  religion  whatever.  The  part  as- 
signed to  Satan  in  the  present  work  is  that  expressly  as- 
signed to  him  in  the  case  of  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  garden  of 
Eden,  and  of  our  Saviour  in  the  wilderness ;  and  which  is 
assigned  to  him  generally,  in  regard  to  mankind  at  large, 
by  all  the  Evangelists  and  Apostles,  whose  writings  have 
leached  us,  both  in  their  strictest  historical  narratives,  and 
closest  argumentative  inductions.  And,  hence,  the  argu- 
ment which  should  induce  us  to  regard  the  present  passage 
as  fabulous,  should  induce  us  to  regard  all  the  rest  in  the 
same  light,  which  are  imbued  with  the  same  doctrine; — a 
view  of  the  subject  which  would  sweep  into  nothingness  a 
much  larger  portion  of  the  Bible  than  I  am  confident  M. 
Michaelis  would  choose  to  part  with.  The  other  argu- 
ments are  comparatively  of  small  moment.  We  want  not 
fable  to  tell  us  that  good  and  upris:ht  men  may  occasionally 
become  the  victims'of  accumulated  calamities ;  for  it  is  a 


living  fact,  which,  in  the  mystery  of  providence,  is  perpet- 
ually occurring  in  every  country :  while  as  to  the  round- 
ness of  the  numbers  by  which  the  patriarch's  possessions 
are  described,  nothing  could  have  been  more  ungraceful 
or  superfluous  than  for  the  poet  to  have  descended  to  units, 
had  even  the  literal  numeration  demanded  it.  And,  al- 
though he  is  stated  to  have  lived  a  hundred  and  forty  years 
after  his  restoration  to  prosperity,  and  in  an  era  in  which 
the  duration  of  man  did  not  perhaps  much  exceed  that  of 
the  present  day,  it  should  be  recollected,  that  in  his  person, 
as  well  as  in  his  property,  he  was  specially  gifted  by  the 
Almighty :  that,  from  various  passages,  he  seems  to  have 
been  younger  than  all  the  interlocutors,  except  Elihu,  and 
much  younger  than  one  or  two  of  them  ;  that  his  longevity 
is  particularly  remarked,  as  though  of  more  than  usual  ex- 
tent; and  that,  even  in  the  present  age  of  the  world,  we 
have  well-authenticated  instances  of  persons  having  lived, 
in  different  parts  of  the  globe,  to  the  age  of  a  hundred  and 
fifty,  a  hundred  and  sixty,  and  even  a  hundred  and  seventy 
years. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  the  historical  truth  of  the  book  of 
Job,  that  its  language  should  be  a  direct  transcript  of  that 
actually  employed  by  the  different  characters  introduced 
into  it ;  for  in  such  case  we  should  scarcely  have  a  single 
book  of  real  history  in  the  world.  The  Iliad,  Shah  Nameh, 
and  the  Lusiad,  must  at  once  drop  all  pretensions  to  such  a 
description;  and  even  the  pages  of  Sallust  and  Cesar,  of 
Rojlin  and  Hume,  must  stand  upon  very  questionable  au- 
thority. It  is  enough  that  the  real  sentiment  be  given,  and 
the  general  style  copied;  and  this,  in  truth,  is  all  that  is 
aimed  at,  not  only  in  our  best  reports  of*  parliamentary 
speeches,  but,  in  many  instances,  (which  indeed  is  much 
more  to  the  purpose.)  by  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament, 
in  their  quotations  from  the  Old.  The  general  scope  and 
moral  of  the  ensuing  poem,  namely,  that  the  troubles  and 
aflliction  of  the  good  man  are,  for  the  most  part,  designed 
as  tests  of  his  virtue  and  integrity,  out  of  which  he  will 
at  length  emerge  with  additional  splendour  and  happiness, 
are  common  to  eastern  poets,  and  not  uncommon  to  those  of 
Greece.  The  Odyssey  is  expressly  constructed  upon  such 
a  basis;  and,  like  the  poem  before  us,  has  every  appear- 
ance of  being  founded  upon  real  history,  and  calls  in  to  its 
aid  the  machinery  of  a  sublime  and  supernatural  agency. 
But  in  various  respects  the  poem  of  Job  stands  alone  and 
unrivalled.  In  addition  to  every  corporeal  suffering  and 
privation  which  it  is  possible  for  man  to  endure,  it  carries 
forward  the  trial,  in  a  manner  and  to  an  extent  which  has 
never  been  attempted  elsewhere,  into  the  keenest  faculties 
and  sensations  of  the  mind;  and  mixes  the  bitterest  taunts 
and  accusations  of  friendship,  with  the  agonies  of  family 
bereavement  and  despair.  The  body  of  other  poems  con- 
sists chiefly  of  incidents  ;  that  of  the  present  poem  of  col- 
loquy or  argument,  in  which  the  general  train  of  reason- 
ing IS  so  well  sustained,  its  matter  so  important,  its  language 
so  ornamented,  the  doctrines  it  develops  so  sublime,  its 
transitions  from  passion  to  passion  so  varied  and  abrupt, 
that  the  want  of  incidents  is  not  felt,  and  the  attention  is 
still  riveted,  as  by  enchantment.  In  other  poems,  the  su- 
pernatural agency  is  fictitious,  and  often  incongruous  :  here 
the  whole  is  solid  reality,  supported,  in  its  grand  outline 
by  the  concurrent  testimony  of  every  other  part  of  the 
scriptures ;  an  agency  not  obtrusively  introduced,  but  de- 
manded by  the  magnitude  of  the  occasion  ;  and  as  much 
more  exalted  and  magnificent  than  every  other  kind  of 
similar  interference,  as  it  is  more  veritable  and  solemn. 
The  suffering  hero  is  sublimely  called  forth  to  the  perform- 
ance of  his  part,  in  the  presence  of  men  and  of  angels ; 
each  becomes  interested,  and  equally  interested,  in  his 
conduct ;  the  Almighty  assents  to  the  trial,  and  for  a  period 
withdraws  his  divine  aid;  the  malice  of  Satan  is  in  its  full 
career  of  activity;  hell  hopes,  earth  trembles,  and  every 
good  spirit  is  suspended  with  awful  anxiety.  The  wreck 
of  his  substance  is  in  vain;  the  wreck  of  his  family 
is  in  vain;  the  scalding  sores  of  a  corroding  leprosy  are  in 
vain ;  the  artillery  of  insults,  reproaches,  and  railing, 
poured  forth  from  the  mouth  of  bosom  friends,  are  in  vain. 
Though  at  times  put  in  some  degree  off  his  guard,  the  holy 
sufferer  is  never  completelv  overpowered.  He  sustains  the 
shock  without  yielding :  he  still  holds  fast  his  integrity. 
Thus  terminates  the  trial  cf  faith  : — Satan  is  confounded; 
fidelity  triumphs;  and  the  Almighty,  with  a  magnificence 
well  worthy  of  the  occasion,  unveils  his  resplendent  tri- 


326 


JOB. 


Chap.  2. 


bunal,  and  crowns  the  afiiicted  champion  with  his  ap- 
plause. 

This  poem  has  been  generally  supposed  to  possess  a  dra- 
matic character,  either  of  a  more  or  a  less  perfect  degree  ; 
but,  in  order  to  give  it  such  a  pretension,  it  has  uniformly 
been  found  necessary  to  strip  it  of  its  magnificent  exordium 
and  close,  which  are  unquestionably  narrative  ;  and  even 
then  the  dramatic  cast  is  so  singularly  interrupted  by  the 
appearance  of  the  historian  himself,  at  the  commencement 
of  every  speech,  to  inform  us  of  the  name  of  the  person  who 
is  about  to  take  up  the  argument,  that  many  critics,  and 
among  the  rest  Bishop  Lowth,  are  doubtful  of  the  propriety 
of  referring  it  to  this  department  of  poetry,  though  they  do 
not  know  where  else  to  give  it  a  place.  In  the  present 
writer's  view  of  the  subject,  it  is  a  regular  Hebrew  epic ; 
and,  were  it  necessary  to  enter  so  minutely  into  the  ques- 
tion, it  might  easily  be  proved  to  possess  all  the  more  prom- 
inent features  of  an  epic,  as  collected  and  laid  down  by 
Aristotle  himself ;  such  as  unity,  completion,  and  grandeur 
in  its  action;  loftiness  in  its  sentiments  and  language  ;  mul- 
titude and  variety  in  the  passions  which  it  develops.  Even 
the  characters,  though  not  numerous,  are  discriminated, 
and  well  supported ;  the  milder  and  more  modest  temper 
of  Eliphaz  is  well  contrasted  with  the  forward  and  unre- 
strained violence  of  Bildad  ;  the  terseness  and  brevity  of 
Zophar  with  the  pent-up  and  overflowing  fulness  of  Elihu; 
while  in  Job  himself  we  perceive  a  dignity  of  mind  that 
nothing  can  humiliate,  a  firmness  that  nothing  can  subdue, 
still  habitually  disclosing  themselves,  amidst ,  the  mingled 
tumult  of  hope,  fear,  rage,  tenderness,  triumph,  and  de- 
spair, with  which  he  is  alternately  distracted.  I  throw  out 
this  hint,  however,  not  with  a  view  of  ascribing  any  addi- 
tional merit  to  the  poem  itself,  but  merely  to  observe,  so  far 
as  a  single  fact  is  possessed  of  authority,  that  mental  taste, 
or  the  internal  discernment  of  real  beauty,  is  the  same  in 
all  ages  and  nations  ;  and  that  the  rules  of  the  Greek  critic 
are  deduced  from  a  principle  of  universal  impulse  and 
operation. 

Nothing  can  have  been  more  unfortunate  for  this  most 
excellent  composition,  than  its  division  into  chapters,  and 
especially  such  a  division  as  that  in  common  use  ;  in  which 
not  only  the  unity  of  the  general  subject,  but,  in  many^  in- 
stances, that  of  a  single  paragraph,  or  even  of  a  single 
clause,  is  completely  broken  in  upon  and  destroyed.  The 
natural  division,  and  that  which  was  unquestionably  in- 
tended by  its  author,  is  into  six  parts,  or  books;  for  in  this 
order  it  still  continues  to  run,  notwithstanding  all  the  confu- 
sion it  has  encountered  by  sub-arrangements.  These  six 
parts  are.  An  openmg  or  exordium,  containing  the  intro- 
ductory history  and  decree  concerning  Job  ;— three  distinct 
series  of  arguments,  in  each  of  which  the  speakers  are  re- 
gularly allotted  their  respective  turns ; — the  summing  up  of 
the  controversy; — and  the  close  or  catastrophe,  consisting 
of  the  suffering  hero's  grand  and  glorious  acquittal,  and  res- 
toration to  prosperity  and  happiness. — Good. 

Ver.  14.  And  there  came  a  messenger  unto  Job, 
and  said,  The  oxen  were  ploughing,  and  the 
asses  feeding  beside  them. 

Heb.  "  She-asses."  In  our  common  version,  which  seems 
borrowed  from  TyndpA,  asses :  yet  why  the  sex,  which  is 
so  expressly  mentioned  in  the  original  and  the  Septuagint, 
and  is  copied  into  every  version  with  which  I  am  acquaint- 
ed, excepting  these  two,  should  be  here  suppressed,  I  know 
not.  Female  asses,  on  account  of  their  milk,  were  much 
more  highly  esteemed, at  all  times,  in  the  East,  than  males, 
a  few  of  which  only  appear  to  have  been  kept  for  continu- 
ing the  breed  ;  and  hence,  perhaps,  they  are  not  noticed  in 
ver.  3  of  this  chapter,  which  gives  us  a  catalogue  of  the 
patriarch's  live-stock.  She-asses,  moreover,  on  account  of 
their  milk,  were  generally  preferred  for  travelling.  The 
ass  of  Balaam  is  expressly  declared  to  have  been  female, 
Numb,  xxii,  21 ;  as  is  that  of  Abraham,  Gen.  xxii.  3. — Good. 

Ver.  15.  And  the  Sabeans  fell  upon  them,  and  took 
them  away ;  yea,  they  have  slain  the  servants 
with  the  edge  of  the  sword;  and  I  only  am  es- 
caped alone  to  tell  thee. 

Heb.  "  And  the  Sabean  rushed  forth" — a  poetic  expres- 
sion for  "  the  Sabeans,"  or  "  Sabean  tribe."    The  Syriac 


version  gives  us,  "  a  band  or  company  rushed  forth,"  the 
word  Sabean  being  omitted.  Saba,  or  Sheba,  was  a  town 
or  city  of  Arabia  Deserta;  and  the  Sabeans  and  Chal- 
deans were  wont  to  wander  in  distinct  bands  or  hordes, 
upon  predatory  excursions,  over  the  whole  of  the  border  , 
country,  and  perhaps,  at  times,  as  far  as  from  the  banks 
of  the  Euphrates  to  the  outskirts  of  Egypt.  The  Bedouin 
Arabs  of  the  present  day  present  us  with  the  best  specimens 
of  these  parties  of  irregular  plunderers.  Both  are  equally 
entitled  to  the  appellation  of  Kedarines  ;  the  root  of  whicJi, 
in  Arabic  as  well  as  in  Hebrew,  implies  assault,  incursioii, 
fytviuU;  and  both  either  have  employed,  or  still  continue 
to  employ,  as  a  covering  for  their  ten^s,  a  coarse  brown 
hair  cloth,  obtained  from  their  dark-coloured  and  shaggy 
goats :  whence  the  fair  bride  of  Solomon,  in  the  song  of 
songs, — 

^'  Brown  am  I,  but  comely,  O  ye  daughters  of  Jerusalem  ! 
As  the  tents  of  Kedar." -Good. 

Ver.  20.  Then  Job  arose,  and  rent  his  mantle, 
and  shaved  his  head,  and  fell  down  upon  the 
ground,  and  worshipped. 

These  are  two  of  the  actions  by  which  great  distress  or 
agony  of  mind  has,  in  all  ages,  been  accustomed  to  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  East.  In  addition  to  these,  sometimes  the 
hair  of  the  beard  was  also  shaven  or  plucked  off,  as  was 
done  by  Ezra,  on  his  arrival  at  Jerusalem,  on  finding  that 
the  Hebrews,  instead  of  keeping  themselves  a  distinct 
and  holy  people,  after  their  return  from  captivity,  had  in- 
•  termixed  with  the  nations  around  them,  and  plunged  into 
all  their  abominations  and  idolatries.  Ezra  ix.  3.  And 
sometimes,  instead  of  shaving  the  hair  of  the  head,  the 
mourner,  in  the  fulness  of  his  humiliation  and  self-abase- 
ment, threw  the  dust,  in  which  he  sat,  all  over  him,  and 
purposely  covered  his  hair  with  it.  See  Job  ii.  12.  After 
shaving  the  head,  when  this  sign  of  distress  was  adopted, 
a  vow  was  occasionally  offered  to  the  Almighty,  in  the 
hope  of  obtaining  deliverance.  This  seems  lo  have  been 
a  frequent  custom  with  St.  Paul,  who  did  both,  as  well  at 
Cenchrea  as  at  Jerusalem,  and  m  both  places  probably  on 
this  very  account.    See  Acts  xviii.  18.  and  xxi.  24.— Good, 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  4.  And  Satan  answered  the  Lord,  and  said, 
Skin  for  skin  ;  yea,  all  that  a  man  hath  will  he 
give  for  his  life. 

The  Arabs  set  the  exploits  of  their  chiefs  in  the  dialogue 
form,  like  the  book  of  Job.  The  Cingalese  often  spend 
hours  at  night  in  reciting  alternately  the  exploits  of  Budhu, 
and  of  their  gods  and  devils.  I  have  often  been  disturbed 
by  them.  Tliis  passage,  imperfectly  explained  by  most 
commentators,  is,  by  Mr.  Robinson,  set  in  so  clear  a  light, 
that  the  reader  will  be  better  satisfied  with  a  quotation,  than 
an  abridgment.  "Before  the  invention  of  money,  trade 
used  to  be  carried  on  by  barter,  that  is,  by  exchanging  one 
commodity  for  another.  The  man  who  had  been  hunting 
in  the  woods  for  wild  beasts,  would  carry  their  skins  to 
market,  and  exchange  them  with  the  armourer  for  so  many 
bows  and  arrows.  As  these  tralRckers  were  liable  to  be 
robbed,  they  sometimes  agreed  to  give  a  party  of  men  a 
share  for  defending  them;  and  skins  were  a  very  ancient 
tribute.  With  them  they  redeemed  their  own  shares  of 
property  and  their  lives.  '  It  is  to  one  or  both  of  these  cus- 
toms, that  the  text  alludes,  as  a  proverb.  Imagine  one  of 
these  primitive  fairs.  A  multitude  of  people  from  all  parts, 
of  difl^erent  tribes  and  languages,  in  a  broad  field,  all  over- 
spread with  vawous  commodities  to  be  exchanged.  Imagine 
this  fair  to  be  held  after  a  good  hunting  season,  and  a  bad 
harvest.  The  skinners  are  numerous,  and  clothing  cheap. 
Wheat,  the  staff  of  life,  is  scarce,  and  the  whole  fair  dread 
a  famine.  How  many  skins  this  year  will  a  man  give  for 
this  necessarv  article,  without  which,  he  and  his  family 
must  inevitably  die  1  Whv,  each  would  add  to  the  heap, 
and  put  'skin  upon  skin," for  all'  the  skins  'that  a  man 
hath,  will  he  give  for  his  life.'  Imagine  the  wheat  growers, 
of  whom  Job  was  one,  carrving  home  the  skms,  which  they 
had  taken  for  wheat.  Imagine  the  party  engaged  to  protect 
them,  raising  the  tribute,  and  threatening  if  it  were  not 
paid,  to  put  them  to  death.  What  proportion  of  skins  would 
these  merchants  give,  in  this  case  of  necessity  ?  Skin  v.j'on 


Chap.  2. 


JOB. 


327 


skin,  all  the  skins  that  they  have,  will  they  give  for  their  lives. 
The  proverb  then  means,  that  we  should  save  our  lives  at 
any  price." — Callaway, 

Ver.  7.  So  went  Satan  forth  from  the  presence  of 
the  Lord,  and  smote  Job  with  sore  biles,  from 
the  sole  of  his  foot  unto  his  crown. 

Respectable  people  have  the  greatest  possible  dread  and 
disgust  at  biles,  and  all  cutaneous  diseases.  Here,  then, 
we  see  the  princely  Job  the  victim  of  a  loathsome  disorder, 
sitting  among  the  ashes  and  broken  earthen  vessels,  the 
impure  refuse  of  the  kitchen  and  other  places.  See  the 
poor  neglected  object  who  is  labouring  tinder  similar 
diseases  at  this  day,  from  the  head  to  the  foot ;  he  is  cov- 
ered with  scales  and  blotches,  around  his  loins  is  a  scanty 
rag,  he  wanders  from  one  lonely  place  to  another,  and 
when  he  sees  you,  stretches  out  a  hand  towards  you,  and 
another  to  his  sores,  and  piteously  implores  help ! — Robehts. 

Ver.  7.  So  went  Satan  forth  from  the  presence  of 
the  Lord,  and  smote  Job  with  sore  biles,  from 
the  sole  of  his  foot  unto  his  crown.  8.  And  he 
took  him  a  potsherd  to  scrape  himself  withal ; 
and  he  sat  down  among  the  ashes. 

A  remarkable  disease  mentioned  in  the  scriptures  is  that 
which  was  inflicted  on  Job,  and  of  which  he  so  feelingly 
complains  in  several  parts  of  his  book.  Commentators 
have  differed  as  to  its  peculiar  nature;  but  the  best  in- 
formed have  fixed  upon  elephantiasis,  as  a  disease  well 
known  in  eastern  countries,  and  corresponding  with  the 
hints  which  Job  gives  of  it  in  his  conversations  with  his 
'riends.  The  following  is  an  abridgment  of  what  is  said 
of  it  by  Dr.  Heberden  and  Michaelis.  It  begins  with  a 
sudden  eruption  of  tubercles  or  tumours  of  different  sizes, 
of  a  red  colour,  attended  with  great  heal  and  itching,  on 
different  parts  of  the  body,  and  a  degree  of  fever,  by  which 
the  skin  acquires  a  remarkably  shining  appearance:  but 
when  the  fever  abates,  the  tubercles  become  either  indolent 
knots,  or  in  some  degree  scirrhous,  and  of  a  livid  or  copper 
colour  ;  and  after  some  months  they  degenerate  into  fetid 
ulcers.  As  the  disease  advances,  the  features  of  the  face 
swell,  the  hair  of  the  eyebrows  falls  off,  the  voice  becomes 
hoarse,  the  breath  exceedingly  offensive,  the  skin  of  the 
body  is  unusually  loose,  wrinkled,  rough,  destitute  of  hairs, 
and  overspread  with  tumours,  and  often  with  ulcers,  or  else 
with  a  thick,  moist,  scabby  crust,  upon  those  which  have 
begun  to  dry  up;  and  the  legs  are  sometimes  emaciated 
and  ulcerated,  sometimes  affected  with  tumours,  without 
ulceration,  and  sometimes  swelled  like  posts,  and  indurated, 
having  very  thin  scales,  apparently  much  finer  than  those 
in  leprosy,  only  hot  so  white ;  while  the  soles  of  the  feet, 
being  thicker  than  the  rest  of  the  skin,  feel  peculiarly 
pained  by  the  tumours  and  ulcers.  Such  is  the  state  of 
those  afflicted  with  elephantiasis;  nor  Have  they  even  inter- 
missions of  ease  by  refreshing  rest ;  for  as  their  days  are 
rendered  v^retched  by  the  distension  of  the  skin  by  tumours, 
and  a  succession  of  burning,  ill-conditioned  ulceVs,  so  their 
nights  are  tormented  by  perpetual  restlessness  or  frightful 
dreams.  The  accuser  of  the  brethren,  therefore,  evidently 
showed  his  sagacity  and  malice,  when  he  selected  this  as 
the  most  likely  means  to  provoke  Job  to  impatience.  But 
having  described  the  leading  features  of  the  disease,  let  us 
next  attend  to  the  hints  that  are  given  us  in  the  book  of 
Job,  and  see  whether  the  one  corresponds  with  the  other. 
In  ch.  ii.  7,  8,  we  are  told,  that  "Satan  smote  Job  with  sore 
biles,  from  the  sole  of  his  foot  even  to  his  crown;  and  that 
he  took  a  potsherd  to  scrape  himself"  This  is  evidently 
descriptive  of  elephantiasis,  in  its  most  active  and  rapid 
.state,  when  the  body  is  covered  with  tumours,  which  break 
into  ulcers,  and  the  skin  becomes  scaly.  In  ch.  vi.  4,  Job 
complains,  that  "the  arrows  of  the  Almighty  were  within 
him,  and  that  the  poison  thereof  drank  up  his  spirit ;" 
thereby  comparing  the  pain  he  felt  to  that  experienced 
from  poisoned  arrows ;  while  the  infection  of  the  disease, 
like  the  influence  of  poison,  spreads  itself  over  the  whole 
Irame.  It  was  formerly  mentioned  as  an  attendant  on  ele- 
phantiasis, that  the  patient  could  obtain  no  refreshing  sleep, 
bit  was  tormented  with  restlessness  and  frightful  dreams. 
Accordingly,  Job,  in  ch.  vii.  3,  4,  13,  14,  15,  complains  in 


the  following  mournful  manner :  "  I  am  made  to  possess 
months  of  vanity,  and  wearisome  nights  are  appointed  to 
me.  When  I  lie  down,  I  say.  When  shall  I  arise,  and  the 
night  be  gone  1  and  I  am  full  of  tossings  to  and  fro  unto 
the  dawning  of  the  day.— When  I  say.  My  bed  shall  com- 
fort me,  my  couch  shall  ease  my  complaint;  then  thou 
scarest  me  with  dreams,  and  terrifiest  me  through  visions: 
so  that  my  soul  chooseth  strangling,  and  death  rather  thar. 
my  life."  The  itchiness  of  ill-conditioned  ulcers  has  often 
been  ascribed  to  animalculae,  and  their  stench  is  intolera- 
ble. Accordingly,  Job  says,  in  ch.  vii.  5,  "  My  flesh  is 
clothed  with  worms  and  clods  of  dust :  my  skin  is  broken, 
and  become  loathsome."  It  was  said  that  the  tumours  and 
ulcers  were  peculiarly  painful  on  the  soles  of  the  feet,  from 
the  thickness  of  the  skin  in  those  parts;  and  to  that  he 
refers  in  ch.  xiii.  27,  where  he  says,  "  Thou  settest  a  print 
upon  the  heels  of  my  feet ;"  literally,  "  Thou  imprintest 
thyself,  that  is,  thy  wrath,  on  the  soles  of  my  feet."  It  was 
noticed  that  the  skin  in  elephantiasis,  when  the  disease  hath 
become  general,  is  loose,  rough,  and  wrinkled ;  and  Job, 
ch.  xvi.  8,  complains  of  this  very  thing,  that  "  his  skin  was 
filled  with  wrinkles."  An  offensive  breath  was  noticed  as 
another  evil  under  which  the  patient  laboured ;  and  this 
was  the  case  with  Job,  for  he  complains,  in  ch.  xvii.  1,  that 
"  his  breath  was  corrupt ;  that  his  days  were  extinct ;  and 
that  the  grave  was  ready  for  him,"  as  for  a  putrid  carcass : 
adding  in  verse  44th,  "  I  have  said  to  corruption.  Thou  art 
niy  father;  and  to  the  worm,  thou  art  my  mother  and  my 
sister."  The  only  other  notice  we  have  of  the  disease  is 
in  ch.  XXX.  17,  30,  where  we  hear  him  complaining  that  his 
bones  were  pierced  with  acute  pain  in  the  nvght  season; 
and  that  his  sinews,  by  their  starting,  gave  him  no  rest ; 
that  his  skin  was  black  upon  him;  and  his  bones  were 
burnt  up  with  heat;  all  which  accord  well  with  the  disease 
in  question,  when  it  hath  taken  possession  of  the  system, 
and  hath  filled  the  body  with  livid,  copper-coloured,  scir- 
rhous tumours,  or  black  corrupted  ulcers.  Upon  the  whole, 
then,  it  appears  probable,  that  the  disease  with  which  Job 
was  afflicted  was  elephantiasis. — Brown. 

Ver.  8.  And  he  took  him  a  potsherd  to  scrape 
himself  withal ;  and  he  sat  down  among  the 
ashes. 

This  self-abasement  appears  to  have  been  common  amone 
the  Hebrews,  as  well  as  the  Arabians  or  Idumaeans,  and 
was  so  probably  among  other  oriental  nations  of  high  anti- 
quity, in  cases  of  deep  and  severe  afliiction.  The  coarsest 
dress,  as  of  hair  or  sackcloth,  was  worn  on  such  occasions ; 
and  the  vilest  and  most  humiliating  situation,  as  a  duvSt  or 
cinder-heap,  surrounded  by  potsherds  and  other  household 
refuse,  made  choice  of  to  sit  in.  It  may  easily  be  conjec- 
tured what  considerable  quantities  of  potsherds,  or  frag- 
ments oi-  pottery,  must  have  been  collected  in  the  dust-heaps 
above  referred  to,  from  a  recollection,  that  in  the  earlier 
ages  of  the  world,  when  the  art  of  metallurgy  was  but  in  its 
infancy,  almost  all  the  domestic  utensils  employed  for 
every  purpose  were  of  pottery  alone.  Pottery  may  hence 
be  fairly  supposed  the  oldest  of  the  mechanical  inventions  : 
and  on  this  account  the  Hebrew  term  here  made  use  of, 
(a'-^n,  a  potter,  pottery,  or  potsherds,')  became  afterward 
extended  to  signify  wares  of  every  other  kind,  or  their 
fabricators,  and  heiice  artisans  in  general,  whether  in  brass, 
iron,  wood,  or  stone.  The  same  word  also,  -when  used  in 
the  signification  of  a  potsherd,  a  fragment  or  splinter  of 
pottery,  was  also  employed  to  import  a  sharp  instrument  in 
general,  as  a  rasp,  scraper,  or  scalpel,  a  sense  in  which  it 
has  to  this  day  descended  to  the  Arabs;  for  the  Arabic 
word,  (identically,  as  to  letters,  the  same  as  the  Hebrew 
a^"\r.,)  as  a  verb,  implies  to  scrape  or  rasp  with  an  edged  tool, 
(the  purpose  to  which  the  c'-in  or  shard,  was  directed  in  the 
text;)  and,  as  a  substantive,  a  scab,  or  sharp  and  morbid 
incrustation  of  the  skin — the  object  to  which  it  was  applied. 
— Good. 

Ver.  9.  Then  said  his  wife  unto  him.  Dost  thou 
still  retain  thine  integrity?  Curse  God,  and 
die. 

Some  suppose  this  ought  to  be,  bless  God  and  die;  but 
Job  would  not  have  reproved  his  wife  for  such  advice,  ex- 
cept she  meant  it  ironically.     It  is  a  fact,  that  when  the 


528 


JOB 


Chap.  3. 


heathen  have  to  pass  through  much  suffering,  they  often 
ask,  "  Shall  we  make  an  offering  to  the  gods  for  this  V'i.  e. 
Shall  we  offer  our  devotions,  our  gratitude,  for  afflictions  1 
Job  was  a  servant  of  the  true  God,  but  his  wife  might  have 
been  a  heathen ;  and  then  the  advice,  in  its  most  literal 
acceptation,  would  be  perfectly  in  character.  Nothing  is 
more  common  than  for  the  heathen,  under  certain  circum- 
stance:^,  to  curse  their  gods.  Hear  the  man  who  has  made 
expensive  offerings  to  his  deity,  in  hope  of  gaining  some 
great  blessing,  and  who  has  been  disappointed,  and  he 
will  pour  out  all  his  imprecations  on  the  god  whose  good 
ofhces  have  (as  he  believes)  been  prevented  by  some  su- 
perior deity.  A  man  in  reduced  circumstances  says,  "  Yes, 
yes ;  my  god  has  lost  his  eyes;  they  are  put  out;  he  cannot 
look  after  my  affairs."  "Yes,"  said  an  extremely  rich 
devotee  (V.  Chetty)  of  the  supreme  god  Siva,  after  he 
had  lost  his  property,  "shall  I  serve  him  any  more"? 
What!  make  offerings  to  him  1  No,  no;  he  is  the  lowest 
of  all  gods."  With  these  facts  before  us,  it  is  not  difficult 
to  believe  that  Job's  wife  actually  meant  what  she  said. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  But  he  said  unto  her,  Thou  speakest  as 
one  of  the  foolish  women  speaketh.  What ! 
shall  we  receive  good  at  the  hand  of  God,  and 
shall  we  not  receive  evil  ?  In  all  this  did  not 
Job  sin  with  his  lips. 

It  is  not  easy  to  know  to  whom  Job  alludes  by  "  the 
foolish  women ;"  but  in  all  parts  of  the  East,  females  are 
spoken  of  as  being  much  inferior  to  man  in  wisdom ;  and 
nearly  all  their  sages  have  proudly  descanted  on  the  igno- 
rance of  women.  In  the  Hindoo  book  called  the  Kurral,  it 
is  said,  "  All  women  are  ignorant."  In  other  works  it  is 
said,  "  Ignorance  is  a  woman's  jewel."  "  Female  wis- 
dom is  from  the  evil  one."  "  The  feminine  qualities  are 
four :  ignorance,  fear,  shame,  and  impunity."  "  To  a 
woman  disclose  not  a  secret."  "  Talk  not  to  me  in  that 
way ;  it  is  all  female  wisdom." — Roberts. 

Sanctius  thinks  that  Job  refers  to  the  Idumean  women, 
who,  like  other  heathens,  when  their  gods  did  not  please 
them,  or  they  could  not  obtain  of  them  what  they  desired, 
would  reproach  and  cast  them  away,  and  throw  them  into 
the  fire,  or  the  water,  as  the  Persians  are  said  to  do. — 

BuRDER. 

Ver.  11.  Now  when  Job's  three  friends  heard  of 
all  this  evil  that  was  come  upon  him,  they  came 
ever}'-  one  from  his  own  place ;  Eliphaz  the 
Temanite,  and  Bildad  the  Shahite,  and  Zophar 
the  Naamathite :  for  they  had  made  an  appoint- 
ment together  to  come  to  mourn  with  him,  and 
to  comfort  him. 

Has  a  man  fallen  into  some  great  calamity,  his  friends 
immediately  go  to  his  house  to  comfort  him.  Thus,  to  the 
house  of  mourning  for  the  dead  may  be  seen  numbers  of 
people  going  daily,  studying  to  find  out  some  source  of 
comfort  for  their  afflicted  friend.  "  Whither  are  you 
going  1"  "As  a  comforter  to  my  friend  in  sorrow."  "How 
great  is  his  distress  !  he  will  not  listen  to  the  voice  of  the 
comforters." — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  And  when  they  lifted  up  their  eyes  afar 
off,  and  knew  him  not,  they  lifted  up  their  voice 
and  wept ;  and  they  rent  every  one  his  mantle, 
and  sprinkled  dust  upon  their  heads  towards 
heaven. 

See  ou  Josh.  7.  6. 

Ver.  1 3.  So  they  sat  down  with  him  upon  the 
ground  seven  days  and  seven  nights,  and  none 
spake  a  word  unto  him :  for  they  saw  that  his 
grief  was  very  great. 

Those  who  go  to  sympathize  with  the  afflicted,  are  often 
silent  for  hours  together.    As  there  were  seven  days  for 


mourning  in  the  scriptures,  so  here ;  and  the  seventh  is 
always  the  greatest.  The  chief  mourner,  during  the  whole 
of  these  days,  will  never  speak,  except  when  it  is  abso- 
lutely necessary.  When  a  visiter  comes  in,  he  simply 
looks  and  bows  down  his  head. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  1.  After  this  opened  Job  his  mouth,  and  cur-  ^ 
sed  his  day.  | 

It  is  to  be  observed,  says  Mr.  Blackwell,  (Inquiry  into  the  ' 
Life  of  Homer,)  that  the  Turks,  Arabians,  and  Indians,  ' 
and  in  general  most  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  East,  are  a  ' 
solitary  kind  of  people  ;  they  speak  but  seldom,  and  never  : 
long  without  emotion.    Speaking  is  a  matter  of  moment 
among  such  people,  as  we  may  gather  from  their  usual  in- 
troductions: for,  before  they  deliver  their  thoughts,  they 
give  notice  by  saying,  /  will  open  my  mouth,  as  here  ;  that 
is,  unloose  their  tongue.     It  is  thus  in  Homer,  Hesiod,  and 
Orpheus ;  and  thus  also  Virgil : 

finem  dedit  ore  loquendi. 

He  made  an  end  of  speaking  with  his  mouth. — Burobr. 

Ver.  3.  Let  the  day  perish  wherein  I  was  born, 
and  the  night  i?i  which  it  was  said.  There  is  a 
man-child  conceived. 

Dr.  Boothroyd  prefers,  "  Perish  the  day  in  which  I  was 
born;  the  night  it  was  said,  Lo!  a  man  child."  Dr.  A. 
Clarke  thinks  the  word  conceive  "  should  be  taken  in  the 
sense  of  being  born ;"  and  the  Tamul  translation  takes  the 
same  view.  When  a  male  child  is  born,  the  midwife  goes 
outside  the  house,  and  says  aloud  three  times,  "  A  male 
child,  a  male  child,  a  male  child  is  born!" — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  Why  did  the  knees  prevent  me?  or  why 
the  breasts  that  I  should  suck. 

This  is  not  to  be  understood  of  the  mother ;  but  either  of 
the  midwife,  who  received  the  new-born  infant  into  her  lap, 
or  of  the  father,  as  it  was  usual  for  him  to  take  the  child 
upon  his  knees  as  soon  as  it  was  born,  Gen.  1.  23.  This 
custom  obtained  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  Hence 
the  goddess  Levana  had  her  name,  causing  the  father  in 
this  way  to  own  the  child. — Gill. 

Ver.  14.  With  kings  and  counsellors  of  the  earth, 
which  built  desolate  places  for  themselves. 

This  description  is  intended  as  a  contrast  to  that  con- 
tained in  the  two  ensuing  lines ;  and  the  same  sort  of  con- 
trast is  admirably  continued  throughout  the  entire  passage. 
The  grave  is  the  common  receptacle  of  all ;  of  the  patri- 
otic princes  who  have  restored  to  their  ancient  magnifi- 
cence the  ruins  of  former  cities,  and  fixed  their  palaces  in 
them;  and  of  the  sordid  accumulators  of  wealth,  which 
they  have  not  spirit  to  make  use  of;  of  the  wicked,  who 
have  never  ceased  from  troubling,  and  of  those  who  have 
been  wearied  and  worn  out  by  their  vexations;  of  the 
high  and  the  low,  the  slave  and  his  task-master,  the  ser- 
vant and  his  lord.  This  idea  has  not,  in  general,  been  at- 
tended to,  and  hence  the  passage  has  not  been  clearly  un- 
derstood. Our  common  rendering,  "Which  built  desolate 
places  for  themselves,"  is  hardly  explicit,  though  it  is  liter- 
ally consonant  with  most  of  the  versions.  Schulten«,  not 
adverting  to  the  antithesis  intended  to  subsist  betweta  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  verses,  imagines  he  perceives  m  the 
passage  a  metaphorical  reference  to  the  massy  pyramids  or 
sepulchres  of  the  Egyptian  monarchs,  of  which  several 
have  descended  to  our  own  day ;  and  this  idea  has  also 
been  generally  followed.  But  the  conception  is  too  recon- 
dite, and  far  less  impressive,  as  it  appears  to  me,  than  that 
now  offered.  The  images  and  phraseology  of  this  poern, 
as  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  observe,  were  often  copi- 
ed bv  the  boldest  writers  of  the  Jewish  people ;  by  King 
David,  Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  Ezekiel;  and  the  smallest  at- 
tention to  their  respective  compositions  will  show  us  that 
the  idea  here  communicated  soon  became  proverbial ;  and 
that  "  the  restorer  of  ruined  wastes,"  or  "  of  ancient  rums," 
was  not  only  a  phrase  in  general  acceptation,  but  regarded 


Chap.  4. 


JOB, 


32^ 


as  a  character  of  universal  veneration  and  esteem.    Thus 
Isai.  Iviii.  lii: — 

And  thy  descendants  shall  rebuild  the  ancient  waste. 

TJie  foundations  prostrate  for  many  ages  shalt  thou  raise  up : 

And  thou  shalt  be  called  The  repairer  of  ruins, 

The  restorer  of  paths  to  walk  in. 

So  Ezek.  xxxvi.  33 : — 

And  I  will  also  cause  you  to  dwell  in  the  cities ; 

And  the  ruined  wastes  shall  be  rebuilt. 
It  is  useless  to  quote  further :  the  parallel  passages  are  al- 
most innumerable. — Goon. 

Ver.  21.  Which  long  for  death,  but  it  cometh not] 
and  dig  for  it  more  than  for  hid  treasures. 

We  are  constantly  hearing  of  treasures  which  have  been 
or  are  about  to  be  discovered.  Sometimes  you  may  .see  a 
large  space  of  ground,  which  has  been  completely  turned  up, 
or  an  old  foundation,  or  ruin,  entirely  demolished,  in  hopes 
of  finding  the  hidden  gold.  A  man  has  found  a  small  coin, 
has  heard  a  tradition,  or  has  had  a  dream,  and  off  he  goes 
to  his  toil.  Perhaps  he  has  been  seen  on  the  spot,  or  he 
has  consulted  a  soothsayer ;  the  report  gets  out ;  and  then 
come  the  needy,  the  old,  and  the  young,  a  motley  group, 
all  full  of  anxiety,  to  join  in  the  spoil.  Some  have  iron  in- 
struments, others  have  sticks,  and  some  their  fingers  to 
scratch  up  the  ground.  At  last  some  of  them  begin  to  look 
at  each  other  with  considerable  suspicion,  as  if  all  were  not 
right,  and  each  seems  to  wish  he  had  not  come  on  so  foolish 
an  errand,  and  then  steal  off  as  quietly  as  they  can.  I  once 
knew  a  deep  tank  made  completely  dry ,  (by  immense  labour,) 
in  the  hope  of  finding  great  treasures,  which  were  said  to 
have  been  cast  in  during  the  ancient  wars.  Passing  near, 
one  day,  when  they  had  nearly  finished  their  work,  and 
their  hopes  had  considerably  moderated,  I  went  up  to  the 
sanguine  owner,  (whose  face  immediately  began  to  show  its 
chagrin,)  and  inquired,  "  Why  are  you  taking  so  much 
trouble  to  empty  that  tank  V  He  replied,  as  calmly  as  he 
could,  "  We  are  merely  cleaning  it  out."  Poor  man !  I 
believe  he  found  nothing  but  stones  and  bones,  and  a  few 
copper  coins.  "  Dig  for  it  more  than  for  hid  treasures," 
finds  a  practical  illustration  in  the  East,  and  is  a  figure  of 
common  use  in  the  language. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  2.  If  we  assay  to  commune  with  thee,  wilt 
thou  be  grieved  ?  but  who  can  withhold  him- 
self from  speaking? 

The  term  hdj,  *'  to  essay  or  attempt,"  is  peculiarly  expres- 
sive in  the  Hebrew,  and  is  derived  from  the  sense  of  smell 
exercised  by  hounds  and  other  animals,  in  essaying  or 
exploring  the  track  of  the  prey  they  are  in  pursuit  of  It  is 
still  used  among  the  Arabs  for  a  pleasant  smell  or  odour. 
Eliphaz  means  to  insinuate  his  desire  to  select  the  very 
mildest  reply  he  could  possibly  meet  with  upon  a  minute 
research,  such  as,  while  it  answered  the  purpose  of  expo- 
sing the  fallacy  of  the  patriarch's  reasoning,  should  hurt 
his  feelings  as  little  as  possible. — Good. 

Ver.  6.  Is  not  this  thy  fear,  thy  confidence,  the 
uprightness  of  thy  ways,  and  thy  hope? 

The  clew  to  the  genuine  sense  of  this  passage  will  be 
obtained  by  a  slight  transposition  of  the  latter  hemistich : 
"  Is  not  this  fear  of  thine,  tny  confidence ;  and  the  upright- 
ness of  thy  ways,  thy  hope  1"  Job  had  before  aflSrmed, 
chap.  iii.  25, 26,  "  The  thing  which  I  greatly  feared  is  come 
upon  me,  and  that  which  I  was  afraid  of  is  come  unto  me. 
I  was  not  in  safety,  neither  had  I  rest,  neither  was  I  quiet; 
yet  trouble  came ;"  i.  e.  I  was  continually  exercised  by  a 
godly  fear,  a  holy  misgiving;  I  did  not  dare  to  cherish  a 
sentiment  of  carnal  security ;  even  in  the  height  of  my 
prosperity,  I  was  deeply  sensible  of  my  exposure  to  calam- 
ity, and  lived  habitually  under  a  trembling  anticipation  of 
its  approach.  To  this  Eliphaz  alludes;  q.  d.  Here  is  some- 
thing for  which  it  is  hard  to  account.  "  Behold,  thou  hast 
instructed  many,  and  thou  hast  strengthened  the  weak 
hands.  Thy  words  have  upholden  him  that  was  falling,  and 
thou  hast  strengthened  the  feeble  knees.  But  now  it  is  come 
upon  thee,  and  thou  faintest;  ii  toucheth  thee,  and  thou  art 
42 


troubled."  How  is  this  1  Why  is  thy  practice  so  much  at 
variance  with  thy  precepts  1  If  thou  art  the  man  thou 
claimest  to  be;  if  thou  hast  been  governed,  as  thou  alle- 
gest,  by  a  prevailing  fear  of  God,  and  hast  never  indulged  a 
feeling  of  self-sufficient  security,  why  is  not  this  thy  fear  a 
source  of  humble  confidence  to  thee  in  the  day  of  distress  1 
and  why  does  not  the  recollection  of  the  unimpeachable 
integrity  and  uprightness  of  thy  ways,  serve  as  an  anchor  of 
hope,  amid  the  tossings  of  a  tried  and  troubled  spirit  1 
This  surely  were  to  have  been  expected  from  one  of  thy 
character.  A  heart  conscious  of  innocence  could  not  but 
sustain  itself  in  such  a  trial ;  it  would  be  entirely  contrary 
to  the  analogy  of  the  divine  dispensations  to  suppose  that 
such  a  one  would  be  the  victim  of  overwhelming  judg- 
ments; for  "  remember,  I  pray  thee,  who  ever  perished 
being  innocent  1  or  when  were  the  righteous  cast  ofi''?" 
This  interpretation  makes  the  whole  address  of  Eliphaz 
consistent,  coherent,  and  clear,  though  founded  upon  the 
fallacy,  that  men  are  invariably  dealt  with  in  this  world 
according  to  their  desert. — Bush. 

Ver.  9.  By  the  blast  of  God  they  perish,  and  by 
the  breath  of  his  nostrils  are  they  consumed. 

When  people  are  angry,  they  distend  their  nostrils  and 
blow  with  great  force  :  the  action  may  be  taken  from  some 
animals,  which,  when  angry,  blow  violently  through  their 
noses.  Of  a  man  who  is  much  given  to  anger,  it  is  said, 
"  That  fellow  is  always  blowing  through  his  nose."  "  You 
may  blow  through  your  nose  for  a  thousand  years,  it  will 
never  injure  me."  "  Go  not  near  the  breath  of  his  nostrils, 
he  will  injure  you." — Roberts, 

Ver.  15.  Then  a  spirit  passed  before  my  face ;  the 
hair  of  my  flesh  stood  up. 

This  refers  to  the  great  fear  of  Job ;  but  the  same  effect 
is  often  ascribed  to  great  joy.  Thus,  in  Hindoo  books,  in 
describing  the  ecstasy  of  gods  or  men,  it  is  often  said, 
*'  The  hair  of  their  flesh  stood  erect."  A  father  says  to  his 
long  absent  child,  "  My  son,  not  having  seen  your  lotus 
face  for  so  long,  my  hair  stands  up  with  joy." — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  How  much  less  on  them  that  dwell  in 
houses  of  clay,  whose  foundation  is  in  the  dust, 
which  are  crushed  before  the  moth  ? 

It  is  probable  that  this  means  a  moth-worm,  which  is  one 
state  ol  the  creature  alluded  to.  It  is  first  enclosed  in  an 
egg,  from  whence  it  issues  a  worm,  and  after  a  time 
becomes  a  complete  insect,  or  moth.  The  following  ex- 
tracts from  Niebuhr  may  throw  light  on  this  passage,  that 
man  is  crushed  by  so  feeble  a  thing  as  a  worm  : — "  A  dis- 
ease very  common  in  Yemen  is  the  attack  of  the  Guiney- 
worm,  or  the  Vena-Medinensis,  as  it  is  called  by  the  physi- 
cians of  Europe.  This  disease  is  supposed  to  be  occasioned 
by  the  use  of  the  putrid  waters,  which  people  are  obliged 
to  drink  in  several  parts  of  Yemen ;  and  for  this  reason  the 
Arabians  always  pass  water,  with  the  nature  of  which  they 
are  unacquainted,  through  a  linen  cloth,  before  drinking  it. 
Where  one  unfortunately  swallows  any  of  the  eggs  of  this 
insect,  no  immediate  consequence  follows ;  but  after  a  con- 
siderable time,  the  worm  begins  to  show  itself  through  the 
skin.  Our  physician,  Mr.  Cramer,  was,  within  a  few  days 
of  his  death,  attacked  by  five  of  these  worms  at  once, 
although  this  was  more  than  five  months  after  we  had  left 
Arabia.  In  the  isle  of  Karek  I  saw  a  French  oflScer  named 
Le  Page,  who,  after  a  long  and  difficult  journey  performed 
on  foot,  and  in  an  Indian  "dress,  between  Pondicherry  and 
Surat,  through  the  heart  of  India,  was  busy  extracting  a 
worm  out  of  his  body.  He  supposed  that  he  had  got  it  by 
drinking  bad  water  in  the  country  of  the  Mahrattas,  This 
disorder  is  not  dangerous  if  the  person  affected  can  extract 
the  worm  without  breaking  it.  With  this  view  it  is  rolled 
on  a  small  bit  of  wood  as  it  comes  out  of  the  skin.  It  is 
slender  as  a  thread,  and  two  or  three  feet  long.  It  gives  no 
pain  as  it  makes  its  way  out  of  the  body,  unlef^s  what  may 
De  occasioned  by  the  cafe  which  must  be  taken  of  it  for  some 
weeks.  If  unliickily  it  be  broken,  it  then  returns  into  the 
body,  and  the  most  disagreeable  consequences  ensue,  palsy, 
a  gangrene,  and  sometimes  death." — Burder. 


3S0 


JOB, 


Chap.  5,  6. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  5.  Whose  harvest  the  hungry  eateth  up,  and 
taketh  it  even  out  of  the  thorns,  and  the  robber 
swalloweth  up  their  substance. 

This  seems  a  manifest  allusion  to  the  half-starved  Arabs 
of  the  desert,  who  were  always  ready  for  plunder,  as  their 
descendants  are  to  this  day.  Such  starvehngs  are  thus  de- 
scribed by  Volney  :  "  These  men  are  smaller,  leaner,  and 
blacker,  than  any  of  the  Bedouins  yet  known;  their  wasted 
legs  had  only  tendons  without  calves;  their  belly  was  glued 
to  their  back.  In  general,  the  Bedouins  are  small,  lean,  and 
swarthy,  more  so,  however,  in  the  bosom  of  the  desert,  than 
on  the  borders  of  the  cultivated  country.  They  are  ordi- 
narily about  five  feet  two  inches  high.  They  seldom  have 
more  than  about  six  ounces  of  food  for  the  whole  day.  Six 
or  seven  dates,  soaked  in  melted  butter,  a  little  milk,  or 
curd,  serve  a  man  for  twenty-four  hours;  and  he  seems 
happy  when  he  can  add  a  small  portion  of  coarse  flour,  or 
a  litiie  ball  of  rice.  Their  camels  also,  which  are  their 
chief  support,  are  remarkably  meager,  living  on  the  mean- 
est and  most  scanty  provision.  Nature  has  given  it  a 
small  head,  without' ears,  at  the  end  of  a  long  neck,  with- 
out flesh:  she  has  taken  from  its  legs  and  thighs  every 
muscle  not  immediately  requisite  for  motion;  and,  in 
short,  has  bestcjwed  on  its  withered  body  only  the  vessels 
and  tendons  necessary  to  connect  its  frame  together;  she 
has  furnished  it  with  a  strong  jaw,  that  it  may  grind  the 
hardest  aliments ;  and  lest  it  should  consume  too  much,  she 
has  straitened  its  stomach,  and  obliged  it  to  chew  the  cud." 

-BURDER. 

Ver.  7.  Yet  man  is  born  unto  trouble,  as  the 
sparks  fly  upward. 

Hebrew,  "  Sons  of  the  burning  coal."  The  word  son, 
among  the  Hindoos,  is  applied  to  man,  and  all  kinds  of 
animal  life.  Men  of  ignoble  parentage  are  called  sons  of 
the  koddekal,  i.  e.  the  mechanics.  When  animals,  reptiles, 
or  insects,  are  troublesome,  they  are  called  passdsinudia 
Tiiaggal,  Sons  of  the  devil ;  or  vease-maggal,  sons  of  the 
prostitute,  or  of  the  treacherous  ones.  See  the  ploughman, 
at  his  occupation;  should  the  bullocks  prove  restive,  he 
immediately  vociferates  the  epithets  alluded  to.  Listen  to 
the  almost  breathless  cowherd,  who  is  running  after  some 
of  his  refractory  kine,  to  bring  them  to  the  fold,  and  he 
abuses  them  in  the  most  coarse  and  indelicate  language. 
The  man  also,  who,  for  the  first  time,  discovers  the  while 
ants  destroying  his  property,  bawls  out  with  all  his  might, 
"  Ah !  vease-maggal,  sons  of  the  prostitute." — Roberts. 

Ver.  21.  Thou  shalt  be  hid  from  the  scourge  of 
the  tongue :  neither  shalt  thou  be  afraid  of  de- 
struction when  it  cometh. 

Dr.  A.  Clarke  says,  "  the  Targum  refers  this  to  the  in- 
cantations of  Balaam :  from  the  injury  by  the  tongue  of 
Balaam  thou  shalt  be  hidden."  The  people  live  in  great 
fear  of  the  scourge  of  the  tongue,  and  that  independent  of 
an  incantation,  because  they  believe  the  tongues  of  some 
men  have  the  power  of  inflicting  a  dreadful  curse  on  any 
object  which  has  incurred  their  displeasure.  Thus,  many 
of  the  evils  of  life  are  believed  to  come  from  nd-vooru,  the 
curse  or  the  scourge  of  the  tongue.  "  Have  you  heard 
what  Kandan's  tongue  has  done  for  Muttoo  V  "  No  !  what 
has  happened  V  "  Why,  some  time  ago,  Kandan  promised 
on  his  next  voyage  to  bring  Muttoo  a  cargo  of  rice,  but  he 
did  not  keep  his  word ;  Kandan,  therefore,  became  very 
angry,  and  said, '  I  shall  not  be  surprised  at  hearing  of  thy 
\'^ssel  being  wrecked.'  Muttoo  again  sailed,  without  caring 
for  Kandan's  tongue;  but  lo !  his  vessel  has  been  knocked 
to  pieces  on  the  rocks,  and  I  saw  him  this  morning  on  his 
way  home,  beating  his  head,  and  exclaiming,  *  Ah !  this 
nd-vooru,  nd-vooru,  this  evil  tongue,  this  evil  tongue,  my 
vessel  has  gone  to  pieces  on  the  rocks."  But  the  tongues 
of  some  men  are  believed  to  possess  malignant  power,  not 
only  in  imprecations,  but  also  in  their  blessings  and  praises. 
*  The  other  day,  when  I  and  some  others  were  sitting  with 
our  friend  the  doctor,  one  of  his  daughters  came  to  speak 
to  her  father;  as  she  was  delivering  her  message,  one  of 


the  party  exclaimed,  *  What  a  beautiful  set  cf  teeth !'  and 
from  that  moment  they  began  to  decay.*'  "Alas!  alas! 
poor  old  Murager  purchased  a  fine  milch  cow  yesterday, 
and  was  driving  her  along  the  road  this  morning,  on  his 
way  home,  when,  behold,  a  fellow  met  them  and  said,  '  Ah, 
what  large  teals!'  The  cow  broke  from  the  string,  she 
rushed  to  the  hedge,  and  a  stake  ran  through  her  udder." 
"Ah,  what  a  miserable  man  is  Valen  !  a  few  days  ago,  as 
his  wife  was  nursing  the  infant,  he  said,  'How  comely  art 
thou,  my  fawn  !'  when  immediately  a  cancer  made  its  ap- 
pearance in  her  breast,  from  which  she  can  never  recover." 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  For  thou  shalt  be  in  league  with  the 
stones  of  the  field;  and  the  beasts  of  the  field 
shall  be  at  peace  with  thee. 

See  on  2  Kings  3.  19. 

In  a  country  where  wild  beasts  are  so  numerous  and  so 
fierce,  and  where  the  natives  have  so  few  means  of  dtfence, 
can  it  be  a  matter  of  surprise  that  people  on  a  journey  are 
always  under  the  influence  of  great  fear  "l  The  father  says 
to  his  son,  M'hen  he  is  about  to  depart,  "Fear  not;  the 
beasts  will  be  thy  friends."  The  dealer  in  charms  says, 
when  giving  one  of  his  potent  spells,  "  Be  not  afraid,  young 
man ;  this  shall  make  the  cruel  beasts  rasped  thee." — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  Thou  shalt  know  also  that  thy  seed  shall 
be  great,  and  thine  offspring  as  the  grass  of  the 
earth. 

When  a  priest,  or  an  aged  person,  blesses  a  young  couple, 
he  says,  "  Your  children  shall  be  as  the  grass,  arruga-pillu^ 
(Agrostis  Linearis.)  Yes;  you  shall  twine  and  bind  your- 
selves together  like  the  grass." — Roberts. 

Ver.  26.  Thou  shalt  come  to  thy  grave  in  a  full 
age,  like  as  a  shock  of  corn  cometh  in  his  sea- 
son. 

Literally,  "  in  dried  up,"  or,  "  shrivelled  ag8;"aBd  hence 
the  term  here  employed,  (h'pd)  is  applied  by  the  Aiabians 
to  designate  the  winter  season,  in  which  every  thing  is  cor- 
rugated or  shrivelled.  On  which  account  some  commen- 
tators propose,  that  the  text  should  be  rendered  "  in  the 
lointer  of  life ;"  poetically,  indeed,  but  not  thoroughly  con- 
sistent with  the  metaphor  of  a  shock  of  corn :  which,  in 
close  congruity  with  the  emblematic  picture  of  winter,  at  its 
season  of  maturity,  is  dried  up  and  contracted,  and  thtis  far 
offers  an  equal  similitude  of  ripe  old  age;  but  which  forci- 
bly increases  the  similitude  by  the  well  known  fact,  that, 
like  ripe  old  age  also,  it  must  be  committed  to  the  earth  in 
order  to  spring  to  newness  of  life ;  for,  in  both  cases,  "  the 
seed  which  thou  sowesi  shall  not  quicken,  except  it  die.** 
Tyndal  has  given  the  passage  thus:  "  In  a  fayre  age  lyke 
as  the  corn  sheewes  are  broughte  into  the  barne  in  due  sea- 
son:" whence  Sandys, 

"Then,  full  of  days,  like  weighty  shocks  of  com, 
In  season  reaped,  shalt  to  thy  grave  be  borne." 

Nor  very  differently  Schullens,  notwithstanding  that  he  ad- 
raits  that  the  Hebrew  (n^h)  in  itself  implies  "  congestion, 
accumulation,  or  heaping  together."  "  Intrabis  in  decrep- 
ita  senectute  ad  tumulum,"  "  Thou  shalt  enter  into  the  tomb 
in  decrepit  age ;"  meaning,  as  a  shock  of  corn  enters  into 
the  barn. — Good. 

Great  is  the  desire  of  the  men  of  the  East  to  see  a  good 
old  age.  Thus  the  beggars,  when  relieved,  often  bless  you, 
and  say,  "  Ah  !  my  lord,  may  you  live  a  thousand  years." 
"  Live,  live,  till  the  shakings  of  age." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  2.  Oh  that  my  grief  were  thoroughly  weigh- 
ed, and  my  calamity  laid  in  the  balances  to- 
gether ! 

"  Ah !  my  lord,  could  you  weigh  my  poverty,  I  am  sure 
you  would  relieve  me."  "  The  sorrows  of  that  man's  soul, 
who  can  weigh  them  1"  "  Alas  !  if  my  sorrows  could  be 
weighed,  then  would  pity  be  shown  unto  me."— Roberts. 


^HAP.  7. 


JOB. 


331 


Ver.  4.  For  the  arrows  of  the  Almighty  are  with- 
in me,  the  poison  whereof  drinketh  up  my  spi- 
rit :  the  terrors  of  God  do  set  themselves  in  ar- 
ray against  me. 

The  practice  of  using  poisoned  arrows  is  universal  among 
the  interior  nations  of  Southern  Africa,  to  whom  the  gospel 
has  not  reached.  The  strongest  of  all  the  poisons  used  is 
that  which  has  been  discovered  by  the  most  uncivilized  of  all 
the  nations,  the  wild  Bushmen ;  a  wound  from  which  is 
attended  with  great  pain  and  thirst,  while  the  poison  is 
working  throughout  the  system,  and  attended  with  great 
depression.  I  brought  some  of  the  poison  with  me  to 
England,  to  see  if  any  antidote  against  it  could  be  discov- 
ered. It  has  exactly  the  appearance  of  black  wax,  and  is 
found  deposited  in  sheltered  corners  of  rocks,  but  how  it 
came  there  is  yet  unknown.  A  medical  gentleman,  who 
had  devoted  much  attention  to  the  different  kinds  of  known 
poisons,  after  delivering  some  lectures  in  London  on  that 
particular  subject,  heard  of  the  Bushman  poison,  and  ap- 
plied to  me  to  furnish  him  with  some  of  it,  that  he  might 
analyze  it,  and  endeavour  to  find  out  an  antidote.  I  rejoiced 
that  the  matter  had  fallen  into  such  good  hands,  and  imme- 
diately forwarded  it  by  post.  I  received  different  letters, 
containing  various  experiments,  bat  all  had  failed.  I  re- 
member the  first  trial  he  made  of  the  power  of  the  poison 
was,  by  wetting  the  point  of  a  needle,  and,  after  dipping  it 
into  the  powder,  pricking  a  bird  with  it,  which  died  almost 
immediately.  The  same  experiment  was  made  on  a  second 
bird,  while  some  antidote  was  immediately  applied  to  coun- 
teract the  effects  of  the  poison.  After  a  short  time  it  also 
died.  Various  antidotes  were  tried  in  the  same  way,  but 
all  proved  equally  ineffectual. — Campbell. 

Ver.  6.  Can  that  which  is  unsavoury  be  eaten 
without  salt  1  or  is  there  any  taste  in  the  white 
of  an  egg. 

The  eastern  people  often  make  use  of  bread,  with  nothing 
more  than  salt,  or  some  such  trifling  addition,  such  as  sum- 
mer-savory dried  and  powdered.  This,  Russel  says,  is  done 
by  many  at  Aleppo.  The  Septuagint  translation  of  this 
passage  seems  to  refer  to  the  same  practice,  when  it  renders 
the  first  part  of  the  verse,  "will  bread  be  eaten  without 

salt  r'— BURDER. 

Ver.  12.  Is  my  strength  the  strength  of  stones? 
or  is  my  flesh  of  brass  ? 

^Is  a  servant  ordered  to  do  a  thing  for  which  he  has  not 
strength;  to  undergo  great  hardships;  he  asks,  "Is  my 
strength  as  iron  1    Am  I  a  stone  ?" — Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  My  brethren  have  dealt  deceitfully  as  a 
brook,  and  as  the  stream  of  brooks  they  pass 
away;  16.  Which  are  blackish  by  reason  of 
the  ice,  and  wherein  the  snow  is  hid  :  17.  What 
time  they  wax  warm  they  vanish :  Avhen  it  is 
hot,  they  are  consumed  out  of  their  place. 

The  phrase  in  this  place  is  a  strict  orientalism,  "  My 
brethren  have  acted  (or  played)  the  flood  with  me :"  and 
the  proverbial  form  is  at  least  as  common  now  among  the 
Arabians,  as  it  could  be  when  the  present  poem  was  com- 
posed. Fairly  explained,  nothing  can  be  more  apposite, 
nothing  more  exquisite,  than  the  image  before  us,  and  the 
whole  of  its  description.  Arabia  has  but  few  rivers ; 
Proper  Arabia  perhaps  none  ;  for  what  in  this  last  country 
are  called  rivers,  are  mere  torrents,  which  descend  from 
the  mountains  during  the  rains,  and  for  a  short  period  af- 
terward. A  few  rivers  are  found  in  Yemen,  or  the  south- 
ern province  ;  and  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  as  touching 
its  northern  limits  in  their  passage  along  Irak  Arabi,  have 
occasionally  been  laid  claim  to  by  Arabian  geographers. 
.  Even  the  Astam  of  Najd,  or  Neged,  the  province  of  Sandy 
Arabia,  though  laid  down  as  a  considerable  river  in  the 
maps,  is  a  mere  brook.  Hence  the  country  is  chiefly  water- 
ed and  fertilized  by  exudations  of  its  dry  channels,  an 
overflow  of  which  is  uniformly  regarded  as  a  great  treasure 
and  blessing;  the  inhabitants  in  the  neighbourhood  hail  its 


appearance,  and  prepare  to  enrich  themselves  out  of  its 
stores,  by  admitting  it  into  their  tanks  or  reservoirs.  But  it 
often  happens,  that  the  blessing  is  converted  to  a  curse; 
that  the  torrent  rushes  with  so  much  abruptness  and  rapid- 
ity, as  to  carry  every  thing  before  it;  and  that,  exhausted 
by  its  own  violence,  its  duration  is  as  brief  as  its  stream  is 
rapid,  allowing  them  scarcely  lime  to  slake  their  own 
thirst,  or,  at  least,  to  fill  their  domestic  utensils.  Fair  and 
specious,  therefore,  as  is  its  first  appearance,  it  is  in  the  end 
full  of  deceit  and  cruel  disappointment:  "  Et  viatores(says 
Dr.  Lowth,  upon  the  passage  before  us)  per  Arabse  deserta 
errantes  sitique  confectos  perfide  destituunt,"  Pra^l.  xii.  p. 
110 — it  promises  comfort,  but  overwhelms  with  mortifica- 
tion. Such  (says  Job)  are  the  companions  who  come  to 
visit  me  in  my  affliction ;  they  affect  to  console  me,  but  they 
redouble  my  distress. — Good. 

In  desert  parts  of  Africa  it  has  afforded  much  joy  to  fall 
in  with  a  brook  of  water,  especially  when  running  in  the 
direction  of  the  journey,  expecting  it  would  prove  a  valua- 
ble companion.  Perhaps  before  it  accompanied  us  two 
miles,  it  became  invisible  by  sinking  into  the  sand;  but 
two  miles  farther  along,  it  would  re-appear  and  run  as  be- 
fore, and  raise  hopes  of  its  continuance  ;  but  after  running 
a  few  hundred  yards,  would  finally  sink  into  the  sand,  not 
again  to  rise.  In  both  cases  it  raised  hopes  M^hich  were 
not  realized  ;  of  course  it  deceived.  Perhaps  it  is  to  such 
brooks  that  Job  refers  in  the  15th  verse.  There  are  many 
in  Africa,  which  are  described  in  verse  17,  which  run  in  ^ 
the  winter,  or  rainy  season ;  but  the  return  of  the  hot  season 
completely  dries  them  up,  which  prove  often  great  disap- 
pointments to  stranger  travellers. — Campbell. 

Ver.  18.  The  paths  of  their  way  are  turned  aside; 
they  go  to  nothing,  and  perish. 

Rendered  by  Schultens  and  Reiske,  "  into  thp  desert,  the 
empty  space,  or  land  of  nothing;"  but  the  former  is  the 
more  forcible  rendering.  The  torrent  progressively  evap- 
orating and  branching  into  fresh  outlets,  becomes  at  length 
itself  nothing.  The  original  means  equally  "  nothing," 
and  "  a  desert,"  or  place  of  nothing.  It  is  usually  rendered 
in  the  former  signification.  I  have  already  observed  that 
the  latter  is  preferred  by  Reiske  and  Schultens  ;  but  either 
will  answer. 

The  whole  description  is  directly  coincident  with  a  very 
valuable  article  inserted  by  Major  Colebrooke,  in  the  sev- 
enth volume  of  Asiatic  Researches,  and  entitled,  "  On  the 
Course  of  the  Ganges  through  Bengal,"  He  observes,  that 
the  occasional  obstructions  which  the  rivers  of  Bengal  meet 
with,  on  the  return  of  their  periodical  flux,  produce  not  un- 
frequently  some  very  extraordinary  alterations  in  the  course 
and  bending  of  their  respective  beds,  and  hence,  some 
equally  extraordinary  changes  in  the  general  face  of  the 
country.  While  some  villages  that,  in  common,  are  scarce- 
ly visited  by  a  river,  even  at  its  utmost  rise,  are  overflowed 
and  suddenly  swept  away ;  others,  actually  seated  on  the 
banks  of  an  arm,  and  that  used  to  be  regularly  inundated, 
are  totally  deserted,  and  the  inhabitants  have  to  travel  over 
many  miles  to  obtain  water.  He  adds,  that  the  Ganges  has 
evinced  changes  of  this  nature,  in  a  greater  degree  than 
any  other  Indian  stream ;  and  that  even  since  the  survey 
of  Major  Rennel,  in  1764,  it  has  deviated  in  its  course  not 
less  than  two  miles  and  a  half ;  whence  several  of  the  vil- 
lages which  figure  in  his  map  are  no  longer  to  be  found  in 
the  situations  assigned  them;  while  islands  of  considerable 
magnitude,  now  inhabited  and  cultivated,  have  started  into 
being  where  the  river  then  rolled  its  deepest  waters.— 
Good. 

Ver.  28.  Now,  therefore,  be  content :  look  upon 
me :  for  it  is  evident  unto  you  if  I  lie. 

When  a  person  is  accused  of  uttering  a  falsehood,  he 
says,  "  Look  in  my  face,  and  you  will  soon  see  I  am  inno- 
cent." "My  face  will  tell  you  the  truth."  When  the 
countenance  does  not  indicate  guilt,  it  is  said,  "  Ah  !  his 
face  does  not  say  so."  "  The  man's  face  does  not  contain 
the  witness  of  guilt." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  2.  As  a  servant  earnestly  desireth  the  shadow, 


332 


JOB. 


Chap.  7—9. 


and  as  a  hireling  looketh  for  the  reward  of  his 
work. 

The  people  of  the  East  measure  time  by  the  length  of 
their  shadow.  Hence,  if  you  ask  a  man  what  o'clock  it  is, 
he  immediately  goes  in  the  sun,  stands  erect,  then  looking 
where  his  shadow  terminates,  he  measures  the  length  with 
his  feet,  and  tells  you  nearly  the  time.  Thus  they  earnest- 
ly desire  the  shadow  which  indicates  the  time  for  leaving 
th'^ir  M^ork.  A  person  wishing  to  leave  his  toil,  says, 
"  How  long  my  shadow  is  in  coming."  "  Why  did  you 
not  come  sooner  1"    "  Because  I  waited  for  my  shadow." — 

R  'BERTS. 

Ver.  2.  As  a  servant  earnestly  desireth  the  shadow, 
and  as  a  hireling  looketh  for  the  reward  o/his 
work ;  3.  So  am  I  made  to  possess  months  of 
vanity,  and  wearisome  nights  are  appointed  to 
me. 

The  expression,  when  fairly  rendered  from  the  original, 
is  peculiarly  forcible:  "  So  much  worse  is  my  destiny  than 
that  of  the  bondsman  and  the  hireling,  that,  while  they  pant 
and  look  early  for  the  night-shade,  as  the  close  oi  their 
trouble,  even  the  night  is  not  free  from  troubles  to  myself." 
— Good. 

Ver.  10.  He  shall  return  no  more  to  his  house, 
neither  shall  his  place  know  him  any  more. 

Inanimate  objects  are  often  spoken  of  as  if  they  knew  their 
owners.  A  man  who  has  sold  his  field,  says,  "  That  will  not 
knoio  me  any  more."  Does  a  field  not  produce  good  crops, 
it  is  said,  "  That  field  doth  not  know  its  owner."  Has  a 
man  been  long  absent  from  his  home,  he  asks,  wheji  enter- 
ing the  door,  "  Ah  !  do  you  know  me  1"  Does  he,  after 
this,  walk  through  his  garden  and  grounds,  the  servants 
say,  "  Ah !  how  pleased  these  are  to  see  you !"  Has  a  per- 
son been  unfortunate  at  sea,  it  is  said,  **  The  sea  does  not 
kTww  him." — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  Am  I  a  sea,  or  a  whale,  that  thou  settest 
a  watch  over  me? 

Some  suppose  this  alludes  to  the  sea  overflowing  its 
banks.  But  the  Orientals  also  believe  that  the  sea  is  the 
dwelling-place  of  many  of  their  spiritual  enemies.  Hence 
they  have  a  deity  to  watch  the  shore,  whose  name  is  Kali. 
Numerous  enemies,  also,  are  compared  to  the  sea,  and 
wicked  chiefs  who  oppress  the  people,  to  timingalam,  i.  e. 
a  whale.  "Ah!  that  whale,  who  can  escape  him"?" — 
Roberts. 

Crocodiles  are  very  terrible  to  the  inhabitants  of  Egypt ; 
when  therefore  they  appear,  they  watch  them  with  great 
attention,  and  take  proper  precautions  to  secure  them,  so 
that  they  should  not  be  able  to  avoid  the  deadly  weapons 
afterward  used  to  kill  them.  To  these  watchings,  and 
those  deadly  after-assaults,  I  apprehend  Job  refers,  when 
he  says,  am  la  whale,  (but  a  crocodile  no  doubt  is  what  is 
meani  there,)  that  thou  settest  a  watch  over  me  7  "  Different 
methods,"  says  Maillet,  "  are  used  to  take  crocodiles,  and 
some  of  them  very  singular ;  the  most  common  is  to  dig 
deep  ditches  along  the  Nile,  which  are  covered  with  straw, 
and  into  which  the  crocodile  may  probably  tumble.  Some- 
times they  take  them  with  hooks,  which  are  baited  with  a 
quarter  of  a  pig,  or  with  bacon,  of  which  they  are  very  fond. 
Some  hide  themselves  in  the  places  which  they  know  to  be 
frequented  by  this  creature,  and  lay  snares  for  him." — Bur- 

DER. 

Ver.  19.  How  long  wilt  thou  not  depart  from  me, 
not  let  me  alone  till' I  swallow  down  mv  spit- 
tie? 

This  is  a  proverb  among  the  Arabians  to  the  present  day, 
oy  which  they  understand.  Give  me  leave  to  rest  after  my 
fatigue.  This  is  the  favour  which  Job  complains  is  not 
granted  to  him.  There  are  two  instances  which  illustrate 
the  passage  (quoted  by  Schultens)  in  Harris's  Narratives, 
entitled  the  Assembly.  One  is  of  a  person,  who,  when 
eagerly  pressed  to  give  an  account  of  his  travels,  answered 


with  impatience,  "  Let  me  swallow  down  my  spittle,  for  my 
journey  hath  fatigued  me."  The  other  mstance  is  of  a 
quick  return  made  to  one  who  used  that  proverb,  "  Suffer 
me,"  said  the  person  importuned,  "  to  swallow  down  my 
spittle :"  to  which  his  friend  replied,  "  You  may  if  you 
please  swallow  down  even  Tigris  and  Euphrates ;"  that  is, 
take  what  time  you  please. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  11.  Can  the  rush  grow  up  without  mire? 
can  the  flag  grow  without  water  ? 

Tfbe  reed  grows  in  immense  numbers  on  the  banks  and 
in  the  streams  of  the  Nile.  Extensive  woods  of  the  canes 
Phragmit  and  Calama  magrostes,  which  rise  to  the  height 
of  twelve  yards,  cover  the  marshes  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Suez.  The  stems  are  conveyed  all  over  Egypt  and 
Arabia,  and  are  employed  by  the  Orientals  in  construct- 
ing the  flat  terraces  of  their  habitations.  Calmet  thinks 
it  probable  that  this  extensive  region  of  canes  gave  name 
to  the  Red  Sea,  which,  in  those  times,  entirely  inundated 
the  marshes  on  its  borders.  Jam  Suph  is  a  sea  that  pro- 
duces canes  ;  and  as  the  Arabs  denote  two  sorts  of  canes 
by  the  general  name  buz,  the  surname  being  added  after- 
ward, Moses,  the  sacred  historian,  following  the  same 
ancient  denominations,  did  not  attend  to  the  specifical  nice- 
ties of  botanology.  This  same  leader  of  the  people,  un- 
derwent the  first  dangers  of  his  life  in  a  cradle  made  of 
the  reeds  donax  or  hagni.  This  information  induced  Cal- 
met to  conclude,  that  in  these  reeds,  which  covered  the 
banks  of  the  Nile,  we  have  what  our  translation  renders 
the  flags,  (suph,")  in  which  Moses  was  concealed  in  his  trunk, 
or  ark  of  bulrushes,  goma.  The  remarkable  height  to  which 
they  grow,  and  their  vast  abundance,  lead  to  the  persuasion, 
that  in  some  thick  tuft  of  them,  the  future  prophet  of  Israel 
was  concealed.  It  appears  also,  from  the  interrogation  of 
Job,  that  the  goma  cannot  reach  its  full  stature  without  an 
abundant  supply  of  water:  "  Can  the  rush — goma,  rather 
the  tall  strong  cane  or  reed — grow  up  without  water  1" 
This  plant,  therefore,  being  a  tall  reed,  is  with  great  pro- 
priety associated  with  the  kanah,  or  cane :  "  In  the  habita- 
tion of  dragons,  where  each  lay,  shall  be  grass,  with  canes 
and  reeds." — Paxton. 

Ver.  12.  While  it  is  yet  in  his  greenness,  and  not 

cut  down,  it  withereth  before  any  other  herb. 
• 
The  application  of  this  beautiful  similitude  is  easy,  and 
its  moral  exquisitely  correct  and  pertinent.  As  the  most 
succulent  plants  are  dependant  upon  foreign  support  for  a 
continuance  of  that  succulence,  and  in  the  midst  of  their 
vigour  are  sooner  parched  up  than  plants  of  less  humidity ; 
so  the  most  prosperous  sinner  does  not  derive  his  prosper- 
ity from  himself,  and  is  often  destroyed  in  the  highday  of 
his  enjoyments,  more  signally  and  abruptly  than  those  who 
are  less  favoured,  and  appear  to  stand  less  securely. — Good. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  18.  He  will  not  suffer  me  to  take  my  breath, 
but  filleth  me  with  bitterness. 

Of  a  cruel  master  it  is  said,  "  When  his  servants  stop  to 
take  their  breath,  he  abuses  them."  "  The  man  grudges 
me  my  breath."  "  What !  can  I  work  without  taking  my 
breath  1"  "  The  toil  is  always  upon  me:  I  have  not  time 
for  breathing." — Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  Now  my  days  are  swifter  than  a  post : 
they  flee  away,  they  see  no  good. 

"  Ah  1  my  days  are  like  an  arrow."  *'  What  is  my  time  1 
'tis  like  the  wind."  "  'Tis  like  cotton  spread  in  the  strong 
wind."  "See  that  falling  leaf;  that  is  life."  '"Tis  but 
as  a  snap  of  the  finger."  "  Am  I  not  like  a  flower  1" 
"  Yes ;  it  is  a  stream.""  "  Aneer-mndle,  i.  e.  a  bubble !  how 
softly  it  glides  along  !  how  beautiful  its  colours!  but  how 
soon  it  disappears." — Roberts. 

The  common  pace  of  travelling  in  the  East  is  very  slow. 
Camels  go  little  more  than  two  miles  an  hour.  Those  who 
carried  messages  in  haste  moved  very  difl^erently.  Drome- 
daries, a  sort  of  camel,  which  is  exceedingly  swift,  are  used 
for  this  purpose ;  and  Lady  M.  W.  Montague  asserts,  that 


Chap.  9—12. 


JOB, 


333 


they  far  outrun  the  swiftest  horses.  There  are  also  mes- 
sei  gers  who  run  on  foot,  and  who  sometimes  go  a  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  in  less  than  twenty-four  hours;  with  what 
energy  then  might  Job  say,  "  My  days  are  swifter  than  a 
post."  Instead  of  passing  away  with  a  slowness  of  motion 
like  that  of  a  caravan,  my  days  of  prosperity  Jiave  disap- 
peared with  a  swiftness  like  that  of  a  messenger  carrying 
despatches. — Bdrder.  ! 

Ver.  26.  They  are  passed  away  as  the  swift  ships  ; 
as  the  eagle  that  hasteth  to  the  prey. 

"The  swift  ships."  Many  interpretations  have  been 
given  of  this  expression.  The  author  of  the  Fragments  an- 
nexed to  Calmet's  Dictionary,  observes,  that  if  it  can  be 
rendered  supposable  that  any  animal,  or  class  of  animals, 
may  be  metaphorically  called  ships,  it  is  the  dromedary, 
well  known  to  Job.  The  eastern  writers  apply  the  term  to 
camels  and  dromedaries.  "  The  whole  caravan  being  now 
assembled,  consists  of  a  thousand  horses,  mules,  and  asses, 
and  of  five  hundred  camels  :  these  are  the  ships  of  Arabia ; 
their  seas  are  the  deserts."  (Sandy's  Travels.)  "  What 
enables  the  shepherd  to  perform  the  long  and  tiresome  jour- 
neys across  Africa,  is  the  camel,  emphatically  called  by  the 
Arabs,  the  ship  of  the  desert :  he  seems  to  have  been  crea- 
ted for  this  very  trade."  (Bruce's  Travels.)  Of  the  drom- 
edary, which  is  a  kind  of  camel,  Mr.  Morgan  {History  of 
Algiers)  says,  "  I  saw  one  perfectly  white  all  over,  belong- 
mg  to  Leila  Oumane,  princess  of  that  noble  Arab  Neja, 
named  Heyl  ben  Ali,  upon  which  she  put  a  very  great 
value,  never  sending  it  abroad  but  upon  some  extraordina- 
ry occasion,  when  the  greatest  expedition  was  required : 
having  others,  inferior  in  swiftness,  for  more  ordinary^ 
messages.  They  say  that  one  of  these  Aasharies  will,  in' 
one  night,  and  through  a  level  country,  traverse  as  much 
ground  as  any  single  horse  can  perform  in  ten,  which  is  no 
exaggeration  of  the  matter,  since  many  have  aflSrmed  to 
me,  that  it  makes  nothing  of  holding  its  rapid  pace,  which 
is  a  most  violent  hard  trot,  for  four-and-twenty  hours  on  a 
stretch,  without  showing  the  least  sign  of  weariness  or  in- 
clination to  bait ;  and  that  then  having  swallowed  a  ball  or 
two  of  a  sort  of  paste  made  up  of  barley-meal,  and,  maybe, 
a  little  powder  of  dry  dates  among  it,  with  a  bowl  of  wa- 
ter, or  camel's  milk,  if  to  be  had,  and  which  the  courier 
seldom  forgets  to  be  provided  with  in  skins,  as  well  for  the 
sustenance  of  himself  as  of  his  pegasus,  the  indefatigable 
animal  will  seem  as  fresh  as  at  first  setting  out,  and  ready 
to  continue  running  at  the  same  scarcely  credible  rate,  for 
as  many  hours  longer,  and  so  on  from  one  extremity  of  the 
African  desert  to  the  other,  provided  its  rider  could  hold 
out  without  sleep,  and  other  refreshments."  The  follow- 
ing extracts  from  Arabic  poetry,  translated  by  Sir  W.  Jones, 
speak  the  same  language : — 

"Even  now  she  (the  camel)  has  a  spirit  so  brisk,  that  she  flies  with 
the  rein,  like  a  dun  cloud  driven  by  tlie  wind,  after  it  has  discharged 
its  shower. 

"  LonjT  is  her  neck  ;  and  when  she  raises  it  with  celerity,  it  resem- 
bles the  stern  of  a  ship,  floating  aloft  on  the  billow^y  Tigris. 

"Ah,  thevehicles  whicli  boreaway  my  fair  one,  on  the  morning  \^(hen 
the  tribe  of  Malee  departed,  and  their  camels  were  traversing  the  bsmks 
of  Deda,  resembled  large  ships. 

"Sailing  from  Aduli,  or  vessels  of  (the  merchant)  Ibn  Yamin,  which 
the  mariner  now  turns  obliquely,  and  now  steers  in  a  direct  course  : 

"Ships  which  cleave  the  foaming  waves  with  their  prows,  as  a  boy 
at  play  divides  with  his  hand  the  collected  earth.'' 


CHAPTER  X. 
Ver.  10.  Hast  thou  not  poured  me  out  as  milk, 
and  curdled  me  like  cheese  1 

Much  philological  learning  has  been  brought  to  the  ex- 
planation of  this  passage.  In  the  preceding  verse,  Job  is 
speaking  of  his  death.  "  Wilt  thou  bring  me  unto  dust 
again  T'  But  what  has  the  pouring  out  of  milk  to  do  with 
death  1  The  people  of  the  East  pour  milk  upon  their  heads 
after  performing  the  funeral  obsequies.  Has  a  father  a 
profligate  son,  one  he  never  expects  to  reclaim,  he  says,  in 
reference  to  him, "  Ah  !  I  have  poured  milk  upon  my  head," 
t.  e.  "  I  have  done  with  him ;  he  is  as  one  dead  to  me." 
"And  curdled  me  like  cheese."  The  cheese  of  the  East  is 
little  better  than  curds :  and  these  also  are  used  at  the  funeral 
ceremonies.— Roberts, 


CHAPTER  XII. 
Ver.  2.  No  doubt  but  ye  are  the  people,  and  wis- 
dom shall  die  with  you. 

The  people  of  the  East  take  great  pleasure  in  irony,  and 
some  of  their  satirical  sayings  are  very  cutting.  When  a 
sage  intimates  that  he  has  superior  wisdom,  or  when  he  ]s 
disposed  to  rally  another  for  his  meager  attainments,  he 
says,  "  Yes,  yes  ;  you  are  the  m.an  !"  "  Your  wisdom  is 
like  the  sea."  "  You  found  it  in  dreams."  "  When  you 
die,  whither  will  wisdom  go  V  "  You  have  all  wisdom  !'' 
"  When  gone,  alas  !  what  will  become  of  wisdom  1"  "  O 
the  Nyani!  O  the  philosopher  !" — Roberts. 

Ver.  4.  I  am  as  one  mocked  of  his  neighbour, 
who  calleth  upon  God,  and  he  answereth  him: 
the  just  upright  man  is  laughed  to  scorn. 

Though  Job,  in  his  distress,  cried  unto  the  Lord,  his 
neighbours  mocked  him,  and  laughed  him  to  scorn ;  show- 
ing their  own  impiety,  and  belief  that  God  would  not  an- 
swer him.  Sometimes,  when  a  heathen  (who  is  supposed 
to  be  forsaken  of  the  gods)  performs  a  penance  or  religious 
austerity,  others  will  mocK  him,  and  say,  "Fast  for  me 
also;  yes,  perform  the  poosy  for  me,  and  you  shall  have  all 
you  want."  Should  a  man,  who  is  suffering  under  the 
punishment  due  to  his  crimes,  cry  to  the  gods  for  help, 
those  who  are  near  reply,  (for  the  gods,)  "  Yes,  we  are  here ; 
what  do  you  want?  we  will  help  you."  "When  the  gods 
come,  tell  them  I  am  gone  home;  I  could  not  remain  any 
longer."  Thus  was  the  just,  the  upright  Job,  laughed  to 
scorn  when  he  called  upon  God.— Roberts, 

Ver,  5,  He  that  is  ready  to  slip  with  his  feel  is  as 
a  lamp  despised  in  the  thought  of  him,  that  is  at 
ease. 

The  critics  are  by  no  means  agreed  on  the  import  of  this 
passage ;  and,  to  say  truth,  we  cannot  flatter  ourselves  with 
a  complete  removal  of  its  uncertainty.  However,  the 
attempt  to  explain  it  is  honourable,  even  though  it  fail. 
To  us  it  seems  to  suggest  a  comparison  between  the  super- 
abundant splendours  of  the  interior  of  a  wealthy  man's 
dwelling,  and  the  dark,  dismal,  night-wandering  of  a  way- 
worn traveller.  To  add  a  lamp,  however  bri.<^htly  burning, 
to  what  Mr.  Good  calls  "  the  sunshine  of  the  prosperous," 
were  to  render  that  lamp  a  contempt,  a  ridicule,  whereas 
the  man  who  stays  amid  mire  and  clay,  in  outer  darkness, 
would  rejoice  to  profit  by  its  lustre.  A  travelling  lamp, 
though  its  light  be  vivid,  would  be  laughed  at  amid  the 
various  elegant  illuminations  in  the  interior  of  a  house 
fitted  up  with  great  taste  by  a  man  of  fashion :  nevertheless, 
however  awkward,  coarse,  and  clumsy,  it  may  be,  the  man 
who  is  falling  into  a  quagmire  would  be  extremely  thankful 
for  its  assistance.  This  acceptation  of  the  sentiment  de- 
mands no  dislocation  of  any  word  in  the  text:  but,  whether 
it  completely  dissipates  the  obscurity  of  the  passage,  the 
reader  must  judge. — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

D'Oyley  and  Mant  quote  from  Caryl  and  Poole  as  fol- 
lows :  "  A  despised  )amp  is  of  the  same  signification  with  a 
smoking  firebrand ;  which  last  is  a  proverb  for  that  which 
is  almost  spent,  and  therefore  despised  and  thrown  away  as 
useless."  In  view  of  these  observations,  it  is  worthy  of 
notice,  that  of  a  man  who  is  much  despised,  or  who  is  very 
contemptible,  it  is  said,  "  That  fellow  is  like  the  half-con- 
sumed firebrand  of  the  funeral  pile."  Job,  by  his  enemies, 
was  counted  as  a  despised  lamp.  When  a  person  is  sick 
unto  death,  it  is  said,  "  His  lamp  is  going  out."  After 
death,  "  His  lamp  has  gone  out."  When  a  person  is  indis- 
posed, should  a  lamp  give  a  dim  light,  the  people  of  the 
house  will  become  much  alarmed,  as  they  think  it  a  bad 
sign.  A  lamp,  therefore,  which  burns  dimly,  (as  did  that 
of  Job,)  will  be  lightly  esteemed, — Roberts. 

Ver.  20.  He  removeth  away  the  speech  of  the 
trusty,  and  taketh  away  the  understanding  of 
the  aged. 

The  term  n^jpr  seems,  in  this  present  place,  to  imply  some- 
thing more  than  "  of  the  aged,"  as  it  is  commonly  render- 
ed ;  and  rather  intimates,  "  the  aged  oflicially  convened  in 


334 


JOB, 


Chap.  12—15 


public  council ;"  whence  it  is  rendered  "  senator s^^^  "by  Schul- 
tens  and  Dr.  Stock :  but  elders,  or  eldermen,  is  a  more  gene- 
ral term,  and  hence  more  extensively  appropriate,  as  well 
as  more  consonant  with  what  ought  ever  to  be  the  unaffect- 
ed simplicity  of  biblical  language.  Though  the  term  seioa- 
tors  includes  the  idea  of  age,  it  includes  it  more  remotely. 
In  Gen.  1.  7,  we  have  a  similar  use  of  the  term  elders  :  for 
we  are  told,  that  "  when  Joseph  went  up  into  the  land  of 
Canaan  to  bury  his  father,  with  him  went  all  the  servants 
of  Pharaoh,  the  elde7-s  of  his  house,  and  all  the  elders  of  the 
land  of  Egypt;"  in  other  words,  the  chief  officers  of  state, 
the  privy  counsellors,  and  the  entire  senate  or  body  of  le- 
gislators, chosen  from  the  land  or  people. — Good. 

Ver.  22.  He  discovereth  deep  things  out  of  dark- 
ness, and  bringeth  out  to  light  the  shadow  of 
death. 

The  author  of  the  poem  discovers  a  great  partiality  for 
this  figure :  the  reader  can  scarely  fail  to  recollect  its  oc- 
currence in  ch.  X.  21,  22.  In  the  present  instance,  how- 
ever, it  appears  to  be  used  in  a  different  sense,  and  to 
allude,  in  characteristic  imagery,  to  the  dark  and  recon- 
dite plots,  the  deep  and  desperate  designs,  of  traitors  and 
conspirators,  or  other  state-villains :  for  it  should  be  observ- 
ed, that  the  entire  passage  has  a  reference  to  the  machinery 
of  a  regular  and  political  government;  and  that  its  general 
drift  is  to  imprint  upon  the  mind  of  the  hearer  the  important 
doctrine;  that  the  whole  of  the  constituent  principles  of  such 
a  government,  its  officers  and  institutions,  its  monarch  and 
princes,  its  privy-counsellors,  judges,  and  ministers  of  state  ; 
its  chieftains,  public  orators,  and  assembly  of  elders;  its 
nobles,  or  men  of  hereditary  rank;  and  its  stout,  robust 
peasantry,  as  we  should  express  it  in  the  present  day ;  nay, 
the  deep^,  designing  villains  that  plot  in  secret  its  destruc- 
tion,—that  the  nations  themselves,  and  the  heads  or  sove- 
reigns of  the  nations,  are  all  and  equally  in  the  hands  of 
the  Almighty  ;  that,  with  him,  human  pomp  is  poverty, 
human  excellence  turpitude,  human  judgment  error,  human 
wisdom  folly,  human  dignities  contempt,  human  strength 
weakness, — Good. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  15.  Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in 
him:  but  I  will  maintain  mine  own  ways  be- 
fore him. 

When  a  master  chastises  an  affectionate  slave,  or  tells 
him  to  leave  his  service,  he  says,  "  My  lord,  though  you 
slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  you."  Does  a  husband  beat  his 
wife,  she  exclaims,  "  My  husband,  though  you  kill  me,  I 
will  not  let  you  go."  *'  Kill  me,  my  lord,  if  you  please,- but 
I  will  not  leave  you :  I  trust  in  you."  "  Oh  !  beat  me  not ; 
do  I  not  trust  in  you]"  "  What  an  affectionate  wife  that  is : 
though  her  husband  cut  her  to  pieces,  yet  she  trusts  in  him." 
"  The  fellow  is  always  beating  her,  yet  she  confides  in  him." 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  Wherefore  hidest  thou  thy  face,  and 
boldest  me  for  thine  enemy  ? 

Job,  in  his  distress,  makes  this  pathetic  inquiry  of  the 
Lord.  Should  a  great  man  become  displeased  with  a  per- 
son to  whom  he  has  been  previously  kind,  he  will,  when  he 
sees  him  approaching,  avert  his  face,  or  conceal  it  with  his 
hand,  which  shows  at  once  what  is  the  state  of  the  case. 
The  poor  man  then  mourns,  and  complains,  and  asks, 
"  Ah !  why  does  he  hide  his  face "?"  The  wife  says  to  her 
oflfended  husband,  "  Why  do  you  hide  your  face  7"  The 
son  to  his  father,  "  Hide  not  your  face  from  your  son." — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  26.  For  thou  writest  bitter  things  against  me. 

"  Ah !  the  things  that  man  has  written  against  me  to  the 

1'udge,  are  all  kassafu,  all  bitter,"  "  Oh !  that  is  a  bitter, 
)itter  fault,"  "  Who  will  make  this  bitterness  sweet  T — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  27.  Thou  puttest  my  feet  also  in  the  stocks, 
and  lookest  narrowly  unto  all  my  paths  ;  thou 
settest  a  print  upon  the  heels  of  my  feet. 


The  punishment  of  the  stocks  has  been  common  in  the 
East  from  the  most  remote  antiquity,  as  is  seen  in  all  their 
records.  But  whether  the  stocks  were  formerly  like  clogs, 
or  as  those  of  the  present  day,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Those 
now  in  use  differ  from  those  in  England,  as  the  unfortunate 
culprit  has  to  lie  with  his  back  on  the  ground,  having  his 
feel  fast  in  one  pair,  and  his  hands  in  another.  Thus,  all 
he  can  do  is  to  writhe  his  body;  his  arms  and  legs  being 
so  fast,  that  he  cannot  possibly  move  them.  A  man  placed 
in  great  difficulty,  says,  "  Alas!  I  am  now  in  the  stocks." 
" I  have  put  my  boy  in  the  tulungu"  i.  e.  stocks ;  which 
means,  he  is  confined,  or  sent  to  school.  To  a  young  man 
of  roving  habits,  it  is  said,  "  You  must  have  your  feet  in  the 
stocks,"  i.  e.  get  married.  "  Alas  !  alas  !  I  "am  now  in  the 
slocks;  the  guards  are  around  my  path,  and  a  seal  is  put 
upon  my  feet." — Roberts.     {^See  Engraving.) 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Ver.  4.  Who  can  bring  a  clean  thing  out  of  an 
unclean  ?  not  one. 

The  following  are  common  sayings : — "  Who  can  turn 
a  black  crow  into  a  white  crane  V'  "  Who  can  make  the 
bitter  fruit  sweet  V  "  Who  can  make  straight  the  tail  of 
the  dog  V  "  If  you  give  the  serpent  sweet  things,  will  his 
poison  depart?' — Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  For  there  is  hope  of  a  tree,  if  it  be  cut 
down,  that  it  will  sprout  again,  and  that  the 
tender  branch  thereof  will  not  cease. 

Trees  here  appear  to  be  more  tenacious  of  life  than  in 
England.  See  ihem  blown  down  ;  yet  from  the  roots  fresh 
shoots  spring  up.  See  them  sometimes  at  such  an  angle 
(through  storms)  that  their  branches  nearly  touch  the 
ground,  and  yet  they  keep  that  position,  and  continue  to 
bear  fruit.  Those  trees,  also,  which  have  actually  been 
cut  down,  after  a  few  showers,  soon  begin  to  send  forth  the 
"tender  branch."  The  plantain-tree,  after  it  has  borne 
fruit  o'fice,  is  cut  down  ;  but  from  its  roots  another  springs 
up,  which,  in  its  turn,  also  gives  fruit,  and  is  then  cut 
down,  to  make  way  for  another.  Thus,  in  reference  to 
this  tree,  it  may  be  truly  said.  Cut  jt  down,  but  "  the  tender 
branch  thereof  will  not  cease." — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  My  transgression  is  sealed  up  in  a  bag, 
and  thou  sewest  up  mine  iniquity. 

The  money  that  is  collected  together  in  the  treasures  of 
eastern  princes  is  told  up  in  certain  equal  sums,  jnd  into 
bags,  and  sealed. — (Chardin.)  These  are  what  in  some 
parts  of  the  Levant  are  called  purses,  where  they  reckon 
great  expenses  by  so  many  purses.  The  money  collected 
in  the  temple  in  the  time  of  Joash,  for  its  reparation,  seems, 
in  like  manner,  to  have  been  told  up  in  bags  of  equal  value 
to  each  other,  and  probably  delivered  sealed  to  those  who 
paid  the  workmen,  (2  Kings  xii.  10.)  If  Job  alludes  to  ihii^ 
custom,  it  should  seem  that  he  considered  his  offences  as 
reckoned  by  God  to  be  very  numerous,  as  well  as  not  suf- 
fered to  be  lost  in  inattention,  since  they  are  only  consider- 
able sums  which  are  thus  kept. — Harmer. 

Ver.  19.  The  waters  wear  the  stones:  thouwash- 
est  away  the  things  which  grow  out  of  the  dust 
of  the  earth ;  and  thou  destroyest  the  hope  of 
man. 

Is  a  man  found  fault  with  because  he  makes  slow  pro- 
gress in  his  undertaking,  he  says,  "  Never  mind ;  the  water 
which  runs  so  softly,  will,  in  lime,  wear  away  the  stones." 
—Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Ver.  7.  Art  thou  the  first  man  that  was  born  ? 
or  wast  thou  made  before  the  hills  7 

When  a  majority  of  people  agree  on  any  subject,  should 
an  individual  pertinaciouslv  oppose  them,  it  will  be  asked, 
"  What !  were  you  born  before  all  others!"    "  Yes,  yes; 
he  is  the  first  man :  no  wonder  he  has  so  much  wisdom  ! 
"  Salam  to  Ihe first!  man."— Roberts. 


Chap.  16. 


JOB. 


335 


Hebrew,  "  Wast  thou  born  first  of  mankind  V    Such  ap- 

Eears  to  me  the  true  rendering,  though  it  is  given  dilferently 
y  different  commentators,  and  will  admit  of  various  sig- 
nifications ;  the  word  din  (Adam)  being  either  a  proper 
name,  or  an  appellative  for  mankind  at  large ;  whence 
some  of  the  oldest  versions  render  the  passage,  "  Wast 
thou  born  before  Adam  V  while  the  generality,  and  in  my 
opinion  more  correctly,  give  us,  "  An  primus  homo  natus 
es?""Art  thou  the  first-born  of  men  1"  or,  "Wast  thou 
born  first  of  mankind  1" — Good. 

Ver.  26.  He  runneth  upon  him,  ev^.n  on  his  neck, 
upon  the  thick  bosses  of  his  bucklers. 

Wrestlers,  before  they  began  their  combats,  were  rubbed 
all  over  in  a  rough  manner,  and  afterward  anointed  with 
cil,  in  order  to  increase  the  strength  and  flexibility  of  their 
limbs.  But  as  this  unction,  in  making  the  skin  too  slippery, 
rendered  it  difficult  for  them  to  take  hold  of  each  other, 
they  remedied  that  inconvenience,  sometimes  by  rolling 
themselves  in  the  dust  of  the  Palaestra,  sometimes  by  throw- 
ing fine  sand  upon  each  other,  kept  for  that  purpose  in 
Xystse,  or  porticoes  of  the  Gymnasia.  Thus  prepared,  they 
began  their  combat  They  were  matched  two  against  two, 
and  sometimes  several  couples  contended  at  the  same  time. 
In  this  combat,  the  whole  aim  and  design  of  the  wrestlers 
was  to  throw  their  adversary  upon  the  ground.  Both 
strength  and  art  were  employed  to  this  purpose ;  they 
seized  each  other  by  the  arms,  drew  forward,  pushed  back- 
ward, used  many  distortions  and  Iwistings  of  the  body; 
locking  their  limbs  in  each  other's,  seizing  by  the  neck  or 
throat,  pressing  in  their  arms,  struggling,  plying  on  all 
sides,  lifting  from  the  ground,  dashing  their  heads  together 
like  rams,  and  twisting  one  another's  necks.  In  this  man- 
ner, the  athletjs  wrestled  standing,  the  combat  ending  with 
the  fall  of  one  of  the  competitors.  To  this  combat  the 
words  of  Eliphaz  seem  to  apply:  "For  he  stretcheth  out 
his  hand  against  God"  like  a  wrestler,  challenging  his  an- 
tagonist to  the  contest,  "  and  strengthening  himself,"  rather 
vaunteth  himself,  stands  up  haughtily,  and  boasts  of  his 
prowess  in  the  full  view  of  "  the  Almighty,"  throwing 
abroad  his  arms,  clapping  his  hands  together,  springing 
into  the  middle  of  the  ring,  and  taking  his  station  there  in 
the  adjusted  attitude  of  defiance.  "  He  runneth  upon  him, 
even  on  his  neck,"  or  with  his  neck  stretched  out,  furi- 
ously dashing  his  head  against  the  other ;  and  this  he  does, 
even  when  he  perceives  that  his  adversary  is  covered  with 
defensive  armour,  upon  which  he  can  make  no  impression : 
"  he  runneth  upon  the  thick  bosses  of  his  bucklers." — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  33.  He  shall  shake  off  his  unripe  grape  as 
the  vine,  and  shall  cast,  off  his  flower  as  the 

olive. 

It  would  be  a  valuable  acquisition  to  the  learned  world, 
if  observations  made  in  Judea  itself,  or  rather,  in  this  case, 
in  the  land  of  Uz,  were  communicated  to  it,  relating  to  the 
natural  causes  which  occasion,  from  time  to  time,  a  disap- 
pointment of  their  hopes  from  their  vineyards  and  olive 
plantations;  and  the  effects  of  a  violently  sultry  southeast 
wind  on  their  most  useful  or  remarkable  vegetables.  I  very 
much  question,  however,  whether  the  words  of  Eliphaz,  iii 
the  book  of  Job,  xv.  33,  refer  to  any  blasting  of  the  vine  by 
natural  causes;  they  seem  rather  to  express  the  violently 
taking  away  the  unripe  grapes  by  the  wild  iVrabs,  of  which 
I  have  given  an  account  in  the  preceding  volume.  It  is 
certain  the  word  -\d3  User,  translated  here  unripe  grape,  is 
used  to  express  those  grapes  that  were  so  far  advanced  in 
growth  as  to  be  eaten,  though  not  properly  ripened,  as  ap- 
pears from  Jeremiah  xxxi.  29,  and  Ezek.  xviii.  2 ;  and  the 
verb  Doni  yachmas,  translated  here  shake  off,  signifies  re- 
moving by  violence,  consequently  cannot  be  meant  of  any 
thing  done  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  but  by  a  human 
hand ;  and  if  so,  may  as  well  be  applied  to  the  depredations 
of  the  Arabs,  as  the  impetuosity  or  deleterious  quality  of 
any  wind,  the  energy  of  poetry  making  use  of  a  verb  ac- 
tive instead  of  its  passive. 

It  may  not  be  amiss,  before  I  close,  just  to  take  notice, 
that  the  vulgar  Latin  translation  was  so  little  apprehensive 
that  grapes,  when  grown  to  any  considerable  size,  were 
wont  to  drop,  that  its  authors,  or  "correctors,  have  rendered 
the  words  after  this  manner :  "  Lsedetur  quasi  vinea  in  pri- 


ma Jlore  botrus  ejus,"  that  is,  "  his  cluster  shall  be  injured 
as  a  vine  when  it  first  comes  into  flower;"  intimating,  that 
if  any  damage  is  done  to  the  vine  at  all  by  an  intemperate 
season,  they  supposed  it  would  be  upon  its  first  flowering. 
How  arduous  is  the  business  of  translating  a  foreign  poem 
into  English  verse  !  A  multitude  of  circumstances  must  be 
attended  to  by  such  a  translator,  when  he  finds  himsell 
obliged,  as  he  often  does,  to  vary  the  expressions  a  little,  on 
account  of  his  verse ;  and,  for  want  of  full  information  as 
to  particular  points,  he  must  frequently  fail.  Mistakes  ot 
this  kind  demand  great  candour. — Harmer. 

A  north  or  northeast  wind  frequently  proves  injurious  to 
the  olive-trees  in  Greece,  by  destroying  the  blossom.  Dr. 
Chandler  says,  "  We  ate  under  an  olive-tree,  then  laden 
with  pale  yellow  flowers:  a  strong  breeze  from  the  sea 
scattered  the  bloom  and  incommoded  us,  but  the  spot 
afforded  no  shelter  more  eligible."  In  another  place,  he 
observes,  "  The  olive-groves  are  now,  as  anciently,  a  prin- 
cipal source  of  the  riches  of  Athens.  The  mills  for  pressing 
and  grinding  the  olives  are  in  the  town ;  the  oil  is  depos- 
ited in  large  earthen  jars,  sunk  in  the  ground,  in  the  areas 
before  the  houses.  The  crops  had  failed  five  years  suc- 
cessively, when  we  arrived;  the  cause  assigned  was  a 
northerly  wind,  called  Greco-Tramontane,  which  destroyed 
the  flower.  The  fruit  is  set  in  about  a  fortnight,  when  the 
apprehension  from  this  unpropitious  quarter  ceases.  The 
bloom  in  the  following  year  was  unhurt,  and  we  had  the 
pleasure  of  leaving  the  Athenians  happy  in  the  prospect 
of  a  plentiful  harvest." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Ver.  3.  Shall  vain  words  have  an  end  ?  or  what 
imholdeneth  thee  that  thou  answerest  % 

The  Hebrew  has,  "words  of  wind."  "His  promise! 
it  is  only  wind,"  "  His  words  are  all  wind."  "  The  wind 
ha.s  taken  away  his  words."  "  Breath,  breath ;  all  breath !" 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  4.  I  also  could  speak  as  ye  do:  if  your  soul 
were  in  my  soul's  stead,  I  could  heap  up  words 
against  you,  and  shake  my  head  at  you. 

The  whole  of  this  passage  is  rendered  unintelligible,  in 
its  usual  mode  of  translating,  by  attributing  a  conditional 
instead  of  a  future  tense  to  it :  "I  also  could  speak,  &c." 
or,  "  But  I  could  speak," — instead  of, "  But  I  will  speak,"  or 
"talk  on."— Good. 

Ver.  9.  He  teareth  me  in  his  wrath  who  hateth 
me :  he  gnasheth  upon  me  with  his  teeth : 
mine  enemy  sharpeneth  his  eyes  upon  me. 

"  Has  not  the  cruel  man  been  sharpening  his  eyes  upon 
me  1"  "His  eyes  are  like  arrows :  they  pierce  my  life." 
"  Truly,  his  cutting  eyes  are  always  upon  me."  "  Yes, 
yes;  the  eyes  of  the  serpent." — Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  They  have  gaped  upon  me  with  their 
mouth ;  they  have  smitten  me  upon  the  cheek 
reproachfully  :  they  have  gathered  themselves 
together  against  me. 

Here  is  another  living  picture  of  eastern  manners.  See 
the  exasperated  man  ;  he  opens  his  mouth  like  a  wild  beast, 
shows  his  teeth,  then  suddenly  snaps  them  together.  Again 
he  pretends  to  make  another  snatch,  and  growls  like  a  tiger. 
Should  he  not  dare  to  come  near,  he  moves  his  hand,  as  if 
striking  you  on  the  cheek,  and  says,  "  I  will  beat  thy  kan- 
nan,  i.  e.  cheek,  thou  low-caste  fellow." — Roberts. 

From  the  following  extracts,  this  treatment  appears  to 
have  been  considered  very  injurious.  "  Davage  was  deep- 
ly incensed :  nor  could  I  do  more  than  induce  him  to  come 
to  the  factory  on  business  while  I  was  there ;  Mr.  Pringle 
having,  in  one  of  his  fits,  struck  him  on  the  cheek  with  the 
sole  of  his  slipper,  thg  deepest  insult  that  can  be  offered  to 
an  Asiatic;  among  whom  it  is  considered  as  a  mark  of  dis- 
respect to  touch  even  the  sole  of  the  foot."  (Lord  Valen- 
tia.)  "  In  the  Mahratta  camp,  belonging  to  Scindia,  his 
prime  minister,  Surjee  Rao,  was  murdered  in  the  open 
bazar :  his  mistresses  were,  as  usual,  stripped  of  all  they 


336 


JOB. 


Chap.  17,  18 


possessed ;  and  his  favourite  one  was  sent  for  to  court,  and 
severely  beaten  in  the  presence  of  Scindia's  wife,  who  add- 
ed to  the  indignity,  by  giving  her  several  blows  herself 
with  a  slipper."  (Broughton.)  "  When  the  vazir  declared 
himself  imable  to  procure  the  money,  Fathh  Ali  Shah  re- 
proached him  for  his  crimes,  struck  him  on  the  face,  and 
wiih  the  high  wooden  heel  of  a  slipper,  always  iron-bound, 
beat  out  several  of  his  teeth."    (Sir  W.  Ouseley.) 

The  Hindoo,  religiously  abstaining  from  animal  food 
and  intoxicating  liquors,  becomes  thereby  of  so  very  mild 
a  temper,  that  he  can  bear  almost  any  thing  without  emo- 
f'on,  except  slippering ;  that  is,  a  stroke  with  the  sole  of  a 
slipper  or  sandal,  after  a  person  has  taken  it  off  his  foot 
and  spit  on  it ;  this  is  dreaded  above  all  affronts,  and  con- 
•■'dered  as  no  less  ignominious  than  spitting  in  the  face,  or 
bespattering  with  dirt,  among  Europeans.— Burder. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Ver.  1 .  My  breath  is  corrupt,  my  days  are  ex- 
tinct, the  graves  are  ready  for  me. 

A  man  far  advanced  in  years,  or  one  who  is  in  deep 
affliction,  says,  "  The  place  "of  burning  is  near  to  me,  and 
the  wood  is  laid  together  for  my  funeral  pile."  "  How  are 
you,  my  friend  T  "  How  am  H  I  will  tell  you.  Go,  order 
them  to  get  the  wood  together  to  burn  this  body."  A  father 
sometimes  says  of  his  wicked  sons,  "  Yes,  I  know  they  de- 
sire my  death  ;  they  have  been  preparing  for  the  funeral ; 
they  are  ready  to  wash  me:  the  bier  is  at  hand,  and  the 
wood  is  prepared."  "  Why  do  you  all  look  so  anxious  *?  I 
am  not  ready  for  the  washing." — Roberts. 

Ver.  3.  Lay  down  now,  put  me  in  a  surety  with 
thee;  who  is  he  thai  will  strike  hands  with  me  % 

See  on  Prov.  6.  1. 

The  difficulty  in  this  passage  has  resulted,  in,  the  first 
place,  from  the  abruptness  of  the  transition;  and,  secondly, 
from  its  being,  in  its  common  construction,  very  improperly 
separated  from  the  preceding  verse,  and  applied  to  the  Al- 
mighty instead  of  to  Eliphaz,  the  last  speaker,  to  whom 
Job  is  peculiarly  addressing  himself.  The  fair  interpreta- 
tion is,  "  But  if  there  be  any  meaning  in  what  ye  say — if 
ye  do  not  revile  my  character,  but  believe  me  to  be  the  op- 
pressor and  the  hypocrite  ye  assert— come  on  :  I  will  still 
venture  to  stake  myself  against  any  of  you.  Will  any  of 
you  venture  to  state  me  against  yourselves  1  Who  is  he 
that  will  strike  hands  with  me  %  that  will  dare  to  measure 
his  deserts  with  my  own  %  and  appeal  to  the  Almighty,  in 
proof  that  he  is  a  juster  man  than  I  am  ?"  It  is  an  argumen- 
tum  ad,  hominem,  of  peculiar  force  and  appropriation,  ad- 
mirably calculated  to  confound  and  silence  the  persons  to 
whom  it  is  addressed.  The  custom  of  staking  one  thing 
against  another  is  of  very  early  origin,  and  found  in  the 
rudest  and  simplest  modes  of  social  life  ;  hence  the  pasto- 
rals of  Theocritus,  as  well  as  of  Virgil,  abound  with  ref- 
erences to  this  practice.— Good. 

Ver,  9.  The  righteous  also  shall  hold  on  his  way, 
and  he  that  hath  clean  hands  shall  be  stronger 
and  stronger. 

The  idea  here  suggested  is  that  of  purity  and  holiness. 
Porphyry  observes,  that  in  the  Leontian  mysteries  the  initi- 
ated had  their  hands  washed  with  honey,  instead  of  water, 
to  intimate  that  they  were  to  keep  their  hands  pure  from  all 
wickedness  and  mischief;  honey  being  of  a  cleansing  na- 
ture, and  preserving  other  things  from  corruption. — Bur- 
der. 

Ver.  14.  1  have  said  to  corruption,  Thou  art  my 
father  :  to  the  worm,  Thou  art  my  mother  and 
iny  sister. 

Those  who  retire  from  the  world  to  spend  their  lives  in 
a  desert  place,  for  the  purpose  of  performing  religious  aus- 
terities, often  exclaim  to  the  beasts,  "  Yes ;  you  are  my 
relations,  you  are  my  parents ;  these  are  my  companions 
and  friends." — Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  They  shall  go  down  to  the  bars  of  the 
pit,  when  our  rest  together  is  in  the  dust. 


Literally,  to  the  limis — "  the  grasping  limbs,"  "  the  tre- 
mendous claws  or  talons"  of  the  grave.  The  imagery  is 
peculiarly  bold,  and  true  to  the  general  character  under 
which  the  grave  is  presented  to  us  in  the  figurative  language 
of  sacred  poetry, — as  a  monster,  ever  greedy  to  devour, 
with  horrid  jaws  wide  gaping  for  his  prey;  and,  in  the  pas- 
sage before  us,  with  limbs  in  unison  with  his  jaws,  and 
ready  to  seize  hold  of  the  victims  allotted  to  him,  with  a 
strength  and  violence  from  which  none  can  extricate  them- 
selves. The  common  rendering  oi  fulcra,  vedes,  or  bars, 
as  of  a  prison,  is  as  unnecessary  a  departure  from  the 
proper  figure,  as  it  is  from  the  primary  meaning  of  the 
original  term. — Good. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ver.  2.  How  long  will  it  be  ere  you  make  an 
end  of  words  ? 

The  commentators  are  not  agreed  to  whom  the  opening 
of  this  speech  is  addressed.  Being  in  the  plural  number, 
it  cannot,  according  to  the  common  forms  of  Hebrew  col- 
loquy, be.  addressed  to  Job  alone.  Le  Clerc,  however,  at- 
tempts to  prove,  that,  under  particular  circumstances,  such 
a  form  may  be  admitted,  a«d  especially  when  particular 
respect  is  intended.  Other  interpreters  conceive  that  it  is 
addressed  to  Job  and  Eliphaz,  to  whom  Job  had  been  just 
replying.  But  the  greater  number  concur  in  supposing 
that  it  relates  to  the  family  or  domestics  of  Job,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  himself,  who,  it  may  be  conceived,  were  present, 
and  at  least  tacitly  approving  his  rebukes :  "  Tu  cum  tua 
familid"  is  the  explanation  of  Reiske.  It  is  more  probable 
that  it  applies  to  the  interlocutors  generally. — Good. 

Ver.  4.  He  teareth  himself  in  his  anger:  shall 
the  earth  be  forsaken  for  thee?  and  shall  the 
rock  be  removed  out  of  his  place? 

"  Foolish  man,  why  are  you  so  angry  1  Will  your  anger 
pull  down  the  mountain,  or  take  a  single  hair  from  the 
head  of  your  enemy  1"  "  This  evil  is  only  felt  in  your  own 
heart  and  house :  it  is  your  own  destruction." — Roberts. 

Ver.  5.  Yea,  the  light  of  the  wicked  shall  be  put 
out,  and  the  spark  of  his  fire  shall  not  shine. 
6.  The  light  shall  be  dark  in  his  tabernacle, 
and  his  candle  shall  be  put  out  with  him. 

See  on  1  Kings  11.  26. 

Ver.  8.  For  he  is  cast  into  a  net  by  his  own  feet, 
and  he  walketh  upon  a  snare. 

The  original  implies  a  snare  with  pieces  of  wood,  or 
other  substance,  put  crosswise,  or  bar-wise,  so  as  to  sus- 
tain the  deceitful  covering  of  turf,  or  other  soil,  put  over 
it  to  hide  the  mischief  it  conceals.  The  term  is  used  Exod. 
xxvii.  4,  to  express  a  grating,  or  net-work  of  brass.  The 
same  kind  of  snare  or  pitfall  is  still  frequeiitly  employed 
throughout  India,  in  elephant-hunting. — Good. 

Ver.  15.  It  shall  dwell  in  his  tabernacle,  because 
it  is  none  of  his :  brimstone  shall  be  scattered 
upon  his  habitation. 

A  very  singular  method  of  expressing  sorrow  among 
the  ancients,  was  by  burning  brimstone  in  the  house  of  the 
deceased.  Livy  mentions  this  practice  as  general  among 
the  Romans ;  and  some  commentators  think  it  is  referred 
to  in  these  words  of  Bildad  :  "  Brimstone  shall  be  scattered 
upon  his  habitation."  The  idea  corresponds  with  the  de- 
sign of  the  speaker,  which  is  to  describe  the  miserable  end 
of  the  hypocrite. — Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  His  roots  shall  be  dried  up  beneath,  and 
above  shall  his  branch  be  cut  off 

Man  is  often  described  as  a  tree,  and  his  destruction  by 
the  cutting  ofl"  of  the  branches.  "  Alas !  alas  !  he  is  like  a 
tree  whose  branches  have  been  struck  by  the  lightning. 
"  He  is  a  tree  killed  by  the  shepherds ;"  which  alludes  to 
the  practice  (in  dry  weather,  when  the  grass  is  burned  up) 
of  climbing  the  trees  to  lop  off  the  branches  and  leaves  for 


Chap.  19. 


JOB. 


337 


the  use  of  the  flocks  and  cattle.  "  His  branches  and  shoots 
are  destroyed;"  which  means,  himself  and  family.  "I 
know  all  his  branches  and  bunches ;"  meaning  all  his  con- 
nexions.   (See  on  Luke  xxiii.  31.) — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  His  remembrance  shall  perish  from  the 
earth,  and  he  shall  have  no  name  in  the  street. 

"  What  kind  of  a  man  is  Ramar  1"  "  I  will  tell  you : 
his  name  is  in  every  street;"  which  means,  he  is  a  person 
of  great  fame.  "  Ah !  my  lord,  only  grant  me  this  favour, 
and  your  name  shall  be  m  every  street."  "  Who  does  not 
wish  his  name  to  be  in  the  streets  ?'  "  Wretch,  where  is 
thy  name"?  What  dog  of  the  street  will  acknowledge  theel" 
"  From  generation  to  generation  ihall  his  name  be  in  the 
streets."  "  Where  is  thy  name  written  in  stone  1  No  :  it 
is  written  in  water." — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  He  shall  neither  have  son  nor  nephew 
among-  his  people,  nor  any  remaining  in  his 
dwellings. 

Heb.  "  Among  his  sojournings"— from  •^i  "  to  sojourn,"  or 
"  dwell  for  a  short  and  uncertain  period,"  as  in  travelling. 
The  idea  is  peculiarly  expressive  and  forcible :  not  only 
among  his  own  people,  and  in  his  own  settled  habitation, 
shall  his  name,  his  memory,  his  family,  be  extinguished ; 
but  no  asylum,  no  refuge,  shall  be  afforded  them  in  distant 
countries,  and  among  strangers,  with  whom  he  had  casually 
sojourned,  and  where  his  memory  might  be  supposed  to 
call  forth  the  hospitalities  of  friendship.  The  Jewish  his- 
tory affords  innumerable  instances  of  persons  compelled 
to  fly  from  their  native  homes,  and  seelc  an  asylum  in  the 
bosom  of  strangers,  to  whom  they  were  only  casually,  or 
even  altogether  unknown :  and,  without  ranging  further, 
the  history  of  Moses  himself,  the  probable  writer  of  the 
poem,  furnishes  us  with  a  memorable  example. — Good. 

The  original  word  for  dwellings,  Schultens  says,  signi- 
fies a  territory  of  refuge  for  strangers.  The  great  men 
among  the  Arabs  called  their  respective  districts  by  this 
name,  because  they  took  under  their  protection  all  defence- 
less and  necessitous  persons  who  fled  thither  ;  they  prided 
themselves  in  having  a  great  number  of  these  clients  or  de- 
pendants. This  was  an  ancient  custom  in  Arabia,  and 
continues  to  the  present  day.  The  Arabian  poets  frequent- 
.y  refer  to  it.— Burder. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Ver.  3.  These  ten  times  have  ye  reproached  me : 

you  are  not  ashamed  that  you  make  yourselves 

strange  to  me. 
See  on  Gen.  31.  7,  8. 

Ver.  6.  Know  now  that  God  hath  overthrown 
me,  and  hath  compassed  me  with  his  net. 

The  allusion  here  may  be  to  an  ancient  mode  of  combat 
practised  among  the  Persians,  Goths,  and  Romans.  The 
custom  among  the  Romans  was  this :  one  of  the  combatants 
was  armed  with  a  sword  and  shield,  the  other  with  a  tri- 
dent and  net ;  the  net  he  endeavoured  to  cast  over  the  head 
of  his  adversary;  in  which,  when  he  succeeded,  the  entan- 
gled person  was  soon  pulled  down  by  a  noose,  that  fastened 
round  his  neck,  and  then  despatched.  The  person  who 
carried  the  net  and  trident  was  called  Retiarius,  and  the 
other,  who  carried  the  sword  and  shield,  Secutor,  or  the 
pursuer,  because,  when  the  Retiarius  missed  his  throw,  he 
was  obliged  to  run  about  the  ground  till  he  got  his  net  in 
order  for  a  second  throw,  while  the  Secutor  followed  him, 
to  prevent,  and  despatch  him.  The  Persians  used  a  run- 
ning loop,  which  horsemen  endeavoured  to  cast  over  the 
heads  of  their  enemies,  that  they  might  pull  them  off  their 
horses.  The  Goths  used  a  hoop  fastened  to  a  pole.  (Olaus 
Magnus.)  "  In  the  old  Mexican  paintings,  we  find  war- 
riors almost  naked,  with  their  bodies  wrapped  in  a  net  of 
large  meshes,  which  they  throw  over  the  heads  of  their 
enemy."  (Humboldt.)— Burder. 

Ver.  16.  I  called  my  servant,  and  he  gave  me  no 
answer :  I  entreated  him  with  my  mouth. 
43 


When  a  man  becomes  reduced  in  the  world,  his  slaves 
no  longer  obey  him ;  he  calls,  but  they  answer  not ;  he 
looks,  and  they  laugh  at  him. 

Hence  the  verse — 

Kandalum,  Paysar 

Alitalum,  Varar 

Kavi-Kavi-Endar. 
"  Though  I  call,  he  comes  not ;  though  he  sees,  he 
answers  not ;  or,  I  am  engaged,  engaged,  says  he." — Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  17.  My  breath  is  strange  to  my  wife,  though 
I  entreated  for  the  children's  sake  of  mine  own 
body. 

It  is  not  often  that  husbands,  in  these  regions,  conde- 
scend to  entreat  their  wives,  but  they  are  sometimes  (as 
when  sick  or  in  any  way  dependant)  obliged  to  humble 
themselves.  He  then  says,  "  My  wife's  breath  is  not  now 
as  mine."  "  For  the  sake  of  your  children  listen  to  my 
words."  Nothing  is  more  provoking  to  a  woman  than  to 
say  she  has  the  breath  of  a  man. — Roberts. 

Ver.  20.  My  botie  cleaveth  to  my  skin  and  to  my 
flesh,  and  I  am  escaped  with  the  skin  of  my 
teeth. 

I  suppose  the  above  words  have  given  rise  to  the  old 
English  saying,  "  He  has  escaped  with  the  skin  of  his 
teeth  ;"  which  denotes  he  has  had  great  difficulty  in  avoid- 
ing the  danger.  But  have  the  teeth  any  skinl  It  was 
formerly  a  custom  among  the  heathen  kings  to  knock  out 
the  teeth  of  their  prisoners,  or  those  who  had  offended 
them ;  and  to  this  practice  the  Psalmist  seems  to  allude : 
"  Thou  hast  broken  the  teeth  of  the  ungodly;"  and,  "Break 
their  teeth,  O  God !  in  their  mouth."  Those  who  had 
been  thus  treated  said,  "  We  have  escaped  with  the  mii- 
rasu"  i.  e.  the  gums  of  our  teeth.  When  a  man  is  angry 
with  another,  he  says,  "  Take  care ;  I  will  knock  thy  teeth 
out.  Thou  shalt  only  have  thy  gums  left,"  "  What !"  asks 
the  person  thus  threatened,  "  am  I  thy  slave,  to  have  my 
teeth  knocked  out  1"  But  the  teeth  are  always  spoken  of 
as  being  very  valuable  ;  and  by  them  the  people  often  esti- 
mate the  worth  of  any  blessing.  •'  Ah  !  the  king  might 
have  granted  me  that  favour;  his  teeth  would  not  have 
fallen  out  on  that  account."  "  Would  his  gums  have  been 
left,  if  he  had  told  me  that  secret  1"  "  Yes,  yes ,  take  care, 
or  you  will  lose  your  pearls,"  (teeth.)  *'  See  the  miserable 
man  ;  the  sickness  has  left  him  his  gums  only." — Roberts. 

There  is  scarcely  any  verse  in  the  whole  poem  that  has 
more  puzzled  the  commentators,  and  excited  a  greater 
variety  of  renderings,  than  this.  The  word  skin  is  here 
repeated  from  the  preceding  line,  for  the  sake  of  an  itera- 
tion ;  in  which  figure  no  poets  have  more  largely  indulged 
than  the  Asiatics,  whether  ancient  or  modern.  It  is  a  word 
of  extensive  meaning,  and  implies  generally,  cuticle,  peel, 
integument,  skin;  and  in  the  present  place  more  particu- 
larly, the  gums,  which  are  the  proper  integuments  of  the 
teeth,  the  substance  in  which  they  are  first  produced,  and 
which,  through  life,  affords  a  nutritious  covering  to  their 
base.  It  may  also  be  rendered  Jilm.,  although  I  do  not 
think  this  the  direct  sense  of  the  term  in  the  present  pas- 
sage ;  it  rather  implies  integuments  generally,  and  has  been 
preferred  by  the  original  writer  to  any  other  term  expres- 
sive of  the  same  meaning,  on  account,  as  I  have  already 
observed,  of  the  iteration  hereby  produced. — Goop. 

In  the  celebrated  inscription  on  the  pillar  at  Delhi,  called 
the  Lat  of  Feeroz  Shah,  is  the  followmg  passage,  exhibit- 
ing a  similar  hyperbole  in  different  terms :  "  Blades  of 
grass  are  perceived  between  thine  adversary's  teeth." 
(Asiatic  Researches.)  The  author  of  the  Fragments  subjoined 
toCalmet's  Dictionary,  thus  paraphrases  the  passage :  "  My 
upper  row  of  teeth  stands  out  so  far  as  to  adhere  to  my  up- 
per lip,  that  being  so  shrivelled  and  dried  up,  as  to  sink 
upon  my  teeth,  which  closely  press  it."  He  observes,  if 
our  translation  be  right,  it  may  receive  some  illustration 
from  the  following  instances  of  those  who  did  not  escape 
with  the  skin  of  their  teeth.  "  Prithwinarayan  issued  an 
order  to  Suruparatana,  his  brother,  to  put  to  death  some  of 
the  principal  inhabitants  of  the  town  of  Cirtipur,  and  to 
cut  off  the  noses  and  lips  of  every  one,  even  the  infants  who 


338 


JOB. 


Chap.  19. 


were  not  found  in  the  arms  of  their  mothers ;  ordering,  at 
the  same  time,  all  the  noses  and  lips  that  had  been  cut  off 
to  be  preserved,  that  he  might  ascertain  how  many  souls 
there  were,  and  to  change  the  name  of  the  town  to  Naska- 
tapir,  which  signifies,  the  town  of  cut  noses.  The  order 
was  carried  into  execution  with  every  mark  of  horror  and 
cruelty,  none  escaping  but  those  who  could  play  on  wind 
instruments:  many  put  an  end  to  their  lives  in  despair; 
others  came  in  great  bodies  to  us  in  search  of  medicines; 
and  it  was  most  shockmg  to  see  so  many  living  people  with 
their  teeth  and  noses  resembling  the  sculls  of  the  deceased." 
(Asiatic  Res.) — Burder. 

Ver.  23.  O  that  my  words  were  now  written ! 
oh  that  they  were  printed  in  a  book  !  24.  That 
they  were  graven  with  an  iron  pen  and  lead  in 
the  rock  for  ever  ! 

The  most  ancient  way  of  writing  was  upon  the  leaves 
of  the  palm-tree.  Afterward  they  made  use  of  the  inner 
bark  of  a  tree  for  this  purpose  ;  which  inner  bark  being  in 
Latin  called  liber,  the  Greek  0ifi\oi,  from  hence,  a  book, 
hath  ever  since,  in  the  Latin  language,  been  called  liJ>er,  and 
in  the  Greek,  0i0\oi,  because  their  books  anciently  consisted 
of  leaves  made  of  such  inner  barks.  The  Chinese  still 
make  use  of  such  inner  barks,  or  rinds  of  trees,  to  write 
upon,  as  some  of  their  books  brought  into  Europe  plainly 
show.  Another  way  made  use  of  among  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  and  which  was  as  ancient  as  Homer,  (for  he  makes 
mention  of  it  in  his  poems,)  was  to  write  on  tables  of  wood, 
covered  over  with  wax.  On  these  they  wrote  with  a  bod- 
kin, or  stile  of  iron,  with  which  they  engraved  their  letters 
on  the  wax ;  and  hence  it  is  (hat  the  different  ways  of  men's 
writings  or  compositions  are  called  different  styles.  This 
way  was  mostly  made  use  of  in  the  writing  of  letters  or 
epistles ;  hence  such  epistles  are  in  Latin  called  tabellce, 
and  the  carriers  of  them  tabellarii.  When  their  epivStles 
were  thus  written,  they  tied  the  tables  together  with  a 
thread  or  string,  setting  their  seal  upon  the  knot,  and  so 
sent  them  to  the  party  to  whom  they  were  directed,  who, 
cutting  the  string,  opened  and  read  them.  It  is  observable 
also,  that  anciently  they  wrote  their  public  records  on  vol- 
umes or  rolls  of  lead,  and  their  private  matters  on  fine 
linen  and  wax.  The  former  of  these  customs  we  trace  in 
Job's  wish,  "  O  that  my  words  were  now  written  !  O  that 
they  were  printed  in  a  book  !  that  they  were  graven  with 
an  iron  pen  and  lead  in  the  rock  for  ever !"  There  is  a 
way  of  writing  in  the  East,  which  is  designed  to  fix  words 
on  the  memory,  but  the  writing  is  not  designed  to  continue. 
The  children  in  Barbary  that  are  sent  to  school,  make  no 
use  of  paper.  Dr.  Shaw  tells  us,  but  each  boy  writes  on  a 
smooth,  thin  board,  slightly  daubed  over  with  whiting, 
which  may  be  wiped  off"  or  renewed  at  pleasure.  There 
are  few  that  retain  what  they  have  learned  in  their  youth ; 
doubtless  things  were  often  wiped  out  of  the  memory  of  the 
Arabs  in  the  days  of  Job,  as  well  as  out  of  their  writing- 
tables.  Job  therefore  says,  "  O  that  they  were  written  in  a 
book,"  from  whence  they  should  not  be  blotted  out !  But 
books  were  liable  to  injuries,  and  for  this  reason  he  wishes 
his  words  might  be  even  graven  in  a  rock,  the  most  lasting 
way  of  all.  Thus  the  distinction  between  writing  and 
writing  in  a  hook,  becomes  perfectly  sensible,  and  the  gra- 
dation appears  in  its  beauty,  which  is  lost  in  our  translation, 
where  the  word  printed  is  introduced,  which,  besides  its  im- 
propriety, conveys  no  idea  of  the  meaning  of  Job,  records 
that  are  designed  to  last  long  not  being  distinguished  from 
less  durable  papers  by  being  printed. — Border. 

The  word  rock,  which  our  translators  have  made  iise  of, 
j^eems  to  me  to  be  more  just  than  that  used  by  Schultens. 
It  is  certain  that  the  word  iix  tznr,  which  is  in  the  original, 
signifies  in  other  places  of  the  book  of  Job,  a  rock ;  and 
never  there,  or  anywhere  else  in  the  scriptures,  that  I  am 
aware  of,  and  I  have  with  some  care  examined  the  point, 
does  it  signify  a  small  sepulchral  stone,  or  monumental 
pillar.  On  the  other  hand,  I  am  sure  the  words  that  are 
used  for  this  purpose,  when  the  sacred  writers  speak  of  the 
sepulchral  stone  on  Rachel's  grave ;  of  the  pillar  erected 
by  Absalom  to  keep  up  his  memory ;  and  of  that  monu- 
ment which  marked  out  the  place  where  the  prophet  was 
buried  that  prophesied  against  the  altar  of  Jeroboam,  and 
which  continued  to  the  days  of  Josiah;  are  different.  Nor 
can  the  using  this  term  appear  strange,  if  we  consider  the 


extreme  antiquity  of  the  book  of  J.  b ;  since  it  is  easy  to 
imagine,  that  the  first  inscriptions  on  stones  were  engraved 
on  some  places  of  the  rocks,  which  were  accidenlly  smooth- 
ed, and  made  pretty  even.  And,  in  fact,  we  find  some  that 
are  very  ancient,  engraved  on  the  natural  rock,  and  what 
is  remarkable,  in  Arabia,  "where  it  is  supposed  Job  lived. 
This  is  one  of  the  most  curious  observations  in  that  account 
of  the  prefetto  of  Egypt,  which  was  publishi-d  by  the  late 
bishop  of  Clogher ;  and  is,  in  my  apprehension,  an  ex- 
quisite confirmation  of  our  translation^  though  there  is 
reason  to  think  neither  the  writer  nor  editor  of  that  journal 
thought  of  this  passage,  and  so  consequently  claims  a  place 
in  this  collection. 

The  prefetto,  speaking  in  his  journal  of  his  disengaging 
himself  at  length  from  the  mountains  of  Faran,  says,  "  they 
came  to  a  large  plain,  surrounded  however  with  high  hills, 
at  the  foot  of  which  we  reposed  ourselves  in  our  tents,  at 
about  half  an  hour  after  ten.  These  hills  are  called  Gebel 
el  Mokatab,  that  is,  the  Written  Mountains :  for,  as  soon  as 
we  had  parted  from  the  mountains  of  Faran,  we  passed  by 
several  others  for  an  hour  together,  engraved  with  ancient 
unknown  characters,  which  were  cut  in  the  hard  marble 
rock,  so  high  as  to  be  in  manv  places  at  twelve  or  fourteen 
feet  distance  from  the  ground  :  and  though  we  had  in  our 
company  persons  who  were  acquainted  with  the  Arabic, 
Greek,  Hebrew,  Syriac,  Coptic,  Latin,  Armenian,  Turkish, 
English,  lUyrican,'  German,  and  Bohemian  languages,  yet 
none  of  them  had  any  knowledge  of  these  characters  ; 
which  have  nevertheless  been  cut  into  the  hard  rock,  with 
the  greatest  industry,  in  a  place  where  there  is  neither 
wate*-,  nor  any  thing  to  be  gotten  to  eat.  It  is  probable, 
therefore,  these  unknown  characters  contain  some  very 
secret  mysteries,  and  that  they  were  engraved  either  by  the 
Chaldeans,  or  some  other  persons  long  before  the  coming  of 
Christ." 

The  curious  bishop  of  Clogher,  who  most  laudably  made 
very  generous  proposals  to  the  Antiquarian  Society,  to  en- 
gage them  to  try  to  decipher  these  inscriptions,  was  ready 
to  imagine  they  are  the  ancient  Hebrew  characters,  which 
the  Israelites,  having  learned  to  write  at  the  time  of  giving 
the  law,  diverted  themselves  with  engraving  on  these  mount- 
ains, during  their  abode  in  the  wilderness.  There  are 
still  in  Arabia  several  inscriptions  in  the  natural  rock  ;  and 
this  way  of  writing  is  very  durable,  for  these  engravings 
have,  It  seems,  outlived  the  knowledge  of  the  characters 
made  use  of;  the  practice  was,  for  the  same  reason,  very 
ancient  as  well  as  durable ;  and  if  these  letters  are  not  so 
ancient  as  the  days  of  Moses,  which  the  Bishop  of  Clogher 
supposes,  yet  these  inscriptions  might  very  well  be  the 
continuation  of  a  practice  in  use  in  the  days  of  Job,  and 
may  therefore  be  thought  to  be  referred  to  in  these  words 
of  his,  O  that  they  were  graven  ....  in  the  rock  for  ever ! — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  23.  O  that  my  words  were  now  written  !  oh 
that  they  were  printed  in  a  book  !  24.  That 
they  were  graven  with  an  iron  pen  and  lead 
in  the  rock  for  ever !  25.  For  I  know  that  my 
Redeemer  liveth,  and  that  he  shall  stand  at  the 
latter  day  upon  the  earth:  26.  And  though, 
after  my  skin,  worms  destroy  this  body,  yet  in 
my  flesh  shall  I  see  (jrod :  27.  Whom  I  shall 
see  for  myself,  and  mine  eyes  shall  behold,  and 
not  another;  though  my  reins  be  consumed 
within  me. 

It  has  been  the  fashion  with  a  class  of  interpreters  and 
divines,  pleased  perhaps  to  associate  their  own  with  the 
celebrated  names  of  Grotius,  Le  Clerc,  and  Warbnrton,  to 
explode  from  this  passage  any  reference  to  a  future  life,  or 
the  expectation  of  the  Messiah ;  and  no  slight  contempt  has 
been  expressed  for  the  credulity  and  mental  servitude  (very 
candidly  taken  for  granted)  of  those  who  entertain  the  be- 
lief of  such  a  reference.  This  has,  however,  been  the  opin- 
ion of  the  greater  number  of  scripture  critics,  ancient  and 
modern,  popish  and  protestant.  The  usual  objections 
against  this  interpretation  are,  that  no  vestiges  appear  in 
the  book  of  Job,  of  anv  acquaintance  with  the  doctrine  of  a 
future  life;  that  it  would  be  very  extraordinary  if  there 
really  existed  in  the  mjad  of  the  composer  of  this  book,  any 


Chap.  19. 


JOB 


339 


knowledge  of  the  Redeemer  to  come,  that  such  a  glorious 
hope  should  show  itself  nowhere  but  in  this  single  passage; 
that  we  cannot  reconcile  such  an  avowal  with  the  despond- 
ency which  appears  to  have  prevailed  in  the  mind  of  Job ; 
and"  that  the  terms  employed  do  not  necessarily  import  more 
than-  the  {  ersuasi'jn  of  a  deliverance,  by  divine  goodness, 
from  the  present  calamity,  and  a  restoration  to  health  and 
happiness,  in  the  present  life.  To  these  reasonings  we 
reply, 

1.  Admitting  that  there  is  no  intimation  of  the  doctrine 
of  immortality  and  a  future  judgment,  or  of  the  expectation 
of  a  Messiah,"  in  any  other  part  of  this  book,  the  conseqitence 
does  not  follow.  It  should  be  recollected  that,  in  a  poetical 
bjok,  the  matter  is  disposed  considerably  according  to  the 
taste  and  choice  of  the  writer ;  and  that  a  more  vivid  im- 
pression might  be  made,  by  presenting  a  capital  circum- 
stance, with  its  brightness  and  force  collected  into  one  point, 
than  wov.ld  be  produced  if  it  were  dispersed  through  the 
general  composition.  The  whole  texture  of  this  passage, 
introduced  with  the  most  impassioned  wish  for  attention 
and  perpetual  remembrance,  and  sustained  in  thesublimest 
style  of  utterance,  is  evidently  thus  contrived  to  interest 
and  impress  in  the  highest  degree. 

Those  of  our  objectors  who  ascribe  the  date  of  the  poem 
to  the  period  of  the  captivity,  cannot  refuse  to  admit  that 
the  writer  possessed  whatever  knowledge  the  Jewish  nation 
had  with  respect  to  a  Messiah  and  a  future  state.  The 
writings  of  Moses  and  the  former  prophets,  and  the  greater 
part  of  the  works  of  the  latter  prophets,  and  the  books 
grouped  with  the  Psalms,  were,  at  this  time,  the  accredited 
scriptures  of  the  Jews;  and  few  will  be  so  hardy  as  to 
affirm,  that  no  intimations  occur  in  those  writings  of  the 
doctrines  which  constituted  the  hope  and  consolation  of 
Israel.  On  this  (in  my  opinion,  untenable)  hypothesis,  it 
would  appear  highly  credible  that  some  very  distinct  ref- 
erence to  those  doctrines  would  enter  materially  into  the 
structure  of  the  work. 

2.  The  alleged  inconsistency  between  these  expressions 
of  triumphant  confidence,  as  we  understand  them,  and  the 
gloominess  and  despondency  generally  prevalent  in  the 
speeches  of  Job,  presses  equally  on  our  opponents,  who  con- 
fine the  passage  to  the  expectation  of  restored  prosperity 
in  the  present  life.  It  lies  even  more  against  them,  for  Job, 
not  only  before,  but  in  his  very  last  speech,  evidently  de- 
spaired of  a  restoration  to  temporal  felicity.  His  property 
might,  indeed,  by  some  wonderful,  though  "almost  incredible 
reverse  of  God's  providence,  be  retrieved ;  or,  at  least, 
equivalent  comforts  in  that  class  of  things  might  be  obtain- 
ed :  but  his  children  were  destroyed ;  they  could  not  live 
again :  and  his  own  disorder,  probably  the  dreadful  orien- 
tal leprosy,  was  incurable  and  fatal.'  Yet.  between  this 
hopeless  condition  as  to  earthly  enjoyments,  and  a  vigorous 
aspiration  of  the  mind  after  spiritual  and  immortal  bless- 
ings, there  is  no  inconsistency.  A  man  must  have  little 
judgment,  little  taste,  and  less  moral  sensibility,  who  does 
not  pereeiv^e  in  these  alternations  of  faith  and  diflidence, 
despair  and  hope,  a  picture  exquisitely  just  and  touching, 
of  the  human  mind,  under  the  influence  of  the  most  agita- 
ting conflict  between  religious  principle  resting  on  the  be- 
lief of  invisible  existences,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  dic- 
tates of  sense,  the  pressure  of  misery,  and  the  violence  of 
temptations. 

3.  But  we  are  not  disposed  to  grant  either  of  the  assump- 
tions before  mentioned.  We  have  better  evidence  than  the 
dicta  of  German  anti-supernaturalists,  or  the  opinions  of 
English  refiners  upon  theology,  that  the  patriarchs  from 
whom  the  tradition  of  divine  truths  had  descended  to  Job, 
"  confessed  that  they  were  strangers  and  pilgrims  on  the 
earth,  and  desired  a  better  country,  that  is,  a  heavenly." 
Nor  is  it  credible  that  the  promise  of  a  Messiah  M^as  totally 
unknown  to  the  true  worshippers  of  Jehovah  in  Arabia, 
allied  to  the  family  of  Abraham,  and  in  the  habit  of  reve- 
rentially cherishing  the  remains  of  primeval  truth.  And, 
besides  the  possession  of  the  patriarchal  religion,  what  is 
there  to  prevent  any  but  a  deist  from  conceiving  that  God 
might  INSPIRE  his  "^faithful  and  afflicted  servant  with  the 
knowledge  and  the  joyful  confidence  which  he  expresses'? 
Is  not.  such  a  supposition  consonant  with  all  the  known 
scheme  and  principles  of  the  divine  dispensations  1  Was  not 
the  occasion  worthy  of  the  interposition  1  Has  it  not  always 
been  the  faith  of  the  Jewish  and  of  the  Christian  church, 
that  the  ultimate  sentiments  which  it  is  the  design  of  the 


book  of  Job  to  support  and  illustrate,  and  which,  in  the  se- 
quel of  the  book,  receive  the  stamp  of  divine  approbation, 
form  a  part  of  the  body  of  revealed  truth  %  There  are  alst) 
many  passages  in  the  book  which  may  be  rationally  urged 
as  recognitions  of  a  future  styate. 

4.  The  bare  assertion  that  the  terms  of  the  passage  do  not 
import  so  much  as  is  usually  attributed  to  them,  may  be 
fairly  enough  met  by  asserting  the  contraiy.  To  the  un- 
learned reader,  as  well  as  to  the  critical  scholar,  the  means 
of  judging  for  himself  are  industriously  presented,  in  the 
close  version  given  above,  and  in  the  remarks  and  refer- 
ences subjoined.  The  words  are  as  plain  as  in  any  instance 
the  language  of  prophecy  can  be  expected  to  be.  It  appears 
to  me  strictly  rational,  probable,  and  in  harmony  with  the 
great  plan  of  a  progressive  revelation,  to  regard  this  re- 
markable passage  as  dictated  by  the  Spirit  of  prophecy,  whi, , 
"  in  many  portions,  and  in  many  modes,  spake  to  the  fathers. ' 
Let  me  also  entreat  the  reader's  most  impartial  considera- 
tion, whether  the  sense  here  maintained  is  not  required, 
even  necessitated,  by  the  words,  taken  in  their  fair  meaning 
and  connexion  ;  and  whether  the  affixing  of  a  lower  inter- 
pretation does  not  oblige  those  who  take  this  course,  to  put 
a  manifest  force  upon  the  phrases,  and  upon  the  marks  of 
pre-eminent  importance  with  which  the  sacred  autlfor  has 
signalized  them. 

After  employing  the  utmost  force  and  beauty  of  language 
to  stamp  importance  upon  the  words  which  he  was  about 
to  utter,  and  to  ensure  for  them  a  never-dying  attention,  th^' 
patriarch  protests  his  confidence  that  the  living  God,  th«i 
eternal,  independent,  and  unchanging  One,  would  be  his 
Vindicator  from  injustice,  and  his  Redeemer  from  all  his 
sorrows ;  and  would  restore  him  from  the  state  of  death,  to 
a  new  life  of  supreme  happiness  in  the  favour  and  enjoy- 
ment of  God. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  Job  undefstood  the  full 
import  and  extent  of  what  he  was  "  moved  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  speak."  The  general  belief  on  the  divine  testi- 
mony of  a  future  Saviour  from  sin  and  its  consequent  evils, 
would  place  him  on  a  level  with  other  saints,  in  his  own 
and  many  succeeding  ages,  who  "died  in  faith,  not  re- 
ceiving the  promises"  in  ihevc  clearest  development,  "bu. 
SEEING  them  afar  OFF."  Evcu  whcn  those  promises  bar! 
received  many  accessions  of  successive  revelations,  the 
Jewish  prophets  did  not  apprehend  the  exact  design  and 
meaning  of  their  own  predictions ;  for  "  they  inquired  and 
searched  diligently— what  or  what  kind  of  time,  the  Spirit 
of  Christ  which  was  in  them  did  signify."  Our  inquiry  is, 
therefore,  not  so  much  what  the  patriarch  actually  under- 
stood, as  what  the  Author  of  inspiration  intended;  since  it 
was  "  not  unto  themselves,  but  unto  us,"  that  the  patriarchs 
and  prophets  "  ministered  those  things."  "  No  prophecy 
of  scripture  is  of  self-solution;"  but  is  made  gradually 
plainer  by  new  communications  from  the  same  omniscient 
source,  and  by  the  light  of  events. 

Upon  this  principle,  it  is  proper  for  us  to  compare  the 
language  of  this  passage,  with  the  character  and  declara- 
tions of  Him  to  whom  "  all  the  prophets  gave  witness."  He, 
in  the  fulness  of  the  times,  was  manifested,  as  the  Redeemer 
from  sin'and  death,  the  First  and  the  Last,  and  the  Living 
One,  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life  ;  who,  in  the  appointed 
season,  "  is  coming  with  the  clouds,  and  every  eye  shall 
see  him ;  whose  voice  the  dead  shall  hear,  and  hearing, 
shall  live." 

If,  then,  the  evidence  which  we  can  attain  in  this  case, 
be  suflficient  to  satisfy  an  impartial  judgment,  that  the  pas- 
sage before  us  was  "  given  by  inspiration  of  God,"  as  a 
prophecy  of  the  second  coming  of  the  only  Redeemer  and 
Judge  of  mankind;  it  is  no  less  evidence  in  point  to  our 
present  investigation,  on  the  person  of  the  Great  Deliverer, 
than  if  it  directly  regarded  his  first  advent : — and  it  unequi- 
vocally designates  Him  by  the  highest  titles  and  attributes 
of  Deity.  Upon  the  hypothesis  of  those  who  regard  the  book 
of  Job  as  a  divine  parable,  all  doctrinal  and  practical  con- 
clusions from  it  are  strengthened,  rather  than  rendered 
weak  or  precarious. — J.  P.  Smith. 

Ver.  24.  That  they  were  graven  with  an  iron  pen 
'     and  lead  in  the  rock  for  ever ! 

This  probably  refers  to  the  ancient  practice  of  writifig 
on  stone  (by  rrieans  of  an  iron  instrument)  those  events 
which  were  to  be  conveyed  to  posterity.     The  fact,  also,  of 


340 


JOB. 


Chap.  19—21. 


lead  being  used,  may  allude  to  the  fixing  of  the  stone  by 
means  of  that  metal.  In  all  parts  of  the  East  are  to  be 
found  records  thus  written,  many  of  which  have  never 
been  deciphered,  as  they  are  in  the  languages  not  now 
understood.  It  is  proverbiaj  to  say,  "  The  words  of  the 
wise  are  written  on  stone."  "  Learning  for  the  young  is 
litie  a  writing  in  stone." — Roberts, 

Ver.  26.  And  though,  after  my  skin,  worms  de- 
stroy this  body,  yet  in  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God. 

Though  worms  be  not  in  the  original,  I  believe  the  trans- 
lators have  acted  wisely  in  supplying  the  word  for  the  text. 
Dr.  Mason  Good  translates  it,  "  After  the  disease  hath 
destroyed."  But  the  opinion  of  the  Orientals,  as  expressed 
in  their  ancient  writings,  and  also  in  those  of  the  present 
day,  is,  that  worms  do  exist  in  the  skin,  and  in  all  parts  of 
the  body,  and  that  they  principally  cause  its  destruction. 
They  say  the  life  is  first  destroyed  by  them,  and  afterward 
the  body.  A  man  who  is  very  ill,  often  exclaims,  "  Ah  ! 
my  body  is  but  a  nest  for  worms  ;  they  have  paths  in  all 
parts  of  my  frame."  "  Ah  !  these  worms  are  continually 
eating  my  flesh."  In  the  ancient  medical  work  called 
Kurru-Ndtich-Sooteram,  written  by  the  celebrated  Agattiydr, 
it  is  said,  "  The  human  body  contains  eighteen  kinds  of 
worms: — 1.  the  skin;  2.  the  flesh;  3.  the  bones;  4.  the 
blood ;  5.  (producing)  wind;  6.  the  excrement;  7.  the  urine ; 
8.  intestines;  9.  (rtrcpua;  10.  abscess;  11.  sores  (generally 0 
13.  leprosy;  13.  itch;  14.  cancer;  15.  mouth;  16.  teeth;  17. 
scull ;  and  18.  the  hair."  Is  it  not  a  fact  that  the  medical 
men  of  England  have  only  of  late  years  discovered  that 
animalcules  exist  in  some  of  these  parts  alluded  to  7  and 
perhaps  they  may  do  well  also  to  inquire,  whether  old 
Agattiyar  b|  not  correct  in  some  of  his  other  opinions. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  28.  But  ye  should  say,  Why  persecute  we 
him  ?  seeing:  the  root  of  the  matter  is  found  in 


"  What  is  the  root  of  his  conversation  7"  "  Is  his  root 
right  V  "  We  cannot  find  out  his  root  V  "  Ah !  he  has  a 
good  root." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Ver.  16.  He  shall  suck  the  poison  of  asps:  the 
viper's  tongue  shall  slay  him. 

In  a  country  where  serpents  lurk  in  every  path,  and 
where  such  numbers  of  people  lose  their  lives  from  their 
bite,  can  it  be  a  matter  of  wonder  that  they  are  greatly  afraid 
of  them,  and  that  their  language  abounds  with  figures  taken 
from  the  destructive  power  of  that  reptile  1  Some  modern 
writers  have  asserted,  that  there  are  very  few  of  them 
which  have  poisonous  qualities.  It  is  said  that  some  trav- 
ellers take  occasional  journeys  of  several  months  into  Italy, 
Greece,  and  Egypt,  that  they  may  have  an  opportunity  of 
writing  a  book  "  for  the  gratification  of  their  friends ;" 
find  that  it  is  necessary  to  contradict,  or  alter  a  little,  the 
descriptions  of  their  predecessors,  in  order  to  find  a  sale, 
or  to  ensure  a  modicum  of  popularity.  There  may  be 
something  like  scandal  in  these  observations ;  but  I  am 
quite  sure  they  are  not  without  force  in  reference  to  some 
who  have  favoured  the  world  with  their  sketches  of  the 
East.  To  say  there  are  many  serpents  whose  bite  is  not 
fatal,  is  correct ;  but  to  assert  that  there  are  many  whose 
bile  is  not  poisonous,  is  nonsense.  Perhaps  the  most 
<irmless  of  all  the  tribe  is  the  rat-snake  ;  but  its  bite  always 
produces  giddiness  in  the  head,  and  a  great  degree  of 
deadness  in  the  part  where  the  wound  has  been  inflicted. 
Apologizing  for  this  digression,  I  observe,  that  when  a  man 
is  enraged  with  another,  and  yet  dare  not  make  a  personal 
attack  upon  him,  he  says,  "  The  viper  shall  bite  thee." 
*'  From  wliom  art  thoul  the  race  of  vipers  T'  "Yes,  yes; 
the  poison  of  the  jniddeyan-pdmbo ,  i.  e.  the  beaver-serpent, 
is  in  thy  mouth."  "  What !  serpent,  art  thou  going  to  bite 
me  7     Chee,  Chee !  I  will  break  thy  teeth." — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  He  shall  not  see  the  rivers,  the  floods, 

the  brooks  of  honey  and  butter. 
See  on  chap.  29.  6. 


Is  a  man  about  to  leave  his  native  place,  to  reside  in 
another  country  in  hope  of  becoming  rich,  people  say  tC' 
him,  "We  suppose  there  are  rivers  of  ghee,  and  honey 
and  milk,  in  the  town  where  you  are  going  to  live  !"- 
Roberts. 

In  these  cool  countries  we  have  no  idea  of  butter  so  liquid 
as  described  in  these  words ;  it  appears  among  us  in  a 
more  solid  form.  But  as  the  plentiful  flowing  of  honey, 
when  pressed  from  the  comb,  may  be  compared  to  a  little 
river,  as  it  runs  into  the  vessels  in  which  it  is  to  be  kept, 
so,  as  they  manage  matters,  butter  is  equally  fluid,  and  may 
be  described  in  the  same  way:  "  A  great  quantity  of  butter 
is  made  in  Barbary,  which,  after  it  is  hoiled  with  salt,  they 
put  into  jars,  and  preserve  for  use."  (Shaw.)  Streams  of 
butter  then,  poured,  when  clarified,  into  jars  to  be  preserv- 
ed, might  as  naturally  be  compared  to  rivers,  as' streams  of 
honey  flowing  upon  pressure  into  other  jars  in  which  it  was 
kept. — Burder. 

Ver.  23.  When  he  is  about  to  fill  his  belly,  God 
shall  cast  the  fury  of  his  wrath  upon  him,  and 
shall  rain  it  upon  him  while  he  is  eating. 

.  A  man  in  the  East  does  not,  as  in  England,  say  he  has 
eaten  plentifully,  or  he  has  not  taken  any  thing  to  eat ;  but 
he  has  well  filled  his  belly,  or,  "  to  his  belly  there  is 
nothing."  Thus,  the  beggar  at  your  door  stoops  a  little, 
then  puts  his  hands  on  the  abdomen,  and  exclaims,  "  My 
lord,  for  my  belly  nothing,  for  my  belly  nothing  !" — Rob- 
erts. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Ver,  15.  What  is  the  Almighty,  that  we  should 
serve  him  ?  and  what  profit  should  we  have,  if 
we  pray  unto  him  1 

The  heathen  sometimes  ask  us,  "  Why  should  we  pray 
to  your  God  *?  is  there  any  thing  to  be  gained  by  it  1  When 
we  go  to  our  own  temples,  we  have  often  fruit  given  to  us  ; 
but  when  we  come  to  yours,  nothing  is  otfered :  give  us 
something,  and  we  will  pray  to  him."  On  one  of  these 
occasions,  a  bystander  repeated  a  favourite  proverb,  "  Do 
you  ask  for  pay  when  requested  to  eat  sugarcane  ?'  which 
silenced  the  jester. — Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  Lo,  their  good  is  not  in  their  hand:  the 
counsel  of  the  wicked  is  far  from  me. 

There  has  been  a  difficulty  of  great  magnitude  supposed 
in  the  present  and  several  of  the  ensuing  verses.  Reiske, 
in  order  to  explain  it,  has  recourse  to  his  usual  method ; 
and  while  he  changes  the  divison  of  the  letters  in  the  first 
member  of  the  verse  before  us,  in  order  so  far  to  obtain  an 
explanation,  he  transfers  the  ensuing  six  verses,  from  17 
to  22  inclusively,  to  a  place  between  verses  31  and  32. 
Other  commentators,  with  less  hardihood,  suppose  a  dia- 
logue to  be  held  between  the  speaker  and  some  imaginary 
respondent,  and  have  attempted  to  mark  out,  by  inverted 
commas,  the  passages  that  belong  to  the  respective  dispu- 
tants. There  is  no  necessity  for  any  such  expedients :  the 
general  drift  of  the  argument  is  clear :  "  The  righteous,  I 
admit,  are  generally  rewarded  with  temporal  prosperity ; 
but  do  not,  on  this  account  alone,  accuse  me  ot  hypocrisy 
and  all  wickedness,  because  I  am  at  present  a  sufferer ;  for 
the  wicked  themselves,  in  the  mysteries  of  providence, 
are  occasionally  allowed  to  partake  of  an  equal  prosperity ; 
they  live  in  happiness,  and  die  in  quiet,  even  while  they 
abjure  the  Almighty,  and  laugh  at  those  who  serve  him. 
Do  not  however  mistake  me — far  be  it  from  me  to  become 
an  advocate  for  the  wicked — I  know  the  slipperiness  of 
their  foundation,  and  that  more  generally  they  suffer  for 
their  iniquity  in  the  present  world,  as  well  in  their  own 
persons  as  in  their  posterity;  I  am  only  anxious  to  prove 
that  your  grand  argument  is  fallacious ;  that  no  conclusion 
can  be  drawn  from  the  actual  prosperity  or  misery  of  man, 
as  to  the  moral  rectitude  or  turpitude  of  his  heart ;  and 
that,  with  a  wisdom  which  it  is  impossible  for  mortals  to 
fathom,  the  Almighty  not  unfrequently  allots  a  similar  ea> 
terTial  fate,  both  to  the  righteous  and  the  wicked." — Good. 

Ver,  17.  How  oft  is  the  candle  of  the  wicked  put 


Xutern  PoBture  of  Submisaion,— 1  Ciiron, 


Eastern  Letters — Ezra  4:  7,  S.  Nell.  6:  5. 


Funeral  Clieriot  of  the  East— 2  Kings  9:  23. 


Eaiteru  moJe  of  Punishment — Job  13:  27 


Kneading  Troughs — Ex.  l$i  34. 


Ibex  or  Rock  Goat — Fsalio  104:  13. 


Chap.  21—24. 


out  ?  and  how  oft  cometh  their  destruction  upon 
them  ?    God  distributeth  sorrows  in  his  anger. 

See  on  1  Kings  11.  26. 

Ver.  24.  His  breasts  are  full  of  milk,  and  his 
bones  are  moistened  with  marrow. 

When  the  mother  dies  before  she  has  suckled  her  child, 
its  life  has  been  sometimes  preserved  by  the  milk  of  its 
father's  breast.  This  curious  fact  was  not  unknown  to 
Aristotle,  who  says,  they  that  have  a  small  quantity  of  milk, 
yield  it  in  abundance  when  their  breasts  are  sucked  ;  that 
women  who  are  past  age,  by  being  often  sucked,  and  even 
males,  have  yielded  milk  in  sufficient  quantity  to  nourish 
an  infant.  Humboldt  declares,  in  his  Personal  Narrative, 
that  he  saw  a  man,  an  inhabitant  of  Arenas,  a  village  not  far 
from  Cumana,  Francisco  Lozano,  who  suckled  a  child  with 
his  own  milk.  "  The  mother  having  fallen  sick,  the  father, 
to  quiet  the  infant,  took  it  into  his  bed,  and  pressed  it  to  his 
bosom.  Lozano,  then  thirty-two  years  of  age,  had  never 
remarked  till  that  day  that  he  had  milk;  but  the  irritation 
of  the  nipple,  sucked  by  the  child,  caused  the  accumulation 
of  that  liquid.  The  milk  was  thick  and  very  sweet.  The 
lather,  astonished  at  the  increased  size  of  his  breast,  suckled 
his  child  two  or  three  times  a-day,  during  five  months.  We 
saw  the  certificate  which  had  been  drawn  up  on  the  spot  to 
attest  this  remarkable  fact,  eyewitnesses  of  which  are  still 
living,  (1799.)  They  assured  us,  that  during  this  suckling, 
the  child  had  no  other  nourishment  than  the  milk  of  his 
father.  Lozano,  who. was  not  at  Arenas  during  our  jour- 
ney in  the  missions,  came  to  us  at  Cumana.  He  was 
accompanied  by  his  son,  who  was  then  thirteen  or  fourteen 
years  of  age.  Mr.  Bonpland  examined  with  attention  the 
father's  breast,  and  found  it  wrinkled  like  those  of  women 
who  have  given  suck."  The  existence  of  milk  in  the 
breast  of  a  male  was  known  so  early  as  the  days  of  Job: 
"  His  breasts  are  full  of  milk,  and  his  bones  are  moistened 
with  marrow." — Paxton. 

The  margin  has,  for  breasts,  "  milkpails."  Of  a  man 
who  is  very  rich,  it  is  common  to  say,  "  His  chatties  (ves- 
sels) are  full  of  milk."  But  of  a  good  king  or  governor  it 
is  said,  "  He  nourishes  like  the  king  whose  breasts  are 
full  of  milk."  "Yes;  he  so  rules,  that  the  hearts  of  the 
goddess  of  the  earth  are  full  of  milk."— Roberts. 

Ver.  32.  Yet  shall  he  be  brought  to  the  grave,  and 

shall  remain  in  the  tomb.     33.  The  clods  of 

the  valley  shall  be  sweet  unto  him,  and  every 

man  shall  draw  after  him,  as  there  are  innu- 

I         merable  before  him. 

How  came  Job  to  speak  of  the  clods  of  the  valley,  when 
describing  magnificence  of  burial  1  I  should  suppose,  in 
answer  to  this  question,  that  Job  is  to  be  understood,  not  as 
intending  to  mark  out  the  wonted  places  of  their  interment, 
but  the  manner  of  ornamenting  their  sepulchres ;  planting 
flowers,  and  odoriferous  herbs  or  shrubs,  on  or  about  their 
graves :  "  Clods  like  those  of  a  valley  or  torrent,  verdant 
and  flowery,  shall  surround  him,  and  be  pleasing  to  him." 
The  liveliness  of  eastern  poet^y  here  representing  the  dead, 
as  having  the  same  perceptions  as  if  they  were  alive  in 
their  sepulchres :  "  He  shall  watch  in  the  heap  of  earth,  or 
stones,  that  cover  him,"  for  such  the  margin  of  out  transla- 
tion tells  us,  is  the  more  exact  import  of  the  Hebrew:  "  The 
clods  around  him,  like  those  in  some  pleasant  valley,  or 
on  the  border  of  some  torrent,  shall  be  sweet  unto  him." — 


JOB.  ,  S4i 

to  drink,  and  thou  hast  withholden  bread  from 
the  hungry. 

It  is  one  of  the  thirty-two  charities  of  the  Hindoos,  "  to 
have  water  ready  for  the  traveller  to  drink."  Hence,  on 
the  public  roads,  in  front  of  the  houses  of  charitable  people, 
may  be  seen  vessels  filled  with  water,  for  the  use  of  all  who 
pass  that  way.  But  respectable  men  do  not  drink  there  : 
they  go  inside,  and  say,  "  Conjuni-taneer"  a  little  water ; 
and  It  is  given  to  them. — Roberts. 

Ver.  20.  Whereas  our  substance  is  not  cut  down : 
but  the  remnant  of  them  the  fire  consumeth. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  reference  is  to  the  cities 
of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah :  and  as  all  men  are  often  spoken 
of  as  constituting  one  family  or  community,  so  the  aban- 
doned inhabitants  of  these  cities  are  poetically  represented 
as  descendants  or  remnants  of  the  wicked  that  perished 
in  the  flood.— Good. 

CHAPTER  XXin. 
Ver.  11.  My  foot  hath  held  his  steps:  his  way 
have  I  kept,  and  not  declined. 

When  a  man  follows  another  in  a  path  so  closely  as  al- 
most to  touch  the  feet  of  him  who  goes  before,  it  is  said, 
"  His  feet  hath  laid  hold  of  his  steps,"  intimating  that  the 
men  are  so  near  to  each  other,  that  the  feet  of  him  who  fol- 
lows, like  unto  the  fingers  of  a  man's  hands,  seize  the  feet 
of  him  who  goes  before.  Thus  the  devoted  disciple  of  a 
gooroo,  or  the  man  who  closely  pursues  another,  is  said  to 
lake  hold  of  the  steps  of  him  who  goes  before.  Perhaps 
the  figure  may  be  taken  from  the  great  adroitness  that  the 
natives  of  the  East  have  in  seizing  hold  of  any  thing  with 
their  toes  !  See  a  man  walking  along  the  road :  *he  sees 
something  on  the  ground,  which  he  wishes  to  pick  up;  but;, 
he  does  not  stoop,  as  an  Englishman.  No  !  he  takes  it  up 
between  his  first  and  second  toes.  Look  at  tailors,  shoe- 
makers, or  sailors :  when  they  want  to  twist  a  cord,  they 
do  not  tie  it  to  a  nail,  or  ask  another  person  to  take  hold. 
No  ;  they  make  one  end  fast  to  the  great  toe,  and  perform 
the  other  operation  with  the  hands.  But  the  most  remark- 
able illustration  of  this  practice  was  in  the  case  of  Alypulle, 
the  Kandian  chief,  who  was  beheaded  near  Kandy .  When 
he  arrived  at  the  place  where  he  was  to  be  executed,  he 
looked  around  for  some  time  for  a  small  shrub ;  and  on 
seeing  one,  he  seized  it  with  his  toes,  in  order  to  be  firm 
while  the  executioner  did  his  office. — Roberts. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

Ver.  6.  For  thou  hast  taken  a  pledge  from  thy 

brother  for  naught,  and  stripped  the  naked  of 

their  clothing. 

This  proverbial  form  of  speech  is  used  when  a  man  drags 

from  another  that  which  is  his  last  resource.    "  Why  do 

70U  take  this  tax  from  the  naked  V    "  What !  take  a  cloth 

Tom  the  naked  1    Is  there  no  shame  V    How  often,  also, 

lo  we  see  a  man  seize  another  by  the  cloth  on  the  public 

•oad,  and  swear  if  he  will  not  instantly  pay  his  debt,  he 

ihall  be  left  naked. — Roberts. 

I,    Ver.  7.  Thou  hast  not  given  water  to  the  weary 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Ver.  3.  They  drive  away  the  ass  of  the  father- 
less ;  they  take  the  widow's  ox  for  a  pledge. 

How  various  and  important  are  the  services  which  this 
humble  creature  renders  to  his  master !  He  serves  him  for 
riding,  for  bearing  his  burdens,  drawing  the  plough,  tread- 
ing in  the  grain  into  the  flooded  soil,  turning  the  millstone; 
and  to  all  these  services  the  female  adds  the  nutritious 
beverage  of  her  milk.  To  the  poor  man,  therefore,  a  single 
ass  might  prove  an  invaluable  treasure.  In  many  cases,  it 
was  the  principal  means  of  support  to  himself  and  his 
family ;  a  circumstance  which  accounts  for  the  energetic 
language  respecting  this  animal,  in  some  passages  of  scrip- 
ture. To  "  drive  away  the  ass  of  the  fatherless,"  Job 
denounces  as  a  deed  of  atrocity,  which  none  but  a  proud 
and  unfeeling  oppressor  could  be  guilty  of  perpetrating. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  5.  Behold,  as  wild  asses  in  the  desert,  go 
they  forth  to  their  work,  rising  betimes  for  a 
prey:  the  wilderness  yieldeth  food  for  them 
and  for  their  children. 

See  on  Gen.  16.  12. 

The  passage  refers,  evidently,  not  to  the  proud  and 
haughty  tyrants  themselves,  but  to  the  oppressed  and 
needy  wretches,  the  Bedouins  and  other  plundering  tribes, 
whom  their  extortion  and  violence  had  driven  from  society, 
and  compelled  in  a  body  to  seek  for  subsistence  by  public 
robbery  and  pillage.  In  this  sense  the  description  is  admi- 
rably tbrcjble  and  characteristic— Good. 


842 


JOB. 


Chap.  24 


Ver.  8.  They  are  wet  with  the  showers  of  the 
mountains,  and  embrace  the  rock  for  want  of  a 
shelter. 

This  exactly  agrees  with  what  Niebuhrsays  of  the  mod- 
ern wandering  Arabs  near  Mount  Sinai:  "Those  who  can- 
not afford  a  tent  spread  out  a  cloth  upon  four  or  six  stakes ; 
and  others  spread  their  cloth  near  a  tree,  or  endeavour  to 
.shelter  themselves  from  the  heat  and  the  rain  in  the  cavities 
of  the  rocks." — Burder. 

Ver.  9.  They  pluck  the  fatherless  from  the  breast, 
and  take  a  pledge  of  the  poor. 

It  used  to  be  said  of  the  cruel  king  of  Kandy,  that  he 
would  not  allow  the  infant  to  suck  its  mother's  breast.  Of 
a  wicked  woman  it  is  said,  "  She  will  not  allow  her  own 
child  to  suck  her."  "  O  the  savage  husband !  he  snatches 
d>e  child  from  his  wife's  breast." — Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  In  the  dark  they  dig  through  houses, 
which  they  had  marked  for  themselves  in  the 
daytime :  they  know  not  the  light. 

The  short  duration  of  mud-walled  buildings  is  not  the 
only  objection  to  the  use  of  unburnt  brick ;  for  in  windy 
weather  the  streets  are  incommoded  with  dust,  and  with 
mire  in  time  of  rain.  At  Damascus,  when  a  violent  rain 
happens  to  fall,  the  whole  city,  by  the  washing  of  the 
houses,  becomes  as  it  were  a  quagmire.  So  great  is  the 
quantity  of  dust  and  mire  which  sometimes  accumulates 
in  the  streets  of  an  eastern  city,  that  the  prophet  Zechariah 
borrows  a  figure  from  it,  of  great  force  and  significancy  in 
the  ear  of  an  Oriental,  to  denote  the  immense  riches  of 
Tyre:  "  Tyrus  did  build  herself  a  strong  hold,  and  heaped 
up  silver  as  the  dust,  and  fine  gold  as  the  mire  of  the 
streets."  The  beauty  of  the  figure  is  lost  if  we  attempt  to 
judge  of  it  by  the  state  of  an  occidental  city  in  modern 
times ;  but  it  will  not  be  easy  to  conceive  one  more  stri- 
kingly appropriate,  if  the  streets  of  an  eastern  city,  choked 
with  mire,  or  suiFocated  with  dust,  are  considered.  Dr. 
Shaw  directs  the  attention  of  his  readers  to  the  same  cir- 
cumstance, the  dissolution  of  oriental  buildings  upon  a 
shower,  and  supposes  it  may  illustrate  what  Ezekiel  ob- 
serves respecting  untempered  mortar.  When  that  traveller 
was  at  Tozer,  in  the  month  of  December,  they  had  a  small 
drizzling  shower,  which  continued  for  the  space  of  two 
liours ;  and  so  little  provision  was  made  against  accidents 
of  this  kind,  that  several  of  the  houses,  which,  as  usual, 
were  built  only  with  palm  branches,  mud,  and  tiles  baked  in 
the  sun,  fell  down  by  imbibing  the  moisture  of  the  shower. 
Nay,  provided  the  drops  had  been  either  larger,  or  the 
shower  of  a  longer  continuance,  he  was  persuaded  the 
whole  city  would  have  dissolved  and  dropped  to  pieces. 
In  his  opinion,  the  phrase  "  untempered  mortar"  refers  to 
the  square  pieces  of  clay  of  which  the  wall  is  constructed ; 
but  on  looking  at  the  text,  it  is  evident  that  it  refers  to  the 
plaster  which  is  used  in  the  East  for  covering  the  walls 
after  they  are  built.  The  words  of  the  prophet  are :  "  And 
one  built  up  a  wall,  and  lo,  others  daubed  it  with  untem- 
pered mortar. — Lo,  when  the  wall  is  fallen,  shall  it  not  be 
said  unto  you,  Where  is  the  daubing  wherewith  ye  have 
4  daubed  it '?"  The  view  which  Chardin  gives  of  this  text 
is,  therefore,  to  be  preferred.  According  to  that  intelligent 
traveller,  the  mud  walls  fall  down  in  consequence  of  the 
rain  dissolving  the  plaster.  This  plaster  hinders  the  water 
from  penetrating  the  bricks ;  but  when  it  has  been  soaked 
with  wet,  the  wind  cracks  it,  by  which  means  the  rain,  in 
.«;ome  succeeding  shower,  gets  between  and  dissolves  the 
whole  mass.  To  this  external  coating  of  plaster,  the  proph- 
et certainly  refers,  and  not  to  the  bricks,  of  which  the  wall 
is  constructed ;  for  these,  however  tempered,  never  can  be 
.s'.ipposed  to  resist  the  action  of  violent  rains.  The  ruinous 
effect  of  stormy  winds  and  heavy  rains  upon  such  frail 
structures,  is  well  described  in  ttie  thirteenth  verse,  and 
exactly  corresponds  with  the  accounts  of  modern  travel- 
-ers:  "Therefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  I  will  even 
rend  it  with  a  stormy  wind  in  my  fury  ;  and  there  shall  be 
an  overflowing  shower  in  mine  anger,  and  great  hailstones 
in  my  fury  to  consume  it.  So  will  I  break  down  the  wall 
that  ye  have  daubed  with  untempered  mortar,  and  bring  it 


down  to  the  ground,  so  that  the  foundation  thereof  shall  be 
discovered,  and  it  shall  fall,  and  ye  shall  be  consumed  in 
the  midst  thereof:  and  ye  shall  know  that  I  am  the  Lord." 
The  same. allusion  is  involved  in  the  prediction  of  Amos, 
where  he  denounces  the  judgments  of  God  against  a  profli- 
gate and  refractory  people  :  "  For,  behold,  the  Lord  com- 
mandeth,  and  he  will  smite  the  great  house  with  breaches, 
and  the  little  house  with  clefts."  The  palaces  of  the  great 
and  the  cottages  of  the  poor,  seem  to  have  been  constructed 
of  the  same  fragile  material ;  for  they  were  affected  by  the 
storm  and  the  tempest  in  the  same  manner,  and  when  the 
cup  of  iniquity  is  full,  are  dissolved  by  the  same  shower, — 

P.iXTON. 

Nearly  all  the  houses  in  the  East  are  made  of  unburnt 
bricks,  so  that  there  is  veiy  little  difficulty  in  making  a 
hole  sufficiently  large  to  admit  the  human  body.  No  won- 
der, then,  that  this  is  the  general  way  of  robbuig  houses. 
Thus,  in  the  morning,  when  the  inmates  awake,  they  see 
daylight  through  a  hole  in  the  wall,  and  immediately  know 
what  has  been  done. — Roberts. 

Ver.  1 8.  He  is  swift  as  the  waters ;  their  portion 
is  cursed  in  the  earth :  he  beholdeth  not  the 
way  of  the  vineyards. 

From  this  verse  to  the  end  of  ver.  24,  it  is  agreed  by  all  the 
translators,  that  there  is  much  difficulty  and  perplexity. 
"Non  nimium,  (says  Le  Clerc,)  quam  hac  periodo  se  ob- 
scurius  quicquam  in  Sanctis  scripturis" — "  There  is  hardly 
any  passage  in  the  holy  scriptures  i*ore  obscure  than  the 
present :"  and  Schultens  fully  concurs  in  the  observation. 
Hence  there  are  no  two  interpreters,  perhaps,  who  have 
translated  it  in  precisely  the  same  way,  or  understood  it  in 
the  same  manner.  By  many  the  text  has  been  sii.spected 
to  be  erroneous  in  several  instances;  and  a  sense  has  been 
attempted  to  be  extorted  by  pretended  amendments  of  it. 
Reiske,  here,  as  on  all  other  occasions,  is  by  far  the  boldest 
emendator ;  there  is  scarcely  a  verse  into  which  he  has  not 
introduced  some  alteration,  and  in  some  verses  an  altera- 
tion amounting  to  nearly  half  the  original  text.  It  would 
be  in  vain  to  investigate  these  numerous  renderings,  of  which 
no  one  appears  to  me  to  be  more  perspicuous  than  another, 
or  to  propose  a  clearer  sense  than  that  contained  in  our 
common  version,  obscure  and  in  many  parts  unintelligible 
as  it  is  allowed  to  be.  Without  dwelling,  therefore,  upon 
the  misconceptions  of  my  predecessors,  I  shall  at  once  offer 
to  the  reader's  attention, 'with  much  diffidence,  a  new  inter- 
pretation of  this  contested  passage,  founded  upon  a  difl^er- 
ent  view  of  the  writers'  general  scope  and  intention :  and 
in  doing  this,  while  I  adhere  to  the  original  text,  without 
any  amendment,  the  reader  will  find,  I  trust,  that  I  shall 
be  able  to  extract  a  very  obvious  meaning  from  it,  even 
by  such  strict  and  literal  rendering.  What  is  the  grand 
point  of  controversy  between  the  pious  patriarch  and  his 
too  severe  companions  %  I  have  been  compelled  to  advert  to 
it  on  various  occasions,  and  especially  in  the  note  on  chap, 
xxi.  16,  which  contains  the  patriarch's  preceding  reply. 
Job  is,  from  first  to  last,  accused  by  his  friends  of  being  an 
enormous  transgressor,  because  it  had  pleased  the  Almighty 
to  visit  him  with  a  severe  affliction :  and  when  he  at  first 
denied  his  being  such  a  transgressor,  he  was  immediately 
taxed  with  gross  and  open  hypocrisy.  He  defends  himself, 
in  several  of  his  subsequent  answers,  from  this  cruel  and 
unfounded  charge,  and  ably  and  completely  refutes  the 
very  ground  of  the  argument,  by  observing,  in  chap.  xxi. 
that  although  it  be  true  that  the  righteous  are  often,  and 
for  the  most  part,  rewarded  sooner  or  lattr,  in  this  life,  with 
prosperity,  and  the  wicked  punished  as  they  deserve ;  yet 
that,  in  the  mystery  of  providence,  the  rule  by  no  means 
holds  universally ;  for  that  the  m  icked  also  are  often  al- 
lowed to  be  prosperous,  even  to  the  latest  period  of  their 
existence,  and  the  upright  to  endure  an  uninterrupted  series 
of  pain  and  affliction.  In  chapter  xxii.  the  original  charge 
is  again,  however,  advanced  against  the  patriarch  by  Eli- 
phaz,  who  once  more  advises  him  to  repent  of  his  misdeed'^, 
in  order  that  he  might  be  restored  to  his  former  prosperjtv, 
and  ascribes  his  vindication  of  liimself  to  a  spirit  of  ob- 
stinacy and  rebellion.  In  the  chapter  before  us,  Job  re- 
verts to  the  argument  so  forcibly  opened  in  his  preceding 
replv:  and  in  enlarging  upon  it,  observes  not  only  that  the 
conduct  of  providence  is  inscrutable  to  us  m  regard  to  its 
dealings  with  the  righteous  and  the  wicked,  bitl  in  regard 


Chap.  24—27. 


JOB. 


34y 


lo  all  the  different  classes  of  mankind,  all  the  different 
modes  of  life  they  pursue,  and  all  the  different  events  that 
accompany  them.  In  every  scene  we  behold  evil,  moral 
or  physical,  permitted ;  in  the  retirement  of  the  country, 
and  in  the  crowded  city ;  by  sea  and  by  laud :  it  commences 
in  the  womb  itself,  and  accompanies  miia  through  every 
stage  of  his  being.  We  know  nothing  of /,he  laws  of  prov- 
idence ;  the  Almighty  often  appears  to  be  labouring  in  vain ; 
and  vjce  and  virtue,  the  righteous  and  the  wicked,  to  be 
almost  equally,  and  almost  promiscuously,  the  subject  of 
prosperity  and  of  affliction.  The  corollary  is  clear  and 
imanswerable:  "  How  absurd,  then,  is  it  to  accuse  me  of 
being  more  a  sinner  than  the  rest  of  mankind,  from  the 
mere  circumstance  of  my  being  a  severer  sufferer  than 
others." — Good. 

Ver.  19.  Drought  and  heat  consume  the  snow- 
waters;  so  doth  the  grave  those  which  have 
sinned. 

Literally,  "  ransack  or  plunder  them."  The  reference 
is  to  those  dikes,  tanks,  or  reservoirs  of  water,  which,  in 
eastern  countries,  are  always  carefully  filled  during  the 
periodical  exudations  of  the  large  rivers,  as  the  Nile,'  In- 
dus, and  Ganges,  and  preserved  to  fertilize  the  soil  by 
occasional  irrigations  through  the  rest  of  the  year,  and 
without  which  there  can  be  no  harvest.    So  Isa.  xxxvi.  16 : — 

Make  ye  peace  with  me,  and  come  out  to  me, 

And  eat  ye,  every  one  of  his  vine,  and  every  one  of  his  fig-tree  ; 

And  drink  ye,  every  one,  of  the  waters  of  his  own  cistern,  {tanJe.) 

And  Jeremiah,  still  more  at  large: — 

And  their  nobles  sent  their  little  ones  to  the  waters ; 

Tliey  came  to  the  pits,  (<anA;s)— they  found  no  water ; 

They  returned  with  their  vessels  empty ; 

They  were  ashamed  and  confounded,  and  covered  their  heads. 

Behold !  chapt  was  the  ground,  for  there  had  been  no  rain  on  the  earth  ; 

The  ploughmen  were  ashamed,  they  covered  their  heads. 

These  exudations  were  uniformly  ascribed,  and  with 
great  reason,  to  heavy  periodical  rains,  and  sudden  thaw- 
ings  of  the  immense  masses  of  snow  deposited  in  the  cold- 
er months  on  the  summits  of  the  loftier  mountains,  and 
especially  of  that  vast  and  winding  chain  of  rocks  which, 
under  the  name  of  Caucasus  and  Imaus,  nftis,  in  almost 
erery  direction,  from  the  eastern  verge  of  Europe  to  the 
scuthern  extremity  of  India.  The  two  physical  evils  here 
adverted  lo,  therefore,  are  among  the  severest  scourges  ever 
inflicted  upon  man— the  failure  of  the  vintage  and  of  the 
harvest. — Good. 

Ver.  21.  He  evil  entreateth  the  barren  that  bear- 
eth  not,  and  doeth  not  good  to  the  widow. 

It  is  considered  to  be  very  disgraceful  for  a  married  wo- 
man not  to  have  children;  "and  the  evil  treatment  they  re- 
ceive from  their  own  husbands  and  others  is  most  shameful. 
Nothing  can  be  more  common  than  for  a  poor  woman  of 
that  description,  when  she  has  given  offence  to  another,  to 
be  addressed  by  the  term  malady,  i.  e.  barren.  "  Go,  bar- 
ren one,  get  out  of  my  sight."  "  Chie!  she  cannot  have  a 
child." — Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  They  are  exalted  for  a  little  while,  but 
are  gone  and  brought  low ;  they  are  taken  out 
of  the  way  as  all  other,  and  cut  off  as  the  tops 
of  the  ears  of  corn. 

Wicked  men  and  tyrants  may  be  prosperous  for  a  sea- 
son, but  they  will  eventually  be  like  the  long  stubble,  having 
had  the  ears  lopped  off.  This  alludes  to  the  custom,  in  the 
East,  of  taking  off  the  ears  of  the  corn,  and  leaving  the  straw, 
as  before,  standing  on  the  ground.  The  grain  called  kur- 
rakan  is  gathered  by  simply  taking  off  the  ears;  and  rice, 
where  the  water  still  remains  in  the  fields,  is  gathered  in  the 
same  way.  The  proud  oppressor,  then,  in  the  end,  shall 
be  like  the  long  straw  standing  in  its  place,  having  "  the 
ears"  cut  off,  and  carried  away. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
Ver.  5.   Dead  things  are  formed  from  under  the 
waters,  and  the  inhabitants  thereof 

What  possible  sense  can  be  elicited  from  this  passage,  as 
thus  rendered  %   The  original  for  "  dead  things,"  (rephaim,) 


properly  signifies  the  mighty  dead,  and  is  a  common  denom- 
ination of  the  dead  giants  who  died  before  tlie  flood.  The 
spirits  of  these  men  are  frequently  alluded  to  in  the  scrip- 
tures, in  accordance  with  the  popular  modes  of  belief,  as 
incarcerated  in  the  bowels  or  cavernous  recesses  of  the 
earth,  having  been  ingulfed  in  the  waters  of  the  deluge. 
Here  the  speaker  is  descanting,  in  a  sublime  and  somewhat 
poetic  manner,  upon  the  ubiquity  and  omnipotence  of  God. 
Though  seated  upon  the  circle  of  the  heavens,  yet  his  eye 
penetrates,  and  his  presence  visits  the  profoundest  abysses  of 
the  globe,  and  the  spirits  of  the  mighty  dead,  the  tenants  of 
these  gloomy  mansions,  quail  and  quake  before  him.  The 
true  import  of  the  original  word  rendered  "  formed"  is,  to 
trenMe,  shake,  quake,  be  put  in  commotion.  It  is,  therefore, 
in  fact,  but  saying,  that  the  regions  of  the  dead  are  perfectly 
exposed  to  the  omniscient  survey  of  Jehovah,  and  that  the 
despairing  spirits  of  those  who  perished  under  the  over- 
whelming mass  of  waters  in  the  days  of  Noah,  perpetually 
quake  under  the  consciousness  of  his  present  ire.  The  * 
ensuing  verse  is  in  a  similar  strain :  "  Hell  (hades,  the 
invisible  world)  is  naked  before  him,  and  destruction  hath 
no  covering."  A  kindred  figurative  mode  of  representa- 
tion occurs  in  Isaiah,  ch.  xiv.  6,  where  the  approach  of  the 
once-dreaded  king  of  Babylon  to  the  dreary  mansions  of 
the  dead,  is  spoken  of  as  exciting  commotion  among  the 
silent  occupants  of  that  nether  world.  "  Hell  from  beneath 
is  moved  for  thee  to  meet  thee  at  thy  coming;  it  stirreth  up 
the  dead  (rephaim,  the  mighty  dead)  for  thee,  even  all  the 
chief  ones  of  the  earth."  We  suppose  that  the  New  Testa- 
ment contains  two  distinct  allusions  to  the  subject  of  the 
present  passage  in  Job,  if  not  to  the  passage  itself;  the  first 
is  James  ii.  19,  "  Thou  believest  there  is  one  God;  thou 
doest  well ;  the  devils  also  believe,  and  tremble."  Here  the 
original  word  for  devils  (daimonia,  demons)  is,  as  Campbell 
has  shown,  the  New  Testament  term  for  spirits  of  dead  men, 
especially  such  as  were  deified  and  worshipped  after  death, 
the  heroes  or  demigods  of  antiquity.  This  view  of  the 
subject  brings  the  two  passages  into  very  near  accordance 
with  each  other.  The  import  of  both  is,  that  the  spirits  of 
these  mighty  dead  tremble  in  awe  before  the  most  high 
God.  The  other  occurs  1  Pet.  iii.  19,  20,  "  By  which  also 
he  went  and  preached  unto  the  spirits  in  prison,  which 
sometime  were  disobedient,  when  once  the  long-suffering 
of  God  waited  in  the  days  of  Noah,  while  the  ark  was  a 
preparing,  wherein  few,  that  is  to  say,  eight  souls,  were 
saved  by  water."  Christ,  speaking  by  his  spirit  through 
Noah,  and  perhaps  other  good  men  living  belx)re  the  flood, 
preached  to  those  ancient  sinners,  "  which  were  of  old, 
men  of  renown,"  but  whose  spirits,  from  their  having  proved 
disobedient  and  incorrigible,  are  now  confined  in  the 
gloomy  abodes  of  the  under  world,  as  in  a  prison  from 
which  there  is  no  escape. — Bosh. 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Ver.  8.  For  what  is  the  hope  of  the  hypocrite, 
though  he  hath  gained,  when  God  taketh  away 
his  soul? 

The  argument  now  entered  upon  is  admirably  forcible, 
and  in  point ;  it  opposes  the  adverse  party  with  their  own 
weapons.  "  Yoti  accuse  me  of  hypocrisy  and  of  all  wick- 
edness, and  you  accuse  me  of  thus  acting  from  a  love  of 
gain.  How  absurd  and  irrational  such  a  motive!  what 
hope  of  prosperity  can  the  wicked  man  indulge'?  what  hope 
that  God  should  grant  him  tranquillity  T'  Ver  11,  "  I  will 
teach  you  his  lot  by  the  hand  of  God  himself  Ye  your- 
selves know  it,  and  have  seen  it."  Ver.  13,  "Behold!  this 
is  the  portion  of  the  wicked  man,"  &c. — Good. 

Ver.  15.  Those  that  remain  of  him  shall  be  buried 
in  death ;  and  his  widows  shall  not  weep. 

Nothing  can  be  bolder,  nothing  more  highly  imb.ied  with 
the  spirit  of  oriental  poetry,  than  the  entire  couplet:  "  No 
sepulchre,  no  funeral  dirge :  corruption  alone  shall  be  his 
tomb;  his  own  household  shall  not  bewail  him  ;  not  even 
the  affectionate  females  of  his  harem,  his  bereft  wives  and 
concubines;  those  cf  his  own  rank,  who  brought  with  them 
a  dowry  upon  marriage,  and  those  selected  on  account  of 
their  personal  charms,  and  who  were  married  without 
dowries."  No  honourable  man  was  ever  interred,  in  an- 
cient times,  and  in  eastern  nations,  without  the  solemnity 


344 


JOB, 


Chap.  27. 


of  public  mourners  in  long  procession,  loud  lamentations, 
and  metrical  dirges.  But  it  is  probable  that  the  writer,  in 
the  present  placed  more  immediately  alludes  to  those  shrieks 
of  domestic  grief,  which  are  so  often  to  be  met  with  in  every 
quarter  of  the  house,  and  especially  among  the  females, 
upon  the  death  of  its  master;  and  which  is  admirably 
described  in  the  Iliad,  upon  the  fall  of  Hector.  The  pas- 
sage, however,  has  not  been  understood  by  any  of  the  com- 
mentators or  translators  who  have  concurred  in  regarding 
"•i-iittf  as  meaning  the  remains  of  his  house,  instead  of  the  re- 
via.ins  of  his  person  ;  and  hence  our  common  version, 
"  those  that  rerfiain  of  him"  instead  of  literally, "  his  remains.'" 
Equally  erroneous  the  common  version,  "  shall  be  buried 
in  death ;"  in  which  nio,  here  rendered  death,  means  also 
"  mortality,"  "  corruption,"  "  pestilence  ;"  i.  e.  "  corruption 
alone  shall  be  his  tomb,  or  covering,"  as  just  explained 
above.  Reiske,  not  knowing  how  to  explain  this  expres- 
sion upon  the  common  interpretation,  suspects,  as  usual,  an 
error  in  the  reading,  and  proposes  a  choice  of  three  amend- 
ments; neither  of  which,  however,  it  is  necessary  to  par- 
ticularize.— Good. 

Ver.  16.  Though  he  heap  up  silver  as  the  dust, 
and  prepare  raiment  as  the  clay.  ^ 

According  to  D'Herbelot,  Bokteri,  an  illustrious  poet  of 
Cufah,  in  the  ninth  century,  had  so  many  presents  made 
him  in  the  course  of  his  life,  that  when  he  died  he  was 
found  possessed  of  a  hundred  complete  suits  of  clothes, 
two  hundred  shirts,  and  five  hundred  turbans.  This  anec- 
dote proves  how  frequently  presents  of  this  kind  are  made 
to  persons  of  consideration  in  the  Levant ;  and  at  the  same 
time  furnishes  a  beautiful  illustration  of  that  passage  in  the 
book  of  Job,  where  the  afiiicted  patriarch  describes  the 
treasures  of  the  East,  in  his  time,  as  consisting  of  clothes 
and  money  :  "  Though  he  heap  up  silver  as  the  dust,  and 
prepare  raitnent  as  the  clay ;  he  may  prepare  it,  but  the 
just  shall  put  it  on,  and  the  innocent  shall  divide  the  silver." 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  He  buildeth  his  house  as  a  moth,  and 
as  a  booth  that  the  keeper  maketh. 

Feeble  in  its  structure  and  materials,  short  in  its  duration, 
and  equally  incapable  of  resisting  a  thunderstorm  or  shower 
of  rain.    So  ch.  viii.  14: — 

"  Thus  shall  his  support  rot  away, 

And  the  building  op  the  spider  be  his  reliance." 

The  genus  phalaena,  or  moth,  is  divided  into  plant-moths 
and  cloth-moths ;  and  the  latter  have  been  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  those  immediately  alluded  to  in  the  present 
place.  I  have  some  doubt  of  this,  but  the  question  is  not 
of  consequence ;  the  house  or  building  referred  to  is,  as- 
suredly, that  provided  by  the  insect  in  its  larvae  or  caterpil- 
lar state,  as  a  temporary  residence  during,  its  wonderful 
change  from  a  chrysalis  to  a  winged  or  perfect  insect.  The 
slightness  of  this  habitation  is  well  known  to  every  one  who 
has  attended  to  the  curious  operation  of  the  silkworm,  or 
the  tribes  indigenous  to  the  plants  of  our  own  country,  as 
the  emperor-moth,  tiger-moth,  poplar,  or  willow-moth, 
&c.  Of  these,  some  construct  a  solitary  dwelling ;  while 
others,  as  the  brown-tail-moth,  are  gregarious,  vast  num- 
bers residing  together  under  one  common  web,  marshalled 
with  the  most  exact  regularity.  The  web  of  the  cloth- 
moth  is  formed  of  the  very  substance  of  the  cloth  on  which 
it  reposes,  devoured  for  this  purpose,  and  afterward  work- 
ed into  a  tubular  case,  with  open  extremities,  and  generally 
approaching  to  the  colour  of  the  cloth  by  which  the  moth- 
worm  is  nourished. — Good. 

The  moth  forms  her  cell  in  the  woollen  garment ;  a  frail 
structure,  which  is  soon  destroyed  by  the  devouring  energy 
of  the  builder.  Day  after  day  she  consumes  the  stuff  in 
which  her  dwelling  is  placed, "till  both  are  involved  in  one 
common  ruin,  and  reduced  to  nothing.  Such,  in  the  esti- 
mation of  Job,  is  the  prosperity  of  a  wicked  man :  "  He 
buildeth  his  house  as  a  moth,  and  as  a  booth  that  the  keeper 
maketh."  The  term  which  that  afflicted  patriarch  uses  in 
this  passage,  signifies  a  moth,  and  also  the  constellation 
Arctnrus.  Some  interpreters  accordingly  render  the  words: 
•'  the  wicked  man  shall  build  his  house  like  Arcturus;  shall 
raise,  for  his  accommodation  and  pleasure,  a  splendid  and 
magnificent  abode,  bright  as  the  stars  of  Arcturus  in  the 
•sh-ning  vault  of  ^heaven;  but  it  shall  speedily  rush  into 


ruin,  like  a  temporary  booth,  where  the  keeper  of  a  vine- 
yard watches  his  property  for  a  little  while  till  the  vintage 
IS  gathered."  But  this  interpretation  by  no  means  accords 
with  the  design  of  the  speaker ;  for  it  introduces  an  anti- 
thesis into  the  text,  instead  of  the  conjunction,  which  Job 
evidently  meant,  and  separates  the  two  comparisons  of  the 
same  thing,  as  if  they  referred  to  different  objects.  Hence 
the  common  version,  which  unquestionably  expresses  the 
true  sense  of  the  clause,  is  to  be  preferred :  "  The  wicked 
man,  like  the  moth,  builds  his  house  at  the  expense  of  an- 
other. He  expels  his  neighbours  from  their  possessions, 
that  he  may  join  house  to  house,  and  lay  field  to  field,  till 
there  be  no  place  for  others  to  inhabit,  except  as  dependants 
on  his  forbearance  or  bounty,  that  he  may  dwell  alone,  as 
the  sole  proprietor,  in  the  midst  of  the  earth."  The  idea  of 
Job  is  thus  expressed  by  another  prophet :  "  They  covet 
fields,  and  take  them  by  violence;  and  houses,  and  take 
them  away  ;  so  they  oppress  a  man  and  his  house,  even  a 
man  and  his  heritage."  But  his  unrighteous  acquisitions 
shall  be  of  short  continuance ;  they  shall  moulder  insensi- 
bly away,  returning  to  the  lawful  owner,  or  passing  into 
the  possession  of  others. — Paxton. 

Strictly,  the  mothworm,  as  it  proceeds  from  the  ^^,^  be- 
fore it  is  changed  into  the  chrysalis,  aurelia,  or  nymph, 
(Nature  Displayed,  vol.  i.  p.  18,)  so  called  from  its  corro- 
ding and  destroying  the  texture  of  cloth.  Job  xiii.  28. 
Isaiah  1.  9.  li.  8.  "  The  young  moth  upon  leaving  the  ^^,^, 
which  a  papilio  has  lodged  upon  a  piece  of  stuff,  or  a  skin 
well  dressed,  and  commodious  for  her  purpose,  immediately 
finds  a  habitation  and  food  in  the  nap  of  the  stuff,  or  hair  of 
the  skin.  It  gnaws  and  lives  upon  the  nap,  and  likewise 
builds  with  it  its  apartment,  accommodated  both  with  a 
front  door  and  a  back  one ;  the  whole  is  well  fastened  to 
the  ground  of  the  stuff,  with  several  cords  and  a  little  glue. 
The  moth  sometimes  thrusts  her  head  out  of  one  opening, 
and  sometimes  out  of  the  other,  and  perpetually  devours 
and  demolishes  all  about  her ;  and  when  she  has  cleared 
the  place  about  her,  she  draws  out  all  the  stakes  of  this 
tent,  after  which  she  carries  it  to  some  little  distance,  and 
then  fixes  it  with  her  slender  cords  in  a  new  situation.  In 
this  manner  she  continues  to  live  at  our  expense  till  she  is 
satiated  with  her  food,  at  which  period  she  is  first  trans- 
formed into  a  nymph,  and  then  changes  into  a  papilio,  or 

moth." — BURDER. 

Ver.  19.  The  rich  man  shall  lie  down,  but  he 
shall  not  he  gathered :  he  openeth  his  eyes,  and 
he  is  not. 

The  heathen  had  a  conceit  that  the  souls  of  such  per- 
sons as  had  not  had  the  due  rites  of  burial  paid  them,  were 
not  admitted  into  hades,  but  were  forced  to  wander  a  hun- 
dred years,  a  parcel  of  vagabond  ghosts,  about  the  banks  of 
the  Styx.  Hence  we  find  the  ghost  of  Patroclus  supplica- 
ting Achilles  to  give  him  his  funeral  rites:  "Bury  me," 
says  he,  "  that  I  may  pass  as  soon  as  possible  through  the 
gates  of  hades."  So  speaks  Palinurus,  in  Virgil:  "  Throw 
upon  me  some  earth,  that  at  last  I  may  obtain  rest  in  death, 
in  quiet  habitations."  Here  the  self-conceited  philosopher 
smiles  at  the  rite  of  sprinkling  the  body  three  times  with 
dust;  but  this,  although  misunderstood,  and  tinged  with 
the  fabulous,  was  borrowed  from  the  Hebrew  nation.  To 
gather  denotes,  as  to  the  dead,  the  bringing  of  their  souls  to 
Paradise.  Although  this  cannot  be  effected  by  mortals, 
yet  they  expressed  the  benevolent  wish  that  the  thing  mipht 
be.  oh  the  other  hand.  Job  says  of  the  rich  man,  he  shall 
lie  down,  but  he  shall  not  be  gathered.  In  the  ages  which 
followed,  the  performance  of  this  rite  was  termed  sealing. 
Ofthiswehave  a  bright  instance  in  the  second  book  of 
Esdras:  "Wheresoever  thou  findest  the  dead,  seal  them, 
and  bury  them;"  that  is,  express  the  benevciant  prayer 
which  is  in  use  among  the  Jews  to  this  day :  "  May  he  be 
in  the  bundle  of  life,  may  his  portion  be  in  Paradise,  and 
also  in  that  future  world  which  is  reserved  for  the  righ- 
teous." It  would  also  appear,  that  in  this  act  of  sealing  a 
corpse,  they  either  wrote  upon  the  head  with  ink,  or  sim- 
ply made  the  form  with  the  finger,  (Le-hovah.)  This  at 
bottom  could  make  no  difference  in  the  state  of  the  deceas- 
ed, but  it  expressed  their  desire  that  such  a  person  might  be 
among  those  who  are  written  unto  life.  From  a  passage  in 
Isaiah,  it  appears  that  persons  were  in  use  to  mark  with 
indelible  ink  on  the  hand,  the  words  Le-hovah,  the  cou- 


Chap.  28. 


JOB 


345 


traded  form  of  this  sentence,  lam  the  Lordh.  This  agrees 
with  what  Rabbi  Simeon  says,  "  The  perfectly  just  are 
sealed,  and  in  the  moment  of  death  are  conveyed  to  Para- 
dise." This  sealing  St.  Paul  applies,  as  far  as  wishes  can 
go,  to  Onesiphorus:  "May  the  Lord  grant  to  Onesipho- 
rus,  that  he  may  obtain  mercy  of  the  Lord  in  that  day !" 
"  As  many,"  says  the  same  apostle,  "  as  walk  according  to 
this  rule,  peace  be  on  them,  and  upon  the  Israel  of  God !" 
(Gal.  vi.  16.) 

Such  being  marked  in  death  with  the  expression,  belong- 
ing to  the  Lord,  explains  this  sentence,  "  the  foundation  of 
the  Lord  standeth  sure,  having  this  seal,  the  Lord  knoweth 
them  that  are  his."  "  Hurt  not  the  earth,  nor  the  trees," 
says  the  angel  in  the  book  of  Revelation,  "until  we  have 
sealed  the  servants  of  our  God  in  their  foreheads."  This 
seal,  we  are  told,  is  their  father's  name :  that  is,  Le-hovah, 
the  Lord's,  alluding  to  the  Old  Testament  form.  This 
name  Christ  says  he  himself  writes,  and  by  doing  so,  acts 
the  part  of  the  Kedosh- Israel,  opening  where  none  can  shut. 
This  sealing,  then,  is  taking  them  off  by  death,  and  placing 
them  in  his  father's  house ;  for  after  they  are  so  sealed,  we 
find  them  before  the  throne,  hungering  and  thirsting  no 
more,  and  the  Lamb  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  leading  them 
forth  into  pastures. — Burder. 

Ver.  23.  Men  shall  clap  their  hands  at  him,  and 
shall  hiss  him  out  of  his  place. 

See  on  2  Sam.  2.  15. 

The  present  female  way  of  expressing  joy  in  the  East,  by 
gently  applying  one  of  their  hands  to  their  mouths,  seems 
to  have  obtained  in  the  times  of  remote  antiquity,  and  to  be 
meant  in  several  places  of  scripture.  What  their  present 
custom  is,  appears  in  the  following  passage  of  Pitts,  descri- 
bing the  joy  with  which  the  leaders  of  their  sacred  caravans 
are  received,  in  the  several  towns  of  Barbary  through  which 
they  pass :  "  This  emir  Hagge,  into  whatsoever  town  he 
comes,  is  received  with  a  great  deal  of  joy,  because  he  is 
going  about  so  religious  a  work;  and  it  is,  who  can  have 
the  favour  and  honour  of  kissing  his  hand,  or  but  his  gar- 
ment !  He  goes  attended  in  much  pomp,  with  flags,  kettle- 
drums, &c.  and  loud  acclamations  do,  as  it  were,  rend  the 
skies ;  nay,  the  very  women  get  upon  the  tops  of  the  houses 
to  view  the  parade,  or  fine  show,  where  they  keep  striking 
their  fore  lingers  on  their  lips,  as  fast  as  they  can,  making 
a  joyful  noise  all  the  while,  which  sounds  somewhat  like 
yow,  yow,  yow,  hundreds  of  times."  Others  have  given  us 
nearly  the  same  account.  This  seems  to  me  to  be  referred 
to  in  some  passages  of  scripture  ;  and  that  the  sacred  wri- 
ters suppose  two  different  methods  of  expressing  joy  by  a 
quick  motion  of  the  hand,  which  is  lost  in  our  translation ; 
for  I  suppose  the  clapping  of  the  hands  in  the  plural,  is  a 
very  distinct  thing  from  the  clapping  the  hand  in  the  sin- 
gular, though  our  translators  have  confounded  them  to- 
gether. The  striking  one  hand  against  the  other  with 
some  smartness,  which  we  mean  by  the  term  clapping  of 
the  hands,  might,  and  I  believe  did,  obtain  anciently,  as  an 
expression  of  joy ;  not  unfrequently,  if  not  always,  of  the 
malignant  kind ;  so  the  prophet  Jeremiah  says  of  Jerusa- 
lem, when  it  was  destroyed,  "  All  that  pass  by,  clap  their 
hands  at  thee ;  they  hiss  and  wag  their  head  at  the  daughter 
of  Jerusalem,  saying.  Is  this  the  city  that  men  call  the  per- 
fection of  beauty,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth"?"  Lam.  ii.  15. 
In  like  manner  Job,  after  describing  the  sudden  destruction 
of  the  wicked,  says,  "  Men  shall  clap  their  hands  at  him, 
and  shall  hiss  him  out  of  his  place,"  Job  xxvii,  23.— 
Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 
Ver.  4.  The  flood  breaketh  out  from  the  inhabit- 
ant ;  even  the  waters  forgotten  of  the  foot :  they 
are  dried  up,  they  are  gone  away  from  men. 

The  mighty  flood  which  man  had  dammed  up,  by  joining 
together  mountains  and  mLLS,  and  thus  forming  an  im- 
mense basin,  had  broken  down  by  its  weight  the  gigantic 
mound;  had  rolled  "away  from  men,"  and  gone  in  the 
desert  places.  The  waters  of  the  lake  are  now  "  forgot- 
ten of  the  foot,  they  are  dried  up ;"  for  the  feet  of  men  in 
walking  there  think  of  them  no  more. — Roberts, 

Mr.  Parkhurst  considers  this  chapter  as  relating  to 
mineralog}',  and  renders  these  words,  "a  torrent  bursteth 
44 


forth  from  the  rubbish  unexpectedly  ;  by  the  foot  they  are 
drawn  off,  by  man  they  are  removed."  As  an  explanation, 
he  adds  the  following  extract  from  Mr.  Hutchinson  :  "  It 
is  hardly  credible  how  great  a  quantity  of  water  will  be 
sometimes  flung  upon  mmers,  when  they  come  to  break  up 
strata  of  stone,  that  have  in  them  many  of  these  cracks, 
that  are  so  small  that  they  are  scarcely  discernible.  These 
are  indeed  the  natural  conveyances  of  w'ater,  and  when 
once  they  are  opened,  it  runs  incessantly.  I  have  observed 
such  an  eruption  of  water  in  vast  quantity  out  of  stone, 
that,  excepting  those  cracks,  is  much  loo  dense  and  close  to 
let  any  humidity  pass."  "  The  vast  profusion  of  water 
that  sometimes  ensues  the  breaking  up  of  the  strata  in  coal- 
pits, is  well  known  to  those  who  are  in  the  least  conversant 
in  that  affair:  and  what  amazing  quantities  are  drawn  off 
from  deep  mines,  either  by  drains  or  levels,  or  raised  by 
engines,  is  also  well  known  ;  nay,  in  digging  common 
wells  and  ponds,  in  places  where  there  are  no  springs 
above  ground,  it  frequently  happens  that  such  a  glut  of 
water  issues  forth  as  to  endanger  the  lives  of  the  work- 
men."— Burder. 

Ver.  6.  The  stones  of  it  are  the  place  of  sapphires ; 
and  it  hath  dust  of  gold. 

The  STONES  which  form  and  bind  together  the  mounds 
and  hills  are  taken  from  the  exact  places  where  sapphires 
are  found.  For  Jameson  informs  us,  that  "  the  geognos- 
tic  situation  of  the  sapphire  is  in  alluvial  soil,  in  the  vicin- 
ity of  rocks,  belonging  to  the  secondary  floetz  trap  formation, 
and  imbedded  in  gneiss."  In  reference  to  its  geographic 
situation,  the  same  writer  says,  it  is  found  particularly 
beautiful  in  Asia,  in  the  Capelan  mountains,  in  Persia,  and 
the  Island  of  Ceylon.  Dr.  Davy  states,  that  "the  sapphire 
occurs  in  considerable  abundance  in  the  granitic  alluvion 
of  Matura  and  Saffragam,"  (in  Ceylon.)  Thus,  the  stones 
of  which  the  mound  is  formed,  are  the  true  geognostic 
situation  where  the  sapphire  is  found ;  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  workmen,  in  hewing  and  detaching  the 
masses  fom  the  rocks,  and  in  joining  them  to  the  mount- 
ains, did,  by  this  secondary  kind  of  mining,  often  find  the 
precious  sapphire.  "  And  it  hath  dust  of  gold."  The 
same  mineralogist  states,  (and  it  is  a  well  known  fact,) 
"  that  in  Asia  the  sand  of  many  rivers  affords  gold,"  and 
it  is  washed  down  in  great  quantities  from  the  mountains 
on  the  coast  of  Sumatra,  where  it  is  afterward  found  in 
the  beds  of  rivers. — Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  He  cutteth  out  rivers  among  the  rocks; 
and  his  eye  seeth  every  precious  thing. 

In  our  commor  version,  "  he  cutteth  out  rivers ;"  in  one 
or  two  others,  "  canals."  The  exact  meaning  is,  the  hol- 
lows that  are  delved  by  mmers  in  a  metallic  bed  or  mount- 
ain, often  serving  as  passages  to  the  central  chamber.  By 
cleaving  such  openings  as  these,  the  metallurgist  may  truly 
be  stated,  which  he  could  not  be  in  the  usual  rendering 
of  "  cutting  out  rivers,"  "  to  discover  every  precious  gem," 
— Good. 

Savary  informs  us,  the  canal  Bahr  Joseph  "  must  have 
cost  immense  sums,  being  in  many  parts  cut  through  the 
rock  !"  Bishop  Heber  also  states  that  the  lake  of  Ajmeer 
is  formed  "  by  damming  up  the  gore  of  an  extensive  val- 
ley, and  conveying  different  small  rills  into  it !''  Thus, 
in  making  his  rivers  and  rivulets  through  the  rocks,  in 
order  to  convey  the  water  to  its  destined  place,  he  at  the 
same  time  sees  '*  every  precious  thing :"  because  his  work 
lies  in  the  geognostic  situation  of  those  valuable  gems. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  1 1.  Hebindeth  the  floods  from  overflowing; 
and  the  thing  that  is  hid  bringeth  he  forth  to 
light. 

According  to  Reiske,  "  E  fonticulo'compellit  in  uftum 
alveum," — "  He  driveth  them  from  their  spring  into  a  com- 
mon reservoir."  According  to  the  mare  general  interpreta- 
tion, "  He  bindeth  the  flood  from  overflowing."  The  sense 
has  not  been  fairly  understood.  Every  one  acquainted  with 
mining  knows,  that,  at  different  depths  from  the  surface,  the 
shaft,  or  aperture,  is  so  apt  to  be  overflowed  with  water 
from  surrounding  springs,  that  it  is  impossible  to  work  it 
till  the  water  is  drawn  off;  the  macjiinery  to  accomplish 


346 


JOB. 


Chap.  29. 


which  is  sometimes  one  of  the  most  serious  expenses  inci- 
dental to  working  a  mine.  It  is  to  the  restraint  of  these 
waters,  so  perpetually  oozing  or  weeping  through  e very- 
pore,  that  the  writer  alludes  in  the  present  passage. — 
Good. 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

Ver.  2.  Oh  that  I  were  as  in  months  past,  as  in 
the  days  when  God  preserved  me ;  3.  When 
his  candle  shined  upon  my  head,  and  when  by 
his  light  I  walked  through  darkness. 

The  winter  in  Canaan  is  extremely  wet  and  cold.  In 
the  time  of  the  crusades,  many  of  the  troops  perished 
through  want  of  provisions,  intenseness  of  the  cold,  and 
the  heaviness  of  the  Avinter  rains.  Fulcherius,  who  was 
in  the  retinue  of  the  prince  of  Antioch,  in  his  journey  to 
Jerusalem,  and  saw  many  of  both  sexes  die,  besides  num- 
bers of  their  cattle,  says,  they  were  kept  wet  for  four  or 
five  days  together,  by  the  continual  rains.  So  great  is  the 
quantity  of  rain  Avhich  occasionally  falls,  and  so  intense 
the  cold,  that  the  elements  seem  to  conspire  the  ruin  of  every 
living  creature  that  is  exposed  to  their  fury.  It  is  agreed 
by  all  those  who  have  written  on  the  subject,  that  all  the 
winter  months  in  Palestine  are  rainy ;  and  by  consequence, 
that  Judea  is  not  one  of  those  regions  where  it  only  rains 
at  the  equinoxes.  The  Hebrew  word  horeph,  according- 
ly, which  we  translate  winter,  in  Mr.  Harmer's  opinion, 
seems  rather  to  mean  precisely  the  wet  season.  "  O  that 
I  were  as  in  months  past,"  says  Job,  "as  in  the  days 
when  God  preserved  me,  as  I  was  in  the  days  of  my  win- 
ter !"  In  the  days  of  his  moist  time,  when,  as  he  expresses 
it,  "  my  root  was  spread  out  by  the  waters,  and  the  dew 
lay  all  night  upon  my  branch:  my  glory  was  fresh  in  me." 
Not  in  the  days  of  his  disgrace  then,  the  days  in  which  he 
was  stripped  of  his  ornaments,  as  an  herb  of  its  leaves  and., 
flowers  in  the  winter;  but  like  a  plant,  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  rainy  season,  before  the  violent  heats  come  on,  which 
scorch  and  burn  up  every  green  thing.  But  the  term  ho- 
reph, from  the  verb  haraph,  to  strip,  literally  means  the 
stripping  season ;  and  signifies  that  part  of  the  year  which 
strips  vegetables  of  their  flowers,  fruit,  and  leaves,  and 
consequently,  the  earth  of  its  beauty.  It  is  opposed  to 
kaitz,  from  koutz,  to  awake,  or  quicken,  the  quickening 
or  awakening  season,  and  includes  both  autumn  and  win- 
ter. Is  it  probable  that  the  cold-and  rainy  season  of  win- 
ter would  be  an  object  of  desire  to  Job,  when  "  the  heavens 
are  filled  with  clouds,  when  the  earth  swims  to  rain,  and 
all  nature  wears  a  lowering  countenance  1"  It  is  more 
natural  to  render  the  phrase,  in  the  days  of  his  autumn, 
which  in  those  climates  is  a  delightful  season ;  for  then 
the  heats  are  abated,  the  earth  is  moistened  with  dew,  or 
refreshed  with  the  first  showers  of  the  latter  rain,  and  the 
various  fruits  of  the  earth,  to  use  the  beautiful  language 
of  inspiration,  are  ready  to  drop  into  the  mouth  of  the  eater; 
or,  the  fields  and  trees  being  stripped  of  their  produce,  are 
heaped  on  its  board.  The  afflicted  patriarch  certainly  re- 
ferred to  the  end  of  harvest,  in  allusion  to  which  he  might 
say,  with  strict  propriety,  "  my  root  was  spread  out  by  the 
waters,  and  the  dew  lay  all  night  upon  my  branches;  my 
glory  was  fresh  in  me." — Paxton. 

The  slaughter  of  Saul  filled  his  camp  with  terror  and 
mourning :  before  that,  it  is  probable,  his  tent  might  some- 
times be  distinguished  by  lights ;  at  least  these  illumina- 
tions are  now  used  in  those  countries  to  do  honour  to 
princes,  and  must  not  here  be  forgotten.  So  the  tent  of 
the  bey  of  Girge,  Norden  tells  us,  was  distinguished  from 
the  other  tents  in  that  encampment,  by  forty  lanterns  sus- 
pended before  it  in  form  of  checker-work.  So  Thevenot, 
describing  the  reception  of  the  new  bashaw  of  Egypt  under 
tents,  near  Cairo,  says  there  were  two  great  trees,  on  which 
two  hundred  lamps  hung,  at  the  gate  of  the  little  enclosure 
which  surrounded  his  pavilions,  which  were  lighted  in  the 
nighttime ;  and  that  there  was  the  same  before  the  tents 
of  the  principal  officers,  as  in  the  caravan  of  Mecca.  In 
the  East,  it  is  now  a  customary  thing;  if  it  was  the  same 
anciently,  perhaps  the  words  of  Job  might  refer  to  it,  ch. 
xxix.  2,  3 :  "  Oli  that  it  were  with  me  as  in  months  past, 
as  in  the  days  when  God  preserved  me;  when  his  candle 
shined  upon  my  head,"  when  I  returned  prosperous  from 
expeditions  against  the  enemies  of  my  tribe,  and  had  my 


tent  adorned  with  lamps,  "  and  I  passed  through  the  night 
by  the  light  of  it."— Harmer. 

Ver.  4.  As  I  was  in  the  days  of  my  youth,  when 
the  secret  of  God  was  upon  my  tabernacle. 

Job  was  reverting  to  the  time  of  his  prosperity,  as  is  seen 
in  the  preceding  verse,  "  when  his  candle  shined  upon  my 
head,  and  when  by  his  light  I  walked  through  darkness;" 
"  when  my  children  were  about  me,  when  I  washed  my  steps 
with  butter."  The  Psalmist  also  is  speaking  of  the  pros- 
perity of  those  who  fear  the  Lord.  To  say  the  secret  of 
the  king  is  with  such  a  person,  is  a  strong  way  of  descri- 
bing the  intimacy  which  exists  betw^een  them.  '''  Take  care 
how  you  accuse  him  to  the  great  man,  because  his  secret 
is  with  him."  "  Alas!  alas!  his  secret  is  no  longer  with 
me ;  his  lamp  no  longer  shines  in  my  heart." — Roberts, 

Ver.  6.  When  I  washed  my  steps  with  butter, 
and  the  rock  poured  me  out  rivers  of  oil. 

Bottles  of  goat-skin,  with  the  hairy  side  inwards,  receive 
the  milk  of  their  flocks :  and  when  ihey  wish  to  make  but- 
ter, they  put  the  cream  into  a  goat-skin,  prepared  in  the 
same  manner,  Avhich  they  suspend  in  their  tents,  and  then 
pressing  it  to  and  fro,  in  one  uniform  direction,  quickly 
produce  a  separation  of  the  unctuous  from  the  wheyey  part 
of  the  fluid.  In  the  Levant,  they  tread  upon  the  skin  with 
their  feet,  which  produces  the  same  effect.  The  last  method 
of  separating  the  butter  from  the  milk,  perhaps  may  throw 
light  upon  a  passage  in  Job,  of  some  difficulty:  "  When  I 
washed  my  steps  with  butler,  and  the  rock  poured  me  out 
rivers  of  oil."  Commentators  have  observed,  what  must  be 
obvious  to  every  reader,  that  the  afflicted  patriarch  meant 
to  say,  he  once  possessed  great  abundance  of  these  products ; 
but  they  have  not  been  able  to  account  for  the  manner  of 
his  expression.  The  way  of  a  great  personage  was  some- 
times swept,  sometimes  strewed  with  flowers,  sometimes 
watered ;  but  never,  as  far  as  we  know,  moistened  with 
butter.  The  feet  were  sometimes  anointed  with  oil,  in 
which  odoriferous  substances  had  been  infused  ;  but  to  them, 
butter  was  never  applied.  It  is  more  natural  to  suppose, 
that  these  words  of  Job  referred  to  the  method  of  churning 
their  milk,  by  treading  upon  large  skins  full  of  cream,  with 
their  bare  feet.  It  conveys  a  still  more  lively  idea  of  the 
exuberant  plentv  which  Job  once  possessed,  if  this  method 
was  adopted  when  they  had  large  quantities  of  milk  to 
churn.  A  variety  of  practice  very  similar  to  this  appears 
to  have  prevailed  in  the  ancient  vineyards.  When  a  small 
quantity  of  grapes  was  to  be  pressed,  it  seems  to  have  been 
done  with  the  hand ;  for  Pharaoh's  butler  dreamed  that  he 
took  the  grapes  and  pressed  them  in  this  manner  into  his 
master's  cup.  This,  it  must  be  admitted,  was  only  a  vision- 
ary scene  ;  but  we  must  suppose  it  corresponded  with  gen- 
eral custom.  So,  when  they  meant  to  churn  a  small  quan- 
tity of  cream,  they  s'  spended  it  in  a  skin,  from  the  roof  of 
the  tent ;  and  the 'female  part  of  the  family  conducted  the 
process.  But  when  the  quantity  was  very  "large,  as  it  must 
have  been  in  the  extensive  dairies  of  the  patriarchs,  who 
possessed  such  immense  flocks  and  herds,  it  was  put  into  a 
number  of  skins,  and  churned  by  the  feet  of  men.  This 
Mr.  Harmer  considers  as  no  improbable  account,  and  by  no 
means  an  unnatural  explanation  of  the  phrase,  "  I  washed 
my  steps  with  butter;'^  and  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge,  perhaps  a  more  satisfactory  one  cannot  be 
given.  Greece,  indeed,  lies  at  a  great  distance  from  the 
land  of  Uz,  and  the  age  when  Job  flourished  is  far  removed 
from  our  times  ;  but  as  a  skin  is  still  the  churning  vessel 
used  by  the  Arabs  in  the  Holy  Land,  as  well  as  in  Barbary, 
and  consequently,  as  their  ciistoms  admit  of  little  or  no  va- 
riation, the  use  of  skins  in  churning  must  belong  to  a  very 
remote  antiquity.  And  the  same  reason  that  might  induce 
the  more  opulent  Greeks,  in  the  time  of  Chandler,  to  tread 
their  cream,  rather  than  swing  it  in  the  lent,  or  between  tw^o 
poles,  as  the  Arabs  generally  do,  might  also  mduce  the 
richer  proprietors  in  Asia,  who  possessed  such  numerous 
flocks,  to  adopt  the  same  custom.  The  expression,  it  must 
be  allowed,  is  highly  figurative,  but  not  more  so  than  many 
others,  in  which  the  oriental  muse  delights.  The  term 
washing,  when  used  poetically,  is  not  surely  confined  to 
cleansing  the  feet,  bv  some  purifving  fluid  ;  for  dipnmg  the 
feet  in  the  blood  of  the  slain,  t  n;  Psalmist  calls  washmg  the 


Chap.  29 


JOB 


347 


feet.  Hence,  to  plunge  them  into  cream  or  buttei ,  or  to 
sprinkle  them  profusely  with  it,  may  be  called  washing 
them  in  butter,  with  equal  propriety ;  and  walking  in  it, 
washing  the  steps. 

The  butter  is  carried  to  market  in  the  same  goat-skins  in 
which  it  is  churned.  In  consequence  of  this  mode  of  man- 
agement, it  becomes  necessary  to  melt  and  strain  it,  in  order 
to  separate  the  impurities;  a  process  by  which  it  acquires 
a  certain  rancid  taste,  disagreeable,  for  the  most  part,  to 
strangers,  though  not  to  the  natives.  To  this  custom  of 
melting  the  butter,  in  order  to  clarify  it,  Zophar  seems  to 
allude,  in  his  description  of  the  state  and  portion  of  a 
wicked  man:  "He  shall  not  see  the  rivers,  the  floods,  the 
brooks  of  honey  and  butter."  As  the  flowing  of  honey 
from  the  comb  into  the  vessels  in  which  it  is  to  be  kept, 
may,  by  a  bold  figure,  be  compared  to  a  little  river ;  so  may 
clarified  butter,  when  poured  into  the  jars  in  which  it  is 
preserved  for  use.  The  wicked  man,  says  Zophar,  shall 
not  see  the  rivulets,  much  less  the  rivers,  still  less  the  tor- 
rents of  honey  and  butter,  (as  the  clause  ought  to  be  ren- 
dered,) which  the  righteous  may  hope  to  possess.  In  our 
excellent  translation,  the  beauty  of  the  climax  in  this  in- 
stance is  lost ;  for  instead  of  continuing  to  rise,  it  sinks  in 
the  close,  ending  with  brook,  after  mentioning  rivers  and 
torrents ;  but  in  the  original  it  is  equally  striking  and  well 
conducted. — Paxton. 

These  are  figurative  expressions  to  denote  great  pros- 
perity. "  The  man  is  so  rich,  he  washes  himself  with 
ney"  i.  e.  clarified  botte-r.  "  Oh,  the  charitable  man,  milk 
and  honey  accompany  his  feet."  So  great  was  the  profu- 
sion, "  the  honey  caused  the  feet  to  slip,"  (in  the  paths,)  the 
creepers  danced,  the  trees  nodded  their  heads,  and  milk, 
from  the  dwellings  of  the  cattle,  flowed  in  streams  through 
the  streets.    (Scanda  Purana.)— Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  When  I  went  out  to  the  gate,  through  the 
city,  when  I  prepared  my  seat  in  the  street. 

This  intimates  that  Job  was  a  judge  among  his  people, 
as  the  courts  of  justice  in  former  times  were  kept  in  such 
situations.  Who  has  not  seen  a  great  man  or  a  saint  thus 
having  his  seat  prepared  in  the  street  1  There  he  goes  un- 
der a  shady  tree,  or  under  a  veranda,  or  in  a  rest-house, 
with  his  servant  following  him,  having  a  mat  or  a  tiger's 
skin,  or  that  of  some  other  animal  under  his  arm.  The 
seat  is  prepared,  and  the  crosslegged  sage  sits  to  hear  and 
answer  questions. — Roberts. 

Chardin  says,  it  is  the  custom  of  Asia  not  to  go  into  the 
shops,  which  are  very  small,  but  to  sit  down  in  seats  pre- 
pared for  the  purpose  on  the  outside,  on  which  cushions 
are  laid  for  persons  of  distinction  ;  and  he  adds,  that  people 
of  quality  cause  carpets  and  cushions  to  be  carried  wherever 
they  please,  that  they  may  repose  themselves  upon  them 
more  agreeably.  To  a  custom  of  this  kind  Job  seems  to 
refer  in  his  mournful  retrospect  of  departed  prosperity: 
"  When  I  went  out  to  the  gate  through  the  city,  when  1 
prepared  my  seat  in  the  street."  This  patriarch  was  a 
prince  and  a  judge  among  his  people,  and  was,  therefore, 
entitled  to'  take  his  seat  in  the  gate,  which  was  the  ordinary 
place  of  hearing  causes  in  the  East,  attended  by  a  retinue  of 
servants,  with  carpets  and  cushions  for  his  accommodation, 
according  to  his  rank,  and  theofiice  he  sustained. — Paxton. 

Numbers  of  the  Southern  Arabs  assemble  in  their  mar- 
kets by  way  of  amusement,  and  consequently,  for  conver- 
f.ation :  the  same  custom  appears  anciently  to  have  obtained, 
m  places  of  the  East,  less  remote  from  us  than  Yemen. 

"Notwithstanding  this  external  gravity,"  says  Niebuhr, 
"  the  Arabs  love  a  great  deal  of  company ;  accordingly, 
one  sees  them  assiduously  assembling  in  the  public  coffee- 
nouses,  and,  above  all,  running  to  fairs,  in  which  no  coun- 
try, perhaps,  more  abounds  than  Yemen;  since  there  is 
scarcely  a  village  of  any  consideration  to  be  found,  which 
has  not  a  weekly  fair.  When  the  villages  are  at  some 
distance  from  each  other,  their  inhabitants  assemble  on  the 
appointed  day  in  the  open  fields.  Some  come  hither  to  buy 
or  to  sell ;  others,  who  are  mechanics  of  various  professions, 
employ  sometimes  the  whole  week  in  going  from  one  little 
borcsigh  to  another,  in  order  to  work  at  these  fairs;  and 
finally,  many  propose  to  themselves  to  pass  away  the  time 
there  more  agreeably  than  at  home.  From  this  taste  of  the 
Arabs  for  society,  and  especially  of  those  of  Yemen,  it  is 
easy  to  infer  that  they  are  more  civilized  than  it  may  be 


imagined."  Michaelis,  the  great  promoter  of  Niebuhr'sex- 
pedition  into  the  East,  has  taken  notice  of  this  passage  in 
his  extract  from  this  work,  .saying,  "  The  public  places  are, 
to  this  day,  in  Yemen,  the  places  of  diversion,  and  thus 
serve  two  uses;  just  as  the  gates  of  cities,  which  anciently 
were  made  their  public  places,  as  we  are  told  in  the  Bible, 
Gen.  xix.  1.  Job  xxix.  7.  Ps.  Ixix.  14,"  &c. — Harmer. 

Ver.  8.  The  young  men  saw  me,  and  hid  them- 
selves: and  the  aged  arose,  and  stood  up. 
9.  The  princes  refrained  talking,  and  laid 
their  hand  on  their  mouth. 

What  a  graphic  scene  is  this !  When  a  man  of  rank 
passes  a  crowd,  the  young  people  and  children  conceal 
themselves  behind  their  seniors,  and  the  aged  always  arise 
from  their  seats.  See  the  man  in  a  court  of  justice,  who  is 
listening  to  the  address  of  the  judge,  and  his  hand  is  placed 
on  his  mouth.  To  place  the  hand  on  the  mouth  also  de- 
notes astonishment ;  and  Major  Laing  says,  when  he  was 
at  Toma,  in  Africa,  a  woman  was  so  much  surprised  at 
the  sight  of  a  white  man,  that  she  "  did  not  stir  a  muscle 
till  the  whole  had  passed,  when  .she  gave  a  loud  halloo  of 
astonishment,  and  covered  her  mouth  with  both  her  hands." 
— Roberts. 

This  is  a  most  elegant  description,  and  exhibits  most 
correctly  that  great  reverence  and  respect  which  was  paid, 
even  by  the  old  and  decrepit,  to  the  noly  man  in  passing- 
along  the  streets,  or  when  he  sat  in  public.  They  not  only 
rose,  which  in  men  so  old  and  infirm  was  a  great  mark  of 
distinction ;  but  they  stood ;  they  continued  to  do  it,  though 
even  the  attempt  was  so  difficult. — Lowth. 

When  the  easterns  wish  to  be  silent,  they  place  their 
hand  upon  their  mouth,  to  express  their  intentions  by  action, 
and  their  sentiments  by  attitude.  Many  instances  of  this 
practice  are  to  be  found.  "  In  one  of  the  subterranean 
vaults  in  Egypt,  where  the  mummies  lie  buried,  they  found 
in  the  coffin  an  embalmed  body  of  a  woman,  before  which 
was  placed  a  figure  of  wood,  representing  a  youth  on  his 
knees,  laying  a  finger  on  his  mouth,  and  holding  in  his 
other  hand  a  sort  of  chafingdish,  which  was  placed  on  his 
head,  and  in  which,  without  doubt,  had  been,  some  per- 
fumes."   (Maillet.) 

"  On  our  taking  possession  of  Rosetta,  at  an  entertain- 
ment which  was  given,  a  young  Greek  came  up  to  me, 
kissed  my  .shoulder,  and  with  his  finger  on  his  lips,  without 
uttering  a  single  syllable,  slipped  privately  into  my  hand  a 
nosegay  which  he'had  brought  me:  this  simple  demonstra- 
tion completely  unfolded  all  his  sensations,  and  was  ex- 
pressive of  his  political  situation,  his  fears,  and  his  hopes." 
(Denon.) — Burder. 

Ver.  14.  I  put  on  righteousness,  and  it  clothed 
me :  my  judgment  was  as  a  robe  and  a  diadem. 

See  on  Is.  28.  5. 

Or  turban.  This  consists  of  a  cap  and  a  sash  of  fine 
linen  or  silk,  wound  round  tjie  bottom  of  it.  This  is  the 
usual  headdress  of  the  Turks,  Persians,  Arabs,  and  other 
eastern  nations.  Dr.  Shaw  says,  "The  Moors  and  Turks, 
with  some  of  the  principal  Arabs,  wear  upon  the  head  a 
small  hemispherical  cap  of  scarlet  cloth.  The  turban,  as 
they  call  a  long  narrow  web  of  linen,  silk,  or  muslin,  is 
folded  round  the  bottom  of  these  caps,  and  very  properly 
distinguishes,  by  the  number  and  fashion  of  these  folds,  the 
several  orders  and  degrees  of  soldiers,  and  sometimes  of 
citizens,  one  from  another." — Burder. 

Ver.  15.  I  was  eyes  to  the  blind,  and  feet  was  I 
to  the  lame. 

The  man  who  bestows  great  charities,  is  said  to  be  the 
eyes  of  the  blind,  and  the  feet  of  the  cripples.  "  True,  my 
lord,  I  am  blind  ;  but  you  are  my  eyes."  "  Ah  !  sir,  shall  I 
not  love  my  eyes  1"  "  O  king,"  says  the  lame  man,  "  are 
you  not  my  staff  1"  "Alas!  alas!  our  eyes  have  gone," 
say  the  blind,  when  their  benefactor  is  dead.  But  when  a 
person  confides  in  the  wisdom  of  another,  he  says,  "  He  is 
my  eyes."  "  I  have  two  good  eyes  in  the  temple." — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  My  root  icas  spread  out  by  the  waters, 
and  the  dew  lay  all  night  upon  my  bra'nch. 


348 


JOB 


Chap.  30. 


"  The  precious  water  of  the  Cephissus  is  the  property  of 
the  waivode  only  during  the  season  of  watering  the  olive- 
wood  :  for  the  remaining  months  the  owners  of  the  gar- 
dens, in  a  proportion  settled  by  long  usage,  divert  the  stream 
into  their  grounds,  for  one,  two,  or  three  hours  in  a  week 
or  fortnight,  according  to  the  bargain  at  which  they  have 
hired  or  purchased  their  land.  The  instant  that  the  stream 
is  turned  into  the  required  channel,  a  public  inspector,  who 
is  called  Dragaris-too-nen,  and  is  always  in  attendance, 
turns  his  hourglass,  and  the  gardener  also  measures  the  time 
in  the  same  manner ;  other  Greeks  frequently  being  present 
to  prevent  collusion,  and  cut  off  the  rivulet  immediately  at 
the  expiration  of  the  stipulated  hour." — (Hobhouse.) 

It  is  well  known  that  in  the  hot  eastern  countries,  where 
it  rarely  rains  during  the  summer  months,  the  copious  dews 
which  fall  there  during  the  night,  coritribute  greatly  to  the 
nourishment  of  vegetables  in  general.  "  This  dew,"  says 
Hasselquist,  speaking  of  the  excessively  hot  weather  in 
Egypt,  "  is  particularly  serviceable  to  the  trees,  which 
would  otherwise  never  be  able  to  resist  this  heat;  but  with 
this  assistance  they  thrive  well,  and  blossom  and  ripen  their 

fruit."— BURDER. 

Ver.  20.  My  glory  was  fresh  in  me,  and  my  bow- 
was  renewed  in  my  hand. 

This  figure  is  much  used  in  their  poetry.  "  The  bow  is 
bent  in  his  hand."  "  See  the  strong  bow ;  it  is  bent  to  kill 
thee:" — Roberts. 

Ver.  22.  After  my  words  they  spake  not  again  ; 
and  my  speech  dropped  upon  them. 

Of  a  man  who  speaks  with  great  euphony,  it  is  said,  "  His 
words  come,  tule  tule  ydka"  i.  e.  drop  by  drop. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

Ver.  2.  Yea,  whereto  might  the  strength  of  their 
hands  profit  me,  in  whom  old  age  was  perished? 

The  Tamul  translation  has  this,  "  as  the  strength  of  the 
hands  being  gone  by  old  age."  Of  a  man  who  has  become 
weak  in  consequence  of  age,  it  is  said,  "  Ah !  by  reason  of 
old  age,  the  strength  of  his  hands  has  departed  from  him." 
"  It  is  true  he  is  an  old  man,  but  the  strength  of  his  hand 
has  not  perished."  But  this  mode  of  expression  also  refers 
to  a  man's  circumstances.  Thus,  when  a  person  has  lost 
his  property,  it  is  said,  "  the  strength  of  his  hands  has  gone." 
"  Poor  man !  he  has  not  any  strength  in  his  hands." — Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  3.  For  want  and  famine  thei/  were  solitary ; 
fleeing  into  the  wilderness  in  former  time  deso- 
late and  waste :  4.  Who  cut  up  mallows  by 
the  bushes,  and  juniper-roots  for  their  meat. 

This  describes  the  ignoble  ^tate  of  the  parents  of  those 
children  by  whom  Job  was  now  held  in  derision.  In  the 
book  called  Sintha  Manni,  there  is  an  account  of  some 
princesses,  who  once  had  their  rice,  like  jasmine  flowers, 
given  them  on  golden  plates ;  but  now  they  had  to  go  with 
potsherds,  to  beg  for  the  leaves  from  the  hedges  for  their 
daily  food.  A  rich  man  brought  to  poverty,  sometimes 
00I.0  u  What  care  1 7    Can  I  not  go  into  the  desert,  and 


asks, 


live  on  roots  and  leaves  V  It  is  a  fact,  that  numbers  do  thus 
live,  especially  the  Vedahs,  and  those  who  have  retired 
from  men. — Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  To  dwell  in  the  cliffs  of  the  valleys,  in 
caves  of  the  earth,  and  in  the  rocks. 

The  oriental  shepherd  and  his  family  sometimes  take 
up  their  abode  in  caves,  with  which  the  country,  particu- 
larly about  Askelon,  abounds.  These  caverns  are  often  so 
capacious  as  to  admit  the  master  and  his  whole  property. 
In  times  of  imminent  danger,  the  people  forsake  their 
towns  and  villages,  and  retire  with  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren, their  flocks  and  herds,  into  these  dark  recesses, 
which  have  been  from  time  immemorial  the  refuge  of  the 
oppressed.  It  was  in  these  hiding-places  that  Baldwin  I., 
«ring  of  Jerusalem,  in  the  barbarous  age  of  the  crusades, 


found  the  inhabitants  of  many  villages,  with  their  flocks 
and  their  herds,  who  had  favoured  the  cause  of  his  enemies, 
and  fled  at  his  approach.  In  Egypt,  such  excavations  ap- 
pear to  have  been  the  sealed  abodes  of  a  numerous  and 
peaceful  population.  Dr.  Richardson  entered  several  mount- 
ain defiles,  on  his  way  to  Nubia,  where  he  found  "  a  num- 
ber of  excavations  extremely  well  executed,  covered  with 
sculpture,  and  painted  in  the  most  brilliant  colours ;  like- 
wise a  number  of  pits  sunk  perpendicularly  into  the  rock, 
all  of  which  have  been  used  as  burying-places,  and  many 
of  them  still  contain  handsome  mummy  cases,  made  of 
wood  and  stone,  beautifully  painted  in  a  variety  of  colours, 
and  covered  with  curious  devices."  But  besides  these, 
"  high  up  in  the  front,  along  the  base  of  the  mountain,  and 
over  the  rocky  flat,  all  the  way  from  Medina  Thabou,  there 
are  innumerable  excavations,  maiiy  of  them  large  and  beau- 
tifully formed,  painted,  and  sculptured  with  many  curious 
devices,  illustrative  of  ancient  customs.  In  one  place  above 
Medina  Thabou,  the  doors  into  these  excavations  are  so  nu- 
merous and  so  contiguous,  that  they  resemble  a  row  of 
houses  in  a  village.  They  have  a  long  piazza  in  front,  and 
a  large  apartment  within  ;  and  a  long  shaft  running  back 
into  the  rock.  They  rise  in  tiers  above  each  other,  accord- 
ing to  the  different  elevations  of  the  mountain.  They  have 
evidently  been  dwell inghouses,  and,  from  the  shady  piaz- 
za in  front,  the  spectator  enjoys  the  most  delightful  view 
that  can  possibly  be  obtained  of  the  plain  of  Thebes."  In 
Hindostan,  too,  the  fainting  inhabitants  are  forced  to  escape 
from  the  severe  fervours  of  an  eastern  noon,  into  vast  arti- 
ficial caverns,  and  into  grottoes  of  the  most  refreshing  cool- 
ness, which  the  great  and  the  wealthy  cause  to  be  con- 
structed in  their  gardens.— Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  And  now  my  soul  is  poured  out  upon 
me :  the  days  of  affliction  have  taken  hold  upon 
me. 

"  Why  are  you  so  dejected,  my  friend  1"  "  Because  the  M- 
takdlam,  i.  e.  the  ruinous  time,  has  caught  me." — Roberts. 

Ver.  20.  I  cry  unto  thee,  and  thou  dost  not  hear 
me  :  I  stand  up,  and  thou  regardest  me  not. 

It  is  extremely  mortifying,  when  a  man  stands  up,  nrit  to 
be  noticed.  A  native  gentleman  had  a  case  which  he  wish- 
ed to  bring  before  the  notice  of  the  king  of  Tanjore,  and 
asked  my  advice  how  to  act.  I  recommended  him  to  go  to 
the  capital,  and  wait  upon  his  majesty.  On  his  return,  he 
informed  me  he  had  not  stated  his  case  to  the  king ;  and, 
upon  my  blaming  him,  he  asked,  "  What  could  I  do  ?  I 
went  to  a  place  where  I  knew  he  would  have  to  pass ;  and 
when  he  came  near,  I  stood  up ;  but  he  regarded  me  not." 
— Roberts, 

Ver.  22.  Thou  liftest  me  up  to  the  wind ;  thou 
causest  me  to  ride  upon  it,  and  dissolvest  my 
substance. 

This  figure  is  probably  taken  from  the'custom  of  an  an- 
gry man,  who  takes  any  light  substance  and  throws  it  into 
the  wind,  saying  to  his  antagonist,  "  Thus  shall  it  be  with 
thee." — Roberts. 

There  is  a  remarkable  figurative  representation  in  Job, 
chap.  XXX.  22,  thus  rendered  in  our  translation :  "  Thou 
liftest  me  up  to  the  wind ;  thou  causest  me  to  ride  upon  it, 
and  dissolvest  my  substance."  Possibly  after  we  have  ex- 
amined the  phraseology  of  this  passage,  its  force  may  be 
further  evident,  and  it  may  receive  additional  illustration. 

"  Thou  dost  raise  me  up  on  high,  into  the  air,  by  the 
agency — of— upon — the  wind ;  thou  dost  make  me  to  ride 
on  it,  as  on  a  chariot,  or  other  vehicle ;  and  dost  dissolve — 
disperse — dissipate — my  whole — entire — my  all:  all  that  I 
ever  was :  all  that  I  ever  possessed."  Such  is  the  power  of 
the  original. 

This  might  perhaps  be  referred  to  a  vapour  raised  by 
the  wind,  which,  after  being  borne  about  among  the  clouds, 
is  dissolved,  and  falls  in  dew:  but,  (1.)  the  wind  which 
raises  it,  seems  rather  to  describe  a  storm,  and  during 
storms  dew  does  not  perceptibly  rise.  (2.J  The  current  of 
wind,  which,  like  a  chariot,  bears  away  the  subject  of  its 
power,  is  a  vehement,  powerful,  rapid  blast;  as  we  say,  a 
high  wind;  and  does  net  agree  with  the  formation,  &c.  of 


Chap.  80. 


JOB. 


849 


dew,  which  is  a  tranquil,  deliberate  process.  (3.)  The  word 
(jjn)  megeg,  is  applied  to  express  the  melting  of  a  solid 
body;  as  of  the  earth  with  rain;  Psalm  Ixv.  10;  of  the  hills, 
through  intense  heat,  Nahum  i.  5;  so  Amos  ix.  13.  Mr. 
Scott  has  rendered  the  passage — 

Roused  by  Almighty  force  a  furious  storm — 
Ilpcauglit  me,  wtiirl'd  nie  on  its  eddying  gust, 
Then  dash'd  me  down,  and  shatter'd  me  to  dust. 

Under  these  considerations,  we  presume  to  think  the 
reader  will  agree  with  us  in  referring  it  to  a  sandstorm : 
possibly  such  as  we  have  noticed  in  the  former  number ; 
or,  much  rather,  such  as  is  described  by  the  following  in- 
formation, which  the  reader  will  not  be  displeased  to  pe- 
ruse, as  it  stands  high  among  the  most  picturesque  and 
most  terrific  descriptions  of  the  kind  to  be  met  with.  It  is 
from  Mr.  Bruce. 

"  On  the  14th,  at  seven  in  the  morning,  we  left  Assa  Nag- 
ga,  our  course  being  due  north.  At  one  o'clock  we  alight- 
ed among  some  acacia-trees,  at  Waadi  el  Halboub,  hav- 
mg  gone  twenty-one  miles.  We  were  here  at  once  sur- 
prised and  terrified  by  a  sight  surely  one  of  the  most  mag- 
nificent in  the  world.  In  that  vast  expanse  of  desert,  from 
W.  and  to  N.  W.  of  us,  we  saw  a  number  of  prodigious 
pillars  of  sand,  at  different  distances,  at  times  moving  with 
great  celerity,  at  others  stalking  on  with  a  majestic  slow- 
ness ;  at  intervals  we  thought  they  were  coming  in  a  very 
few  minutes  to  overwhelm  us;  and  small  quantities  of  sand 
did  actually  more  than  once  reach  us.  Again  they  would 
retreat  so  as  to  be  almost  out  of  sight,  their  tops  reaching  to 
the  very  clouds.  There  the  tops  often  separated  from  the 
bodies :  and  these,  once  disjoined,  dispersed  in  the  air,  and 
did  not  appear  more.  Sometimes  they  were  broken  near 
the  middle,  as  if  struck  with  a  large  cannon  shot.  About 
noon  they  began  to  advance  with  considerable  swiftness 
upon  us,  the  wind  being  very  strong  at  north.  Eleven  of 
them  ranged  alongside  of  us  about  the  distance  of  three 
miles.  The  greatest  diameter  of  the  largest  appeared  to 
me  at  that  distance  as  if  it  would  measure  ten  feet.  They 
retired  from  us  with  a  wind  at  S.  E.  leaving  an  impression 
upon  my  mind  to  which  I  can  give  no  name,  though  sure- 
ly one  ingredient  in  it  was  fear,  with  a  considerable  deal 
of  wonder  and  astonishment.  It  was  in  vain  to  think  of 
flying;  the  swiftest  horse,  or  fastest  sailing  ship,  could  be 
of  no  use  to  carry  us  out  of  this  danger,  and  the  full  per- 
suasion of  this  riveted  me  as  if  to  the  spot,  where  I  stood, 
and  let  the  camels  gain  on  me  so  much  in  my  state  of 
lameness,  thaJ,  it  was  with  some  diflliculty  I  could  overtake 
them. 

"  The  whole  of  our  company  were  much  disheartened, 
(except  Idris,)  and  imagined  that  they  were  advancing 
into  whirlwinds  of  moving  sand,  from  which  they  should 
never  be  able  to  extricate  themselves;  but  before  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  these  phantoms  of  the  plain  had 
all  of  them  fallen  to  the  ground,  and  disappeared.  In  the 
evening  we  came  to  "Waadi  Dimokea,  where  we  passed  the 
»ight,  much  disheartened,  and  our  fear  more  increased, 
when  we  found,  upon  wakening  in  the  morning,  that  one 
side  was  perfectly  buried  in  the  sand  that  the  wind  had 
blown  above  us  in  the  night.  The  sun  shining  through 
the  pillars,  which  were  thicker,  and  contained  more  sand 
apparently  than  any  of  the  preceding  days,  seemed  to  give 
those  nearest  us  an  appearance  as  if  spotted  with  stars  of 
gold.  I  do  not  think  at  any  time  they  seemed  to  be  nearer 
than  two  miles.  The  most  remarkable  circumstance  was, 
that  the  sand  seemed  to  keep  in  that  vast  circular  space 
surrounded  by  the  Nile  on  our  left,  in  going  round  by 
Chaigie  towards  Dongola,  and  seldom  was  observed  much 
to  the  eastward  of  a  meridian  passing  along  the  Nile  through 
the  Magiran,  before  it  takes  that  turn ;  whereas  the  simoom 
was  always  on  the  opposite  side  of  our  course,  coming  upon 
us  from  the  southeast.  The  same  appearance  or  moving 
pillars  of  sand  presented  themselves  to  us  this  day  in  form 
and  disposition  like  those  we  had  seen  at  Waadi  Halboub, 
only  they  seemed  to  be  more  in  number,  and  less  in  size. 
They  came  several  times  in  a  direction  close  upon  us ;  that 
is,  I  believe,  within  less  than  two  miles.  They  began,  im- 
mediately after  sunrise,  like  a  thick  wood,  and  almost  dark- 
ened the  sun :  his  rays  shining  through  them  for  near  an 
hour,  gave  them  an  appearance  of  pillars  of  fire." 

If  my  conjecture  be  admissible,  we  now  see  a  magnifi- 
cence in  this  imagery,  not  apparent  before :  we  see  how 
Job's  dignity  might  be  exalted  in  the  air;  might  rise  to 


great  grandeur,  importance,  and  even  terror,  in  the  sight 
of  beholders;  might  ride  upon  the  wind,  which  bears  it 
about,  causmg  it  to  advance,  or  to  recede ;  and,  after  all, 
the  wind  diminishing,  might  disperse,  dissipate,  melt, 
scatter  this  pillar  of  sand,  into  the  undistinguished  level 
of  the  desert.  This  comparison  seems  to  be  precisely 
adapted  to  the  mind  of  an  Arab,  who  must  have  seen,  or 
have  been  informed  of  similar  phenomena  in  the  countries 
around  him. — Taylor  in  Calmet, 

Ver.  23.  For  I  know  that  thou  wilt  bring  me  to 
death,  and  to  the  house  appointed  for  all  living. 

Those  expressions  in  which  the  grave  is  described  as  the 
house  appointed  for  all  living ;  the  long  home  of  man ;  and 
the  everlasting  habitation;  are  capable  of  much  illustration 
from  antiquity.  Montfaiacon  says,  "  We  observed  in  the 
fifth  volume  of  our  Antiquity  a  tomb  styled  quietorium,  a 
resting-place.  Quiescere,  to  rest,  is  often  said  of  the  dead 
in  epitaphs.  Thus  we  find  in  an  ancient  writer,  a  man 
speaking  of  his  master,  who  had  been  long  dead  and  buried, 
cujns  ossa  bene  quiescant ;  may  his  bones  rest  in  peace.  We 
have  an  instance  of  the  like  kind  in  an  inscription  in 
Gruter,  (p.  696,)  and  in  another,  (p.  bdi,)  fecit  sibi  requieto- 
rium,  he  made  himself  a  resting-place.  This  resting-place 
is  called  frequently,  too,  an  eternal  house.  In  his  lifetime 
he  built  himself  an  eternal  house,  says  one  epitaph.  He 
made  himself  an  eternal  house  with  his  patrimony,  says 
another.  He  thought  it  better  (says  another)  to  build  him- 
self an  eternal  house,  than  to  desire  his  heirs  to  do  it.  They 
thought  it  a  misfortune  when  the  bones  and  ashes  of  the 
dead  were  removed  from  their  place,  as  imagining  the  dead 
suffered  something  by  the  removal  of  their  bones.  This 
notion  occasioned  all  those  precautions  used  for  the  safety 
of  their  tombs,  and  the  curses  they  laid  on  those  who  re- 
moved them." — BuRDER. 

Ver.  25.  Did  not  I  weep  for  him  that  was  in 
trouble?  was  not  my  soul  grieved  for  the 
poor? 

Hebrew,  "  Should  I  not  then  weep  for  the  ruthless  day?" 
The  meaning  of  the  preceding  verse  having  been  generally 
misunderstood,  that  of  the  present,  and,  indeed,  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  remainder  of  the  chapter,  which  follows 
concatenately,  has  been  misunderstood  also.  The  exquisite 
pathos  of  this  interrogative  must  wind  itself  into  the  heart 
of  every  reader.  The  expression,  "  for  the  ruthless  day,"  is 
peculiarly  forcible  in  the  original,  ov  nc^pS,  "  for  the  stern, 
rigid,  immoveable,  pitiless,  or  inexorable  day."  In  the 
latter  clause  of  this  verse,  we  may  understand  the  Hebrew 
to  signify,  "  for  the  rock,"  not  "  for  the  poor,"  as  given  by 
all  the  translators.  The  term  indeed  (p^^n)  admits  of  both 
these  senses ;  but  the  latter  is  obviously  the  true  sense  in 
the  present  place;  and  for  want  of  attending  to  this  circum- 
stance, the  meaning  of  the  passage  has  been  utterly  lost : 
"  Should  not  my  soul  pine  for  the  marble  tomb,  or  sepul- 
chral rock,"  in  which  it  was  usual  to  deposite  the  bodies  of 
all  those  of  higher  rank  and  condition  in  life ;  "  for  the 
ROCK  or  STONY  RECESS  of  darkucss  and  death-shade,"  as 
mentioned  in  ch.  xxviii.  3,  in  which  the  same  term  is  used, 
and  rendered  by  every  one  in  the  sense  now  oflfered. — 
Good. 

Ver.  27.  My  bowels  boiled,  and  rested  not ;  the 
days  of  affliction  prevented  me. 

People  in  great  distress  often  say,  "  My  belly,  ray  belly 
is  on  fire."  "  Who  will  take  away  this  fire  T'  In  cursing 
each  other,  "  Wretch !  thou  shalt  soon  have  a  fire  in  thy 
belly."  "  Now  they  are  beginning  to  errikuther,^'  i.  e.  bum. 
"Ashes!  ashes !  thou  art  all  ashes  !" — Roberts. 

Ver.  29.  I  am  a  brother  to  dragons,  and  a  com- 
panion to  owls. 

See  on  Mic.  1.  8. 

Dr.  Boothroyd  prefers,  "  A  brother  am  I  to  sea-monsters.** 
Dr.  Harris  says,  the  original  is  variously  rendered  ;  drag- 
ons, serpents,  sea-monsters,  and  whales.    The  Tamul  trai» 


350 


JOB. 


Chap.  31. 


lation  has  it,  "  I  am  a  brother  to  the  maUi-pdmlm"  i.  e.  the 
rock  snake,  or  boa  constrictor ;  and  wherever  the  term 
dragon  occurs,  (in  that  translation,)  it  is  rendered  in  the 
same  way.  Some  of  these  serpents  are  of  immense  size, 
and  possess  great  muscular  power.  If  they  once  get  folded 
round  the  body  of  an  animal,  it  is  impossible  for  it  to  escape. 
A  gentleman  of  my  acquaintance,  when  on  a  shooting  ex- 
cursion, heard  a  sudden  scream ;  he  ran  to  the  spot,  and 
saw  a  beautiful  deer  in  the  embrace  of  one  of  these  ser- 
pents :  he  took  his  rifle,  and  put  a  ball  through  its  head  ;  its 
folds  instantly  became  loose,  and  the  deer  was  set  at  liberty, 
but  died  soon  after.  He  brought  the  reptile  home,  and  it 
measured  eighteen  feet.  I  know  not  what  induced  the 
translators  thus  to  render  it  by  the  name  of  that  monster, 
except  they  have  taken  the  idea  from  the  prophets  Micah 
and  Jeremiah:  "I  will  make  a  wailing  like  the  dragons," 
and,  "they  snuffed  up  wind  like  dragons-,"  as  the  malli- 
pdmbu  is  said  to  make  a  dreadful  wailing  in  the  night,  and 
when  in  want  of  prey,  to  inhale  the  wind  for  food.  The 
sacred  writers  also  describe  it  as  loving  to  dwell  in  desert 
places,  which  is  another  feature  of  its  character. — Roberts. 
When  the  ancient  Hebrews  observed  the  dragons  erect, 
and  with  expanded  jaws  fetching  a  deep  inspiration,  they 
interpreted  the  circumstance  as  if  these  animals,  with  their 
eyes  lifted  up  to  heaven,  complained  to  their  Maker  of 
their  miserable  condition,  that,  hated  by  all  creatures,  and 
confined  to  the  burning  and  steril  deserts,  they  dragged 
(mt  a  tedious  and  miserable  existence.  It  was  perhaps  to 
some  idea  of  this  kind  that  Job  referred,  when,  bemoaning 
the  hardness  of  his  lot,  he  complained  :  "  I  am  a  brother  to 
dragons,  and  a  companion  of  owls."  He  was  imable  to 
associate  with  mankind ;  cut  off  from  the  comforts  of  life, 
and  doomed  to  wear  out  the  rest  of  his  days  in  poverty  and 
wretchedness.  The  prophet  Micah  has  the  same  allusion, 
in  the  day  of  his  adversity,  to  the  habits  of  that  reptile:  "  I 
will  make  a  waiung  like  the  dragons,  and  mourning  as  the 
owls."  He  may  refer  also  to  its  hissing,  which  iElian  says 
is  so  loud  that  it  alarms  and  terrifies  every  creature  within 
hearing. — Paxton. 

Ver.  31.  My  harp  also  is  turned  to  motlrning,  and 
my  organ  into  the  voice  of  them  that  weep. 

The  people  of  the  East  are  very  fond  of  the  ydl,  or  guitar, 
also  of  the  kinaru,  or  harp.  When  a  person  is  ift  trouble, 
his  instrument  is  also  considered  to  be  in  sorrow.  Many 
stories  are  told  of  the  fascinating  powers  of  the  ancient  mu- 
sicians. "  There  was  once  a  man  who  neglected  all  his 
affairs  for  the  sake  of  his  instrument :  at  which  his  wife 
became  much  dissatisfied,  and  asked  him,  in  a  taunting 
way,  '  Will  you  ever  gain  a  tusked  elephant  and  a  kingdom 
by  your  harpl'  He  was  displeased  with  her,  and  said,  *I 
will'  He  then  went  to  the  king  of  Kandy,  and  on  his  harp 
asked  his  majesty  for  a  tusked  elephant  and  a  kingdom. 
The  king  was  so  delighted,  that  he  gave  him  the  elephant 
and  the  province  of  Jaffna.  The  musician  then  returned, 
and  founded  the  town  of  Ydl-Pdnam"  i.  e.  the  harp  and 
the  songster;  or,  as  some  render  it,  the  harp-town,  which 
we  call  Jaffna. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 
Ver.  1.  I  made  a  covenant  with  mine  eyes ;  why 
then  should  I  think  upon  a  maid? 

Has  a  man  a  strong  desire  to  go  on  a  pilgrimage  to  a  dis- 
tant temple,  and  should  his  friends  remonstrate  with  him, 
he  will  say,  "  I  have  made  ^udam-puddiki,"  (i.  e.  a  covenant 
with  my  eyes ;)  "  I  must  go."  Does  a  father  reprove  his 
son  for  improper  conduct,  he  replies,  "  What  can  I  do  *? 
She  has  made  a  covenant  with  my  eyes."  "  My  friend,  let 
us  have  your  opinion  on  this  subject." — "  I  will  not." 
"  Why  r'— "  Because  I  have  made  a  covenant  with  my 
mouth." — Roberts. 

In  Barbary,  when  the  ladies  appear  in  public,  they  always 
fold  themselves  up  so  closely  in  their  hykes,  that  even 
without  their  veils  one  can  discover  very  little  of  their 
faces.  But  in  the  summer  months,  when  they  retire  to 
their  conntry-seats,  they  walk  abroad  with  less  caution; 
though  even  then,  on  the  approach  of  a  stranger,  they  always 
drop  their  veils,  as  Rebecca  did  on  the  approach  of  Isaac. 
But  although  they  are  so  closely  wrapped  up,  that  those 
M-ho  look  at  them  cannot  even  see  their  hands,  still  less  their 


face,  yet  it  is  reckoned  indecent  in  a  man  to  fix  his  eyes 
upon  them ;  he  must  let  them  pass  without  seeming  at  all  to 
observe  them.  In  allusion  to  this  rigorous  custom.  Job 
says,  "  I  made  a  covenant  with  mine  eyes ;  why  then  should 
I  think  upon  a  maid  1"  When  a  lady  of  distinction,  says 
Hanway,  travels  on  horseback,  she  is  not  only  veiled,  but 
has  generally  a  servant,  who  runs  or  rides  before  her,  to 
clear  the  way ;  and  on  such  occasions,  the  men,  even  in  the 
market-places,  always  turn  their  backs  till  the  women  are 
passed,  it  being  thought  the  highest  ill  manners  to  look  at  ' 
them. — Paxton. 

Ver.  17.  Or  have  eaten  my  morsel  myself  alone, 
and  the  fatherless  hath  not  eaten  thereof 

It  is  a  very  customary,  and  a  very  desirable  thing  in  the 
East,  to  eat  under  the  shade  of  trees ;  and  this  situation  the 
inhabitants  seem  to  prefer,  to  taking  their  repasts  in  their 
tents  or  dwellings  :  so  De  la  Roque  tells  us,  (p.  203,)  "  We 
did  not  arrive  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain  till  after  sunset, 
and  it  was  almost  night  when  we  entered  the  plain  ;  bni  as 
it  was  full  of  villages,  mostly  inhabited  by  Maronites,  we 
entered  into  the  first  we  came  to,  to  pass  the  night  there  It 
was  the  priest  of  the  place  who  wished  to  receive  u? .  he 
gave  us  a  supper  under  the  trees,  before  his  little  dwel  ing. 
As  we  were  at  table,  there  came  by  a  stranger,  weari'ig  a 
white  turban,  who,  after  having  saluted  the  company,  sa' 
himself  down  to  the  table,  without  ceremony  ;  ate  with  us 
during  some  time,  and  then  went  away,  repeating  several 
times  the  name  of  God.  They  told  us  it  was  some  traveller, 
who,  no  doubt,  stood  in  need  of  refreshment,  and  who  had 
profited  by  the  opportunity,  according  to  the  custom  of  the 
East,  which  is  to  exercise  hospitality  at  all  times,  and 
towards  all  persons." 

The  reader  will  be  pleased  to  see  the  ancient  hospitality 
of  the  East  still  maintained,  and  even  a  stranger  profiting 
by  an  opportunity  of  supplying  his  wants.  It  reminds  u.s 
of  the  guests  of  Abraham,  (Gen.  chap,  xviii.,)  of  the  con- 
duct of  Job,  (chap.  xxxi.  17,)  and  especially,  perhaps,  of 
that  frankness  with  which  the  apostles  of  Christ  w^re  to 
enter  into  a  man's  house  after  a  salutation,  and  there  to  con- 
tinue "  eating  and  drinking  such  things  as  were  set  before 
them,"  Luke  x.  7.  Such  Isehaviour  would  be  considered  as 
extremely  intrusive,  and  indeed  insupportable,  among  our- 
selves ;  but  the  maxims  of  the  East  would  qualify  that,  as 
they  do  many  other  customs,  by  local  proprieties,  on  which 
we  are  incompetent  to  determine. — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  22.  Then  let  mine  arm  fall  from  my  shoulder- 
blade,  and  mine  arm  be  broken  from  the  bone. 

It  is  said,  "  If  I  have  done  as  you  say,  may  these  legs  be 
broken."  "  Yes,  let  these  eyes  be  blind,  if  I  have  seen  the 
thing  you  mention."  "  May  this  body  wither  and  faint,  if 
I  am  guilty  of  that  crime."  "  If  I  uttered  that  expression, 
then  let  the  worms  eat  out  this  tongue."— Roberts. 

Ver.  26.  If  I  beheld  the  sun  when  it  shined,  eg* 
the  moon  walking  in  brightness,  27.  And  my 
heart  hath  been  secretly  enticed,  or  my  mouth 
hath  kissed  my  hand :  28.  This  also  were  an 
iniquity  to  be  punished  by  the  judge:  for  I 
should  have  denied  the  God  that  is  above. 

To  kiss  the  hand  and  place  it  on  the  head,  is  a  token  of 
respect  less  revolting  to  our  minds,  than  some  of  those  which 
have  been  mentioned.  An  Oriental  pays  his  respects  to  a 
person  of  superior  station,  by  kissing  his  hand,  and  putting 
it  to  his  forehead ;  but  if  the  superior  be  of  a  condescending 
temper,  he  will  snatch  away  his  hand,  as  soon  as  the  othti 
has  touched  it ;  then  the  inferior  puts  his  own  fingers  to  hi  ? 
lips,  and  afterward  to  his  forehead.  It  seems,  according  to 
Pitts,  to  be  a  common  practice  among  the  Mohammedans, 
that  when  they  cannot  kiss  the  hand  of  a  superior,  they  kis? 
their  own,  and  put  it  to  their  forehead;  thus  also  they  ven- 
erate an  unseen  being,  whom  they  cannot  touch.  But  the 
custom  existed  long  before  the  age  of  Mohammed ;  for  m  the 
same  way  the  ancient  idolaters  worshipped  their  distant  or 
unseen  deities.  "  If,"  said  Job,  "  I  beheld  the  sun  when  it 
shined,  or  the  moon  walking  in  brightness,  and  my  heart 
hath  been  secretly  enticed,  and  my  mouth  hath  kissed  my 


Chap.  31—33. 


roB. 


351 


hand,  this  also  were  an  iniquity  to  be  punished  by  the  judge ; 
for  I  should  have  denied  the  God  that  is  above."  Had  the 
afflicted  man  done  this,  in  the  case  to  which  he  refers,  it 
would  have  been  an  idolatrous  action,  although  it  is  exactly 
agreeable  to  the  civil  expressions  of  respect  which  obtained 
in  his  country,  and  over  all  the  East. — Paxton. 

Ver.  32.  The  stranger  did  not  lodge  in  the  street ; 
but  I  opened  my  doors  to  the  traveller. 

No  people  can  be  more  kind  and  hospitable  to  travellers 
of  their  own  caste,  than  those  of  the  East ;  and  even  men 
of  the  lower  grades  have  always  places  to  go  to.  See  the 
stranger  enter  the  premises ;  he  looks  at  the  master  and  says, 
paraihease,  i.  e.  a  pilgrim,  and  he  is  allowed  to  take  up  his 
abode  for  th3  night.  For  his  entertainment,  he  has  to  re- 
peat the  pulhenam^  news  of  his  country  and  journey,  or  any 
legend  of  olden  time. — Roberts. 

Ver.  35.  Oh  that  one  would  hear  me !  bdhold,  my 
desire  is  that  the  Almighty  would  answer  me, 
and  that  mine  adversary  had  written  a  book : 
36.  Surely  I  would  take  it  upon  my  shoulder, 
and  bind  it  as  a  crown  to  me. 

This  refers  to  accusations  against  the  innocent  Job.  A 
man  charged  of  a  crime  which  he  has  not  committed,  says, 
"  If  I  am  guilty,  I  will  carry  it  on  my  head."  "  I  am  sure 
y^u  have  done  this  deed."—"  1 1"  "  Yes."—"  Then  will  I 
wear  it  on  my  head."  "  That  fellow  wears  his  crimes  on 
his  head,"  i.  e.  he  is  not  ashamed  of  them.  The  head  is 
reckoned  superior  to  all  other  parts  of  the  body. — Roberts. 

The  business  of  book-making,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  had 
made  but  little  progress  in  the  days  of  Job,  and  it  is  not  easy 
to  see  how  such  a  performance,  on  the  part  of  Job's  adver- 
sary, as  the  writing  a  book,  could  have  afforded  any  peculiar 
gratification  to  the  afflicted  man's  feelings.  In  modern 
times,  when  such  an  enterprise  is  of  all  others  the  most 
hazardous,  it  might  perhaps  be  a  very  appropriate  expres- 
sion of  ill-will,  to  wish  that  an  adversary  had  engaged  in  a 
publishing  speculation.  But  in  the  case  of  Job  and  his 
maligners,  we  must  seek  for  a  different  explication;  for 
even  had  the  trade  of  authorship  been  as  common  and  as 
perilous  in  those  days  as  it  now  is,  we  cannot  but  consider 
Job  too  good  a  man  to  have  given  vent  to  so  bad  a  wish. 
From  the  context,  we  learn  that  the  pious  sufferer  was 
aggrieved  by  the  vagueness  of  the  charges  preferred  against 
him  by  his  harsh-judging  comforters.  They  dealt  in  loose 
generalities,  affording  him  no  opportunity  to  vindicate  him- 
self by  answering  to  a  specific  accusation.  In  the  words 
cited,  he  utters  the  earnest  wish  that  a  definite  form  were 
given  to  the  injurious  imputations  of  his  false  friends.  He 
would  fain  be  summoned  to  a  formal  trial ;  he  would  have 
Ike  c/iarges  booked  against  him,  that  he  might  know  what 
were  the  aspersions  which  were  to  be  wiped  from  his  char- 
acter. Such  an  accusation,  thus  definitely  written,  he  would 
bear  about  publicly  and  conspicuously,  that  he  might  pub- 
licly and  conspicuously  confute  it ;  he  would  bear  it  as  an 
ornament,  convinced  it  would,  in  the  end,  by  his  triumphant 
disproval  of  it,  redound  to  the  still  higher  honour  of  his 
innocence.  That  the  Heb.  sepher,  book,  may  without  vio- 
lence be  thus  interpreted,  is  clear  from  Deut.  xxiv.  1 :  "  Let 
him  write  a  bill  of  divorcement,  (sepher,)  and  give  it  in  her 
hand,  and  send  her  out  of  his  house."  In  the  present  con- 
nexion it  is  tantamount  to  a  bill  of  endidment. — Bush. 

From  the  following  extract  it  appears  what  is  the  cus- 
tomary kind  of  homage  which,  in  the  East,  is  paid  not  only 
to  sovereignty,  but  to  communications  of  the  sovereign's 
will,  whether  by  word  or  letter:  "  When  the  mogul,  by 
letters,  sends  his  commands  to  any  of  his  governors,  these 
papers  are  entertained  with  as  much  respect  as  if  himself 
were  present;  for  the  governor,  having  intelligence  that 
such  letters  are  coming  near  him,  himself,  with  other  infe- 
rior officers,  rides  forth  to  meet  the  patamar,  or  messenger, 
that  brings  them,  and  as  soon  as  he  sees  those  letters,  he 
alights  from  his  horse,  falls  down  on  the  earth,  and  takes 
them  from  the  messenger,  and  lays  them  on  his  head,  whereon 
he  binds  them  fast :  then  retiring  to  his  place  of  public  meet- 
ing, he  reads  and  answers  them."    (Sir  Thomas  Roe.) — 

BURDER. 

When  Soliman  ascended  the  throne,  "  the  letter  which 


was  to  be  presented  to  the  new  monarch  was  delivered  to 
the  general  of  the  slaves,  contained  in  a  purse  of  cloth  of 
gold,  drawn  together  with  strings  of  twisted  gold  and  silk, 
with  tassels  of  the  same.  The  general  threw  himself  at  his 
majesty's  feet,  bowing  to  the  very  ground  ;  then  rising 
upon  his  knees,  he  drew  out  of  the  bosom  of  his  garment 
the  bag  containing  the  letter  which  the  assembly  had  sent 
to  the  new  monarch.  Presently  he  opened  the'  bag,  took 
out  the  letter,  kissed  it,  laid  it  to  his  forehead,  presented  it 
to  his  majesty,  and  then  rose  up."  To  such  a  custom  Job 
evidently  refers  in  these  words :  "  Oh  that  mine  adversary 
had  written  a  book :  surely  I  would  take  it  upon  my  shoulder, 
and  bind  it  as  a  crown  to  me,"  or,  on  my  head.— Paxton. 

Ver.  38.  If  my  land  cry  against  me,  or  that  the 
furrows  likewise  thereof  complain. 

Does  a  man  through  idleness  or  meanness  neglect  to 
cultivate,  or  water,  or  manure  his  fields  and  gardens,  those 
who  pass  that  way  say,  "  Ah !  these  fields  have  good  reason 
to  complain  against  the  cwwner."  "  Sir,  if  you  defraud 
these  fields,  will  they  not  defraud  you  V  "  The  fellow 
who  robs  his  own  lands,  will  he  not  rob  you  1"  "  These 
fields  are  in  great  sorrow,  through  the  neglect  of  their 
owner." — Roberts.     • 

Ver.  39.  If  I  have  eaten  the  fruits  thereof  without 
money,  or  have  caused  the  owners  thereof  to 
lose  their  life. 

Was  not  Job  the  owner  of  the  land  1  Does  he  not  say  in 
the  preceding  verse  my  land  1  How  then  could  he  have 
caused  the  owners  to  lose  their  life  %  Dr.  Boothroyd  has  it, 
"  or  have  grieved  the  soul  of  its  managers."  CoveVdale  has 
it,  "  grieved  any  of  the  ploughmen."  The  Tamul  has  the 
same  idea :  "  If  I  have  eaten  the  fruits  thereof  without 
paying  for  the  labour,  or  have  afilicted  the  soul  of  the  culti- 
vators." Great  landowners  in  the  East  do  not  generally 
cultivate  their  own  fields :  they  employ  men,  who  find  all 
the  labour,  and  have  a  certain  part  of  the  produce  for  their 
remuneration.  The  cultivator,  if  defrauded,  will  say, 
"  The  furrows  I  have  made  bear  witness  against  hini ; 
they  complain."  Job  therefore  means,  if  the  fields  could 
complain  for  want  of  proper  culture,  or  if  he  had  afflicted 
the  tiller,  or  eaten  the  produce  without  rewarding  him  for 
his  toils,  then  "  let  thistles  grow  instead  of  wheat  and 
cockle  instead  of  barley."— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 
Ver.  5.  When  Elihu  saw  that  there  was  no  an- 
swer in  the  mouth  of  these  three  men,  then  his 
wrath  was  kindled. 

When  men  are  completely  confounded,  when  they  have 
not  a  word  to  say  in  reply,  it  is  said,  "  in  their  vayila,  i.  e. 
mouth,  there  is  no  answer." — Roberts. 

Ver.  21.  Let  me  not,  I  pray  you,  accept  any  man's 
person ;  neither  let  me  give  flattering  titles  unto 
man. 

The  Hebrew  word  here  used  signifies  to  surname,  or 
more  properly  to  call  a  person  by  a  name  which  does  not 
strictly  belong  to  him,  and  that  generally  in  compliment  or 
flattery.  Mr.  Scott  on  this  passage  informs  us  from  Po- 
cocke,  that  "  the  Arabs  make  court  to  their  superiors  by 
carefully  avoiding  to  address  them  by  their  proper  names, 
instead  of  which,  they  salute  them  with  some  title  or  epi- 
thet expressive  of  respect." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 
Ver.  6.  Behold,  I  am  according  to  thy  wish  in 
God's  stead ;  I  also  am  formed  out  of  the  clay. 

"  The  body  and  the  herb,  which  come  from  the  clay,  will 
also  return  to  it."  "  The  body  must  return  to  the  dust,  why 
then  trouble  yourself?  Will  it  exist  for  an  immeasurable 
period  V — Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  Then  he  openeth  the  ears  of  men,  and 
sealeth  their  mstruction. 


352 


JOB. 


Chap.  33—38. 


It  is  usual  to  say,  "  I  will  open  that  fellow's  ears.  I  will 
take  away  the  covering."  "  Ah !  will  you  not  open  your 
ears  V — Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  Then  he  is  gracious  unto  him,  and  saith, 
Deliver  him  from  going  down  to  the  pit ;  I 
•  have  found  a  ransom. 

A  species  of  capital  punishment  which  serves  to  illus- 
trate the  sacred  text,  is  the  pit  into  which  the  condemned 
r "  isons  were  precipitated.  The  Athenians,  and  particu- 
larly the  tribe  Hippothoontis,  frequently  condemned  offend- 
ers 10  the  pit.  It  was  a  dark,  noisome  hole,  and  had  sharp 
spikes  at  the  top,  that  no  criminal  might  escape;  and  others 
g».  the  bottom,  to  pierce  and  torment  those  unhappy  persons 
that  were  cast  in.  Similar  to  this  place  was  the  Lacede- 
monian KaiaSa?,  into  which  Aristomenes,  the  Messenian, 
being  cast,  made  his  escape  in  a  very  surprising  manner. 
This  mode  of  punishment  is  of  great  antiquity;  for  the 
speakers  in  the  book  of  Job  make  several  allusions  to  it. 
Thus,  in  the  speech  of  Elihu :  "  He  keepeth  back  his  soul 
from  the  pit,  and  his  life  from  perishing  by  the  sword." — 
"  Then  is  he  gracious  unto  him,  and  saith,  Deliver  him 
from  going  down  to  the  pit ;  I  have  found  a  ransom." — 
"  He  will  deliver  his  soul  from  going  down  into  the  pit, 
and  his  life  shall  see  the  light."  The  allusions  in  the  book 
of  Psalms  are  numerous  and  interesting ;  thus  the  Psalmist 
prays,  "  Be  not  silent  to  me  ;  lest  if  thou  be  silent  to  me,  I 
become  like  them  that  go  down  into  the  pit." — "  Let  them 
be  cast  into  deep  pits,  that  they  rise  not  up  again."  The 
following  allusion  occurs  in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah : 
"  The  captive  exile  hasteneth,  that  he  may  be  loosed,  and 
that  he  should  not  die  in  the  pit,  nor  that  his  bread  should 
fail." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Ver.  7.  What  man  is  like  Job,  who  drinketh  up 
scorning  like  water  ? 

Of  a  man  who  does  not  care  for  contempt  or  hatred,  it  is 
said,  "  He  drinks  up  their  hatred  like  water."  When  a 
man  is  every  way  superior  to  his  enemies,  "  Ah !  he  drinks 
them  up  like  water."  "  He  is  a  man  of  wonderful  talents, 
for  he  drinks  up  science  as  water."  Thus,  Elihu  wished 
to  show  that  Job  had  hardened  himself,  and  was  insensible 
to  scorn,  for  he  had  swallowed  it  as  water. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

Ver.  3.  I  will  fetch  my  knowledge  from  afar,  and 
will  ascribe  righteousness  to  my  Maker. 

There  is  something  in  our  nature  which  places  superior 
importance  on  any  thing  which  comes  from  afar.  When 
a  man  has  to  contend  with  a  person  who  is  veiy  learned, 
should  a  friend  express  a  doubt  as  to  the  result,  or  advise 
him  to  take  great  care,  he  will  say,  "  Fear  not,  veggutoora- 
tila,  from  very  far  I  will  fetch  my  arguments."  "The 
arguments  which  are  afar  off,  shall  now  be  brought  near." 
*'  Well,  sir,  since  you  press  me,  I  will  fetch  my  knowledge 
from  afar." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 
Ver.  6.  For  he  saith  to  the  snow,  Be  thou  on  the 
earth ;  likewise  to  the  small  rain,  and  to  the 
great  rain  of  his  strength. 

In  the  East  Indies  the  commencement  and  the  breaking  of 
the  monsoons  are  generally  very  severe ;  the  rain  descends 
in  the  most  astonishing  torrents.  In  a  few  hours  the  inhab- 
itants find  themselves  in  a  liquid  plain.  The  high  and  the 
low  grounds  are  equally  covered,  and  exhibit  the  appear- 
ance of  an  immense  lake,  and  surrounded  by  thick  dark- 
ness, which  prevents  them  from  distinguishing  a  single 
object,  except  such  as  the  vivid  glare  of  lightning  displays 
in  horrible  forms.  In  the  winter  months  the  mountain 
floods  swell  the  small  rivers  of  India  in  a  wonderful  man- 
ner. Within  a  few  hours  they  ol^en  rise  twenty  or  thirty 
feet  above  their  usual  height,  and  run  with  astonishing 
rapidity ;  and  the  larger  rivers,  before  gentle  and  pellucid, 
are  then  furious  and  destructive,  sweeping  away  whole 
villages,  with  their  inhabitants  and  cattle,  while  tigers  and 


other  furious  animals  from  the  wilds  join  the  general  wrock, 
and  unite  their  horrid  voices  with  the  cries  of  old  men  and 
helpless  women,  and  the  shrieks  of  their  expiring  children, 
in  its  passage  to  the  ocean.  It  is  in  such  a  scene  that  the 
beauty  of  Elihu's  speech  to  Job, in  which  he  mentions  "the 
great  rain  of  his  strength,"  are  properly  understood.  Even 
in  the  milder  climate  of  Judea,  the  rains  pour  down  three 
or  four  days  and  nights  together,  as  vehemently  as  if  they 
would  drown  the  country,  sweeping  away  in  their  fuiious 
course  the  produce  of  the  field,  and  the  soil  on  which  it 
grew,  the  flocks  and  herds,  and  human  dwellings,  with 
their  hapless  inmates,  in  one  promiscuous  ruin.  Far  dif- 
ferent are  the  feelings  awakened  in  the  mind,  by  the  ;  ight 
of  a  majestic,  pure,  and  quiet  river,  on  whose  verdant  pas- 
tures the  flocks  repose,  or  drink,  without  alarm  or  danger, 
of  its  flowing  waters.  So  full  of  majesty  and  gentleness, 
neither  alarming  the  fears,  endangering  the  safety,  nor 
encouraging  the  carelessness  of  genuine  Christians,  are  the 
consolations  of  true  religion.  So  the  Psalmist  felt,  when  he 
selected  the  loveliest  image  in  the  natural  world  to  convey 
an  idea  of  the  rich  and  ample  provision  which  the  divine 
bounty  has  made  for  man :  "  He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in 
green  pastures ;  he  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters."— 
Paxton, 

Ver.  7.  He  sealeth  up  the  hand  of  every  man,  that 
all  men  may  know  his  work. 

Has  a  man  something  in  Ais  hand  which  he  does  not 
wish  to  show  to  another,  he  says,  "  My  hand  is  sealed."  Of 
a  gentleman  who  is  very  benevolent,  it  is  said,  "  His  hand 
is  sealed  for  charity  only."  "  Please,  sir,  give  me  this." — 
"  What !  is  my  hand  sealed  to  give  to  all  1"  "  What  secret 
was  that  which  Tamban  told  you  last  evening  1" — "  I  can- 
not answer  ;  my  mouth  is  sealed."  "  That  man  never  for- 
gets an  injury." — "No,  no,  he  seals  it  in  his  mind."  A 
husband  who  has  full  confidence  in  his  wife,  says,  "I  have 
sealed  her."  Canticles  iv.  12.  To  seal  a  person,  therefore, 
is  to  secure  him,  and  prevent  others  from  injuring  him. — 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 
Ver.  3.  Gird  up  now  thy  loins  like  a  man ;  for  I 
will  demand  of  thee,  and  answer  thou  me. 

"  Well,  Tamby,  you  have  a  difficult  task  before  you  : 
gird  up  your  loins."  "  Come,  help  me  to  gird  this  sdli,  i.  e. 
mantle,  or  shawl,  round  my  loins ;  I  have  a  long  way  to 
run."  "Poor  fellow!  he  soon  gave  it  up;  his  loins  were 
not  well  girded." — Roberts. 

Ver.  14.  It  is  turned  as  clay  to  the  seal;  and 
they  stand  as  a  garment. 

The  birds  pillage  the  granary  of  Joseph  extremely, 
where  the  corn  of  Egypt  is  deposited  that  is  paid  as  a  tax  . 
to  the  grand  seignior,  for  it  is  quite  uncovered  at  the  top, 
there  being  little  or  no  rain  in  that  country ;  its  doors  how- 
ever are  kept  carefully  sealed,  but  its  inspectors  do  not 
make  use  of  wax  upon  this  occasion,  but  put  their  seal  upon 
a  handful  of  clay,  with  which  they  cover  the  lock  of  the 
door.  This  serves  instead  of  wax ;'  and  it  is  visible,  things 
of  the  greatest  value  might  be  safely  sealed  up  in  the  same 
manner.  Had  Junius  known  this  circumstance,  or  had  he 
at  least  reflected  on  it,  he  would  not  perhaps  have  explained 
Job  xxxviii.  14,  It  is  turved  as  clay  to  the  seal,  of  the  potters 
adorning  clay  with  various  paintings,  or  various  emboss- 
ings ;  especially  had  he  considered,  that  the  productions  of 
the  wheel  of  the  potter,  in  the  age  and  the  country  of  Job, 
were,  in  all  probability,  very  clumsy,  unadorned  things, 
since  even  still  in  Egypt,  the  ancient  source  of  arts,  the 
ewer,  which  is  made,  according  to  Norden,  very  clumsy,  is 
one  of  the  besi  pieces  of  earthenware  that  they  have  there, 
all  the  art  of  the  potter,  in  that  country,  consisting  in  an 
ability  to  make  some  vile  pots  or  dishes,  without  varnish. — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  16.  Hast  thou  entered  into  the  springs  of 
the  sea  ?  or  hast  thou  walked  in  the  search  of 
the  depth  ? 

To  a  vain  boasting  fellow  it  is  said,  "  Yes,  yes ;  the 


Chap.  39. 


JOB. 


3(33 


sea  is  only  knee-deep  to  thee."    *'  It  is  all  true ;  thou  hast 
measured  the  sea." — Roberts. 

Ver.  34.  Canst  thou  lift  up  thy  voice  to  the  clouds, 
that  abundance  of  waters  may  cover  thee? 
35.  Canst  thou  send  lightnings,  that  they  may 
go,  and  say  unto  thee,  Here  we  are  ? 

This  probably  refers  to  thunder,  and  its  effects  in  pro- 
ducing rain.  It  is  said,  "  Why,  fellow,  are  you  making 
such  a  noise'?  Are  you  going  to  shake  the  clouds  1  Is  it 
rain  you  are  going  to  produce  V  "  What  is  all  this  noise 
about '?  Is  it  rain  you  want  1"  "  Cease,  cease  your  roaring ; 
the  rain  will  not  come."  "  Listen  to  that  elephant,  rain  is 
coming." — Roberts. 

Ver.  39.  Wilt  thou  hunt  the  proy  for  the  lions  ? 
or  fill  the  appetite  of  the  young  lions  ? 

To  a  man  who  is  boasting  of  the  speed  of  his  foot,  or  his 
prowess,  it  is  said,  "  Yes,  there  is  no  doubt  thou  wilt  hunt 
the  prey  for  the  tiger."  When  a  person  does  a  favour  for 
a  cruel  man,  it  is  asked,  "  What !  give  food  to  the  tiger  1" 
"  O  yes ;  give  milk  to  the  serpent."  *'  Here  comes  the 
sportsman;  he  has  been  hunting  prey  for  the  tiger." — 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 
Ver.  1.  Knowest  thou  the  time  when  the  wild 
goats  of  the  rock  bring  forth  ?  or  canst  thou 
mark  when  the  hinds  do  calve  ? 

It  is  well  known  that  the  hind  goes  with  young  eight 
months,  and  brings  forth  her  fawn  in  the  beginning  of  au- 
tumn. Why  then  does  Jehovah  address  these  interroga- 
tions to  Job :  "  Knowest  thou  the  time  when  the  wild  goats 
of  the  rock  bring  forth  ^  Or  canst  thou  mark  when  the 
hinds  do  calve  1  Canst  thou  number  the  months  that  they 
fulfil  1  Or  knowest  thou  the  time  when  they  bring  forth  1" 
Could  Job  be  ignorant  of  circumstances  which  were  ob- 
vious to  all  the  shepherds  in  the  East,  who  had  numerous 
opportunities  of  observing  the  habits  and  manners  of  these 
creatures  1  It  is  obvious  that  Jehovah  could  not  refer  to 
the  mere  speculative  knowledge  of  these  facts,  but  to  that 
which  is  proper  to  himself,  by  which  he  not  only  knows, 
but  also  directs  and  governs  all  things.  This  is  confirmed 
by  the  use  of  the  verb  (nasr)  shamar,  which  signifies  to  ob- 
serve, to  keep,  or  to  guard:  Knowest  thou  the  time  when 
the  wild  goats  bring  forth,  the  parturition  of  the  hinds  dost 
thou  guard  1  Without  the  protecting  care  of  God,  who  up- 
holds all  his  works  by  the  word  of  his  power,  the  whole 
race  of  these  timid  creatures  would  soon  be  destroyed  by 
the  violence  of  wild  beasts,  or  the  arts  of  the  hunter.  It  is 
with  great  propriety,  says  one  of  the  ancients,  that  Jehovah 
demands,  "  The  birth  of  the  hinds  dost  thou  guard  1"  for, 
since  this  animal  is  always  in  flight,  and  with  fear  and  ter- 
ror always  leaping  and  skipping  alWDut,  she  could  never 
bring  her  young  to  maturity  without  such  a  special  protec- 
tion. The  providence  of  God,  therefore,  is  equally  con- 
spicuous in  the  preservation  of  the  mother  and  the  fawn  ; 
both  are  the  objects  of  his  compassion  and  tender  care ;  and 
consequently,  that  afflicted  man  had  no  reason  to  charge 
his  Maker  with  unkindness,  who  condescends  to  watch 
over  the  goats  and  the  hinds.— Paxton. 

Ver.  3.  They  bow  themselves,  they  bring  forth 

their  young  ones,  they  cast  out  their  sorrows. 

4.  Their  young  ones  are  in  good  liking,  they 

grow  up  with  corn ;  they  go  forth,  and  return 

'  not  unto  them. 

The  hind  has  no  sooner  brought  forth  her  fawn,  than  the 
pain  she  suffered  is  forgotten :  "  They  bow  themselves"  to 
bring  forth  their  young  ones,  "  they  cast  out  their  sorrows." 
These  words  must  forcibly  remind  the  reader  of  tJie  ma- 
ternal pains  and  joys  of  a  higher  order  of  beings :  "  A 
woman,  when  she  is  in  travail,  hath  sorrow,  because  her 
hour  is  come :  but  as  soon  as  she  is  delivered  of  the  child, 
she  remembereth  no  more  the  anguish,  for  joy  that  a  man 
iS  born  into  the  world."  It  is  added,  "  Their  young  ones 
are  in  good  liking,  they  grow  up  with  corn  ;  they  go  forth, 
45 


and  return  not  unto  them."  Though  they  are  brought  forth 
in  sorroW;  and  have  no  human  ownej"  to  provide  for  their 
wants,  and  to  guard  them  from  danger,  yet,  after  being 
suckled  a  while,  they  become  vigorous  and  active,  and 
shift  for  themselves  in  the  open  fields.  They  grow  up 
with  corn,  says  our  translation ;  but  the  fawn  is  not  com- 
monly fed  in  the  cornfield,  because  it  lives  in  the  deserts, 
and  frequents  those  places  which  are  far  remote  from  the 
cultivated  field.  Besides,  in  Arabia,  where  Job  flourished, 
the  harvest  is  reaped  in  the  months  of  March  and  April, 
long  before  the  hinds  bring  forth  their  young.  The  fawn, 
therefore,  does  not  thrive  with  corn,  but  with  the  few 
shrubs  and  hardy  plants  which  grow  in  the  wilderness  or 
open  country.  But  the  inspired  writer  has  committed  no 
mistake  ;  the  original  phrase  is  capable  of  another  transla- 
tion, which  perfectly  corresponds  with  the  condition  of  that 
animal,  in  those  parts  of  the  world.  In  Chaldee,  the  word 
(■^32)  babar,  or  (n-^23)  babara,  is  evidently  the  same  as  the 
Hebrew  (yina)  bahouts.  Thus  in  Laban's  address  to  Jacob, 
when  he  arrived  in  Padanaram,  "  Why  slandest  thou  with- 
out," the  Hebrew  word  is  (vna)  bahouts;  and  in  Jonathan 
and  Onkelos  it  is  (n-\23)  babara.  The  same  remark  applies 
to  a  text  in  the  book  of  Exodus :  "  If  he  rise  again  and 
walk  abroad  upon  his  staff;"  in  Hebrew  (pna)  bahouts;  in 
Chaldee,  (n'>33)  babara.  Hence,  the  phrase  may  be  trans- 
lated. They  grow  up  without,  or  in  the  open  field.  Many 
other  instances  might  be  specified,  but  these  are  sufficient 
to  establish  the  justice  of  the  remark.  Even  the  Hebrew 
phrase  itself  is  translated  by  Schultens,  "  in  the  open  field," 
which  is  indisputably  the  sense  of  the  passage  under  con- 
sideration. Thus,  when  the  fawn  is  calved,  it  grows  up  in 
the  desert,  under  the  watchful  providence  of  God;  it  soon 
forsakes  the  spot  where  it  was  brought  forth,  and  suckled 
by  the  dam,  and  returns  no  more. — Paxton. 

Ver.  5.  Who  hath  sent  out  the  wild  ass  free?  or 
who  hath  loosed  the  bands  of  the  wild  ass? 
.  6.  Whose  house  I  have  made  the  wilderness, 
and  the  barren  land  his  dwellings.  7.  He 
scorneth  the  multitlide  of  the  city,  neither  re- 
gardeth  he  the  crying  of  the  driver.  8.  The 
range  of  the  mountains  is  his  pasture,  and  he 
searcheth  after  every  green  thing. 

This  animal  was  called  ovoi  aypios,  among  the  Greeks, 
and  onager  by  the  Romans.  Some  natural  historians  con- 
sider it  as  a  different  species  from  the  tame  and  domestic 
ass ;  but  others,  among  whom  is  the  celebrated  Buffon,  af- 
firm, that  it  differs  from  its  unhappy  relation  only  in  those 
particulars  which  are  the  proper  effects  of  independence 
and  liberty.  Although  more  elegantly  shaped,  the  general 
form  of  its  body  is  the  same ;  but  in  temper  and  manners 
it  is  extremely  dissimilar.  Intended  to  fill  a  higher  place 
in  the  kingdom  of  nature,  than  its  abject  and  enslaved 
brother,  it  exhibits  endowments  which,  in  all  ages,  have 
commanded  the  admiration  of  every  observer.  Animated 
by  an  unconquerable  love  of  liberty,  this  high-spirited  ani- 
mal submits  his  neck  with  great  reluctance  to  the  yoke  of 
man  ;  extremely  jealous  of  the  least  restraint,  he  shuns  the 
inhabited  country,  and  steadily  rejects  all  the  delicacies  it 
has  to  offer.  His  chosen  haunt  is  the  solitary  and  inhos- 
pitable desert,  where  he  roves  at  his  ease,  exulting  in  the 
possession  of  unrestrained  freedom.  These  are  not  acci- 
dental nor  acquired  traits  in  his  character ;  but  instincts, 
implanted  by  the  hand  of  his  Maker,  that  are  neither  to  be 
extinguished  nor  modified  by  length  of  time,  nor  change  of 
circumstances.  To  this  wild  and  untameable  temper,  Je- 
hovah himself  condescends  to  direct  the  attention  of  Job, 
when  he  answered  him  out  of  the  whirlwind,  and  said : 
"  Who  hath  sent  out  the  wild  ass  free "?  or  who  hath  loosed 
the  bands  of  the  wild  ass  1  whose  house  I  have  made  the 
wilderness,  and  the  barren  land  his  dwellings.  He  scorn- 
eth the  multitude  of  the  city,  neither  regardeth  he  the  cry- 
ing of  the  driver.  The  range  of  the  mountains  is  his  pas- 
ture, and  he  searcheth  after  every  green  thing." 

The  proper  name  of  this  animal  in  the  Hebrew  language, 
is  (n->b)  para,  a  term  which,  according  to  some  writers,  is 
expressive  of  its  extreme  suspicion.  It  is  employed  by  Mo- 
ses to  denote  the  wild  and  untractable  disposition  of  Ish- 
mael  and  his  descendants;  and  by  Zophar,  to  characterize 
a  vain,  self-righteous,  and  obstinate  person.    In  accordance 


354 


JOB. 


Chap.  39. 


with  this  idea,  tne  noun  furnishes  a  verb  m  the  Hiphil  form, 
which  signifies  to  act  as  wildly  as  the  onager.  Others  de- 
rive the  noun  from  a  Chaldee  verb,  which  signifies  to  run 
with  great  swiftness;  and  every  writer,  ancient  and  modern, 
who  has  treated  of  this  animal,  has  attested  the  wonderful 
celerity  with  which  it  flies  over  the  desert.  According  to 
Leo  Africanus,  the  wild  ass  yields  only  to  the  horses  of 
Barbary ;  and  Xenophon  avers,  in  his  Anabasis,  that  it  out- 
runs the  fleetest  horses.  It  has  feet  like  the  whirlwind, 
says  Oppian ;  iElian  asserts,  that  it  seems  as  if  it  were  car- 
ried forward  by  wings  like  a  bird. 

These  testimonies  are  confirmed  by  Professor  Gmelin, 
who  saw  numerous  troops  of  them  in  the  deserts  of  Great 
Tartary,  and  says,  The  onagers  are  animals  adapted  to 
running,  and  of  such  swiftness,  that  the  best  horses  cannot 
equal  them.  Relying  on  its  extraordinary  powers,  it  fre- 
quently mocks  the  pursuit  of  the  hunter ;  and  in  the  stri- 
king description  of  its  Creator,  "  Scorneth  the  multitude  of 
the  city,"  that  invade  its  retreats,  and  seek  its  destruction. 
It  laughs  (as  the  original  term  properly  signifies)  at  their 
numbers  and  their  speed,  and  seems  to  take  a  malicious 
pleasure  in  disappointing  their  hopes.  Xenophon  states, 
that  the  onagers  in  Mesopotamia,  wien  pursued  on  horse- 
back, will  stop  suddenly  in  the  midst  of  their  career,  till  the 
hunters  approach,  and  then  dart  away  with  surprising  ve- 
locity ;  and  again  stop,  as  if  inviting  them  to  make  another 
effort  to  overtake  them,  but  immediately  dart  away  again 
like  an  arrow  shot  from  a  bow :  indeed,  it  would  be  impos- 
sible for  men  to  take  them,  without  the  assistance  of  art. 
"  We  gave  chase,"  says  Mr.  Morier,  "  to  two  wild  asses, 
but  which  had  so  much  the  speed  of  our  horses,  that  when 
they  had  got  at  some  distance,  they  stood  still  and  looked 
behind  at  us,  snorting  with  their  noses  in  the  air,  as  if  in 
contempt  of  our  endeavour^  to  catch  them."  The  hunters, 
however,  often  lie  in  wait  for  them  at  the  ponds  of  brackish 
water,  to  which  they  resort  to  drink ;  or  take  them  alive  by 
means  of  concealed  pits,  half  filled  with  plants  and  branches 
of  trees,  to  lessen  the  creature's  fall.  At  other  times  the 
chase  is  continued  by  relays  of  fresh  horses,  which  the 
hunters  mount  as  the  others  are  exhausted,  till  the  strength 
of  the  animal  is  so  completely  worn  out,  that  it  can  be  easily 
overtaken. 

The  wild  ass,  unsocial  in  his  temper,  and  impatient  of 
restraint,  frequents  the  solitary  wilderness,  and  the  vast  in- 
hospitable desert,  the  salt  marsh,  and  the  mountain  range. 
This  is  the  scene  adapted  to  his  nature  and  instincts,  and 
his  proper  domain  allotted  to  him  by  the  author  of  his 
being.  We  are  not  left  to  infer  this  fact  from  the  manners 
and  habits  of  the  animal ;  Jehovah  himself  has  attested  it 
in  these  terms :  "  Whose  house  I  have  made  the  wilder- 
tness,  and  the  barren  land  his  dwellings."  He  who  made 
(the  wild  ass  free,  and  loosed  his  hands,  provides  a  habita- 
tion for  him  in  the  desert,  where  the  voice  of  man  is  not 
heard,  nor  a  human  dwelling  meets  his  eye.  But  every 
desert  is  not  equally  to  his  liking ;  it  is  the  barren  or  salt 
land  ia  which  he  delights.  So  grateful  is  salt  to  his  taste, 
that  he  uniformly  prefers  brackish  water  to  fresh,  and  se- 
lects for  his  food  those  plants  that  are  impregnated  with 
saline  particles,  or  that  have  bitter  juices.  He  therefore 
retires  from  the  cultivated  or  fertile  regions,  not  merely  to 
be  free  from  the  domination  of  man,  but  to  enjoy  the  pas- 
ture which  is  agreeable  to  his  instincts.  "  The  multitude," 
or  the  abundance  of  the  city,  "  he  despises  for  the  salt  or 
bitter  leaf  on  the  sandy  waste." 

Into  such  a  state  of  desolation  and  sterility  was  the  in- 
heritance of  God's  ancient  people  reduced,  by  the  arms  o^" 
Nebuchadnezzar:  *'  Upon  the  land  of  my  people  shall  come 
up  thorns  and  briers,  yea,  upon  all  the  houses  of  joy  in  the 
joyous  city:  because  the  palaces  shall  be  forsaken,  the  mul- 
titude of  the  city  shall  be  left,  the  forts  and  towers  shall  be 
dens  for  ever,  a  joy  of  wild  asses,  a  pasture  of  flocks."  A 
more  affecting  picture  can  scarcely  be  conceived;  the  de- 
populated fields  and  ruined  cities  of  a  country  once  flow- 
ing with  milk  and  honey,  were  to  become  the  favourite 
haunts  of  those  shy  creatures  "  for  ever,"  or  during  the 
long  period  of  seventy  years.  "  Until  the  spirit"  should 
be  poured  upon  them  from  on  high,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  the  captivity,  a  tedious  and  irksome  period  to 
the  unhappy  captives,  were  the  wild  asses  to  stray  through 
their  barren  fields,* and  repose  in  their  deserted  houses, 
undisturbed  by  the  presence  of  man.  But  the  pride  and 
ba.Tbarity  of  their  oppressor  were  soon  visited  with  corres- 


ponding punishment.  He  was  deprived  of  reason,  which 
ne  had  so  greatly  abused,  and  by  the  violence  of  his  disor- 
der, "  driven  from  the  sons  of  men,  and  his  heart  was  made 
like  the  beasts ;  and  his  dwelling  was  with  the  wild  asses," 
in  the  salt  land  and  frightful  desert.  He  seems  to  have 
been  divested  of  every  thing  human  but  the  form ;  irra- 
tional and  sensual,  he  was  guided  solely  by  his  animal 
propensities.  Nor  was  he  longer  able  to  distinguish  what 
was  becoming  or  agreeable,  even  to  the  animal  nature  of 
man;  every  desire  and  appetite  was  become  so  brutish,  that 
he  felt  no  wish  to  associate  with  beings  of  his  own  kind, 
but  lived  with  the  beasts,  and  fed  in  their  pasture. 

Some  respectable  writers  have  considered  the  onager  as 
a  solitary  creature,  refusing  to  associate  even  with  those 
of  his  own  species,  because  he  ^huns  the  presence  of  man, 
and  frequents  the  most  frightful  solitudes.  But  this  hasty 
opinion  is  completely  refuted  by  the  testimony  of  modern 
travellers,  the  nomadic  hordes  of  Tartary,  and  the  trading 
companies  of  Bukharia.  From  their  accounts  we  learn 
that  the  wild  asses  are  still  very  numerous  in  the  deserts 
of  Great  Tartary,  and  come  annually  in  great  herds,  which 
spread  themselves  in  the  mountainous  deserts  to  the  north 
and  east  of  Lake  Aral.  Here  they  pass  the  summer,  and 
assemble  in  the  autumn  by  hundreds,  and  even  by  thou- 
sands, in  order  to  return  in  company  to  their  former  re- 
treats in  the  mountains  of  Northern  Asia.  The  grega- 
rious character  of  the  wild  ass  is  not  in  reality  contradicted 
by  the  prophet  in  these  words :  "  For  they  are  gone  up  to 
Assyria,  a  wild  ass  alone  by  himself:  Ephraim  hath  hired 
lovers."  In  this  passage  he  describes  the  perverse  and  un- 
tractable  dispositions  of  Ephraim,  and  the  certain  destruc- 
tion to  which  their  obstinacy  exposed  them.  A  wild  ass , 
alone,  tliey  were  by  their  foolish  conduct  ready  to  become 
a  prey  to  the  destroyer.  But  it  is  rather  the  king  of  Assyria, 
than  the  ten  tribes,  whom  he  compares  to  that  animal. 
Instead  of  trusting  in  the  Lord  their  God,  they  courted  the 
favour,  and  solicited  the  protection  of  that  ambitious  and 
artful  monarch,  who,  like  "  a  wild  ass  alone,"  consulted 
only  his  own  selfish  inclinations,  and  aimed  at  his  own 
aggrandizement.  This  ill-advised  measure,  from  which 
they  promised  themselves  so  much  advantage,  he  declares, 
would  certainly  hasten  this  catastrophe,  which  they  sought 
to  avoid.  They  should  find,  when  too  late,  that  they  had 
been  the  dupes  of  his  deceitful  policy,  and  the  victims  of 
his  unprincipled  ambition.  The  wild  ass,  like  almost 
every  creature  that  inhabits  the  barren  wilderness,  is  re- 
duced to  subsist  on  coarse  and  scanty  fare.  The  sweets  of 
unbounded  liberty  are  counterbalanced  by  the  unremitting 
labour  which  is  necessary  to  procure  him  a  precarious 
subsistence.  In  those  salt  "and  dreary  wastes,  which  provi- 
dence has  allotted  for  his  residence,  very  few  plants  are 
to  be  found,  and  those,  from  the  heat  of  the  climate  and 
the  nature  of  the  soil,  are  stinted  in  their  growth,  and  bitter 
to  the  taste :  "  They  see  not  when  good  cometh  ;"  for  they 
grow  in  the  parched  places  in  the  wilderness,  "  in  a  salt 
land,  and  not  inhabited."  In  such  inhospitable  regions, 
the  wild  ass  is  compelled  to  traverse  a  great  extent  of 
country,  to  scour  the  plains,  and  range  over  the  mountains, 
in  order  to  find  here  and  there  a  few  blades  of  coarse, 
withered  grass,  and  browse  the  tops  of  the  few  stunted 
shrubs  which  languish  in  those  sandy  wilds.  Such  are  the 
allusions  involved  in  these  words :  "  The  range  of  the 
mountains  is  his  pasture,  and  he  searcheth  after  every  green 
thing." 

Every  natural  historian  has  recorded  the  extreme  wild- 
ness  of  this  animal.  He  is  so  jealous  of  his  liberty,  that 
on  the  slightest  alarm,  or  the  first  appearance  of  danger, 
he  flies  with  amazing  swiftness  into  the  desert.  His  senses 
are  so  acute,  that  it  is  impossible  to  approach  him  in  the 
open  country.  But  in  spile  of  all  his  vigilance,  the  hunt- 
er often  encloses  him  in  his  toils,  and  leads  him  away  into 
captivitv.  Even  in  this  unhappy  slate,  he  never  submits 
his  neck  to  the  yoke  of  man  without  a  determined  resist- 
ance. "  Sent  out  free"  by  Him  that  made  him,  he  is  tena- 
cious of  his  independence,  and  opposes,  to  the  extraordinary 
methods  which  his  captors  are  forced  to  employ,  the  most 
savage  obstinacy;  and  for  the  most  part,  he  baffles  all  their 
endeavours  to  tame  him  ;  still  he  "  scorneth  the  multitude 
of  the  city,  neither  regards  he  the  crying  of  the  driver." 
On  the  authority  of  this  text,  Chrysostom  says,  "  this  animal 
is  strong  and  untameable ;  man  can  never  subdue  him, 
whatever  efforts  he  may  make  for  that  purpose."   But  Varro 


Chap.  39. 


JOB. 


355 


affirms,  on  the  contrary,  that  "  the  wild  ass  is  fit  for  labour; 
that  he  IS  easily  lamed ;  and  that  when  he  is  once  tamed, 
he  never  resumes  his  original  wildness."  The  words  of 
Jehovah  certainly  give  no  countenance  to  the  opinion  of  the 
Greek  father  ;  ihey  only  intimate,  that  it  is  extremely  diffi- 
cult to  subdue  the  high  spirit  and  stubborn  temper  of  this 
animal;  for  the  apostle  James  declares,  that  "  every  kind 
of  beast  is  tamed,  and  hath  been  tamed  of  mankind ;"  and 
great  numbers  of  them  are  actually  broken  to  the  yoke  in 
Persia,  and  some  other  countries.  But  it  appears  from 
the  statement  of  Professor  Gmelin,  that  the  Persians  tame 
the  young  onagers ;  and  the  reason  probably  is,  that  they 
seldom  or  never  succeed  in  rendering  a  full  grown  onager 
serviceable  to  man. 

Not  more  untameable  and  indocile  is  the  wild  ass,  in  the 
mind  of  Zophar,  than  the  human  kind,  in  their  present 
degenerate  state:  "  Vain  man  would  be  wise,  though  man 
be  born  like  a  wild  ass's  colt."  Empty,  self-conceited  man, 
still  aspires  to  equal  God  in  wisdom  and  knowledge ;  still 
fondly  supposes  himself  qualified  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the 
divine  proceedings,  and  to  take  the  exclusive  management 
of  his  own  affairs,  although  the  wild  ass's  colt  is  not  more 
rude,  indocile,  and  untractable.  Nor  is  this  an  acquired 
habit :  he  is  born  a  wild  ass's  colt,  and  therefore,  by  nature 
equally  impatient  of  salutary  restraint,  equally  wilful  in 
consulting  his  own  inclinations.  And  this  defect  in  his 
character,  no  created  arm  is  able  to  subdue;  it  yields  only 
to  the  sanctifying  influences  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  who  makes 
him  willing  in  the  day  of  efiectual  calling,  by  a  display 
of  almighty  power. — Paxton. 

Ver.  13.  Gavest  thou  the  goodly  wings  unto  the 
peacocks  ?  or  wings  and  feathers  unto  the 
ostrich  ? 

These  birds  are  exceedingly  numerous  in  the  East ;  and 
it  gives  a  kind  of  enchantment  to  a  morning  scene,  to  see 
flocks  of  them  together,  spreading  their  beautiful  plumage 
in  the  rays  of  the  sun.  They  proudly  stalk  along,  and  then 
run  with"  great  speed,  particularly  if  they  get  sight  of  a  ser- 
pent; and  the  reptile  must  wind  along  in  his  best  style,  or 
ne  will  soon  become  the  prey  of  the  lordly  bird.  A  hus- 
band sometimes  says  to  his  wife,  "Come  hither,  my  beauti- 
ful peacock.  Had  they  not  their  beauty  from  you  V  This 
bird  is  sacred  to  Scandan. — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  Gavest  thou  the  goodly  wings  unto  the 
peacocks  ?  or  wings  and  feathers  unto  the 
ostrich?  14.  Which  leaveth  her  eggs  in  the 
earth,  and  warmeth  them  in  the  dust,  15.  And 
forgetteth  that  the  foot  may  crush  them,  or  that 
the  wild  beast  may  break  them.  1 6.  She  is 
hardened  against  her  young  ones,  as  though 
thep  were  not  hers:  her  labour  is  in  vain 
without  fear;  17.  Because  God  hath  deprived 
her  of  wisdom,  neither  hath  he  imparted  to  her 
understanding.  18.  What  time  she  lifteth  up 
herself  on  high,  she  scorneth  the  horse  and  his 
rider. 

The  ostrich  is  by  far  the  largest  among  the  winged  tribes, 
and  seems  to  be  the  connecting  link  between  the  quadruped 
and  the  fowl  She  is  not  to  be  classed  with  the  former, 
because  she  is  furnished  with  a  kind  of  wings,  which,  if 
they  cannot  raise  her  from  the  ground,  greatly  accelerate 
her  flight;  not  with  the  latter,  for  "the  feathers  which 
grow  out  of  her  small  wings,  are  all  unwoven  and  decom- 
posed, and  their  beards  consist  of  long  hairs  detached  from 
one  another,  and  do  not  form  a  compact  body  to  strike  the 
air  with  advantage ;  which  is  the  principal  office  for  which 
the  feathers  of  the  wing  are  intended."  Those  of  the  tail 
have  also  the  same  structure,  and,  by  consequence,  cannot 
oppose  to  the  air  a  suitable  resistance.  They  can  neither 
expand  nor  close,  as  circumstances  require,  nor  take  differ- 
ent inclinations;  and  what  is  not  a  little  remarkable,  all 
the  feathers  which  cover  the  body  exhibit  the  same  con- 
formation. The  ostrich  has  not,  like  the  greater  part  of 
other  birds,  feathers  of  various  kinds,  some  soft  and  downy, 
which  are  next  the  skin  ;  and  others  of  a  more  firm  arid 


compact  consistence,  which  cover  the  former ;  and  others 
still  longer  and  of  greater  strength,  and  on  which  the  move- 
ments of  the  animal  depend.  All  her  feathers  are  of  one 
kind,  all  of  them  bearded  with  detached  hairs  or  filaments, 
without  consistence  and  reciprocal  adherence ;  in  one  word, 
they  are  of  no  utility  in  flying,  or  in  directing  the  flight. 
Besides  the  peculiar  structure  of  her  wings,  she  is  pressed 
down  to  the  earth  by  her  enormous  size.  Buffbn  calculates 
the  weight  of  a  living  ostrich,  in  middling  condition,  at  no 
less  than  sixty-five  or  eighty  pounds;  which  would  require 
an  immense  pow-er  in  the  wmgs  and  motive  muscles  of  these 
members,  to  raise  and  support  in  the  air  so  ponderous  a 
mass.  Thus  by  her  excessive  weight  and  the  loose  tex- 
ture of  her  feathers,  she  is  condemned,  like  a  quadruped, 
laboriously  to  run  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth,  without 
being  ever  able  to  mount  up  into  the  air.  But  although 
incapable  of  raising  herself  from  the  ground,  she  is  admira- 
bly fitted  for  running.  The  greater  part  of  her  body  is 
covered  with  hair,  rather  than  feathers ;  her  head  and  her 
sides  have  little  or  no  hair ;  and  her  legs,  which  are  very 
thick  and  muscular,  and  in  which  her  principal  force  re- 
sides, are  in  like  manner  almost  naked ;  her  large  sinewy 
and  plump  feet,  which  have  only  two  toes,  resemble  consid- 
erably the  feet  of  a  camel ;  her  wings,  armed  with  two 
spikes,  like  those  of  a  porcupine,  are  rather  a  kind  of  arms 
than  wings,  which  are  given  her  for  defence. 

These  characteristic  features  throw  great  light  on  a  part 
of  the  description  which  Jehovah  himself  has  condescend- 
ed to  give  of  this  animal  in  the  book  of  Job.  It  begins  with 
this  interrogation:  "  Gavest  thou  wings  and  feathers  unto 
the  ostrich'?"  Dr.  Shaw  translates  it:  "  The  wing  of  the'; 
ostrich  is  expanded  ;  the  very  feathers  and  plumage  of  the 
stork."  According  to  Buffbn,  the  ostrich  is  covered  with 
feathers  alternately  white  and  black,  and  sometimes  gray 
by  the  mixture  of  these  two  colours.  They  are  shortest, 
says  the  author,  on  the  lower  part  of  the  neck,  the  rest  of 
which  is  entirely  naked;  they  become  longer  on  the  back 
and  the  belly;  and  are  longest  at  the  extremity  of  the 
tail  and  the  wings ;  but  he  denies  that  any  of  them  have 
been  found  with  red,  green,  blue,  or  yellow  plumes.  This 
assertion,  however,  is  not  quite  correct ;  for  if  credit  is  due 
to  Dr.  Shaw,  "  when  the  ostrich  is  full  grown,  the  neck, 
particularly  of  the  male,  which  before  was  almost  naked, 
IS  now  very  beautifully  covered  with  red  feathers.  The 
plumage,  likewise,  upon  the  shoulders,  the  back,  and  some 
parts  of  the  wings,  from  being  hitherto  of  a  dark  grayisli 
colour,  becomes  now  as  black  as  jet,  while  some  of  the 
feathers  retain  an  exquisite  whiteness.  They  are,  as  de- 
scribed in  the  thirteenth  verse,  the  very  feathers  and  plu- 
mage of  the  stork ;  that  is,  they  consist  of  such  black  and 
white  feathers  as  the  stork,  called  Irom  thence  Tn)<apyos,  is 
known  to  have.  But  the  belly,  the  thighs,  and  the  breast, 
do  not  partake  of  this  covering,  being  usually  naked  ;  and 
when  touched  are  of  the  same  warmth  as  the  flesh  of  the 
quadrupeds. 

The  ostrich,  though  she  inhabits  the  sandy  deserts,  wherR 
she  is  exposed  to  few  interruptions,  is  extremely  vigilant 
and  shy.  She  betakes  herself  to  flight  on  the  first  alarm, 
and  traverses  the  waste  with  so  great  agility  and  swiftness, 
that  the  Arab  is  never  able  to  overtake  her,  even  when  he 
is  mounted  upon  his  horse  of  Family.  The  fact  is  thus 
stated  by  Jehovah  :  "  What  time  she  lifteth  up  herself  on 
high,  she  scorneth  the  horse  and  his  rider."  She  affords 
him  only  an  opportunity  of  admiring  at  a  distance  the  ex- 
traordinary agility  and  stateliness  of  her  motions,  the  rich- 
ness of  her  plumage,  and  the  great  propriety  of  ascribiuj^ 
to  her  "  an  expanded  quivering  wing."  Nothing  certainly 
can  be  more  beautiful  and  entertaining  than  such  a  sight ; 
the  wings,  by  their  continual  though  unwearied  vibrations, 
serving  her  at  once  for  sails  and  oars,  while  her  feet,  no 
less  assisting  in  conveying  her  out  of  sight,  are  equally  in- 
sensible of  fatigue.  Her  surprising  swiftness  is  confirmed 
by  the  writer  of  a  voyage  to  Senegal,  who  says,  "She  sets 
off  at  a  hard  gallop;  but  after  being  excited  a  little,  she  ex- 
pands her  wings,  as  if  to  catch  the  wind,  and  ab^dons  her- 
self to  a  speed  so  great  that  she  seems  not  to  touch  the 
ground."  "  I  am  persuaded,"  continues  that  writer,  "  she 
would  leave  far  behind  the  swiftest  English  courser." 
Buffon  also  admits  that  the  ostrich  runs  faster  than  the 
horse.  These  unexceptionable  testimonies  completely  vin- 
dicate the  assertion  of  the  inspired  writer.  But  as  it  is  on 
horseback  the  Arab  pursues  and  takes  her,  it  is  necessary 


356 


JOB. 


Chap.  39. 


to  explain  how  he  accomplishes  his  purpose,  and  show  its 
consistency  with  the  sacred  writings.  "  When  the  Arab 
rouses  an  ostrich,"  says  Buffon,  "  he  follows  her  at  a  dis- 
tance, without  pressing  her  too  hard,  but  sufhciently  to 
prevent  her  from  taking  food,  yet  not  to  determine  her  to 
escape  by  a  prompt  flight."  Here  the  celebrated  naturalist 
fairly  admits  that  she  has  it  in  her  power  to  escape  if  she 
were  sufficiently  alarmed.  "  It  is  the  more  easy,"  contin- 
ues our  author,  *'  to  follow  her  in  this  manner,  because 
she  does  not  proceed  in  a  straight  line,  and  because  she  de- 
scribes almost  always  in  her  course  a  circle  more  or  less  ex- 
tended." The  Arabs,  then,  have  it  in  their  power  to  direct 
their  pursuit  in  a  concentric  interior  circle,  and  by  conse- 
quence straighter  ;  and  to  follow  her  always  at  a  just  distance, 
by  passing  over  much  less  ground  than  she.  When  they 
have  thus  fatigued  and  starved  her  for  a  day  or  two,  they 
take  their  opportunity,  rush  in  upon  her  at  full  speed,  lead- 
ing her  always  as  much  as  possible  against  the  wind,  and 
kill  her  with  their  clubs,  to  prevent  her  blood  from  spoiling 
the  beautiful  whiteness  of  her  feathers.  In  this  account  of 
Bnffon,  the  highest  modern  authority  in  matters  of  this 
kind,  nothing  occurs  to  contradict  the  assertion  of  the  in- 
spired writer ;  while  he  distinctly  admits  that  she  runs  faster 
than  the  fleetest  horses,  and  could  not  be  taken  but  by  artful 
>ianagement. 

She  constructs  her  humble  nest  in  the  bare  ground,  ex- 
cavating the  sand  with  her  feet.  It  is  hollow  in  the  middle, 
and  fortified  on  all  sides  by  a  circular  mound  of  some 
height,  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  rain  from  flowing 
into  the  nest  and  wetting  her  young.  From  the  most  ac- 
curate accounts  which  Dr.  Shaw  could  obtain  from  his 
conductors,  as  well  as  from  Arabs  of  different  places,  it  ap- 
pears that  the  ostrich  lays  from  thirty  to  fifty  eggs,  ^lian 
mentions  more  than  eighty;  but  Shaw  never  heard  of  so 
great  a  number.  The  first  egg  is  deposited  in  the  centre ; 
the  rest  are  placed  as  conveniently  as  possible  round  about 
it.  In  this  manner,  she  is  said  to  lay,  deposite,  or  trust "  her 
eggs  in  the  earth,  and  to  warm  them  in  the  sand,  and  for- 
geuelh  (as  they  are  not  placed  like  those  of  some  other 
birds  upon  trees,  or  in  the  clefts  of  rocks,  &c.)  that  the  foot 
(of  the  traveller)  may  crush  them,  or  that  the  wild  beast 
may  break  them."  She  seems  in  a  great  measure  insen- 
.«;ible  to  the  tender  feelings  which  so  powerfully  operate  in 
the  greater  part  of  other  animals.  This  assertion,  indeed, 
Buffon  seems  inclined  to  controvert :  "  As  soon,"  says  that 
writer,  "  as  the  young  ostriches  are  hatched,  they  are  in  a 
condition  to  walk,  and  even  to  run  and  seek  their  food  ;  so 
that  in  the  torrid  zone,  where  they  find  the  degree  of  heat 
which  they  require,  and  the  food  which  is  proper  to  them, 
they  are  emancipated  at  their  birth,  and  abandoned  by  their 
mother,  of  whose  care  they  have  no  need.  But  in  countries 
less  warm,  for  example,  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  the 
mother  watches  over  her  young  as  long  as  her  assistance 
is  necessary,  and  on  all  occasions  her  cares  are  propor- 
tioned to  their  wants." 

This  account  Buffon  takes  from  Leo  Africanus  and 
Kolbe,  to  whom  he  refers ;  in  which  it  is  admitted,  that  the 
mother  abandons  her  offspring  as  soon  as  they  are  hatched, 
although  it  is  alleged,  not  for  want  of  affection,  but  because 
her  cares  are  not  necessary.  But  this  is  to  suppose  that 
they  are  not  like  other  young  creatures,  all  of  which  re- 
quire more  or  less  attention  from  their  parents,  for  some 
time  after  their  birth ;  an  anomaly  which  cannot  be  ad- 
mitted but  on  the  most  convincing  evidence.  Let  us  now 
hear  the  account  of  Dr.  Shaw,  who  travelled  in  the  native 
country  of  the  ostrich,  and  borrowed  his  information  from 
the  Arabs,  who  were  well  acquainted  with  all  her  habits 
and  dispositions:  "  Upon  the  least  distant  noise,  or  trivial 
occasion,  she  forsakes  her  eggs  or  her  young  ones,  to  which, 
perhaps,  she  never  returns ;  or,  if  she  does,  it  may  be  too 
late  either  to  restore  life  to  the  one,  or  to  preserve  the 
lives  of  the  other."  Agreeably  to  this  account,  the  Arabs 
meet  sometimes  with  whole  nests  of  these  eggs  undisturb- 
ed ;  some  of  which  are  sweet  and  good ;  others  are  addle 
and  corrupted ;  others  again  have  their  young  ones  of  dif- 
ferent growths,  according  to  the  time,  it  may  be  presumed, 
they  have  been  forsaken  by  the  dam.  They  oftener  meet 
a  few  of  the  little  ones,  no  bigger  than  well-grown  pullets, 
half  starved,  straggling  and  moaning  about,  like  so  many 
distressed  orphans,  for  their  mother.  And  in  this  manner, 
the  ostrich  may  be  said,  as  in  verse  sixteenth,  "  to  be  hard- 
ened against  her  young  ones,  as  though  they  were  not  hers ; 


her  labour  (in  hatching  and  attending  them  so  far)  being 
in  vain  without  fear,"  or  the  least  concern  of  what  becomes 
of  them  afterward.  This*  want  of  affection  is  also  re- 
corded by  Jeremiah,  in  his  Lamentations:  "  The  daughter 
of  my  people  is  cruel,  like  the  ostriches  in  the  wilderness." 

In  her  private  capacity  the  ostrich  is  not  less  inconsider- 
ate and  foolish,  particularly  in  the  choice  of  food,  which  is 
often  highly  detrimental  and  pernicious  to  her;  for  she 
swallows  every  thing  greedily  and  indiscriminately,  whe- 
ther it  be  pieces  of  rags,  leather,  wood,  stone,  or  iron. 
When  Dr.  Shaw  was  at  Oran  he  saw  one  of  these  birds 
swallow,  without  any  seeming  uneasiness  or  inconveniency, 
several  leaden  bullets,  as  they  were  thrown  upon  the  floor, 
scorching  hot  from  the  mould;  the  inward  coats  of  the 
oesophagus  and  stomach  being,  in  his  opinion,  probably 
better  stocked  with  glands  and  juices,  than  in  other  animals 
with  shorter  necks.  They  are  particularly  fond  of  their 
own  excrement,  which  they  greedily  eat  up  as  soon  as  it  is 
voided;  no  less  fond  are  they  of  the  dung  of  hens  and 
other  poultry.  It  seems  as  if  their  optic,  as  well  as  their  ol- 
factory nerves,  were  less  adequate  and  conducive  to  their 
safely  and  preservation,  than  in  other  creatures.  The 
divine  Providence  in  this,  no  less  than  in  other  respects, 
"  having  deprived  them  of  wisdom,  neither  hath  it  impart- 
ed to  them  understanding."  This  part  of  her  character  is 
fully  admitted  by  Buffon,  who  describes  it  in  nearly  the 
same  terms. 

The  ostrich  was  aptly  called  by  the  ancients  a  lover  of 
the  deserts.  Shy  and  timorous  in  no  common  degree,  she 
retires  from  the  cultivated  field,  where  she  is  disturbed  by 
the  Arabian  shepherds  and  husbandmen,  into  the  deepest 
recesses  of  the  Sahara.  In  those  dreary  and  arid  wastes, 
which  are  scarcely  ever  refreshed  with  a  shower,  she  is 
reduced  to  subsist  on  a  few  tufts  of  coarse  grass,  which 
here  and  there  languish  on  their  surface,  or  a  few  other 
solitary  plants,  equally  destitute  of  nourishment,  and,  in  the 
Psalmist's  phrase,  even  "  withered  before  they  are  grown 
up."  To  this  dry  and  parched  food,  may  perhaps  be  added, 
the  great  variety  of  land  snails  which  occasionally  cover 
the  leaves  and  stalks  of  these  herbs,  and  which  may  afford 
her  some  refreshment.  Nor  is  it  improbable  that  she 
sometimes  regales  herself  on  lizards  and  serpents,  together 
with  insects  and  reptiles  of  various  kinds.  Still,  however, 
considering  the  voracity  and  size  of  this  camel  bird,  it  is 
wonderful  how  the  little  ones  should  be  nourished  and 
brought  up;  and  especially,  how  those  of  fuller  growth, 
and  much  better  qualified  to  look  out  for  themselves,  are 
able  to  subsist. — Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  She  is  hardened  against  her  young  ones, 
as  though  thei/  were  not  hers  :  her  labour  i^in 
vain  without  fear. 

Mr.  Vansittart,  in  his  Observations  on  Select  Places  of 
the  Old  Testament,  proposes  the  following  translation  of 
this  verse  :  "  She  hath  hardened  her  young  ones  for  that 
which  is  not  hers ;  her  labour  is  for  another  without  dis- 
crimination." To  justify  this  version  he  adduces  these  ex- 
tracts from  modern  travellers :  "  We  pursued  our  journey 
next  morning  :  in  the  course  of  the  day  I  amused  myselt 
by  firing  my  piece  to  start  game.  A  female  ostrich  rose 
from  her  nest,  which  was  the  largest  I  had  seen,  containing 
thirty-two  eggs :  twelve  more  being  distributed  at  some  dis- 
tance, in  a  little  cavity  by  itself.  I  could  not  conceive  that 
one  female  could  cover  so  many ;  they  were  of  an  unequal 
size,  and  on  examination  I  found  that  nine  of  them  were 
much  less  than  the  rest.  This  peculiarity  interested  me, 
and  I  ordered  the  oxen  to  be  unyoked  at  about  a  quarter  of 
a  league  distance  from  the  nest.  I  then  concealed  myself  in 
a  thicket,  from  whence  I  could  overlook  the  place,  and  yet 
remain  within  gunshot.  I  had  not  watched  long  before  the 
female  returned  and  sat  on  the  eggs.  During  the  rest  of 
the  day  which  I  passed  in  the  thicket,  three  more  came  to 
the  same  nest,  covering  it  alternately;  each  continued  sit- 
ting for  the  space  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  then  gave 
place  to  another,  who,  while  waiting,  sat  close  by  the  side 
of  her  it  was  to  succeed,  a  circumstance  that  made  me  con- 
jecture, that  in  cold  or  rainy  nights  they  sit  by  pairs,  or 
perhaps  more.  The  sun  was  almost  down ;  the  male  bird 
approached :  these,  equally  with  the  female,  assist  in  hatch- 
ing the  eggs.  I  instantly  shot  him  :  but  the  report  of  my 
gun  scared  the  others,  who  in  their  Alight  broke  several  of 


Chap.  39. 


JOB. 


them.  I  now  drew  nearer,  and  saw  with  regret  that  the 
young  ostriches  were  just  ready  to  quit  the  shells,  being  per- 
fectly covered  with  down.  This  peculiarity  of  female 
ostriches  assisting  each  other  for  the  incubation  of  the  same 
nest,  is,  I  think,  calculated  to  awaken  the  atteniion  of  the 
naturalists :  and  not  being  a  general  rule,  proves  that  cir- 
cumstances sometimes  determine  the  actions  of  these  crea- 
tures, regulate  their  customs,  and  strengthen  their  natural 
instinct,  by  giving  them  a  knowledge  not  generally  bestow- 
ed. For  is  it  not  probable  that  they  may  associate  to  be  the 
more  powerful,  and  better  able  to  defend  their  young  1 

"  An  ostrich  starting  before  me  at  the  distance  of  twenty 
paces,  I  thought  it  might  be  sitting,  and  hastened  to  the  spot 
from  whence  she  rose,  where  I  found  eleven  eggs,  quite 
warm,  and  four  others  at  a  distance  of  two  or  three  feet 
from  the  nest.  I  called  to  my  companions,  who  broke  one 
of  the  warm  eggs,  in  which  was  a  young  ostrich,  perfectly 
formed,  about  the  size  of  a  chicken  just  hatched.  I  thought 
these  quite  spoiled,  but  found  my  people  entertained  a  very 
different  opinion  of  the  matter,  every  one  being  eager  to 
come  in  for  his  share.  Amiroo  in  the  mean  time  caught 
up  the  four  outward  ones,  assuring  me  that  I  should  find 
them  excellent.  In  the  sequel,  I  learned  from  this  African, 
what  the  rest  of  my  Hottentots,  and  even  naturalists  them- 
selves. Were  unacquainted  with,  since  none  that  I  recollect 
have  ever  mentioned  it :  the  ostrich  ever  places  near  her 
nest  a  certain  number  of  eggs,  proportioned  to  those  she 
intends  to  sit  on;  these  remaining  separate  and  uncovered, 
continue  good  a  long  while,  being  designed  by  the  provi- 
dential mother  for  the  first  nourishment  of  her  young. 
Experience  has  convinced  me  of  the  truth  of  this  observa- 
tion, for  I  never  met  with  an  ostrich's  nest  without  finding 
eggs  disposed  in  this  manner,  at  a  small  distance  from  it." 
(Vaillant's  Travels.) 

"  Among  the  very  few  polygamous  birds  that  are  found 
in  a  state  of  nature,  the  ostrich  is  one.  The  male,  distin- 
guished by  its  glossy  black  feathers  from  the  dusky  gray 
female,  is  generally  seen  with  two  or  three,  and  frequently 
as  many  as  five,  of  the  latter.  These  females  lay  their  eggs 
in  one  nest,  to  the  number  of  ten  or  twelve  each,  which  they 
hatch  altogether,  the  male  taking  his  turn  of  sitting  on  them 
among  the  rest.  Between  sixty  and  seventy  eggs  have 
been  found  in  one  nest :  and  if  incubation  has  begun,  a  few 
are  most  commonly  lyins;  round  the  sides  of  the  hole,  having 
been  thrown  out  by  the  birds  on  finding  the  nest  to  contain 
more  than  it  could  conveniently  hold."  (Barrow.)  vElian 
says,  of  the  female  ostrich,  "  She  separates  the  unproductive 
eggs;  and  sits  only  on  the  good  ones,  from  which  the  brood 
is  produced ;  and  the  others  she  uses  for  food  for  her  young." 
These  accounts  render  obvious  the  propriety  of  the  new- 
proposed  translation.  Because  by  the  four  mother  birds 
having  the  same  nest  in  common,  and  intermixing  their 
eggs,  they  would  likewise,  when  the  eggs  were  hatched, 
have  their  young  intermixed  and  in  common;  so  that  the 
parents  not  being  able  to  discern  their  own  particular  young, 
would  expend  their  affection  equally  on  the  whole  brood, 
and  consequently  on  the  young  of  another  bird  equally  as 
her  own :  thus  she  would  he  taking  to  herself  the  young  of 
others  instead  of  her  own ;  so  that  in  this  respect  she  might 
be  said  to  harden  her  own  young,  by  taking  the  young  of 
another,  and  dividing  her  affection  upon  them.  In  this 
sense  she  might  be  called  cruel  as  to  her  own  young,  though 
she  would  at  the  same  time  be  affectionate  also.— Burder. 

Ver,  26.  Doth  the  hawk  fly  by  thy  wisdom,  and 
stretch  her  wings  towards  the  south? 

It  is  considered  an  exceedingly  fortunate  thing  to  see  a 
hawk  or  a  kite  flying  in  circles  from  left  to  right,  towards 
the  south.  When  the  south  wind  blows,  those  birds  may 
be  seen  making  their  way  in  circles  towards  that  quarter ; 
but  when  they  return  they  fly  in  a  direct  line. — Roberts. 

The  hawk  is  distinguished  by  the  swiftness  of  her  flight, 
and  the  rapid  motion  of  her  wings  in  flying.  But  as  it  is 
the  first  of  these  which  naturally  fixes  the  attention  of  an 
observer,  the  Hebrews,  according  to  then*  invariable  custom, 
selected  it  as  the  reason  of  the  name  by  which  she  is  known 
in  their  language ;  they  call  her  (ys)  nets,  from  the  verb 
natsa,  to  fly.  She  was  "reckoned  by  many  of  the  ancients 
the  swiftest  of  the  feathered  race.  In  Homer,  the  descent 
of  Apollo  from  heaven  is  compared  to  her  flight:  "From 
the  mountains  of  Ida  he  descended  like  a  swift  hawk,  the 


destroyer  of  pigeons,  that  is  the  swiftest  of  birds."  In  the 
thirteenth  book,  Ajax  tells  Hector  the  day  should  come 
when  he  would  wish  to  have  horses  swifter  than  hawks,  to 
carry  him  back  to  the  city.  Among  the  Egyptians  the 
hawk  was  the  symbol  of  the  winds;  a  sure  proof  that  they 
contemplated  with  great  admiration  the  rapidity  of  her 
motions.  For  the  same  reason,  according  to  some  writers, 
she  was  consecrated  to  the  sun,  which  she  resembles  in  the 
surprising  swiftness  of  her  career,  and  the  faculty  with 
which  she  moves  through  the  boundless  regions  of  the  sky. 
This  custom  of  consecrating  the  hawk  to  Apollo,  the  Greeks 
borrowed  from  the  Egyptians,  amojig  whom  no  animal  was 
so  sacred  as  the  ibis  and  the  hawk.  So  great  was  their 
veneration  for  these  animals,  that  if  any  person  killed  one 
of  them,  with  or  without  design,  he  was  punished  with 
death ;  while  for  the  destruction  of  any  other  animal,  he 
was  only  subjected  to  an  arbitrary  fine.  This  bird,  so  highly 
venerated  among  the  heathen,  was  pronounced  unclean  by 
the  Jewish  lawgiver ;  it  was  to  be  an  abomination  to  the 
people  of  Israel;  its  flesh  was  not  to  be  eaten,  nor  its  car- 
cass touched  with  impunity.  The  reason  of  this  law  may 
probably  be  found  in  her  dispositions  and  qualities ;  she  is 
a  bird  of  prey,  and,  by  consequence,  cruel  in  her  temper, 
and  gross  in  her  manners.  Her  mode  of  living,  too,  may 
probably  impart  a  disagreeable  taste  and  flavour  to  the  flesh, 
and  render  it,  particularly  in  a  warm  climate,  improper  for 
the  table.  Nor  do  we  know  that  it  was  ever  relished  by  any 
people,  although  the  pressure  of  necessitous  circumstances 
may  have  occasionally  reconciled  individuals  to  use  it  for 
food.  Her  daring  spirit,  her  thirst  of  blood,  the  surprising 
rapidity  of  her  flight,  and  her  perseverance  in  the  chase, 
soon  pointed  her  out  to  the  hunter  as  a  valuable  assistant ; 
but  even  he  willingly  resigns  her  carcass  to  be  meat  to  the 
beasts  of  the  field. 

Of  this  bird  Jehovah  demands,  "  Doth  the  hawk  fly  by 
thy  wisdom,  and  stretch  her  wings  towards  the  south  V 
Jerome,  and  several  other  interpreters,  render  the  words, 
By  thy  prudence  doth  the  hawk  renew  her  plumage,  having 
expanded  her  wings  towards  the  south?  because  the  verb 
(-\3n)  abar,  in  the  future  of  the  Hiphil,  seems  to  be  formed 
from  the  noun  ("^^n)  aber,  or  (h-izjn)  abrah,  which  signifies 
a  feather;  This  law,  by  which  the  eagle,  the  hawk,  and 
other  birds,  annually  shed  their  feathers,  was  not  contrived 
by  the  wisdom  of  man ;  although  it  appears  he  is  able,  by 
certain  managements,  to  accelerate  the  moulting  season,  as 
well  as  the  renovation  of  the  plumage.  But,  as  means  and 
remedies  derive  all  their  efficacy  from  God,  and  depend  for 
success  only  upon  his  co-operation,  it  may  still  be  demanded, 
Doth  the  hawk  renew  her  plumage  by  thy  wisdom,  expand- 
ing her  wings  towards  the  south  7  It  is  said,  by  an  ancient 
writer  on  this  passage,  that  humid  and  warm  places  are 
favourable  to  this  change,  and  are  therefore  diligently 
sought  for  by  hawkers,  with  the  view  of  promoting  the 
moulting  of  their  falcons.  When  the  south  wind  blows, 
the  wild  hawks,  instructed  by  their  instinctive  sagacity,  ex- 
pand their  wings  till  their  limbs  become  heated  ;  and  by 
this  means  thedd  plumage  is  relaxed,  and  the  moulting 
facilitated.  But  when  the  south  wind  refuses  its  aid,  they 
expand  their  wings  to  the  rays  of  the  sun,  and  shaking  them 
violently,  produce  a  tepid  gale  for  themselves;  and  thus 
their  bodies  being  heated,  and  their  pores  opened,  the  old 
feathers  more  easily  fall  off,  and  new  ones  grow  up  in  their 
place.  But  it  is  more  probable  that  these  words  refer,  not 
to  the  annual  renovation  of  the  plumage,  but  to  the  long 
and  persevering  flight  of  the  hawk  towards  the  south,  on 
the  approach  of  winter.  Her  migration  is  not  conducted  bv 
the  wisdom  and  prudence  of  man  ;  but  by  the  superintend- 
ing and  upholding  providence  of  the  only  wise  God.  The 
words  of  Jehovah  cannot  be  understood  as  referring  to  the 
falconer's  art ;  for  we  have  no  evidence  that  the  hawk  was 
employed  in  hunting,  till  many  ages  after  the  times  in  which 
the  patriarchs  flourished.  Besides,  if  the  divine  challenge 
referred  to  that  amusement,  the  direction  of  her  flight  could 
not  be  confined  to  the  south  ;  for  she  pursues  the  game  to 
every  quarter  of  heaven.  The  renowned  Chrysostom,  on 
this  passage,  inquires,  why  Jehovah  has  made  no  mention 
of  sheep  and  oxen,  and  oiher  animals  of  the  same  kind,  but 
only  of  useless  creatures,  which  seem  to  have  been  formed 
for  no  beneficial  or  important  purposes.  But  is  it  to  be  sup- 
posed that  God,  who  is  wonderful  in  counsel,  and  excellent 
in  workmg,  has  made  any  part  of  his  works  in  vain  ?  We 
may  not  be  able  to  discover,  after  the  most  careful  investi- 


3Sf8 


JOB. 


Chap.  40. 


gation,  the  end  which  the  Almighty  had  in  view,  when  he 
created  some  of  his  works ;  but  shall  we  presume  on  this 
account  to  pronounce  them  useless  or  insignificant  1  So  far 
.from  being  a  useless  bird,  the  hawk,  in  some  cases,  brings 
the  most  important  and  effectual  assistance  to  the  hunter. 
It  has  already  been  observed,  that  the  antelope,  which  seems 
rather  to  fly  than  to  run,  leaves  the  swiftest  dog  far  behind, 
and  could  never  be  overtaken  without  the  help  of  the  felcon. 
The  hawk,  then,  is  not  the  useless  and  insignificant  creSure 
which  the  Greek  father  represents  her ;  on  the  contrary, 
she  has  conferred  benefits  on  mankind  of  no  inconsiderable 
value. — Paxtcn.  ^ 

CHAPTER  XL. 
Ver.  15.  Behold  now  behemoth,  which  I  made 
with  thee ;  he  eateth  grass  as  an  ox. 

Behemoth  is  an  amphibious  animal,  whose  real  character 
is  involved  in  much  obscurity.  The  greater  part  of  mod- 
ern writers  have  thought  that  behemoth  is  the  elephant,  and 
leviathan  the  whale ;  this  indisputably  the  largest  of  the 
aquatic,  and  that  the  largest  of  terrestrial  animals.  But 
their  sentiments  are  liable  to  objections  so  numerous  and 
weighty,  that  we  are  compelled,  after  the  most  careful  inves- 
tigation, to  refer  these  names  to  very  different  animals.  Bo- 
r.hart  is  of  opinion,  that  the  sacred  writers  refer,  under 
Jiese  terms,  to  the  crocodile  and  the  hippopotamus :  and 
he  is  probably  correct.  He  follows  Beza  and  Diodati  in 
supposing  the  leviathan  to  be  the  crocodile  of  the  Nile ;  and 
from  this  he  infers,  that  the  behemoth  is  the  hippopotamus, 
an  inhabitant  of  the  same  river.  In  the  book  of  Job,  the 
Almighty,  after  describing  a  number  of  terrestrial  animals 
in  a  continued  series,  commences  a  new  description  in  the 
fortieth  chapter,  in  which  we  find  leviathan,  which  is  al- 
lowed by  all  to  be  an  aquatic  animal,  joined  with  behe- 
moth; therefore,  to  preserve  the  appointed  order  undis- 
turbed, the  latter  must  also  be  an  aquatic  animal.  They 
are,  besides,  very  similar  in  several  respects:  both  are 
quadrupeds  of  enormous  size— fierce  in  their  dispositions- 
amphibious  in  their  nature— both  of  them  inhabitants  of 
the  Nile.  Nor  does  the  name,  behemoth,  ill  agree  with  the 
hippopotamus;  for  the  Hebrew  term  behema,  may  denote 
any  beast,  especially  if  it  be  of  a  superior  size,  as  the  hip- 
popotamus is  acknowledged  to  be.  Aristotle  gives  him  the 
size  of  an  ass ;  Herodotus  affirms  that  in  stature  he  is  equal 
to  the  largest  ox  ;  Diodorus  makes  his  height  not  less  than 
five  cubits,  or  above  seven  feet  and  a  half;  Tatius  calls 
him,  on  account  of  his  prodigious  strength,  the  Egyptian 
elephant.  The  Arabian  authors  quoted  by  Bochaft,  say 
that  the  behema,  th«  same  as  the  behemoth,  is  a  four-footed 
animal,  although  he  lives  in  the  water.  But  were  it  admit- 
ted that  behema  by  itself  is  always  applied  to  land  animals, 
yet  behemoth  may  signify  the  hippopotamus  with  sufficient 
propriety,  because  that  animal  yields  to  very  few  in  bulk 
and  stature  ;  it  is  amphibious,  and  resembles  in  many  par- 
ticulars terrestrial  animals.  No  aquatic  animal,  indeed, 
so  much  resembles  the  beasts  of  the  field  ;  hence  the  hippo- 
potamus alone,  of  all  aquatic  animals,  is  called,  by  way  of 
excellence,  behema,  or,  in  the  Egyptian  dialect,  behemoth; 
for  behemoth  is  not  a  plural,  but  a  singular  noun,  with  an 
Egyptian  termination,  like  Thoth,  Paoth,  Phamenoth,  the 
names  of  Egyptian  months,  which  are  all  in  the  singular 
number. 

The  description  of  behemoth  is  introduced  with  these 
words:  "  Behold  now  behemoth,  which  I  made  with  thee  ; 
he  eateth  grass  as  an  ox."  The  Almighty  did  not  need  to 
fetch  the  arguments  of  his  mighty  power  froia  a  distance  ; 
the  Nile,  which  rolled  its  ample  waters  through  regions 
bordering  on  Arabia,  the  native  country  of  Job,  contained 
tAe  hippopotamus,  one  of  the  most  surprising  effects  of 
creating  power  and  goodness.  Such  seems  to  be  the  mean- 
ing of  the  command,  "Behold  now  behemoth,  which  I 
have  made  with  thee,"  or  in  thy  neighbourhood.  The  par- 
ticle im  often  signifies,  near  orhard  by :  thus,  in  the  book 
of  Joshua,  the  city  of  Ai  is  said  to  be  im  Bethaven,  near 
Bethaven;  and,  in  the  book  of  Judges,  the  Danites  were, 
m  beth  Micah,  near  the  house  of  Micah.  But  as  the  pro- 
priety of  the  translation  cannot  reasonably  be  disputed,  it  is 
needless  to  multiply  examples.  The  Almightv  proceeds  : 
"  he  eateth  grass  like  an  ox."  The  ox  and  the  elephant 
are  equally  beasts  of  burden  ;  it  is  therefore  by  no  means 
wonderful  that  they  live  on  the  same  kind  of  food ;  but 


that  the  hippopotamus,  an  aquatic  animal,  which  lives  for 
the  most  part  in  the  bottom  of  the  Nile,  should  eat  grass 
like  an  ox,  is  a  singular  phenomenon,  well  entitled  to  our 
consideration.  Nor  is  it  without  design  he  is  compared  to 
the  ox ;  for,  he  not  only  associates  with  him  in  the  same 
pastures,  but  also  bears  a  considerable  resemblance  to  him 
in  the  size  and  stature  of  his  body,  and  in  the  form  of  his 
head  and  feet. — Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  Lo  now,  his  strength  is  in  his  loins,  and 
his  force  is  in  the  navel  of  his  belly. 

The  loins  are  the  seat  of  strength  in  every  animal; 
hence,  in  the  language  of  scripture,  to  strengthen  the  loins 
denotes  an  augmentation  of  power.  A  very  decisive  in- 
stance occurs  m  the  second  chapter  of  Nahum  :  "  Make 
thy  loins  strong;"  fortity  thy  power  mightily.  The  same 
idea  is  involved  in  the  prayer  of  the  Psalmist,  that  the 
power  which  the  wicked  had  so  greatly  abused,  might  be 
diminished,  till  it  became  consistent  with  the  peace  and 
safety  of  others,  or  entirely  taken  away:  "Make  their  loins 
continually  to  shake."  The  last  clause, "  His  force  is  in  the 
navel  of  his  belly,"  cannot  well  be  reconciled  with  the  state- 
ments of  ancient  wriiers,  that  the  belly  of  the  elephant  is 
the  most  tender  and  vulnerable  part  of  his  body.  This  is 
a  fact  so  generally  known,  so  fully  authenticated,  that  in 
war  the  hostile  spear  is  usually  directed  to  the  navel  of  that 
formidable  animal,  where  the  most  deadly  wound  may  be 
inflicted.  We  learn  from  Pliny,  that  when  the  rhinoceros 
attacks  the  elephant,  he  likewise  aims  his  furious  thrust  at 
the  same  pan  of  the  body.  The  same  powerfnl  instinct 
which  directs  the  horn  of'the  rhinoceros,  leads  the  gnat,  if 
the  Talmudical  writers  may  be  credited,  to  the  navel  of  the 
elephant,  which  it  enters,  and  torments  him  with  excrucia- 
ting pains.  But  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  inspired 
writer  would  place  the  strength  of  that  animal  in  the  softest 
and  most  defenceless  part  of  his  frame,  because  it  is  not 
consistent  with  the  truth  of  natural  history.  But  the  navel 
and  belly  of  the  hippopotamas  are  like  the  rest  of  his  body, 
protected  by  an  impenetrable  skin,  of  so  great  solidity  and 
thickness,  that  it  is  said  to  be  formed  into  spears,  and  other 
missile  weapons.  Diodorus  asserts  that  the  hippopotamus 
has  a  skm  nearly  the  strongest  of  all  animals ;  and  Ptolemy 
says  hyperbolically,  that  the  robbers  in  India  have  a  skin 
like  the  hippopotamus,  which  no  arrow  can  pierce.  Ze- 
ringhi  declares  that  a  musket  ball  can  make  no  impres- 
sion on  the  dried  skin  of  that  animal,  nor  can  any  weapon 
pierce  it,  till  it  has  been  long  steeped  in  water.— Paxton. 

Ver.  17.  He  moveth  his  tail  like  a  cedar;  the 
sinews  of  his  stones  are  wrapped  together. 

Many  writers,  among  whom  are  Caryl  and  Schultens,  in 
order  to  support  their  hypothesis,  that  behemoth  is  the  ele- 
phant, venture  to  contradict  the  uniform  sense  of  the  term 
zanab,  which,  in  our  translation,  is  properly  rendered  the 
tail,  and  make  it  signify  the  proboscis  or  trunk  of  that  ani- 
mal. Zanab,  in  Parkhurst,  signifies  the  extremity  or  hind- 
ermost  part  of  a  thing,  as  the  tail  of  an  animal,  or  the 
end  of  a  firebrand  almost  extinguished ;  and  hence,  as  a 
verb  in  a  primitive  sense,  to  cut  off  the  extremity  or  hinder- 
most  part.  Yet  in  opposition  to'  the  constant  meaning  of 
this  word  in  scripture,  these  writers  turn  it  into  the  snout 
or  trunk  of  the  elephant,  to  make  it  agree  with  their  fa- 
vourite hypothesis.  But  if  zanab  be  suffered  to  retain  its 
usual  meaning,  it  furnishes  a  strong  presumption,  that  the 
hippopotamus  is  intended  in  the  text  under  consideration, 
and  not  the  elephant,  whose  tail,  like  that  of  the  hog,  is 
small,  weak,  and  inconsiderable.  It  is,  according  to  Buffon, 
but  two  feet  and  a  half  or  three  feet  long,  and  pretty  slen- 1 
der ;  but  the  tail  of  the  hippopotamus,  he  observes  from  , 
Zeringhi,  does  not  resemble  that  of  a  hog,  but  rather  that  ' 
of  a  tortoise,  only  that  it  is  incomparably  thicker.  The 
tail  of  the  hippopotamus,  Scheuchzer  observes,  although 
short,  is  thick,  and  maybe  compared  to  the  cedar  for  its 
tapering,  conical  shape,  its  smoothness,  thickness,  and 
strength.  But  although  it  is  thick,  short,  and  very  firm, : 
yet  he  moves  and  twists  it  at  pleasure ;  which,  in  the  sacred 
text,  is  considered  as  a  proof  of  his  prodigious  strength. 

"  The  sinews  of  his  stones,"  continues  the  sacred  writer,  ^ 
"  are  wrapped  together."  Bochart  renders  the  words,  The  j 
sinews  of  his  thighs  are  interwoven  or  twisted  togetbc. 


Chap.  40. 


JOB, 


359 


From  this  short,  but  emphatical  clause,  we  may  certainly 
infer,  that  behemoth  is  one  of  th,e  most  powerful  animals 
on  the  face  of  our  globe.  Such  undoubtedly  is  the  hippo- 
potamus, if  we  may  believe  the  accounts  of  Dampier,  who 
declares  he  has  known  him  set  one  tooth  in  the  gunnel  of  a 
boat,  an4  another  at  the  distance  of  more  than  four  feet, 
and  there  bite  a  hole  through  the  plank,  and  sink  the  boat; 
and  when  he  had  done,  he  went  away  shaking  his  ears. 
On  another  occasion  he  saw  him  in  the  wash  of  the  shore, 
vihen  the  sea  tossed  in  a  boat,  with  fourteen  hogsheads  of 
water  in  her,  and  left  it  dry  upon  his  back;  and  another 
surge  came  and  fetched  the  boat  off,  without  the  beast  re- 
ceiving any  perceptible  injury.  Dampier  and  his  crew 
made  several  shots  at  him,  but  to  no  purpose,  for  the  bullets 
glanced  from  his  sides  as  from  a  wall  of  adamant. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  His  bones  are  as  strong  pieces  of  brass; 
his  bones  are  like  bars  of  iron.* 

The  idea,  of  his  prodigious  strength  is  increased  by  the 
account  given  of  his  bones,  which  are  compared  to  strong 
pieces  of  brass,  and  bars  of  iron.  Such  figures  are  com- 
monly employed  by  the  sacred  writers,  to  express  great 
hardness  and  strength,  of  which  a  striking  example  occurs 
in  the  prophecies  of  Micah :  "  Arise  and  thresh,  O  daughter 
of  Zion ;  for  I  will  make  thy  horn  iron,  and  I  will  make 
thy  hoofs  brass:  and  thou  shall  beat  in  pieces  many  people." 
So  hard  and  strong  are  the  bones  of  the  hippopotamus. 
The  cutting,  and  particularly  the  canine  teeth  of  the  lower 
jaw,  says  Buffon,  are  very  long,  and  so  hard  and  strong, 
that  they  strike  fire  with  steel ;  a  circumstance  which  prob- 
ably gave  rise  to  the  fable  of  the  ancients,  that  the  hippo- 
potamus vomited  fire.  The  substance  of  the  canine  teeth 
is  so  white,  so  fine,  and  so  hard,  that  it  is  preferable  to  ivory 
for  making  artificial  teeth.  "  His  bones  are  like  bars  of 
iron  ;"  and  such,  in  the  description  of  BuflJbn,  are  the  bones 
of  this  animal.  The  cutting  teeth,  says  that  celebrated 
naturalist,  especially  those  of  the  under  jaw,  are  very  long, 
cylindrical,  and  chamfered.  The  canine  teeth  are  also 
long,  crooked,  prismatic,  and  sharp  like  the  tusks  of  the 
wild  boar.  The  largest  of  the  cutting  and  canine  teeth  are 
twelve,  and.  sometimes  sixteen  inches  long,  and  each  of 
them  weighs  from  twelve  to  thirteen  pounds. — Paxton. 

Ver.  19.  He  is  the  chief  of  the  ways  of  God :  he 
that  made  him  can  make  his  sword  to  approach 
unto  him. 

It  is  added,  "  he  is  the  chief  of  the  ways  of  God :  he  that 
made  him  can  make  his  sword  to  approach  unto  him." 
The  phrase  in  the  first  clause,  is  evidently  hyperbolical, 
and  signifies  merely,  that  he  is  one  of  the  noblest  animals 
which  the  almighty  Creator  produced.    In  size,  the  hippo- 
potamus is  inferior  only  to  the  elephant.     The  male,  which 
Zeringhi  brought  from  the  Nile  to  Italy,  was  sixteen  feet 
nine  inches  long,  from  the  extremity  of  the  muzzle  to  the 
origin  of  the  tail ;  fifteen  feet  in  circumference,  and  six  feet 
and  a  half  high ;  and  the  legs  were  about  two  feet  ten  inches 
long.    The  head  was  three  feet  and  a  half  in  length,  and 
eight  feet  and  a  half  in  circumference.     The  opening  of 
the  mouth  was  two  feet  four  inches,  and  the  largest  teeth 
were  more  than  a  foot  long.     Thus  his  prodigious  strength ; 
his  impenetrable  skin;  the  vast  opening  of  his  mouth,  and 
his  portentous  voracity  ;  the  whiteness  and  hardness  of  his 
teeth;  his  manner  of  life,  spent  with  equal  ease  in  the  sea, 
on  the  land,  or  at  the  bottom  of  the  Nile, — equally  claim 
our  admiration,  and  entitle  him  to  be  considered  as  the 
chief  of  the  ways  of  God.    Nor  is  he  less  remarkable  for 
his  sagacity ;  of  which  two  instances  are  recorded  by  Pliny. 
After  he  has  gorged  himself  with  corn,  and  begins  to  return 
with  a  distended  belly  to  the  deep,  with  averted  steps  he 
traces  a  great  many  paths,  lest  his  pursuers,  following  the 
lines  of  one  plain  track,  should  overtake  and  destroy  him 
while  he  is  unable  to  resist.     The  second  instance  is  not 
less  remarkable;  When  he  has  become  fat  with  too  much 
Indulgence,  he  reduces  his  obesity  by  copious  bleedings. 
•   For  this  purpose,  he  searches  for  newly  cut  reeds,  or  sharp 
pointed  rocks,  and  rubs  himself  against  them,  till  he  make 
a  sufficient  aperture  for  the  blood  to  flow.     To  promote  the 
discharge,  it  is  said,  he  agitates  his  body ;  and  when  ho 


thinks  he  has  lost  a  sufficient  quEntity,  he  closes  the  wound 
by  rolling  himself  in  the  mud.  Hence,  Pliny  calls  him  the 
discoverer  of  the  art  of  blood-letting ;  and  the  master  of  the 
healing  art:  and  Ammianus,  the  most  sagacious  of  all  an- 
imals destitute  of  reason. 

"  He  that  made  him  can  make  his  sword  approach  unto 
him :"  or,  as  the  words  may  be  rendered.  He  who  made 
him,  has  applied  to  him  his  sharp,  crooked  sword ;  of  which 
the  meaning  seems  to  be.  He  has  furnished  his  mouth  with 
long  teeth,  somewhat  bent,  sharp,  and  protruded,  with  which, 
as  with  ^a  crooked  sword  or  sickle,  he  reaps  and  masticates 
the  grass  and  corn  on  which  he  feeds.  But  if  behemoth 
be  understood  of  the  elephant,  lk)w  can  it  be  said  with  any 
correctness,  that  he  is  provided  with  a  crooked  sword  for 
reaping  his  food.  The  shortness  of  his  neck  prevents  him 
from  reaching  the  ground  with  his  mouth,  and  using  his 
teeth  for  collecting  herbage.  This  operation  is  performed 
by  his  trunk,  which  receives  the  food,  and  conveys  it  into 
his  mouth.  His  teeth  are  perfectly  inefficient,  except  for 
mastication;  and  as  for  his  trunk,  it  has  no  resemblance  to 
any  sharp  instrument ;  on  this  account  the  ancients  never 
gave  it  the  name  of  a  sword  or  sickle,  but  called  it  a  hand ; 
a  name  which  it  may  receive  with  great  propriety.  A  very 
learned  interpreter,  perceiving  the  inconvenience  of  this 
exposition,  if  behemoth  mean  the  elephant,  prefers  our 
translation  :  "  He  that  made  him  can  make  his  sword  ap- 
proach unto  him:"  that  is.  He  alone  that  made  him  can 
take  away  his  life.  But  whether  we  apply  the  words  to  the 
elephant,  or  the  hippopotamus,  the  sense  is  equally  inadmis- 
sible, for  both  these  animals  are  frequently  destroyed  with- 
out the  immediate  interference  of  God.  Besides,  to  apply 
the  sword  to  any  one,  and  to  take  away  his  life  with  it,  are 
not  exactly  the  same ;  nor  does  this  view  agree  with  the 
whole  series  of  the  context,  while  the  interpretation  given 
by  Bochart  perfectly  accords  with  it,  and  connects  the  verse 
with  the  rest  of  the  narrative  :  He  who  made  him,  has  fur- 
nished him  with  a  sickle,  or  crooked  sword,  to  reap  and  col- 
lect his  food.— Paxton. 

Ver.  20.  Surely  the  mountains  bring  him  forth 
food,  where  all  the  beasts  of  the  field  play. 

This  is  considered  as  a  very  strong  argument  in  favour 
of  the  elephant,  an  animal  which,  it  is  well  known,  browses 
upon  the  mountains ;  while,  fully  assured  of  his  mild  and 
forbearing  temper,  all  the  beasts  of  the  field  sport  around 
him  in  peace  and  security.  But  the  text  applies  with  equal, 
and  even  with  more  propriety,  to  the  hippopotamus ;  for  it 
seems  to  indicate  something  remarkable  in  the  circumstance, 
that  such  an  animal  should  seek  his  food  in  peace,  on  the 
hills  and  mountains  which  skirt  his  habitation.  But  surely 
it  is  not  strange,  that  the  elephant,  a  creature  which  always 
lives  on  the  land,  and  whose  disposition  leads  him  to  eat 
grass  like  an  ox,  should  be  found  on  such  a  pasture.  The 
hippopotamus,  on  the  contrary,  lives  for  the  most  part  in  the 
water,  and  walks  on  the  bottom,  as  in  the  open  air;  yet  he 
seeks  his  food  more  frequently  on  the  land,  where  he  de- 
vours sugarcanes,  rushes,  millet,  rice,  roots,  and  vegetables 
of  every  kind,  in  immense  quantities,  and  ravages,  far  and 
wide,  the  cultivated  fields.  Not  content  with  laying  waste 
the  plains,  he  proceeds  in  the  night  to  the  hills  and  moun- 
tains, and  renews  his  depredations.  Tatius  asserts  that  he 
is  the  most  voracious  of  all  animals,  so  that  he  devours  the 
standing  corn  of  a  whole  field  for  nourishment.  Natural 
historians  give  the  same  account  of  the  morse,  an  animal 
which  in  many  respects  resembles  the  hippopotamus,  and 
inhabits  the  large  rivers  of  Russia,  which  roll  their  waters 
into  the  Frozen  Ocean.  He  is  about  the  size  of  an  ox,  with 
very  short  legs;  his  breast  is  higher  and  broader  than  the 
other  parts  of  the  body  ;  he  has  two  large  and  long  tusks, 
resenibling  ivory  in  whiteness,  and  of  equal  value.  When 
he  is  inclined  to  sleep,  he  forsakes  the  oi;ean,  and,  in  com- 
panies, retires  to  the  mountains.  Aroun*..  the  hippopotamus, 
the  beasts  of  the  field  m.ay  sport  in  safety ;  for  although  he 
feeds  on  fishes,  crocodiles,  and  even  cadaverous  flesh,  he  is 
not  known  to  prey  on  other  animals.  It  is  not  even  diffi- 
cult to  drive  him  away  from  the  cultivated  fields,  for  he  is 
more  timid  on  land  than  in  the  water.  His  only  resource 
in  danger,  is  to  plunge  into  the  deep,  and  travel  under  it  a 
great  way,  before  he  ventures  again  to  appear.  The  In- 
dians, according  to  Dampier,  are  accustomed  to  throw  him 
a  part  of  their  fish  when  he  comes  near  their  canoes,  an'i^ 


360 


JOB. 


Chap.  41 


then  he  passes  on  without  doing  them  any  harm.  The 
same  voyager  relates  an  anecdote,  which  remarkably  dis- 
plays the  mildness  of  his  disposition ;  as  their  boat  lay 
near  the  shore,  he  went  under  her,  and  with  his  back  lifted 
her  out  of  the  water,  and  overset  her,  with  six  men  on 
board,  but  did  them  no  personal  injury.  These  facts  prove, 
at  once,  his  incredible  strength,  and  his  habitual  gentle- 
ness."— Paxton. 

Ver.  21.  He  lieth  under  the  shady  trees,  in  the 
covert  of  the  reeds  and  fens.  22.  The  shady 
trees  cover  him  with  their  shadow ;  the  willows 
of  the  brook  compass  him  about. 

When  satiated  with  food,  he  reposes  "  under  the  shady 
trees  in  the  covert  of  the  reed  and  fens."  The  elephant,  it 
is  admitted,  delights  in  the  shade,  but  very  seldom  lies  down 
to  sleep,  as  the  sacred  writer  asserts  of  behemoth ;  nor  is 
he  known  to  frequent  the  reeds  which  cover  the  marsh,  and 
skirt  the  border  of  the  lake.  But  the  reeds  are  the  chosen 
haunt  of  the  hippopotamus ;  they  supply  him  with  a  grateful 
food,  and  screen  him  during  his  repose  from  the  burning 
heat  of  the  sun.  In  this  part  of  his  history,  ancient  and 
modern  authors  harmoniously  accord.  Marcellinus  ob- 
serves, that  he  reposes  among  the  tall  reeds,  where  they 
grow  thickest  in  the  mire.  They  are  his  covert,  his  foodl, 
and  his  medicine.  Hence  the  prayer  of  David,  Rebuke  the 
company  of  the  spearmen,  or,  as  it  may  be  translated,  the 
wild  beast  of  the  reed,  which  has  been  supposed  to  refer  to 
the  hippopotamus,  as  the  symbol  of  the  Egyptian  people  and 
government;  and  this  is  the  naore  probable,  as  he  mentions 
the  bulls  and  the  calves,  which  that  degenerate  race  hon- 
oured with  idolatrous  reverence.  The  circumstance  of 
his  making  his  bed  among  the  thick  reeds' of  the  marsh, 
naturally  suggests  his  relation  to  the  Nile,  whose  banks  are 
richly  clothed  with  that  plant ;  this  is  confirmed  by  many 
Egyptian  representations,  in  which  he  is  joined  with  the 
crocodile.  Kimchi,  and  other  v/riters,  who  contend  that 
the  elephant  is  meant  in  this  description,  unable  to  recon- 
cile the  clause  under  consideration  to  their  theory,  are 
compelled  to  throw  it  into  the  form  of  an  interrogation  : 
Does  he  lie  under  the  holy  trees  in  the  covert  of  the  reeds 
and  fens  1  that  is,  he  by  no  means  lies  in  such  places.  But 
they  did  not  perceive  that  this  solution  of  the  difficulty  is 
destructive  to  their  own  theory,  for  the  elephant  does  lie 
under  the  shady  trees,  or  takes  his  repose  standing  under 
their  covert.  Besides,  to  throw  the  clause  into  the  form 
of  an  interrogation,  is  to  break  the  texture  of  the  descrip- 
tion, and  to  mar  its  beauty ;  and  if  such  liberties  with  the 
sacred  text  were  admitted,  nothing  is  so  plain  or  express 
in  the  word  of  God,  which  may  not  be  eluded.  The  only 
other  remark  necessary  to  be  made  is,  that  the  words  of  the 
sacred  writer  are  confirmed  by  the  testimony  of  Buffbn, 
who  says  the  hippopotamus,  besides  his  usual  cry,  which 
has  a  great  resemblance  to  that  of  the  elephant,  or  to  the 
stammering  and  indistinct  sounds  uttered  by  deaf  persons 
when  asleep,  makes  a  kind  of  snorting  noise,  which  be- 
trays him  at  a  distance.  To  prevent  the  danger  arising 
from  this  circumstance,  he  generally  lies  among  the  reeds 
that  grow  upon  marshy  grounds,  and  which  it  is  difficult 
to  approach  :  there  "  the  shady  trees  cover  him  with  their 
shadow ;  the  willows  of  the  brook  compass  him  about." — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  23.  Behold,  he  drinketh  up  a  river,  and 
hasteth  not :  he  trusteth  that  he  can  draw  up 
Jordan  into  his  mouth. 

B<  nemoth,  which  before  was  feeding  upon  the  mount- 
ains, or  sleeping  under  the  shade  of  the  reeds  and  the 
willows,  is  in  the  next  verse  introduced  quenching  his 
thirst  at  the  river:  "Behold,  he  drinketh  up  a  river,  and 
hasteth  not:  he  trusteth  he  can  draw  up  Jordan  into  his 
mouth."  Bochart  gives  a  different  translation  :  "  Behold, 
let  a  river  come  upon  him,  he  will  not  fear ;  he  is  safe 
though  Jordan  break  forth  upon  his  mouth."  This  ver- 
sion, it  must  be  allowed,  agrees  perfectly  with  what  natural 
historians  say  of  the  hippopotamus,  that  he  walks  deliber- 
ately into  the  deepest  floodsj  and  pursues  his  journey  with 
the  same  fearless  composure  as  in  the  open  air,  along  the 
bottom  of  the  torrent,  or  the  channel  of  the  sea.  He  re- 
mains a  long  lime  under  water.    Dampier  has  seen  him 


descend  to  the  bottom  of  three  fathoms  water,  and  remain 
there  more  than  half  an  Jiour  before  he  returned  to  the 
surface. — Paxton.  * 

Ver.  24.  He  taketh  it  with  his  eyes :  his  nose 
pierceth  through  snares. 

The  inspired  writer  thus  concludes  his  description:  "  he 
taketh  it  with  his  eyes :  his  nose  pierceth  through  snares." 
Bochart  renders  the  words,  Who  shall  take  him  in  his 
sight,  and  perforate  his  nose  with  hooks'?  that  is.  Who 
shall  come  before  him,  and  attack  him  with  open  violence  1 
It  is  found  extremely  difficult  to  subdue  him  in  fair  c(?m- 
bat ;  and  therefore  the  Egyptians  have  recourse  to  strata- 
gem. They  watch  near  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  till  he 
leave  the  river  to  feed  in  the  adjacent  fields :  they  then 
make  a  large  ditch  in  the  way  by  which  he  passed,  and 
cover  it  with  thin  planks,  earth,  and  herbage.  Passing 
without  suspicion  on  his  return  to  the  flood,  over  the  de- 
ceitful covering,  he  falls  into  the  ditch,  and  is  immediately 
despatched  by  the  hunters,  who  rush  from  their  ambush, 
and  pour  their  shot  into  his  head.  From  this  review,  the 
fair  and  necessary  conclusion  seems  to  be,  that  behemoth 
is  not  the  elephant,  but  the  hippopotamus  of  the  Nile. — 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XLI. 

Ver.  1.  Canst  thou  draw  out  leviathan  with  a 
hook  ?  or  his  tongue  with  a  cord  which  thou 
lettest  down  ? 

From  this  passage  Hasselquist  observes,  that  the  levia- 
than "  means  a  crocodile,  by  that  which  happens  daily,  and 
without  doubt  happened  in  Job's  time,  in  the  river  Nile  ;  to 
wit,  that  this  voracious  animal,  far  from  being  drawn  up  by 
a  hook,  bites  off"  and  destroys  all  fishing-tackle  of  this  kind, 
which  is  thrown  out  in  the  river.  I  found,  in  one  that  I 
opened,  two  hooks,  which  it  had  swallowed,  one  sticking  in 
the  stomach,  and  the  other  in  a  part  of  the  thick  membrai  r 
which  covers  the  palate." — Burder. 

The  term  leviathan  is  properly  the  same  as  tannin,  which 
in  our  scripture  is  translated  dragon.  The  royal  Psalmist 
uses  them  as  convertible  terms,  in  the  seven ty-fo.urth  Psalm, 
yhere  he  celebrates  the  mighty  power  of  God  in  these  lofty 
strains:  "  Thou  brakest  the  heads  of  the  dragons  {tannin') 
in  the  waters ;  thou  brakest  the  heads  of  leviathan  in 
pieces,  and  gavest  him  to  be  meat  to  the  people  inhabiting 
the  wilderness."  He  has  been  followed  by  the  prophet  in 
a  passage  where  he  foretels  the  deliverance  of  the  church, 
from  her  cruel  and  implacable  enemies:  "  In  that  day,  the 
Lord,  with  his  sore,  and  great,  and  strong  sword, 'shall 
punish  leviathan,  the  piercing  serpent,  even  leviathan,  that 
crooked  serpent;  and  he  shall  slay  the  dragon  that  is  in 
the  sea."  Kimchi  distinguishes  leviathan  and  tannin,  by 
their  magnitude  alone.  Leviathan,  says  he,  is  that  enor- 
mous serpent  or  dragon.  Hence,  leviathan  is  a  sinuons 
animal,  which  coils  itself  up  like  a  dragon ;  and  is  de- 
scribed by  the  prophet  as  the  oblique,  tortuous,  or  crooked 
serpent.  But  as  the  word  tannin  is  often  used  to  denote 
the  whale,  and  other  marine  animals;  so,  the  term  levia- 
than is,  in  scripture,  sometimes  employed  to  denote  the 
same  creatures.  An  example  of  this  use  of  the  term  oc- 
curs in  David's  description  of  the  sea :  "  There  go  the 
ships,  there  is  that  leviathan  whom  thou  hast  made  to  play 
therein."  It  is  not  however  certain,  that  the  term  is  ever 
used  in  this  general  sense ;  for  it  will  be  shown,  that  the 
creature  to  which  it  properly  belongs,  often  infests  the  sea 
near  the  mouth  of  the  great  rivers  of  Africa  and  the  East. 
Every  part  of  the  sublime  description  which  Jehovah  has 
given  of  leviathan  in  the  book  of  Job,  exactly  corresponds 
with  the  natural  history  of  the  crocodile,  which  lives 
equally  in  the  sea  and  in  the  river.  That  terrible  animal 
bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  the  dragon  or  serpent.  He 
has  the  shape  of  our  asp ;  his  legs  are  so  short,  that,  like 
the  serpent,  he  seems  to  go  upon  his  belly.  His  feet  are 
armed  with  claws,  his  back-bone  is  firmly  jointed,  and  his 
tail  a  most  formidable  weapon;  his  whole  formation  is 
calculated  for  strength.  Let  us  now  hear  Jehovah  himself 
describe  the  leviathan,  and  we  shall  find  that  it  exactly 
corresponds  with  the  character  and  habits  of  the  crocodile: 
"Canst  thou  draw  out  leviathan  with  a  hook;  or  his 
tongue  with  a  cord  Which  thou  lettest  down  V    He  is  of 


Chap.  41. 


too  great  magnitude  to  be  drawn  out  of  the  water  like  a 
fish.  The  second  clause  manifestly  refers  to  the  impossi- 
bility of  drawing  out  his  tongue,  on  account  of  its  ad- 
hering throughout  to  his  under  jaw.  It  is  besides  short, 
thin,  and  broad,  and  by  consequence,  cannot  be  drawn  out 
to  his  lips,  like  the  tongue  of  any  other  animal.— Paxton. 

Ver.  2.  Canst  thou  put  a  hook  into  his  nose  ?  or 
bore  his  jaw  through  with  a  thorn  ? 

He  is  too  powerful  and  fierce  to  be  treated  like  a  small 
fish  :  the  elephant  may  submit  to  such  indignities,  but  the 
crocodile  scorns  the  dominion  of  man. — Paxton. 

The  Hebrew  word  which  is  translated  thorn,  signifies 
rather  an  iron  ring,  fixed  in  the  jaw.  Bruce,  speaking  of 
the  manner  of  fishing  in  the  Nile,  says,  when  a  fisherman 
has  caught  a  fish,  he  draws  it  on  shore,  and  puts  a  strong 
iron  ring  into  its  jaw.  "  To  this  ring  is  fastened  a  rope,  by 
which  the  fish  is  attached  to  the  shore,  which  he  then  throws 
again  into  the  water.  Those- who  want  fish  go  to  the  fish- 
erman, as  to  a  fish-market,  and  purchase  them  alive.  We 
likewise  bought  a  couple,  and  the  fisherman  showed  us  ten 
or  twelve,  fastened  in  a  similar  manner." — Rosenmoller. 

Ver.  3.  Will  he  make  many  supplications  unto 
thee  ?  will  he  speak  soft  words  unto  thee  ? 

An  elegant  prosopopoeia,  which  expresses,  with  great 
force  and  beauty,  the  difiiculty  with  which  he  is  overcome. 
— Paxton, 

Ver.  4.  Will  he  make  a  covenant  with  thee  ?  wilt 
thou  take  him  for  a  servant  for  ever  1 

As  the  vanquished  are  wont  to  redeem  their  life  with 
the  loss  of  their  liberty.  This  question  seems  to  intimate, 
that  attempts  have  been  made  to  tame  the  crocodile,  but 
they  have  uniformly  proved  abortive.  If  this  allusion  is 
involved  in  the  words,  it  is  a  certain  proof  that  the  whale 
is  not  intended;  for,  while  attempts  have  actually  been 
made  to  tame  the  crocodile,  none  have  ever  been  made  to 
domesticate  the  whale. — Paxton. 

Ver.  5.  Wilt  thou  play  with  him  as  with  a  bird? 
wilt  thou  bind  him  for  thy  maidens  1 

"  Wilt  thou  play  with  him  as  with  a  bird  1  or  wilt  thou 
.3ind  him  for  thy  maidens?'  It  cannot  be:  he  is  a  trucu- 
lent animal,  and  particularly  hostile  to  children  of  both 
sexes,  that,  by  approaching  the  banks  of  the  Nile  without 
sufficient  circumspection,  fall  a  prey  to  this  vigilant  de- 
vourer.  He  will  even  rush  upon  a  full  grown  person,  and 
drag  him  in  a  moment  to  the  bottom  of  the  stream.  Maxi- 
mus  Tyrius  mentions  an  Egyptian  woman,  who  brought 
up  a  young  crocodile,  of  the  same  age  with  her  son,  and  per- 
mitted them  to  live  together  in  the  most  familiar  manner. 
The  crocodile  was  gentle  and  harmless  during  his  early 
youth,  but  his  natural  disposition  gradually  unfolded  as  he 
advanced  to  maturity,  till  at  last  he  seized  upon  his  unsus- 
pecting associate,  and  devoured  him.  Ancient  authors 
record  many  instances  of  crocodiles  entering  the  houses  of 
the  inhabitants  near  the  Nile,  and  destroying  their  chil- 
dren. These  are  sufficient  to  justify  the  interrogation  of 
the  Almighty,  and  to  show  that  the  terrible  animal  in 
question  never  can  be  completely  tamed,  nor  safely  trusted. 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  6.  Shall  thy  companions  make  a  banquet  of 
him?  shall  they  part  him  among  the  mer- 
chants ? 

If  leviathan  be  the  whale,  both  the  one  and  the  other  are 
done  every  year ;  in  some  parts  of  the  world,  every  day. 
The  inhabitants  of  some  regions  feast  on  the  blubber  of  the 
whale,  and  lay  up  the  remainder  for  winter  provisions. 
Cetaceous  fishes  are  sought  by  "  the  merchants"  at  great 
expense,  and  constitute  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  their 
wealth.  But  the  fishermen  neither  rejoice  when  the  croco- 
dile is  taken,  except  for  the  death  of  a  devouring  monster, 
nor  feast  upon  his  flesh ;  they  do  not  cut  up  his  carcass, 
nor  expose  him  to  sale,  with  the  view  of  increasing  their 
riches.— Paxton. 
46 


JOB.  861 

Ver.  7.  Canst  thou  fill  his  skin  with  barbed  irons? 
or  his  head  with  fish-spears  ? 

If  leviathan,  in  this  sublime  expostulation,  signified  the 
whale,  the  answer  might  be  given  in  the  affirmative ;  for 
that  prodigious  creature  has  been  often  compelled  to  yield 
to  the  harpoon ;  his  skin  has  been  filled  with  barbed  irons, 
and  his  head  with  fish  spears:  nor  is  the  capture  of  the 
whale  attended  with  much  difficulty.  But  the  crocodile  is 
said  to  defy  the  arm  of  the  harpooner,  and  the  point  of  his 
spear ;  and  in  attacking  him,  the  assailant  has  to  encounter 
both  great  difficulty  and  imminent  danger. — Paxton. 

Ver.  8.  Lay  thy  hand  upon  him,  remember  the 
battle,  do  no  more. 

So  great  a  horror  shall  seize  thee,  that  thou  shalt  think 
rather  of  flight  than  combat,  and  the  very  touch  of  his  skin 
shall  convince  thee,  that  it  will  not  yield  to  thy  stroke. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  9.  Behold,  the  hope  of  him  is  in  vain  :  shal\ 
not  one  be  cast  down  even  at  the  sight  of  him? 

If  leviathan  cannot  be  tabsn  by  these  means,  the  hope  of 
subduing  him  is  utterly  vain  ;  none  may  expect  to  prevail 
against  him  ;  his  very  presence  fills  thestoutest  heart  with 
terror.  It  cannot  however  be  denied,  that  the  crocodile  is 
often  taken  and  destroyed ;  but  the  remark  equally  applies 
to  the  whale ;  and  consequently,  if  the  words  of  Jehovah 
describe  a  creature  which  is  too  powerful  and  loo  fierce  to 
be  vanquished,  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  can  be  under- 
stood. But  it  were  absurd  to  suppose,  that  any  creature  on 
the  earth,  or  in  the  sea,  is  either  invulnerable  or  uncon- 
querable. The  sacred  writer  says  expressly,  that  every 
creature  may  be  tamed  by  the  industry  of  man.  Th^lan- 
guage  of  Jehovah,  therefore,  only  means,  that  the  man  who 
attacks  the  leviathan,  must  not  hope  for  an  easy  conquest; 
and  the  experience  of  all  ages  attests  the  truth  of  the  asser- 
tion. In  size,  he  is  very  inferior  to  the  whale ;  yet  he 
sometimes  extends  to  the  length  of  thirty  feet ;  and  accord- 
ing to  some  ancient  writers  of  great  name,  to  forty  or  fifty. 
His  strength  is  so  great,  that  with  one  stroke  of  his  tail  he 
is  said  to  cast  the  strongest  animals  to  the  ground ;  so  that, 
to  hunt  the  crocodile  has  always  been  reckoned  one  of  the 
boldest  and  most  perilous  undertakings.  In  the  time  of 
Diodorus,  the  Nile  and  its  adjacent  lakes  swarmed  with 
crocodiles :  yet  very  few  were  taken,  and  those  not  with 
hooks,  but  with  iron  nets.  How  difficult  an  undertaking 
this  was,  may  be  inferred  from  the  coin  which  Augustus, 
the  Roman  emperor,  caused  to  be  struck,  when  he  had 
completed  the  reduction  of  Egypt,  on  which  was  exhibited 
the  figure  of  a  crocodile,  bound  with  a  chain  to  a  palm-tree, 
with  this  remarkable  inscription,  Nemo  antea  relegavit. 
These  words  certainly  insinuate  that  in  the  experience  of 
the  ancients,  to  chain  the  crocodile  was  an  achievement  of 
the  utmost  difficulty.  If  the  crocodiles  which  inhabit  the 
Nile,  are  not,  as  modern  travellers  maintain,  so  fierce  and 
dangerous  as  the  ancients  represent  them,  it  must  be  owing 
to  a  number  of  adventitious  circumstances;  for  in  other 
parts  of  the  world  they  are  as  ferocious  as  ever.  It  ought 
to  be  remembered,  that  Jehovah  describes  the  general 
character  of  the  species,  which  are  admitted  by  writers 
of  undoubted  credit,  to  be  the  most  fierce  and  savage  of  all 
animals.  Plutarch  asserts  in  express  terms,  that  no  crea- 
ture is  so  ferocious ;  and  in  another  part  of  his  works,  that 
it  is  an  animal  extremely  averse  to  society,  and  the  most 
atrocious  of  all  the  monsters  which  the  rivers,  the  lakes,  or 
the  seas,  produce. — Paxton. 

Ver.  10.  None  is  so  fierce  that  dare  stir  him  up; 
who  then  is  able  to  stand  before  me  ? 

When  the  crocodile  is  satiated  with  prey,  he  leaves  the 
deeps  to  repose  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  or  on  the  shore 
of  the  sea.  At  such  a  time,  none  are  so  bold  as  to  disturb 
his  slumbers,  or  provoke  his  vengeance ;  or  if  any  one, 
disregarding  the  dictates  of  prudence,  or  eager  to  display 
his  infrcpidity,  ventures  in  such  circumstances  to  attack 
him,  it  is  at  the  imminent  hazard  of  his  life,  and  is  for  the 
most  part  attended  with  fatal  consequences  Diodorus 
assigns  this  as  the  reason  that  he  was  worshipped  by  the 


362 


JOB. 


Chap.  41. 


Egyptians,  that  their  enemies,  for  fear  of  him,  durst  not 
cross  the  river  to  attack  them. — Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  Who  hath  prevented  me,  that  I  should 
repay  him  ?  whatsoever  is  under  the  whole 
heaven  is  mine.  12.  I  will  not  conceal  his 
parts,  nor  his  power,  nor  his  comely  proportion. 
13.  Who  can  discover  the  face  of  his  garment? 
or  who  can  come  to  him  with  his  double  bridle  ? 

These  clauses,  although  teeming  with  important  instruc- 
ion,  and,  considering  the  authority  with  which  they  are 
clothed,  entitled  to  deep  attention,  contribute  nothing  to  the 
object  of  this  review ;  we  therefore  proceed  to  the  twelfth 
verse.  "  I  will  not  conceal  his  parts,  nor  his  power,  nor  his 
comely  proportion."  These  are  admirably  displayed  in  the 
following  particulars:  "  Who  can  discover  the  face  of  his 
garment,  or  come  to  him  with  a  double  bridle  1"  The 
crocodile  never  casts  his  skin,  like  the  greater  part  of  ser- 
pents, which  he  so  nearly  resembles,  but  retains  it  to  the 
end  of  his  life.  The  horse  is  a  most  powerful  and  spirited 
^imal,  yet  he  suffers  a  bit  to  be  put  into  his  mouth,  and 
submits  to  the  control  of  man;  but  the  crocodile  spurns  his 
dominion,  and  parts  with  his  freedom  only  with  his  life. 
Some  interpreters  propose  a  different  version,  which  is 
equally  characteristic  of  that  animal :  "  Who  shall  venture 
within  the  reach  of  his  jaws,  which,  when  extended,  have 
the  appearance  of  a  double  bridle  V — Paxton. 

Ver.  14.  Who  can  open  the  doors  of  his  face? 
his  teeth  are  terrible  round  about. 

The  doors  of  his  face  are  his  immense  jaws,  which  he 
opens  with  a  great  and  horrible  hiatus.  This  feature  of  ihe 
crocodile  has  been  mentioned  by  all  naturalists.  On  the 
Ian*  his  motions  are  slow,  but  in  the  river  he  springs 
eagerly  on  his  prey,  and  either  knocks  it  down  with  his  tail, 
or  opens  a  wide  mouth  for  its  destruction,  armed  with  nu- 
merous sharp  teeth  of  various  lengths,  with  which,  like  the 
shark,  he  sometimes  severs  the  human  body  at  a  single 
bite.  Peter  Martyr  saw  one,  whose  mouth  was  seven  feet 
in  width.  Tatius  affirms,  that  in  seizing  the  prey,  he 
becomes  all  mouth:  and  Albert,  that  the  opening  of  his 
mouth  extends  as  far  back  as  his  ears.  Leo  Africanus  and 
Scaliger  affirm,  that  he  can  receive  within  his  moifth  a 
young  heifer.  The  vast  capacity  of  his  jaws  is  attested 
also  by  Martial,  in  the  following  lines  : 

"Cum  comparata  rictibus  tuis  ora 
Nileacus  habeas  crocodilus  angusta." 

"  His  teeth  are  terrible  round  about :"  or,  in  every  respect, 
calculated  to  inspire  the  beholder  with  terror.  They  are 
sixty  in  number,  and  larger  than  the  proportion  of  his  body 
seems  to  require.  Some  of  them  project  from  his  mouth 
like  the  tusks  of  a  boar ;  others  are  serrated  and  connected 
like  the  teeth  of  a  comb  *  hence,  the  bite  is  very  retentive, 
and  not  less  difficult  to  cure  than  the  wound  inflicted  by  the 
teeth  of  a  mad  dog.  All  the  ancients  agree,  that  his  bite  is 
most  tenacious  and  horrible. — Paxton. 

Ver.  15.  Hi5  scales  are  his  pride,  shut  up  together 
as  with  a  close  seal.  16.  One  is  so  near  to 
another,  that  no  air  can  come  between  them. 
17.  They  are  joined  one  to  another,  they  stick 
together,  that  they  cannot  be  sundered. 

In  these  remarkable  words  is  described  the  closeness  of 
his  scales,  which,  cohering  to  one  another  like  the  plates  of 
a  shield,  cover  his  whole  back.  Those  writers  who  make 
leviathan  signify  the  whale,  find  themselves  involved  by 
this  part  of  the  description  in  an  inextricable  difficulty,  for 
the  whale  has  not  a  scale  upon  its  body.  This  single  cir- 
cumstance, indeed,  ought  to  determine  the  question :  the 
whale  it  cannot  be,  for  that  immense  animal  has  a  smooth 
skin ;  and  the  history  of  nature  furnishes  no  other  to  which 
the  description  of  Jehovah  will  apply,  but  the  crocodile, 
whose  back  is  covered  with  impenetrable  sffales.  One 
writer  endeavours  to  get  quit  of  the  difficulty,  by  supposing 
that  the  text  includes  a  comparison,  and  paraphrases  it  in 
this  manner  :  leviathan  is  as  safe  from  the  assault  of  man, 
as  if  his  body  were  defended  with  the  strongest  and  broad- 


est scales.  But  this  mode  of  interpretation  cannot  be  too 
severely  reprobated ;  because  it  makes  the  sacred  text  say 
any  thing  which  may  suit  the  taste  or  the  purpose  of  a 
writer.  The  words  of  Jehovah  are  express ,  the  back  of 
leviathan  is  covered  with  numerous,  strong,  and  closely 
connected  scales,  under  the  protection  of  which,  he  fears 
no  assailant,  he  shrinks  from  no  danger.  Nor  is  it  con- 
sistent with  truth,  that  a  whale,  which  has  no  scales,  is  as 
strongly  defended  against  the  point  of  a  spear,  as  if  he  were 
covered  with  this  natural  shield ;  for  if  his  prodigious  frame 
were  defended  by  the  broadest,  the  strongest,  and  the  closest 
scales,  the  capture,  if  at  all  practicable,  would  be  as  ardu- 
ous and  difficult,  as  it  is  now  easy.  Abandoning  this  feeble 
and  inadmissible  argument,  Caryl  and  others  contend,  that 
some  cetaceous  fishes  are  covered  with  scales,  quoting  in 
support  of  their  assertion,  a  passage  from  Arrian,  that  he 
had  heard  Nearchus  say,  that  the  latter  had  heard  certain 
mariners  say,  that  they  had  seen  cast  upon  the  seashore,  a 
monstrous  fish,  of  fifty  cubits  long,  which  had  scales  all 
over,  of  a  cubit  thick.  On  this  ridiculous  story,  it  is  need- 
less to  make  any  remark ;  to  state  is  to  refute  it :  or,  if 
refutation  be  deemed  necessary,  it  is  sufficient  to  say,  that 
although  hundreds  of  cetaceous  fishes  are  caught  every 
year,  both  in  the  North  and  in  the  South  Sea,  not  so  much 
as  one  has  been  found  sheathed  in  scales,  since  the  days  of 
Nearchus. — Paxton. 

"  The  back  of  the  crocodile,"  says  Thevenot,  "  is  covered 
with  scales,  resembling  a  door  studded  with  large  nails,  and 
so  hard  that  it  cannot  be  pierced  with  a  halberd."  Bertram 
says,  that  the  w^hole  back  of  the  crocodile  is  covered  with 
horny  flakes,  or  scales,  which  no  musket-ball  can  pierce. — 

BURDER. 

Ver.  18.  By  his  neesings  a  light  doth  shine,  and 
his  eyes  are  like  the  eyelids  of  the  morning. 

It  seems  to  be  generally  admitted,  that  the  crocodile  turns 
his  face  to  the  sun  when  he  goes  to  sleep  on  the.  banks  of 
the  river;  and  in  this  position  becomes  so  heated,  that  the 
breath,  driven  forcibly  through  his  nostrils,  issues  with  so 
much  impetuosity,  that  it  resembles  a  stream  of  light.  A 
similar  expressioii  is  used  concerning  the  war-horse,  in  the 
thirty-ninth  chapter,  which  may  give  us  a  clearer  idea  of 
the  brightness  which  issues  from  tlie  nostrils  of  this  animal: 
"  The  glory  of  his  nostrils  is  terrible."  Provoked  by  the 
sound  of  the  trumpet,  and  the  sight  of  armed  men.  a  white 
fume  streams  from  his  expanded  nostrils;  which  the  Spirit 
of  inspiration  calls  his  glory,  and  common  authors  com- 
pare to  fire.  Thus,  Silius  Italicus,  Frenoque  leneri  imfa- 
tiens  crebras  expirat  naribus  ignes ;  and  Claudian,  Ignescunt 
patulcE  nares.  In  the  same  manner  are  we  to  understand 
the  words  of  Jehovah  concerning  the  crocodile.  The  heat 
of  that  scaly  monster,  basking  in  the  scorching  beams  of  a 
vertical  sun,  together  with  the  force  with  which  the  breath 
is  emitted  from  the  nostrils,  produces  the  same  luminous 
appearance  round  his  nose,  as  plays  around  that  of  the 
high-mettled  charger  on  the  day  of  battle.  The  next  clause 
possesses  very  great  poetical  beauty:  "His  eyes  are  like 
the  eyelids  of  the  morning  :"  like  the  brightening  dawn  of 
day.  The  learned  Bochart  mentions  a  curious  coincidence 
between  this  striking  figure,  and  the  sentiments  of  the 
Egyptians.  Among  that  people,  the  eyes  of  the  crocodile 
is  the  hieroglyphic  for  the  dawn;  because  they  first  arrest 
the  attention,  as  the  terrible  animal  approaches  the  surface 
of  the  deep ;  or  because  they  are  dim,  and  command  a 
very  limited  field  of  vision  under  the  water,  but  recover 
their  brilliancy  and  acuteness  as  soon  as  he  returns  to  the 
open  air.  Such  is  the  appearance  of  the  solar  orb  at  his 
rising;  he  seems  to  emerge  from  the  waves  of  the  sea  with 
a  dim  and  faded  lustre,  but  which  increases  every  moment 
as  he  advances  towards  the  meridian.  But  how^  it  can  be 
asserted  of  the  whale,  that  his  eyes  are  like  the  eyelids  of 
the  morning,  it  is  not  easy  to  conjecture.  His  eyes,  which 
are  not  much  larger  than"those  of  an  :x,  are  buried  beneath 
a  ponderous  eyelid,  and  imbedded  Jn  fat.  Hence,  blinder 
than  a  mole,  he  wanders  almost  at  random  in  the  mighty 
waters,  equally  unable  to  avoid  being  left  by  the  retreating 
surge  upon  the  strand,  or  dashed  against  the  pointed  rocks. 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  19.  Out  of  his  mouth  go  burning  lamps, 
and  sparks  of  fire  leap  out.     20.  Out  of  his 


Chap.  41. 


JOB, 


363 


nostrils  goeth  smoke,  as  out  of  a  seething-pot 
or  caldron.  21.  His  breath  kindleth  coals,  and 
a  flame  goeth  out  of  his  mouth. 

Tatius  gives  a  similar  account  of  the  hippopotamus:  His 
nostrils  are  very  broad,  and  emit  an  ignited  smoke,  as  from 
a  furnace  of  fire.  The  very  same  remark  is  made  by  Eus- 
tathius  :  He  has  a  broad  nose,  expiring  an  ignited  smoke 
as  out  of  a  furnace.  These  two  animals  live  in  the  same 
element,  and  have  the  same  mode  of  respiration.  The 
longer  Ihey  continue  under  water  without  breathing,  they 
respire  the  more  quickly  when  they  begin  to  emerge.  As 
the  torrent  rushes  along  with  greater  impetuosity,  when  the 
obstacle  which  opposed  its  progress  'is  removed ;  so  their 
breath,  long  repressed,  effervesces  and  breaks  out  with  so 
much  violence,  that  they  seem  to  vomit  flame  from  their 
mouth  and  nostrils.  The  whale,  it  must  be  admitted,  being 
of  much  larger  size  than  the  crocodile,  breathes  with  a  pro- 
portionate vehemence ;  it  does  not,  however,  vomit  fire,  but 
spouts  water  to  an  immense  height  in  the  air.  The  lan- 
guage of  the  inspired  writer  is  highly  figurative  and  hyper- 
bolical, painting,  in  the  most  vivid  colours,  the  heat  and 
force  with  which  the  breath  of  the  crocodile  rushes  from 
his  expanded  nostrils. — Paxton. 

Ver,  22.  In  his  neck  remaineth  strength,  and  sor- 
row is  turned  into  joy  before  him. 

The  whale  has  no  neck,  and  by  consequence  cannot  be 
the  leviathan :  like  other  fishes,  his  head  is  joined  to  his 
shoulders;  while  the  crocodile  is  formed  like  a  serpent, 
with  a  neck  and  shoulders,  which  enable  him  to  move,  to 
raise,  or  turn  back  his  head,  when  he  seizes  his  prey. 
"  Sorrow  is  turned  into  joy  before  him  ;"  what  afflicts, 
alarms,  or  depresses  other  animals,  animates  his  courage 
and  activity.  Or  the  words  may  be  rendered,  Sorrow 
dances  before  him;  which  may  denote,  that  he  spreads  ter- 
ror and  destruction  wherever  he  comes ;  for  he  imme- 
diately rushes  upon  those  that  happen  to  meet  his  eye,  and 
although  they  may  be  so  fortunatV  as  to  escape,  still  they 
reckon  it  an  ill  omen  to  have  fallen  in  the  way  of  that 
fierce  and  savage  destroyer.  Thus  terror  marches  before 
him,  as  a  herald  before  his  sovereign,  to  proclaim  his 
approach,  and  prepare  his  way. — Paxton. 

Ver.  23.  The  flakes  of  his  flesh  are  joined  to- 
gether :  they  are  firm  in  themselves ;  they  can- 
not be  moved.  24.  His  heart  is  as  firm  as  a 
stone ;  yea,  as  hard  as  a  piece  of  the  nether 
millstone. 

As  the  scales  of  leviathan  present  a  coat  of  mail  nearly 
impenetrable  to  the  attacks  of  his  enemies ;  so  his  flesh,  or, 
as  it  is  rendered  by  some,  the  prominent  parts  of  his  body, 
are  like  molten  brass,  the  particles  of  which  adhere  so 
closely,  that  they  cannot  be  separated.  The  very  reverse 
of  what  Job  affirmed  of  himself,  may  be  asserted  of  the 
crocodile ;  his  strength  is  the  strength  of  stones,  and  his 
flesh  is  formed  of  brass  ;  the  very  refuse,  the  vilest  parts  of 
his  flesh,  (for  so  the  word  signifies,)  are  firm,  and  strong, 
and  joined;  or,  as  the  Septuagint  translates  it,  glued  to- 
gether, that  they  cannot  be  moved.  But  if  the  refuse  of  his 
iiesh  be  so  firm  and  hard,  how  great  must  be  the  strength 
which  belongs  to  the  nobler  parts  of  his  frame  1  This 
question  is  answered  in  the  next  verse :  "  His  heart  is  as 
firm  as  a  stone ;  yea,  as  hard  as  a  piece  of  the  nether  mill- 
stone." In  all  creatures,  the  heart  is  extremely  firm  and 
compact ;  in  the  leviathan  it  is  firm  as  a  stone ;  and  to  give 
us  the  highest  idea  of  its  hardness,  Jehovah  compares  it  to 
the  nether  millstone,  which,  having  the  principal  part  of 
the  work  to  perform,  is  required  to  be  peculiarly  hard  and 
solid.  Some  writers  imagine,  that  the  Almighty  refers,  not 
so  much  to  the  natural  hardness  of  the  heart,  as  to  the 
cruel  temper  of  the  animal,  or  to  his  fearless  intrepidity ; 
he  feels  no  pity,  he  fears  no  danger,  he  is  insensible  to  ex- 
ternal impressions  as  the  hardest  stone. — Paxton. 

Vk.  25.  When  he  raiseth  up  himself,  the  mighty 
are  afraid :  by  reason  of  breakings  they  purify 
themselves. 


They  feel  a  secret  horror  shoot  through  the  whole  soul ; 
they  become  as  it  were  incapable  of  reflection,  and  know 
not  whiiher  to  turn,  when  they  see  the  monster  emerging 
from  the  deep,  thirsting  for  blood,  and  displaying  the  terrors 
of  his  opening  jaws.  The  stoutest  heart  is  humbled,  and, 
like  the  mariners  in  the  ship  Avith  Jonah,  when  they  de- 
spaired of  life,  they  cry  every  one  to  his  God,  and  promise 
to  break  ofl' their  sms  by  righteousness. — Paxton. 

Ver.  26.  The  sword' of  him  that  layeth  at  him 
cannot  hold  ;  the  spear,  the  dart,  nor  the  haber- 
geon. 27.  He  esteemeth  iron  as  a  straw,  and 
brass  as  rotten  wood.  28.  The  arrow  cannot 
make  him  flee :  sling-stones  are  turned  with 
him  into  stubble.  29.  Darffe  are  counted  as 
stubble :  he  laugheth  at  the  shaking  of  a  spear. 

In  this  glowing  description,  it  is  plainly  the  design  of  the 
Almighty  to  show,  that  the  skin  of  the  crocodile  is  impene- 
trable to  these  offensive  weapons;  or  else,  that  regardless 
of  danger,  he  scorns  the  wounds  they  inflict,  and  with  fear- 
less impetuosity  seizes  on  his  prey.  This  entirely  accords 
with  the  accounts  which  natural  historians  give  of  that  ani- 
mal. Peter  Martyr  asserts  that  his  skin  is  so  hard  it  can- 
not be  pierced  with  arrows ;  and  according  to  other  writers, 
he  can  be  wounded  only  in  the  belly.  But  it  is  well  known, 
that  the  whale  is  vulnerable  in  every  part,  and  is  common- 
ly struck  with  the  harpoon  on  the  back,  where  the  croco- 
dile is  defended  by  an  impenetrable  buckler  of  large,  ex- 
tremely hard,  and  closely  compacted  scales.  On  this  ar- 
mour of  proof,  the  edge  of  the  sword  is  blunted,  and  its 
point  is  broken ;  the  spear  falls  harmless  to  the  ground,  and 
the  dart  rebounds  from  his  impenetrable  covering.  But  the 
habergeon,  the  coat  of  mail  which  the  combatant  puts  on 
for  his  own  defence,  shall  not  save  him  from  the  devour- 
ing jaws  of  the  monster;  for  he  esteemeth  iron  as  straw, 
and  brass  as  rotten  wood,  which  yield  to  the  slightest  touch, 
and  crumble  into  dust  before  the  smallest  force.  A  shower 
of  arrows  makes  no  impression  upon  him ;  and  the  blow  of 
a  stone,  slung  by  the  most  powerful  hand,  is  no  more  to  him 
than  the  stroke  of  a  feather,  or  bit  of  stubble.  Nor  do  the 
more  dangerous  weapons  which  the  warrior  hurls  from  his 
military  engines,  depress  his  courage,  or  interrupt  his  as- 
sault; for  he  laughs  at  the  shaking  of  a  spear,  he  regards 
it  not,  when,  in  token  of  defiance  it  is  brandished  before 
him. — Paxton. 

Ver.  30.  Sharp  stones  are  under  him :  he  spread- 
eth  sharp-pointed  things  upon  the  mire. 

What  is  extremely  incommodious,  or  even  painful  to 
other  creatures,  occasions  no  uneasiness  to  him.'  Crimi- 
nals were  punished  among  the  ancients,  by  being  compel- 
led to  lie  on  sharp  stones ;  but  so  insensible  is  he  to  pain, 
that  he  can  stretch  his  enormous  bulk  upon  them  without 
inconvenience  :  "  Sharp  stones  are  under  him  ;  he  spread- 
elh  sharp-pointed  things  upon  the  mire."  Such  a  place  of 
repose  is  his  choice,  not  his  punishment.  Or  the  words 
may  refer  to  the  scales  of  leviathan,  which  are  hard  and 
sharp  as  a  potsherd  ;  and  to  his  skin,  which  resembles  a 
board  set  with  sharp  stones,  or  Iron  spikes.  So  rough  is 
the  skin  of  the  crocodile,  so  hard  are  his  scales,  and  so  high 
and  pointed  the  protuberances  which  rise  on  his  back,  that 
a  more  apt  similitude  could  not  be  chosen  than  the  tribula, 
or  sharp  thrashing  instrument  with  iron  teeth,  to  represent, 
in  the  liveliest  manner,  the  appearance  of  this  terrible  ani- 
mal, as  he  lies  reposing  in  the  mud  of  the  Nile. — Paxton. 

Ver.  31.  He  maketh  the  deep  to  boil  like  a  pot: 
he  maketh  the  sea  like  a  pot  of  ointment. 

Having  described  his  general  appearance,  in  which  we 
have  discovered  almost  every  circumstance  fitted  to  strike 
the  mind  with  terror,  and  the  impression  which  his  emerg- 
ing from  the  deep,  and  approaching  the  land,  produce  in 
the  mind  of  a  beholder,  the  inspired  writer  goes  on  to  state 
the  astonishing  effects  of  his  return  to  the  water:  |'He 
makes  the  deep  to  boil  like  a  pot ;  he  makes  the  sea  like  a 
pot  of  ointment."  The  first  clause  exhibits  the  natural  ef- 
fect of  a  large  body  plunging  suddenly  into  deep  water  j  th9 


364 


JOB, 


Chap.  41. 


second  brings  into  viewanotaer  circumstance,  which  beau- 
tifully expresses  the  violent  agitation  of  the  gulf  into  which 
the  leviathan  precipitates  himself:  "  He  maketh  the  sea  to 
boil  like  a  pot  of  ointment."  The  sudden  and  violent  dis- 
placing of  the  waters,  makes  the  sea  resemble  a  large  cal- 
dron furiously  boiling  over  a  strong  fire ;  or  the  ascending 
water,  being  mixed  with  sand  and  mud  from  the  bottom, 
excited  by  the  violent  agitation,  resembles  in  colour,  and  in 
the  smoothness  of  its  swell,  a  pot  of  ointment;  than  which, 
more  striking  figures  can  scarcely  be  presented  to  the  mind. 
It  is  the  opinion  of  ancient  writers,  that  the  crocodile  ex- 
hales from  his  body  an  odour  like  musk,  with  which  he 
perfumes  the  pool  where  he  gambols ;  and  they  assign  this 
as  the  reason  that  the  turbulence  of  the  gulf  which  receives 
him,  is  compared  to  the  boiling  of  a  pot  of  ointment.  But 
admittmg  what  so  many  have  asserted,  that  the  crocodile 
diffuses  a  fragrant  odour  around  him,  it  can  hardly  be  sup- 
posed that  the  quantity  exhaled  can  be  so  great  as  to  war- 
rant such  a  comparison.  The  inspired  writer  seems  to  al- 
lude, not  to  the  ointment  or  its  fragrance,  but  to  the  boiling 
of  the  pot  in  which  spices  are  decocting,  an  operation  which 
probably  requires  a  very  brisk  ebullition. 

Those  who  maintain  that  leviathan  is  the  whale,  demand 
how  the  crocodile,  which  inhabits  the  river,  can  make  the 
sea  boil  ]  But  the  difficulty  admits  of  an  easy  solution ;  the 
word  sea,  both  in  Hebrew  and  English,  is  often  used  in  a 
restricted  sense  for  any  large  expanse  of  water.  The  Jew- 
ish and  Arabian  writers,  agreeably  to  this  sense,  frequently 
speak  of  the  Nile,  and  its  adjacent  lakes,  as  a  sea,  and  with 
great  propriety,  for  the  river  itself  is  broad  and  deep,  and 
at  a  certain  season  of  the  year,  it  overflows  its  banks,  and 
covers  the  whole  surface  of  Lower  Egypt.  The  lakes  which 
have  been  formed  by  the  inundations,  are  of  considerable 
depth  and  extent,  and  swarm  with  crocodiles ;  these  may 
be  called  seas,  with  as  much  propriety  as  the  sacred  writers 
of  the  New  Testament  call  the  lake  of  Sodom  the  Salt  Sea, 
and  the  lake  of  Tiberias  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  The  royal 
Psalmist,  it  must  be  admitted,  mentions  the  sea  in  the  prop- 
er sense  of  the  term,  as  the  haunt  of  leviathan:."  So  is  this 
great  and  wide  sea,  wherein  are  things  creeping  innumer- 
able; both  small  and  great  beasts.  There  go  the  ships: 
there  is  that  leviathan  whom  thou  hast  made  to  play  there- 
in." ^  But  as  the  sea  is,  m  that  passage,  opposed  to  the  earth, 
it  may  comprehend  the  whole  body  of  waters  which  sur- 
round and  intersect  the  dry  land,  and  by  consequence,  the 
proper  habitation  of  the  crocodile.  This  solution,  however, 
is  by  no  means  necessary  to  establish  the  claims  of  this  an- 
imal to  the  scripture  title  of  leviathan,  for  it  has  been  fully 
ascertained,  by  modern  travellers,  that  he  actually  frequents 
the  sea,  although  he  generally  prefers  those  rivers  which 
are  subject  to  annual  inundations.  Crocodiles,  or  aliga- 
tors,  are  very  common  on  the  coast  and  in  the  deep  rivers 
of  Jamaica,  though  they  prefer  the  banks  of  such  rivers  as, 
in  consequence  of  frequent  or  periodical  overflowing,  are 
covered  with  mud,  in  which  they  find  abundance  of  testa- 
ceous fish,  worms,  and  frogs,  for  "food.  In  South  America, 
they  chiefly  frequent  marshy  lakes,  and  drowned  savannas; 
but  in  North  America,  they  infest  both  the  salt  parts  of  the 
rivers  near  the  sea,  the  fresh  currents  above  the  reach  of 
the  tide,  and  the  lakes  both  of  salt  and  fresh  water.  The 
slimy  banks  of  these  rivers  within  the  range  of  the  tide,  are 
covered  by  thick  forests  of  mangrove-trees,  in  the  entangled 
thickets  of  which  the  crocodiles  conceal  themselves,  and  lie 
in  wait  for  their  prey.  According  to  Pinto,  they  abound 
on  the  coast  of  New  Guinea ;  and  Dampier  found  several 
on  the  shores  of  Timor,  an  island  in  the  South  Sea.  The 
hippopotamus  is  a  powerful  adversary  to  the  crocodile,  and 
so  much  the  more  dangerous,  that  it  is  able  to  pursue  him 
to  the  very  bottom  of  the  gulf.  They  are  so  numerous  in 
the  bay  of  Vincent  Pinion,  and  the  lakes  which  commun?  i 
cate  with  it,  as  to  obstruct,  by  their  numbers,  the  piraguas 
and  canoes  which  navigate  those  waters.  When  De  la 
Borde  was  sailing  along  the  eastern  shore  of  South  Ameri- 
ca in  a  canoe,  and  wishing  to  enter  a  small  river,  he  found 
its  mouth  occupied  by  about  a  dozen  large  crocodiles. 
These  testimonies  prove,  beyond  a  doubt,  that  the  crocodile 
frequents  the  mouths  of  rivers  and  the  bays  of  the  sea,  as 
well  as  the  fresh-water  stream  and  lake;  and  by  conse- 
quence, the  Psalmist  might,  in  perfect  agreement  with  the 
habits  of  that  animal,  represent  him  as  playing  in  the  great 
and  wide  sea,  while  the  ships  pursue  their  way  to  the  de- 
sired haven.— Paxton. 


Ver.  32.  He  maketlj  a  path  to  shine  after  him ; 
one  would  think  the  deep  to  he  hoary. 

He  swims  with  so  much  force  and  violence  near  the  sur- 
face of  the  water,  that  his  path  may  be  easily  traced  by 
the  deep  furrow  which  he  leaves  behind  him,  and  the 
whitening  foam  he  excites.  The  same  appearances  at- 
tend the  motion  of  the  dolphin :  but  the  long  withdrawing 
furrow,  and  the  hoary  foam,  are  not  confined  to  the  sea ; 
they  are  likewise  to  be  seen  in  the  river  and  in  the  lake ; 
and  by  consequence,  may  characterize,  with  sufficient  pro- 
priety, the  niotion  of  the  crocodile  in  the  Nile  and  its  adja- 
cent lakes. — Paxton. 

Ver.  33.  Upon  earth  there  is  not  his  like,  who  is 
made  without  fear. 

This  clause  Bochart  renders,  There  is  not  his  like  upon 
the  dust,  (which  is  certainly  the  true  meaning  of  the  phrase, 
al  apJiar ;)  because,  the  crocodile  is  rather  to  be  classed 
among  reptiles  than  quadrupeds.  His  feet  are  so  short, 
that  he  rather  seems  to  creep  than  walk,  so  that  he  may, 
with  great  propriety,  be  reckoned  among  "  the  creeping 
things  of  the  earth."  But  he  difl^ers  from  reptiles  in  this, 
that  while  they  are  in  danger  of  being  trampled  upon,  and 
bruised  by  the  foot  of  the  passenger,  he  is  liable  to  no  such 
accident.  It  cannot  be  said,  in  strictness  of  speech,  Ihat  he 
is  made  without  fear,  for  he  is  known  to  fly  from  the  bold 
and  resolute  attack  of  an  enemy ;  but  the  expression  may 
be  understood  hyperbolically,  as  denoting  a  very  high  de- 
gree of  intrepidity.  The  words  of  the  inspired  writer,  how- 
ever, are  capable  of  another  version,  which  at  once  removes 
the  difficulty,  and  corresponds  with  the  real  character  of 
the  animal :  He  is  so  made,  that  he  cannot  be  bruised ;  he 
cannot  be  crushed  like  a  serpent,  or  trampled  under  the  feet 
of  his  pursuer. — Paxton. 

Ver.  34.  He  beholdeth  all  high  things :  he  is  a 
king  over  all  the  children  of  pride. 

"  He  beholdeth  all  high  things ;"  or,  as  it  may  be  transla- 
ted, he  despiseth  all  that  is  high  ;  "  he  is  a  king  over  all  the 
children  oi  pride."  No  creature  is  so  large,  so  strong,  so 
courageous,  if  we  can  believe  the  oriental  writers,  but  he 
regards  it  with  indifference  or  contempt.  Men,  women, 
and  particularly  children,  who  incautiously  approach  his 
haunts,  become  a  prey  to  his  devouring  maw.  The  camel, 
the  horse,  the  ox,  and  other  portly  quadrupeds,  which  fall 
in  his  way,  he  fiercely  attacks,  and  forthwith  devours.  He 
will  even  venture  to  encounter,  and  not  always  Avithout 
success,  the  elephant  and  the  tiger,  when  they  come  to  drink 
in  the  stream.  His  first  attempt  is  to  strike  them  down  to 
the  ground,  or  break  their  legs  with  his  tail,  in  which  he 
generally  succeeds :  he  then  drags  them  to  the  bottom  of 
the  river ;  or  if  they  are  animals  of  a  moderate  size,  he 
swallows  them  up  entire,  without  taking  the  trouble  of 
putting  them  to  death.  The  alligator,  says  Forbes,  some- 
times basks  in  the  sunbeams  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  but 
oftener  floats  on  its  surface  :  there  concealing  his  head  and 
feet,  he  appears  like  the  rough  trunk  of  a  tree  both  in  shape 
and  colour :  by  this  deception,  dogs  and  other  animals  fear- 
lessly approach,  and  are  suddenly  plunged  to  the  bottom  by 
their  insidious  foe.  Even  the  royal  tiger,  when  he  quits  his 
covert  and  comes  to  drink  at  the  stream,  becomes  his  prey. 
From  this  description,  it  appears  that  no  animal  is  more 
terrible  than  the  crocodile;  no  creature  in  form,  in  tempei-, 
in  strength,  and  in  habits,  so  nearly  resembles  leviathan,  £« 
described  by  Jehovah  himself,  in  the  book  of  Job,  and  con- 
',  equently  none  has  equally  powerful  claims  to  the  name. 
This  conclusion  is  greatly  strengthened  by  several  allusions 
to  the  leviathan  in  other  parts  of  scripture.  In  the  prophe- 
cies of  Isaiah,  he  is  called  "the  piercing  serpent,'  or 
dragon :  and  that  the  prophet  under  that  symbol  refers  to 
the  king  of  Egypt,  appears  from  these  words :  "  And  it  shall 
come  to  pass  on  that  day,  that  the  Lord  shall  beat  off  from 
the  channel  of  the  river  unto  the  stream  of  Egypt,  and  ye 
shall  be  gathered  one  by  one."  The  prophet  Ezekiel  gives 
to  Pharaoh  the  name  of  the  great  dragon,  or  leviathan : 
"  Speak  and  say,  thus  sayeth  the  Lord  God:  Behold,  I  am 
againsi  thee,  Pharaoh  king  of  Egypt,  the  great  dragon  that 
lieth  in  the  midst  of  his  rivers :  which  has  said,  My  river  is 


Chap.  42. 


JOB, 


365 


mine  own,  and  I  have  made  it  for  myself."  But  it  would 
certainly  be  very  preposterous  to  give  the  name  of  the  ele- 
phant to  the  king  of  Egypt,  which  is  neither  a  native  of  that 
country,  nor  ever  known  to  visit  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  In 
allusion  to  the  destruction  of  Pharaoh  and  his  army  in  the 
Red  Sea,  the  Psalmist  sings :  "  Thou  didst  divide  the  sea 
by  thy  strength ;  thou  brakest  the  heads  of  the  dragons  in 
the  water ;  thou  brakest  the  heads  of  leviathan  in  pieces, 
and  gavest  him  to  be  meat  to  the  people  inhabiting  the  wil- 
derness." But  why  s'hould  Pharaoh  and  his  people  be  com- 
pared so  frequently,  and  with  so  much  emphasis,  to  the  great 
dragon  or  leviathan,  but  because  some  remarkable,  some 
terrible  creature,  infests  their  valley,  to  which  that  name 
properly  applies  1  But  no  formidable  beast  of  prey,  except 
the  crocodile,  distinguishes  Egypt  from  the  surrounding  re- 
gions ;  and  since  this  creature  is  universally  allowed  to  be 
extremely  strong,  cruel,  and  destructive,  we  must  conclude 
it  is  no  other  than  the  leviathan  of  the  inspired  writers. 
The  inhabitants  of  Egypt  regarded  the  crocodile  as  the  most 
powerful  defender  of  their  country,  and  the  Nile  as  the 
source  of  all  their  pleasures  and  sociable  enjoyments,  and 
elevated  both  to  the  rank  of  deities.  This  accounts  for  the 
singular  language  of  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  and  the  boast 
which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Pharaoh  :  "  My  river  is 
mine  own,  and  I  have  made  it  for  myself." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XLII. 

Ver.  10.  And  the  Lord  turned  the  captivity  of 
Job,  when  he  prayed  for  his  friends ;  also  the 
Lord  gave  Job  twice  as  much  as  he  had  before. 

Our  idea  of  captivity  seems  to  be  principally  confined  to 
prisoners  of  war ;  but  in  the  East,  adversity,  great  adver- 
sity, and  many  other  troubles,  are  spoken  of  in  the  same 
way.  Thus,  a  man  formerly  in  great  prosperity,  speaks  of 
his  present  state  as  if  he  were  in  prison.  "  I  am  now  a 
captive."  "  Yes,  I  am  a  slave."  If  again  elevated,  "  his 
captivity  is  changed." — Roberts. 

Ver.  11.  Then  came  there  unto  him  all  his 
brethren,  and  all  his  sisters,  and  all  they  that 
had  been  of  his  acquaintance  before,  and  did  eat 
bread  with  him  in  his  house;  and  they  be- 
moaned him,  and  comforted  him  over  all  the 
evil  that  the  Lord  had  brought  upon  him: 
every  man  also  gave  him  a  piece  of  money,  and 
every  one  an  ear-ring  of  gold. 

The  custom  alluded  to  of  relations  and  friends  giving  re- 
lief to  a  person  in  distress,  is  practised  in  the  East  at  this 
day.  When  a  man  has  suffered  a  great  loss  by  an  accident, 
by  M'^ant  of  skill,  or  by  the  roguery  of  another,  he  goes  to 
his  brothers  and  sisters,  and  all  his  acquaintances,  and  de- 
scribes his  misfortunes.  He  then  mentions  a  day  when  he 
will  give  a  feast,  and  invites  them  all  to  partake  of  it.  At 
the  time  appointed  they  come,  arrayed  in  their  best  robes, 
each  having  money,  ear-rings,  finger-rings,  or  other  gifts 
suited  to  the  condition  of  the  person  in  distress.  The  indi- 
vidual himself  meets  them  at  the  gate,  gives  them  a  hearty 
welcome,  the  music  strikes  uj?,  and  the  guests  are  ushered 
into  t  he  apartments  prepared  for  the  feast.    When  they  have 


finished  their  repast,  and  are  about  to  retire,  they  each  ap- 
proach the  object  of  their  commiseration,  and  present  their 
donations,  and  best  wishes  for  future  prosperity.  A  rich 
merchant  in  North  Ceylon,  named  Siva  Sangu  Chetty,was 
suddenly  reduced  to  poverty;  but  by  this  plan  he  was  re- 
stored to  his  former  prosperity.  Two  money  brokers,  also, 
who  were  sent  to  these  parts  by  their  employer,  (who  lived 
on  the  opposite  continent,)  lost  one  thousand  rix-dollars, 
belonging  to  their  master ;  they  therefore  called  those  ol 
their  caste,  profession,  and  country,  to  partake  of  a  feast,  at 
which  time  the  whole  of  their  loss  was  made  up.  When  a 
young  man  puts  on  the  ear-rings  or  turban  for  the  first  time, 
a  feast  of  the  same  descripiion,  and  for  the  same  purpose, 
is  given,  to  enable  him  to  meet  the  expense  of  the  rings,  and 
to  assist  him  in  future  pursuits  of  life.  When  a  young 
woman  also  becomes  marriageable,  the  female  relations 
and  acquaintances  are  called  to  perform  the  same  service, 
in  order  to  enable  her  to  purchase  jewels,  or  to  furnish  a 
marriage  portion.  In  having  recourse  to  this  custom,  there 
is  nothing  that  is  considered  mean  ;  for  parents  who  ^re 
respectable  and  wealthy  often  do  the  same  thing.  Here, 
then,  we  have  another  simple  and  interesting  illustration  oi 
a  most  praiseworthy  usage  of  the  days  of  ancient  Job.— 
Roberts. 

Ver.  14.  And  he  called  the  name  of  the  first  Jemi- 
ma ;  and  the  name  of  the  second,  Kezia ;  and 
the  name  of  the  third,  Kerenhappuch. 

To  vary  names  by  substituting  a  word  similar  in  sound, 
is  very  prevalent  in  the  East.  The  following  extract  from 
Sir  Thomas  Roe,  is  a  striking  example  of  this  circumstance. 
"  They  speak  very  much  in  honour  of  Moses,  whom  they 
call  Moosa  calim  Alia,  Moses  the  publisher  of  the  m,ind  of 
God  :  so  of  Abraham,  whom  they  call  Ibrahim  carim  Alia, 
Abraham  the  honoured,  or  the  friend,  of  God :  so  of  Ish- 
mael,  whom  they  call  Ismal,  the  sacrifice  of  God :  so  of 
Jacob,  whom  they  call  Acob,  the  blessing  of  God  :  so  of  Jo- 
seph, whonWhey  call  Eesoff,  the  betrayed  for  God  :  so  of 
David,  whmn  they  call  Dakood,  the  lover  and  praiser  of 
God  :  so  of  Solomon,  whom  they  call  Selymon,  the  wisdom 
of  God  :  all  expressed  in  short  Arabian  words,  which  they 
sing  in  ditties,  unto  their  particular  remembrance.  IVJany 
men  are  called  by  these  names :  others  are  called  Mahmud, 
or  Chaan,  which  signifies  the  moon ;  or  Frista,  which  sig- 
nifies a  star.  And  they  call  their  women  by  the  names  of 
spices  or  odours;  or  of  pearls  or  precious  stones;  or  else 
by  other  names  of  pretty  or  pleasing  signification.  So  Job 
called  his  daughters." — Burder. 

Ver.  15;  And  in  all  the  land  were  no  women 
found  so  fair  as  the  daughters  of  Job  :  and  their 
father  gave  them  inheritance  among  their 
brethren. 

In  the  scriptures  the  word  fair  may  sometimes  refer  to 
the  form  of  the  features,  as  well  as  the  colour  of  the  skin  : 
but  great  value  is  attached  to  a  woman  of  a  light  complex- 
ion. Hence  our  English  females  are  greatly  admired  in 
the  East,  and  instances  have  occurred  where  great  exertions 
have  been  made  to  gain  the  hand  of  a  fair  daughter  of  Brit- 
ain. The  acme  of  perfection  in  a  Hindoo  lady  is  to  be  of 
the  colour  of  gold  '.—Roberts. 


THE   BOOK  OF   PSALMS. 


PSALM  I. 

Ver.  3.  And  he  shall  be  like  a  tree  planted  by 
the  rivers  of  water,  that  bringeth  forth  his  fruit 
in  his  season :  his  leaf  also  shall  not  wither ; 
and  whatsoever  he  doeth  shall  prosper. 

Dr.  Boothroyd  has  it,  "Like  a  tree  planted  by  water 
streams ;"  and  Dr.  A.  Clarke  says,  "  The  streams  or  di- 
visions of  waters."  This  probably  alludes  to  the  artificial 
streams  which  run  from  the  lakes  or  wells :  by  the  side  of 
these  may  be  seen  \./ees,  at  all  seasons  covered  with  luxuriant 
verdure,  blossoms,  or  fruit,  because  the  root  is  deriving  con- 
tinual nourishment  from  the  stream;  while  at  a  distance, 
where  no  water,  is,  maybe  seen  dwarfish  and  unhealthy 
trees,  with  scarcely  a  leaf  to  shake  in  the  winds  of  heaven. 
— Roberts. 

We  see  no  reason  to  suppose,  with  many  commentators, 
that  allusion  is  had  to  any  particular  species  of  tree,  as,  for 
example,  the  palm,  the  olive,  or  the  pomegranate,  each  of 
which  has  been  conceived  to  be  intended,  from  its  peculiar 
adaptedness  to  represent  the  permanent  and  prolific  nature  of 
the  good  man's  happiness.  It  is  indeed  said  of  the  righte- 
ous, Ps.  xcii.  12,  that  "  he  shall  flourish  like  the  palm-tree ; 
he  shall  grow  like  a  cedar  in  Lebanon;"  but  it  wili-answer 
all  the  demands  of  the  passage  to  understand  it  of  any  tree 
advantageously  situated,  and  evincing  a  vigorous  and  llfirifty 
growth.  In  the  arid  climes  of  the  East,"the'4rees,  unless 
sustained  by  artificial  irrigation,  are  apt  to  lose  their  ver- 
dure during  the  sultriness  of  the  summer  months — a  fact 
which  affords  an  interesting  clew  to  the  imagery  here  em- 
ployed. Although  the  word  "  rivers"  is  adopted  in  our 
authorized  translation,  yet  it  is  by  no  means  an  adequate 
representative  of  the  original.  •<j^b  the  term  thus  rendered, 
from  j'rs  to  divide^  to  sunder,  to  split,  properly  signifies  di- 
visions, partitions,  sections ;  i.  e.  branching  cuts,  trenches, 
or  water-courses,  issuing  either  from  a  large  body  of  water, 
as  a  lake,  a  pond,  a  river,  Ps.  xlvi.  4  ;  or  from  a  well  or 
fountain-head,  Prov.  v.  16.  Job  xxvi.  6;  and  alludes  to  the 
methods  still  practised  among  the  oriental  nations,  of  con- 
veying water  to  gardens  and  orchards.  This  was  by  means 
of  canals  or  rivulets  flowing  in  artificial  channels,  called 
■D'^ibsi  divisions ;  i.  e.  cuts  or  trenches,  which  distributed  the 
water  in  all  directions.  The  whole  land  of  Egypt  was 
anciently  sluiced  in  this  manner,  by  innumerable  canals 
and  water-courses,  designed  to  convey  the  fertilizing  waters 
of  the  Nile  over  every  part  of  the  valley  through  which  it 
ran.  Maundrell  (Trav.  p.  122)  speaks  of  a  similar  mode  of 
irrigation  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Damascus:  "The  gar- 
dens are  thick  set  with  fruit  trees  of  all  kinds,  kept  fresh 
and  verdant  by  the  waters  of  the  Barady.  This  river,  as 
soon  as  it  issues  out  of  the  cleft  of  the  mountain  before 
mentioned,  into  the  plain,  is  immediately  divided  into  three 
streams,  of  which  the  middlemost  and  largest  runs  directly 
to  Damascus,  through  a  large  open  field  called  the  Ager 
Damascenus,  and  is  distributed  to  all  the  cisterns  and  fount- 
ains in  the  city.  The  other  two,  which  I  take  to  be  the 
work  of  art,  are  drawn  round,  the  one  to  the  right,  the 
other  to  the  left,  on  the  borders  of  the  gardens,  into  which 
they  are  let  out,  as  they  pass,  by  little  rivulets,  and  so  dis- 
posed all  over  the  vast  woo  ! ;  insomuch  that  there  is  not  a 
garden,  but  has  a  fine,  quick  stream  running  through  it." 
The  same  traveller  describing,  p.  89,  the  orange  garden  of 
the  emir  of  Beyroot,  observes,  that  "  it  contains  a  large 
quadrangular  plot  of  ground  divided  into  sixteen  lesser 
squares,  four  in  a  row,  with  walks  between  them.  The 
walks  are  shaded  with  orange-trees  of  a  large  spreading 
size.  Every  one  of  these  sixteen  lesser  squares  in  the  gar- 
den was  bordered  with  stone ;  and  in  the  stone- work  were 
troughs,  very  artificially  contrived,  for  conveying  the  water 
all  over  the  garden  j  there  being  little  outlets  cut  at  every 


tree  for  the  stream,  as  it  passed  by,  to  flow  out  and  water 
it."  A  striking  allusion  to  trees  cultivated  in  this  manner 
occurs  Ezek.  xxxi.  3,  4 :  "  Behold,  the  Assyrian  was  a  cedar 
in  Lebanon,  with  fair  branches  and  with  a  shadowing 
shroud,  and  of  a  high  stature,  and  his  top  was  among  the 
thick  boughs.  The  waters  made  him  great,  the  deep  set 
him  up  on  high,  with  her  rivers  running  round  about  his 
plants,  and  sent  out  her  little  rivers  unto  all  the  trees  of  the 
Jield."  So  Eccl.  ii.  6,  "  I  made  me  pools  of  water  to  water 
therewith  the  wood  that  bringeth  forth  trees."  To  the  same 
purpose,  Prov.  xxi.  1,  "  The  king's  heart  is  in  the  hand  of 
the  Lord,  as  the  rivers  of  waters,  (jz^n-vho  divisions  of  wa- 
ters ;)  he  turneth  it  whithersoevei'  he  will ;"  i.  e.  as  these 
fertilizing  rivulets,  the  work  of  art,  are  conducted  forward 
and  backward,  to  the  right  hand  or  the  left,  diverted  or 
stopped  at  the  Avill  of  him  who  manages  them,  so  is  the 
heart  of  kings,  and,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  of  the  rich 
and  mighty  of  the  earth,  swayed  at  the  sovereign  disposal 
of  the  Lord  of  all  creatures.  He,  by  the  course  of  his 
providence,  andby  the  inward  promptings  of  his  Spirit,  can 
turn  the  enriching  tide  of  their  bounty  in  any  direction  he 
sees  fit,  whether  to  bless  the  poor  with  bread,  or  to  supply 
the  means  of  salvation  to  the  destitute. — Bush. 

Ver.  4.  The  ungodly  are  not  so:  but  are  liketbf^ 
chaff  which  the  wind  driveth  away. 

"We  must  recollect  here,  that  in  the  East  the  thrashing- 
floors  are  places  in  the  open  air,  (Gen.  1.  10,)  on  which 
the  corn  is  not  thrashed,  as  with  us,  but  beaten  out  by 
means  of  a  sledge,  in  such  a  manner  that  the  straw  is  at 
the  same  time  cut  very  small.  "When  the  straw  is  cut 
small  enough,  they  put  fresh  corn  in  the  place,  and  after 
ward  separate  the  corn  from  the  cut-straw,  by  throwing  it 
in  the  air  with  a  wooden  shovel,  for  the  wind  drives  the 
straw  a  little  farther,  so  that  only  the  pure  corn  falls  to  the 
ground."    (Thevenot.) — Rosenmuller. 

PSALM  II. 
Ver.  1.  Why  do  the  heathen  rage,  and  the  people 
imagine  a  vain  thing? 

The  Hebrew  word  which  Luther  has  translated  heathen, 
(gojim,)  signifies,  in  fact,  people  in  general ;  but  it  is  used  | 
in  the  Old  Testament,  for  the  most  part,  and  by  the  later 
(and  even  modern)  Jews,  exclusively  of  other  nations  who 
are  not  Jews,  and  that  with  a  contemptuous  and  odious 
secondary  meaning.  Other  nations,  also,  have  similar 
names  for  foreigners,  and  for  such  as  are  not  of  their  re- 
ligious faith.  Thus  the  Greeks  and  Romans  called  them 
Barbarians,  that  is,  properly,  inhabitants  of  the  desert.  The 
Arabs  called  them  Adsch^m,  by  which  they  mean,  first, 
their  neighbours  the  Persians,  and  then  all  iforeigners  in 
general.  The  Mohammedans  call  all  the  people  of  the  earth, 
who  do  not  believe  the  pretended  divine  mission  of  Mo- 
hammed, Kuffar  in  the  plural,  Kafar  in  the  singular,  and 
by  a  corrupted  pronunciation,  Gaur,  (Giavur,)  which  signi- 
fies unbelievers  and  infidels.  Hence  the  name  Kaflfers, 
which  the  inhabitants  of  the  southeastern  coast  of  Africa 
received  from  the  Mohammedan  Arabs. — Rosenmctller. 

Ver.  9.  Thou  shalt  break  them  with  a  rod  of 
iron ;  thou  shalt  dash  them  in  pieces  like  a  pot- 
ter's  vessel. 

"Begone!  wretch,"  savs  the  infuriated  man,  "or  I  will 
dash  thee  to  pieces  as  a  kuddam,"  i.  e.  an  earthen  vessel.— 
Roberts. 

The  rod,  in  remote  antiquitv,  was  a  wooden  stafl^,  not 
much  shorter  than  the  height  of  a  man,  with  golden  studs 
or  nails,  or  sometimes  ornamented  at  the  top  with  a  round 


Ps  5—7. 


PSALMS. 


367 


knob,  such  as  are  seen  in  the  hands  of  the  Persian  kings, 
on  the  monuments  of  Persepolis.  Justin  says,  "  that  at 
the  time  of  the  rape  of  the  Sabine  virgins,  the  kings,  as 
insignia  of  their  dignity,  bore,  instead  of  the  diadem,  long 
staves,  which  the  Greeks  called  sceptres."  Hence  it  may 
be  conceived  how,  in  Homer,  kings  made  use  of  the  scep- 
tre to  strike  with.  The  sceptre,  as  well  as  throne,  is  often 
used  as  a  symbol  of  government.  Hence  in  Ps.  xlv.  6,  a 
right  sceptre  is  the  emblem  of  a  just  government.  And  in 
the  above  passage  it  is  said  of  the  king  celebrated  in  this 
Psalm,  that  he  would  break  his  enemies  with  a  rod,  of  iron ^ 
by  which  his  dominion  is  represented  as  terrible  and  de- 
structiv^e  over  those  who  oppose  him.  The  sense  is,  that 
he  will  conquer  them  with  irresistible  power.  A  similar 
picture  is  given  of  the  Messiah  in  Num.  xxiv.  17.  "  There 
shall  come  a  star  out  of  Jacob,  and  a  sceptre  shall  rise  out 
of  Israel,  and  shall  smite  the  corners  (according  to  Luther, 
the  '  princes')  of  Moab." — Rosenmuller. 

PSALM  V. 
Ver.  7.  But  as  for  me,  I  will  come  into  thy  house 
in  the  multitude  of  thy  mercy ;  and  in  thy  fear 
will  I  worship  towards  thy  holy  temple. 

It  is  very  natural  that  people,  when  praying,  should  turn 
the  face  towards  the  quarter  where  the  place  dedicated  to 
the  Divinity  is  situated,,  and  which  is  considered  as  his 
abode.  Hence  the  Jews  prayed  with  their  faces  turned 
towards  the  temple,  (1  Kings  viii.  38,-44, 48;)  and  those  re- 
siding out  of  Jerusalem,  turned  it  towards  that  point  of  the 
heavens  in  which  Jerusalem  lay.  Dan.  vi.  10.  Thus  the 
Mohammedans,  when  praying,  always  turn  their  faces 
towards  Mecca.  "  Kebla,"  says  Bjornstahl,  "signifies,  in 
Arabic,  the  point  towards  which  all  true  Mussulmen  turn 
their  faces  when  praying;  whether  in  the  open  air  or  in 
their  temples,  where  it  is  always  marked  by  a  niche,  in 
which  not  only  the  iman  stands,  but  also  some  finely  written 
copies  of  the  Koran  are  lying.  This  point  is  always 
towards  Mecca ;  for  there  stands  the  Caaba,  or  quadran- 
gular hoMse,  said  to  have  been  first  built  by  Abraham  and 
Ishraael,  and  which  is  the  great  sanctuary  of  the  Moham- 
nedans,  for  the  sake  of  which  such  great  pilgrimages  are 
annually  undertaken  to  Mecca,  and  thence  to  Medina, 
where  Mohammed  is buried.'-RosENMOLLER. 

Ver.  12.  For  thou,  Lord,  wilt  bless  the  righteous; 
with  favour  wilt  thou  compass  him  as  with  a 
shield. 

A  .shield  is  a  defensive  piece  of  armour,  and  is  used  to 
ward  off  the  blows  that  are  aimed  at  the  person  who  wears 
it.  In  this  passage  of  the  Psalmist  it  is  spoken  of  in  a  differ- 
ent sense.  It  is  to  be  used  by  a  divine  power  for  the  pres- 
ervation of  the  people  of  God :  and,  connected  with  their 
*  safety,  they  are  to  be  honoured  and  exalted:  and  both  their 
preservation  and  exaltation  are  to  be  so  complete,  that  they 
are  said  to  be  compassed  about  with  the  favour  of  God  as 
with  a  shield,  in  the  same  manner  as  a  person  completely 
covered  with,  or  elevated  upon,  a  large  broad  shield.  This 
interpretation  of  the  words  is  paralleled  by  a  practice 
which,  subsequent  to  the  age  of  the  Psalmist,  obtained 
among  the  Romans,  of  which  the  following  instances  may 
be  selected :  "  Brinno  was  placed  on  a  shield,  according  to 
the  custom  of  the  nation,  and  being  carried  in  triumph  on 
the  shoulders  of  the  men,  was  declared  commander-in- 
chief."  The  shields  of  the  ancients,  as  a  scholiast  observes 
upon  the  Iliad,  ii.  389,  were  so  large  as  almost  to  cover  a 
whole  man,  and  hollowed,  so  that  they  in  a  manner  enclosed 
the  body  in  front.  Hence  Homer  speaks  of  the  surround- 
ing shield.  Tyrtasus,  in  the  second  of  his  hymns,  still  ex- 
tant, says,  "  The  warrior  stands  in  the  contest  firm  upon 
both  feet ;  the  hollow  of  the  spacious  shield  covering  below 
his  sides  and  thighs,  and  his  breast  and  shoulders  above." — 

BURDER. 

PSALM  VI. 

To  the  chief  Musician  on  Nesfinoth  upon 


Title 
Sheminiih 


A  Psalm  of  David. 


This  superscription  is  in  Luther, "  ufmi  eight  strings^    I 
can  hardly  think  that  a  musica   instrument  of  eight  strings 


is  meant  here,  as  the  Hebrew  word  (scheminith)  does  not 
appear  among  the  musical  instruments  mentioned  in  the 
Old  Testament.  The  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  word  is, 
octave ;  and  in  1  Chron.  xv.  21,  where  the  singers  of  the 
temple  are  enumerated,  it  stands  after  a  word  which  prop- 
erly signifies  virgins,  (alamoth,)  and  may  therefore  sig- 
nify a  treble  part,  which  was  sung  by  women.  "  Might  not 
this,"  says  Forkal,  "  have  signified  among  the  Hebrews 
nearly  the  same  t^at '  virgin  air'  signified  among  the  Ger- 
man poets,  called  master-singers  in  the  middle  ages  ^"— 
Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  2.  Have  mercy  upon  me,  O  Lord  ;  for  I  am 
weak :  O  Lord,  heal  me ;  for  my  bones  are 
vexed. 

Dr.  Boothroyd  translates,  "  For  my  bones  are  troubled." 
The  object  of  the  expression  appears  to  be,  to  show  that  the 
trouble  has  taken  fast  hold,  it  is  deeply  seated,  my  bones  are 
its  resting-place.  The  Hindoos,  in  extreme  grief  or  joy, 
say,  "  our  bones  are  melted;"  t.  e.  like  boiling  lead,  they  are 
completely  dissolved. — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  Depart  from  me,  all  ye  workers  of  ini- 
quity :  for  the  Lord  hath  heard  the  voice  of 
my  weeping. 

Silent  grief  is  not  much  known  in  the  East:  hence, 
when  the  people  speak  of  sorrow,  they  say  its  voice. 
"Have  I  not  heard  the  voice  of  his  lamentation^" — Rob- 
erts. 

PSALM  VII. 
Ver.  12.  If  he  turn  not,  he  will  whet  his  sword  ; 
he  hath  bent  his  bow,  and  made  it  ready. 

The  Hebrew  word  signifies  literally,  "  that  he  hath  trod- 
den on  his  bow,"  that  is,  to  bend  it.  Arrian.  in  his  Account 
of  India,  says,  "  Such  of  their  warriors  as  combat  on  foot, 
carry  a  bow  which  is  as  long  as  a  man.  When  they  want 
to  bend  it,  they  set  it  upon  the  ground,  and  tread  on- it  with 
the  left  foot,  while  they  draw  on  the  string." — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  13.  He  hath  also  prepared  for  him  the  in- 
struments of  death ;  he  ordaineth  his  arrows 
against  the  persecutors. 

This  sentence  maybe  rendered  more  accurately,  "he 
makes  his  arrows  burning."  The  image  is  deduced  from 
such  fiery  arrows  as  are  described  by  Ammianus  Marcelli- 
nus.  They  consisted  of  a  hollowed  reed,  to  the  lower  part 
of  which,  under  the  point  or  barb,  was  fastened  a  round  re- 
ceptacle, made  of  iron,  for  combustible  materials,  so  that 
such  an  arrow  had  the  form  of  a  distaff.  The  reed,  as  the 
above  author  says,  was  filled  with  burning  naptha ;  and 
when  the  arrow  was  shot  from  a  slack  bow,  (for  if  dis- 
charged from  a  tight  bow  the  fire  went  out,)  it  struck  the 
enemies'  ranks  and  remained  infixed,  the  flame  consuming 
whatever  it  met  with  ;  water  poured  on  it  increased  its  vio- 
lence ;  there  was  no  other  means  to  extinguish  it  but  by 
throwing  earth  upon  it.  Similar  darts  or  arrows,  which 
were  twined  round  with  tar  and  pitch,  and  set  fire  to,  are 
described  by  Livy,  as  having  been  made  use  of  by  the  in- 
habitants of  the  city  of  Saguntum,  when  besieged  by  the 
Romans.  An  allusion  to  such  arrows  is  also  made  in 
Ephesians  vi.  16. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  14.  Behold,  he  travaileth  with  iniquity,  and 
hath  conceived  mischief,  and  brought  forth  false- 
hood. 

Dr.  Boothroyd  translates  this,  "  Lo,  the  wicked  hath  con- 
ceived iniquity,  and  is  big  with  mischief;  but  an  abortion 
shall  he  bring  forth :"  which  certainly  corresponds  befltter 
with  the  order  of  the  figure  of  the  text.  "  What  induces 
that  man  to  come  so  much  to  this  place  1  depend  upon  it, 
he  is  preparing  some  plans." — "Yes,  I  am  of  opinion  his 
womb  has  conceived  something."  Does  the  person  begin 
to  disclose  his  purposes,  it  is  said,  "  Ah  !  it  is  this  you  have 
been  conceiving  the  last  few  days."  But  when  he  puts  his 
plans    into  practice,  "Yes,  he  is  now  in    parturition." 


868 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  8—16. 


"  Well !  how  has  the  matter  ended  V'—"  Ended !  he  has 
brought  forth  poykul"  i.  e.  lies. — Roberts. 

PSALM  VIII. 
Ver.  6.  Thou  madest  him  to  have  dominion  over 
the  works  of  thy  hands:  thou  hast  put   all 
things  under  his  feet. 

This  is  a  common  figure  of  speech  to  denote  the  supe- 
riority of  one  man  over  another ;  hence  the  worshippers 
of  the  gods  often  say  in  their  devotions,  "  We  put  your  feet 
upon  our  heads."  *'  Truly,  the  feet  of  Siva  are  upon  my 
head."  "  My  Gooroo,  my  Gooroo,  have  I  not  put  your  feet 
upon  my  head  V  "  My  lord,  believe  not  that  man ;  your 
feet  have  always  been  upon  my  head."  "Ah!  a  mighty 
king  was  he  ;  all  things  were  under  his  feet." — Roberts. 

PSALM  IX. 

Ver.  14.  That  I  may  show  forth  all  thy  praise  in 
the  gates  of  the  daughter  of  Zion :  I  will  re- 
joice in  thy  salvation. 

That  is,  in  Jerusalem,  meaning  in  the  temple  itself  The 
"  gates  of  the  daughter  of  Zion"  are  opposed  to  the  "  gates 
of  death,"  mentioned  in  the  preceding  verse.  Zion  is  the 
general  name  of  the  mountain,  on  whose  irregular  emi- 
nences the  .city  of  Jerusalem  was  built.  But  in  a  more 
limited  sense,  the  name  of  Zion  was  given  to  the  highest 
of  those  eminences,  on  which,  besides  a  part  of  the  city,  the 
palace  of  David,  and  several  public  buildings,  were  built. 
This  Mount  Zion  was  joined  on  the  south  side  by  means  of 
a  bridge,  with  the  mountain  or  hill  of  Moriah,  which  was 
entirely  occupied  by  the  extensive  building  of  the  temple. 
In  the  Old  Testament,  we  are  often  to  understand  by  Zion 
and  Jerusalem,  the  national  sanctuary,  the  temple  particu- 
larly, where,  as  in  the  above  passage,  the  adoration  of  God, 
and  the  thanksgivings  to  be  publicly  offered  him,  are  spoken 
of.  Zion  or  Jerusalem  is  called  daughter,  because  the  He- 
brews used  to  figure  cities,  communities,  and  states,  under 
the  images  of  women,  and  the  inhabitants  as  children. 
ThuSy  the  daughter  of  Tyre,  the  daughter  of  Babylon,  for 
the  city  of  Tyre  and  the  city  of  Babylon.  Even  now,  the 
head  of  the  government  of  Tunis,  in  Barbary,  is  called  Dey, 
or  Day,  that  is,  as  D Arvieux  observes,  mother's  brother ; 
because  the  republic  is  considered  as  the  mother,  the  citi- 
zens as  her  children,  and  the  Turkish  sultan  as  the  consort 
of  the  republic. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  15.  The  heathen  are  sunk  down  in  the  pit 
that  they  made:  in  the  net  which  they  hid  is 
their  own  foot  taken. 

This  image  is  taken  from  the  catching  of  wild  beasts,  by 
means  of  strong  ropes  or  nets.  Lichtenstein,  in  speaking 
of  the  hunting  of  the  Koofsa,  (Kaffers,)  says,  "  They  catch 
much  game  by  means  of  nets  ;  in  the  woody  districts,  they 
often  make  low  hedges,  miles  in  length,  between  which  they 
leave  openings ;  in  these  openings,  through  which  the  game 
tries  to  escape,  they  conceal  snares,  which  are  placed  so  in- 
geniously that  the  animals  are  caught  in  them  by  the  leg, 
and  cannot  extricate  themselves."  Also  lions  and  elephants 
are  caught  in  this  manner;  the  latter,  when  they  have  been 
brought  by  means  of  fire,  or  by  tame  elephants,  to  a  narrow 
place,  where  they  cannot  turn  back,  are  caught  by  throwing 
ropes  round  their  legs. 

Ropes  and  nooses  are  meant  by  the  figurative  expression, 
sriares  of  death,  2  Sam.  xxii.  6,  which  the  people  of  the  an- 
cient world  used,  both  in  the  chase  and  in  war.  The  word 
is  sometimes  rendered  net,  as  in  this  passage.  Arrian,  in 
his  Treatise  on  Hunting,  relates,  that  Cyrus  met  with  wild 
asses  in  the  plains  of  Arabia,  which  were  so  swift,  that  none 
of  his  horsemen  were  able  to  catch  them.  Yet  the  young 
Lybians,  even  boys  of  eight  years  of  age,  or  not  much 
older,  had  pursued  them,  mounted  on  their  horses,  without 
saddle  or  bridle,  till  they  threw  a  noose  over  them,  and 
thus  took  them.  He  gives  instructions  to  pursue  stags  with 
♦rained  horses  and  dogs,  till  they  can  be  either  shot  with 
arrows,  or  taken  alive  b}"-  throwing  a  noose  over  them. 
These  are  the  strong  snares  which  Pollux  means,  when  he 
speaks  of  the  wild  asses,  and  they  are  also  the  same  as 
tnose  in  which  Habis,  the  natural  son  of  an  ancient  Span- 


ish kmg,  was  taken.  He  was  exposed  when  a  child,  and 
suckled  by  a  hind :  having  grown  up  among  the  stags,  he 
had  aUained  their  swiftness,  so  that  he  fled  with  them  over 
the  mountains,  and  traversed  forests,  till  he  was  at  length 
caught  in  a  noose.  In  the  same  manner  Ulloa  saw  the 
Guasos  (one  of  the  aboriginal  Peruvian  nations)  catch  with 
their  nooses  (the  Spanish  lazo)  the  most  active  and  cautious 
man  as  easily  as  the  wild  bull.  Some  English  pirates  once 
approaching  their  shore,  and  thinking  to  drive  off  the 
Guasos  with  their  firearms,  the  latter  threw  their  nooses 
towards  the  vessels,  and  so  pulled  on  shore  those  who  had 
not  fallen  down  at  first  sight ;  one  who  was  caught  escaped 
with  his  life,  notwithstanding  he  had  been  thus  violently 
drawn  from  the  boat  to  the  shore,  the  noose  having  caught 
him  over  the  shoulder  on  the  one  side,  and  the  arm  on  the 
other ;  but  it  was  some  time  before  he  was  able  to  recover 
his  strength.  In  the  same  manner  the  Sagarthian  horse- 
men in  the  Persian  army  used  their  nooses  in  war. — (He- 
rodotus.) These  people,  who,  according  to  Stephanus, 
lived  on  the  Caspian  Sea,  had,no  other  arms  than  a  noose 
and  a  dagger,  to  kill  with  the  one  the  enemy  whom  they 
had  caught  with  the  other.  The  same  is  related  by  Pausa- 
nias,  of  the  Sauromati. — Rosenmuller. 

PSALM  X. 
Ver.  5.  His  ways  are  always  grievous:  thy  judg- 
ments are  far  above  out  of  his  sight :  as  for  all 
his  enemies,  he  puffeth  at  them. 

Of  a  proud  and  powerful  man,  it  is  said,  "  He  pufl^s  away 
his  foes;"  i.  e.  they  are  so  contemptible,  so  light,  that  like  a 
flake  of  cotton,  he  puflfs  them  from  his  presence.  Great  is 
the  contempt  which  is  shown  by  pufling  through  the  mouth 
and  blowing  through  the  nostrils. — Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  Break  thou  the  arm  of  the  wicked  and 
the  evil  man:  seek  out  his  wickedness  till 
thou  find  none. 

This  member  is  often  selected  as  an  object  for  impreca- 
tions. "  Ah  !  the  kalian,  the  thief,  his  hand  shall  be  torn 
off  for  that."  "  Evil  one,  thou  wilt  lose  thy  hand  for  this 
violence."  But  the  hand  or  arm  is  also  selected  as  an  ob- 
ject for  blessings.  "  My  son,  (says  the  father,)  may  the 
gods  keep  thy  hands  and  thy  feet." — Roberts. 

PSALM  XI. 

Ver.  6.  Upon  the  wicked  he  shall  rain  snares, 
fire,  and  brimstone,  and  a  horrible  tempest: 
this  shall  he  the  portion  of  their  cup. 

The  gods  are  described  as  doing  this  upon  their  enemies ; 
and  magicians,  in  cursing  each  other,  or  those  who  are  the 
objects  of  their  ire,  say,  the  fiery  rain  shall  descend  upon 
them. — Roberts. 

PSALM  XIV. 
Ver.  4.  Have  all  the  workers  of  iniquity  no  knowl- 
edge ?  who  eat  up  my  people  as  they  eat  bread, 
and  call  not  upon  the  Lord. 

"Wicked  one,  the  fiends  shall  eat  thee."  "That  vile 
king  eats  the  people  as  he  does  his  rice."  "  Go  not  near 
that  fellow,  he  will  eat  thee."  But,  .strange  as  it  may  ap- 
pear, relations  say  of  those  of  their  friends  who  are  dead, 
they  have  eaten  them.  Thus,  a  son,  in  speaking  of  his 
deceased  parent,  says,  "Alas!  alas!  I  have  eaten  my 
father."  "  My  child,  my  child !"  says  the  bereaved  mother, 
"  have  I  eaten  you  7"  The  figure  conveys  extreme  grief, 
and  an  intimation  that  the  melancholy  event  has  been  occa- 
sioned by  the  sins  or  faults  of  the  survivors.  In  cursing  a 
married  man,  it  is  common  to  say,  "  Yes,  thou  wilt  soon 
have  to  eat  thy  good  wife."  And  to  a  poor  widow, 
"Wretch  !  hast  ihou  not  eaten  thy  husband  *?"— Roberts. 

PSALM  XVI. 
Ver.  4.  Their  sorrows  shall  be  multiplied  that 
hasten  after  another  ^o^.'  their  drink-offerings 
of  blood  will  I  not  ofl'eT,  nor   take  up  their 
names  into  my  lips. 


Ps.  16—18. 


PSALMS. 


369 


This  refers  to  the  custom  of  many  heathen  people,  to 
drink  the  wine  of  the  sacrifice  mixed  with  blood,  particu- 
larly when  they  bound  themselves  by  dreadful  oaths,  and 
to  the  performance  of  fearful  deeds.  This  drink  was  called 
by  the  Romans  vinum  assiratum^  because  assir,  according 
to  Festus,  signifies  blood  in  the  ancient  Latin  language. 
In  this  manner,  as  Sallust  relates,  Catiline  took  the  oaths 
with  his  accomplices.  "  It  was  said  at  the  time  that  Cati- 
line, after  making  a  speech,  calling  on  the  accomplices  of 
his  crime  to  take  an  oath,  presented  them  with  human 
blood  mixed  with  wine,  in  cups ;  and  when  every  one  had 
drank  of  it,  after  pronouncing  an  imprecation,  as  is  cus- 
tomary in  solemn  sacrifices,  explained  his  plan."  In  a 
similar  manner,  Silius  Italicus  makes  the  Carthaginian 
Hannibal  swear,  an  instance  which  is  particularly  suitable 
to  illustrate  the  above  passage,  because  the  Carthaginians 
were  of  Phenician  or  Canaanite  origin.  When  the  prophet 
Zechariah  describes  the  conversion  of  the  Philistines,  he 
makes  Jehovah  say,  (x.  7,)  "  And  I  will  take  away  his 
blood  out  of  his  mouth,  and  nis  abominations  from  between 
his  teeth ;  but  he  that  remaineth,  even  he,  shall  be  for  our 
God,"  The  drinking  of  blood  at  sacrifices  was  prohibited 
to  the  Israelites  upon  pain  of  death. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  7.  I  will  bless  the  Lord,  who  hath  given 
me  counsel ;  my  reins  also  instruct  me  in  the 
night-seasons. 

Night  is  the  time  for  the  chief  joys  and  sorrows  of  the 
Hindoos,  and  it  is  then  they  are  principally  engaged  in  the 
worship  of  their  gods;  because  they  believe  praise  is  more 
acceptable  to  them  then,  than  at  any  other  period.  It  is 
believed,  also,  that  the  senses  have  more  power  in  the 
night ;  that  then  is  the  time  for  thought  and  instruction ; 
hence  they  profess  to  derive  much  of  their  wisdom  at  that 
season.  The  Psalmist  says,  "  Thou  hast  visited  me  in  the 
night;"  and  the  heathen  priests  always  pretend  to  have 
their  communications  with  the  gods  "  when  deep  sleep 
falleth  on  man."  See  them  at  their  Bloody  sacrifices,  they 
are  nearly  always  held  at  the  same  time,  and  what  with  the 
sickly  glare  of  lamps,  the  din  of  drums,  the  shrill  sound  of 
trumpets,  the  anxious  features  of  the  votaries,  the  ferocious 
scowl  of  the  sacrificer,  the  bloody  knife,  and  the  bleeding 
victim,  all  wind  up  the  mind  to  a  high  pitch  of  horror,  and<  > 
excite  our  contempt  for  the  deities  and  demons  to  whom 
night  is  the  time  of  oflTering  and  praise. — Roberts. 

PSALM  XVII, 

Ver.  2.  Let  my  sentence  come  forth  from  thy 
presence;  let  thine  eyes  behold  the  things  that 
are  equal. 

David,  in  his  integrity,  thus  cried  to  the  Almighty,  and  so 
people  in  the  East,  who  are  innocent,  when  pleading  "in  court^ 
say,  "  Let  us  have  your  sentence ;"  i.  e.  in  contradiction  of 
that  of  their  enemies.  "  See,  my  lord,  the  things  that  are 
right,"    "  Justice  !  justice  ["—Roberts. 

Ver,  10.  They  are  enclosed  in  their  own  fat: 
with  their  mouth  they  speak  proudly. 

To  say  a  man  is  fat,  often  means  he  is  very  proud.  Of 
one  who  speaks  pompously,  it  is  said,  "  What  can  we  do  1 
tassi-kul-lap-indl,"  i,  e.  from  the  fat  of  his  flesh  he  declares 
himself,  "Oh!  the  fat  of  his  mouth;  how  largely  he 
talks !"  "  Take  care,  fellow,  or  I  will  restrain  the  fat  of 
thy  mouth,"  "  From  the  intoxication  of  his  blood  he  thus 
talks  to  you." — Roberts. 

Ver.  11.  They  have  now  compassed  us  in  our 
steps ;  they  have  set  their  eyes  bowing  down 
to  the  earth, 

A  man  who  has  people  watching  him  to  find  out  a  cause 
for  accusation  to  the  king,  or  great  men,  says,  "  Yes,  they 
are  around  my  legs  and  my  feet ;  their  eyes  are  always 
open;  they  are  ever  watching  my  suvadu,"  i,  e.  steps;  i.  e. 
they  are  looking  for  the  impress,  or  footsteps,  in  the  earth. 
For  this  purpose,  the  eyes  of  the  enemies  of  David  were 
"  bowing  down  to  the  earth," — Roberts, 
47 


PSALM  XVIII. 
Ver,  2.  The  Lord  is  my  rock,  and  my  fortress, 
and  my  deliverer;  my  God,  my  strength,  in 
whom  1  will  trust ;  my  buckler,  and  the  horn 
of  my  salvation,  and  my  high  tower. 

See  on  Eph.  6,  16. 

That  is,  my  strong,  mighty  deliverer.  The  image  is 
taken  from  the  bull,  whose  strength  and  defensive  weapon 
lie  in  his  horns.  Hence  a  horn  is  the  symbol  of  stren^h. 
Jer.  xlviii.  25,  says,  "  The  horn  of  Moab  is  cut  off;"  that 
is,  his  power  is  weakened,  Micah  iv.  13,  says,  "  Arise  and 
thrash,  O  daughter  of  Zion ;  for  I  will  make  thy  horn  iron, 


and  I  will  make  thy  foot  brass ;  and  thou  shalt  beat  in  pieces 
many  people."  Ps.  cxxxii,  17,  "  There  will  I  make  the 
horn  of  David  to  bud :  I  have  adorned  a  lamp  for  mine 
anointed ;"  translated  by  Luther,  "  will  make  him  strong 
and  mighty,"  The  Greeks  and  Romans  made  use  of  the 
same  image.  The  former  said  of  a  bold  and  valiant  man, 
"  He  has  horns."  Horace  says  of  wine,  that  it  revived  the 
hope  of  the  aflJlicted,  and  gave  the  poor  "  horns,"  that  is, 
courage  and  strength. — Rosenmuller. 

The  most  extraordinary  oriental  costume  which  I  have 
yet  seen,  is  the  head-dress  worn  by  many  females  at  Deir 
el  Kamr,  and  in  all  the  adjacent  region  of  Mount  Lebanon. 
In  the  cities  on  the  seacoast  it  is  not  so  frequently  seen.  It 
is  called  Tantoor,  and  is  set  on  the  forehead,  projecting 
like  a  straight  horn.  It  is  from  fifteen  to  twenty  inches 
long;  in  its  thickness  gradually  diminishing;  having  its 
diameter  at  one  extremity  about  four  inches,  at  the  other 
about  two.  It  is  hollow,  otherwise  the  weight  would  be  in- 
supportable to  the  stiflfest  neck ;  and  it  is  tinselled  over,  so  as 
to  give  it  a  silvery  appearance.  The  end  with  the  larger 
diameter  rests  on  the  forehead,  where  it  is  strapped  to,  by 
one  strap  passing  behind  the  head,  and  another  passing 
under  the  chin :  the  horn  itself  protrudes  straight  forward, 
inclining  upward,  at  an  angle  of  about  twenty  or  thirty 
degrees.  Over  the  further  extremity  they  throw  the  veil, 
which  thus  serves  the  double  purpose  of  modesty  and  shade. 

I  could  hear  no  account  of  the  origin  of  this  unicorn 
costume.  In  its  style  it  difl^ers  materially  from  the  horns 
described  by  Bruce  in  Abyssinia,  and  by  other  travellers, 
which  have  been  considered  as  illustrating  thosepassages 
in  scripture,  "  Lift  not  up  your  horn  on  high. — Thy  horn 
hast  thou  exalted,"  &c.  For  here  it  is  the  females  that 
wear  it ;  and  not  the  men,  as  in  Abyssinia :  it  has  no  ap- 
pearance of  strength,  nor  indeed,  to  me,  of  beauty ;  althougn, 
doubtless,  among  the  females  of  Mount  Lebanon,  there  may 
be  as  much  vanity  in  their  mode  of  adjusting  and  bearing 
this  article  of  dress,  as  is  to  be  found  at  any  European  toilet. 
Some,  indeed,  though  very  few,  wear  this  monstrous  orna- 
ment protruding  from  one  side  of  the  face,  instead  of  the 
front :  but  I  could  obtain  no  satisfactory  account  of  this 
heretical  fashion,  any  more  than  of  the  orthodox  position 
of  the  Tantoor.  It  is  not  worn  by  the  Druse  women  only. 
The  servant  of  the  house  where  I  lived  at  Deir  el  Kamr 
wore  one  :  so  also  did  a  young  woman,  whose  marriage  I 
there  witnessed:  several,  likewise,  of  the  virgins,  that  were 
her  fellows,  and  bore  her  company,  wore  this  head-dress ; 
all  these  were  Christians.  Hanna  Doomani  told  me  that 
it  is  used  chiefly  by  the  lower  orders:  at  least  that  those 
who  have  been  brought  up  at  Damascus,  or  at  the  principal 
cities,  would  not  think  of  wearing  it.  In  other  words, 
probably,  it  is  the  true  ancient  female  mountaineer's  cos- 
tume ;  but  what  is  its  degree  of  antiquity,  it  may  be  difiicult 
to  discover. — Jowett. 

Ver.  5.  The  sorrows  of  hell  compassed  me  about ; 
the  snares  of  death  prevented  me. 

The  margin  has,  for  sorroias,  "  cords,"  (2  Sam,  xxii,  6. 
Prov,  xiii.  14,  and  xiv.  27.)  Dr.  BootKroyd  translates, 
"  The  cords  of  hades  enclosed  me ;  the  snares  of  death 
were  laid  for  me."  The  Psalmist  says  in  another  place, 
He  "  shall  rain  snares"  upon  the  wicked.  From  the  par- 
allel texts  in  Samuel  and  Proverbs,  it  is  evident  that  death, 
by  the  ancients,  in  figure  at  least,  was  personified  and  de- 
scribed as  having  snares,  with  which  to  catch  the  bodies  of 
men.  The  Hindoo  Yavia,  "  the  catcher  of  the  souls  of 
men,"  bears  some  resemblance  to  the  Charon  and  Minos  of 
the  Egyptians  and  Grecians.    Yama  rides  on  a  bufialo,  has 


370 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  18—22 


a  large  snare  in  his  hand,  and  is  every  way  a  most  hide- 
ous looking  monster.  In  his  anxiety  to  fill  his  caves  with 
mortals,  he  was  often  involved  in  great  disputes  with  the 
gods  and  others ;  as  in  the  case  of  Marcander,  who  was  a 
favourite  of  the  supreme  Siva.  He  had  already  cast  his 
SNARE  upon  him,  and  was  about  to  drag  him  to  the  lower 
regions,  when  the  deity  appeared,  and  compelled  him  to 
relinquish  his  prey.  When  people  are  in  the  article  of 
death,  they  are  said  to  be  caught  in  the  snare  of  Yama. 
(See  Matt,  xxiii.  33.) — Roberts. 

Ver.  33.  He  maketh  my  feet  like  hinds'  feet,  and 
setteth  me  upon  my  high  places. 

The  allusions  to  this  animal  in  the  sacred  volume,  though 
not  numerous,  are  of  considerable  importance.  Its  name 
in  Hebrew,  ('j-'n)  ail,  is  considered  by  Dr.  Shaw  as  a  gen- 
eric word,  including  all'  the  species  of  the  deer  kind ; 
whether  they  are  distinguished  by  round  horns,  as  the 
stag;  or  by  flat  ones,  as  the  fallow-deer;  or  by  the  small- 
ness  of  the  branches,  as  the  roe.  The  term  originally 
signified  aid  or  assistance ;  and,  in  the  progress  of  language, 
by  a  natural  and  easy  transition,  came  to  denote  an  animal 
furnished  with  the  means  of  defence,  but  limited  to  horned 
animals,  particularly  the  stag  and  the  hind.  This  creature 
seems  to  resemble  the  goat,  in  being  remarkably  sure-footed, 
and  delighting  in  elevated  situations. 

The  royal  Psalmist  alludes  to  both  circumstances  in  one 
of  his  triumphant  odes :  "  He  maketh  my  feet  like  hinds' 
feet,  and  setteth  me  upon  my  high  places."  He  might  also 
refer,  in  the  first  clause,  to  the  uncommon  solidity  and 
hardness  of  its  hoof,  which  Virgil  compares  to  brass,  which 
enables  it  to  tread,  with  ease,  the  pointed  rocks.  It  may 
seem,  from  the  words  of  David,  that  the  female  possesses  a 
surer  foot  and  a  harder  hoof  than  the  male,  for  he  ascribes 
to  himself  the  feet  of  the  hind ;  but  since  natural  historians 
have  not  remarked  any  difference  between  them,  it  is  prob- 
able he  was  led  to  the  choice  from  some  other  cause,  which 
it  may  not  be  easy  to  discover.  The  prophet  Habakkuk, 
in  the  close  of  his  prayer,  has  the  same  allusion,  and  nearly 
in  the  same  words :  "  He  will  make  my  feet  like  hinds' 
feet,  and  he  will  make  me  to  walk  upon  my  high  places." 
While  the  Psalmist  contents  himself  with  referring  merely 
to  the  firmness  and  security  of  his  position,  "  he  setteth  me  ^ ' 
upon  my  high  places,"  the  prophet  encourages  himself  with 
the  persuasion,  that  his  God  would  conduct  him  through 
every  danger,  with  the  same  ease  and  safety  as  the  hind 
walks  among  the  clifis  of  the  rock. — Paxton. 

PSALM  XIX. 

Ver.  4.  Their  line  is  gone  out  through  all  the 
earth,  and  their  words  to  the  end  of  the  world. 
In  them  hath  he  set  a  tabernacle  for  the  sun  ; 
5.  Which  is  as  a  bridegroom  coming  out  of  his 
chamber,  and  rejoiceth  as  a  strong  man  to  run 
a  race. 

The  espousals  by  money,  or  a  written  instrument,  were 
performed  by  the  man  and  woman  under  a  tent  or  canopy 
erected  for  that  purpose.  Into  this  chamber  the  bride- 
groom was  accustomed  to  go  with  his  bride,  that  he  might 
talk  with  her  more  familiarly  ;  which  was  considered  as  a 
ceremony  of  confirmation  to  the  wedlock.'  While  he  was 
there,  no  person  was  allowed  to  enter ;  his  friends  and  at- 
tendants waited  for  him  at  the  door,  with  torches  and  lamps 
in  their  hands;  and  when  he  came  out,  he  was  received  by 
all  that  were  present  with  great  joy  and  acclamation.  To 
this  ancient  custom,  the  Psalmist  alludes  in  his  magnifi- 
cent description  of  the  heavens :  "  In  them  he  set  a  taber- 
Racle  for  the  sun  ;  which  is  as  a  bridegroom  coming  out  of 
his  chamber,  and  rejoices  as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race." — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  10.  More  to  be  desired  are  they  than  gold, 
yea,  than  much  fine  gold;  sweeter  also  than 
honey  and  the  honey-comb. 

There  is  no  diiference  made  among  us,  between  the 
delicacy  of  honey  in  the  comb,  and  after  it?  separation  from 
it.   We  may  therefore  be  at  a  loss  to  CDter  into  the  energy 


of  that  expression,  "  Sweeter  than  honey,  and  the  honey- 
comb," Ps.  xix.  10 ;  or,  to  express  it  with  the  same  emphasis 
as  our  translation  does  the  preceding  clause,  "  Sweeter  than 
honey,  yea,  than  the  honeycomb,"  which  last,  it  should  seem, 
from  the  turn  of  thought  of  the  Psalmist,  is  as  much  to  be 
preferred  to  honey,  as  the  finest  gold  is  to  that  of  a  more 
impure  nature. 

But  this  will  appear  in  a  more  easy  light,  if  the  diet  and 
the  relish  of  the  present  Moors  of  West  Barbary  be  thought 
to  resemble  those  of  the  times  of  the  Psalmist :  for  a  paper 
published  first  in  the  Philosophical  Transactions,  and  after 
that  by  Dr.  Halley,  in  the  Miscellanea  Curiosa,  informs  us, 
that  they  esteem  honey  a  wholesome  breakfast,  "  and  the 
most  delicious  that  which  is  in  the  comb,  with  the  young 
bees  in  it,  before  they  come  out  of  their  cases,  while  they 
still  look  milkwhite,  and  resemble,  being  taking  out,  gen- 
tles, such  as  fishers  use :  these  I  have  often  ate  of,  but  they 
seemed  insipid  to  my  palate,  and  sometimes  I  found  they 
gave  me  the  heartburn." — Harmer. 

PSALM  XX. 
Ver.  5.  We  will  rejoice  in  thy  salvation,  and  in 
the  name  of  our  God  we  will  set  up  our  ban- 
ners :  the  Lord  fulfil  all  thy  petitions. 

In  all  religious  as  well  as  warlike  processions,  the  people 
carry  banners.  Hence  on  the  pinnacles  of  their  sacred  cars, 
on  the  domes  or  gateways  of  their  temples,  and  on  the  roof 
of  anew  house,  may  be  seen  the  banner  of  the  caste  or  sect 
floating  in  the  air.  Siva,  the  supreme,  also  is  described  as 
having  a  banner  in  the  celestial  world. 

When  a  person  makes  a  solemn  vow  to  go  on  a  pilgrim- 
age, to  perform  a  penance,  or  to  bathe  in  holy  water ;  or 
when  a  man  has  a  dispute  in  a  court  of  law,  or  in  any  other 
way;  or  when  a  disobedient  son  has  resolved  to  act  as  he 
pleases ;  it  is  said,  "  Why  try  to  move  him  from  his  pur- 
pose 1  lussil-katti,  he  has  tied  up,  and  stands  by  his  ban- 
ner :"  which  implies,  he  must  and  will  abide  by  his  purpose. 


The  banners  formerly  so  much  used  were  a  part  of  mili- 
tary equipage,  borne  in  times  of  war  to  assemble,  direct, 
distinguish,  and  encourage  the  troops.  They  might  possi- 
bly be  used  for  other  purposes  also.  Occasions  of  joy, 
splendid  processions,  and  especially  a  royal  habitation, 
might  severally  be  distinguished  in  this  way.  The  words 
of  the  Psalmist  may  perhaps  be  wholly  figurative :  but  if 
they  should  be  literally  understood,  the  allusion  of  erecting 
abanner  in  the  name  ofthe  Lord,  acknowledging  his  glory, 
and  imploring  his  favour,  might  be  justified  from  an  exist- 
ing practice.  Certain  it  is,  that  we  find  this  custom  preva- 
lent on  this  very  principle,  in  other  places,  into  which  it 
might  originally  have  been  introduced  from  Judea.  Thus 
Mr.  Turner  says,  "  I  was  told  that  it  was  a  custom  with  the 
soobah  to  ascend  the  hill  every  month,  when  he  sets  up  a 
white  flag,  and  performs  some  religious  ceremonies,  to  con- 
ciliate the  favour  of  a  dewta,  or  invisible  being,  the  genius 
of  the  place,  who  is  said  to  hover  about  the  summit,  dis- 
pensing at  his  will  good  and  evil  to  every  thing  around 
him."    (Turner's  Travels.) — Burder. 

PSALM  XXIL 

Title — To  the  chief  Musician  upon  Aijeleth  Sha- 
har,  (Hind  ofthe  Morning.)  A  Psalm  of  Da- 
vid. 

Many  curious  observations  have  been  made  on  the  titles 
of  the  Psalms,  but  attended  with  the  greatest  uncertainty. 
Later  eastern  customs,  respecting  the  titles  of  books  arid 
poems,  may  perhaps  give  a  little  more  certainty  to  these 
matters  ;  but  great  precision  must  not  be  expected.  D'Her- 
belot  tells  us,  that  a  Persian  metaphysical  and  mystic  poem 
was  called  a  Rose  Bush.  A  collection  of  moral  essays,  the 
Garden  of  Anemonics.  Another  eastern  book,  the  Lion  of 
the  Forest.  That  Scherfeddin  al  Baussiri  called  a  poem  of 
his,  written  in  praise  of  his  Arabian  prophet,  who,  he  .nf- 
firmed,  had  cured  him  of  a  paralytic  disorder  in  his  sleep, 
the  Habit  of  a  Derveesh ;  and  because  he  is  celebrated  there 
for  having  given  sight  to  a  blind  person,  this  poem  is  also 
entitled  bv  its  author,  the  Brif^ht  Star. 

The  ancient  Jewish  taste  may  reasonably  be  sitpposed  lo 
have  been  of  the  same  kind.    Agreeable  to  which  is  the  ex- 


Ps.  22. 


PSALMS. 


S7. 


planation  some  learned  men  have  given,  of  David's  com- 
manding the  bow  10  be  taught  the  children  of  Israel,  2  Sam. 
i.  18,  which  they  apprehended  did  not  relate  to  the  use  of 
that  weapon  in  war,  but  to  the  hymn  which  he  composed  on 
occasion  of  the  death  of  Saul  and  Jonathan,  and  from  which 
he  entitled  this  elegy,  as  they  think,  the  Bow.  The  twenty- 
second  Psalm  might,  in  like  manner,  be  called  the  Hind  of 
the  Morning;  the  fifty-sixth,  the  Dove  dwmb  in  distant  places  ; 
the  sixtieth,  the  Lily  of  the  Testimony;  the  eightieth,  the 
Lilies  of  the  Testimony,  in  the  plural';  and  the  forty-fifth, 
simply  the  Lilies. 

Ic  is  sufficiently  evident,  I  should  think,  that  these  terms 
do  not  denote  certain  musical  instruments.    For  if  they  did, 
v^hy  do  the  more  common  names  of  the  timbre  ,  the  harp, 
the  psaltery,  and  the  trumpet,  with  which   psalms  were  ^ 
sung,  Ps.  Ixxxi.  2,  3,  never  appear  in  those  titles  1 

Do  they  signify  certain  tunes  7  It  ought  not  however  to 
be  imagined  that"  these  tunes  are  so  called  from  their  bear- 
mg  some  resemblance  to  the  noises  made  by  the  things 
mentioned  in  the  titles,  for  lilies  are  silent,  if  this  supposition 
should  otherwise  have  been  allowed  with  respect  to  the 
Hind  of  the  Morning.  Nor  does  the  fifty-sixth  Psalm  speak 
of  the  mourning  of  the  dove,  but  of  its  dumbness.  If  they 
signify  tunes  at  all,  they  must  signify  the  tunes  to  which 
such  songs  or  hymns  were  sung,  as  were  distinguished  by 
these  names :  and  so  the  inquiry  will  terminate  in  this 
point,  whether  the  Psalms  to  which  these  titles  are  affixed 
were  called  by  these  names ;  or  whether  they  were  some 
other  psalms,  or  songs,  to  the  tune  of  which  these  were  to 
be  sung.  And  as  we  do  not  find  the  bow  referred  to,  nor 
the  same  name  twice  made  use  of,  so  far  as  our  lights 
reach,  it  seems  most  probable  that  these  are  the  names  of 
tho'^e  very  Psalms  to  which  they  are  prefixed. 

The  forty-second  Psalm,  it  may  be  thought,  might  very 
well  have  been  entitled  the  fyind  of  the  Morning,  because, 
as  that  panted  after  the  water  brooks,  so  panted  the  soul  of 
'.he  Psalmist  after  God ;  but  the  twenty-second  Psalm,  it  is 
certain,  might  equally  well  be  distinguished  by  this  title. 
Dogs  have  compassed  rite,  the  assembly  of  the  vmked  have 
enclosed  me :  and  as  the  Psalmist,  in  the  forty-second  Psalm, 
rather  chose  to  compare  himself  to  a  hart,  than  a  hind,  the 
twenty-second  Psalm  much  better  answers  this  title,  in 
which  he  speaks  of  his  hunted  soul  in  the  feminine  gen- 
der:  Deliver  my  soul  from  the  sword,  my  darling  (which  in 
the  original  is  feminine) /r/?m  the  poioer  of  the  dog.  Every 
one  that  reflects  on  the  circumstances "  of  David,  at  the 
time  to  which  the  fifty-sixth  Psalm  refers,  and  considers 
the  oriental  taste,  will  not  wonder  to  see  that  Psalm  en- 
titled the  Dove  dumb  in  distant  places ;  nor  are  lilies  more 
improper  to  be  made  the  title  of  other  Psalms,  with  proper 
distinctions,  than  a  Garden  of  Anem.onies  to  be  the  name  of 
a  collection  of  moral  discourses. — Harmer. 

Ver.  6.  But  I  am  a  worm,  and  no  man ;  a  re- 
proach of  men,  and  despised  of  the  people. 

When  a  man  complains  and  abhors  himself,  he  asks, 
"  What  am  11  a  worm!  a  worm!"  "  Ah!  the  proud  man; 
he  regarded  me  as  a  worm :  well  should  I  like  to  say  to 
him,  we  are  all  worms."  "  Worm,  crawl  out  of  my  pres- 
ence."— Roberts, 

Ver.  7.   All  they  that  see  me  laugh  me  to  scorn ; 
they  shoot  out  the  lip,  they  shake  the  head. 

^nsworth  has  this—"  All  they  that  see  me,  doe  skoff  at 
mee :  they  make-a-mow  with  the  lip,  they  wag  the  head." 
It  is  exceedingly  contemptuous  to  protrude  the  lower  lip ; 
and,  generally  speaking,  it  is  only  done  to  those  of  a  mean 
condition.  Those  who  cannot  grant  a  favour,  or  who  have 
not  the  power  to  perform  something  they  have  been  re- 
quested to  do,  "  shoot  out  the  lip."  To  shake  the  head  is 
a  favourite  way  of  giving  the  negative,  and  is  also  a  mark 
ef  disdain. — Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  I  was  cast  upon  thee  from  the  womb. 

"  What !"  asks  the  old  slave,  "  will  you  dismiss  me 
now "?  Have  I  not  been  cast  upon  you  from  the  keipum  ?" 
womb —  Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  Many  bulls  have  compassed  me:  strong 
bulls  of  Bashan  have  beset  me  round, 


Bishop  Home  says,  the  latter  verse,  if  literally  transla- 
ted, runs  thus :  "  Rebuke  the  wild  beast  of  the  reeds,  the 
congregation  of  the  mighty  among  Ihe  calves  of  the  nations, 
skipping  or  exulting  with  pieces  of  silver."  Wicked  men, 
or  those  who  have  much  bodily  strength,  who  insult  and 
domineer  over  the  weak,  and  all  "lewd  fellows  of  the 
baser  sort,"  are  called  mddukul,  i.  e.  bulls.  "  Of  what 
country  are  you  the  bull  1"  People  of  docile  dispositions 
— those  who  live  at  peace  with  their  neighbours — are  called 
cows  or  calves :  hence  when  violent  men  -injure  them,  it 
is  said,  "  See  those  bulls  how  they  are  oppressing  the 
calves ;  look  at  them,  they  are  always  butting  the  cows." 
"  Why  has  this  mad  bull  of  Point  Pedro  come  hither  ?  Go, 
bull,  go,  graze  in  thy  own  pastures."  David,  therefore, 
prayed  that  the  Lord  would  rebuke  the  bulls  who  thus 
troubled  his  people. — Roberts. 

The  strength  of  the  bull  is  too  remarkable  to  require  de- 
scription; and  his  courage  and  fierceness  are  so  great,  that 
he  ventures  at  times  to  combat  the  lion  himself  Nor  is 
he  more  celebrated  for  thcvse  qualities,  than  for  his  disposi- 
tion to  unite  with  those  of  his  own  kind,  against  their  com- 
mon enemy.  For  these  reasons  he  has  been  chosen  by  the 
Spirit  of  inspiration,  to  symbolize  the  powerful,  fierce,  and 
implacable  enemies  of  our  blessed  Redeemer ;  who,  for- 
getting their  personal  animosities,  combined  against  his 
precious  life,  and  succeeded  in  procuring  his  crucifixion  : 
"  Many  bulls  have  compassed  me:  strong  bulls  of  Bashan 
have  beset  me  round."  Nor  can  we  conceive  a  more  stri- 
king and  appropriate  symbol  of  a  fierce  and  ruthless  war- 
rior ;  an  instance  of  which  occurs  in  that  supplication  of 
David  :  "  Rebuke  the  company  of  the  spearmen,  the  mul- 
titude of  the  bulls,  with  the  calves  of  the  people,  till  every 
one  submit  himself  with  pieces  of  silver."  In  the  sublime 
description  of  Isaiah,  which  seems  to  refer  to  some'  great 
revolutions,  which  are  to  be  effected  in  times  long  poste- 
rior to  the  age  in  which  he  flourished ;  probably  in  these 
last  days,  antecedent  to  the  millennial  state  of  the  church ; 
the  complete  destruction  of  her  strong  and  cruel  enemies 
is  thus  foretold :  "  And  the  unicorns  shall  come  down  with 
them,  and  the  bullocks  with  the  bulls,  and  their  land  shall 
be  soaked  with  blood,  and  their  dust  made  fat  with  fat- 
ness."— Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  For  dogs  have  compassed  me;  the  as- 
sembly of  the  wicked  have  enclosed  me:  they 
pierced  my  hands  and  my  feet. 

"  The  dog,"  says  Poiret,  "  loses  in  Barbary,  as  in  the 
East  in  general,  a  part  of  those  social  qualities  which  make 
him  the  friend  of  man.  He  is  no  longer  that  domes- 
tic, mild,  insinuating  animal,  faithfully  attached  to  his 
master,  and  ever  ready  to  defend  him,  even  at  the  expense 
of  his  life.  Among  the  Arabs  he  is  cruel,  blood-tliirsty, 
always  hungry,  and  never  satisfied.  His  look  is  savage, 
his  physiognomy  ignoble,  and  his  appearance  disagreeable. 
The  Moors  grant  him,  indeed,  a  corner  of  their  tent ;  but 
this  is  all.  They  never  caress  him,  never  throw  him  any 
thing  to  eat.  To  this  treatment,  in  my  opinion,  must  the 
indifference  of  the  dogs  towards  their  master  be  ascribed. 
Very  often  they  have  not  even  any  master.  They  choose 
a  tent  as  a  place  of  refuge  ;  they  are  suffered  to  remain 
there,  and  no  further  notice  is  taken  of  them.  Refuse, 
carrion,  filth,  every  thing  is  good  enough  for  them,  if  they 
can  but  appease  their  hunger.  They  are  lean,  emaciated, 
and  have  scarcely  any  belly.  Among  themselves  they  sel- 
dom bite  each  other ;  but  they  unite  against  the  stranger 
who  approaches  the  Arab  tents,  furiously  attack  him,  and 
would  tear  him  to  pieces  if  he  did  not  seek  safety  in  flight 
from  this  starved  troop.  If  any  person  were  unable  to  de- 
fend himself,  or  had  the  misfortune  to  fall,  he  would  be  in 
danger  of  being  devoured,  for  these  dogs  are  very  greedy 
after  human  flesh."  D'Arvieux  also  observes,  that  the 
Bedouin  Arabs  keep  a  great  number  of  dogs,  which  run 
about  in  and  out  of  the  camp,  begin  to  bark  at  the  least 
noise  they  hear,  and  answer  each  other.  "  These  dogs," 
says  he,  "  are  not  accustomed  to  see  people  walking  about 
late  at  night,  and  I  believe  that  they  would  tear  any  one  in 
pieces  who  should  venture  to  approach  the  camp."  "  In  Mo- 
rocco," cays  Host,  "  there  are  dogs  in  abundance,  and  as  the 
greater  part  of  the  Moors  have  scarcely  enough  to  live  on  for 
themselves,  much  less  to  feed  dogs,  they  suffer  them  to  lie 
about  the  streets  so  starved  that  they  can  hardly  hang  to- 


372 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  23. 


gether,  and  almost  devoured  by  fleas  and  vermin.  But  these 
dogs,  which  do  not  move  during  the  daytime,  though  they 
are  frequently  trodden  on,  are  so^insupportable  in  the  night, 
not  only  on  account  of  their  barking,  bellowing,  and  cries, 
but  also  because  they  are  so  savage  and  sleep  so  little,  that 
nobody  is  able  to  go  through  the  streets  without  a  watch- 
man." 

"During  all  the  long  tour  through  this  dreary  and  melan- 
choly city,  (Alexandria,  in  Egypt,)  Europe  and  its  liveli- 
ness was  pictured  to  me  only  by  the  bustle  and  by  the  activ- 
ity of  the  sparrows.  I  here  no  longer  recognised  the  dog, 
that  friend  of  man,  the  attached  and  faithful  companion, 
the  lively  and  honest  courtier ;  he  is  here  a  gloomy  egotist, 
unknown  to  the  host  under  whose  roof  he  dwells,  cut  off 
from  human  intercourse,  without  being  less  of  a  slave ;  he 
does  not  know  him  whose  house  he  protects,  and  devours  his 
corpse  without  repugnance.  The  following  circumstance 
will  fully  paint  his  character."  In  the  evening  of  the  day 
on  which  I  arrived  at  Alexandria,  I  went  to  our  ship  to 
supply  myself  with  clean  linen.  It  was  eleven  o'clock  at 
night  when  I  came  again  on  shore,  and  I  was  half  a  league 
from  my  quarters.  I  was  obliged  to  go  through  a  city 
taken  only  that  morning  by  storm,  and  in  which  I  did  not 
know  a  street.  No  reward  could  induce  my  man  to  quit 
his  boat  and  accompany  me.  I  undertook  the  journey 
alone,  and  went  over  the  burying-ground,  in  spite  of  the 
manes,  as  I  was  best  acquainted  with  this  road.  At  the 
first  habitations  of  the  living,  I  was  attacked  by  whole 
troops  of  furious  dogs,  who  made  their  attacks  from  the 
doors,  from  the  streets,  and  the  roofs;  and  the  barking  re- 
sounded from  house  to  house,  from  one  family  to  another. 
I  soon,  however,  observed  that  the  war  declared  against  me 
v.as  not  grounded  on  any  coalition ;  for  as  soon  as  I  had 
quitted  the  territory  of  the  attackers,  they  were  driven 
away  by  the  others,  who  received  me  on  their  frontiers. 
The  darkness  was  only  lightened  by  the  stars,  and  by  the 
constant  glimmer  of  the  nights  in  this  climate.  Not'  to 
lose  this  advantage,  to  avoid  the  barking  of  the  dogs,  and 
to  take  a  road  which  I  knew  could  not  lead  me  astray,  I 
left  the  streets,  and  resolved  to  go  along  the  beach;  but 
walls  and  timber-yards,  which  extended  to  the  sea,  blocked 
up  the  way.  After  having  waded  through  the  water  to 
escape  from  the  dogs,  and  climbed  over  walls  where  the 
sea  was  too  deep,  exhausted  by  anxiety  and  fatigue,  and 
quite  wet,  I  reached  one  of  our  sentinels  about  midnight, 
in  the  conviction  that  the  dog  is  the  most  dreadful  among 
%      the  Egyptian  plagues."    (Denon.) — Rosenmuller, 

Ver.  21.  Save  me  from  the  lion's  mouth :  for  thou 
hast  heard  me  from  the  horns  of  the  unicorns. 

Those  who  are  in  great  trouble  from  the  power  or  cruelty 
of  others,  often  cry  out  to  their  gods — "  Ah  !  save  me  from 
the  tusk  of  the  elephant !  From  the  mouth  of  the  tiger,  and 
the  tusks  of  the  boar,  deliver  me— deliver  me !"  "  Who 
will  save  me  from  the  horn  of  the  kdndam  ?"  This  animal 
is  now  extinct  in  these  regions,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  deter- 
mine what  it  was :  the  word  in  the  Sathur-Agardthe  is 
rendered  jungle-cow,  but  it  was  probably  the  rhinoceros ; 
and  Dr.  Boothroyd  translates,  "  from  the  horns  of  the 
rhinoceros,  defend  me." — Roberts. 

PSALM  XXIII. 
Ver.  1.  The  Lord  is  my  shepherd;   I  shall  not 
want.     2.  He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green 
pastures :  he  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters. 

In  this  figure  the  Psalmist  had  in  his  view  a  shepherd 
leading  his  flock  into  luxuriant  fields,  and  causing  them  to 
quench  their  thirst  and  repose  by  gentle  streams.  In  a 
tropical  clime,  a  tranquil  stream  and  a  green  pasture  are 
peculiarly  pleasing  to  the  eye.  Hence  many  eastern  alle- 
gories are  taken  from  such  scenes.  "  Never,  never  will  I 
forget  my  God  :  he  has  brought  me  into  a  plenteous  pastur- 
age, and  folded  me  near  an  abundance  of  water."  "  Why 
does  he  like  this  country*?" — "Because  he  has  goodi gra- 
zing." "  Tamban  has  left  his  master,  because  there  was 
not^much  grass."  "  Much  grass  !  why  the  bull  was  never 
satisfied."  "  Well,  friend,  whither  are  you  going  1  in 
search  of  grass  and  water  T' — "  Yes ;  the  fat  one  has  be- 
come lean,  because  his  grass  has  withered  and  his  water 
failed." — Roberts, 


The  patriarchs  wandered  with  their  cattle  among  the 
towns  and  villages  of  Canaan,  and  fed  them  even  in  the 
most  populous  districts  without  molestation.  And  it  is  a 
remarkable  fact,  that  the  Kenites  and  Rechabites  lived  in 
'Palestine  under  tents,  and  fed  their  cattle  wherever  they 
could  find  pasture,  when  the  country  was  crowded  with  in- 
habitants, long  after  it  had  been  divided  by  lot  among  the 
tribes.  The  Bedouin  Arabs  claim  the  same  privilege  in 
those  countries  to  this  day,  which,  depopulated  as  they  are^ 
probably  contain  as  many  inhabitants  in  their  towns  and 
villages,  as  in  the  days  of  Abraham.  Nor  is  this  custom 
peculiar  to  Palestine ;  in  Barbary  and  other  places,  they 
live  in  the  same  manner.  Great  numbers  of  Arabian 
shepherds  come  into  Egypt  itself,  in  the  months  of  Novem- 
ber, December,  and  January,  from  three  or  four  hundred 
leagues  distance,  to  feed  their  camels  and  their  horses.  After 
having  spent  some  time  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Nile, 
they  retire  into  the  deserts,  from  whence,  by  routes  with 
which  they  are  acquainted,  they  pass  into  other  regions  to 
dwell  there,  in  like  manner,  some  months  of  the  year,  till 
the  return  of  the  usual  season  recalls  them  to  the  vale  of 
Egypt.  To  this  custom  of  leading  the  flocks  from  one 
country  and  region  to  another,  the  royal  Psalmist  alludes 
in  that  beautiful  pastoral:  "The  Lord  is  my  shepherd  ;  I 
shall  not  want.  He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green  pas- 
tures ;  he  leadeth  me  beside  the  still  waters.  He  restoreth 
my  soul;  he  leadeth  me  in  the  paths  of  righteousness,  for 
his  name's  sake."  We  are  taught  by  the  prophet  to  look 
for  the  same  blessings  from  the  vigilant  care  and  tender- 
ness of  Messiah  :  "  They  shall  feed  in  the  ways,  and  their 
pastures  shall  be  in  all  high  places.  They  shall  not  hun- 
ger nor  thirst ;  neither  shall  the  heat  nor  sun  smite  them  ; 
for  he  that  hath  mercy  on  them,  shall  lead  them;  even  by 
the  Springs  of  water  shall  he,guide  them,  and  I  will  make 
all  my  mountains  a  way,  and  my  highways  shall  be  exalt- 
ed." The  conduct  of  the  eastern  shepherd  in  leading  his 
flock  to  the  green  pastures,  and  the  still  waters,  is  clearly 
alluded  to  by  Johii,  in  the  book  of  Revelation:  "  For  the 
Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne,  shall  feed  them, 
and  lead  them  unto  living  fountains  of  waters ;  and  God 
shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes." — Paxton. 

Ver.  4.  Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley 
of  the  shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil :  for 
thou  art  with  me ;  thy  rod  and  thy  staff  they . 
comfort  me. 

"  He  was  indeed  a  good  king ;  by  his  sceptre  and  um- 
hrelUb  he  comforted  his  subjects."  By  the  staff  or  sceptre 
he  gently  governed  and  protected  his  people ;  and  by  his 
umbrella  he  defended  them  from  the  fierce  rays  of  the  sun. 
"  Yes ;  by  these  are  we  instructed,  guided,  supported,  and 
defended;  what  have  we  to  fear?  great  is  our  safety  and 
confidence."  "  You  are  now  becoming  an  old  man,  and 
your  children  are  young,  what  will  become  of  them  after 
your  death  V — "  Ah !  friend,  is  there  not  a  staff  in  the  hand 
of  God?"  "  Truly,  my  wife  and  children  have  gone;  they 
have  reclined  in  the  place  of  burning,  but  my  staff  is  still 
with  me."  "  See  the  wicked  one,  he  has  not  a  staff  left." 
— Roberts. 

In  the  bag  or  scrip,  which  is  mentioned  by  Samuel  as 
a  part  of  the  shepherd's  furniture,  his  provisions,  and  other 
necessaries,  are  carried.  He  bears  in  his  hand  a  staff  of 
considerable  length,  with  which  he  keeps  his  cattle  in  o|der, 
and  numbers  them  when  they  return  from  the  field.  WTo 
this  instrument  the  Psalmist  refers  in  that  beautiful  and 
affecting  passage,  where  he  addresses  Jehovah  as  the  shep- 
herd of  his  soul:  "  Yea,  though  I  walk  through  the  valley 
of  the  shadow  of  death,  I  will  fear  no  evil:  for  thou  art 
with  me  ;  thy  rod  and  thy  staff  they  comfort  me."— Paxton, 

Ver.  5.  Thou  preparest  a  table  before  me  in  the 
presence  of  mine  enemies :  thou  anointest  my 
head  with  oil ;  my  cup  runneth  over. 

In  Hindostan,  when  a  person  of  rank  and  opulence  ra- 
ceives  a  guest,  whom  he  wishes  to  distinguish  by  peculiar 
marks  of  regard,  he  pours  upon  his  hands  and  arms,  in  the 
presence  of  the  whole  company,  a  delightful  odoriferous 
perfume,  puts  a  golden  cup  into  his  hand,  and  pours  wme 
into  it  till  It  run  over ;  assuring  him  at  the  same  time,  thai 


Ps.  24—29. 


PSALMS. 


373 


it  is  to  him  a  great  pleasure  to  receive  him  into  his  house, 
and  that  he  shall  find  under  his  roof  every  comfort  which 
he  could  bestow.  The  reference  to  this  custom,  which  at 
one  time  was  probably  general  throughout  the  East,  in  the 
twenty-third  Psalm,  is  at  once  beautiful  and  striking: 
"  Thou  preparest  a  table  before  me  in  the  presence  of  mine 
em  mies ;  thou  anointest  my  head  with  oil,  my  cup  runneth 
over."  The  Lord  had  early  received  the  Psalmist  into  fa- 
vour ;  raised  him  to  the  highest  honours,  from  a  very  hum- 
ble condition ;  and,  what  was  infinitely  better,  he  set  before 
him  the  inestimable  blessings  of  redeeming  love,  prepared 
him  by  a  copious  unction  of  the  holy  Spirit  to  enjoy  them, 
and  welcomed  him  in  the  most  honourable  manner,  by  put- 
ting the  cup  of  salvation  into  his  hand,  in  the  presence  of 
all  his  people,  and  pouring  into  it  with  unsparing  liberality, 
the  wine  of  heavenly  consolation. — Paxton. 

On  all  joyful  occasions  the  people  of  the  East  anoint  the 
head  with  oil.  Hence,  at  their  marriages,  and  other  festive 
times,  the  young  and  old  may  be  seen  with  their  long  black 
tresses  neatly  tied  on  the  crown  of  the  head,  shining  and 
smooth,  like  polished  ebony.  The  Psalmist,  therefore,  re- 
joicing in  God  as  his  protector,  says,  "  Thou  anointest  my 
head  with  oil."  It  is  an  act  of  great  respect  to  pour  per- 
fumed oil  on  the  head  of  a  distinguished  guest ;  hence  the 
woman  in  the  gospel  manifested  her  respect  for  the  Saviour 
by  pouring  "  precious  ointment"  on  his  head. — Roberts. 

In  the  East,  the  people  frequently  anoint  their  visiters 
with  some  very  fragrant  perfume ;  and  give  them  a  cup  or 
a  glass  of  some  choice  wine,  which  they  are  careful  to  fill 
till  it  runs  over.  The  first  was  designed  to  show  their  love 
and  respect ;  the  latter  to  imply  that  v;hile  they  remained 
there,  they  should  have  an  abundance  of  every  thing.  To 
something  of  this  kind  the  Psalmist  probably  alludes  in 
^his  passage. — Burder. 

PSALM  XXIV. 

Vex.  7.  Lift  up  your  heads,  0  ye  gates ;  and  be 
ye  Jift  up,  ye  everlasting"  doors;  and  the  King 
of  glory  shall  come  in. 

See  on  Prov.  17.  19. 

PSALM  XXV. 
Ver.  15.  Mine  eyes  are  ever  towards  the  Lord  ; 
for  he  shall  pluck  my  feet  out  of  the  net. 

"  Those  who  delight  in  fowling,  do  not  spring  the  game 
with  dogs,  as  we  do;  but,  shading  themselves  with  an  ob- 
long piece  of  canvass,  stretched  over,  a  couple  of  reeds  or 
sticks,  like  a  door,  they  walk  with  it  through  the  several 
brakes  and  avenues,  where  they  expect  to  find  game.  The 
canvass  is  usually  spotted,  or  painted  with  the  figure  of  a 
leopard,  and  perforated  near  the  top  in  a  few  places,  for  the 
fowler  to  look  through,  and  observe  what  passes  before  him. 
The  partridge,  and  other  gregarious  birds,  when  the  canvass 
approaches,  will  covey  together,  although  they  were  feeding 
before  at  some  distance  from  one  another.  The  woodcock, 
quail,  and  other  birds,  which .  do  not  commonly  feed  in 
flocks,  will,  at  sight  of  the  oxtended  canvass,  stand  still  and 
look  with  astonishment,  which  gives  the  sportsman  an  op- 
portunity of  coming  very  near  them;  and  then  resting  the 
canvass  upon  the  ground,  and  directing  the  muzzle  of  his 
piece  through  one  of  the  holes,  he  will  sometimes  shoot  a 
whole  covey  at  a  time.  The  Arabs  have  another,  but  a 
more  laborious  method  of  catching  these  birds;  for  ob- 
serving that  thev  become  languid  and  fatigued,  after  they 
have  been  hastily  put  up  two  or  three  times,  they  immedi- 
ately run  in  upon  them,  and  knock  fhem  down  with  their 
bludgeons.  They  are  likewise  well  acquainted  with  that 
method  of  catching  partridges  called  tunnelling ;  and  to 
make  the  capture  the  greater,  they  will  sometimes  place 
behind  the  nei  a  cage  with  some  tame  ones  within,  which, 
by  their  perpetual  chirping  and  calling,  quickly  bring 
down  the  coveys  which  are  within  hearing,  and  by  that 
n leans  destroy  great  numbers  of  them.  To  hunt  the  jack- 
al, which  greatly  abounds  in  that  country,  they  sometimes 
use  a  leopard  which  has  been  trained  to  hunting  from  his 
youth.  The  hunter  keeps  the  animal  before  him  on  his 
hoTse,  and  when  he  meets  with  a  jackal,  the  leopard  leaps 
down,  and  creeps  along  till  he  thinks  himself  within  reach 
of  the  prey,  when  he  leaps  upon  it  with  inc  'edible  agility, 


throwing  himself  seventeen  or  eighteen  feet  at  a  time." 
These  statements  illustrate  the  force  and  propriety  of  those 
passages  of  holy  writ,  which  allude  to  the  arts  and  imple- 
ments of  the  hunter  and  the  fowler,  by  which  the  timid  vic- 
tim is  taken  ere  it  is  aware ;  or  the  bold  is  compelled  by 
main  force,  or  by  deadly  wounds,  to  submit  to  his  more 
cunning  or  powerful  adversary.  It  is  not  without  reason 
the  Psalmist  rejoiced  that  the  snare  was  broken,  and  his 
soul  had  escaped  as  a  bird  from  the  snare  of  the  fowler ; 
and  that  God  had  brought  his  feet  out  of  the  net. — Paxton. 

PSALM  XXVII. 
Ver.  6.  And  now  shall  my  head  be  lifted  up 
above  mine  enemies  round  about  me  :  therefore 
will  I  offer  in  his  tabernacle  sacrifices  of  j  oy ; 
I  will  sing,  yea,  I  will  sing  praises  unto  the 
Lord. 

"  The  Modeliar  is  now  fixed  in  his  situation." — "  Is  he*?" 
— "  Yes,  yes,  he  is  on  the  mountain,  and  is  like  unto  it." 
"  Who  will  take  me  out  of  this  mud,  and  place  me  upon 
the  mountain  1" — Roberts. 

PSALM  XXVIII. 
Ver.  1.  Unto  thee  will  I  cry,  O  Lord,  my  rock; 
be  not  silent  to  me :  lest,  if  thou  be  silent  to 
me,  I  become  like  them  that  go  down  into  the 
pit. 

See  on  Job  33.  18,  24 

Ver.  2.  Hear  the  voice  of  my  supplications,  when 
I  cry  unto  thee,  when  I  lift  up  my  hands  towards 
thy  holy  oracle. 

See  on  Ps.  44.  20. 

PSALM  XXIX. 

Ver.  5.  The  voice  of  the  Lord  breaketh  the  ce- 
dars; yea,  the  Lord  breaketh  the  cedars  of 
Lebanon. 

See  on  Deut.  3.  25. 

Ver.  9.  The  voice  of  the  Lord  maketh  the  hinds 
to  calve,  and  discovereth  the  forests :  and  in  his 
temple  doth  every  one  speak  of  his  glory. 

Ainsworth  translates,  "  Jehovah  maketh  the  hinds  trem- 
blingly to  travel."  The  thunder  of  the  East  is  far  more 
terrific  than  that  of  England.  The  explosion  is  so  sudden 
and  so  vast,  that  the  earth  literally  trembles  under  its 
power :  fierce  animals  rush  into  the  covert,  and  birds  fly 
afirighted  to  the  shade.  Then  it  is  the  people  say,  "  Ah'! 
this  will  cause  the  womb  to  tremble."  "  This  thunder  will 
make  the  pains  to  come."  "  I  fear  there  will  be  a  falling 
this  day." — Roberts. 

It  seems  to  be  generally  admitted,  that  the  hind  brings 
forth  her  young  with  great  difficulty;  and,  so  much  appears 
to  be  suggested  in  the  third  verse  of  the  same  chapter : 
"  They  bow  themselves,  they  bring  forth  their  young  ones, 
they  cast  out  their  sorrows."  But  if  Pliny,  and  other  nat- 
ural historians,  are  worthy  of  credit,  divine  providence  has 
been  graciously  pleased  to  provide  certain  herbs,  which 
greatly  facilitate  the  birth  ;  and  by  an  unerring  instinct,  he 
directs  the  hind  to  feed  upon  them,  when  the  time  of  ges- 
tation draws  towards  a  close.  Whatever  be  in  this  asser- 
tion, we  know  from  higher  authority,  that  providence  does 
promote  the  parturition  of  the  hind,  by  awakening  her  fears 
and  agitating  her  frame  by  the  rolling  thunder:  "The 
voice  of  Jehovah,  (a  common  Hebrew  phrase,  denoting 
thunder,)  maketh  the  hinds  to  calve."  Nor  ought  we  to 
wonder  that  so  timorous  a  creature  as  the  hind  should  be 
so  much  affected  by  that  awfully  imposing  sound,  when 
some  of  the  proudest  men  that  ever  existed,  have  been  made 
to  tremble.  Augustus,  the  Roman  emperor,  according  to 
Suetonius,  was  so  terrified  when  it  thundered,  that  he 
wrapped  a  seal-skin  round  his  body,  with  the  view  of  de- 
fending it  from  the  lightning,  and  concealed  himself  in  some 


374 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  30—32. 


.secret  corner  till  the  tempest  ceased.  The  tyrant  Caligula, 
who  sometimes  affected  to  threaten  Jupiter  himself,  covered 
his  head,  or  hid  himself  under  a  bed;  and  Horace  con- 
fesses, he  was  reclaimed  from  atheism  by  the  terror  of  thun- 
der aud  lightning. — Paxton. 

PSALM  XXX. 

Title — A  Psalm  and  Song  at  the  dedication  of 
the  house  of  David. 

It  was  common,  when  any  person  had  finished  a  house, 
and  cRtered  into  it,  to  celebrate  it  with  great  rejoicing,  and 
keep  a  festival,  to  which  his  friends  were  invited,  and  to 
perform  some  religious  ceremonies,  to  secure  the  protection 
of  heaven.  Thus,  when  the  second  temple  was  finished, 
the  priests  and  Levites,  and  the  rest  of  the  captivity,  kept 
the  dedication  of  the  house  of  God  with  joy,  and  offered 
numerous  sacrifices,  Ezra  $i.  Ifi  We  read  in  the  New 
Testament  of  the  feast  of  the  dedicaricn,  appointed  by  Judas 
Maccabaeus,  in  memory  of  the  purification  and  restoration 
of  the  temple  of  Jerusalem,  after  it  had  been  defiled  and 
laid  in  ruins  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes;  and  celebrated  an- 
nually, to  the  time  of  its  destruction  by  Titus,  by  solemn 
sacrifices,  music,  songs,  and  hymns  to  the  praise  of  God; 
and  feasts,  and  every  thing  that  could  give  the  people  plea- 
sure, for  eight  days  successively.  (Josephus.)  This  was 
customary  even  among  private  persons.  The  Romans  also 
dedicated  their  temples  and  their  theatres.  So  also  they 
acted  with  respect  to  their  statues,  palaces,  and  houses. — 
Chandler. 

Ver.  1.  I  will  extol  thee,  O  Lord;  for  thou  hast 
lifted  me  up,  and  hast  not  made  my  foes  to  re- 
joice over  me. 

"  Thou  hast  lifted  me  up."  The  verb  is  used,  in  its  original 
raeaning,  to  denote  the  reciprocating  moiiort  of  the  buckets 
of  a  well,  one  descending  as  the  other  rises,  and  vice  versa; 
and  is  here  applied,  with  admirable  propriety,  to  point  out 
the  various  reciprocations  and  changes  of  David's  fortunes, 
ds  described  in  this  psalm,  as  to  prosperity  and  adversity; 
and  particularly,  that  gracious  reverse  of  his  afflicted  con- 
.dition,  which  he  now  celebrates,  God  having  raised  him 
up  to  great  honour  and  prosperity;  for  having  built  his 
palace,  "  he  perceived  that  the  Lord  had  established  him 
king  over  Israel,  and  that  he  had  exalted  his  kingdom,  for 
his  people  Israel's  sake." — Chandler. 

Ver.  5.  For  his  anger  endureth  but  a  moment ;  in 
his  favour  is  life :  weeping  may  endure  for  a 
night,  but  joy  cometh  in  the  morning. 

The  Tamul  method  of  expressing  a  moment  is  to  move 
the  hand  once  round  the  head,  and  give  a  snap  of  the  finger. 
Thus  they  say  of  any  thing  which  endures  but  a  short  time, 
"  It  is  only  as  the  snap  of  the  fingers."  The  people  of  the 
East  have  nearly  all  their  festivities  in  the  night ;  they  say 
it  is  the  sorrowful  time,  and  therefore  adopt  this  plan  to 
make  it  pass  more  pleasantly  away.  To  those  who  are  in 
difficulties  or  sorrow;  to  widows,  orphans,  and  strangers, 
"  night  is  the  time  to  weep ;"  hence  in  passing  through  the 
village  may  be  heard  people  crying  aloud  to  their  departed 
friends,  or  bitterly  lamenting  their  own  condition.  They 
have,  however,  some  very  pleasing  and  philosophical  say- 
ings on  the  uncertainty  oif  the  sorrows  and  joys  of  life.  In 
the  book  Scanda-Purdna,  it  is  written,  "  The  wise,  when 
pleasure  comes,  do  not  greatly  rejoice  ;  and  in  sorrow  they 
yield  not  to  distress  ;  for  they  judge  that  pleasure  and  pain 
are  incident  to  life.  The  indigent  become  wealthy,  and  the 
wealthy  indigent;  and  inferiors  are  exalted.  Can  wealth 
or  poverty,  pleasure  or  pain,  be  regarded  as  permanent  to 
the  soul  f  The  phases  of  the  moon  remain  not  in  one  state ; 
they  diminish  and  increase  :  so  your  afflictions  will  one  day 
terrninate." — Roberts, 

Ver.  9.  What  profit  is  there  in  my  blood,  when  I 
go  down  to  the  pit  1  Shall  the  dust  praise  thee  ? 
shall  it  declare  thy  truth  ? 

"  When  I  go  down  to  the  pit,  what  fruit  will  there  be  in 
my  body  V  "  Ah !  he  has  fallen  into  the  pit,"  i.  e.  he  is  dead. 
Of  those  whose  bodies  have  been  burned,  it  is  said,  they  are 


all  sd'mbal,  i.  e.  all  ashes.  "  Where  is  your  father  V — "  Alas! 
my  lord,  he  is  ashes." — Roberts. 

PSALM  XXXI. 
Ver.  2.  Bow  down  thine  ear  to  me ;  deliver  me 
speedily ;  be  thou  my  strong  rock,  for  a  house 
of  defence  to  save  me. 

"  My  lord,  have  you  not  always  assisted  me  1  As  a 
mountain  and  a  fortress  have  you  been  to  me."  When  a 
rilan  of  rank  dies,  it  is  said,  "  that  konavi  (bastion  or  fortress) 
has  fallen." — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  And  hast  not  shut  me  up  into  the  hand  of 
the  enemy :  thou  hast  set  my  feet  in  a  large 
room. 

Dr.  Boothroyd  translates  this,  "  hast  set  my  foot  in  a 
wider  place."  Many  figures  in  the  English  language  are 
unquestionably  borrowed  from  the  scriptures,  among  which 
may  be,  "he  is  in  his  hands;"  for  he  is  in  his  power. 
When  Zedekiah  ordered  Ebed-melech  to  draw  Jeremiah 
out  of  the  dungeon,  he  was  directed  to  take  thirty  men  vnth 
him ;  but  tjj^e  margin  has  it,  "  in  thy  hand  /"  In  eastern 
language,  therefore,  to  be  in  the  hands  of  a  person,  signifies 
to  be  in  his  possession  or  power.  But  David  was  not  given 
into  the  hand  of  his  enemy,  and  his  feet  were  at  liberty  in 
a  large  place,  so  that  he  conlid  walk  whithersoever  he  pleased. 
In  another  verse,  he  says,  "  Thou  hast  enlarged  me  ;"  he 
was  increased  and  at  liberty  :  and  again,  in  speaking  of  his 
enemies,  and  the  misery  he  suffered,  he  says,  "  He  brought 
me  forth  into  a  large  place ;"  so  that  his  feet  were  at  liberty. 
The  feet  (as  well  as  the  hands)  are  sometimes  taken  for  the 
whole  maxi:  thus,  the  Lord  "  will  keep  the  feet  of  his  saints," 
finds  an  illustration  here.  "  Have  I  not  had  a  protector 
through  this  journey  1" — "  Yes,  the  gods  have  kept  my  feet." 
"Well,  have  you  heard  from  your  son  1" — "Yes;  be  has 
arrived  in  safety,  and  has  written  to  me,  saying,  he  will 
return  next  month,  if  the  gods  keep  his  feet."  A  man  who 
is  embarrassed  in  his  circumstances,  says,  "  My  feet  are  in 
shackles."  *'  Who  will  refresh  my  feet  1"  "  Who  will  give 
liberty  to  my  feet  T' — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  I  am  forgotten  as  a  dead  man  out  of  mind ; 
I  am  like  a  broken  vessel. 

"  Yes,"  says  the  man  who  is  reduced  to  poverty,  "  I  am 
now  a  corpse  to  all  my  former  friends."  "  What  is  a  man 
without  money  1  A  naddukera-savvam"  a  walking  corpse  i 
"I  am  now  a" broken  chatte"  a  potsherd.  "  Truly,  I  am 
like  the  tarn-bat  taw,"  the  drum  with  its  head  broken.  "  I  am 
of  no  use ;  no  one  enjoys  me." — Roberts. 

PSALM  XXXII. 
Ver.  4.  My  moisture  is  turned  into  the  drought  of 
summer.     Selah. 

The  fields  of  Canaan  are  refreshed  with  frequent  and  co- 
pious rains,  while  some  of  the  neighbouring  countries  are 
scarcely  ever  moistened  with  a  shower.  In  the  winter 
months,  the  rain  falls  indiscriminately,  but  seldom  in  the 
summer.  Soon  after  the  heats  commence,  the  grass  withers, 
the  flower  fades,  every  green  thing  is  dried  up  by  the  roots, 
and  the  fields,  so  lately  clothed  with  the  richest  verdure, 
and  adorned  with  the  loveliest  flowers,  are  converted  into 
a  brown  and  arid  wilderness.  To  the  uniform  withered 
appearance  of  the  fields  during  the  reign  of  an  eastern 
summer,  and  not  to  any  particular  year  of  drought,  the 
Psalmist  refers  in  these  plaintive  terms  :  "  My  moisture  is 
turned  into  the  drought  of  summer."  When  conviction 
slept,  and  conscience  was  silent,  the  soul  of  David  resem- 
bled a  field  refreshed  bv  the  genial  showers  of  heaven ; 
but  the  moment  God  in  anger  entered  into  judgment  with 
him,  and  set  his  sins  in  order  before  his  face,  his  courage 
failed,  his  beautv  was  turned  into  corruption,  and  his 
strength  into  weakness;  "the  commandment  came,  sin  re- 
vived, and  he  died." — Paxton. 

In  England  and  the  neighbouring  countries  it  is  common 
for  rain  to  fall  in  all  months  of  the  year.  But  it  is  not  so 
in  the  Levant.    Egypt  has  scarce  any  rain  at  all,  and  Di 


Ps.  32—37. 


PSALMS. 


375 


Shaw  affirms  that  it  is  as  uncommon  in  what  they  call  at 
Algiers  the  Desert,  which  is  the  most  southern  part  of  that 
country.  These,  however,  are  peculiar  cases.  Rain  indis- 
criminately in  the  winter  months,  and  none  at  all  in  the 
summer,  is  what  is  most  common  in  the  East.  Jacobus  de 
Vitriaco  assures  us  it  is  thus  in  Judea ;  for  he  observes  that 
"  lightning  and  thunder  are  wont,  in  the  western  countries, 
to  be  in  the  summer,  but  happen  in  the  Holy  Land  in  win- 
ter. In  the  summer  it  seldom  or  never  rains  there:  but  in 
winter,  though  the  returns  of  rain  are  not  so  frequent,  after 
they  begin  to  fall,  they  pour  down  for  three  or  four  days 
and  nights  together,  as  vehemently  as  if  they  would  drown 
the  country."  The  withered  appearance  of  an  eastern 
summer,  which  is  very  dry,  is  doubtless  what  the  Psalmist 
refers  to  when  he  says,  "  my  moisture  is  turned  into  the 
Irought  of  summer."  The  reference  is  not  to  any  particu- 
ar  year  of  drought,  but  to  what  commonly  occurs. — Har- 

M£R.  • 

Ver.  7.  Thou  art  my  hiding-place;  thou  shalt 
preserve  me  from  trouble :  thou  shalt  compass 
me  about  with  songs  of  deliverance.     Selah. 

We  see  in  the  case  of  David,  and  many  others,  that  they 
often  had  to  conceal  themselves  in  caves,  mountains,  and 
desert  places,  from  the  pursuit  of  their  enemies.  In  countries 
like  these,  where  the  police  is  imperfect,  where  population 
is  so  scattered,  and  where  it  is  so  easy  to  sustain  life,  it  can 
be  no  wonder  that  offenders  and  injured  men  oflen  conceal 
themselves  for  months  and  years  from  the  vigilance  of  their 
pursuers.  It  is  an  every-day  occurrence  to  hear  of  men  thus 
hiding  themselves.  Has  a  person  to  account  for  his  conduct, 
or  to  appear  in  a  court  of  justice,  he  packs  up  his  valuables, 
and  makes  a  start  into  the  jungle,  or  to  some  distant  country. 
Perhaps  he  prowls  about  the  skirts  of  a  forest,  and  occasion- 
ally visits  his  family  in  the  night.  See  him  on  his  way,  he 
walks  so  softly  that  the  most  delicate-eared  animal  cannot 
detect  him ;  he  looks  in  every  direction  ;  puts  his  ears  near 
the  ground,  and  listens  for  any  sound;  again  he  proceeds, 
sometimes  crawling,  sometimes  walking,  till  he  has  reached 
his  hiding-place.  But  the  natives  themselves  are  famous  for 
assisting  each  other  to  elude  the  search  of  their  pursuers ; 
and  often,  as  did  Jonathan  and  Ahimaaz,  they  conceal  them- 
selves in  the  well !  Sometimes  an  offender  will  run  to  a  man 
of  rank  who  is  at  enmity  with  his  foe,  and  say,  "  My  lord, 
you  must  be  my  hiding-place  against  that  wicked  man,  who 
has  committed  so  many  crimes  against  you,"  "  Ah  !  the 
good  man,  he  was  my  hiding-place," — Roberts. 

PSALM  XXXIV. 

Ver.  8.  0  taste  and  see  that  the  Lord  is  good: 
blessed  is  the  man  that  trusteth  in  him. 

"  I  have  russe-pdrtain,"  i.  e,  tasted  and  seen  the  holy  man. 
"  The  Modeliar  is  a  good  man ;  I  have  lasted  of  him  many 
times."  "  Tamby,  have  you  been  to  see  the  collector  1" — 
"  No,  I  am  afraid  of  him."—"  Fear  not ;  I  have  tasted  of 
him,  and  he  is  very  sweet."  "  Do  you  pretend  to  know  me  1" 
— "  Yes,  I  know  you  well ;  many  times  have  I  tasted  of 
you,  and  have  proved  you  to  be  all  bitterness."  A  wife 
says  of  a  good  husband,  "  I  have  tasted  him,  and  he  is  very 
sweet."  Does  a  father  chastise  his  child,  he  asks,  "  Do 
you  now  taste  me  7  Am  I  sweet  or  sour  7  When  you 
commit  such  things,  I  shall  always  be  sour  to  you."  Of  a 
good  and  absent  child,  he  says,  "  My  son,  my  son  !  when 
will  you  return,  that  I  may  again  taste  your  sweetness."— 
Roberts, 


Ver.  20.  He  keepeth  all  his  bones: 
them  is  broken. 


not  one  of 


A  curious  opinion  of  the  Jews  is,  that  wherever  their 
bodies  may  be  buried,  it  is  only  in  their  o-wti  promised  land 
that  the  resurrection  can  take  place ;  and,  therefore,  they 
who  are  interred  in  any  other  part  of  the  world  must  take 
their  way  to  Palestine  under  ground;  and  this  will  be  an 
operation  of  dreadful  toil  and  pain,  although  clefts  and 
caverns  will  be  opened  for  them  bv  the  Almighty.  Whether 
it  arose  from  this  superstition,  or  from  that  love  for  the  land 
^  their  fathers,  which,  in  the  Jews,  is  connected  with  the 
strongest  feeling,  of  faith  and  hope,  certain  it  is,  that 
aim. 


many  have  directed  their  remains  to  be  sent  there.  "  We 
were  fraughted  with  wool,"  says  an  old  traveller,  "  from 
Constantinople  to  Sidon,  in  which  sacks,  as  most  cer- 
tainly was  told  to  me,  were  many  Jews'  bones  put  into 
little  chests,  but  unknown  to  any  of  the  ship.  The  Jews, 
our  merchants,  told  me  of  them  at  my  return  from  Jeru- 
salem to  Saphet,  but  earnestly  entreated  me  not  to  tell  it, 
for  fear  of  preventing  them  another  time."  Sometimes  a 
wealthy  Jew  has  been  known  to  import  earth  from  Jeru- 
salem wherewith  to  line  his  grave.  ((Quarterly  Review.)— 

BURDER. 


PSALM  XXXV. 

Ver.  5.  Let  them  be  as  chaff  before  the  wind 
let  the  angel  of  the  Lord  chase  them. 


and 


"  Begone !  fellow ;  contend  not  with  my  brother  or  me  : 
thou  aft  as  chaff  before  the  wind !"  "  Not  a  word,  or  soon 
wilt  thou  be  as  cotton  before  the  wind !" — Roberts. 

Ver.  21.  Yea,  they  opened  their  mouth  wide 
against  me,  and  said,  Aha,  aha !  our  eye  hath 
seen  it. 

Dr.  Boothroyd,  "  They  open  wide  their  mouth  against 
me,  and  say,  Aha  !  aha  !  our  eye  seeth  what  we  wished." 
See  that  rude  fellow,  who  has  triumphed  over  another;  he 
distends  his  mouth  to  the  utmost,  then  claps  his  hands,  and 
bawls  out,  "  Agd!  agd!  I  have  seen,  I  have  seen."  So 
provoking  is  this  exclamation,  that  a  man,  though  va7i- 
quished,  will  often  commence  another  attack.  An  officer 
who  has  lost  his  situation  is  sure  to  have  this  salutation 
from  those  he  has  injured.  Has  a  man  been  foiled  in 
argument,  has  he  failed  in  some  feat  he  promised  to  per- 
form, has  he  in  any  way  made  himself  ridiculous,  the 
people  open  their  mouths,  and  shout  aloud,  saying,  "  Agd  I 
finished,  finished,  fallen,  fallen."  Then  they  laugh,  and 
clap  their  hands,  till  the  poor  fellow  gets  out  of  their  sight. 
— Roberts. 

PSALM  XXXVI. 
Ver.  11.  Let  not  the  foot  of  pride  come  against 
me,  and  let  not  the  hand  of  the  wicked  remove 
me. 

Here  we  have  another  instance  of  the  feet  and  hands 
being  used  for  the  whole  man.  Our  Saviour  said  of  the 
man :  "  The  hand  of  him  that  betrayeth  me."  Of  a  sick 
person  to  whom  the  physician  will  not  administer  any  more 
medicine,  it  will  be  said,  paregdri-kividtdn,  "  The  hand  of 
the  doctor  has  forsaken  him."  A  servant  is  under  the 
hand  of  his  master.  The  foot  of  pride  probably  alludes  to 
the  custom  of  the  conqueror  trampling  upon  the  vanquished: 
for  in  the  next  verse  it  is  said, ''  The  workers  of  iniquity 
are  fallen:  they  are  cast  down,  and  shall  not  be  able  to 
rise." — Roberts. 

PSALM  XXXVII. 

Ver.  6.  And  he  shall  bring  forth  thy  righteous- 
ness as  the  light,  and  thy  judgment  as  the  noon- 
day. 

flf'  Righteousness  and  the  light  are  but  one."  "  His  righ- 
teousness is  as  the  light."  "  Yes,  he  is  indeed  a  wise  judge, 
his  decision  is  as  the  noonday."  "What  an  erroneous 
judgment  is  this  !  my  case  was  as  powerful  and  clear  as  the 
sun  in  his  zenith." — Roberts, 

Ver.  35.  I  have  seen  the  wicked  in  great  power, 
and  spreading  himself  like  a  green  bay-tree. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  green  bay-tree,  "  a  tree  that 
groweth  in  his  own  soil,"  Ainsworth,  "  I  have  seen  the 
wicked  daunting  terrible,  and  spreading  himself  bare,  as  a 
green  self-growing  laurel."  A  truly  wicked  man  is  com- 
pared to  a  tamarind-tree,  whose  wood  is  exceedingly  hard, 
and  whose  fruit  is  sour.  "  That  jpassdm,  i.  e.  fiend,  is  like 
the  maridha-marram"  ( Terminalia-Alate.)  This  tree  re- 
sists the  most  powerful  storms ;  it  never  loses  its  leaves, 
and  is  sacred  to  Vyraver,  the  prince  of  devils,    I  have 


876 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  39—42. 


seen  some  that  would  measure  from  thirty  to  forty  feet  in 
circumference.  The  tamarind-tree  at  Port  Pedro,  under 
which  Baldeus  preached,  measures  thirty  feet. — Roberts. 

PSALM  XXXIX. 

Ver.  5.  Behold,  thou  hast  made  my  days  as  a 
hand-breadth,  and  mine  age  is  as  nothing  before 
thee :  verily  every  man  at  his  best  state  is  alto- 
gether vanity.     Selah. 

"  What  are  the  days  of  man  1  Only  four  fingers."  "  My 
son  has  gone,  and  has  only  had  a  life  of  four  fingers." 
"You  have  had  much  pleasure  *?" — "Not  so;  it  has  only 
been  the  breadth  of  four  fingers."  "  Is  he  a  great  land- 
owner V — "  Yes,  he  has  about  the  breadth  of  four  fingers." 
"  I  am  told  that  the  hatred  betwixt  those  people  is  daily 
decreasing'?" — "  Yes;  that  which  is  left  is  about  four  fingers 
in  breadth." — Roberts. 

Ver.  1 0.  Remove  thy  stroke  away  from  me :  I 
am  consumed  by  the  blow  of  thy  hand. 
11.  When  thou  with  rebukes  dost  correct  man 
for  iniquity,  thou  makest  his  beauty  to  consume 
away  like  a  moth :  surely  every  man  is  vanity. 
Selah. 

See  on  Job  4.  9. 

The  moths  of  the  East  are  very  large  and  beautiful,  but 
short-lived.  After  a  few  showers  these  splendid  insects 
may  be  seen  fluttering  in  every  breeze ;  but  the  dry  weather 
and  their  numerous  enemies  soon  consign  them  to  the  com- 
mon lot.  Thus  the  beauty  of  man  consumes  away  like  that 
of  this  gay  rover,  dressed  in  his  robes  of  purple,  and  scar- 
let, and  green. — Roberts. 

PSALM  XL. 

Ver.  6.  Sacrifice  and  offering  thou  didst  not  de- 
sire ;  mine  ears  hast  thou  opened :  burnt-offer- 
ing and  sin-offering  hast  thou  not  required. 

Ainsworth,  "Mine  ears  hast  thou  digged  open."  In 
scripture  phrase,  the  Lord  is  said  to  speak  in  the  ears  of 
his  people.  Those  young  heathen  who  are  above  ten  years 
of  age,  and  under  twenty,  have  the  ubbatheasum  whispered 
in  their  ears,  which  is  believed  to  have  a  very  sacred  ef- 
fect.—Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  Then  said  I,  Lo,  I  come :  in  the  volume 
of  the  book  it  is  written  of  me. 

I  have  elsewhere  observed,  that  the  oriental  books  and 
letters,  which  are  wont  both  of  them  to  be  rolled  up,  are 
usually  wrapped  in  a  covering  of  an  elegant  kind:  I  would 
here  add,  that  they  have  sometimes  words  on  these  cover- 
ings, which  have  a  general  notion  of  what  is  contained  in 
them ;  which  management  obtained  in  much  elder  times, 
and  might  possibly  be  in  use  when  some  of  the  Psalms 
were  written.  Sir  John  Chardin,  describing  the  manner 
of  dismissing  the  ambassadors  and  envoys  that  were  at 
the  court  of  the  Persian  monarch,  when  he  was  there, 
after  mentioning  the  presents  that  were  made  them,  goes  on 
to  inform  us,  "  that  the  letters  to  the  crowned  heads  w<re 
sealed;  that  for  the  cardinal  natron  was  open:  that  for 
the  pope  was  formed  so  as  to  oe  larger  than  the  rest ;  it 
was  enclosed  in  a  bag  of  very  rich  brocade,  and  sealed  at 
the  ends,  which  had  fringes  hanging  down  the  bag  half 
way.  The  seal  was  applied  to  the  place  where  the  knot 
was  on  both'  sides,  upon  red  wax,  of  the  diameter  of  a 
piece  of  fifteen  sols,  and  very  thick.  Upon  the  middle  of 
one  of  the  sides  of  the  bag  were  written  these  two  Persian 
words,  Hamel  Fasel,  which  signify,  excellent  or  precious 
writing."  After  which  he  goes  on  to  explain  the  reasons  that 
occasion  the  Persian  prince  to  treat  the  popes  with  such 
distinguished  honour,  which  it  would  be  of  no  use  to  con- 
sider here.  The  remark  I  would  make  relates  to  the  in- 
scription on  the  outside  of  the  rich  bag  enclosing  these 
despatches,  and  which,  in  few  words,  expressed  the  gen- 
eral nature  of  what  was  contsfined  in  the  roll  within:  it 
was  a  royal  writing.    This  practice  of  writing  on  the  out- 


side of  the  case  of  a  letter,  or  book  rolled  up,  seems  to  be 
at  least  as  ancient  as  the  time  of  Chrysostom,  according 
to  a  note  of  Lambert  Bos  on  the  40th  Psalm.  Chrysostom, 
we  are  told  there,  remarks,  that  they  call  a  wrapper  the 
Kefa'Sii,  which  is  the  word  the  Septuagint  translators  make 
use  of  to  express  the  Hebrew  word  nVja  megillath,  which 
we  translate  volume :  "In  the  volume  of  the  book  it  is  writ- 
ten of  me."  Chrysostom  seems  to  suppose  there  was 
written  in  or  on  the  sacred  volume,  a  word  or  words 
which  signified  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.  But  Chrysos- 
tom would  hardly  have  thought  of  such  an  intei-pretation, 
had  it  not  been  frequently  done  at  Constantinople  in  his 
time,  or  by  the  more  eastern  princes  that  had  business  to 
transact  with  the  Greek  emperors ;  or  been  known  to  have 
been  before  those  times  practised  among  the  Jews. — Har- 

MER. 

PSALM  XLI. 

Ver.  9.  Yea,  mine  own  familiar  friend  in  whom  I 
trusted,  which  did  eat  of  my  bread,  hath  lifted 
his  heel  against  me. 

"  The  man  who  has  eaten  my  rice  has  now  become  a 
traitor ;  yes,  he  has  cut  my  kuthe-kdl,"  i.  e.  heel. — Roberts. 

To  eat  of  the  same  bread  has  been  reckoned  in  every 
age  a  sure  pledge  of  inviolable  friendship.  Pythagoras  com- 
manded his  disciples  not  to  break  bread,  because,  say  they, 
the  bond  of  friendship  is  not  to  be  broken ;  and  all  friends 
should  assemble  round  the  same  cake.  A  cake  of  bread, 
observes  Curtius,  was  the  most  sacred  pledge  of  amity  among 
the  Macedonians.  Nothing  was  reckoned  baser,  in  the 
East,  than  to  offer  violence  to  those  at  whose  table  they 
had  been  entertained,  ^schines,  in  his  oration  against 
Demosthenes,  reproaches  him  especially  because  he  had 
accused  him,  though  they  had  eaten  at  the  same  table,  and 
joined  in  the  same  sacred  ceremonies.  In  perfect  har- 
mony with  these  views  and  feelings,  which  seem  to  have 
been  derived  from  a  very  remote  antiquity,  the  holy  Psalmist 
complains  of  Ahithophel :  "  Yea,  mine  own  familiar  friend, 
in  whom  I  trusted,  who  did  eat  of  my  bread,  hath  lifted  up 
his  heel  against  me."  And  a  greater  than  David,  in  ref- 
erence to  Judas  Iscariot:  "  I  speak  not  of  you  all:  I  know 
whom  I  have  chosen  ;  but  that  the  scripture  maybe  fulfilled, 
he  that  eateth  bread  with  me  hath  lifted  up  his  heel  against 
me."  The  traitor  had  lived  for  more  than  three  years  in 
the  relations  of  peace  and  amity  with  his  Lord  :  he  had 
been  called  in  the  apostolic  office,  and  had  been  admitted  to 
the  same  familiar  mtercourse  with  his  divine  Master,  as 
the  other  disciples  had  enjoyed.  These  invaluable  privi- 
leges greatly  aggravated  his  crime;  but  his  eating  bread 
at  his  Master's  table,  while  he  was  plotting  against  his 
life,  was  the  crowning  point  of  his  enormous  wickedness. 
— Paxton. 

PSALM  XLII. 

Ver.  1.  As  the  hart  panteth  after  the  water-brooks, 
so  panteth  my  soul  after  thee,  O  God. 

In  the  East,  where  streams  are  not  common,  and  where 
the  deer  are  so  often  chased  by  their  savage  co-tenants  of 
the  forest  and  the  glade,  no  wonder  that  they  are  often 
driven  from  their  favourite  haunts  to  the  parched  grounds. 
After  this,  their  thirst  becomes  excessive,  but  they  dare 
not  return  to  the  water,  lest  they  should  again  meet  the 
enemy.  When  the  good  Ramar  and  his  people  went 
through  the  thirsty  wilderness,  it  is  written,  "  As  the  deer 
cried  for  water,  so  did  they."  "  In  going  through  the  des- 
ert yesterday,  my  thirst  was  so  great,  I  cried  out  like  the 
deer  for  water." — Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  Deep  calleth  unto  deep  at  the  noisfj  of  thy 
water-spouts:  all  thy  waves  and  thy  billows 
are  gone  over  me. 

A  water-spout  at  sea  is  a  splendid  sight ;  in  shape  it  re- 
sembles a  funnel,  with  the  tube  pointing  to  the  water.  In 
1819,  a  large  one  burst  near  our  ship,  which  caused  con- 
siderable alarm  to  all  on  board.  We  were  near  to  it  be- 
fore we  were  aware,  and  the  captain  ordered  the  guns  to 
be  loaded  and  discharged,  to  cause  it  to  break.  Happily 
for  us,  it  burst  at  some  distance ;  but  the  iioise  the  water 


Ps.  42—45. 


PSALMS. 


377 


made  in  rushing  from  the  water-spout^  and  again  in  dash- 
ing into  the  sea,  strongly  reminded  me  of  this  expression, 
"  Deep  calleth  unto  deep  at  the  noise  of  ,thy  water-spouts." 
Roberts. 

Natural  philosophers  often  make  mention  of  water-spouts, 
which  are  most  surprising  appearances ;  but  hardly  any  of 
the  commentators,  that  I  have  observed,  speak  of  them, 
though  our  translators  have  used  the  term,  Psalm  xlii.  7, 
and  the  Psalmist  seems  to  be  directly  describing  those 
r)henomena,  and  painting  a  storm  at  sea.  And  none  of 
hem,  I  think,  take  notice  of  the  frequency  of  water-spouts 
on  the  Jewish  coasts,  and  consequently  that  it  was  natural 
for  a  Jewish  poet  to  mention  them,  in  the  description  of  a 
violent  and  dangerous  storm.  *■ 

That  this  however  is  the  fact,  we  learn  from  Dr.  Shaw, 
who  tells  us,  that  water-spouts  are  more  frequently  near  the 
capes  of  Latikea,  Greego,  and  Carmel,  than  in  any  other 
part  of  the  Mediterranean.  These  are  all  places  on  the 
coast  of  Syria,  and  the  last  of  them,  everybody  knows  in 
Judea,  it  being  a  place  rendered  famous  by  the  prayers  of 
the  prophet  Elijah.  The  Jews  then  could  not  be  ignorant 
•of  what  frequently  happened  on  their  coasts,  and  David 
must  have  known  of  these  dangers  of  the  sea,  if  he  had 
not  actually  seen  some  of  them,  as  Dr.  Shaw  did.  Strange 
then  !  since  this  is  the  case,  that  commentators  should 
speak  of  these  water-spouts  as  only  meaning  vehement 
rains ;  or  that  any  should  imagine  that  he  compares  his 
afflictions  to  the  pouring  of  water  through  the  spouts  of  a 
house,  as  Bythner  seems  to  do  in  his  Lyra,  when  they 
have  nothing  to  do  with  a  storm  at  sea,  which  the  Psalmist 
is  evidently  describing. 

Others  have  remarked  that  these  spouts  are  often  seen 
in  the  Mediterranean',  but  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen 
it  anywhere  remarked,  before  I  read  Dr.  Shaw,  that  they 
are  more  frequent  on  the  Syrian  and  Jewish  coasts,  than 
any  other  part  of  this  sea  \  and  as  the  doctor  has  not  ap- 
plied the  observation  to  the  explaining  any  part  of  scrip- 
ture, I  thought  it  was  right  to  take  notice  of  it  in  these  pa- 
pers, and  as  it  belongs  to  the  natural  history  of  Judea,  it 
comes  into  this  chapter. — Harmer. 

Ver.  11.  Why  art  thou  cast  down,  O  my  soul? 
and  why  art  thou  disquieted  within  me  ?  Hope 
thou  in  God;  for  I  shall  yet  praise  him,  who 
is  the  health  of  my  countenance,  and  my  God. 

Ainsworth,  "  the  salvations  of  my  face."  "  Oh  !  Siva, 
are  you  not  the  salvation  of  my  facel"  says  the  prostrate 
devotee.  "  To  whom  shall  I  make  known  my  distress  1 
are  not  you  the  salvation  of  my  face  V  "  Alas  !  alas !  the 
salvation  of  my  face  has  departed."  '*  The  blossoming  on 
my  face  is  now  withered  and  gone,"  says  the  widow,  la- 
menting over  the  corpse  of  her  husband. — Roberts. 

PSALM  XLIV. 
Ver.  20.  If  we  have  forgotten  the  name  of  our 
God,  or  stretched  out  our  hands  to  a  strange 
god. 

The  stretching  out  the  hand  towards  an  object  of  devotion, 
or  a  holy  place,  was  an  ancient  usage  among  Jews  and 
heathens  both,  and  it  continues  in  the  East  to  this  time, 
which  continuance  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  re- 
marked. "  If,"  says  the  Psalmist,  "  we  have  forgotten  the 
name  of  our  God,  or  stretched  out  our  hands  to  a  strange 
god :  shall  not  God  search  this  out  V  Ps.  xliv.  20, 21.  "  Ethi- 
opia shall  soon  stretch  out  her  hands  unto  God,"  Ps.  Ixviii. 
31.  "  Hear  the  voice  of  my  supplications,  when  I  cry  unto 
thee :  when  I  lift  up  my  hand  towards  thy  holy  oracle," 
Psalm  xxviii.  2. 

That  this  attitude  in  prayer  has  continued  among  the 
eastern  people,  appears  by  the  following  passages  from  Pitts, 
in  his  account  of  the  religion  and  manners  of  the  Moham- 
medans. Speaking  of  the  Algerines  throwing  wax  can- 
dles and  pots  of  oil  overboard,  as  a  present  to  some  marab- 
Dot,  or  Mohammedan  saint,  Pitts  goes  on,  and  says, 
"  When  this  is  done,  they  all  together  hold  up  their  hands, 
Degging  the  marabbot's  blessing,  and  a  prosperous  voyage." 
This  they  do  in  common,  it  seems,  when  in  the  Straits' 
mouth  ;  "  and  if  at  any  time  they  happen  to  be  in  a  very 
■  great  strait  or  distress,  as  being  chased,  or  in  a  storm,  they 
48 


will  gather  money,  and  do  likewise."  In  the  same  page  he 
tells  us,  the  "  marabbots  have  generally  a  little  neat  room 
built  over  their  graves,  resembling  in  figure  their  mosques 
or  churches,  which  is  very  nicely  cleaned,  and  we]l  looked 
after."  And  in  the  succeeding  page  he  tells  us,  "  Many 
people  there  are,  who  will  scarcely  pass  by  any  of  them 
without  lifting  up  their  hands,  and  saying  seme  short 
prayer."  He  mentions  the  same  devotion  again  as  prac- 
tised towards  a  saint  that  lies  buried  on  the  snore  -./f  the 
Red  Sea. 

In  like  manner,  he  tells  us,  that  at  quitting  .ne  oeet,  or 
holy  house  at  Mecca,  to  which  they  make  devout  pilgrim- 
ages, "  they  hold  up  their  hands  towards  the  beet,  making 
earnest  petitions ;  and  then  keep  going  backward  till  they 
come  to  the  abovesaid  farewell  gate.  All  the  way  as  thev 
retreat,  they  continue  petitioning,  holding  up  their  hands, 
with  their  eyes  fixed  on  the  beet,  until  they  are  out  of  sight 
of  it :  and  so  go  to  their  lodgings  weeping." — Harmer. 

PSALM  XLV. 
Ver.  1.  My  heart  is  enditing  a  good  matter:  I 
speak  of  the  things  which  I  have  made  touch- 
ing the  King ;  my  tongue  is  the  pen  of  a  ready 
writer. 


This  Psalm  is  a  poetical  composition,  in  the  form  of  an 
epithalamium,  or  song  of  congratulation,  upon  the  marriage 
of  a  great  king,  to  be  sung  to  music  at  the  wedding- feast. 
The  topics  are  such  as  were  the  usual  groundwork  of  such 
gratulatory  odes  with  the  poets  of  antiquity  :  they  all  fall 
under  two  general  heads,  the  praises  of  tte  bridegroom, 
and  the  praises  of  the  bride.  The  bridegroom  is  praised 
for  the  comeliness  of  his  person,  and  the  urbanity  of  his 
address,  for  his  military  exploits,  for  the  extent  of  his  con- 
quests, for  the  upright  adipinistration  of  his  government, 
for  the  magnificence  of  his  court.  The  bride  is  celebrated 
for  her  high  birth,  for  the  beauty  of  her  person,  the  richness 
of  her  dress,  and  her  numerous  train  of  blooming  bride- 
maids.  It  is  foretold  that  the  marriage  will  be  fruitful,  and 
that  the  sons  of  the  great  king  will  be  sovereigns  of  the 
whole  earth.  In  this  general  structure  of  the  poem,  we 
find  nothing  but  the  common  topics  and  the  common  ar- 
rangement of  every  wedding-song :  but  when  we  recollect 
that  the  relation  between  the  Saviour  and  his  church  is 
represented  in  the  writings  both  of  the  Old  and  New  Tes- 
tament, under  the  image  of  the  relation  of  a  husband  to  his 
wife,  that  it  is  a  favourite  image  with  all  the  ancient 
prophets,  when  they  would  set  forth  the  loving-kindness  of 
Goa  for  the  church,  or  the  church's  dutiful  return  of  love 
to  him  ;  while,  on  the  contrary,  the  idolatry  of  the  church, 
in  her  apostacies,  is  represented  as  the  adultery  of  a  mar- 
ried woman ;  that  this  image  has  been  consecrated  to  this 
signification  by  our  Lord's  own  use  of  it,  who  describes 
God  in  the  act  of  settling  the  church  in  her  final  state  of 
peace  and  perfection,  as  a  king  making  a  marriage  for  his 
son ; — the  conjecture  that  will  naturally  arise  upon  the 
recollection  of  these  circumstances  will  be,  that  this  epi- 
thalamium, preserved  among  the  sacred  writings  of  the  an- 
cient Jewish  church,  celebrates  no  common  marriage,  but 
the  great  mystical  wedding,  that  Christ  is  the  bridegroom, 
and  the  spouse  his  church.  And  this  was  the  unanimous 
opinion  of  all  antiquity,  without  exception  even  of  the 
Jewish  expositors.  For  although,  with  the  veil  of  igno- 
rance and  prejudice  upon  their  understandings  and  their 
hearts,  they  discern  not  the  completion  of  this  or  of  any  of 
their  prophecies  in  the  Son  of  Mary,  yet  they  allow,  that 
this  is  one  of  the  prophecies  which  relate  to  the  Messiah 
and  Messiah's  people ;  and  none  of  them  ever  dreamed  of 
an  application  of  it  to  the  marriage  of  any  earthly  prince. 

It  is  the  more  extraordinary,  that  there  should  have 
arisen  in  the  Christian  church,  in  later  ages,  expositors  of 
great  name  and  authority,  and,  indeed,  of  great  learning, 
who  have  maintained,  that  the  immediate  subject  of  the 
psalm  is  the  marriage  of  Solomon  with  Pharaoh's  daughter, 
and  can  discover  only  a  distant  reference  to  Christ  and  the 
church,  as  typified  by  the  Jewish  kiag  and  his  Egyptian 
bride.  But  read  this  psalm,  and  tell  me  if  you  can  any- 
where find  King  Solomon.  We  find,  mdeej,  passages 
which  may  be  applicable  to  Solomon,  but  not  more  appli- 
cable to  him  than  to  many  other  earthlv  kings ;  such  as 
comeliness  of  person  and  urbanity  of  address,  mentioned 


278 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  45. 


in  the  second  versa.  These  might  be  qualities,  for  any 
thing  that  we  know  to  the  contrary,  belonging  to  Solomon ; 
I  say,  for  any  thing  that  we  know  to  the  contrary,  for  in 
these  particulars  the  sacred  history  gives  no  information. 
We  read  of  Solomon's  learning,  and  of  his  wisdom,  and  of 
the  admirable  sagacity  and  integrity  of  his  judicial  deci- 
sions :  but  we  read  not  at  all,  as  far  as  I  recollect,  of  the 
extraordinary  comeliness  of  his  person,  or  the  affability  of 
his  speech.  And  if  he  possessed  these  qualities,  they  are 
110  more  than  other  monarchs  have  possessed,  in  a  degree 
not  to  be  surpassed  by  Solomon.  Splendour  and  stateliness 
of  dress,  twice  mentioned  in  this  psalm,  were  not  peculiar 
to  Solomon,  but  belong  to  every  great  and  opulent  mon- 
arch. Other  circumstances  might  be  mentioned,  applica- 
ble, indeed,  to  Solomon,  but  no  otherwise  than  as  generally 
applicable  to  every  king.  But  the  circumstances  which  are 
cnaracteristic  of  the  king  who  is  the  hero  of  this  poem,  are 
every  one  of  them  utterly  inapplicable  to  Solomon,  inso- 
much, that  not  one  of  them  can  be  ascribed  to  him,  without 
contradicting  the  history  of  his  reign.  The  hero  of  this 
poem  is  a  warrior,  who  girds  his  sword  upon  his  thigh, 
rides  in  pursuit  of  flying  foes,  makes  havoc  among  them 
with  his  sharp  arrows,  and  reigns  at  last  by  conquest  over 
his  vanquished  enemies.  Now  Solomon  was  no  warrior : 
he  enjoyed  a  long  reign  of  forty  years  of  uninterrupted 
peace.  He  retained,  indeed,  the  sovereignty  of  the  coun- 
tries which  his  father  had  conquered,  but  he  made  no  new 
conquests  of  his  own.  "  He  had  dominion  over  all  the 
region  west  of  the  Euphrates,  over  all  the  kings  on  this 
side  of  the  river,  (they  were  his  vassals,)  and  he  had  peace 
on  all  sides  round  about  him.  And  Judah  and  Israel  dwelt 
safely,  every  man  under  his  vine,  and  under  his  fig-tree, 
from  Dan  even  to  Beersheba,  all  the  days  of  Solomon."  If 
Solomon  ever  girded  a  sword  upon  his  thigh,  it  must  have 
been  merely  for  state  ;  if  he  had  a  quiver  of  sharp  arrows, 
he  could  have  had  no  use  for  them  but  in  huntmg.  And  it 
was  with  great  good  judgment,  that  upon  the  revision  of 
our  English  Bible,  in  the  reign  of  James  the  First,  the 
Calvinistic  argument  of  this  psalm,  as  it  stood  in  Glueen 
Elizabeth's  Bible,  was  expunged,  and  that  other  substituted 
which  we  now  read  in  our  Bible  of  the  larger  size,  in  these 
Words:  "  The  majesty  and  grace  of  Christ's  kingdom;  the 
duty  of  the  church,  and  the  benefits  thereof;"  which,  indeed, 
contain  a  most  exact  summary  of  the  whole  doctrine  of  the 
psalm.  And  the  particulars  of  this,  it  is  my  intention  in 
future  discourses  to  expound. 

The  psalm  takes  its  beginning  in  a  plain,  unaflTected 
manner,  with  a  verse  briefly  declarative  of  the  importance 
of  the  subject,  the  author's  extraordinary  knowlecfge  of  it. 
and  the  manner  in  which  it  will  be  treated: — 

"  My  heaxt  is  enditing  a  good  matter ;" 
or  rather, 

"  My  heart  labours  with  a  goodly  theme :" 
for  the  word  "  enditing"  answers  but  poorly,  as  our  transla- 
tors themselves  appear  from  their  margin  to  have  been  well 
aware,  to  the  emphasis  of  the  original,  which  expresses, 
that  the  mind  of  the  prophet  was  excited  and  heated,  boiling 
over,  as  it  were,  with  his  subject,  and  eager  to  give  utter- 
ance to  its  great  conceptions.  "  A  good  matter,"  or  "  a 
goodly  theme,"  denotes  a  subject  of  the  highest  interest  and 
importance : — 

"  My  heart  labours  with  a  goodly  theme : 

I  address  my  performance  to  the  King  ;" 

that  is,  as  haih  been  abundantly  explained,  to  the  great 
King  Messiah : — 

"My  tongue  is  the  pen  of  a  ready  writer;" 
that  is,  of  a  well-instructed  writer,  a  writer  prepared  and 
ready,  by  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  subject  he  undertakes 
to  treat. 

But  with  what  sense  and  meaning  is  it,  that  the  Psalmist 
compares  his  "tongue"  to  the  " pen"  of  such  a  writer  1  It 
is  to  intimate,  as  I  apprehend,  that  what  he  is  about  to  de- 
liver is  no  written  composition,  but  an  extemporaneous 
effusion,  without  any  premeditation  of  his  own,  upon  the 
immediate  impulse  and  suggestion  of  the  Holy  Spirit ;  that 
what  will  fall,  however,  in  that  manner,  from  his  "  tongue," 
for  the  coherence  and  importance  of  the  matter,  for  the 
correct  propriety  of  the  expression,  and  for  the  orderly 
arrangement  of  the  parts,  will  in  no  degree  fall  short  of  the 
most  laboured  production  of  the  "  pen"  of  any  writer,  the 
best  prepared  by  previous  study  of  his  subject ;  inasmuch 


as  the  Spirit  of  God  inspires  his  thoughts,  and  prorspts  his 
utterance.  After  this  brief  preface,  declaring  that  his  sub- 
ject is  Messiah,  chiefly  in  his  kingly  character;  that  he 
cannot  contain  the  thoughts  which  are  rising  in  his  mind; 
that  he  speaks  not  from  himself,  or  from  previous  study, 
but  from  inspiration  at  the  moment,  he  plunges  at  once 
into  the  subject  he  had  propounded,  addressing  the  King 
Messiah,  as  if  he  were  actually  standing  in  the  royal  pres- 
ence. And  in  this  same  strain,  indeed,  the  whole  song 
proceeds ;  as  referring  to  a  scene  present  to  the  prophet's 
eye,  or  to  things  which  he  saw  doing. — Horsley. 

Ver.  2.  Thou  art  fairer  than  the  children  of  men ; 
grace  is  poured  into  thy  lips :  therefore  God 
hath  blessed  thee  for  ever. 

We  have  no  account  in  the  gospels  of  our  Saviour's 
person.  Some  writers  of  an  early  age  (but  none  so  early 
as  to  have  seen  him)  speak  of  it  as  wanting  dignity,  and  oi 
his  physiognomy  as  unpleasing.  It  would  be  difficult,  I 
believe,  to  find  any  better  foundation  for  this  strange  no-, 
tion,  than  an  injudicious  interpretation  of  certain  prophe- 
cies, in  a  literal  meaning,  which  represent  the  humiliation 
which  the  Son  of  God  was  to  undergo,  by  clothing  his 
divinity  with  flesh,  in  images  taken  from"  personal  de- 
formity. But  from  what  is  recorded  in  the  gospels,  of  the 
ease  with  which  our  Saviour  mixed  in  what,  in  the  modern 
style,  we  should  call  good  company ;  of  the  respectful 
attention  shown  to  him,  beyond  any  thing  his  reputed  birth 
or  fortune  might  demand ";  and  the  manner  in  which  his 
discourses,  either  of  severe  reproof  or  gentle  admonition, 
were  received,  we  may  reasonably  conclude,  that  he  had  a 
dignity  of  exterior  appearance,  remarkably  corresponding 
with  that  authority  of  speech,  which,  upon  some  occasions, 
impressed  even  his  enemies  with  awe,  and  with  that  digni- 
fied mildness,  which  seems  to  have  been  his  more  natural 
and  usual  tone,  and  drew  the  applause  and  admiration  of 
all  who  heard  him.  External  feature,  however,  is  gene- 
rally the  impression  of  the  mind  upon  the  body,  and  words 
are  but  the  echo  of  the  thoughts ;  and,  in  prophecy,  more 
is  usually  meant  than  meets  the  ear  in  the  first  sound,  and 
most  obvious  sense  of  the  terms  employed.  Beauty  and 
grace  of  speech  are  certainly  used  in  this  text  as  figures  of 
much  higher  qualities,  which  were  conspicuous  in  our  Lord, 
and  in  him  alone  of  all  the  sons  of  men.  That  image  of 
God  in  which  Adam  was  created,  in  our  Lord  appeared 
perfect  and  entire  ;  in  the  unspotted  innocency  of  his  life, 
the  sanctity  of  his  manners,  and  his  perfect  obedience  to 
the  law  of  God ;  in  the  vast  powers  of  his  mind,  intellectual 
and  moral:  intellectual,  in  his  comprehension  of  all  knowl- 
edge ;  moral,  in  his  power  of  resisting  all  the  allurements 
of  vice,  and  of  encountering  all  the  difficulties  of  virtue  and 
religion,  despising  hardship  and  shame,  enduring  pain  and 
death.  This  was  the  beauty  with  which  he  was  adorned 
beyond  the  sons  of  men.  In  him,  the  beauty  of  the  divine 
image  was  refulgent  in  its  original  perfection ;  in  all  the 
sons  of  Adam,  obscured  and  marred,  in  a  degree  to  be 
scarce  discernible;  the  will  depraved,  the  imagination  de- 
bauched, the  reason  weak,  the  passions  rampant !  This 
deformity  is  not  externally  visible,  nor  the  spiritual  beauty 
which  is  its  opposite:  but,  could  the  eye  be  turned  upon  the 
internal  man,  we  should  see  the  hideous  shape  of  a  will  at 
enmity  with  God ;  a  heart  disregarding  his  law,  insensible 
of  his  goodness,  fearless  of  his  wrath,  swelling  with  the 
passions  of  ambition,  avarice,  vain-glory,  lust.  Yet  this  is 
the  picture  of  the  unregenerated  man,  by  the  depravity 
consequent  upon  the  fall,  born  in  iniquity,  and  conceived 
in  sin.  Christ,  on  the  contrary,  by  the  mysterious  manner 
of  his  conception,  was  bcm  without  spot  of  sin  ;  he  grew 
up  and  lived  full  of  grace  and  truth,  perfectly  sanctified  in 
flesh  and  spirit.  With  this  beauty  he  was  "  adorned  beyond 
the  sons  of  men." — Horsley. 

Ver.  3.  Gird  thy  sword  upon  thi/  thigh,  O  most 
Mighty,  with  thy  glory  and  thy  majesty. 

From  the  commendation  of  the  comeliness  of  the  kingls 
person,  and  the  graciousness  of  his  speech,  the  Psalmist,  in 
the  same  figurative  style,  passes  to  the  topic  of  his  prowess 
as  a  warrior,  under  w'hich  character  our  Lord  is  perpetu- 
ally described  in  the  prophecies.    The  enemies  he  Vad  to 


Ps.  45. 


PSALMS. 


379 


engage  are  ihe  wicked  passions  of  men,  the  devil  in  his  i 
wiles  and  machinations,  and  the  persecuting  powers  of  the 
world.  The  warfare  is  continued  through  the  whole  of  the 
period  I  have  mentioned,  commencing  upon  our  Lord's  as- 
cension, at  which  time  he  is  represented,  in  the  Revelation, 
as  going  forth  upon  a  "  white  horse,  with  a  crown  upon  his 
head,  and  a  bow  in  his  hand,  conquering  and  to  conquer." 
The  Psalmist,  in  imagery  almost  the  same,  accosts  him  as 
a  warlike  prince  preparing  to  take  the  field ;  describes  his 
weapons,  and  the  magnificence  of  his  armour,  and  prom- 
ises him  victory  and  universal  dominion. 

This  verse,  I  fear,  must  be  but  ill  understood  by  the 
English  reader.  The  words, "  O  most  Mighty !"  very  weak- 
ly render  the  original,  which  is  a  single  word,  one  of  the 
titles  of  Christ,  in  its  literal  sense  expressive  of  might  and 
vaiour.  But  the  great  difficulty  which,  in  my  apprehen- 
sion, must  perplex  the  English  reader,  lies  in  the  exhorta- 
tion, to  gircl  on  glory  and  majesty  together  with  the  sword. 
The  things  have  no  obvious  connexion;  and  how  are  ma- 
jesty and  glory,  in  any  sense  which  the  words  may  bear  in 
•our  language,  to  be  girt  on  upon  the  person  1  The  truth  is, 
that,  in  the  Hebrew  language,  these  words  have  a  great 
variety  and  latitude  of  meaning;  and  either  these  very 
words,  or  their  synonymes,  are  used  in  other  places  for 
splendid  dress,  and  for  robes  of  slate  ;  and  being  things  to 
be  girt  on,  they  must  here  denote  some  part  of  the  warrior's 
dress.  They  signify  such  sort  of  armour,  of  costly  mate- 
rials and  exquisite  workmanship,  as  was  worn  by  the 
greatest  generals,  and  by  kings  when  they  led  their  armies 
in  person,  and  was  contrived  for  ornament  as  well  as  safety. 
The  whole  verse  might  be  intelligibly  and  yet  faithfully 
rendered,  in  these  words : — 


"  Warrior  !  gird  thy  sword  upon  thy  thigh ; 
Buckle  on  thy  refulgent,  dazzhng  armour.' 


-HoBsusy. 


Ver.  4.  And  in  thy  majesty  ride  prosperously,  be- 
cause of  truth,  and  meekness,  and  righteous- 
ness;  and  thy  right  hand  shall  teach  thee  ter- 
rible things. 

That  is,  take  aim  with  thy  bow  and  arrow  at  the  enemy ; 
be  prosperous,  or  successful  in  the  aim  taken ;  ride  on  in 
pursuit  of  the  flying  foe,  in  the  cause  of  religious  truth, 
evangelical  humility,  and  righteousness. 

"And  thy  right  hand  shall  teach  thee  terrible  things j" 
rather, 

"  And  thy  own  right  hand  shall  show  thee  wonderful  things."  . 
In  these  words,  the  Saviour,  effecting  every  thing  by  his 
own  power,  is  represented  under  the  image  of  a  great 
champion  in  the  field,  who  is  prompted  by  his  own  courage, 
and  a  reliance  on  his  own  strength  and  skill,  to  attempt 
what  might  seem  impracticable;  singly  to  attack  whole 
squadrons  of  the  enemy;  to  cut  his  way  through  their  em- 
battled troops  ;  to  scale  their  ramparts  and  their  walls,  and 
at  last  achieve  what  seems  a  wonder  to  himself,  when  the 
fray  is  over,  when  he  is  at  leisure  to  survey  the  bulwarks 
he  has  demolished,  and  the  many  carcasses  his  sin-gle  arm 
has  stretched  upon  the  plain.  Such  great  things  he  will  be 
able  to  effect. 

It  yet  remains  to  be  more  fully  explained,  what  is  meant 
in  the  Psalmist's  detail  of  the  Messiah's  war,  by  those 
"  wonders"  which  "  his  own  right  hand  was  to  show  him :" 

"Thy  own  right  hand  shall  show  thee  wonders." 
Our  public  translation  has  it,  "  terrible  things."  But  the 
notion  of  terror  is  not  of  necessity  included  in  the  sense  of 
the  original  word,  as  it  is  used  by  the  sacred  writers :  it  is 
sometimes,  indeed,  applied  by  them  to  frightful  things :  but 
it  is  also  applied,  with  great  latitude,  to  things  extraordi- 
nary in  their  kind ;  grand,  admirable,  amazing,  awful ; 
although  they  should  not  be  frightful.  We  have  no  right, 
therefore,  to  take  it  in  the  strict  sense  of  "  frightful,"  unless 
something  in  the  context  points  to  that  meaning,  which  is 
not  the  case  in  this  passage.  And,  accordingly,  instead  of 
"  terrible,"  we  find,  in  some  of  the  oldest  English  Bibles, 
the  better  chosen  word,  *'  wonderful." 

Now  the  "  wonderful  things"  which  Messiah's  "  own  right 
hand"  showed  him,  I  take  to  be  the  overthrow  of  the  pagan 
superstition,  in  the  Roman  empire,  and  other  great  king- 
doms of  the  world,  by  the  mere  preaching  of  the  gospel, 
seconded  by  the  exemplary  lives  and  the  miracles  of  the 
first  preachers,  and  by  the  patient  endurance  of  imprison- 


ment, torture,  and  death,^for  Ihe  sake  of  Christ.  It  wa% 
indeed,  a  wonderful  thing,  wrought  by  Christ's  single  arm, 
when  his  religion  prevailed  over  the  whole  system  of  idol- 
atry, supported  as  it  w^as  by  the  authority  of  sovereigns,  by 
the  learning  of  philosophers,  and  most  of  all,  by  the  invet- 
erate prejudices  or  the  vulgar,  attached  to  their  false  gods 
by  the  gratification  which  their  very  worship  afforded  to 
the  sensual  passions,  and  by  the  natural  partiality  of  man- 
kind in  favour  of  any  system,  however  absurd  and  corrupt, 
sanctioned  by  a  long  antiquity.  It  was  a  wonderful  thing, 
when  the  devil's  kingdom,  with  much  of  its  invisible 
power,  lost  at  once  the  whole  of  its  external  pomp  and 
splendour;  when  silence  being  imposed  on  his  oracles,  and 
spells  and  enchantments  divested  of  their  power,  the  idol- 
atrous worship  which  by  those  engines  of  deceit  had  been 
universally  established,  and  for  ages  supported,  notwith- 
standing the  antiquity  of  its  institutions,  and  the  bewitching 
gayety  and  magnificence  of  its  festivals,  fell  into  neglect ; 
when  its  cruel  and  lascivious  rites,  so  long  holden  in  super- 
stitious veneration,  on  a  sudden  became  the  objects  of  a  just 
and  general  abhorrence  ;  when  the  unfrequented  temples, 
spoiled  of  their  immense  treasures,  sunk  in  ruins,  and  the 
images,  stripped  of  their  gorgeous  robes  and  costly  jewels, 
were  thrown  into  the  Tiber,  or  into  the  common  recepta- 
cles of  filth  and  ordure.  It  was  a  wonderful  thing,  when 
the  minds  of  all  men  took  a  sudden  turn ;  kings  became  the 
nursing  fathers  of  the  church,  statesmen  courted  her  alli- 
ance, philosophy  embraced  her  faith,  and  even  the  sword 
was  justly  drawn  in  her  defence.  These  were  the  "won- 
derful things"  effected  by  Christ's  right  hand ;  and  in  these, 
this  part  of  the  Psalmist's  prophecy  has  received  its  accom- 
plishment. Less  than  this  his  words  cannot  mean  ;  and  to 
more  than  this  they  cannot  with  any  certainty  be  extended : 
since  these  things  satisfy  all  that  is  of  necessity  involved  in 
his  expressions. — Horsley, 

Ver.  5.  Thine  arrows  are  sharp  in  the  heart  of 
the  King's  enemies;  whereby  the  people  fall 
under  thee. 

The  war  in  which  the  Psalmist  represents  the  Saviour  as 
engaged,  is  very  different  from  the  wars  which  the  princes 
of  this  world  wage  with  one  another :  it  is  not  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  lives  of  men,  but  for  the  preservation  of 
their  souls.  This  prophetic  text  of  the  Psalmist  relates 
only  to  that  spiritual  war  which  Christ  wages  with  the 
enemies  of  man,  for  man's  deliverance  ;  to  the  war  arising 
from  that  enmity  which  was  originally  put  between  the 
seed  of  the  serpent  and  the  woman's  seed.  The  offensive 
weapons  in  this  war  of  charity,  according  to  the  Psalmist, 
are  of  two  sorts,  a  sword  and  arrows.  The  common  mili- 
tary sword  is  a  heavy  massive  weapon,  for  close  engage- 
ment :  wielded  by  a  strong  and  skilful  arm,  it  stabs  and 
cuts,  opens  dreadful  gashes  where  it  falls,  severs  limbs,  lops 
the  head,  or  cleaves  the  body.  The  arrow  is  a  light  mis- 
sile weapon,  which,  in  ancient  times,  was  used  to  annoy  the 
enemy  at  a  distance,  and  particularly  when  put  to  flight.  _  It 
comes  whizzing  through  the  air  unseen,  and,  when  it  hits, 
so  small  is  the  wound,  and  so  swift  the  passage  of  the 
weapon,  that  it  is  scarcely  felt,  till  it  fixes  its  sharp  point  in 
the  very  heart. 

Now  both  these  weapons,  the  sword  and  the  arrow,  are 
emblems  of  one  and  the  same  thing ;  which  is  no  other 
than  the  word  of  God,  in  its  different  effects,  and  different 
manners  of  operation  on  the  minds  of  men,  represented 
under  these  two  different  images. 

The  word  of  God  may  be  divided,  indeed,  into  two  parts, 
the  word  of  reproof,  commination,  and  terror ;  and  the  word 
of  persuasion,  promise,  and  hope.  The  former  holds  up  to 
the  sinner  the  picture  of  himself;  sets  forth  the  turpitude  of 
sin,  the  holiness  of  God,  God's  hatred  of  unrighteousness; 
and  alarms  the  conscience  with  the  danger  of  a  state  ot" 
enmity  with  God,  and  with  denunciations  of  implacable 
wrath  and  endless  punishment. 

The  second,  the  word  of  persuasion,  promise,  and  hope, 
sets  before  the  penitent  the  riches  of  God's  mercy,  display- 
ed in  the  scheme  of  man's  redemption  ;  points  to  the  cross, 
where  man's  guilt  was  expiated ;  bids  the  contrite  sinner 
rely  on  the  Redeemer's  intercession ;  offers  the  daily  sup- 
ply of  grace  to  confirm  him  in  his  resolutions,  and  assist 
him  in  his  efforts  to  conform  himself  to  the  precepts  and 
example  of  the  Saviour,  and  promises  victory  and  glory  to 


Sisa 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  45. 


them  that  persevere :  thus  turning  despondency  into  hope, 
and  fear  into  love. 

The  first,  the  word  of  terror,  is  the  sword  girt  upon 
Messiah's  thigh;  the  second,  the  word  of  persuasion,  is  the 
arrow  shot  from  his  bow. 

For  the  sense  of  the  first  metaphor,  we  have  the  authority 
of  the  sacred  writers  themselves.  "  The  sword  of  the  Spirit," 
says  St.  Paul  to  the  Ephesians,  "  is  the  word  of  God."  And 
in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  the  full  signification  of  the 
figure  is  opened,  and  the  propriety  of  ihe  application  shown: 
"  For  the  word  of  God,"  says  the  inspired  author,  "  is  quick 
and  powerful,  (rather,  lively  and  energetic,)  and  sharper 
than  any  two-edged  sword,  and  piercing  to  the  parting  of 
soul  and  spirit,  and  to  the  joints  and  marrow ;"— that  is,  as 
the  soldier's  sword  of  steel  cuts  through  all  the  exterior  in- 
teguments of  skin  and  muscle,  to  the  bone,  and  even  through 
the  hard  substance  of  the  bone  itself,  to  the  very  marrow, 
and  divides  the  ligaments  which  keep  the  joints  of  the 
body  together ;  so  this  spiritual  sword  of  God's  awful  word 
penetrates  the  inmost  recesses  of  the  human  mind,  pierces 
to  the  very  line  of  separation,  as  it  were,  of  the  sensitive  and 
the  intelligent  principle,  lops  ofi"  the  animal  part,  divides 
the  joints  where  reason  and  passion  are  united,  sets  the  in- 
tellect free  to  exert  its  powers,  kills  sin  in  our  members, 
opens  passages  for  grace  to  enter  and  enrich  the  marrow 
of  the  soul,  and  thus  delivers  the  man  from  his  body  of 
death.  Such  are  the  effects  for  which  the  powerful  word 
of  terror  is  compared  to  a  two-edged  sword. 

The  comparison  of  the  word  of  promise  to  the  arrow  is 
more  easily  understood,  being  more  familiar,  and  analo- 
gous to  those  figures  of  speech  which  run  through  all  lan- 
guages, by  which,  whatever  makes  a  quick  and  smart 
impression  on  the  moral  feelings,  is  represented  under  the 
image  of  a  pointed  missile  weapon ;  as  when  we  speak  of 
"  the  thrilling  darts  of  harmony,"  or  "  the  shafts  of  elo- 
quence." The  Psalmist  speaks  of  these  arrows  of  God's 
word,  as  sticking  in  "  the  hearts  of  the  King's  enemies," 
that  is,  of  the  King  Messiah ;  for  he,  you  will  remember, 
is  the  only  king  in  question.  His  enemies,  in  the  highest 
sense  of  ihe  word,  are  those  who  are  avowedly  leagued 
with  the  apostate  faction ;  atheists,  deists,  idolaters,  heretics, 
perverse  disputers,  those  who,  in  any  manner  of  set  design, 
oppose  the  gospel ;  who  resist  the  truth  by  argument,  or 
encounter  it  with  ridicule;  who  explain  it  away  by  sophis- 
ticated interpretations,  or  endeavour  to  crush  it  by  the 
force  of  persecution.  Of  such  hardened  enemies  there  is 
no  hope,  till  they  have  been  hacked  and  hewed,  belaboured, 
and  all  but  slain  (in  the  strong  language  of  one  of  the  ancient 
prophets)  by  the  heavy  sword  of  the  word  of  terror.  But, 
m  a  lower  sense,  all  are  enemies  till  they  hear  of  Christ, 
and  the  terms  of  his  peace  are  offered  to  them.  Many 
such  are  wrought  upon  by  mild  admonition,  and  receive  in 
their  hearts  the  arrows  of  the  word  of  persuasion.  Such, 
no  doubt,  were  many  of  those  Jews  who  were  pricked  to 
the  heart  by  St.  Peter's  first  sermon,  on  the  day  of  Pente- 
cost: and  even  those  worse  enemies,  if  they  canbe  brought 
to  their  feeling  by  the  ghastly  wounds  and  gashes  of  the 
terrific  sword  of  the  word  of  threatening,  may  afterward 
be  pierced  by  the  arrow,  and  carry  about  in  their  hearts  its 
barbed  point.  And  by  the  joint  effect  of  these  two  weajjons, 
the  sword  and  the  arrow,  the  word  of  terror  and  the  word 
of  persuasion,  "  peoples,"  says  the  Psalmist,  that  is,  whole 
kingdoms  and  nations  in  a  mass,  "  shall  fall  under  thee  ;" 
shall  forsake  their  ancient  superstitions,  renounce  their 
idols,  and  submit  themselves  to  Christ. 

So  much  for  the  offensive  weapons,  the  sword  and  the 
arrows.  But  the  defensive  armour  demands  our  attention : 
for  it  has  its  use,  no  doubt,  in  the  Messiah's  war.  His 
person,  you  will  remember,  is  clad,  in  the  third  verse, 
"  with  refulgent,  dazzling  armour."  This  may  be  under- 
stood of  whatever  is  admirable  and  amiable  in  the  external 
form  and  appearance  of  the  Christian  religion.  First,  the 
character  of  Jesus  himself;  his  piety  towards  God,  his  phi- 
lanthropy towards  man;  his  meekness,  humility,  ready  for- 
giveness of  injuries,  patience,  endurance  of  pain  and  death. 
Secondly,  the  same  light  of  good  works  shining,  in  a  less 
degree,  in  the  lives  of  his  disciples,  particularly  the  apos- 
tles and  blessed  martyrs.  Thirdly,  whatever  is  clecent  and 
seemly  in  the  government,  the  discipline,  and  the  rites  of 
the  church.  All  these  things,  as  they  tend  to  draw  the 
admiration,  and  conciliate  the  good-will  of  men,  and  miti- 
gate the  malice  of  the  persecutor,  are  aptly  represented 


under  the  image  of  the  Messiah's  defensive  armour,  and 
had  a  principal  share  in  making  "peoples  fall  under  him." 

— HORSLEY. 

Ver.  6.  Thy  throne,  0  God,  is  for  ever  and  ever ' 
the  sceptre  of  thy  kingdom  is  a  right  sceptra 
7.  Thou  lovest  righteousness,  and  hatest  wicked- 
ness :  therefore  God,  thy  God,  hath  anointed 
thee  with  the  oil  of  gladness  above  thy  fellows. 

It  was  before  shown,  how  inapplicable  this  address  is  to 
Solomon  ;  and  it  is  obvious,  that  it  is  equally  inapplicable 
to  any  earthly  monarch  :  for  of  no  throne  but  God^s  can  it 
be  affirmed  with  truth,  that  it  is  for  ever  and  ever  ;  of  no 
king,  but  of  God  and  of  his  Christ,  it  can  be  said,  that  he 
loves  righteousness  with  a  perfect  love,  and  hates  wicked- 
ness with  a  perfect  hate ;  of  no  sceptre,  but  the  sceptre  of 
God  and  of  his  Christ,  that  it  is  a  straight  sceptre.  The 
sceptre  has  been,  from  the  earliest  ages,  a  badge  of  royalty. 
It  was  originally  nothing  more  than  a  straight  slender  rod, 
studded  sometimes  for  ornament  with  little  nails  of  gold. 
It  was  an  emblem  of  the  perfect  integrity  of  the  monarch 
in  the  exercise  of  his  power,  both  by  himself  and  by  his 
ministers,  inflexibly  adhering  to  the  straight  line  of  right 
and  justice,  as  a  mason  or  carpenter  to  his  rule.  The  per- 
fection of  the  emblem  consisted  in  the  straightness  of  the 
stick ;  for  every  thing  else  was  ornament.  The  straight- 
ness, therefore,  ascribed  by  the  Psalmist  to  Messiah's 
sceptre,  is  to  be  understood  of  the  invariable  justice  of  the 
administration  of  his  government.  Now,  certainly  there 
have  been  many  kings,  both  in  ancient  and  in  modern 
times,  to  whom  the  praise  is  due  of  a  cordial  regard  in 
general  to  righteousness,  and  of  a  settled  principle  of  dis- 
like to  wickedness;  many  who,  in  the  exercise  of  their 
authority,  and  the  measure  of  their  government,  have  been 
generally  directed  by  that  just  sense  of  right  and  wrong : 
but  yet  kings  are  not  exempt  from  the  frailties  of  human 
nature ;  the  very  best  of  them  are,  at  least,  in  an  equal  de- 
gree with  other  good  men,  liable  to  the  surprises  of  the 
passions,  and  the  seductions  of  temptation ;  insomuch  that 
that  predominant  love  of  righteousness  and  hatred  of  ini- 
quity, maintaining  an  absolute  ascendency  in  the  mind, 
in  all  times,  and  upon  all  occasions,  which  the  Psalmist 
attributes  to  his  heavenly  King,  has  belonged  to  none  that 
ever  wore  an  earthly  crown:  much  less  is  the  perfect 
straightness  of  the  sceptre,  a  perfect  conformity  to  the  rule 
of  right,  to  be  found  in  the  practice  and  execution  of  the 
governments  of  the  world. 

But  the  kingdom  of  the  God-man  is  in  this  place  intended. 
This  is  evident  from  what  is  said  in  the  seventh  verse: 
"  God,  even  thine  own  God,  hath  anointed  thee  with  the  oil 
of  gladness  above  thy  fellows ;"  that  is,  God  hath  advanced 
thee  to  a  state  of  bliss  and  glory  above  all  those  whom  thou 
hast  vouchsafed  to  call  thy  fellows.  It  is  said  too,  that  the 
love  of  righteousness,  and  hatred  of  wickedness,  is  the  cause 
that  God  hath  so  anointed  him,  who  yet,  in  the  sixth  verse, 
is  himself  addressed  as  God.  It  is  manifest,  that  these 
things  can  be  said  only  of  that  person  in  whom  the  God- 
head and  the  manhood  are  united ;  in  whom  the  human 
nature  is  the  subject  of  the  unction,  and  the  elevation  to 
the  mediatorial  kingdom  is  the  reward  of  the  man  Jesus : 
for,  in  his  divine  nature,  Christ,  being  equal  with  the 
Father,  is  incapable  of  any  exaltation.  Thus,  the  unction 
with  the  oil  of  gladness,  and  the  elevation  above  his  fellows, 
characterize  the  manhood ;  and  the  perpetual  stability  of 
the  throne,  and  the  unsullied  justice  of  the  government, 
declare  the  Godhead.  It  is  therefore  with  the  greatest  pro- 
priety that  the  text  is  applied  to  Christ,  in  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  and  made  an  argument  of  his  divinity;  not  by 
any  forced  accommodation  of  words  which,  in  the  mihd 
of  the  author,  related  to  another  subject,  but  according  to 
the  true  intent  and  purpose  of  the  Psalmist,  and  the  lit- 
eral sense,  and  only  consistent  exposition  of  his  words. — 

HORSLEY. 

Ver.  8.  All  thy  garments  smell  of  myrrh,  and 
aloes,  and  cassia,  out  of  the  ivory  palaces, 
whereby  they  have  made  thee  glad. 

The  holy  Psalmist  having  seated  the  King  Messiah  on 
his  everlasting  throne,  proceeds  to  the  magnificence  of  his 


Ps.  45. 


PSALMS. 


bSl 


court,  as  it  appeared  on  the  wedding-day ;  in  which,  the 
thing  that  first  strikes  him,  and  fixes  his  attention,  is  the 
majesty  and  splendour  of  the  king's  own  dress,  which,  in- 
deed, is  described  by  the  single  circumstance  of  the  profu- 
sion of  rich  perfumes  with  which  it  was  scented.  But 
this,  by  inference,  implies  every  thing  else  of  elegance  and 
costly  ornament:  for  among  the  nations  of  the  East,  in 
ancient  times,  perfume  was  considered  as  ♦be  finishing  of 
the  dress  of  persons  of  condition,  when  they  appeared  in 
public ;  and  modern  manners  give  us  no  conception  of  the 
costliness  of  the  materials  employed  in  the  composition  of 
their  odours,  their  care  and  nicety  in  the  preparation  of 
them,  and  the  quantity  in  which  they  were  used.  The 
high-priest  of  the  Jews  was  "not  sprinkled  with  a  few  scanty 
drops  of  the  perfume  of  the  sanctuary;  but  his  person  was 
so  bedewed  with  it,  that  it  literally  ran  down  from  his  beard 
to  the  skirts  of  his  garment.  The  high-priest  of  the  Jews, 
in  his  robes  of  office,  was  in  this,  as  I  shall  presently  ex- 
plain, and  in  every  circumstance,  the  living  type  of  our 
great  High-priest.  The  Psalmist  describes  the  fragrance 
of  Messiah's  garments  to  be  such,  as  if  the  aromatic  Avoods 
had  been  the  very  substance  out  of  which  the  robes  were 
made : — 

"  Thy  garments  are  all  myrrh,  aloes,  and  cassia." 
The  sequel  of  this  verse  is  somewhat  obscure  in  the  origi- 
nal, by  reason  of  the  ambiguity  of  one  little  word,  which 
different  interpreters  have  taken  differently.  I  shall  give 
what,  in  my  judgment,  is  the  literal  rendering  of  the 
passage,  and  trust  I  shall  not  find  it  difficult  to  make  the 
meaning  of  it  very  clear. 

"Thy  garments  are  all  myrrh,  aloes,  and  cassia, 
Excelling  the  palaces  of  ivory, 
ExceUing  those  which  delight  thee." 

Ivory  was  highly  valued  and  admired  among  the  Jews, 
and  other  eastern  nations  of  antiquity,  for  the  purity  of  its 
white,  the  delicate  smoothness  of  the  surface,  and  the  dura- 
bility of  the  substance ;  being  not  liable  to  tarnish  or  rust 
like  metals,  or,  like  wood,  to  rot  or  to  be  worm-eaten. 
Hence,  it  was  a  favourite  ornament  in  the  furniture  of  the 
houses  and  palaces  of  great  men ;  and  all  such  ornamental 
furniture  was  plentifully  perfumed.  The  Psalmist,  there- 
fore, says,  that  the  fragrance  of  the  King's  garments  far 
exceeded  any  thing  that  met  the  nostrils  of  the  visiters  in 
the  stateliest  and  best-furnished  palaces.  But  this  is  not 
all :  he  says,  besides,  that  these  perfumes  of  the  royal  gar- 
ments "  excel  those  which  delight  thee."  To  understand 
this,  we  must  recollect  that  there  were  two  very  exquisite 
perfumes  used  in  the  symbolical  service  of  the  temple,  both 
made  of  the  richest  spices,  mixed  in  certain  proportions, 
and  by  a  process  directed  by  the  law.  The  one  was  used 
to  anoint  every  article  of  the  furniture  of  the  sanctuary, 
and  the  robes  and  persons  of  the  priests.  The  composition 
of  it  was  not  to  be  imitated,  nor  was  it  to  be  applied  to  the 
person  of  any  but  a  consecrated  priest,  upon  pain  of  death. 
Some,  indeed,  of  the  kings  of  David's  line  were  anointed 
with  it :  but  when  this  was  done,  it  was  by  the  special  di- 
rection of  a  prophet,  and  it  was  to  intimate,  as  I  apprehend, 
the  relation  of  that  royal  house  to  the  eternal  priesthood,  to 
to  be  instituted  in  due  season  in  that  family.  The  other 
was  a  compound  of  other  ingredients,  which  made  the 
incense  that  was  burnt  upon  the  golden  altar  as  a  grateful 
odour  to  the  Lord.  This,  too,  was  most  holy,  and  to  at- 
tempt to  make  the  like  for  private  use  was  a  capital  offence. 
Now  the  perfumed  garments  of  the  Psalmist's  King  de- 
note the  very  same  thing  which  was  typified  under  the  law 
by  the  perfumed  garments  of  the  high-priest ;  the  Psalmist's 
King  being,  indeed,  the  real  person  of  whom  the  high-priest, 
in  every  particular  of  his  office,  his  services,  and  his  dress, 
was  the  type.  The  perfumed  garments  were  typical :  first, 
of  the  graces  and  virtues  of  the  Redeemer  himself  in  his 
human  character;  secondly,  of  whatever  is  refreshing,  en- 
couraging, consoling,  and  cheering,  in  the  external  minis- 
tration of  the  word  ;  and,  thirdly,  of  the  internal  comforts 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  But  the  incense  fumed  upon  the  golden 
altar  was  typical  of  a  far  inferior,  though  of  a  precious  and 
holy  thing ;  namely,  of  whatever  is  pleasing  to  God  in  the 
faith,  the  devotions,  and  the  good  works  of  the  saints.  Now 
the  Psalmist  says,  that  the  fragrance  breathing  from  the 
garments  of  the  King  far  excels,  not  only  the  sweetest 
odoujii  of  any  earthly  monarch's  pa. ace,  but  that  it  sur- 
passes those  spiritual  odours  of  sanctity  in  which  the  King 


himself  delights.  The  consolations  which  the  faithful,  un- 
der all  their  sufferings,  receive  from  him,  in  the  example 
of  his  holy  life,  the  ministration  of  the  word  and  sacra- 
ments, and  the  succours  of  the  Spirit,  are  far  beyond  the 
proportion  of  any  thing  they  have  to  offer  in  return  to  him, 
in  their  praises,  their  prayers,  and  their  good  lives,  not- 
withstanding in  these  their  services  he  condescends  to  lake 
delight.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  this  highly  mystic  text, 
that  the  value  of  all  our  best  works  of  faith  and  obedience, 
even  in  our  own  eyes,  must  sink  into  nothing,  when  they 
are  contrasted  with  the  exuberant  mercy  of  God  extended 
to  us  through  Christ. — Horsley. 

Ver.  9.  Kings'  daughters  were  among  thy  hon- 
ourable women :  upon  thy  right  hand  did  stand 
the  queen  in  gold  of  Ophir. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  word  "women,"  in  the  Bibles 
of  the  larger  size,  is  printed  in  that  character  which  is  used 
to  distinguish  the  words  which  have  been  inserted  by  the 
translators,  to  make  the  sense  perspicuous  to  the  English 
reader,  without  any  thing  expressly  corresponding  in  the 
original.  Omitting  the  word  "women,"  our  translators 
might  have  given  the  verse,  according  to  their  conceptions 
of  the  preceding  word,  which  describes  the  women,  thus: — 

"Kings'  daughters  are  among  thy  honourables  ;" 
that  is,  among  the  persons  appointed  to  services  of  honour. 
But  the  original  word,  thus  expressed  by  "  honourable 
women,"  or,  by  "  honourables,"  is  indeed  applied  to  what- 
ever is  rare  and  valued  in  its  kind,  and,  for  that  reason,  to 
illustrious  persons,  ennobled  and  distinguished  by  marks  of 
royal  favour:  and  in  this  sense,  it  certainly  is  figuratively 
applicable  to  the  persons  whom  I  shall  show  to  be  intended 
here.  But  the  primary  meaning  of  the  word  is,  "  bright, 
sparkling ;"  and  it  is  particularly  applied  to  brilliant  gems, 
or  precious  stones.  Sparkling  is,  in  all  languages,  figura- 
tively applied  to  female  beauty ;  and  the  imagery  of  the 
original  would  be  better  preserved,  though  the  sense  would 
be  much  the  same,  if  the  passage  were  thus  rendered: — 

"Kings'  daughters  are  among  the  bright  beauties  of  thy  court." 

The  beauty  certainly  is  mystic ;  the  beauty  of  evangelical 
sanctity  and  innocence. 

But  who  and  what  are  the  kings'  daughters,  the  lustre  of 
whose  beauty  adorns  the  great  monarch's  court '?  "  Kings' 
daughters,"  in  the  general  language  of  holy  writ,  are  the 
kingdoms  and  peoples  which  they  govern,  of  which,  in 
common  speech,  they  are  called  fathers.  The  expression 
may  be  ?ip  taken  here ;  and  then  the  sense  wjll  be,  that  the 
greatest  kingdoms  and  empires  of  the  world,  converted  to 
the  faith  of  Christ,  and  shining  in  the  beauty  of  the  good 
works  of  true  hminess,  will  be  united,  at  the  season  of  the 
wedding,  to  Messiah's  kingdom.  But,  inasmuch  as  Mes- 
siah's kingdom  is  not  one  of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world, 
and  that  secular  kingdoms  will  never  be  immediately,  and 
in  their  secular  capacity,  vassals  of  his  kingdom,  I  rather 
think,  that  the  kings'  daughters  mentioned  here,  are  the 
various  national  churches,  fostered  for  many  ages  by  the 
piety  of  Christian  princes,  and  now  brought  to  the  perfec- 
tion of  beauty,  by  the  judgments  which  shall  have  purged 
every  one  of  them  of  all  things  that  offend :  for  they  may 
well  be  called  "  kings'  daughters,"  of  whom  kings  and 
queens  are  called,  in  the  prophetic  language,  the  fathers 
and  the  mothers.  From  these,  the  Psalmist  turns  our 
attention  to  another  lady,  distinguished  above  them  all,  by 
her  title,  her  place,  and  the  superlative  richness  of  hei 
robes. 

"Kings'  daughters  are  among  the  bright  beauties  of  thy  court ; 
At  thy  right  hand  the  consort  has  her  station, 
In  standard  gold  of  Ophir. ' 

Some  expositors  have  imagined,  that  the  consort  is  an  em- 
blem of  the  church  catholic  in  her  totality ;  the  kings' 
daughters,  typical  of  the  several  particular  churches,  of 
which  that  one  universal  is  composed.  But  the  queen 
consort  here,  is  unquestionably  the  Hebrew  church ;  the 
church  of  the  natural  Israel,  reunited,  by  her  conversion, 
to  her  husband,  and  advanced  to  the  high  prerogative  of 
the  mother  church  of  Christendom;  and  the  kings'  daugh- 
ters are  the  churches  which  had  been  gathered  out  of  the 
Gentiles,  in  the  interval  between  the  expulsion  of  his  wife, 
and  the  taking  of  her  home  again;  that  is,  between  the  dis» 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  45. 


persion  of  the  Jews  by  the  Romans,  and  their  restoration. 
The  restoration  of  the  Hebrew  church  to  the  rights  of  a 
wife,-  to  the  situation  of  the  queen  consort  in  Messiah's 
kingdom  upon  earth,  is  the  constant  strain  of  prophecy. 
To  prove  this,  by  citing  all  the  passages  to  that  purpose, 
would  be  to  transcribe  whole  chapters  of  some  of  the 
prophets,  and  innumerable  detached  passages  from  almost 
all.  I  shall  produce  only  the  latter  part  of  the  second 
chapter  of  Hosea.  In  that  chapter,  Jehovah,  after  discard- 
ing the  incontinent  wife,  and  threatening  terrible  severity 
of  punishment,  adds,  that  nevertheless  the  time  should 
come,  when  she  should  again  address  her  offended  lord, 
by  the  endearing  name  of  husband.  "  And  I  will  betroth 
thee  to  myself  for  ever.  Yes;  I  will  betroth  thee  to  myself, 
with  justice,  and  with  righteousness,  and  with  exuberant 
kindness,  and  with  tender  love.  Yes ;  with  faithfulness, 
to  myself  I  will  betroth  thee."  These  promises  are  made 
to  the  woman  that  had  been  discarded,  and  cannot  be 
understood  of  mercies  to  be  extended  to  any  other.  The 
prophet  Isaiah  speaks  to  the  same  effect,  and  describes  the 
Gentile  converts  as  becoming,  upon  the  reunion,  children 
of  the  pardoned  wife.  And  I  must  not  omit  to  mention, 
that  St.  Paul,  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  to  clear  up  the 
mystery  of  "God's  dealing  with  the  Jews,  tells  us,  that 
"  blindness  is,  in  part  only,  happened  unto  Israel,  till  the 
time  shall  arrive  for  the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles  to  come  in; 
and  then  all  Israel  shall  be  saved  ;  for  the  gifts  and  callings 
of  God  are  without  repentance."  To  expound  these  pre- 
dictions of  the  ancient  prophets,  and  this  declaration  of  the 
apostle,  of  any  thing  but  the  restoration  of  the  natural 
Israel,  is  to  introduce  ambiguity  and  equivocation  into  the 
plainest  oracles  of  God. 

The  standard  gold  upon  the  queen's  robe,  denotes  the 
treasures  of  which  the  church  is  the  depositary ;  the  writ- 
ten word,  and  the  dispensation  of  grace,  and  forgiveness 
of  sins,  by  the  due  administration  of  the  sacraments. — 

HORSLEy. 

Ver.  10.  Hearken,  O  daughter,  and  consider,  and 
incline  thine  ear ;  forget  also  thine  own  people, 
and  thy  father's  house;  11.  So  shall  the  King 
greatly  desire  thy  beauty ;  for  he  is  thy  Lord, 
and  worship  thou  him. 

If  a  princess  from  a  distant  land,  taken  in  marriage  by  a 
great  king,  were  admonished  to  forget  her  own  people  and 
her  father's  house,  the  purport  of  the  advice  would  easily 
be  understood  to  be,  that  she  should  divest  herself  of  all 
attachment  to  the  customs  of  her  native  country,  and  to  the 
style  of  her  father's  court,  and  learn  to  speak  the  language, 
and  assume  the  dress,  the  manners,  and  the  taste  of  her 
husband's  people.  The  "  father's  house,"  and  "  own  peo- 
ple," which  the  Psalmist  advises  the  queen  consort  to  forget, 
is  the  ancient  Jewish  religion  in  its  external  form,  the  cere- 
monies of  the  temple  service,  the  sacrifices  and  the  typical 
purgations  of  the  Levitical  priesthood.  Not  that  she  is  to 
forget  God's  gracious  promises  to  Abraham,  nor  the  cove- 
nant with  her  forefathers,  (the  benefit  of  which  she  will 
enjoy  to  the  end  of  time,)  nor  the  many  wonderful  deliv- 
erances that  were  wrought  for  them;  nor  is  she  to  forget 
the  history  of  her  nation,  preserved  in  the  scriptures  of  the 
Old  Testament ;  nor  the  predictions  of  Moses  and  her 
prophets,  the  full  accomplishment  of  which  she  will  at  this 
time  experience :  and  historically,  she  is  never  to  forget 
even  the  ceremonial  law;  for  the  Levitical  rites  were  no- 
thing less  than  the  gospel  itself  in  hieroglyphics;  and, 
rightly  understood,  they  afford  the  most  complete  demon- 
stration of  the  coherence  of  revelation  with  itself,  in  all  its 
different  stages,  and  the  best  evidence  of  its  truth ;  showing 
that  it  has  been  the  same  in  substance,  in  all  ages,  differing 
onl>  in  external  form,  in  the  rites  of  worship,  and  in  the 
manner  of  teaching.  But  practically,  the  rites  of  their 
ancient  worship  are  to  be  forgotten,  that  is,  laid  aside  :  for 
they  never  were  of  any  other  importance  than  in  reference 
to  the  gospel,  as  the  shadow  is  of  no  value  but  as  it  resem- 
bles the  substance.  Practically,  therefore,  the  restored 
Hebrew  church  is  to  abandon  her  ancient  Jewish  rites,  and 
become  mere  and  pure  Christian ;  and  thus  she  will  secure 
the  conjugal  affections  of  her  husband,  and  render  the 
beauty  of  her  person  perfect  in  his  eyes.  And  this  she  is 
bound  to  do;  for  her  royal  husband  is  indeed  her  Lord: 


Moses  was  no  more  than  his  servant ;  the  prophets  after 
Moses,  servants  in  a  lower  rank  than  he.  But  the  authority 
of  Christ,  the  husband,  is  paramount  over  all;  he  is  entitled 
to  her  unreserved  obedience;  he  is  indeed  her  God,  entitlecJ 
to  her  adoration. — Horsley. 

Ver.  12.  And  the  daughter  of  Tyre  shall  be  there 
with  a  gift ;  eve?i  the  rich  among  the  people 
shall  entreat  thy  favour. 

This  submission  of  the  consort  to  her  wedded  lord,  will 
set  her  high  in  the  esteem  of  the  churches  of  the  Gentiles. 
The  "  daughter  of  Tyre,"  according  to  the  principles  of 
interpretation  we  have  laid  down,  must  be  a  church  estab- 
lished, either  literally  at  T}'re,  or  in  some  country  held 
forth  under  the  image  of  Tyre.  Ancient  Tyre  was  famous 
for  her  commerce,  her  wealth,  her  excellence  in  the  fine 
arts,  her  luxury,  the  profligate  debauched  manners  of  her 
people,  and  the  grossness  of  her  idolatry.  The  "  daughter 
of  Tyre"  appearing  before  the  queen  consort  "with  a  gift," 
is  a  figurative  prediction,  that  churches  will  be  established, 
under  the  protection  of  the  government,  in  countries,which 
had  been  distinguished  for  profligacy,  dissipated  manners, 
and  irreligion.  It  is  intimated  in  the  next  line,  that  some 
of  these  churches  will  be  rich ;  that  is,  rich  in  spiritual 
riches,  which  are  the  only  riches  of  a  church,  in  the  mystic 
language  of  prophecy;  rich  in  the  holy  lives  of  their  mem- 
bers, in  the  truth  of  their  creeds,  and  the  purity  of  their 
external  forms  of  worship,  and  in  God's  favour. — ^^Horsley. 

Ver.  13.  The  King's  daughter  is  all  glorious 
within ;  her  clothing  is  of  wrought  gold. 

From  this  address  to  the  queen,  the  Psalmist,  in  the  pref^ 
ent  verse,  returns  to  the  description  of  the  great  scene  lying 
in  vision  before  him. 

"The  King's  daughter  is  all  glorious  within." 

In  this  line,  the  same  person  that  has  hitherto  been  repre- 
sented as  the  King's  wife,  seems  to  be  called  his  daughter. 
This,  however,  is  a  matter  upon  which  commentators  have 
been  much  divided.  Some  have  imagined  that  a  new  per- 
sonage is  introduced  ;  that  the  King's  wife  is,  as  I  have  all 
along  maintained,  the  figure  of  the  Hebrew  church;  but 
that  this  "daughter  of  the  King"  is  the  Christian  church  in 
general,  composed  of  Jews  and  Gentiles  indiscriminately, 
considered  as  the  daughter  of  the  King  Messiah  by  his 
Hebrew  queen.  This  was  Martin  Luther's  notion.  Others 
have  thought  that  the  wife  is  the  Hebrew  church  by  itself, 
and  the  daughter,  the  church  of  the  Gentiles  by  itself. 
But  neither  of  these  explanations  are  perfectly  consistent 
with  the  imagery  of  this  psalm.  Far  to  be  preferred  is  the 
exposition  of  the  late  learned  and  pious  Bishop  Home,  who 
rejects  the  notion  of  the  introduction  of  a  new  personage, 
and  observes,  "  that  the  connexion  between  Christ  and  his 
spouse  unites  in  itself  every  relation  and  every  affection." 
She  is,  therefore,  daughter,  wife,  and  sister,  all  in  one. 
The  same  seems  to  have  been  the  notion  of  a  learned  Do- 
minican of  the  seventeenth  century,  who  remarks,  that  the 
Emperess  Julia,  in  the  legends  of  some  ancient  coins,  is 
called  the  daughter  of  Augustus,  whose  wife  she  was. 

But,  with  nmch  general  reverence  for  the  o]>inions  of 
these  learned  commentators,  I  am  persuaded  that  the  stops 
have  been  misplaced  in  the  Hebrew  manuscripts,  by  the 
Jewish  critics,  upon  the  last  revision  of  the  text ;  that  trans- 
lators have  been  misled  by  their  false  division  of  the  text, 
and  expositors  misled  by  translators.  The  stops  being 
rightly  placed,  the  Hebrew  words  give  this  sense  ;— 
"She  is  all  glorious" — 

She,  the  consort  of  whom  we  have  been  speaking,  is  glori 
ous  in  every  respect — 

"  Daughter  of  a  king !'' 

That  is,  she  is  a  princess  bom ;  (by  which  title  she  is  saluted 
in  the  Canticles ;)  she  is  glorious,  therefore,  for  her  high 
birth.  She  is,  indeed,  of  high  and  heavenly  extraction  ! 
She  may  say  of  herself,  collectively,  what  the  apostle  has 
taught  her  sons  to  say  individuallv,  "  Of  his  own  will  begat 
he  us,  with  the  word  of  his  truth."  Accordingly,  in  the 
Apocalypse,  the  bride,  the  Lamb's  wife,  is  "  the  holy  Jeru- 
salem, descending  out  of  heaven,  from  God." 


Ps  45— 51.^  PSALMS 

The  Psalmist  goes  on  :— 

"  Her  inner  garment  is  bespangled  with  gold  ; 

Her  upper  garment  is  embroidered  with  the  needle." 

Th«se  two  lines  require  little  comment.  The  spangles  of 
gold  upon  the  consort's  inner  garment,  are  the  same  thing 
with  the  standard  gold  of  Ophir,  of  the  ninth  verse ;  the  in- 
valuable treasure  with  which  the  church  is  endowed,  with 
the  custody  and  distribution  of  which  she  is  intrusted.  The 
embroidery  of  her  upper  garment  is,  whatever  there  is  of 
beauty  in  her  external  form,  her  discipline  and  her  rites, 

— HoitSLEY. 

Ver.  14.  She  shall  be  brought  unto  the  King  in 
raiment  of  needle-work :  the  virgins  her  com- 
panions that  follow  her  shall  be  brought  unto 
thee.  15.  With  gladness  and  rejoicing  shall 
they  he  brought:  they  shall  enter  into  the 
King's  palace. 

Our  public  translation  has  simply,  "  She  is  brought ;"  but 
the  original  word  implies,  the  pomp  and  conduct  of  a  public 
procession.  The  greatest  caution  is  requisite  in  attempting 
to  interpret,  in  the  detail  of  circumstances,  the  predictions 
of  things  yet  remote.  We  may  venture,  however,  to  apply 
this  conducting  of  the  queen  to  the  palace  of  her  lord,  to 
some  remarkable  assistance  which  the  Israelites  will  re- 
ceive from  the  Christian  nations  of  the  Gentile  race,  in 
their  resettlement  in  the  Holy  Land ;  which  seems  to  be 
mentioned  under  the  very  same  image  by  the  prophet 
Isaiah,  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  chapter,  and  by  the 
prophet  Zephaniah,  chap.  iii.  10,  and  is  clearly  the  sub- 
ject of  more  explicit  prophecies.  "  Thus  saith  Jehovah," 
speaking  to  Zion,  in  the  prophet  Isaiah,  "  Behold,  I  will 
lift  up  my  hand  to  the  Gentiles,  and  set  up  my  standard  to 
the  peoples ;  and  they  shall  bring  thy  sons  in  their  arms, 
and  thy  daughters  shall  be  carried  upon  their  shoulders." 
And  in  another  place,  "  They"  (the  Gentiles  mentioned  in 
the  preceding  verse)  "  shall  bring  all  your  brethren,  for  an 
offering  unto  Jehovah,  out  of  all  nations,  upon  horses,  and 
in  chariots,  and  in  litters,  and  upon  mules,  and  upon  swift 
beasts,  to  my  holy  mountain  Jerusalem." 

But  the  Psalmist  is  struck  with  the  appearance  of  a  very 
remarkable  band,  described  in  the  next  verse,  which  makes 
a  part  in  this  procession : — 

"She  is  conducted  in  procession  to  the  King, 

Virgins  follow  her,  her  companions, 

Coming  unto  thee ; 

They  are  conducted  in  procession,  with  festivity  and  rejoicing ; 

They  enter  the  palace  of  the  King." 

These  virgins  seem  to  be  different  persons  from  the  kings' 
daughters  of  the  ninth  verse.  Those  "  kings'  daughters" 
were  already  distinguished  ladies  of  the  monarch's  own 
court :  these  virgins  are  introduced  to  it  by  the  queen :  they 
follow  her  as  part  of  her  retinue;  and  are  introduced  as  her 
companions.  The  former  represent,  as  we  conceive,  the 
churches  of  Gentile  origin,  formed  and  established  in  the 
period  of  the  wife's- disgrace :  these  virgins  we  take  to  be 
new  churches,  formed  among  nations,  not  sooner  called  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  gospel,  and  the  faith  in  Christ,  at  the 
very  season  of  the  restoration  of  Israel,  in  whose  conver- 
sion the  restored  Hebrew  church  may  have  a  principal 
share.  This  is  that  fulness  of  the  Gentiles  of  which  St. 
Paul  speaks  as  coincident  in  time  with  the  recovery  of  the 
Jews,  and,  in  a  great  degree,  the  effect  of  their  conversion. 
"  Have  they  stumbled  that  they  should  fall  1"  saith  the 
apostle,  speaking  of  the  natural  Israel ;  "  God  forbid :  but 
rather,  through  their  fall,  salvation  is  come  unto  the  Gen- 
tiles, for  to  provoke  them  to  emulation.  Now,  if  the  fall  of 
them  be  the  riches  of  the  world,  and  their  loss  the  riches  of 
the  Gentiles,  how  much  more  their  fulness  1  For  if  the 
casting  away  of  them  be  the  reconciling  of  the  world,  what 
shall  the  receiving  of  them  be,  but  life  from  the  dead'?" 
In  these  texts,  the  apostle  clearlyiJays  out  this  order  of  the 
business,  in  the  conversion  of  the  whole  world  to  Christ : 
First,  the  rejection  of  the  unbelieving  Jews  :  then,  the  first 
call  of  the  Gentiles :  the  recovery  of  the  Jews,  after  a  long 
season  of  obstinacy  and  blindness,  at  last  provoked  to  emu- 
lation, brought  to  a  right  understanding  of  God's  dispensa- 
tions, by  that  very  call  which  hitherto  has  been  one  of  their 
stumbling-blocks:  and  lastlv,  in  consequence  of  the  con- 
Version  of  the  Jews,  a  prodigious  influx  from  the  Gentile 


383 


nations  yet  unconverted,  and  immersed  in  the  darkness  and 
corruptions  of  idolatry ;  which  make  little  less  than  two 
thirds,  not  of  the  civilized,  but  of  the  inhabited  world. 
The  churches  of  this  new  conversion  seem  to  be  the  vir- 
gins, the  queen's  bridemaids,  in  the  nuptial  procession. — 

HORSLEY. 

Ver.  16.  Instead  of  thy  fathers  shall  be  thy  chilo- 
ren,  whom  thou  mayest  make  princes  in  all  the 
earth.  17.  I  will  make  thy  name  to  be  remem- 
bered in  all  generations :  therefore  shall  the 
people  praise  thee  for  ever  and  ever. 

In  the  next  verse  (the  sixteenth)  the  Psalmist  again  ad- 
dresses the  queen : — 

"Thy  children  shall  be  in  the  place  of  thy  fathers; 
Thou  Shalt  make  them  princes  in  all  the  earth." 

Thy  children  shall  be  what  thy  fathers  were,  God's  peculiar 
people ;  and  shall  hold  a  distinguished  rank  and  character  in 
the  earth. 

The  Psalmist  closes  his  divine  song  with  a  distich  setting 
forth  the  design,  and  predicting  the  effect,  of  his  own  per- 
formance : — 

"I  will  perpetuate  the  remembrance  of  thy  name  to  all  generations. 
Insomuch  that  the  peoples  shall  praise  thee  for  ever." 

By  enditing  this  marriage-song,  he  hoped  to  be  the  means 
of  celebrating  the  Redeemer's  name  from  age  to  age,  and 
of  inci'.ing  the  nations  of  the  world  to  join  in  his  praise. 
The  event  has  not  disappointed  the  holy  prophet's  expecta- 
tion. His  composition  has  been  the  delight  of  the  congre- 
gations of  the  faithful  for  little  less  than  three  thousand 
years.  For  one  thousand  and  forty,  it  was  a  means  of 
keeping  alive  in  the  synagogue  the  hope  of  the  Redeemer 
to  come:  for  eighteen  hundred  since,  it  has  been  the  means 
of  perpetuating  in  Christian  congregations  the  grateful  re- 
membrance of  what  has  been  done,  anxious  attention  to 
what  is  doing,  and  of  the  cheering  hope  of  the  second 
coming  of  our  Lord,  who  surely  cometh  to  turn  away 
ungodliness  from  Jacob,  and  to  set  up  a  standard  to  the  na- 
tions which  yet  sit  in  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death. 
"  He  that  witnesseth  these  things,  saith,  Behold,  I  come 
quickly.  And  the  Spirit  saith.  Come ;  and  the  bride  saith, 
Come;  and  let  every  one  that  heareth  say.  Amen.  Even 
so.    Come,  Lord  Jesus  !" — Horsley. 

PSALM  XLVL 

Ver.  5.  God  is  in  the  midst  of  her ;  she  shall  not 
be  moved :  God  shall  help  her,  and  that  right 
early. 

The  Hebrew  has,  instead  of  early,  "  when  the  morning 
appeareth."  Ainsworth,  "  God  will  help  it  at  the  looking 
forth  of  the  morning."  A  person  in  perplexity  says,  "Yes, 
I  hope  the  morning  will  soon  come  ;  then  will  my  friends 
help  me."  "  When  the  daylight  shall  appear,  many  will  be 
ready  to  assist  me."  "  Ah  !  when  will  the  morning  come  1 
How  long  has  been  this  night  of  adversity  !"— Roberts. 

PSALM  XLVIL 
Ver.  1.  O  clap  your  hands,  all  ye  people,  shout 

unto  God  with  the  voice  of  triumph. 
See  on  Lam.  2.  15. 

PSALM  XLVIIL 
Ver.  6.  Fear  took  hold  upon  them  there,  and 
pain,  as  of  a  woman  in  travail. 

"  His  pain  not  great  %  it  was  equal  to  that  of  a  woman  in 
travail."  "  Alas !  alas  !  this  is  like  the  agony  of  the  womb." 
"  Nothing  but  the  womb  knows  trouble  like  this."— Roberts. 

OPSALM  LI. 

Ver.  7.  Purge  me  with  hyssop,  and  I  shall  be 
clean:  wash  me,  and  I  shall  be  whiter  than 
snow. 

Hyssop,  a  name,  derived  from  the  Hebrew  esoM,  and 
like  many  other  names  of  plants,  passed  from  the  eastern 


384 


PSALMS. 


Chap.  55—57. 


into  the  Greek,  and  from  this  into  most  European  languages, 
signifies  the  plant  called  in  German,  Wohlgemuth,  (i.  e. 
pleasant,)  probably  on  account  of  its  aromatic  smell,  and 
also  marjoram,  but  called  by  botanists  origanum  creticum. 
Rauwolf  found  this  plant  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  be- 
tween Ramah  and  Joppa. — Rosenmuller. 

PSALM  LV. 
Ver.  6.  And  I  said,  Oh  that  I  had  wings  like  a 
dove !  for  then  would  I  flee  away,  and  be  at 
rest. 

The  Hindoos  have  a  science  called  Aagiija-Kann-am.y 
which  teaches  the  art  of  flying  !  and  numbers  m  every  age 
have  tried  to  acquire  it.  Those  who  wish  to  attain  a  bless- 
ing which  is  afar  off,  or  who  desire  to  escape  from  trouble, 
often  exclaim,  "  Oh !  that  I  had  learned  the  Aagiya-Kan- 
nam;  then  should  I  gain  the  desire  of  my  heart."  "  Could 
I  but  fly,  these  things  would  not  be  so." — Roberts, 

Ver.  7.  Lo,  then  would  I  wander  far  off,  and  re- 
main in  the  wilderness.     Selah. 

The  classical  bards  of  Greece  and  Rome  make  frequent 
allusions  to  the  surprising  rapidity  of  the  dove,  and  adorn 
their  lines  with  many  beautiful  figures  from  the  manner  in 
which  she  flies.  Sophocles  compares  the  speed  with  which 
she  cleaves  the  ethereal  clouds,  to  the  impetuous  rapidity 
of  the  whirlwind ;  and  Euripides,  the  furious  impetuosity 
of  the  Bacchanals  rushing  upon  Pentheus,  to  the  celerity 
of  her  motions.  And  Kirachi  gives  it  as  the  reason  why 
the  Psalmist  prefers  the  dove  to  other  birds,  that  while  they 
become  weary  with  flying,  and  alight  upon  a  rock  or  a  tree 
to  recruit  their  strength,  and  are  taken,  the  dove,  when  she 
is  fatigued,  alternately  rests  one  wing  and  flies  with  the 
other,  and  by  this  means  escapes  from  the  swiftest  pur- 
suers. The  Orientals  knew  well  how  to  avail  themselves 
of  her  impetuous  wing  on  various  occasions.  It  is  a  curious 
fact,  that  she  was  long  employed  in  those  countries  as  a 
courier,  to  carry  tidings  of  importance  between  distant 
cities,  ^lian  asserts,  that  Taurosthenes  communicated  to 
his  father  at  ^gina,  hy  a  carrier  pigeon,  the  news  of  his 
success  in  the  Olympic  games,  on  the  very  same  day  in 
which  he  obtained  the  prize.  The  Romans,  it  appears 
from  Pliny,  often  employed  doves  in  the  same  service ;  for 
Brutus,  during  the  siege  of  Mutina,  sent  letters  tied  to  their 
feet,  into  the  camp  of  the  consuls.  This  remarkable  cus- 
tom has  descended  to  modern  times ;  Volney  informs  us, 
that  in  Turkey  the  use  of  carrier  pigeons  has  been  laid 
aside,  only  for  the  last  thirty  or  forty  years,  because  the 
Curd  robbers  killed  the  birds,  and  carried  off"  their  de- 
spatches.—Paxton. 

Ver.  17.  Evening,  and  morning,  and  at  noon,  will 
I  pray,  and  cry  aloud ;  and  he  shall  hear  my 
voice. 

The  frequency  and  the  particular  seasons  of  prayer  are 
circumstances  chiefly  connected  with  the  situation  and  dis- 
position of  such  as  habituate  themselves  "to  this  exercise. 
But  from  a  singular  conformity  of  practice  in  persons  re- 
mote both  as  to  age  and  place,  it  appears  probable  that  some 
idea  must  have  obtained  generally,  that  it  was  expedient 
and  acceptable  to  pray  three  times  every  day.  Such  was 
the  practice  of  David,  and  also  of  Daniel,  (see  ch.  vi.  10,) 
and  as  a  parallel,  though,  as  far  as  connected  with  an  idol- 
atrous system,  a  different  case,  we  are  informed  that  "  it  is 
an  invariable  rule  with  the  Bramins  to  perform  their  devo- 
tions three  times  every  day:  at  sunrise,  at  noon,  and  at  sun- 
set."   (Maurice.)— BuRDER. 

Ver.  21.   The  words  of  his  mouth  were  smoother 
than   butter,   but  war  was   in  his  heart:    his 
words  were  softer  than  oil,  yet  were  they  drawn 
swords. 
See  on  Cant.  3.  8. 

PSALM  LVI. 
Ver.  8.  Thou  tellest  my  wanderings:  put  thou 
my  tears  into  thy  bottle :  are  they  not  in  thy 
book  ? 


The  lachrymatories  used  in  Greece  and  Rome  are,  I  be- 
lieve, unknown  to  the  Hindoos.  A  person  in  distress,  as  he 
weeps,  says,  "  Ah !  Lord,  take  care  of  these  tears,  let  them 
not  run  in  vain."  "  Alas  !  my  husband,  why  beat  me  1  my 
tears  are  known  to  God." — Roberts. 

The  custom  of  putting  tears  iato  the  ampulla  or  urna 
lacrymales,  so  well  known  among  the  Romans,  seems  to 
have  been  more  ancient.ly  in  use  in  Asia,  and  particularly 
among  the  Hebrews.  These  lachrymal  urns  were  of  differ- 
ent materials,  some  of  glass,  some  of  earth,  and  of  various 
forms  and  shapes.  One  went  about  to  each  person  in  the 
company  at  the  height  of  his  grief  with  a  piece  of  cotton 
in  his  hand,  with  which  he  carefully  collects  the  falling 
tears,  and  which  he  then  squeezes  into  the  bottle,  preserving 
them  with  the  greatest  care.  This  was  no  diificult  matter ; 
for  Homer  says  the  tears  of  Telemachus,  when  he  heard 
of  his  father,  dropped  on  the  ground.  They  were  placed 
on  the  sepulchres  of  the  deceased  as  a  memorial  of  the 
affection  and  sorrow  of  their  surviving  relations  and 
friends.  It  will  be  difficult  to  account,  on  any  other  suppo- 
sition, for  the  following  expressions  of  the  Psalmist :  "  Put 
thou  my  tears  into  thy  bottle."  If  this  view  be  admitted, 
the  meaning  will  be :  "  Let  my  distress,  and  the  tears  I 
shed  in  consequence  of  it,  be  ever  before  thee." — Paxton. 

PSALM  LVIl. 

Ver.  4.  My  soul  is  among  lions ;  and  I  lie  even 
among  them  that  are  set  on  fire,  even  the  sons 
of  men,  whose  teeth  are  spears  and  arrows,  and 
their  tongue  a  sharp  sword. 

The  arrows  were  usually  made  of  light  wood,  with  a 
head  of  brass  or  iron,  which  was  commonly  barbec^.  Some- 
times they  were  armed  with  two,  three,  or  four  hooks.  The 
heads  of  arrows  were  sometimes  dipped  in  poison.  Horac€ 
mentions  the  venenata,  agitta,  the  poisoned  arrows  of  the 
ancient  Moors  in  Africa.  They  were  used  by  many  other 
nations  in  diflferent  parts  of  the  world ;  and  if  we  believe 
the  reports  of  modern  travellers,  these  cruel  weapons  are 
not  yet  laid  aside  by  some  barbarous  tribes.  The  negroes 
in  the  countries  of  Bornou  and  Soudan  fight  with  poisoned 
arrows ;  the  arrow  is  short,  and  made  of  iron ;  the  smallest 
scratch  with  it  causes  the  body  to  swell,  and  is  infallibly 
mortal,  unless  counteracted  by  an  antidote  known  among 
the  natives.  Everywhere,  the  poison  used  for  this  inhu- 
man purpose  was  of  the  deadliest  kind ;  and  the  slightest 
wound  was  followed  by  almost  instant  death.  From  this 
statement  it  will  appear,  that  arrows  were  by  no  means 
contemptible  instruments  of  destruction,  although  they  are 
not  to  be  compared  with  the  tremendous  inventions  of  mod- 
ern warfare.  We  are  not  therefore  to  be  surprised  that  so 
many  striking  allusions  to  the  arrow,  and  the  trodden  bow, 
occur  in  the  loftier  strains  of  the  inspired  writers.  The 
bitter  words  of  the  wicked  are  called  "  their  arrows ;"  "  their 
teeth  are  spears  and  arrows ;"  and  the  man  that  beareth 
false  witness  against  his  neighbour,  is  "  a  sharp  arrow."  But 
in  these  comparisons  there  is  perhaps  a  literal  meaning, 
which  supposes  a  connexion  between  the  mouth  and  the 
arrow.  The  circumstance  related  by  Mr.  Park  might  pos- 
sibly have  its  parallel  in  the  conduct  of  the  ancients;  and 
if  it  had,  clearly  accounts  for  such  figures  as  have  been 
quoted.  "  Each  of  the  negroes  took  from  his  quiver  a 
handful  of  arrows,  and  putting  two  between  his  teeth,  and 
one  in  his  bow,  waved  to  us  with  his  hand  to  keep  at  a  dis- 
tance." Some  are  of  opinion,  that  "the  fiery  darts,"  con- 
cerning which  the  apostle  Paul  warned  his  Ephesian  con- 
verts, allude  to  the  poisoned  arrows,  or  javelins,  which 
were  so  frequently  used  in  those  times ;  others  contend, 
that  the  allusion  is  made  to  those  missile  weapons,  which 
were  sometimes  employed  by  the  ancients  in  battles  and 
sieges,  to  scatter  fire  in  the  ranks,  or  among  the  dwell- 
ings ©f  their  enemies.  These  were  the  -rrvpcpopa  /J^Xn  of 
Arrian,  and  the  rvpipopni  otaoi  of  Thucydides,  the  heads  of 
which  were  surrounded  with  combustible  matter,  and  set 
on  fire,  when  they  were  launched  against  the  hostile  army." 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  8.  Awake  up,  my  glory;  awake  psaltery 
and  harp;  I  myself  wiW  awake  early. 

Dr.  Boothroyd  has  this,  "  Awake,  my  glory!  awake,  lyre 


Ps.  58. 


PSALMS. 


385 


and  harp!"  The  Orientals  oAen  speak  to  inanimate  ob- 
.'ectsfas  if  they  had  intelligence.  Thus,  a  strolling  musician, 
Defore  he  begins  to  play  in  your  presence,  says,  "  Arise, 
arise,  my  harp,  before  this  great  king !  play  sweetly  in  his 
hearing,  and  well  shalt  thou  be  rewarded."  A  person  who 
has  sold  an  article,  says  to  it,  when  being  carried  away, "  Go, 
thou,  go."  The  Prophet  says,  "Awake,  oh  sword!"  "When 
two  heroes  were  preparing  for  a  duel,  one  of  them  found  a 
difficulty  in  drawing  his  sword  from  the  scabbard;  at 
which  his  antagonist  asked,  '  What !  is  thy  sword  afraid  1' 
— '  No,'  replied  the  other,  '  it  is  only  hungry  for  thy  blood.' " 
— Roberts. 

PSALM  LVIII. 
Ver.  3.  The  wicked  are  estranged  from  the  womb ; 
they  go  astray  as  soon  as  they  be  born,  speak- 
ing lies.  4.  Their  poison  is  like  the  poison  of 
a  serpent ;  they  are  like  the  deaf  adder  that 
stoppeth  her  ear. 

"  Do  you  ask  whence  he  had  this  disposition  *?  I  will  tell 
you ;  it  was  from  the  womb."  "  Expect  him  not  to  change ; 
he  had  it  in  the  womb."  The  figure  of  the  wicked  going 
astray  as  soon  as  they  are  born,  seems  to  be  taken  from  the 
disposition  and  power  of  a  young  serpent  soon  after  its  birth. 
The  youngest  serpent  can  convey  poison  to  any  thing  it 
bites ;  and  the  suffering  in  all  cases  is  great,  though  the 
bite  is  seldom  fatal.  Put  a  stick  near  the  reptile,  whose  age 
does  not  amount  to  many  days,  and  he  will  immediately 
.snap  at  it.  The  young  of  the  tiger  and  alligator  are  equally 
fierce  in  their  earliest  habits. — Roberts. 

Several  of  the  serpent  tribe  are  believed  to  be  deaf,  or 
very  dull  of  hearing.  Perhaps  that  which  is  called  the 
puddeyan,  the  beaver  serpent,  is  more  so  than  any  other.  I 
have  several  times  been  close  upon  them,  but  they  did  not 
offer  to  get  out  of  the  way.  They  lurk  in  the  path,  and  the 
victim  bitten  by  them  will  expire  a  few  minutes  after  the 
bite.  "  Talk  not  to  him  :  he  is  as  the  deaf  serpent,  he  will 
not  hear."  "  Truly,  I  am  a  deaf  serpent,  and  may  soon 
bite  you."  "Young  man,  if  you  repeat  the  ubbatheasum, 
which  the  priest  has  whispered  in  your  ear,  your  next 
birth  will  be  that  of  a  deaf  serpent." — Roberts. 

Ver.  4.  Their  poison  is  like  the  poison  of  a  ser- 
pent ;  they  are  like  the  deaf  adder  that  stoppeth 
her  ear. 

"  It  appears,  says  Chardin,  that  all  the  teeth  of  a  serpent 
are  not  venomous,  because  those  that  charm  them  will  cause 
their  serpents  to  bite  them  till  they  draw  blood,  and  yet  the 
wound  will  not  swell.  Adders  will  swell  at  the  sound  of  a 
flute,  raising  themselves  up  on  one  half  of  their  body,  turn- 
ing the  other  part  about,  and  beating  proper  time ;  being 
wonderfully  delighted  with  music,  and  following  the  in- 
strument. Its  head,  before  round  and  long  like  an  eel,  it 
spreads  out  broad  and  flat,  like  a  fan.  Adders  and  serpents 
twist  themselves  round  the  neck  and  naked  body  of  young 
children,  belonging  to  those  that  charm  them.  At  Surat, 
an  Armenian  seeing  one  of  them  make  an  adder  bite  his 
flesh,  without  receiving  any  injury,  said,  I  can  do  that;  and 
causing  himself  to  be  wounded  in  the  hand,  he  died  in  less 
than  two  hours."  A  serpent's  possessing  a  musical  ear,  its 
keeping  time  in  its  motions  with  the  harmony,  its  altering 
the  shape  of  its  head,  are  circumstances  which,  if  true,  are 
very  wonderful. — Harmer. 

Ver.  5.  Which  will  not  hearken  to  the  voice  of 
charmers,  charming  never  so  wisely. 

Whether  any  man  ever  possessed  the  power  to  enchant 
or  charm  adders  and  serpents ;  or  whether  those  who  pre- 
tended to  do  so  profited  only  by  popular  credulity,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  a  favourable  opinion  of  magical  power  once 
existed.  Numerous  testimonies  to  this  purpose  may  be 
collected  from  ancient  writers.  Modern  travellers  also 
afford  their  evidence.  Mr.  Browne,  in  his  Travels  in 
Africa,  thus  describes  the  charmers  of  serpents.  Romeili 
is  an  open  place  of  an  irregular  form,  where  feats  of  jug- 
gling are  performed.  The  charmers  of  serpents  seem  also 
worthy  of  remark,  their  powers  seem  extraordinary.  The 
serpent  most  common  at  Khaira  is  of  the  viper  class,  and 
49 


undoubtedly  poisonous.  If  one  of  them  enter  a  house,  the 
charmet  is  sent  for,  who  uses  a  certain  form  of  words.  I 
have  seen  three  serpents  enticed  out  of  the  cabin  of  a  ship 
lying  near  the  shore.  The  operator  handled  them,  and 
then  put  them  into  a  bag.  At  other  times  I  have  seen  the 
serpents  twist  round  the  bodies  of  these  psylli  in  all  direc- 
tions, without  having  had  their  fangs  extracted  or  broken, 
and  without  doing  them  any  injury, — Burder. 

Ver.  5.  Which  will  not  hearken  to  the  voice  of 
charmers,  charming  never  so  wisely.  6.  Break 
their  teeth,  O  God,  in  their  mouth ;  break  out 
the  great  teeth  of  the  young  lions,  O  Lord. 

See  on  Eccl.  x.  11. 

Hhekuravan,  or  serpent  charmer,  maybe  found  in  every 
village,  and  some  who  have  gained  great  fame  actually 
live  by  the  art.  Occasionally  they  travel  about  the  district, 
to  exhibit  their  skill.  In  a  basket  they  have  several  ser- 
pents, which  they  place  on  the  ground.  The  kuravan  then 
commences  playing  on  his  instrument,  and  to  talk  to  the 
reptiles,  at  which  they  creep  out,  and  begin  to  mantle  about 
with  their  heads  erect,  and  their  hoods  distended.  After 
this,  he  puts  his  arm  to  them,  which  they  affect  to  bite,  and 
sometimes  leave  the  marks  of  their  teeth. 

From  close  observation  I  am  convinced  that  all  these 
serpents  thus  exhibited  have  their  poisonous  fangs  extract- 
ed, and  the  Psalmist  seems  to  have  had  his  eyes  on  that 
when  he  says,  "  Break  their  teeth."  Living  animals  have 
been  repeatedly  offered  to  the  man  for  his  serpents  to  bite, 
but  he  would  never  allow  it ;  because  he  knew  no  harm 
would  ensue. 

It  is,  however,  granted,  that  some  of  these  men  may  be- 
lieve in  the  power  of  their  charms,  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  serpents  in  their  wild  state  are  affected  by  the 
influence  of  music.  One  of  these  men  once  went  to  a  friend 
of  mine  (in  the  civil  service)  with  his  serpents,  and  charmed 
them  before  him.  After  some  time  the  gentleman  said,  "  I 
have  a  cobracapella  in  a  cage,  can  you  charm  him  f  "  Oh ! 
yes,"  said  the  charmer.  The  serpent  was  let  out  of  the 
cage,  and  the  man  began  his  incantations  and  charms ;  the 
reptile  fastened  on  his  arm,  and  he  was  dead  before  the 
night. 

The  following  is  said  to  be  a  most  potent  charm  for  all 
poisonous  serpents : — Suttelldm,  pande,  keere,  soolave,  akaru- 
dan,  varan,  orou,  vattami,  kiddantha,  pdmba,  valliya,  vulta- 
kal,  vdya ;  which  means,  "  Oh !  serpent,  thou  who  art 
coiled  in  the  path,  get  out  of  my  way ;  for  around  thee  are 
the  mongoos,  the  porcupine,  and  the  kite  in  his  circles  is 
ready  to  take  thee."  The  mongoos  is  in  shape  and  size 
much  like  the  English  weasel.  The  porcupine  is  also  a 
great  enemy  of  the  serpent.  The  kite,  before  he  pounces  on 
his  prey,  flies  round  in  circles,  and  then  drops  like  a  stone; 
he  seizes  the  reptile  with  his  talons  just  behind  the  head, 
carries  it  up  in  the  air,  and  bills  it  in  the  head  till  it 
expires. 

But  there  are  also  charmers  for  bears,  tigers,  elephants, 
and  other  fierce  animals.  A  party  having  to  go  through 
forests  or  deserts  to  a  distant  country,  generally  contrive 
to  have  some  one  among  them  possessed  of  that  art.  A 
servant  of  mine  joined  himself  to  a  company  who  were 
going  from  Batticaloa  to  Colombo.  There  was  a  magician, 
who  walked  in  front,  who  had  acquired  great  fame  as  a 
charmer  of  serpents  and  other  wild  animals.  After  a  few 
days  ihey  saw  a  large  elephant,  and  the  charmer  said,  "  Fear 
not."  But  the  animal  continued  to  approach  ;  and  my  ser- 
vant thought  it  expedient  to  decamp  and  climb  a  tree.  The 
others,  also,  began  to  retire ;  but  the  old  man  remained  on  the 
spot,  repeating  his  charms.  At  last  the  elephant  took  him 
in  his  proboscis,  and  laid  him  gently  on  the  ground ;  then 
lopped  off  the  charmer's  head,  arms,  and  legs,  and  crushed 
the  lifeless  body  flat  on  the  earth. 

By  the  power  of  charms  the  magicians  pretend  to  have 
influence  over  ghosts,  beasts,  fire,  wind,  and  water. — Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  8.  As  a  snail  which  melteth,  let  every  one  of 
them  pass  away ;  like  the  untimely  birth  of  a 
woman,  that  they  may  not  see  the  sun. 

The  snail  is,  in  the  Hebrew  scriptures,  called  h^h^^  sab- 
helul,  which  the  learned  Bochart  derives  from  b-^^v,  a  path^ 


386 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  58—62. 


because  the  snail  marks  out  his  path  with  his  slime,  and  so 
is  called  S'^^b',  the  path-maker ;  or,  from  ^w\  to  lodge  3  in, 
and  Vi*?,  a  winding  shell,  cochfea,  the  well-known  habitation 
which  this  animal  carries  about  with  him.  Parkhurst  is 
of  opinion,  that  a  better  account  of  the  name  may  be  de- 
duced from  the  peculiar  manner  in  which  snails  thrust  them- 
selves forward  in  moving,  and  from  the  force  with  which 
they  adhere  to  any  substance  on  which  they  light.  The 
wise  Author  of  nature,  having  refused  them  I'eet  and  claws 
to  creep  and  climb,  has  compensated  them  in  a  way  more 
commodious  for  their  state  of  life,  by  the  broad  skin  along 
each  side  of  the  belly,  and  the  undulating  motion  observa- 
ble there.  By  the  latter,  they  creep ;  by  the  former,  as- 
sisted by  the  glutinous  slime  emitted  from  their  body,  they 
adhere  firmly  and  securely  to  all  kinds  of  superficies,  partly 
by  the  tenacity  of  their  slime,  and  partly  by  the  pressure  of 
the  atmosphere.  Thus,  the  snail  wastes  herself  by  her  own 
motion,  every  undulation  leaving  some  of  her  moisture  be- 
hind ;  and  in  the  same  manner,  the  actions  of  wicked  men 
prove  their  destruction.  They  may,  like  the  snail,  carry 
their  defence  along  with  them,  and  retire  into  it  on  every 
appearance  of  danger ;  they  may  confidently  trust  in  their 
own  resources,  and  banish  far  away  the  fear  of  evil ;  but 
the  principles  of  ruin  are  at  work  within  them,  and  although 
the  progress  may  be  slow,  the  result  is  certain.  The  holy 
Psalmist,  guided  by  the  spirit  of  inspiration,  prayed,  "  As 
a  snail  which  melteth,  let  every  one  of  them  pass  away ;" 
and  Jehovah  answered,  "  The  wicked  shall  be  turned  into 
hell,  and  all  the  nations  that  forget  God." — Paxton. 

Ver.  9.  Before  your  pots  can  feel  the  thorns,  he 
shall  take  them  away  as  with  a  whirlwind, 
both  living,  and  in  his  wrath. 

The  Arabs  heat  stone  pitchers  by  kindling  fires  in  them, 
and  then  daub  the  outside  with  dough,  which  is  thus  baked. 
"  They  kindle  a  fire  in  a  large  stone  pitcher,  and  when  it 
is  hot  they;  mix  the  meal  in  water,  as  we  do  to  make  paste, 
and  daub  it  with  the  hollow  of  their  hands  upon  the  outside 
of  the  pitcher,  and  this  soft  pappy  dough  spreads  and  is 
baked  in  an  instant;  the  heat  of  the  pitcher  having  dried 
up  all  its  moisture,  the  bread  comes  on  in  small  thin  slices, 
liKe  one  of  our  wafers."    (D'Arvieux.) — Burder. 

PSALM  LIX. 
Ver.  14.  And  at  evening  let  them  return,  and  \e* 
them  make  a  noise  like  a  dog,  and  go  round 
about  the  city. 

Many  cities  in  Syria,  and  other  parts  of  the  East,  are 
crowded  with  dogs,  which  belong  to  no  particular  person, 
and  by  consequence,  have  none  to  feed  them,  but  get  their 
food  in  the  streets,  and  about  the  markets.  Dogs  also 
abound  in  all  the  Indian  towns  and  villages,  and  are  nu- 
merous, noisy,  and  troublesome,  especially  to  travellers. 
Like  those  in  Syria,  they  have  no  respective  owner,  gen- 
erally subsist  upon  charity,  and  are  never  destroyed.  They 
frequently  hunt  m  large  packs,  like  the  jackals,  which  they 
resemble  in  many  other  respects.  These  allusions  are 
clearly  involved  in  the  prayer  of  the  royal  Psalmist  for  de- 
liverance from  his  enemies :  "  And  at  evening  let  them 
return ;  and  let  them  make  a  noise  like  a  dog,  and  go  round 
about  the  city.  Let  them  wander  up  and  down  for  meat, 
and  grudge,  if  they  be  not  satisfied." — Paxton. 

Ver.  15.  Let  them  wander  up  and  down  for  meat, 
and  grudge,  if  they  be  not  satisfied. 

The  great  external  purity  which  is  so  studiously  attended 
to  by  the  modern  eastern  people,  as  well  as  the  ancient, 
produces  some  odd  circumstances  with  respect  to  their 
•  dogs.  They  do  not  suffer  them  in  their  houses,  and  even 
with  care  avoid  their  touching  them  in  the  streets,  which 
would  be  considered  as  a  defilement.  One  would  imagine 
then,  that  imder  these  circumstances,  as  they  do  not  appear 
by  any  means  to  be  necessary  in  their  cities,  however  im- 

Ebrtant  they  may  be  to  those  that  feed  flocks,  there  should 
e  rery  few  of  these  creatures  found  in  those  places;  they 
are  notwithstanding  there  in  great  numbers,  and  crowd 
their  streets.  They  do  not  appear  to  belong  to  particular 
persons,  as  our  dogs  do,  nor  to  be  fed  distinctly  by  such 


as  might  claim  some  interest  in  them,  but  get  their  food  as 
they  can.  At  the  same  time  they  consider  it  as  right  to 
take  some  care  of  them,  and  the  charitable  people  among 
them  frequently  give  money  every  week,  or  month,  to 
butchers  and  bakers,  to  feed  them  at  stated  times,  and  some 
leave  legacies  at  their  deaths,  for  the  same  purpose.  This 
is  Le  Bruyn's  account.  Thevenot  and  Maillet  mention 
something  of  the  same  sort. 

In  like  manner,  dogs  seem  to  have  been  looked  upon 
among  the  Jews  in  a  disagreeable  light,  yet  they  had  them 
in  considerable  numbers  in  their  cities,  Ps.  lix.  14.  They 
were  not,  however,  shut  up  in  their  houses  or  courts,  Ps. 
lix.  6,  14 ;  but  seem  to  have  been  forced  to  seek  their  food 
where  they  could  find  it,  Ps.  lix,  15;  to  which  I  may  add, 
that  some  care  of  them  seems  to  be  indirectly  enjoined  to  the 
Jews,  Exod.  xxii.  31 ;  circumstances  that  seem  to  be  more 
illustrated  by  these  travellers  into  the  East,  than  by  any 
commentators  that  I  know  of— Harmer. 

PSALM  LX. 

Ver.  3.  Thou  hast  showed  thy  people  hard  things ; 
thou  hast  made  us  to  drink  the  wine  of  astonish- 
ment. 4.  Thou  hast  given  a  banner  to  them 
that  fear  thee,  that  it  may  be  displayed  because 
of  the  truth.     Selah. 

Albertus  Aquensis  tells  us,  that  when  Jerusalem  was 
taken  in  1099,  about  three  hundred  Saracens  got  upon  the 
roof  of  a  very  lofty  building,  and  earnestly  begged  for 
quarter,  but  could  not  be  induced  by  any  promises  of  safety 
to  come  down,  until  they  had  received  the  banner  of  Tan- 
cred,  one  of  the  chiefs  of  the  crusade  army,  as  a  pledge 
of  life.  It  did  not  indeed  avail  them,  as  that  historian  ob- 
serves ;  for  their  behaviour  occasioned  such  indignation, 
that  they  were  destroyed  to  a  man.  The  event  showed  the 
faithlessness  of  these  zealots,  whom  no  solemnities  couH 
bind ;  but  the  Saracens  surrendering  themselves  upon  the 
delivery  of  a  standard  to  them,  proves  in  what  a  strong 
light  they  looked  upon  the  giving  them  a  banner,  since  it  in- 
duced them  to  trust  it,  when  they  would  not  trust  any  prom- 
ises. Perhaps  the  delivery  oif  a  banner  was  anciently 
esteemed,  in  like  manner,  an  obligation  to  protect,  and  that 
the  Psalmist  might  consider  it  in  this  light,  when,  upon  a 
victory  gained  over  the  Syrians  and  Edomites,  after  the 
public  affairs  of  Israel  had  been  in  a  bad  state,  he  says, 
TViou  hast  showed  thy  people  hard  things,  &c.  Thou  hast 
given  a  banner  to  them  that  fear  thee.  Though  thou  didst 
for  a  time  give  up  thine  Israel  into  the  hands  of  their 
enemies,  thou  hast  now  given  them  an  assurance  of  thy 
having  received  them  imder  thy  protection.  When  the 
Psalmist  is  represented  as  saying,  TTiou  hast  given  a  ban- 
ner to  them  that  fear  thee,  that  it  may  be  displayed,  it  may  be  ■ 
questioned  whether  it  is  rightly  translated,  since  it  is  most 
probable  they  used  anciently  only  a  spear,  properly  orna- 
mented, to  distinguish  it  from  a  common  one,  as  this  same 
Albertus  tells  us,  that  a  very  long  spear,  covered  all  over 
with  silver,  to  which  another  writer  of  those  crusade  wars 
adds  a  ball  of  gold  on  the  top,  was  the  standard  of  the 
Egyptian  princes  at  that  time,  and  carried  before  their 
armies,  TJiou  hast  given  a  banner,  cj  nes,  an  ensign,  or  a 
standard,  to  them,  thai  fear  thee,  that  it  may  be  lifted  up,  may 
perhaps  be  a  better  version ;  or  rather,  that  thev  may  lift  it 
up  to  themselves,  or  encourage  themselves  with  the  confident 
persuasion  that  they  are  under  the  protection  of  God  because 
of  the  truth,  thy  word  of  promise,  which  is  an  assurance 
of  protection,  like  the  givmg  me  and  my  people  a  banner, 
the  surest  of  pledges. — Harmer. 

Ver.  4.  Thou  hast  given  a  banner  to  them  that 
fear  thee,  that  it  may  be  displayed  because  of 
the  truth.     Selah. 

Has  a  person  gained  a  signal  triumph  over  his  enemy  by 
the  assistance  of  another,  he  then  says  of  the  latter,  "  He 
has  given  me  a  victorious  kuddi,"  banner.  "Yes,"  say 
the  conquerors,  "  we  have  gained  a  victorious  banner  "— 
Roberts. 

PSALM  LXII. 
Ver.   3.    How  long   will  ye   imagine   mischier 
against  a  man  ?  ye  shall  be  slain  all  of  you: 


Ps.  63—58. 


PSALMS. 


^67 


as  a  bowing  wall  shall  ye  he,  and  as  a  totter- 
ing fence. 

Dr.  Boothroyd,  "  like  a  tottering  wall."  In  consequence 
of  heavy  rains  and  floods,  and  unsound  foundations,  it  is 
VERY  common  to  see  walls  much  out  of  perpendicular,  and 
some  of  them  so  much  so,  that  it  might  be  thought  scarcely 
possible  for  them  to  stand.  "  Poor  old  Raman  is  very  ill,  I 
hear."—"  Yes,  the  wall  is  bowing."  "  Begone,  thou  low 
caste  ;  thou  art  a  kutte-chivver,"  i.  e.  a  ruined  wall.  "  By 
the  oppression  of  the  head  man  the  people  of  that  village 
are  like  a  ruined  wall." — Roberts. 

PSALM  LXIII. 

Ver.  10.  They  shall  fall  by  the  sword ;  they  shall 
be  a  portion  for  foxes. 

The  jackal  is  here  probably  referred  to.  In  India,  the 
disgusting  sight  of  jackals  devouring  human  bodies,  may 
be  seen  every  day.  So  ravenous  are  these  animals,  that 
they  frequently  steal  infants  as  they  lie  by  the  breast  of  the 
mother ;  and  sick  persons,  who  lie  friendless  in  the  street, 
or  by  the  side  of  the  Ganges,  are  sometimes  devoured  alive 
bv  these  animals  in  the  night.  Persons  in  a  state  of  intoxi- 
cation have  thus  been  devoured  as  they  lay  in  the  streets  of 
Calcutta.    (Ward.) — Burder. 

PSALM  LXV. 

Ver.  1.  Praise  waiteth  for  thee,  O  God,  in  Zion; 
and  unto  thee  shall  the  vow  be  performed. 

Margin,  "  is  silent."  Ainsworth,  "  Prayse  silent  way- 
teth  for  thee,  O  God."  The  people  of  the  East  are  much 
given  to  meditation  and  silent  praise,  and  sometimes  they 
may  be  seen  for  hours  so  completely  absorbed,  as  to  be  in- 
sensible to  all  surrounding  objects.  "  Oh  !  Swamv,  have 
you  not  heard  my  silent  praises  V*  Among  the  devotees 
are  to  be  found  the  silent  praises  of  Siva.  "  My  lord,  only 
grant  me  this  favour,  and  you  will  hear  even  my  silent 
praises." — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  The  pastures  are  clothed  with  flocks: 
the  valleys  also  are  covered  over  with  corn : 
they  shout  for  joy,  they  also  sing. 

People  in  passing  fields  or  gardens,  after  a  fine  rain,  say, 
"  Ah !  how  these  fields  and  trees  are  laughing  to-day." 
"  Yes,  you  may  well  laugh;  this  is  a  fine  time  for  you." 
"  How  nicely  these  flowers  are  laughing  together." — Rob- 
erts. 

PSALM  LXVIII. 
Ver.  9.  Thou,  O  God,  didst  send  a  plentiful  rain, 
whereby  thou*  didst  confirm  thine  inheritance, 
when  it  was  weary. 

I  have  taken  notice  of  the  traces  of  rain  found  in  the  des- 
ert between  the  Nile  and  the  Red  Sea  ;  and  I  would  here 
remark,  that  rain  sometimes  is  found  to  fall  in  that  part  of 
the  desert  which  lies  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Red  Sea, 
where  Israel  wandered  so  many  years,  which  circumstance 
is  referred  to  in  the  scripture,  and  therefore  claims  some 
attention  among  the  other  observations  contained  in  these 
papers. 

Pitts,  in  his  return  to  Egypt  from  Mecca,  which  he  visit- 
ed on  a  religious  account,  found  rain  in  this  desert.  His 
words  are  as  follows:  "We  travelled  through  a  certain 
valley,  which  is  called  by  the  name  of  Attash  el  Wait,  i.  e. 
ihe  river  of  the  fire,  the  vale  being  so  excessively  hot,  that 
the  very  water  in  their  goat  skins  has  sometimes  been  dried 
up  with  the  gloomy,  scorching  heat.  But  we  had  the  hap- 
piness to  pass  through  it  when  it  rained,  so  that  the  fervent 
heat  was  much  allayed  thereby ;  Vhich  the  hagges  looked 
on  as  a  great  blessing,  and  did  not  a  little  praise  God  for 
it."  This  naturallv  reminds  us  of  a  passage  in  the  68th 
Psalm,  ver.  9 :  "  Thou,  O  God,  didst  send  a  plentiful  rain, 
whereby  thou  didst  confirm  thine  inheritance,  when  It  was 
aweary ;"  speaking  of  God's  going  before  his  people  when 
Mhey  came  out  of  Egvpt,  and  entered  upon  their  sojourning 
in  this  wilderness.     The  Mohammedan  pilgrims  that  were 


with  Pitts,  do  not  seem  to  have  wanted  water  to  drink,  but 
the  fall  of  rain,  it  seems,  was  highly  acceptable  to  them, 
on  account  of  cooling  the  air  in  a  place  where,  from  its 
situation,  it  was  frequently  wont  to  be  extremely  hot. 

One  of  the  first  things  that  occurs  to  a  reflecting  mind 
upon  reading  this  passage  of  the  Psalmist,  is,  an  inquiry 
whether  this  rain  was  miraculous,  or  a  common  exertion 
of  the  power  of  the  God  of  nature,  though  under  the  direc- 
tion of  a  gracious  provid«)ce.  It  seems  now,  from  this 
account  of  Mr.  Pitts,  to  have  been  the  last,  and  not  contrary 
to  the  common  course  of  things  in  that  wilderness. 

No  mention  is  made  of  this  merciful  shower  in  the  books 
of  Moses,  so  far  as  I  remember;  but  as  we  are  told  in  the 
Psalm,  immediately  after,  of  the  fleeing  of  kings,  if  the 
circumstances  referred  to  here  are  ranged  in  exact  order, 
it  must  have  been  before  the  Amalekites  set  upon  Israel 
in  Rephidim ;  but  there  can  be  no  dependance  upon  that, 
especially  as  mention  is  made  of  Sinai  m  a  preceding  verse, 
and  in  the  outset  of  the  description  of  God's  marching  be- 
fore his  people  through  the  wilderness.— Harmer. 

Ver.  13.  Though  ye  have  lain  among  the  pots, 
yet  shall  ye  be  as  the  wings  of  a  dove  covered 
with  silver,  and  her  feathers  with  yellow  gold. 

The  dove  is  universally  admitted  to  be  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  objects  in  nature.    The  brilliancy  of  her  plumage, 
the  splendour  of  her  eye,  the  innocence  of  her  look,  the 
excellence  of  her  dispositions,  and  the  purity  of  her  man- 
ners, have  been  the  theme  of  admiration  and  praise  in 
every  age.     To  the  snowy  whiteness  of  her  wings,  and  the 
rich  golden  hues  which  adorn  her  neck,  the  inspired  Psalm- 
ist alludes  in  these  elegant  strains :  "  Though  ye  have  lain 
among  the  pots,  yet  ye  shall  be  as  the  wings  of  a  dove  cov- 
ered with    silver,  and  her  feathers  with  yellow  gold." 
These  bold  figures  do  not  seldom  occur  in  the  classical 
poets  of  antiquity.     Virgil  celebrates  the  argenteus  anser, 
the  silver-coloured  goose;  Ovid,  the  crow,  which  once  ri- 
valled the  dove  in  whiteness;    Lucretius,  the  changeful 
hues  of  her  neck,  which  she  turns  to  the  sunbeam,  as  if 
conscious  of  its  unrivalled  beauty.    Mr.  Harmer  is  of  opin- 
ion, that  the  holy  Psalmist  alludes,  not  to  an  animal  adorned 
merely  by  the  hand  of  nature,  but  to  the  doves  that  were 
consecrated  to  the  Syrian  deities,  and  ornamented  with 
trinkets  of  gold  ;  and  agreeably  to  this  view,  he  interprets 
the  passage,  "  Israel  is  to  me  as  a  consecrated  dove;  and 
though  your  circumstances  have  made  you  rather  appear 
like  a  poor  dove,  blackened  by  taking  up  its  abode  in  a 
smoky  hole  of  the  rock  ;  yet  shall  ye  become  beautiful  and 
glorious  as  a  Syrian  silver-coloured  pigeon,  on  whom  some 
ornament  of  gold  is  put."    But  this  view  makes  the  Holy 
Ghost  speak  with  some  approbation,  or  at  least  without  cen- 
sure, of  a  heathenish  rite,  and  even  to  borrow  from  it  a  fig- 
ure to  illustrate  the  eflfects  of  divine  favour  among  his  cho- 
sen people.    No  other  instance  of  this  kind  occurs  in  the 
sacred  scriptures,  and  therefore  it  cannot  be  admitted  here 
without  much  stronger  evidence  than  that  respectable  writer 
has  produced.    It  is  much  more  natural  to  suppose,  that  the 
Psalmist  alludes  to  party-coloured  doves,  with  white  wings, 
and  the  rest  of  their  feathers  of  a  bright  brown.    Bufibn 
mentions  a  species  of  turtle-dove  in  the  bay  of  Campeachy, 
which  is  entirely  brown,  while  others  are  of  a  snowy 
white  ;  and  both'^Elian  and  Homer  mention  a  dove  of  a 
red,  or  deep  yellow  colour,  resembling  gold.     To  these  va- 
rieties the  sacred  writer  might  refer  ;  and  the  more  effectu- 
ally to  represent  the  blissful  effects  of  divine  favour,  might 
combine  the  beauties  of  each  into  one  picture. — Paxton. 

In  Asia  Minor,  according  to  Chandler,  the  dove  lodges 
in  the  holes  of  the  rock ;  and  Dr.  Shaw  mentions  a  city  in 
Africa,  which  derives  its  name  from  the  great  number  of 
wild  pigeons  which  breed  in  the  adjoining  cliffs.  It  is  not 
uncommon  for  shepherds  and  fishermen,  to  seek  for  shelter 
in  the  spacious  caverns  of  that  country,  from  the  severity 
of  the  weather,  and  to  kindle  fires  in  them,  to  warm  their 
shivering  limbs,  and  dress  their  victuals;  in  consequence 
of  which,  the  doves  which  happen  to  build  their  nests  on 
their  shelves,  must  be  frequently  smutted,  and  their  plu- 
mage soiled.  Some  have'conjectured,  that  the  royal  Psalm- 
ist may  allude  to  this  scene,  in  which  he  had  perhaps  acted 
a  part,"  while  he  tended  his  father's  flocks,  in  that  singular 
promise,  "  Though  ye  have  lain  among  the  pots,  yet  shall 
ye  be  as  the  wings  of  a  dove  covered  with  silver,  and  her 


388 


PSALMS 


Ps.  69. 


feathers  with  3'-ellow  gold."  The  people  of  Israel,  who 
had  long  bent  their  necks  to  the  galling  yoke  of  Egypt,  and 
groaned  under  th«  most  cruel  oppression,  may  not  unfitly 
be  compared  to  a  dove  in  the  fissure  of  a  rock,  which  had 
been  terrified  by  the  intrusion  of  strangers,  and  polluted  by 
the  smoke  of  their  fires,  which  ascended  to  the  roof  of  the 
cavern,  and  penetrated  into  the  most  remote  and  secret 
corner ;  or  by  the  smut  of  the  pots,  which  they  had  set 
over  these  fires  for  culinary , purposes,  among  which  she 
fluttered  in  her  haste  to  escape.  The  dove  issues  from  the 
cave  of  the  shepherds,  black  and  dirty,  her  heart  dejected, 
and  her  feathers  in  disorder;  but,  having  washed  herself 
in  the  running  stream,  and  trimmed  her  plumage,  she 
gradually  recovers  the  serenity  of  her  disposition,  the  pu- 
rity of  her  colour,  and  the  elegance  of  her  appearance. 
So  did  the  people  of  Israel  more  than  once  escape  by  the 
favour  of  Jehovah,  from  a  low  and  despised  condition,  and 
gradually  rise  to  great  prosperity  and  splendour.  In  Egypt, 
they  laboured  in  the  brick-kilns,  and  in  all  the  services  of 
the  field — a  poor,  enslaved,  and  oppressed  people ;  and  after 
their  settlement  in  the  land  of  promise,  they  were  often  re- 
duced to  a  state  of  extreme  distress ;  but  in  their  misery 
they  cried  to  the  Lord,  and  he  heard  and  delivered  them 
from  all  their  calamities ;  he  subdued  the  surrounding  na- 
tions to  their  sway;  he  poured  the  accumulated  riches  of 
ancient  kings  into  their  treasury ;  he  made  them  the  terror 
or  the  admiration  of  the  East,  But  the  holy  Psalmist  may 
have  a  prospective  reference  to  the  deliverance  which  the 
Gentile  nations  were  to  obtain,  from  the  basest  and  most 
despicable  condition,  the  worshipping  of  wood  and  stone, 
the  gratifying  of  the  vilest  lusts,  and  their  advancement  to 
the  service  of  Christ,  and  the  practice  of  universal  holiness 
and  virtue.  His  words  are  not  less  applicable  to  the  de- 
liverance of  the  church,  from  the  distresses  in  which  she 
may  be  at  any  time  involved,  and  the  restoration  of  individ- 
ual believers  from  a  state  of  spiritual  decline.  On  these 
joyous  occasions,  the  people  of  God  shake  off  their  fears 
aiid  their  sorrows,  and  resume  their  wonted  serenity, 
peace,  and  joy ;  they  worship  God  in  the  beauty  of  holi- 
ness ;  they  press  forward  with  renovated  vigour  to  the 
promised  "inheritance  ;  they  are  as  a  dove,  the  most  beauti- 
ful of  the  species,  whose  wings  rival  silver  in  whiteness, 
and  the  feathers  of  whose  neck,  the  yellow  radiance  of 
gold. — Ibid. 

The  Hebrew  word  may  refer  to  those  fire-ranges  or  rows 
of  stones  on  which  the  caldrons  or  pots  were  placed  for 
boiling,  probably  something  like,  but  more  durable  in  their 
structure,  than  those  which  Niebuhr  says  are  used  by  the 
wandering  Arabs.  "  Their  fireplace  is  soon  constructed ; 
they  only  set  their  pots  upon  several  separate  stones,  or 
over  a  hole  digged  in  the  earth."  Lying  among  these, 
denotes  the  most  abject  slavery;  for  this  seems  to  have 
'been  the  place  of  rest  allotted  to  the  vilest  slaves.  So  old 
Laertes,  grieving  for  the  loss  of  his  son,  is  described  in 
Homer,  as  in  the  winter,  sleeping  where  the  slaves  did, 
in  the  ashes  near  the  fire,-  Burder. 

Ver.  14.  When  the  Almighty  scattered  kings  in 
it,  it  was  white  as  snow  in  Salmon. 

Perhaps  in  allusion  to  the  bones  of  the  slaughtered  foe, 
which  were  scattered  about,  and  lay  bleaching  on  the  sum- 
mit of  Salmon.- -B. 

Ver.  15.  The  hill  of  God  is  as  the  hill  of  Bashan ; 
a  high  hill,  as  the  hill  of  Bashan. 

The  Hebrew  word  is  plural,  and  means  a  mountain  of 
eminences,  or  backs.  Tnis  may,  perhaps,  be  a  title  pecu- 
liarly applicable  to  Bashan.  The  mountain  with  teeth, 
might  be  a  name  given  it,  from  the  appearance  of  the  face 
of  it,  studded  over  with  small  hills.  Monserrat,  in  Spain, 
is  an  instance  of  a  mountain  deriving  its  name  from  its 
shape ;  as  it  is  Mons  Serratas,  or  a  mountain  whose  craggy 
cliffs  have,  at  a  distance,  the  resemblance  of  the  teeth  of  a 
saw.  The  Sierra  Morena,  in  Spain,  is  named  from  its 
shape  and  colour. — Burder. 

Ver.  21.  But  God  shall  wound  the  head  of  his 
enemies,  and  the  hairy  scalp  of  such  a  one  as 
goeth  on  still  in  his  trespasses. 


This  language,  in  the  East,  is  equivalent  to  saying,  "  1 
will  kill  you."  "  The  king  will  soon  break  the  uche  (the 
scalp)  of  that  fellow."  "  Tamban's  uche  is  broken,  he  died 
last  week."  "  Under  the  scalp  is  the  royal  wind,  which  is 
the  last  to  depart  after  death."  "  With  those  who  are 
buried,  it  remains  three  days  in  its  place :  but  when  the 
body  is  burned,  it  immediately  takes  its  departure,  which  is 
a  great  advantage." — Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  The  singers  went  before,  the  players  on 
instruments  followed  after ;  among  them  were 
the  damsels  playing  with  timbrels. 

This,  no  doubt,  is  a  description  of  a  religious  procession 
in  the  time  of  David.  In  the  sacred  and  domestic  proces 
sions  of  the  Hindoos  they  observe  the  same  order,  and  hav(? 
the  same  class  of  people  in  attendance.  See  them  taking 
their  god  to  exhibit  to  the  people,  or  to  remove  some  calam- 
ity; he  is  put  into  his  car  or  tabernacle,  and  the  whole  is 
placed  on  men's  shoulders.  As  they  move  along,  the  men 
and  women  precede,  and  sing  his  praises  ;  then  follow  the 
musicians,  who  play  with  all  their  might  in  honour  of  the 
god,  and  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  people. — Roberts, 

Ver.  30.  Rebuke  the  company  of  spearmen,  the 
muhitude  of  the  bulls,  with  the  calves  of  the 
people,  till  every  one  submit  himself  with  pieces 
of  silver :  scatter  thou  the  people  that  delight 
in  war. 

Literally,  rebuke  the  beast  of  the  reeds,  or  canes.  This  in 
all  probability  means  the  wild-boar,  which  is  considered  as 
destructive  to  the  people  of  Israel,  Psalm  Ixxx.  13.  That 
wild-boars  abound  in  marshes,  fens,  and  reedy  places,  ap- 
pears from  Le  Bruyn,  who  says,  "  we  were  in  a  large  plain 
full  of  canals,  marshes,  and  bullrushes.  This  part  of  the 
country  is  infested  by  a  vast  number  of  wild-boars,  that 
march  in  troops,  and  destroy  all  the  seeds  and  fruits  of  the 
earth,  and  pursue  their  ravages  as  far  as  the  entrance  intc 
the  villages.  The  inhabitants,  in  order  to  remedy  this  mis- 
chief, set  fire  to  the  rushes  which  afford  them  a  retreat,  anc 
destroyed  above  fifty  in  that  manner:  but  those  that  escaped 
the  flames  spread  themselves  all  round  in  such  a  manner, 
that  the  people  themselves  were  obliged  to  have  recourse 
to  flight,  and  have  never  disturbed  them  since  for  fear  of 
drawing  upon  themselves  some  greater  calamity.  They 
assured  me  that  some  of  these  creatures  were  as  large  as 
cows." — Burder, 

Ver.  31.  Princes  shall  come  out  of  Egypt;  Ethi- 
opia shall  soon  stretch  out  her  hands  unto  God. 

See  on  Ps.  44.  20. 

PSALM  LXIX. 

Ver.  9.  For  the  zeal  of  thy  house  hath  eaten  me 
up ;  and  the  reproaches  of  them  that  reproach- 
ed thee  are  fallen  upon  me. 

He  who  is  zealous  in  his  religion,  or  ardent  in  his  attach- 
ments, is  said  to  be  eaten  up.  *'  Old  Muttoo  has  determined 
to  leave  his  home  for  ever ;  he  is  to  walk  barefoot  to  the 
Ganges  for  the  salvation  of  his  soul:  his  zeal  has  eaten  him 
up," — Roberts. 

Ver.  14.  Deliver  me  out  of  the  mire,  and  let  me 
not  stink :  let  me  be  delivered  from  them  that 
hate  me,  and  out  of  the  deep  waters. 

"Ah!  this  chearu,  this  cAmrw,"  (this  mud,  this  mud,^ 
says  the  man  who  is  in  trouble,  "  who  will  pull  me  out  1 ' 
"  i  am  like  the  bullock,  with  his  legs  fast  in  the  mud;  the 
more  I  struggle,  the  faster  I  am." — Roberts. 

Ver.  21.  They  gave  me  also  gall  for  my  meat; 
and  in  my  thirst  they  gave  me  vinegar  to  drink. 

The  refreshing  quality  of  vinegar  cannot  be  doubted ; 
but  a  royal  personage  had  reason  to  complain  of  his  treat- 
ment in  having  this  only  presented  to  him  to  quench  his 


Ps.  G9— 74. 


PSALMS 


389 


thirst,  -when  it  was  only  made  use  of  by  the  meanest  people. 
Pitts  tells  us,  that  the'food  that  he  and  the  rest  had  when 
first  taken  by  the  Algerines,  was  generally  only  five  or  six 
spoonfuls  of  vinegar,  half  a  spoonful  of  oil,  a  few  olives, 
with  a  small  quantify  of  black  biscuit,  and  a  pint  of  water, 
a  day.  The  juice  of  lemons  is  what  those  of  higher  life 
now  use,  and  probably  among  the  higher  orders  the  juice 
of  pomegranates  might  be  used,  to  produce  a  grateful 
acidity. — Harmer. 

Ver.  31.    This  also  shall  please  the  Lord  better 
than  an  ox  or  bullock  that  hath  horns  and  hoofs. 

Dr.  Boothroyd,  "  For  this  will  be  more  acceptable  to  Je- 
hovah than  a  full-horned  and  a  full-hoofed  steer."  Bufia- 
loes,  which  are  offered  in  sacrifice,  must  always  be  full 
grown,  and  must  have  their  horns  and  hoofs  of  a  particular 
size  and  shape.  Those  without  horns  are  offered  to  devils. 
Thus,  it  is  difficult  and  expensive  to  procure  a  victim  of 
the  right  kind.  The  writer  of  this  psalm  is  supposed  to 
have  been  a  captive  in  Babylon,  and  consequently  poor, 
and  otherwise  unable  to  bring  an  acceptable  sacrifice  to  the 
Lord ;  but  he  rejoiced  to  know  that  he  "  heareth  the  poor, 
and  despiseth  not  his  prisoners ;"  and  that,  by  praising  "  the 
name  of  God  with  a  song,"  and  by  magnifying  him  with 
thanksgiving,  would  be  more  acceptable  than  the  most 
perfect  victim  offered  to  him  in  sacrifice. — Roberts. 

PSALM  LXXI. 
Ver.  n.  Saying,  God  hath  forsaken  him;  per- 
secute and  take  him :  for  there  is  none  to  de- 
liver him. 

When  a  respectable  man,  in  the  service  of  his  sovereign, 
or  superior,  falls  into  disgrace ;  when  rich  men  become 

Soor,  or  servants  lose  the  favour  of  their  masters ;  then  a 
orde  of  accusers,  who  did  not  before  dare  to  show  their 
faces,  come  forward  with  the  most  fearful  stories  of  the 
wickedness  of  the  fallen  man.  Formerly  they  were  ever 
flattering  and  cringing  at  his  feet ;  but  now  they  are  the 
most  brutal  and  bold  of  his  enemies. — Roberts. 

PSALM  LXXII. 
Ver.  5.  They  shall  fear  thee  as  long  as  the  sun 
and  moon  endure,  throughout  all  generations. 

At  the  time  appointed  for  the  commencement  of  the 
new  year,  which,  among  the  Singalese,  is  always  in  April, 
the  king  sat  on  his  throne  in  state,  surrounded  by  his  chiefs, 
and  the  event  was  announced  to  the  people  by  the  discharge 
of  jingalls.  At  the  hour  appointed  for  the  second  ceremo- 
ny, young  women  of  certain  families,  with  lighted  tapers 
in  their  hands,  and  a  silver  dish  containing  undressed  rice, 
and  turmeric  water,  stood  at  a  little  distance  from  the  king, 
and  when  he  directed  his  face  to  the  southeast,  with  imbal 
leaves  under  his  feet,  and  nuga  leaves  in  his  hand,  and  ap- 
plied the  medicinal  juice  to  his  head  and  body,  they  thrice 
exclaimed,  Increase  of  age  to  our  sovereign  of  five  thou- 
sand years !  increase  of  age  as  long  as  the  sun  and  moon 
last !  increase  of  age  as  long  as  heaven  and  earth  exist ! 
By  the  chiefs  and  people  of  consequence,  this  part  of  the 
ceremony  was  performed  in  a  manner  as  nearly  similar  as 
possible.    (Davy's  Account  of  Ceylon.) — Burder. 

Ver.  9.  They  that  dwell  in  the  wilderness  shall 
bow  before  him;  and  his  enemies  shall  lick  the 
dust. 

This  is  a  very  favourite  way  of  threatening  among  the 
Hindoos.  The  half  frantic  man  says  to  his  foe,  "  Yes,  thou 
shalt  soon  eat  the  earth ;"  which  means  his  mouth  will 
soon  be  open  to  receive  it,  as  in  death.  "  Soon,  soon  wilt 
thou  have  maw,"  i.  e.  earth,  "  in  thy  mouth."  In  time  of 
great  scarcity,  it  is  said,  "  The  people  are  now  eating  earth ; 
the  cruel,  cruel  king,  did  nothing  but  put  earth  in  the 
piouths  of  his  subjects."— Roberts. 

In  Mr.  Hugh  Boyd's  account  of  his  embassy  to  the  king 
of  Candy,  in  Ceylon,  there  is  a  paragraph  which  sinsrularly 
illustrates  this  part  of  the  Psalm  ;  and  shows  the  adulation 
and  obsequious  reverence  with  which  an  eastern  monarch 
is  approached.    Describing  his  introduction  to  the  king,  he 


says,  "  The  removal  of  the  curtain  was  the  signal  of  our 
obeisances.  Mine,  by  stipulation,  was  to  be  only  kneeling. 
My  companions  immediately  began  the  performance  ot 
theirs,  which  were  in  the  most  perfect  degree  of  eastern 
humiliation.  They  almost  literally  licked  the  dust ;  pros- 
trating themselves  with  their  faces  almost  close  to  the  stone 
floor,  and  throwing  out  their  arms  and  legs;  then  rising  on 
their  knees,  they  repeated  in  a  very  loud  voice  a  certain 
form  of  words  of  the  most  extravagant  meaning  that  can  be 
conceived : — that  the  head  of  the  king  of  kings  might  resch 
beyond  the  sun;  that  he  might  live  a  thousand  years,"  &c. 
Compare  this  with  the  passage  of  scripture  now  referred  to. 
"  He  shall  have  dominion  also  from  sea  to  sea,  and  from 
the  river  unto  the  ends  of  the  earth.  They  that  dwell  in 
the  wilderness  shall  bow  before  him,  and  his  enemies  shall 
lick  the  dust,"  i.  e.  the  wild  unconquered  Arabians  shall  be 
brought  to  abject  submission.  This  is  beautifully  emble- 
matic of  the  triumph  of  Christ  over  those  nations  and  indi- 
viduals, whom  it  appeared  impossible  for  the  Gospel  to  sub- 
due. "  The  kings  of  Tarshish  and  of  the  Isles  shall  bring 
presents ;  the  kings  of  Sheba  and  Seba  shall  offer  gifts. 
Yea,  all  kings  shall  fall  down  before  him;  all  nations  shall 
serve  him." — Burder. 

Ver.  16.  There  shall  be  a  handful  of  corn  in  the 
earth  upon  the  top  of  the  mountains;  the  fruit 
thereof  shall  shake  like  Lebanon  :  and  thcii  oi 
the  city  shall  flourish  like  grass  of  the  earth. 

The  rapidity  with  which  grass  grows  in  the  East  is  the 
idea  here  referred  to.  "  When  the  ground  there  hath  been 
destitute  of  rain  nine  months  together,  and  looks  all  of  it 
like  the  barren  sand  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  where  there 
is  not  one  spire  of  green  grass  to  be  found,  within  a  few 
days  after  tnose  fat  enriching  showers  begin  to  fall,  the 
face  of  the  earth  there  (as  it  were  by  a  new  resurrection)  is 
so  revived,  and,  as  it  were,  so  renewed,  as  that  it  is  present- 
ly covered  all  over  with  a  pure  green  mantle.  (Sir  Thomas 
Roe.)^BuRDER. 

PSALM  LXXIV. 
Ver.  11.  Why  withdrawest  thou  thy  hand,  even 
thy  right  hand  ?  pluck  it  out  of  thy  bosom. 

The  word  which  we  translate  bosom  does  not  always,  in 
eastern  language,  mean  the  breast ;  but  often  the  lap,  or 
that  part  of  the  body  where  the  long  robe  folds  round  the 
loins.  Thus,  in  the  folds  of  the  garment,  in  front  of  the 
body,  the  Orientals  keep  their  little  valuables,  and  there, 
when  they  are  perfectly  at  ease,  they  place  their  hands. 
Sternhold"  and  Hopkins,' who  translated  from  the  original 
text,  have  the  same  idea  : — 

"  Why  dost  thou  draw  thy  hand  aback. 
And  hide  it  in  thy  lap  7" 

To  a  king,  whose  enemies  have  invaded  his  territories, 
and  are  ravaging  his  kingdom,  it  will  be  said,  should  he 
not  make  any  exertions  to  repel  them,  "  Why  does  your 
*  majesty  keep  your  hands  in  your  maddeyila,  (bosom  1) 
Take  your  sword,  your  heroism  thence."  When  two  men 
go  to  a  magistrate  to  complain  of  each  other,  perhaps  one 
says,  "  He  has  beaten  me  severely,  my  lord."  Then  the 
other  replies,  "  It  is  true,  I  did  strike  him,  but  these  wounds 
on  my  body  show  he  did  not  keep  his  hands  in  his  bosom." 
"  Complain  not  to  me,  fellow,  for  want  of  food  ;  do  I  not 
see  you  always  with  your  hands  in  your  bosom  1"  "He 
has  been  cursing  me  in  the  most  fearful  way,  but  I  told 
him  to  put  the  imprecations  in  his  own  bosom." 

"  Thy  rightliand,"  which  is  the  hand  of  honour.  Hence, 
"  the  right  hand  of  the  Most  High."  The  Hindoos  have  a 
right-hand  caste,  and  when  they  take  a  solemn  oath  they 
lift  up  that  hand  to  heaven. 

The  whole  of  the  right  side  of  a  man  is  believed  to  be 
more  honourable  than  the  left,  and  all  its  members  are  said 
to  be  larger  and  stronger ;  and,  to  give  more  dignity  to  it, 
they  call  it  the  dnpackhom,  i.  e.  the  male  side;  whereas  the 
other  is  called  the  female.  This  idea,  also,  is  followed  up 
in  reference  to  their  great  deity,  Siva;  his  right  side  is  call- 
ed male,  and  the  other  the  female;  which  notion  also  ap- 
plies to  the  Jupiter  of  western  antiquity,  a^  he  was  said  to 
be  male  and  also  female. — Roberts- 


;90 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  75. 


Ver.  13.  Thou  didst  divide  the  sea  by  thy  strength: 
thou  brakest  the  heads  of  the  dragons  in  the 
waters.  1 4.  Thou  brakest  the  heads  of  levia- 
than in  pieces,  and  gavest  him  to  he  meat  to  the 
people  inhabiting  the  wilderness. 

See  on  Job  41.  1,  &c. 

Ver.  19.  O  deliver  not  the  soul  of  thy  turtle-dove 
unto  the  multitude  of  the  wicked ;  forget  not  the 
Congregation  of  thy  poor  for  ever. 

It  has  already  been  observed,  that  the  turtle-dove  never 
admits  a  second  mate,  but  lingers  out  her  life  in  sorrowful 
v\?idowhood.  To  this  remarkable  circumstance,  these 
words  of  David  are  by  many  thought  to  refer :  "  O  deliver 
not  the  soul  of  thy  turtle-dove  unto  the  multitude  of  the 
wicked  ;  forget  not  the  congregation  of  thy  poor  for  ever," 
As  the  turtle  cleaves  to  her  mate  with  unshaken  fidelity, 
so  these  interpreters  say,  had  Israel  adhered  to  their  God. 
But  it  is  well  known  that  God's  ancient  people  were  a  stiff- 
necked  and  rebellious  race,  equally  fickle  and  perfidious, 
and  discovering  on  almost  every  occasion  a  most  violent  and 
unreasonable  inclination  to  the  worship  of  heathen  deities. 
\i  is,  therefore,  more  natural  to  suppose,  that  the  holy 
Psalmist,  by  this  term,  alludes  to  the  weak  and  helpless 
state  of  his  people,  that  like  the  turtle  had  neither  power 
nor  inclination  to  resist  their  numerous  enemies.  The 
dove  is  a  harmless  and  simple  creature,  equally  destitute 
of  skill  and  courage  for  the  combat;  and  the  turtle  is  the 
smallest  of  the  family.  She  is  therefore  a  most  proper 
emblem  of  the  national  imbecility  into  which  the  people  of 
l;rael  had  sunk,  in  consequence  of  their  numerous  iniqui- 
ties, with  which  they  had  long  provoked  the  God  of  their 
fathers.  They  who  were  the  terror  of  surrounding  na- 
tions, while  they  feared  the  Lord  and  kept  his  command- 
ments, whom  God  himself  instructed  in  the  art  of  war,  and 
ted  to  certain  victory,  had  by  their  folly  become  the  scorn 
of  their  neighbours,  and  an  easy  prey  to  every  invader. — 
Paxton. 

Sometimes  those  that  have  no  tents,  shelter  themselves 
from  the  inclemency  of  the  night  air,  in  holes  and  caverns 
\vhich  they  find  in  th^ir  rocky  hills,  where  they  can  kindle 
(ires  to  warm  them^fclves,  as  well  as  to  dress  their  provis- 
ions; to  which  may  be  added,  that  doves  also,  in  those 
countries,  frequently  haunt  such  places,  as  well  as  some 
o'her  birds.  Dr.  Richard  Chandler,  in  his  travels  in  Asia 
Minor,  has  both  taken  notice  of  the  doves  there  lodging  in 
txoles  of  ihc  locks;  and  of  the  shepherds  and  fishermen 
oeing  woPi  t  j  make  use  of  such  retreats,  and  of  their  kin- 
dling files  ia  them,  by  which  practice  those  doves  must  be 
irequeiitl}  very  much  smutted,  and  their  feathers  dirtied. 
And  I  iixTe been  sometimes  ready  to  imagine,  that  an  at- 
ventiou  10  these  circumstances  may  afford  as  easy  and 
natura^.  an  account  as  any  that  has  been  given  of  that 
association  of  such  very  different  things  as  doves  and  smoky 
places,  which  we  meet  with  in  the  68th  Psalm.  It  is 
certain  the  people  of  Israel  are  compared  to  a  dove,  in  the 
book  of  Psalms ;  "  O  deliver  not  the  soul  of  thy  turtle-dove 
unto  the  multitude  of  the  wicked ;  forget  not  the  congrega- 
■  tion  of  thy  poor  for  ever,"  Ps.  Ixxiv.  19 ;  and  the  same 
image  appears  to  have  been  made  use  of,  in  this  68th  Psalm. 
If  it  was  made  use  of,  it  was  not  unnatural  to  compare  Israel, 
who  had  been  in  a  very  afflicted  state  in  Egypt,  to  a  dove 
making  its  abode  in  the  hollow  of  a  rock,  which  had  been 
smutted  by  the  fires  shepherds  had  made  in  it  for  the  heat- 
ing their  milk,  or  other  culinary  purposes ;  which  led  them 
to  make  such  little  heaps  of  stones,  on  whioti  they  might 
set  their  pots,  having  a  hollow  under  them,  in  which  they 
pat  the  fuel,  according  to  the  eastern  mode,  of  which  I 
have  given  an  account  Elsewhere,  and  which  little  build- 
ii:gs  are  meant  by  the  word  here  translated  pots. 

This  image  might  very  properly  be  made  use  of  to  ex- 
press any  kind  of  affliction  Israel  niight  have  suffered,  when 
they  are  compared  as  a  body  of  people  to  a  dove ;  and  cer- 
tainly not  less  so,  when  they  had  been  forced  to  work  with- 
out remission  in  the  brick-kilns  of  Egypt.  For  so  the  sense 
will  be  something  like  this :  O  my  people !  though  ye  have 
been  like  a  dove  in  a  hole  of  a  rock,  tliat  hath  been  black- 
ened by  the  fires  of  the  shepherds  for  the  boiling  their  pots ; 
yet  on  this  joyous  occasion  did  yon. appear  as  the  most 


beautiful  of  that  species,  whose  wings  are  like  silver,  and 
the  more  muscular  parts,  from  whence  the  strength  of 
the  wings  are  derived,  like  the  splendour  of  gold, — Hab- 

MER. 

PSALM  LXXV. 

Ver.  4.  I  said  unto  the  fools,  Deal  not  foolishly ; 
and  to  the  wicked,  Lift  not  up  the  horn :  5.  Lift 
not  up  your  horn  on  high :  speak  not  with  a 
stiff  neck. 

This  passage  will  receive  some  illustration  from  Bruce's 
remarks  in  his  Travels  to  discover  the  source  of  the  Nile, 
where,  speaking  of  the  head-dress  of  the  governors  of  the 
provinces  of  Abyssinia,  he  represents  it  as  consisting  of  a 
large  broad  fillet  bound  upon  their  forehead,  and  tied  be- 
hind their  head.  In  the  middle  of  this  was  a  horn,  or  a  ' 
conical  piece  of  silver  gilt,  about  four  inches  long,  much 
in  the  shape  of  our  common  candle  extinguishers.  This 
is  called  kirn,  or  horn,  and  is  only  worn  in  reviews,  or 

Earades  after  victory.  The  crooked  manner  in  which  they 
old  the  neck,  when  this  ornament  is  on  their  furehead, 
for  fear  it  should  fall  forward,  seems  to  agree  with  what 
the  Psalmist  calls  speaking  with  a  stiff  neck^  for  it  perfectly 
shows  the  meaning  of  speaking  with  a  stiff  neck,  when  you 
hold  the  horn  on  high,  or  erect,  like  the  horn  of  a  unicorn. 

— BURDER. 

Mr.  Munroe,  speaking  of  the  females  in  a  Maronite  vil- 
lage, in  Mount  Lebanon,  observes :  "  But  the  most  remark- 
able peculiarities  of  their  dress,  are  the  immense  silver 
ear-rings  hanging  forward  upon  the  neck,  and  the  tantmira, 
or  *  horn,'  which  supports  the  veil.  This  laUer  ornament 
varies  in  form,  material,  and  position,  according  to  the 
dignity,  taste,  and  circumstances  of  the  wearer.  They  are 
of  gold,  silver  gilt,  or  silver,  and  sometimes  of  wood.  The 
former  are  either  plain  or  figured  in  low  relief,  and  occa- 
sionally set  with  jewels ;  but  the  length  and  position  of 
them  is  that  upon  which  the  traveller  looks  with  the  great- 
est interest,  as  illustrating  and  explaining  a  familiar  ex- 
pression of  scripture.  The  young,  the  rich,  and  the  vain, 
wear  the  tantaura  of  great  length,  standing  straight  up 
from  the  top  of  the  forehead ;  whereas  the  humble,  the 
poor,  and  the  aged,  place  it  upon  the  side  of  the  head,  much 
shorter,  and  spread  ing  at  the  end  like  a  trumpet.  I  do  not 
mean  to  .say,  that  these  distinctions  are  universal,  but  I  was 
told  that  they  are  very  general,  and  thus  the  'exalted 
horn'  still  remains  a  mark  of  power  and  confidence,  as  it 
was  in  the  davs  of  Israel's  glory." — (Summer  Ramble  in 
Syria,  1833.)— B. 

"  We  stopped  for  the  night  at  the  village  of  Barook, 
chiefly  inhabited  by  Druses,  many  of  whom  are  said  to 
have  adopted  the  creed  of  their  Maronite  neighbours. 
Our  tent  was  placed  close  to  the  house  of  the  principal 
vender  of  small  wares,  round  which  an  arrival  soon  attract- 
ed a  crowd,  but  far  superior  in  appearance  and  civility  to 
the  inhabitants  of  any  district  we  had  previously  seen. 
Most  of  the  men  wore  clean  white  turbans,  and  the  women 
were  wrapped  in  blue  veils,  beneath  which  a  tanloor,  that  in- 
variable article  of  Druse  luxury,  which  is  worn  day  and  night, 
made  a  conspicuous  figure.  This  we  had  now  an  opportunity 
of  examining,  for  our  host,  accompanied  by  his  wife,  came 
to  our  tent,  aUracted  by  the  novelty  of  tea,  which  they  both 
drank,  when  well  sweetened,  with  apparent  satisfaction. 
The  lady,  in  return,  satisfied  our  curiosity  by  taking  off 
her  tantoor^  which  was  of  silver,  rudely  enclosed  with 
flowers,  stars,  and  other  devices.  In  length  it  was,  per- 
haps, something  more  than  a  foot :  but  in  shape  had  little 
resemblance  to  a  horn,  being  a  mere  hollow  tube,  increas- 
ing in  size  from  the  diameter  of  an  inch  and  a  half  at  one 
extremity,  to  three  inches  at  the  other,  where  it  terminated  ^ 
like  the  mouth  of  a  trumpet.  If  the  smaller  end  was  closed, 
it  might  serve  for  a  drinking-cup  ;  and  in  Germany  glasses 
of  the  same  form  and  size  are  occasionally  used.  This 
strange  ornament,  placed  on  a  cushion,  is  securely  fixed  to 
the  upper  part  of  the  forehead  by  two  silk  cords,  M^hich, 
afler  surrounding  the  head,  hang  behind  nearly  to  the . 
ground,  terminating  in  large  tassels,  which  a niong the  better 
classes  are  capped  with  silver." — (Hogg's  Visit  to  Damas- 
cus, Jerusalem,  (fee,  1833.) — B. 

A  man  of  lofty  bearing  is  said  to  carry  his  horn-  very 
high.  To  him  who  is  proudlv  interfering  with  the  affairs 
of  another  it  will  be  said,  "  Why  show  your  komhu  (horn) 


Ps.  75—78. 


PSALMS. 


39* 


herel"  "What!  are  yon  a  horn  for  me  T  "See  that  fel- 
low, what  a  fine  horn  he  has;  he  will  make  the  people  run." 
"  Truly,  my  lord,  you  have  a  great  horn."  "  Chinnan  has 
lost  his  money,  ay,  and  his  hornship  too."  "  Alas  !  alas  ! 
I  am  like  the  deer,  whose  horns  have  fallen  off." — Rob- 


Ver.  8.  For  in  the  hand  of  the  Lord  there  is  a 
cup,  and  the  wine  is  red;  it  is  full  of  mixture, 
and  he  poureth  out  of  the  same :  but  the  dregs 
thereof,  all  the  wicked  of  the  earth  shall  wring 
t/iem  out,  and  drink  them. 

Red  wine,  in  particular,  is  more  esteemed  in  the  East  than 
white.  And  we  are  told  in  the  travels  of  Olearius,  that  it 
is  customary  with  the  Armenian  Christians  in  Persia  to 
put  Brazil  wood,  or  saffron,  into  their  wine,  to  give  it  a 
higher  colour,  when  the  wine  is  not  so  red  as  they  like, 
they  making  no  account  of  white  wine.  He  mentions  the 
same  thing  also  in  another  place.  These  accounts  of  their 
putting  Brazil  wood  or  saffron  into  their  wines,  to  give  them 
a  deeper  red,  seem  to  discover  an  energy  in  the  Hebrew 
word  DIN  adam,  which  is  used  Prov.  xxiii.  31,  that  I  never 
remarked  anywhere.  It  is  of  the  conjugation  called  Hiih- 
pahel,  DiNni  ijitkaddam,  which,  according  to  grammarians, 
denotes  an  action  that  turns  upon  the  agent  itself:  it  is  not 
always,  it  may  be  accurately  observed  ;  but  in  this  case  it 
should  seem  that  it  ought  to  be  taken  according  to  the  strict- 
ness of  grammar,  and  that  it  intimates  the  wine's  making 
itself  redder  by  something  put  into  it :  Look  not  on  the  wine 
when  it  maketh  itself  red.  It  appears,  indeed,  from  Is.  Ixiii. 
2,  that  some  of  the  wines  about  Judea  were  naturally  red ; 
but  so  Olearius  supposed  those  wines  to  be  which  he  met 
with  in  Persia,  only  more  deeply  tinged  by  art ;  and  this 
colouring  it,  apparently  is  to  make  it  more  pleasing  and 
tempting  to  the  eye. 

There  are  two  other  places  relating  to  wine,  in  which 
our  translators  have  used  the  term  red ;  but  the  original 
word  -»an  chemer  differs  fVom  that  in  Proverbs,  and  I  should 
therefore  imagine  intended  another  idea ;  what  that  might 
be,  may,  perhaps,  appear  in  the  sequel.  The  word,  it  is 
certain,  sometimes  signifies  what  is  made  thick  or  turbid ; 
so  it  expresses  the  thickening  water  with  mud,  Ps.  Ixxvi.  3. 
May  it  not  then  signify  the  thickening  wine  with  its  lees  1  It 
seems  plainly  to  do  so  in  one  of  the  passages :  "  In  the  hand 
of  the  Lord  is  a  cup,  and  the  wine  is  red,  or  turbid:  it  is 
full  of  mixture,  and  he  poureth  out  the  same :  but  the  dregs 
thereof,  all  the  wicked  of  the  earth  shall  wring  them  out, 
and  drink  them,"  Ps.  Ixxv.  8.  The  turbidness  of  wine 
makes  it  very  inebriating,  and  consequently  expressive  of 
the  disorder  affliction  brings  on  the  mind  ;  thus,  Thevenot, 
I  remember,  tells  us  the  wine  of  Shiras,  in  Persia,  is  full  of 
lees,  and  therefore  very  heady ;  to  remedy  which,  they  fil- 
trate it  through  a  cloth,  and  then  it  is  very  clear,  and  free 
from  fumes. — Harmer. 

The  punishments  which  Jehovah  inflicts  upon  the  wick- 
ed, are  compared  to  a  cupfull  of  fermenting  wine,  mixed 
,     with  intoxicating  herbs,  of  which  all  those  to  whom  it  is 
I     given  must  drink  the  dregs  or  sediment.     The  same  image 
is  found,  not  only  frequently  in  other  places  in  the  Old  Tes- 
I     lament,  but  also  very  often  in  the  Arabian  poets.     Thus 
[      Taabbata  Scharran,  in  a  passage  of  an  Arabic  Anthology, 
by  Alb.  Schultens:  "  To  those  of  the  tribe  of  Hodail,  we 
gave  the  cup  of  death,  whose  dregs  were  confusion,  shame, 
and  reproach."    Another  poet  says:  "  A  cup  such  as  they 
gave  us,  we  gave  to  them."    When  Calif  Almansor  had 
his  valiant,  though  dreaded  general,  Abre-Moslem,  murder- 
ed, he  repeated  the  following  verse,  in  which  he  addressed 
the  corpse :  "  A  cup  such  as  he  gave,  gave  I  him,  bitterer 
to  the  taste  than  wormwood."    (Elmacin.) — Burder. 

PSALM  LXXVI. 
Ver.  11.  Vow,  and  pay  unto  the  Lord  your  God : 
let  all  that  be  round  about  him  bring  presents 
unto  him  that  ought  to  be  feared. 

Taxes  in  Persia  are  commonly  levied  under  the  form  of 
Vresents  to  the  monarch.  The  usual  presents  are  those 
made  annually  by  all  governors  of  provinces  and  districts, 
chiefs  of  tribes,  ministers,  and  all  others  invested  with  high 
'iffice,  at  the  feast  of  the  vernal  equinox.    These  gifts  are 


regulated  by  the  nature  of  the  office,  and  the  wealth  of  the 
individual,  and  consist  of  the  best  oi  the  produce  of  every 
part  of  the  kingdom.  Sometimes  a  large  sum  of  money  is 
given,  which  is  always  the  most  acceptable  present.  Allu- 
sive to  this  custom  isthat  command  in  relation  to  Messiah: 
"  Let  all  that  are  round  about  him  bring  presents  unto  him 
that  ought  to  be  feared."  Besides  these  ordinary  presents, 
extraordinary  largesses,  of  a  less  defined  nature,  but  which 
are  also  of  very  considerable  amount,  are  expected.  Of 
this  kind  were,  in  the  opinion  of  some  writers,  the  pres- 
ents which  the  enemies  of  Saul  refused  to  bring,  at  his 
accession  to  the  throne  of  Israel :  "  Bui  the  children  of 
Belial  said.  How  shall  this  man  save  us  1  And  they  de- 
spised him,  and  brought  him  no  presents.  But  he  held  his 
peace," — Paxton. 

PSALM  LXXVII. 
Ver.  2.  In  the  day  of  my  trouble  I  sought  the 
Lord  :  my  sore  ran  in  the  night,  and  ceased 
not :  my  soul  refused  to  be  comforted. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  sore,  "  hand."  Ainsworth, 
"  In  the  day  of  my  distress  I  sought  the  Lord :  my  hand  by 
night  reached  out  and  ceased  not."  Dr.  Boothroyd,  "  In 
the  day  of  my  distress  I  seek  Jehovah  :  by  night,  my  hand, 
without  ceasing,  is  stretched  out  unto  him."  Dr.  A.  Clarke 
says,  "  My  hand  was  stretched  out,"  i.  e.  in  prayer.  The 
Tamul  translation,  "My  hands,  in  the  night,  were  spread 
out,  and  ceased  not,"  "  Ah !"  says  the  sorrowful  mother, 
over  her  afflicted  child,  "  all  night  long  were  my  hands 
spread  out  to  the  gods  on  thy  behalf."  In  that  position  do 
they  sometimes  hold  their  hands  for  the  night  together. 
Some  devotees  do  this  with  their  right  hand  throughout 
the  whole  of  their  lives,  till  the  arm  becomes  quite  stiff.— 
Roberts. 

Ver,  10.  And  I  said,  this  is  my  infirmity:  but  I 
will  remember  the  years  of  the  right  hand  of 
the  Most  High. 

Dr,  Boothroyd,  "  Then  I  said,  this  is  the  time  of  my 
scrrow ;  but  the  right  hand  of  the  Most  High  can  change 
it."  I  have  shown  that  superior  honour  is  given  to  the 
RIGHT  hand.  It  is  that  with  which  men  fight :  the  •'  sword 
arm,"  consequently  protection,  or  deliverance,  comes  from 
that.  David  was  in  great  distress ;  but,  he  asks,  has  "  God 
forgotten  to  be  gracious'?"  To  this  his  heart  replied.  No  ! 
and  he  determined  to  believe  in  the  right  hand  of  ihe  Most 
High,  which  had  often  delivered  and  defended  him  in  days 
past,  and  which  could  again  change  all  his  circumstances. 
The  right  hand  is  that  which  dispenses  gifts ;  no  Hindoo 
would  offer  a  present  with  his  left  hand.  A  miser  is  said 
to  have  two  left  hands !  "  Never,  never  shall  I  forget  the 
right  hand  of  that  good  man :  he  always  relieved  my  wants." 
"  Ah  !  the  ungrateful  wretch,  how  many  years  have  I 
helped  him!  he  has  forgotten  my  right  hand."  "Yes, 
poor  fellow,  he  has  lost  all  his  property ;  he  cannot  now 
use  his  right  hand."  "  My  children,  my  children,"  says 
the  aged  father,  "  how  many  years  have  I  supported  you*? 
Surely  you  will  never  forget  the  right  hand  of  your  father." 
— Roberts. 

PSALM  LXXVIII, 
Ver  21.  Therefore  the  Lord  heard  /Aw,  and  was 
wroth:  so  a  fire  was  kindled  against  Jacob,  and 
anger  also  came  up  against  Israel. 

The  first  supply  of  quails  was  followed  by  no  visible 
judgment  from  heaven ;  for  although  they  were  guilty  of 
murmuring  against  the  Lord,  he  spared  them  in  his  love 
and  in  his  pity;  but  they  provoked  him  on  this  occasion, 
by  their  indecent  desire  of  good  living ;  by  loathing  the 
manna,  which  was  provided  for  them  by  his  distinguishing 
kindness;  by  regretting  the  provisions  which  they  had  en- 
joyed in  Goshen ;  and  by  denying  the  divine  power  and 
goodness,  which  they  had  already  experienced  in  supplying 
them  with  quails,  soon  after  they  came  out  of  Egypt,  and 
jof  which  they  had  every  day  the  most  substantial  proofs, 
in  giving  them  bread  from  heaven.  Incensed  by  this  un- 
dutifnl  conduct,  Jehovah  unequivocally  notified  his  righ- 
teous displeasure,  before  he  granted  their  demands  :  "  Ye 
shall  eat  it  a  whole  month,  until  it  come  out  at  your  ncs- 


892 


PSALMS 


Ps.  78 


trils,  and  it  be  loathsome  unto  you ;  because  that  ye  have 
despised  the  Lord  which  is  among  you,  and  have  wept  be- 
fore him,  saying.  Why  came  we  forth  out  of  Egypt"?" 
These  words  are  a  proof,  that  he  had  heard  the  murmur- 
ings  of  his  people  with  great  indignation.  When,  there- 
fore, the  month  was  completed,  and  while  the  flesh  with 
which  they  had  gorged  themselves  was  yet  in  their  mouth, 
"  the  wrath  of  the  Lord  was  kindled  against  the  people, 
and  the  Lord  smote  the  people  with  a  very  great  plague." 
Various  are  the  views  which  interpreters  have  given  of 
this  judgment;  but  their  opinion  seems  entitled  to  the 
preference,  who  suppose  it  was  a  fire  from  heaven,  by 
which  some  of  the  people  were  consumed.  Their  undu- 
tiful  murmurings  were  punished  in  this  manner,  a  very 
short  time  before  :  "  And  when  the  people  complained,  it 
displeased  the  Lord ;  and  the  Lord  heard  it,  and  his  anger 
was  kindled ;  and  the  fire  of  the  Lord  burnt  among  them, 
and  consumed  them  that  were  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
camp."  Bochart,  indeed,  considers  this  brief  statement  as 
a  summary  view  of  the  scene  which  is  more  minutely  de- 
scribed in  the  rest  of  the  chapter.  The  same  place,  he 
thinks,  is  called  Taberah,  from  the  conflagration,  and  Ki- 
broth-hataavah,  "  because  there  they  buried  the  people  that 
lusted."  But  this  opinion  seems  to  rest  upon  no  solid  foun- 
dation ;  no  trace  of  a  more  brief,  and  then  of  a  more  extended 
narrative,  can  be  discovered  in  the  passage.  The  sacred 
writer  plainly  describes  two  different  calamities,  of  which 
the  first  was  indisputably  by  fire,  which  renders  it  not  im- 
probable that  the  second  was  also  produced  by  the  same  de- 
vouring element.  This  probability  is  greatly  increased  hy 
the  words  of  David,  in  his  sublime  descriutien  ol  this  very- 
judgment  :  "  Therefore,  the  Lord  hearu,  and  was  wroth ; 
so  afire  was  kindled  against  Jacob,  and  anger  also  came  up 
against  Israel ;  because  they  believed  not  God,  nor  trusted 
in  his  salvation."  An  instance  of  similar  perverseness  is 
recorded  of  this  people,  soon  after  they  came  out  of  Egypt. 
But,  although  they  were  perhaps  equally  blameable,  they 
were  not  subjected  to  the  same  punishment ;  for,  in  this  in- 
stance, Jehovah  bestowed  upon  them  a  supply  of  quails  that 
evening ;  and  the  day  after,  he  rained  manna  from  heaven 
around  their  tents.  He  had  a  right  to  punish  them  for  their 
iniquity ;  but  he  graciously  turned  away  his  anger,  and 
yielded  to  their  importunities.  And  for  this  forbearance, 
several  reasons  may  be  assigned.  If  any  fall  a  second  time 
into  the  sins  which  had  already  been  forgiven,  he  is  more 
guilty  than  before ;  because  he  both  insults  the  justice,  and 
tramples  on  the  grace  and  mercy  of  God.  Besides,  in  this 
instance,  the  people  of  Israel  murmured  against  their  lead- 
ers, because  they  were  pressed  by  famine,  and  in  want  of 
all  the  necessaries  of  life.  But  in  the  desert  of  Paran,  bread 
from  heaven  descended  in  daily  showers  around  their  en- 
campment, in  sufficient  quantity  to  satisfy  the  whole  con- 
gregation ;  they  lived  on  angel  s  food ;  they  were  satiated 
with  the  bread  of  heaven;  and  by  consequence,  the  flesh 
which  they  demanded  with  so  great  eagerness  and  impor- 
tunity, was  not  required  to  supply  their  necessity,  but  to 
gratify  their  lustful  desires.  When  they  murmured  against 
Moses  and  Aaron  in  the  wilderness  of  Sin,  they  had  but 
lately  come  out  of  Egypt — they  were  still  in  a  rude  and  un- 
tutored state,  for  the  law  was  not  yet  given ;  but  in  Paran 
they  rebelled,  after  long  and  various  experience  of  the  di- 
vine care  and  goodness,  after  the  law  was  given,  and  after 
they  had  been  instructed  by  many  sufferings,  in  the  evil 
nature  and  bitter  consequences  of  sin ;  their  conduct,  there- 
fore, was  much  more  criminal,  and  deservedly  subjected 
them  to  severe  castigation.— Paxton. 

Ver.  25.  Man  did  eat  angels'  food :  he  sent  them 
meat  to  the  full.  26.  He  caused  an  east  wind 
to  blow  in  the  heaven ;  and  by  his  power  he 
brought  in  the  south  wind.  27.  He  rained 
flesh  also  upon  them  as  dust,  and  feathered 
fowls  like  as  the  sand  of  the  sea. 

See  on  Ex.  16.  12,  13, 

On  this  passage  it  has  been  asked.  How  can  these  winds 
blow  together,  and  at  the  same  time  bring  up  the  quails" 
from  the  sea  into  the  desert  1  The  Seventy  interpreters, 
and  the  Vulgate,  found  it  so  difficult  to  give  "a  satisfactory 
answer  to  these  queries,  that  they  were  induced  to  render 


the  first  clause,  "  He  removed  the  east  wind  from  the  hea- 
ven;" as  if  the  removal  of  one  wind  was  necessarily  suc- 
ceeded by  another.  But  this  version  cannot  be  admitted, 
because  the  Psalmist  clearly  intends  to  represent  the  east 
and  the  south  winds,  as  the  joint  instruments  of  divine 
goodness,  which,  by  their  united  force,  collected  and  brought 
up  the  quails  from  the  sea.  If  the  Psalmist  had  meant  to 
express  the  removing  of  the  east  wind,  he  must  have  used 
the  phrase,  (cDSfn  ]v)from  tJie  heaven;  but  instead  of  this, 
he  uses  the  words,  (a-^na'n)  in  or  into  the  heavens,  which  con- 
vey an  idea  quite  the  reverse.  Our  version,  thereforCj 
gives  the  true  sense  of  the  sacred  text:  He  caused  an  east 
wind  to  blow  in  the  heaven ;  that  is,  he  introduced  it  for  the 
very  purpose  of  bringing  the  quails  into  the  camp.  To 
this  may  be  added,  that  in  the  whole  of  this  Psalm,  as  often 
in  the  other  poetical  books  of  the  Hebrews,  the  two  hemi- 
stiches are  almost  parallel,  and  mutually  explain  each  other. 
From  whence  it  follows,  that  (yn-')  yasah  in  this  text,  has 
nearly  the  same  meaning  as  its  parallel  verb,  (:inri)  vain- 
hag,  which  signifies  to  introduce.  This  is  accordingly  the 
sense  which  all  interpreters,  ancient  and  modern,  "have 
adopted,  except  the  Septuagint  and  the  Vulgate. 

From  this  statement  it  appears,  that  the  royal  Psalmist  in 
this  passage  means  to  excite,  not  to  remove  the  east  wind ; 
to  introduce,  not  to  expel  it  from  the  heavens.  But  to  un- 
derstand the  matter  clearly,  let  it  be  remembered,  that  the 
people  of  Israel  were  at  that  time  in  the  wilderness  of  Pa- 
ran; at  the  distance  of  three  days'  journey  from  Sinai,  di- 
rectly north  from  the  extremity  of  the  Arabian  gulf;  and 
by  consequence,  from  Theman,  the  country  from  whence 
the  south  wind  blows,  whose  name  it  commonly  bears,  in 
the  Hebrew  text,  which  brought  the  quails  into  the  camp 
of  Israel.  The  same  region  is  named  (D->ip)  kadim,  that  is, 
the  east;  because  it  lay  towards  the  southeast;  and  was  de- 
nominated sometimes  by  the  one  name,  and  sometimes  by 
the  other.  Although  the  cardinal  winds  are  reckoned  four 
in  number,  which  are  again  subdivided  into  many  more ; 
yet  the  ancient  philosophers,  and  particularly  Aristotle  and 
Theophrastus,  distributed  them  into  two,  the  north  and  the 
south.  The  westerly  winds  they  included  in  the  north,  be- 
cause they  are  colder;  and  the  easterly  winds  in  the  south, 
because  they  are  attended  by  a  greater  degree  of  heat! 
But,  since  the  east  wind  was  anciently  comprehended  in  the 
south,  the  east  and  the  south  maybe  used  in  this  text  as  sy- 
nonymous ;  and  by  consequence,  the  east  is  the  same,  or 
nearly  the  same,  as  the  south  wind.  Nor  is  it  in  this  text 
alone,  that  the  sacred  writers  ascribe  to  the  east,  what 
might  seem  to  be  the  proper  effects  of  the  south  wind ;  the 
same  thing  may  be  observed  in  every  part  of  scripture.  It 
burns  up  the  fruits  of  the  earth ;  it  blasts  the  vines,  and 
other  fruit-bearing  trees ;  it  drove  back  the  Red  Sea,  and 
opened  a  passage  to  the  people  of  God;  it  dries  up  the 
fountains  of  water ;  and  by  its  irresistible  violence,  it 
dashes  the  ships  of  Tharshish  in  pieces ;  and,  in  fine,  scatters 
destruction  among  the  dwellings  of  wicked  men,  and  sweeps 
them  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  into  the  silent  mansions  ol 
the  grave.  The  prophet  Isaiah  on  this  account,  calls  it  a 
rough  wind ;  and  Jonah  feelingly  describes  the  vehemence 
with  which  it  beat  upon  his  head  till  he  fainted,  and  wish- 
ed in  himself  to  die.  The  Greek  interpreters  uniformly 
render  it  the  south  wind ;  and  Theodoret  regards  these  two 
winds  as  nearly  the  same.  Although,  therefore,  the  phrase 
(onpn  nn)  ruah  hakadim,  properly  and  precisely  speaking, 
denotes  the  east  wind  ;  yet,  because  the  east  and  the  south 
winds  resemble  each  other  in  many  particulars,  the  He- 
brews, in  the  opinion  of  Bochart  and  other  learned  writers, 
appear  to  have  used  these  names  promiscuously ;  which  is 
the  reason  that  (o-np)  kadim  is,  in  every  part  of  the  Greek 
version,  and  particularly  in  the  text  under  review,  render- 
ed the  south  wind.  Thus  the  same  wind  seems  to  have 
been  intended  by  both  these  terms,  the  south  or  African 
wind,  which,  from  the  interior  of  Egypt,  wafted  the  quails 
into  the  desert,  and  scattered  them  round  the  tents  of  Israel. 

This  difficulty  admits  of  other  solutions  equally  natural 
and  easy.  The  inspired  writer  maybe  understood  to  mean 
the  southeast  wind,  which  might  bring  the  quails  as  well 
from  the  east  as  from  the  south ;  or,  that  both  the  east  and 
the  south  winds  were  employed  on  that  occasion,  the'first 
to  scatter  about  the  tents  of  Israel  the  congregated  flocks, 
which  the  last  had  swept  into  the  desert ;  or,  in  order  to  se- 
cure a  complete  supply  for  so  great  a  multitude,  to  gather 
at  the  same  time  from  the  east  and  the  south,  the  widely  dis« 


Ps.  78. 


PSALMS. 


303 


persed  troops  of  these  birds,  which,  in  distant  regions  of  the 
sky,  were  pursuing  their  annual  journey  from  their  winter 
quarters,  to  the  more  temperate  latitudes. 

It  is  indeed  objected  by  some  writers,  that  the  west  wind, 
rather  than  the  east,  ought  to  blow,  in  order  to  produce  the 
effect  recorded  by  Moses ;  and  that,  according  to  Pliny  and 
Aristotle,  the  quails  do  not  trust  themselves  to  the  sky  when 
the  humid  and  boisterous  south  wind  blows ;  and  for  this 
reason,  the  winds  blowing  from  the  north  and  west,  are  dis- 
tinguished by  the  name  of  ornithian,  because  they  are  fa- 
vourable to  the  migratory  tribes.  But  no  miracle  is  in- 
volved in  this  circumstance ;  for  these  ancient  authors  only 
mean,  that  the  quails  pursue  their  journey  with  greater  dif- 
ficulty, and  are  more  easily  taken  when  the  south  wind 
blows ;  while,  according  to  the  observation  of  others,  these 
birds  of  passage  were  brought  back  in  the  spring,  by  the 
south  winds,  which  are  the  most  proper  for  conducting  them 
from  the  banks  of  the  Nile  and  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea, 
into  the  wilderness  of  Paran. — Paxton. 

Ver.  31.  The  wrath  of  God  came  upon  them,  and 
slew  the  fattest  of  them,  and  smote  down  the 
chosen  men  of  Israel. 

See  on  Ps.  22.  12. 

Ver.  45.  He  sent  divers  sorts  of  flies  among  them, 
which  devoured  them;  and  frogs,  which  de- 
stroyed them. 

See  on  Ex.  8.  4. 

Ver.  47.  He  destroyed  their  vines  with  hail,  and 
their  sycamore-trees  with  frost. 

The  land  of  Egypt  never  produced  a  sufficient  quantity 
of  wine  to  supply  the  wants  of  its  inhabitants :  but  still  it 
•contained  many  vines,  although  it  could  not  boast  of  ex- 
tensive and  loaded  vineyards.  The  vines  of  Egypt  are 
conjoined  by  the  Psalmist,  with  the  sycamores,  in  his  tri- 
umphant song  on  the  plagues  which  desolated  that  country, 
and  procured  the  liberation  of  his  ancestors:  **  He  destroy- 
ed their  vines  with  hail,  and  their  sycamore-trees  with  frost." 
This  was  to  the  people  of  Egypt  a  very  serious  loss  ;  for 
the  grape  has  been  in  all  ages  a  principal  part  of  the  viands, 
with  which  they  treated  their  friends.  Norden  was  enter- 
tained with  coffee  and  grapes  by  the  aga  of  Essauen :  and 
when  Maillet  resided  in  that  country,  the  natives  used  the 
young  leaves  of  their  vines  even  more  than  the  fruit.  A 
principal  article  of  their  diet  consist  in  minced  meat,  which 
they  wrap  up  in  small  parcels  in  vine  leaves,  and  laying 
thus  one  leaf  upon  another,  they  season  it  according  to  the 
custom  of  their  country,  and  make  of  it  one  of  the  most 
delicate  dishes  presented  on  their  tables.  The  remainder 
of  the  vintage  they  convert  into  wine,  of  so  delicious  a  taste 
and  flavour,  that  it  was  carried  to  Rome  in  the  days  of  her 
pride  and  luxury,  and  esteemed  by  epicures  the  third  in  the 
number  of  their  most  esteemed  wines.  The  use  of  wine 
being  prohibited  by  the  Mohammedan  law,  very  little  is 
manufactured  at  present;  but  it  seems,  in  ancient  times, 
to  have  been  produced  in  much  greater  abundance.  In  the 
reign  of  the  Pharaohs,  it  was  certainly  made  in  considerable 
quantities  for  the  use  of  the  court,  who  probably  could  pro- 
cure no  such  wine  from  other  countries,  nor  were  they 
acquainted  with  such  liquors  as  the  great  now  drink  in 
Egypt;  and  consequently  the  loss  of  their  vines,  as  the 
sacred  writer  insinuates,  must  have  been  considerable. 

The  grapes  of  Egypt  are  said  to  be  much  smaller  than 
those  which  grow  in  the  land  of  Canaan.  Dandini,  though 
an  Italian,  seems  to  have  been  surprised  at  the  extraordi- 
nary size  of  the  grapes  produced  in  the  vineyards  of  Leb- 
anon. They  are  as  large  as  prunes,  and  as  may  be  in- 
ferred from  the  richness  and  flavour  of  the  wines  for  which 
the  mountains  of  Lebanon  have  been  renowned  from  time 
immemorial,  of  the  most  delicious  taste.  To  the  size  and 
flavour  of  these  grapes,  brought  by  the  spies  to  the  camp 
in  the  wilderness,  the  Italian  traveller,  little  versed,  it 
should  seem,  in  the  history  of  the  Old  Testament,  imputes 
the  ardour  with  which  the  people  of  Israel  prosecuted  the 
conquest  of  Palestine.  The  magnificent  cluster  which  the 
spies  brought  from  Eshcol,  was  certainly  fitted,  in  no  com- 
mon degree,  to  stimulate  the  parched  armies  of  Israel  to 
50 


deeds  of  heroic  valour ;  but  their  kindling  spirit  was  effec- 
tually damped  by  the  report  of  the  spies,  who  were  intimi- 
dated by  the  robust  and  martial  appearance  of  the  Canaan- 
ites,  the  strength  of  their  cities,  and  the  gigantic  stature  of 
the  sons  of  Anak. 

The  grapes  produced  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  although  very 
delicious,  are  extremely  small :  but  those  which  grow  in 
the  vineyards  of  Coelo  Syria  and  Palestine,  swell  to  a  sur- 
prising bigness.  The  famous  bunch  of  Eshcol  required 
the  strength  of  two  men  to  bear  it.  This  difference  suffi- 
ciently accounts  for  the  surprise  and  pleasure  which  the 
people  of  Israel  manifested,  when  they  first  beheld,  in  the 
barren  and  sandy  desert,  the  fruits  which  grew  in  their  fu- 
ture inheritance.  The  extraordinary  size  of  the  grapes  ol 
Canaan,  is  confirmed  by  the  authority  of  a  modern  traveller. 
In  traversing  the  country  about  Bethlehem,  Doubdan  found 
a  most  delightful  valley  full  of  aromatic  herbs  and  rose 
bushes,  and  planted  with  vines,  which  he  supposed  were  of 
the  choicest  kind :  it  was  actually  the  valley  of  Eshcol, 
from  whence  the  spies  carried  that  prodigious  bunch  ot 
grapes  to  Moses,  of  which  we  read  in  the  book  of  Num- 
bers. That  writer,  it  is  true,  saw  no  such  cluster,  for  he 
did  not  visit  that  fruitful  spot  in  the  time  of  the  vintage  •, 
but  the  monks  assured  him,  they  still  found  some,  even  in 
the  present  neglected  state  of  the  country,  which  weighed 
ten.  or  twelve  pounds. 

The  vineyards  of  Canaan  produce  grapes  of  different 
kinds ;  some  of  them  are  red,  and  some  white,  but  the 
greater  part  are  black.  To  the  juice  of  the  red  grape,  the 
sacred  writers  make  frequent  allusions :  "  Wherefore  art 
thou  red  in  thine  apparel,  and  thy  garments  like  him  that 
treadeth  in  the  wine  fat  1"  '*  In  that  day,  sing  ye  unto  her 
a  vineyard  of  red  wine :  I  the  Lord  do  keep  it."  It  is, 
therefore,  with  strict  propriety,  the  inspired  writer  calls  it 
"  the  blood  of  the  grape,"  a  phrase  which  seems  intended 
to  indicate  the  colour  of  the  juice,  or  the  wine  produced 
from  it :  "  Thou  didst  drink  the  pure  blood  of  the  grape." 

The  sycamore  forms  the  middle  link  in  the  vegetable 
kingdom,  between  the  fig  and  the  mulberry ;  and  partakes, 
according  to  some  natural  historians,  of  the  nature  of  both. 
This  is  the  reason  the  Greeks  call  it  avKaftopog, — a  name 
compounded  of  cvKOi,  a  fig-tree,  and  nopos^  a  mulberry.  It 
resembles  the  fig-tree  in  the  shape  and  size  of  its  fruit ; 
which  grows  neither  in  clusters,  nor  at  the  end  of  the 
branches,  but  by  a  very  singular  law,  sticking  to  the  trunk 
of  the  tree.  Its  taste  is  much  like  that  of  the  wild  fig,  and 
pretty  agreeable :  Pliny  says  the  fruit  is  very  sweet. 

It  may  seem  strange  that  so  inferior  a  tree  as  the  syca- 
more should  be  classed  by  the  Psalmist  with  the  choicest 
vines,  in  his  ode  on  the  plagues  of  Egypt :  "  He  destroyed 
their  vines  with  hail,  and  their  sycamore-trees  with  frost.** 
Many  other  trees,  it  may  be  supposed,  might  be  of  much 
greater  consequence  to  them  ;  and  in  particular,  the  date, 
which,  on  account  of  its  fruit,  the  modern  Egyptians  hold 
in  the  highest  estimation.  But  it  ought  to  be  remembered, 
that  several  trees  which  are  now  found  in  Egypt,  and  highly 
valued,  might  not  then  be  intro<luced.  Very  few  trees  at 
present  in  Egypt,  are  supposed  to  "he  natives  of  the  country. 
If  this  idea  be  just,  the  sycamore  and  the  vine  might,  at 
that  early  period,  be  in  reality  the  most  valuable  trees  in 
that  kingdom.  But,  admitting  that  the  sycamore  was,  in 
respect  of  intrinsic  properties  or  general  utility,  much  in- 
ferior to  some  other  trees  which  they  possessed,  accidental 
circumstances  might  give  it  an  importance  to  which  it  had 
originally  no  claim.  The  shade  of  this  umbrageous  tree 
is  so  grateful  to  the  inhabitants  of  those  warm  latitudes, 
that  they  plant  it  along  the  side  of  the  ways  near  their  villa- 
ges ;  and  as  a  full-grown  sycamore  branches  out  to  so  great 
a  distance,  that  it  forms  a  canopy  for  a  circle  of  forty  paces 
in  diameter,  a  single  row  of  trees  on  one  side  of  the  way 
is  sufficient.  It  is  often  seen  stretching  its  arms  over  the 
houses,  to  screen  the  fainting  inhabitant  from  the  glowing 
heats  of  the  summer.  This  was  a  benefit  so  important  to 
them,  that  it  obtained  a  place  in  the  divine  promise :  "  They 
shall  sit  every  man  under  his  vine  and  under  his  fig-tree  i" 
and  to  show  at  once  the  certainty  of  the  promise,  and  the 
value  of  the  favour,  it  is  repeated  by  another  inspired 
prophet:  "Ye  shall  call  every  man  his  neighbour  under 
his  vine  and  under  his  fig-tree."  Now,  it  appears  from 
the  most  authentic  records^  that  the  ancient  Egyptian  cof- 
fins, intended  to  preserve  to  many  generations  the  bodies 
of  departed  relatives;  the  little*  square  boxes  which  were 


394 


PSALMS, 


Ps.  78—80, 


placed  at  the  feet  of  the  mummies,  enclosing  the  instru- 
ments and  utensils  in  miniature,  wliich  belonged  to  the 
trade  and  occupation  of  the  deceased  ;  the  figures  and  in- 
struments of  wood  found  in  the  catacombs, — are  all  made 
of  sycamore  wood,  which,  though  spongy  and  porous  to 
appearance,  has  continued  entire  and  uncorrupted  for  at 
least  three  thousand  years.  The  innumerable  barks  which 
ply  on  the  river  and  over  all  the  vale,  in  the  time  of  the 
inundation,  are  also  fabricated  of  sycamore  wood.  But 
besides  the  various  important  uses  to  which  the  wood  was 
applied,  the  sycamore  produces  a  species  of  fig,  upon  which 
the  people  almost  entirely  subsist,  thinking  themselves  well 
regaled,  when  they  have  a  piece  of  bread,  a  couple  of 
sycamore  figs,  and  a  pitcher  filled  with  water  from  the 
Nile. — Paxton. 

Ver.  63.  The  fire  consumed  their  young-  men ; 
and  their  maidens  were  not  given  to  marriage. 

This  is  described  as  one  of  the  effects  of  God's  anger 
upon  Israel.  In  Hindoo  families,  sometimes,  the  marriage 
of  daughters  is  delayed;  this  is,  however,  always  consid- 
ered as  a  great  calamity  and  disgrace.  If  a  person  sees 
girls  more  than  twelve  years  of  age  unmarried  in  a  family, 
he  says,  "  How  is  it,  that  that  Bramin  can  sit  at  home, 
and  eat  his  food  with  comfort,  when  his  daughters,  at  such 
an  age,  remain  unmarried  1"    (Ward.) — Burder. 

Ver.  64.   Their  priests  fell  by  the  sword;  and 
their  widows  made  no  lamentation. 

When  the  cholera  swept  off  such  multitudes,  the  cities 
from  every  house  had  a  fearful  effect  on  the  passers  by ; 
but,  after  some  time,  though  the  scourge  remained,  the 
people  ceased  to  lament,  asking,  "  Why  should  we  mourn  1 
the  Amma"  i.  e.  the  goddess,  " is  at  her  play."  Thus,  in- 
stead of  the  shrieks  and  howls  so  common  on  such  occa- 
sions, scarcely  a  sigh  or  a  whisper  was  heard  from  the 
survivers. — Roberts. 

Ver.  66.  And  he  smote  his  enemies  in  the  hinder 
parts ;  he  put  them  to  a  perpetual  reproach. 

Dr.  Boothroyd,  "  And  smote  his  enemies  in  the  hinder 
parts,  and  he  put  them  to  perpetual  disgrace."  Some  com- 
mentators think  this  alludes  "  to  the  emerods  inflicted  on 
the  Philistines;"  but  the  figure  is  used  in  reference  to 
those  who  are  conquered,  and  who  consequently  show  their 
backs  when  running  away.  "  I  will  make  that  fellow  show 
his  back,"  means,  "  I  will  cause  him  to  run  from  me."  It 
is  also  considered  exceedingly  disgraceful  to  be  beaten  on 
that  part. — Roberts. 

PSALM  LXXIX. 
Ver.  2.  The  dead  bodies  of  thy  servants  have  they 
given  to  be  meat  unto  the  fowls  of  the  heaven, 
the  flesh  of  thy  saints  unto  the  beasts  of  the 
earth.  3.  Their  blood  have  they  shed  like 
water  round  about  Jerusalem ;  and  there  was 
none  to  bury  them. 

See  on  1  Sam.  31.  9. 

Criminals  were  at  other  times  executed  in  public  ;  and 
then  commonly  wil!!iout  the  city.  To  such  executions 
without  the  gate,  the  Psalmist  undoubtedly  refers  in  this 
complaint :  *'  The  dead  bodi^of  thy  saints  have  they  given 
to  be  meat  unto  the  fowls  of  the  heaven,  the  flesh  of  thy 
saints  unto  the  beasts  of  the  earth.  Their  blood  have  they 
shed  like  water  round  about  Jerusalem;  and  there  was 
none  to  bury  them."  The  last  clause  admits  of  two  senses. 
1st.  There  was  no  friend  or  relations  left  to  bury  them. 
2d.  None  were  allowed  to  perform  this  last  oflfice.  The  des- 
potism of  eastern  j)rinces  often  proceeds  to  a  degree  of  ex- 
travagance which  is  apt  to  fill  the  mind  with  astonishment 
and  horror.  It  has  been  thought,  from  time  immemorial, 
^highly  criminal  to  bury  those  who  had  lost  their  lives  by 
the  hand  of  an  executioner,  without  permission.  In  Mo- 
rocco, no  person  dares  to  bury  the  body  of  a  malefactor 
without  an  order  from  the  emperor;  and  Windus,  who 
visited  that  country,  speaking  of  a  man  who  was  sawed  in 
two,  iniorms  us,  that  "  his  body  must  have  remained  to  be 


eaten  by  the  dogs,  if  the  emperor  had  not  pardoned  him ; 
an  extravagant  custom  to  pardon  a  man  after  he  is  dead ; 
but  unless  he  does  so,  no  person  dares  bury  the  body."  To 
such  a  degree  of  savage  barbarity  it  is  probable  the  ene- 
mies of  God's  people  carried  their  opposition,  that  no  per- 
son dared  to  bury  the  deadbodies  of  their  innocent  victims. 
— Paxton, 

Ver.  11.  Let  the  sighing  of  the  prisoner  come  be- 
fore thee;  according  to  the  greatness  of  thy 
power  preserve  thou  those  that  are  appointed 
to  die. 

To  illustrate  the  miserable  condition  of  an  oriental  pris- 
oner, Chardin  relates  a  story  of,  a  very  great  Armenian 
merchant,  who  for  some  reason  was  thrown  into  prison. 
So  long  as  he  bribed  the  jailer  with  large  donations,  he  was 
treated  with  the  greatest  kindness  and  attention  ;  but  upon 
the  party  who  sued  the  Armenian  presenting  a  consider- 
able sum,  first  to  the  judge  and  afterward  to  the  jailer,  the 
prisoner  first  experienced  a  change  of  treatment.  His 
privileges  were  retrenched  ;  he  was  then  closely  confined  ; 
then  treated  with  such  inhumanity,  as  not  to  be  permitted 
to  drink  but  once  in  twenty-four  hours,  and  this  in  the  hot- 
test time  of  the  year ;  and  no  person  was  suffered  to  see  him 
but  the  servants  of  the  prison  ;  at  length  he  was  thrown  into 
a  dungeon,  where  he  was  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour  brought 
to  the  point,  which  all  this  severe  usage  was  intended  to 
gain.  After  such  a  relation,  we  cannot  be  surprised  to  find 
the  sacred  writers  placing  so  strong  an  emphasis  on  "the 
sighing  of  the  prisoner,"  and  speaking  of  its  coming  before 
God,  and  the  necessity  of  almighty  power  being  exerted  for 
his  deliverance. — Paxton. 

PSALM  LXXX. 
Ver.  4.  O  Lord  God  of  hosts,  how  long  wihthou 
be  angry  against  the  prayer  of  thy  people- 

Hebrew,  "wilt  thou  smoke  1"  Ainsworth,  "Jehovah, 
God  of  hosts;  how  long  wilt  thou  smoke  against  the  prayer 
of  thy  people  V  Of  an  angry  man,  it  is  said,  "  He  is  con- 
tinually smokmg."  "  My  friend,  why  do  you  smoke  s« 
to-day  1"  "  This  smoke  drives  me  away;  I  cannot  bear 
it."  "  How  many  days  is  this  smoke  to  remain  in  my 
house  7"  "  What  care  I  for  the  smoke  1  It  does  not  hurt 
me." — Roberts, 

Ver.  5.  Thou  feedest  them  with  the  bread  of 
tears ;  and  givest  them  tears  to  drink  in  great 
measure. 

When  a  master  or  a  father  is  angry,  he  says  to  his  chil- 
dren or  servants,  "  Yes,  in  future  you  shall  have  rice,  and 
the  water  of  your  eyes  to  eat.".  "  You  shall  have  the  water 
of  your  eyes  in  abundance  to  drink."  "  Alas  !  alas  !  I  am 
ever  drinking  tears." — Roberts. 

Ver.  1 3.  The  boar  out  of  the  wood  doth  waste  it, 
and  the  wild  beast  of  the  field  doth  devour  it. 

See  on  2  Sam.  18.  8. 

Wild  hogs  are  exceedingly  numerous  and  destructive  in 
the  East:  hence  a  fine  garden  will  in  one  nisrht  be  com- 
pletely destroyed.  The  herd  is  generally  led  by  old  boars, 
that  go  along  with  great  speed  and  fierceness.  Should 
there  be  a  fence,  they  Avill  go  round  till  they  find  a  weak 
place,  and  then  they  all  rush  in.  In  travelling,  "sometimes 
a  large  patch  of  grass  may  be  seen  completely  torn  up, 
which  has  been  done  by  the  wild  hog  for  the  sake  of  the 
roots.  These  animals  are  also  very  ferocious,  as  they  will 
not  hesitate  to  attack  either  man  or  beast,  when  placed  in 
circumstances  of  difficulty.  One  of  them  once  ran  at  a 
friend  of  mine,  when  travelling  in  his  palanquin  ;  but  the 
creature,  not  calculating  well  as  to  the  speed  of  the  coolies, 
only  just  struck  the  pole  with  his  tusk ;  but  the  hole  he  left 
behind  in  the  hard  wood  was  nearly  half  an  inch  deep.— 
Roberts. 

Under  the  beautiful  allegory  of  a  vine,  the  royal  Psalm- 
ist  describes  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Jewish  common Avealth, 
in  this  address  to  Jehovah :  "  Thou  hast  brought  a  vine  out 
of  Egypt,  thou  hast  cast  out  the  heathen  and  planted  it. 


Ps.  81. 


PSALMS, 


395 


Thou  preparedst  a  room  before  it,  and  didst  cause  it  to  take 
deep  root,  and  it  filled  the  land.  The  hills  were  covered 
with  the  shadow  of  it,  and  the  boughs  thereof  were  like  the 
goodly  cedars.  She  sent  out  her  boughs  unto  the  sea,  and 
her  branches  unto  the  river.  Why  hast  thou  then  broken 
down  her  hedges,  so  that  all  they  that  pass  by  the  way,  do 
pluck  her  1  The  boar  out  of  the  wood  doth  waste  it,  and 
the  wild  beast  of  the  field  doth  devour  it."  This  terrible 
Animal  is  both  fierce  and  cruel,  and  so  swift  that  few  of  the 
savage  tribes  can  outstrip  him  in  running.  His  chief  abode, 
says  Forbes,  is  in  the  forests  and  jungles;  but  when  the 
grain  is  nearly  ripe,  he  commits  great  ravages  in  the  fields 
and  sugar  plantations.  The  powers  that  subverted  the 
Jewish  nation,  are  compared  to  the  wild  boar  and  the 
wild  beast  of  the  field,  by  which  the  vine  is  wasted  and 
devoured;  and  no  figure  could  be  more  happily  chosen. 
That  ferocious  and  destructive  animal,  not  satisfied  with 
devouring  the  fruit,  lacerates  and  breaks  with  his  sharp 
and  powerful  tusks  the  branches  of  the  vine,  or  with  his 
snout  digs  it  up  by  the  roots,  pollutes  it  with  his  touch,  or 
tramples  it  under  his  feet.  In  Egypt,  according  to  Herod- 
otus and  other  writers,  the  labours  of  this  ferocious  animal 
are  rendered  useful  to  man.  When  the  Nile  has  retired 
within  his  proper  channel,  the  husbandman  scatters  his 
grain  upon  the  irrigated  soil,  and  sends  out  a  number  of 
swine,  that  partly  by  treading  it  with  their  feet,  partly  by 
digging  it  with  their  snout,  immediately  turn  it  up,  and  by 
this  means  cover  the  seed.  But  in  every  other  part  of  the 
world,  the  hog  is  odious  to  the  husbandman.  It  was  an  es- 
tablished custom  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  to  offer  a 
hog  in  sacrifice  to  Ceres,  at  the  beginning  of  harvest,  and 
another  to  Bacchus,  before  they  began  to  gather  the  vint- 
age; because  that  animal  is  equally  hostile  to  the  growing 
corn  and  the  loaded  vineyard.  From  these  examples  it  is 
quite  evident  that  the  prophet  meant  to  describe,  under  the 
figure  of  a  wild  boar,  the  cruel  and  implacable  enemies  of 
the  church.  And  it  is  extremely  probable,  that  he  alluded 
to  some  more  remarkable  adversary,  as  Sennacherib,  the 
king  of  Assyria,  or  Nebuchadnezzar,  the  king  of  Babylon; 
both  of  whom  were  not  less  ferocious  and  destructive  than 
the  savage  by  which  they  were  symbolized. — Paxton, 

Ver.  17.  Let  thy  hand  be  upon  the  man  of  thy 
right  hand,  upon  the  son  of  man  whom  thou 
madest  strong  for  thyself 

If  we  would  understand  the  genuine  import  of  this 
phrase,  we  must  attend  to  a  custom  which  obtained  in 
Judea  and  other  eastern  countries.  At  meals  the  master 
.  of  the  feast  placed  the  person  whom  he  loved  best  on  his 
right  hand,  as  a  token  of  love  and  respect :  and  as  they  sat 
on  couches,  in  the  intervals  between  the  dishes,  when  the 
master  leaned  upon  his  left  elbow,  the  man  at  his  right 
hand,  leaning  also  on  his,  would  naturally  repose  his  head 
on  the  master's  bosom ;  while  at  the  same  time  the  master 
laid  his  right  hand  on  the  favourite's  shoulder  or  side,  in 
testimony  of  his  favourable  regard.  See  also  John  xxi.  20. 
{ Pirie.) — Burder. 

PSALM  LXXXI. 

Ver.  2.  Take  a  psalm,  and  bring  hither  the  tim- 
brel, the  pleasant  harp  with  the  psaltery. 

By  timbrels  are  meant  the  hand-instruments,  still  used  in 
the  East,  and  called  diff,  the  same  name  which  stands  here 
in  the  Hebrew  text.  By  the  Hebrew  word  Mnnor,  here 
translated  harp,  we  are  probably  to  understand  a  stringed 
instrument,  a  kind  of  guitar,  similar  to  those  called  by  the 
Arabs,  tawbura.  Josephus  says,  that  this  instrument  had 
ten  strings,  and  was  played  with  a  plectrum  ;  in  more  an- 
cient times,  however,  it  appears  to  have  been  played  with 
the  fingers,  as  we  may  infer  from  1  Sam.  xvi.  23.  xviii.  16. 
xix.  9.  It  is  almost  always  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment on  occasions  of  cheerful  entertainments  and  rejoi- 
cings.- The  name  of  the  third  instrument,  njibel,  men- 
tioned in  the  text,  and  here  translated  psaltery,  has  also 
been  preserved  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages;,  nabla, 
nablium.  As  the  Hebrew  word  signifies  a  leathern  bottle, 
it  has  been  conjectured  that  the  sounding-board  was  of  that 
Bhape.  But  St.  Jerome  and  Isidore  say  that  the  instrument 
resembled  a  Greek  delta  inverted,  v-  This  leads  us  to 
oonjecture  that  nabel  was  that  kind  of  lyre  so  frequently 


found  on  ancient  monuments,  and  in  statues  of  Apollo.  A 
similar  stringed  instrument  is  still  usual  in  the  East.  Nie- 
buhr  has  given  a  description  and  drawing  of  one  in  his 
Travels,  vol.  i.  p.  179.  He  saw  it  in  the  hand  of  the  bar- 
bari,  who  came  from  Dongola  to  Cairo,  and  call  it  in  their 
language  kussir,  whereas  the  Arabs  call  it,  like  other  foreign 
stringed  instruments,  tavrbo-a.  "  The  belly  of  it  is  like  a 
wooden  dish,  with  a  small  hole  below,  and  having  a  skin 
stretched  over  it,  which  is  higher  in  the  middle  than  on  the 
sides.  Tvv^o  sticks,  which  are  united  at  the  top  by  a  third, 
go  obliquely  through  the  skin.  Five  catgut  strings  lie  over 
it,  supported  by  a  bridge.  There  are  no  pegs  to  this  in- 
strument, but  each  string  is  tuned  by  having  some  linen 
wound  with  it  round  the  transverse  stick.  It  is  played  in 
two  different  ways,  namely,  either  pinched  with  the  fingers, 
or  by  passing  a  piece  of  leather,  which  hangs  at  the  side, 
over  the  strings ;  and  my  barbari  danced  as  he  played." 
According  to  the  observation  of  one  Rabbi  Simeon,  quoted 
by  Rabbi  Salomon  Jarchi,  in  his  commentary  on  the  above 
passage  in  the  Psalms,  kinnor  diflfered  from  nabel  only  in 
number  of  strings  and  pegs. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  1 0.  I  am  the  Lord  thy  God,  which  brought 
thee  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt :  open  thy  mouth 
wide,  and  I  will  fill  it. 

"  My  friend,  you  tell  me  you  are  in  great  distress :  take 
my  advice  :  go  to  the  king,  and  open  your  mouth  wide."  "  I 
went  to  the  great  man  and  opened  my  mouth,  but  he  has 
not  given  me  any  thing."  "  I  opened  my  mouth  to  him, 
and  have  gained  all  I  wanted."  "  Why  open  your  mouth 
there  1  it  will  be  all  in  vain."  Does  a  person  not  wish  to 
be  troubled,  he  says  to  the  applicant,  "  Do  not  say  Ah,  ah  ! 
here;"  which  means,  do  not  open  your  mouth,  because  that 
word  cannot  be  pronounced  without  opening  the  mouth. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  He  should  have  fed  them  also  with  the 
finest  of  the  wheat :  and  with  honey  out  of  thf^ 
rock  should  I  have  satisfied  thee. 

The  soil,  both  of  the  maritime  and  inland  parts  of  Syria 
and  Phenicia,  is  of  a  light  loamy  nature,  and  easily  culti- 
vated. Syria  may  be  considered  as  a  country  consisting  of 
three  long  strips  of  land,  exhibiting  diflferent  qualities :  one 
extending  along  the  Mediterranean,  forming  a  warm  hu- 
m.id  valley,  the  salubrity  of  which  is  doubtful,  but  which  is 
extremely  fertile ;  the  other,  which  forms  its  frontier,  is  a 
hilly,  rugged  soil,  but  more  salubrious;  the  third,  lying  be- 
yond the  eastern  hills,  combines  the  drought  of  the  latter, 
with  the  heat  of  the  former.  We  have  seen  by  what  a 
happy  combination  of  climate  and  soil  this  province  unites 
in  a  small  compass  the  advantages  and  productions  of  dif- 
ferent zones,  insomuch  that  the  God  of  natur?  seems  to 
have  designed  it  for  one  of  the  most  agreeable  habitations 
of  this  continent.  The  soil  is  a  fine  mould,  without  stones, 
and  almost  without  even  the  smallest  pebble.  Volney 
himself,  who  furnishes  the  particulars  of  this  statement,  is 
compelled  to  admit,  that  what  is  said  of  its  actual  fertility, 
exactly  corresponds  with  the  idea  given  of  it  in  the  Hebrew 
scriptures.  Wherever  wheat  is  sown,  if  the  rains  do  noi 
fail,  it  repays  the  cultivator  with  profusion,  and  grows  to 
the  height  of  a  man.  The  Mount  of  Olives,  near  Jerusa- 
lem, and  several  other  districts  in  Judea  and  Galilee,  are 
covered  with  olive  plantations,  whose  fruit  is  equal  to  any 
produced  in  the  Levant.  The  fig-trees  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Joppa,  are  equally  beautiful  and  productive  as  the 
olive.  Were  the  Holy  Land  as  well  inhabited  and  culti- 
vated as  formerly,  Dr.  Shaw  declares  it  would  still  be 
more  fruitful  than  the  very  best  part  of  Syria  or  Phenicia  ; 
for  the  soil  itself  is  generally  much  richer,  and  all  things 
considered,  yields  a  preferable  crop.  Thus,  the  cotton, 
which  is  gathered  in  the  plains  of  Rama,  Esdraelon,  and 
Zabulon,  is  in  greater  esteem,  according  to  that  excellent 
writer,  than  what  is  cultivated  near  Sidon  and  Tripoli ; 
neither  is  it  possible  for  pulse,  wheat,  or  grain  of  any  kind, 
to  be  richer  or  better  tasted,  than  what  is  commonly  sold  at 
Jerusalem.  The  barrenness,  or  scarcity  rather,  of  which 
some  authors  may  either  ignorantly  or  maliciously  com- 
plain, does  not  proceed,  in  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Shaw,  from 
the  incapacity  or  natural  unfruitful  ness  of  the  country,  \m 


396 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  84. 


from  the  want  of  inhabitants,  and  from  the  great  aversion 
to  labour  and  industry  in  those  few  by  whom  it  is  possess- 
ed. The  perpetual  discords  and  depredations  among  the 
petty  princes  who  share  this  fine  country,  greatly  obstruct 
the  operations  of  the  husbandman,  who  must  have  small 
encouragement  to  sow,  when  it  is  quite  uncertain  who 
shall  gather  in  the  harvest.  It  is  in  other  respects  a  fertile 
country,  and  still  capable  of  afibrding  to  its  neighbours  the 
like  ample  supplies  of  corn  and  oil,  which  it  is  known  to 
have  done  in  the  days  of  Solomon,  who  gave  yearly  to 
Hiram  twenty  thousand  measures  of  wheat  for  food  to  his 
household,  and  twenty  measures  of  pure  oil. 

The  parts  about  Jerusalem  particularly,  being  rocky  and 
mountainous,  have  been  therefore  supposed  to  be  barren 
and  unfruitful:  yet,  granting  this  conclusion,  which  is 
however  far  from  being  just,  a  country  is  not  to  be  charac- 
terized from  one  single  district  of  it,  but  from  the  whole. 
And  besides,  the  blessing  which  was  given  to  Judah  was 
not  of  the  same  kind  with  the  blessing  of  Asher  or  of  Issa- 
char,  that  "  his  bread  should  be  fat  or  his  land  pleasant," 
but  that  "  his  eyes  should  be  red  with  wine,  and  his  teeth 
should  be  white  with  milk."  In  the  estimation  of  the  Jew- 
ish lawgiver,  milk  and  honey  (the  chief  dainties  and  sub- 
sistence of  the  earlier  ages,  as  they  still  continue  to  be  of 
the  Bedouin  Arabs)  are  the  glory  of  all  lands ;  these  pro- 
ductions are  either  actually  enjoyed  in  the  lot  of  Judah,  or 
at  least,  might  be  obtained  by  proper  care  and  application. 
The  abundance  of  wine  alone  is  wanting  at  present ;  yet 
the  acknowledged  goodness  of  that  little,  which  is  still 
made  at  Jerusalem  and  Hebron,  clearly  proves,  that  these 
barren  rocks,  as  they  are  called,  would  yield  a  much 
greater  quantity,  if  the  abstemious  Turk  and  Arab  would 
permit  the  vine  to  be  further  propagated  and  improved. 

Wild  honey,  which  formed  a  part  of  the  food  of  John  the 
Baptist  in  the  wilderness,  may  indicate  to  us  the  great 
plenty  of  it  in  those  deserts ;  and,  that  consequently  taking 
the  hint  from  nature,  and  enticing  the  bees  into  hives  and 
larger  cojonies,  it  might  be  produced  in  much  greater  quan- 
tity. Josephus  accordingly  calls  Jericho  the  honey-bearing 
&ountry.  The  great  abundance  of  wild  honey  is  often 
mentioned  in  scripture ;  a  memorable  instance  of  which 
occurs  in  the  first  book  of  Samuel :  "  And  all  they  of  the 
land  came  to  a  wood,  and  there  w^as  honey  upon  the 
ground;  and  when  the  people  were  come  to  the  wood,  be- 
hold the  honey  dropped."  This  circumstance  perfectly 
accords  with  the  view  which  Moses  gave  of  the  promised 
land,  in  the  song  with  which  he  closed  his  long  and  event- 
ful career :  "  He  made  him  to  suck  honey  out  of  the  rock, 
and  oil  out  of  the  flinty  rock."  That  good  land  preserved 
its  character  in  the  time  of  David,  who  thus  celebrates  the 
distinguishing  bounty  of  God  to  his  chosen  people  :  "  He 
would  have  fed  them  also  with  the  finest  of  the  wheat,  and 
with  honey  out  of  the  rock  would  I  have  satisfied  thee." 
In  these  holy  strains,  the  sacred  poet  availed  himself  of  the 
most  valuable  products  of  Canaan,  to  lead  the  faith  and 
hope  of  his  nation  to  bounties  of  a  higher  order,  of  greater 
price,  and  more  urgent  necessity,  than  any  which  the  soil 
even  of  that  favoured  region,  stimulated  and  sustained  as  it 
certainly  was  by  the  special  blessing  of  heaven,  produced, 
— the  bounties  of  sovereign  and  redeeming  mercy,  pur- 
chased with  the  blood,  and  imparted  by  the  spirit  of  the 
Son  of  God.— Paxton. 

PSALM  LXXXIV. 

Ver.   1.  How   amiable   are   thy  tabernacles,   O 

Lord    of  hosts!     2.    My  soul   longeth,  yea, 

even  fainteth,  for  the  courts  of  the  Lord  ;  my 

heart  and  my  flesh  crieth  out  for  the  living  God. 

The  first  part  of  the  Psalm  cannot  be  better  illustrated 
(let  there  be  no  misinterpretation  of  our  meaning)  than  by 
the  example  of  those  who  go  in  pilgrimage  to  Mecca.  As 
their  enthusiasm  increases  in  proportion  as  they  advance 
through  the  desert  to  the  holy  place ;  as  they  are  used  to  be 
ravished  when  they  behold  the  shining  towers  of  the  Kaaba, 
so  does  the  journey  to  Jerusalem  proceed  with  increasing 
longing  spirit  and  joy  through  the  scorched  valleys.  They 
become  as  it  were  a  well  of  water,  for  already  at*  Baca  they 
behold  the  face  of  Jehovah. — Rosenmtjller. 

A  parallel  instance  of  pious  enthusiasm  is  exhibited  in 
Dr   Clarke's  account  of  his  approach  to  the  Holy  City, 


(Travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  p.  144.)  "  At  three  P.  M.  we 
again  mounted  our  horses,  and  proceeded  on  our  route. 
No  sensation  of  fatigue  or  heat  could  counterbalance  the 
eagerness  and  zeal  which  animated  all  our  party,  in  the 
approach  to  Jerusalem;  every  individual  pressed  forward, 
hoping  first  to  announce  the  joyful  intelligence  of  its  ap- 
pearance. "We  passed  some  insignificant  ruins,  either  of  an- 
cient buildings  or  of  modern  villages;  but  had  they  been 
of  more  importance,  they  would  have  excited  little  notice, 
at  the  time,  so  earnestly  bent  was  every  mind  towards  the 
main  object  of  interest  and  curiosity.  At  length,  after  about 
two  hours  had  been  passed  in  this  state  of  anxiety  and  sus- 
pense, ascending  a  hill  towards  the  south,  '  Hagiofolis  !' 
exclaimed  a  Greek  in  the  van  of  our  cavalcade :  awd  in- 
stantly throwing  himself  from  his  horse,  was  seen  bare- 
headed, upon  his  knees,  facing  the  prospect  he  surveyed. 
Suddenly  the  sight  burst  upon  us  all.  Who  shall  describe 
it  1  The  effect  produced  was  that  of  total  silence  through- 
out the  whole  company.  Many  of  the  party,  by  an  imme- 
diate impulse,  took  off"  their  hats,  as  if  entering  a  church, 
without  being  sensible  of  so  doing.  The  Greeks  and 
Catholics  shed  torrents  of  tears  ;  and  presently  beginning 
to  cross  themselves  with  unfeigned  devotion,  asked  if  they 
might  be  permitted  to  take  off"  the  covering  from  their  feet, 
and  proceed,  barefooted,  to  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  We  had 
not  been  prepared  for  the  grandeur  of  the  spectacle,  which 
the  city  alone  exhibited.  Instead  of  a  wretched  and  ruined 
town,  by  some  described  as  the  desolated  remnant  of  Jeru- 
salem, we  beheld,  as  it  were,  a  flourishing  and  steady  me- 
tropolis ;  presenting  a  magnificent  assemblage  of  domes, 
towers,  palaces,  churches,  and  monasteries ;  all  of  which, 
glittering  in  the  sun's  rays,  shone  with  inconceivable  splen- 
dour. As  we  drew  nearer,  our  whole  attention  was  en- 
grossed by  its  noble  and  interesting  appearance.  The  lofty 
hills  whereby  it  is  surrounded  give  to  the  city  itself  an 
appearance  of  elevation  inferior  to  that  which  it  really  pos- 
sesses."— B. 

Ver.  3.  Yea,  the  sparrow  hath  found  a  house, 
and  the  swallow  a  nest  for  herself,  where  she 
may  lay  her  young,  even  thine  altars,  O  Lord 
of  hosts,  my  King,  and  my  God. 

The  ibis  was  so  venerated  in  Egypt,  as  to  be  an  allowed 
inmate  in  sacred  structures.  Something  of  the  same  kind 
occurs  also  in  Persia.  "  Within  a  mosque  at  Oudjicun, 
lies  interred  the  son  of  a  king,  called  Schah-Zadeh-Imam 
Dgiafer,  whom  they  reckon  a  saint:  the  dome  is  rough  cast 
over ;  before  the  mosque  there  is  a  court,  well  planted  with 
many  high  plane-trees,  on  which  we  saw  a  great  many 
storks  that  haunt  thereabout  all  the  year  round."  (Theve- 
not.) 

By  the  altars  of  Jehovah  we  are  to  understand  the  tem- 
ple. The  words  probably  refer  to  the  custom  of  several 
nations  of  antiquity,  that  "birds  which  build  their  nests  on 
the  temples,  or  within  the  limits  of  them,  were  not  suffered  to 
be  driven  away,  much  less  killed,  but  found  a  secure  and 
uninterrupted  dwelling.  Hence,  when  Aristodikus  dis- 
turbed the  birds'-nests  of  the  temple  of  KumEe,and  took  the 
young  from  them,  a  voice,  according  to  a  tradition  preserv- 
ed by  Herodotus,  is  said  to  have  spoken  these  words  from 
the  interior  of  the  temple:  "  Most  villanous  of  men,  how 
darest  thou  do  such  a  thing*?  to  drive  away  such  as  seek 
refuge  in  my  temple  1"  The  Athenians  were  so  enraged 
at  Atarbes,  who  had  killed  a  sparrow  which  built  on  the 
temple  of  ^sculapius,  that  they  killed  him.  Among  the 
Arabs,  who  are  more  closely  related  to  the  Hebrews,  birds 
which  have  built  their  nests  on  the  temple  of  Mecca  were 
inviolable  from  the  earliest  times.  In  the  very  ancient 
poem  of  a  Dschorhamidish  prince,  published  by  A.  Schul- 
tens,  m  which  he  laments  that  his  tribe  had  been  deprived 
of  the  protection  of  the  sanctuary  of  Mecca,  it  is  said, 

We  lament  the  house,  whose  dove 
Was  never  suffered  to  be  hurt, 
She  remained  there  secure  ;  in  it  also 
The  sparrow  built  its  nest. 

Another  ancient  Arabian  poet,  Nabega,  the  Dhobianit, 
swears  "  by  the  sanctuary  which  affords  shejter  to  the  birds 
which  seek  it  there."  Niebuhrsays:  "  I  will  observe,  that 
among  the  Mohammedans,  not  only  is  the  Kaaba  a  refuge 
for  pigeons, but  also  on  the  mosques  over  the  graves  of  Ali 
and  Hossein,  on  the  Dsjamea,  or  chief  mosque  at  Helle 


Ps.  85. 


PSALMS. 


39T 


and  in  other  cities,  they  are  equally  undisturbed." — Rosen- 

MUr.LER. 

The  term  in  this  passage  is  connected  with  the  proper 
name  of  the  swallow ;  and  therefore  cannot  be  understood 
as  the  common  name  of  the  feathered  race,  bftt  like  the 
other,  must  denote  a  particular  species  of  bird,  which,  by 
the  general  suffrage  of  interpreters,  is  the  sparrow.  This 
idea  is  confirmed  by  the  plaintive  description  of  David, 
according  to  which,  that  little  bird,  under  the  direction  of 
instinct  alone,  provides  a  habitation  for  herself,  in  the 
abodes  of  men,  where  she  rears  her  young,  and  enjoys  the 
sweets  of  repose.  Some  of  these  birds  the  Psalmist  had 
probably  seen  constructing  their  nests,  and  propagating 
their  kind,  in  the  buildings  near  the  altar,  or  in  the  courts 
of  the  temple  ;  and  piously  longs  to  revisit  a  scene  so  dear 
to  his  heart.  The  altar  is  here  by  a  synecdoche  of  a  part 
for  the  whole,  to  be  understood  of  the  tabernacle,  among 
the  rafters  of  which  the  sparrow  and  the  swallow  were  al- 
lowed to  nestle;  or  rather,  for  the  buildings  which  sur- 
rounded the  sacred  edifice,  where  the  priests  and  their  as- 
sistants had  their  ordinary  residence.  Even  these  exterior 
buildings  were  extremely  desirable  to  the  exiled  monarch, 
because  oi  their  vicinity  to  the  splendid  symbols  of  the 
divine  presence,  and  the  instruments  of  his  worship.  The 
holy  Psalmist  sometimes  wished  for  the  wings  of  a  dove, 
to  waft  him  into  the  desert  from  the  cruel  oppression  of  his 
enemies :  but  on  this  occasion,  when  he  is  compelled  to  flee 
for  his  life  into  the  wilderness,  he  longs  for  the  enjoyment 
of  a  sparrow,  which  flew  unobserved  into  the  courts  of  the 
tabernacle,  and  flitted  among  the  beams  without  interrup- 
tion.— Paxton. 

Ver.  6.  Who  passing  through  the  valley  of  Baca, 
make  it  a  well :  the  rain  also  filleth  the  pools. 

The  words,  Who  passing  through  the  valley  of  Baca, 
make  it  a  pool :  the  rain  also  filleth  the  pools,— are,  in  the 
margin,  Who  passing  through  the  valley  of  mulberry-trees. 
The  Seventy,  in  Chronicles,  render  it  pear-trees ;  in  which 
they  are  followed  by  Aquila  and  the  Vulgate.  Some  think 
Baca,  in  the  eighty-fourth  Psalm,  is  the  name  of  a  rivulet, 
which  burst  out  of  the  earth,  at  the  foot  of  a  mountain,  with 
a  plaintive  murmur,  from  which  it  derived  its  name.  But 
it  is  more  probable  that  Baca  is  the  name  of  some  shrub 
or  tree.  Those  who  translate  it  the  mulberry-tree,  to 
illustrate  the  passage  in  the  Psalm,  pretend  it  grows  best  in 
the  dry  groimd ;  but  this  seems  to  be  unfounded.  Marinus 
imagines,  that  Baca  signifies  the  mulberry-tree,  because 
the  fruit  of  the  mulberry  exudes  a  juice  resembling  trees. 
Parkhurst  rather  thinks  that  Baca  means  a  kind  of  large 
shriib,  which  the  Arabs  likewise  call  Baca,  and  which 
probably  was  so  named  from  its  distilling  an  odoriferous 
gum.  For  Baca  with  an  alepk,  seems  to  be"  related  to  Bacah 
with  a  hay,  which  signifies  to  ooze,  to  distil  in  small  quan- 
tities, to  weep  or  shed  tears.  This  idea  perfectly  corre- 
sponds with  the  description  which  Celsius  has  giveiri  of  this 
valley.  It  is  not,  according  to  him,  a  place  abounding  with 
fountains  and  pools  of  water,  but  rugged  and  embarrassed 
with  bushes  and  stones,  which  could  not  be  passed  through 
without  labour  and  suflJering;  a  striking  emblem  of  that 
vale  of  thorns  and  tears,  through  which  all  believers  must 
pass  to  the  heavenly  Jerusalem. 

The  great  uncertainty  among  interpreters  concerning 
the  real  meaning  of  the  term  Becalm,  has  induced  Mr. 
Harmer  to  hazard  a  conjecture,  that  the  tree  meant  in  this 
passage  is  the  weeping-willow.  But  this  plant  is  not  found 
m  a  dry  sandy  vale,  where  the  thirsty  traveller  is  compelled 
to  dig  for  water,  and  to  form  cisterns  in  the  earth,  to  receive 
the  rain  of  heaven.  In  such  a  situation,  we  expect  to  find 
the  pungent  aromatic  shrub  distilling  its  fragrant  gum; 
not  the  weeping-willow,  the  favourite  situation  of  which 
IS  the  watery  plain,  or  the  margin  of  the  brook. — Pax- 
ton. 

Ver.  7.  They  go  from  strength  to  strength;  every' 
07ie  of  them  in  Zion  appeareth  before  God. 

The  scarcity  of  water  in  the  East  makes  travellers  particu- 
larly careful  to  take  up  their  lodgings  as  much  as  possible 
nearsome  river  or  fountain.  D'Herbelot  informs  us,  that  the 
Mohammedans  have  dug  wells  in  the  deserts,  for  the  accom- 
modation of  those  who  go  in  pilgrimage  to  Mecca.    To  con- 


veniences perhaps  of  this  kind,  made,  or  renewed,  by  the  de- 
vout Israelites  in  i  h  e  valley  of  Baca,to  facilitate  their  going  up 
to  Jerusalem,  the  Psalmist  may  refer  in  these  words.  Hence 
also  there  appears  less  of  accident  than  we  commonly  think 
of,  in  Jacob's  lodging  on  the  banks  of  Jabbolc,  and  the  men 
of  David  awaiting  for  him  by  the  brook  Besor,  when  they 
could  not  holdout  with  him  in  his  march. — Harmer. 

In  this  Psalm  are  described  the  journeys  of  the  Israelites 
to  their  feasts  at  Jerusalem,  from  the  distant  parts  of  the 
country.  It  mentions  their  digging  wells  in  the  valley  of 
Baca,  which,  in  the  rainy  season,  were  filled  with  excel- 
lent M'ater,  and  became  a  great  convenience  to  succeeding 
travellers.  In  reference  to  them,  the  travellers  are  said  to 
have  gone  from  strength  to  strength  till  they  arrived  at 
Mount  Zion,  in  Jerusalem,  to  appear  before  God  there, 
which  M'as  the  object  of  their  journey.  When  a  weary 
traveller  arrives  at  a  well  in  the  wilderness,  his  strength  is 
nearly  gone,  but  on  drinking  of  its  water  he  is  revived  and 
strengthened  for  another  stage;  and,  on  falling  in  with  an- 
other well,  he  receives  fresh  vigour  for  again  proceeding 
on  his  journey.  So  that  going  from  strength  to  strength 
may  literally  mean  from  well  to  well;  though  some  under- 
standby  this,  going  from  company  to  company. — Campbell. 

Ver.  10.  For  a  day  in  thy  courts  is  better  than  a 
thousand.  I  had  rather  be  a  door-keeper  in 
the  house  of  my  God,  than  to  dwell  in  the  tents 
of  wickedness. 

Ainsworth,  "  I  have  chosen  to  sit  at  the  threshold,  in  the 
house  of  my  God."  And  Dr.  Boothroyd,  "  Abide,  or  sit,  at 
the  threshold."  I  believe  the  word  door-keeper  does  not 
convey  the  proper  meaning  of  the  words,  "  to  sit  at  the 
threshold ;"  because  the  preference  of  the  Psalmist  was  evi- 
dently given  to  a  very  humble  situation,  whereas  that  of  a 
door-keeper,  in  eastern  estimation,  is  truly  respectable  and 
confidential.  The  gods  are  always  represented  as  having 
door-keepers,  who  were  of  great  dignity  and  power,  as  they 
also  fought  against  other  deities.  In  the  heathen  temples 
there  are  images  near  the  entrance,  called  kaval-kdran,  i.  e. 
guards  or  door-keepers.  Kings  and  great  men  also  have 
officers,  whose  business  it  is  to  stand  at  the  door,  or  gate, 
as  keepers  of  the  entrance.  The  most  dignified  native  of 
Ceylon  is  the  Maha  Modeliar  of  the  governor's  gate,  to 
whom  all  others  must  make  obeisance.  The  word  door- 
keeper, therefore,  does  not  convey  the  idea  of  humility,  but 
of  honour. 

The  marginal  reading,  however,  "  to  sit  at  the  threshold," 
at  once  strikes  an  eastern  mind  as  a  situation  of  deep  hu- 
mility. See  the  poor  heathen  devotee,  he  goes  and  sits  near 
the  threshold  of  his  temple.  Look  at  the  beggar,  he  sits, 
or  prostrates  himself  at  the  threshold  of  the  door  or  gate, 
till  he  shall  have  gained  his  suit,  "  I  am  in  great  trouble  ; 
I  will  go  and  lie  down  at  the  door  of  the  temple."  "  Friend, 
you  appear  to  be  very  ill." — "  Yes  !"  "  Then  go  and  pros- 
trate yourself  at  the  threshold  of  the  temple  !"  "  Muttoo,  I 
can  get  you  the  situation  of  a  Peon ;  will  you  accept  of  it  1" — 
"  Excuse  me,  sir,  I  pray  you ;  I  had  better  lie  at  your  thresh- 
old than  do  that."  "  Go,  do  that !  it  is  far  better  for  me  to 
lie  at  the  threshold  as  a  common  beggar."  I  think,  there- 
fore, the  Psalmist  refers  to  the  attitude  of  a  beggar,  a  sup- 
pliant at  the  threshold  of  the  house  of  the  Lord,  as  being 
preferable  to  the  splendid  dwellings  of  the  wicked. — Rob- 
erts. 

PSALM  LXXXV. 

Ver.  10.  Mercy  and  truth  are  met  together; 
righteousness  and  peace  have  kissed  each  other. 

Dr.  Boothroyd,  "  Righteousness  and  peace  have  em- 
braced." In  the  Hindoo  book  called  Iraku-Vangesham,  it 
is  said,  the  "  lotus  flowers  were  kissing  each  other."  When 
the  branches  of  two  separate  trees  meet,  in  consequence  of 
strong  winds,  it  is  said,  "  they  kiss  each  other."  When  a 
young  palmirah- tree,  which  "grows  near  the  parent  stock, 
begins  to  move,  (by  the  wind,)  the  people  say,  "  Ah  !  the 
mother  is  kissing  the  daughter."  A  woman  says  of  the 
ornaments  around  her  neck,  "  Yes,  these  embrace  my 
neck."  Has  a  female  put  on  the  nose-ring,  it  is,  it  is  said', 
kissing  her.  The  idea,  therefore,  is  truly  oriental,  and 
shows  the  intimate  union  of  righteousness  and  peace. — 
Roberts, 


398 


PSALMS, 


Ps.  87—90. 


PSALM  LXXXVII. 
Ver.  2.  The  Lord  loveth  the  gates  of  Zion  more 
than  all  the  dwellings  of  Jacob. 

"  Truly,  I  love  the  gates  of  Chinna  Amma  more  than 
the  gates  of  Pun- Amma."  "  No,  no ;  he  does  not  love  the 
gates  of  that  woman  ;  he  will  never  marry  her."  "  He  is 
angry  with  my  gates ;  he  will  not  pass  them."  "Love  his 
gates  !  ay,  for  a  good  reason ;  he  gets  plenty  of  help  from 
them."— Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  As  well  the  singers  as  the  players  on  in- 
struments shall  be  there :  all  my  springs  are 
in  thee. 

A  man  of  great  charities  is  said  to  have  many  springs : 
"  His  heart  is  like  ihe  springs  of  a  well."  "  Where  are  my 
springs,  my  lord  ;  are  they  not  in  yonl"  Tears  also  are 
spoken  of  as  coming  from  springs  in  the  body ;  thus  the 
mother  of  Ramar  said  to  him,  in  consequence  of  great  sor- 
row, "  The  waters  of  my  eyes  have  dried  up  the  springs  of 
affection." — Roberts. 

•  PSALM  LXXXIX. 

Ver.  9.  Thou  rulest  the  raging  of  the  sea:  when 
the  waves  thereof  arise,  thou  stillest  them. 
10.  Thou  hast  broken  Rahab  in  pieces,  as  one 
that  is  slain :  thou  hast  scattered  thine  enemies 
with  thy  strong  arm.  11.  The  heavens  are 
thine,  the  earth  also  is  thine :  as  for  the  world, 
and  the  fulness  thereof,  thou  hast  founded  them. 

See  on  Eph.  6.  16. 

Ver.  12.  The  north  and  the  south  thou  hast  crea- 
ted them :  Tabor  and  Hermon  shall  rejoice  in 
thy  name. 

The  northeast  part  of  Lebanon,  adjoining  to  the  Holy 
Land,  is  in  scripture  distinguished  by  the  name  of  Hermon ; 
and  is,  by  consequence,  mentioned  as  the  northern  boundary 
of  the  country  beyond  Jordan,  and  more  particularly  of  the 
kingdom  of  Og,  or  of  the^half  tribe  of  Manasseh,  on  the  east 
of  that  river.  But,  besides  this  Mount  Hermon,  in  the 
northern  border  of  the  country  beyond  Jordan,  we  read  of 
another  mountain  of  the  same  name,  lying  within  the  land 
of  Canaan,  on  the  west  of  the  river  Jordan,  not  far  from 
Mount  Tabor.  To  this  mountain  the  holy  Psalmist  is 
thought  to  refer  in  these  words :  "  The  north  and  the  south 
thou  hast  created  them :  Tabor  and  Hermon  shall  rejoice 
in  thy  name ;"  and  in  the  following  passage :  "  As  the  dew 
of  Hermon,  and  as  the  dew  that  descends  upon  the  mount- 
ains of  Sion." — Paxton. 

Ver.  14.  Justice  a:nd  judgment  are  the  habitation 
of  thy  throne :  mercy -and  truth  shall  go  before 
thy  face. 

Dr.  Boothroyd,  "Are  the  basis  of  thy  throne."  The 
Hebrew,  "  the  establishment  of  thy  throne."  "  What  was 
the  foundation  of  his  throne  V  '"  Justice  !  Truly  righ- 
teousness is  the  atle-vdram,  foundation  or  basis,  of  all  his 
ways." — Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  I  will  set  his  hand  also  in  the  sea,  and 
his  right  hand  in  the  rivers. 

The  meaning  is:  he  shall  reign  from  the  Mediterranean 
Sea  to  the  Euphrates.  This  is  figuratively  expressed  thus : 
his  right  hand  shall  extend  to  the  sea,  or  his  left  to  the 
Euphrates.  A  similar  expression  was  used,  according  to 
Curtius,  by  the  Scythian  ambassadors  to  Alexander.  "  If," 
said  they,  "  the  gods  -had  given  thee  a  body  as  great  as  thy 
mind,  the  whole  world  would  not  be  able  to  contain  thee ; 
thou  wouldst  reach  with  one  hand  to  the  east,  and  with  the 
other  to  the  west."— Rosenmdller. 

PSALM  XC. 
Ver.  4.  For  a  thousand  years  in  thy  sight  are  hui 


as  yesterday  when  it  is  past,  and  as  a  watch  in 
the  night. 

It  is  evident  in  the  scriptures,  that  besides  these  cares, 
they  had  watchmen  who  used  to  patrol  in  their  streets:  and 
it  is  natural  to  suppose,  that  they  were  these  people  that 
gave  them  notice  how  the  seasons  of  the  night  passed  away. 
I  am  indebted  for  this  thought  to  Sir  John  Chardin.  He 
observes,  in  a  note  on  Ps.  xe.  4,  that  as  the  people  of  the  East 
have  no  clocks,  the  several  parts  of  the  day  and  of  the  night, 
which  are  eight  in  all,  are  given  notice  of.  In  the  Indies, 
the  parts  of  the  night  are  made  known  as  well  by  instru- 
ments of  music,  in  great  cities,  as  by  the  rounds  of  the  watch- 
men, who  with  cries  and  small  drums,  give  them  notice  that 
a  fourth  part  of  the  night  is  passed.  Now  as  these  cries 
awaked  those  who  had  slept  all  that  quarter  part  of  the 
night,  it  appeared  to  them  but  as  a  moment.  There  are 
sixty  of  these  people  in  the  Indies,  by  day,  and  as  many  by 
night;  that  is,  fifteen  for  each  division. 

It  is  apparent  the  ancient  Jews  knew  how  the  night 
passed  away,  which  must  probably  be  by  some  public 
notice  given  them :  but  whether  it  was  by  simply  publish- 
ing at  the  close  of  each  watch,  what  watch  was  then  ended; 
or  whether  they  made  use  of  any  instruments  of  music  in 
this  business,  may  not  be  easily  determinable ;  and  still 
less  what  measures  of  time  the  watchmen  made  use  of. — 
Harmer. 

Ver.  5.  Thou  carriest  them  away  as  with  a  flood  j 
they  are  as  a  sleep :  in  the  morning  they  are 
like  grass  which  groweth  up.  6.  In  the  morn- 
ing it  flourisheth,  and  groweth  up ;  in  the  even- 
ing it  is  cut  down,  and  withereth. 

In  temperate  latitudes,  the  fields  are  generally  covered 
with  durable  verdure ;  but  in  Asia,  gramineous  plants  of 
all  kinds  are  extremely  perishable.  The  wonderful  ra- 
pidity of  their  growth  is  celebrated  by  every  traveller  into 
the  East.  Sir  Thomas  Roe  says,  that  when  the  ground 
has  been  destitute  of  rain  nine  months  together,  and  looks 
all  of  it  like  the  barren  sand  in  the  desert  of  Arabia, 
where  there  is  not  one  spire  of  green  grass  to  be  found, 
within  a  few  days  after  those  fat  enriching  showers  begin 
to  fall,  the  face  of  the  earth  there  (as  it  were  by  a  new 
resurrection)  is  so  revived,  and  throughout  so  renewed, 
as  that  it  is  presently  covered  all  over  with  a  pure  green 
mantle.  Dr.  Russel,  in  the  same  admiring  terms,  de- 
scribes the  springing  of  the  earth  as  a  resurrection  of 
vegetable  nature.  Vegetation  is  so  extremely  quick  in 
Hindostan,  that,  as  fast  as  the  water  rises,  the  plants  of  rice 
grow  before  it,  so  that  the  ear  is  never  immersed.  To  the 
powerful  influence  of  the  rain  upon  the  face  of  oriental 
nature,  Moses  compares,  with  singular  beauty  and  force, 
the  effect  which  the  lessons  of  heavenly  wisdom  produce  in 
the  human  mind :  "  My  doctrine  shall  drop  as  the  raiji,  my 
speech  shall  distil  as  the  dew,  as  the  small  rain  upon  the 
tender  herb,  and  as  the  showers  upon  the  grass."  Even  the 
dews,  which  are  most  copious  in  those  regions,  produce  a 
change  so  beneficial  and  sudden,  that  Solomon  compares  to 
their  energy,  the  influence  of  royal  favour,  which,  in  oriental 
courts,  frequently  raises  in  one  day  a  person  from  the  lowest 
condition,  to  the  highest  ranks  of  life :  The  king's  "  favour 
is  as  a  dew  upon  the  grass."  But  such  extraordinary  quick- 
ness of  growth  is  incompatible  with  strength  and  perma- 
nence ;  the  feeble  and  sickly  blade  yields  as  quickly  to  the 
burning  heat,  and  vanishes  away.  To  this  rapid  change 
the  Psalmist  compares  the  short-lived  nrosperity  of  wicked 
men  :  his  own  evanescent  comforts ;  tne  swift  progress  of 
his  days,  and  of  time  in  general.  So  soon  are  the  powers 
of  nature  exhausted,  that  the  grass  does  net  always  come  to 
maturity,  even  in  the  best  soils ;  in  the  language^  of  an- 
cient prophecy,  "  it  is  blasted  before  it  be  grown  up." — Pax- 
ton. 

Ver.  9.  For  all  our  days  are  passed  away  in  thy 
wrath ;  we  spend  our  years  as  a  tale  that  is 
told. 

"  This  year  has  been  to  me  as  a  fabulous  stor>' :  like  the 
repetition  of  a  dream,  my  davs pass  away.  The  beginning 
of  life  is  as  the  dew-drop  upon  the  tender  herb;  m  ten  moons 


Ps.  90—92. 


PSALMS. 


399 


it  assumes  its  shape,  and  is  brought  forth ;  it  lies  down, 
crawls,  prattles,  walks,  and  becomes  acquainted  with  science. 
At  sixteen  he  is  a  man ;  goes  forth  in  the  pride  of  his  youth, 
gets  a  wife,  and  becomes  the  father  of  children.  The  husk 
of  his  rice  he  refuses  to  part  with,  and  his  wish  is  to  enjoy  all. 
He  thinks  by  living  cheaply,  by  refusing  to  support  charities, 
or  to  dispense  favours,  he  is  of  all  men  the  most  happy. 
He  is  regardless  of  the  writing  on  his  forehead,  (fate,)  and  is 
like  the  lamp  which  shineth,  and  ceaseth  to  shine ;  pour  in 
oil,  and  there  will  be  light ;  take  it  away,  and  there  will  be 
darkness.  In  old  age  come  the  rheumatics,  the  jaundice,  and 
an  enlarged  belly;  the  eyes  are  filled  with  rheums,  and  the 

Ehlegm  comes  forth.  His  body  becomes  dry,  his  back  ben  ds, 
is  wife  and  children  abhor  him,  and  in  visions  he  sees  the 
deathly  car  and  horse.  The  place  of  burning  says, '  Come, 
come;'  and  his  family  say,  ' Go,  go.'  His  strength  is  gone, 
his  speech  falters,  his  eyeballs  roll,  and  his  living  soul  is 
taken  away.  The  people  then  talk  of  his  good  and  evil 
deeds,  and  ask,  *  Is  this  lifel'  The  funeral  rites  follow; 
the  music  sounds  forth,  and  the  dying  carry  the  dead  to  its 
place  of  burning."  Thus  sung  the  devoted  Aruna-Kiriydr. 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  14.  O  satisfy  us  early  with  thy  mercy,  that 
we  may  rejoice  and  be  glad  all  our  days. 

Ainsworth,  "  Satisfie  us  in  the  morning  with  thy  mercie." 
Afflictions  and  sorrows  are  spoken  of  as  the  "  night  of  life ;" 
and  the  deliverance  from  them,  as  the  "  morning  of  joy." 
"  Yes,  the  night  has  been  long  and  gloomy,  but  the  morning 
lias  at  last  come."  *'  Ah !  morning,  morning,  when  wilt  thou 
come  1" — Roberts. 

PSALM  XCI. 
Ver.  1.  He  that  dwelleth  in  the  secret  place  of 
the  Most  High,  shall  abide  under  the  shadow  of 
the  Almighty. 

To  say  a  person  i^  under  the  shadow  of  a  great  man, 
means,  he  is  under  his  protection.  "  Oh,  my  lord,  all  the 
people  are  against  me ;  they  are  pursuing  me  as  the  tiger: 
let  me  come  under  your  unne'.J^  i.  e.  shadow.  "  Ay,  ay,  the 
fellow  is  safe  enough,  now  he  has  crept  under  the  shadow  of 
the  king."  "  Begone,  miscreant,  thou  shall  not  creep  under 
my  shadow."  "  Many  years  have  I  been  under  the  shadow 
of  my  father ;  how  shall  I  now  leave  it  V  *'  Gone,  for  ever 
gone,  is  the  shadow  of  my  days !"  says  the  lamenting  widow. 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  5.  Thou  shalt  not  be  afraid  for  the  terror  by 
night,  nor  for  the  arrow  that  flieth  by  day. 
6.  Nor  for  the  pestilence  that  walketh  in  dark- 
ness, nor  for  the  destruction  that  wasteth  at 
noonday. 

"When  the  cholera  rages,  no  one  will  go  out  while  the  sun 
is  at  its  zenith,  because  it  is  believed  that  the  demon  of  the 
pestilence  is  then  actively  engaged.  "  The  hot  exhalations 
of  noonday  are  the  chariots  of  the  fiends."  The  demons 
of  darkness  are  said  to  have  the  most  power  at  midnight. — 
Roberts. 

The  arrow,  in  this  passage,  means  the  pestilence.  The 
Arabs  thus  denote  it:  "I  desired  to  remove  to  a  less  con- 
tagious air.  I  received  from  Solyman,  the  emperor,  this 
message :  that  the  emperor  wondered  what  I  meant,  in 
desiring  to  remove  my  habitation.  Is  not  the  pestilence 
God's  arrow,  which  will  always  hit  his  mark.  If  God 
would  visit  me  herewith,  how  could  I  avoid  it.  '  Is  not  the 
plague,'  said  he, '  in  my  own  palace;  and  yet  I  do  not  think 
of  removing.' "  (Busbequius.) 

We  find  the  same  opinion  expressed  in  Smith's  Remarks 
on  the  Turks.  "  What,"  say  they,  "  is  not  the  plague  the 
dart  of  Almighty  God,  and  can  we  escape  the  blow  he 
levels  at  us.  Is  not  his  hand  steady  to  hit  the  persons 
he  aims  af?  Can  we  run  out  of  his  sight,  and  beyond 
his  power  V^  So  Herbert,  (p.  99,)  speaking  of  Curroon, 
says,  "  that  year  his  empire  was  so  wounded  with  God's 
arrows  of  plague,  pestilence,  and  famine,  as  this  thousand 
years  before  was  never  so  terrible." — Burder. 

Ver.  13.  Thou  shalt  tread  upon  the  lion  and  ad- 


der :  the  young  lion  and  the  dragon  shalt  thou 
trample  under  foot. 

"  Thou  shalt  tread  upon  the  lion."  This  expression  de- 
notes the  subjection  of  the  lion,  and  the  fiercest  beasts,  to  the 
power  of  man.  His  superiority  is  indisputable.  Eastern 
monarch  have  on  particular  occasions  displayed  their 
grandeur  by  exhibiting  lions  in  a  tame  condition.  When 
a  Greek  ambassador  was  introduced  to  the  Calif  Moctader, 
"  among  the  other  spectacles  of  rare  and  stupendous  luxury, 
a  hundred  lions  were  brought  out,  with  a  keeper  to  each 
lion."  This  embassy  was  received  at  Bagdad,  A.  H.  305. 
A.  D.  917.  When  Mr.  Bell,  of  Antermony,  accompanied 
the  Russian  ambassador  to  the  audience  of  the  unfortunate 
Shah  Hussein,  of  Persia,  two  lions  were  introduced,  to 
denote  the  power  of  the  king  over  the  fiercest  animals. — 
Burder. 

The  adder  was  known  to  the  ancient  Hebrews  under 
various  names. — It  is  the  opinion  of  some  interpreters,  that 
the  word  Sn«r  soxhal,  which  in  some  parts  of  scripture  de- 
notes a  lion,  in  others  means  an  adder,  or  some  other  kind 
of  serpent.  Thus,  in  the  ninety-first  Psalm,  they  render  it 
the  basilisk :  "  Thou  shalt  tread  upon  the  adder  and  the 
basilisk,  the  young  lion  and  the  dragon, thou  shalt  trample 
under  foot."  Indeed,  all  the  ancient  expositors  agree,  that 
some  species  of  serpent  is  meant,  although  they  cannot  de- 
termine what  particular  serpent  the  sacred  writer  had  in  his 
eye.  The  learned  Bochart  thinks  it  extremely  probable, 
that  the  holy  Psalmist  in  this  verse  treats  of  serpents  only  ; 
and  by  consequence,  that  both  the  terms  ("jnr)  sachal  and 
(-\ibd)  chephir,  mean  some  kind  of  snakes,  as  well  as  (inc) 
phetkan  and  (rsn)  tannin,  because  the  coherence  of  the  verse 
is  by  this  view  better  preserved,  than  by  mingling  lions 
and  serpents  together,  as  our  translators  and  other  inter- 
preters have  commonly  done.  The  union  of  lions,  adders, 
and  dragons,  is  not  natural;  nor  is  it  easy  to  imagine  what 
can  be  meant  by  treading  upon  the  lion,  and  trampling  the 
young  lion  under  foot;  for  it  is  not  possible  in  walking  to 
tread  upon  the  lion,  as  upon  the  adder,  the  basilisk,  and 
other  serpents. 

As  the  term  (Sner)  sachal,  when  applied  to  wild  beasts, 
denotes  a  black  lion  ;  so  in  the  present  application,  it  means 
the  black  adder.  Many  serpents  are  of  a  black  colour,  but 
some  of  them  are  much  blacker  than  others.  The  sachal, 
therefore,  denotes  the  black  snake,  the  colour  of  which  is 
intensely  deep. 

Another  name  which  the  adder  bears  in  scripture  is 
(2i»3j;)  achsub.  It  occurs  in  the  following  description  of 
wicked  men  :  "  They  have  sharpened  their  tongues  like  a 
serpent :  adders'  poison  is  under  their  lips."  The  Chaldee 
renders  it  the  poison  of  a  spider ;  but  the  most  common  in- 
terpretation is  that  which  our  translators  have  adopted. 
Some,  however,  contend  that  the  asp  is  intended ;  and  in 
support  of  their  opinion,  quote  the  authority  of  many  Greek 
and  Latin  interpreters,  and  what  must  be  decisive  with 
every  Christian,  the  suffrage  of  an  inspired  apostle,  who 
gives  this  version  of  the  Hebrew  text :  "  The  poison  of  asps 
is  under  their  lips."  The  name  in  Hebrew  is  derived  from 
an  Arabic  verb,  which  signifies  to  coil  up ;  which  perfectly 
corresponds  with  the  nature  of  this  animal,  for,  in  prepar- 
ing to  strike,  it  contracts  itself  into  a  spiral  form,  and  raises 
its  horrid  head  from  the  middle  of  the  orb.  It  assumes  the 
same  form  when  it  goes  to  sleep,  coiling  its  body  into  a  num- 
ber of  circles,  with  its  head  in  the  centre.  This  is  the 
reason  that  in  Greek,  Aotti?  denotes  a  shield,  as  well  as  a 
serpent.  Now,  the  Grecian  shield>are  circular,  as  we 
learnfrom  Virgil,  but  whether  the  name  of  the  shield  (Affwif) 
was  derived  from  the  serpent,  or  the  name  of  the  serpent 
from  the  form  of  the  shield,  it  is  of  no  consequence  to  deter- 
mine.— Paxton. 

PSALM  XCIL 
Ver.  10.  But  my  horn  shalt  thou  exalt  like  the 
horn  of  a  unicorn :  I  shall  be  anointed  with 
fresh  oil. 

Montanus  has,  instead  of  fresh  oil,  given  the  literal 
meaning  of  the  original,  virido  oleo,  with  green  oil.  Ains- 
worth also  says,  "  fresh  or  green  oile.'  Calmet,  "  As  the 
plants  imparted  somewhat  of  their  colour,  as  well  as  of  their 
fragrance,  hence  the  expression  green  oil."  Harmer,  "  I 
shall  be  anointed  with  green  oil."    Some  of  these  writer* 


400 


PSALMS, 


Ps.  92. 


think  the  term  gree!.^,  as  it  is  in  the  original,  means  "  pre- 
cious fragrant  oil ;"  others,  literally  green  in  colour;  and 
others,  fresh  or  newly  made  oil.  But  I  think  it  will  ap- 
pear to  mean  cold  drawn  oil,  that  which  has  been  expressed 
or  squeezed  from  the  nut  or  fruit  without  the  jyrocess  of 
boiling.  The  Orientals  prefer  this  kind  for  anointing  them- 
selves to  all  others;  it  is  considered  the  most  precious,  the 
most  pure  and  efficacious.  Nearly  all  the  medicinal  oils 
are  thus  extracted ;  and  because  they  cannot  gain  so  much 
by  this  method  as  by  the  boiling  process,  oils  so  drawn  are 
very  dear.  Hence  their  name  for  the  article  also  thus  pre- 
pared is  patche,  i.  e.  green  oil !  But  this  term  in  eastern 
phraseology  is  applied  to  other  things^  which  are  miboiled  ov 
raw ;  thus  unboiled  water  is  called  patche,  green  water : 
patche-pdl,  also,  green  milk,  means  that  which  has  not  been 
boiled,  and  the  butter  made  from  it  is  called  green  butter  ; 
and  uncooked  meat,  or  yams,  go  by  the  same  name.  I  think, 
therefore,  the  Psalmist  alludes  to  that  valuable  article 
which  is  called  green  oil,  on  account  of  its  being  expressed 
from  the  nut,  or  fruit,  without  the  process  of  boiling.— Rob- 
erts. 

The  virgin-oil  (I'ogleo  virgineo)  is  made  as  well  from 
green  and  unripe,  as  from  ripe  fruit;. but  with  the  differ- 
ence, that  no  hot  water,  or  very  little,  is  used,  in  the  press- 
ing: by  which  the  berries  are  less  affected,  and  less  of  the 
acrid  or  crude  elements  extracted  from  them.  In  this 
mannerless  oil  is  obtained,  but  it  is  whiter,  more  pleasant, 
and  justly  preferred  to  every  other  sort.  The  ancients 
called  it  green  oil,  probably  on  account  of  its  being  ex- 
tracted from  green  and  unripe  berries.  This  explains  a 
passage  in  Suetonius,  which  says,  "  that  Julius  Cesar,  out 
of  politeness,  ate  old  and  spoiled  oil,  instead  of  green,  not 
to  give  the  person  who  had  invited  him  any  ground  to 
complain  of  his  want  of  politeness,  or  his  inattention. 
Some  commentators  on  the  Bible  reasonably  suppose  that 
this  green  oil  is  spoken  of  as  being  the  best,  when  the 
Psalmist  expresses  the  happiness  with  which  God  had 
blessed  him :  /  am  anointed  with  green  oil.  (Keyssler.)^ 
Burder. 

Mr.  Bruce,  after  having  given  it  as  his  opinion  that  the 
reem  of  scripture  is  the  rhinoceros,  says,  "  the  derivation 
of  this  word,  both  in  the  Hebrew  and  in  the  Ethiopic,  seems 
to  be  from  erectness,  or  standing  straight.  This  is  certainly 
no  particular  quality  in  the  animal  itself,  which  is  not  more, 
or  even  so  much  erect,  as  many  other  quadrupeds,  for  in  its 
knees  it  is  rather  crooked  ;  but  it  is  from  the  circumstance 
and  manner  in  which  his  hornis  placed.  The  horns  of  other 
animals  are  inclined  to  some  degree  of  parallelism  with  the 
nose  or  os  frontis.  The  horn  of  the  rhinoceros  alone  is 
erect  and  perpendicular  to  this  bone,  on  which  it  stands  at 
right  angles,  thereby  possessing  a  greater  purchase,  or 
power,  as  a  lever,  than  any  horn  could  possibly  have  in 
any  other  position.  "  This  situation  of  the  horn  is  very 
happily  alluded  to  in  the  sacred  writings :  m,y  horn  shall 
thou  exalt  like  the  horn  of  a  unicorn;  and  the  horn  here  al- 
luded to  is  not  wholly  figurative,  as  I  have  already  taken 
notice  in  the  course  of  my  history,  but  was  really  an  orna- 
ment worn  by  great  men  in  the  days  of  victory,  preferment, 
or  rejoicing,  when  they  were  anointed  with  new,  sweet,  or 
fresh  oil,  a  circumstance  which  David  joins  with  that  of 
erecting  the  horn."  ' 

The  term  for  unicorn,  in  the  Hebrew  text,  is  (=)i-») 
rim,  or  (nsNi)  reem ;  and  is  derived  from  a  verb,  which  sig- 
nifies to  be  exalted  or  lifted  up.  This  term,  which  in  He- 
brew signifies  only  height,  is  rendered  by  the  Greek  inter- 
preters jiovoKEpos,  and  by  the  Latins  unicornis ;  both  which 
answer  to  our  English  word  unicorn,  Jerome  and  others, 
doubtful  to  what  animal  it  belongs,  render  it  sometimes 
rhinoceros,  and  sometimes  unicorn.  It  is  evident  from  the 
sacred  scriptures,  that  the  reem  is  an  animal  of  considera- 
ble height,  and  of  great  strength.  Thus  Balaam  reluctant- 
ly declared  concerning  Israel :  "  God  brought  them  out  of 
Egypt ;  he  hath  as  it  were  the  strength  of  (a  reem)  a  uni- 
corn." So  great  in  the  estimation  of  that  reluctant  seer, 
was  the  strength  of  the  reem,  that  he  repeats  the  eulogium 
in  the  very  same  words  in  the  next  chapter.  From  the 
grateful  ascriptions  of  David,  we  learn  that  it  is  a  horned 
animal :  "  But  my  horn  shalt  thou  exalt  like  the  horn  of  a 
unicorn."  And  Moses,  in  his  benediction  of  Joseph,  states 
a  most  important  fact,  that  it  has  two  horns ;  the  words  are : 
His  horns  are  like  the  horns  of  (3n->  a  reem,,  in  the  sin- 
gular number)  a  unicorn.    Some  interpreters,  determined 


to  support  the  claims  of  the  unicorn  to  the  honour  of  a  place 
in  the  sacred  volume,  contend,  that  in  this  instance  the  sin- 
gular, by  an  enallage  or  change  of  number,  is  put  for  the 
plural.  But  this  is  a  gratuitous  assertion ;  and  besides,  if 
admitted,  would  greatly  diminish  the  force  and  propriety  of 
the  comparison.  The  two  sons  of  Joseph,  Ephraim  and 
Manasseh,  had  been  adopted  into  the  family  of  Jacob,  and 
appointed  the  founders  of  two  distinct  tribes,  whose  descend- 
ants in  the  times  of  Moses  were  become  numerous  and  re- 
spectable in  the  congregation.  These  were  the  two  horns 
with  which  Joseph  was  to  attack  and  subdue  his  enemies ; 
and  by  consequence,  propriety  required  an  allusion  to  a 
creature,  not  with  one,  but  with  two  horns. 

In  the  book  of  Job,  the  reem  is  represented  as  a  very 
fierce  and  intractable  animal,  which,  although  possessed  of 
sufficient  strength  to  labour,  sternly  and  pertinaciously  re- 
fuses to  bend  his  neck  to  the  yoke :  "  Will  the  unicorn  (in 
Hebrew  the  reem)  be  willing  to  serve  thee,  or  abide  by  thy 
crib^  Canst  thou  bind  the  reem  with  his  band  in  the  fur- 
row, or  will  he  harrow  the  valleys  after  thee  *?  Wilt  thou 
trust  him  because  his  strength  is  great  ?  Or  wilt  thou  leave 
thy  labour  to  him*?  Wilt  thou  believe  him  th^t  he  will 
bring  home  thy  seed,  and  gather  it  into  thy  barn  V  So  far 
from  being  disposed  to  submit  to  the  dominion  of  man,  he 
is  extremely  hostile  and  dangerous.  Little  inferior  to  the 
lion  himself  in  strength  and  fury,  he  is  sometimes  associa- 
ted in  scripture  with  that  destroyer.  "  Save  me."  cried  our 
Lord  to  his  Father,  "  save  me  from  the  lion's  mouth :  for 
thou  hast  heard  me  from  the  horns  of  (cion">)  the  unicorns." 
In  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  it  is  united  with  other  power- 
ful animals,  to  symbolize  the  great  leaders  and  princes  of 
the  hostile  nations,  that  laid  waste  his  native  land :  "  And 
the  unicorns  shall  come  down  with  them,  and  the  bullocks 
with  the  bulls:  and  their  land  shall  be  soaked  with  blood, 
and  their  dust  made  fat  with  fatness."  Such  are  the  gene- 
ral characters  of  the  reem,  as  delineated  in  the  sacred  vol- 
ume: but  besides  these,  several  hints  are  given,  which  seem 
to  point  out,  with  no  little  certainty,  the  genus  under  which 
the  reem  ought  to  be  classed.  In  that  sublime  composition, 
where  the  Psalmist  assigns  the  reasons  why  God  is  to  be 
honoured,  he  joins  the  calf  with  the  young  reem,  and  as- 
cribes to  them  the  same  kind  of  movement :  "  He  maketh 
them  also  to  skip  like  a  calf;  Lebanon  and  Sirion  like  a 
young  (reem,  or)  unicorn."  The  prophet  Isaiah,  in  a  pas- 
sage already  quoted,  classes  him  with  the  bullocks  and  the 
bulls;  and  Moses  assigns  him  the  same  station,  furnishes 
him  with  horns,  and  makes  him  push  like  a  bullock.  If 
these  circumstances  are  duly  considered,  no  doubt  will  re- 
main that  he  is  nearly  allied  to  the  creatures  with  which  he 
is  associated. 

These  observations  will  enable  us  to  examine  with  inore 
success  the  various  interpretations  of  the  original  name 
proposed  by  different  expositors.  Our  translators,  follow- 
ing the  Greek  fathers,  consider  the  reem  as  a  creature  with 
one  horn ;  and,  agreeably  to  this  idea,  render  it  unicorn. 
But  this  interpretation  is  encumbered  with  insuperable  dif- 
ficulties. The  unicorn  is  a  creature  totally  unknown  in 
those  countries  where  the  scriptures  were  written,  and  the 
patriarchs  sojourned.  But  is  it  probable,  that  God  him- 
self, in  his  expostulation  with  Job,  would  take  an  illustra- 
tion of  considerable  length,  from  a  creature  with  which  the 
afflicted  man  was  altogether  unacquainted;  and  mention 
this  unknown  animal  in  the  midst  of  those  with  which  he 
was  quite  familiar  1  Nor  is  it  to  be  supposed,  that  Moses, 
David,  and  the  prophets,  would  so  frequently  speak  of  an 
animal  unknown  in  Egypt  and  Palestine,  and  the  surround- 
ing countries ;  least  of  all,  that  they  would  borrow  their 
comparisons  from  it,  familiarly  mention  its  great  strength, 
and  describe  its  habits  and  dispositions.  Aware  of  this  ob- 
jection, and  at  loss  how  to  elude  its  force,  some  writers,  on 
the  authority  of  Pliny,  remove  the  native  land  of  the  uni- 
corn to  India.  But  this  will  be  found  of  no  advantage  to 
their  cause  ;  for  still  the  objection  returns  with  nearly  un- 
diminished force ;  how  could  the  sacred  writers  borrow 
their  illustrations  from  a  creature  with  which,  even  on  this 
supposition,  they  were  so  little  acquainted?  They  make 
no  mention  of  the  elephant,  a  creature  not  less  powerful 
and  fierce  than  the  unicorn,  renowned  for  its  docility,  and 
the  various  important  services  which  it  renders  to  man  ; 
and  numerous  in  Africa,  and  many  countries  of  Asia.  Of 
this  noble  animal,  the  people  of  Israel  seem  to  have  had 
no  knowledge  at  all,  except  what  they  derived  from  t  • ' 


Ps.  92. 


PSALMS 


401 


trade  in  ivory,  which  they  carried  on  during  the  reign  of 
Solomon  to  some  extent.  But  if  the  elephant,  which 
abounded  in  countries  much  nearer  the  Holy  Land  than  In- 
dia, whose  teeth  formed  an  article  of  commerce  among  the 
ancient  Israelites,  was  so  little  known  to  them;  it  cannot  be 
supposed  that  they  l^ad  any  knowledge  of  an  animal  which 
was  proper  to  India. 

But  we  have  in  reality  no  proof  that  such  an  animal 
ever  existed  in  any  part  of  the  world.  It  must  be  admitted, 
that  both  Pliny  and  -Elian  have  described  the  unicorn  in 
their  writings ;  but  these  eminent  authors  borrowed  their 
statements  from  Ctesias,  a  writer  of  little  respectability. 
Had  the  unicorn  existed  in  any  part  of  the  East,  it  must 
have  been  discovered  and  brought  to  Rome  by  those  whom 
the  Romans  employed  to  explore  the  remotest  countries, 
with  the  express  view  of  collecting  the  rarest  animals  they 
contained,  in  order  to  be  exhibited  at  the  public  shows. 
The  tiger,  the  rhinoceros,  and  other  animals,  natives  of  re- 
gions which  the  Roman  eagles  never  visited,  were  often 
exhibited  in  the  amphitheatre,  before  the  proud  oppressors 
of  the  world.  So  numerous  and  diversified  were  the  ani- 
mals produced  on  the  arena  at  their  public  entertainments, 
that  Aristides,  in  his  encomium  of  Rome,  declared,  "  All 
things  meet  here,  whatsover  is  bred  or  made ;  and  whatso- 
ever is  not  seen  here,  is  to  be  reckoned  among  those  things 
which  are  not,  nor  ever  were."  But  although  these  shows 
continued  for  many  ages,  not  a  single  unicorn  was  ever  ex- 
hibited at  Rome ;  a  strong  proof  that  no  such  animal  exist- 
ed. In  modern  times,  the  remotest  countries  in  Asia  have 
been  traversed,  in  almost  every  direction,  by  intelligent 
and  inquisitive  travellers;  but  no  animal  of  this  kind  has 
been  discovered;  nor  has  the  least  information  been  ob- 
tained concerning  the  unicorn,  among  the  natives.  From 
these  facts  it  may  be  safely  concluded,  that  the  unicorn  ex- 
ists only  in  the  imagination  of  vain  and  credulous  writers, 
and  by  consequence,  cannot  be  the  reem  of  the  sacred 
scriptures. 

The  rhinoceros,  on  the  contrary,  was  often  exhibited  in 
the  amphitheatre  at  Rome ;  and  has  been  frequently  seen 
by  modern  travellers.  No  doubt,  therefore,  can  be  enter- 
tained concerning  the  reality  of  its  existence  :  but  the  char- 
acter of  the  reem,  given  in  the  scriptures,  will  not  apply  to 
this  animal.  The  reem,  it  is  evident,  was  equally  well 
known  to  Moses  and  the  prophets,  and  the  people  whom 
they  addressed,  as  the  bullocks  and  the  bulls  with  which 
they  are  mentioned.  But  the  rhinoceros  inhabits  the  south- 
ern parts  of  Africa,  and  the  remotest  parts  of  the  East,  be- 
yond the  Ganges ;  and  by  consequence,  could  be  still  less 
known  to  the  people  of  Israel  than  the  elephant,  which  is 
not  once  mentioned  in  the  sacred  volume. 

Besides,  the  reem  has  large  horns  ;  for,  says  the  Psalm- 
ist, "  My  horn  shalt  thou  exalt  like  the  horn  of  a  uni- 
corn;" but  the  rhinoceros  has  seldom  more  than  one,  and 
that  of  a  small  size,  not  exalted  like  the  horn  of  a  reem,  but 
turned  back  towards  the  forehead.  Nor  will  the  use  to 
which  the  reem  applies  his  horns,  correspond  with  the  man- 
ners of  the  rhinoceros :  the  former  pushes  with  his  horns, 
which  must  therefore  be  placed  on  his  forehead ;  but  the 
horn  of  the  latter,  which  is  placed  on  his  nose,  and  bent 
backwards,  is  not  formed  for  pushing,  but  for  ripping  up 
the  trunks  or  bodies  of  the  more  soft  and  succulent  trees, 
and  reducing  them  into  a  kind  of  laths,  which  constitute  a 
part  of  the  animal's  food. 

It  is  the  opinion  of  others,  that  the  reem  is  a  species  of 
wild  bull;  which  they  have  endeavoured  to  establish  by 
several  plausible  arguments.  In  many  places  of  scripture, 
say  they,  the  ox  and  the  reem  are  joined  together,  as  ani- 
mals of  the  same  family;  in  others,  the  latter  is  represent- 
ed as  a  strong  and  fierce  animal,  with  large  and  very  strong 
horns,  greatly  addicted  to  push,  and  by  consequence,  an 
enemy  much  to  be  dreaded.  The  reem,  therefore,  cannot 
be  the  buffalo,  because  his  horns  being  turned  inward,  are 
unfit  for  the  combat ;  but  either  the  bison,  or  the  urus.  It 
is  rather  supposed,  however,  that  the  urus  is  the  reem  of 
the  Hebrews,  because  the  bison,  though  a  very  fierce  and 
obstinate  animal,  may  be  subdued  by  the  art  of  man,  and  at 
length  entirely  domesticated.  But  as  to  the  urus,  Cesar 
says  expressly,  that  they  cannot  be  tamed  and  rendered  use- 
ful to  mankind,  not  even  their  young  ones  excepted  ;  they 
are  therefore  taken  in  pits  and  destroyed.  Pliny  thus  de- 
scribes the  urus :  He  is  of  a  size  little  inferior  to  the  ele- 
phant ;  in  appearance,  colour,  and  figure,  he  resembles  the 
51 


bull ;  his  strength  and  velocity  are  great ;  and  he  neither 
spares  man  nor  beast  that  comes  in  his  way. 

These  arguments  have  considerable  weight ;  but  they  are 
liable  to  the  same  objections  which  these  very  writers  have 
urged  with  so  much  force  against  the  claitas  of  the  uni- 
corn and  the  rhinoceros.  It  is  by  no  means  probable  that 
the  sacred  writers  would  make  so  many  allusions  to  ani- 
mals, with  which  the  people  whom  they  addressed  were  ut- 
terly unacquainted ;  would  speak  so  familiarly  about  them ; 
would  borrow  their  figures  and  illustrations,  from  their 
form,  dispositions,  and  manners;  or  that  Jehovah  him- 
self would  converse  with  Job  so  long  about  a  creature 
which  was  unknown  to  the  people  of  those  countries.  The 
urus  skulked  from  the  remotest  times  in  the  deep  recesses 
of  the  Hircanian  forest ;  and  was  quite  unknown  to  the  Ro- 
mans before  the  ttme  of  Cesar.  Neither  the  urus  nor  the 
bison,  according  to  Pliny,  were  to  be  found  in  Greece :  and 
the  former  has  been  considered  by  some  authors  as  a  na- 
tive of  Germany.  It  is  even  admitted  by  Boetius,  who 
strenuously  maintains  the  claims  of  the  urus,  that  he  can 
find  no  writer  who  says  that  these  wild  oxen  are  produced 
in  Syria  and  Palestine.  Aben  Ezra,  on  the  contrary,  as- 
serts, in  his  commentary  on  the  prophecies  of  Hosea,  that 
no  wild  bull  is  to  be  found  in  Judea,  and  the  surrounding 
countries.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  say,  that  these  varieties  of 
the  bovine  family,  may  have  existed  there  in  the  times  of 
Moses  and  the  prophets,  for  a  mere  conjecture  proves  no- 
thing. If  they  existed  once,  why  do  they  not  exist  now,  as 
well  as  the  wild  goat,  the  hart,  and  the  antelope  1  Why  is 
not  a  single  trace  of  them  to  be  found  in  the  warmer  cli- 
mates of  Greece  and  Asia  1  Pliny  indeed  states,  that  the 
Indian  forests  abounded  with  wild  oxen ;  but  it  will  not 
follow,  that  the  urus  was  known  to  the  Jews,  because  it  was 
discovered  in  the  forests  of  India,  the  regions  of  Scythia,  or 
the  more  remote  wilds  of  Africa.  But  the  truth  is,  we  have 
no  proof  that  he  meant  to  speak  of  the  urus  or  the  bison ; 
he  only  mentions  wild  oxen  in  general ;  from  which  no 
certain  argument  can  be  drawn  in  support  of  the  opinion, 
which  Boetius  and  others  maintain. — Paxtox, 

Bochart,  and  after  him,  Rosenmuller  and  others,  regard 
the  reem  of  the  Hebrews  as  a  species  of  antelope,  the  rim  of 
the  Arabs,  and  the  oryx  or  leucoryx  of  the  Greeks.     The 
argument  of  most  weight  in  Bochart's  mind,  seems  to  be 
the  fact,  that  rim,  in  Arabic,  which  is  equivalent  to  reem  in 
Hebrew,  is  thus  used  for  a  species  of  white  gazelle  or  ante- 
lope, (Niebuhr,  Descr.  of  Arab.  p.  xxxviii.  Germ,  ed.) 
which  would  seem  to  be  very  probably  the  leucoryx.    But 
then  the  other  characteristics  of  these  animals  by  no  means 
correspond  to  those  of  the  reem,  which  is  everywhere  de- 
scribed as  a  fierce,  intractable  animal,  acting  on  the  offen- 
sive, and  attacking  even  men  of  its  own  accord.    Now, 
however  wild  and  untameable  many  species  of  antelopes 
may  be,  they  are  universally  described  as  a  shy  and  retir- 
ing animal,  always  flying  from  pursuit,  and  avoiding  even 
the  approach  of  man.     In  opposition  to  this,  Bochart  and 
Rosenmuller  produce  a  passage  of  Martial,  where  he  gives 
to  the  ofyx  the  e^iihei  fierce,  (saevus  oryx,  Epigr.  xiii.  iJ5,) 
and  another  from  Oppian,  where  he  says,  "  There  is  a 
beast,  with  pointed  horns,  familiar  to  the  woods,  the  savage 
oryx,  most  terrible  to  other  beasts."  (Cyneget.  ii.  445.)  Now 
all  these  epithets  and  descriptions,  even  allowing  nothing 
for  poetical  amplification,  are  perfectly  applicable  to  the  stag 
of  our  forests  and  of  Asia ;  they  imply  no  more  than  that 
the  oryx,  when  hard  pushed,  will  turn  upon  its  pursuers, 
and  defend  himself  with  fury.    Yet  no  one  would  hence 
draw  the  conclusion,  that  it  was  characteristic  of  the  stag 
to  act  on  the  offensive ;  nor  can  such  a  conclusion  be  drawn 
with  better  reason  in  regard  to  the  oryx. — The  oryx  of 
Pliny  and  other  ancient  writers,  is  understood  to  be  the 
antelope  oryx  of  zoologists ;  the  gazella  hidica  of  Ray,  the 
capra  gazella  of  the  Syst.  Nat.,  the  Egyptian  antelope  of 
Pennant,  and  the  pasan  of  Buffon.     It  is  about  the  size  of  a 
fallow  deer,  having  straight,   slender,  annulated   horns, 
which  taper  to  a  point ;  the  horns  are  about  three  feet  long, 
the  points  sharp,  and  about  fourteen  inches  asunder ;  the 
body  and  sides  are  of  a  reddish  ash  colour ;  the  face  is 
Avhite,  with  a  black  spot  at  the  base  of  the  horns,  and  an- 
other on  the  middle  of  the  face.    It  is  a  native  of  Asia  and 
Africa. — The  leucoryx,  which  some  suppose  to  be  the  oryx 
of  Oppian,  is  in  general  similar  to  the  animal  above  de- 
scribed, except  that  the  body  is  of  a  milk-white  colour.     It 
inhabits  the  neighbourhood  of  Bassora,  on  the  Persian  gulf. 


402 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  92. 


Most  obviously  neither  of  these  animals  answer  the  de- 
scription of  the  Hebrew  reem.  The  fact  that  the  Arabs 
apply  the  word  rim,  to  this  class  of  animals,  has  probably 
its  origin  in  the  same  cause,  which  also  leads  them  to  ap- 
ply to  the  races  of  deer  and  antelopes,  in  general,  the 
epithet  wild  oxen.    (See  Schultens,  Comm.  in  Job  xxxix.  3.) 

Other  writers  have  supposed  the  reem  of  the  Hebrews  to 
be  the  n/rus,  bison,  or  wild  ox,  described  by  Cesar,  which 
is  understood  to  be  the  same  animal  as  the  American  buf- 
falo. The  characteristics  erf  this  animal  accord  well  with 
those  attributed  to  the  reem, ;  but  there  is  no  evidence  that 
the  bison  existed  in  Palestme,  or  was  known  to  the  He- 
brews. A  more  obvious  supposition,  therefore,  is  that  of 
Schultens,  De  Wette,  Gesenius,  and  others,  that  under  the 
■reem  we  are  to  understand  the  buffalo  of  the  eastern  conti- 
nent, the  bos  bubalus  of  Linnaeus,  which  differs  from  the 
bison,  or  American  buffalo,  chiefly  in  ihe  shape  of  the  horns 
and  the  absence  of  the  dewlap.  This  animal  is  indigenous, 
originally  in  the  hotter  parts  of  Asia  and  Africa,  but  also 
in  Persia,  Abyssinia,  and  Egypt;  and  is  now  also  natural- 
ized in  Italy  and  southern  Europe.  As,  therefore,  it  existed 
in  the  countries  all  around  Palestine,  there  is  every  reason 
to  suppose  that  it  was  also  found  in  that  country,  or  at  least 
in  the  regions  east  of  the  Jordan,  and  south  of  the  Dead 
Sea,  as  Bashan  and  Idumea. 

The  oriental  buffalo  appears  to  be  so  closely  allied  to  our 
common  ox,  that  without  an  attentive  examination  it  might 
be  easily  mistaken  for  a  variety  of  that  animal.  In  point 
of  size  it  is  rather  superior  to  the  ox ;  and  upon  an  accu- 
rate inspection,  it  is  observed  to  differ  in  the  shape  and 
magnitude  of  the  head,  the  latter  being  larger  than  in  the 
ox.  But  it  is  chiefly  by  the  structure  of  the  horns  that  the 
buffalo  is  distinguished,  these  being  of  a  shape  and  curva- 
ture altogether  different  from  those  of  the  ox.  They  are 
of  gigantic  size  in  proportion  to  the  bulk  of  the  animal, 
and  of  a  compressed  form,  with  a  sharp  exterior  edge ;  for 
a  considerable  length  from  their  base  these  horns  are 
straight,  and  then  bend  slightly  upward ;  the  prevailing 
colour  of  them  is  dusky,  or  nearly  black.  The  buffalo  has 
no  dewlap;  his  tail  is  small,  and  destitute  of  vertebrae  near 
the  extremity ;  his  ears  are  long  and  pointed.  This  ani- 
mal has  the  appearance  of  uncommon  strength.  The  bulk 
of  his  body,  and  prodigious  muscular  limbs,  denote  his 
force  at  the  first  view.  His  aspect  is  ferocious  and  malig- 
nant; at  the  same  time  that  his  physiognomy  is  strongly 
marked  with  features  of  stupidity.  His  head  is  of  a  pon- 
derous size ;  his  eyes  diminutive ;  and  what  serves  to 
render  his  visage  still  more  savage,  are  the  tufts  of  frizzled 
hair  which  hang  down  from  his  cheeks  and  the  lower  part 
of  his  muzzle. 

This  animal,  although  originally  a  native  of  the  hotter 
parts  of  India  and  Africa,  is  now  completely  naturalized  to 
the  climate  of  the  south  of  Europe.  Mr.  Pennant  supposes 
the  wild  bulls  of  Aristotle  to  have  been  buffaloes,  and  Gmelin 
and  other  distinguished  naturalists  are  of  the  same  opin- 
ion. Gmelin  also  supposes  the  Bos  Indicus  of  Pliny  to 
have  been  the  same  animal.  Buffon,  however,  endeavours 
to  show,  that  the  buffalo  of  modern  times  was  unknown  to 
ihe  Greeks  and  Romans,  and  that  it  was  first  transported 
from  its  native  countries,  the  warmer  regions  of  Africa  and 
the  Indies,  to  be  naturalized  in  Italy,  not  earlier  than  the 
seventh  century. 

The  buffalo  grows  in  some  countries  to  an  extremely 
large  size.  The  buffaloes  of  Abyssinia  grow  to  twice  the 
size  of  our  largest  oxen,  and  are  called  elephant  bulls. 
Mr.  Pennant  mentions  a  pair  ofhorns  in  the  British  Museum, 
which  are  six  feet  and  a  half  long,  and  the  hollow  of  which 
will  hold  five  quarts.  Father  Lobo  affirms  that  some  of 
the  horns  of  the  buffaloes  in  Abyssinia  will  hold  ten  quarts; 
and  Dillon  saw  some  in  India  that  were  ten  feet  long.  They 
are  sometimes  wrinkled,  but  generally  smooth.  The  dis- 
tance between  the  points  of  the  two  horns  is  usually  five  feet. 

Wild  buffaloes  occur  in  many  parts  of  Africa  and  India, 
where  they  live  in  great  troops  in  the  forests,  and  are  re- 
garded as  excessively  fierce  and  dangerous  animals.  In 
all  these  particulars  they  coincide  with  the  buffaloes  of 
America.  The  hunting  of  them  is  a  favourite,  but  very 
dangerous  pursuit;  the  hunters  never  venture  in  any 
numbers  to  oppose  these  ferocious  animals  face  to  face; 
but  conceal  themselves  in  the  thickets,  or  in  the  branches 
of  the  trees ;  whence  they  attack  the  buffaloes  as  they  pass 
along. 


In  Egypt,  as  also  in  Southern  Europe,  the  buffalo  has 
been  pariially  domesticated.  In  Egypt  especially,  it  is  much 
cultivated,  where,  accoiding  to  Sonnini,  it  yields  plenty  of 
excellent  milk,  from  which  butter  and  various  kinds  of 
cheese  are  made. 

"  The  buffalo,"  says  Sonnini,  "  is  an  acquisition  of  the 
modern  Egyptians,  with  which  their  ancestors  were  unac- 
quainted. It  was  brought  over  from  Persia  into  their 
country,  where  the  species  is  at  present  universally  spread, 
and  is  very  much  propagated.  It  is  even  more  numerous 
than  the  common  ox,  and  is  there  equally  domestic,  though 
but  recently  domesticated  ;  as  is  easily  distinguished  by  the 
constantly  uniform  colour  of  the  hair,andstillmoreby  a  rem- 
nant of  ferocity  and  intractability  of  disposition,  and  a  wild 
and  lowering  aspect,  the  character's  of  all  half-tamed  animals. 
The  buffaloes  of  Egypt,  however,  are  not  near  so  wild,  nor 
so  much  to  be  feared,  as  those  of  other  countries.  They 
there  partake  of  the  gentleness  of  other  domestic  animals, 
and  only  retain  a  few  sudden  and  occasional  caprices. 
They  are  so  fond  of  water,  that  I  have  seen  them  continue 
in  it  a  whole  day.  It  often  happens  that  the  water  which 
is  fetched  from  the  Nile,  near  its  banks,  has  contracted  their 
musky  smell." 

These  animals  multiply  more  readily  than  the  common 
ox;  they  breed  in  the  fourth  year,  producing  young  for 
two  years  together,  and  remaining  steril  the  third ;  and 
they  commonly  cease  breeding  after  their  twelfth  year. 
Their  term  of  life  is  much  the  same  as  that  of  the  common 
ox.  They  are  more  robust  than  the  common  ox,  better 
capable  of  bearing  fatigue,  and,  generally  speaking,  less 
liable  to  distempers.  They  are  therefore  employed  to  ad- 
vantage in  different  kinds  of  labour.  Buffaloes  are  made 
to  draw  heavy  loads,  and  are  commonly  guided  by  means 
of  a  ring  passed  through  the  nose.  In  its  habits  the  buffalo 
is  piuch  less  cleanly  than  the  ox,  and  delights  to  wallow  in 
the  mud.  His  voice  is  deeper,  more  uncouth  and  hideous, 
than  that  of  the  bull.  The  milk  is  said  by  some  authors  to 
be  not  so  good  as  that  of  the  cow,  but  more  plentiful ;  Buf- 
fon, on  the  contrary,  asserts  that  it  is  far  superior  to  cow's 
milk.  The  skin  and  horns  are  of  more  value  than  all  the 
rest  of  the  animal ;  the  latter  are  of  a  fine  grain,  strong,  and 
bear  a  good  polish,  and  are  therefore  in  much  esteem  with 
cutlers  and  other  artisans. 

Italy  is  the  country  where  buffaloes  are,  at  present,  most 
common  perhaps  in  a  domesticated  state.  They  are  used 
more  particularly  in  the  Pontine  marshes,  and  those  in  the 
district  of  Sienna,  where  the  fatal  nature  of  the  climate 
acts  unfavourably  on  common  cattle,  but  affects  the  buffa- 
loes less.  The  Spaniards  also  have  paid  attention  to  them; 
and  indeed  the  cultivation  of  this  useful  animal  seems  to 
be  pretty  general  in  all  the  countries  bordering  on  the 
Mediterranean  Sea,  both  in  Europe  and  Africa.  Niebuhr 
remarks,  that  he  saw  buffaloes  not  only  in  Egypt,  but  also 
at  Bombay,  Surat,  on  the  Euphrates,  Tigris,  Orontes,  at 
Scanderoon,  &c.  and  indeed  in  almost  all  marshy  regions, 
and  near  large  rivers.  He  does  not  remember  any  in 
Arabia,  there  being  perhaps  in  that  country  too  liule  wa- 
ter for  this  animal.    (Descr.  of  Arabia,  p.  165,  Germ,  edit.) 

We  have  been  thus  particular  in  describing  the  buffalo 
of  Asia,  in  order  to  show  that  it  possesses,  in  its  wild  state, 
all  the  characteristics  attributed  to  the  HebrcAV  reem.  All 
the  evidence  goes  to  show  that  it  has  been  domesticated 
only  at  a  comparatively  recent  period ;  and  that  the  He- 
brews therefore  were  probably  acquainted  with  it  only  as 
a  wild,  savage,  ferocious  animal,  resembling  the  ox ;  and  it 
was  not  improbably  often  intended  by  them  under  the 
epithet,  bulls  of  Bashan.  The  appropriateness  of  the  fore- 
going description  to  the  Hebrew  reem  will  be  apparent,  on 
a  closer  inspection  of  the  passages  where  this  animal  is 
mentioned. 

In  Deut.  xxxiii.  17,  and  Ps.  xcii.  10,  the  comparison  is 
with  his  horns  ;  which  requires  no  further  illustration  after 
what  is  said  above.  In  Numb,  xxiii.  22,  xxiv.  8,  it  is  said, 
"  he  hath  as  it  were  the  stren^rlh  of  a  reem. ;"  this  is  cer- 
tainly most  appropriate,  if  we  adopt  here  the  ^'or&stre'nsfh^ 
as  the  proper  translation.  But  the  Hebrew  word  here  ren- 
dered strength,  means  strictly,  rapidity  of  motion,  speed, 
combined,  if  you  please,  with  force.  In  this  sense  also,  it 
is  not  less  descriptive  of  the  buffalo,  which  runs  with  great 
speed  and  violence  when  excited ;  as  is  often  the  case  in 
ree:ard  to  whole  herds,  which  then  rush  blindly  forwards 
with  tremendous  power.    (See  the  account  of  Major  Long's. 


Ps.  92. 


PSALMS. 


403 


expedition  to  the  Rocky  Mountains.)    In  three  other  pas- 
s'd'j:es,  the  reem  is  closely  coupled  vvilh  the  common  ox,  or 
with   the  employment  of  the  latter.    In  Ps.  xxix.  6,  it  is 
said,  "  He  maketh  them  also  to  skip  like  a  calC-  Lebanon 
and  Sirion  like  a  yonng  reem ;''  where  the  }  ^ing  of  the 
rcem  stands  in  parallelism  with  the  calf,  ^o  that  we  should 
n.iturally  expect  a  great  similarity  between  them.     Isa. 
■  \xiv.  7,  "  And  the  reemim  shall  comedown  wiih  them, 
1  the  bullocks  with  the  bulls,"  &c.    Here,  in  verse  6,  it  is 
i'l  that  the  Lord  has  a  great  sacrifice  in  Bozrah;  and  the 
idea  in  verse  7  is,  according  to  the  LXX  and  Gesenius, 
that  the  reemim  shall  come  doion,  i.  e.  shall  make  part  of 
this  sacrifice,  as  also  the  bullocks,  old  and  young,  of  the 
land  of  Edom,  so  that  their  "  land  shall  be  soaked  wath 
blood,"  &c.     The  other  passage  is  Job  xxix.  9 — 12,  "  Will 
the  reem  be  willing  to  serve  thee,  or  abide  by  the  crib'? 
Canst  thou  bind  the  reem  with  his  band  in  the  furrow,  or 
will  he  harrow  the  valleys  after  thee  1    Wilt  thou  trust  him 
because  his  strength  is  great,  or  wilt  thou  leave  thy  labour 
to  himl    Wilt  thou  believe  him,  that  he  will  bring  home 
thy  seed,  and  gather  it  into  thy  barn  1"    Here  Job  is  asked, 
whether  he  would  dare  to  intrust  to  the  reem  such  and  such 
labjurs  as  were  usually  performed  by  oxen.    Nothing  can 
be  more  appropriate  to  the  wild  buffalo  than  this  language  ; 
and  we  have  seen  above  that  the  Hebrews  probably  knew 
it  only  in  a  wild  state.     The  only  other  passage  where  the 
reem  is  mentioned  is  Ps.  xxii.  21,  and  this  requires  a  more 
extended  notice.     The  Psalmist  in  deep  distress  says  in 
verse  12,  "  Many  bulls  (n->-i£3)  have  compassed  me,  strong 
bulls  of  Bashan  have  beset  me  round.     They  gaped  upon 
me  with  their  mouths,  as  a  ravening  and  roarmg  lion.    For 
dogs  have  compassed  me,"  &c.    Here  it  will  be  observed 
that  three  animals  are  mentioned  as  besetting  the  writer, 
bulls  of  Bashan,  lions,  dogs.     The  Psalmist  proceeds  to 
speak  of  his  deliverance ;    verse  20,  "  Deliver  my  soul 
[me]  from  the  sword,  my  darling  [me]  from  the  power  of 
the  dog.    Save  me  from  the  lion  s  mouth ;  for  thou  hast 
heard   [and  saved]  me  from  the  horns  of  the  reemim." 
Here  also  it  will  be  seen  are  three  animals,  corresponding 
to  the  three  before  mentioned  as  besetting  him,  but  ranged 
in  an  inverted  order,  viz.  the  dog,  the  lion,  and  the  reem.  in 
place  of  the  bulls  of  Bashan  ;  that  is,  from  the  whole  struc- 
ture of  the  poem,  and  the  fact  that  these  animals  and  no 
others  are  alluded  to,  the  inference  is  almost  irresistible, 
that  the  reemim  of  verse  21  are  the  pdrim  of  verse  12,  the 
bulls  of  Bashan,  as  has  been  already  suggested  above.    At 
least  we  may  infer  that  the  reem  was  an  animal  not  so 
unlike  those  bulls,  but  that  it  might  with  propriety  be  in- 
terchanged with  them  in  poetic  parallelism ;  a  circumstance 
most  appropriately  true  of  the  wild  buffalo,  and  of  him  only. 
From  all  these  considerations,  and  from  the  fact  that  the 
buffalo  must  have  been  far  better  known  in  western  Asia 
than  either  the  rhinoceros  or  the  oryx,  (even  if  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  reem  suited  these  animals  in  other  respects,)  Ave 
feel  justified  in  assuming  the  tmcrus  bubalus,  or  wild  buf- 
falo, to  be  the  reem  of  the  Hebrew  scriptures,  and  the  unicorn 
of  the  English  version. 

The  principal  difficulty  in  the  way  of  this  assumption,  is 
the  fact  that  the  LXX  have  usually  translated  the  Hebrew 
reem  by  imov6k£om<;,  unicorn,  one-horn.  It  must,  however,  be 
borne  in  mind,  that  these  translators  lived  many  centuries 
after  the  Hebrew  scriptures  were  written,  ancl  not  long 
indeed  before  the  birth  of  Christ ;  they  lived,  too,  in  Egypt, 
where  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  buffalo  had  in  their  age 
begun  to  be  domesticated.  In  such  circumstances,  and 
being  unacquainted  with  the  animal  in  his  fierce  and  sav- 
age state,  they  may  have  thought  that  the  allusions  to  the 
reem  were  not  fully  answered  by  the  half-domesticated  ani- 
mal before  them,  and  they  may,  therefore,  have  felt  them- 
selves at  liberty  to  insert  the  name  of  some  animal  which 
seemed  to  them  more  appropriate.  That  they  did  often 
take  such  liberties,  is  well  known.  An  instance  occurs  in 
the  very  passage  of  Isaiah  above  quoted,  ch.  xxxiv.  7, 
where  the  Hebrew  is  n-i^-^^N  ny  d-'-idi,  "and  the  bullocks  with 
the  bulls,"  i.  e.  the  bulls  with  the  strong  ones,  or,  according 
to  Gesenius,  "the  bulls  both  young  and  old:"  this  the  LXX 
translates,  Kal  nl  Kptni  kuI  nl  ravoni,  "  and  the  rams  (or  wethers) 
and  the  bulls," — certainly  a  quid  pro  quo  not  less  striking 
than  that  of  putting  unicorn  for  buffalo. 

That  the  LXX,  in  using  the  word  monoceros,  (unicorn, 
one-horn,)  did  not  understand  by  it  the  rhinoceros,  would 
seem  obvious;  both  because  the  latter  always  had  its  ap- 


propriate and  peculiar  name  in  Greek,  (^pivoKepus.  rhinoceros, 
nose-horn,)  taken  from  the  position  of  its  horn  upon  the 
snout ;  and  also  from  the  circumstance  so  much  insisted 
on  above  in  the  extracts  from  Mr.  Bruce,  that  the  rhino- 
ceros of  that  part  of  Africa  adjacent  to  Egypt  actually  has 
two  horns.  They  appear  rather  to  have  had  in  mind  the 
half-fabulous  unicorn,  described  by  Pliny,  but  lost  sight  of 
by  all  subsequent  naturalists;  ahhough  imperfect  hints  and 
accounts  of  a  similar  animal  have  been  given  by  travellers 
in  Africa  and  India,  in  different  centuries,  and  entirely  in- 
dependent of  each  other.  The  interesting  nature  of  the 
subject  renders  it  proper  to  exhibit  here  all  the  evidence 
which  exists  in  respect  to  such  an  animal;  especially  as  it 
is  nowhere  brought  together  in  the  English  language,  or 
at  least  in  no  such  form  as  to  render  it  generally  accessible. 

The  figure  of  the  unicorn,  in  various  attitudes,  is  depict- 
ed, according  to  Niebuhr,  on  almost  all  the  stair-cases 
found  among  the  ruins  of  Persepolis.  One  of  these  figures 
is  given  in  vol.  ii.  plate  xxiii.  of  Niebuhr's  Travels;  and 
also  in  vol.  i.  p.  594,  595,  of  the  Travels  of  Sir  R.  K.  Por- 
ter. The  latter  traveller  supposes  it  to  be  the  representa- 
tion of  a  bull  with  a  single  norn.  Pliny,  in  speaking  of 
the  wild  beasts  of  India,  says  with  regard  to  the  animal  in 
question  :  Asperrimam  autem  feram  monocerntem,  reliquo 
corpore  equo  similem,  capite  cervo,  pedibus  elephanti,  cauda 
apro,  mugitu  gravi,  uno  cornu  nigra  media  fronte  cubiiorum 
duum  eminente.  Hanc  feram  vivam  neganl  capi.  (Hist. 
Nat.  vii.  21.)  "The  unicorn  is  an  exceeding  fierce  ani- 
mal, resembling  a  horse  as  to  the  restof  its  body,  but  having 
the  head  like  a  stag,  the  feet  like  an  elephant,  and  the  tail 
like  a  wild  boar:  its  roaring  is  loud,  and  it.  has  a  black 
horn  of  about  two  cubits  projecting  from  the  middle  of  its 
forehead."  These  seem  to  be  the  chief  ancient  notices  of 
the  existence  of  the  animal  in  question. 

In  1530,  Ludivico  de  Bartema,  a  Roman  patrician,  trav- 
elled to  Egypt,  Arabia,  and  India;  and  having  assumed  the 
character  of  a  Mussulman,  he  was  able  to  visit  Mecca  with 
the  Had],  or  great  caravan  of  pilgrims.  In  his  account  of 
the  curiosities  of  this  citv,  in  Ramusio's  Collection  of 
Travels,  (Racotta  di  Viaggi,  Venet.  1563,  p.  lG3,)he  says  : 
"  On  the  other  side  of  the  Caaba  is  a  walled  court,  in  which 
we  saw  two  unicorns,  which  were  pointed  out  to  us  as  a 
rarity ;  and  they  are  indeed  truly  remarkable.  The  larger 
of  the  two  is  built  like  a  three-year-old  colt,  and  has  a  horn 
upon  the  forehead  about  three  ells  long.  The  other  unicorn 
was  smaller,  like  a  yearling  foal,  and  has  a  horn  perhaps 
four  spans  long. — This  animal  has  the  colour  of  a  yellowish 
brown  horse,  a  head  like  a  stag,  a  neck  not  very  long,  with 
a  thin  mane  ;  the  legs  are  small  and  slender,  like  those  of  a 
hind  or  roe  ;  the  hoofs  of  the  forefeet  are  divided,  and  re- 
semble the  hoofs  of  a  goat.  These  two  animals  were  sent 
to  the  sultan  of  Mecca,  as  a  rarity  of  great  value,  and  very 
seldom  found,  by  a  king  of  Ethiopia,  who  wished  to  secure, 
by  this  present,  the  good  will  of  the  sultan  of  Mecca." 

Don  Juan  Gabriel,  a  Portuguese  colonel,  who  lived 
several  years  in  Abyssinia,  assures  us,  that  in  the  region 
of  Agamos,  in  the  Abyssinian  province  of  Damota,  he  had 
seen  an  animal  of  the  form  and  size  of  a  middle-sized  horse, 
of  a  dark  chestnut-brown  colour,  and  with  a  whitish  horn, 
about  five  spans  long,  upon  the  forehead ;  the  mane  and  tail 
were  black,  and  the  legs  short  and  slender.  Several  other 
Portuguese,  who  were  placed  in  confinement  upon  a  high 
mountain  in  the  district  of  Namna,  by  the  Abyssinian  king, 
Adamas  Saghedo,  related  that  they  had  seen,  at  the  foot  of 
the  mountain,  several  unicorns  feeding.  (Ludolf's  Hist, 
.^thiop.  lib.  i.  c.  10.  n.  80,  seq.)  These  accounts  are  con- 
firmed by  Father  Lobo,  who  lived  for  a  long  time  as  a  mis- 
sionary in  Abyssinia.  He  adds,  that  the  unicorn  is  extremely 
shy,  and  escapes  from  closer  observation  by  a  speedy  flight 
into  the  forests ;  for  which  reason  there  is  no  exact  de- 
scription of  him.  (Voyage  histor.  d'Abyssinie,  Amst.  1728, 
vol.  i.p.  83,  291.)  All  these  accounts  are  certainly  not  ap- 
plicable to  the  rhinoceros;  although  it  is  singular  that  Mr. 
Bruce  speaks  only  of  the  latter  animal  as  not  uncommon 
in  Abyssinia,  and  makes  apparently  no  allusion  to  the  above 
accounts. 

In  more  recent  times  we  find  further  traces  of  the  ani- 
mal in  question  in  Southern  Africa.,  Dr.  Sparrmann,  the 
Swedish  naturalist,  who  visited  the'  Cape  of  Good  Hope 
and  the  adjacent  regions,  in  the  years  1772-1776,  gives,  in 
his  travels,  the  following  account :  Jacob  Knock,  an  ob- 
serving peasant  on  Hippopotamus  river,  who  had  travelled 


404 


PS4LMS. 


Ps.  92. 


over  the  greater  part  of  Southern  Africa,  found  on  the  face 
of  a  perpendicular  rock  a  drawing  made  by  the  Hottentots, 
representing  a  quadruped  with  one  horn.  The  Hottentots 
told  him  that  the  animal  there  represented  was  very  like 
the  horse  on  which  he  rode,  but  had  a  straight  horn  upon 
the  forehead.  They  added,  that  these  one-horned  animals 
were  rare,  that  they  ran  with  great  rapidity,  and  were  also 
very  fierce.  They  also  described  the  manner  of  hunting 
them.  "  It  is  not  probable,"  Dr.  Sparrmann  remarks, "  that 
the  savages  wholly  invented  this  story,  and  that  too  so  very 
circumstantially  ;  still  less  can  we  suppose,  that  they  should 
have  received  aud  retained,  merely  from  history  or  tradi- 
tion, the  remembrance  of  such  an  animal.  These  regions 
are  very  seldom  visited ;  and  the  creature  might,  therefore, 
long  remain  unknown.  That  an  animal  so  rare  should  not 
be  better  known  to  the  modern  world,  proves  nothing 
against  its  existence.  The  greater  part  of  Africa  is  still 
among  the  terrd  incognita.  Even  the  giraffe  has  been 
Hgain  discovered  only  wiihin  comparatively  a  few  years. 
So  also  the  gnu,  which,  till  recently,  was  held  to  be  a  fable 
of  the  ancients." 

A  somewhat  more  definite  account  of  a  similar  animal  is 
contained  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Zealand  Academy  of 
Sciences  at  Flushing.  (Pt.  xv.  Middelb.  1792.  Prsef.  p. 
Ivi.)  The  account  was  transmitted  to  the  society  in  1791, 
from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  by  Mr.  Henry  Cloete.  It 
states  that  a  bastard  Hottentot,  Gerrit  Slinger  by  name,  re- 
lated, that  while  engaged  several  years  before  with  a  party, 
in  pursuit  of  the  savage  Bushmen,  they  had  got  sight  of 
nine  strange  animals,  which  they  followed  on  horseback, 
and  shot  one  of  them.  This  animal  resembled  a  horse,  and 
was  of  a  light-gray  colour,  with  white  stripes  under  the 
lower  jaw.  It  had  a  single  horn,  directly  in  front,  as  long 
as  one's  arm,  and  at  the  base  about  as  thick.  Towards  the 
middle  the  horn  was  somewhat  flattened,  but  had  a  sharp 
point;  it  was  not  attached  to  the  bone  of  the  forehead,  but 
fixed  only  in  the  skin.  The  head  was  like  that  of  the 
horse,  and  the  size  also  about  the  same.  The  hoofs  were 
round,  like  those  of  a  horse,  but  divided  below  like  those  of 
oxen.  This  remarkable  animal  was  shot  between  the  so- 
called  Table  Mountain  and  Hippopotamus  river,  about  six- 
teen days'  journey  on  horse-back  from  Cambedo,  which 
would  be  about  a  month's  journey  in  ox- wagons  from  Cape- 
town. Mr.  Cloete  mentions,  that  several  different  natives 
and  Hottentots  testify  to  the  existence  of  a  similar  animal 
with  one  horn,  of  which  they  profess  to  have  seen  drawings 
bv  hundreds,  inade  by  the  Bushmen  on  rocks  and  stones. 
He  supposes  that  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  obtain  one  of 
these  animal'^,  if  desired.  His  letter  is  dated  at  the  Cape, 
April  8,  1791,  (See  thus  far  Rosenmuller's  Altes  u.  neues 
Morgenland,  ii.  p.  269,  seq.  Leipz.  1818.) 

Such  appear  to  have  been  the  latest  accounts  of  the  ani- 
mal in  question,  when  it  was  again  suddenly  brought  into 
notice  as  existing  in  the  elevated  regions  of  central  India. 
The  Quarterly  Review  for  Oct.  1820,  (vol.  xxiv.  p.  120,) 
in  a  notice  of  Frazier's  tour  through  the  Himalaya  Moun- 
tains, goes  on  to  remark  as  follows:  "We  have  no  doubt 
that  a  little  time  will  bring  to  light  many  objects  of  natural 
History  peiculiar  to  the  elevated  regions  of  Central  Asia, 
and  hitherto  unknown  in  the  animal,  vegetable,  and  mineral 
kingdoms,  particularly  in  the  two  former.  This  is  an 
opinion  which  we  have  long  entertained ;  but  we  are  led 
to  the  expression  of  it  on  the  present  occasion,  by  having 
been  favoured  with  the  perusal  of  a  most  interesting  com- 
munication from  Major  Latter,  commanding  in  the  rajah  of 
Sikkim's  territories,  in  the  hilly  country  east  of  Nepaul, 
addressed  to  Adjutant-general  Nicol,  and  transmitted  by  him 
to  the  Marquis  of  Hastings.  This  important  paper  expli- 
citly states  that  the  unicorn,  so  long  considered  as  a  fabu- 
lous animal,  actually  exists  at  this  moment  in  the  interior 
of  Thibet,  where  it  is  well  known  to  the  inhabitants. 
'This,'— we  copy  from  the  Major's  letter — 'is  a  very 
curious  fact,  and  it  may  be  necessary  to  mention  how  the 
circumstance  became  known  to  me.  In  a  Thibetian  man- 
uscript, containing  the  names  of  different  animals,  which  1 
procured  the  other  day  from  the  hills,  the  unicorn  is  classed 
under  the  head  of  those  whose  hoofs  are  divided  :  it  is  call- 
ed the  one-horned  tso'po.  Upon  inquiring  what  kind  of 
animal  it  was,  to  our  astonishment,  the  person  who  brought 
the  manuscript  described  exactly  the  unicorn  of  the  an- 
c  ients  ;  saying,  that  it  was  a  native  of  the  interior  of  Thibet, 
about  the  size  of  a  tattoo,  [a  horse  from  twelve  to  thirteen 


hands  high,]  fierce  and  extremely  wild ;  seldom,  if  ever, 
caught  alive,  but  frequently  shot :  and  that  the  flesh  was 
used  for  food.' — '  The  person,'  Major  Latter  adds,  '  who 
gave  me  this  information,  has  repeatedly  seen  these  ani- 
mals, and  eaten  the  flesh  of  them.  They  go  together  in 
herds,  like  our  wild  buffaloes,  and  are  very  frequently  to 
be  met  with  on  the  borders  of  the  great  desert,  about  a 
month's  journey  from  LasGa,  in  that  part  of  the  country  in- 
habited by  the  wandering  Tartars.' 

"  This  communication  is  accompanied  by  a  drawing 
made  by  the  messenger  from  recollection.  It  bears  some 
resemblance  to  a  horse,  but  has  cloven  hoofs,  a  long  curved 
horn  growing  out  of  the  forehead,  and  a  boar-shaped  tail, 
like  that  ofihefera  monoceros  described  by  Pliny.  From 
its  herding  together,  as  the  unicorn  of  the  scriptures  is  said 
to  do,  as  well  as  from  the  rest  of  the  description,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  it  cannot  be  the  rhinoceros,  which  is  a  solitary 
animal ;  besides,  Major  Latter  states,  that  in  the  Thibetian 
manuscript  the  rhinoceros  is  described  under  the  name  of 
servo,  and  classed  with  the  elephant;  'neither,'  says  he, 
'  is  it  the  wild  horse,  (well  known  in  Thibet,)  for  that  has 
also  a  different  name,  and  is  classed  in  the  manuscript  with 
the  animals  which  have  the  hoof's  undivided.' — '  I  have 
written,'  he  subjoins, '  to  the  Sachia  Lama,  requesting  him 
to  procure  me  a  perfect  skin  of  the  animal,  with  the  head, 
horn,  and  hoofs;  but  it  will  be  a  longtime  before  I  can  get 
it  down,  for  they  are  not  to  be  met  with  nearer  than  a 
month's  journey  from  Lassa.'  " 

As  a  sequel  to-  this  account,  we  find  the  following  para- 
graph in  the  Calcutta  Government  Gazette,  August,  1821 : 
"  Major  Latter  has  obtained  the  horn  of  a  young  unicorn 
from  the  Sachia  Lama,  which  is  now  before  us.  It  is 
twenty  inches  in  length;  at  the  root  it  is  four  inches  and  a 
half  in  circumference,  and  tapers  to  a  point ;  it  is  black, 
rather  flat  at  the  sides,  and  has  fifteen  rings,  but  they  are 
only  prominent  on  one  side ;  it  is  nearly  straight.  Major 
Latter  expects  to  obtain  the  head  of  theanimal,  with  the  hoofs 
and  the  skin,  very  shortly,  which  will  afford  positive  proof 
of  the  form  and  character  of  the  tso'po,  or  Thibet  unicorn." 

Such  are  the  latest  accounts  which  have  reached  us  of 
this  animal ;  and  although  their  credibility  cannot  well  be 
contested,  and  the  coincidence  of  the  description  with  that 
of  Pliny  is  so  striking,  yet  it  is  singular  that  in  the  lapse  of 
more  than  ten  years,  (1832,)  nothing  further  should  have 
been  heard  on  a  subject  so  interesting. — But  whatever  rnay 
be  the  fact  as  to  the  existence  of  this  animal,  the  adoption 
of  it  by  the  LXX,  as  being  the  Hebrew  reem,  cannot  well 
be  correct ;  both  for  the  reasons  already  adduced  above, 
and  also  from  the  circumstance,  that  the  reem  was  evident- 
ly an  animal  frequent  and  well  known  in  the  countries 
where  the  scenes  of  the  Bible  are  laid  ;  while  the  unicorn, 
at  all  events,  is  and  was  an  animal  of  exceeding  rarity. — 
Robinson  in  Calmet. 

Ver.   12.  The  righteous  shall  flourish  like  the 
palm-tree :  he  shall  grow  like  a  cedar  in  Leb- 


The  palm-tree  is  very  common  in  Judea,  and  in  the  sur- 
rounding regions.  The  Hebrews  call  it  ("lan)  tamar,  and 
the  Greeks  (poivi^,  phenix.  The  finest-palm  trees  grow 
about  Jericho  and  Engeddi;  they  also  flourish  in  great 
numbers  along  the  banks  of  Jordan,  and  towards  Scytho- 
polis.  Jericho  is  by  way  of  distinction  called  "  the  citv  of 
palm-trees."  It  seems  indeed  to  have  been  recognised,  as 
the  common  symbol  of  the  Holy  Land ;  for  Judea  is  repre- 
sented on  several  coins  of  Vespasian,  by  a  disconsolate 
woman,  fitting  under  a  palm-tree ;  and  in  like  manner,  upon 
the  Greek  coin  of  his  son  Titus,  struck  on  a  similar  occa- 
sion, we  see  a  shield  suspended  on  a  palm-tree,  with  a  vic- 
tory writing  upon  it.  The  same  tree  is  delineated  upon  a 
medal  of  Doraitian,  as  an  emblem  of  Neapolis  or  Naplosa, 
the  ancient  Sichem ;  and  upon  a  medal  of  Trajan,  it  is  the 
symbol  of  Sepphoris,  the  metropolis  of  Galilee.  From  these 
facts  it  may  be  presumed  that  the  palm-tree  was  formerly 
much  cultivated  in  Palestine.  Several  of  them  still  grow 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Jericho,  which  abounds  with 
water,  where  the  climate  is  warm,  and  the  soil  sandy ;  a 
situation  in  which  they  delight,  and  where  they  rise  to  full 
maturity.  But  at  Jerusalem,  Sichem,  and  other  places 
to  the  northward,  two  or  three  of  them  are  rarely  seen 
together;  and  even  these,  as  their  fruit  seldom  or  never 


Ps.  92— 102. 


PSALMS. 


405 


comes  to  maturity,  are  of  no  further  service  than,  like  the 
palm-tree  of  Deborah,  to  shade  the  dwelhngs  of  the  parched 
inhabitants,  or  to  supply  them  with  branches  at  the  solemn 
festival.  The  present  condition  and  quality  of  palm-trees 
ill  Canaan,  h;ads  us  to  conclude,  that  they  never  at  any  time 
were  either  very  numerous  or  fruitful  in  that  country.  The 
opinion  that  Pfienice  is  the  same  with  a  country  of  date- 
trees,  does  not  appear  probable;  for  if  such  a  valuable 
plant  had  ever  been  cultivated  in  Palestine  with  success,  it 
would  have  been  cultivated  down  to  the  present  times,  as 
in  Egypt  and  in  Barbary.  In  these  countries  the  traveller 
meets  with  large  plantations  of  palm-trees  on  the  seacoast, 
as  well  as  in  the  interior;  although  those  only  which  grow 
in  the  sandy  deserts  of  Sahara,  and  the  regions  of  Getulia, 
and  the  Jereeda,  bring  their  fruit  to  perfection.  They  are 
propagated  chiefly  from  young  shoots  taken  from  the  roots 
of  full-grown  trees ;  which,  if  well  transplanted  and  taken 
care  of,  will  yield  their  fruit  in  the  sixth  or  seventh  year ; 
while  those  which  are  raised  immediately  from  the  kernel, 
will  not  bear  till  about  their  sixteenth  year.  This  method 
of  raising  the  (poivi^,  or  palm,  and  particularly  the  circum- 
stance, that  when  the  old  trunk  dies,  young  shoots  are 
never  wanting  to  succeed  it,  may  have  given  occasion  to 
the  well-known  fable  of  ihe  phe?iix,  which  perishes  in  a 
flame  of  her  own  kindling ;  while  a  young  one  springs 
from  her  ashes,  to  continue  the  race. 

The  palm-tree  arrives  at  its  greatest  vigour  about  thirty- 
years  after  being  transplanted,  and  continues  in  full  strength 
and  beauty  for  seventy  years  longer,  producing  yearly  fif- 
teen or  twenty  clusters  of  dates,  each  of  them  weighing  fif- 
teen or  twenty  pounds.  After  this  period  it  begins  grad- 
ually to  decline,  and  usually  falls  about  the  latter  end  of 
its  second  century.  "Cui  placet  curas  agere  seculorum," 
says  Palladius,  "  depalmis  cogitet  conserendis."  It  requires 
no  other  culture  and  attendance  than  to  be  well  watered 
once  in  four  or  five  days,  and  to  have  a  few  of  the  lower 
boughs  lopped  oiF  when  they  begin  to  droop  or  wither. 
These,  whose  stumps  or  poUices,  in  being  thus  gradually 
left  upon  the  trunk,  serve,  like  so  many  rounds  of  a  ladder, 
to  climb  up  the  tree,  either  to  fecundate  or  to  lop  it,  or  to 
gather  the  fruit,  are  quickly  supplied  with  others,  which 
gradually  hang  down  from  the  crown  or  top,  contributing 
both  to  the  regular  and  uniform  growth  of  this  tall,  knot- 
less,  and  beautiful  tree,  and  to  its  perpetual  and  delightful 
verdure. 

It  is  usual  with  persons  of  better  station,  to  entertain  their 
guests  on  days  of  joyous  festivity  with  the  honey  of  the 
palm-tree.  This  they  procure  by  cutting  off  the  head  or 
crown  of  one  of  the  more  vigorous  plants,  and  scooping 
the  top  of  the  trunk  into  the  shape  ot  a  basin,  where  the 
sap  in  ascendmg  lodges  itself,  at  the  rate  of  three  or  four 
quarts  a  day,  during  the  first  week  or  fortnight;  after 
which  the  quantity  daily  diminishes,  and  at  the  end  of  six 
weeks  or  two  months  the  juices  are  entirely  consumed,  the 
tree  becomes  dry,  and  serves  only  for  timber  or  fire- wood. 
This  liquor,  which  has  a  more  luscious  sweetness  than 
honey,  is  of  the  consistence  of  a  thin  syrup,  but  quickly 
grows  tart  and  ropy,  acquiring  an  intoxicating  quality, 
and  giving  by  distillation  an  agreeable  spirit — the  Aaraky 
of  the  natives,  and  the  palm-wine  of  the  natural  his- 
torian. 

The  palm  is  onfc  Df  the  most  beautiful  trees  in  the  vege- 
table kingdom;  it  is  upright,  lofty,  verdant,  and  embower- 
ing. It  grows  by  the  brook  or  well  of  living  water ;  and 
resisting  every  attempt  to  press  or  bend  it  downward,  shoots 
directly  towards  heaven.  For  this  reason,  perhaps,  it  was 
regarded  by  the  ancients  as  peculiarly  sacred,  and  there- 
fore most  frequently  u.v?d  in  adorning  their  temples.  The 
chosen  symbol  of  constancy,  fruitfulness,  patience,  and 
victory  ;  the  more  it  is  oppressed,  the  more  it  flourishes,  the 
higher  it  grows,  and  the  stronger  and  broader  the  top  ex- 
pands. To  ihis  majestic  and  useful  tree  the  child  of  God 
IS  compared  in  the  holy  scriptures,  with  singular  elegance 
and  propriety.  Adorned  with  the  beauties  of  holiness,  and 
rich  in  the  mercies  of  the  covenant,  fruitful  in  good  works, 
and  reposing  all  his  thoughts  in  heaven,  precious  in  the 
sight  of  God,  and  lovely  in  the  view  of  every  rational  being 
capable  of  forming  a  just  estimate  of  his  character,  he  may 
well  be  said  to  flourish  like  the  palm-tree,  and  to  grow  like 
a  cedar  in  Lebanon.  "Planted  in  the  house  of  the  Lord, 
he  shall  flourish  in  the  courts  of  our  God.  He  shall  still 
'  bring  forth  fruit  in  old  age ;  he  shall  be  fat  and  flourish- 


ing ;  to  show  that  the  Lord  is  upright ;  that  he  is  his  rock ; 
and  there  is  no  unrighteousness  in  him." — Paxton. 

"  The  wicked  spring  as  the  grass,  but  good  men  endure 
like  the  palm-tree,  and  bear  much  fruit."  "  A  grateful 
man  is  like  the  palmirah-tree ;  for  small  attentions  he  gives 
much  fruit." — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  Those  that  be  planted  in  the  house  of 
the  Lord  shall  flourish  in  the  courts  of  our 
God. 

The  being  planted  in  the  house  of  God,  or  in  its  courts, 
may  allude  to  an  ancient  custom,  still  used  in  the  East,  of 
planting  trees  in  the  courtyard  of  a  house.  Plais^^^d,  in 
his  Journal  from  Busserah  to  Aleppo,  informs  us,  tr.at  the 
people  of  Aleppo  plant  a  cypress-tree  in  the  courtyard  of 
their  houses.  Dr.  Fryer,  in  his  new  account  of  iLe  East 
Indies  and  Persia,  describes  a  nabob's  apartments  as  en- 
compassing in  the  middle  a  verdani.  quadrangle  of  trees 
and  plants.  It  is  also  observable,  that  the  Jews,  though 
forbidden  to  plant  trees  in  the  temple,  planted  them  in 
their  proseuchae,  which  were,  in  some  sort,  houses  of  God. 
— Border. 

Ver.  14.  They  shall  still  bring  forth  fruit  in  old 
age ;  they  shall  be  fat  and  flourishing. 

The  Hebrew,  instead  of  flourishing,  has,  "green!" 
Ainsworth,  "  shall  be  fat  and  green."  Of  a  very  old  man 
who  has  retained  his  strength,  the  Hindoos  say,  "  he  is  a 
GREEN  veteran."  "  See  that  palche-killavcn,  (green  old 
man,)  how  strong  he  is."  "  My  friend,  if  you  act  in  this 
way,  you  will  never  be  a  green  old  man."  A  man  who 
has  been  long  noted  for  roguery  is  called  a  patche-Jcallan,  a 
green  rogue ;  and  a  well-known  utterer  of  falsehoods,  a 
green  liar.  "  Ah  !  my  lord  !"  says  the  relieved  mendicant, 
"  in  your  old  age  you  will  be  fat  and  flourishing ;"  or,  "  You 
will  be  a  green  old  man." — Roberts. 

PSALM  CI. 
Ver.  3.  I  will  set  no  wicked  thing  before  mine 
eyes  :  I  hate  the  work  of  them  that  turn  aside ; 
it  shall  not  cleave  to  me. 

Pleasure  or  displeasure,  approbation  or  abhorrence,  may 
be  known  by  the  look,  or  the  cast  of  the  eye.  What  we 
are  pleased  and  delighted  with  attracts  and  fixes  the  eye. 
What  we  dislike  or  hate,  we  turn  away  from  the  sight  of; 
and  when  the  Psalmist  resolves  that  he  would  not  fix  his 
eyes  upon  any  evil  thing,  he  means,  he  would  never  give 
it  the  least  countenance  or  encouragement,  but  treat  it  with 
displeasure,  as  what  he  hated,  and  was  determined  to  pun- 
ish. For  he  adds,  "  I  hate  the  work  of  them  that  turn 
aside."  Mr.  Schultens  hath  shown  in  his  commentary  on 
Prov.  vii.  25,  that  r^v  hath  a  much  stronger  and  more  sig- 
nificant meaning  than  that  of  mere  turning  aside  ;  and 
that  it  is  used  of  an  unruly  horse,  that  champs  upon  the 
bit  through  his  fiery  impatience;  and  when  applied  to  a 
bad  man,  denotes  one  impatient  of  all  restraint,  of  unbridled 
passions,  and  who  is  headstrong  and  ungovernable  in  the 
gratification  of  them,  trampling  on  all  the  obligations  of 
religion  and  virtue.  Such  as  these  are  the  deserved  objects 
of  the  hatred  of  all  good  men,  whose  criminal  deviations 
and  presumptuous  crimes  they  detest ;  none  of  which  shall 
cleave  to  them ;  they  will  not  harbour  the  love  of  or  incli- 
nation to  them,  nor  habitually  commit  them,  nor  encourage 
the  practice  of  them. — Chandler. 

PSALM  CII. 

Ver.  3.  For  my  days  are  consumed  like  smoke, 
and  my  bones  are  burned  as  a  hearth. 

A  person  believing  himself  to  be  near  death,  says,  in  the 
bitterness  of  his  soul,  "  Alas  !  my  days  have  passed  away 
like  smoke ;  my  bones  are  as  a  firebrand." — Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  I  am  like  a  pelican  of  the  wilderness ;  I 
am  like  an  owl  of  the  desert. 

The  pelican  is  another  bird  of  the  desert,  to  which  the 
sacred  writers  sometimes  allude.  Its  Hebrew  name  is 
kaath,  literally,  the  vomiter  from  the  Hebrew  verb  kaath, 


406 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  102. 


Ic  vomit.  The  reason  assigned  for  this  name  by  the  an- 
cients is,  that  it  discharges  the  shells  it  had  swallowed, 
after  they  have  been  opened  by  the  heat  of  its  belly,  in  order 
-.0  pick  out  the  fish,  which  form  its  prmcipal  food.  This 
fact,  says  Bochart,  is  so  generally  attested  by  the  writers  of 
antiquity,  that  it  cannot  be  called  in  question;  and  then 
cites  a  great  number  of  authorities  in  its  support.  But  with 
all  deference  to  this  learned  writer,  it  may  be  justly  doubt- 
ed, if  this  bird  really  takes  the  shell-fish  on  which  it  feeds 
into  its  stomach,  in  the  first  instance ;  it  is  more  probable 
that  it  deposites  them  in  the  bag  or  pouch  under  its  lower 
chap,  which  serves  not  only  as  a  net  to  catch,  but  also  as  a 
repository  for  its  food.  In  feeding  its  young  ones,  (whether 
this  bag  is  loaded  with  water  or  more  solid  food,)  the  peli- 
can squeezes  the  contents  of  it  into  their  mouths,  by  strong- 
ly compressing  it  upon  its  breast  with  its  bill ;  an  action 
which  may  well  justify  the  propriety  of  the  name  which  it 
received  from  the  ancient  Hebrews.  To  the  same  habit,  it 
is  probable,  may  be  traced  the  traditionary  report,  that  the 
pelican,  in  feeding  her  young,  pierces  her  own  breast,  and 
nourishes  them  with  her  blood. 

Dr.  Shaw  contends,  that  kaath  cannot  mean  the  pelican, 
because  the  royal  Psalmist  describes  it  as  a  bird  of  the  wil- 
derness, where  that  fowl  must  necessarily  starve,  because 
its  large  webbed  feet,  and  capacious  pouch,  with  the  man- 
ner of  catching  its  food,  which  can  only  be  in  the  water, 
show  it  to  be  entirely  a  water-fowl.  But  this  objection  pro- 
ceeds on  the  supposition,  that  the  deserts  which  it  frequents 
contain  no  water,  which  is  a  mistake;  for  Ptolemy  places 
three  lakes  in  the  interior  parts  of  Marmorica,  which  is  ex- 
tremely desolate  ;  and  Moses  informs  us,  that  the  people  of 
Israel  met  with  the  waters  of  Mara,  and  the  fountains  of 
Elim,  in  the  barren  sands  of  Arabia.  Besides,  it  is  well 
known  that  a  water-fowl  often  retires  to  a  great  distance 
from  her  favourite  haunts ;  and  this  is  confirmed  by  a  fact, 
which  Parkhurst  states  from  the  writings  of  Isidore,  that 
the  pelican  inhabits  the  solitudes  of  the  Nile.  This  far- 
famed  river,  as  v/e  know  from  the  travels  of  Mr.  Bruce, 
rolls  its  flood  through  an  immense  and  frightful  desert, 
where  water-fowls  of  diiferent  kinds  undoubtedly  find  a  se- 
cure retreat.  Mr.  Bruce  himself  sprang  a  duck  in  the 
burning  wilderness,  at  a  considerable  distance  from  its 
banks,  which  immediately  winged  her  flight  towards  it;  a 
clear  proof  of  her  beiitg  familiarly  acquainted  with  its 
course.     From  this  circumstance  we  may  infer,  that  the 

Eelican  is  no  stranger  to  the  most  desert  and  inhospitable 
orders  of  the  Nile.  It  also  appears  from  Damir,  the  Ara- 
bian naturalist  quoted  by  Bochart,  that  the  pelican,  like  the 
duck  which  Bruce  found  in  the  deseit  of  Senaar,  does  not 
always  remain  in  the  water,  but  sometimes  retires  from  it 
to  a  great  distance  ;  and  indeed  its  monstrous  pouch,  which, 
according  to  Edwards,  in  his  natural  history  of  birds,  is  ca- 
pable of  receiving  twice  the  size  of  a  man's  head,  seems  to 
be  given  it  for  this  very  reason,  that  it  might  not  want  food 
for  itself  and  its  young  ones,  when  at  a  distance  from  the 
water. 

Bochart  is  of  opinion,  that  kaath,  in  some  passages  of 
scripture,  is  intended  to  express  the  bittern,  which  differs 
from  the  pelican;  by  his  own  admission,  only  in  the  form  of 
the  bill.  Thus  the  holy  Psalmist  complains,  "  I  am  like  a 
pelican  (bittern)  of  the  wilderness;  I  am  like  an  owl  of  the 
desert."  The  clear  and  consistent  exposition  of  this  pas- 
sage, he  contends,  requires  the  word  kaath  to  be  rendered 
bittern;  because  the  sacred  writer  compares  himself  to  the 
bittern  and  the  owl,  or  more  properly  the  ostrich,  on  ac- 
count of  his  groaning.  It  is  therefore  natural  to  conclude, 
that  both  these  animals  have  a  mournful  cry.  Many  rea- 
sons -have  been  advanced,  to  prove  that  the  chos,  rendered 
in  our  translation  the  owl,  is  in  reality  the  female  ostrich  ; 
of  which  this  is  one,  that  it  has  a  most  hideous  voice,  re- 
sembling, in  a  very  remarkable  manner,  the  lamentations 
of  a  human  being  in  deep  aflliction.  That  the  Psalmist 
may  be  consistent  with  himself,  the  same  thing  must  be  as- 
serted of  the  kaath,  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  admit,  if 
that  term  signified  only  the  pelican ;  for  natural  historians 
observe  a  profound  silence  in  relation  to  the  voice  of  that 
bird.  But  if  the  name  kaath  is  common  to  the  bittern  and 
the  pelican,  the  diflicully  vanishes,  for  the  former  has  a 
clear  voice.  All  the  ancient  natural  historians  agree,  that 
the  bittern,  by  inserting  its  bill  in  the  mud  of  the  marsh,  or 

filunging  it  under  water,  utters  a  most  disagreeable  cry, 
ike  the  roaring  of  a  bull,  or  the  sound  of  distant  thunder. 


But  the  opinion  of  that  celebrated  writer,  in  this  instance, 
rests  upon  a  false,  or  at  leasi  r.n  uncertain  foundation.  The 
afflicted  P.salmist  seems  to  refer,  not  so  much  to  the  plaint- 
ive voice  of  these  birds,  as  to  their  lonely  situation  in  the 
wilderness.  One  of  the  first  and  most  common  eflTects  of 
pungent  sorrow,  is  the  desire  of  solitude;  and  on  this  occa- 
sion the  royal  Psalmist,  oppressed  with  grief,  seems  to  have 
become  weary  of  society,  and  like  the  pelican,  or  the  fe- 
male ostrich,  to  have  contracted  a  relish  for  deep  retire- 
ment. Besides,  as  our  author  allows,  that  the  pelican  and 
the  bittern  difier  only  in  the  form  of  the  bill,  the  translation 
for  which  he  contends  is  of  no  real  importance;  and  it  is 
certainly  a  good  rule  to  admit  of  no  change  in  a  received 
translation,  unless  it  can  be  shown,  that  the  new  term  or 
phrase  expresses  the  meaning  of  the  original  with  greater 
justness,  propriety,  or  elegance. 

The  bird  of  night,  which,  like  the  ostrich,  delights  in  the 
desert  and  solitary  place,  is  distinguished  by  several  names 
in  the  sacred  writings.  In  the  book  of  Psalms,  it  is  men- 
tioned under  the  name  kous,  which  is  evidently  derived 
from  the  verb  kasa/i,  to  hide;  because  the  owl  constantly 
hides  herself  in  the  daytime,  and  comes  abroad  in  the 
evening.  The  Seventy,  Theodotion,  Aquila,  and  other  in- 
terpreters, render  it  vvKriKopa^,  in  English,  the  horned  owl. 
The  learned  Bochart  suspected  that  kovs  might  denote  the 
onocrotaLus,  thus  named  from  its  monstrous  cap  or  bag  un- 
der the  lower  chap.  It  must  be  admitted,  that  kous  might 
properly  enough  be  given  as  a  name  to  that  bird,  from  this 
extraordinary  circumstance  in  its  form ;  but  after  the  most 
diligent  inquiry,  the  writer  has  not  been  able  to  discover 
any  diflJerence  between  the  pelican  of  the  ancients,  and  the 
onocrotalus ;  and  as  kaath  is  mentioned  in  the  same  con- 
texts with  kous,  and  rendered  in  the  ancient  versions  either 
the  pelican  or  o7wcrotalus,  kous,  in  his  opinion,  must  have 
a  different  meaning.  This  idea  receives  no  little  confirm- 
ation from  a  passage  in  the  hundred  and  second  Psalm,  where 
kous  is  followed  in  construction  by  haraboth,  and  signifies 
kous,  not  of  the  desert,  as  we  render  it,  but  of  the  desolate 
or  ruined  buildings;  which  exactly  corresponds  with  the 
habits  of  the  owl,  but  does  not  seem  so  applicable  to  the 
onocrotalus,  or  pelican.  Buflbn  calls  the  horned  owl  the 
eagle  of  the  night,  and  the  sovereign  of  that  tribe  of  birds 
which  shun  the  light  of  day,  and  never  fly  but  in  the  even- 
ing, or  after  it  is  dark.  But,  as  a  description  of  it  is  con- 
nected with  the  illustration  of  no  passage  of  scripture,  it 
falls  not  within  the  design  of  this  work.  The  voice  of  the 
horned  owl  is  said  to  be  frightful,  and  is  often  heard  re- 
sounding in  the  silence  of  night ;  which  is  the  season  of  his 
activity,  when  he  flies  abroad  in  search  of  his  prey.  He 
inhabits  the  lonely  rocks  or  deserted  towers  on  the  sides  of 
the  mountains;  he  seldom  descends  into  the  plain,  and 
never  willingly  perches  upon  trees.  The  dreary  and  fright- 
ful note  of  the  owl  sounding  along  the  desert,  and  alarming 
or  terrifying  the  birds  that  are  reposing  in  their  nests,  rep- 
resents, in  a  very  striking  manner,  the  deep  and  lonely  af- 
flictions of  the  royal  Psalmist,  and  the  affecting  complaints 
which  his  distresses  wrung  from  his  bosom. 

Yansuph  is  another  term  which  our  translators  render 
the  owl ;  it  occurs  only  three  times  in  the  sacred  volume, 
and  is  derived  from  the  verb  tiashaph,  to  blow,  or  from  ne- 
sheph,  the  twilight  or  the  dawn.  It  is  supposed  to  denote  a 
species  of  owl,  which  flies  about  in  the  twilight ;  and  is  the 
same  as  the  twilight  bird.  But  of  this  interpretation  Park- 
hurst disapproves,  contending,  that  since  the  yansuph  is 
clearly  mentioned  by  Moses  among  the  water-fowls,  and 
the  Seventy  have  in  two  passages  rendered  it  by  ibis,  it 
should  seem  to  mean  some  kind  of  water-fowl,  resembling 
the  bird  of  that  nam.e;  and  from  its  derivation,  remarkable 
for  its  blowing.  And  of  such  birds,  he  says,  the  most  emi- 
nent seems  to  be  the  bittern,  which,  in  the  north  of  Eng- 
land, is  called  the  mire-drum,  from  the  noise  it  niakes, 
which  may  be  heard  a  long  way  off".  But  the  opinion  of 
Bochart,  that  it  denotes  the  owl,  is  more  probable ;  because 
the  owl  delights  in  the  silent  desert,  where  little  or  no  wa- 
ter is  to  be  found ;  while  the  ibis  is  an  aquatic  bird,  whose 
instincts  lead  it  to  the  lake,  or  running  stream.  In  the 
thirty-fourth  chapter  of  Isaiah,  the  yansuph  is  mentioned  as 
frequenting  the  desolated  land  of  Edom,  which,  according 
to  Dr.  Shaw,  is  remarkably  destitute  of  water,  and  by  con- 
sequence, quite  improper  "for  the  abode  of  a  water- fowl, 
which  feeds  on  fish.  It  is  admittted  that  the  kaath,  or  peli- 
can, another  water-fowl,  is  mentioned  in  the  same  text 


Ps.  102—104. 


PSALMS. 


407 


with  yansuph ;  that  all  the  larger  water-fowls  are  extreme- 
ly shy ;  that  they  sometimes  build  their  nests  in  retired 
places,  a  long  way  from  the  water  where  they  seek  their 
food ;  and  that  even  the  common  heron  will  come  at  least 
twelv^e  or  fourteen  miles,  and  perhaps  much  farther,  from 
her  usual  residence,  to  the  lakes  and  streams  which  abound 
with  fish.  But  no  argument  can  be  founded  on  the  ar- 
rangements of  scripture,  in  matters  of  this  kind ;  because 
the  inspired  writers  do  not  always  observe  a  strict  order, 
or  scientific  classification.  It  ought  also  to  be  remember- 
ed, that  in  the  passage  quoted  from  Isaiah,  the  yansuph  is 
connected  with  the  raven,  which  is  not  an  aquatic  bird. 
The  owl  and  the  raven  are  associated  with  greater  propri- 
ety in  scenes  of  desolation,  to  which  they  have  been  assign- 
ed by  the  common  suffrage  of  mankind,  and  accordingly  re- 
garded as  inauspicious  birds,  and  objects  of  fear  and  aver- 
sion : — 

"Foedaque  fit  volucris  venturi  nuntia  luctus 
Ignavus  bubo  dirum  mortalibus  omen." — Ovid. 

The  presence  of  the  owl  and  the  raven,  two  hateful  birds, 
in  company  with  the  cormorant  and  the  bittern,  greatly 
heighten  the  general  effect  of  the  picture  delineated  by  the 
prophet:  "  But  the  cormorant  and  the  bittern  shall  possess 
It;  the  owl  also  and  the  raven  shall  dwell  in  it;  and  he 
shall  stretch  out  upon  it  the  line  of  confusion,  and  the  stones 
of  emptiness." — Paxton. 

Ver.  7.  1  watch,  and  am  as  a  sparrow  alone  upon 
the  house-top. 

Brookes  says  of  this  bird,  "  It  usually  sits  alone  on  the 
tops  of  old  buildings  and  roofs  of  churches,  singing  very 
sweetly,  especially  in  the  morning ;  and  is  an  oriental  bird." 
— Border. 

The  sparrow  has  been  considered  by  some  interpreters 
as  a  solitary  moping  bird,  which  loves  to  dwell  on  the 
house-top  alone  ;  and  so  timid,  that  she  endeavours  to  con- 
ceal herself  in  the  darkest  corners,  and  passes  the  night  in 
sleepless  anxiety.  Hence  they  translate  the  words  of  the 
Psalmist :  "  I  watch,  and  am  as  a  sparrow  alone  upon  the 
house-top."  But  her  character  and  manners  by  no  means 
agree  with  their  description.  She  is  a  pert,  loquacious, 
bustling  creature,  which,  instead  of  courting  the  dark  and 
solitary  corner,  is  commonly  found  chirping  and  fluttering 
about  in  the  crowd.  The  term  in  this  text,  therefore,  must 
be  understood  in  its  general  sense,  and  probably  refers  to 
some  variety  of  the  owl.  Jerome  renders  it,  I  was  as  a  sol- 
itary bird  on  the  roof  The  Hebrew  text  contains  nothing 
which  can  with  propriety  suggest  the  sparrow,  or  any  sim- 
ilar bird;  and  indeed,  nothing  seems  to  be  more  remote 
from  the  mind  of  David :  all  the  circumstances  seem  to 
indicate  some  bird  of  the  night;  for  the  Psalmist,  bending 
under  a  load  of  severe  afl^^iction,  shuns  the  society  of  men, 
and  mingles  his  unceasing  groans  and  lamentations  with 
the  mournful  hootings  of  those  solitary  birds  which  disturb 
the  lonely  desert.  "  By  reason  of  the  voice  of  my  groaning, 
my  bones  cleave  to  my  skin ;  I  am  like  a  pefican  of  the 
wilderness;  I  am  like  an  owl  of  the  desert."  He  then  pro- 
ceeds with  his  comparison :  "  I  watch,  and  am  as  a  bird 
upon  the  house-top  alone  ;"  I  watch,  that  is,  I  have  spent  a 
sleepless  night:  or,  as  it  is  paraphrased  in  the  Chaldee,  I 
have  watched  the  whole  night  long,  without  once  closing 
my  eyes.  Every  part  of  this  description  directs  our  atten- 
tion to  some  nocturnal  bird,  which  hates  the  light,  and 
comes  forth  from  its  hiding-place  when  the  shadows  of 
evening  fall,  to  hunt  the  prey,  and  from  the  top  of  some 
ruined  tower,  to  tell  its  joys  or  its  sorrows  to  a  slumbering 
world.  But,  with  what  propriety  can  the  sparrow  be  called 
a  solitary  bird,  when  it  is  gregarious,  and,  so  far  from  lov- 
ing solitude,  builds  her  nest  in  the  roofs  of  our  dwellings  7 
Natural  historians  mention  two  kinds  of  this  bird,  one  do- 
mestic, and  the  other  wild.  But  the  wild  sparrow  does  not 
repair  for  shelter,  like  her  relative,  mentioned  by  David,  to 
the  human  dwelling;  she  never  takes  her  station  on  the 
house-top,  but  seeks  a  home  in  her  native  woods.  If  the 
allusion,  therefore,  be  made  to  the  sparrow,  it  must  be  to 
the  domestic,  not  to  the  wild  species.  It  is  in  vain  to  argue, 
that  the  domestic  sparrow  may  be  called  solitary,  when  she 
is  deprived  of  her  mate ;  for  she  does  not,  like  the  turtle, 
when  she  loses  her  spouse,  remain  in  a  state  of  inconsola- 
ble widowhood,  but  accepts,  without  reluctance,  the  first 
companion  that  solicits  her  affections.    Hence  the  Psalm- 


ist undoubtedly  refers  to  some  species  of  the  owl,  whose 
dreary  note  and  solitary  dispositions,  are  celebrated  by 
almost  every  poet  of  antiquity.— Paxton. 

Ver.  1 1.  My  days  a/re  like  a  shadow  that  declineth ; 
and  I  am  withered  like  grass. 

"  My  days  are  like  the  declining  shadow,"  says  the  old 
man:  "my  shadow  is  fast  declining:"  sirjanthu,  siyanthu, 
declining,  declining.  "  I  am  withered."  Indran,  the  king 
of  heaven,  said  of  himself  and  others.  They  were  vnthcred 
by  the  mandates  of  Sooran.  "  Alas !  his  face  and  heart 
are  withered."  "  My  heart  is  withered,  I  cannot  eat  my 
food."  "  Sorrow,  not  age,  has  withered  my  face."  "  Alas ! 
how  soon  this  blossom  has  withered." — Roberts, 

Ver.  26.  They  shall  perish,  but  thou  shall  endure; 
yea,  all  of  them  shall  wax  old  like  a  garment ; 
as  a  vesture  shall  thou  change  them,  and  they 
shall  be  changed. 

It  is  reckoned  in  the  East,  according  to  Dr.  Pococke,  a 
mark  of  respect  often  to  change  their  garments,  in  the 
time  of  a  visit  for  a  night  or  two.  He  expresses  himself, 
however,  with  obscurity  and  some  uncertainty;  but  it  is 
made  certain  by  the  accounts  of  other  travellers,  that  it  is 
a  matter  of  state  and  magnificence.  So  Thevenot  tells  us, 
that  when  he  saw  the  grand  seignior  go  to  the  new  mosque, 
he  was  clad  in  a  satin  doliman  of  a  flesh  colour,  and  a  vest 
of  almost  the  same  colour;  but  when  he  had  said  his 
prayers,  then  he  changed  his  vest,  and  put  on  one  of  a 
particular  kind  of  green.  At  another  time  he  went  to  the 
mosque  in  a  vest  of  crimson  velvet,  but  returned  in  one  of 
a  fired  satin.  To  this  frequent  change  of  vestments  among 
the  great,  possibly  the  Psalmist  alludes,  when,  speaking  of 
the  Lord  of  all,  he  says.  The  heavens,  unchangeable  as 
they  are,  when  compared  with  the  productions  of  the  earth, 
shall  perish,  while  he  shall  remain ;  yea,  they  shall  be  laid 
aside,  in  comparison  of  his  immortality,  as  soon  as  a  gar- 
ment grows  old  ;  or  rather,  this  change  which  they  shall 
undergo,  shall  come  on  more  speedily,  with  respect  to  his 
eternity,  than  the  laying  aside  of  a  vestment  which  kings 
and  princes  change  often  in  a  day.  The  changing  of 
clothes  is  a  piece  of  eastern  magnificence :  how  wonder- 
fully sublime,  then,  in  this  view,  is  this  representation  of 
the  grandeur  of  God,  "  Thou  shalt  change  these  heavens  as 
a  prince  changes  his  vesture," — Harmer, 

PSALM  cm. 

Ver.  15,  As  for  man,  his  days  are  as  grass;  as  a 

flower  of  the  field,  so  he  flourisheth. 
See  on  2  Kings  19.  7. 

Ver.  16.  For  the  wind  passeth  over  it,  and  it  is 

gone ;  and  the  place  thereof  shall  know  it  no 

more. 
See  on  Est.  1.  5,  6. 

PSALM  CIV. 
Ver.  2.  Who  coverest  thyself  with  light  as  with 

a  garment ;  who  stretchest  out  the  heavens  like 

a  curtain. 

It  is  usual  in  the  summer  season,  and  upon  all  occasions 
when  a  large  company  is  to  be  received,  to  have  the  court 
of  the  house  (which  is  the  middle  of  an  open  square)  shel- 
tered from  the  heat  of  the  weather  by  an  umbrella  or  veil, 
which,  being  expanded  upon  ropes  from  one  side  of  the 
parapet-wall  to  the  other,  may  be  folded  or  unfolded  at 
pleasure.  The  Psalmist  seems  to  allude  to  some  covering 
of  this  kind  in  that  beautiful  expression  of  "  stretching  out 
the  heavens  like  a  curtain." — Shaw. 

Ver.  10.  He  sendeth  the  springs  into  the  valleys, 
^chich  run  among  the  hills.  11.  They  give 
drink  to  every  beast  of  the  field :  the  wild  asses 
quench  their  thirst. 

See  on  Job  39.  5. 


408 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  104. 


Ver.  17.  Where  the  birds  make  their  nests:  as 
^-       for  the  stork,  the  fir-trees  are  her  house. 

This  bird  has  long  been  celebrated  for  her  amiable  and 
pious  disposition,  in  which  she  has  no  rival  among  the 
feathered  race.  Her  Hebrew  name  is  chasida,  which  sig- 
nifies pious  or  benign ;  to  the  honour  of  which,  her  char- 
acter and  habits,  as  described  by  the  pen  of  antiquity, 
prove  her  to  be  fully  entitled.  Her  kind,  benevolent  tem- 
per, she  discovers  in  feeding  her  parents  in  the  time  of 
incubation,  when  they  have  not  leisure  to  seek  their  food, 
or  when  they  have  become  old,  and  unable  to  provide  for 
themselves.  This  attention  of  the  stork  to  her  parents  is 
confirmed  by  the  united  voice  of  antiquity;  and  we  find 
nothing  in  the  scriptures  to  invalidate  the  testimony.  She 
was  classed  by  the  Jewish  lawgiver  among  the  unclean 
birds,  probably  because  she  feeds  on  serpents,  and  other 
venomous  animals,  and  rears  her  young  by  means  of  the 
same  species  of  food.  In  the  challenge  which  the  Almighty 
addressed  to  Job,  the  wings  and  feathers  of  the  ostrich  are 
compared  with  those  of  the  stork:  "Gavest  thou  the  goodly 
wings  unto  the  peacocks,  or  wings  and  feathers  unto  the 
ostrich  ;"  or,  as  it  is  rendered  by  the  learned  Bochart,  and 
after  him  by  Dr.  Shaw,  "the  plumage  of  the  stork."  Nat- 
ural historians  inform  us,  that  the  wings  are  tipped  with 
black,  and  a  part  of  the  head  and  thighs  are  adorned  with 
feathers  of  the  same  colour  ;  the  rest  of  the  body  is  white. 
Albert  says,  the  stork  has  black  wings,  the  tail  and  other 
parts  white;  while  Turner  asserts,  that  the  wings  are  white, 
spotted  with  black.  From  these  diflferent  accounts,  it  is 
evident  that  the  feathers  of  the  stork  are  black  and  white, 
and  not  always  disposed  in  the  same  manner.  She  con- 
structs her  nest  with  admirable  skill,  of  dry  twigs  from  the 
forest,  and  coarse  grass  from  the  marsh;  but  wisely  yield- 
ing to  circumstances,  she  does  not  confine  herself  to  one 
situation.  At  one  time  she  selects  for  her  dwelling  the 
pinnacle  of  a  deserted  tower,  or  the  canal  of  an  ancient 
aqueduct ;  at  another,  the  roof  of  a  church  or  dwelling- 
house.  She  frequently  retires  from  the  noise  and  bustle  of 
the  town,  into  the  circumjacent  fields;  but  she  never  builds 
her  nest  on  the  ground.  She  chooses  the  highest  tree  of 
the  forest  for  her  dwelling;  but  always  prefers  the  fir, 
when  it  is  equally  suitable  to  her  purpose.  This  fact  is 
clearly  stated  by  the  Psalmist,  in  his  meditation  on  the 

Eower  of  God :  "  As  for  the  stork,  the  fir-trees  are  her 
ouse."  In  another  passage,  the  Psalmist  calls  the  nest  of 
the  sparrow  her  house :  "  Yea,  the  sparrow  hath  found  a 
house,  and  the  swallow  a  nest  for  herself,  where  she  may 
lay  her  young."  But  the  term  house  is  not  used  in  these 
passages,  merely  by  a  figure  of  speech ;  if  the  descrip- 
tion of  ancient  writers  be  true,  it  is  in  every  respect  the 
most  proper  and  expressive  that  can  be  selected.  The 
stork  chooses  the  site  of  her  dwelling  with  much  care  and 
intelligence ;  she  combines  her  materials  with  great  art, 
and  prosecutes  her  plan  with  surprising  exactness.  After 
the  structure  is  finished,  she  examines  it  on  all  sides,  tries 
its  firmness  and  solidity,  supplies  any  defect  she  may  dis- 
cover, and  with  admirable  industry,  reduces  with  her  bill 
an  unsightly  projection,  or  ill-adjusted  twig,  till  it  perfectly 
corresponds  with  her  instinctive  conception  of  safety,  neat- 
ness, and  comfort. 

The  inspired  writer  alludes  to  this  bird,  with  an  air  of 
constant  and  intimate  acquaintance :  "  As  for  the  stork, 
the  fir-tree  is  her  house."  "We  learn  from  the  narrative  of 
Doubdan,  that  the  fields  between  Cana  and  Nazareth  are 
covered  with  numerous  flocks  of  them,  each  flock  contain- 
ing, according  to  his  computation,  more  than  a  thousand. 
In  some  parts,  the  ground  is  entirely  whitened  by  them ; 
and  on  the  wing  they  darken  the  air  like  a  congeries  of 
clouds.  At  the  approach  of  evening,  they  retire  to  roost 
on  the  trees.  The  inhabitants  carefully  abstain  from  hurt- 
ing them,  on  account  of  their  important  services  in  clearing 
the  country  of  venomous  animals.  The  annual  migration 
of  this  bird  did  not  escape  the  notice  of  the  prophet  Jere- 
miah, who  employs  it  with  powerful  eflfect  for  the  purpose 
of  exposing  the  stupidity  of  God's  ancient  people  :  "  Yea, 
the  stork  in  the  heaven  knoweth  her  appointed  time,  and 
the  turtle,  the  crane,  and  the  swallow,  observe  the  time  of 
their  coming;  but  my  people  know  not  the  judgment  of  the 
Lerd."  They  know,  with  unerring  precision,  the  time 
whea  il  is  necessary  for  them  to  remove  from  one  place  to 
anolhei,  and  the  region  whither  they  are  to  bend  their 


flight ;  but  the  people  of  God,  that  received  many  special 
revelations  from  heaven,  and  enjoyed  the  cgnti'nual  in- 
structions of  his  prophets,  had  become  so  depraved,  that 
they  neither  understood  the  meaning  of  mercies  nor  judg- 
ments ;  they  knew  not  how  to  accommodate  themselves  to 
either,  nor  to  answer  the  design  of  heaven  in  such  dispen- 
sations ;  they  knew  not  the  signs  of  their  times,  nor  what 
they  ought  to  do.  The  stork,  that  had  neither  instructer  to 
guide  her,  nor  reason  to  reflect,  and  judgment  to  deter- 
mine, what  was  proper  to  be  done,  found  no  difiiculty  in  j 
discerning  the  precise  time  of  her  departure  and  return. —  j 
Paxton,  ' 

Ver.  18.  The  high  hills  are  a  refuge  for  the  wild  ; 
goats,  and  the  rocks  for  the  conies. 

The  wild  goat,  or  ibex,  belongs  to  the  same  species  with 
the  domestic  goat,  and  exhibits  nearly  the  same  character 
and  dispositions.  His  Hebrew  name,  yaala,  from  a  verb 
which  signifies  to  ascend,  indicates  one  of  the  strongest 
habits  implanted  in  his  nature,  to  scale  the  loftiest  pinnacle 
of  the  rock,  and  the  highest  ridge  of  the  mountains.  He 
takes  his  station  on  the  edge  of  the  steep,  and  seems  to  de- 
light in  gazing  on  the  gulf  below,  or  surveying  the  immense 
void  before  him.  Those  frightful  precipices  which  are  in- 
accessible to  man,  and  other  animals,  where  the  most 
adventurous  hunter  dares  not  follow  him,  are  his  favourite 
haunts.  He  sleeps  on  their  brow ;  he  sports  on  their  small- 
est projections,  secure  from  the  attack  of  his  enemies. 
These  facts  were  observed  by  the  shepherds  of  the  East, 
recorded  by  the  pen  of  inspiration,  and  celebrated  in  the 
songs  of  Zion :  "  The  high  hills  are  a  refuge  for  the  wild 
goats."  In  the  expostulation  which  Jehovah  addressed  to 
Job,  they  are  called  "  the  wild  goats  of  the  rock  ;"  because 
it  is  the  place  which  the  Creator  has  appointed  for  their 
proper  abode,  and  to  which  he  has  adapted  all  their  dispo- 
sitions and  habits.  The  dreary  and  frightful  precipices, 
which  frown  over  the  Dead  Sea,  towards  the  wilderness  of 
Engedi,  the  inspired  historian  of  David's  life  calls  em- 
phatically "  the  rocks  of  the  wild  goats,"  as  if  accessible 
only  to  those  animals. 

The  ibex  is  distinguished  by  the  size  of  his  horns.  No 
creature,  says  Gesner,  has  horns  so  large  as  those  of  the 
mountain  goat,  for  they  reach  from  his  head  as  far  as  hi.s 
buttocks.  Long  before  his  time,  Pliny  remarked,  that  the 
ibex  is  a  creature  of  wonderful  swiftness,  although  its  head 
is  loaded  with  vast  horns.  According  to  Scaliger,  the  horns 
of  an  elderly  goat  are  sometimes  eighteen  pounds  weighty 
and  marked  by  twenty-four  circular  prominences,  the  indi- 
cations of  as  many  years.  The  horns  of  the  ibex,  accord- 
ing to  the  Chaldee  interpreter,  are  mentioned  by  the  prophet 
among  the  valuable  commodities  which  enriched  the  mer- 
chants of  Tyre,  in  the  days  of  her  prosperity:  "  The  men 
of  Dedan  were  thy  merchants ;  many  isles  were  the  mer- 
chandise of  thy  hand  ;  they  brought  thee  for  a  present, 
horns  of  ivory  and  ebony."  It  is  certain  that  the  horns  of 
this  animal  were  greatly  esteemed  among  the  ancients,  on 
account  of  the  various  useful  purposes  to  which  they  were 
converted.  The  Cretan  archers  had  them  manufactured 
into  bows ;  and  the  votaries  of  Bacchus,  into  large  ciips, 
one  of  which,  says  jElian,  could  easily  hold  three  measures. 
The  conjecture  of  Bochart  is  therefore  extremely  probable, 
that  the  I'laXo?  of  Homer,  is  the  ibex  of  the  Latins  ;  for  hf 
calls  it  a  wild  goat,  says  that  it  was  taken  among  the  rocks 
and  had  horns  of  sixteen  palms,  of  which  the  bow  of  Pan 
darus  was  fabricated.  We  may  conclude  from  the  wisdon* 
and  goodness  of  God,  which  shine  conspicuously  in  all  his 
works,  that  the  enormous  horns  of  the  ibex  are  not  a  use- 
less encumbrance,  but,  in  some  respects,  necessary  to  its 
safety  and  comfort.  The  Arabian  writers  aver,  that  when 
it  sees  the  hunter  approach  the  top  of  the  rock,  where  it 
happens  to  have  taken  its  station,  and  has  no  other  way  of 
escape,  turning  on  its  back,  it  throws  itself  down  the  preci- 
pice, at  once  defended  by  its  long  bending  horns  from  the 
projections  of  the  rock,  and  saved  from  being  dashe^^  in 
pieces,  or  even  hurt  by  the  fall.  The  opinion  of  Pliny  is 
more  worthy  of  credit,"  that  the  horns  of  the  ibex  serve  as  a 
poise  to  its  body  in  its  perilous  excursions  among  the  pre- 
cipitous rocks,  or  when  it  attempts  to  leap  from  one  crag  to 
another.  The  feats  which  it  is  said  to  perform  among  ihe 
Alpine  summits,  are  almost  incredible;  one  fact,  however, 
seems  to  be  certain,  that  in  bounding  from  one  height  to 


Ps.  104. 


PSALMS. 


409 


another,  it  far  surpasses  all  the  other  varieties  of  the  spe- 
cies. To  hunt  the  ibex  has  been  justly  reckoned  a  most 
Eerilous  enterprise,  which  frequently  terminates  in  the 
unter's  destruction.  These  facts  place  in  a  very  strong 
light  the  extreme  dangers  which  at  one  time  compelled 
David  to  seek  a  refuge  from  the  pursuit  of  his  infatuated 
father-in-law,  among  the  rocks  of  the  wild  goats ;  and,  at 
the  same  time,  the  bitter  and  implacable  spirit  which, 
prompted  Saul  to  follow  him  in  places  so  full  of  peril. 

The  Hebrew  name  of  the  cony  is  derived  from  a  verb 
which  signifies  to  hide,  and  seems  to  indicate  a  creature  of 
a  timid  and  harmless  disposition.  Unable  to  avoid  or  en- 
counter the  various  dangers  to  which  it  would  be  exposed 
in  the  plain,  it  seeks  a  shelter  among  the  rocks,  in  the  fis- 
sures of  which  it  hides  itself  from  the  pursuit  of  its  ene- 
mies. This  circumstance  is  attested  by  the  sacred  writer, 
in  one  of  the  songs  of  Zion :  "  The  high  hills  are  a  refuge 
for  the  wild  goats,  and  the  rocks  for  the  (s^jstf)  shaphans." 
The  choice  which  the  shaphan  makes  of  the  rock  for  the 
place  of  its  abode,  is  mentioned  by  Solomon  as  a  proof  of 
sagacity :  "  The  shaphans  are  but  a  feeble  folk,  yet  make 
they  their  houses  in  the  rocks."  It  is  evident  from  these 
words  also,  that  the  shaphan  is  a  gregarious  animal,  al- 
though they  afford  us  no  hint  from  which  the  numbers 
which  constitute  their  little  communities  may  be  inferred. 
To  what  particular  animal  the  name  shaphan  really  be- 
longs, has  been  much  disputed  among  the  learned.  In 
our  version  it  is  rendered  by  the  word  cony  or  rabbit ;  in 
which  our  translators  have  followed  the  greater  part  of 
modern  interpreters.  Several  circumstances  seem  to  fa- 
vour this  interpretation ;  it  is  twice  connected  in  the  law 
of  Moses  with  the  hare,  as  if  it  were  a  kindred  animal ; 
the  noun  in  the  plural  is  rendered  hare  by  the  Seventy,  in 
which  they  have  been  followed  by  many  ancient  inter- 
preters of  great  name  :  the  meaning  of  shaphan  seems  to 
correspond  with  the  timidity  of  the  rabbit;  and  it  is  certain 
that  the  Rabbinical  writers  formerly  interpreted  the  origi- 
nal word  in  this  manner.  Besides,  the  rabbit  is  a  gregari- 
ous animal,  of  a  diminutive  size,  and  found  in  great  num- 
bers in  the  plain  of  Jericho.  But  these  facts  are  not 
sufficient  to  establish  the  point  for  which  they  are  brought 
forward ;  for,  instead  of  seeking  a  habitation  in  the  fissures 
of  the  rocks,  the  rabbit  delights  to  burrow  in  the  sandy 
downs.  Sometimes,  indeed,  he  digs  a  receptacle  for  him- 
self in  rocky  eminences,  where  the  openings  are  filled  with 
earth,  but  he  generally  prefers  a  dwelling  in  the  sand,  a 
situation  for  which  he  is  evidently  formed  by  nature.  The 
words  of  David  clearly  show,  that  the  instincts  and  habits 
of  the  shaphan,  as  naturally  and  constantly  lead  him  to 
the  rocks  for  shelter,  as  those  of  his  associate  impel  him  to 
rove  among  the  mountains.  He  does  not  allude  to  an  occa- 
sional residence,  but  to  a  fixed  and  permanent  abode  ;  not 
to  the  wanderings  of  a  few,  but  to  the  habitual  choice  of  a 
whole  species.  But  the  rabbit  as  uniformly  seeks  the 
sandy  plain,  as  the  wild  goat  the  summit  of  the  mountain. 
The  shaphan,  according  to  Solomon,  discovers  great  wis- 
dom and  sagacity  in  retiring  from  the  plain  country,  to  the 
natural  fastness  which  the  almighty  Creator  has  provided 
for  its  reception ;  but  it  is  no  mark  of  wisdom  in  the  rabbit, 
that  he  forsakes  occasionally  the  sandy  plain,  which  he  is 
naturally  formed  to  occupy,  and  retires  to  the  rocks,  which 
are  so  little  suited  to  his  habits  and  manners.  This  is  an 
act  of  rashness  or  folly,  not  of  wisdom.  The  wise  man  is 
also  noting  the  sagacity  of  a  whole  species,  not  of  a  ram- 
bling individual;  but  the  species  is  to  be  found  on  the 
plain,  not  among  the  rocks.  Nor  is  the  rabbit  a  feeble 
creature  ;  he  runs  with  considerable  swiftness ;  and  he  is 
provided  with  the  means  of  digging  his  burrow,  which  he 
employs  with  so  great  energy,  particularly  when  alarmed 
by  the  approach  of  danger,  that  he  buries  himself  in  the 
sand  with  surprising  rapidity.  To  exert  his  strength,  ac- 
cording to  existing  circumstances,  is  all  the  sagacity  which 
he  discovers  ;  and  this,  it  must  be  admitted,  is  not  peculiar 
to  him,  but  common  to  the  hare,  the  hedgehog,  and  many 
other  animals.  He  betrays  no  foresight,  except  in  prepa- 
ring his  dwelling,  and  he  is  never  known  to  supply  the 
want  of  strength  by  any  contrivance.  The  shaphan,  as 
described  both  by  David  and  Solomon,  exhibits  a  very  dif- 
ferent character,  and  therefore  cannot  be  the  same  animal. 
But  if  we  apply  these  characters  to  the  daman  Israel,  or, 
as  Mr.  Bruce  calls  it,  the  ashkoko,  the  identity  of  this  ani- 
jnal  with  the  shaphan  of  the  scriptures  will  instantly 
53 


appear :  "  The  daman  is  a  harmless  creature,  of  the  same 
size  and  quality  with  the  rabbit,  and  with  the  like  incur- 
vating  posture  and  disposition  of  the  fore-teeth.  But  it  is 
of  a  browner  colour,  with  smaller  eyes,  and  a  head  more 
pointed,  like  the  marmot's  ;  the  forefeet  likewise  are  short, 
and  the  hinder  are  nearly  as  long  in  proportion  as  those 
of  the  jerboa.  Though  this  animal  is  known  sometimes 
to  burrow  in  the  ground,  yet  he  is  so  much  attached  to 
the  rock,  that  he  is  seldom  or  never  seen  on  the  ground, 
or  from  among  large  stones  in  the  mouth  of  caves,  where 
he  fixes  his  constant  residence.  He  is  gregarious,  as  the 
wise  man  intimates,  and  lives  in  families ;  he  is  a  native 
of  Judea,  Palestine,  and  Arabia,  and  consequently,  must 
have  been  familiar  to  Solomon,  and  other  inspired  writers. 
The  royal  Psalmist,  in  a  passage  already  quoted,  describes 
him  with  great  propriety,  and  joins  him  with  other  animals, 
which  were  perfectly  known  in  that  country.  Solomon 
favours  us  with  a  more  detailed  account  of  his  character: 
"  There  be  four  things  which  are  little  upon  the  earth,  but 
they  are  exceeding  wise  ;  the  sephanim  are  a  feeble  folk, 
yet  make  they  their  houses  in  the  rocks."  This  exactly 
corresponds  with  the  character  which  natural  historians 
give  us  of  the  daman  Israel,  which  they  represent  as 
equally  feeble  in  body  and  temper.  The  toes  of  his  fore- 
feet very  much  resemble  the  fingers  of  the  human  hand ; 
his  feet  are  perfectly  round,  very  pulpy  or  fleshy,  liable  to 
be  excoriated  or  hurt,  and  of  a  soft  fleshy  substance.  They 
are  quite  inadequate  to  dig  holes  in  the  ground,  much 
more  to  force  their  way  into  the  hard  rock.  Unable  or 
afraid  to  stand  upright  on  his  feet,  he  steals  along  every 
moment  as  it  were  apprehensive  of  danger,  his  belly  al- 
most close  to  the  ground,  advancing  a  few  steps  at  a  time, 
and  then  pausing,  as  if  afraid  or  uncertain  whether  he 
should  proceed.  His  whole  appearance  and  behaviour  in- 
dicate a  mild,  feeble,  and  timia  disposition  ;  which  is  con- 
firmed by  the  ease  with  which  he  is  lamed.  Conscious  as 
it  were  of  his  total  inability  to  dig  in  the  ground,  or  to 
mingle  with  the  sterner  beasts  of  the  field,  he  builds  his 
house  on  rocks,  more  inaccessible  than  those  to  which  the 
cony  retires,  and  in  which  he  resides  in  greater  safety,  not 
by  exertions  of  strength,  for  he  has  it  not,  but  by  his  own 
sagacily  and  judgment.  Solomon  has  therefore  justly  char- 
acterized him  as  "  a  feeble  animal,  but  exceeding  wise." 

The  Arabian  writers  confound  the  daman  Israel  with 
the  jerboa,  which  seems  to  be  a  species  of  rat.  It  ruminates, 
builds  its  house  on  the  rocks,  or  digs  its  abode  in  the 
ground,  but  always  in  some  high  and  rocky  place,  where  it 
may  be  safe  from  the  influx  of  waters,  and  the  foot  of  the 
wild  beast.  If  we  may  believe  tlie  Arabic  writer  quoted  by 
Bochart,  these  diminutive  animals  discover  no  little  saga- 
city in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs,  particularly  in  appoint- 
ing a  leader,  whose  business  it  is  to  give  them  notice  on  the 
approach  of  danger,  and  who  in  case  of  neglect  is  punished 
with  death,  and  succeeded  by  another  more  attentive  to 
their  safety.  Mr.  Bruce,  on  the  contrary,  contends  with 
great  earnestness,  that  the  habits  of  the  jerboa  are  quite 
diflferent  from  those  which  Solomon  ascribes  to  the  sha- 
phan ;  he  asserts,  that  the  jerboa  always  digs  his  habita- 
tion in  the  smoother  places  of  the  desert,  especially  where 
the  soil  is  fixed  gravel ;  for  in  that  chiefly  he  burrows, 
dividing  his  hole  below  into  many  mansions.  He  is  not 
gregarious,  like  the  shaphan,  nor  is  he  distinguished  for  his 
feebleness,  which  he  supplies  by  his  wisdom.  Although, 
therefore,  he  ruminates  in  common  with  some  other  ani- 
mals, and  abounds  in  Judea,  he  cannot  be  the  shaphan  of 
the  scripture.  Hence,  it  is  probable,  that  the  Arabian  wri- 
ters improperly  confounded  the  daman  Israel,  or  shaphan, 
and  the  jerboa;  and  it  may  be  considered  as  nearly  certain, 
that  the  shaphan  of  Solomon  is  not  the  rabbit,  but  the  daman 
Israel,  which,  though  bearing  some  resemblance  to  it,  is  an 
animal  of  a  different  species. — Paxton. 

Ver.  20.  Thou  makest  darkness,  and  it  is  night, 
wherein  all  the  beasts  of  the  forest  do  creep 
forth. 

Immediately  after  landing,  we  hired  horses  to  conduct 
us  to  Fanskog,  ten  miles  and  a  half,  where  we  arrived  at 
so  neat  an  inn,  and  were  withal  so  subdued  by  want  of  sleep 
and  fatigue,  that  we  rested  for  a  few  hours,  writing  our 
journals  without  candles  half  an  hour  after  midnight,  by  a 
light  that  could  not  be  called  twilight;  it  was  ratherlhe 


410 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  105—110. 


glare  of  noon,  being  reflected  so  strongly  from  the  walls 
and  houses,  that  it  was  painful  io  our  eyes,  and  we  began 
already  to  perceive,  what  we  never  felt  before,  that  dark- 
ness is  one  of  those  benevolent  gifts  of  Providence,  the  value 
of  which,  as  conducive  to  repose,  we  only  become  sensible 
of,  when  it  ceases  altogether  to  return.  There  were  no 
shutters  to  the  windows,  and  the  continual  blaze  which  sur- 
rounded us,  we  could  gladly  have  dispensed  with,  had  it 
been  possible.  When  we  closed  our  eyes,  they  seemed  to  be 
still  open  ;  we  even  bound  on  them  our  handkerchiefs ;  but 
a  remaining  impression  of  brightness,  like  a  shining  light, 
wearied  and  oppressed  them.  To  this  inconvenience  we 
were  afterward  more  exposed,  and  although  use  rendered 
us  somewhat  less  affected  by  it,  it  was  an  evil  of  which  we 
all  complained,  and  we  hailed  the  returning  gloom  of  au- 
tumn as  a  comfort  and  a  blessing. — Clarke. 

PSALM  CV. 
Ver.  26.  He  sent  Moses  his  servant,  and  Aaron 
whom  he  had  chosen. 

Calmet  says  the  word  servant,  among  the  Hebrews, 
"  generally  signifies  a  slave :"  and  Dr.  A.  Clarke  says,  (on 
Rom.  i.  1,  "  Paul  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,")  the  word 
6ov\ui,  which  we  translate  servant,  properly  means  a  slave, 
one  who  is  the  entire  property  of  his  master,  and  is  used 
here  by  the  apostle  with  great  propriety.  In  eastern  lan- 
guage the  word  used  as  expressive  of  the  relationship  of 
men  to  their  deities  is  slave.  "  I  am  the  adumi"  i.  e.  slave, 
*'  of  the  supreme  Siva."  "  I  am  the  devoted  slave  of  Vishnoo." 
Hindoo  saints  are  always  called  the  stores  of  the  gods.  The 
term  servant  is  applied  to  one  who  is  at  liberty  to  dispose  of 
himself,  in  serving  diflferent  masters :  but  not  so  a  slave,  he 
is  the  property  of  his  owner ;  from  him  he  receives  protec- 
tion and  support,  and  he  is  not  at  liberty  to  serve  another 
master ;  hence  it  is  that  the  native  Christians,  in  praying 
to  the  true  God,  and  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  always  speak 
of  themselves  as  slaves ;  they  are  not  their  own,  but "  bought 
with  a  price." — Roberts. 

Ver.  30.  The  land  broug-ht  forth  frogs  in  abun- 
dance; in  the  chambers  of  their  kings. 

It  isr-)t  -difficult  for  an  Englishman  in  an  eastern  wet 
monsoon,  io  form  a  tolerable  idea  of  that  plague  of  Egypt, 
in  which  the  frogs  were  in  the  "  houses,  bedchambers,  beds, 
and  kneading-troughs,"  of  the  Egyptians.  In  the  season 
alluded  to,  myriads  of  them  send  forth  their  constant  croak 
in  every  direction,  and  a  man  not  possessed  of  overmuch 
patience,  becomes  as  petulant  as  was  the  licentious  god,  and 
is  ready  to  exclaim, 

"  Croak,  croak,  indeed  I  shall  choke 

If  you  pester  and  bore  my  ears  any  more 

With  your  croak,  croak,  croak." 

A  new-comer,  on  seeing  them  leap  about  the  rooms,  be- 
comes disgusted,  and  forthwith  begins  an  attack  upon  them, 
but  the  next  evening  will  bring  a  return  of  his  active  visiters. 
It  may  appear  almost  incredible,  but  in  one  evening  we 
killed  upwards  of  forty  of  these  guests  in  the  Jaffna  Mission 
House.  They  had  principally  concealed  themselves  in  a 
small  tunnel  connected  with  the  bathing-room,  and  their 
noise  had  become  almost  insupportable.  I  have  been 
amused  when  a  man  has  been  making  a  speech  which  has 
not  given  pleasure  to  his  audience,  to  hear  another  per- 
son ask,  "  What  has  that  fellow  been  croaking  about,  like 
a  frog  of  the  wet  monsoon  1"  The  natives  also  do  us  the 
honour  of  saying,  that  our  singing,  in  parts,  is  very  much 
like  the  notes  of  the  large  and  small  frogs.  The  bass 
singers,  say  they,  resemble  the  croak  of  the  bull-frogs,  and 
the  other  parts  the  notes  of  the  small  fry.— Roberts. 

PSALM  CVII, 

.     Ver.  5.  Hungry  and  thirsty,  their  soul  fainted  in 
them. 

Many  perish,  victims  of  the  most  horrible  thirst.  It  is 
then  that  the  value  of  a  cup  of  water  is  really  felt ;  he  that 
has  a  zenzabia  of  it  is  the  richest  of  all :  in  such  a  case, 
there  is  no  distinction ;  if  the  master  has  none,  the  servant 
will  not  give  it  to  him  ;  for  very  few  are  the  instances  where 
a  man  will  voluntarily  lose  his  life  to  save  that  of  another, 


particularly  in  a  caravan  in  the  desert,  where  people  are 
strangers  to  each  other.  What  a  situation  for  a  man,  though 
a  rich  one,  perhaps  the  owner  of  all  the  caravans!  He  is 
dying  for  a  cup  of  water;  no  one  gives  it  to  him ;  he  offers 
all  he  possesses;  no  one  hears  him;  they  are  all  dying, 
though  by  walking  a  few  hours  farther  they  might  be  saved. 
The  camels  are  lying  down,  and  cannot  be  made  to  ri-e^ 
no  one  has  strength  to  walk ;  only  he  that  has  a  glass  of 
that  precious  liquid  lives  to  walk  a  mile  farther,  and  per- 
haps dies  too.  If  the  voyages  on  seas  are  dangerous,  so  are 
those  in  the  deserts.  At  sea,  the  provisions  very  often  fail; 
in  the  desert,  it  is  worse.  At  sea,  storms  are  met  with;  in 
the  desert  there  cannot  be  a  greater  storm  than  to  find  a 
dry  well.  At  sea,  one  meets  pirates;  we  escape,  we  sur- 
render, or  die ;  in  the  desert  they  rob  the  traveller  of  all  his 
property  and  water.  They  let  him  live,  perhaps,  but  what 
a  life  !  to  die  the  most  barbarous  and  agonizing  death.  In 
short,  to  be  thirsty  in  a  desert,  without  water,  exposed  to 
the  burning  sun,  without  shelter,  and  no  hopes  of^  finding 
either,  is  the  most  terrible  situation  that  a  man  can  be  placed 
in,  and  I  believe  that  it  is  one  of  the  greatest  sufferings  that 
a  human  being  can  sustain.  The  eyes  grow  inflamed,  the 
tongue  and  lips  swell,  a  hollow  sound  is  heard  in  the  ears, 
which  brings  on  deafness,  and  the  brains  appear  to  grow 
thick  and  inflamed.  All  these  feelings  arise  from  the  want 
of  a  little  water.  In  the  midst  of  all  this  misery,  the  deceit- 
ful mirages  appear  before  the  traveller,  at  no  great  distance, 
something  like  a  lake  or  river  of  clear  fresh  water.  The 
deception  of  this  phenomenon  is  well  known,  but  it  does  not 
fail  to  invite  the  longing  traveller  towards  that  element,  and 
to  put  him  in  remembrance  of  the  happiness  of  being  on 
such  a  spot.  If  perchance  a  traveller  is  not  undeceived,  he 
hastens  his  pace  to  reach  it  sooner  :  the  more  he  advances 
towards  it,  the  more  it  goes  from  him,  till  at  last  it  vanishes 
entirely,  and  the  deluded  passenger  often  asks  where  is  the 
water  he  saw  at  no  great  distance.  He  can  scarcely  believe 
that  he  was  so  deceived;  he  protests  that  he  saw  the  waves 
running  before  the  wind,  and  the  reflection  of  the  high 
rocks  in  the  water.   (Belzoni.) — Burder. 

Ver.  16,  For  he  hath  broken  the  gates  of  brass, 

and  cut  the  bars  of  iron  in  sunder. 
See  on  Acts  12.  10. 

PSALM  CIX. 
Ver.  9.  Let  his  children  be  fatherless,  and   his 
wife  a  widow.      10.  Let  his  children  be  con- 
tinually vagabonds,  and  beg:  let  them   seek 
their  bread  also  out  of  their  desolate  places. 

Listen  to  two  married  men  who  are  quarrelling,  you  will 
hear  the  one  accost  the  other,  "  Thy  family  will  soon  come 
to  destruction."  "  And  what  will  become  of  thine  ?"  rejoins 
the  other:  "I  will  tell  thee  ;  thy  wife  will  soon  take  off  her 
thdli"  which  means  she  will  be  a  widow,  as  the  IhdliisXhe 
marriage  jewel,  which  must  be  taken  off  on  the  death  of  a 
husband.  "Yes,  thy  children  will  soon  be  beggars;  I  shall 
see  them  at  my  door." — Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  I  am  gone  like  the  shadow  when  it  de- 
clineth :  I  am  tossed  up  and  dowTi  as  the  locust. 

See  on  2  Chron.  7.  13. 

Dr.  Shaw,  speaking  of  the  swarms  of  locusts,  which  he 
saw  near  Algiers,  in  1724  and  1725,  says,  "  when  the  wind 
blew  briskly,  so  that  these  swarms  were  crowded  by  others, 
we  had  a  lively  idea  of  that  comparison  of  the  Psalmist, 
of  being  tossed  up  and  down  as  the  locust." — Burder. 

PSALM  ex. 
Ver.  1.  The  Lord  said  unto  my  Lord,  Sit  thou 
at  my  right  hand,  until  I  make  thine  enemies 
thy  footstool. 

The  host  always  places  a  distinguished  guest  on  his  right 
hand,  because  that  side  is  considered  more  honourable  than 
the  other.  Hence  the  rank  known  by  the  name  of  vnlang- 
kiyar,  right-hand  caste,  is  very  superior  to  the  idumgkiyar^ 
or  left-hand  caste.— Roberts. 


J 


Ps.  112—120. 


PSALMS 


m 


PSALM  CXII. 
Ver.  10.  The  wicked  shall  see  i^,  and  be  grieved; 
he  shall  gnash  with  his  teeth,  and  melt  away; 
the  desire  of  the  wicked  shall  perish. 

An  enraged  man  snaps  his  teeth  together,  as  if  about  to 
bite  the  object  of  his  anger.  Thus,  in  the  book  Ramyanum, 
the  giant  Rdvanan  is  described  as  in  his  fury  gnashing 
tog.ither  his  "  thirty-two  teeth !"  "  Look  at  the  beast,  how- 
he  gnashes  his  teeth."  "Go  near  that  fellow."— " Not  I, 
indeed,  he  will  only  gnash  his  teeth." — Roberts, 

PSALM  CXIII. 
Ver.  9.  He  maketh  the  barren  woman  to  keep 
house,  to  he  a  joyful  mother  of  children. 

Should  a  married  woman,  who  has  long  been  considered 
steril,  become  a  mother,  her  joy,  and  that  of  her  husband 
and  Iriends,  is  most  extravagant.  "  They  called  her 
Malady"  i.  e.  barren,  "  but  she  has  given  us  some  good 
fruit."  "  My  neighbours  pointed  at  me,  and  said,  Malady : 
but  what  will  they  say  now  V  A  man  who  manifests  great 
delight,  is  said  to  be  like  the  barren  woman,  who  has  borne 
a  child.  Of  any  thing  which  is  exceedingly  valuable,  it  is 
said,  "  This  is  as  precious  as  the  son  of  the  barren  woman," 
i.  e.  of  her  who  had  long  been  reputed  barren. — Roberts. 


PSALM  CXIX. 
82.  Mine  eyes  fail  for  thy  word,  saying. 


Ver. 

When  wilt  thou  comfort  me  ? 


Has  a  mother  promised  to  visit  her  son  or  daughter,  and 
should  she  not  be  able  to  go,  the  son  or  daughter  will  say, 
*•  Alas !  my  mother  promised  to  come  to  me ;  how  long  have 
I  been  looking  for  her  1  but  a  speck  has  grown  upon  my  eye." 
"  I  cannot  see,  my  eyes  have  failed  me ;"  i.e.  by  looking  so 
intensely  for  her  coming. — Roberts. 

Ver.  83.  For  I  am  become  like  a  bottle  in  the 
smoke ;  yet  do  I  not  forget  thy  statutes. 

Bottles  are  made  of  the  skins  of  goats,  sheep,  and  other 
animals ;  and  there  are  several  articles  preserved  in  them, 
in  the  same  way  as  the  English  keep  hogs'  lard  in  bladders. 
Some  kinds  of  medicinal  oil,  assafoetida,  honey,  a  kind  of 
treacle,  and  other  drugs,  arc  kept  for  a  great  leiigth  of  time, 
by  hanging  the  bottles  in  the  smoke,  which  soon  causes 
them  to  become  black  and  shrivelled.  The  Psalmist  was 
ready  to  faint  for  the  salvation  of  the  Lord :  his  eyes  had 
failed  in  looking  for  His  blessing,  and  anxiety  had  made 
him  like  unto  a  skin  bottle,  shrivelled  and  blackened  in  the 
smoke. — Roberts. 

Cups  and  drinking  vessels  of  gold  and  silver  were  doubt- 
less used  in  the  courts  of  princes.  (1  Kings  x.  21.)  But  in 
the  Arab  tents  leathern  bottles,  as  well  as  pitchers,  were 
used.  These  of  course  were  smoky  habitations.  To  this 
latter  circumstance,  and  the  contrast  between  the  drinking 
utensils,  the  Psalmist  alludes :  "  My  appearance  in  my 
present  state  is  as  different  from  what  it  was  when  I  dwelt 
at  court,  as  the  furniture  of  a  palace  differs  from  that  of  a 
poor  Arab's  tent."— Harmer. 

The  eastern  bottle  is  made  of  a  goat  or  kid  skin,  stripped 
off,  without  opening  the  belly ;  the  apertures  made  by  cutting 
off  the  tail  and  legs  are  sewed  up,  and  when  filled,  it  is 
tied  about  the  neck.  The  Arabs  and  Persians  never  go  a 
journey  without  a  small  leathern  bottle  of  water  hanging  by 
their  side  like  a  scrip.  These  skin  bottles  preserve  their 
water,  milk,  and  other  liquids,  in  a  fresher  state  than  any 
other  vessels  they  can  use.  The  people  of  the  East,  indeed, 
put  into  them  every  thing  they  mean  to  carry  to  a  distance, 
whether  dry  or  liquid,  and  very  rarely  make  use  of  boxes 
and  pots,  unless  to  preserve  such  things  as  are  liable  to  be 
broken.  They  enclose  these  leathern  bottles  in  woollen 
sacks,  because  their  beasts  of  carriage  often  fall  down  under 
their  load,  or  cast  it  do\vn  on  the  sandy  desert.  This  method 
of  transporting  the  necessaries  of  life  has  another  advan- 
tage ;  the  skin  bottles  preserve  them  fresher ;  defend  them 
against  the  ants,  and  other  insects,  which  cannot  penetrate 
the  skin  ;  and  prevent  the  dust,  of  which  immense  quanti- 
ties are  constantly  moving  about,  in  the  arid  regions  of 


Asia,  and  so  fine,  that  no  coffer  is  impenetrable  to  it,  from 
reaching  them.  It  is  for  these  reasons  that  provisions  ol 
every  kind  are  enclosed  in  vessels  made  of  the  skins  of 
these  animals.  The  conjecture,  therefore,  is  highly  proba- 
ble, that  not  only  the  balm  and  the  honey,  which  are  some- 
what liquid,  but  also  the  nuts  and  almonds,  which  were 
sent  as  a  present  to  Joseph  from  Canaan,  were  enclosed  in 
little  vessels  of  kid  skin,  that  they  might  be  preserved  fresh; 
and  to  defend  them  against  injuries,  from  therestivenessoi 
the  camels  or  asses,  or  other  accidents,  the  whole  were  en- 
closed in  woollen  sacks.  This  custom  has  descended  to  the 
present  times;  for  fruits  and  provisions  of  every  kind  are 
still  commonly  packed  up  in  skins,  by  the  inhabitants  of 
Syria. 

To  those  goat-skin  vessels  the  Psalmist  refers  in  this 
complaint:  "  I  am  become  as  a  bottle  in  the  smoke."  My 
appearance  in  the  slate  of  my  exile  is  as  different  from 
what  it  was  when  I  dwelt  at  court,  as  are  the  gold  and  sil- 
ver vessels  of  a  palace,  from  the  smoky  skin  bottle  of  a  poor 
Arab's  tent,  where  I  am  now  compelled  to  reside.  Not 
less  emphatical  is  the  lamentation  of  the  prophet,  that  the 
precious  sons  of  Zion,  comparable  to  tine  gold,  or  to  ves- 
sels fabricated  of  that  precious  metal,  were  considered  as 
no  better  than  earthen  pitchers,  the  work  of  the  potter. 
The  holy  Psalmist  compares  himself  to  a  bottle  in  the 
smoke ;  which  is  a  convertible  phrase  with  a  bottle  in  the 
tent  of  an  Arab  ;  because,  when  fires  are  lighted  in  it,  the 
smoke  instantly  fills  every  part,  and  greatly  incommodes 
the  tenant.  Nor  will  this  appear  surprising,  when  it  is  con- 
sidered that  an  Arabian  tent  has  no  aperture  but  the  door, 
from  which  the  smoke  can  escape.  The  inspired  writer, 
therefore,  seems  to  allude  both  to  the  meanness  of  a  skin 
bottle,  and  to  its  blackness,  from  the  smoke  of  the  tent  in 
which  it  is  placed.  And  a  most  natural  image  it  was  for 
him  to  use,  driven  from  the  vessels  of  silver  and  gold  in  the 
palace  of  Saul,  to  quench  his  thirst  with  the  wandering 
Arabs,  from  a  smutted  bottle  of  goat-skin.  These  bottles 
are  liable  to  be  rent,  when  old  or  much  used,  and  at  the 
same  time  capable  of  being  repaired.  In  the  book  of  Joshua 
we  are  informe*,  the  Gibeonites  "  took  wine  bottles,  old 
and  rent,  and  bound  up."  This  is  perfectly  according  to 
the  custom  of  the  East ;  and  the  manner  in  which  they  mend 
their  old  and  rent  bottles  is  various.  Sometimes  they  set 
in  a  piece;  sometimes  they  gather  up  the  wounded  place 
in  the  manner  of  a  purse ;  sometimes  they  put  in  a  round 
flat  piece  of  wood,  and  by  that  means  stop  the  hole. — Pax- 
ton. 

Ver.  103.  How  sweet  are  thy  words  unto  my  taste ! 
yea,  sweeter  than  honey  to  my  mouth. 

An  affectionate  wife  often  says, "  My  husband,  your  words 
are  sweeter  to  me  than  honey  ;'yes,  they  are  sweeter  than  the 
sugarcane."  "  Alas !  my  husband  is  gone,"  says  the  widow ; 
"  how  sweetwere  his  words!  honey  dropped  from  his  mouth; 
his  words  were  ambrosia." — Roberts, 

Ver.  136,  Rivers  of  water  run  down  mine  eyes, 
because  they  keep  not  thy  law. 

This  figure  occurs  in  the  poem  called  Veerale-vudu-toothe. 
"  Rivers  of  tears  run  down  the  face  of  that  mother  bereft  of 
her  children,"  is  a  saying  in  common  use.  "  The  water  of 
her  eyes  runs  like  a  river,"— Roberts. 

PSALM  CXX. 

Ver.  4.  Sharp  arrows  of  the  mighty,  with  coals  of 
juniper. 

"  Coals  of  juniper ;"  more  properly,  like  the  glowing  of 
coals  of  broom.  The  Hebrew  word  rothern,  here  trans- 
lated juniper,  means  a  shrub  of  the  genista  or  broom  species, 
the  Spartium  junceum  of  Linnaeus,  which  grows  in  the  south 
of  France  and  in  Spain,  where  it  has  retained  its  Arabic 
name,  roterna.  It  is  a  moderate  shrub,  with  thin  branches. 
and  white  flowers,  that  grows  in  the  deserts.  Forskal  found 
it  frequently  in  the  sandy  heaths  about  Suez..  The  caravans 
use  it  for  fuel.  When  the  Psalmist  compares  the  tongue  of 
the  slanderer  with  the  glowing  of  the  coals  of  broom,  he 
doubtless  alludes  to  the  severe  pain  caused  by  touching  those 
coals,  which  continue  to  glow  for  a  very  long  time. — Rosen* 

MULLER, 


412 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  121—123. 


PSALM  CXXI. 
Ver.  5.  The  Lord  is  thy  keeper ;  the  Lord  is 
thy  shade  upon  thy  right  hand. 

An  umbrella  is  a  very  ancient,  as  well  as  honourable  de- 
fence against  the  pernicious  effects  of  the  scorching  beams 
of  the  sun,  in  those  sultry  countries ;  may  we  not  then  sup- 
pose this  is  that  kind  of  shade  the  Psalmist  refers  to  in  the 
121st  Psalm  1  ver.  5,  "  The  Lord  is  thy  keeper;  the  Lord 
is  thy  shade  upon  thy  right  hand."  "  The  sun  shall  not  smite 
thee  by  day,  nor  the  moon  by  night." 

Niebuhr,  who  visited  the  southern  part  of  Arabia,  gives 
us  the  following  account  of  a  solemn  procession  of  the  Iman 
that  resides  at  Sana,  who  is  a  great  prince  in  that  part  of 
Arabia,  and  considered  as  a  holy  personage,  being  descend- 
ed from  Mohammed,  their  great  prophet.  "  It  is  well  known 
that  the  sultan  at  Constantinople  goes  every  Friday  to  the 
mosque,  if  his  health  will  at  all  admit  of  it.  The  Iman  of 
Sana  observes  also  this  religious  practice,  with  vast  pomp. 
We  only  saw  him  in -his  return,  because  this  was  repre- 
sented to  us  as  the  most  curious  part  of  the  solemnity,  on 
account  of  the  long  circuit  he  then  takes,  and  the  great 
number  of  his  attendants,  after  their  having  performed  their 

devotions  in  other  mosques The  Iman  was  preceded 

by  some  hundreds  of  soldiers.  He,  and  each  of  the  princes 
of  h^s  numerous  family,  caused  a  mdalla,  or  large  umbrella, 
to  be  carried  by  his  side,  and  it  is  a  privilege  which,  in  this 
country,  is  appropriated  to  princes  of  the  blood,  just  as  the 
sultan  of  Constantinople  permits  none  but  his  vizier  to  have 
his  kaik,  or  gondola,  covered  behind,  to  keep  him  from  the 
heat  of  the  sun.  They  say  that  in  the  other  provinces  of 
Yemen,  the  independent  lords,  such,  for  example,  as  the 
.;heiks  of  Jafa,  and  those  of  Haschid  u  Bekil,  the  scherif 
of  Abu  Arisch,  and  many  others,  cause  these  mdallas,  in 
like  manner,  to  be  carried  for  their  use,  as  a  mark  of  their 
independence.  Besides  the  princes,  the  Iman  had  in  his 
train  at  least  six  hundred  lords  of  the  most  distinguished 
rank,  as  well  ecclesiastics  as  seculars,  and  those  of  the  mili- 
tary line,  many  of  them  mounted  on  superb  horses,  and  a 
great  rnultitude  of  people  attended  him  on  foot.  On  each 
side  of  the  Iman  was  carried  a  flag,  different  from  ours,  in 
that  each  of  them  was  surmounted  with  a  little  silver  vessel 
like  a  censer.  It  is  said  that  within  some  charms  were  put, 
to  which  they  attributed  a  power  of  making  the  Iman  in- 
vincible. Many  other  standards  were  unfurled  with  the 
same  censer-like  vessels,  but  without  any  regularity.  In 
one  word,  the  whole  train  was  numerous,  and  in  some 
measure  magnificent,  but  no  order  seemingly  was  observed." 
It  appears  by  the  carvings  at  Persepolis,  umbrellas  were 
very  anciently  used  by  the  eastern  princes ;  charms,  we 
have  reason  to  believe,  were  at  least  as  ancient:  may  we 
not,  with  some  degree  of  probability,  suppose  then  this 
121st  Psalm  refers  to  these  umbrellas,  where  the  response 
made,  probably,  by  the  ministers  of  the  sanctuary,  to  the 
declaration  of  the  king,  in  the  two  first  verses,  reminded  him 
that  Jehovah  would  be  to  him  all  that  heathen  princes 
hoped  for,  as  to  defence  and  honour,  from  their  royal  um- 
brellas and  their  sacred  charms,  but  hoped  for  in  vain,  as 
to  them  1  "  The  Lord  shall  be  thy  shade  on  thy  right  hand. 
The  sun  shall  not  smite  thee  by  day  nor  the  moon  by 
night." — Harmer, 

Ver.  6.  The  sun  shall  not  smite  thee  by  day,  nor 
the  moon  by  night. 

A  meridian  summer's  sun  in  England  gives  but  a  faint 
idea  of  the  power  of  this  luminary  in  the  East;  and  yet, 
even  in  this  temperate  climate,  who  has  not  been  incon- 
venienced when  exposed  to  his  rays  1  But  how  much 
greater  is  his  effect  in  India  !  Sometimes  "  a  stroke  of  the 
sun"  smites  rnan  and  beast  with  instant  death.  The  moon  has 
also  a  pernicious  effect  upon  those  who  sleep  in  its  beams : 
and  fish,  having  been  exposed  to  them  for  one  night,  be- 
comes most  injurious  to  those  who  eat  it :  hence  our  English 
seamen,  when  sailing  in  tropical  climes,  always  take  care 
to  place  their  fish  out  of  "  the  sight  of  the  moon." — Roberts. 

The  veryseverecoldof  the  nights  in  the  East  was  ascribed 
by  the  ancients  to  the  influence  of  the  moon,  which  they 
also  supposed  to  be  the  origin  of  the  dew.  Macrobius  say's 
"  that  tne  nurses  used  to  cover  their  sucklings  against  the 
moon,  that  they  might  not,  as  damp  wood  which  bends  in 


the  heat,  get  crooked  limbs  from  the  superabundance  of 
moisture.  It  is  also  well  known,"  continues  he,  "  that  he 
who  has  slept  in  the  moonlight  is  heavy  when  he  awakes, 
and  as  if  deprived  of  his  senses,  and,  as  it  were,  oppressed  by 
the  weight  of  the  dampness  which  is  spread  over  his  whole 
body."  The  same  opinion  of  the  injurious  effects  of  the 
light  of  the  moon  upon  the  human  body,  still  prevailed  in 
the  East  Indies  in  later  times.  Iwrgen  Anderson,  in  his 
Description  of  the  East,  says,  "  One  must  here  (in  Batavia) 
take  great  care  not  to  sleep  in  the  beams  of  the  moon  un- 
covered. I  have  seen  many  people  whose  neck  has  become 
crooked,  so  that  they  look  more  to  the  side  than  forward. 
I  will  not  decide  whether  it  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  moon, 
as  people  imagine  here."  In  some  of  the  southern  parts  of 
Europe  the  same  opinions  are  entertained  of  the  pernicious 
influence  of  the  moonbeams.  An  English  gentleman  walk- 
ing in  the  evening  in  the  garden  of  a  Portuguese  nobleman 
at  Lisbon,  was  most  seriously  admonished  by  the  owner  to 
put  on  his  hat,  to  protect  him  from  the  moonbeams.  The 
fishermen  in  Sicily  are  said  to  cover,  during  the  night,  the 
fish  which  they  expose  to  dry  on  the  sea-shore,  alleging 
that  the  beams  of  the  moon  cause  them  to  putrefy. — Rosen- 

MULLER. 


PSALM  CXXII. 
Ver.  2.  Our  feet  shall  stand  within  thy  gates, 
Jerusalem. 


O 


I  think,  so  far  as  the  sense  is  concerned,  it  does  not  mat- 
ter whether  this  be  read  in  the  past,  present,  or  future  tense ; 
for,  in  my  opinion,  the  arguments  on  that  subject  are  of 
little  importance.  I  believe  it  to  be  a  declaration  of  affec- 
tion for  Jerusalem,  in  which  the  feet,  as  the  instruments  of 
going  to  the  holy  place,  were  in  eastern  style  naturally  as- 
sociated. The  devout  Hindoo,  when  absent  from  the  sacred 
city  of  Sedambarum,  often  exclaims,  "  Ah  !  Sedambarum, 
my  feet  are  ever  walking  in  thee."  "  Ah !  Ska-stalham, 
are  not  my  feet  in  thee  1"  A  man  who  has  long  been  absent 
from  his  favourite  temple,  says,  on  his  return,  "  My  feet 
once  more  tread  this  holy  place." — Roberts. 

PSALM  CXXIII. 

Ver.  2.  Behold,  as  the  eyes  of  servants  look  unto 
the  hand  of  their  masters,  and  as  the  eyes  of  a 
maiden  unto  the  hand  of  her  mistress :  so  our 
eyes  wait  upon  the  Lord  our  God,  until  that 
he  have  mercy  upon  us. 

The  HAND  is  looked  at  as  the  member  by  which  a  supe- 
rior gives  protection  or  dispenses  favours ;  and  if  this 
Psalm  be,  as  some  suppose,  a  complaint  of  the  captives  in 
Babylon,  it  may  refer  to  the  hand  as  the  instrument  of  de- 
liverance. A  man  in  trouble  says,  "  I  will  look  at  the  hand 
of  my  friend."  "  I  looked  at  the  hand  of  my  mistress,  and 
have  been  comforted."  A  father,  on  returning  from  a 
journey,  says,  "  My  children  will  look  to  my  hands,"  i.  e. 
for  a  present.  Of  a  troublesome  person  it  is  said,  "  He  is 
always  looking  at  my  hands."  A  slave  of  a  cruel  master 
says  to  his  god,  "  Ah  !  Swamy,  why  am  I  appointed  to  look 
at  his  hands  1" — Roberts. 

The  Easterns  direct  their  servants  very  generally  by 
signs — even  in  matters  of  consequence.  The  Cingalese 
intimate  their  wish  for  a  person  to  approach,  by  bending 
the  finger  with  the  point  towards  the  person  wanted,  as  if 
to  seize  him — quite  in  the  opposite  direction  to  the  English 
way  of  beckoning.  To  depart  is  signified  by  a  side  nod ; 
and  a  frown  by  a  front  one. — Callaway. 

The  servants  or  slaves  in  the  East  attend  their  masters 
or  mistresses  with  the  profoundest  respect.  Maundrell 
observes,  that  the  servants  in  Turkey  stand  round  their 
master  and  his  guests  with  the  profoundest  respect,  silence, 
and  order,  imaginable.  Pococke  says,  that  at  a  visit  in 
Egypt,  every  thing  is  done  with  the  greatest  decency,  and 
the  most  profound  silence,  the  slaves  or  servants  standing 
at  the  bottom  of  the  room,  with  their  hands  joined  before 
them,  watching  with  the  utmost  attention  every  motion  of 
their  master,  who  commands  them  by  signs.  De  La  Motraye 
says,  that  the  eastern  ladies  are  waited  on  "  even  at  the 
least  wink  of  flip  eye,  or  motion  of  the  fingers,  and  that  in 
a  manner  not  perceptible  to  strangers."   The  Baron  De  Toll 


Ps.  124—127. 


PSALM^.  413 


relates  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  authority  attending  this 
mode  of  commanding,  and  of  the  use  of  significant  motions. 
"The  customary  ceremonies  on  these  occasions  were  over, 
and  Racub  (the  new  vizier)  continued  to  discourse  familiarly 
with  the  ambassador,  when  the  muzar  aga  (or  high  provost) 
coming  into  the  hall,  and  approaching  the  pacha,  whispered 
something  in  his  ear,  and  we  observed  that  all  the  answer 
he  received  from  him  was  a  slight  horizontal  motion  with 
his  hand,  after  which  the  vizier  instantly  resuming  an 
agreeable  smile,  continued  the  conversation  for  some  time 
longer:  we  then  left  the  hall  of  audience,  and  came  to  the 
foot  of  the  great  staircase,  where  we  remounted  our  horses : 
here,  nine  heads,  cut  off,  and  placed  in  a  row  on  the  out- 
side of  the  first  gate,  completely  explained  the  sign^  which 
the  vizier  had  made  use  of  in  our  presence."  Hence  we 
discover  the  propriety  of  the  actions  performed  by  the  pro- 
phets. Ezekiel  wSs  a  sign  to  the  people  in  not  mourning 
for  the  dead,  (chap,  xxiv.)  in  his  removing  into  captivity, 
and  digging  through  the  wall,  (chap,  xii.)  Such  conduct 
was  perfectly  well  understood,  and  was  very  significant. — 
Bl'rder. 

PSALM  CXXIV. 

Ver.  7.  Our  soul  is  escaped  as  a  bird  out  of  the 
snare  of  the  fowlers :  the  snare  is  broken,  and 
we  are  escaped. 

A  man  who  has  narrowly  escaped  danger  says, "  My  life 
is  like  that  of  the  bird  which  has  escaped  from  the  snare." 
The  life  of  a  man  is  often  compared  to  that  of  a  bird. 
Thus,  of  him  whose  spirit  has  departed,  it  is  said,  "  Ah  ! 
the  bird  has  left  its  nest ;  it  has  gone  away."  "  As  the  im- 
hatched  bird  must  first  burst  from  the  shell  before  it  can 
fly,  so  must  this  soul  burst  from  its  body." — Roberts. 

PSALM  CXXV. 
Ver.  2.  As  the  mountains  are  round  about  Jeru- 
salem, so  the  Lord  is  round  about  his  people 
from  henceforth,  even  for  ever. . 

The  description  which  Volney  gives  of  his  approach  to 
Jerusalem,  furnishes  no  contemptible  illustration  of  this 
verse ;  and  as  it  is  pleasant  to  compel  an  avowed  infidel 
to  illustrate  and  confirm  the  religion  of  Christ,  which  he 
detests,  I  shall  subjoin  his  account.  "  Two  days'  jour- 
ney south  of  Nablous,  following  the  direction  of  the  mount- 
ains, which  gradually  become  more  rocky  and  barren, 
we  arrive  at  a  town,  which,  like  many  others  already  men- 
tioned, presents  a  striking  example  of  the  vicissitude  of 
human  affairs :  when  we  behold  its  walls  levelled,  its 
ditches  filled  up,  and  all  its  buildings  embarrassed  with 
ruins,  we  scarcely  can  believe  we  view  that  celebrated 
metropolis,  which  formerly  bafl^led  the  efforts  of  the  most 
powerful  empires,  and  for  a  time  resisted  the  efforts  of 
Rome  herself;  though  by  a  whimsical  change  of  fortune, 
its  ruins  now  receive  her  homage  and  reverence :  in  a 
word,  we  with  difficulty  recognise  Jerusalem.  Nor  is  our 
astonishment  less,  to  think  of  its  ancient  greatness,  when 
we  consider  its  situation  amidst  a  rugged  soil,  destitute  of 
water,  and  surrounded  by  dry  channels  of  torrents  and  steep 
heights.  Distant  from  every  great  road,  it  seems  neither 
to  liave  been  calculated  for  a  considerable  mart  of  com- 
merce, nor  the  centre  of  a  great  consumption.  It  however 
ovttrcame  every  obstacle,  and  may  be  adduced  as  a  proof 
of  what  popular  opinion  may  effect,  in  the  hands  of  an  able 
iegi.ilator,  or  when  favoured  by  happy  circumstances." 
The  proud  unbeliever  had  found  a  shorter  and  easier  road 
to  his  conclusion,  in  the  volume  of  inspiration;  and  par- 
ticularly in  the  passages  quoted  above,  from  the  Psalms  of 
David,  who  refers  the  singular  prosperity  of  Jerusalem  to 
the  peculiar  favour  of  Heaven.  This  was  the  real  source 
of  her  greatness,  and  it  was  this  alone,  and  not  the  natural 
strength  of  her  situation,  nor  the  skill  and  valour  of  her 
dinenders,  which  enabled  her  so  long  to  baffle  the  designs 
of  her  enemies. — Paxton. 

PSALM  CXXVI. 

Ver.  2.  Then  was  our  mouth  filled  with  laughter, 
and  our  tongue  with  singing;  then  said  they 


among  the  heathen,  The  Lord  hath  done  great 
things  for  them. 

"  See  that  happy  man  ;  his  mouth  is  always  full  of  laugh- 
ing, his  tongue  is  always  singing;  he  is  ever  showing  his 
teeth." — Roberts. 

Ver.  4.  Turn  again  our  captivity,  O  Lord,  as 
the  streams  in  the  south. 

This  image  is  taken  from  the  torrents  in  the  deserts  to  the 
south  of  Judea;  m  Idumea,  Arabia  Petraea,  &c.,  a  mount- 
ainous country.  These  torrents  were  constantly  dried  up 
in  the  summer,  (Job  vi.  17,  18,)  and  as  constantly  returned 
after  the  rainy  season,  and  filled  again  their  deserted  chan- 
nels. The  point  of  the  comparison  seems  to  be  the  return 
and  renewal  of  these  (not  rivers,  but)  torrents,  which 
yearly  leave  their  beds  dry,  but  fill  them  again ;  as  the 
Jews  had  left  their  country  desolate,  but  now  flowed  again 
into  it. — Bp.  Horne. 

Ver.  5.  They  that  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in  joy. 
6.  He  that  goeth  forth  and  weeppth,  bearing 
precious  seed,  shall,  doubtless,  come  again  with 
rejoicing,  bringing  his  sheaves  with  him. 

See  on  Ezek.  25.  4. 

These  figures  are  taken  from  agricultural  pursuits ;  tne 
seed,  being  well  watered,  will  produce  a  plenteous  harvest. 
The  Jews  in  their  captivity  had  been  sowing  good  seed,  had 
watered  it  with  their  tears,  and  the  time  was  now  come  for 
them  to  reap  with  joy,  and  to  return  with  their  sheaves  re- 
joicing. It  is  proverbial  to  say  to  a  boy  who  weeps  because 
he  must  go  to  school,  or  because  he  cannot  easily  acquire  his 
lesson,  "  My  child,  the  plants  of  science  require  the  water  of 
the  eyes,"  "  If  you  sow  with  tears,  the  profit  will  appear  in 
your  own  hands."-— Roberts. 

The  writer  of  the  account  of  the  ruins  of  Balbec,  speak- 
ing of  the  valley  in  which  it  stood,  observes,  that  it  has  very 
little  wood;  and  adds,  "though  shade  be  so  essential  an 
article  of  oriental  luxury,  yet  few  plantations  of  trees  are 
seen  in  Turkey,  the  inhabitants  being  discouraged  from 
labours,  which  produce  such  distant  and  precarious  enjoy- 
ment, in  a  country  where  even  the  annual  fruits  of  their  in- 
dustry are  uncertain.  In  Palestine  we  have  often  seen  the 
husbandman  sowing,  accompanied  bv  an  armed  friend,  to 
prevent  his  being  robbed  of  the  seed.  The  Israelites  that 
returned  from  Babylon  upon  the  proclamation  of  Cyrus, 
were  in  similar  circumstances  to  husbandmen  sowing  their 
corn  amidst  enemies  and  robbers.  The  rebuilding  of  their 
towns  and  their  temple  resembled  a  time  of  sowing ;  but 
they  had  reason  to  fear  that  the  neighbouring  nations  would 
defeat  these  eflTorts.  (Nehem.  iv.  7.)  In  opposition  to  this 
apprehension  the  Psalmist  expresses  his  hope,  perhaps  pre- 
dicts, that  there  would  be  a  happy  issue  of  these  beginnings, 
to  re-people  their  country. — Harmer. 

PSALM  CXXVII. 
Ver.  4.  As  arrows  are  in  the  hand  of  a  mighty 
man :  so  are  children  of  the  youth.  5.  Happy 
is  the  man  that  hath  his  quiver  full  of  them : 
they  shall  not  be  ashamed,  but  they  shall  speak 
with  the  enemies  in  the  gate. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  speak,  "  subdue  the  enemies 
in  the  gate."  In  ancient  books,  and  also  among  the  learnea, 
(in  common  conversation,)  sons  are  spoken  of  as  the  arrows 
of  their  fathers.  To  have  a  numerous  male  progeny  is  con- 
sidered a  great  advantage  ;  and  people  are  afraid  of  offend- 
ing such  a  family,  lest  the  arrows  should  be  sent  at  them. 
"  What  a  fine  fellow  is  the  son  of  Kandan  !  he  is  like  an 
arrow  in  the  hand  of  a  hero." — Roberts, 

The  Orientals  are  accustomed  to  call  brave  and  valiant 
sons  the  "arrows"  and  "  darts"  of  their  parents,  because 
they  are  able  to  defend  them,  "  To  sharpen  arrows,"  "  t« 
make  sharp  arrows,"  is  among  them,  to  get  brave  and  valiant 
sons.  Merrick  mentions  a  similar  Chinese  mode  of  ex- 
pression,  "  When  a  son  is  born  in  a  family,  it  is  customary 


414 


P&ALMS. 


Ps.  128—132. 


10  hang  up  bows  and  arrows  before  the  house,  as  a  sign 
ihat  the  family  has  acquired  a  defender." — Rosenmuller. 

PSALM  CXXVIII. 

Ver.  3.  Thy  wife  shall  he  as  a  fruitful  vine  by 
the  sides  of  thy  house  :  thy  children  like  olive- 
plants  round  about  thy  table. 

The  people  are  exceedingly  fond  of  having  their  houses 
covered  with  different  kinds  of  vines  ;  hence  may  be  seen 
various  creepers  thus  trained,  bearing  an  abundance  of 
fruit.  Many  interesting  figures,  therefore,  are  taken  from 
plants  which  are  thus  sustained.  A  priest  in  blessing  a 
married  couple,  often  says,  "Ah!  may  you  be  like  the 
trees  Cama- Valley  and  Cat-Pagga-Tkarul"  These  are 
said  to  grow  in  the  celestial  world,  and  are  joined  together: 
the  Cama- Valley,  being  parasitical,  cannot  live  without  the 
other. — Roberts. 

The  natives  of  those  countries  are  careful  to  decorate 
their  habitations  wiih  the  choicest  products  of  the  vegetable 
kmgdom.  The  quadrangular  court  in  front  of  their  houses, 
is  adorned  with  spreading  trees,  aromatic  shrubs,  and  fra- 
grant flowers,  which  are  continually  refreshed  by  the  crys- 
tal waters  of  a  fountain  playing  in  the  middle.  To  increase 
the  beauty  of  the  scene  they  cover  the  stairs  which  lead  to 
the  upper  apartments  with  vines,  and  have  often  a  lattice- 
work of  wood  raised  against  the  dead  walls,  upon  which 
climbs  a  vine,  or  other  mantling  shrub.  This  pleasing 
custom  justifies  Doddridge  in  supposing  the  occasion  of  our 
Lord's  comparing  himself  to  a  vine,  might  be  his  standing 
near  a  window,  or  in  some  court  by  the  side  of  the  house, 
where  the  sight  of  a  vine  creeping  upon  the  staircase  or  the 
wall  might  suggest  this  beautiful  simile.  This  kind  of 
ornament  seems  to  have  been  very  common  in  Judea,  and 
may  be  traced  to  a  very  remote  antiquity.  From  the  fa- 
miliar manner  in  which  the  Psalmist  alludes  to  it,  we  may 
suppose  if  was  one  of  the  decorations  about  the  royal  palace : 
"  Thy  wife  shall  be  as  a  fruitful  vine  by  the  sides  of  thy 
house  ;  thy  children  like  olive-plants  round  about  the  table. 
Behold,  that  thus  shall  the  man  be  blessed  that  feareth  the 
Lord."  Kimehi,  a  celebrated  Jewish  writer,  explains  the 
psalm  in  the  same  way  ;  and  observes,  that  a  wife  is  com- 
pared to  a  vine,  because  that  alone  of  all  trees  can  be  plant- 
ed in  a  house.  In  confirmation  of  Kimchi's  remark,  Dr. 
Russel  says,  "  It  is  generally  true,  if  fruit-bearing  trees 
be  intended,  as  the  vine  is  almost  the  only  fruit-tree  which 
is  planted  in  the  houses ;  pomegranates  are  another." — Pax- 
ton. 

PSALM  CXXIX. 

Ver.  3.  The  ploughers  ploughed  upon  my  back  ; 
they  made  long  their  furrows. 

"  The  enemies  of  Israel  cut  their  backs,  as  the  ploughers 
cut  the  soil."  (Dr.  Boothroyd.)  When  a  man  is  in  much 
trouble  through  oppressors,  he  says,  "  How  they  plough  me 
and  turn  me  up  !  All  are  now  ploughing  me.  Begone  ! 
have  you  not  already  turned  me  up  T  "Alas !  alas !  my 
enemies,,  nay,  my  children,  are  now  ploughing  me," — Rob- 


Ver.  6.  Let  them  be  as  the  grass  upon  the  house- 
tops, which  withereth  afore  it  groweth  up; 
7.  Wherewith  the  mower  filleth  not  his  hand, 
nor  he  that  bindeth  sheaves,  his  bosom. 

See  on  Ruth  2.  4,  5. 

The  tops  of  the  houses  in  Judea  were  flat,  and  so  grass 
grew  upon  them,  being  covered  with  plaster  of  terrace. 
As  it  was  but  small  and  weak,  and,  being  on  high,  was 
exposed  to  the  scorching  sun,  it  was  soon  withered.  (Shaw.) 
Menochius  says,  that  he  saw  such  roofs  in  the  island  of 
Corsica,  flat,  and  having  earth  upon  them,  on  which  grass 
grew  of  its  own  accord  ;  but  being  burnt  up  in  summer 
time  by  the  sun,  soon  withered.  But  what  Olaus  Magnus 
relates  is  extraordinary.  He  says,  that  in  the  northern 
Gothic  countries  they  feed  their  cattle  from  the  tops  of 
houses,  especiallv  in  a  time  of  siege  ;  that  their  houses  are 
built  of  stone,  high  and  large,  and  covered  with  rafters  of 
fir  and  bark  of  birch:  on  this  is  laid  grass-earth,  cut  out 


of  the  fields  four-square,  and  sowed  with  barley  or  oats, 
so  that  their  roofs  look  like  green  meadows  :  and  that 
what  is  sown,  and  the  grass  that  grows  thereon,  may  not 
wither  before  plucked  up,  they  verv  diligently  water  it. 
Maundrell  says,  that  these  words  allude  to  the  custom  of 
plucking  up  corn  from  the  roots  by  handfuls,  leaving  the 
most  fruitful  fields  as  naked  as  if  nothing  had  ever  grown 
in  them  ;  and  that  this  is  done,  that  they  may  not  lose  any  of 
the  straw,  which  is  generally  very  short,  and  necessary 
for  the  sustenance  of  their  cattle,  no  hay  being  made  in 
that  country. — Burder. 

In  the  morning  the  master  of  the  house  laid  in  a  stock  of 
earth,  which  was  carried  and  spread  evenly  on  the  top  of 
the  house,  which  is  flat.  The  whole  roof  is  thus  formed  of 
mere  eai-th,  laid  on  and  rolled  hard  and  flat.  On  the  top  of 
every  house  is  a  large  stone  roller,  for  the  purpose  of  hard- 
ening and  flattening  this  layer  of  rude  soil,  so  that  the  rain 
may  not  penetrate;  but  upon  this  surface,  as  may  be  sup- 
posed, grass  and  weeds  grow  freely.  It  is  to  such  grass 
that  the  Psalmist  alludes,  as  useless  and  bad. — Jowitt. 

The  reapers  in  Palestine  and  Syria  make  use  of  the 
sickle,  in-  cutting  down  their  crops,  and  according  to  the 
present  custom  in  this  country,  "  fill  their  hand"  with  the 
corn,  and  those  who  bind  up  the  sheaves,  their  "  bosom." 
When  the  crop  is  thin  and  short,  which  is  generally  the 
case  in  light  soils,  and  with  their  imperfect  cultivation,  it 
is  not  reaped  with  the  sickle,  but  plucked  up  by  the  root 
with  the  hand.  By  this  mode  of  reaping  they  leave  the 
most  fruitful  fields  as  naked  as  if  nothing  had  ever  grown 
on  them;  and  as  no  hay  is  n.ade  in  the  East,  this  is  done, 
that  they  may  not  lose  any  of  the  straw,  which  is  necessary 
for  the  sustenance  of  their  cattle.  The  practice  of  reaping 
with  the  hand  is  perhaps  involved  in  the%e  words  of  the 
Psalmist,  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made:  "  Let 
them  be  as  the  grass  upon  the  house-tops,  which  withereth 
afore  it  groweth  up  ;  wherewith  the  mower  filleth  not  his 
hand,  nor  he  that  bindeth  sheaves,  his  bosom."  The  tops  of 
the  houses  in  Judea  are  flat,  and  being  covered  with  plas- 
ter of  terrace,  are  frequently  grown  over  with  grass.  As  it 
is  but  small  and  weak,  and  from  its  elevation  exposed  to  the 
scorching  sun,  it  is  soon  withered.  To  prevent  this,  fhev 
pluck  it  up  for  the  use  of  their  cattle,  with  the  hand.  A 
more  beautiful  and  striking  figure,  to  display  the  weak  and 
evanescent  condition  of  wicked  men,  cannet  easily  be  con- 
ceived. They  are  every  moment  exposed  to  the  judgments 
of  God,  like  the  grass  on  the  house-top,  which  is  tossed  by 
the  breeze,  and  scorched  by  the  sun,  and  to  the  grasp  of 
Omnipotence,  which,  weak  and  defenceless  as  they  are,  they 
can  neither  avoid  nor  resist.  The  sudden  destruction  of 
the  wicked  is  described  by  the  same  writer,  under  another 
figure  not  less  remarkable  for  its  force  and  propriety :  "  I 
have  seen  the  wicked  in  great  power,  and  spreading  him- 
self like  a  green  bay-tree.  Yet  he  passed  away,  and,  lo,  he 
was  not ;  yea,  I  sought  him,  but  he  could  not  be  found." — 
Paxton. 

"  Ah  !  that  wretched  family  shall  soon  be  as  withered 
grass."  "  Go,  vile  one,  for  soon  wilt  thou  be  as  parched 
grass." — Roberts. 


Ver.  9. 
ness: 


PSALM  CXXXII. 

Let  thy  priests  be  clothed  with  righteous- 
and  let  thy  saints  shout  for  joy. 


"  See  that  excellent  man ;  he  wears  the  garments  of  jus- 
tice and  charity." — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  There  will  I  make  the  horn  of  David  to 
bud :   I  have  ordained  a  lamp  for  mine  anointed. 

"  Yes,  that  man  will  flourish  ;  already  his  horn  has  begun 
to  appear — it  is  growing." — Roberts. 

Ver.  18.  His  enemies  will  1  clothe  with  shame  : 
but  upon  himself  shall  his  crown  flourish. 

This  idea  seems  to  be  taken  from  the  nature  of  the 
ancient  crowns  bestowed  upon  conquerors.  From  the 
earliest  periods  of  history  the  laurel,  olive,  and  ivy,  fur- 
nished crowns  to  adorn  the  heads  of  heroes,  who  had  con- 
quered in  the  field  of  battle,  gained  the  prize  in  the  race, 


Ps.  133—141. 


PSALMS. 


415 


or  performed  some  other  important  service  to  the  public. 
These  were  the  dear-bought  rewards  of  the  most  heroic 
exploits  of  amiquity.  This  sets  the  propriety  of  the  phrase 
in  full  view.  The  idea  of  a  crown  of  gold  and  jewels 
flourishing,  is  at  least  unnatural:  whereas  flourishing  is 
natural  to  laurels  and  oaks.  These  were  put  upon  the 
heads  of  the  victors  in  full  verdure.    (Pirie.) — Burder. 

PSALM  CXXXIII. 

Ver.  3.  As  the  dew  of  Hermon,  and  as  the  dew 
that  descended  upon  the  mountains  of  Zion : 
for  there  the  Lord  commanded  the  blessing, 
even  life  for  evermore. 

See  on  Ps.  89.  12. 

A  great  difliculty  occurs  in  the  comparison  which  the 
Psalmist  makes  to  the^dew  of  Hermon,  that  fell  on  the  hill 
of  Zion ;  which  might  easily  be  interpreted,  if  it  had  been 
observed,  that  the  clouds  which  lay  on  Hermon,  being 
brought  by  the  north  winds  to  Jerusalem,  caused  the  dews 
to  fall  plentifully  on  the  hill  of  Zion.  But  there  is  a  Shihon 
ient:'-  •  i'^  ii  the  tribe  of  Issachar,  (Josh.  xix.  19,)  which 
may  oe  ihe  Zion  spoken  of  by  Eusebius  and  Saint  Jerome,  as 
near  Mount  Tabor ;  and  there  might  be  a  hill  there  of  that 
name,  on  which  the  dew  of  the  other  Hermon  might  fall, 
that  was  to  the  east  of  Esdraelon.  However,  as  there  is 
no  certainty  that  Mount  Hermon  in  that  part  is  even  men- 
tioned in  scripture,  so  I  should  rather  think  it  to  be  spoken 
of  this  famous  mountain,  and  that  Tabor  and  Hermon  are 
joined  together,  as  rejoicing  in  the  name  of  God,  not  on 
account  of  their  being  near  to  one  another,  but  because 
they  are  two  of  the  highest  hills  in  all  Palestine.  So  that 
if  any  one  considers  this  beautiful  piece  of  eloquence  of 
the  Psalmist,  and  that  Hermon  is  elsewhere  actually  called 
Zion,  (Deut.  iv.  48,)  he  v/ill  doubtless  be  satisfied,  that  the 
most  natural  interpretation  of  the  Psalmist  would  be  to 
suppose,  though  the  whole  might  be  called  both  Hermon 
and  Zion,  yet  that  the  highest  summit  of  this  mountain  was 
in  particular  called  Hermon,  and  that  a  lower  part  of  it 
had  the  name  of  Zion;  on  which  supposition,  the  dew 
falling  from  the  top  of  it  down  to  the  lower  parts,  might 
well  be  compared  in  every  respect  to  the  precious  ointment 
n/por:  the  head  that  ran  down  unto  the  beard,  even  unto  Aaron's 
beard,  and  went  down  to  the  skirts  of  his  clothing,  and  that 
both  of  them  in  this  sense  are  very  proper  emblems  of  the 
blessings  of  unity  and  friendship,  which  diff'use  themselves 
throughout  the  whole  society.    (Pococke.) — Burder. 

When  Maundrell  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Mount 
Hermon,  he  remarked,  "  We  were  instructed  by  expe- 
rience, what  the  Psalmist  means  by  the  dew  of  Hermon, 
our  tents  being  as  wet  with  it  as  if  it  had  rained  all  night." 
In  Arabia,  says  Dr.  Shaw,  the  dew  often  wets  the  traveller 
who  has  no  covering  but  the  heavens,  to  the  skin ;  but  no 
sooner  is  the  sun  risen,  and  the  atmosphere  a  little  heated, 
than  the  mists  are  quickly  dispersed,  and  the  copious  moist- 
ure which  the  dews  communicated  to  the  sands  would  be 
« entirely  evaporated. — Paxton. 

PSALM  CXXXV. 

Ver.  7.  He  causeth  the  vapours  to  ascend  from  the 
ends  of  the  eartlT :  he  maketh  lightnings  for  the 
rain :  he  bringeth  the  wind  out  of  his  treasures. 

0 

,  In  Syria,  lightnings  are  frequent  in  the  autumnal  months. 
Seldom  a  night  passes  without  a  great  deal  of  lightning  in 
the  northwest,  but  without  thunder;  but  whfen  it  appears 
;in  the  west  or  southwest  points,  it  is  a  sure  sign  of  ap- 
proaching rain,  and  is  often  attended  with  thunder.  It 
nas  been  observed  already,  that  a  squall  of  wind  and  clouds 
of  dust,  are  the  usual  forerunners  of  the  first  rains.  To 
iihese  natural  phenomena,  the  sacred  writers  frequently 
allude  ;  and  in  the  precise  order  which  has  been  marked 
in  the  preceding  observations.  The  royal  Psalmist,  in  a 
very  beautiful  strain,  ascribes  them  to  the  immediate  agen- 
-cy  of  heaven  :  "  He  causeth  the  vapours  to  ascend  from 
the  ends  of  the  earth  :  he  maketh  lightnings  for  the  rain : 
he  bringeth  the  wind  out  of  his  treasures."  The  cisterns  of 
■the  clouds  are  replenished  by  exhalations  from  every  part 
^  the  globe ;  and,  when  they  are  ready  to  open  and  pour 


out  their  refreshing  showers  on  the  parched  ground,  the 
glad  tidings  are  announced  by  the  rapid  lightning,  and  the 
precious  treasure  is  scattered  over  the  fields  by  the  attendant 
winds ;  and  that  the  sweet  singer  of  Israel  looked  through 
nature  with  an  accurate,  discriminating  eye,  is  confirmed 
by  the  concurring  testimony  of  all  ages.— Paxton. 

Russel  says,  that  at  Aleppo  a  night  seldom  passes  with- 
out lightning  in  the  northwest  quarter,  but  not  attended 
with  thunder.  When  it  appears  in  the  west  or  southwest 
points,  it  is  a  sure  sign  of  the  approaching  rain ;  this  light- 
ning is  often  followed  by  thunder.  Thus  "  God  maketh 
the  lightnings  for  the  rain ;  and  when  he  uttereth  his  voice, 
there  is  a  multitude  of  waters  in  the  heavens;"  and  as  these 
refreshing  showers  are  preceded  by  squalls  of  wind,  "  he 
bringeth  forth  the  wind  out  of  his  treasure,"  Jer.  li.  16. — 
Harmer, 

PSALM  CXXXVII. 
Ver.  1.  By  the  rivers  of  Babylon  there  we  sat 
down ;  yea,  we  wept,  when  we  remembered 
Zion. 

See  on  Lam.  2.  10. 

Ver.  5.  If  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem,  let  my  right 

hand  forget  her  cunning. 

In  the  Hindoo  book,  Scanda-Purana,  it  is  written, "  Singa- 
Muggam,on  seeing  that  his  heart  throbbed,  the  tears  flowed, 
and  his  hands  and  feet  forgot  their  cunning."  "Yes;  if  I 
lose  thee,  if  I  forget  thee,  it  will  be  like  the  losing,  like 
the  forgetting  of  these  eyes  and  arms." — Roberts. 

The  last  words  mean,  may  my  right  hand  forget,  refuse 
to  perform  its  service ;  namely,  cease  to  move,  be  benumbed. 
A  similar,  and,  as  it  appears,  proverbial  expression,  is  found 
in  an  old  Arabian  poem,  in  De  Sacy's  Chrestom  Arab: 
"  No,  never  have  I  done  any  thing  that  could  displease 
thee ;  if  this  is  not  true,  may  my  hand  be  unable  to  lift  my 
scourge ;"  that  is,  may  it  be  lamed.— Rosenmdller. 

PSALM  CXXXVIII. 
Ver.  6.  Though  the  Lord  he  high,  yet  hath  he 
respect  unto  the  lowly :  but  the  proud  he  know- 
eth  afar  off 

This  is  truly  oriental :  "  Nan  avari  veggu  tooratila  ar- 
rilca-rain,  i.  e.  I  know  him  afar  oflT.  Let  him  be  at  a  great 
distance  ;  allow  him  to  conduct  his  plans  with  the  greatest 
secrecy;  yet,  I  compass  his  path,  I  am  close  to  him.  You 
pretend  to  describe  the  fellow  to  me :  I  know  him  well ; 
there  is  no  need  to  go  near  to  him,  for  I  can  recognise  him 
at  the  greatest  distance.  See  how  he  carries  his  head  ; 
look  at  his  gait;  who  can  mistake  his  proud  bearing  1" 
"How  does  your  brother  conduct  himself  1" — "I  cannot 
tell,  for  he  knows  me  afar  off." — Roberts. 

PSALM  CXL. 
Ver.  4.  Keep  me,  O  Lord,  from  the  hand  of  the 
wicked ;  preserve  me  from  the  violent  man ; 
who  have  purposed  to  overthrow  my  goings. 

See  on  Ps.  91.  13. 

PSALM  CXLI. 
Ver.  5.  Let  the  righteous  smite  me  ;  it  shall  be 
a  kindness  :  and  let  him  reprove  me ;  it  shall 
he  an  excellent  oil,  which  shall  not  break  my 
head :  for  yet  my  prayer  also  shall  he  in  their 
calamities. 

Certain  oils  are  said  to  have  a  most  salutary  effect  on  the 
head  ;  hence  in  fevers,  or  any  other  complaints  which  af- 
fect the  head,  the  medical  men  always  recommend  oil.  I 
have  known  people  who  were  deranged,  cured  in  a  very 
short  time  by  nothing  more  than  the  application  of  a  peculiar 
kind  of  oil  to  the  head.  There  are,  however,  other  kinds, 
which  are  believed  (when  thus  applied)  to  produce  delir- 
ium.   Thus  the  reproofs  of  the  righteous  were  compared 


g%»-a.jb^v 


:1G 


PSALMS. 


Ps.  141—148. 


to  excellent  oil,  which  produced  a  most  salutary  effect  on 
the  head.  So  common  is  this  practice  of  anointing  the 
head,  that  all  who  can  afford  it  do  it  every  week.  But 
strange  as  it  may  appear,  the  crown  of  the  head  is  the  place 
selected  for  chastisement.  Thus  owners  of  slaves,  or  hus- 
bands, or  schoolmasters,  beat  the  heads  of  the  offenders 
with  their  knuckles.  Should  an  urchin  come  late  to  school, 
or  forget  his  lesson,  the  pedagogue  says  to  some  of  the 
other  boys,  "Go,  beat  his  head."  "Begohe,  fellow!  or  I 
will  beat  thy  head."  Should  a  man  be  thus  chastised  by 
an  inferior,  he  quotes  the  old  proverb — "  If  my  head  is  to 
be  beaten,  let  it  be  done  with  the  fingers  that  have  rings 
on  ;"  meaning  a  man  of  rank.  "Yes,  yes ;  let  a  holy  man 
smite  my  head :  and  what  of  that  %  it  is  an  excellent  oil." 
"  iNIy  master  has  been  beating  my  head,  but  it  has  been 
good  Dil  for  me." — Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  When  their  judges  are  overthrown  in 
stony  places,  they  shall  hear  my  words;  for 
they  are  sweet. 

Ainsworth,  "  Their  judges  are  thrown  down  by  the  rock 
sides."  In  2  Chronicles  xxv.  12,  it  is  recorded  that  the  chil- 
dren of  Judah_  took  ten  thousand  captives,  "  and  brought 
them  unto  the  top  of  the  rock,  and  cast  them  down  from 
the  top  of  the  rock,  that  they  were  all  broken  in  pieces." 
It  was  a  custom  in  all  parts  of  the  East  thus  to  despatch 
criminals,  by  casting  them  down  a  precipice ;  the  Tar- 
peian  rock  affords  a  similar  instance.  But  who  were 
these  judges'?  probably  those  "  men  that  work  iniquity,"  as 
mentioned  in  the  4th  verse.  In  the  5th  verse  he  speaks  of 
the  salutary  nature  of  the  reproofs  of  the  righteous,  but 
in  the  7th  he  seems  to  refer  to  the  cruel  results  of  having 
unrighteous  judges  ;  for  in  consequence  of  their  smitings 
he  says,  "  Our  bones  are  scattered  at  the  grave's  mouth, 
as  when  one  cutteth  and  cleaveth  wood ;"  i.  e.  their  bones 
were  like  the  fragments  and  chips  scattered  on  the  earth, 
left  by  the  hewers  of  wood.  Therefore  these  judges  were 
to  be  "  overthrown  in  stony  places." — Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  Our  bones  are  scattered  at  the  grave's 
mouth,  as  when  one  cutteth  and  cleaveth  wood 
upon  the  earth. 

A  remarkable  expression  of  the  Psalmist  David,  Psalm 
cxli.  7,  appears  to  have  much  poetical  heightening  in  it, 
which'  even  its  author,  in  all  probability,  did  not  mean 
should  be  accepted  literally;  while,  nevertheless,  it  might 
be  susceptible  of  a  literal  acceptation,  and  is  sometimes  a 
fact. — The  Psalmist  says,  "  Our  bones  are  scattered  at  the 
grave's  mouth,  as  when  one  cutteth  and  cleaveth  v)ood 
upon  the  earth."  This  seems  to  be  strong  eastern  paint- 
ing, and  almost  figurative  language;  but  that  it  may  be 
strictly  true,  the  following  extract  demonstrates  :  "  At  five 
o'clock  we  left  Garigana,  our  journey  being  still  to  the 
eastward  of  north ;  and  at  a  quarter  past  six  in  the  evening 
arrived  at  the  village  of  that  name,  whose  inhabitants  had 
all  perished  loith  hunger  the  year  before  ;  their  wretched  bones 
being  all  U7iburied,  and  scattered  upon  the  surface  of  the 
ground,  where  the  village  formerly  stood.  We  encamped 
among  the  bones  of  the  dead ;  no  space  co^dd  be  found  free 
from  them ;  and  on  the  23d,  at  six  in  the  morning,  full  of 
horror  at  this  miserable  spectacle,  we  set  out  for  Teawa ; 
this  was  the  seventh  day  from  Ras  El  Feel.  After  an 
hour's  travelling,  we  came  to  a  small  river,  which  still 
had  water  standing  in  some  considerable  pools,  although 
its  banks  were  destitute  of  any  kind  of  shade."  (Bruce.) 
The  reading  of  this  account  thrills  us  with  horror ;  what 
then  must  have  been  the  sufferings  of  the  ancient  Jews  at 
such  a  sight  7 — when  to  have  no  burial  was  reckoned 
among  the  greatest  calamities ;  when  their  land  was 
thought  to  be  polluted,  in  which  the  dead  (even  criminals) 
were  in  any  manner  exposed  to  view ;  and  to  whom  the 
very  touch  of  a  dead  body,  or  part  of  it,  or  of  any  thing 
that  had  touched  a  dead  body,  was  esteemed  a  defilement, 
and  required  a  ceremonial  ablution  1 — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

PSALM  CXLII. 

Ver.  7.  Bring-  my  soul  out  of  prison,  that  I  may 
praise  thy  name ;  the  righteous  shall  compass 


me  about ;  for  thou  shalt  deal  bountifully  with 
me. 

These  people  speak  of  afflictions,  difficulties,  and  sorrows, 
as  so  many  prisons.  "  lyo  intha  marryil  eppo  vuttu  pome  ?'• 
i.  e.  "  Alas !  when  will  this  imprisonment  go  %"  exclaims 
the  man  in  his  difficulties. — Roberts. 

PSALM  CXLIV. 

Ver.  12.  That  our  sons  may  be  as  plants  grown 
up  in  their  youth ;  that  our  daughters  may  be 
as  corner-stones,  polished  after  the  similitude  of 
a  palace. 

Of  a  man  who  has  a  hopeful  and  beautiful  family,  it  is 
said,  "  His  sons  are  like  shoots,  (springing  up  from  the 
parent  stock,)  and  his  daughters  arfe  like  carved  work  and 
precious  stones." — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  That  our  garners  may  he  full,  affording 
all  manner  of  store ;  that  our  sheep  may  bring 
forth  thousands  and  ten  thousands  in  our  streets. 

The  surprising  fecundity  of  the  sheep  has  been  celebrated 
by  writers  of  every  class.  It  has  not  escaped  the  notice  of 
the  royal  Psalmist,  who,  in  a  beautiful  ascription  of  praise 
to  the  living  and  the  true  God,  entreats,  that  the  sheep  of 
his  chosen  people  might  "  bring  forth  thousands  and  ten 
tjhousands  in  their  streets."  In  another  song  of  Zion,  he 
represents,  by  a  very  elegant  metaphor,  the  numerous 
flocks,  covering  like  a  garment  the  face  of  the  field:  "  The 
pastures  are  clothed  with  flocks ;  the  valleys  also  are  cov- 
ered over  with  corn ;  they  shout  for  joy,  they  also  sing." 
The  bold  figure  is  fully  warranted  by  the  prodigious  num- 
bers of  sheep  which  whitened  the  extensive  pastures  of 
Syria  and  Canaan.  In  that  part  of  Arabia  which  borders 
on  Judea,  the  patriarch  Job  possessed  at  first  seven  thou- 
sand, and  after  the  return  of  his  prosperity,  fourteen  thou- 
sand sheep ;  and  Mesha,  the  king  of  Moab,  paid  the  king 
of  Israel "  a  yearly  tribute  of  a  hundred  thousand  lambs,  and 
an  equal  number  of  rams  with  the  wool."  In  the  war 
which  the  tribe  of  Reuben  waged  with  the  Hagarites,  the 
former  drove  away  "  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  sheep." 
At  the  dedication"  of  the  temple,  Solomon  offered  in  sacri- 
fice "  a  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  sheep."  At  the  feast 
of  the  passover,  Josiah,  the  king  of  Judah,  "  gave  to  the 
people,  of  the  flock,  lambs  and  kids,  all  for  the  passover- 
offerings,  for  all  that  were  present,  to  the  number  of  thirty 
thousand,  and  three  thousand  bullocks ;  these  were  of  the 
king's  substance."  The  ewe  brings  forth  her  young  com- 
monly once  a  year,  and  in  more  ungenial  climes,  seldom 
more  than  one  lamb  at  a  time.  But  in  the  oriental  regions, 
twin  lambs  are  as  frequent  as  they  are  rare  in  other  places ; 
which  accounts  in  a  satisfactory  manner  for  the  prodigious 
numbers  which  the  Syrian  shepherd  led  to  the  mountains. 
This  uncommon  fruitfulness  seems  to  be  intimated  by  Sol- 
omon-in  his  address  to  the  spouse  :  "  Thy  .teeth  are  like  a 
flock  of  sheep  that  are  even  shorn,  which  came  up  from 
the  washing ;  whereof  every  one  beareth  twins,  and  none 
is  barren  among  them." — Paxton, 

PSALM  CXLVIII. 
Ver.  9.  Mountains,  and  all  hills ;  fruitful  trees, 
and  all  cedars:  10.  Beasts,  and  all  cattle; 
creeping  things,  and  flying  fowl :  11.  Kings  of 
the  earth,  and  all  people;  princes,  and  all 
judges  of  the  earth:  12.  Both  young  men  and 
maidens;  old  men  and  children:  13.  Let  them 
praise  the  name  of  the  Lord  :  for  his  name 
alone  is  excellent ;  his  glory  is  above  the  earth 
and  heaven. 

Those  who  are  unacquainted  with  oriental  literature, 
sometimes  affect  to  smile  at  the  addresses  which  are  made 
in  scripture  to  animate  and  inanimate  nature.  "How 
ridiculous,"  say  thev,  "to  talk  about  the  mountains  skipping 
like  rams,  and  the  'little  hills  like  lambs  !"  but  they  know 
not  that  this  is  according  to  the  figurative  and  luxuriant 


Ps.  149,  150. 


PSALMS. 


417 


genius  of  the  people  of  the  East.  The  proprietor  of  lands, 
brests,  orchards,  and  gardens,  often  exclaims,  when  walk- 
/ng  among  them  in  time  of  drought,  "  Ah  !  trees,  plants, 
and  flowers,  tanks  and  cattle,  birds  and  fish,  and  all  living 
creatures,  sing  praises  to  the  gods,  and  rain  shall  be  given 
to  you." — Roberts. 


PSALM  CXLIX. 

Ver.  5.  Let  the  saints  be  joyful  in  glory : 
sing  aloud  upon  their  beds. 


let  them 


After  the  troops  were  assembled,  a  public  sacrifice  was 
offered  upon  the  national  altar,  which  was  succeeded  by  a 
martial  feast  prepared  for  the  whole  army ;  and  to  confirm 
their  purpose  and  inflame  their  courage,  a  hymn  to  Jehovah 
closed  the  festival.  •  The  hundred  and  forty-ninth  psalm, 
was,  in  the  opinion  of  Doddridge,  composed  on  such  an 
occasion  ;  it  was  sung  when  David's  army  was  marching 
out  to  war  against  the  remains  of  the  devoted  nations  of 
Canaan,  and  first  went  up  in  solemn  procession  to  the 
house  of  God,  there,  as  it  were,  to  consecrate  the  arms  he 
put  into  their  hands.  On  that  occasion,  the  devout  mon- 
arch called  on  his  associates  in  arms  (ver.  5)  "to  sing 
aloud  upon  their  beds,"  that  is,  the  couches  upon  which 
they  reclined  at  the  banquet  attending  their  sacrifices, 
which  gives  a  clear  and  important  sense  to  a  very  obscure 
and  difficult  passage.  To  these  military  sacrifices  and 
banquets  the  people  were  summoned  by  the  sound  of  two 
silver  trumpets  of  a  cubit  long,  according  to  Josephus,  but, 
like  ours,  wider  at  bottom.  These  were  blown  by  two 
priests,  as  the  law  of  Moses  required;  and  they  were 
sounded  in  a  particular  manner,  that  the  people  might 
know  the  meaning  of  the  summons.  Then  the  anointed 
for  the  war,  going  from  one  battalion  to  another,  exhorted 
the  soldiers  in  the  Hebrew  language,  no  other  being  al- 
lowed on  that  occasion,  to  fight  valiantly  for  their  country, 
and  for  the  cities  of  their  God.  Officers  were  appointed  to 
give  notice,  that  those  whose  business  it  was  should  make 
sufficient  provision  for  the  army,  before  they  marched ; 
and  every  tenth  man  was  appointed  for  this  purpose. 
This  arrangement  was  made  by  a  resolution  of  the  tribes, 
recorded  in  the  book  of  Judges :  "  And  we  will  take  ten 
men  of  a  hundred  throughout  all  the  tribes  of  Israel,  and  a 
hundred  of  a  thousand,  and  a  thousand  out  often  thousand, 
to  fetch  victual  for  the  people,  that  they  may  do,  when  they 
come  to  Gibeah  of  Benjamin,  according  to  all  the  folly  that 
they  have  wrought  in  Israel."  Mr.  Harmer  contends,  that 
"  these  men  were  not  intended  so  much  to  collect  food  for 
53 


the  use  of  their  companions  in  that  expedition,  as  to  dress 
it,  to  serve  it  up,  and  to  wait  upon  them  in  eatmg  it."  But 
although  the  difference  is  not  very  material,  the  suppo- 
sition that  the  tenth  part  of  the  army  was  to  forage  for  the 
rest  is  more  natural,  and  at  the  same  time  more  agreeable 
to  the  literal  meaning  of  the  text,  which  signifies  to  hunt 
the  prey. — Paxton. 

PSALM  CL. 

Ver.  3.  Praise  him  with  the  sound  of  the  trum- 
pet: praise  him  with  the  psaltery  and  harp. 
4.  Praise  him  with  the  timbrel  and  dance: 
praise  him  with  stringed  instruments  and  or- 
gans. 5.  Praise  him  with  the  loud  cymbals : 
praise  him  upon  the  high-sounding  cymbals. 

•  Instruments  of  music  were  used  in  the  worship  of  the 
Most  High  God  :  and  the  Hindoos,  in  singing  praises,  and 
performing  religious  ceremonies  to  their  deities,  always 
nave  the  same  accompaniments.  Thus  the  trumpet  and 
the  "  high-sounding  cymbals,"  the  timbrels,  (which  corre- 
spond partly  with  the  tambarine,)  the  harp,  -^iss  kinnor, 
(also  called  kirmora  in  Tamul,)  is  a  stringed  instrument, 
played  with  the  fingers:  and  maybe  heard  in  all  their  tem- 

Eles  at  the  time  of  service.  The  devotee  engaged  in  ma- 
ing  offerings  often  exclaims, "  Praise  him,  O  ye  musicians ! 
praise  him;  praise  the  Swamy :"  and  great  is  their  enthu- 
siasm ;  their  eyes,  their  heads,  their  tongues,  their  hands, 
their  legs,  are  all  engaged.  At  a  marriage,  or  when  a  great 
man  gives  a  feast,  the  guests  go  to  the  players  on  instru- 
ments, and  say,  "  Praise  the  noble  host,  praise  the  bride  and 
the  groom ;  praise  aloud,  O  cymbals  !  give  forth  the  voice, 
¥6  trumpets;  strike  up  the  harp  and  the  timbrel;  praise 
him  in  the  song,  serve  him,  serve  him."— Roberts. 


Ver.  5.  Praise  him  with  the  loud  cymbals : 
him  upon  the  high-sounding  cymbals. 


praise 


The  Hebrew  word,  which  is  here  translated  cymbal,  sig- 
nifies rather,  metal  plates  or  basins.  In  the  above  passage, 
a  larger  and  smaller  kind  are  probably  meant,  both  ot 
which  are  still  customary  in  the  East,  The  latter  are 
metal  plates,  castanets,  such  as  the  oriental  female  dancers 
take  two  on  each  hand,  over  one  finger  and  the  thumb.  For 
military  music,  they  have  large  plates  of  the  same  form. 
And  these  are  those  which  are  here  called  "  high-sounding 
cymbals." — Bubder. 


THE   BOOK  OF   PROVERBS 


CHAPTER  I. 
Vev.  1.  The  proverbs  of  Solomon,  the  son  of  Da- 
vid, king  of  Israel. 

In  those  periods  of  remote  antiquity,  which  may  with  the 
utmost  propriety  be  styled  the  infancies  of  societies  and 
nations,  the  usual,  if  not  the  only  mode  of  instruction,  was 
by  detached  aphorisms  or  proverbs.  Human  wisdom  was 
then  indeed  in  a  rude  and  imfinished  state :  it  was  not 
digested,  methodized,  or  reduced  to  order  and  connexion. 
Those  who  by  genius  and  reflection,  exercised  in  the  school 
rf  experience,  had  accumulated  a  stock  of  knowledge,  were 
desirous  of  reducing  it  into  the  most  compendious  form, 
and  comprised  in  a  few  maxims  those  observations  which 
they  apprehended  most  essential  to  human  happiness.  This 
mode  of  instruction  was,  in  truth,  more  likely  than  any 
other  to  prove  efficacious  with  men  in  a  rude  stage  of  soci- 
ety ;  for  It  professed  not  to  dispute,  but  to  command ;  not  to 
persuade,  but  to  compel :  it  conducted  them,  not  by  a  circuit 
of  argument,  but  led  immediately  to  the  approbation  and 
practice  of  integrity  and  virtue.  That  it  might  not,  how- 
ever, be  altogether  destitute  of  allurement,  and  lest  it  should 
disgust  by  an  appearance  of  roughness  and  severity,  some 
degree  of  ornament  became  necessary  ;  and  the  instructers 
of  mankind  added  to  their  precepts  the  graces  of  harmony, 
and  illuminated  them  with  metaphors,  comparisons,  allu- 
sions, and  the  other  embellishments  of  style.  This  manner, 
which  with  other  nations  prevailed  only  during  the  first 
periods  of  civilization,  with  the  Hebrews  continued  to  be  a 
favourite  style  to   the  latest  ages  of  their   literature, — 

LOWTH. 

Ver.  6.  To  understand  a  proverb,  and  the  interpre- 
tation ;  the  words  of  the  wise,  and  their  dark 
sayings. 

The  people  of  the  East  look  upon  the  acquirements  of 
antiquity  as  being  every  way  superior  to  those  of  modem 
times :  thus  their  noblest  works  of  art  and  their  sciences 
are  indebted  to  antiquity  for  their  invention  and  perfection. 
Instead,  therefore,  of  their  minds  being  enlightened  and 
excited  by  the  splendid  productions  of  modern  genius,  they 
are  ever  reverting  to  the  wisdom  of  their  forefathers,  and 
sighing  over  the  loss  of  many  of  their  occult  sciences.  We, 
.on  the  other  hand,  by  contemplating  the  imposing  achieve- 
•ments  of  the  present  age,  are  in  danger  of  looking  with 
contempt  on  antiquity,  and  of  pursuing  with  thoughtless 
avidity  the  novelties  and  speculations  of  modern  inven- 
tions. 

Solomon  could  repeat  "  three  thousand  proverbs,  and  his 
songs  were  a  thousand  and  five;"  and  many  of  the  philos- 
ophers of  the  present  age  in  the  East  have  scarcely  any 
other  wisdom.  Listen  to  two  men  engaged  in  argument : 
should  he  who  is  on  the  point  of  being  foiled,  quote  an  ap- 
posite proverb  against  his  antagonist,  an  advantage  is  con- 
sidered as  having  been  gained,  which  scarcely  any  thing 
can  counteract.  See  a  man  who  is  pondering  over  some 
difficulty  :  his  reason  cannot  decide  as  to  the  course  he 
ought  to  pursue,  when,  perhaps,  some  one  repeats  a  palla- 
mulle,  i.  e.  an  old  saying:  the  whole  of  his  doubts  are  at 
once  removed,  and  he  starts  with  vigour  in  the  prescribed 
course. 

"  Young  man,  talk  not  to  me  with  infant  wisdom,  what 
are  the  sayings  of  the  ancients !  you  ought  to  obey  your 
parents.  Listen !  *  The  father  and  the  mother  are  the 
first  deities  a  child  has  to  acknowledge.'  Is  it  not  said, 
'  Children  who  obey  willingly  are  as  ambrosia  to  the 
gods  V  "  "  Were  you  my  friend,  you  would  not  act  thus ; 
because,  as  the  proverb  says,  '  True  friends  have  but  one 
»cul  in  two  bodies.'  "    "I  am  told  you  have  been  trying  to 


ruin  me ;  '  but  will  the  moon  be  injured  by  the  barking  of 
a  dog 7' "  "You  have  become  proud,  and  conduct  yourself 
like  the  upstart  who  must '  carry  his  silk  umbrella  lo  keep 
off  the  sun  at  midnight !'  "  "  You  talk  about  your  hopes 
of  some  coming  good  :  what  say  the  ancients '?  '  Expect- 
ation is  the  midday  dream  of  life.' "  '^Cease  to  be  indolent, 
for,  as  our  fathers  said,  '  Idleness  is  the  rust  of  the  mind.'  " 
"  That  you  have  been  guilty  of  many  crimes  I  cannot 
doubt,  as  the  proverb  says,  '  Will  there  be  smoke  without 
fire  V  Your  wife  has,  I  fear,  led  you  astray,  but  she  wiL 
be  your  ruin :  what  said  the  men  of  antiquity  1  '  As  is  the 
affection  of  a  file  for  the  iron,  of  a  parasitical  plant  for  the 
tree  which  supports  it ;  so  is  the  affection  of  a  violent 
woman  for  her  husband:  she  is  like  Yama,  (the  deity  oi 
death,)  who  eats  and  destroys  without  appearing  to  do  so.'" 
With  these  specimens,  the  English  reader  may  form  a 
tolerable  idea  of  the  importance  which  is  attached  to 
proverbs. — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  So  are  the  ways  of  every  one  that  is 
greedy  of  gain  ;  which  taketh  away  the  life  of 
the  owners  thereof 

The  words  rendered  "  greedy  of  gain,"  denote  one  who- 
cuts  or  clips  off  every  scrap  of  money  he  possibly  can.  In 
the  times  of  Abraham  and  Moses,  and  long  after,  they  used 
to  weigh  their  silver,  and,  no  doubt,  to  cut  and  clip  off 
pieces  of  it,  to  make  weight  in  their  dealings  with  each 
other,  as  is  practised  by  some  nations,  particularly  the 
Chinese,  to  this  day. — Burder. 

Ver.  26.  .1  also  Avill  laugh  at  your  calamity ;  1 
will  mock  when  your  fear  cometh  ;  27.  When 
your  fear  cometh  as  desolation,  and  your  de- 
struction cometh  as  a  whirlwind ;  when  distress 
and  anguish  cometh  upon  you. 

According  to  Savary,  the  south  wind,  which  blows  in 
Egypt  from  February  to  May,  fills  the  atmosphere  with  a 
subtile  dust,  which  impedes  respiration,  and  brings  with  it 
pernicious  vapours.  Sometimes  it  appears  only  in  the 
shape  of  an  impetuous  whirlwind,  which  passes  rapidly, 
and  is  fatal  to  the  traveller,  surprised  in  the  middle  of  the 
deserts.  Torrents  of  burning  sand  roll  before  it,  the  firma- 
ment is  enveloped  in  a  thick  veil,  and  the  sun  appears  of 
the  colour  of  blood.  It  is  therefore  with  strict  propriety 
that  the  sacred  writers  distinguish  from  all  others  the 
whirlwinds  of  the  south,  and  with  peculiar  force  and 
beauty,  compare  the  sudden  approach  of  calamity  to  their 
impetuous  and  destructive  career.  "  I  also  will  laugh  at 
your  calamity ;  I  will  mock  when  your  fear  cometh : 
when  your  fear  cometh  as  desolation,  and  your  destruction 
cometh  as  a  whirlwind :  when  distress  and  anguish  cometh 
upon  you."  Whole  caravans  have  been  overwhelmed  in 
a  moment,  by  the  immense  quantity  of  sand  which  it  puts 
in  motion.  The  Arab  who  conducted  Mr.  Bruce  through 
the  frightful  deserts  of  Senaar,  pointed  out  to  him  a  spot 
among  some  sandy  hillocks,  where  the  ground  seemed  to 
be  more  elevated  than  the  rest,  where  one  of  the  largest 
caravans  which  ever  came  out  of  Egypt  was  covered  wi.h 
sand,  to  the  number  of  several  thousand  camels.  This 
awful  phenomenon  Addison  has  well  described  in  the  fol- 
lowing lines,  which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Syphax,  a 
Numidian  prince : — 

"  So  where  our  wide  Numidian  states  extend, 

Sndden  tlie  impetuous  hurricanes  descend, 

Wheel  through  the  air,  in  circhng  eddies  play, 

Tear  up  the  sands,  and  sweep  whole  plains  away. 

The  helpl«^ss  traveller,  with  wild  surprise. 

Sees  the  dry  desert  all  around  him  rise, 

And,  smothered  in  the  dusty  whirlwind,  dies."-rAiTO». 


Chap.  3—6. 


PROVERBS. 


419 


CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  8.  It  shall  be  health  to  thy  navel,  and  mar- 
row to  thy  bones. 

The  navel  of  an  infant  is  often  very  clumsily  managed 
in  the  East :  hence  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  see  that  part 
greatly  enlarged,  and  diseased.  The  fear  of  the  Lord, 
therefore,  would  be  as  medicine  and  health  to  the  navel, 
uM-[ng  it  to  grow  and  prosper.  Strange  as  it  may  appear, 
the  riavel  is  often  spoken  of  as  a  criterion  of  prosperity; 
an-  ;1  Solomon  appears  to  have  had  the  same  idea,  for  he 
mentions  this  health  of  the  navel  as  being  the  result  of 
trusting  in  the  Lord,  and  of  acknowledging  Him  in  all  our 
ways.  He  says  in  the  next  verse,  "  Honour  the  Lord  with 
thy  substance,  and  with  the  first-fruits  of  all  thine  increase  : 
so  shall  thy  barns  be  filled  with  plenty,  and  thy  presses 
shall  burst  "out  with  new  wine."  And  this  reference  to  the 
*iavel,  as  being  connected  with  earthly  prosperity,  is  com- 
mon at  this  day.  Has  a  person  arisen  from  poverty  to  af- 
"uence,  it  is  said,  "  His  navel  has  grown  much  larger." 
Should  he  insult  the  man  from  whom  he  has  derived  his 
prosperity,  the  latter  will  ask,  "  Who  made  your  navel  to 
grow  V — Roberts. 

Medicines  in  the  East  are  chiefly  applied  externally,  and 
in  particular  to  the  stomach  and  belly.  This  comparison, 
Chardin  says,  is  drawn  from  the  plasters,  ointments,  oils, 
and  frictions,  which  are  made  use  of  in  the  East  upon  the 
belly  and  stomach  inmost  maladies;  they  being  ignorant 
in  the  villages,  of  the  art  of  making  decoctions  and  potions, 
and  the  proper  doses  of  such  things. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  13.  Take  fast  hold  of  instruction;    let  her 
not  go  :  keep  her ;  for  she  is  thy  life. 

It  is  said  of  the  fixed  will  or  purpose  of  those  who  take 
fast  hold  of  learning  or  any  other  thing,  "  Ah!  they  are  like 
'he  hand  of  the  monkey  in" the  shell  of  the  cocoa-nut ;  it  will 
aot  let  go  the  rice." 

"  On  the  banks  of  a  broad  river  there  was  once  a  very 
large  herd  of  monkeys,  which  greatly  injured  the  fields  and 
gardens  of  the  inhabitants.  Several  consultations  were  held 
as  to  the  best  way  of  getting  rid  of  those  troublesome  ma- 
rauders :  to  take  their  lives  was  altogether  contrary  to  the 
religious  prejudices  of  the  people ;  and  to  take  them  in  traps 
was  almost  impossible,  as  the  monkeys  never  approached 
any  place  without  well  examining  the  ground.  At  last  it 
was  determined  to  procure  a  sufficient  number  of  cocoa- 
nuts;  to  make  in  each  a  small  hole,  and  fill  them  with  rice. 
These  were  strewed  on  the  ground,  and  the  people  retired 
to  watch  the  success  of  their  plan.  The  offenders  soon 
went  to  the  place,  and  seeing  the  rice  (their  favourite  food) 
in  the  nuts,  they  began  to  eat  the  few  grains  scattered  about 
on  the  ground  :  but  these  only  exciting  their  appetite,  they 
each  thrust  a  hand  through  the  small  hole  into  the  nut, 
which  was  soon  clasped  full  of  rice.  The  hand  now  be- 
came so  enlarged  that  it  could  not  be  withdrawn  without 
losing  its  booty :  to  leave  such  a  dainty  was  more  than  the 
monkey  could  consent  to:  the  people  therefore  came  for- 
ward, and  soon  seized  their  foes,  as  the  cocoa-nut  attached 
to  the  hand  prevented  them  from  getting  quickly  out  of  the 
way.  They  were,  therefore,  all  made  prisoners,  and  fer- 
ried across  the  river,  and  left  to  seek  their  food  in  the  wil- 
derness," "  Take  fast  hold  of  instruction  ;  let  her  not  go; 
keep  her ;  for  she  is  thy  life."— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  18.  Let  thy  fountain  be  blessed;  and  rejoice 
with  the  wife  of  thy  youth.  19.  Let  her  be  as 
the  loving  hind  and  pleasant  roe;  let  her 
breasts  satisfy  thee  at  all  times,  and  be  thou 
ravished  always  with  her  love. 

The  hind  is  celebrated  for  affection  to  her  mate ;  hence 
a  man,  in  speaking  of  his  wife,  often  calls  her  by  that  name, 
"_My  hind,  my  hind!  where  is  my  hind"?"  "Alas!  my 
hind  has  fallen;  the  arrow  has  pierced  her  life." — Roberts. 

The  hind  of  loves,  and  the  roe  of  grace,  in  the  language 
of  the  ancient  Hebrews,  mean,  the  amiable  hind  and  the  love- 
ly roe.  These  creatures,  it  is  generally  admitted,  in  the  whole 


form  of  their  bodies,  and  in  all  their  dispositions  and  man- 
ners, are  wonderfully  pleasing.  The  ancients  were  partic- 
ularly delighted  with  them;  they  kept  them  in  their  houses; 
they  fed  them  at  their  tables  with  the  greatest  care  ;  they 
washed,  and  combed,  and  adorned  them  with  garlands  of 
flowers,  and  chains  of  gold  or  silver.  The  hind  seems  to 
have  been  admitted  to  all  those  privileges,  except  that  of 
reposing  with  her  master  on  the  same  couch,  which  must 
have  been  rendered  inconvenient  by  the  largeness  of  her 
size.  If  these  things  are  duly  considered,  the  charge  of  the 
wise  man  will  not  appear  so  singular ;  to  the  ear  of  an  Ori- 
ental it  was  quite  intelligible,  and  perfectly  proper.  Let  a 
man  tenderly  love  his  spouse ;  relax  in  her  company  from 
the  severer  duties  of  life ;  take  pleasure  in  her  innocent 
and  amiable  conversation  ;  and  in  fine,  treat  her  with  all 
the  kindness,  and  admit  her  to  all  the  familiarity,  which 
the  beauty  of  her  form,  the  excellence  of  her  dispositions, 
and  the  nearness  of  her  relation,  entitle  her  to  expeci. 
— Paxton. 

The  Orientals  still  compare  a  beautiful  woman  to  a  hind, 
or  the  gazelle,  which  resembles  the  roe.  "  When  the 
Arabs  wish  to  describe  the  beauty  of  a  woman,  they  say, 
that  she  has  the  eyes  of  a  gazelle.  All  their  songs,  in 
which  they  celebrate  their  mistresses,  speak  of  nothing  but 
gazelle  eyes,  and  they  need  only  compare  them  to  this 
animal,  to  describe,  in  one  word,  a  perfect  beauty.  The 
gazelle  is  in  fact  a  very  pretty  animal ;  it  has  something 
innocently  timid  about  it,  not  unlike  the  modesty  and  bash- 
fulness  of  a  young  girl."  (D'Arvieux.)  Sparrmann  says 
of  the  Cape  or  African  gazelle,  which  is  very  nearly  re- 
lated to  that  of  Palestine,  "  This  animal  is,  perhaps,  the 
most  beautiful  of  all  gazelles,  and  is  particularly  distin- 
guished, as  the  gazelle  in  general,  for  its  fiery  and  beauti- 
ful eyes  :  hence,  in  some  parts  of  the  East,  it  is  properly 
considered  as  the  greatest  praise  which  can  be  bestowed  oil 
the  beauty  of  a  woman,  to  say,  Thy  eyes  are  like  the  eyes 
of  a  gazelle." — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  19.  Le/ Agr  Z>e  (2.5  the  loving  hind  and  pleasant 
roe ;  let  her  breasts  satisfy  thee  at  all  times,  and 
be  thou  ravished  always  with  her  love. 

See  on  2  Sam.  2.  18. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  1.  My  son,  if  thou  be  surety  for  thy  friend, 
if  thou  hast  stricken  thy  hand  with  a  stranger, 
2.  Thou  art  snared  with  the  words  of  thy  mouth. 

It  was  at  first  reckoned  sufficient  if  the  covenant  was 
made  in  the  presence  of  all  the  people ;  but  in  process  of 
time,  the  ceremony  of  striking  hands  was  introduced  at  the 
conclusion  of  a  bargain,  which  has  maintained  its  ground 
among  the  customs  of  civilized  nations  down  to  the  present 
time.  To  strike  hands  with  another  was  the  emblem  of 
agreement  among  the  Greeks  under  the  walls  of  Troy  ;  for 
Nestor  complains,  in  a  public  assembly  of  the  chiefs,  that 
the  Trojans  had  violated  the  engagements  which  they  had 
sanctioned  by  libations  of  wine,  and  giving  their  right 
hands.  And  in  another  passage,  Agamemnon  protests  that 
the  agreement  which  the  Trojans  had  ratified  by  the  blood 
of  lambs,  libations  of  wine,  and  their  right  hands,  could  not 
in  any  way  be  set  aside.  The  Roman  faith  was  plighted 
in  the  same  way ;  for  in  Virgil,  when  Dido  marked  from 
her  watch-towers  the  Trojan  fleet  setting  forward  with  bal- 
anced sails,  she  exclaimed.  Is  this  the  honour,  the  faith  1 
"  En  dextra  fidesque  V  The  wise  man  alludes  often  to  this 
mode  of  ratifying  a  bargain,  which  shows  it  was  in  gene- 
ral practice  among  the  people  :  "  My  son,  if  thou  be  sure- 
ty for  thy  friend,  if  thou  hast  stricken  thy  hand  with  a 
stranger,  thou  art  snared  with  the  words  of  thy  mouth." 
Traces  of  this  custom  may  be  discovered  in  ages  long  an- 
terior to  that  in  which  Solomon  flourished ;  for  Job,  in  his 
solemn  appeal  to  God  from  the  tribunal  of  men,  thus  ex- 
presses himself:  "  Lay  down  now,  put  me  in  surety  with 
thee ;  who  is  he  that  will  strike  hands  with  me  V — Paxton. 

Ver.  5.  Deliver  thyself  as  a  roe  from  the  hand  of 
the  hunter,  and  as  a  bird  from  the  hand  of  the 
fowler. 


420 


PROVERBS, 


Chap.  7. 


Does  a  man  complain  of  his  numerous  enemies,  it  will 
be  said,  "  Leap  away,  friend,  as  the  deer  from  the  snare." 
"  Fly  off,  fly  oif,  as  the  bird  from  the  fowler."  "  Go  slyly  to 
the  place;  and  then,  should  you  see  the  snare,  fly  away  like 
a  bird." — Roberts. 

Before  dogs  were  so  generally  employed,  the  hunters 
were  obliged  to  make  use  of  nets  and  snares,  to  entangle 
he  game.  When  the  antelope  finds  itself  enclosed  in  the 
toils,  terror  lends  it  additional  strength  and  activity  ;  it 
strains  every  nerve,  with  vigorous  and  incessant  exertion, 
to  bieak  the  snare,  and  escape  before  the  pursuer  arrives. 
And  such  is  the  conduct  which  the  wise  man  recommends 
to  him  who  has  rashly  engaged  to  be  surety  for  his  neigh- 
bour :  "  Deliver  thyself  as  (an  antelope)  from  the  haiid  of 
the  hunter,  and  as  a  bird  from  the  hand  of  the  fowler." 
The  snare  is  spread,  the  adversary  is  at  hand,  instantly 
exert  all  thy  powers  to  obtain  a  discharge  of  the  obligation ; 
a  moment's  hesitation  may  involve  thee  and  thy  family  in 
irretrievable  ruin. — Paxton, 

Ver.  6.  Go  to  the  ant,  thou  sluggard;  consider 
her  ways,  and  be  wise. 

The  name  of  this  minute  insect  in  Hebrew  is  (nVn;)  ne- 
mo2a,  from  a  root  which  signifies  to  cut  down ;  perhaps 
because  the  God  of  nature  has  taught  it  to  divide  or  cut  off" 
the  top  of  the  grain,  which  it  lays  up  in  its  subterraneous 
cells  for  the  winter,  to  prevent  their  germination.  This 
operation  is  attested  by  numerous  ancient  writers,  among 
whom  we  observe  the  celebrated  names  of  Pliny  and  Plu- 
tarch. It  is  at  least  certain,  that  the  ant  cuts  off"  the  tops  of 
growing  corn,  that  it  may  seize  upon  the  grain ;  which  may 
perhaps  be  the  true  reason  of  its  Hebrew  name.  The  al- 
lusions to  this  little  animal  in  the  sacred  writings,  although 
not  numerous,  are  by  no  means  unimportant.  The  wisest 
of  men  refers  us  to  the  bright  example  of  its  foresight  and 
activity :  "  Go  to  the  ant,  thou  sluggard ;  consider  her  ways, 
and  be  wise  :  which  having  no  guide,  overseer,  or  ruler, 
provideth  her  meat  in  the  summer,  and  gathereth  her  food 
-.n  the  harvest."  Their  uniform  care  and  promptitude  in 
improving  every  moment  as  it  passes ;  the  admirable  order 
in  which  they  proceed  to  the  scene  of  action  ;  the  perfect 
harmony  which  reigns  in  their  bands  ;  the  eagerness  which 
they  discover  in  running  to  the  assistance  of  the  weak  or 
the  fatigued  ;  the  readiness  with  which  those  that  have  no 
burden  yield  the  way  to  their  fellows  that  bend  under  their 
loads,  or  when  the  grain  happens  to  be  too  heavy,  cut  it  in 
two,  and  take  the  half  upon  their  own  shoulders;  furnish 
a  striking  example  of  industry,  benevolence,  and  concord, 
*to  the  human  family.  Nor  should  the  skill  and  vigour 
which  they  display  in  digging  under  ground,  in  building 
their  houses,  and  in  constructing  their  cells,  in  filling  their 
granaries  with  corn  for  the  winter,  in  forming  channels  for 
carrying  off  the  rain,  in  bringing  forth  their  hidden  stores 
which  are  in  danger  of  spoiling  by  the  moisture,  and  ex- 
posing them  to  the  sun  and  air,  be  passed  over  in  silence. 
These,  and  many  other  operations,  clearly  show  how  in- 
structive a  teacher  is  the  ant,  even  to  men  of  understanding ; 
and  how  much  reason  Solomon  had  to  hold  up  its  shining 
example  to  their  imitation. 

We  find  another  allusion  to  the  ant  near  the  close  of  the 
same  book :  "  The  ants  are  a  people  not  strong,  yet  they 
prepare  their  meat  in  the  summer."  It  is,  according  to  the 
royal  preacher,  one  of  those  things  which  are  little  upon 
the  earth,  but  exceeding  wise.  The  superior  wisdom  of  the 
ant  has  been  recognised  by  many  writers.  Horace,  in  the 
passage  from  which  the  preceding  quotation  is  taken, 
praises  its  sagacity ;  Virgil  celebrates  its  foresight,  in  pro- 
viding for  the  wants  and  infirmities  of  old  age,  while  it  is 
young  and  vigorous : 

"  atqne  inopi  metuens  formica  senectce." 

And  we  learn  from  Hesiod,  that  among  the  earliest  Greeks 
it  was  called  Idris  ;  that  is,  wise,  because  it  foresaw  the 
coming  storm,  and  the  inauspicious  day,  and  collected  her 
store.  Aristotle  observes,  that  some  of  those  animals  which 
have  no  blood,  possess  more  intelligence  and  sagacity  than 
some  that  have  blood;  among  which  are  the  bees  and  the 
ants.  Cicero  believed  that  the  ant  is  not  only  furnished 
with  senses,  but  also  with  mind, reason,  and  memory:  "  In 
formica  non  modo  sensus  sed  etiam  mens,  ratio,  memorite." 
Some  authors  go  so  far  as  to  prefer  the  ant  to  man  himself, 


on  account  of  the  vigorous  intelligence  and  sagacity  which 
they  display  in  all  their  operations.  Although  this  opinion 
is  justly  chargeable  with  extravagance,  yet  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, that  the  union  of  so  many  noble  qualities  in  so  small 
a  corpuscle,  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  phenomena 
in  the  works  of  nature.  This  is  admitted  by  Solomon 
himself:  "  The  ants  are  a  people  not  strong,  yet  they  pre- 
pare their  meat  in  the  summer."  He  calls  them  a  people, 
because  they  are  gregarious  ;  living  in  a  state  of  society, 
though  without  any  king  or  leader  to  maintain  order  and 
superintend  their  affairs.  The  term  people  is  frequently 
applied  to  them  by  ancient  writers,  ^lian  says,  in  a  pas- 
sage already  quoted,  that  the  ants  which  ascend  the  stalks 
of  growing  corn,  throw  down  the  spikes  which  they  have 
bit  off,  rw  Sriiiw,  TM  KUTO),  to  the  people,  that  is,  the  ants  below. 
Apuleius,  describing  the  manner  in  which  the  ants  convoke 
an  assembly  of  the  nations,  says,  that  when  the  signal  is 
given,  Ruunt  alise  superque  alise  sepedum  populorum  undaj. 
The  wise  man  adds,  they  are  not  strong;  that  is,  they  are 
feeble  insects ;  nor  is  it  possible  that  great  strength  can  re- 
side in  so  minute  a  creature.  Hence  the  Arabians  say  con- 
temptuously of  a  man  that  has  become  weak  and  infi  m,  "he 
is  feebler  than  the  ant."— Paxton. 

Ver.  1 3.  He  winketh  with  his  eyes,  he  spe  iketh 
with  his  feet,  he  teacheth  with  his  fingers 

See  on  Matt.  6.  3. 

It  should  be  remembered,  that  when  people  are  in  their 
houses,  they  do  not  wear  sandals;  consequently  their  feet 
and  toes  are  exposed.  When  guests  wish  to  speak  with 
each  other,  so  as  not  to  be  observed  by  the  host,  they  convey 
their  meaning  by  the  feet  and  toes.  Does  a  person  wish  to 
leave  a  room  in  company  with  another,  he  lifts  up  one  of 
his  feet ;  and  should  the  other  refuse,  he  also  lifts  up  a  foot, 
and  then  suddenly  puts  it  down  on  the  ground. 

"  He  teacheth  with  his  fingers."  When  merchants  wish 
to  make  a  bargain  in  the  presence  of  others,  Avithout  making 
known  their  terms,  they  sit  on  the  ground,  have  a  piece  of 
cloth  thrown  over  the  lap,  and  then  put  each  a  hand  under, 
and  thus  speak  with  the  fingers !  When  the  Bramins  con- 
vey religious  mysteries  to  their  disciples,  they  teach  with 
their  fingers,  having  the  hands  concealed  in  the  folds  ol 
their  robes. — Roberts. 

Ver.  27.  Can  a  man  take  fire  in  his  bosom,  and 
his  clothes  not  be  burnt  ? 

When  an  individual  denies  a  crime  of  which  he  has  been 
accused,  it  will  he  asked,  "  Will  you  put  fire  in  your 
bosom  V  "  I  am  innocent,  I  am  innocent ;  in  proof  of  which 
I  will  put  fire  in  my  bosom."  Does  a  man  boast  he  will  do 
that  which  is  impossible,  another  will  say,  "  He  is  going  .to 
put  fire  in  his  bosom  without  being  burned." — Roberts. 

Ver.  34.  For  jealousy  is  the  rage  of  a  man; 
therefore  he  will  not  spare  in  the  day  of  ven* 
geance. 

Jealousy  is  very  common  and  powerful  among  the  people 
of  the  East ;  and  is  frequently  carried  to  an  extent,  of  which 
we  have  no  example  in  European  countries.  "  Whoever, 
in  Persia,  has  the  misfortune  to  see,  or  ihe  imprudence  to 
look  at,  the  wife  of  a  man  of  rank,  were  it  but  as  she  travels 
on  the  road,  and  at  ever  so  great  a  distance,  is  sure  to  be 
severely  beaten  by  her  eunuchs,  and,  perhaps,  put  to  death ; 
and  to  meet  any  of  the  king's  concubines  is  such  a  capital 
crime,  that,  on  a  certain  occasion,  when  the  favourite  queen 
happened,  during  the  chase,  to  be  overtaken  by  a  storm,  and 
under  the  necessity  of  taking  refuge  in  a  hamlet,  not  one 
of  the  people  would  let  her  majesty  in,  that  they  might  not 
have  the  misfortune  of  seeing  her."    (Michaelis.)— Burder. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  10.  And,  behold,  there  met  him  a  woman, 
with  the  attire  of  a  harlot,  and  subtle  of  heart. 

Females  of  that  class  are  generally  dressed  in  scarlet ; 
have  their  robes  wound  tightly  round  their  bodies ;  their 
eyelids  and  finger  nails  are  painted  or  stained ;  and  they 
wear  numerous  ornaments.  (2  Kings  ix.  30.)  Sw  on  Isa. 
iii.  16,  and  following  verses.— Roberts. 


Chap.  9. 


PROVERBS. 


421 


Ver.  1 1.  She  is  loud  and  stubborn  ;  her  feet  abide 
not  in  her  house. 

In  ancient  Greece,  the  women  were  strictly  confined 
within  their  lodgings,  especially  virgins  and  widows ;  of 
whom  the  former,  as  having  less  experience  in  the  world, 
were  more  closely  watched.  Their  apartment  was  com- 
monly well  guarded  with  locks  and  bolts ;  and  sometimes 
they  were  so  straitly  confined,  that  they  could  not  pass 
from  one  part  to  another  without  permission.  New-mar- 
ried women  were  almost  under  as  strict  a  confinement  as 
virgins  ;  but  when  once  they  had  brought  forth  a  child,  they 
commonly  enjoyed  greater  liberty.  This  indulgence,  how- 
ever, was  entirely  owing  to  the  kindness  of  their  husbands  ; 
for  those  who  were  jealous  or  morose,  kept  their  wives  in 
perpetual  imprisonment.  But  how  gentle  and  kind  soever 
husbands  might  be,  it  was  considered  as  very  indecent  for 
women  to  go  abroad.  A  Jewess  was  not  so  much  confined ; 
but  still  it  was  deemed  improper  for  her  to  appear  much  in 
public ;  for  in  Hebrew  she  is  called  (n^H')  almah,  from  a 
verb  which  signifies  to  hide  or  conceal,  because  she  was 
seldom  or  never  permitted  to  mingle  in  promiscuous  com- 
pany. The  married  women,  though  less  restrained,  were 
still  expected  to  keep  at  home,  and  occupy  their  time  in  the 
management  of  their  household.  In  the  book  of  Proverbs, 
the  wise  man  states  it  as  a  mark  of  a  dissolute  woman,  that 
•'  her  feet  abide  not  in  her  house  :"  while  "every  wise  wo- 
man," by  her  industrious  and  prudent  conduct,  "buildeth 
her  house."  "  She  looketh  well  to  the  ways  of  her  house- 
hold, and  eateth  not  the  bread  of  idleness." — Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  I  have  decked  my  bed  with  coverings 
of  tapestry,  with  carved  works,  with  fine  linen 
of  Egypt. 

We  are  not  co  suppose  that  all  beds  were  alike ;  no 
doubt,  when  King  David  wanted  warmth,  his  attendants 
would  put  both  mattresses  below,  and  coverlets  above,  to 
procure  it  for  him.  Neither  are  we  to  understand,  when  a 
bed  is  the  subject  of  boasting,  that  it  consisted  merely  of 
the  krabbaton,  or  oresh.  In  Pro.  vii.  16,  the  harlot  vaunts 
of  her  bed,  as  highly  ornamented  "  with  tapestry-work — 
with  brocade  I  have  brocaded — bedecked — my  orcsh ;  the 
covering  to  my  duan  (rather  the  makass)  is  fine  linen  of 
Egypt,  embossed  with  embroidery."  This  description  may 
be  "much  illustrated  by  the  account  which  Baron  De  Tott 
gives  of  a  bed,  in  which  he  was  expected  to  sleep,  and  in 
which  he  might  have  slept,  had  not  European  habit  incapaci- 
tated him  from  that  enjoyment:  "  The  time  fortaking  our  re- 
pose was  now  come,  and  we  were  conducted  into  another 
large  room,  in  the  middle  of  which  was  a  kind  of  bed,  with- 
md  bedstead  or  curtains.  Though  the  coverlet  and  pillows 
exceeded  in  magnificence  the  richness  of  the  sofa,  which 
likewise  ornamented  the  apartment,  I  foresaw  that  I  could 
expect  but  little  rest  on  this  bed,  and  had  the  curiosity  to 
examine  its  make  in  a  more  particular  manner.  Fifteen 
matlresscs  of  quilted  cotton,  about  three  inches  thick,  placed 
on£  upon  another,  formed  the  ground-work,  and  were  cov- 
ered by  a  sheet  of  Indian  linen,  sewed  on  the  last  mattress. 
A  coverlet  of  green  satin,  adorned  with  gold,  embroidered 
in  embossed  work,  was,  in  like  manner,  fastened  to  the  sheets, 
the  ends  of  which,  turned  in,  were  sewed  down  alternately. 
Two  large  pillows  of  crimson  satin,  covered  with  the  like 
evwroidery,  in  which  th^re  was  no  want  of  gold  or  spangles, 
rested  on  two  cushions  of  the  sofa,  brought  near  to  serve 
for  a  back,  and  intended  to  support  our  heads.  The  taking 
of  the  pillows  entirely  away  would  have  been  a  good  re- 
source, if  we  had  hai  any  bolster;  and  the  expedient  of 
turning  the  other  side  upward  having  only  served  to  show 
they  were  embroidered  in  the  same  manner  on  the  bottom, 
we  at  last  determined  to  lay  our  handkerchiefs  over  them, 
which,  however,  did  not  prevent  our  being  very  sensible 
of  the  embossed  ornaments  underneath." 

Heie  we  have  (1.)  many  mattresses  of  quilted  cotton: 
(2.)  a  sheet  of  Indian  linen  ;  {query,  muslin,  or  the  fine 
linen  of  Egypt  X)  (3.)  a  coverlet  of  green  satin,  embossed: 
(4.)  two  large  pillows,  embossed  also:  (5.)  two  cushions 
from  the  sofa,  to  form  a  back.  So  that  we  see  an  eastern 
bed  may  be  an  article  of  furniture  sufiiciently  complicated. 
This  description,  compared  with  a  note  of  De  La  Mo- 
traye,  (p.  172,)  leads  to  the  supposition,  that  somewhat  like 
vhat  he  informs  us  is  called  makass,  i.  e.  a  brocaded  cover- 


ing for  show,  is  what  the  harlot  boasts  of,  as  being  the 
upper  covering  to  her  minder,  or  oresh.  "  On  a  rich 
sofa,"  says  he,  "  was  a  false  covering  of  plain  green  silk, 
for  the  same  reason  as  that  in  the  hall ;  but  I  lifted  it  up, 
while  the  two  eunuchs  who  were  with  us  had  their  bacxis 
turned,  and  I  found  that  the  makass  of  the  minders  was  % 
very  rich  brocade,  with  a  gold  growid,  and  flowered  with  silk 
of  several  colours,  and  the  cushions  of  green  velvet  also, 
grcmnded  vrith  gold,  and  floioered  like  them."  Note.  "The 
minders  have  two  covers,  one  of  which  is  called  MAKAss,for 
ornament :  and  the  other  to  preserve  that,  especially  when 
they  are  rich,  as  these  were."  This  was  in  the  seraglio  at 
Constantinople. 

It  is  perfectly  in  character  for  the  harlot,  who  (r;^.  i\ 
14)  "  sits  on  a  kind  of  throne  at  her  door,"  and  who  in. 
this  passage  boasts  of  all  her  shoAvy  embellishments,  to 
mention  whatever  is  gaudy,  even  to  the  tinsel  bedeckings 
of  her  room,  her  furniture,  and  her  makasses,  assuming 
nothing  less  than  regal  dignity  in  words  and  description  : 
though  her  apartment  be  the  way  to  hell;  and  the  alcove 
containing  her  bed  be  the  very  lurking  chamber  of  death.— 
Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  27.  Her  house  is  the  way  to  hell,  going 
down  to  the  chambers  of  death. 

See  on  Is.  22.  16. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  1.  Wisdom  hath  built  her  house,  she  hath 
hewn  out  her  seven  pillars :  2.  She  hath  kill- 
ed her  beasts ;  she  hath  mingled  her  wine ; 
she  hath  also  furnished  her  table  :  3.  She  hath 
sent  forth  her  maidens:  she  crieth  upon  the 
highest  places  of  the  city,  4.  Whoso  is  simple, 
let  him  turn  in  hither  :  as  for  him  that  wanteth 
understanding,  she  saith  to  him,  5.  Come,  eat 
of  my  bread,  and  drink  of  the  wine  which  I 
have  mingled. 

Hasselquist  takes  notice  of  what  appears  to  us  an  old  cus- 
tom in  Egypt,  which  he  supposes  is  very  ancier.t,  uough 
he  does  not  apply  it  to  the  illustration  of  any  passage  of 
scripture  ;  it  seems,  however,  to  be  referred  to  by  Solomon 
in  the  book  of  Proverbs.  He  saw,  he  says,  a  number  of 
women,  who  went  about  inviting  people  to  a  banquet,  in  a 
singular,  and,  without  doubt,  very  ancient  manner.  They 
were  about  ten  or  twelve,  covered  with  black  veils,  as  is 
customary  in  that  country.  They  were  preceded  by  four 
eunuchs :'  after  them,  and  on  the  side,  were  Moors  with 
their  usual  walking  staves.  As  they  were  walking,  they 
all  joined  in  making  a  noise,  which  he  was  told  signified 
their  joy,  but  which  he  could  not  find  resembled  a  joyful  or 
pleasing  song.  The  sound  was  so  singular,  as  that  he 
found  himself  at  a  loss  to  give  an  idea  of  it  to  those  that 
never  heard  it.  It  was  shrill,  but  had  a  particular  quaver- 
ing, which  they  learnt  by  long  practice.  The  passage  in 
Proverbs,  which  seems  to  allude  to  this  practice,  is  the 
beginning  of  the  ninth  chapter:  "  Wisdom  hath  killed  her 
beasts ;  she  hath  mingled  her  wine;  she  hath  also  furnish- 
ed her  table ;  she  hath  sent  forth  her  maidens  :  she  crieth 
upon  the  highest  places  of  the  city.  Whoso  is  simple,  let  him 
turn  in  hither:  as  for  him  that  wanteth  understanding,  she 
saith  to  him,  Come,  eat  of  my  bread,  and  drink  of  the  wine 
which  I  have  mingled." 

Here  the  reader  observes,  that  the  invitation  is  supposed 
to  be  made  by  more  than  one  person ;  that  they  were  of  the 
female  sex  that  were  employed  in  the  service ;  and  that  the 
invitation  is  supposed  not  to  have  been,  as  among  us,  a 
private  message,  but  open  to  the  notice  of  all.  Whether  it 
was  with  a  singing  tone  of  voice,  as  now  in  Egypt,  does 
not,  determinately  at  least,  appear  by  the  word  her  made 
use  of,  and  which  is  translated  crieth:  She  crieth.  by  hfr 
rmiidens,  upon  the  highest  places  of  the  city.  It  may  not  he 
improper  to  add,  that  though  the  eastern  people  now  eat 
out  of  the  dishes  oftentimes,  w^hich  are  brought  in  singly, 
and  follow  one  another  with  great  rapidity,  not  out  of  plates, 
yet  many  lesser  appendages  are  placed  round  about  the 
table  by  way  of  preparation,  which  seems  to  be  what  is 
meant  by  the  expression,  she  also  hath  furnished  her  table  „ 
in  one  word,  all  things  were  then  ready,  and  the  more  di» 


422 


PROVERBS, 


Chap.  9—1  i 


lant  kinds  of  preparation  had  been  followed  by  the  nearer, 
till  every  thin^  was  ready,  so  as  that  the  repast  might  im- 
mediately begin.  The  cattle  were  killed,  the  jars  of  wine 
emptied  into  drinking  vessels,  and  the  little  attendants  on 
the  great  dishes  placed  on  the  table. — Harmer. 

Ver.  14.  For  she  sitteth  at  the  door  of  her  house, 
on  a  seat  in  the  high  places  of  the  city. 

The  custom  of  sitting  at  their  doors,  in  the  most  alluring 
pbmp  that  comes  within  their  reach,  is  still  an  eastern  prac- 
iice.  "  These  women,"  says  Pitts,  speaking  of  the  ladies 
of  pleasure  at  Grand  Cairo,  "  used  to  sit  at  the  door,  or 
walk  in  the  streets  unveiled.  They  are  commonly  very 
"-.^oh  in  their  clothes,  some  having  their  shifts  and  drawers 
of  silk,  &c.  These  courtesans,  or  ladies  of  pleasure,  as 
well  as  other  women,  have  broad  velvet  caps  on  their  heads, 
beautified  with  abundance  of  pearls,  and  other  costly  and 
gaudy  ornaments,  &c.  These  madams  go  along  the  streets 
smoking  their  pipes  of  four  or  five  feet  long ;  and  when 
they  sit  at  their  doors,  a  man  can  scarce  pass  by  but  they 
will  endeavour  to  decoy  him  in." — Burder, 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  11.  The  mouth  of  a  righteous  man  is  a  well 
of  life :  but  violence  covereth  the  mouth  of  the 
wicked. 

"  The  language  of  a  holy  man  is  like  a  well  with  good 
springs  :  thousands  may  be  refreshed  there."  "  The  words 
of  a  bad  man  are  like  the  springs  of  the  sea ;  though  very 
strong,  they  are  not  sweet."  "  Violence  covereth  the  mouth 
of  the  wicked."  To  cover  the  mouth  is  the  sign  of  sorrow : 
thus,  they  who  act  violently  will  sooner  or  later  reap  the 
fruits  thereof  They  will  have  to  cover  their  mouth  in 
token  of  sorrow  for  the  past,  and  in  anticipation  of  the  fu- 
ture,— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XL 

Ver.  1.  A  false  balance  is  abomination  to  the 
Lord  :  but  a  just  weight  is  his  delight. 

Great  severity  has  been  frequently  exercised  in  the  pun- 
ishment of  those  who  were  detected  in  the  kind  of  fraud 
here  referred  to.  "  A  police-officer  observing  one  morning 
a  female,  not  a  native,  carrying  a  large  piece  of  cheese,  in- 
quired where  she  had  purchased  it ;  being  ignorant  of  the 
vender's  name,  she  conducted  him  to  his  shop,  and  the 
magistrate,  suspecting  the  quantity  to  be  deficient  in  weight, 
placed  it  in  the  scales,  and  found  his  suspicion  verified  : 
whereupon  he  straightway  ordered  his  attendants  to  cut 
from  the  most  fleshy  part  of  the  delinquent's  person  what 
would  be  equivalent  to  the  just  measure :  the  order  was 
instantly  executed,  and  the  sufiferer  bled  to  death."  (Joliffe.) 
— Burder. 

Ver.  21.  Though  hand  join  in  hand,  the  wicked 
shall  not  be  unpunished :  but  the  seed  of  the 
righteous  shall  be  delivered. 

See  on  2  Kings  10.  15 

To  join  hands  was  anciently,  and  still  continues  in  the 
East,  a  solemn  method  of  taking  an  oath,  and  making  an 
engagement.  This  circumstance  is  probably  alluded  to  m 
these  words  of  Solomon ;  its  present  existence  is  clearly 
ascertained  by  what  Mr.  Bruce  (Trav.  vol.  i.  p.  199)  re- 
lates :  "  I  was  so  enraged  at  the  traitorous  part  which  Has- 
san had  acted,  that,  at  parting,  I  could  not  help  saying  to 
Ibrahim — Now,  shekh,  I  have  done  every  thing  you  have  de- 
sired, without  ever  expecting  fee  or  reward  ;  the  only  thing 
I  now  ask  you,  and  it  is  probably  the  last,  is,  that  you  avenge 
me  upon  this  Hassan,  who  is  every  day  in  your  power. 
Upon  this  he  gave  me  his  hand,  saying,  he  shall  not  die  in 
Lis  bed,  or  I  shall  never  see  old  age." — Burder. 

The  expression,  though  homd  join  in  hand,  may  bear  a 
slight  correction,  conformable  both  to  the  original  Hebrew, 
and  also  to  the  custom  actually  prevailing  in  Syria.  The 
original  t-V  T"  simply  signifies,  hand  to  hand.  And  this  is 
the  custom  of  persons  in  the  East,  when  they  greet  each 
other,  or  strike  hands,  in  token  of  friendship  and  agreement. 
They  touch  their  right  hands  respectively  ;  and  then  raise 
them  up  to  their  lips  and  forehead.    This  is  th»  universal 


eastern  courtesy;  the  English  version,  and  the  devices 
grounded  upon  it,  give  the  idea  of  hand  clasped  in  hand^ 
which  is  European,  rather  than  oriental.  The  sense,  there- 
fore, is,  Though  hand  meet  hand — intimating  that  heart  as- 
sents to  heart  in  the  perpetration  of  wickedness — ijel  shall 
not  the  loicked  go  unpunished. — Jowett. 

There  is  a  remarkable  passage  (Proverbs  xi.  21)  thus 
rendered  by  our  translators:  '•'  Though  hand  join  in  hand, 
the  wicked  shall  not  be  unpunished;  but  the 


nn  111  xmuu,  j 
seed  of  the  I 
make  many    ' 


righteous  shall  be  delivered  :"  i.  e.  though  they  mal 
associations,  and  oaths,  and  join  hands  among  themselves, 
(as  formed  part  of  the  ceremony  of  swearing  among  these 
shepherds  of  Suakem,)  yet  they  shall  not  be  punished."  But 
Michaelis  proposes  another  sense  of  these  words,  "  hand  in 
hand" — my  hand  in  your  hand,  i.  e.as  a  token  of  swearing, 
"  the  wicked  shall  not  go  unpunished." — Taylor  in  Cal- 

MET. 

Ver.  22.  As  a  jewel  of  gold  in  a  swine's  snout,  so 
is  a  fair  woman  which  is  without  discretion. 

Nearly  all  the  females  of  the  East  wear  a  jewel  of  gold 
in  their  nostrils,  or  in  the  septum  of  the  nose  ;  and  some -of 
them  are  exceedingly  beautiful,  and  of  great  value.  The 
oriental  lady  looks  with  as  much  pleasure  on  the  gem  which 
ADORNS  her  nose,  as  any  of  her  sex  in  England  do  upon 
those  which  deck  their  ears.  But  as  is  that  splendid  jewel 
in  the  snout  of  a  swine,  so  is  beauty  in  a  woman  without 
discretion.  She  may  have  the  ornament,  her  mien  may 
be  graceful,  and  her  person  attractive ;  but  without  the 
matchless  jewel  of  virtue,  she  is  like  the  swine  with  a 
gem  in  her  nose,  wallowing  in  the  mire.  "The  most 
beautiful  ornament  of  a  woman  is  virtue,"  Tamul  proverb. 
— Roberts. 

This  proverb  is  manifestly  an  allusion  to  the  cust'  m  of 
wearing  nose-jewels,  or  rings  set  with  jewels,  hanging 
from  the  nostrils,  as  ear-rings  from  the  ears,  by  holes  bored 
to  receive  them.  This  fashion,  however  strange  it  may 
appear  to  us,  was  formerly,  and  is  still,  common  in  many 
parts  of  the  East,  among  women  of  all  ranks.  Paul  Lucas, 
s-peaking  of  a  village,  or  clan  of  wandering  people,  a  little 
on  this  side  of  the  Euphrates,  says,  "  The  women  al- 
most all  of  them  travel  on  foot ;  I  saw  none  handsome 
among  them.  They  have  almost  all  of  them  the  nose  bored, 
and  wear  in  it  a  great  ring,  which  makes  them  still  more 
deformed."  But  in  regard  to  this  custom,  better  authority 
cannot  be  produced  than  that  of  Pietro  della  Valle,  in  the 
account  which  he  gives  of  Signora  Maani  Gioerida,  his 
own  wife.  The  description  of  her  dress,  as  to  the  orna- 
mental parts  of  it,  with  which  he  introduces  the  mention  of 
this  particular,  will  give  us  some  notion  of  the  taste  of  the 
eastern  ladies  for  finery.  "  The  ornaments  of  gold,  and  of 
jewels,  for  the  head,  for  the  neck,  for  the  arms,  for  the  legs, 
and  for  the  feet,  (for  they  wear  rings  even  on  their  toes,) 
are  indeed,  unlike  those  of  the  Turks,  carried  to  great  ex- 
cess, but  not  of  great  value:  as  turquoises,  small  rubies, 
emeralds,  carbuncles,  garnets,  pearls,  and  the  like.  My 
spouse  dresses  herself  with  all  of  them,  according'  to  their 
fashion,  with  exception  however  of  certain  ugl\  nngs,  of 
very  large  size,  set  with  jewels,  which,  in  truth  /ery  ab- 
surdly, it  is  the  custom  to  wear  fastened  to  oneof  tneir  nos- 
trils, like  buffaloes;  an  ancient  custom  however  in  the 
East,  which,  as  we  find  in  the  holy  scriptures,  prevailed 
among  the  Hebrew  ladies,  even  in  the  time  of  Solomon. 
These  nose-rings,  in  complaisance  to  me,  she  has  left  oflT; 
but  I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  prevail  Mith  her  cousin  and 
her  sisters  to  do  the  same.  So  fond  are  they  of  an  old  cus- 
tom, be  it  ever  so  absurd,  who  have  been  long  habituated 
to  it."  To  this  account  may  be  subjoined  the  observation 
made  by  Chardin,  as  cited  in  Harmer:  "  It  is  the  custom 
in  almost  all  the  East  for  the  women  to  wear  rings  in  their 
noses,  in  the  left  nostril,  which  is  bored  low  down  in  the 
middle.  These  rings  are  of  gold,  and  have  commonly  two 
pearls  and  one  ruby  between,  placed  in  the  ring.  I  never 
saw  a  girl  or  young  woman  in  Arabia,  or  in  all  Persia,  who 
did  not  wear  "a  ring  after  this  manner  in  her  nostril." — 
Burder. 

Ver.  26.  He  that  withholdeth  corn,  the  people 
shall  curse  him  :  but  blessing  shall  be  uponihe 
head  of  him  that  selleth  it. 

Mirza  Ahady,  in  conjunction  with  the  prince's  mother. 


Chap.  11—15. 


PROVERBS, 


42a 


was  believed  to  have  monopolized  all  the  corn  of  the  coun- 
try;  and  he  had  no  sooner  reached  Shiraz  than  he  raised 
iis  price,  which,  of  course,  produced  a  correspondent  ad- 
vance in  that  of  bread.  Ventre  aflame  n'a  point  d'oreilles, 
— the  people  became  outrageous  in  their  misery.  As  is 
\isu;>l  !n  nil  public  calamities  in  the  East,  they  commenced 
by  sliytting  their  shops  in  the  bazar.  They  then  resortedto 
the  louse  of  the  sheikh-el-islam,  the  head  of  the  law,  re- 
I  quiring  him  to  issue  difetwah,  which  might  make  it  lawful 
to  kill  Mirza  Ahady,  and  one  or  two  more,  whom  they 
knew  to  be  his  coadjutors  in  oppressing  them.  They  then 
appeared  in  a  body  before  the  gate  of  the  prince's  palace, 
where  they  expressed  their  grievances  in  a  tumultuous  way, 
and  demanded  that  Mirza  Ahady  should  be  delivered  up  to 
them.  Mohammed  Zeky  Khan,  our  former  mehmander,  was 
sent  out  by  the  prince  to  appease  them,  accompanied  by 
i  Mirza  Banker,  the  chief  baker  of  the  city,  who  was  one  of 
i  /hose  whose  life  had  been  denounced.  As  soon  as  the  lat- 
1;  ter  appeared,  he  was  overwhelmed  with  insults  and  re- 
j  proaches :  but  he  managed  to  pacify  them,  by  saymg,  "What 
crime  have  I  committed  1  Mirza  Ahady  is  the  man  to  abuse ; 
if  he  sells  corn  at  extravagant  prices,  bread  must  rise  in 
consequence.  In  the  meantime,  Mirza  Ahady  had  secreted 
himself  from  the  fury  of  the  mob ;  but  being  countenanced 
by  the  prince's  mother,  and,  consequently,  by  the  prince 
himself,  he  let  the  storm  rage,  and  solaced  himself  by  ma- 
king fresh  plans  for  raising  more  money.  The  price  of 
bread  was  lowered  for  a  few  days,  until  the  commotion 
should  cease :  and,  as  it  was  necessary  that  some  satisfac- 
tion should  be  given  to  the  people,  all  the  bakers  of  the 
town  were  collected  together,  and  publicly  bastinadoed  on 
the  soles  of  their  feet."  (Morier.)  "  We  are  told  of  the 
fate  of  one  person  in  whose  house  an  immense  quantity  of 
grain  was  found :  a  stake  was  fixed  in  the  centre  of  his 
granary,  to  which  he  was  bound,  and  left  to  perish  from 
hunger  amidst  that  abundance  which  he  had  refused  to 
share  with  his  fellow-citizens."    (Malcolm.) — Burdeb. 

Ver.  29.  He  that  troubleth  his  own  house  shall 
inherit  the  wind :  and  the  fool  shall  he  servant 
to  the  wise  of  heart. 

This  form  of  expression  is  still  used  in  India.  "  I  un- 
derstand Kandan  will  give  a  large  dowry  with  his  daugh- 
ter ;  she  will,  therefore,  be  a  good  bargain  for  vour  son." 
— "  You  are  correct,  my  friend ;  she  is  to  inherit  the  wind." 
"  I  once  had  extensive  lands  for  my  portion ;  but  now  I  in- 
herit the  wind."  "  I  know  you  would  like  to  have  hold  of 
my  property:  but  you  may  lake  the  wind."— Roberts. 

CHAPTER   XII. 
Ver.  10.  A  righteous  ot^ti  regardeth  the  life  of  his 
beast:   but  the  tender  mercies  of  the  wicked 
are  cruel. 

"  During  my  stay  at  Surat,  I  rode  out  most  evenings  with 
our  worthy  chief,  and,  among  other  uncommon  sights  to  a 
stranger,  I  took  notice  that  many  trees  had  jars  hanging  to 
several  of  the  boughs ;  on  inquiring,  I  was  told  that  they 
were  filled  with  water  every  evening,  by  men  hired  on  pur- 
pose by  the  Gentops,  in  order  to  supply  the  birds  with  drink. 
This  account  excited  a  desire  of  visiting  the  banyan  hospi- 
tal, as  I  had  heard  much  of  their  benevolence  to  all  kinds 
of  animals  that  were  either  sick,  lame,  or  infirm,  through 
age  or  accident.  On  my  arrival,  there  were  presented  to  my 
view  many  horses,  cows,  and  oxen,  in  one  apartment;  in 
another,  dogs,  sheep,  goats,  and  monkeys,  with  clean  straw 
for  them  to  repose  on.  Above-stairs  were  depositories  for 
seeds  of  many  sorts,  and  flat  broad  dishes  for  water,  for  the 
use  of  those  birds  and  insects  which  might  chance  to  come 
into  the  apartment  through  the  windows,  which  were  lat- 
ticed, with  apertures  large  enough  to  admit  small  birds  to 
enter.  I  was  told  by  the  attendants,  that  each  apartment 
was  cleaned  every  morning,  the  beasts  fed  and  littered  once 
a  day,  the  seeds  above-stairs  winnowed,  the  dishes  washed, 
and  clean  water  put  in  them  daily."  (Parson's  Travels  in 
Asia.)  Thevenot  describes  a  banyan  hospital,  where  he 
saw  a  number  of  sick  oxen,  camels,  and  horses,  and  many 
invalids  of  the  feathered  race.  "  Animals  deemed  in- 
curable," he  says,  "were  maintained  there  for  life ;  those 
that  recovered   were    sold    to  Hindoos    exclusively."— 

BURDER. 


Ver.  27.  The  slothful  man  roasteth  not  that  which 
he  took  in  hunting ;  but  the  substance  of  a  dili- 
gent man  is  precious. 

There  is  something  particular  in  the  word  (n^n)  charak, 
used  in  this  passage  of  Solomon;  it  is  not  the  word  that  is 
commonly  used  for  roasting,  but  it  signifies  rather  singing, 
as  appears  from  Dan.  iii.  27.  No  author,  I  think,  gives  us 
an  account  what  this  should  mean,  understood  in  this  sense. 
Besides  wild-boars,  antelopes,  and  hares,  which  are  par- 
ticularly mentioned  by  D'Arvieux,  when  he  speaks  of  the 
Arabs  as  diverting  themselves  with  hunting  in  the  Holy 
Land,  Dr.  Shaw  tells  us,  all  kinds  of  game  are  found  in 
great  plenty  in  that  country :  but  I  do  not  remember  an  ac- 
count of  any  thing  being  prepared  for  food  by  singing,  that 
is  taken  either  in  hunting  or  hawking,  except  hares,  which 
I  have  indeed  somewhere  read  of  as  dressed,  in  the  East, 
after  this  manner:  a  hole  being  dug  in  the  ground,  and  the 
earth  scooped  out  of  it  laid  all  round  its  edge,  the  brush- 
wood with  which  it  is  filled  is  set  on  fire,  the  hare  is  thrown 
unskinned  into  the  hole,  and  afterward  covered  with  heated 
earth  that  was  laid  round  about  it,  where  it  continues  till  it 
is  thought  to  be  done  enough,  and  then  being  brought  to 
table,  sprinkled  with  salt,  is  found  to  be  very  agreeable 
food. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Ver.  17.  Better  is  a  dinner  of  herbs  where  love 
is,  than  a  stalled  ox,  and  hatred  therewith. 

This  passage  is  rendered  by  the  Septuagint,  as  if  they 
understood  it  of  the  forced  accommodation  of  travellers, 
which  Arabs  and  conquered  people  were  obliged  to  submit 
to.  It  was  not  unusual  for  travellers  to  eat  at  the  expense  of 
those  who  were  not  pleased  with  entertaining  them ;  and 
to  use  a  kind  of  force,  which  produced  hatred.  Dr.  Shaw 
notices  this  circumstance.  Speaking  of  Barbary,  he  says, 
"In  this  country,  the  Arabs  and  other  inhabitants  are 
obliged,  either  by  long  custom,  by  the  particular  tenure 
of  their  lands,  or  from  fear  and  compulsion,  to  give  the 
Spahees,  and  their  company,  the  Moquanah,  as  they  call 
it,  which  is  such  a  sufficient  quantity  of  provisions,  for 
ourselves,  together  with  straw  and  barley  for  our  mules 
and  horses.  Besides  a  bowl  of  milk,  and  a  basket  of  figs, 
raisins,  or  dates,  which,  upon  our  arrival,  were  presented 
to  us,  to  stay  our  appetites,  the  master  of  the  tent  where 
we  lodged  fetched  us  from  his  flock,  according  to  the 
number  of  our  company,  a  kid  or  a  goat,  a  lamb  or  a  sheep, 
half  of  which  was  immediately  seethed  by  his  wife,  and 
served  up  with  cuscasooe ;  the  rest  was  made  Kab-ab,  i.  e. 
cut  into  pieces,  and  roasted,  which  we  reserved  for  our 
breakfast  or  dinner  the  next  day."  In  the  next  page  he 
says,  "  when  we  were  entertained  in  a  courteous  manner, 
(for  the  Arabs  will  sometimes  supply  us  with  nothing  till 
it  is  extorted  by  force,)  the  author  used  to  give  the  master 
of  the  tent  a  knife,  a  couple  of  flints,  or  a  small  quantity 
of  English  gunpowder,"  &c.  To  prevent  such  parties  from 
living  at  free  charges  upon  them,  the  Arabs  take  care  to 
pitch  in  woods,  valleys,  or  places  the  least  conspicuous, 
and  that  in  consequence  they  found  it  difficult  often  to  dis- 
cover them. — BuRDER. 

Ver.  19.  The  way  of  the  slothful  man  is  as  a  hedge 
of  thorns  :  but  the  way  of  the  righteous  is  made 
plain. 

The  oriental  gardens  were  either  open  plantations,  or 
enclosures  defended  by  walls  or  hedges.  Rauwolf  found, 
about  Tripoli,  many  gardens  and  vineyards  enclosed  fcr 
the  most  part  with  hedges,  and  separated  by  shady  wa.ics. 
Some  fences  in  the  Holy  Land,  in  later  times,  are  not  less 
beautiful  than  our  living  fences  of  white  thorn,  and  per- 
fectly answer  the  description  of  ancient  Jewish  prophets, 
who  inform  us,  that  the  hedges  in  their  times  consisted  of 
thorns,  and  that  the  spikes  of  these  thorny  plants  were  ex- 
ceedingly sharp.  Doubdan  found  a  very  fruitful  vineyard, 
full  of  olives,  fig-trees,  and  vines,  about  eight  miles  south- 
west from  Bethlehem,  enclosed  with  a  hedge;  and  that 
part  of  it  adjoining  to  the  road,  strongly  formed  of  thorns 
and  rose-bushes,  intermingled  with  pomegranate-trees  of 
surpassing  beauty  and  fragrance.    A  hedge  composed  of 


424 


PROVERBS. 


Chap.  16. 


rose-bushes  and  wild  pomegranate-shrubs,  then  in  full 
flower,  mingled  with  other  thorny  plants,  adorned  in  the 
varied  livery  of  spring,  must  have  made  at  once  a  strong 
and  beautiful  fence.  The  wild  pomegranate-tree,  the  spe- 
cies probably  used  in  fencing,  is  much  more  prickly  than 
the  other  variety ;  and  when  mingled  with  other  thorny 
bushes,  of  which  they  have  several  kinds  in  Palestine, 
some  whose  prickles  are  very  long  and  sharp,  must  form  a 
hedge  very  difficult  to  penetrate.  These  facts  illustrate 
the  beauty  and  force  of  several  passages  in  the  sacred  vol- 
ume :  thus,  in  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon,  "  The  way  of 
the  slothful  man  is  as  a  hedge  of  thohis ;"  it  is  obstructed 
with  difficulties,  which  the  sloth  and  indolence  of  his  tem- 
per represent  as  galling  or  insuperable ;  but  which  a  mod- 
erate share  of  resolution  and  perseverance  would  easily 
remove  or  surmount. — Paxton. 

Hasselquist  says,  that  he  saw  the  plantain-tree,  the  vine, 
the  peach,  and  the  mulberry-tree,  all  four  made  use  of  in 
Egypt  to  hedge  about  a  garden :  now  these  are  all  un- 
armed plants.  This  consideration  throws  a  great  energy 
into  the  words  of  Solomon :  The  way  of  the  slothful  man 
is  a  hedge  of  thorns.  It  appears  as  difficult  to  him,  not 
only  as  breaking  through  a  hedge,  but  even  through  a 
ihorii  fence:  and  also  into  that  threatening  of  God  to  Israel: 
Behold,  I  will  hedge  up  the  way  with  thorns^  Hosea  ii.  6. 
—Border. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Ver.    11.    A  just   weight  and  balance  are   the 
Lord's;  all  the  weights  of  the  bag  are  his 
work. 

The  Jews  were  required  to  be  exact  in  their  weights  and 
measures,  that  the  poor  might  not  be  defrauded.  Hesy- 
chius  remarks  upon  this  point,  as  a  reason  for  such  great 
care,  that  what  the  possession  of  a  field  or  house  is  to  a 
wealthy  man,  that  the  measure  of  corn,  or  wine,  or  the 
weight'  of  bread,  is  to  the  poor,  who  have  daily  need  of 
such  things  for  the  support  of  life.  "  The  Jewish  doctors 
assert,  that  it  was  a  constitution  of  their  wise  men,  for  the 
preventing  of  all  frauds  in  these  matters,  that  no  weights, 
balances,  or  measures,  should  be  made  of  any  metal,  as  of 
ivGU,  lead,  tin,  (which  were  liable  to  rust,  or  might  be  bent, 
or  easily  impaired,)  but  of  marble,  stone,  or  glass,  which 
were  less  subject  to  be  abused  :  and  therefore  the  scripture, 
speaking  of  the  justice  of  God's  judgments,  observes,  (ac- 
cording to  the  Vulgate,')  that  they  are  weighed  with  all  the 
stones  in  the  bag"    (Lewis.) — Burder. 

Ver.  14.  The  wrath  of  a  king  is  as  messengers 
of  death ;  but  a  wise  man  will  pacify  it. 

Executions  in  the  East  are  often  very  prompt  and  arbi- 
trary. In  many  cases  the  suspicion  is  no  sooner  entertained, 
or  the  cause  of  offisnce  given,  than  the  fatal  order  is  issued; 
the  messenger  of  death  hurries  to  the  unsuspecting  victim, 
shows  his  warrant,  and  executes  his  orders  that  instant  in 
silence  and  solitude.  Instances  of  this  kind  are  continually 
occurring  in  the  Turkish  and  Persian  histories.  '*  When 
the  enemies  of  a  great  man  among  the  Turks  have  gained 
influence  enough  over  the  prince  to  procure  a  warrant  for 
his  death,  a  capidgi  (the  name  of  the  officer  who  executes 
these  orders)  is  sent  to  him,  who  shojvs  him  the  order  he 
has  received  to  carry  back  his  "head ;  the  other  takes  the 
warrant  of  the  grand  seignior,  kisses  it,  puts  it  on  his  head 
in  token  of  respect,  and  then  having  performed  his  ablu- 
tions, and  said  his  prayers,  freely  resigns  his  life.  The 
capidgi  having  strangled  him,  cuts  off"  his  head,  and  brings 
it  to  Constantinople.  The  grand  seignior's  order  is  im- 
plicitly obeyed ;  the  servants  of  the  victim  never  attempt  to 
hinder  the  executioner,  although  these  capidgis  come  very 
often  with  few  or  no  atte'ndants."  It  appears  from  the 
writings  of  Chardin,  that  the  nobility  and  grandees  of 
Persia  are  put  to  death  in  a  manner  equally  silent,  hasty, 
and  unobstructed.  Such  executions  were  not  uncommon 
among  the  Jews  under  the  government  of  their  kings. 
Solomon  sent  Benaiah  as  his  capidgi,  or  executioner,  to 

?ut  Adonijah,  a  prince  of  his  own  family,  to  death;  and 
oab,  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  forces  in  the  reign  of 
his  father.  A  capidgi  likewise  beheaded  John  the  Baptist 
in  the  prison,  and  carried  his  head  to  the  court  of  Herod. 
To  such  silent  and  hasty  executioners  the  royal  preacher 


seems  to  refer  in  that  proverb,  "The  wrath  of  a  king  is 
as  messengers  of  death ;  but  a  wise  man  will  pacify  it ;" 
his  displeasure  exposes  the  unhappy  offender  to  immediate 
death,  and  may  fill  the  unsuspecting  bosom  with  terror  and 
dismay,  like  the  appearance  of  a  capidgi ;  but  by  wise  and 
prudent  conduct,  a  man  may  sometimes  escape  the  danger. 
From  the  dreadful  promptitude  with  which  Benaiah  exe- 
cuted the  commands  of  Solomon  on  Adonijah  and  Joab, 
it  may  be  concluded  that  the  executioner  of  the  court  was 
as  little  ceremonious,  and  the  ancient  Jews  nearly  as  pas- 
sive, as  the  Turks  or  Persians.  The  prophet  Elisha  is  the 
only  person  on  the  inspired  record,  who  ventured  to  resist 
the  bloody  mandate  of  the  sovereign  ;  the  incident  is  re- 
corded in  these  terms  :  "  But  Elisha  sat  in  his  house,  and 
the  elders  sat  with  him ;  and  the  king  sent  a  man  from 
before  him ;  but  ere  the  messenger  came  to  him,  he  said 
to  the  elders.  See  how  this  son  of  a  murderer  has  sent  to 
take  away  my  head  1  Look  when  the  messenger  cometh ; 
shut  the  door,  and  hold  him  fast  at  the  door — is  not  the 
sound  of  his  master's  feet  behind  him  V  But  if  such 
mandates  had  not  been  too  common  among  the  Jews,  and 
in  general  submitted  to  without  resistance,  Jehoram  bad 
scarcely  ventured  to  despatch  a  single  messenger  to  take 
away  the  life  of  so  eminent  a  person  as  Elisha. — Paxton. 

Ver.  15.  In  the  light  of  the  king's  countenance 
is  life ;  and  his  favour  is  as  a  cloud  of  the  latter 
rain. 

Poets  often  speak  of  the  generosity  of  the  great,  as  the 
clouds  full  of  rain,  but  the  uncharitable  are  like  the  clouds 
without  rain.  "  6  the  benevolent  man !  he  is  like  the  fruit- 
ful rain  ;  ever  givmg,  but  never  receiving." — Roberts. 

The  former  and  latter  rains  is  a  phrase  quite  familiar 
to  every  reader  of  the  scriptures.  The  distinction  which 
it  announces  is  founded  in  nature,  and  is  of  great  impor- 
tance in  those  parts  of  the  world.  At  Aleppo,  the  drougni 
of  summer  commonly  terminates  in  September,  by  some 
heavy  showers,  which  occasionally  continue  some  days ; 
after  which,  there  is  an  interval  of  fine  weather,  of  between 
twenty  and  thirty  days,  when  the  showers  return,  which 
are  called  the  second  rains.  The  first  rains  fall  between 
the  twenty-sixth  of  September  and  the  sixth  of  October: 
but  it  is  later  in  Judea ;  the  former  rain,  descending  in 
Palestine  about  the  beginning  of  November.  The  seasons 
in  the  East  are  exceedingly  regular,  yet  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  they  admit  of  no  variation  ;  the  descent  of  the 
first  and  second  rain  occasionally  varies  a  whole  month. 
But  the  first  and  second  rains  of  Syria,  mentioned  by  Rus- 
sel,  do  not  seem  to  correspond  with  the  former  and  latter 
rains  of  the  holy  scriptures.  This  is  the  opinion  of  Jerome, 
who  lived  Jong  in  Palestine  :  nor  do  the  natural  historians 
of  those  countries  take  any  notice  of  the  first  and  second 
rains  in  autumn  ;  but  uniformly  speak  of  the  former  and 
latter  rains.  It  is  therefore  of  some  importance  to  inquire, 
what  are  the  times  of  the  year  when  these  rains  descend. 
Here  it  may  be  proper  to  observe,  that  rain  in  the  vernal 
season,  is  represented  by  oriental  writers  as  of  great  ad- 
vantage. The  more  wet  the  spring,  the  later  the  harvest, 
and  the  more  plentiful  the  crop.  In  Barbary,  the  vernal 
rains  are  indispensably  requisite  to  secure  the  hopes  of  the 
husbandman.  If  the  latter  rains  fall  as  usual  in  the  middle 
of  April,  he  reckons  his  crop  secure;  but  extremely  doubt- 
ful if  they  happen  to  fail.  This  accounts  well  for  the 
great  valiie  which  Solomon  sets  upon  them :  "  In  the 
light  of  the  king's  countenance  is  life,  and  his  favour  is  as 
a  cloud  of  the  latter  rain."  To  this  may  be  added,  that 
the  words  translated  the  former  and  latter  rains,  are  not 
expressive  of  first  and  second ;  and  by  consequence,  do 
not  refer  to  the  rains  mentioned  by  Russel,  but  mark  a 
distinction  of  much  greater  importance.  They  must  there- 
fore be  the  same  as  the  vernal  rains,  which  are  universally 
allowed  to  be  of  the  utmost  consequence  in  those  regions. 

The  time  of  the  first  rains  is  differently  stated  by  modern 
travellers.  According  to  Dr.  Shaw,  the  first  autumna. 
rains  usually  fall  about  the  eleventh  of  November;  from 
a  manuscript  journal  of  travels  in  those  countries,  Mr. 
Harmer  found  that  the  rain  fell  in  the  Holy  Land  on  the 
second  of  November;  and  he  was  assured  by  the  historian 
of  the  revolt  of  Ali  Bev,  who  lived  some  years  in  Palestine 
that  the  rains  begin  to  fall  there  about  the  eighteenth  day  of 
September ;  at  first  they  descend  in  slight  showers,  but  as 


Chap.  17. 


PROVERBS. 


429 


Ihe  season  advances,  they  become  very  copious  and  heavy, 
though  never  continual.  < 

Dr.  Shaw  seems  to  suppose,  that  the  Arabs  of  Barbary 
do  not  begin  to  break  up  their  grounds  till  the  first  rains 
of  autumn  fail ;  while  the  author  of  the  history  of  Ali  Bey's 
revolt  supposes  thai  they  sometimes  plough  their  land  before 
the  descent  of  the  rain,  because  the  soil  is  then  light,  and 
easily  worked.  This  statement  contains  nothing  incredi- 
ble ;  grain  will  '^emain  long  in  the  earth  unhurt,  and  vege- 
tate as  soon  as  the  descending  showers  communicate  suf- 
ficient moisture.  The  oriental  husbandman  may  cultivate 
his  field,  as  is  often  done  in  other  countries,  in  expectation 
of  rain  ;  a  circumstance  to  which  Solomon  seems  to  refer : 
*'  He  that  observeth  the  wind  shall  not  sow,  and  he  that 
regardeth  the  clouds  shall  not  reap."  If  they  never  sowed 
in  the  East  but  when  the  soil  was  moistened  with  rain, 
they  could  have  no  reason  to  observe  whether  the  wind 
threatened  ram  or  promised  fair  weather;  but  if  the  seed 
was  cast  into  the  ground  previous  to  the  descent  of  the  rain, 
they  might  naturally  enough  be  induced  to  wait  till  they 
observed  the  signs  of  its  approach.  The  rainy  season  in 
the  beginning  of  wmter,  by  the  concurring  testimony  of 
travellers,  is  commonly  introduced  by  a  gale  of  wind  from 
the  northeast.  In  Syria,  the  winds  are  variable  in  Novem- 
ber, and  the  two  succeeding  months;  seldom  strong,  but 
more  inclined  to  the  north  and  east,  than  any  of  ths  other 
quarters.  They  continue  to  blow  nearly  in  the  same  di- 
rection, till  about  the  end  of  February,  when  they  begin 
to  blow  hard  westerly.  The  weather  in  April  is  in  general 
fair  and  clear ;  seldom  dark  or  cloudy,  except  when  it  rains, 
which  it  does  in  hard  thundershowers,  as  in  the  last  month, 
but  not  so  often.  When  light  northerly  or  easterly  breezes 
happen  to  blow,  they  have  commonly  a  few  close,  hazy 
days  ;  but  the  westerly  winds  are  generally  fresh. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Ver.  12.  Let  a  bear,  robbed  of  her  whelps,  meet 
a  man,  rather  than  a  fool  in  his  folly. 

The  furious  passions  of  the  female  bear  never  mount 
so  high,  nor  burn  so  fiercely,  as  when  she  happens  to  be  de- 
prived of  her  young.  When  she  returns  to  her  den,  and 
misses  the  objects  of  her  love  and  care,  she  becomes  almost 
frantic  with  rage.  Disregarding  every  consideration  of 
danger  to  herself,  she  attacks,  with  intense  ferocity,  every 
animal  that  comes  in  her  way,  "  and  in  the  bitterness  of 
her  heart,  will  dare  to  attack  even  a  band  of  armed  men." 
The  Russians  of  Kamschatka  never  venture  to  fire  on  a 
young  bear  when  the  mother  is  near ;  for  if  the  cub  drop, 
she  becomes  enraged  to  a  degree  little  short  of  madness ; 
and  if  she  get  sight  of  the  enemy,  will  only  quit  her  revenge 
with  her  life.  "  A  more  desperate  attempt,  therefore,  can 
scarcely  be  performed,  than  to  carry  olFheryoimgin  her  ab- 
sence. The  moment  she  returns,  and  misses  them,  her  pas- 
sions are  inflamed ;  her  scent  enables  her  to  track  the  plun- 
derer ;  and  unless  he  has  reached  some  place  of  safety  before 
the  infuriated  animal  overtake  him,  his  only  safety  is  in 
dropping  one  of  the  cubs,  and  continuing  to  flee  ;  for  the 
mother,  attentive  to  its  safety,  carries  it  home  to  her  den,  be- 
fore she  renews  the  pursuit." 

These  statements  furnish  an  admirable  illustration  of  a 
passage  in  the  counsel  of  Hushai  to  Absalom,  in  which  he 
represents  the  danger  of  attacking  David  and  his  followers 
with  so  small  a  force  as  twelve  thotisand  chosen  men,  when 
their  tried  courage  was  inflamed,  and  their  spirits  were 
imbittered  by  the  variety  and  severity  of  their  suflferings, 
and  when  their  caution,  matured  by  long  and  extensive 
experience  in  the  art  of  war,  and  sharpened  by  the  novelty 
and  peril  of  their  circumstance,  would  certainly  lead  them 
to  anticipate,  and  take  measures  to  defeat  the  attempt. 
"  Hushai  said  unto  Absalom,  The  counsel  that  Ahithophel 
hath  given,  is  not  good  at  this  time ;  for  (said  Hushai)  thou 
knowest  thy  father  and  his  men,  that  they  be  mighty  men, 
and  they  be  chafed  in  their  minds  as  a  bear  robbedof  her 
whelps  in  the  field."  The  frantic  rage  of  the  female  bear, 
when  she  has  lost  her  young,  gives  wonderful  energy  to 
the  proverb  of  Solomon :  "  Let  a  bear,  robbedof  her  whelps, 
meet  a  man,  rather  than  a  fool  in  his  folly."  Dreadful  as 
it  is  to  meet  a  bear  in  such  circumstances,  it  is  yet  more 
dangerous  to  meet  a  "  fool  in  his  folly,"  a  furious  and  re- 
vengeful man,  under  the  influence  of  his  impetuous  pas- 
-  sions,  and  bis  heart  determined  on  their  immediate  gratifi- 
54 


cation.  Naturally  stubborn  and  cruel  as  the  bear,  and 
equally  devoted  to  his  lusts  as  she  is  to  her  young,  he  pur- 
sues them  with  eqvial  fury  and  eagerness.  It  is  possible  to 
escape  the  vengeance  of  a  bereaved  bear,  by  surrendering 
part  of  the  litter,  and  diverting  part  of  her  pursuit ;  but  no 
consideration  of  interest  or  duty,  no  partial  gratifications, 
can  arrest  his  furious  career,  or  divert  his  attention.  Rea- 
son, degraded  and  enslaved,  lends  all  her  remaning  wis- 
dom and  energy  to  passion,  and  renders  the  fool  more  cruel 
and  mischievous  than  the  bear,  in  proportion  as  she  is  su- ' 
perior  to  instinct. — Paxton. 

Ver.  18.  A  man  void  of  understanding  striketh 
hands,  and  becometh  surety  in  the  presence  of 
his  friend. 

See  on  ch.  6.  1. 

The  Hindoo  proverb  says, "  Muniddrmuneruka-Jcaduvar" 
i.  e.  "  He  who  stands  before  may  have  to  pay."  This,  there- 
fore, is  the  idea  of  a  surety ;  he  stands  before  the  debtor, 
and  covenants  with  the  creditor  for  the  payment  ot  the  mo- 
ney :  he,  therefore,  who  stands  before,  is  literally  betwixt 
the  contending  parties.  In  this  respect  "  was  Jesus  made  a 
surety"  for  us:  he  stood  before,  and  became  our  //fffjrijy, or 
Mediator. 

The  melancholy  instances  of  ruin,  in  consequence  of  be- 
coming surety  for  others,  are  exceedingly  numerous  in  the 
East.  Against  this  they  have  many  proverbs,  and  fearful 
examples  ;  but  nothing  seems  to  give  them  wisdom.  Near- 
ly all  the  government  monopolies,  both  among  native  and 
European  rulers,  are  let  to  the  highest  bidders  :  thus,  the 
privilege  of  searching  for  precious  stones  in  certain  dis- 
tricts, of  taking  up  the  chiar  root,  salt  rents,  fishing  for 
chanks,  or  pearls,  is  confined  to  those  who  pay  a  fixed  sum 
to  government.  As  the  whole  of  the  money  cannot  be  ad- 
vanced till  a  part  of  the  produce  shall  be  sold,  sureties  have 
to  be  accountable  for  the  amount.  But  as  such  specula- 
tions are  generally  entered  into,  in  order  to  better  a  reduced 
fortune,  an  extravagant  price  is  often  paid,  and  ruin  is  the 
consequence,  both  to  the  principal  and  his  surety.  This 
practice  of  suretyship,  however,  is  also  common  in  the  most 
TRIFLING  affairs  of  liie :  ^' Parrellutha-vonum,  i.  e.  Sign  your 
name,"  is  asked  for  to  every  petty  agreement.  In  every 
legal  court  or  magistrate's  oftice  may  be  seen,  now  and  then, 
a  trio  entering,  thus  to  become  responsible  for  the  engage- 
ments of  another.  The  cause  of  all  this  suretyship  is  prob- 
ably the  bad  faith  which  so  commonly  prevails  among  the 
heathen. — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  He  that  exalteth  his  gate  seeketh  de- 
struction. 

The  general  style  of  buildings  in  the  East,  seems  to  have 
continued  from  the  remotest  ages  down  to  the  present  times, 
without  alteration  or  any  attempt  at  improvement.  Large 
doors,  spacious  chambers,  marble  pavements,  cloistered 
courts,  with  fountains  sometimes  playing  in  the  midst,  are 
certainly  conveniences  well  adapted  to  the  circumstances 
of  these  hotter  climates.  All  the  windows  of  their  dwell- 
ings, if  we  except  a  small  latticed  window  or  balcony  which 
sometimes  looks  into  the  street,  open  into  their  respective 
courts  or  quadrangles;  an  arrangement  probably  dictated 
by  the  jealousy  which  unceasingly  disturbs  the  repose  of  an 
oriental  householder.  It  is  only*  during  the  celebration  of 
some  public  festival,  that  these  houses,  and  their  latticed 
windows,  or  balconies,  are  left  open.  The  streets  of  an 
oriental  city,  the  better  to  shade  the  inhabitants  from  the 
sun,  are  commonly  narrow,  with  sometimes  a  range  of 
shops  on  each  side.  People  of  the  same  trade  occupy  the 
same  street.  Both  in  Persia  and  in  Turkey  the  trades  are 
carried  on  in  separate  bazars,  in  which  their  shops  are  ex- 
tended adjacent  to  each  other  oh  both  sides  of  the  building. 
The  remark  equally  applies  to  Damascus  and  other  citie? 
in  the  Lesser  Asia.  The  entrance  from  the  streets  into 
one  of  the  principal  houses,  is  through  a  porch  or  gateway, 
with  benches  on  each  side,  where  the  master  of  the  family 
receives  visits,  and  despatches  business ;  few  persons,  not 
even  the  nearest  relations,  having  further  admission,  ex- 
cept upon  extraordinary  occasions.  The  door  of  the  porch 
by  which  a  person  enters  the  court,  is  very  small ;  some- 
times not  above  three  feet  high.  The  design  of  such  low 
and  inconvenient  doors  is,  to  prevent  the  Arabs  from  riding 


4^6 


PROVERBS, 


Chap.  18,  19. 


into  the  houses  to  plunder  them ;  for  these  freebooters,  who 
are  almost  centaurs,  seldom  think  of  dismounting  in  iheir 
excursions ;  and  therefore  the  peaceable  inhabitants  find 
such  small  entrances  the  easiest  and  most  effectual  way  of 
preventing  their  violence.  To  this  singular  practice  the 
royal  preacher  may  be  supposed  to  refer:  "He  that  exalt- 
eth  his  gate,  seeketh  destruction."  It  can  hardly  be  sup- 
posed that  Solomon  mentioned  the  loftiness  of  the  gate, 
rather  than  other  circumstances  of  magnificence  in  a  build- 
ing, as  the  wideness  of  the  house,  the  airiness  of  the  rooms, 
the  cedar  ceilings,  and  the  vermilion  paintings,  which  the 
prophet  Jeremiah  specifies  as  pieces  of  grandeur,  without 
some  particular  meaning.  But  if  bands  of  Arabs  had  taken 
the  advantage  of  large  doors  to  enter  into  houses  in  his 
territories,  or  in  the  surrounding  kingdoms,  the  apothegm 
possesses  a  singular  propriety  and  force.  We  have  the 
more  reason  to  believe  that  Solomon  had  his  eye  on  the  in- 
solence of  the  Arabs  in  riding  into  the  houses  of  those  they 
meant  to  plunder,  because  the  practice  seems  not  to  have 
been  unusual  in  other  countries ;  and  is  not  now  peculiar 
to  those  plunderers.  The  Armenian  merchants  at  Julfa, 
the  suburb  of  Ispahan,  in  which  they  reside,,find  it  necessa- 
ry to  make  the  front  door  of  their  houses  in  general  small, 
partly  to  hinder  the  Persians,  who  treat  them  with  great 
rigour  and  insolence,  from  entering  them  on  horseback, 
and  partly  to  prevent  them  from  observing  the  magnificent 
furniture  within.  But  the  habitation  of  a  man  in  power  is 
known  by  his  gate,  which  is  generally  elevated  in  propor- 
tion to  the  vanity  of  its  owner.  A  lofty  gate  is  one  of  the 
insignia  of  royally  ;  and  it  must  have  been  the  same  in  an- 
cient times.  The  gates  of  Jerusalem,  of  Zion,  and  other 
places,  are  often  mentioned  in  the  scripture  with  the  same 
notions  of  grandeur  annexed  to  them:  thus  the  Psalmist 
addresses  the  gates  of  Zion:  "  Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye 
gates  ;  even  lift  them  up,  ye  everlasting  doors :  and  the  king 
of  glory  shall  come  in." — Paxton. 

The  Arabs  are  accustomed  to  ride  into  the  houses  of 
those  they  design  to  harass.  To  prevent  this,  Thevenot 
tells  us  that  the  door  of  the  house  in  which  the  French  mer- 
chants lived  at  Rama  was  not  three  feet  high,  and  that  all 
the  doors  of  that  town  are  equally  low.  Agreeably  to  this 
account,  the  Abbe  Mariti,  speaking  of  his  admission  into  a 
monastery  near  Jerusalem,  says,  "  the  passage  is  so  low 
that  it  will  scarcely  admit  a  horse  ;  and  it  is  shut  by  a  gate 
of  iron,  strongly  secured  in  the  inside.  As  soon  as  we  en- 
tered, it  was  again  made  fast  with  various  bolts  and  bars 
of  iron  :  a  precaution  extremely  necessary  in  a  desert 
place,  exposed  to  the  incursions  and  insolent  attacks  of  the 
Arabs."  To  exalt  the  gate,  would  consequently  be  to  court 
destruction. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Ver.   10.  The  name   of  the  Lord  is   a  strong 
tower;  the  righteous  runneth  into  it,  and  is 


Mvn  of  wealth  are  called  towers.  Thus,  when  such  a 
person  dies,  it  is  said,  "  The  pellata-koburam,  i.  e.  strong 
tower,  has  fallen."  "  I  am  going  to  my  koburam"  says  the 
man  who  is  going  to  his  powerful  friend. — Roberts.  ' 

Ver.  16.  A  man's  giftmaketh  room  for  him,  and 

brmgeth  him  before  great  men. 
See  on  1  Sara.  9.  7. 

Ver.  18.  The  lot  causeth  contentions  to  cease  and 
parteth  between  the  mighty. 

In  nearly  all  cases  where  reason  cannot  decide,  or  where 
the  light  of  several  claimants  to  one  article  has  to  be  set- 
tled, recourse  is  had  to  the  lot,  which  "  causeth  contentions 
to  cease."  Though  an  Englishman  might  not  like  to  have 
a  wife  assigned  to  him  in  such  a  way,  yet  many  a  one  in 
the  East  has  no  other  guide  in  that  important  acquisition. 

Perhaps  a  young  man  is  either  so  accomplished,  or  so 
respectable,  or  so  rich,  that  many  fathers  aspire  to  the 
honour  of  calling  him  son-in-law.  Their  daughters  are 
■AID  to  be  beautiful,  wealthy,  and  of  a  good  family :  what 
is  he  to  do  1  The  name  of  each  young  lady  is  written  on  a 
separate  piece  of  olah;  and  then  all  are  mixed  together. 
Tiie  youth  and  his  friends  then  go  to  the  front  of  the  tem- 


ple ;  and  being  seated,  a  person  who  is  passing  by  at  the 
time  is  called,  and  requested  to  take  one  of  the  pieces  of 
olah,  on  which  a  lady's  name  is  inscribed,  and  place  it  near 
the  anxious  candidate.  This  being  done,  it  is  opened,  and 
she  whose  name  is  written  there,  becomes  his  wife ! 

Are  two  men  inclined  to  marry  two  sisters,  a  dispute  of- 
ten arises  as  to  whom  the  youngest  shall  be  given.  To 
cause  the  "  contentions  to  cease,"  recourse  is  again  had  to 
the  lot.  The  names  of  the  sisters  and  the  disputants  are 
written  on  separate  pieces  of  olah,  and  taken  to  a  sacred 
place :  those  of  the  men  being  put  on  one  side,  and  the 
females  on  the  other.  A  person  then,  who  is  unacquainted 
with  the  matter,  takes  a  piece  of  olah  from  each  side,  and 
the  couple  whose  names  are  thus  joined  together  become 
man  and  wife.  But  sometimes  a  wealthy  father  cannot 
decide  betwixt  tM'o  young  men  who  are  candidates  for  the 
hand  of  his  daughter:  "what  can  he  dol  he  must  settle 
his  doubts  by  lot."  Not  long  ago,  the  son  of  a  medical 
man,  and  another  youth,  applied  for  the  daughter  of  Sedam- 
bara-Suppiyan,  the  rich  merchant.  The  old  gentleman 
caused  two  "  holy  writings"  to  be  drawn  up,  the  names  of 
the  lovers  were  inscribed  thereon  :  the  son  of  Kandan,  the 
doctor,  was  drawn  forth,  and  the  young  lady  became  his 
wife.  Three  Bramins,  also,  who  were  brothers,  each  ar- 
dently desired  the  hand  of  one  female ;  and,  after  many 
disputes,  it  was  settled  by  lot,  which  "causeth  contentions 
to  cease;"  and  the  youngest  of  the  three  gained  the  prize. 

But  medical  men  are  also  sometimes  selected  in  the  same 
way.  One  person  tells  the  afflicted  individual  such  a  doc- 
tor has  far  more  skill  than  the  rest :  another  says,  "  He  ! 
what  is  he  but  a  cow-doctor  1  how  many  has  he  killed ! 
Send  for  such  a  person,  he  will  soon  cure  you."  A  third 
says,  "  I  know  the  man  for  you ;  he  had  his  knowledge 
from  the  gods ;  send  for  him."  The  poor  patient  at  last 
says,  "  Select  me  one  by  lot ;"  and  as  is  the  name,  so  is  the 
doctor.  But  another  thing  has  to  be  settled ;  the  medical 
gentleman  intimates  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  medicine 
which  appear  to  him  to  be  equally  good,  and  therefore  the 
lot  is  again  to  decide  which  is  best.  "  The  lot  causeth  ccm- 
tentions  to  cease." — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  A  brother  offended  is  harder  to  be  won 
than  a  strong  city ;  and  their  contentions  are 
like  the  bars  of  a  castle. 

See  on  Acts  12. 10. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Ver.  12.  The  king's  wrath  is  as  the  roaring  of  a 
lion :  but  his  favour  is  as  dew  upon  the  grass. 

"  The  favour  of  my  friend  is  as  the  refreshing  dew." 
"  The  favours  of  that  good  man  are  continually  DROPPwa 
upon  us."    "  He  bathes  me  with  his  favours." — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  The  contentions  of  a  wife  are  a  continual ' 
dropping. 

See  on  ch.  21.  9. 

The  allusion  in  this  passage  is  generally  thought  to  be  to 
an  old  and  decayed  house,  through  which  the  rain  con- 
tinually drops,  rendering  it  highly  disagreeable  to  inhabit. 
Durell  supposes  that  the  allusion  is  to  the  "  dropping  of  the 
eaves  of  a  house,  or  any  continued  gentle  falling  of  water, 
than  which  nothing  is  more  apt  to  be  tiresome  and  distract- 
ing." Mr.  Harmer  thinks  tnat  it  refers  to  the  arbours 
made  of  the  boughs  of  trees  upon  the  house-tops,  in  which 
the  inhabitants  of  those  suUry  regions  were  accustomed  to  ' 
sleep  in  summer.  "  Egmont  and  Hevman  tell  us  that  ac| 
Caipha,  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Carmel,the  houses  are  smallj 
and  flat-roofed,  where,  during  the  summer,  the  inhabitants] 
sleep  in  arbours  made  of  the  boughs  of  trees."  Again,] 
"  Dr.  Pococke  tells  us,  in  like  manner,  that  when  he  was! 
at  Tiberias,  in  Galilee,  he  was  entertained  by  the  sheik's! 
steward,  and  that  they  supped  upon  the  top  of  the  house  for] 
coolness,  according  to  their  custom,  and  lodged  there  like-] 
wise  in  a  son  of  closet,  about  eight  feet  square,  of  a  wicker-^ 
work,  plastered  round  towards  the  bottom,  but  without  any  i 
door."  "  However  pleasant,"  says  Mr.  Harmer,  "  these  ' 
arbours  and  these  wicker-work  closets  may  be  in  the  dry  ' 
part  of  the  year,  they  must  be  very  disagreeable  in  the  wet 
and  they  that  should  then  lodge  in  them  would  be  exposed  taa  > 

I 


Chap.  19—21. 


PROVERBS. 


42i7* 


continual  dropping.    To  such  circumstances  probably  it  is 
.Aat  Solomon  alludes,  when  he  says,  '  It  is  belter  to  dwell 
in  the  corner  of  the  house-top,  than  with  a  brawling  woman 
!   in  a  wide  house.'    A  corner  covered  with  boughs  or  rushes, 
j  and  made  into  a  little  arbour,  in  which  they  used  to  sleep 
\  in  summer,  but  which  must  have  been  a  very  incommo- 
dious place  to  have  made  an  entire  dwelling.     To  the  same 
I  allusion  belong  those  other  expressions  that  speak  of  the 
j  contentions  of  a  wife  being  like  a  continual  dropping.    Put 
I  together  they  amount  to  this,  that  it  is  better  to  have  no 
other  habitation  than  an  arbour  on.  the  house-top,  and  be 
there  exposed  to  the  wet  of  winter,  which  is  oftentimes  of 
several  days'  continuance,  than  to  dwell  in  a  wide  house 
with  a  brawling  woman,  for  her  contentions  are  a  contin- 
ual dropping,  and,  wide  as  the  house  may  be,  you  will  not 
be  able  to  avoid  them  or  get  out  of  their  reach." — Bush. 

Ver.  24.  A  slothful  man  hideth  his  hand  in  his 
bosom,  and  will  not  so  much  as  bring  it  to  his 
mouth  again. 

Many  of  the  Arabs,  and  other  eastern  people,  use  no 
spoon  in  eating  their  victuals ;  they  dip  their  hands  into  the 
milk,  which  is  placed  before  them  in  a  wooden  bowl,  and 
lift  it  to  their  mouth  in  their  palm.  Le  Bruin  observed 
five  or  six  Arabs  eating  milk  together,  on  the  side  of  the 
Nile,  as  he  was  going  up  that  river  to  Cairo;  and  D'Ar- 
vieux  says  they  eat  their  pottage  in  the  same  way.  Is  it 
not  reasonable  to  suppose,  says  Harmer,  that  the  same  usage 
obtained  anciently  among  the  Jews ;  and  that  Solomon  re- 
fers to  it  when  he  says,  "  A  slothful  man  hides  his  hand  in 
the  dish,  and  will  not  so  much  as  bring  it  to  his  mouth 
again  1"  Our  translators  render  it  the  bosom  ;  but  the  word 
every  where  signifies  a  pot  or  dish.  The  meaning,  there- 
fore, according  to  Harmer,  is,  "  the  slothful  man  having 
lifted  up  his  hand  full  of  milk  or  pottage  to  his  mouth,  will 
not  do  it  a  second  time;  no,  though  it  be  actually  dipped 
into  the  milk  or  pottage,  he  will  n-ot  submit  to  the  fatigue 
of  lifting  it  again  from  thence  to  his  mouth."  But  as  it  is 
rather  a  caricature  to  represent  the  sluggard  as  so  exces- 
sively indolent  or  lazy,  that  he  will  rather  let  his  hand  lie 
in  the  dish  among  the  milk  or  pottage",  than  lift  it  to  his 
mouth  a  second  time,  the  explanation  of  Dr.  Russel  is  to  be 
preferred :  "  The  Arabs,  in  eating,  do  not  thrust  their 
whole  hand  into  the  dish,  but  only  their  thumb  and  two 
first  fingers,  with  which  they  take  up  the  morsel,  and  that 
in  a  moderate  quantity  at  a  time.  I  take,  therefore,  the 
sense  to  be,  that  the  slothful  man,  instead  of  taking  up  a 
moderate  mouthful,  thrusts  his  hand  into  the  pillaw,orsuch 
like,  and  takes  a  handful  at  a  time,  in  order  to  avoid  the 
trouble  of  returning  frequently  to  the  dish."  According  to 
this  view,  the  slothful  man  encleavours  by  one  eflfort  to  save 
himself  the  trouble  of  continued  exertion.  It  seems  to  have 
been  adopted  by  the  Arabs,  as  much  for  the  sake  of  de- 
.spatch  as  from  necessity;  for  D'Arvieux  says,  a  man  would 
eat  upon  very  unequal  terms  with  a  spoon,  among  those  that, 
instead  of  them,  use  the  palms  of  their  hands.  This  mode 
of  drinking  was  used  by  three  hundred  men  of  Gideon's 
army :  "  And  the  number  of  them  that  lapped,  putting  their 
hands  to  their  mouth,  were  three  hundred  men ;  but  all  the 
rest  of  the  people  bowed  down  upon  their  knees  to  drink 
water."  Three  hundred  men,  immediately  on  their  coming 
to  the  water,  drank  of  it  in  the  quickest  manner  they  could, 
by  lifting  it  in  their  palms,  and  lapping  it  like  a  dog,  that 
they  might  be  ready,  without  delay,  to  follow  their  leader 
to  the  battle :  the  rest  took  up  water  in  pitchers,  or  some 
kind  of  vessel,  and  bending  down  upon  their  heels  and 
knees,  or  with  their  knees  placed  upright  before  them, 
either  of  which  might  be  called  bowing  their  knees  to 
drink,  they  handed  these  drinking-vessels  slowly  from  one 
to  another,  as  at  an  ordinary  meal ;  an  act  which  procured 
their  dismission.  The  Hottentot  manner  of  drinking  water 
from  a  pool,  or  stream,  seems  exactly  to  coincide  with  the 
mode  adopted  by  the  three  hundred,  and  gives  a  very  clear 
idea  of  it:  They  throw  it  up  with  their  right  hand  into 
their  mouth,  seldom  bringing  the  hand  nearer  than  the  dis- 
tance of  a  foot  from  the  mouth,  and  so  quickly,  that  however 
thirsty,  they  are  soon  satisfied.  Mr.  Campbell,  who  had  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  this  operation,  when  travelling  among 
that  people,  frequently  tried  to  imitate  it,  but  without  suc- 
cess,—^P  a  xtqn. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

Ver.  4.  The  sluggard  will  not  plough  by  reason 
of  the  cold  :  therefoo-e  shall  he  beg  in  harvest, 
and  have  nothing. 

Margin,  winter.  "  They  begin  to  plough  about  the  lat- 
ter end  of  September,  and  sow  their  earliest  wheat  about 
the  middle  of  October.  The  frosts  are  never  severe  enough 
to  prevent  their  ploughing  all  the  winter."— Burder. 

Ver.  10.  Divers  weights,  and  divers  measures, 
both  of  them  are  alike  abomination  to  the  Lord. 

Here  we  have  a  true  view  of  the  way  in  which  nearly  all 
travelling  merchants  deal  with  their  customers.  See  that 
Mohammedan  pedler  with  his  bags  over  his  shoulder:  the 
one  contains  his  merchandise,  the  other  his  deceitful 
WEIGHTS.  He  comes  to  your  door,  throws  his  bags  on  the 
ground,  and  is  willing  either  to  buy  or  to  sell.  Have  yoa 
any  old  silver,  gold,  jewels,  precious  stones,  iron,  or  lead, 
he  is  ready  to  be  your  customer;  but  he  only  buys  with  his 
own  weights,  which  are  much  heavier  than  the  standard. 
Should  YOU,  however,  require  to  purchase  any  articles,  then 
he  has  other  weights  by  which  he  sells  ;  and  you  may 
often  see  him  fumbling  for  a  considerable  time  in  the  bag 
before  he  can  find  those  which  are  less  in  weight  than  the 
regular  standard.— Roberts, 

Ver.  29.  The  glory  of  voung  men  is  their  strength ; 
and  the  beauty  of  old  men  is  the  gray  head. 

Should  a  youth  despise  the  advice  of  a  gray-headed  man, 
the  latter  will  point  to  his  hairs.  When  young  men  pre- 
sume to  give  advice  to  the  aged,  they  say,  "  Look  at  our 
gray  hairs."  Do  old  people  commit  things  unworthy  of 
their  years,  the  young  ask,  "  Why  have  you  these  gray 
hairs  1"  intimating  they  ought  to  be  the  emblem  of  wisdom. 
— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Ver.  1.  The  king's  heart  is  in  the  hand  of  the 
Lord,  as  the  rivers  of  water;  he  turneth  it 
whithersoever  he  will. 

See  on  Ps.  1.  3. 

Ver.  4.  A  high  look,  and  a  proud  heart,  and  the 
ploughing  of  the  wicked,  is  sin. 

The  margin  has,  instead  oi ploughing,  light :  "  The  light 
of  the  wicked."  The  Tamul  translation  has,  the  lamp  of  the 
wicked.  In  eastern  language,  as  well  as  in  the  scriptures,  the 
word  lamp  is  often  used  to  denote  the  life  of  man :  but  in  this 
passage  it  means  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked.  "  Look  at 
Valen,  how  brightly  does  his  lamp  burn  in  these  days!" — 
"Yes,  his  lamp  has  now  a  thousand  faces."  Thus  the 
haughty  eyes,  the  proud  hearts,  and  the  prosperity  of  the 
wicked,  were  alike  sinful  before  God.  The  lamp  (i.  e.  pros- 
perity) of  the  wicked  is  sin. — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  The  way  of  man  is  froward  and  strange : 
but  as  for  the  pure,  his  work  is  right. 

This  passage,  according  to  the  common  interpretation,  is 
very  obscure.  The  original  Hebrew  words  are  used  to 
signify  a  man  ladenviiih.  guilt  and  crimes,  and  that  his  way 
is  (not  froward  and  strange,  as  in  our  translation,  but)  un- 
steady, or  continually  varying ;  in  which  expression  there  is 
a  most  beautiful  allusion  to  a  beast  which  is  so  overburden^ 
ed  that  he  cannot  keep  in  the  straight  road,  but  is  continu- 
ally tottering  and  staggering,  first  to  the  right  hand,  and 
then  to  the  left. — Parkhurst, 

Ver.  9.  It  is  better  to  dwell  in  a  corner  of  the 
house-top,  than  with  a  brawling  woman  in  a 
wide  house. 

See  on  ch.  19.  13. 

How  pleasant  soever  the  arbour,  or  wicker-closet,  upon 
the  roof,  may  be  during  the  burning  heats  of  summer,  it 
must  be  very  disagreeable  in  the  rainy  season.    They  whq 


428 


PROVERBS, 


Chap.  22, 23. 


lodge  in  either  at  that  time,  must  be  exposed  continually  to 
the  storm  beating  in  upon  them  from  ev^ery  quarter.  In  al- 
lusion, perhaps,  to  this  uncomfortable  situation,  Solomon 
observes :  "  It  is  better  to  dwell  in  a  corner  of  the  house-top, 
than  with  a  brawling  woman  in  a  wide  house :"  in  a  cor- 
ner formed  with  boughs  or  rushes  into  a  little  arbour, 
which,  although  cool  and  pleasant  in  the  dry  and  sultry 
months  of  summer,  is  a  cold  and  cheerless  lodge  when  the 
earth  is  drenched  with  rain,  or  covered  with  snow.  The 
royal  preacher,  in  another  proverb,  compares  the  conten- 
tions of  a  wife  to  the  continual  dropping  of  an  arbour, 
placed  upon  the  house-top,  in  the  rainy  season,  than  which 
it  is  not  easy  to  conceive  any  thing  more  disagreeable : 
"  The  contentions  of  a  wife  are  a  continual  dropping;"  an 
incessant  and  unavoidable  cause  of  uneasiness  or  vexation. 
Instructed  probably  by  his  own  feelings,  harassed  and  goad- 
ed, as  was  meet,  by  the  daily  quarrels  of  his  seraglio,  he 
returns  in  a  succeeding  apothegm  to  the  subject :  "  A 
continual  dropping  in  a  very  rainy  day,  and  a  contentious 
woman,  are  alike."  It  appears  from  these  proverbs,  that  the 
booths  were  generally  constructed  in  the  corner,  where  two 
walls  met,  for  greater  safely  ;  for,  on  the  middle  of  the  roof, 
they  had  been  too  much  exposed  to  the  storm.  This  is  con- 
firmed by  Dr.  Russel,  who  remarks,  in  a  ijaanuscript  note, 
that  these  booths  in  Syria  are  often  placed  near  the  walls ; 
so  minutely  correct  are  even  the  most  incidental  observa- 
tions of  the  inspired  writers. — Paxton. 

The  termagants  of  the  East  are  certainly  not  inferior  to 
those  of  their  own  sex  in  any  part  of  the  worl4 :  in  some 
respects,  the  females  are  perhaps  more  timid  and  retired 
than  those  of  Europe ;  but  let  them  once  go  beyond  the  pre- 
scribed bounds,  and  let  their  powers  be  brought  fairly  into 
action,  and  they  are  complete  furies.  Has  any  one  caused 
a  woman's  child  to  cry,  does  a  neighbour  intimate  that  she 
is  not  what  she  ought  to  be,  or  that  some  of  her  friends  are 
no  better  than  they  should  be,  the  whoop  is  immediately 
sounded,  and  the  brawl  begins.  She  commences  her  abuse 
in  her  best  and  highest  tone  of  voice :  vociferates  all  the 
scandal  she  can  think  of,  and  all  she  can  invent.  Some- 
times she  runs  up  to  her  antagonist,  as  if  about  to  knock  her 
down :  again  she  retires,  apparently  to  go  home ;  but,  no ! 
she  thinks  of  something  more  which  ought  not  to  be  lost, 
and  again  returns  to  the  contest.  At  intervals  (merely  to 
vary  the  scene)  she  throws  up  dust  in  the  air,  and  curses 
ner  opponent,  her  husband,  and  her  children.  Should  the 
poor  woman  not  have  been  blessed  with  a  progeny,  that 
will  not  be  overlooked,  and  a  thousand  highly  provoking 
and  indecent  allusions  will  be  made.  See  her  tiery  eyes, 
her  dishevelled  hair,  her  uplifted  hand,  and  she  is  more 
like  a  fury  from  another  region,  than  a  human  being. 

An  eastern  sage  says, "  Should  one  woman  scold,  the  whole 
earth  will  shake ;  should  two  commence,  the  sign  Pisces 
will  fall ;  if  three  join  in  the  brawl,  the  sea  will  dry  up ;  but 
if  four  try  their  powers,  what  will  become  of  the  world  1"  In 
the  Scanda  Purana  it  is  said,  "  It  is  better  for  any  one  to  fall 
into  hell,  than  to  perform  the  duties  of  a  householder  with  a 
woman  who  will  not  respect  her  husband's  word.  Is  there 
any  other  disease,  any  other  Yamd,  than  spending  life  with 
such  a  woman  1" 

One  of  their  philosophers  describes  some  of  the  defects  in 
young  females  which  ought  to  deter  any  man  from  marrying 
them.  "  Those  who  love  to  be  at  the  house  of  other  people, 
who  are  great  sleepers,  who  love  dancing  and  other  sports, 
who  are  wounded  by  the  arrows  of  Cama,  (Cupid,)  who 
love  before  their  fathers  betroth  them,  who  have  voices  like 
thunder,  who  have  tender,  or  rolling,  or  cat  eves,  who  have 
coarse  hair,  who  are  older  than  yourself,  who  are  full  of 
smiles,  who  are  very  athletic,  who  are  caught  in  the  hell 
of  useless  and  straiige  religions,  who  despise  the  gooroo, 
and  call  the  gods'  statues ;  have  nothing  to  do  with  them." 
Solomon  says,  in  another  place,  "  The  contentions  of  a  wife 
are  a  continual  dropping;"  and  the  Tamul  proverb  has  it, 
"  She  is  like  the  thunder  of  the  rain,  and  is  ever  dropping." 
— Roberts. 

This  expression  the  LXX  render  cv  oikm  koivw.  The  Vul- 
gate, "  in  domo  communi,"  in  a  common  house ;  that  is,  in 
a  house  common  or  shared  out  to  several  families.  Dr. 
Shaw  says,  that  "  the  general  method  of  building,  both  in 
Barbary  and  the  Levant,  seems  to  have  continued  the  same 
from  the  earliest  ages  down  to  this  time,  without  the  least 
alteration  or  improvement :  large  doors,  spacious  chambers, 
&c.    The  court  is  for  the   most  part  surrounded  with  a 


cloister,  over  which,  w^ien  the  house  has  on^  or  more  sto- 
ries, there  is  a  gallery  erected.  From  the  cloisters  or  galle- 
ries we  are  conducted  into  large  spacious  chambers  of  the 
same  length  v/ith  the  court,  but  seldom  or  nevei  communi- 
cating with  one  another.  One  of  them  frequently  serves 
a  whole  family;  particularly  when  a  father  indulges  hi? 
married  children  to  live  with  him ;  or  when  several  po, 
sons  join  in  the  rent  of  the  same  house." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Ver.  13.  The  slothful  man  saith,  There  is  a  lion 
without,  I  shall  be  slain  in  the  streets. 

The  sluggard  is  fond  of  sleep ;  and,  to  excuse  his  sloth 
fulness,  he  makes  use  of  the  pretence,  when  he  is  to  go  oul 
of  his  house  in  the  morning  dawn,  and  to  follow  his  busi- 
ness, that  he  might  fall  a  prey  to  one  of  the  wild  beasts 
which  prowl  about  during  the  night.  When  it  bec^  mes 
dark,  the  people  of  the  East  shut  themselves  up  in  their 
houses  for  fear  of  the  wild  beasts.  Thus  Alvarez,  in  his 
account  of  Ethiopia,  says,  that  "  in  Abyssinia,  as  soon  as 
night  sets  in,  nobody  is  to  be  seen  abroad  for  fear  o{  wild 
beasts,  of  which  the  country  is  full." — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  14.  The  mouth  of  strang-e  women  is  p  deep 
pit:  he  that  is  abhorred  of  the  Lord  shall  fal' 
therein. 

Maundrell,  describing  the  passage  out  of  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  Bashaw  of  Aleppo  into  that  of  him  of  Tripoli,  tells 
us,  the  road  was  rocky  and  uneven,  but  attended  with  va- 
riety. "  Sometimes  it  led  us  under  the  cool  shade  of  thick 
trees:  sometimes  through  narrow  valleys,  watered  with 
fresh  murmuring  torrents:  and  then  for  a  good  while  to- 
gether upon  the  brink  of  a  precipice.  And  in  all  places  it 
treated  us  with  the  prospect  of  plants  and  flowers  of  divers 
kinds :  as  myrtles,  oleanders,  cyclamens,  &c.  Having 
spent  about  two  hours  in  this  manner,  we  descended  into  a 
low  valley;  at  the  bottom  of  which  is  a  fissure  vnto  the 
earth,  of  a  great  depth  ;  but  withal  so  narrow,  that  it  is  not 
discernible  to  the  eye  till  you  arrive  just  upon  it,  though  to 
the  ear  a  notice  of  it  is  given  at  a  great  distance,  by  reason 
of  the  noise  of  a  stream  running  down  into  it  from  the  hills. 
We  could  not  guess  it  to  be  less  than  thirty  yards  deep. 
But  it  is  so  narrow,  that  a  small  arch,  not  four  yarr^s  over, 
lands  you  on  its  other  side.  They  call  it  the  sheik's  wifi ; 
a  name  given  to  it  from  a  woman  of  that  quality,  who  fell 
into  it,  and,  I  need  not  add,  perished."  May  not  Solomon 
refer  to  some  such  dangerous  place  as  this,  when  he  says, 
"  The  mouth  of  a  strange  woman  is  a  deep  pit :  he  that  is 
abhorred  of  the  Lord  s^hall  fall  therein,"  Prov.  xxvii.  14 ; 
and,  **  A  whore  is  a  deep  ditch  ;  and  a  strange  woman  is  a 
narrow  pit,"  Prov.  xxiii.  27.  The  flowery  pleasures  of  the 
place,  where  this  fatal  pit  was,  make  the  allusion  still  more 
striking.  How  agreeable  to  sense  the  path  that  led  to  this 
chamber  of  death ! — Harmer. 

Ver.  26.  Be  not  thou  one  of  them  that  strike  hands, 
or  of  them  that  are  sureties  for  debts. 

See  on  ch.  6. 1. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Ver.  3.  Be  not  desirous  of  his  dainties ;  for  they 
are  deceitful  meat. 

See  on  Gen.  27.  4. 

Ver.  5.  Wilt  thou  set  thine  eyes  upon  that  which 
is  not?  for  riches  certainly  make  themselves 
wings;  they  fly  away,  as  an  eagle  towards 
heaven. 

A  husband  who  complains  of  the  extravagance  of  his 
family,  says,  "  How  is  it  that  wings  grow  on  all  my  proper- 
ty 1  not  ma»iy  days  ago  I  purchased  a  large  quantity  of  pad- 
dy, but  it  has  taken  the  wing  and  flown  away.  The  nexv 
time  I  buy  any  thing,  I  will  look  well  al>er  the  Avings." 
"  You  ask  me  to  give  you  money,  and  I  would,  if  I  pos- 
sessed anv.'.'—"  Possessed  anv!  why!  have  wings  grown 
on  your  silver  and  gold  1"  ""^las!  alas!  I  no  sooner  get 


Chap.  23—25. 


PROVERBS. 


429 


things  into  the  house,  than  wings  grow  on  hem,  and  they 
fly  away.  Last  week  I  began  to  clip  wings ;  but  they  have 
soon  grown  again." — Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  Eat  thou  not  the  bread  of  him  that  hath 
an  evil  eye,  neither  desire  thou  his  dainty 
/  meats :  7.  For  as  he  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so 
is  he :  Eat  and  drink,  saith  he  to  thee ;  but  his 
heart  is  not  with  thee.  8.  The  morsel  ivhich 
thou  hast  eaten  shalt  thou  vomit  up,  and  lose 
thy  sweet  words. 

Whether  the  same  ideas  are  to  be  attached  to  the  expres- 
sion "  evil  eye,"  as  used  by  Solomon,  and  as  understood  by 
the  Egyptians,  may  not  be  easily  ascertained,  though  per- 
haps worthy  of  consideration.  Pococke  says  of  the  Egyp- 
tians, that  "  they  have  a  great  notion  of  the  magic  art,  have 
books  about  it,  and  think  there  is  much  virtue  in  talismans 
and  charms ;  but  particularly  are  strongly  possessed  with  an 
opinioQ  of  the  evil  eye.  When  a  child  is  commended,  ex- 
cept you  give  it  some  blessing,  if  they  are  not  very  well  as- 
sured of  your  good  will,  they  use  charms  against  the  evil 
eye  ;  and  particularly  whenthey  think  any  ill  success  at- 
tends them  on  account  of  an  evil  eye,  they  throw  salt  into  the 
fire."-7-BuRDER. 

Many  references  are  made,  in  the  scriptures  to  an  evil 
EYE.  Sometimes  they  mean  anger  or  envy;  but  in  the  pas- 
sage cited  an  allusion  appears  to  be  made  to  the  malignant 
influence  of  an  evil  eye :  "  The  morsel  which  thou  hast 
eaten  shalt  thou  vomit  up."  The  kan-nuru,  evil-eye,  of 
some  people  is  believed  to  have  a  most  baneful  effect  upon 
whatsoever  it  shall  be  fixed.  Those  who  are  reputed  to 
have  such  eyes  are  always  avoided,  and  none  but  near  rela- 
tions will  invite  them  to  a  feast.  "  Your  cattle,  your  wives, 
your  children,  your  orchards,  your  fields,  are  all  in  danger 
from  that  fellow's  eyes.  The  other  day  he  passed  my  gar- 
den, cast  his  eye  upon  my  lime-tree,  arid  the  fruit  has  since 
fallen  to  the  ground.  Ay,  and  worse  than  that,  he  caught 
a  look  at  my  child's  face,  and  a  large  abscess  has  since 
appeared." 

To  prevent  such  eyes  from  doing  any  injury  to  their 
children,  man;^  parents  (both  Mohammedan  and  Hindoo) 
adorn  them  with  numerous  jewels  and  jackets  of  varied 
colours,  to  attract  the  eye  from  the  person  to  the  ornaments. 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  20.  Be  not  among  wine-bibbers ;  among  riot- 
ous eaters  of  flesh. 

I  The  Arabs  are  described  by  Shaw,  as  very  abstemious. 

i  They  rarely  diminish  their  flocks  by  using  them  for  food, 

:  but  live  chiefly  upon  bread,  milk,  butter,  dates,  or  what 

i  they  receive  in  exchange  for  their  wool.     Their  frugality 

i  is  in  many  instances  the  effect  of  narrow  circumstances ; 

:  and  shows  with  what  propriety  Solomon  describes  an  ex- 
pensive way  of  living  by  (heir  frequent  eati7ig  of  flesh. — 

BURDER. 

1        Ver.  27.  For  a  whore  is  a  deep  ditch;  and  a 
strange  woman  is  a  narrow  pit. 
See  on  ch.  23. 14. 

^        A^er.  30.  They  that  tarry  long  at  the  wine,  they 
that  go  to  seek  mixed  wine. 

j  Dandini  informs  us  that  it  was  the  practice  of  tipplers  not 

i  merely  to  tarry  long  over  the  bottle,  but  over  the  wine  cask, 

\  "  The  goodness  of  the  wine  of  Candia  renders  the  Candiots 

I  ^reat  drinkers,  and  it  often  happens,  that  two  or  three  great 

j  drinkers  will  sit  down  together  at  the  foot  of  a  cask,  from 

!  whence  they  will  not  depart  till  they  have  emptied  it,"  See 

i  also  Isaiah  v.  11, — Burder, 

Ver.  31.  Lo^k  not  thou  upon  the  wine  when  it  is 
red,  when  it  giveth  his  colour  in  the  cup,  when 
it  moveth  itself  aright. 

■        Red  wines  were  most  esteemed  in  the  East.    So  much 
I     was -the  red  colour  admired,  that  when  it  was  too  white 


they  gave  it  a  deeper  tmge  by  mixing  it  with  saffron  or 
Brazil  wood.  By  extracting  the  colouring  matter  of  such 
ingredients,  the  wine  may  be  said  to  make  itself  redder ; 
a  circumstance  which,  in  Mr.  Harmer's  opinion,  Solomon 
means  to  express  in  that  proverb,  "  Look  not  on  the  wine 
when  it  is  red,  when  it  giveth  his  colour  in  the  cup,  when 
it  moveth  itself  aright."  The  verb  is  in  the  Hebrew  Mid- 
dle Voice,  or  Hithpahel  conjugation,  which  denotes  an  ac- 
tion that  turns  upon  the  agent  itself,  and  in  this  instance  im- 
parts great  energy  to  the  warning. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Ver.  11.  If  thou  forbear  to  deliver  them  that  are 
dra\\Ti  unto  death,  and  those  that  are  ready  to 
be  slain. 

It  was  allowed  among  the  Jews,  that  if  any  person  could 
offe^  any  thing  in  favour  of  a  prisoner  after  sentence  was 
passed,  he  might  be  heard  before  execution  was  done  :  and 
therefore  it  was  usual,  as  the  Mishna  shows,  that  when  a 
man  was  led  to  execution,  a  crier  went  before  him  and  pro- 
claimed, "  This  man  is  now  going  to  be  executed  for  such 
a  crime,  and  such  and  such  are  witnesses  against  him  ; 
whoever  knows  him  to  be  innocent,  let  him  come  forth,  and 
make  it  appear." — Doddridge. 

Ver.  26.  Every  man  shall  kiss  his  lips  that  giveth 
a  right  answer. 

The  rescripts  of  authority  used  to  be  kissed  whether  they 
were  believed  to  be  just  or  not;  and  the  letters  of  people  of 
figure  were  treated  in  this  manner ;  but  it  is  possible  these 
words  may  refer  to  another  custom,  which  D'Arvieux  gives 
an  account  of  in  his  description  of  the  Arabs  of  Mount 
Carmel,  who,  when  they  present  any  petition  to  their  emir 
for  a  favour,  offer  their  billets  to  him  with  their  right  hand?, 
after  having  first  kissed  the  papers.  The  Hebrew  manner 
of  expression  is  short ;  every  lip  shall  kiss,  one  maketh  to  re- 
turn a  right  ansicer,  that  is,  every  one  shall  be  ready  to  pre- 
sent the  state  of  his  case,  kissing  it  as  he  delivers  it,  when 
there  is  a  judge  whose  decisions  are  celebrated  for  being 
equitable. — Harmer. 

Ver.  31.  And  lo,  it  was  all  grown  over  with 
thorns,  and  nettles  had  covered  the  face  thereof, 
and  the  stone  wall  thereof  was  broken  down. 

Stone  walls  were  frequently  used  for  the  preservation  of 
vineyards,  as  well  as  living  fences.  Van  Egmont  and  Hey- 
man,  describing  the  country  about  Saphet,  a  celebrated  city 
of  Galilee,  tell  us,  "  the  country  round  it  is  finely  improved, 
the  declivity  being  covered  with  vines  supported  by  low 
walls." — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Ver.  7.  For  better  it  is  that  it  be  said  unto  thee, 
Come  up  hither,  than  that  thou  shouldst  be  put 
lower  in  the  presence  of  the  prince  whom  thine 
eyes  have  seen. 

In  an  eastern  feast  or  ceremony,  nothing  can  exceed  the 
particularity  which  is  observed  in  reference  to  the  rank 
and  consequent  precedence  of  the  guests.  Excepting  where 
kings  or  members  of  the  royal  family  are  present,  the  floor 
and  seats  are  always  of  an  equal  height;  but  the  upper  pari 
of  a  room  is  most  respectable,  and  there  the  most  dignified 
individual  will  be  placed.  Should,  however,  an  inferior 
presume  to  occupy  that  situation,  he  will  soon  be  told  to  go 
to  a  lower  station.  There  are  also  rooms  assigned  to  dif- 
ferent guests,  in  reference  to  their  rank  or  caste,  and  none 
but  their  peers  can  remain  in  the  place,  I  was  once 
present  at  the  marriage  feast  of  a  person  of  high  caste :  the 
ceremonies  were  finished,  and  the  festivities  had  com- 
menced; but  just  before  the  supper  was  announced,  it  was 
discovered  that  one  of  the  guests  was  not  quite  equal  in 
rank  to  those  in  the  same  apartment.  A  hint  was  therefore 
given  to  him,  but  he  refused  to  leave  the  place :  the  host 
was  then  called ;  but,  as  the  guest  was  scarcely  a  grade 
lower  than  the  rest,  he  felt  unwilling  to  put  hirn  out.  The 
remainder,  therefore,  consisting  of  the  first  men  in  the  town, 
immediately  arose  and  left  the  house  — Roberts. 


430 


PROVERBS. 


Chap.  26. 


Ver.  11.  A  word  fitly  spoken  is  like  apples  of 
gold  in  pictures  of  silver. 

Some  suppose  ihis  alludes  to  fruit  served  up  in  filigree- 
work  :  but  I  believe  it  does  not  refer  to  real  fruit,  but  to 
representations  and  ornaments  in  solid  gold.  The  Vulgate 
has,  instead  of  pictures,  "in  lectis  argenieis"  "in  silver 
beds."  The  Tamul  translation  has,  in  place  of  pictures  of 
silver,  velle-lattam,  i.  e.  salvers  or  trays  of  silver.  The  Rev. 
T.  H.  Home,  "  Apples  of  gold  in  net-work  of  silver."  In 
Ihe  6th  and  Tth  verses,  directions  are  given  as  to  the  way  a 
person  ought  to  conduct  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  king: 
and  words  fitly  spoken  are  compared,  in  their  effect  on  the 
mind,  to  apples  of  gold,  in  salvers  of  silver,  when  presented 
as  tributes  or  presents  to  the  mighty.  When  eastern 
princes  visit  each  other,  or  when  men  of  rank  have  to  go 
into  their  presence,  they  often  send  silver  trays,  on  which 
are  gold  ornaments,  as  presents  to  the  king,  to  propitiate 
him  in  their  favour.  Thus,  when  the  governor-general, 
and  the  native  sovereigns,  visit  each  other,  it  is  said,  they 
distributed  so  many  trays  of  jewels,  or  other  articles  of 
great  value.  Golden  ornaments,  whether  in  the  shape  of 
fruit  or  any  other  thing,  when  placed  on  highly-polished 
silver  salvers,  or  in  net-work  of  the  same  metal,  have  a 
very  beautiful  appearance  to  the  eye,  and  are  highly  ac- 
ceptable and  gratifying  to  him  who  receives  them.  As, 
then,  apples  or  jewels  of  gold  are  in  "salvers,"  or  "beds," 
or  "  net-work"  of  silver,  to  the  feelings  of  the  receiver,  so 
are  words  fitly  spoken,  when  addressed  to  the  mind  of  him 
who  is  prepared  to  receive  them.  To  confirm  this  expla- 
nation, the  next  verse  is  very  apposite :  "  As  an  ear-ring  of 
gold,  and  an  ornament  of  fine  gold,  so  is  a  wise  reprover 
upon  an  obedient  ear."  The  effect,  then,  of  a  wise  re- 
proof on  an  obedient  ear,  is  equal  to  that  produced  by  the 
presents  of  ear-rings  of  gold,  or  ornaments  of  fine  gold. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  As  the  cold  of  snow  in  the  time  of  har- 
vest, so  is  a  faithful  messeng-er  to  them  that  send 
him  ;  for  he  refresheth  the  soul  of  his  masters. 

The  custom  of  cooling  wines  with  snow,  was  usual 
among  the  eastern  nations,  and  was  derived  from  the 
Asiatics  and  Greeks  to  the  Romans.  The  snow  of  Leb- 
anon was  celebrated,  in  the  time  of  D'Vitriaco,  for  its 
refrigerating  power  in  tempering  their  wine :  "  All  sum- 
mer, and  especially  in  the  sultry  dog-days,  and  the  month 
of  August,  snow  of  an  extreme  cold  nature,  is  carried  from 
Mount  Libanus,  two  or  three  days'  journey,  that,  being 
mixed  with  wine,  it  may  make  it  cold  as  ice.  The  snow 
is  kept  from  melting  by  the  heat  of  the  sun,  or  the  warmth 
of  the  air,  by  being  covered  up  with  straw."  To  this  cus- 
tom, the  wise  man  seems  to  allnde  in  that  proverb  :  "  As 
the  cold  of  snow  in  the  time  of  harvest;  so  is  a  faithful 
servant  to  them  that  send  him,  for  he  refreshes  the  soul  of 
his  masters."  The  royal  preacher  could  not  speak  of  a  fall 
of  snow  in  the  time  of  harvest,  as  pleasant  and  refreshing; 
it  must,  on  the  contrary,  have  been  very  incommoding,  as  . 
we  actually  find  it  in  this  country ;  he  must  therefore  be 
understood  to  mean  liquids  cooled  by  snow.  The  sense 
then  will  be :  As  the  mixing  of  snow  with  wine,  in  the 
5ultry  time  of  harvest,  is  pleasing  and  refreshing;  so  a  suc- 
cessful messenger  revives  the  spirit  of  his  master  who  sent 
nim,  and  who  was  greatly  depressed  from  an  apprehension 
of  his  failure. — Paxton. 

Ver.  14.  Whoso  boasteth  himself  of  a  false  gift,  is 
like  clouds  and  wind  without  rain, 
r^ee  on  2  Kings  3.  16,  17. 

^   Ver.  17.  Withdraw  thy  foot  from  thy  neighbour  s 
•=^         house,  lest  he  be  weary  of  thee,  and  so  hate 
thee. 

"  The  premises  are  in  grief  through  him  who  so  often 
visits  them." — Tamul  Proverb.  "  The  man,  who  though 
lost  in  the  dark,  and  yet  refuses  to  go  to  the  house  of  him 
who  will  not  treat  him  with  respect,  is  worth  ten  millions 
of  pieces  of  gold." — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  Confidence  in  an  unfaithful  man  in  time 


of  trouble,  is  like  a  broken  tooth,  and  a  foot  out 
of  joint. 

The  eastern  saying,  "  To  put  confidence  in  an  unfaithful 
man,  is  like  trying  to  cross  a  river  on  a  horse  made  ol 
clay,"  is  quoted  for  the  same  purpose. — Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  The  north  wind  driveth  away  rain  ;  so  < 
doth  an  angry  countenance  a  backbiting  tongue. 

Our  translators  were  at  a  loss  how  to  render  Prov.  xxv. 
23  :  they  could  not  tell  whether  Solomon  spoke  of  the  north 
wind  as  driving  away  rain,  or  bringing  it  forth,  and  there- 
fore put  one  sense  in  the  text,  and  the  "other  in  ihe  margin. 
I  have  observed  nothing  decisive  as  to  this  point  in  the 
books  of  travels  which  I  have  perused,  and  indeed  very 
little  more  relating  to  the  winds,  excepting  the  violent  heat 
they  sometimes  bring  with  them  in  these  countries.  At 
Aleppo,  "  the  coldest  winds  in  the  winter  are  those  that 
blow  from  between  the  northwest  and  the  east,  and  the 
nearer  they  approach  to  the  last-mentioned  point,  the  colder 
they  are  during  the  winter,  and  part  of  the  spring.  But 
from  the  beginning  of  May  to  the  end  of  September,  the 
winds  blowing  from  the  very  same  points,  bring  with  them 
a  degree  and  kind  of  heat  which  one  would  imagine  came 
out  of  an  oven,  and  which,  when  it  blows  hard,  will  aflfect 
metals  within  the  houses,  such  as  locks  of  room-doors, 
nearly  as  much  as  if  they  had  been  exposed  to  the  rays  oi 
the  sun ;  yet  it  is  remarkable  that  water  kept  in  jars  is 
much  cooler  at  this  lime  than  when  a  cool  westerly  wind 
blows.  In  these  seasons,  the  only  remedy  is  to  shut  all 
the  doors  and  windows,  for  though  these  winds  do  not  kill 
as  the  sammiel,  which  are  much  of  the  same  nature,  do  in 
the  desert,  yet  they  are  extremely  troublesome,  causing  a 
languor  and  difliculty  of  respiration  to  most  people,"  &c.— 
Harmer. 

Ver.  27.  It  is  not  good  to  eat  much  honey  ;  so  for 
men  to  search  their  own  glory  is  not  glory. 

Delicious  as  honey  is  to  an  eastern  palate,  it  has  been 
thought  sometimes  to  have  produced  terrible  efl^ects.  So 
Sanutus  tells  us,  that  the  English  that  attended  Edward  I. 
into  the  Holy  Land,  died  in  great  numbers,  as  they 
marched,  in  June,  to  demolish  a  place,  which  he  ascribes 
to  the  excessive  heat,  and  their  intemperate  eating  of  fruit;? 
and  honey.  This,  perhaps,  may  give  us  the  thought  of 
Solomon  when  he  says,  "  It  is  not  good  to  eat  much  honey." 
He  had  before,  in  the  same  chapter,  mentioned  that  an  ex- 
cess in  eating  honey  occasioned  sickness  and  vomiting ; 
but,  if  it  was  thought  sometimes  to  produce  deadly  effects, 
there  is  a  greater  energy  in  the  instruction. — HLarmer. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
Ver.  3.  A  whip  for  the  horse,  a  bridle  for  the  ass, 
and  a  rod  for  the  fool's  back. 

According  to  our  notions,  we  should  rather  say,  "  A 
bridle  for  the  horse,  and  a  whip  for  the  ass."  But  it  should 
be  remembered  that  the  eastern  asses,  particularly  those  of 
the  Arabian  breed,  are  much  larger,  more  beautiful,  and 
better  goers,  than  those  in  our  cold  northerly  countries. 
"  In  Arabia,"  says  Nicholson,  "  we  meet  with  two  kinds  of 
asses.  The  small  and  sluggish  kind  are  as  little  esteemed 
in  the  Ea.st  as  in  Europe.  But  there  are  some  of  a  species 
large  and  spirited,  which  appeared  to  me  more  convenient 
for  travelling  than  the  horses,  and  which  are  very  dear." 
Such,  no  doubt,  there  are  evidently  in  Palestine,  and  as  the 
modern  Arabs  take  pains  in  training  them  to  a  pleasant 
pace,  there  is  the  highest  probability  that  something  of  the 
kind  was  practised  among  the  ancient  Israelites;  since 
from  numerous  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  it  appears 
that  asses  were  the  beasts  on  which  that  people,  and  even 
their  great  men,  usually  rode.  Their  asses,  therefore, 
being  active  and  well  broke,  would  need  only  a  bridle  to 
guide  them  ;  whereas  their  horses,  being  scarce,  and  prob- 
ably often  caught  wild,  and  badly  broke,  would  be  much 
less  manageable,  and  frequently  require  the  correction  of 
the  whip.^' — Parkhurst. 

In  the  East,  the  horse  was  taught  only  two  motions,  to 
walk  in  state,  or  to  push  forward  in  full  career ;  a  bridle 
was  therefore  uD»iecessary,  and  seldom  used,  except  for 


Ghap.  27. 


PROVERBS. 


431 


mere  ornament;  the  voice,  or  the  hand  of  his  master,  was 
sufficient  to  direct  his  way,  or  to  stop  his  course.  While 
the  ass  reluctantly  submits  to  the  control  of  the  bridle,  he 
presents  his  back  with  stupid  insensibility  to  the  rod.  This 
instrument  of  correction  is,  therefore,  reserved  for  the  fool, 
and  is  necessary  to  subdue  the  vicious  propensities  of  his 
heart,  awd  turn  him  from  the  error  of  his  way.  The  an- 
cient Israelites  preferred  the  young  ass  for  the  saddle.  It 
is  on  this  account  the  sacred  writers  so  frequently  mention 
riding  on  young  asses  and  on  ass  colts.  They  must  have 
found  them,  from  experience,  like  the  young  of  all  animals, 
more  tractable,  lively,  and  active,  than  their  parents,  and, 
by  consequence,  better  adapted  to  this  employment.  Buffon 
remarked  particularly  of  the  young  ass,  that  it  is  a  gay, 
nimble,  and  gentle  animal,  "and  therefore  to  be  preferred 
for  riding  to  the  same  animal  when  become  lazy  and  stub- 
born through  age."  "  indeed,  the  Hebrew  name  of  the 
young  ass,  -^v,"  from  a  root  which  signifies  to  rouse  or 
excite,  "  is  expressive  of  its  character  for  sprightliness  and 
activity."  On  public  and  solemn  occasions,  they  adorned 
the  asses  which  they  rode,  with  rich  and  splendid  trappings. 
"In  this  manner,"  says  an  excellent  writer  of  Essays  on 
Sacred  Zoology,  "the  magistrates,  in  the  time  of  the  Juc^es, 
appear  to  have  rode  in  state.  They  proceeded  to  the  gate 
of  their  city,  where  they  sat  to  hear  causes,  in  slow  proces- 
sion, mounted  on  asses  superbly  caparisoned  with  white 
cloth,  which  covered  the  greater  part  of  the  animal's  body. 
It  is  thus  that  we  must  interpret  the  words  of  Deborah  : 
'  Speak,  ye  that  ride  on  white  asses,'  on  asses  caparisoned 
with  coverings  made  of  white  woollen  cloth,  'ye  that  sit  in 
judgment,  and  walk,'  or  march  in  state,  '  by  the  way.' 
The  colour  is  not  that  of  the  animal,  but  of  his  hiran,  or 
covering,  for  the  ass  is  commonly  dun,  and  not  white." 

No  doubt  can  be  entertained  in  relation  to  the  existence 
of  the  custom  alluded  to  in  this  quotation.  It  prevails 
among  the  Arabs  to  the  present  day  ;  but  it  appears  rather 
unnatural  to  ascribe  the  colour  of  a  covering  to  the  crea- 
ture that  wears  it.  We  do  not  call  a  man  white  or  black, 
because  he  happens  to  be  dressed  in  vestments  of  white  or 
black  cloth ;  neither  did  the  Hebrews.  The  expression 
naturally  suggests  the  colour  of  the  animal  itself,  not  of  its 
trappings;  and  the  only  point  to  be  ascertained  is,  whether 
the  ass  is  found  of  a  while  colour.  Buffon  informs  us,  that 
the  colour  of  the  ass  is  not  dun,  but  flaxen,  and  the  belly  of 
a  silvery  white.  In  many  instances,  the  silvery  white  pre- 
dominates ;  for  Cartwright,  -w^ho  travelled  into  the  East, 
affirms,  that  he  beheld,  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  great 
droves  of  wild  beasts,  among  which  were  many  wild  asses, 
ail  white.  Oppian  describes  the  wild  ass,  as  having  a  coat 
of  silvery  white ;  and  the  one  which  Professor  Gmelin 
brought  from  Tartary,  was  of  the  same  colour.  White 
asses,  according  to  Morier,  come  from  Arabia  ;  their 
scarcity  makes  them  valuable,  and  gives  them  conse- 
quence. The  men  of  the  law  count  it  a  dignity,  and  suited 
to  their  character,  to  ride  on  asses  of  this  colour.  As  the 
Hebrews  always  appeared  in  white  garments  at  their  pub- 
lic festivals,  and  on  days  of  rejoicing,  or  when  the  courts  of 
justice  were  held  ;  so  they  naturally  preferred  white  asses, 
because  the  colour  suited  the  occasion,  and  because  asses 
of  this  colour  being  more  rare  and  costly,  were  more  covet- 
ed by  the  great  and  the  wealthy.  The  same  view  is  taken  of 
this  question  by  Lewis,  who  says,  the  asses  in  Judea  "  were 
commonly  of  a  red  colour ;  and  therefore  white  asses  were 
highly  valued,  and  used  by  persons  of  superior  note  and 
quality."  In  this  passage  he  clearly  speaks  of  the  colour  of 
the  animals  themselves,  not  of  their  coverings. — Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  As  a  dog  returneth  to  his  vomit;  so  a 
fool  returneth  to  his  folly. 

"  See  the  fellow,"  it  is  said,  "  he  has  repeatedly  suffered 
for  his  folly ;  how  often  has  he  been  corrected  !  and  yet, 
like  the  dog,  he  eats  up  the  food  he  has  vomited."  "  Yes, 
he  is  ever  washing  his  legs,  and  ever  running  into  the 
mud."  "  You  fool ;  because  you  fell  nine  times,  must  you 
ifall  again  1" — Roberts, 

Ver.  1 4.  As  the  door  turneth  upon  his  hinges,  so 
doth  the  slothful  upon  his  bed. 

_  The  doors  of  the  ancients  did  not  turn  on  hinges,  but  on 
.pivots  thus  constructed :  the  upright  of  the  moveable  door 


next  the  wall  had,  at  each  extremity,  a  copper  case  sunk 
into  it,  with  a  projecting  point  on  the  inside,  to  take  the 
better  hold  of  the  wood- work.  This  case  was  generally  of 
a  cylindric  form;  but  there  have  been  found  some  square 
ones,  from  which  ihere  sprang  on  each  side  iron  straps, 
serving  to  bind  tigether  and  strengthen  the  boards  with 
which  the  door  was  constructed  hollow.  (Winckelman's 
Herculaneum.") — Burder. 

Ver.  1 7.  He  that  passeth  by,  and  meddleth  with 
strife  belo7iging  not  to  him,  is  like  one  that  taketh 
a  dog  by  the  ears. 

"  Why  meddle  with  that  matter  1"  "  Will  a  rat  seize  a 
cat  by  the  ears  7"  "  I  will  break  thy  bones,  thou  low  caste." 
— "  No  doubt  about  that ;  I  suppose  in  the  same  way  as  the 
rat  which  seized  my  cat  last  night:  begone,  or  I  will  give 
thee  a  bite." — Roberts. 

Ver.  2.5.  When  he  speaketh  fair,  believe  him  not : 
for  tJ),ere  are  seven  abominations  in  his  heart. 

The  number  seven  is  often  used  to  denote  many.  "  If  we 
have  rain,  we  shall  have  a  crop  of  seven  years."  "  My 
friend,  I  came  to  see  you  seven  times,  but  the  servants 
always  said  teen-tingardr,"  i.  e.  he  is  eating.  "  I  will 
never  speak  to  that  fellow  again ;  he  has  treated  me  with 
contempt  these  seven  times."  "  Y'ou  stupid  ass,  I  have  told 
you  seven  times."  "  The  wind  is  fair,  and  the  dhony  is 
ready  for  sea." — "  I  cannot  believe  you ;  I  have  already 
been  on  board  seven  times." — Roberts. 


CHAPTER  XXVIl. 

Ver.  6.  Faithful  are  the  wounds  of  a  friend ; 
the  kisses  of  an  enemy  are  deceitful. 


but 


"  Begone  !  wretch :  you  cannot  deceive  me,  I  am  more 
afraid  of  your  smiles,  than  the  reproaches  of  my  friend.  I 
know  the  serpent — get  out  of  my  way."  "  Ah !"  says  the 
stranger,  "  the  trees  of  my  own  village  are  better  to  me  than 
the  friends  of  this  place." — Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  Ointment  and  perfume  rejoice  the  heart ; 
so  doth  the  sweetness  of  a  man's  friend  by  hearty 
counsel. 

At  the  close  of  a  visit  in  the  East,  it  is  common  to  sprinkle 
rose,  or  some  other  sweet-scented  water,  on  the  guests,  and 
to  perfume  them  with  aloe-wood,  which  is  brought  last,  and 
serves  for  a  sign  that  it  is  time  for  a  stranger  to  take  leave. 
It  is  thus  described  by  M.  Savary : '"  Towards  the  conclu- 
sion of  a  visit  among  persons  of  distinction  in  Egypt,  a 
•slave,  holding  in  his  hand  a  silver  plate,  on  which  are 
burning  precious  essences,  approaches  the  face  of  the  visit- 
ers, each  of  whom  in  his  turn  perfumes  his  beard.  They 
then  pour  rose-water  on  his  head  and  hands.  This  is  the 
last  ceremony,  after  which  it  is  usual  to  withdraw."  As  to 
the  method  of  using  the  aloe-wood,  Maundrell  says,  they 
have  for  this  purpose  a  small  silver  chafingdish,  covered 
with  a  lid  full  of  holes,  and  fixed  upon  a  handsome  plate. 
In  this  they  put  some  fresh  coals,  and  upon  them  a  piece 
of  lignum  aloes,  and  then  shutting  it  up,  the  smoke  imme- 
diately ascends  with  a  grateful  odour  through  the  cover. 
Probably  to  such  a  custom,  so  calculated  to  refresh  and 
exhilarate,  the  words  of  Solomon  have  an  allusion. — 
Burder. 

Great  numbers  of  authors  take  notice  of  this  part  of 
Eastern  complaisance,  but  some  are  much  more  particular 
and  distinct  than  others.  Maundrell,  for  instance,  who 
gives  a  most  entertaining  account  of  the  ceremony  of  burn- 
ing odours  under  the  chin,  does  not  mention  any  thin^  of 
the  sprinkling  sweet-scented  waters ;  however,  many  other 
writers  do,  and  Dr.  Pococke  has  given  us  the  figure  of  the 
vessel  they  make  use  of  upon  this  occasion,  in  his  first 
volume.  They  are  both  then  used  in  the  East,  but  if  one 
is  spoken  of  more  than  the  other,  it  is,  I  think,  the  per- 
fuming persons  with  odoriferous  smoke.  The  scriptures, 
in  like  manner,  speak  of  perfumes  as  used  anciently  for 
civil  purposes,  as  well  as  sacred,  though  they  do  not  men 
tion  particulars.  "  Ointment  and  perfumes  rejoice  the 
heart,"  Prov,  xxvii.  9.    Perhaps  this  word,  perfume,  com- 


432 


PROVERBS. 


Chap.  27. 


prebends  in  its  meaning,  the  waters  distilled  from  roses, 
and  odoriferous  flowers,  whose  scents  in  the  East,  at  least 
in  Egypt,  if  Maillet  may  be  admitted  to  be  a  judge,  are 
much  "higher  and  more  exquisitely  grateful,  than  with  us ; 
but  if  those  distillations  should  be  thought  not  to  have  been 
known  so  early,  the  burning  fragrant  things,  and  the  ma- 
king a  sweet  smoke  with  them,  we  are  sure,  they  were  ac- 
quainted with,  and  to  that  way  of  perfuming,  Solomon  at 
least  refers.  But  a  passage  in  Daniel  makes  it  requisite  to 
enter  more  minutely  into  this  affair,  and  as  at  the  same  time 
U  mentions  some  other  eastern  forms  of  doing  honour, 
A^hich  I  have  already  taken  notice  of,  but  to  all  which  in 
this  case  objections  have  been  made,  I  will  make  my  re- 
marks upon  it  in  a  distinct  article,  which  I  will  place  im- 
mediately after  this,  and  show  how  easy  that  little  collection 
of  oriental  compliments  may  be  accounted  for,  as  well  as 
explain  more  at  large  this  particular  affair  of  burning 
odours  merely  as  a  civil  expression  of  respect, — Harmer. 

Ver.  15.  A  continual  dropping  in  a  very  rainy- 
day,  and  a  contentious  woman,  are  alike. 
See  on  ch.  21.  9. 

Ver.  19.  As  in  water,  face  answereth  to  face;  so 
the  heart  of  man  to  man. 

The  Hindoos  do  not  appear  to  have  had  mirrors  made  of 
silvered  glass,  until  they  became  acquainted  with  Euro- 
peans; but  they  had  them  of  burnished  metal  and  other  ar- 
ticles. Many  even  at  this  day  pour  water  into  a  vessel 
w^hich  they  use  for  the  same  purpose.  "  His  friendship  for 
me  is  like  my  body  and  its  shadow  in  the  sun,  which  never 
separate." — Roberts. 

Ver.  22.  Though  thou  shouldst  bray  a  fool  in  a 
mortar  among  wheat  with  a  pestle,  yet  will  not 
his  foolishness  depart  from  him. 

Pounding  in  a  mortar  is  a  punishment  still  used  among 
lie  Turks.  The  ulemats,  or  body  of  lawyers,  in  Turkey, 
are  by  law  secured  in  two  important  privileges — they  caii- 
not  lose  their  goods  by  confiscation,  nor  can  they  be  put  to 
death  except  by  the  pestle  and  mortar.  The  guards  of  the 
towerf .  who  suffered  Prince  Coreskie  to  escape  from  prison, 
were,  some  of  them,  empaled,  and  others  pounded  or  beaten 
to  pieces  in  great  mortars  of  iron,  by  order  of  the  Turkish 
government.  This  dreadful  punishment  appears  to  have 
been  occasionally  imposed  by  the  Jewish  rulers,  for  Solo- 
mon clearly  alludes  to  it  in  one  of  his  Proverbs  :  "  Though 
thou  shouldst  bray  a  fool  in  a  mortar  among  wheat  with 
a  pestle,  yet  will  not  his  foolishness  depart  from  him." — 
Paxton. 

Dr.  Boothroyd  says,  "that  is,  no  correction,  however 
severe,  will  cure  him."  Large  mortars  are  used  in  the  East 
for  the  purpose  of  separating  the  rice  from  the  husk.  When 
a  considerable  quantity  has  to  be  prepared,  the  mortar  is 
pla  ;ed  outside  the  door,  and  two  women,  with  each  a  pestle 
of  five  feet  long,  begin  the  work.  They  strike  in  rotation, 
as  blacksmiths  do  on  the  anvil. 

Cruel  as  it  is,  this  is  a  punishment  of  the  state ;  the  poor 
vie  tim  is  thrust  into  the  mortar,  and  beaten  with  the  pestle. 
The  late  king  of  Kandy  compelled  one  of  the  wives  of  his 
rebellious  chiefs  thus  to  beat  her  own  infant  to  death. 
Hence  the  saying,  "  Though  you  beat  that  loose  woman  in 
a  mortar,  she  will  not  leave  her  ways ;"  which  means, 
though  you  chastise  her  ever  so  much,  she  will  never  im- 
prove.— Roberts. 

There  is  a  remarkable  passage,  Prov.  xxvii.  22,  "  Though 
thou  shouldst  bray  a  fool  in  a  mortar  among  wheat  with 
a  pestle,  yet  will  not  his  foolishness  depart  from  him." 
The  mode  of  punishment  referred  to  in  this  passage,  has 
been  made  a  subject  of  inquiry,  by  a  correspondent  of  the 
Gentleman's  Magazine,  who  signs  R.  W.,  [conjectured  to 
be  Richard  Winter,  a  very  respectable  minister  among  the 
dissenters.]  In  answer  to  his  inquiries,  another  corre- 
spondent assured  him  there  were  no  traces  of  any  such  cusiam 
in  the  East.  But,  besides  what  probability  arises  in  the  af- 
firmative, fiom  the  proverbial  manner  of  speech  adopted  by 
Solomon,  the  allusion  may  be  strengthened,  and  the  existence 
of  such  a  punishment  may  be  proved  by  positive  testimony. 
None  who  are  well  informed,  can  willingly  allow  that  any 


mode  of  expression  in  scripture  is  beyond  elucidation,  or 
can  consent  that  the  full  import  of  a  simile,  adopted  by  an 
inspired  writer,  should  be  contracted  or  diminished. 

"  Fanaticism  has  enacted,  in  Turkey,  in  favour  of  the 
ulemats,  [or  body  of  lawyers,]  that  their  goods  shall  never 
be  confiscated,  nor  themselves  put  to  death,  Init  by  being 
bruised  in  a  mortar.  The  honour  of  being  treated  in  so  dis- 
tinguished a  manner,  may  not,  perhaps,  be  sensibly  felt  by 
every  one ;  examples  are  rare ; — yet  the  insolence  of  the 
Mufti  irritated  Sultan  Osman  to  such  a  degree,  that  he  or- 
dered the  mortars  to  be  replaced,  which,  having  been  long 
neglected,  had  been  thrown  down,  and  almost  covered  with 
earth.  This  order  alone  produced  a  surprising  effect ;  the 
body  of  ulemats,  justly  terrified,  submitted."  (Baron  De 
Tott.) 

"  The  Mohammedans  consider  this  office  as  so  important, 
and  entitled  to  such  reverence,  that  the  person  of  a  pacha, 
who  acquits  himself  well  in  it,  becomes  inviolable,  even  by 
the  sultan;  it  is  no  longer  permitted  to  shed  his  blood. 
But  the  divan  has  invented  a  method  of  satisfying  its  ven- 
geance on  those  who  are  protected  by  this  privilege,  without 
departing  from  the  literal  expression  of  the  law,  by  order- 
ing them  to  be  pounded  in  a  mortar,  of  which  there  have 
been  various  instances."    (Volney.) — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

I  have  a  drawing  by  a  Cingalese,  of  the  treatment  re- 
ceived by  the  family  of  Elypola,  one  of  Raja  Singha's  min- 
isters, in  1814,  and  which  led  to  his  dethronement.  In  the 
first  part  of  the  picture  the  king  is  represented  sitting  in  his 
palace,  with  one  of  his  queens  having  her  face  in  the  op- 
posite direction.  Elypola  is  prostrate  before  him,  with  his 
wife  and  five  children  behind,  guarded  by  a  sentinel.  In 
the  second  division,  one  executioner  is  ripping  open  one  of 
the  children,  and  another  holding  up  the  reeking  head  of 
the  next,  just  cut  off,  and  ready  to  drop  it  into  a  mortar. 
Next,  the  unhappy  mother  appears  with  the  pestle  lifled  in 
her  hands,  to  bray  the  head  of  her  infant.  It  appears  from 
the  published  accounts  of  this  inhuman  business,  that  the 
poor  woman  let  fall  the  pestle  once,  and  fainted  away. 
Lastly,  three  children  appear  on  a  precipice  with  bound 
hands,  and  fastened  to  a  large  stone,  intended  to  sink  them 
in  the  pond,  into  which  an  executioner  behind  is  about  to 
precipitate  them.— Calloway. 

Ver.  25.  The  hay  appeareth,  and  the  tender  grass 
showeth  itself,  and  herbs  of  the  mountains  are 
gathered. 

There  is  a  gross  impropriety  in  our  version  of  Proverbs 
xxvii.  25,  "  The  hay  appeareth,  and  the  tender  ^m55  show- 
eth itself,  and  herbs  of  me  mountains  are  gathered."  Now, 
certainly,  if  the  tender  grass  is  but  just  beginning  to  show 
itself,  the  hay,  which  is  grass  cut  and  dried,  after  it  has  ar- 
rived at  maturity,  ought  by  no  means  to  be  associated  with 
it,  still  less  to  precede  it.  And  this  leads  us  to  notice,  that 
none  of  the  dictionaries,  &c.  which  we  have  seen,  give 
what  seems  to  be  the  accurate  import  of  this  word,  which 
we  apprehend  means,  the  first  shoots,  the  rising — just  bud- 
ding— spires  of  grass.  So  in  the  present  passage  (n^sn  rhi 
galeh  chajir)  the  tender  risings  of  the  grass  are  in  motion ; 
and  the  buddings  of  grass  (grass  in  its  early  state,  as  is  the 
peculiar  import  of  *tv\  deshd)  appear ;  and  the  tufts  of  grass, 
proceeding  from  the  same  root,  collect  themselves  together, 
and,  by  their  union,  begin  to  clothe  the  mountain  tops  with  a 
pleasing  verdure."  Surely,  the  beautiful  progress  of  vege- 
tation, as  described  in  this  passage,  must  appear  to  every 
man  of  taste  too  poetical  to  be  lost ;  but  what  must  it  be  to 
an  eastern  beholder  !  to  one  whose  imagination  is  exalted 
by  a  poetic  spirit;  one  who  has  lately  witnessed  all-sur- 
rounding sterility,  a  grassless  waste !— ^Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  27.  And  thou  shalt  have  goats'  milk  enough 
for  thy  food,  for  the  food  of  thy  household,  and 
for  the  maintenance  of  thy  maidens. 

Milk  is  a  great  part  of  the  diet  of  the  eastern  people. 
Their  goats  furnish  them  with  some  part  of  it,  and  Russel 
tells  us  are  chiefly  kept  for  that  purpose ;  that  they  yield 
it  in  no  inconsiderable  quantity  ;  and  that  it  is  sweet,  and 
well-tasted.  This  at  Aleppo  is,  however,  chiefly  from  the 
beginning  of  April  to  September;  theybemg  generally  sup- 
plied the  other  part  of  the  year  with  cows'  milk,  sich  as 
It  is :  for  the  cows  being  commonly  kept  at  the  gardens. 


Chap.  28—30. 


PROVERBS. 


433 


and  fed  with  the  refuse,  the  milk  generally  tastes  so  strong 
of  garlic  or  cabbage-leaves,  as  to  be  very  disagreeable. 
This  circumstance  sufficiently  points  out  how  far  prefera- 
ble the  milk  of  goats  must  have  been. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 
Ver.  3.  A  poor  man  that  oppresseth  the  poor  is 
like  a  sweeping  rain,  which  leaveth  no  food. 

To  feel  the  force  of  this  passage  a  person  should  see 
the  rains  which  sometimes  fall  in  the  East.  For  many 
months  together  we  are  occasionally  without  a  single  drop 
of  rain,  and  then  it  comes  down  as  if  the  heavens  were 
breaking  up,  and  the  earth  were  about  to  be  dissolved.    The 

f  round,  which  had  become  cracked  by  the  drought,  sud- 
enly  swells ;  the  foundations  of  houses  sink,  or  partially 
remove  from  their  places;  men  and  beasts  flee  for  shelter; 
vegetables,  trees,  blossoms,  fruits,  are  destroyed ;  and  when 
the  waters  go  off,  there  is  scarcely  any  thing  left  for  the 
food  of  man  or  beast.  The  torrents  which  fell  on  the  con- 
tinent of  India  and  North  Ceylon,  in  May,  1827,  were  a 
fearful  illustration  of  the  "  sweeping  rain  which  leaveth 
no  food." — Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  As  a.  roaring  lion,  and  a  ranging  bear ;  so 
is  a  wicked  ruler  over  the  poor  people. 

The  bear  is  occasionally  found  in  company  with  the 
lion,  in  the  writings  of  the  Old  Testament ;  and  if  the  sav- 
age ferocity  of  his  disposition  be  duly  considered,   cer- 
tainly forms  a  proper  associate  for  that  destroyer.    "  There 
came  a  lion  and  a  bear,"  said  the  son  of  Jesse,  "  and  took 
a  lamb  out  of  the  flock;"  and  Solomon  unites  them,  to  con- 
stitute the  symbol  of  a  wicked  magistrate :  "  As  a  roaring 
lion,  and  a  ranging  bear,  so  is  a  wicked  ruler  over  the 
poor  people."    The  savage,  which  in  these  texts  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  lion,  is  the  brown  or  red  bear.    Natural 
historians  mention  two  other  species,  the  white  and  black, 
the  dispositions  and  habits  of  which  are  entirely  different. 
The  white  bear  differs  in  shape  from  the  others,  is  an  in- 
habitant of  the  polar  regions,  and  feeds  "  on  the  bodies  of 
seals,  whales,  and  other  monsters  of  the  deep."    It  is  prop- 
erly a  sea  bear,  and  must  have  been  totally  unknown  to 
the'  inspired  writers,  who  lived  so  far  remote  from  those 
dreary  and  desolate  shores  which  it  frequents.     The  black 
and  the  brown  bears  are  considered  by  many  as  only  va- 
rieties of  the  same  species ;  but  their  temper  and  manners 
are  so  different,  that  BufFon,  and  other  respectable  writers, 
contend,  that  they  ought  to  be  regarded  as  specifically  dif- 
ferent.   The  brown  or  red  bear  is  both  a  larger  animal 
than  the  black,  and  a  beast  of  prey  that  in  strength  and 
ferocity  scarcely  yields  to  the  lion  himself;  while  the  black 
bear  chiefly  subsists  on  roots,  fruits,  and  vegetables,  and  is 
never  known  to  prey  upon  other  animals.     This  species 
uniformly  flies  from  the  presence  of  men,  and  never  attacks 
them  but  in  self-defence ;  but  the  red  bear  is  a  bold,  and 
extremely  mischievous  animal,  which  will  attack  a  man 
with  equal  indifference  as  a  lamb  or  a  fawn.    The  black  bear 
also  confines  himself  to  the  more  temperate  northern  lati- 
tudes, never  ascending  to  the  arctic  circle,  nor  descending 
lowfer  than  the  Alps,  where  it  is  sometimes  found ;  but  the 
brown  bear  accommodates  himself  to  every  clime,  and  is 
to  be  found  in  every  desert,  or  uncultivated  country,  on  the 
face  of  our  globe.    He  ranges  the  Scythian  wilds  as  far 
as  the  shores  of  the  frozen  ocean  ;  he  infests  the  boundless 
forests  of  America;   he  traverses  the  burning  wastes  of 
Lybia  and  Numidia,  countries  of  Africa,  which  supplied 
the  ancient  Romans  with  bears  to  be  exhibited  at  their 
public  spectacles ;  he  prowls  on  the  glowing  sands  of  Ara- 
Ijia ;  he  lounges  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  and  on  the  shores 
;        of  the  Red  Sea;  he  inhabits  the  wilderness  adjoining  to 
',        the  Holy  Land.    Hence,  the  black  bear  must  have  been 
imknown  to  the  inhabitants  of  Canaan;  while  the  red  bear 
infested  their  country,  prowled  around  their  flocks,  and 
.        watched  near  their  dwellings,  affording  them  but  too  many 
i        opportunities  of  studying  his  character,  and  too  much 
j        reason  to  remember  his  manners. 

I  A  particular  description  of  this  animal  is  to  be  found  in 

;        every  work  on  natural  history  ;  our  concern  is  only  with 
j        those  traits  in  his  character,  which  serve  to  illustrate  the 
i        sacred  writings.     His  external  appearance  is  unusually 
55 


rugged  and  savage ;  his  limbs  are  strong  and  thick ;  his 
forefeet  somewhat  resemble  the  human  hand ;  his  hair  is 
shaggy  and  coarse,  and  his  whole  aspect  dull  and  heavy. 
His  motions  are  as  awkward  as  his  shape  is  clumsy ;  but 
under  this  forbidding  exterior  he  conceals  a  considerable 
degree  of  alertness  and  cunning.    If  hunger  compel  him 
to  attack  a  man,  or  one  of  the  larger  animals,  he  watches 
the  moment  when  his  adversary  is  off  his  guard.    In  pur- 
suit of  his  prey,  he  swims  with  ease  the  broad  and  rapid . 
stream,  and  climbs  the  highest  tree  in  the  forest.    Many 
beasts  of  prey  surpass  him  in  running ;  yet  his  speed  is  so 
great,  ihat  a  man  on  foot  can  seldom  escape.    Hence,  the 
danger  to  which  a  person  is  exposed  from  his  pursuit,  is 
extreme  ;  he  can  scarcely  hope  to  save  himself  by  flight ; 
the  interposing  river  can  give  him  no  security ;  and  the 
loftiest  tree  in  the  forest  is  commonly  the  chosen  dwelling 
of  his  pursuer,  which,  so  far  from  affording  a  safe  retreat, 
only  ensures  his  destruction.    The  danger  of  the  victim, 
which  the  bear  has  marked  for  destruction,  is  increased 
by  his  natural  sagacity,  the  keenness  of  his  eye,  and  the 
excellence  of  his  other  senses,  particularly  his  sense  of 
smelling,  which  Bufibn  conjectures,   from  the  peculiar 
structure  of  the  organ,  to  be  perhaps  more  exquisite  than 
that  of  any  other  animal.    Nor  can  any  hope  be  rationally 
entertained  from  the  forbearance  or  generosity  of  his  tem- 
per; to  these,  or  any  other  amiable  quality,  his  rugged 
and  savage  heart  is  an  entire  stranger.    His  anger,  which 
is  easily  excited,  is  at  once  capricious  and   intense.    A 
dark  and  sullen  scowl,  which  on  his  forbidding  counte- 
nance never  relaxes  into  a  look  of  satisfaction,  indicates 
the  settled  moroseness  of  his  disposition ;  and  his  voice, 
which  is  a  deep  murmur,  or  rather  growl,  often  accom- 
panied with  a  grinding  of  the  teeth,  betrays  the  discontent 
which  reigns  within.    It  is  therefore  with  justice  that  the 
inspired  writers  uniformly  number  him  among  the  most 
ferocious  and  dangerous  tenants  of  the  forest,  and  asso- 
ciate his  name  and  manner  with  the  sorest  judgments 
which  afflict  mankind. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXX. 

Ver.  4.  Who  hath  ascended  up  into  heaven,  or 
descended  ?  who  hath  gathered  the  wind  in  his 
fists  ?  who  hath  bound  the  waters  in  a  garment  ? 
who  hath  established  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  ? 
what  is  his  name,  and  what  is  his  son's  name, 
if  thou  canst  tell  ? 

"  Yes,  you  are  full  of  confidence,  you  are  quite  sure, 
you  know  all  about  it:  have  you  just  returned  from  the 
heavens  1"  "  Truly,  he  has  just  finished  his  journey  from 
above:  listen,  listen,  to  this  divine  messenger."  "Our 
friend  is  about  to  do  wonderful  things,  he  has  already 
caught  the  wind ;  he  has  seized  it  with  his  hand." — Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  10.  Accuse  not  a  servant  unto  his  master, 
lest  he  curse  thee,  and  thou  be  found  guilty. 

Whatever  crimes  your  servants  commit,  no  one  will  tell 
you  of  them,  except  those  who  wish  to  gain  your  favour. 
But  let  them  once  fall,  then  people  in  every  direction  come 
to  expose  their  villany. — Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  The  horse-leech  hath  two  daughters, 
crying,  Give,  give. 

This  creature  is  only  once  mentioned  in  the  holy  scrip- 
tures. It  was  known  to  the  ancient  Hebrews  under  the 
name  (npiVy)  aluka,  from  the  verb  alak,  which,  in  Arabic, 
signifies  to  adhere,  stick  close,  or  hang  fast.  The  reason 
of  the  Hebrew  name  is  evident ;  the  leech  sticks  fast  to  the 
skin :  and  in  several  languages,  its  pertinacious  adhesion  is 
become  proverbial.    Horace  celebrates  it  in  .this  line — 

"  Non  missura  cutem,  nisi  plena  cruoris  hirudo." 
An  ancient  author  calls  it  the  black  reptile  of  the  marsh, 
because  it  is  commonly  found  in  marshy  places.  Its  cru- 
elty and  thirst  of  blood,  are  noted  by  many  writers,  and, 
indeed,  are  too  prominent  qualities  in  this  creature  to  be 
overlooked. 

" jam  ego  me  vertam  in  hirudinem 

Atque  eorum  exsugebo  sanguinein."— Ptew*.  in  Epidico,  4.ct  ii. 


434 


PROVERBS. 


Chap.  31. 


Long  before  the  time  of  that  ancient  Roman,  the  royal 
preacher  introduced  it  in  one  of  his  Proverbs,  to  illustrate 
the  cruel  and  insatiable  cupidity  of  worldly  men :  "  The 
horse-leech  hath  two  daughters,  crying,  Give,  give."  Sev- 
eral questions  have  been  proposed  in  relation  to  this  text ; 
whether,  for  example,  it  is  to  be  literally  understood ;  and 
what  the  royal  preacher  means  by  its  two  daughters.  Bo- 
chart  contends,  that  it  cannot  be  literally  understood,  first, 
because  its  introduction  into  that  proverb  would  be  quite 
'improper;  second,  because  the  horse-leech  has  no  daugh- 
ters, being  generated  of  putrid  matter  in  the  bottom  of  the 
marsh.  In  answer  to  these  reasons,  it  may  be  observed, 
that  if  it  be  connected  with  the  preceding  verse,  the  intro- 
duction is  quite  proper,  and  highly  emphatical ;  indeed,  we 
can  scarcely  conceive  any  thing  more  forcible  and  beautiful 
than  the  comparison.  To  the  second  objection,  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  reply,  that  Bochart  has  merely  asserted  the  forma- 
tion of  the  horse-leech  from  putrid  mire ;  but  the  absurdity 
of  equivocal  generation  has  already  been  considered.  Mer- 
cer supposes,  that  the  two  daughters  of  the  horse-leech  are 
the  forks  of  her  tongue,  by  which  she  inflicts  the  wound ; 
but  this  exposition  is  inadmissible,  because  she  is  destitute 
of  that  member,  and  acts  merely  by  suction.  Bochart, 
supposing  that  the  clause  where  "it  is  introduced,  cannot 
with  propriety  be  connected  with  any  part  of  the  context, 
considers  it,  of  course,  as  independent ;  and  admitting  the 
derivation  of  aluka  from  alak,  to  hang  or  be  appended,  in- 
'erprets  the  term  as  denoting  the  termination  of  human  life, 
appended  as  it  were  to  the  purpose  of  God,  limiting  the 
term  of  our  mortal  existence ;  and  by  consequence,  that 
her  two  daughters  are  death  and  the  grave,  or,  should 
these  be  thought  nearly  synonymous,  the  grave,  where  the 
body  returns  to  its  dust,  and  thg  world  of  spirits,  where  the 
soul  takes  up  its  abode.  But  with  all  deference  to  such 
high  authority,  this  interpretation  appears  very  forced  and 
unnatural.  The  common  interpretation  seems,  in  every 
respect,  entitled  to  the  preference.  Solomon,  having  in 
the  preceding  verses  mentioned  those  that  devoured  the 
property  of  the  poor,  as  the  worst  of  all  the  generations  he 
had  specified,  proceeds  in  the  fifteenth  verse  to  state  and 
illustrate  the  insatiable  cupidity  with  which  they  prose- 
cuted their  schemes  of  rapine  and  plunder. — As  the  horse- 
leech hath  two  daughters,  cruelty  and  thirst  of  blood,  which 
cannot  be  satisfied ;  so,  the  oppressor  of  the  poor  has  two 
dispositions,  cruelty  and  avarice,  which  never  say  they 
have  enough,  but  continually  demand  additional  gratifica- 
tions.—Paxton, 

Ver.  17.  The  eye  that  mocketh  at  his  father,  and 
despiseth  to  obey  his  mother,  the  ravens  of  the 
valley  shall  pick  it  out,  and  the  young  eagles 
shall  eat  it. 

In  the  East,  in  consequence  of  the  superstitions  6f  hea- 
thenism, numerous  human  bodies  are  exposed  to  become 
the  prey  of  birds  and  wild  beasts;  and  it  is  worthy  of  being 
recorded,  that  the  eye  is  the  first  part  selected  by  the  former, 
as  their  favourite  portion.  It  is,  however,  considered  to  be 
a  great  misfortune  to  be  left  without  sepulchral  rites;  and 
it  is  no  uncommon  imprecation  to  hear,  "  Ah  !  the  crows 
shall  one  day  pick  out  thy  eyhs."  "  Yes,  the  lizards  shall 
lay  their  eggs  in  thy  sockets." — Roberts. 

Solomon  appears  to  give  a  distinct  character  to  some 
of  the  ravens  m  Palestine,  when  he  says,  "  The  eye  that 
mocketh  at  his  father,  and  despiseth  to  obey  his  mother, 
the  ravens  of  the  valley  shall  pick  it  out,  and  the  young 
eagles  shall  eat  it."  The  wise  man,  in  this  passage,  may 
allude  to  a  species  of  raven,  which  prefers  the  valley  for 
'ner  habitation  to  the  clefts  of  the  rock ;  or  he  may  perhaps 
refer  to  some  sequestered  valley  in  the  Land  of  Promise, 
much  frequented  by  these  birds,  which  derived  its  name 
from  that  circumstance;  or,  as  the  rocky  precipice  where 
the  raven  loves  to  build  her  nest,  often  overhangs  the  tor- 
rent, (which  the  original  word,  '?n:  Tiahal,  also  signifies,)  and 
the  lofty  tree,  which  is  equally  acceptable,  rises  on  its 
banks,  the  royal  preacher  might,  by  that  phrase,  merely  in- 
tend the  ravens  which  prefer  such  situations.  Bochart 
conjectures,  that  the  valley  alluded  to  was  Tophet,  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem,  which  the  prophet  Jeremiah 
''alts  Ihe  valley  of  the  dead  bodies;  because  the  dead  bodies 
of  criminals  were  cast  into  it,  where  they  remained  without 
burial,  till  they  were  devoured  by  flocks  of  ravens,  which 


collected  for  that  purpose  from  the  circumjacent  country. 
If  this  conjecture  be  right,  the  meaning  of  Solomon  will  be 
this :  He  who  is  guilty  of  so  great  a  crime,  shall  be  sub- 
jected to  an  infamous  punishment ;  and  shall  be  cast  into 
the  valley  of  dead  bodies,  and  shall  find  no  grave,  but  the 
devouring  maw  of  the  impure  and  voracious  raven.  It  was 
a  common  punishment  in  the  East,  (and  one  which  the 
Orientals  dreaded  above  all  others,)  to  expose  in  the  open 
fields  the  bodies  of  evil-doers  that  had  suffered  by  the  laws 
of  their  offended  country,  to  be  devoured  by  the  beasts  of 
the  field,  and  the  fowls  of  heaven.  Hence,  in  Aristophanes, 
an  old  man  deprecates  the  punishment  of  being  exposed  to 
the  ridicule  of  women,  or  given  as  a  banquet  to  the  ravens; 
and  Horace,  in  his  sixteenth  epistle  to  Cluintius,  repre- 
sents it  as  the  last  degree  of  degradation,  to  be  devoured  by 
these  hateful  birds. 

" non  pasces  in  cruce  corvos." 

The  wise  man  insinuates,  that  the  raven  makes  his  first 
and  keenest  attack  on  the  eye ;  which  perfectly  corresponds 
with  his  habits,  for  he  always  begins  his  banquet  with  that 
part  of  the  body.  Isidore  says  of  him,  "  Primo  in  cadave- 
ribus  oculum  petit:"  and  Epictetus,  'Oi  hev  KopaKci  roiv  tcte- 
'KevrriKOTOiv  rovs  o<pQaXnovi  \vfiaivovrai :  the  ravens  devour  the 
eyes  of  the  dead.  Many  other  testimonies  might  be  ad- 
duced ;  but  these  are  sufficient  to  justify  the  allusion  in  the 
proverb. — Paxton. 

Ver.  25.  The  ants  are  a  people  not  strong,  yet 

they  prepare  their  meat  in  the  summer. 
See  on  ch.  6.  6. 

Ver.  26.  The  conies  are  hui  a  feeble  folk,  yet 
make  they  their  houses  m  the  rocks. 

See  on  Ps.  104.  18. 

Ver.  27.  The  locusts  have  no  king,  yet  go  they 

forth  all  of  them  by  bands. 
See  on  2  Chron.  7.  13. 

Ver.  33.  Surely  the  churning  of  milk  bringeth 
forth  butter,  and  the  wringing  of  the  nose  bring- 
eth forth  blood :  so  the  forcing  of  wrath  bring- 
eth forth  strife. 

The  ancient  way  of  making  butter  in  Arabia  and  Pales- 
tine, was  probably  nearly  the  same  as  is  still  practised  by 
the  Bedouin  Arabs  and  Moors  in  Barbary,  and  which  is 
thus  described  by  Dr.  Shaw  ;  "  Their  method  of  making 
butter  is  by  putting  the  milk  or  cream  in  a  goat's-skin  turned 
inside  out,  which  they  suspend  from  one  side  of  the  tent  to 
the  other,  and  then  pressing  it  to  and  fro  in  one  uniform 
direction,  they  quickly  occasion  the  separation  of  the  unc- 
tuous and  wheyey  parts."  So  "  the  butter  of  the  Moors  in 
the  empire  of  Morocco,  which  is  bad,  is  made  of  all  the 
milk  as  it  comes  from  the  cow, by  putting  it  into  a  skin  and 
shaking  it  till  the  butter  separates  from  it."  (Stewart's 
Journey  to  Mequinez.)  And  what  is  more  to  the  purpose, 
as  relating  to  what  is  still  practised  in  Palestine,  Hasselquist, 
speaking  of  an  encampment  of  the  Arabs,  which  he  found  not 
far  from  Tiberias,  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain  or  hill  where 
Christ  preached  his  sermon,  says,  "  they  make  butter  in  a 
leathern  bag  hung  on  three  poles,  erected  for  the  purpose, 
in  the  form  of  a  cone,  and  drawn  to  and  fro  by  two  women." 

— BURDER. 

The  following  is  a  description  given  by  Thevenot  of  the 
manner  of  making  butter  at  Damascus,  which  he,  however, 
expresslv  assures  us,  is  the  same  all  over  the  East.  ''  They 
tie  a  stick  with  both  ends  to  the  hind-feet  of  a  goat  s-skm, 
which  serves  instead  of  a  leathern  bag,  that  is,  each  end  of 
the  stick  to  one  foot,  and  the  same  with  the  forefeet,  that 
these  sticks  may  serve  as  handles;  they  then  put  the  milk 
into  this  bag,  close  it  carefullv,  shake  it  about,  holdmg  by 
the  two  sticks ;  after  a  time,  add  some  water,  and  then  shake 
it  as  before,  till  butter  comes."— Rosenmuli^br. 

CHAPTER  XXXI.      , 
Ver.  18.  She  perceiveth  that  her  merchandise  is 
good :  her  candle  goeth  not  out  by  night. 


Chap.  2. 


ECCLESIASTES 


435 


To  give  a  modern  instance  of  a  similar  kind — Monsieur 
De  Guys,  m  his  Senti mental  Journey  through  Greece,  says, 
**  embroidery  is  the  constant  employment  of  the  Greek  wo- 
men. Those  who  follow  it  for  a  living  are  employed  in  it 
from  morning  to  night,  as  are  also  their  daughters  and 
slaves.  This  is  a  picture  of  the  industrious  wife,  painted 
after  nature  by  Virgil,  in  the  eighth  book  of  his  iEneid : — 

'  Night  was  now  sliding  in  her  middle  course  : 
The  first  repose  was  finish'd ;  when  the  dame, 
VVho  by  her  distaff's  slender  art  subsists, 
Wakes  the  spread  embers  and  the  sleeping  fire. 
Night  adding  to  her  work  :  and  calls  her  maids 
To  their  long  tasks,  by  lighted  tapers  urg'd.' 

I  have  a  living  portrait  of  the  same  kind  constantly  before 
ray  eyes.  The  lamp  of  a  pretty  neighbour  of  mine,  who 
follows  that  trade,  is  always  lighted  before  day,  and  her 
young  assistants  are  all  at  work  betimes  in  the  morning," — 

JBUKDER. 

Ver.  24.  She  maketh  fine  linen,  and  selleth  it ; 
and  delivereth  girdles  unto  the  merchant. 

Herodotus,  it  seems,  thought  the  Egyptian  women's  car- 


rying on  commerce  was  a  curiosity  t4iat  deserved  to  be  in- 
serted in  his  history  ;  it  (.an  hardly  then  be  thought  an  im- 
propriety to  take  notice  of  this  circumstance  in  a  collection 
of  papers  tending  to  illustrate  the  scriptures,  and  especially 
in  a  country  where  the  women  indeed  spin,  but  the  men  not 
only  buy  and  sell,  but  weave,  and  do  almost  every  thing  else 
relating  to  manufactures.  The  commerce  mentioned  by 
Herodotus  is  lost,  according  to  Maillet,  from  among  the 
women  of  Egypt  in  general,  being  only  retailed  by  the 
Arabs  of  that  country  who  live  in  the  mountains.  The 
Arabian  historians  say,  that  the  women  used  to  deal  in  buy- 
ing and  selling  of  things  woven  of  silk,  gold,  and  silver,  of 
pure  silk,  of  cotton,  of  cotton  and  thread,  or  simple  linen 
cloth,  whether  made  in  the  country  or  imported  ;  the  men 
in  wheat,  barley,  rice,  and  oiher  productions  of  the  earth. 
Maillet,  in  giving  an  account  of  the  alteration  in  this  re- 
spect in  Egypt,  affirms  that  this  usage  still  continues  among 
tne  Arabs  to  this  day,  who  live  in  the  mountains ;  and  con- 
sequently he  must  be  understood  to  affirm,  that  the  things 
that  are  woven  among  the  Arabs  and  sold,  are  sold  by  the 
women,  who  are  indeed  the  persons  that  weave  the  men's 
hykes  in  Barbary,  according  to  Dr.  Shaw,  and  doubtless 
weave  in  Egypt. — Harmer, 


ECCLESIASTES,   OR    THE   PREACHER 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  4.  I  made  me  great  works;  I  built  me 
houses ;  I  planted  me  vineyards  ;  5.  I  made  me 
gardens  and  orchards,  and  I  planted  trees  in 
them  of  all  kind  o/ fruits;  6.  I  made  me  pools 
of  water,  to  water  therewith  the  wood  that 
bringeth  forth  trees. 

The  following  account  of  these  reservoirs  will  evince  at 
what  an  immense  expense  and  labour  they  were  constructed. 
Solomon's  cisterns  "  are  seated  in  a  valley,  and  are  three 
in  number,  each  occupying  a  different  level,  and  placed  in 
a  right  line  with  each  other,  so  that  the  waters  of  the  one 
may  descend  into  the  next  below  it.  Their  figures  are  quad- 
rangular :  the  first,  or  southern  one,  being  about  three  hun- 
dred feet  long ;  the  second,  four  hundred ;  and  the  third, 
five  hundred ;  the  breadth  of  each  being  about  two  hundred 
feet.  They  are  all  lined  with  masonry,  and  descended  to 
by  narrow  flights  of  steps,  at  one  of  the'  corners ;  the  whole 
depth,  when  emtpy,  not  exceeding  twenty  or  thirty  feet. 
They  were,  at  the  present  moment,  all  dry ;  but  though  they 
may  be  considered  useful  works  in  so  barren  and  destitute 
a  country  as  Judea,  yet  they  are  hardly  to  be  reckoned 
among  the  splendid  monuments  of  a  luxurious  sovereign's 
wealth  or  power,  since  there  are  many  of  the  Hebrew  tanks 
in  Bombay,  the  works  of  private  individuals,  in  a  mere 
commercial  settlement,  which  are  much  more  elegant  in 
their  desi^^n,  and  more  expensive  /n  their  construction,  than 
any  of  these.  Near  these  reservoirs  there  are  two  small 
fountains,  of  whose  waters  we  drank,  and  thought  them 
good.  These  are  said  to  have  originally  supplied  the  cis- 
terns through  subterranean  aqueducts ;  but  they  are  now 
fallen  into  decay  from  neglect,  and  merely  serve  as  a  water- 
ing-place for  cattle,  and  a  washing-stream  for  the  females 
of  the  neighbouring  country."    (Buckingham.") 

"  After  a  slight  repast,  we  took  leave  of  our  ho.sts,  and  set 
out  in  a  southern  direction  to  examine  the  Piscine,  said  to 
have  been  constructed  by  Solomon.  The  royal  preacher 
has  been  imagined  to  allude  to  these,  among  other  instances 
ofhis  splendour  and  magnificence,  in  the  passage  where  he 
is  arguing  for  the  insufficiency  of  worldly  pursuits  to  pro- 


cure happiness,  Eccl,  ii.  6.  They  are  three  in  number, 
placed  nearly  in  a  direct  line  above  each  other,  like  the 
locks  of  a  canal.  By  this  arrangement,  the  surplus  of  the 
first  flows  into  the  second,  which  is  again  discharged  into 
the  third :  from  thence  a  constant  supply  of  living  water  is 
carried  along  the  sides  of  the  hill  to  Bethlehem  and  Jeru- 
salem. The  figure  of  these  cisterns  is  rectangular,  and 
they  are  all  nearly  of  the  same  width,  but  of  considerable 
difference  in  length,  the  third  being  almost  half  as  large 
again  as  the  first.  They  are  still  in  a  certain  state  of  preser- 
vation, and  with  a  slight  expense  might  be  perfectly  re- 
stored. The  source  from  whence  they  are  supplied  is  about 
a  furlong  distant ;  the  spring  rises  several  feet  below  the 
surface,  the  aperture  of  which  is  secured  by  a  door,  so  con- 
trived, that  it  may  be  impenetrably  closed  on  any  sudden 
danger  of  the  water  being  contaminated."  (Jolliffe's  Letters.) 

BURDER. 

At  about  an  hour's  distance  to  the  south  of  Bethlehem, 
are  the  pools  of  Solomon.  They  are  three  in  number,  of 
an  oblong  figure,  and  are  supported  by  abutments.  The 
antiquity  of  their  appearance  entitles  them.  Dr.  Richardson 
thinks,  to  be  considered  as  the  work  of  the  Jewish  monarch : 
"  like  every  thing  Jewish,"  he  says,  "  they  are  more  re- 
markable for  strength  than  for  beauty."  They  are  situated 
at  the  south  end  of  a  small  valley,  and  are  so  disposed  on 
the  sloping  ground,  that  the  waters  of  the  uppermost  may 
descend  into  the  second,  and  those  of  the  second  into  the 
third.  That  on  the  west  is  nearest  the  source  of  the  spring, 
and  is  about  480  feet  long ;  the  second  is  about  600  feet  in 
length,  and  the  third  about  660;  the  breadth  of  all  three 
being  nearly  the  same,  about  270  feet.  They  are  lined 
with  a  thick  coat  of  plaster,  and  are  capable  of  containing 
a  great  quantity  of  water,  which  they  discharge  into  a  small 
aqueduct  that  conveys  it  to  Jerusalem.  This  aqueduct  is 
built  on  a  foundation  of  stone :  the  water  runs  through 
round  earthen  pipes,  about  ten  inches  in  diameter,  which 
are  cased  with  two  stones,  hewn  out  so  as  to  fit  them,  and 
they  are  covered  over  with  rough  stones,  well  cemented  to- 
gether. The  whole  is  so  much  sunk  into  the  ground  on  the 
side  of  the  hills  round  which  it  is  carried,  that  in  many 
places  nothing  is  to  be  seen  of  it.  In  time  of  war,  however, 
this  aqueduct  could  be  of  no  service  to  Jerusalem,  as  the 
communication  could  be  easily  cut  off.  The  fountain  which 


436 


ECCLESIASTES. 


Chap.  3,  4. 


supplies  these  pools  is  at  about  the  distance  of  140  paces 
from  them.  "  This,"  says  Maundrell,  "  the  friars  will 
have  to  be  that  sealed  fountain  to  which  the  holy  spouse  is 
compared,  Cant.  iv.  12."  And  he  represents  it  to  have 
been  by  no  means  difficult  to  seal  up  these  springs,  as  they 
rise  uiider  ground,  and  have  no  other  avenue  than  a  little 
hole,  "  like  to  the  mouth  of  a  narrow  well."  "  Through 
this  hole  yoa  descend  directly  down,  but  not  without  some 
d  j*^culty,  for  about  four  yards ;  and  then  arrive  in  a  vaulted 
r  -om  fifteen  paces  long  and  eight  broad.  Joining  to  this  is 
a  aother  room  of  the  same  fashion,  but  somewhat  less.  Both 
these  rooms  are  covered  with  handsome  stone  arches,  very 
ancient,  and  perhaps  the  work  of  Solomon  himself.  You 
find  here  four  places  at  which  the  water  rises.  From  these 
separate  sources  it  is  conveyed  by  little  rivulets  into  a  kind 
of  basin,  and  from  thence  is. carried  by  a  large  subterraneous 
passage  down  into  the  pools.  In  the  way,  before  it  arrives 
at  the  pools,  tliere  is  an  aqueduct  of  brick  pipes,  which  re- 
ceives part  of  the  stream,  and  carries  it  by  many  turnings 
and  windings  to  Jerusalem.  Below  the  pools,  here  runs 
down  a  narrow  rocky  valley,  enclosed  on  both  sides  with 
high  mountains.  This  the  friars  will  have  to  be  '  the  en- 
closed garden'  alluded  to  in  the  same  place  of  the  Canticles. 
As  to  the  pools,  it  is  probable  enough  they  may  be  the  same 
with  Solomon's ;  there  not  being  the  like  store  of  excellent 
spring-water  to  be  met  with  anywhere  else  throughout 
Palestine.  But,  for  the  gardens,  one  may  safely  affirm,  that 
if  Solomon  made  them  in  the  rocky  ground  which  is  now 
assigned  for  them,  he  demonstrated  greater  power  and 
v,'ealth  in  finishing  his  design,  than  wisdom  in  choosing  the 
p.ace  for  it." — Modern  Traveller. 

It  were  very  desirable  to  convey  some  idea,  though  im- 
perfect, of  the  nature  and  arrangement  of  the  gardens  an- 
nexed to  royal  palaces,  in  the  East ;  for  which  this  would 
be  a  proper  place.  But  to  bring  the  subject  within  a  mode- 
rate compass  is  not  easy ;  and  every  situation  has  peculiari- 
ties, which  do  not  admit  of  illustration  by  comparison,  or  of 
application  to  our  present  purpose.  The  gardens  of  the 
seraglio  at  Constantinople  command  an  extensive  sea  view, 
and  are  constructed  accordingly.  Dr.  E.  D.  Clarke  and 
M.  Pouqueville  agree  that  they  are  far  from  magnificent, 
as  Europeans  estimate  magnificence ;  and  may  rather  be 
thought  wildernesses  than  gardens.  They  abound  in  fruit- 
tress,  in  treillages,  in  fountains,  and  in  kiosques.  Their  other 
ornaments  are  but  meager ;  and  their  flowers,  which  should 
constitute  the  chief  distinction  of  a  garden,  especially  of  an 
imperial  garden,  are  but  ordinary.  In  fact,  those  gentle- 
men rather  apologize  to  their  readers  for  anticipated  disap- 
pointment. "  I  promise,"  says  Dr.  Clarke,  "to  conduct  my 
readers,  not  only  within  the  retirement  of  the  seraglio,  but 
into  the  harem  itself,  and  the  most  secluded  haunts  of  the 
Turkish  sovereign.  Would  only  I  could  also  promise  a 
degree  of  satisfaction,  in  this  respect  adequate  to  their  de- 
sire of  information." 

Chardin  has  given  plates  of  several  Persian  gardens; 
and  from  what  he  says— which  is  confirmed  by  Mr.  Morier 
— coolness  and  shade  beneath  wide-spreading  trees,  water, 
and  verdure,  are  the  governing  powers  of  a  Persian  para- 
dise. It  might  be  so,  anciently,  at  Jerusalem ;  nevertheless, 
we  are  still  left  in  uncertainty  as  to  what  might  characterize 
the  ancient  city  of  David,  his  palace,  and  his  gardens.  We 
may  safely  infer  that  they  were  extensive,  since  his  demesne 
occupied  the  whole  area  of  Mount  Zlon:  they  afforded  a 
variety  of  heights,  since  the  mount  was  far  from  level :  it 
rose,  also,  much  above  Mount  Moriah,  on  which  stood  the 
city  of  Jerusalem,  and  consequently  commanded  distinct 
views  of  that  city  and  its  environs.  The  various  heights 
afforded  situations  for  buildings  of  different  descriptions  ; 
private  kiosques  adorned  with  the'utmost  magnificence  and 
skill,  (under  Solomon,)  dwellings  for  the  inmates,  the  guards, 
the  attendants,  the  harem,  and  for  foreign  curiosities  also  ; 
for  specimens  of  natural  history,  birds,  beasts,  &c.  Nor 
was  the  extent  of  Mount  Zion  a  rock ;  for  Dr.  Clarke 
states  expressly,  "  If  this  be  indeed  Mount  Zion,  the  pro- 
phecy concerning  it,  (Micah  iii.  12,)  that  the  plough  should 
pass  over  it,  has  been  fulfilled  to  the  letter;  for  such  labours 
were  actually  going  on  when  we  arrived."  Here  was  there- 
fore a  space  (or  spaces)  of  arable  land;  and  this,  after  so 
many  revolutions  of  the  surface,  and  so  great  intermixture 
of  unproductive  ruins,  derived  from  the  buildings  and  forti- 
fications upon  it,  and  around  it.  In  its  original  state,  we 
need  not  doubt  but  that  it  would  admit,  not  only  of  the 


growth  of  shrubs,  but  of  trees;  "the  thick  gloom  of  cypresses 
and  domes,"  which,  as  Dr.  Clarke  observes,  of  Constanti- 
nople, distinguish  the  most  beautiful  part  of  that  city.  How 
greatly  such  combinations  must  have  contributed  to  the 
general  aspect  of  the  Hebrew  metropolis,  surrounded  by 
barren  mountains,  we  can  be  at  no  loss  to  conceive :  and 
with  these  royal  embellishments  we  may  connect  those  which 
were  "  planted  in  the  house  of  the  Lord,"  Psalm  xcii.  13. 
Mr.  Rich  says,  very  justly,  "  We  should  form  a  very  incor- 
rect notion  of  the  residence  of  an  eastern  monarch,  if  we 
imagined  it  was  one  building  which  in  its  decay  would 
leave  a  single  mound,  or  mass  of  ruins.  Such  establishments 
always  consist  of  a  fortified  enclosure,  the  area  of  which  is 
occupied  by  many  buildings  of  various  kinds,  without  sym- 
metry or  general  design,  and  with  large  vacant  spaces  be- 
tween them." — Taylor  in  Calmet. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  5.  A  time  to  cast  away  stones,  aijd  a  time 
to  gather  stones  together :  a  time  to  embrace, 
and  a  time  to  refrain  from  embracing. 

See  on  2  Kings  3.  19. 

Ver.  7.  A  time  to  rend,  and  a  time  to  sew ;  a  time 
to  keep  silence,  and  a  time  to  speak. 

New  clothes  were  thought  very  necessary  for  the  solemni- 
zation of  a  stated  eastern  festival.  Commentators  have 
taken  notice,  that  the  rending  mentioned  by  Solomon,  Ec- 
cles.  iii.  7,  refers  to  the  oriental  modes  of  expressing  sor- 
row ;  but  they  seem  to  think,  that  the  sewing  signifies  no- 
thing more  than  the  terminating,  perhaps  nothing  more  than 
the  abating,  of  affliction.  Maimonides  is  quoted  on  this  oc- 
casion, as  saying,  He  that  mourns  for  a  father,  &c.,  let  him 
stitch  up  the  rent  of  his  garment  at  the  end  of  thirty  days, 
but  never  let  him  sow  it  up  well.  As  the  other  cases,  how- 
ever, are  as  directly  opposite  as  possible,  is  it  not  more 
probable,  that  a  season  of  joy  is  here  meant,  in  contrast  to 
a  time  of  bitter  grief,  than  merely  of  some  abatement  ol 
distress '?  And  that  by  a  time  ofsev-ing,  is  meant  a  time  of 
making  up  new  vestments,  rather  than  a  slight  tacking  to- 
gether the  places  of  their  clothes,  which  were  torn  in  the 
paroxysm  of  their  grief  1 

Thus,  when  Jacob  supposed  he  had  lost  his  son  Joseph, 
he  rent  his  clothes  for  grief.  Gen.  xxxvii.  34;  while  the 
time  of  preparing  for  the  circumcision  of  the  son  of  Ishmael, 
the  bashaw  of  Egypt,  when  Maillet  lived  there,  must  have 
been  a  time  of  great  sewing;  for  the  rejoicing  on  that 
occasion  lasted,  it  seems,  "  ten  days,  and  on  the  first  day  of 
the  ceremony  the  whole  household  of  the  bashaw  appeared 
in  new  clothes,  and  were  very  richly  dressed.  Two  vests 
of  different-coloured  satin  had  been  given  to  every  one  of 
his  domestics,  one  of  English  cloth,  with  breeches  of  the 
same,  and  a  lining  of  fur  of  a  Moscovite  fox.  The  meanest 
slave  was  dressed  after  this  sort  with  a  turban,  of  which  the 
cap  was  of  velvet,  or  English  cloth,  and  the  othef  parr 
adorned  with  gold.  The  pages  had  large  breeches  of  green 
velvet,  and  short  vests  of  gold  brocade.  Those  of  higher  rank 
were  more  richly  dressed  ;  and  there  was  not  one  of  them 
but  changed  his  "dress  two  or  three  times  during  the  solem- 
nity. Ibrahim,  the  young  lord  that  was  to  be  circumcised, 
appeared  on  the  morning  of  the  ficst  day,  clothed  in  a  half 
vest  of  white  cloth,  lined  with  a  rich  fur,  over  a  dolimanof 
Venetian  cloth  of  gold,  and  over  this  half  vest  he  wore  a 
robe  of  fire-coloured  camlet,  lined  with  a  green  tabby. 
This  vest,  or  quiriqui,  was  embroidered  with  jDcarls  of  a 
large  size,  and  fastened  before  with"  a  clasp  of  large  dia- 
monds. Through  all  the»timethe  solemnity  lasted,  Ibrahim 
changed  his  dress  three  or  four  times  a  day,  and  never  wore 
the  same  thing  twice,  excepting  the  quiriqui,  with  its  pearls, 
which  he  put  on  three  or  four  times."  I  need  not  go  on 
with  Maillet's  account ;  it  is  sufficiently  evident  that  the 
time  of  preparing  for  this  rejoicing  was  a  time  oi  sewing. — 
Harmer. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  1 1.  Again,  if  two  lie  together,  then  they  have 
heat :  but  how  can  one  be  warm  alone  ? 

In  the  oriental  regions  the  oppressive  heat  requires  the 
members  of  the  same  family,  in  general,  to  occupy  each  a 


Chap.  5—7. 


ECCLESIASTES. 


437 


separate  bed.  This,  according  to  Maillet,  is  the  custom 
in  Egypt;  where,  not  only  the  master  and  the  mistress  of 
the  family  sleep  in  different  beds  in  the  same  apartment, 
but  also  their  female  slaves,  though  several  lodge  in  the 
same  chamber,  have  each  a  separate  mattress.  Yet  Solo- 
mon seems  to  intimate  that  a  different  custom  prevailed  in 
Canaan,  and  one  which  the  extreme  heat  of  the  climate 
seems  positively  to  forbid  :  "  If  two  lie  together,  then  they 
have  heat,  but  how  can  one  be  warm  alone  1"  Mr.  Har- 
mer  endeavours  to  solve  the  difficulty,  by  supposing  that 
two  might  sometimes  occupy  one  bed  for  medicinal  purposes. 
It  is  certain  that,  in  the  case  of  David,  it  was  thought  a 
very  efficacious  method  of  recalling  the  vital  warmth  when 
it  was  almost  extinguished.  But  it  is  probable  that  the 
royal  preacher  alluded  rather  to  the  nioping  cold  of  a 
Syrian  winter,  when  the  earth  is  bouna  with  frost  and 
covered  with  snow,  than  to  the  chilling  rigours  of  extreme 
old  age.  The  cold  winter  is  very  severe  during  the  night 
in  that  country.  Even  in  the  daytime  it  is  so  keen,  that 
Jehoiakim*  the  king  of  Judah,  had  a  fire  burning  before 
him  on  the  hearth,  when  he  cut  the  scroll  in  which  the 
prophecies  of  Jeremiah  were  written,  and  committed  it 
to  the  flames.  This  accounts,  in  the  most  satisfactory 
manner,  for  the  remark  of  Solomon ;  for  nothing  surely 
can  be  more  natural  than  for  two  to  sleep  under  the  same 
canopy  during  the  severe  cold  of  a  wintry  night.  The 
same  desire  of  comfort,  one  would  think,  which  induces 
them  to  separate  in  the  summer,  will  incline  them,  at  least 
occasionally,  to  cherish  the  vital  heat  by  a  nearer  approxi- 
mation than  sleeping  in  the  same  room.  It  is  usual,  through 
the  East,  for  a  whole  family  to  sleep  in  the  same  apartment, 
especially  in  the  lower  ranks  of  life,  laying  their  beds  on 
the  groimd.  To  this  custom  our  Lord  alludes  in  the  par- 
able :  "  He  from  within  shall  answer  and  say,  Trouble  me 
not;  the  door  is  now  shut,  and  ray  children  are  now  with  me 
in  bed  ;"  that  is,  my  whole  family  are  now  a-bed  in  the  same 
room  with  me:  "  t  cannot  arise  to  give  thee."— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  6.  Suffer  not  thy  mouth  to  cause  thy  flesh 
to  sin ;  neither  say  thou  before  the  angel,  that 
it  was  an  error :  wherefore  should  God  be 
angry  at  thy  voice,  and  destroy  the  work  of 
thy  hands  ? 

"  Let  not  thy  mouth  weakly  excuse  thee  to  no  purpose ; 
and  do  not  say  before  the  messenger,  (who  may  be  sent  to 
inquire  of  thee  what  thou  hast  vx)wed,)  it  was  a  mistake." 
As  the  priests  kept  a  servant  to  levy  their  share  out  of  the 
offerings  of  the  people,  (I  Sam.  ii.  1^—16,)  and  as  they 
were  greatly  concerned  in  seeing  the  vows  punctually  paid, 
it  is  probable  that  they  kept, messengers  to  go  and  summon 
those  whom  they  knew  to  have  vowed  any  thing,  for  the 
purpose  of  enforcing  the  payment  of  it.  An  employment 
which  we  find  in  aftertimes  in  the  synagogues,  without 
knowing  when  it  began,  might  be  the  same,  for  the  most  part, 
with  that  which  is  here  alluded  to.  The  Jews,  who  scru- 
pled to  touch  money  on  the  sabbath-day,  used  to  bind  them- 
selves on  that  day  to  an  officer,  sent  by  the  rulers  of  the 
synagogue,  to  give  such  sum  for  alms;  and  that  officer  re- 
ceived it  from  them  the  next  day.  This  conjecture  is  the 
more  probable,  as  that  officer,  who  was  the  chagan  or  min- 
ister of  the  synagogue,  is  sometimes  styled  the  messenger 
of  the  synagogue.    (Desvaeux.)— Burdeu. 

Ver.  12.  The  sleep  of  a  labouring  man  is  sweet, 
whether  he  eat  little  or  much :  but  the  abun- 
dance of  the  rich  will  not  suffer  him  to  sleep. 

In  many  parts  of  the  East  there  are  not  any  banks,  or 
public  offices,  in  which  the  affluent  can  deposite  their  riches ; 
consequently  the  property  has  to  be  kept  in  the  house,  or 
concealed  in  some  secret  place.  Under  these  circumstances, 
it  is  no  wonder  that  a  man  having  great  wealth  should  live 
in  constant  dread  of  having  it  stolen.  There  are  those  who 
have  large  treasures  concealed  in  their  houses,  or  gardens, 
or  fields,  and  the  fact  being  known  they  are  closely  watched, 
whenever  they  pay  special  attention  "to  any  particular  ob- 
ject, or  place.  The  late  king  of  Kandy,  after  he  was  taken 
prisoner,  and  on  his  voyage  to  Madras,  was  much  concerned 
about  some  of  his  concealed  treasures,  and  yet  he  would 


not  tell  where  they  were.  So  great  is  the  anxiety  of  some, 
arising  from  the  jewels  and  gold  they  keep  in  their  frail 
houses,  that  they  literally  watch  a  great  part  of  the  night, 
and  sleep  in  the  day,  that  their  golden  deity  may  not  be 
taken  from  them. 

I  knew  a  man  who  had  nearly  all  his  wealth  in  gold  pa- 
godas, which  he  kept  in  a  large  chest  in  his  bedroom: 
neither  in  body  nor  in  mind  did  he  ever  wander  far  from 
the  precious  treasure ;  his  abundance  hindered  him  from 
sleeping ;  and  for  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  it  would  hinder 
him  from  dying ;  for  when  that  fatal  moment  came,  he  sev- 
eral times,  when  apparently  gone,  again  opened  his  eyes 
and  again  gave  another  look  at  the  chest ;  and  one  of  the 
LAST  offices  of  his  hands  was  to  make  an  attempt  to  feel  lor 
the  key  under  his  pillow  ! — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  7.  All  the  labour  of  man  is  for  his  mouth, 
and  yet  the  appetite  is  not  filled. 

"  My  friend,"  says  the  sage,  to  the  diligent  and  successful 
merchant,  "  why  are  you  so  anxious  to  have  riches  1  Know 
you  not  that  all  this  exertion  is  for  the  support  of  one  sin- 
gle span  of  the  belly  V  "  Tamby,  you  and  your  people 
work  very  hard  ;  why  do  you  do  so  1"  The  man  will  look 
at  you  for  a  moment,  and  then  putting  his  fingers  on  his 
navel,  say,  "  It  is  all  for  the  belly." — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  6.  For  as  the  crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot, 
so  is  the  laughter  of  the  fool.     This  also  is 
vanity.    ^ 

Cow-dung  dried  was  the  fuel  commonly  used  for  firing, 
but  this  was  remarkably  slow  in  burning.  On  this  account 
the  Arabs  would  frequently  threaten  to  burn  a  person  with 
cow-dung,  as  a  lingering  death.  When  this  was  used  it  was 
generally  under  their  pots.  This  fuel  is  a  very  striking 
contrast  to  thorns  and  furze,  and  things  of  that  kind,  which 
would  doubtless  be  speedily  consumed,  with  the  crackling 
noise  alluded  to  in  this  passage.  Probably  it  is  this  con- 
trast which  gives  us  the  energy  of  the  comparison. — 
Harmer, 

Ver.  10.  Say  not  thou,  What  is  the  cause  that  the 
former-  days  were  better  than  these  1  for  thou 
dost  not  inquire  wisely  concerning  this. 

The  Hindoos  have  four  ages,  which  nearly  correspond 
with  the  golden,  silver,  brazen,  and  iron  ages  of  the  western 
heathen.  In  the  first  age,  called  Krefha,  they  say  the  corn 
sprang  up  spontaneously,  and  required  no  attention  ;  in  the 
second,  named  Treatha,  the  justice  of  kings  and  the  bles- 
sings of  the  righteous  caused  it  to  grow ;  in  the  third,  called 
Tuvara,  rain  produced  it;  but  in  this,  the  fourth  age,  called 
Kally,  many  works  have  to  be  done  to  cause  it  to  grow. 
"  Our  fathers,"  say  they,  "  had  three  harvests  in  the  year : 
the  trees  also  gave  an  abundance  of  fruit.  Where  is  now 
the  cheapness  of  provisions?  the  abundance  of  fish?  the 
fruitful  flocks?  the  rivers  of  milk?  the  plenty  of  water  ? 
Where  the  pleasures?  Where  the  docility  of  animals'? 
Where  the  righteousness,  the  truth,  and  affection  ?  Where 
the  riches,  the  peace,  the  plenty  ?  Where  the  mighty  men  1 
Where  the  chaste  and  beautiful  mothers,  with  their  fifteen 
or  sixteen  children?  Alas!  alas!  they  are  all  fled."— Ro- 
berts. 

Ver.  13.  Consider  the  work  of  God  :  for  who  can 
make  that  straight  which  he  hath  made  crook- 
ed? 

"  My  lord,  it  is  of  no  use  trying  to  reform  that  fellow :  his 
ways  are  crooked:  should  you  by  force  make  him  a  little 
straight,  he  will  relapse  into  his  former  state."  "If you 
make  straight  the  tail  of  the  dog,  will  it  remain  so  ?"— Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  25.  I  applied  my  heart  to  know,  and  to 
search,  and  to  seek  out  wisdom,  and  the  reason 
of  things,  and  to  know  the  wickedness  of  folly^ 
even  of  foolishness  and  madness. 


4218 


ECCLESIASTES. 


Chap.  7.-10. 


The  margin  has,  instead  of  applied,  "  I  and  my  heart 
compassed,"  i.  e.  encircled,  went  round  it.  According  to 
Dr.  Adam  Clarke,"  I  made  a  circuit; — I  circumscribed  the 
ground  I  was  to  traverse:  and  all  within  my  circuit  I  was 
determined  to  know." — In  English  we  say,  "  I  studied  the 
subject,"  but  in  eastern  idiom,  it  is,  "  I  went  round  it." 
*'  Have  you  studied  grammar  1" — "  Yes,  suite  suite"  round 
and  :  >und.  "  That  man  is  well  acquainted  with  magic,  for 
to  r :.  /  knowledge  he  has  been  round  and  round  it :  nay  more, 
I  aiTi.  told  he  has  compassed  all  the  sciences." — Roberts. 

Ver.  26.  And  I  find  more  bitter  than  death  the 
woman  whose  heart  is  snares  and  nets,  arid  her 
hands  as  bands:  whoso  pleaseth  God  shall  es- 
cape from  her ;  but  the  sinner  shall  be  taken 
by  her. 

The  following  insidious  mode  of  robbery  gives  a  very 
lively  comment  upon  these  words  of  Solomon :  "  The  most 
cunning  robbers  in  the  world  are  in  this  country.  They 
use  a  certain  slip  with  a  running  noose,  which  they  cast 
with  so  much  sleight  about  a  man's  neck  when  they  are 
within  reach  of  him,  that  they  never  fail,  so  that  they  strangle 
him  in  a  trice.  They  have  another  curious  trick  also  to 
catch  travellers.  They  send  out  a  handsome  woman  upon 
the  road,  who,  with  her  hair  dishevelled,  seems  to  be  all  in 
tears,  sighing  and  complaining  of  some  misfortune  which 
she  pretends  has  befallen  her.  Now,  as  she  takes  the  same 
way  as  the  traveller  goes,  he  easily  falls  into  conversation 
with  her,  and  finding  her  beautiful,  offers  her  his  assistance, 
which  she  accepts:  but  he  hath  no  sooner  taken  her  up  on 
horseback  behind  him,  but  she  throws  the  snare  about  his 
neck,  and  strangles  him,  or  at  least  stuns  him,  until  the 
robbers  who  lie  hid  come  running  in  to  her  assistance,  and 
pomplete  what  she  hath  begun."    (Thevenot.) — Burder. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  8.  Let  thy  garments  be  always  white ;  and 
let  thy  head  lack  no  ointment. 

This  comparison  loses  all  its  force  in  Europe,  but  in 
India,  where  white  cotton  is  the  dress  of  all  the  inhabitants, 
and  where  the  beauty  of  garments  consists,  not  in  their 
shape,  but  in  their  being  clean  and  white,  the  exhortation 
becomes  strikingly  proper.  A  Hindoo  catechist  address- 
ing a  native  Christian  on  the  necessity  of  correctness  of 
conduct,  said.  See  how  welcome  a  person  is  whose  garments 
are  clean  and  white.  Such  let  our  conduct  be,  and  then, 
though  we  have  lost  caste,  such  will  be  our  reception, 
(Ward.) — Burder. 

Ver.  12.  For  man  alsoknoweth  not  his  time:  as 
the  fishes  that  are  taken  in  an  evil  net,  and  as 
the  birds  that  are  caught  in  the  snare ;  so  are 
the  sons  of  men  snared  in  an  evil  time,  when  it 
falleth  suddenly  upon  them. 

"  Alas !  alas !  trouble  has  come  suddenly  upon  me ;  I  am 
caught  as  fishes  in  the  net."  "  We  are  all  of  us  to  be  caught 
as  fishes  in  the  net." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ver.  7.  I  have  seen  servants  upon  horses,  and 
princes  walking  as  servants  upon  the  earth. 

See  on  1  Kings  10.  8. 

In  all  ages  and  nations,  we  read  or  hear  of  complaints 
against  those  who  have  arisen  from  obscurity  to  respecta- 
bility or  rank  in  the  state.  It  is  not  so  modern  as  some 
suppose  for  servants  and  inferiors  to  imitate  their  superiors ; 
and  though  some  would  like  to  see  a  return  of  the  "  good 
old  times  !"  when  a  man's  vest  and  jerkin  would  have  to 
be  regulated  by  his  rank,  such  things  are  doubtless  best  left 
•  to  themselves.  The  Hindoos  are  most  tenacious  in  their 
adherence  to  caste,  and  should  any  one,  through  property 
or  circumstances,  be  elevated  in  society,  he  will  always  be 
locked  upon  with  secret  contempt.  Their  proverb  is,  "  He 
who  once  walked  on  the  ground,  is  now  in  his  palanquin ; 
and  he  who  was  in  his  palanquin,  is  now  on  the  ground." 
—Roberts.  > 

Persons  of  rank  and  opulence,  in  those  countries,  are  now 


distinguished  from  their  inferiors,  by  riding  on  horseback 
when  they  go  abroad;  while  those  of  meaner  station,  and 
Christians  of  every  rank,  the  consuls  of  Christian  powers 
excepted,  are  obliged  to  content  themselves  with  the  ass  or 
the  mule.  A  Turkish  grandee,  proud  of  his  exclusive 
privilege,  moves  on  horseback  with  a  very  slow  and  state- 
ly pace.  To  the  honour  of  riding  upon  horses,  and  the 
stately  manner  inw^hich  the  oriental  nobles  proceed  through 
the  streets,  with  a  number  of  servants  walking  before  them, 
the  wise  man  seems  to  allude,  in  his  account  of  the  disor- 
ders which  occasionally  prevail  in  society :  "  I  have  seen 
servants  upon  horses,  and  princes  walking  as  servants  upon 
the  earth." — Paxton. 

Ver.  8.  He  that  diggeth  a  pit  shall  fall  into  it ; 
and  whoso  breaketh  a  hedge,  a  serpent  shall 
bite  him. 

Other  enclosures  have  fences  of  loose  stones,  or  mud 
walls,  some  of  them  very  low,  which  often  furnish  a  re- 
treat to  venomous  reptiles.  To  this  circumstance  the  royal 
preacher  alludes,  in  his  observations  of  wisdom  and  folly : 
"  He  that  diggeth  a  pit,  shall  fall  into  it :  and  whoso  break- 
eth a  hedge,  a  serpent  shall  bite  him."  The  term  w^hich 
our  translators  render  hedge  in  this  passage,  they  might 
with  more  propriety  have  rendered  wall,  as  they  had  done 
in  another  part  of  the  writings  of  Solomon :  "  I  went  by 
the  field  of  the  slothful,  and  by  the  vineyard  of  the  man 
void  of  understanding;  and  lo,  it  was  all  grown  over  with 
thorns,  and  nettles  had  covered  the  face  thereof,  and  the 
stone  wall  thereof  was  broken  down." — Paxton, 

Ver.  11.  Surely  the  serpent  will  bite  without  en- 
chantment ;  and  a  babbler  is  no  better. 

The  incantation  of  serpents  is  one  of  the  most  curious 
and  interesting  facts  in  natural  history.  This  wonderful 
art,  which  sooths  the  wrath,  and  disarms  the  fury  of  the 
deadliest  snake,  and  renders  it  obedient  to  the  charmer's 
voice,  is  not  an  invention  of  modern  times;  for  we  discover 
manifest  traces  of  it  in  the  remotest  antiquity.  It  is  assert- 
ed, that  Orpheus,  who  probably  flourished  soon  after  letters 
were  introauced  into  Greece,  knew  how  to  still  the  hissing 
of  the  approaching  snake,  and  to  extinguish  the  poison  of 
the  creeping  serpent.  The  Argonauts  are  said  to  have 
subdued  by  the  power  of  song  the  teiTible  dragon  that 
guarded  the  golden  fleece :  'B.kiri  tionv  QeHai  npas.  Ovid 
ascribes  the  same  effect  to  the  soporific  influence  of  certain 
herbs,  and  magic  sentences.  But  it  seems  to  have  been 
the  general  persuasion  of  the  ancients,  that  the  principal 
power  of  the  charmer  lay  in  the  sweetness  of  his  music. 
Pliny  says  accordingly,  that  serpents  were  drawn  from 
their  lurking-places  by'the  power  of  music.  Serpents,  says 
Augustine,  are  supposed  to  hear  and  understand  the  words 
of  the  Marsi ;  so  that,  by  their  incantations,  these  reptiles, 
for  the  most  part,  sally  forth  from  their  holes. 

The  wonderful  effect  which  music  produces  on  the  serpent 
tribes,  is  confirmed  by  the  testimony  of  several  respectable 
moderns.  Adders  swell  at  the  sound  of  a  flute,  raising 
themselves  upon  the  one  half  of  their  body,  turning  them- 
selves round,  beating  proper  time,  and  following  the  instru- 
ment. Their  head,  naturally  round  and  long  like  an  eel, 
becomes  broad  and  flat  like  a  fan.  The  tame  serpents, 
many  of  which  the  Orientals  keep  in  their  houses,  are. 
known  to  leave  their  holes  in  hot  weather,  at  the  sound  of 
a  musical  instrument,  and  run  upon  the  performer.  Dr. 
Shaw  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing#i  number  of  serpents 
keep  exact  time  with  the  dervishes  in  their  circulatory 
dances,  running  over  their  heads  and  arms,  turning  when 
they  turned,  and  stopping  when  they  stopped.  The  rattle- 
snake acknowledges  the  power  of  music  as  much  as  any  of 
his  familv ;  of  which  the  following  instance  is  a  decisive 
proof:  When  Chateaubriand  was  in  Canada,  a  snake  ol 
that  species  entered  their  encampment;  a  young  Canadian, 
one  of  the  party,  who  could  play  on  the  flute,  to  divert  his 
associates,  advanced  against  the  serpent  with  his  new  species 
of  weapon.  "  On  the  approach  of  his  enemy,  the  haughty 
Reptile  coiled  himself  into  a  spiral  line,  flattened  hjs  head, 
inflated  his  cheeks,  contracted  his  lips,  displayed  his  en- 
venomed fangs  and  his  bloody  throat ;  his  double  tongue 
glowed  like  two  flames  of  Are;  his  eyes  were  burninji 
coals ;  his  body,  swollen  with  rage,  rose  and  fell  like  lb*- 


Chap.  10. 


ECCLESIASTES. 


439 


bellows  of  a  forge;  his  dilated  skin  assumed  a  dull  and 
scaly  appearance;  and  his  tail,  which  sounded  the  denun- 
ciation of  death,  vibrated  with  so  great  rapidity,  as  to 
resemble  a  light  vapour.  The  Canadian  now  began  to 
play  upon  his  flu?,e,  the  serpent  started  with  surprise,  and 
drew  back  his  hear;'.  In  proportion  as  he  was  struck  with 
the  magic  effect,  hi  ■;  eyes  lost  their  fierceness,  the  oscilla- 
tions of  his  tai'  became  slower,  and  the  sound  which  it 
emitted  became  weaker,  and  gradually  died  away.  Less 
perpendicular  upon  their  spiral  line,  the  rings  of  the  fasci- 
nated serpent  were  by  degrees  expanded,  and  sunk  one 
after  another  upon  the  ground,  in  concentric  circles.  The 
shades  of  azure,  green,  white,  and  gold,  recovered  their 
brilliancy  on  his  quivering  skin,  and  slightly  turning  his 
head,  he  remained  motionless,  in  the  attitude  of  attention 
and  pleasure.  At  this  moment,  the  Canadian  advanced  a 
few  steps,  producing  with  his  flute  sweet  and  simple  notes. 
The  reptile,  inclining  his  variegated  neck,  opened  a  pas- 
sage with  his  head  through  the  high  grass,  and  began  to 
creep  afte*r  the  musician,  stopping  when  he  stopped,  and 
beginning  to  follow  him  again,  as  soon  as  he  moved  for- 
ward." In  this  manner  he  was  led  out  of  their  camp,  at- 
tended by  a  great  number  of  spectators,  both  savages  and 
Europeans,  who  could  scarcely  believe  their  eyes,  when 
they  beheld  this  wonderful  effect  of  harmony.  The  assem- 
bly unanimously  decreed  that  the  serpent  which  had  so 
highly  entertained  them  should  be  permitted  to  escape. 
Many  of  them  are  carried  in  baskets  through  Hindostan, 
and  procure  a  maintenance  for  a  set  of  people  who  play  a 
few  simple  notes  on  the  flute,  with  which  the  snakes  seem 
much  delighted,  and  keep  time  by  a  graceful  motion  of  the 
head,  erecting  about  half  their  length  from  the  ground,  and 
following  the  music  with  gentle  curves,  like  the  imdulating 
lines  of  a  swan's  neck. 

The  serpent  most  common  at  Cairo,  belongs  to  the  viper 
class,  and  is  undoubtedly  poisonous.  If  one  of  them  enter 
a  house,  the  charmer  is  sent  for,  who  uses  a  certain  form  of 
words.  By  this  means,  Mr.  Brown  saw  three  serpents  en- 
ticed out  of  the  cabin  of  a  ship  lying  near  the  shore.  The 
operator  handled  them,  and  put  them  into  a  bag.  At  other 
times,  he  saw  the  fascinated  reptiles  twist  round  the  bodies 
of  these  charmers  in  all  directions,  without  having  had 
their  fangs  extracted,  or  broken,  and  without  doing  them 
any  harm.  Adders  and  serpents  will  twist  themselves 
round  the  neck  and  naked  bodies  of  young  children  be- 
longing to  the  charmers,  and  suffer  them  to  escape  unhurt. 
But  if  any  person  who  is  ignorant  of  the  art  happens  to  ap- 
proach them,  their  destructive  powers  immediately  revive. 
At  Surat,  an  Armenian  seeing  one  of  these  charmers  make 
an  adder  bite  him,  without  receiving  any  other  injury  than 
the  mere  incision,  boasted  he  could  do  the  same ;  and  caus- 
ing himself  to  be  woimded  in  the  hand,  died  in  less  than 
two  hours. 

While  the  creature  is  under  the  influence  of  the  charm, 
they  sometimes  break  out  the  tooth  which  conveys  the  poi- 
son, and  render  it  quite  harmless :  for  the  poison  is  contain- 
ed in  a  bag,  at  the  bottom  of  the  fangs,  which  lie  flat  in  the 
mouth,  and  are  erected  only  when  the  serpent  intends  to 
bite.  The  bag,  upon  being  pressed,  discharges  the  poison 
through  a  hole  or  groove  in  the  fang,  formed  to  receive  it, 
into  the  wound,  which  is  at  the  same  Instant  inflicted  by 
the  tooth.  That  all  the  teeth  are  not  venomous,  is  evident 
from  this  circumstance,  that  the  charmers  will  cause  their 
serpents  to  bite  them,  till  they  draw  blood,  and  yet  the  hand 
will  not  swell. 

But  on  some  serpents,  these  charms  seem  to  have  no 
power  ;  and  it  appears  from  scripture,  that  the  adder  some- 
times takes  precautions  to  prevent  the  fascination  which  he 
sees  preparing  for  him;  "for  the  deaf  adder  shutteth  her 
ear,  and  will  not  hear  the  voice  of  the  most  skilful  charm- 
er." The  method  is  said  to  be  this :  the  reptile  lays  one 
ear  close  to  the  ground,  and  with  his  tail  covers  the  other, 
that  he  cannot  hear  the  sound  of  the  music ;  or  he  repels 
the  incantation  by  hissing  violently.  The  same  allusion  is 
involved  in  the  'words  of  Solomon :  "  Surely  the  serpent 
will  bite  without  enchantment,  and  a  babbler  is  no  better." 
The  threatening  of  the  prophet  Jeremiah  proceeds  upon 
the  same  fact :  "  I  will  send  serpents  (cockatrices)  among 
you,  which  will  not  be  charmed,  and  they  shall  bite  you." 
In  ail  these  quotations,  the  sacred  writers,  while  they  take 
it  for  granted  that  many  serpents  are  disarmed  by  charm- 
ing, plainly  admit,  that  the  powers  of  the  charmer  are  in 


vain  exerted  upon  others.  To  account  tor  this  exception, 
it  has  been  alleged,  that,  in  some  serpents  the  sense  of  hear-- 
ing  is  very  imperfect,  while  the  power  of  vision  is  exceed- 
ingly acute;  but  the  most  intelligent  natural  historians 
maintain,  that  the  very  reverse  is  true.  In  the  serpent 
tribes,  the  sense  of  hearing  is  much  more  acute  than  the 
sense  of  vision.  Pliny  observes,  that  the  serpent  is  much 
more  frequently  roused  by  the  ear  than  by  sight:  "Jam 
primum  hebetes  oculos  huic  malo  dedit,  eo.sque  non  in 
fronte  ex  adversocernere  sed  in  temporibus:  itaque  excita- 
tur,  sed  saepius  auditu  quam  visu."  In  this  part  of  his 
work,  the  ancient  naturalist  discourses  not  concerning  any 
particular  species,  but  the  whole  class  of  serpents,  asserting 
of  them  all,  that  nature  has  compensated  the  dulness  of 
their  sight,  by  the  acuteness  of  their  hearing.  Unable  to 
resist  the  force  of  truth,  others  maintain,  that  the  adder  is 
deaf,  not  by  nature,  but  by  design ;  for  the  Psalmist  says, 
she  shutteth  her  ear,  and  will  not  hear  the  voice  of  the 
charmer.  But  the  phrase  perhaps  means  no  more  than 
this,  that  some  adders  are  of  a  temper  so  stubborn,  that  the 
various  arts  of  the  charmer  make  no  impression ;  they  are 
like  creatures  destitute  of  hearing,  or  whose  ears  are  so 
completely  obstructed,  that  no  sounds  can  enter.  The 
same  phrase  is  used  in  other  parts  of  scripture  to  signify  a 
hard  and  obdurate  heart:  "  Whoso  stoppeth  his  ears  at  the 
cry  of  the  poor,  he  also  shall  cry  himself,  but  shall  not  be 
heard."  It  is  used  in  the  same  sense  by  the  prophet :  "  That 
stoppeth  his  ears  from  hearing  of  blood,  and  shutteth  his 
eyes  from  seeing  evil."  The  righteous  man  remains  as 
unmoved  by  the  cruel  and  sanguinary  counsels  of  the 
wicked,  as  if  he  had  stopped  his  ears.  In  the  same  man- 
ner, the  stubborn  or  infuriated  aspic,  as  little  regards  the 
power  of  song,  as  if  her  sense  of  hearing  were  obstructed 
or  destroyed. 

If  the  serpent  repel  the  charm,  or  is  deaf  to  the  song,  the 
charmer,  it  is  believed,  exposes  himself  to  great  danger,  the 
whole  force  of  the  incantation  falling  upon  the  head  of  its 
author,  against  whom  the  exasperated  animal  directs  its 
deadliest  rage.  But  which  of  the  serpent  tribes  have  the 
power  to  repel  the  incantations  of  the  charmer,  or  inject  a 
poison  which  his  art  is  unable  to  counteract,  no  ancient 
Greek  writer  has  been  able  to  discover,  or  has  thought  prop- 
er to  mention,  ^lian  states,  indeed,  that  the  bite  of  an 
aspic  admits  Q^no  remedy,  the  powers  of  medicine,  and  the 
arts  of  the  charmer,  being  equally  unavailing.  But  their 
omission  has  been  amply  supplied  by  the  Arabian  philoso- 
phers quoted  by  Bochart,  our  principal  guide  in  this  part  of 
the  work.  These  clear  and  accurate  writers  divide  serpents 
into  three  classes.  In  the  first,  the  force  of  the  poison  is  so 
intense,  that  the  sufferer  does  not  survive  their  attack  long- 
er than  three  hours,  nor  does  the  wound  admit  of  any  cure, 
for  they  belong  to  the  class  of  deaf  or  stridulous  serpents, 
which  are  either  not  affected  by  music  and  other  charms, 
or  which,  by  their  loud  and  furious  hissing,  defeat  the  pur- 
pose of  the  charmer.  The  only  remedy,  in  this  case,  is  in- 
stantaneous amputation,  or  searing  the  wound  with  a  hot 
iron,  which  extinguishes  the  virus,  or  prevents  it  from 
reaching  the  sanguiferous  system.  In  this  class  they  place 
the  regulus,  the  basilisk,  and  the  various  kinds  of  asps,  with 
all  those  the  poison  of  which  is  in  the  highest  degree  of  in- 
tensity. This  doctrine  seems  to  correspond  with  the  view 
which  the  Psalmist  and  the  prophet  give  us  in  the  passages 
already  quoted,  of  the  adder  and  cockatrice,  or  basilisk. 
It  is  certain,  however,  from  the  authentic  statements  of  dif- 
ferent travellers,  that  some  of  those  serpents,  as  the  aspic 
and  the  basilisk,  which  the  Arabians  place  on  the  list  of 
deaf  and  untameable  snakes,  whose  bite  admits  of  no  rem- 
edy, have  been  frequently  subjected  to  the  power  of  the 
charmer  ;  nor  is  it  necessary  to  refer  the  words  of  the  in- 
spired writers  to  this  subject,  for  they  nowhere  recognise 
the  classification  adopted  by  the  Araliian  philosophers. 
The  only  legitimate  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  their 
words,  is,  that  the  power  of  the  charmer  often  fails,  whether 
he  try  to  fascinate  the  aspic,  basilisk,  or  any  other  kind  of 
serpent.  In  order  to  vindicate  the  sacred  writers,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose,  with  the  Arabians,  that  some  species 
of  serpents  exist,  which  the  charmer  endeavours  in  vain  to 
fascinate ;  for  in  operating  upon  the  same  species,  the  suc- 
cess of  his  incantations  may  be  various. — Paxton. 

Ver.  16,  Wo  to  thee,  O  land,  when  thy  king-  is  a 
child,  and  thy  princes  eat  in  the  morning ! 


440 


ECCLESIASTES. 


Chap.  11. 


It  is  considered  to  be  most  gross,  most  disgraceful,  and 
ruinous,  to  eat  early  in  the  morning :  of  such  a  one  it  is 
,  s»aid,  "Ah!  that  fellow  was  born  with  his  belly." — "  The 
beast  eats  on  his  bed !" — "  Before  the  water  awakes,  that 
creature  begins  to  take  his  food,"  which  alludes  to  the  no- 
tion that  water  m  the  well  sleeps  in  the  night.  "  He  only 
eats  and  sleeps  pandy-pole"  i,  e.  as  a  pig. — "  How  can  we 
prosper 7  he  no  sooner  awakes  than  he  cries,  teen!  teen!" 
food  !  food !— Roberts. 

Ver.  1 6.  Wo  to  thee,  O  land,  when  thy  king  is 
a  child,  and  thy  princes  eat  in  the  morning! 
17.  Blessed  art  thou,  O  land,  when  thy  king 
is  the  son  of  nobles,  and  thy  princes  eat  in  due 
season,  for  strength,  and  not  for  drunkenness  1 

Dr.  Russel  tells  us  of  the  eastern  people,  that  "  as  soon 
as  they  get  up  in  the  morning,  they  breakfast  on  fried  eggs, 
cheese,  honey,  leban,"  &c. 

We  are  not  to  suppose  that  when  Solomon  says,  "  Wo 
to  thee,  O  land,  when  thy  king  is  a  child,  and  thy  princes 
eat  in  the  morning,"  Eccles.  x.  16,  that  he  means  absolute- 
ly all  kinds  of  eating ;  but  feasting,  the  indulging  themselves 
such  length  of  time  in  eating,  and  drinking  proportionably 
of  wine,  so  as  improperly  to  abridge  the  hours  that  should 
be  employed  in  affairs  of  government,  and  perhaps  to  dis- 
qualify themselves  for  a  cool  and  dispassionate  judgment  of 
matters. 

This  is  confirmed  by  the  following  words,  "  Blessed  art 
thou,  O  land,  when  thy  king  is  the  son  of  nobles,  and  thy 
princes  eat  in  due  season,  for  strength,  and  not  for  drunken- 
ness," ver.  17.  They  may  with  propriety  eat  in  a  morning, 
bread,  honey,  milk,  fruit,  which,  in  summer,  is  a  common 
breakfast  with  them,  but  it  would  be  wrong  then  to  drink 
wine  as  freely  as  in  the  close  of  the  day. 

Wine  being  forbidden  the  Mohammedans  by  their  reli- 
gion, and  only  drank  by  the  more  licentious  among  them, 
in  a  more  private  manner,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  to  appear 
at  their  breakfasts  ;  but  it  is  used  by  others,  who  are  not 
under  such  restraints,  in  the  morning,  as  well  as  in  their 
other  repasts. 

So  Dr.  Chandler  tells  us,  in  his  Travels  in  Asia  Minor : 
"  In  this  country,  on  account  of  the  heat,  it  i's  usual  to  rise 
with  the  dawn.  About  daybreak  we  received  from  the 
French  consul,  a  Greek,  with  a  respectable  beard,  a  present 
of  grapes,  the  clusters  large  and  rich,  with  other  fruits,  all 
fresh  gathered.  We  had,  besides,  bread  and  coffee  for 
breakfast,  and  good  wines,  particularly  one  sort,  of  an  ex- 
quisite flavour,  called  muscadel."  If  they  drank  then 
wine  at  all  in  a  morning,  it  ought  to  be,  according  to  the 
royal  preacher,  in  small  quantities,  for  strength,  not  for 
drunkejiness. 

The  eastern  people,  Arabians  and  Turks  both,  are  ob- 
served to  eat  very  fast,  and,  in  common,  without  drinking ; 
but  when  they  feast  and  drink  wine,  they  begin  with  fruit 
and  sweatmeats,  and  drinking  wine,  and  they  sit  long  at 
table  :  Wo  to  the  land  whose  princes  so  eat  in  a  morning, 
eating  after  this  manner  a  great  variety  of  things,  and 
slowly,  as  they  do  when  feasting,  and  prolonging  the  time 
with  wine.  So  the  prophet  Isaiah,  in  like  manner,  says, 
ch.  V.  11,  "  Wo  unto  them  that  rise  up  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, that  they  may  follow  strong  drink,  that  continue  until 
night,  until  wine  inflame  them."  Such  appears  to  be  the 
view  of  Solomon  here. 

If  great  men  will  indulge  themselves  in  the  pleasures  of 
the  table  and  of  wine,  it  certainly  should  be  in  the  evening, 
when  public  business  is  finished. — Harmer. 

Ver.  20.  Curse  not  the  king,  no,  not  in  thy  thought ; 
and  curse  not  the  rich  in  thy  bedchamber :  for 
a  bird  of  the  air  shall  carry  the  voice,  and  that 
which  hath  wings  shall  tell  the  matter. 

The  manner  of  sending  advice  by  pigeons  was  this : 
They  took  doves,  which  had  a  very  young  and  unfledged 
brood,  and  carried  them  on  horseback  to  the  place  from 
whence  they  wished  them  to  return,  taking  care  to  let 
them  have  a  full  view.  When  any  advices  were  received, 
the  correspondent  tied  a  billet  to  the  pigeon's  foot,  or  under 
the  wing,  and  let  her  loose.    The  bird,  impatient  to  see  her 


young,  flew  off  with  the  utmost  impetuosity,  and  soon  ar- 
rived at  the  place  of  her  destination.  These  pigeons  have 
been  known  to  travel  from  Alexandretta  to  Aleppo,  a  dis- 
tance of  seventy  miles,  in  six  hours,  and  in  two  days  from 
Bagdad ;  and  when  taught,  they  never  fail,  unless  it  be  very 
dark,  in  which  case  they  usually  send  two,  for  fear  of  mis- 
take. The  poets  of  Greece  and  Rome,  oiten  aliude  to 
these  winged  couriers,  and  their  surprising  industiy.  Ana- 
creon's  dove,  which  he  celebrates  in  his  ninth  ode,  was 
employed  to  carry  her  master's  letters ;  and  her  fidelity  and 
despatch  are  eulogized  in  these  lines : 

Eyw  Se  A.vaKp£ovTt^  &c. 

"  In  such  things,  I  minister  to  Anacreon ;  and  now  see 
what  letters  I  bring  him." 

It  is  more  than  probable,  that  to  this  singular  custom 
Solomon  alludes  in  the  following  passage :  "  Curse  not  the 
king,  no,  not  in  thy  thought;  and  curse  not  the  rich  in  thy 
bedchamber ;  for  a  bird  of  the  air  shall  carry  the  voice, 
and  they  which  have  wings  shall  tell  the  matter."  The 
remote  antiquity  of  the  age  in  which  the  wise  man  flourish- 
ed, is  no  valid  objection ;  for  the  customs  and  usages  of 
Orientals,  are  almost  as  permanent  as  the  soil  on  which 
they  tread.  Averse  to  change,  and  content,  for  the  most 
part,  with  what  their  fathers  have  taught  them,  they  trans- 
mit the  lessons  they  have  received,  and  the  customs  they 
have  learned,  with  little  alteration,  from  one  generation  to 
another.  The  pigeon  was  employed  in  carrying  messages, 
and  bearing  intelligence,  long  before  the  coming  of  Christ, 
as  we  know  from  the  odes  of  Anacreon  and  other  classics  ; 
and  the  custom  seems  to  have  been  very  general,  and  quite 
familiar.  When,  therefore,  the  character  of  those  nations, 
and  the  stability  of  their  customs,  are  duly  considered,  it 
will  not  be  reckoned  extravagant  to  say,  Solomon,  in  this 
text,  must  have  had  his  eye  on  the  carrier  pigeon. — Pax- 
ton. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Ver.  1.  Cast  thy  bread  upon  the  waters:  for  thoa 
shalt  find  it  after  many  days. 

I  believe  Dr.  Adam  Clarke  is  right  in  supposing  that  this 
alludes  to  the  sowing  of  rice.  The  Tamul  translation  has 
it,  "  Cast  thy  food  upon  the  waters,  and  the  profit  thereof 
shall  be  found  after  many  days."  Rice  fields  are  so  made 
as  to  receive  and  retain  the  rains  of  the  wet  monsoon,  or  to 
be  watered  from  the  tanks  or  artificial  lakes.  The  rice 
prospers  the  most  when  the  ground,  at  the  time  of  sowing, 
is  in  the  state  of  mud,  or  covered  with  a  little  water.  In 
some  lands,  the  water  is  allowed  first  to  overflow  the  whole, 
and  then  the  roots  are  just  stuck  into  the  mud.  leaving  the 
blades  to  float  on  the  surface.  In  reaping-time,  as  the 
water  often  remains,  the  farmer  simply  lops  off  the  ears. 
See  on  Job  xxiv.  24. — Roberts. 

The  Arabs  have  a  very  similar  proverb,  "  Do  good, 
throw  bread  into  the  water,  it  will  one  day  be  repaid  thee." 
The  Turks  have  borrowed  it  from  the  Arabs,  with  a  slight 
alteration,  according  to  which,  it  is  as  follows:  "  Do  good, 
throw  bread  mto  the  water;  even  if  the  fish  does  not  know, 
yet  the  Creator  knows  it."  The  meaning  of  the  Hebrew, 
as  well  as  of  the  Arabic  and  Turkish  proverb,  is,  "  Dis- 
tribute thy  bread  to  all  poor  people,  whether  known  or  un- 
known to  thee ;  throw  thy  bread  even  into  the  water,  re- 
gardless whether  it  swims,  and  who  may  derive  advantage 
from  it,  whether  men  or  fish;  for  even  this  charity,  te- 
stowed  at  a  venture,  God  will  repay  thee  sooner  or  later." — 
Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  9.  Rejoice,  O  young  man,  in  thy  youth,  and 
let  thy  heart  cheer  thee  in  the  days  of  thy  youth, 
and  walk  in  the  ways  of  thy  heart,  and  in  the 
sight  of  thine  eyes :  but  know  thou,  that  for  all 
these  things  God  will  bring  thee  into  judgment. 

Herodotus,  speaking  of  the  Egyptians,  says,  that  "  at  the 
entertainments  of  the  rich,  just  as  the  company  are  about  to 
rise  from  the  repast,  a  small  coflin  is  carried  round,  con- 
taining a  perfect  representation  of  a  dead  body;  it  is  in  size 
sometimes  of  one,  but  never  of  more  than  two  cubits,  and 
as  it  is  shown  to  the  guests  in  rotation,  the  bearer  exclaims, 
Cast  vour  eyes  on  this  figure;  after  death  you  yourself  wil) 
resemble  it ;  drink,  then,  and  be  happy."— Burder. 


Chap.  1. 


SOLOMON'S   SONG. 


441 


CHAPTER  XII. 

Ver.  4.  And  the  doors  shall  be  shut  in  the  streets, 
when  the  sound  of  the  grinding  is  low ;  and  he 
shall  rise  up  at  the  voice  of  the  bird ;  and  all 
the  daughters  of  music  shall  be  brought  low. 

It  is  to  the  first  crowing  of  the  house-cock  in  the  morn- 
ing, which  is  before  daybreak,  that  Solomon  probably  al- 
udes.  This  well  describes  the  readiness  of  the  restless  old 
man  to  quit  his  uneasy  bed,  since  it  was  much  earlier  than 
the  usual  time  of  rising.  In  the  East,  it  was  common  to  all, 
the  young  and  the  healthy,  as  well  as  the  aged,  to  rise  with 
the  dawn. 

The  people  in  the  East  bake  every  day,  and  usually  grind 
their  corn  as  they  want  it.  The  grinding  is  the  first  work 
in  the  morning.  This  grinding  with  their  mills  makes  a 
considerable  noise,  or  rather,  as  Sir  John  Chardin  says, 
"  the  songs  of  those  who  work  them."  May  not  this  help 
to  explain  the  meaning  of  this  passage,  in  which  the  royal 
preacher,  describing  the  infirmities  of  old  age,  among  other 
weaknesses,  says,  the  doors  shall  be  shut  in  the  streets,  when 
the  sound  of  the  grinding  is  lo^a  ?  that  is,  the  feeble  old  man 
shall  not  be  able  to  rise  from  his  bed  early  in  the  morning 
to  attend  that  necessary  employment  of  grinding  corn,  con- 


sequently his  doors  shall  be  shut ;  neither  will  the  noise  of 
their  songs,  which  are  usual  at  that  employment,  be  heard, 
or  when  it  is  heard,  it  will  be  only  in  a  low,  feeble  tone. — 

BURDER. 

Ver.  5.  Also  when  they  shall  be  afraid  oithat  which 
is  high,  and  fears  shall  be  in  the  way,  and  the 
almond-tree  shall  flourish,  and  the  grasshopper 
shall  be  a  burden,  and  desire  shall  fail ;  because 
man  goeth  to  his  long  home,  and  the  mourners 
go  about  the  streets. 

See  on  Jer.  1. 11,  12. 

Ver.  1 1 .  The  words  of  the  wise  are  as  goads,  and 
as  nails  fastened  by  the  masters  of  assemblies, 
which  are  given  from  one  shepherd. 

It  is  said,  "  The  words  of  that  judge  are  quite  certain ; 
they  are  like  the  driven  nails."  "  I  have  heard  all  he  has 
to  say,  and  the  effect  on  my  mind  is  like  a  nail  driven  home." 
"  What  a  speaker  !  all  his  words  are  nails ;  who  will  draw 
them  out  again  V — Roberts. 


THE   SONG  OF   SOLOMON 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver,  5.  I  am  black,  but  comely,  0  ye  daughters 
of  Jerusalem ;  as  the  tents  of  Kedar,  as  the  cur- 
tains of  Solomon. 

Entertainments  are  frequently  given  in  the  country  under 
tents,  which,  by  the  variety  of  their  colours,  and  the  pecu- 
liar manner  in  which  they  are  sometimes  pitched,  make  a 
very  pleasant  appearance.  To  this  agreeable  custom  the 
spouse  probably  alludes,  in  that  description  of  her  person: 
"  I  am  black,  but  comely,  O  ye  daughters  of  Jerusalem ; 
a?  the  tents  of  Kedar,  as  the  curtains  of  Solomon."  The 
seeming  contradiction  in  the  first  clause,  is  easily  obviated. 
The  Arabs  generally  make  use  of  tents  covered  with  black 
hair-cloth ;  the  other  nations  around  them  live  in  booths,  or 
huts,  constructed  of  reeds  and  boughs,  or  other  materials, 
or  in  tents  of  difierent  colours.  In  Palestine,  the  Turco- 
mans live  in  tents  of  white  linen  cloth ;  while  the  Turks, 
in  their  encampments,  prefer  green  or  red,  which  have  a 
very  p' easing  efiect  in  the  eye  of  the  traveller.  It  is  only 
the  Arabian  tents,  or  the  tents  of  Kedar,  which  are  uni- 
formly black,  or  striped.  This  is  the  reason  the  spouse 
compares  herself,  not  to  tents  in  general,  which  are  of 
different  colours,  but  to  those  of  Kedar,  which  are  all  cov- 
ered with  black  hair-cloth,  and  have  therefore  a  disagreea- 
ble appearance.  These  tents  are  stretched  on  three  or  four 
pickets,  only  five  or  six  feet  high,  which  gives  them  a  very 
flat  appearance :  at  a  distance,  one  of  these  camps  seems 
only  like  a  number  of  black  spots. 

To  be  black,  but  comely,  involves  no  contradiction;  for 
it  is  certain  that  the  face  may  be  discoloured  by  the  sun,  to 
the  influence  of  which  the  spouse  positively  ascribes  her 
sable  hue,  and  yet  possess  an  exquisite  gracefulness.  The 
Arab  women,  whom  Mr.  Wood  saw  among  the  ruins  of 
Palmyra,  were  well  shaped,  and,  although  very  swarthy, 
yet  had  good  features.  Zenobia,  the  celebrated  queen  of 
that  renowned  city,  was  reckoned  eminently  beautiful ;  and 
the  description  we  have  of  her  person  answers  to  that  char- 
acter; her  complexion  of  a  dark  brown,  (the  necessary  ef- 
56 


feet  of  her  way  of  life  in  that  burning  climate ;)  her  eyes 
black  and  sparkling,  and  of  an  uncommon  fire;  her  coun- 
tenance animated  and  sprightly  in  a  very  high  degree;  her 
person  graceful  and  genteel  be5'-ond  imagination ;  her  teeth 
white  as  pearl ;  her  voice  clear  and  strong.  Such  is  the 
picture  which  historians  have  drawn  of  the  beautiful  and 
unfortunate  Zenobia;  from  whence  it  appears,  that  a  person 
may  be  both  black  and  comely ;  and  by  consequence,  that 
the  description  of  Solomon,  which  certainly  refers  to  the 
moral  and  religious  state  and  character  of  the  genuine 
worshipper  of  Jehovah,  is  neither  incongruous  nor  exag- 
gerated, but  perfectly  agreeable  to  nature.  In  this  case, 
however,  the  duskiness  of  complexion  was  not  natural, 
but  the  consequence  of  exposure  to  the  rays  of  the  sun  ;  for 
the  spouse  anticipates  the  surprise  which  the  daughters  of 
Jerusalem  would  feel  when  they  beheld  her  countenance  : 
"  Look  not  upon  me,  because  I  am  black,  because  the  sun 
hath  looked  upon  me."  Females  of  distinction  in  Pales- 
tine, and  even  in  Mesopotamia,  are  not  only  beautiful  and 
well-shaped,  but,  in  consequence  of  being  always  kept  from 
the  rays  of  the  sun,  are  very  fair.  This  fact  is  attested  by 
D'Arvieux,  who  was  favoured  with  a  sight  of  several  Ara- 
bian ladies  of  high  rank.  It  is  not  unworthy  of  notice,  that 
the  scriptu^  bears  the  same  testimony  concerning  the  com- 
plexion of  Sarah,  of  Rebecca,  and  of  Rachel ;  they  were 
*'  beautiful  and  well-favoured."  But  the  women  in  general 
are  extremely  brown  and  swarthy  in  the  complexion  ;  al- 
though there  are  not  a  few  of  exquisite  beauty  in  these 
torrid  regions,  especially  among  those  who  are  less  exposed 
to  theheat  of  the  sun.  It  is  on  this  account  that  the  prophet 
Jeremiah,  when  he  would  describe  a  beautiful  women,  rep- 
resents her  as  one  that  keeps  at  home :  because  those  who 
are  desirous  to  preserve  their  beauty,  go  very  little  abroad. 
The  spouse  proceeds,  "  As  the  tents  of  Kedar,  as  the  cur- 
tains of  Solomon."  By  the  last  clause  may  be  understood 
those  splendid  tents,  to  which  the  great  monarch,  who,  by 
his  own  confession,  denied  himself  no  earthly  pleasure, 
retired  in  the  heats  of  summer,  or  when  he  wished  to  enter- 
tain his  nobles  and  courtiers,  or  sought  the  amusement  of 
the  chase.    Some  are  of  opinion,  these  curtains  refer  to  th« 


442 


SOLOMON'S  SONG. 


Chap.  2. 


sumptuous  hangings  which  surrounded  the  bed  of  the  Israel- 
itish  king:  and  their  idea  receives  some  countenance  from 
a  manuscript  note  of  Dr.  Russel's,  which  states,  that  mos- 
cheto  curtains  are  sometimes  suspended  over  the  beds  in 
Syria  and  Palestine.  But  since  it  is  common  in  Hebrew 
poetry  to  express  nearly  the  same  thought  in  the  second 
parallel  line  as  in  the  first;  and  since  it  is  equally  common 
m  scripture  to  put  a  part  for  the  whole, — it  is  more  natural 
to  suppose,  that  the  tents  of  Solomon  are  actually  meant  in 
this  passage  ;  and  as  we  are  sure  they  were  extremely  mag- 
nificent, they  might,  with  great  propriety,  be  introduced 
here,  on  account  of  their  beauty. — Paxton. 

Ver.  7.  Tell  me,  O  thou  whom  my  soul  loveth, 
where  thou  feedest,  where  thou  makest  thy  flock 
to  rest  at  noon :  for  why  should  I  be  as  one  that 
turneth  aside  by  the  flocks  of  thy  companions? 

Before  noon,  the  shepherds  and  their  flocks  may  be  seen 
slowly  moving  towards  some  shady  banyan,  or  other  tree, 
where  they  recline  during  the  heat  of  the  day.  The  sheep 
sleep,  or  lazily  chew  the  cud;  and  the  shepherds  plat 
pouches,  mats,  or  baskets,  or  in  dreamy  musings  while 
away  their  time. — Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  I  have  compared  thee,  O  my  love,  to  a 
company  of  horses  in  Pharaoh's  chariots. 

This  appears  a  very  coarse  compliment  to  a  mere  English 
reader,  arising  from  the  difference  of  our  manners ;  but  the 
horse  is  an  animal  in  very  high  estimation  in  the  East.  The 
Arabians  are  extravagantly  fond  of  their  horses,  and  caress 
them  as  if  they  were  their  children.  D'Arvieux  gives  a 
diverting  account  of  the  affectionate  caresses  an  Arab  used 
to  give  a  mare  which  belonged  to  him.  He  had  sold  it  to 
a  merchant  at  Rama,  and  when  he  came  to  see  it,  (which 
he  frequently  did,)  he  would  weep  over  it,  kiss  its  eyes,  and 
when  he  departed,  go  backwards,  bidding  it  adieu  in  the 
most  tender  manner.  The  horses  of  Egypt  are  so  remark- 
able for  stateliness  and  beauty,  as  to  be  sent  as  presents  of 
great  value  to  the  sublime  porte ;  and  it  appears  from  sacred 
history,  that  they  were  in  no  less  esteem  formerly  among 
the  kings  of  Syria,  and  of  the  Hittites,  as  well  as  feolomon 
himself,  who  bought  his  horses  at  150  shekels,  which  (at 
pean  Prideaux's  calculation  of  three  shillings  the  shekel) 
is  £23.  10s.  each,  a  very  considerable  price  at  which  to 
purchase  twelve  thousand  horses  together.  The  qualities 
which  form  the  beauty  of  these  horses,  are  tallness,  propor- 
tionable corpulency,  and  stateliness  of  manner  ;  the  same 
qualities  which  they  admire  in  their  women,  particularly 
corpulency,  which  is  known  to  be  one  of  the  most  esteemed 
characters  of  beauty  in  the  East.  Niebuhr  says,  "  as  plump- 
ness is  thought  a  beauty  in  the  East,  the  women,  in  order  to 
obtain  this  beauty,  swallow,  every  morning  and  every  even- 
ing, three  of  these  insects,  (a  species  of  tenebriones,)  fried 
in  butter."  Upon  this  principle  is  founded  the  compliment 
of  Solomon  ;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  the  elegant  Theoc- 
ritus, in  his  epithalamium  for  the  celebrated  queen  Helen, 
whom  he  described  as  ^ump  and  large,  uses  exactly  the 
same  image,  comparing  her  to  the  horse  in  the  chariots  of 
Thessaly. — Burder. 

Ver.  10.  Thy  cheeks  are  comely  with  rows  of 
jewels,  thy  neck  with  chains  of  gol^. 

Olearius  observes,  in  his  description  of  the  dress  of  the 
Persian  women,  "around  the  cheeks  and  chin  they  have 
one  or  two  rows  of  pearls  or  jewels,  so  that  the  whole  face 
is  adorned  with  pearls  or  jewels.  I  am  aware  that  this  is  a 
very  ancient  eastern  custom ;  for  already  in  Solomon's  song 
it  is  said,  "  thy  cheeks  are  comely  with  rows  of  jewels,"  &c. 
All  these  Persian  court  ladies  had  over  their  curled  locks, 
instead  of  pearls,  two  long  and  thick  cords  of  woven  and 
beaten  gold,  hanging  down  from  the  crown  of  the  head  over 
the  face  on  both  sides ;  this  ornament,  because  it  is  worn  at 
court,  is  quite  usual  among  the  Persian  women,  and  does 
not  become  them  ill,  in  their  black  hair."  (Delia  Valla.) 
Rauwolf  gives  a  similar  description  of  the  head-dress  of 
the  Arabian  women  in  the  desert  of  Mesopotamia  :  "  When 
they  wish  to  adorn  themselves,  they  have  their  trinkets, 
such  as  ball?  gf  marble,  and  yellow  agate,  glass  beads  of 


divers  colours,  longish  pieces  of  metal  strung  upon  a  thread, 
hanging   pendent  upon  their  temples,  nearly  a  span  in 

length." — ROSENMULLER. 

Ver,  12.  While  the  King  sitteth  at  his  table,  my 

spikenard  sendeth  forth  the  smell  thereof 
See  on  Mark  14.  3,  5. 

Ver.  13.  A  bundle  of  myrrh  is  my  well-beloved 
unto  me;  he  shall  lie  all  night  betwixt  my 
breasts. 

The  eastern  women,  among  other  ornaments,  used  little 
perfume-boxes,  or  vessels  filled  with  perfumes,  to  smell  at. 
These  were  worn  suspended  from  the  neck,  and  hanging 
down  on  the  breast.  This  circumstance  is  alluded  to  in 
the  bundle  of  myrrh.  These  olfactoriola,  or  smelling-boxes, 
(as  the  Vulgate  rightly  denominates  them,)  are  still  in  use 
among  the  Persian  women,  to  whose  necklaces,  which  fall 
below  the  bosom,  is  fastened  a  large  box  of  sweets ;  some 
of  these  boxes  are  as  big  as  one's  hand ;  tbe  common  ones 
are  of  gold,  the  others  are  covered  with  jewels.  They  are 
all  bored  through,  and  filled  with  a  black  paste  very  light, 
made  of  musk  and  amber,  but  of  very  strong  smell. — Burder. 

Ver.  14.  My  beloved  is  unto  me  as  a  cluster  of 
camphire  in  the  vineyards  of  Engedi. 

"  A  cluster  of  camphire."  This  is  the  al-hennah,  or  Cy- 
prus. It  is  here  mentioned  as  a  perfume,  and  its  clusters 
are  noticed.  This  beautiful  odoriferous  plant,  if  it  is  not 
annually  cut  and  kept  low,  grows  ten  or  twelve  feet  high, 
putting  out  its  little  flowers  in  clusters,  which  yield  a  most 
grateful  smell,  like  camphire,  and  may,  therefore,  be  alluded 
to.  Cant.  i.  14.  Its  plants  after  they  are  dried  and  powdered, 
are  disposed  of  to  good  advantage  in  all  the  markets  of  this 
kingdom,  of  Tunis.  For  with  this  all  the  African  ladies, 
that  can  purchase  it,  tinge  their  lips,  hair,  hands,  and  feet; 
rendering  them  thereby  of  a  tawny,  saffron  colour,  which, 
with  them,  is  reckoned  a  great  beauty.  Russel  mentions 
the  same  practice  of  dying  their  feet  and  hands  with  hen- 
nah,  as  general  among  all  sects  and  conditions  at  Aleppo. 
Hasselquist  assures  us  he  saw  the  nails  of  some  mummies 
tinged  with  the  al-hennah,  which  proves  the  antiquity  of 
the  practice.  And  as  this  plant  does  not  appear  to  be  a  native 
of  Palestine,  but  of  India  and  Egypt,  and  seems  mentioned. 
Cant.  i.  14,  as  a  curiosity  growing  in  the  vineyards  of  En- 
gedi, it  is  probable  that  the  Jews  might  be  acquainted  with 
its  use  as  a  die  or  tinge  before  they  had  experienced  its 
odoriferous  quality,  and  might,  fr»iQ  the  former  circum- 
stance, give  it  its  name.  See  more  concerning  the  hennah, 
or  al-hennah,  in  Harmer's  Outlines  of  a  New  Commentary 
on  Solomon's  Song,  p.  218,  &c. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  I.  I  am  the  rose  of  Sharon  and  the  lily  of 
the  valleys. 

In  the  East  this  flower  is  extremely  fragrant,  and  has  al- 
ways been  much  admired.  In  what  esteem  it  was  held  by 
the  ancient  Greeks,  may  be  seen  in  the  Odes  of  Anacreon, 
and  the  comparisons  iri  Ecclus.  24.  14.  18.  L.  8,  show  that 
the  Jews  were  likewise  much  delighted  with  it.  "  In  no 
conntrv  of  the  world  does  the  rose  grow  in  such  perfection 
as  in  Persia  ;  in  no  country  is  it  so  cultivated  and  prized 
by  the  natives.  Their  gardens  and  courts  are  crowded 
with  its  plants,  their  rooms  ornamented  with  vases,  filled 
with  its  gathered  bunches,  and  every  bath  strewn  with  the 
full-blown  flowers,  plucked  from  the  ever-replenished  stems. 
Even  the  humblest  individual,  who  pays  a  piece  of  copper 
money  for  a  few  whifs  of  a  kelioun,  feels  a  double  enjoy- 
ment when  he  finds  it  stuck  with  a  bud  from  his  dear  native 
tree."  (Sir  R.  K.  Porter.)— Burder. 

Ver.  3.  As  the  apple-tree  among  the  trees  of  the 
wood,  so  is  my  iDeloved  among  the  sons.  I  sat 
down  under  his  shadow  with  great  delight,  and 
his  fruit  was  sweet  to  my  taste. 

In  Canaan,  and  the  circumjacent  regions,  the  apple-treo 


Chap.  2. 


SOLOMON'S   SONG. 


443 


is  of  no  value ;  and,  therefore,  seems  by  no  means  entitled 
to  the  praise  with  which  it  is  honoured  by  the  spirit  of  in- 
spiration. The  inhabitants  of  Palestine  and  Egypt  import 
their  apples  from  Damascus,  the  produce  of  their  own  orch- 
ards being  almost  unfit  for  use.  The  tree  then,  to  which 
the  spouse  compares  her  Lord  in  the  Song  of  Solomon, 
whose  shade  was  so  refreshing,  and  whose  fruit  was  so  de- 
licious, so  comforting,  so  restorative,  could  not  be  the  apple- 
tree,  whose  fruit  can  hardly  be  eaten;  nor  could  the  apple- 
tree,  which  the  prophet  mentions  with  the  vine,  the  tig,  the 
palm,  andthe  pomegranate,  which  furnished  the  hungry  with 
a  gra.eful  repast,  the  failure  of  which  was  considered  as  a 
pubK"  ,alamity,bereally  of  that  species:  '"  The  vine  is  dried 
up,  tho  fig-tree  languisheth,  the  pomegranate-tree,  the  palm- 
tree,  also  the  apple-tree,  even  all  the  trees  of  the  field,  are 
withered  >  because  joy  is  withered  away  from  the  sons  of 
men."  M.Forskall  says,  the  apple-tree  is  extremely  rare,  and 
is  named  tyffah  by  the  inhabitants  of  Palestine.  In  deference 
to  his  authority,  the  editor  of  Calmet,  with  every  disposition 
to  render  the  original  term  by  the  citron,  is  inclined  to  revert 
again  to  the  apple.  But  if,  as  Forskall  admits,  the  apple- 
tree  is  extremely  rare,  it  cannot,  with  propriety,  be  classed 
with  the  vine,  and  other  fruit-bearing  trees,  that  are  ex- 
remely  common  in  Palestine  and  Syria.  And  if  it  grow 
*  with  difficulty  in  hot  countries,"  and  required  even  the 
■  assiduous  attention"  of  such  a  monarch  as  Solomon,  be- 
fore it  could  be  raised  and  propagated,  an  inspired  writer 
certainly  would  not  number  it  among  the  "  trees  of  the 
field,"  which,  as  the  phrase  clearly  implies,  can  live  and 
thrive  without  the  fostering  care  of  man. 

The  citron  is  a  large  and  beautiful  tree,  always  green, 
perfuming  the  air  with  its  exquisite  odour,  and  extending 
a  deep  and  refreshing  shade  over  the  panting  inhabitants  of 
the  torrid  regions.  Well,  then,  might  the  spouse  exclaim : 
*'  As  the  citron-tree  among  the  trees  of  the  wood ;  so  is  my 
beloved  among  the  sons.  I  sat  down  under  his  shadow 
with  great  delight,  and  his  fruit  was  sweet  to  my  taste."  A 
more  beautiful  object  can  hardly  be  conceived,  than  a  large 
and  spreading  citron,  loaded  with  gold-colonred  apples,  and 
clothed  with  leaves  of  the  richest  green.  Maundrell  prefer- 
red the  orange  garden,  or  citron  grove,  at  Beroot,  the  palace 
of  the  Emir  Facardine,  on  the  coast  of  Syria,  to  every  thing 
else  he  met  with  there,  although  it  was  only  a  large  quad- 
rangular plot  of  ground,  divided  in  to  sixteen  smaller  squares: 
but  the  walks  were  so  shaded  with  orange-trees,  of  a  large 
spr6ading  size,  and  so  richly  adorned  with  fruit,  that  he 
thought  nothing  could  be  more  perfect  in  its  kind,  or,  had 
it  been  duly  cultivated,  could  have  been  more  delightful. 
When  it  is  recollected  that  the  difference  between  citron  and 
orange-trees  is  not  very  discernible,  excepting  by  the  fruit, 
both  of  which,  however,  have  the  same  golden  colour,  this 
passage  of  Maundrell's  may  serve  as  a  comment  on  the  words 
of  Solomon,  quoted  in  the  beginning  of  the  section.— Paxton. 

Shade,  according  to  Mr.  Wood,  in  his  description  of  the 
ruins  of  Balbec,  is  an  essential  article  in  oriental  luxury. 
The  greatest  people  seek  these  refreshments,  as  well  as  the 
meaner.  So  Dr.  Pococke  found  the  patriarch  of  the  Ma- 
ronites,  (who  was  one  of  their  greatest  families,)  and  a 
bishop,  sitting  under  a  tree.  Any  tree  that  is  thick  and 
spreading  doth  for  them;  but  it  must  certainly  be  an  addi- 
tion to  their  enjoying  of  themselves,  when  the  tree  is  of  a 
fragrant  nature,  as  well  as  shady,  which  the  citron-tree  is. 
Travellers  there,  we  find  in  their  accounts,  have  made  use 
of  plane-trees,  walnut-trees,  &c.,  and  Egmont  and  Heyman 
Were  entertained  with  coffee  at  Mount  Sinai,  under  the 
orange-trees  of  the  garden  of  that  place. 

The  people  of  those  countries  not  only  frequently  sit  un- 
der shady  trees,  and  take  collations  under  them,  but  some- 
times the  fruit  of  those  trees  under  which  they  sit,  is  shaken 
down  upon  them,  as  an  agreeableness.  So  Dr.  Pocoke  tells 
us,  when  he  was  at  Sidon,  he  was  entertained  in  a  garden, 
In  the  shade  of  some  apricot-tree^s,  and  the  fruit  of  them  was 
shaken  upon  him.  He  speaks  of  it  indeed  as  if  it  was  done 
as  a  great  proof  of  their  abundance,  but  it  seems  rather  to 
have  been  designed  as  an  agreeable  addition  to  the  entertain- 
ment.— Harmer. 

^'er.  5.  Stay  me  with  flagons,  comfort  me  with 
appies  ;  for  I  am  sick  of  love. 

Dr.  Boothroyd : — "  Support  me  with  cordials;  support  me 
with  citrons:  for  still  I  languish  with  love."  Dr.  A.  Clarke: 


— "  The  versions  in  general  understand  some  kind  of  oint- 
ments or  perfumes  by  the  first  term,"  i.  e.  flagons.  "  Com- 
fort me  with  apples :"  they  had  not  apples,  as  we  in  Eng- 
land; jt  is,  therefore,  probable  that  the  citron  or  the  orange 
(both  of  which  are  believed  to  be  good  for  the  complaint  al- 
luded to)  is  the  fruit  meant.  "  I  am  sick  of  love."  Is  it 
not  amusing  to  see  parents  and  physicians  treating  this  af- 
fection as  a  DISEASE  of  a  very  serious  nature  %  It  is  called 
the  Ccima-Cdchal,  i.  e.  Cupid's  fever,  which  is  said  to  be 
produced  by  a  wound  inflicted  by  one  of  his  five  arrows. 
When  a  young  man  or  woman  becomes  languid,  looks  thin, 
refuses  food,  seeks  retirement,  and  neglects  duties,  the 
father  and  mother  hold  grave  consultations ;  they  apply  to 
the  medical  man,  and  he  furnishes  them  with  medicines, 
which  are  forthwith  to  be  administered,  to  relieve  the  poor 
patient.    • 

I  believe  the  "  versions  in  general"  are  right  in  supposing 
"  ointments  or  perfumes"  are  meant,  instead  of  flagons,  be- 
cause they  are  still  considered  to  be  most  efficacious  in  re- 
moving the  COMPLAINT.  Thus,  when  the  fever  is  most  dis- 
tressing, the  sufferer  is  washed  with  rose-water,  rubbed 
with  perfumed  oils,  and  the  dust  of  sandal  wood.  The 
margin  has,  instead  of  comfort,  "  straw  me  with  apples ;" 
which  probably  means  the  citrons  were  to  be  put  near  to 
him,  as  ii  is  believed  they  imbibe  the  heat,  and  consequently 
lessen  the  fever.  It  is  also  thought  to  be  highly  beneficial 
for  the  young  sufferer  to  sleep  on  the  tender  leaves  of  the 
plantain-tree,  {banana,)  or  the  lotus  flowers ;  and  if,  in  ad- 
dition, strings  of  pearls  are  tied  to  different  parts  of  the 
body,  there  is  reason  to  hope  the  patient  will  do  well. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  I  charge  you,  O  ye  daugnters  of  Jerusa- 
lem, by  the  roes,  and  by  the  hinds  of  the  field, 
that  ye  stir  not  up,  nor  awake  my  love,  till  he 
please. 

See  on  2  Sam.  2.  18. 

Here  again  the  custom  illustrates  the  passage  ;  it  would 
be  considered  barbarous  in  the  extreme  to  awake  a  person 
out  of  his  sleep.  How  often,  in  going  to  the  bouse  of  a 
native,  you  are  saluted  with  "  Nittera-JcuUa-kardr,"  i.  e.  "  He 
sleeps."  Ask  them  to  arouse  him :  the  reply  is, "  Koodaiha''' 
i.  e.  "  I  cannot."  Indeed,  to  request  such  a  thing  shows  at 
once  that  you  are  griffin,  or  new-comer.  "  Only  think  of 
that  ignorant  Englishman :  he  went  to  the  house  of  our 
chief,  and  being  told  he  was  asleep,  he  said  he  must  see 
him,  and  actually  made  such  a  noise  as  to  awake  him ; 
and  then  laughed  at  what  he  had  done." — Roberts. 

The  antelope,  like  the  hind,  with  which  it  is  so  fre- 
quently associated  in  scripture,  is  a  timid  creature,  ex- 
tremely jealous  and  watchful,  sleeps  little,  is  easily  dis- 
turbed, takes  alarm  on  the  slightest  occasion  ;  and  the  mo- 
ment its  fears  are  aAvakened,  it  flies,  or  seems  rather  to  dis- 
appear, from  the  sight  of  the  intruder.  Soft  and  cautious  is 
the  step  which  interrupts  not  the  light  slumbers  of  this  gentle 
and  suspicious  creature.  It  is  probable,  from  some  hints  in 
the  sacred  volume,  that  the  shepherd  in  the  eastern  desert, 
sometimes  wished  to  beguile  the  tedious  moments,  by  con- 
templating the  beautiful  form  of  the  sleeping  antelope.  But 
this  was  a  gratification  he  could  not  hope  to  enjoy,  unless 
he  approached  it  with  the  utmost  care,  and  maintained  a 
profound  silence.  When,  therefore,  an  Oriental  charged 
his  companion  by  the  antelope,  not  to  disturb  the  repose  of 
another,  he  intimated,  by  a  most  expressive  and  beautiful 
allusion,  the  necessity  of  using  the  greatest  circumspection. 
This  statement  imparts  a  great  degree  of  clearness  and 
energy,  to  the  solemn  adjuration  which  the  spouse  twice 
addresses  to  the  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  when  she  charged 
them  not  to  disturb  the  repose  of  her  beloved  :  "  I  charge 
you,  O  ye  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  by  the  roes,  (the  ante- 
lopes,) and  by  the  hinds  of  the  field,  that  ye  stir  not  up,  nor 
awake  my  love,  till  he  please."  In  this  language,  which  is 
pastoral,  and  equally  beautiful  and  significant,  the  spouse 
delicately  intimates  her  anxiety  to  detain  her  Lord,  that  she 
may  enjoy  the  happiness  of  contemplating  his  glory;  her 
deep  sense  of  the  evil  nature  and  bitter  consequences  of  sin ; 
her  apprehension,  lest  her  companions,  the  members  of  her 
family,  should  by  some  rash  and  unholy  deed  provoke  him 
to  depart ;  and  how  reasonable  it  was,  that  they  who  coveted 
the  society  of  That  beautiful  creature,  and  were  accustomed 
to  watch  over  its  slumbers  in  guarded  silence,  should  be 


444 


SOLOMON'S  SONG. 


Chap.  2. 


equally  cautious  not  to  disturb  the  communion  which  she 
then  enjoyed  with  her  Saviour. — Paxton. 

Ver.  8.  The  voice  of  my  beloved!  behold,  he 
Cometh  leaping-  upon  the  mountains,  skipping 
upon  the  hills. 

See  on  Ps.  18.  33. 

Ver.  8.  The  voice  of  my  beloved !  behold,  he 
Cometh  leaping  upon  the  mountains,  skipping 
upon  the  hills.  9.  My  beloved  is  like  a  roe,  or 
a  young  hart :  behold,  he  standeth  behind  our 
wall,  he  looketh  forth  at  the  window,  showing 
himself  through  the  lattice. 

Mr.  Harmer  thinks  this  means  the  green  wall,  as  it  were, 
of  a  kiosque,  or  eastern  arbour,  which  is  thus  described  by 
Lady  M.  W.  Montague :  "  In  the  midst  of  the  garden  is  the 
kiosque,  that  is,  a  large  room,  commonly  beautified  with  a 
fine  fountain  in  the  midst  of  it.  It  is  raised  nine  or  ten 
steps,  and  enclosed  with  gilded  lattices,  round  which  vines, 
jessamines,  and  honeysuckles,  make  a  sort  of  green  wall ; 
large  trees  are  planted  round  this  place,  which  is  the  scene 
of  their  greatest  pleasures." — Burder. 

•In  the  Song  of  Solomon,  the  spouse  more  than  once  com- 
pares her  beloved  to  the  antelope,  particularly  alluding  to 
the  wonderful  elasticity  of  its  limbs,  and  the  velocity  with 
which,  by  a  few  leaps,  it  scales  the  loftiest  precipice,  or 
bounds  from  one  cliff  to  another.  Waiting  with  eager  ex- 
pectation his  promised  coming,  she  hears  him  at  last  speak- 
ing peace  and  comfort  to  her  soul ;  and  instantly  describes 
him  as  hastening,  in  the  ardour  of  his  love,  to  her  relief,  and 
surmounting  with  ease  every  obstruction  in  his  way. — 
Paxton. 

Dr.  Rus.sel  observes,  that  the  two  species  of  antelopes 
about  Aleppo,  in  Syria,  "  are  so  extremely  fleet,  that  the 
greyhounds,  though*  very  good,  can  seldom  take  them,  with- 
out the  assistance  of  a  falcon,  unless  in  soft,  deep  ground." 
The  following  occurrence  proves  the  strong  attachment 
which  some  of  the  Arabs  cnerish  for  these  animals :  "  A 
little  Arab  girl  brought  a  young  antelope  to  sell,  which  was 
bought  by  a  Greek  merchant,  whose  tent  was  next  to  me, 
for  half  a  piaster.  She  had  bored  both  ears,  into  each  of 
which  she  had  inserted  two  small  pieces  of  red  silk  riband. 
She  told' the  purchaser,  that  as  it  could  run  about  and  lap 
milk,  hediiight  be  able  to  rear  it  up;  and  that  she  should 
not  have  sold  it,  but  that  she  wanted  money  to  buy  a  riband, 
which  her  mother  could  not  afford  her :  then  almost  smoth- 
ering the  little  animal  with  kisses,  she  delivered  it,  with 
tears  in  her  eyes,  and  ran  away.  The  merchant  ordered  it 
to  be  killed  and  dressed  for  supper.  In  the  close  of  the 
evening,  the  girl  came  to  take  her  last  farewell  of  her  little 
pet,  knowing  that  we  were  to  decamp  at  daybreak.  When 
she  was  told  that  it  was  killed,  she  seemed  much  surprised, 
saying  that  it  was  impossible  that  anybody  could  be  so  cruel 
as  to  kill  such  a  pretty  creature.  On  its  being  shown  to 
her,  with  its  throat  cut,  she  burst  into  tears,  threw  the 
money  in  the  man's  face,  and  ran  away  crying."  (Parson's 
Travels.) — Burder. 

Ver.  10.  My  beloved  spake,  and  said  unto  me, 
Rise  up,  my  love,  my  fair  one,  and  come  away. 
11.  For,  lo,  the  winter  is  past,  the  rain  is  over 
and  gone. 

The  Orientals  distinguish  their  winter  into  two  parts,  or 
rather  the  depth  of  winter,  from  the  commencement  and 
termination  of  the  season,  by  the  severity  of  the  cold.  This, 
which  lasts  about  forty  days,  tfTey  call  Murbania.  To  this 
rigorous  part  of  the  season,  the  wise  man  seems  to  refer,  in 
that  beautiful  passage  of  the  Song:  "  Ris*».  up,  my  love,  my 
fair  one,  and  come  away.  For,  lo,  the  winter  is  past,  the 
rain  is  over  and  gone ;  the  flowers  appear  on  the  earth : 
the  time  of  the  singing  of  birds  is  come ;  and  the  voice  of 
the  turtle  is  heard  in  our  land."  If  we  explain  this  text  by 
the  natural  phenomena,  these  words,  "the  rain  is  over  and 
gone,"  cannot  be  considered  as  an  exposition  of  the  prece- 
ding clause,  *' for,  lo,  the  winter  is  past;"  and  as  denoting, 
Ihat  the  moist  part  of  the  year  was  entiFely  gone,  along  with 


which,  Dr.  Russel  assures  us,  all  rural  delights  abandon 
the  plains  of  Syria  :  but  the  meaning  is,  that  the  Murbania, 
the  depth  of  winter,  is  past  and  over,  and  the  weather  be- 
come agreeably  warm ;  the  rain  has  just  ceased,  and  con- 
sequently, has  left  the  sure  and  agreeable  prospect  of  un- 
disturbed and  pleasant  serenity,  for  several  days.  It  had 
been  no  inducement  to  the  spouse  to  quit  her  apartments 
with  the  view  of  enjoying  the  pleasures  of  the  country,  to 
be  told,  that  the  rainy  season  had  completely  terminated, 
and  the  intense  heats  of  summer,  under  which  almost  any 
plant  and  flower  sickens  and  fades  away,  had  commenced. 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  12.  The  flowers  appear  on  the  earth ;  the 
time  of  the  singing  of  birds  is  come,  and  the 
voice  of  the  turtle  is  heard  in  our  land". 

The  inhabitants  of  the  great  towns  of  Syria,  during  the 
pleasant  weather  an  winter,  frequently  leave  their  homes, 
and  give  entertainments  to  their  friends  under  tents,  pitched 
in  the  country  for  that  purpose.  In  April,  and  part  of  May, 
they  retire  to  the  gardens;  and  in  the  heat  of  summer,  re- 
ceive their  guests  in  the  summer-houses,  or  under  the  shade 
of  the  trees.  The  same  custom  seems,  from  the  invitation  of 
the  bridegroom,  to  have  prevailed  in  the  land  of  Canaan 
in  the  time  of  Solomon,  The  inhabitants  of  Aleppo  make 
their  excursion  very  early  in  the  season;  and  the  cold 
weather  is  not  supposed  by  Solomon  to  have  ceased  long 
before,  since  it  is  distinctly  mentioned.  In  Syria,  the  nar- 
cissus flowers  during  the  whole  of  the  Murbania;  hyacinths 
and  violets,  at  latest,  before  it  is  quite  over.  Therefore, 
when  Solomon  says  the  flowers  appear  on  the  earth,  he  does 
not  mean  the  time  when  the  earliest  flowers  disclose  their 
bloom,  but  when  the  verdant  turf  is  thickly  studded  with 
all  the  rich,  the  gay,  and  the  diversified  profusion  of  an 
oriental  spring.  This  delightful  season  is  ushered  in  at 
Aleppo  about  the  middle  of  February,  by  the  appearance 
of  a  small  cranes-bill  on  the  bank  of  the  river,  which  mean- 
ders through  its  extensive  gardens ;  and  a  few  days  after, 
so  rapid  is  the  progress  of  vegetation,  all  the  beauty  of  spring 
is  displayed :  about  the  same  time,  the  birds  renew  their 
songs.  When  Thevenot  visited  Jordan,  on  the  sixteenth  of 
April,  he  found  the  little  woods  on  the  marginof  the  river, 
filled  with  nightingales  in  full  chorus.  This  is  rather 
earlier  than  at  Aleppo,  where  they  do  not  appear  till  nearly 
the  end  of  the  month.  These  facts  illustrate  the  strict  pro- 
priety of  Solomon's  description,  every  circumstance  of 
which  is  accurately  copied  from  nature. — Paxton. 

Ver.  14.  O  my  dove,  that  art  in  the  clefts  of  the 
rock,  in  the  secret  places  of  the  stairs,  let  me 
see  thy  countenance,  let  me  hear  thy  voice  ;  for 
sweet  is  thy  voice,  and  thy  countenance  is 
comely. 

See  on  Ps.  68.  13. 

The  Tamul  translation  has^  instead  of  "  countenance," 
"  form  :"  "  Thy  form  is  comely."  Dr.  Boothroyd  says, 
"  stairs"  is  certainly  improper ;  but  may  there  not  be  here 
an  allusion  to  the  ancient  custom  of  building  towers  in  the 
East,  for  the  purpose  of  accommodating  doves  7  I  have 
seen  one  which  had  stairs  inside,  (probably  to  enable  a 
person  lo  ascend  and  watch  for  the  approach  of  strangers ;) 
on  the  outside  were  numerous  holes,  in  regular  order, 
where  the  doves  concealed  themselves,  and  brought  up 
their  young.  It  is  common  to  call  a  female  by  the  name 
of  dove,  but  it  refers  more  to  secrecy  than  beauty.  The 
mother  of  Ramar  said  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  go  to  the 
desert,  but  she  did  not  mention  the  reason  to  her  husband ; 
upon  which  he  said,  by  way  of  persuading  her  to  tell  him, 
"  Oh  !  my  dove,  am  I  a  stranger  T' — Roberts. 

The  phrase,  which  we  render  the  secret  places  of  the 
stairs,  may,  with  more  propriety,  be  translated,  the  secret 
crevices  of  the  precipitous  rocks ;  for  the  original  term 
signifies  a  place  so  high  and  steep,  that  it  cannot  be  ap- 
proached but  by  ladders.  So  closely  pursued  were  the 
people  of  Israel,  and  so  unable  to  resist  the  assault  of  their 
enemies,  that,  like  the  timid  dove,  they  fled  to  the  fast- 
nesses of  the  mountains,  and  the  holes  of  the  rocks.— 
Paxton. 


Chap.  2—4. 


SOLOMON'S   SONG. 


445 


Ver.  15.  Take  us  the  foxes,  the  h'ttle  foxes,  that 
spoil  the  vines ;  for  our  vines  have  tender  grapes. 

Foxes  are  observed  by  many  authors  to  be  fond  of  grapes, 
and  to  make  great  havoc  in  vineyards.  Aristophanes  (in 
his  Equites)  compares  soldiers  to  foxes,  who  spoil  whole 
countries,  as  the  others  do  vineyards.  Galen  (in  his  book 
of  Aliments)  tells  us,  that  hunters  did  not  scruple  to  eat  the 
flesh  of  foxes  in  autumn,  when  they  were  grown  fat  with 
feeding  on  grapes. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  5.  I  charge  you,  O  ye  daughters  of  Jerusa- 
lem, by  the  roes,  and  by  the  hinds  of  the  field, 
that  ye  stir  not  up,  nor  awake  my  love  till  he 
please. 

See  on  ch.  2.  7.  •• 

Ver.  6.  Who  is  this  that  cometh  out  of  the  wilder- 
ness like  pillars  of  smoke,  perfumed  with 
myrrh  and  frankincense,  with  all  powders  of 
the  merchant  ? 

The  use  of  perfumes  at  eastern  marriages  is  common ; 
and  upon  great  occasions  very  profuse.  Not  only  are  the 
garments  scented  till,  in  the  Psalmist's  language,  they 
smell  of  myrrh,  aloes,  and  cassia  ;  it  is  also  customary  for 
virgias  to  meet,  and  lead  the  procession,  with  silver  gilt 
pots  of  perfumes ;  and  sometimes  aromatics  are  burned  in 
the  windows  of  all  the  houses  in  the  streets  through  which 
the  procession  is  to  pass,  till  the  air  becomes  loaded  with 
fragrant  odours.  In  allusion  to  this  practice  it  is  demand- 
ed, "  Who  is  this  that  cometh  out  of  the  wilderness  like 
pillars  of  smoke,  perfumed  with  myrrh  and  frankincense  1" 
So  liberally  were  these  rich  perfumes  burned  on  this  occa- 
sion, that  a  pillar  of  smoke  ascended  from  the  censers,  so 
high,  that  it  could  be  seen  at  a  considerable  distance ;  and 
the  perfume  was  so  rich,  as  to  equal  in  value  and  fragrance 
all  the  powders  of  the  merchant.  The  custom  of  burning 
perfumes  on  these  occasions  still  continues  in  the  East;  for 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague,  describing  the  reception  of 
a  young  Turkish  bride  at  the  bagnio,  says,  "  Two  virgins 
met  her  at  the  door ;  two  others  filled  silver  gilt  pots  with 
perfumes,  and  began  the  procession,  the  rest  following  in 
pairs,  to  the  number  of  thirty.  In  this  order  they  marched 
round  the  three  rooms  of  the  bagnio."  And  Maillet  in- 
forms us,  that  when  the  ambassadors  of  an  eastern  mon- 
arch, sent  to  propose  marriage  to  an  Egyptian  queen,  made 
their  entrance  into  the  capital  of  that  kingdom,  the  streets 
through  which  they  passed  were  strewed^with  flowers,  and 
precious  odours  burning  in  the  windows,  from  very  early 
in  the  morning,  embalmed  the  air. — Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  Go  forth,  O  ye  daughters  of  Zion,  and 
behold  King  Solomon  with  the  crown  where- 
with his  mother  crowned  him  in  the  day  of  his 
espousals,  and  in  the  day  of  the  gladness  of  his 
heart. 

Such  a  ceremony  as  this  was  customary  among  the  Jew-s 
at  their  marriages.  Maillet  informs  us  the  crowns  were 
made  of  different  materials.  Describing  the  custom,  as 
practised  by  the  members  of  the  Greek  church,  who  now 
live  in  Egypt,  he  says,  "  that  the  parties  to  be  married  are 
placed  opposite  to  a  reading-desk,  upon  which  the  book  of 
the  gospels  is  placed,  and  upon  the  book  two  crowns,  which 
are  made  of  such  materials  as  people  choose,  of  flowers,  of 
cloth,  or  of  tinsel.  There  he  (the  priest)  continues  his 
benedictions  and  prayers,  into  which  he  introduces  all  the 
patriarchs  of  the  Old  Testament.  He  after  that  places 
these  crowns,  the  one  on  the  head  of  the  bridegroom,  the 
other  on  that  of  the  bride,  and  covers  them  both  with  a 
veil."  After  some  other  ceremonies,  the  priest  concludes 
the  whole  by  taking  off"  their  crowns,  and  dismissing  them 
with  prayers. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  9.  Thou  hast  ravished  my  heart,  my  sister, 


my  spouse  ;  thou  hast  ravished  my  heart  with 
one  of  thine  eyes,  with  one  chain  of  thy  neck. 

There  is  a  singularity  in  this  imagery,  which  has  much 
perplexed  the  critics ;  and  perhaps  it  is  not  possible  to 
ascertain  the  meaning  of  the  poet  beyond  a  doubt.  Sup- 
posing the  royal  bridegroom  to  have  had  a  profile,  or  side 
view  of  his  bride,  in  the  present  instance,  only  one  eye,  or 
one  side  of  her  necklace,  would  be  observable ;  yet  this 
charms  and  overpowers  him.  Tertullian  mentions  a  cus- 
tom in  the  East,  of  women  unveiling  only  one  eye  in  con- 
versation, while  they  keep  the  other  covered :  and  Niebuhr 
mentions  a  like  custom  in  some  parts  of  Arabia.  This 
brings  us  to  nearly  the  same  interpretaition  as  the  above. 
(Williams.) — Burder. 

Ver.   12.  A   garden   enclosed  is  my  sister,  my 
spouse;  a  spring  shut  up,  a  fountain  sealed. 

This  morning  we  went  to  see  some  remarkable  places 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Bethlehem.  The  first  place  that 
we  directed  our  course  to,  was  those  famous  fountains, 
pools,  and  gardens,  about  an  hour  and  a  quarter  distant 
from  Bethlehem,  southward,  said  to  have  been  the  contri- 
vance and  delight  of  King  Solomon.  To  these  works  and 
places  of  pleasure,  that  great  prince  is  supposed  to  allude, 
Eccl.  ii.  5,  6,  where,  among  the  other  instances  of  his 
magnificence,  he  reckons  up  his  gardens,  and  vineyards, 
and  pools.  As  for  the  pools,  they  are  three  in  number, 
lying  in  a  row  above  each  other,  being  so  disposed  that  the 
waters  of  the  uppermost  may  descend  into  the  second,  and 
those  of  the  second  into  the  third.  Their  figure  is  quad- 
rangular ;  the  breadth  is  the  same  in  all,  amounting  to 
about  ninety  paces;  in  their  length  there  is  some  difference 
between  them,  the  first  being  about  one  hundred  and  sixty 
paces  long,  the  second  two  hundred,  the  third  two  hundred 
and  twenty.'  They  are  all  lined  with  wall,  and  plastered, 
and  contain  a  great  depth  of  water.  Close  by  the  pools  is 
a  pleasant  castle  of  a  modern  structure;  and  at  about  the 
distance  of  one  hundred  and  forty  paces  from  them  is  a 
fountain,  from  which,  principally,  they  derive  their  waters. 
This  the  friars  will  have  to  be  that  sealed  fountain,  to  which 
the  holy  spouse  is  compared,  Cant.  iv.  12,  and,  in  confirm- 
ation of  this  opinion,  they  pretend  a  tradition,  that  King 
Solomon  shut  up  these  springs,  and  kept  the  door  of  them 
sealed  with  his  signet,  to  the  end  that  he  might  preserve 
the  waters  for  his  own  drinking,  in  their  natural  freshness 
and  purity.  Nor  was  it  diflScult  thus  to  secure  them,  they 
rising  under  ground,  and  having  no  avenue  to  them  but  by 
a  little  hole,  like  to  the  mouth  of  a  narrow  well.  Through 
this  hdle  you  descend  directly  down,  but  not  without  some 
difficulty,  for  about  four  yards,  and  then  arrive  in  a  vaulted 
room,  fifteen  paces  long,  and  eight  broad.  Joining  to  this 
is  another  room,  of  the  same  fashion,  but  somewhat  less. 
Both  these  rooms  are  covered  with  handsome  stone  arches, 
very  ancient,  and  perhaps  the  work  of  Solomon  himself. 
Below  the  pools  here  runs  down  a  narrow  rocky  valley, 
enclosed  on  both  sides  with  high  mountains.  This  the 
friars  will  have  to  be  the  enclosed  garden  alluded  to  in  the 
same  place  of  the  Canticles  before  cited.  What  truth  there 
may  be  in  this  conjecture,  I  cannot  absolutely  pronounce. 
As  to  the  pools,  it  is  probable  enough  they  maybe  the  same 
with  Solomon's  ;  there  not  being  the  like  store  of  excellent 
spring-water  to  be  met  with  anywhere  else  throughout  all 
Palestine.     (Maundrell.) — Burder. 

Feirouz,  a  vizier,  having  divorced  his  wife  Chemsen- 
nissa,  on  suspicion  of  criminal  conversation  with  the  sultan, 
the  brothers  of  Chemsennissa  applying  for  redress  to  their 
judge,  " My  lord,"  said  they, -'we  had  rented  to  Feirouz 
a  most  delightful  garden,  a"^  terrestrial  paradise ;  he  took 
possession  of  it,  encompassed  with  high  walls,  and  planted 
with  the  most  beautiful  trees,  that  bloomed  with  flowers  and 
fruit.  He  has  broken  down  the  walls,  plucked  the  tender 
flowers,  devoured  the  finest  fruit,  and  would  noAV  restore 
to  us  this  garden,  robbed  of  every  thing  that  contributed  to 
render  it  delicious,  when  we  gave  him  admission  to  it." 
Feirouz,  in  his  defence,  and  the  sultan  in  his  attention  to 
Chemsennissa's  innocence,  still  carry  on  the  same  allegory 
of  the  garden,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  aut]\or.— Border. 

Ver.  16.  Awake,  O  north  wind,  and  come,  thou 


446 


SOLOMON'S   SONG. 


Chap.  5. 


south ;  blow  upon  my  garden,  that  the  spices 
thereof  may  flow  out.  Let  my  beloved  come 
into  his  garden,  and  eat  his  pleasant  fruits. 

The  suffocating  heats  wafted  on  the  wings  of  the  south 
wind  from  the  glowing  sands  of  the  desert,  are  felt  more  or 
less  in  all  the  oriental  regions ;  and  even  in  Italy  itself,  al- 
though far  distant  from  the  terrible  wastes  of  the  neigh- 
bouring continents,  where  they  produce  a  general  languor, 
and  difficulty  of  respiration.  A  wind  so  fatal  or  injurious 
to  the  people  of  the  East,  must  be  to  them  an  object  of  alarm 
or  dismay.  Yet,  in  the  Song  of  Solomon,  its  pestilential 
blast  is  invited  by  the  spouse  to  come  and  blow  upon  her 
garden,  and  waft  its  fragrance  to  her  beloved.  If  the  south 
winds  in  Judea  are  as  oppressive  as  they  are  in  Barbary 
and  Egypt,  and  as  the  winds  from  the  desert  are  at  Aleppo, 
(which,  according  to  Russel,  are  of  the  same  nature  as  the 
south  winds  in  Canaan ;)  or  if  they  are  only  very  hot,  as 
Le  Bruin  certainly  found  them  in  October,  would  the 
spouse  have  desired  the  north  wind  to  depart,  as  Bochart 
renders  it,  and  the  south  wind  to  blow  1  The  supposition 
cannot  be  admitted.  An  inspired  writer  never  departs 
from  the  strictest  truth  and  propriety  in  the  use  of  figures, 
according  to  the  rules  of  oriental  composition ;  and  there- 
fore a  meaning  directly  opposite  must  be  the  true  one,  to 
correspond  with  the  physical  character  of  that  wind.  The 
nature  of  the  prayer  also  requires  a  different  version  ;  for 
is  it  to  be  supposed  that  the  spouse,  in  the  same  breath, 
would  desire  two  directly  opposite  winds  to  blow  upon  her 
garden  1  It  now  remains  to  inquire,  if  the  original  text 
will  admit  of  another  version ;  and  it  must  be  evident,  that 
the  only  difficulty  lies  in  the  term  which  we  render.  Come 
thou.  Now  the  verb  bo,  signifies  both  to  come  and  to  de- 
part ;  literally,  to  remove  from  one  place  to  another.  In 
this  sense  of  going  or  departing,  it  is  used  in  the  prophecies 
of  Jonah  twice  in  one  verse  :  "  He  found  a  ship  (baa)  go- 
ing to  Tarshish ;  so  he  paid  the  fare  thereof,  and  went  down 
into  it  (labo)  to  go  with  them."  It  occurs  again  in  this 
sense  in  the  book  of  Ruth,  and  is  so  rendered  in  our  trans- 
lation :  "  He  went  (vayabo)  to  lie  down  at  the  end  of  the 
heap  of  corn."  The  going  down  or  departure  of  the  sun, 
is  expressed  by  a  derivative  of  the  same  verb  in  the  book 
of  Deuteronomy  :  "  Are  they  not  on  the  other  side  Jordan, 
by  the  way  where  the  sun  goeth  dovm  ?"  Joshua  uses  it  in 
the  same  sense :  "  Unto  the  great  sea,  (Mebo,)  towards  the 
goiiig  down  of  the  sun,  shall  be  your  coast."  The  passage, 
then,  under  consideration,  may  be  rendered  in  this  manner, 
putting  the  address  to  the  south  wind  in  a  parenthesis : 
Arise,  O  north  wind,  (retire,  thou  south,)  blow  upon  my 
garden,  let  the  spices  thereof  flow  forth,  that  my  beloved 
may  come  into  his  garden,  and  eat  his  pleasant  fruits. 

This  conclusion,  were  any  confirmaUon  necessary  to  es- 
tablish so  plain  a  truth,  is  verified  by  the  testimony  of  Le 
Bruin,  already  quoted,  who,  in  the  course  of  his  travels  in 
Palestine,  found,  from  experience,  that  it  produced  an  op- 
pressive heat,  not  the  gentle  and  inviting  warmth  which 
Sanctius  supposed.  No  traveller,  so  far  as  the  writer  has 
been  able  to  discover,  gives  a  favourable  account  of  the 
south  wind  ;  consequently,  it  cannot  be  an  object  of  desire; 
the  view  therefore  which  Hermer  first  gave  of  this  text,  is, 

in  every  respect,  entitled  to  the  preference:  "Awake,  O 
■sorth  wind,  (depart,  thou  south,)  blow  upon  my  garden,  that 

he  spices  thereof  may  flow  out."— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  2.  I  sleep,  but  my  heart  waketh :  it  is  the 
voice  of  my  beloved  that  knocketh,  saying, 
Open  to  me,  my  sister,  my  love,  my  dove,  my 
undefiled :  for  my  head  is  filled  with  dew,  and 
my  locks  with  the  drops  of  the  night. 

See  on  ch.  6. 9. 

Ver.  4.  My  beloved  put  in  his  hand  by  the  hole 
of  the  doot ,  and  my  bowels  were  moved  for 
him. 

In  the  capital  of  Egypt,  also,  all  their  locks  and  keys  are 
of  wood  ;  they  have  iione  of  iron,  not  even  for  their  city 
gates,  which  may  with  ease  be  opened  without  a  key.  The 
keys,  or  bits  of  timber,  with  little  pieces  of  wire,  lift  up 


other  pieces  of  wire  that  are  in  the  lock,  and  enter  into 
certain  little  holes,  out  of  which  the  ends  of  the  wires  that 
are  in  the  key  have  just  expelled  the  corresponding  wires  ; 
upon  which  the  gate  is  opened.  But  to  accomplish  this, 
a  key  is  not  necessary;  the  Egyptian  lock  is  so  imperfectly 
made,  that  one  may  without  diflSculty  open  it  with  his  fin- 
ger, armed  with  a  little  soft  paste.  The  locks  in  Canaan, 
at  one  time,  do  not  seem  to  have  been  made  with  greater 
art,  if  Solomon  allude  to  the  ease  with  which  they  were 
frequently  opened  without  a  key:  "  My  beloved  put  in  his 
hand  by  the  hole  of  the  door,  and  my  bowels  were  moved 
for  him"." — Paxton. 

Ver.  5.  I  rose  up  to  open  to  my  beloved :  and  my 
hands  dropped  with  myrrh,  and  my  fingers  with 
sweet-smelling-myrrh,  upon  the  handles  of  the 
lock. 

When  the  spouse  rose  from  her  bed  to  open  to  her  be- 
loved, her  hand  dropped  niyrrh,  (balsam,)  and  her  fingers 
sweet-smelling  myrrh,  on  the  handles  of  the  lock.  In  this 
remark,  she  seems  to  allude  rather  to  a  liquid  than  a  pow- 
der ;  for  the  word  rendered  dropped,  signifies  to  distil  as 
the  heavens  or  the  clouds  do  rain,  or  as  the  mountains  are 
said  to  distil  new  wine  from  the  vines  planted  there,  or  as 
the  inverted  cups  of  lilies  shed  their  roscid  or  honey  drops. 
The  same  term  is  figuratively  applied  to  words  or  dis- 
course, which  are  said  to  distil  as  the  dew,  and  drop  as  the 
rain  ;  but  still  the  allusion  is  to  some  liquid.  As  a  noun,  it 
is  the  name  of  .stacte,  or  myrrh,  distilling  from  the  tree  of  its 
own  accord,  without  incision.  Again,  the  word  rendered 
sweet-smelling  signifies  passing  off,  distilling,  or  trickling 
down;  and,  therefore,  in  its  present  connexion,  more  na- 
turally refers  to  a  fluid  than  to  a  dry  powder.  If  these  ob- 
servations be  just,  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  ascertain  the 
real  sense  of  the  passage. 

When  the  spouse  rose  from  her  bed,  to  open  the  door  of 
her  apartment,  she  hastily  prepared  to  receive  her  beloved, 
by  washing  herself  with  "myrrh  and  water;  or,  according 
to  an  established  custom  in  the  East,  by  anointing  her 
he^d  with  liquid  essence  of  balsam:  a  part  of  which,  in 
either  case,  might  remain  on  her  hands  and  fingers,  and 
from  them  trickle  down  on  the  handles  of  the  lock. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  7.  The  watchmen  that  weyit  about  the  city 
found  me,  they  smote  me,  they  wounded  me ; 
the  keepers  of  the  walls  took  away  my  veil 
from  me. 

See  on  Ezek.  33.  2. 

They  plucked  off  her  veil,  in  order  to  discover  who  she 
was.  It  is  well  known  that  the  eunuchs,  in  the  eastern 
countries,  are  at  present  authorized  to  treat  the  females  un- 
der their  charge  in  this  manner. — Burder. 

Ver.  10.  My  beloved  is  whjte  and  ruddy,  the 
chiefest  among  ten  thousand. 

In  our  translation,  the  church  represents  her  Saviour  as 
the  standard-bearer  in  the  armies  of  the  living  God.  "My 
beloved  is  white  and  ruddy,  the  chiefest  among  ten  thou- 
sand ;"  or,  according  to  the  margin,  a  standard-bearer 
among  ten  thousand.  These  phrases  are  made  synony- 
mous, on  the  groundless  supposition  that  a  standard-bearer 
is  the  chief  of  the  company;  for  among  the  modern  Orien- 
tals, a  standard-bearer  is  not  the  chief,  more  than  among 
the  nations  of  Europe.  He  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  lowe.st 
commissioned  officer  in  the  corps  who  bears  the  colours. 
This,  however,  seems  to  be  merely  a  mistake  of  our  trans- 
lators, in  rendering  the  phrase  dagul  meribahah.  If  we  un- 
derstand by  the  word  dagul,  such  a  flag  as  is  carried  at  the 
head  of  our  troops,  then,  as  the  Hebrew  participle  is  the 
pahul,  which  has  a  passive,  and  not  an  active  sense,  it  must 
signify  one  before  whom  a  standard  is  borne ;  not  the  per- 
son who  lifts  up  and  displays  it,  but  him  m  whose  honour 
the  standard  is  displaved.  It  was  not  a  mark  of  superior 
dignity  in  the  East  to  displav  the  standard,  but  it  was  a  mark 
of  dignity  and  honour  to  have  the  standard  earned  before 
one;  and  the  same  idea  seems  to  be  entertained  in  other 
parts  of  the  -voM.    The  passage,  ^hen,  is  nghtiy  translate*? 


CttAP.  5—7. 


SOLOMON'S   SONG. 


447 


thus :  My  beloved  is  white  and  ruddy,  and  honourable,  as 
one  before  whom,  or  around  whom,  ten  thousand  standards 
are  borne. 

The  compliment  is  returned  by  her  Lord  in  these  words  : 
'•  Thou  art  beautiful,  O  my  love,  as  Tirzah,  comely  as  Je- 
rusalem, terrible  as  an  army  with  banners ;"  and  again, 
"  Who  is  she  that  looketh  forth  as  the  morning,  fair  as  the 
moon,  clear  as  the  sun,  terrible  as  an  army  with  banners  V 
Mr.  Harmer  imagines  that  these  texts  refer  to  a  marriage 
procession,  surrounded  with  flambeaux.  But  what  is  terri- 
ble in  a  company  of  women,  even  although."  dressed  in 
rich  attire,  surrounded  with  nuptial  flambeaux,"  blazing 
ever  so  fiercely  7  Besides,  his  view  sinks  the  last  member 
of  the  comparison,  and,  indeed,  seems  to  throw  over  it  an 
air  of  ridicule:  Who  is  this  that  looketh  forth  as  the  morn- 
ing, fair  as  the  moon,  clear  as  the  sun,  and  dazzling,  like  a 
bride  lighted  home  with  flambeaux  1  The  common  trans- 
lation certainly  sustains  much  better  the  dignity  of  the  last 
clause,  while  it  gives  the  genume  meaning  of  (cn)  aim, 
which,  in  every  passage  of  scripture  where  it  occurs,  signi- 
fies either  terrible,  or  the  tumult  and  confusion  of  mind 
which  terror  produce>. — Paxton. 

Ver.  12.  His  eyes  are  as  the  eyes  of  doves  by  the 
rivers  of  water,  washed  with  milk,  and  fitly  set. 

Hebrew,  for  fitly  set,  "  sitting  in  fulness ;"  that  is,  "  fitly 
placed,  and  set  as  a  precious  stone  in  the  foil  of  a  ring." 
"  See  that  youth,  what  a  beautiful  eye  he  has  !  it  is  like  a 
sapphire  set  in  silver ;"  which  means,  the  metal  represents 
the  white  and  the  blue,  the  other  part  of  the  eye.  The 
eyes  of  their  more  sacred  idols  are  made  of  precious  stones. 
"  Washed  with  milk."  Though  people  thus  wash  them- 
selves after  a  funeral,  the  custom  is  also  spoken  of  by  way 
of  figure,  as  a  matter  of  great  joy.  "  Oh  !  yes,  they  are  a 
happy  pair ;  they  wash  themselves  with  milk."  "  The  joy 
is  as  great  as  being  bathed  in  milk."  But  some  do  thus  ac- 
tually wash  their  bodies  three  or  four  times  a  month,  and 
the  effect  is  said  to  be  cooling  and  pleasing.  I  suppose, 
however,  it  arises  as  much  from  an  idea  of  luxury,  as  any 
other  cause.  The  residence  of  the  god  Vishnoo  is  said  to 
be  surrounded  by  a  sea  of  milk,  which  may  also  be  an- 
other reason  to  induce  the  devotee  thus  to  bathe  himself, — 
Roberts. 

The  eyes  of  a  dove,  always  brilliant  and  lovely,  kindle 
with  peculiar  delight  by  the  side  of  a  crystal  brook,  for  this 
is  her  favourite  haunt ;  here  she  loves  to  wash  and  to 
quench  her  thirst.  But  the  inspired  writer  seems  to  inti- 
mate, that  not  satisfied  with  a  single  rivulet,  she  delights 
especially  in  those  places  which  are  watered  with  numer- 
ous streams,  whose  full  flowing  tide  approaches  the  height 
of  the  banks,  and  offers  her  an  easy  and  abundant  supply. 
They  seem  as  if  they  were  washed  with  milk,  from  their 
shining  whiteness ;  and  fitly,  rather  fully  set,  like  a  gem 
set  in  gold,  neither  too  prominent  nor  too  depressed,  but 
so  formed  as  with  nice  adaptation  to  fill  up  the  socket. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  15.  His  legs  are  as  pillars  of  marble  set 
upon  sockets  of  fine  gold ;  his  countenance  is 
as  Lebanon,  excellent  as  the  cedars. 

"  His  thighs  are  as  pillars  of  marble,  fixed  upon  pedes- 
tals of  fine  gold ;"  alluding  to  his  sandals  bound  on  his  feet 
with  golden  ribands ;  or,  perhaps,  expressive  of  the  feet 
themselves,  as  being  of  a  redder  tincture  than  the  legs  and 
thighs.  The  Asiatics  used  to  die  their  feet  of  a  deep  red 
colour.  Thus  the  lover  in  Gitagovinda  says,  O  damsel, 
shall  I  die  red  with  the  juice  of  alactaca,  those  beautiful 
feet,  which  will  make  the  full-blown  land  lotos  blush  with 
shame  7    (Sir  W.  Jones.) — Burdek. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  4.  Thou  art  beautiful,  O  my  love,  as  Tir- 
zah ;  comely  as  Jerusalem ;  terrible  as  an  army 
with  banners. 

This  and  the  next  chapter  give  an  idea  of  what  were  the 
notions  of  beauty  in  the  bride ;  she  was  like  the  city  of  Tir- 
zah, belonging  to  the  tribe  of  Ephraim.  A  handsome  Hin- 
doo female  is  compared  to  the  sacred  city  of  Seedambaram. 
The  following,  also,  are  signs  of  beauty  in  an  eastern  wo- 


man :  her  skin  is  the  colour  of  gold ;  her  hands,  naiis,  and 
soles  of  the  feet,  are  of  a  reddish  hue  ;  her  limbs  must  be 
smooth,  and  her  gait  like  the  stately  swan.  Her  feet  are 
small,  like  the  beautiful  lotus ;  her  waist  is  slender  as  the 
lightning ;  her  arms  are  short,  and  her  fingers  resemble  the 
five  petals  of  the  kantha  flower ;  her  breasts  are  like  the 
young  cocoa-nut,  and  her  neck  is  as  the  trunk  of  the  areca- 
tree.  Her  mouth  is  like  the  ambal  flower,  and  her  lips  as 
coral ;  her  teeth  are  like  beautiful  pearls ;  her  nose  is  high, 
and  lifted  up,  like  that  of  the  chameleon,  (when  raised  to 
snuflTthe  wind  ;)  her  eyes  are  like  the  sting  of  a  wasp,  and 
the  karungu-vally  flower ;  her  brows  are  like  the  bow,  and 
nicely  separated ;"  and  her  hair  is  as  the  black  cloud.— Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  9.  My  dove,  my  undefiled,  is  hut  one :  she 
is  the  only  one  of  her  mother,  she  is  the  choice 
one  of  her  that  bare  her. 

The  conjugal  chastity  of  the  dove  has  been  celebrated 
by  every  writer,  who  has  described  or  alluded  to  her  char- 
acter. She  admits  but  of  one  mate ;  she  never  forsakes 
him  till  death  puts  an  end  to  their  union;  and  never  aban- 
dons of  her  own  accord,  the  nest  which  their  united  labour 
has  provided.  jElian,  and  other  ancient  writers,  affirm, 
that  the  turtle  and  the  wood-pigeon  punish  adultery  with 
death.  The  black  pigeon,  when  her  mate  dies,  obstinately 
rejects  the  embraces  of  another,  and  continues  in  a  wid- 
owed state  for  life.  Hence,  among  the  Egyptians,  a  black 
pigeon  was  the  symbol  of  a  widow  who  declmed  to  enter 
again  into  the  marriage  relation.  This  fact  was  so  well 
known,  or  at  least  so  generally  admitted  among  the  an- 
cients, that  Tertullian  endeavours  te  establish  the  doctrine 
of  monogamy  by  the  example  of  that  bird.  These  facts 
have  been  transferred  by  later  authors  to  the  widowed  tur- 
tle, which,  dea,f  to  the  solicitations  of  another  mate,  con- 
tinues, in  mournful  strains,  to  deplore  her  loss,  till  death 
puts  a  period  to  her  sorrows.  These  facts  unfold  the  true 
reason,  that  the  church  is  by  Solomon  so  frequently  com- 
pared to  the  dove. — Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  I  went  down  into  the  garden  of  nuts,  to 
see  the  fruits  of  the  valley,  and  to  see  whether 
the  vine  flourished,  and  the  pomegranates 
budded. 

See  on  ch.  7.  11,  12. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  1.  How  beautiful  are  thy  feet  with  shoes,  O 
prince's  daughter !  the  joints  of  thy  thighs  are 
like  jewels,  the  work  of  the  hands  of  a  cunning 
workman. 

The  word  rendered  joints  means  the  concealed  dress,  or 
drawers,  which  are  still  worn  by  the  Moorish  and  Turkish 
women  of  rank.  Lady  M.  W.  Montague,  in  describing  her 
Turkish  dress,  says,  "  the  first  part  of  my  dress  is  a  pair 
of  drawers,  very  full,  that  reaches  down  to  my  shoes,  and 
conceals  the  legs  more  modestly  than  your  petticoats  ;  they 
are  of  a  thin,  rose-coloured  damask,  brocaded  with  flowers." 

— BURDER. 

Ver.  3.  Thy  two  breasts  are  like  two  young  roes 

that  are  twins. 
See  on  ch.  2.  8. 

Ver.  4.  Thy  neck  is  as  a  tower  of  ivory ;  thine 
eyes  like  the  fish-pools  in  Heshbon,  by  the 
gate  of  Bathrabbim ;  thy  nose  is  as  the  tower 
of  Lebanon,  which  looketh  towards  Damascus. 

Whatever  is  majestic  and  comely  in  the  human  coun- 
tenance ;  whatever  commands  the  reverence,  and  excites 
the  love  of  the  beholder, — Lebanon,  and  its  towering  ce- 
dars, are  employed  by  the  sacred  writers  to  express.  In 
the  commendation  of  the  church,  the  countenance  of  her 
Lord  is  as  Lebanon,  excellent  as  the  cedars  :  while  in  the 
eulogium  which  he  pronounces  on  his  beloved,  one  fea- 
ture of  her  countenance  is  compared  to  the  highest  peak 
of  that  mountain,  to  the  Sannin,  which  rises,  with  majestic 


448 


SOLOMON'S   SONG. 


Chap.  & 


grandeur,  above  the  tallest  cedars  that  adorn  its  summits : 
"  Thy  nose  is  as  the  tower  of  Lebanon,  which  looketh 
towards  Damascus."  Calmet  imagines,  with  no  small  degree 
of  probability,  that  the  sacred  writer  alludes  to  an  elegant 
tower  of  white  marble,  which,  m  his  days,  crowned  the 
summit  of  a  lofty  precipice,  at  the  foot  of  which  the  river 
Barrady  foams,  about  the  distance  of  two  miles  from  Da- 
mascus. When  Maundrell  visited  the  place,  he  found  a 
small  structure,  like  a  sheik's  sepulchre,  erected  on  the 
highest  point  of  the  precipice,  where  it  had  probably  stood. 
From  this  elevated  station,  which  forms  a  part  of  Leba- 
non, the  traveller  enjoyed  the  most  perfect  view  of  the  city. 
S:  charming  was  the  landscape,  so  rich  and  diversified  the 
scenery,  that  he  confessedly  found  it  no  easy  matter  to  tear 
himself  away  from  the  paradise  of  delights  which  bloomed 
at  his  feet.  Nor  was  a  very  late  traveller  less  delighted 
with  this  most  enchanting  prospect. — Paxton, 

Ver.  5.  Thy  head  upon  thee  is  like  Carmel,  and 
the  hair  of  thy  head  like  purple  ;  the  King  is 
held  in  the  galleries. 

The  only  remarkable  mountain  on  the  western  border 
of  Canaan,  is  Carmel,  which  lies  on  the  seacoast,  at  the 
south  end  of  the  tribe  of  Asher,  and  is  frequently  men- 
tioned in  the  sacred  writings.  On  this  mountain,  which  is 
very  rocky,  and  about  two  thousand  feet  in  height,  the 
prophet  Elijah  fixed  his  residence  :  and  the  monks  of  the 
Greek  church,  who  have  a  convent  upon  it,  show  the  in- 
quisitive stranger  the  grotto,  neatly  cut  out  in  the  Solid  rock, 
where,  at  a  distance  from  the  tumult  of  the  world,  the  ven- 
erable seer  reposed.  At  the  distance  of  a  league  are  two 
fountains,  which  they^pretend  the  prophet,  by  his  miracu- 
lous powers,  made  to  spring  out  of  the  earth ;  and  lower 
down,  towards  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  is  the  cave  where 
he  instructed  the  people.  It  is  an  excavation  in  the  rock, 
cut  very  smooth,  both  above  and  below,  of  about  twenty 
paces  in  length,  fifteen  in  breadth,  and  very  high ;  and 
Thevenot,  who  paid  a  visit  to  the  monks  of  Mount  Car- 
mel, pronounces  it  one  of  the  finest  grottoes  that  can  be 
seen.  The  beautiful  shape  and  towering  height  of  Carmel, 
furnish  Solomon  with  a  striking  simile,  expressive  of  the 
loveliness  and  majesty  of  the  church  in  the  eyes  of  her 
Redeemer:  "  Thy  head  upon  thee  is  like  Carmel,  and  the 
hair  of  thy  head  like  purple;  the  King  is  held  in  the  gal- 
leries." The  mountain  itself  is  nothing  but  rock.  The 
monks,  however,  have  with  great  labour  covered  some  parts 
of  it  with  soil,  on  which  they  cultivate  flowers  and  fruits 
of  various  kinds ;  but  the  fields  around  have  been  celebra- 
ted in  all  ages  for  the  extent  of  their  pastures,  and  the  rich- 
ness of  their  verdure.  So  great  was  the  fertility  of  this 
region,  that,  in  the  language  of  the  sacred  writers,  the  name, 
Carmel,  is  often  equivalent  to  a  fruitful  field.  This  was 
undoubtedly  the  reason  that  the  covetous  and  churlish  Na- 
bal  chose  it  for  the  range  of  his  numerous  flocks  and  herds. 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  8.  I  said,  I  will  go  up  to  the  palm-tree,  I 
will  take  hold  of  the  boughs  thereof;  now  also 
thy  breasts  shall  be  as  clusters  of  the  vine,  and 
the  smell  of  thy  nose  like  apples. 

See  on  ch.  2.  3. 

Ver.  1 1 .  Come,  my  beloved,  let  us  go  forth  into 
the  field;  let  us  lodge  in  the  village.  12.  Let 
ug  get  up  early  to  the  vineyards ;  let  us  see  if 
the  vine  flourish,  whether  the  tender  grape  ap- 
pear, and  the  pomegranates  bud  forth :  there 
will  I  give  thee  my  loves. 

In  the  gardens  around  Aleppo,  commodious  villas  are 
built,  for  the  use  of  the  inhabitants,  to  which  they  retire 
during  the  oppressive  heats  of  summer.  Here,  amid  the 
wild  and  almost  impervious  thickets  of  pomegranate,  and 
other  fruit-bearing  trees,  the  languid  native  and  exhaust- 
ed traveller  find  a  delightful  retreat  from  the  scorching 
beams  of  the  sun.  A  similar  custom  of  retiring  into  the 
country,  and  taking  shelter  in  the  gardens,  at  that  season, 
appears  to  have  been  followed  in  Palestine,  in  ages  very 
remote. 


The  exquisite  pleasure  which  an  Oriental  feels,  while  he 
reclines  under  the  deep  shade  of  the  pomegranate,  the  apple, 
and  other  fruitful  trees,  in  the  Syrian  gardens,  which,  uni- 
ting their  branches  over  his  head,  defend  him  from  the 
glowing  firmament,  is  well  described  by  Russel.  "  Revived 
by  the  freshening  breeze,  the  purling  of  the  brooks,  and  the 
verdure  of  the  groves,  his  ear  will  catch  the  melody  of  the 
nightingale,  delightful  beyond  what  is  heard  in  England  ; 
with  conscious  gratitude  to  heaven,  he  will  recline  on  the 
simple  mat,  and  bless  the  hospitable  shelter.  Beyond  the 
limits  of  the  gardens,  hardly  a  vestige  of  verdure  remains  > 
the  fields  are  turned  into  a  parched  and  naked  waste."  Iii 
Persia,  Mr.  Martyn  found  the  heat  of  the  external  air  quite 
intolerable.  In  spite  of  every  precaution,  the  moisture  of 
the  body  being  soon  quite  exhausted,  he  grew  restless,  and 
thought  he  should  have  lost  his  senses,  and  concluded,  thai 
though  he  might  hold  out  a  day  or  two,  death  was  inevita- 
ble. Not  only  the  actual  enjoyment  of  shade  and  water 
diflTuses  the  sweetest  pleasure  through  the  panting  bosom 
of  an  Oriental,  but  what  is  almost  inconceivable  to  the  na- 
tive of  a  northern  clime,  even  the  very  idea,  the  simple  re- 
currence of  these  gratifications  to  the  mind,  conveys  a  lively 
satisfaction,  and  a  renovating  energy  to  his  heart,  when 
ready  to  fail  him  in  the  midst  of  the  burning  desert.  "  He 
who  smiles  at  the  pleasure  we  received,"  says  Lichtenstein, 
"  from  only  being  reminded  of  shade,  or  thinks  this  ob- 
servation trivial,  must  feel  the  force  of  an  African  sun,  to 
have  an  idea  of  the  value  of  shade  and  water." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Ver.  2.  I  would  lead  thee,  and  bring  thee  into 
my  mother's  house,  who  would  instruct  me :  I 
would  cause  thee  to  drink  of  spiced  wine  of  the 
juice  of  my  pomegranate. 

The  fragrant  odour  of  the  wines  produced  in  the  vine- 
yards of  Lebanon,  seems  chiefly  to  have  attracted  the  no- 
tice of  our  translators.  This  quality  is  either  factitious  or 
natural.  The  Orientals,  not  satisfied  with  the  fragrance 
emitted  by  the  essential  oil  of  the  grape,  frequently  put 
spices  into  their  wines,  to  increase  their  flavour.  To  this 
practice  Solomon  alludes  in  these  words :  "  I  would  cause 
thee  to  drink  of  spiced  wine  of  the  juice  of  my  pomegra- 
nate." But  Savary,  in  his  Letters  on  Greece,  affirms,  that 
various  kinds  of  naturally  perfumed  wines,  are  produced 
in  Crete  and  some  of  the  neighbouring  islands :  and  the 
wine  of  Lebanon,  to  which  the  sacred  writer  alludes,  was 
probably  of  the  same  species. — Paxton. 

Ver.  6.  Set  me  as  a  seal  upon  thy  heart,  as  a  seal 
upon  thine  arm :  for  love  is  strong  as  death ; 
jealousy  is  cruel  as  the  grave  :  the  coals  thereof 
are  coals  of  fire,  which  hath  a  most  vehement 
flame. 

When  a  husband  is  going  to  a  distant  country,  the  wife 
says  to  him,  "  Ah  !  place  me  as  a  seal  upon  thy  heart,"  i.  e. 
let  me  be  impressed  on  thy  affections,  as  the  seal  leaves  its 
impression  upon  the  wax.  "  Let  not  your  arms  embrace 
another ;  let  me  only  be  sealed  there :"  "  for  love  is  strong 
as  death,  jealousy  is  cruel  as  the  grave." — Roberts. 

This  alludes  to  jewels,  having  the  name  or  portrait  of 
the  beloved  person  engraved  on  it,  and  worn  next  the  heart, 
or  on  the  arm.  In  the  pictures  of  the  eastern  princesses 
and  heroines,  there  is  sometimes  a  large  square  jewel  on 
the  forepart  of  the  arm,  a  little  below  the  shoulder.  "  When 
all  the  persons  had  assembled  in  the  divan,  every  one  re- 
mained sitting  or  standing  in  his  place  without  moving,  till 
in  about  half  an  hour  came  two  kapudschis,  one  of  whom 
carried  the  imperial  signet-ring,  and  presented  it  to  the 
grand  vizier,  who  arose  from  his  sofa,  and  received  the 
signet-ring  with  a  kind  of  bow,  kissed  it,  put  it  on  his 
hand,  took  it  off"  again,  and  put  it  in  the  bag  in  which  it 
had  been  before,  and  placed  both  in  a  pocket  at  the  left 
side  of  his  kaftan,  as  it  were  upon  his  heart."    (Schultz.) 

— ROSENMULLER. 

Ver.  1 4.  Make  haste,  my  beloved,  and  be  thou 
like  to  a  roe,  or  to  a  young  hart,  upon  the 
mountains  of  spices. 

See  on  ch.  2.  8.  9. 


ISAIAH 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  3.  The  ox  knoweth  his  owner,  and  the  ass 
his  master's  crib :  but  Israel  doth  not  know,  my 
people  doth  not  consider. 

"  Ah !  my  children,  my  cows  and  my  sheep  know  me 
well;  but  you  cease  to  acknowledge  me."  "Alas!  alas!  my 
cattle  know  me  better  than  my  wife ;  I  will  go  and  live  with 
them,  for  their  love  is  sincere  to  me.  I  will  not  remain 
any  longer  in  such  a  family ;  henceforth  the  affectionate 
cattle  shall  be  my  companions,  they  shall  be  my  children." — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  And  the  daughter  of  Zion  is  left  as  a  cot- 
tage in  a  vineyard,  as  a  lodge  in  a  garden  of 
cucumbers,  as  a  besieged  city. 

This  was  a  little  temporary  hut,  covered  with  boughs, 
straw,  turf,  or  the  like  materials,  for  a  shelter  from  the 
heat  by  day,  and  the  cold  and  dews  by  night,  for  the  watch- 
man that  kept  the  garden,  or  vineyard,  during  the  short 
season  while  the  fruit  was  ripening,  (Job  xxvii.  18.)  and 
presently  removed  when  it  had  served  that  purpose.  '  The 
eastern  people  were  probably  obliged  to  have  such  a  con- 
stant watch  to  defend  the  fruit  from  the  jackals.  "  The 
jackal,"  says  Hasselquist,  "  is  a  species  of  mustela,  which  is 
very  common  in  Palestine,  especially  during  the  vintage, 
and  often  destroys  whole  vineyards,  and  gardens  of  cucum- 
bers."— BURDER. 

Ver.  9.  Except  the  Lord  of  hosts  had  left  unto 
us  a  very  small  remnant,  we  should  have  been 
as  Sodom,  and  we  should  have  been  like  unto 
Gomorrah. 

See  on  Job  4.  9. 

Ver.  18.  Though  your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall 
be  as  white  as  snow  ;  though  they  be  red  like 
crimson,  they  shall  be  as  wool. 

This,  by  many,  is  believed  to  refer  to  the  strength  ofcthe 
colour,  and  to  the  difficulty  of  discharging  it :  and  though  I 
do  not  presume  to  contradict  that  opinion,  it  may  perhaps 
be  suggested  to  have  an  additional  meaning.  Dr.  Adam 
Clarke  says,  "  Some  copies  have  (tD^jars)  ke-shanim,  like 
crimson  garments." 

The  iniquities  of  Israel  had  become  very  great.  In  the 
10th  verse  the  rulers  are  addressed  as  if  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah  ;  and  in  the  21st,  it  is  said  the  faithful  city  had 
become  a  harlot.  In  the  29th,  "  They  shall  be  ashamed 
of  the  oaks  which  ye  have  desired,  and  ye  shall  be  con- 
founded for  the  gardens  that  ye  have  chosen."  Is  it  not 
certain  that  these  references  to  Sodom,  to  a  harlot,  and  the 
gardens,  allude  to  the  wickedness,  the  idolatry,  and  the 
union  which  Israel  had  formed  with  the  heathen  1  For 
what  purposes  were  the  gardens  or  groves  used,  of  which 
the  frequenters  were  to  be  ashamed  1  No  doubt,  for  the 
same  as  those  in  the  East  at  the  present  day.  The  courte- 
sans of  the  temples  receive  those  in  the  groves,  who  are 
ashamed  to  go  to  their  houses.  Those  wretched  females 
are  called  Soli-Jcillikal,  i.  e.  parrots  of  the  grove.  "  The 
wicked  youth  is  always  gathering  flowers  in  the  grove." 
"  Thou  hideous  wretch!  no  one  will  marry  thee;  thou  art 
not  fit  for  the  grove."    (See  on  chap.  Ixvi.  17.) 

Scarlet,  or  crimson,  was  the  favourite  colour  of  the  an- 
cient heathen  prostitutes.  (Jer.  iv.  30.)  "  And  when  thou 
art  spoiled,  what  wilt  thou  do  1  Though  thou  clothest  thy- 
self with  CRIMSON,  though  thou  deckest  thee  with  orna- 
57 


ments  of  gold,  thougn  thou  rentest  thy  face  with  painting, 
in  vain  shalt  thou  make  thyself  fair ;  thy  lovers  will  de- 
spise thee."  This  is  an  exact  description  of  the  dress,  and 
other  modes  of  alliirement,  used  by  a  female  of  the  same 
character,  at  this  day.  (Rev.  xvii.  4.)  "  The  woman  was 
arrayed  in  purple  and  scarlet  colour,  and  decked  with 
gold  and  precious  stones  and  pearls ;  having  a  golden  cup 
in  her  hand,  full  of  abominations  and  filthiness  of  her  for- 
nication: And  upon  her  forehead  was  a  name  written, 
Mystery,  Babylon  the  Great,  the  Mother  of  Harlots 
and  Abominations  of  the  Earth."  In  that  most  vivid 
description  of  Ezekiel  (chap,  xxii.)  of  the  idolatries  of  Sa- 
maria and  Jerusalem,  they  are  represented  as  two  harlots, 
and  there  such  disclosures  are  made  as  convey  a  most 
frightful  picture  of  the  depravity  of  the  people.  "  She  in- 
creased her  whoredoms :  for  when  she  saw  men  portray- 
ed upon  the  wall,  the  images  of  the  Chaldeans  portrayed 
with  vermilion."  Her  paramours,  also,  were  "  exceeding 
in  DIED  attire  upon  their  heads."  The  sacred  prostitutes 
of  the  temple  always  have  their  garments  of  scarlet,  crim- 
son, or  vermilion. — Roberts. 

Ver.  22.  Thy  silver  is  become  dross,  thy  wine 
mixed  with  water. 

This  is  an  image  used  for  the  adulteration  of  wine  with 
more  propriety  than  may  at  first  appear,  if  what  Thevenot 
says  of  the  peopie  of  the  Levant  of  late  times,  were  true  of 
them  formerly.  "  They  never  mingle  water  with  their 
wine  to  drink,  but  drink  by  itself  what  water  they  think 
proper  for  abating  the  strength  of  the  wine."  It  is  remark- 
able, that  whereas  the  Greeks  and  Latins,  by  mixed  wine, 
always  understood  wine  diluted  and  lowered  with  water, 
the  Hebrews,  on  the  contrary,  generally  mean  by  it,  wine 
made  stronger  and  more  inebriating,  by  the  addition  of 
higher  and  more  powerful  ingredients,  such  as  honey, 
spices,  defrutum,  (or  wine  inspissated  by  boiling  it  down 
to  two  thirds,  or  one  half  of  the  quantity,)  myrrh,  man- 
dragora,  opiates,  and  other  strong  drugs.  Such  were  the 
exhilarating,  or  rather  stupifying  ingredients,  which  Helen 
mixed  in  the  bowl,  together  with  the  wine,  for  her  guests 
oppressed  with  grief,  to  raise  their  spirits,  the  composition 
of  which  she  had  learned  in  Egypt.  Such  was  the  spiced 
wine  mentioned  Solomon's  Song  viii.  2 ;  and  how  much 
the  eastern  people,  to  this  day,  deal  in  artificial  liquors  of 
prodigious  strength,  the  use  of  wine  being  forbidden,  may 
be  seen  in  a  curious  chapter  of  Kempfer,  upon  that  subject. 
— Lowth. 

Ver.  25.  And  I  will  turn  my  hand  upon  thee, 
and  purely  purge  away  thy  dross,  and  take 
away  all  thy  tin. 

The  propriety  of  the  denunciation  will  appear  from  the 
following  circumstance :  "  Silver,  of  all  the  metals,  suf- 
fers'most  from  an  admixture  of  tin,  a  very  small  quantity 
serving  to  make  that  metal  as  brittle  as  glass ;  and,  what 
is  worse,  being  with  difficulty  separated  from  it  again.  The 
very  vapour  of  tin  has  the  same  effect  as  the  metal  itself,  on 
silver,  gold,  and  copper,  rendering  them  brittle."  (New  and 
Complete  Dictionary  of  Arts,  art.  Tin.)— Burder. 

Ver.  29.  For  they  shall  be  ashamed  of  the  oaks 
which  ye  have  desired,  and  ye  shall  be  con- 
founded for  the  gardens  that  ye  have  chosen. 

In  the  language  of  the  Hebrews,  every  place  where  plants 
and  trees  were  cultivated  with  greater  care  than  in  the  open 
field,  was  called  a  garden.  The  idea  of  such  an  enclosure 
was  certainly  borrowed  from  the  garden  of  Eden,  which 
the  bountiful  Creator  planted  for  the  reception  of  his  fa- 


450 


ISAIAH. 


Chap.  1—3. 


vourite  creature.  The  garden  of  Hesperides,  in  eastern 
fables,  was  protected  by  an  enormous  serpent;  and  the 
gardens  of  Adonis,  among  the  Greeks,  may  be  traced  to 
the  same  origin  ;  for  the  terms  "  horti  Adonides,"  the  gar- 
dens of  Adonis,  were  used  by  the  ancients  to  signify  gar- 
dens of  pleasure,  which  corresponds  with  the  name  of 
Paradise,  or  the  garden  of  Eden,  as  horti  Adonis  answers 
to  the  garden  of  the  Lord.  Besides,  the  gardens  of  primi- 
tive nations  were  commonly,  if  not  in  every  instance,  de- 
voted to  religious  purposes.  In  these  shady  retreats  were 
celebrated,  for  a  long  succession  of  ages,  the  rites  of  pagan 
superstition.  Thus,  Jehovah  calls  the  apostate  Jews,  ''  a 
|(eople  that  provoked  me  continually  to  anger  to  my  face, 
that  sacrificeth  in  gardens."  And  in  a  preceding  chapter, 
the  prophet  threatens  them  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  :  "  They 
shall  be  ashamed  of  the  oaks  which  ye  have  desired,  and 
ye  shall  be  confounded  for  the  gardens  which  ye  have 
chosen."  The  inspired  writer  not  only  mentions  these  gar- 
dens, but  also  makes  a  clear  allusion  to  the  tree  of  life,  or 
rather  of  knowledge,  both  of  which  were  placed  in  the 
midst  of  Paradise. — Paxton. 

Ver.  30.  For  ye  shall  be  as  an  oak  whose  leaf 
fadeth,  and  as  a  garden  that  hath  no  water. 

See  on  Ps.  \.  3. 

In  the  hotter  parts  of  the  eastern  countries,  a  constant 
supply  of  water  is  so  absolutely  necessary  for  the  cultiva- 
tion, and  even  for  the  preservation  and  existence  of  a  gar- 
den, that  should  it  want  water  but  for  a  few  days,  every 
thing  in  it  would  be  burnt  up  with  the  heat,  and  totally  de- 
stroyed. There  is  ther.efore  no  garden  whatever  in  those 
countries,  but  what  has  such  a  certain  supply,  either  from 
some  neighbouring  river,  or  from  a  reservoir  of  water 
collected  from  springs,  or  filled  with  rain-water  in  the  pro- 
per season,  in  sufficient  quantity  to  afford  ample  provision 
for  the  rest  of  the  year. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  n. 

Ver.  4.  Ana  he  shall  judge  among  the  nations, 
and  shall  rebuke  many  people;  and  they  shall 
beat  their  swords  into  ploughshares,  and  their 
spears  into  pruning-hooks :  nation  shall  not  lift 
up  sword  against  nation,  neither  shall  ihey 
learn  war  any  more. 

See  on  Joel  3.  10. 

Ver.  8.  Their  land  also  is  full  of  idols  ;  they  wor- 
ship the  w^ork  of  their  own  hands,  that  which 
their  own  fingers  have  made. 

This  is  a  true  and  literal  description  of  India:  the  travel- 
ler cannot  proceed  a  mh^e,  through  an  inhabited  country, 
without  seeing  idols  and  vestiges  of  idolatry  in  every  direc- 
tion. See  their  vessels,  their  implements  of  husbandry, 
their  houses,  their  furniture,  their  ornaments,  their  sacred 
trees,  their  domestic  and  public  temples  ;  and  they  all  de- 
clare that  the  land  is  full  of  idols. — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  And  upon  all  the  cedars  of  Lebanon, 
that  are  high  and  lifted  up,  and  upon  all  the 
oaks  of  Bashan. 

See  on  Deut.  3.  25. 

Ver.  20.  In  that  day  a  man  shall  cast  his  idols  of 
silver,  and  his  idols  of  gold,  which  they  made 
each  one  for  himself  to  worship,  to  the  moles, 
and  to  the  bats. 

This,  no  doubt,  refers  to  the  total  destruction  of  idolatry. 
"  To  the  bats,"  (  Vivals^)  those  of  the  smaller  species ;  as  the 
larger  are  eaten  by  the  Hindoos,  and  were  also  used  as  an 
article  of  food  by  the  Assyrians.  The  East  maybe  termed 
the  country  of  bats;  they  hang  by  hundreds  and  thousands 
\n  caves,  ruins,  and  under  the  roofs  of  large  buildings.  To 
enter  such  places,  especially  afier  rain,  is  most  offensive. 
I  have  lived  in  rooms  where  it  was  Sickening  to  remain,  on 
accQunt  of  the  smell  produced  by  those  creatures,  and 
Avhence  it  was  almost  impo.ssible  to  expel  them.  What 
liom  the  appearance  of  the  creature,  its  sunken  diminutive 


eye,  its  short  legs,  (with  which  it  cannot  walk,)  its  leather- 
like wings,  its  half-hairy,  oily  skin,  its  offensive  ordure  ever 
and  anon  dropping  on  the  ground,  its  time  for  food  and 
sport,  darkness,  "  when  evil  spirits  also  range  abroad," 
makes  it  one  of  the  most  disgusting  creatures  to  the  people 
of  the  East.  No  wonder,  then,  that  its  name  is  used  by  th'^ 
Hindoos  (as  by  the  prophet)  tor  an  epithet  of  contempt 
When  a  house  ceases  to  please  the  inhabitants,  on  account 
of  being  haunted,  they  say,  (and  also  do,)  give  it  to  the  bats. 
"  Alas  !  alas  !  my  wife  and  children  are  dead  ;  my  houses, 
my  buildings,  are  all  given  to  the  bats."  "  The  bats  are 
now  the  possessors  of  the  once  splendid  mar.sions  of  royal- 
ty." People  ask,  when  passing  a  tenantless  house,  "  Why 
is  this  habitation  given  to  the  bats  1"  "  Go,  miscreant,  go, 
or  I  will  give  thee  to  the  bats."  "  The  old  magician  has 
been  swearing  we  shall  all  be  given  to  the  bats."— Roberts. 
The  bat  is  a  winged  quadruped,  the  link  which  connects 
the  four-footed  animal  and  the  bird.  It  is  a  most  deformed 
and  hideous  creature,  which  uniformly  endeavours  to  shun 
the  light  of  day,  as  if  conscious  of  its  disgusting  aspect,  and 
fixes  its  abode  m  the  horrid  cavern,  or  the  ruined  habitation. 
The  great,  or  Ternat  bat,  belongs  to  the  East,  and  was  not 
altogether  unknown  to  the  ancients.  It  is  noted  for  its  cru- 
elty, voracity,  and  filthiness.  It  is  more  mischievous  tha.n 
any  other  species  of  bat;  but  it  carries  on  the  work  of  de- 
struction by  open  force,  both  during  the  night  and  day.  It 
kills  poultry  and  small  birds ;  attacks  men,  and  often  wounds 
them  in  the  face.  This  unsightly  animal,  says  Forbes, 
fixes  its  dwelling  among  owls  and  noxious  reptiles  in  the 
desolate  to"wer,  or  lonely,  unfrequented  mausoleum,  which 
it  seldom  or  never  leaves,  except  in  the  dusk  of  evening. 
In  the  East,  where  they  grow  to  an  enormous  size,  their 
stench  is  so  intolerable  that  it  is  impossible  to  remain  many 
seconds  to  examine  the  place.  Into  the  vault  or  trench  o'f 
the  mole,  and  those  dismal  abodes  frequented  by  the  Ter- 
nat bats,  which  man  can  scarcely  endure  to  visit,  the  idola- 
ter, terrified  by  the  destructive  judgments  of  a  just  and 
righteous  God,  shall  cast  his  idols  of  silver,  and  his  idols  oi" 
gold,  which  he  made  for  himself  to  worship;  regardless  of 
their  intrinsic  value,  ashamed  of  the  trust  he  reposed  in 
them,  and  distracted  by  the  terrors  of  the  Almighty,  he 
shall  cast  them  in  desperation  and  scorn  out  of  his  sight, 
that,  freed  from  the  useless  encumbrance,  he  may  escape  for 
his  life.  "  In  that  day  a  man  shall  cast  his  idols  of  silver, 
and  his  idols  of  gold,  which  they  made  each  one  for  him- 
self to  worship,  to  the  moles,  arid  to  the  bats."  Instead  of 
building  magnificent  temples  for  their  reception,  where  no- 
thing to  offend  the  senses  is  permitted  to  enl'er ;  instead  of 
watching  over  them  with  scrupulous  care,  devoting  their 
days,  their  riches,  and  all  they  possess,  to  their  service,  in- 
stead of  adoring  them  with  insensate  prostrations  and  of- 
ferings, they  shall  cast  them  to  creatures  so  vile  or  danger- 
ous, into  places  so  dismal  and  loathsome,  as  to  preclude  the 
possibility  of  returning  to  their  idolatrous  practices.  Or  to 
cast  their  idols  to  the  moles  and  the  bats,  may  signify  the 
utter  destruction  of  these  objects  of  worship.  When  the 
Greeks  said,  ]ia'\\''  es  KopuKas,  cast  him  to  the  ravens,  the 
meaning  was,  cast  him  to  destruction :  and  this  prophecy 
may  refer  to  a  proverbial  expression  among  the  Jews  of 
similar  import. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  15.  What  mean  ye  that  ye  beat  my  people 
to  pieces,  and  grind  the  faces  of  the  poor?  saith 
the  Lord  God  of  hosts. 

"  Ah  !  my  lord,  do  not  thus  crush  my  face:  alas!  alas! 
my  nose  and  other  features  will  soon  be  rubbed  away.  Is 
my  face  to  be  made  quite  flat  with  grinding?  My  h^art  is 
squeezed,  my  heart  is  squeezed.  That  head  man  has  been 
grinding  the  faces  of  all  his  people." — Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  Moreover,  the  Lord  saith,  Because  the 
daughters  of  Zion  are  haughty,  and  walk  with 
stretched-forth  necks  and  wanton  eyes,  walking, 
and  mincing  asihcjgo,  and  making  a  tinkling 
with  their  feet. 

In  this,  and  the  next  eight  verses,  we  have  an  accurate 
description  of  the  ornaments  and  manners  of  a  Hindoo 
dancing  girl.    These  females  are  given  by  their  parents, 


Chap.  3. 


ISAIAH. 


451 


when  they  are  about  seven  years  of  age,  to  the  temples,  for 
the  purposes  of  being  taught  to  sing  the  praises  of  the  gods ; 
of  dancing  before  them,  during  some  of  their  services,  or 
when  taken  out  in  procession ;  and  to  be  given  to  the  em- 
braces of  the  priests  and  people.  Near  the  temples  and  the 
topes,  i.  e.  groves,  are  houses  built  for  their  accommodation, 
and  there  they  are  allowed  to  receive  their  paramours. 
When  they  become  too  old  for  the  duties  of  their  profession, 
their  business  is  »o  train  the  young  ones  for  their  diabolical 
services  and  pleasures. 

'•  Walk  with  stretched-forth  necks."  When  the  females 
dance,  they  stretch  forth  their  necks,  and  hold  them  awry, 
as  W  their  heads  were  about  to  fall  off  their  shoulders. 
"  Aud  wanton  eyes."  The  margin,  "  deceiving  with  their 
eyes."  As  the  votaries  glide  along,  they  roll  their  eyes, 
(which  are  painted,)  and  cast  wanton  glances  on  those 
around.  "  Walking  and  mincing ;"  margin,  "  tripping 
nicely."  Some  parts  of  the  dance  consist  of  a  tripping  or 
mincing  step,  which  they  call  tatte-tatte.  The  left  foot  is 
put  first,  and  the  inside  of  the  right  keeps  following  the 
heel  of  the  former.  "  Making  a  tinkling  with  their  feet." 
This  sound  is  made  by  the  ornaments  which  are  worn 
round  their  ankles.  The  first  is  a  large  silver  curb,  like 
that  which  is  attached  to  a  bridle;  the  second  is  of  the 
same  kind,  but  surrounded  by  a  great  number  of  small 
BELi-s  ;  the  third  resembles  a  bracelet;  and  the  fourth  is  a 
convex  hoo^,  about  two  inches  deep, — Roberts. 

Ver,  18.  In  that  day  the  Lord  will  take  away  the 
bravery  of  ^Aeir  tinkling  ornaments  about  their 
feet,  and  their  cauls,  and  their  round  tires  like 
the  moon. 

After  the  hair  is  platted  and  perfumed,  the  eastern  ladies 
proceed  to  dress  their  heads,  by  tying  above  the  lock  into 
which  they  collect  it,  a  triangular  piece  of  linen,  adorned 
with  various  figures  in  needle-work.  This,  among  persons 
of  better  fashion,  is  covered  with  a  sarmah,  as  they  call  it, 
which  is  made  in  the  same  triangular  shape,  of  thin  flexi- 
ble plates  of  gold  or  silver,  carefully  cut  through,  and  en- 
graven in  imitation  of  lace,  and  might  therefore  answer  to 
(oinncn)  kashekarnim,  the  moon-like  ornament  mentioned 
by  the  prophet  in  his  description  of  the  toilet  of  a  Jewish 
lady.  A  handkerchief  of  crape,  gauze,  silk,  or  painted 
linen,  bound  close  over  the  sarmah,  and  falling  afterward 
carelessly  upon  the  favourite  lock  of  hair,  completes  the 
head-dress  of  the  Moorish  ladies.^  The  kerchief  is  adjust- 
ed in  the  morning,  and  worn  through  the  whole  of  the  day : 
in  this  respect  it  differs  from  the  veil,  which  is  assumed  as 
often  as  they  go  abroad,  and  laid  aside  when  they  return 
home.  So  elegant  is  this  part  of  dress  in  the  esteem  of  the 
Orientals,  that  it  is  worn  by  females  of  every  age,  to  height- 
en their  personal  charms.  In  Persia,  the  prophet  Ezekiel 
informs  us,  the  kerchief  was  used  by  women  of  loose  char- 
acter, for  the  purpose  of  seduction";  for  so  we  understand 
that  passage  in  his  writings,  "  Wo  to  the  women  that  sew 
pillows  to  all  arm-holes,  and  make  kerchiefs  upon  the  head 
of  every  stature  to  hunt  souls."  The  oriental  ladies  delight- 
ed in  ornamenting  their  dress  with  devices  of  embroidery 
and  needle-M^ork ;  but  it  was  chiefly  about  the  neck  they 
displayed  their  taste  and  ingenuity.  To  such  decorations 
the  sacred  writers  often  allude,  which  clearly  shows  how 
greatly  they  were  valued,  and  how  much  they  were  used. 
Nor  were  they  confined  to  the  female  sex  ;  they  seem  to 
have  been  equally  coveted  by  the  males;  and  a  garment  of 
needle- work  was  frequently  reserved,  as  the  most  accepta- 
ble part  of  the  spoil,  for  the  stern  and  ruthless  warrior.  The 
mother  of  Sisera,  in  the  fondness  of  her  heart,  allotted  to 
her  jon  the  robe  curiously  wrought  with  vivid  colours  on 
the  neck  :  "  To  Sisera,  a  prey  of  divers  colours,  a  prey  of 
divers  colours  of  needle- work,  of  divers  colours  of  needle- 
work on  both  sides,  meet  for  the  necks  of  them  that  take  the 
spoil." — Paxton. 

"  Tinkling  ornaments,"  i.  e.  those  which  have  been  de- 
scribed. "Cauls;"  margin,  *' net-works."  The  caul  is  a 
strap,  or  girdle,  about  four  inches  long,  which  is  placed  on 
llie  top  of  the  head,  and  which  extends  to  the  brow  in  a  line 
with  the  nose.  The  one  I  have  examined  is  made  of  gold, 
and  has  many  joints ;  it  contains  forty-five  rubies,  and  nine 
pearls,  which  give  it  a  net- work  appearance. 

"  Round  tires  like  the  moon."  The  shape  of  an  orna- 
ment like  the  crescent  moou  is  a  great  favourite  in  all 


parts  of  the  East.  In  Judges  viii,  21,  it  is  said  that  Gideon 
"  took  away  the  ornamenis  that  were  on  the  camels'  necks  ••' 
but  in  the  Septuagint,  the  word  ornamenis,  is  rendered. 
like  Ike  moon;  so  also  in  the  margin  of  the  English  Bible. 
The  crescent  is  worn  by  Parvati  and  Siva,  from  whom  pro- 
ceed the  UNGAM,  and  the  principal  impurities  of  the  system. 
No  dancing  girl  is  in  full  dress  without  her  round  tires 
like  the  moon, — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  The  chains,  and  the  bracelets,  and  the 
mufflers. 

These  consist,  first,  of  one  most  beautifully  worked,  with 
a  pendent  ornament  for  the  neck;  there  is  also  a  profusiv-)n 
of  others,  which  go  round  the  same  part,  ana  rest  on  the 
bosom.  In  making  curious  chains,  the  goldsmiths  of  Eng- 
land do  not  surpass  those  of  the  East.  The  Trichinopoly 
chains  are  greatly  valued  by  the  fair  of  our  own  country. 
The  "  bracelets"  are  large  ornaments  for  the  wrists,  in 
which  are  sometimes  enclosed  small  eells.  The  mufflers 
are,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  not  for  the  face,  but  for  the 
breasts . — R  oberts. 

Ver.  20.  The  bonnets,  and  the  ornaments  of  the 
legs,  and  the  head-bands,  and  the  tablets,  and 
the  ear-rings. 

Besides  ornamental  rings  in  the  nose  and  the  ears,  they 
wore  others  round  the  legs,  which  made  a  tinkling  as  they 
went.  This  custom  has  also  descended  to  the  present 
times ;  for  Rauwolf  met  with  a  number  of  Arabian  women 
on  the  Euphrates,  whose  ankles  and  wrists  were  adorned 
with  rings,  sometimes  a  good  many  together,  which  moving 
up  and  down  as  they  walked,  made  a  great  noise.  Chardin 
attests  the  existence  of  the  same  custom  in  Persia,  in  Arabia, 
and  in  very  hot  countries,  where  they  commonly  go  without 
stockings,  but  ascribes  the  tinkling  sound  to  little  bells  fas- 
tened to  those  rings.  In  the  East  Indies,  golden  bells 
adorned  the  feet  and  ankles  of  the  ladies  from  the  earliest 
tivnes;  they  placed  them  in  the  flowing  tresses  of  their  hair ; 
they  suspenaed  them  round  their  necks,  and  to  the  goldei. 
rings  which  they  wore  on  their  fingers,  to  announce  their 
superior  rank,  and  exact  the  homage  which  they  had  a  right 
to  expect  from  the  lower  orders ;  and  from  the  banks  of  the 
Indus,  it  is  probable  the  custom  was  introduced  into  the 
other  countries  of  Asia.  The  Arabian  females  in  Paie^- 
tine  and  Syria,  delight  in  the  same  ornaments,  and,  accord- 
ing to  the  statements  of  Dr,  Clarke,  seem  to  claim  the 
honour  of  leading  the  fashion.  "  Their  bodies  are  covered 
with  a  long  blue  shift;  upon  their  heads  they  wear  two 
handkerchiefs;  one  as  a  hood,  and  the  other  bound  over  it, 
as  a  fillet  across  the  temples.  Just  above  the  right  nostril, 
they  place  a  small  button,  sometimes  studded  with  pearl,  a 
piece  of  glass,  or  any  other  glittering  substance ;  this  is  fast- 
ened by  a  plug,  thrust  through  the  cartilage  of  the  nose. 
Sometimes  they  have  the  cartilaginous  separation  between 
the  nostrils  bored  for  a  ring,  as  large  as  those  ordinarily 
used  in  Europe  for  hanging  curtains  ;  and  this  pendant  in 
the  upper  lip  covers  the  mouth ;  so  that,  in  order  to  eat,  it 
is  necessary  to  raise  it.  Their  faces,  hands,  and  arms,  are 
tattooed,  and  covered  with  hideous  scars ;  their  eyelashes 
and  eyes  being  always  painted,  or  rather  dirtied,  with  some 
dingy  black  or  blue  powder.  Their  lips  are  died  of  a  deep 
and  dusky  blue,  as  if  they  had  been  eating  blackberries. 
Their  teeth  are  jet  black;  theirnails  and  fingers  brick  red; 
their  wrists,  as  well  as  their  ankles,  are  laden  with  large 
metal  cinctures,  studded  with  sharp  pyramidical  knobs  and 
bits  of  glass.  Very  ponderous  rings  are  also  placed  in  their 
ears." — Paxton. 

Ver.  22.  The  changeable  suits  of  apparel,  and  the 
mantles,  and  the  wimples,  and  the  Crispin g- 
pins. 

The  eastern  ladies  take  great  pride  in  having  many 
changes  of  apparel,  because  their  fashions  neves  alter 
Thus,  the  rich  brocades  worn  by  their  grandmothers,  are 
equally  fashionable  for  themselves.  "  The  mantles."  A 
loose  robe,  which  is  gracefully  crossed  on  the  bosom. 
"  Wimples."  Probably  the  fine  muslin  which  is  sometimof- 
thrown  over  the  head  and  body.  "  Crisping-pins."  This 
has  been  translated,  the  "  little  pi^rses,"  or  clasps  !    Whec 


455i 


ISAIAH. 


Chap.  5. 


the  dancing  girl  is  in  full  dress,  hall  her  long  hair  is  folded 
in  a  knot  on  tne  top  of  the  head,  ani  the  other  half  hangs 
down  her  back  in  three  tails.  To  keep  these  from  unbraid- 
ing,  a  small  clasp,  or  gold  hoop,  curiously  worked,  is  placed 
at  the  end  of  each  tail. — Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  instead 
of  sweet  smell;  there  shall  be  stink  ;  and  instead 
of  a  g'irdle,  a  rent ;  and  instead  of  well-set  hair, 
baldness ;  and  instead  of  a  stomacher,  a  girding 
of  sackcloth ;  and  burning  instead  of  beauty. 

"  Sweet  smell."  No  one  ever  enters  a  company  without 
being  well  perfumed;  and  in  addition  to  various  scents  and 
oils,  they  are  adorned  with  numerous  garlands,  made  of  the 
most  odoriferous  flowers.  "  A  girdle."  Probably  that  which 
goes  round  the  waist,  which  serves  to  keep  the  garments  from 
falling,  while  the  girls  are  dancing.  It  is  sometimes  made 
of  silver.  "  Well-set  hair,"  No  ladies  pay  more  attention 
to  the  dressing  of  the  hair  than  do  these ;  for  as  they  never 
wear  caps,  they  take  great  delight  in  this,  their  natural  or- 
nament. "  Baldness,"  in  a  woman,  makes  her  most  con- 
temptible ;  and  formerly,  to  shave  their  head  was  a  most 
degrading  punishment.  "  Stomacher."  I  once  saw  a  dress 
beautifully  plaited  and  stiffened  for  the  front,  but  I  do  not 
think  it  common.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  strong  proof  of 
the  accurate  observations  of  Isaiah  in  reference  to  the 
Jewish  ladies ;  he  had  seen  their  motions,  and  enumerated 
their  ornaments ;  and  here  we  have  a  most  melancholy 
nicture  of  the  fallen  state  of  "  the  daughters  of  Zion." — 
Roberts. 

The  persons  of  the  Assyrian  ladies  are  elegantly  clothed 
and  scented  with  the  richest  oils  and  perfumes;  and  it  ap- 
pears from  the  sacred  scriptures,  that  the  Jewish  females 
did  not  yield  to  them  in  the  elegance  of  their  dress,  the 
bfeauty  of  their  ornaments,  and  the  fragrance  of  their 
essences.  So  pleasing  to  the  Redeemer  is  the  exercise  of 
divine  grace  in  the  heart  and  conduct  of  a  true  believer : 
"  How  much  better  is  thy  love  ;han  wine,  and  the  smell  of 
thine  ointments  than  all  spices  ?  The  smell  of  thy  garments 
is  like  the  smell  of  Lebanon."  When  a  queen  was  to  be 
chosen  by  the  king  of  Persia  instead  of  Vashti,  the  virgins 
collected  at  Susana,  the  capital,  underwent  a  purification  of 
twelve  months'  duration,  to  wit,  "  six  months  with  oil  of 
myrrh,  and  six  months  with  sweet  odours."  The  general 
use  of  such  precious  oils  and  fragrant  perfumes  among  the 
ancient  Romans,  particularly  among  ladies  of  rank  and 
fashion,  may  be  inferred  from  these  words  of  Virgil : — 

"  Ambrosiseque  comae  divinum  vertice  odorem 

Spiravere :  pedes  vestis  fluxit  ad  imos."— ^w.  lib.  i.  1.  403. 

*'  From  her  head  the  ambrosial  locks  breathed  divine  fra- 
grance ;  her  robe  hung  waving  down  to  the  ground."  In 
the  remote  age  of  Homer,  the  Greeks  had  already  learnt 
the  lavish  use  of  such  perfumes ;  for,  in  describing  Juno's 
dress,  he  represents  her  pouring  ambrosia  and  other  per- 
fumes all  over  her  body.  Hence,  to  an  eastern  lady,  no 
punishment  could  be  more  severe,  none  more  mortifying 
to  her  delicacy,  than  a  diseased  and  loathsome  habit  of 
body,  instead  of  a  beautiful  skin,  softened  and  made  agree- 
able with  all  that  art  could  devise,  and  all  that  nature,  so 
prodigal  in  those  countries  of  rich  perfumes,  could  supply. 
Such  was  the  punishment  which  God  threatened  to  send 
upon  the  haughty  daughters  of  Zion,  in  the  days  of  Isaiah  : 
"  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  instead  of  perfume  there 
shall  be  ill  savour;  and  instead  of  a  girdle,  a  rent;  and  in- 
stead of  well-set  hair,  baldness;  and  instead  of  a  stomacher, 
a  girding  of  sackcloth;  and  a  sun-burnt  skin  instead  of 
beauty." 

The  description  which  Pietro  della  Valle  gives  of  his 
own  wife,  an  Assyrian  lady,  born  in  Mesopotamia,  and 
educated  at  Bagdad,  whom  he  married  in  that  country,  will 
enable  the  reader  to  form  a  pretty  distinct  idea  of  the  ap- 
pearance and  ornaments  of  an  oriental  lady  in  full  dress. 
"  Her  eyelashes,  which  are  long,  and  according  to  the 
custom  of  the  East,  dressed  with  stibulum,  (as  we  often 
read  in  the  holy  scriptures  of  the  Hebrew  women  of  old, 
and  in  Xenophon  of  Astyages,  the  grandfather  of  Cyrus, 
and  the  Medes  of  that  line,)  give  a  dark,  and,  at':  the  same 
time,  a  majestic  shade  to  the  eyes.  The  ornaments  of 
gold  and  of  jewels  for  the  head,  for  the  neck,  for  the  arms, 
for  the  legs,  and  for  the  feet,  (for  they  wear  rings  even  on 


their  toes,)  are,  indeed,  unlike  those  of  the  Turks,  carried  to 
great  excess,  but  not  of  great  value  :  for  in  Bagdad,  jewels 
of  high  price  either  are  not  to  be  had,  or  are  not  used ;  and 
they  wear  such  only  as  are  of  little  value,  as  turquoises, 
small  rubies,  emeralds,  carbuncles,  garnets,  pearls,  and  the 
like.  My  spouse  dresses  herself  with  all  of  them,  according 
to  their  fashion  ;  with  exception,  however,  of  certain  ugly 
rings,  of  very  large  size,  set  with  jewels,  which,  in  truth 
very  absurdly,  it  is  the  custom  to  wear  fastened  to  one  ot 
their  nostrils,  like  buffaloes ;  an  ancient  custom,  however, 
in  the  East,  which,  as  we  find  in  the  holy  scriptures,  pre- 
vailed among  the  Hebrew  ladies,  even  in  the  time  of  Sol- 
omon. These  nose-rings,  in  compliance  to  me,  she  has  left 
off;  but  I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  prevail  with  her  cousin, 
and  her  sisters,  to  do  the  same;  so  fond  are  they  of  an  old 
custom,  be  it  ever  so  absurd,  who  have  been  long  habituated 
to  it." — Paxton, 

Ver.  26.  And  her  gates  shall  lament  and  mourn : 
and  she^  being  desolate,  shall  sit  upon  the 
ground. 

Sitting  on  the  ground  was  a  posture  that  denoted  mourn- 
ing and  deep  distress.  Lam.  ii.  10.  "  We  find  Judea  on 
several  coins  of  Vespasian  and  Titus  in  a  posture  that 
denotes  sorrow  and  captivity — sitting  on  the  ground.  The 
Romans  might  have  an  eye  on  the  customs  of  the  Jewish 
nation,  as  well  as  those  of  their  own  country,  in  the  several 
marks  of  sorrow  they  have  set  on  this  figure.  The  Psalm- 
ist describes  the  Jews  lamenting  their  captivit}^  in  the  same 
pensive  posture  :  '  By  the  waters  of  Babylon  we  sat  down, 
and  wept  when  we  remembered  thee,  O  Zion.'  But  what 
is  more  remarkable,  we  find  Judea  represented  as  a  woman 
in  sorrow  sitting  on  the  ground,  in  a  passage  of  the  prophet 
that  foretels  the  very  captivity  recorded  on  this  medal." 
(Addison.) — Bijrder. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  1.  Now  will  I  sing  to  my  well-beloved  a 
song  of  my  beloved  touching  his  vineyard.  My 
well-beloved  hath  a  vineyard  in  a  very  fruitful 
hill :  2.  And  he  fenced  it,  and  gathered  out  the 
stones  thereof,  and  planted  it  with  the  choicest 
vine,  and  built  a  tower  in  the  midst  of  it,  and 
also  made  a  wine-press  therein  :  and  he  looked 
that  it  should  bring  forth  grapes,  and  it  brought 
forth  wild  grapes. 

The  wine-press,  constructed  for  expressing  the  juice  of 
the  grapes,  does  not  seem  to  be  a  moveable  implement  in 
the  East;  and  our  Lord,  in  the  parable  of  the  vineyard, 
says  expressly,  that  it  was  formed  by  digging.  Chardin 
found  the  wirie-press  in  Persia  was  made  after  the  same 
manner;  as  it  was  a  hollow  place  dug  in  the  ground,  and 
lined  with  mason-work.  Besides  this,  they  had  what  the 
Romans  called  locus,  the  lake,  a  large  open  place  or  vessel, 
which,  by  a  conduit  or  spout,  received  the  must  from  the 
wine-press.  In  very  hot  countries  it  was  perhaps  necessary, 
or  at  least  convenient,  to  have  the  lake  under  ground,  or  in 
a  cave  hewed  out  of  the  rock  for  coolness,  that  the  heat 
might  not  cause  too  great  a  fermentation,  and  sour  the 
must.  To  these  circumstances  the  prophet  Isaiah  dis- 
tinctly refers,  in  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  chapter:  "My 
well-beloved  has  a  vineyard  in  a  very  fruitful  hill :  and  he 
fenced  it,  and  gathered  out  the  stones  thereof,  and  planted 
it  with  the  choicest  vine,  and  built  a  tower  in  the  midst  of 
it,  and  also  made  a  wine-press  therein :  and  he  looked  that 
it  should  bring  forth  grapes,  and  it  brought  forth  wild 
grapes,"  The  tower  which  the  prophet  mentions,  and 
which  our  Lord  also  introduces  into  one  of  his  parables,  is 
generally  explained  by  commentators,  as  designed  for  the 
keepers  of  the  vineyard  to  watch  and  defend  the  fruits.  But 
for  this  purpose  it  was  usual  to  make  a  little  temporary  hut, 
called  in  the  first  chapter,  not  a  tower,  but  a  cottage,  which 
might  answer  for  the  short  season  while  the  grapes  were 
ripening,  and  was  afterward  removed.  The  tower,  there- 
fore, according  to  Lowth,  means  a  building  of  a  more  per- 
manent nature  and  use ;  the  farm  of  the  vineyard,  as  we 
may  call  it,  containing  all  the  offices  and  implements,  and 
the  whole  apparatus  necessary  for  cultivating  the  vineyard 


Chap.  6. 


ISAIAH. 


453 


and  making  the  wine.  To  this  image  m  the  allegory,  the 
situation,  the  manner  of  building,  the  use,  and  the  whole 
service  of  the  temple,  exactly  answered.  They  have  still 
such  towers  for  pleasure  or  use,  in  their  gardens,  in  the 
oriental  regions ;  for  Marcus  Sanutus,  as  quoted  by  Har- 
mer,  informs  us,  that  in  the  thirteenth  century  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Ptolemais  beat  down  the  towers  of  their  gardens  to 
the  ground,  and  removed  the  stones  of  them,  together  with 
those  of  their  burying-places,  on  the  approach  of  the  Tar- 
tars. The  gardens  of  Damascus  are  furnished  with  the 
same  kind  of  edifices.  In  most  of  the  gardens  near  Aleppo, 
summer-houses  are  built  for  the  reception  of  the  public.  In 
others,  at  a  greater  distance,  are  tolerable  commodious  vil- 
las, to  which  the  Franks  resort  in  the  spring,  as  the  natives 
do  in  the  summer.  "  To  a  tower,  or  building  of  this  kind, 
it  is  to  be  supposed,"  says  Russel,  "  our  Lord  refers  in  the 
parable  ;  for  it  is  scarcely  to  be  imagined  that  he  is  speak- 
ing of  the  slight  and  unexpensive  buildings  in  a  vineyard, 
which,  indeed,  are  sometimes  so  slight  as  to  consist  only  of 
four  poles,  with  a  floor  on  the  top  of  them,  to  which  they 
ascend  by  a  ladder :  but  rather  of  those  elegant  turrets 
erected  in  gardens,  where  the  eastern  people  of  fortune 
spend  some  considerable  part  of  their  lime."  But  this  ex- 
cellent writer  expressly  admits  that  in  all  the  orchards  near 
Aleppo,  a  small  square  watch-house  is  built  for  the  accom- 
modation of  the  watchmen  in  the  fruit  season,  or,  in  their 
stead,  temporary  bowers  are  constructed  of  wood,  and 
thatched  with  green  reeds  and  branches.  Small  and  de- 
tached square  towers  for  the  accommodation  of  the  watch- 
men appointed  to  guard  the  vineyards,  are  still  to  be  met 
with  in  Judea.  It  is  more  probably  to  the  substantial 
Avatch-tower  that  the  Saviour  alludes,  than  either  to  the 
offices  of  the  vineyard,  or  the  commodious  summer-house. 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  2.  And  built  a  tower  in  the  midst  of  it,  and 
made  a  wine-press  therein. 

See  on  2  Kings  4.  39. 

Lowth,  "  And  he  hewed  out  also  a  lake  therein."  By 
this  expression  we  are  to  understand,  not  the  wine-press 
itself,  but  what  t^e  Romans  called  lacus,  the  lake,  the  large 
open  place,  or  vessel,  which  by  a  conduit  or  spout  received 
the  must  from  the  wine-press.  In  very  hot  countries  it 
was  perhaps  necessary,  or  at  least  very  convenient,  to  have 
the  lake  under  ground,  or  in  a  cave  hewn  out  of  the  side  of 
a  rock,  for  coolness,  that  the  heat  might  not  cause  too  great 
a  fermentation,  and  sour  the  wine.  The  wine-presses  in 
Persia,  Chardin  says,  are  formed  by  making  hollow  places 
in  the  ground,  lined  with  mason's  work. — Burder. 

Ver.  11.  Wo  unto  them  that  rise  up  early  in  the 
morning,  that  they  may  follow  strong  drink ; 
that  continue  until  night,  till  wine  inflame 
them ! 

The  Persians,  when  they  commit  a  debauch,  arise  be- 
times, and  esteem  the  morning  a5  the  best  time  for  begin- 
ning to  drink  wine,  by  which  means  they  carry  on  their 
excess  till  night. — Morier. 

Ver.  18.  Wo  unto  them  that  draw  iniquity  with 
cords  of  vanity,  and  sin  as  it  were  with  a  cart- 
rope! 

See  on  Isa.  66.  20. 

Ver.  26.  And  he  will  lift  up  an  ensign  to  the  na- 
tions from  far,  and  will  hiss  unto  them  from  the 
end  of  the  earth :  and,  behold,  they  shall  come 
with  speed  swiftly. 

The  metaphor  is  taken  from  the  practice  of  those  that 
keep  bees,  who  draw  them  out  of  their  hives  into  the  fields, 
and  lead  them  back  again,  by  a  hiss  or  a  whistle. — Lowth. 

Ver.  28.  Whose  arrows  are  sharp,  and  all  their 
bows  bent,  their  horses'  hoofs  shall  be  counted 
like  flint,  and  their  wheels  like  whirlwind. 

The  shoeing  of  horses  with  iron  plates  nailed  to  the 


hoof,  is  quite  a  modern  practice,  and  was  unknown  to  the 
ancients,  as  appears  from  the  silence  of  the  Greek  and  Ro- 
man writers,  especially  those  that  treat  of  horse-medicine, 
who  could  not  have  passed  over  a  matter  so  obvious,  and  of 
such  importance,  that  now  the  whole  science  takes  its  name 
from  it,  being  called  by  us  farriery.  The  horse-shoes  of 
leather  and  of  iron,  which  are  mentioned  ;  the  silver  and 
the  gold  shoes,  with  which  Nero  and  Poppea  shod  their 
mules,  used  occasionally  to  preserve  the  hoofs  of  delicate 
cattle,  or  for  vanity,  were  of  a  very  different  kind  ;  they  en- 
closed the  whole  hoof,  as  in  a  case,  or  as  a  shoe  does  a  man's 
foot,  and  were  bound,  or  tied  on.  For  this  reason  the 
strength,  firmness,  and  solidity  ofa  horse's  hoof,  wasofmuch 
greater  importance  with  them  than  with  us,  and  was  es- 
teemed one  of  the  first  praises  of  a  fine  horse.  For  want  of 
this  artificial  defence  to  the  foot,  which  our  horses  have, 
Amos,  vi.  12,  speaks  of  it  as  a  thing  as  much  impracticable 
to  make  horses  run  upon  a  hard  rock,  as  to  plough  up  the 
.same  rock  with  oxen.  These  circumstances  must  be  taken 
into  consideration,  in  order  to  give  us  a  full  notion  of  the 
propriety  and  force  of  the  image  by  which  the  prophet  sets 
forth  the  strength  and  excellence  of  the  Babylonish  cavalry, 
which  made  a  great  part  of  the  strength  of  the  Assyrian 
army. — Lowth. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.   11.  Then  said  I,  Lord,  how  long?     And 
he  answered.  Until  the  cities  be  wasted  without 
inhabitant,  and  the  houses  without  man,  and 
the  land  be  utterly  desolate. 

A  public  edict  of  the  Emperor  Adrian  rendered  it  a  capi- 
tal crime  for  a  Jew  to  set  a  foot  in  Jerusalem,  and  prohib- 
ited them  from  viewing  it  even  at  a  distance.  Heathens. 
Christians,  and  Mohammedans,  have  alternately  possessed 
Judea  ;  it  has  been  the  prey  of  the  Saracens ;  the  descend- 
ants of  Ishmael  have  often  overrun  it ;  the  children  of  Israel 
have  alone  been  denied  the  possession  of  it,  though  thither 
they  ever  wish  to  return ;  and  though  it  forms  the  only  spot 
on  earth  where  the  ordinances  of  their  religion  can  be  ob- 
served. And,  amid  all  the  revolutions  of  states,  and  the 
extinction  of  many  nations,  in  so  long  a  period,  the  Jews 
alone  have  not  only  ever  been  aliens  in  the  land  of  their 
fathers,  but  whenever  any  of  them  have  been  permitted,  at 
any  period  since  the  time  of  their  dispersion,  to  sojourn 
there,  they  have  experienced  even  more  contumelious  treat- 
ment than  elsewhere.  Benjamin  of  Tudela,  who  travelled 
in  the  twelfth  century  through  great  part  of  Europe  and  of 
Asia,  found  the  Jews  everywhere  oppressed,  particularly  in 
the  Holy  Land.  And  to  this  day  (while  the  Jews  who  reside 
in  Palestine,  or  who  resort  thither  in  old  age,  that  their  bones 
may  not  be  laid  in  a  foreign  land,  are  alike  ill-treated  and 
abused  by  Greeks,  Armenians,  and  Europeans)  the  haughty 
deportment  of  the  despotic  Turkish  soldier,  and  the  abject 
state  of  the  poor  and  helpless  Jews,  are  painted  to  the  life 
by  the  prophet, — Keith. 

Ver.  13.  But  yet  in  it  shall  be  a  tenth,  and  27  shall 
return,  and  shall  be  eaten :  as  a  teil-tree,  and 
as  an  oak,  whose  substance  is  in  them  when 
they  cast  their  leaves,  so  the  holy  seed  shall  he 
the  substance  thereof 

Though  the  cities  be  waste,  and  the  land  be  desolate,  it  is 
not  from  the  poverty  of  the  soil  that  the  fieks  are  abandoned 
by  the  plough,  nor  from  any  diminution  of  its  ancient  and 
natural  fertility,  that  the  land  has  rested  for  so  many  gene- 
rations. Judea  was  not  forced  only  by  artificial  means,  or 
from  local  and  temporary  causes,  into  a  luxuriant  cultiva- 
tion, such  as  a  barren  country  might  have  been,  concerning 
which  it  would  not  have  needed  a  prophet  to  tell,  that  if 
once  devastated  and  abandoned  it  would  ultimately  and  per- 
manently revert  into  its  original  sterility.  Phenicia  at  all 
times  held  a  far  different  rank  among  the  richest  countries 
of  the  world:  and  it  was  not  a  bleak  and  steril  portion  of 
the  earth,  nor  a  land  which  even  many  ages  of  desolation 
and  neglect  could empoverish,  that  God  gave  in  possession 
and  by  covenant  to  the  seed  of  Abraham.  No  longer  cul- 
tivated as  a  garden,  but  left  like  a  wilderness,  Judea  is 
indeed  greatly  changed  from  what  it  was  ;  all  that  human 
ingenuity  and  labour  did  devise,  erect,  or  cultivate,  men 


454 


ISAIAH 


Chap.  7,  8. 


have  laid  waste  and  desolate ;  all  the  "  plenteous  goods" 
with  which  it  was  enriched,  adorned,  and  blessed,  have 
fallen  like  seared  and  withered  leaves,  when  their  green- 
ness is  gone  ;  and,  stripped  of  its  "ancient  splendour,"  it  is 
left  as  an  oak  whose  leaffadeth  : — but  its  inherent  sources  of 
fertility  are  not  dried  up;  the  natural  richness  of  the  soil  is 
unblighted:  t/ie  substance  is  in  it,  strong  as  that  of  the  teil- 
tree  or  the  solid  oak,  which  retain  their  substance  when 
jey  cast  their  leaves.  And  as  the  leafless  oak  waits  through- 
out winter  for  the  genial  warmth  of  returning  spring,  to  be 
clothed  with  renewed  foliage,  so  the  once  glorious  land  of 
Judea  is  yet  full  of  latent  vigour,  or  of  vegetative  power 
strong  as  ever,  ready  to  shoot  forth,  even  "  belter  than  at  the 
beginning,"  whenever  the  sun  of  heaven  shall  shine  on  it 
again,  and  the  "  holy  seed"  be  prepared  for  being  finally 
'■  the  substance  thereof"  The  svbstance  that  is  in  it — which 
alone  has  here  to  be  proved — is,  in  few  words,  thus  de- 
scribed by  an  enemy  :  "  The  land  in  the  plains  is  fat  and 
loamy,  and  exhibits  every  sign  of  the  greatest  fecundity. 
Were  nature  assisted  by  art,  the  fruits  of  the  most  distant 
countries  might  be  produced  within  the  distance  of  twenty 
leagues."  "  Galilee,"  says  Malte  Brun,  "  would  be  a  para- 
dise, were  it  inhabited  by  an  industrious  people,  under  an 
enlightened  government.  Vine  stocks  are  to  be  seen  here 
a  foot  and  a  half  in  diameter." — Keith. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  18.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  that  day, 
that  the  Lord  shall  hiss  for  the  fly  that  is  in 
the  uttermost  part  of  the  rivers  of  Egypt,  and 
for  the  bee  that  is  in  the  land  of  Assyria. 

Some  writers  have  contended  that  bees  are  destitute  of 
the  sense  of  hearing ;  but  their  opinion  is  entirely  without 
foundation.  This  will  appear,  if  any  proof  were  necessary, 
from  the  following  prediction:  "  And  it  shall  come  to  pass 
in  that  day,  that  the  Lord  shall  hiss  for  the  fly  that  is  in  the 
uttermost  part  of  the  rivers  of  Egypt ;  and  for  the  bee  that 
is  in  the  landof  Assyria."  The  allusion  which  this  text  in- 
volves, is  the  practice  of  calling  out  the  bees  from  their 
hives,  by  a  hissing,  or  whistling  sound,  to  their  labour  in 
the  fields,  and  summoning  them  again  to  return,  when  the 
heavens  begin  to  lower,  or  the  shadows  of  evening  to  fall. 
In  this  manner,  Jehovah  threatens  to  rouse  the  enemies  of 
Judah,  and  lead  them  to  the  prey.  However  widely  scat- 
tered, or  far  remote  from  the  scene  of  action,  they  should 
hear  his  voice,  and  with  as  much  promptitude  as  the  bee, 
that  has  been  taught  to  recognise  the  signal  of  its  owner, 
and  obey  his  call,  they  should  assemble  their  forces ;  and 
although  weak  and  insignificant  as  a  swarm  of  bees  in  the 
estimation  of  a  proud  and  infatuated  people,  they  should 
come,  with  irresistible  might,  and  take  possession  of  the  rich 
and  beautiful  region  which  had  been  abandoned  by  its  ter- 
rified inhabitants. — Paxton. 

This  insect  is  called  Zimb ;  it  has  not  been  described  by 
any  naturalist.  It  is,  in  size,  very  little  larger  than  a  bee, 
of  a  thicker  proportion,  and  his  wings,  which  are  broader 
than  those  of  a  bee,  placed  separate,  like  those  of  a  fly :  they 
are  of  pure  gauze,  without  colour  or  spot  upon  them ;  the 
head  is  large,  the  upper  jaw  or  lip  is  sharp,  and  has  at  the 
end  of  it  a  strong  pointed  hair,  of  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch 
long;  the  lower  jaw  has  two  of  these  pointed  hairs;  and 
this  pencil  of  hairs,  when  joined  together,  makes  a  resist- 
ance to  the  finger,  nearly  equal  to  that  of  a  strong  hog's 
bristle  ;  its  legs  are  serrated  in  the  inside,  and  the  whole 
covered  with  brown  hair  or  down.  As  soon  as  this  plague 
appears,  and  their  buzzing  is  heard,  all  the  cattle  forsake 
their  food,  and  run  wildly  about  the  plain,  till  they  die, 
worn  out  with  fatigue,  fright,  and  hunger.  No  remedy  re- 
mains, but  to  leave  the  black  earth,  and  hasten  down  to  the 
sands  of  Atbara;  and  there  they  remain,  while  the  rains 
last,  this  cruel  enemy  never  daring  to  pursue  them  farther. 
Though  his  size  be  immense,  as  is  his  strength,  and  his 
body  covered  with  a  thick  skin,  defended  with  strong  hair, 
yet,"  even  the  camel. is  not  capable  to  sustain  the  violent 
punctures  the  fly  makes  with  his  pointed  proboscis.  He 
must  lose  no  time  in  removing  to  the  sands  of  Atbara;  for, 
when  once  attacked  by  this  fly,  his  body,  head,  and  legs, 
break  out  into  large  bosses,  which  swell,  break,  and  putre- 
fv,  to  the  certain  destruction  of  the  creature.  Even  the  el- 
ephant and  rhinoceros,  who,  by  reason  of  their  enormous 
bulk,  and  the  vast  quantity  of  food  and  water  they  daily 


need,  cannot  shift  to  desert  and  dry  places,  as  the  season 
may  require,  are  obliged  to  roll  themselves  in  mud  and 
mire,  which,  when  dry,  coats  them  over  like  armour,  and 
enables  them  to  stand  their  ground  against  this  winged  as- 
sassin: yet  I  have  found  some  of  these  tubercles  upon  al- 
most every  elephant  and  rhinoceros  that  I  have  seen,  and 
attribute  them  to  this  cause.  All  the  inhabitants  of  the  sea- 
coast  of  Melinda,  down  to  CapeGardefan,  to  Saba,  and  the 
south  coast  of  the  Red  Sea,  are  obliged  to  put  themselves  in 
motion^  and  remove  to  the  next  sand,  in  the  beginning  of 
the  rainy  season,  to  prevent  all  their  stock  of  cattle  from 
being  destroyed.  This  is  not  a  partial  emigration ;  the  in- 
habitants of  all  the  countries,  from  the  mountains  of  Abys- 
sinia northward,  to  the  confluence  of  the  Nile,  and  Astabo- 
ras,  are  once  a-year  obliged  to  change  their  abode,  and  seek 
protection  on  the  sands  of  Beja  ;  nor  is  there  any  alterna- 
tive, or  means  of  avoiding  this,  though  a  hostile.band  were 
in  their  way,  capable  of  spoiling  them  of  half  their  sub- 
stance. This  fly  has  no  sling,  though  he  seems  to  me  to  be 
rather  of  the  bee  kind;  but  his  motion  is  more  rapid  and 
sudden  than  that  of  the  bee,  and  resembles  that  of  the  gad- 
fly in  England.  There  is  something  particular  in  the  sound 
or  buzzing  of  this  insect ;  it  is  a  jarring  noise,  together  with 
a  humming,  which  induces  me  to  believe  it  proceeds,  at 
least  in  part,  from  a  vibration  made  with  the  three  hairs  at 
his  snout.    (Bruce.) — Burder. 

Ver.  20.  In  the  same  day  shall  the  Lord  shave 
with  a  razor  that  is  hired,  najnehj,  by  them 
beyond  the  river,  by  the  king  of  Assyria,  the 
head,  and  the  hair  of  the  feet :  and  it  shall  also 
consume  the  beard. 

By  reading  what  is  written  on  2  Kings  ii.  23,  a  better 
view  will  be  gained  of  the  contempt  attached  to  those  who 
were  bald,  and  of  the  term,  as  being  expressive  of  the  most 
complete  weakness  and  destitution.  To  tell  a  man  you  will 
SHAVE  him,  is  as  much  as  to  say  you  will  ruin  him — entirel) 
overthroAV  him.  "  Our  king  has  shaved  all  his  enemies," 
means,  he  has  punished  ihem ;  reduced  them  to  the  most 
abject  condition  ;  so  that  they  have  not  a/ing;le  vestige  of 
power  in  their  possession.  "  What,  fellow  !  didst  thou  say 
thou  wouldst  SHAVE  me '?"  "  I  will  give  thy  bones  to  the 
crows  and  the  jackals.  Begone,  bald-head,  get  out  of  my 
way."  The  punishment  to  be  inflicted  on  the  Jews  was 
very  great :  tney  were  to  be  shaved  on  the  head,  the  beard, 
and  "  the  hair  of  the  feet."  The  latter  expression  alludes 
to  a  most  disgusting  practice,  common  in  all  parts  of  the 
East.  Calmet  says,  "  The  Hebrews  modestly  express  by 
feet  those  parts  which  decency  forbids  to  name :  '  the 
water  of  the  feet;'  '  to  cover  the  feet ;'  'the  hair  of  the  feel.'" 
Thus  the  Lord  was  about  to  shave  the  Jews  by  a  razor 
which  they  themselves  had  hired  ! — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  6.  Forasmuch  as  this  people  refuseth  fhe 
waters  of  Shiloah  that  go  softly,  and  rejoice  in 
Rezin  and  Remaliah's  son  ;  7.  Now  therefore, 
behold,  the  Lord  bringeth  up  upon  them  the 
waters  of  the  river,  strong  and  many,  even  the 
king  of  Assyria,  and  all  his  glory :  and  he  shall 
come  up  over  all  his  channels,  and  go  over  all 
his  banks. 

The  gentle  waters  of  Shiloah,  a  small  fountain  and  brook 
just  without  Jerusalem,  which  supplied  a  pool  within  the 
city  for  the  use  of  the  inhabitants,  are  an  apt  emblem  of  the 
state  of  the  kingdom  and  house  of  David,  much  reduced  in 
its  apparent  strength,  yet  supported  by  the  blessing  of  God  ; 
and  are  finely  contrasted  with  the  waters  of  the  Euphrates, 
great, rapid,  and  impetuous;  the  image  of  the  Babylonian 
empire,  which  God  threatens  to  bring  down  like  a  mighty 
flood  upon  all  these  apostates  of  both  kingdoms,  as  a  pun- 
ishment for  their  manifold  iniquities. — Burder. 

Ver.  14.  And  he  shall  be  for  a  sanctuary;  but 
for  a  stone  of  stumbling,  and  for  a  rock  of  of 
fence,  to  both  houses  of  Israel :  for  a  gin  and 
for  a  snare  to  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem. 


Chap.  9,  iO. 


ISAIAH. 


455 


The  idea  appears  to  be  taken  from  a  stone,  or  a  block  of 
wood,  being  thrown  in  the  path  of  travellers,  over  which 
ihey  fail.  "  Well,  friend,  did  the  king  grant  you  your  re- 
quest T" — "  No,  no;  there  was  a  Udaru-Katti,  (from  the  verb 
tfdarukutku,  tf,  stumble,  and  katti,  a  block,)  a  stumbling- 
block  in  the  way."  "  Just  as  Valen  was  attaining  the  object 
of  his  wishes,  that  old  stumbling-block,  the  Modeliar,  laid 
dcwn  in  the  way,  and  the  poor  fellow  stumbled,  and  fell." 
"  Why  are  you  so  dejected  this  morning  1" — "  Because  I 
have  had  a  severe  fall  over  that  stumbling-block,  my  pro- 
fligate son." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  3.  Thou  hast  multiplied  the  nation,  and  not 
increased  the  joy :  they  joy  before  thee  accord- 
ing to  the  joy  in  harvest,  and  as  men  rejoice 
when  they  divide  the  spoil. 

"  Kandan's  wife  has  at  length  borne  her  husband  a  son, 
and  all  the  relations  are  rejoicing  together,  like  unto  the  joy 
of  harvest."  "  Are  you  happy  in  your  new  situation  1" — 
"  Yes;  my  santosham,  my  happiness,  is  greater  than  that  of 
the  time  of  harvest."  "  Listen  to  the  birds,  how  merry  they 
are ;  can  they  be  taking  in  their  harvest  1" — Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  For  unto  us  a  Child  is  born,  unto  us  a 
Son  is  given ;  and  the  government  shall  be  upon 
his  shoulder:  and  his  name  shall  be  called 
Wonderful,  Counsellor,  The  mighty  God,  The 
everlasting  Father,  The  Princd  of  Peace. 

It  is  common  in  the  East  to  describe  any  quality  of  a 
person  by  calling  him  t/ie  father  of  the  quality.  D'Herbe- 
lot,  speaking  of  a  very  eminent  physician,  says,  he  did  such 
admirable  cures,  that  he  was  surnamed  Aboul  Berekiat,  the 
father  of  benedictions.  The  original  words  of  this  title  of 
Christ,  maybe  rendeTed,  the  father  of  that  which  is  everlast- 
ing: Christ,  therefore,  as  the  head  and  introducer  of  an 
everlasting  dispensation,  never  to  give  place  to  another, 
was  very  naturally,  in  the  eastern  style,  called  the  father  of 
eternity. — Harmer. 

The  phrase,  "  shall  be  called,"  refers  not  so  much  to  the 
appellation  by  which  the  promised  child  should  be  known, 
as  to  the  nature  by  which  he  should  be  distinguished.  It  is 
remarkable  that  the  original  word,  (pela,)  here  rendered 
"  wonderful,"  is  elsewhere  rendered  "  secret."  Thus  Judg. 
xiii.  17,  18,  "  And  Manoah  said  unto  the  angel  of  the 
Lord,  What  is  thy  name,  that  when  thy  sayings  come  to 
pass,  we  may  do  thee  honour  1  And  the  angel  of  the  Lord 
said  unto  him,  Why  askest  thou  thus  after  my  name,  seeing 
it  is  secret,  (palal")  Here  the  angel  evidently  appropri- 
ates one  of  the  distinguishing  titles  of  the  promised  Messiah, 
thus  identifying  his  real  character,  and  while  ostensibly 
refusing  to  make  known  his  name,  does  in  fact  impart  one 
of  the  most  significant  and  sublime  of  all  his  designations. 
— Bush. 

Ver.  10.  The  bricks  are  fallen  down,  but  we  will 
build  with  hewn  stones ;  the  sycamores  are  cut 
down,  but  we  will  change  them  into  cedars. 

The  houses  of  the  lower  orders  in  Eg5rpt  are  in  like 
manner  constructed  of  unburnt  bricks,  or  square  pieces  of 
clay,  baked  in  the  sun,  and  only  one  story  high  ;  but  those 
of  the  higher  classes,  of  stone,  are  generally  two,  and 
sometimes  three  stories  high.  These  facts  are  at  once  a 
short  and  lively  comment  on  the  words  of  the  prophet : 
"  All  the  people  shall  know,  even  Ephraim,  and  the  inhab- 
itants of  Samaria,  that  say,  in  the  pride  and  stoutness  of 
heart,  The  bricks  are  fallen  down,  but  we  will  build  with 
hewn  stones;  the  sycamores  are  cut  down,  but  we  will 
change  them  into  cedars,"  Bricks  dried  in  the  sun,  are 
poor  materials  for  building,  compared  with  hewn  stone, 
which,  in  Egypt,  is  almost  equal  to  marble,  and  forms  a 
strong  contrast  between  the  splendid  palace  and  mud- 
walled  cabin.  And  if,  as  is  probable,  the  houses  of  the 
higher  orders  in  Israel  were  built  with  the  same  species 
of  costly  and  beautiful  stone,  the  contrast  stated  by  the 
prophet  places  the  vaunting  of  his  wealthier  countrymen 


in  a  very  strong  light.  The  boastful  extravagance  of  that 
people  is  still  further  displayed  by  the  next  figure  :  "  The 
sycamores  are  cut  down,  but  we  will  change  them  into  ce- 
dars ;"  the  forests  of  sycamore,  the  wood  of  which  we  have 
been  accustomed  to  employ  in  building,  are  cut  down  by 
the  enemy,  but  instead  of  them  we  will  import  cedars,  of 
whose  fragrant  and  beautiful  wood  we  will  construct  and 
adorn  our  habitations.  The  sycamore  grew  in  abundance 
in  the  low  country  of  Judea,  and  was  not  much  esteemed ; 
but  the  cedar  was  highly  valued  ;  it  was  brought  at  a  great 
expense,  and  with  much  labour,  from  the  distant  and  rugged 
summits  of  Lebanon,  to  beautify  the  dwellings  of  the  great, 
the  palaces  of  kings,  and  the  temple  of  Jehovah.  It  was 
therefore  an  extravagant  boast,  which  betrayed  the  pride 
and  vanity  of  their  depraved  hearts,  that  all  the  warnings, 
threatenings,  and  judgments  of  the  living  God,  were  in- 
sufficient to  subdue  or  restrain, — Paxton, 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ver.  1.  Wo  unto  them  that  decree  unrighteous 
decrees,  and  that  write  grievousness  which  they 
have  prescribed. 

The  manner  of  making  eastern  decrees  differs  from  ours : 
they  are  first  written,  and  then  the  magistrate  authenticates 
them,  or  annuls  them.  This,  I  remember,  is  the  Arab 
manner,  according  to  D'Arvieux.  When  an  Arab  wanted 
a  favour  of  the  emir,  the  way  was  to  apply  to  the  secretary, 
who  drew  up  a  decree  according  to  the  request  of  the  party ; 
if  the  emir  granted  the  favour,  he  printed  his  seal  upon  it ; 
if  not,  he  returned  it  torn  to  the  petitioner.  Sir  J.  Chardin 
confirms  this  account,  and  applies  it,  with  great  propriety, 
to  the  illustration  of  a  passage  which  I  never  thought  of 
when  I  read  over  D'Arvieux.  After  citing  Is.  x.  1,  Wo 
unto  them  that  decree  unrighteous  decrees,  and  to  the  writers 
that  write  grievousness,  for  so  our  translators  have  rendered 
the  latter  part  of  the  verse  in  the  margin,  much  more  agree- 
ably than  in  the  body  of  the  version.  Sir  John  goes  on, 
"  The  manner  of  making  the  royal  acts  and  ordinances  hath 
a  relation  to  this :  they  are  always  drawn  up  according  to 
the  request ;  the  first  minister,  or  he  whose  office  it  is,  writes 
on  the  side  of  it,  *  according  to  the  king's  will,'  and  from 
thence  it  is  sent  to  the  secretary  of  state,  who  draws  up 
the  order  in  form." 

They  that  consult  Vitringa  upon  the  passage,  will  find 
that  commentators  have  been  perplexed  about  the  latter 
part  of  this  wo :  every  one  sees  the  propriety  of  denoun- 
cing evil  on  those  that  decree  unrighteous  judgments  ;  but 
it  is  not  very  clear  why  they  are  threatened  that  write  them ; 
it  certainly  would  be  wrong  to  punish  the  clerks  of  our 
courts,  that  have  no  other  concern  in  unjust  decrees,  than 
barely  writing  them  down,  according  to  the  duty  of  their 
place,  as  mere  amanuenses.  But  according  to  the  eastern 
mode,  we  find  he  that  writes  or  draws  up  the  order  at  first, 
is  deeply  concerned  in  the  injustice,  since  he  expresses 
matters  as  he  pleases,  and  is  the  source  of  the  mischief; 
the  superior  only  passes  or  rejects  it.  He  indeed  is  guilty 
if  he  passes  an  unjust  order,  because  he  ought  to  have  re- 
jected it ;  but  a  great  deal  of  the  guilt  unquestionably  comes 
upon  him  who  first  draws  the  order,  and  who  makes  it  more 
or  less  oppressive  to  others,  just  as  he  pleases,  or  rather, 
according  to  the  present  that  is  made  him  by  the  party  that 
solicits  the  order.  For  it  appears  from  D'Arvieux,  that 
the  secretary  of  the  emir  drew  up  no  order  without  a  pres- 
ent, which  was  wont  to  be  proportionate  to  the  favour 
asked ;  and  that  he  was  very  oppressive  in  his  demands. 

In  this  view  of  things  the  words  of  the  prophet  are  very 
clear,  and  easy  to  be  understood ;  and  Sir  John  Chardin,  by 
his  acquaintance  with  the  East,  proves  a  much  better  inter- 
preter than  the  most  learned  western  commentators,  even 
celebrated  rabbies  themselves :  for  according  to  Vitringa, 
Rabbi  David  Kimchi  supposes  the  judges  themselves  were 
the  writers  the  prophet  meant,  and  so  called,  because  they 
caused  others  to  write  unjust  determinations :  though  Vi- 
tringa admits,  that  such  an  interpretation  does  not  well 
agree  with  the  conjugation  of  the  Hebrew  word.— Harmer. 

Ver.  13.  For  he  saith,  By  the  strength  of  my 
hand  I  have  done  it,  and  by  my  wisdom ;  for 
I  am  prudent :  and  I  have  removed  the  bounds 
of  the  people,  and  have  robbed  their  treasures, 


456 


ISAIAH. 


Chap.  10—13. 


and  I  have  put  down  the  inhabitants  like  a  val- 
iant man :  1 4.  And  my  hand  hath  found,  as  a 
nest,  the  riches  of  the  people :  and  as  one  gath-er- 
eth  eggs  that  are  left,  have  I  gathered  all  the 
earth ;  and  there  was  none  that  moved  the  wing, 
or  opened  the  mouth,  or  peeped. 

These  are  the  sentiments  and  boastings  of  Sennacherib, 
a  proud  Assyrian  monarch,  who  viewed  and  treated  cities 
just  as  we  in  Africa  viewed  and  treated  ostrich  nests,  when 
they  fell  in  our  way :  we  seized  the  eggs  as  if  they  had 
been  our  own,  because  we  had  found  them,  and  because 
there  was  no  power  that  could  prevent  us.  So  did  Senna- 
cherib seize  and  plunder  cities  with  as  little  compunction 
as  we  seized  the  eggs  of  the  absent  ostrich;  never  thinking 
of  the  misery  for  life  which  he  thereby  brought  on  many 
peaceable  families,  who  had  done  nothing  to  injure  or  of- 
fend him. — Campbell. 

Ver.  19.  And  the  rest  of  the  trees  of  his  forest 
shall  be  few,  that  a  child  may  write  them. 

Volney  remarks,  in  a  note,  that  there  are  but  four  or  five 
of  those  trees,  which  deserve  any  notice  ;  and  in  a  note,  it 
may  be  added,  from  the  words  of  Isaiah,  "  the  rest  of  the 
trees  of  his  forest  shall  be  few,  that  a  child  may  write  them," 
ch.  X.  19.  Could  not  the  infidel  write  a  brief  note,  or  state 
a  minute  fact,  without  illustrating  a  prophecy  7  Maundrell, 
who  visited  Lebanon  in  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  to  whose  accuracy  in  other  matters  all  subsequent  trav- 
ellers who  refer  to  him  bear  witness,  describes  some  of  the 
cedars  near  the  top  of  the  mountain  as  "  very  old,  and  of  a 
prodigious  bulk,  and  others  younger,  of  a  smaller  size." 
Of  the  former  he  could  reckon  up  only  sixteen.  He  meas- 
ured the  largest,  and  found  it  above  twelve  yards  in  girth. 
Such  trees,  however  few  in  number,  show  that  the  cedars  of 
Lebanon  had  once  been  no  vain  boast.  But  after  the  lapse 
of  more  than  a  century,  not  a  single  tree  of  such  dimen- 
sions is  now  to  be  seen.  Of  those  which  now  remain,  as 
visited  by  Captains  Irby  and  Mangles,  there  are  about  fifty 
in  the  whole,  on  a  single  small  eminence,  from  which  spot 
the  cedars  are  the  only  trees  to  be  seen  in  Lebanon. — Keith. 

Ver,  32.  As  yet  shall  he  remain  at  Nob  that  day : 
he  shall  shake  his  hand  against  the  mount  of 
the  daughter  of  Zion,  the  hill  of  Jerusalem. 

This  is  a  part  of  the  description  of  the  march  of  Senna- 
cherib against  Jerusalem.  When  he  arrives  near  the  city, 
he  lifts  up  his  hand  and  shakes  it,  to  denote  that  he  will 
soon  inflict  signal  punishment  upon  it.  How  often  may 
this  significant  motion  of  the  hand  be  seen ;  it  is  done  by 
lifting  it  up  to  the  height  of  the  head,  and  then  moving  it 
backward  and  forward  in  a  cutting  direction.  Thus,  when 
men  are  at  so  great  a  distance  as  to  be  scarcely  able  to  hear 
each  other's  voice,  they  have  this  convenient  way  of  making 
known  their  threatenings.  Sometimes,  when  brawlers  have 
separated,  and  apparently  finished  their  quarrel,  one  of  them 
will  turn  round  and  bawl  out  with  all  his  might,  and  then 
shake  his  hand  in  token  of  what  he  will  still  do. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XL 

Ver.  4.  But  with  righteousness  shall  he  judge  the 
poor,  and  reprove  with  equity  for  the  meek  of 
the  earth :  and  he  shall  smite  the  earth  with 
the  rod  of  his  mouth,  and  with  the  breath  of  his 
lips  shall  he  slay  the  wicked. 

The  application  of  this  figure  in  the  East  refers  rather 
to  angry  expressions,  than  to  a  judicial  sentence.  "  The 
mouth  of  that  man  burns  up  his  neighbours  and  friends." 
"  His  mouth !  it  has  set  on  fire  all  the  people." — Roberts. 

Ver.  6  The  wolf  also  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb, 
and  the  leopard  shall  lie  down  with  the  kid ; 
and  the  calf,  and  the  youns"  lion,  and  the  fatling 
together;  and  a  little  child  shall  lead  them. 
7.  And  the  cow  and  the  bear  shall  feed  ;  their 


young  ones  shall  lie  down  together :  and  the 
lion  shall  eat  straw  like  the  ox.  8.  And  the 
suckling  child  shall  play  on  the  hole  of  the 
asp,  and  the  weaned  child  shall  put  his  hand 
on  the  cockatrice-den.  9.  They  shall  not  hurt 
nor  destroy  in  all  my  holy  mountain :  for  the 
earth  shall  be  full  of  the  knowledge  of  the 
Lord,  as  the  waters  cover  the  sea. 
See  on  Job  20.  14. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Ver.  7.  Therefore  shall  all  hands  be  faint,  and 
every  man's  heart  shall  melt. 

This  figure  appears  to  be  taken  from  the  melting  of  wax, 
or  metals.  "  My  heart,  my  mind,  melts  for  him ;  I  am 
dissolved  by  his  love."  "Alas!  alas!  my  bowels  are  melt- 
ing within  me." — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  And  they  shall  be  afraid  :  pangs  and  sor- 
rows shall  take  hold  of  them  ;  they  shall  be  in 
pain  as  a  woman  that  travaileth  ;  they  shall  be 
amazed  one  at  another  ;  their  faces  shall  be  as 
flames. 

Great  pains  are  often  spoken  of  as  the  anguish  of  par- 
turition. "  Ah !  my  lord,  I  am  very  ill ;  my  pains  are  like 
those  of  a  wom^  when  bringing  forth  her  first-born." 
"  Has  it  come  to  this  1  am  I  to  bring  forth  like  a  woman  1" 
"  He  cries  like  the  woman  in  her  agony."  "  Yes,  my 
friend;  as  the  pains  of  a  female  in  child-bearing  are  pro- 
duced by  sin ;  so  your  present  sufferings  are  produced  by 
the  sins  of  a  former  birth." — Roberts. 

Ver.  14.  And  it  shall  be  as  the  chased  roe,  (ante- 
lope,) and  as  a  sheep  that  no  man  taketh  up : 
they  shall  every  man  turn  to  his  own  people, 
and  flee  every  one  into  his  own  land. 

See  on  2  Sam.  2.  10. 

To  hunt  the  antelope  is  a  favourite  amusement  in  the 
East ;  but  which,  from  its  extraordinary  swiftness,  is  at- 
tended with  great  difficulty.  On  the  first  alarm,  it  flies  like 
an  arrow  from  the  bow,  and  leaves  the  best  mounted  hunt- 
er, and  the  fleetest  dog,  far  behind.  The  sportsman  is 
obliged  to  call  in  the  aid  of  the  falcon,  trained  to  the  work, 
to  seize  on  the  animal,  and  impede  its  motions,  to  give  the 
dogs  time  to  overtake  it.  Dr.  Russel  thus  describes  the 
chase  of  the  antelope  :  "  They  permit  horsemen,  without 
dogs,  if  they  advance  gently,  to  approach  near,  and  do  not 
seem  much  to  regard  a  caravan  that  passes  within  a  little 
distance  ;  but  the  moment  they  take  the  alarm,  they  bound 
away,  casting  from  time  to  time  a  look  behind:  and  if 
they"  find  themselves  pursued,  they  lay  their  horns  back- 
ward, almost  close  on  the  shoulders,  and  flee  with  incredi- 
ble swiftness.  "When  dogs  appear,  they  instantly  take 
alarm;  for  which  reason  the  sportsmen  endeavour  to  steal 
upon  the  antelope  unawares,  to  get  as  near  as  possible  before 
slipping  the  dogs ;  and  then,  pushing  on  at  full  speed,  they 
throw  off  the  falcon,  which,  being  taught  to  strike  or  fix 
upon  the  cheek  of  the  game,  retards  its  course  by  repeated 
attacks,  till  the  greyhounds  have  time  to  get  up." — Burder. 

Ver.  18.  Their  bows  also  shall  dash  the  yourg 
men  to  pieces ;  and  they  shall  have  no  pity  on 
the  fruit  of  the  womb ;  their  eye  shall  not  spare 
children. 

See  on  2  Sam.  22.  35. 

Both  Herodotus  and  Xenophon  mention  that  the  Per- 
sians used  large  bows;  and  the  latter  says  particularly, 
that  their  bows  were  three  cubits  long.  They  were  cele- 
brated for  their  archers,  Jer.  xlix.  35.  Probably  their 
neighbours  and  allies,  the  Medes,  dealt  much  in  the  same 
sort  of  arms.  In  Psalm  xviii.  34,  and  Job  xx.  24,  mention 
is  made  of  a  bow  of  brass.  If  the  Persian  bows  were  of 
metal,  we  may  easily  conceive  that  with  a  metalline  bow 


Chap.  13. 


ISAIAH. 


457 


of  three  cubits'  length,  and  proportionably  strong,  the  soldiers 
might  dash  and  slay  the  young  men,  the  weaker  and  un- 
resisting part  of  the  inhabitants,  in  the  general  carnage  on 
taking  the  city. — Lowth. 

Ver.  19.  And  Babylon,  the  glory  of  kingdoms, 
the  beauty  of  the  Chaldees'  excellency,  shall  be 
as  when  God  overthrew  Sodom  and  Gomorrah. 
20.  It  shall  never  be  inhabited,  neither  shall  it 
be  dwelt  in  from  generation  to  generation  ; 
neither  shall  the  Arabian  pitch  tent  there, 
neither  shall  the  shepherds  make  their  fold 
there. 

From  Rauwolf  s  testimony  it  appears  that  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  "there  was  not  a  house  to  be  seen."  And  now 
the  eye  wanders  over  abarren  desert,  in  which  the  ruins  are 
nearly  the  only  indication  that  it  had  ever  been  inhabited." 
"  It  is  impossible,"  adds  Major  Keppel,  "  to  behold  this  scene, 
and  not  to  be  reminded  how  exactly  the  predictions  of 
Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  have  been  fulfilled,  even  in  the  ap- 
pearance Babylon  was  doomed  to  present,  that  she  should 
never  be  inhabited ;  that  'the  Arabian  should  not  pitch  his 
tent  there ;'  that  she  should  '  become  heaps  ;'  that  her  cities 
should  be  a  '  desolation,  a  dry  wilderness.'"  "  Babylon  is 
spurned  alike  by  the  heel  of  the  Ottomans,  the  Israelites, 
and  the  sons  of  Ishmael.  It  is  a  tenantless  and  desolate  me- 
tropolis."— (Mignan.) 

Neither  shall  the  Arabian  pilch  his  tent  there,  neither  shall 
the  shepherds  make  their  fold  there.  It  was  prophesied  of 
Ammon,  that  it  should  be  a  stable  for  camels  and  a  couching- 
place  for  flocks ;  and  of  Philistia,  that  it  should  be  cottages 
for  shepherds,  and  a  pasture  for  flocks.  But  Babylon  was 
to  be  visited  with  a  far  greater  desolation,  and  to  become 
unfit  or  unsuiting  even  for  such  a  purpose.  And  that 
neither  a  tent  would  be  pitched  there,  even  by  an  Arab, 
nor  a  fold  made  by  a  shepherd,  implies  the  last  degree  of 
solitude  and  desolation.  "  It  is  common  in  these  parts  for 
shepherds  to  make  use  of  ruined  edifices  to  shelter  their 
flocks  in."  (Mignan.)  But  Babylon  is  an  exception.  In- 
stead of  taking  the  bricks  from  thence,  the  shepherd  might 
with  facility  erect  a  defence  from  wild  beasts,  and  make  a 
fold  for  his  flock  amid  the  heaps  of  Babylon  :  and  the  Arab, 
vi^ho  fearlessly  traverses  it  by  day,  might  pitch  his  tent  by 
night.  But  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  could  now  be  per- 
suaded to  remain  a  single  night  among  the  ruins.  The 
superstitious  dread  of  evil  spirits,  far  more- than  the  natural 
terror  of  the  wild  beasts,  eflfectually  prevents  them.  Cap- 
tain Mignan  was  accompanied  by  six  Arabs,  completely 
armed,  but  he  "  could  not  induce  them  to  remain  towards 
night,  from  the  apprehension  of  evil  spirits.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  eradicate  this  idea  from  the  minds  of  these  people, 
who  are  very  deeply  imbued  with  superstition."  And 
when  the  sun  sunk  behind  the  Mujelibe,  and  the  moon 
would  have  still  lighted  his  way  among  the  ruins,  it  was 
with  infinite  regret  that  he  obeyed  ''the  summons  of  his 
guides.''^  "  All  the  people  of  the  country  assert  that  it  is  ex- 
tremely dangerous  to  approach  this  mound  after  nightfall, 
on  account  of  the  multitude  of  evil  spirits  by  which  it  is 
haunted."— Keith. 

The  scriptures,  in  describing  the  ruined  state  into  which 
some  celebrated  cities  were  to  be  reduced,  represent  them 
not  unfrequently,  (Jer.  xlix.  18,)  as  to  be  so  desolated,  that 
no  shepherds  with  flocks  should  haunt  them ;  which  sup- 
poses they  were  to  be  foimd  on  the  remains  of  others. 

This  is  a  proper  representation  of  complete  destruction. 
For  in  the  East  it  is  common  for  shepherds  to  make  use  of 
remaining  ruins  to  shelter  their  flocks  from  the  heat  of  the 
middle  of  the  day,  and  from  the  dangers  of  the  night.  So 
Dr.  Chandler,  after  mentioning  the  exquisite  remains  of  a 
temple  of  Apollo,  in  Asia  Minor,  which  were  such  as  that 
it  was  impossible,  perhaps,  to  conceive  greater  beauty  and 
majesty  of  ruin,  goes  on,  '*  At  evening  a  large  flock  of  goats, 
returning  to  the  fold,  their  bells  tinkling,  spread  over  the 
heap,  climbing  to  browse  on  the  shrubs  and  trees  growing 
between  the  huge  stones."  Another  passage  of  the  same 
writer,  shows  that  they  make  use  of  ruins  also  to  guard 
their  flocks  from  the  rioon-tide  heat.  Speaking  of  Aiasa- 
luck,  generally  understood  to  be  the  ancient  Ephesus,  and 
certainly  near  the  site  of  that  old  city,  and  at  least  its  suc- 
cessor, he  says,  "  A  herd  of  goats  was  driven  to  it  for  shel- 
58 


ter  from  the  sun  at  noon ;  and  a  noisy  flight  of  crows  from 
the  quarries  seemed  to  insult  its  silence.  We  heard  the 
partridge  call  in  the  area  of  the  theatre  and  of  the  stadium. 
The  glorious  pomp  of  its  heathen  worship  is  no  longer  re- 
membered; and  Christianity,  which  was  there  nursed  by- 
apostles,  and  fostered  by  general  councils,  until  it  increased 
to  fulness  of  stature,  barely  lingers  on  in  an  existence  hard- 
ly visible." 

This  description  is  very  gloomy  and  melancholy ;  how- 
ever, the  usefulness  of  these  ruins  is  such,  for  the  habitation 
of  those  that  tend  flocks,  that  it  often  prevents  a  place  from 
being  quite  desolate,  and  continues  it  among  inhabited 
places,  though  miserably  ruinated.  Such  is  the  state  ol 
Ephesus :  it  is  described  by  Chandler,  as  making  a  very 
gloomy  and  melancholy  appearance,  but  as  not  absolutely 
without  people.  "Our  horses,"  says  he,  "were  disposed 
among  the  walls  and  rubbish,  with  their  saddles  on;  and 
a  mat  was  spread  for  us  on  the  ground.  We  sat  here,  iai 
the  open  air,  while  supper  was  preparing ;  when,  suddenly^ 
fires  began  to  blaze  up  among  the  bushes,  and  we  saw  the 
villagers  collected  about  them  in  savage  groups,  or  passing; 
to  and  fro  with  lighted  brands  for  torches.  The  flames,, 
with  the  stars  and  a  pale  moon,  afforded  us  a  dim  prospect 
of  ruin  and  desolation.  A  shrill  owl,  called  cucuvaia^from; 
its  note,  with  a  nighthawk,  flitted  near  us;  and  a  jaekat 
cried  mournfully,  as  if  forsaken  by  his  companions  on  th& 
mounta  in . " — Burder  . 

Ver,  21.  But  wild  beasts  of  the  desert  shall  lie- 
there  ;  and  their  houses  shall  be  full  of  doleful 
creatures ;  and  owls  shall  dwell  there,  and  satyrs^ 
shall  dance  there. 

See  on  ch.  34. 13. 

"  Yes ;  the  wretch  is  now  punished  for  his  crimes,  and 
those  of  his  father ;  dogs  and  devils  are  now  dwelling  in; 
his  habitation,"  The  owl,  whose  native  name  is  anthi,  is 
one  of  the  most  ominous  birds  of  the  East.  Let  him  only 
alight  upon  the  house  of  a  Hindoo,  and  begin  his  dismal 
screech,  and  all  the  inmates  will  be  seized  with  great  con- 
sternation. Some  one  will  instantly  run  out  and  make  a 
noise  with  his  areca-nut  cutter,  or  some  other  instrument,, 
to  aflfright  it  away.  I  recollect  one  of  these  creatures  once 
flew  into  the  house  of  a  lady  when  she  was  in  the  pains  ot 
parturition  :  the  native  servants  became  greatly  alarmed,, 
and  run  to  me,  lamenting  the  fearful  omen.  I  had  it  driven 
from  the  house;  and  notwithstanding  the  malignant  in- 
fluence of  the  feathered  visiter,  and  the  qualms  of  the  do- 
mestics, all  things  went  on  well.  On  another  occasion,  1 
shot  one  of  them  which  had  troubled  us  on  the  roof,  night 
by  night :  but  as  he  was  only  wounded  in  the  wing,  I  took 
him  into  the  house,  with  the  intention  of  keeping  him  :  but 
the  servants  were  so  uncomfortable,  and  complained  so 
much  at  having  such  a  "  beast"  in  the  house,  I  was  obliged 
to  send  him  away.  From  these  statements  it  will  be  seen 
what  ideas  would  be  attached  to  the  owls  dwelling  in  the 
houses  of  Babylon. — Roberts. 

"  There  are  many  dens  of  wild  beasts  in  various  parts. 
There  are  quantities  of  porcupine  quills,  (kephud.)  And 
while  the  lower  excavations  are  often  pools  of  water,  in 
most  of  the  cavities  are  numbers  of  bats  and  owls.  These 
souterrains,  (caverns,)  over  which  the  chambers  of  majesty 
may  have  been  spread,  are  now  the  refuge  of  jackals  and 
other  savage  animals.  The  mouths  of  their  entrances  are 
strewed  with  the  bones  of  sheep  and  goats ;  and  the  loath- 
some smell  that  issues  from  most  of  them  is  sufficient  warn- 
ing not  to  proceed  into  the  den."  (Buckingham.)  The 
king  of  the  forest  now  ranges  over  the  site  of  that  Babvlon 
which  Nebuchadnezzar  built  for  his  own  glory.  And  the 
temple  of  Belus,  the  greatest  work  of  man,  is  now  like  unto 
a  natural  den  of  lions.  "  Two  or  three  majestic  lions"  were 
seen  upon  its  heights,  by  Sir  Robert  Ker  Porter,  as  he  was 
approaching  it ;  and  "the  broad  prints  of  their  feet  were 
left  plain  in  the  clayey  soil."  Major  Keppel  saw  there  a 
similar  foot-print  of  a  lion.  It  is  also  the  unmohisted  re- 
treat of  jackals,  hyenas,  and  other  noxious  animals.  Wild 
beasts  are  "  numerous"  at  the  Mujelibe,  as  well  as  on  Birs 
Nimrood.  "  The  mound  was  full  of  large  holes ;  we  en- 
tered some  of  them,  and  found  them  strewed  with  carcasses 
and  skeletons  of  animals  recently  killed.  The  ordure  of 
wild  beasts  was  so  strong,  that  prudence  got  the  better  of 
curiosity,  for  we  had  no  doubt  as  to  the  savage  nature  of  the 


45^ 


ISAIAH 


Chap.  14 


inhabitants.  Our  guides,  indeed,  told  us  that  all  the  ruins 
abounded  in  lions  and  other  wild  beasts ;  so  literally  has 
the  divine  prediction  been  fulfilled,  that  wild  beasts  of  the 
desert  should  lie  there,  and  their  houses  be  full  of  doleful 
creatures ;  that  the  wild  beasts  of  the  island  should  cry  in 
their  desolate  houses."    (Keppel.) — Keith. 

Ver.  22.  And  the  wild  beasts  of  the  island  shall 
cry  in  their  desolate  houses,  and  dragons  in 
their  pleasant  palaces ;  and  her  time  is  near  to 
come,  and  her  days  shall  not  be  prolonged. 

Europeans  are  often  astonished,  in  walking  through  a 
town  or  village,  to  see  so  many  desolate  houses,  and  fre- 
quently come  to  improper  conclusions,  from  an  idea  that  the 
place  had  once  a  greater  number  of  inhabitants.  At  half 
an  hour's  notice,  families  may  be  seen  to  leave  their  dwell- 
ings, never  to  enter  them  more.  Hence,  in  almost  every  di- 
rection, may  be  seen  buildings  wiih  roofs  half  fallen  in  ; 
with  timbers  hanging  in  various  positions;  shutters  and 
doors  flapping  in  the  wind,  or  walls  half-levelled  to  the 
ground.  Various  are  the  reasons  for  which  the  supersti- 
tious idolater  will  leave  his  dwelling:  should  one  of  the 
family  die  on  the  fifth  day  of  the  new  or  wanmg  moon,  the 
place  must  be  forsaken  for  six  months ;  or  should  the  Cobra 
Capella  (serpent)  enter  the  house  at  the  times  alluded  to, 
the  people  must  forthwith  leave  the  house.  Does  an  owl 
alight  on  the  roof  for  two  successive  nights,  the  inmates 
ml\  take  their  departure ;  but  if  for  one  only,  then,  by  the 
performance  of  certain  ceremonies,  the  evils  may  be  averted. 
Are  evil  spirits  believed  to  visit  the  dwelling  1  are  the  chil- 
dren often  sick  1  are  the  former  as  well  as  the  present  oc- 
cupiers unfortunate  1  then  will  they  never  rest  till  they  have 
gained  another  habitation.  Sometimes,  however,  they  call 
for  the  sdstre,  i.  e.  magician,  to  inquire  if  he  can  find  out 
the  cause  of  their  troubles ;  when  perhaps  he  says,  the  walls 
are  too  high,  or  too  much  in  this  or  that  direction ;  and 
then  may  be  seen  master,  servants,  children,  carpenters, 
and  masons,  all  busily  employed  in  making  the  prescribed 
alterations.  But  another  reason  for  the  desolation  in  houses 
is,  that  a  father  sometimes  leaves  the  dwelling  to  two  or 
three  of  his  sons;  and  then,  when  the  necessary  repairs 
have  to  be  made,  one  will  not  do  this,  another  will  not  do 
that,  till  the  whole  tumbles  to  the  ground. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Ver.  8.  Yea,  the  fir-trees  rejoice  at  thee,  and  the 
cedars  of  Lebanon,  sayirig,  Since  thou  art  laid 
down,  no  feller  is  come  up  against  us. 

As  we  passed  through  the  extensive  forest  of  fir-trees  .sit- 
uated between  Deir  el  Kamr  and  Ainep,  we  had  already 
heard,  at  some  distance,  the  stroke  of  one  solitary  axe,  re- 
sounding from  hill  to  hill.  On  reaching  the  spot,  we  found 
a  peasant,  whose  labour  had  been  so  far  successful,  that  he 
had  felled  his  tree  and  lopped  the  branches.  He  was  now 
hewing  it  in  the  middle,  so  as  to  balance  the  two  halves 
upon  his  camel,  which  stood  patiently  by  him,  waiting  for 
his  load.  In  the  days  of  Hiram,  king  of  Tyre,  and  subse- 
quently under  the  kings  of  Babylon,  this  romantic  solitude 
was  not  so  peaceful:  that  most  poetic  image  in  Isaiah,  who 
makes  these  very  trees  vocal,  exulting  in  the  downfall  of 
the  destroyer  of  nations,  seems  now  to  be  almost  realized 
anew — Yea,  the  fir-trees  rejoice  at  thee,  and  the  cedars  of  Leb- 
anon, saying,  Since  thou  art  laid  down,  no  feller  is  come  up 
against  us. — Jowett. 

Ver.  9.  Hell  from  beneath  is  moved  for  thee  to 
meet  thee  at  thy  coming :  it  stirreth  up  the 
dead  for  thee,  even  all  the  chief  ones  of  the 
earth ;  it  hath  raised  up  from  their  thrones  all 
the  kings  of  the  nations. 

The  sepulchres  of  the  Hebrews,  at  least  those  of  respect- 
able persons,  and  those  which  hereditarily  belonged  to  the 
principal  families,  were  extensive  caves,  or  vaults,  excava- 
ted from  the  native  rock  by  art  and  manual  labour.  The 
roofs  of  them  in  general  weVe  arched :  and  some  were  so 
«»pacious  as  to  be  supported  by  colonnades.  All  round  the 
•ides  were  cells  for  the  reception  of  the  sarcophagi ;  these 


were  properly  ornamented  with  sculpture,  and  each  wa5 
placed  in  its  proper  cell.  The  cave  or  sepulchre  admitted 
no  light,  being  closed  by  a  great  stone,  which  was  rolled 
to  the  mouth  of  the  narrow  passage  or  entrance.  Many  of 
these  receptacles  are  still  extant  m  Judea;  two  in  particular 
are  more  magnificent  than  all  the  rest,  and  are  supposed  to 
be  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings.  One  of  these  is  in  Jerus» 
lem,  and  contains  twenty-four  cells ;  the  other,  containing 
twice  that  number,  is  in  a  place  without  the  city. — Burder. 

Ver.  16.  They  that  see  thee  shall  narrowly  look 
upon  thee,  and  consider  thee,  saying;  Is  this 
the  man  that  made  the  earth  to  tremble,  that 
did  shake  kingdoms  ? 

Narrowly  to  look  on  and  to  consider  even  the  view  of  the 
Mujelibe,  is  to  see  what  the  palace  of  Babylon,  in  which" 
kings,  proud  as  "  Lucifer,"  boasted  of  exalting  themselves 
above  the  stars  of  God,  has  now  become,  and  how,  cut 
down  to  the  ground,  it  is  brokenin  pieces.  "  On  pacing  over 
the  loose  stones,  and  fragments  of  brick-work  which  lay 
scattered  through  the  immense  fabric,  and  surveying  the 
sublimity  of  the  ruins,"  says  Captain  Mignan,  "  I  naturally 
recurred  to  the  iime  when  these  walls  stood  proudly  in  their 
original  splendour, — when  the  halls  were  the  scenes  of  fes- 
tive magnificence,  and  when  they  resounded  to  the  voices 
of  those  whom  death  has  long  since  swept  from  the  earth. 
This  very  pile  was  once  the  seat  of  luxury  and  vice  ;  now 
abandoned  to  decay,  and  exhibiting  a  melancholy  instance 
of  the  reiribution  of  Heaven.  It  stands  alone; — the  soli- 
tary habitation  of  the  goatherd  marks  not  the  forsaken  site." 
— Keith. 

Ver.  19.  But  thou  art  cast  out  of  thy  grave  like 
an  abominable  branch,  and  as  the  raiment  of 
those  that  are  slain,  thrust  through  with  a 
sword,  that  go  down  to  the  stones  of  the  pit ; 
as  a  carcass  trodden  under  feet. 

Rather  like  the  abominable  tree,  meaning  that  on  which 
criminals  were  executed.  This,  in  the  Roman  law,  is  de- 
nominated infelix  arbor;  and  Maimonides  tells  us,  that  the 
Jews  used  to  bury  it  with  the  criminal  who  suffered  on  it, 
as  involved  equally  with  him  in  the  malediction  of  their 
law. — Burder. 

"  Several  deep  excavations  have  been  made  in  diflferent 
places  into  the  sides  of  the  Mujelibe ;  some  probably  by  the 
wearing  of  the  seasons ;  but  iriany  others  have  been  dug  by 
the  rapacity  of  the  Turks,  tearing  up  its  bowels  in  search 
of  hidden  treasure," — as  if  the  palace  of  Bahjlonii-ere  cast 
mU  of  its  grave.     "  Several  penetrate  very  far  into  the  body 
of  the  structure,"  till  it  has  become  as  the  raiment  of  these 
that  are  slain,  thrust  through  with  a  sword.     "  And  some,  it 
is  likely,  have  never  yet  been  explored,  the  wild  beasts  of 
the  desert  literally  keeping  guard  over  them."    (Keppel.) 
"  The  mound  was  full  of  large  holes" — thrust  thro^igh. 
Near  to  the  Mujelibe,  on  the  supjjosed  site  of  the  hanging 
gardens  which  were  situated  within  the  walls  of  the  palace, 
"  the  ruins  are  so  perforated  in  consequence  of  the  digging 
for  bricks,  that  the  original  design  is  entirely  lost.    All  that 
could  favour  any  conjecture  of  gardens  built  on  terraces 
are  two  subterranean  passages.     There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
both  passages  are  of  vast  extent :  they  are  lined  with  bricks 
laid  in  with  bitumen,  and  covered  over  with  large  masses  of 
stone.     This  is  nearly  the  only  place  where  stone  is  ob- 
servable."    Arches  built  upon  arches  raised  the  hanging- 
gardens  from  terrace  to  terrace,  till  the  highest  w^as  on  a 
level  with  the  top  of  the  city  walls.     Now  they  are  cast  outi 
like  an  abominable  branch — ^and  subtcrraneo.n  passages  arej 
disclosed — down  to  the  stones  of  the  pit.     "  As  a  carcass  trod-i 
den  under  feet."     The  streets  of  Babylon  were  parallel,] 
crossed  by  others  at  right  angles,  and  abounded  wiih  house 
three  and  four  stories  high ;  and  none  can  now  traverse  the 
site  of  Babylon,  or  find  any  other  path,  without  treadin^ 
them  under  foot.     The  traveller  directs  his  course  to  tb« 
highest  mounds;  and  there  are  none,  whether  temples  ol 
palaces,  that  are  not  trodden  on.     The  Mujelibe  "  rises  iir 
a  steep  ascent,  over  which  the  passengers  can  only  go  up  bj 
the  winding  paths  worn  by  frequent  visits  to  the  ruined  edi« 
fice." — KErrH. 


Chap.  14—17. 


ISAIAH. 


459 


Ver.  23.  I  will  also  make  it  a  possession  for  the 
bittern,  and  pools  of  water :  and  I  will  sweep  it 
with  the  besom  of  destruction,  saith  the  Lord 
of  hosts. 

"What  was  he  going  to  sweeps  The  devoted  cit)'-  of 
Babylon.  The  word  besom  is  often  used,  as  a  figure,  to 
denote  the  way  in  which  people  are  swept  from  the  earth. 
Thus,  when  the  cholera  morbus  began  to  rage,  it  was  said, 
"Alas!  alas!  it  is  sweeping  us  away  as  with  a  besom." 
"  How  is  the  cholera  in  your  village  1" — "  It  has  come  like 
besoms."  When  the  people  made  offerings  and  sacrifices 
to  the  demons  who  were  believed  to  produce  the  disease, 
the  magician,  who  was  believed  to  be  the  devil's  agent, 
sometimes  said,  "  Make  such  and  such  offerings,  or  I  will 
sweep  you  away  with  a  besom."  In  the  Hindoo  calendar, 
or  almanac,  where  predictions  are  given  respecting  cer- 
tain months  of  the  year,  it  is  often  said,  **  The  year  is  not 
good,  it  brings  a  besom." — Roberts. 

Ver.  29.  Rejoice  not  thou,  whole  Palestina,  be- 
cause the  rod  of  him  that  smote  thee  is  broken  : 
for  out  of  the  serpent's  root  shall  come  forth  a 
cockatrice,  and  his  fruit  shall  be  a  fiery  flying 
serpent. 

In  Egypt  and  other  oriental  countries,  a  serpent  was  the 
common  symbol  of  a  powerful  monarch ;  it  was  embroider- 
ed on  the  robes  of  princes,  and  blazoned  on  their  diadem, 
to  signify  their  absolute  power  and  invincible  might,  and 
that,  as  the  wound  inflicted  by  the  basilisk  is  incurable,  so 
the  fatal  effects  of  their  displeasure  were  neither  to  be  avoid- 
ed nor  endured.  These  are  the  allusions  involved  in  the 
address  of  the  prophet,  to  the  irreconcilable  enemies  of  his 
nation. — Paxton. 

Ver.  3 1 .  Howl,  O  gate  :  cry,  O  city :  thou,  whole 
Palestina,  art  dissolved :  for  there  shall  come 
from  the  north  a  smoke,  and  none  shall  be  alone 
in  his  appointed  times. 

This  may  be  in  allusion  to  smoke  arising  from  distant 
conflagrations,  caused  by  an  advancing  desolating  army, 
►he  sight  of  which  would  greatly  alarm  the  inhabitants  of 
Palestina.  I  have  seen  the  smoke  from  mountains,  whose 
grass  and,  bushes  were  on  fire,  at  the  distance  of  forty  or 
fifty  miles.  Or  it  may  refer  to  clouds  of  sand  or  dust  raised 
by  troops  rapidly  advancing  to  attack  them.  By  this  means 
I  have  observed  the  advance  of  travelling  parties,  long  be- 
fore they  reached  us,  from  the  cloud  of  sand  raised  by  the 
movement  of  the  oxen.  Game  is  also  frequently  discovered 
by  the  same  means. — Campbell. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Ver.  1.  The  burden  of  Moab.     Because  in  the 
night  Ar  of  Moab  is  laid  waste,  and  brought 
to  silence ;  because  in  the  night  Kir  of  Moab 
is  laid  waste,  and  brought  to  silence. 
See  on  Jer.  49.  1—28. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Ver.  2.  For  it  shall  be,  that  as  a  wandering  bird 
cast  out  of  the  nest,  so  the  daughters  of  Moab 
shall  be  at  the  fords  of  Arnon. 

The  figure  appears  to  be  taken  from  a  young  bird  being 

thrown  out  of  the  nest  before  it  is  able  to  fly,  and  which 

consequently  wanders  about  for  a  place  of  refuge.   "  Well, 

Tamban,  what  has  become  of  your  profligate  snn  1" — "  I 

knov/  not,  my  friend,  because  I  have  turned  him  out  of  the 

nest."    "  Why,  my  boy,  have  you  come  to  this  distant  coun- 

i    try?" — "  Because  my  relations  turned  me  out  of  the  nest." 

j     "Alas  forme!  alas  for  me!"  says  the  bereaved  mother; 

*'  my  young  one  has  taken  to  the  wing;  it  has  flown  from 

;     the  nest."     "I  have  only  one  left  in  the  nest ;  shall  I  not 

I     take  care  of  it  ?"  "  I  should  like  to  get  into  that  nest ;"  says 

the  young  man  who  wishes  to  marry  into  a  high  and  rich 

family,    "  Ah !  my  lord,  dismiss  me  not  from  your  service. 


to  whom  shall  I  go  for  employment?  I  have  many  chil- 
dren, who  will  be  suflerers  ii  I  leave  you:  who  will  throw 
a  stone  at  the  nesilings  1  who  will  put  fire  to  the  lair  ot  the 
young  cubs  of  the  jungle  1  Ah!  my  lord,  turn  me  not 
away ;  I  shall  be  like  a  bird  wandering  from  its  nest." — 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Ver.  6.  Yet  gleaning-grapes  shall  be  left  in  it,  as 
the  shaking  of  an  olive-tree,  two  or  three  ber- 
ries in  the  top  of  the  uppermost  bough,  four  or 
five  in  the  outmost  fruitful  branches  thereof, 
saith  the  Lord  God  of  Israel. 

The  vintager  cuts  down  the  grapes  from  the  vine  with 
a  sharp  hook  or  sickle ;  but  the  olive  was  sometimes  beaten 
off  the  tree,  and  sometimes  shaken.  The  former  method 
is  mentioned  by  Moses,  in  one  of  his  precepts:  "When 
thou  beate>.t  thine  olive-tree,  thou  shalt  not  go  over  the 
boughs  again ;  it  shall  be  for  the  stranger,  for  the  father- 
less, and  for  the  widow."  The  latter  is  marked  by  the 
prophet  Isaiah  :  "Yet  gleaning  grapes  shall  be  left  "in  it, 
as  the  shaking  of  an  olive-tree  ;  two  or  three  berries  in  the 
top  of  the  uppermost  bough,  four  or  five  in  the  outmost 
fruitful  branches  thereof,  saiih  the  Lord  God  of  Israel."  It 
occurs  again  in  a  denunciation  of  divine  judgments,  by  the 
same  prophet :  "  When  thus  it  shall  be  in  the  midst  of  the 
land  among  the  people,  there  shall  be  as  the  shaking  of  an 
olive-tree,  and  as  the  gleaning  grapes,  when  the  vintage  is 
done."  The  conjecture  of  Harmer,  on  these  quotations,  in 
which  the  shaking  of  the  olive-tree  is  connected  with  the 
gleaning  of  grapes,  is  not  improbable,  "  that  the  shaking 
of  the  olive-tree  does  not  indicate  an  improvement  made 
in  after  times  on  the  original  mode  of  gathering  them ;  or 
different  methods  of  procedure  by  different  people,  in  the 
same  age  and  country,  who  possessed  olive-yards;  but 
rather  expressed  the  difference  between  the  gathering  of 
the  main  crop  by  the  owners,  and  the  way  in  which  the 
poor  collected  the  few  olive-berries  that  were  left,  and 
which,  by  the  law  of  Moses,  they  were  permitted  to  take." 

The  custom  of  beating  the  olive  with  long  poles,  to  make 
the  fruit  fall,  is  still  followed  in  some  parts  of  Italy.  This 
foolish  method,  besides  hurting  the  plant,  and  spoiling  many 
branches  that  would  bear  the  year  following,  makes  the 
ripe  and  unripe  fruit  fall  indiscriminately,  and  bruises  a 
great  deal  of  both  kinds,  by  which  they  become  rancid  in  the 
heaps,  and  give  an  ill-flavoured  oil.  Such  is  the  statement 
of  the  Abbot  Fortis,  in  his  account  of  Dalmatia ;  we  are 
not  then  to  wonder,  that  in  the  time  of  Moses,  when  the 
art  of  cultivation  was  in  so  simple  and  unimproved  a  state, 
beating  should  have  been  the  common  way  of  gathering 
olives  by  the  owners,  who  were  disposed  to  leave,  we  may 
suppose,  as  few  as  possible,  and  were  forbidden  by  their 
law  to  go  over  the  branches  a  second  time.  But  shaking 
them  appears  to  have  been  sufficient,  when  they  had  hung 
till  they  were  fully  ripe ;  and  was  therefore  practised  by 
the  poor,  or  by  strangers,  who  were  either  not  provided 
with  such  long  poles  as  the  owners  possessed,  or  did  not 
find  them  necessary.  Indeed,  it  is  not  improbable,  that  the 
owners  were  well  aware  of  the  injury  done  to  the  olive- 
trees  by  beating,  although  they  practised  it,  because  it  was 
the  most  effectual  way  of  gathering  the  fruit  with  which 
they  were  acquainted ;  and  might  therefore  prohibit  the 
poor  and  the  stranger  to  collect  the  gleanings  in  that  man- 
ner: they  were  on  that  account  reduced  to  the  necessity 
of  shakirig  the  olive-berries  from  the  tree,  how  ineffectual 
soever  might  be  the  method,  or  remain  without  them.  The 
main  crop,  then,  seems  to  have  been  taken  from  the  olive  by 
beating,  and  the  gleanings  uniformly  by  shaking.  Under 
this  conviction.  Dr.  Lowth  has,  with  great  judgment,  trans- 
lated the  sixth  verse  of  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  Isaiah: 
A  gleaning  shall  be  left  in  it,  as  in  the  shaking  of  the  olive- 
tree. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Ver.  2.  That  sendeth  ambassadors  by  the  sea,  even 
in  vessels  of  bulrushes  upon  the  waters,  saying. 
Go,  ye  swift  messengers,  to  a  nation  scattered 
and  peeled,  to  a  people  terrible  from  their  be* 
ginning  hitherto ;    a  nation    meted    out  and 


460 


ISAIAH. 


Chap.  21. 


trodden  down,   whose   land  the   rivers   have 
spoiled ! 

"  In  order  to  pass  along  the  Nile,  the  inhabitants  have 
recourse  to  the  contrivance  of  a  float,  made  of  large  earthen 
pitchers,  tied  closely  together,  and  covered  with  leaves  of 
palm-trees.  The  man  that  conducts  it,  has  commonly  in 
his  mouth  a  cord,  with  which  he  fishes,  as  he  passes  on." 
(Norden.")  Egmont  and  Heyman  saw  some  small  floats, 
used  by  the  Egyptian  fishermen,  consisting  of  bundles  of 
reeds,  floated  by  calabashes.  "  My  palanquin  bearers  now 
found  no  difficulty  in  fording  the  stream  of  the  Dahder ; 
the  last  time  I  crossed,  it  Avas  with  some  danger  on  a  raft 
placed  over  earthen  pots,  a  contrivance  well  known  in 
modern  Egypt,  where  they  make  a  float  of  earthen  pots, 
tied  together,  covered  with  a  platform  of  palm-leaves, 
which  will  bear  a  considerable  weight,  and  is  conducted 
without  difiiculty."    (Forbes.) — BaROER. 

Ver.  6.  They  shall  be  left  together  unto  the  fowls 

of  the  mountains,  and  to  the  beasts  of  the  earth : 

and  the  fowls  shall  summer  upon  them,  and  all 

the  beasts  of  the  earth  shall  winter  upon  them. 

See  on  1  Sam.  13.  18. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Ver.  5.  Prepare  the  table,  watch  in  the  watch- 
tower,  eat,  drink :  arise,  ye  princes,  and  anoint 
the  shield. 

The  ancient  warrior  did  not  yield  to  the  moderns  in 
seeping  his  armour  in  good  order.  The  inspired  writer 
often  speaks  of  furbishing  the  spear,  and  making  bright 
the  arrows^  and  the  manner  in  which  he  expresses  himself 
in  relation  to  this  part  of  the  soldier's  duty,  proves  that 
it  was  generally  and  carefully  performed.  But  they  were 
particularly  attentive  to  their  shields,  which  they  took  care 
frequently* to  scour,  polish,  and  anoint  with  oil.  The  ori- 
ental soldier  seems  to  have  gloried  in  the  dazzling  lustre 
of  his  shield,  which  he  so  highly  valued,  and  upon  which 
he  engraved  his  name  and  warlike  exploits.  To  produce 
the  desired  brightness,  and  preserve  it  undiminished,  he 
had  recourse  to  frequent  unction  ;  which  is  the  reason  of 
the  prophet's  invitation :  "  Arise,  ye  princes,  and  anoint 
the  shield."  As  this  was  done  to  improve  its  polish  and 
brightness,  so  it  was  covered  with  a  case,  when  it  was  not 
]a  use,  to  preserve  it  from  becoming  rusty.  This  is  the 
reason  the  prophet  says,  "  Kir  uncovered  the  shield."  The 
words  of  David,  already  quoted,  from  his  lamentation  over 
Saul  and  Jonathan,  may  refer  to  this  practice  of  anoint- 
ing the  shield,  rather  than  anointing  the  king :  "  The  shield 
of  the  mighty  is  vilely  cast  away,  the  shield  of  Saul,  as 
though  it  had  n  jt  been  anointed  with  oil :"  the  word  he 
being  a  supplement,  the  version  now  given  is  perfectly 
agreeable  to  the  original  text. — Paxton. 

Strange  as  it  may  appear,  the  Hindoos  make  ofl!erings 
to  their  weapons  of  war,  and  to  those  used  in  hunting. 
Fishermen  offer  incense  to  the  bag  in  which  they  carry 
their  fish,  and  also  to  the  net;  thus,  while  the  incense  is 
burning,  they  hold  the  different  implements  in  the  smoke. 
They  also,  when  able,  sacrifice  a  sheep  or  a  fowl,  which 
is  said  to  make  the  ceremony  more  acceptable  to  Varuna, 
the  god  of  tne  sea.  Should  the  tackle  thus  consecrated  not 
prove  successful,  they  conclude  some  part  of  the  ceremony 
has  not  been  properly  performed,  and  therefore  must  be 
repeated.  But  in  addition  to  this,  they  often  call  for  their 
magicians  to  bless  the  waters,  and  to  intercede  for  prosper- 
ity. Nor  is  this  sacrificing  to  implements  and  weapons 
confined  to  fishermen,  hunters,  and  warriors,  for  even 
artisans  do  the  same  thing  to  their  tools ;  as  also  do  students 
and  scholars  to  their  books.  Thus,  at  the  feast  called  nava- 
rdtere,  i.  e.  the  nine  nights,  carpenters,  masons,  goldsmiths, 
weavers,  and  all  other  tradesmen,  may  be  seen  offering  to 
their  tools.  Ask  them  a  reason,  and  they  say  the  incense 
and  ceremonies  are  acceptable  to  Sarusa-patki,  the  beauti- 
ful goddess  of  Brama, — Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  And,  behold,  here  cometh  a  chariot  of 
men,  with  a  couple  of  horsemen.  And  he  an- 
swered and  said,  Babylon  is  fallen,  is  fallen ; 


and  all  the  graven  images  of  her  gods  he  hath 
broken  unto  the  ground. 

This  is  a  prophecy,  and  yet  speaks  as  if  the  event  to 
which  it  relates  had  been  already  accomplished.  In  Jere- 
miah, also,  li.  8,  it  is  said,  "  Babylon  is  suddenly  fallen 
and  destroyed."  David  says,  "  Thou  hast  smitten  all  mine 
enemies."  Dr.  A.  Clarke  says,  "  That  is,  thou  wilt  smite !" 
He  speaks  in  full  confidence  of  God's  interference,  and 
knows  that  he  shall  as  surely  have  the  victory,  as  if  he  had 
it  already.  In  these  selections  the  past  tense  is  used  instead 
of  the  FUTURE.  He  who  came  from  Edom,  with  died  gar- 
ments from  Bozrah,  is  made  to  say,  "  I  will  stain  all  my  rai- 
ment." Dr.  A.  Clarke  has,  "  And  I  have  stained."  In  this 
instance,  therefore,  the  future  is  used  for  the  past,  Ps. 
Ixix : — "Let  their  table  become  a  snare  before  them; 
and  that  which  should  have  been  for  their  welfare,  let  it 
become  a  trap.  Let  their  eyes  be  darkened,  that  they  see 
not ;  and  make  their  loins  continually  to  shake;  Pour  oat 
thine  indignation  upon  them,  and  let  thy  wrathful  anger 
take  hold  of  them.  Let  their  habitation  be  desolate  ;  and 
let  none  dwell  in  their  tents."  Dr.  Boothroyd  renders  these 
imprecations  in  the  future,  because  he  believes  the  whole 
to  refer  to  judgments  that  should  fall  on  the  enemy.  Dr. 
A.  Clarke  says,  "  The  execrations  here,  and  in  the  fol- 
lowing verses,  should  be  read  in  the  future  tense,  because 
they  are  predictive,  and  not  in  the  imperative  mood,  as  if 
they  were  the  offspring  of  the  Psalmist's  resentment."  It 
is  common  in  eastern  speech,  in  order  to  show  the  cer- 
tainty of  any  thing  which  shall  be  done,  to  speak  of  it  as 
having  been  already  accomplis.hed.  Thus  the  Psalmist, 
in  speaking  of  the  iniquities  of  bad  men  as  having  already 
received  their  reward,  evidently  alludes  to  the  certainty 
of  future  punishment.  It  is  therefore  of  the  first  impor- 
tance to  know  in  what  tense  the  verb  is  meant,  as  that  alone 
will  give  a  true  view  of  the  intention  of  the  writer.  In  the 
Tamul  language  the  past  tense  is  often  elegantly  used  for 
the  future  :  thus,  in  the  Nan-nool  (the  Native  Grammar) 
this  distinction  is  beautifully  illustrated.  Does  a  note  re- 
quire to  be  taken  to  another  place  in  a  very  short  time,  the 
messenger,  on  being  charged  not  to  loiter  on  the  way,  re- 
plies, "  Nail  vanihu  vuUain,"  i.  e.  "  I  have  alread'y  re- 
turned:" whereas  he  has  not  taken  a  single  step  of  his 
journey.  "My  friend,"  asks  the  priest,  "when  do  you 
intend  to  go  to  the  sacred  place  and  perform  your  vows?" 
"  Nan  pm/e  van-thain"  i.  e.  "I  have  been  and  returned," 
which  means  he  is  going  immediately.  "Carpenter,  if 
you  are  not  quick  in  finishing  that  car,  the  gods  will  be 
angry  with  you." — "My  lord,  the  work  is  already  done;" 
when  perhaps  some  months  will  have  to  elapse  before  the 
work  can  be  finished.  But  they  also  use  the  past  for  the 
future,  to  denote  certanty  as  well  as  speed.  Do  the  ants 
begin  to  run  about  with  their  eggs  in  their  mouth,  it  is  said, 
"  mally~pmj-yattu,^^  it  has  rained,  though  a  single  drop  has 
not  fallen  on  the  ground.  The  meaning  is,  the  sign  is  so 
certain,  that  all  doubt  is  removed.  "  Why  does  that  man 
go  to  the  village  1  Does  he  not  know  the  cholera  is  sweeping 
as  a  besom  1  Alas !  alas !  avvon-chetu  pondn ;  he  is  already 
dead ;"  which  means,  he  will  certainly  die.  Should  the 
friends  of  a  young  man  inquire  whether  he  may  go  to  sea, 
the  soothsayer  says,  (if  the  signs  are  unfavourable,)  "  He 
is  already  drowned."  But  the  future  is  also  used  instead 
of  the  past,  as  in  the  case  of  the  deliverer  from  Bozrah : 
"  I  will  stain,"  for  "  I  have  stained."  Should  a  man  re- 
fuse to  obey  an  officer,  and  inquire,  "  "Where  is  the  order 
of  the  king  1"  the  reply  is,  "  He  will  command,"  which 
strongly  intimates  it  has  been  done,  and  that  other  conse- 
quences will  follow.  (1  Sam.  iii.  13.)  See  margin,  1  Kings 
iii.  13;  also  vi.  1;  and  xv.  25.  2  Kings  viii.  16.  Dan. 
ii.  28 ;  also  iii.  29  ;  for  all  of  which  see  marginal  readings. 
See  Dr.  A.  Clarke  on  Matt.  iii.  17 ;  also  xxvi.  28,  blood 
is  shed,  for  will  be  shed* — Roberts. 

Ver.  11.  The  burden  of  Dumah.  He  calleth  to 
me  out  of  Seir,  Watchman,  what  of  the  night  ? 
watchman,  what  of  the  night? 

The  Orientals  emploved  watchmen  to  patrol  the  city 
during  the  night,  to  suppress  any  disorders  in  the  streets, 
or  to  guard  the  walls  against  the  attempts  of  a  foreign  ene- 
my.   To  this  custom  Solomon  refers  in  these  words  :  "  The 


Chap.  22. 


ISAIAH. 


461 


watchmen  that  went  about  the  city  found  me,  they  smote 
me,  they  wounded  me ;  the  keepers  of  the  wall  took  away 
my  veil  from  me."  This  custom  may  be  traced  to  a  very- 
remote  antiquity ;  so  early  as  the  departure  of  Israel  from 
the  land  of  Egypt,  the  morning  watch  is  mentioned,  cer- 
tainly indicating  the  time  when  the  watchmen  were  com- 
munly  relieved.  In  Persia,  the  watchmen  were  obliged  to 
indemnify  those  who  were  robbed  in  the  streets  ;  which  ac- 
counts for  the  vigilance  and  severity  which  they  display  in 
the  discharge  of  their  office,  and  illustrates  the  character  of 
watchman  given  to  Ezekiel,  who  lived  in  that  country,  and 
the  duties  he  was  required  to  perform.  If  the  wicked  per- 
ished in  his  iniquities  without  warning,  the  prophet  was  to 
be  accountable  for  his  blood ;  but  if  he  duly  pointed  out  his 
danger,  he  delivered  his  own  soul.  These  terms,  there- 
fore, were  neither  harsh  nor  severe ;  they  were  the  com- 
mon appointments  of  watchmen  in  Persia.  They  were 
also  charged  to  announce  the  progress  of  the  night  to  the 
slumbering  city :  "  The  burden  of  Dumah  :  he  calls  to  me 
out  of  Sei'r,  Watchman,  what  of  the  night  *?  watchman, 
what  of  the  night  1  The  watchman  said,  The  morning  com- 
eth,  and  also  the  night."  This  is  confirmed  by  an  observa- 
tion of  Chardin,  upon  these  words  of  Moses:  "  For  a  thou- 
sand years  in  thy  sight  are  but  as  yesterday  when  it  is  past, 
and  as  a  watch  in  the  night;"  that  as  the  people  of  the  East 
have  no  clocks,  the  several  parts  of  the  day  and  of  the  night, 
which  are  eight  in  all,  are  announced.  In  the  Indies,  the 
parts  of  the  night  are  made  known,  as  well  by  instruments 
of  music,  in  great  cities,  as  by  the  rounds  of  the  watchmen, 
who,  with  cries  and  small  drums,  give  them  notice  that  a 
fourth  part  of  the  night  is  past.  Now,  as  these  cries  awa- 
ked those  who  had  slept  all  that  quarter  part  of  the  night, 
it  appeared  to  them  but  as  a  moment.  There  are  sixty  of 
these  people  in  the  Indies  by  day,  and  as  many  by  night ; 
that  is,  fifteen  for  each  division.  It  is  evident  the  ancient 
Jews  knew,  by  means  of  some  public  notice,  how  the  night- 
watches  passed  away ;  but,  whether  they  simply  announced 
the  termination  of  the  watch,  or  made  use  of  trumpets,  or 
other  sonorous  instruments,  in  making  the  proclamation,  it 
may  not  be  easy  to  determine  ;  and  still  less  what  kind  of 
chronometers  the  watchmen  used.  The  probability  is,  that 
the  watches  were  announced  with  the  sound  of  a  trumpet ; 
for  the  prophet  Ezekiel  makes  it  a  part  of  the  watchman's 
duty,  at  least  in  time  of  war,  to  blow  the  trumpet,  and  warn 
the  people. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Ver.  1.  Theburdenof  the  valley  of  vision.  What 
aileth  thee  now,  that  thou  art  wholly  gone  up 
to  the  house-tops  ? 

The  houses  in  the  East  were  in  ancient  times  as  they  are 
still,  generally,  built.in  one  and  the  same  uniform  manner. 
The  roof  or  top  of  the  house  is  always  flat,  covered  with 
broad  stones,  or  a  strong  plaster  of  terrace,  and  guarded  on 
every  side  with  a  low  parapet-wall.  The  terrace  is  fre- 
quented as  much  as  any  part  of  the  house.  On  this,  as  the 
season  favours,  they  walk,  they  eat,  they  sleep,  they  trans- 
act business,  they  perform  their  devotions.  The  house  is 
built  with  a  court  within,  into  which  chiefly  the  windows 
open ;  those  that  open  to  the  street  are  so  obstructed  with 
lattice-work,  that  no  one  either  without  or  within  can  see 
through  them.  Whenever,  therefore,  any  thing  is  to  be 
seen  or  heard  in  the  streets,  everyone  immediately  goes  up 
to  the  house-top  to  satisfy  his  curiosity.  In  the  same  man- 
ner, when  any  one  had  occasion  to  make  any  thing  public, 
the  readiest  and  most  effectual  way  of  doing  it,  was  to 
proclaim  it  from  the  house-tops  to  the  people  in  the  streets. 

— LOWTH. 

Ver.  8.  And  he  discovered  the  covering-  of  Judah, 
and  thou  didst  look  in  that  day  to  the  armour 
of  the  house  of  the  forest. 

The  editor  of  the  Fragments  subjoined  to  Calmet's  Dic- 
tionary of  the  Bible,  thus  renders  and  explains  this  passage: 
He  rolled  up,  turned  back,  the  covering  of  Judah,  as  the 
covering  veils,  hanging  at  the  door  of  a  house  or  tent,  are 
rolled  up,  for  more  convenient  passage,  and  did  look,  in- 
spect carefully,  the  arms  and  weapons  of  the  house  of  the 
forest.    The  ideas  contained  in  this  iiiterpretation  are  apt- 


ly expressed  in  the  following  e^^ract  from  Frazer's  Histo- 
ry of  Kouli  Khan:  "  Nadir  Shah,  having  taken  Delhi,  or- 
dered SirbuUind  Khan  to  attend  the  Towpehi  Bashi,  the 
master  of  the  ordnance;  and  the  Nissikchi  Bachi,  head 
regulator,  commissary  of  seizures,  who  had  each  two  hun- 
dred horse,  to  seize  all  the  king's  and  the  omra's  ordnance, 
the  treasury,  jewels,  toishik-khanna,  (the  arsenal,)  and  all 
the  other  implements  and  arms  that  belonged  to  the  empe- 
ror, and  the  deceased  omras ;  and  to  send  to  Mahommed 
Shall,  the  captive  emperor,  his  son,  Sultan  Ahmed,  and 
Malika  al  Zumani,  (the  queen  of  the  times,)  the  emperess. 
Nadir  Shah  took  away  the  ordnance,  effects,  and  treasure," 
May  not  such  a  conduct  in  a  conqueror  justify  the  allu- 
sion supposed  to  be  intended  in  this  representation  of  the 
prophet ;  for  what  is  this  but  rolling  back  what  covered  the 
privacy  of  the  conquered  state,  and  prying  into  the  house 
of  its  armoury. — BunDEu, 

Ver.  16.  What  hast  thou  here,  and  whom  hast 
thou  here,  that  thou  hast  hewed  thee  out  a 
sepulchre  here,  as  he  that  hewed  him  out  a 
sepulchre  on  high,  a7id  that  graveth  a  habita- 
tion for  himself  in  a  rock  ? 

The  Orientals  bury  without  the  walls  of  their  cities, 
unless  when  they  wish  to  bestow  a  distinguishing  mark  t  f 
honour  upon  the  deceased.  For  this  reason,  the  sepulchres 
of  David  and  his  family,  and  the  tomb  of  Huldah  the 
prophetess,  were  within  the  city  of  Jerusalem ;  and  perhaps 
the  only  ones  to  be  found  there.  The  sepulchres  of  the 
Hebrews,  that  were  able  to  afford  the  necessary  expense, 
were  extensive  caves  or  vauhs,  excavated  in  the  native 
rock,  by  the  art  and  exertions  of  man.  The  roofs  were 
generally  arched;  and  some  were  so  spacious  as  to  be 
supported  by  colonnades.  All  round  the  sides  were  cells 
for  the  reception  of  the  sarcophagi ;  these  were  ornament- 
ed with  appropriate  sculpture,  and  each  was  placed  in  its 
proper  cell.  The  cave  or  sepulchre  admitted  no  light,  be- 
ing closed  by  a  great  stone  which  was  rolled  to  the  mouth, 
by  the  narrow  passage  or  entrance.  Many  of  these  recep- 
tacles are  still  extant  in  Judea ;  two  in  particular  are  more 
magnificent  than  all  the  rest,  and  for  that  reason  supposed 
to  be  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings.  One  of  these  is  in  Jeru- 
salem, and  contains  twenty-four  cells;  the  other,  containing 
twice  that  number,  is  without  the  city.  "  You  are  to  form 
to  yourself,"  says  Lowth,  speaking  of  these  sepulchres,  "an 
idea  of  an  immense  subterraneous  vault,  a  vast  gloomy 
cavern,  all  round  the  sides  of  which  are  cells  to  receive  the 
dead  bodies ;  here  the  deceased  monarchs  lie  jn  a  distin- 
guished sort  of  state,  suitable  to  their  former  rank,  each  on 
his  own  couch,  with  his  arms  beside  him,  his  sword  at  his 
head,  and  the  bodies  of  his  chiefs  and  companions  round 
about  him." 

"  Whoever,"  says  Maundrell,  "  was  buried  there,  this  is 
certain,  that  the  place  itself  discovers  so  great  an  expense, 
both  of  labour  and  of  treasure,  that  we  may  well  suppose  it 
to  have  been  the  work  of  kings.  You  approach  it  at  the 
east  side  through  an  entrance  cut  out  of  t'he  natural  rock, 
which  admits  you  into  an  open  court  of  about  forty  paces 
square,  cut  down  into  the  rock,  with  which  it  is  encom- 
passed instead  of  walls.  On  the  south  side  of  the  court,  is 
a  portico,  nine  paces  long,  and  four  broad,  hewn  likewise 
out  of  the  rock.  This  has  a  kind  of  architrave  running 
along  its  front,  adorned  with  sculpture  of  fruits  and  flowers, 
still  discernible,  but  by  time  much  defaced.  At  the  end  of 
the  portico  on  the  left  hand,  you  descend  to  the  passage  into 
the  sepulchres.  Passing  through  it,  you  arrive  in  a  large 
apartment  about  seven  or  eight  yards  square,  cut  out  of  the 
natural  rock.  Its  sides  and  ceiling  are  so  exactly  square, 
and  its  angles  so  just,  that  no  architect  with  levels  and 
plummets  cculd  build  a  room  more  regular;  and  the  whole 
is  so  firm  and  entire,  that  it  may  be  called  a  chamber  hol- 
lowed out  of  one  piece  of  marble.  From  this  room  you 
pass  into  six  more,  one  within  another,  all  of  the  same 
fabric  as  the  first.  Of  these  the  two  innermost  are  deeper 
than  the  rest,  having  a  second  descent  of  about  six  or  seven 
steps  into  them.  In  every  one  of  these  rooms,  except  the 
first,  were  coffins  of  stone  placed  in  niches  in  the  sides  of 
the  chambers.  They  had  been  at  first  covered  with  hand- 
some lids,  and  carved  with  garlands ;  but  now  most  of  them 
are  broken  to  pieces  by  sacrilegious  hands.  The  sides  and 
ceilings  of  the  rooms  were  also  drooping  with  the  moist 


462 


ISAIAH. 


Chap.  22. 


damps  condensed  upon  th6m  ;  to  remedy  which  nuisance, 
and  to  preserve  ihese  chambers  of  the  dead  polite  and 
clean,  there  was  in  each  room  a  small  channel  cut  in  the 
floor,  which  served  to  drain  the  drops  that  fell  constantly 
into  it. 

To  these  sepulchres,  and  their  interior  chambers,  one 
v/ithin  another,  the  wise  man,  by  a  bold  and  striking  figure, 
compares  the  dwelling  of  a  lewd  woman :  "  Her  house  is 
the  way  to  hades  i^  her  first  or  outer  chamber  is  like  the 
open  court  that  leads  to  the  tomb,  "  going  down  to  the 
chambers  of  death;"  her  private  apartments,  like  the  sepa- 
rate recesses  of  a  sepulchre,  are  the  receptacles  of  loath- 
some corruption ;  and  he  calls  them,  in  allusion  to  the 
solidity  of  the  rock  in  which  they  are  hewn,  the  "  long 
home,"  (o^^j?  n^a)  beth  olam,  the  house  of  ages.  The  higher 
such  sepulchres  were  cut  in  the  rock,  or  the  more  conspic- 
uously they  were  situated,  the  greater  was  supposed  to  be 
the  honour  of  reposing  there.  "  Hezekiah  was  buried  in 
the  chiefest,"  says  our  translation  ;  rather,  in  the  highest 
part  "  of  the  sepulchres  of  the  sons  of  David,"  to  do  him 
the  more  honour.  The  vanity  of  Shebna,  which  so  much 
displeased  the  Lord,  was  discovered  in  preparing  for  him- 
self a  sepulchre  in  the  face  of  some  lofty  rock :  "  What 
hast  thou  here,  and  v/hom  hast  thou  here,  that  thou  hast 
hewed  thee  out  a  sepulchre  here,  as  he  that  heweth  him 
out  a  sepulchre  on  high,  and  that  graveth  a  habitation  for 
him  in  a  rock."  Several  modern  travellers  mention  some 
monuments  still  remaining  in  Persia  of  great  antiquity, 
which  gave  them  a  clear  idea  of  Shebna's  pompous  design 
for  his  sepulchre.  They  consist  of  several  tombs,  each  of 
Ihem  hewn  in  a  high  rock  near  the  top ;  the  front  of  the 
rock  to  the  valley  below,  being  the  outside  of  the  sepulchre, 
is  adorned  udth  carved  work  in  relief.  Some  of  these 
sepulchres  are  about  thirty  feet  in  the  perpendicular  from 
the  valley.  Diodorus  Siculus  mentions  these  ancient 
monuments,  and  calls  them  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings  of 
Persia.  The  tombs  of  Tel  missus,  in  the  island  of  Rhodes, 
which  Dr.  Clarke  visited,  furnish  a  still  more  remarkable 
commentary  on  this  text.  They  "  are  of  two  kinds ;  the 
first  are  sepulchres  hewn  in  the  face  of  perpendicular 
rocks.  Wherever  the  side  of  a  mountain  presented  an 
almost  inaccessible  steep,  there  the  ancient  workmen  seem 
to  have  bestowed  their  prin3ipal  labour.  In  such  situations 
are  seen  excavated  chambers,  worked  with  such  marvel- 
lous art,  as  to  exhibit  open  fa9ades,  porticoes  with  Ionic 
columns,  gates  and  doors  beautifully  sculptured,  in  which 
are  carved  the  repiesentation  of  an  embossed  iron  work, 
bolts  and  hinges  of  one  stone. 

"  The  other  kind  of  tomb  is  the  true  Grecian  soros,  the 
sarcophagus  of  the  Romans.  Of  this  sort  there  are  several, 
but  of  a  size  and  grandeur  far  exceeding  any  thing  of  the 
kind  elsewhere,  standing  in  some  instances  upon  the  crag- 
gy pinnacles  of  lofty  precipitous  rocks.  Each  consists  of 
a  single  stone,  others  of  still  larger  size,  of  more  than  one 
stone.  Some  consist  of  two  masses  of  stone,  one  for  the 
body,  or  chest  of  the  soros,  and  the  other  for  its  operculum ; 
and  to  increase  the  wonder  excited  by  the  skill  and  labour 
manifested  in  their  construction,  they  have  been  almost 
miraculously  raised  to  the  surrounding  heights,  and  there 
left  standing  upon  the  projections  and  crags  of  the  rocks, 
which  the  casualties  of  nature  presented  for  their  reception. 
At  Macri,  the  tombs  are  cut  out  of  the  solid  rock,  in  the 
precipices  towards  the  sea.  Some  of  them  have  a  kind  of 
portico,  with  pillars  in  front.  In  these  they  were  almost 
plain.  The  hewn  stone  was  as  smooth  as  if  the  artist  had 
been  employed  upon  wood,  or  any  other  soft  substance. 
They  most  nearly  resemble  book-cases,  with  glass  doors. 
A  small  rectangular  opening,  scarcely  large  enough  to  pass 
through,  admits  a  stranger  to  the  interior  of  these  tombs ; 
where  is  found  a  square  chamber,  with  one  or  more  recep- 
tacles for  dead  bodies,  shaped  like  baths,  upon  the  sides  of 
the  apartment,  and  neatly  chiselled  in  the  body  of  the  rock. 
The  mouths  of  these  sepulchres  had  been  originally  closed 
by  square  slabs  of  stone,  exactly  adapted  to  grooves  cut  for 
their  reception;  and  so  nicely  adjusted,  that  when  the  work 
was  finished,  the  place  of  entrance  might  not  be  observed. 
Of  similar  construction  were  the  sepulchres  of  the  Jews 
in  Palestme,  and  particularly  that  in  which  our  Lord  was 
buried.  Many  of  these  have  the  appearance  of  being  in- 
accessible ;  but  by  dint  of  climbing  from  rock  to  rock,  at 
the  risk  of  a  dangerous  fall,  it  is  possible  to  ascend  even  to 
the  highest.    They  are  fronted  with  rude  pillats,  which 


are  integral  parts  of  the  solid  rock.  Some  of  them  are 
twenty  feet  high.  The  mouths  of  these  sepulchres  are 
closed  with  beautiful  sculptured  imitations  of  brazec  cr 
iron  doors,  with  hinges,  knobs,  and  bars." 

This  intelligent  traveller  visited  a  range  of  tombs  of  tne 
same  kind  on  the  borders  of  the  lake  of  Tiberias,  hewn  by 
the  earliest  inhabitants  of  Galilee,  in  the  rocks  which  face 
the  water.  They  were  deserted  in  the  time  of  our  Saviour, 
and  had  become  the  resort  of  wretched  men,  afflicted  by 
diseases,  and  made  outcasts  of  society ;  for  these  tombs  are 
particularly  alluded  to  in  the  account  of  a  cure  performed 
upon  a  maniac  in  the  country  of  the  Gadarenes.  The 
tombs  at  Naplose,  the  ancient  Sichem,  where  Joseph,  Josh- 
ua, and  others,  were  buried,  are  also  hewn  out  of  the  solid 
rock,  and  durable  as  the  hills  in  which  they  are  excavated. 
Constituting  integral  parts  of  mountains,  and  chiselled  with 
a  degree  of  labour  not  to  be  conceived  from  mere  descrip- 
tion, these  monuments  suffer  no  change  from  the  lapse  of 
ages;  they  have  defied,  and  will  defy,  the  attacks  of  time, 
and  continue  as  perfect  at  thi^  hour,  as  they  were  in  the 
first  moment  of  their  completion, — Paxton, 

Ver.  17.  Behold,  the  Lord  will  carry  thee  away 
with  a  mighty  captivity,  and  will  surely  cover 
thee. 

To  be  covered  is  a  sign  of  mourning,  of  degradation,  and 
inferiority.  People  in  great  sorrow  cover  their  faces  with 
their  robes ;  thus  may  be  seen  the  weeping  mother  and 
sorrow-struck  father:  they  cover  themselves  from  the  sight 
of  others,  to  conceal  their  dejection  and  tears.  But  when 
people  are  ashamed,  also,  they  cover  their  heads  and  faces. 
For  a  man  to  say  he  will  cover  another,  intimates  supe- 
riority, and  shows  that  he  will  put  him  to  confusion.  "  Yes, 
the  man  who  was  brought  up  and  nourished  by  the  Mode- 
liar,  is  now  greater  than  his  benefactor,  for  he  covers  him." 
"  L  ok  at  that  parasitical  banyan  tree  ;  when  it  first  began 
to  grow  on  the  other  tree,  it  was  a  very  small  plant,  but  it 
has  been  allowed  to  flourish,  and  now  it  covers  the  parent 
stock,"  Thus,  those  who  were  to  be  carried  into  captivity, 
were  to  be  covered,  in  token  of  their  sorrow,  degradation, 
and  inferiority. — Roberts. 

Ver.  22.  And  the  key  of  the  house  of  David  will 
I  lay  upon  his  shoulder  :  so  he  shall  open,  and 
none  shall  shut ;  and  he  shall  shut,  and  none 
shall  open. 

How  much  was  I  delighted  when  I  first  saw  the  people, 
especially  the  Moors,  going  along  the  streets  with  each  his 
key  on  his  shoulder.  The  handle  is  generally  made  of  brass, 
(though  sometimes  of  silver,)  and  is  often  nicely  worked  in 
a  device  of  filigree.  The  way  it  is  carried,  is  to  have  the 
corner  of  a  kerchief  tied  to  the  ring;  the  key  is  then  placed 
on  the  shoulder,  and  the  kerchief  hangs  down  in  front.  At 
other  times  they  have  a  bunch  of  large  keys,  and  then  they 
have  half  on  one  side  of  the  shoudler,  and  half  on  the  other. 
For  a  man  thus  to  march  along  with  a  large  key  on  his 
shoulder,  shows  at  once  that  he  is  a  person  of  consequence. 
"  Raman  is  in  great  favour  with  the  Modeliar,  for  he  now. 
carries  the  key."  "  Whose  key  have  you  got  on  your 
shoulder'?"  "  I  shall  carry  my  key  on  my  own  shoulder.'* 
The  key  of  the  house  of  David  was  to  be  on  the  shoulder 
of  Eliakim,  who  was  a  type  of  him  who  had  the  "govern- 
ment" "upon  his  shoulder;"  "the  mighty  God,  the  ever- 
lasting Father,  the  Prince  of  Peace," — Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  And  I  will  fasten  him  as  a  nail  in  a  sure 
place ;  and  he  shall  be  for  a  glorious  throne  to 
his  father's  house. 

When  a  man  in  power  has  given  a  situation  to  another, 
it  is  said  of  the  favoured  individual,  "  He  is  fastened  as  a 
nail."  "  Yes,  his  situation  is  fixed,  he  will  not  be  moved.'* 
"What!  has  Tamban  lost  his  glory?  I  thought  he  had 
been  fastened  as  a  nail."— Roberts. 

The  Orientals,  in  fitting  up  their  houses,  were  by  no 
means  inattentive  to  the  comfort  and  satisfaction  ansmff 
from  order  and  method.  Their  furniture  was  scanty  and 
plain  ;  but  they  were  careful  to  arrange  the  few  househola 
utensils  they  needed,  so  as  not  to  encumber  the  apartmenu 


Chap.  24 


ISAIAH 


463 


to  which  they  belonged.  Their  devices  for  this  purpose, 
which,  like  every  part  of  the  structure,  bore  the  character 
of  remarkable  simplicity,  may  not  correspond  with  our 
ideas  of  neatness  and  propriety  ;  but  they  accorded  with 
their  taste,  and  sufficiently  answered  their  design.  One  of 
these  consisted  in  a  set  of  spikes,  nails,  or  large  pegs,  fixed 
in  the  walls  of  the  house,  upon  which  they  hung  up  the 
moveables  and  utensils  in  common  use,  that  belonged  to 
the  room.  These  nails  they  do  not  drive  into  the  walls 
with  a  hammer  or  mallet,  but  fix  them  there  when  the 
house  is  building;  for  if  the  walls  are  of  brick,  they  are  too 
hard,  or  if  they  consist  of  clay,  too  soft  and  mouldering,  to 
admit  the  action  of  the  hammer.  The  spikes,  which  are 
so  contrived  as  to  strengthen  the  walls,  by  binding  the  parts 
together,  as  well  as  to  serve  for  convenience,  are  large, 
with  square  heads  like  dice,  and  bent  at  the  ends  so  as  to 
make  them  cramp-irons.  They  commonly  place  them  at 
the  windows  and  doors,  in  order  to  hang  upon  them,  when 
they  choose,  veils  and  curtains,  although  they  place  them 
in  other  parts  of  the  room,  to  hang  up  other  things  of  vari- 
ous kinds.  The  care  witn  which  they  fixed  these  nails, 
may  be  inferred,  as  well  from  the  important  purposes  they 
were  meant  to  serve,  as  from  the  promise  of  the  Lord  to 
Eliakim :  "  And  I  will  fasten  him  as  a  nail  in  a  sure  place." 
Pins  and  nails.  Dr.  Russel  observes,  in  a  manuscript  note, 
are  se'ldom  used  (at  Aleppo)  for  hanging  clothes  or  other 
articles  upon,  which  are  usually  laid  one  over  the  other, 
on  a  chest,  or  particular  kind  of  chair.  This  intelligent 
writer  does  not  refuse  that  they  are  occasionally  used  in 
modern  times ;  and  it  is  evident  from  the  words  of  the 
prophet,  that  it  was  common  in  his  time  to  suspend  upon 
them  the  utensils  belonging  to  the  apartment :  "  Will  men 
take  a  pin  of  it  to  hang  any  Vessel  thereon  1"  The  word 
used  in  Isaiah  for  a  nail  of  this  sort,  is  the  same  which  de- 
notes the  stake,  or  large  pin  of  iron,  which  fastened  down 
to  the  ground  the  cords  of  their  tents.  These  nails,  there- 
fore, were  of  necessary  and  common  use,  and  of  no  small 
importance  in  all  their  apartments ;  and  if  they  seem  to  us 
mean  and  insignificant,  it  is  because  they  are  unknown  to 
US,  and  inconsistent  with  our  notions  of  propriety,  and  be- 
cause we  have  no  name  for  them  but  what  conveys  to  our  ■ 
ear  a  low  and  contemptible  idea.  It  is  evident  "from  the 
frequent  allusions  in  scripture  to  these  instruments,  that 
they  were  not  regarded  with  contempt  or  indifference  by 
the  natives  of  Palestine.  "  Grace  has  been  showed  from 
the  Lord  our  God,"  said  Ezra,  *'  to  leave  us  a  remnant  to 
escape,  and  to  give  us  a  nail  in  his  holy  place;"  or,  as  ex- 
plained in  the  margin,  a  constant  and  sure  abode.  The 
dignity  and  propriety  of  the  metaphor  appears  from  the  use 
which  the  prophet  Zechariah  makes  of  it :  "  Out  of  him 
Cometh  forth  the  corner,  out  of  him  the  nail,  out  of  him  the 
battle  bow,  out  of  him  every  oppressor  together."  The 
whole  frame  of  government,  both  in  church  and  state, 
which  the  chosen  people  of  God  enjoyed,  was  the  contri- 
vance of  his  wisdom,  and  the  gift  of  his  bounty :  the  foun- 
dations upon  which  it  rested;  the  bonds  which  kept  the 
several  parts  together ;  its  means  of  defence ;  its  officers 
and  executors,  were  all  the  fruits  of  distinguishing  good- 
ness;  even  the  oppressors  of  his  people  were  a  rod  of  cor- 
rection in  the  hand  of  Jehovah,  to  convince  them  of  sin, 
and  restore  them  to  his  service. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Ver.  5.  The  earth  also  is  defiled  under  the  inhab- 
itants thereof,  because  they  have  transgressed 
the  laws,  changed  the  ordinance,  broken  the 
everlasting  covenant. 

These  expressive  words,  while  they  declare  the  cause  of 
the  judgments  and  desolation,  denote  also  the  great  de- 
pravity of  those  who  were  to  inhabit  the  land  of  Judea, 
during  the  time  of  its  desolation,  and  while  its  ancient 
inhabitants  were  to  be  "  scattered  abroad."  And  althou.gh 
the  ignorance  of  those  who  dwell  therein  may  be  pitied, 
their  degeneracy  will  not  be  denied.  The  ferocity  of  the 
Turks,  the  predatory  habits  of  the  Arabs,  the  abject  state 
of  the  few  poor  Jews  who  are  suffered  to  dwell  in  the  land 
c.f  their  fathers,  the  base  superstitions  of  the  different  Chris- 
tian sects;  the  frequent  contentions  that  subsist  among  such 
a  mingled  and  diversified  people,  and  the  gross  ignorance 
and  great  depravity  that  prevail  throughout  the  whole,  have 


all  sadly  changed  and  stained  the  moral  aspect  of  that  coun- 
try, which,  from  sacred  remembrances,  is  denominated  the 
Holy  Land;  have  converted  that  region,  where  alone  in  all 
the  world,  and  during  many  ages,  the  only  living  and  true 
God  was  worshipped  ;  and  where  alone  the  pattern  of  per- 
fect virtue  was  ever  exhibited  to  human  view,  or  in  the 
human  form,  into  one  of  the  most  degraded  countries  of 
the  globe,  and  in  appropriate  terms,  may  well  be  said  to 
have  dejiled  the  land.  And  it  has  been  defiled  throughout 
many  an  age.  The  Father  of  mercies  afflicteth  not  will- 
ingly, nor  grieves  the  children  of  men.  Sin  is  ever  the 
precursor  of  the  actual  judgments  of  Heaven.  It  was  on 
account  of  their  idolatry  and  wickedness  that  the  ten  tribes 
were  earliest  plucked  from  off  the  land  of  Israel.  The 
blood  of  Jesus,  according  to  their  prayer,  and  the  full 
measure  of  their  iniquity,  according  to  their  doings,  was 
upon  the  Jews  and  upon  their  children.  Before  they  were 
extirpated  from  that  land  which  their  iniquities  had  defiled, 
it  was  drenched  with  the  blood  of  more  than  a  million  qi 
their  race.  Judea  afterward  had  a  partial  and  temporary 
respite  from  desolation,  when  Christian  churches  were 
established  there.  But  in  that  land,  the  nursery  of  Chris- 
tianity, the  seeds  of  its  corruption,  or  perversion,  began 
soon  to  appear.  The  moral  power  of  religion  decayed,  the 
worship  of  images  prevailed,  and  the  nominal  disciples  of 
a  pure  faith  "broke  the  everlasting  covenant."  The  doc- 
trine of  Mohammed,  the  Koran,  or  the  sword,  was  the 
scourge  and  the  cure  of  idolatry;  but  all  the  native  impu- 
rities of  the  Mohammedan  creed  succeeded  to  a  grossly 
corrupted  form  of  Christianity.  Since  that  period,  hordes 
of  Saracens,  Egyptians,  Fatimites,  Tartars,  Mamelukes, 
Turks,  (a  combination  of  names  of  unmatched  barbarism, 
at  least  in  modem  times,)  have,  fqr  the  space  of  twelve  hun- 
dred years,  defiled  the  land  of  the  chilaren  of  Israel  with 
iniquity  and  with  blood.  And  in  very  truth  the  prophecy 
savours  not  in  the  least  of  hyperbole :  the  worst  of  the  heathen 
shall  possess  their  houses,  aiid  the  holy  places  shall  be  defiled. 
Omer,  on  the  first  conquest  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Moham- 
medans, erected  a  mosque  on  the  site  of  the  temple  of  Solr 
omon  ;  and,  jealous  as  the  God  of  Israel  is,  that  his  glory 
be  not  given  to  another,  the  unseemly,  and  violent,  and 
bloody  conteniions  among  Christian  sects,  around  the  very 
sepulchre  of  the  Author  of  the  faith  which  they  dishonour, 
bear  not  a  feebler  testimony  in  the  present  day,  than  the 
preceding  fact  bore,  at  so  remote  a  period,  to  the  truth  of  this 
prediction.  The  phrensied  zeal  of  crusading  Christians 
could  not  expel  the  heathen  from  Judea,  though  Europe 
then  poured  like  a  torrent  upon  Asia.  But  the  defilement 
of  the  land,  no  less  than  that  of  the  holy  places,  is  not  yet 
cleansed  away.  And  Judea  is  still  defiled  to  this  hour,  not 
only  by  oppressive  rulers,  but  by  an  unprincipled  and  a 
lawless  people.  "  The  barbarism  of  Syria,"  says  Volney, 
"  is  complete."  "  I  have  often  reflected,"  says  Burckhardt, 
in  describing  the  dishonest  conduct  of  a  Greek  priest  in  the 
hauran,  (but  in  words  that  admit  of  too  general  an  applica- 
tion,) "  that  if  the  English  penal  laws  were  suddenly  pro- 
mulgated in  this  country,  there  is  scarcely  any  man  in 
business,  or  who  has  money-dealings  with  others,  who 
would  not  be  liable  to  transportation  before  the  end  of  the 
first  six  months.  Under  the  name  of  Christianity,  every 
degrading  superstition  and  profane  rite,  equally  remote 
from  the  enlightened  tenets  of  the  gospel,  and  the  dignity 
of  human  nature,  are  professed  and  tolerated.  The  pure 
gospel  of  Christ,  everywhere  the  herald  of  civilization  and 
of  science,  is  almost  as  little  known  in  the  Holy  Land,  as 
in  California  or  New  Holland.  A  series  of  legendary 
traditions,  mingled  with  remains  of  Judaism,  and  the 
wretched  fantasies  of  illiterate  ascetics,  may  now  and 
then  exhibit  a  glimmering  of  heavenly  light ;  but  if  we 
seek  for  the  effects  of  Christianity  in  the  Land  of  Canaan, 
we  must  look  for  that  period  when  the  desert  shall  blossom 
as  the  rose,  and  the  wilderness  become  a  fruitful  field."- 
Keith. 

Ver.  6.  Therefore  hath  the  curse  devoured  the 
earth,  and  they  that  dwell  therein  are  desolate : 
therefore  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  are  burn- 
ed, and  few  men  left. 

"  The  government  of  the  Turks  in  Syria  is  a  pure  mili- 
tary despotism,  that  is,  the  bulk  of  the  inhabitants  are 
subject  to  the  caprices  of  a  faction  of  armed  men,  who  dia- 


464 


ISAIAH. 


Chap.  24—27. 


pose  of  every  thing  accc  rding  to  their  interest  and  fancy. 
In  each  government  the  pacha  is  an  absolute  despot.  In 
the  villages,  the  inhabitants,  limited  to  the  mere  necessaries 
of  life,  have  no  arts  but  those  without  which  they  cannot 
subsist.  There  is  no  safety  without  the  towns,  nor  security 
within  their  precincts."  (Voiney.)  "Few  men  left,"  While 
their  character  is  thus  depraved,  and  their  condition  mis- 
erable, their  number  is  also  small  indeed,  as  the  inhabitants 
of  so  extensiA^e  and  fertile  a  region.  After  estimating  the 
number  of  inhabitants  in  Syria  in  general,  Voiney  remarks, 
"  So  feeble  a  population  in  so  excellent  a  country,  may  well 
excite  our  astonishment ;  but  this  will  be  increased,  if  we 
compare  the  present  number  of  inhabitants  with  that  of 
ancient  times.  We  are  informed  by  the  philosophical 
geographer,  Strabo,  that  the  territories  of  Yanmia  and  Yop- 
pa,  in  Palestine  alone,  were  formerly  so  populous  as  to 
bring  forty  thousand  armed  men  into  the  field.  At  present 
they  could  scarcely  furnfsh  three  thousand.  From  the  ac- 
counts we  have  of  Judea,  in  the  time  of  Titus,  which  are 
to  be  esteemed  tolerably  accurate,  that  country  must  have 
contained  four  millions  of  inhabitants.  If  we  go  still  fur- 
ther back  into  antiquity,  we  shall  find  the  san>e  populous- 
ness  among  the  Philistines,  the  Phenicians,  and  in  the 
kingdoms  of  Samaria  and  Damascus."  Though  the  ancient 
population  of  the  land  of  Israel  be  estimated  at  the  lowest 
computation,  and  the  existing  population  be  rated  at  the 
highest,  yet  that  country  does  not  now  contain  a  tenth  part 
of  the  number  of  inhabitants  which  it  plentifully  supported, 
exclusively  i'rom  their  industry,  and  from  the  rich  resources 
of  its  own  luxuriant  soil,  for  many  successive  centuries  ; 
and  how  could  it  possibly  have  been  imagined  that  this 
identical  land  would  ever  yield  so  scanty  a  subsistence  to 
he  desolate  dwellers  therein,  and  that  there  would  be  so 
fevj  men  left  7 — Keith. 

Ver.  13.  When  thus  it  shall  be  in  the  midst  of 
the  land  among-  the  people,  there  shall  be  as 
the  shaking  of  an  olive-tree,  and  as  the  glean- 
ing-grapes  when  the  vintage  is  done. 
See  on  eh.  17.  6. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Ver.  6.  And  in  this  mountain  shall  the  Lord  of 
hosts  make  unto  all  people  a  feast  of  fat  things, 
a  feast  of  wines  on  the  lees ;  of  fat  things  full 
of  marrow,  of  wines  on  the  lees  well  refined. 

See  on  ch.  51.  17. 

In  the  East  they  keep  their  wine  in  jugs,  from  which  they 
have  no  method  of  drawing  it  off  fine:  it  is  therefore  com- 
monly somewhat  thick  and  turbid,  by  the  lees  with  which 
it  is  mixed  :  to  remedy  this  inconvenience  they  filtrate  or 
strain  it  through  a  cloth,  and  to  this  custom,  as  prevailing 
in  his  time,  the  prophet  here  plainly  alludes. — Burder. 

Ver.  10.  For  in  this  mountain  shall  the  hand  of 
the  Lord  rest,  and  Moab  shall  be  trodden  down 
under  him,  even  as  straw  is  trodden  down  for 
the  dunghill. 

See  on  ch.  28.  26—28. 

Dr.  A.  Clarke  has,  "  for  the  dunghill,"  "  under  the 
wheels  of  the  car."  This  may  allude  to  their  ancient  cars 
of  war,  under  which  Moab  was  to  be  crushed,  or  under  her 
own  heathen  cars,  in  which  the  gods  were  taken  out  in 
procession.  To  spread  forth  the  hands,  as  a  person  when 
swimming,  may  refer  to  the  involuntary  stretching  forth  of 
the  limbs,  when  the  body  was  crushed  with  the  weight  of 
the  car ;  or  to  the  custom  of  those  who,  when  they  go  before 
the  car  in  procession,  prostrate  themselves  on  the  ground, 
and  spread  out  their  hands  and  legs  as  if  swimming;  till 
they  have  measured  the  full  distance  the  car  has  to  go,  by 
throwing  themselves  on  the  earth  at  the  length  of  every  six 
feet,  and  by  motions  as  if  in  the  act  of  swimming.  The 
whole  of  this  is  done  as  a  penance  for  sin,  or  in  compliance 
■^VJa  a  vow  made  in  sickness  or  despair. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Ver.  19.  Thy  dead  men  shall  li\T,  together  with 


my  dead  body  shall  they  arise.  Awake  and 
sing,  ye  that  dwell  in  dust :  for  thy  dew  is  as 
the  dew  of  herbs,  and  the  earth  shall  cast  out 
the  dead. 

As  they  sometimes  plant  herbs  and  flowers  aboi  the 
graves  of  the  dead,  so  Dr.  Addison  observed,  that  the  jews 
of  Barbary  adorned  the  graves  of  their  dead  in  a  less  last- 
ing manner,  with  green  boughs  brought  thither  from  time 
to  time  ;  might  not  this  practice  originate  from  the  doctrine 
of  the  resurrection  1  perhaps  from  that  well  known  passage 
of  a  prophet:  "  Thy  dead  men  shall  live,  together  with 
my  dead  body  shall  they  arise.  Awake  and  sing,  ye  that 
dwell  in  dust :  for  thy  dew  is  as  the  dew  of  herbs,  and 
the  earth  shall  cast  out  the  dead."  Is.  xxvi.  19.  Or  if  it 
was  practised  still  earlier,  might  not  this  passage  have  re- 
ference to  that  custom  '?  It  is  admitted,  that  the  practice  ob- 
tained among  those  that  entertained  no  expectation  of  a  resur- 
rection, but  in  the  language  of  St.  Paul  sorrowed  as  peo- 
ple that  had  no  such  hope.  The  ancient  Greeks  practised 
this  decking  the  graves  of  their  dead,  but  it  might  notwith- 
standing originate  from  that  doctrine,  and  be  adopted  by 
those  of  a  different  belief,  as  having  something  in  it  softening 
the  horrors  of  viewing  their  relatives  immersed  in  the  dust; 
and  might  be  thought  to  be  agreeable  by  those  that  entered 
into  medical  considerations,  as  correcting  those  ill-scented 
and  noxious  exhalations  that  might  arise  in  those  burial 
places,  to  which  their  women,  more  especially,  were  fre- 
quently induced  to  go,  to  express  their  attachment  to  the 
departed.  Maillet  supposes  the  modern  Egyptians  lay 
leaves  and  herbs  on  the  gra^i^es  of  their  friends,  from  a  no- 
tion that  this  was  a  consolation  to  the  dead,  and  believed  to 
be  refreshing  to  them  from  their  shade.  The  women  there, 
according  to  him,  go,  "  at  least  tAvo  days  in  the  week,  to 
pray  and  weep  at  the  sepulchres  of  the  dead ;  and  the  cus- 
tom then  is  to  throw  upon  the  tombs  a  sort  of  herb  which 
the  Arabs  call  rihan,  and  which  is  our  sweet  basil.  They 
cover  them  also  with  the  leaves  of  the  palm-tree."  If  they 
use  any  other  plants  for  this  purpose  in  Egypt,  he  has  neg- 
lected to  mention  them.— Harmer.  "^ 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 
Ver.  10.  Yet  the  defenced  city  shall  he  desolate, 
and  the  habitation  forsaken,  and  left  like  a  wil- 
derness: there  shall  the  calf  feed,  and  there 
shall  he  lie  down,  and  consume  the  branches 
thereof. 

Josephus  describes  Galilee,  of  which  he  was  the  governor, 
as  "  full  of  plantations  of  trees  of  all  sorts,  the  soil  univer- 
sally rich  and  fruitful,  and  all,  without  the  exception  of  a 
single  part,  cultivated  by  the  inhabitants.  Moreover,"  he 
adds,  "  the  cities  lie  here  very  thick,  and  there  are  very 
many  villages,  which  are  so  full  of  people,  by  the  richness 
of  their  soil,  that  the  very  least  of  them  contained  above  fif- 
teen thousand  inhabitants."  Such  was  Galilee,  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Christian  era,  several  centuries  after  the 
prophecy  was  delivered  ;  but  now  "  the  plain  of  Esdraelon, 
and  all  the  other  parts  of  Galilee  which  afford  pasture,  are 
occupied  by  Arab  tribes,  around  whose  brown  tents  the 
sheep  and  lambs  gambol  to  the  sound  of  the  reed,  which  at 
nightfall  calls  them  home."  The  calf  feeds  and  lies  down 
amid  the  ruins  of  the  cities,  and  consumes,  without  hinder- 
ance,  the  branches  of  the  trees  ;  and,  however  changed  may 
be  the  condition  of  the  inhabitants,  the  lambs  feed  after  ilieir 
manner^  and,  while  the  land  mourns,  and  the  merry-hearted 
sigh,  they  gambol  to  the  sound  of  the  reed.  The  precise 
and  comple  contrast  between  the  ancient  and  existing  state 
of  Palestine,  as  separately  described  by  Jewish  and  Roman 
historians  and  by  modern  travellers,  is  so  strikingly  exem- 
plified in  their  opposite  descriptions,  that,  in  reference  to 
whatever  constituted  the  beauty  and  the  glory  of  the  country, 
or  the  happiness  of  the  people,  an  entire  change  is  manifest, 
even  in  minute  circumstances.  The  universal  richness 
and  fruitfulness  of  the  soil  of  Galilee,  together  with  its 
being  "  full  of  plantations  of  all  sorts  of  trees,"  are  repre- 
sented by  Josephus  as  "  inviting  the  most  slothful  to  lake 
pains  in  its  cultivation."  And  the  other  provinces  of  the 
Holy  Land  are  also  described  by  him  as  "  having  abundance 
of  trees,  full  of  autumnal  fruit,  both  that  which  grows  wild, 


Chap.  28. 


ISAIAH. 


465 


and  that  which  is  the  effect  of  cultivation."  Tacitus  re- 
lates, that,  besides  all  the  fruits  of  Italy,  the  palm  and  bal- 
sam-tree flourished  in  the  fertile  soil  of  Judea.  And  he 
records  the  great  carefulness  with  which,  when  the  circu- 
lation of  the  juices  seemed  to  call  for  it,  they  gently  made 
an  incision  in  the  branches  of  the  balsam,  with  a  shell,  or 
pointed  stone,  not  venturing  to  apply  a  knife.  No  sign  of 
such  art  or  care  is  now  to  be  seen  throughout  the  land.  The 
balm-tree  has  disappeared  where  long  it  flourisljed ;  and 
hardier  plants  have  perished  from  other  causes  than  the 
want  of  due  care  in  their  cultivation.  And  instead  of  re- 
lating how  the  growth  of  a  delicate  tree  is  promoted,  and 
the  medicinal  liquor  at  the  same  time  extracted  from  its 
branches,  by  a  nicety  or  perfectibility  of  art  worthy  of  the 
notice  of  a  Tacitus,  a  different  task  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of 
the  traveller  from  a  far  land,  who  describes  the  customs  of 
those  who  now  dwell  where  such  arts  were  practised.  "  The 
olive-trees  (near  Arimathea)  are  daily  perishing  through 
age,  the  ravages  of  contending  factions,  and  even  from  secret 
mischief.  The  Mamelukes  having  cut  down  all  the  olive- 
trees,  tor  the  pleasure  they  take  in  destroying,  or  to  make 
Hres,  Yafahas  has  lost  its  greatest  convenience."  Instead 
of  "  abundance  of  trees"  being  still  the  effect  of  cultivation, 
such,  on  the  other  hand,  has  been  the  effect  of  these  ravages, 
that  many  places  in  Palestine  are  now  "  absolutely  destitute 
of  fuel."  Yet  in  this  devastation,  and  in  all  its  progress, 
may  be  read  the  literal  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy,  which 
not  only  described  the  desolate  cities  of  Judea  as  a  pasture 
of  flocks,  and  as  places  for  the  calf  to  feed  and  lie  down, 
and  consume  the  branches  thereof;  but  which,  with  equal 
truth,  also  declared,  *'  when  the  boughs  thereof  are  wither- 
ed, they  shall  be  broken  off;  the  women  come  and  set  them 
on  fire."— Keith. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 
Ver.  1.  Wo  to  the  crown  of  pride,  to  the  drunk- 
ards of  Ephraim,  whose  glorious  beauty  is  a 
fading-  flower,  which  are  on  the  head  of  the 
fat  valleys  of  them  that  are  overcome  with 
wine! 

The  city  of  Sebaste,  the  ancient  Samaria,  beautifully 
situated  on  the  top  of  a  round  hill,  and  surrounded  imme- 
diately with  a  rich  valley  and  a  circle  of  other  hills  beyond 
it,  suggested  the  idea  of  a  chaplet,  or  wreath  of  flowers, 
worn  upon  their  heads  on  occasions  of  festivity;  expressed 
by  the  proud  crown  and  the  fading  flower  of  the  drunkards. 
That  this  custom  of  wearing  chaplets  in  their  banquets 
prevailed  among  the  Jews,  as  well  as  among  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  appears  from  Wisdom  ii.  7,  8. — Lowth, 

Ver.  15.  Because  ye  have  said,  We  have  made  a 
covenant  with  death,  and  with  hell  are  we  at 
agreement ;  when  the  overflowing  scourge 
shall  pass  through,  it  shall  not  come  unto  us ; 
for  we  have  made  lies  our  refuge,  and  under 
falsehood  have  we  hid  ourselves. 

Of  those  who  have  often  had  a  narrow  escape  from  death, 
it  is  said,  "  Those  fellows  have  entered  into  an  agreement 
with  death."  "  They  have  made  a  friendship ;  death  in- 
jure ihem  !  chee,  chee,  they  understand  each  other." — 
R( 


Ver.  25.  When  he  hath  made  plain  the  face  there- 
of, doth  he  not  cast  abroad  the  fitches,  and 
scatter  the  cummin,  and  cast  in  the  principal 
wheat,  and  the  appointed  barley,  and  the  rye, 
in  their  place  ? 

See  on  ch.  32.  20. 

Ver.  26.  For  his  God  doth  instruct  him  to  dis- 
cretion, and  doth  teach  him.  27.  For  the 
fitches  are  not  thrashed  with  a  thrashing  in- 
strument, neither  is  a  cart-wheel  turned  about 
upon  the  cummin ;  but  the  fitches  are  beaten 
out  with  a  staff,  and  the  cummin  with  a  rod. 
59 


28.  Bread-coni  is  bruised ;  because  he  will  not 
ever  be  thrashing  it,  nor  break  it  with  the  wheel 
of  his  cart,  nor  bruise  it  with  his  horsemen. 

The  method  of  thrashing  out  the  grain,  varied  according  | 
to  the  species.  Isaiah  mentions  four  different  instruments, 
the  flail,  the  drag,  the  wain,  and  the  feet  of  the  ox.  The 
staff,  or  flail,  was  used  for  the  smaller  seeds,  which  were 
too  tender  to  be  treated  in  the  other  methods.  The  drag 
consisted  of  a  sort  of  strong  planks,  made  rough  at  the  bot- 
tom with  hard  stones  or  iron ;  it  was  drawn  by  oxen,  or 
horses,  over  the  corn  sheaves  spread  on  the  floor,  the  driver 
sitting  upon  it.  The  wain,  or  cart,  was  much  like  the  for- 
mer, but  had  wheels,  with  iron  teeth  or  edges  like  a  saw. 
From  the  statement  of  different  authors,  it  would  seem  that 
the  axle  was  armed  with  iron  teeth,  or  serrated  wheels 
throughout.  Niebuhr  gives  a  description  and  printrof  such 
a  machine,  used  at  present  in  Egypt  for  the  same  purpose; 
it  moves  upon  three  rollers,  armed,  with  ironteeih  or  wheels 
to  cut  the  straw.  In  Syria,  they  make  use  of  the  drag,  con- 
structed in  the  very  same  manner  as  before  described. 
This  not  only  forcea  out  the  grain,  but  also  cut  the  straw 
in  pieces,  which  is  used  in  this  state  over  all  the  East  as 
fodder  for  the  cattle,  Virgil  also  mentions  the  slow  rolling 
wains  of  the  Eleusinian  mother,  the  planks  and  sleds  for 
pressing  out  the  corn,  and  harrows  of  unwieldy  weight. 
The  Israelitish  farmer,  endowed  with  discretion  from 
above,  made  use  of  all  these  instruments  in  separating  from 
the  chaff  the  various  produce  of  his  fields:  "For  his  God 
doth  instruct  him  to  discretion,  and  doth  teach  him.  For 
the  fitches  are  not  thrashed  with  a  thrashing  instrument, 
neither  is  a  cart-wheel  turned  about  upon  the  cummin ;  but 
the  fitches  are  beaten  out  with  a  staff,  and  the  cummin  with 
a  rod.  Bread-corn  is  bruised  :  because  he  will  not  ever  be 
thrashing  it,  nor  break  it  with  the  wheel  of  his  cart,  nor 
bruise  it  with  his  horsemen.  This  also  cometh  forth  from 
the  Lord  of  hosts,  who  is  wonderful  in  counsel  and  excel- 
lent in  working."  In  the  early  periods  of  the  Jewish  com- 
monwealth, however,  these  various  methods,  adapted  to  the 
different  kinds  of  grain,  were  unknown  ;  the  husbandman 
employed  the  staff,  or  flail,  in  thrashing  all  his  crop.  When 
the  angel  of  the  Lord  appeared  to  Gideon,  he  found  him 
thrashing  wheat  by  the  wine-press  with  a  staff,  for  so  the 
original  term  (untn)  signifies  ;  and  after  Ruth  had  gleaned 
in  the  field  till  the  evening,  she  beat  out  with  a  staff  (trnnn-') 
what  she  had  gleaned.  The  Seventy  render  the  verb  in 
both  passages,  by  the  Greek  word  paPStvetv,  to  beat  with  a 
rod  ;  but  the  natural  sagacity  of  the  human  mind,  directed 
by  the  finger  of  God,  at  last  invented  the  other  more  eflfica- 
cious  implements,  to  which  Isaiah  so  frequently  refers  in 
the  course  of  his  writings.  He  compares  Moab,  in  the  day 
of  their  overthrow,  to  straw  which  is  trodden  down  under 
the  wain :  and  he  promises  to  furnish  his  oppressed  people 
with  the  same  powerful  instrument,  which  we  translate  a 
new  sharp  thrashing  instrument  having  teeth,  that  they  may 
thrash  the  mountains,  and  beat  them  small,  and  make  the 
hills  as  chaff;  or  droppingthe  metaphor,  he  promises  them 
complete  victory  over  their  numerous  and  powerful  ene- 
mies, who  should  be  given  by  the  Lord  of  hosts  as  driven 
stubble  to  their  bow,  and  swept  away  before  the  armies  of 
Israel  as  chaff  before  the  whirlwinds  of  the  south. — Paxton. 

As  in  different  parts  of  the  holy  scriptures  there  are  fre- 
quent allusions  to  the  sowivg  of  rice,  watering  the  grounds, 
thrashing,  or  what  the  prophet  Isaiah,  xxviii.  28,  terms, 
breaking  it  with  the  wheel  of  the  cart ;  or,  bringing  the  wheel 
over  it,  Prov.  xx.  26,  it  may  not  be  improper  to  conclude 
these  remarks  with  a  short  account  of  the  sowing,  cultivation , 
thrashing,  and  preservation  of  rice,  taken  from  the  travels 
of  Mr.  Sonnini,  a  writer  worthy  of  the  utmost  credit  in 
every  thing  that  concerns  the  natural  history  and  antiqui- 
ties of  Egypt. 

"  Rice  is  sown  in  Lower  Egypt  from  the  month  of  March 
to  that  of  May.  During  the  inundation  of  the  Nile,  the 
fields  are  covered  by  its  waters;  and  in  order  to  detain 
them  there  as  long  as  possible,  small  dikes,  or  a  sort  of 
raised  embankments,  are  thrown  up,  round  each  field,  to 
prevent  them  from  running  off.  Trenches  serve  to  convey 
thither  a  fresh  supply;  for,  in  order  to  make  the  plant 
thrive,  its  roots  must  be  constantly  watered.  The  ground 
is  so  moistened,  that  in  some  places  a  person  sinks  in  half 
way  up  to  his  chin.  Rice  is  nearly  six  months  before  it 
comes  to  maturity  ;  and  it  is  generally  cut  down  by  the  mid- 


406 


ISAIAH. 


Chap  29. 


die  of  November.  In  Egypt  the  use  o[  the  Jlail  is  unknown. 
To  separate  the  grain  from  the  straw,  the  inhabitants  pre- 
pare with  a  mixture  of  earth  and  pigeon's  dung,  spacious 
floors,  well  beat,  and  very  clean.  The  rice  is  spread  there- 
I  on  in  thick  layers.  They  then  have  a  sort  of  cart,  formed 
'  of  two  pieces  of  wood  joined  together  by  iwo  cross-pieces: 
it  is  almost  in  the  shape  of  sledges  which  serve  for  the  con- 
veyance of  burdens  in  the  streets  of  our  cities.  Between 
the  longer  sides  of  this  sledge  are  fixed  transversely  three 
rows  of  small  wheels,  made  of  solid  iron,  and  narrowed  off 
towards  their  circumference.  On  the  forepart,  a  very  high 
and  very  wide  seat  is  clumsily  constructed,  A  man  sitting 
there  drives  two  oxen,  which  are  harnessed  to  the  machine, 
and  the  whole  moves  on  slowly,  and  always  in  a  circular 
direction,  over  every  part  of  the  heap  of  rice,  until  there 
remains  no  more  grain  in  the  straw.  When  it  is  thus  beat, 
it  is  spread  in  the  air  to  be  dried.  In  order  to  turn  it  over, 
several  men  walk  abreast,  and  each  of  them,  with  his  foot, 
makes  a  furrow  in  the  layer  of  grain,  so  that  in  a  few  mo- 
ments the  whole  mass  is  moved,  and  that  part  which  was 
underneath  is  again  exposed  to  the  air, 

"  The  dried  rice  is  carried  to  the  mill,  where  it  is  strip- 
ped of  its  chaff  or  husk.  This  mill  consists  of  a  wheel 
turned  by  oxen,  and  which  sets  several  levers  in  motion  : 
at  their  extremity  is  an  iron  cylinder,  near  a  foot  long,  and 
hollowed  out  underneath.  They  beat  in  troughs  which 
contain  the  grain.  At  the  side  of  each  trough  there  con- 
stantly stands  a  man,  whose  business  is  to  place  the  rice 
under  the  cylinders,  He'must  not  suffer  his  attention  to  be 
diverted;  for  he  would  run  a  risk  of  having  his  hand 
crushed.  After  this  operation,  the  rice  is  taken  out  of  the 
mill,  and  sifted  in  the  open  air ;  which  is  done  by  filling  a 
small  sieve  with  as  much  grain  as  a  man  can  lift;  this  he 
raises  above  his  head,  and  gently  spills  the  rice,  turning 
his  face  to  the  wind,  which  blows  away  the  small  chaff  or 
dust.  This  cleaned  rice  is  put  a  second  time  in  the  mill, 
in  order  to  bleach  it.  It  is  afterward  mixed  up  in  troughs 
with  some  salt,  which  contributes  very  much  to  its  white- 
ness, and  principally  to  its  preservation ;  it  has  then  under- 
gone its  whole  preparatory  process,  and  in  this  state  it  is 
sold."— Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 
Ver.  1.  Wo  to  Ariel,  to  Ariel,  the  city  where  Da- 
vid dwelt !  add  ye  year  to  year  ;  let  them  kill 
sacrifices. 

The  numbers  that  assembled  at  Jerusalem  must  of  course 
consume  great  quantities  of  provision.  The  consumption 
of  flesh  also  must  there  have  been  much  larger,  in  propor- 
tion to  the  number  of  the  people,  than  elsewhere ;  because 
in  the  East  they  live  in  common  very  much  on  vegetables, 
farinacious  food,  oil,  honey,  &c, ;  but  at  Jerusalem  vast 
quantities  of  flesh  were  consumed  in  the  sacred  feasts,  as 
well  as  burnt  upon  the  altar.  Perhaps  this  circumstance 
will  best  explain  the  holy  city's  being  called  Ariel,  or  the 
JLionof  God,  Isaiah  xxix.  1;  an  appellation  which  has  oc- 
casioned a  variety  of  speculation  among  the  learned.  Vi- 
tringa,  in  his  celebrated  commentary  onlsaiah,  supposes  that 
David,  according  to  the  eastern  custom,  was  called  the  Lion 
of  God,  and  so  this  city  was  called  by  this  name  from  him ;  a 
resolution  by  no  means  natural.  The  Arabs,  indeed,  in  later 
ages,  have  often  called  their  great  men  by  this  honourable 
term;  D'Herbelot,  I  think,  somewhere  tells  us,  that  Ali, 
Mohammed's  son-in-law,  was  so  called ;  and  I  am  sure  he 
aflirras,  that  Mohammed  gave  this  title  to  Hamzah,  his 
uncle.  It  will  be  readily  allowed  that  this  was  comform- 
able  to  the  taste  of  much  more  ancient  times.  "  The  mo- 
dern Persians  will  have  it,"  says  D'Herbelot,  in  his  account 
of  Shiraz,  a  city  of  that  country,  "  that  this  name  was  given 
to  it,  because  this  city  consumes  and  devours  like  a  lion, 
which  is  called  Sheey-  in  Persian,  all  that  is  brought  to  it,  by 
which  they  express  the  multitude,  and  it  may  be  the  good 
appetite,  of  its  inhabitants." 

The  prophet  then  pronounces  wo  to  Zion,  perhaps  as  too 
ready  to  trust  to  the  number  of  its  inhabitants  and  sojourn- 
ers, wliich  may  be  insinuated  by  this  term  which  he  uses, 
Ariel. — Harmer. 

Ver  3.  And  I  will  camp  ag-ainst  thee  round  about, 
and  will  lay  sie(]fe  against  thee  with  a  mount, 
and  I  w411  raise  forts  asfamst  thee. 


Moveable  towers  of  wood  were  usually  placed  upon  the 
mount,  which  were  driven  on  wheels  fixed  within  the  bottom 
planks,  to  secure  them  from  the  enemy.  Their  size  was 
not  always  the  same,  but  proportioned  to  the  towers  of  the 
city  they  besieged:  the  front  was  usually  covered  with 
tiles ;  and  in  later  times  the  sides  were  likewise  guarded 
with  the  same  materials ;  their  tops  were  covered  with  raw 
hides,  and  other  things,  to  preserve  them  from  fire  balls 
and  missive  weapons;  they  were  formed  into  several  stories, 
which  were  able  to  carry  "both  soldiers  and  several  kinds  oi 
engines."  All  these  modes  of  attack  were  practised  in  the 
days  of  Isaiah,  who  threatens  Jerusalem  with  a  siege  con- 
ducted according  to  this  method :  "  And  I  will  encamp 
against  thee  round  about,  and  will  lay  siege  against  thee 
with  a  mount ;  and  I  will  raise  forts  against  thee."  The 
prophet  Ezekiel  repeats  th^  prediction  in  almost  the  same 
words,  adding  only  the  name  of  the  engine  which  was  to 
be  employed  in  battering  down  the  walls  :  "  Thou  also,  son 
of  man,  take  thee  a  tile,  and  lay  it  before  thee,  and  por- 
tray upon  it  the  city,  even  Jerusalem  ;  and  lay  siege  against 
it,  and  cast  a  mount  against  it ;  set  the  camp  also  against 
it ;  and  set  battering  rams  against  it  round  about," — Pax- 
ton. 

Ver,  8.  It  shall  even  be  as  when  a  hungry  man 
dreameth,  and,  behold,  he  eateth ;  but  he  awa- 
keth,  and  his  soul  is  empty:  or  as  when  a 
thirsty  man  dreameth,  and,  behold,  he  drinketh ; 
but  he  awaketh,  and,  behold,  he  is  faint,  and 
his  soul  hath  appetite :  so  shall  the  multitude 
of  all  the  nations  be  that  fight  against  Mount 
Zion. 

As  the  simile  of  the  prophet  is  drawn  from  nature,  an 
extract  which  describes  the  actual  occurrence  of  such  a 
circumstance  will  be  agreeable.  "  The  scarcity  of  water 
was  greater  here  at  Bubaker  than  at  Benown.  Day  and 
night  the  wells  were  crowded  with  cattle  lowing,  and  fight- 
ing with  each  other  to  come  at  the  trough.  Excessive  thirst 
made  many  of  them  furious :  others  being  too  weak  to  con- 
tend for  the  water,  endeavoured  to  quench  their  thirst  by 
devouring  the  black  mud  from  the  gutters  near  the  wells ; 
which  they  did  with  great  avidity,  though  it  was  commonly 
fatal  to  them.  This  great  scarcity  of  water  was  felt  by  all 
the  people  of  the  camp;  and  by  none  more  than  myself,  I 
begged  water  from  the  negro  slaves  that  attended  the  camp, 
but  with  very  indifferent  success :  for  though  I  let  no  op- 
portunity slip,  and  was  very  urgent  in  my  solicitations  both 
to  the  Moors  and  to  the  negroes,  I  was  but  ill  supplied,  and 
frequently  passed  the  night  in  the  situation  of  Tantalus.  No 
sooner  had  I  shut  my  eyes,  than  fancy  would  convey  me  to 
the  streams  and  rivers  of  my  native  land  ;  there,  as  I  wan- 
dered along  the  verdant  bank,  I  surveyed  the  clear  stream 
with  transport,  and  hastened  to  swallow  the  delightful 
draught;  but,  alas!  disappointment  awakened  me,  and  I 
found  myself  a  lonely  captive,  perishing  of  thirst  amid  the 
wilds  of  Africa."    (Park.) — Burder. 

Ver.  17.  Is  it  not  yet  a  very  little  while,  and  Leb- 
anon shall  be  turned  into  a  fruitful  field,  and 
the  fruitful  field  shall  be  esteemed  as  a  forest  ? 

The  storms  and  tempests  which,  gathering  on  the  highest 
peak  of  Lebanon,  burst  on  the  plains  and  valleys  below, 
are  often  very  severe.  When  De  la  Valle  was  travelling 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  that  mountain,  in  the  end  of  April, 
a  wind  blew  from  its  summits  so  vehement  and  cold,  with 
so  great  a  profusion  of  snow,  that  though  he  and  his  com- 
pany "  were  in  a  manner  buried  in  their  quilted  coverlets, 
yet  it  was  sensibly  felt,  and  proved  very  disagreeable."  _  It 
is  not  therefore  without  reason  that  Lebanon,  or  the  white 
mountain,  as  the  term  signifies,  is  the  name  by  which  that 
lofty  chain  is  distinguished  ;  and  that  the  sacred  writers  so 
frequently  refer  to  the  snow  and  the  gelid  waters  of  Leba- 
non. They  sometimes  allude  to  it  as  a  wild  and  desolate 
region  ;  and  certainly  no  part  of  the  earth  is  more  dreary 
and  barren  than  the  Sannin,  the  region  of  perpetual  snow. 
On  that  naked  summit,  the  seat  of  storm  and  tempest,  where 
the  principles  of  vegetation  are  extinguished,  the  art  and 
industrv  of  man  can  make  no  impression  ;  nothing  but  the 
creating  power  of  God  himself,  can  ;  reduce  a  favourable 


Chap.  30—32. 


ISAIAH. 


467 


alteration.  Thus,  predicting  a  w  jaderful  change,  such  as 
results  from  the  signal  manifestations  of  the  divine  favour 
to  individuals  or  the  church,  the  prophet  demands,  "  Is  it 
not  yet  a  very  little  while,  and  Lebanon  shall  be  turned 
into  a  fruitful  field  1"  The  contrast  in  this  promise,  be- 
tween the  naked,  snowy,  and  tempestuous  summits  of  Le- 
banon, and  a  field  beautiful  and  enriched  with  the  fairest 
and  most  useful  productions  of  nature,  expresses,  with  gre'at 
force,  the  difference  which  the  smiles  of  Heaven  produce 
in  the  most  wretched  and  hopeless  circumslances  of  an  indi- 
vidual or  a  nation. — Paxton, 

CHAPTER  XXX. 
Ver.  14.  And  he  shall  break  it  as  the  breaking 
of  the  potter's  vessel  that  is  broken  in  pieces ; 
he  shall  not  spare :  so  that  there  shall  not  be 
found  in  the  bursting  of  it  a  sherd  to  take  fire 
from  the  hearth,  or  to  take  water  withal  out  of 
the  pit. 

This  solemn  thr>,atening  refers  to  the  Jews  for  their  wicked 
reliance  "  in  the  shadow  of  Egypt :"  they  were  to  be  reduced 
10  the  greatest  straits  for  thus  trusting  in  the  heathen.  It  is 
proverbial  to  say  of  those  who  have  been  robbed,  and  left 
'^  destitute  circumstances,  "  They  have  not  even  a  potsherd, 
not  a  broken  chatty  in  their  possession."  To  appreciate 
this  idea,  it  must  he  remembered  that  nearly  all  their  cook- 
ing utensils,  all  their  domestic  vessels,  are  made  of  earthen- 
ware ;  so  that  not  to  have  a  potsherd,  a  fragment  left,  shows 
the  greatest  misery.  Even  Job,  in  all  his  poverty  and  wretch- 
edness, was  not  so  destitute,  for  he  had  "  a  potsherd  to  scrape 
himself  withal." — "  A  sherd  to  take  fire  from  the  hearth." 
This  allusion  may  be  seen  illustrated  every  morning  in  the 
East.  Should  the  good  woman's  fire  have  been  extinguish- 
ed in  the  night,  she  takes  a  potsherd  in  the  morning,  and 
goes  to  her  neighbour  for  a  little  fire  to  rekindle  her  own  ; 
and  as  she  goes  along,  she  may  be  seen  every  now  and 
then  blowing  the  burning  ember,  lest  it  should  go  out.  They 
were  not  to  have  a  sherd,  out  of  which  they  could  drink  a 
little  water.  Not  having  pumps,  they  are  obliged  to  have 
something  to  take  water  from  the  well  or  tank.  Of  a 
very  poor  country,  it  is  said,  "  In  those  parts  there  is  not  a 
sherd  out  of  which  you  can  drink  a  little  water."  "  The 
wretchedness  of  the  people  is  so  great,  they  have  not  a 
sherd  with  which  to  take  water  from  the  tank." — Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  The  oxen  likewise,  and  the  young  asses 
that  ear  the  ground,  shall  eat  clean  provender 
which  hath  been  winnowed  with  the  shovel  and 
with  the  fan. 

See  on  1  Kings  4.  24. 

Those  who  form  their  opinion  of  the  latter  article  bv  an 
English  FAN,  will  entertain  a  very  erroneous  notion.  That 
of  the  East  is  made  of  the  fibrous  part  of  the  palmirah  or 
cocoa-tree  leaves,  and  measures  about  a  yard  each  way. 
Thus  may  be  seen  the  farmer  wafting  away  the  chaff" from 
the  corn,  having  the  round  part  of  the  fan  in  his  hand  :  and 
thus  may  be  seen  the  females  in  the  morning,  tossing  in 
the  husk  from  their  rice.    (See  on  Jer.  xv.  7.) — Roberts. 

In  these  words,  the  prophet  foretels  a  season  of  great  plenty, 
when  the  cattle  shall  be  fed  with  corn  better  in  quality, 
separated  from  the  chaff",  and  (as  the  term  rendered  clean  in 
our  version,  properly  signifies)  acidulated,  in  order  to  ren- 
der it  more  grateful  to  their  taste.  The  evangelist  clearly 
refers  to  the  practice,  which  was  common  in  every  part  of 
Syria,  of  ploughing  with  the  ass,  when  he  calls  him,  v-ko^v- 
yiov,  a  creature  subject  to  the  yoke.  In  rice-grounds,  which 
require  to  be  flooded,  the  ass  was  employed  to  prepare  them 
for  the  seed,  by  treading  them  with  his  feet.  It  is  to  this 
method  of  preparing  the  ground,  that  Chardin  supposes  the 
prophet  to  allude  when  he  says,  "  Blessed  are  ye  that  sow 
beside  all  waters,  that  send  forth  thither  the  feet  of  the  ox 
and  the  ass."  They  shall  be  blessed  under  the  future  reign 
of  the  promised  Messiah.  In  times  anterior  to  his  appear- 
ing, their  country  was  to  be  made  a  desolation ;  briers  and 
''  rns  were  to  encumber  their  fields;  their  sumptuous 
ellmgs  were  to  be  cast  down ;  their  cities  and  strongholds 
levelled  with  the  dust.  But  when  Messiah  commences  his 
reign,  times  of  unequalled  prosp?rity  shall  begin  their  ca- 


reer. The  goodness  of  Jehovah  shall  descend  in  fertilizing 
showers,  to  irrigate  their  fields,  and  to  swell  the  streams 
which  the  skill  and  industry  of  the  husbandman  conducts 
among  his  plantations,  or  with  which  he  covers  his  rice- 
grounds.  Secure  from  the  ruinous  incursions  of  aliens, 
and  in  the  sure  hope  of  an  abundant  harvest,  he  shall  scatter 
his  rice  on  the  face  of  the  superincumbent  water,  and  tread 
it  into  the  miry  soil  with  "  the  feet  of  the  ox  and  the  asy." 
Prosperous  and  happy  himself,  he  will  consider  it  his  duty, 
and  feel  it  his  delight,  "  to  do  good  and  to  communicate," — 
to  succour  the  widow  and  the  fatherless,  to  open  his  doors 
to  the  stranger,  to  diffuse  around  him  the  light  of  truth, 
and  to  swell,  by  the  diligent  and  prudent  use  of  all  the 
means  that  Providence  has  brought  within  his  reach,  the 
sum  of  human  enjoyment.  —Paxton. 

Ver.  29.  Ye  shall  have  a  song,  as  in  the  night 
when  a  holy  solemnity  is  kept;  and  gladness  of 
heart,  as  when  one  goeth  with  a  pipe  to  come 
into  the  mountain  of  the  Lord,  to  the  mighty 
One  of  Israel. 

Music  is  considered  far  more  enchanting  at  night  than  at 
any  other  period ;  "it  gives  cheerfulness  to  darkness,  and 
pleasure  to  the  heart."  Their  favourite  proverb  is,  "  the  day 
SONG  is  like  the  flower  of  the  gourd,"  i.  e.  devoid  of  smell. 
Nothing  is  more  common  than  for  adults  to  sing  themselves 
to  sleep  :  thus,  as  they  recline,  they  beat  a  tabret  and  chant 
the  praises  of  their  gods,  till  through  heaviness  they  can 
scarcely  articulate  a  word.  At  other  times  the  mother  or 
wife  gently  taps  the  instrument,  and  in  soft  tones  lulls  the  in- 
dividual to  repose.  In  the  night,  should  they  not  be  able  to 
sleep,  they  have  again  recourse  to  the  same  charm,  and  not 
until  they  shall  have  fairly  gone  off"  in  fresh  slumbers,  will 
their  companions  have  any  rest.  Hence,  in  passing  through 
a  village  or  town  at  midnight,  may  be  heard  people  at  their 
nightly  song,  to  grace  the  festive  scene,  to  beguile  away  their 
time,  to  charm  their  fears,  or  to  procure  refreshing  sleep. 
The  Jews  then  were  to  be  delivered  from  the  proud  A^ 
Syrian's  yoke,  and  again  to  have  their  pleasant  song  in  the 
night.— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 
Ver.  2.  And  a  man  shall  be  as  a  hiding-place 
from  the  wind,  and  a  covert  from  the  tempest ; 
as  rivers  of  water  in  a  dry  place  ;  as  the  shadow 
of  a  great  rock  in  a  weary  land. 

"  Ah !  that  benevolent  man,  he  has  long  been  my  shel- 
ter from  the  wind ;  he  is  a  river  to  the  dry  country." — 
Roberts. 

Well  does  the  traveller  remember  a  day  in  the  wilds  of 
Africa,  where  the  country  was  chiefly  covered  with  burn- 
ing sand ;  when  scorched  with  the  powerful  rays  of  an 
almost  vertical  sun,  the  thermometer  in  the  shade  stand- 
ing at  100°. — He  remembers  long  looking  hither  and 
thither  for  something  that  would  afl^ord  protection  from  the 
almost  insupportable  heat,  and  where  the  least  motion  of 
air  felt  like  flame  coming  against  the  face.  At  length  he 
espied  a  huge  loose  rock  leaning  against  the  front  of  a 
small  cliff"  which  faced  the  sun.  At  once  he  fled  for  refuge 
underneath  its  inviting  shade.  The  coolness  emitted  from 
this  rocky  canopy  he  found  exquisitely  exhilarating.  The 
wald  beasts  of  the  desert  were  all  fled  to  their  dens,  and  the 
feathered  songsters  were  all  roosting  among  the  thickest 
foliage  they  could  find  of  the  evergreen-trees.  The  whole 
creation  around  seemed  to  groan,  as  if  their  vigour  had 
been  entirely  exhausted.  A  small  river  was  providentially 
at  hand,  to  the  side  of  which,  after  a  while,  he  ventured, 
and  sipped  a  little  of  its  cooling  water,  which  tasted  better 
than  the  best  burgundy,  or  the  finest  old  hock,  in  the  world. 
During  all  this  enjoyment,  the  above  apropos  text  was  the 
interesting  subject  of  the  traveller's  meditation  ;  though  the 
allusion,  as  a  figure,  must  fall  infinitely  short  of  that  which 
is  meant  to  be  prefigured  by  it.— Campbell. 

The  shadow  of  a  great  projecting  rock  is  the  most  re- 
freshing thai  is  possible  in  a  hot  country,  not  only  as  most 
perfectly  excludmg  the  rays  of  the  sun,  but  also  having  in 
itself  a  natural  coolness,  which  it  reflects  and  communicates 
to  every  thing  about  it.— Lowth. 


468 


ISAIAH 


Chap.  32—34 


Ver.  13.  Upon  the  land  of  my  people  shall  come 
up  thorns  and.  briers,  yea,  upon  all  the  houses 
of  joy  in  the  joyous  city:  14.  Because  the 
palaces  shall  be  forsaken ;  the  multitude  of  the 
city  shall  be  left ;  the  forts  and  towers  shall  be 
for  dens  for  ever,  a  joy  of  wild  asses,  a  pasture 
of  flocks. 

See  on  Job  39.  5. 

Ver.  20.  Blessed  are  ye  that  sow  beside  all  wa- 
ters, that  send  forth  thither  the  feet  of  the  ox 
and  the  ass. 

See  on  ch.  30.  24. 

The  various  kinds  of  grain,  which  they  commonly  sow 
in  the  Holy  Land,  are  frequently  mentioned  in  the  sacred 
volume  ;  and  the  correctness  of  the  statement  is  attested  by 
modern  historians.  Oats  are  not  cultivated  near  Aleppo ; 
but  Dr.  Russel  observed  some  fields  of  them  about  Antioch, 
and  on  the  seacoast.  The  horses  are  fed  universally  with 
barley ;  but  lucern  is  also  cultivated  for  their  use,  in  the 
spring.  The  earliest  wheat  is  sown  about  the  middle  of 
October ;  other  grain,  among  which  are  barley,  rye,  and 
Indian  millet,  continue  to  be  sown  till  the  end'of  January  ; 
and  barley,  even  so  late  as  the  end  of  February.  The 
Persian  harrow  consists  of  a  large  rake,  which  is  fastened  to 
a  pole,  and  drawn  by  oxen.  In  Hindostan,  it  is  like  an  or- 
dinary rake  with  three  or  four  teeth,  and  is  drawn  by  two 
oxen.  Similar  to  this  was  probably  the  Syrian  harrow. 
But  in  Palestine,  the  harroM'  is  seldom  used,  the  grain  be- 
ing covered  by  repassing  the  plough  along  the  edge  of  the 
furrow ;  and  in  places  where  the  soil  is  sandy,  they  first 
sow,  and  then  plough  the  seed  into  the  ground.  It  appears, 
from  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  that  besides  the  more  valua- 
ble kinds  of  grain,  several  aromatic  seeds  were  sown;  as 
the  sesamum,  coriander,  and  cummin.  These  the  Orientals 
sprinkled  upon  their  bread,  to  give  it  a  more  agreeable 
flavour.  Rice  is  trodden  into  the  ground  by  the  feet  of 
oxen ;  a  practice  seemingly  alluded  to  by  the  prophet,  in 
these  words:  "  Blessed  are  ye  that  sow  beside  all  waters, 
that  send  forth  thither  the  feet  of  the  ox  and  the  ass."  This, 
according  to  Chardin,  answers  exactly  the  manner  of  plant- 
ing rice  :  for  they  sow  it  upon  the  waters;  and  before  sow- 
ing, while  the  earth  is  covered  with  water,  they  cause  the 
ground  to  be  trodden  by  oxen,  horses,  and  asses,  to  prepare 
it  for  receiving  the  seed.  As  they  sow  the  rice  on  the  water, 
so  they  transplant  in  the  water ;  for  the  roots  of  this  plant 
must  be  kept  continually  moist,  to  bring  the  rice  to  matu- 
rity. 

Two  bushels  and  a  half  of  wheat  or  barley  are  sufficient 
to  sow  as  much  ground  as  a  pair  of  beeves  will  plough  in 
one  day;  which  is,  a  little  more  or  less,  equal  to  one  of  our 
.acres.  Dr.  Shaw  could  never  learn  that  Barbary  afforded 
yearly  more  than  one  crop ;  one  bushel  yielding  ordinarily 
from  eight  to  twelve,  though  some  districts  may  perhaps 
afford  a  much  greater  increase,  for  it  is  common  to  see  one 
grain  produce  ten  or  fifteen  stalks.  Even  some  grains  of 
the  Murwany  wheat,  which  he  brought  with  him  to  Oxford, 
and  sowed  in  the  physic  garden,  threw  out  each  of  them 
fifty.  Bitt  Muzeratty,  one  of  the  kaleefas,  or  viceroys  of 
the  province  of  Tlemsan,  brought  once  with  him  to  Algiers, 
a  root  that  yielded  fourscore,  telling  Dr.  Shaw  and  his 
party,  that  in  consequence  of  a  dispute  concerning  the  re- 
t^pective  fruitfulness  of  Egypt  and  Barbary,  the  Emir  Hadge, 
or  prince  of  the  western  pilgrims,  sent  once  to  the  bashaw 
of  Cairo,  one  that  yielded  sixscore.  Pliny  mentions  some 
that  bore  three  or  four  hundred.  It  likewise  happens,  that 
one  of  these  stalks  will  sometimes  bear  two  ears,  while  each 
of  these  ears  will  as  often  shoot  out  into  a  number  of  lesser 
ones,  affording  by  that  means  a  most  plentiful  increase. 
And  may  not  these  large  prolific  ears,  when  seven  are  said 
to  come  up  upon  one  stalk,  explain  what  is  nientioned  of 
the  seven  fruitful  years  in  Egypt,  that  the  earth  brought 
them  forth  by  handfuls  1 — Paxton, 

The  emigrants  that  went  from  England  some  years  ago 
to  the  colony  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  were  chiefly  lo- 
cated in  a  district  called  Albany,  on  the  confines  of  Caffra- 
ria.  Many  of  them  were  ruined  by  not  literally  attending 
to  the  contents  of  ihis  text.  They  were  not  sufficiently 
aware  of  the  indispensable  necessit;^  of  water,  or  at  least 


moisture  under  ground,  to  render  fields  at  all  productive 
in  a  hot  and  dry  climate.  They  ploughed  land,  and  dug  a 
deep  ditch  round  each  field,  as  they  were  accustomed  to  dc 
in  England;  with  the  mould  dug  from  it  they  fox med  a 
mud  wall,  which  made  all  look  very  pretty  and  farmer-like. 
Dutch  boors  from  a  distance  came  to  see  what  they  were 
qbout.  They  told  them  their  fields  were  too  far  from  the 
river;  that  unless  they  could  lead  water  upon  them,  they 
must  not  expect  to  have  any  harvest.  Looking  at  the  neat 
ditch  that  surrounded  the 'field,  they  inquired  what  this 
was  for  1  For  defence,  was  the  reply.  "  Yes,"  said  the 
boors,  "  it  will  defend  your  field  from  receiving  any  moist- 
ure from  the  surrounding  ground;"  and,  shaking  their 
heads,  said  "  That  is  a  bad  defence."  From  the  high  ideas 
they  had  of  their  own  superior  knowledge  of  agriculture, 
they  only  smiled  at  the  remarks  made  by  the  African  far- 
mers. The  rainy  season  came,  when  the  grain  sprang  up, 
and  made  rapid  progress  while  that  season  lasted;  but  lo. 
the  sun  returned  from  its  northern  circuit,  dispelled  the 
clouds,  and  darted  forth  its  unimpeded  fiery  rays,  which 
soon  caused  the  surface  of  the  ground  to  become  as  hard 
as  a  brick,  consequently  the  grain  withered  and  died,  and 
cleanness  of  teeth,  for  want  of  bread,  was  in  all  their  ham- 
lets that  season  !  But  had  there  been  plenty  of  water  to 
lead  over  their  fields,  the  crops  would  probably  have  been 
most  abundant.  The  expression,  "  sending  forth  the  feet 
of  the  ox  and  the  ass,"  seems  to  refer  to  the  practice  said 
still  to  prevail  in  the  East,  where  these  animals  are  em- 
ployed to  tread  the  thin  mud  when  saturated  with  water, 
to  fit  it  for  receiving  the  seed.  Should  there  be  a  river 
there,  a  fountain  here,  and  a  pool  elsewhere,  it  is  far  wiser 
to  have  the  fields  near,  than  at  a  distance  from  any  of  these. 
Sometimes  God  gives  peculiarly  happy  spiritual  seasons  '  o 
countries,  or  districts  in  countries,  causing  the  river  of 
life  abundantly  to  flow,  and  streams  from  it  extensivelj  to 
spread  its  influence :  then  the  wise  husbandman  will  hasten 
to  scatter  his  seed,  in  cities,  towns,  villages,  hamlets,  and 
among  individual  families,  in  expectation  of  a  rich  har- 
vest, from  the  well  watering  of  the  garden  of  plants.— 
Campbell. 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 
Ver.  11.  Ye  shall  conceive  chaff;  ye  shall  bring 
forth  stubble :  your  breath  as  fire  shall  devour 
you. 

When  married  females  quarrel,  they  often  say,  "Yes, 
thy  womb  shall  give  children,  but  they  shall  all  be  as 
chaff."  "  Yes,  barren  one,  you  may  have  a  child,  but  it 
will  be  blind  and  dumb."  "  True,  true,  you  will  bring 
forth  a  'pambvrvethe^''  i.  e.  a  generation  of  serpents. — Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  21.  But  there  the  glorious  Lord  will  he 
unto  us  a  place  of  broad  rivers  and  streams; 
wherein  shall  go  no  galley  with  oars,  neither 
shall  gallant  ship  pass  thereby. 

In  such  a  highly  cultivated  country  as  England,  and 
where  great  drought  is  almost  unknown,  we  have  not  an 
opportunity  to  observe  the  fertilizing  influence  of  a  broad 
river ;  but  in  South  Africa,  where  almost  no  human  means 
are  employed  fof  improving  the  land,  the  benign  influence 
of  rivers  is  most  evident.  The  Great,  or  Orange  River, 
is  a  remarkable  instance  of  this.  I  travelled  on  its  banks, 
at  one  time,  for  five  or  six  weeks;  when,  for  several  hun- 
.dred  miles,  I  found  both  sides  of  it  delightfully  covered 
'  with  trees  of  various  kinds,  all  in  health  and  vigour,  and 
abundance  of  the  richest  verdure;  but  all  the  country  be- 
yond the  reach  of  its  influence  was  complete  desert.  Every 
thing  appeared  struggling  for  mere  existence;  so  that  we 
might  be  said  to  have  had  the  wilderness  on  one  side,  and 
a  kind  of  paradise  on  the  other. — Campbell. 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Ver.  7.  And  the  unicorns  shall  come  down  with 
them,  and  the  bullocks  with  the  bulls ;  and  their 
land  shall  be  soaked  with  blood,  and  their  dust 
made  fat  with  fatness. 

See  on  Ps.  22.  12,  15. 


Chap.  35—38. 


ISAIAH. 


469 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 
Ver.  6.  Then  shall  the  lame  man  leap  as  a  hart, 
and  the  tongue  of  the  dumb  shall  sing:    for 
in  the  wilderness  shall  waters  break  out,  and 
streams  in  the  desert. 

See  on  Ps.  18.  33. 

Lameness  and  dumbness  are  the  uniform  effects  of  long 
walking  in  a  desert ;  the  sand  and  gravel  produce  the  for- 
mer, fatigue  the  latter.  In  such  cases  some  of  us  have 
walked  hours  togesher  without  uttering  a  sentence;  and 
all  walked  as  if  crippled,  from  the  sand  and  gravel  getting 
into  the  shoes ;  but  the  sight  of  water,  especially  if  Unex- 

{)ected,  unloosed  every  tongue,  and  gave  agility  to  every 
imb;  men,  oxen,  goats,  sheep,  and  dogs,  ran  with  speed 
and  expressions  of  joy  to  the  refreshing  element.— Camp- 
bell. 

Ver.  7.  And  the  parched  ground  shall  become  a 
pool,  and  the  thirsty  land  springs  of  water :  in 
the  habitation  of  dragons,  where  each  lay,  shall 
be  grass,  with  reeds  and  rushes. 

Instead  of  the  parched  ground,  Bp.  Lowth  translates  it, 
the  glowing  sand  shall  become  a  pool,  and  says  in  a  note, 
that  the  word  is  Arabic  as  well  as  Hebrew,  expressing  in 
both  languages  the  same  thing,  the  glowing  sandy  plain, 
which  in  the  hot  countries  at  a  distance  has  the  appearance 
of  water.  It  occurs  in  the  Koran,  (cap.  xxiv.)  "  But  as  to 
the  unbelievers,  their  works  are  like  a  vapour  in  a  plain 
which  the  thirsty  traveller  thinketh  to  be  water,  until, 
when  he  cometh  thereto,  he  findelh  it  to  be  nothing."  Mr. 
Sale's  note  on  this  place  is,  the  Arabic  word  serab  signifies 
that  false  appearance,  which  in  the  eastern  countries  is 
often  seen  in  sandy  plains  about  noon,  resembling  a  large 
lake  of  water  in  motion,  and  is  occasioned  by  the  reverber- 
ation of  the  sunbeams.  It  sometimes  tempts  thirsty  travel- 
lers out  of  their  way,  but  deceives  them  when  they  come 
near,  either  going  forward,  (for  it  always  appears  at  the 
same  distance,)  or  quite  vanishes. — Burder. 

<  CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Ver.  24.  By  thy  servants  hast  thou  reproached 
the  Lord,  and  hast  said,  By  the  multitude  of 
my  chariots  am  I  come  up  to  the  height  of  the 
mountains,  to  the  sides  of  Lebanon ;  and  I  will 
cut  down  the  tall  cedars  thereof,  and  the  choice 
fir-trees  thereof :  and  I  will  enter  into  th^  height 
of  his  border,  and  the  forest  of  his  Carmel. 

At  six  o'clock  we  again  set  forward,  and  passing  near 
the  church,  the  priest,  a  venerable  old  man,  with  a  flow- 
ing beard,  was  standing  on  the  threshold,  and  courteously 
saluted  us.  Our  road,  somewhat  better  than  yesterday, 
continued  gradually  to  rise,  and  we  were  now  fairly  within 
that  long  elevated  chain  which  has  borne,  from  the  earliest 
ages,  the  name  of  Lebanon.  We  had  felt  a  great  anxiety 
to  see  the  celebrated  cedars,  whidh  are  supposed  to  be  the 
remains  of  the  ancient  forests  that  once  entirely  clothed 
these  heights.  Hitherto  we  had  been  allured  forward  by 
our  guides,  with  the  promise  of  soon  reaching  them,  but 
we  now  discovered  that  we  had  been  purposely  deceived, 
mid  ought  to  have  taken  another  road,  in  which  case  the 
village  of  Eden,  in  their  immediate  vicinity,  would  have 
afforded  us  a  more  commodious  halting-place.  After 
leaving  Balbec,  and  approaching  Lebanon,  towering  wal- 
1*  nut-trees,  either  singly  or  in  groups,  and  a  rich  carpet 
of  verdure,  the  offspring  of  numerous  streams,  give  to 
this  charming  district  the  air  of  an  English  park,  majesti- 
cally bounded  with  snow-tipped  mountains.  At  Deir  el 
Akmaar  the  ascent  begins — winding  among  dwarf  oaks, 
hawthorns,  and  a  great  variety  of  shrubs  and  flowers. 
After  some  hours  of  laborious  toil,  a  loaded  horse  slipped 
near  the  edge  of  a  precipice,  and  must  inevitably  have 
perished,  if  a  servant,  with  great  presence  of  mind,  had 
not  cut  the  girths,  and  saved  the  animal,  at  the  expense  of 
most  of  the  stores,  and  the  whole  of  the  crockery.  Vain 
were  the  lamentations  over  fragments  of  plates  and  glasses, 
broken  bottles,  and  spilt  brandy  and  wine,  in  an  impover- 


ished country,  where  nothing  that  contributes  to  comfort 
can  be  replaced.  Seven  hours  were  spent  in  attaining  the 
summit  of  the  mountain  after  leaving  the  village.  The 
view  on  both  sides  was  splendid. — A  deep  bed  of  snow  had 
now  to  be  crossed,  and  the  horses  sunk  or  slipped  at  every 
moment.  To  ride  was  impracticable,  and  to  walk  danger- 
ous, for  the  melting  snow  penetrated  our  boots,  and  our  feet 
were  nearly  frozen.  An  hour  and  a  half  brought  us  to  the 
cedars.  Seven  of  the  most  ancient  still  remain.  They  are 
considered  to  be  coeval  with  Solomon,  and  therefore  held 
sacred.  Rude  altars  have  been  erected  near  them,  and  an 
annual  Christian  festival  is  held,  when  worship  is  per- 
formed beneath  their  venerable  branches.  Other  cedars, 
varying  in  age  and  size,  form  around  them  a  protecting 
grove.  We  reckoned  every  tree  with  scrupulous  care. 
Many,  indeed,  have  sprung  up  from  ancient  roots,  but  enu- 
merating all  that  present  independent  trunks,  including  the 
patriarchal  trees,  they  amount  to  three  hundred  Vmd  forty- 
three.  At  a  quarter  of  an  hour  from  the  cedars  is  the  vil- 
lage of  Beesharry,  a  lovely,  romantic  spot,  on  the  brink  of 
a  deep  glen. — Hogg. 

Ver.  27.  Therefore  their  inhabitants  were  of  small 
power,  they  were  dismayed  and  confounded : 
they  were  as  the  grass  of  the  field,  and  as  the 
green  herb :  as  the  grass  on  the  house-tops, 
and  as  corn  blasted  before  it  be  grown  up. 

See  on  Ruth  2.  4. 

Ver.  29.  Because  thy  rage  against  me,  and  thy 
tumult,  is  come  up  into  mine  ears ;  therefore 
will  I  put  my  hook  in  thy  nose,  and  my  bridle 
in  thy  lips,  and  I  will  turn  thee  back  by  the 
way  by  which  thou  camest. 

.  It  is  usual  in  the  East  to  fasten  an  iron  ring  in  the  nose  of  ^ 
their  camels  and  buffaloes,  to  which  they  tie  a  rope,  by 
means  of  which  they  manage  these  beasts.  God  is  here 
speaking  of  Sennacherib,  king  of  Assyria,  under  the  image 
of  a  furious  refractory  beast,  and  accordingly,  in  allu- 
sion to  this  circumstance,  says,  /  will  put  my  hook  in  thy 
nose. — Border. 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 
Ver.  12.  Mine  age  is  departed,  and  is  removed 
from  me  as  a  shepherd's  tent :  I  have  cut  off 
like  a  weaver  my  life:  he  will  cut  me  off*  with 
pining  sickness :  from  day  even  to  night  wiit 
thou  make  an  end  of  me. 

Hezekiah  makes  use  of  a  simile,  in  that  hymn  of  his 
which  Isaiah  has  preserved,  that  appeared,  ij^any  years  ago, 
very  perplexing  to  a  gentleman  of  good  sense  and  learning, 
who  resided  in  one  of  the  most  noted  towns  of  the  kingdom 
for  weaving.  He  could  not  conceive,  why  the  cutting  short 
the  life  of  that  prince,  should  be  compared  to  a  weaver's 
cutting  off  a  piece  from  his  loom  when  he  had  finished  it, 
and  he  and  everybody  that  saw  it  in  that  state  expected  it 
as  a  thing  of  course.  He  consulted  those  that  were  ac- 
quainted with  the  manufactory,  but  could  gain  no  satisfac- 
tion. Perhaps  it  may  appear  more  easy  to  the  mind,  if  the 
simile  is  understood  to  refer  to  the  weaving  of  a  carpet, 
filled  with  flowers  and  other  ingenious  devices :  just  as  a 
weaver,  after  having  wrought  many  decorations  into  apiece 
of  carpeting,  suddenly  cuts  it  off,  while  the  figures  were 
rising  into  view  as  fresh  and  as  beautiful  as  ever,  and  the 
spectator  is  expecting  the  weaver  would  proceed  in  his 
work;  so,  after  a  variety  of  pleasing  and  amusing  transac- 
tions in  the  course  of  my  life,  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  it 
seemed  to  me  that  it  was  come  to  its' period,  and  was  just 
going  to  be  cut  off.  Unexpectedness  must  certainly  be  in- 
tended here. — Harmer. 

The  shepherds  of  the  East  are  often  obliged  to  remove 
their  flocks  to  distant  places  to  find  pasturage ;  hence  their 
habitations  are  exceedingly  light,  in  order  to  be  the  more 
easily  removed.  The  "  lodge  in  a  garden  of  cucumbers," 
and  the  frail  resting-place  of  the  shepherd,  greatly  resemb].- 
each  other, — Roberts. 


470 


ISAIAH. 


Chap.  40. 


Ver.  14.  Like  a  crane  or  a.  swallow,  so  did  I  chat- 
ter: I  did  mourn  as  a  dove:  mine  eyes  fail 
with  looking  upward :  O  Lord,  I  am  oppress- 
ed ;  undertake  for  me. 

No  bird  is  more  noisy  than  the  crane  ;  and  none  utters  a 
harsher  note.  The  prophet,  however,  applies  the  verb  (fics) 
tsaphtsaph,  which  signifies  to  chatter,  to  the  loud  and  scream- 
ing cry  of  this  bird  ;  for  which  Mr.  Harmer  professes  him- 
seU  unable  to  account.  "The  word  tsaphtsaph,"  says  he, 
"  translated  chatter,  appears  to  signify  the  low,  melancholy, 
interrupted  voice  of  the  complaining  sick,  rather  than  a 
chattering  noise,  if  we  consult  the  other  places  in  which  it 
is  used :  as  for  the  chattering  of  the  crane,  it  seems  quite 
inexplicable."  But  the  difficulty  had  not,  perhaps,  appear- 
ed so  great,  if  this  respectable  writer  had  observed  that  the 
connective  vau  is  wanting  in  the  original  text,  which  may 
be  thus  considered :  "  As  a  crane,  a  swallow,  so  did  I  chat- 
ter." The  two  nouns  are  not,  therefore,  necessarily  con- 
nected with  the  verb  tsaphtsaph,  but  admit  the  insertion  of 
another  verb  suitable  to  the  nature  of  the  first  nominative. 
The  ellipsis  maybe  supplied  in  this  manner  :  "As  a  crane, 
so  did  I  scream,"  as  a  swallow,  so  did  I  chatter."  Such  a 
supplement  is  not,  in  this  instance,  forced  and  unnatural ; 
for  it  is  evidently  the  design  of  Hezekiah  to  say,  that  he 
expressed  his  grief  after  the  manner  of  these  two  birds,  and 
therefore  suitably  to  each ;  and  he  uses  the  verb  tsaphtsaph, 
which  properly  corresponds  only  with  the  last  noun,  to  in- 
dicate this  design,  leaving  the  reader  to  supply  the  verb 
M^hich  corresponds  with  the  other.  It  is  also  perfectly 
agreeable  to  the  manners  of  the  East,  where  sorrow  is  ex- 
pressed sometimes  in  a  low  interrupted  voice,  and  anon  in 
loud  continued  exclamations.  The  afflicted  monarch, 
therefore,  expressed  his  extreme  grief  after  the  manner  of 
the  Orientals,  iii  loud  screams  like  the  crane,  or  in  low  in- 
terrupted murmurings  like  the  swallow.  According  to 
some  writers,  the  verb  under  consideration  signifies  the  note 
of  any  bird,  and  by  consequence  may  with  equal  propriety 
be  emploved  to  denote  the  loud  scream  of  the  crane,  or  the 
melancholy  twitter  of  the  swallow;  if  this  be  so,  the  difficulty 
admits  of  an  easy  solution. — Paxton. 

Ver.  17.  Behold,  for  peace  I  had  great  bitterness : 
but  thou  hast  in  love  to  my  soul  delivered  it 
from  the  pit  of  corruption :  for  thou  hast  cast 
all  my  sins  behind  thy  back. 

Jeroboam  preferred  "  molten  images"  to  the  true  God, 
and  therefore  the  Lord  said  unto  him  by  Ahijah,  thou  "hast 
cast  me  behind  thy  back."  The  Levites  said  of  the  children 
of  Israel,  they  "  rebelled  against  thee,  and  cast  thy  law  behind 
their  backs."  The  Lord  said  of  the  wicked  cities  of  Samaria 
'  and  Jerusalem,  "  Thou  hast  forgotten  me,  and  cast  me 
behind  thy  back."  This  metaphor,  to  cast  behind  the  back, 
is  in  cominon  uSt,  and  has  sometimes  a  very  oflfensive  sig- 
nification. The  expression  is  used  to  denote  the  most  com- 
plete and  contemptuous  rejection  of  a  person  or  thing.  "  The 
king  has  cast  his  minister  behind  his  back,"  i.  e.  fully  re- 
moved him,  treated  him  with  sovereign  contempt.  "  Alas  ! 
alas!  he  has  thrown  my  petition  behind  his  back;  all  my 
effiarts  are  defeated."  "  Yes,  man,  I  have  forgiven  you ;  all 
your  'irimes  are  behind  my  back ;  but  take  care  not  to  offend 
me  a^ain." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XL. 

.  Ver.  3.  The  voice  of  him  that  crieth  in  the  wil- 
derness, Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord, 
make  straio^ht  in  the  desert  a  highway  for  our 
God.  4.  Every  valley  shall  be  exalted,  and 
every  mountain  and  hill  shall  be  made  low : 
and  the  crooked  shall  be  made  straight,  and 
the  rough  places  plain. 

When  a  great  prince  in  the  East  sets  out  on  a  journey,  it 
is  usual  to  send  a  party  of  men  before  him,  to  clear  the  way. 
The  state  of  those  countries  in  every  age,  where  roads  are 
almost  unknown,  and  from  the  want  of  cultivation  in  many 
parts  overgrown  with  brambles,  and  other  thorny  plants, 
which  renders  travelling,  especially  with  a  large  retinue, 


very  incommodious,  requires  this  precaution.  The  empe- 
ror of  Hindostan,  in  his  progress  through  his  dominions,  as 
described  in  the  narrative  of  Sir  Thomas  Roe's  embassy  to 
the  court  of  Delhi,  was  preceded  by  a  very  great  company, 
sent  before  him  to  cut  up  the  trees  and  huj^hes,  lo  level  and 
smooth  the  road,  and  prepare  their  place  of  encampment. 
Balin,  who  swayed  the  imperial  sceptre  of  India,  had  five 
hundred  chosen  men,  in  rich  livery,  with  their  drawn  sabres, 
who  ran  before  him,  proclaiming  his  approach,  and  clear- 
ing the  way.  Nor  was  this  honour  reserved  exclusively 
for  the  reigning  emperor :  it  was  often  shown  to  persons  of 
royal  birth.  When  an  Indian  princess  made  a  visit  to  her 
father,  the  roads  were  directed  to  be  repaired,  and  made 
clear  for  her  journey  ;  fruit-trees  were  planted,  water-ves- 
sels placed  in  the  road-side,  and  great  illuminations  pre- 
pared for  the  occasion.  Mr.  Bruce  gives  nearly  the  sa-me 
account  of  a  journey,  which  the  king  of  Abyssinia  made 
through  a  part  of  his  dominions.  The  chief  magistrate  of 
every  district  through  which  he  had  to  pass,  was,  by  his 
office,  obliged  to  have  the  roads  cleared,  levelled,  and 
smoothed ;  and  he  mentions,  that  a  magistrate  of  one  of  the 
districts  having  failed  in  this  part  of  his  duty,  was,  together 
with  his  son,  immediately  put  to  death  on  the  spot,  where  a 
thorn  happened  to  catch  the  garment,  and  interrupt  for  a 
moment  the  progress  of  his  majesty.  This  custom  is  easily 
recognised  in  that  beautiful  prediction :  "  The  voice  of  him 
that  crieth  in  the  wilderness.  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the 
Lord,  make  straight  in  the  desert  a  highway  for  our  God.^ 
Every  valley  shall  be  exalted,  and  every  mountain  and  hilL 
shall  be  brought  low ;  and  the  crooked  shall  be  made  straight, 
and  the  rough  places  plain;  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord 
shall  be  revealed,  and  all  flesh  shall  see  it  together,  for  the 
mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken  it."  "We  shall  be  able, 
perhaps,  to  form  a  more  clear  and  precise  idea,  from  the 
account  which  Diodorus  gives  of  the  marches  of  Semiramis, 
the  celebrated  queen  of  Babylon,  into  Media  and  Persia. 
In  her  march  to  Ecbatane,  says  the  historian,  she  came  to 
the  Zarcean  mountain,  whicK  extending  many  furlongs, 
and  being  full  of  craggy  precipices  and  deep  hollows,  could 
not  be  passed  without  taking  a  great  compass.  Being  there- 
fore desirous  of  leaving  an  everlasting  memorial  of  herself, 
as  well  as  of  shortening  the  way,  she  ordered  the  precipices 
to  be  digged  down,  and  the  hollows  to  be  filled  up  ;  and  at 
a  great  expense  she  made  a  shorter  and  more  expeditious 
road  ;  which  to  this  day  is  called  from  her,  the  road  of 
Semiramis.  Aiterwardshe  went  into  Persia,  and  all  the 
other  countries  of  Asia  subjected  to  her  dominion;  and 
wherever  she  went,  she  ordered  the  mountains  and  the 
precipices  to  be  levelled,  raised  causeys  in  the  plain  coun- 
try, and  at  a  great  expense  made  the  ways  passable. 
Whatev^  may  be  in  this  story,  the  following  statement 
is  entitled  to  the  fullest  credit :  "  All  eastern  potentates 
have  their  precursors  and  a  number  of  pioneers  to  clear 
the  road,  by  removing  obstacles,  and  filling  up  the  ravines, 
and  the  hollow  ways  in  their  route.  In  the  days  of  Mogul 
splendour,  the  emperor  caused  the  hills  and  mountains  to 
be  levelled,  and  the  valleys  to  be  filled  up  for  his  con- 
venience. This  beautifully  illustrates  the  figurative  lan- 
guage in  the  approach  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  when  every 
valley  shall  be  exalted,  and  every  mountain  and  hill  shall 
be  made  low,  and  the  crooked  shall  be  made  straight,  and 
the  rough  places  plain." — Paxton. 

Ver.  1 1.  He  shall  feed  his  flock  like  a  shepherd: 
he  shall  gather  the  lambs  with  his  arm,  and 
carry  them  in  his  bosom,  and  shall  gently  lead 
those  that  are  with  young. 

See  on  Ezek.  25.  5. 

One  of  the  great  delights  in  travelling  through  a  pastoral 
country,  is  to  see  and  feel  the  force  of  the  beautiful  imagery 
in  the  scriptures,  borrowed  from  pastoral  life.  All  day  long 
the  shepherd  attends  his  flock,  leading  them  into  green 
pastures"  near  fountains  of  water,  and  chooses  a  convenient 
place  for  them  to  "  rest  at  noon."  At  night  he  drives  them 
near  his  tent,  and  if  there  is  danger,  encloses  tbem  m  the 
fold.  They  know  his  voice  and  follow  him.  When  travel- 
ling, he  tenderly  watches  over  them,  and  carries jfitck  as  are 
exhausted  in  his  arms.  Such  a  shepherd  is  the  Lord  JesUs 
Christ.  See  John  x.— Rev.  R.  Anderson's  1  our  through 
Grekce. 

The  shepherds  of  antiquity  were  "  an  abomination  unto 


Chap.  40. 


ISAIAH. 


471 


the  Egyptians,"  and  so  they  are  among  the  Hindoos ;  and 
as  the  Egyptians  would  not  eat  with  the  Hebrews,  so  nei- 
ther will  the  various  castes  of  India  eat  with  their  shep- 
herds. The  pastoral  office  in  the  East  is  far  more  respon- 
sible than  in  England,  and  it  is  only  by  looking  at  it  in  its 
various  relations  and  peculiarities,  as  it  exists  there,  that 
we  gain  a  correct  view  of  many  passages  of  scripture. 
Flocks  at  home  are  generally  in  fine  fields,  surrounded  by 
hedges  or  fences;  but  there  they  are  generally  in  the  wil- 
derness, and  were  it  not  for  the  "shepherds,  would  go  astray, 
and  be  exposed  to  the  wild  beasts.  As  the  sons  of  Jacob 
had  to  go  to  a  great  distance  to  feed  their  flocks,  so  still 
they  are  often  absent  for  one  and  two  months  together,  in 
the  place  where  there  is  plenty  of  pasturage.  In  their  re- 
movals, it  is  an  interesting  sight  to  see  the  shepherds  car- 
rying the  lambs  in  their  bosoms,  and  also  to  witness  how 
gently  they  "  lead  those  that  are  with  young."  Another 
interesting  fact  is  the  relationship  which  exists  betwixt  the 
pastor  and  his  flock ;  for  being  so  much  together,  they  ac- 
quire a  friendly  feeling :  hence  the  sheep  "  know  his  voice, 
and  a  stranger  will  they  not  follow."  Does  he  wish  to  re- 
move to  another  place,  he  goes  to  such  a  distance  as  that 
they  can  hear  his  voice,  and  then  he  imitates  the  noise 
made  by  a  sheep,  and  immediately  they  may  be  seen  bound- 
ing along  to  the  spot  where  he  is.  Thus  "  he  goeth  before 
them,  and  the  sheep  follow  him,  for  they  know  his  voice." 
But  anothef  way  of  leading  a  flock,  especially  where  there 
are  goats,  is  to  take  the  branch  of  a  tree,  and  keep  showing 
it  to  them,  which  causes  Ihem  to  run  along  more  cheerful- 
ly. He  also  calleth  "  his  own  sheep  by  name,"  and  it  is  in- 
teresting to  notice  how  appropriate  the  names  are  to  the 
animals.  Thus,  should  a  sheep  or  a  cow  have  a  bad  tem- 
per, (or  any  other  failing,)  it  will  be  called  the  angry  one, 
the  malicious,  or  sulky,  or  wandering  one;  the  killer  of 
her  young,  the  fiend;  the  mad  one,  the  jumper,  the  limper, 
the  dwarf,  the  barren,  the  fruitful,  the  short,  the  fat,  the 
long,  the  tricky  one.  The  cows  also  are  named  after  some 
of  their  goddesses,  particularly  after  the  wives  of  Siva, 
Vishnoo,  and  Scandan;  thus  Lechymy,  Parvati,  and  Val- 
le,  may  be  heard  in  every  herd.  To  bulls  are  given  the 
names  of  men  and  devils ;  as,  Vyraven,  Pulliar,  Mathan, 
&c.  Before  the  sun  shall  have  gained  his  meridian,  the 
shepherds  seek  out  a  shady  place,  where  they  may  make 
their  flocks  "  to  rest  at  noon."  As  the  shepherd  who  mount- 
ed the  throne  of  Israel  carried  his  sling  and  his  stone,  so 
these  generally  have  the  same  missiles  by  which  they  cor- 
rect the  wanderers,  and  keep  off"  their  foes :  hence  the  dog 
is  scarcely  ever  used  in  the  tending  or  guiding  of  flocks. 
As  was  Jacob,  so  here  the  shepherds  are  often  remunerated 
in  kind,  and  therefore  have  not  any  other  wages,  (except 
now  and  then  a  little  cloth  or  rice  ;)  hence,  often,  a  certain 
number  of  the  rams  are  given  as  pay,  and  to  this  also  the 
patriarch  may  allude :  "  The  rams  of  thy  flocks  have  I  not 
eaten,"  In  most  of  these  particulars  we  see  illustrations  of 
Him  who  "is  the  Shepherd,  the  Stone  of  Israel,"  who  laid 
prostrate  the  "  roaring  lion"  of  hell,  and  who  keeps  us  in 
safety,  so  that  the  foe  cannot  pluck  us  out  of  his  hand. — 
Roberts, 

Ver.  12.  Who  hath  measured  the  waters  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand,  and  meted  out  heaven  with 
the  span,  and  comprehended  the  dust  of  the 
earth  in  a  measure,  and  weighed  the  mountains 
in  scales,  and  the  hills  in  a  balance  ? 

Here  we  have  a  vivid  illustration  of  the  dignified  and 
gorgeous  imagery  of  the  East.  "  What  man  can  take  up 
the  waters  of  the  unknown  dark  ocean  in  his  hands'?" 
"  Whose  fingers  are  long  enough  to  span  the  arch  of  heav- 
en V  "  Who  can  bring  together  all  the  dust  of  the  earth 
in  a  measure  V  "  Who  can  weigh  the  hills  and  mountains 
in  scales  V  These  figures  largely  show  the  insignificance 
of  man. — Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  And  Lebanon  is  not  sufficient  to  burn, 
nor  the  beasts  thereof  sufficient  for  a  burnt-of- 
fering. 

The  stupendous  size,  the  extensive  range,  and  great  ele- 
vation of  Libanus:  its  towering  summits,  capped  wiih  per- 
petual snow,  or  crowned  with  fragrant  cedars;  its  olive 


plantations ;  its  vineyards,  producing  the  most  delicious 
wines  ;  its  clear  fountains  and  cold-flowing  brooks  ;  its  fer- 
tile vales  and  odoriferous  shrubberies, — combine  to  form  in 
Scripture  language,  "  the  glory  of  Lebanon."  But  that 
glory,  liable  to  change,  has,  by  the  unanimous  consent  of 
modern  travellers,  suffered  a  sensible  decline.  The  exten- 
sive forests  o|"  cedar,  which  adorned  and  perfumed  the 
summits  and  declivities  of  those  mountains,  have  almost 
disappeared.  Only  a  small  number  of  these  "  trees  of  God, 
planted  by  his  almighty  hand,"  which,  according  to  the 
usual  import  of  the  phrase,  signally  displayed  the  divine 
power,  wisdom,  and  goodness,  now  remain.  Their  count- 
less number  in  the  days  of  Solomon,  and  their  prodigious 
bulk,  must  be  recollected,  in  order  to  feel  the  force  of  tnat 
sublime  declaration  of  the  prophet:  "  Lebanon  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  burn,  nor  the  beasts  thereof  sufficient  for  a  burnt- 
offering." — Paxton. 

Ver.  24.  Yea,  they  shall  not  be  planted :  yea, 
they  shall  not  be  sown :  yea,  their  stock  shall 
not  take  root  in  the  earth:  and  he  shall  also 
blow  upon  them,  and  they  shall  wither,  and 
the  whirlwind  shall  take  them  away  as  stubble. 

Whirlwinds  occasionally  sweep  along  the  country  in  an 
extremely  frightful  manner,  carrying  away  in  their  vortex, 
sand,  branches,  and  stubble,  and  raising  them  to  an  im- 
mense height  in  the  air.  Very  striking  is  the  allusion 
which  the  prophet  makes  to  this  phenomenon  :  "  He  shall 
also  blow  upon  them,  and  they  shall  wither,  and  the  whirl- 
wind shall  take  them  away  as  stubble."  With  equal  force 
and  beauty,  the  Psalmist  refers  to  the  rotatory  action  of  the 
whirlwind,  which  frequently  impels  a  bit  of  straw,  over 
the  waste,  like  a  wheel  set  in  rapid  motion  :  "O  my  God, 
make  them  like  a  wheel,  as  the  stubble  before  the  wind." 
Sometimes  it  comes  from  no  particular  point,  but  moves 
about  in  every  direction.  Mr.  Bruce,  in  his  journey  through 
the  desert  of  Senaar,  had  the  singular  felicity  to  contem- 
plate this  wonderful  phenomenon  in  all  its  terrific  majesty, 
without  injury,  although  with  considerable  danger  and 
alarm.  In  that  vast  expanse  of  desert,  from  west  and  to 
northwest  of  him,  he  saw  a  number  of  prodigious  pillars  of 
sand  at  different  distances,  moving  at  times  with  great  ce- 
lerity, at  others,  stalking  on  with  majestic  slowness ;  at 
intervals  he  thought  they  were  coming  in  a  very  few  min- 
utes to  overwhelm  him  and  his  companions.  Again  they 
would  retreat  so  as  to  be  almost  out  of  sight,  their  tops 
reaching  to  the  very  clouds.  There  the  tops  often  sepa- 
rated from  the  bodies;  and  these,  once  disjoined,  dispersed 
in  the  air,  and  appeared  no  more.  Sometimes  they  were 
broken  near  the  middle,  as  if  struck  with  a  large  cannon- 
shot.  About  noon  they  began  to  advance  with  considerable 
swiftness  upon  them,  the  wind  being  very  strong  at  north. 
Eleven  of  these  awful  visiters  ranged  alongside  of  them 
about  the  distance  of  three  miles.  The  greatest  diameter 
of  the  largest  appeared  to  him,  at  that  distance,  as  if  it 
would  measure  ten  feet.  They  retired  from  them  with  a 
wind  at  southeast,  leaving  an  impression  upon  the  mind  ot 
our  intrepid  traveller  to  which  he  could  give  no  name, 
though  he  candidly  admits  that  one  ingredient  in  it  was 
fear,  with  a  considerable  deal  of  wonder  and  astonishment. 
He  declares  it  was  in  vain  to  think  of  flying ;  the  swiftest 
horse,  or  fastest  sailing  ship,  could  be  of  no  use  to  carry 
them  out  of  this  danger ;  and  the  full  persuasion  of  this 
riveted  him  to  the  spot  where  he  stood.  Next  day  they 
were  gratified  with  a  similar  display  of  moving  pillars,  iii 
form  and  disposition  like  those  already  described,  only 
they  seemed  to  be  more  in  number  and  less  in  size.  They 
came  several  times  in  a  direction  close  upon  them ;  that  is, 
according  to  Mr.  Bruce's  computation,  within  less  than  two 
miles.  They  became,  immediately  after  sunrise,  like  a 
thick  wood,  and  almost  darkened  the  sun ;  his  rays  shining 
through  them  for  near  an  hour,  gave  them  an  appearaifce 
of  pillars  of  fire.  At  another  time  they  were  terrified  bv 
an  army  (as  it  seemed)  of  these  sand  pillars,  whose  march 
was  constantly  south  ;  a  number  of  which  seemed  once  to 
be  coming  directly  upon  them ;  and  though  they  were 
little  nearer  than  two  miles,  a  considerable  qnantit"  ,f  sand 
fell  around  them.  On  the  twenty-first  of  November,  about 
eight  in  the  morning,  he  had  a  view  of  the  desert  ro  the 
westward  as  before,  and  the  sands  had  already  begun  to 
rise  in  immense  twisted  pillars,  which  darkened  the  heav* 


472 


ISAIAH, 


Chap.  41,  42. 


ens,  ai\-.l  moved  over  the  desert  with  more  magnificence 
than  ever.  The  Sun  shining  through  the  pillars,  which 
were  thicker,  and  contained  more  sand  apparently  than 
any  of  the  preceding  days,  seemed  to  give  those  nearest 
them  an  appearance  as  if  spotted  with  stars  of  gold.  A 
little  before  twelve,  the  wind  at  north  ceased,  and  a  con- 
siderable quantity  of  fine  sand  rained  upon  them  for  an 
hour  afterward.  To  this  species  of  rain,  "Moses  was  no 
stranger ;  he  had  seen  it,  and  felt  its  efi'ects  in  the  sandy 
deserts  of  Arabia,  and  he  places  it  among  the  curses  that 
were,  in  future  ages,  to  punish  the  rebellion  of  his  people ; 
"  The  Lord  shall  make  the  rain  of  thy  land  powder  and 
dust :  from  heaven  shall  it  come  down  upon  thee,  until 
thou  be  destroyed." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XLI. 
Ver.  15.  Behold,  I  will  make  thee  a  new  sharp 
thrashing  instrument  having  teeth:  thou  shalt 
thrash  the  mountains,  and  beat  them  small,  and 
shalt  make  the  hills  as  chaff. 

The  manner  of  thrashing  corn  in  the  East  diflfers  essen- 
tially from  the  method  practised  in  western  countries.  It 
has  been  fully  described  by  travellers,  from  whose  writings 
such  extracts  are  here  made,  and  connected  together,  as 
will  convey  a  tolerable  idea  of  this  subject.  In  Isaiah 
xxviii.  27,  28,  four  methods  of  thrashing  are  mentioned, 
as  effected  by  different  instruments  :  the  flail,  the  drag,  the 
^ain,  and  the  treading  of  the  cattle.  The  staff,  or  flail,  was 
used  for  the  injirmiora  semina,  says  Hieron,  the  grain  that 
M^as  too  tender  to  be  treated  in  the  other  methods.  The  drag 
consisted  of  a  sort  of  frame  of  strong  planks,  made  rough  at 
the  bottom  with  hard  stones  or  iron ;  it  was  drawn  by  horses 
or  oxen  over  the  corn-sheaves  spread  on  the  floor,  the  driver 
sitting  upon  it.  The  wain  was  much  like  the  former,  but 
had  wheels  with  iron  teeth,  or  edges  like  a  saw.  The  axle 
was  armed  with  iron  teeth,  or  serrated  wheels  throughout : 
it  moves  upon  three  rollers,  armed  with  iron  teeth  or 
wheels,  to  cut  the  straw.  In  Syria  they  make  use  of  the 
drag,  constructed  in  the  very  same  manner  as  above  de- 
scribed. This  not  only  forced  out  the  grain,  but  cut  the 
straw  in  pieces  for  fodder  for  the  cattle,  for  in  the  eastern 
countries  they  have  no  hay.  The  last  method  is  well 
known  from  the  law  of  Moses,  which  forbids  the  ox  to  be 
muzzled  when  he  treadeth  out  the  corn.  Deut.  xxv.  4. 
(Lowth.)  "  In  thrashing  their  corn,  the  Arabians  lay  the 
sheaves,  down  in  a  certain  order,  and  then  lead  over  them 
two  oxen,  dragging  a  large  stone.  This  mode  of  separa- 
ting the  ears  from  the  straw  is  not  unlike  that  of  Egypt." 
(Niebuhr.)  "They  use  oxen,  as  the  ancients  did,  to  beat 
out  their  corn,  by  trampling  upon  the  sheaves,  and  drag- 
ging after  them  a  clumsy  machine.  This  machine  is  not, 
as  in  Arabia,  a  stone  cylinder,  nor  a  plank  with  sharp 
stones,  as  in  Syria,  but  a  sort  of  sledge,  consisting  of  three 
rollers,  fitted  with  irons,  which  turn  upon  axles.  A  farmer 
chooses  out  a  level  spot  in  his  fields,  and  has  his  corn  car- 
ried thither  in  sheave*,  upon  asses  or  dromedaries.  Two 
oxen  are  then  yoke-^  in  a  sledge,  a  driver  gets  upon  it,  and 
drives  them  backwards  and  forwards  (rather  in  a  circle) 
upon  the  sheaves,  and  fresh  oxen  succeed  in  the  yoke  from 
time  to  time.  By  this  operation  the  chaff  is  very  much  cut 
down ;  the  whole  is  then  winr  owed,  and  the  pure  grain 
thus  separated.  This  mt^de  of  'hrashing  out  the  corn  is 
tedious  and  inconvcni°at ;  it  destroys  the  chaff,  and  injures 
the  quality  :)f  the  gi  am."  (Ibid.)  In  another  place,  Niebuhr 
tells  us  tha,  "two  parcels  or  layers  of  corn  are  thrashed  out 
in  a  day;  and  they  move  each  of  them  as  many  as  eight 
times  with  a  wooden  fork  of  five  prongs,  which  they  call  twc^Z- 
dre.  Afterward  they  throw  the  straw  into  the  middle  of  the 
ring,  where  it  forms  a  heap,  which  grows  bigger  and  bigger ; 
when  the  first  layer  is  thrashed,  they  replace  the  straw  in 
the-ring,  and  thrash  it  as  before.  Thus  the  straw  becomes 
every  time  smaller,  till  at  last  it  resembles  chopped  straw. 
After  this,  with  the  fork  just  described,  they  cast  the  whole 
some  yards  ffom  thence,  and  against  the  wind,  which  driv- 
ing ^ck  tne  straw,  the  corn  and  the  ears  not  thrashed  out 
fall  apart  from  it,  and  make  another  heap.  A  man  col- 
lects the  clods  of  dirt,  and  other  impurities,  to  which  any 
corn  adheres,  and  throws  them  into  a  sieve.  They  after- 
ward place  in  a  ring  the  heaps,  in  which  a  good  many 
entire  ears  are  still  found,  and  drive  over  them  for  four  or 


five  hours  together  a  dozen  couple  of  oxen ,  joined  two  and 
two,  till  by  absolute  trampling  they  have  separated  the 
grains,  which  they  throw  into  the  air  with  a  shovel  to  cleanse 
them." 

"  The  Moors  and  Arabs  continue  to  tread  out  thei:  corn 
after  the  primitive  custom  of  the  East.  Instead  of  beeves, 
they  frequently  make  use  of  mules  and  horses,  by  tying  in 
the  like  manner  by  the  neck  three  or  four  of  them  together, 
and  whipping  them  afterward  round  about  the  nedders, 
(as  they  call  the  thrashing  floors,  the  LybiccB  arece  of  Ho- 
race,) where  the  sheaves  lie  open  and  expanded  in  the 
same  manner  as  they  are  placed  and  prepared  with  us  for 
thrashing.  This,  indeed,  is  a  much  quicker  way  than 
ours,  but  less  cleanly ;  for,  as  it  is  performed  in  the  open 
air,  (Hos.  xiii.  3,)  upon  any  round  level  plat  of  ground, 
daubed  over  with  cow's  dung,  to  prevent  as  much  as  pos- 
sible the  earth,  sand,  or  gravel,  from  rising,  a  great  quan- 
tity of  them  all,  notwithstanding  this  precaution,  must  una- 
voidably be  taken  up  with  the  grain ;  at  the  same  time  the 
straw,  which  is  their  only  fodder,  is  hereby  shattered  to 
pieces,  a  circumstance  very  pertinently  alluded  to  2  Kings 
xiii.  7,  where  the  king  of  feyria  is  said  to  have  made  the 
Israelites  like  dust  by  thrashing."    (Shaw.) — Burder. 

Ver.  18.  I  will  open  rivers  in  high  places,  and 
fountains  in  the  midst  of  the  valleys;  I  will 
make  the  wilderness  a  pool  of  water,  and  the 
dry  land  springs  of  water. 

A  most  important  pastoral  duty  in  the  eastern  regions,  is 
to  provide  water  for  the  flock.  The  living  fountain  and  the 
flowing  stream,  generally  furnish  a  sure  and  abundant  sup- 
ply ;  but  these  are  seldom  to  be  found  in  the  burning  desert, 
where  the  oriental  shepherd  is  often  compelled  to  feed  his 
cattle.  In  such  circumstances,  happy  is  he  who  finds  a 
pool  where  his  flocks  may  quench  their  thirst.  Often,  as  he 
pursues  his  journey,  a  broad  expanse  of  water,  clear  as 
crystal,  seems  to  open  to  his  view ;  and  faint  and  weary 
under  the  fierce  sunbeam,  he  gazes  on  the  unexpected  re- 
lief with  ineffable  delight,  and  fondlv  anticipates  a  speedy 
termination  to  his  present  distress.  He  sees  the  foremost 
camels  enter  the  lake,  and  the  water  dashed  about  by  their 
feet.  He  quickens  his  pace,  and  hastens  to  the  spot ;  but 
to  his  utter  disappointment  the  vision  disappears,  and  no- 
thing remains  but  the  dry  and  thirsty  wilderness.  To  such 
deceitful  appearances,  the  prophet  opposes,  with  admirable 
eflfect,  the  real  pool,  the  overflowing  f<)untain,  and  the  run- 
ning stream ;  the  appropriate  symbols  of  those  substantial 
blessings  of  grace  and  mercy,  that  were  laid  up  in  store  for 
the  church  of  Christ  in  the  last  days :  "  And  the  parched 
ground  (or  the  scorching  heat)  shall  become  a  pool,  and 
the  thirsty  land  springs  of  water."  "  I  will  open  rivers  in 
high  places,  and  fountains  in  the  midst  of  the  valleys ;  I 
will  make  the  wilderness  a  pool  of  water." — Paxton. 

Ver.  19.  I  will  plant  in  the  wilderness  the  cedar, 
the  shittah-tree,  and  the  myrtle,  and  the  oil- 
tree  ;  I  will  set  in  the  desert  the  fir-tree,  and 
the  pine,  and  the  'box-tree  together. 

See  on  Ex.  25.  10. 

CHAPTER  XLII. 

Ver.  2.  He  shall  not  cry,  nor  lift  up,  nor  cause 
his  voice  to  be  heard  in  the  street. 

When  two  or  more  people  go  along  the  streets,  they  speak 
in  such  a  loud  voice,  that  all  who  pass  may  hear.  Has  a 
person  gained  or  lost  a  cause  in  a  court  of  justice,  he  vocif- 
erates his  story  again  and  again  to  his  companions,  as  he 
goes  along  the  road.  This  practice  may  have  arisen  from 
the  custom  of  the  superior  walking  the"  first,  which  makes 
it  necessary  for  him  to  speak  in  a  loud  voice,  that  those 
who  are  in  the  rear  may  hear  his  observations.  Men  of  a 
boisterous  temper,  who  wish  to  raise  a  clamour,  or  those 
who  are  leaders  in  any  exploit,  always  bawl  aloud  when 
they  talk  to  their  companions,  as  they  go  along  the  road.— 
Roberts. 

Ver.  11.  Let  the  Avilderness  and  the  cities  thereof 
lift  up  their  voice,  the  villages  that  Kedar  dotK 


Chap.  43—44. 


ISAIAH. 


473 


inhabit :  let  the  inhabitants  of  the  rock  sing, 
let  them  shout  from  the  top  of  the  mountains. 

*'  By  desert,  or  wilderness,  the  reader  is  not  always  to  un- 
derstand a  country  altogether  barren  and  unfruitful,  but 
such  only  as  is  rarely  or  never  sown  or  cultivated ;  which, 
though  it  yields  no  crops  of  corn  or  fruit,  yet  afTords  herb- 
age, more  or  less,  for  the  grazing  of  cattle,  with  fountains 
or  rills  of  water,  though  more  sparingly  interspersed  than 
in  other  places."  (Shaw.)  Agreeable  to  this  account,  we 
find  that  Nabal,  who  was  possessed  of  three  thousand  sheep, 
and  a  thousand  goats,  dwelt  in  the  wilderness,  1  Sam.  xxv.  2. 
This  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  him  to  have  done,  had 
there  not  been  sufficient  pasturage  for  his  flocks  and  herds. — 

BURDER. 

Not  satisfied  with  cuUivating  the  rich  plains  and  fertile 
valleys  of  his  native  land,  the  Jewish  farmer  reduced  the 
barren  rocks  and  rugged  mountains  under  his  domain, 
and  compelled  them  to  minister  to  his  necessities.  For  this 
purpose  he  covered  them  with  earth ;  or,  where  this  was 
impracticable,  he  constructed  walls  of  loose  stones,  in  paral- 
lel rows  along  their  sides,  to  support  the  mould,  and  pre- 
vent *it  from  being  washed  down  by  the  rains.  On  these 
circular  plots  of  excellent  soil,  which  gradually  rose  one 
above  another,  from  the  base  to  the  very  summits  of  the 
mountains,  he  raised  abundant  crops  of  corn  and  other  escu- 
lent vegetables;  or,  where  the  decUvity  was  too  rocky,  he 
planted  the  vine  and  the  olive,  which  dehght  in  such  situa- 
tions, and  which  rewarded  his  toil  with  the  most  picturesque 
scenery,  and  the  richest  products.  Thus,  the  places  where 
only  the  wild  goat  wandered  and  the  eagle  screamed,  which 
appeared  to  be  doomed  to  perpetual  nakedness  and  ster- 
ility, were  converted  by  the  bold  and  persevering  industry 
of  the  Syrian  husbandman  into  corn-fields  and  gardens,  vine- 
yards and  olive  plantations,  the  manifest  traces  of  which,  in 
all  the  mountains  of  Palestine,  remain  to  this  day.  The  in- 
habhants  of  that  "  good  land,"  hterally  sang  from  the  top  of 
the  rock  when  it  flowed  with  the  blood  of  the  grape,  and  poured 
them  out  "rivers  of  oil." — Paxton. 

Ver.  14.  I  have  long  time  holden  my  peace ;  I 
have  been  still,  a/it/  refrained  myself:  now  will 
I  cry  like  a  travaihng  woman  ;  I  will  destroy 
and  devour  at  once. 

The  words  devour,  swallow,  or  sup,  as  used  by  Isaiah, 
•and  Habakkuk,  evidently  allude  to  the  same  thing.  Jeho- 
vah had  refrained  himself,  but  now  he  was  about  to  come 
■'brth  and  utterly  destroy  his  enemies.  When  a  king 
wishes  to  convey  an  idea  that  he  will  completely  destroy 
ftisfoes,  he  says,  I  will  mullunga-vain,  i.  e.,  "  swallow  them 
up."  Habakkuk  says  of  the  Chaldeans,  "  Their  faces  shall 
sup  up,  as  the  East  wind."  Of  a  man  who  has  a  savage 
face,  it  is  said,  "  He  has  a  Mullungera-muggam,  a  devour- 
ing face."  "  Look  at  that  fellow's  face,  you  may  see  he 
could  swallow  you."  But  the  Chaldeans  are  compared  to 
the  destructive  east  wind ;  and  it  is  a  fact,  that  the  same 
wind  is  spoken  of  in  similar  terms  in  all  parts  of  the  East. 
Its  name  is  allikkera-kattu,  i.  e.,  the  destroying  wind,  and 
BO  sure  as  it  shall  blow  for  any  length  of  time,  will  vegeta- 
tion be  destroyed.  How  this  is  produced  is,  perhaps, 
among  the  inexplicable  mysteries  of  nature.  Its  destruc- 
tive qualities  on  vegetable  nature  in  England  are  well 
known,  and  yet  it  would  appear  that  not  one  time  in  a 
thousand  can  it  blow  in  an  uninterrupted  current  from  the 
distant  East,  because  there  are  always,  so  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  observe,  counter  currents.  Another  fact  is,  that, 
however  far  east  you  may  travel,  it  is  still  the  same  wind 
which  brings  destruction.  The  allusion,  therefore,  in  Genesis, 
(and  other  places,)  is  illustrated  by  the  continued  malignity 
of  that  wind. — Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  Who  is  bhnd,  but  my  servant ;  or  deaf, 
as  my  messenger  that  I  sent  ?  who  is  bhnd  as 
he  that  is  perfect,  and  blind  as  the  Lord's 
servant  ? 

I  think  we  are  to  understand  this  as  alluding  to  the 
AGENT  employed  by  the  Lord,  i.  e.,  he  was  so  absorbed  with 
his  message  as  to  be  blind  and  deaf  to  all  other  attractions. 
When  the  Yogee  affects  to  deliver  a  message  from  the  gods, 
or.  when  he  speaks  of  futurity,  he  is  as  one  who  is  bhnd 
60 


and  deaf;  and  so  insensible  is  he  to  external  things,  that 
whatever  sights  may  pass  before  his  vision,  and  whatever 
sounds  may  fall  upon  his  ear,  he  appears  to  be  altogether 
insensible  to  their  power.  The  people  say  he  is  so  full 
of  the  deity  as  to  be  unconscious  of  passing  scenes. — 
Roberts. 


CHAPTER  XLIH. 

Ver.  19.  Behold,  I  will  do  a  new  thing :  now  it 
shall  spring  forth  ;  shall  ye  not  know  it  ?  I 
will  even  make  a  way  in  the  wilderness,  and 
rivers  in  the  desert. 

From  Lattakoo  to  Kurree-chane,  which  is  about  three 
hundred  miles,  might,  when  I  travelled  it,  be  justly  called 
a  wilderness,  for  there  was  not  a  single  mile  of  any  visible 
path  or  road.  The  ruts  made  by  the  wheels  of  my  wagons 
on  going  up  the  country,  were  so  visible,  that  on  returning 
I  was  deliglited  to  find  natives  travelling  with  loaded  oxen 
along  those  ruts :  and  as  other  natives  would  probably  do 
the  same,  it  would  soon  become  a  beaten  visible  highway, 
which  most  likely  was  the  manner  of  the  formation  of  all 
original  roads. 

A  visible  road  in  a  wilderness  saves  much  trouble  and 
anxiety  to  travellers,  even  when  they  have  travelled  over 
the  same  ground  before.  In  general  they  must  be  guided 
by  landmarks  such  as  hill,  clumps  of  trees,  fords,  &.c. ; 
but  in  plains  or  across  forests,  where  no  hills  can  be  seen, 
they  must  often  be  puzzled  what  course  to  follow.  But 
where  there  is  a  visible  path,  however  bad,  travellers  are 
relieved  from  all  this  trouble,  anxiety,  and  uncertainty,  as  if 
they  constantly  heard  a  voice  behind  them  saying,  '•  This  is 
the  way,  walk  ye  in  it." 

In  a  heathen  land  the  inhabitants  are  ignorant  of  the  way 
to  true  happiness  either  here  or  hereafter ;  but  when  gospel 
light  enters,  publishing  what  the  Son  of  God  has  done  and 
suflered  for  sinners,  then  a  highway  may  be  said  to  be  in  that 
land,  which,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  will  greatly  increase  the 
comfort  of  the  population. — Campbell. 

Ver.  24.  Thou  hast  brought  me  no  sweet  cane 
with  money,  neither  hast  thou  filled  me  with 
the  fat  of  thy  sacrifices ;  but  thou  hast  made 
me  to  serve  with  thy  sins,  thou  hast  wearied 
me  with  thine  iniquities. 

See  on  Jer.  6,  20. 

Dr.  Boothroyd  has  "  sweet  reed."  Tamal,  "  sweet  bark  !" 
This  probably  means  cinnamon,  as  we  know  that  "sweet 
bark"  was  used  by  Moses  in  the  service  of  the  sanctuary  :  ani . 
it  is  in  connexion  with  the  sacrifices  of  the  Most  High  that  il| 
is  here  mentioned  by  the  prophet. — Roberts.  => 

On  approaching  and  entering  first  the  city  of  Mashow, 
and  afterward  that  of  Kurree-chane,  the  two  highest  up 
towns  which  I  visited  in  Africa,  various  -of  the  inhabitants 
who,  like  all  the  rest  of  their  countrymen,  had  never  seen 
wagons  or  white  men  before,  were  charmed  wuh  the 
sight,  and,  as  a  proof  of  it,  they  presented  me  with  pieces 
of  sugar,  or  sweet  cane,  about  a  foot  in  length,  and  in  such 
numbers,  that  the  bottom  of  that  part  of  the  wagon  where  I 
sat  was  covered  with  sweet  cane.  It  was  an  act  of  kind- 
ness. This  occurrence  explained  to  me  this  passage  in 
Isaiah,  where  God  is  evidently  charging  his  ancient  people 
with  want  of  afl^ection,  or  unkindness:  which  expression 
they  would  understand,  having  probably  the  same  custom 
which  I  found  in  Africa,  which  the  Hebrews  may  have 
learned  while  they  resided  in  Africa,  viz.,  in  Egypt. — 
Campbell. 

CHAPTER  XLIV. 

Ver.  3.  For  I  will  pour  water  upon  him  that  is 
thirsty,  and  floods  upon  the  dry  ground  ;  I  will 
pour  my  Spirit  upon  thy  seed,  and  my  bless- 
ing upon  thine  offspring. 

This  probably  alludes  to  the  way  in  which  people  bathe. 
They  do  not  in  general,  as  in  England,  plunge  into  a 
stream  or  river,  but  go  near  a  well  or  tank :  and  then, 
with  a  little  vessel,  pour  water  on  their  heads  and  bodies. 


4^' 


ISAIAH. 


Chap.  45. 


See  the  man  who  is  weary,  he  calls  for  his  neighbour,  or 
servant,  or  wife,  to  accompany  him  to  the  well ;  he  then 
takes  off  his  clothes,  (except  a  small  strip  round  his  loins,) 
sits  on  his  hams,  and  the  individual  who  assists  begins  to 
"  POUR  water"  upon  him,  till  he  be  retreshed,  and  exclaims, 
POTHAM,  i.  e.  sufficient.  In  this  way  his  body  is  invigo- 
rated, his  thirst  queriched,  and  he  is  made  ready  for  his  food. 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  4.  And  they  shall  spring  up  as  among  the 
grass,  as  willows  by  the  water-courses. 

In  many  parts  of  South  Africa,  no  trees  are  to  be  found 
but  near  rivers.  The  trees  are  of  various  kinds;  the  most 
plentiful  was  the  lovely  mimosa  ;  but  willows,  when  there 
v/ere  any,  always  stood  in  front  of  the  others,  on  the  very 
margin  of  the  water,  which  was  truly  a  river  of  life  to  them. 
Like  those  in  Isaiah's  days,  they  required  much  water — 
?ould  not  prosper  without  it,  therefore  near  it  they  were 
alone  found; — a  loud  call,  by  a  silent  example,  to  Chris- 
tians to  live  near  the  throne  of  grace,  word  of  grace,  and 
ordinances  of  grace,  if  they  wish  to  grow  in  wisdom,  knowl- 
edge, faith,  and  holiness. — Campbell. 

Ver.  5.  One  shall  say,  I  am  the  Lord's  ;  and 
another  shall  call  himself  by  the  name  of  Ja- 
cob: and  another  shall  subscribe  m/A  his  hand 
unto  the  Lord,  and  surname  himself  by  the 
name  of  Israel. 

This  is  an  allusion  to  the  marks  which  were  made  by 
punctures,  rendered  indelible  by  fire  or  by  staining,  upon 
the  hand,  or  some  other  part  of  the  body,  signifying  the 
state  or  character  of  the  person,  and  to  whom  he  belonged. 
The  slave  was  marked  with  the  name  of  his  master;  the 
soldier  of  his  commander;  the  idolater  with  the  name  or 
ensign  of  his  god ;  and  the  Christians  seem  to  have  imitated 
this  practice  by  what  Procopius  says  upon  this  place  of 
Isaiah.  "  Many  marked  their  wrists  or  their  arms  with 
the  sign  of  the  cross,  or  with  the  name  of  Christ."  (Lowth.) 
To  this  explanation  I  shall  subjoin  the  following  extract 
from  Dr.  boddridge's  Sermons  to  Young  People,  p.  79, 
both  as  it  corroborates  and  still  further  elucidates  this  trans- 
action. "  Some  very  celebrated  translators  and  critics  un- 
derstand the  words  which  we  render,  svhscribe  with  his  hand 
unto  the  Lord,  in  a  sense  a  little  different  from  that  which 
v>ur  English  version  has  given  them.  They  would  rather 
*ender  them,  another  shall  write  upon  his  hand,  I  am  the 
Lord's ;  and  they  suppose  it  refers  to  a  custom  which  for- 
merly prevailed  in  the  East,  of  stamping  the  name  of  the 
.general  on  the  soldier,  or  that  of  the  master  on  the  slave. 
As  this  name  was  sometimes  borne  on  the  forehead,  so  at 
other  times  on  the  hand;  and  it  is  certain  that  several 
scriptures,  which  may  easily  be  recollected,  are  to  be  ex- 
plained as  alluding  to  this :  Rev.  iii.  12.  vii.  2,  3.  xiii.  16, 17. 
Now  from  hence  it  seems  to  have  grown  into  a  custom 
among  some  idolatrous  nations,  when  solemnly  devoting 
themselves  to  the  service  of  any  dei.ty,  to  be  initiated  into  it 
by  receiving  some  marks  in  their  flesh,  which  might  never 
wear  out.  This  interpretation  the  original  will  certainly 
bear ;  and  it  here  makes  a  very  strong  and  beautiful  sense, 
since  every  true  Christian  has  a  sacred  and  indelible  char- 
acter upon  him,  which  shall  never  be  erased.  But  if  we 
retain  our  own  version  it  will  come  to  nearly  the  same,  and 
evidently  refers  to  a  practice  which  was  sometimes  used 
among  the  Jews,  (Nehem.  ix.  38.  x.  29,)  and  which  is  in- 
deed exceedingly  natural,  of  obliging  themselves  to  the  ser- 
vice of  God,  by  setting  their  hands  to  some  written  articles, 
emphatically  expressing  such  a  resolution." — Burder. 

Ver.  18.  They  have  not  known  nor  understood: 
for  he  hath  shut  their  eyes,  that  they  cannot 
see;  and  their  hearts,  that  they  cannot  under- 
stand. 

The  Orientals,  in  some  cases,  deprive  the  criminal  of  the 
light  of  day,  by  sealing  up  his  eyes.  A  son  of  the  great 
Mogul  was  actually  suffering  this  punishment  when  Sir 
Thomas  Roe  visited  the  court  of  Delhi.  The  hapless  youth 
Was  cast  into  prison,  and  deprived  of  the  light  by  some  ad- 
nesive  plaster  put  upon  his  eyes,  for  the  space  of  three 


years ;  after  which  the  seal  was  taken  away,  that  he  might 
with  freedom  enjoy  the  light ;  but  he  was  still  detained  in 
prison.  Other  princes  have  been  treated  in  a  different 
manner,  to  prevent  them  from  conspiring  against  the  reign- 
ing monarch,  or  meddling  with  affairs  of  state  :  they  have 
been  compelled  to  swallow  opium,  and  other  stupifying 
drugs,  to  weaken  or  benumb  their  -faculties,  and  render 
them  unfit  for  business.  Influenced  by  such  absurd  and 
cruel  policy,  Shah  Abbas,  the  celebrated  Persian  monarch, 
who  died  in  1629,  ordered  a  certain  quantity  of  opium  to 
be  given  every  day  to  his  grandson,  who  was  to  be  his  suc- 
cessor, to  stupify  him,  and  prevent  him  from  disturbing  his 
government.  Such  are  probably  the  circumstances  alluded 
to  by  the  prophet :  "  They  have  not  known,  nor  understood  ; 
for  he  hath  shut  their  eyes  that  they  cannot  see ;  and  their 
hearts  that  they  cannot  understand."  The  verb  (ric)  tah, 
rendered  in  our  version,  to  shut,  signifies  to  overlay,  to 
cover  over  the  surface ;  thus  the  king  of  Israel  prepared 
three  thousand  talents  of  gold,  and  seven  thousand  talents 
of  refined  silver  (nc)  to  overlay  the  walls  of  the  temple. 
But  it  generally  signifies  to  overspread,  or  daub  over,  as 
with  mortar  or  plaster,  of  which  Parkhurst  quotes  a  num- 
ber of  examples  ;  a  sense  which  entirely  corresponds  with 
the  manner  in  which  the  eyes  of  a  criminal  are  sealed  up 
in  some  parts  of  the  East.  The  practice  of  sealing  up  the 
eyes,  and  stupifying  a  criminal  with  drugs,  seems  to  have 
been  contemplated  by  the  same  prophet  in  another  passage 
of  his  book  :  "  Make  the  heart  of  this  people  fat,  and  make 
their  ears  heavy,  and  shut  their  eyes,  lest  they  see  with  their 
eyes,  and  hear  with  their  ears,  and  understand  with  their 
heart,  and  convert  and  be  healed."— Paxton. 

Ver.  20.  He  feedeth  on  ashes :  a  deceived  heart 
hath  turned  him  aside,  that  he  cannot  deliver 
his  soul,  nor  say,  Is  there  not  a  lie  in  my  right 
hand? 

"  That  wicked  fellow  has  now  to  eat  dust  or  a-c^lics." 
"  Begone,  wretch!  for  soon  wilt  thou  have  to  feed  on  iast." 
The  man  who  is  accused  of  a  great  crime,  takes  d'tst,  or 
ashes,  in  his  mouth,  and  thus  swears  that  he  is  inn''>cent. 
The  idea  seems  to  be,  if  I  am  guilty,  may  my  moutn  soon 
be  tilled  with  earth  as  in  death.  "  A  lie  in  my  right  hand." 
"  The  right  hand  is  the  abode  of  truth."  The  idols  are 
often  made  with  the  right  hand  lifted  up,  to  show  that  they 
are  truth ;  and  men  thus  swear,  by  lifting  up  the  right 
hand.  In  the  ninth  and  twentieth  verses  ("inclusive)  of  this 
chapter,  we  have  an  admirable  disquisition  on  the  absurdity 
of  idolatry  ;  and  neither  can  the  maker  of  idols  nor  their 
worshippers  say,  there  is  "  not  a  lie  in  my  right  hand" — 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XLV. 

Yer.  2.  I  will  go  before  thee,  and  make  the  crook- 
ed places  straight ;  I  will  break  in  pieces  the 
gates  of  brass,  and  cut  in  sunder  the  bars  of 
iron. 

See  on  Acts  12.  10. 

Ver.  3.  And  I  will  give  thee  the  treasures  of 
darkness,  and  hidden  riches  of  secret  places, 
that  thou  mayest  know  thgt  I  the  Lord  whk> 
call  thee  by  thy  name,  am  the  God  of  Israel. 

As  treasures  are  frequently  hidden  under  ground  in  the 
East,  by  those  that  are  apprehensive  of  revolutions;  so  the 
finding  them  is  one  great  object,  in  their  apprehension,  of 
sorcery.  We  are  told  by  travellers  into  the  East,  that  they 
have  met  with  great  difficulties  very  often,  from  a  notion 
universally  disseminated  among  them,  that  all  Europeans 
are  magicians,  and  that  their  visits  to  those  eastern  countries 
are  not  to  satisfy  curiosity,  but  to  find  out,  and  get  possession 
of  those  vast  treasures  they  believe  to  be  buried  therein 
great  quantities.  These  representations  are  very  common ; 
but  Sir  J.  Chardin  gives  us  a  more  particular  and  amusing 
account  of  affairs  of  fhis  kind.  "  It  is  common  m  the  Indies, 
for  those  sorcerers  that  accompany  conquerors,  everywhere 
to  point  out  the  place  where  treasures  are  hid.  Thu§  at 
Surat,  when  Siragi  came  thither,  there  were  people  who, 


Ghap.  45—49. 


ISAIAH, 


475 


with  a  stick  striking  on  the  ground,  or  against  walls,  found 
oEt  those  that  had  been  hollowed  or  dug  up,  and  ordered 
such  places  to  be  opened,"  He  then  intimates,  that  some- 
thing of  this  nature  had  happened  to  him  in  Mingrelia. 

Among  the  various  contradictions  that  agitate  the  human 
breast,  this  appears  to  be  a  remarkable  one :  they  firmly 
believe  the  power  of  magicians  to  discover  hidden  trea- 
sures, and  yet  they  continue  to  hide  them.  Dr.  Perry  has 
given  us  an  account  of  some  mighty  treasures  hidden  in  the 
ground  by  some  of  the  principal  people^of  the  Turkish 
empire,  which  upon  a  revolution  were  discovered  by  do- 
mestics, privy  to  the  secret,  D'Herbelot  has  given  us  ac- 
counts of  treasures  concealed  in  the  same  manner,  some  of 
them  of  great  princes,  discovered  by  accidents  extremely 
remarkable;  but  this  account  of  Chardin's,  of  conquerors 
pretending  to  find  out  hidden  treasures  by  means  of  sorcer- 
ers, is  very  extraordinary.  As,  however,  people  of  this  cast 
have  made  great  pretences  to  mighty  things  in  all  ages,  and 
were  not  unfrequently  confided  in  by  princes,  there  is  reason 
to  believe  they  pretended  sometimes,  by  their  art,  to  discover 
treasures  anciently  to  princes,  of  which  they  had  gained 
intelligence  by  other  methods;  and  as  God  opposed  his 
prophets,  at  various  times,  to  pretended  sorcerer^^,  it  is  noi 
unlikely  that  the  prophet  Isaiah  points  at  some  such  pro- 
phetic discoveries  in  those  remarkable  words,  Is.  xlv.  3 : 
"  And  I  will  give  thee  the  treasures  of  darkness,  and  hid- 
den riches  of  secret  places,  that  thou  mayest  know,  that  I 
'he  Lord  which  call  thee  by  thy  name,  am  the  God  of 
Israel,"  I  will  give  them,  by  enabling  some  prophet  of 
mine  to  tell  thee  where  they  are  concealed.  Such  a  sup- 
position throws  a  great  energy  into  those  words, — Harmer, 

Ver.  10,  Wo  unto  him  that  saith  unto  his  flither, 
What  begettest  thou  1  or  to  the  woman,  What 
hast  thou  brought  forth  ? 

Dr.  Boothroyd  has,  "to  a  mother,  what  dost  thou  bring 
forth  T'  Unnatural  as  is  this  language,  yet  children  often 
use  it  to  their  parents.  Listen  to  a  son  who  has  been  chided 
by  his  father  for  bad  conduct — "  Why  did  you  beget  me  1 
Did  I  ask  you'?  Why  reprove  me  for  eviH  Whose  fault  is 
it  1  Had  you  not  begotten  me,  should  I  have  been  here  T' 
The  father  replies,  "  Alas !  for  the  day  in  which  I  became 
thy  parent,"  The  mother  says,  ' '  Why  did  I  bear  this  dog  % 
Have  I  given  birth  to  a  monkey  *?  Yes  !  I  am  the  mother 
of  this  ass." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XLVI, 
Ver.  3.  Hearken  unto  me,  O  house  of  Jacob,  and 
all  the  remnant  of  the  house  of  Israel,  which 
are  borne  hy  me  from  the  belly,  which  are  car- 
ried from  the  womb,  ■ 

"  True,  this  fiendish  son  was  borne  from  my  belly.  Ten 
long  moons  did  I  carry  him  in  my  womb."  "  Is  it  for  this 
I  have  carried  him  so  long  in  my  womb '?  My  fate !  my 
fate  !  alas  !  my  fate !" — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  XLVII. 

Ver.  1.  Come  down,  and  sit  in  the  dust,  O  virgin 
daughter  of  Babylon,  sit  on  the  ground ;  there 
is  no  throne,  O  daughter  of  the  Chaldeans : 
for  thou  sbalt  no  more  be  called  tender  and  del- 
icate. 7.  And  thou  saidst,  I  shall  be  a  lady  for 
ever:  so  that  thou  didst  not  lay  these  things  to 
t  thy  heart,  neither  didst  remember  the  latter  end 
ofit. 

See  on  Ezek.  13,  18, 

Ver.  2.  Take  the  millstones,  and  grind  meal :  un- 
cover thy  locks,  make  bare  the  leg,  uncover  the 
thigh,  pass  over  the  rivers. 

To  grind  flour  in  the  East  is  the  work  of  servants  or 
slaves,  and  to  make  it  by  pounding  with  a  pestle  and  mor- 
tar is  the  office  of  female  servants  or  slaves.  There  being 
but  few  bridges,  those  who  are  in  a  low  condition  are 
obliged  to  ford  the  rivers ;  hence  may  be  seen  large  compa- 


nies going  to  the  opposite  banks,  who  have  been  obliged  to 
"  make  bare  the  leg"  and  to  "  uncover  the  thigh,"  Thus 
were  the  "  tender  and  delicate"  daughters  of  Babylon,  Avho 
had  been  nurtured  on  a  throne,  to  be  reduced  to  the  condi- 
tion of  menials,  and  to  cross  the  rivers  as  people  of  the 
lowest  degree, — Roberts, 

Ver,  14.  Behold,  they  shall  be  as  stubble;  the 
fire  shall  burn  them;  they  shall  not  deliver 
themselves  from  the  power  of  the  flame:  there 
shall  not  be  a  coal  to  warm  at,  nor  fire  to  sit 
before  it. 

It  is  very  usual  in  the  East  to  burn  the  stubble  and  the 
grass,  in  order  to  destroy  the  vermin.  Thus  Hanway, 
speaking  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  deserts  of  Tartary,  says, 
"  that  they  arrived  in  the  desert  in  the  first  winter  month, 
and  that  the  inhabitants  who  live  nearest  to  it,  often  manure 
tracts  of  land  by  burning  the  grass,  uhich  grows  very 
high,"  The  words  of  our  Saviour  also  allude  to  this,  when 
he  says,  "  Wherefore  if  God  so  clothe  the  grass  of  the  field, 
which  to-day  is,  and  to-morrow  is  cast  into  the  oven." 

Matt.  Vi,  30. — ROSENMULLER. 

CHAPTER  XLIX. 

Ver.  9.  That  thou  mayest  say  to  the  prisoners, 
Go  forth ;  to  them  that  are  in  darkness,  Show 
yourselves.  They  shall  feed  in  the  ways,  and 
their   pastures   shall   be   in   all   high    places. 

10.  They  shall  not  hunger  nor  thirst,  neither 
shall  the  heat  nor  sun  smite  them :  for  he  that 
hath  mercy  on  them  shall  lead  them,  even  by 
the  springs   of  water   shall   he   guide   them. 

1 1 .  And  I  will  make  all  my  mountains  a  way, 
and  my  highways  shall  be  exalted. 

See  on  Ps.  23,  1—3. 

Ver,  15,  Can  a  woman  forget  her  sucking  child, 
that  she  should  not  have  compassion  on  the  son 
of  her  womb  ?  yea,  they  may  forgot,  yet  will 
I  not  forget  thee. 

This  question  is  asked  when  a  person  doubts  of  finding 
mercy,  where  there  is  every  reason  to  expect  it.  Does  an 
individual  express  surprise  at  seeing  a  mother  pay  attention 
to  an  infant  which  is  deformed,  or  supposed  to  be  possessed 
by  a  devil ;  it  is  asked.  Can  a  woman  forget  her  sucking 
child  *?  Is  a  woman  in  great  haste  to  return  home,  it  is  in- 
quired, "  What,  have  you  a  sucking  child  in  the  house'? 
The  cub  of  the  monkey  is  as  dear  to  its  dam,  as  gold  is  to 
us." — Roberts, 

Ver.  16.  Behold,  I  have  graven  thee  upon  the 
palms  of  my  hands  ;  thy  walls  are  continually 
before  me. 

It  is  common  to  make  punctures  on  the  arms  and  wrists, 
in  memory  of  visiting  any  holy  place,  or  to  represent  the 
deity  to  whom  the  individual  is  consecrated:  thus,  a  god, 
a  temple,  a  peacock,  or  some  indecent  object,  is  described; 
but  I  never  saw  or  heard  of  any  thing  of  the  kind  being  en- 
graved on  the  PALMS  of  the  hands.  The  palms  of  the  hands 
are,  however,  believed  to  have  written  on  them  the  fate  oi 
the  individual ;  and,  from  this,  it  is  common  to  say,  in  re- 
ference to  men  or  things,  they  are  written  on  the  palms  of 
his  hands.  "  I  wonder  why  Raman  has  taken  Seethe  for 
his  wife  V  "  Why  wonder'?  She  was  written  on  the  palms 
of  his  hands."  "  Fear  not,"  says  the  old  soothsayer,  look- 
ing into  the  hands  of  the  anxious  youth,  "  she  is  written 
here,  thou  shalt  have  her,"  "Alas!  alas!  the  old  deceiver 
told  me  her  name  was  written  on  my  palms,  but  she  has 
gone,  and  the  writing  is  erased."  "  Give  up  that  pursuit  1 
Never  !  it  is  written  on  the  palms  of  my  hands."  "  Ah  I 
my  friend,  you  have  long  since  forgotten  me."  "  Forgotten 
you!  Never,  for  your  walls  are  ever  before  me."  "Ah! 
my  father,  I  am  now  in  the  distant  country,  but  your  walls 
are  always  in  my  sight,"    "  Ah  !  when  shall  I  again  visit 


476 


ISAIAH, 


Chap.  49. 


ray  favourite  temple;  the  walls  are  continually  before  me." 
— Roberts. 

This  is  an  allusion  to  the  eastern  custom  of  tracing  out 
on  their  hands,  not  the  names,  but  the  sketches  of  certain 
eminent  cities  or  places,  and  then  rubbing  them  with  the 
powder  of  the  hennah  or  cypress,  and  thereby  making  the 
marks  perpetual.  This  custom  Maundrell  thus  describes : 
"  The  next  morning  nothing  extraordinary  passed,  which 
gave  many  of  the  pilgrims  leisure  to  have  their  arms  mark- 
ed with  the  usual  ensigns  of  Jerusalem.  The  artists,  who 
undertake  the  operation,  do  it  in  this  manner :  they  have 
stamps  in  wood  of  any  figure  that  you  desire,  which  they 
first  print  off  upon  your  arm,  with  powder  or  charcoal ;  then 
taking  two  very  fine  needles  tied  close  together,  and  dip- 
ping them  often,  like  a  pen,  in  certain  ink,  compounded, 
as  I  was  informed,  of  gunpowder  and  ox  gall,  they  make 
with  them  small  punctures  all  along  the  lines  of  the  figure 
which  they  have  printed,  and  then  washing  the  part  in  wine, 
conclude  the  work.  These  punctures  they  make  with 
great  quickness  and  dexterity,  and  with  scarce  any  smart, 
seldom  piercing  so  deep  as  to  draw  blood. — Burder. 

Ver.  22.  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  Behold,  I 
will  lift  up  my  hand  to  the  Gentiles,  and  set  up 
my  standard  to  the  people:  and  they  shall 
bring  thy  sons  in  their  arms,  and  thy  daugh- 
ters shall  be  carried  upon  their  shoulders. 

It  is  a  custom,  in  many  parts  of  the  East,  to  carry  their 
<:hitdren  astride  upon  the  hip,  with  the  arm  around  the 
6od)\  In  the  kingdom  of  Algiers,  when  the  slaves  take  the 
children  out,  the  boys  ride  upon  their  shoulders ;  and  in  a 
religious  procession,  which  Symes  had  an  opportunity  of 
seeing  at  Ava,  the  capital  of  the  Burman  empire,  the  first 
personages  of  rank  that  passed  by,  were  three  children  borne 
astride  on  men's  shoulders.  It  is  evident  from  these  facts, 
rhat  the  oriental  children  are  carried  sometimes  the  one 
way,  sometimes  the  other.  Nor  was  the  custom  in  reality 
different  in  Judea,  though  the  prophet  expresses  himself  in 
these  terms :  "  They  shall  bring  thy  sons  in  their  arms,  and 
thy  daughters  shall  be  carried  upon  their  shoulders ;  for 
according  to  Dr.  Russel,  the  children  able  to  support  them- 
selves, are  usually  carried  astride  on  the  shoulder ;  but  in 
infancy  they  are  carried  in  the  arms,  or  awkwardly  on  one 
haunch.  Dandini  tells  us,  that  on  horseback  the  Asiatics 
*'  carry  their  young  children  upon  their  shoulders  with  great 
dexterity.  These  children  hold  by  the  head  of  him  who 
carries  them,  whether  he  be  on  horseback  or  on  foot,  and 
do  not  hinder  him  from  walking,  nor  doing  what  he  pleases." 
*'  This  augments  the  import  of  the  passage  in  Isaiah,  who 
speaks  of  the  Gentiles  bringing  children  thus ;  so  that  dis- 
tance is  no  objection  to  this  mode  of  conveyance,  since  they 
may  thus  be  brought  on  horseback  from  '  among  the  peo- 
ples,' however  remote." — Paxton. 

Children  of  both  sexes  are  carried  on  the  shoulders. 
Thus  may  be  seen  the  father  carrying  his  son,  the  little 
fellow  being  astride  on  the  shoulder,  having,  with  his 
hands,  hold  of  his  father's  head.  Girls,  however,  sit  on  the 
shoulder,  as  if  on  a  chair,  their  legs  hanging  in  front,  while 
they  also  with  their  hands  lay  hold  of  the  head.  In  going 
to,  or  returning  from,  heathen  festivals,  thousands  of  parents 
and  their  children  may  be  thus  seen  marching  along  with 
joy.  In  this  way  shall  the  Gentiles  bring  their  sons  and 
their  daughters  to  Jehovah :  kings  shall  then  be  "  nursing 
fathers,"  and  queens  "  nursing  mothers." — Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  And  kings  shall  be  thy  nursing  fathers, 
and  their  queens  thy  nursing  mothers:  they 
shall  bow  down  to  thee  with  their  face  towards 
the  earth,  and  lick  up  the  dust  of  thy  feet ;  and 
thou  shalt  know  that  I  am  the  Lord:  for  they 
shall  not  be  ashamed  that  wait  for  me. 

Ttie  accomplishment  of  this  prediction  is  often  the  sub- 
ject of  the  prayers  of  Christians.  They  regard  it  as  one  of 
the  illustrious  features  o/'the  times  of  the  millennium,  that 
kings  and  potentates  shal!,  as  foster-fathers,  take  the  church 
under  their  special  protection  and  patronage,  and  instead 
of  opposing  and  oppressing  it,  exercise  towards  it  all  the 
kind  and  tutelary  offices  of  a  devoted  nurse  or  mother 


towards  the  children  of  her  care.  In  this  view  of  the  pas- 
sage, it  has  perhaps  been  forgotten  that  the  prophetic  scrip- 
tures are  not  lacking  in  intimations,  that  in  that  bright  and 
blissful  period,  the  ancient  institutions  of  the  world  will  be 
so  modified,  and  the  difierent  fabrics  of  government,  civil 
and  ecclesiastical,  so  revolutionized,  that  it  is,  to  say  the 
least,  doubtful  whether  there  will  then  be  any  such  rulers 
as  kings  and  queens  to  bestow  their  regal  regards  upon  the 
spouse  of  Christ.  At  any  rate,  it  is  certain  that  the  text 
will  not  then  be  npplied,  as  it  now  is,  as  authorizing  a  re- 
ligious establishment  subject  to  the  control  of  a  civil  power ^ 
or  in  other  words,  as  sanctioning  the  union  of  church  and 
state.  To  the  abetters  of  this  pernicious  alliance,  the  pres- 
ent passage  has  ever  been  a  "  pillar  of  strength"  in  the 
way  of  proof  Let  us  endeavour,  then,  to  collect  the  true 
sense  of  the  prediction  from  its  various  connexions.  It 
may  be  remarked,  that  the  prophecy  of  which  it  forms  a 
part,  abounds  with  metaphor ;  as  for  instance,  v.  22,  "  the 
lifting  up  of  the  Lord's  hand ;"  "  the  setting  up  of  his  stand- 
ard to  the  Gentiles  and  people;"  "their  bringing  Zion's 
sons  in  their  arms,  and  carrying  her  daughters  updn  their 
shoulders  :"  and  v.  23,  "  the  kings  and  queens  of  the  Gen- 
tiles bowing  down  to  the  church,  with  their  faces  towards 
the  earth,  and  licking  up  the  dust  of  her  feet."  Here  is 
scarce  an  expression  but  is  highly  figurative,  and  shall  we 
suppose  that  in  the  phrase  "  kings  nursing  fathers"  there 
is  nothing  of  the  same  character  1  For  what  is  the  office 
of  the  nurse'?  Is  it  not  to  nourish  the  child  1  But  do  kings, 
as  human  rulers,  in  the  true  sense,  nourish  the  church  1 
Do  they  afford  to  it  that  spiritual  pabulum  on  which  it  lives 
and  thrives'?  Do  they  administer  the  word  and  sacra- 
ments '?  Is  not  this  the  peculiar  and  distinguishing  office  of 
the  ministry  of  the  gospel,  set  apart  to  this  very  work,  and 
acting  as  the  only  pastors,  i.e.  feeders,  of  the  flock  of  Christ "? 
Is  not  this  the  office  which  they  claim  as  their  privilege, 
which  the  New  Testament  gives  them,  and  with  whicu 
neither  kings  nor  magistrates  are  to  intermeddle '?  It  is 
easy  enough  to  understand  how  kings  are  nursing  fathers 
to  the  subjects  of  the  nations  over  which  they  rule ;  and  as 
it  is  the  duty  of  their  subjects  to  regard  them  in  this  char- 
acter, so  it  is  their  duty  to  act  towards  their  subjects  con- 
sistently with  this  designation,  especially  in  protecting  them 
in  the  peaceful  enjoyment  of  their  natural  and  civil  rights. 
But  it  IS  not  so  easy  to  perceive  how  kings  and  queens,  as 
such,  are  nurses  to  any  but  their  people,  in  the  capacity  of 
subjects.  If  indeed  the  nations  of  Christendom  be  churches, 
then  the  king  of  the  nation  is  the  king  of  the  church,  and 
so  is  the  nurse  of  •the  church.  But  this  is  not  the  kind  of, 
church  spoken  of  in  the  New  Testament,  nor  does  the  pro- 
phetical promise  in  question  speak  of  any  such  church.  It 
is  evident  then,  that  it  is  at  best  only  in  a  metaphorical 
sense  that  the  words  of  the  promise  legitimately  hold  good. 
What  that  sense  is  precisely,  when  stripped  of  its  figura- 
tive dress,  we  shall  endeavour  to  show  in  the  sequel. 

At  present,  we  call  attention  to  the  immediate  connexion 
of  the  words  under  review.  They  are  introduced  as  an 
answer  to  the  question,  v.  21,  (following  the  promise  of  a 
numerous  church  upon  the  rejection  of  the  Jews,  v.  19,  20.) 
"  Then  shalt  thou  say  in  thy  heart.  Who  hath  begotten 
me  these,  seeing  I  lost  my  children,  and  am  desolate,  a 
captive,  and  removing  to  and  fro '?  And  who  hath  brought 
up  these  1  Behold,  I  was  left  alone ;  these,  where  had 
they  been  *?"  Upon  the  rejection  of  the  Jews,  it  is  supposed 
to  be  matter  of  wonder,  from  whence  so  many  children 
should  still  be  found  clustering  about  this  bereaved  and 
desolate  mother.  From  the  New  Testament  narrative,  we 
learn  the  difficulty  there  was  in  regard  to  this,  in  the  minds 
of  fhe  Apostles,  and  the  early  Jewish  believers,  and  hoAV 
astonishing  it  was  to  them,  when  it  came  to  pass.  The  pro- 
phecy may  be  considered  as  expressing,  in  a  striking  man- 
ner, the  perplexed  ruminations  of  the  church  in  regard  to 
an  event  so  strange  and  mysterious.  It  was  a  problem  she 
knew  not  how  to  solve.  "  Who  brought  up  these  *?  Where 
had  they  been '?"  This  is  her  anxious  interrogatory,  and  the 
Lord  answers,  "  The  kings  of  the  Gentiles  shall  be  thy  nur- 
sing fathers,  and  their  queens  thy  nursing  mothers ;"  i.  e. 
they  shall  have  been  such ;  when  this  multitude  is  gathered 
in,  they  shall  have  been  reared  and  brought  up  as  the  subjects 
and  servants  of  worldly  kings,  who  little  thought  of  the 
service  they  were  rendering^  to  the  church.  They  were 
unconsciously  acting  the  part  of  nurses  to  those  who  were 
destined  in  the  purpose  ot  God  to  be  the  children  of  Zion 


Chap.  50,51. 


ISAIAH. 


477 


just  as  the  teachers  of  a  literary  seminary  are  often  unwit- 
tingly employed  in  training  their  pupils  for  higher  service 
in  the  church  of  God,  when  subsequently  his  grace  sub- 
dues their  hearts,  and  makes  them  his  devoted  servants. 
In  this  sen.se,  how  large  a  portion  of  the  colleges  in  our 
land  are  morseries  of  the  church'?  In  like  manner,  it  is 
here  predicted  that  earthly  governments  shall  be  nurseries 
for  the  spiritual  dominion  of  Jesus  Christ.  Out  of  their 
subjects  shall  his  subjects  be  gathered.  The  agency  of 
kings  and  queens  and  all  worldly  potentates  in  nursing  the 
people  of  their  rule  shall  be  so  controlled  by  a  directing 
providence,  as  to  be  made  subservient  to  the  measureless 
enlargement  of  his  kingdom.  This  is  the  grand  drift  of 
the  prophecy  before  us.  It  speaks  not  of  the  defence  or  up- 
holding of  the  church  by  the  powers  of  the  earth,  or  the 
bestowing  of  worldly  possessions  and  distinctions  upon  it. 
Rich  and  satisfied  in  the  covenant,  favour,  and  spiritua  1  glory 
of  her  Head  and  Husband,  what  can  she  ask  or  expect  at 
the  hands  of  earthly  princes  1  What  can  they  do  for  her 
sublime  interest,  of  whom  it  is  said,  "  They  shall  bow  down 
to  thee  with  their  faces  towards  the  earth,  and  lick  up  the 
dust  oP  thy  feet."  The  Zion  of  our  God  has  boons  to  be- 
stow upon  worldly  sovereigns,  but  none  to  ask  of  them. 
Thus  interpreted,  the  passage  is  throughout  consistent. 
The  answer  is  suitable  to  the  question,  and  both,  to  the 
scope  of  the  prophecy,  which  is,  to  pre-intimate  the  calling 
of  the  Gentiles,  and  the  increase  of  the  church,  upon  the 
casting  away  of  the  Jews,  by  the  bringing  of  the  elect  of 
all  nations  into  that  new  Jerusalem  which  is  from  above, 
and  is  the  mother  of  them  all.— Bush. 

Thus  were  those  who  had  been  enemies  to  Jehovah  to 
bow  down  and  acknowledge  his  majesty.  They  were  to 
"  lick  up  the  dust,"  which  is  a  figurative  expression  to  de- 
note submission  and  adoration.  "  Boasting  vain  fellow  ! 
the  king  your  friend !  he  your  companion !  You  will 
not  have  even  the  dust  of  liis  feet  given  you  for  food." 
"  The  minister  give  you  that  oflice  !  he  will  not  give  you 
the  dust  of  his  feet."  "  Alas  !  alas !  for  me,  I  expected  his 
favour ;  I  depended  on  his  word ;  but  I  have  not  gained 
the  dust  of  his  feet."  "  I  will  not  remain  longer  in  this 
country;  I  will  leave  you,  and  go  to  reside  with  the  king." 
"With  the  king!  Why,  the  dust  of  his  feet  will  not  be 
given  you  for  a  reward."  *'  Could  I  but  see  that  holy  man  ! 
I  would  eat  the  dust  of  his  feet."  So  great  then  is  to  be 
the  humility  and  veneration  of  kings  and  queens,  in  ref- 
erence to  the  Most  High,  that  thev  will  bow  down  before 
him,  and  lick  up  the  dust  of  his  feet. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  L. 
Ver.  2.  Wherefore,  when  I  came,  was  there  no 
man?  when  I  called,  was  there  none  to  an- 
swer ?  Is  my  hand  shortened  at  all,  that  it  can- 
not redeem  ?  or  have  I  no  power  to  deliver  ? 
behold,  at  my  rebuke  I  dry  up  the  sea,  I  make 
the  rivers  a  wilderness :  their  fish  stinketh,  be- 
cause there  is  no  water,  and  dieth  for  thirst. 

The  Krooman  (or  Koorooman)  river,  in  Africa,  which 
is  a  considerable  stream,  used  to  run  in  an  oblique  direc- 
tion across  the  great  southern  Zahara  desert,  till  it  emptied 
itself  into  the  Great  Orange -River.  Now  it  sinks  out  of 
sight  into  the  sand  almost  immediately  on  entering  the  des- 
ert, only  a  few  miles  after  the  junction  of  the  Macklareen 
river  with  its  waters.  As  a  proof  that  it  had  once  run  in 
the  desert,  I  travelled  ten  or  fifteen  miles  on  its  hard  dry 
channel  along  which  it  had  run  after  entering  the  desert, 
having  a  steep  bank  on  both  side^,  beyond  which  there  was 
nothing  but  deep  sand.  The  aged  natives  told  me  that  in 
their  young  days  there  was  a  considerable  river  in  that 
channel,  and  sometimes  rose  so  high  that  it  could  not  be 
crossed  for  a  long  time.  They  first  blamed  the  Matslaroo 
people  for  drying  it  up  by  means  of  witchcraft,  but  after- 
ward acknowledged  it  rhust  have  been  done  by  the  hand 
of  God. — Campbell. 

Ver.  6.  I  gave  my  back  to  the  smiters,  and  my 
cheeks  to  them  that  plucked  off  the  hair  :  I  hid 
not  my  face  from  shame  and  spitting. 

•  Mr.  Hanway  has  recorded  a  scene  differing  little,  if  at 


all,  from  that  alluded  t^  by  the  prophet,  "  A  prisoner  was 
brought,  who  had  two  large  logs  of  wood  fitted  to  the  small 
of  his  leg,  and  riveted  together ;  there  was  also  a  heavy 
triangular  collar  of  wood  about  his  neck.  The  general 
asked  me,  if  that  man  had  taken  my  goods.  I  told  him,  I 
did  not  remember  to  have  seen  him  before.  He  was  ques- 
tioned some  time,  and  at  length  ordered  to  be  beaten  with 
sticks,  which  was  performed  by  two  soldiers  with  such  sever- 
ity as  if  they  meant  to  kill  him.  The  soldiers  were  then 
ordered  to  spit  in  his  face,  an  indignity  of  great  antiquity 
in  the  East.  This,  and  the  cutting  ofi"  beards,  which  I  shall 
have  occasion  to  mention,  brought  to  m.y  mind  the  suffer- 
ings recorded  in  the  prophetical  history  of  our  Saviour. 
Isaiah  1.  6.  "  Sadoc  Aga  sent  prisoner  to  Astrabad — his 
beard  was  cut  off;  his  face  was  rubbed  with  dirt,  and  his 
eyes  cut  out.  Upon  his  speaking  in  pathetic  terms  with 
that  emotion  natural  to  a  daring  spirit,  the  general  ordered 
him  to  be  struck  across  the  mouth  to  silence  him ;  M'hich 
was  done  with  such  violence  that  the  blood  issued  forth." 

— BURDER. 

CHAPTER  LI. 

Ver.  6.  Lift  up  your  eyes  to  the  heavens,  and 
look  upon  the  earth  beneath ;  for  the  heavens 
shall  vanish  away  like  smoke,  and  the  earth 
shall  wax  old  like  a  garment,  and  they  that 
dwell  therein  shall  die  in  like  manner  :  but  my 
salvation  shall  be  for  ever,  and  my  righteous- 
ness shall  not  be  abolished.  7.  Hearken  unto 
me,  ye  that  know  righteousness,  the  people  in 
whose  heart  is  my  law ;  fear  ye  not  the  reproach 
of  men,  neither  be  ye  afraid  of  their  revilings. 

See  on  Job  4.  9. 

Ver.  8.  For  the  moth  shall  eat  them  up  like  a 
garment,  and  the  worm  shall  eat  them  like 
wool :  but  my  righteousness  shall  be  for  ever, 
and  my  salvation  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion. 

As  the  fashions  of  the  garments  of  the  Orientals  never 
change,  they  have  large  stores  of  them  ;  but  they  have  no 
little  difficulty  in  preserving  them  from  moths :  which  cir- 
cumstance may  have  occasioned  their  profuse  use  of  per- 
fumes.— Roberts. 

Ver.  11.  Therefore  the  redeemed  of  the  Lord 
shall  return,  and  come  with  singing  unto  Zion  ; 
and  everlasting  joy  shall  be  upon  their  head: 
they  shall  obtain  gladness  and  joy ;  a.nd  sor- 
row and  mourning  shall  flee  away. 

Is  there  not  here  an  allusion  to  the  custom  so  common 
in  the  East,  of  singing  upon  a  journey,  particularly  with  a 
view  to  quicken  the  pace  of  the  camels'?  "  We  should  not 
have  i)assed  this  plain  so  rapidly,  but  for  the  common  cus- 
tom of  the  Arabs  of  urging  on  their  camels  by  singing: 
the  effect  is  very  extraordinary :  this  musical  excitement 
increases  their  pace  at  least  one  fourth.  First  one  camel- 
driver  sings  a  verse,  then  the  others  answer  in  chorus.  It 
reminded  me  somewhat  of  the  Venetian  gondoliers.  I 
often  asked  the  camel-drivers  to  sing,  not  only  to  hasten 
our  progress,  but  also  for  the  pleasure  of  hearing  their  sim- 
ple melodies.  Some  of  their  best  songs  possess  a  plaintive 
sweetness  that  is  almost  as  touching  as  the  most  exquisite 
European  airs.  The  words  are  often  beautiful,  generally 
simple  and  natural,  being  improvisatory  effusions.  The 
following  is  a  very  imperfect  specimen.  One  takes  up  the 
song : — '  Ah,  when  shall  I  see  my  family  again  1  the  rain 
has  fallen  and  made  a  canal  between  me  and  my  home. 
Oh,  shall  I  never  see  it  more  V  The  reply  to  this  and 
similar  verses  was  always  made  by  the  chorus,  in  words 
such  as  these: — 'Oh,  what  pleasure,  what  delight,  to  see 
my  family  again;  when  I  see  my  father,  mother,  brothers, 
sisters,  I  will  hoist  a  flag  on  the  head  of  my  camel  for  joy.' " 
(Hoskins'  Trav.  in  Ethiopia,  p.  26.)— Bush. 

In  describing  the  order  of  the  caravans,  Pitts  informs  us, 
"  that  some  of  the  camels  have  bells  about  their  necks,  and 


478 


some  about  their  legs,  like  those  which  our  carriers  put 
about  their  fore-horses'  necks,  which,  together  with  the 
servants  (who  belong  to  the  camels  and  travel  on  loot) 
singing  all  night,  make  a  pleasant  noise,  and  the  journey 
passes  away  delightfully."  This  circumstance  is  explana- 
tory of  the  singing  of  the  Israelites  in  their  return  to  Jeru- 
salem.— Harmer. 

Ver.  1 4.  The  captive  exile  hasteneth  that  he  may- 
be loosed,  and  that  he  should  not  die  in  the  pit, 
nor  that  his  bread  should  fail. 

See  on  Job  33.  18,  24. 

Ver.  17.  Awake,  awake,  stand  up,  O  Jerusalem, 
which  hast  drunk  at  the  hand  of  the  Lord  the 
cup  of  his  fury  ;  thou  hast  drunken  the  dregs 
of  the  cup  of  trembling,  and  wrung  them  out. 

Artificial  liquors,  or  mixed  wines,  were  very  common  in 
ancient  Italy,  and  the  Levant.  The  Romans  lined  their 
vessels  with  odorous  gums,  to  give  their  wines  a  warm 
bitter  flavour ;  and  it  is  said,  that  several  nations  of  mod- 
ern times  communicate  to  their  wines  a  favourite  relish 
by  similar  means.  In  Greece  this  is  accomplished  by  in- 
fusing the  cones  of  the  pine  in  the  wine  vats.  Hasselquist 
says  they  use  the  sweet-scented  violet  in  their  sherbet, 
which  they  make  of  violet  sugar  dissolved  in  water;  the 
grandees  sometimes  add  ambergris,  as  the  highest  lux- 
ury and  indulgence  of  their  appetite.  The  prophet  Isaiah 
mentions  a  mixture  of  wine  and  water;  but  it  is  evident 
from  the  context,  that  he  means  to  express  by  that  phrase 
the  degenerate  state  of  his  nation ;  and  consequently,  we 
cannot  infer  from  it,  the  use  of  diluted  wine  in  those  coun- 
tries. It  is  observed  by  Thevenot,  that  the  people  of  the 
Levant  never  mingle  water  with  their  wine  at  meals,  but 
drink  by  itself  what  water  thev  think  proper,  for  abating 
the  strength  of  the  wine.  While  the  Greeks  and  Romans 
by  mixed  wine  always  understood  wine  diluted  and  low- 
ered with  water,  the  Hebrews,  on  the  contrary,  meant  by 
it  wine  made  stronger,  and  more  inebriating,  by  the  addi- 
tion of  powerful  ingredients,  as  honey,  spices,  defrutum, 
or  wine  inspissated,  by  boiling  it  down 'to  two  thirds  or  one 
half  of  the  quantity,  myrrh,  opiates,  and  other  strong  drugs. 
The  Greeks  were  no  strangers  to  perfumed  and  medicated 
wines ;  for  in  Homer,  the  far-famed  Helen  mixed  a  num- 
ber of  stupifying  ingredients  in  the  bowl,  to  exhilarate  the 
spirits  of  her  guests  that  were  oppressed  with  grief;  the 
composition  of  which,  the  poet  says,  she  learnt  in  Egypt. 
Of  the  same  kind  was  the  spiced  wine  mentioned  in  "the 
Song  of  Solomon ;  and  to  this  day,  such  wines  are  eagerly 
sought  by  the  people  of  Syria  and  Palestine.  The  drunk- 
ards in  Israel  preferred  these  medicated  wines  to  all  others : 
"Who  hath  wo  '?"  said  the  wise  man,  ".who  hath  conten- 
tions %  who  hath  sorrow  1  who  hath  babbling  1  who  hath 
wounds  without  cause  1  who  hath  redness  of  eyes  %  They 
that  tarry  long  at  the  wine ;  they  that  go  to  seek  mixed 
wine."  Nor  were  the  manners  of  that  people  more  correct 
in  the  days  of  Isaiah ;  for  he  was  directed  to  pronounce  a 
"  wo  unto  them  that  rose  up  early  in  the  morning,  that  they 
might  M\ov;  strong  drink  ;  that  continued  until  night,  till 
wine  inflamed  them."  This  ancient  custom  furnished  the 
holy  Psalmist  with  a  highly  poetical  and  sublime  image  of 
divine  wrath :  "  For  in  the  hand  of  the  Lord  ...  a  cup ; 
and  the  wine  is  red;  it  is  full  of  mixture."  The  prophet 
Isaiah  uses  the  same  figure  in  one  of  his  exhortations : 
"  Awake,  awake,  stand  up,  O  Jerusalem,  which  hast  drunk 
at  the  hand  of  the  Lord  the  cup  of  his  fury ;  thou  hast 
drunken  the  dregs  of  the  cup  of  trembling,  and  wrung 
them  out."  The  worshippers  of  the  beast  and  his  image, 
are  threatened  with  the  same  fearful  punishment :  "  The 
same  shall  drink  of  the  wine  of  the  wrath  of  God,  w^hich 
is  poured  out  without  mixture  into  the  cup  of  his  indigna- 
tion." The  Jews  sometimes  acidulated  their  wine  with 
the  juice  of  the  pomegranate  ;  a  custom  to  which  the  spouse 
thus  alludes:  "  I  would  cause  thee  to  drink  of  spiced  wine, 
of  the  juice  of  my  pomegranate  ;"  or  of  wine  mixed  with 
the  juice  of  that  fruit.  Prepared  in  this  way,  it  proves  a 
cooling  and  refreshing  draught  in  the  heat  of  summer,  and 
by  consequence,  highly  acceptable  to  an  Oriental. — Paxton. 

I-   Ver.  20.   Thy  sons  have  fainted,  they  lie  at  the 


ISAIAH.  Chap.  52. 

head  of  all  the  streets,  as  a  wild  bull  in  a  net : 
they  are  full  of  the  fury  of  the  Lord,  the  rebuke 
of  thy  God. 

What  a  graphic  picture  we  have  here  of  an  eastern  city 
or  town  in  time  of  famine  !  See  the  squalid  objects:  in 
their  despair,  they  rush  forth,  throw  themselves  down  in 
the  streets,  and  there  remain  till  they  die.  or  are  relieved. 
They  have  scarcely  a  rag  left  to  defend  them  from  the 
heat  of  the  sun,  or  the  dew  of  the  night ;  and  they  court 
death  as  a  blessing.  Ask  them  why  they  lie  there,  they 
reply,  to  die :  tell  them  to  get  out  of  the  way,  and  they 
answer  not  again;  and  so  great  is  their  indifference,  that 
many  of  them  would  literally  be  crushed  to  death,  rather 
than  make  the  least  effort  to  preserve  life. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  LII. 
Ver.  1.  Awake,  awake;  put  on  thy  strength,  O 
Zion ;  put  on  thy  beautiful  garments,  O  Jeru- 
salem, the  holy  city  :  for  henceforth  ther^  shall 
no  more  come  unto  thee  the  uncircumcised  and 
the  unclean. 


Jerusalem  had  long  been  afflicted  by  her  foes,  but  the 
time  of  her  deliverance  was  at  hand,  and  in  token  of  ihat 
she  was  to  deck  herself  in  her  glorious  attire.  At  the  time 
of  famine,  sickness,  or  sorrow,  the  people  clothe  themselves 
in  their  meanest  apparel,  and  their  ornaments  are  laid 
aside  :  but  on  the  return  of  prosperity,  they  array  them- 
selves in  their  most  "  beautiful  garments."— Roberts. 

Ver.  2.  Shake  thyself  from  the  dust ;  arise,  and 
sit  down,  O  Jerusalem  :  loose  thj^self  from  the 
bands  of  thy  neck,  O  captive  daughter  of  Zion. 

See  the  poor  prisoners;  see  mothers  bereft  of  their  chil- 
dren, or  wives  of  their  husbands  ;  they  roll  themselves  m 
the  dust,  and  there  make  their  bitter  lamentations.  The 
holy  city  had  figuratively  been  in  the  dust,  but  she  was  now 
to  arise,  to  take  the  shackles  from  her  neck,  and  to  sit 
down  in  the  place  prepared  for  her. — Roberts. 

Ver.  2.  Shake  thyself  from  the  dust :  arise,  and 
sit  down,  O  Jerusalem :  loose  thyself  from  the 
bands  of  thy  neck,  O  captive  daughter  of  Zion. 
10.  The  Lord  hath  made  bare  his  holy  arm 
in  the  eyes  of  all  the  nations  ;  and  all  the  ends 
of  the  earth  shall  see  the  salvation  of  our  God. 

The  use  of  the  oriental  dress,  which  I  now  wear,  brings 
to  the  mind  various  scriptural  illustrations,  of  which  I  will 
only  mention  two.  The  figure  in  Isaiah  lii.  10,  "  The 
Lord  hath  made  bare  his  holy  arm,"  is  most  lively :  for  the 
loose  sleeve  of  the  Arab  shirt,  as  well  as  that  of  the  outer 
garment,  leaves  the  arm  so  completely  free,  that,  in  an 
instant,  the  left  hand  passing  up  the  right  arm,  makes  it 
bare ;  and  this  is  done  when  a  person,  a  soldier,  for  exam- 
ple^, about  to  strike  with  the  sword,  intends  to  give  his  right 
arm  full  play.  The  image  represents  Jehovah  as  suddenly 
prepared  to  inflict  some  tremendous,  vet  righteous  judg- 
ment, so  effectual,  "  that  all  the  ends  of  the  world  shall  see 
the  salvation  of  God." 

The  other  point  illustrated  occurs  in  the  second  verse  of 
the  same  chapter,  where  the  sense  of  the  last  expression  is, 
to  an  Oriental,  extremely  natural :  "  Shake  thyself  from 
the  dust,  arise,  sit  down,  O  Jerusalem."  It  is  no  uncommon 
thing  to  see  an  individual,  or  a  group  of  persons,  even  when 
very  well-dressed,  sitting  with  their  feet  drawn  under  them, 
upon  the  bare  earth,  passing  whole  hours  in  idle  conversa- 
tion. Europeans  would  require  a  chair;  but  the  natives 
here  prefer  the  ground.  In  the  heat  of  summer  and  autumn, 
it  is  pleasant  to  them  to  while  away  their  time  in  this  man- 
ner, under  the  shade  of  a  tree.  Richly-adorned  females,  a? 
well  as  men,  may  often  be  seen  thus  amusing  themselves. 
As  may  naturallv  be  expected,  with  whatever  care  they 
may,  at  first  sitting  down,  choose  their  place,  yet  the  flow- 
ing dress  by  degrees  gathers  up  the  dust;  as  this  occurs, 
they,  from  time  to  time,  arise,  adjust  themselves,  shake  off 
the  dust,  and  then  sit  down  again.    The  captive  daughter 


Ghap.  53. 


ISAIAH. 


479 


of  Zion,  therefore,  brought  down  to  the  dust  of  suffering 
and  oppression,  is  commanded  to  arise  and  shake  herself 
from  tiiat  dust ;  and  then,  with  grace,  and  dignity,  and 
composure,  and  security,  to  sit  down;  to  take,  as  it  were, 
again,  her  seat  and  her  rank,  amid  the  company  of  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  which  had  before  afflicted  her,  and 
trampled  her  to  the  earth. 

It  may  be  proper  to  notice,  that  Bishop  Lowth  gives 
another  "rendering,  "  Arise,  ascend  thy  lofty  seat,"  and 
quotes  eastern  customs,  to  justify  the  version :  but  I  see  no 
necessity  for  the  alteration,  although  to  English  ears  it  may 
sound  more  appropriate.  A  person  of  rank  in  the  East 
often  sits  down  upon  the  ground,  with  his  attendants  about 

him. — JOWETT. 

Ver.  7.  How  beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are 
the  feet  of  him  that  bringeth  good  tidings,  that 
publisheth  peace ;  that  bringeth  good  tidings  of 
good,  that  publisheth  salvation ;  that  saith  unto 
Zion,  Thy  God  reigneth ! 

Small  feet  are  considered  beautiful  in  all  parts  of  the 
East.  The  feet  of  kings  and  holy  people  are  spoken  of  in 
preference  to  the  other  parts  of  the  body.  His  majesty  of 
the  Burmese  empire  is  always  mentioned  as  the  "  golden 
feel."  "  My  messenger  will  soon  return,  he  will  bring  me 
good  tidings ;  his  feet  will  be  glorious."  "  Ah !  when  will 
the  feet  of  my  priest  return  this  way ;  how  glorious  is  their 
place!"  "  Are  you  in  health  1"  asks  the  holv  man.  "Yes; 
by  the  glory  of 'your  feet,"  is  the  reply,  "  Ah  !  Swamy,  it 
is  a  happy  circumstance  for  me  that  your  feet  have  entered 
mv  house." — Roberts, 

Ver.  8.  Thy  watchmen  shall  lift  up  the  voice ; 
with  the  voice  together  shall  they  sing:  for 
they  shall  see  eye  to  eye,  when  the  Lord  shall 
bring  again  Zion. 

The  phrase,  "  see  eye  to  eye,"  is  that  which  we  propose 
to  explain,  and  the  preceding  verse  should  be  read  in  ordier  to 
show  more  clearly  the  connexion.  The  whole  passage  is  a 
pr-odiction  of  gospel  times;  it  points  to  the  proclamation  of 
the  joyful  and  welcome  tidings  which  constituted  the  burden 
of  our  Saviour's  preaching,  and  that  of  his  apostles.  In  the 
poetical  style  of  the  East,  the  watchmen  are  represented  as 
standing  upon  their  \\^atch-tower,  or  post  of  observation, 
and  stretching  their  vision  to  the  utmost  point  of  the  hori- 
zon, as  if  in  eager  expectation  of  the  appearance  of  a  news- 
bearing  messenger.  On  a  sudden  the  wished-for  object 
appears  in  sight,  on  the  summit  of  the  distant  mountain, 
speeding  his  rapid  way  to  the  city,  while  the  watchmen, 
anticipating  the  tenor  of  his  tidings,  burst  forth  in  a  shout 
of  gratulation  and  triumph.  "  Thy  watchmen  shall  lift  up 
the  voice  ;  Avith  the  voice  together  shall  they  sing."  The 
imagery  strikingly  represents  the  expectant  attitude  and 
heedful  vigilance  of  the  believing  part  of  the  teachers  and 
pastors  of  the  nation  of  Israel  on  the  eve  of  the  Messiah's 
manifeslation.  The  reason  of  the  outbreak  of  their  holy 
joy  is  immediately  given :  "  For  they  shall  see  eye  to  eye, 
when  the  Lord  shall  bring  again  Zion,"  1.  e.  they  shall 
have  a  clear  and  unclouded  discernment  of  the  actual  exe- 
cution of  the  divine  purposes.  As  faithful  watchmen, 
intent  upon  their  duty,  and  earnestly  looking  out  for  the 
signs  of  promise,  they  shall  be  favoured  with  a  clear,  dis- 
tinct, luminous  perception  of  the  objects  of  their  gaze,  in 
which  they  shall  be  honourably  distinguished  from  a  class 
of  watchmen  spoken  of  by  the  same  prophet,  ch.  Ivi,  10,  of 
whom  it  is  said,  "  His  watchmen  are  blind ;"  instead  of 
seeing  clearly,  they  see  nothing.  That  this  is  the  genuine 
force  of  the  expression,  "  they  shall  see  eye  to  eye,"  is  to  be 
inferred  from  the  parallel  usage,  Num.  xiv.  14,  "For  they 
nave  heard  that  thou.  Lord,  art  among  this  people,  that  thou. 
Lord,  art  seen  face  to  face,^^  (Heb.  eye  to  eye;)  i.  e.  in  the 
1"  )st  open,  evident  manner.  Of  equivalent  import  are  the 
oppressions,  Ex.  xxx.  11,  "  And  the  Lord  spake  unto  Mo- 
ses/ace to  face,  as  a  man  speaketh  unto  his  friend."  Num. 
xii.  8,  "  With  him  will  I  speak  viouth  to  mouth,  even  appa- 
rently, and  not  in  dark  speeches;"  where  the  latter  part  af 
the  verse  is  exegetical  of  the  former.  We  conclude,  there- 
fore, that  the  words  do  not  in  their  primary  and  most  legit- 
"imate  sense   imply  a  perfect  unanimity  of  religious  or 


doctrinal  belief  in  the  watchmen,  or  spiritual  guides,  of  the 
Christian  church.  At  the  same  time,  though  not  expressly 
taught  in  this  passage,  it  is  but  reasonable  to  expect,  that  in 
proportion  as  the  prosperity  of  the  church  advances,  truth 
will  be  more  clearly  discerned,  and  there  will  be  a  constant 
approximation  among  the  pious,  to  a  uniform  standard  of 
theological  faith. — Bush. 

Ver.  10.  The  Lord  hath  made  bare  his  holy 
arm  in  the  eyes  of  all  the  nations. 

The  right  arm  or  shoulder  is  always  alluded  to  as  the 
place  of  strength :  with  that  the  warrior  wields  his  sword, 
and  slays  his  foes.  The  njetaphor  appears  to  allude  to  a 
man  who  is  preparing  for  the  battle  :  he  takes  the  robe  from 
his  right  arm,  that  being  thus  uncovered,  "  made  bare," 
it  may  the  more  easily  perform  its  office,  "  Tell  your 
boasting  master  to  get  ready  his  army,  for  our  king  has 
shown  lus  shoulder,"  i.  e.  uncovered  it.  "  Alas  !  I  have 
heard  that  the  mighty  sovereign  of  the  neighbouring  king- 
dom has  pointed  to  his  shoulder,"  i.  e.  he  is  ready  to  come 
against  us.  See  two  men  disputing ;  should  one  of  them 
point  to  his  right  arm  and  shoulder,  the  other  will  imme- 
diately fall  into  a  rage,  as  he  knows  it  amounts  to  a  chal- 
lenge, and  says,  in  effect,  "  I  am  thy  superior."  Thus  may 
be  seen  men  at  a  distance,  when  defymg  each  other,  slap- 
ping each  his  right  hand  or  shoulder.  Jehovah,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  nations  of  the  earth,  "  hath  made  bare  his  holy 
arm."  "  And  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall  see  the  salva- 
tion of  our  God." — Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  So  shall  he  sprinkle  many  nations  ;  the 
kings  shall  shut  their  mouths  at  him ;  for  that 
which  had  not  been  told  them  shall  they  see, 
and  that  which  they  had  not  heard  shall  they 
consider. 

At  an  eastern  feast  a  person  stands  near  the  entrance 
with  a  silver  vessel,  which  is  full  of  rose-wate-r,  or  some 
other  perfumed  liquid,  with  which  he  sprinkles  the  guests 
as  they  approach,  as  if  from  a  watering-pan.  The  object 
is  to  show  they  are  now  the  king's,  or  the  great  man's 
guests :  they  are  in  his  favour  and  under  his  protection. 
So  shall  the  eternal  Son  of  God  sprinkle  many  nations,  and 
admit  them  into  his  presence  in  token  of  their  purification, 
and  of  his  protection  and  favour.  The  kingM  of  the  earth 
shall  no  longer  rebel  against  him ;  but  "  shall  shut  their 
mouths"  to  denote  their  submission  and  respect. — Robert.^. 

When  the  company  were  ready  to  separate,  a  servant 
entered  and  sprinkled  them  profusely  with  rose-water,  as  a 
valedictory  mark  of  his  master's  regard.  In  some  places, 
this  was  done  at  the  beginning  of  the  entertainment,  and 
was  considered  as  a  cordial  welcome.  Mr.  Bruce  informs 
us,  that  when  he  rose  to  take  his  leave  of  an  eastern  family, 
he  "was  presently  wet  to  the  skin,  by  deluges  of  orange- 
flower  water."  "  The  first  time,"  says  Niebuhr,  "  we  were 
received  with  all  the  eastern  ceremonies,  (it  was  at  Ro- 
setta,  at  a  Greek  merchant's  house,)  there  was  one  of  our 
company  who  was  excessively  surprised,  when  a  domestic 
placed  himself  before  him,  and  threw  water  over  him,  as 
well  on  his  face,  as  over  his  clothes."  It  appears  from  the 
testimony  of  both  these  authors,  that  this  is  the  customary 
mode  of  showing  respect  and  kindness  to  a  guest  in  the 
East.  The  prophet  Isaiah  seems  to  refer  to  this  custom,  in 
a  passage  where  he  describes  the  character  and  functions 
of.  the  Messiah  :  "  So  shall  he  sprinkle  many  nations,  the 
kings  shall  shut  their  mouths  at  him." — Paxton, 

CHAPTER  Lin. 
Ver.  1,  Who  hath  believed  our  report ;  and  to 
whom  is  the  arm  of  the  Lord  revealed? 

In  these  parts  of  the  world,  the  fashion  is  in  a  state  of 
almost  daily  fluctuation,  and  different  fashions  are  not  tm- 
frequently  seen  contending  for  the  superiority ;  but  in  the 
East,  where  the  people  are  by  no  means  given  to  change, 
the  form  of  their  garments  continues  nearly  the  same  from 
one  age  to  another.  The  greater  part  of  their  clothes  are 
long  and  flowing,  loosely  cast  about  the  body,  consisting 
only  of  a  large  piece  of  cloth,  in  the  cutting  and  sewing  Qt 
which,  very  little  art  or  industry  is  employed.    They  hav« 


480 


ISAIAH. 


Chap.  53—54, 


more  dignity  and  gracefulness  than  ours,  and  are  better 
adapted  to  the  burning  climates  of  Asia.  'From  the  sim- 
plicity of  their  foim,  and  their  loose  adaptation  to  the  body, 
tlie  same  clothes  might  be  worn  with  equal  ease  and  con- 
venience by  many  different  persons.  The  clothes  of  those 
Philistines  whom  Samson  slew  at  Ashkelon,  required  no 
altering  to  fit  his  companions ;  nor  the  robe  of  Jonathan 
to  answer  his  friend.  The  arts  of  weaving  and  fulling 
seemed  to  have  been  distinct  occupations  in  Israel,  from  a 
very  remote  period,  in  consequence  of  the  various  and 
skilful  operations  which  were  necessary  to  bring  their  stuffs 
to  a  suitable  degree  of  perfection ;  but  when  the  weaver 
and  the  fuller  had  finished  their  part,  the  labour  was 
nearly  at  an  end ;  no  distinct  artisan  was  necessary  to 
make  them  into  clothes;  every  family  seems  to  have  naade 
their  own.  Sometimes,  however,  this  part  of  the  work  was 
performed  in  the  loom ;  for  they  had  the  art  of  weaving 
robes,  with  sleeves  all  of  one  piece  :  of  this  kind  was  the 
coat  which  our  Saviour  wore  during  his  abode  ^ith  men. 
These  loose  dresses,  when  the  arm  is  lifted  up,  expose  its 
whole  length.  To  this  circumstance  the  prophet  Isaiah 
refers.  "  To  whom  is  the  arm  of  the  Lord  revealed" — ^un- 
covered— Who  observes  that  he  is  about  to  exert  the  arm 
of  his  power  1 — Paxton. 

Ver.  7.  He  was  oppressed,  and  he  was  afflicted ; 
yet  he  opened  not  his  mouth :  he  is  brought 
as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter,  and  as  a  sheep  be- 
fore her  shearers  is  dumb,  so  he  opened  not 
his  mouth. 

This  image  was  designed  by  the  prophet  to  represent  the 
meek,  uncomplaining  manner  in  which  Christ  stood  before 
his  judge,  and  submitted  even  to  death  for  the  salvation  of 
mankind.  Philo-Judaeus,  a  philosopher  and  a  Jew,  born 
and  bred  in  Egypt,  and  well  acquainted  with  their  customs, 
has  a  passage,  by  which  it  appears  that  the  figurative  lan- 
guage of  Isaiah  was  founded  upon  the  practice  of  the  east- 
ern shepherds.  "  Woolly  rams,  laden  with  thick  fleeces, 
in  spring  season,  being  ordered  by  their  shepherd,  stand 
without  moving,  and  silently  stooping  a  little,  put  them- 
selves into  his  hand,  to  have  their  wool  shorn  ;  being 
accustomed,  as  cities  are,  to  pay  their  yearly  tribute  to 
man,  their  king  by  nature." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  LIV. 
Ver.  2.   Enlarge  the  place  of  thy  tent,  and  let 
them  stretch  forth  the  curtains  of  thy  habita- 
tion :    spare    not,    lengthen    thy    cords,    and 
strengthen  thy  stakes. 

In  Africa,  when  we  expected  an  increase  of  hearers,  the 
^lottentots  moved  the  pins  all  round,  a  yard  or  a  yard  and 
a  half,  farther  from  the  tent,  towards  which  they  stretched 
the  canvass,  and  fastened  it,  which  considerably  increased 
the  room  inside. — Campbell. 

Ver.  11.  Othou  afflicted,  tossed  with  tempest,  and 
not  comforted,  behold,  I  will  lay  thy  stones  with 
fair  colours,  and  lay  thy  foundations  with  sap- 
phires. 12.  And  I  will  make  thy  windows  of 
agates,  and  thy  gates  of  carbuncles,  and  all  thy 
borders  of  pleasant  stones. 

This  figurative  way  of  speaking  is  in  exact  keeping  with 
the  eastern  notions  of  magnificence :  thus  the  abodes  of  the 
gods,  or  distant  kings,  are  described  as  having  pillars  of 
re».i  coral ;  rooms  made  of  crystal ;  ruby  doors ;  thrones  of 
the  nine  precious  stones;  walls  of  gold,  surrounded  by 
emerald  rivers.  Such  passages,  therefore,  are  not  to  be 
received  literally,  but  as  being  indicative  of  great  splendour 
and  unrivalled  prosperity. — Roberts. 

Many  of  the  oriental  buildings,  however,  have  displayed 
unrivalled  magnificence  and  splendour.  The  walls,  col- 
umns, floors,  and  minarets  of  the  mosques,  were  of  the 
choicest  marble,  granite,  and  porphyry,  inlaid  with  agates 
and  precious  stones.  The  ornamental  parts  were  of  gold 
and  jsilve-r,  or  consisted  of  the  most  elegant  borders,  with 
festoons  of  fruit  and  flowers,  in  their  natural  colours,  com- 
posed entirely  of  agates,  cornelians,  turquoises,  lapis-lazuli, 


and  other  valuable  gems.  The  hangings  and  carpets  were 
of  the  richest  manufacture  :  and  the  splendid  edifice  Avas 
illumined  with  chandeliers  of  massive  gold.  "  How  forci- 
bly," says  ForbeSj  "  do  these  remind  us  of  the  truth  and 
beauty  of  the  metaphorical  language  in  the  sacred  page, 
promising  sublime  and  spiritual  joys,  in  allusion  to  these 
subjects  in  eastern  palaces !"— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  LV. 

Ver.  12.  For  ye  shall  go  out  with  joy,  and  be  led 
forth  with  peace :  the  mountains  and  the  hills 
shall  break  forth  before  you  into  singing,  and 
»  all  the  trees  of  the  field  shall  clap  their  hands. 
13.  Instead  of  the  thorn  shall  come  up  the  fir- 
tree,  and  instead  of  the  brier  shall  come  up  the 
myrtle-tree  :  and  it  shall  be  to  the  Lord  for  a 
name,  and  for  an  everlasting  sign,  that  shall 
not  be  cut  off. 

Here  we  have  another  specimen  of  the  fervid  and  splen- 
did imagery  of  eastern  language.  Some  people  affect  to 
despise  the  hyperboles,  the  parables,  and  high-toned  allu- 
sions of  such  "a  style;  but  they  ought  to  recollect  they  arise 
as  much  from  the  climate,  the  genius,  and  customs  of  the 
people,  as  do  our  more  plain  and  sober  effusions  from  op- 
posite circumstances.  When  the  god  Ramar  was  going  to 
the  desert,  it  was  said  to  him,  "  The  trees  will  watch  for 
you ;  they  will  say,  He  is  come,  he  is  come;  and  the  white 
flowers  will  clap  their  hands.  The  leaves,  as  they  shake, 
will  say,  Come,  come ;  and  the  thorny  places  will  be 
changed  into  gardens  of  flowers." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  LVI. 
Ver.  3.  Neither  let  the  son  of  the  stranger,  tha\ 
hath  joined  himself  to  the  Lord,  speak,  say 
ing.  The  Lord  hath  utterly  separated  me  from 
his  people :  neither  let  the  eunuch  say.  Behold, 
I  am  a.  dry  tree. 

People  without  posterity,  of  both  sexes,  are  called  dry 
trees  ;  which,  strictly  speaking,  means  they  are  dead,  hav- 
ing neither  sap,  nor  leaves,  nor  fruit. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  LVII. 

Ver.  6.  Among  the  smooth  stones  of  the  stream 
is  thy  portion ;  they,  they  are  thy  lot ;  even  to 
them  hast  thou  poured  a  drink-offering,  thou 
hast  offered  a  meat-offering.  Should  I  receive 
comfort  in  these  ? 

This  refers  to  stones  made  smooth  by  oil  poured  on  them, 
as  was  frequently  done  by  the  heathen.  Theophrastus  has 
marked  this  as  one  strong  feature  in  the  character  of  the 
superstitious  man  :  "  Passing  by  the  anointed  stones  in  the 
streets,  he  takes  out  his  vial  of  oil,  and  pours  it  on  them ; 
and  having  fallen  on  his  knees,  and  made  his  adorations, 
he  departs." — Lowth. 

CHAPTER  LVIII. 
Ver.  5.  Is  it  such  a  fast  that  I  have  chosen?  a 
day  for  a  man  to  afflict  his  soul  ?  is  it  to  bow 
down  his  head  as  a  bulrush,  and  to  spread  sack- 
cloth and  ashes  under  him  ?  wilt  thou  call  this 
a  fast,  and  an  acceptable  day  to  the  Lord  ? 

The  eastern  people  spread  mats  or  small  carpets  under 
them  when  they  pray,  and  even  suppose  it  unlawful  to 

J  ray  on  the  bare  ground  ;  is  it  not  natural  to  suppose  the 
ews  had  something  under  them  when  they  prayed,  and  that 
this  was  a  piece  of  sackcloth  in  times  of  peculiar  humilia- 
tion 1  When  they  wore  sackcloth  in  the  day,  it  is  not 
perhaps  natural  to  suppose  they  slept  in  fine  linen ;  but  I 
should  suppose  some  passages  of  scripture,  which,  in  our 
translation,  speak  of  lying  "in  sackcloth,  are  rather  to  be 
understood  of  lying  prostrate  before  God  on  sackcloth,  than 
caking  their  repose  on  that  coarse  and  harsh  kind  of  stuff. 
The  learned  and  exact  Vitringa  makes  no  remark  ol 


Chap.  59. 


ISAIAH 


481 


this  kind  on  that  passage  of  Isaiah,  "  Is  it  such  a  fast  that  I 
have  chosen  7  a  day  for  a  man  to  afflict  his  souH  is  it  to  bow 
down  his  head  as  a  bulrush,  and  to  spread  sackcloth  and 
ashes  under  him  1"  He  only  quotes  what  is  said  of  Ahab, 
1  Kings  xxi.  27,  and  the  Jews  in  Shushan,  Esther  iy.  2, 
as  of  a  similar  nature,  and  seems  to  understand  this  piece 
of  humiliation  before  God  of  lodging  on  sackcloth.  But, 
surely,  it  must  be  much  more  natural  to  understand  the 
solemnity  of  prostration  on  sackcloth  before  God,  which 
follows  the  mention  of  hanging  down  the  head,  used  in 
kneeling,  or  in  standing  as  suppliants  before  him,  rather 
than  of  sleeping  in  sackcloth,  the  night  before  or  the  night 
after  the  day  ox"  fasting.  It  seems  to  me,  in  like  manner, 
to  express  the  humiliation  of  Ahab  with  more  energy,  than 
as  commonly  und^ersiood :  "  And  it  came  to  pass,  when 
Ahab  heard  those  words,  that  he  rent  his  clothes,  and  put 
sackcloth  upon  his  flesh,  and  fasted,  and  prostrated  himself 
on  sackcloth,"  &c.  The  like  may  be  said  of  the  lying  of 
the  Jews  in  Shushan  in  sackcloth. 

A  passage  in  Joseph  us  strongly  confirms  this,  in  which  he 
describes  the  deep  concern  of  the  Jews  for  the  danger  of 
Herod  Agrippa,  after  having  been  stricken  suddenly  with 
a  violent  disorder  in  the  theatre  of  Cesarea.  Upon  the 
news  of  his  danger,  "  immediately  the  multitude,  with  their 
wives  and  children,  sitting  upon  sackcloth,  according  to 
their  country  rites,  prayed  for  the  king:  all  places  were 
filled  with  wailing  and  lamentation :  while  the  king,  who 
lay  in  an  upper  room,  beholding  the  people  thus  below  fall- 
ing prostrate  on  the  ground,  could  not  himself  refrain  from 
tears."  Antiq.  lib.  xix.  cap.  8,  §  2,  p.  951.  Here  we  see 
the  sitting  on  sackcloth,  resting  on  their  hams,  in  prayer, 
and  falling  prostrate  at  times  on  the  sackcloth,  was  a 
Jewish  observance  in  times  of  humiliation  and  distress. — 
— Harmer, 

Ver.  9.  Then  shalt  thou  call,  and  the  Lord  shall 
answer :  thou  shalt  cry,  and  he  shall  say,  Here 
I  am.  If  thou  take  away  from  the  midst  of  thee 
the  yoke,  the  putting  forth  of  the  finger,  and 
speaking  vanity. 

This  chapter  commences  with,  "Cry  aloud,  spare  not, 
lift  up  thy  voice  like  a  trumpet,  and  show  my  people  their 
transgression,  and  the  house  of  Jacob  their  sins."  After 
this,  the  people  are  severely  reproved  for  their  hypocrisy, 
"  ye  fast  for  strife  and  debate,  and  smite  with  the  fist  of 
wickedness;"  and  then  they  are  exhorted  to  cease  from 
their  oppressions,  "  to  undo  the  heavy  burdens,  and  to  let 
the  oppressed  go  free,  and  that  ye  break  every  yoke."  It 
appears  they  were  tyrants  under  the  garb  of  sanctity,  and 
in  contempt  for  the  injured,  they  took  delight  in  "putting 
forth  of  the  finger,  and  speaking  vanity."  See  that  boast- 
ing tyrant,  when  addressing  his  humbled  antagonist,  he 
scowls  and  storms  "like  the  raging  sea,"  and  then  lifts  up 
the  fore-finger  of  the  right  hand  to  the  height  of  his  head, 
and  moves  it  up  and  down,  to  show  that  punishment  of  a 
still  higher  nature  shall  be  the  award  of  the  victim  of  his 
wrath.— Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  And  if  thou  draw  out  thy  soul  to  the 
hungry,  and  satisfy  the  afflicted  soul;  then 
shall  thy  light  rise  in  obscurity,  and  thy  dark- 
ness be  as  the  noonday. 

Has  a  person  in  reference  to  temporal  circumstances  been' 
in  great  difficulty,  has  he  been  delivered,  then  is  he  com- 
pared to  a  man  in  a  dark  place  who  suddenly  finds  a  light, 
which  enables  him  to  walk  with  pleasure  and  safety  in 
nis  appointed  way.  "  True,  true,  I  was  in  darkness,  but 
the  light  has  come ;  it  shines  around  me ;  there  is  no 
shade." — Roberts. 

Ver.  11.  And  the  Lord  shall  guide  thee  continu- 
ally, and  satisfy  thy  soul  in  drought,  and  make 
fat  thy  bones :  and  thou  shalt  be  like  a  watered 
garden,  and  like  a  spring  of  water,  whose  wa- 
ters fail  not. 

In  a  hot  climate  where  showers  seldom  fall,  except  in  what 
Is  called  the  rainy  season,  the  difference  between  a  well 
and  ill  watered  garden  is  most  striking.    I  remgmber  some 
61 


gardens  in  Africa  where  they  could  lead  no  water  upon 
them ;  the  plants  were  all  srunted.  sickly,  or  others  com- 
pletely gone,  only  the  hole  left  where  the  faded  plant  had 
been.  The  sight  was  unpleasant,  and  caused  gloom  to 
appear  in  every  countenance  :  they  were  pictures  of  deso- 
lation. But  in  other  gardens,  to  which  the  owners  could 
bring  daily  supplies  of  water  from  an  everflowing  fountain, 
causing  it  to  traverse  the  garden,  every  plant  had  a  green, 
healthy  appearance,  loaded  with  fruit,  in  diffierent  stages 
towards  maturity,  with  fragrant  scent  proceeding  from  beds 
of  lovely  flowers ;  and  all  this  produced  by  the  virtue  God 
hath  put  into  the  single  article  of  water. — Campbell. 

CHAPTER  LIX. 
Ver.  4.   None  calleth  for  justice,  nor  any  plead- 
eth  for  truth :  they  trust  in  vanity,  and  speak 
lies ;  they  conceive  mischief,  and  bring  forth 
iniquity. 
See  on  Ps.  14.  29. 

Ver.  5.  They  hatch  cockatrices'  eggs,  and  weave 
the  spider's  web :  he  that  eateth  of  their  eggs 
dieth,  and  that  which  is  crushed  breaketh  out 
into  a  viper. 

See  onch.  11.  8. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  cockatrice,  "  or  adders."  So 
far  as  the  strength  of  the  poison  is  concerned,  I  believe 
there  is  scarely  any  difference  betwixt  the  oviparous  and 
the  viviparous  serpents.  The  eggs  of  the  former  are  gene- 
rally deposited  in  heaps  of  stones,  in  old  walls,  or  holes  in 
dry  places;  and  undersome  circumstances,  (like  those  of  the 
large  lizard,)  are  soft  and  yielding  to  the  touch.  T,he  plia- 
bility of  the  shell  may  be  the  result  of  being  newly  laid,  as  I 
have  seen  some  shells  as  hard  as  those  of  other  eggs.  It  is 
said  of  the  plans  of  a  decidedly  wicked  and  talented  man, 
"  That  wretch !  he  hatches  serpents'  eggs."  "  Beware  of  the 
fellow,  his  eggs  are  nearly  hatched."  "  Ah !  my  friend, 
touch  not  that  affair,  meddle  not  With  that  matter ;  there  is 
a  serpent  in  the  shell."  "  Interfere  not,  interfere  not, 
young  serpents  are  coming  forth."  "  I  have  been  long  ab- 
sent from  my  home,  and  on  my  return  I  thought  that  I 
should  have  much  enjoyment,  but  on  opening  a  basket  to 
procure  some  cakes,  I  found  they  were  all  serpents,"  mean- 
ing, instead  of  pleasure,  he  had  found  pain  on  his  return. 
"  I  touch  it !  No,  no ;  the  last  time  I  did  so  the  shell  broke, 
and  a  young  serpent  gave  me  a  bite,  which  has  poisoned  my 
whole  frame." — Roberts. 

Ver.  11.  We  roar  all  like  bears,  and  mourn  sore 
like  doves :  we  look  for  judgment,  but  there  is 
none ;  for  salvation,  but  it  is  far  off  from  us. 

In  parturition  those  animals  are  said  to  make  a  tremendous 
noise :  hence  people  in  poignant  sorrow  say,  "  "We  roar 
like  bears."  "  Heard  you  not  the  widow's  cry  last  nigh*  1 
the  noise  was  like  that  of  a  she-bear."  "What  is  the 
fellow  roaring  about  ?  he  is  like  a  she-bear." — Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  Yea,  truth  faileth;  and  he  that  depart- 
eth  from  evil  maketh  himself  a  prey:  and  the 
Lord  saw  it,  and  it  displeased  him  that  there 
ivas  no  judgment. 

In  the  preceding  verses,  the  wickedness  of  the  abandoned 
Jews  is  strongly  portrayed ;  and  when  they  began  to  con- 
fess their  sins  and  repent,  as  in  the  ninth  and  fourteenth 
verses  inclusive,  they  were  by  some,  as  in  the  margin,  "  ac- 
counted mad,"  in  consequence  of  their  change  of  views  and 
conduct.  It  is  an  amusing  fact,  that  when  the  heathen  be- 
come very  attentive  to  the  directions  of  their  own  religion  • 
when  they  rigidly  perform  the  prescribed  austerities; 
"  when  they  sell  themselves  to  the  gods,  and  appear  like 
men  of  another  world,"  they  are  "  accounted  mad"  by  their 
neighbours.  On  the  other  hand,  should  a  man  begin  to 
deride  the  national  faith  ;  should  he  never  go  near  the  tem- 
ples, and  laugh  at  idols  and  outward  ceremonies,  the  people 
again  exclaim, "  The  fellow  is  mad !"  But,  above  all,  should 
a  person  embrace  Christianity,  the  general  story  is,  'he  poor 
fellow  has  gone  mad.  "  Have  you  heard  Supplyan  has  be* 


482 


ISAIAH. 


Chap.  60,  61. 


come  a  Christian  1"—"  No ;  but  I  have  heard  he  has  be- 
come a  madman." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  LX. 
Ver.  6.  The  multitude  of  camels  shall  cover  thee, 
the  dromedaries  of  Midian  and  Ephah  ;  all  they 
from  Sheba  shall  come:  they  shall  bring  gold 
and  incense;  and  they  shall  show  forth  the 
praises  of  the  Lord. 

That  species  of  camel  called  the  dromedary,  is  chiefly 
remarkable  for  its  prodigious  swiftness  ;  the  Arabs  affirm- 
ing, that  it  will  run  over  as  much  ground  in  one  day,  as 
one  of  their  best  horses  will  perform  in  eight  or  ten.  If 
this  be  true,  the  prophet  had  reason  to  call  it  the  "  swift 
dromedary ;"  and  the  messengers  of  Esther  acted  wisely, 
in  choosing  this  animal  to  carry  their  important  despatches 
to  the  distant  provinces  of  that  immense  empire.  Dr.  Shaw 
had  frequent  opportunities,  in  his  travels,  of  verifying  the 
wonderful  accounts  of  the  Arabs  in  relation  to  the  swift- 
ness of  this  creature.  The  sheik  who  conducted  the  party 
to  Mount  Sinai,  rode  a  camel  of  this  kind,  and  would  fre- 
quently divert  them  with  a  display  of  its  abilities ;  he  would 
depart  from  their  caravan,  reconnoitre  another  just  in 
view,  and  return  to  them  again  in  less  than  a  quarter  of  an 
hour. — Paxton, 

Ver.  7.  All  the  flocks  of  Kedar  shall  be  gathered 
together  unto  thee,  the  rams  of  Nebaioth  shall 
minister  unto  thee :  they  shall  come  up  with 
acceptance  on  mine  altar,  and  I  will  glorify  the 
house  of  my  glory 

Here  we  have  unquestionably  another  metaphor,  to  illus- 
trate the  prosperity  and  influence  of  the  church  among  the 
heathen.  I  think,  therefore,  it  is  trifling  with  the  text,  to 
suppose  it  alludes  to  a  literal  possession  of  the  "  rams  of 
Nebaioth,"  "  the  flocks  of  Kedar,"  or  the  "  dromedaries  of 
Midian."  I  believe  it  refers  to  the  people  of  those  countries, 
who  are  spoken  of  in  the  passage,  under  the  names  of  the 
animals  for  which  their  localities  were  most  famous.  This 
mode  of  speech  is  perfectly  oriental,  and  may  often  be  heard 
in  common  conversation.  Thus,  for  instance,  the  district 
of  Mulliteevo  is  famous  for  its  numerous  buffaloes;  hence 
the  people  of  that  place,  when  they  go  to  another  town,  are 
often,  by  way  of  pleasantry,  called  buffaloes.  The  district 
of  Poonareen  abounds  with  the  wild  hog ;  and  it  excites  a 
smile  to  call  one  of  its  inhabitants  the  pandy,  i.  e.  pig  of 
Poonareen.  The  islands  opposite  North  Ceylon  are  noted 
for  shells,  and  when  the  islanders  come  to  the  towns,  it  is 
asked,  should  a  person  wish  to  have  a  little  merriment  at 
their  expense,  "  Why  do  these  shells  of  the  islands  come 
hither  ?"  Batticotta  is  celebrated  fcJr  having  numerous  men 
who  are  expert  in  digging  tanks :  hence  all  the  people,  as 
sircumslances  may  require,  are  humorously  called  ottar, 
i.  e.  diggers.  I  think,  therefore,  the  figure  is  descriptive 
of  the  glory  of  the  church  in  the  acquisition  of  the  people 
of  Midian,  Ephah ;  of  Sheba,  of  Kedar,  and  Nebaioth. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  Who  are  these  that  fly  as  a  cloud,  and 
as  the  doves  to  their  windows. 

In  this  passage,  he  beheld  in  vision  the  captive  Israelites, 
liberated  by  the  decree,  and  encouraged  by  the  invitation 
of  Cyrus,  returning  with  the  greatest  alacrity  to  the  land  of 
their  fathers ;  and  exulting  at  the  sight,  he  cries  out  with 
surprise  and  pleasure, "  Who  are  these  that  fly  as  doves  to 
their  windows  V  The  prophet  apparently  supposes,  that 
in  his  time,  buildings  for  the  reception  of  doves  were  very 
common.  And  this  is  by  no  means  improbable ;  for,  when 
Maundrell  visited  Palestine,  dove-cots  were  numerous  in 
some  parts  of  the  country.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Is- 
pahan are  many  pigeon-houses  built  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
collecting  pigeons'  dung  for  manure.  The  extraordinary 
flights  of  pigeons  which  alight  upon  one  of  those  buildings, 
furnish  a  good  illustration  of  the  prophet's  vision.  Their 
great  numbers  and  the  compactness  of  their  mass,  literally 
look  like  a  cloud  at  a  distance,  and  obscure  the  sun  in  their 
passage.    In  some  parts  of  Egypt  are  numerous  whitened 


dove-cots  on  the  tops  of  the  houses.  The  dove  flies  more 
swiftly  when  she  returns  to  the  windows  of  these  cots, 
than  when  she  leaves  them ;  because  she  hastens  to  revisit 
her  young  which  she  had  left,  and  to  distribute  among  them 
the  food  which  she  had  collected.  A  similar  passage  oc- 
curs in  Hosea :  "  They  shall  tremble  as  a  dove  out  of 
Egypt ;  and  as  a  dove  out  of  the  land  of  Assyria ;  and  I 
will  place  them  in  their  houses,  saith  the  Lord."  They 
shall  fly  with  trepidation ;  or,  like  a  dove  trembling  for 
its  young,  or  alarmed  for  its  own  safety,  which  puts  forth 
its  utmost  speed.  Phrases  of  this  kind  are  not  uncommon 
in  the  sacred  writings;  thus,  when  Samuel  came  to  Beth- 
lehem, the  elders  of  the  town  trembled  at  hjs  coming ;  that 
is,  they  ran  out  with  trepidation  to  meet  him.  A  similar 
phrase  occurs  in  the  third  chapter  of  Hosea :  "  They  shall 
tear  to  the  Lord  and  his  goodness  ;"  that  is,  they  shall  run 
with  trepidation  to  the  Lord  and  his  goodness  in  the  'atter 
days.  These  verbs  (t^h)  harad  and  (ins)  phahad,  which 
are  nearly  synonymous,  according  to  some  Jewish  writers, 
mean  only  to  return  with  haste.  Thus,  Aben  Ezra,  on  the 
last  quotation  from  the  prophecies  of  Hosea  :  "  They  shall 
return  with  haste  to  the  Lord  and  his  goodness."— Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  Therefore  thy  gates  shall  be  open  con- 
tinually ;  they  shall  not  be  shut  day  nor  night ; 
that  men  may  bring  unto  thee  the  forces  of  the 
Gentiles,  and  that  their  kings  may  he  brought. 

Dr.  Boothroyd  says,  "  That  they  may  bring  to  thee  the 
wealth  of  the  nations,"  Of  a  wealthy  man  who  is  continu- 
ally adding  to  his  stores,  it  is  said,  "  His  gates  neither  day 
nor  night,  ako-rat-tiram,  are  closed."  Also  it  is  said  of  a 
charitable  king,  "  His  gates  are  always  open."  So  in  those 
days  of  glorious  accession  to  the  church,  "  Her  doors  shall 
be  open  continually,  and  day  and  night  shall  the  Gentiles 
be  gathered  into  her  pale." — Roberts. 

Ver.  1 4.  The  sons  also  of  them  that  afflicted  thee 
shall  come  bending  unto  thee;  and  all  they 
that  despised  thee  shall  bow  themselves  down 
at  the  soles  of  thy  feet;  and  they  shall  call 
thee,  The  city  of  the  Lord,  The  Zion  of  the 
Holy  One  of  Israel. 

"  Come  bending  unto  thee."  Who  in  the  East  has  not 
seen  the  humble  suppliant  come  bending  to  ask  forgiveness 
or  to  entreat  a  favour  1  See  him  go  stooping  along,  with 
his  hands  spread  out,  till  he  come  near  his  superior,  and 
then,  as  in  the  next  words,  he  bows  himself  down  at  his 
feet. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  LXI. 
Ver.  3.  To  appoint  unto  them  that  mourn  in 
Zion,  to  give  unto  them  beauty  for  ashes,.the  oil 
of  joy  for  mourning,  the  garment  of  praise  for 
the  spirit  of  heaviness :  that  they  might  be  call- 
ed Trees  of  Righteousness,  The  Planting  of 
the  Lord,  that  he  might  be  glorified. 

Perfumed  oils  are  very  expensive,  and  are  believed  to 
possess  MANY  virtues.  Except  for  medicinal  purposes,  they 
are  used  only  on  joyous  occasions.  "  My  friend,  why  are 
you  so  dejected  1  the  gods  shall  give  you  pare-malatiyalum," 
i.  e.  precious  or  odoriferous  ointment, — Roberts, 

Ver.  10,  I  will  greatly  rejoice  in  the  Lord,  my 
soul  shall  be  joyful  in  my  God;  for  he  hath 
clothed  me  with  the  garments  of  salvation,  he 
hath  covered  me  with  the  robe  of  righteousness, 
as  a  bridegroom  decketh  himself  with  orna- 
ments, and  as  a  bride  adorneth  herself  with  her 
jewels. 

It  would  be  considered  unfortunate  in  the  extreme  for  a 
bride  to  be  married  without  having  on  numerous  jewels  : 
hence  the  poorest  females,  those  who  have  not  a  farthing  in 
the  world,  may  be  seen  on  such  occasions  literally  covered 
with  jewels.  The  plan  is  this :— the  neigl  bours  and  friends 
of  the  poor  girl  lend  their  ornaments  ir  order  to  make  a 


Chap.  62,  63. 


ISAIAH. 


483 


splendid  show ;  and  I  have  not  known  an  instance  (except 
when  lost)  of  their  not  being  returned ;  which  may  be  con- 
sidered a  remarkable  fact  among  people  who  are  not  very 
famed  for  honest}^.  But  the  bridegroom  also  has  numerous 
ear-rings,  neck-rings,  chains,  breastplates,  and  finger-rings. 

"  I  will  greatly  rejoice as  a  bridegroom."    "  You 

ar'^^ar  lo  be  very  happy,  Chinnan  1" — "  Indeed  I  am  happy ; 
a»,;Q  it  is  like  the  joy  of  a  kalle-ydnum,"  i.  e.  marriage. 
"  Ah  I  my  heart  has  a  wedding  to-day,"  says  the  man  who 
is  in  great  pleasure.  "  Have  you  heard  of  the  joy  of  old 
Kandani"  "No,  why;  is  he  so  happy  1"  "Because  his 
daughter  has  kdlmare-poUdl,"i.  e.  literally,  changed  her  legs; 
meaning,  she  has  got  married.  "  Happy  man  should  I 
have  been  if  my  daughter  had  not  changed  her  legs,"  says 
the  father  whose  daughter  has  been  unfortunately  married. 
—Roberts. 

CHAPTER  LXII. 

Ver.  4.  Thou  shall  no  more  be  termed  Forsaken : 
neither  shall  thy  land  any  more  be  termed 
Desolate :  but  thou  shalt  be  called  Hephzibah, 
and  thy  land  Beulah  :  for  the  Lord  delighteth 
in  thee,  and  thy  land  shall  be  married. 

The  margin  has  for  Beulah,  married.  A  sovereign  is 
spoken  of  as  being  married  to  his  dominions :  they  mutually 
depend  upon  each  other.  When  a  king  takes  possessions 
from  another,  he  is  said  to  be  married  to  them.  Thus  in 
that  day  shall  God's  people,  and  their  inheritance,  be  mar- 
ried to  the  Lord. — Roberts. 

Ver.  5.  For  as  a  young-  man  marrieth  a  virgin, 
50  shall  thy  sons  marry  thee  :  and  as  the  bride- 
groom rejoiceth  over  the  bride,  so  shall  thy 
God  rejoice  over  thee. 

In  general,  no  youth  marries  a  widow  :  such  a  thing  I 
scarcely  ever  heard  of,  nor  will  it  ever  be,  except  under  some 
extraordinary  circumstance,  as  in  the  case  of  a  queen, 
princess,  or  great  heiress.  Even  widowers  also,  if  possible, 
always  marry  virgins. — Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  I  have  set  watchmen  upon  thy  walls,  O 
Jerusalem,  which  shall  never  hold  their  peace 
day  nor  night :  ye  that  make  mention  of  the 
Lord,  keep  not  silence. 

The  image  in  this  place  is  taken  from  the  temple  service, 
in  which  there  was  appointed  a  constant  watch  day  and 
night  by  the  Levites.  Now  the  watches  in  the  East,  even 
to  this  day,  are  performed  by  a  loud  cry  from  time  to  time 
by  the  watchmen,  to  mark  the  time,  and  that  very  frequent- 
ly, and  in  order  to  show  that  they  themselves  are  constantly 
attentive  to  their  duty.  "  The  watchmen  in  the  camp  of 
the  caravans  go  their  rounds,  crying  one  after  another,  God 
is  07te,  he  is  merciful ;  and  often  add,  take  heed  to  yourselves" 
(Tavernier.)  The  reader  will  observe  in  this  extract  how 
mention  is  made  of  the  name  of  God  by  the  watchmen. — 

— BURDER. 

Ver.  10.  Go  through,  go  through  the  gates;  pre-, 
pare  ye  the  way  of  the  people ;  cast  up,  cast 
up  the  highway ;  gather  out  the  stones ;  lift  up 
a  standard  for  the  people. 

The  situation  of  Babylcm,  on  the  river  Euphrates,  must 
have  made  causeways  necessary  to  those  that  had  occasion 
to  go  thither  or  come  from  thence,  as  marks  set  up  must 
have  been  very  requisite  to  those  that  had  to  pass  through 
the  deserts,  that  lay  between  Chaldea  and  Palestine :  to  both 
which  conveniences  Isaiah  seems  to  refer,  as  well  as  to  some 
other  circumstances  attending  eastern  travelling,  in  that 
passage  in  which  he  prophetically  describes  the  return  of 
Israel  from  Babylon.  The  passage  I  mean  is  in  the  close 
of  (he  62d  chapter :  "  Go  through,  go  through  the  gates ; 
prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  people,  cast  up,  cast  up  the  high- 
way ;  gather  out  the  stones ;  lift  up  a  standard  for  the  peo- 
ple. Behold,  the  Lord  hath  proclaimed  unto  the  end  of  the 
world.  Say  ye  to  the  daughter  of  Zion,  Behold,  thy  salva- 
tion Cometh." 


Irwin,  speaking  of  his  passing  through  the  deserts  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Nile,  in  his  going  from  Upper  Egj^pt  to 
Cairo,  tells  us,  "  that  after  leaving  a  certain  valley  which 
he  mentions,  their  road  lay  over  level  ground.  As  it  would 
be  next  to  an  impossibility  to  find  the  way  over  these  stony 
flats,  where  the  heavy  foot  of  a  camel  leaves  no  impression, 
the  different  bands  of  robbers,  wild  Arabs  he  means,  who 
frequent  that  desert,  have  heaped  up  stones  at  unequal  dis- 
tances, for  their  direction  through  this  desert.  We  have 
derived  great  assistance  from  the  robbers  in  this  respect, 
who  are  our  guides  when  the  marks  either  fail,  or  are  un- 
intelligible to  us."  After  which  he  remarks,  that  if  it  be 
considered,  that  this  road  to  Cairo  is  seldom  trodden,  it  is 
no  wonder  that  those  persons  they  had  with  them,  as  con- 
ductors, were  frequently  at  a  loss  to  determine  their  way 
through  this  desert.  The  learned  know  very  well,  that 
there  are  many  great  deserts  in  various  parts  of  the  East. 
and  in  particular  a  great  desert  between  Babylon  and  Judea  • 
and  as  Judea  was,  in  the  time  of  the  captivity,  an  abandoned 
country,  at  least  as  to  a  great  part  of  it,  and  the  road  through 
that  desert  might  have  been  much  neglected,  is  it  not  rea- 
sonable to  suppose,  that  the  piling  up  heaps  of  stones  might 
actually  be  of  considerable  importance,  to  facilitate  the  re- 
turn of  Israel  into  their  own  country  1  And  if  not,  is  it  not 
natural  to  suppose  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  their  return 
might  be  represented  by  want  of  such  works  1  And  conse- 
quently, that  that  clause  should  be  rendered,  not  gather  out 
the  stones,  but  throw  ye  up  heaps  of  stones,  that  you  may  b^ 
directed  in  your  march  through  the  most  difficult  and  dan- 
gerous places  where  you  are  to  pass.  It  is  certain  the  word 
"iVpD  sakkeloo,  tha.i  is  used  here  is,  confessedly,  in  every  other 
place  but  one,  Is.  v.  2,  used  to  signify  the  throwing  stones 
at  a  person,  after  which  they  were  wont  to  cover  them  with 
a  heap  of  them,  as  a  memorial  of  what  was  done;  see  par- 
ticularly the  account  of  the  punishment  of  Achan,  Josh.  vii. 
25,  26;  now  it  must  appear  somewhat  strange,  that  the 
same  word  should  signify  gathering  stones  up  in  order  to 
take  them  away,  and  also,  on  the  contrary,  to  cover  over  a 
person  or  a  spot  with  them,  thrown  up  on  a  heap.  And 
especially  when  the  stoning  the  ways,  that  is,  pouring  down 
heaps  of  stone,  at  proper  distances,  to  direct  travellers  in 
danger  of  mistaking  their  way,  is  so  natural  a  thought  in 
this  passage ;  while  we  find  few  or  no  traces  of  the  gather- 
ing stones  out  of  an  eastern  road,  to  make  journeying  more 
pleasant  to  the  traveller. — Harmer, 

CHAPTER  LXIII. 
Ver.  I.  Who  is  this  thatcometh  from  Edom,  with  \ 
died  garments  from  Bozrah?  this  that  is  glori- 
ous in  his  apparel,  travelling  in  the  greatness 
of  his  strength  ?  I  that  speak  in  righteousness, 
mighty  to  save.  2.  Wherefore  art  thou  red  in 
thine  apparel,  and  thy  garments  like  him  that 
treadeth  in  the  wine-fat?  3.  I  have  trodden 
the  wine-press  alone ;  and  of  the  people,  there 
was  none  with  me :  for  I  will  tread  them  in 
mine  anger,  and  trample  them  in  my  fury ;  and 
their  blood  shall  be  sprinkled  upon  my  gar- 
ments, and  I  will  stain  all  my  raiment. 

The  treading  of  grapes  and  olives  is  a  custom  to  which 
frequent  reference  is  made  by  the  inspired  writers.  The 
glorious  Redeemer  of  the  church  appeared  in  a  vision  to 
the  prophet,  in  the  garb  and  mien  of  a  mighty  conqueror 
returning  in  triumph  from  the  field  of  battle,  and  drew 
from  him  this  admiring  interrogation:  "Who  is  this  that 
Cometh  from  Edom,  with  died  garments  from  Bozrah  1 
this  that  is  glorious  in  his  apparel,  travelling  in  the  great- 
ness of  his  strength  1"  To  which  the  Saviour  answers : 
"I  that  speak  in  righteousness,  mighty  to  save."  The 
prophet  resumes:  "Wherefore  art  thou  red  in  thine  ap- 
parel, and  thy  garments  like  him  that  treadeth  in  the  wine- 
fat  V  And  Jehovah  Jesus  replies :  "  I  have  trodden  the 
wine-press  alone  ;  and  of  the  people,  there  was  none  with 
me ;  for  I  will  tread  them  in  mine  anger,  and  trample 
them  in  my  fury  ;  and  their  blood  shall  be  sprinkled  upon 
my  garments,  and  I  will  stain  all  my  raiment."  As  the 
raiment  of  the  treader  was  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  the 
grapes,  so  were  the  garments  of  the  Redeemer,  with  the 


484 


ISAIAH. 


Ohap.  63—65. 


blood  of  his  enemies,  that  were  as  effectually  and  easily 
crushed  by  his  almighty  power,  as  are  the  clusters  of  the 
vine  when  fully  ripe,"  beneath  the  feet  of  the  treader. 
The  same  figure  is  employed  in  the  book  of  Revelation,  to 
express  ihe  decisive  and  tearful  destruction  which  awaits 
the  man  of  sin  and  his  coadjutors,  that  refuse  to  turn 
from  the  error  of  their  way :  "  And  another  angel  came 
out  from  the  altar,  which  had  power  over  fire  ;  and  cried 
with  a  loud  cry  to  him  that  had  the  sharp  sickle,  saying. 
Thrust  in  thy  sharp  sickle,  and  gather  the  clusters  of  the 
vine  of  the  earth,  and  cast  it  into  the  great  wine-press  of 
the  wrath  of  God.  And  the  wine-press  was  trodden  with- 
out the  city,  and  blood  came  out  of  the  wine-press,  even 
unto  the  horses'  bridles,  by  the  space  of  a  thousand  and 
six  hundred  furlongs."  The  new  wines  in  some  places, 
are  always  poured  into  casks  that  had  been  kept  for  ages, 
and  after  remaining  on  the  old  lees  of  former  years,  are 
drawn  off  for  use,  which  adds  greatly  to  the  quality  of 
the  wine.  To  this  practice  the  words  of  the  prophet  evi- 
dently refer ;  "  And  in  this  mountain  shall  the  Lord  of 
liosts  make  unto  all  people  a  feast  of  fat  things,  a  feast 
of  wines  on  the  lees,  of  fat  things  full  of  marrow,  of  wines 
on  the  lees  well  refined." — Paxton. 

The  manner  of  pressing  grapes  is  as  follows :  having 
placed  them  in  a  hogshead,  a  man  with  naked  feet  gets  in 
and  treads  the  grapes :  in  about  half  an  hour's  time,  the 
juice  is  forced  out:   he  then  turns  the  lowest  grapes  up- 

f)ermost,  and  treads  them  for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
onger :  this  is  sufficient  to  squeeze  the  good  juice  out  of 
them,  for  an  additional  pressure  would  even  crush  the 
unripe  grapes,  and  give  the  whole  a  disagreeable  flavour. — 

BURDER. 

Ver.  13.  That  led  them  through  the  deep,  as  a 
horse  in  the  wilderness,  tkat  they  should  not 
stumble?  14.  As  a  beast  goeth  down  into  the 
valley,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  causeth  him  to 
rest ;  so  didst  thou  lead  thy  people,  to  make  thy- 
self a  glorious  name. 

The  prophet  Isaiah  makes  an  allusion  to  the  horse, 
which  is  apt,  from  the  difference  of  our  manners  and  feel- 
ings, to  leave  an  unfavourable  impression  upon  the  mind ; 
it  occurs  in  the  sixty-third  chapter,  and  runs  in  these 
terms :  "  That  led  them  through  the  deep,  as  a  horse  in 
the  wilderness,  that  they  should  not  stumble.  As  a  beast 
f  goeth  down  into  the  valley,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  caused 
him  to  rest :  so  didst  thou  lead  thy  people,  to  make  thyself 
a  glorious  name."  If  these  wordsbe  understood  as  merely 
referring  to  the  unobstructed  course  of  a  single  horse  in  the 
plain,  and  the  descent  of  a  beast  into  the  valley  to  repose, — 
the  allusion,  more  especially  considering  the  general  beauty 
and  sublimity  which  characterize  the  style  of  Isaiah,  seems 
rather  flat  and  mean ;  and  this  is  the  more  surprising, 
when  it  is  considered,  that  the  prophet  is  here  describing  a 
scene  by  which  the  Lord  acquired  to  himself  a  glorious 
name,  and  which,  by  consequence,  demanded  no  common 
strength  or  magnificence  of  thought.  Nor  does  it  appear 
for  what  reason^  in  order  to  rest,  a  herd  should  descend 
into  a  valley  ;  for  the  hills  must  be  equally  pleasing  and 
comfortable  places  of  repose  as  the  vales.  We  shall  find 
it  in  the  manners  of  the  Arabian,  to  which  the  simile  refers ; 
and  a  very  little  attention  is  necessary  to  convince  a  dis- 
passionate inquirer,  that  the  image  is  most  lively  and  mag- 
nificent. 

The  original  Hebrew  term  (did)  sous,  in  the  singular 
number,  denotes  both  a  single  horse,  and  a  body  of  cavalry. 
In  the  same  manner  we  use  the  word  horse,  "to  express  a 
single  animal  of  that  species,  and  at  other  times,  the  horse- 
men of  an  army.  In  the  book  of  Exodus,  sous  denotes  the 
horsemen  of  Pharaoh's  army  who  pursued  after  the  tribes 
of  Israel.  But  if  it  denote  the  horse  of  an  Egyptian  army, 
it  may,  with  equal  propriety,  denote  the  horse  or  cavalry  of 
an  Arabian  tribe.  Now,  Arabian  horses  are  remarkable 
for  the  surprising  swiftness  with  which  they  escape  the  hot- 
test pursuit  of  their  enemies.  In  two  hours  after  an  alarm 
is  given,  the  Arabs  strike  their  tents,  and  with  their  fami- 
lies, and  their  whole  property,  plunge  into  the  deepest  re- 
'  cesses  of  their  sandy  deserts,  which  the  boldest  and  most 

exasperated  enemy  dares  not  invade.    In  the  time  of  De  la 
*         Roque,  the  great  emir  of  Mount  Carmel  had  a  mare  which 


he  valued  at  more  than  five  thousand  crowns.  The  Arabi- 
ans, it  seems,  prefer  the  female  to  the  male  because  it  is 
more  gentle,  silent,  and  able  to  endure  fatigue,  hunger,  and 
thirst ;  qualities  in  which,  they  have  found  from  experience, 
the  former  excels  the  latter.  The  mare  which  the  emir  or 
prince  of  Carmel  rode,  had  carried  him  three  days  and  three 
nights  together,  without  eating  or  drinking,  and  by  this 
means  effectually  saved  him  from  the  pursuit  of  his  ene- 
mies. This  account  entirely  removes  the  apparent  mean* 
ness  of  the  prophetic  representation,  and  imparts  a  liveli- 
ness and  dignity  to  the  description.  At  the  moment  when 
Pharaoh  and  his  army  thought  the  people  of  Israel  were 
completely  in  their  power,  shut  in  by  the  sea  and  the  mount- 
ains, that  they  could  not  escape, — like  the  Arab  horsemen, 
they  decamped,  and  through  the  sea  marched  into  the  des- 
ert, whither  their  enemies  were  unable  to  follow.  If  the 
Arabian  horses  are  not  so  sure-footed  as  the  mule,  which 
Dr.  Shaw  afiirms,  it  will  account  for  the  next  clause  in  the 
same  verse :  "  As  a  horse  in  the  wilderness,  they  should 
not  stumble."  The  departure  of  Israel  from  the  land  of 
Egypt  was  sudden,  and  their  movements  were  rapid,  like 
those  of  an  Arab,  whom  his  enemy  has  surprised  in  his 
camp :  yet  no  misfortune  befell  them  in  their  retreat,  as  at 
times  overtakes  the  swiftest  and  surest-footed  horses.  The 
next  verse  may  be  explained  by  the  same  custom  :  "  As  a 
beast  or  herd  goeth  down  into  the  valley,  so  the  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  caused  him  to  rest."  The  Arab,  decamping  at 
the  first  alarm,  marches  off  with  his  flocks  and  herds,  his 
wife  and  children,  into  the  burning  deserts.  This  he  does, 
not  from  choice,  but  for  safety ;  and  by  consequence,  how 
proper  and  agreeable  soever  the  hills  maybe  for  pasturage, 
in  times  of  alarm  or  danger,  the  deep  sequestered  valley 
must  be  far  more  desirable.  The  custom  of  the  Arabs  in 
Barbary,  stated  by  Dr.  Shaw,  finely  illustrates  this  figure. 
About  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  his  party  began  to  look 
out  for  the  encampment  of  some  Arabian  horde,  who,  to 
prevent  such  numerous  parties  as  his  from  living  at  free 
charges  upon  them,  take  care  to  pitch  in  woods,  valleys,  or 
places  the  least  conspicuous.  And  he  confesses,  that  if  they 
nad  not  discovered  their  flocks,  the  smoke  of  their  tents,  or 
heard  the  barking  of  their  dogs,  they  had  either  not  found 
the  encampment  at  all,  or  with  extreme  diniculty. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  LXIV. 
Ver.  5.  Thou  meetest  him  that  rejoiceth  and 
worketh  righteousness :  those  that  remember 
thee  in  thy  ways :  behold,  thou  art  wroth  :  for 
we  have  sinned :  in  those  is  continuance,  and 
we  shall  be  saved. 

Does  a  man  expect  a  guest  for  whom  he  has  a  great 
regard,  he  goes  forth  to  meet  him.  Not  to  do  so  would 
show  a  great  deficiency  in  affection  and  etiquette. — Rob- 
erts. 

CHAPTER  LXV. 
Ver.  3.  A  people  that  provoketh  me  to  anger  con- 
tinually to  my  face ;  that  sacrificeth  in  gardens, 
and  burneth  incense  upon  altars  of  brick. 
See  on  ch,  1.  29. 

Ver.  4.  Which  remain  among  the  graves,  and 
lodge  in  the  monuments ;  which  eat  swine's 
flesh,  and  broth  of  abominable  things  is  in  their 
vessels ;  5.  Which  say.  Stand  by  thyself,  come 
not  near  to  me;  for  I  am  holier  than  thou. 
These  are  a  smoke  in  my  nose,  a  fire  that 
burneth  all  the  day. 

"  Come  not  near  to  me,  for  I  am  holier  than  thou," 
Here  we  have  another  instance  of  the  glaring  wickedness 
of  the  Jews,  in  their  imitation  of  the  heathen  devot«  es,  who 
resembled  the  Hindoo  Yogees.  Those  men  are  so  isolated 
by  their  superstition  and  penances,  that  they  hold  but  little 
intercourse  with  the  rest  of  mankind.  They  wander  about 
in  the  dark  in  the  place  of  burning  the  dead,  or  "  among 
the  graves;"  there  they  affect  to  hold  converse  with  evil 
and  other  spirits ;  and  there  they  pretend  to  receive  inti- 
mations respecting  .he  destinies  of  others.  They  will  eat 
things  which  are  religiously  clean  or  unclean ;  they  neither 


Chap.  66. 


ISAIAH.  485 


wash  their  bodies,  nor  comb  their  haic,  nor  cut  their  nails. 
nor  wear  clothes.  They  are  counted  to  be  most  holy,  among 
the  people,  and  are  looked  upon  as  beings  of  another  world. 
—Roberts. 

Ver.  22.  For  as  the  days  of  the  tree  are  the  days 
of  my  people. 

The  people  of  the  East  have  a  particular  desire  for  long 
life ;  hence  one  of  their  best  and  most  acceptable  wishes  is, 
"  May  you  live  a  thousand  years."  "  May  you  live  as  long 
as  the  oaM-tree,"  i.  e.  the  banyan  or  ficus  indica.  I  never 
saw  a  tree  of  that  description  dead,  except  when  struck  by 
lightning.  And  to  cut  one  down  would,  in  the  estimation 
of  a  Hindoo,  be  almost  as  great  a  sm  as  the  taking  of  life. 
I  do  not  think  this  tree  will  die  of  itself,  because  it  con- 
tinues to  let  fall  its  own  supporters,  and  will  march  over 
acres  of  land  if  not  interrupted.  Under  its  gigantic  branches 
the  beasts  of  the  forests  screen  themselves  from  the  heat  of 
the  sun  ;  and  under  its  sacred  shade  may  be  seen  the  most 
valued  temples  of  the  Hindoos. — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  LXVI. 
Ver.  12.  For  thus  saith  the  Lord,  Behold,  I  will 
extend  peace  to  her  like  a  river,  and  the  glory 
of  the  Gentiles  like  a  flowing  stream :  then 
shall  ye  suck,  ye  shall  be  borne  upon  Agr  sides, 
and  be  dandled  upon  her  knees.  13.  As  one 
whom  his  mother  comforteth,  so  will  I  comfort 
you  ;  and  ye  shall  be  comforted  in  Jerusalem. 

The  native  females  of  South  Africa,  when  at  home, 
literally  carry  about  their  children  on  their  side,  putting 
one  leg  of  the  child  behind,  and  the  other  before  her,  and 
resting  on  the  upper  part  of  the  hip.    The  child  clings  to 
her  side,  and  from  the  prolongation  of  her  breasts,  the 
mother  can  conveniently  suckle  it,  without  moving  it  from 
its  place.    When  I  saw  this  done,  it  had  always  a  very 
affectionate  appearance.    When  they  travel,  or  are  fleeing 
from  an  enemy,  they  carry  their  children  on  their  back, 
under  their  cloak,  their  heads  only  being  visible.     The  fe- 
males in  the  South  Sea  Islands  have  the  same  custom. 
Whether  that  part  of  the  passage  has  an  allusion  to  a  sim- 
I    ilar  practice  existing  among  Jewish  females,  I  know  not ; 
i    tut  this  I  know,  tliat  on  witnessing  the  African  custom,  I 
I    thought  of  the  above  text,  which  refers  to  a  peaceful  and 
j    prosperous  period,  when  God  should  act  in  the  kindest 
I    manner  towards  his  ransomed  people.    To  me,  when  I  saw 
I    it,  it  had  the  appearance  of  peace,  security,  and  affection. — 
Campbell. 

Ver.  17.  They  that  sanctify  themselves,  and  purify 
themselves  in  the  gardens,  behind  one  tree  in 
the  midst,  eating  swine's  flesh,  and  the  abomina- 
tion, and  the  mouse,  shall  be  consumed  together, 
saith  the  Lord. 

Not  only  sacred  groves  in  general,  but  the  centres  of 
such  groves  in  special,  were,  as  the  Abbe  Banier  has  ob- 
served, made  use  of  for  temples  by  the  first  and  most 
ancient  heathens.  Some  one  tree  in  the  centre  of  each 
such  grove  was  usually  had  in  more  eminent  and  special 
veneration,  being  made  the  penetrale  or  more  sacred  place, 
which,  doubtless,  they  intended  as  the  anti-symbol  of  the 
tree  of  life,  and  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  in  the 
midst  of  the  garden  of  Eden.  To  this  strange  abuse  alludes 
that  prophetic  censure  of  some,  who  sanctified  and  purified 
themselves  with  the  waters  of  their  sacred  fountains  and 
rivers  in  the  gardens  or  groves,  behind  one  tree  in  the 

midst. — BURDER. 

Ver.  20.  And  they  shall  bring  all  your  brethren 


for  an  offering  unto  the  Lord,  out  of  all  na- 
tions, upon  horses,  and  in  chariots,  and  in  lit- 
ters, and  upon  mules,  and  upon  swift  beasts,  to 
my  holy  mountain  Jerusalem,  saith  the  Lord, 
as  the  children  of  Israel  bring  an  offering  in  a 
clean  vessel  into  the  house  of  the  Lord. 

The  editor  of  the  Ruins  of  Palmyra  tells  us,  that  the 
caravran  they  formed,  to  go  to  that  place,  consisted  of  about 
two  hundred  persons,  and  about  the  same  number  of  beasts 
of  carriage,  which  were  an  odd  mixture  of  horses,  camels, 
mules,  and  asses ;  but  there  is  no  account  of  any  vehicle 
drawn  on  wheels  in  that  expedition  -,  nor  do  we  find  an  ac- 
count of  such  things  in  other  eastern  journeys.  There  are, 
however,  some  vehicles  among  them  used  for  the  sick,  or 
for  persons  of  high  distinction.  So  Pitts  observes,  in  his 
account  of  his  return  from  Mecca,  that  at  the  head  of  each 
division  some  great  gentleman  or  officer  was  carried  in  a 
thmg  like  a  horse-litter,  borne  by  two  camels,  one  before  and 
another  behind,  which  was  covered  all  over  with  searcloth, 
and  over  that  again  with  green  broadcloth,  and  set  forth 
very  handsomely.  If  he  had  a  wife  attending  him,  she  was 
carried  in  another.  This  is  apparently  a  mark  of  distinc- 
tion. There  is  another  eastern  vehicle  used  in  their  jour- 
neys, which  Thevenot  calls  a  coune.  He  tells  us,  the 
counes  are  hampers,  like  cradles,  carried  upon  camels* 
backs,  one  on  each  side,  having  a  back,  head,  and  sides, 
like  the  great  chairs  sick  people  sit  in.  A  man  rides  in 
each  of  these  counes,  and  over  them  they  lay  a  covering, 
which  keeps  them  both  from  the  rain  and  sun,  leaving,  as  it 
were,  a  window  before  and  behind  upon  the  camel's  back. 
The  riding  in  these  is  also,  according  to  Maillet,  a  mark  of 
distinction;  for,  speaking  of  the  pilgrimage  to  Mecca,  he 
says  ladies  of  any  figure  have  litters ;  others  are  carried  sit- 
ting in  chairs,  made  like  covered  cages,  hanging  on  both  sides 
of  a  camel ;  and  as  for  ordinary  women,  they  are  mounted 
on  camels  without  such  conveniences,  after  the  manner  of 
the  Arab  women,  and  cover  themselves  from  sight,  and  the 
heat  of  the  sun,  as  well  as  they  can,  with  their  veils.  These 
are  the  vehicles  which  are  in  present  use  in  the  Levant. 
Coaches,  on  the  other  hand.  Dr.  Russel  assures  us,  are  not 
in  use  at  Aleppo ;  nor  do  we  meet  with  any  account  of  their 
commonly  using  them  in  any  other  part  of  the  East:  but 
one  would  imagine,  that  if  ever  such  conveniences  as 
coaches  had  been  in  use,  they  would  not  have  been  laid 
aside  in  countries  where  ease  and  elegance  are  so  much 
consulted. 

As  the  caravans  of  the  returning  Israelites  are  described 
by  the  prophet,  as  composed,  like  Mr.  Dawkin's  to  Palmyra, 
of  horses  and  mules,  and  swift  beasts ;  so  are  we  to  under- 
stand, I  imagine,  the  other  terms  of  the  litters  and  counes, 
rather  than  of  coaches,  which  the  margin  mentions ;  or  of 
covered  wagons,  which  some  Dutch  commentators  suppose 
one  of  the  words  may  signify,  unluckily  transferring  the 
customs  of  their  own  country  to  the  East;  or  of  chariots,  in 
our  common  sense  of  the  word.  For  though  our  translators 
have  given  us  the  word  chariot,  in  many  passages  of  scrip- 
ture, those  wheel-vehicles  which  those  writers  speak  of,  and 
which  our  version  renders  chariots,  seem  to  have  been  mere 
warlike  machines ;  nor  do  we  ever  read  of  ladies  riding  in 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  a  word  derived  from  the  same 
original  is  made  use  of  for  a  seat  any  how  moved,  such  as 
the  mercy-seat,  1  Chron.  xxxviii.  18,  where  our  translators 
have  used  the  word  chariot,  but  which  was  no  more  of  a 
chariot,  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word,  than  a  litter  is ; 
it  is  made  use  of  also  for  that  sort  of  seat  mentioned  Lev. 
XV.  9,  which  they  have  rendered  saddle,  but  which  seems 
to  mean  a  litter,  or  a  coune.  In  these  vehicles  many  of  the 
Israelites  were  to  be  conducted,  according  to  the  prophet, 
not  on  the  account  of  sickness,  but  to  mark  out  the  emi- 
nence of  those  Jews,  and  to  express  the  great  respect  their 
conductors  should  have  for  them. — Harmer. 


JEREMIAH. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Ver.  11.  Moreover,  the  word  of  the  Lord  came 
unto  me,  saying,  Jeremiah,  what  seest  thou  ? 
And  I  said,  I  see  a  rod  of  an  almond-tree. 
12.  Then  said  the  Lord  unto  me,  Thou  hast 
well  seen :  for  I  will  hasten  my  word  to  per- 
form it. 

The  almond-tree,  so  irequently  mentioned  in  the  sacred 
writings,  was  called  by  the  Hebrew's  skakad,  from  a  verb 
which  signifies  to  awake,  or  watch ;  because  it  is  the  first 
tree  which  feels  the  genial  influences  of  the  sun,  after  the 
withering  rigours  of  winter.  It  flowers  in  the  month  of 
January,  and  in  the  warm  southern  latitudes  brings  its 
fruit  to"  maturity  in  March.  To  the  forwardness  of  the  al- 
mond, the  Lord  *jeems  to  refer  in  the  vision  with  which  he 
favoured  his  servant  Jeremiah  :  "  The  word  of  the  Lord 
came  unto  me,  saying,  Jeremiah,  what  seest  thou  1  And  I 
said,  I  see  a  rod  of  an  almond-tree.  Then  said  the  Lord 
unto  me,  Thou  hast  well  seen  ;  for  I  will  hasten  my  word 
to  perform  it;"  or  rather.  "I  am  hastening,  or  watching 
over  my  word  to  fulfil  it."  In  this  manner  it  is  rendered 
by  the  Seventy,  eypriynpn  eyo)  ETTi :  and  by  the  Vulgate,  Vi- 
gilabo  ego  super  verbum  meum.  This  is  the  first  vision 
with  which  the  prophet  was  honoured  ;  and  his  attention  is 
roused  by  a  very  significant  emblem  of  that  severe  correc- 
tion with  which  the  Most  High  was  hastening  to  visit  his 
people  for  their  iniquity ;  and  from  the  species  of  tree  to 
which  the  rod  belonged,  he  is  warned  of  its  near  approach. 
The  idea  which  the  appearance  of  the  almond  rod  suggest- 
ed to  his  mind,  is  confirmed  by  the  exposition  of  God  him- 
.self :  "  I  am  watching  over,  or  on  account  of  my  word,  to 
fulfil  it ;"  and  this  double  mode  of  instruction,  first  by  em- 
blem, and  then  by  exposition,  was  certainly  intended  to 
make  a  deeper  impression  on  the  mind,  both  of  Jeremiah 
and  the  people  to  whom  he  was  sent.  It  is  probable,  that 
the  rods  which  the  princes  of  Israel  bore,  were  scions  of  the 
almond-tree,  at  once  the  ensign  of  their  ofl^ce,  and  the  em- 
blem of  their  vigilance.  Such,  we  know  from  the  testimo- 
ny of  scripture,  was  the  rod  of  Aaron  ;  which  renders  it 
exceedingly  probable  that  the  rods  of  the  other  chiefs  were 
from  the  same  tree  :  "  And  Moses  spake  unto  the  children 
jf  Israel,  and  every  one  of  their  princes  gave  him  a  rod 
apiece,  for  each  prince,  according  to  their  fathers'  houses, 
twelve  rods ;  and  the  rod  of  Aaron  was  among  their  rods 
. .  .  and  behold  the  rod  of  Aaron,  for  the  house  of  Levi,  was 
budded,  and  brought  forth  buds,  and  bloomed  blossoms,  and 
yielded  almonds."  The  almond  rod  of  Aaron,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  Parkhurst,  which  was  withered  and  dead,  and  by  the 
miraculous  power  of  God  made  to  bud  and  blossom,  and 
bring  forth  almonds,  was  a  very  proper  emblem  of  him 
who  first  arose  from  the  grave;  and  as  the  light  and 
warmth  of  the  vernal  sun  seems  first  to  affect  the  same 
.symbolical  tree,  it  was  with  great  propriety  that  the  bowls 
of  the  golden  candlestick  were  shaped  like  almonds.  The 
hoary  head  is  beautifully  compared  by  Solomon  to  the  al- 
mond-tree, covered  in  the  earliest  days  of  spring  with  its 
snow-white  flowers,  before  a  single  leaf  has  budded :  "  The 
almond-tree  shall  flourish,  and  the  grasshopper  shall  be  a 
burden,  and  desire  shall  fail."  Man  has  existed  in  this 
world  but  a  few  days,  when  old  age  begins  to  appear; 
sheds  its  snows  upon  his  head ;  prematurely  nips  his  hopes, 
darkens  his  earthly  prospscts,  and  hurries  him  into  the 
grave. — Paxton. 

Ver.  13.  And  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  unto 
me  the  second  time,  saying.  What  seest  thou  ? 
And  I  said,  I  see  a  seething-pot,  and  the  face 
thereof  is  towards  the  north.     14.   Then  the 


Lord  said  unto  me,  Out  of  the  north  an  evil 
shall  break  forth  upon  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
land. 

To  compensate  in  some  measure  for  the  scarcity  of  fue., 
the  Orientals  endeavour  to  consume  as  little  as  possible  in 
preparing  their  victuals.  For  this  purpose  they  make  a 
hole  in  their  dwellings,  about  a  foot  and  a  half  deep,  in 
which  they  put  their  earthen  pots,  with  the  meat  m  them, 
closed  up,  about  the  half  above  the  middle;  three  fourth 
parts  they  lay  about  with  stones,  and  the  fourth  part  is  left 
open,  through  which  they  fling  in  their  dried  dung,  and 
any  other  combustible  substances  they  can  procure,  which 
burn  immediately,  and  produce  so  great  a  heat,  that  the  pot 
becomes  as  hot  as  if  it  stood  over  a  strong  fire  of  coals ;  so 
that  they  boil  their  meat  with  greater  expedition  and  much 
less  fuel,  than  it  can  be  done  upon  the  hearth.  The  hole 
in  which  the  pot  is  set,  has  an  aperture  on  one  side,  for  the 
purpose  of  receiving  the  fuel,  which  seems  to  be  what  Jer- 
emiah calls  the  face  of  the  pot :  "  I  see,"  said  the  prophet, 
"  a  pot,  and  the  face  thereof  is  towards  the  north;"  intima- 
ting that  the  fuel  to  heat  it  was  to  be  brought  from  that  quar- 
ter. This  emblematical  prediction  was  fulfilled  when  Neb- 
uchadnezzar, whose  dominions  lay  to  the  north  of  Palestine, 
led  his  armies  against  Jerusalem,  and  overturned  the  thrones 
of  the  house  of  David. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  6.  Neither  said  they,  Where  is  the  Lord 
that  brought  us  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt, 
that  led  us  through  the  wilderness ;  through  a 
land  of  deserts,  and  of  pits ;  through  a  land  of 
drought,  and  of  the  shadow  of  death ;  through 
a  land  that  no  man  passed  through,  and  where 
no  man  dwelt  ? 

The  account  that  Mr.  Irwin  has  given  of  that  part  of  this 
wilderness  which  lies  on  the  western  side  of  the  Red  Sea, 
through  the  northern  part  of  which  Israel  actually  passed, 
very  much  corresponds  with  this  description,  and  may 
serve  to  illustrate  it.  When  it  is  described  as  a  land  with- 
out water,  we  are  not  to  suppose  it  is  absolutely  without 
springs,  but  only  that  water  is  very  scarce  there.  Irwin 
accordingly  found  it  so.  On  the  first  day  after  his  setting 
out,  having  onlv  travelled  five  miles,  they  filled  thirty  wa- 
ter-skins from  the  river  Nile,  but  which  he  thought  might 
prove  little  enough  for  their  wants,  before  they  reached  the 
next  watering-place  They  travelled,  according  to  their 
computation,  fifty-four  miles  farther,  before  they  found, 
three  days  after,  a  spring,  at  which  they  could  procure  a; 
fresh  supply  ;  and  this  was  a  new  discovery  to  their  guides, 
and  for  which  they  w^ere  indebted  to  a  very  particular  ac- 
cident. It  was  not  till  the  following  day,  that  they  arrived 
at  the  valley  where  their  guides  expected  to  water  their 
camels,  and  where  accordingly  they  replenished  the  few 
skins  that  were  then  empty:  the  spring  was  seventy -nine  i 
miles  from  the  place  from  whence  they  set  out.  The  next 
spring  of  water  which  they  met  with  was,  according  to  their 
reckoning,  one  hundred  and  seventy-four  miles  distant 
from  the  last,  and  not  met  with  till  the  seventh  day  after, 
and  was,  therefore,  viewed  with  extreme  pleasure.  "At, 
nine  o'clock  we  came  suddenlv  upon  a  well,  which  is  situ- 
ated among  some  broken  ground.  The  sight  of  a  spring 
of  water  was  inexpressibly  agreeable  to  our  eyes,  which 
had  so  long  been  strangers  to  so  refreshing  an  object.  The 
next  day  they  found  another,  which  "  gushed  trom  a  rock, 
and  threw  itself  with  some  violence  into  a  basm,  which  it 
had  hollowed  for  itself  below.  We  had  no  occasion  for  a 
fresh  supply ;  but  could  not  help  lingering  a  few  minutes 


Chap.  2. 


JEREMIAH. 


487 


10  admire  a  sight,  so  pretty  in  itself,  and  so  bewitching  to 
our  eyes,  which  had  of  late  been  strangers  to  bubbling 
founts  and  limpid  streams." 

We  must  here  mention  the  smallness  of  the  quantity  of 
water  one  of  these  four  springs  afforded,  which  Irwin  met 
witli  in  the  desert,  or  at  least  the  difficulty  of  watering  their 
beants  at  it.  "  We  lost,"  says  this  writer,  "  the  greatest 
part  of  the  day  at  this  spring.  Though  our  skins  were 
presently  filled,  the  camels  were  yet  to  drink.  As  the 
camels  could  not  go  to  the  well,  a  hole  was  sunk  in  the 
earth  below  the  surface  of  the  spring,  over  which  a  skin 
was  spread,  to  retain  the  water  which  flowed  into  it.  At 
this  but  two  camels  could  drink  at  a  time ;  and  it  was  six 
hours  before  our  camels,  which  amounted  to  forty-eight  in 
all,  were  watered.  Each  camel,  therefore,  by  this  calcula- 
tion, takes  a  quarter  of  an  hour  to  quench  "his  enormous 
thirst ;  and  to  water  a  common  caravan  of  four  hundred 
'  amels,  at  such  a  place  as  this,  would  require  two  days  and 
two  nights.  A  most  unforeseen  and  inconceivable  delay  to 
an  uninformed  traveller !"  If  we  are  to  give  this  part  of 
the  prophet's  description  of  that  wilderness  a  popular  ex- 
planatic  n,  and  not  take  it  in  the  most  rigorous  sense,  we 
uught,  undoubtedly,  to  put  the  same  kind  of  construction 
on  the  two  last  clauses  of  it.  A  land  thai  no  man  passed 
through,  and  where  no  rrurn  dwelt:  a  land,  that  is  not  usually 
passed,  and  where  hardly  any  man  dwelt.  So  Irwin  de- 
scribes the  desert  of  Thebais  as  "  unknown  even  to  the  in- 
habitants of  the  country ;  and  which,  except  in  the  instances 
I  have  recited,  has  not  been  traversed  for  this  century  past 
by  any  but  the  outcasts  of  humankind."  Such  a  wilder- 
ness might  very  well  be  said  not  to  be  passed  through, 
when  only  two  or  three  companies  travelled  in  it  in  the 
compass  of  a  hundred  years,  and  that  on  account  of  extreme 
danger,  at  that  particular  time,  attending  the  common  route. 
He  actually  calls  it,  "a  road  seldom  or  never  trodden."  As 
to  its  being  inhabited,  Irwin  travelled,  by  his  estimation, 
above  300  miles  in  this  desert,  from  Ghinnah  to  the  towns 
on  the  Nile,  without  meeting  with  a  single  town,  village,  or 
house.  They  were  even  extremely  alarmed  at  seeing  the 
fresh  tracks  of  a  camel's  feet,  which  made  a  strong  impres- 
sion on  a  soft  soil,  and  which  the  Arabs  with  them  thought 
were  not  more  than  a  day  old ;  and  they  could  not  compre- 
hend what  business  could  bring  any  but  Arab  freebooters 
into  that  waste. 

When  the  prophet  describes  this  wilderness,  according 
to  our  version,  as  the  land  of  the  shadow  of  death,  his 
meaning  has  been  differently  understood  by  different  peo- 
ple. Some  have  supposed  it  to  mean  a  place  where  there 
were  no  comforts  or  conveniences  of  life  ;  but  this  seems 
too  general,  and  to  explain  it  as  a  particular  and  distinct 
member  of  the  description,  pointing  out  some  quality  dif- 
ferent from  the  other  circumstances  mentioned  by  Jeremiah, 
seems  to  be  a  more  just,  as  it  is  undoubtedly  a  more  lively 
way  of  interpreting  the  prophet.  Others  have  accordingly 
understood  this  clause  as  signifying,  it  was  the  habitation  of 
venomous  serpents,  or  destroying  beasts;  some  as  endanger- 
ing those  that  passed  through  it,  as  being  surrounded  by  the 
hostile  tribes  of  Arabs ;  some  as  being  overshadowed  by 
trees  of  a  deleterious  quality.  They  might  better  have  in- 
troduced the  whirlwinds  of  those  southern  deserts  than  the 
last  particular,  which  winds,  taking  up  the  sand  in  great 
quantities,  darken  the  air,  and  prove  fatal  to  the  traveller. 
This  last  would  be  giving  great  beauty  and  energy  to  the 
expression,  (the  shadow  of  death,)  since  these  clouds  of 
dust,  literally  speaking,  overshadow  those  that  have  the 
misfortune  to  be  then  passing  through  those  deserts,  and 
must  at  the  same  time  give  men  the  utmost  terror  of  being 
overwhelmed  by  them,  and  not  unfrequently  do  in  fact 
prove  deadly. 

Another  clause,  a  land  of  pits,  is  also  a  part  of  the  pro- 
phet's description.  Irwin  affords  a  good  comment  on  this 
part  of  our  translation:  m  one  place  he  says,  "The  path 
winded  round  the  side  of  the  mountain,  and  to  our  left,  a 
horrid  chasm,  some  hundred  fathoms  deep,  presented  itself 
to  cur  view.  It  is  surprising  no  accident  befell  the  loaded 
camels."  In  another,  "  On  each  side  of  us  were  perpen- 
dicular steeps  some  hundred  fathoms  de^p.  On  every  part 
is  such  a  wild  confusion  of  hanging  precipices,  disjointed 
rocks,  and  hideous  chasms,  that  we  might  well  cry  out  with 
the  poet,  *  Chaos  is  come  again.'  Omnipotent  Father!  to 
thee  we  trust  for  our  deliverance  from  the  perils  that  sur- 
round us.     It  was  through  this  wilderness  that  thou  didst  lead 


thy  chosen  people.  It  was  here  thou  didst  manifest  thy  signa. 
protection,  in  snatching  them  from  the  jaws  of  destruction 
which  opened  upon  every  side."  And  in  the  next  page,  "  At 
two  o'clock  we  came  suddenly  upon  a  dreadful  chasm  in  the 
road,  which  appears  to  have  been  the  effect  of  an  earthquake. 
It  is  about  three  hundred  yards  long,  one  hundred  yards 
wide,  and  as  many  deep;  and  what  is  a  curiosity,  in  the 
middle  of  ihe  gulf,  a  single  column  of  stone  raises  its  head 
to  the  surface  of  the  earth.  The  rudeness  of  the  work,  and 
the  astonishing  length  of  the  stone,  announce  it  to  be  a  lusus 
naturae,  though  the  robbers  declared  to  us,  that  beneath  the 
column  there  lies  a  prodigious  sum  of  money ;  and  added, 
with  a  grave  face,  they  have  a  tradition,  that  none  but  a 
Christian's  hand  can  remove  the  stone  to  come  at  it.  We 
rounded  the  gulf,  which  was  called  Somah,  and  leaving  it 
behind  us,  we  entered  a  valley  where  we  found  a  very 
craggy  road."  The  first  clause  in  this  passage,  through  a 
land  of  deserts,  is  the  most  obscure  and  difficult  to  ascertain . 
Instead  of  travelling  in  the  night,  as  he  had  proposed,  to 
avoid  the  burning  heat  of  the  sun,  he  says,  "  At  seven  o'clock 
we  halted  for  the  night.  The  Arabs  tell  us,  that  the  roads 
are  too  rugged  and  dangerous  lo  travel  over  in  the  dark." 
Under  the  next  day,  "  we  reached  the  foot  of  a  prodigious 
high  mountain,  which  we  cannot  ascend  in  the  dark."  The 
following  day  he  tells  us,  "  by  six  o'clock  we  had  accoutred 
our  camels,  and  leading  them  in  our  hands,  began  to  ascend 
the  mountain  on  foot ;  as  we  mounted  the  steep,  we  fre- 
quently blessed  ourselves  that  we  were  not  riding,  as  the 
path  was  so  narrow,  the  least  false  step  must  have  sent  the 
Deast  down  the  bordering  precipice."  Under  another  day 
he  remarks,  that  the  greatest  part  of  that  day's  journey  was 
"  over  a  succession  of  hills  and  dales,  where  the  road  was 
so  intricate  and  broken,  that  nothing  but  a  camel  could  get 
over  it.  The  appearance  of  the  road  is  so  frightful  in  many 
places,  that  we  do  not  wonder  why  our  people  have  hith- 
erto laid  by  in  the  night."    (Harmer.) 

"  After  we  had  passed  the  salt  desert,  we  came  to  the 
Malek-el-moat-dereh,  or  the  valley  of  the  an^el  of  death. 
This  extraordinary  appellaticn,  and  the  peculiar  nature  of 
the  whole  of  this  tract  of  land,  broken  into  deep  ravines, 
without  water,  of  a  dreariness  without  example,  will,  per- 
haps, be  found  forcibly  to  illustrate  Jer.  ii.  6."  (Morier.)— 

BURDER. 

Ver.  13.  For  my  people  have  committed  two 
evils ;  they  have  forsaken  me,  the  fountain  of 
living  waters,  and  hewed  them  out  cisterns, 
broken  cisterns,  that  can  hold  no  water. 

In  eastern  language,  "  living  water"  signifies  springing 
water,  that  which  bubbles  up.  The  people  had  forsaken  Je- 
hovah, the  never-failing  spring,  for  the  small  quantity  which 
could  be  contained  in  a  cistern;  nay,  in  broken  cisterns, 
which  would  let  out  the  water  as  fast  as  they  received  it. 
When  people  forsake  a  good  situation  for  that  which  is  bad, 
it  is  said,  "  Yes ;  the  stork  which  lived  on  the  borders  of  the 
lake,  where  there  was  a  never-failing  supply  of  water,  and 
constant  food,  has  gone  to  dwell  on  the  brink  of  a  well,"  i.  e. 
where  there  is  no  fish,  and  where  the  water  cannot  be  had. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  1 8.  And  now,  what  hast  thou  to  do  in  the  way 
of  Egypt,  to  drink  the  waters  of  Sihor?  or 
what  hast  thou  to  do  in  the  way  of  Assyria,  to 
drink  the  waters  of  the  river  1 

The  Euphrates  is  always  muddy,  and  the  water,  conse- 
quently, not  good  lo  drink,  unless  it  has  stood  an  hour  or 
two  in  earthen  vessels,  for  the  sand  and  impurities  to  settle, 
which  at  times  lie  half  a  finger  thick  at  the  bottom  of  the 
vessel.  Hence  it  was  not  without  reason  that  the  Lord 
said  to  the  Israelites,  by  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  "  What  hast 
thou  *o  flo  in  the  way  of  Assyria,  to  drink  the  waters  of  the 
ri^er  {"  (Euphrates.)  For  this  reason  we  find  in  the  houses 
of  the  city  and  villages,  particularly  those  lying  on  the 
Great  River,  many  large  earthen  vessels  holding  a  pailful 
or  two,  which  they  fill  from  the  Euphrates,  and  do  not  use 
till  the  impurities  have  settled  at  the  bottom,  unless  they 
are  very  thirsty,  and  then  they  drink  through  their  pocket- 
handkerchiefs."     (RaUWOlf) — ROSENMULLER. 

Ver.  25.  Withhold  thy  foot  from  being  unshod, 


488 


JEREMIAH, 


Chap.  2—4. 


and  thy  throat  from  thirst:   but  thou  saidst, 
There  is  no  hope :  no ;  for  I  have  loved  stran- 
gers, and  after  them  will  I  go. 
See  on  Ruth  4.  7. 

Ver.  37.  Yea,  thou  shalt  go  forth  from  him,  and 
thy  hands  upon  thy  head:  for  the  Lord  hath 
rejected  thy  confidences,  and  thou  shalt  not 
prosper  in  them. 

See  on  Matt.  11.  21. 

Impenitent  Jerusalem  was  to  be  punished  for  revolting 
against  God  ;  and,  as  a  token  of  her  misery,  she  was  to  go 
forth  with  her  "hands  on  her  head."  Tamar  "  laid  her 
hand  on  her  head,"  as  a  sign  of  her  degradation  and  sor- 
row. When  people  are  in  great  distress,  they  put  their 
hands  on  their  head,  the  fingers  being  clasped  on  the  top  of 
the  crown.  Should  a  man  who  is  plunged  into  wretched- 
ness meet  a  friend,  he  immediately  puts  his  hands  on  his 
head,  to  illustrate  his  circumstances.  When  a  person  hears 
of  the  death  of  a  relation  or  friend,  he  forthwith  clasps  his 
hands  on  his  head.  When  boys  have  been  punished  at 
school,  they  run  home  with  their  hands  on  the  same  place. 
Parents  are  much  displeased  and  alarmed,  when  they  see 
their  children  with  their  hands  in  that  position ;  because 
they  look  upon  it  not  merely  as  a  sign  of  grief,  but  as  an 
emblem  of  bad  fortune.  Thus  of  those  who  had  trusted  in 
Egypt  and  Assyria,  it  was  said,  "  Thou  shalt  be  ashamed" 
of  them :  and  they  were  to  go  forth  with  their  hands  on 
their  head,  in  token  of  their  degradation  and  misery. — 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  2.  Lift  up  thine  eyes  unto  the  high  places, 
and  see  where  thou  hast  not  been  lain  with :  in 
the  ways  hast  thou  sat  for  them,  as  the  Arabian 
in  the  wilderness ;  and  thou  hast  polluted  the 
land  with  thy  whoredoms,  and  with  thy  wick- 
edness. 

Every  one  knows  the  general  intention  of  the  prophet, 
out  Chardin  has  given  so  strong  and  lively  a  description  of 
\he  eagerness  that  attends  their  looking  out  for  prey,  that  I 
am  persuaded  my  readers  will  be  pleased  with  it.  '"  Thus 
the  Arabs  wait  for  caravans  with  the  most  violent  avidity, 
looking  about  them  on  all  sides,  raising  themselves  up  on 
their  horses,  running  here  and  there  to  see  if  they  cannot 
perceive  any  smoke,  or  dust,  or  tracks  on  the  ground,  or 
any  other  marks  of  people  passing  along." — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  13.  Behold,  he  shall  come  up  as  clouds,  and 
his  chariots  shall  he  as  a  whirlwind :  his  horses 
are  swifter  than  eagles.     Wo  unto  us  !  for  we 
are  spoiled. 
See  on  Isa.  &&.  20. 

Ver.  17.  As  keepers  of  a  field  are  they  against 
her  round  about;  because  she  hath  been  re- 
bellious against  me,  saith  the  Lord. 

In  Arabia,  and  probably  in  other  parts  of  the  East,  in- 
stead of  a  solitary  watchman  in  the  middle  of  the  plantation, 
they  place  guards  at  certain  distances  round  the  whole  field, 
increasing  or  diminishing  their  numbers  according  to  the 
supposed  danger.  This  custom  furnishes  a  clear  and  easy 
explanation  of  a  passage  in  the  prophecies  of  Jeremiah, 
where  he  solemnly  warns  his  people  of  their  approaching 
calamities :  "  As  keepers  of  a  field,  are  they  against  her 
round  about ;  because  she  hath  been  robellious  against  me, 
saith  the  Lord."— Paxton. 

Fields  in  the  East  have  not  fences  to  keep  off  cattle  and 
other  marauders,  but  only  low  embankments;  hence,  were 
there  not  keepers,  they  would  be  exposed  to  all  kinds  of 
depredations.  These  men  wander  about  the  ridges,  or 
spend  their  time  in  platting  baskets  or  pouches  forareca-nuts 
and  betel  l*>af ;  or  tend  a  few  sheep.  At  night  they  sleep 
in  a  small  stall,  about  six  feel  by  four,  which  stands  on  four 


legs,  and  is  thatched  with  leaves.  The  whole  affair  is  so 
light,  that  it  can  be  removed  in  its  complete  state  to  any 
other  part,  by  two  men ;  or  be  taken  to  pieces  in  a  few 
minutes,  and  removed  and  put  together,  by  one  man.  The 
frail  fabric  illustrates  the  "  lodge  in  a  garden  of  cucumbers." 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  30.  And  when  thou  art  spoiled,  what  wilt 
thou  do  ?  Though  thou  clothest  thyself  with 
crimson,  though  thou  deckest  thee  with  orna- 
ments of  gold,  though  thou  rendest  thy  face 
with  painting,  in  vain  shalt  thou  make  thyself 
fair;  thy  lovers  will  despise  thee,  they  will 
seek  thy  life. 

The  Hebrew  has,  instead  of  face,  "  eyes."  This  is  a 
minute  description  of  an  eastern  courtesan.  In  Ezekiel 
xxiii.  40,  similar  language  is  used :  "  For  whom  thou  didst 
wash  thyself,  paintedst  thine  eyes,  and  deckedst  thyself  with 
ornaments,  and  satest  upon  a  stately  bed."  Jezebel  also 
"painted  her  face,  and  tired  her  head,  and  looked  out  at  a 
window."  She  was  the  patroness  of  a  most  impure  system, 
and  the  term  "  whoredoms,"  as  applied  to  her,  may  be 
safely  used  in  the  most  obvious  sense.  The  females  allu- 
ded to  adorn  themselves  with  those  ornaments  which  have 
been  described  in  the  3d  chapter  of  Isaiah ;  and  having 
bathed,  they  rub  their  bodies  with  saffron,  to  make  them- 
selves fair ;  and  then  put  on  their  crimson  robes.  One 
kind  of  paint  with  which  they  teint  their  eyelids  is  made  of 
a  nut  called  kaduki,  which  is  first  burned  to  a  powder,  then 
mixed  with  castor-oil ;  after  which  it  is  set  on  fire,  and  that 
which  drops  from  it  is  the  paint  referred  to.  Another  kind 
is  made  of  the  juice  of  limes,  indigo,  and  saffron.  In  these 
allusions  we  see  again  the  hateful  and  loathsome  state  of 
Jerusalem. — Roberts. 

Several  authors,  and  Lady  M.  W.  Montague  in  particu- 
lar, have  taken  notice  of  the  custom  that  has  obtained  from 
time  immemorial  among  the  eastern  women,  of  tinging  the 
eyes  with  a  powder,  which,  at  a  distance,  or  by  candle-light, 
adds  very  much  to  the  blackness  of  them.  The  ancients 
call  the  mineral  substance,  with  which  this  was  done, 
stibium,  that  is,  antimony ;  but  Dr.  Shaw  tells  us,  it  is  a  rich 
lead  ore,  which,  according  to  the  description  of  naturalists, 
looks  very  much  like  antimony.  Those  that  are  unac- 
quainted with  that  substance  may  form  a  tolerable  idea  of 
it,  by  being  told  it  is  not  very  unlike  the  black-lead  of  which 
pencils  are  made,  that  are  in  everybody's  hands.  Pietro 
Delia  Valle,  giving  a  description  of  his  wife,  an  Assyrian 
lady,  born  in  Mesopotamia,  and  educated  at  Bagdad,  whom 
he  married  in  that  country,  says,  "  her  eyelashes,  which 
are  long,  and,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  East,  dressed 
with  stibium,  as  we  often  read  in  the  holy  scriptures  of  the 
Hebrew  women  of  old,  and  in  Xenophon,of  Astyages,  the 
grandfather  of  Cyrus,  and  of  the  Medes  of  that  time,  give 
a  dark  and  at  the  same  time  majestic  shade  to  the  eyes." 
"  Great  eyes,"  says  Sandys,  speaking  of  the  Turkish  women, 
"  they  have  in  principal  repute ;  and  of  those  the  blacker 
they  be  the  more  amiable  ;  insomuch  that  they  put  between 
the  eyelids  and  the  eye  a  certain  black  powder,  with  a  fine 
long  pencil,  made  of  a  mineral  brought  from  the  kingdom 
of  Fez,  and  called  alchole,  which  by  the  not  disagreeable 
staining  of  the  lids  doth  better  set  forth  the  whiteness  of  the 
eye;  and  though  it  be  troublesome  for  a  time,  yet  it  com- 
forteth  the  sight,  and  repelleth  ill  humours."  Dr.  Shaw 
furnishes  us  with  the  following  remarks  on  this  subject. 
"  But  none  of  these  ladies  take  themselves  to  be  completely 
dressed,  till  they  have  tinged  the  hair  and  edges  of  their 
eyelids  with  the  powder  of  lead-ore.  Now  as  this  opera- 
tion is  performed  by  dipping  first  into  the  poAvder  a  small 
woodei^  bodkin  of  the  thickness  of  a  quill,  and  then  draw- 
ing it  afterward  through  the  eyelids,  over  the  bail  of  the 
eye,  we  shall  have  a  lively  image  of  what  the  prophet  (Jer. 
iv.  30)  may  be  supposed  to  mean  by  rending  the  eyes  with 
fainting.  The  sooty  colour,  M^hich  is  in  this  manner  com- 
municated to  the  eyes,  is  thought  to  add  a  wonderful  grace- 
fulness to  persons  of  all  complexions.  The  practice  of  it, 
no  doubt,  is  of  ^reat  antiquity;  for  besides  the  instance 
already  taken  notice  of,  we  find  that  when  Jezebel  is  said, 
(2  Kings  ix.  30,)  to  have  painted  her  face, ihe  original  word*; 
are,  she  adjusted  her  eyes  with  the  poicder  of  lead-ore." — 

BORDER. 


Chap.  5,  6. 


JEREMIAH, 


489 


CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  6.  Wherefore  a  lion  out  of  the  forest  shall 
slay  them,  and  a  wolf  of  the  evenings  shall 
spoil  them,  a  leopard  shall  watch  over  their 
cities :  every  one  that  goeth  out  thence  shall  be 
torn  in  pieces  ;  because  their  transgressions  are 
many,  and  their  backslidings  are  increased. 

The  lion  prowls  about  in  the  day,  which  I  have  often 
witnessed  in  Africa ;  but  the  habits  of  the  wolf  are  differ- 
ent, as  it  seldom  makes  its  appearance  before  sunset,  after 
which  it  comes  forth,  like  other  thieves  of  the  night,  in 
search  of  prey.  I  never,  when  moving  about  in  Africa, 
saw  more  than  one  wolf  stalking  about  in  daylight,  and  that 
was  in  a  most  forsaken  part,  where,  to  a  great  extent,  the 
land  was  absolutely  paved  with  flag-stones,  the  same  as  the 
side  pavements  in  our  streets ;  but  when  night  came,  they 
were  constantly  howling  and  hovering  around  our  encamp- 
ment. The  habit  of  the  leopard,  also,  is  to  be  slumbering 
in  concealment  during  the  day ;  but  the  darkness  rouses 
him,  and  he  comes  forth  seeking  what  he  may  devour.  It 
is  of  the  tiger  species,  and  rather  smaller.  The  wolves  and 
leopards  should  have  the  boldness  to  prowl  about  their  cities, 
as  the  wild  beasts  did  about  our  wagons  in  the  wilderness, 
so  that  it  should  be  most  hazardous  for  man  or  beast  to  ven- 
ture outside  their  walls. — Campbell. 

The  rapacious  character  of  the  wolf  was  familiarly 
known  to  the  ancients,  for  both  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets 
frequently  mention  it.  In  the  first  book  of  the  Georgics, 
Virgil  says,  this  office  was  given  to  the  wolf  by  Jupiter,  to 
hunt  the  prey.  The  rapacious  wolf,  is  a  phrase  which  often 
occurs  in  the  odes  of  Horace ;  and  Ovid,  in  one  of  his 
Elegies,  sings,  how  the  wolf,  rapacious  and  greedy  of  blood, 
when  pressed  by  famine,  plunders  the  unguarded  fold :  his 
ravenous  temper  prompts  him  to  destructive  and  sanguin- 
ary depredations.  He  issues  forth  in  the  night,  traverses 
ihe  country,  and  not  only  kills  what  is  sufficient  to  satisfy 
his  hunger,  but,  everywhere,  unless  deterred  by  the  bark- 
ing of  dogs  or  the  vociferation  of  the  shepherds,  destroys  a 
whole  flock;  he  roams  about  the  cottages,  kills  all  the  ani- 
mals which  have  been  left  without,  digs  the  earth  under  the 
doors,  enters  with  a  dreadful  ferocity,,  and  puts  every  living 
creature  to  death,  before  he  chooses  to  depart,  and  carry  off 
his  prey.  When  these  inroads  happen  lo  be  fruitless,  he 
returns  to  the  woods,  searches  about  with  avidity,  follows 
the  track  of  wild  beasts,  and  pursues  them  in  the  hope  that 
they  may  be  stopped  and  seized  by  some  other  wolf,  and 
that  he  may  be  a  partaker  of  the  spoil.  "  To  appease  hun- 
ger," says  Buffon,  "  he  swallows  indiscriminately  every 
thing  he  can  find,  corrupted  flesh,  bones,  hair,  skins  half 
tanned  and  covered  with  lime ;"  and  Pliny  avers,  that  he 
devours  the  earth  on  which  he  treads,  to  satisfy  his  vora- 
cious appetite.  When  his  hunger  is  extreme,  he  loses  the 
idea  of  fear ;  he  attacks  women  and  children,  and  even 
sometimes  darts  upon  men ;  till,  becoming  perfectly  furious 
by  excessive  exertions,  he  generally  falls  asacrifice  to  pure 
rage  and  distraction.  He  has  been  accordingly  joined  with 
the  lion  in  executing  punishment  upon  wicked  men ;  and 
it  is  evident  from  his  character  and  habits,  that  he  is  well 
adapted  to  the  work  of  judgment :  "  The  great  men,"  said 
Jeremiah,  "  have  altogether  broken  the  yoke,  and  burst  the 
bonds;  wherefore  a  lion  out  of  the  forest  shall  slay  them, 
and  a  wolf  of  the  evenings  shall  spoil  them."  The  rapa- 
cious and  cruel  conduct  of  the  princes  of  Israel,  is  compared 
by  Ezekiel  to  the  mischievous  inroads  of  the  same  animal : 
"  Her  princes  in  the  midst  thereof,  are  like  wolves  ravening 
the  prey,  to  shed  blood,  to  destroy  souls,  to  get  dishonest 
gain."  The  disposition  of  the  wolf  to  attack  the  weaker 
animals,  especially  those  which  are  under  the  protection  of 
man,  is  alluded  to  by  our  Lord  in  the  parable  of  the  hire- 
ling shepherd  :  "  The  wolf  catches  them  and  scatters  the 
flock;"  and  the  apostle  Paul,  in  hL»  address  to  the  elders  of 
Ephesus,  gives  the  name  of  this  insidious  and  cruel  animal, 
to  the  false  teachers  who  disturbed  the  peace,  and  perverted 
the  faith  of  their  people :  "  I  know  this,  that  after  my  de- 
parting, shall  grievous  wolves  enter  in  among  you,  not 
sparing  the  flock."  Ovid  gives  him  the  same  character  in 
his  fable  of  Lycaon. — Paxton. 

Ver.  8.  They  were  as  fed  horses  in  the  morning : 
every  one  neighed  after  his  neighbour's  wife,     j 


The  same  term  is  used  in  the  East  to  denote  a  similar 
thing.  It  is  said,  "  Listen  to  that  evil  man,  he  is  always 
neighing."  "  O  that  wicked  one,  he  is  like  the  horse  in  his 
phrensy?'  "  The  men  of  that  family  are  all  neighers." 
Heathenism  is  ever  true  to  itself;  impurity  is  its  inseparable 
companion. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VL 

Ver.  1.  O  ye  children  of  Benjamin,  gather  your- 
selves to  flee  out  of  the  midst  of  Jerusalem,  and 
blow  the  trumpet  in  Tekoa,  and  set  up  a  sign 
of  fire  in  Beth-haccerem :  for  evil  appeareth  out 
of  the  north,  and  great  destruction. 

The  methods  by  which  the  besieged  in  time  of  war  en- 
deavoured to  defend  themselves  and  their  families  were 
various.  When  the  enemy  approached,  they  gave  notice 
to  their  confederates  to  hasten  their  assistance.  In  the  day, 
this  was  done  by  raising  a  great  smoke  ;  in  the  night,  by 
fires  or  lighted  torches.  If  the  flaming  torch  was  intended 
to  announce  the  arrival  of  friends,  it  was  held  still ;  but  on 
the  approach  of  an  enemy,  it  was  waved  backwards  and 
forwards,  an  apt  emblem  of  the  destructive  tumults  of  war. 
In  allusion  to  this  practice,  the  prophet  Jeremiah  calls  to  the 
people  of  Benjamin  and  Judah ;  "  Gather  yourselves  to  flee 
out  of  the  midst  of  Jerusalem,  and  blow  the  trumpet  in 
Tekoah,  and  set  up  a  sign  of  fire  in  Beth-haccerem;  for 
evil  approaches  out  of  the  north,  and  great  destruction." — 
Paxton. 

In  Beth-haccerem  there  might  possibly  be  a  very  high 
tower.  Kimchi  observes  that  the  word  signifies  a  high 
tower,  for  the  keepers  of  the  vines  to  watch  in.  If  it  were 
so,  it  was  a  very  proper  place  to  set  up  the  sign  of  fire  in, 
to  give  notice  to  all  the  surrounding  country.  It  was  usual 
with  the  Persians,  Grecians,  and  Romans,  to  signify  in  the 
night  by  signs  of  fire,  and  by  burning  torches,  either  the 
approach  of  an  enemy,  or  succour  from  friends.  The  for- 
mer was  done  by  shaking  and  moving  their  torches ;  the 
latter  by  holding  them  still.— Burder. 

Ver.  2.  I  have  likened  the  daughter  of  Zion  to  a 
comely  and  delicate  woman. 

A  passage  of  DArvieux  will  account  for  that  surprise, 
which  he  supposes  the  daughters  of  Jerusalem  would  not- 
withstanding feel,  upon  seeing  the  swarthiness  of  the  per- 
son which  Solomon  had  chosen  for  his  spouse,  as  it  shows 
the  attention  usually  paid  by  the  great  men  of  the  East  to 
the  complexion  of  their  wives,  as  well  as  the  great  tanning 
power  of  the  sun  in  Palestine.'  "  The  princesses,  and  the 
other  Arab  ladies,  whom  they  showed  me  from  a  private 
place  of  the  tent,  appeared  to  me  beautiful  and  well-shaped ; 
one  may  judge  by  these,  and  by  what  they  told  me  of  them, 
that  the  rest  are  no  less  so ;  they  are  very  fair,  because  they 
are  always  kept  from  the  sun.  The  women  in  common 
are  extremely  sunburnt,  besides  the  brown  and  swarthy 
colour  which  they  naturally  have,"  &g.  Naturally,  he  says, 
though  this  most  permaneiat  swarthiness  must  arise  from 
the  same  cause  with  that  temporary  tanning  he  speaks  of, 
or  otherwise  the  Arab  princesses  would  have  been  swarthy, 
though  not  sunburnt,  being  natives  of  the  country,  which 
yet,  he  aflirms,  they  were  not. 

It  is  on  this  account,  without  doubt,  that  the  prophet 
Jeremiah,  when  he  would  describe  a  comely  woman,  de- 
scribes her  by  the  character  of  one  that  dwelleth  at  home. 
The  delicate,  and  those  that  are  solicitous  to  preserve  their 
beauty,  go  very  little  abroad  :  it  seems  it  was  so  anciently, 
and  therefore  the  prophet  uses  a  term  to  express  a  woman 
of  beauty,  which  would  not  be  very  applicable  to  many 
British  fine  ladies. — Harmer. 

Ver.  20.  To  wha|. purpose  cometh  there  to  me  in- 
cense from  Sheba,  and  the  sweet  cane  from  a 
far  country  ?  your  burnt-offerings  are  not  ac- 
ceptable, nor  your  sacrifices  sweet  unto  me. 

The  sweet-smelling  reed  grows  in  the  deserts  of  Arabia. 
It  is  gathered  near  Jambo,  a  port  town  of  Arabia  Petrea, 
from  whence  it  is  brought  into  Egvpt.  Pliny  says  it  is 
common  to  India  and  Syria,     This  plant  was  probably 


490 


JEREMIAH, 


Chap.  6—8. 


among  the  number  of  those  which  the  queen  of  Sheba 
presented  to  Solomon;  and  what  seems  to  confirm  the 
opinion  is,  that  it  is  still  very  much  esteemed  by  the  Arabs 
on  account  of  its  fragrance. 

It  is  likely  the  sweet  cane  of  Jeremiah,  who  calls  it 
prim«,  or  excellent^  and  associates  it  with  incense  from 
Sheba.  "  To  what  purpose  cometh  there  to  me  incense 
from  Sheba,  and  the  sweet  cane  from  a  far  country'?" 
And,  in  allusion  to  the  same  plant,  Isaiah  complains  in  the 
name  of  Jehovah,  "  Thou  hast  bought  me  no  sweet  cane 
with  money."  Ii^  the  book  of  Exodus,  it  is  called  "  sweet 
calamus,"  and  is  said  to  come  "  from  a  far  country ;"  which 
agrees  with  the  declaration  of  ancient  writers,  that  the  best 
is  brought  from  India. — Paxton. 

Ver.  24.  We  have  heard  the  fame  thereof;  our 
hands  wax  feeble :  anguish  hath  taken  hold  of 
us,  and  pain  as  of  a  woman  in  travail. 

When  a  person  is  hungry,  or  weary,  or  when  he  hears 
bad  news,  it  is  said,  "  His  hands  have  become  weak." 
"  His  hands  have  turned  cold." — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  34.  Then  will  I  cause  to  cease  from  the 
cities  of  Judah,  and  from  the  streets  of  Jerusa- 
lem, the  voice  of  mirth,  and  the  voice  of  glad- 
ness, the  voice  of  the  bridegroom,  and  the  voice 
of  the  bride ;  for  the  land  shall  be  desolate. 

It  was  the  custom  in  the  East,  even  in  modern  times,  to 
conduct  the  bride  and  bridegroom  through  the  streets,  with 
the  loudest  demonstrations  of  joy.  Rauwolf  found  this 
custom  also  prevalent  in  Aleppo.  "  When  a  Turkish 
woman  is  going  to  be  married,  and  the  bridegroom  is  con- 
iucted  to  her  house,  their  relations  and  friends,  who  are 
invited  to  the  weddmg,  as  they  go  along  through  the  streets 
cry  with  such  a  loud  voice,  which  they  gradually  raise  as 
they  advance,  that  they  can  be  heard  from  one  street  to  the 
other."  When  the  prophet  paints  a  period  of  public  distress, 
he  says  among  other  things,  "  The  voice  of  the  bride  and  the 
bridegroom  shall  no  longer  be  heard."  Thus,  in  Persia, 
no  marriages  are  celebrated  during  Lent,  (the  month  of 
Ramadan,)  and  the  solemnities  of  mourning  in  memory  of 
Hossein ;  because  every  thing  must  then  be  still  and  mourn- 
ful.   (Olearius.) — Rosenmuller. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  7.  Yea,  the  stork  in  the  heaven  knoweth 
her  appointed  times;  and  the  turtle,  and  the 
crane,  and  the  swallow,  observe  the  time  of 
their  coming:  but  my  people  know  not  the 
judgment  of  the  Lord. 

See  on  Ps.  104.  17. 

Some  interpreters  imagine,  that  by  the  phrase,  "the 
stork  in  the  heaven,"  the  prophet  means  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  manner  of  her  departure,  and  that  of  other 
migrating  birds.  The  storks  collect  in  immense  numbers, 
and  darken  the  air  with  their  wide-extended  squadrons,  as 
they  wing  their  flight  to  other  climes ;  while  many  other 
birds  of  passage  come  and  go  in  a  more  private  and  con- 
cealed manner.  But,  if  this  was  the  prophet's  design,  he 
ought  not  to  have  introduced  the  crane,  or  our  translators 
should  have  found  another  sense  for  the  term  which  he 
uses;  for  the  crane  is  seen  pursuing  her  annual  journey 
through  the  heavens  equally  as  the  stork,  and  in  numbers 
sufficient  to  engage  the  public  attention.  When  Dr.  Chandler 
was  in  Asia,  about  the  end  of  August,  he  saw  cranes  flying 
in  vast  caravans,  passing  high  in  tie  air,  from  Thrace  as 
he  supposed,  on  their  way  to  Eg>'pt.  But,  in  the  end  of 
March,  he  saw  them  in  the  Lesser  Asia,  busily  engaged 
in  picking  up  reptiles,  or  building  their  nests.  Some  of 
them,  he  assures  us,  built  their  nests  in  the  ruins  of  an  old 
fortress ;  and  that  the  return  of  the  crane,  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  bees  to  work,  are  considered  there  as  a  sure 
sign  that  the  winter  is  past. 

The  first  clause  of  that  verse  then,  equally  suits  the  stork 
and  the  crane;  and  by  consequence,  the  conjecture  of  these 


interpreters  is  unfounded.  It  is  more  natural  to  suppose, 
that  the  prophet  alludes  to  the  impression  which  the  atmo- 
sphere makes  upon  these  birds,  and  the  hint  which  instiiict 
immediately  suggests,  that  the  time  of  their  migration  is 
come.  As  soon  as  they  feel  the  cold  season  approaching, 
or  tepid  airs  beginning  to  soften  the  rigours  of  winter,  in 
the  open  firmament  of  heaven,  where  they  love  to  range, 
they  perceive  the  necessity  of  making  preparations  for 
their  departure,  or  their  return.  The  state  of  the  v/eather 
is  the  only  monitor  they  need  to  prepare  for  their  journey, 
— their  own  feelings,  the  only  guides  to  direct  their  long 
and  adventurous  wanderings. 

But  it  is  most  probable  that  the  prophet  by  these  words, 
"  in  the  heaven,"  which  by  the  structure  of  the  clause  he 
seems  to  apply  exclusively  to  the  stork,  as  a  peculiar  trait 
in  her  character,  intends  to  express  both  the  astonishing 
rapidity  of  her  flight,  when  she  starts  for  distant  regions, 
and  the  amazing  height  to  which  she  soars.  She  is  beyond 
almost  any  other,  a  bird  "  in  the  heaven,"  journeying  on 
the  very  inargin  of  ether,  far  above  the  range  of  the  hu- 
man eye. 

From  the  union  of  the  stork  and  the  crane  in  the  same 
passage,  from  the  similarity  of  their  form  and  habits  of 
life,  Harmer  thinks  it  by  no  means  improbable,  that  the 
Hebrew  word  Msida  signifies  both  these,  and,  in  one  word, 
the  whole  class  of  birds  that  come  under  the  prophet's  de- 
scriolion.  But  that  respectable  writer  has  no  foundation 
for  nis  opinion ;  the  stork  and  the  crane,  although  they 
resemble  each  other  in  severial  particulars,  belong  to  dif- 
ferent families,  and  are  distinguished  in  Hebrew  by  diffe- 
rent names. 

The  return  of  these  birds  to  the  south,  marked  the 
approach  of  winter,  and  the  time  for  the  mariner  to  lay  up 
his  frail  bark ;  for  the  ancients  never  ventured  to  sea  dur- 
ing that  stormy  season.  Stillingfleet  has  given  a  quotation 
from  Aristophanes,  Avhich  is  quite  appropriate.  The  crane 
points  out  the  time  for  sowing,  when  she  flies  with  her 
warning  notes  to  Egypt ;  she  bids  the  sailor  hang  up  his 
rudder  and  take  his  rest,  and  every  prudent  man  provid© 
himself  with  winter  garments.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
flight  of  these  birds  towards  the  north,  proclaimed  the  ap 
proach  of  spring.  The  prophet  accordingly  mentions  tha 
times  appointed  for  the  stork  in  the  plural  number,  which 
is  probably  used  to  express  both  the  time  of  her  coming  and 
of  her  departure. 

No  doubt  is  entertained  about  the  meaning  of  the  second 
term ;  it  is  universally  allowed  to  denote  the  turtle;  and  as 
the  voice  of  the  turtle  and  the  song  of  the  nightingale  are 
coincident,  it  seems  to  be'  the  prophet's  intention  to  mark 
out  the  coming  of  a  bird  later  in  the  spring  than  the  hasida, 
for,  according  to  Chardin,  the  nightingale  begins  to  be 
heard  some  days  later  than  the  appearance  of  the  stork,  and 
marks  out  the  beginning  of  spring,  as  the  stork  indicates 
the  termination  of  winter.— Paxton. 

Should  a  husband  be  fond  of  roving  from  his  house,  and 
remaining  in  other  places,  his  wife  says,  "  The  storks 
know  their  time  and  place,  but  my  husband  does  not  know." 
"  In  the  rain  neither  the  Koku  nor  other  birds  will  depart 
from  their  nestlings :  but  my  husband  is  always  leaving  us." 
"  Ah!  my  wicked  son  !  would  that  he,  as  the  stork,  knew 
his  appointed  time  and  place  !" — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  For  behold,  I  will  send  serpents,  cocka- 
trices, among  you,  which  will  not  be  charmed, 
and  they  shall  bite  you,  saith  the  Lord. 

See  on  Eccl.  10.  11.  Ps.  58.  5,  6.  and  Is.  11.  8. 

The  East  Indian  jugglers  ascribe  it  to  the  power  of  a 
certain  root  that  they  touch  venomous  serpents  without 
danger,  and  are  able  to  do  with  them  whatever  they  please. 
This  is  confirmed  by  one  of  the  best-informed  and  rnost 
judicious  observers,  Mr.  Kaempfer,  a  German  physician, 
who  practised  his  profession  from  the  year  1682,  for  twelve 
years,  in  several  countries  in  Asia.  In  his  instructive 
work,  written  in  Latin,  in  which  he  has  recorded  the  great- 
er part  of  his  observations,  a  separate  chapter  is  dedicated 
to  the  arts  of  the  East  India  charmers  of  serpents,  the  sub- 
stance of  which  we  will  add  here. 

"  Among  the  arts  of  the  Indian  jugglers  and  mounte- 
banks, the  most  remarkable  is,  that  they  make  one  of  the 
most  venomous  serpents,  the  Naja,  called  by  the  Portuguese  < 
Cobra  de  Cabello,  dance.     This  serpent,  so  dangerous  to 


Chap.  9. 


JEREMIAH. 


491 


man,  infuses,  by  its  bite,  a  most  deadly  poison  into  the 
wound.  Those  who  are  bit  by  it  are  immediately  seized 
with  fits  and  oppression,  and  expire  in  convulsions,  unless 
speedy  assistance  is  given ;  at  least  they  hardly  escape 
monification,  in  the  injur«^d  part,  and  the  cure  of  which  is 
difficult,  if  antidotes  are  applied  too  late.  This  serpent, 
which  belongs  to  the  class  of  vipers,  is  fromlhree  to  four 
fuet  long,  and  of  a  middling  thickness ;  its  skin  is  scaly, 
and  beautifully  striped,  rough,  dark  brown,  and  belly 
white.  When  provoked,  this  viper  has  the  peculiar  prop- 
erty of  puthng  up  the  skin  on  both  sides  of  the  neck,  and 
e  ctending  it  like  a  fillet,  which,  on  the  reverse  side,  shows 
liife  a  pair  of  spectacles,  distinctly  marked  with  a  white 
colour,  the  circles  of  which  are  visible  in  the  skin,  which 
is  spread  round  the  head :  thus,  with  its  body  raised,  and 
extended  jaws,  displaying  two  rows  of  sharp  teeth,  it  darts 
upon  the  enemy  with  surprising  swiftness.  That  this  for- 
midable animal  should  be  brought,  by  singing,  to  make, 
before  spectators,  movements  resembling  a  dance,  is  incred- 
ible to  those  who  hear  it,  and  an  agreeable  and  astonishing 
sight  to  those  that  witness  it.  But  if  we  examine  this  ser- 
pent dance  more  closely,  and  learn  how  these  animals  are 
taught,  we  shall  find  every  thing  very  natural :  I  will  first 
describe  the  dance,  as  it  is  called. 

"  A  charmer  of  serpents,  who  intends  to  display  his  art, 
before  he  does  any  thing,  takes  a  piece  of  a  certain  root,  of 
which  he  always  carries  some  in  the  scarf  which  he  wears 
round  his  waist,  in  his  right  hand,  which  he  closes  firmly ; 
this  root,  according  to  his  declaration,  defends  him  against 
all  attacks  from  serpents,  so  that  he  can  do  any  thing  with 
Ihem  without  being  endangered  :  upon  this,  he  throws  the 
serpent  upon  the  ground  out  of  the  vessel  in  which  he  car- 
ries it  about,  and  gently  irritates  it  with  a  stick,  or  with  the 
clinched  fist  in  which  he  holds  this  root.  The  provoked 
animal,  resting  on  the  point  of  its  tail,  raises  up  its  whole 
body,  and  darts  upon  the  fist,  which  he  holds  out  to  him, 
with  extended  jaws,  from  which  the  hissing  tongue  is  pro- 
truded, and  with  flaming  eyes.  The  charmer  now  begins 
his  song,  at  the  same  time  moving  his  fist  backward  and 
forward,  up  and  down,  according  to  the  time.  The  ser- 
pent, with  its  eyes  constantly  directed  towards  the  fist, 
imitates  its  movements  with  its  head  and  whole  body,  so 
that  without  quitting  its  place,  and  resting  on  its  tail,  it  ex- 
tends its  head  two  spans  long,  and  moves  to  and  fro,  to- 
gether with  the  body,  in  beautiful  undulations,  which  is 
called  dancing :  this,  however,  does  not  last  longer  than 
half  a  quarter  of  an  hour;  for,  exhausted  by  the  erect  posi- 
tion, and  movements  to  the  time,  the  serpent  throws  itself 
upon  the  ground  and  escapes :  to  avoid  this,  the  charmer 
breaks  off  his  song  a  little  before,  when  the  serpent  lays 
itself  quietly  uponlhe  ground,  and  suffers  itself  to  be  brought 
back  to  its  receptacle, 

"  The  question  now  is,  how  it  is  effected,  that  the  serpent 
follows  the  motion  of  the  hand  which  is  held  before  it  1 
whether  by  the  secret  power  of  the  root  held  in  it  1  or  by 
the  song  of  the  charmer  1  These  people,  indeed,  affirm 
that  this  effect  is  produced  by  both.  The  root,  say  they, 
causes  the  serpent  to  do  no  harm,  and  the  song  makes  "it 
dance.  They,  therefore,  bring  this  root  to  the  spectators  to 
purchase,  and  do  not  much  like  to  let  any  one  approach  a 
dancing  serpent  without  having  previously  secured  himself 
with  it;  but  that  others  may  not  be  able  to  discov^er  what 
root  it  is,  they  cut  them  only  in  very  small  pieces,  which 
in  taste  and  external  appearance  resemble  the  sarsaparilla, 
but  are  only  a  little  stronger.  But  we  must  not  believe  that 
the  root  makes  the  serpent  harmless,  and  that  the  song 
makes  it  dance.  I  threw  two  pieces  of  the  root,  which  I 
had  purchased  for  a  trifle  from  a  charmer,  to  a  serpent 
which  was  quietly  lying  on  the  ground  after  the  dance  was 
finished  ;  but  it  did  not  cause  it  to  move,  nor  did  it  show 
any  sign  of  aversion.  But  no  person  of  sense  in  our  days, 
probably,  can  believe  that  serpents  are  so  charmed  by  the 
song,  that  they  dance  ;  and  David,  in  the  well-known  pas- 
sage in  the  Psalms,  does  not  appear  to  say  this.  In  short, 
according  to  my  conviction,  it  is  only  fear,  by  which  this 
ppecies  of  serpents,  which  is  more  docile  than  any  other, 
is  taught  to  follow  the  motions  of  its  master's  hand,  which 
*s  held  before  it,  and  so  makes  movements  with  its  body 
resembling  a  dance.  I  myself  saw  how  a  Hindoo  of  the 
Bramin  tribe,  who  lived  in  a  suburb  of  Nagapatam,  in- 
ftructed  such  a  serpent  to  dance  in  a  few  days,  by  means  of 
a  5 tick  and  a  basin,  which  he  held  before  it:  they  are  ren- 


dered harmless  by  employing  the  poison-bags  at  the  root  of 
the  canine  teeth  of  the  upper  jaw,  which  is  done  by  provok- 
ing them,  and  making  them  bite  a  cloth,  or  some  other  soft 
and  warm  body,  and  repeating  this  for  some  days  succes- 
sively."— BURDER. 

Ver.  20.  The  harvest  is  past,  the  summer  is  end- 
ed, and  we  are  not  saved. 

Has  a  man  lost  a  good  situation,  it  is  said,  "  His  harvest 
is  past."  Is  a  person  amassing  much  money,  it  is  said, 
"  He  is  gathering  in  his  harvest."— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  1.  Oh  that  my  head  were  waters,  and  mine 
eyes  a  fountain  of  tears,  that  I  might  weep  day 
and  night  for  the  slain  of  the  daughter  of  my 
people ! 

The  marginal  reading  intimates  the  head  was  exhausted, 
the  fountain  was  dry.  People  in  prospect  of  great  misery, 
ask,  "  Have  we  waters  in  our  heads  for  that  grief "?"  ••  That 
my  sorrows  may  not  dry  up,  these  eyes  are  always  weep- 
ing."— Roberts. 

Ver.  2.  Oh  that  I  had  in  the  wilderness  a  lodg- 
ing-place of  wayfaring  men,  that  I  might  leave 
my  people,  and  go  from  them !  for  they  be  all 
adulterers,  an  assembly  of  treacherous  men. 

People  in  the  East,  on  their  journeys  to  other  towns  or 
countries,  are  obliged  to  travel  through  the  most  lonely 
wilds.  Hence  the  native  sovereigns,  or  opulent  men,  erect 
what  are  called  rest-houses,  or  choultries,  where  the  trav- 
ellers or  pilgrims  reside  for  the  night.  It  is  in  the  wilder- 
ness where  the  devotees  and  ascetics  live  retired  from 
men  :  there,  either  for  life,  or  for  a  short  period,  they  per- 
form their  austerities,  and  live  in  cynical  contempt  of  man. 
When  a  father  is  angry  with  his  family,  he  often  exclaims, 
"  If  I  had  but  a  shade  in  the  wilderness,  then  should  I  be 
happy :  I  will  become  a  pilgrim,  and  leave  you."  Nor  is 
this  mere  empty  declamation  to  alarm  his  family ;  for  num- 
bers in  every  town  and  village  thus  leave  their  homes,  and 
are  never  heard  of  more.  There  are,  however,  many  who 
remain  absent  for  a  few  months  or  years,  and  then  return. 
Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  no  wonder,  when  a  father 
or  husband  threatens  his  family  he  will  retire  to  the  kdtu, 
i.  e.  wilderness,  that  they  become  greatly  alarmed.  But 
men  who  have  been  reduced  in  their  circumstances  become 
so  mortified,  that  they  also  retire  from  their  homes,  and 
wander  about  all  their  future  lives  as  pilgrims.  "  Alas  ! 
alas  !  I  will  retire  to  the  jungle,  and  live  with  wild  beasts," 
says  the  broken-hearted  widow. 

"  Oh  for  a  lotJge  in  some  vast  wilderness, 

Some  boundless  contiguity  of  shade."    (Cowper.) — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  Their  tongue  is  as  an  arrow  shot  out ;  it 
speaketh  deceit:  one  speaketh  peaceably  to  his 
neighbour  with  his  mouth,  but  in  heart  he  lay- 
eth  his  wait. 

The  circumstance  related  by  Mr.  Mungo  Park,  in  the 
following  extract,  might  possibly  have  its  parallel  in  the 
conduct  of  the  ancients ;  and  if  it  had,  clearly  accounts 
for  such  figures  as  that  used  by  the  prophet:  "  Each  of  the 
negroes  took  from  his  quiver  a  handful  of  arrows,  and 
putting  two  between  his  teeth,  and  one  in  his  bow,  waved 
to  us  with  his  hand  to  keep  at  a  distance,"  (Travels  in 
Africa.) — Border, 

Ver.  17.  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  Consider 
ye  and  call  for  the  mourning  women,  that  they 
may  come ;  and  send  for  cunning  women,  that 
they  may  come:  18.  And  let  them  make  haste, 
and  take  up  a  wailing  for  us,  that  our  eyes  may 
run  down  with  tears,  and  our  eyelids  gush  out 
with  waters. 

The  custom  of  hiring  women  to  weep  at  funerals,  who 


492 


JEREMIAH. 


Chap.  9. 


were  called  by  the  Romans  prseficae,  has  been  preserved  in 
the  East  to  this  day.  J.  H,  Mayer,  one  of  the  latest  trav- 
ellers who  visited  Egypt  and  Syria  in  1812  and  1813,  makes 
the  following  observations.  "  I  here  found  the  mourning 
women,  who  are  several  times  spoken  of  in  the  Bible,  and 
of  whom  I  could  not  form  a  proper  notion.  This  ancient 
custom  has  been  retained  here  to  this  day.  I  have  often  seen 
the  ceremony,  but  most  clearly  and  nearest  here,  in  Medini, 
an  Egyptian  village.  Fifteen  or  twenty  women,  dressed 
in  dark,  with  a  black  or  dark-blue  handkerchief  round 
their  heads,  assemble  before  the  house  of  the  deceased ; 
one  of  them  beats  a  talourine,  the  others  move  in  a  cir- 
cle, keeping  time  to  the  instrument,  singing  at  the  same 
time  the  praises  of  the  deceased ;  in  the  space  of  a  minute 
they  clasp  their  hands  twenty  or  thirty  times  together  be- 
fore their  face,  and  then  let  them  drop  to  the  knee.  The 
constant  violent  motion  changes  the  ceremony  into  a  dance ; 
every  moment  a  piercing  cry,  almost  like  a  whistle,  is 
heard  from  one  of  the  attendants.  The  mourning  continues 
seven  days,  during  which  the  nearest  female  relation,  ac- 
companied by  mourning  women,  visit  the  grave  of  the  de- 
ceased, and  as  they  march  along,  alternately  utter  this  shrill 
and  piercing  cry." — Rosenmuller. 

Immediately  after  death  the  people  of  the  house  begin  to 
make  a  great  lamentation :  they  speak  of  the  virtues  of  the 
deceased,  and  address  the  body  in  very  touching  language. 
The  female  relations  come  together,  and  beat  their  breasts. 
Their  long  hair  is  soon  disheveJled :  they  sit  down  on 
the  floor  around  the  corpse,  put  their  arms  on  each  others' 
shoulders,  and  in  a  kind  of  mournful  recitative  bewail  the 
loss  of  their  friend. 

I  have  sometimes  been  not  a  little  affected  to  hear  their 
exclamations.  See  the  wife  bending  over  the  dead  body 
of  her  husband ;  listen  to  her  lamentations : — "  Ah,  how 
many  years  have  we  been  married,  and  lived  happily  to- 
gether 1  never  were  we  separated,  but  now !  Alas,  my 
king,  my  kingdom,  my  master,  my  wealth,  my  eyes,  my 
body,  my  soul,  my  god.  Shall  I  make  an  offering  to 
Brama,  because  thou  art  taken  awayl  Now  will  your 
•enemies  rejoice,  because  your  are  gone.  Did  the  gods 
■call  for  you  1  are  you  in  Siva's  mount  1  Though  I  saw 
you  die,  I  am  still  alive.  When  shall  I  again  see  the 
light  of  your  beautiful  countenance  1  O  when  again  shall  I 
behold  his  noble  mien  1  how  can  I  look  upon  that  face 
which  was  once  like  the  full-blown  lotus,  but  now  withered 
and  dry.  "When  shall  I  again  see  his  graceful  bearing  in 
the  palanquin.  Alas  !  my  name  is  now  the  widow.  When 
will  my  aged  father  again  say  to  you,  son-in-law  1  Do  the 
eyes  which  saw  the  splendour  of  my  bridal  day  witness  this 
deadly  scene  'i  In  future,  by  whom  will  these  children  be 
defended  1  When  I  am  sick,  who  will  go  for  the  far-famed 
doctor  1  When  my  children  cry,  to  whom  shall  I  complain  1 
When  they  are  hungry,  to  whom  will  they  sav,  father'? 
Ah !  my  children,  my  children,  you  must  now  forget  that 
pleasant  word." 

Hear  the  daughter  over  her  father. — "  My  father,  had  I 
not  my  existence  from  you  1  Who  had  me  constantly  in 
his  arms,  lest  I  should  fall  1  Who  would  not  eat  except  I 
was  with  him  1  Who  fed  me  with  rice  and  milk  1  When 
I  was  dejected,  who  purchased  me  bracelets^  Who  pur- 
chased the  beautiful  jewel  for  my  forehead  1  O !  my 
god,  you  never  could  bear  to  look  in  my  withered  face. 
Who  will  now  train  my  brothers  1  Who  "procured  me  the 
talil  (husband.^  To  whom  shall  I  go  when  my  husband 
is  angry  1  Under  whose  shade  shall  my  husband  and  chil- 
dren now  go  1  To  whom  will  my  children  now  say,  grand- 
father 1  In  whose  face  will  my  mother  now  look  1  Alas  ! 
my  father,  my  father,  you  have  left  us  alone." 

Listen  to  the  son  over  his  father :— "  From  infancy  to 
manhood  you  have  tenderly  nursed  me.  Who  has  given 
me  learning  1  Who  has  taught  me  to  conduct  myself  with 
discretion'?  Who  caused  me  to  be  selected  by  many'? 
Who  would  not  eat  if  I  had  the  headache "?  Who  would  not 
allow  me  to  be  fatigued  by  walking "?  Who  gave  me  the 
beautiful  palanquin  1  Who  loved  to  see  his  son  happy  1 
Whose  eyes  shone  like  diamonds  on  his  soni  Who 
taught  me  to  prepare  the  fields  ?  who  taught  me  agricul- 
ture 1  Ah  !  my  father,  I  thought  you  would  have  lived 
to  partake  of  the  fruits  of  the  trees  I  had  planted.  Alas  ! 
alas  !  I  shall  now  be  called  the  fatherless  son." 

Hear  the  aged  father  over  ihe  body  of  his  son  : — "  Mv 
son,  my  son,  art  thou  gone  1   What !  am  I  left  in  my  old 


age '?  My  lion,  my  arrow,  my  blood,  my  body,  my  soul, 
my  third  eye  !  gone,  gone,  gone.  Ah  !  who  was  so  near  to 
his  mother  1  To  whom  will  she  now  say,  son '?  What ! 
gone  without  assisting  us  in  our  old  age  1  Ah  !  what  will 
thy  betrothed  do'i  1  hoped  thou  wouldst  have  lived  to  see 
our  death.  Who  will  now  perform  the  funeral  rites  for  us  % 
Who  will  light  up  the  pile  1  Who  will  perform  the  annual 
ceremonies'?  To  the  bats,  to  the  bats,  my  house  is  now  given." 

The  daughter  over  the  body  of  her  mother  says,  "  Alas ! 
what  shall  I  do  in  future '?  We  are  like  chickens,  whose 
mother  is  killed.  Motherless  children  are  beaten  on  the 
head.  We  are  like  the  honeycomb  hanging  on  the  trees, 
at  which  a  stone  has  been  thrown :  all,  all  are  scattered." 
She  says  to  the  females  who  are  coming  to  mourn  over 
her  mother,  "  I  am  the  worm  which  has  to  eat  a  dead  body. 
Though  you  should  give  me  a  large  vessel  full  of  water,  it 
will  not  quench  my  thirst  so  well  as  a  few  drops  from  the 
hand  of  my  mother  !  My  mother  has  gone,  and  left  us  for 
the  streets.  Who  lulled  me  to  repose '?  Who  bathed  me  near 
the  well '?  Who  fed  me  with  milk  1  Ah  !  my  father  also 
is  dead.  Why  have  you  gone  without  seeing  the  splendour 
of  my  bridal  day '?  Did  you  not  promise  to  deck  me  for 
the  festive  scene  '?  What !  am  1  to  be  alone  that  day  '?  Ah ! 
my  mother,  how  shall  I  know  how  to  conduct  myself? 
When  I  am  married,  should  my  husband  use  me  ill,  to 
whom  shall  I  go  "?  Who  will  now  teach  me  to  manage 
household  affairs  1  Ah !  there  is  nothing  like  a  mother ! 
How  many  pains,  how  many  difficulties,  have  you  had 
with  me  '?  What  have  I  done  for  you  1  Alas  !  alas  !  had 
you  been  long  sick,  I  might  have  done  something  for  you. 
Ah !  you  told  me  disobedience  would  be  m^  ruin.  You  are 
gone  :  why  did  I  not  obey  you  '?  My  fate,  my  fate  !  my 
mother,  my  mother  !  will  you  not  look  at  me  1  Are  you 
asleep  1  You  told  us  you  should  die  before  our  father. 
My  mother,  will  you  not  again  let  me  hear  your  voice '? 
When  I  am  in  pain,  who  will  say,  fear  not,  fear  not  1  I 
thought  you  would  have  lived  to  see  the  marriage  of  my 
daughter.  Come  hither,  my  infant,  look  at  your  grand- 
mother.. Was  I  not  nursed  at  those  breasts '?  You  said  to 
my  father,  when  you  were  dying,  'Love  my  children.' 
You  said  to  my  husband,  '  Cherish  my  daughter.'  Ah  ! 
did  you  not  bless  us  all  ?  My  mother,  my  mother,  that 
name  I  will  not  repeat  again." 

The  son  says  to  the  mourning  women,  "  Ah !  was  she 
not  the  best  of  mothers  ?  Did  she  not  conceal  my  faults  1 
Can  I  forget  her  joy  when  she  put  the  bracelets  on  my 
wrists.  O  !  how  she  did  kiss  and  praise  me,  when  I  had 
learned  the  alphabet.  She  was  always  restless  while  I  was 
at  school,  and  when  I  had  to  return,  she  was  always  look- 
ing out  for  me.  How  often  she  used  to  say,  '  My  son,  my 
son,  come  and  eat;'  but  now,  who  will  call  me'?"  Then, 
taking  the  hand  of  his  deceased  mother  into  his  own,  he 
asks,  "  and  are  the  worms  to  feed  on  this  hand  which  has 
fed  me'?"  Then,  embracing  her  feet,  "AhE  these  will 
never  more  move  about  this  house.  When  my  great  days 
are  come,  in  whose  face  shall  I  look "?  Who  will  rejoice 
in  my  joy '?  When  I  go  to  the  distant  country,  who  will 
be  constantly  saying, '  Return,  return '?'  Ah !  how  did  she 
rejoice  on  my  wedding  day.  Who  will  now  help  and  com- 
fort my  wife '?  If  she  did  not  see  me  every  moment,  she 
was  continually  saying,  '  My  son,  my  son,'  Must  I  now 
apply  the  torch  to  her  funeral  pile  1  Alas !  alas  !  I  am  too 
youiig  for  that.  What!  have  the  servants  of  the  funeral 
house  been  anxious  to  get  their  money '?  Could  they  not 
have  waited  a  few  years  '?  What  do  those  bearers  want  1 
Have  you  come  to  take  away  my  mother  V  Then,  lying 
on  the  bier  by  her  side,  he  says,  "  Take  me  also.  Alas  ! 
alas!  is  the  hour  come'?  I  must  now  forget  you.  Your 
name  must  never  again  be  in  my  mouth.  I  must  now 
perform  the  annual  ceremony.  O  life,  life !  the  bubble,  the 
bubble !" 

Listen  to  the  affectionate  brother  over  the  body  of  h.s 
sister :—"  Were  we  not  a  pair'?  why  are  we  separated.l 
Of  what  use  am  I  alone  1  Where  i's  now  my  shade '?  I 
will  now  be  a  wanderer.  How  often  did  I  bring  you  the 
fragrant  lotus'?  but  your  face  was  more  beautiful  than  that 
flower.  Did  I  not  procure  you  jewels '?  Who  gained  you 
the  bridegroom  1  Have  I  not  been  preparing  to  make  a 
splendid  show  on  your  nuptia.  day  1  Alas !  all  is  vanity. 
How  fatal  is  this  for  your  betrothed.  For  whose  sins  have 
you  been  taken  away  1  You  nave  vanished  like  tht?  god- 
dess Lechimy,    In  what  birtn  shall  we  again  see  you  7 


Chap.  10—12. 


JEREMIAH, 


4dS 


How  many  suiters  waited  for  you  1  You  have  poured  fire 
into  my  bov;els :  my  senses  have  gone,  and  I  wander  about 
like  an  evil  spirit.  Instead  of  the  marriage  ceremonies, 
we  are  now  attending  to  those  of  your  funeral.  I  may  get 
another  mother,  for  my  father  can  marry  again:  I  may 
acquire  children ;  but  a  sister,  never,  never.  Ah !  give 
me  one  look:  let  your  lotus-like  face  open  once — one  smile. 
Is  this  your  marriage  ceremony '?  I  thought  one  thing,  but 
fate  thought  another.  You  have  escaped  like  lightning : 
the  house  is  now  full  of  darkness.  When  I  go  to  the  dis- 
tant town,  who  will  give  me  her  commissions  1  To  whom 
shall  we  give  your  clothes  and  jewels']  My  sister,  I  have 
to  put  the  torch  to  your  funeral  pile.  You  said,  '  Brother, 
we  will  never  part;  we  will  live  together  in  one  house  :' 
but  you  are  gone.  I  refused  to  give  you  to  the  youth  in 
the  far  country;  but  now  whither  have  you  gone'?  To 
whom  shall  I  now  say,  I  am  hungry'?  Alas!  alas!  my 
father  planted  cocoa,  mango,  and  jack  trees  in  your  name, 
but  you  have  not  lived  to  eat  the  fruit  thereof.  I  have  been 
to  tell  them  you  are  gone.  Alas  !  I  see  her  clothes :  take 
them  away.  Of  what  use  is  that  palanquin  now '?  Who 
used  to  come  jumping  on  the  road  to  meet  me  '?  If  I  have 
so  much  sorrow,  what  must  have  been  that  of  your  mother 
for  ten  long  moons "?  Whose  evil  eye  has  been  upon  you  1 
Who  aimed  the  blow*?  Will  there  ever  again  be  sorrow 
like  this '?  My  belly  smokes.  Ah,  my  sister,  your  gait, 
your  speech,  your  beauty,  all  gone :  the  Aower  is  withered — 
the  flower  is  withered.  Call  for  the  bier ;  call  for  the  musi- 
cians." 

Husbands  who  love  their  wives  are  exceedingly  pathetic 
in  their  exclamations :  they  review  the  scenes  of  their 
youth,  and  speak  of  their  tried  and  sincere  affection.  The 
children  she  has  borne  are  also  alluded  to  ;  and,  to  use  an 
orientalism,  the  man  is  plunged  into  a  sea  of  grief. 
"  What,  the  apple  of  my  eye  gone  7  My  swan,  my  parrot, 
my  deer,  my  Lechimy'?  Her  colour  was  like  gold,  her 
gait  like  the  stately  swan,  her  waist  was  like  lightning, 
her  teeth  were  like  pearls,  her  eyes  like  the  kiyal  fish, 
(oval,)  her  eyebrows  like  the  bow,  and  her  countenance 
like  the  full-grown  lotus.  Yes,  she  has  gone,  the  mother 
of  my  children.  No  more  welcome,  no  more  smiles  in 
the  evening  when  I  return.  All  the  world  to  me  is  now 
as  the  place  of  burning.  Get  ready  the  wood  for  my  pile, 
O !  my  wife,  my  wife,  listen  to  the  voice  of  thy  husband.." — 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  5.  They  are  upright  as  the  palm-tree,  but 
speak  not ;  they  must  needs  be  borne,  because 
they  cannot  go.  Be  not  afraid  of  them ;  for 
they  cannot  do  evil,  neither  also  is  it  in  them 
to  do  good. 

From  the  first  clause,  it  is  evident  that  he  alluded  also 
to  the  shape  of  their  gods.  Before  the  art  of  carving  was 
carried  to  perfection,  the  ancients  made  their  images  all 
of  a  thickness,  straight,  having  their  hands  hanging  down 
and  close  to  their  sides,  the  legs  joined  together,  the  eyes 
shut,  with  a  very  perpendicular  attitude,  and  not  unlike  to 
the  body  of  a  palm-tree  ;  such  are  the  figures  of  those  an- 
tique Egyptian  statues  that  still  remain.  The  famous 
Greek  architect  and  sculptor  Doedalus,  set  thdr  legs  at  lib- 
erty, opened  their  eyes,  and  gave  them  a  freer  and  easier 
attitude.  But  according  to  some  interpreters,  and  particu- 
larly Mr.  Parkhurst,  the  inspired  writer  sometimes  gives 
it  a  more  honourable  application;  selecting  it  to  be  the 
symbol  of  our  blessed  Redeemer,  who  himself  bore  our 
sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree.  The  voice  of  antiquity 
ascribes  to  the  palm,  the  singular  quality  of  resisting  a 
very  great  weight  hung  upon  it,  and  of  even  bending  in 
the  contrary  direction,  to  counterbalance  the  pressure.  Of 
this  circumstance,  Xenophon  takes  notice  in  his  Cyrope- 

dia  ;   Km  5t)  ■i:iel,o}itvoi  hi  ibntviKcg  vrro  (iapov;  av(o  KXiprovvrat  ;   "  and 

indeed,  palm-trees  when  loaded  with  any  weight,  rise 
upward,  and  bend  the  contrary  way."  The  same  obser- 
vation was  made  by  Plutarch.  It  has  heen  already  obser- 
ved, that  the  Hebrew  name  of  the  palm-tree  is  Thamar ; 
and  in  the  Old  Testament,  we  meet  with  a  place  in  Canaan 
called  Baalthamar,  in  honour,  it  is  probable,  of  Baal  or 
the  sun,  for  many  ages  the  object  of  universal  veneration 
among  the  Orientals ;  and  who  had  been  worshipped  there 


by  the  Canaanifes  under  this  attribute,  as  supporting  the 
immense  pressure  of  the  celestial  fluid  on  all  sides,  and 
sustaining  the  various  parts  and  operations  of  universal 
nature  in  their  respective  situations  and  courses.  The 
symbol  of  this  support,  stolen  and  perverted  as  usual  from 
the  sacred  ritual,  appears  to  have  been  a  palm-tree,  which 
was  also  the  symbol  of  support  among  the  Greeks  and 
Egyptians.  With  how  much  greater  propriety  is  it  the 
appointed  symbol  of  him  who  sustained  the  inconceivable 
pressure  of  divine  wrath  for  his  people,  and  was  so  far  " 
from  being  utterly  depressed  under  such  a  load  of  sin  and 
punishment,  that  he  successfully  endured  all  that  the  law 
and  justice  of  his  Father  demanded,  rose  victorious  over 
death  and  the  grave  ;  and  shall  for  ever,  as  these  interpre- 
ters suppose,  "  flourish  like  the  palm-tree,  and  grow  or 
spread  abroad  like  the  cedar  in  Lebanon  !"  Hence  in  the 
outer  temple,  (the  symbol  of  Jehovah  incarnate,)  palm- 
trees  were  engraved  on  the  walls  and  doors  between  the 
coupled  cherulDS.  And  for  this  reason,  the  prophetess 
Deborah  is  supposed  to  have  fixed  her  dwelling  under  a 
palm-tree,  emblematically  to  express  her  trust,  not  in  the 
idolatrous  Ashtaroth  or  Blessers,  at  that  time  the  abomina- 
tion of  Israel,  but  in  the  promised  Messiah,  who  was  to  be 
made  perfect  through  sufferings.  At  the  feast  of  taberna- 
cles, the  people  of  Israel  were  to  take  branches  of  palm- 
trees;  at  once  to  typify  Jehovah's  dwelling  in  our  nature, 
and  the  spiritual  support  which,  by  this  means,  all  true  be- 
lievers derive  from  him ;  and  also,  to  ascribe  to  him  as 
the  Creator  and  Preserver  of  all  things,  in  opposition  to 
Baal  or  the  sun,  the  honour  of  sustaining  the  operations 
of  nature  in  producing  and  ripening  the  fruits  of  the  earth. 
The  feast  of  tabernacles  was  also  the  feast  of  ingathering; 
and  every  person  in  the  least  acquainted  with  the  customs 
of  oriental  nations  knows,  that  the  palm  was  among  idol- 
aters the  chosen  symbol  of  the  sun,  and  consecrated  to 
that  luminary ;  and  that  the  temples  erected  to  his  honour 
through  all  the  regions  of  the  East,  were  surrounded  with 
groves  of  palm-trees,  whose  leaf,  resembling  in  shape  the 
solar  beam,  and  maintaining  a  perpetual  verdure,  might 
continually  remind  the  adoring  suppliants  of  the  quick- 
ening influence  and  sustaining  energy  of  their  favourite 
deity.  — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Ver.  2.  Thou  hast  planted  them  ;  yea,  they  have 
taken  root :  they  grow ;  yea,  they  bring  forth 
fruit:  thou  art  near  in  their  mouth,  and  far 
from  their  reins. 

Does  a  man  who  has  been  elevated  in  society  by  another, 
cease  to  respect  his  patron;  it  is  said,  "  Ah,  my  lord,  the 
tree  which  you  planted  has  taken  root :— in  his  mouth  you 
are  near ;  but  in  his  heart  you  are  afar  off." — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  My  heritage  is  unto  me  as  a  lion  in  the 
forest ;  it  crieth  out  against  me :  therefore  have 
I  hated  it.  9.  My  heritage  is  unto  me  as  a 
speckled  bird ;  the  birds  round  about  are  against 
her ;  come  ye,  assemble  all  the  beasts  of  the 
field,  come  to  devour. 

See  on  1  Sam.  13.  18. 

Ver.  9.  My  heritage  is  unto  me  as  a  speckled 
bird,  the  birds  round  about  are  against  her; 
come  ye,  assemble  all  the  beasts  of  the  field, 
come  to  devour. 

Dr.  Boothroyd,  "  Ravenous  birds."  The  context  con- 
firms this  rendering,  and  also  the  marginal  reading,  "  ta- 
lons." Considering  the  numerous  birds  of  prey  in  the 
East,  it  is  no  wonder  that  there  are  so  many  allusions  in 
the  scriptures  to  their  ravenous  propensities.  Of  a  fero- 
cious man  it  is  said,  "  That  fellow  is  in  every  place  with 
his  talons."  "  What !  wretch,  have  you  come  hither  to 
snatch  with  your  talons  1"  "  Alas  !  alas  !  how  many  hai 
this  disease  snatched  away  in  its  talons?"  "True,  true 
even  my  own  children  have  now  got  talons." — Roberts. 

Ver.  1 0.   Many  pastors  have  destroyed  my  vine- 


494 


JEREMIAH. 


CHA.P.  12—14. 


yard,  they  have  trodden  my  portion  under  foot, 
they  have  made  my  pleasant  portion  a  desolate 
wilderness. 

Besides  successive  invasions  by  foreign  nations,  and  the 
systematic  spoliation  exercised  by  a  despotic  government, 
other  causes  have  conspired  to  perpetuate  the  desolation  of 
Judea,  and  to  render  abortive  the  substance  that  is  in  it. 
Amonj;,  hese  has  chiefly  to  be  numbered  its  being  literally 
trodden  under  foot  by  many  pastors.  Volney  devotes  a  chap- 
ter, fifty  pages  in  length,  to  a  description,  as  he  entitles  it, 
"  Of  the  pastoral,  or  wandering  tribes  of  Syria,"  chiefly 
of  the  Bedouin  Arabs,  by  whom  especially  Judea  is  in- 
cessantly traversed.  "  Tlie  pachalics  of  Aleppo  and  Da- 
mascus may  be  computed  to  contain  about  thirty  thousand 
wandering  Turkmen,  (Turcomans.)  All  their  property 
consists  in  cattle,"  In  the  same  pachalics,  the  number  of 
the  Curds  "  exceed  twenty  thousand  tents  and  huts,"  or 
an  equal  number  of  armed  men.  "  The  Curds  are  almost 
everywhere  looked  upon  as  robbers.  Like  the  Turkmen, 
these  Curds  are  pastors  and  wanderers.  A  third  wander- 
ing people  in  Syria  are  the  Bedouin  Arabs."  "  It  often 
happens  that  even  individuals  turn  robbers,  in  order  to  with- 
draw themselves  from  the  laws,  or  from  tyranny,  unite 
and  form  a  little  camp,  which  maintain  themselves  by 
arms,  and,  increasing,  become  new  hordes  and  new  tribes. 
We  may  pronounce,  that  in  cultivable  countries  the  wan- 
dering life  originates  in  the  injustice  or  want  of  policy  of 
the  government;  and  that  the  sedentary  and  the  cultivating 
state  is  that  to  which  mankind  is  most  naturally  inclined." 
"  It  is  evident  that  agriculture  must  be  very  precarious  in 
such  a  country,  and  that,  under  a  government  like  that 
of  the  Turks,  it  is  safer  to  lead  a  wandering  life  than  to 
choose  a  settled  habitation,  and  rely  for  subsistence  on  ag- 
riculture." "  The  Turkmen,  the  Curds,  and  the  Bedou- 
ins, have  no  fixed  habitations,  but  keep  perpetually  icander- 
ing  with  their  tents  and  herds,  in  limited  districts  of  which 
they  look  upon  themselves  as  the  proprietors.  The  Arabs 
spread  over  the  whole  frontier  of  Syria,  and  even  the 
plains  of  Palestine." — Thus,  contrary  to  their  natural  in- 
clination, the  peasants,  often  forced  to  abandon  a  settled 
life,  and  pastoral  tribes  in  great  numbers,  or  many,  and 
without  fixed  habitations,  divide  the  country,  as  it  were, 
by  mutual  consent,  and  apportion  it  in  limited  districts 
among  themselves  by  an  assumed  right  of  property,  and 
the  Arabs,  subdivided  also  into  different  tribes,  spread  over 
the  plains  of  Palestine,  "  wandering  perpetually,"  as  if  on 
very  purpose  to  tread  it  down. — What  could  be  more  un- 
likely or  unnatural  in  such  a  land !  yet  what  more  striking- 
ly and  strictly  true !  or  how  else  could  the  effect  of  the 
vision  have  been  seen !  Many  pastors  have  destroyed  my 
vineyard;  they  have  troddxn  my  portion  under  foot.— 
Keith. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Ver.  4.  Take  the  girdle  that  thou  hast  got,  which 
is  upon  thy  loins,  and  arise,  go  to  Euphrates, 
and  hide  it  there  in  a  hole  of  the  rock. 

The  girdle  of  the  Orientals  is  sometimes  made  of  silver 
or  gold;  or  embroidered  silk,  or  highly  died  muslin.  Its 
uses  are,  to  keep  the  lower  garments  fast  to  the  loins,  to 
strengthen  the  body,  and  to  command  respect.  Chiefs  have 
numerous  folds  of  muslin  round  that  part,  and  they  march 
along  with  great  pomp,  thus  enlarged  in  their  size.  That, 
therefore,  which  was  of  so  much  use,  and  which  indicated 
the  dignity  pf  the  wearer,  was  to  be  marred,  typifying  the 
degradation  of  the  Jews  in  their  approaching  captivity. 
The  Hindoos  have  a  custom  of  burying  certain  articles 
bv  the  side  of  a  tank  or  river,  in  order  to  inflict  or  pre- 
tigure  evil  in  reference  to  certain  obnoxious  individuals 
who  are  thus  placed  under  the  ban.  Thus  eggs,  human 
hair,  thread,  a  ball  of  saffron,  or  a  little  of  the  earth  on 
which  the  devoted  person  has  had  his  feet,  are  buried  in 
the  situations  alluded  to. — Roberts. 

Ver.  4.  Take  the  girdle  that  thou  hast  got,  which 
is  upon  thy  loins,  and  arise,  go  to  Euphrates, 
and  hide  it  there  in  a  hole  of  the  rock.  5.  So 
I  went,  and  hid  it  by  Euphrates,  as  the  Lord 


commanded  me.  6.  And  it  came  to  pass  aftei 
many  days,  that  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  Arise, 
go  to  Euphrates,  and  take  the  girdle  frcrn 
thence,  which  I  commanded  thee  to  hide  there. 
7.  Then  I  went  to  Euphrates,  and  digged,  and 
took  the  girdle  from  the  place  where  I  had  hid 
it ;  and,  behold,  the  girdle  was  marred,  it  was 
profitable  for  nothing. 
See  on  eh.  32.  13,  14. 

Ver.  18.  Say  unto  the  king  and  to  the  queen, 
Humble  yourselves,  sit  down  ;  for  your  princi- 
palities shall  come  down,  even  the  crown  of 
your  glory. 

The  margin  has  instead  of  "principalities,"  "or  head 
tires."  This  again  alludes  to  the  threatened  judgments 
which  were  to  befall  the  people  and  their  rulers.  Dr. 
Boothroyd  has,  instead  of  "principalities,"  "  the  diadem 
of  your  glory."  Of  a  proud' man  who  treats  another  with 
contempt  it  is  said,  "  Ah !  his  turban  will  soon  fall."  "  Yes, 
imperious  upstart !  thy  head-dress  will  soon  come  down." 
"  Have  you  heard  of  the  proud  wife  of  Kandan  V — "  No." 
"Her  head  ornaments  have  fallen;  she  is  humbled." 
"  Ah,"  says  the  bereaved  father,  over  the  dead  body  of  his 
son,  "  my  crown  is  fallen !  my  crown  is  fallen."  When 
men  quarrel,  it  is  common  for  the  one  to  say  to  the  other, 
"  I  will  beat  thee  till  thy  turban  fall."  When  they  fight, 
the  great  object  of  the  combatants  is  to  pull  off"  each  others 
turban  or  head-dress  ;  because  it  shows  that  the  individ- 
ual is  then  disgraced  and  humbled.  The  feelings  of  a 
man  who  has  his  turban  knocked  off"  his  head,  are  proba- 
bly .something  like  those  which  are  produced  by  the  knock- 
ing off"  of  a  man's  wig.  For  the  turban  to  pall  oflf  the 
head  by  accident  is  considered  to  be  a  very  bad  omen.  Je- 
hoiakim  and  his  queen  were  to  have  their  "head  tires" 
brought  down;  they  were  to  be  humbled  on  account  of  their 
sins. — Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  Can  the  Ethiopian  change  his  skin,  or 
the  leopard  his  spots?  then  may  ye  also  do 
good,  that  are  accustomed  to  do  evil. 

See  on  ch.  5.  6. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Ver.  2.  Judah  mourneth,  and  the  gates  thereof 
languish ;  they  are  black  unto  the  ground:  and 
the  cry  of  Jerusalem  is  gone  up. 

"  Have  you  heard  that  the  wife  of  Muttoo  and  all  the 
children  have  died  of  the  cholera  1  Alas,  the  poor  old  man 
is  left  alone,  and  the  gates  are  in  sorrow — even  they  pity 
him." — Roberts. 

Ver.  3.  And  their  nobles  have  sent  their  little 
ones  to  the  waters :  they  came  to  the  pits,  and 
found  no  water ;  they  returned  with  their  ves- 
sels empty ;  they  were  ashamed  and  confound- 
ed, and  covered  their  heads.  4.  Because  the 
ground  is  chapt,  for  there  was  no  rain  in  the 
earth,  the  ploughmen  were  ashamed,  they  cov- 
ered their  heads. 

See  on  Matt.  11,  21. 

Ver.  4.  Because  the  ground  is  chapt,  for  there 
was  no  rain  in  the  earth,  the  ploughmen  were 
ashamed,  they  covered  their  heads. 

The  description  that  Sir  J.  Chardin  gives  us  of  the  state 
of  these  countries,  with  respect  to  the  cracking  of  the  earth, 
before  the  autumnal  rains  fell,  is  so  lively  a  comment  on 
Jer.  xiv.  4,  that  I  beg  leave  to  introduce  it  here  as  a  distinct 
observation.  The  lands  of  the  East,  he  says,  which  the  great 
dryness  there  causes  to  crack,  are  the  ground  of  this  figure, 
which  is  certainly  extremely  beautiful ;  for  these  dry  lands 


Chap.  15. 


JEREMIAH, 


49§ 


have  chinks  too  deep  for  a  person  to  see  to  the  bottom  of: 
this  may  be  observed  in  the  Indies  more  than  anywhere,  a 
little  before  the  rains  fall,  and  wherever  the  lands  are  rich 
and  hard.  The  prophet's  speaking  of  ploughmen,  shows 
that  he  is  speaking  of  the  autumnal  state  of  those  countries; 
and  if  the  cracks  are  so  deep  from  the  common  dryness  of 
their  summers,  what  must  they  be  when  the  rains  are  with- 
held beyond  the  usual  time,  which  is  the  case  Jeremiah  is 
referring  to. — Harmer. 

This  refers  to  a  drought  which  was  to  take  place  in 
Judah.  At  such  times,  in  the  East,  the  ground  is  "  chapt ;" 
large  fissures  meet  your  eye  in  every  direction,  and  the 
husbandmen  are  then  ashamed  and  put  to  confusion :  they 
know  not  what  to  do :  to  plough  the  land  under  such  cir- 
cumstances is  of  no  use  ;  and,  therefore,  they  are  obliged 
to  wait  till  it  shall  rain.  Thus,  should  the  rains  be  later 
than  usual,  the  people  are  daily  looking  for  them,  and  after 
one  night's  fall,  the  farmers  may  be  seen  in  every  direction 
working  in  their  fields  with  the  greatest  glee,  in  the  full 
hope  of  soon  casting  in  the  seed. — Roberts. 

Ver.  5.  Yea,  the  hind  also  calved  in  the  field, 
and  forsook  it,  because  there  was  no  grass. 

Some  ancient  writers  allege,  that  the  hind  bestows  much 

Eains  in  rearing  and  instructing  her  young.  She  carefully 
ides  her  fawn  in  the  thicket,  or  among  the  long  grass,  and 
corrects  it  with  her  foot,  when  it  discovers  an  inclination 
prematurely  to  leave  its  covert.  When  it  has  acquired 
sufficient  strength,  she  teaches  it  to  run,  and^to  bound  from 
one  rock  to  another ;  till,  conscious  of  its  ability  to  provide 
for  itself,  it  bends  its  rapid  course  into  the  boundless  waste, 
and  from  that  moment,  loses  the  recollection  of  its  parent 
and  her  tender  care.  But  affectionate  as  is  the  hind  to  her 
young  one,  and  attentive  to  its  safety  and  instruction,  cir- 
cumstances occur  at  times,  which  diminish,  which  even 
extinguish  the  benignity  of  her  nature,  and  render  her  in- 
sensible to  the  sufferings  of  her  own  offspring.  The  slight- 
ness  of  her  connexion  with  guilty  man,  and  her  distance 
from  his  dwelling,  do  not  prevent  her  from  sharing  in  the 
calamities  to  which  all  sublunary  natures  are  subjected  on 
account  of  his  sin.  The  grievous  famine  which  dims  the 
fine  eye  of  the  wild  ass,  and  compels  her  to  take  refuge  on 
the  summits  of  the  mountains,  where,  sucking  in  the  cool- 
ing breeze  instead  of  water,  which  is  no  longer  to  be  found, 
she  lingers  out  a  few  miserable  days,  hardens  the  gentle 
and  affectionate  heart  of  the  hind,  so  that  she  forsakes  her 
fawn  in  the  open  field,  because  there  is  no  grass,  without 
making  a  single  effort  to  preserve  its  existence.  She  for- 
sakes it  when  it  is  newly  calved,  when  her  natural  affection 
is  commonly  strongest,  and  when  it  needs  most  her  foster- 
ing care  ;  she  forsakes  it  in  the  desert,  where  it  must  soon 
perish  of  hunger:  deaf  to  its  cries,  and  indifferent  to  its 
sufferings,  she  leaves  it  in  search  of  somewhat  to  prolong 
her  own  wretched  existence.  At  such  a  failure  of  the 
Kindest  affections  in  the  heart  of  a  loving  hind,  we  shall 
not  be  surprised,  when  the  dreadful  effects  of  severe  famine 
on  the  human  mind  are  considered.  The  prediction  of 
Moses  was  completely  fulfilled  :  "  Thou  shalt  eat  the  fruit 
of  thine  own  body,  the  flesh  of  thy  sons,  and  of  thy  daugh- 
ters, which  the  Lord  thy  God  hath  given  thee,  in  the  siege, 
and  in  the  straitness,  wherewith  thine  enemies  shall  dis- 
tress thee." — "The  tender  and  delicate  woman  among  you, 
which  would  not  adventure  to  set  the  sole  of  her  foot  upon 
the  ground,  for  delicateness  and  tenderness,  her  eye  shall 
be  evil  towards  the  husband  of  her  bosom,  and  towards  her 
son,  and  towards  her  daughter,  and  towards  the  young  one 
that  Cometh  out  from  between  her  feet,  and  towards  her 
children  which  she  shall  bear ;  for  she  shall  eat  them  for 
want  of  all  things,  secretly,  in  the  siege  and  straitness." — 
Paxton, 

Ver.  16.  And  the  people  to  whom  they  prophesy 
shall  be  cast  out  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  be- 
cause of  the  famine  and  the  sword  ;  and  they 
shall  have  none  to  bury  them,  their  wives,  nor 
their  sons,  nor  their  daughters ;  for  I  will  pour 
their  wickedness  upon  them. 

See  on  Job  39.  5. 

Ver.  22.  Are  there  any  among  the  vanities  of  the 


Gentiles  that  can  cause  rain  ?  or  can  the  heav- 
ens give  showers  1  Art  not  thou  he,  O  Lord 
our  God :  therefore  we  will  wait  upon  thee ; 
for  thou  hast  made  all  these  things. 

There  are  persons  among  the  South  African  nations  who 
pretend  to  have  power  to  bring  rain  in  time  of  drought, 
and  who  are  called  rain-makers.  A  nation  seldom  em- 
ploys their  own  rain-maker,  but  generally  thinks  those  at 
a  distance  have  more  power  to  produce  it  than  those  at 
home.  A  rain-maker,  from  high  up  the  cpuntry,  once 
travelled  with  my  party  for  a  few  weeks.  I  asked  him  se- 
riously, if  he  really  believed  that  he  had  power  to  bring 
rain  when  he  pleased  1  His  reply  was,  that  "  he  could  not 
say  he  had,  but  he  used  means  to  bring  it ;"  such  as  rolling 
great  stones  down  the  sides  of  mountains,  to  draw  down 
the  clouds.  A  rain-maker  at  Latlakoo  who  was  unsuccess- 
ful, first  said  it  was  because  he  had  not  got  sufficient  pres- 
ents of  cattle.  He  then  desired  them  first  to  bring  him  a 
live  baboon  ;  hundreds  tried  but  could  not  catch  one.  He 
next  demanded  a  live  owl,  but  they  could  not  find  One.  N» 
rain  coming  they  called  him  rogue,  impostor,  &c.  and  or- 
dered him  away.— Campbell. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Ver.  3.  And  I  will  appoint  over  them  four  kinds, 
saith  the  Lord  ;  the  sword  to  slay,  and  the  dogs 
to  tear,  and  the  fowls  of  the  heaven,  and  the 
beasts  of  the  earth,  to  devour  and  destroy. 

An  oriental  enemy,  as  in  former  ages,  cuts  down  the 
trees  of  the  country  which  he  invades,  destroys  the  villages, 
and  burns  all  the  corn  and  provender  which  he  cannot  carry 
off:  the  surrounding  plain,  deprived  of  its  verdure,  is  cov- 
ered with  putrid  carcasses  and  burning  ashes;  the  hot  -wind 
wafting  its  fetid  odours,  and  dispersing  the  ashes  among 
the  tents,  renders  his  encampment  extremely  disagreeable. 
During  the  night  the  hyenas,  jackals,  and  wild  beasts  of 
various  kinds,  allured  by  the  scent,  prowl  over  the  field 
with  a  horrid  noise  ;  and  as  soon  as  the  morning  dawns,  a 
multitude  of  vultures,  kites,  and  birds  of  prey,  are  seen 
asserting  their  claim  to  a  share  of  the  dead.  Such  was  the 
scene  which  Forbes  contemplated  on  the  plains  of  Hin- 
dostan ;  "  and  it  was  to  me,"  says  that  writer,  "  a  scene 
replete  with  horrid  novelty,  realizing  the  prophet's  denun- 
ciation :  '  I  will  appoint  over  them  four  kinds^  saith  tHe 
Lord;  the  sword  to  slay,  and  the  dogs  to  tear,  and  the 
fowls  of  the  heaven,  and  the  beasts  of  the  earth,  to  devour 
and  destroy.'  " — Paxton, 

Ver.  7.  And  I  will  fan  them  with  a  fan  in  the 
gates  of  the  land ;  I  will  bereave  them  of  chil- 
dren, I  will  destroy  my  people,  since  they  re- 
turn not  from  their  ways,  8.  Their  widows 
are  increased  to  me  above  the  sand  of  the  seas : 
I  have  brought  upon  them,  against  the  mother 
of  the  young  men,  a  spoiler  at  noonday;  I 
have  caused  him  to  fall  upon  it  suddenly,  and 
terrors  upon  the  city. 

When  the  cholera  or  any  other  pestilence  rages,  it  is 
said,  "  Alas !  this  sickness  has  fanned  the  people  away." 
"  Truly  they  have  been  suddenly  fanned  from  the  earth." 
See  on  Isa.  xxx.  24. — Roberts,      • 

Ver.  9.  She  that  hath  borne  seven  languisheth ; 
she  hath  given  up  the  ghost ;  her  sun  is  gone 
down  while  it  was  yet  day;  she  hath  been 
ashamed  and  confounded :  and  the  residue  of 
them  will  I  deliver  to  the  sword  before  their 
enemies,  saith  the  Lord, 

Of  a  person  who  is  dead,  it  is  said,  "  He  is  set,"  and  of 
one  dying,  "  He  is  setting."  Should  a  beautiful  young  man 
or  woman  be  reduced  by  sickness,  it  is  said,  "  He  is  like 
the  evening,  which  is  occupying  the  place  of  the  monk 
ing !"— Roberts. 


496 


JEREMIAH. 


Chxp.  16. 


Ver.  18.  Why  is  my  pain  perpetual,  and  my 
wound  incurable,  which  refuseth  to  be  healed  ? 
wilt  thou  be  altogether  unto  me  as  a  liar,  and 
as  waters  that  fail  ? 

"  Waters  that  fail."  Heb.  "  Waters  that  are  not  to  be 
trusted,"  L  e.  such  as  are  delusive,  such  as  disappoint  ex- 
pectation. That  which  Mr.  Harmer  proposes  simplv  as  a 
query,  may  be  stated  as  a  very  probable  suggestion,  viz. 
that  in  these  words  the  prophet  alludes  to  the  phenomenon 
of  the  mirage,  so  frequently  mentioned  by  eastern  travel- 
lers. "  There  is,"  says  Chardin,  "  a  vapour  or  splendour, 
in  the  plains  of  the  desert,  formed  by  the  repercussion  of 
the  rays  from  the  sand,  that  appears  like  a  vast  lake. 
Travellers  afflicted  with  thirst  a^e  drawn  on  by  such  ap- 
pearances, but  coming  near  find  themselves  mistaken ;  it 
seems  to  draw  back  as  they  advance,  or  quite  vanishes." — 
"  To  the  southeast,  at  a  distance  of  four  or  five  miles,  we 
noticed  on  the  yellow  sands  two  black  masses,  but  whether 
they  were  the  bodies  of  dead  camels,  the  temporary  liair- 
tents  of  wandering  Bedouins,  or  any  other  objects,  magni- 
fied by  the  refraction  which  is  so  strongly  produced  in  the 
horizon  of  the  desert,  ^e  had  no  means  of  ascertaining. 
With  the  exception  of  these  masses,  all  the  eastern  range 
of  vision  presented  only  one  unbroken  waste  of  sand,  till  its 
visible  horizon  ended  in  the  illusive  appearance  of  a  lake, 
thus  formed  by  the  heat  of  a  midday  sun  on  a  nitrous  soil, 
giving  to  the  parched  desert  the  semblance  of  water,  and 
reflecting  its  scanty  shrubs  upon  the  view,  like  a  line  of 
extensive  forests ;  but  in  no  direction  was  either  a  natural 
hill,  a  mountain,  or  other  interruption  to  the  level  line  of 
the  plain,  to  be  seen."  (Buckingham's  Travels  in  Meso- 
potamia.) "  We  have  suffered  very  much  from  the  fatigue 
of  this  day's  journey,  and  have  still  five  days'  march  through 
this  waterless  desert.  The  only  object  to  interest  us,  and 
relieve  the  weariness  of  mind  and  body,  has  been  the 
mirage,  so  often  described.  Some  travellers  state  that  this 
phenomenon  has  deceived  them  repeatedly.  This  I  am 
surprised  at,  since  its  peculiar  appearance,  joined  to  its 
occurrence  in  a  desert  where  the  traveller  is  too  forcibly 
impressed  with  the  recollection  that  no  lakes  or  standing 
pools  exist,  would  appear  to  me  to  prevent  the  possibility, 
that  he  who  has  once  seen  it,  can  be  a  second  time  de- 
ceived. Still,  this  dofs  not  diminish  the  beauty  of  the  phe- 
nomenon :— to  see  amid  burning  sands  and  barren  hills,  an 
apparently  beautiful  lake,  perfectly  calm  and  unruffled  by 
any  breeze,  reflecting  in  its  bosom  the  surrounding  rocks, 
is,  indeed,  an  interesting  and  wonderfuJ  spectacle;  but  it  is 
a  tantalizing  sight,  traversing  the  desert  on  foot,  always 
with  a  scanty  supply  of  water,  and  often,  owing  to  their 
great  imprudence,  wholly  destitute  of  it."  (Hoskins'  Travels 
in  Ethiopia.) — Bush. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  5.  For  thus  saith  the  Lord,  Enter  not  into 
the  house  of  mourning,  neither  go  to  lament 
nor  bemoan  them :  for  I  have  taken  away  my 
peace  from  this  people,  saith  the  Lord,  even 
loving-kindness  and  mercies. 

See  on  1  Kings  18.  28. 

Ver.  6.  Both  the  great  and  the  small  shall  die  in 
this  land :  they  shall  not  be  buried,  neither  shall 
men  lament  for  them,  nor  cut  themselves,  nor 
make  themselves  bald  for  them. 

The  cutting  off  the  hair  in  mourning  for  the  dead,  is  an 
eastern,  as  well  as  a  Grecian  custom ;  and  appears  to  have 
obtained  in  the  East  in  the  prophetic  times,  as  weH  as  in 
later  ages.  That  it  was  practised  among  the  Arabs,  in 
the  seventh  century,  appears  by  a  passage  of  D'Herbelot. 
Khaled  ben  Valid  ben  Mogairah,  who  was  one  of  the 
bravest  of  the  Arabs  in  the  time  of  Mohammed,  and  sur- 
named  by  him,  after  Khaled  had  embraced  the  new  religion 
he  introduced  into  the  world,  the  "  sword  of  God,"  died  un- 
der the  califate  of  Omar,  in  the  city  of  Emessa,  in  Syria ; 
and  he  adds,  that  there  was  not  a  female  of  the  house  of 
Mogairah,  who  was  his  grandfather,  either  matron  or 


maiden,  who  caused  not  her  hair  to  be  cut  off' at  his  burial. 
How  the  hair  that  was  cut  oflT  was  disposed  of,  does  not 
appear  in  D'Herbelot.  Among  the  ancient  Greeks,  it  was 
sometimes  laid  upon  the  dead  body;  sometimes  cast  into 
the  funeral  pile;  sometimes  placed  upon  the  grave.  Under 
this  variation  of  management  among  the  Greeks,  it  would 
have  been  an  agreeable  additional  circumstance  to  have 
been  told,  how  the  females  of  the  house  of  Mogairah  dis- 
posed of  their  hair.  We  are  equally  ignorant  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  ancient  Jews  disposed  of  theirs,  when 
they  cut  it  off"  in  bewailing  the  dead.  But  that  they  cut  it 
off",  upon  such  occasions,  is  evident  from  a  passage  of  the 
prophet  Jeremiah,  ch.  xvi.  6.  "  Both  the  great  and  the 
small  shall  die  in  this  land :  they  shall  not  be  buried,  nei- 
ther shall  men  lamen  for  them",  nor  cut  themselves,  nor 
make  themselves  bald  for  them."  The  words  do  not  seem 
determinately  to  mean,  that  those  of  the  male  sex  only 
were  wont  to  cut  themselves,  or  make  themselves  bald  for 
the  dead ;  but  that  there  should  be  no  cutting  of  the  flesh 
made  at  all  for  them,  no  baldness,  leaving  it  uncertain 
which  sex  had  been  wont  to  make  use  of  these  rites  of 
mourning,  who  should  then  omit  them.  So  the  interiineary 
translation  of  Montanus  understands  the  words. 

__Both  practices  seem  to  have  been  forbidden  by  the  law 
o"  Moses;  the  soft  and  impressible  temper  of  the  female 
se  might,  it  may  be  imagined,  engage  them  sooner  to  de- 
vii  e  from  the  precept,  than  the  firmer  disposition  of  the 
other.  So  here  we  see  they  were  Xhe  females  of  the  family 
of  Mogairah  that  cut  oflf  their  hair  at  the  burial  of  Khaled ; 
not  a  word  of  the  men.  And  accordingly  we  find  among 
the  modern  Mohammedans,  the  outward  expressions  at 
least  of  mourning  are  much  stronger  among  the  women 
than  the  men  :  the  nearest  male  relations,  Dr.  Russel  tells 
us,  describing  their  way  of  carrying  a  corpse  to  be  buried, 
immediately  follow  it,  "  and  the  women  close  the  proces 
sion,  with  dreadful  shrieks,  while  the  men  all  the  way  are 
singing  prayers  out  of  the  Koran.  The  women  go  to  the 
tomb  every  Monday  or  Thursday,  and  carry  some  flowers 
or  green  leaves  to  dress  it  with.  They  make  a  show  of 
grief,  often  expostulating  heavily  with  the  dead  person, 
'  Why  he  should  leave  them,  when  they  had  done  every 
thing  in  their  power  to  make  life  agreeable  to  him.'  This 
however,  by  the  men,  is  looked  upon  as  a  kind  of  impiety ; 
and,  if  overheard,  they  are  chid  severely  for  it:  and,  I  must  .' 
say,  the  men  generally  set  them  a  good  example  in  this  re-, 
spect,  by  a  patient  acquiescence  in  the  loss  of  their  nearest 
relation's,  and  indeed  show  a  firm  and  steady  fortitude  imder 
every  kind  of  misfortune." — HjlRMer. 

Ver.  7.  Neither  shall  men  tear  themselves  for 
them  in  mourning,  to  comfort  them  for  the  dead ; 
neither  shall  men  giv.e  them  the  cup  of  conso- 
lation to  drink  for  their  father  or  for  their 
mother.  8.  Thou  shalt  not  also  go  into  the 
house  of  feasting,  to  sit  with  them  to  eat  and  to 
drink. 

The  making  a  kind  of  funeral  feast  was  also  a  method 
of  honouring  the  dead,  used  anciently  in  these  countries, 
and  is  continued  down  to  these  times.  The  references  of 
commentators  here  have  been,  in  common,  to  the  Greek 
and  Roman  usages ;  but  as  it  must  be  more  pleasing  to  learn 
easterri  customs  of  this  kind,  I  will  set  down  what  Sir  J. 
Chardin  has  given  us  an  account  of  in  one  of  his  manu- 
scripts; and  the  rather,  as  some  particulars  are  new  to  me. 

"  The  oriental  Christians  still  make  banquets  cf  this 
kind,  (speaking  of  the  ancient  Jewish  feasts  of  mourning, 
mentioned  Jer.  xvi.  6,  7,  and  elsewhere,)  by  a  custom  de- 
rived from  the  Jews ;  and  I  have  been  many  times  present 
at  them,  among  the  Armenians  in  Persia.  The  7th  verse 
speaks  of  those  provisions  which  are  wont  to  be  sent  to  the 
house  of  the  deceased,  and  of  those  healths  that  are  drunk 
to  the  survivers  of  the  family,  wishing  that  the  dead  may 
have  been  the  victim  for  the  sins  of  the  family.  The  same, 
with  respect  to  eating,  is  practised  among  the  Moors. 
Where  we  find  the  word  comforting  made  use  of,  we  are  to 
understand  it  as  signifying  "the  performing  these  offices," 
lu  like  manner  he  explains  the  bread  of  men,  mentioned 
Ezek.  xxiv.  17,  as  signifying,  "  the  bread  of  others ;  the 
bread  sent  to  mourners;  the  bread  that  the  neighbours,  re- 
lations, and  friends  sent." — Hakmer. 


Chap   17—20. 


JEREMIAH. 


491 


D'Oyley  and  Mant  say,  "  Friends  were  wont  to  come, 
after  the  funeral  was  over,  to  comfort  those  who  had  buried 
the  dead,  and  send  in  provisions  to  make  a  feast,  it  being 
supposed  that  they  themselves  were  so  sorrowful  as  not  to 
be  able  to  think  of  their  necessary  food."  After  the  corpse 
has  been  consumed  on  the  funeral  pile  or  buried,  the  rela- 
tions of  the  deceased  prepare  and  send  a  iine  kind  of  gruel 
(made  of  the  Palmirah  killunga)  to  the  funeral  house.  At 
the  anniversary  of  a  funeral,  the  relations  of  the  deceased 
meet  to  eat  together,  and  give  food  to  the  poor.  Hence 
great  numbers  on  these  occasions  get  plenty  of  provisions. 
— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Ver.  6.  For  he  shall  be  like  the  heath  in  the 
desert,  and  shall  not  see  when  good  cometh ; 
but  shall  inhabit  the  parched  places  in  the  wil- 
derness, in  a  salt  land,  and  not  inhabited. 

Nothing  can  be  more  desolate  and  solitary  than  the  salt 
plains  of  the  East.  Not  a  shrub,  not  a  tree,  to  cheer  the 
eye ;  even  birds  and  beasts  seehi  affrighted  at  the  scene. 
What  with  the  silence  of  these  solitudes,  the  absence  of 
shade,  of  water,  of  vegetable  and  animal  life,  the  traveller 
moves  on  with  renewed  speed  to  escape  from  such  dreary 
wastes.  Idolatrous  Judah  had  trusted  in  idols :  her  sin  was 
written  "  with  a  pen  of  iron ;"  it  could  not  be  erased ;  and 
for  thus  trusting  in  them,  and  in  man,  she  was  to  dwell  in 
"  the  parched  places,"  the  "  salt  land,"  which  was  "not  in- 
habited."— Roberts.  • 

Ver.  8.  For  he  shall  be  as  a  tree  planted  by  the 
waters,  and  that  spreadeth  out  her  roots  by  the 
river,  and  shall  not  see  when  heat  cometh,  but 
her  leaf  shall  be  green ;  and  shall  not  be  care- 
ful in  the  year  of  drought,  neither  shall  cease 
from  yielding  fruit. 

See  on  Ps.  1.  3. 

To  appreciate  the  beauty  of  this  allusion,  it  is  necessary 
to  think  of  a  parched  desert,  where  there  is  scarcely  a  green 
leaf  to  relieve  the  eye.  In  the  midst  of  that  waste  is  per- 
haps a  tank,  a  well,  or  a  stream,  and  near  to  the  water's 
edge  will  be  seen  plants,  and  shrubs,  and  trees  covered  with 
the  most  beautiful  foliage.  So  shall  be  the  man  who  puts 
his  trust  in  Jehovah.— Roberts. 

Ver.  11.  tIs  the  partridge  sitteth  on  eggs,  and 
hatcheih  them  not;  so  he  that  getteth  riches, 
and  not  by  right,  shall  leave  them  in  the  midst 
of  his  days,  and  at  his  end  shall  be  a  fool. 

See  on  1  Sam.  26.  20. 

Ver.  13.  O  Lord,  the  hope  of  Israel,  all  that  for- 
sake thee  shall  be  ashamed,  and  they  that  de- 
part from  me  shall  be  written  in  the  earth,  be- 
cause they  have  forsaken  the  Lord,  the  fountain 
of  living  waters. 

Dr.  Pococke  represents  the  Coptis,  who  are  used  by  the 
great  men  of  Egypt  for  keeping  their  accounts,  &c.  as 
makmg  use  of  a  sort  of  pasteboard  for  that  purpose,  from 
which  the  writing  is  wiped  off  from  time  to  time  with  a  wet 
sponge,  the  pieces  of  pasteboard  being  used  as  slate.  Peter 
Delia  Valle  observed  a  more  inartificial  way  still  of  writing 
short-lived  memorandums  in  India,  where  he  beheld  chil- 
dren writing  their  lessons  with  their  fingers  on  the  ground 
the  pavement  being  for  that  purpose  strewed  all  over  with 
very  fine  sand.  When  the  pavement  was  full,  they  put  the 
writings  out:  and,  if  need  were,  strewed  new  sand,  from  a 
little  heap  they  had  before  them  wherewith  to  write  farther. 
One  would  be  tempted  to  think  the  prophet  Jeremiah  had 
this  way  of  writing  in  view,  when  he  says  of  them  that  de- 
part from  God,  "  they  shall  be  written  in  the  earth,"  ch.  xvii. 
13.  Certainly  it  means  in  general,  "  soon  be  blotted  out  and 
lorgotten,"  as  is  apparent  from  Psalm  Ixix.  28,  Ezek.  xiii.  9. 
iJr.  Bell's  plan  of  teaching  a  number  of  pupils  to  read  at 
the  same  time,  was  taken  from  what  he  saw  practised  in 
63 


the  East ;  and  this  is  the  plan  which  Mi  \  ancaster  has 
since  greatly  improved  and  extended.  The  plan  of  writing 
on  sarod  is  still  in  use  in  the  East. — Clarke  in  Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ver.  3.  Then  I  went  down  to  the  potter's  house 
and  behold,  he  wrought  a  work  on  the  wheels. 

The  original  word  means  stoTies  rather  than  wheels.  Dr. 
Blayney,  in  a  note  on  this  passage,  says,  "  the  appellation 
will  appear  very  proper,  if  we  consider  this  machine  as 
consisting  of  a  pair  of  circular  stones,  placed  one  upon  an- 
other like  millstones,  of  which  the  lower  was  immoveable, 
but  the  upper  one  turned  upon  the  foot  of  a  spindle,  or  axis, 
and  had  motion  communicated  to  it  by  the  feet  of  the  potter 
sitting  at  his  work,  as  may  be  learned  from  Ecclus.  xxxviii. 
29.  Upon  the  top  of  this  upper  stone,  which  was  flat,  the 
clay  was  placed,  which  the  potter,  having  given  the  stone 
the  due  velocity,  formed  into  shape  with  his  hands," — 

BURDER. 

Ver.  6.  O  house  of  Israel,  cannot  I  do  with  you 
as  this  potter  ?  saith  the  Lord.  Behold,  as  the 
clay  is  in  the  potter's  hand,  so  are  ye  in  my 
hand,  O  house  of  Israel. 

It  is  said  of  an  obedient  son,  "  He  is  like  wax ;  you  may 
shape  him  any  way  you  please ;  you  may  send  him  hither 
and  thither,  this  way  or  that  way,  all  will  be  right."— Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  14.  Will  a  man  leave  the  snow  of  Lebanon 
which  cometh  from  the  rock  of  the  field?  or 
shall  the  cold  flowing  waters  that  come  from 
another  place  be  forsaken  ? 

Tacitus,  Hist.  lib.  v.  cap.  6.  Praecipuum  montium  Liba- 
num  erigit,  mirum  dictu,  tantos  inter  ardores  opacum 
fidumque  nivibus.  "  Of  the  mountains  of  Judea,  Libanus 
is  the  chief;  and,  what  is  surprising,  notwithstanding  the 
extreme  heat  of  the  climate,  is  shaded  with  trees,  and  per- 
petually covered  with  snow."  Whether  this  of  Tacitus  be 
strictly  true  may  be  doubted.  The  author  of  the  Universal 
History  informs  us,  that  '*  Rauwolf,  who  visited  the  cedars 
of  Libanus,  about  mid-summer,  complains  of  the  rigour  of 
the  cold  and  snows  here,  Radzeville,  who  was  here  in 
June,  about  five  years  after  him,  talks  of  the  snow  that  never 
melts  away  from  the  mountains.  Other  travellers  speak  to 
the  same  purpose ;  among  whom  our  Maundrell  represents 
the  cedars  as  growing  among  the  snow  ;  but  he  was  there 
in  the  month  of  May.  From  all  this  he  might  have  formed 
a  judgment  that  the  cedars  stand  always  in  the  midst  of  the 
snow :  but  we  are  assured  of  the  contrary  by  another  trav- 
eller, (La  Roque,)  according  to  whom  the  snows  here  begin 
to  melt  in  April,  and  are  no  more  to  be  seen  after  July ; 
nor  is,  says  he,  any  at  all  left  but  in  such  clifts  of  the  moun- 
tains as  the  sun  cannot  come  at ;  that  the  snow  begins  not 
to  fall  again  till  December ;  and  that  he  himself,  when  he 
was  there,  saw  no  snow  at  all;  and  it  is  probable  bespeaks 
nothing  but  the  truth." — Burder. 

Ver.  17.  I  will  scatter  them  as  with  an  east  wind 
before  the  enemy ;  I  will  show  them  the  back, 
and  not  the  face,  in  the  day  of  their  calamity. 

Nothing  exasperates  a  person  more,  when  he  goes  to  Gee 
another,  than  for  the  individual  thus  visited  to  arise  and 
turn  his  back  to  the  visiter.  To  see  a  man  thus  erect  with 
his  back  towards  another  has  a  striking  effect  on  the  mind. 
In  the  face  of  the  man  thus  insulted  is  chagrin  and  confu- 
sion ;  in  the  other,  contempt  and  triumph.  After  a  pause, 
the  figure  who  shows  his  back  moves  forward,  leaving  tne 
other  to  indulge  in  spleen  and  imprecations. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Ver.  15.  Cursed  be  the  man  who  brought  tidings 
to  my  father,  saying,  A  man-child  is  born  unto 
thee  ;  making  him  very  glad. 

I  have  already  noticed  the  great  anxiety  of  the  people  of 


498 


JEREMIAH. 


Chap.  22—26, 


the  East  to  have  male  children.  At  the  time  of  parturition 
the  husband  awaits  in  an  adjoining  room  or  the  garden  ; 
and  so  soon  as  the  affair  shall  be  over,  should  the  little 
stranger  be  a  son,  the  midwife  rushes  outside,  and  beats 
the  thatch  on  the  roof  three  times,  and  exclaims  aloud,  "  A 
male  child!  a  male  child  !  a  male  child  is  born  !"  Should 
the  infant  be  a  female,  not  a  word  is  said,  and  the  father 
knows  what  is  the  state  of  the  case.  When  a  person  con- 
ducts himself  in  an  unmanly  way,  the  people  ask,  "  Did 
they  beat  the  roof  for  you  1  Was  it  not  said  to  your  father, 
A  male  child  is  born  V — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

Ver.  13.  Wo  unto  him  that  buildeth  his  house  by- 
unrighteousness,  and  his  chambers  by  wrong; 
that  useth  his  neighbour's  service  without  wa- 
ges, and  giveth  him  not  for  his  work. 

Upper  chambers.  The  principal  rooms  anciently  in  Ju- 
dea  were  those  above,  as  they  are  to  this  day  at  Aleppo ; 
the  ground-floor  being  chiefly  made  use  of  for  their  horses 
and  servants.  Busbequius,  speaking  of  the  house  he  had 
hired  at  Constantinople,  says,  "  Pars  superior,  sola  habita- 
tur ;  pars  inferior  equorum  stabulationi  destinata  est.  The 
upper  part  is  alone  inhabited ;  the  lower  is  allotted  for  the 
horses'  stabling."  "  At  Prevesa  the  houses  are  all  of  wood, 
for  the  most  part  with  only  aground-floor,  and  where  there 
is  one  story,  the  communication  to  it  is  by  a  ladder  or 
wooden  steps  on  the  outside,  sheltered,  however,  by  the 
overhanging  eaves  of  the  roof.  In  this  case  the  horses  and 
cattle  occupy  ihe  lower  chamber,  or  it  is  converted  into  a 
warehouse,  and  the  family  live  on  the  floor  above,  in  which 
there  are  seldom  more  than  two  rooms."  (Hobhouse.)  "  In 
Greece,  the  wealthiest  among  them,  the  papas,  have  houses 
with  two  rooms  raised  on  a  second  floor,  the  lower  part 
being  divided  into  a  stable,  cowhouse,  and  cellar    (Dod- 

Well.)— BCJRDER. 

Ver.  24.  As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord,  though  Coniah 
the  son  of  Jehoiakim,  king  of  Judah,  were  the 
signet  upon  my  right  hand,  yet  would  I  pluck 
thee  thence. 

The  SIGNET  is  always  worn  on  the  little  finger  of  the  right 
hand.  Things  which  are  dear  are  spoken  of  as  that  orna- 
ment. "  O  my  child,  you  are  as  my  signet."  "  We  are 
like  the  ring-seal, and  the  impression;"  meaning,  the  child 
resembles  the  father,  "  Never  will  I  see  him  more  ;  were 
he  my  signet,  I  would  throw  him  away."  "I  do  that! 
rather  would  I  throw  away  my  ring-seal."— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

Ver.  25.  I  have  heard  what  the  prophets  said, 
that  prophesy  lies  in  my  name,  saying,  I  have 
dreamed,  I  have  dreamed. 

Exactly  in  the  same  way  do  the  heathen  priests  and  de- 
votees impose  on  the  people  at  this  day.  Have  they  some 
profitable  speculation  which  requires  the  sanction  of  the 
gods,  they  affect  to  have  had  a  visit  from  them,  and  they 
generally  manage  to  relate  some  secret  transaction  (as  a 
proof)  which  the  individual  concerned  supposed  was  only 
known  to  himself.— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Ver.  6.  For  I  will  set  mine  eyes  upon  them  for 
good,  and  I  will  bring  them  again  to  this  land : 
and  I  will  build  them,  and  not  pull  them  down ; 
and  I  will  plant  them,  and  not  pluck  them  up. 

The  eye  is  spoken  of  as  the  source,  and  also  as  the  cause, 
of  a  blessing.  Thus,  has  a  person  been  sick,  and  is  he 
asked,  how  did  you  recover  1  he  replies,  "  The  gods  fixed 
iheir  eyes  upon  me."  Does  a  man  promise  a  favour,  he 
says,  "  I  will  place  my  eyes  upon  you."  Does  he  refuse, 
h«  says,  '*  I  will  not  put  my  eyes  on  you." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Ver.  10.  Moreover,  I  will  take  from  them  the 
voice  of  mirth,  and  the  voice  of  gladness,  the 


voice  of  the  bridegroom,  and  the  voice  of  the 
bride,  the  sound  of  the  millstones,  and  the  light 
of  the  candle. 

"  In  the  East  they  grind  their  corn  at  break  of  day. 
When  one  goes  out  in  a  morning,  he  hears  everywhere 
the  noise  of  the  mill,  and  this  noise  often  awakens  people." 
(Chardin.)  He  supposes  also  that  songs  are  made  use  ot 
when  they  are  grinding.  It  is  very  possible  then,  that  when 
the  sacred  writers  speak  of  the  no'ise  of  the  millstones,  they 
may  mean  the  noise  of  the  songs  of  those  who  worked 
them.  This  earliness  of  grinding  makes  the  going  ol 
Rechab  and  Baanah  to  fetch  wheat  the  day  before  from  the 
palace,  to  be  distributed  to  the  soldiers  under  them,  verv 
natural.  (2  Sam.  iv.  2—7.)  They  are  female  slaves  who 
are  generally  employed  at  these  handmills.  It  is  extremely 
laborious,  and  esteemed  the  lowest  employment  in  the 
house.  (Harmer.)  Mr.  Park  observed  this  custom  in  the 
interior  parts  of  Africa,  when  he  was  invited  into  a  hut  by 
some  female  natives,  in  order  to  shelter  him  from  the  in- 
clemency of  a  very  rainy  night.  While  thus  employed, 
one  of  the  females  sung  a  song,  the  rest  joining  in  a  sort  of 
chorus. 

The  houses  of  Egypt  are  never  without  lights.  Maillet 
assures  us,  (Lett.  ix.  p.  10,)  they  burn  lamps  not  only  all 
the  night  long,  but  in  all  the  inhabited  apartments  of  a 
house  ;  and  that  the  custom  is  so  well  established,  that  the 
poorest  people  would  rather  retrench  part  of  their  food  than 
neglect  it.  This  remark  will  elucidate  several  passages  of 
scripture.  In  the  words  above  referred  to,  Jeremiah  makes 
the  taking  away  of  the  light  of  the  candle  and  total  destruc- 
tion the  same  thing.  Job  describes  the  destruction  of  a 
family  among  the  Arabs,  and  the  rendering  one  of  their 
habitations  desolate,  after  the  same  manner:  "How  oft  is 
the  candle  of  the  wicked  put  out,  and  how  oft  cometh  their 
destruction  upon  them  !"  Job  xviii.  5.  xxi.  17.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  God  promises  to  give  David  a  lamp  always  in 
Jerusalem,  (1  Kings  xi.  36,)  considered  in  this  point  of 
view,  it  is  an  assurance  that  his  house  should  never  become 
desolate. — Burder. 

The  people  of  the  East  who  can  afford  it,  have  always  a 
lamp  burning  in  their  room  the  whole  of  the  night.  It  is 
one  of  their  greatest  comforts ;  because,  shomj^  they  not  be 
able  to  sleep,  they  can  then  look  about  them,  and  amuse 
themselves.  "  Evil  spirits  are  kept  away,  as  they  do  not 
like  the  light !"  Lechemy,  the  beautiful  goddess,  also  takes 
pleasure  in  seeing  the  rooms  lighted  up.  But  that  which  is 
of  the  MOST  importance  is,  the  light  keeps  off  the  serpents 
and  other  poisonous  reptiles. — Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  For  thus  saith  the  Lord  God  of  Israel 
unto  me,  Take  the  wine-cup  of  this  fury  at  my 
hand,  and  cause  all  the  nations  to  whom  I  send 
thee,  to  drink  it.  16.  And  they  shall  drink, 
and  be  moved,  and  be  mad,  because  of  the 
sword  that  I  will  send  among  them. 

See  on  Mark  15. 2,  3. 

Ver.  16.  And  they  shall  drink,  and  be  moved, 
and  be  mad,  because  of  the  sword  that  I  will 
send  among  them. 

"  This  is  an  allusion  to  those  intoxicating  draughts 
which  used  to  be  given- to  malefactors  just  before  their 
execution,  to  take  away  their  senses.  Immediately  before 
the  execution  began,  says  the  Talmud,  they  gave  the  con- 
demned a  quantity  of  frankincense  in  a  cup  of  wine,  to 
stupify  him,  and  render  him  insensible  of  his  pain.  The 
compassionate  ladies  of  Jerusalem  generally  provided  this 
draught  at  their  own  cost.  The  foundation  of  this  custom 
was  the  command  of  Solomon,  Prov.  xxxi.  6.  "Give  strong 
drink  to  him  that  is  ready  to  perish,  and  wine  to  those  that 
be  of  heavy  hearts." — Lewis. 

Ver.*38.  He  hath  forsaken  his  covert,  as  the  lion : 
for  their  land  is  desolate,  becatise  of  the  fierce- 
ness of  the  oppressor,  and  because  of  his  fierce 
anger. 

See  on  Isa.  38.  14. 


Chap.  26—32. 


JEREMIAH. 


499 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

Ver.  18.  Micah  the  Morasthite  prophesied  in  the 
days  of  Hezekiah  king  of  Judah,  and  spake  to 
all  the  people  of  Judah,  saying,  Thus  saith  the 
Lord  of  hosts,  Zion  shall  be  ploughed  like  a 
field,  and  Jerusalem  shall  become  heaps,  and 
the  mountain  of  the  house  as  the  high  places 
of  the  forest. 

See  on  Mic.  3.  12. 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 
Ver.  15.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  A  voice  was  heard 
in  Ramah,  a  lamentation,  and  bitter  weeping ; 
Rachel  weeping  for  her  children,  refused  to  be 
comforted  for  her  children,  because  they  were 
not. 

From  Le  Bruyn's  Voyage  in  Syria  we  learn,  that  "  the 
women  go  in  companies,  on  certain  days,  out  of  the  towns 
to  the  tombs  of  their  relations,  in  order  to  weep  there;  and 
when  they  nre  arrived,  they  display  very  deep  expressions 
of  grief.  While  I  was  at  Ramah,  I  saw  a  very  great  com- 
pany of  these  weeping  women,  who  went  out  of  the  town. 
I  followed  them,  and  after  having  observed  the  place  they 
visited  adjacent  to  their  sepulchres,  in  order  to  make  their 
usual  lamentations,  I  seated  myself  on  an  elevated  spot. 
They  first  went  and  placed  themselves  on  their  sepulchres, 
and  wept  there ;  where,  after  having  remained  about  half 
an  hour,  some  of  them  rose  up,  and  formed  a  ring,  holding 
each  other  by  the  hand,  as  is  done  in  some  country-dances. 
Uuickly  two  of  them  quitted  the  others,  and  placed  them- 
selves in  the  centre  of  the  ring ;  where  they  made  so  much 
noise  in  screaming,  and  in  clapping  their  hands,  as,  to- 
gether with  their  various  contortions,  might  have  subjected 
them  to  the  suspicion  of  madness.  After  that  they  returned, 
and  seated  themselves  to  weep  again,  till  they  gradually 
withdrew  to  their  homes.  The  dresses  they  wore  were 
such  as  they  generally  used,  white,  or  any  other  colour; 
but  when  they  rose  up  to  form  a  circle  together,  they  put  on 
a  black  veil  over  the  upper  parts  of  their  persons." — Border. 

Ver.  18.  I  have  surely  heard  Ephraim  bemoan- 
ing himself  thus :  Thou  hast  chastised  me,  and 
I  was  chastised,  as  a  bullock  unaccustomed  to 
the  yoke:  turn  thou  me,  and  I  shall  be  turned; 
for  thou  art  the  Lord  my  God. 

The  simile  is  a  most  apt  one.  I  had  frequent  opportuni- 
ties of  witnessing  the  conduct  of  oxen  when  for  the  first 
time  put  into  the  yoke  to  assist  in  dragging  the  wagons. 
On  observing  an  ox  that  had  been  in  the  yoke  for  seven  or 
eight  hundred  miles  beginning  to  get  weak,  or  his  hoofs  to 
be  worn  down  to  the  quick,  by  treading  on  the  sharp  gravel, 
a  fresh  ox  was  put  into  the  yoke  in  his  place.  When  the 
selection  fell  on  an  ox  I  had  received  as  a  present  from 
some  African  king,  of  course  one  completely  unaccustom- 
ed to  the  yoke,  such  generally  made  a  strenuous  struggle 
for  liberty, — repeatedly  breaking  the  yoke,  and  attempting 
to  make  its  escape.  At  other  times  such  bullocks  lay  down 
upon  their  sides  or  backs,  and  remained  so  in  defiance  of 
the  Hottentots,  though  two  or  three  of  them  would  be  lash- 
ing them  with  their  ponderous  whips.  Sometimes,  from 
pity  to  the  animal,  I  would  interfere,  and  beg  them  to  be  less 
cruel.  "  Cruel !"  they  would  say,  "  it  is  mercy ^  for  if  we  do 
not  conquer  him  now,  he  will  require  to  be  so  beaten  all 
his  life."  Some  oxen  would  seem  convinced  of  the  folly 
of  opposing  the  will  of  ^the  Hottentots  by  the  end  of  the  first 
day ;  some  about  the  middle  of  the  second ;  while  some 
would  continue  the  struggle  to  the  third ;  after  which  they 
would  go  on  as  willingly  and  quietly  as  any  of  their  neigh- 
bour oxen.  They  seemed  convinced  that  their  resisting 
was  fruitless  as  kicking  against  the  pricks,  or  sharp  pointed 
iron,  which  they  could  not  injure,  but  that  every  kick  they 
gave  only  injured  themselves.—  Campbell. 

Ver.  19.  Surely  after  that  I  was  turned,  I  repent- 
ed; and  after  that  I  was  instructed,  I  smote 


upon  wz?/ thigh :  I  was  ashamed,  yea,  even  con- 
founded, because  I  did  bear  the  reproach  of  my 
youth. 

It  appears  to  have  been  the  custom,  when  a  person  was 
in  sorrow,  to  smite  his  thigh.  Is  it  not  interesting  to  know 
that  the  people  of  the  East,  when  in  similar  circumstances, 
do  the  same  thing  at  this  day ]  See  the  bereaved  father; 
he  smites  his  right  thigh,  and  cries  aloud,  ''lyol  lyol'^ 
alas !  alas! — Roberts. 

Ver.  28.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  like  as  I 
have  watched  over  them,  to  pluck  up,  and  to 
break  down,  and  to  throw  down,  and  to  destroy, 
and  to  afflict ;  so  will  I  watch  over  them,  to 
build,  and  to  plant,  saith  the  Lord. 

See  on  ch.  5.  6. 

Ver.  29.  In  those  days  they  shall  say  no  more. 
The  fathers  have  eaten  a  sour  grape,  and  the 
children's  teeth  are  set  on  edge,  30.  But  every 
one  shall  die  for  his  own  iniquity:  every  man 
that  eateth  the  sour  grape,  his  teeth  shall  be  set 
on  edge. 
See  on  Gen.  49.  11. 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 

Ver.  11.  So  I  took  the  evidence  of  the  purchase, 
both  that  which  was  sealed  according  to  the 
law  and  custom,  and  that  which  was  open. 

The  double  evidences  of  Jeremiah's  purchase,  which 
are  mentioned  ch.  xxxii.  11,  seems  a  strange  management 
in  their  civil  concerns ;  yet  something  of  the  like  kind  ob- 
tains still  among  them.  Both  the  writings  were  in  the 
hands  of  Jeremiah,  and  at  his  disposal,  verse  14;  for  what 
purpose  then  were  duplicates  made'?  To  those  that  are 
unacquainted  with  the  eastern  usages,  it  must  appear  a 
question  of  some  difficulty. 

"  The  open  or  unsealed  writing,"  says  an  eminent  com- 
mentator, "  was  either  a  copy  of  the  sealed  deed,  or  else 
a  certificate  of  the  witnesses,  in  whose  presence  the  deed  of 
purchase  was  signed  and  sealed."— (Lowth.)  But  it  still 
recurs,  of  what  use  was  a  copy  that  was  to  be  buried  in 
the  same  earthen  vessel,  and  run  exactly  the  same  risks 
with  the  original  7  If  by  a  certificate  is  meant  a  deed  of 
the  witnesses,  by  which  they  attested  the  contract  of  Jere- 
miah and  Hananeel,  and  the  original  deed  of  purchase  had 
no  witnesses  at  all,  then  it  is  natural  to  ask,  whv  were  they 
made  separate  writings  ?  and  much  more,  why  was  one 
sealed,  and  not  the  other  7 

Sir  J.  Chardin's  account  of  modern  managements,  which 
he  thinks  illustrates  this  ancient  story,  is,  "  that  after  a  con- 
tract is  made,  it  is  kept  by  the  party  himself,  not  the  notary ; 
and  they  cause  a  copy  to  be  made,  signed  by  the  notary 
alone,  which  is  shown  upon  proper  occasions,  and  never 
exhibit  the  other."  According  to  this  account,  the  two 
books  were  the  same,  the  one  sealed  up  with  solemnity,  and 
not  to  be  used  on  common  occasions;  that  which  was  open, 
the  same  writing,  to  be  perused  at  pleasure,  and  made  use 
of  upon  all  occasions.  The  sealed  one  answered  to  a  record 
with  us ;  the  other  a  writing  for  common  use. — Harmer. 

Ver.  13.  Arid  I  charged  Baruch  before  them, 
saying,  14.  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the 
God  of  Israel,  Take  these  evidences,  this  evi- 
dence of  the  purchase,  both  which  is  sealed, 
and  this  evidence  which  is  open,  and  put  them 
in  an  earthen  vessel,  that  they  may  continue 
many  days. 

Whatever  materials  the  ancient  Jews  wrote  upon,  they 
were  liable  to  be  easily  destroyed  by  the  dampness  when  hid- 
den in  the  earth.  It  was  therefore  thought  requisite  to  en- 
close them  in  something  that  might  keep  them  from  the  damp, 
lest  they  should  decay  and  be  rendered  useless.  In  those 
days  of  roughness,  when  war  knew  not  the  softenings  of 


500 


JEREMIAH. 


Chap.  33 — 36. 


later  times,  men  were  wont  to  bury  in  the  earth  every  part 
of  their  property  that  could  be  concealed  after  that  manner, 
not  only  silver  and  gold,  but  wheat,  barley,  oil,  and  honey ; 
vestments  and  writings  too.  For  that  I  apprehend  was  the 
occasion  of  Jeremiah's  ordering,  that  the  writings  he  de- 
livered to  Baruch,  mentioned  in  his  thirty-second  chapter, 
should  be  put  into  an  earthen  vessel. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 
Ver.  13.  In  the  cities  of  the  mountains,  in  the 
cities  of  the  vale,  and  in  the  cities  of  the  south, 
and  in  the  land  of  Benjamin,  and  in  the  places 
about  Jerusalem,  and  in  the  cities  of  Judah,  shall 
the  flocks  pass  again  under  the  hands  of  him 
that  telleth  them,  saith  the  Lord. 

See  on  Ps.  23.  4. 

It  was  the  custom  of  more  accurate  or  severe  masters,  to 
number  their  jlocks  in  the  morning  when  they  went  out  to 
pasture,  and  again  in  the  evening  when  they  returned  to 
the  fold.  But  the  most  indulgent  masters  seem  to  have 
always  numbered  their  flocks  in  the  evening ;  a  fact  clearly 
attested  by  Virgil  in  the  close  of  his  sixth  Eclogue  : 
"  Cogere  donee  oves  stabulis  numerumque  referre 
Jussit,  et  invito  processit  vesper  Olympo." 

"  Till  vesper  warned  the  shepherds  to  pen  their  sheep 
in  the  folds  and  recount  their  number;  and  advanced  on 
the  sky,  full  loth  to  lose  the  song."  Agreeably  to  this  cus- 
tom, the  prophet  Jeremiah  is  directed  hy  the  Spirit  of  God 
to  promise,  "  The  flocks  shall  pass  again  under  the  hands 
of  him  that  telleth  them,  saith  the  Lord."  The  reference 
of  these  words  to  the  rod  of  the  shepherd  numbering  his 
flock,  when  they  return  from  the  pasture,  appears  from  the 
verse  immediately  preceding :  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts,  again  in  this  place,  which  is  desolate,  without  man 
and  without  beast,  and  in  all  the  cities  thereof,  shall  be  an 
habitation  of  shepherds,  causing  their  flocks  to  lie  down." — 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
Ver.  3.  And  thou  shalt  not  escape  out  of  his  hand, 
but  shalt  surely  be  taken,  and  delivered  into 
his  hand ;  and  thine  eyes  shall  behold  the  eyes 
of  the  king  of  Babylon,  and  he  shall  speak  with 
thee  mouth  to  mouth,  and  thou  shalt  go  to  Baby- 
lon. 

To  say,  your  eyes  shall  see  the  eyes  of  another,  implies 
pleasure  or  pain.  Thu.s,  to  comfort  one  who  greatly  de- 
sires to  see  another,  but  who  fears  he  shall  not  have  that 
pleasure,  it  is  said,  "  Fear  not,  your  eyes  shall  see  his 
eyes."  But,  should  a  person  have  committed  some  crime, 
it  is  said  to  him,  in  order  to  make  him  afraid,  "  Yes  ;  your 
eyes  shall  see  his  eyes,"  i.  e.  of  the  person  who  has  been 
injured,  and  who  has  power  to  inflict  punishment. — Rob- 
erts. 

CHAPTER  XXXVI. 
Ver.  22,  Now  the  king  sat  in  the  winter-house  in 
the  ninth  month :  and  there  was  a  fire  on  the 
hearth  burning  before  him. 

In  Palestine,  and  the  surrounding  regions,  the  coldness 
of  the  night  in  all  the  seasons  of  the  year,  is  ofl;en  very  in- 
con  venient.  The  king  of  Judah  is  described  by  the  prophet, 
as  sitting  in  his  winter-house  in  the  ninth  month,  corre- 
sponding to  the  latter  end  of  November  and  part  of  Decem- 
ber, with  a  fire  burning  on  the  hearth  before  him.  This 
answers  to  the  state  of  the  weather  at  Aleppo,  where,  as 
Russel  informs  us,  the  most  delicate  people  make  no  fires 
till  the  end  of  November.  The  Europeans,  resident  in 
Syria,  he  observes  in  a  note,  continue  them  till  March ;  the 
people  of  the  country,  seldom  longer  than  February ;  but 
fires  are  occasionally  made  in  the  wet  seasons,  not  only  in 
March,  but  in  April  also,  and  would  be  acceptable,  at  the 
gardens,  sometimes  even  in  May.  Dr.  Pocoke,  in  his  jour- 
ney to  Jerusalem,  being  conducted  by  an  Arab  to  his  tent, 
Ibund  his  wife  and  family  warming  themselves  by  the  fire 
on  the  seventeenth  of  March ;  and  on  the  eighth  of  May, 
he  was  treated  with  a  fire  to  warm  him,  by  the  governor  of 


Galilee,  The  nights  in  that. season  are  often  very  cold; 
and  of  this  the  inhabitants  are  rendered  more  sensible  by 
the  heats  of  the  day.  In  May  and  June,  and  even  in  July, 
travellers  very  often  put  on  fires  in  the  evening.  This 
statement  clearly  discovers  the  reason,  that  the  people  who 
went  to  Gethsemane  to  apprehend  our  Lord,  kindled  a  fire 
of  coals,  to  warm  themselves  at  the  time  of  the  passover, 
which  happened  in  the  spring.  But  it  is  not  only  in  ele- 
vated situations,  as  that  on  which  the  city  of  Jerusalem 
stands,  that  the  cold  of  the  night  is  so  piercing ;  the  trav- 
eller has  to  encounter  its  severity  on  the  low-lying  plains, 
by  the  seaside,  and  in  the  sandy  deserts,  where,  during  the 
day,  beneath  the  scorching  sunbeam,  he  could  scarcely 
breathe.  The  severe  cold  of  the  morning  compelled  Mr. 
Doubdan  to  remain  some  hours  at  Joppa,  in  a  poor  Greek 
hovel,  before  he  could  set  out  for  Rama.  At  ancient  Tyre 
his  condition  was  still  more  distressing.  On  the  sixteentt 
of  May,  he  found  the  heat  near  that  once-renowned  mai 
of  nations  so  great,  that  though  he  and  his  party  took  their 
repast  on  the  grass,  under  a  large  tree,  by  the  side  of  a 
small  river,  yet  he  complains,  "  they  were  burnt  up  alive." 
After  attempting  in  vain  to  prosecute  their  voyage,  night 
overtook  them  at  the  ruins  of  Tyre.  Near  those  ruins, 
they  were  obliged  to  pass  a  considerable  part  of  the  night, 
not  without  suffering  greatly  from  the  cold,  which  was  as 
violent  and  sharp  as  the  heat  of  the  day  had  been  intense. 
Our  traveller  acknowledges,  that  he  shook,  as  in  the  depth 
of  winter,  more  than  two  or  three  full  hours. — Paxton.* 

The  "  hearth"  here  mentioned  was  in  all  probability  the 
tandoor  of  the  East,  of  which  so  full  an  account  is  given  in 
Smith  and  Dwight's  Travels  in  Armenia.—"  What  attract- 
ed our  attention  most  this  stormy  day,  was  the  apparatus 
for  warming  us.  It  was  the  species  of  oven  called  ta7inoor, 
common  throughout  Armenia,  and  also  in  Syria,  but  con- 
verted here  for  purposes  of  warmth  into  what  is  called  a 
tandoor.  A  cylindrical  hole  is  sunk  about  three  feet  in  the 
ground  in  some  part  of  the  room,  with  a  flue  entering  it  at 
the  bottom  to  convey  a  current  of  air  to  the  fire  which  heats 
it.  For  the  emission  of  smoke  no  other  provision  is  made 
than  the  open  sky-light  in  the  terrace.  When  used  for 
baking  bread,  the  "dough,  being  flattened  to  the  thickness  of 
common  pasteboard,  perhaps  a  foot  and  a  half  long  by  a  foot 
broad,  is  stuck  to  its  smooth  sides  by  means  of  a  cushion 
upon  which  it  is  first  .spread.  It  indicates,  by  cleaving  off, 
when  it  is  done,  and  being  then  packed  down  in  the  family 
chest,  it  lasts  at  least  a  month  in  the  winter  and  ten  days  in 
the  summer.  Such  is  the  only  bread  known  in  the  villages 
of  Armenia;  and  even  the  cities  of  Erivan  and  Tebriz  offer 
no  other  variety  than  a  species  perhaps  only  twice  as  thick, 
and  so  long  that  it  might  almost  be  sold  by  the  yard.  To 
bake  it,  the  bottom  of  a  large  oven  is  covered  with  pebbles, 
(except  one  corner  where  a  fire  is  kept  constantly  burning,) 
and  upon  them,  when  heated,  the  sheets  of  dough  are  spread. 
The  convenience  of  such  thin  bread,  where  knives  and 
forks  are  not  used,  and  spoons  are  rare,  is  that  a  piece  of  it 
doubled  enables  you  to  take  hold  of  a  mouthful  of  meat 
more  delicately  than  with  your  bare  fingers;  or,  when  prop- 
erly folded,  helps  you  to  convey  a  spoonful  safely  to  your 
mouth  to  be  eaten  with  the  spoon  itself  When  needed  for 
purposes  of  warmth,  the  tannoor  is  easily  transformed  into 
a  tandoor,  A  round  stone  is  laid  upon  the  mouth  of  the 
oven,  when  well  heated,  to  stop  the  draught;  a  square 
frame  about  a  foot  in  height  is  then  placed  above  it ;  and  a 
thick  coverlet,  spread  over  the  whole,  lies  upon  the  ground 
around  it,  to  confine  the  warmth.  The  family  squat  upon 
the  floor,  and  warm  themselves  by  extending  their  legs  and 
hands  into  the  heated  air  beneath  it,  while  the  frame  holds, 
as  occasion  requires,  their  lamp  or  their  food.  Its  etonomy 
is  evidently  great.  So  full  of  crevices  are  the  houses,  that 
an  open  fireplace  must  consume  a  great  quantity  of  fuel, 
and  then  almost  fail  of  warming  even  the  air  in  its  imme- 
diate vicinity.  The  tandoor,  heated  once,  or  at  the  most 
twice,  in  twenty-four  hours  by  a  small  quantity  of  fuel, 
keeps  one  spot  continually  warm  for  the  relief  of  all  numb 
fingers  and  frozen  toes." — Bush. 

Ver.  30.  Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  of  Jehoi- 
akim  king  of  Judah  :  He  shall  have  none  to  sit: 
upon  the  throne  of  David:  and  his  dead  body 
shall  be  cast  out  in  the  day  to  the  heat,  and  in 
the  night  to  the  frbst. 


Chap.  37. 


JEREMIAH, 


501 


It  may  not  be  improper  here  to  remark  upon  the  wisdom 
and  goodness  of  God  displayed  in  the  temperature  of  an 
oriental  sky.  The  excessive  heats  of  the  day,  which  are 
sometimes  incommodious,  even  in  the  depth  of  winter,  are 
compensated  and  rendered  consistent  with  animal  and 
vegetable  life,  by  a  corresponding  degree  of  coolness  in  the 
night.  The  patriarch  Jacob  takes  notice  of  this  fact,  in  his 
expostulation  with  Laban:  "  By  day  the  heat  consumed  me, 
and  the  frost  by  night."  Mr.  "Bruce,  in  like  manner,  fre- 
quently remarks  in  his  journey  through  the  deserts  of  Se- 
^:aar,  where  the  heat  of  the  day  was  almost  insupportable, 
that  the  coldness  of  the  night  was  very  great.  When  Rau- 
wolf  travelled  on  the  Euphrates,  he  was  wont  to  wrap  him- 
self up  in  a  frieze  coat  in  the  nighttime,  to  defend  him- 
self from  the  frost  and  dew,  which,  he  observes,  are  very 
frequent  and  violent  there.  Thevenot  traversed  the  very 
fields  where  Jacob  tended  the  flocks  of  Laban  ;  and  he 
found  the  heats  of  the  day  so  intense,  that  although  he  wore 
upon  his  head  a  large  black  handkerchief  after  the  manner 
of  the  Orientals  when  they  travel,  yet,  his  forehead  was 
frequently  so  scorched,  as  to  swell  exceedingly,  and  ac- 
tually to  suffer  excoriation ;  his  hands  being  more  exposed 
to  the  burning  sun,  were  continually  parched;  and  he 
learned  from  experience,  to  sympathize  with  the  toil-worn 
shepherd  of  the  East.  In  Europe,  the  days  and  nights  re- 
semble each  other,  with  respect  to  the  qualities  of  heat  and 
cold ;  but  if  credit  be  due  to  the  representations  of  Chardin, 
it  is  quite  otherwise  in  oriental  climates.  In  the  Lower 
Asia,  particularly,  the  day  is  always  hot ;  and  as  soon  as  the 
.sun  is  fifteen  degrees  above  the  horizon,  no  cold  is  felt  in 
the  depth  of  winter  itself:  on  the  contrary,  the  nights  are 
as  cold  as  at  Paris  in  the  month  of  March.  It  is  for  this 
reason,  that  in  Turkey  and  Persia  they  always  used  furred 
habits  in  the  country,  such  only  being  sufficient  to  resist 
the  cold  of  the  night.  Chardin  travelled  in  Arabia  and 
Mesopotamia,  the  scene  of  Jacob's  adventures,  both  in  win- 
ter and  in  summer,  and  attested  on  his  return  the  truth  of 
what  the  patriarch  asserted,  that  he  was  scorched  with  heat 
in  the  day,  and  stiffened  with  cold  in  the  night.  This  dif- 
ference in  the  state  of  the  air  in  twenty-four  hours,  is  in 
some  places  extremely  great,  and  according  to  that  respect- 
able traveller,  not  conceivable  by  those  who  have  not  seen 
it ;  one  would  imagine,  they  had  passed  in  a  moment  from 
the  violent  heats  of  summer  to  the  depth  of  winter.  Thus 
it  has  pleased  a  beneficent  Deity  to  temper  the  heat  of  the 
day  by  the  coolness  of  the  night,  without  which,  the  great- 
est part  of  the  East  would  be  a  parched  and  steril  desert, 
equally  destitute  of  vegetable  and  animal  life.  This  ac- 
count is  confirmed  by  a  modern  traveller.  When  Camp- 
bell was  passing  through  Mesopotamia,  he  sometimes  lay 
at  night  out  in  the  open  air,  rather  than  enter  a  town  ;  on 
which  occasions,  he  says,  "  I  found  the  weather  as  piercing 
cold,  as  it  was  distressfully  hot  in  the  daytime."  The  same 
difference  between  the  days  and  nights,  has  been  observed 
on  the  Syrian  bank  of  the  Euphrates ;  the  mornings  are 
cold,  and  the  days  intensely  hot.  This  difference  is  dis- 
tinctly marked  in  these  words  of  the  prophet :  "  Therefore, 
thus  saith  the  Lord  of  Jehoiakim,  king  of  Judah  :  he  shall 
have  none  to  sit  upon  the  throne  of  David ;  and  his  dead  body 
shall  be  cast  out  in  the  day  to  the  heat,  and  in  the  night  to 
the  frost."  So  just  and  accurate  are  the  numerous  allusions 
of  scripture  to  the  natural  state  of  the  oriental  regions;  and 
so  necessary  it  is  to  study  with  care  the  natural  history  of 
those  celebrated  and  interesting  countries,  to  enable  us  to 
ascertain  with  clearness  and  precision,  the  meaning,  or  to 
discern  the  beauty  and  force  of  numerous  passages  of  the 
«acred  volume. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXXVn. 

Ver.  15.  Wherefore  the  princes  were  wroth  with 
Jeremiah,  and  smote  him,  and  put  him  in  prison 
in  the  house  of  Jonathan  the  scribe  :  for  they 
had  made  that  the  prison. 

The  treatment  of  those  that  are  shut  up  in  the  eastern 
prisons  differs  from  our  usages,  but  serves  to  illustrate  sev- 
eral passages  of  scripture.  Chardin  relates  several  circum- 
stances concerning  their  prisons,  which  are  curious,  and 
should  not  be  omitted.  In  the  first  place,  he  tells  us  that 
the  eastern  prisons  are  not  public  buildings  erected  for  that 
purpose ;  but  a  part  of  the  house  in  which  their  criminal 


judges  dwell.  As  the  governor  and  provost  of  a  town,  or 
the  captain  of  the  watch,  imprisoned  such  as  are  accused  in 
their  own  houses,  they  set  apart  a  canton  of  it  for  that  pur- 
pose, when  they  are  put  into  these  offices,  and  choose  for 
the  jailer  the  most  proper  person  they  can  find  of  their 
domestics. 

Sir  John  supposes  the  prison  in  which  Joseph,  together  with 
the  chief  butler  and  chief  baker  of  Pharaoh,  was  put,  was 
in  Potiphar's  own  house.  But  I  would  apply  this  account 
to  the  illustration  of  another  passage  of  scripture :  "Where- 
fore," it  is  said,  Jer.  xxxvii.  15,  "the  princes  were  wroth 
with  Jeremiah,  and  smote  him,  and  put  him  in  prison  in 
the  house  of  Jonathan  the  scribe  ;  for  they  had  made  that 
the  prison."  Here  we  see  a  dwelling-house  was  made  a 
prison  ;  and  the  house  of  an  eminent  person,  for  it  was  the 
house  of  a  scribe,  which  title  marks  out  a  person  of  qual- 
ity :  it  is  certain  it  does  so  in  some  places  of  Jeremiah, 
particularly  ch.  xxxvi.  12,  "  Then  he  went  down  into  the 
king's  house  into  the  scribe's  chamber,  and  lo,  all  the 
princes  sat  there,  even  Elishama  the  scribe,  and  Delaiah," 
&c.  The  making  the  house  of  Jonathan  the  prison,  would 
not  now,  in  the  East,  be  doing  him  any  dishonour,  or  occa- 
sion the  looking  upon  him  in  a  mean  light ;  it  would  j:ather 
mark  out  the  placing  him  in  an  office  of  importance.  It  is 
probable  it  was  so  anciently,  and  that  his  house  became  a 
prison,  when  Jonathan  was  made  the  royal  scribe,  and  be- 
came, like  the  chamber  of  Elishama,  one  of  the  prisons  of 
the  people, — Harmer. 

Ver.  21.  Then  Zedekiah  the  king  commanded 
that  they  should  commit  Jeremiah  into  the 
court  of  the  prison,  and  that  they  should  give 
him  daily  a  piece  of  bread  out  of  the  bakers' 
street,  until  all  the  bread  in  the  city  were  spent. 
Thus  Jeremiah  remained  in  the  court  of  the 
prison. 

In  primitive  times,  an  oven  was  designed  only  to  serve 
a  single  family,  and  to  bake  for  them  no  more  than  the 
bread  of  one  day  ;  a  custom  which  still  continues  in  some 
places  of  the  East;  but  the  increase  of  population  in  the 
cities,  higher  degrees  of  refinement,  or  other  causes  in  the 
progress  of  time,  suggested  the  establishment  of  public 
bakehouses.  They  seem  to  have  been  introduced  into  Ju- 
dea  long  before  the  captivity ;  for  the  prophet  Jeremiah 
speaks  of  "  the  bakers'  street,"  in  the  most  familiar  manner, 
as  a  place  well  known.  This,  however,  might  be  only  a 
temporary  establishment,  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  sol- 
diers assembled  from  other  places,  to  defend  Jerusalem. 
If  they  received  a  daily  allowance  of  bread,  as  is  the  prac- 
tice still  in  some  eastern  countries,  from  the  royal  bake- 
houses, the  order  of  the  king  to  give  the  prophet  daily  a 
piece  of  bread,  out  of  the  street  where  they  were  erected, 
m  the  same  manner  as  the  defenders  of  the  city,  was  per- 
fectly natural.  The  custom  alluded  to  still  maintains  its 
ground  at  Algiers,  where  the  unmarried  soldiers  receive 
every  day  from  the  public  bakehouses  a  certain  number  of 
loaves.  Pitts  indeed  asserts,  that  the  Algerines  have  pub- 
lic bakehouses  for  the  accommodation  of  the  whole  city. 
The  women  prepare  their  dough  at  home,  and  the  bakers 
send  their  boys  about  the  streets,  to  give  notice  of  their 
being  ready  to  receive  and  carry  it  to  the  bakehouses. 
They  bake  their  cakes  every  day,  or  every  other  day,  and 
give  the  boy  who  brings  the  bread  home,  a  piece  or  little 
cake  for  the'  baking,  which  is  sold  by  the  baker.  Small  as 
the  eastern  loaves  are,  it  appears  from  this  account,  that 
they  give  a  piece  of  one  only  to  the  baker,  as  a  reward  for 
his  trouble.  This  will  perhaps  illustrate  Ezekiel's  account 
of  the  false  prophets  receiving  pieces  of  bread  by  way 
of  gratuities :  "  And  will  ye  pollute  me  among  my  people, 
for  handfuls  of  barley,  and  pieces  of  bread  V  These  are 
compensations  still  used  in  the  East,  but  of  the  meanest 
kind,  and  for  services  of  the  lowest  sort. — Paxton. 

The  bazars  at  Ispahan  are  very  extensive,  and  it  is 
possible  to  walk  under  cover  in  them  for  two  or  three  miles 
together.  The  trades  are  here  collected  in  separate  bodies 
which  make  it  very  convenient  to  purchasers ;  and,  indeed 
we  may  from  analogy  suppose  the  same  to  have  been  the 
case  from  the  most  ancient  times,  when  we  consider  the 
command  of  Zedekiah  to  feed  Jeremiah  from  the  bakers' 
street. — Morier. 


602 


JEREMIAH. 


Chap.  38—43 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

Ver.  6.  Then  took  they  Jeremiah,  and  cast  him 
into  the  dungeon  of  Malchiah  the  son  of  Ham- 
melech,  that  was  in  the  court  of  the  prison : 
and  they  let  down  Jeremiah  with  cords.  And 
in  the  dungeon  there  was  no  water,  but  mire : 
so  Jeremiah  sunk  in  the  mire. 

There  were  two  prisons  in  Jerusalem;  of  which  one 
was  called  the  king's  prison,  which  had  a  lofty  tower  that 
overlooked  the  royal  palace,  with  a  spacious  court  before 
it,  where  state  prisoners  were  confined.  The  other  was 
designed  to  secure  debtors  and  other  inferior  offenders : 
and  in  both  these  the  prisoners  were  supported  by  the  pub- 
lic, on  bread  and  water.  Suspected  persons  were  some- 
times confined  under  the  custody  of  state  ofiicers,  in  their 
own  houses;  or  rather  a  part  of  the  house  which  was  oc- 
cupied by  the  great  officers  of  state,  was  occasionally  con- 
verted  into  a  prison.  This  seems  to  be  a  natural  conclusion 
from  the  statement  of  the  prophet  Jeremiah,  in  which  he 
gives  an  account  of  his  imprisonment:  "Wherefore,  the 

!)rinces  were  wroth  with  Jeremiah,  and  smote  him,  and  put 
lim  in  prison,  in  the  house  of  Jonathan  the  scribe ;  for 
they  had  made  that  the  prison."  This  custom,  so  different 
from  the  manners  of  our  country,  has  descended  to  mod- 
ern times ;  for  when  Chardin  visited  the  East,  their  pris- 
ons were  not  public  buildings  erected  for  that  purpose,  but, 
as  in  the  days  of  the  prophet,  a  part  of  the  house  in  which 
their  criminal  judges  reside.  "  As  the  governor,  or  provost 
of  a  town,"  says  our  traveller,  "  or  the  captain  of  the  watch, 
imprison  such  as  are  accused,  in  their  own  houses,  they 
set  apart  a  canton  of  them  for  that  purpose,  when  they  are 
put  into  these  offices,  and  choose  for  the  jailer,  the  most 
proper  person  they  can  find  of  their  domestics."  The  royal 
prison  in  Jerusalem,  and  especially  the  dungeon,  into  which 
the  prisoner  was  let  down  naked,  seems  to  have  been  a 
most  dreadful  place.  The  latter  cannot  be  better  described, 
than  in  the  words  of  Jeremiah  himself,  who  for  his  faith- 
fulness to  God  and  his  country,  in  a  most  degenerate  age, 
had  to  encounter  all  its  horrors:  "Then  took  they  Jere- 
miah, and  cast  him  into  the  dungeon  that  was  in  the  court 
of  the  prison  ;  and  they  let  him  down  with  cords  ;  and  in 
the  dungeon  there  was  no  water,  but  mire ;  and  his  feet 
sunk  in  the  mire."  A  discretionary  power  was  given  to 
the  keeper,  to  treat  his  prisoners  as  he  pleased ;  all  that  was 
expected  of  him  being  only  to  produce  them  when  required. 
If  he  kept  them  in  safe  custody,  he  might  treat  them  well 
or  ill  as  he  chose ;  he  might  put  them  in  irons  or  not ;  shut 
them  up  close,  or  indulge  them  with  greater  liberty ;  admit 
their  friends  and  acquaintances  to  visit  them,  or  suffer  no 
person  to  see  them.  The  most  worthless  characters,  the 
most  atrocious  criminals,  if  they  can  bribe  the  jailer  and 
his  servants  with  large  fees,  shall  be  lodged  in  his  own 
apartment,  and  have  the  best  accommodation  it  can  affcrd ; 
but  if  he  be  the  enemy  of  those  committed  to  his  charge, 
or  have  received  larger  presents  from  their  persecutors,  he 
will  treat  them  in  the  most  barbarous  manner. — Paxton. 

Ver.  7.  Now  when  Ebed-melech  the  Ethiopian, 
one  of  the  eunuchs  which  was  in  the  king's 
house,  heard  that  they  had  put  Jeremiah  in  the 
dungeon :  the  king  then  sitting  in  the  gate  of 
Benjamin. 

The  possession  of  black  eunuchs  is  not  very  common  in 
the  Levant;  they  are  hardly  anywhere  to  be  found,  ex- 
cept in  the  palaces  of  the  sovereign  or  of  the  branches  of 
the  royal  family.  When  the  Baron  De  Tott's  wife  and 
mother-in-law  were  permitted  to  visit  Asma  Sultana,  daugh- 
ter of  the  Emperor  Achmet,  and  sister  of  the  reigning 
prince,  he  tells  us,  that  "  at  the  opening  of  the  third  gate 
of  her  palace,  several  black  eunuchs  presented  themselves, 
who,  with  each  a  white  staff  in  his  hand,  preceded  the 
visiters,  leading  them  to  a  spacious  apartment,  called  the 
chamber  of  strangers."  He  adds,  that  to  have  such  atten- 
dants is  a  piece  of  great  state,  as  the  richest  people  have 
not  more  than  one  or  two  of  them. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

Ver.  6.  Then  the  king  of  Babylon  slew  the  sons 


of  Zedekiah  in  Riblah  before  his  eyes :  also 
the  king  of  Babylon  slew  all  the  nobles  of 
Judah.  7.  Moreover,  he  put  out  Zedekiah's 
eyes,  and  bound  him  with  chains,  to  carry  him 
to  Babylon. 

By  an  inhuman  custom,  which  is  still  retained  in  the 
East,  the  eyes  of  captives  taken  in  war  are  not  only  put  out 
but  sometimes  literally  scooped  or  dug  out  of  their  sockets. 
This  dreadful  calamity  Samson  had  to  endure,  from  the 
unrelenting  vengeance  of  his  enemies.  In  a  posterior  age, 
Zedekiah,  the  last  king  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  after  be- 
ing compelled  to  behold  the  violent  death  of  his  sons  and 
nobility,  had  his  eyes  put  out,  and  was  carried  in  chains  to 
Babylon.  The  barbarous  custom  long  survived  the  decline 
and  fall  of  the  Babylonian  empire,  for  by  the  testimony  of 
Mr.  Maurice,  in  his  History  of  Hindostan,  the  captive 
princes  of  that  country  were  often  treated  in  this  manner, 
by  their  more  fortunate  rivals;  a  led-hot  iron  was  passed 
over  their  eyes,  which  effectually  deprived  them  of  sight, 
and  at  the  same  time  of  their  title  and  ability  to  reign. — 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XLI. 
Ver.  5.  That  there  came  certain  from  Shechem, 
from  Shiloh,  and  from  Samaria,  even  fourscore 
men,  having  their  beards  shaven,  and  their 
clothes  rent,  and  having  cut  themselves,  with 
offerings  and  incense  in  their  hand,  to  bring 
them  to  the  house  of  the  Lord. 

See  on  1  Kings  18.  28. 

Ver.  8.  But  ten  men  were  found  among  them 
that  said  unto  Ishmael,  Slay  us  not:  for  we 
have  treasures  in  the  field,  of  wheat,  and  of  bar- 
ley, and  of  oil,  and  of  honey.  So  he  forbare, 
and  slew  them  not  among  their  brethren. 

See  on  Job  27.  18. 

This  refers  to  stores  they  had  concealed,  as  is  clear  from 
the  mentioning  of  "  the  oil  and  honey."  During  the  time 
of  the  Kandian  war  many  prisoners  received  lenient  treat- 
ment, because  of  the  assurance  that  they  had  treasures 
hid  in  the  field,  and  that  they  should  be  the  property  of 
their  keepers.  In  some  cases  there  can  be  no  doubt  there 
were  large  sums  thus  acquired  by  certain  individuals.— 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XLII. 

Ver.  2.  And  said  unto  Jeremiah  the  prophet,  Let, 
we  beseech  thee,  our  supplication  be  accepted 
before  thee,  and  pray  for  us  unto  the  Lord  thy 
God,  even  for  all  this  remnant ;  (for  we  are  left 
but  a  few  of  many,  as  thine  eyes  do  behold  us.) 

The  margin  has  this,  "  Let  our  supplication  fall  before 
thee."  "  O  my  lord,"  says  the  suppliant,  "  let  my  prayers  be 
prostrate  at  your  feet."  "  O  forget  not  my  requests,  "but  let 
them  ever  surround  your  feet."  "  Allow  my  supplications 
to  lie  before  you."  "  Ah  !  give  but  a  small  place  for  my 
prayers."  "  At  your  feet,  my  lord,  at  your  feet,  my  lord, 
are  all  my  requests." — Robert.s. 

CHAPTER  XLIII. 

Ver.  9.  Take  great  stones  in  thy  hand,  and  hide 
them  in  the  clay  in  the  brick-kiln,  which  is  at 
the  entry  of  Pharaoh's  house  in  Tahpanhes,  in 
the  sight  of  the  men  of  Judah. 

If  their  bricks,  in  those  hot  and  dry  countries,  are  in 
general  only  dried  in  the  sun,  not  burnt,  there  is  some 
rea^son  to  be  doubtful  whether  the  Hebrew  word  pSrs  w^/Sen 
signifies  a  brick-kiln,  as  multitudes  besides  our  translators 
have  supposed.  The  bricks  used  in  the  construction  of 
the  Egyptian  canals,  must  have  been  well  burnt ;  those 


Chap.  43—46. 


JEREMIAH. 


50o 


i-iried  in  the  sun  could  have  lasted  no  time.  But  bricks  for 
this  use  could  not  have  been  often  wanted.  They  were 
not  necessary  for  the  building  those  treasure  cities  which 
are  mer'joned  Exod.  i.  11.  One  of  the  pyramids  is  built 
with  sun-dried  bricks,  which  Sir  J.  Chardin  tells  us  are  du- 
rable, as  well  as  accommodated  to  the  temperature  of  the  air 
there ;  which  last  circumstance  is,  I  presume,  the  reason 
they  are  in  such  common  use  in  these  very  hot  countries. 
There  must  then  be  many  places  used  in  the  East  for  the 
making  bricks,  where  there  are  no  kilns  at  all;  and  such 
a  place,  I  apprehend,  the  word  p'?d  malben  signifies ;  and 
it  should  seem  to  be  the  perpetual  association  of  a  kiln,  and 
of  the  places  where  bricks  are  made,  with  us  in  the  West, 
that  has  occasioned  the  word  to  be  translated  brick-kiln. 
The  interpretation  I  have  given  best  suits  Jer.  xliii.  9. 
The  smoke  of  the  brick-kiln,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a 
royal  Egyptian  palace,  would  not  have  agreed  very  well 
with  the  eastern  cleanliness  and  perfumes. — Harmer. 

Ver.  12.  And  I  will  kindle  a  fire  in  the  houses 
of  the  gods  of  Egypt ;  and  he  shall  burn  them, 
and  carry  them  aw^ay  captives :  and  he  shall 
array  himself  with  the  land  of  Egypt,  as  a 
shepherd  putteth  on  his  garment :  and  he  shall 
go  forth  from  thence  in  peace. 

The  deserts  that  lie  between  Egypt  and  Syria  are  at  this 
day  terribly  infested  by  the  wild  Arabs.  "  In  travelling 
along  the  seacoast  of  Syria,  and  from  Suez  to  Mount  Sinai," 
says  Dr.  Shaw,  "  we  were  in  little  or  no  danger  of  being 
robbed  or  insulted ;  in  the  Holy  Land,  and  upon  the  isth- 
mus between  Egypt  and  the  Red  Sea,  our  conductors 
cannot  be  too  numerous."  He  then  goes  on  to  inform  us, 
that  when  he  went  from  Ramah  to  Jerusalem,  though  the 
pilgrims  themselves  were  more  than  six  thousand,  and 
were  escorted  by  four  bands  of  Turkish  infantry,  exclusive 
of  three  or  four  hundred  spahees,  (cavalry,)  yet  were  they 
most  barbarously  insulted  and  beaten  by  the  Arabs. 

This  may  lead  us,  perhaps,  to  the  true  sense  of  the  pre- 
ceding words,  "  And  he  shall  array  himself  with  the  land 
of  Egypt,  as  a  shepherd  putteth  on  his  garment."  It  sig- 
nifies, that  just  as  a  person  appearing  to  be  a  shepherd, 
passed  unmolested  in  common  by  the  wild  Arabs  ;"  so  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, by  his  subduing  Egypt,  shall  induce  the  Arab 
tribes  to  sufter  him  to  go  out  of  that  country  unmolested, 
the  possession  of  Egypt  being  to  him  what  a  shepherd's 
garment  was  to  a  single  person  :  for  though,  upon  occasion, 
the  Arabs  are  not  afraid  to  aflfront  the  most  powerful  prin- 
ces, it  is  not  to  be  imagined  that  conquest  and  power  have 
no  effect  upon  them.  Tkey  that  dwell  in  the  wilderness,  (says 
the  Psalmist,  referring  to  these  Arabs,)  shall  bow  before  him, 
whom  he  has  described  immediately  before,  he  having  do- 
minion from  sea  to  sea,  and  from  the  river  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  and  which  he  unquestionably  supposes  was  the  great 
inducement  to  that  submission. 

Thus  the  Arab  that  was  charged  with  the  care  of  con- 
ducting Dr.  Pococke  to  Jerusalem,  after  secreting  him  for 
some  time  in  his  tent,  when  he  took  him  out  into  the  fields, 
to  walk  there,  put  on  him  his  striped  garment;  apparently 
for  his  security,  and  that  he  might  pass  for  an  Arab.  So 
D'Arvieux.  when  he  was  sent  by  the  consul  of  Sidon  to 
the  camp  of  the  grand  emir,  equipped  himself  for  the  great- 
er security  exactly  like  an  Arab,  and  accordingly  passed 
unmolested,  and  imquestioned. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XLIV. 
Ver.  17.  But  we  will  certainly  do  whatsoever 
thing  goeth  forth  out  of  our  own  mouth,  to  burn 
incense  unto  the  queen  of  heaven,  and  to  pour 
out  drink-offerings  unto  her,  as  we  have  done, 
we,  and  our  fathers,  our  kings,  and  our  princes, 
in  the  cities  of  Judah,  and  in  the  streets  of  Jeru- 
salem :  for  then  had  we  plenty  of  victuals,  and 
were  well,  and  saw  no  evil. 

"When  the  new  moon  is  first  seen,  the  people  present  their 
hands  in  the  same  form  of  adoration,  and  take  oiTthe  tur- 
ban, as  they  do  to  other  gods.    If  a  person  have  a  favourite 


son  or  wife,  or  any  friend  with  whom  he  thinks  himself 
fortunate,  he  will  call  for  one  of  them  on  that  night,  and, 
after  looking  at  the  new  moon,  will  steadfastly  look  at  the 
face  of  the  individual.  But  if  there  be  no  person  of  that 
description  present,  he  will  look  at  his  white  cloth,  or  a 
piece  of  gold. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 

Ver.  4.  Harness  the  horses ;  and  get  up,  ye  horse- 
men, and  stand  forth  with  your  helmets;  fur- 
bish the  spears,  a7id  put  on  the  brigandines. 

A  piece  of  defensive  armour  used  in  early  times,  was 
the  breastplate  or  corslet :  with  this  Goliath  was  accoutred ; 
but  in  our  version  the  original  term  is  rendered  a  coat  of 
mail ;  and  in  the  inspired  account  of  the  Jewish  armour, 
it  is  translated  habergeon.  It  was  between  the  joints  of  this 
harness  (for  so  we  render  it  in  that  passage)  that  Ahab  re- 
ceived his  mortal  wound  by  an  arrow  shot  at  a  venture. 
To  this  species  of  armour  the  prophet  Isaiah  alludes,  where 
the  same  Hebrew  word  is  used  as  in  the  preceding  texts, 
but  is  here  rendered  breastplate  ;  and  in  the  prophecies  of 
Jeremiah  it  is  translated  brigandine.  From  the  use  of  these 
various  terms,  in  translating  the  Hebrew  term  (r'^v)  shirion, 
it  seems  to  have  covered  both  the  back  and  breast  of  the 
warrior,  but  was  probably  intended  chiefly  for  the  defence 
of  the  latter,  and,  by  consequence,  took  its  name  from  that 
circumstance. — Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  Go  up  into  Gilead  and  take  balm,  O  vir* 
gin,  the  daughter  of  Eg3^pt:  in  vain  shalt  thou 
use  many  medicines ;  for  thou  shalt  not  be 
cured. 

Physicians  in  England  would  be  perfectly  astonished  at 
the  numerous  kinds  of  medicine  which  are  administered 
to  a  patient.  The  people  themselves  are  unwilling  to  take 
one  kind  for  long  together,  and  I  have  known  a  sick 
woman  swallow  ten  different  sorts  in  one  day.  Should  a 
patient,  when  about  to  take  his  medicine,  scatter  or  spill 
the  least  quantity,  nothing  will  induce  him  to  take  the  rest ; 
it  is  a  bad  omen ;  he  must  have  the  nostrum  changed. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  "25.  The  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel, 
saith,  Behold,  I  will  punish  the  multitude  of 
No,  and  Pharaoh,  and  Egypt,  with  their  gods, 
and  their  kings ;  even  Pharaoh,  and  all  them 
that  trust  in  him. 

No,  or  No-Amon,  or  Amon  of  No,  (Jer.  xlvi.  25,  margi- 
nal reading.)  was  the  metropolis  of  Upper  Egypt,  by  the 
Greek  geographers  termed  Thebes,  a  city  eminently  dis- 
tinguished for  the  worship  of  Jupiter,  who  by  the  Egyptians 
was  called  Amon  or  Ammon;  hence  the  city  received  the 
appellation  of  Diospolis,  or  the  city  of  Jupiter.  The  gran- 
deur of  ancient  Thebes  must  now  be  traced  in  the  four 
small  towns  or  hamlets  of  Luxor,  Karnak,  Medinet-Abou, 
and  Gournou.  Karnak  is  regarded  by  the  most  accurate 
modern  travellers  as  the  principal  site  of  Diospolis ;  and 
the  Egyptians  seem  to  have  called  forth  all  the  resources  of 
wealth,  and  all  the  efforts  of  art,  in  order  to  render  it  wor- 
thy of  their  supreme  divinity. 

The  great  temple  at  Karnak  has  twelve  principal  en- 
trances; each  of  which  is  composed  of  several  propyla 
and  colossal  gateways,  besides  other  buildings  attached  to 
them,  in  themselves  larger  than  most  other  temples.  One 
of  the  propyla  is  entirely  of  granite,  adorned  with  the  most 
finished  hieroglyphics.  On  each  side  of  many  of  them 
there  have  been  colossal  statues  of  basalt  and  granite,  from 
twenty  to  thirty  feet  in  height,  some  of  which  are  in  the 
attitude  of  sitting,  while  others  are  standing  erect.  A 
double  range  of  colossal  sphinxes  extends  across  the  plain 
from  the  temple  at  Luxor,  (a  distance  of  nearly  two  miles,) 
which  terminates  at  Karnak  in  a  most  magnificent  gate- 
way, fifty  feet  in  height,  which  still  remains  unimpaired. 
From  this  gateway  the  great  temple  was  approached  by  an 
avenue  of  fifty  lofty  colu  mns,  one  of  which  only  now  remains, 
leading  to  a  vast  propylon  m  front  of  the  portico.  The 
interior  of  this  portico  presents  a  coup  d'mil,  which  sur- 


504 


JEREMIAH. 


Chap.  47. 


passes  any  other  that  is  to  be  found  among  the  remains  of 
Egyptian  architecture.  Twelve  columns,  sixty  feet  high, 
and  of  a  beautiful  order,  form  an  avenue  through  the  centre 
of  the  building,  like  the  nave  of  a  Gothic  cathedral,  and 
they  are  flanked  on  each  side  by  sixty  smaller  ones,  ranged 
in  six  rows,  which  are  seen  through  the  intervals  in  end- 
less perspective.  The  walls  are  covered  with  bas-reliefs 
of  a  similar  character  with  those  found  in  the  other  ancient 
Egyptian  temples. 

In  an  open  space  beyond  the  portico  there  were  four 
obelisks,  two  only  of  which  are  now  standing.  One  of 
these,  according  to  Capt.  C.  F.  Head,  has  a  base  of  eight 
feet  square,  and  rises  to  a  height  of  eighty  feet,  and  is  form- 
ed of  a  single  block  of  granite.  The  hieroglyphics,  which 
are  beautifully  wrought,  are  supposed  to  record  the  succes- 
sion of  Pharaohs  who  reigned  over  Egypt.  From  the  most 
ancient  rulers  of  the  land  to  the  Ptolemies,  almost  every 
king,  except  the  Persian,  has  his  name  recorded  in  this 
temple.  But  it  was  said,  "  the  sceptre  of  Egypt  shall  depart 
away,"  (Zech.  x.  11 ;)  and,  as  if  in  direct  fulfilment  of 
the  prophecy,  the  portion  of  the  rocky  tables  that  was  to 
have  been  occupied  by  the  names  of  others  of  its  royal  line, 
has  been  shattered,  and  (it  has  been  conjectured)  by  no 
human  hand. 

The  most  interesting  of  the  sculptured  ornaments  in  this 
temple,  Capt.  Head  states,  are  on  the  northwest,  where 
there  are  battle  scenes,  with  innumerable  figures  of  milita- 
ry combatants  using  bows  and  arrows,  spears  and  bucklers, 
of  prostrate  enemies,  of  war  chariots  and  horses.  The  fiery 
action  and  elegant  shape  of  the  steeds  are  remarkable.  On 
the  exterior  walls  of  the  southwest  corner  of  the  portico, 
are  depicted  other  victories,  which  are  conjectured  to  be 
those  of  the  Egyptians  over  the  Jews. 

The  field  of  ruins  at  Karnak  is  about  a  mile  in  diame- 
ter. Dr.  Richardson  conjectures  that  the  whole  of  this  space 
was  once,  in  the  prouder  days  of  Thebes,  consecrated  en- 
tirely to  the  use  of  the  temple.  There  are  evidences  of 
walls  considerably  beyond  this,  which  probably  enlarged 
the  city  in  its  greatest  extent ;  but,  after  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment had  been  withdrawn,  the  capital  removed  to  another 
spot,  and  the  trade  transferred  to  another  mart,  the  inhab- 
itants narrowed  the  circuit  of  their  walls,  and  placed  their 
houses  within  the  lines  of  the  sacred  confines. 

Such  is  the  mass  of  disjointed  fragments  collected  to- 
gether in  these  magnificent  relics  of  ancient  art,  that 
more  than  human  power  would  appear  to  have  caused  the 
overthrow  of  the  strongholds  of  superstition.  Some  have 
imagined  that  the  ruin  was  caused  by  the  instantaneous 
concussion  of  an  earthquake.  Whether  this  conjecture  be 
well  founded  or  erroneous,  the  divine  predictions  against 
Egypt  have  been  literally  accomplished.  "  The  land  of 
Egypt"  has  been  made  "  desolate  and  waste ;"  "judgments" 
have  been  executed  "  in  No,"  whose  "  multitude"  has  been 
"  cut  oflf;"  and  No  is  rent  ascinder.  (Ezek,  xxix.  9.  xxx. 
14,  15,  16.)— HoRNE. 

CHAPTER  XLVII. 
Ver.  5.  Baldness  is  come  upon  Gaza :  Ashkelon 
is  cut  off  with  the  remnant  of  their  valley :  how 
long  wilt  thou  cut  thyself? 

See  on  1  Kings  18.  28. 

The  land  of  the  Philistines  was  to  be  destroyed.  It  par- 
takes of  the  general  desolation  common  to  it  with  Judea, 
and  other  neighbouring  states.  While  ruins  are  to  be 
found  in  all  Syria,  they  are  particularly  abundant  along 
the  seacoast,  which  formed,  on  the  south,  the  realm  of  the 
Philistines.  But  its  aspect  presents  some  existing  pecu- 
liarities, which  travellers  fail  not  to  particularize,  and 
which,  in  reference  both  to  the  state  of  the  country,  and  the 
fate  of  its  different  cities,  the  prophets  failed  not  to  discrimi- 
nate as  justly  as  if  their  description  had  been  drawn  both 
with  all  the  accuracy  which  ocular  observation  and  all  the 
certainly  which  authenticated  history  could  give.  And  the 
authority  so  often  quoted  may  here  be  again  appealed  to. 
Volney,  (though,  like  one  who  m  ancient  times  was  instru- 
mental to  the  fulfilment  of  a  special  prediction,  "  he  meant 
not  so,  neither  did  his  heart  think  so,  )  from  the  manner  in 
which  hegene:alizes  his  observations,  and  marks  the  pecu- 
liar features  of  the  different  districts  of  Syria,  with  greater 
acuteness  and  perspicuity  than  any  other  traveller  whatever, 


is  the  ever-ready  purveyor  of  evidence  in  all  the  cases  which 
came  within  the  range  of  his  topographical  description  of 
the  wide  field  of  prophecy— while,  at  the  same  lime,  from  his 
known,  open  and  zealotis  hostility  to  the  Christian  cause, 
his  testimony  is  alike  decisive  and  unquestionable  :  and  the 
vindication  of  the  truth  of  the  following  predictions  may 
safely  be  committed  to  this  redoubted  champion  of  infidelity, 

"  The  seacoasts  shall  be  dwellings  and  cottages  for  shep- 
herds, and  folds  for  flocks.  The  remnant  of  the  Philistines 
shall  perish.  Baldness  is  come  upon  Gaza ;  it  shall  be  for- 
saken. The  king  shall  perish  Irom  Gaza.  I  will  cut  off 
the  inhabitants  from  Ashdod.  Ashkelon  shall  be  a  desola- 
tion, it  shall  be  cut  off  with  the  remnant  of  the  valley ;  it 
shall  not  be  inhabited."  "  In  the  plain  between  Ramla  and 
Gaza"  (the  very  plain  of  the  Philistines  along  the  seacoast) 
"  we  met  with  a  number  of  villages  badly  built,  of  dried 
mud,  and  which,  like  the  inhabitants,  exhibit  every  mark 
of  poverty  and  wretchedness.  The  houses,  on  a  nearer 
view,  are  only  so  many  huts  (cottages)  sometimes  detached, 
at  others  ranged  in  the  form  of  cells  round  a  courtyard, 
enclosed  by  a  mud  wall.  In  winter,  they  and  their  cattle 
may  be  said  to  live  together,  the  part  of  the  dwelling  allotted 
to  themselves  being  only  raised  two  feet  above  that  in  which 
they  lodge  their  beasts" — {dwellings  and  cottages  for  shep- 
herds, and  folds  for  flocks.)  "  Except  the  environs  of  these 
villages,  all  the  rest  of  the  country  is  a  desert,  and  aban- 
doned to  the  Bedouin  Arabs,  who  feed  their  flocks  on  it." 
The  remnant  shall  perish  ;  the  land  of  the  Philistines  shall 
be  destroyed,  that  there  shall  be  no  inhabitant,  and  the  sea- 
coasts  shall  be  dwellings  and  cottages  for  shepherds,  and 
folds  for  flocks. 

"  The  ruins  of  white  marble  sometimes  found  at  Gaza 
prove  that  it  was  formerly  the  abode  of  luxury  and  opu- 
lence. It  has  shared  in  the  general  destruction  ;  and,  not- 
withstanding its  proud  title  of  the  capital  of  Palestine,  it  is 
now  no  more  than  a  defenceless  village,"  {baldness  has  come 
upon  it,)  "  peopled  by,  at  most,  only  two  thousar.d  inhabit- 
ants." It  is  forsaken  and  bereaved  of  its  king.  "  The  sea- 
coast, by  which  it  was  lormerly  washed,  is  every  day  re- 
moving farther  from  the  deserted  ruins  of  Ashkelon."  It 
shall  be  a  desolation.  Ashkelon  shall  not  be  inhabited.  "Amid 
the  various  successive  ruins,  those  of  Edzoud,  (Ashdod,)  so 
powerful  under  the  Philistines,  are  now  remarkable  for 
their  scorpions."  The  inhabitants  shall  be  cut  off  from  Ash- 
dod. Although  the  Christian  traveller  must  yield  the  palm 
to  Volney,  as  the  topographer  of  prophecy,  and  although 
supplementary  evidence  be  not  requisite,  yet  a  place  is  here 
willingly  given  to  the  following  just  observations. 

"  Ashkelon  was  one  of  the  proudest  satrapies  of  the  lords 
of  the  Philistines;  now  there  is  not  an  inhabitant  within  its 
walls;  and  the  prophecy  of  Zechariah  is  fulfilled.  'The 
king  shall  perish  from  Gaza,  and  Ashkelon  shall  not  be  in- 
habited.' When  the  prophecy  was  uttered,  both  cities  were 
in  an  equally  flourishing  condition  ;  and  nothing  but  the 
prescience  of  Heaven  could  pronounce  on  which  of  the 
two,  and  in  what  manner,  the  vial  of  its  wrath  should  be 
poured  out.  Gaza  is  truly  without  a  king.  The  lofly  towers 
of  Ashkelon  lie  scattered  on  the  ground,  and  the  ruins 
within  its  walls  do  not  shelter  a  human  being.  How  is  the 
wrath  of  man  made  to  praise  his  Creator !  Hath  he  not 
said,  and  shall  he  not  do  if?  The  oracle  was  delivered  by 
the  mouth  of  the  prophet  more  than  five  hundred  years  be- 
fore the  Christian  era,  and  we  beheld  its  accomplishment 
eighteen  hundred  years  after  that  event."  Cogent  and  just 
as  the  reasoning  is,  the  facts  stated  by  Volney  give  wider 
scope  for  an  irresistible  argument.  The  fate  of  one  city  is 
not  only  distinguished  from  that  of  another ;  but  tlie  varied 
aspect  of  the  country  itself,  the  dwellings  and  cottages  for 
shepherds  in  one  part,  and  that  very  region  named,  the  rest 
of  the  land  destroyed  and  uninhabited,  a  desert,  and  aban- 
doned to  the  flocks  "of  the  wandering  Arabs ;  Gaza,  bereaved 
of  a  king,  a  defenceless  village,  destitute  of  all  its  fortifica- 
tions; Ashkelon,  a  desolation,  and  without  an  inhabitant; 
the  inhabitants  also  cut  off  from  Ashdod,  as  reptiles  tenant- 
ed it  instead  of  men— form  in  each  instance  a  specific  pre- 
diction, and  a  recorded  fact,  and  present  such  a  view  of  the 
existing  state  of  Philistia  as  renders  it  difficult  to  determine, 
from  the  strictest  accordance  that  prevails  between  both, 
whether  the  inspired  penman  or  the  defamer  of  scripture 
give  the  more  vivid  description.  Nor  is  there  any  obscu- 
rity whatever  in  anv  one  of  the  circumstances,  or  in  any 
part  of  the  proof.    The  coincidence  is  too  glaring,  even  for 


Chap.  48. 


JEREMIAH. 


505 


wilful  blindness  not  to  discern;  and  to  all  the  least  versed 
in  general  history  the  priority  of  the  predictions  to  the 
events  is  equally  obvious.  And  such  was  the  natural  fertility 
of  the  country,  and  such  was  the  strength  and  celebrity  of 
the  cities,  that  no  conjecture  possessing  the  least  shadow  of 
plausibility  can  be  formed  in  what  manner  any  of  these 
events  coiild  possibly  have  been  thought  of,  even  for  many 
centuries  after  the  "vision  and  prophecy"  were  sealed.  After 
that  period  Gaza  defied  the  power  of  Alexander  the  Great, 
and  withstood  for  two  months  a  hard-pressed  siege.  The 
army  with  which  he  soon  afterward  overthrew  the  Persian 
empire  having  there,  as  well  as  at  Tyre,  been  checked  or 
delayed  in  the  first  flush  of  conquest,  and  he  himself  having 
been  twice  wounded  in  desperate  attempts  to  storm  the  city, 
the  proud  and  enraged  kmg  of  Macedon,  with  all  the 
cruelty  of  a  brutish  heart,  and  boasting  of  himself  as  a 
second  Achilles,  dragged  at  his  chariot-wheels  the  intrepid 
general  who  had  defended  it,  twice  around  the  walls  of 
Gaza,  Ashkelon  was  no  less  celebrated  for  the  excellence 
of  its  wines  than  for  the  strength  of  its  fortifications.  And 
of  Ashdod  it  is  related  by  an  eminent  ancient  historian,  not 
only  that  it  was  a  great  citv,  but  that  it  withstood  the  longest 
siege  recorded  in  history,  (it  may  also  be  said  either  of  prior 
or  of  later  date,)  having  been  besieged  for  the  space  of 
twenty-nine  years  by  Psymatticus,  king  of  Egypt.  Strabo, 
after  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  classes  its 
citizens  among  the  chief  inhabitants  of  Syria.  Each  of 
these  cities,  Gaza,  Ashkelon,  and  Ashdod,  was  the  See  of 
a  Bishop  from  the  days  of  Constantine  to  the  invasion  of 
the  Saracens.  And,  as  a  decisive  proof  of  their  existence 
as  cities  long  subsequent  to  the  delivery  of  the  predictions, 
it  may  further  be  remarked,  that  different  coins  of  each  of 
these  very  cities  are  extant,  and  are  copied  and  described 
in  several  accounts  of  ancient  coins.  The  once  princely 
magnificence  of  Gaza  is  still  attested  by  the  "  ruins  of  white 
marble  ;"  and  the  house  of  the  present  aga  is  composed  of 
fragments  of  ancient  columns,  cornices,  &c. ;  ana  in  the 
courtyard,  and  immured  in  the  wall,  are  shafts  and  capitals 
of  granite  columns. 

In  short,  cottages  for  shepherds,  and  folds  for  flocks,  par- 
tially scattered  along  the  seacoast,  are  now  truly  the  nest 
substitutes  for  populous  cities  that  the  once  powerful  realm 
of  Philistia  can  produce ;  and  the  remnant  of  that  land 
which  gave  titles  and  grandeur  to  the  lords  of  the  Philis- 
tines is  destroyed.  Gaza,  the  chief  of  its  satrapies,  "  the 
abode  of  luxury  and  opulence,"  now  bereaved  of  its  king, 
and  bald  of  all  its  fortifications,  is  the  defenceless  residence 
of  a  subsidiary  ruler  of  a  devastated  province  ;  and,  in  kin- 
dred degradation,  ornaments  of  its  once  splendid  edifices 
are  now  l>edded  in  a  wall  that  forms  an  enclosure  for  beasts. 
A  handful  of  men  could  now  take  unobstructed  possession 
of  that  place,  where  a  strong  city  opposed  the  entrance,  and 
defied,  for  a  time,  the  power  of  the  conqueror  of  the  world. 
The  walls,  the  dwellings,  and  the  people  of  Ashkelon,  have 
all  perished :  and  though  its  name  was  in  the  time  of  the 
crusades  shouted  in  triumph  throughout  every  land  in  Eu- 
rope, it  is  now  literally  without  an  inhabitayib.  And  Ashdod, 
which  withstood  a  siege  treble  the  duration  of  that  of  Troy, 
and  thus  outrivalled  far  the  boast  of  Alexander  at  Gaza, 
has,  in  verification  of  "  the  word  of  God,  which  is  sharper 
than  any  two-edged  sword,"  been  cut  off,  and  has  fallen  be- 
fore it  to  nothing. 

There  is  yet  another  city  which  was  noted  by  the  pro- 
phets, the  very  want  of  any  information  respecting  which, 
and  the  absence  of  its  name  from  several  modern  maps  of 
Palestine,  while  the  sites  of  other  ruined  cities  are  marked, 
are  really  the  best  confirmation  of  the  truth  of  the  prophecy 
that  could  possibly  be  given.  Ekron  shall  be  rooted  tip.  It 
is  rooted  up.  It  was  one  of  the  chief  cities  of  the  Philis- 
tines; but  though  Gaza  still  subsists,  and  while  Ashkelon 
and  Ashdod  retain  their  names  in  their  ruins,  the  very 
name  of  Ekron  is  missing.  The  wonderful  contrast  in 
each  particular,  whether  in  respect  to  the  land  or  to  the 
cities  of  the  Philistines,  is  the  exact  counterpart  of  the  literal 
prediction ;  and  having  the  testimony  of  Volney  to  all  the 
facts,  and  also  indisputable  evidence  of  the  great  priority 
of  the  predictions  to  the  events,  what  more  complete  or 
clearer  proof  could  there  be  that  each  and  all  of  them 
emanated  from  the  prescience  of  Heaven  1 — Keith. 

CHAPTER  XLVIII. 

Ver,  1,  Against  Moab  thus  saith  the  Lord  of 
64 


hosts,  the  God  of  Israel,  Wo  unto  Nebo !  for  it 
is  spoiled;  Kiriath-Aim  is  confounded  and 
taken;  Misgab  is  confounded  and  dismayed. 
2.  There  shall  be  no  more  praise  of  Moab :  in 
Heshbon  they  have  devised  evil  against  it; 
come,  and  let  us  cut  it  off  from  being  du  nation  : 
also  thou  shalt  be  cut  down,  O  Madmen ;  the 
sword  shall  pursue  thee. 

The  land  of  Moab  lay  to  the  east  and  southeast  of  Judea, 
and  bordered  on  the  east,  northeast,  and  partly  on  the 
south,  by  the  Dead  Sea.  Its  early  history  is  neaily  analo- 
gous to  that  of  Ammon ;  and  the  soil,  though  perhaps  more 
diversified,  is,  in  many  places  where  the  desert  and  plains 
of  salt  have  not  encroached  on  its  borders,  of  equal  fertili- 
ty. There  are  manifest  and  abundant  vestiges  of  its  an- 
cient greatness.  "  The  whole  of  the  plains  are  covered  with 
the  sites  of  towns,  on  every  eminence  or  spot  convenient  for 
the  construction  of  one.  And  as  the  land  is  capable  of  rich 
cultivation,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  country  now  so 
deserted  once  presented  a  continued  picture  of  plenty  and 
fertility."  The  form  of  fields  is  still  visible ;  and  there 
are  the  remains  of  Roman  highways,  which  in  some  places 
are  completely  paved,  and  on  which  there  are  milestones  of 
the  times  of  Trajan,  Marcus  Aurelius,  and  Severus,  with 
the  number  of  the  miles  legible  upon  them.  Wherever 
any  spot  is  cultivated,  the  corn  is  luxuriant :  and  the  riches 
of  the  soil  cannot  perhaps  be  more  clearly  illu.strated  than 
by  the  fact,  that  one  grain  of  Heshbon  wheat  exceeds  in 
dimensions  two  of  the  ordinary  sort,  and  more  than  double 
the  number  of  grains  grow  on  the  stalk.  The  frequency, 
and  almost,  in  many  instances,  the  close  vicinity  of  the 
sites  of  the  ancient  towns,  "prove  that  the  population  of 
the  country  was  formerly  proportioned  to  its  natural  fertili- 
ty." Such  evidence  may  surely  suflice  to  prove,  that  the 
country  was  well  cultivated  and  peopled  at  a  period  .so  long 
posterior  to  the  date  of  the  predictions,  that  no  cause  less 
than  supernatural  could  have  existed  at  the  time  when  they 
were  delivered,  which  could  have  authorized  the  assertion, 
with  the  least  probability  or  apparent  possibility  of  its  truth, 
that  Moab  would  ever  have  been  reduced  to  that  state  oi 
great  and  permanent  desolation  in  which  it  has  continued 
for  so  many  ages,  and  which  vindicates  and  ratifies  to  this 
hour  the  truth  of  the  scriptural  prophecies. 

And  the  cities  of  Moab  have  all  disappeared.  Their 
place,  together  with  the  adjoining  part  of  Idumea,  is  cha- 
racterized, in  the  map  of  Volney's  Travels,  by  the  ridns  of 
towns.  His  information  respecting  these  ruins  was  derived 
from  some  of  the  wandering  Arabs;  and-  its  accuracy  has 
been  fully  corroborated  by  the  testimony  of  diflferent  Euro- 
pean travellers  of  high  respectability  and  undoubted  veracity, 
who  have  since  visited  this  devastated  region.  The  whole 
country  abounds  with  ruins.  And  Burckhardt,  who  en- 
countered many  difficulties  in  so  desolate  and  dangerous  a 
land,  thus  records  the  brief  history  of  a  few  of  them :  "  The 
ruins  of  Eleale,  Heshbon,  Meon,  Medaba,  Dibon,  Aroer, 
still  subsist  to  illustrate  the  history  of  the  Beni  Israel." 
And  it  might  with  equal  truth  have  been  added,  that  they 
still  subsist  to  confirm  the  inspiration  of  the  Jewish  scrip- 
ture, or  to  prove  that  the  seers  of  Israel  were  the  prophets 
of  God,  for  the  desolation  of  each  of  these  very  cities  was 
the  theme  of  a  prediction.  Every  thin  g  worthy  of  observa- 
tion respecting  them  has  been  detailed,  not  only  in  Burck- 
hardt's  Travels  in  Syria,  but  also  by  Seetzen,  and,  more 
recently,  by  Captains  Irby  and  Mangles,  who,  along  with 
Mr.  Banks  and  Mr.  Legh,  visited  this  deserted  district. 
The  predicted  judgment  has  fallen  with  such  truth  upon 
these  cities,  and  upon  all  the  cities  of  the  land  of  Moab  far 
and  near,  and  they  are  so  yxXXevly  broken  dovm,  that  even  the 
prying  curiosity  of  such  indefatigable  travellers  could  dis- 
cover among  a  multiplicity  of  ruins  only  a  few  remains  so 
entire  as  to  be  worthy  of  particular  notice.  The  subjoined 
description  is  drawn  from  their  united  testimony. — Among 
the  ruins  of  El  Aal  (Eleale)  are  a  number  of  large  cisterns, 
fragments  of  buildings,  and  foundations  of  houses.  At 
Heshban  (Heshbon)  are  the  ruins  of  a  large  ancient  town, 
together  with  the  remains  of  a  temple,  and  some  edifices.  A 
few  broken  shafts  of  columns  are  still  standing;  and  there 
are  a  number  of  deep  wells  cut  in  the  rock.  The  ruins  of 
Medaba  are  about  two  miles  in  circumference.    There  are 


506 


JEREMIAH. 


Chap.  48. 


many  remains  of  the  walls  of  private  houses  constructed 
with  blocks  of  silex,  but  not  a  single  edifice  is  standing. 
The  chief  object  of  interest  is  an  immense  tank  or  cistern 
-  of  hewn  stones,  "  which,  as  there  is  no  stream  at  Medaba," 
Burckhardt  remarks,  "  might  still  be  of  use  to  the  Bedouins, 
were  the  surrounding  ground  cleared  of  the  rubbish  to  al- 
low the  water  to  flow  into  it ;  but  such  an  undertaking  is  far 
beyond  the  views  of  the  wandering  Arabs."  There  is  also 
the  foundation  of  a  temple  built  with  large  stones,  and  appa- 
rently of  great  antiquity,  with  two  columns  near  it.  The 
ruins  of  Diban  (Dibon)  situated  in  the  midst  of  a  fine  plain, 
are  of  considerable  extent,  but  present  nothing  of  interest. 
The  neighbouring  hot  wells,  and  the  similarity  of  the  name, 
identify  the  ruins  of  Myoun  with  Meon,  or  Beth  Meon  of 
scripture.  Of  this  ancient  city,  as  well  as  of  Araayr 
(Aroer,)  nothing  is  now  remarkable  but  what  is  common 
to  them  with  all  the  cities  of  Moab — their  entire  desolation. 
The  extent  of  the  ruins  of  Rabba  (Rabbath  Moab,)  former- 
ly the  residence  of  the  kings  of  Moab,  sufficiently  proves 
its  ancient  importance,  though  no  other  object  can  be  par- 
ticularized among  the  ruins  except  the  remains  of  a  palace 
or  temple,  some  of  the  walls  of  which  are  still  standing ;  a 
gate  belonging  to  another  building ;  and  an  insulated  altar. 
There  are  many  remains  of  private  buildings,  but  none  en- 
tire. There  being  no  springs  on  the  spot,  the  town  had 
two  birkets,  the  largest  of  which  is  cut  entirely  out  of  the 
rocky  ground,  together  with  many  cisterns.  Mount  Nebo 
was  completely  barren  when  Burckhardt  passed  over  it, 
and  the  site  of  the  ancient  city  had  not  been  ascertained. 
Nebo  is  spoiled. 

While  the  ruins  of  all  these  cities  still  retain  their  an- 
cient names,  and  are  the  most  conspicuous  amid  the  wide 
scene  of  general  desolation,  and  while  each  of  them  was  in 
like  manner  particularized  in  the  visions  of  the  prophet, 
they  yet  formed  but  a  small  number  of  the  cities  of  Moab: 
and.  the  rest  are  also,  in  similar  verification  of  the  prophe- 
cies, desolate,  without  any  to  dwell  therein.  None  of  the  an- 
cient cities  of  Moab  now  exist  as  tenanted  by  men.  Kerek, 
which  neither  bears  any  resemblance  in  name  to  any  of 
the  cities  of  Moab  which  are  mentioned  as  existing  in  the 
time  of  the  Israelites,  nor  possesses  any  monuments  which 
'.enote  a  very  remote  antiquity,  is  the  only  nominal  town 
m  the  whole  country,  and  in  the  words  of  Seetzen,  who 
visited  it,  "  in  its  present  ruined  state  it  can  only  be  called 
a  hamlet :"  "  and  the  houses  have  only  one  floor."  But  the 
most  populous  and  fertile  province  in  Europe  (especially 
any  situated  in  thfe  interior  of  a  country  like  Moab)  is  not 
covered  so  thickly  with  towns  as  Moab  is  plentiful  in  ruins, 
deserted  and  desolate  though  now  it  be.  Burckhardt  enumer- 
ates about  fifty  ruined  sites  within  its  boundaries,  many 
of  them  extensive.  In  general  they  are  a  broken  down  and 
indistinguishable  mass  of  ruins  ;  and  many  of  them  have 
not  been  closely  inspected.  But,  in  some  instances,  there 
are  the  remains  of  temples,  sepulchral  monuments,  the 
ruins  of  edifices  constructed  of  very  large  stones,  in  one  of 
which  buildings  "some  of  the  stones  are  twenty  feet  in 
length,  and  so  broad  that  one  constitutes  the  thickness  of 
the  wall;"  traces  of  hanging  gardens;  entire  columns 
lying  on  the  ground,  three  feet  in  diameter,  and  fragments 
of  smaller  columns ;  and  many  cisterns  cut  of  the  rock. — 
When  the  towns  of  Moab  existed  in  their  prime,  and  were 
at  ease,— when  arrogance,  and  haughtiness,  and  pride 
prevailed  among  them— the  desolation  and  total  desertion 
and  abandonment  of  them  all  must  have  utterly  surpassed 
all  human  conception.  And  that  such  numerous  cities — 
which  subsisted  for  many  ages — which  were  diversified  in 
their  sites,  some  of  them  bein^  built  on  eminences,  and 
naturally  strong  ;  others  on  plains,  and  surrounded  by  the 
richest  soil ;  some  situated  in  valleys  by  the  side  of  a  plen- 
tiful stream ;  and  others  where  art  supplied  the  deficien- 
cies of  nature,  and  where  immense  cisterns  were  excavated 
out  of  the  rock — and  which  exhibit  in  their  ruins  many 
monuments  of  ancient  prosperity,  and  many  remains  easily 
convertible  into  present  utility— should  have  all  fled  away, 
— all  met  the  same  indiscriminate  fate — and  be  all  desolate, 
vnthout  any  to  dwell  therein,  notwithstanding  all  these  an- 
cient assurances  of  their  permanent  durability,  and  their 
existing  facilities  and  inducements  for  being  the  habitations 
of  men— is  a  matter  of  just  wonder  in  the  present  day, — 
and  had  any  other  people  been  the  possessors  of  Moab,  the 
fact  would  either  have  been  totally  impossible  orunaccount- 
able.    Trying  as  this  test  of  the  truth  of  prophecy  is— that 


is  the  word  of  God,  and  not  of  erring  man,  which  can  so 
well  and  so  triumphantly  abide  it.  They  shall  cry  of  Moab, 
How  is  it  broken  doion ! — Keith. 

Ver.  8.  And  the  spoiler  shall  come  upon  every 
city,  and  no  city  shall  escape ;  the  valley  also 
shall  perish,  and  the  plain  shall  be  destroyed, 
as  the  Lord  hath  spoken. 

Moab  has  often  been  a  field  of  contest  between  the  Arabs 
and  Turks;  and  although  the  former  have  retained  pos- 
session of  it,  both  have  mutually  reduced  it  to  desolation. 
The  different  tribes  of  Arabs  who  traverse  it.  not  only  bear  a 
permanent  and  habitual  hostility  to  Christians  and  to  '^urks, 
but  one  tribe  is  often  at  variance  and  at  war  with  another; 
and  the  regular  cultivation  of  the  soil,  or  the  improvement 
of  those  natural  advantages  of  which  the  country  is  so  full, 
is  a  matter  either  never  thought  of,  or  that  cannot  be  real- 
ized. Property  is  there  the  creature  of  power,  and  not  of 
law ;  and  possession  forms  no  security  when  plunder  is  the 
preferable  right.  Hence  the  extensive  plains,  where  they 
are  not  partially  covered  with  wood,  present  a  barren  as- 
pect, which  is  only  relieved  at  intervals  by  a  few  clusters 
of  wild  fig-trees,  that  show  how  the  richest  gifts  of  nature 
degenerate  when  unaided  by  the  industry  of  man.  And 
instead  of  the  profusion  which  the  plains  must  have  exhibit- 
ed in  every  quarter,  nothing  but  "patches  of  the  best  soil 
in  the  territory  are  now  cultivated  by  the  Arabs ;"  and  these 
only  "whenever  they  have  the  prospect  of  being  able  to 
secure  the  harvest  against  the  incursions  of  enemies." 
The  Arab  herds  now  roam  at  freedom  over  the  valleys  and 
the  plains;  and  "the  many  vestiges  of  field  en  closures"  form 
not  any  obstruction ;  they  wander  undisturbed  around  the 
tents  of  their  masters,  over  the  face  of  the  country ;  and 
while  the  valley  is  perished,  and  the  plain  destroyed,  the  cities 
also  of  Aroer  are  forsaken  ;  they  are  for  the  flocks  lohich  lie 
dow7i,  and  none  make  them  afraid.  The  strong  contrast  be- 
tween the  ancient  and  the  actual  state  of  Moab  is  exempli- 
fied in  the  condition  of  the  inhabitants  as  well  as  of  the 
land ;  and  the  coincidence  between  the  prediction  and  the 
fact  is  as  strikmg  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. — Keith. 

Ver.  11.  Moab  hath  been  at  ease  from  his  youth, 
and  he  hath  settled  on  his  lees,  and  hath  not 
been  emptied  from  vessel  to  vessel,  neither  hath 
he  gone  into  captivity :  therefore  his  taste  re- 
mained in  him,  and  his  scent  is  not  changed. 

They  frequently  pour  wine  from  vessel  to  vessel  in  the 
East :  for  when  they  begin  one,  they  are  obliged  imme- 
diately to  empty  it  into  smaller  vessels,  or  into  bottles,  or 
it  would  grow  sour.  From  the  jars,  says  Dr.  Russel,  in 
which  the  wine  ferments,  it  is  drawn  off  into  demyans, 
which  contain  perhaps  twenty  quart  bottles ;  and  from  those 
into  bottles  for  use :  but  as  these  bottles  are  generally  not 
well  washed,  the  wine  is  often  sour.  The  more  careful 
use  pint  bottles,  or  half-pint  bottles,  and  cover  the  surface 
with  a  little  sweet  oil.— Burder. 

Ver.  12.  Therefore,  behold,  the  days  come,  saith 
the  Lord,  that  I  will  send  unto  him  wanderers, 
that  shall  cause  him  to  wander,  and  shall  empty 
his  vessels,  and  break  their  bottles. 

The  Bedouin  (wandering)  Arabs  are  now  the  chief  and 
almost  the  only  inhabitants  of  a  country  once  studded  with 
cities.  Traversing  the  country,  and  fixing  their  tents  for 
a  short  time  in  one  place,  and  then  decamping  to  another, 
depasturing  every  part  successively,  and  despoiling  the 
whole  land  of  its  natural  produce,  they  are  wanderers  who 
have  come  up  against  it,  and  who  keep  it  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
desolation.  They  lead  a  wandering  life ;  and  the  only  reg- 
ularity they  know  or  practice  is  to  act  upon  a  systematic 
schenie  of  spoliation.  They  prevent  any  from  forming  a 
fixed  settlement  who  are  inclined  to  attenipt  it;  for  although 
the  fruitfulness  of  the  soil  would  abundantly  repay  the  la- 
bour of  settlers,  and  render  migration  wholly  unnecessary, 
even  if  the  population  were  increased  more  than  tenfold, 
yet  the  Bedouins  forcibly  deprive  them  of  the  means  of 
subsistence,  compel  them  to  search  for  it  elsewhere,  and, 


Chap.  49. 


JEREMIAH. 


507 


ill  the  words  of  the  prediction,  literally  cause  them  to  wan- 
der. "  It  may  be  remarked  generally  of  the  Bedouins," 
says  Burckhardt,  in  describing  their  extortions  in  this  very- 
country,  "  that  wherever  they  are  the  masters  of  the  culti- 
vators, the  latter  are  soon  reduced  to  beggary  by  their  un- 
ceasing demands." — Keith. 

Ver.  27.  For  was  not  Israel  a  derision  unto  thee  ? 
was  he  found  among  thieves?  for  since  thou 
spakest  of  him,  thou  skippedst  for  joy. 

See  on  1  Kings  18.  28. 

Ver.  28.  O  ye  that  dwell  in  Moab,  leave  the 
cities,  and  dwell  in  the  rock,  and  be  like  the 
dove  that  maketh  her  nest  in  the  sides  of  the 
hole's  mouth. 

"Where  art  intervenes  not,  pigeons  build  in  those  hollow 
places  nature  provides  for  them.  A  certain  city  in  Africa 
is  called  Hamam-et,  from  the  wild  pigeons  that  copiously 
breed  in  the  adjoining  cliffs ;  and  in  a  curious  paper  rela- 
ting to  Mount  MtnsL,  (Phil.  Trans,  vol.  Ix.)  which  men- 
tions a  number  of  subterraneous  caverns  there,  one  is  no- 
ticed as  being  called  by  the  peasants,  La  Spelonca  della  Pa- 
lomba,  from  the  wild  pigeons  building  their  nests  therein. 
(Sol.  Song  ii.  14.)  Though  Mina.  is  a  burning  mountain, 
yet  the  cold  in  these  caverns  is  excessive :  this  shows  that 
pigeons  delight  in  cool  retreats,  and  explains  the  reason 
why  they  resort  to  mountains  which  are  known  to  be  very 
cold  even  in  those  hot  countries.  The  words  of  the  Psalm- 
ist, Jlee  as  a  bird  to  your  mountain,  without  doubt  refer  to 
the  flying  of  doves  thither  wherl  frightened  by  the  fowler. 
Dove-houses,  however,  are  very  common  in  the  East,  Of 
Kefteen,  a  large  village,  Maundrell  says,  there  are  more 
dove-cots  than  other  houses.  In  the  southern  part  of 
Egypt,  the  tops  of  their  habitations  are  always  terminated 
by  a  pigeon-house.    Isaiah  Ix.  8. — Harmer. 

In  a  general  description  of  the  condition  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  that  extensive  desert  which  now  occupies  the  place 
of  these  ancient  flourishing  states,  Volney,  in  plain  but 
unmeant  illustration  of  this  prediction,  remarks,  that  the 
"  wretched  peasants  live  in  perpetual  dread  of  losing  the 
fruit  of  their  labours:  and  no  sooner  have  they  gathered  in 
their  harvest,  than  they  hasten  to  secrete  it  in  private  places, 
and  retire  among  the  rocks  which  border  on  the  Dead 
Sea."  Towards  the  opposite  extremity  of  the  land  of 
Moab,  and  at  a  little  distance  from  its  borders,  Seetzen  re- 
lates, that  "  there  are  many  families  living  in  caverns ;" 
and  he  actually  designates  them  "  the  inhabitants  of  the 
rocks."  And  at  the  distance  of  a  few  miles  from  the  ruined 
site  of  Heshbon,  there  are  many  artificial  caves  in  a  large 
range  of  perpendicular  cliffs — in  some  of  which  are  cham- 
bers and  small  sleeping  apartments.  While  the  cities  are 
desolate,  without  any  to  dwell  therein,  the  rocks  are  ten- 
anted. But  whether  flocks  lie  down  in  the  former  without 
any  to  make  them  afraid,  or  whether  men  are  to  be  found 
dwelling  in  the  latter,  and  are  like  the  dove  that  maketh 
her  nest  in  the  sides  of  the  hole's  mouth — the  wonderful 
transition,  in  either  case,  and  the  close  accordance,  in  both, 
of  the  fact  to  the  prediction,  assuredly  mark  it  in  charac- 
ters that  may  be  visible  to  the  purblind  mind,  as  the  word 
of  that  God  before  whom  the  darkness  of  futurity  is  as  light, 
and  without  whom  a  sparrow  cannot  fall  unto  the  ground. 
And  although  chargeable  with  the  impropriety  of  being 
somewhat  out  of  place,  it  may  not  be  here  altogether  im- 
proper to  remark,  that,  demonstrative  as  all  these  clear 
predictions  and  coincident  facts  are  of  the  inspiration  of 
the  scriptures,  it  cannot  but  be  gratifying  to  every  lover 
of  his  kind,  when  he  contemplates  that  desolation  caused 
by  many  sins  and  fraught  with  many  miseries,  which  the 
wickedness  of  man  has  wrought,  and  which  the  prescience 
of  God  revealed,  to  know  that  all  these  prophecies,  while 
they  mingle  the  voice  of  wailing  with  that  of  denuncia- 
tion, are  the  word  of  that  God  who,  although  he  suffers 
not  iniquity  to  pass  unpunished,  overrules  evil  for  good, 
and  makes  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  him,  and  who  in 
the  midst  of  judgment  can  remember  mercy.  And  rea- 
soning merely  from  the  "  uniform  experience"  (to  borrow 
a  term  and  draw  an  argument  from  Hume)  of  the  truth 
of  the  prophecies  already  fulfilled,  the  unprejudiced  mind 


will  at  once  perceive  the  full  force  of  the  proof  derived 
from  experience,  and  acknowledge  that  it  would  be  a  re- 
jection of  the  authority  of  reason  as  well  as  of  revela- 
tion to  mistrust  the  truth  of  that  prophetic  affirmation  of 
resuscitating  and  redeeming  import,  respecting  Ammon  ' 
and  Moab,  which  is  the  last  of  the  series,  and  which  alone 
now  awaits  futurity  to  stamp  it  with  the  brilliant  and 
crowning  zeal  of  its  testimony.  "I  will  bring  again  the 
captivity  of  Moab  in  the  latter  days,  saith  the  Lord.  I  will 
bring  again  the  captivity  of  the  children  of  Ammon,  saith 
the  Lord.  The  remnant  of  my  people  shall  possess  them. 
They  shall  build  the  old  wastes,  they  shall  raise  up  the 
former  desolations,  and  they  shall  repair  the  waste  cities, 
the  desolations  of  many  generations." — Keith. 

Ver.  37.  For  every  head  shall  be  bald,  and  every 
beard  clipped :  upon  all  the  hands  shall  be  cut- 
tings, and  upon  the  loins  sackcloth. 

The  relations  of  the  deceased  often  testify  their  sorrow- 
in  a  more  serious  and  affecting  manner,  by  cutting  and 
slashing  their  naked  arms  with  daggers.  To  this  absurd 
and  barbarous  custom,  the  prophet  thus  alludes  :^' For 
every  head  shall  be  bald,  and  every  beard  clipped  ;  upon 
all  hands  shall  be  cuttings,  and  upon  the  loins  sackcloth." 
And  again,  "  Both  the  great  and  the  small  shall  die  in  the 
land ;  they  shall  not  be  buried,  neither  shall  men  lament 
for  them,  nor  cut  themselves."  It  seems  to  have  been 
very  common  in  Egypt,  and  among  the  people  of  Israel, 
before  the  age  of  Moses,  else  he  had  not  forbidden  it  by  an 
express  law  :  "  Ye  are  the  children  of  the  Lord  your  God ; 
ye  shall  not  cut  yourselves,  nor  make  any  baldness  between 
your  eyes  for  the  dead."  Mr.  Harmer  refers  to  this  cus- 
tom, the  "  wounds  in  the  hands"  of  the  prophet,  which  he 
had  given  himself,  in  token  of  affection  to  a  person. — Pax- 
ton. 

"  We  find  Arabs,"  La  Roque  tells  us  from  D'Arvieux, 
"  who  have  their  arms  scarred  by  the  gashes  of  a  knife, 
which  they  sometimes  give  themselves,  to  mark  out  to 
their  mistresses  what  their  rigour  and  the  violence  of  love 
make  them  suffer."  From  this  extract  we  learn  what  par- 
ticular part  of  the  body  received  these  cuttings.  The  scrip- 
ture frequently  speaks  of  them  in  a  more  general  manner. 
— Harmer. 

Ver.  40.  For  thus  saith  the  Lord,  Behold,  he 
shall  fly  as  an  eagle,  and  shall  spread  his  wings 
over  Moab. 

See  on  Ezek.  17.  8. 

CHAPTER  XLIX. 
Ver.  3.  Howl,  O  Heshbon:  for  Ai  is  spoiled: 
cry,  ye  daughters  of  Rabbah,  gird  ye  with 
sackcloth ;  lament,  and  run  to  and  fro  by  the 
hedges :  for  their  king  shall  go  into  captivity, 
and  his  priests  and  his  princes  together. 

The  places  of  burial  in  the  East  are  without  their  cities, 
as  well  as  their  gardens,  and  consequently  their  going  to 
them  must  often  be  by  their  garden  walls,  (not  hedges.) 
The  ancient  warriors  of  distinction,  who  were  slain  in 
battle,  were  carried  to  the  sepulchres  of  their  fathers ;  and 
the  people  often  went  to  weep  over  the  graves  of  those 
whom  they  would  honoiir.  These  observations  put  togethei 
sufficiently  account  for  this  passage. — Harmer. 

Ver.  7.  Concernitig  Edom,  thus  saith  the  Lord 
of  hosts,  Is  wisdom  no  more  in  Teman?  is 
counsel  perished  from  the  prudent?  is  their 
wisdom  vanished  ? 

Compare  with  this  Obad.  v.  8,  "  shall  I  not  in  that  day, 
saith  the  Lord,  even  destroy  the  wise  men' out  of  Edom, 
and  understanding  out  of  the  Mount  of  Esau  V  Fallen 
and  despised  as  now  it  is,  Edom,  did  not  the  prescription 
of  many  ages  abrogate  its  right,  might  lay  claim  to  the 
title  of  having  been  the  first  seat  of  learning,  as  well  as 
the  centre  of  commerce.  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  who  was  no 
mean  master  in  chronology,  and  no  incompetent  judge  to 


SOS 


JEREMIAH, 


Chap.  49 


give  a  decision  in  regard  to  the  rise  and  first  progress  of 
literature,  considers  Edom  as  the  nursery  of  the  arts  and 
sciences,  and  adduces  evidence  to  that  etfect  from  pro- 
fane as  well  as  from  sacred  history.  "  The  Egyptians," 
he  remarks,  ^^  having  learned  the  skill  of  the  Edomites, 
began  now  to  observe  the  position  of  the  stars,  and  the 
length  of  the  solar  year,  for  enabling  them  to  know  the 
position  of  the  stars  at  any  time,  and  to  sail  by  them  at  all 
times  without  sight  of  the  shore,  and  this  gave  a  begin- 
ning to  astronomy  and  navigation."  It  seems  that  letters, 
and  astronomy,  and  the  trade  of  carpenters,  were  invented 
by  the  merchants  of  the  Red  Sea,  and  that  they  were  pro- 
pagated from  Arabia  Petraea  into  Egypt,  Chaldea,  Syria, 
Asia  Minor,  and  Europe.  While  the  philosopher  may 
thus  think  of  Edom  with  respect,  neither  the  admirer  of 
genius,  the  man  of  feeling,  nor  the  child  of  devotion  will, 
even  to  this  day,  seek  from  any  land  a  richer  treasure  of 
plaintive  poetry,  of  impassioned  eloquence,  and  of  fervid 
piety,  than  Edom  has  bequeathed  to  the  world  in  the  book 
oi  Job.  It  exhibits  to  us,  in  language  the  most  pathetic 
and  sublime,  all  that  a  man  could  feel,  in  the  outward 
pangs  of  his  body  and  the  inner  writhings  of  his  mind,  of 
the  %ailties  of  his  frame,  and  of  the  dissolution  of  his 
earthly  comforts  and  endearments;  all  that  mortal  can 
discern,  by  meditating  on  the  ways  and  contemplating  the 
works  of  God,  of  the  omniscience  and  omnipotence  of  the 
Most  High,  and  of  the  inscrutable  dispensations  of  his 
providence ;  all  that  knowledge  which  could  first  tell,  in 
written  word,  of  Arcturus,  and  Orion,  and  the  Pleiades ; 
and  all  that  devotedness  of  soul,  and  immortality  of  hope, 
which,  with  patience  that  faltered  not  even  when  the  heart 
was  bruised  and  almost  broken,  and  the  body  covered  over 
with  distress,  could  say,  "Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I 
trust  in  him."  But  if  the  question  now  be  asked.  Is  under- 
standing perished  out  of  Edom  1  the  answer,  like  every 
response  of  the  prophetic  word,  may  be  briefly  given :  It  is. 
The  minds  of  the  Bedouins  are  as  uncultivated  as  the  des- 
erts they  traverse.  Practical  wisdom  is,  in  general,  the 
first  that  man  learns,  and  the  last  that  he  retains.  And  the 
simple  but  significant  fact,  already  alluded  to,  that  the  clear- 
ing away  of  a  little  rubbish,  merely  "  to  allow  the  water  to 
flow"  into  an  ancient  cistern,  in  order  to  render  it  useful 
to  themselves,  "is  an  undertaking  far  beyond  the  views  of 
the  wandering  Arabs,"  shows  that  understanding  is  indeed 
perished  from  among  them.  They  view  the  indestructible 
works  of  former  ages,  not  only  with  wonder,  but  with  su- 
perstitious regard,  and  consider  them  as  the  work  of  genii. 
They  look  upon  a  European  traveller  as  a  magician  and 
believe  that,  having  seen  any  spot  where  they  imagine  that 
treasures  are  deposited,  he  can  afterward  command  the 
guardian  of  the  treasure  to  set  the  whole  before  him.  In 
Teman,  which  yet  maintains  a  precarious  existence,  the 
inhabitants  possess  the  desire  without  the  means  of  knowl- 
edge. The  Koran  is  their  only  studv,  and  contains  the 
sum  of  their  wisdom.  And,  although  he  was  but  a  "  mis- 
erable comforter,"  and  was  overmastered  in  argument  by 
a  kinsman  stricken  with  affliction,  yet  no  Temanite  can  now 
discourse  with  either  the  wisdom  or  the  pathos  of  Eliphaz 
of  old.  Wisdom  is  no  more  in  Teman,  and  understanding 
has  perished  out  of  the  Mount  of  Esau. 

While  there  is  thus  subsisting  evidence  and  proof  that 
the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Edom  were  renowned  for  wis- 
dom as  well  as  for  power,  and  while  desolation  has  spread 
so  widely  over  it,  that  it  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  inhabi- 
ted by  man,  there  still  are  tenants  who  hold  possession  of 
it,  to  whom  it  was  abandoned  by  man,  and  to  whom  it  was 
decreed  by  a  voice  more  than  mortal.  And  insignificant 
and  minute  as  it  may  possiblv  appear  to  those  who  reject 
the  light  of  revelation,  or  to  the  unreflecting  mind,  (that 
will  use  no  measuring-line  of  truth  which  stretches  beyond 
that  which  inches  out  its  own  shallow  thoughts,  and  where- 
with, rejecting  all  other  aid,  it  tries,  by  the  superficial 
touch  of  ridicule  alone,  to  sound  the  unfathomable  depths 
of  infinite  wisdom,)  yet  the  following  scripture,  mingled 
with  other  words  already  verified  as  the  voice  of  inspira- 
lion,  and  voluntarily  involving  its  title  to  credibility  in  the 
appended  appeal  to  fact  and  challenge  to  investigation,  may, 
in  conjunction  with  kindred  proofs,  yet  tell  to  man — if  hear- 
ing he  will  hear,  and  show  him,  if  seeing  he  will  see — 
the  verity  of  the  divine  word,  and  the  infallibility  of  the 
divine  judgments ;  and,  not  without  the  aid  of  the  rightful 
and  unbiased  exercise  of  reason,  may  give  understanding 


to  the  skeptic,  that  he  may  be  converted,  and  that  he  may 
be  healed  by  Him  whose  word  is  ever  truth. 

"  But  the  cormorant  and  the  bittern  shall  possess  it,  (Idu- 
mea ;)  the  owl  also,  and  the  raven  shall  dwell  in  it.  It  shall 
be  a  habitation  for  dragons,  and  a  court  for  owls :  the  wild 
beasts  of  the  desert  shall  also  meet  with  the  wild  beasts  of 
the  island,  and  the  satyr  (the  hairy  or  rough  creature)  shall 
cry  to  his  fellow ;  the  screech  owl  also  shall  rest  there,  and 
find  for  herself  a  place  of  rest ;  there  shall  the  great  owl 
make  her  nest,  and  lay,  and  hatch,  and  gather  under  her 
shadow ;  there  shall  the  vultures  also  be  gathered  every 
one  with  her  mate.  Seek  ye  out  of  the  book  of  the  Lord 
and  read ;  no  one  of  these  shall  fail,  none  shall  want  her 
mate ;  for  my  mouth  it  hath  commanded,  and  his  spirit  it 
hath  gathered  them.  And  he  hath  cast  the  lot  for  them, 
and  his  hand  hath  divided  it  unto  them  by  line  :  they  shall 
possess  it  for  ever;  from  generation  to  generation  shall 
they  dwell  therein."  Isa.  xxxiv.  11,  13—17.  "  I  laid  the 
mountains  of  Esau  and  his  heritage  waste  for  the  dragons 
of  the  wilderness."    Mai.  i.  3. 

Such  is  the  precision  of  the  prophecies,  so  remote  are 
they  from  all  ambiguity  of  meaning,  and  so  distinct  are  the 
events  which  they  detail,  that  it  is  almost  unnecessary  to 
remark,  that  the  different  animals  here  enumerated  were 
not  all  in  the  same  manner,  or  in  the  same  degree,  to  be 
possessors  of  Edom.  Some  of  them  were  to  rest,  to  meet, 
to  be  gathered  there  :  the  owl  and  the  raven  were  to  dwell 
in  it,  and  it  was  to  be  a  habitation  for  dragons ;  while  of  the 
cormorant  and  bittern,  it  is  emphatically  said,  that  they 
were  to  possess  it.  And  is  it  not  somewhat  beyond  a  mere 
fortuitous  coincidence,  imperfect  as  the  information  is  re- 
specting Edom,  that,  in  "  seeking  out"  proof  concerning 
these  animals  and  whether  none  of  them  do  fail,  the  most 
decisive  evidence  should,*  in  the  first  instance,  be  uncon- 
sciously communicated  from  the  boundaries  of  Edom,  ol 
the  one  which  is  first  noted  in  the  prediction,  and  which 
was  to  possess  the  land  1  It  will  at  once  be  conceded,  that 
in  whatever  country  any  particular  animal  is  unknown, 
no  proper  translation  of  its  name  can  there  be  given  ;  and 
that  for  the  purpose  of  designating  or  identifying  it,  refer- 
ence must  be  had  to  the  original  name,  and  to  the  natural 
history  of  the  country  in  which  it  is  known.  And,  without 
any  ambiguity  or  perplexity  arising  from  the  translation  ol 
the  word,  or  any  need  of  tracing  it  through  any  other  lan- 
guages to  ascertain  its  import,  the  identical  word  of  ihe 
original,  with  scarcely  the  slightest  variation  (and  that  only 
the  want  of  the  final  vowel  in  the  Hebrew  word,  vowels 
in  that  language  being  often  supplied  in  the  enunciation, 
or  by  points,)  is,  from  the  affinity  of  the  Hebrew  and  Ara- 
bic, used  on  the  very  spot  by  the  Arabs,  to  denote  the  very 
bird  which  may  literally  be  said  to  possess  the  land.  While 
in  the  last  inhabited  village  of  Moab,  and  close  upon  the 
borders  of  Edom,  Burckhardt  noted  the  animals  which 
frequented  the  neighbouring  territory,  in  which  he  dis- 
tinctly specifies  Shera,  the  land  of  the  Edoraites ;  and  he 
relates  that  the  bird  katta  is  "met  with  in  immense  num- 
bers. They  fly  in  such  large  flocks  that  the  Arab  boys 
often  kill  two  or  three  of  them  at  a  time,  merely  by  throw- 
ing a  stick  among  them."  If  any  objector  be  here  inclined 
to  say,  that  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  any  particular 
bird  should  be  found  in  any  given  country,  that  it  might 
continue  to  remain  for  a  term  of  ages,  and  that  such  a  sur- 
mise would  not  exceed  the  natural  probabilities  of  the  case, 
the  fact  may  be  freely  admitted  as  applicable,  perhaps,  to 
most  countries  of  the  globe.  But  whoever,  elsewhere,  saw 
any  wild  bird  in  any  country,  in  flocks  so  immensely  nu- 
merous, that  two  or  three  of  them  could  be  killed  by  the 
single  throw  of  a  stick  from  the  hand  of  a  boy ;  and  that 
this  could  be  stated,  not  as  a  forcible,  and  perhaps  false, 
illustration  to  denote  their  number,  nor  as  a  wonderful 
chance  or  unusual  incident,  but  as  a  fact  of  frequent  oc- 
currence 1  Whoever,  elsewhere,  heard  of  such  a  fact,  not 
as  happening  merely  on  a  sea  rock,  the  resort  of  myriads 
of  birds,  on  their  temporary  resting-place,  when  exhausted 
in  their  flight,  but  in  an  extensive  country,  their  permanent 
abode"?  Or  if,  among  the  manifold  discoveries  of  travel- 
lers in  modern  times,  it  were  really  related  that  such  oc- 
cupants of  a  country  are  to  be  found,  or  that  a  correspond- 
ing fact  exists  in  any  other  region  of  the  earth  which  was 
once  tenanted  bv  man,  who  can  also  "find" in  the  records 
of  a  high  antiquity  the  prediction  that  declared  it  *?  Of 
what  country  now  inhabited  could  'he  same  fact  be  now 


Chap.  49. 


JEREMIAH 


509 


with  certainty  foretold  ;  and  where  is  the  seer  who  can  dis- 
cern the  vision,  fix  on  the  spot  over  the  world's  surface, 
and  select,  from  the  whole  winged  tribe,  the  name  of  the 
first  in  order  and  the  greatest  in  number  of  the  future  and 
chief  possessors  of  the  land'? 

Of  the  bittern  (kephud)  as  a  joint  possessor  with  the 
katta  of  Idumea,  evidence  has  not  been  given,  or  ascer- 
tained ; — but  numerous  as  the  facts  have  been  which  mod- 
ern discoveries  have  consigned  over  to  the  service  of 
revelation,  that  word  of  truth  which  fears  no  investigation 
can  appeal  to  other  facts,  unknown  to  history  and  still  un- 
discovered— but  registered  in  prophecy,  and  there  long 
since  revealed. 

T'ke  owl  also  and  the  raven  {or  crow)  shall  dwell  in  it. — 
The  owl  and  raven  do  dwell  in  it.  Captain  Mangles  re- 
lates, that  while  he  and  his  fellow-travellers  were  examin- 
ing the  ruins  and  contemplating  the  sublime  scenery  of 
Petra,  "  the  screaming  of  the  eagles,  hawks,  and  owls, 
who  were  soaring  above  their  heads  in  considerable  num- 
bers, seemingly  annoyed  at  any  one  approaching  their  lonely 
habitation,  added  much  to  the  singularity  of  the  scene." 
The  fields  of  Tafyle,  situated  in  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  Edom,  are,  according  to  the  observation  of  Burckhardt, 
frequented  by  an  immense  number  of  crows.  "  I  expect- 
ed," says  Seetzen,  (alluding  to  his  purposed  tour  through 
Idumea,  and  to  the  information  he  had  received  from  the 
Arabs,)  "  to  make  several  discoveries  in  mineralogy,  as 
well  as  in  the  animals  and  vegetables  of  the  country,  on 
the  manna  of  the  desert,  the  ravens,"  &c. 

It  shall  be  a  habitation  for  dragons,  {serpents.)  I  laid 
his  heritage  waste  for  the  dragons  of  the  wilderness. — The 
evidence,  though  derived  from  testimony,  and  not  from  per- 
sonal observation,  of  two  travellers  of  so  contrary  characters 
and  views  as  Shaw  and  Volney,  is  so  accordant  and  apposite, 
that  it  may  well  be  sustained  in  lieu  of  more  direct  proof. 
The  former  represents  the  land  of  Edom,  and  the  wilder- 
ness of  which  it  now  forms  part,  as  abounding  with  a 
variety  of  lizards  and  vipers,  which  are  very  dangerous 
and  troublesome.  And  the  narrative  given  by  Volney, 
already  quoted,  is  equally  decisive  as  to  the  fact.  The 
Arabs,  in  general,  avoid  the  ruins  of  the  cities  of  Idumea, 
*'  on  account  of  the  enormoits  scorpionswith  which  they  sioarm." 
Its  cities,  thus  deserted  by  man,  and  abandoned  to  their 
undisturbed  and  hereditary  possession,  Edom  may  justly  be 
called  the  inheritance  of  dragons. 

The  wild  beasts  of  the  desert  shall  also  meet  with  the  wild 
beasts  of  the  island,  (or  of  the  borders  of  the  sea.)  Instead 
of  these  words  of  the  English  version,  Parkhurst  renders 
the  former  the  ravenous  birds  hunting  the  uiilderness. 
This  interpretation  was  given  long  before  the  fact  to 
which  it  refers  was  made  known.  But  it  has  now  been 
ascertained  (and  without  any  allusion,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  the  prediction)  that  eagles,  hawks,  and  ravens,  all 
ravenous  birds,  are  common  in  Edom,  and  do  not  fail  to 
illustrate  the  prediction  as  thus  translated.  But  when 
animals  from  different  regions  are  said  to  meet,  the  prophe- 
cy, thus  implying  that  some  of  them  at  least  did  not  proper- 
ly pertain  to  the  country,  would  seem  to  require  some 
further  verification.  And  of  all  the  wonderful  circum- 
stances attached  to  the  history,  or  pertaining  to  the  fate,  of 
Edom,  there  is  one  which  is  not  to  be  ranked  among  the 
least  in  singularity,  that  bears  no  remote  application  to  the 
prefixed  prophecy,  and  that  ought  not,  perhaps,  to  pass  here 
unnoted.  It  is  recorded  in  an  ancient  chronicle,  that  the 
Emperor  Decius  caused  fierce  lions  and  lionesses  to  be 
transported  from  (the  deserts  of)  Africa  to  the  borders  of 
Palestine  and  Arabia,  in  order  that,  propagating  there,  they 
might  act  as  an  annoyance  and  a  barrier  to  the  barbarous 
Saracens :  between  Arabia  and  Palestine  lies  the  doomed 
execrated  land  of  Edom.  And  may  it  not  thus  be  added, 
that  a  cause  so  unnatural  and  unforeseen  would  greatly 
lend  to  the  destruction  of  the  flocks,  and  to  the  desolatioii 
of  all  the  adjoining  territory, — and  seem  to  be  as  if  the  king 
of  the  forest  was  to  take  possession  of  it  for  his  subjects'? 
And  may  it  not  be  even  literally  said  that  the  toild  beasts  of  the 
desert  meet  there  with  the  wild  beasts  of  the  borders  of  the  sea  7 

The  satyr  shall  dwell  there. — The  satyr  is  enti^ly  a  fabu- 
lous animal.  The  word  (soir)  literally  means  a  rovgh, 
hairy  one ;  and,  like  a  synonymous  word  in  both  the  Greek 
and  Latin  languages  which  has  the  same  signification,  has 
been  translated  bot'n  ov  •exicog'-aphers  and  commentators 
i/V-  ^Siu.    Fafif fiufst  savs.  chat  in  this  sense  he  would  under- 


stand this  very  passage;  and  Lowth  distinctly  asserts,  with- 
out assigning  to  it  any  other  meaning,  that  "  the  word 
originally  signifies  goat."  Such  respectable  and  well- 
known  authorities  have  been  cited,  because  their  decision 
must  have  rested  on  criticism  alone,  as  it  was  irripossible  that 
their  minds  could  have  been  biased  by  any  knowledge  of 
the  fact  in  reference  to  Edom.  It  was  their  province,  and 
that  of  others,  to  illustrate  its  meaning — it  was  Burckhardt's, 
however  unconsciously,  to  bear,  from  ocular  observation, 
witness  to  its  truth.  "  In  all  the  Wadys  south  of  the 
Modjel  and  El  Asha,"  (pointing  to  Edom,)  "  large  herds  of 
mountain  goats  are  met  with.  They  pasture  in  flocks  of 
forty  and  fifty  together." — They  dwell  there. 

But  the  evidence  respecting  all  the  animals  specified  in 
the  prophecy,  as  the  future  possessors  of  Edom,  is  not  yet 
complete,  and  is  difficult  to  be  ascertained.  And,  in  wordr 
that  seem  to  indicate  this  very  difficulty,  it  is  still  reserved 
for  future  travellers, — perhaps  some  unconscious  Volney. 
— to  disclose  the  facts  ;  and  for  future  inquirers,  whethet 
Christian  or  infidel,  to  seek  out  of  the  book  of  the  Lord 
and  read ;  and  to  "  find  that  no  one  of  these  do  fail."  Yet, 
recent  as  the  disclosure  of  any  information  respecting  them 
has  been,  and  offered,  as  it  now  for  tb£  first  time  is,  for  the 
consideration  of  every  candid  mind.  The  positive  terms  and 
singleness  of  object  of  the  prophecies  themselves,  and  the 
undesigned  and  decisive  evidence,  are  surely  enough  to 
show  how  greatly  these  several  specific  predictions  and 
their  respective  facts  exceed  all  possibility  of  their  being  the 
word  or  the  work  of  man  ;  and  how  clearly  there  may  be 
discovered  in  them  all,  if  sight  itself  be  conviction,  the 
credentials  of  inspiration,  and  the  operation  of  His  hands, 
— to  whose  prescience  futurity  is  open, — to  whose  power 
all  nature  is  subservient, — and  "  whose  mouth  it  hath  com- 
manded, and  whose  spirit  it  hath  gathered  them." 

Noted  as  Edom  was  for  its  terribleness,  and  possessed  of 
a  capital  city,  from  which  even  a  feeble  people  could  not 
easily  have  been  dislodged,  there  scarcely  could  have  been 
a  question,  even  among  its  enemies,  to  what  people  that 
country  would  eventually  belong.  And  it  never  could  have 
been  thought  of  by  any  native  of  another  land,  as  the  Jew- 
ish prophets  were,  nor  by  any  uninspired  mortal  whatever, 
that  a  kingdom  which  had  previously  subsisted  so  long, 
(and  in  which  princes  ceased  not  to  reign,  commerce  to 
flourish,  and  "  a  people  of  great  opulence"  to  dwell  for 
more  than  six  hundred  years  thereafter,)  would  be  finally 
extinct,  that  all  its  cities  would  be  for  ever  desolate,  and 
though  it  could  have  boasted  more  than  any  other  land  ot 
indestructible  habitations  for  men,  that  their  habitations 
would  be  desolate  ;  and  that  certain  wild  animals,  mention- 
ed by  name,  would  in  different  manners  and  degrees  pos- 
sess the  country  from  generation  to  generation. 

TTiere  shall  not  be  any  remaining  of  the  house  of  Esau. 
Edom  shall  be  cut  off  for  ever.  The  aliens  of  Judah  ever 
look  with  wistful  eyes  to  the  land  of  their  fathers;  but  no 
Edomite  is  now  to  be  found  to  dispute  the  right  of  any 
animal  to  the  possession  of  it,  or  to  banish  the  owl  from  the 
temples  and  palaces  of  Edom.  But  the  house  of  Esau  did 
remain,  and  existed  in  great  power,  till  after  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Christian  era,  a  period  far  too  remote 
from  the  date  of  the  prediction  for  their  subsequent  history 
to  have  been  foreseen  by  man.  The  Idumeans  were  soon 
after  mingled  with  the  Nabatheans.  And  in  the  third  cen- 
tury their  language  was  disused,  and  their  very  name,  as 
designating  any  people,  had  utterly  perished;  and  their 
country  itself,  having  become  an  outcast  from  Syria, 
among  whose  kingdoms  it  had  long  been  numbered,  was 
united  to  Arabia  Petrsea.  Though  the  descendants  of  the 
twin-born  Esau  and  Jacob  have  met  a  diametrically  oppo- 
site fate,  the  fact  is  no  less  marvellous  and  undisputed, 
than  the  prediction  in  each  case  is  alike  obvious  and  true. 
While  the  posterity  of  Jacob  have  been  "  dispersed  in  every 
country  under  heaven,"  and  are  "  scattered  among  all  na- 
tions," and  have  ever  remained  distinct  from  them  all,  and 
while  it  is  also  declared  that  "a  full  end  will  never  be 
made  of  them,"  the  Edomites,  though  they  existed  as  a  na- 
tion for  more  than  seventeen  hundred  years,  have,  as  a 
period  of  nearly  equal  duration  has  proved,  been  cut  off  for 
ever ;  and  while  Jews  are  in  every  land,  there  is  not  any 
remmning  on  any  spot  of  earth  of  the  house  of  Esau. 

Idumea,  in  aid  of  a  neighbouring  state,  did  send  forth,  on 
a  sudden,  an  army  of  twenty  thousand  armed  men,— it 
contained  at  least  eighteen  towns,  for  centuries  after  the 


510 


JEREMIAH. 


Chap.  49. 


Christian  era, — successive  kings  and  princes  reigned  in 
Petra, — and  magnificent  palaces  and  temples,  whose  empty 
chambers  and  naked  walls  of  wonderful  architecture  still 
fetrike  the  traveller  with  amazement,  were  constructed  there, 
at  a  period  unquestionably  far  remote  from  the  time  when 
it  was  given  to  the  prophets  of  Israel  to  tell,  that  the  house 
of  Esau  was  to  be  cut  off  for  ever,  that  there  would  be  no 
kingdom  there,  and  that  wild  animals  would  possess  Edom 
for  a  heritage.  And  so  despised  is  Edom,  and  the  memory 
of  its  greatness  lost,  that  there  is  no  record  of  antiquity  that 
can  so  clearly  show  us  what  once  it  was  in  the  days  of  its 
power,  as  we  can  now  read  in  the  page  of  prophecy  its 
existing  desolation.  But  in  that  place  where  kings  kept 
their  court,  and  where  nobles  assembled,  where  manifest 
proofs  of  ancient  opulence  are  concentrated,  where  prince- 
ly habitations,  retaining  their  external  grandeur,  but  be- 
reft of  all  their  splendour,  still  look  as  if  "fresh  from  the 
chisel," — even  there  no  man  dwells;  it  is  given  by  lot  to 
birds,  and  beasts,  and  reptiles ;  it  is  a  "  court  for  owls,"  and 
scarcely  are  they  ever  frayed  from  their  "  lonely  habita- 
tion" by  the  tread  of  a  solitary  traveller  from  a  far  distant 
land,  among  deserted  dwellings  and  desolated  ruins. 

Hidden  as  the  histqry  and  state  of  Edom  has  been  for 
ages,  every  recent  disclosure,  being  an  echo  of  the  prophe- 
cies, amply  corroborates  the  truth,  that  the  word  of  the 
Lord  does  not  return  unto  him  void,  but  ever  fulfils  the 
purpose  for  which  he  hath  sent  it.  But  the  whole  of  its 
work  is  not  yet  wrought  in  Edom,  which  has  further  testi- 
mony in  store  :  and  while  the  evidence  is  not  yet  complete, 
so  neither  is  the  time  of  the  final  judgments  on  the  land  yet 
fully  come.  Judea,  Ammon,  and  Moab,  according  to  the 
word  of  prophecy,  shall  revive  from  their  desolation,  and 
the  wild  animals  who  have  conjoined  their  depredations 
with  those  of  barbarous  men,  in  perpetuating  the  desolation 
of  these  countries,  shall  find  a  refuge  and  undisturbed  pos- 
session in  Edom,  when,  the  year  of  recompenses  for  the 
controversy  of  Zion  being  past,  it  shall  be  divided  unto 
them  by  line,  when  they  shall  possess  it  for  ever,  and  from 
generation  to  generation  shall  dwell  therein.  But  without 
looking  into  futurity,  a  retrospect  may  here  warrant,  before 
leaving  the  subject,  a  concluding  clause. 

That  man  is  a  bold  believer,  and  must  with  whatever 
reluctance  forego  the  name  of  skeptic,  who  possesses  such 
redundant  credulity  as  to  think  that  all  the  predictions  re- 
specting Edom,  and  all  others  recorded  in  Scripture,  and 
realized  by  facts,  were  the  mere  haphazard  results  of  for- 
tuitous conjectures.  And  he  who  thus,  without  reflecting 
how  incongruous  it  is  to  "  strain  at  a  gnat  and  swallow  a 
camel,"  can  deliberately,  and  with  an  unruflled  mind,  place 
such  an  opinion  among  the  articles  of  his  faith,  may  indeed 
be  pitied  by  those  who  know  in  whom  they  have  believed, 
but,  if  he  forfeit  not  thereby  all  right  of  ever  appealing  to 
reason,  must  at  least  renounce  all  title  to  stigmatize,  in 
others,  even  the  most  preposterous  belief.  Or  if  such,  after 
all,  must  needs  be  his  philosophical  creed,  and  his  rational 
conviction !  what  can  hinder  him  from  believing  also  that 
other  chance  words — such  as  truly  marked  the  fate  of 
Edorn,  but  more  numerous  and  clear,  and  which,  were  he 
to  "seek  out  and  read,"  he  would  find  in  the  selfsame 
"  book  of  the  Lord" — may  also  prove  equally  true  to  the 
spirit,  if  not  to  the  letter,  against  all  the  enemies  of  the 
gospel,  whether  hypocrites  or  unbelievers'?  May  not  his 
belief  in  the  latter  instance  be  strengthened  by  the  experi- 
ence that  man^  averments  of  Scripture,  in  respect  to  times 
then  future,  and  to  facts  then  unknown,  have  already 
proved  true  1  And  may  he  not  here  find  some  analogy,  at 
least,  on  which  to  rest  his  faith,  whereas  the  conviction 
which,  in  the  former  case,  he  so  readily  cherishes  is  totally 
destitute  of  any  resemblance  whatever  to  warrant  the  possi- 
bility of  its  truth  1  Or  is  this  indeed  the  sum  of  his  boasted 
wisdom,  to  hold  to  the  conviction  of  the  fallacy  of  all  the 
coming  judgments  denounced  in  Scripture,  till "  experience," 
personal  though  it  should  be,  prove  them  to  be  as  true  as 
the  past,  and  a  compulsory  and  unchangeable  but  unre- 
deeming  faith  be  grafted  on  despair '?  Or  if  less  proof  can 
possibly  suflice,  let  him  timely  read,  and  examine,  and  dis- 
prove also,  all  the  credentials  of  revelation,  before  he  ac- 
count the  believer  credulous,  or  the  unbeliever  wise ;  or 
else  let  him  abandon  the  thought  that  the  unrepentant 
iniquity  and  wilful  perversity  of  man  and  an  evil  heart  of 
iinbelier(all  proof  derided,  all  offered  mercy  rejected,  all 
lueetness  for  an  inheritance  among  them  that  are  sanctified 


unattained,  and  all  warning  lost)  shall  not  finally  forbid 
that  Edom  stand  alone — the  seared  and  blasted  monument 
of  the  judgments  of  Heaven. 

A  word  may  here  be  spoken  even  to  the  wise.  Were 
any  of  the  sons  of  men  to  be  uninstructed  in  the  fear  of  the 
Lord,  which  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom,  and  in  the  know- 
ledge of  his  word,  which  maketh  wise  unto  salvation,  and 
to  be  thus  ignorant  of  the  truths  and  precepts  of  the  gospel, 
which  should  all  tell  upon  every  deed  done  in  the  body ; 
what  in  such  a  case — if  all  their  superior  knowledge  w^ere 
unaccompanied  by  religious  principles — would  all  mechan- 
ical and  physical  sciences  eventually  prove  but  the  same, 
in  kiiid,  as  the  wisdom  of  the  wise  men  of  Edom  7  And 
were  they  to  perfect  in  astronomy,  navigation,  and  mechanics 
what,  according  to  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  the  Edomites  began, 
what  would  the  moulding  of  matter  to  their  will  avail  them, 
as  moral  and  accountable  beings,  if  their  own  hearts  were 
not  conformed  to  the  Divine  wilH  and  what  would  all  their 
labour  be  at  last  but  strength  spent  for  naught  1  For  were 
they  to  raise  column  above  column,  and  again  to  hew  a  city 
out  of  the  cliffs  of  the  rock,  let  but  such  another  word  of 
that  God  whom  they  seek  not  to  know  go  forth  against  it, 
and  all  their  mechanical  ingenuity  and  labour  would  just 
end  in  forming — that  which  Petra  is,  and  which  Rome 
itself  is  destined  to  be — "  a  cage  of  every  unclean  and  hate- 
ful bird."  The  experiment  has  already  been  made  ;  it  may 
well  and  wisely  be  trusted  to  as  much  as  those  which  mor- 
tals make  ;  and  it  is  set  before  us  that,  instead  of  provoking 
the  Lord  to  far  worse  than  its  repetition  in  personal  judg- 
ments against  ourselves,  we  may  be  warned  by  the  spirit 
of  prophecy,  which  is  the  testimony  of  Jesus,  to  hear  and 
obey  the  words  of  Him — "  even  of  Jesus,  who  delivereth 
from  the  wrath  to  come."  For  how  much  greater  than  any 
degradation  to  which  hewn  but  unfeeling  rocks  can  be  re- 
duced, is  that  of  a  soul,  which  while  in  the  body  might  have 
been  formed  anew  after  the  image  of  an  all  holy  God, 
and  made  meet  for  beholding  His  face  in  glory,  passing 
from  spiritual  darkness  into  a  spiritual  stale,  where  all 
knowledge  of  earthly  things  shall  cease  to  be  power — where 
all  the  riches  of  this  world  shall  cease  to  be  gain — where 
the  want  of  religious  principles  and  of  Christian  virtues 
shall  leave  the  soul  naked,  as  the  bare  and  empty  dwellings 
in  the  clefts  of  the  rocks — where  the  thoughts  of  worldly 
wisdom,  to  which  it  was  inured  before,  shall  haunt  it  stil), 
and  be  more  unworthy  and  hateful  occupants  of  the  immor- 
tal spirit  than  are  the  owls  amid  the  palaces  of  Edom — and 
where  all  those  sinful  passions  which  rested  on  the  things 
that  were  seen  shall  be  like  unto  the  scorpions  which  hold 
Edom  as  their  heritage  for  ever,  and  which  none  can  now 
scare  away  from  among  the  wild  vines  that  are  there  in- 
twined  around  the  broken  altars  where  false  gods  were  wor- 
shipped ! — Keith. 

Ver.  8.  Flee  ye,  turn  back,  dwell  deep,  O  inhab- 
itants of  Dedan  ;  for  I  will  bring  the  calamity 
of  Esau  upon  him,  the  time  that  I  will  visit 
him. 

When  the  Arabs  have  drawn  upon  themselves  the  resent- 
ment of  the  more  fixed  inhabitants  of  those  countries,  and 
think  themselves  unable  to  stand  against  them,  they  with- 
draw into  the  depths  of  the  great  wilderness,  where  none 
can  follow  them.  Thus  also  very  expressly  M.  Savary, 
(tom.  ii.  p.  8,)  "always  on  their  guard  against  tyranny, 
on  the  least  discontent  that  is  given  them,  they  pack  up  their 
tents,  load  their  camels  with  them,  ravage  the  flat  country, 
and,  loaded  with  plunder,  plunge  into  the  burning  sands, 
whither  none  can  pursue  them,  and  where  they  alone  can 
dwell."  Is  it  not  then  most  probable  that  the  dioelling  deep, 
mentioned  in  these  words,  means  their  plunging  far  into 
the  deserts,  rather  than  going  into  deep  caves  and  dens,  as 
has  been  most  commonly  supposed  1  This  explanation  is 
also  strongly  confirmed  by  verse  30.  Flee,  get  yo^^,  far  off, 
dwell  deep. — Harmer. 

The  phrase  to  "  dwell  deep,"  in  relation  to  the  fixed  in- 
habitants of  that  city,  and  the  kingdom  of  which  it  was  the 
capital,  must  therefore  refer  to  the  caverns  in  Galilee  and 
the  neighbourhood,  in  whose  capacious  recesses  they  were 
accustomed  to  take  refuge  in  time  of  war.  Or,  if  it  signify- 
to  dwell  far  remote  from  the  threatened  danger,  the  many 
other  caverns  beyond  Damascus,  towards  Arabia,  which 


i!:a|"fi!|ji"W|ii= 


=.1 


Chap.  49. 


JEREMIAH. 


511 


Ine  prophet  might  allude  to,  were  at  a  sufficient  distance  to 
justify  his  language.  Nor  is  it  inconsistent  with  the  man- 
ners of  the  Arabians,  as  Harmer  supposes,  to  retire  into 
caves  and  dens  of  the  earth  for  shelter ;  for  the  Bedouins 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Aleppo,  who  encamp  near  the 
gates  in  the  spring,  inhabit  grottoes  in  the  winter.  And 
Mohammed  mentions  an  Arabian  tribe,  that  hewed  houses 
out  of  the  mountains  for  their  security.  To  these  caverns, 
both  the  wandering  Arabs  and  the  fixed  inhabitants,  cer- 
tainly retreated  in  time  of  danger ;  although  the  more  com- 
mon practice  of  the  former,  was  to  retire  into  the  depth  of 
their  terrible  deserts,  where  no  enemy  could  disturb  their 
repose.— Paxton. 

Ver.  15.  Thy  terribleness  hath  deceived  thee,  and 
the  pride  of  thy  heart,  O  thou  that  dwellest  in 
the  clefts  of  the  rock,  that  holdest  the  height  of 
the  hill :  though  thou  shouldst  make  thy  nest 
as  high  as  the  eagle,  I  will  bring  thee  down 
from  thence,  saith  the  Lord. 

In  this  beautiful  passage,  the  prophet  strictly  adheres  to 
I'te  truth  of  history.  Esau  subdued  the  original  inhabit- 
ants of  Mount  Hor,  and  seized  on  its  savage  and  romantic 
precipices.  His  descendants  covered  the  sides  of  their 
mountains  "  with  an  endless  variety  of  excavated  tombs 
and  private  dwellings,  worked  out  in  all  the  symmetry  and 
regularity  of  art,  with  colonnades  and  pediments,  and  ranges 
of  corridors,  adhering  to  the  perpendicular  surface."  On 
the  inaccessible  cliffs  which,  in  some  places,  rise  to  the 
height  of  seven  hundred  feet,  and  the  barren  and  craggy 
precipices  which  enclose  the  ruins  of  Petra,  the  capital  of 
the  Nebataei,  a  once  powerful  but  now  forgotten  people,  the 
eagle  builds  his  nest,  and  screams  for  the  safety  of  his 
young,  when  the  unwelcome  traveller  approaches  his  lonely 
habitation. — Paxton. 

Ver.  17.  Also  Edom  shall  be  a  desolation  ;  every 
one  that  goeth  by  it  shall  be  astonished,  and 
shall  hiss  at  all  the  plagues  thereof  18.  As  in 
the  overthrow  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  and 
the  neighbour  cities  thereof,  saith  the  Lord,  no 
man  shall  abide  there,  neither  shall  a  son  of 
man  dwell  in  it. 

Judea,  Ammon,  and  Moab  exhibit  so  abundantly  the  re- 
mains and  the  means  of  an  exuberant  fertility,  that  the  won- 
der arises  in  the  reflecting  mind,  how  the  barbarity  of  man 
could  have  so  effectually  counteracted  for  so  "  many  gen- 
erations" the  prodigality  of  nature.  But  such  is  Edom's 
desolation,  that  the  first  sentiment  of  astonishment  on  the 
contemplation  of  it  is,  how  a  wide-ext^ided  region,  now 
diversified  by  the  strongest  features  ot  desert  wildness, 
could  ever  have  been  adorned  witn  cities,  or  tenanted  for 
ages  by  a  powerful  and  opulent  people.  Its  present  aspect 
would  belie  its  ancient  history,  were  not  that  history  cor- 
roborated by  "  the  many  vestiges  of  former  cultivation,"  by 
the  remains  of  walls  and  paved  roads,  and  by  the  ruins  of 
cities  still  existing  in  this  ruined  country.  The  total  cessa- 
tion of  its  commerce — the  artificial  irrigation  of  its  valleys 
wholly  neglected — the  destruction  of  all  the  cities,  and  the 
continued  spoliation  of  the  country  by  the  Arabs  while 
aught  remained  that  they  could  destroy — the  permanent 
exposure,  for  ages,  of  the  soil,  unsheltered  by  its  ancient 
groves,  and  unprotected  by  any  covering  from  the  scorch- 
ing rays  of  the  sun — the  unobstructed  encroachments  of 
the  desert,  and  of  the  drifted  sands  from  the  borders  of  the 
Red  Sea,  the  consequent  absorption  of  the  water  of  the 
springs  and  streamlets  during  summer,  are  causes  which 
have  all  combined  their  baneful  operation  in  rendering 
Edom  most  desolate,  the  desolation  of  desolations.  Volney's 
account  is  sufficiently  descriptive  of  the  desolation  which 
now  reigns  over  Idumea ;  and  the  information  which  Seet- 
zen  derived  at  Jerusalem  respecting  it  is  of  similar  import. 
He  was  told,  that  "  at  the  distance  of  two  days'  journey  and 
a  half  from  Hebron,  he  would  find  considerable  ruins  of 
the  ancient  city  of  Abde,  and  that  for  all  the  rest  of  the 
journey  he  would  see  no  place  of  habitation ;  he  would  meet 
only  with  a  few  tribes  of  wandering  Arabs."  From  the 
borders  of  Edom,  Captains  Irby  and  Mangles  beheld  a 


boundless  extent  of  desert  view,  which  they  had  hardly 
ever  seen  equalled  for  singularity  and  grandeur.  And  the 
following  extract,  descriptive  of  what  Burckhardt  actually 
witnessed  in  the  different  parts  of  Edom,  cannot  be  more 
graphically  abbreviated  than  in  the  words  of  the  prophet. 
Of  its  eastern  boundary,  and  of  the  adjoining  part  of  Arabia 
Petraea,  strictly  so  called,  Burckhardt  writes—"  It  might 
with  truth  be  called  Petraea,  not  only  on  account  of  its 
rocky  mountains,  but  also  of  the  elevated  plain  already  de- 
scribed, which  is  so  much  covered  with  stones,  especially 
flints,  that  it  may  with  great  propriety  be  called  a  stony 
desert,  although  susceptible  of  culture :  in  many  places  it  is 
overgrown  with  wild  herbs,  and  must  once  have  been  thick- 
ly inhabited ;  for  the  traces  of  many  towns  and  villages  are 
met  with  on  both  sides  of  the  Hadj  road,  betv/een  Maan 
and  Akaba,  as  well  as  between  Maan  and  the  Plains  of 
Hauran,  in  which  direction  are  also  many  springs.  At 
present  all  this  country  is  a  desert,  and  Maan  (Teman)  is 
the  only  inhabited  place  in  it."  I  will  stretch  out  my  hand 
against  thee,  O  Mount  Seir,  and  will  make  thee  most  desolate. 
I  will  stretch  out  my  hand  upon  Edom,  and  will  make  it  deso- 
late from,  Teman. 

In  the  interior  of  Idumea,  where  the  ruins  of  some  of  its 
ancient  cities  are  still  visible,  and  in  the  extensive  valley 
which  reaches  from  the  Red  to  the  Dead  Sea — the  appear- 
ance of  which  must  now  be  totally  and  sadly  changed  from 
what  it  was — "  the  whole  plain  presented  to  the  view  an  ex- 
panse of  shifting  sands,  whose  surface  was  broken  by  in- 
numerable undulations  and  low  hills.  The  same  appears 
to  have  been  brought  from  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea  by  the 
southern  winds ;  and  the  Arabs  told  me  that  the  valleys  con- 
tinue to  present  the  same  appearance  beyond  the  latitude  of 
Wady  Mousa.  In  some  parts  of  the  valley  the  sand  is 
very  deep,  and  there  is  not  the  slightest  appearance  of  a 
road,  or  of  any  work  of  human  art.  A  few  trees  grow 
among  the  sand-hills,  but  the  depth  of  sand  precludes  «//! 
vegetation  of  herbage."  If  grape-gatherers  come  to  thee, 
would  they  not  leave  some  gleaning  grapes  7  if  thieves  by  night, 
they  7vill  destroy  till  they  have  enough ;  but  I  have  made  Esau 
BARE.  Edom  shall  be  a  desolate  loilderness.  "  On  ascending 
the  western  plain,  on  a  higher  level  than  that  of  Arabia,  we 
had  before  us  an  immense  expanse  of  dreary  country,  en- 
tirely covered  with  black  flints,  with  here  and  there  some 
hilly  chain  rising  from  the  plain."  I  will  stretch  out  upo7i 
Idumea  the  line  of  confusion,  and  the  stones  of  emptiness. 

Of  the  remains  of  ancient  cities  still  exposed  to  view  in 
different  places  throughout  Idumea,  Burckhardt  describes 
"  the  ruins  of  a  large  town,  of  which  nothing  remains  but 
broken  walls  and  heaps  of  stones ;  the  ruins  of  an  ancient 
city,  consisting  of  large  heaj)s  of  hewn  blocks  of  silicious 
stone ;  the  extensive  ruins  of  Gherandel,  Arindela,  an  an- 
cient town  of  Palestina  Tertia."  "  The  following  ruined 
places  are  situated  in  Djebel  Shera  (Mount  Seir)  to  the  S. 
and  S.  W.  of  Wady  Mousa,— Kalaab,  Djirba,  Basta,  Eyl, 
Ferdakh,  Anyk,  Bir  el  Beytar,  Shemakh,  and  Syk.  Of  the 
towns  laid  down  in  DAnville's  map,  Thoana  excepted,  no 
traces  remain."  Ivnll  lay  thy  cities  waste,  and  thou  shall  be 
desolate.  O  Mount  Seir,  I  will  make  thee  perpetual  desola- 
tions ;  and,  thy  cities  shall  not  return. 

While  the  cities  of  Idumea,  in  general,  are  thus  most 
desolate;  and  while  the  ruins  themselves  areas  indiscrimi- 
nate as  they  are  undefined  in  the  prediction,  (there  being 
nothing  discoverable,  as  there  was  nothing  foretold,  but  their 
excessive  desolation,  and  that  they  shall  not  return,)  there 
is  one  striking  exception  to  this  promiscuous  desolation, 
which  is  alike  singled  out  by  the  inspired  prophet  and  by 
the  scientific  traveller. 

Burckhardt  gives  a  description,  of  no  ordinary  interest, 
of  the  site  of  an  ancient  city  which  he  visited,  the  ruins  of 
which,  not  only  attest  its  ancient  splendour,  but  they  "are 
entitled  to  rank  among  the  most  curious  remains  of  ancient 
art."  Though  the  city  be  desolate,  the  monuments  of  its 
opulence  and  power  are  durable.  These  are — a  channel 
on  each  side  of  the  river  for  conveying  the  water  to  the 
city — numerous  tombs — above  two  hundred  and  fifty  sepul- 
chres, or  excavations — many  mausoleums,  one  in  particu- 
lar, of  colossaldimensions  in  perfect  preservation,  and  a 
work  of  immens(  labour,  containing  a  chamber  sixteen 
pace  square  and  above  twenty-five  feet  in  height,  with  a 
colonnade  in  front  thirty-five  feet  high,  crowned  with  a 
pediment  highly  ornamented,  &c.;  two  large  truncated 
pyramids,  and  a  theatre  with  all  its  benches  capable  of  con- 


512 


JEREMIAH. 


Cha^.  49. 


taining  about  three  thousand  spectators,  all  aid  out  of  the 
rock.  In  some  places  these  sepulchres  are  excavated  one 
over  the  other,  and  the  side  of  the  mountain  is  so  perpen- 
dicular, that  it  seems  impossible  to  approach  the  uppermost, 
no  path  whatever  being  visible.  "  The  ground  is  covered 
with  heaps  of  hewn  stones,  foundations  of  buildings,  frag- 
ments of  columns,  and  vestiges  of  paved  streets,  all  clearly 
indicating  that  a  large  city  once  existed  here.  On  the  left 
bank  of  the  river  is  a  rising  ground,  extending  westward 
for  nearly  three  quarters  of  a  mile,  entirely  covered  with 
similar  remains.  On  the  right  bank,  where  the  ground  is 
more  elevated,  ruins  of  the  same  description  are  to  be  seen. 
There  are  also  the  remains  of  a  palace  and  of  several  tem- 
ples. In  the  eastern  cliff  there  are  upwards  of  fifty  separate 
sepulchres  close  to  each  other."  These  are  not  the  symbols 
of  a  feeble  race,  nor  of  a  people  that  were  to  perish  utterly. 
Bin  a  judgment  was  denounced  against  the  strongholds  of 
Edom.  The  prophetic  threatening  has  not  proved  an  enipty 
boast,  and  could  not  have  been  the  word  of  an  uninspired 
mortal.  "  1  will  make  thee  small  among  the  heathen;  thy 
terribleness  hath  deceived  thee  and  the  pride  of  thy  heart, 
O  thou  that  dwellest  in  the  clefts  of  the  rock,  that  boldest 
the  height  of  the  hill ;  though  thou  shouldst  make  thy  nest 
as  high  as  the  eagle,  I  will  bring  thee  down  from  thence, 
saith  the  Lord :  also  Edom  shall  be  a  desolation." 

These  descriptions,  given  by  the  prophet  and  by  the  ob- 
serv^er,  are  so  analogous,  and  the  precise  locality  of  the 
scene,  from  its  peculiar  and  characteristic  features,  so 
identified — and  yet  the  application  of  the  prophecy  to  the 
fact  so  remote  from  the  thoughts  or  view  of  Burckhardt  as 
to  be  altogether  overlooked — that  his  single  delineation  of 
the  ruins  of  the  chief  (and  assuredly  the  stronges-t  and  best- 
fortified)  city  of  Edom  was  deemed  in  the  first  edition  of 
this  treatise,  and  in  the  terms  of  the  preceding  pa<ragraph, 
an  illustration  of  the  prophecy  alike  adequate  and  legitimate. 
And  though  deprecating  any  allusion  whatever  of  a  per- 
sonal nature,  and  earnest  for  the  elucidation  of  the  truth, 
the  author  yet  trusts  that  he  may  here  be  permitted  to  dis- 
claim the  credit  of  having  been  the  first  to  assign  to  the 
prediction  its  wonder/ul  and  appropriate  fulfilment ;  and 
it  Ls  with  no  slight  gratification  that  he  is  now  enabled  to 
adduce  higher  evidence  than  any  opinion  of  his  own,  and 
to  state,  that  the  selfsame  prophecy  has  been  applied  by 
others— with  the  Bible  in  their  hands,  and  with  the  very 
scene  before  them — to  the  selfsame  spot.  Yet  it  may  be 
added,  that  this  coincident  application  of  the  prophecy, 
'without  any  collusion,  and  without  the  possibility,  at  the 
time,  of  any  interchange  of  sentiment,  aflfbrds,  at  least,  a 
strong  presumptive  evidence  of  the  accuracy  of  the  ap- 
plication, and  of  the  truth  of  the  prophecy ;  and  it  may 
well  lead  to  some  reflection  in  the  mind  of  any  reader, 
if  skepticism  has  not  barred  every  avenue  against  convic- 
tion. 

On  entering  the  pass  which  conducts  to  the  theatre  of  Pe- 
tra,  Captains  Irby  and  Mangles  remark : — "  The  ruins  of  the 
city  here  burst  on  the  view  in  their  full  grandeur,  shut  in  on 
the  opposite  side  by  barren  craggy  precipices,  from  which 
numerous  ravines  and  valleys  branch  out  in  all  directions; 
the  sides  of  the  mountains  covered  with  an  endless  variety  of 
excavated  tombs  and  private  dwellings,  ( O  thou  that  dwellest 
in  the  clefts  of  the  rock,  &c.  Jer.  xlix.  16,)  presented  al- 
together the  most  singular  scene  we  ever  beheld."  In  still 
further  confirmation  of  the  identity  of  the  site,  and  the  ac- 
curacy of  the  application,  it  may  be  added,  in  the  words  of 
Dr.  Vincent,  that  "  the  name  of  this  capital,  in  all  the  vari- 
ous languages  in  which  it  occurs,  implies  a  rock,  and  as 
such  it  is  described  in  the  scriptures,  in  Strabo,  and  Al 
Edrissi."  And  in  a  note  he  enumerates  among  the  various 
names  having  all  the  same  signification — Sela,  a  rock,  (the 
very  word  here  used  in  the  original,)  Petra,  a  rock,  the 
Greek  name,  and  The  Rock,  pre-eminently — expressly  re- 
ferring to  this  passage  of  scripture. 

Captains  Irby  and  Mangles  having,  together  with  Mr. 
Bankes  and  Mr.  Legh,  spent  two  days  in  diligently  ex- 
amining them,  give  a  more  particular  detail  of  the  ruins  of 
Petra  than  Burckhardt's  account  supplied  ;  and  the  more 
full  the  description,  the  more  precise  and  wonderful  does 
the  prophecy  appear.  Near  the  snot  where  they  awaited 
the  decision  of  the  Arabs,  "  the  nigh  land  was  covered 
upon  both  its  sides,  and  on  its  summits,  with  lines  and 
iolid  masses  of  dry  wall.  The  former  appeared  to  be 
traces  of  ancient  cultivation,  the  solid  ruin  seemed  to  be 


only  the  remains  of  towers  for  watching  in  harvest  and 
vintage  time.  The  whole  neighbourhood  of  the  spot  bears 
similar  traces  of  former  industry,  all  which  seem  to  indi- 
cate the  vicinity  of  a  great  metropolis."  A  narrow  and 
circuitous  defile,  surrounded  on  each  side  by  precipitous  or 
perpendicular  rocks,  varying  from  four  hundred  to'  seven 
hundred  feet  in  altitude,  and  forming,  for  two  miles,  "  a 
sort  of  subterranean  passage,"  opens  on  the  east  the  way  to 
the  ruins  of  Petra.  The  rocks  or  rather  hills,  then  diverge 
on  either  side,  and  leave  an  oblong  space,  where  once  stood 
the  metropolis  of  Edom,  deceived  by  its  terribleness,  where 
now  lies  a  waste  of  ruins,  encircled  on  every  side,  save  on 
the  northeast  alone,  by  stupendous  cliffs,  which  still  show 
how  the  pride  and  labour  of  art  tried  there  to  vie  with  the 
sublimity  of  nature.  Along  the  borders  of  these  cliffs,  de- 
tached masses  of  rock,  numerous  and  lofty,  have  been 
wrought  into  sepulchres,  the  interior  of  which  is  excavated 
into  chambers,  while  the  exterior  has  been  cut  from  the 
live  rock  into  the  forms  of  towers,  with  pilasters,  and  suc- 
cessive bands  of  frieze  and  entablature,  wings,  recesses, 
figures  of  animals,  and  columns. 

Yet,  numerous  as  these  are,  they  form  but  a  part  of  "  the 
vast  necroplis  of  Petra."  "  Tombs  present  themselves,  not 
only  in  every  avenue  to  the  city,  and  upon  every  precipice 
that  surrounds  it,  but  even  intermixed  almost  promiscuously 
with  its  public  and  domestic  edifices ;  the  natural  features 
of  the  defile  grew  more  and  more  imposing  at  every  step, 
and  the  excavations  and  sculpture  more  frequent  on  both 
sides,  till  it  presented  at  last  a  continued  street  of  tombs." 
The  base  of  the  cliflfs  wrought  out  in  all  the  symmetry  and 
regularity  of  art,  with  colonnades,  and  pedestals,  and  ranges 
of  corridors  adhering  to  the  perpendicular  surface  ;  flights 
of  steps  chiselled  out  of  the  rock ;  grottoes  in  great  numbers, 
"  which  are  certainly  not  sepulchral ;"  some  excavated 
residences  of  large  dimensions,  (in  one  of  which  is  a  single 
chamber  sixty  feet  in  length,  and  of  a  breadth  proportioned ;) 
many  other  dwellings  of  inferior  note,  particularly  abundant 
in  one  defile  leading  to  the  city,  the  steep  sides  of  which 
contain  a  sort  of  excavated  suburb,  accessible  by  flights  of 
steps ;  niches,  sometimes  thirty  feet  in  excavated  height, 
with  altars  for  votive  oflferings,  or  with  pyramids,  columns, 
or  obelisks ;  a  bridge  across  a  chasm  now  apparently  inac- 
cessible ;  some  small  pyramids  hewn  out  of  the  rock  on  the 
summit  of  the  heights;  horizontal  grooves,  for  the  convey- 
ance of  water,  cut  in  the  face  of  the  rock,  and  even  across  the 
architectural  fronts  of  some  of  the  excavations ;  and,  in  short, 
"  the  rocks  hollowed  out  into  innumerable  chambers  of 
different  dimensions,  whose  entrances  are  variously,  richly, 
and  often  fantastically  decorated  with  every  imaginable  or- 
der of  architecture" — all  united,  not  only  form  one  of  the 
most  singular  scenes  that  the  eye  of  man  ever  looked  upon, 
or  the  imagination  painted — a  group  of  wonders  perhaps 
unparalleled  in  their  kind— but  also  give  indubitable  proof, 
both  that  in  the  land  of  Edom  there  was  a  city  where  hu- 
man inoenuity,  ant?  energy,  and  power  must  have  been  ex- 
erted for  many  ages,  and  to  so  great  a  degree  as  to  have 
well  entitled  it  to  be  noted  for  its  strength  or  terribleness, 
and  that  the  description  given  of  it  by  the  prophets  of  Israel 
was  as  strictly  literal  as  the  prediction  respecting  it  is  true. 
"  The  barren  state  of  the  country,  together  with  the  desolate 
condition  of  the  city,  without  a  "single  human  being  living 
near  it,  seem,"  in  the  words  of  those  who  were  spectators 
of  the  scene,  "  strongly  to  verify  the  judgment  denounced 
against  it."  "  O  thou  who  dwellest  in  the  clefts  of  the  rock, 
&c. — also  Edom  shall  be  a  desolation,"  &c. 

Of  all  the  ruins  of  Petra,  the  mausoleums  and  sepulchres 
are  among  the  most  remarkable,  and  they  give  the  clearest 
indication  of  ancient  and  long-continued  royalty,  and  of 
courtly  grandeur.  Their  immense  number  corroborates 
the  accounts  given  of  their  successive  kings  and  princes 
by  Moses  and  Strabo;  though  a  period  of  eighteen  hundred  • 
years  intervened  between  the  dates  of  their  respective  rec- 
ords concerning  them.  The  structure  of  the  sepulchres 
also  shows  that  many  of  them  are  of  a  more  recent  date. 
"  Great,"  says  Burckhardt,  "must  have  been  the  opulence 
of  a  city  which  could  dedicate  such  monuments  to  the 
memory  of  its  rulers."  But  the  long  line  of  the  kings  and 
of  the  nobles  of  Idumea  has  for  ages  been  cut  off";  they  are 
without  any  representative  now,  without  any  memorial  but 
the  multitude  and  the  magnificence  of  their  nnvisited  sepul- 
chres. "  They  shall  call  the  nobles  thereof  to  the  kirgdom, 
(or  rather,  they  shall  call,  or  summon,  the  nobles  thereof,)  S 


• 


Chap.  49—51. 


JEREMIAH. 


513 


but  there  shall  be  no  kingdom  there,  and  all  her  princes 
shall  be  nothing." 

Amid  the  mausoleums  and  sepulchres,  the  remains  of 
temples  or  palaces,  and  the  multiplicity  of  tombs,  which  all 
form,  as  it  were,  the  grave  of  Idumea,  where  its  ancient 
splendcwr  is  interred,  there  are  edifices,  the  Roman  and 
Grecian  architecture  of  which  decides  that  they  were  buUt 
long  posterior  to  the  era  of  the  prophets. — Keith. 

Ver.  19.  Behold,  he  shall  come  up  like  a  lion 
from  the  swelling  of  Jordan  against  the  habita- 
tion of  the  strong:  but  I  will  suddenly  make 
him  ran  away  from  her ;  and  who  is  a  chosen 
man,  that  I  may  appoint  over  her  ?  for  who  is 
like  me?  and  who  will  appoint  me  the  time?  and 
who  is  that  shepherd  that  will  stand  before  me? 
See  on  Josh.  3.  15. 

CHAPTER  L. 

Ver.  2.  Declare  ye  among  the  nations,  and  pub- 
lish, and  set  up  a  standard ;  publish,  and  con- 
ceal not:  say,  Babylon  is  taken,  Bel  is  con- 
founded, Merodach  is  broken  in  pieces;  her 
idols  are  confounded,  her  images  are  broken  in 
pieces. 

As  it  was  generally  believed  that  the  divinity  abandoned 
any  figure  or  imp.ge  which  was  mutilated  or  broken,  this 
prophetic  declaration  may  be  considered  as  asserting  the 
destruction  of  the  idols.  Such  a  sentiment  still  prevails 
among  the  heathen.  Dr.  Buchanan,  who  visited  many  In- 
dian provinces  at  the  commencement  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  mentions  that  a  Polygar  chief,  about  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  before,  had  been  directed  by  the  god  Ganesa 
to  search  for  treasures  imder  a  certain  image,  and  to  erect 
temples  and  reservoirs  with  whatever  money  he  should  find. 
"  The  treasures  were  accordingly  found,  and  applied  as 
directed ;  the  image  from  under  which  the  treasures  hp.d 
been  taken  was  shown  to  me,  and  I  was  surprised  at  find- 
ing it  lying  at  one  of  the  gates  quite  neglected.  On  asking 
the  reason  why  the  people  allowed  their  benefactor  to  re- 
main in  such  a  plight,  he  informed  me,  that  the  finger  of 
the  image  having  been  broken,  the  divinity  had  deserted  it : 
for  no  mutilated  image  is  considered  as  habitable  by  a  god." 

-BURDER. 

Merodach  was  a  name,  or  a  title,  common  to  the  princes 
and  kings  of  Babylon,  of  which,  in  the  brief  scriptural  ref- 
erences to  their  history,  two  instances  are  recorded,  viz. 
Merodach-baladan,  the  son  of  Baladan,  King  of  Babylon, 
who  exercised  the  office  of  government,  and  Evil-Merodach, 
who  lived  in  the  days  of  Jeremiah.  From  Merodach  being 
here  associated  with  Bel,  or  the  temple  of  Belus,  and  from 
the  similarity  of  their  judgments — the  one  howed  down  and 
confounded,  and  the  other  broken  in  pieces — it  may  reasona- 
bly be  inferred  that  some  other  famous  Babylonian  building 
is  here  also  denoted ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  from  the  ex- 
press identity  of  the  name  with  that  of  the  kings  of  Baby- 
lon, and  even  with  Evil-Merodach,  then  residing  there,  it 
may  with  equal  reason  be  inferred  Xhat,  imder  the  name  of 
Merodach,  the  palace  is  spoken  of  by  the  prophet.  And  next 
to  the  idolatrous  temple,  as  the  seat  of  false  worship  which 
corrupted  and  destroyed  the  nations,  it  may  well  be  imagined 
that  the  royal  residence  of  the  despot  who  made  the  earth 
to  tremble  and  oppressed  the  people  of  Israel,  would  be 
selected  as  the  marked  object  of  the  righteous  judgments  of 
God.  And  secondary  only  to  the  Birs  Nimrood  in  the  great- 
ness of  its  ruins  is  the  Mujelibe,  or  Makloube,  generally 
understood  and  described  by  travellers  as  the  remains  of 
the  chief  palace  of  Babylon. 

The  palace  of  the  King  of  Babylon  almost  vied  with  the 
great  temple  of  their  god.  And  there  is  now  some  contro- 
versy, in  which  of  the  principal  mountainous  heaps  the  one 
or  the  other  lies  buried.  But  the  utter  desolation  of  both 
.eaves  no  room  for  any  debate  on  the  question, — which  of 
the  twain  is  bonded  down  and  confounded,  and  which  of  them 
is  broken  in  pieces.  The  two  palaces,  or  castles,  of  Babylon 
were  strongly  fortified.  And  the  larger  was  surrounded 
by  three  walls  of  great  extent.  When  the  city  was  sud- 
denly taken  by  Demetrius,  he  seized  on  one  of  the  castles  by 
65 


surprise,  and  displaced  its  garrison  by  seven  thousand  of 
his  own  troops,  whom  he  stationed  within  it.  Of  the  other 
he  could  not  make  himself  master.  Their  extent  and 
strength,  at  a  period  of  three  hundred  years  after  the  deliv- 
ery of  the  prophecy,  are  thus  sufficiently  demonstrated. 
The  solidity  of  the  structure  of  the  greater  as  well  as  of 
the  lesser  palace,  might  have  warranted  the  belief  of  its  un- 
broken durability  for  ages. — And  never  was  there  a  build- 
ing whose  splendour  and  magnificence  were  in  greater  con- 
trast to  its  present  desolation.  The  vestiges  of  the  walls 
which  surrounded  it  are  still  to  be  seen,  and  serve  with 
other  circumstances  to  identify  it  with  the  Mujelibe,  as  the 
name  Merodach  is  identified  with  the  palace.  It  is  broken 
in  pieces,  and  hence  its  name  Mujelibe,  signifying  over- 
turned, or  turned  upside  down.  Its  circumference  is  about 
half  a  mile ;  its  height  one  hundred  and  forty  feet.  But  it 
is  "  a  mass  of  confusion,  none  of  its  members  being  distin- 
guishable." The  existence  of  chambers,  passages,  and  cel- 
lars, of  different  forms  and  sizes,  and  built  of  different  ma- 
terials, has  been  fully  ascertained.  It  is  the  receptacle  of 
wild  beasts,  and  full  of  doleful  creatures;  wild  beasts  cry 
in  the  desolate  houses,  and  dragons  in  the  pleasant  palaces — 
"  venomous  reptiles  being  very  numerous  throughout  the 
ruins."  "All  the  sides  are  worn  into  furrows  by  the 
weather,  and  in  some  places  where  several  channels  of  rain 
have  united  together,  these  furrows  are  of  great  depth,  and 
penetrate  a  considerable  way  into  the  mound."  "  The  sides 
of  the  ruin  exhibit  hollows  worn  partly  by  the  weather."  It 
is  brought  down  to  the  grave,  to  the  sides  of  the  pit. — Keith. 

Ver.  8.  Remove  out  of  the  midst  of  Babylon,  and 
go  forth  out  of  the  land  of  the  Chaldeans,  and 
be  as  the  he-goats  before  the  flocks. 

From  this  passage  it  appears  that  it  was  customary  with 
the  ancient  Israelites  to  have  he-goats  among  their  flocks  of 
sheep,  and  that  in  travelling  the  goats  went  foremost.  The 
same  judicious  custom  exists  in  South  Africa  to  this  day 
The  goat  possesses  much  more  fortitude  than  the  sheep,  and 
is  more  forM'ard  in  advancing  through  difficulties,  espe- 
cially in  crossing  rivers;  and  the  sheep,  who  are  not  fond 
of  such  exploits,  implicitly  follow  them.  While  travelling 
in  Africa,  I  was  obliged  to  have  a  small  flock  of  sheep,  to 
secure  food  when  game  was  scarce;  and  as  instigators  to 
bold  and  rapid  travelling,  I  was  necessitated  always  to  have 
a  few  goats  in  the  flock.  They  always  took  the  lead,  espe- 
cially in  crossing  rivers,  one  of  which,  the  Great  Orange 
River,  was  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  across,  and  there  the 
goats  behaved  nobly.  Had  they  been  rational  creatures  I 
should  have  returned  them  public  thanks.  The  goats, 
always  taking  the  lead  among  the  sbeeji,  seem  as  if  sensible 
of  possessing  superior  mental  powers. — Campbell. 

Ver.  38.  A  drought  i/upon  her  waters ;  and  they 
shall  be  dried  up :  for  it  is  the  land  of  graven 
images,  and  they  are  mad  upon  their  idols. 

Fully  to  understand  this  passage,  a  person  must  see  the 
phrensy  of  the  heathen  when  they  get  a  sight  of  their  idols., 
Thus,  when  the  gods  are  taken  out  in  procession,  the  mul- 
titudes shout,  and  the  priests  mutter  and  rave.  The  ges- 
tures are  all  distorted, -and  the  devotees  are  afl^ected  with 
alternate  sorrow  or  joy.— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  LI. 

Ver.  13.  O  thou  that  dwellest  upon  many  waters, 
abundant  in  treasures,  thine  end  is  come,  and 
the  measure  of  thy  covetousness. 

On  taking  Babylon  suddenly  and  by  surprise,  Cyrus  be- 
came immediately  possessed  of  the  treasures  of  darkness, 
and  hidden  riches  of  secret  places.  On  his  first  publicly  ap- 
pearing in  Babylon,  all  the  officers  of  his  army,  both  of  the 
Persians  and  allies,  according  to  his  command,  wore  very 
splendid  robes,  those  belonging  to  the  .'superior  officers 
being  of  various  colours,  all  of  the  finest  and  brightest  die, 
and  richly  embroidered  with  gold  and  silver ;  and  thus  the 
hidde^i  riches  of  secret  places  were  openly  displayed.  And 
when  the  treasures  of  Babylon  became  the  spoil  of  another 
great  king,  Alexander  gave  six  mina;  {about  151.)  to  each 
Macedonian  horseman,  to  each  Macedonian  solaier  and 


514 


JEREMIAH. 


Chap.  51. 


foreign  horseman  two  mincB,  (61.)  and  to  every  other  man 
in  his  army  a  donation  equal  to  two  months'  pay.     Deme- 
trius ordered  his  soldiers  to  plunder  the  land  of  Babylon 
for  their  own  use. — But  it  is  not  in  these  instances  alons 
that  Chaldea  has  been  a  spoil,  and  that  all  who  spoil  her 
have  been  satisfied.     It  was  the  abundance  of  her  treasures 
which  brought  successive  spoliators.    Many  nations  came 
from  afar,  and  though  they  returned  to  their  own  country, 
(as  in  formerly  besieging  Babylon,  so  in  continuing  to  de- 
spoil the  land  of  Chaldea,)  none  returned  in  vain.     From 
the  ri(  hness  of  the  country,  new  treasures  were  speedily 
stored  up,  fill  again  the  sword  came  upon  thevi,  and  they  were 
robbed.     The  prey  of  the  Persians  and  of  the  Greeks  for 
nearly  two  centuries  after  the  death  of  Alexander,  Chaldea 
became  afterward  the  prey  chiefly  of  the  Parthians,  from 
the  north,  for  an  equal  period,  till  a  greater  nation,  the  Ro- 
mans, came  from  the  coasts  of  the  earth  to  pillage  it.     To  be 
restrained  from  dominion  and  from  plunder  was  the  exci- 
ting cause,  and  often  the  shameless  plea,  of  the  anger  and 
fierce  wrath  of  these  famed,  but  cruel,  conquerors  of  the 
world.     Yet,  within  the  provinces  of  their  empire,  it  was 
their  practice,  on  the  submission,  of  the  inhabitants,  to  pro- 
tect and  not  to  destroy.    But  Chaldea,  from  its  extreme  dis- 
tance, never  having  yielded  permanently  to  their  yoke,  and 
the  limits  of  their  empire  having  been  fixed  by  Hadrian  on 
the  western  side  of  the  Euphrates,  or  on  the  very  borders  of 
Chaldea,  that  hapless  country  obtained  not  their  protection, 
though  repeatedly  the  scene  of  ruthless  spoliation  by  the 
Romans.       The  authority  of  Gibbon,  in  elucidation  of 
Scripture,  cannot  be  here  distrusted,  any  more  than  that  of 
heathen  historians.     To  use  his  words,  "  a  hundred  thou- 
sand captives,  and  a  rich  booty,  rewarded  the  fatigues  of  the 
Roman  soldiers,"  when  Ctesiphon  was  taken,  in  the  second 
century,  by  the  generals  of  Marcus.    Even  Julian,  who,  in 
the  fourth  century,  was  forced  to  raise  the  siege  of  Ctesi- 
phon, came  not  in  vain  to  Chaldea,  and  failed  not  to  take  of 
it  a  spoil ;  nor,  though  an  apostate,  did  he  fail  to  verify  by 
his  acts  the  truth  which  he  denied.     After  having  given 
Perisador  to  the  flames,  "  the  plentiful  magazines  of  corn, 
of  arms,  and  of  splendid  furniture,  were  partly  distributed 
among  the  troops,  and  partly  reserved  for  the  public  service ; 
the  useless  stores  were  destroyed  bv  fire,  or  thrown  into  the 
stream  of  the  Euphrates."    (Gibbon.)    Having  also  re- 
warded his  army  with  a  hundred  pieces  of  silver  to  each 
soldier,  he  thus  stimulated  them  (when  still  dissatisfied)  to 
fig^t  for  greater  spoil—"  Riches  are  the  object  of  your  de- 
sires 1  those  riches  are  in  the  hands  of  the  Persians,  and 
the  spoils  of  this  fruitful  country  are  proposed  as  the  prize 
of  your  valour  and  discipline."    The  enemy  being  defeated 
after  an  arduous  conflict,  "  the  spoil  was  such  as  might  be 
expected  from  the  riches  and  luxury  of  an  oriental  camp  ; 
large  quantities  of  silver  and  gold,  splendid  arms  and  trap- 
pings, and  beds  and  tables  of  massy  silver."    (Il?id^ 

When  the  Romans  under  Heraclius  ravaged  Chaldea, 
"  though  much  of  the  treasure  had  been  removed  from  De- 
stagered,  and  much  had  been  expended,  the  remaining 
wealth  appears  to  have  exceeded  their  hopes,  and  even  to  have 
SATIATED  their  avarice."  While  the  deeds  of  Julian  and 
the  words  of  Gibbon  show  how  Chaldea  was  spoiled — how 
a  sword  continued  to  be  on  her  treasures— axiA  how,  year 
after  year,  and  age  after  age,  there  was  rumour  on  rumour 
and  violence  in  her  land— more  full,  illustrations  remain  to 
be  given  of  the  truth  of  the  same  prophetic  word.  And  as 
a  painter  of  great  power  may  cope  with  another  by  drawing 
as  closely  to  the  life  as  he,  though  the  features  be  different, 
so  Gibbon's  description  of  the  sack  of  Ctesiphon,  as  pre- 
viously he  had  described  the  sack  and  conflagration  of  Se- 
leucia,  (cities  each  of  which  may  aptly  be  called  "  the 
daughter  of  Babylon,"  having  been,  like  it,  the  capital  of 
Chaldea,)  is  written  as  if,  by  the  most  graphic  representa- 
tion of  facts,  he  had  been  aspiring  to  rival  Volney  as  an 
illustrator  of  scripture  prophecy.  "The  capital  was  taken 
by  assault ;  and  the  disorderly  resistance  of  the  people  gave 
a  keener  edge  to  the  sabres  of  the  Moslems,  who  shouted 
with  religious  transport,  '  This  is  the  white  palace  of 
Chosroes  ;  this  is  the  promise  of  the  apostle  of  God.'  The 
naked  robbers  of  the  desert  were  suddenly  enriched  beyond 
the  measure  of  their  hope  or  knowledge.  Each  chamber 
revealed  a  new  treasure,  accreted  with  art,  or  ostentatiously 
displayed;  the  gold  and  silver,  the  various  waidrobes  an^ 
precious  furniture,  surpassed  (says  Abulfeda^  the  estimate 
of  faficy  or  numbers;  and  another  historian  defines  the  un- 


told and  almost  infinite  mass  by  the  fabulous  computation 
of  three  thousand  of  thousands  of  thousands  of  pieces  of 
gold.  One  of  the  apartments  of  the  palace  was  decorated 
with  a  carpet  of  silk  sixty  cubits  in  length  and  as  many  in 
breadth,  (90  feet ;)  a  paradise,  or  garden,  was  depicted  on 
the  ground ;  the  flowers,  fruits,  and  shrubs,  were  imitated 
by  the  figures  of  the  gold  embroidery,  and  the  colours  of  the 
precious  stones :  and  the  ample  square  was  encircled  by  a 
variegated  and  verdant  border.  The  rigid  Omar  divided 
the  prize  among  his  brethren  of  Medina;  the  picture  was 
destroyed  ;  but  such  was  the  intrinsic  value  of  the  materials, 
that  the  share  of  Ali  alone  was  sold  for  20,000  drachms.  A 
mule  that  carried  away  the  tiara  and  cuirass,  the  belt  and 
bracelets  of  Chosroes,  was  overtaken  by  the  pursuers  ;  the 
gorgeous  trophy  was  presented  to  the  commander  of  the 
faithful,  and  the  gravest  of  the  companions  condescended 
to  smile  when  they  beheld  the  white  beard,  hairy  arms,  and 
uncouth  figure  of  the  veteran,  who  was  invested  with  the 
spoil  of  the  great  king." 

Recent  evidence  is  not  wanting  to  show  that,  wherever 
a  treasure  is  to  be  found,  a  sword,  in  the  hand  of  a  fierce 
enemy,  is  upon  it,  and  spoliation  has  not  ceased  in  the  land 
of  Chaldea.  "  On  the  west  of  Hilleh,  there  are  two  towns 
which,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Persians  and  all  the  Shiites,  are 
rendered  sacred  by  the  memory  of  two  of  the  greatest  mar- 
tyrs of  that  sect.  These  are  Meshed  Ali  and  Meshed 
Housien,  lately  filled  with  riches,  accumulated  by  the  de- 
votion of  the  Persians,  but  carried  off  by  the  ferocious  Wa- 
habees  to  the  middle  of  their  deserts." 

And  after  the  incessant  spoliation  of  ages,  now  that  the 
end  is  come  of  the  treasures  of  Chaldea,  the  earth  itself  fails 
not  to  disclose  its  hidden  treasures,  so  as  to  testify,  that  they 
once  were  abundant.  In  proof  of  this  an  instance  may  be 
given.  At  the  ruins  of  Hoomania,  near  to  those  of  Ctesi- 
phon, pieces  of  silver  having  (on  the  5th  of  March,  1812) 
been  accidentally  discovered,  edging  out  of  the  bank  of  the 
Tigris ;  "  on  examination  there  were  found  and  brought 
away,"  by  persons  sent  for  that  purpose  by  the  pacha  of 
Bagdad's  officers,  "  between  six  and  seven  hundred  ingots 
of  silver,  each  measuring  from  one  to  one  and  a  half  feet  in 
length ;  and  an  earthen  jar,  containing  upwards  of  two 
thousand  Athenian  coins,  all  of  silver.  Many  were  pur- 
chased at  the  time  by  the  late  Mr.  Rich,  formerly  the  East 
India  Company's  resident  at  Bagdad,  and  are  now  in  his 
valuable  collection,  since  bought  by  government,  and  depo- 
sited in  the  British  Museum."  Amid  the  ruins  of  Ctesiphon 
"  the  natives  often  pick  up  coins  of  gold,  silver,  and  copper, 
for  which  they  always- find  a  ready  sale  in  Bagdad.  In- 
deed, some  of  the  wealthy  Turks  and  Armenians,  who  are 
collecting  for  several  I^rench  and  German  consuls,  hire 
people  to  go  and  search  for  coins,  medals,  and  antique  gems ; 
and  I  am  assured  they  never  return  to  their  employers  emp- 
ty-handed," as  if  all  who  spoil  Chaldea  shall  be  satisfied,  till 
even  the  ruins  be  spoiled  mdo  the  uttermost. — Keith. 

Ver.  25.  Behold,  I  am  against  thee,  O  destroying 
mountain,  saith  the  Lord,  which  destroyest  all 
the  earth  ;  and  I  will  stretch  out  my  hand  upon 
thee,  and  roll  thee  down  from  the  rocks,  and 
will  make  thee  a  burnt  mountain. 

On  the  summit  of  the  hill  are  "  immense  fragments  ol 
brick-work  of  no  determinate  figures,  tumbled  together, 
and  converted  into  solid  vitrified  masses."  "  Some  of  these 
huge  fragments  measured  twelve  feet  in  height,  by  twenty- 
four  in  circumference ;  and  from  the  circumstance  of  the 
standing  brick- work  having  remained  in  a  perfect  state,  the 
change  exhibited  in  these  is  only  accountable  from  their 
having  been  exposed  to  the  fiercest,  fire,  or  rather  scathed  by 
lightning.'"  "  They  are  completely  molten— a  strong  pre- 
sumption that  fire  was  used  in  the  destruction  of  the  tower, 
which,  in  parts,  resembles  what  the  scriptures  prophesied 
it  should  become,  '  a  burnt  mountain.'  In  the  denunciation 
respecting  Babylon,  fire  is  particularly  mentioned  as  an 
agent  against  it.  To  this  Jeremiah  evidently  alludes,  when 
he  says  that  it  should  be  '  as  when  God  overthrew  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah,'  on  which  cities,  it  is  said,  'the  Lord  rain- 
ed brimstone  and  fire.'—'  Her  high  gates  shall  be  burned 
with  fire,  and  the  people  shall  labour  in  vain,  and  the  folk 
in  the  fire,  and  they  shall  be  weary.'  "  "  In  many  of  these 
immense  unshapen  masses  might  be  traced  the  gradual  ef« 


Chap.  51. 


JEREMIAH. 


515 


fects  of  the  consuming  power,  which  had  produced  so  re- 
markable an  appearance;  exhibiting  parts  burnt  to  that 
variegated  dark  hue,  seen  in  the  vitrified  matter  lying  about 
in  glass  manufactories;  while,  through  the  whole  of  these 
awful  testimonies  of  the  fire  (whatever  fire  it  was  !)  which, 
doubtless,  hurled  them  from  their  original  elevation,"  (/ 
^oiU  roll  thee  down  from  the  rocks,)  "  the  regular  lines  of  the 
cement  are  visible,  and  so  hardened  in  common  with  the 
bricks,  that  when  the  masses  are  struck  they  ring  like  glass. 
On  examining  the  base  of  the  standing  wall,  contiguous  to 
these  huge  transmuted  substances,  it  is  found  tolerably  free 
from  any  similar  changes — in  short,  quite  in  its  original 
.state;  iience,"  continues  Sir  Robert  Ker  Porter,  "  I  draw 
the  conclusion,  that  the  consuming  power  acted  from  above, 
and  that  the  scattered  ruin  fell  from  some  higher  point  than 
the  summit  of  the  present  standing  fragment.  The  heat  of 
the  fire  which  produced  such  amazing  effects  must  have 
burned  with  the  force  of  the  strongest  furnace  ;  and  from 
the  general  appearance  of  the  cleft  in  the  wall,  and  these 
vitrified  masses,  I  should  be  induced  to  attribute  the  catas- 
trophe to  lightning  from  heaven.  Ruins  by  the  explosion 
of  any  combustible  matter  would  have  exhibited  very  dif- 
ferent appearances." 

"  The  falling  masses  bear  evident  proof  of  the  operation 
of  fire  having  been  continued  on  them,  as  well  after  they 
were  broken  down  as  before,  since  every  part  of  their  sur- 
face has  been  so  equally  exposed  to  it,  that  many  of  them 
have  acquired  a  rounded  form,  and  in  none  can  the  place 
of  separation  from  its  adjoining  one  be  traced  by  any  ap- 
pearance of  superior  freshness,  of"  any  exemption  from  the 
influence  of  the  destroying  flame." 

The  high  gates  of  the  temple  of  Belus,  which  were  stand- 
ing in  the  time  of  Herodotus,  have  been  burnt  with  fire  ; 
the  vitrified  masses  which  fell  when  Bel  bowed  down  rest  on 
the  top  of  its  stupendous  ruins.  "  The  hand  of  the  Lord 
has  been  stretched  upon  it;  it  has  been  rolled  down  from 
the  rocks,  and  has  been  made  a  burnt  mountain," — of  which 
it  was  further  prophesied,  '•'  They  shall  not  take  of  thee  a 
stone  for  a  corner,  nor  a  stone  for  foundations,  but  thou 
shalt  be  desolate  for  ever,  saith  the  Lord."  The  old  wastes 
of  Zion  shall  be  built ;  its  former  desolations  shall  be 
raised  up  :  and  Jerusalem  shall  be  inhabited  again  in  her 
own  place,  even  in  Jerusalem.  But  it  shall  not  be  with 
Bel  as  with  Zion,  nor  with  Babylon  as  with  Jerusalem. 
For  as  the  "  heaps  of  rubbish  impregnated  with  nitre" 
which  cover  the  site  of  Babylon  "  cannot  be  cultivated,"  so 
the  vitrified  masses  on  the  summit  of  Birs  Nimrood  cannot 
be  rebuilt.  Though  still  they  be  of  the  hardest  substance, 
and  indestructible  by  the  elements,  and  though  once  they 
formed  the  highest  pinnacles  of  Belus,  yet,  incapable  of  be- 
ing hewn  into  any  regular  form,  they  neither  are  nor  can 
now  be  taken  for  a  corner  or  for  foundations.  And  the 
bricks  on  the  solid  fragments  of  wall,  which  rest  on  the 
summit,  though  neither  scathed  nor  molten,  are  so  firmly 
cemented,  that,  according  to  Mr.  Rich,  "  it  is  nearly  impos- 
sible to  detach  any  of  them  whole,"  or,  as  Captain  Mignan 
still  more  forcibly  states,  "  they  are  so  firmly  cemented, 
that  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  detach  any  of  them."  "  My 
most  violent  attempts,"  says  Sir  Robert  Ker  Porter,  "  could 
not  separate  them."  And  Mr.  Buckingham,  in  assigning 
reasons  for  lessening  the  wonder  at  the  total  disappearance 
of  the  walls  at  this  distant  period,  and  speaking  of  the  Birs 
Nimrood  generally,  observes,  "  that  the  burnt  bricks  (the 
only  ones  sought  after)  which  are  found  in  the  Mujelibe, 
the  Kasr,  and  the  Birs  Nimrood,  the  only  three  great  mon- 
uments in  which  there  are  any  traces  of  their  having  been 
used,  are  so  difficult,  in  the  two  last  indeed  so  impossible, 
to  be  extracted  whole,  from  the  tenacity  of  the  cement  in 
which  they  are  laid,  that  they  could  never  have  been  resort- 
ed to  while  any  considerable  portion  of  the  walls  existed  to 
furnish  an  easier  supply:  even  now,  though  some  portion  of 
the  mounds  on  the  eastern  bank  of  the  river,"  (the  Birs  is 
on  the  western  side,)  "  are  occasionally  dug  into  for  bricks, 
they  are  not  extracted  without  a  comparatively  great  expense, 
and  very  few  of  them  whole,  in  proportion  to  the  great  num- 
ber of  fragments  that  come  up  with  them."  Around  the 
tower  there  is  not  a  single  whole  brick  to  be  seen. 

These  united  testimonies,  given  without  allusion  to  the 
prediction,  afl^brd  a  better  than  any  conjectural  commenta- 
ry, such  as  previously  was  given  without  reference  to  these 
facts.  While  of  Babylon,  in  general,  it  is  said,  that  it 
would  be  taken  from  thence  ;  and  while,  in  many  places,  no- 


thing is  left,  yet  of  the  burnt  mountain,  which  forms  an  ac- 
cumulation of  ruins  enough  in  magnitude  to  build  a  city, 
men  do  not  take  a  stone  for  foundations,  nor  a  stone  for  a 
corner.  Having  undergone  the  action  of  the  fiercest  fire, 
and  being  completely  molten,  the  masses  on  the  summit  of 
Bel,  on  which  the  hand  of  the  Lord  has  been  stretched, 
cannot  be  reduced  i-.'.o  any  other  form  or  substance,  nor 
built  up  again  by  the  hand  of  man.  And  the  tower  of  Ba- 
bel, afterward  the  temple  of  Belus,  which  witnessed  the 
first  dispersion  of  mankind,  shall  itself  be  witnessed  by  the 
latest  generation,  even  as  now  it  stands,  desolate  for  ever, — • 
an  indestructible  monument  of  human  pride  and  folly,  and 
of  Divine  judgment  and  truth.  The  greatest  of  the  ruins, 
as  one  of  the  edifices  of  Babylon,  is  rolled  down  into  avast, 
indiscriminate,  cloven,  confounded,  useless,  and  blasted 
mass,  from  which  fragments  might  be  hurled  with  as  little 
injury  to  the  ruined  heap,  as  from  a  bare  and  rocky  mount- 
ain's side.  Such  is  the  triumph  of  the  word  of  the  living 
God  over  the  proudest  of  the  temples  of  Baal. — Keith. 

Ver.  27.  Set  ye  up  a  standard  in  the  land,  blow 
the  trumpet  among  the  nations,  prepare  the  na- 
tions against  her,  call  together  against  her  the 
kingdoms  of  Ararat,  Minni,  and  Ashchenaz  ; 
appoint  a  captain  against  her ;  cause  the  horses 
to  come  up  as  the  rough  caterpillars. 

Some  think  locusts  are  meant,  instead  of  caterpillars;  and 
one  reason  assigned  is,  that  they  "  have  the  appearance  of 
horses  and  horsemen."  Others  translate,  "  bristled  locusts." 
There  are  bristled  caterpillars  in  the  East,  which  at  certain 
seasons  are  extremely  numerous  and  annoying.  They  creep 
along  in  troops  like  soldiers,  are  covered  with  stiflT  hairs  or 
bristles,  which  are  so  painful  to  the  touch,  and  so  powerful 
in  their  effects,  as  not  to  be  entirely  removed  for  many  day ^:. 
Should  one  be  swallowed,  it  Avill  cause  death  :  hence  people, 
at  the  particular  season  when  they  are  numerous,  are  very 
cautious  in  examining  their  water  vessels,  lest  any  should 
have  fallen  in.  In  the  year  1826,  a  family  at  Manipy  had 
to  arise  early  in  the  morning  to  go  to  their  work,  and  they 
therefore  prepared  their  rice  the  evening  before.  They 
were  up  before  daylight,  and  took  their  food:  in  the  course 
of  a  short  time  they  were  all  ill,  and  some  of  them  died  du- 
ring the  day.  The  rice  chatty  was  examined,  and  there 
were  found  the  remains  of  the  micutty,  the  rough  caterpil- 
lar. Dr.  Hawkesworth  says,  of  those  he  saw  in  the  West 
Indies,  "their  bodies  were  thick  set  with  hairs,  and  they 
were  ranging  on  the  leaves  side  by  side,  like  files  of  sol- 
diers, to  the  number  of  twenty  or  thirty  together.  When 
we  touched  them,  we  found  their  bodies  had  the  qualities 
of  nettles." — Roberts, 

Ver.  36.  Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord,  Behold, 
I  will  plead  thy  cause,  and  take  vengeance  for 
thee ;  and  I  will  dry  up  her  sea,  and  make  her 
springs  dry.  37.  And  Babylon  shall  become 
heaps,  a  dwelling-place  for  dragons,  an  astonish- 
ment, and  a  hissing,  without  an  inhabitant. 

On  the  one  side,  near  to  the  site  6f  Opis,  "  the  country  aL 
around  appears  to  be  one  wide  desert  of  sandy  and  barren 
soil,  thinly  scattered  over  with  brushwood  and  tufts  ot 
reedy  grass."  On  the  other,  between  Bussorah  and  Bag- 
dad, "  immediately  on  either  bank  of  the  Tigris,  is  the  un- 
trodden desert.  The  absence  of  all  cultivation, — the  steril, 
arid,  and  wild  character  of  the  whole  scene,  formed  a  con- 
trast to  the  rich  and  delightful  accounts  delineated  in  scrip- 
ture. The  natives,  in  travelling  over  these  pathless  des- 
erts, are  compelled  to  explore  their  way  by  the  stars." 
"  The  face  of  the  country  is  open  and  flat,  presenting  to  the 
eye  one  vast  level  plain,  where  nothing  is  to  be  seen  but 
here  and  there  a  herd  of  half-wild  camels.  This  immense 
tract  is  very  rarely  diversified  with  any  trees  of  moderate 
growth,  but  is  an  immense  wild,  bounded  only  by  the  hori- 
zon." In  the  intermediate  region,  "  the  whole  extent  from 
the  foot  of  the  wall  of  Bagdad  is  a  barren  waste,  without  a 
blade  of  vegetation  of  anydescription;  on  leaving  the  gates, 
the  traveller  has  before  him  the  prospect  of  a  bare  desert, — 
a  flat  and  barren  cc  ontrv."  "  The  whole  country  between 
Bagdad  and  Hillah  is  a'perfectly  flat  and  (with  the  excep- 


516 


JEREMIAH. 


Chap.  51. 


tion  of  a  few  spots  as  you  approach  the  latter  place)  uncul- 
tivated waste.  That  it  was  at  some  former  period  in  a  far 
different  state,  is  evident  from  the  number  of  canals  by 
which  it  is  traversed,  now  dry  and  neglected ;  and  the 
quantity  of  heaps  of  earth  covered  with  fragments  of  brick 
and  broken  tiles,  which  are  seen  in  every  direction,— the 
indisputable  traces  of  former  population.  At  present  the 
only  inhabitants  of  the  tract  are  the  Sobeide  Arabs.  Around, 
as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  is  a  trackless  desert."  "  The 
abundance  of  the  country  has  vanished  as  clean  away  as  if 
the  'besom  of  desolation'  had  swept  it  from  north  to  south ; 
the  whole  land,  from  the  outskirts  of  Babylon  to  the  farthest 
stretch  of  sight,  lying  a  melancholy  waste.  Not  a  habitable 
spot  appears  for  countless  miles."  The  laiid  of  Babylon  is 
desolate.,  without  an  inhabitant.  The  Arabs  traverse  it ;  and 
every  man  met  with  in  the  desert  is  looked  on  as  an  enemy. 
Wild  beasts  have  now  their  home  in  the  land  of  Chaldea  ; 
but  the  traveller  is  less  afraid  of  them, — even  of  the  lion, — 
than  of  "  the  wilder  animal,  the  desert  Arab."  The  coun- 
try is  frequently  "  totally  impassable."  "  Those  splendid 
accounts  of  the  Babylonian  lands  yielding  crops  of  grain 
two  or  three  hundred-fold,  compared  with  the  modern  face 
of  the  country,  afford  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  singular 
^ desolation  to  which  it  has  been  subjected.  The  canals  at 
present  can  only  be  traced  by  their  decayed  banks." 

"  The  soil  of  this  desert,"  says  Captain  Mignan,  who 
traversed  it  on  foot,  and  who,  in  a  single  day,  crossed  forty 
water-courses,  "  consists  of  a  hard  clay,  mixed  with  sand, 
which  at  noon  became  so  heated  with  the  sun's  rays  that  I 
found  it  too  hot  to  walk  over  it  with  any  degree  of  comfort. 
Those  who  have  crossed  those  desert  wilds  are  already  ac- 
quainted with  their  dreary  tediousness  even  on  horseback ; 
what  it  is  on  foot  they  can  easily  imagine."  Where  astron- 
omers first  calculated  eclipses,  the  natives,  as  in  the  des- 
erts of  Africa,  or  as  the  mariner  without  a  compass  on  the 
pathless  ocean,  can  now  direct  their  course  only  by  the 
stars,  over  the  pathless  desert  of  Chaldea.  Where  cultiva- 
tion reached  its  utmost  height,  and  where  two  hundred-fold 
was  stated  as  the  common  produce,  there  is  now  one  wide 
and  uncultivated  waste ;  and  the  sower  and  reaper  are  cut 
off  from  the  land  of  Babylon.  Where  abundant  stores  and 
treasures  were  laid  up,  and  annually  renewed  and  increased, 
fanners  ha.ve  fanned,  and  spoilers  have  spoiled  them  till  they 
have  emptied  the  land.  Where  labourers,  shaded  by  palm- 
trees  a  hundred  feet  high,  irrigated  the  fields  till  all  was 
plentifully  watered  from  numerous  canals,  the  wanderer, 
without  an  object  on  which  to  fix  his  eye,  but  "  stinted  and 
short-lived  shrubs,"  can  scarcely  set  his  foot  without  pain, 
after  the  noonday  heat,  on  the  "  arid  and  parched  ground," 
in  plodding  his  weary  way  through  a  desert,  a  dry  land, 
and  a  wilderness.  Where  there  were  crowded  thorough- 
fares, from  city  to  city,  there  is  now  "  silence  and  solitude ;" 
for  the  ancient  cities  of  Chaldea  are  desolations,— where 
no  man  dwelleth,  neither  doth  any  son  of  man  pass  there- 
by.— Keith. 

Ver,  42.  The  sea  is  come  up  upon  Babylon :  she 
is  covered  with  the  multitude  of  the  waves 
thereof 

This  metaphor  is  in  common  use  to  show  the  overwhelm- 
ing power  of  an  enemy.  "  Tippoo  Saib  went  down  upon 
his  foes,  like  the  sea  he  swept  them  all  away."  "  True, 
true,  the  British  troops  went  like  the  sea  upon  Bhurtpore, 
the  forts  have  been  carried  away." — Roberts. 

Ver.  58.  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  The 
broad  walls  of  Babylon  shall  be  utterly  broken, 
and  her  high  gates  shall  be  burnt  with  fire; 
and  the  people  shall  labour  in  vain,  and  the 
folk  in  the  fire,  and  they  shall  be  weary. 

They  were  so  broad,  that,  as  ancient  historians  relate, 
six  cTiariots  could  be  driven  on  them  abreast ;  or  a  chariot 
and  four  horses  might  pass  and  turn.  Thev  existed  as 
walls  for  more  than  a  thousand  years  afler  the  prophecy 
was  delivered ;  and  long  after  the  sentence  of  utter  destruc- 
tion had  gone  forth  against  them,  they  were  numbered 
among  "  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world."  And  what  can 
be  more  wonderful  now,  or  what  could  have  been  more  in- 
conceivable by  man,  when  Babylon  was  in  its  strength  and 


glory,  than  that  the  broad  walls  of  Babylon  should  be  so 
utterly  broken  that  it  cannot  be  determined  with  certainty 
that  even  the  slightest  vestige  of  them  exists. 

"  All  accounts  agree,"  says  Mr.  Rich,  "in  the  height  of 
the  walls,  which  was  fifty  cubits,  having  been  reduced  to 
these  dimensions  from  the  prodigious  height  <5f  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet"  (formerly  stated,  by  the  lowest  compu- 
tation of  the  length  of  the  cubit,  at  three  hundred  feet,) 
"  by  Darius  Hystaspes,  after  the  rebellion  of  the  town,  in 
order  to  render  it  less  defensible.  1  have  not  been  fortunate 
enough  to  discover  the  least  trace  of  them  in  any  part  of  the 
ruins  at  Hillah ;  which  is  rather  an  unaccountable  circum- 
stance, considering  that  they  survived  the  final  ruin  of  the 
town,  long  after  which  they  served  as  'an  enclosure  for  a 
park ;  in  which  comparatively  perfect  state  St.  Jerome  in- 
forms us  they  remained  in  his  time." 

In  the  sixteenth  century  they  were  seen  for  the  last  time 
by  any  European  traveller,  (so  far  as  the  author  has  been 
able  to  trace,)  before  they  were  finally  so  utterly  broken  as 
totally  to  disappear.  And  it  is  interesting  to  mark  both  the 
time  and  the  manner  in  which  the  walls  of  Babylon,  like 
the  city  of  which  they  were  the  impregnable  yet  unavailing 
defence,  were  brought  down  to  the  grave,  to  be  seen  no 
more. 

"  The  meanwhile,"  as  Rauwolf  describes  them,  "  when 
we  were  lodged  there,  I  considered  and  viewed  this  ascent, 
and  found  that  there  were  two  behind  one  another,"  (He- 
rodotus states  that  there  was  both  an  inner,  or  inferior,  and 
outer  wall,)  "  distinguished  by  a  ditch,  and  extending  them- 
selves like  unto  two  parallel  %-«Z/s  a  great  way  about,  and  that 
they  were  open  in  some  places,  where  one  might  go  through 
like  gates ;  wherefore  I  believe  that  they  were  the  wall  of 
the  old  town  that  went  about  them ;  and  that  the  places 
where  they  were  open  have  been  anciently  the  gates  (where- 
of there  were  one  hundred)  of  that  town.  And  this  the  rather 
because  I  saw  in  some  places  under  the  sand  (wherewith  the 
two  ascents  were  almost  covered)  the  old  wall  plainly  appear." 

The  cities  of  Seleucia,  Ctesiphon,  Destagered,  Kufa,  and 
anciently  many  others  in  the  vicinity,  together  with  the 
more  modern  towns  of  Mesched  Ali,  Mesched  Hussein,  and 
Hillah,  "  with  towns,  villages,  and  caravansaries  without 
number,"  have,  in  all  probability,  been  chiefly  built  out  of 
the  walls  of  Babylon.  Like  the  city,  the  walls  have  been 
taken  from  thence,  till  none  of  them  are  left.  The  rains  of 
many  hundred  years,  and  the  waters  coming  upon  them 
annually  by  the  overflowing  of  the  Euphrates,  have  also, 
in  all  likelihood,  washed  down  the  dust  and  rubbish  from 
the  broken  and  dilapidated  walls  into  the  ditch  from  which 
they  were  originally  taken,  till  at  last  the  sand  of  the  parch- 
ed desert  has  smoothed  them  into  a  plain,  and  added  the 
place  where  they  stood  to  the  wilderness,  so  that  the  broad 
walls  of  Babylon  are  utterly  broken.  And  now,  as  the  sub- 
joined evidence,  supplementary  of  what  has  already  been 
adduced,  fully  proves, — it  may  verily  be  said  that  the 
loftiest  walls  ever  built  by  man,  as  well  as  the  "  greatest 
city  on  which  the  sun  ever  shone,"  which  these  walls  sur- 
rounded, and  the  most  fertile  of  countries,  of  which  Baby- 
lon the  great  was  the  capital  and  the  glory, — have  all  been 
swept  by  the  Lord  of  Hosts    with  the  besom  of  destruction. 

A  chapter  of  sixty  pages  in  length,  of  Mr.  Buckingham's 
Travels  in  Mesopotamia,  is  entitled,  "Search  after  the 
walls  of  Babylon."  After  a  long  and  fruitless  search,  he 
discovered  on  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  ruins,  on  the 
summit  of  an  oval  mound  from  seventy  to  eighty  feet  in 
height,  and  from  three  to  four  hundred  feet  in  circumfer- 
ence, "a  mass  of  solid  wall,  about  thirty  feet  in  length,  by 
twelve  or  fifteen  in  thickness,  yet  evidently  once  of  much 
greater  dimensions  each  way,  the  work  being,  in  its  pres- 
ent state,  broken  and  incomplete  in  every  part ;"  and  this 
heap  of  ruin  and  fragment  of  wall  he  conjectured  to  be  a 
part — the  only  part,  if  such  it  be,  that  can  be  discovered — 
of  the  walls  of  Babylon,  so  utterly  are  they  broken.  Beyond 
this  there  is  not  even  a  pretension  to  the  discovery  of  any 
part  of  them. 

Captain  Frederick,  of  whose  journey  it  was  the  "prin- 
cipal object  to  search  for  the  remains  of  the  wall  and  ditch 
that  had  compassed  Babylon,"  states,  that  "neither  of  these 
have  been  seen  by  any  modern  traveller.  All  my  inquiries 
among  the  Arabs,"  he  adds,  "  on  this  subject,  completely 
failed  in  producing  the  smallest  effect.  Within  the  space 
of  twenty-one  miles  in  length  along  the  banks  of  the  Eu- 
phrates, and  twelve  miles  across  it  in  b'teadth,  I  was  unable 


BABYLON. 

Jer.  Jl:58.    Page  516. 


Chap.  51. 


JEREMIAH, 


517 


o  perceive  any  thing  that  could  admit  of  my  imagining 
that  either  a  wall  or  a  ditch  had  existed  within  this  exten- 
sive area.  If  any  remains  do  exist  of  the  walls,  they  must 
have  been  of  greater  circumference  than  is  allowed  by 
modern  geographers.  I  may  possibly  have  been  deceived  ; 
but  I  spared  no  pains  to  prevent  it.  I  never  was  em- 
ployed in  riding  and  walking  less  than  eight  hours  for 
six  successive  days,  and  upwards  of  twelve  on  the  sev- 
enth." 

Major  Keppel  relates  that  he  and  the  party  who  accom- 
panied him,  "  in  common  with  other  travellers,  had  totally 
failed  in  discovering  any  trace  of  the  city  walls ;"  and 
he  adds,  "  the  Divine  predictions  against  Babylon  have 
been  so  literally  fulfilled  in  the  appearance  of  the  ruins, 
that  I  am  disposed  to  give  the  fullest  signification  to  the 
words  of  Jeremiah, — the  broad  walls  of  Bahylon  shall  be  xU- 
terly  broken." 

Babylon  shall  be  an  astonishment. — Every  one  that  goeth 
by  Babylon  sh-allbe  astonished.  It  is  impossible  lo  think  on 
what  Babylon  was,  and  to  be  an  eyewitness  of  what  it  is, 
without  astonishment.  On  first  entering  its  ruins,  Sir  Rob- 
ert Ker  Porter  thus  expresses  his  feelings  :  "  I  could  not  but 
feel  an  indescribable  awe  in  thus  passing,  as  it  were,  intt) 
the  gates  of  fallen  Babylon." — "  I  cannot  portray,"  says 
Captain  Mignan,  "  the  overpowering^ensation  of  reveren- 
tial awe  that  possessed  my  mind  ^'hile  contemplating 
the  extent  and  magnitude  of  ruin  and  devastation  on  every 
side." 

How  is  the  hammer  of  the  whole  earth  cut  asunder ! 
How  is  Babylon  become  a  desolation  among  the  nations! 
— The  following  mteresiing  description  has  lately  been 
given  from  the  spot.  After  speaking  of  the  ruined  embank- 
ment, divided  and  subdivided  again  and  again,  like  a  sort 
of  tangled  network,  over  the  apparently  interminable 
ground — of  large  and  wide-spreading  morasses — of  ancient 
Ibuudations — and  of  chains  of  undulating  heaps — Sir  Robert 
Ker  Porter  emphatically  adds: — "The  whole  view  was 
particularly  solemn.  The  majestic  stream  of  the  Euphrates, 
wandering  in  solitude,  like  a  pilgrim  monarch  through  the 
silent  ruins  of  his  devastated  kingdom,  still  appeared  a  no- 
ble river,  under  all  the  disadvantages  of  its  desert-tracked 
course.  Its  banks  were  hoary  with  reeds ;  and  the  gray 
osier  willows  were  yet  there  oil  which  the  captives  of  Israel 
hung  up  their  harps,  and  while  Jerusalem  was  not,  refused 
to  be  comforted.  But  how  is  the  rest  of  the  scene  changed 
since  then  !  At  that  time  those  broken  hills  were  palaces 
— those  long  undulating  mounds,  streets — this  vast  solitude 
filled  with  the  busy  subjects  of  the  proud  daughter  of 
the  East. — Now,  wasted  with  misery,  her  habitations  are 
not  to  be  found— and  for  herself,  the  worm  is  spread  over 
her:' 

From  palaces  converted  into  broken  hills ;— from  streets  to 
long  lines  of  heaps ;— from  the  throne  of  the  world  to  sitting 
in  the  dust ;  from  the  hum  of  mighty  Babylon  to  the  death- 
like silence  that  rests  upon  the  grave  to  which  it  is  brought 
down ; — from  the  great  storehouse  of  the  M'orld,  where 
treasures  were  gathered  from  every  quarter,  and  the  prison- 
house  of  the  captive  Jews,  where,  not  loosed  to  return  home- 
wards, they  served  in  a  hard  bondage,  to  Babylon  the  spoil 
of  many  nations,  itself  taken  from  thence,  andnothing  left; 
— from  a  vast  metropolis,  the  place  of  palaces  and  the  glorv 
of  kingdoms,  whither  multitudes  ever  flowed,  to  a  dreaded 
and  shunned  spot  not  inhabited  nor  dwelt  in  from  genera- 
tion lo  generation,  where  even  the  Arabian,  though  the 
son  of  the  desert,  pitches  not  his  tent,  and  where  the  shep- 
herds make  not  their  folds; — from  the  treasures  of  dark- 
ness, and  hidden  riches  of  secret  places,  to  the  taking 
away  of  bricks,  and  to  an  uncovered  nakedness ; — from 
making  the  earth  to  tremble,  and  shaking  kingdoms,  to  be- 
ing cast  out  of  the  grave  like  an  abominable  branch  ; — from 
the  many  nations  and  great  kings  from  the  coasts  of  the 
earth  that  have  so  often  come  up  against  Babylon,  to  the 
workmen  that  still  cast  her  up  as  heaps  and  add  to  the  num- 
ber of  pools  in  the  ruins ; — from  the  immense  artificial 
lake,  many  miles  in  circumference,  by  means  of  which  the 
annual  rising  of  the  Euphrates  was  regulated  and  restrain- 
ed, to  these  pools  of  water,  a  few  yards  round,  dug  by  the 
workmen,  and  filled  by  the  river ; — from  the  first  and  great- 
est of  temples  to  a  burnt  mountain  desolate  for  ever ;  from 
the  golden  image,  forty  feet  in  height,  which  stood  on  the 
top  of  the  temple  of  Belus,  to  afl  the  graven  images  of  her 
gods,  that  are  broken  unto  the  ground  and  mingled  with  the 


dust ; — from  the  splendid  and  luxuriant  festivals  of  Baby- 
lonian monarchs,  the  noise  of  the  viols,  the  pomp  of  Bel- 
shazzar's  feast,  and  the  godless  revelry  of  a  thousand  lords 
drinking  out  of  the  golden  vessels  that  had  been  taken  from 
Zion,  to  the  cry  of  wild  beasts,  the  creeping  of  doleful 
creatures  of  which  their  desolate  houses  and  pleasant  palaces 
are  full,  the  nestling  of  owls  in  cavities,  the  dancing  of 
wild  goats  on  the  ruinoue  mound  as  on  a  rock,  and  the 
dwelling-place  of  dragons  and  of  venomous  reptiles  ;— 
from  arch  upon  arch,  and  terrace  upon  terrace,  till  the  hang- 
ing gardens  of  Babylon  rose  like  a  mountain,  down  to  the 
stones  of  the  pit  now  disclosed  to  view  ; — from  the  palaces 
of  princes  who  sat  on  the  mount  of  the  congregation,  and 
thought  in  the  pride  of  their  hearts  to  exalt  themselves 
above  the  stars  of  God,  to  heaps  cut  down  to  the  ground, 
perforated  as  the  raiment  of  those  that  are  slain,  and  as  a 
carcass  trodden  under  feet ; — from  the  broad  walls  of  Baby- 
lon, in  all  their  height,  as  Cyrus  camped  against  them 
round  about,  seeking  in  vain  a  single  point  where  congre- 
gated nations  could  scale  the  walls  or  force  an  opening,  to 
the  untraceable  spot  on  which  thev  stood,  where  there  is 
nothing  left  to  turn  aside,  or  impedie  in  their  course,  the 
worms  that  cover  it ; — and  finally,  from  Babylon  the  great, 
the  wonder  of  the  world,  to  fallen  Babylon,  the  astonish- 
ment of  all  who  go  by  it ; — in  extremes  like  these,  whatever 
changes  they  involve,  and  by  whatever  instrumentality  they 
may  have  been  wrought  out,  there  is  not  to  this  hour,  in 
this  most  marvellous  history  of  Babylon,  a  single  fact  that 
may  not  most  appropriately  be  ranked  under  a  prediction, 
and  that  does  not  tally  entirely  with  its  express  and  precise 
fulfilment,  while  at  the  same  time  they  all  united  show,  as 
may  now  be  seen, — reading  the  judgments  to  the  very  letter, 
and.  looking  to  the  facts  as  they  are, — the  destruction  which 
•  has  come  from  the  Almighty  upon  Babylon. 

Has  not  every  purpose  of  the  Lord  been  performed 
against  Babylon "?  And  having  so  clear  illustrations  of  the 
facts  before  us,  what  mortal  shall  give  a  negative  answer 
to  the  questions,  subjoined  by  their  omniscient  Author  to 
these  very  prophecies'? — "Who  hath  declared  this  from 
ancient  time  1  Who  hath  told  it  from  that  time '?  Have 
not  I,  the  Lord  1  and  there  is  no  god  beside  me  ; — declar- 
ing the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  from  ancient  times  the 
things  that  are  not  yet  done — saying,  my  counsel  shall 
stand,  and  I  will  do  all  my  pleasure."  Is  it  possible  that 
there  can  be  any  attestation  of  the  truth  of  prophecy,  if  it 
be  not  witnessed  here  1  Is  there  any  spot  on  earth  which 
has  undergone  a  more  complete  transformation  %  "  The 
recordsof  the  human  race,"  it  has  been  said  with  truth,  "  do 
not  present  a  contrast  more  striking  than  that  between  the 
primeval  magnificence  of  Babylon  and  its  long  desolation." 
Its  ruins  have  of  late  been  carefully  and  scrupulously  ex- 
amined by  different  natives  of  Britain,  of  unimpeached  vera- 
city, and  the  result  of  every  research  is  a  more  striking 
demonstration  of  the  literal  accom.plishment  of  every  pre- 
diction. How  few  spots  are  there  on  earth  of  which  we 
have  so  clear  and  faithful  a  picture  as  prophecy  gave  of  fallen 
Babylon,  at  a  time  when  no  spot  on  earth  resembled  it  less 
than  its  present  desolate  solitary  site  !  Or  could  any  pro- 
phecies respecting  any  single  place  have  been  more  precise, 
or  wonderful,  or  nunierous,  or  true, — or  more  gradually 
accomplished  throughout  many  generations f  And  when 
they  look  at  what  Babylon  was,  and  what  it  is,  and  perceive 
the  minute  realization  of  them  all — may  not  nations  learn 
wisdom,  may  not  tyrants  tremble,  and  may  not  skeptics 
think  1 — Keith. 

Ver.  62.  Then  shalt  thou  say,  O  Lord,  thou  hast 
spoken  against  this  place,  to  cut  it  ofl^  that  none 
shall  remain  in  it,  neither  man  nor  beast,  but 
that  it  shall  be  desolate  for  ever. 

The  course  of  the  Tigris  through  Babylonia,  instead  of 
being  adorned,  as  of  old,  with  cities  and  towns,  is  marked 
with  the  sites  of  "  ancient  ruins."  Sitace,  Sabata,  Narisa, 
Puchera,  Sendia  "  no  longer  exist."  A  succession  of  Ion-  | 
gitudinal  mounds,  crossed  at  right  angles  by  others,  mark 
the  supposed  site  of  Artemita,  or  Destagered.  Its  once 
luxuriant  gardens  are  covered  with  grass ;  and  a  higher 
mound  distinguishes  "the  royal  residence"  from  the  ancient 
streets.  Extensive  ridges  and  mounds,  (near  to  Houmania,) 
varying  in  height  and  extent,  are  seen  branching  in  every 
direction.    A  wall,  with  sixteen  bastions,  is  the  only  me- 


518 


JEREMIAH. 


Chap.  51. 


morial  of  Apollonia.  The  once  magnificent  Seleucia  is 
now  a  scene  of  desolation.  There  is  not  a  single  entire 
building,  but  the  country  is  strewed  for  miles  with  frag- 
-xents  of  decayed  buildings.  "  As  far,"  says  Major  Kep- 
1,  ■'  as  the  eye  could  reach,  the  horizon  presented  a  bro- 
n  line  of  mounds ;  the  whole  of  this  place  was  a  desert 
It."  On  the  opposite  bank  of  the  Tigris,  where  Ctesiphon 
^  rival  stood,  besides  fragments  of  walls  and  broken  masses 
f  brick-work,  and  remains  of  vast  structures  encumbered 
A'ith  heaps  of  earth,  there  is  one  magnificent  monument 
of  antiquity,  "  in  a  remarkably  perfect  state  of  preservation," 
"  a  large  and  noble  file  of  building,  the  front  of  which  pre- 
sents to  view  a  wall  three  hundred  feet  in  length,  adorned 
with  four  rows  of  arched  recesses,  with  a  central  arch,  in 
span  eighty-six  feet,  and  above  a  hundred  feet  high,  sup- 
ported by  walls  sixteen  feet  thick,  and  leading  to  a  hall 
which  extends  to  the  depth  of  one  hundred  and  fifty-six 
feet,"  the  width  of  the  building.  A  great  part  of  the  back 
wall,  and  of  the  roof,  is  broken  down ;  but  that  which  re- 
mains "  still  appears  much  larger  than  Westminster  Ab- 
bey." It  is  supposed  to  have  been  the  lofty  palace  of  Chos- 
roes ;  but  there  desolation  now  reigns.  "  On  the  site  of 
Ctesiphon,  the  smallest  insect  under"  heaven  would  not  find 
a  single  blade  of  grass  wherein  to  hide  itself,  nor  one  drop 
of  water  to  allay  its  thirst."  In  the  rear  of  the  palace,  and 
attached  to  it,  are  mounds  two  miles  in  circumference,  in- 
dicating the  utter  desolation  of  buildings  formed  to  minis- 
ter to  luxury.  But,  in  the  words  of  Captain  Mignan,  "  such 
is  the  extent  of  the  irregular  mounds  and  hillocks  that 
overspread  the  site  of  these  renowned  cities,  that  it  would 
occupy  some  months  to  take  the  bearings  and  dimensions 
of  each  with  accuracy." 

While  the  ancient  cities  of  Chaldea  are  thus  desolate,  the 
sites  of  others  cannot  be  discovered,  or  have  not  been  visit- 
ed, as  none  pass  thereby ;  the  more  modern  cities,  which 
flourished  under  the  empire  of  califs,  are  "all  in  ruins." 
The  second  Bagdad  has  not  indeed  yet  shared  the  fate  of 
the  first.  And  Hillah — a  town  of  comparatively  modern 
date,  near  to  the  site  of  Babylon,  but  in  the  gardens  of  which 
there  is  not  the  least  vestige  of  ruins — yet  exists.  But  the 
former,  "  ransacked  by  massacre,  devastation,  and  oppres- 
sicin,  during  several  hundred  years,"  has  been  "  gradually 
reduced  from  being  a  rich  and  powerful  city  to  a  state  of 
comparative  poverty,  and  the  feeblest  means  of  defence." 
And  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  latter,  about  eight  or  ten 
thousand,  it  is  said,  that  "  if  any  thing  could  identify  the 
modern  inhabitants  of  Hillah  as  the  descendants  of  the 
ancient  Babylonians,  it  would  be  their  extreme  profligacy, 
for  which  they  are  notorious  even  among  their  immoral 
neighbours."  They  give  no  sign  of  repentance  and  refor- 
mation to  warrant  the  hope  that  judgment,  so  long  con- 
tinued upon  others,  will  cease  from  them ;  or  that  they  are 
the  people  that  shall  escape.  Twenty  years  have  not  passed 
since  towns  in  Chaldea  have  been  ravaged  and  pillaged  by 
the  Wahabees ;  and  so  lately  as  1823,  the  town  of  Sheere- 
ban  "  was  sacked  and  ruined  by  the  Coords,"  and  reduced 
to  desolation.  Indications  of  ruined  cities,  whether  of  a 
remote  or  more  recent  period,  abound  throughout  the  land. 
The  process  of  destruction  is  still  completing.  Gardens 
which  studded  the  banks  of  the  Tigris  have  very  recently 
disappeared,  and  mingled  with  the  desert, — and  concerning 
the  cities  also  of  Chaldea  the  word  is  true  that  they  are  des- 
olations. For  "the  whole  country  is  strewed  over  with  the 
debris  of  Grecian,  Roman,  and  Arabian  towns,  confound- 
ed in  the  same  mass  of  rubbish." 

But  while  these  lie  in  indiscriminate  ruins,  the  chief  of 
the  cities  of  Chaldea,  the  first  in  name  and  in  power  that 
ever  existed  in  the  world,  bears  many  a  defined  mark  of 
the  judgments  of  heaven.  The  progressive  and  predicted 
decline  of  Babylon  the  great,  till  it  ceased  to  be  a  city,  has 
already  been  briefly  detailed.  About  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era,  a  small  portion  of  it  was  inhabited,  and  the 
far  greater  part  was  cultivated.  It  diminished  as  Seleucia 
increased,  and  the  latter  became  the  greater  city.  In  the 
I  second  century  nothing  but  the  walls  remained.  It  became 
gradually  a  greatdesert;  and,  in  the  fourth  century,  its  walls, 
repaired  for  that  purpose,  formed  an  enclosure  for  wild 
beasts,  and  Babylon  was  converted  into  a  field  for  the  chase 
— a  hunting-place  for  the  pastime  of  the  Persian  monarchs. 
The  name  and  the  remnant  were  cixt  off*  from  Babylon ; 
and  there  is  a  blank,  during  the  interval  of  many  ages,  in 
the  history  of  its  mutilated  remains  and  of  its  mouldering 


decay.  It  remained  long  in  the  possession  of  the  Saracens ; 
and  abundant  evidence  has  since  been  given,  that  every 
feature  of  its  prophesied  des'olation  is  now  distinctly  visi- 
ble— for  the  most  ancient  historians  bore  not  a  clearer  tes- 
timony to  facts  confirmatory  of  the  prophecies  relative  to 
its  first  siege  and  capture  by  Cyrus,  than  the  latest  travel- 
lers bear  to  the  falfilment  of  those  which  refer  to  its  final 
and  permanent  ruin.  The  identity  of  its  site  has  been  com- 
pletely established.  And  the  truth  of  every  general  and  ot 
every  particular  prediction  is  now  so  clearly  demonstrated, 
that  a  simple  exhibition  of  the  facts  precludes  the  possibili- 
ty of  any  cavil,  and  supersedes  the  necessity  of  any  rea- 
soning on  the  subject. 

It  is  not  merely  the  general  desolation  of  Babylon, — 
however  much  that  alone  would  have  surpassed  allhuman 
foresight,— which  the  Lord  declared  by  the  mouth  of  his 
prophets.  In  their  vision,  they  saw  not  more  clearly,  nor 
defined  more  precisely,  the  future  history  of  Baby  Ion,  from 
the  height  of  its  glory"  to  the  oblivion  of  its  name,  than  they 
saw  and  depicted  foIUn  Babylon  as  now  it  lies,  and  as,  in 
the  nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  era,  it  has,  for  the 
first  time,  been  fully  described.  And  now  when  an  end 
has  come  upon  Bobyloii,  after  a  long  succession  of  ages  has 
wrought  out  its  utter  desolation,  both  the  pen  and  the  pen- 
cil of  travellers,  who  h^ave  traversed  and  inspected  its  ruins, 
must  be  combined,  in  order  to  delineate  what  the  word  of 
God,  by  the  prophets,  told  from  the  beginning  that  that  end 
would  be. 

Truth  ever  scorns  the  discordant  and  encumbering  aid  ot 
error:  but  to  diverge  in  the  least  from  t-h^  most  precise  facts 
would  here  weaken  and  destroy  tho-^ar^^ent ;  for  the  pre- 
dictions correspond  not  closely  with^ac^ming,  except  alone 
with  the  express  and  literal  reality,  'f  o  swerve  from  it,  is, 
in  the  same  degree,  to  vary  from  them :  and  any  misrepre- 
sentation would  be  no  less  hurtful  than  iniquitous.  But  the 
actual  fact  renders  any  exaggeration  impossible,  and  any 
fiction  poor.  Fancy  could  not  have  feigned  a  contrast  more 
complete,  nor  a  destruction  greater,  than  that  which  has 
come  from  the  Almighty  upon  Babylon.  And  though  the 
greatest  city  on  which  the  sun  ever  shone  be  now  a  deso- 
late wilderness,  there  is  scarcely  any  spot  on  earth  more 
clearly  defined — and  none  could  be  more  accurately  delin- 
eated by  the  hands  of  a  draftsman — than  the  scene  of  Baby- 
lon's desolation  is  set  before  us  in  the  very  words  of  the 
prophets;  and  no  woids  could  now  be  chosen  like  unto 
these,  which,  for  two  thousand  five  hundred  year^,  have 
been  its  "  burden" — the  burden  which  now  it  bears. 

Such  is  the  multiplicity  of  prophecies  and  the  accumula- 
tion of  facts,  that  the  very  abundance  of  evidence  increases 
the  diflUculty  of  arranging,  in  a  condensed  form,  and  thus 
appropriating  its  specific  fulfilment  to  each  precise  and 
separate  prediction,  and  many  of  them  may  be  viewed  con- 
nectedly. All  who  have  visited  Babylon  concur  in  ac- 
knowledging or  testifying  that  the  desolation  is  exactly  such 
as  was  foretold.  They,  in  general,  apply  the  more  promi- 
nent predictions;  and,  in  minute  details,  they  sometimes 
unconsciously  adopt,  without  any  allusion  or  reference,  the 
very  words  of  inspiration. 

Babylon  is  wholly  desolate.  It  has  become  heaps— it  is 
cut  down  to  the  ground — brought  doM'n  to  the  grave — trod- 
den on — uninhabited — its  foundations  fallen — its  walls 
thrown  down,  and  utterly  broken —its  loftiest  edifices  rolled 
down  from  the  rocks— the  golden  city  has  ceased — the 
worms  are  spread  under  it,  and  the  worms  cover  it,  &c. 
There  the  Arabian  pitches  not  his  tent ;  there  the  shep- 
herds make  not  their  folds;  but  wild  beasts  of  the  desert 
lie  there,  and  their  houses  are  full  of  doleful  creatures,  and 
owls  dwell  there,  &c.  It  is  a  possession  for  the  bittern,  and 
a  dwelling-place  for  dragons  ;  a  wilderness,  a  dry  land,  and 
a  desert ;  a  burnt  mountain  ;  pools  of  water;  spoiled,  empty, 
nothing  left,  utterly  destroyed  ;  every  one  that  goeth  by  is 
astonished,  &c. 

BaJ/ylon  shall  become  heaps.  Babylon,  the  glory  of  king- 
doms, is  now  the  greatest  of  ruins.  Immense  tumuli  of 
temples,  palaces,  and  human  habitation?;  of  every  descrip- 
tion, are  evervwhere  seen,  and  from  long  and  i-aried  lines 
of  ruins,  which,  in  some  places,  rather  resemble  natural 
hills  than  mminds  which  cover  the  remains  of  great  and 
splendid  edifices.  Those  buildings  which  were  once  (he 
labour  of  slaves  and  the  pride  of  kings,  are  now  misshapen 
heaps  of  rubbish.  "  The  Avhole  face  of  the  country  is  cov- 
ered with  vestiges  of  building,  in  some  pbces  consisting  o» 


Chap.  52. 


JEREMIAH, 


519 


brick  walls  surprisingly  fresh,  in  others,  merely  a  vast  suc- 
cession of  mounds  of  rubbish,  of  such  indeterminate  figures, 
variety,  and  extent,  as  to  invoJve  the  person  who  should 
have  formed  any  theory  in  inextricable  confusion."  Long 
mounds,  running  from  north  to  south,  are  crossed  by  others 
from  east  to  west;  and  are  only  distinguished  by  their 
form,  direction,  and  number,  from  the  decayed  banks  of 
canals.  The  greater  part  of  the  mounds  are  certainly  the 
remains  of  buildings,  originally  disposed  in  streets,  and 
crossing  each  other  at  right  angles.  The  more  distinct 
and  prominent  of  these  "  heaps"  are  double,  or  lie  in  par- 
allel lines,  each  exceeding  twenty  feet  in  height,  and  are 
intersected  by  cross  passages,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  place 
beyond  a  doubt  the  fact  of  their  being  rows  of  houses  or 
streets  fallen  to  decay.  Such  was  the  form  of  the  streets 
of  Babylon,  leading  towards  the  gates ;  and  such  are  now 
the  lines  of  heaps — "  There  are  also,  in  some  places,  two 
hollow  channels,  and  three  mounds,  running  parallel  to 
each  other  for  a  considerable  distance,  the  central  mound 
being,  in  such  cases,  a  broader  and  flatter  /nass  than  the 
other  two,  as  if  there  had  been  two  streets  going  parallel 
to  each  other,  the  central  range  of  houses  which  divided 
them  being  twice  the  size  of  the  others,  from  their  being 
double  residences,  with  a  front  and  door  of  entrance  to 
face  each  avenue."  "Irregular  hillocks  and  mounds, 
formed  over  masses  of  ruins,  present  at  every  step  memo- 
rials of  the  past." 

From  the  temple  of  Belus  and  the  two  royal  palaces,  to 
the  streets  of  the  city  and  single  dwellings,  all  have  become 
heaps;  and  the  only  difference  or  gradation  now  is,  from 
the  vast  and  solid  masses  of  ruins  which  look  like  moun- 
tains, to  the  slight  mound  that  is  scarcely  elevated  above 
the  plain.  Babylon  is  fallen,  literally  fallen  to  such  a  de- 
gree that  those  who  stand  on  its  site  and  look  on  numerous 
parallel  mounds,  with  a  hollow  space  between,  are  some- 
times at  a  loss  to  distinguish  between  the  remains  of  a 
street  or  a  canal,  or  to  tell  where  the  crowds  frequented  or 
where  the  waters  flowed.  Babylon  is  fallen,  till  its  ruins 
cannot  fall  lower  than  they  lie.  It  is  cut  down  to  the  ground. 
Her  foundations  are  fallen ;  and  the  ruins  rest  not  on  them. 
Its  palaces,  temples,  streets,  and  houses,  lie  "  buried  in  shape- 
less heaps."  And  "  the  view  of  Babylon,"  as  taken  from 
the  spot,  is  truly  a  picture  of  utter  desolation,  presenting  its 
heaps  to  the  eye,  and  showing  how,  as  if  literally  buried 
under  them,  Babylon  is  brought  down  to  the  grave. 

Cast  her  up  as  heaps.  Mr.  Rich,  in  describing  a  grand 
heap  of  ruins,  the  shape  of  which  is  nearly  a  square  of  seven 
hundred  yards  in  length  and  breadth,  states  that  the  workmen 
pierce  into  it  in  every  direction,  in  search  of  bricks,  "hol- 
lowing out  deep  ravines  and  pits,  and  throwing  up  the  rub- 
bish in  heaps  on  the  surface."  "  The  summit  of  the  Kasr" 
(supposed  to  have  been  the  lesser  palace)  is  in  like  manner 
"  covered  with  heaps  of  rubbish." 

Let  nothing  of  her  be  left.  Vast  heaps  constitute  all  that 
now  remains  of  ancient  Babylon.    All  its  grandeur  is  de- 


parted ;  all  its  treasures  have  been  spoiled ;  all  its  excel- 
lence has  utterly  vanished  ;  the  very  heaps  are  searched 
for  bricks,  when  nothing  else  can  be  found  ;  even  these  are 
not  left  wherever  they  can  be  taken  away,  and  Babylon  has 
for  ages  been  "  a  quarry  above  ground,"  ready  to  the  hand 
of  every  successive  despoiler.  Without  the  most  remote 
allusion  to  this  prophecy.  Captain  Mignan  describes  a  mound 
attached  to  the  palace  ninety  yards  iu  breath  by  half  that  in 
height,  the  whole  of  which  is  deeply  furrowed,  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  generality  of  the  mounds,  "  The  ground  is 
extremely  soft,  and  tiresome  to  walk  over,  and  appears 
completely  exhausted  of  all  its  building  materials :  nothing 
now  is  left  save  one  towering  hill,  the  earth  of  which  is 
mixed  with  fragments  of  broken  brick,  red  varnished  pot- 
tery, tile,  bitumen,  mortar,  glass,  shells,  and  pieces  of 
mother-of-pearl" — worthless  fragments,  of  no  value  to  the 
poorest.  From,  thence  shall  she  be  taken — let  nothing  of  her 
be  left.  One  traveller,  towards  the  end  of  the  last  century, 
passed  over  the  site  of  ancient  Babylon,  without  being  con- 
scious of  having  traversed  it. 

While  the  workmen  cast  her  up  as  heaps  in  piling  up  the 
rubbish  while  excavating  for  brick,  that  they  may  lake  them 
from  thence,  and  \\vdiinothing  be  left ;  they  labour  more  than 
trebly  in  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy,  for  the  numerous  and 
deep  excavations  form  pooh  of  water,  on  the  overflowing  of 
the  Euphrates,  and,  annually  filled,  they  are  not  dried  up 
throughout  the  year.  Deep  cavities  are  also  formed  by  the 
Arabs,  when  digging  for  hidden  treasure.  The  ground  is 
sometimes  covered  with  pools  of  water  in  the  hollows."  Sii 
on  the  dust,  sit  on  the  ground,  O  daughter  of  the  Chaldeans. 
The  surface  of  the  mounds,  which  form  all  that  remains  of 
Babylon,  consists  of  decomposed  buildings  reduced  to  dust ; 
and  over  all  the  ancient  streets  and  habitations  there  is  lit- 
erally nothing  but  the  dust  of  the  ground  on  which  to  sit. 
Thy  nakedness  shall  be  uncovered.  "  Our  path,"  says  Cap- 
tain Mignan,  "  lay  through  the  great  mass  of  ruined  heaps 
on  the  site  of  '  shrunken  Babylon.'  And  I  am  perfectly 
incapable  of  conveying  an  adequate  idea  of  the  dreary, 
lonely  nakedness  that  appeared  before  me." — Keith. 

CHAPTER  LII. 

Ver.  21.  And  concerning  the  pillars,  the  height 
of  one  pillar  was  eighteen  cubits,  and  a  fillet  of 
twelve  cubits  did  compass  it ;  and  the  thickness 
thereof  was  four  fingers :  it  was  hollow. 

In  the  same  way  do  the  people  of  the  East  speak  of  any 
thing  which  is  less  in  measure  than  a  span.  "  What  height 
are  your  pepper  vines  1"—  "  About  two  fingers."  "  When 
the  rice  becomes  five  fingers  in  height  we  shall  want  more 
rain."  That  which  is  less  than  a  finger  is  spoken  of  as  a 
grain  of  rice;  the  next  gradation  is  an  ellu,  i.  e.  gingelly 
seed  ;  the  next  is  a  mustard  seed;  and  the  last  an  anu,  i.  e 
an  atom. — Roberts. 


BIKS  NIMitOOD— Is.  46:  I.    Jer.  5U:  2,  and  51;  61,  62. 
•  I  will  roll  Ihee  dowu  fro.u  ih  rocki  lad  make  ihee  a  burnt  mountain." 


LAMENTATIONS   OF  JEREMIAH 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  1.  How  doth  the  city  sit  solitary  that  was 
full  of  people !  how  is  she  become  as  a  widow  ! 
she  that  was  great  among  the  nations,  and 
princess  among  the  provinces,  how  is  she  be- 
come tributary ! 

Jerusalem  had  been  sacked  by  a  ruthless  foe,  and  her 
sons  had  been  carried  off  to  Babylon.  "As  a  widow." 
When  a  husband  dies,  the  solitary  widow  takes  off  her 
marriage  jewels,  and  other  ornaments;  her  head  is  shaved! 
and  she  sits  down  in  the  dust  to  bewail  her  lamentable 
condition.  In  the  book  Scanda  Purana,  it  is  said,  after  the 
splendid  city  of  Kupera  had  been  plundered  by  the  cruel 
Assurs,  "  the  city  deprived  of  its  riches  by  the  pillage  of  the 
Assurs,  resembled  the  winow !"  Jerusalem  became  as  a 
widow  in  her  loneliness  bemoaning  her  departed  lord. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  3.  Judah  is  gone  into  captivity,  because  of 
affliction,  and  because  of  great  servitude ;  she 
dwelleth  among  the  heathen,  she  findeth  no 
rest :  all  her  persecutors  overlook  her  between 
the  straits. 

It  was  the  practice  with  those  who  hunted  wild  beasts  to 
drive  them,  if  possible,  into  some  strait  and  narrow  pas- 
sage, that  they  might  more  effectually  take  them,  as  in  such 
a  situation  an  escape  could  hardly  be  effected.  It  is  to  this 
circumstance  that  the  prophet  alludes  in  these  words. — 

BURDER. 

Ver.  11.  All  her  people  sigh,  they  seek  bread; 
they  have  given  their  pleasant  things  for  meat 
to  relieve  the  soul :  see,  O  Lord,  and  consider; 
for  I  am  become  vile. 

What  a  melancholy  picture  have  we  here !  the  captives, 
it  appears,  had  been  allowed,  or  they  had  concealed,  some 
of  their  "  pleasant  things,"  their  jewels,  and  were  now 
obliged  to  part  with  them  for  food.  What  a  view  we  also 
have  here  of  the  cruelty  of  the  vile  Babylonians!  The 
people  of  the  East  retain  their  little  valuables,  such  as 
jewels  and  rich  robes,  to  the  last  extremity.  To  part  with 
that,  which  has,  perhaps,  been  a  kind  of  heir-loom  in 
the  family,  is  like  parting  with  life.  Have  they  sold 
the  last  wreck  of  their  other  property;  are  they  on  the 
verge  of  death ;  the  emaciated  members  of  the  family  are 
called  together,  and  some  one  undertakes  the  heart-rending 
task  of  proposing  such  a  bracelet,  or  armlet,  or  anklet,  or 
ear-ring,  or  the  pendant  of  the  forehead,  to  be  sold.  Fof  a 
moment  all  are  silent,  till  the  mother  or  daughters  burst 
into  tears,  and  then  the  contending  feelings  of  hunger,  and 
love  for  their  "  pleasant  things,"  alternately  prevail.  In 
general  the  conclusion  is,  to  pledge,  and  not  to  sell,  their 
much-loved  ornaments ;  but  such  is  the  rapacity  of  those 
•  who  have  money,  and  such  the  extreme  penury  of  those 
who  have  once  fallen,  they  seldom  regain  them.  Numbers 
give  their  jewels  to  others  to  keep  for  them,  and  never  see 
them  more.  I  recollect  a  person  came  to  the  mission 
house,  and  brought  a  large  casket  of  jewels  for  me  to  keep 
in  our  iron  chest.  The  valuable  gems  were  sho\^n  to  me 
one  by  one;  but  I  declined  receiving  them,  because  I  had 
heard' that  the  person  was  greatly  indebted  to  the  govern- 
ment, and  was  led  to  suspect  the  object  was  to  defraud  the 
creditor.  They  were  then  taken  to  another  person,  who 
received  them, — decamped  to  a  distant  part  of  the  country, 
and  the  whole  of  the  property  was  lost,  both  to  the  individu- 
al and  the  creditors. — Roberts. 


Ver.  17.  Zion  spreadeth  forth  her  hands,  and 
there  is  none  to  comfort  her  :  the  Lord  hath 
commanded  concerning  Jacob,  that  his  adver- 
saries should  be  round  about  him :  Jerusaldn 
is  as  a  menstruous  woman  among  them. 

What  a  graphic  view  we  have  here  of  a  person  in  distress ! 
See  that  poor  widow  looking  at  the  dead  body  of  her  hus- 
band, as  the  people  take  it  from  the  house :  she  spreads 
forth  her  hands  to  their  utmost  extent,  and  piteously  be- 
wails her  condition.  The  last  allusion  in  the  verse  is  very 
common. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  I.  How  hath  'the  Lord  covered  the  daugh- 
ter of  Zion  with  a  cloud  in  his  anger,  a7id  cast 
down  from  heaven  unto  the  earth  the  beauty  of 
Israel,  and  remembered  not  his  footstool  in  the 
day  of  his  anger. 

Those  who  are  in  favour  with  the  king,  or  those  who 
obey  him,  are  called  his  footstool.  But  the  figure  is  also 
used  in  a  degrading  sense.  Thus,  do  two  men  quarrel, 
one  says  to  the  other,  "  I  will  make  thee  my  footstool." 
"  Ah !  my  lord,  be  not  angry  with  me,  how  long  have  I 
been  your  footstool  1"  "  I  be  that  fellow's  footstool !  Never ! 
Was  he  not  footstool  to  my  father  1"— Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  All  that  pass  by  clap  their  hands  at  thee; 
they  hiss  and  wag  their  head  at  the  daughter 
of  Jerusalem,  saying,  Is  this  the  city  that  men 
call  The  perfection  of  beauty,  The  joy  of  the 
whole  earth  1 

See  on  Job  27.  23. 

The  vulgar,  the  low  triumph  of  a  victorious  party,  in  the 
East,  is  extremely  galling;  there  is  nothing  like  moderation 
or  forbearance  in  the  victors.  No,  they  have  recourse  tc 
every  contemptuous  and  brutal  method  to  degrade  their 
fallen  foe.  Has  one  party  triumphed  over  another  in  a 
court  of  law,  or  in  some  personal  conflict,  the  conquerors 
shout  loud,  "  Aha !  aha !  fallen,  fallen  ;"  and  then  go 
close  to  the  vanquished,  and  "  clap  their  hands." — Roberts, 

Oriental  females  express  their  respect  for  persons  of 
high  rank,  by  gently  applying  one  of  their  hands  to  their 
mouths ;  a  custom  which  seems  to  have  existed  from  time 
immemorial.  In  some  of  the  towns  of  Barbary,  the  lead- 
ers of  the  sacred  caravans  are  received  with  loud  acclama- 
tions, and  every  expression  of  the  warmest  regard.  The 
women  view  the  parade  from  the  tops  of  i  he  houses,  and  testify 
their  satisfaction  by  striking  their  four  fingers  on  their  lips 
as  fast  as  they  can,  all  the  while  making  a  joyful  noise, 
The  sacred  writers  perhaps  allude  to  this  custom,  in  those 
passages  where  clapping  the  hand  in  the  singular  number 
is  mentioned.  Striking  one  hand  smartly  upon  the  other, 
which  we  call  clapping  the  hands,  was  also  nsed  to  express 
joy,  in  the  same  manner  as  among  ourselves;  but  in  tho 
East  it  appears  to  have  been  generally  employed  to  denotr 
a  malignant  satisfaction,  a  triumphant  or  insulting  joy. 
In  this  way,  the  enemies  of  Jerusalem  expressed  their 
satisfaction,  at  the  fall  of  that  great  and  powerful  city,— 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  7.  He  hath  hedged  me  about,  that  I  cannot 
get  out :  he  hath  made  my  chain  heavy. 

This  figure  is  taken  from  a  prisoner  having  a  heavy 
chain  to  drag  as  he  goes  along.    Husbands  sometime* 


Chap.  3—5. 


LAMENTATIONS. 


521 


speak  of  their  wives  as  a  chain.  Thus,  is  a  man  invited 
to  a  distant  country ;  he  asks  in  reply,  "  How  can  I  come  1 
my  wife  has  made  my  chain  heavy."  "  My  husband,  my 
husband,  you  shall  not  go ;  my  weeping  shall  make  your 
chain  heavy."  A  man  in  great  trouble  asks,  Who  will 
break  this  sangale?  i.  e.  chain.  "My  chain,  my  chain, 
who  will  break  this  chain  V  "  Have  you  heard  Varavar's 
chain  is  broken  1  He  is  dead !  Who  will  make  another 
chain  for  him'?"— Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  He  hath  filled  me  with  bitterness,  he 
hath  made  me  drunken  with  wormwood. 

"  Wicked,  wicked  son,"  says  the  disappointed  mother, 
*•  I  expected  to  have  had  pleasure  from  thee,  but  thou  hast 
given  me  kasapu,"  i.  e.  bitterness.  "  Shall  I  go  to  his 
house  to  live  on  bitterness  V  "  Who  can  make  this  bitter- 
ness sweet  ?" — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  5.  They  that  did  feed  delicately  are  desolate 
in  the  streets;  they  that  were  brought  up  in 
scarlet  embrace  dunghills. 

In  preparing  their  victuals,  the  Orientals  are,  from  the 
extreme  scarcity  of  wood  in  many  countries,  reduced  to 
use  cow-dung  for  fuel.  At  Aleppo,  the  inhabitants  use 
wood  and  charcoal  in  their  rooms,  but  heat  their  baths 
with  cow-dung,  the  parings  of  fruit,  and  other  things  of  a 
similar  kind,  which  they  employ  people  to  gather  for  that 
purpose.  In  Egypt,  according  to  Pitts,  the  scarcity  of  wood 
IS  so  great,  that  at  Cairo  they  commonly  heat  their  ovens 
with  horse  or  cow  dung,  or  dirt  of  the  streets ;  what  wood 
they  have  being  brought  from  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea, 
and  sold  by  weight.  Chardin  attests  the  same  fact ;  '*  The 
eastern  people  always  use  cow-dung  for  baking,  boiling  a 
pot,  and  dressing  all  kinds  of  victuals  that  are  easily  cook- 
ed, especially  in  countries  that  have  but  little  wood ;"  and 
Dr.  Russel  remarks,  in  a  note,  that  "  the  Arabs  carefully 
collect  the  dung  of  the  sheep  and  camel,  as  well  as  that  of 
the  cow ;  and  that  the  dung,  offals,  and  other  matters,  used 
in  the  bagnios,  after  having  been  new  gathered  in  the  streets, 
are  carried  out  of  the  city,  and  laid  in  great  heaps  to  dry, 
where  they  become  very  offensive.  They  are  intolerably 
disagreeable,  while  drying,  in  the  town  adjoining  to  the 
bagnios ;  and  are  so  at  all  times  when  it  rains,  though  they 
be  stacked,  pressed  hard  together,  and  thatched  at  top." 
These  statements  exhibit,  in  a  very  strong  light,  the  extreme 
misery  of  the  Jews,  who  escaped  from  the  devouring  sword 
of  Nebuchadnezzar :  "  They  that  feed  delicately,  are  desol- 
ate in  the  streets ;  they  that  were  brought  up  in  scarlet, 
embrace  dunghills."  To  embrace  dunghills,  is  a  species 
of  wretchedness,  perhaps  unknown  to  us  in  the  history  of 
modern  warfare ;  but  it  presents  a  dreadful  and  appalling 
image,  when  the  circumstances  to  which  it  alludes  are  re- 
collected. What  can  be  imagined  more  distressing  to  those 
who  lived  delicately,  than  to  wander  without  food  in  the 
streets  1  What  moi  e  disgusting  and  terrible  to  those  who 
had  been  clothed  in  rich  and  splendid  garments,  than  to  be 
forced,  by  the  destruction  of  their  palaces,  to  seek  shelter 
among  stacks  of  dung,  the  filth  and  stench  of  which  it  is 
almost  impossible  to  endure.  The  dunghill,  it  appears 
from  holy  writ,  is  one  of  the  common  retreats  of  the  mendi- 
cant, which  imparts  an  exquisite  force  and  beauty  to  a  pas- 
sage in  the  song  of  Hannah :  "  He  raiseth  up  the  poor  out 
of  the  dust,  and  lifteth  the  beggar  from  the  dunghill,  to  set 
them  among  princes,  and  to  make  them  inherit  the  throne 
of  glory."  The  change  in  the  circumstances  of  that  excel- 
lent woman,  she  reckoned  as  great  (and  it  was  to  her  not 
less  unexpected)  as  the  elevation  of  a  poor  despised  beggar, 
from  a  nauseous  and  polluting  dunghill,  rendered  tenfold 
more  fetid  by  the  intense  heat  of  an  oriental  sun,  to  one 
of  the  highest  and  most  splendid  stations  on  earth.— Pax- 
ton.  ^ 

Ver.  7.  Her  Nazarites  were  purer  than  snow, 
they  were  whiter  than  milk,  they  were  more 
ruddy  in  body  than  rubies,  their  polishing  was 
of  sapphire :  8.  Their  visage  is  blacker  than 
a  coal ;  they  are  not  known  in  the  streets : 
66 


their  skin  cleaveth  to  their  bones ;  it  is  wither 
ed,  it  is  become  like  a  stick. 

I  leave  it  to  physicians  and  naturalists  to  determine,  with 
minute  exactness,  what  effect  extreme  hunger  produces  on 
the  body,  particularly  as  to  coZowr.  It  is  sufficient  for  me 
to  remark,  that  the  modern  inhabitants  of  the  East  sup- 

Jose  it  occasions  an  approach  to-blackness,  as  the  ancient 
ews  also  did.  "  Her  Nazarites,"  says  the  prophet,  com- 
plaining of  the  dreadful  want  of  food,  just  before  Jerusa- 
lem was  taken  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  "  her  Nazarites  were 
purer  than  snow,  they  were  whiter  than  milk,  they  were 
more  ruddy  in  body  than  rubies,  their  polishing  was 
of  sapphire.  Their  visage  is  blacker  than  a  coal :  they 
are  not  known  in  the  streets:  their  skin  cleaveth  to  their 
bones  ;  it  is  withered,  it  is  become  like  a  stick."  Lam.  iv. 
7, 8.  The  like  is  said,  ch.  v.  10 :  "  Our  skin  was  black  like 
an  oven,  because  of  the  terrible  famine." 

The  same  representation  of  its  effects  still  obtains  in  those 
countries.  So  Sir  John  Chardin  tells,  that  the  common 
people  of  Persia,  to  express  the  sufferings  of  Hossein,  a 
grandson  of  their  prophet  Mohammed,  and  one  of  their 
most  illustrious  saints,  who  fled  into  the  deserts  before  his 
victorious  enemies,  that  pursued  him  ten  days  together,  and 
at  length  overtook  him,  ready  to  die  with  heat,  thirst,  and  fa- 
tigue, and  slew  him  with  a  multitude  of  wounds,  in  memory 
of  which  they  annually  observe  ten  days  with  great  solem- 
nity;  I  say,  he  tells  us,  that  the  common  people  then,  to 
express  what  he  suffered,  "  appear  entirely  naked,  except- 
ing the  parts  modesty  requires  to  be  covered,  and  blackened 
all  over  ;  while  others  are  stained  with  blood  ;  others  run 
about  the  streets,  beating  two  flint-stones  against  each  other, 
their  tongues  hanging  out  of  their  mouths  like  people  quite 
exhausted,  and  behaving  like  persons  in  despair,  crying 
with  all  their  might,  Hossein,  &c.  Those  that  coloured 
themselves  black,  intended  to  represent  the  extremity  of  thirst 
and  heat  which  Hossein  had  suffered,  which  was  so  great, 
they  say,  that  he  turned  black,  and  his  tongue  swelled  out 
of  his  mouth.  Those  that  were  covered  with  blood,  intended 
to  represent  his  being  so  terribly  wounded,  as  that  all  his 
blood  had  issued  from  his  veins  before  he  died." 

Here  we  see  thirst,  want  of  food,  and  fatigue,  are  sup- 
posed to  make  a  human  body  look  black.  They  are  now 
supposed  to  do  so ;  as  they  were  supposed  anciently  to  have 
that  effect. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  4.  We  have  drunken  our  water  for  money; 
our  wood  is  sold  unto  us. 

See  on  Num.  20.  19. 

That  numbers  of  the  Israelites  had  no  wood  growing  on 
their  own  lands,  for  their  burning,  must  be  imagined  from 
the  openness  of  their  country.  It  is  certain,  the  eastern 
villages  now  have  oftentimes  little  or  none  on  their  premi- 
ses :  so  Russel  says,  that  inconsiderable  as  the  stream  that 
runs  at  Aleppo,  and  the  gardens  about  it,  may  appear,  they, 
however,  contain  almost  the  only  trees  that  are  to  be  met 
with  for  twenty  or  thirty  miles  round,  "  for  the  villages  are 
destitute  of  trees,"  and  most  of  them  only  supplied  with 
what  rainwater  they  can  save  in  cisterns.  D'Arvieux 
gives  us  to  understand,  that  several  of  the  present  villages 
of  the  Holy  Land  are  in  the  same  situation ;  for,  observing 
that  the  Arabs  burn  cow-dung  in  their  encampments,  he 
adds,  that  all  the  villagers,  who  live  in  places  where  there 
is  a  scarcity  of  wood,  take  great  care  to  provide  themselves 
with  sufficient  quantities  of  this  kind  of  fuel.  This  is  a 
circumstance  I  have  elsewhere  taken  notice  of.  The  Holy 
Land  appears,  by  the  last  observations,  to  have  been  as  lit- 
tle wooded  anciently  as  at  present ;  nevertheless,  the  Israel- 
ites seem  to  have  burnt  wood  very  commonly,  and  without 
buying  it  too,  from  what  the  prophet  says.  Lam.  v.  4. 
"  We  have  drunken  our  water  for  money,  our  wood  is  sold 
to  us."  Had  they  been  wont  to  buy  their  fuel,  they  would 
not  have  complained  of  it  as  such  a  hardship. 

The  true  account  of  it  seems  to  be  this :  The  woods  of 
the  land  of  Israel  being -from  very  ancient  times  common, 
the  people  of  the  villages,  which,"like  those  about  Aleppo, 
had  no  trees  growing  in  them,  supplied  themselves  with 
fuel  out  of  these  wooded  places,  of  which  there  were  many 
anciently,  and  several  that  still  remain.  This  liberty  of 
taking  wood  in  common,  the  Jews  suppose  to  have  been  a 


522 


EZEKIEL. 


Chap.  1. 


constitution  of  Joshua,  of  which  they  give  us  ten  ;  the  first, 
giving  liberty  to  an  Israelite  to  feed  his  flock  in  the  woods 
of  any  tribe  :  the  second,  that  it  should  be  free  to  take  wood . 
in  the  fields  any  where.  But  though  this  was  the  ancient 
custom  in  Judea,  it  was  not  so  in  the  country  into  which 
.hey  were  carried  captives  ;  or  if  this  text  of  Jeremiah  re- 
spects those  that  continued  in  their  own  country  for  a  while 
under  Gedaliah,  as  the  ninth  verse  insinuates,  it  signifies, 
that  their  conquerors  possessed  themselves  of  these  woods, 
and  would  allow  no  fuel  to  be  cut  down  without  leave,  and 
that  leave  was  not  to  be  obtained  without  money.  It  is  certain, 
that  presently  after  the  return  from  the  captivity,  timber 
was  not  to  be  cut  without  leave,  Neh.  ii.  8.— Harmer. 

Ver.  12.  Princes  are  hanged  up  by  their  hand: 
the  faces  of  elders  were  not  honoured. 

No  punishment  is  more  common  than  this  in  the  East, 


especially  for  slaves  and  refractory  children.  Thus,  has 
a  master  an  obstinate  slave ;  has  he  committed  some  great 
oflfence  with  his  hands ;  several  men  are  called,  who  tie 
the  offender's  hands,  and  hoist  him  to  the  roof,  till  he 
beg  for  forgiveness.  Schoolboys,  who  are  in  the  habit  of 
playing  truant,  are  also  thus  punished.  To  tell  a  man  you 
will  hang  him  by  the  hands,  is  extremely  provoking.  See, 
then,  the  lamentable  condition  of  the  princes  in  Babylon, 
they  were  "  hanged  up  by  their  hands,''  as  common  slaves. 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  The  crown  is  fallen /rom  our  head  :  wo 
unto  us,  that  we  have  sinned. 

Has  a  man  lost  his  property,  his  honour,  his  beauty,  or 
his  happiness,  he  says,  "  My  crown  has  fallen  ;"  does  a  fa- 
ther or  grandfather  reprove  his  sons  for  bad  conduct,  he 
asks,  "  Has  my  crown  fallen  V — Roberts.  • 


EZEKIEL. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Ver.  1.  Now  it  came  to  pass  in  the  thirtieth  year, 
in  the  fourth  month,  in  the  fifth  day  of  the 
month,  as  I  was  among  the  captives  by  the 
river  of  Chebar,  that  the  heavens  were  opened, 
and  I  saw  visions  of  God. 

The  prophet  Ezekiel  holds  a  conspicuous  place  among 
the  writers  of  the  Old  Testament,  although,  from  the  highly 
figurative  style  of  his  predictions,  a  greater  degree  of  ob- 
scurity has  been  supposed  to  attach  to  this  book,  than  per- 
haps to  any  other,  except  the  Revelations,  in  the  whole  sa- 
cred canon.  This  remark  applies  peculiarly  to  the  first 
and  tenth  chapters  of  the  book,  which  contain  the  descrip- 
tion of  a  remarkable  emblematical  vision,  presented,  in- 
deed, under  some  variations  of  aspect  in  each,  but  in  its 
general  features  manifestly  the  same.  These  chapters,  to- 
gether with  the  nine  last,  are  said  to  have  been  reckoned  so 
sacredly  obscure  by  the  ancient  Jews,  that  they  abstained 
from  reading  them  till  they  were  thirty  years  of  age.  The 
mystery  appears  to  have  been  but  littleabated  by  time,  as 
the  great  mass  of  commentators  still  speak  of  the  unpene- 
trated  veil  of  symbolical  darkness  in  which  the  prophet's 
meaning  is  wrapped,  and  the  common  readers  of  scripture 
reiterate  the  lamentation ;  although  doubtless  every  portion 
of  the  inspired  writings  is  just  as  luminous  and  intelligible 
as  infinite  Wisdom  saw  best  it  should  be  ;  and  it  is  a  fea- 
ture of  revelation  worthy  of  that  Wisdom,  that  it  is  adapted 
to  every  stage  of  progress  and  attainment  in  spiritual  knowl- 
edge. While  in  some  parts,  and  those  the  most  important, 
it  levels  itself  to  the  capacity  of  a  child,  in  others  it  gives 
scope  to  the  intellect  of  an  angel. 

Most  of  the  earlier  predictions  of  the  book  of  Ezekiel, 
have  respect  to  the  remnant  of  the  nation  left  in  Judea, 
and  to  the  further  judgments  impending  over  them,  such  as 
the  siege  and  sacking  of  Jerusalem— the  destruction  of  the 
Temple— the  slaughter  of  a  large  portion  of  its  inhabitants 
— and  the  abduction  of  the  remainder  into  a  foreign  land. 
The  date  of  the  first  chapter  is  about  six  years. prior  to  the 
occurrence  of  these  events,  and  the  vision  which  it  contains-^ 
was  undoubtedly  designed  to  exhibit  a  visible  symbol  of 

THE  DIVINE   glory  WHICH   DWELT  AMONG  THAT    NATION.       The 

tokens  of  Jehovah's  presence  constituted  the  distinguishing 
honour  of  Israel,  and  its  departure  from  among  them  would 
consequently  form  the  essence  of  their  national  calamities, 
and  swell  them  indefinitely  beyond  all  similar  disasters 
which  could  possibly  befall  any  other  people.  Plain  intima- 


tions of  the  abandonment  of  the  Holy  City  by  the  emblems 
of  the  Lord's  glory,  are  interspersed  through  several  ensu- 
ing chapters,  till  we  come  to  the  tenth,  where  the  same 
splendid  image  is  again  brought  to  view,  and  is  now  ex- 
hibited in  the  act  of  forsaking  its  ancient  dwelling-^ 


de: 


The  first  chapter  describes  what  their  treasure  was;  the 
tenth,  the  loss  of  it.  Together  with  this,  the  latter  contains 
several  additional  particulars  in  the  description  of  the  vision, 
which  are  all-important  to  its  explication.  By  keeping  in 
mind  this  general  view  of  the  contents  of  these  chapters, 
the  reader  will  find  himself  assisted  in  giving  that  signifi- 
cancy  to  each,  which  he  was  probably  before  at  a  loss  to 
discover.  It  maybe  here  remarked,  that  the  symbol  of  the 
Divine  glory  described  by  Ezekiel  was  not  designed  as  a 
mere  temporary  emblem,  adapted  only  to  that  occasion,  but 
that  it  is  a.  perma,n£nt  one,  of  which  we  have  repeated  inti- 
mations in  the  scriptures.  It  is  from  this  fact,  chiefly,  that 
it  derives  its  imnortance  as  an  object  of  investigation. — 
Bush. 

Ver.  7.  And  their  feet  were  straight  feet ;  and  the 
sole  of  their  feet  was  like  the  sole  of  a  calf  s 
foot ;  and  they  sparkled  like  the  colour  of  bur- 
nished brass. 

Heb.  "  their  feet  was  a  straight  foot."  By  foot  here  is 
meant  the  lower  part  of  the  legs,  including  the  ankles.  As 
the  human  foot  is  formed,  motion  of  the  body  in  any  par- 
ticular direction  requires  the  foot  to  be  turned  in  that  direc- 
tion. The  form  here  mentioned  precludes  that  necessity, 
which  is  doubtless  the  reason  of  its  being  assigned  them. — 
Bush. 

Ver.  9.  Their  wings  were  joined  one  to  another  : 
they  turned  not  when  they  went ;  they  went 
every  one  straight  forward.  10.  As  for  the 
likeness  of  their  faces,  they  four  had  the  face  of 
a  man,  and  the  face  of  a  lion  on  the  right  side ; 
and  they*  four  had  the  face  of  an  ox  on  the  left 
side ;  they  four  also  had  the  face  of  an  eagle. 

The  reader  must  imagine  such  a  relative  position  of  the 
living  creatures,  preserving  the  form  of  a  square,  that  to 
the  eye  of  a  spectator  the  different  faces  would  be-presented 
as  here  described,  for  the  prophet  could  not  see  the  four 
faces  of  each  at  once.    Suppose  two  of  the  living  ci'eatures 


i 


Chap.  2. 


EZEKIEL. 


523 


on  a  right  line  in  front,  and  two  on  each  side  of  the  line, 
equidistant  from  it,  and  the  faces  can  be  easily  arranged  so 
as  to  conform  to  the  description. — Bush. 

Ver.  12.  And  they  went  every  one  straight  for- 
ward :  whither  the  spirit  was  to  go,  they  went; 
and  they  turned  not  when  they  went. 

One  design  of  their  having  four  faces  was,  that  they 
might  go  directly  forward  towards  either  of  the  four  car- 
dinal points  without  turning  their  bodies. — Bush. 

Ver.  16.  The  appearance  of  the  wheels  and  their 
work  was  like  unto  the  colour  of  a  beryl;  and 
they  four  had  one  likeness :  and  their  appear- 
ance and  their  work  was  as  it  were  a  wheel  in 
the  middle  of  a  wheel.  17.  When  they  went, 
they  went  upon  their  four  sides ;  and  they 
turned  not  when  they  went. 

From  all  that  we  can  gather  of  the  form  of  these  wheels, 
they  appear  to  have  been  spherical,  or  each  composed  of 
two  of  equal  size,  and  inserted,  the  rim  of  the  one  into  that 
of  the  other  at  right-angles,  and  so  consisting  of  four  equal 
parts  or  half  circles.  They  were  accordingly  adapted  to 
run  either  forward  or  backward,  to  the  right  hand  or  the 
left,  without  any  lateral  turning ;  and  by  this  means,  their 
motion  corresponded  with  that  of  the  four  faces  of  the  liv- 
ing creatures  to  which  they  were  attached.  "  When  they 
v/ent  upon  their  four  sides,  they  turned  not  as  they  went ;" 
Heb.  "  When  they  went,  they  went  upon  the  quarter-part 
of  their  fourfoldness,"  i.  e.  upon,  or  in  the  direction  of,  one 
of  the  four  vertical  semicircles  into  which  they  were  divided, 
and  which  looked  towards  the  four  points  of  the  compass. 
When  it  is  said — "  they  turned  not" — it  is  not  to  be  under- 
stood that  they  had  not  a  revolving  or  rotary  motion,  but 
that  they,  like  the  faces,  never  forsook  a  straight  forward 
course. — Bush. 

Ver.  19.  And  when  the  living  creatures  went,  the 
wheels  went  by  them ;  and  when  the  living 
creatures  were  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  the 
wheels  were  lifted  up.  20.  Whithersoever  the 
'spirit  was  to  go,  they  went,  thither  was  their 
spirit  to  go ;  and  the  wheels  were  lifted  up  over 
against  them :  for  the  spirit  of  the  living  crea- 
ture teas  in  the  wheels. 

These  circumstances  are  doubtless  dwelt  upon  with  pe- 
culiar emphasis,  in  order  to  show  the  intimacy  of  relation 
and  harmony  of  action  subsisting  between  the  living  crea- 
tures and  the  wheels,  or  more  properly  between  the  things 
symbolically  represented  by  them. — Bush. 

Ver.  22.  And  the  likeness  of  the  firmament  upon 
the  heads  of  the  living  creatures  ivas  as  the 
colour  of  the  terrible  crystal,  stretched  forth 
over  their  heads  above. 

Heb.  "  As  for  the  likeness  upon  the  heads  of  the  living 
creatures,  it  was  that  of  an  expansion  stretched  over  their 
heads  above,  like  the  aspect  of  the  terrible  crystal."  This 
expansion  was  a  splendid  level  pavement  or  flooring,  of  a 
crystal  clearness,  and  resting  upon  the  heads  of  theliving 
creatures,  as  the  temple  lavers  rested  upon  the  four  corner- 
stays,  or  "  undersetters,"  of  their  bases.  The  resemblance 
to  the  crystal  was  not  in  colour,  but  in  transparency,  for  the 
colour  was  like  that  of  a  sapphire  stone  or  the  cerulean 
azure  of  the  real  firmament  of  heaven.  This  is  evident 
from  V.  26,  and  also  from  Ex.  xxiy.  9,  10,  containing  an 
evident  allusion  to  this  vision,  and  perhaps  the  germ  of  it. 
"  Then  went  up  Moses  and  Aaron,  Nadab  and  Abihu,  and 
seventy  of  ihe  elders  of  Israel ;  and  they  saw  the  God  of 
Israel ;  and  there  was  under  his  feet  as  it  were  a  paved- 
work  of  a  sapphire -stone,  and,  as  it  were,  the  body  of  heaven 
In  its  clearness." — Bush. 

Ver.  23.  And  under  the  firmament  iv'ere  their 
wings   straight,   the   one   towards  the  other: 


every  one  had  two,  which  covered  on  this  side, 
and  every  one  had  two,  which  covered  on  that 
side,  their  bodies. 

The  wings  therefore  of  the  whole  four  being  in  contact 
with  each  other,  formed  a  kind  of  curtain  beneath  the  in- 
cumbent pavement,  and  thus  completed  the  resemblance  to 
the  Temple  Bases,  and  forming'infacta  magnificent  living 
chariot. — Bush. 

Ver.  24.  And  when  they  went,  I  heard  the  noise 
of  their  wings,  like  the  noise  of  great  waters, 
as  the  voice  of  the  Almighty,  the  voice  of  speech, 
as  the  noise  of  a  host :  when  they  stood,  they 
let  down  their  wings. 

Heb.  "  And  there  was  a  voice — in  their  standing  they  let 
down  their  wings."  The  design  of  the  prophet  seems  to  be, 
to  show  the  perfect  obsequiousness  of  the  living  creatures 
to  the  word  of  command  emanating  from  the  throne  above, 
and  directing  their  movements.  When  the  word  was  given 
to  move,  their  wings  were  at  once  expanded,  the  resound- 
ing din  was  heard,  and  the  glorious  vehicle,  instinct  with 
life,  rolled  on  in  amazing  majesty.  Again,  when  the 
counter  mandate  was  heard,  they  in  an  instant  stayed 
themselves  in  mid  career,  and  relaxed  their  wings. — Bush. 

Ver.  27.  And  I  saw  as  the  colour  of  amber,  as 
the  appearance  of  fire  round  about  within  it ; 
from  the  appearance  of  his  loins  even  upward, 
and  from  the  appearance  of  his  loins  even  down- 
ward, I  saw  as  it  were  the  appearance  of  fire, 
and  it  had  brightness  round  about. 

There  is  a  studied  indistinctness  in  the  image  here  de- 
scribed, yet  it  is  plain  that  a  human  form  is  intended  to  be 
shadowed  forth,  and  that  too  in  connexion  with  the  splen- 
dour of  fire — a  usual  accompaniment  of  the  visible  mani- 
festations of  the  Deity.  There  is  little  room  to  doubt, 
therefore,  that  in  the  aiigust  occupant  of  the  throne,  we  are 
to  recognise  the  Son  of  God,  the  true  God  of  Israel,  antici- 
pating, in  this  emblematic  manner,  his  manifestation  in  the 
flesh,  and  his  future  exaltation  as  King  of  Zion,  riding  forth 
in  the  chariot  of  the  Gospel. 

Such  was  the  vision  presented  to  the  view  of  the  prophet 
of  the  captivity.  A  more  magnificent  conception  can  scarce- 
ly be  framed  by  the  mind  of  man.  Indeed  if  we  except  the 
Apocalyptic  disclosures  of  "the  holy  city,  the  new  Jerusa- 
lem, coming  down  from  God  out  of  heaven,  prepared  as  a 
bride  adorned  for  her  husband,"  we  know  of  nothing  of 
this  nature  in  the  whole  compass  of  revelation  to  be  com- 
pared with  it.  Let  the  reader  bring  before  his  mind's  eye 
the  four  living  creatures  of  majestic  size — so  posited,  aiid 
with  their  wings  so  expanded  and  in  contact,  as  to  form  a 
hollow  square — the  whole  four  raised  above  the  earth,  and 
resting  upon  an  equal  number  of  spherical  wheels  com- 
pounded like  the  equator  and  meridian  circles  of  the  globe 
— their  heads,  with  the  quaternion  of  faces,  made  the  sup- 
porters of  a  broad  lucid  pavement,  clear  as  crystal,  and 
having  the  hue  of  the  ethereal  vault — and  this  splendid 
firmament  surmounted  by  the  visible  Divine  Glory,  con- 
trolling the  movements  of  the  living  chariot— let  him  im- 
agine this  rolling  throne  moving  onward  with  the  noise  of 
mighty  thunderings,  or  of  many  waters,  even  "  as  the  voice 
of  the  Almighty  God  when  he  speaketh,"  while  fiery  splen- 
dours and  a  bright  rainbow  surround  the  Majesty  above, 
and  the  light  of  lamps,  burning  coals,  and  lightnings,  glow 
amid  the  living  creatures,  and  he  cannot  but  feel,  that  the 
ordinary  creations  of  human  genius,  whether  of  poets  or 
painters,  present  nothing  worthy  to  be  placed  by  the  sideot 
it. — Bush. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  6.  And  thou,  son  of  man,  be  not  afraid  of 
them,  neither  be  afraid  of  their  words,  though 
briers  and  thorns  be  with  thee,  and  thou  dost 
dwell  among  scorpions :  be  not  afraid  of  their 
words,  nor  be  dismayed  at  their  looks,  though 
they  he  a  rebellious  house. 


S24 


EZEKIEL. 


Chap.  4. 


The  scorpion  is  one  of  the  most  loathsome  objects  in  na- 
ture. It  resembles  a  small  lobster ;  its  head  appears  to  be 
joined  and  continued  to  the  breast ;  it  has  two  eyes  in  the 
middle  of  its  head,  and  two  towards  the  extremity,  between 
which  come,  as  it  were,  two  arms,  which  are  divided  into 
two  parts,  like  the  claws  of  a  lobster.  It  has  eight  legs  pro- 
ceeding from  its  breast,  every  one  of  which  is  divided  into 
six  parts,  covered  with  hair,  and  armed  with  talons  or  claws. 
The  belly  is  divided  into  seven  rings,  from  the  last  of  which 
the  tail  proceeds,  which  is  divided  into  seven  little  heads, 
of  which  the  last  is  furnished  with  a  sting.  In  some  are 
observed  six  eyes,  and  in  others  eight  may  be  perceived. 
The  tail  is  long,  and  formed  after  the  manner  of  a  string 
of  beads,  tied  end  to  end,  one  to  another ;  the  last  bigger 
than  the  others,  and  somewhat  longer;  to  the  end  of 
which,  are  sometimes  two  stings,  which  are  hollow,  and 
filled  with  a  cold  poison,  which  it  injects  into  the  wound  it 
inflicts.  It  is  of  a  blackish  colour,  and  moves  sidewise  like 
a  crab.  Darting  with  great  force  at  the  object  of  its  fury, 
it  fixes  violently  with  its  snout,  and  by  its  feet,  on  the  per- 
sons which  it  seizes,  and  cannot  be  disengaged  without  dif- 
ficulty. 

[About  the  middle  of  July,  the  waters  had  risen  to  the 
proper  height  in  the  basin  of  the  Nilometer.  Orders  were 
immediately  sent  to  the  sub-governor,  to  open  the  kalidge 
with  all  the  customary  pomp  which,  from  time  immemori- 
al, has  ushered  in  this  festival.  The  pacha  had  bad  news 
from  the  Morea,  and  did  not  attend,  but  all  his  court  was 
there;  the  defterdar  flinging  paras  among  the  multitude, 
bands  of  music  playing  all  night  on  the  banks  of  the  canal, 
and  some  pieces  of  artillery  firing  at  intervals.  I  went 
there  at  night,  for  the  festival  commences  the  preceding 
evening ;  the  Nile  was  covered  with  decorated  boats,  splen- 
didly illuminated,  and  all  the  beauty  of  Cairo  was  collect- 
ed, either  on  the  banks  of  the  river  or  in  the  gaudy  boats ; 
it  was  altogether  different  from  a  Turkish  festival,  there 
was  no  gravity,  every  body  laughed  and  talked ;  the  ladies 
enjoyed  their  liberty,  and  I  fear,  that  night,  too  many  of 
them  abused  it. 

It  was  impossible,  however,  to  observe  so  much  gayety 
and  good-humour,  "  in  a  country  which  mav  better  be  call- 
ed the  grave,  than  the  mother  of  her  children,"  without 
feeling  pleasure.  I  was  in  high  spirits,  when  suddenly  I 
perceived  something  biting  my  leg ;  I  put  down  my  hand, 
and  discovered  a  scorpion,  the  first  I  had  seen  in  Egypt. 
The  pain  was  hardly  perceptible ;  but  I  felt  rather  uncom- 
fortable about  the  consequences,  and  expressed  my  alarm 
to  an  old  Arab  who  sat  near  me ;  he  very  good-naturedly 
led  me  to  a  coffee-house,  and  without  asking  my  consent  to 
doctor  me,  he  proceeded  to  boil  a  small  quantity  of  olive- 
oil,  then  took  a  bit  of  his  own  old  turban,  dipped  it  in  the 
oil,  and  applied  it,  hotter  than  I  could  well  bear,  to  the  bite. 
I  let  him  have  his  way;  for,  in  such  cases,  I  think  the  peo- 

f>le  of  the  country  are  better  judges  of  remedies  than  a  col- 
ege  of  doctors.  I  was  right  in  thinking  so,  for  I  suflfered 
no  inconvenience  whatever  from  the  accident. — Madden.] 
To  the  northward  of  mount  Atlas,  the  scorpion  is  not 
very  hurtful,  for  the  sting  being  only  attended  with  a  slight 
fever,  the  application  of  a  little  Venice  treacle  quickly  as- 
suages the  pain.  But  the  scorpion  of  Getulia,  and  most 
other  parts  of  the  Sahara,  as  it  is  larger,  and  of  a  darker 
complexion,  so  its  venom  is  proportionably  malignant,  and 
frequently  attended  with  death."  In  Syria  it  does  not  seem 
to  be  deadly,  but  occasions  much  inconvenience  and  suffer- 
ing to  the  inhabitants.  Whole  companies  are  suddenly  af- 
fected with  vomitings,  which  is  supposed  to  be  produced 
by  the  poisonous  matter  which  exudes  from  the  skin  of  the 
scorpion,  as  it  crawls  over  their  kitchen  utensils  or  provi- 
sions. Nor  is  it  possible  almost  to  avoid  the  danger ;  it  is 
never  at  rest  during  the  summer  months,  and  so  malicious 
is  its  disposition,  that  it  may  be  seen  continually  flourish- 
ing its  tail  in  which  the  sting  is  lodged,  and  striking  at 
every  object  within  its  reach.  So  mischievous  and  hateful 
is  this  creature,  that  the  sacred  writers  use  it  in  a  figurative 
sense  for  Avicked,  malicious,  and  crafty  men.  Such  was 
the  house  of  Israel  to  the  prophet  Ezekiel :  *'  Thou  dwell- 
est,"  said  Jehovah  to  his  servant,  "  among  scorpions," 
No  animal  in  the  creation  seems  endued  with  a  nature  so 
irascible.  When  taken,  they  exert  their  utmost  rage  against 
the  glass  which  contains  them ;  will  attempt  to  sting  a 
Stick",  when  put  near  them;  will  sting:  animals  confined 
with  them,  without  provocation;  are  the  crudest  enemies 


to  each  other.  Maupertuis  put  a  hundred  together  in  the 
same  glass;  instantly  they  vented  their  rage  in  mutual  de- 
struction, universal  carnage  !  in  a  few  days  only  fourteen 
remained,  which  had  killed  and  devoured  all  the  others. 
It  is  even  asserted,  that  when  in  extremity  or  despair,  the 
scorpion  will  destroy  itself;  he  stings  himself  on  the  back 
of  the  head,  and  instantly  expires.  Surely  Moses  with 
great  propriety  mentions  scorpions  among  the  dangers  of 
the  wilderness ;  and  no  situation  can  be  conceived  more 
hazardous  than  that  of  Ezekiel,  who  is  said  to  dwell  among 
scorpions;  nor  could  a  fitter  contrast  be  selected  by  our 
Lord  :  "  Will  a  father  give  a  scorpion  to  his  child  instead 
of  an  egg  V  Jesus  invested  his  disciples  with  power  to 
tread  on  serpents  and  scorpions  ;  by  which  maybe  denoted, 
power  and  authority  to  counteract  and  baffle  every  kind  of 
agent  which  the  devil  employs  to  vex  and  injure  the 
church.  The  disciples  of  Antichrist,  who,  by  their  poison- 
ous doctrines,  injure  or  destroy  the  souls  of  men,  are  like- 
wise compared  to  these  dangerous  animals:  "  And  therf 
came  out  of  the  smoke  locusts  upon  the  earth :  and  unto 
them  was  given  power  as  the  scorpions  of  the  earth  have 
power." — pAXTON. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  1.  Thou  also,  son  of  man,  take  thee  a  tile, 
and  lay  it  before  thee,  and  portray  upon  it  the 
city,  even  Jerusalem. 

The  tile  was  probably  an  undried  one. — Lord  Cornwallis 
got  a  good  idea  of  Bangalore  from  a  Bramin,  who  acted  as 
spy,  and  drew  a  plan  of  the  place  with  great  accuracy  in  a 
short  time  in  moist  clay. — Callaway. 

Ver.  1.  Thou  also,  son  of  man,  take  thee  a  tile, 
and  lay  it  before  thee,  and  portray  upon  it  the 
city,  even  Jerusalem :  2.  And  lay  siege  against 
it,  and  build  a  fort  against  it,  and  cast  a  mount 
against  it ;  set  the  camp  also  against  it,  and  set 
battering-rams  against  it  round  about. 

See  on  Is.  29.  3. 

When  the  Hebrews  were  besieged  by  their  enemies,  they 
erected  engines  on  their  towers  and  bulwarks,  to  shoot  ar- 
rows and  hurl  stones ;  and  when  they  sat  down  before  a 
place  with  the  view  of  besieging  it,  they  dug  trenches^,  they 
drew  lines  of  circumvallation  ;  they  built  forts  and  made 
ramparts ;  they  cast  up  mounts  on  every  side,  and  planted 
battering  rams  upon  them,  to  breach  the  walls,  and  open  a 
way  into  the  city.  These  engines,  it  is  probable,  bore  some 
resemblance  to  the  balistae  and  catapultee  of  the  Romans, 
which  were  employed  for  throwing  stones  and  arrows,  and 
were,  in  reality,  the  mortars  and  carcasses  of  antiquity. 
Josephus  asserts,  that  Uzziah  the  king  of  Judah  taught  his 
soldiers  to  march  in  battalia,  after  the  manner  of  the  Ma- 
cedonian phalanx,  arming  them  with  swords,  targets,  and 
corslets  of  brass,  with  arrows  and  darts.  He  also  provided 
a  great  number  of  engines  to  batter  cities,  and  to  shoot 
stones  and  darts,  besides  hooks  of  different  forms,  and  othei 
instruments  of  a  similar  kind. 

Calmet  describes  "an  engine  used  for  throwing  very 
heavy  stones,  by  means  of  a  strong  bow,  w'hose  circulai 
arms  are  tightly  held  by  two  vertical  beams,  nearly  upright; 
the  cord  of  the  bow  is  drawn  back  by  means  of  a  windlass, 
placed  laetween  two  beams  also,  behind  the  former,  but  uni- 
ting with  them  at  top ;  in  the  centre  is  an  arm,  capable  of 
swinging  backward  and  forward  ;  round  this  arm  the  bow- 
string passes ;  at  the  bottom  of  this  arm  is  placed  the  stone, 
in  a  kind  of  seat.  The  bowstring  being  drawn  backward, 
by  the  power  of  the  windlass  drawing  the  moving  arm,  the 
rope  is  suddenly  let  go  from  this  arm  by  a  kind  of  cock, 
when  the  bowstring,  recovering  its  natural  situation,  wiih 
all  its  power  violently  swings  forwards  the  moving  arm, 
and  with  it  the  stone,  thereby  projecting  the  stone  with 
great  force  and  velocity." 

"  Another  machine  for  throwing  stones,  consists  of  two 
arms  of  a  bow,  which  are  strengthened  by  coils  of  rope, 
sinews,  or  hair,  (  women's  hair  was  reckoned  the  best  for 
the  purpose.)  These  arms  being  drawn  backward  as  fight 
as  possible,  by  a  windlass  placed  at  some  distance  behind 
the  machine,  the  string  of  the  bow  is  attached  to  a  kind  of 
cock,  and  the  stone  to  be  discharged  being  placed  immedi- 


GiiAP.  4—6. 


EZEKIEL. 


525 


ately  before  it,  on  touching  the  cock,  the  violent  effort  of 
the  bow  threw  of  the  stone  to  a  great  distance."  The  arms 
of  this  bow  were  of  iron ;  which  was  the  same  as  the  balis- 
t(c  of  the  Romans. 

"  Besides  these  kind  of  instruments  that  were  extremely 
powerful,  others  off  smaller  size,  and  inferior  powers,  were 
constructed  for  the  purpose  of  being  carried  about :  these 
^vere  somewhat  like  our  ancient  cross-bows  ;  and  the  bow- 
string was  drawn  back  by  various  contrivances,  often  mere- 
ly by  strength  of  arm,  or  by  reducing  the  board  that  carried 
the  arrow  to  its  station  backwards,  by  pressing  it  against 
the  ground." — Paxton. 

Ver.  4.  Lie  thou  also  upon  thy  left  side,  and  lay 
the  iniquity  of  the  house  of  Israel  upon  it :  ac- 
cording to  the  number  of  the  days  that  thou 
shalt  lie  upon  it  thou  shalt  bear  their  iniquity. 

It  is  more  than  probable  something  is  alluded  to  here 
which  we  cannot  understand.  When  a  person  is  sick,  he 
will  not  lie  on  his  right  side,  because  that  would  be  a  bad 
omen :  should  he  in  his  agony,  or  when  asleep,  turn  on 
that  side,  his  attendants  will  immediately  again  place  him 
on  the  left  side.  After  people  have  taken  their  food,  they 
generally  sleep  a  little,  but  they  are  careful  to  repose  on  the 
left  side,  "  because  the  food  digests  better."  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  say  what  is  the  origin  of  this  practice :  it  may  have 
arisen  from  the  circumstance  that  the  right  side  "  is  of  the 
masculine  gender,"  and  the  left  feminine,  as  is  the  case  with 
the  supreme  Siva,  Females  are  directed  to  recline  on  the 
right  side,  and  many  curious  stories  are  told,  in  reference 
to  them,  which  are  not  worth  repeating. — Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  Take  thou  also  unto  thee  wheat,  and  bar- 
ley, and  beans,  and  lentiles,  and  millet,  and 
fitches,  and  put  them  in  one  vessel,  and  make 
thee  bread  thereof,  according  to  the  number  of 
the  days  that  thou  shalt  lie  upon  thy  side ;  three 
hundred  and  ninety  days  shalt  thou  eat  thereof. 

This  word  (millet)  occurs  more  than  once  in  the  sacred 
volume :  Ezekiel  calls  it  duchan  or  dochan ;  and  Calmet 
thinks  it  is  probably  the  holcus  durra,  which  forms  a  prin- 
cipal food  among  the  Orientals.  Its  Latin  name,  millet,  is 
supposed  to  be  derived  from  mille,  that  is,  a  thousand  grains, 
in  allusion  to  its  extraordinary  fruitfulncss.  It  requires  a 
light  sandy  soil;  is  sown  late,  and  gathered  in  about  the 
middle  of  October;  while  the  wheat  and  the  barley  are 
reaped  by  the  end  of  May,  just  before  the  drought  of  a  Sy- 
rian summer  comes  on.  The  worldly  man  is  accustomed 
to  regard  such  different  management  as  the  fruit  of  human 
observation  and  sagacity ;  but  the  inspired  prophet  ascribes 
it  with  equal  truth  and  energy  to  the  suggestion  of  divine 
wisdom  and  goodness  :  "  For  his  God  doth  instruct  him  to 
discretion,  and  doth  teach  him."  It  is  made  into  bread, 
with  camel's  milk,  oil,  butter,  and  other  unctuous  substances, 
and  is  almost  the  only  food  eaten  by  the  common  people  of 
Arabia  Felix.  Niebuhr  found  it  so  disagreeable,  that  he 
would  willingly  have  preferred  plain  barley  bread.  This  is 
certainly  the  reason  that  it  was  appointed  to  the  prophet 
Ezekiel,  as  a  part  of  his  hard  fare.  But  Rauwolf  seems  to 
have  been  of  a  different  mind,  or  not  so  ditficult  to  please  ; 
of  ihis  grain,  says  he,  they  bake  very  well-tasted  bread  and 
cakes,  and  some  of  them  are  rolled  very  thin,  and  laid  to- 
gether after  the  manner  of  a  letter ;  they  are  about  four 
inches  broad,  six  long,  and  two  thick,  and  of  an  ashen  co- 
lour. The  grain,  however,  is  greatly  inferior  to  wheat  or 
barley,  and  by  consequence  must  form  a  very  inferior 
f^pecies  of  bread. — Paxton. 

Ver.  1 5.  Then  he  said  unto  me,  Lo,  I  have  given 
thee  cow's  dung  for  man's  dung,  and  thou  shalt 
prepare  thy  bread  therewith. 

In  some  places,  firewood  being  very  scarce,  the  people 
gather  cow-dung,  make  it  into  cakes,  and  dry  it  in  the  sun, 
after  which  it  is  ready  for  fuel.  Those  who  are  accustomed 
to  have  their  food  prepared  in  this  way,  prefer  it  to  any 
Other:  they  tell  you  it  is  sweeter  and  more  holy,  as  the  fuel 
comes  from  their  sacred  animal.    The  other  allusion  in 


this  verse,  and  in  chap,  iv.  12,  is  often  made  use  of  when 
people  are  angry  with  each  other.  Has  some  one  .stolen  a 
person's  fuel,  he  says  in  his  rage,  "  Ah  !  that  wretch  shall 
get  ready  his  food"  as  described  in  iv.  12.  Does  a  wife  ask 
her  husband  for  firewood,  he  will  (should  he  be  angry)  re- 
ply to  her  as  above. — Roberts. 

In  consequence  of  the  want  of  wood,  camel's  dung  is  used 
in  the  East  for  fuel.  Shaw,  in  the  preface  to  his  Travels, 
where  he  gives  a  detailed  description  of  the  mode  of  travel- 
ling in  the  East,  says,  that  in  consequence  of  the  scarcity  of 
wood,  when  they  wanted  to  bake  or  boil  any  thing,  the 
camel's  dung  which  had  been  left  by  a  preceding  caravan 
was  their  usual  fuel,  which,  after  having  been  exposed  to 
the  sun  during  three  days,  easily  catches  fire,  and  burns  like 
charcoal.  The  following  quotation  from  D'Arvieux  serves 
still  better  to  illustrate  the  text  in  which  the  prophet  is  com- 
manded to  bake  bread,  or  rather  thin  cakes  of  bread,  upon 
cow-dung.  "  The  second  sort  of  bread  is  baked  under 
ashes,  or  between  two  lumps  of  dried  and  lighted  cow-dung. 
This  produces  a  slow  fire,  by  which  the  dough  is  baked  by 
degrees ;  this  bread  is  as  thick  as  our  cakes.  The  crumb  is 
good  if  eaten  the  same  day,  but  the  crust  is  black  and  burnt, 
and  has  a  smoky  taste  from  the  fire  in  which  the  bread  is 
baked.  A  person  must  be  accustomed  to  the  mode  of  life  of 
the  Bedouins,  and  very  hungry,  who  can  have  any  relish  for 
it."  We  will  also  add  what  Niebuhr  says,  in  his  description 
of  Arabia.  '*  The  Arabs  of  the  desert  make  use  of  an  iron 
plate  to  bake  their  bread-cakes;  or  they  lay  around  lump 
cf  dough  in  hot  coals  of  wood  or  camel's  aung,  and  cover 
them  entirely  with  it,  till  the  bread  in  their  opinion  is  quite 
done,  when  they  take  the  ashes  from  it,  and  eat  it  warm," 

— ROSENMULLER. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  16.  When  I  shall  send  upon  them  the  evil 
arrows  of  famine,  which  shall  be  for  their  de- 
struction, and  which  I  will  send  to  destroy  you : 
and  I  will  increase  the  famine  upon  you,  and 
will  break  your  staflT  of  bread.  17.  So  will  I 
send  upon  you  famine,  and  evil  beasts,  and  they 
shall  bereave  thee ;  and  pestilence  and  blood 
shall  pass  through  thee;  and  I  will  bring  the 
sword  upon  thee.     I  the  Lord  have  spoken  it. 

See  on  Ps.  91.  5,  6. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  14.  So  will  I  stretch  out  my  hand  upon 
them,  and  make  the  land  desolate,  yea,  more 
desolate  than  the  wilderness  toicards  Diblath, 
in  all  their  habitations ;  and  they  shall  know 
that  1  am  the  Lord, 

"  The  land  shall  be  utterly  spoiled, — I  will  make  the  land 
more  desolate  than  the  wilderness."  "  The  temples  are 
thrown  down ;  the  palaces  demolished ;  the  ports  filled  up ; 
the  towns  destroyed ;  and  the  earth,  stripped  of  inhabitants, 
seems  a  dreary  burying-place."  (Volney.)  "  Good  God  !" 
exclaims  the  same  writer,  "from  wheiice  proceed  such 
melancholy  revolutions  1  For  what  cause  is  the  fortune  of 
these  countries  so  strikingly  changed  ?  Why  are  so  many 
cities  destroyed  1  Why  is  not  that  ancient  population  repro- 
duced and  perpetuated  T'  "  I  wandered  over  the  country ; 
I  traversed  the  provinces ;  I  enumerated  the  kingdoms  ot 
Damascus  and  Idumea,  of  Jerusalem  and  Samaria.  This 
Syria,  said  /  to  myself,  now  almost  depopulated,  then  con- 
tained a  hundred  flourishing  cities,  and  aboundf'd  with 
towns,  villages,  and  hamlets.  What  are  become  of  so  many 
productions  of  the  hands  of  man  1  What  are  become  ol 
those  ages  of  abundance  and  of  life  7"  &c.  Seeking  to  be 
wise,  men  become  fools  when  they  trust  to  their  own  vain 
imaginations,  and  will  not  look  to  that  word  of  God  which 
is  as  able  to  confound  the  wise,  as  to  give  understanding  to 
the  simple.  These  words,  from  the  lips  of  a  great  advocate 
of  infidelity,  proclaim  the  certainty  of  the  truth  which  he 
was  too  blind  or  bigoted  to  see.  For  not  more  unintention- 
ally or  unconsciously  do  many  illiterate  Arab  pastors  or 
herdsmen  verify  one  prediction,  while  they  literally  tread 
Falesline  under  foot,  than  Volney,  the  academician,  himself 


.^26 


EZEKIEJ. 


Chap.  7—9 


verifies  another,  while,  speaking  in  nis  own  name,  and  the 
spokesman  also  of  others,  he  thus  confirms  the  unerring 
truth  of  God's  holy  word,  by  what  he  said^  as  well  as  by 
describing  what  he  saw. 

It  is  no  "  secret  malediction,"  spoken  of  by  Volney,  which 
God  has  pronounced  against  Judea.  It  is  the  curse  of  a 
broken  covenant  that  rests  upon  the  land  ;  the  consequences 
of  the  iniquities  of  the  people,  not  of  those  only  who  have 
been  plucked  from  off  it  and  scattered  throughout  the  world, 
but  of  those  also  that  dwell  therein.  The  ruins  of  empires 
originated,  not  from  the  regard  which  mortals  paid  to  re- 
vealed religion,  but  from  causes  diametrically  the  reverse. 
The  desolations  are  not  of  Divine  appointment,  but  only  as 
they  have  followed  the  violations  of  the  laws  of  God,  or 
have  arisen  from  thence.  And  none  other  curses  have  come 
upon  the  land  than  those  that  are  written  in  the  Book.  The 
character  and  condition  of  the  people  are  not  less  definitely 
marked  than  the  features  of  the  land  that  has  been  smitten 
with  a  curse  because  of  their  iniquities.  And  when  the 
unbeliever  asks.  Wherefore  hath  the  Lord  done  this  unto 
the  land  ?  the  same  word  which  foretold  that  the  question 
would  be  put,  supplies  an  answer  and  assigns  the  cause. 
— Keith. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  10.  Behold  the  day,  behold,  it  is  come;  the 
morniag  is  gone  forth  ;  the  rod  hath  blossomed ; 
pride  hath  budded.  11.  Violence  is  risen  up 
into  a  rod  of  wickedness :  none  of  them  shall 
remain,  nor  of  their  multitude,  nor  of  any  of 
theirs;  neither  ^Aa//  there  be  wailing  for  them. 

This  alludes  to  the  punishment  of  the  children  of  Israel ; 
and  Jehovah,  through  his  servant,  addresses  the  people  in 
eastern  language  :  "  The  morning  is  gone  forth."  Their 
wickedness,  their  violence,  had  grown  into  a  rod  to  punish 
them.  The  idea  is  implied  in  the  Tamul  translation  also. 
"■  Yes,  wretch,  the  rod  has  long  been  growing  for  thee,  'tis 
now  ready,  they  may  now  cut  it."  "  True,  true,  the  man's 
past  crimes  are  as  so  many  rods  for  him." — Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  But  they  that  escape  of  them  shall  es- 
cape, and  shall  be  on  the  mountains  like  doves 
of  the  valleys,  all  of  them  mourning,  every  one 
for  his  iniquity. 

This  is  a  most  strikingly  apt  simile  to  all  who  have 
heard  the  sound  made  by  the  turtle-dove.  In  the  woods  of 
Africa  I  have  often  listened  to  the  sound  of  the  turtle-dove's 
apparent  mourning  and  lamentations,  uttered  incessantly 
for  hours  together — indeed,  without  a  moment's  intermis- 
.sion.  In  a  calm,  still  morning,  when  every  thing  in  the 
wilderness  is  at  rest,  no  sound  can  be  more  plaintive,  piti- 
ful, and  melancholy.  It  would  cause  gloom  to  arise  in  the 
most  sprightly  mind, — it  rivets  the  ear  to  it,— the  attention 
is  irresistibly  arrested. — Campbell. 

Ver.  21.  And  I  will  give  it  into  the  hands  of 
the  strangers  for  a  prey,  and  to  the  wricked  of 
the  earth  for  a  spoil ;  and  they  shall  pollute  it. 
22.  My  face  will  I  turn  also  from  them,  and 
they  shall  pollute  my  secret  'place  :  for  the  rob- 
bers shall  enter  into  it,  and  defile  it. 

Instead  of  abiding  under  a  settled  and  enlightened  gov- 
ernment, Judea  has  been  the  scene  of  frequent  invasions, 
"  which  have  introduced  a  succession  of  foreign  nations, 
(des  peuples  etrangers.")  "  When  the  Ottomans  took  Syria 
from  the  Mamelouks,  they  considered  it  as  the  spoil  of  a 
vanquished  enemy.  According  to  this  law,  the  life  and 
property  of  the  vanquished  belong  to  the  conqueror.  The 
government  is  far  from  disapproving  of  a  system  oi^  rob- 
bery and  plunder  which  it  finds  so  profitable."  (Volney.)— 
Keith. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  7.  And  he  brought  me  to  the  door  of  the 
court ;  and  when  I  looked,  behold,  a  hole  in 
the  wall. 


Caves,  and  other  similar  .subterraneous  recesses,  conse- 
crated to  the  worship  of  the  sun,  were  very  generally,  il 
not  universally,  in  requesc  among  nations  where  that  su- 
perstition was  practised.  The  mountains  of  Chusistan  at 
this  day  abound  wiih  stupendous  excavations  of  this  sort. 
Allusive  to  this  kind  of  cavern  temple,  and  this  species  of 
devotion,  are  these  words  of  Ezekiel.  The  prophet  in  a 
vision  beholds,  and  in  the  most  sublime  manner  stigmatizes 
the  horrible  idolatrous  abominations  which  the  Israelites 
had  borrowed  from  their  Asiatic  neighbours  of  Chaldea, 
Egypt,  and  Persia.  "  And  he  brought  me,  says  the  prophet, 
to  the  door  of  the  court ;  and  when  I  looked,  behold,  a  hole 
in  the  wall.  Then  said  he  unto  me,  son  of  man,  dig  now 
in  the  wall ;  and,  when  I  had  digged  in  the  wall,  behold  a 
door.  And  he  said  unto  me,  Go  in,  (that  is,  into  this  cav- 
ern temple,)  and  behold  the  wicked  abominations  that  they 
do  there.  So  I  went  in,  and  saw,  and  behold,  every  form 
of  creeping  things,  and  abominable  beasts,  and  all  the  idols 
of  the  house  of  Israel,  were  portrayed  upon  the  wall  round 
about,"  In  this  subterraneous  temple  were  seventy  men  of 
the  ancients  of  the  house  of  Israel,  and  their  employment 
was  of  a  nature  very  nearly  similar  to  that  of  the  priests 
in  Salsette.  "They "stood  with  every  man  his  censer  in 
his  hand,  and  a  thick  cloud  of  incense  went  up.  Then 
said  he  unto  me.  Son  of  man,  hast  thou  seen  what  the  an- 
cients of  Israel  do  in  the  dark,  every  man  in  the  cham- 
bers of  his  imagery  1"  In  Egypt,  to  the  particular  idolatry 
of  which  country,  it  is  plain,'  from  his  mentioning  every 
form  of  creeping  thing  and  abominable  beasts,  the  prophet 
in  this  place  alludes,  these  dark  secluded  recesses  were 
called  mystic  cells,  and  in  them  were  celebrated  the  secret 
mysteries  of  Isis  and  Osiris,  represented  by  the  quadrupeds 
sacred  to  those  deities.    (Maurice.) — Burder. 

Ver.  17.  Then  he  said  unto  me,  Hast  thou  seen 
this,  O  Son  of  man  ?  Is  it  a  light  thing  to  the 
house  of  Judah  that  they  commit  the  abomina- 
tions which  they  commit  here  ?  for  they  have 
filled  the  land  with  violence,  and  have  returned 
to  provoke  me  to  anger ;  and,  lo,  they  put  the 
branch  to  their  nose. 

This  last  expression  undoubtedly  all udes  to  some  par- 
ticular ceremouy  belonging  to  their  idolatrous  worsnip. 
Mr.  Lowth  (on  the  prophets)  says,  the  words  may  refer  to 
a  custom  among  the  idolaters  of  dedicating  a  branch  of 
laurel,  or  some  other  tree,  to  the  honour  of  the  sun,  and 
carrying  it  in  their  hands  at  the  time  of  their  worship. 
Lewis  observes,  that  the  most  reasonable  exposition  is,  that 
the  worshipper,  with  a  wand  in  his  hand,  would  touch  the 
idol,  and  then  apply  the  stick  to  his  nose  and  mouth,  in 
token  of  worship  and  adoration. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  2.  And,  behold,  six  men  came  from  the  way 
of  the  higher  gate,  which  lieth  towards  the 
north,  and  every  man  a  slaughter-weapon  in 
his  hand  ;  and  one  man  among  them  was  clothed 
with  I^nen,  with  a  writer's  inkhorn  by  his  side  ; 
and  they  Avent  in,  and  stood  beside  the  brazen 
altar. 

See  on  Matt.  10.  9. 

As  they  use  not  wax  in  sealing  up  doors,  but  clay,  so  they 
use  ink,  not  wax,  in  sealing  their  writings  in  the  East.  So 
D'Arvieux  tells  us,  that  "  the  Arabs  of  the  desert,  when 
they  want  a  favour  of  their  emir,  get  his  secretary  to  write 
an  order  agreeable  to  their  desire,  as  if  the  favour  was  grant- 
ed :  this  they  carry  to  the  prince,  who,  after  having  read 
it,  sets  his  seal  to  it  with  ink,  if  he  grants  it ;  if  not,  he 
returns  the  petitioner  his  paper  torn,  and  dismisses  him." 
In  another  place  he  informs  us,  that  "  these  papers  are  with- 
out date,  and  have  only  the  emir's  flourish  or  cipher  at 
the  bottom,  signifying.  The  poor,  the  abject  Mchcmet,  .vu 
of  Thirabeye."  Two  things  appear  in  these  passages.  The 
one,  that  the  Arab  seals  have  no  figure  engraven  on  them, 
but  a  simple  inscription,  formed,  with  some  art,  into  a 
kind  of  cipher  J  the  other,  that  when  they  seal,  they  do 


Chap.  12. 


EZEKIEL. 


sar 


not  make  an  impression  on  wax,  but  stamp  letters  of  ink 
on  the  paper. 

The  modern  inhabitants  of  Egypt.appear  to  make  use  of 
ink  in  their  sealing,  as  well  as  the  Arabs  of  the  desert,  who 
may  be  supposed  not  to  have  such  conveniences  as  those 
that  live  in  such  a  place  as  Egypt :  for  Dr.  Pococke  says, 
that  "  they  make  the  impression  of  their  name  with  their 
seal,  generally  of  carnelian,  which  they  wear  on  their  finger, 
and  which  is  blacked  when  they  have  occasion  to  seal  with 
it."  This  may  serve  to  show  us,  that  there  is  a  closer 
connexion  between  the  vision  of  St.  John,  Rev.  vii.  2,  and 
that  of  Ezekiel,  ch.  ix.  2,  than  commentators  appear  to  have 
apprehended.  They  must  be  joined,  I  imagine,  to  have  a 
complete  view  of  either.  St.  John  saw  an  angel  with  the 
seal  of  the  living  God,  and  therewith  multitudes  were  sealed 
in  their  foreheads ;  but  to  understand  what  sort  of  a  mark 
was  made  there,  you  mu.st  have  recourse  to  the  inkhorn  of 
Ezekiel.     On  the  other  hand,  Ezekiel  saw  a  person  equip- 

ged  with  an  inkhorn,  wjio  was  to  mark  the  servants  of 
rod  on  their  foreheads,  thai,  is,  with  ink,  but  how  the  ink 
was  to  be  applied  is  not  expressed;  nor  was  there  any  need 
that  it  should,  if  in  those  times  ink  was  applied  with  a  seal 
being  in  the  one  case  plainly  supposed  ;  as  in  the  Apoca- 
lypse, the  mention  of  a  seal  made  it  needless  to  take  any 
notice  of  an  inkhorn  by  his  side. 

This  position  of  the  inkhorn  of  Ezekiel's  writer  may  ap- 
pear somewhat  odd  to  a  European  reader,  but  the  custom 
of  placing  it  by  the  side  continues  in  the  East  to  this  day. 
Olearius,  who  takes  notice  of  a  way  that  they  have  of 
thickening  their  ink  with  a  sort  of  paste  they  make,  or  with 
sticks  of  Indian  ink,  which  is  the  best  paste  of  all,  a  cir- 
cumstance favourable  to  their  sealing  with  ink,  observes, 
that  the  Persians  carried  about  with  them,  by  means  of 
their  girdled,  a  dagger,  a  knife,  a  handkerchief,  and  their 
money  ;  and  those  that  follow  the  profession  of  writing  out 
books,  their  inkhorn,  their  penknife,  their  whetstone  to 
sharpen  it,  their  letters,  and  every  thing  the  Moscovites 
were  wont  in  his  time  to  put  in  their  boots,  which  served 
them  instead  of  pockets.  The  Persians,  in  carrying  their 
inkhorns  after  this  manner,  seem  to  have  retained  a  cus- 
tom as  ancient  as  the  days  of  Ezekiel ;  while  the  Musco- 
vites, whose  garb  was  very  much  in  the  eastern  taste  in  the 
days  of  Olearius,  and  who  had  many  oriental  customs  among 
them,  carried  their  inkhorns  and  their  papers  in  a  very 
different  manner.  Whether  some  such  variations  might 
cause  the  Egyptian  translators  of  the  Septuagint  version  to 
render  the  words,  "  a  girdle  of  sapphire,  or  embroidery, 
on  the  loins,"  I  will  not  take  upon  me  to  affirm  ;  but  I  do 
not  imagine  our  Dr.  Castell  would  have  adopted  this  sen- 
timent in  his  Lexicon,  had  he  been  aware  of  this  eastern 
custom  :  for  with  great  propriety  is  the  word  nop  keseth 
mentioned  in  this  chapter  three  times,  if  it  signified  an 
inkhorn,  the  requisite  instrument  for  sealing  those  devout 
mourners  ;  but  no  account  can  be  given  why  this  nrp  should 
be  mentioned  so  often,  if  it  only  signified  an  "  embroidered 
girdle."  As  to  the  other  point  relating  to  the  Arab  seals ; 
their  having  no  figures  upon  them,  only  an  inscription,  it 
is  to  be  thought  that  those  of  the  Jews  were  in  like  manner 
without  any  images,  since  they  were  as  scrupulous  as  the 
Mohammedans  can  be ;  and  from  hence  it  will  appear,  that 
it  was  extremely  natural  for  St.  Paul  to  make  a  seal  and 
an  inscription  equivalent  terms,  in  2  Tim.  ii.  19 ;  "  The 
foundation  of  God  standeth  sure,  having  his  seal,"  this 
inscription,  "the  Lord  knoweth  those  that  are  his;  and  let 
every  one  that  nameth  the  name  of  Christ  depart  from  ini- 
quity."— Harmer. 

Ver.  4.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  him,  Go  through 
the  midst  of  the  city,  through  the  midst  of  Jeru- 
salem, and  set  a  mark  upon  the  foreheads  of  the 
men  that  sigh,  and  that  cry,  for  all  the  abomina- 
tions that  be  done  in  the  midst  thereof. 

Mr.  Maurice,  speaking  of  the  religious  rites  of  the  Hin- 
doos, says,  before  they  can  enter  the  great  pagoda,  an  "  in- 
dispensable ceremony  takes  place,  which  can  only  be  per- 
formed by  the  hand  of  a  bramin ;  and  that  is,  the  impress- 
ing of  their  foreheads  with  the  tiluk,  or  mark  of  difier- 
ent  colours,  as  they  may  belong  either  to  the  sect  of 
Veeshnu,  or  Seeva.  If  the  temple  be  that  of  Veeshnu, 
their  foreheads  are  marked  with  a  longitudinal  line,  and 


the  colour  used  is  vermilion.  If  it  be  the  temple  of  Seeva, 
they  are  marked  with  a  parallel  line,  and  the  colour  used 
is  turmeric,  or  saflVon.  But  these  two  grand  sects  being 
again  subdivided  into  numerous  classes,  both  the  size  and 
the  shape  of  the  tihck  are  varied  in  proportion  to  their  su- 
perior or  inferior  rank.  In  regard  to  the  iiluk,  I  must  ob- 
serve, that  it  was  a  custom  of  very  ancient  date  in  Asia, 
to  mark  their  servants  in  the  forehead.  It  is  alluded  to  in 
these  words  of  Ezekiel,  where  the  Almighty  commands 
his  angels  to  "  go  through  the  midst  of  the  city,  and  set  a 
mark  on  the  foreheads  of  the  men  who  sigh  for  the  abom- 
inations committed  in  the  midst  thereof."  The  same  idea 
occurs  also  in  Rev.  vii.  3. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  Xn. 
Ver.  3.  Therefore,  thou  son  of  man,  prepare  the 
stuff  for  removing,  and  remove  by  day  in  their 
sight;  and  thou  shalt  remove  from  thy  place  to 
another  place  in  their  sight:  it  may  be  they 
will  consider,  though  they  be  a  rebellious  house. 
4.  Then  shalt  thou  bring  forth  thy  stuff  by  day 
in  their  sight,  as  stuff  for  removing :  and  thou 
shalt  go  forth  at  even  in  their  sight,  as  they  that 
go  forth  into  captivity.  5.  Dig  thou  through 
the  wall  in  their  sight,  and  carry  out  thereby : 
6.  In  their  sight  shalt  thou  bear  it  upon  thy 
shoulders,  and  carry  it  forth  in  the  twilight : 
thou  shalt  cover  thy  face,  that  thou  see  not  the 
ground ;  for  I  have  set  thee /or  a  sign  unto  the 
house  of  Israel.  7.  And  I  did  so  as  I  was 
commanded  :  I  brought  forth  my  stuff  by  day, 
as  stuff  for  captivity,  and  in  the  even  I  digged 
through  the  wall  with  my  hand ;  I  brought  it 
forth  in  the  twilight,  and  I  bare  it  upon  my 
shoulder  in  their  sight. 

When  they  travel  to  distant  places,  they  are  wont  to  send 
off  their  baggage  to  some  place  of  rendezvous  some  time 
before  they  set  out.  The  account  that  an  ingenious  com- 
mentator, whose  expositions  are  generally  joined  to  Bishop 
Patrick's,  gives  of  a  paragraph  of  the  prophet  Ezekiel, 
ought  to  be  taken  notice  of  here :  it  is,  in  a  few  words,  this, 
"  that  the  prophet  was  to  get  the  goods  together,  to  pack 
them  up  openly,  and  at  noonday,  that  all  might  see,  and 
take  notice  of  it;  that  he  was  to  get  forth  at  even,  as  men 
do  that  would  go  ofi'by  stealth  :  that  he  was  to  dig  through 
the  wall,  to  show  that  Zedekiah  should  make  his  escape 
by  the  same  means;  that  what  the  prophet  was  commanded 
to  carry  out  in  the  twilight,  must  be  something  difleren 
from  the  goods  he  removed  in  the  daytime,  and  therefore 
must  mean  provision  for  his  present  subsistence  ;  and  that 
he  was  to  cover  his  face,  so  as  not  to  see  the  ground,  as 
Zedekiah  should  do,  that  he  might  not  be  discovered." 

Sir  John  Chardin,  on  the  contrary,  supposes,  there  was 
nothing  unusual,  nothing  very  particular,  in  the  two  first  of 
the  abovementioned  circumstances.  His  manuscript  notes 
on  this  passage  of  Ezekiel  are  to  the  following  purport. 
"  This  is  as  they  do  in  the  caravans :  they  carry  out  their 
baggage  in  the  daytime,  and  the  caravan  loads  in  the  even- 
ing, for  in  the  morning  it  is  too  hot  to  set  out  on  a  journey 
for  that  iay,  and  they  cannot  well  see  in  the  night.  How- 
ever, this  depends  on  the  length  of  their  journeys;  for  when 
they  are  too  short  to  take  up  a  whole  night,  they  load  in 
the  night,  in  order  to  arrive  at  their  journey's  end  early  in 
the  morning,  it  being  a  greater  inconvenience  to  arrive  at 
an  unknown  place  in  the  night,  than  to  set  out  on  a  jour- 
ney then.  As  to  his  digging  through  the  wall,  he  says 
Ezekiel  is  speaking,  without  doubt,  of  the  walls  of  the 
caravansary.  These  walls,  in  the  East,  J(eing  mostly  cf 
earth,  mud,  or  clay,  they  may  easily  be  bored  through." 

I  cannot,  I  own,  entirely  adopt  either  of  these  accounts; 
Ezekiel's  collecting  together  his  goods,  does  not  look  like 
a  person's  flying  in  a  hurry,  and  by  stealth ;  and  consequent- 
ly his  going  forth  in  the  evening,  in  consequence  of  this 
preparation,  cannot  be  construed  as  designed  to  signify  a 
stealing  away.  These  managements  rather  mark  out  the 
distance  of  the  way  the}'-  were  going :  going  into  captivity 


528 


EZEKIEL. 


Chap,  la 


in  a  very  far  couiitry.  The  going  into  captivity  had  not 
privacy  attending  it;  and  accordingly,  the  sending  their 
goods  to  a  common  rendezvous  beforehand,  andselimg  out 
in  an  evening,  are  known  to  be  eastern  usages. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  should  not  imagine  it  was  the  wall 
of  a  caravansary,  or  of  any  place  like  a  caravansary,  but 
the  wall  of  the  place  where  Ezekiel  was,  either  of  his  own 
dwelling,  or  of  the  town  in  which  he  then  resided  :  a  man- 
agement designed  to  mark  oat  the  flight  of  Zedekiah ;  as 
the  two  first  circumstances  were  intended  to  shadow  out 
the  carrying  Israel  openly,  and  avowedly,  into  captivity. 

Ezekiel  was,  I  apprehend,  to  do  two  things:  to  imitate  the 
going  of  the  people  into  captivity,  and  the  harrying  flight 
of  the  king:  two  very  distinct  things.  The  mournful,  but 
composed  collecting  together  all  they  had  for  a  transmi- 
gration, and  leading  them  perhaps  on  asses,  being  as  re- 
mote as  could  be  from  the  hurrying  and  secret  manage- 
ment of  one  making  a  private  breach  in  a  wall,  and  going 
off"  precipitatelv,  with  a  few  of  his  most  valuable  effects  on 
his  shoulder,  which  were,  I  should  think,  what  Ezekiel  was 
to  carry,  when  he  squeezed  through  the  aperture  in  the  wall, 
not  provisions.  Nor  am  I  sure  the  prophet's  covering  his 
face  was  designed  for  concealment :  it  might  be  to  express 
Zedekiah's  distress.  David,  it  is  certain,  had  his  head 
covered  when  he  fled  from  Absalom,  at  a  time  when  he 
intended  no  concealment ;  and  when  Zedekiah  fled,  it  was 
in  the  night,  and  consequently  such  a  concealment  not 
wanted ;  not  to  say,  it  would  "have  been  embarrassing  to 
him  in  his  flight,  not  to  be  able  to  see  the  ground.  The 
prophet  mentions  the  digging  through  the  wall,  after  men- 
tioning his  preparation  for  removing  as  into  captivity  ;  but 
it  is  necessary  for  us  to  suppose  these  emblematical  actions 
of  the  prophet  are  ranged  just  as  he  performed  them.— 
Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  4.  O  Israel,  thy  prophets  are  like  the  foxes 
in  the  deserts. 

When  game  fails  him,  or  when  the  sword  has  ceased  to 
supply  his  wants,  the  fox  devours  with  equal  greediness, 
honey,  fruits,  and  particularly  grapes.  In  allusion  to  his 
eager  desire  for  the  fruit  of  the  vine,  it  is  said  in  the  Song 
of  Solomon, "  Take  us  the  foxes,  the  little  foxes,  that  spoil  the 
vines,  for  our  vines  have  tender  grapes."  In  scripture,  the 
church  is  often  compared  to  a  vineyard  ;  her  members  to  the 
vines  with  which  it  is  stored ;  and  by  consequence,  the 
grapes  may  signify  all  the  fruits  of  righteousness,  which  those 
mystical  vines  produce.  The  foxes  that  spoil  these  vines, 
must  therefore  mean  false  teachers,  who  corrupt  the  purity 
of  the  doctrine,  obscure  the  simplicity  of  worship,  overturn 
the  beauty  of  appointed  order,  break  the  unity  of  believers, 
and  extinguish  the  life  and  vigour  of  Christian  practice. 
These  words  of  Ezekiel  may  be  understood  in  the  same 
sense :  "  O  Jerusalem !  thy  prophets,  (or  as  the  context 
clearly  proves,")  thy  flattering  teachers,  are  as  foxes  in  the 
deserts;"  and  this  name  they  receive,  because,  with  vulpine 
subtlety,  they  speak  lies  in  hypocrisy.  Such  teachers  the 
apostle  calls  "  wolves  in  sheep's  clothins:,"  deceitful  work- 
ers, who,  by  their  cunning,  subvert  whole  houses;  and 
whose  word,  like  the  tooth  of  a  fox  upon  the  vine,  eats  as 
a  canker. — Paxton. 

In  this  passage.  Dr.  Boothroyd,  instead  of  foxes,  trans- 
lates "jackals,"  and  I  think  it"  by  far  the  best  rendering. 
These  animals  are  exceedingly  numerous  in  the  East,  and 
are  remarkably  cunning  and  vo;?acious.  I  suppose  the 
reason  why  they  are  called  the  lion's  provider  is,  because 
they  yell  so  miich  when  they  have  scent  of  prey,  that  the 
noble  beast  hearing  the  sound,  goes  to  the  spot  and  satisfies 
his  hunger.  They  often  hunt  in  packs,  and  I  have  had 
from  twenty  to  thirty  following  me  (taking  care  to  conceal 
themselves  in  the  low  jungle)  for  an  hour  together.  Th«y 
will  not,  in  general,  dare  to  attack  man  :  but,  let  him  be 
helpless  or  dea^  and  they  have  no  hesitation.  Thus  our 
graveyards  aiv often  disturbed  by  these  animals;  and, 
after  they  have  once  tasted  of  human  flesh,  they  (as  well  as 
many  other  creatures)  are  said  to  prefer  it  to  any  other. 
Their  conning  is  proverbial :  thus,  a  man  of  plots  and 
schemes  is  called  a  nareyan,  i.  e.  a  jackal.  "  Ah  !  only 
give  that  fellow  a  tai.,  and  he  will  make  a  capital  jackal." 
"  Begone,  low  caste,  or  I  will  give  thee  to  jackals."— 
Roberts. 


Ver.  11.  Say  unto  them  which  daub  it  with  un- 
tempered  mortar,  that  it  shall  fall :  there  shall 
be  an  overflowing  shower ;  and  ye,  O  great 
hailstones,  shall  fall ;  and  a  stormy  wind  shall 
rend  it. 

In  countries  destitute  of  coal,  bricks  are  only  either  sun- 
dried  or  very  slightly  burnt  with  bushes  and  branches  of 
trees,  laid  over  them  and  set  on  fire.  Such  are  ready  to 
moulder  if  exposed  to  moisture,  and  entirely  to  melt  away 
if  exposed  to  heavy  rain  dashing  against  them.  To  prevent 
such  a  catastrophe,  all  the  houses  in  the  Cape  colony  are 
daubed  or  plastered  over  with  fine  mortar,  made  from  ground 
seashells.  Should  only  a  small  hole  remain  unnoticed  in 
the  plaster,  powerful  rain  will  get  into  it,  and  probably 
soon  be  the  destruction  of  the  whole  building.  Well  do  I 
remember  one  deluge  of  rain  that  turned  a  new  house  of 
three  floors  absolutely  into  a  mass  of  rubbish,  and  brought 
down  the  gable  of  a  parish  church,  besides  injuring  many 
other  buildings.— Campbell. 

Ver.  18.  And  say,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  Wo 
to  the  women  that  sew  pillows  to  all  arm-holes, 
and  make  kerchiefs  upon  the  head  of  every 
stature,  to  hunt  souls  !  Will  ye  hunt  the  souls 
of  my  people,  and  will  ye  save  the  souls  alive 
that  come  unto  you  ? 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  "  arm-holes,"  "  elbows." 
The  marginal  reading  is  undoubtedly  the  best.  Rich  peo- 
ple have  a  great  variety  of  pillows  and  botelers  to  sup- 
port themselves  in  various  positions  when  they  wish  to 
take  their  ease.  Some  are  long  and  round,  and  are  stuflTed 
till  thev  are  quite  hard ;  whilst  others  are  short  and  soft,  to 
suit  the  convenience.  The  verse  refers  to  females  of  a 
loose  character,  and  Parkhurst  is  right  when  he  says, 
"  These  false  prophetesses  decoyed  men  into  their  gardens, 
where  probably  some  impure  "rites  of  worship  were  per- 
formed." The  pillows  were  used  for  the  vilest  purposes, 
and  the  kerchiefs  were  used  as  an  aff"ectation  of  shame. — 
Roberts. 

In  Barbary  and  the  Levant  they  "  always  cover  the 
floors  of  their  houses  with  carpets ;  and  along  the  sides  of 
the  wall  or  floor,  a  range  of  narrow  beds  or  mattresses  is 
often  placed  upon  these  carpets;  and,  for  their  further 
ease  and  convenience,  several  velvet  or  damusk  bolsters 
are  placed  upon  these  carpets  or  mattresses— indulgences 
that  seem  to  be  alluded  to  by  the  stretching  of  themselves 
upon  couches,  and  by  the  sewing  of  pillows  to  arm-holes." 
(Shaw.)  But  Lady  M.  W.  Montague's  description  of  a 
Turkish  ladv's  apartment  throws  still  more  light  on  this 
passage.  She  =ays,  "  The  rooms  are  all  spread  with  Per- 
sian carpets,  and  raised  at  one  end  of  them,  about  two  feet. 
This  is  the  sofa,  which  is  laid  with  a  richer  sort  of  car- 
pet, and  all  round  it,  a  sort  of  couch,  raised  half  a  foot, 
covered  with  rich  silk,  according  to  the  fancy  or  magnifi- 
cence of  the  owner.  Round  about  this  are  placed,  standing 
against  the  walls,  two  rows  of  cushions,  the  first  very  large, 
and  the  rest  little  ones.  The  seats  are  so  convenient  and 
easy,  that  I  believe  I  shall  never  endure  chairs  again  as  long 
as  I  live."  And  in  another  place  she  thus  describes  the  fair 
Fatima :  "  On  a  sofa  raised  three  steps,  and  covered  with 
fine  Persian  carpets,  sat  the  kahya's  lady,  leaning  on  cush- 
ions of  white  satin  embroidered.  She  ordered  cushions  to 
be  given  me,  and  took  care  to  place  me  in  the  corner,  which 
is  the  place  of  honour." — Burder. 

Ver.  19.  And  will  ye  pollute  me  among  my  peo- 
ple for  handfuls  of  barley,  and  for  pieces  of 
bread,  to  slay  the  souls  that  should  not  die,  and 
to  save  the  souls  alive  that  should  not  live,  by 
your  lying  to  my  people  that  hear  your  lies? 

See  on  Jer.  37.  21. 

At  Algiers  thev  have  public  bakehouses  for  the  people 
in  common,  so  that  the  women  only  prepare  the  dough  at 
home,  it  being  the  business  of  other  persons  to  bake  il. 
Bovs  are  sent  about  the  streets  to  give  notice  when  they  are 
ready  to  bake  bread  ;   "  upon  this  the  M'omen  within  come 


Chap   15—19. 


EZEKIEL. 


529 


and  knock  at  the  inside  of  the  door,  which  the  boy  hearing 
makes  towards  the  house.  The  women  open  the  door  a 
very  little  way,  and  hiding  their  faces,  deliver  the  cakes  to 
him,  which,  when  baked,  he  brings  to  the  door  again,  and 
the  women  receive  them  in  the  same  manner  as  lliey  gave 
*hem."  This  is  done  almost  every  day,  and  they  give  the 
boy  apiece,  or  Utile  cake,  for  the  baking,  which  the  baker 
sells.  (Pitts.)  This  illustrates  the  account  of  the  false 
prophetesses  receiving  as  gratuities  pieces  of  bread :  they 
are  compensations  still  used  in  the  East,  but  are  compen- 
sations of  the  meanest  kind,  and  for  services  of  the  lowest 
sert. — Harmbr. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Ver.  3.  Shall  wood  be  taken  thereof  to  do  any 
work  ?  or  will  men  take  a  pin  of  it  to  hang  any 
Vessel  thereon 
See  on  Isa.  22.  23. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  4.  And  as  for  thy  nativity,  in  the  day  thou 
wast  born,  thy  navel  was  not  cut,  neither  wast 
thou  washed  in  water  to  supple  thee  :  thou  wast 
not  salted  at  all,  nor  swaddled  at  all. 

It  was  an  ancient  custom  to  salt  the  bodies  of  new-born 
infants.  It  is  probable  that  they  only  sprinkled  them  with 
salt,  or  washed  them  with  salt-water,  which  they  imagined 
would  dry  up  all  superfluous  humours.  Galen  says, 
"  Sale  modico  insperso,  cutis  infantis  densior,  solidiorque 
redditur;"  that  is,  a  little  salt  being  sprinkled  upon  the 
infant,  its  skin  is  rendered  more  dense  and  solid.  It  is  said 
that  the  inhabitants  of  Tartary  still  continue  the  practice 
of  salting  their  children  as  soon  as  they  are  born. — Bitrder. 

Ver.  10.  I  clothed  thee  also  with  broidered  work, 
{         and  shod  thee  with  badgers'  skin,  and  girded 
!         thee  about  with  fine  linen,  and  I  covered  thee 
with  silk. 

See  on  Ex.  25. 5. 

•  Ver.  18.  And  tookest  thy  broidered  garments, 
and  coveredst  them :  and  thou  hast  set  mine  oil 
and  mine  incense  before  them.  19.  My  meat 
also  which  I  gave  thee,  fine  flour,  and  oil,  and 
honey,  wherewith  I  fed  thee,  thou  hast  even  set 
it  before  them  for  a  sweet  savour :  and  thus  it 
was,  saith  the  Lord  God. 

The  burning  of  perfumes  is  now  practised  in  the  East  in 
times  of  feasting  and  joy ;  and  there  is  reason  to  believe 
that  the  same  usage  obtained  anciently  in  those  countries. 
Niebuhr  mentions  a  Mohammedan  festival,  "  after  which 
every  one  returned  home,  feasted,  chexved  kaad,  burnt  fra- 
grant substances  in  his  house,  stretched  himself  at  length  on 
his  sofa,  and  lighted  his  kiddre,  or  long  pipe,  with  the 
greatest  satisfaction."— Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Ver.  3.  And  say,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  A 
great  eagle  with  great  wings,  long- winged,  full 
of  feathers,  which  had  divers  colours,  came  unto 
Lebanon,  and  took  the  highest  branch  of  the 
cedar. 

The  eagle  is  the  strongest,  the  fiercest,  and  the  most  ra- 
pacious of  the  feathered  race.  He  dwells  alone  in  the 
desert,  and  on  the  summits  of  the  highest  mountains ;  and 
suffers  no  bird  to  come  with  impunity  within  the  range  of 
his  flight.  His  eye  is  dark  and  piercing,  his  beak  and 
talons  are  hooked  and  formidable,  and  his  cry  is  the 
terror  of  every  wing.  His  figure  answers  to  his  nature  ; 
■ndependently  of  his  arms,  he  has  a  robust  and  compact 
body,  and  very  powerful  limbs  and  wings ;  his  bones  are 
hard,  his  flesh  is  firm,  his  feathers  are  coarse,  his  attitude 
67 


is  fierce  and  erect,  his  motions  are  lively,  and  his  flight  is 
extremely  rapid.  Such  is  the  golden  eagle,  as  described 
by  the  most  accurate  observers  of  nature.  To  this  noble 
bird  the  prophet  Ezekiel  evidently  refers,  in  his  parable  to 
the  house  of  Israel :  "  A  great  eagle,  with  great  wings, 
long-winged,  full  ot  feathers,  which  had  divers  colours, 
came  unto  Lebanon,  and  took  the  highest  branch  of  the 
cedar."  In  this  parable,  a  strict  regard  to  physical  truth 
is  discovered,  in  another  respect,  for  the  eagle  is  known  to 
have  a  predilection  for  cedars,  which  are  the  loftiest  trees 
in  the  forest,  and  therefore  more  suited  to  his  daring  temper 
than  any  other.  La  Roque  found  a  number  of  large  eagle's 
feathers  scattered  on  the  ground  beneath  the  lofty  cedars 
which  still  crown  the  sumnfits  of  Lebanon,  on  the  highest 
branches  of  which,  that  fierce  destroyer  occasionally  perch- 
es.— Paxton. 

Ver.  7.  There  was  also  another  great  eagle  with 
great  wings  and  many  feathers ;  and,  behold, 
this  vine  did  bend  her  roots  towards  him,  and 
shot  forth  her  branches  towards  him,  that  he 
might  water  it  by  the  furrows  of  her  plantation. 

The  reason  of  the  figure  must  be  obvious  to  every  reader : 
the  erect  and  majestic  mien  of  the  eagle,  point  him  out  as 
the  intended  sovereign  of  the  feathered  race ;  he  is,  there- 
fore, the  fit  emblem  of  superior  excellence,  and  of  regal 
majesty  and  power.  Xenophon,  and  other  ancient  histo- 
rians, inform  us,  that  the  golden  eagle  with  extended  wings, 
was  the  ensign  of  the  Persian  monarchs,  long  before  it  was 
adopted  by  the  Romans ;  and  it  is  very  probable  that  the 
Persians  borrowed  the  symbol  from  the  ancient  Assyrians, 
in  whose  banners  it  waved,  till  imperial  Babylon  "bowed 
her  head  to  the  yoke  of  Cyrus.  li  this  conjecture  be  well 
founded,  it  discovers  the  reason  whv  the  sacred  writers,  in 
describing  the  victorious  march  of  the  Assyrian  armies, 
allude  so  frequently  to  the  expanded  eagle.  Referring 
still  to  the  Babylonian  monarch,  the  prophet  Hosea  pro- 
claimed in  the  ears  of  Israel,  the  measure  of  whose  iniqui- 
ties was  nearly  full :  "  He  shall  come  as  an  eagle  against 
the  house  of  the  Lord."  Jeremiah  predicted  a  similar  ca- 
lamity to  the  posterity  of  Lot :  "For  thus  saith  the  Lord, 
Behold,  he  shall  fly  as  an  eagle,  and  shall  spread  his 
wings  over  Moab :"  and  the  same  figure  is  employed  to 
denote  the  sudden  destruction  which  overtook  the  house 
of  Esau  :  "  Behold,  he  shall  come  up  and  fly  as  the  eagle, 
and  spread  his  wings  over  Bozrah."  The  words  of  these 
inspired  prophets  were  not  suffered  to  fall  to  the  ground ; 
they  received  a  full  accomplishment  in  the  irresistible  im- 
petuosity and  complete  success  with  which  the  Babylonian 
monarchs,  and  particularly  Nebuchadnezzar,  pursued  their 
plans  of  conquest.  Ezekiel  denominates  him  with  striking 
propriety,  "a  great  eagle  with  great  wings;"  because  he 
was  the  most  powerful  monarch  of  his  time,  and  led  into  the 
field  more  numerous  and  better  appointed  armies,  (which 
the  prophet  calls  by  a  beautiful  figure,  his  wings,)  than 
perhaps  the  world  had  ever  seen. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Ver.  8.  Then  the  nations  set  against  him  on  every 
side  from  the  provinces,  and  spread  their  net 
over  him :  he  was  taken  in  their  pit. 

The  manner  in  which  this  is  done,  Xenophon  describes 
at  considerable  length  ;  They  dig  a  large  circular  pit,  and 
at  night  introduce  into  it  a  goat,  which  they  bind  to  a  stake 
or  pillar  of  earth  at  the  bottom,  and  then  enclose  the  pit 
with  a  hedge  of  branches,  that  it  cannot  be  seen,  leaving 
no  entrance.  The  savage  beast  hearing  in  the  night  the 
voice  of  the  goat,  prowls  round  the  hedge,  and  finding  no 
opening,  leaps  over,  and  is  taken.  When  the  hunter  pro- 
poses to  catch  him  in  the  toils,  he  stretches  a  series  of  nets 
in  a  semicircular  form,  by  means  of  long  poles  fixed  in  the 
ground ;  three  men  are  placed  in  ambush,  among  the  nets; 
one  in  the  middle,  and  one  at  each  extremity.  The  toils 
being  disposed  in  this  manner,  some  wave  flaming  torches ; 
others  make  a  noise  by  beating  their  shields,  knowing  that 
lions  are  not  less  terrified  by  loud  sounds  than  by  fire.  The 
men  on  foot  and  horseback,  skilfully  combining,  their  move- 
ments and  raising  a  mighty  bustle  and  clamour,  rush  in 


$30 


EZEKIEL. 


Chap.  19—23. 


upon,  them,  and  impel  them  towards  the  nets,  till,  intimidated 
by  the  shouts  of  the  hunters  and  the  glare  of  the  torches, 
they  approach  the  snares  of  their  own  accord,  and  are  en- 
tangled in  the  folds. — Paxton, 

V^er.  11.  And  she  had  strong  rods  for  the  sceptres 
of  them  that  bare  rule,  and  her  stature  was  ex- 
alted among  the  thick  branches,  and  she  ap- 
peared in  her  height  with  the  multitude  of  her 
branches. 

The  allusion  here  is  evidently  to  the  sceptres  of  the  an- 
cients, which  were  no  other  tHkn  walking-sticks,  cut  from 
the  stems  or  branches  of  trees,  and  decorated  with  gold,  or 
Ktudded  with  golden  nails.  Thus  Achilles  is  introduced 
as  swearing  by  a  sceptre,  which  being  cut  from  the  trunk 
of  a  tree  on  the  mountains,  and  stripped  of  its  bark  and 
leaves,  should  never  more  produce  leaves  and  branches,  or 
sprout  again.  Such  a  one  the  Grecian  judges  carried  in 
neir  hands.    See  Homer,  II.  i.  234, — Border. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

Ver.  14.  Thou,  therefore,  son  of  man,  prophesy, 
and  smite  thy  hands  together,  and  let  the  sword 
be  doubled  the  third  time,  the  sword  of  the  slain : 
it  is  the  sword  of  the  great  men  that  are  slain, 
which  entereth  into  their  privy  chambers. 

"  Smite  thy  hands  together."  To  smite  the  hands 
together,  in  the  East,  amounts  to  an  oath  !  In  the  17th 
verse,  the  Lord  says,  in  reference  to  Jerusalem,  "  I  will 
also  smite  my  hands  together,  and  I  will  cause  my  fury  to 
rest :  I  the  Lord  have  said."  By  the  solemn  smiting  of 
hands  it  was  shown  the  word  had  gone  forth,  and  would 
not  be  recalled.  When  a  priest  delivers  a  message  to  the 
people,  when  he  relates  any  thing  which  he  professes  to 
have  received  from  the  gods,  he  smites  his  hands  together, 
and  says,  "  true." 

Does  a  Pandarum,  or  other  kind  of  religious  mendicant, 
consider  himself  to  be  insulted,  he  smites  his  hands  against 
the  individuals,  and  pronounces  his  imprecations  upon  them, 
crying  aloud,  "  True,  true,  it  will  all  come  upon  you." 
Should  a  person,  when  speaking  of  any  thing  which  is  cer- 
tain to  happen,  be  doubted  by  others,  he  will  immediately 
smite  his  hands.  "  Have  you  heard  that  Muttoo  has  been 
killed  by  a  tiger  1" — "  No  !  nor  do  I  believe  it."  The  re- 
later  will  then  (if  true)  smite  together  his  hands,  which  at 
once  confirms  the  fact.  "  Those  men  cannot  escape  for 
any  great  length  of  time,  because  the  king  has  smitten 
his  hands ;"  meaning,  he  has  sworn  to  have  them  taken. 
Jehovah  did  smite  His  hands  together  against  Jerusalem. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  21.  For  the  king  of  Babylon  stood  at  the 
parting  of  the  way,  at  the  head  of  the  two 
ways,  to  use  divination :  he  made  his  arrows 
bright,  he  consulted  with  images,  he  looked  in 
the  liver. 

Heb.  "  mother  of  the  way."  It  is  a  common  thing  among 
the  people  of  the  East  to  denominate  a  man  ihe  father  of  a 
thing  for  which  he  is  remarkable.  It  appears  also  that 
both  people  and  places  may  in  like  manner  be  called  the 
mother  of  such  things  for  which  they  are  particularly  no- 
ticed. Thus  Niebuhr  tells  us,  that  the  Arabs  call  a  wo- 
man that  sells  butter  omm  es  siibbet,  the  mother  of  butter. 
He  also  says,  that  there  is  a  place  between  Basra  and  Zo- 
bier,  where  an  ass  happened  to  fall  down,  and  throw  the 
wheat  with  which  the  creature  was  loaded  into  some  wa- 
ter, on  which  account  that  place  is  called  to  this  day,  the 
mother  of  wheat. 

In  like  manner,  in  the  Bibliotheque  Orientale  of  D'Her- 
belot,  omm  alkelab,  or  the  mother  of  books,  signifies  the 
book  of  the  divine  decrees ;  and  at  other  times  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Koran.  The  mother  of  the  throat  is  the  name 
of  an  imaginary  being  (a  fairy)  who  is  supposed  to  bring 
on  and  cure  that  disorder  in  the  throat,  which  we  call  the 
quinsy.  In  the  same  collection  we  are  told,  that  the  acacia, 
or  Egyptian  thorn  is  called  by  the  Arabians  the  mother  of 


satyrs,  because  these  imaginary  inhabitants  of  the  forests 
and  deserts  were  supposed  to  naunt  under  them.  After 
this  we  shall  not  at  all  wonder  when  we  read  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar's standing  in  the  mother  of  the  way,  a  remarkable 
place  in  the  road,  where  he  was  to  determine  whether  he 
would  go  to  Jerusalem,  or  to  some  other  place,  one  branch 
of  the  road  pointing  to  Jerusalem,  the  other  leading  to  a 
different  town. 

"  He  made  his  arrows  bright."  This  was  for  the  pur- 
pose of  divination.  Jerome  on  this  passage  says,  that  "  the 
manner  of  divining  by  arrows  was  thus :  They  wrote  on 
sev^eral  arrows  the  names  of  the  cities  they  intended  to 
make  war  against,  and  then  putting  them  prbmiscuously  all 
together  into  a  quiver,  they  caused  them  to  be  drawn  out 
in  the  manner  of  lots,  and  that  city  whose  name  was  on 
the  arrow  first  drawn  out,  was  the  first  they  a^aulted."  A 
njethod  of  this  sort  of  divination,  diiFerent  from  the  former, 
is  worth  noticing.  Delia  Valle  says,  "  I  saw  at  Aleppo  a 
Mohammedan,  who  caused  two  persons  to  sit  upon  the 
ground,  one  opposite  to  the  other,  and  gave  them  four  ar- 
rows into  their  hands,  which  both  of  them  held  with  their 
points  downward,  and  as  it  were  in  two  right  lines  united 
one  to  the  other.  Then,  a  question  being  put  to  him  about 
any  business,  he  fell  to  murmur  his  enchantments,  and 
thereby  caused  the  said  four  arrows  of  their  own  accord  to 
unite  their  points  together  in  the  midst,  (though  he  that 
held  them  stirred  not  his  hand,)  and,  according  to  the  future 
event  of  the  matter,  those  of  the  right  side  were  placed  over 
those  of  the  left,  or  on  the  contrary."  This  practice  the 
writer  refers  to  diabolical  influence. 

The  method  of  divination  practised  by  some  of  the  idola- 
trous Arabs,  but  which  is  prohibited  by  the  Koran,  is  too 
singular  to  be  unnoticed.  "  The  arrows  used  by  them  for 
this  purpose  were  like  those  with  which  they  cast  lots,  be- 
ing without  heads  or  feathers,  and  were  kept  in  the  temple 
of  some  idol,  in  whose  presence  they  were  consulted. 
Seven  such  arrows  were  kept  at  the  temple  of  Mecca :  but 
generally  in  divination  they  make  use  of  three  only,  on  one 
of  which  was  written,  my  Lord  hath  commanded  me ;  on 
another,  my  Lord  hath  forbidden  me ;  and  the  third  was 
blank.  If  the  first  was  drawn,  they  looked  on  -it  as  an  ap- 
probation of  the  enterprise  in  question  ;  if  the  second,  they 
made  a  contrary  conclusion ;  but  if  the  third  happened  to 
be  drawn,  they  mixed  them,  and  drew  over  again,  till  a 
decisive  answer  was  given  by  one  of  the  others.  These 
divining  arrows  were  generally  consulted  before  any 
thing  of  moment  was  undertaken,  as  when  a  man  was 
about  to  marry,  or  about  to  go  a  journey,  or  the  like. ' — 

BURDBR. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
Ver.  12.  In  thee  have  they  taken  gifts  to  shec 
blood ;  thou  hast  taken  usury  and  increase,  and 
tbou  hast  greedily  gained  of  thy  neighbours  by 
extortion,  and  hast  forgotten  me,  saith  the  Lord 
God. 

There  is  surely  no  part  of  the  world  worse  than  the  East 
for  usury  and  extortion.  A  rich  man  will  think  nothing  of 
demanding  twenty  per  cent,  for  his  precious  loan.  Does  a 
person  wish  to  buy  or  sell  an  article ;  does  he  want  to  avoid 
any  office  or  duty,  or  to  gain  a  situation,  or  place  any  per- 
son under  an  obligation;  he  cannot  think  of  doing  the  one 
or  the  other,  without  giving  himself  into  the  hands  of  the 
extortioner. — Roberts. 

Ver.  30.  And  I  sought  for  a  man  among  them 
that  should  make  up  the  hedge,  and  stand  in  thf 
gap  before  me  for  the  land,  that  I  should  not 
destroy  it ;  but  I  found  none. 

A  man  having  lost  all  his  children,  and  in  complaining 
of  his  forlorn  condition,  says,  "  Alas  !  I  have  not  any  one 
to  stand  in  the  gate  ;  my  enemies  can  now  enter  when  they 
please  to  tear  and  devour  me."  "  In  the  gate,  in  the  gate, 
no  one  stands." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Ver.  5.  And  Aholah  played  the  harlot  when  she 
was  mine ;  and  she  doted  on  her  lovers,  on  the 


Chap.  23—25. 


EZEKIEL. 


63t 


Assyrians  her  neighbours,  6.  Which  were 
clothed  with  blue,  captains  and  rulers,  all  of 
them  desirable  young  men,  horsemen  riding 
upon  horses. 

Blue  was  a  sky  colour  in  great  esteem  among  the  Jews, 
and  other  oriental  nations.  The  robe  of  the  ephod,  in  the 
gorgeous  dress  of  the  high  priest,  was  made  all  of  blue ;  it 
was  a  prominent  colour  in  the  sumptuous  hangings  of  the 
tabernacle ;  and  the  whole  people  of  Israel  were  required 
to  put  a  fringe  of  blue  upon  the  border  of  their  garments, 
and  on  the  frinf^e  a  riband  of  the  same  colour.  The  pal- 
ace of  Ahasuerus,  the  king  of  Persia,  was  furnished  with 
curtains  of  this  colour,  on  a  pavement  of  red,  and  blue,  and 
white  marble;  a  proof  it  was  not  less  esteemed  in  Persia, 
than  on  the  Jordan.  And  from  Ezekiel  we  learn,  that  the 
Assyrian  nobles  were  habited  in  robes  of  this  colour  :  "  She 
doled  on  the  Assyrians  her  neighbours,  which  were  cloth- 
ed with  blue,  captains  and  rulers,  all  of  them  desirable 
young  men."  It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  vicissitudes  in 
the  customs  of  the  East,  that  this  beautiful  colour,  for  many 
ages  associated  in  their  minds  with  every  thing  splendid, 
elegant,  and  rich,  should  have  gradually  sunk  in  public 
estimation,  till  it  became  connected  with  the  ideas  of  mean- 
ness and  vulgarity,  and  confined  to  the  dress  of  the  poor 
and  the  needy.  In  modern  times,  the  whole  dress  of  an 
Arabian  female  of  low  station,  consists  of  drawers,  and  a 
very  large  shift,  both  of  blue  linen,  ornamented  with  some 
needle-work  of  a  different  colour.  And  if  credit  may  be  given 
to  Thevenot,  the  Arabs  between  Egypt  and  Mount  Sinai,  who 
lead  a  most  wretched  life,  are  clothed  in  a  long  blue  shirt. 
To  solve  this  difficulty,  Mr.  Harmer  supposes  that  "  the 
art  of  dying  blue,  was  discovered  in  countries  more  to  the 
east  or  south  than  Tyre ;  and  that  the  die  was  by  no  means 
become  common  in  the  days  of  Ezekiel,  though  some  that 
were  employed  in  the  construction  of  the  tabernacle,  and 
some  of  the  Tyrians  in  the  time  of  Solomon,  seem  to  have 
possessed  the  art  of  dying  with  blue.  These  blue  cloths 
were  manufactured  in  remote  countries ;  and  to  them  that 
wore  scarcely  any  thing  but  woollens  and  linens  of  the  nat- 
ural colour,  these  blue  calicoes  formed  very  magnificent 
vestments.  It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  the  Jews  ever 
wore  garments  wholly  of  this  colour ;  and  perhaps  they 
abstained  from  it  as  sacred  and  mysterious,  than  which 
none  was  more  used  about  the  tabernacle  and  the  temple, 
in  the  curtains,  veils,  and  vestments,  belonging  to  these  sa- 
cred edifices." — Paxton. 

Ver.  1 4.  And  that  she  increased  her  whoredoms : 
for  when  she  saw  men  portrayed  upon  the  wall, 
the  images  of  the  Chaldeans  portrayed  with 
vermilion. 

The  nature  of  those  images,  and  the  practices,  may  be 
seen  from  the  context,  and  the  portraying  was  of  the  colour 
of  VERMILION.  In  the  Hindoo  temples  and  vestibules, 
figures  of  the  most  revolting  descriptions  are  portrayed  on 
the  walls :  there  the  sexes  are  painted  in  such  a  wayas  few 
men  of  discretion  would  dare  to  describe.  In  some  temples 
there  are  stone  figures  in  such  positions  as  hell  itself  could 
only  have  suggested :  and,  recollect,  these  are  the  places 
where  men,  women,  and  children,  assemble  for  woRsmp. — 
Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
Ver.  3.  And  utter  a  parable  unto  the  rebellious 
house,  and  say  unto  them,  Thus  saith  the  Lord 
God,  Set  on  a  pot,  set  it  on,  and  also  pour  wa- 
ter into  it :  4.  Gather  the  pieces  thereof  into 
it,  even  every  good  piece,  the  thigh,  and  the 
shoulder  ;  fill  it  with  the  choice  bones.  5.  Take 
the  choice  of  the  flock,  and  burn  also  the  bones 
under  it,  and  make  it  boil  well,  and  let  him 
seethe  the  bones  of  it  therein. 

The  following  account  of  a  royal  Arab  camel  feast,  will 
afford  some  illustration  of  the  parable  contained  in  this 
chapter:  "Before  midday  a  carpet  being  spread  in  the 
middle  of  the  tent  our  dinner  was  brought  in,  being  served 


tip  in  large  wooden  bowls  between  two  men  ;  and  truly  to 
my  apprehension  load  enough  for  them.  Of  these  great 
platters  there  were  about  fifty  or  sixty  in  number,  perhaps 
more,  with  a  great  many  little  ones;  I  mean,  such  as  one 
man  was  able  to  bring  in,  strewed  here  and  there  among 
them,  and  placed  for  a  border  or  garnish  round  about  the 
table.  In  the  middle  was  one  of  a  larger  size  than  all  the 
rest,  in  which  were  the  camel's  bones,  and  a  thin  broth  in 
which  they  were  boiled.  The  other  greater  ones  seemed 
all  filled  with  one  and  the  same  sort  of  provision,  a  kind  of 
plumbbroth,  made  of  rice  and  the  fleshy  part  of  the  camel, 
with  currants  and  spices,  being  of  a  somewhat  darker  col- 
our than  what  is  made  in  our  country."  (Philosophical 
Transactions  Abridged.)  The  Hebrew  word  translated 
burn,  should  have  been  rendered,  as  in  the  margin,  heap. 
The  meaning  cannot  be  that  the  bones  were  to  be  burnt 
under  the  caldron,  but  that  they  were  to  be  heaped  up  in  it  •, 
for  it  is  said,  "  let  them  seethe  the  bones  of  it  therein." 
With  this  interpretation  the  Septuagint  translation  of  the 
passage  agrees  :  and  viewed  in  this  light,  the  object  is  as- 
certained by  the  foregoing  extract. — Burder. 

Ver.  17.  Forbear  to  cry,  make  no  mourning  for 
the  dead,  bind  the  tire  of  thy  head  upon  thee, 
and  put  on  thy  shoes  upon  thy  feet,  and  cover 
not  thy  lips,  and  eat  not  the  bread  of  men. 

The  time  of  mourning  for  the  dead  was  longer  or  short- 
er, according  to  the  dignity  of  the  person.  Among  the 
modern  Jews,  the  usual  time  is  seven  days,  during  which 
they  shut  themselves  up  in  their  houses ;  or  if  some  extra- 
ordinary occasion  forces  them  to  appear  in  public,  it  is  with- 
out shoes,  as  a  token  they  have  lost  a  dear  friend.  This  ex- 
plains the  reason  that  when  Ezekiel  was  commanded  to 
abstain  from  the  rites  of  mourning,  he  was  directed  to  put 
his  shoes  on  his  feet. 

To  cover  the  lips  was  a  very  ancient  sign  of  mourning ; 
and  it  continues  to  be  practised  among  the  Jews  of  Barba- 
ry  to  this  day.  When  they  return  from  the  grave  to  the 
house  of  the  deceased,  the  chief  mourner  receives  them 
with  his  jaws  tied  up  with  a  linen  cloth,  in  imitation  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  face  of  the  dead  is  covered ;  and  by 
this  the  mourner  is  said  to  testify  that  he  was  ready  to  die 
for  his  friend.  Muffled  in  this  way,  the  mourner  goes  for 
seven  days,  during  which  the  rest  of  his  friends  come  twice 
every  twenty-four  hours  to  pray  with  him.  This  allusion 
is  perhaps  involved  in  the  charge  which  Ezekiel  received 
when  his  wife  died,  to  abstain  from  the  customary  forms  of 
mourning :  "  Forbear  to  cry,  make  no  mourning  for  the 
dead ;  bind  the  tire  of  thy  head  upon  thee,  and  put  on  thy 
shoes  upon  thy  feet,  and  cover  not  thy  lips,  and  eat  not  the 
bread  of  men."  The  law  of  Moses  required  a  leper  to  have 
his  clothes  rent,  his  head  bare,  and  a  covering  upon  his  up- 
per lip,  because  he  was  considered  as  a  dead  man,  "  of  whom 
the  flesh  is  half  consumed  when  he  cometh  out  of  his 
mother's  womb." — Paxton. 

This  refers  to  mourning  for  the  dead,  and  the  prophet 
was  forbidden  to  use  any  symbol  of  sorrow  on  the  deatn  of 
his  wife.  At  a  funeral  ceremony  the  tires  and  turbans  are 
taken  off,  and  the  sandals  are  laid  aside.  Thus  nobles, 
who  wear  the  most  costly  turbans,  are  seen  walking  with 
their  heads  uncovered,  and  those  who  had  on  beautiful  san- 
dals are  barefoot.  But  the  prophet  was  to  put  on  his  tire 
and  sandals,  to  indicate  he  was  not  mourning  for  the  dead. 
— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

Ver.  2.  Son  of  man,  set  thy  face  against  the  Am- 
monites, and  prophesy  against  them. 

It  was  prophesied  concerning  Ammon,  "  Son  of  man, 
set  thy  face  against  the  Ammonites,  and  prophesy  against 
them.  I  will  make  Rabbah  of  the  Ammonites  a  stable  for 
camels  and  a  couching-place  for  flocks.  Behold,  I  will 
stretch  out  my  hand  upon  thee,  and  deliver  thee  for  a  spoil 
to  the  heathen ;  I  will  cut  thee  off  from  the  people,  and 
cause  thee  to  perish  out  of  the  countries ;  I  will  destroy  thee. 
The  Ammonites  shall  not  be  remembered  among  the  na- 
tions. Rabbah  (the  chief  city)  of  the  Ammonites  shall  be 
a  desolate  heap.    Ammon  shall  be  a  perpetual  desolation." 

"  Ammon  was  to  be  delivered  to  be  a  spoil  to  the  heathen; 


^2 


EZEKIEL. 


Chap.  25? 


— ^to  be  destroyed,  and  to  be  a  perpetual  desolation."  "  All 
this  country,  formerly  so  populous  and  flourishing,  is  now- 
changed  into  a  vast  desert."  Ruins  are  seen  in  every  di- 
rection. The  country  is  divided  between  the  Turks  and  the 
Arabs,  but  chiefly  possessed  by  the  latter.  The  extortions 
of  the  one  and  the  depredations  of  the  other,  keep  it  in  per- 
piiual  desolation,  and  make  it  a  spoil  io  the  heathen.  "  The 
far  greater  part  of  the  country  is  uninhabited,  being  aban- 
doned to  the  wandering  Arabs,  and  the  towns  and  villages 
are  in  a  state  of  total  ruin."  "  At  every  step  are  to  be  found 
the  vestiges  of  ancient  cities,  the  remains  of  many  temples, 
public  edifices,  and  Greek  churches."  The  cities  are  des- 
olate. "  Many  of  the  ruins  present  no  object  of  any  inter- 
est. They  consist  of  a  few  walls  of  dwelling-houses,  heaps 
of  stones,  the  foundations  of  some  public  edifices,  and  a  few 
cisterns  filled  up ;  there  is  nothing  entire,  but  it  appears 
that  the  mode  of  building  was  very  solid,  all  the  remains 
being  formed  of  large  stones.  In  the  vicinity  of  Ammon 
there  is  a  fertile  plain  interspersed  with  Jow  hills,  which, 
for  the  greater  part,  are  covered  with  ruins." 

While  the  country  is  thus  despoiled  and  desolate,  there 
are  valleys  and  tracts  throughout  it,  which  "  are  covered 
with  a  fine  coat  of  verdant  pasture,  and  are  places  of  resort 
to  the  Bedouins,  where  they  pasture  their  camels  and  their 
sheep."  "  The  whole  way  we  traversed,"  says  Seetzen, 
*•  we  saw  villages  in  ruins,  and  met  numbers  of  Arabs  with 
their  camels,"  &c.  Mr.  Buckingham  describes  a  building 
among  the  ruins  of  Ammon,  "  the  masonry  of  which  was 
evidently  constructed  of  materials  gathered  from  the  ruins 
of  other  and  older  buildings  on  the  spot.  On  entering  it  at 
the  south  end,"  he  adds,  "  we  came  to  an  open  square  court, 
with  arched  recesses  on  each  side,  the  sides  nearly  facing 
the  cardinal  points.  The  recesses  into  the  northern  and 
southern  walls  were  originally  open  passages,  and  had 
arched  doorways  facing  each  other — but  the  first  of  these 
was  found  wholly  closed  up,  and  the  last  was  partially  filled 
up,  leaving  only  a  narrow  passage,  just  sufficient  for  the 
entrance  of  one  man  and  the  goats,  which  the  Arab  keep- 
ers drive  in  here  occasionally  for  shelter  during  the  night." 
He  relates  that  he  lay  down  among  "  flocks  of  sheep  and 
goats,"  close  beside  the  ruins  of  Ammon; — and  particular- 
ly remarks  that,  during  the  night,  he  was  almost  entirely 
prevented  from  sleeping  by  the  "  bleating  of  flocks."  So 
literally  true  is  it,  although  Seetzen,  and  Burckhardt,  and 
Buckingham,  who  relate  the  facts,  make  no  reference  or  al- 
lusion whatever  to  any  of  the  prophecies,  and  travelled  for 
a  diflferent  object  than  the  elucidation  of  the  scriptures, — 
that  "  the  chief  city  of  the  Ammonites  is  a  stable  for  cam- 
els, and  a  couching-place  for  flocks." 

"  The  Ammonites  shall  not  be  remembered  among  the 
nations."  While  the  Jews,  who  were  long  their  heredita- 
ry enemies,  continue  as  distinct  a  people  as  ever,  though 
dispersed  among  all  nations,  no  trace  of  the  Ammonites 
remains ;  none  are  now  designated  by  their  name,  nor  do 
any  claim  descent  from  them.  They  did  exist,  however, 
long  after  the  time  when  the  eventual  annihilation  of  their 
race  was  foretold,  for  they  retained  their  name,  and  contin- 
ued a  great  multitude,  until  the  second  century  of  the 
Christian  era.  "  Yet  they  are  cut  off  from  the  people. 
Ammon  has  perished  out  of  the  countries ;  it  is  destroyed." 
No  people  is  attached  to  its  soil — none  regard  it  as  their 
country  and  adopt  its  name ;  and  the  Ammonites  are  not 
remembered  among  the  nations. 

Rabbah  (Rabbah  Ammon,  the  chief  city  of  Ammon)  shall 
he  a  desolate  heap.  Situated,  as  it  was,  on  each  side  of  the 
borders  of  a  plentiful  stream ;  encircled  by  a  fruitful  re- 
gion ;  strong  by  nature  and  fortified  by  art ;  nothing  could 
have  justified  the  suspicion,  or  warranted  the  conjecture  in 
the  mind  of  an  uninspired  mortal,  that  the  royal  city  of 
Ammon,  whatever  disasters  might  possibly  befall  it  in  the 
fate  of  war  or  change  of  masters,  would  ever  undergo  so 
total  a  transmutation  as  to  become  a  desolate  heap.  But 
although,  in  addition  to  such  tokens  of  its  continuance  as  a 
city,  more  than  a  thousand  years  had  given  uninterrupted 
experience  of  its  stability,  ere  the  prophets  of  Israel  de- 
nounced its  fate;  yet  a  period  of  equal  length  has  now 
marked  it  out,  as  it  exists  to  this  day,  a  desolate  heap — -a 
perpetual  or  permanent  desolation.  Its  ancient  name  is 
still  preserved  by  the  Arabs,  and  its  site  is  now  "  covered 
with  the  ruins  of  private  buildings ;  nothing  of  them  re- 
maining except  the  foundations,  and  some  of  the  doorposts. 
The  buildings,  exposed  to  the  atmosphere,  are  all  in  decay," 


so  that  they  may  be  said  literally  to  form  a  desolate  heap. 
The  public  edifices,  which  once  strengthened  or  adorned 
the  city,  after  a  long  resistance  to  decay,  are  now  also  des- 
olate ;  and  the  remains  of  the  most  entire  among  them,  sub- 
jected as  they  are  to  the  abuse  and  spoliation  "of  the  Muld 
Arabs,  can  be  adapted  to  no  belter  object  than  a  stable  for 
camels.  Yet  these  broken  walls  and  ruined  palaces,  which 
attest  the  ancient  splendour  of  Ammon,  can  now  be  made 
subservient,  by  means  of  a  smgle  act  of  reflection,  or  sim- 
ple process  of  reason,  to  a  far  nobler  purpose  than  the  most 
magnificent  edifices  on  earth  can  be,  when  they  are  con- 
templated as  monuments  on  which  the  historic  and  pro- 
phetic truth  of  scripture  is  blended  in  on^ bright  inscrip- 
tion. A  minute  detail  of  them  may  not  therefore  be  unin- 
teresting. 

Seetzen  (w^hose  indefatigable  ardour  led  him,  in  defiance 
of  danger,  the  first  to  explore  the  countries  which  lie  east, 
of  the  Jordan,  and  east  and  south  of  the  Dead  Sea,  or  the 
territories  of  Ammon,  Moab,  and  Edom)  justly  characteri- 
zes Ammon  as  "  once  the  residence  of  many  kings — an  an- 
cient town,  which  flourished  long  before  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  and  even  before  the  Hebrews;"  and  he  briefly 
enumerates  those  remains  of  ancient  greatness  and  splen- 
dour which  are  most  distinguishable  amid  its  ruins.  "  Al- 
though this  town  has  been  destroyed  and  deserted  for  many 
ages,  I  still  found  there  some  remarkable  ruins,  which  attest 
its  ancient  splendour.  Such  as,  1st,  A  square  building, 
very  highly  ornamented,  which  has  been  perhaps  a  mauso- 
leum. 2d,  The  ruins  of  a  large  palace.  3d,  A  magnifi- 
cent amphitheatre  of  immense  size,  and  well  preserved, 
with  a  peristyle  of  Corinthian  pillars  without  pedestals. 
4th,  A  temple  with  a  great  number  of  columns.  5th,  The; 
ruins  of  a  large  church,  perhaps  the  see  of  a  bishop  in  the 
time  of  the  Greek  emperors.  6th,  The  remains  of  a  temple 
with  columns  set  in  a  circular  form,  and  which  are  of  an 
extraordinary  size.  7th,  The  remains  of  the  ancient  wall, 
with  many  other  edifices."  Burckhardt,  who  afterward 
visited  the  spot,  describes  it  with  greater  minuteness.  He 
gives  a  plan  of  the  ruins ;  and  particularly  noted  the  ruins 
of  many  temples,  of  a  spacious  church,  a  curved  wall,  a 
high  arched  bridge,  the  banks  and  bed  of  the  river  still 
partially  paved ;  a  large  theatre,  with  successive  tiers  of 
apartments  excavated  in  the  rocky  side  of  a  hill ;  Corin- 
thian columns  fifteen  feet  high  ;  the  castle,  a  very  extensive 
building,  the  walls  of  which  are  thick,  and  denote  a  re- 
mote antiquity;  many  cisterns  and  vaults;  and  a  plain 
covered  with  the  decayed  ruins  of  private  buildings;— 
monuments  of  ancient  splendour  standing  amid  a  desolat*. 
Agap.— Keith. 

Ver.  4.  Behold,  therefore,  I  will  deliver  thee  to 
the  men  of  the  East  for  a  possession,  and  they 
shall  set  their  palaces  in  thee,  and  make  their 
dwellings  in  thee :  they  shall  eat  thy  fruit,  and 
they  shall  drink  thy  milk. 

The  seed-time  is  attended  with  considerable  danger  to 
the  husbandmen,  in  Palestine  and  Syria ;  for  although  the 
more  peaceful  Arabs  apply  themselves  to  agriculture,  to 
supply  their  families  with  grain,  many  of  the  same  wander- 
ing race  choose  rather  to  procure  the  corn  which  they  want 
by  violence,  than  by  tillage.  So  precarious  are  the  fruits 
of  the  earth  in  Palestine,  that  the  former  is  often  seen  sow- 
ing, accompanied  by  an  armed  friend,  to  prevent  his  being 
robbed  of  the  seed.  These  vexations,  ana  often  desolating 
incursions,  are  described  by  the  prophet  in  the  following 
remarkable  terms,  when  he  denounced  the  judgments  of 
God  against  the  descendants  of  Ammon :  "  Behold,  there- 
fore, I  will  deliver  thee  to  the  men  of  the  East  for  a  posses- 
sion, and  they  shall  set  their  palaces  in  thee,  and  make  their 
dwellings  in  thee:  they  shall  eat  thy  fruit,  and  they  shall 
drink  thy  milk."  The  practice  of  robbing  the  sower  in  the 
field,  seems  to  have  been  very  ancient:  and  is  perhaps  al- 
luded to  by  the  Psalmist,  when  he  encourages  the  righteous 
man,  to  persevere  in  working  out  his  salvation,  in  spite  of 
the  dangers  to  which  he  is  exposed,  by  the  complete  success, 
which  in  due  time  shall  assuredly  crown  his  endeavours. 
"  They  that  sow  in  tears,"  on  account  of  the  danger  from 
the  lurking  and  imfeeling  Arabian,  "  shall  reap  in  joy."  He 
that  goeth  forth  and  weepeth,  bearing  precious  seed,  shall 
doubtless  come  again  with  rejoicing,  bringing  his  sheaves 


Chap.  26. 


EZEKIEL. 


533 


with  him."  It  is  much  more  natural  to  suppose  that  these 
verses  refer  to  such  acts  of  violence,  than  to  imagine,  with 
all  the  commentators  who  have  turned  their  attention  to 
this  circumstance,  that  they  allude  to  the  anxiety  of  a  hus- 
bandman, who  sows  his  corn  in  a  time  of  great  scarcity, 
and  is  afraid  his  hopes  may  be  disappointed  by  the  failure 
of  the  succeeding  harvest.  We  nowhere  read,  that  such 
fearful  anticipations  ever  produced  weeping  and  lamenta- 
tion, although  the  Orientals  are  very  prone  to  violent  ex- 
pressions of  grief.  But,  if  we  refer  the  passage  to  the 
danger  which  the  farmer  in  those  parts  of  the  world  often 
incurred,  of  losing  his  precious  seed,  the  hope  of  his  future 
subsistence,  and'  even  his  life,  in  attempting  to  defend  it,  we 
have  an  adequate  cause  for  his  rears  and  lamentations. 
The  passage  contains  a  beautiful  picture  of  the  success 
which,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  attended  the  efforts  of  his 
chosen  people,  to  return  from  their  captivity  to  the  land  of 
their  fathers  ;  and  holds  out  a  powerful  encouragement  to 
believers  in  Christ,  to  persevere  in  their  heavenly  course, 
notwithstanding  the  numerous  and  severe  trials  of  this  pre- 
sent life ;  for  in  due  time,  they  shall  certainly  enter  into 
the  rest  which  remains  for  the  people  of  God. — Paxton. 

Ver.  5.  And  I  Avill  make  Rabbah  a  stable  for 
camels,  and  the  Ammonites  a  couching-place 
for  flocks ;  and  ye  shall  know  that  I  am  the 
Lord. 

The  Syrian  shepherds  were  exposed,  with  their  flocks, 
to  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  seasons.  It  was  indeed  impos- 
sible to  erect  buildings  capacious  enough  to  receive  the 
countless  numbers  of  cattle,  which  constituted  the  wealth 
of  those  pastoral  princes.  Their  servants  were,  therefore, 
compelled  to  watch  the  flocks  night  and  day.  The  flocks 
of  Libya  "  often  graze  both  night  and  day,  and  for  a  whole 
month  together,  and  repair  into  long  deserts,  without  any 
shelter,  so  wide  the  plain  extends."  The  Mesopotamiah 
shepherd  was  reduced  to  the  same  incessant  labour,  chilled 
by  the  piercing  cold  of  the  morning,  and  scorched  by  the 
succeeding  heats  of  a  flaming  sun,  the  opposite  action  of 
which  often  swells  and  chafes  his  lips  and  face.  Jacob 
complains,  "  Thus  I  was ;  in  the  day,  the  drought  consu- 
med me,  and  the  frost  by  night ;  and  my  sleep  departed 
from  mine  eyes."  In  times  long  posterior  to  the  age  when 
Jacob  flourished,  the  angels  who  descended  to  announce  the 
birth  of  our  Lord,  found  the  shepherds  to  whom  they  were 
sent,  keeping  watch  over  their  flocks  by  night.  To  prevent 
them  from  wandering,  they  shut  them  up  in  a  fold  formed 
of  hurdles,  and  took  their  station  on  the  outside,  to  defend 
them  from  the  attacks  of  wild  beasts,  or  bands  of  robbers, 
that  infested- the  country,  and  preyed  upon  the  property  of 
the  peaceful  and  industrious  inhabitants. 

When  the  prophet  Ezekiel  threatened  the  Ammonites, 
that  Rabbah,  their  capital,  should  become  a  stable  for  cam- 
els, we  are  not  to  imagine  that  the  Arabian  shepherds 
were  careful  to  provide  such  coverts  for  these  more  tender 
animals.     Chardin   says,  that  as  they  feed  them  on  the 
ground,  and  do  not  litter  them,  they  never  think  of  erecting 
such  buildings  for  their  reception.     The  same  fact  is  ad- 
mitted by  Dr.  Shaw,  when  he  makes  a  supposition  that  the 
cattle  of  these  countries  would  be  much  more  numerous 
than  they  are,  if  they  had   some  little  shelter  in  winter. 
The  only  shelter  to  which  they  have  recourse,  is  the  deso- 
late ruin;  and  to  this  circumstance  the  prophet  Ezekiel 
most  probably  alluded,  when  he  described  Rabbah  as  about 
to  become  a  stable  for  camels,  or,  as  the  original  term  may 
be  rendered  with  equal  propriety,  a  place  of  camels,  where 
they  screen  themselves  from  the  rays  of  a  burning  sun,  and 
feed  on  the  nettles,  and  other  plants,  which  spring  up  among 
the  mouldering  walls  of  ruined  habitations.     The  same 
term  is  rendered  in  the  twenty-third  psalm,  pastures  ;  and 
perhaps  all  that  the  prophet  means  is  only  this,  that  Rabbah 
should  be  so  completely  destroyed,  that  camels  should  feed 
on  the  place  where  it  stood  ;  and  if  this  was  his  meaning, 
it  has  been  long  since  realized,  for  the  last  remains  of  that 
t   proud  city  have  entirely  disappeared.     The  greatest  skill 
and  vigilance,  and  even  tender  care,  are  required  in  the 
j    management  of  such  immense  flocks  as  wander  on  the  Sy- 
j    rian  plains.     Their  prodigiousnumbers  compel  the  keepers 
ii   to  remove  them  too  frequently  in  search  of  fresh  pastures, 
f   which  proves  very  destructive  to  the  young  that  have  not 
I  strength  to  follow.    This  circumsta  ice  displays  the  energy 


of  Jacob's  apology  to  his  brother  Esau,  for  not  attending 
him  as  he  requested  :  "  The  flocks  and  herds  with  youjig 
are  with  me  ;  and  if  men  should  over-drive  them  one  day, 
all  the  flocks  would  die."  It  illustrates  also  another  passage 
in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah :  "  He  shall  feed  his  flock  like 
a  shepherd ;  he  shall  gather  the  lambs  with  his  arm,  and 
carry  them  in  his  bosom,  and  shall  gently  lead  those  that 
are  with  young:"  a  beautiful  image,  expressing  with  great 
force  and  elegance,  the  tender  and  unceasing  attention  of 
the  shepherd  to  his  flock. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
Ver.  3.  Therefore  thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  Be- 
hold, I  am  ag-ainst  thee,  O  Tyrus,  and  will 
cause  many  nations  to  come  up  against  thee,  as 
the  sea  causeth  his  waves  to  come  up.  4.  And 
they  shall  destroy  the  walls  of  Tyrus,  and  break 
down  her  towers :  I  wull  also  scrape  her  dust 
from  her,  and  make  her  like  the  top  of  a  rock. 
5.  It  shall  be  a  place  for  the  spreading  of  nets 
in  the  midst  of  the  sea :  for  I  have  spoken  it, 
saith  the  Lord  God  ;  and  it  shall  become  a  spoil 
to  the  nations. 

This  history  of  the  city  is  most  aflfecting,  and  it  has  been 
said  with  much  force,  that  "  the  noble  dust  of  Alexander, 
traced  by  the  imagination  till  found  stopping  a  beer-barrel, 
would  scarcely  aftord  a  stronger  contrast  of  grandeur  and 
abasement  than  Tyre,  at  the  period  of  being  besieged  by 
that  conqueror,  and  the  modern  town  of  Tsour  erected  on 
its  ashes."  It  was  probably  a  colony  of  the  Sidonians,  as  it 
is  called  "  the  daughter  of  Sidon."  '  From  its  present  name 
appears  to  have  been  taken  the  general  name  of  Syria.  Its 
first  mention  is  in  Joshua,  where  it  is  called  "  the  strong  city 
Tyre."  At  an  early  period  it  became  the  mistress  of  the 
seas ;  traded  even  to  Britain,  and  planted  colonies  in  difl^er- 
ent  parts  of  the  Mediterranean,  among  which  Carthage  be- 
came the  most  celebrated. 

The  history  of  Tyre  is  more  especially  interesting  to  the 
Christian,  from  its  connexion  with  prophecy,  and  from  the 
striking  eloquence  with  which  inspiration  has  described 
the  majesty  of  its  brighter  days,  and  the  impressive  circum- 
stances of  its  destruction.  It  was  also  referred  to  by  our 
Saviour,  when  he  pronounced  wo  upon  the  inhabitants  of 
Chorazin  and  Bethsaida,  because  they  had  seen  his  mighty 
works  and  repented  not.  Her  merchants  were  princes,  her 
trafiickers  the  honourable  of  the  earth.  She  heaped  up  sil- 
ver as  dust,  and  fine  gold  as  the  mire  of  the  streets.  The 
boards  of  her  sh  ips  were  of  the  fir-trees  of  Senir,  her  masts 
of  the  cedars  of  Lebanon,  her  oars  of  the  oaks  of  Bashan, 
her  benches  of  the  ivory  of  Chittim,  her  sails  of  fine  linen, 
broidered  work  from  Egypt,  and  her  awnings  were  of  pur- 
ple. Her  heart  was  lifted  up,  and  she  said,  I  am  a  god,  I 
sit  in  the  seat  of  God,  in  the  midst  of  the  seas.  Such  is  the 
description  given  in  sacred  writ  of  the  pride  and  magnifi- 
cence of  ancient  Tyre.  Now,  in  the  language  of  the  same 
authority,  the  noise  of  her  songs  is  ceased,  and  the  voice  of 
her  harps  is  no  more  heard:  her  walls  are  broken  down, 
her  pleasant  houses  are  no  more,  she  is  made  like  the  top 
of  a  rock,  a  place  to  spread  nets  upon  :  she  is  built  no  more. 

The  Saracens  and  Turks  were  the  unconscious  instru- 
ments who  carried  these  prophecies  into  their  fulfilment : 
they  utterly  destroyed  Sidon  and  Tyre,  that  they  might  nor 
afford  further  reiiige  to  the  crusaders.  There  were  two 
harbours,  formed  by  the  island  ;  one  towards  the  north,  and 
the  other  towards  the  south ;  and  there  was  a  passage  be- 
tween the  island  and  the  shore  from  the  one  to  the  other. 
The  island  is  represented  by  Pliny  as  having  been  four 
miles  in  circumference,  but  the  peninsula  upon  w-hich  the 
present  town  is  situated,  is  of  much  less  extent.  It  would 
therefore  appear  that  it  is  built  for  the  most  part  upon  the 
mole  thrown  up  by  Alexander,  including  a  small  portion  of 
the  original  island.  There  is  thus  enough  of  the  rock  left 
in  existence  for  the  fishers  to  spread  their  nets  upon,  while 
the  principal  area,  once  mantled  with  palaces  and  alive  with 
a  busy  population,  has  been  swept  into  "the  midst  of  the  wa- 
ters," and  can  be  built  no  more.  The  disappearance  of  the 
island  has  caused  the  destruction  of  the  harbours  ;  and  as 
all  protection  to  shipping 'is  now  taken  away.  Tyre  can 
never  again  rise  to  eminence  as  "  the  mart  of  nations." 


nu 


EZEKIEL. 


Chap.  26. 


There  are  still  two  small  rocks  in  the  sea,  to  which  the 
island  probably  extended ;  and  as  the  fishermen's  boats 
can  approach  them  in  calm  weather,  they  seem  to  in  vile  the 
spreading  of  nets  upon  their  surface.  I  and  my  compan- 
ions sailed  over  the  present  harbour  in  a  small  boat,  to  ex- 
amine the  columns  that  may  clearly  be  seen  under  the  water 
on  a  fine  day,  but  the  sea  was  too  rough  to  allow  us  to  dis- 
cover many  of  them.  The  present  town  is  walled,  and  is 
of  very  modern  date.  The  space  inside  is  in  a  great  meas- 
ure open,  and  the  houses  are  mean.  The  governor's  res- 
idence is  the  only  respectable  building.  There  are  many 
columns  near  the  small  harbour,  and  others  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  peninsula,  but  there  is  no  ruin  of  ancient  date, 
the  plan  of  which  can  be  traced.  We  saw  in  a  garden  a 
granite  column  of  one  block,  that  measured  30  feet  in  length, 
and  the  diameter  was  in  proportion.  The  eastern  end  of 
the  cathedral  is  still  standing.  We  ascended  to  the  top  of 
the  ruin  by  a  spiral  staircase,  and  from  thence  had  a  view 
of  the  town.  The  burial-ground  is  near.  From  this  situa- 
tion the  houses  had  a  singular  appearance,  as  the  roofs  are 
all  flat,  and  were  then  verdant  with  a  rich  covering  of  grass. 
Upon  the  plain  there  are  the  remains  of  an  extensive  aque- 
duct. The  mole  appears  like  a  mere  collection  of  sand, 
but  beneath  there  may  be  some  construction  of  more  endur- 
ing materials. 

"  Is  this  your  joyous  city,  whose  antiquity  is  of  ancient 
days  1  Who  hath  taken  this  counsel  against  Tyre  %  The 
Lord  of  Hosts  hath  purposed  it,  to  stain  the  pride  of  all 
glory,  and  to  bring  into  contempt  all  the  honourable  of  the 
earth." — Isa.  xxiii.  7—9.  The  stirring  scenes  of  a  seaport 
exhibit  a  picture  of  more  constant  excitement  than  can  ever 
be  presented  by  any  other  place.  The  arrival  and  discharge 
of  ships  ;  the  cries  of  the  captains  as  they  direct  their  ready 
mariners  ;  the  songs  of  the  boatmen,  the  dash  of  the  oars, 
and  the  roll  of  the  sea;  the  solitary  female,  whose  eye 
catches  every  speck  that  appears  white  in  the  horizon,  and 
never  leaves  it  till  one  after  another  of  its  inmates  have 
been  carefully  numbered,  that  perchance  she  may  discover 
amon°:  them  the  father  of  her  disconsolate  children ;  the 
faltering  step  of  the  aged  sailor,  whose  battles  have  been 
fought,  and  whose  victories  have  been  won  ;  the  tears  of 
those  who  are  bidding  farewell,  and  the  rapture  of  those 
who  are  greeting  the  arrival  of  a  long-aosent  friend ;  the 
anxious  assemblies  of  the  merchants,  either  speaking  of 
traffic,  or  proclaiming  their  good  fortune,  or  lamenting  the 
loss  of  some  fair  ship  in  a  destructive  gale  ;  the  reckless 
merriment  of  the  seamen,  as  they  enjoy  upon  land  a  little 
respite  from  their  constant  toils :— all  these,  and  a  thousand 
other  scenes  of  noise,  and  joyousness,  and  wealth,  have 
been  exhibited  upon  these  shores.  They  have  passed  away, 
like  the  feverish  dream  of  a  disturbed  sleep.  Ships  may  be 
seen,  but  at  a  distance;  no  merchant  of  the  earth  ever 
enters  the  name  of  Tyre  upon  his  books,  and  where  thou- 
sands once  assembled  in  pomp  and  pride,  and  there  was 
beauty,  and  splendour,  and  dominion,  I  could  discover  only 
a  few  children  amusing  themselves  at  play,  and  a  party  of 
Turks  sitting  in  gravity,  and  sipping  their  favourite  cof- 
fee.— Hardv. 

The  desolate  appearance  of  Soor  from  the  sea, — a  strag- 
gling, repulsive  village  of  lowscattered  dwellings,  with  a  few 
squalid  inhabitants  loitering  on  the  beach — is  in  gloomy 
contrast  Avith  the  gorgeous  descriptions  of  insular  Tyre, 
before  Alexander  eflfected  its  destruction  by  the  daring"  ex- 
pedient of  uniting  it  with  the  continent. 

The  present  peninsula,  once  the  site  of  this  splendid  city, 
anciently  estimated  at  three  miles  in  circumference,  but  ap- 
parently of  somewhat  less  extent,  is  now  a  dreary  waste, 
distinguished  only  by  hillocks  and  furrows;  and  the  me- 
morable isthmus,  then  so  laboriously  constructed,  has  be- 
come less  conspicuous  from  the  augmentation  of  its  width, 
by  the  gradual  accumulation  of  sand.  Its  once  vaunted  port 
is  now  so  effectually  choked,  that  only  small  boats  can  ap- 
proach the  shore,  although,  amidst  the  waves,  the  founda- 
tions are  still  visible  of  the  massive  walls  that  formed  its 
fortified  boundaries,  leaving  only  a  narrow  entrance  secured 
by  a  chain.  Near  the  landing-place,  a  few  tolerable  houses 
fice  the  sea,  and  similar  ones  are  sparingly  distributed  in 
other  directions.  An  insignificant  bazar  offers  few  temp- 
tations even  to  those  who  seek  ordinary  commodities,  and 
the  diverging  streets  are  Utile  more  than  circuitous  alleys, 
capriciously  windins;  between  high  walls,  as  if  concealment 
alone  afforded  security.    Here  and  there  a  low  door  opens 


into  an  orchard  or  paddock,  but  more  frequently  into  a 
small  court,  surrounded  wnh  miserable  hovels,  evidently 
the  abodes  of  abject  poverty.  Occasionally  an  unclosed 
door  exhibits  a  court  of  larger  dimensions,  where  a  few 
rude  implements  of  husbandry,  and  the  less  meager  looks 
of  better-clad  occupants,  betoken  a  stat-j  somewhat  approach- 
ing to  comfort  and  ease.  Little  cultivation,  however,  is 
perceptible  near  the  town — of  commercial  activity  there  is 
no  sign — listless  groups  fill  every  vacant  space — and  fisher- 
men no  longer  "spread  their  nets"  on  the  shore.  Hence 
it  becomes  diflicult  to  conjecture  how  a  population,  scarcely 
removed  from  indigence,  can  here  subsist',  notwithstanding 
the  temperate  habits  of  the  East,  which  demand  little  more 
than  a  morning  and  evening  repast  of  fresh  baked  cakes, 
sometimes  eaten  with  a  sort  of  pottage  made  of  lentils, 
onions,  (*fec,  and  sometimes  merely  with  a  draught  of  water, 
or  a  little  fruit. 

Relentless  desolation  seems  to  brood  over  this  devoted  re- 
gion. Fragments  of  clustered  columns  and  broken  walls, 
at  the  southeast  extremity  of  the  town — the  only  visible  re- 
mains of  the  structures  even  of  the  middle  ages — perhaps 
mark  the  site  of  the  magnificent  metropolitan  church,  once 
the  conspicuous  ornament  of  Christian  Tyre.  In  that 
splendid  edifice  of  rich  gothic  architecture,  distinguished 
by  three  spacious  naves,  and  two  lofty  toM^ers,  where  coun- 
cils were  held  and  princes  and  prelates  assembled,  the  bones 
of  the  Emperor  Frederic  Barbarossa  were  depasited  in  a 
sumptuous  sepulchre.  Every  trace  of  the  mausoleum  of 
Orig-en,  raised  in  the  third  century,  and  still  existing  in  the 
twelfth,  has  now  disappeared.  Broken  shafts  thrown  into 
a  narrow  creek  awkwardly  serve  the  purpose  of  a  bridge ; 
others  piled  in  the  sea,  form  a  barrier  against  hostile  ap- 
proach. A  few  columns  of  marble,  of  granite,  and  of  por- 
phyry, lie  unheeded  round  a  small  cove,  now  the  only  land- 
ing-place, while  mounds  of  sand,  thinly  strewn  witharchi 
tectural  fragments,  alone  point  out  the  ancient  circuit  ol 
the  town.  And  is  this  all  that  remains  to  tell  the  tale  of 
ancient  Tyre — the  early  seat  of  civilization — the  emperess 
of  the  waves  1  Could  this  dreary  coast  have  poured  forth 
dauntless  navigators  to  explore  distant  regions ; — this  cheer- 
less waste,  could  it  ever  have  been  the  patrimony  of  "  mer- 
chant-princes V  Could  this  little  territory  have  been  the 
emporium  of  the  commerce  of  the  world  1 — Hogg. 

Ver.  4.  And  they  shall  destroy  the  walls  of  Tyrus, 
and  break  down  her  towers  :  I  will  also  scrape 
her  dust  from  her,  and  make  her  like  the  top 
of  a  rock.  12.  And  they  shall  make  a  spoil  of 
thy  riches,  and  make  a  prey  of  thy  merchan- 
dise :  and  they  shall  break  down  thy  walls,  and 
destroy  thy  pleasant  houses :  and  they  shall  lay 
thy  stones,  and  thy  timber,  and  thy  dust,  in  the 
midst  of  the  water. 

One  of  the  most  singular  events  iii  history  was  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  siege  of  Tyre  was  conducted  by  Alexan-    j 
der  the  Great.     Irritated  that  a  single  city  should  alone  op-    j 
pose  his  victorious  march,  enraged  at  the  murder  of  some  of    * 
nis  soldiers,  and  fearful  for  his  fame, — even  his  army's  de- 
spairing of  success  could  not  deter  him  from  the  siege. 
And  Tyre  was  taken  in  a  manner,  the  success  of  which  was 
more  wonderful  than  the  desisrn  was  daring:   for  it  was 
surrounded  by  a  wall  one  hundred  and  fif\y  feet  in  height, 
and  situated  on  an  island  half  a  mile  distant  from  the  shore. 
A  mound  was  formed  from  the  continent  to  the  island  ;  and 
the  ruins  of  old  Tyre,  two  hundred  and  forty  years  aflerits 
demolition,  afforded  ready  materials  for  the  purpose.    Such 
was  the  work,  that  the  attempts  at  first  defeated  the  power 
of  an  Alexander.     The  enemy  consumed^  and  the  storm     ^ 
destroyed  it.    But  its  remains,  buried  beneath  the  water, 
formed  a  barrier  which  rendered  successful  his  reneweu 
efforts.     A  vast  mass  of  additional  matter  was  requisite 
The  soil  and  the  very  rubbish  were  gathered  and  heaped. 
And  the  mighty  conqueror,  who  after^ward  failed  in  raising 
again  any  of  the  ruins  of  Babylon,  cast  those  of  Tyre  into 
the  sea,  and  took  her  very  dust  from  off  her.     He  lef\  not 
the  remnant  of  a  ruin — and  the  site  of  ancient  Tyre  is  now 
unknown . — Keith. 

Ver.  14.  And  I  will  make  thee  like  the  top  of  d 


m.muUBiIkiSIMmJt 


Chap.  26—30. 


EZEKIEL. 


535 


rock;  thou  shalt  be  a  place  to  spread  nets 
upon;  thou  shalt  be  built  no  more:  for  I  the 
Lord  have  spoken  it,  saith  the  Lord  Gc  d. 

Passing  by  Tyre  from  curiosity  only,  I  came  t  /  be  a 
mournful  witness  of  the  truth  of  that  prophecy,  "  tha.  Tyre, 
the  queen  of  nations,  should  be  a  rock  for  fishers  to  dry 
their  nets  on."  Two  wretched  fishermen,  with  miserable 
nets,  having  just  given  over  their  occupation,  with  very  lit- 
tle success,  I  engaged  them,  at  the  expense  of  their  nets,  to 
drag  in  those  places  where  they  said  shellfish  might  be 
caught,  in  hopes  to  have  brought  out  one  of  the  famous  yur- 
fk  fish.  I  did  not  succeed  ;  but  in  this  I  was,  I  believe,  as 
lucky  as  the  old  fishers  had  ever  been.  The  purple  fish  at 
Tyre  seems  to  have  been  only  a  concealment  of  their 
knowledge  of  cochineal,  as,  if  the  whole  city  of  Tyre  ap- 
plied to  nothing  else  but  fishing,  they  would  not  have  col- 
oured twenty  yards  of  cloth  in  a  year.— Bruce, 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 
Ver.  II.  The  men  of  Arvad,  with  thine  army, 
were  upon  thy  walls  round  about,  and  the  Gam- 
madims  were  in  thy  towers :  they  hanged  their 
shields  upon  thy  walls  round  about ;  they  have 
made  thy  beauty  perfect. 

The  eastern  soldiers  in  times  of  peace  are  disposed  of 
about  the  walls  of  places,  and  particularly  in  the  towers, 
and  at  the  gates.  Niebuhr  tells  us,  that  the  foot-soldiers  of 
the  imam  of  Yemem  have  very  little  to  do  in  times  of  peace, 
any  more  than  the  cavalry  :  some  of  them  mount  guard  at 
the  dela's,  or  governor's ;  they  are  also  employed  at  the 
gates  and  upon  the  towers.  Van  Egmont  and  Heyman 
give  a  similar  account.  Sandys,  speaking  of  the  decora- 
tions of  one  of  the  gates  of  the  imperial  seraglio  in  Con- 
stantinople, tells  us,  that  it  is  hung  with  shields  and  cimeters. 
Through  this  gate  people  pass  to  the  divan,  where  Justice  is 
administered;  and  these  are  the  ornaments  of  this  public 
passage. — Harmer. 

Ver.  13.  Javan,  Tubal,  and  Meshech,  they  were 
thy  merchants  :  they  traded  the  persons  of  men 
and  vessels  of  brass  in  thy  market. 

The  domestic  utensils  of  the  Orientals  are  nearly  always 
brass :  and  to  these  they  often  refer,  as  a  sign  of  property. 
"  He  is  a  rich  man ;  his  house  is  full  of  brass  vessels." 
"  Begone !  fellow,  I  have  more  brass  ir.  my  house  than  would 
purchase  all  thy  property."  "  The  miserable  man  has  not 
a  brass  dish  in  his  house." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

Ver.  14.  Thou  art  the  anointed  cherub  that  cov- 
ereth ;  and  I  have  set  thee  so :  thou  wast  upon 

*  the  holy  mountain  of  God ;  thou  hast  walked 
up  and  down  in  the  midst  of  the  stones  of  fire. 

1  his  has  been  considered  as  a  very  obscure  epithet  to 
apply  to  the  prince  of  Tyre,  and  great  difficulties  have  oc- 
curred in  explaining  the  meaning  of  the  expression.  It  has 
been  apprehended  by  some  critics  to  be  an  allusion  to  the 
posture  of  the  cherubic  figures  that  were  over  the  ark, 
(Exod.  XXV.  20,)  and  by  others  to  signify  the  protection 
which  this  prince  afforded  to  different  neighbouring  states. 
But  the  first  of  these  interpretations  is  set  aside  by  consider- 
ing that  the  prophet  evidently  refers  to  a  living  cherub,  not 
the  posture  of  the  image  of  one  made  of  gold,  or  of  an  olive- 
tree.  As  to  the  other  construction,  it  is  inadmissible,  be- 
cause it  does  not  appear  from  the  prophecies  that  Tyre  was 
remarkable  for  defending  its  neighbours,  but  rather  the 
contrary.  Mr.  Harmer  proposes  a  new,  and  probably  a 
just  elucidation  of  this  passage.  He  observes  that  takhtdar 
is  a  Persian  word,  which  properly  signifies  a  precious  car- 
pet, which  is'made  use  of  for  covering  the  throne  of  the 
kmgs  of  Persia;  and  that  this  word  is  also  used  as  an  epi- 
th3t  by  which  the  Persians  describe  their  princes,  on  ac- 
count of  their  being  possessed  of  this  throne.  The  prophet 
Fiekiel  may  with  the  same  view  give  this  appellation  to 
re  prince  of  Tyre.    Such  an  application  of  it  is  certainly 


no  more  than  strictly  reconcilable  to  the  eastern  taste. 
This  explanation  also  answers  to  the  rest  of  the  imagery 
used  in  this  passage. — Burder. 

Ver.  24.  And  there  shall  be  no  moie  a  pricking 
brier  unto  the  house  of  Israel,  nor  any  grieving 
thorn  of  all  that  are  round  about  them,  that 
despised  them ;  and  they  shall  know  that  1  am 
the  Lord  God. 

Enemies  are  often  compared  to  thorns  and  thistles. 
"  Ah  !  how  this  thorn  goads  me,"  says  the  man  of  his  foe. 
When  a  man's  adversaries  are  dead,  he  says,  "  This  is 
now  a  desert  without  thorns."  "  Ah  !  as  our  father  is  dead, 
we  are  to  our  enemies  like  a  jungle  without  thorns." — Rob- 
erts. 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 
Ver.  3.  Speak,  and  say,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God, 
Behold,  I  am  against  thee,  Pharaoh  king  of 
Egypt,  the  great  dragon  that  lieth  in  the  midst 
of  his  rivers,  which  hath  said,  My  river  is  mine 
own,  and  I  have  made  it  for  myself 

See  on  ch.  32.  2. 

Ver.  18.  Son  of  man,  ISiebuchadnezzar  king  of 
Bq,bylon  caused  his  army  to  serve  a  great  ser- 
vice against  Tyrus  :  every  head  was  made  bald, 
and  every  shoulder  was  peeled :  yet  had  he 
no  wages,  nor  his  army,  for  Tyrus,  for  the  ser- 
vice that  he  had  served  against  it. 

What  an  illustration  of  this  passage  we  have  in  those 
who  have  not  been  accustomed  to  carry  the  palanquin ! 
During  the  first  day  the  skin  is  literally  peeled  off.  To 
prevent  the  pole  from  galling  the  shoulder,  the  coolies  have 
cushions,  or  a  piece  of  the  plantain-tree,  put  under  the  pole. 
The  shoulders  of  those  who  assisted  at  the  siege  against 
Tyre,  were  peeled  by  hard  labour. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXX. 
Ver.  6.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  They  also  that 
uphold  Egypt  shall  fall ;  and  the  pride  of  her 
power  shall  come  dow^n:  from  the  tower  of 
Syene  shall  they  fall  in  it  by  the  sword,  saith 
the  Lord  God.  7.  And  they  shall  be  desolate 
in  the  midst  of  the  countries  that  are  desolate, 
and  her  cities  shall  be  in  the  midst  of  the  cities 
that  are  wasted.  12.  And  I  will  make  the 
rivers  dry,  and  sell  the  land  into  the  hand  of 
the  wicked:  and  I  will  make  the  land  waste, 
and  all  that  is  therein,  by  the  hand  of  strangers ; 
I  the  Lord  have  spoken  it.  13.  Thus  saith 
the  Lord  God,  I  will  also  destroy  the  idols, 
and  I  will  cause  their  images  to  cease  out  of 
Noph ;  and  there  shall  be  no  more  a  prince  of 
the  land  of  Egypt :  and  I  will  put  a  fear  in  the 
land  of  Egypt. 

Egypt  was  one  of  the  most  ancient  and  one  of  the  mighti- 
est of  kingdoms,  and  the  researches  of  the  traveller  are  still 
directed  to  explore  the  unparalleled  memorials  of  its  power. 
No  nation,  whether  of  ancient  or  of  modern  times,  has  ever 
erected  such  great  and  durable  monuments.  While  the 
vestiges  of  other  ancient  monarchies  can  hardly  be  found 
amid  the  mouldering  ruins  of  their  cities,  those  artificial 
mountains,  visible  at  the  distance  of  thirty  miles,  the  pyra- 
mids of  Egypt,  without  a  record  of  their  date,  have  with- 
stood, unimpaired,  all  the  ravages  of  time.  The  dynasty  of 
Egypt  takes  precedence,  in  antiquity,  of  every  other.  No 
country  ever  produced  so  long  a  catalogue  of  kings.  The 
learning  of  the  Egyptians  was  proverbial.  The  number  of 
their  cities,  and  the  population  of  their  country,  as  recorded 
by  ancient  historians,  almost  surpass  credibility.    Nature 


boo 


EZEKIEL. 


Chap.  32. 


and  an  united  in  rendering  it  a  most  fertile  region.  It  was 
called  the  granary  of  the  world.  It  was  divided  into  several 
kingdoms,  and  their  power  often  extended  over  many  of 
the  surrounding  countries  Yet  the  knowledge  of  all  its 
greatness  and  glory  deterred  not  the  Jewish  prophets  from 
declaring,  that  Egypt  would  become  "  a  base  kingdom,  and 
never  exalt  itself  any  more  among  the  nations."  And  the 
literal  fulfilment  of  every  prophecy  affords  as  clear  a  de- 
monstration as  can  possibly  be  given,  that  each  and  all  of 
them  are  the  dictates  of  inspiration. 

Egypt  became  entirely  subject  to  the  Persians  about  three 
nundred  and  fifty  years  previous  to  the  Christian  era.  It 
was  afterward  subdued  by  the  Macedonians,  and  was  gov- 
erned by  the  Ptolemies  for  the  space  of  two  hundred  and 
ninety- four  years ;  until  about  thirty  years  before  Christ, 
it  became  a  province  of  the  Roman  empire.  It  continued 
long  in  sabjection  to  the  Romans — tributary  first  to  Rome, 
and  afterward  to  Constantinople.  It  was  transferred,  A.  D. 
641,  to  the  dominion  of  the  Saracens.  In  1250  the  Mame- 
lukes deposed  their  rulers,  and  usurped  the  command  of 
Egypt.  A  mode  of  government  the  most  singular  and  sur- 
prising that  ever  existed  on  earth  was  established  and  main- 
tained. Each  successive  ruler  was  raised  to  supreme  au- 
thority, from  being  a  stranger  and  a  slave.  No  son  of  the 
former  ruler — no  native  of  Egypt  succeeded  to  the  sove- 
reignty ;  but  a  chief  was  chosen  from  among  a  new  race  of 
imported  slaves.  When  Es;ypt  became  tributary  to  the 
Turks  in  1517,  the  Mameiukes  retained  much  of  their 
power,  and  every  pacha  was  an  oppressor  and  a  stranger. 
During  all  these  ages,  every  attempt  to  emancipate  the  coun- 
try, or  to  create  a  prince  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  has  proved 
abortive,  and  has  often  been  fatal  to  the  aspirant.  Though 
the  facts  relative  to  Egypt  form  too  prominent  a  feature  in 
the  history  of  the  world  to  admit  of  contradiction  or  doubt, 
yet  the  description  of  the  fate  of  that  country,  and  of  the 
form  of  its  government,  shall  be  left  to  the  testimony  of 
those  whose  authority  no  infidel  will  question,  and  whom 
no  man  can  accuse  of  adapting  their  descriptions  to  the 
predictions  of  the  event.  Gibbon  and  Volney  are  again  our 
witnesses  of  the  facts : — 

"  Such  is  the  siate  of  Egypt.  Deprived  twenty-three  cen- 
turies ago  of  her  natural  proprietors,  she  has  seen  her  fertile 
fields  successively  a  prey  to  the  Persians,  the  Macedonians, 
the  Romans,  the  Greeks,  the  Arabs,  the  Georgians,  and,  at 
length,  the  race  of  Tartars,  distinguished  by  the  name  of 
Ottoman  Turks.  The  Mamelukes,  purchased  as  slaves, 
and  introduced  as  soldiers,  soon  usurped  the  power  and 
elected  a  leader.  If  their  first  establishment  was  a  singular 
event,  their  continuance  is  not  less  extraordinary.  They 
are  replaced  by  slaves  brought  from  their  original  country. 
The  system  of  oppression  is  methodical.  Every  thing  the 
traveller  sees  or  hears  reminds  him  he  is  in  the  country  of 
slavery  and  tyranny."  "  A  more  unjust  and  absurb  consti- 
tution cannot  be  devised  than  that  which  condemns  the  na- 
tives of  a  country  to  perpetual  servitude,  under  the  arbitrary 
dominion  of  strangers  and  slaves.  Yet  such  has  been  the 
state  of  Egypt  above  five  hundred  years.  The  most  illustri- 
ous sultans  of  the  Baharite  and  Borgite  dynasties  were 
themselves  promoted  from  the  Tartar  and  Circassian  bands; 
and  the  four-and-twenty  beys,  or  military  chiefs,  have  ever 
been  succeeded,  not  by  their  sons,  but  by  their  servants." 
These  are  the  words  of  Volney  and  of  Gibbon :  and  what 
did  the  ancient  prophets  foretel  1  "I  will  lay  the  land 
waste,  and  all  that  is  therein,  by  the  hands  of  strangers.  I 
the  Lord  have  spoken  it.  And  there  shall  be  no  more  a 
prince  of  the  land  of  Earypt.  The  sceptre  of  Egypt  shall 
depart  away."  The  prophecy  adds: — "They  shall  be  a 
base  kingdom— it  shall  be  the  basest  of  kingdoms."  After 
the  lapse  of  two  thousand  and  four  hundred  years  from  the 
date  of  this  prophecy,  a  scoffer  at  religion,  but  an  eyewitness 
of  the  facts,  thus  describes  the  selfsame  spot:  "In  Egypt 
there  is  no  middle  class,  neither  nobility,  clergy,  merchants, 
landholders.  A  universal  air  of  misery,  manifest  in  all  the 
traveller  meets,  points  out  to  him  the  rapacity  of  oppression, 
and  the  distrust  attendant  upon  slavery.  The  profound  ig- 
norance of  the  inhabitants  equally  prevents  them  from  per- 
ceiving the  causes  of  their  evils,  or  applying  the  necessary 
remedies.  Ignorance,  diffused  through  every  class,  extends 
ifs  effects  to  everv  species  of  moral  and  physical  knowledge. 
Nothing  is  talked  of  but  intestine  troubles,  the  public  misery, 
pecuniary  extortions,  bastinadoes,  and  murders.  Justice 
berseif  puts  to  death  without  formality."  (Volney.)  Other 


travellers  describe  the  most  execrable  vices  as  common, 
and  represent  the  moral  character  of  the  people  as  corrupt- 
ed to  the  core.  As  a  token  of  the  desolation  of  the  country, 
mud-walled  cottages  are  now  the  only  habitations  where 
the  ruins  of  temples  and  palaces  abound.  Egypt  is  sur- 
rounded by  the  dominions  of  the  Turks  and  of  the  Arabs ; 
and  the  prophecy  is  literally  true  which  marked  it  in  th  - 
midst  of  desolation : — "  They  shall  be  desolate  in  the  mids, 
of  the  countries  that  are  desolate,  and  her  cities  shall  be  in 
the  midst  of  the  cities  that  are  wasted."  The  systematic- 
oppression,  extortion,  and  plunder,  which  have  so  long  pre- 
vailed, and  the  price  paid  for  his  authority  and  power  by 
every  Turkish  pacha,  have  rendered  the  country  "  desolate 
of  that  whereof  it  was  full,"  and  still  show,  both  how  "  it 
has  been  wasted  by  the  hands  of  strangers,"  and  how  "  it 
has  been  sold  into  the  hand  of  the  wicked." 

Can  any  words  be  more  free  from  ambiguity,  or  could 
any  events  be  more  wonderful  in  their  nature,  or  more  un- 
likely or  impossible  to  have  been  foreseen  by  man,  than 
these  prophecies  concerning  Egypt  1  The  long  line  of  its 
kings  commenced  with  the  first  ages  of  the  world,  and, 
while  it  was  yet  unbroken,  its  final  termination  was  reveal- 
ed. The  very  attempt  once  made  by  infidels  to  show,  from 
the  recorded  number  of  its  monarchs  and  the  durations  of 
their  reigns,  that  Egypt  was  a  kingdom  previous  to  the  Mo- 
saic era  of  the  deluge,  places  the  wonderful  nature  of  these 
predictions  respecting  it  in  the  most  striking  view.  And 
the  previous  experience  of  two  thousand  years,  during  which 
period  Egypt  had  never  been  without  a  prince  of  its  own, 
seemed  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  those  predicted  events 
which  the  experience  of  the  last  two  thousand  years  has 
amply  verified.  Though  it  had  often  tyrannised  over  Judea 
and  the  neighbouring  nations,  the  Jewish  prophets  foretold 
that  its  own  sceptre  would  depart  away;  and  that  that  coun- 
try of  kings  (for  the  number  of  its  contemporary  as  well  as 
successive  monarchs  may  warrant  the  appellation)  would 
never  have  a  prince  of  its  own  :  and  that  it  would  be  laid 
waste  by  the  hands  of  strangers.  They  foretold  that  it 
should  be  a  base  kingdom — the  basest  of  kingdoms — that  it 
should  be  desolate  itself  and  surrounded  by  desolation — and 
that  it  should  never  exalt  itself  any  more  among  the  nations. 
They  described  its  ignominious  subjection  and  unparalleled 
baseness,  notwithstanding  that  its  past  and  present  degen- 
eracy bears  not  a  more  remote  resemblance  to  the  former 
greatness  and  pride  of  its  power,  than  the  frailty  of  its  mud- 
walled  fabric  now  bears  to  the  stability  of  its  imperishable 
pyramids.  Such  prophecies,  accomplished  in  such  a  man- 
ner, prove,  without  a  comment,  that  they  must  be  the  reve- 
lation of  the  omniscient  Ruler  of  the  universe. — Keith. 

CHAPTER  XXXII. 
Ver,  2.  Son  of  man,  take  up  a  lamentation  for 
Pharaoh  king  of  Egypt,  and  say  unto  him, 
Thoii  art  like  a  young  lion  of  the  nations,  and 
thou  art  as  a  whale  in  the  seas ;  and  thou 
camest  forth  with  thy  rivers,  andtroubledstthe 
waters  with  thy  feet,  and  fouledst  their  rivers. 

Nothing  is  more  common,  in  the  East,  than  the  compar^i 
ing  princes  to  lions,  or  better  known  to  those  that  are  ac- 
quainted with  their  writings ;  but  the  comparing  them  to 
crocodiles,  if  possessed  of  ?Mval  power,  or  strong  by  a  watery 
situation,  has  hardly  ever  been  mentioned.  D'Herbelot, 
however,  cites  an  eastern  poet,  who,  celebrating  the  prowess 
of  Gelaleddin,  surnamed  Mankberni,  and  Khovarezme 
Shah,  a  most  valiant  Persian  prince,  said,  "  He  was  dreadful 
as  a  hon  in  the  field,  and  not  less  terrible  in  the  water  than 
a  crocodile." 

The  power  of  the  ancient  kings  of  'E.^jpi  seems  to  be 
represented  after  the  same  manner,  by  the  prophet  Ezekiel, 
ch  xxix.  3,  "  Behold,  I  am  against  thee,  Pharaoh  king  of 
Egypt,  the  great  dragon  {the  great  crocodile)  that  lieth  in 
the  midst  of  his  rivers,  which  hath  said,  My  river  is  mine 
own,  and  I  have  made  it  myself."  In  his  32d  chapter,  2d 
verse,  the  same  prophet  makes  use  of  both  the  similes,  I 
think,  of  the  panegyrist  of  Gelaleddin  :  "  Take  up  a  lamen- 
tation for  Pharaoh  king  of  Egypt,  and  say  unto  him.  Thou 
art  like  a  young  lion  of  the  nations,  and  thou  art  as  a 
whale  {a  crocodile)  \n  the  seas:  and  thou  camest  forthwith 
(or  from)  ihy  rivers,  and  troubledst  the  waters  with  thy  feet, 
and  fouledst  their  rivers." 


Chap.  32—34. 


EZEKIEL. 


6B7 


It  is  very  odd  in  our  translators,  to  render  the  original 
word  D>;a  taneem,  whale,  and  at  the  same  time  talk  of 
feet ;  nor  indeed  are  rivers  the  abode  of  the  whale;  its  bulk 
is  too  great  to  admit  of  that :  the  term  dragon,  which  is 
thrown  into  the  margin,  is  the  preferable  version ;  which 
word  in  our  language,  as  the  Hebrew  word  in  the  original, 
is,  I  think,  generic,  and  includes  the  several  species  of 
oviparous  quadrupeds,  if  not  those  of  the  serpentine  kind. 
A  crocodile  is,  without  doubt,  the  creature  the  prophet 
means ;  and  the  comparison  seems  to  point  out  the  power  of 
Egyptian  kings  of  antiquity :  they  were  mighty  by  sea  as 
well  as  by  land. — Harmer. 

Ver.  3.  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God,  I  will,  there- 
fore, spread  out  my  net  over  thee  with  a  com- 
pany of  many  people;  and  they  shall  bring 
thee  up  in  my  tent. 

Herodotus  relates  that  in  his  time  they  had  in  Egypt 
many  and  various  ways  of  taking  the  crocodile.  Brookes 
says,  "  The  manner  of  taking  the  crocodile  in  Siam  is  by 
throwing  three  or  four  nets  across  a  river  at  proper  distan- 
ces from  each  other ;  that  so  if  he  br^ak  through  the  first, 
he  may  be  caught  by  one  of  the  others."— Burder. 

When  a  person  has  been  caught  by  the  stratagem  of  an- 
other, it  is  said,  "  He  is  caught  in  his  net,"  "  He  is  like  a 
deer  caught  in  the  net."  Has  a  man  escaped:  "The  fel- 
low has  broken  the  net."  *'  Catch  him  in  your  net !  will 
you  catch  the  lightning  1"— Roberts. 

Ver.  27.  And  they  shall  not  lie  with  the  mighty 
that  are  fallen  of  theuncircumcised,  which  are 
gone  down  to  hell  with  their  weapons  of  war ; 
and  they  have  laid  their  swords  under  their 
heads  ;  but  their  iniquities  shall  be  upon  their 
bones,  though  they  were  the  terror  of  the  mighty 
in  the  land  of  the  living. 

The  ancients,  in  every  part  of  the  world,  were  accustom- 
ed to  inter  their  warriors  in  complete  armour.  We  are 
informed  by  Chardin,  that  the  Mingrelian  soldier  sleeps 
with  his  sword  under  his  head,  and  his  arms  by  his  side  ; 
and  he  is  buried  in  the  same  manner,  his  arms  being  placed 
in  the  same  position.  The  allusion  of  Ezekiel  to  this 
ancient  custom  is  extremely  clear. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

Ver.  30.  Also,  thou  son  of  man,  the  children  of 
thy  people  still  are  talking  against  thee  by  the 
Walls,  and  in  the  doors  of  the  houses,  and  speak 
one  tq  another,  every  one  to  his  brother,  saying, 
Come,  I  pray  you,  and  hear  what  is  the  word 
that  Cometh  forth  from  the  Lord. 

In  those  frequent  intervals  of  returning  warmth,  which 
relieve  the  severity  of  an  oriental  winter,  the  people  of  the 
East  enjoy  the  conversation  of  their  friends ;  the  poorer 
class  in  the  open  air  sauntering  about,  and  sitting  under 
the  walls  of  their  houses;  people  of  rank  and  fashion  in 
the  porches  or  gateways,  where  the  master  of  a  family 
receives  visits,  and  transacts  business — few  persons,  not 
even  the  nearest  relations,  being  admitted  into  their  apart- 
ments, except  upon  extraordinary  occasions. 

To  these  circumstances  the  prophet  Ezekiel  seems  to 
refer  in  the  following  passage :  "  Also,  thou  son  of  man, 
the  children  of  thy  people  are  still  talking  against  (or 
rather  concerning)  thee  by  the  walls,  and  in  the  doors  of 
the  houses,  and  speak  one  to  another,  every  one  to  his 
brother,  saying,  Come,  I  pray  you,  and  hear  what  is  the 
word  that  cometh  forth  from  the  Lord."  Our  translators 
render  the  original  word  heha,  against  thte ;  the  Septua- 
gint,  -Kcpi  (T'lv,  of  or  concerning  thee.  This  is  the  more 
singular,  as  the  same  particle  is  rendered  in  other  parts  of 
scripture,  of  or  concerning :  thus,  in  the  eighty-seventh 
Psalm,  "Glorious  things  are  spoken  of  thee,  O  tity  of  the 
Lord."  The  following  words  incontestably  prove  they 
were  not  speaking  against  Ezekiel,  but  in  his  favour: 
^'  And  they  come  unto  thee  as  the  people  cometh :  and  they 
sit  before  thee  as  my  people ;  and  they  hear  thy  words,  but 
68 


they  will  not  do  them;  for  with  their  mouth  they  show 
much  love ;  but  their  heart  goeth  after  their  covetousness." 
But  if  "their  mouth  showed  much  love,"  they  did  not 
speak  against  the  prophet,  but  in  his  commendation.  These 
conversations  respecting  the  prophet  were  held  in  winter ; 
for  it  was  the  tenth  month,  answering  to  the  latter  end  of 
December,  or  beginning  of  January,  when  the  Orientals  sit 
under  the  walls  for  the  benefit  of  the  sun,  or  in  the  porches 
or  gateways  of  their  houses. 

As  the  Copts  in  Egypt  commonly  spend  their  holydays 
in  conversing  with  one  another  under  the  wails  of  their 
habitation,  so  Mr.  Harmer  is  of  opinion,  that  these  words 
of  Ezekiel  may  refer  to  such  times.  And  if  so,  he  asks, 
will  they  not  show  that  the  Israelites  observed  their  sab- 
baths in  the  captivity'?  And  that  so  early  as  the  time  of 
the  first  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  they  used  to  assemble  on 
those  days,  to  hear  if  the  prophets  had  received  any  mes- 
sages from  the  Lord  in  that  week,  and  to  receive  those 
advices  which  their  calamitous  circumstances  made  pecu- 
liarly seasonable  1  It  is  very  probable  that  the  Jews  in 
those  early  times  assembled  to" hear  the  instructions  of  the 
prophets,  and  for  the  public  worship  of  their  God,  so  far  as 
their  painful  circumstances  might  permit ;  but  the  words  of 
Ezekiel  under  consideration,  appear  to  be  of  a  more  general 
character,  referring  as  well  to  the  public  meetings  of  the 
synagogue,  as  to  the  private  parties  and  conversations  of 
tire  people. — Paxton. 

Severe  as  sometimes  the  cold  weather  is  in  the  East, 
Russel  observes,  that  even  in  the  depth  of  that  season,  when 
the  sun  is  out,  and  there  is  no  wind,  it  is  warm,  nay,  some- 
times almost  hot,  in  the  open  air ;  and  Pococke  informs  us, 
that  the  people  there  enjoy  it,  for  the  Copts  spend  their 
holydays  in  sauntering  about,  and  sitting  under  their  walls 
in  winter,  and  imder  shady  trees  in  summer.  This  doubt- 
less is  to  be  understood  of  the  poorer  sort,  who  have  no 
places  more  proper  for  conversation  with  their  friends; 
the  better  houses  having  porches  with  benches  on  each 
side,  where  the  master  of  the  family  receives  visits,  and 
despatches  business.  These  circumstances  greatly  illus- 
trate the  words  of  Ezekiel,  "Also,  thou  son  of  man,  the 
children  of  thy  people  are  still  talking  against  thee,  or 
rather,  concerning  thee,  by  the  walls  and  in  the  doors  of 
the  houses,"  &c. — Harmer. 

Ver.  32.  And,  lo,  thou  art  unto  them  as  a  very 
lovely  song  of  one  that  hath  a  pleasant  voice, 
and  can  play  well  on  an  'instrument :  for  they 
hear  thy  words,  but  they  do  them  not. 

"Gone!  gone!"  says  the  bereaved  admirer:  "she  was 
indeed  like  a  sweet  voice  to  my  ear."  "  I  hear  not  the 
sweet  song."  "  Where  is  my  music  V  "  The  song  of  the 
night!  the  song  of  the  night!  has  left  me." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

Ver.  6.  My  sheep  wandered  through  all  the 
mountains,  and  upon  every  high  hill :  yea,  my 
flock  was  scattered  upon  all  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  none  did  search  or  seek  after  them. 

When  travelling  in  wilderness  parts  of  the  world,  cattle 
are,  on  various  accounts,  apt  to  wander  or  to  be  scattered, 
and  require  attentive  shepherds  to  watch  their  motions. 
Should  the  grass  near  the  encampment  of  the  traveller  not 
suit  their  taste,  or  be  scarce,  they  will  gradually  move  to 
a  greater  and  greater  distance,  till  bushes  or  clumps  of  trees 
are  between  them  and  the  wagons;  then,  perhaps,  having 
the  scent  of  water,  or  that  of  better  grass,  they  will  move 
oiF  at  great  speed.  The  distant  roar  of  a  lion  also  will  so 
alarm  them  that  they  will  start  oflT  like  furious  or  frantic 
animals. 

I  remember  halting  for  a  night  about  a  hundred  miles 
beyond  Lattakoo.  Knowing  that  lions  were  numerous  in 
that  part,  all  the  oxen  were  made  fast  by  ropes  to  the  wag- 
ons. During  the  night  lions  had  roared  within  hearing 
of  the  oxen,  when  all,  no  doubt,  had  through  terror  en- 
deavoured to  break  loose  from  their  fastenings,  but  only 
three  had  succeeded,  which  having  fled,  were  pursued  by 
two  lions,  and  one  of  them  caught,  and  almost  entirely  de- 
voured by  those  two  voracious  animals.  After  they  had 
fairly  killed    the    one,  they    pursued  the   other   'wo   foi 


EZEKIEL. 


Chap.  35. 


Tlpwards  of  two  miles,  when  the)  gave  up  the  chase,  and 
returned  to  feast  on  the  one  they  lA^d  secured.  All  this  we 
knew  from  the  foot-marks  they  ha.i  left  on  the  ground.  In 
the  morning  the  Hottentots  were  sent  in  search  of  the  other 
two,  which  they  found  feeding  several  miles  off. 

The  Jewish  shepherds  were  condemned  for  not  search- 
ing for  the  scattered  sheep.  When  men  are  fatigued  by 
travelling,  they  become  lazy  and  indolent,  and  feel  indis- 
posed to  set  off  in  search  of  strayed  oxen  many  miles  dis- 
tant: yet  I  never  noticed  our  Hottentots  unwilling  to 
go  in  search  of  strayed  oxen,  however  fatigued  they  might 
be  and  rarely  did  they  return  without  finding  them,  though, 
in 'some  instances,  they  had  to  trace  their  foot-marks  for 
upwards  of  twenty  miles. — Campbell. 

Ver.  25.  And  I  will  make  with  them  a  covenant 
of  peace,  and  will  cause  the  evil  beasts  to  cease 
out  of  the  land  ;  and  they  shall  dwell  safely  in 
the  wilderness,  and  sleep  in  the  woods. 

The  oriental  shepherds,  when  unprovided  with  tents, 
erect  huts  or  booths  of  loose  stones,  covered  with  reeds  and 
boughs.  Pococke  found,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Acre, 
some  open  huts,  made  of  boughs  raised  about  three  feet 
from  the  ground,  inhabited  by  Arabs.  In  such  booths 
many  of  the  people  of  Israel  were  obliged  to  take  shelter 
in  the  wilderness,  from  the  want  of  a  suflScient  number  of 
tents,  the  remembrance  of  which  they  were  commanded 
to  preserve  by  a  solemn  festival.  But  even  these  meaner 
and  more  inconvenient  habitations  are  not  always  within 
the  reach  of  an  Arabian  shepherd;  he  is  often  obliged  to 
take  refuge  under  the  projecting  rock,  and  to  sleep  in  the 
open  air.  A  grove  or  woodland  occasionally  furnishes  a 
most  agreeable  retreat.  The  description  which  Chandler 
has  left  us  of  one  of  these  stations,  is  so  strikingly  pictur- 
esque, that  it  must  be  given  in  his  own  words :  "  About 
two  in  the  morning,  our  whole  attention  was  fixed  by  the 
barking  of  dogs,  which,  as  we  advanced,  became  exceed- 
ingly furious.  Deceived  by  the  light  of  the  moon,  we  now 
fancied  we  could  see  a  village ;  and  were  much  mortified  to 
find  only  a  station  of  poor  goatherds,  without  even  a  shed, 
and  nothing  for  our  horses  to  eat.  They  were  lying,  wrap- 
ped in  their  thick  capotes  or  loose  coats,  by  some  glimmer- 
ing embers,  among  the  bushes  in  a  dale,  under  a  spreading 
tree  by  the  fold.  They  received  us  hospitably,  heaping  on 
fresh  fuel,  and  producmg  sour  curds  and  coarse  bread, 
which  they  toasted  for  us  on  the  coals.  We  made  a  scanty 
meal,  sitting  on  the  ground,  lighted  by  the  fire  and  by  the 
moon ;  after  which,  sleep  suddenly  overpowered  me.  On 
waking,  I  found  my  two  companions  by  my  side,  sharing 
in  the  comfortable  cover  of  the  janizary's  cloak,  which  he 
had  carefully  spread  over  us.  I  was  now  much  struck 
with  the  wild  appearance  of  the  spot.  The  tree  was  hung 
with  rustic  utensils;  the  she-goats  in  a  pen,  sneezed,  and 
bleated,  and  rustled  to  and  fro  ;  the  shrubs  by  which  our 
horses  stood,  were  leafless,  and  the  earth  bare ;  a  black 
caldron  with  milk,  was  simmering  over  the  fire;  and  a 
figure,  more  than  gaunt  or  savage,  close  by  us,  struggling 
on  the  ground  with  a  kid,  whose  ears  he  had  slit,  and  was 
endeavouring  to  cauterize  with  a  red-hot  iron."  This  de- 
scription forms  a  striking  comment  on  a  passage  in  Eze- 
kiel,  in  which  God  condescends  to  give  this  promise  to  his 
people  :  "I  will  make  with  them  a  covenant  of  peace,  and 
will  cause  the  evil  beasts  to  cease  out  of  the  land  ;  and  they 
shall  dwell  safely  in  the  wilderness,  and  sleep  in  the  woods." 
No  reasonable  doubt  can  be  entertained  that  they  were 
often  exposed  in  the  same  manner,  while  lending  their 
flocks ;  and  in  great  danger,  when  their  country,  from  the 
thinness  of  the  population,  or  other  causes,  happened  to  be 
overrun  with  beasts  of  prey.  They  are  accordingly 
cheered  with  the  sure  prospect  of  those  ravenous  anima's 
being  exterminated,  and  every  woodland  becoming  a  plac^ 
of  safety  to  the  slumbering  shepherd.— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 
Ver.  1.  Moreover,  the  word  of  the  Lord  came 
unto  me,  saying,  2.  Son  of  man,  set  thy  face 
against  Mount  Seir,  and  prophesy  against  it, 
3.  And  say  unto  it,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  God, 
Behold,  0  Mount  Seir,  I  am  against  th-e,  and 


I  will  stretch  out  my  hand  against  thee,  and  I 
will  make  thee  most  desolate.  7.  Thus  will  I 
make  Mount  Seir  most  desolate,  and  cut  off 
from  it  him  that  passeth  out,  and  him  that  re- 
turneth. 

There  is  a  prediction  which,  being  peculiarly  remarka- 
ble as  applicable  to  Idumea,  and  bearing  reference  to  a  cir- 
cumstance explanatory  of  the  difficulty  of  access  to  any 
knowledge  respecting  it,  is  entitled,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
notice,  "  None  shall  pass  through  it  for  ever  and  ever." 
Isaiah  xxxiv.  10.  "  I  will  cut  off  from  Mount  Seir  him 
that  passeth  out  and  him  that  returneth."  Ezek.  xxxv.  7. 
The  ancient  greatness  of  Idumea  must,  in  no  small  degree, 
have  resulted  from  its  commerce.  Bordering  with  Arabia 
on  the  east,  and  Egypt  on  the  southwest,  and  forming  from 
north  to  south  the  most  direct  and  most  commodious  chan- 
nel of  communication  between  Jerusalem  and  her  depen- 
dencies on  the  Red  Sea,  as  well  as  between  Syria  and 
India,  (through  the  continuous  valleys  of  El  Ghor  and  El 
Arabia,  which  terminated  on  the  one  extremity  at  the 
borders  of  Judea,  and  on  the  other  at  Elathand  Esiongaber 
on  the  Elanitic  Gulf  of  the  Red  Sea,)  Idumea  may  be  said 
to  have  formed  the  emporium  of  the  commerce  of  the 
East.  A  Roman  road  passed  directly  through  Idumea, 
from  Jerusalem  to  Akaba,  and  another  from  Akaba  to 
Moab ;  and  when  these  roads,  were  made,  at  a  time  long 
posterior  to  the  date  of  the  predictions,  the  conception  could 
not  have  been  formed,  or  held  credible  by  man,  that  the 
period  would  ever  arrive  when  none  would  pass  through 
it.  Above  seven  hundred  vears  after  the  date  of  the  proph- 
ecy, Strabo  relates,  that  "  inany  Romans  and  other  foreign- 
ers" were  found  at  Petra  by  his  friend  Athenodorus,  the 
philosopher,  who  visited  it.  The  prediction  is  yet  more 
surprising,  when  viewed  in  conjunction  with  another,  which 
implies  that  travellers  would  pass  by  Idumea,— every  one 
that  goeth  by  shall  be  astonished.  And  the  hadj  routes 
(routes  of  the  pilgrims)  from  Damascus  and  from  Cairo 
to  Mecca,  the  one  on  the  east,  and  the  other  towards  the 
south  of  Idumea,  along  the  whole  of  its  extent,  go  by  it, 
or  touch  partially  on  its  borders,  without  passing  through 
it.  The  truth  of  the  prophecy  (though  hemmed  m  thus  by 
apparent  impossibilities  and  contradictions,  and  with  ex- 
treme probability  of  its  fallacy  in  every  view  that  could 
have  been  visible  to  man)  may  yet  be  tried. 

The  words  of  the  prediction  might  well  be  understood 
as  merely  implying  that  Idumea  would  cease  to  be  a 
thoroughfare  for  the  commerce  of  the  nations  which  ad- 
joined it,  and  that  its  "  highly-frequented  marts"  would  be 
forsaken  as  centres  of  intercourse  and  traffic ;  and  easy 
would  have  been  the  task  of  demonstrating  its  truth  in  this 
limited  sense,  which  skepticism  itself  ought  not  to  be  un- 
willing to  authorize.  But  the  fact  to  which  it  refers  forbids 
that  the  prophecy  should  be  limited  to  a  general  interpreta- 
tion, and  demands  that  it  be  literally  understood  and  ap- 
plied. The  fact  itself  being  of  a  negative  nature,  requires 
a  more  minute  investigation  and  detail  than  any  matter 
of  observation  or  discovery  that  is  proveable  at  once  by  a 
simple  description.  And  instead  of  merely  citmg  authori- 
ties in  affirmation  of  it,  evidence,  as  remarkable  as  the 
prediction,  and  at  once  the  most  undesigned  and  conclu- 
sive, shall  be  largely  adduced  to  establish  its  trutn. 

The  remark  of  Volney,  who  passed  at  a  distance  to  the 
west  of  Idumea,  and  who  received  his  information  froni 
the  Arabs  in  that  quarter,  "  that  it  had  not  been  visited 
by  any  traveller,"  will  not  be  unobserved  by  the  attentive 
reader.  Soon  after  Burckhardt  had  entered,  on  the  north- 
east, the  territories  of  the  Edomites,  the  boundary  of  which 
he  distinctly  marks,  he  says,  that  "  he  was  without  pro- 
tection in  the  midst  of  a  desert,  where  no  traveller  had 
ever  been  oefcre  seen."  It  was  then  "  that  lor  the  first  time 
he  had  ever  felt  fear  during  his  travels  in  the  desert,  and 
his  route  thither  was  the  most  dangerous  he  had  ever  trav- 
elled." Mr.  Joliffe,  who  visited  the  northern  shore  ot  the 
Dead  Sea,  in  alluding  to  the  country  south  of  its  opposite 
extremity,  describes  it  as  "  one  of  the  wildest  and  most  dan- 
gerous divisions  of  Arabia,"  and  says,  that  any  re^search 
in  that  quarter  was  impracticable.  Sir  Frederick  Henni- 
ker  in  his  Notes  dated  from  Mount  Sinai  on  \hQ  jovth 
of  idumea,  unconsciously  concentrates  striking  evidence 
in  verification  of  the  prediction,  while  he  stales  a  tact  that 


Chap.  35. 


EZEKIEL. 


539 


would  seem,  at  first  sight,  to  militate  against  it.  "  Seet- 
zen,  on  a  vessel  of  paper  pasted  a;eainst  the  wall,  notifies 
his  having  penetrated  the  country  in  a  direct  line  between 
the  Dead  Sea  and  Mount  Sinai,"  (through  Idumea,)  "  a 
route  never  before  accomplished.  This  was  the  more  inter- 
esting to  me,  as  I  had  previously  determined  to  attempt  the 
same,  it  being  the  shorUat  way  to  Jerusalem.  The  Cava- 
lier Frediani,  whom  I  met  in  Egypt,  would  have  persua- 
ded me  that  it  was  impracticable,  and  that  he,  having  had 
the  same  intention  himself,  after  having  been  detained  in 
hope  five  weeks,  was  compelled  to  relinquish  his  design. 
While  I  was  yet  ruminating  over  this  scrap  of  paper,  the 
superior  paid  me  a  morning  visit;  he  also  said  it  was  im- 
possible ;  but  at  length  promised  to  search  for  guides.  I 
had  already  endeavoured  to  persuade  those  who  had  ac- 
companied me  from  Tor,  but  they  also  talked  of  dangers, 
and  declined."  Guides  were  found,  who,  after  resisting  for 
a  while  his  entreaties  and  bribes,  agreed  to  conduct  him 
by  the  desired  route ;  but,  unable  to  overcome  their  fears, 
deceived  him,  and  led  him  towards  the  Mediterranean 
coast,  through  the  desert  of  Gaza. 

There  yet  remains  a  detail  of  the  complication  of  diffi- 
culties which,  in  another  direction  still,  the  nearest  to  Ju- 
dea,  and  apparently  the  most  accessible,  the  traveller  has 
to  encounter  in  reaching  that  desolate  region  which  once 
formed  the  kingdom  of  Idumea, — difficulties  that  it  may 
safely  be  said  are  scarcely  to  be  met  with  in  any  other  part 
of  Asia,  or  even  in  any  other  quarter  of  the  world  where 
no  natural  obstructions  intervene.  "  To  give  an  idea," 
say  Captains  Irby  and  Mangles,  "  of  the  difficulties  which 
the  Turkish  government  supposed  there  would  be  for  an 
Englishman  to  go  to  Kerek  and  Wady  Mouse,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  say,  that  when  Mr.  Banks  applied  at  Constantino- 
ple to  have  these  places  inserted  in  his  firman,  they  returned 
for  answer,  "  that  they  knew  of  none  such  within'the  grand 
seignior's  dominions;  but  as  he  and  Mr.  Frere,  the  British 
minister,  pressed  the  affiiir  very  much,  they  at  length  re- 
ferred him  to  the  pacha  of  Damascus,  who  (equally  averse 
to  have  any  thing  to  do  with  the  business)  passed  him  on 
to  the  governor  of  Jerusalem."  The  governor  of  Jerusa- 
lem, '^  having  tried  all  he  could  to  dissuade  them  from  the 
undertaking,"  referred  him  in  like  manner  to  the  governor 
of  Jaffa,  who  not  only  "  evaded  the  affair  altogether,"  but 
endeavoured  to  put  a  stop  to  their  journey.  Though  frus- 
trated in  every  attempt  to  obtain  any  protection  or  assist- 
ance from  the  public  authorities,  and  also  warned  of  the 
danger  that  awaited  them  from  "  Arabs  of  a  most  savage 
and  treacherous  race,"  these  adventurous  travellers,  intent 
on  visiting  the  ruins  of  Petra,  having  provided  themselves 
with  horses  and  arms,  and  Arab  dresses,  and  being  eleven 
in  number,  including  servants  and  two  guides,  "  deter- 
mined to  proceed  to  try  their  fortune  with  the  sheikh  of 
Hebron."  He  at  first  expressed  compliance  with  their 
wishes,  but  being  soon  "  alarmed  at  his  own  determina- 
tion," refused  them  the  least  aid  or  protection.  Repeated 
offers  of  money  to  guides  met  a  decided  refusal ;  and  they 
procured  no  means  of  facilitating  their  journey.  The  pe- 
culiar difficulty,  not  only  o{  passing  through  Idumea,  (which 
they  never  attempted,)  but  even  of  entering  withm  its  bor- 
ders, and  the  greater  hazard  of  travelling  thither  than  in 
?iny  other  direction,  are  still  further  illustrated  by  the  ac- 
quiescence of  an  Arab  tribe  afterward  to  accompany  and 
protect  them  to  Kerek,  at  a  reasonable  rate,  and  by  their 
positive  refusal,  upon  any  terms  or  stipulation  whatever,  to 
conduct  them  to  a  spot  that  lay  within  the  boundaries  of 
Edom.  "  We  offered  five  hundred  piastres  if  they  would 
conduct  us  to  Wady  Mousa,  but  nothing  could  induce  them 
to  consent.  They  said  they  would  not  go  if  we  would  give 
them  five  thousand  piastres,"  (forty  times  the  sum  for  which 
they  had  agreed  to  accompany  them  to  Kerek,  although 
the  distance  was  not  nearly  douJale,)  "  observing  that  money 
was  of  no  use  to  a  man  if  he  lost  his  life."  Having  after- 
ward obtained  the  protection  of  an  intrepid  Arab  chief, 
with  his  followers,  and  havin2  advanced  to  the  borders  of 
Edom,  their  further  progress  was  suddenly  opposed  in  the 
most  threatening  and  determined  manner.  And  in  the 
whole  course  of  their  travels,  which  extended  to  about 
three  thousand  miles,  in  Thrace,  Asia  Minof,  Cyprus,  the 
desert,  Egypt,  and  in  Syria,  in  different  lonjjitudinal  and 
lateral  directions,  from  one  extremity  to  the  other,  they 
found  nowhere  such  a  barrier  to  their  progress,  except  in 
a  previous  abortive  attempt  to  reach  Petra  from  another 


quarter ;  and  though  they  were  never  better  prepared  for 
encountering  it,  they  never  elsewhere  experienced  so  for- 
midable an  opposition.  The  sheikh  of  Wady  Mousa  and 
his  people  swore  that  they  would  not  suffer  them  to  go  for- 
w^ard.  and  "that  they  should  neither  drink  of  their  water, 
7uor  pass  into  their  territory."  The  Arab  chief  who  had 
espoused  their  cause  also  took  an  oath,  "  by  the  faith  of  a 
true  Mussulman,"  that  they  should  drink  of  the  water  of 
Wady  Mcusa,  and  go  whithersoever  he  pleased  to  carry 
them.  "  Thus,"  it  is  remarked,  "  were  both  the  rival  chiefs 
oppositely  pledged  in  their  resolutions  respecting  us." 

Several  days  were  passed  in  entreaties,  artifices,  and 
mutual  menaces,  which  were  all  equally  unavailing. — The 
determination  and  perseverance  of  the  one  party  of  Arabs 
was  equalled  by  the  resistance  and  obstinacy  of  the  other. 
Both  were  constantly  acquiring  an  accession  of  strength, 
and  actively  preparing  for  combat.  The  travellers,  thus 
finding  all  the  dangers  and  difficulties  of  which  they  had 
been  forewarned  fully  realized,  "  could  not  but  compare 
their  case  to  that  of  the  Israelites  under  Moses,  w^ew  Edom, 
refused  to  give  them  a  passage  through  his  country."  "  They 
offered  even  to  abandon  their  object  rather  than  proceed  to 
extremities,"  and  endanger  the  lives  of  many  others,  as 
well  as  their  own  ;  and  they  were  told  that  they  were  for- 
tunate in  the  protection  of  the  chief  who  accompanied 
them,  otherwise  they  never  would  have  returned.  The 
hostile  Arabs,  who  defied  them  and  their  protectors  to  ap- 
proach, having  abandoned  their  camps,  and  having  con- 
centrated their  forces,  and  possessed  themselves  of  the 
passes  and  heights,  sent  messengers  with  a  renewal  of  oaths 
and  protestations  as,ainst  entering  their  territory  ;  announ- 
ced that  they  were  fully  prepared  to  maintain  their  purpose — 
that  war  "  was  positively  determined  on  as  the  only  alter- 
native of  the  travellers  not  being  permitted  to  see  what 
they  desired  :"  and  their  sheikh  vowed  that  "  if  they  passed 
through  his  lands,  they  should  be  shot  like  so  many  dogs." 
Abou  Raschid,  the  firm  and  fearless  chief  who  had  pledged 
his  honour  and  his  oath  in  guarantee  for  the  advance  of 
the  travellers,  and  whose  obstinate  resolution  nothing  could 
exceed,  his  arguments,  artifices,  and  falsehoods  having  all 
failed,  despatched  messengers  to  the  camps  under  his  in- 
fluence, rejected  alike  all  compromise  with  the  opposing 
Arabs,  and  all  remonstrances  on  the  part  of  his  adherents 
and  dependants,  (who  thought  that  the  travellers  were  doom- 
ed to  destruction  by  their  rashness,)  and  resolved  to  achieve 
by  force  what  he  had  sworn  to  accomplish.  "  The  camp  as- 
sumed a  very  warlike  appearance  ;  the  spears  stuck  in  the 
sand,  the  saddled  horses  before  the  tents,  with  the  arms 
hanging  up  within,  altogether  had  an  imposing  effect.  The 
travellers,  however,  were  at  last  permitted  to  proceed  in 
peace:  but  a  brief  space  were  allowed  them  for  inspecting 
the  ruins,  and  they  could  plainly  distinguish  the  opposing 
party  of  Arabs,  in  great  numbers,  watching  them  from  the 
neights.  Abou  Raschid  was  then  dismayed,  "  he  was  never 
at  his  ease,  and  constantly  urged  them  to  depart."  Nothing 
could  obtain  an  extension  of  the  time  allotted  them,  and 
they  returned,  leaving  much  unexplored,  and  even  unable 
by  any  means  or  possibility  to  penetrate  a  little  farther,  in 
order  to  visit  a  large  temple  which  they  could  clearly  dis- 
cern.    Through  Idumea  they  did  not  pass. 

Thus  Volney,  Burckhardt,  Joliffe,  Henniker,  and  Cap- 
tains Irby  and  Mangles,  not  only  give  their  personal  testi- 
mony of  the  truth  of  the  fact  which  corroborates  the  pre- 
diction, but  also  adduce  a  variety  of  circumstances,  which 
all  conspire  in  giving  superfluity  of  proof  that  Idumea, 
which  was  long  resorted  to  from  every  quarter,  is  so  beset 
on  every  side  with  dangers  to  the  traveller,  that  none  pass 
through  it.  Even  the  Arabs  of  the  neighbouring  region^ 
whose  home  is  the  desert,  and  whose  occupation  is  wan- 
dering, are  afraid  to  enter  it,  or  to  conduct  any  within  ita 
borders.-  Yet  amid  all  this  manifold  testimony  to  its  truth, 
there  is  not,  in  any  single  instance,  the  most  distant  allu- 
sion to  the  prediction ;  and  the  evidence  is  as  unsuspicious 
and  undesigned,  as  it  is  copious  and  complete. 

"  I  will  make  thee  small  among  the  nations ;  thou  art 
greatly  despised."  Though  the  border  of  wickedness,  and 
the  retreat  of  a  horde  of  thieves,  who  are  distinguished  as 
peculiarly  savage  even  among  the  wild  Arabs,  and  thus 
an  object  of  dread,  as  well  as  of  astonishment,  to  those  who 
pass  thereby,  yet,  contrasted  with  what  it  was,  or  reckoned 
among  the  nations,  Edom  is  small  indeed.  Within  almost 
all  its  boundary,  it  may  be  said  that  none  abide,  or  have 


640 


EZEKIEL. 


CiiAP.  35. 


any  fixed  permanent  residence ;  and  instead  of  the  superb 
structures,  the  works  of  various  ages,  which  long  adorned 
its  cities,  the  huts  of  the  Arabs,  where  even  huts  they 
have,  are  mere  mud-hovels,  of  "  mean  and  ragged  appear- 
ance," which,  in  general,  are  deserted  on  the  least  alarm. 
But,  miserable  habitations  as  these  are,  they  scarcely  seem 
to  exist  anywhere  throughout  Edom,  but  on  a  single  point 
of  its  borders  ;  and  wherever  the  Arabs  otherwise  wander 
in  search  of  spots  for  pasturage  for  their  cattle,  (found  in 
hollows,  or  near  to  springs  after  the  winter  rains,)  tents 
are  their  only  covering.  Those  which  pertain  to  the  more 
powerful  tribes  are  sometimes  both  numerous  and  large  ; 
yet,  though  they  form  at  least  but  a  frail  dwelling,  many  of 
them  are  "  very  low  and  small."  Near  to  the  ruins  of  Petra, 
Burckhardt  passed  an  encampment  of  Bedouin  tents,  most 
^  of  which  were  "  the  smallest  he  had  ever  seen,  about  four 
feet  high,  and  ten  in  length ;"  and  towards  the  southwest 
border  of  Edom  he  met  with*  a  few  wanderers,  who  had  no 
tents  with  them,  and  whose  only  shelter  from  the  burning 
rays  of  the  sun  and  the  heavy  detos  of  night  was  the  scanty 
branches  of  the  talk-trees.  The  subsistence  of  the  Bedou- 
ins is  often  as  precarious  as  their  habitations  are  mean ; 
the  flocks  they  tend,  or  which  they  pillage  from  more  fer- 
tile regions,  are  their  only  possessions ;  and  in  that  land 
where  commerce  long  concentrated  its  wealth,  and  through 
which  the  treasures  of  Ophir  passed,  the  picking  of  gum 
arable  from  thorny  branches  is  now  the  poor  occupation, 
the  only  semblance  of  industry,  practised  by  the  wild  and 
wandering  tenants  of  a  desert.  Edom  is  small  among  the 
Tuitions  I  and  how  greatly  is  it  despised,  when  the  public 
authorities  at  Constantinople  deny  any  knowledge  of  it ! — 
Keith. 

Ver.  15.  As  thou  didst  rejoice  at  the  inheritance 
of  the  house  of  Israel,  because  it  was  desolate, 
so  will  I  do  unto  thee :  thou  shalt  be  desolate, 
O  Mount  Seir,  and  all  Idumea,  even  all  of  it ; 
and  they  shall  know  that  I  am,  the  Lord. 

Idumea  was  situated  to  the  south  of  Judea  and  of  Moab ; 
it  bordered  on  the  east  with  Arabia  Petrea,  under  which 
name  it  was  included  in  the  latter  part  of  its  history,  and 
it  extended  southward  to  the  eastern  gulf  of  the  Red  Sea. 
A  single  extract  from  the  Travels  of  Volney  will  be  found 
to  be  equally  illustrative  of  the  prophecy  and  of  the  fact. 
"  This  country  has  not  been  visited  by  any  traveller,  but  it 
well  merits  such  an  attention  ;  for  from  the  reports  of  the 
Arabs  of  Bakir,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Gaza,  who  frequent- 
ly go  to  Maanand  Karak,  on  the  road  of  the  pils^rims,  there 
are,  to  the  southeast  of  the  lake  Asphaltites,  (Dead  Sea,) 
within  three  day s^  journey,  upwards  of  thirty  ruined  towns 
ahsolutely  deserted.  Several  of  them  have  large  edifices, 
with  columns  that  may  have  belonged  to  the  ancient  tem- 
ples, or  at  least  to  Greek  churches.  The  Arabs  sometimes 
make  use  of  them  to  fold  the  cattle  in ;  but  in  general  avoid 
them  on  account  of  the  enormous  scorpions  with  which  they 
swarm.  We  cannot  be  surprised  at  these  traces  of  ancient 
population,  when  we  recollect  that  this  was  the  country  of 
the  Nabatheans,  the  most  powerful  of  the  Arabs,  and  of  the 
Idumeans,  who,  at  the  time  of  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem., 
were  almost  as  numerous  as  the  Jews,  as  appears  from 
Josephus,  who  informs  us,  that  on  the  first  rumour  of  the 
march  of  Titus  against  Jerusalem,  thirty  thousand  Idu- 
means instantly  assembled,  and  threw  thernselves  into  that 
city  for  its  defence.  It  appears  that,  besides  the  advantages 
of  being  under  a  tolerably  good  government,  these  districts 
enjoyed  a  considerable  share  of  the  commerce  of  Arabia  and 
India,  which  increased  their  industry  and  population.  We 
know  that  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Solomon,  the  cities  of  As- 
tioum  Gaber  (Esion  Gaber)  and  Ailah  (Eloth)  were  highly- 
frequented  marts.  These  towns  were  situated  on  the  adjacent 
gulf  of  the  Red  Sea,  where  we  still  find  the  latter  yet  retain- 
ing its  name,  and  perhaps  the  former  in  that  of  El  Akaba,  or 
the  end  (of  the  sea.)  These  two  places  are  in  the  hands  of 
the  Bedouins,  who,  being  destitute  of  a  navy  and  commerce, 
do  not  inhabit  them.  But  the  pilgrims  report  that  there  is 
at  El  Akaba  a  wretched  fort.  The  Idumeans,  from  whom 
the  .Tews  only  took  their  ports  at  intervals,  must  have  found 
in  them  a  great  source  of  wealth  and  population.  It  even 
appears  that  the  Idumeans  rivalled  the  Tyrians,  who  also 
possessed  a  town,  the  name  of  which  is  unknown,  on  the 


coast  of  Hedjaz,  in  the  desert  of  Tih,  and  the  city  of  Faran, 
and,  without  doubt,  El-Tor,  which  served  it  by  way  of  port. 
From  this  place  the  caravans  might  reach  Palestine  and 
Judea  (through  Idumea)  in  eight  or  ten  days.  This  route, 
which  is  longer  than  that  from  Suez  to  Cairo,  is  infinitely 
shorter  than  that  from  Aleppo  to  Bassorah."  Evidence 
which  must  have  been  undesigned,  which  cannot  be  sus- 
pected of  partiality,  and  which  no  illustration  can  strengthen, 
and  no  ingenuity  pervert,  is  thus  borne  to  the  truth  of  the 
most  wonderful  prophecies.  That  the  Idumeans  were  a 
populous  and  powerful  nation  long  posterior  to  the  delive- 
ry of  the  prophecies';  that  they  possessed  a  tolerably  good 
government,  (even  in  the  estimation  of  Volney ;)  that  Idu- 
mea contained  many  cities ;  that  these  cities  are  now  ab- 
solutely deserted,  and  that  their  ruins  swarms  with  enor- 
mous scorpions  ;  that  it  was  a  commercial  nation,  and  pos- 
sessed highly-frequented  marts;  that  it  forms  a  shorter 
route  than  an  ordinary  one  to  India,  and  yet  that  it  had  not 
been  visited  by  any  traveller,  are  facts  all  recorded,  or 
proved  to  a  wish,  by  this  able  but  unconscious  commen- 
tator. 

A  greater  contrast  cannot  be  imagined  than  the  ancient 
and^present  state  of  Idumea.  It  was  a  kingdom  previous  to 
Israel,  having  been  governed  first  by  dukes  or  princes,  af- 
terward by  eight  successive  kings,  and  again  by  dukes, 
before  there  reigned  any  king  over  the  children  of  Israel. 
Its  fertility  and  early  cultivation  are  implied,  not  only  in 
the  blessings  of  Esau,  whose  dwelling  was  to  be  the  fatness 
of  the  earth,  and  of  the  dew  of  heaven  from  above,  but  also 
in  the  condition  proposed  by  Moses  to  the  Edomites,  when 
he  solicited  a  passage  for  the  Israelites  through  their  bor- 
ders, "  that  they  would  not  pass  through  the  fields  nor 
through  the  vineyards;"  and  also  in  the  great  wealth,  espe- 
cially in  the  multitudes  of  flocks  and  herds,  recorded  as 
possessed  by  an  individual  inhabitant  of  that  countiy,  at  a 
period,  in  all  probability,  even  more  remote.  The  Idu- 
means were,  without  doubt,  both  an  opulent  and  a  power- 
ful people.  They  often  contended  with  the  Israelites,  and 
entered  into  a  league  with  their  other  enemies  against  them. 
In  the  reign  of  David  they  were  indeed  subdued  and  great- 
ly oppressed,  and  many  ojthem  even  dispersed  throughout 
the  neighbouring  countries,  particularly  Phenicia^  and 
Egypt.  But  during  the  decline  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah, 
and  for  many  years  previous  to  its  extinction,  they  encroach- 
ed upon  the  territories  of  the  Jews,  and  extended  their 
dominion  over  the  southwestern  part  of  Judea.  Though 
no  excellence  whatever  be  now  attached  to  its  name,  which 
exists  only  in  past  history,  Idumea,  including  perhaps  Ju- 
dea, was  then  not  without  the  praise  of  the  first  of  Roman 
poets : 

Primus  Iduraeas  referam  tibi,  Mantua,  palmas. 

Virg.  Georg.  lib.iii.  1.  12. 

And  of  Lucan,  (Phars.  lib.  iii.) 

Arbustis  palmarum  dives  Idume. 

But  Idumea,  as  a  kingdom,  can  lay  claim  to  a  higher 
renown  than  either  the  abundance  of  "its  flocks  or  the  ex- 
cellence of  its  palm-trees.  The  celebrated  city  of  Petra  (so 
named  by  the  Greeks,  and  so  worthy  of  the  name,  on  ac- 
count both  of  its  rocky  vicinity  and  its  numerous  dwellings 
excavated  from  the  rocks)  was  situated  within  the  patri- 
monial territory  of  the  Edomites.  There  is  distinct  and 
positive  evidence  that  it  was  a  city  of  Edom,  and  the  me- 
tropolis of  the  Nabatheans,  whom"  Strabo  expressly  identi- 
fies with  the  Idumeans — possessors  of  the  same  country,  and 
subject  to  the  same  laws.  "  Petra,"  to  use  the  words  of 
Dr.  Vincent,  by  whom  the  state  of  its  ancient  commerce 
was  described  before  its  ruins  were  discovered,  "  is  the  ca- 
pital of  Edom  or  Seir,  the  Idumea  or  Arabia  PetrtPa  of  the 
Greeks,  the  Nabatea,  considered  both  by  geographers,  his- 
torians, and  poets,  as  the  source  of  all  the  precious  commod- 
ities of  the  East."  "  The  caravans,  in  all  ages,  from 
Minea  in  the  interior  of  Arabia,  and  from  Gerrha  on  the 
Gulf  of  Persia,  from  Hadramaut  on  the  ocean,  and  some 
even  from  Sabea  or  Yemen,  appear  to  have  pointed  to 
Petra  as  a  common  centre  ;  and  from  Petra  the  trade  seems 
to  have  again  branched  out  in  every  direction  to  Egypt, 
Palestine,  and  Syria,  through  Arsinoe,  Gaza,  Tyre,  Jeru- 
salem, Damascus,  and  a  variety  of  subordinate  routes  that 
all  terminated  on  the  Mediterranean.  There  is  every  proof 
that  is  requisite  to  show  that  the  Tyrians  and  Sidoniang 
were  the  first  merchants  who  introduced  the  produce  o( 
India  to  all  the  nations  which  encircled  the  Mediterranean 


Chap.  37,  38. 


EZEKIEL. 


541 


so  is  there  the  strongest  evidence  to  prove  that  the  Tyrians 
obtained  all  their  commodities  from  Arabia.  But  if  Arabia 
was  the  centre  of  this  commerce,  Petra  was  the  point  to 
which  all  the  Arabians  tended  from  the  three  sides  of  their 
vast  peninsula."  At  a  period  subsequent  to  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Christian  era,  there  always  reigned  at  Petra, 
according  to  Strabo,  a  king  of  the  royal  lineage,  with  whom 
a  prince  was  associated  in  the  government.  It  was  a  place 
of  great  strength  in  the  time  of  the  Romans.  Pompey 
marched  against  it,  but  desisted  from  the  attack;  and  Tra- 
jan afterward  besieged  it.  It  was  a  metropolitan  see,  to 
which  several  bishopricks  were  attached  in  the  time  of  the 
Greek  emperors,  and  Idumea  was  included  in  the  third 
Palestine — Palcstitm  tertia  sive  salutaris.  But  the  ancient 
state  of  Idumea  cannot  in  the  present  day  be  so  clearly  as- 
certained from  the  records  respecting  it  which  can  be 
gleaned  from  history,  whether  sacred  or  profane,  as  by  the 
wonderful  and  imperishable  remains  of  its  capital  city^  and 
by  "  the  traces  of  many  towns  and  villages,"  v/hich  indis- 
putably show  that  it  must  once  have  been  thickly  inhabited. 
It  not  only  can  admit  of  no  dispute  that  the  country  and 
cities  of  Idumea  subsisted  in  a  very  different  state  from  that 
absolute  desolation  in  which,  long  prior  to  the  period  of  its 
reality,  it  was  represented  in  the  prophetic  vision ;  but 
there  are  prophecies  regarding  it  that  have  yet  a  prospec- 
tive view,  and  which  refer  to  the  time  when  "  the  children 
of  Israel  shall  possess  their  possessions,"  or  to  "the  year 
of  recompenses  for  the  controversy  of  Zion."  But,  dan- 
gerous as  it  is  to  explore  the  land  of  Idumea  and  difficult 
to  ascertain  those  existing  facts  and  precise  circumstances 
which  form  the  strongest  features  of  its  desolate  aspect,  (and 
Ihat  ought  to  be  the  subject  of  scientific  as  well  as  of  reli- 
gious inquiry,)  enough  has  been  discovered  to  show  that 
the  sentence  against  it,  though  fulfilled  by  the  agency  of 
nature  and  of  man,  is  precisely  such  as  was  first  recorded 
in  the  annals  of  inspiration. — Keith. 

CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

Ver.  16.  Moreover,  thou  son  of  man,  take  thee 
one  stick,  and  write  upon  it,  For  Judah,  and 
for  the  children  of  Israel  his  companions :  then 
take  another  stick,  and  write  upon  it,  For  Jo- 
seph, the  stick  of  Ephraim,  and  for  all  the 
house  of  Israel  his  companions. 

The  original  manner  of  communicating  ideas  by  letters, 
among  the  ancient  Britons,  was  by  cutting  the  letters  upon 
sticks,  which  were  most  commonly  squared,  and  some- 
times formed  into  three  sides.  The  squares  were  used  for 
general  subjects,  and  for  stanzas  of  four  lines  in  poetry : 
the  trilateral  ones  were  adapted  to  trides,  and  for  a  peculiar 
kind  of  ancient  metre,  called  triban,  or  triplet,  and  englyn 
milwyr,  or  the  warrior's  verse.  Several  sticks  with  wri- 
ting upon  them  were  put  together,  forming  a  kind  of  frame, 
which  was  called  peithynen,  or  elucidator;  and  was  so 
constructed,  that  each  stick  might  be  turned  for  the  facility 
of  reading,  the  end  of  each  running  out  aUernately  on  both 
sides  of  the  frame.   (  See  engraving,  at  the  end  of  the  volume.') 

A  continuation  of  this  mode  of  writing  may  be  found  in 
the  Runic  or  log  almanacs  of  the  northern  states  of  Europe, 
in  which  the  engraving  on  square  pieces  of  wood  has  been 
continued  to  so  late  a  period  as  the  sixteenth  century.  The 
Scythians  also  conveyed  their  ideas  by  marking  or  cutting 
certain  figures  and  a  variety  of  lines,  upon  splinters  or  bil- 
lets of  wood.  Aulus  Gellius  (lib.  ii.  c.  12)  says,  that  the 
ancient  laws  of  Solon,  preserved  at  Athens,  were  cut  in 
tablets  of  wood. 

At  Umea,  in  Sweden,  a  person  whom  Dr.  Clarke  visited, 
"  produced  several  ancient  Runic  staves,  such  as  are  known 
in  Sweden  under  the  name  of  Runic  almanacs,  or  Runic 
calendars.  They  were  all  of  wood,  about  three  feet  and  a 
half  long,  shaped  like  the  straight  swords  represented  in 
churches  upon  the  brazen  sepulchre-plates  of  our  Saxon 
ancestors.  The  blades  were  on  each  side  engraved  with 
Runic  characters,  and  signs,  like  hieroglyphics,  extending 
their  whole  length.  The  signs  were  explained  to  us  as 
those  of  the  months,  and  the  characters  denoted  the  weeks 
and  days.  The  Runic  staves  which  had  beer  mven  to  us, 
were  afterward  exhibited  at  Morvana,  and  in  ihe  different 
places  through  which  we  passed,  in  the  hope  of  procuring 
more.    We  afterward  saw  others ;  but  they  were  always 


rare,  and  considered  more  as  curious  antiquities  than  things 
in  actual  use :  although  the  inhabitants  were  we^ acquainted 
with  them,  and  were  otten  able  to  explain  the  meaning  of 
the  characters  upon  them,  and  the -purpose  for  which  these 
instruments  were  made,  especially  in  this  pa^t  of  Sweden. 
We  saw  one  of  more  elaborate  workmanship,  where  the 
Runic  characters  had  been  very  elegantly  engraved  upon 
a  stick,  like  a  physician's  cane:  but  this  last  seemed  to  be 
of  a  more  modern  dale.  In  every  instance,  it  was  evident, 
from  some  of  the  marks  upon  them,  that  their  first  owners 
were  Christians:  the  different  lines  and  characters  deno- 
ting the  fasts  and  festivals,  golden  numbers,  donunical  letter, 
epact,  &c.  But  the  custom  of  thus  preserving  written  rec- 
ords upon  rods  or  sticks  is  of  the  highest  antiquity.  There 
is  an  allusion  to  this  custom  in  Ezekiel,  xxxvii.  IG— 20, 
where  mention  is  made  of  something  very  similar  to  the 
Runic  staff."  Nearly  nine  centuries  before  the  age  of 
Ezekiel's  prophecy,  Moses  used  rods  in  the  same  manner. 
Numbers  xvii.  2,  3.  We  may  now  see  how  satisfactorily 
the  use  to  which  these  written  rods  were  in  after-ages  ap'- 
plied,  is  illustrated  by  the  Runic  staves,  which  have  gene- 
rally the  form  of  a  sword  or  sceptre,  being  the  ensigns  of 
office  and  dignity  borne  in  the  hands  by  the  priests,  the 
elders,  and  princes  of  the  people.  The  recurved  rods  of 
the  priests  among  the  Greeks,  and  the  crosier  of  a  modern 
bishop,  had  the  same  origin. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

Ver.  1 1.  And  thou  shalt  say,  I  will  go  up  to  the 
land  of  unwalled  villages ;  I  will  go  to  them 
that  are  at  rest,  that  dwell  safely,  all  of  them 
dwelling  without  walls,  and  having  neither  bars 
nor  gates. 

The  Orientals  were  attentive  to  safety,  not  less  than  to 
convenience  and  pleasure.  To  secure  their  dwellings  from 
the  depredations  of  hostile  tribes,  that  scoured  their  country 
in  all  directions  in  quest  of  plunder,  they  were  forced  to 
surround  them  with  lofty  walls.  This  mode  of  defence 
seems  to  have  been  adopted  at  a  very  remote  period  ;  for  | 
the  spies  whom  Moses  sent  into  Canaan  to  view  the  coun- 
try, reported  that  the  cities  were  great,  and  walled  up  to 
heaven.  The  height  of  these  walls,  which  by  a  bold  ori- 
ental figure,  dictated  by  the  pusillanimous  fears  of  the  spies, 
are  said  to  reach  up  to  heaven,  must  have  appeared  to  the 
people  of  Israel,  unaccustomed  as  they  were  to  warfare  of 
that  kind,  and  totally  unprovided  with  the  means  necessary 
for  besieging  fortified  places,  a  very  serious  obstacle  to  the 
accomplishment  of  their  wishes.  But  the  magnitude  of  it 
may  be  illustrated  with  the  greatest  advantage,  from  the 
accounts  which  modern  travellers  have  given  us  of  the 
present  inhabitants  of  those  deserts,  who  are  much  in  the 
same  circumstances  as  the  people  oif  Israel  were  when  they 
came  out  of  Egypt,  whose  attacks  are  effectually  repellei 
by  the  lofty  walls  of  one  or  two  Christian  monasteries. 

The  great  monastery  of  Mount  Sinai,  Thevenot  says,  is 
well  built  of  good  freestone,  with  very  high  smooth  walls; 
on  the  east  side  there  is  a  window,  by  which  those  that 
were  within  drew  up  the  pilgrrims  into  the  monastery 
with  a  basket,  which  they  let  down  by  a  rope  that  runs  by 
a  pulley,  to  be  seen  above  at  the  window,  and  the  pilgrims 
went  into  it  one  by  one,  and  so  were  hoisted  up.  These 
walls  are  so  high  that  they  cannot  be  scaled,  and  without 
cannon  that  place  cannot  be  taken. 

The  monastery  of  St.  Anthony,  in  Egypt,  says  Maillet,  is 
a  vast  enclosure,  with  good  walls,  raised  sa  high  as  to 
secure  this  place  from  the  insults  of  the  Arabs.  There  is 
no  entrance  into  it  but  by  a  pulley,  by  means  of  which  peo- 
ple are  hoisted  up  on  high,  and  so  conveyed  into  the  monas- 
tery. No  warlike  apparatus  which  the  Arabian  freebooters 
possess,  are  sufficient  for  the  reduction  of  these  fortified 
places.  The  Israelites,  not  better  provided  for  besieging 
sterongholds,  hastily  concluded  that  the  walled  cities  of 
Canaan,  of  which  they  heard  such  discouraging  accounts, 
must  oppose  an  insurmountable  barrier  to  their  progress. 
It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  descendants  of  Canaan, 
like  the  timid  monks  of  Sinai,  walled  up  their  gates  on  the 
approach  of  danger,  and  permitted  none  to  enter  the  place, 
but  by  means  of  a  pulley;  but  if  their  ga^c♦;  had  not  been 
well  secured,  the  precaution  of  raising  I  lir  wall  so  high 
had  been  in  vain. — Paxton. 


542 


DANIEL. 


Chap.   1. 


CHAPTElR  XXXIX. 
Ver.  11.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  at  that  day, 
that  I  will  giv6  unto  Gog  a  place  there  of 
graves  in  Israel,  the  valley  of  the  passengers 
on  the  east  of  the  sea ;  and  it  shall  stop  the 
7ioses  of  the  passengers :  and  there  shall  they 
bury  Gog,  and  all  his  multitude ;  and  they  shall 
call  it,  The  valley  of  Hamon-gog. 

This  refers  to  the  dreadful  stench  which  should  arise 
from  the  dead  bodies  of  Gog.  The  Taraul  translation  has 
it,  "  cause  to  stop  ihe  noses."  The  moment  people  smell 
any  thing  offensive,  they  immediately  press  the  nostrils  to^ 
gather  with  their  lingers.  They  say  "of  a  bad  smell,  It  has 
8T0PPED  my  nose ;  which  means  the  nose  is  so  full  of  that, 
it  is  not  sensible  of  any  other  smell.  The  figure  is  much 
used  in  reference  to  the  decayed  oysters  at  the  pearl  fishery. 


CHAPTER  XLIV. 
Ver.  2.  Then  said  the  Lord  unto  me.  This  gate 
shall  be  shut,  it  shall  not  be  opened,  and  no 


man  shall  enter  in  by  it ;  because  the  Lord, 
the  God  of  Israel,  hath  entered  in  by  it,  there- 
fore it  shall  be  shut. 

Among  other  instances  of  the  extreme  distance,  and  pro- 
found awe,  with  which  eastern  majesty  is  treated,  one  that 
is  mentioned  by  Sir  John  Chardin,  in  his  account  of  Persia, 
appears  very  strange  to  us,  yet  may  afford  a  lively  com- 
ment on  a  passage  of  the  prophet  Ezekiel.  Sir  John  tells 
us,  "  It  is  a  common  custom  in  Persia,  that  when  a  great 
man  has  built  a  palace,  he  treats  the  king  and  his  grandees 
in  it  for  several  days.  Then  the  great  gate  of  it  is  open  : 
but  when  these  festivities  are  over,  they  shut  it  up,  never 
more  to  be  opened."  He  adds,  "  I  have  heard  that  the  same 
thing  is  practised  in  Japan."  It  seems  surprising  to  us, 
that  great  and  magnificent  houses  within  should  have  only 
small  entrances  into  them,  which  no  one  would  suppose 
would  lead  into  such  beautiful  edifices:  but  such,  he  observes, 
is  the  common  custom  there  :  making  no  magnificent  en- 
trance into  their  houses  at  all ;  or  if  they  do,  shutting  them 
up  after  a  little  time,  and  making  use  of  some  small  entrance 
near  the  great  one,  or  it  may  be,  in  some  very  different 
part  of  the  building. — Harmer. 


DANIEL 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  2.  And  the  Lord  gave  Jehoiakim  king  of 
Judah  into  his  hand,  with  part  of  the  vessels  of 
the  house  of  God,  which  he  carried  into  the 
land  of  Shinar,  to  the  house  of  his  god ;  and  he 
brought  the  vessels  into  the  treasure-house  of 
his  god. 

In  all  heathen  temples  there  is  a  place  for  the  sacred 
jewels  and  other  treasures.  The  ornaments  of  the  idols  are 
sometimes  of  great  value.  I  have  seen  the  small  crown, 
breastplate,  and  necklaces  of  one  idol,  worth  more  than 
400^. — Roberts. 

Ver.  3.  And  the  king  spake  unto  Ashpenaz  the 
master  of  his  eunuchs,  that  he  should  bring  cer- 
tain of  the  children  of  Israel,  and  of  the  king's 
seed,  and  of  the  princes :  4.  Children  in  whom 
was  no  blemish,  but  well-favoured,  and  skilful 
in  all  wisdom,  and  cunning  in  knowledge,  and 
understanding  science,  and  such  as  had  ability 
in  them  to  stand  in  the  king's  palace,  and  whom 
they  might  teach  the  learning  and  the  tongue 
of  the  Chaldeans. 

The  master  of  the  black  eunuchs  is  still  one  of  the  most 
important  officers  at  the  court  of  the  Turkish  emperor,  the 
arrangement  of  which  is,  for  the  most  part,  formed  after 
'he  household  of  the  ancient  Persian  emperors.  He  is 
called  Kislar-Aga,  that  is,  overseer  of  the  girls,  and  >s  the 
chief  of  the  black  eunuchs  who  guard  the  harem  or  resi- 
dence of  the  women.  "  The  Kislar-Aga,  by  his  place,  en- 
joys a  powerful  influence  in  affairs,  but  "particularly  in 
those  of  the  court,  for  which  reason  the  other  agas  bring 
concerns  before  him.  His  consideration  and  influence 
over  the  emperor  is  almost  always  secure."  (Von  Ham- 
mer.)—RosENMULLEai. 


Curtius  says,  that  in  all  barbarous  or  uncivilized  coun- 
tries, the  stateliness  of  the  body  is  held  in  great  veneration  : 
nor  do  they  think  any  capable' of  great  services  or  actions, 
to  whom  nature  has  not  vouchsafed  to  give  a  beautiful  form 
and  aspect.  It  has  always  been  the  custom  of  the  eastern 
nations  to  choose  such  for  their  principal  officers,  or  to  wait 
on  princes  and  great  personages.  Sir  Paul  Ricaut  ob- 
serves, "  that  the  youths  that  are  designed  for  the  great  of- 
fices of  the  Turkish  empire,  must  be  of  admirable  features 
and  looks,  well-shaped  in  their  bodies,  and  without  any  de- 
fects of  nature :  for  it  is  conceived  that  a  corrupt  and  sor- 
did soul  can  scarce  inhabit  in  a  serene  and  ingenuous  as- 
pect ;  and  I  have  observed  not  only  in  the  seraglio,  but  also 
in  the  courts  of  great  men,  their  personal  attendants  have 
been  of  comely  lusty  youths,  well  habited,  deporting  them- 
selves with  singular  modesty  and  respect  in  the  presence 
of  their  masters ;  so  that  when  a  pacha  aga  spahi  travels, 
he  is  always  attended  with  a  comely  equipage,  followed  by 
flourishing  youths,  well  clothed  and  mounted,  in  great  num- 
bers."— BURDER. 

Ver.  8.  But  Daniel  purposed  in  his  heart  that  he 
would  not  defile  himself  with  the  portion  of  the 
king's  meat,  nor  with  the  wine  which  he  drank  : 
therefore  he  requested  of  the  prince  of  the  eu- 
nuchs that  he  might  not  defile  himself 

It  was  the  custom  of  most?  nations,  before  their  meals,  to 
make  an  oblation  of  some  part  of  what  they  ate  and  drank 
to  their  gods,  as  a  thankful  acknowledgment  that  every 
thing  which  they  enjoyed  was  their  gift.  These  oblations 
were  called  libamina  among  the  Romans,  so  that  every  en- 
tertainment had  something  in  it  of  the  nature  of  a  sacrifice. 
This  practice  generally  prevailing,  made  Daniel  and  his 
friends  look  upon  the  provisions  coming  from  the  king's 
table  as  no  better  than  meats  offered  to  idols,  and,  by  being 
so  offered,  to  be  accounted  unclean  or  polluted.— Burder. 

Ver.  15.  And  at  the  end  often  days  their  counU- 
nances  appeared  fairer  and  fatter  in  flesh  than 


Chap.  1—3. 


DANIEL. 


54$ 


all  the  children  which  did  eat  the  portion  of  the 
king's  meat. 

It  is  probable  that  there  was  nothing  extraordinary  or  out 
of  the  common  way  in  this  circumstance.  Sir  J.  Chardin 
observes,  "  I  have  remarked  this,  that  the  countenances  of 
the  Kechichs  are  in  fact  more  rosy  and  smooth  than  those 
of  others,  and  that  these  people  who  fast  much,  I  mean  the 
Armenians  and  the  Greeks,  are  notwithstanding  very  beau- 
tiful, sparkling  with  health,  with  a  clear  and  Uvely  coun- 
tenance."— Harmer. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  4.  Then  spake  the  Chaldeans  to  the  king 
in  Syriac,  O  king,  live  for  ever :  tell  thy  ser- 
vants the  dream,  and  we  will  show  the  inter- 
pretation. 

These  words  are  not  addressed  to  the  ears  of  royalty 
MERELTf ,  Has  a  man  been  greatly  favoured  by  another,  he 
says,  "  Ah  !  may  you  never  die."  "  So  good  a  man  ought 
never  to  die."  "  May  you  live  for  ever."  "  Will  death 
come  to  such  a  man  as  this  V  "  Live,  live,  for  ever."— 
Roberts. 

Ver.  31.  Thou,  O  king,  sawest,  and,  hehold,  a 
great  image.  This  great  image,  whose  bright- 
ness was  excellent,  stood  before  thee,  and  the 
form  thereof  was  terrible.  32.  This  image's 
head  teas  of  fine  gold,  his  breast  and  his  arms 
of  silver,  his  belly  and  his  thighs  of  brass. 
33.  His  legs  of  iron,  his  feet  part  of  iron  and 
part  of  clay. 

There  is  usually  an  obvious  and  striking  congruity  in  the 
prophetic  and  parabolic  imagery  of  the  scriptures.  In  the 
present  case  therl'would  seem  to  be  an  exception ;  for  who 
can  conceive  of  the  manner  in  which  iron  and  clay  could 
be  made  to  combine  in  the  same  mass  1  In  respect  to  the 
other  materials,  the  gold,  the  silver,  the  brass,  they  are 
suiticinntly  homogeneous  in  their  nature  to  allow  of  being 
united  in  the  manner  supposed  in  the  vision.  But  how  a 
soft.yielding  substance  like  clay  could  form  a  constituent 
part  of  the  same  image,  and  that  too  of  the  very  base  and 
pediment  upon  which  it  rested,  is  by  no  means  obvious. 
We  see  not  therefore  why  the  definition  given  to  the  origi- 
nal Chaldaic  word  by  Cocceius,  Buxtorf,  Gesenius,  Simo- 
nis,  Gibbs,  and  others,  viz.  patterns  ware,  or  burnt  baked  clay, 
is  not  decidedly  to  be  preferred.  And  of  the  original  phrase 
subsequently  occurring,  "  miry  clay,"  v.  41,  42.  The  first 
of  these  lexicographers  says  expressly,  "  Nonigitur  lutum 
vel  limum  notat,  sed  opus  coctum  ex  limo,  vel  limum  ex- 
coctum,"  it  does  not  therefore  signify  clay  or  mud,  in  its  soft 
state,  but  something  formed  by  baking  from  clay.  This  in- 
terpretation gives  consistency  to  the  whole  imagery,  and, 
if  needs  be,  can  be  abundantly  confirmed  from  the  frequent 
use  of  the  same  term  by  the  Chaldee  Targums. — Bush. 

ji  Ver.  46.  Then  the  king  Nebuchadnezzar  fell  upon 
his  face,  and  worshipped  Daniel,  and  command- 
ed that  they  should  offer  an  oblation  and  sweet 
oaours  unto  him. 

Odoriferous  ointments  and  perfumes  were  oflen  present- 
ed by  the  great  as  a  particular  mark  of  distinction.  The 
king  of  Babylon  treated  the  prophet  Daniel  with  the  richest 
perfumes,  after  he  had  predicted  the  future  destinies  of  his 
empire,  as  a  distinguished  proof  of  his  esteem  and  admira- 
tion: "  Then  the  king  Nebuchadnezzar  fell  upon  his  face, 
and  worshipped  Daniel,  and  commanded  that  they  should 
offer  an  oblation  and  sweet  odours  unto  him."  This  pas- 
sage Mr.  Harmer  considers  as  exceedingly  difliicult;  and 
he  labours  hard  to  prove  that  the  king  meant  nothing  more 
than  civil  respect.  "Nebuchadnezzar,  in  all  this  matter, 
appeared  to  have  considered  Daniel  merely  as  a  prophet : 
his  words  strongly  express  this.  Your  God  is  a  God  of  gods' ; 
and  had  it  been  otherwise,  a  person  so  zealous  as  Daniel, 
■who  risked  his  life,  rather  than  neglect  his  homage  to  his 
God,  and  haa  the  courage  to  pray  to  him  with  his  windows 


open  towards  Jerusalem,  contrary  to  the  king  5  command, 
would  undoubtedly,  like  Paul  and  Barnabas,  have  reject- 
ed these  odours."  This  view  completely  vindicates  the 
prophet  from  the  charge  of  conniving  at  the  idolatry  of  the 
king ;  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  his  defence.  The  conduct 
of  Nebuchadnezzar,  it  is  allowed,  admits  of  a  favourable 
construction ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  scarcely  possible 
to  avoid  the  suspicion  that  he  was,  on  tnis  memorable  occa- 
sion, guilty  of  idolatrous  veneration.  The  verb  Sagad,  he 
worshipped,  so  far  as  the  writer  has  been  able  to  trace  it, 
both  in  Hebrew  and  Chaldee,  expresses  the  homage  which 
is  rendered  to  a  god,  and  is,  perhaps,  universally  applied  to 
the  worship  of  false  deities  in  the  sacred  scriptures.  If 
this  remark  be  just,  it  is  greatly  to  be  suspected  that  Nebu- 
chadnezzar, who  had  few,  or  no  correct  religious  princi- 
ples, to  restrain  the  sudden  movements  of  his  impetuous  pas- 
sions, did  intend,  on  that  occasion,  to  honour  Daniel  as  a 
god,  or,  which  is  not  materially  different,  to  worship  the 
divinity  in  the  prophet.  But  it  may  be  demanded,  how 
then  is  Daniel  to  be  vindicated  *?  Shall  we  suppose  that  a 
prophet  of  the  Lord,  a  man  highly  favoured  and  distin- 
guished for  his  eminent  holiness,  would  suffer  idolatry  to 
be  practised  in  his  presence,  more  especially  when  he  him- 
self was  the  object  of  it,  without  expressing  his  disapproba- 
tion^ To  this  objection,  the  following  answer  is  offered: 
The  sacred  writers,  studious  of  extreme  brevity,  often  pass 
over  many  incidents  in  the  scenes  which  they  describe. 
Daniel,  therefore,  might  actually  reject  the  intended  hon- 
our, although  it  is  not  mentioned  in  the  record.  This  si- 
lence of  the  historian  will  not  prove  that  it  was  not  done, 
while  there  are  certain  circumstances  in  the  narrative 
which  go  far  to  prove  that  the  prophet  did  reject  the  hom- 
age of  Nebuchadnezzar.  In  the  28th  verse  of  the  second 
chapter,  he  solemnly  declares  before  the  king  and  the  whole 
court,  that  "  it  is  the  God  of  heaven  that  revealeth  secrets, 
and  makes  known  to  the  king  Nebuchadnezzar  what  shall 
be  in  the  latter  days  ;"  and  the  30th  verse,  "  But  as  for  me, 
this  secret  is  not  revealed  to  me  for  any  wisdom  that  I  have 
more  than  any  living."  When  these  faithful  declarations 
are  considered,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Daniel  neglect- 
ed to  remind  the  king  that  religious  worship  is  due  to  God 
alone  ;  and  that  such  a  testimony  was  given  at  the  time,  is 
intimated  with  considerable  clearness  in  the  confession  of 
the  king  himself,  verse  47th,  which  seems  to  refer  to  some- 
thing the  prophet  had  just  said  to  him :  '•  The  king  an- 
swered unto  Daniel,  and  said.  Of  a  truth  it  is,  that  your 
God  is  a  God  of  gods,  and  a  Lord  of  kings,  and  a  Revealer 
of  secrets,  seeing  thou  couldst  reveal  this  secret."  The 
character  of  Daniel,  therefore,  is  not  affected  by  the  mis- 
conduct of  his  sovereign,  in  paying  him  divine  honours. — 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  6.  And  whoso  falleth  not  down  and  wor- 
shippeth,  shall  the  same  houi  be  cast  into  the 
midst  of  a  burning  fiery  furnace. 

This  mode  of  putting  to  death  was  not  unusual  in  the 
East  in  more  modern  times.  Chardin,  in  his  Travels,  after 
speaking  of  the  most  common  modes  of  punishing  with 
death,  says,  "  But  there  is  still  a  particular  way  of  putting 
to  death  such  as  have  transgressed  in  civil  affairs,  either 
by  causing  a  dearth,  or  by  selling  abovt  the  tax  by  a  false 
weight,  or  who  have  committed  themselves  in  any  other 
manner.  The  cooks  are  put  upon  a  spit  and  roasted  over 
a  slow  tire,  bakers  are  thrown  into  a  hot  oven.  During  the 
dearth  in  1668,  I  saw  such  ovens  heateti  on  the  royal  square 
in  Ispahan,  to  terrify  the  bakers,  ana  deter  them  from  deri- 
ving advantage  from  the  general  distress." — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  25.  He  anjfw^ed  and  said,  Lo,  I  see  four 
men  loose,  walking  in  the  midst  of  the  fire,  ^d 
they  have  no  hurt ;  and  the  form  of  the  fourth 
is  like  the  Son  of  God. 

Professor  Eichorn  has  manifested  a  strong  inclination  to 
expel  the  prophet  Daniel  from  the  sacred  writings.  As  the 
difficulties  which  attend  some  representations  in  this  pro- 
phet, ["  fires  which  do  not  burn;  ana  an  image  strangely 
disproportioned,"  are  especially  selected,]  are  among  the 
professor's  principal  reasons,  we  could  wish,  before  sen- 


544 


DANIEL. 


Chap.  4,  5. 


uence  were  passed  on  the  delinquent,  that  not  only  what 
we  have  just  noticed  in  relation  to  his  animals,  but  also  the 
following  hints  in  relation  to  some  of  his  other  subjects, 
were  duly  weighed,  and  accurately  understood.  The  story 
of  the  three  Hebrews  in  the  fiery  furnace  would  be  much 
more  -within  our  comprehension,  if  we  knew  the  true  form 
of  what  is  denominated  a.  furnace ;  it  is  usually  conceived 
of,  as  being  somewhat  like  our  tile-kilns,  a  solid,  enclosed, 
brick  building,  with  an  aperture  only  for  entrance,  or,  at 
most,  with  a  door- way  below,  and  a  vent  above  for  the  flame, 
smoke,  &c.  But  the  circumstances  of  the  story  do  not  war- 
rant an  edifice  of  this  construction ;  for  it  appears  that 
IN'ebuchadnezzar,  still  seated  on  his  throne,  saw  the  persons 
in  the  fire.  Now  this  he  could  not  do,  through  the  solid 
wall  of  such  a  building ;  neither  could  the  flame,  issuing 
from  a  narrow  orifice,  easily  slay  those  men  who  threw  in 
the  Hebrews,  the  solid  wall  being  between  them  and  the 
fire.  Either,  then,  the  opening  to  this  furnace,  if  it  were 
a  solid  edifice,  was  large  enough  to  admit  of  full  view  into 
it ;  or  we  must  seek  some  other  construction  for  it.  We 
may  carry  this  idea  somewhat  further,  and  infer  the  pro- 
priety of  supposing  Nebuchadnezzar  to  see  throughout  the 
structure;  by  consequence,  the  building  had  no  covering; 
but  was,  at  most,  an  enclosure  of  fire ;  or,  an  area  sur- 
rounded by  a  wall,  within  which  the  fire  raged. — Taylor 
IN  Calmet. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  25.  That  they  shall  drive  thee  from  men, 
and  thy  dwelling  shall  be  with  the  beasts  of  the 
field,  and  they  shall  make  thee  to  eat  grass  as 
oxen,  and  they  shall  wet  thee  with  the  dew  of 
heaven,  and  seven  times  shall  pass  over  thee, 
till  thou  know  that  the  Most  High  ruleth  in  the 
kingdom  of  men,  and  giveth  it  to  whomsoever 
he  will. 

This  was  one  of  the  miseries  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  a 
much  greater  one  than  the  people  in  England  imagine. 
Think  of  the  state  of  the  body  and  pores  after  being  twelve 
hours  in  a  blazing  sun,  and  then  think  on  such  a  dew  falling 
as  will  saturate  all  the  clothes ;  and  a  tolerable  view  is 
gained  of  the  great  reverse,  and  the  effect  it  must  have  on 
the  human  frame.  Of  a  wretched  man  it  is  said, "  The  sun 
falls  on  his  head  by  day,  and  the  dew  by  night."  "  He  is 
scorched  by  the  sun,  and  made  wet  by  the  dew." — Roberts. 

Ver.  29.  At  the  end  of  twelve  months  he  walked 
in  the  palace  of  the  kingdom  of  Babylon. 

See  on  1  Sam  9.  25,  26. 

The  custom  of  walking  upon  the  roof  in  the  cool  of  the 
day,  to  inhale  the  refreshing  breeze,  and  to  survey  the  sur- 
roiinding  scenery,  may  serve  to  explain  a  scripture  incident 
of  considerable  interest,  which  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
generally  understood.  It  is  thus  recorded  in  the  prophecies 
of  Daniel :  "  At  the  end  of  twelve  months,  he  (Nebuchad- 
nezzar) walked  in  the  palace  of  the  kingdom  of  Babylon." 
The  true  sense  of  the  original  is,  "  he  walked  upon  the 
palace;"  but  this  interpretation  our  translators  have  placed 
in  the  margin,  as  more  doubtful  than  the  other.  If  Nebu- 
chadnezzar walked  in  some  apartment  of  his  palace,  it  is 
not  easy  to  account  for  the  proud  and  rapturous  exclama- 
tion which  suddenly  burst  from  his  mouth ;  we  can  see  no 
proper  excitement,  no  adequate  cause ;  but  if  we  suppose 
him  walking  upon  the  roof  of  his  palace,  which  proudly 
rose  above  the  surrounding  habitations,  and  surveying  the 
vast  extent,  the  magnificence,  and  the  splendour  of  that 
great  city,  the  mistress  of  the  world — its  walls  of  prodigious 
height  and  thickness — its  hanging  gardens,  reputed  one  of 
ths  most  astonishing  efforts  of  art  and  power— its  glittering 
palaces ;  the  Euphrates  rolling  his  majestic  flood  through 
the  middle  of  the  place,  shut  in  on  both  sides  by  strong  bul- 
warks and  doors  of  brass;  it  was  quite  natural  for  such  a 
man  to  feel  elated  with  the  sight,  and  indulge  his  pride  and 
arrogance  in  the  manner  described  by  the  prophet. — Pax- 
ton. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  12.  Forasmuch  as  an  excellent  spirit,  and 
knowledge,  and  understanding,  interpreting  of 


dreams,  and  showing  of  hard  sentences,  anvl 
dissolving  of  doubts,  were  found  in  the  same 
Daniel,  whom  the  king  named  Belteshazzar : 
now  let  Daniel  be  called,  and  he  will  show  the 
interpretation. 

The  margin  (Chald.)  has,  instead  of  "  doubts,"  "  knots." 
A  very  diflicult  subject  is  called  a  mudiche,  a  knot !  Thu» 
the  explaining  of  a  riddle  is  called  "  untying  the  knot."  Of 
a  talented  man  it  is  said,  "  Ah !  he  is  very  clever,  he  can 
tie  or  untie  any  knot."  Of  a  dream,  it  is  asked,  "  Who  cau 
loose  this  knot  V  Of  any  mysteries,  or  of  deep  plans,  it  is 
asked,  "  Ah  !  who  can  untie  these  knots  1"  "  How  dim- 
cult  that  passage  was,  but  he  soon  unravelled  the  knot." — 
Roberts. 

In  the  copy  of  a  patent  given  to  Sir  John  Chardin  by  the 
king  of  Persia,  we  find  it  is  addressed  "  To  the  lords  of 
lords,  who  have  the  presence  of  a  lion,  the  aspect  of  Deston, 
the  princes  who  have  the  stature  of  Tahem-ten-ten,  who 
seem  to  be  in  the  time  of  Ardevon,  the  regents  who  carry 
the  majesty  of  Ferribours,  the  conquerors  of  kingdoms,  su- 
perintendents that  unloose  all  manner  of  knots,  and  who  are 
under  the  ascendant  of  Mercury,"  &c.— Border. 

Ver.  21.  And  he  was  driven  from  the  sons  of 
men  ;  and  his  heart  was  made  like  the  beasts, 
and  his  dwelling  was  with  the  wild  asses  :  they 
fed  him  with  grass  like  oxen,  and  his  body  was 
wet  with  the  dew  of  heaven  ;  till  he  knew  that 
the  most  high  God  ruled  in  the  kingdom  of 
men,  and  that  he  appointeth  over  it  whomsoever 
he  will. 

See  on  Job  39.  5. 

Ver.  27.  TEKEL ;  Thou  art  weighed  in  the 
balances,  and  art  found  wanting. 

This  striking  form  of  speech  is  much  used  in  the  East  at 
this  day.  Thus,  should  two  men  be  disputing  respecting 
the  moral  character  of  a  third  person,  one  will  say, "  I  know 
the  fellow  well;  I  have  weighed  him,  and  he  is  found 
wanting."  "He  found  wanting!  you  are  much  lighter 
than  he."  "  What !  miscreant,  do  you  wish  to  weigh 
against  me  ?"  "  Thou  art  but  as  one  part  in  a  thousand." 
"  Begone !  fellow,  or  I  will  soon  weigh  thee."  "  Yes,  yes, 
there  is  no  doubt  about  it:  you  have  weighed  me;  I  am 
much  lighter  than  you."  "  What  kind  of  times  are  these  % 
the  slaves  are  weighing  their  masters."  "  Yes,  the  low 
castes  have  become  very  clever,  they  are  weighing  their 
superiors."  "  What!  woman,  do  you  call  in  question  the 
authority  of  your  husband  :  are  you  qualified  to  weigh 
him  1"  "  The  judge  has  been  weighing  the  prisoners,  and 
they  are  all  wanting." — Roberts. 

From  the  following  extract  it  will  appear  that  there  is  an 
allusion  in  these  words,  which  will  justify  a  literal  interpre- 
tation of  them.  "  The  first  of  September,  (which  was  the 
late  mogul's  birthday,)  he,  retaining  an  ancient  yearly  cus- 
tom, was,  in  the  presence  of  his  chief  grandees,  weighed  in 
a  balance  :  the  ceremony  was  performed  within  his  house, 
or  tent,  in  a  fair  spacious  room,  whereinto  none  were  ad- 
mitted but  by  special  leave.  The  scales  in  which  he  was 
thus  weighed  were  plated  with  gold ;  and  so  was  the  beam, 
on  which  they  hung  by  great  chains,  made  likewise  of  that 
most  precious  metal.  The  king  sitting  in  one  of  them,  was 
weighed  first  against  silver  coin,  which  immediately  after- 
ward was  distributed  among  the  poor;  then  was  he  weighed 
against  gold;  after  that  against  jewels,  (as  they  say,)  but  I 
observed  (being  there  present  with  my  lord  ambassador) 
that  he  was  weighed  against  three  several  things,  laid  in 
silken  bags  on  the  contrary  scale.  When  I  saw  him  in  the 
balance,  I  thought  on  Belshazzar,  who  was  found  too  light. 
By  his  weight  (of  which  his  physicians  yearly  keep  an 
exact  account)  they  presume  to  guess  of  the  present  estate 
of  his  body,  of  which  they  speak  flatteringly,  however  they 
think  it  to  be."    (Sir  Thomas  Roe.)— Border. 

Ver.  29.  Then  commanded  Belshazzar,  and  they 
clothed  Daniel  with  scarlet,  and  put  a  chain  of 
gold  about  his  neck,  and  made  a  proclamation 


I 


Chap.  5—7. 


DANIEL. 


concerning  him,  that  he  should  be  the  third 
ruler  in  the  kingdom. 

This  was  designed  to  honour  Daniel,  and  certainly  was, 
according  to  the  custom  of  the  East,  a  ceremony  highly  ex- 
pressive of  dignity.  To  come  out  from  the  presence  of 
a  superior  in  a  garment  different  from  that  in  which  the 
person  went  in,  was  significant  of  approbation  and  promo- 
tion. Whether  it  was  the  precise  intention  of  this  clothing 
to  declare  Daniel's  mvestiture  with  the  dignity  of  the  third 
ruler  of  the  kingdom,  or  whether  it  was  an  honorary  dis- 
tinction, unconnected  with  his  advancement,  cannot  be  ab- 
solutely decided,  because  caffetans,  or  robes,  are  at  this  day 
put  on  people  with  both  views. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  18.  Then  the  king  went  to  his  palace,  and 
passed  the  night  fasting :  neither  were  instru- 
ments of  music  brought  before  him ;  and  his 
sleep  went  from  him. 

See  on  Ezra  9,  3. 

Ver.  23.  Then  was  the  king  exceeding  glad  for 
him,  and  commanded  that  they  should  take 
Daniel  up  out  of  the  den.  So  Daniel  was 
taken  up  out  of  the  den,  and  no  manner  of 
hurt  was  found  upon  him,  because  he  believed 
in  his  God. 

The  Orientals  have  an  idea,  that  in  whatever  a  man 
BELIEVES,  whether  in  reference  to  the  existence  or  nonexist- 
ence of  evil  or  danger  in  regard  to  himself,  that  so  will 
his  condition  be  regulated.  In  walking  once  with  a  learned 
Bramin,  through  a  grove  of  cocoa-trees,  I  inquired,  Why 
are  you  not  afraid  of  those  nuts  falling  on  your  head,  and 
killing  you  on  the  spot  1  "  Because  I  have  only  to  believe 
they  will  not  fall,  and  all  is  safe,"  was  his  reply. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  2.  Daniel  spake  and  said,  I  saw  in  my  vision 
by  night,  and,  behold,  the  four  winds  of  the 
heaven  strove  upon  the  great  sea. 

The  whirlwind,  it  appears  from  the  sacred  writings, 
comes  from  different  points  of  the  compass.  The  prophet 
Ezekiel  speaks  of  one  that  came  from  the  north  ;  and  al- 
though it  appeared  to  him  in  vision,  it  was  according  to  the 
course  of  nature ;  for  we  learn  from  other  sources  of  inform- 
ation, that  it  sometimes  arises  in  that  quarter.  William 
of  Tyre  records  an  instance  of  a  violent  whirlwind  from 
the  north,  in  the  time  of  the  crusades,  which  enveloped 
two  hostile  armies  in  an  immense  cloud  of  dust,  and  com- 
pelled them  for  a  while  to  suspend  the  work  of  destruction. 
When  that  enterprising  traveller,  Mr.  Parke,  was  travers- 
ing the  Sahara,  or  Great  Desert,  in  his  way  to  the  Niger, 
destitute  of  provisions  and  water,  his  throat  pained  with 
thirst,  and  his  strength  nearly  exhausted,  he  heard  a  wind 
sounding  from  the  east,  and  instinctively  opened  his  parch- 
ed mouth  to  receive  the  precious  drops  of  rain  which  he 
confidently  expected,  but  it  was  instantly  filled  with  sand 
drifted  from  the  desert.  So  immense  'was  the  quantity 
raised  into  the  air,  and  wafted  upon  the  wings  of  the  wind, 
and  so  great  the  velocity  with  which  it  flew,  that  he  was 
compelled  to  turn  his  face  to  the  west  to  prevent  suffoca- 
tion, and  continue  motionless  till  it  passed.  In  Persia, 
violent  currents  of  air  are  sometimes  seen  impelling  the 
clouds  in  different  directions,  whose  concussion  produces 
an  awful  noise,  like  the  rushing  of  a  great  body  of  M'ater, 
As  the  cloud  approaches  the  earth,  the  sound  becomes  still 
more  alarming:  for  nothing,  says  Mr.  Morier,  can  be  more 
awful.  To  this  natural  phenomenon,  the  strife  of  the  four 
winds  in  the  vision  of  Daniel  is  perhaps  allusive. — Paxton. 

Ver.  5.  And,  behold,  another  beast,  a  second,  like 
to  a  bear,  and  it  raised  up  itself  on  one  side,  and 
it  had  three  ribs  in  the  mouth  of  it  between  the 
teeth  of  it :  and  they  said  thus  unto  it,  Arise, 
devour  much  flesh. 


It  has  been  satisfactorily  proved  by  the  be.st  writers  on 
the  subject,  that  the  vision  refers  to  the  four  great  mon- 
archies., the  Babylonian,  the  Medo-Persian,  the  Macedo- 
nian or  Grecian,  and  the  Roman ;  and  that  the  second 
beast,  which  was  like  to  a  bear,  symbolizes  the  empire  of 
the  Medes  and  Persians.  All  the  four  monarchies  are  rep- 
resented by  beasts  of  prey,  to  intimate  their  agreement  in 
the  general  character  of  fierceness  and  rapacity  ;  and  by 
beasts  of  difierent  species,  to  intimate  the  existence  of  im- 
portant diflferences  in  their  character  and  mode  of  opera- 
tion. The  Babylonish  empire  is  symbolized  by  a  lion  with 
eagle's  wings,  because  it  was  the  first  and  noblest  kingdom 
upon  earth ;  it  was  strong  and  fierce  as  a  lion ;  it  was  swift 
and  rapid  in  its  movements,  as  a  lion  with  eagle's  wings  ; 
rising  in  a  few  years,  under  the  conduct  of  Nebuchadnez- 
zar, to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  power  and  greatness.  The 
third  kingdom  is  represented  by  another  beast,  "like  a 
leopard,  which  had  upon  the  back  of  it  four  wings  of  a 
fowl;  the  beast  had  also  four  heads;  and  dominion  was 
given  unto  it."  This  is  the  Grecian  monarchy  ;  the  dis- 
tinguishing characters  of  which,  are  great  variety  of  dis- 
position and  manners,  undaunted  boldness,  and  rapidity  of 
conquest,  never  before  or  since  exemplified  in  the  history  of 
nations.  The  fourth  beast  was  so  great  and  horrible,  that 
no  adequate  name  could  be  found  for  it;  this  nondescript 
was  the  symbol  of  the  Roman  empire,  which  differed 
from  all  others  in  the  form  of  its  government,  in  strength, 
in  power,  in  greatness,  in  length  of  duration,  and  in  ex- 
tent of  dominion.  The  Persian  monarchy,  symbolized  by 
the  bear,  has  also  certain  specific  differences,  which  are  to 
be  learned  from  the  natural  history  of  that  animal.  Cruel 
and  rapacious  as  the  others,  the  bear  is  inferior  in  strength 
and  courage  to  the  lion,  and,  although  slower  in  its  motions, 
more  uniform  in  its  appearance,  and  steady  in  its  purpose, 
than  the  leopard.  Such  was  the  empire  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians:  weaker  and  less  warlike  than  the  Babylonian, 
whose  symbol  is  the  lion  ;  but  less  various  in  its  principles 
of  government,  in  the  forms  which  it  assumed,  in  the  cus- 
toms and  manners  of  the  nations  which  composed  it,  and 
less  rapid  in  its  conquests,  than  the  Macedonian,  symboli- 
zed by  the  spotted  leopard,  one  of  the  most  rapid  and  im- 
petuous animals  that  traverse  the  desert.  But  if  the  bear 
IS  inferior  to  the  lion  and  the  leopard  in  strength,  in 
courage,  and  in  swiftness,, it  surpasses  them  in  ferocious 
cruelty  and  insatiable  voracity ;  it  thirsts  for  blood  and  riots 
in  carnage ;  and  such  was  the  empire  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians.  They  are  stigmatized  by  ancient  historians  as 
the  greatest  robbers  and  spoilers  that  ever  oppressed  the 
nations.  The  symbol  of  this  all-devouring  people  is  ac- 
cordingly represented  as  having  "three  ribs  in  the  mouth 
of  it,  between  the  teeth  of  it,"  in  the  very  act  of  devouring 
three  weaker  animals  which  it  has  seized,  that  is,  of  op- 
pressing the  kingdoms  of  Babylon,  Lydia,  and  Egypt, 
which  it  conquered.  And  besides,  to  denote  its  rapacious- 
ness  and  cruelty,  it  is  added  in  the  vision,  "  they  said  thus 
unto  it.  Arise,  devour  much  flesh." 

The  fourth  empire  is  symbolized  by  "  a  dreadful  and  ter- 
rible beast,"  for  which  the  prophet  found  no  name  in  the 
kingdom  of  nature.  It  resembled  the  fabulous  monsters, 
which  poetic  imagination  sometimes  delights  to  portray ; 
for,  in  the  book  of  Revelation,  John  describes  it  as  com- 
pounded of  the  three  which  preceded  it :  "  The  beast  which 
I  saw  was  like  unto  a  leopard,  and  his  feet  was  as  the 
feet  of  a  bear,  and  his  mouth  as  the  mouth  of  a  lion."  It 
possessed  all  the  qualities  which  render  beasts  of  prey  a 
terror  to  man  and  other  animals ;  the  swiftness  and  cun- 
ning of  the  leopard,  the  ferocity  of  the  bear,  and  the  bold- 
ness and  strength  of  the  lion.  The  Roman  empire,  which 
it  symbolized,  resembled  no  state  of  society  known  among 
men ;  it  displayed,  in  its  character  and  proceedings,  the 
vigour  and  courage  of  the  Babylonians,  the  various  policy 
and  alacrity  of  the  Greeks,  and  the  unchanging  firmness 
of  the  Medes  and  Persians ;  qualities  which  have  been 
equally  conspicuous  in  the  Papal  state  of  that  empire. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  15.  I  Daniel  was  grieved  in  my  spirit  in  the 
midst  of  1717/  body,  and  the  visions  of  my  head 
troubled  me. 

Margin,  (Chald.)  "sheath;"  this  is  a  very  curious  ex- 
pression, whien  applied  to  such  a  subject,  but  it  is  perfectly 


546 


DANIEL. 


Chap.  8,  11, 


natural.  When  a  person  has  swooned,  the  people  say, 
"  His  life  has  gone  into  its  urI,"  i.  e.  sheath,  meaning  some 
particular  place  into  which  the  life  is  supposed  to  retire 
and  conceal  itself  from  the  sight.  Has  a  man  been  wound- 
ed by  a  serpent,  and  should  he  appear  to  be  dead,  it  is 
often  said,  "  Fear  not,  his  life  has  merely  gone  into  its 
SHEATH."  When  a  person's  eyes  are  much  sunken  by  sick- 
ness, the  people  say,  "  Alas  !  his  eyes  have  gone  into  their 
sheath."  "  Well,  my  friend,  when  did  you  arrive'?"  "I 
came  just  as  the  sun  was  going  into  its  sheath,"  i.  e.  going 
down.  "  I  am  happy  to  hear  that  the  king  hath  put  his 
anger  and  his  sword  into  the  sheath." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  5.  And  as  I  was  considering-,  behold,  a  he- 
goat  came  from  the  west,  on  the  face  of  the 
whole  earth,  and  touched  not  the  ground :  and 
the  goat  had  a  notable  horn  between  his  eyes. 

It  is  very  well  known  that  in  former  times  Macedon,  and 
the  adjacent  countries,  particularly  Thrace,  abounded  with 
goats;  insomuch  that  they  were  made  symbols,  and  are  to 
be  found  on  many  of  the  coins  that  were  struck  by  different 
towns  in  those  parts  of  Greece.  But  not  only  many  of  the 
individual  towns  in  Macedon  and  Thrace  employed  this 
type,  but  the  kingdom  itself  of  Macedon,  which  is  the  oldest 
in  Europe  of  which  we  have  any  regular  and  connected 
history,  was  represented  also  by  a  goat  with  this  particulari- 
ty, that  it  had  but  one  horn.  The  custom  of  representing  the 
type  and  power  of  a  country  under  the  form  of  a  horned 
animal,  is  not  peculiar  to  Macedon.  Persia  was  represented 
by  a  ram.  Ammianus  Marcellinus  acquaints  us,  that  the 
king  of  Persia,  when  at  the  head  of  his  army,  wore  a  ram's 
head,  made  of  gold  and  set  with  precious  stones,  instead  of 
a  diadem.  The  relation  of  these  emblems  to  Macedon  and 
Persia  is  strongly  confirmed  by  the  vision  of  Daniel  record- 
ed in  this  chapter,  and  which  from  these  accounts  receives 
no  inconsiderable  share  of  illustration.  An  ancient  bronze 
figure  of  a  goat  with  one  horn,  dug  up  in  Asia  Minor,  was 
lately  inspected  by  the  society  of  antiquaries  in  London. 
The  original  use  of  it  probably  was  to  be  aflixed  to  the  top 
of  a  military  standard,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  Roman 
eagle.  This  supposition  is  somewhat  supported  by  what  is 
related  of  Caranus,  that  he  ordered  goats  to  be  carried  be- 
fore the  standards  of  his  army. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Ver.  2.  And  now  will  I  show  thee  the  truth. 
Behold,  there  shall  stand  up  yet  three  kings  in 
Persia ;  and  the  fourth  shall  be  far  richer  than 
they  all :  and  by  his  strength  through  his  riches 
he  shall  stir  up  all  against  the  realm  of  Grecia. 
3.  And  a  mighty  king  shall  stand  up,  that 
shall  rule  with  great  dominion,  and  do  accord- 
ing to  his  will. 

Soon  after  the  death  of  Alexander  the  Great,  his  king- 
dom was  divided  towards  the  four  winds  of  heaven,  but  not 
to  his  posterity ;  four  of  his  captains,  Ptolemy,  Antigonus, 
Lysimachus,  and  Cassander,  reigned  over  Egypt,  Syria, 
Thrace,  and  Greece.  The  kingdoms  of  Egypt  and  of  Syria 
became  afterward  the  most  powerful :  they  subsisted  as  in- 
dependent monarchies  for  a  longer  period  than  the  other 
two;  and,  as  they  were  more  immediately  connected  with 
the  land  of  Judea,  which  was  often  reduced  to  their  do- 
minion, they  form  the  subject  of  the  succeeding  predictions. 
Bishop  Newton  gives  even  a  more  copious  illustration  of 
the  historical  facts,  which  verify  the  whole  of  this  prophecy, 
than  that  which  had  previously  been  given  by  his  illustrious 
predecessor  of  the  same  name — who  has  rendered  that  name 
immortal.  He  quotes  or  refers  to  authorities  in  every  in- 
stance :  and  his  dissertation  on  that  part  of  the  prophecy 
which  relates  to  the  kingdoms  of  Syria  and  Egypt  is  wound 
up  in  these  emphatic  words :  "  It  may  be  proper  to  stop 
here,  and  reflect  a  little  how  particular  and  circumstantial 
this  prophecy  is  concerning  the  kingdoms  of  Egypt  and 
Syria,  from  the  death  of  Alexander  to  the  time  of  Aritiochus 
l^iphanes.  There  is  not  so  complete  and  regular  a  series 
of  tfceir  kings— there  is  not  so  concise  and  comprehensive 


an  account  of  their  affairs  to  be  found  in  any  author  of  these 
times.  The  prophecy  is  really  more  perfect  than  any  his- 
tory. No  one  historian  hath  related  so  many  circumstances, 
and  in  such  exact  order  of  time,  as  the  prophet  hath  foretold 
them ;  so  that  it  was  necessary  to  have  recourse  to  several 
authors,  Greek  and  Roman,  Jewish  and  Christian,  and  to 
collect  here  something  from  one,  and  to  collect  there  some- 
thing from  another,  for  better  explainingandillustratingthe 
great  variety  of  particulars  contained  in  this  prophecy." 
So  close  is  the  coincidence  between  the  prophetic  and  the 
real  history  of  the  kings  of  Egypt  and  of  Syria,  that  Por- 
phyry, one  of  the  earliest  opponents  of  Christianity,  laboured 
to  prove  its  extreme  accuracy,  and  alleged  from  thence  that 
the  events  must  have  preceded  the  prediction.  The  same 
argument  is  equally  necessary  at  the  present  hour  to  dis- 
prove the  subsequent  parts  of  the  same  prophecy— though 
none  can  urge  it  now.  The  last  of  those  facts  to  which  it 
refers,  the  accomplishment  of  which  is  already  past,  are  un- 
folded with  equal  precision  and  truth  as  the  first— and  the 
fulfilment  of  the  whole  is  yet  incomplete.  The  more  clearly 
that  the  event  corresponds  to  the  prediction,  instead  of  being 
an  evidence  against  the  truth,  the  more  conclusive  is  the 
demonstration  that  it  is  the  word  of  Him  who  hath  the  times 
and  the  seasons  in  his  own  power. 

The  subject  of  the  prophecy  is  represented  in  these 
words  : — "  I  am  come  to  make  thee  understand  what  shall 
befall  thy  people  in  the  latter  days ;  for  the  vision  is  for 
many  days."  And  that  which  is  noted  in  the  scripture  of 
truth  terminates  not  with  the  reign  of  Antiochus.  At  that 
very  time  the  Romans  extended  their  conquests  towards  the 
East.  Macedonia,  the  seat  of  the  empire  of  Alexander  the 
Great,  became  a  province  of  the  Roman  empire.  And  the 
prophecy,  faithfully  tracing  the  transition  of  power,  ceases 
to  prolong  the  history  of  the  kings  of  Egypt  and  of  Syria, 
and  becomes  immediately  descrintive  of  the  progress  of  the 
Roman  arms.  The  very  term  (shall  stand  up)  which  pre- 
viously marked  the  commencement  of  the  Persian  and  of 
the  Macedonian  power,  is  here  repeated,  and  denotes  the 
commencement  of  a  third  era,  or  a  new  power.  The  word 
in  the  original  is  the  same  in  each.  And  "  arms  (an  epi- 
thet sufficiently  characteristic  of  the  extensive  military 
power  of  the  Romans)  shall  stand  up,  and  they  shall  pollute 
the  sanctuary  of  strength,  and  shall  take  away  the  daily 
sacrifice,  and  they  shall  place  the  abomination  that  maketh 
desolate."  All  these  things,  deeply  affecting  the  Jewish 
state,  the  Romans  did — and  they  finally  rendered  the  coun- 
try of  Judea  "  desolate  of  its  old  inhabitants."  The  propa- 
gation of  Christianity — the  succeeding  important  event — 
is  thus  represented  : — "  The  people  that  do  know  their  God 
shall  be  strong  and  do  exploits.  And  they  that  understand 
among  the  people  shall  instruct  many."  The  persecutions 
which  they  suffered  are  as  significantly  described  : — "  Yet 
they  shall  fall  by  the  sword  and  by  flame,  by  captivity  and 
by  spoil  many  days.  Now,  when  they  shall  fall,  they  shall 
be  holpen  with  a  little  help,  and  many  shall  cleave  to  them 
with  flatteries."  And  such  was  Constantine's  conversion 
and  the  effect  which  it  produced.  No  other  government 
but  that  of  the  Romans  stood  up—hui  the  mode  of  that  gov- 
ernment was  changed.  After  the  days  of  Constantine, 
Christianity  became  gradually  more  and  more  corrupted. 
Previous  to  that  period  there  had  existed  no  system  of 
dominion  analogous  to  that  which  afterward  prevailed. 
The  greatest  oppressors  had  never  extended  their  preten- 
sions beyond  human  power,  nor  usurped  a  spiritual  tyranny. 
But,  in  contradiction  to  every  other,  the  next  succeeding 
form  of  government,  unparalleled  in  its  nature,  in  the  an- 
nals of  despotism  or  of  delusion,  is  thus  characterized  by 
the  prophet :— "  And  the  king  (the  ruling  power  signifying 
any  government,  state,  or  potentate)  shall  do  according  to 
his  will ;  and  he  shall  exalt  himself  and  magnify  himself 
above  every  god,  and  shall  speak  marvellous  things  against 
the  God  of  gods,  and  shall  prosper  till  the  indignation  be  ac- 
complished." This  description  is  suited  to  the  history  of 
the  eastern  or  western  churches — to  the  government  under 
the  Grecian  emperors  at  Constantinople,  or  of  the  popes  at 
Rome.  The  extent  of  the  Roman  empire  might  justify  its 
application  to  the  latter;  but  the  connexion  of  the  prophecy, 
as  referable  to  local  events,  'ends  to  limit  it  to  the  former. 
In  either  case  it  is  descriptive  of  that  mode  of  government 
which  prospered  so  long  in  tne  East  and  in  the  West— and 
which  consisted  in  the  impious  usurpation  of  spiritual  au- 
thority—in the  blasphemous  assumption  of  those  attributes 


Chap.  11. 


DANIEL. 


547 


which  are  exclusively  divine,  and  in  exalting  itself  above 
the  laws  of  God  and  "man.  But  instead,  perhaps,  of  being 
confined  exclusively  to  either,  it  may  have  been  intended  to 
represent,  as  it  does  characterize,  the  spiritual  tyranny,  and 
the  substitution  of  the  commandments  of  men  for  the  will 
of  God,  which  oppressed  Christendom  for  ages,  and  hid 
from  men  the  word  of  God.  The  prevalence  of  supersti- 
tion, the  prohibition  or  discouragement  of  marriage,  and 
the  worship  of  saints,  as  characteristic  of  the  same  period 
and  of  the  same  power,  are  thus  prophetically  described: — 
"  Neither  shall  he  regard  the  God  of  hisfathers,  nor  the  de- 
sire of  women,  or  matrimony,  neither  shall  he  regard  any 
god.  But  in  his  estate  shall  he  honour  the  God  of  forces — 
Mahuzzim,"  protectors  or  guardians,  a  term  so  applicable 
to  the  worship  of  saints,  and  to  the  confidence  which  was 
reposed  in  them,  that  expressions  exactly  synonymous  are 
often  used  by  many  ancient  writers  in  honour  of  them — of 
which  Mede  gnd  Sir  Isaac  Newton  have  adduced  a  multi- 
plicity of  instances.  Mahuzzim  were  the  tutelary  saints 
of  the  Greek  and  Romish  churches.  The  subserviency, 
which  long  existed,  of  spiritual  power  to  temporal  aggran- 
dizement, is  also  noted  in  the  prophecy :  *'  and  he  shall  cause 
them  to  rule  over  many,  and  shall  divide  the  land  for  gain." 
And  that  the  principalteachers  and  propagators  of  the  wor- 
ship of  Mahuzzim — "  the  bishops,  priests,  and  monks,  and 
religious  orders,  have  been  honoured,  and  reverenced,  and 
esteemed  in  former  ages ;  that  their  authority  and  jurisdic- 
tion have  extended  over  the  purses  and  consciences  of 
men  ;  that  they  have  been  enriched  with  noble  buildings 
and  large  endowments,  and  have  had  the  choicest  of  the 
lands  appropriated  for  church-lands ;  are  points  of  such  no- 
toriety, that  they  require;  no  proof,  and  will  admit  of  no 
denial." 

Having  thus  described  the  antichristian  power,  which 
prospered  so  long  and  prevailed  so  widely,  the  prophecy 
next  delineates,  in  less  obscure  terms,  the  manner  in  which 
that  power  was  to  be  humbled  and  overthrown,  and  intro- 
duces a  more  particular  definition  of  the  rise,  extent,  and 
fall  of  that  kingdom,  which  was  to  oppress  and  supplant  it 
in  the  latter  days.  "  And  at  the  time  of  the  end  shall  the 
king  of  the  south  push  at  him."  The  Saracens  extentjed 
their  conquests  over  great  part  of  Asia  and  of  Europe :  they 
penetrated  the  dominions  of  the  Grecian  empire,  and  par- 
tially subdued,  though  they  could  not  entirely  subvert  it, 
nor  obtain  possession  of  Constantinople,  the  capital  city. 
The  prediction,  however  brief,  significantly  represents  their 
warfare,which  was  desultory,  and  their  conquest,  which  was 
incomplete.  And  Arabia  is  situated  to  the  south  of  Pales- 
tine. The  Turks,  the  next  and  last  invaders  of  the  Grecian 
empire,  were  of  Sc3rthian  extraction,  and  came  from  the 
north.  And  while  a  single  expression  identifies  the  Sara- 
cen invasion — the  irruption  of  the  Turks,  being  of  a  more 
fatal  character  and  more  permanent  in  its  eflfects,  is  fully 
described.  Every  part  of  the  description  is  most  faithful 
to  the  facts.  Their  local  situation,  the  impetuosity  of  their 
attack,  the  organization  of  their  armies,  and  the  success  of 
their  arms,  form  the  first  part  of  the  prediction  respecting 
them.  "  And  the  king  of  the  north  shall  come  against  him 
like  a  whirlwind,  with  chariots  and  with  horsemen,  and 
with  many  ships;  and  he  shall  enter  into  the  countries,  and 
shall  overflow  and  pass  over."  Although  the  Grecian  em- 
pire withstood  the  predatory  warfare  of  the  Saracens,  it 
gave  way  before  the  overwhelming  forces  of  the  Turks, 
whose  progress  was  tracked  with  destruction,  and  whose 
coming  was  indeed  like  a  whirlwind.  Chariots  and  horse- 
men were  to  be  the  distinguishing  marks  of  their  armies, 
though  armies,  in  general^  contain  the  greatest  proportion 
of  foot-soldiers.  And,  in  describing  their  first  invasion  of 
the  Grecian  territory,  Gibbon  relates,  that  "  the  myriads  of 
Turkish  horse  overspread  a  frontier  of  six  hundred  miles 
from  Tauris  to  Arzeroum,  and  the  blood  of  one  hundred 
and  thirty  thousand  Christians  was  a  grateful  sacrifice  to 
the  Arabian  prophet.  The  Turkish  armies  at  first  con- 
sisted so  exclusively  of  horsemen,  that  the  stoutest  of  the 
youths  of  the  captive  Christians  were  afterward  taken  and 
trained  as  a  band  of  infantry,  and  called  janizaries,  (yengi 
cheri,)  or  new  soldiers."  \n  apparent  contradiction  to  the 
nature  of  their  army,  they  were  also  to  possess  many  ships. 
And  Gibbon  again  relates,  that  "a  fleet  of  two  hundred 
ships  was  constructed  by  the  hands  of  the  captive  Greeks." 


But  no  direct  evidence  is  necessary  to  prove  that  many  shirs 
must  have  been  requisite  for  the  capture  of  so  many  islands, 
and  the  destruction  of  the  Venetian  naval  power,  which  was 
once  the  most  celebrated  in  Europe.  "  The  words,  shall 
enter  into  the  countries,  and  overflow  and  pass  over,  give  us 
an  exacl  .'dea  of  their  overflowing  the  western  parts  of  Asia, 
and  then  passing  over  into  Egypt." 

"  He  shall  enter  also  into  the  glorious  land,  and  many 
countries  shall  be  overthrown."  This  expression,  "  the 
glorious  land,"  occurs  in  the  previous  part  of  the  prophecy, 
(v.  16,)  and,  in  both  cases,  it  evidently  means  the  land  of 
Israel ;  and  such  the  Syriac  translation  renders  it.  The 
Holy  Land  formed  part  of  the  first  conquest  of  the  Turks. 
And  many  cou7itries  shall  be  overthrown.  The  limits  of  the 
Turkish  empire  embraced  the  ancient  kingdoms  of  Baby- 
lon, Macedon,  Thrace,  Epirus,  Greece,  &c.  and  the  many 
countries  over  which  they  ruled.  The  w^hole  of  Syria  was 
also  included,  with  partial  exceptions.  These  very  excep- 
tions are  specified  in  the  prophecy,  though  these  territories 
partially  intersect  the  Turkish  dominions,  and  divide  one 
portion  of  them  from  another,  forming  a  singular  contrast 
to  the  general  continuity  of  kingdoms.  And,  while  every 
particular  prediction  respecting  these  separate  states  has 
been  fully  verified,  their  escaping  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
Turks  has  been  no  less  marvellously  fulfilled.  "  But  these 
shall  escape  out  of  his  hand,  even  Edomand  Moab,  and  the 
chief  of  the  children  of  Ammon."  Mede,  Sir  Isaac  and 
Bishop  Newton,  in  applying  this  prophecy  to  the  Turkish 
empire,  could  only  express,  in  general  terms,  that  the  Arabs 
possessed  these  countries,  and  exacted  tribute  from  the 
Turks  for  permitting  their  caravans  to  pass  through  them. 
But  recent  travellers,  among  whom  Volney  has  to  be  num- 
bered, have  unconsciously  given  the  most  satisfactory  in- 
formation, demonstrative  of  the  truth  of  all  the  minutiae  of 
the  prediction,  Volney  describes  these  countries  in  part — 
Burckhardt  traversed  them  all — and  they  have  since  been 
visited  by  other  travellers.  Edom  and  Moab  are  in  posses- 
sion of  the  Bedouin  (or  wandering)  Arabs.  The  Turk.s- 
have  often  attempted  in  vain  to  subjugate  them.  The  par- 
tial escape  of  Ammon  from  their  dominion  is  not  less  dis- 
criminating than  just.  For  although  that  territory  lies  m 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  thepachalic  of  Damascus,  to  which 
part  of  it  is  subjected, — though  it  be  extremely  fertile  by  na- 
ture,— though  its  situation  and  its  soil  have  thus  presented, 
for  several  centuries,  the  strongest  temptation  to  Turkish 
rapacity, — though  they  have  ofien  attempted  to  subdue 
it, — yet  no  fact  could  have  been  more  explicitly  detailed, 
or  more  incidentally  commimicated,  than  that  the  in- 
habitants of  the  greater  part  of  that  country,  particularly 
what  adjoins  the  ancient,  but  now  desolate  city  of  Am- 
mon, "live  in  a  state  of  complete  independence  of  the 
Turks." 

"  He  shall  stretch  forth  his  hand  also  upon  the  countries." 
How  significantly  do  these  words  represent  the  vast  extent 
of  the  Turkish  empire,  which  alone  has  stretched  its  do- 
minion over  many  countries  of  Asia,  of  Europe,  and  of 
Africa  1  Ill-fated  Egypt  was  not  to  escape  from  subjection 
to  such  a  master.  "  And  the  land  of  Egypt  shall  not  es- 
cape ;  but  he  shall  have  power  over  the  treasures  of  gold 
and  of  silver,  and  over  all  the  precious  things  of  Egypt." 
The  Turks  have  drained  Egypt  of  its  wealth,  of  its  gold 
and  of  its  silver,  and  of  its  precious  things :  and  such  power 
have  they  exercised  over  them,  that  the  kingdom  of  the 
Pharaohs,  the  land  where  everlasting  pyramids  were  built, 
despoiled  to  the  utmost,  is  now  one  of  the  poorest,  as  it  has 
long  been  the  basest,  of  kingdoms.  "  The  Libyans  and 
Ethiopians  shall  be  at  his  steps."  These  form  the  extremi- 
ties of  the  Turkish  empire,  and  were  partially  subject  to 
its  power.  "  After  the  conquest  of  Egypt,  the  terror  of  Se- 
lim's  victories,"  says  the  historian,  "  spreading  wide,  the 
kings  of  Africa,  bordering  upon  Cyrenaica,  sent  their  am- 
bassadors with  offers  to  become  his  tributaries.  Other  more 
remote  nations  also  towards  Ethiopia  were  easily  induced 
to  join  in  amity  with  the  Turks."  Exclusive  of  Egypt,  they 
still  retain  the  nominal  powerover  other  countries  of  Africa. 
Such  is  the  prophetic  description  of  the  rise  and  extent  of 
that  power  which  was  to  possess  Judea  in  the  latter  days ; 
and  it  is  a  precise  delineation  of  the  rise  and  extent  of  the 
Turkish  empire,  to  which  Judea  has  been  subject  for  cen- 
turies.— Keith. 


HOSEA. 


CHAPTER  III. 
Ver,  2.  So  I  bought  her  to  me  for  fifteen  pieces 
of  silver,  and  for  a  homer  of  barley,  and  a  half 
homer  of  barley. 

Sir  J,  Chardin  observed  in  the  East,  that  in  their  con- 
tracts for  theil  temporary  wives,  which  are  known  to  be 
frequent  there,  ^hich  contracts  are  made  before  the  kady, 
there  is  always  the  formality  of  a  measure  of  corn  men- 
tioned, over  and  above  the  sum  of  money  that  is  stipulated. 
I  do  not  know  of  any  thing  that  should  occasion  this  for- 
mality of  late  days  in  the  East ;  it  may  then  possibly  be 
very  ancient,  as  it  is  apparent  this  sort  of  wife  is :  if  it  be, 
it  will  perhaps  account  for  Hosea's  purchasing  a  woman  of 
this  sort  for  fifteen  pieces  of  silver,  and  a  certain  quantity 
of  barley. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  12.  My  people  ask  counsel  at  their  stocks, 
and  their  staff  declareth  unto  them :  for  the 
spirit  of  whoredoms  hath  caused  them  to  err, 
and  they  have  gone  a  whoring  from  under  their 
God. 

The  method  of  divination  alluded  to  by  the  prophet  in 
these  words,  is  supposed  to  have  been  thus  performed: 
The  person  consulting  measured  his  staff  by  spans,  or  by 
the  length  of  his  finger,  saying,  as  he  measured,  "  I  will  go, 
or,  I  will  not  go;  I  will  do  such  a  thing,  or,  I  will  not  do 
it ;"  and  as  the  last  span  fell  out,  so  he  determined.  Cyril  and 
Theophylact,  however,  give  a  different  account  of  the  mat- 
ter. The/  say  that  it  was  performed  by  erecting  two 
sticks,  after  which  they  murmured  forth  a  certain  charm, 
and  then,  according  as  the  sticks  fell,  backward  or  for- 
ward, towards  the  right  or  left,  they  gave  advice  in  any 
affair. — Btirder. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  12.  Therefore  will  I  be  unto  Ephraim  as  a 

moth,  and  to  the  house  of  Judah  as  rottenness. 
See  on  Job  4.  9.  and  27.  18. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  4.  O  Ephraim,  v/hat  shall  I  do  unto  thee  ? 
O  Judah,  what  shall  I  do  unto  thee  ?  for  your 
goodness  is  as  a  morning  cloud,  and  as  the 
early  dew  it  goeth  away. 

"  Early  dew."  "  What,  is  this  prosperity  1  what,  this 
pleasure  1  Ah !  what  are  my  riches,  and  what  my  glory  1 
Alas!  'tis  like  the  dew,  which  flies  off  at  the  sight  of  the 
morning  sun."  "  My  son,  my  son,  be  not  too  confident ;  for 
life  is  like  the  dew."— Roberts. 

Dr.  Shaw,  speaking  of  Arabia  Petraea,  says,  "  The  dews 
of  the  night,  as  we  had  the  heavens  only  for  our  covering, 
would  (in  the  night)  frequently  wet  us  to  the  skin :  but  no 
sooner  was  the  sun  risen,  and  the  atmosphere  a  little  heat- 
ed, than  the  mists  were  quickly  dispersed,  and  the  copious 
moisture,  which  the  dews  had,  communicated  to  the  sands, 
would  be  entirely  evaporated." — Burder. 

Ver.  9.  And  as  troops  of  robbers  wait  for  a  man, 
so  the  company  of  priests  murder  in  the  way 
by  consent :  for  they  commit  lewdness. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  "  consent,"  "  shoulder."  The 
Hindoos  for  the  same  thing  say,  "  with  one  hand."  Thus, 
those  people  with  "  one  hand'*  have  gone  to  the  judge,  i.  e. 


with  one  consent.  "  Those  wretches  with  one  hand  are 
doing  evil."  "  If  the  coolies  do  their  duly  wiih  one  hand, 
the  work  will  soon  be  finished."  "  Why  have  they  not  ac- 
complished their  object  7  because  they  did  not  go  about  it 
with  one  hand." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  1 6.  They  return,  but  not  to  the  Most  High  ; 
they  are  like  a  deceitful  bow :  their  princes 
shall  fall  by  the  sword  for  the  rage  of  their 
tongue.  This  shall  be  their  derision  in  the 
land  of  Egypt. 

The  strings  of  African  bows  are  all  made  of  the  en- 
trails of  animals,  a  kind  of  catgut.  Moist  weather  renders 
it  so  soft,  that  they  cannot  shoot  with  it :  should  they  try  it, 
the  string  .would  either  instantly  break,  or  it  would  stretch 
to  such  a  length  that  it  could  not  impel  the  arrow.  In  con- 
sequence of  this  being  the  case,"  I  have  heard  the  remark 
made  in  Africa,  that  the  safest  time  to  travel  among  the 
wild  Bushmen  is  in  wet  weather,  for  then  they  cannot  shoot 
you.  Were  people  using  such  bows  for  defence,  and  un- 
acquainted with  this  effect  of  moisture,  in  a  time  of  danger 
to  seize  their  bow  for  self-defence,  they  would  be  grievous- 
ly deceived,  by  finding  them  useless  when  most  needed. 
They  would  thus  prove  deceitful  bows.— Campbell 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  8.  Israel  is  swallowed  up :  now  shall  they 
be  among  the  Gentiles  as  a  vessel  wherein  is 
no  pleasure. 

I  believe  this  refers  to  an  earthen  vessel,  and  not  to  one 
made  of  skin.  People  often  compare  each  other  to  an  up- 
P0-PANUM,  i.  e.  literally,  a  salt  vessel ;  because  after  it  has 
contained  salt  it  is  most  fragile,  the  least  thing  will  break 
it  to  pieces.  "  What  are  you,  sir"?  an  uppu-pannm"  a  salt 
vessel.  "  Look  at  that  poor  salt  vessel ;  if  you  touch  him  he 
will  fall  to  pieces." — Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  For  they  are  gone  up  to  Assyria,  a  wild 
ass   alone   by  himself:    Ephraim   hath  hired 
lovers. 
See  on  Job  39.  5—8. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  10.  I  found  Israel  like  grapes  in  the  wilder- 
ness ;  I  saw  your  fathers  as  the  first  ripe  in  the 
fig-tree  at  her  first  time  :  but  they  went  to  Baal- 
peor  and  separated  themselves  unto  that  shame] 
and  their  abominations  were  according  as  they 
loved. 

In  Barbary,  and  no  doubt  in  the  hotter  climate  of  Judea, 
after  mild  winters,  some  of  the  more  forward  trees  will 
now  and  then  yield  a  few  ripe  figs,  six  weeks  or  more  be- 
fore the  full  season.  Such  is  probably  the  allusion  in  this 
place.    (Shaw.)— Burder. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  7.  As  for  Samaria,  her  king  is  cut  off  as  the 
foam  upon  the  water. 

"  Those  sons  of  fiends  are  now  gone  as  the  neer-molle" 
i.  e.  the  bubble.  "  Alas  !  my  race  is  cut  off:  it  has  disap- 
peared like  the  bubble."  *'  Yes,  those  people  were  only 
bubbles ;  they  have  all  gone." — Roberts. 


Chap.  10— H. 


ROSEA. 


549 


Ver.  8.  The  high  places  also  of  Aveil,  the  sin  of 
Israel,  shall  be  destroyed :  the  thorn  and  the 
thistle  shall  come  up  on  their  altars,  and  they 
shall  say  to  the  mountains,  Cover  us ;  and  to 
the  hills,  Fall  on  us. 

Has  a  man  by  fraud  gained  possession  of  another  per- 
son's land,  then  the  imprecation  is  uttered,  "  Thorns  and 
thistles  shall  ever  grow  there  !"  "  He  get  rice  from  his 
land  !  Never !  he  will  have  thorns  and  thistles."  "  Yes, 
yes,  the  rice  shall  be  as  thorns  in  his  bowels." — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  Sow  to  yourselves  in  righteousness,  reap 
in  mercy ;  break  up  your  fallow  ground :  for 
it  is  time  to  seek  the  Lord,  till  he  come  and 
rain  righteousness  upon  you. 

It  is  said  of  a  good  king,  "  What  a  blessing  is  he  to  the 

jj  land  ;  he  is  always  raining  justice  upon  us."    "  You  talk  to 

il  me  about  the  merit  of  remaining  with  such  a  master :  he  is 

i  always  raining  blessings  upon  him."    A  son  after  the  de- 

i  cease  of  his  father,  asks,  "  Where  is  now  the  rain  of  love  1 

I  alas !  I  am  withered  and  dry."    The  figure  is  also  used 

i  sarcastically,  "  Yes,  indeed  you  are  a  very  good  friend,  you 

(1  are  always  raining  favours  upon  me." — Roberts. 

I  CHAPTER  XI.         , 

Ver.  2.  As  they  called  them,  so  they  went  from 
them :  they  sacrificed  unto  Baalim,  and  burnt 
incense  to  graven  images. 

We  read  frequently  of  graven  images,  and  of  molten 
images,  and  the  words  are  become  so  familiar,  as  names  of 
idolatrous  images,  that  although  they  are  not  well  chosen 
to  express  the  Hebrew  names,  it  seems  not  advisable  to 
change  them  for  others,  that  might  more  exactly  correspond 
with  the  original.  The  graven  image  was  not  a  thing 
wrought  in  metal  by  the  tool  of  the  workman  we  should 
now  call  an  engraver;  nor  was  the  molten  image  an  image 
made  of  metal,  or  any  other  substance  melted  and  shaped  in 
a  mould.  In  fact,  the  graven  image  and  the  molten  image 
are  the  same  thing,  under  different  names.  The  images  of 
the  ancient  idolaters  were  iirst  cut  out  of  wood  by  the  car- 
penter, as  is  very  evident  from  the  prophet  Isaiah.  This 
figure  of  wood  was  overlaid  with  plates  either  of  gold  or 
silver,  or  sometimes  perhaps  of  an  inferior  metal ;  and  in 
this  finished  state  it  was  called  a  graven  image,  (i.  e.  a 
carved  image,)  in  reference  to  the  inner  solid  figure  of 
wood,  and  a  molten  (z.  e.  an  overlaid,  or  covered)  image, 
in  reference  to  the  outer  metalline  case  or  covering.  Some- 
times both  epithets  are  applied  to  it  at  once.  "  I  will  cut 
off  the  graven  and  molten  image."  (Nahum  i.  14.)  Again, 
'  What  profiteth  the  graven  and  molten  image  V  (Hab.  ii. 
18.)  The  English  word  molten  conveys  a  notion  of  melt- 
ing, or  fusion.  But  this  is  not  the  case  with  the  Hebrew 
word  for  which  it  is  given.  The  Hebrew  signifies,  gen- 
erally, to  overspread,  or  cover  all  over,  in  whatever  man- 
ner, according  to  the  different  subject,  the  overspreading 
or  covering  be  effected ;  whether  by  pouring  forth  a  sub- 
stance in  fusion,  or  by  spreading  a  cloth  over  or  before,  or 
by  hammering  on  metalline  plates.  It  is  on  account  of 
this  metalline  case,  that  we  find  a  founder  employed  to 
make  a  graven  image,  (Judges  xvii.  3 ;)  and  that  we  read 
in  Isaiah  xl.  19,  of  a  workman  that  melteth  a  graven  image ; 
and  in  another  place  (chap,  xliv.)  we  find  the  question, 
"  Who  hath  molten  a  graven  image  1"  In  these  two  pas- 
sages the  words  should  be  overlayeth,  and  overlaid. — Hors- 


Ver.  4.  I  drew  them  with  cords  of  a  man,  with 
bands  of  love ;  and  I  was  to  them  as  they  that 
take  off  the  yoke  on  their  jaws,  and  I  laid  meat 
unto  them. 

Here  we  have  another  figure  to  show  the  affection  of 
Jehovah  for  backsliding  Israel.  An  affectionate  wife  says 
of  a  good  husband,  "  He  has  bound  me  with  the  cords  of 
love."  "  Ah !  woman,  have  you  not  drawn  me  with  the  cords 


of  love "?"    "  True,  true,  I  was  once  drawn  by  the  cords  of 
love,  but  they  are  now  all  broken." — Roberts. 

It  is  very  probable  that  these  words  refer  to  the  custom 
of  raising  the  yoke  forward  to  cool  the  neck  of  the  labour- 
ing beast. — BuRDER. 

Ver.  11.  They  shall  tremble  as  a  bird  out  of 
Egypt,  and  as  a  dove  out  of  the  land  of  As- 
syria :  and  I  w^ill  place  them  in  their  houses, 
saith  the  Lord. 

See  on  Is.  60.  8. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Ver.  1.  Ephraim  feedeth  on  wind,  and  folio weth 
after  the  east  wind :  he  daily  increaseth  lies 
and  desolation ;  and  they  do  make  a  covenant 
with  the  Assyrians,  and  oil  is  carried  into  Egypt. 

Syria  is  a  land  in  which  olives  abound,  and  particularly 
that  part  of  it  which  the  people  of  Israel  inhabited.  This 
explains  the  reason  why  the  Jews,  when  they  wished  to 
court  the  favour  of  their  neighbours,  the  Egyptians,  sent 
them  a  present  of  oil.  The  prophet  thus  upbraids  his  de- 
generate nation  for  the  servility  and  folly  of  their  conduct : 
"  Ephraim  feedeth  on  wind,  and  followeth  after  the  east 
wind  ;  he  daily  increaseth  lies  and  desolation  :  and  they  do 
make  a  covenant  with  the  Assyrians,  and  oil  is  carried 
into  Egypt."  The  Israelites,  in  the  decline  of  their  nation- 
al glory,  carried  the  produce  of  their  olive-plantations  into 
Egypt,  as  a  tribute  to  their  ancient  oppressors,  or  as  a  pres- 
ent to  conciliate  their  favour,  and  obtain  their  assistance, 
in  the  sanguinary  wars  which  they  were  often  compelled 
to  wage  with  the  neighbouring  slates. 

Oil  is  now  presented  in  the  East,  to  be  burnt  in  honour  ot 
the  dead,  whom  they  reverence  with  a  religious  kind  ot 
homage.  Mr.  Harmer  thinks  it  most  natural  to  suppose, 
that  the  prophet  Hosea  refers  to  a  similar  practice,  when 
he  upbraids  the  Israelites  with  carrying  oil  into  Egypt. 
They  did'  not  carry  it  thither  in  the  way  of  lawful  com- 
merce ;  for  they  carried  it  to  Tyre  without  reproof,  to  bar- 
ter it  for  other  goods.  It  was  not  sent  as  a  present  to  the 
king  of  Egypt ;  for  the  Jewish  people  endeavoured  to  gain 
the  friendship  of  foreign  potentates  with  gold  and  silver. 
It  was  not  exacted  as  a  tribute ;  for  when  the  king  ot 
Egypt  dethroned  Jehoahaz  the  kingof  Judah,  and  imposed 
a  fine  upon  the  people,  he  did  not  appoint  them  to  pay  so 
much  oil,  but  so  much  silver  and  gold.  But  if  they  burnt 
oil  in  those  early  times  in  hftnour  of  their  idols,  and  their 
departed  friends,  and  the  Jews  sent  it  into  Egypt  with  that 
intention,  it  is  no  wonder  the  prophet  so  severely  reproach- 
es them  for  their  conduct.  Oil  is  in  modern  times  very 
often  presented  to  the  objects  of  religious  veneration  in 
Barbary  and  Egypt.  The  Algerines,  according  to  Pitts, 
when  they  are  in  the  mouth  of  the  straits,  throw  a  bundle 
of  wax  candles,  together  with  a  pot  of  oil,  overboard,  as  a 
present  to  the  marabot  or  saint  who  lies  entombed  there,  on 
the  Barbary  shore,  near  the  sea. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Ver.  5.  I  will  be  as  the  dew  unto  Israel :  he  shall 
grow  as  the  lily,  and  cast  forth  his  roots  aa 
Lebanon. 

The  earth,  while  it  supplies  the  various  plants  whioh 
grow  upon  it,  is  supplied  for  that  purpose  very  much  by  the 
dew,  which  is  full  of  oleaginous  particles.  "  The  dews 
seem  to  be  the  richest  present  the  atmosphere  gives  to  the, 
earth  ;  having,  when  putrefied  in  a  vessel,  a  black  sedi- 
ment like  mud  at  the  bottom  ;  this  seems  to  cause  the  dark- 
ish colour  to  the  upper  part  of  the  ground ;  and  the  sulphur 
which  is  found  in  the  dew  may  be  the  chief  ingredient  of 
the  cement  of  the  earth,  sulphur  being  very  glutinous,  as 
nitre  is  dissolvent.  Dew  has  both  these."  (Tull's  Hus- 
bandry.) A  lively  comment  this  upon  the  promise  in  this 
passage,  "  I  will  be  as  the  dew  unto  Israel." — Burder. 

Apriest,  or  aged  man,  in  blessing  a  newly  married  couple, 
often  says,  "  Ah  !  may  your  roots  shoot  forth  like  the  aru- 
GAPiLi.u,"  {Agrostis  Linearis.)  This  beautiful  grass  puts 
forth  NUMEROUS  roots,  and  is  highly  valued  for  the  feeding 
of  cattle. — Roberts. 


550 


HOSEA 


Chap.  1 


Ver.  5.  I  will  be  as  the  dew  unto  Israel :  he  shall 
grow  as  the  lily,  and  cast  forth  his  roots  as 
Lebanon.  6.  His  branches  shall  spread,  and 
his  beauty  shall  be  as  the  olive-tree,  and  his 
smell  as  Lebanon.  7.  They  that  dwell  under 
his  shadow  shall  return ;  they  shall  revive  as 
the  corn,  and  grow  as  the  vine :  the  scent  thereof 
shall  be  as  the  wine  of  Lebanon. 

Le  Bruyn  concludes  his  description  of  Lebanon,  with  an 
account  of  the  cedar-apples,  or  the  fruit  which  these  cele- 
brated trees  produce.  He  cut  one  of  them  in  two,  and 
found  that  the  smell  within  exactly  resembled  turpentine. 
They  exuded  a  juice  from  small  oval  grains,  with  which  a 
great  many  small  cavities  are  filled,  which  also  resembles 
turpentine,  both  in  smell  and  in  clamminess.  These  cedar- 
apples  must  be  classed  with  the  scented  fruits  of  the  orien- 
tal regions ;  and  have  perhaps  contributed  greatly  to  the 
fragrance  for  which  the  sacred  writers  so  frequently  cele- 
brate the  mountains  of  Lebanon. — Paxton. 

Not  only  both  the  great  and  small  cedars  of  Lebanon 
have  a  fragrant  smell,  but  Maundrell  found  the  great  rup- 
ture in  that  mountain,  which  "runs  at  least  seven  hours' 
travel  directly  up  into  it,  and  is  on  both  sides  exceedingly 
steep  and  high,  clothed  with  fragrant  greens  from  top  to 
bottom,  and  everywhere  refreshed  with  fountains,  falling 
down  from  the  rocks  in  pleasant  cascades,  the  ingenious 
works  of  nature.  These  streams  all  uniting  at  the  bottom, 
make  a  full  and  rapid  torrent,  whose  agreeable  murmuring 
is  heard  all  over  the  place,  and  adds  no  small  pleasure  to 

it." — BURDER. 

The  approach  to  Lebanon  is  adorned  with  olive-planta- 
tions, vineyards,  and  luxuriant  fields ;  and  its  lower  re- 
gions, besides  the  olive  and  the  vine,  are  beautified  with  the 
myrtle,  the  styrax,  and  other  odoriferous  shrubs:  and  the 
perfume  which  exhales  from  these  plants,  is  increased  by 
the  fragrance  of  the  cedars  which  crown  its  summits,  or 
garnish  its  declivities.  The  great  rupture  which  runs  a 
long  way  up  into  the  mountain,  and  is  on  both  sides  exceed- 
ingly steep  and  high,  is  clothed  from  the  top  to  the  bottom 
with  fragrant  evergreens,  and  everywhere  refreshed  with 
streams,  descending  from  the  rocks  in  beautiful  cascades, 
the  work  of  divine  wisdom  and  goodness.  These  cool  and 
limpid  streams  uniting  at  the  bottom,  form  a  large  and 
rapid  torrent,  whose  agreeable  murmur  is  heard  over 
all  the  place,  and  adds  greatly  to  the  pleasure  of  thai 
romantic  scene.  The  fragrant  odours  wafted  from  the 
aromatic  plants  of  this  noble  mountain,  have  not  been 
overlooked  by  the  sacred  writers.  The  eulogium  which 
Christ  pronounces  on  the  graces  of  the  church,  contains 
the  following  direct  reference :  "  The  smell  of  thy  gar- 
ments is  like  the  smell  of  Lebanon ;"  and  the  prophet  Ro- 
sea, in  his  glowing  description  of  the  future  prosperity  of 
Israel,  converts  the  assertion  of  Solomon  into  a  promise: 


"  His  branches  shall  spread,  and  his  beauty  shall  be  as  the 
olive-tree,  and  his  smell  as  Lebanon." 

The  richness  and  flavour  of  the  wines  produced  in  its 
vineyards,  have  been  celebrated  by  travellers  in  all  ages. 
Rauwolf  declares,  that  the  wine  which  he  drank  at  Cano- 
bin,  a  Greek  monastery  on  mount  Libanus,  far  surpassed 
any  he  had  ever  tasted.  His  testimony  is  corroborated  by 
Le  Bruyn,  who  pronounces  the  wines  of  Canobin  better 
and  more  delicate  than  are  to  be  found  anywhere  else  in 
the  world.  They  are  red,  of  a  beautiful  colour,  and  so 
oily,  that  they  adhere  to  the  glass;  these  are  so  excellent, 
that  our  traveller  thought  he  never  tasted  any  kind  of  drink 
more  delicious.  The  wines  produced  on  other  parts  of  the 
mountain,  although  in  much  greater  abundance,  are  not 
nearly  so  good.  To  the  delicious  wines  of  Canobin,  the 
prophet  Hosea  certainly  refers  in  this  promise:  "  They  that 
dwell  under  his  shadow  shall  return ;  they  shall  revive  as 
the  corn,  and  grow  as  the  vine :  the  scent  thereof  shall  be 
as  ihe  wine  of  Lebanon." 

De  la  Roque,  who  also  visited  Canobin,  entirely  agrees 
with  these  travellers  in  their  account  of  the  superior  qua- 
lity of  its  wines;  and  expresses  his  full  conviction,  that 
the  reputation  of  the  wines  of  Lebanon  mentioned  by  the 
prophet,  is  well  founded.  Volney  asserts,  indeed,  that  he 
found  the  wines  of  Lebanon  of  a  very  inferior  quality;  this 
may  be  true,  and  yet  the  testimony  of  these  respectable 
travellers  perfectly  correct.  He  might  not  be  presented 
with  the  most  exquisite  wine  of  Canobin,  which  has  de- 
servedly obtaingd  so  high  a  character;  or  ihe  vintage  of 
that  year  might  be  inferior.  But  whatever  might  be  the 
reason,  no  doubt  can  be  entertained  concerning  the  accura- 
cy of  other  equally  credible  witnesses,  who,  from  their 
own  experience,  and  with  one  voice,  attest  the  unrivalled 
excellence  of  the  wine  of  Lebanon.  These  travellers  ad- 
mit, that  the  neighbourhood  of  Canobin  produces  wines  of 
inferior  quality;  but,  when  the  wine  of  Lebanon  is  men- 
tioned by  way  of  eminence,  the  best  is  undoubtedly  meant. 

In  striking  allusion  to  the  scenery  and  productions  of 
that  mountain,  it  is  promised  in  the  sixth  verse:  "His 
branch  shall  spead,  and  his  beauty  shall  be  as  the  olive- 
tree,  and  his  smell  (or  his  memorial,  as  the  original  term 
signifies)  as  Lebanon."  His  branches  shall  spread  like  the 
mighty  arms  of  the  cedar,  every  one  of  which  is  equal  in 
size  to  a  tree  ;  his  beauty  shall  be  as  the  olive-tree,  which 
is  generally  admitted  to  be  one  of  the  most  beautiful  pro- 
ductions of  nature ;  and  his  smell,  his  very  memorial,  shall 
be  as  the  wine  of  Lebanon,  which  delights  the  taste,  and  the 
very  recollection  of  which  excites  the  commendation  of 
those  that  have  drank  it,  long  after  the  banquet  is  over. 
The  meaning  of  these  glowing  figures  undoubtedly  is,  that 
the  righteous  man  shall  prosper  by  the  distinguishing  fa- 
vour of  Heaven ;  shall  become  excellent,  and  useful,  and 
highly  respected  while  he  lives ;  and  after  his  death,  hi? 
memory  shall  be  blessed  and  embalmed  in  the  affectionate 
recollection  of  the  church,  for  the  benefit  of  many  who  had 
not  the  opportunity  of  profiling  by  his  example.— Paxton. 


JOEL. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  6.  For  a  nation  is  come  up  upon  my  land, 
strong,  and  without  number,  whose  teeth  are 
the  teeth  of  a  lion,  and  he  hath  the  cheek  teeth 
of  a  great  lion.  7.  He  hath  laid  my  vine  waste, 
and  barked  my  fig-tree  ;  he  hath  made  it  clean 
bare,  and  cast  it  away ;  the  branches  thereof 
are  made  white. 

So  valuable  is  the  fig-tree  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  and  so 
high  is  the  estimation  in  which  it  is  held,  that  to  bark  and 
kill  it,  is  reckoned  among  the  severest  judgments  which 
God  inflicted  upon  his  offending  people.  The  prophet 
alludes  in  these  words  to  the  destructive  progress  of  the 
locust,  which,  with  insatiable  greediness,  devours  the  leaves 
and  bark  of  every  tree  on  which  it  lights,  till  not  the  small- 
est portion  of  rind  is  left,  even  on  the  slenderest  twig,  to 
convey  the  sap  from  the  root,  and  leaves  it  white  and  with- 
ering in  the  sun,  for  ever  incapable  of  answering  the  hopes 
of  the  husbandman.  Such  were  the  people  of  Israel,  de- 
livered by  Jehovah,  for  their  numerous  and  inveterate 
transgressions,  into  the  hands  of  their  cruel  and  implacable 
enemies. — Paxton. 

The  skin  of  a  man  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  bark 
of  a  tree.  Thus  it  is  saidof  those  who  have  been  severely 
flogged,  "  Their  backs  are  like  the  margossa-tree  stripped 
of  its  bark:"  which  alludes  to  the  custom  of  taking  off  the 
bark  of  that  tree  for  medical  purposes. — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  Gird  yourselves,  and  lament,  ye  priests; 
howl,  ye  ministers  of  the  altar :  come,  lie  all 
night  in  sackcloth,  ye  ministers  of  my  God :  for 
the  meat-offering  and  the  drink-offering  is  with- 
holden  from  the  house  of  your  God. 
See  on  Is.  20.  3. 

Ver.  17.  The  seed  is  rotten  under  their  clods,  the 
garners  are  laid  desolate,  the  barns  are  broken 
down ;  for  the  corn  is  withered. 

Dr.  Shaw  informs  us,  that  "  in  Barbary,  after  the  grain 
is  winnowed,  they  lodge  it  in  mattamores  or  subterraneous 
magazines,  two  or  three  hundred  of  which  are  sometimes 
together,  the  smallest  holding  four  hundred  bushels."  And 
Dr.  Russel  says,  that  "  about  Aleppo,  in  Syria,  their  grana- 
ries are  even  at  this  day  subterraneous  grottoes,  the  entry 
to  which  is  by  a  small  hole  or  opening  like  a  well,  often 
in  the  highway ;  and  as  they  are  comm^bnly  left  open  when 
empty,  they  make  it  not  a  little  dangerous  riding  near  the 
villages  in  the  night." — Burder. 

Ver.  19.  O  Lord,  to  thee  will  I  cry  :  for  the  fire 
hath  devoured  the  pastures  of  the  wilderness, 
and  the  flame  hath  burnt  all  the  trees  of  the 
field. 

There  are  doubtless  different  methods  for  felling  timber, 
practised  by  various  nations.  In  more  rude  and  uncivilized 
times,  and  even  still  among  people  of  that  description,  we 
may  expect  to  find  the  most  simple,  and  perhaps,  as  they 
may  appear  to  us,  inconvenient  contrivances  adopted. 
Prior  to  the  invention  of  suitable  implements,  such  means 
as  would  any  way  effect  this  purpose  would  certainly  be 
resorted  to.  We  must  not  be  surprised  then  to  find  that 
formerly,  and  in  the  present  day,  trees  were  felled  by 
the  operation  of  fire.    Thus  Niebuhr  says,  '*  we  cannot 


help  condemning  the  unskilful  expedient  which  these  high- 
landers  employ  for  felling  trees:  they  set  fire  to  the  root, 
and  keep  it  burning  till  the  tree  falls  of  itself."  Mr.  Bruce 
mentions  whole  forests,  whose  underwood  and  vegetation 
are  thus  consumed.  Possibly  this  custom  may  be  alluded 
to  in  Zech.  xii.  6 :  "  I  will  make  the  governors  of  Judah 
like  a  hearth  of  fire  among  the  wood,  and  like  a  torch  of 
fire  in  a  sheaf,  and  they  shall  devour  all  the  people  round 
about."  Such  fires  may  be  kindled  either  from  design  or 
accident.  In  such  instances,  as  obtaining  the  timber  is  the 
object,  these  fires  are  purposely  lighted,  and  would  be  so 
managed  as  to  do  as  little  damage  as  possible,  though  some 
injury  must  certainly  result  from  this  method  of  felling 
trees.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  we  learn  from  Turner's 
Embassy  to  Thibet,  that  there  "  the  only  method  of  felling 
timber  in  practice,  I  was  informed,  is  by  fire.  In  the  trees 
marked  out  for  this  purpose,  vegetation  is  dostroyed  by 
burning  their  trunks  half  through  ;  being  left  in  that  slate 
to  dry;  in  the  ensuing  year  the  fire  is  again  applied,  and 
they  are  burnt  till  they  fall."  An  allusion  to  something  of 
this  kind  the  prophet  Joel  certainly  has  in  these  words. 
Perhaps  it  may  be  rather  to  a  general  undesigned  devasta- 
tion by  fire,  than  to  any  contrivance  for  procuring  the  tim- 
ber.— Burder. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  4.  The  appearance  of  them  is  as  the  appear- 
ance of  horses ;  and  as  horsemen,  so  shall  they 
run.  5.  Like  the  noise  of  chariots  on  the  tops 
of  mountains  shall  they  leap,  like  the  noise  of 
a  flame  of  fire  that  devoureth  the  stubble,  as  a 
strong  people  set  in  battle  array.  6.  Before 
their  face  the  people  shall  be  much  pained ;  all 
faces  shall  gather  blackness.  7.  They  shall 
run  like  mighty  men ;  they  shall  climb  the  wall 
like  men  of  war ;  and  they  shall  march  every 
one  on  his  ways,  and  they  shall  not  break  their 
ranks. 

I  never  saw  such  an  exhibition  of  the  helplessness  of  man, 
as  I  have  seen  to-day.  While  we  were  sitting  at  dinner,  a 
person  came  into  the  house,  quite  pale,  and  told  us  that 
the  locusts  were  coming.  Every  face  gathered  darkness. 
I  went  to  the  door — I  looked  above,  and  all  round,  and  saw 
nothing.  "  Look  to  the  ground,"  was  the  reply,  when  1  . 
asked  where  they  were.  I  looked  to  the  ground,  and  there 
I  saw  a  stream  of  young  locusts  without  wings,  covering 
the  ground  at  the  entrance  of  the  village.  The  streani  was 
about  five  hundred  feet  broad,  and  covering  the  ground, 
and  moving  at  the  rate  of  two  miles  an  hour.  In^  a  few 
minutes  they  covered  the  garden  wall,  some  inches  deep, 
and  the  water  was  immediately  let  into  the  channel,  into 
which  it  flows  to  water  the  garden.  They  swim  with  the 
greatest  ease  over  standing  water,  but  the  stream  carried 
ihem  away,  and  after  floating  in  it  about  a  hundred  paces, 
:hey  were  drowned.  All  hands  were  now  at  work  to  keep 
them  from  the  gardens,  and  to  keep  them  from  crossing 
the  streams.  To  examine  the  phenomenon  more  nearly, 
I  walked  about  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  village,  follow- 
ing the  course  of  the  stream.  Here  I  fonnd  the  stream 
extending  a  mile  in  breadth,  and,  like  a  thousand  rivulets, 
all  flowing  into  one  common  channel.  It  appeared  as  if 
the  dust  under  my  feet  was  forming  into  life,  and  as  if  God, 
when  he  has  a  controversy  with  a  people,  could  raise  the 
very  dust  of  the  earth  on  which  they  tread  in  arms  against 
them.  Men  can  conquer  the  tiger,  the  elephant,  the  lion, 
and  all  the  wild  beasts  of  the  desert;  he  can  turn  the  course 
of  the  mighty  rivers,  he  can  elude  the  violence  of  'he  tern- 


552 


JOEL. 


Chap.  2. 


pest,  and  chain  the  wind  to  his  car;  he  can  raise  the  waters 
into  clouds,  .and  by  the  means  of  steam,  create  a  power 
that  is  yet  beyond  human  measurement ;  he  can  play  with 
the  lightnings  of  heaven,  and  arrest  the  thunders  of  heav- 
en ;  but  he  is  nothing  before  an  army  of  locusts.  Such  a 
scene  as  I  have  seen  this  afternoon  would  fill  England  with 
more  consternation  than  the  terrific  cholera.  One  of  the 
people  here  informs  us,  that  he  had  seen  a  stream  that  con- 
^  tinued  ten  days  and  nights  flowing  upon  his  place.  During 
that  time  every  person  in  the  place  was  at  work,  to  pre- 
serve his  garden ;  as  to  the  cornfields,  they  were  obliged 
to  give  them  up.  They  continued  to  the  fifth  day  defending 
their  gardens ;  on  the  evening  of  the  fifth  day,  the  locusts 
were  between  five  and  ten  feet  deep,  and  the  mass  by  this 
time  became  terrible,  and  literally  fell  in  pieces  over  the 
garden  walls. — Campbell. 

In  some  regions  of  the  East,  the  whole  earth  is  at  times 
covered  with  locusts  for  the  space  of  several  leagues,  often 
to  the  depth  of  four,  sometimes  of  six  or  seven  inches. 
Their  approach,  which  causes  a  noise  like  the  rushing  of 
a  torrent,  darkens  the  horizon,  and  so  enormous  is  their 
multitude,  it  hides  the  light  of  the  sun,  and  casts  an  awful 
gloom,  like  that  of  an  eclipse,  over  the  field.  Major  Moore, 
when  at  Poonah,  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  an  immense 
army  of  these  animals  which  ravaged  the  Mahratta  coun- 
try, and  was  supposed  to  have  come  from  Arabia.  "  The 
column  they  composed,"  says  he,  "  extended  five  hundred 
miles  ;  and  so  compact  was  it  when  on  the  wing,  that  like 
an  eclipse,  it  completely  hid  the  sun,  so  that  no  shadow 
was  cast  by  any  object ;"  and  some  lofty  tombs  distant  from 
his  residence  not  two  hundred  yards,  were  rendered  quite 
invisible.  The  noise  they  make  in  browsing  on  the  trees 
and  herbage  may  be  heard  at  a  great  distance,  and  re- 
sembles the  rattling  of  hail,  or  the  noise  of  an  army  fora- 
ging in  secret.  The  inhabitants  of  Syria  have  observed 
that  locusts  are  always  bred  by  too  mild  winters,  and 
that  they  constantly  come  from  the  deserts  of  Arabia. 
When  they  breed,  which  is  in  the  month  of  October,  they 
make  a  hole  in  the  ground  with  their  tails,  and  having  laid 
three  hundred  eggs  in  it,  and  covered  them  with  their  feet, 
expire  ;  for  they  never  live  above  six  months  and  a  half. 
Neither  rains  nor  frost,  however  long  and  severe,  can  de- 
stroy their  eggs ;  they  continue  till  spring,  and,  hatched  by 
the  heat  of  the  sun,  the  young  locusts  issue  from  the  earth 
about  the  middle  of  April. 

From  the  circumstance  of  their  young  ones  issuing  from 
the  ground,  they  are  called  312,  gob  or  gobai,  from  an  Arabic 
verb,  which  signifies  to  rise  out  of  the  earth.  Another 
name  is  dtj  gazam,  from  the  root  gazaz,  to  cut  off,  or  to 
spoil ;  and  more  destructive  and  insatiable  spoilers  were 
never  let  loose  to  desolate  the  earth.  Pliny  calls  them  a 
scourge  in  the  hand  of  an  incensed  Deity.  Wherever  their 
innumerable  bands  direct  their  march,  the  verdure  of  the 
country,  though  it  resembled  before  the  paradise  of  God, 
almost  instantaneously  disappears.  The  trees  and  plants, 
s-tripped  of  their  leaves,  and  reduced  to  their  naked  boughs 
and  stems,  cause  the  dreary  image  of  winter  to  succeed  in 
an  instant  to  the  rich  scenery  of  spring;  and  the  whole 
country  puts  on  the  appearance  of  being  burnt.  Fire  itself 
devours  not  so  fast ;  nor  is  a  vestige  of  vegetation  to  be 
found  when  they  again  take  their  flight  to  produce  similar 
disasters.  In  a  few  hours  they  eat  up  every  green  thing, 
and  consign  the  miserable  inhabitants  of"  the  desolated 
regions  to  inevitable  famine.  Many  years  are  not  suffi- 
cient t9  repair  the  desolation  which  these  destructive  insects 
produce.  When  they  first  appear  on  the  frontiers  of  the 
cultivated  lands,  the  husbandmen,  if  sufficiently  numerous, 
sometimes  divert  the  storm  by  their  gestures  and  their  cries, 
or  they  strive  to  repulse  them  by  raising  large  clouds  of 
smoke,  but  frequently  their  herbs  and  wet  straw  fail  them; 
they  then  dig  a  variety  of  pits  and  trenches,  all  over  their 
fields  and  gardens,  which  they  fill  with  water,  or  with 
heath,  stubble,  and  other  combustible  matter,  which  they 
set  on  fire  upon  the  approach  of  the  enemy.  These  meth- 
ods of  stopping  their  march  are  of  great  antiquity,  for 
Homer  familiarly  refers  to  them  as  practised  in  his"  time. 
But  they  are  all  to  no  purpose,  for  the  trenches  are  quickly 
filled,  and  the  fires  extinguished,  by  infinite  swarms  suc- 
ceeding one  another ;  and  forming  a  bed  on  their  fields  of 
six  or  seven  inches  in  thickness.  Fire  itself  is  not  more 
active  than  these  devourers ;  and  not  a  trace  of  vegetation 
is  to  be  discovered,  when  the  cloud  has  resumed  its  flight. 


But  the  two  most  powerful  destroyers  of  these  insects,  is  the 
south,  or  southeasterly  winds,  and  the  bird  called  the  sa- 
marmar.  These  birds,  which  greatly  resemble  the  wood- 
pecker, follow  them  in  large  flocks,  greedily  devour  them, 
and  besides,  kill  as  many  as  they  can  ;  they  are,  therefore, 
much  respected  by  the  peasants,  and  no  person  is  ever 
allowed  to  destroy  them.  The  southerly  winds  waft  them 
over  the  MediterrSnean,  where  they  perish  in  so  great 
quantities,  that  when  their  carcasses  are  cast  on  the  shore^ 
they  infect  the  air  for  several  days  to  a  considerable  dis- 
tance. In  a  state  of  putrefaction,  the  stench  emitted  from, 
their  bodies  is  scarcely  to  be  endured;  the  traveller,  who 
crushes  them  below  the  wheels  of  his  wagon,  or  the  feet 
of  his  horses,  is  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  washing  his 
nose  with  vinegar,  and  holding  his  handkerchief,  dipped 
in  it,  continually  to  his  nostrils. 

One  of  the  most  grievous  calamities  ever  inflicted  by  the 
locust,  happened  to  the  regions  of  Africa,  in  the  time  of  the 
Romans,  and  fell  with  peculiar  weight  on  those  parts  which 
were  subject  to  their  empire.  Scarcely  recovered  from  the 
miseries  of  the  last  Punic  war,  Africa  was  doomed  to  suffer, 
about  one  hundred  and  twenty-three  years  before  the  birth 
of  Christ,  another  desolation,  as  terrible  as  it  was  unprece- 
dented. An  immense  number  of  locusts  covered  the  whole 
country,  consumed  every  plant  and  every  blade  of  grass  in 
the  field,  without  sparing  the  roots,  and  the  leaves  of  the 
trees,  with  the  tendrils  upon  which  they  grew.  These  being 
exhausted,  they  penetrated  with  their  teeth  the  bark,  how- 
ever bitter,  and  even  corroded  the  dry  and  solid  timber. 
After  they  had  accomplished  this  terrible  destruction,  a 
sudden  blast  of  wind  dispersed  them  into  different  portions, 
and  after  tossing  them  awhile  in  the  air,  plunged  their  in- 
numerable hosts  into  the  sea.  But  the  deadly  scourge  was 
not  then  at  an  end;  the  raging  billows  threw  up  enormous 
heaps  of  their  dead  and  corrupted  bodies  upon  that  long- 
extended  coast,  which  produced  a  most  insupportable  and 
poisonous  stench.  This  soon  brought  on  a  pestilence,  which 
affected  every  species  of  animals ;  so  that  oirds,  and  sheep, 
and  cattle,  and  even  the  wild  beasts  of  the  field,  perished  in 
great  numbers ;  and  their  carcasses,  being  soon  rendered 
putrid  by  the  foulness  of  the  air,  added  greatly  to  the 
general  corruption.  The  destruction  of  the  human  species 
was  horrible ;  in  Numidia,  where  at  that  time  Micipsa  was 
king,  eighty  thousand  persons  died  ;  and  in  that  part  of  the 
seacoast  which  bordered  upon  the  reigon  of  Carthage  and 
Utica,  two  hundred  thousand  are  said  to  have  been  carried 
off  by  this  pestilence.  When  Le  Bruyn  was  at  Rama  he  was 
informed  that  the  locusts  were  once  so  destructive  there, 
that  in  the  space  of  two  hours  they  ate  up  all  the  her- 
bage round  the  town;  and  in  the  garden  belonging  to  the 
house  in  which  he  lodged,  they  ate  the  very  stalks  of  the 
artichoke  down  to  the  ground. 

This  statement  will  show,  that  the  locust  is  one  of  the 
most  terrible  instruments  in  the  hand  of  incensed  Heaven ; 
it  will  discover  the  reason  that  the  inspired  writers,  in  de- 
nouncing his  judgments,  so  frequently  allude  to  this  insect, 
and  threaten  the  sinner  with  its  vengeance  ;  it  accounts,  in 
the  most  satisfactory  manner,  for  the  figures  which  the  pro- 
phets borrow,  when  they  describe  the  march  of  cruel  and 
destructive  armies,  from  the  character  and  habits  of  this 
creature.  The  narratives  of  Volney,  Thevenot,  and  other 
travellers,  who  have  seen  and  described  the  innumerable 
swarms  of  the  locusts,  and  their  wasteful  ravages,  fully 
confirm  the  glowing  description  of  Joel  and  other  inspired 
prophets,  quoted  in  the  beginning  of  this  article.  "  A  na- 
tion," says  Joel,  "  has  come  up  upon  my  land,  strong  and 
without  number.  He  has  laid  my  vine  waste,  and  barked 
my  fig-tree ;  he  has  made  it  clean  bare,  and  cast  it  away ;  the 
branches  thereof  are  made  white — the  vine  is  dried  up,  and 
the  fig-tree  languishes,  the  pomegranate-tree,  the  palm-tree 
also,  and  the  apple-tree,  even  all  the  trees  of  the  field,  are 
withered;  because  joy  is  withered  away  from  the  sons  of 
men."  "  A  day  of  darkness  and  of  gloominess,  a  day  of 
clouds  and  thick  darkness.  A  fire  devoureth  before  them, 
and  behind  them  a  flame  burneth.  They  march  every  one 
in  his  ways ;  they  do  not  break  their  ranks,  neither  does  one 
thrust  another.  The  land  is  as  the  garden  of  Eden  before 
them,  and  behind  them  a  desolate  wilderness."  "  They  shall 
run  up  the  wall ;  they  shall  climb  up  upon  the  houses ; 
they  shall  enter  into  the  windows  like  a  thief  The  eartk 
shall  quake  before  them  :  the  heavens  shall  tremble,  the 
sun  and  the  moon  shall  be  darkened,  and  the  stars  shall 


Chap.  3. 


JOEL. 


i$a 


withdraw  their  shining."  The  same  allusion  is  involved 
in  these  words  of  Nahum,  concerning  the  fall  of  the  As- 
syrian empire;  "  Thy  crowned  are  as  the  locusts;  and  thy 
captains  as  the  great  grasshoppers,  which  camp  in  the 
hedges  in  the  cold  day,  but  when  the  sun  ariseth,  they  flee 
away,  and  their  place  is  not  known."  Bochart  and  other 
writers,  who  are  best  acquainted  with  the  eastern  countries, 
mention  a  great  variety  of  locusts,  which  vindicates  the 
language  of  the  prophet :  "  Thy  captains  are  as  the  great 
grasshoppers."  The  next  clause  is  attended  with  some  dif- 
ficulty. Mr.  Lowth,  in  his  comment,  supposes  that  these 
insects  flee  away  to  avoid  the  heat  of  the  sun  ;  and  it  has 
been  queried,  whether  the  phrase  cold  day,  does  not  mean 
the  night.  But  it  is  well  known  that  the  heat  of  the  sun, 
instead  of  compelling  the  locusts  to  retire,  quickens  them 
into  life  and  activity ;  and  the  words  cold  day,  we  believe, 
are  never  used  in  scripture,  nor  by  any  writer  of  value,  to 
signify  the  night.  The  prophet  evid.enlly  refers,  not  to 
their  flight  during  the  heat  of  the  day,  but  to  the  time  of 
their  total  departure ;  for  he  does  not  speak  of  their  moving 
from  one  field  to  another,  but  of  their  leaving  the  country 
which  they  have  invaded,  so  completely  that  the  place  of 
their  retreat  is  not  known. 

The  day  of  cold  cannot  mean  the  depth  of  winter,  for 
they  do  not  make  their  appearance  in  Palestine  at  that  sea- 
son ;  and  although  in  Arabia,  from  whence  Fulcherius 
supposes  they  come,  thickets  are  found  in  some  places,  and 
it  has  been  imagined  that  the  locusts  lie  concealed  in  them 
during  the  winter,  which  may  be  thought  to  be  their  camp- 
ing in  the  hedges  in  the  cold  day ;  yet  it  is  to  be  observed, 
that  the  word  translated  hedges,  properly  signifies,  not 
living  fences,  but  stone  walls,  and  therefore  cannot  with 
propriety  be  applied  to  thickets.  But  if  the  locust  appears 
in  the  months  of  April  and  May,  the  phrase  "  cold  day" 
may  seem  to  be  improperly  chosen.  This  difl&culty,  which 
may  be  thought  a  considerable  one,  arises  entirely  from 
our  translation.  The  original  term,  (n-«p)  karah,  denotes 
both  cold  and  cooling;  and  the  difliculty  vanishes  when 
the  latter  is  introduced,  and  the  words  are  translated,  the 
day  of  cooling,  or  the  time  when  the  Orientals  open  their 
windows  with  the  view  of  refrigerating  their  houses,  or  to 
retreat  from  the  oppressive  heats  which  commence  in  the 
months  of  April  and  May,  to  the  cooling  shades  of  their 
gardens.  A  derivative  of  this  term  is  employed  by  the 
sacred  historian,  to  denote  the  refrigeratory  or  summer 
parlour,  which  Eglon,  the  king  of  Moab,  occupied,  when 
Ehud  presented  the  tribute  of  his  nation.— Paxton. 

Ver.  6.  Before  their  face  the  people  shall  be  much 
pained ;  all  faces  shall  gather  blackness. 

The  margin  has,  for  "  blaclarness,"  "pot."  The  Tamul 
translation  has, "  All  faces  shall  wither,  or  shrivel."  Th  us  of 
a  man  in  great  poverty  it  is  said,  "  His  face  is  shrivelled." 
It  is  very  provoking  to  tell  a  person  his  face  is  like  the 
KARE-CHATTE,  L  6.  the  carthcu  vessel  in  which  the  rice  is 
boiled.  The  "  pot"  may  allude  to  such  a  utensil,  in  being 
made  black  with  the  smoke. — Roberts. 

We  have  an  expression,  Joel  ii,  6,  "  Before  their  ap- 
proach [of  the  locusts]  the  people  shall  be  much  painea ; 
all  faces  shall  gather  blackness,"  which  is  also  adopted  by  the 
prophet  Nahum,  ii.  10:  "  the  heart  melteth,  the  knees  smite 
together,  much  pain  is  in  all  loins,  and  the  faces  of  them 
all  gather  blackness."   This  phrase,  which  sounds  uncouth  to 
an  English  ear,  is  elucidated  by  the  following  history  frem 
Ockley's  History  of  the  Saracens,  (vol.  ii.  p.  319,)  which  we 
the  rather  introduce,  as  Mr.  Harmer  has  referred  this  black- 
ness to  the  effect  of  hunger  and  thirst ;  and  Calmet,  in  his 
Dictionary,  under  the  article  obscure,  has  referred  it  to  a 
bedaubing  of  the  face  with  soot,  &c.  a  proceeding  not  very 
consistent  with  the  hurry  of  flight,  or  the  terror  of  distress. 
"  Kumeil,  the  son  of  Ziyad,  was  a  man  of  fine  wit.    One  day 
I  Hejage  made  him  come  before  him,  and  reproached  him, 
:  because  in  such  a  garden,  and  before  such  and  such  persons, 
1   whom  he  named  to  him,  he  had  made  a  great  many  impreca- 
tions against  him,  saying,  the  Lord  blacken  his  face,  that  is, 
fill  him  tolth  shame  and  confusion ;  and  wished  that  his  neck 
i  was  cut  off",  and  his  blood  shed."     The  reader  will  observe 
i   how  perfectly  this  explanation  agrees  with  the  sense  of  the 
j   passages  quoted  above  :  to  gather  blackness,  then,  is  equiv- 
i   alent  to  suflTering  extreme    confusion,   and  being  over- 
whelmed with  shame,  or  with  terror  and  dismay. 
70 


In  justice  to  Kumeil,  we  ought  not  to  omit  the  ready  tura 
of  wit  which  saved  his  life.  "  It  is  true,"  said  he,  "  I  did 
say  such  words  in  such  a  garden  ;  but  then  I  was  under  a 
vine-arbour,  and  was  looking  on  a  bunch  of  grapes  that 
was  not  yet  ripe :  and  I  wished  it  might  be  turned  black 
soon,  that  they  might  be  cut  off,  and  be  made  wine  of." 
We  see,  in  this  instance,  as  says  the  sagacious  moralist, 
that  "  with  the  well-advised  is  wisdom :"  and  "  the  tongue 
of  the  wise  is  health  ;"  that  is,  preservation  and  safety. — 
Taylor  in  Calmet. 

Ver.  8.  Neither  shall  one  thrust  another,  they 
shall  walk  every  one  in  his  path :  and  when 
they  fall  upon  the  sword,  they  shall  not  be 
wounded. 

Dr.  Shaw,  speaking  of  locusts,  says,  "  Those  which  I 
saw  were  mucn  bigger  than  our  grasshoppers :  no  sooner 
were  any  of  them  hatched,  than  they  collected  themselves 
into  a  bodv  of  about  two  hundred  yards  square,  which 
marching  forward,  climbed  over  trees  and  houses,  and  ate 
up  every  thing  in  their  way.  The  inhabitants  made  large 
fires  on  the  approach  of  them,  but  to  no  purpose  ;  for  the 
fires  were  quickly  put  out  by  infinite  swarms  succeeding 
one  another ;  while  the  front  seemed  regardless  of  danger ; 
and  the  rear  pressed  on  so  close,  that  retreat  was  impossi- 
ble."— Burder. 

Ver.  23.  Be  glad  then,  ye  children  of  Zion,  and  re- 
joice in  the  Lord  your  God  :  for  he  hath  given 
you  the  former  rain  moderately,  and  he  will 
cause  to  come  down  for  you  the  rain,  the  former 
rain,  and  the  latter  rain  in  the  first  month. 

See  on  Prov.  16.  15. 

Ver.  23.  Be  glad  then,  ye  children  of  Zion,  and 
rejoice  in  the  Lord  your  God:  for  he  hath 
given  you  the  former  rain  moderately,  and  he 
will  cause  to  come  down  for  you  the  rain,  the 
former  rain,  and  the  latter  rain  in  the  first 
month.  24.  And  the  floors  shall  be  full  of 
wheat,  and  the  fats  shall  overflow  with  wine 
and  oil. 

In  southern  climates,  rain  comes  at  particular  seasons, 
which  are  generally  termed  the  rainy  seasons.  The  rain 
seldom  continues  to  fall  long  at  one  time  even  then,  but 
rather  falls  in  what  may  be  called  thunder-showers,  and  in 
torrents.  If  the  ground  happens  to  be  hard,  which  it  gene- 
rally is,  such  a  short,  though  plentiful  fall  of  rain,  does  little 
service  to  the  land,  as  it  runs  off  immediately,  not  having 
time  to  soften  and  sink  into  the  ground ;  afterward  the 
powerful  heat  of  the  sun,  soon  breaking  forth  from  behind 
the  clouds,  draws  up  the  little  damp  that  has  been  left, 
which  soon  rehardens  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  ren- 
ders it  as  impervious  as  before,  so  that  succeeding  showers 
are  rendered  almost  useless;  but  rain  falling  moderately, 
as  promised  in  the  text,  gradually  penetrates  the  ground, 
and  prepares  it  to  retain  future  showers,  which  process 
produces  fertility. — Campbell. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  1.  For,  behold,  in  those  days,  and  in  that 
time,  when  I  shall  bring  again  the  captivity  ol 
Judah  and  Jerusalem,  2.  I  will  also  gather  all 
nations,  and  will  bring  them  down  into  the  val- 
ley of  Jehoshaphat,  and  will  plead  with  them 
there  for  my  people,  and  for  my  heritage  Is- 
rael, whom  they  have  scattered  among  the  na- 
tions, and  parted  my  land. 

Those  spiritualizing  Jews,  Christians,  and  Mohamme- 
dans, who  wrest  !his  passage,  like  a  thousand  others  of  the 
scriptures,  from  a  literal  to  a  mystical  sense,  insist  on  its 
applying  to  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  on  the  last  great 
day.  From  this  belief  the  modern  Jews,  whose  fathers  are 
thought,  by  some  of  the  most  learned,  to  have  had  no  idea 
of  a  resurrection,  or  a  future  state,  have  their  bones  depos* 


554 


JOEL. 


Chap.  3. 


ited  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat.  From  the  same  hope  the 
Mohammedans  have  leJfl  a  stone  jutting  out  of  the  eastern 
wall  of  Jerusalem,  for  the  accommodation  of  their  prophet, 
who,  they  insist,  is  to  sit  on  it  here,  and  call  the  whole 
world  from  below  to  judgment.  And  a  late  traveller,  with 
the  staff  of  a  Christian  pilgrim,  after  summoning  up  all  the 
images  of  desolation  which  the  place  presents,  but  without 
once  thinking  of  the  contemptible  size  of  this  theatre  for  so 
grand  a  display,  says,  me  might  say  that  the  trumpet  of 
judgment  had  already  sounded,  and  that  the  dead  were 
about  to  rise  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat.  (Chateaubriand.) 
— Bdckingham. 

Ver.  3.  And  they  have  cast  lots  for  my  people : 
and.  have  given  a  boy  for  a  harlot,  and  sold  a 
girl  for  wine,  that  they  might  drink. 

Morgan,  in  his  history  of  Algiers,  gives  us  such  an  ac- 
count of  the  unfortunate  expedition  of  the  emperor  Charles 
the  Fifth  against  that  city,  so  far  resembling  a  passage  of  the 
prophet  Joel,  as  to  induce  me  to  transcribe  it  into  these 
papers. 

That  author  tells  us,  that  besides  vast  multitudes  that 
were  butchered  by  the  Moors  and  the  Arabs,  a  great  num- 
ber were  made  captives,  mostly  by  the  Turks  and  citizens 
of  Algiers ;  and  some  of  them,  in  order  to  turn  this  misfor- 
tune into  a  most  bitter,  taunting,  and  contemptuous  jest,  part- 
ed with  their  new-made  slavesibr  an  onion  apiece.  "  Often 
have  I  heard,"  says  he,  "  Turks  and  Africans  upbraiding 
Europeans  with  this  disaster,  saying,  scornfully,  to  such 
as  have  seemed  to  hold  their  heads  somewhat  loftilv, 
'What!  have  you  forgot  the  time  when  a  Christian  at 
Algiers  was  scarce  worth  an  onion  V  The  treatment  of 
the  Jewish  people  by  the  heathen  nations,  which  the  pro- 
phet Joel  has  described,  was,  in  like  manner,  contemptuous 
and  bitterly  sarcastic :  "  They  have  cast  lots  for  my  people, 
and  have  given  a  boy  for  a  harlot,  and  sold  a  girl  for  wine, 
that  they  might  drink."    Joel  iii.  3. 

They  that  know  the  large  sums  that  are  wont  to  be  paid, 
in  the  East,  for  young  slaves  of  either  sex,  must  be  sensible 
that  the  prophet  designs,  in  these  words,  to  point  out  the 
extreme  contempt  in  which  these  heathen  nations  held  the 
Jewish  people. 

Considered  as  slaves  are  in  the  East,  they  are  sometimes 
purchased  at  a  very  low  price.  Joel  complains  of  the  con- 
temptuous cheapness  in  which  the  Israelites  were  held  by 
those  who  made  them  captives.  "'  They  cast  lots  for  my 
people,  and  have  given  a  bov  for  a  harlot,  and  sold  a  girl 
for  wine,  that  they  might  drink."  On  this  passage  Char- 
din  remarks,  that,  "  the  Tartars,  Turks,  and  Cossacks,  sell 
the  children  sometimes  as  cheap,  which  they  take.  Not 
only  has  this  been  done  in  Asia,  where  examples  of  it  are 
frequent ;  our  Europe  has  seen  such  desolations.  When 
the  Tartars  came  into  Poland  they  carried  off  all  they  were 
able.  I  went  thither  some  years  after.  Many  persons  of 
the  court  assured  me  that  the  Tartars,  perceiving  that  they 
would  no  more  redeem  those  that  they  had  carried  off,  sold 
them  for  a  crown,  and  that  they  had  purchased  them  for 
that  sum.  In  Mingrelia  they  sell  them  for  provisions,  and 
for  wine."—  Harmer. 

Ver.  10.  Beat  your  ploughshares  into  swords,  and 
your  pruning-hooks  into  spears :  let  the  weak 
say,  I  am  strong. 

The  Syrian  plough,  which  was  probably  used  in  all  the 
regions  around,  is  a  very  simple  frame,  and  commonly  so 
light,  that  a  man  of  moderate  strength  might  carry  it  in 
one  hand.  Volney  states  that  in  Syria  it  is  often  nothing 
else  than  the  branch  of  a  tree,  cut  below  a  bifurcation,  and 
used  without  wheels.  It  is  drawn  by  asses  and  cows,  sel- 
dom by  oxen.  And  Dr.  Russel  informs  us,  the  ploughing 
of  Syria  is  performed  often  by  a  little  cow,  at  most  with 
two,  and  sometimes  only  by  an  ass.    In  Persia  it  is  for  the 


most  part  drawn  by  one  ox  only,  and  not  unfrequenily  even 
by  an  ass,  although  it  is  more  ponderous  than  in  Palestine. 
With  such  an  imperfect  instrument  the  Syrian  husband- 
man can  do  little  more  than  scratch  the  surface  of  his  field, 
or  clear  away  the  stones  or  weeds  that  encumber  it,  and 
prevent  the  seed  from  reaching  the  soil.  The  ploughshare 
IS  a  "piece  of  iron,  broad,  but  not  large,  which  tips  the  end 
of  the  shaft."  So  much  does  it  resemble  the  short  sword 
used  by  the  ancient  warriors,  that  it  may,  with  very  little 
trouble,  be  converted  into  that  deadly  weapon;  and  when 
the  work  of  destruction  is  over,  reduced  again  to  its  former 
shape,  and  applied  to  the  purpose  of  agriculture.  In  allu- 
sion to  the  first  operation,  the  prophet  Joel  summons  the 
nations  to  leave  their  peaceful  employments  in  the  cultiva- 
ted field,  and  buckle  on  their  armour:  "  Beat  your  plough- 
shares into  swords,  and  your  pruning-hooks  into  spears." 
This  beautiful  image  the  prophet  Isaiah  has  reversed,  and 
applied  to  the  establishment  of  that  profound  and  lasting 
peace  which  is  to  bless  the  church  of  Christ  in  the  latter 
days :  "  And  they  shall  beat  their  swords  into  ploughshares, 
and  their  spears  into  pruning-hooks ;  nation  shall  not  lift 
up  sword  against  nation,  neither  shall  they  learn  war  any 
more." — Paxton. 

An  hour  and  a  half  beyond  the  bridge  we  gained  the 
road  from  Jaffa  to  Ramleh.  The  country  had  now  become 
generally  cultivated,  the  husbandry  good,  the  crops  and 
fallows  clean.  Upon  a  space  of  ten  or  twelve  acres  I  ob- 
served fourteen  ploughs  at  work ;  and  so  simple  and  light 
is  the  construction  of  these  implements,  that  the  husband- 
man, when  returning  from  his  labour  in  the  evening,  takes 
his  plough  home  upon  his  shoulder,  and  carries  it  to  the 
field  again  in  the  morning.  The  share  is  of  wood,  and 
armed  only  at  the  end  with  a  tooth,  or  point  of  iron.  The 
beam  is  very  slender,  as  well  as  the  rude  handle  by  which 
it  is  directed. — Munroe's  Summer  Ramble  in  Syria. 

Ver.  19.  Egypt  shall  be  a  desolation,  and  Edom 
shall  be  a  desolate  Avilderness,  for  the  violence 
against  the  children  of  Judah,  because  they 
have  shed  innocent  blood  in  their  land. 

Of  the  striking  scene  delineated  in  the  engraving,  the 
enterprising  traveller,  who  has  contributed  it,  must  speak 
for  himself:  "  Our  conductor  preceded  us,  calling  our  at- 
tention to  some  large  slabs,  traces  of  an  ancient  pavement, 
by  which  the  labour  of  man  had  converted  this  abrupt  and 
wild  ravine  into  a  magnificent  avenue.  After  many  wind- 
ings in  the  midst  of  this  almost  subterranean  street,  (so  near 
do  the  summits  of  the  rocks  above  approach  each  other,) 
we  were  arrested  by  a  prospect  Avhich  it  were  vain  to  at- 
tempt to  describe.  Our  view  is  taken  from  the  entry  of  the 
ravine.  Two  Arabs,  with  their  camels,  are  seen  in  the 
foreground,  advancing  towards  the  city  of  Selah  or  Petra, 
the  magnificent  ruins  of  which,  seen  in  the  distance,  fully  ; 
exemplify  the  prophetic  denunciation — *  Edom  shall  be  a 
desolation.'  (Joel  iii.  19.)  A  grand  triumphal  arch  raised 
at  this  spot,  such  as  the  ancients  were  accustomed  to  con- 
struct at  the  approaches  of  cities,  boldly  connects  together 
these  two  great  walls  of  rocks.  The  impression  produced 
by  it  is  very  imposing,  at  the  moment  the  traveller  enters 
this  kind  of  covered  way." 

The  novel  disposition  of  this  triumphal  arch  led  M.  de 
Laborde  at  first  to  think  that  it  might  have  served  both  as 
a  passage  from  one  side  of  the  rocks  to  another,  and  also 
as  a  channel  for  conveying  part  of  the  waters  of  an  aque- 
duct, which  was  carried  along  the  ravine.  He  ascended 
by  a  steep  opening  encumbered  with  rocks ;  but  after  reach- 
ing the  summit  with  difficulty,  he  found  nothing  which 
could  authorize  the  supposition  that  this  arch  was  destined 
for  any  other  use  than  that  of  adorning  the  approaches  to 
the  capital  of  Arabia  Petraea. — Horne. 

[See  Jer.  49.  15 — 17.  Mai.  1.  4,  and  the  engravings  there. 
See  also  the  Comprehensive  Commentary,  and  some  addU 
tional  views  of  this  city,  in  that  work.] 


AMOS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  2.  And  he  said,  The  Lord  will  roar  from 
Zion,  and  utter  his  voice  from  Jerusalem ;  and 
the  habitations  of  the  shepherds  shall  mourn, 
and  the  top  of  Carmel  shall  wither. 

See  on  ch.  9,  2,  3. 

Ver.  5.  I  will  break  also  the  bar  of  Damascus, 
and  cut  off  the  inhabitant/  from  the  plain  of 
the  Aven,  and  him  that  holdeth  the  sceptre  from 
house  of  Eden :  and  the  people  of  Syria  shall 
go  into  captivity  unto  Kir,  saith  the  Lord. 

Rather  more  than  a  century  ago,  Mr.  Maundrell  visited 
the  mountains  of  Lebanon.  Having  proceeded  about  half 
an  hour  through  the  olive-yards  of  Sidon,  he  and  his  party 
came  to  the  foot  of  Mount  Libanus.  They  had  an  easy  as- 
cent for  two  hours,  after  which  it  grew  more  steep  and  dif- 
ficult ;  in  about  an  hour  and  a  half  more,  they  came  to  a 
fountain  of  water,  where  they  encamped  for  the  night. 
Next  day,  after  ascending  for  three  hours,  they  reached  the 
highest  ridge  of  the  mountain,  where  the  snow  lay  by  the 
side  of  the  road.  They  began  immediately  to  descend  on 
the  other  side,  and  in  two  hours  came  to  a  small  village, 
where  a  fine  brook,  gushing  at  once  from  the  side  of  the 
mountain,  rushes  down  into  the  valley  below,  and  after 
flowing  about  two  leagues,  loses  itself  in  the  river  Letane. 
The  valley  is  called  Bocat,  and  seems  to  be  the  same  with 
the  Bicah-Aven  of  the  prophet :  "  I  will  break  also  the  bar 
of  Damascus,  and  cut  off  the  inhabitant  from  the  plain 
(rather  the  vale)  of  Aven,  and  him  that  holdeih  the  sceptre 
from  the  house  of  Eden."  The  neighbourhood  of  Damas- 
cus, and  particularly  a  place  near  it,  which,  in  the  time  of 
Maundrell,  still  bore  the  name  of  Eden,  render  his  conjec- 
ture extremely  probable.  It  might  also  have  the  name  of 
Aven,  which  signifies  vanity,  from  the  idolatrous  worship 
of  Baal  practised  at  Balbec  or  Heliopolis,  which  is  situated 
m  this  valley. — Paxton, 

Ver.  13.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  For  three  trans- 
gressions of  the  children  of  Ammon,  and  for 
four,  I  will  not  turn  away  the  punishment 
thereof;  because  they  have  ripped  up  the 
women  with  child,  of  Gilead,  that  they  might 
enlarge  their  border. 

Margin,  for  "  ripped,"  "  divided  the  mountains."  It  was 
common  in  the  ancient  wars  thus  to  treat  women,  but  in 
general  the  Orientals  are  very  kind  to  their  wives  in  the 
state  alluded  to.  Nay,  even  to  animals  in  that  condition, 
they  are  very  tender :  a  man  to  beat  his  cow  when  with  calf, 
would  be  called  a  great  sinner;  and  to  kill  a  goat  or  a 
sheep  when  with  young,  is  altogether  out  of  the  question. 
The  Hindoo  hunters  will  not  destroy  wild  animals  when 
in  that  state.  The  term  in  the  margin  is  applied  to  that 
condition.  "In  the  tenth  moon  the  child  fell  from  the 
mountain."— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  1.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  For  three  trans- 
gressions of  Moab,  and  for  four,  I  will  not  turn 
away  the  punishment  thereof:  because  he  burnt 
the  bones  of  the  king  of  Edom  into  lime. 

"  To  plaster  the  walls  of  his  house  with  it,"  as  the  Chal- 
dee  paraphrase  explains  the  .ext,  which  was  a  cruel  insult- 


ing of  the  dead.  A  piece  of  barbarity  resembling  this  ii 
told  by  Sir  Paul  Rycaut,  that  the  wall  of  the  city  of  Phila- 
delphia was  made  of  the  bones  of  the  besieged,  by  the  prince 
who  took  it  by  storm. — Burder. 

Ver.  6.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  for  three  transgres- 
sions of  Israel,  and  for  four,  I  will  not  turn 
away  the  punishment  thereof;  because  they 
sold  the  righteous  for  silver,  and  the  poor  for 
a  pair  of  shoes. 

The  shoes,  or  rather  sandals,  have  the  least  honour  of 
any  thing  which  is  worn  by  man,  because  they  belong  to 
the  feet,  and  are  comparatively  of  little  value.  Nothing  is 
more  disgraceful  than  to  be  beaten  with  the  sandals :  thus 
when  one  man  intends  to  exasperate  another,  he  begins  to 
take  off  a  sandal,  as  if  going  to  strike  him.  To  spit  in  the 
face  is  not  a  greater  indignity  than  this.  When  a  person 
wishes  to  insult  another  in  reference  to  the  price  of  any  ar- 
ticle, he  says,  "  I  will  give  you  my  sandals  for  it."  "  That 
fellow  is  not  worth  the  value  of  my  sandals."  "  Who  are 
you,  sir?  you  are  not  worthy  to  carry  my  sandals-,"  which 
alludes  to  the  custom  of  a  rich  man  always  having  a  ser- 
vant with  him  to  carry  his  sandals ;  i.  e.  when  he  chooses  to 
walk  barefoot.  "  Over  Edom  will  I  cast  out  my  shoe :" 
so  contemptible  and  so  easy  was  it  to  be  conquered.— Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  7.  That  pant  after  the  dust  of  the  earth  on 
the  head  of  the  poor,  and  turn  aside  the  way  of 
the  meek ;  and  a  man  and  his  father  will  go  in 
unto  the  same  maid,  to  profane  my  holy  name. 

Who  were  those  that  thus  oppressed  the  poor,  who  sold 
them  for  a  pair  of  shoes,  and  panted  "  after  the  dust  of  the 
earth  V  They  were  the  judges  and  the  princes  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  Tamul  translation  has  it,  "  To  the  injury  of  the 
poor  they  eagerly  took  the  dust  of  the  earth ;"  literally, 
they  gnawed  the  earth  as  a  dog  does  a  bone.  "  Dust  of  the 
earth."  What  does  this  mean  %  I  believe  it  alludes  to  the 
lands  of  the  poor,  of  which  they  had  been  deprived  by  the 
judges  and  princes.  Nothing  is  more  common  in  eastern 
language  than  for  a  man  to  call  his  fields  and  gardens  his 
MAN ;  i.  e.  his  dust,  his  earth.  "  That  man  has  gnawed 
away  my  dust  or  sand."  "  Ah  !  the  fellow  !  by  degrees  he 
has  taken  away  all  that  poor  man's  earth."  "  The  cruel 
wretch !  he  is  ever  trying  to  take  away  the  dust  of  the 
poor."  In  consequence  of  there  not  being  fences  in  the 
East,  landowners  often  encroach  on  each  other's  posses- 
sions. On  the  latter  part  of  the  verse  and  the  next  to  it,  I 
dare  not  write.  The  heathenism,  the  devilism,  described 
by  Amos,  is  still  the  same.  Who  did  these  things ']  the 
princes,  the  judges,  and  the  people  of  Judah. — Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  And  they  lay  themselves  down  upon 
clothes  laid  to  pledge  by  every  altar,  and  they 
drink  the  wine  of  the  condemned  in  the  house 
of  their  god. 

It  was  found  advantageous,  both  for  ease  and  health,  to 
have  a  carpet  or  some  soft  and  thick  cloth  spread  on  the 
ground  for  those  to  sit  upon  who  dwelt  in  tents:  subse- 
quently, those  who  lived  in  houses  used  them  too.  When 
they  held  their  idolatrous  feasts  in  the  temples  dedicated  to 
the  gods,  they  sat  upon  the  ground,  but  not  on  the  bare 
earth,  or  the  marble  pavement  of  those  temples,  but  upon 
something  soft  and  dry  spread  under  them,  brought  for  the 
purpose.  The  clothes  mentioned  by  the  prophet  mav  mean 
the  coverings  of  the  body  for  the  night,  as  well  as' for  the 


556 


AMOS. 


Chap.  3. 


day.  "  When  it  was  dark,  three  coverlets,  richly  embroi- 
dered, were  taken  from  a  press  in  the  room  which  we  occu- 
pied, and  delivered,  one  to  each  of  us  ;  the  carpet  or  sofa, 
and  a  cushion,  serving,  with  this  addition,  instead  of  a  bed." 
(Chandler's  Travels  in  Asia  Minor.)  Such  carpets  or  em- 
broidered coverlets  would  neither  be  an  improper  pledge 
for  money,  (Exod.  xxii.  26,  27,)  nor  disgrace  the  pomp  of 
a  heathen  temple.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to  consider  why 
the  circumstance  of  clothes  being  taken  to  pledge,  is  men- 
tioned here.  Attending  an  idolatrous  feast  must  have 
been  undoubtedly  wrong  in  these  Israelites :  but  of  what 
consequence  was  it  to  remark,  that  some  of  them  seated 
themselves  on  carpets  that  had  been  put  into  their  hands 
by  way  of  pledge  1  It  may  be  answered,  that  it  might  be 
galling  to  those  that  had  been  obliged  to  pledge  these  valu- 
able pieces  of  furniture  secretly,  to  have  them  thus  public- 
ly exposed ;  that  it  may  insinuate  that  these  idolatrous 
zealots  detained  them,  when  they  ought  to  have  been  re- 
stored, (Ezek.  xviii,  7,  12,  16.  xxx.  15  ;)  and  that  they  sub- 
jected them  to  be  injured,  in  the  tumult  of  an  extravagant 
and  riotous  banquet  in  a  heathen  temple ;  to  which  may 
be  added,  that  they  might  belong  to  some  of  their  country- 
men who  abhorred  those  idols,  and  might  consider  them  as 
dishonoured,  and  even  dreadfully  polluted,  by  being  so  em- 
ployed. 

With  respect  to  the  last  of  these  circumstances  but  one, 
(the  being  mjured  in  extravagant  and  riotous  banqueting,) 
I  would  remark,  that  they  are  accustomed,  in  their  common 
repasts,  to  take  great  care  that  their  carpets  are  not  soiled, 
by  spreading  something  over  them  ;  but  in  public  solemni- 
ties they  affect  great  carelessness  about  them,  as  a  mark  of 
their  respect  and  profound  regard.  (Russel.)  Thus  De 
la  Valle,  describing  the  reception  the  Armenians  of  Ispahan 

gave  the  king  of  Persia,  in  one  of  their  best  houses,  when 
e  had  a  mind  to  attend  at  the  celebration  of  their  Epipha- 
ny, says,  after  the  ceremonies  were  over,  he  was  conducted 
to  the  house  of  Chogi*d  Sefer,  a  little  before  deceased,  where 
his  three  sons  and  his  brother  had  prepared  every  thing  for 
his  reception :  "  All  the  floor  of  the  house,  and  all  the  walks 
of  the  garden,  from  the  gate  next  the  street  to  the  most  re- 
mote apartments,  were  covered  with  carpets  of  brocatel,  of 
cloth  of  gold,  and  other  precious  manufactures,  which  were 
for  the  most  part  spoiled,  by  being  trampled  upon  by  the 
feet  of  those  that  had  been  abroad  in  the  rain,  and  their 
shoes  very  dirty :  their  custom  being,  not  to  put  them  off  at 
the  entering  into  a  house,  but  only  at  the  door  of  the  apart- 
ments, and  the  places  where  they  would  sit  down." — IBur- 

DER. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  2.  You  only  have  I  known  of  all  the  fami- 
lies of  the  earth :  therefore  I  will  punish  you 
for  all  your  iniquities. 

In  eastern  language,  to  say  you  know  a  person,  means 
you  APPROVE  of  him.  Thus,  should  a  man  be  well  acquaint- 
ed with  two  brothers,  and  should  he  not  approve  of  one  of 
them,  he  will  say,  "  I  do  not  know  him."  But  of  him  he 
loves,  he  says,  "Ah!  I  know  him  well."  Jehovah  had 
known,  i.  e.  approved  of  Israel,  but  because  of  their  abomi- 
nations he  had  determined  to  punish  them. — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  As  the  shepherd 
taketh  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  lion  two  legs,  or 
a  piece  of  an  ear :  so  shall  the  children  of  Is- 
rael be  taken  out  that  dwell  in  Samaria  in  the 
corner  of  a  bed,  and  in  Damascus  m  a  couch. 

Two  kinds  of  goats  wander  in  the  pastures  of  Syria  and 
Canaan ;  one  that  differs  little  from  the  common  sort  in 
Britain  ;  the  other  remarkable  for  the  largeness  of  its  ears. 
The  size  of  this  variety  is  somewhat  larger  than  ours;  but 
their  ears  are  often  a  foot  long,  and  broad  in  proportion. 
The  Syrians  keep  them  chiefly  for  their  milk,  of  which 
Ihey  yield  a  considerable  quantity.  The  present  race  of 
goats  in  the  vicinity  of  Jerusalem",  are  of  this  broad-eared 
ppecies.  To  this  kind  of  goat,  so  different  from  the  common 
breed,  it  is  probable  the  prophet  refers  :  "  As  the  shepherd 
taketh  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  lion  two  legs,  or  a  piece  of 
tnear,  so  shall  the  children  of  Israel  be  taken  out,  that 
dwell  in  Samaria  and  in  Damascus."    It  is  indeed  the  in- 


tention of  the  prophet  to  express  how  few  of  his  people, 
escaped  from  the  overthrow  of  their  country,  and  were  set- 
tled in  foreign  parts ;  but  it  would  have  been  hardly  natural 
to  suppose,  that  a  shepherd  would  exert  himself  to  make  a 
lion  quit  a  piece  of  an  ear,  only  of  a  common  goat ;  it  must 
therefore  be  supposed  to  refer  to  the  long-eared  kind. 
Rauwolf  observed  goats  on  the  mountains  around  Jerusalem, 
with  pendent  ears  almost  two  feet  long. — Paxton. 

Sitting  in  the  corner  is  a  stately  attitude,  and  is  expressiv^e 
of  superiority.  Russel  says,  "  the  divans  at  Aleppo  are 
formed  in  the  following  manner.  Across  the  upper  end, 
and  along  the  sides  of  the  room,  is  fixed  a  wooden  platform, 
four  feet  broad  and  six  inches  high ;  upon  this  are  laid  cot- 
ton mattresses  exactly  of  the  same  breadth,  and  over  these 
a  cover  of  broadcloth,  trimmed  with  gold  lace  and  fringes, 
hanging  over  to  the  ground.  A  number  of  large  oblong 
cushions  stuffed  hard  with  cotton,  and  faced  with  flowered 
velvet,  are  then  ranged  in  the  platform  close  to  the  wall. 
The  two  upper  comers  of  the  divan  are  furnished  also  with 
softer  cushions,  half  the  size  of  the  others,  which  are  laid 
upon  a  square  fine  mattress,  spread  over  those  of  cloth,  both 
being  faced  with  brocade.  The  corners  in  this  manner 
distinguished  are  held  to  be  the  places  of  honour,  and  a 
great  man  never  offers  to  resign  them  to  persons  of  inferior 
rank."  Mr.  Antes,  among  other  observations  made  on  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  Egyptians,  from  1770  to  1782, 
says,  on  his  being  carried  before  one  of  the  beys  of  Egypt, 
in  about  half  an  hour  the  bey  arrived,  with  all  his  men,  and 
lighted  flambeaux  before  him;  he  alighted,  and  went  up 
stairs  into  a  room,  sat  doicn  in  a  corner,  and  all  his  people 
placed  themselves  in  a  circle  round  him. — Harmer. 

An  attendant  came  forward  to  usher  us  into  the  august 
presence  of  the  ruler  of  Egypt.  We  proceeded  into  a  large 
room,  lighted  by  numerous  windows,  on  every  side  except 
that  by  which  we  entered.  The  pacha  was  standing  up, 
but  when  he  perceived  us  approach,  he  hastily  took  his  ac- 
customed seat  in  the  corner  with  great  alertness.  Round 
three  sides  of  the  room  was  a  broad  scarlet  divan,  supplied 
with  cushions  of  gold  brocade  resting  against  the  walls. 
The  corner  swere  distinguished  as  places  of  honour  by  a  square 
of  crimson  and  gold  silk,  with  a  cushion  of  the  same  colour 
and  materials  at  the  back  of  each. — Hogg's  Visit  to  Da- 
mascus. 

Ver.  15.  And  I  will  smite  the  winter-house  with 
the  summer-house ;  and  the  houses  of  ivory 
shall  perish,  and  the  great  houses  shall  have 
an  end,  saith  the  Lord. 

In  the  writings  of  Jeremiah  and  Amos,  a  distinction  is 
made  between  winter  and  summer-houses.  Russel  thinks 
they  may  refer  to  different  apartments  in  the  same  house  ; 
but  if  the  customs  of  Barbary  resemble  those  of  Palestine 
in  this  respect,  it  is  better  to  understand  them  of  different 
houses.  The  hills  and  valleys  round  about  Algiers,  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Shaw,  are  all  over  beautified  with  gardens  and 
country-seats,  whither  the  inhabitants  of  better  fashion  retire 
during  the  heat  of  the  summer  season.  They  are  little 
white  houses,  shaded  with  a  variety  of  fruitful  trees  and 
evergreens,  which,  besides  the  shade  and  retirement,  afibrd 
a  gay  and  delightful  prospect  towards  the  sea.  The  gardens 
are  all  of  them  well  stocked  with  melons,  fruit,  and  pot 
herbs  of  all  kinds ;  and  (what  is  chiefly  regarded  in  these 
hot  climates)  each  of  them  enjoys  a  great  command  of 
water.  In  Persia  most  of  the  summer-houses  are  slightly 
constructed  and  divided  into  three  pavilions  at  a  considera- 
ble distance  from  each  other,  with  canals,  fountains,  and 
flower  gardens  in  the  intermediate  sp^es:  while  the  winter- 
houses,  or  palaces  in  cities,  are  built  of  strong  masonry,  and 
ornamented  at  great  expense;  and  palaces,  villas,  and 
mosques,  are  often  named  after  their  principal  embellish 
ments.  Thus  at  Barocke  and  Ahmedabad  are  the  ivory  and 
silver  mosques.  This  account  furnishes  an  easy  exposition 
of  a  passage  in  the  prophecies  of  Amos :  "  I  will  smite  the 
winter-house,"  the  palaces  of  the  great  in  fortified  towns, 
"  with  the  summer-house,"  the  small  houses  of  pleasure, 
used  in  the  summer,  to  which  any  foe  can  have  access; 
"  and  the  houses  of  i  vorv  shall  perish  ;  and  the  great  houses 
shall  have  an  end.  saith  the  Lord,"  those  that  are  distin- 
guished by  their  amplitude  and  richness,  built  as  they  are 
in  their  strongest  places,  yet  all  of  them  shall  perish  like 


Chap.  4  — - 


AMOS, 


557 


their  country-seats,  by  the  irresistible  stroke  of  almighty 
power. — Pa  xton. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  2.  The  Lord  God  hath  sworn  by  his  holi- 
ness, that,  lo,  the  days  shall  come  upon  you,  that 
he  will  take  you  away  with  hooks,  and  your 
posterity  with  fish-hooks. 

I  am  at  a  loss  to  know  why  there  is  a  divStinction  betwixt 
"  nooKs"  and  "  fish-hooks."  I  think  it  fanciful  to  explain 
it  by  saying  it  means  "  two  modes  of  fishing."  The  Tamul 
translation  has,  instead  of  "hooks,"  kuradu,  i.  e.  pincers, 
and  it  ought  to  be  known  that  these  were  formerly  much  used 
in  punishments.  In  the  Hindoo  hells  this  instrument  is 
spoken  of  as  being  used  to  torture  the  inhabitants.  A  man 
in  his  rage  says,  "  I  will  tear  thee  with  pincers."  "  Alas ! 
alas !  I  have  been  dragged  away  with  pincers."  "  Ah ! 
the  severity  of  these  troubles — they  are  like  pincers."  But 
it  is  said  that  hooks  also  were  formerly  used  to  stick  into 
criminals  when  taken  to  the  place  of  execution  ;  and  there 
is  nothing  very  doubtful  about  this,  because  devotees  often 
have  large  hooks  fastened  into  their  flesh,  by  which  they 
are  hoisted  up  on  a  long  pole.  "  Your  posterity  with  fish- 
hooks:" this  figure  is  used  in  the  East  to  show  how  people 
DRAW  each  other  to  any  given  place.  Thus,  does  a  man 
wish  to  have  a  large  party  at  some  feast  or  ceremony  he  is 
going  to  make,  he  persuades  a  man  to  say  he  will  honour 
him  with  his  company ;  and  then  he  says  to  others,  you  are 
invited  to  meet  such  an  illustrious  guest,  which  causes 
numbers  to  come  to  the  occasion.  The  man  of  rank  in  that 
case  is  called  the  fish-hook;  because,  through  him,  the 
guests  are  caught. — Roberts, 

Ver.  9.  I  have  smitten  you  with  blasting  and 
mildew :  when  your  gardens,  and  your  vine- 
yards, and  your  fig-trees,  and  your  olive-trees 
increased,  the  palmer-worm  devoured  them: 
yet  have  ye  not  returned  unto  me,  saith  the 
Lord. 

Abp.  Newcome  says,  that  this  means  the  unwholesome 
eflluvia  on  the  subsiding  of  the  Nile,  which  causes  some 
peculiarly  malignant  diseases  in  this  country.  Maillet  says, 
that  "  the  air  is  bad  in  those  parts,  where,  when  the  inunda- 
tions of  the  Nile  have  been  very  great,  this  river,  in  retiring 
to  its  channel,  leaves  marshy  places,  which  infect  the  coun- 
try round  about.   The  dew  is  also  very  dangerous  in  Egypt." 

'-BURDER. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  4.  That  lie  upon  beds  of  ivory,  and  stretch 
themselves  upon  their  couches,  and  eat  the 
lambs  out  of  the  flock,  and  the  calves  out  of 
the  midst  of  the  stall. 

Amos  reckons/a^  lambs  among  the  delicacies  of  the  Is- 
raelites; and  it  seems  these  creatures  are  in  the  East  ex- 
tremely delicious.  Sir  John  Chardin,  in  his  manuscript 
note  to  Amos  vi.  4,  expresses  himself  in  very  strong  terms 
on  the  deliciousness  of  these  animals  in  the  East.  He  tells 
us,  that  there,  in  many  places,  lambs  are  spoken  of  as  a  sort 
of  food  excessively  delicious.  That  one  must  have  eaten 
of  them  in  several  places  of  Persia,  Media,  and  Mesopota- 
mia, and  of  their  kids,  to  form  a  conception  of  the  moisture, 
taste,  delicacy,  and  fat  of  this  animal ;  and  as  the  eastern 
people  are  no  friends  of  game,  nor  offish,  nor  fowls,  their 
most  delicious  food  is  the  lamb  and  the  kid.  This  observa- 
tion illustrates  those  passages  that  speak  of  kids- as  used  by 
them  for  delicious  repasts,  and  presents;  as  well  as  those 
others  that  speak  of  the  feasting  on  lambs.  It  also  gives 
great  energy  to  our  apprehensions  of  what  is  meant,  when 
the  Psalmist  talks  of  marroio  and  fatness. — Harmer. 

Ivory  is  so  plentiful  in  the  East,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the 
sovereigns  had  their  beds  made  principally  of  that  article. 
But  why  is  there  a  distinction  made  in  reference  to  beds  and 
couches  1  I  believe  the  latter  word  refers  to  the  swinging 
cot,  as  the  Tamul  translation  also  implies.  In  the  houses 
of  the  voluptuous  these  cots  are  always  found,  and  many 
are  the  stories  in  ancient  books  of  kings  and  queens  I 


who  were  swinging  together  in  their  cots.  When  a  man 
affects  great  delicacy  as  to  the  place  where  he  ■^lec^*,  it 
is  common  to  say,  "  You  had  better  have  a  swinging  cot." — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  if  there  remain 
ten  men  in  one  house,  that  they  shall  die. 
10.  And  a  man's  uncle  shall  take  him  up,  and 
he  that  burneth  him,  to  bring  out  the  bones  out 
of  the  house,  and  shall  say  unto  him  that  is  by 
the  sides  of  the  house,  Is  there  yet  any  with 
thee?  and  he  shall  say.  No.  Then  shall  he 
say.  Hold  thy  tongue ;  for  we  may  not  make 
mention  of  the  name  of  the  Lord. 

These  verses  and  the  context  refer  to  the  mortality  which 
should  result  from  the  pestilence  and  famine,  (in  conse- 
quence of  the  sins  of  the  people ;)  and  to  the  burning  of 
the  bodies.  The  number  "  ten"  probably  refers  to  many, 
as  that  is  a  common  expression  in  the  East' to  denote  many. 
I  believe  the  whole  alludes  to  the  custom  of  burning  hu- 
man bodies,  and  to  that  of  gathering  up  the  half-calcined 
bones,  and  to  the  putting  them  into  an  earthen  vessel,  and 
then  to  the  carrying  back  these  fragments  to  the  house  or 
into  some  out-building,  where  they  are  kept  till  conveyed 
to  a  sacred  place.  In  India  this  is  done  by  a  son  or  a  near 
relation ;  but  in  case  there  is  not  one  near  akin,  then  any 
person  who  is  going  to  the  place  (as  to  the  Ganges)  can 
take  the  fragments  of  bones,  and  thus  perform  the  last  rites. 
Dr.  Boothroyd  takes  the  same  view  as  to  the  pi-ace  where 
the  bones  have  to  be  kept  till  they  are  removed,  because  he 
translates, "  a  side-rpom  of  the  house."  "  Hold  thy  tongue," 
finds  a  forcible  illustration  in  chap.  viii.  3,  where  it  is 
mentioned  that  there  were  "dead  in  every  place;"  and 
where  it  is  said,  they  were  to  "  cast  them  forth  with  si- 
lence." When  the  cholera  or  any  other  pestilence  has 
carried  off  many  of  the  people,  the  relations  cease  to  weep  or 
speak  ;  they  ask,  "  What  is  the  use  of  wailing  T'  it  is  over, 
"  hold  thy  tongue." — Roberts, 

Ver.  11.  For,  behold,  the  Lord  command eth,  and 
he  will  smite  the  great  house  with  breaches, 
and  the  little  house  with  clefts. 

See  on  Ezek.  13.  11. 

Chardin,  speaking  concerning  the  rains,  says,  "  they  are 
the  rains  which  cause  the  walls  to  fall,  which  are  built  of 
clay,  the  mortar-plastering  dissolving.  This  plastering 
hinders  the  water  form  penetrating  the  bricks  ;  but  when 
the  plastering  has  been  soaked  with  wet,  the  wind  cracks 
it,  and  occasions  the  rain  in  some  succeeding  showers  to 
get  between  and  dissolve  every  thing."  This  account  illus- 
trates the  words  of  the  prophet  in  a  very  happy  manner,  as 
the  houses  were  mostly  built  of  these  fragile  materials. — 
Harmer. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  1.  Thus  hath  the  Lord  God  showed  unto 
me;  and,  behold,  he  farmed  grasshoppers  in 
the  beginning  of  the  shooting  up  of  the  latter 
growth ;  and,  lo,  it  was  the  latter  growth  after 
the  king's  mowings. 

See  on  Prov.  27.  25. 

As  they  seldom  make  any  hay  in  the  East,  the  word  ren- 
dered "  mowing,"  sliould  rather  have  been,  "  feedings." 
There  is  reason  to  conjecture,  from  the  following  passage 
of  La  Roque,  that  the  time  of  the  king's  feedings  was  the 
month  of  March,  or  thereabouts :  "  The  Arabs,"  he  tells 
us,  from  the  papers  of  D'Arvieux,  "  turn  their  horses  out 
to  grass  in  the  month  of  March,  when  the  grass  is  pretty 
well  grown;  they  then  take  care  to  have  their  mares  cov- 
ered, and  they  eat  grass  at  no  other  time  in  the  whole  year, 
any  more  than  hay:  they  never  give  them  any  straw  but  to 
heat  them,  when  "they  have  been  some  time  without  dis- 
covering an  inclination  to  drink;  they  live  wholly  upon 
barley."  The  Arab  horses  are  all  designed  for  riding  and 
war  ;"so,  there  is  reason  to  believe,  were  those  of  the  kings 
of  Israel :  and  if  the  present  usages  of  the  Arabs  prevailed 


558 


AMOS. 


Chap.  9. 


anciently,  they  were  turned  out  early  in  the  spring,  in  the 
month  of  March,  and  at  oiher  times  weie  nourished  with 
barley.  These  things  seem  to  determine  the  time  of  the 
king's  feedings  to  March,  of  the  shooiing  up  of  the  latter 
growth  of  April. — Burder. 

Ver.  14.  Then  answered  Amos,  and  said  to  Am- 
aziah,  I  was  no  prophet,  neither  was  I  a  proph- 
et's son ;  but  1  was  a  herdman,  and  a  gatherer 
of  sycamore  fruit. 

The  sycamore  buds  in  the  latter  end  of  March,  and  the 
prolific  fruit  ripens  in  the  beginning  of  June.  Pliny  and 
other  natural  historians  allege,  that  it  continues  immature 
till  it  is  rubbed  with  iron  combs,  after  which  it  ripens  in 
four  days.  Is  it  not  an  operation  of  this  kind  to  which 
the  prophet  Amos  refers,  in  the  text  which  we  translate, 
"I  was  a  gatherer  of  sycamore  fruit  1"  The  Septuagint 
seems  to  refer  it  to  something  done  to  the  fruit,  to  hasten  its 
maturity ;  probably  to  the  action  of  the  iron  comb,  without 
an  application  of  which  the  figs  cannot  be  eaten,  because 
of  their  intolerable  bitterness.  Parkhurst  renders  the 
phrase,  a  scraper  of  sycamore  fruit ;  which  he  contends, 
from  the  united  testimony  of  natural  historians,  is  the  true 
meaning  of  the  original  term.  The  business  of  Amos,  then, 
before  his  appointment  to  the  prophetical  office,  was  to 
scrape  or  wound  the  fruit  of  the  sycamore-tree,  to  hasten 
its  maturity  and  prepare  it  for  use.  Simon  renders  it  a 
cultivator  of  sycamore  fruit,  which  is  perhaps  the  prefer- 
able meaning ;  for  it  appears  that  the  cultivation  of  this  fig 
required  a  variety  of  operations,  all  of  which  it  is  reason- 
able to  suppose,  were  performed  by  the  same  persons.  To 
render  the  tree  fruitful,  they  scarified  the  bark,  through 
which  a  kind  of  milky  liquor  continually  distilled.  This, 
it  is  said,  causes  a  little  bough  to  be  formed  without  leaves, 
having  upon  it  sometimes  six  or  seven  figs.  They  are 
hollow,  without  grains,  and  contam  a  little  yellow  matter, 
which  is  generally  a  nest  of  grubs.  At  their  extremity,  a 
sort  of  water  collects,  which,  as  it  prevents  them  from  ripen- 
ing, must  be  let  out.  Amos,  it  is  probable,  was  employed 
in  these  various  operations;  which  has  induced  Simon  and 
others  to  render  the  words,  not  a  gatherer  of  sycamore  fruit, 
but  a  dresser  of  the  sycamore-tree;  which  includes  all  the 
culture  and  attendance  it  requires. 

The  sycamore  is  a  large  spreading  tree,  sometimes 
shooting  up  to  a  considerable  height,  and  so  thick,  that  three 
men  can  hardly  grasp  the  trunk ;  according  to  Hassel- 
quist,  the  stem  is  often  fifty  feet  thick.  This  unfolds  the 
reason  why  Zaccheus  climbed  up  into  a  sycamore-tree,  to 
get  a  sight  of  his  Redeemer.  The  incident  also  furnishes 
a  proof  that  the  sycamore  was  still  common  in  Palestine; 
for  this  tree  stood  to  protect  the  traveller  by  the  side  of  the 
highway. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  2.  Though  they  dig  into  hell,  thence  shall 
my  hand  take  them  ;  though  they  climb  up  to 
heaven,  thence  will  I  bring  them  down.  3.  And 
though  they  hide  themselves  in  the  top  of  Car- 
mel,  I  will  search  and  take  them  out  thence ; 
and  though  they  be  hid  from  my  sight  in  the 
bottom  of  the  sea,  thence  will  I  command  the 
serpent,  and  he   hall  bite  them. 

Carmel  was  one  of  the  barriers  of  the  promised  land, 
■which  Sennacherib  boasted  he  would  scale  with  the  multi- 
tude of  his  horses  and  his  chariots  :  "  I  will  enter  into  the 
lodgings  of  his  borders,  and  into  the  forest  of  his  Carmel." 
tr^igrateful  as  the  soil  of  this  mountain  is,  the  wild  vines 
and  olive-trees  that  are  still  found  among  the  brambles 
which  encumber  its  declivities,  prove  that  the  hand  of  in- 
dustry has  not  laboured  among  the  rocks  of  Carmel  in  vain. 
So  well  adapted  were  the  sides  of  this  mountain  to  the  cul- 
livation  of  the  vine,  that  the  kings  of  Judah  covered  every 
improvable  spot  with  vineyards  and  plantations  of  olives. 
Its  deep  and  entangled  forests,  its  savage  rocks  and  lofty 
summit,  have  been  in  all  ages  the  favourite  retreat  of  the 
guilty  or  the  oppressed.  The  fastnesses  of  this  rugged 
mountain  are  so  difficult  of  access,  that  the  prophet  Amos 
clasf«s  them  with  the  deeps  of  hell,  the  height  of  heaven, 


and  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  The  church,  in  her  most  af- 
fluent state,  is  compared  to  a  fugitive  lurking  in  the  deep 
recesses  of  this  mountain :  "  Feed  thy  people  with  thy  rod, 
the  flock  of  thy  heriiage  which  dwell  solitarily  in  the 
midst  of  Carmel."  Lebanon  raises  to  heaven  a  summit  of 
naked  and  barren  rocks,  covered  for  the  greater  part  of  the 
year  with  snow :  but  the  top  of  Carmel,  how  naked  and 
steril  soever  its  present  condition,  seems  to  have  been 
clothed  with  verdure  in  the  days  of  Amos,  which  seldom 
was  known  to  fade :  "  And  he  said.  The  Lord  will  roar  from 
Zion,  and  utter  his  voice  from  Jerusalem,  and  the  habita- 
tion of  the  shepherds  shall  mourn,  and  the  top  of  Carmel 
shall  wiiher." — Paxton. 

The  wind  was  high  when  we  left  Acre,  and  blew  the 
sand  about  with  such  violence  that  we  had  great  difficulty 
in  making  our  way.  The  bay  to  the  southward  extends  to 
Mount  Carmel,  and  we  were  three  hours  in.  skirting  its 
shore.  We  first  forded  the  river  Belus,  the  sand  of  which 
has  been  much  used  in  the  making  of  glass,  and  then  came 
to  "  that  ancient  river,  the  river  Kishon,"  immortalized  in 
the  song  of  Deborah  and  Barak,  over  which  we  were  fer- 
ried by  a  Jewish  boatman.  The  saddles  are  never  taken 
off  the  horses  in  these  countries  during  a  journey,  either  by 
day  or  night.  They  were  now  taken  from  the  animals  that 
they  might  not  be  wet  in  crossing  the  river,  and  the  backs 
of  the  poor  creatures  had  been  so  chafed  by  them,  that  I 
felt  unwilling  to  mount  mine  again.  After  passing  some 
sepulchres  in  the  rocks  we  entered  the  town  of  Hypha,  and 
were  detained  some  time  by  the  guard,  until  one  of  our 
party  waited  on  the  governor,  and  obtained  our  release. 
There  were  several  brass  cannon  upon  the  walls,  all  ready 
for  action.  The  vessels  have  here  better  shelter  than  at 
Acre,  but  the  water  is  shallow.  This  town  is  nearly  at  the 
foot  of  Mount  Carmel,  which  extends  about  30  miles  in  a 
southeastern  direction  from  the  sea,  in  nearly  an  equal 
ridge,  and  at  an  elevation  of  about  1600  feet.  It  is  often  re- 
ferred to  in  scripture,  and  was  onCe  covered  with  trees, but 
it  is  now  nearly  bare,  and  "  the  excellency  of  Carmel"  has 
withered  before  the  curse  of  Heaven.  It  was  the  usual 
residence  of  the  prophets  Elijah  and  Elisha.  The  place 
where  the  false  prophets  of  Baal  were  discomfited  and  slain 
was  towards  the  other  extremity,  nearer  Jezreel,  to  which 
Ahab  retired ;  and  at  some  point  near  which  it  is  approach- 
ed by  the  Kishon.  We  may  stand  at  the  top  of  Carmel,  as 
did  Gehazi,  and  look  towards  the  sea,  but  alas  1  there  is  now 
no  "  little  cloud  like  a  man's  hand;"  still  there  is  the  prom- 
ise of  a  shower,  and  in  due  time  the  streams  of  divine  mer- 
cy will  again  fall  upon  this  thirsty  land,  and  men  shall  again 
liken  themselves  in  their  prosperity  to  "  the  excellency  of 
Carmel  and  Sharon."  Near  the  point  that  overlooks  the 
sea  there  is  a  monastery  of  Carmelite  friars.  It  was  de- 
stroyed a  few  years  ago  by  Abdullah  Pacha,  that  he  might 
convert  the  materials  to  his  own  use,  and  though  he  was 
ordered  to  rebuild  it  at  his  own  expense  by  the  sultan,  when 
a  proper  representation  of  the  circumstances'  had  been 
made  to  his  court,  no  attention  was  ever  paid  to  the  man- 
date. The  monks  are  now  rebuilding  it  themselves  in  a 
very  splendid  manner,  and  one  of  the  fraternity  is  the  archi- 
tect. At  a  lower  elevation  on  the  same  point,  is  a  palace 
recently  erected  by  the  pacha.  There  is  a  small  building 
near  the  sea,  said  to  cover  the  cave  in  which  Elisha  dwelt, 
but  as  the  door  was  locked  we  could  not  gain  admittance. — 
Hardy, 

Ver.  6.  It  is  he  that  buildeth  his  stories  in  the 
heaven,  and  hath  founded  his  troop  in  the  earth ; 
he  that  calleth  for  the  waters  of  the  sea,  and 
poureth  them  out  upon  the  face  of  the  earth  ' 
The  Lord  is  his  name. 

Seeon'jer.  22.  13. 

The  chief  rooms  of  the  house  of  Aleppo  at  this  day  arcj 
those  above,  the  ground-floor  being  chiefly  made  use  of  fori 
their  horses  and  servants.  Perhaps  the  prophet  referred  tol 
this  circumstance,  when  he  spoke  of  the  heavens  of  God'sj 
chambers,  the  most  noble  and  splendid  apartments  of  i he, 
palace  of  God,  where  his  presence  is  chiefly  manifested,  and] 
the  collection  of  its  offices,  its  numerous  ."Sttle  mean  divi- 
sions, of  this  earth. — Harmer. 

Ver.    3.  Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the  Lop  >,J 


Chap.  1, 


JONAH, 


559 


that  the  ploughman  shall  overtake  the  reaper, 
and  the  treader  of  grapes  him  that  soweth  seed ; 
and  the  mountains  shall  drop  sweet  wine,  and 
all  the  hills  shall  melt. 

The  Arabs  commit  depredations  of  every  description. 
They  strip  the  trees  of  their  fruit  even  in  its  unripe  state, 
as  well  as  seize  on  the  seed  and  com  of  the  husbandman. 
Maillet  ascribes  the  alteration  for  the  worse,  that  is  found 
in  the  wine  of  a  province  in  Egypt,  to  the  precipitation  with 
which  they  now  gather  the  grapes.  This  was  done  to  save 
them  from  the  Arabs,  "  who  frequently  made  excursions 


into  it,  especially  in  the  season  in  which  the  fruits  begin  to 
ripen.  It  is  to  save  them  from  these  depredations  that  the 
inhabitants  of  the  couhtry  gather  them  bftfore  they  come  to 
maturity."  It  is  this  circumstance  that  must  explain  this 
passage  of  the  prophet :  "  Behold,  the  days  come,  saith  the 
Lord,  that  the  ploughman  shall  overtake  the  reaper,  and  the 
treader  of  grapes  him  that  soweth  seed ;  and  the  mountains 
shall  drop  sweet  wine,  and  all  the  hills  shall  melt :"  that  is, 
the  days  shall  come  when  the  grapes  shall  not  be  gathered, 
as  they  were  before,  in  a  slate  of  immaturity,  for  fear  of 
Arabs  or  other  destroying  nations,  but  they  shall  be  suffer- 
ed to  hang  till  the  time  of  ploughing ;  so  perfect  shall  be 
the  security  of  these  times. — Harmer. 


JONAH. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  2.  Arise,  go  to  Nineveh,  that  great  city,  and 
cry  against  it ;  for  their  wickedness  is  come  up 
before  me. 

See  on  Nah.  2.  8—11. 

Ashur,  probably  imitating  the  policy  of  his  dangerous 
competitor,  built  four  cities  for  the  accommodation  and 
defence  of  his  descendants ;  the  first  of  Which  was  Nine- 
veh, the  capital  of  his  kingdom.  This  powerful  city  stood 
on  the  east  side  of  the  Tigris,  nor  far  from  the  river  Lycus, 
one  of  its  tributary  streams;  but  on  which  side  of  the 
Lycus  it  lay,  cannot  now  be  discovered.  The  prediction  of 
Nahum,  that  Nineveh  should  be  so  completely  destroyed 
that  future  ages  should  search  in  vain  for  the  spot  which  it 
once  covered,  has  been  fulfilled  in  all  its  extent :  "  With 
;  an  overflowing  flood,  he  will  make  an  utter  end  of  the 
place  thereof"  Ancient  geographers  inform  us  of  another 
eity  of  this  name,  which  stood  on  the  Euphrates,  and  was 
probably  built  by  Nimrod  in  honour  of  his  son.  But  Nine- 
veh, so  frequently  mentioned  in  scripture,  lay  near  the 
Tigris;  and  to  this  last  the  following  observations  refer. 
Strabo  affirms  that  Nineveh  was  larger  than  Babylon 
itself;  an  assertion  confirmed  by  Diodorus,  who  makes  that 
city  60  miles  in  compass,  while  Strabo  makes  Babylon  only 
about  48.  It  is  therefore  with  justice  that  the  inspired  writer 
calls  Nineveh  "  an  exceeding  great  city  of  three  days' jour- 
ney." This  account  some  interpreters  refer  not"  to  the 
length,  but  to  the  compass  of  the  city ;  allowi^ng  twenty 
miles  for  a  day's  journey,  which  accords  with  the  common 
estimation  of  those  times.  But  the  phrase,  "  Jonah  began 
to  enter  into  the  city  a  day's  journey,"  seems  rather  to  inti- 
mate, that  the  measure  "of  three  days'  journey  is  to  be 
understood  of  the  length,  not  of  the  compass  of  Nineveh. 
Hence  it  may  be  easily  supposed,  that  agreeably  to  the 
statement  of  the  prophet,  it  contained  "  more  than  sixscore 
thousand  persons  that  could  not  discern  between  their  right 
hand  and  their  left  hand  ;"  for,  supposing  this  to  be  imder- 
stood  of  infants  under  two  years  old,  these  generally,  as 
Bochart  observes,  make  at  least  the  fifth  part  of  the  city. 
If  this  proportion  be  just,  the  inhabitants  of  Nineveh  would 
not  be  more  than  six  hundred  thousand ;  which  is  not  more 
than  Seleucia  contained  in  the  days  of  Pliny,  and  not  so 
many  as  has  been  numbered  in  the 'capital  of  the  British 
empire.— Paxton. 


Ver.  5.  Then  the  mariners  were  afraid,  and  cried 
every  man  unto  his  god,  and  cast  forth  the 
wares  that  were  in  the  ship  into  the  sea,  to 
lighten  it  of  them  :  but  Jonah  was  gone  down 


'  into  the  sides  of  the  ship ;  and  he  lay,  and  was 
fast  asleep. 

Here  again  xoe  are  at  home,  (to  speak  royally :)  never  was 
there  a  more  natural  description  of  the  conduct  of  a  heathen 
crew,  in  a  storm,  than  this.  No  sooner  does  danger  come, 
than  one  begins  to  beat  his  head,  and  cry  aloud,  Siva,  Siva; 
another  piteously  shrieks,  and  beats  his  breast,  and  says, 
Vishnoo;  and  a  third  strikes  his  thigh,  and  shouts  with  all 
his  might,  Varuna.  Thus  do  they  cry  to  their  god^ 
instead  of  doing  their  duty.  More  than  once  have  I  been 
in  these  circumstances,  and  never  can  I  forget  the  horror 
and  helplessness  of  the  poor  idolaters. — Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  And  they  said  every  one  to  his  fellow, 
Come,  and  let  us  cast  lots,  that  we  may  know 
for  whose  cause  this  evil  is  upon  us.  So  they 
cast  lots,  and  the  lot  fell  upon  Jonah.  15.  So 
they  took  up  Jonah,  and  cast  him  forth  into  the 
sea  ;  and  the  sea  ceased  from  her  raging. 
16.  Then  the  men  feared  the  Lord  exceeding- 
ly, and  offered  a  sacrifice  unto  the  Lord,  and 
made  vows. 

In  a  storm,  the  heathen  mariners  always  conclude  that 
there  is  some  one  on  board  who  has  committed  a  great 
crime,  and  they  begin  to  inquire,  "  Who  is  the  sinner  ?" 
Some  time  ago,  a  number  of  native  vessels  left  the  roads  of 
Negapatam,  at  the  same  hour,  for  Point  Pedro,  in  the  Island 
of  Ceylon  :  they  had  not  been  long  at  sea  before  it  was  per- 
ceived that  one  of  them  could  not  make  any  way;  she  roll- 
ed, and  pitched,  and  veered  about  in  every  direction;  but 
the  other  vessels  went  on  beautifully  before  the  wind. 
The  captain  and  his  crew  began  to  look  at  the  passengers, 
and,  at  last,  fixed  their  eyes  upon  a  poor  woman,  who  was 
crouched  in  a  corner  of  the  hold ;  they  inquired  into  her 
condition,  antl  found  she  was  in  a  state  of  impurity:  "Let 
down  the  canoe,"  was  the  order,  "and  take  this  woman 
ashore:"  in  vain  she  remonstrated,  she  was  compelled  to 
enter,  and  was  soon  landed  on  the  beach.  "  After  this,  the 
vessel  sailed  as  well  as  any  other!"  When  the  storm  rages, 
they  make  voavs  to  their  gods ;  one  will  go  on  a  pilgrimage 
to  some  holy  place,  another  will  perform  a  penance,  and  a 
third  will  make  a  valuable  present  to  his  favourite  temple, 
"  Offered  a  sacrifice  :"  this  is  generally  done  when  they  get 
safe  to  shore,  but  I  have  been  on  board  when  they  have  of- 
fered cocoa-nuts  and  other  articles  with  the  greatest  earnest- 
ness. To  interfere  with  them  is  not  always  prudent ; 
because,  were  it  not  from  the  hope  they  have  from  such 
offerings,  they  would  cease  to  work  the  vessel. — Roet^ts. 


560 


JONAH 


Chap.  3,  4. 


CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  4.  And  Jonah  began  to  enter  into  the  city  a 
day's  journey;  and  he  cried,  and  said,  Yet  forty 
days,  and  Nineveh  shall  be  overthrown. 

See  on  Nah.  1.  8. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  5.  So  Jonah  went  out  of  the  city,  and  sat  on 
the  east  side  of  the  city,  and  there  made  him  a 
booth,  and  sat  under  it  in  the  shadow,  till  he 
might  see  what  would  become  of  the  city. 
6.  And  the  Lord  God  prepared  a  gourd,  and 
made  it  to  come  up  over  Jonah,  that  it  might 
be  a  shadow  over  his  head,  to  deliver  him  from 
his  grief  So  Jonah  was  exceeding  glad  of 
the  gourd.  7.  But  God  prepared  a  worm, 
when  the  morning  rose  the  next  day,  and  it 
smote  the  gourd  that  it  withered.  8.  And  it 
came  to  pass,  when  the  sun  did  arise,  that  God 
prepared  a  vehement  east  wind :  and  the  sun 
beat  upon  the  head  of  Jonah,  that  he  fainted, 
•  and  wished  in  himself  to  die,  and  said,  It  is 
better  for  me  to  die  than  to  live. 

The  gourd  produces  leaves  and  branches  resembling 
those  of  the  garden  cucumber.  Its  fruit  is  shaped  like  an 
orange,  of  a  light  white  substance  when  the  rind  is  taken 
off,  and  so  bitter  that  it  has  been  called  the  gall  of  the  earth. 
It  is  not  eatable;  but  is  a  very  fit  vessel  for  flagons,  being 
light,  capacious,  and  smooth,  frequently  a  foot  and  a  half 
in  diameter. 

The  gourd  of  Jonah  is  generally  allowed  to  be  the  elke- 
roa  or  ricinus,  a  plant  well  known  in  the  East ;  "  it  grows 
very  high,  and  projects  many  branches  and  large  leaves. 
In  a  short  time  it  reaches  a  considerable  height :  its  stem  is 
thick,  channelled,  distinguished  by  many  knots,  hollow 
within,  branchy  at  top,  of  a  sea-green  colour :  its  leaves 
are  large,  cut  into  seven  or  more  divisions,  pointed  and 
edged,  of  a  bright,  blackish,  shining-green.  Those  near- 
est the  top  are  the  largest ;  its  flowers  are  ranged  on  their 
stem  like  a  thyrsus :  they  are  of  a  deep-red,  and  stand  three 
together. 

With  this  description  agrees  the  account  in  the  prophet, 
of  its  rising  over  his  head  to  shelter  it;  for  this  plant  rises 
eight  or  nine  feet,  and  is  remarkably  rapid  in  withering, 
when  decayed  or  gathered. 

The  gourd  which  defended  the  prophet  is  said  to  have 
been  prepared  by  the  Lord.  We  have  no  reason  to  con- 
clude from  this  expression,  that  the  Almighty  created  it 
for  the  special  purpose ;  he  only  appointed  and  promoted 
its  growth  in  that  particular  spot,  raising  its  stem  and  ex- 

f)anding  its  branches  and  leaves  according  to  the  ordinary 
aws  of  nature,  till  it  formed  a  most  refreshing  shade  over 
the  place  where  the  angry  seer  waited  the  fulfilment  of  his 
prediction.  *'  We  may  conceive  of  it,"  says  Calmet,  "  as 
an  extraordinary  one  of  its  kind,  remarkably  rapid  in 
growth,  remarkably  hard  in  its  stem,  remarkably  vigorous 
in  its  branches,  and  remarkable  for  the  extensive  spread  of 
its  leaves,  and  the  deep  gloom  of  their  shadow;  and  after  a 
certain  duration,  remarkable  for  a  sudden  withering  and 
uselessness  to  the  impatient  prophet. 

The  worm  which  struck  the  gourd  has  been  considered 
rather  as  a  maggot  than  a  worm.  It  was,  no  doubt,  of  the 
species  appropriate  to  the  plant ;  but  of  what  particular  spe- 
cies is  uncertain.  Like  the  gourd,  it  was  also  prepared  by 
Jehovah,  to  indicate  its  extraordinary  size  and  vigour;  that 
it  acted  by  his  commission  ;  and  that  the  effect  of  its  opera- 
tions was  so  rapid  and  decisive,  as  clearly  to  discover  the 
presence  of  divine  energy. — Paxton. 

Ver.  6.  And  the  Lord  God  prepared  a  gourd, 
and  made  it  to  come  up  over  Jonah,  that  it 
might  be  a  shadow  over  his  head,  to  deliver 
him  from  his  grief  So  Jonah  was  exceeding 
glad  of  the  gourd. 


The  margin  has,  instead  of  "  gourd,"  "  Kikajon,  or  Palme- 
crist  1"  Dr.  Clarke  asks,  "  But  what  was  the  Kikajon  1  the 
best  judges  say  the  racinus  or  Palma-Christi,  from  which  we 
get  what  is  vulgarly  called  castor-oil."  The  Tamul  trans- 
lation has,  instead  of  "gourd,"  Amanaku,  i.  e.  the  Palma- 
Christi !  It  is  believed,  also,  the  verb  is  in  the  preterperfect 
tense,  had  prepared,  which  may  be  another  instance  of  the 
verb  as  illustrated  under  Isa.  xxi.  9.  The  Palma-Christi 
is  most  abundant  in  the  East,  and  I  have  had  it  in  my  own 
garden  to  the  height  of  fourteen  feet.  The  growth  is  very 
rapid :  v.  7,  "  God  prepared  a  worm  when  the  morning  rose 
the  next  day,  and  it  smote  the  gourd  that  it  withered,"  i.  e, 
the  Palma-Christi  till  it  withered.  This  tree,  in  the  course 
of  a  VERY  short  period,  produces  the  "rough  caterpillar," 
respecting  which,  I  have  written  under  Jer.  li.  27,  and  in 
one  night  (where  the  caterpillers  are  abundant)  will  they 
strip  the  tree  of  its  leaves,  and  thus  take  away  the  shade. 
But  there  is  another  worm  in  the  East,  called  the  kurutlu- 
pullu,  i.  e.  blind  worm,  said  to  be  produced  by  the  dew;  it 
begins  its  devastations  at  what  is  called  the  cabbage  part  of 
the  palm,  and  soon  destroys  the  tree  :  v.  8,  "  God  prepared 
a  vehement  east  wind."  I  have  already  written  on  that 
parching,  life-destroying  wind.  But  the  margin  has  it,  or 
"  SILENT,"  which  probably  means  calm.  Thus  when  there 
is  a  lull  of  an  easterly  wind,  and  the  sun  pours  his  fierce 
rays  on  the  head  of  the  poor  traveller,  it  seems  as  if  life 
miist  depart:  birds  and  beasts  pant;  there  is  the  silence  of 
death,  and  nature  seems  ready  to  expire. — Roberts. 

"  It  was  early  in  the  evening,  when  the  pointed  turrets  of 
the  city  of  Mosul  opened  on  our  view,  and  communicated 
no  very  unpleasant  sensations  to  my  heart.  I  foimd  myself 
on  scripture-ground,  and  could  not  help  feeling  some  por- 
tion of  the  pride  of  the  traveller,  when  I  reflected  that  I 
was  now  within  sight  of  Nineveh,  renowned  in  holy  writ. 
The  city  is  seated  in  a  very  barren  sandy  plain,  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  Tigris,  embellished  with  the  united 
gifts  of  Pomona,  Ceres,  and  Flora.  The  external  view  of 
the  town  is  much  in  its  favour,  being  encompassed  with 
stately  walls  of  solid  stone,  over  which  the  steeples  or  min- 
arets, and  other  lofty  buildings,  are  seen  with  increased  ef- 
fect. Here  I  saw  a  caravan  encamped,  halting  on  it3 
march  from  the  Gulf  of  Persia  to  Armenia ;  and  it  cer- 
tainly mad«  a  most  noble  appearance,  filling  the  eye  with 
a  multitude  of  grand  objects,  all  uniting  to  form  one  mag- 
nificent whole.  But  though  the  outside  be  so  beautiful,  the 
inside  is  most  detestable :  the  heat  is  so  intense,  that  in  the 
middle  of  the  day  there  is  no  stirring  out,  and  even  at  nighi 
the  walls  of  the  houses  are  so  heated  by  the  dafs  sun,  as  to  pro- 
duce a  disagreeable  heat  to  the  body,  at  afoot,  or  even  a  yard 
distance  from  them.  However,  I  entered  it  with  spirits, 
because  1  considered  it  as  the  last  stage  of  the  worst  part 
of  my  pilgrimage.  But,  alas  !  I  was  disappointed  in  my 
expectation  ;  for  the  Tigris  was  dried  tip  by  the  ivicnsily  of 
the  heat,  and  an  unusual  long  drought,  and  I  was  obliged 
to  take  the  matter  with  a  patient  shrug,  and  accommodate 
my  mind  to  a  journey  on  horseback,  which,  though  not  so 
long  as  that  I  had  already  made,  was  likely  to  be  equally 
dangerous ;  and  which,  therefore,  demanded  a  full  exer- 
tion of  fortitude  and  resolution. 

"  It  was  still  the  hot  season  of  the  year,  and  we  were  to 
travel  through  that  country,  over  which  the  horrid  wind  I 
have  before  mentioned  sweeps  its  consuming  blasts:  it  is 
called  by  the  Turks  somiel,  is  mentioned  by  holy  Job  under 
the  name  of  the  east  Avind,  and  extends  its  ravages  all  the 
way  from  the  extreme  end  of  the  Gulf  of  Cambaya,  up  to 
Mosul ;  it  carries  along  with  it  fleaks  of  fire,  like  threads 
of  silk;  instantly  strikes  dead  those  that  breathe  it,  and 
consumes  them  inwardly  to  ashes ;  the  flesh  soon  becoming 
black  as  a  coal,  and  dropping  off  the  bones.  Philosophers 
consider  it  as  a  kind  of  electric  fire,  proceeding  from  the 
sulphureous  or  nitrous  exhalations  which  are  kindled  by 
the  agitation  of  the  winds.  The  only  possible  means  of 
escape  from  its  fatal  effects,  is  to  fall  flat  on  the  ground, 
and  thereby  prevent  the  drawing  it  in :  to  do  this,  however, 
it  is  necessary  first  to  see  it,  which  is  not  always  practica- 
ble. Besides  this,  the  ordinary  heat  of  the  climate  is  ex- 
tremely dangerous  to  the  blood  and  lungs,  and  even  to  the 
skin,  which  it  blisters  and  peels  from  the  flesh,  affecting  the 
eyes  so  much,  that  travellers  are  obliged  to  wear  a  trans- 
parent covering  over  them  to  keep  the  heat  off"." 

These  accounts,  from  Col.  Campbell's  Travels,  illustrate 
the  history  of  Jonah,  his  behaviour  and  his  sufferings,  in  the 


Chap.  1—3. 


MICAH 


561 


same  parts.  The  colonel  reports  that  the  heat  is  extreme, 
both  by  day  and  night,  in  the  town  ;  that  the  Tigris 
was  dried  up  by  the  intensity  of  the  heat ;  that  the  heat 
blisters  the  skin,  &c.  "  Now  Jonah  went  out  of  the  city, 
and  sat  on  the  east  side  of  the  city,  till  he  might  see  what 
would  become  of  the  city,"  (iv.  5,)  to  which  he  had  prophe- 
sied destruction  in  forty  days'  time,  (iii.  4.)  Jonah  could 
not  expect  the  destruction  of  the  city  until  about,  or  after, 
the  expiration  of  the  forty  days'  respite  allowed  to  it ;  so 
long  then,  at  least,  he  waited  in  this  burning  climate.  But, 
as  he  kneio  God  to  be  slow  to  anger,  (iv.  2,)  he  might  wait 
some  days,  or  even  some  weeks,  after  the  expiration  of 
the  appointed  time ;  so  that  although  he  was  sent  on  his 
message,  and  had  delivered  it  before  the  great  heats  came  on, 
yet,  to  satisfy  his  curiosity,  he  endured  them.  Thus  cir- 
cumstanced, he  constructed  for  himself  a  shelter  from  the 
sun ;  and  doubtless,  when  the  ivp'P  kikium,  {gourd,  English 
translation,)  or  kind  of  palm,  rose  in  addition  to  his  booth, 
at  once  ornamenting,  filling,  and  shadowing  it,  to  complete 
his  shelter,  he  might  well  rejoice  over  the  gourd  with  ex- 
ceeding great  joy.  [Might  not  this  plant,  growing  chiefly 
by  night,  Heb.  "  which  a  son  of  night  was,  and  (as)  a  son 
of  night  perished,"  be  some  time  in  rising  for  that  purpose  1 
See  Kikajon,  Jonah,  and  Fragment,  No.  Ixxviii.]  This 
plant,  during  a  time,  perhaps  during  a  great  part  of  the 
forty  days,  or  several  weeks  succeeding,  afforded  him  shel- 
ter;  then,  while  in  full  vigour,  without  apparent  decay,  he 
left  it  well  overnight,  and  in  the  morning  it  was  shrunk, 
faded,  and  gone:  so  that  at  sunrise,  when  the  morning 
should  be  cool,  Jonah,  examining  his  plant,  was  struck  by 
the  scarcely-moving  aura  of  an  east  wind,  vehemently  hot ; 
no  wonder,  then,  he  fainted,  and  wished  to  die,  when  the 


only  part  of  the  day  in  which  he  could  hope  for  coolness, 
was  thus  suiFocating.  "What  Jonah  must  have  endured 
from  the  heat.  Colonel  Campbell's  account  may  assist  us  to 
conceive.  We  may  observe,  further,  how  aptly  this  plant 
was  a  SIGN  of  Nineveh,  its  history,  and  its  fate :  it  was  a 
time  in  coming  to  perfection,  and  it  was  a  time  in  a  perfect 
state :  so  that  city  was  long  before  it  was  mistress  of  the 
countries  around  it,  and  it  held  that  dignity  for  a  time ; 
but,  at  about  forty  years  after  Jonah's  prophecy,  (prophetic 
days,  for  years,  as  some  have  supposed,)  the  worm  (insur- 
rection and  rebellion)  smote  the  plant ;  and  the  king  of 
Nineveh  (Sardanapalus)  burnt  himself,  with  his  treasures, 
&c.,  in  his  palace.  A  fate  very  appropriately  prefigured 
by  the  kikium  of  Jonah!  The  expectation  of  coolness  in 
the  morning,  may  be  justified  from  the  following  extract, 
in  which  we  find  the  colonel,  like  Jonah,  reposing  under 
trees  in  the  heat  of  the  day.  "From  Latikea  to  Aleppo, 
mounted  on  a  mule,  I  travelled  along,  well  pleased  with 
the  fruitful  appearance  of  the  country;  and  delighted  with 
the  serenitv  of  the  air.  We  were,  as  well  as  I  can  now 
recollect,  near  ten  aays  on  the  road ;  during  which  time, 
we  travelled  amy  m  tJie  morning  early,  and  in  the  heat  of 
the  day  we  reposed  under  the  shade  of  trees." — Tatlor  in 
Calmet. 

Ver.  11.  And  should  not  I  spare  Nineveh,  that 
great  city,  wherein  are  more  than  sixscore 
thousand  persons  that  cannot  discern  between 
their  right  hand  and  their  left  hand ;  and  also 
much  cattle  1 

See  on  Nah.  1.  8. 


MICAH. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  7.  And  all  the  graven  images  thereof  shall 
be  beaten  to  pieces,  and  all  the  hires  thereof 
shall  be  burnt  with  the  fire,  and  all  the  idols 
thereof  will  I  lay  desolate :  for  she  gathered  it 
of  the  hire  of  a  harlot,  and  they  shall  return  to 
the  hire  of  a  harlot. 

Here  again  we  have  unalloyed  and  rampant  heathenism: 
the  "  sacred"  courtesans  of  the  temple  give  a  part  of  their 
hire  towards  the  repairing  and  beautifying  of  tne  building ; 
and  also  to  purchase  idols,  or  carry  on  the  festivals.  At 
the  annual  festival  of  Scandan,  which  continues  twenty- 
four  days,  the  females  alluded  to  defray  the  expenses  of 
the  last  day  from  the  proceeds  of  their  own  wickedness. — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  8.  Therefore  I  will  wail  and  howl,  I  will 
go  stripped  and  naked :  I  will  make  a  wailing 
like  the  dragons,  and  mourning  as  the  owls. 

Or,  "  ostriches."  It  is  affirmed  by  travellers  of  good 
credit,  that  ostriches  make  a  fearful,  screeching,  lamentable 
noise.  "  During  the  lonesome  part  of  the  night,  they  often 
make  a  very  doleful  and  hideous  noise.  I  have  often  heard 
them  groan,  as  if  they  were  in  the  greatest  agonies  :  an  ac- 
tion beautifully  alluded  to  by  the  prophet  Micah."  (Shaw.) 

— BURDER. 

Ver.  16.   Make  thee  bald,  and  poll  thee  for  thy 
delicate  children  ;  enlarge  thy  baldness  as  the 
71 


eagle ;  for  they  are  gone  into  captivity  from 
thee. 

Mr.  Bruce  has  given  us  an  account  of  an  eagle,  known 
in  Ethiopia  only  by  the  name  nisser,  eagle ;  but  by  him 
called  the  golden  eagle ;  by  the  vulgar,  abou  duch'n,  father 
long-beard,  from  the  tuft  of  hair  under  his  chin.  He  is  a 
very  large  bird.  "  A  forked  brush  of  strong  hair,  divided 
at  the  point  into  two,  proceeded  from  the  cavity  of  his  lower 
jaw,  at  the  beginning  of  his  throat.  He  had  the  smallest 
eye  I  ever  remember  to  have  seen  in  a  large  bird,  the  aper- 
ture being  scarcei'y  half  an  inch.  The  crown  of  his  head 
was  bare  or  bald,  so  was  the  front  where  the  bill  and 
scull  joined."    This  is  the  bird  alluded  to  by  the  prophet. — 

BURDER. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  2.  And  they  covet  fields,  and  take  them  by 
violence ;  and  houses,  and  take  them  away  :  so 
they  oppress  a  man  and  his  house,  even  a  man 
and  his  heritage. 

See  on  Job  27.  18. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  12.   Therefore  shall  Zion  for  your  sake  be 
ploughed  as  a  field ;  and  Jerusalem  shall  be- 
come heaps ;  and  the  mountain  of  the  house  as 
the  high  places  of  the  forest. 

We  had  been  to  examine  the  hill,  which  now  bears  the 
name  of  Zion  ;  it  is  situated  on  the  south  side  of  Jerusalem, 


562 


MICAH. 


Chap.  4—6. 


part  of  it  being  excluded  by  the  wall  of  the  present  city, 
which  passes  over  the  top  of  the  mount.  If  this  be  indeed 
Mount  Zion,  the  prophecy  concerning  it,  that  the  plough 
should  pass  over  it,  has  been  fulfilled  to  the  letter;  for 
such  labours  were  actually  going  on  when  we  arrived. — 
Clarke. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  4.  But  they  shall  sit  every  man  under  his 
vine,  and  under  his  fig-tree;  and  none  shall 
make  them  afraid :  for  the  mouth  of  the  Lord 
of  hosts  hath  spoken  it. 

See  on  Ps.  88.  47. 

The  people  of  the  East  have  great  pleasure  in  sitting  or 
lounging  under  their  tamarind  or  mango-trees  in  the  grove. 
Thus,  in  the  heat  of  the  day,  they  while  away  their  time  in 

E laying  with  their  children,  in  taking  up  the  fruit,  or  smo- 
ing  their  much-loved  shroot.—  Roberts. 
This  expression  most  probably  alludes  to  the  delightful 
eastern  arbours,  which  were  partly  composed  of  vines ; 
and  the  agreeable  retreat  which  was  enjoyed  under  them 
might  also  be  found  under  their  fig-trees.  Norden  ex- 
pressly speaks  of  vine  arbours  as  common  in  the  Egyptian 
gardens,  (vol.  i.  p.  71,)  and  the  Praenestine  pavement,  in 
Dr.  Shaw,  gives  us  the  figure  of  an  ancient  one, — Burder. 

Ver.  5.  For  all  people  will  walk  every  one  in  the 
name  of  his  god,  and  we  will  walk  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord  our  God  for  ever  and  ever. 

Nothing  more  arrests  the  notice  of  a  stranger,  on  entering 
Sinde,  than  the  severe  attention  of  the  people  to  the  forms 
of  religion,  as  enjoined  by  the  prophet  of  Arabia.  In  all 
places,  the  meanest  and  poorest  of  mankind  may  be  seen, 
at  the  appointed  hours,  turned  towards  Mecca,  oiSering  up 
their  prayers.  I  havp  observed  a  boatman  quit  the  labori- 
ous duty  of  dragging  the  vessel  against  the  stream,  and  re- 
tire to  the  shorC;  wet  and  covered  with  mud,  to  perform  his 
genuflexions.  In  the  smallest  villages  the  sound  of  the 
"  mowuzzun,"  or  crier,  summoning  true  believers  to  pray- 
ers, may  be  heard,  and  the  Mohammedans  within  reach  of 
the  sonorous  sound  suspend,  for  the  moment,  their  employ- 
ment, that  they  may  add  their  "  Amen"  to  the  solemn  sen- 
tence when  concluded.  The  effect  is  pleasing  and  impres- 
sive ;  but,  as  has  often  happened  in  other  countries  at  a 
like  stage  of  civilization,  the  moral  qualities  of  the  people 
do  not  keep  pace  with  this  fervency  of  devotion. — Burnes. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  7.  Will  the  Lord  be  pleased  with  thousands 
of  rams,  or  with  ten  thousands  of  rivers  of  oil  1 
shall  I  give  my  first-born  for  my  transgression, 
the  fruit  of  my  body  for  the  sin  of  my  soul  ? 

Allusions  are  often  made  in  the  scriptures  to  the  value  of 
oil ;  and  to  appreciate  them,  it  should  be  recollected,  that  oil 
ONLY  is  used  to  light  the  houses,  and  also,  for  anointing  the 
body,  and  many  medicinal  purposes.    "  Have  you  heard  of 


the  charity  of  Venase  1  Why,  he  has  given  a  river  of  oil 
to  the  temple ;  and  Muttoo  has  given  a  river  of  ghee." 
"  Milk !  why  that  farmer  has  rivers  of  it ;  and  the  Mode- 
liar  has  a  SEA." — Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  Thou  shalt  sow,  but  thou  shalt  not  reap; 
thou  shalt  tread  the  olives,  but  thou  shalt  not 
anoint  thee  with  oil;  and  sweet  wine,  but  shalt 
not  drink  wine. 

See  on  Ps.  37.  35;  Deut.  33.  24 ;  and  Is.  63. 1—3. 
CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  1.  Wo  is  me  !  for  I  am  as  when  they  have 
gathered  the  summer-fruits,  as  the  grape-glean- 
ings of  the  vintage :  there  is  no  cluster  to  eat : 
my  soul  desired  the  first  ripe  fruit. 

The  expression  here  made  use  of  by  the  prophet  may 
probably  be  understood  by  the  assistance  of  a  remark 
which  Sir  John  Chardin  has  made  upon  this  passage. 
He  informs  us,  that  the  Persians  and  Turks  are  not  only 
fond  of  almonds,  plumbs,  and  melons  in  a  mature  state,  but 
that  thev  are  remarkable  for  eating  them  before  they  are 
ripe.  As  soon  as  ever  they  approach  to  that  state,  they 
make  use  of  them,  the  great  dryness  and  temperature  of  the 
air  preventing  flatulencies. — Harmer. 

Ver.  3.  That  they  may  do  evil  with  both  hands 
earnestly,  the  prince  asketh,  and  the  judge  ask- 
eth  for  a  reward;  and  the  great  man  he  utter- 
eth  his  mischievous  desire :  so  they  wrap  it  up. 

We  have  seen  that  to  do  a  thing  with  one  hand,  signifies 
earnestness  and  oneness  of  consent.  Whenever  a  person 
has  to  receive  a  thing  from  a  superior,  he  must  put  out 
BOTH  hands ;  for  not  to  do  so,  would  be  a  mark  of  great 
disrespect.  "  Alas  !  I  went  to  that  man  with  both  hands, 
(i.  e.  held  them  out  to  him,)  but  he  turned  me  away." 
"  The  greedy  wretch  eats  with  both  hands,"  meaning,  he  is 
a  glutton ;  because  all  respectable  and  decent  people  eat 
with  the  right  hand  only. — Roberts. 

Ver.  14.  Feed  thy  people  with  thy  rod,  the  flock 
of  thy  heritage,  which  dwell  solitarily  in  the 
wood,  in  the  midst  of  Carmel :  let  them  fe&i  in 
Bashan  and  Gilead,  as  in  the  days  of  old. 

See  on  Am.  9.  10. 

Ver.  19.  He  will  turn  again,  he  will  have  com- 
passion upon  us:  he  will  subdue  our  iniquities ; 
and  thou  wilt  cast  all  their  sins  into  the  depths 
of  the  sea. 

When  a  devotee  believes  the  guilt  of  his  transgressions 
has  been  removed,  whether  by  prayers  or  austerities,  he 
says,  "  My  sins  have  all  fallen  into  the  sea." — Roberts. 


NINEVEH. 

Nahum  1:8.    Page  565. 


NAHUM 


CHAPTER  I. 

Vor.  8.  But  with  an  over-running  flood  he  will 
make  an  utter  end  of  the  place  thereof,  and 
darkness  shall  pursue  his  enemies. 

To  a  brief  record  of  the  creation  of  the  antediluvian 
world,  and  of  the  dispersion  and  the  different  settlements  of 
mankind  after  the  deluge,  the  scriptures  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment add  a  full  and  particular  history  of  the  Hebrews  for 
the  space  of  fifteen  hundred  years,  from  the  days  of  Abra- 
ham to  the  era  of  the  last  of  the  prophets.  While  the  his- 
torical part  of  scripture  thus  traces,  from  its  origin,  the 
history  of  the  world,  the  prophecies  give  a  prospective  view 
which  reaches  to  its  end.  And  it  is  remarkable  that  pro- 
fane history,  emerging  from  fable,  becomes  clear  and 
authentic  about  the  very  period  when  sacred  history  termi- 
nates, and  when  the  fulfilment  of  these  prophecies  com- 
mences, which  refer  to  other  nations  besides  the  Jews. 

Nineveh,  the  capital  of  Assyria,  was  for  a  long  time  an 
extensive  and  populous  city.  Its  walls  are  said,  by  heathen 
historians,  to  have  been  a  hundred  feet  in  height,  sixty  miles 
in  compass,  and  to  have  been  defended  by  fifteen  hundred 
towers,  each  two  hundred  feet  high.  Although  it  |brmed 
the  subject  of  some  of  the  earliest  of  the  prophecies,  and  was 
the  very  first  which  met  its  predicted  fate,  yet  a  heathen 
historian,  in  describing  its  capture  and  destruction,  repeat- 
edly refers  to  an  ancient  prediction  respecting  it.  Diodorus 
Siculus  relates,  that  the  king  of  Assyria,  after  the  complete 
discomfiture  of  his  army,  confided  in  an  old  prophecy,  that 
Nineveh  would  not  be  taken  unless  the  river  should  become 
the  enemy  of  the  city ;  that  after  an  ineffectual  siege  of  two 
years,  the  river,  swollen  with  long-continued  and  tempestu- 
ous torrents,  inundated  part  of  the  city,  and  threw  down  the 
wall  for  the  space  of  twenty  furlongs;  and  that  the  king, 
deeming  the  prediction  accomplished,  despaired  of  his 
safety,  and  erected  an  imAiense  funeral  pile,  on  which  he 
heaped  his  wealth,  and  with  which  himself,  his  household, 
and  palace,  were  consumed.  The  book  of  Nahum  was 
avowedly  prophetic  of  the  destruction  of  Nineveh  :  and  it 
is  there  foretold,  "  that  the  gates  of  the  river  shall  be  opened, 
and  the  palace  shall  be  dissolved."  "  Nineveh  of  old,  like 
a  pool  of  water — with  an  overflowing  flood  he  will  make 
an  utter  end  of  the  place  thereof."  The  historian  describes 
the  facts  by  which  the  other  predictions  of  the  prophet  were 
as  literally  fulfilled.  He  relates  that  the  king  of  Assyria, 
elated  with  his  former  victories,  and  ignorant  of  the  revolt 
of  the  Bactrians,  had  abandoned  himself  to  scandalous  in- 
action ;  had  appointed  a  time  of  festivity,  and  supplied  his 
soldiers  with  abundance  of  wine ;  and  that  the  general  of 
the  enemy,  apprized  by  deserters  of  their  negligence  and 
drunkenness,  attacked  the  Assyrian  army  while  the  whole 
of  them  were  fearlessly  giving  way  to  indulgence,  destroyed 
a  great  part  of  them,  and  drove  the  rest  into  the  city.  The 
words  of  the  prophet  were  hereby  verified :  "  While  they 
be  folden  together  as  thorns,  and  while  they  are  drunken 
as  drunkards,  they  shall  be  devoured  as  stubble  full  dry," 
The  prophet  promised  much  spoil  to  the  enemy:  "Take 
the  spoil  of  silver,  take  the  spoil  of  gold ;  for  there  is  no  end 
of  the  store  and  glory  out  of  all  the  pleasant  furniture." 
And  the  historian  affirms,  that  many  talents  of  ^old  and 
silver,  preserved  from  the  fire,  were  carried  to  Ecbatana. 
According  to  Nahum,  the  city  was  not  only  to  be  destroyed 
by  an  overflowing  flood,  but  the  fire  also  was  to  devour  it ; 
and,  as  Diodorus  relates,  partly  by  water,  partly  by  fire,  it 
was  destroyed. 

The  utter  and  perpetual  destruction  and  desolation  of 
Nineveh  were  foretold : — "  The  Lord  will  make  an  utter 
end  of  the  place  thereof.  Affliction  shall  not  rise  up  the 
second  time.  She  is  empty,  void,  and  waste.  The  Lord 
will  stretch  out  his  hand  against  the  north,  and  destroy  As- 
syria, and  will  make  Nineveh  a  desolation,  and  dry  like  a 


wilderness.  How  is  she  become  a  desolation,  a  place  for 
beasts  to  lie  down  in  !"  In  the  second  century,  Lucian,  a 
native  of  a  city  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates,  testified  that 
Nineveh  was  utterly  perished ;  that  there  was  no  vestige  of 
it  remaining ;  and  that  none  could  tell  where  once  it  was 
situated.  This  testimony  of  Lucian,  and  the  lapse  of  many 
ages  during  which  the  place  was  not  known  where  it  stood, 
render  it  at  least  somewhat  c  oubtful  whether  the  remains  oi 
an  ancient  city,  opposite  to  Mosul,  which  have  been  de- 
scribed as  such  by  travellers,  be  indeed  those  of  ancient 
Nineveh.  It  is,  perhaps,  probable  that  they  are  the  remains 
of  the  city  which  succeeded  Nineveh,  or  of  a  Persian  city 
of  the  same  name,  which  was  built  on  the  banks  of  the 
Tigris  by  the  Persians  subsequently  to  the  year  230  of  the 
Christian  era,  and  demolished  by  the  Saracens  in  632,  In 
contrasting  the  then  existing  great  and  increasing  popula- 
tion, and  the  accumulating  wealth  of  the  proud  inhabitants 
of  the  mighty  Nineveh,  with  the  utter  ruin  that  awaited  it, 
—the  word  of  God  (before  whom  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth  are  as  grasshoppers)  by  Nahum  was — "  Make  thyself 
many  as  the  canker-worm,  make  thyself  many  as  the  lo- 
custs. Thou  hast  multiplied  thy  merchants  above  the  stars 
of  heaven:  the  canker-worm  spoileth,  and  flyeth  away. 
Thy  crowned  are  as  the  locusts,  and  thy  captains  as  the  great 
grasshoppers,  which  camp  in  the  hedges  in  the  cold  day : 
but  when  the  sun  riseth,  they  flee  away;  and  their  place  is 
not  known  where  they  are,"  or  were.  Whether  these 
words  imply  that  even  the  site  of  Nineveh  would  in  future 
ages  be  uncertain  or  unknown  ;  or,  as  they  rather  seem  to 
intimate,  that  every  vestige  of  the  palaces  of  its  monarchs, 
of  the  greatest  of  its  nobles,  and  of  the  wealth  of  its  numer- 
ous merchants,  would  wholly  disappear;  the  truth  of  the 
prediction  cannot  be  invalidated  under  either  interpretation. 
The  avowed  ignorance  respecting  Nineveh,  and  the  obli- 
vion which  passed  over  it,  for  many  an  age,  conjoined  with 
the  meagerness  of  evidence  to  identify  it,  still  prove  that 
the  place  was  long  unknown  where  it  stood,  and  that,  even 
now,  it  can  scarcely  with  certainty  be  determined.  _  And  if 
the  only  spot  that  bears  its  name,  or  that  can  be  said  to  be 
the  place  where  it  was,  be  indeed  the  site  of  one  of  the  most 
extensive  of  cities  on  which  the  sun  ever  shone,  and  which 
continued  for  many  centuries  to  be  the  capital  of  Assyria — 
the  "principal  mounds,"  few  in  number,  which  "show 
neither  bricks,  stones,  nor  other  materials  of  building,  but 
are  in  many  places  overgrown  with  grass,  and  resemble  the 
mounds  left  by  intrenchments  and  fortifications  of  ancient 
Roman  camps,"  and  the  appearances  of  other  mounds  and 
ruins  less  marked  than  even  these,  extending  for  ten  miles, 
and  widelv  spread,  and  seeming  to  be  "  the  wreck  of  former 
buildings,"  show  that  Nineveh  is  left  without  one  monu- 
ment of  royalty,  without  any  token  whatever  of  its  splendour 
or  wealth  ;  that  their  place  is  not  known  where  they  were ; 
and  that  it  is  indeed  a  desolation — "  empty,  void,  and  waste," 
its  very  ruins  perished,  and  less  than  the  wreck  of  what  it 
was.  "  Such  an  utter  ruin,^'  in  every  view,  "  has  been  made 
of  it ;  and  such  is  the  truth  of  the  divine  predictions." — 
Keith, 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  7.  And  Huzzab  shall  be  led  away  captive, 
she  shall  be  brought  up,  and  her  maids  shall 
lead  her  as  with  the  voice  of  doves,  tabering 
upon  their  breasts. 

See  on  Is,  5,  12. 

When  D'Arvieux  was  in  the  camp  of  the  great  emir,  his 
princess  was  visited  by  other  Arab  princesses.  The  last 
that  came,  whose  visit  alone  he  describes,  was  mounted,  he 
says,  on  a  camel,  covered  with  a  carpet,  and  decked  with 
flowers ;  a  dozen  women  marched  in  a  row  before  her, 
holding  the  camel's  halter  with  one  hand ;  they  sung  the 


564 


HABAKKUK. 


Chap.  1,  2. 


praises  of  their  mistress,  and  songs  which  expressed  joy, 
and  the  happiness  of  being  in  the  service  of  such  a  beauti- 
ful and  amiable  lady.  Those  which  went  first,  and  were 
more  distinct  from  her  person,  came  in  their  turn  to  the 
head  of  the  camel,  and  took  hold  of  the  halter,  which  place, 
as  being  the  post  of  honour,  they  quitted  to  others,  when  the 
princess  had  gone  a  few  paces.  The  emir's  wife  sent  her 
women  to  meet  her,  to  whom  the  halter  was  entirely  quit- 
ted, out  of  respect,  her  own  women  putting  themselves  be- 
hind the  camel.  In  this  order  they  marched  to  the  tent, 
where  they  alighted.  They  then  all  sung  together  the 
beauty,  birth,  and  good  qualities  of  this  princess.  This  ac- 
count illustrates  those  words  of  the  prophet,  wherein  he 
PT:>eaks  of  the  presenting  of  the  queen  of  Nineveh,  or  Nine- 
veh itself,  under  the  figure  of  a  queen,  to  her  conqueror. 
He  describes  her  as  led  by  the  maids,  with  the  voice  of 
doves,  that  is,  with  the  voice  of  mourning ;  their  usual 
songs  of  joy,  with  which  they  used  to  lead  her  along,  as  the 
Arab  women  did  their  princess,  being  turned  into  lamenta- 
tions.— Harmer. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  14.  Draw  the  waters  for  the  siege,  fortify 
thy  strongholds:  go  into  clay,  and  tread  the 
mortar,  make  strong  the  brick-kiln. 
See  on  Is.  41.  26. 


Ver.  17.  Thy  crowned  are  as  the  locusts,  and  thy 
captains  as  the  great  grasshoppers,  which  camp 
in  the  hedges  in  the  cold  day ;  hut  when  the 
sun  ariseth  they  flee  away,  and  their  place  is 
not  known  where  they  a%e. 

"  The  operation  of  the  female  locust  in  laying  her  eggs 
is  highly  interesting.  She  chooses  a  piece  of  light  earth, 
well  protected  by  a  bush  or  hedge,  where  she  makes  a  hole 
for  herself,  so  deep  that  her  head  just  appears  above  it ;  she 
here  deposites  an  oblong  substance,  exactly  the  shape  of  her 
own  body,  which  contains  a  considerable  number  of  eggs, 
arranged  in  neat  order,  in  rows  agkinst  each  other,  which 
remain  buried  in  the  ground  most  carefully,  and  artificially 
protected  from  the  cold  of  winter."  (Pliny.)  "  The  eggs  are 
brought  into  life  by  the  heat  of  the  sun.  If  the  heats  com- 
mence early,  the  locusts  early  gain  strength,  and  it  is  then 
that  their  depredations  are  most  feared,  because  they  com- 
mence thiem  before  the  corn  has  had  time  to  ripen,  and  they 
attack  the  stem  when  it  is  still  tender.  I  conjecture  that 
camping  in  the  hedges  in  the  cold  day  may  be  explained  by 
the  eggs  being  deposited  during  the  winter :  and  when  the 
sun  ariseth  they  flee  away,  may  also  be  illustrated  by  the; 
flying  away  of  the  insect,  as  soon  as  it  had  felt  the  sun's  in- 
fluence."   (Morier.)— Btoder. 


HABAKKUK 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  8.  Their  horses  also  are  swifter  than  the 
leopards,  and  are  more  fierce  than  the  evening 
wolves  :  and  their  horseman  shall  spread  them- 
selves, and  their  horsemen  shall  come  from 
far ;  they  shall  fly  as  the  eagle  that  hasteth  to 
eat. 

The  Baron  De  Tott,  in  his  entertaining  work,  has  given 
us  an  account  of  the  manner  in  which  an  army  of  modern 
Tartars  conducted  themselves,  which  serves  greatly  to  il- 
lustrate this  passage:  "  These  particulars,"  says  the  baron, 
"  informed  the  cham  or  prince,  and  the  generals,  what  their 
real  position  was ;  and  it  was  decided  that  a  third  of  the 
army,  composed  of  volunteers,  and  commanded  by  a  sultan 
and  several  mirzas,  should  pass  the  river  at  midnight,  di- 
vide into  several  columns,  subdivide  successively,  and  thus 
overspread  New  Servia,  burn  the  villages,  corn,  and  fod- 
der, and  carry  off"  the  inhabitants  of  the  country.  The  rest 
of  the  army,  in  order  to  follow  the  plan  concerted,  marched 
till  they  came  to  the  beaten  track  m  the  snow  made  by  the 
detachment.  This  we  followed,  till  we  arrived  at  the  place 
where  it  divides  into  seven  branches,  to  the  left  of  which 
we  constantly  kept,  observing  never  to  mingle  or  confuse 
ourselves  with  any  of  the  subdivisions  which  we  succes- 
sively found;  and  some  of  which  were  only  small  paths, 
traced  by  one  or  two  horsemen.  Flocks  were  found  frozen 
to  death  on  the  plain,  and  twenty  columns  of  smoke,  al- 
ready rising  in  the  horizon,  completed  the  horrors  of  the 
Riene,  and  announced  the  fires  which  had  laid  waste  New 
Servia."  The  difficulties  which  have  attended  the  expla- 
nation of  this  prediction  are  thus  happily  removed,  and  the 
propriety  of  the  expression  fully  established. — Paxton. 

Ver.  1 0.  And  they  shall  scoff  at  the  kings,  and 
the  princes  shall  he  a  scorn  unto  them :  they 
shall  deride  every  stronghold;  for  they  shall 
heap  dust,  and  take  it. 


Another  contrivance  which  the  besiegers  employed,  wa^ 
the  agger  or  mount,  which  they  raise  so  high  as  to  equal, 
if  not  exceed,  the  top  of  the  besieged  walls :  the  sides  were 
supported  with  bricks  or  stones,  or  secured  with  strong, 
rafters  to  hinder  it  from  falling ;  the  forepart  only  remain- 
ed bare,  because  it  was  to  be  advanced  by  degrees  nearer 
the  city.  The  pile  itself  consisted  of  all  sorts  of  materials, 
as  earth,  timber,  boughs,  stones ;  into  the  middle  were  cast 
also  wickers,  and  twigs  of  trees  to  fasten,  and,  as  it  were, 
cement  the  other  parts.  The  prophet  Habakkuk  manifestly 
refers  to  the  mount,  in  that  prediction  where  he  describes 
the  desolating  march  of  the  Chaldeans,  and  the  success  of 
their  arms. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  2.  And  the  Lord  answered  me,  and  said, 
Write  the  vision,  and  make  it  plain  upon  tables, 
that  he  may  run  that  readeth  it. 

Writing-tables  were  used  in  and  before  the  time  of  Ho- 
mer; for  he  speaks  of  writing  very  pernicious  things  upon 
a  two-leaved  table.  They  were  made  of  wood,  consisted 
of  two,  three,  or  five  leaves,  and  were  covered  with  wax  ; 
on  this  impressions  were  easily  made,  continued  long,  and 
were  very  legible.  It  was  a  custom  among  the  Romans  for 
the  public  affairs  of  every  year  to  be  committed  to  writing 
by  the  pontifex  maximum,  or  high-priest,  and  published  on 
a  table.  They  were  exposed  to  public  view,  so  that  the 
people  might  have  an  opportunity  of  being  acquainted  with 
them.  It  was  also  usual  to  hang  up  laws  approved  and  re- 
corded on  tables  of  brass  in  their  market-places,  and  in  their 
temples,  that  they  might  be  seen  and  read.  In  like  manner 
the  Jewish  prophets  used  to  write,  and  expose  their  proph- 
ecies publicly  on  tables,  either  in  their  own  houses,  or  m 
the  temple,  that  every  one  that  passed  by  might  read  them. 

— BURDER. 

Ver.  11.  For  the  stone  shall  cry  out  of  the  wall, 
and  the  beam  out  of  the  timber  shall  answer  it. 


Chap.  1. 


ZEPHANIAH. 


665 


The  margin  has,  instead  of  "  answer  it,"  "  or  witness 
against."  When  a  man  denies  what  he  has  solemnly 
promised,  the  person  who  complains  of  his  perfidy,  says, 
"  The  place  where  you  stood  shall  witness  against  you." 
"  A  beautiful  princess  was  once  enjoying  herself  in  a  fra- 
grant grove,  when  a  noble  prince  passed  that  way ;  she  be- 
came enamoured  of  his  person,  and  he  solemnly  promised 
to  return  and  marry  her.  When  he  left  her,  she  wept  bit- 
terly, and  said,  '  Ah  !  should  he  not  return,  this  tali-tree 
(pandanus  odoratissima)  shall  witness  against  him.  Yes, 
the  birds  shall  be  my  witnesses.'  " — Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  For  the  violence  of  Lebanon  shall  cover 
thee,  and  the  spoil  of  beasts,  which  make  them 
afraid,  because  of  men's  blood,  and  for  the  vio- 
lence of  the  land,  of  the  city,  and  of  all  that 
dwell  therein. 

The  lofty  summits  of  Lebanon  were  the  chosen  haunts 
of  various  beasts  of  prey ;  the  print  of  whose  feet  Maun- 
drell  and  his  party  observed  in  the  snow.  But  they  are  not 
confined  to  these  situations:  a  recent  traveller  continued 
descending  several  hours,  through  varied  scenery,  present- 
ing at  every  turn  some  new  feature,  distinguished  either 
by  its  picturesque  beauty  or  awful  sublimity.  On  arriving 
at  one  of  the  lower  swells,  which  form  the  base  of  the 
mountain,  he  and  his  parly  broke  rather  abruptly  into  a 
deep  and  thick  forest.  As  they  traversed  the  bocage,  the 
bowlings  of  wild  animals  were  distinctly  heard  from  the  re- 
cesses.    To  these  savage  tenants  of  the  desert,  the  prophet 


Habakkuk  seems  to  allude.  The  vi..)lence  of  Lebanon  is 
a  beautiful  and  energetic  expression,  denoting  the  ferocious 
animals  that  roam  on  its  mountains,  and  lodge  in  its  thick- 
ets; and  that,  occasionally  descending  into  the  plain  m  quest 
of  prey,  ravage  the  fold  or  seize  upon  the  unwary  villager. 
—  Paxton. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  4.  And  his  brightness  was  as  the  light ;  he 
had  horns  coming  out  of  his  hand;  and  there 
was  the  hiding  of  his  power. 

See  on  Ps.  92.  10. 

Ver.  9.  Thy  bow  was  made  quite  naked,  accord- 
ing to  the  oaths  of  the  tribes,  even  thy  word. 
Selah.    Thou  didst  cleave  the  earth  with  rivers. 

The  oriental  bows,  according  to  Chardin,  were  usually 
carried  in  a  case  hung  to  their  girdles ;  it  was  sometimes 
of  cloth,  but  more  commonly  of  leather.  The  expression 
in  these  words  of  the  prophet  must  consequently  be  under- 
stood of  the  bow  when  out  of  the  case. — Harmer. 

Ver.  19.  The  Lord  God  is  my  strength,  and  he 
will  make  my  feet  like  hinds'  feet,  and  he  will 
make  me  to  walk  upon  my  high  places.  To 
the  chief  singer  on  my  stringed  instruments. 

See  on  Ps.  18.  33. 


ZEPHANIAH. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  8.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  the  day  of 
the  Lord's  sacrifice,  that  I  will  punish  the 
princes,  and  the  king's  children,  and  all  such 
as  are  clothed  with  strange  apparel.  9.  In  the 
same  day  also  will  I  punish  all  those  that  leap 
on  the  threshold,  which  fill  their  masters'  houses 
with  violence  and  deceit. 

"  Those  that  wear  strange  apparel."  These  are  words  that 
in  this  connexion  seem  to  mean  only  the  rich  that  were 
conscious  of  such  power  and  influence  as  to  dare  in  time  of 
oppression  and  danger,  to  avow  their  riches,  and  who  there- 
fore were  not  afraid  to  wear  the  precious  manufactures  of 
strange  countries,  though  they  were  neither  magistrates, 
nor  yet  of  royal  descent.  A  great  number  of  attendants  is 
a  modern  piece  of  oriental  magnificence ;  as  I  shall  here- 
after have  occasion  to  remark  it  appears  to  have  been  so 
anciently,  Eccles.  v.  11 ;  these  servants,  now,  it  is  most  cer- 
tain, frequently  attend  their  master  on  horseback,  richly  at- 
tired, sometimes  to  the  number  of  twenty-five  or  thirty :  if 
they  did  so  anciently,  with  a  number  of  servants  attending 
great  men,  who  are  represented  by  this  very  prophet  as  at  that 
time  in  common  terrible  oppressors,  ch.  iii.  3,  they  may  be 
naturally  supposed  to  ride  into  people's  houses,  and  having 
gained -admission  by  deceit,  to  force  from  them  by  violence 
considerable  contributions :  for  this  riding  into  houses  is 
not  now  only  practised  by  tl;ie  Arabs;  it  consequently  might 
be  practised  by  others,  too,  anciently.  It  is  not  now  peculiar 
to  the  Arabs,  for  Le  Bruyn,  after  describing  the  magnifi- 
cent furniture  of  several  of  the  Armenian  merchants  at 
Julfa,  that  suburb  of  Ispahan  in  which  they  live,  tells  us, 
.hat  the  front  door  of  the  greatest  part  of  these  houses  is 


very  small,  partly  to  hinder  the  Persians  from  entering  into 
them  on  horseback,  and  partly  that  they  may  less  observe 
the  magnificence  within.  To  which  ought  to  be  added, 
what  he  elsewhere  observes,  that  these  Armenians  are 
treated  with  great  rigour  and  insolence  by  the  Persians.  If 
this  text  refers  to  a  violence  of  this  sort,  they  are  the  thresh- 
olds of  the  oppressed  over  which  they  leaped,  not  the  thresh- 
olds of  the  oppressive  masters,  which  some  have  supposed, 
when  they  returned  laden  with  spoil. — Harmer. 

Ver.  12.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  at  that  time, 
that  I  will  search  Jerusalem  with  candles,  and 
punish  the  men  that  are  settled  on  their  lees : 
that  say  in  their  heart.  The  Lord  will  not  do 
good,  neither  will  he  do  evil. 

The  margin  has,  in  place  of  "  settled,"  "  curdled  or  thick- 
ened." The  Tamul  translation  has  this,  "  dregs  stirred 
up,"  i.  e.  sediment  shaken  together  well  thickened.  Of 
people  who  are  in  great  straits,  of  those  who  are  a  strange 
compound  of  good  and  evil,  of  things  which  are  difficult  to 
understand,  it  is  said,  "  Ah  !  this  is  all  kullumbin-vandal," 
i,  e.  stirred  up  dregs.  This  appears  to  have  been  the  state 
of  the  Jews,  and  they  wanted  to  show  that  the  Lord  would 
neither  do  good  nor  evil;  that  in  him  was  not  any  distinct 
character;  and  that  he  would  not  regard  them  in  their 
thickened  and  mixed  condition;  that  though  they  were 
joined  to  the  heathen,  it  was  not  of  any  consequence.  '*  I 
will  search  Jerusalem  with  candles ;"  thus  were  they  mis- 
taken in  their  false  hopes.  Does  a  man  declare  his  inno- 
cence of  any  crime,  the  accusers  say,  "  We  will  search  thee 
with  lamps."  "Tes,  yes,  I  will  look  into  that  affair  with 
lamps."  "  What !  have  your  lamps  gone  out  1  You  see 
I  am  not  guilty." — Roberts. 


566 


ZEPHANIAH, 


Chap.  2. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  4.  For  Gaza  shall  be  forsaken,  and  Ashlce- 
lon  a  desolation ;  they  shall  drive  out  Ashdod 
at  the  noonday,  and  Ekron  shall  be  rooted  up. 

The  city  of  Ashkelon  or  Ascalon,  was  one  of  the  five 
principalities  of  the  ancient  Philistines :  it  is  situated  on 
the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  between  Azotus,  or 
Ashdod,  and  Gaza.  Ashkelon  is  mentioned  in  Judg.  i. 
18,  as  having  been  taken  by  the  tribe  of  Judah ;  after- 
ward it  fell  successively  under  the  dominion  of  the  As- 
syrians, Persians,  Macedonians,  and  Romans.  This  city 
had  a  temple  dedicated  to  Venus  Urania,  which  was  de- 
stroyed by  the  Scythians,  six  hundred  and  thirty  years  be- 
fore the  Christian  era ;  another  dedicated  to  Derceto,  a  tu- 
telary deity  of  the  Philistines;  and  another  consecrated  to 
Apollo,  of  which  Herod,  the  grandfather  of  Herod  the 
Great,  was  priest :  the  latter  was  born  here,  and  from  this 
circumstance  he  has  sometimes  been  called  the  Ascalonite. 
In  the  early  ages  of  Christianity,  Ascalon  was  a  bishop's 
see.  During  the  crusades  it  was  a  place  of  considerable 
importance  ;  but  having  been  repeatedly  captured  and  re- 
captured by  the  Saracens,  it  was  finally  reduced  to  a  heap 
of  ruins.  Though  it  was  one  of  the  chief  maritime  cities 
of  Phenicia,  at  present  it  does  not  exhibit  the  least  vestige 
of  a  port. 

"  The  position  of  Ashkelon  is  strong :  the  walls  are  built 
on  the  top  of  a  ridge  of  rock  that  winds  round  the  town  in  a 
semicircular  direction,  and  terminates  ,at  each  end  in  the 
sea.  The  foundations  remain  all  the  way  round ;  the  walls 
are  of  great  thickness,  and  in  some  places  of  considerable 
height,  and  flanked  with  towers  at  different  distances. 
Patches  of  the  wall  preserve  their  original  elevation  ;  but 
in  general  it  is  ruined  throughout,  and  the  materials  lie 
scattered  around  the  foundation,  or  rolled  down  the  hill  on 
either  side.  The  ground  falls  within  the  walls,  in  the  same 
manner  that  it  does  without :  the  town  was  situated  in  the 
hollow,  so  that  no  part  of  it  could  be  seen  from  the  outside 
of  the  walls.  Numerous  small  ruined  houses  still  remain, 
with  small  gardens  interspersed  among  them.  In  the  highest 
part  of  the  town  are  the  remains  of  a  Christian  convent 
close  upon  the  sea,  with  a  well  of  excellent  water  beside  it. 
The  sea  beats  strongly  against  the  bank  on  which  the  con- 
vent stands ;  and  six  prostrate  columns  of  gray  granite, 
half  covered  with  the  waves,  attest  the  effects  of  its  en- 
croachments. There  is  no  bay  or  harbour  for  shipping; 
but  a  small  harbour,  advancing  a  little  way  into  the  town 
towards  its  eastern  extremity,  seems  to  have  been  formed 
for  the  accommodation  of  such  small  craft  as  were  used  in 
the  better  days  of  the  city."  The  water,  seen  in  the  fore- 
ground of  our  view,  is  the  result  of  the  overflowing  of  a 
torrent  during  the  rainy  season,  the  channel  of  which  is 
viry  at  other  times. 

Ashkelon  was  one  of  the  proudest  satrapies  of  the  Philis- 
tines :  710W  there  is  not  an  inhabitant  within  its  walls ;  and 
the  predictions  of  Jeremiah,  Amos,  Zephaniah,  and  Zecha- 
riah,  have  been  literallv  fulfilled  :— "  Ashkelon  is  cut  off 
with  the  remnant  of  their  valley."  (Jer.  xlvii.  5.)  He 
*'  that  holdeth  the  sceptre"  has  been  cut  off  "  from  Ashke- 
lon." (Amos  i.  8.)  "  Gaza  shall  be  forsaken,  and  Ashkelon 
a  desolation."  (Zeph.  ii.  4.)  "  The  king  shall  perish  from 
Gaza,  and  Ashkelon  shall  not  be  inhabited."  (Zech.  ix.  5.) 
At  the  time  the  two  last-cited  predictions  were  uttered,  both 
these  satrapies  of  the  Philistines  were  in  a  flourishing  con- 
dition ;  each  the  capital  of  its  own  petty  state  :  "  and  noth- 
ing but  the  prescience  of  heaven  could  pronounce  on  which 
of  the  two,  and  in  what  manner,  the  vial  of  his  wrath  should 
thus  be  poured  out."  Gaza  is  still  a  large  and  respectable 
town,  but  truly  without  a  king :  the  walls  of  Ashkelon  are 
broken  down,  its  lofty  towers  lie  scattered  on  the  ground, 
and  the  houses  are  lying  in  ruins  without  a  human  inhabit- 
ant to  occupy  them,  or  to  build  them  up.  "  How  is  the 
wrath  of  man  made  to  praise  his  Creator  I    Hath  He  said. 


and  shall  He  not  do  it  1  The  oracle  was  delivered  by  the 
prophet  (Zechariah)  more  than  five  hundred  years  before 
the  Christian  era,  and  we  behold  its  accomplishment  eigh- 
teen hundred  years  after  that  event,  and  see  with  our  eyes 
that  the  king  has  perished  from  Gaza,  and  that  Ashkelon  is 
not  inhabited  ;  and  were  there  no  others  on  which  the  mind 
could  confidently  rest,  from  the  fulfilment  of  this  one  pro- 
phecy even  the  most  skeptical  may  be  assured,  that  all  that 
is  predicted  in  the  sacred  volume  shall  come  to  pass."  - 

HORNE. 

Ver.  6.  And  the  seacoast  shall  be  dwellings,  and 
cottages  for  shepherds,  and  folds  for  flocks. 

Archbishop  Newcome  has  remarked,  that  many  manu- 
scripts and  three  editions  have  a  single  letter  in  one  of  these 
words  more  than  appears  in  the  common  editions;  which, 
instead  of  cherith,  gives  us  a  word  which  signifies  cares ; 
and  he  thus  renders  the  words :  and  the  seacoast  shall  be 
sheep-cotes ;  caves  for  shepherds,  and  folds  for  flocks.  This 
translation  wi.l  appear  perfectly  correct,  if  it  be  considered 
that  the  mountains  bordering  on  the  Syrian  coast  are  re- 
markable for  the  number  of  caves  in  them.  In  the  history 
of  the  crusades  it  is  particularly  mentioned  that  a  number 
of  persons  retired  with  their  wives  and  children,  their  flocks 
and  herds,  into  subterraneous  caves,  to  find  shelter  from  the 
enemy. — Harmer. 

Ver.  7.  And  the  coast  shall  be  for  the  remnant  of 
the  house  of  Judah  ;  they  shall  feed  thereupon  : 
in  the  houses  of  Ashkelon  shall  they  lie  down 
in  the  evening :  for  the  Lord  their  God  shall 
visit  them,  and  turn  away  their  captivity. 

An  extract  from  Dr.  Chandler's  Travels  furnishes  a 
very  lively  comment  on  these  words :  **  Our  horses  were 
disposed  among  the  walls  and  rubbish,  (of  Ephesus,)  with 
their  saddles  on ;  and  a  mat  was  spread  for  us  on  the  ground. 
We  sat  here  in  the  open  air  while  supper  was  preparing ; 
when  suddenly  fires  began  to  blaze  up  among  the  bushes, 
and  we  saw  the  villagers  collected  about  them  in  savage 
groups,  or  passing  to  and  fro,  with  lighted  brands  for 
torches.  The  flames,  with  the  stars  and  a  pale  moon,  af- 
forded us  a  dim  prospect  of  ruin  and  desolation.  A  shrill 
owl,  called  cucuvaia  from  its  note,  with  a  nighthawk, 
flitted  near  us ;  and  a  jackal  cried  mournfully,  as  if  for- 
saken by  his  companions  on  the  mountain." — Burder. 

Ver.  9.  Therefore,  as  I  live  saith  the  Lord  of 
hosts,  the  God  of  Israel,  Surely  Moab  shall  be 
as  Sodom,  and  the  children  of  Ammon  as  Go- 
morrah, even  the  breeding  of  nettles,  and  salt- 
pits,  and  a  perpetual  desolation :  the  residue  of 
my  people  shall  spoil  them,  and  the  remnant  of 
my  people  shall  possess  them. 

See  on  Jer.  17.  5,  6, 

Ver.  14.  And  flocks  shall  lie  down  in  the  midst 
of  her,  all  the  beasts  of  the  nations :  both  the 
cormorant  and  the  bittern  shall  lodge  in  the 
upper  lintels  of  it ;  their  voice  shall  sing  in  the 
windows  ;  desolation  shall  he  in  the  thresholds : 

.  for  he  shall  uncover  the  cedar-work. 

Margin,  "  knobs  or  chapiters."  Chardin,  describing  the 
magnificent  pillars  that  he  found  at  Persepolis,  tells  us,  that 
the  storks  (birds  respected  by  the  Persians^  make  their 
nests  on  the  tops  of  these  columns  with  great  boldness,  and 
are  in  no  danger  of  being  dispossessed. — Burder. 


ZECHARIAH. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  8.  I  saw  by  night,  and  behold  a  man  riding 

upon  a  red  horse,  and  he  stood   among  the 

j     myrtle-trees  that  were  in  the  bottom :  and  be- 

'      hind  him  were  there  red  norses,  speckled,  and 

white. 

The  word  here  translated  red  signifies  blood-red,  not 
my  kind  of  bright  bay,  or  other  colour  usual  among  horses. 
3ut  the  custom  of  painting  or  dying  animals  for  riding, 
(vhether  asses  or  horses,  explains  the  nature  of  this  de- 
fcription.  Tavernier,  speaking  of  a  city  which  he  visited, 
says,  "  five  hundred  paces  from  the  gate  of  the  city  we 
net  a  young  man  of  a  good  family,  for  he  was  attended  by 
wo  servants,  and  rode  upon  an  ass,  the  hinder  part  of 
vhich  was  painted  red."  And  Mungo  Park  informs  us,  that 
he  Moorish  sovereign  Ali,  always  rode  upon  a  milk-white 
lorse,  with  its  tail  died  red.    See  also  Zech.  vi.  2.  Rev.  vi. 

:. — BURDER. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  4.  And  said  unto  him.  Run,  speak  to  this 
young  man,  saying,  Jerusalem  shall  be  inhabit- 
1  ed  as  towns  without  walls  for  the  multitude  of 
men  and  cattle  therein:  5.  For  I,  saith  the 
Lord,  will  be  unto  her  a  wall  of  fire  round 
about,  and  will  be  the  glory  in  the  midst  of  her. 

?he  promise  of  God's  being  to  Jerusalem,  or  his  church, 
a  nil  of  fire,  seems  to  be  spoken  in  allusion  to  the  manner 
in/hich  travellers  in  desert  parts  of  the  earth  defend  them- 
seles  in  the  nighttime  from  the  attacks  of  ferocious  ani- 
ms.  They  place  fires  in  various  directions  around  their 
enimpment.  This  was  our  constant  practice  in  the  wilds 
of  frica,  when  timber  to  burn  could  be  obtained.  While 
theres  kept  burning,  we  were  in  perfect  safety,  as  no  un- 
doiisticated  animal,  however  ferocious,  will  approach 
neaio  fire.  Something  in  its  brightness  seems  to  give 
alai. — Campbell. 

CHAPTER  III. 
V.  2.    And  the   Lord  said  unto  Satan,    The 
Lord  rebuke  thee,  O  Satan ;  even  the  Lord 
hat  hath  chosen  Jerusalem  rebuke  thee :  is  not 
his  a  brand  plucked  out  of  the  fire  ? 

Wsn  a  man  has  had  a  very  narrow  escape  from  dan- 
^r  oifrota  death,  he  is  called  a  firebrand!  Thus,  when 
tie  chlera  rages,  should  only  one  in  a  family  escape,  he  is 
lamed"  he  firebrand."  When  a  person  talks  of  selling 
lis  proorty  in  consequence  of  not  having  an  heir,  people 
say,  "  Sd  it  not,  there  will  be  yet  a  firebrand  to  inherit  it." 
•'  Alas !  .las !  my  relations  are"  all  dead,  I  am  a  firebrand." 

— ROBEFS. 

Ver.  ?.  Now  Joshua  was  clothed  with  filthy  gar- 
mats,  and  stood  before  the  angel. 

It  wasasual,  especially  among  the  Romans,  when  a  man 
was  chafed  with  a  capital  crime,  and  during  his  arraign- 
ment, to  et  down  his  hair,  suffer  his  beard  to  grow  long,  to 
wear  filly  ragged  garments,  and  appear  in  a  very  dirty 
and  sordd  habit ;  on  account  of  which  they  were  called 
sordidati  When  the  person  accused  was  brought  into 
court  to  le  tried,  even  his  near  relations,  friends,  and  ac- 
quaintanes,  before  the  court  voted,  appeared  with  dishev- 
elled hail  and  clothed  with  garments  foul  and  out  of  fash- 
ion, weepng,  crying,  and  deprecating  punishment.     The 


accused  sometimes  appeared  before  the  judges  clothed  ib 
black,  and  his  head  covered  with  dust.  In  allusion  to  this 
ancient  custom,  the  prophet  Zechariah  represents  Joshua, 
the  high-priest,  when  he  appeared  before  the  Lord,  and 
Satan  stood  at  his  right  hand  to  accuse  him,  as  clothed  with 
filthy  garments.  After  the  cause  was  carefully  examined, 
and  all  parties  impartially  heard,  the  public  crier,  by  cona- 
mand  of  the  presiding  magistrate,  ordered  the  judge*  to 
bring  in  their  verdict. — Paxton. 

Ver.  10.  In  that  day,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts, 
shall  ye  call  every  man  his  neighbour  under 
the  vine  and  under  the  fig-tree. 

See  on  Ps.  78,  47,  and  I  Kings  1.  9. 

The  oriental  banquet,  in  consequence  of  the  intense  heat, 
is  often  spread  upon  the  verdant  turf,  beneath  the  shade  of 
a  tree,  where  the  streaming  rivulet  supplies  the  company 
wfth  wholesome  water,  and  excites  a  gentle  breeze  to  cool 
their  burning  temples.  The  vine  and  the  fig,  it  appears 
from  the  faithful  page  of  inspiration,  are  preferred  on  such 
joyous  occasions. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  10.  For  who  hath  despised  the  day  of  small 
thmgs  ?  for  they  shall  rejoice,  and  shall  see  the 
plummet  in  the  hand  of  Zerubbabel  with  those 
seven ;  they  are  the  eyes  of  the  Lord,  which 
run  to  and  fro  through  the  whole  earth. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  "  they  shall  rejoice,"  "  or 
since  the  seven  eyes  of  the  Lord  shall."  (iii.  9,  "  Seven 
eyes.")  Dr.  Boothroyd  says,  these  eyes  represent  "  the  per- 
fect oversight  and  providence  of  God,"  which  I  doubt  not  is 
the  true  meaning.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  sun  whidi 
shines  seven  times  in  the  course  of  the  week,  i^  spoken  of 
as  the  "  seven  eyes"  of  the  deity,  because  theie  is  an  eye 
for  each  day.  Thus,  the  Sunday,  the  "  first  eye"  of  God 
shines,  and  so  on  through  the  rest  of  the  days.  In  the  9th 
verse  mention  is  made  of  laying  the  foundation  stone  of  a 
temple  for  Jehovah,  and  again  in  the  10th  verse  it  is  asked, 
"  Who  hath  despised  the  day  of  small  things  V  saying  it  is 
ONLY  the  foundation,  this  is  a  small  beginning :  fear  not, 
for  the  "  seven  eyes"  of  the  Lord  are  over  the  work.  His 
good  providence  shall  accomplish  the  whole,  because  be 
has  an  eye  for  each  day  of  the  week.  Has  a  man  suffered 
a  great  evil,  has  an  antagonist  triumphed  over  another, 
either  in  a  court  of  justice  or  any  other  way,  he  says,  in 
talking  about  his  misfortunes,  "  God  has  lost  his  eyes,  or  I 
should  not  have  fallen  into  this  trouble."  "  Well,  friend, 
how  is  this  1  I  hear  you  have  gained  the  day." — "  True, 
true,  the  eyes  of  God  were  upon  me."  Should  there  not 
have  been  rain  for  some  time,  the  people  say,  "  God  has  no 
eyes  in  these  days,"  i.  e.  he  does  not  take  care  of  us.  In  the 
book  Neethe-veanpd  it  is  said,  "  To  all  there  are  two  eyes ; 
to  the  learned  there'  are  three ;  to  the  giver  of  alms  there 
are  seven  eyes,  (alluding  to  each  day ;)  but  to  those  who 
through  penance  have  received  gracious  gifts,  there  are  in- 
numerable eyes."— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  9.  Then  lifted  I  up  mine  eyes,  and  looked, 
and,  behold,  there  came  out  two  women,  and 
the  wind  was  in  their  wings ;  (for  they  had 
wings  like  the  wings  of  a  stork ;),  and'  they 
lifted  up  the  ephah  between  the  earth  and  the 
heaven. 

In  the  vision  of  which  these  words  are  apart,  the  prophe. 


568 


ZECHARIAH. 


Chap.  8—11, 


beheld  in  fearful  perspective,  the  future  calamities  of  his 
nation.  The  ephah  represented  the  measure  of  iniquity 
which  the  Jews  were  fast  filling  up  by  their  increasing 
enormities.  The  woman  whom  he  saw  sitting  in  the  midst 
of  the  ephah,  signified  the  Jewish  nation  in  their  degene- 
rate state  ;  this  woman  the  angel  calls  wickedness,  the  ab- 
stract being  put  for  the  concrete,  the  wicked  people  of  the 
Jews,  to  whom  God  was  about  to  render  according  to  their 
works.  Into  the  ephah  the  woman  is  thrust  down,  and  a 
talent  of  lead  cast  upon  the  mouth  of  it,  to  keep  her  a  close 
prisoner;  denoting  that  the  condemned  sinner  who  has 
filled  up  the  measure  of  his  iniquity,  can  neither  escape 
from  the  curse  of  God,  nor  endure  the  misery  which  it  in- 
flicts. The  ephah  containing  this  mystical  woman,  he  now 
sees  carried  away  into  a  far  country ;  that  is,  the  nation  of 
the  Jews  overthrown,  their  civil  and  religious  polity  extin- 
guished, their  temple  burned,  their  priests  slain,  and  the 
poor  remains  of  their  people  scattered  over  the  face  of  all 
the  earth.  This  great  and  terrible  destruction  is  accom- 
plished by  the  Roman  emperors,  Vespasian  and  Titus,  sym- 
bolized by  "  two  women  who  had  wings  like  a  stork," 
which  are  sufficiently  powerful  to  waft  that  bird  to  a  very 
distant  country.  These  symbolical  women  lifted  up  the 
ephah  between  the  earth  and  the  heaven  ;  which  was  ful- 
filled when  the  Roman  armies,  with  a  rapidity  resembling 
the  flight  of  a  bird  of  passage,  came  up  against  the  Jews, 
now  ripe  for  destruction,  and  swept  them  from  the  land  of 
their  fathers  into  regions  far  remote,  from  which  they  were 
not,  as  in  the  first  captivity,  to  return  after  seventy  years, 
but  to  remain  in  a  state  of  depression  and  suffering  for 
many  generations.  Under  the  curse  of  incensed  heaven 
they  still  remain,  and  must  do  so,  till  the  fulness  of  the 
Gentiles  be  corne  in,  and  then  all  Israel  shall  be  saved. — 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  7.  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  Behold,  I 
will  save  my  people  from  the  east  country,  and 
from  the  west  country. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  "  west  country,"  "  country  of 
the  going  down  of  the  sun."  The  form  in  the  margin  is 
■exceedingly  common;  thus  people  do  not  always  say,  We 
are  to  go  to  the  east  or  west,  but  "  to  the  side  where  is 
the  going  down,"  or  "  to  the  side  where  is  the  ascending 
nlace."  "  In  what  direction  are  you  going  1" — "  To  the 
place  of  the  going  down."— Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  These  are  the  things  that  ye  shall  do. 
Speak  ye  every  man  the  truth  to  his  neighbour: 
execute  the  judgment  of  truth  and  peace  in 
your  gates. 

It  appears  from  the  above,  and  other  passages  of  scrip- 
ture, that  the  kings  of  Israel  distributed  justice,  or  sat  in 
judgment  to  decide  causes  that  might  be  brought  before 
them,  at  the  gate,— that  the  gate  of  the  city  was  the  place 
where  these  causes  came  before  them,  and  where  they  pro- 
nounced their  decision  ;— that  the  king  held  his  councils  at 
the  gate,  or  where  the  elders  or  chiefs  met  the  king,  to  con- 
sider the  affairs  of  the  nation ; — and  that,  in  fact,  all  their 
principal  assemblies  were  held  at  the  gates  of  the  citv. 
This  Jewish  custom  still  exists  high  in  the  interior  of  South 
Africa.  While  in  Kurreechane,  a  city  about  twelve  or 
thirteen  hundred  miles  up  from  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  I 
was  told  that  a  cause  was  going  to  b^  brought  before  the 
king.  Being  anxious  to  witnes's  it,  I  was  led  in  haste  to 
The  gate,  where  I  saw  the  king  sit  down  at  ihe  right  side  of 
it,  with  his  secretary  on  his  right  hand,  and  the  prosecutor, 
or  coraplainer,  on  his  left,  who  stated  his  case  across  to  the 
secretary.  During  his  narrating  his  case,  the  king  was  look- 
ing about  as  if  not  attending  to  what  was  said,  but  I  saw 
from  his  eye  that  he  was  attending  to  what,  for  form's 
sake,  was  addressed  to  the  secretary.  When  the  party  had 
finished  what  he  had  to  say,  the  secretary  repeated  the 
whole  to  (he  king,  as  if  he  had  been  entirely  ignorant  of 
the  matter.  The  king  immediately  gave  judgment. — 
Campbell. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  4.  OtU  of  him  came  forth  the  corner,  out  of 


him  the  nail,  out  of  him  the  battle-bow,  out  of 

him  every  oppressor  together. 
See  on  Is.  22.  23. 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Ver.  1.  Open  thy  doors,  O  Lebanon,  that  the  Sra 

may  devour  thy  cedars. 
See  on  Ps.  72.  16. 

Ver.  1.  Open  thy  doors,  O  Lebanon,  that  the  fiie 
may  devour  thy  cedars.  2.  Howl,  fir-tree,  for 
the  cedar  is  fallen  ;  because  all  the  mighty  are 
spoiled :  howl,  O  ye  oaks  of  Bashan ;  foi  the 
forest  of  the  vintage  is  come  down. 

The  mountainous  range  of  Lebanon  was  celebrated  ;br 
the  extent  of  its  forests,  and  particularly  for  the  size  aid 
excellence  of  its  cedars.  The  ascent  from  the  village  of 
Eden,  or  Aden,  near  Tripoli,  to  the  spot  where  the  ceda-s 
grow,  is  inconsiderable.  This  distance  is  computed  y 
Captains  Irby  and  Mangles  to  be  about  five  miles,  allowiig 
for  the  windings  of  the  road,  which  is  very  rugged,  axi 
passes  over  hill  and  dale.  These  far-famed  trees  are  siU- 
ated  on  a  small  eminence  in  a  valley  at  the  foot  of  the  high- 
est part  of  the  mountain :  the  land  on  the  mountain's  side  hs 
a  steril  aspect,  and  the  trees  are  remarkable  by  being  i- 
together  in  one  clump.  By  the  natives  they  are  called  A- 
sileban.  There  are,  in  fact,  two  generations  of  trees ;  te 
oldest  are  large  and  massy,  four,  five,  or  even  seven  tnins 
springing  from  one  base ;  they  rear  their  heads  to  an  enff- 
mous  height,  spreading  their  branches  afar;  and  they  re 
not  found  in  any  other  part  of  Lebanon,  thooigh  young  tres 
are  occasionally  met  with. 

The  ancient  cedars — those  which  superstition  has  on- 
secrated  as  holy,  and  which  are  the  chief  object  of.he 
traveller's  curiosity,  have  been  gradually  diminishin  in 
number  for  the  last  three  centuries.  In  1550,  Belloni  fond 
them  to  be  twenty-eight  in  number:    Rauwolf,  in  )75, 
counted  twenty-four;  Dandini,  in  1600,  and  Thevenot,  90ui 
fifty  years  after,  enumerated  twenty-three,  which  IVtun- 
drell,  in  1697,  states  were  reduced  to  sixteen.   Dr.  Poccke, 
in  1738,  found  fifteen  standing,  and  one  which  had  bei  re- 
cently blown  down.    Burckhardt,  in  1810,  counted  even 
or  twelve  ;  twenty-five  others  were  very  large  ones^bout 
fifty  of  middling  size,  and  more  than  three  hundred  sailer 
and  youngones.   Lastly,  in  1818,  Dr.  Richardson  foui  that 
the  old  cedars,  "  the  glory  of  Lebanon,"  were  no  mo  than 
seven  in  number.    In  the  course  of  another  centu^  it  is 
probable  that  not  a  vestige  of  them  will  remain,  .-d  the 
predictions  of  the  prophets  will  then  be  most  literfy  ful- 
filled : — "  Lebanon  is  ashamed  and  hewn  down.     Ti  high 
ones  of  stature  shall  be  hewn  down:  Lebanon  s'H  fall 
mightily."    (Isa.  xxxiii.  9 ;  x.  33,  34.)    *«  Upon  theaount- 
ains  and  in  all  the  valleys  his  branches  are  fallen  to  the 
end  that  none  of  all  the  trees  by  the  water  exalt  thaselves 
for  their  height,  neither  shoot  up  the  top  among  t3  thick 
boughs."    (Ezek.  xxxi.  12,  14.)    "  Open  thy  doonO  Le- 
banon, that  the  fire  may  destroy  thy  cedars.     Theedai  is 
fallen ;  the  forest  of  the  vintage  is  come  dovm."  (Zedi. 
xi.  1,  2.) 

The  trunks  of  the  old  trees  are  covered  wi^'h  tb  nam^s 
of  travellers  and  other  persons  who  have  visited  \hm,  sone 
of  which  go  as  far  back  as  1640.  These  truric  are  de- 
scribed by  Burckhardt  as  seeming  to  be  quite  ead ;  thei| 
wood  is  of  a  gray  teint.  Maundrell,  in  1697,  mesured  on« 
which  he  found  to  be  twelve  yards  and  six  inchs  in  girt" 
and  thirty-seven  yards  in  the  spread  of  its  bough;:  at  above 
five  or  six  yards  from  the  ground  it  was  dividd  into  five 
limbs,  each  of  which  was  equal  to  a  great  tree.  Forty-onel 
years  afterward,  (viz.  1738,")  Dr.  Pococke  mesured  one^ 
which  had  the  roundest  body,  though  not  the  Irgest,  and 
found  it  twenty-four  feet  in  circumference  ;  anther,  with 
a  sort  of  triple  body  and  of  a  triangular  figure  measured 
twelve  feet  on  each  side.  In  1818,  Dr.  Richarlson  mea.s- 
ured  one,  which  he  afterward  discovered  was  lot  the  lar- 
gest in  the  clump,  and  found  it  to  be  thirty-two  eet  in  cir- 
cumference. Finally,  in  1824,  Mr.  M.-idox  rfeled  under 
the  branches  of  a  cedar,  which  measured  twenty-seven  feet 
iij  circumference,  a  little  way  from  the  ground:  ifter  which 
he  measured  the  largest  of  the  trees  now  staniing,  which 


Chap.  11—14. 


ZECHARIAH. 


569 


he  found  to  be  thirty-nine  or  forty  feet  in  circumference :  it 
has  three  very  large-  stems,  and  seven  large  branches,  with 
various  smaller  ones. 

The  cedars  of  .Lebanon  are  frequently  mentioned  in  the 
sacred  writings.  Besides  their  uncommon  size  and  beauty 
of  shape  and  foliage,  (which  must  be  borne  in  mind  in  order 
to  enter  fully  into  the  meaning  of  the  sacred  writers,)  they 
send  forth  a  fragrant  odour,  which  seems  to  be  intended  by 
"the  smell  of  Lebanon."  (Hos.  xiv,  6.  Sol.  Song  iv.  11.) 
Its  timber  was  used  in  the  erection  of  the  first  and  second 
temple  at  Jerusalem,  as  well  as  of  the  palace  of  Solomon  ; 
and  in  the  last-mentioned  edifice,  so  much  cedar-wood  ap- 
pears to  have  been  used,  that  it  was  called  "  the  house  of  the 
forest  of  Lebanon."  (1  Kinsrs  vii.  2;  x.  19.)  The  Tyrians 
used  it  in  ship-building,  (Ezek.  xxvii.  5,  6.)— Horne. 

[See  engraving  of  the  Cedars  op  Lebanon,  iw  the  Compre- 
hensive Commentary.] 

Ver.  7.  And  I  will  feed  the  flock  of  slaughter, 
even  you,  O  poor  of  the  flock.  And  I  took 
unto  me  two  staves ;  the  one  I  called  Beauty, 
and  the  other  I  called  Bands :  and  I  fed  the 
flock. 

Written  obligations  were  cancelled  in  different  ways; 
one  was  by  blotting  or  drawing  a  line  across  them,  and  an- 
other by  striking  them  through  with  a  nail;  in  both  cases 
the  bond  was  rendered  useless,  and  ceased  to  be  valid. 
These  customs  the  apostle  applies  to  the  death  of  Christ  in 
his  epistle  to  the  Colossians :  "  Blotting  out  the  handwri- 
ting of  ordinances  that  was  against  us,  which  was  contrary 
to  us,  and  took  it  out  of  the  way,  nailing  it  to  the  cross." 
A  rod  was  sometimes  broken,  as  a  sign  that  the  covenant 
into  which  they  had  entered  was  nullified.  A  trace  of  this 
ancient  custom  is  still  discernible  in  our  own  country  :  the 
lord  steward  of  England,  when  he  resigns  his  commission, 
breaks  his  wand  of  office,  to  denote  the  termination  of  his 
power.  Agreeably  to  this  practice,  the  prophet  Zechariah 
broke  the  staves  of  Beauty  and  Bands,  the  symbols  of  God's 
covenant  with  ancient  Israel,  to  show  them,  that  in  conse- 
quence of  their  numerous  and  long-continued  iniquities,  he 
withdrew  his  distinguishing  favour,  and  no  longer  ac- 
knowledged them  as  his  peculiar  people.  This  is  the  ex- 
position given  by  the  prophet  himself:  "And  I  took  my 
staff,  even  Beauty,  and  cut  it  asunder,  that  I  might  break  my 
covenant  which  I  had  made  with  all  the  people ;  and  it  was 
broken  in  that  day.  Then  I  cut  asunder  my  other  staff, 
even  Bands,  that  I  might  break  the  brotherhood  between 
Judah  and  Israel." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Ver.  6.  In  that  day  will  I  make  the  governors  of 
Judah  like  a  hearth  of  fire  among  the  wood, 
and  like  a  torch  of  fire  in  a  sheaf;  and  they 
shall  devour  all  the  people  round  about,  on  the 
right  hand  and  on  the  left :  and  Jerusalem  shall 
be  inhabited  again  in  her  own  place,  even  in 
Jerusalem, 

See  on  Joel  1.  19. 

CHAPTER  XIIL 

Ver.  4.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  that  day,  that 
the  prophets  shall  be  ashamed  every  one  of  his 
vision,  when  he  hath  prophesied  :  neither  shall 
they  wear  a  rough  garment  to  deceive. 

See  on  Is.  20.  3. 

Ver.  6.  And  one  shall  say  unto  him.  What  are 
these  wounds  in  thy  hands  ?  Then  he  shall 
answer,  Those  with  which  I  was  wounded  in 
the  house  of  my  friends. 

See  on  Lev.  19.  36. 

Ver.  9.  And  I  will  bring  the  third  part  ihrough 
the  fire,  and  will  refine  them  as  silver  is  re- 
fined, and  will  try  them  as  gold  is  tried. 
72 


The  people  of  the  East  try  the  quality  of  gold  by  the 
TOUCH.  Thus,  they  have  a  small  stone  on  which  they  first 
rub  a  needle  of  known  quality  :  they  then  take  the  article 
they  wish  to  try,  and  rub  it  near  to  the  mark  left  by  the 
other,  and  by  comparing  the  two,  they  judge  of  the  value  of 
that  which  they  "  try."  In  those  regions  there  are  not  any* 
MARKS  by  which  we  can  judge  of  the  standard,  except  in 
the  way  alluded  to.  Under  such  circumstances,  there  can- 
not be  any  wonder  that  there  is  inuch  which  is  not  "  fine 
gold ;"  and  such  is  the  skill  of  some  of  the  goldsmiths,  they 
often  deceive  the  most  practised  eye.  The  grand  secret  of 
ALCHYMY,  by  which  other  metals  could  be  transmuted  into 
gold,  has  never  been  fully  divulged,  but  multitudes  be- 
lieve that  certain  individuals  have  this  knowledge.  Nor 
was  that  invaluable  acquirement  confined  to  Hindoos;  for 
"  Diocletian  caused  a  diligent  inquiry  to  be  made  for  all 
the  ancient  books  which  treated  of  the  admirable  art  of 
making  gold  and  silver,  and  without  pity  committed  them 
to  the  flames,  apprehensive,  as  we  are  assured,  lest  the 
opulence  of  the  Egyptians  should  inspire  them  with  coi.-fi- 
dence  to  rebel  against  the  empire."  "The  conquest  of 
Egypt  by  the  Arabs  diffused  that  vain  science  over  the 
globe." 

Numbers  in  the  East  waste  their  entire  property  in  trying 
to  acquire  this  wonderful  secret.  Not  long  ago  a  party  of 
the  "  gold-makers,"  having  heard  of  a  very  charitable  man, 
went  to  him  and  said  they  had  heard  of  his  good  deeds,  ana 
in  order  to  enable  him  to  be  more  benevolent,  they  offered, 
at  a  trifling  expense,  to  make  him  a  large  quantity  of  gold. 
The  kind-hearted  creature  was  delighted  at  the  thought, 
and  furnished  the  required  materials,  among  which,  it  must 
be  observed,  was  a  considerable  quantity  of  gold.  The 
time  came  for  making  the  precious  metal,  and  the  whole 
was  cast  into  the  crucible,  the  impostors  taking  care  to  put 
in  an  extra  quantity  of  gold.  When  it  was  nearly  ready, 
the  alchymists  threw  in  some  stalks  of  an  unknown  plant, 
and  pronounced  certain  incantations  :  after  which  the  con- 
tents were  turned  out,  and  there  the  astonished  man  saw  a 
great  deal  more  gold  than  he  had  advanced.  Such  an  op- 
portunity was  not  to  be  lost;  he  therefore  begged  them  to 
make  him  a  much  larger  quantity,  and  after  some  objec- 
tions the  knaves  consented,  taking  good  care  immediately 
to  decamp  Avith  the  whole  amount.  An  Armenian  gentle- 
man, who  died  at  the  age  of  82,  as  is  recorded  in  the  Mad- 
ras Gazette  of  July  22,  1830,  had  expended  the  whole  of 
his  property,  amounting  to  30,000  pagodas,  in  search  of 
the  philosopher's  stone,  but  left  the  world  a  beggar. 

"  With  crucible  and  furnace,  bursting  on  his  trunli, 
His  last  remains  of  blissful  fervour  sunk." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Ver.  1 8.  And  if  the  family  of  Egypt  go  not  up 
and  come  not,  that  have  no  rain,  there  shall  be 
the  plague  wherewith  the  Lord  will  smite  the 
heathen  that  come  not  up  to  keep  the  feast  ot 
tabernacles. 

See  on  1  Kings  17,  1. 

Ver.  20.  In  that  day  shall  there  be  upon  the  bells 
of  the  horses,  HOLINESS  UNTO  THE 
LORD;  and  the  pots  in  the  Lord's  house 
shall  be  like  the  bowls  before  the  altar. 

The  finest  breed  of  Arabian  horses  is  in  this  country,  and 
has  furnished  us  with  those  we  make  use  of  for  the  turf. 
They  are  here  chiefly  articles  of  luxury,  used  only  in  war, 
or  for  parade.  The  governor  has  a  large  stud  opposite  the 
house  where  I  live,  which  affords  me  much  pleasure,  as  I 
pay  them  frequent  visits.  They  are  small,  but  finely  sha- 
ped and  extremely  active.  Of  this  I  had  an  opportunity  of 
judging  yesterday,  when  the  cavalry  had  a  field-day  in  the 
great  square,  which,  from  the  mode  of  exercise,  called  to 
my  mind  the  idea  of  our  ancient  tilts  and  tournaments. 
The  horses  were  sumptuously  caparisoned,  being  adorned 
with  gold  and  silver  trappings,  bells  hung  roitnd  their  necks, 
and  rich  housings.  The  riders  were  in  handsome  Turkish 
dresses,  with  white  turbans,  and  the  whole  formed  to  me  a 
new  and  pleasing  spectacle.  (Rooke's  Travels  to  the 
Coast  of  Arabii  F'jlix.)— Burder. 


MALACHI 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  1.  The  burden  of  the  word  of  the  Lord  to 
Israel  by  Malachi. 

The  prophecy  is  here  called  "  burden,"  a  term  which 
frequently  occurs  elsewhere,  jmd  which  is  usually  under- 
stood as  equivalent  to  "  burdensome  prophecy,"  or  such  as 
denounced  heavy  and  grievous  things.  But  from  the  fol- 
lowing passage  of  Jeremiah,  it  would  seem  that  that  inter- 
pretation does  not  universally  hold :  "  And  as  for  the  pro- 
phet, and  the  priest,  and  the  people,  that  shall  say,  The 
burden  of  the  Lord,  I  will  even  punish  that  man  and  his 
house.  Thus  shall  ye  say  every  one  to  his  neighbour,  and 
every  one  to  his  brother.  What  hath  the  Lord  answered  1 
and.  What  hath  the  Lord  spoken  1  And  the  burden  of  the 
Lord  shall  he  mention  no  more :  for  every  man's  word 
shall  be  his  burden ;  for  ye  have  perverted  the  words  of 
the  living  God,  of  the  Lord  of  hosts  our  God.  Thus  shalt 
thou  say  to  the  prophet,  What  hath  the  Lord  answered 
thee  1  and,  What  hath  the  Lord  spoken  1  But  since  ye 
say,  The  burden  of  the  Lord;  therefore  thus  saith  the 
Lord,  Because  you  say  this  word.  The  burden  of  the  Lord, 
and  I  have  sent  unto  you,  saying,  Ye  shall  not  say.  The 
burden  of  the  Lord."  (Jer.  xxiii.  34—38.)  This  has  evi- 
dently the  air  of  a  prohibition  against  taking  the  word  in 
that  unfavourable  sense.  The  original  term  Tfuissa,  from 
a  root  signifying  to  bear,  carry,  take  up,  is  of  doubtful  im- 
port, and  sometimes  signifies  a  burden,  and  sometimes  what 
was  borne,  carried,  or  delivered  from  one  to  another,  whether 
a  thing  or  a  word,  and  so  was  used  for  a  prophecy  or  mes- 
sage from  God,  or  other  speech  or  doctrine.  The  Jews, 
therefore,  regarding  the  messages  received  from  God,  and 
delivered  to  them  by  the  prophets,  as  things  grievous  and 
burdensome,  called  the  word  thus  spoken,  a  burden,  by  way 
of  reproach,  meaning  that  it  always  portended  evil,  and 
never  good,  or  in  other  words,  a  calamitous  prophecy.  But 
God,  seeing  the  wickedness  of  their  hearts,  charges  them 
with  perverting  his  word,  and  forbids  them  any  nc ore  so  to 
abuse  it.  We  infer  that  the  term  does  not  origii.ally  and 
exclusively  imply  a  grievous  and  heavy  burden,  but  simply 
a  message,  whether  its  import  were  joyous  or  afflictive. 
This  is  confirmed  by  Zech.  xii.  1,  where  it  is  prefixed  to 
the  promise  of  good  things. — Bush. 

Ver.  4.  Whereas  Edom  saith,  We  are  impover- 
ished, but  we  will  return  and  build  the  desolate 
places ;  thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  They 
shall  build,  but  I  will  throw  down  ;  and  they 
shall  call  them,  The  border  of  wickedness,  and, 
The  people  against  whom  the  Lord  hath  in- 
dignation for  ever. 

See  on  Jer.  49.  15—17,  and  Joel  3.  19. 

Astonishment,  for  which  language  can  scarcely  find 
utterance,  is  the  sentiment  expressed  by  every  tmveller 
who  has  been  able  to  explore  the  magnificent  ruins  of  the 
once  proud  metropolis  of  Idumea  or  Edom.  A  narrow  and 
circuitous  defile,  surrounded  on  each  side  by  lofty  and 
precipitous  or  perpendicular  rocks,  forms  the  approach  to 
the  desolate  yet  magnificent  scene  delineated  in  our  engra- 
ving. The  ruins  of  the  city  here  burst  upon  the  view  in 
their  full  grandeur,  shut  in  on  the  opposite  side  by  barren 
craggy  precipices,  from  which  ntimerous  ravines  and  val- 
leys branch  out  in  all  directions ;  the  sides  of  the  mount- 
ains, covered  with  an  endless  variety  of  excavated  tombs 
and  private  dwellings,  present  altogether  the  most  shigular 
scene  that  can  well  be  conceived.  In  further  confirmation 
of  the  identity  of  the  site,  and  the  accuracy  of  the  applica- 
tion of  the  prophecy  of  Jeremiah,  it  may  be  added,  that 


the  name  of  this  capital,  in  all  the  various  languages  U 
which  it  occurs,  impHes  a  rock. 

The  theatre,  which  is  seen  on  the  left  of  our  view,  is  the 
first  object  which  presents  itself  to  the  traveller  on  entering 
Petra  from  the  eastward.  Captains  Irby  and  Mangles 
state  that  it  was  entirely  hewn  out  of  the  live  rock.  The 
scene  was  unfortunately  built,  and  not  excavated.  Frag- 
ments of  columns  are  strewed  on  the  ground  in  front. 
This  theatre  is  surrounded  by  sepulchres.  Every  avenue 
leading  to  it  is  full  of  them ;  and  it  may  be  safely  affirmed, 
that  one  hundred  of  the  largest  dimensions  are  visible  from 
it.  Indeed,  throughout  almost  every  quarter  of  this  me- 
tropolis, the  depositories  of  the  dead  must  have  presented 
themselves  constantly  to  the  eyes  of  the  inhabitants,  and 
have  almost  outnumbered  the  inhabitants  of  the  living. 
There  is  a  long  line  of  them,  not  far  from  the  theatre,  at 
such  an  angle  as  not  to  be  comprehended  from  the  view  of 
it,  but  which  must  have  formed  a  principal  object  for  the 
city  itself. 

"  The  largest  of  the  sepulchres  had  originally  three  sto- 
ries, of  which  the  lowest  presented  four  portals,  with  large 
columns  set  between  them ;  and  the  second  and  third,  a 
row  of  eighteen  Ionic  columns  each,  attached  to  the  facade : 
the  live  rock  being  insufficient  for  the  total  elevation,  a 
part  of  the  story  was  grafted  on  in  masonry,  and  is  for  the 
most  part  fallen  away.  The  four  portals  of  the  basement 
open  into  as  many  chambers,  but  all  sepulchral,  and  without 
any  communication  between  them.  In  one  were  three  re- 
cesses, which  seem  to  have  been  ornamented  with  marble . 
or  some  other  extraneous  material. 

"  Of  all  the  ruins  of  Petra,  the  mausoleums  and  sepul- 
chres are  among  the  most  remarkable ;  and  they  give  the 
clearest  indication  of  ancient  and  long-continued  royalty 
and  of  courtly  grandeur.  Their  immense  number  corrob- 
orates the  accounts  given  of  their  successive  kings  and 
princes  by  Moses  and  Strabo,  though  a  period  of  eighteen 
hundred  years  intervened  between  the  dates  of  their  re- 
spective records  concerning  them.  The  structure  of  the 
sepulcnres  also  shows  that  many  of  them  are  of  a  more 
recent  date.  Great  must  have  been  the  opulence  of  a  city 
which  could  dedicate  such  monuments  to  the  memory  of 
its  rulers.  But  the  long  line  of  the  kings  and  nobles  of 
Idumea  has  for  ages  been  cut  ofi":  they  are  without  any 
representative  now,  without  any  memorial  but  the  multi- 
tude and  magnificence  of  their  unvisited  sepulchres.  'No 
more  shall  they  boast  of  the  renown  of  the  kingdom ;  and 
all  her  princes  shall  utterly  fail.'  (Bp.  Lowth's  translation 
of  Isa.  xxxiv.  12.) 

"  Amid  the  mausoleums  and  sepulchres,  the  remains  of 
temples  or  palaces,  and  the  multiplicity  of  tombs, — which 
all  form,  as  it  were,  the  grave  of  Idumea,  where  its  ancient 
splendour  is  interred, — there  are  edifices,  the  Greek  and 
Roman  architecture  of  which  decides  that  they  were  built 
long  posterior  to  the  era  of  the  prophets." — "  They  shall 
Imild,  but  I  will  throw  down."    (Mai.  i.  4.)— Horne. 

Ver.  7.  Ye  offer  polluted  bread  upon  my  altar; 
and  ye  say,  Wherein  have  we  polluted  thee  ? 
In  that  ye  say,  The  table  of  the  Lord  is  con- 
temptible. 

"  In  that  ye  say."  They  said,  in  effect,  that  the  altar  of 
Jehovah  was  vile  and  contemptible,  by  offering  on  it  torn, 
blind,  lame,  and  sick  victims. — Newcomb. 

Ver.  8.  And  if  ye  offer  the  blind  for  sacrifice,  is 
it  not  evil  ?  and  if  ye  offer  the  lame  and  sick, 
is  it  not  evil  ?  offer  it  now  unto  thy  governor ; 
will  he  be  pleased  with  thee,  or  accept  thy  per- 
son ?  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts. 


Chap.  2. 


MALACHI. 


571 


Though  things  of  very  little  value  are  sometimes  offered 
as  presents,  those  to  whom  presents  are  made  do  not  think 
themselves  always  obliged  graciously  to  accept  every  thing 
that  is  brought,  or  even  to  dissemble  their  dislike ;  they 
frequently  reject  the  present,  and  refuse  the  favour  sought. 
The  behaviour  of  an  aga  in  Egypt  to  Dr.  Pococke,  de- 
monstrates this ;  as  does  also  this  passage  of  Capt.  Norden : 
"  The  cashef  of  Esna  was  encamped  in  this  place.  He 
made  us  come  ashore.  I  waited  immediately  upon  him, 
with  some  small  presents.  He  received  me  very  civilly, 
and  ordered  coffee  to  be  served  me.  But  he  refused  abso- 
lutely what  I  offered  him  as  a  present,  and  let  me  know 
by  the  interpreter,  that  in  the  places  from  whence  we  were 
come,  we  had  given  things  of  greater  value,  and  that  we 
ought  not  to  show  less  respect  to  him."  Something  of  the 
like  nature  appears  in  many  other  passages  in  travels. 

If  a  present  was  not  somewhat  proportionate  to  the  quali- 
ty of  the  person  applied  to,  the  circumstances  of  him  that 
offered  it,  and  the  value  of  the  favour  asked,  it  was  reject- 
ed. Lambs  and  sheep  were  often  given  as  presents.  So 
the  cashef  I  have  been  speaking  of,  made  Norden  and  his 
company  a  present  the  next  day  of  two  very  fat  sheep,  to- 
gether with  a  great  basket  of  bread.  The  reys,  or  boat- 
men, that  had  carried  them  up  the  Nile,  we  are  told,  in 
like  manner,  came  to  see  them  three  days  before,  and  made 
them  a  present  of  an  excellent  sheep,  together  with  a  basket 
of  Easter  bread.  Perhaps  we  may  be  ready  to  imagine 
presents  of  this  kind  were  only  made  to  travellers  that 
wanted  provisions ;  but  this  would  be  a  mistake.  Sir  John 
Chardin,  in  his  MS.  expressly  tells  us,  "  it  is  the  custom 
of  the  East  for  poor  people,  and  especially  those  that  live 
in  the  country,  to  make  presents  to  their  lords  of  lambs 
and  sheep,  as  an  offering,  tribute,  or  succession.  Presents 
to  men,  like  offerings  to  God,  expiate  offences."  So  D'Ar- 
vieux  mentions  lambs  among  the  things  offered  to  him  as 
presents,  when  he  officiated  as  secretary  to  the  great  emir 
of  the  Arabs.  The  Jewish  people  were  in  a  low  state  in 
the  time  of  Malachi,  and  almost  entirely  engaged  in  coun- 
try business. 

How  energetic,  if  we  assemble  these  circumstances  to- 
gether, is  the  expostulation  of  the  prophet !  "  If  ye  offer 
the  blind  for  sacrifice,  is  it  not  evil  ?  And  if  ye  offer  the 
lame  and  the  sick,  is  it  not  evil  1  Offer  it  now  unto  thy 
governor,  will  he  be  pleased  with  thee,  or  accept  thy  per- 
son V  Mai.  i.  8.  When  they  made  presents  of  lambs  or 
.sheep,  they  brought  those  that  were  very  fat :  would  a  Jew- 
ish governor  have  accepted  one  that  was  blind,  and  conse- 
quently half  starved  1  or  pining  with  lameness  or  sick- 
ness 1 — Harmer. 

Ver,  13.  Ye  said  also,  Behold,  what  a  weariness 
is  it !  and  ye  have  snuffed  at  it,  saith  the  Lord 
of  hosts :  and  ye  brought  that  which  was  torn, 
and  the  lame,  and  the  sick ;  thus  ye  brought  an 
offering :  should  I  accept  this  of  your  hand  ? 
saith  the  Lord. 

The  margin  has,  instead  of  "  and  ye  have  snuffed  at  it," 
"  or  whereas  ye  might  have  blown  it  away."  The  mar- 
ginal reading  is,  I  doubt  not,  the  best.  The  Jews  had  com- 
plained of  the  "weariness"  of  their  duties:  they  were 
tired  of  making  offerings,  and  those  they  did  offer  were 
'•  polluted,"  or  "  lame,"  or  "  blind ;"  whereas,  instead  of 
those  duties  being  burdensome,  they  were  so  light  that 
they  might  have  blown  them  away.  Does  a  person  com- 
plain of  his  numerous  labours  or  "duties,  another  will  ask, 
"  What  are  they  1  why,  a  breath  will  blow  them  away." 
"  Alas  !  I  have  many  things  to  attend  to." — "  Fy  on  you 
for  talking  so ;  if  you  blow  on  them  they  will  go." — Rob- 
erts. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  8.  Behold,  I  will  corrupt  your  seed,  and 
spread  dung  upon  your  faces,  even  the  dung  of 
your  solemn  feasts,  and  one  shall  take  you  away 
with  it. 

In  the  11th  verse  of  this  chapter,  allusion  is  again  made 
to  the  heathenism  of  Judah :  they  had  "  married  the  daughter 
of  a  strange  god."    "  Dung  upon  your  faces."    What  can 


this  refer  iol  Probably  to  the  custom  of  the  idolaters,  of 
spreading  the  ashes  of  cow-dung  on  their  faces,  and  to  the 
marginal  reference  of  Deut.  xxix.  17,  "  dungy  gods,"  on 
which  see  the  remarks. — Roberts, 

Ver.  12.  The  Lord  will  cut  off  the  man  that 
doeth  this,  the  master  and  the  scholar,  out  o^ 
the  tabernacles  of  Jacob,  and  him  that  offereth 
an  offering  unto  the  Lord  of  hosts. 

"  The  master  and  the  scholar."  This  should  rather  b« 
rendered,  "the  watchman  and  the  answerer,"  as  Arias 
Montanus  has  it,  vigilantem  et  respondentem.  The  true 
explanation  is  probably  to  be  brought  from  the  temple  ser- 
vice, in  which  there  was  appointed  a  constant  watch,  day 
and  night,  by  the  Levites ;  and  among  them  this  seems  to 
have  belonged  particularly  to  the  singers,  1  Chron.  ix.  33. 
Now  the  watches  in  the  East  are,  to  this  day,  performed 
by  a  loud  cry  from  time  to  time,  by  the  watchmen,  one 
after  another,  to  mark  the  hour,  and  that  very  frequently, 
in  order  to  show  that  they  are  constantly  attentive  to  their 
duty.  Tavernier  remarks,  that  "the  watchmen  in  the 
camps  go  their  rounds,  crying  one  after  another,  "  God  is 
one.  He  is  merciful ;"  and  often  add,  "  Take  heed  to  your- 
selves," The  hundred  and  thirty-fourth  Psalm  gives  us 
an  example  of  the  temple-watch.  The  whole  Psalm  is 
nothing  more  than  the  alternate  cr^  of  the  two  different 
divisions  of  the  watch.  The  allusion  is  similar  in  the 
passage  before  us.    (See  Lowth  on  Is,  Ixii.  6.)— Bush, 

Ver.  14.  Yet  ye  say,  Wherefore?  Because  the 
Lord  hath  been  witness  between  thee  and  the 
wife  of  thy  youth,  against  whom  thou  hast 
dealt  treacherously :  yet  is  she  thy  companion, 
and  the  wife  of  thy  covenant,  15.  And  did 
not  he  make  one?  Yet  had  he  the  residue  of 
the  Spirit.  And  wherefore  one?  That  he 
might  seek  a  godly  seed.  Therefore  take  heed 
to  your  spirit,  and  let  none  deal  treacherously 
against  the  wife  of  his  youth. 

"  And  did  not  he  make  one  1"  This,  Madan  contends, 
(Thelypthora,  vol,  1,  p.  135,)  should  be  rendered,  "  and 
did  not  one  make  7"  The  mass  of  commentators,  he  re- 
marks, misled  by  translators,  understand  the  words  as  sig- 
nifying that  in  the  beginning  God  made  but  mie  toomam ; 
He  had  the  residue  of  the  spirit,  i.  e.  of  power,  and  therefore 
could  have  made  more  women  for  Adam,  if  he  had  seen  fit. 
To  this  interpretation  he  objects,  that  the  original  word 
nriN  cannot  signify  one  'woman,  inasmuch  as  it  is  not  of  the 
feminine,  but  of  the  masculine  gender.  Besides  which, 
to  read  it  in  this  manner  requires  an  unnatural  transposition 
of  the  words.  He  prefers,  therefore,  the  rendering,  "  Did 
not  one  make  1"  as  v.  10,  "  Have  we  not  all  one  Father  7 
Did  not  one  God  create  us  1  Did  not  one,  or  The  one,  make 
both  you  and  your  Jewish  wives  1  Did  he  not  form  both 
of  you  naturally  of  the  same  seed  of  Abraham,  and  spirit- 
uallyhyihe  same  holy  dispensation  and  ordinances  1  And 
he  hath  (or,  hath  he  not)  the  residue  of  the  spirit  7  i.  e. 
Hath  he  not  the  same  power  he  ever  had  ?  Is  his  hand 
shortened  at  all  so  that  he  cannot  complete  your  restora- 
tion if  he  pleases,  or  punish  you  still  more  severely  if  ye 
•continue  disobedient  to  his  wilH  And  wherefore  onel 
What  did  he  seek  1  A  godly  seed ;  or,  Heb.  a  seed  o/ 
God,  a  holy  seed.  Therefore  take  heed  to  your  spirit, 
i.  e,  to  your  temper,  your  affections.  Curb  your  irregular 
passions,  and  let  none  deal  treacherously  against  the  wife 
of  his  youth,  by  putting  her  away,  and  taking  these  idola- 
tresses ;  for  I  the  Lord  hate  putting  away," 

The  consideration  of  the  relation  in  which  they  stood 
to  Jehovah ;  he  their  common  Father,  they  his  professing 
children;  was  one  argument  against  their  separating. 
Another  was,  that  as  the  Lord  sought  a  godly  seed  in  their 
offspring,  by  their  l)eing  devoted  to  him  in  their  earliest 
infancy,  then  brought  up  in  the  nurture  and  admonition  ol 
the  Lord,  this  design  would  be  defeated  by  their  taking 
idolatrous  women,  who,  instead  of  devoting  the  children 
to  Jehovah,  would  be  apt  to  bring  them  up  to  the  worship 
of  their  idols,  and  an  wigodly  seed  would  be  the  conse- 


572 


MALACHL 


Chap.  3,  4. 


quence.  Lastly,  he  had  forbidden  divorce  from  the  begin- 
ning, for  he  hateth  putting  away  at  any  rate;  but  how 
much  more  to  see  his  own  professing  daughters  put  away, 
that  his  own  professing  sons  might  marry  the  daughters  of 
a  strange  god.  This  was  indeed  doing  an  abominable 
thing,  which  God  hated.— Bush, 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  1 4.  Ye  have  said,  It  is  vain  to  serve  God : 
and  what  profit  is  it  that  we  have  kept  his  or- 
dinance, and  that  we  have  walked  mournfully 
before  the  Lord  of  hosts  1 

The  margin,  for  "  mournfully,"  has,  "  in  black."  Here 
we  have  another  instance  of  the  base  ingratitude  of  the 
people :  "  It  is  vain  to  serve  God." — "  In  black."  "  My 
iriend,  why  has  your  face  become  so  black  1"  "  Alas !  my 
sorrow,  my  sorrow  ;  therefore  my  face  is  full  of  blackness." 
''  Yes,  my  sorrows  are  chased  away,  like  dew  before  the 
sun,  and  my  face  no  longer  gathers  blackness." — Roberts, 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  2.  But  unto  you  that  fear  my  name  shall  the 
Sun  of  righteousness  arise  with  healing  in  his 
wings :  and  ye  shall  go  forth  and  grow  up  as 
calves  of  the  stall. 

The  late  Mr.  Robinson,  of  Cambridge,  called  upon  a 
friend  just  as  he  had  received  a  letter  from  his  son,  who 
was  surgeon  on  board  a  vessel  then  lying  off  Smyrna.  The 
son  mentioned  to  his  father,  that  every  morning  about  sun- 
rise a  fresh  gale  of  air  blew  from  the  sea  across  the  land, 
and  from  its  wholesomeness  and  utility  in  clearing  the 


mfected  air,  this  wind  is  always  called  the  Doctor.  "  Now," 
says  Mr.  Robinson,  "  it  strikes  me  that  the  prophet  Maiachi, 
who  lived  in  that  quarter  of  the  world,  might  allude  to  this 
circumstance,  when  he  says.  The  Sun  of  righteousness  shall 
arise  with  healing  in  his  wings.  The  Psalmist  mentions 
the  wings  of  the  wind,  and  it  appears  to  me  that  this  salu- 
brious breeze,  which  attends  the  rising  of  the  sun,  may  be 
properly  enough  considered  as  the  wings  of  the  sun,  which 
contain  such  healing  influences,  rather  than  the  beams  ol 
the  sun,  as  the  passage  has  been  commonly  understood." — 

BURDER. 

Ver.  3.  And  ye  shall  tread  down  the  wricked; 
for  they  shall  be  ashes  under  the  soles  of  your 
feet,  in  the  day  that  I  shall  do  this,  saith  the 
Lord  of  hosts. 

See  on  Is.  41.  25. 

One  sort  of  mortar  made  in  the  East  is  composed  of  one 
part  of  sand,  two  of  wood-ashes,  and  three  of  lime,  wel. 
mixed  together,  and  beaten  for  three  days  and  nights  inces- 
santly with  wooden  mallets.  (Shaw.)  Chardin  mentions 
this  circumstance,  and  applies  it  to  this  passage  of  the 
prophet,  supposing  there  is  an  allusion  in  these  words  to 
the  making  of  mortar  in  the  East,  with  ashes  collected  from 
their  baths.  Some  learned  men  have  supposed  the  wicked 
here  are  compared  to  ashes,  because  the  prophet  had  been 
speaking  of  their  destruction  under  the  notion  of  burning, 
ver.  1 ;  but  the  sacred  writers  do  not  always  keep  close  to 
those  figures  which  they  first  propose ;  the  paragraph  ol 
Maiachi  is  a  proof  of  this  assertion,  and  if  they  had,  he 
would  not  have  spoken  of  treading  on  the  wicked  like  ashes 
if  it  had  not  been  customary  in  these  times  to  tread  ashes 
which  it  seems  was  done  to  make  mortar. — Harmer. 


END  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT. 


GENERAIi  VIEW  OF  PETRA  FROM  THE  NORTH-EAST.-Mal   1;  4.    J«r.  49. 


J^<ji!it^. 


BETIILETTT7,]\T. 

Matt.  2:4.    Page  575. 


THE 


NEW    TESTAMENT. 


THE    GOSPEL    ACCORDING   TO    MATTHEW. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Ver.  18.  Now  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ  was  on 
this  wise:   When   as   his  mother   Mary  was 
espoused  to  Joseph,  before  they  came  together, 
she  was  found  with  child  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Espousing  or  betrothing  was  a  solemn  promise  of  mar- 
riage made  by  two  persons,  each  to  the  other,  at  such  a 
distance  of  time  as  they  agreed  upon.  The  manner  of 
performing  this  espousal  was  either  by  a  writing,  or  by  a 
piece  of  silver  given  to  the  bride,  or  by  cohabitation.  The 
writing  that  was  prepared  on  these  occasions  ran  in  this 
form :  "  On  such  a  day  of  such  a  month,  in  such  a  year,  A, 
the  son  of  A,  has  said  to  B,  the  daughter  of  B,  be  thou  my 
spouse  according  to  the  law  of  Moses  and  the  Israelites, 
and  I  will  give  thee,  for  the  portion  of  thy  virginity,  the 
sum  of  two  hundred  zuzim,  as  it  is  ordained  by  the  law. 
And  the  said  B  has  consented  to  become  his  spouse  upon 
these  conditions,  which  the  said  A  has  promised  to  per- 
form upon  the  day  of  marriage.  To  this  the  said  A  obliges 
himself:  and  for  this  he  engages  all  his  goods,  even  as  far 
as  the  cloak  which  he  wears  upon  his  shoulder.  Moreover, 
he  promises  to  perform  all  that  is  intended  in  contracts  of 
marriage  in  favour  of  the  Israelitish  women.  Witnesses, 
A,  B,  C."  The  promise  by  a  piece  of  silver,  and  without 
writing,  was  made  before  witnesses,  when  the  young  man 
jRiid  to  his  mistress,  "  Receive  this  piece  of  silver,  as  a 
jfledge  that  you  shall  become  my  spouse."  The  engage- 
ment by  cohabitation,  according  to  the  rabbins,  was  allowed 
py  the  law,  but  it  had  been  wisely  forbidden  by  the  ancients, 
fecause  of  the  abuses  that  might  happen,  and  to  prevent 
the  inconvenience  of  clandestine  marriages.  After  such 
espousal  was  made,  (which  was  generally  when  the  parties 
were  young,)  the  woman  continued  with  her  parents  several 
months,  if  not  some  years,  before  she  was  brought  home 

id  her  marriage  consummated. — Calmet. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  1.  Now  when  Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem 
of  Judea  in  the  days  of  Herod  the  king,  behold, 
there  came  wise  men  from  the  east  to  Jerusa- 
lem. 

There  is  no  traveller  in  Palestine,  of  any  nation,  what- 
ever may  be  his  creed,  who  does  not  visit  Bethlehem, 
(There  "  Jesus  was  born  in  the  days  of  Herod  the  king." 
Matt.  ii.  1.)  Though  now  reducecl  to  a  village,  anciently 
I  was  a  city,  (Ruth  iii.  11.  iv.  1,)  and  was  fortified  by  Reho- 
oam.  (2  Chron.  xi.  6.)  In  Matt.  ii.  1,  5,  it  is  called  Beth- 
dhem  of  Judea,  in  order  to  distinguish  it  from  another  town 
if  the  same  name,  which  had  been  allotted  to  the  tribe  of 
Sebulun.  In  Luke  ii.  4,  it  is  termed  the  "  city  of  David," 
locause  David  was  born  and  educated  there. 

Two  roads  lead  from  Jerusalem  to  Bethlehem :  the  short- 


est, which  is  most  used,  passes  over  ground  extremely  rocky 
and  barren,  diversified  only  by  some  cultivated  patches, 
bearing  a  scanty  crop  of  grain,  and  by  banks  of  wild  flowers, 
which  grow  in" great  profusion.  This  town,  or  rather  vil- 
lage, is  pleasantly  situated  about  six  miles  southwest  of 
Jerusalem,  on  the  brow  of  a  steep  hill,  in  a  very  fertile  soil, 
which  only  wants  cultivation  to  render  it  what  the  name, 
"  Bethlehem,"  imports, — a  house  of  bread.  At  the  further 
extremity,  like  a  citadel,  stands  the  convent  of  Saint  Gio- 
vanni, which  contains  the  Church  of  the  Nativity,  A  star 
is  introduced  into  our  view,  in  order  to  guide  the  reader's 
eye  to  this  spot.  This  convent  is  divided  among  the  Greek, 
Roman,  and  Armenian  Christians,  to  each  of  whom  are 
assigned  separate  portions,  as  well  for  lodging  as  for  places 
of  worship ;  but  on  certain  days  they  may  all  perform  their 
devotions  at  the  altars  which  are  erected  over  the  most  mem- 
orable spots  within  these  sacred  walls.  This  convent  is 
entered  through  a  door  strongly  bound  with  iron,  so  low  as 
to  oblige  the  party  entering  to  stoop  considerably,  and  too 
narrow  to  allow  more  than  one  person  to  pass  at  a  time. 
This  leads  into  the  Church  of  the  Nativity,  which  was 
erected  by  the  Emperess  Helena,  on  the  site  of  a  temple  of 
Adonis,  which  was  built  here  by  the  Emperor  Hadrian,  in 
his  hatred  against  all  who  professed  the  Christian  name  and 
faith. 

About  a  mile  to  the  northeast  of  Bethlehem  is  a  deep 
valley,  in  which  Dr.  Clarke  imagined  that  he  halted  at  the 
identical  fountain  or  well,  for  the  delicious  water  of  which 
David  longed.  (2  Sam.  xxiii.  15 — 18.)  Here,  according 
to  tradition,  is  the  field  where  the  shepherds  kept  watch  by 
night,  when  the  angels  announced  to  them  the  birth  of  our 
Lord.  (Luke  ii.  8—11.)  When  this  spot  was  visited  by 
Mr.  Came,  two  fine  and  venerable  trees  stood  in  the  cen- 
tre; and  the  earth  around  it  was  thickly  covered  with 
flowers :  he  represents  it  as  '•  so  sweet  and  romantic  a  spot, 
that  it  would  be  painful  to  doubt  its  identity." 

Bethlehem  is  now  a  poor  village,  with  a  population  of 
about  three  hundred  inhabitants,  most  of  whom  are  Chris- 
tians. Their  number  was  dreadfully  reduced  by  the  plague 
in  the  year  1832 ;  and  though  this  village  is  only  a  fe^v* 
miles  distant  from  Jerusalem,  the  mortality  is  generally 
much  greater  here  than  in  the  metropolis  of  the  Holy  Land 
The  Bethlehemites  are  represented  by  all  travellers  as  a 
bold  and  fierce  race,  of  whom  both  Turks  and  Arabs  stand 
in  awe.  The  greater  part  of  them  gain  their  livelihood  by 
making  beads,  carving  mother-of-pearl  shells  with  sacred 
subjects,  and  other  trinkets,  which  are  highly  valued  and 
eagerly  purchased  by  the  devout  visiters.  The  monks  of 
Bethlehem  claim  the  exclusive  privilege  of  marking  the 
limbs  and  bodies  of  such  pilgrims  as  choose  to  submit  to  the 
operation,  with  crosses,  stars,  and  monograms,  by  means  of 
gunpowder ; — an  operation  this,  which  is  always  painful, 
and  sometimes  dangerous.  This  practice  is  very  ancient; 
it  is  noticed  by  Virgil  (^neid.  lib.  iv.  v.  14G)  and  by  Pom- 
ponius  Mela,  (lib.  xxi.)  Dr.  Clarke  remarks,  that  there 
rarely  exists  an  instance  among  the  minor  popular  super- 


576 


MATTHEW. 


Chap.  3. 


stitions  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  churches,  but  its  origin 
may  be  found  in  more  remote  antiquity,  and  very  often 
among  the  religious  customs  of  the  heathen  nations. — 

HORNG. 

Ver.  11.  And  when  they  were  come  into  the 
house,  they  saw  the  young  child  with  Mary 
his  mother,  and  fell  down,  and  worshipped 
him:  and  when  they  had  opened  their  trea- 
sures, they  presented  unto  them  gifts ;  gold, 
and  frankincense,  and  myrrh. 

The  birth  of  a  son  is  always  a  time  of  great  festivity  in 
the  East ;  hence  the  relations  come  together,  to  congratulate 
the  happy  parents,  and  to  present  their  gifts  to  the  little 
stranger.  Some  bring  the  silver  anklets ;  others,  tl^e  brace- 
lets, or  ear-rings,  or  silver  cord  for  the  loins.  Others,  ho^t^- 
ever,  take  gold,  and  a  variety  of  needful  articles.  The 
wise  men  did  not  make  presents  as  a  matter  of  charity, 
but  to  show  their  affedian  and  re&pect.  When  the  infant 
son  of  a  king  is  shown,  the  people  make  their  obeisance  to 
Mm. — Roberts. 

Ver.  1 8.  In  Rama  was  there  a  voice  heard,  lam- 
entation, and  weeping,  and  great  mourning, 
Rachel  weeping  for  her  children,  and  would 
not  be  comforted,  because  they  are  not. 

See  on  ch.  9.  23. 

Ver.  23.  And  he  came  and  dwelt  in  a  city  called 
Nazareth  :  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was 
spoken  by  the  prophets,  He  shall  be  called  a 
Nazarene. 

Nassara,  the  Nazareth  of  the  scriptures,  is  called  by 
Maundrell  an  inconsiderable  village ;  by  Brown,  a  pleasant 
one,  with  a  respectable  convent ;  and  in  Dr.  Clarke's  visit 
was  said  to  have  so  declined,  under  the  oppressive  tyranny 
of  Djezzar's  government,  as  to  seem  destined  to  maintain 
its  ancient  reputation,  since  now,  as  of  old,  one  might  ask, 
with  equal  reason,  Can  there  any  good  thins  come  out  of 
Nazareth  7  John  i.  46.  This  town,  or  village,  is  situated 
in  a  deep  valley,  not  on  the  top  of  a  hill,  as  has  been  erro- 
neously stated,  but  rather  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  nearer  its 
base  than  its  summit,  facing  to  the  southeast,  and  having 
above  it  the  rocky  eminence  which  we  had  passed  over  in 
approaching  it.  The  fixed  inhabitants  are  estimated  at  about 
two  thousand,  five  hundred  of  whom  are  Catholic  Chris- 
tians, about  three  hundred  Maronites,  and  two  hundred 
Mohammedans ;  the  rest  being  schismatic  Greeks.  These 
are  all  Arabs  of  the  country,  and  notwithstanding  the  small 
circle  in  which  their  opposing  faiths  meet,  it  is  said  to  their 
honour,  that  they  live  together  in  mutual  forbearance  and 
tranquillity.  The  private  dwellings  of  the  town,  to  the 
number  of  about  two  hundred  and  fifty,  are  built  of  stone, 
which  is  a  material  always  at  hand  :  they  are  flat-roofed, 
being  in  general  only  of  one  story,  but  are  sufficiently  spa- 
cious and  commodious  for  the  accommodation  of  a  numer- 
ous poor  family.  The  streets  are  steep,  from  the  inclina- 
tion of  the  hill  on  which  they  stand  ;  narrow,  from  custom ; 
and  dirty,  from  the  looseness  of  the  soil.  Of  the  public 
buildings,  the  mosque  is  the  most  conspicuous  from  without, 
and  is,  indeed,  a  neat  edifice ;  it  has  six  arches  on  one  of 
its  sides,  for  we  could  see  no  more  of  it,  as  it  is  enclosed 
within  a  wall  of  good  masonry,  and  furnished  with  a  plain 
whitened  thin  arch,  surrounded  by  a  gallery,  and  surmount- 
ed by  the  crescent:  the  whole  rising  from  the  centre  of  the 
town,  as  if  to  announce  the  triumph  of  its  dominion  to 
those  approaching  it  from  afar.  The  Greeks  have  their 
church  on  the  southeast  edge  of  the  town,  at  the  foot  of  the 
hill ;  the  Maronites  theirs  in  front  of  the  Franciscan  con- 
Vent.  The  church  is  built  over  a  grotto,  held  sacred  from 
a  belief  of  its  being  the  scene  of  the  angels  announcing  to 
Mary  her  favour  with  God,  and  her  conception  and  bear- 
ing of  the  Saviour.  On  entering  it  we  passed  over  a 
white  marble  pavement,  ornamented  in  the  centre  with  a 
device  in  Mosaic,  and  descended  by  a  flight  of  marble 
steps  into  a  grolto,  beneath  the  body  of  the  church.  In  the 
first  compartment  of  this  subterraneous  sanctuary,  we  were 


told  had  stood  the  mass  which  constitutes  the  famous  chapel 
of  Loretto,  in  Italy ;  and  the  fricfrs  assured  us,  with  all 
possible  solemnity,  that  the  angels  appointed  to  the  task 
took  out  this  mass  from  the  rock,  and  flew  with  it,  first 
to  Dalmatia  and  afterward  to  Loretto,  where  it  now  stands: 
and  that  in  measuring  the  mass  itself,  and  the  place 
from  which  it  had  been  taken,  they  had  found  them  to  cor- 
respond in  every  respect,  neither  the  one  by  the  voyage, 
nor  the  other  by  age,  having  lost  or  altered  any  part  of 
its  size  or  shape.  Proceeding  farther  in,  we  were  shown 
a  second  grotto,  or  a  continuation  of  the  first,  with  two  red 
granite  pillars,  of  about  two  feet  in  diameter,  at  its  entrance, 
and  were  told  that  one  marked  the  spot  where  the  angel 
stood  when  he  appeared  to  Mary,  exclaiming.  Hail,  thou 
that  art  highly  favoured,  the  Lord  is  with  thee :  blessed  art 
thou  among  women.  Luke  i.  28.  The  pillar  on  the  right 
is  still  perfect,  but  that  on  the  left  has  a  piece  of  its  shaft 
broken  out,  leaving  a  space  of  about  a  foot  and  a  half 
between  the  upper  and  under  fcagment;  the  latter  of  those 
continuing  still  to  be  supported  by  being  firmly  imbedded 
in  the  rock  above,  offers  to  the  eyes  of  believing  visiters, 
according  to  the  expression  of  the  friars,  a  standing  mira- 
cle of  the  care  which  Christ  takes  of  his  church,  as  they 
insist  on  its  being  supported  by  the  hand  of  God  alon.e. 
The  grotto  here,  though  small,  and  about  eight  feet  in 
height,  remains  still  in  its  original  roughness,  the  roof 
being  slightly  arched.  In  the  outer  compartment,  from 
whence  the  chapel  of  Loretto  is  said  to  have  been  taken,  the 
roof,  as  well  as  the  sides,  have  been  reshaped,  and  plastered, 
and  ornamented,  so  that  the  original  dimensions  no  longer 
remain.  Within,  hoM^ever,  all  is  left  in  its  first  rude  state, 
to  perpetuate  to  future  ages  the  interesting  fact  which  it  is 
thought  to  record.  Passing  onward  from  hence,  and 
ascending  through  narrow  passages,  over  steps  cui  out  of 
the  rock,  and  turning  a  little  to  the  right,  we  came  to  a 
chamber  which  the  friars  called  La  Cucina  della  Santa 
Madona;  they  here  showed  us  the  chimney  of  the  hearth 
on  which  Mary  warmed  the  food  for  Jesus,  while  yet  a 
helpless  infant,  and  where  she  baked  the  cakes  for  her 
husband's  supper,  when  he  returned  from  the  labours  of 
the  day.  This  was  an  apartment  of  the  house,  as  they 
observed,  in  which  the  Son  of  God  lived  so  many  years  in 
subjection  to  man ;  as  it  is  believed  by  all  that  he  was 
brought  up  from  childhood  to  manhood  in  Nazareth.  The 
fact  of  Joseph  and  Mary  having  resided  in  this  house,  and 
used  the  very  room  in  which  we  stood,  as  their  kitchen,  has 
nothing  at  all  of  improbability  in  it:  and  as  excavated 
dwellings,  in  the  side  of  a  steep  hill  Ijke  this,  would  be 
more  secure,  and  even  more  comfortable,  than  fabricated 
ones^  it  is  quite  as  probable  that  this  might  have  really 
been  the  residence  of  the  holy  family,  as  of  any  other. 
The  synagogue  in  which  Jesus  read  and  expounded  the 
prophet  Esaias  on  the  sabbath,  is  shown  here  within  the 
town,  while  the  precipice  from  which  the  exasperated  peo- 
ple would  have  hurled  him,  is  pointed  out  at  a  place  more 
than  a  mile  distant,  to  the  southward,  and  on  the  other  side 
of  the  vale. — Buckingham, 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  4.  And  the  same  John  had  his  raiment  of 
camel's  hair,  and  a  leathern  girdle  about  his 
loins ;  and  his  meat  was  locusts  and  wild  honey. 

See  on  Mark  1.  6; 

His  raiment  was  not  made  of  the  fine  hair  of  that  ani- 
mal, whereof  an  elegant  kind  of  cloth  is  made,  which  is 
thence  called  camlet,  (in  imitation  of  which,  though  made 
of  wool,  is  the  English  camlet,)  but  of  the  long  and  shaggy 
hair  of  camels,  which  is  in  the  East  manufactured  into  a 
coarse  stuflT,  anciently  worn  by  monks  and  anchorites.  It 
is  only  when  understood  in  this  way,  that  the  words  suit 
the  description  here  given  of  John's  manner  of  life.— 
Campbell. 

The  girdle  is  an  indispensable  article  in  the  dress  of  an 
Oriental;  it  has  various  uses;  but  the  principal  one  is  to 
tuck  up  their  long  flowing  vestments,  that  they  may  not 
incommode  them  in  their  work,  or  on  a  j(Rirney.  The 
Jews,  according  to  some  writers,  wore  a  double  girdle,  one 
of  greater  breadth,  with  which  they  girded  their  tunic 
when  they  prepared  for  active  exertions :  the  other  they 
wore  under  their  shirt,  around  their  loins.  This  under- 
girdle  they  reckon  necessary  to  distinguish  between  the 


Im'.'.' ';-.:! 


Chap.  4. 


MATTHEW. 


577 


heart,  and  the  less  honourable  parts  of  the  human  frame. 
The  upper  girdle  was  sometimes  made  of  leather,  the  ma- 
terial of  v/hich  the  girdle  of  John  the  Baptist  was  made ; 
but  it  was  more  commonly  fabricated  of  worsted,  often 
very  artfully  woven  into  a  variety  of  j&gures,  and  made 
to  fold  several  times  about  the  body;  one  end  of  which 
being  doubled  back,  and  sewn  along  the  edges,  serves 
them  for  a  purse,  agreeably  to  the  acceptation  of  ^wvi?  in 
the  scriptures,  which  is  translated  purse  in  several  places 
of  the  New  Testament. — Paxton. 

The  dress  of  John  greatly  resembled  that  of  the  interior 
nations  of  South  Africa,  only  substituting  a  skin  cloak  for 
one  of  camel's  hair;  and  his  food  that  of  the  wild  Bush- 
men during  the  locust  season.  Locusts  resemble  gigantic 
grasshoppers  furnished  with  wings.  When  they  come, 
like  innumerable  armies,  they  certainly  destroy  all  vegeta- 
tion ;  but  their  carcasses  are  suificient  for  the  support  of 
human  life.  The  wild  Bushmen  kill  millions  of  them, 
which  they  gather  together,  dry  them  in  the  sun,  and  then 
grind  them  into  powder,  which  they  mix  up  with  wild 
honey,  or  what  the  bees  deposite  upon  rocks,  trees,  and 
bushes,  and  on  this  compound  live  a  part  of  the  year ;  so 
that  the  locusts,  which  are  the  greatest  scourge  of  more 
civilized  people,  are  considered  as  welcome  visiters  by 
the  wild  Bushmen,  who  hail  their  approach.  Indeed,  the 
crocus  and  locust  seasons  are  called  their  harvests ;  thus 
showing  that  what  is  a  judgment  to  one  nation  is  a  mercy 
to  another. — Campbell. 

Ver.  11.  I  indeed  baptize  you  with  water  unto 
repentance:  but  he  that  cometh  after  me  is 
mightier  than  I,  whose  shoes  I  am  not  worthy 
to  bear :  he  shall  baptize  you  with  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  with  fire. 

The  custom  of  Ibosing  the  sandals  from  off  the  feet  of  an 
eastern  worshipper  was  ancient  and  indispensable.  It  is 
also  commonly  observed  in  visits  to  great  men.  The  san- 
dals or  slippers  are  pulled  off  at  the  door,  and  either  left 
there,  or  given  to  a  servant  to  bear.  The  person  to  bear 
them  means  an  inferior  domestic,  or  attendant  upon  a  man 
of  high  rank,  to  take  care  of,  and  return  them  to  him  again. 
This  was  the  work  of  servants  among  the  Jews :  and  it  was 
reckoned  so  servile,  that  it  was  thought  too  mean  for  a 
scholar  or  a  disciple  to  do.  The  Jews  say,  "  all  services 
which  a  servant  does  for  his  master  a  disciple  does  for  his 
master,  except  unloosing  his  shoes."  John  thought  it  was 
too  great  an  honour  for  him  to  do  that  for  Christ,  which 
was  thought  too  mean  for  a  disciple  to  do  for  a  wise  man. 
— Gill. 

A  respectable  man  never  goes  out  without  his  servant  or 
attendant;  thus,  he  has  always  some  one  to  talk  with,  and 
to  do  any  thing  he  may  require.  When  the  ground  is 
smooth,  or  where  there  is  soft  grass  to  walk  on,  the  sandals 
are  taken  off,  and  the  servant  carries  them  in  his  hand. 
The  devoted,  the  humble  John,  did  not  consider  himself 
worthy  to  bear  the  sandals  of  his  divine  Master. — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  Whose  fan  is  in  his  hand,  and  he  will 
thoroughly  purge  his  floor,  and  gather  his 
wheat  into  the  garner ;  but  will  burn  up  the 
chaff  with  unquenchable  fire. 

There  is,  in  what  the  Baptist  here  declares,  an  evident 
allusion  to  the  custom  of  burning  the  chaff  after  winnowing, 
that  it  might  not  be  blown  back  again,  and  so  be  mingled 
with  the  wheat.  There  was  danger,  lest,  after  they  had 
been  separated,  the  chaff  should  be  blown  again  among 
the  wheat  by  the  changing  of  the  wind.  To  prevent  this 
they  put  fire  to  it  at  the  windward  side,  which  crept  on  and 
never  gave  over  till  it  had  consumed  all  the  chaff.  In  this 
sense  it  was  an  unquenchable  fire.  See  also  Psalm  Ixxxiii. 
13,  14.  Isaiah  v.  24. — Burder. 

After  the  grain  is  trodden  out,  they  winnow  it  by  throw- 
ing it  up  against  the  wind  with  a  shovel — the  ro  tttvov  of 
the  gospels  according  to  Matthew  and  Luke,  there  rendered 
a  fan,  which  is  too  cumbersome  a  machine  to  be  intended 
by  the  evangelist.  The  text  should  rather  run,  whose 
shovel  or  fork,  the  opyavov  o6ovtikov,  (which  is  a  portable  in- 
strument,) is  in  his  hand,  agreeably  to  the  practice  recorded 
by  Isaiah,  who  mentions  both  the  shovel  and  the  fan  :  "  The 
73 


oxen  likewise,  and  the  young  asses  that  ear  the  ground, 
shall  eat  clean  provender,  which  hath  been  winnowed  with 
the  shovel  and  with  the  fan." 

After  the  grain  is  winnowed,  they  lodge  it  in  subterrane- 
ous magazines,  as  was  formerly  the  custom  of  other  nations ; 
two  or  three  hundred  of  these  receptacles  are  sometimes  to 
be  found  together,  the  smallest  holding  four  hundred  bush- 
els. These  grottoes  are  dug  in  the  form  of  an  oven,  grad- 
ually enlarging  towards  the  bottom,  with  one  round  opening 
at  top  ;  and  this  being  close  shut  when  the  magazine  is  full, 
is  covered  over  with  earth,  so  as  lo  remain  perfectly  con- 
cealed from  an  enemy.  These  magazines  are  sometimes 
discovered  in  the  midst  of  a  ploughed  field ;  sometimes  on 
the  verge,  and  even  in  the  middle  of  the  highway.  The 
same  kind  of  granaries  are  used  in  Palestine  as  in  Syria. 
Le  Bruyn  speaks  of  a  number  of  deep  pits  at  Rama,  which 
he  was  told  were  designed  for  corn :  and  Rauwolf,  of  three 
very  large  vaults  at  Joppa,  where  the  inhabitants  laid  up 
their  corn,  when  he  was  in  that  country.  The  treasures  in 
the  field,  consisting  of  wheat  and  of  barley,  of  oil  and  of 
honey,  which  were  offered  to  Ishmael,  as  a  ransom  for  the 
lives  of  his  captives,  were  undoubtedly  laid  up  in  the  same 
kind  of  repositories.  In  dangerous  and  unsettled  times  like 
those  of  Jeremiah,  it  is  quite  common,  even  at  present,  for 
the  Arabs  to  secure  their  corn  and  other  effects,  which  they 
cannot  carry  along  with  them,  in  deep  pits  or  subterraneous 
grottoes.  Sir  John  Chardin,  in  a  note  upon  this  very  pas- 
sage of  the  prophet,  says,  "  The  eastern  people  in  many 
places  hide  their  corn  in  these  concealments."  To  these 
various  customs  the  Baptist  alludes  in  his  solemn  warning 
to  the  multitudes  concerning  Christ :  "  Whose  fan  (rather 
whose  shovel)  is  in  his  hand,  and  he  will  thoroughly  purge 
his  floor,  and  gather  his  wheat  into  the  garner ;  but  the 
chaff  will  he  burn  with  unquenchable  fire."  And  our  Lord 
himself,  in  his  parable  of  the  good  seed :  "  Gather  ye  to- 
gether first  the  tares,  and  bind^  them  in  bundles  to  burn 
them ;  but  gather  the  wheat  into  my  barn." — Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  And  Jesus,  wh^i  he  was  baptized,  went 
up  straightway  out  9f  the  water :  and  lo,  the 
heavens  were  opened  unto  him,  and  he  saw  the 
Spirit  of  God  descending  like  a  dove,  and  light- 
ing upon  him. 

Many  have  supposed,  that  the  third  person  of  the  trinity, 
on  this  occasion,  assumed  the  real  figure  of  a  dove ;  but 
the  sacred  writer  seems  to  refer,  not  to  the  shape,  but  to  the 
manner  in  which  the  dove  descends  from  the  sky.  Had  it 
related  to  the  shape  or  form,  it  would  not  have  been  uxtei 
ncptffepav,  as  a  dovc  ;  but  wcrec  irspicepas,  as  of  a  dove.  In  this 
manner,  the  likeness  of  fire  is  expressed  by  the  same  evan- 
gelist, in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles ;  "  There  appeared  cloven 
tongues  (a)0£i  TTvpoi)  as  of  fire."  The  meaning  of  the  clause 
therefore  is,  that  as  a  dove  hovers  on  the  wing,  and  over- 
shadows the  place  upon  which  she  intends  to  perch,  so  did 
the  Holy  Spirit,  in  the  form  of  a  luminous  cloud,  like  the 
Shechinah  which  rested  on  the  tabernacle,  gradually  de- 
scend, hovering,  and  overshadowing  the  Saviour  as  he 
came  up  from  the  water.  This  exposition  refutes  another 
opinion,  which  was  entertained  by  many  of  the  ancients, 
that  it  was  a  real  dove  which  alighted  upon  the  head  of  our 
Lord ;  for  if  the  sacred  writer  describes  only  the  manner  of 
descending,  neither  the  form  nor  the  real  presence  of  a  dove 
can  be  admitted.  But  although  the  evangelist  alludes  only 
to  the  manner  in  which  that  bird  descends  from  the  wing, 
he  clearly  recognises  her  as  the  chosenemblem  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  messenger  of  peace  and  joy  to  sinful  and  miser- 
able men. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  1.  Then  was  Jesus  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into 
the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil. 

In  sacred  language,  a  mountainous,  or  less  fruitful  tract, 
where  the  towns  and  villages  are  thinly  scattered,  and  sin- 
gle habitations  few  and  far  between,  is  distinguished  by  the 
name  of  the  wilderness.  The  forerunner  of  our  Lord  re- 
sided in  the  wilderness  of  Judah  till  he  commenced  his 
public  ministry.  We  are  informed,  in  the  book  of  Genesi.«?, 
that  Ishmael  settled  in  the  wilderness  of  Paran ;  and  in  the 
first  book  of  Samuel,  that  David  took  refuge  from  the  pci' 


578 


MATTHEW. 


Chap.  5. 


sccution  of  Saul  in  the  same  desert,  where  it  appears  the 
numerous  flocks  of  Nabal  the  Carmelite  were  pastured. 
Such  places,  therefore,  were  not  absolute  deserts,  but  thinly 
peopled,  or  less  fertile  districts.  But  this  remark  will 
scarcely  apply  to  the  wilderness  where  our  Lord  was  tempt- 
ed of  the  devil.  It  is  a  most  miserable,  dry,  and  barren 
solitude,  "consisting  of  high  rocky  mountains,  so  torn  and 
disordered,  as  if  the  earth  had  here  suffered  some  great  con- 
vulsion, in  which  its  very  bowels  had  been  turned  outward." 
A  more  dismal  and  solitary  place  can  scarcely  be  found  in 
the  whole  earth.  About  one  hour's  journey  from  the  foot 
of  the  mountains  which  environ  this  wilderness,  rises  the 
lofty  Ctuarantania,  which  Maundrell  was  told  is  the  mount- 
ain into  which  the  devil  carried  our  blessed  Saviour,  that 
he  might  show  him  all  the  kingdoms  and  glory  of  the  world. 
It  is,  as  the  evangelist  styles  it,  "an  exceeding  high  mount- 
ain," and  in  its  ascent  both  diflicult  and  dangerous.  It  has 
a  small  chapel  at  the  top,  and  another  about  half  way  up, 
founded  on  a  prominent  part  of  the  rock.  Near  the  latter 
are  several  caves  and  holes  in  the  sides  of  the  mountain, 
occupied  formerly  by  hermits,  and  even  in  present  times 
the  resort  of  religious  devotees,  who  repair  to  these  lonely 
cells  to  keep  their  lent,  in  imitation  of  our  Lord's  fasting  in 
the  wilderness  forty  days. — Paxton. 

Ver.  23.  And  Jesus  went  about  all  Galilee,  teach- 
ing in  their  synagogues,  and  preaching  the 
gospel  of  the  kingdom,  and  healing  all  manner 
of  sickness,  and  all  manner  of  disease  among 
the  people. 

The  scribes  ordinarily  taught  in  the  synagogues :  but  it 
was  not  confined  to  them,  as  it  appears  that  Christ  did  the 
same.  It  has  been  questioned  by  what  right  Christ  and  his 
apostles,  who  had  no  public  character  among  the  Jews, 
taught  in  their  synagogues.  In  answer  to  this  Dr.  Lightfoot 
observes,  that  though  this  liberty  was  not  allowed  to  any 
illiterate  person  or  mechanic,  but  to  the  learned  only,  they 
granted  it  to  prophets  and  workers  of  miracles,  and  such 
as  set  up  for  heads  and  leaders  of  new  sects,  in  order  that 
they  might  inform  themselves  of  their  dogmata,  and  not 
condemn  them  unheard  and  unknown.  Under  these  char- 
acters Christ  and  his  apostles  were  admitted  to  this  privi- 
lege.— Jennings. 

Ver.  24.  And  his  fame  went  throughout  all  Syria: 
and  they  brought  unto  him  all  sick  people  that 
were  taken  with  divers  diseases  and  torments, 
and  those  which  were  possessed  with  devils, 
and  those  which  were  lunatic,  and  those  that 
had  the  palsy,  and  he  healed  them.  25.  And 
there  followed  him  great  multitudes  of  people, 
from  Galilee,  and  from  Decapolis,  and  from 
Jerusalem,  and  from  Judea,  and  from  beyond 
Jordan. 

The  news  that  a  foreign  hakeem  or  doctor,  was  passing 
(liTough  the  country,  very  soon  was  spread  abroad ;  and  at 
every  halt  our  camp  was  thronged  with  the  sick,  not  only 
of  the  village  near  to  which  we  were  encamped,  but  of  all 
the  surrounding  villages.  Many  came  several  days'  jour- 
ney to  consult  our  doctor,  and  were  brought  to  him  in  spite 
of  every  difficulty  and  inconvenience ;  some  came  on  asses, 
bolstered  up  with  cushions,  and  supported  by  their  relations ; 
others  on  camels,  whose  rough  pace  must  have  been  tor- 
ture to  any  one  in  sickness.  It  may  be  conceived  what  a 
misfortune  sickness  must  be  in  a  country  where  there  is  no 
medical  relief,  nor  even  a  wheeled  conveyance  to  seek  re- 
lief when  it  is  at  hand.  The  greatest  credit  is  due  to  the 
medical  gentlemen,  who  were  attached,  not  only  to  our 
embassy,  but  to  all  preceding  embassies,  for  the  charity  and 
humanity  with  which  they  relieved  the  wants  of  these  poor 
people :  they  not  only  distributed  their  medicines  gratis,  but 
they  as  gratuitously  bestowed  their  skill,  their  time,  and 
their  zeal,  for  which,  it  is  grievous  to  say,  in  very  few  in- 
slanees  did  they  meet  with  corresponding  gratitude,"— 
Mmu£u. 


CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  1.  And  seeing  the  multitudes,  he  went  up 
into  a  mountain :  and  when  he  was  set,  his  dis- 
ciples came  unto  him. 

We  left  our  route  to  visit  the  elevated  mount,  where  it 
is  believed  that  Christ  preached  to  his  disciples  that  mem- 
orable sermon,  concentrating  the  sum  and  substance  of 
every  Christian  virtue.  Having  attained  the  highest  point 
of  it,  a  view  was  presented  which,  for  its  grandeur,  inde- 
pendently of  the  interest  excited  by  the  difierent  objects 
contained  in  it,  has  no  parallel  in  the  Holy  Land. 

From  this  situation  we  perceived  that  the  plain,  over 
which  we  had  been  so  long  riding,  was  itself  very  elevated. 
Far  beneath  appeared  other  plains,  one  lower  than  the 
other,  in  that  regular  gradation,  concerning  which  obser- 
vations were  recently  made,  and  extending  to  the  surface  of 
the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  or  Sea  of  Galilee.  This  immense 
lake,  almost  equal  in  the  grandeur  of  its  appearance  to  that 
of  Geneva,  spreads  its  waters  over  all  the  lower  territory, 
extending  from  the  northeast  towards  the  southwest,  and 
then  bearing  east  of  us.  Its  eastern  shore  presents  a  sublime 
scene  of  mountains,  extending  towards  the  north  and  south, 
and  seeming  to  close  in  at  either  extremity,  both  towards 
Chorazin,  where  the  Jordan  enters,  and  the  Anion  or 
Campus  Magnus,  through  which  it  flows  to  the  Dead  Sea. 
The  cultivated  plains  reaching  to  its  borders,  which  we  be- 
held at  an  amazing  depth  below  our  view,  resembled,  by 
the  various  hues  their  different  produce  exhibited,  the 
motley  pattern  of  a  vast  carpet.  To  the  north  appeared 
snowy  summits,  towering  beyond  a  series  of  intervening 
mountains,  with  unspeakable  greatness.  We  considered 
them  as  the  summits  of  Libanus ;  but  the  Arabs  belonging 
to  our  caravan  called  the  principal  eminence  Jebel  el  Sieh, 
saying  it  was  near  Damascus :  probablj^,  therefore,  a  part 
of  the  chain  of  Libanus.  This  summit  was  so  lofty,  that 
the  snow  entirely  covered  the  upper  part  of  it ;  not  lying  in 
patches,  as  I  have  seen  it  during  summer,  upon  the  tops  of 
very  elevated  mountains,  (for  instance,  that  of  Ben  Nevis, 
in  Scotland,)  but  investing  all  the  higher  part  with  that 
perfect  white  and  smooth  velvet-like  appearance  which 
snow  only  exhibits  when  it  is  very  deep;  a  striking  spectacle 
in  such  a  climate,  where  the  beholder,  seeking  protection 
from  a  burning  sun,  almost  considers  the  firmament  to  be 
on  fire.  The  elevated  plains  upon  the  mountainous  terri- 
tory, beyond  the  northern  extremity  of  the  lake,  are  called 
by  a.  name,  in  Arabic,  which  signifies  The  Wilderness.  To 
the  southwest,  at  the  distance  of  only  twelve  miles,  we  be- 
held Mount  Tabor,  having  a  conical  form,  and  standing 
quite  insular,  upon  the  northern  side  of  the  plain  of  Esdrae- 
lon.  The  mountain  whence  this  superb  view  was  present- 
ed, consists  entirely  of  limestone ;  the  prevailing  constituent 
of  all  the  mountains  in  Greece,  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  Phe- 
nicia,  and  Palestine. 

As  we  rode  towards  the  Sea  of  Tiberias,  the  guides 
pointed  to  a  sloping  spot  from  the  heights  upon  our  right, 
whence  we  had  descended,  as  the  place  where  the  miracle 
was  accomplished  by  which  our  Saviour  fed  the  multitude : 
it  is  therefore  called  The  Multiplication  of  Bread ;  as  the 
mount  above,  where  the  sermon  was  preached  to  the  disci- 
ples, is  called  The  Mountain  of  Beatitudes,  from  the  express 
sions  used  in  the  beginning  of  that  discourse.  This  part  of 
the  Holy  Land  is  very  full  of  wild  animals.  Antelopes 
are  in  great  number.  We  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  these 
beautiful  quadrupeds  in  their  natural  state,  feeding  among 
the  thistles  and  tall  herbage  of  these  plains,  and  bounding 
before  us  occasionally  as  we  disturbed  them.  The  lake 
now  continued  in  view  upon  our  left.  The  wind  rendered 
its  surface  rough,  and  called  to  mind  the  situation  of  our 
Saviour's  disciples,  when,  in  one  of  the  small  vessels 
which  traverse  these  waters,  they  were  tossed  in  a  storm, 
and  saw  Jesus,  in  the  fourth  watch  of  the  night,  walking  to 
them  upon  the  waves.  Matt.  xiv.  24.  Often  as  this  subject 
has  been  painted,  combining  a  number  of  circumstances 
adapted  for  the  representation  of  sublimity,  no  artist  has 
been  aware  of  the  uncommon  grandeur  of  the  scenery, 
memorable  on  account  of  the  transaction.  The  lake  ot 
Gennesareth  is  surrounded  by  objects  well  calculated  to 
heighten  the  solemn  impression  made  by  such  a  picture : 
and,  independent  of  the  local  feelings  likely  to  be  excited 
in  its  contemplation,  afibrds  one  of  the  most  striking  pros- 


Chap.  5. 


MATTHEW. 


579 


pects  in  the  Holy  Land.  It  is  by  comparison  alone  that 
any  due  conception  of  the  appearance  it  presents  can  be 
conveyed  to  the  minds  of  those  who  have  not  seen  it :  and, 
speaking  of  it  comparatively,  it  may  be  described  as  longer 
and  finer  than  any  of  our  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland 
lakes,  although,  perhaps,  it  yields  in  majesty  to  the  stupen- 
dous features  of  Loch  Lomond,  in  Scotland.  It  does  not 
♦possess  the  vastness  of  the  lake  of  Geneva,  although  it  much 
resembles  it  in  particular  points  of  view.  The  lake  of 
Locarno,  in  Italy,  comes  nearest  to  it  in  point  of  picturesque 
beauty,  although  it  is  destitute  of  any  thing  similar  to  the 
islands  by  which  that  majestic  piece  of  water  is  adorned. 
It  is  inferior  in  magnitude,  and,  perhaps,  in  the  height  of 
its  surrounding  mountains,  to  the  lake  Asphaltites ;  but  its 
broad  and  extended  surface,  covering  the  bottom  of  a  pro- 
found valley,  environed  by  lofty  and  precipitous  eminences, 
added  to  the  impression  of  a  certain  reverential  awe  under 
which  every  Christian  pilgrim  approaches  it,  give  it  a 
character  of  dignity  unparalleled  by  any  similar  scenery. 
— Clarke. 

Sitting  was  the  proper  posture  of  masters  or  teachers. 
The  form  in  which  the  master  and  his  disciples  sat,  is  thus 
described  by  Maimonides :  "  The  master  sits  at  the  head, 
or  in  the  chief  place,  and  the  disciples  before  him  in  a  cir- 
cuit, like  a  crown ;  so  that  they  all  see  the  master,  and  hear 
his  words.  The  master  may  not  sit  upon  a  seat,  and  the 
scholars  upon  the  ground;  but  either  all  upon  the  earth,  or 
upon  seats.  Indeed  from  the  beginning,  or  formerly,  the 
master  used  to  sit,  and  the  disciples  to  stand  ;  but  before  the 
destruction  of  the  second  temple,  all  used  to  teach  their  dis- 
ciples sitting." — BuRDER. 

Ver.  2.  And  he  opened  his  mouth  and  taught 
them. 

Some  have  made  impertinent  observations  respecting 
this  mode  of  expression ;  he  opened  his  mouth.  When  the 
Hindoos  speak  of  a  king,  or  a  priest,  or  the  gods,  as  giving 
instructions  or  commands,  they  use  the  same  form  of 
speech.  But  the  word  which  is  used  to  denote  the  opening 
of  a  door,  or  of  any  thing  which  requires  to  be  unfolded,  is 
never  applied  to  the  opening  of  the  mouth  of  a  beautiful 
or  dignified  speaker.  For  of  that  action  in  him,  they  say, 
his  mouth  mallara-kurrathu,  i.  e.  blossomed;  the  flower  un- 
folded itself:  and  there  were  its  fair  teints,  and  promised 
fruits.  So  the  Redeemer  opened  his  mouth,  and  taught 
them,  saying. — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth :  but  if  the 
salt  have  lost  his  savour,  wherewith  shall  it  be 
salted?  it  is  thenceforth  good  for  nothing,  but 
to  be  cast  out,  and  to  be  trodden  under  foot  of 


Our  Lord's  supposition  of  the  salt  losing  its  savour  is  il- 
lustrated by  Mr.  Maundrell,  who  tells  us,  that  in  the  Valley 
of  Salt  near  Gebul,  and  about  four  hours'  journey  from 
Aleppo,  there  is  a  small  precipice,  occasioned  by  the  con- 
tinual taking  away  of  the  salt.  "  In  this,"  says  he,  "  you 
may  see  how  the  veins  of  it  lie.  I  broke  a  piece  of  it,  of 
which  the  part  was  exposed  to  the  rain,  sun,  and  air,  though 
it  had  the  sparks  and  particles  of  salt,  yet  had  perfectly  lost 
its  savour.  The  innermost,  which  had  been  connected  to 
the  rock,  retained  its  savour,  as  I  found  by  proof," — Bur- 

DER. 

Ver.  18.  For  verily  I  say  unto  you,  Till  heaven 
and  earth  pass,  one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no 
wise  pass  from  the  law,  till  all  be  fulfilled. 

It  has  been  thought  that  this  refers  to  one  of  those  ducts, 
dashes,  or  corners  of  letters,  which  distinguish  one  letter 
from  another,  and  nearly  resemble  each  other.  Other  per- 
sons have  apprehended  that  it  refers  to  one  of  those  little 
strokes  in  the  tops  of  letters,  which  the  Jews  call  crowns  or 
spikes,  in  which  they  Imagined  great  mysteries  were  con- 
tained. There  were  some  persons  among  them  who  made 
it  their  business  to  search  into  the  meaning  of  every  letter, 
and  of  every  one  of  these  little  horns  or  pricks  that  were 
upon  the  top  of  them.  To  this  custom  Christ  is  here  sup- 
posed to  refer. — Burder. 


Ver.  29.  And  if  thy  right  eye  offend  tnee,  pluck 
it  out,  and  cast  it  from  thee  :  for  it  is  profitable 
for  thee  that  one  of  thy  members  should  perish, 
and  not  that  thy  whole  body  should  be  cast 
into  hell. 

This  metaphor  is  in  common  use  to  this  day ;  hence  people 
say  of  any  thing  which  is  valuable,  "  It  is  like  my  vallutha-' 
kan"  i.  e.  right  eye  !  "  Yes,  yes,  that  child  is  the  right  eijp: 
of  his  father."  "  I  can  never  give  up  that  lady ;  she  is  my 
right  eye,"  "  That  fellow  forsake  his  sins  !  never;  they  are 
his  right  eye."  *'  True,  true ;  I  will  pull  out  my  right  eye." 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  36.  Neither  shalt  thou  swear  by  thy  head, 
because  thou  canst  not  make  one  hair  white  or 
black. 

It  was  very  common  among  the  Orientals  to  swear  by  the 
head  or  the  life  of  the  king.  Joseph,  improperly  yielding 
to  the  fashion  of  the  country,  swore  by  the  life  of  Pharaoh  ; 
and  this  oath  is  still  used  in  various  regions  of  the  East. 
According  to  Mr.  Hanway,  the  most  sacred  oath  among 
the  Persians  is  by  the  head  of  the  king :  and  Thevenot 
asserts,  that  to  swear  by  the  king's  head  is,  in  Persia,  more 
authentic,  and  of  greater  credit,  than  if  they  swore  by  all 
that  is  most  sacred  in  heaven  and  upon  earth.  In  the 
time  of  our  Lord,  it  seems  to  have  been  a  common  prac- 
tice among  the  Jews  to  swear  by  this  form ;  for,  said  he 
to  the  multitudes,  "Neither  shalt  thou  swear  by  thy  head, 
because  thou  canst  not  make  one  hair  white  or  black." — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  40.  And  if  any  man  will  sue  thee  at  the  law, 
and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  have  thy  cloak 
also. 

The  laws  of  Moses  prohibited  the  taking  or  keeping  in 
pledge  certain  indispensable  articles,  such  as, 

1.  "  The  upper  garment  of  the  poor,  which  served  him 
also  by  night  for  a  blanket,"  Exod.  xxii.  25,  26.  Deut.  xxiv. 
12,  13.  If  taken  as  a  pledge,  it  was  to  be  restored  to  him 
before  sunset ;  "  for,"  says  Moses,  or  rather  God  by  Moses, 
"it  is  his  only  covering,  in  which  he  inwraps  his  naked 
body.  Under  what,  then,  shall  he  sleep  7  If  he  cries  for 
it  unto  me,  I  will  hearken  unto  him  ;  for  I  am  merciful." 
The  better  to  understand  this  law,  we  must  know,  that  the 
upper  garment  of  the  Israelites  {simla  nVncr)  was  a  large 
square  piece  of  cloth,  which  they  threw  loosely  over  them, 
and  which  by  the  poor  was  also  used  for  a  blanket  or  cover- 
let to  their  beds.  Dr.  Shaw,  in  his  travels  through  Barba- 
ry,  has  given  the  best  description  of  it,  under  its  modern 
Arabic  name,  hyke.  It  might  be  laid  aside  in  the  daytime, 
and,  in  fact,  in  walking  it  was  so  troublesome,  that  labour- 
ing people  preferred  being  clear  of  it,  and  were  then,  what 
the  ancients  so  often  call  naked.  When  they  had  to  walk, 
they  tucked  it  together,  and  hung  it  over  their  shoulder. 
By  night  it  was  indispensable  to  the  poor  man  for  a  cover- 
ing: at  least,  it  was  at  the  risk  of  his  health,  and  even  his 
life,  by  exposure  to  the  cold,  if  he  wanted  it :  for  in  south- 
ern climates  the  nights,  particularly  in  the  summer,  are  ex- 
tremely cold. 

It  appears,  however,  that  the  above-quoted  law  of  Moses 
concerning  the  upper  garment  had,  by  a  very  strange  mis- 
construction, in  process  of  time,  given  a  handle  to  the  ex- 
ercise of  a  claim  in  the  highest  degree  absurd.  It  is  merely 
of  pledge  that  Moses  speaks ;  and  the  natural  meaning  of 
the  law  is  that  no  one  would  leave  his  under  garment  in 
pledge,  and  go  naked  from  the  presence  of  his  creditor  with 
what  he  had  borrowed;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
might  be  frequent  cases  where  a  man,  to  the  great  detri- 
ment of  his  health,  having  pledged  his  wpper  garment,  must 
lie  all  night  without  a  covering.  He,  therefore,  enacted 
the  law  in  favour  of  the  latter,  and  did  not  think  it  neces- 
sary to  say  a  word  about  the  former.  But  when  the  Jews 
came  to  regulate  their  procedure  solely  by  the  letter  of  his 
law,  as  that  made  no  mention  of.the  under  garment,  so  in 
the  time  of  Christ,  we  find  cruel  creditors  claiming  the  un- 
der garment  of  their  debtors ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  quite 
conscientiously  leaving  with  them  the  upper  one,  which 
Moses  had  expressly  privileged.    This  I  infer  from  a  p&a- 


580 


MATTHEW. 


Chap,  6. 


sage  in  the  sermon  on  the  mount,  which  though  in  itself 
obscure,  receives  great  light  from  a  comparison  with  Exod. 
xxii.  25, 26,  and  from  the  conjecture  above  stated,  upon  it : 
"Whoever  will  go  to  law  with  thee,  and  take  thy  {x^TMva^ 
under  garment,  let  him  have  thy  (i/^artoi/)  upper  one  also." 
Matt.  V.  40.  If  a  man  went  to  law  with  another,  and  was 
determined  to  accept  of  nothing  else  in  payment  but  the 
very  shirt  off  his  back,  he  must  have  conceived  that  he 
could  urge  a  legal  right  to  it,  or  at  least  the  resemblance  of 
one ;  or  that  else  his  complaint,  instead  of  being  admitted 
by  any  court,  would,  without  their  once  citing  his  adversa- 
ry, be  dismissed  as  futile.  We  must  suppose  a  court  to  be 
incredibly  corrupt  and  imprudent,  if  we  can  doubt  this. 
Now,  that  a  person,  to  whom  I  am  nothing  indebted,  should 
urge  a  claim  to  my  under  garment,  is  what  I  can  scarcely 
comprehend.  The  case,  therefore,  which  Christ  puts,  is 
most  probably  this :  "  I  have  borrowed  from  some  one,  and 
,  as  I  cannot  pay,  my  hard-hearted  creditor,  with  the  help  of 
the  law,  means  to  strip  me  of  my  clothes.  To  my  upper 
garment  he  can  put  in  no  claim,  because  it  is  privileged  by 
Moses ;  and  therefore  he  directs  his  attack  against  my  un- 
der garment,  which  I  wear  over  my  naked  body.  Here, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  summum  jus,  as  it  is  called,  is,  no  doubt, 
in  favour  of  my  creditor;  but,  on  the  other,  perhaps  the 
highest  equity,  and  even  humanity  itself,  pleads  for  me." 
In  this  case,  the  admonition  of  Jesus  is  to  this  effect :  "  So 
far  shol^ld  it  be  from  your  desire  to  act  unjustly,  or  mani- 
fest exasperation,  and  vow  revenge  against  a  cruel  creditor, 
that,  if  your  under  garment  does  not  suffice  to  pay  him,  you 
ought  to  give  him  even  the  upper  one,  although  he  could 
not  get  it  by  any  judicial  decree." — Michaelis. 

Ver.  41.  And  whosoever  shall  compel  thee  to  go 
a  mile,  go  with  him  twain. 

Our  Lord  in  this  passage  refers  to  the  angari,  or  Persian 
messengers,  who  had  the  royal  authority  for  pressing  horses, 
ships,  and  even  men,  to  assist  them  in  the  business  on  which 
they  were  employed.  In  the  modern  government  of  Persia 
there  are  officers  not  unlike  the  ancient  angari,  called 
chappars,  who  serve  to  carry  despatches  between  the  court 
and  the  provinces.  When  a  chappar  sets  out,  the  master 
of  the  horse  furnishes  him  with  a  single  horse,  and  when 
that  is  weary,  he  dismounts  the  first  man  he  meets,  and 
takes  his  horse.  There  is  no  pardon  for  a  traveller  who 
should  refuse  to  let  a  chapper  have  his  horse,  nor  for 
any  other  who  should  deny  him  the  best  horse  in  his  stable. 
(Hanway.)— BuRDER. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  3.  But  when  thou  doest  alms,  let  not  thy  left 
hand  know  what  thy  right  hand  doeth. 

The  right  hand  always  dispenses  gifts,  because  "  it  is 
more  honourable  than  the  other ;"  the  left  hand,  therefore, 
was  to  be  unacquainted  with  the  charities  of  the  other,  i.  e. 
there  was  to  be  no  ostentation ;  to  be  perfect  secrecy.  The 
Hindoos  say  of  things  which  are  not  to  be  revealed,  "  The 
left  ear  is  not  to  hear  that  which  went  into  the  right,  nor 
the  right  to  be  acquainted  with  that  which  was  heard  by 
the  left." — Roberts. 

The  manner  in  which  the  Samaritan  priest  desired  me, 
on  parting,  to  express  our  mutual  good-will,  was  by  an  ac- 
tion, than  which  there  is  not  one  more  common  in  all  the 
Levant.  He  put  the  forefinger  of  his  right  hand  parallel 
to  that  of  his  left,  and  then  rapidly  rubbed  them  together, 
while  I  was  expected  to  do  the  same,  repeating  the  words, 
sui,  sui;  that  is,  "  right,  right ;"  or,  in  common  acceptation, 
"  together,  together."  It  is  in  this  manner  that  persons  ex- 
press their  consent  on  all  occasions ;  on  concluding  a  bar- 
gain, on  engaging  to  bear  one  another  company,  and  on 
every  kind  of  friendly  agreement  or  good  understanding. 

May  not  this  serve  to  explain  the  phrase  in  Matt.  vi.  3  : 
"  Let  not  thy  left  hand  know  what  thy  right  hand  doeth  7" 
that  is,  "  Let'not  thy  heart  consent  to  its  own  good  thoughts, 
with  a  sinful  self-applause."  So  much  is  said  in  the  Old 
Testament  of  speaking  with  the  eyes,  hands,  and  even 
feet,  that  it  is  scarcely  u5iderstood  by  Englishmen.  They 
should  see  the  expressive  and  innumerable  gesticulations 
of  foreigners  when  they  converse :  many  a  question  is  an- 
swered, and  many  a  significant  remark  conveyed,  by  even 
children,  who  learn  this  language  much  sooner  than  their 


mother-tongue.  Perhaps  the  expression  of  Solomon,  that 
the  wicked  man  speakelh  with  his  feet,  (Prov.  vi.  13,)  may 
appear  more  natural,  when  it  is  considered  that  the  mode  ol 
sitting  on  the  ground  in  the  East  brings  the  feet  into  view, 
nearly  in  the  same  direct  line  as  the  hands;  the  whole  body 
crouching  down  together,  and  the  hands,  in  fact,  often  rest- 
ing upon  the  feet. — Jowett. 

* 

Ver.  5.  And  when  thou  prayest,  thou  shalt  not 
be  as  the  hypocrites  are :  for  they  love  to  pray 
standing  in  the  synagogues,  and  in  the  corners 
of  the  streets,  that  they  may  be  seen  of  men. 
Verily  I  say  unto  you,  They  have  their  rn- 
ward. 

False  religion  has  ever  been  fond  of  shmo ;  hence  its  dev- 
otees have  assumed  a  greater  appeanance  of  sanctity  to 
make  up  the  deficiency  of  real  worth,  Pehaps  few  systems 
are  so  replete  with  the  show  of  religion  as  Hindooisiii,  Its 
votaries  may  be  seen  in  every  street  with  uplifted  hands,  or 
bespattered  bodies;  there  they  are  standing  before  every 
temple,  making  their  prostrations  or  repeating  their  pray- 
ers. Nor  are  the  Mohammedans,  with  all  their  boasting,  a 
whit  the  better.  See  them  when  the  sun  is  going  down, 
spreading  their  garments  on  the  ground,  on  which  they  are 
about  to  kneel,  and  say  their  prayers.  They  bow  down  to 
the  earth,  and  touch  it  with  their  forehead ;  and  then  arise, 
putting  their  hands  above  their  heads,  with  the  fingers 
pointing  to  the  clouds ;  and  now  they  bring  them  lower,  in 
a  supplicating  position,  and  all  the  time  keep  muttering 
their  prayers  ;  again  they  kneel,  and  again  touch  the  earth 
with  their  forehead,  and  all  this,  without  paying  any  appa- 
rent attention  to  those  who  pass  that  way. — Roberts. 

Such  a  practice  as  here  intimated  by  our  Lord  was  prob- 
ably common  at  that  time  with  those  who  were  fond  of 
ostentation  in  their  devotions,  and  who  wished  to  engage 
the  attention  of  others.  It  is  evident  that  the  practice  was 
not  confined  to  one  place,  since  it  maybe  traced  in  diflferent 
nations.  We  have  an  instance  of  it  related  by  Aaron  Hill, 
in  his  Travels:  "  Such  Turks  as  at  the  common  hours  of 
prayer  are  on  the  road,  or  so  employed  as  not  to  find  con- 
venience to  attend  the  mosques,  are  still  obliged  to  execute 
that  duty :  nor  are  they  ever  known  to  fail,  whatever  busi- 
ness they  are  then  about,  but  pray  immediately  when  the 
hour  alarms  them,  in  that  very  place  they  chance  to  stand 
on :  insomuch  that  when  a  janizary,  whom  you  have  to 
guard  you  up  and  down  the  city,  hears  the  notice  which  is 
given  him  from  the  steeples,  he  will  turn  about,  stand  still, 
and  beckon  with  his  hand,  to  tell  his  charge  he  must  have 
patience  for  awhile;  when,  taking  out  his  handkerchief,  he 
spreads  it  on  the  ground,  sits  cross-legged  thereupon,  and 
says  his  prayers,  though  in  the  open  market,  which  having 
ended,  he  leaps  briskly  up,  salutes  the  person  whom  he  un- 
dertook to  convey,  and  renews  his  journey  with  the  mild  ex- 
pression oi gheU,  johnnum,  ghell,  or,  come,  dear,  follow  me." 
It  may  be  proper  to  add,  that  such  a  practice  as  this  is  gen- 
eral throughout  the  East, — Burder. 

Ver.  19.  Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures  up- 
on earth,  where  moth  and  rust  doth  corrupt, 
and  where  thieves  break  through  and  steal. 

"  At  Pondicherry,"  says  Bartolomeo,  "  I  met  with  an 
incident  which  excited  my  astonishment.  I  had  put  my 
effects  into  a  chest  which  stood  in  my  apartment,  and  being 
one  day  desirous  of  taking  out  a  book,  in  order  to  amuse 
myself  with  reading,  as  soon  as  I  opened  the  chest,  I  dis- 
covered in  it  an  innumerable  multitude  of  what  are  improp- 
erly called  white-ants.  The  appellation,  termites,  from  the 
Latin  systematic  name,  termes,  is  better.  There  are  vari- 
ous kinds  of  them,  but  only  in  warm  countries,  which  are 
all  equally  destructive,  and  occasion  great  devastations, 
not  only  in  sugar-plantations,  but  also  among  furniture 
and  clothes  in  habitations.  When  I  examined  the  different 
articles  in  the  chest,  I  observed  that  these  little  animals  had 
perforated  my  shirts  in  a  thousand  places,  and  gnawed  to 
pieces  my  books,  my  girdle,  my  amice,  and  my  shoes. 
They  were  moving  in  columns,  each  behind  the  other;  and 
each  carried  away  in  its  mouth  a  fragment  of  my  effects 
which  were  more  than  half  destroye(j."  (Bartolomeo.)— 
Critica  Biblica. 


Chap.  7. 


MATTHEW. 


581 


Ver.  20.  But  lay  up  for  yourselves  treasures  in 
heaven,  where  neither  moth  nor  rust  doth  cor- 
rupt, and  where  thieves  do  not  break  through 
nor  steal. 

See  on  Job  27.  18. 

Ver.  26.  Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air :  for  they 
sow  not,  neither  do  they  reap,  nor  gather  into 
barns  ;  yet  your  heavenly  Father  feedeth  them. 
Are  ye  not  much  better  than  they  ? 

Does  a  person  who  has  lost  his  situation  complain,  from 
a  fear  of  the  future  ;  it  is  said  to  him,  by  way  of  comfort, 
"  Look  at  the  birds  and  beasts,  have  they  any  situations  1 
Do  they  sow  or  reap  1  Who  sustains  the  frog  in  the  stone  1 
or  the  germ  in  the  egg  1  or  the  fetus  in  the  womb  1  or  the 
worm  which  the  wasp  encloses  in  its  house  of  clay  1  Does 
not  the  Lord  support  all  these  1  and  will  he  not  help  you  V 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  27.  Which  of  you  by  taking  thought  can 
add  one  cubit  unto  his  stature  ? 

This  form  of  speech  is  sometimes  used  to  humble  those 
of  high  pretensions ;  thus,  a  man  of  low  caste,  who  has  be- 
come rich,  and  who  assumes  authority  over  his  better-born, 
though  poor  neighbours,  will  be  asked,  "  W  hat !  has  your 
money  made  you  a  cubit  higher'?"  i.  e.  in  the  scale  of 
being.  Is  a  man  ambitious  of  raising  in  society ;  a  person 
who  wishes  to  annoy  him,  puts  his  finger  on  his  elbow, 
and,  showing  that  part  to  the  tip  of  the  middle  finger,  asks, 
"  Friend,  will  you  ever  rise  thus  much,  (a  cubit,S  after  all 
your  cares  1"  "  Yes,  yes,  the  low-caste  thinks  nimself  a 
cubit  taller,  because  he  has  got  the  favour  of  the  king." — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  28.  And  why  take  ye  thought  for  raiment? 
Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field  how  they  grow ; 
they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin. 

The  lily  of  the  field  sometimes  appears  with  unrivalled 
magnificence.  This  remark  is  justified  by  the  following 
statement  of  Mr.  Salt,  Voyage  to  Abyssinia :  "  At  a  few 
miles  from  Adowa,  we  discovered  a  new  and  beautiful 
species  of  amaryllis,  which  bore  from  ten  to  twelve  spikes 
of  bloom  on  each^stem,  as  large  as  those  of  the  bella-donna, 
springing  from  one  common  receptacle.  The  general  col- 
our of  the  corolla  was  white,  and  every  petal  was  marked 
with  a  single  streak  of  bright  purple  down  the  middle  ;  the 
flower  was  sweet  scented,  and  its  smell,  though  much  more 
powerful,  resembled  that  of  the  lily  of  the  valley.  This 
superb  plant  excited  the  admiration  of  the  whole  partv; 
and  it  brought  immediately  to  my  recollection  the  beautiful 
comparison  used  on  a  particular  occasion  by  our  Saviour: 
"  I  say  unto  you,  that  Solomon,  in  all  his  glory,  was  not 
arrayed  like  one  cf  these." — Burder. 

Ver.  30.  Whe  refore,  if  God  so  clothe  the  grass  of 
the  field,  which  to-day  is,  and  to-morrow  is  cast 
into  the  oven,  shall  he  not  much  more  clothe 
you,  O  ye  of  little  faith  ? 

The  scarcity  of  fuel  in  the  East  obliges  the  inhabitants 
0  use,  by  turns,  every  kind  of  combustible  matter.  The 
withered  stalks  of  herbs  and  flowers,  the  tendrils  of  the 
vine,  the  small  branches  of  myrtle,  rosemary,  and  other 
plants,  are  all  used  in  heating  their  ovens  and  bagnios. 
We  can  easily  recognise  this  practice  in  these  words  of 
our  Lord  :  "  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field  how  they  grow; 
they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin;  and  yet  I  say  uiito  you, 
that  Solomon,  in  all  his  glory,  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of 
these.  Wherefore,  if  God  s  "lothe  the  grass  of  the  field, 
which  to-day  is,  and  to-morrow  is  cast  into  the  oven,  shall 
he  not  much  more  clothe  you,  O  ye  of  little  faith  1"  The 
grass  of  the  field  in  this  passage,  evidently  includes  the  li- 
lies of  which  our  Lord  had  just  been  speaking ;  and  by  con- 
i;equence  herbs  in  general ;  and  in  this  extensive  sense  the 
word  %oproj  is  not  unfrequently  taken. — Paxton. 


CHAPTER  VIL 

Ver.  3.  And  why  beholdest  thou  the  mote  that  is 
in  thy  brother's  eye,  but  considerest  not  the 
beam  that  is  thine  own  eye  ? 

See  on  ch.  23.  24. 

Ver.  6.  Give  not  that  which  is  holy  unto  the  dogs, 
neither  cast  ye  your  pearls  before  swine,  lest 
they  trample  them  under  their  feet,  and  turn 
again  and  rend  you. 

Similar  language  is  used  to  those  who  speak  on  subjects 
of  a  highly  sacred  nature,  before  people  of  gross  minds. 
"What,  are  silk  tassels  to  be  tied  to  the  broom?  Will 
you  give  a  beautiful  flower  to  a  monkey  1  Who  would 
cast  rubies  into  a  heap  of  rubbish  1  What,  are  you  giving 
ambrosia  to  a  dog?"— Roberts. 

Ver.  9.  Or  what  man  is  there  of  jrou,  whom  if  hill 
son  ask  bread,  will  he  give  him  a  stone  ? 

"  What  father,  when  his  son  asks  for  sugar-cane,  will 
give  him  the  poison-fruit  1  If  he  asks  a  fish,  will  he  give 
him  a  serpent  V  This  may  allude  to  the  eel,  which  is  so 
much  like  the  serpent.  Some  have  said,  on  the  parallel 
passage  in  Luke:  "  If  he  shall  ask  an  egg,  will  he  offer 
him  a  scorpion?" — "  This  expression  is  used,  because  the 
white  scorpion  is  like  an  egg.  They  might  as  well  have 
said,  it  is  like  a  whale. — Roberts. 

Ver.  18.  A  good  tree  cannot  bring  forth  evil  fruit, 
neither  can  a  corrupt  tree  bring  forth  good  fruit. 

When  people  converse  on  the  good  qualities  of  an  obedi- 
ent son,  it  is  asked,  "Will  the  seed  of  the  watermelon 
produce  the  fruit  of  the  bitter  pavatta-koUi?" — meaning, 
the  father  is  good,  and  therefore  the  son  is  the  same.  A 
profligate  son  always  leads  the  people  to  suspect  the  father 
or  grandfather  was  not  what  he  ought  to  have  been. 
"  You  talk  to  me  about  that  family  :  I  know  them  well ;  the 
tree  is  bad,  and  the  fruit  is  the  same." — Roberts. 

Ver.  26.  And  every  one  that  heareth  thes^  say- 
ings of  mine,  and  doeth  them  not,  shall  be  liken- 
ed unto  a  foolish  man,  which  built  his  house 
upon  the  sand. 

The  fishermen  of  Bengal  build  their  hiits  in  the  dry 
season  on  the  beds  of  sand,  from  which  the  river  has  retired. 
When  the  rains  set  in,  which  they  often  do  very  suddenly, 
accompanied  Avith  violent  northwest  winds,  the  water  pours 
down  in  torrents  from  the  mountains.  In  one  night  multi- 
tudes of  these  huts  are  frequently  swept  away,  and  the 
place  where  they  stood  is  the  next  morning  undiscoverable. 
(Wfird's  View  of  the  Hindoos.) 

"  It  so  happened,  that  we  were  to  witness  one  of  the 
greatest  calamities  that  have  occurred  ip  Egypt  in  the 
recollection  of  any  one  living.  The  Nile  rose  this  season 
three  feet  and  a  half  above  the  highest  mark  left  by  the 
former  inundation,  with  uncommon  rapidity,  and  carried 
off  several  villages,  and  some  hundreds  of  their  inhabitants, 
I  never  saw  any  picture  that  could  give  a  more  correct 
idea  of  a  deluge  than  the  valley  of  the  Nile  in  this  season. 
The  Arabs  had  expected  an  extraordinary  inundation  this 
year,  in  consequence  of  the  scarcity  of  water  in  the  prece- 
ding season;  but  they  did  not  apprehend  it  would  rise  to 
such  a  height.  They  generally  erect  fences  of  earth  and 
reeds  around  their  villages,  to  keep  the  water  from  their 
houses;  but  the  force  of  this  inundation  baffled  all  their 
efforts.  Their  cottages  being  built  of  earth,  could  not 
stand  one  instant  against  the  current;  and  no  sooner  did 
the  water  reach  them,  than  it  levelled  them  with  the  ground. 
The  rapid  stream  carried  off"  all  that  was  before  it;  men, 
women,  children,  cattle,  corn,  every  thing  was  washed 
away  in  an  instant,  and  left  the  place  where  the  villnge 
stood  without  any  thing  to  indicate  that  there  had  eve* 
been  a  house  on  the  spot."    (Belzoni.) — Burder, 


682 


MATTHEW 


Chap.  7—9. 


Ver.  27.  And  the  rain  descended,  and  the  floods 
came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and  beat  upon  that 
house  ;  and  it  fell :  and  great  was  the  fall  of  it. 

Tha  rains,  and  floods,  and  winds  of  an  eastern  monsoon, 
give  a  striking  illustration  of  the  above  passage.  When 
people  in  those  regions  speak  of  the  strength  of  a  house,  it 
is  not  by  saying  it  will  last  so  many  years,  but,  "  It  will 
outstand.  the^  rains  :  it  will  not  be  injured  by  the  floods." 
Houses  built  of  the  best  materials  and  having  deep  founda- 
tions, in  a  few  years  often  yield  to  the  rains  of  a  monsoon. 
At  first,  a  small  crack  appears  in  some  angle,  which  grad- 
ually becomes  larger,  till  the  whole  building  tumbles  to 
the  ground.  And  who  can  wonder  at  this,  when  he  con- 
siders the  state  of  the  earth  1  For  several  months  there  is 
not  a  drop  of  rain,  and  the  burning  sun  has  loosened  the 
ground;  when  at  once  the  torrents  descend,  the  chapped 
earth  suddenly  swells,  and  the  foundations  are  moved  by 
the  change.  The  house  founded  upon  a  rock  can  alone 
stand  the  rains  and  floods  of  a  wet  monsoon. — Roberts. 

Ver.  29.  For  he  taught  them  as  one  having  au- 
thority, and  not  as  the  scribes. 

When  the  scribes  delivered  any  thing  to  the  people,  they 
used  to  say,  "  Our  rabbins,  or  our  wise  men,  say  so."  Such 
as  were  on  the  side  of  Hillel  made  use  of  his  name,  and 
those  who  were  on  the  side  of  Shammai  made  use  of  his. 
Scarcely  ever  would  they  venture  to  say  any  thing  as  of 
themselves.  But  Christ  spake  boldly,  of  himself,  and  did 
not  go  about  to  support  his  doctrine  by  the  testimony  of  the 
elders. — Gill. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Ver.  20.  And  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  The  foxes 
have  holes,  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests  ; 
but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his 
head. 

Listen  to  that  poor  man  who  is  stating  his  case  to  a  rich 
man ;  he  pathetically  laments  his  forlorn  condition,  and 
says,  "  Ah  !  sir,  even  the  birds  have  their  nests,  but  I  have 
not  so  much  as  they." — Roberts, 

Ver.  28.  And  when  he  was  come  to  the  other 
side,  into  the  country  of  the  Gergesenes,  there 
met  him  two  possessed  with  devils,  coming  out 
of  the  tombs,  exceeding  fierce,  so  that  no  man 
might  pass  by  that  way. 

"  As  I  was  not  induced  to  accept  the  offers  made  me  to  re- 
main at  Tiberias,  I  left  it  early  the  following  morning,  the 
11th  of  September,  coasted  the  lake,  and  trod  the  ground 
celebrated  for  the  miracle  of  the  unclean  spirit  driven  by 
our  Saviour  among  the  swine.  The  tombs  still  exist  in  the 
form  of  caverns,  on  the  sides  of  the  hills  that  rise  from  the 
shore  of  the  lake ;  and  from  their  wild  appearance  may 
well  be  considered  the  habitation  of  men  exceeding  fietce, 
possessed  by  a  devil :  they  extend  at  a  distance  for  more 
than  a  mile  from  the  present  town."  (Light's  Travels  in 
Egypt.)  "  From  this  tomb  we  went  to  a  still  more  perfect 
one,  which  was  entirely  cleared  out,  and  now  used  as  a 
private  dwelling.  Though  the  females  of  the  family  were 
withm,  we  were  allowed  to  enter,  and  descended  by  a  flight 
of  three  steps,  there  being  either  a  cistern  or  a  deep  sepul- 
chre on  the  right  of  this  descent.  The  portals  and  archi- 
trave were  here  perfectly  exposed ;  the  ornaments  of  the 
latter  were  a  wreath  and  open  flowers ;  the  door  also  was 
divided  by  a  studded  bar,  and  panelled,  and  the  ring  of  the 
knocker  remained,  though  the  knocker  itself  had  been  bro- 
ken off;  the  door,  which  was  of  the  same  size  and  thick- 
ness as  those  described,  traversed  easily  on  its  hinges,  and 
we  were  permitted  to  open  and  close  it  at  pleasure.  The 
tomb  was  about  eight  feet  in  height,  on  the  inside,  as  there 
was  the  descent  of  a  steep  step  from  the  stone  threshold  to 
the  floor.  Its  size  was  about  twelve  paces  square  ;  but  as 
no  ,iglit  was  received  into  it  except  by  the  door,  we  could 
not  see  v/hether  there  was  an  inner  chamber,  as  in  some  of 
the  others.  A  perfect  sarcophagus  still  remained  within, 
and  this  was  now  used  by  the  family  as  a  chest  for  corn 


and  other  provisions :  so  that  this  violated  sepulchre  of  the 
dead  had  thus  become  a  secure,  a  cool,  and  a  convenient 
retreat  to  the  living  of  a  diiferent  race."  (Buckingham.) 
These  burying-grounds  frequently  afibrd  shelter  to  the 
weary  traveller  when  overtaken  by  the  night ;  and  their 
recesses  are  also  a  hiding-place  for  thieves  and  murderers, 
who  sally  out  from  thence  to  commit  their  nocturnal  depre- 
dations.   (Forbes.) — Burder. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  9.  And  as  Jesus  passed  forth  from  thence, 
he  saw  a  man  named  Matthew,  sitting  at  the 
receipt  of  custom  :  and  he  saith  unto  him,  Fol- 
low me.     And  he  arose  and  followed  him. 

The  publicans  had  houses  or  booths  built  for  them  at 
the  foot  of  bridges,  at  the  mouth  of  rivers,  and  by  the  sea- 
shore, where  they  took  loll  of  passengers  that  went  to  and 
fro.  Hence  we  read  of  the  tickets  or  seals  of  the  publicans, 
which,  when  a  man  had  paid  toll  on  one  side  of  a  river, 
were  given  him  by  the  piiblican  to  show  to  him  that  sat 
on  the  other  side,  that  it  might  appear  he  had  paid.  On 
these  were  written  two  great  letters,  larger  than  those  in 
common  use. — Gill. 

Arriving  at  Persepolis,  Mr.  Morier  observes,  "  here  is  a 
station  of  rahdars,  or  toll-gatherers,  appointed  to  levy  a  toll 
upon  kafilehs,  or  caravans  of  merchants;  and  who,  in 
general,  exercise  their  office  with  so  much  brutality  and 
extortion  as  to  be  execrated  by  all  travellers.  The  collec- 
tions of  the  toll  are  farmed,  consequently  extortion  ensues; 
and,  as  most  of  the  rahdars  receive  no  other  emolument 
than  what  they  can  exact  over  and  above  the  prescribed 
dues  from  the  traveller,  their  insolence  is  accounted  for, 
and  a  cause  sufficiently  powerful  is  given  for  their  inso- 
lence on  the  one  hand,  and  the  detestation  in  which  they 
are  held  on  the  other.  Baj-gah  means  the  place  of  tribute  : 
it  may  also  be  rendered  the  receipt  of  custom ;  and,  per- 
haps, it  was  from  a  place  like  this  that  our  Saviour  called 
Matthew  to  follow  him." — Burder. 

Ver.  15.  And  Jesus  said  unto  them,  Can  the 
children  of  the  bride-chamber  mourn,  as  long  as 
the  bridegroom  is  with  them  ?  but  the  days  will 
come,  when  the  bridegroom  shall  be  taken  from 
them,  and  then  shall  they  fast. 

Does  a  man  look  sorry  when  he  ought  to  rejoice,  has  he 
become  rich,  has  he  been  greatly  honoured,  has  a  dear 
friend  come  to  see  him,  has  he  become  the  father  of  a 
male  child,  and  does  he  still  appear  dejected,  it  is  asked, 
"  What,  do  people  weep  in  the  house  of  marriage  7  Is 
it  a  funeral  or  a  wedding  you  are  going  to  celebrate  1" 
Does  a  person  go  to  cheer  his  friend,  he  says,  on  entering 
the  house,  "  I  am  come  this  day  to  the  house  of  marriage." 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  17.  Neither  do  men  put  new  wine  into  old 
bottles:  else  the  bottles  break,  and  the  wine 
runneth  out,  and  the  bottles  perish :  but  they 
put  new  wine  into  new  bottles,  and  both  are 
preserved. 

The  eastern  bottle,  called  turnntke,  is  made  of  the  raw 
hide  of  an  animal,  consequently,  when  any  fermenting 
liquor  is  put  into  it,  the  skin  being  comparatively  green, 
distends  itself  to  the  swelling  of  the  liquor.  But,  should 
the  bottle  have  been  previously  stretched  by  the  same 
process,  then  it  must  burst  if  put  to  a  second  trial,  be- 
cause it  cannot  yield  to  the  new  pressure  of  fermentation.— 
Roberts. 

Ver.  20.  And  behold,  a  woman  which  was  dis- 
eased with  an  issue  of  blood  twelve  years,  came 
behind  him,  and  touched  the  hem  of  his  gar- 
ment. 

f 
The  Jewish  mantle  or  upper  garment  was  considered  as 
consisting  of  four  quarters,  called  in  the  oriental  idiom 
wings.    Every  wing  contained  one  corner,  whereat  yras 


Chap.  10. 


MATTHEW. 


5S3 


suspended  a  tuft  of  threads  or  strings,  which  they  called 
KparrireS'n'.  Numb.  XV.  37.  Deut.  xxii.  12.  What  are  there 
called  fringes  are  those  strings,  and  the  four  quarters  of 
the  vesture  are  the  four  corners.  As  in  the  first  of  the  pas- 
sages above  referred  to,  they  are  mentioned  as  serving  to 
make  them  remember  the  commandmen  ,s  of  the  Lord  to 
do  them,  there  was  conceived  to  be  a  spec  ial  sacredness  in 
them,  which  must  have  probably  led  ihe  woman  to  think 
of  touching  that  part  of  his  garment,  rather  than  any  other. 
Campbell. 

Ver.  23.  And  when  Jesus  came  into  the  ruler's 
house,  and  saw  the  minstrels  and  the  people 
making  a  noise. 

In  Egypt,  the  lower  class  of  people  call  in  women,  who 
play  on  the  tabour,  and  whose  business  it  is,  like  the  hired 
mourners  in  other  countries,  to  sing  elegiac  airs  to  the 
sound  of  that  instrument,  which  they  accompany  with  the 
most  frightful  distortions  of  their  limbs.  These  women 
attend  the  corpse  to  the  grave,  intermixed  with  the  female 
relations  and  triends  of  the  deceased,  who  commonly  have 
their  hair  in  the  utmost  disorder,  their  heads  covered  with 
dust,  their  faces  daubed  with  indigo,  or  at  least  rubbed 
with  mud,  and  howling  like  maniacs.  Such  were  the 
minstrels  whom  our  Lord  found  in  the  house  of  Jairus, 
making  so  great  a  noise  round  the  bed  on  which  the  dead 
body  of  his  daughter  lay.  The  noise  and  tumult  of  these 
retained  mourners,  and  the  other  attendants,  appear  to  have 
begun  immediately  after  the  person  expired.  "  The  mo- 
ment," says  Chardin,  "  any  one  returns  from  a  long  jour- 
ney, or  dies,  his  family  burst  into  cries  that  may  be  heard 
twenty  doors  off;  and  this  is  renewed  at  different  times,  and 
contin  ues  many  days,  according  to  the  vigour  of  the  passions. 
Especially  are  these  cries  long  and  frightful  in  the  case  of 
death,  for  the  mourning  is  right  down  despair,  and  an  image 
of  hell." 

The  longest  and  most  violent  acts  of  mourning  are  when 
they  wash  the  body;  when  they  perfume  it;  when  they 
carry  it  out  to  be  interred.  During  this  violent  outcry, 
the  greater  part  even  of  the  relations  do  not  shed  a  single 
tear.  While  the  funeral  procession  moves  forward,  with 
the  violent  wailings  of  the  females,  the  male  attendants  en- 
gage in  devout  singing.  It  is  evident  that  this  sort  of 
mourning  and  lamentation  was  a  kind  of  art  among  the 
Jews :  "  Wailing  shall  be  in  the  streets ;  and  they  shall 
call  such  as  are  skilful  of  lamentation  to  wail."  Mourners 
are  hired  at  the  obsequies  of  Hindoos  and  Mohammedans, 
as  in  former  times.  To  the  dreadful  noise  and  tumult  of 
the  hired  mourners,  the  following  passage  of  Jeremiah  in- 
disputably refers,  and  shows  the  custom  to  be  derived  from 
a  very  I'emote  antiquity  :  "  Call  for  the  mourning  women 
that  they  may  come ;  and  send  for  cunning  women,  that 
they  may  come,  and  let  them  make  haste,  and  take  up  a 
wailing  for  us,  that  our  eyes  may  run  down  with  tears,  and 
our  eyelids  gush  out  with  waters."— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ver.  9.  Provide  neither  gold,  nor  silver,  nor  brass 
in  your  purses. 

Clothed  as  the  eastern  people  were  with  long  robes,  gir- 
dles were  indispensably  necessary  to  bind  together  their 
flowing  vestments.  They  wei-e  worn  about  the  waist,  and 
properly  confined  their  loose  garments.  These  girdles, 
^wvia,  were  so  contrived  as  to  be  used  for  purses;  and  they 
are  still  so  woi'n  in  the  East.  Dr.  Shaw,  speaking  of  the  dress 
of  the  Arabs  in  Barbary,  says, "  The  girdles  of  these  people 
are  usually  of  worsted,  very  artfully  Avoven  into  a  variety  of 
figures,  and  made  to  wrap  several  times  about  their  bodies. 
One  end  of  them  being  doubled  and  sewed  along  the  edges, 
serves  them  for  a  purse,  agreeable  to  the  acceptation  of  the 
word  (oji'f?  in  the  holy  scripture."  The  Roman  soldiers 
used  in  like  manner  to  carry  their  money  in  their  girdles. 
Whence  in  Horace,  qui  zonam  perdidil,  means  one  who 
had  lost  his  purse.  And  in  Aulus  Gellius,  C.  Gracchus  is 
introduced,  saying,  those  girdles  which  I  carried  out  full 
of  money,  ^  hen  I  went  from  Rome,  I  have  at  my  return 
f-x  m  the  pre  ince  brought  home  empty. — Burder. 

Ver,  10    Nor  scrip  for  i/our  journey,  neither  two 


coats,  neither  shoes,  nor  yet  staves:  (for  the 
workman  is  worthy  of  his  meat.) 

Though  the  hospitality  of  the  Arabs  be  general,  and  not 
confined  to  the  superior  classes,  yet  we  are  not  to  suppose 
that  it  admits  of  imposition,  or  is  without  proper  bounds. 
Of  this  we  have  a  manifest  instance  in  the  directions  of  our 
Lord  to  the  apostles.  Matt.  x.  11.  To  send  a  couple  of 
hearty  men  with  appetites  good,  and  rendered  even  keen, 
by  the  effect  of  travelling— to  send  two  such  to  a  family, 
barely  able  to  meet  its  own  necessities — having  no  provis- 
ion of  bread — or  sustenance  for  a  day  beforehand,  were 
to  press  upon  indigence  beyond  the  dictates  of  prudence,  or 
the  permission  of  Christian  charity.  Our  Lord,  therefore, 
commands  his  messengers — "  Into  whatsoever -city  or  town 
ye  enter,  inquire  who  in  it  is  worthy;  and  there  abide  till 
ye  go  thence."  "  Worthy,"  a^ios,  this  has  no  reference  to 
moral  worthiness;  our  Lord  means  suitable;  to  whom 
your  additional  board  for  a  few  days  will  be  no  inconve- 
nience— substantial  man.  And  this  is  exactly  the  import 
of  the  same  directions,  given  Luke  x.  5,  6:  "Into  what- 
ever oikia — house-establishment  on  a  respectable  scale — 
residence  affording  accommodation  for  strangers,  (the  hos- 
pitalia  of  the  Latins,)  ye  enter,  in  the  same  oikia  remain : 
go  not  from  oikia  to  oikia,  jn  search  of  superior  accommo- 
dations ;  though  it  may  happen  that  after  you  have  "been 
in  a  town  some  day.s,  you  may  hear  of  a  more  wealthy  in- 
dividual, who  could  entertain  you  better.  No ;  in  the 
same  house  remain,  eating  and  drinking  such  things  as 
they  give : — whatever  is  set  before  you."  The  same 
inference  is  deduced  from  the  advice  of  the  apostle  John 
to  the  lady  Electa,  (2  Epistle  10.)  "  If  there  come  any  to 
you,  and  bring  not  this  doctrine,  receive  him  not  into  your 
oikia."  She  was,  therefore,  a  person  of  respectability,  if 
not  of  rank ;  mistress  of  a  household  establishment,  on  a 
scale  proper  for  the  exercise  of  Christian  benevolence  in  a 
convenient  and  suitable  manner — of  liberal  heart,  and  of 
equally  liberal  powers. 

Whoever  has  well  considered  the  difficulties  to  which 
travellers  in  the  East  are  often  exposed  to  procure  supplies, 
or  even  sufficient  provisions  to  make  a  meal,  will  perceive 
the  propriety  of  these  directions.  Although  it  was  one 
sign  of  the  Messiah's  advent,  that  to  the  poor  the  gospel 
was  preached,  yet  it  was  not  the  Messiah's  jjurpose  to  add 
to  the  difficulties  of  any  man's  situation.  He  supposes  that 
a  family-man,  a  housekeeper,  might  be  without  bread, 
obliged  to  borrow  from  a  friend,  to  meet  the  wants  of  a 
single  traveller,  (Luke  xi.  5,  "  I  have  nothing  to  set  before 
him,")  no  uncommon  case  ;  but,  if  this  were  occasioiied  by 
real  penury,  the  rights  of  hospitality,  however  congeifial  to 
the  manners  of  the  people,  or  to  the  feelings  of  the  indi- 
vidual, and  however  urgent,  must  be  waived. — Taylor  in 
Calmet. 

Ver.  12.  And  when  ye  come  into  a  house,  salute  it. 

When  the  priests  or  pandarams  go  into  a  house,  they 
sometimes  sing  a  verse  of  blessing ;  at  other  times  the  priest 
stretches  out  his  right  hand,  and  says  aloud,  "  aservdUiam" 
i.  e.  blessing. — Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  It  is  enough  for  the  disciple  that  he  be 
as  his  master,  and  the  servant  as  his  lord :  if 
they  have  called  the  master  of  the  house  Beel- 
zebub, how  much  more  shall  they  call  them  of 
his  household  ? 

It  is  supposed  that  this  idol  was  the  same  with  Baal-zebud, 
the  fly-god,  worshipped  at  Ekron,  (2  Kings  i.  2,)  and  who 
had  his  name  changed  afterward  by  the  Jews  to  Baal-zebul, 
the  dung-god :  a  title  expressive  of  the  utmost  contempt. 
Among  the  Jews  it  was  held,  in  a  manner,  for  a  matter  of 
religion  to  reproach  idols,  and  to  give  them  odious  names: 
and  among  the  ignominious  ones  bestowed  upon  them,  the 
general  and  common  one  was  zebul,  dung,  or  a  dunghill. 
Many  names  of  evil  spirits,  or  devils,  occur  in  the  Talmud. 
Among  all  the  devils,  they  esteem.ed  him  the  worst,  the 
prince  of  the  rest,  who  ruled  over  idols,  and  by  whom  ora- 
cles and  miracles  were  given  forth  among  the  heathen. 
This  demon  they  called  Baal-zebul. — Burder. 

Ver.  42.  And  whosoever  shall  give  to  drink  unto 


684 


MATTHEW. 


Chap.  10—13. 


one  of  these  little  ones,  a  cup  of  cold  water  only, 
in  the  name  of  a  disciple,  verily,  I  say  unto 
you,  he  shall  in  no  wise  lose  his  reward. 

In  the  eastern  countries,  a  cup  of  water  was  a  considera- 
ble object.  In  India,  the  Hindoos  go  sometimes  a  great 
way  to  fetch  it,  and  then  boil  it,  that  it  may  do  the  less  hurt 
to  travellers  when  they  are  hot;  and  after  that,  they  stand 
from  morning  till  night  in  some  great  road,  where  there  is 
neither  pit  nor  rivulet,  and  offer  it  in  honour  of  their  god, 
to  be  drank  by  all  passengers.  This  necessary  work  of 
charity,  in  these  hot  countries,  seems  to  have  been  practised 
by  the  more  pious  and  humane  Jews.  (Asiatic  Miscella- 
ny.)— BURDER, 

CHAPTER  XI. 
Ver.  8.  But  what  went  ye  out  for  to  see?     A 
man  clothed  in  soft  raiment?     Behold,  they 
that  wear  soft  clothing  are  in  king's  houses. 

Persons  devoted  to  a  life  of  austerity,  commonly  wore  a 
dress  of  coarse  materials.  John  the  Baptist,  we  are  told  in 
the  sacred  volume,  was  clothed  in  a  garment  of  camel's 
hair,  with  a  broad  leathern  girdle  about  his  loins.  It  is  a 
circumstance  worthy  of  notice,  that  the  finest  and  most 
elegant  shawls,  which  constitute  so  essential  a  part  of  the 
Turkish  dress,  and  are  worn  by  persons  in  the  highest 
ranks  of  life,  are  fabricated  of  camel's  hair.  These  un- 
questionably belong  to  the  "  soft  raiment"  worn  by  the  resi- 
dents in  the  palaces  of  eastern  kings.  But  it  is  evident  that 
the  mspired  writer  intends,  by  the  remark  on  the  dress  of 
John,  to  direct  our  attention  to  the  meanness  of  his  attire. 
"  What  went  ye  out  for  to  see  7  a  man  clothed  in  soft  rai- 
ment"?  Behold,  they  that  are  in  king's  houses  wear  soft 
clothing ;"  but  the  garments  of  John  were  of  a  very  differ- 
ent kind.  It  is,  indeed,  sufficiently  apparent,  that  the  in- 
habitants of  the  wilderness,  where  John  spent  his  days  before 
he  entered  upon  his  ministry,  and  other  thinly  settled  dis- 
tricts, manufactured  a  stuff,  in  colour  and  texture  somewhat 
resembling  our  coarse  hair-cloths,  of  the  hair  which  fell 
from  their  camels,  for  their  own  immediate  use,  of  which 
the  raiment  of  that  venerable  prophet  consisted.  In 
the  same  manner,  the  Tartars  of  modern  times  work  up 
their  camel's  hair  into  a  kind  of  felt,  which  serves  as  a 
covering  to  their  tents,  although  their  way  of  life  is  the  very 
reverse  of  easy  and  pompous.  Like  the  austere  herald  of 
the  Saviour,  the  modern  dervises  wear  garments  of  the 
same  texture,  which  they,  too,  gird  about  their  loins  with 
great:'' leathern  girdles.  "Elijah,  the  Tishbite,  seems  to  have 
worn  a  habic  of  camel's  hair,  equally  mean  and  coarse;  for 
he  is  represented  in  our  translation  as  a  "hairy  man," 
which  perhaps  ought  to  be  referred  to  his  dress,  and  not  to 
his  person. — Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  But  whereunto  shall  I  liken  this  gene- 
ration? It  is  like  unto  children  sitting  in  the 
markets,  and  calling  unto  their  fellows. 

It  was  the  custom  of  children  among  the  Jews,  in  their 
sports,  to  imitate  what  they  saw  done  by  others  upon  great 
occasions,  and  particularly  the  customs  in  festivities,  where- 
in the  musician  beginning  a  tune  on  his  instrument,  the 
company  danced  to  his  pipe.  So  also  in  funerals,  wherein 
the  women  beginning  the  mournful  song,  (as  the  frccfaca 
of  the  Romans^  the  rest  followed  lamenting  and  beating 
.heir  breasts.  These  things  the  children  acted  and  person- 
ated in  the  streets  in  play,  and  the  rest  not  following  the 
leader  as  usual,  gave  occasion  to  this  speech  :  "  We  have 
piped  unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  danced ;  we  have  mourned 
unto  you,  and  ye  have  not  lamented."— Burder. 

Ver.  16.  But  whereunto  shall  I  liken  this  gene- 
ration ?  It  is  like  unto  children  sittitig  in  the 
markets,  and  calling  unto  their  fellows,  17.  Arid 
saying,  We  have  piped  unto  you,  and  ye  have 
not  danced ;  we  have  mourned  unto  you,  and 
ye  have  not  lamented. 

The  funeral  procession  was  attended  by  professional 
mourners,  eminently  skilled  in  the  art  of  lamentation,  whom 


the  friends  and  relations  of  the  deceased  hired,  to  assist 
them  in  expressing  their  sorrow.  They  began  the  ceremo- 
ny with  the  stridulous  voices  of  old  women,  who  strove,  by 
their  doleful  modulations,  to  extort  grief  from  those  that 
were  present.  The  children  in  the  streets  through  which 
they  passed,  often  suspended  their  sports,  to  imitate  the 
sounds,  and  joined  with  equal  sincerity  in  the  lamentations. 
— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Ver.  27.  And  if  I  by  Beelzebub  cast  out  devils, 
by  whom  do  your  ahildren  cast  them  out  % 
therefore  they  shall  be  your  judges. 

The  universal  opinion  in  the  East  is,  that  devils  have  the 
power  to  enter  into  and  take  possession  of  men,  in  the  same 
sense  as  we  understand  it  to  have  been  the  case,  as  de- 
scribed by  the  sacred  writers.  I  have  often  seen  the  poor 
objects  who  were  believed  to  be  under  demoniacal  influ- 
ence, and  certainly,  in  some  instances,  I  found  it  no  easy 
matter  to  account  for  their  conduct  on  natural  principles. 
I  have  seen  them  writhe  and  tear  themselves  in  the  most 
frantic  manner;  they  burst  asunder  the  cords  with  which 
they  were  bound,  and  fell  on  the  ground  as  if  dead.  At  one 
time  they  are  silent,  and  again  most  vociferous  ;  they  dash 
with  fury  among  the  people,  and  loudly  pronounce  their 
imprecations.  But  no  soonor  does  the  exorcist  come  for- 
ward, than  the  victim  becomes  the  subject  of  new  emotions ; 
he  stares,  talks  incoherently,  sighs,  and  falls  on  the  ground ; 
and  in  the  course  of  an  hour  is  as  calm  as  any  who  are 
around  him.  Those  men  who  profess  to  eject  devils  are 
frightful-looking  creatures,  and  are  seldom  associated  with, 
except  in  the  discharge  of  their  official  duties.  It  is  a  fact, 
that  they  affect  to  eject  the  evil  spirits  by  their  prince  oj 
devils.  Females  are  much  more  subject  to  those  affections 
than  men ;  and  Friday  is  the  day  of  all  others  on  which  they 
are  most  liable  to  be  attacked.  I  am  fully  of  opinion  that 
nearly  all  their  possessions  would  be  removed  by  medicine, 
or  by  arguments  of  a  more  tangible  nature.  Not  long  ago, 
a  young  female  was  said  to  be  under  the  influence  of  an  evil 
spirit,  but  the  father,  being  an  unbeliever,  took  a  large  broom 
and  began  to  beat  his  daughter  in  the  most  unmerciful  man- 
ner. After  some  time  the  spirit  cried  aloud,  "  Do  not  beat 
me,  do  not  beat  vie"  and  took  its  departure !  There  is  a 
fiend  called  poothani,  which  is  said  to  take  great  delight  in 
entering  little  children;  but  the  herb  called  j^a-wartite  is 
then  administered  with  great  success ! — Roberts. 

Ver.  42.  The  queen  of  the  south  shall  rise  up  in 
the  judgment  with  this  generation,  and  shall 
condemn  it :  for  she  came  from  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth  to  hear  the  wisdom  of  Solo- 
mon ;  and  behold,  a  greater  than  Solomon  is 
here. 

This  is  spoken  in  allusion  to  a  custom  among  the  Jews 
and  Romans,  which  was,  for  the  witnesses  to  rise  from  their 
seats  when  they  accused  criminals,  or  gave  any  evidence 
against  them. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  25.  But  while  men  slept,  his  enemy  came 
and  sowed  tares  among  the  wheat    and  went 
his  way.  * 

Strange  as  it  may  appear,  this  is  still  literally  done  in  the 
East.  See  that  lurking  villain,  watching  for  the  time  when 
his  neighbour  shall  plough  his  field;  he  carefully  marks 
the  period  when  the  work  has  been  finished,  and  goes  in 
the  night  following,  and  casts  in  what  the  natives  call  the 
jjandinellu,  i.  e.  pig  paddy ;  this  being  of  rapid  growth, 
springs  up  before  the  good  seed,  and  scatters  itseif  before 
the  other  can  be  reaped,  so  that  the  poor  owner  of  the  field 
will  be  for  years  before  he  can  get  rid  of  the  troublesome 
weed.  But  there  is  another  noisome  plant  which  these 
wretches  cast  into  the  ground  of  those  they  hate,  called  pe- 
rvm-pirandi,  which  is  more  destructive  to  vegetation  than 
any  other  plant.  Has  a  man  purchased  a  field  out  of  the 
hands  of  another,  the  offended  person  says,  "  I  will  plant 
the  perum-pirandi  in  his  grounds." — Roberts. 


Chap.  13—15. 


MATTHEW. 


585 


Ver  31.  Another  parable  put  he  forth  unto  them, 
saying,  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  to  a 
grain  of  mustard -seed,  which  a  man  took,  and 
sowed  in  his  field :  32.  Which  indeed  is  the 
least  of  all  seeds :  but  when  it  is  grown,  it  is 
the  greatest  among  herbs,  and  becometh  a  tree, 
so  that  the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in 
the  branches  thereof 

The  account  which  our  Lord  gave  of  the  mustard-tree, 
recorded  in  the  gospel  of  Matthew,  has  often  excited  the 
ridicule  of  unbelievers,  or  incurred  their  pointed  condem- 
nation :  "  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mus- 
tard seed,  which  a  man  took  and  sowed  in  his  field;  which 
indeed  is  the  least  of  all  seeds,  but  when  it  is  grown,  it  is 
the  greatest  among  herbs,  and  becomes  a  tree,  so  that  the 
birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches  of  it."  We 
behold  no  such  mustard-trees  in  this  country,  say  the  ene- 
mies of  revelation,  therefore  the  description  of  Christ  must 
be  erroneous.  But  the  consequence  will  not  follow,  till  it 
is  proved  that  no  such  trees  exist  in  any  part  of  the  world. 
This  parable  of  the  mustard-tree  was  delivered  in  a  public 
assembly,  every  individual  of  which  was  well  acquainted 
with  it ;  many  of  them  were  the  avowed  enemies  of  our 
Lord,  and  would  have  gladly  seized  the  opportunity  of  ex- 
posing him  to  the  scorn  of  the  multitude,  if  he  had  commit- 
ted any  mistake.  The  silent  acquiescence  of  the  scribes 
and  Pharisees  aifordsan  irrefragable  proof  that  his  descrip- 
tion is  perfectly  correct.  They  knew  that  the  same  account 
of  that  plant  more  than  once  occurs  in  the  writings  of  their 
fathers.  In  the  Babylonish  Talmud,  a  Jewish  rabbi  writes, 
that  a  certain  man  of  Sichem  had  bequeathed  him  by  his 
father  three  boughs  of  mustard :  one  of  which  broken  off 
from  the  rest  yielded  nine  kabs  of  seed,  and  the  wood  of  it 
was  sufficient  to  cover  the  potter's  house.  Another  rabbi, 
in  the  Jerusalem  Talmud,  says,  he  had  a  stem  of  mustard 
in  his  garden,  into  which  he  could  climb  as  into  a  fig-tree. 
After  making  every  reasonable  allowance  for  the  hyper- 
bolical terms  in  which  these  Talmudical  writers  indulged, 
they  certainly  referred  to  real  appearances  in  nature  ;  and 
no  man  will  pretend  that  it  was  any  part  of  their  design  to 
justify  the  Saviour's  description.  But  the  birds  of  the  air 
might  certainly  lodge  with  ease  among  the  branches  of  a 
tree  that  was  sufficiently  strong  to  sustain  the  weight  of  a 
man.  The  fact  asserted  by  our  Lord  is  stated  in  the  clear- 
est terms  by  a  Spanish  historian,  who  says,  that  in  the  pro- 
vince of  Chili,  in  South  America,  the  mustard  grows  to  the 
size  of  a  tree,  and  the  birds  lodge  under  its  shade,  and  build 
their  nests  in  its  branches. — Paxton. 

Ver.  44.  Again,  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like 
unto  treasure  hid'in  a  field;  the  which  when  a 
man  hath  faund,  he  hideth,  and  for  joy  thereof 
goeth  and  selleth  all  that  he  hath,  and  buyeth 
that  field. 

No  practice  was  more  common  than  that  of  hiding  trea- 
sures in  a  field  or  garden,  because  the  people  had  not  any 
place  of  safety  in  which  to  deposite  their  riches,  and  becluse 
their  rapacious  rulers  were  sure  to  find  some  pretext  for 
accusation  against  them,  in  order  to  get  their  money. 
Hence  men  of  great  property  affected  poverty,  and  walked 
about  in  mean  apparel,  in  order  to  deceive  their  neighbours, 
and  hence  came  the  practice  of  hiding  their  treasures  in 
the  earth.  In  the  book  of  fate,  called  Sagd-Thevan  Saste- 
rdm,  the  following  question  occurs  many  times:  "  Will  the 
buried  things  be  found  V  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  there 
are  immense  treasures  buried  in  the  East  at  this  day.  Not 
long  ago  a  toddy  drawer  ascended  a  palmirah-tree  to  lop 
off  the  upper  branches,  when  one  of  them  in  falling  stuck 
in  the  ground.  On  taking  out  that  branch,  he  saw  some- 
thing yellow ;  he  looked,  and  found  an  earthern  vessel  full 
of  gold  coins  and  other  articles.  I  rescued  three  of  the  coins 
from  the  crucible  of  the  goldsmith,  and  what  was  my  sur- 
prise to  find  on  one  of  them,  in  ancient  Greek  characters, 
konoh-obryza.  About  two  years  ago  an  immense  hoard  was 
found  at  Putlam,  which  must  have  been  buried  for  severa. 
ftges. — Roberts. 

Ver.  55.  Is  not  this  the  carpenter's  son?  is  not 

74 


his  mother  called  Mary?   and  his  brethren, 
James,  and  loses,  and  Simon,  and  Judas  ? 
See  on  Mark  G.  3. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Ver.  7.  Whereupon  he  promised  with  an  oath  to 
give  her  whatsoever  she  would  ask. 

In  the  East  it  is  customary  for  public  dancers,  at  festi- 
vals in  great  houses,  to  solicit  from  the  company  they  hav« 
been  entertaining,  such  rewards  as  "^he  spectators  may 
choose  to  bestow.  These  usually  are  small  pieces  of  money, 
which  the  donor  sticks  on  the  face  of  the  performer.  A 
favourite  dancer  will  have  her  face  covered  with  such 
presents.  "  Shah  Abbas,  being  one  day  drunk,  gave  a  wo- 
man that  danced  much  to  his  satisfaction,  the  fairest  hhai 
in  all  Ispahan,  which  was  not  yet  finished,  but  wanted  little 
This  hhan  yielded  a  great  revenue  to  the  king,  to  whom  ii 
belonged,  in  chamber-rents.  The  nazar  having  put  him  in 
mind  of  it  next  morning,  took  the  freedom  to  tell  him  that 
it  was  unjustifiable  prodigality  ;  so  the  king  ordered  to  give 
her  a  hundred  tomans,  with  which  she  was  forced  to  be 
contented."    (Thevenot.) — Burder. 

Ver.  26.  And  when  the  disciples  saw  him  walk- 
ing on  the  sea,  they  were  troubled,  saying.  It 
is  a  spirit ;  and  they  cried  out  for  fear. 

The  Hindoos  have  to  do  with  so  many  demons,  gods, 
and  demigods,  it  is  no  wonder  they  live  in  constant  dread 
of  their  power.  There  is  not  a  hamlet  without  a  tree,  or 
some  secret  place,  in  which  evil  spirits  are  not  believed  to 
dwell.  Hence  the  people  live  in  constant  fear  of  those 
sprites  of  darkness,  and  nothing  but  the  most  pressing  nc* 
cessity  will  induce  a  man  to  go  abroad  after  the  sun  hai 
gone  down.  See  the  unhappy  wight  who  is  obliged  to  go^ 
out  in  the  dark ;  he  repeats  his  incantations  and  touches  iiis» 
amulets,  he  seizes  a  firebrand  to  keep  off  the  foes,  and 
begins  his  journey.  He  goes  on  with  gentle  step,  he 
listens,  and  again  repeats  his  prayers ;  should  he  hear  the 
rustling  of  a  leaf,  or  the  moaning  of  some  living  animal, 
he  gives  himself  up  for  lost.  Has  he  worked  himself  up 
into  a  state  of  artificial  courage,  he  begins  to  sing  and 
bawl  aloud,  "  to  keep  his  spirits  up."  But,  after  all  his 
efforts,  his  heart  will  not  beat  with  its  wonted  ease  till  he 
shall  have  gained  a  place  of  safety.  I  was  once  sitting, 
after  sunset,  under  a  large  banyan-tree,  {Jicus  religiGsa,) 
when  a  native  .soldier  passed  that  way.  He  saw  me  in  the 
shade,  and  immediately  began  to  cry  aloud,  and  beat  his 
breast,  and  ran  off  in  the  greatest  consternation.  That 
man  had  conducted  himself  bravely  in  the  Kandian  war, 
but  his  courage  fled  when  in  the  presence  of  a  supposed 
spirit.  On  another  occasion,  having  to  go  to  some  islands 
to  distribute  tracts,  and  having  determined  when  to  return, 
I  directed  my  servant  to  bring  my  pony  to  a  certain  point 
of  land,  where  I  intended  to  disembark.  Accordingly, 
when  I  had  finished  my  work,  I  returned  in  a  little  canoe, 
and  saw  my  pony  and  the  boy  in  the  distance.  But  the 
sun  having  gone  down,  the  unfortunate  fellow,  seeing  us 
indistinctly,  thought  we  were  spirits  :  he  mounted  the  pony 
and  galloped  off  with  all  speed,  leaving  me  to  my  medita- 
tions on  a  desolate  beach.  "  They  were  troubled,  saying, 
It  is  a  spirit." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Ver.  2.  Why  do  thy  disciples  transgress  the  tra- 
dition of  the  elders  ?  for  they  wash  not  their 
hands  when  they  eat  bread. 

No  Hindoo  of  good  caste  will  eat  till  he  has  washed 
his  hands.  Thus,  however  numerous  a  company  may  be, 
the  guests  never  commence  eating  till  they  have  perfcriB?d 
that  necessary  ablution. — Roberts. 

Ver.  4.  For  God  commanded,  saying,  Honour 
thy  father  and  mother :  and  he  that  curseth 
father  or  mother,  let  him  die  the  death.  5.  But 
ye  say,  Whosoever  shall  say  to  his  father  or  his' 
mother,  It  is  a  gift,  by  whatsoever  thou  mio;htest 


586 


MATTHEW. 


Chap.  15—18. 


be  profited  by  me :  6.  Ai.  i  honour  not  his 
father  or  his  mother,  he  shall  be  free.  Thus 
have  ye  made  the  commandment  of  God  of 
none  effect  by  your  tradition. 

By  the  term  cursing,  we  are  here  to  understand,  not 
only  what  may  be  peculiarly  so  termed,  that  is,  imprecating 
evil  on  a  parent,  but  probably  all  rude  and  reproachful 
language  used  towards  him;  at  least,  the  Hebrew  word 
h'^p,  (to  which  I  cannot  find  any  German  term  altogether 
equivalent;  and  the  Latin,  m«Zet?icere,  which  more  nearly 
resembles  it,  has  rather  a  wider  range  of  signification,) 
would  seem  to  comprehend  as  much,  according  to  the  com- 
mon usage  of  the  language.  An  example  of  this  crime, 
and,  indeed,  one  altogether  in  point,  is  given  by  Christ,  in 
Matt.  XV.  4—6,  or  Mark  vii.  9—12,  where  he  upbraids  the 
Pharisees  with  their  giving,  from  their  deference  to  hunian 
traditions  and  doctrines,  such  an  exposition  of  the  divine 
law,  as  converted  an  action,  which,  by  the  law  of  Moses, 
would  have  been  punished  with  death,  into  a  vow,  both 
obligatory  and  acceptable  in  the  sight  of  God.  It  seems 
that  it  was  then  not  uncommon  for  an  undutiful  and  de- 
generate son,  who  wanted  to  be  rid  of  the  burden  of  sup- 
porting his  parents,  and,  in  his  wrath,  to  turn  them  adrift 
upon  the  wide  world,  to  say  to  his  father  or  mother,  "  Kor- 
ban,  or,  Be  that  Korban  (consecrated)  which  I  should  ap- 
propriate to  thy  support ;  that  is.  Every  thing  wherewith  I 
might  ever  aid  or  serve  thee,  and,  of  course,  every  thmg, 
which  I  ought  to  devote  to  thy  relief  in  the  days  of  help- 
less old  age,  I  here  vow  unto  God."  A  most  abominable  vow 
indeed !  and  which  God  would,  unquestionably,  as  little 
approve  or  accept,  as  he  would  a  vow  to  commit  adultery 
or  sodomy.  And  yet  some  of  the  Pharisees  pronounced  on 
such  vows  this  strange  decision ;  that  they  were  absolutely 
obligatory,  and  that  the  son  who  uttered  such  words,  was 
bound  to  abstain  from  contributing,  in  the  smallest  article, 
to  the  behoof  of  his  parents;  because  every  thing  that 
should  have  been  so  appropriated,  had  become  consecrated 
to  God,  and  could  no  longer  be  applied  to  their  use,  without 
sacrilege  and  a  breach  of  his  vow.  But  on  this  exposition, 
Christ  not  only  remarked,  that  it  abrogated  the  fifth  com- 
mandment, but  he  likewise  added,  as  a  counter-doctrine, 
that  Moses,  th^ir  own  legislator,  had  expressly  declared, 
that  the  man  who  cursed  father  or  mother  deserved  to  die. 
Now,  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  curse  his  parents  more 
effectually,  than  by  a  vow  like  this,  when  he  interprets  it 
with  such  rigour,  as  to  preclude  him  from  doing  any  thing 
in  future  for  their  benefit.  It  is  not  imprecating  upon  them 
a  curse  in  the  common  style  of  curses,  which  but  evapo- 
rate into  air,  because  neither  the  devil,  nor  the  lightning, 
are  wont  to  be  so  obsequious  as  to  obey  our  wishes  every 
time  we  call  upon  the  one  to  take,  or  the  other  to  strike  dead, 
our  adversaries:  but  it  is  fulfilling  the  curse,  and  making 
it  to  all  intents  and  purposes  effectual. — Michaeljs. 

Ver.  28.  Then  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  her, 
O  woman,  great  is  thy  faith !  be  it  unto  thee 
even  as  thou  wilt.  And  her  daughter  was 
made  whole  from  that  very  hour. 

The  sex,  on  all  common  occasions,  are  always  addressed 
with  this  distinctive  appellation.  Thus  people  in  going 
along  the  road,  should  they  have  to  speak  to  a  female,  say, 
manushe,  i.  e.  woman,  hear  me.  The  term  sometimes  is 
'"xpressive  of  affection ;  but,  generally,  it  is  intended  to 
convey  an  intimation  of  weakness  and  contempt. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  19.  And  I  will  give  unto  thee  the  keys  of 

the  kingdom  of  heaven  :  and  whatsoever  thou 

shalt  bind  on  earth,  shall  be  bound  in  heaven ; 

and  whatsoever  thou  shalt  loose  on  earth,  shall 

be  loosed  in  heaven. 

• 
As  stewards  of  a  great  family,  especially  of  the  royal 
household,  bore  a  key,  probably  a  golden  one,  in  token 
of  their  oflftce,  the  phrase  of  giving  a  person  the  key  nat- 
urally grew  into  an  expression  of  raising  him  to  great 
power.  (Comp.  Is,  xxii.  22,  with  Rev.  iii.  7.)  This  was 
with  peculiar  propriety  applicable  to  the  stewards  of  the 


mysteries  of  God.  (1  Cor.  iv.  1.)  Peter's  opening  of  thr 
kingdom  of  heaven,  as  being  the  first  that  preached  it  both 
to  the  Jews  and  to  the  Gentiles,  may  be  considered  as  an 
illustration  of  this  promise  ;  but  it  is  more  fully  explained 
by  the  power  of  binding  and  loosing  afterward  mentioned. 

— BURDER.  ' 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Ver.  1.  And  after  six  days  Jesus  taketh  Peter, 
James,  and  John  his  brother,  and  bringeth  them 
up  into  a  high  mountain  apart,  2.  And  was 
transfigured  before  them :  and  his  face  did  shine 
as  the  sun,  and  his  raiment'  was  white  as  the 
light. 

Mount  Tabor,  or  Thabor,  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  is 
a  calcareous  mountain  of  a  conical  form,  entirely  detached 
from  any  neighbouring  mountain :  it  stands  on  one  side  of 
the  great  plain  of  Esdraelon.  The  sides  are  rugged  and 
precipitous,  and  covered  to  the  summit  with  the  most  beau- 
tiful shrubs  and  flowers.  Here  Barak  was  encamped  when, 
at  the  suggestion  of  the  prophetess  Deborah,  he  descended 
with  ten  thousand  men,  and  discomfited  the  host  of  Sisera. 
(Judg.  iv.  6,  &c.)  And,  long  afterward,  Hosea  reproach- 
ed the  princes  of  Israel  and  the  priests  of  the  golden  calves, 
with  having  "  been  a  snare  in  Mizpeh  and  a  net  spread 
upon  Tabor,"  (Hos.  v.  1,)  doubtless  referring  to  the  altars 
and  idols  which  were  here  set  up ;  and  on  this  "  high 
mountain  apart"  the  transfiguration  of  Jesus  Christ  is  gen- 
erally believed  to  have  taken  place.  (Matt.  xvii.  1,  2.) 
Tabor  is  computed  to  be  about  a  mile  in  height.  To  a 
person  standing  at  its  foot,  it  appears  to  terminate  in  a 
point :  but,  on  reaching  the  top,  he  is  agreeably  surprised 
to  find  an  oval  plain,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  its  great- 
est length,  covered  with  a  bed  of  fertile  soil  on  the  west, 
and  having  en  its  eastern  side  a  mass  of  ruins,  apparently 
the  vestiges  of  churches,  grottoes,  and  strong  walls,  all 
decidedly  of  some  antiquity,  and  a  few  appearing  to  be  the 
works  of  a  very  remote  a_ge.  The  Hon.  Capt.  Fitzmaurice, 
who  visited  this  mountain  in  February,  1833,  stales  that  he 
saw  the  ruins  of  a  very  ancient  church,  built  over  the  spot 
where  the  transfiguration  is  supposed  to  have  taken  place. 

The  prospects"  from  the  summit  of  Mount  Tabor  are 
singularly  delightful  and  extensive.  On  the  northwest, 
says  Mr.  Buckingham,  (whose  graphic  description  has 
been  confirmed  by  subsequent  travellers,)  "  w-e  had  a  view 
of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  whose  blue  surface  filled  up  an 
open  space  left  by  a  downward  bend  in  the  outline  of  the 
western  hills;  to  the  west-northwest  a  small  portion  of  its 
waters  were  seen ;  and  on  the  west,  again,  the  slender  line 
of  the  distant  horizon  was  just  perceptible  over  the  range  of 
land  near  the  .seacoast.  From  the  west  to  the  south,  the 
plain  of  Esdraelon  extended  over-a  vast  space,  beino  bound- 
ed on  the  south  by  a  range  of  hills  generally  considered  to 
be  Hermon,  whose  dews  are  poetically  celebrated,  (Psal. 
cxxxiii.  3,)  and  having  in  the  same  direction,  nearer  the  t 
foot  of  Tabor,  the  springs  of  Ain-el-Sherar,  which  send 
a  perceptible  stream  through  its  centre,  and  form  the  brook 
Kishon  of  antiquity.  From  the  southeast  to  the  east  is  the 
plain  of  Galilee,  being  almost  a  continuation  of  Esdraelon, 
and,  like  it,  appearing  to  be  highly  cultivated.  Beneath 
the  range  of  Hermon  is  seated  Endor,  famed  for  the  witch 
who  raised  the  ghost  of  Samuel,  (I  Sam.  xxviii.)and  Nain, 
equally  celebrated  as  the  place  at  which  Jesus  raised  to 
life  the  only  son  of  a  widow,  and  restored  him  to  his 
afilicted  parent.  The  range  which  bounds  the  eastern  view 
is  thought  to  be  the  '  mountains  of  Gilboa,'  so  fatal  to  Saul, 
(1  Sam.  xxxi.)  The  Sea  of  Tiberias,  or  Lake  of  Gen- 
nesareth,  is  clearly  discovered  towards  the  northeast,  and 
somewhat  further  in  this  direction  is  pointed  out  the  village 
of  Saphet,  anciently  nam'ed  Bethulia,  the  city  alluded  to 
by  Jesus  Christ  in  his  divine  sermon  on  the  mount,  from 
which  it  is  also  very  conspicuous. 

"  The  rest  of  this  glorious  panorama  comprehends  the 
sublime  '  Mount  of  Beatitudes,'  upon  which  that  memorable 
sermon  was  delivered,  together  with  the  route  to  Damas- 
cus, and,  lastly.  Mount  Lebanon,  towering  in  the  back- 
ground in  prodigious  grandeur,  the  summit  of  which  is 
covered  with  perpetual  snow." — Horne, 
CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ver.  6.  But  whoso  shall  ofl^end  one  of  these  little 


Chap.  18—20. 


MATTHEW. 


587 


ones  which  believe  in  me,  it  were  better  for 
him  that  a  millstone  were  lianged  about  his 
neck,  and  that  he  were  drowned  in  the  depth  of 
the  sea. 

It  was  a  favourite  punishment  in  ancient  times,  to  tie  a 
large  stone  round  the  neck  of  a  criminal,  and  then  to  cast 
him  into  the  sea  or  deep  waters.  Thus,  Appe-Murte,  a 
man  of  rank,  was  destroyed  in  this  way,  for  changmg  his 
religion,  Budhism,  for  Hindooism.  The  punishment  is 
called  sala-pti.ruchy.  The  millstones  in  the  East  are  not 
moi-e  than  twenty  inches  in  diameter,  and  three  inches 
thick,  so  that  there  would  not  be  that  difficulty  which  some 
have  supposed  in  thus  despatching  criminals.  It  is  common, 
when  a  person  is  much  oppressed,  to  say,  "  I  had  rather 
have  a  stone  tied  round  about  my  neck,  and  be  thrown  into 
the  sea,  than  thus  suffer."  A  wife  says  to  her  husband, 
"  Rather  than  beat  me  thus,  tie  a  stone  round  my  neck,  and 
throw  me  into  the  tank." — Roberts. 

Ver.  10.  Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of 
these  little  ones :  for  I  say  unto  you,  That  in 
heaven  their  angels  do  always  behold  the  face 
of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

Why  is  the  fact  of  the  angels  constantly  beholding  the 
face  of  God  in  heaven,  a  reason  for  not  despising  one  of 
Christ's  little  ones  1  On  this  point  the  commentators,  for 
the  most  part,  leave  the  reader  no  more  enlightened  than 
they  found  him.  We  suppose  the  true  answer  to  be,  that  a 
posture  of  strict  attention,  a  look  of  wistful,  intense,  and 
obsequious  regard,  directed  to  the  eye,  the  countenance,  or 
the  hand  of  a  superior,  is  characteristic  of  a  dutiful  servant, 
Df  one  intent  upon  the  performance  of  his  master's  com- 
mands. It  is  a  posture  indicative  at  once  of  an  anxious 
wish  to  know,  and  a  cordial  readiness  to  execute,  the  will 
of  a  lord  or  ruler.  This  is  apparent  from  the  following  in- 
stances of  scripture  usage: — 1  Kings  i.  20,  "  And  then,  my 
lord,  O  king,  the  eyes  of  all  Israel  arc  upon  thee,  that  thou 
shouldsttellthemwho  shall  sit  on  the  throneof  my  lord  the 
king  after  him."  Ps.  cxxiii.  2,  "  Behold,  as  the  eyes  of  ser- 
vants look  unto  the  hand  of  their  masters,  and  as  the  eyes  of  a 
maiden  unto  the  handof  her  mistress;  so  our  eyes  wait 
upon  the  Lord  our  God."  Our  Saviour  accordingly  would 
intimate  that  such  was  the  attitude  of  the  angels  in  heaven, 
who  are  ministering  spirits  to  the  heirs  of  salvation.  Act- 
ing as  a  tutelary  cohort  to  the  sons  of  the  kingdom,  they 
were  always  on  the  alert  to  undertake  their  cause.  For 
this  purpose  they  stood  obedient  to  the  beck  and  bidding  of 
their  heavenly  master.  Like  devoted  servants  ready  to 
take  their  orders  from  a  bare  look,  a  glance  of  the  eye,  or 
a  turn  of  the  head,  so  these  guardian  spirits  were  inces- 
santly on  the  watch,  to  learn  when  and  where  they  should 
be  sent,  with  the  speed  of  the  wind,  to  avenge  the  wrongs 
and  injuries  of  God's  chosen.  Seeing  then  such  a  prompt 
and  powerful  custody  is  provided  for  the  little  ones  of  Christ, 
it  must  be  dangerous  to  despise  them,  whether  in  word  or 
deed. — Bush. 

Ver.  21.  Then  came  Peter  to  him,  and  said,  Lord, 
how  oft  shall  my  brother  sin  against  me,  and  I 
forgive  him  1  till  seven  times  ? 

This  number  is  in  common  use,  to  show  a  thing  has  been 
often  done.  "  Have  I  not  told  you  sg-ym  times  to  fetch  water 
and  wash  my  feet  1"  "  Seven  times  have  I  been  to  the  temple, 
but  still  my  requests  are  not  granted."  "  Seven  times  have 
I  requested  the  father  to  give  me  the  hand  of  his  daughter, 
but  he  refused  me :  and,  therefore,  will  not  ask  him  again." 
"  Have  I  not  forgiven  you  seven  times,  and  how  shall  I  for- 
give you  again  V — Roberts. 

Ver.  34.  And  his  lord  was  wroth,  and  delivered 
him  to  the  tormentors,  till  he  should  pay  all 
that  was  due  unto  him. 

The  word  0aaavirm  properly  denotes  examiner,  particu- 
larly one  who  has  it  in  charge  to  examine  by  torture. 
Hence  it  came  to  signify  jailer,  for  on  such  in  those  days 
this  charge  commonly  devolved.    They  were  not  only  al- 


lowed, but  even  commanded,  to  treat  the  wretches  in  their 
custody  with  every  kind  of  cruelty,  in  order  to  extort  pay- 
ment from  them,  in  case  they  had  concealed  any  of  their 
effects  ;  or,  if  ihey  had  nothing,  to  wrest  the  sum  owed  from 
the  compassion  of  their  relations  and  friends,  who,  to  re- 
lease an  unhappy  person  for  whom  they  had  a  regard  from 
such  extreme  misery,  might  be  induced  to  pay  the  debt ; 
for,  let  it  be  observed,  that  the  person  of  the  insolvent  debtor 
was  absolutely  in  the  power  of  the  creditor,  and  at  his  dis- 

'posal  .^— C  A  MPBELL . 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Ver.  6.  Wherefore  they  are  no  more  twain,  but 
one  flesh.  What,  therefore,  God  hath  joined 
together,  let  no  man  put  asunder. 

Of  a  happy  couple  it  is  said,  "  They  have  one  life  and 
one  body."  If  they  are  not  happy.  "  Ah  !  they  are  like  the 
knife  arid  the  victim,"  "  They  are  like  the  dog  and  the 
cat,  or  the  crow  and  the  how,  or  the  kite  and  the  serpent." — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  24.  And  again  I  say  unto  you,  It  is  easier 
for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle, 
than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom 
of  God. 

This  metaphor  finds  a  parallel  in  the  proverb  which  is 
quoted  to  show  the  difficulty  of  accomplishing  any  thing. 
"  Just  as  soon  will  an  elephant  pass  through  the  spont  of  a 
kettle."  "  Ah!  the  old  sinner,  ne  finds  it  no  easy  thing  to 
die;  his  life  is  lingering,  lingering;  it  co.nnot  escape;  it  is 
like  the  elephant  trying  to  get  through  the  spout  of  a  kettle." 
— Roberts. 

To  pass  a  camel  through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  was  a  pro- 
verbial expression  among  the  nations  of  high  antiquity,  de- 
noting a  difficulty  which  neither  the  art  nor  the  power  of 
man  can  surmount.  Our  Lord  condescends  to  employ  it  in 
his  discourse  to  the  disciples,  to  show  how  extremely  diffi- 
cult it  is  for  a  rich  man  to  forsake  all  for  the  cause  of  God 
and  truth,  and  obtain  the  blessings  of  salvation  :  "  I  say  unto 
you,  it  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a 
needle,  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
God."  Many  expositors,  however,  are  of  opinion,  that  the 
allusion  is  not  to  the  animal  of  ^nat  name,  but  to  the  cable 
by  which  an  anchor  is  made  fast  to  the  ship :  and  for  came), 
they  read  camil,  from  which  our  word  cable  is  supposed  to 
be  descended.  It  is  not  perhaps  easy  to  determine  which 
of  these  ought  to  be  preferred ;  and"  some  interpreters  of 
considerable  note  have  accordingly  adopted  both  views. 
The  more  common  signification  of  the  term,  however, 
seems  rather  to  countenance  the  first  view.  The  Talmudi- 
cal  writers  had  a  similar  proverb  concerning  him  who  pro- 
posed to  accomplish  an  impossibility,  which  they  couched 
in  the  following  terms :  "  Thou  art  perchance  from  the 
city  of  Pomboditha,  where  they  send  an  elephant  through 
the  eye  of  a  needle."  Another  Hebrew  adage,  mentioned 
by  the  learned  Buxtorf,  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to 
this :  They  neither  show  one  a  golden  palm,  nor  an  elephant 
which  enters  through  the  eye  of  a  needle.  Both  these  pro- 
verbial expressions  were  intended  to  express  either  a  thing 
extremely  difficult,  or  altogether  impracticable  to  human 
power;  but  our  Lord,  instead  of  the  elephant,  took  the 
camel,  as  being  an  animal  better  known  to  the  Jews.  The 
striking  analogy ^^  however,  between  a  cable  and  a  thread 
which  is  wont  to  be  passed  through  the  eye  of  a  needlQ 
would  incline  us  to  embrace  the  second  view.  By  the  He- 
brew term  (Sns)  gamel,  and  the  Greek  word  {Kanninc,)  kame- 
los,  the  Syrians,  the  Helenistis  Jews,  and  the  Arabians,  all 
understood  a  ship's  cable:  and  hence,  the  Assyrians  and 
Arabians  contended  that  the  word  must  be  so  interpreted 
in  the  proverb  under  consideration.  The  Talmudical  wri- 
ters also  have  a  similar  adage,  which  is  quoted  by  Bux- 
torf: "  The  departure  of  the  soul  from  the  body  is  diffi- 
cult as  the  passing  of  a  cable  through  a  small  aperture."— 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XX. 
Ver.  6.  And  about  the  eleventh  hour  he  went  out, 
and  found  others  standing  idle,  and  saith  unio 
them,  AVhy  stand  ye  here  all  the  day  idle? 


588 


MATTHEW. 


Chap.  20—22. 


7.  They  say  unto  him,  Because  no  man  hath 
hired  us.  He  saith  unto  them,  Go  ye  also  into 
the  vineyard;  and  whatsoever  is  right,  that 
shall  ye  receive. 

The  most  conspicuous  building  in  Hamadan  is  the  Mes- 
jid  Jumah,  a  large  mosque  now  falling  inio  decay,  and 
before  it  a  maidan  or  square,  which  serves  as  a  market- 
place. Here  we  observed  every  morning  before  the  sun 
rose,  that  a  numerous  band  of  peasants  were  collected  with 
spades  in  their  hands,  waiting,  as  they  informed  us,  to  be 
hired  for  the  day  to  work  in  the  surrounding  fields.  This 
custom,  which  I  have  never  seen  in  any  other  part  of  Asia, 
forcibly  struck  me  as  a  most  happy  illustration  of  our  Sa- 
viour's parable  of  the  labourers  in  the  vineyard  in  the  20th 
chapter  of  Matthew,  particularly  when  passing  by  the  same 
place  laie  in  the  day,  we  still  found  others  standing  idle, 
and  remembered  his  words,  "  Why  stand  ye  here  all  the 
day  idle  1"  as  most  applicable  to  their  situation :  for  in  put- 
ting the  very  same  question  to  them,  they  answered  us, 
"  Because  no  man  hath  hired  us." — Morier. 

Ver.  11.  And  when  they  had  received  it,  they 
murmured  against  the  good  man  of  the  house. 

Pay  a  man  ever  so  liberally,  he  will  still  murmur ;  he 
looks  at  the  money  and  then  at  your  face,  and  says,  "  po- 
THATHu,"  i.  e.  not  sufficient.  He  tells  you  a  long  story  about 
what  he  has  done  and  suffered,  about  the  great  expense  he 
has  been  at  to  oblige  you,  and  he  entreats  you  for  a  little 
more.  I  ask  any  Englishman  who  has  been  in  India,  if  he 
ever  met  with  a  Hindoo  who  was  not  at  all  times  ready  to 
MURMUR  1 — Roberts. 

Ver.  16.  So  the  last  shall  be  first,  and  the  first 
last :  for  many  be  called,  but  few  chosen. 

The  Jews  never  spake  of  levying  troops,  but  of  choosing 
them ;  because  all  the  males,  from  twenty  years  old  and 
upwards,  being  liable  to  serve,  they  had  always  a  great 
many  more  than  they  wanted.  In  allusion  to  the  general 
muster  of  the  people,  and  the  selection  of  a  certain  number 
for  the  service  of  their  country,  our  Lord  observes,  "  Many 
are  called,  but  few  chosen."  The  great  mass  of  the 
people  were  called  together  by  sound  of  trumpet,  and  on 
passing  in  review  before  the  officers,  those  were  chosen  who 
were  deemed  most  fit  for  service.  This  is  the  reason  the 
Hebrews  usually  called  their  soldiers  young  men,  and 
bahurim,  chosen.  But  no  man,  who  felt  a  disposition  to 
serve  his  country,  was  rejected  ;  though  an  Israelite  was  not 
chosen,  he  might  volunteer  his  services,  and  was  then  en- 
rolled.— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Ver.  5.  Tell  ye  the  daughter  of  Sion,  Behold,  thy 
king  cometh  unto  thee,  meek,  and  sitting  upon 
an  ass,  and  a  colt  the  foal  of  an  ass. 
See  on  Is.  30.  24. 

Ver.  7.  And  brought  the  ass,  and  the  colt,  and  put 
on  them  their  clothes,  and  they  set  him  thereon. 

In  later  times  also  it  was  customary  #n  those  countries 
fo  make  riding  more  convenient  in  this  manner.  Tucher, 
who  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  holy  sepulchre  in  the  last 
half  of  the  fi^fteenth  century,  gives  the  following  advice 
to  a  person  who  intends  travelling  in  Palestine :  "  Have 
a  coat  made  at  Venice  of  double  cloth :  it  is  very  conve- 
nient in  the  Holy  Land.  You  spread  it  upon  the  ass,  and 
ride  on  it." — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  8.  And  a  very  great  multitude  spread  their 
garments  in  the  way;  others  cut  down  branches 
from  the  trees,  and  strewed  them  in  the  way. 

It  was  a  common  practice  in  the  East,  and  one  which, 
on  certain  great  and  joyful  occasions,  has  been  practised 
in  other  countries,  to  strew  flowers  and  branches  of  trees 
in  the  way  of  conquerors  and  renowned  princes.    Herod- 


otus states,  that  people  went  before  Xerxes  passing  over 
the  Hellespont,  and  burnt  all  manner  of  perfumes  oa  the 
bridges,  and  strewed  the  way  with  myrtles.  So  did  those 
Jews  who  believed  Christ  to  "be  the  promised  Messiah,  and 
the  king  of  Israel ;  they  cut  down  branches  of  the  trees, 
and  strewed  them  in  the  way.  Sometimes  the  whoh;  road 
which  leads  to  the  capitol  of  an  eastern  monarch,  for  sev- 
eral miles,  is  covered  with  rich  silks  over  which  he  rides 
into  the  city.  Agreeably  to  this  custom,  the  multitudes 
spread  their  garments  in  the  way  when  the  Saviour  rode 
in  triumph  into  Jerusalem. — Paxton. 

Campbell  is  right,  "  Spread  their  mantles  ^n  the  way." 
The  people  of  the  East  have  a  robe  which  corresponds 
with  the  mantle  of  an  English  lady.  Its  name  is  salvi,  and 
how  often  may  it  be  seen  spread  on  the  groimd  where  men 
of  rank  have  to  walk  !  1  was  not  a  little  surprised  soon 
after  my  arrival  in  the  East,  when  going  to  visit  a  native 
gentleman,  to  find  the  path  through  the  garden  covered 
with  white  garments.  I  hesitated,  but  was  told  it  was  for 
"  my  respect."  I  must  walk  on  them  to  show  I  accepted 
the  honour. — Roberts. 

Ver.  12.  And  Jesus  went  into  the  temple  of  God, 
and  cast  out  all  them  that  sold  and  bought  in 
the  temple,  and  overthrew  the  tables  of  the 
money-changers,  and  the  seats  of  them  that  sold 
doves. 

The  money-changers  were  such  persons  as  supplied  the 
Jews,  who  came  from  distant  parts  of  Judea,  and  other 
parts  of  the  Roman  empire,  with  money,  to  be  received 
back  at  their  respective  homes,  or  which  they  had  paid 
before  they  began  their  journey.  Perhaps  also  they  ex- 
changed foreign  coins  for  those  current  at  Jerusalem.  The 
Talmud  and  Maimonides  inform  us  that  the  half-shekel 
paid  yearly  to  the  temple  by  all  the  Jews,  (Exod.  xxx.  15,) 
was  collected  there  with  great  exactness  in  the  month  Adar, 
and  that  on  changing  the  shekels  and  other  money  into 
half-shekels  for  that  purpose,  the  money-changers  exacted 
a  small  stated  fee,  or  payment,  called  kolbon.  It  was  the 
tables  on  which  they  trafficked  for  this  unholy  gain  which 
Christ  overturned. — Hammond. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
Ver.  2.  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a 
certain  king,  which  made  a  marriage  for  his 


The  hpspitality  of  the  present  day,  in  the  East,  exactly 
resembles  that  of  the  remotest  antiquity.  The  parable  of 
the  "  great  supper"  is  in  those  countries  literally  realized. 
And  such  was  the  hospitality  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome. 
"When  a  person  provided  an  entertainment  for  his  friends 
or  neighbours,  he  sent  round  a  number  of  servants  to  in- 
vite the  guests ;  these  were  called  vocatores  by  the  Romans, 
and  K\riT(x}pEf  by  the  Greeks.  The  day  when  the  entertain- 
ment is  to  be  given  is  fixed  some  considerable  time  before ; 
and  in  the  evening  of  the  day  appointed,  a  messenger  comes 
to  bid  the  guests  to  the  feast.  The  custom  is  thus  introduced 
in  Luke  :  "  A  certain  man  made  a  great  supper,  and  bade 
many;  and  sent  his  servant  at  supper  time,  to  say  to  them 
that  were  bidden,  Come,  for  all  things  are  now  ready." 
They  were  not  now  asked  for  the  first  time  ;  but  had  al- 
ready accepted  the  invitation,  when  the  day  was  appointed, 
and  "were  therefore  already  pledged  to  attend  at  the  hour 
when  they  might  be  summoned.  They  were  not  taken 
unprepared,  and  could  not  in  consistency  and  decency  plead 
any  prior  engagement.  They  could  not  now  refuse,  with- 
out violating  their  word  and  insulting  the  master  of  the  feast, 
and  therefore  justly  subjected  themselves  to  punishment. 
The  terms  of  the  parable  exactly  accord  with  established 
custom,  and  contain  nothing  of  the  harshness  to  which 
infidels  object. — Paxton. 

Ver.  4.  Again  he  sent  forth  other  servants,  say- 
ing, Tell  them  which  are  bidden,  Behold,  I  have 
prepared  my  dinner  ;  my  oxen  and  w?/  fatlings 
are  killed,  and  all  things  are  ready :  come  unto 
the  marriage. 


Chap.  23. 


MATTHEW. 


589 


The  following  extract  gives  us  an  interesting  account 
of  a  Persian  dinner :  "  On  the  ground  before  us  was 
spread  the  sofra,  a  fine  chints  cloth,  which  perfectly  in- 
trenched our  legs,  and  which  is  used  so  long  unchanged, 
vthat  the  accumulated  fragments  of  former  meals  collect 
into  a  musty  paste,  and  emit  no  very  savoury  smell ;  but 
the  Persians  are  content,  for  they  say  that  changing  the 
sofra  brings  ill  luck.  A  tray  was  then  placed  before  each 
guest ;  on  these  trays  were  three  fine  China  bowls,  which 
were  filled  with  sherbets,  two  made  of  sweet  liquors,  and 
one  of  a  most  exquisite  species  of  lemonade.  There  were, 
besides,  fruits  ready  cut,  plates  with  elegant  little  arrange- 
ments of  sweetmeats  and  confectionary,  and  smaller  cups, 
of  sweet  sherbet ;  the  whole  of  which  were  placed  most 
symmetrically,  and  were  quite  inviting,  even  by  their  ap- 
pearance. In  the  vases  of  sherbet  were  spoons  made  of 
the  pear-tree,  with  very  deep  bowls,  and  worked  so  deli- 
cately, that  the  long  handle  just  slightly  bent  when  it  was 
carried  to  the  mouth.  The  pillaws  succeeded,  three  of 
which  were  placed  before  each  two  guests;  one  of  plain 
rice,  called  the  chillo,  one  made  of  mutton,  with  raisins  and 
almonds ;  the  other  of  a  fowl,  and  rich  spices  and  plums. 
To  this  were  added  various  dishes,  with  rich  sauce.  Their 
cooking,  indeed,  is  mostly  composed  of  sweets.  The  busi- 
ness of  eating  was  a  pleasure  to  the  Persians,  but  it  was 
misery  to  us.  They  comfortably  advanced  their  chins 
close  to  the  dishes,  and  commodiously  scooped  the  rice  or 
other  victuals  into  their  mouths  with  three  fingers  and  the 
thumb  of  their  right  hand  ;  but  in  vain  did  we  attempt  to 
approach  the  dish :  our  tight-kneed  breeches,  and  all  the 
ligaments  and  buttons  of  our  dress,  forbid  us ;  and  we  were 
forced  to  manage  as  well  as  we  could,  fragments  of  meat 
and  rice  falling  through  our  fingers  all  around  us."  (Mo- 
rier.) — Border. 

Ver.  9.  Go  ye  therefore  into  the  highways,  and, 
as  many  as  ye  shall  find,  bi^  to  the  marriage. 

It  is  as  common  in  the  East  for  a  rich  man  to  give  a 
feast  to  the  poor,  and  the  maimed,  and  the  blind,  as  it  is  in 
England  for  a  nobleman  to  entertain  men  of  his  own  de- 
gree. Thus,  does  he  wish  to  gain  some  temporal  or  spirit- 
ual blessing,  he  orders  his  head  servant  to  prepare  a  feast 
for  one  or  two  hundred  poor  guests.  Messengers  are  then 
despatched  into  the  streets  and  lanes  to  inform  the  indigent, 
that  on  such  a  day  rice  and  curry  will  be  given  to  all  who 
are  there  at  the  appointed  time.  Long  before  the  hour  the 
visiters  may  be  seen  bending  their  steps  towards  the  house 
of  the  RASA,  or  king :  there  goes  the  old  man,  who  is  scarce- 
ly able  to  move  his  palsied  limbs,  he  talks  to  himself 
about  better  days;  and  there  the  despised  widow  moves 
with  a  hesitating  step ;  there  the  sanydsi  or  pa^iddrum  bold- 
ly brushes  along  and  scowls  upon  all  who  offer  the  least 
impediment  to  his  progress  ;  there  objects  suffering  under 
every  possible  disease  of  our  nature  congregate  together, 
without  a  single  kindred  association,  excepting  the  one 
which  occupies  their  expectations.  The  food  is  ready, 
the  guests  sit  in  rows  on  the  grass,  (Luke  ix.  14,)  and  the 
servants  begin  to  hand  out  the  portions  in  order.  Such  is 
the  hunger  of  some  that  they  cannot  stay  to  let  the  mess  get 
cool,  and  thus  have  to  sTiffer  the  consequences  of  their  impa- 
tience ;  others,  upon  whom  disease  or  age  has  made  a  fatal 
inroad,  can  scarcely  taste  the  provision;  some  are  of  high 
caste,  who  growl  as  they  eat,  at  those  of  lower  grades,  for 
having  presumed  to  come  near  them;  and  others,  on  ac- 
count ot  the  high  blood  which  flows  in  their  veins,  are  al- 
lowed to  take  a  portion  to  their  homes.  What  a  motley 
scene  is  that,  and  what  a  strange  contrariety  in  their  talk ; 
some  are  bawling  out  for  more  food,  though  they  are  already 
gorged  to  the  full :  others  are  talking  about  another  feast 
which  is  to  be  given  in  such  a  village,  and  others  who  have 
got  a  sight  of  the  host,  are  loudly  applauding  his  princely 
generosity.  He  is  delighted  to  hear  their  flattery;  it  all 
falls  sweetly  on  his  feelings,  for  the  higher  the  tone,  the 
greater  the  relish.  He  has  gained  his  object,  taramum,  i.  e. 
charity  has  been  attended  to ;  he  has  been  exhilarated  with 
adulation,  he  has  got  a  "  name  in  the  street,^'  (Job  xviii.  17,) 
and  the  gods  have  been  propitiated. — Roberts. 

Ver.  11.  And  when  the  king  came  in  to  see  the 
guests,  he  saw  there  a  man  which  had  not  on 
a  wedding  garment. 


"  The  Persians,  in  circumstances  of  grief  or  joy,  visit 
each  other  wiih  great  attention,  which  is  a  tribute  of  duty 
always  expected  from  persons  of  inferior  condition,  espe- 
cially if  they  be  dependant.  The  guests  are  ushered  into 
a  large  room,  and  served  with  coffee  and  tobacco.  After 
some  time  the  master  of  the  house  enters,  and  his  visiters, 
rising  to  receive  him,  continue  standing  till  he  has  passed 
'through  the  whole  company  and  paid  his  respects  to  each  : 
he  then  takes  his  seat,  and  "by  signs  permits  them  to  be  also 
seated."  (Goldsmith's  Geography.)  In  the  parable  now 
referred  to,  the  circumstances  of  which  may  reasonably 
be  supposed  conformable  to  existing  customs,  it  is  evidently 
implied  that  the  guests  were  collected  together  previous  to 
the  appearance  of  the  king,  who  came  in  to  see  the  guests. 
So  also  in  Luke  xiv.  10,*in  a  similar  parable,  it  is  said, 
"when  thou  art  bidden,  go  and  sit  downin  the  lowest  room  ; 
that  when  he  that  bade  thee  cometh,  he  may  say  unto  thee.  Go 
up  higher."  This  unquestionably  confirms  the  application 
of  the  Persian  ceremony  to  the  parable  first  cited.  It  may 
just  be  further  observed,  that  in  the  last-mentioned  passage 
it  seems  as  if  it;  had  then  been  the  prevailing  practice  for 
the  master  of  the  house  "  to  pass  through  the  guests,  and 
pay  his  respects  to  each  of  th^m,"  as  was  certainly  the 
case  in  Persia. 

The  following  extract  will  show  the  importance  of  hav- 
ing a  suitable  garment  for  a  marriage  feast,  and  the  of- 
fence taken  against  those  who  refuse  it  when  presented  as 
a  gift :  "  The  next  day,  Dec.  3,  the  king  sent  to  invite  the 
ambassadors  to  dine  with  him  once  more.  The  Mehe- 
mander  told  them,  it  was  the  custom  that  they  should  wear 
over  their  own  clothes  the  best  of  those  garments  which 
the  king  had  sent  them.  The  ambassadors  at  first  made 
some  scruple  of  that  compliance:  but  when  they  were  told 
that  it  was  a  custom  observed  by  all  ambassadors,  and  that 
no  doubt  the  king  would  take  it  very  ill  at  their  hands  if 
they  presented  themselves  before  him  without  the  marks  of 
his  liberality,  they  at  last  resolved  to  do  it ;  and,  after  their 
example,  all  the  rest  of  the  retinue."    (Abassador's  Trav 

els.) BURDER. 

CHAPTER  XXIIL 
Ver.  6.  And  love  the  uppermost  rooms  at  feasts, 
and  the  chief  seats  in  the  synagogues. 

See  on  Luke  14.  S-11. 

At  their  feasts  matters  were  commonly  ordered  thus: 
three  couches  were  set  in  the  form  of  the  Greek  letter  IT. 
The  table  was  placed  in  the  middle,  the  lower  end  whereof 
was  left  open  to  give  access  to  servants  for  setting  and  re- 
moving the  dishes,  and  serving  the  guests.  The  other 
three  sides  were  enclosed  by  the  couches,  whence  it  got  the 
name  of  triclinium.  The  middle  couch,  which  lay  along 
the  upper  end  of  the  table,  and  was  therefore  accounted 
the  most  honourable  place,  and  that  which  the  Pharisees 
are  .said  particularly  to  have  affected,  was  distinguished 
by  the  name  TrpuroKXtffia. — Campbell. 

Ver.  7.  And  greetings  in  the  markets,  and  to  be 
called  of  men,  Rabbi,  Rabbi.  8.  But  be  not 
ye  called  Rabbi ;  for  one  is  your  Master,  even 
Christ,  and  all  ye  are  brethren. 

This  title  (rabbi)  began  first  to  be  assumed  by  men  of 
learning  about  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Christ.  Simeon, 
the  son  of  Hillel,  who  succeeded  his  fat  ^er  as  president 
of  the  Sanhedrim,  was  the  first  Jew'sfi  r^bbi.  The  title 
was  generally  conferred  with  a  great  deal  of  ceremony. 
When  a  person  had  gone  through  me  schools,  and  was 
thought  worthy  of  the  degree  of  raboi,  he  was  first  placed 
in  a  chair,  a  little  raised  above  the  company ;  then  were 
delivered  to  him  a  key  and  a  table-book ;  the  key  as  a  sym- 
bol of  the  power  and  authority  conferred  upon  him  to 
teach  others,  and  the  table-book  as  a  symbol  of  his  dili- 
gence in  his  studies.  The  key  he  afterward  wore  as  a 
badge  of  honour,  and  when  he  died  it  was  buried  with 
him.  On  this  occasion  also,  the  imposition  of  hands  by 
the  delegates  of  the  sanhedrim  was  practised.    (Alting.  j 

— BURDER. 

Ver.  16.  Wo  unto  you,  ye  blind  guides!  which 


MATTHEW. 


Chap.  23. 


say,  Whosoever  shall  swear  by  the  temple,  it  is 
nothing:  but  whosoever  shall  swear  by  the 
gold  of  the  temple,  he  is  a  debtor. 

With  respect  to  oaths,  there  came  a  doctrine  into  vogue 
among  the  Je\rs,  in  the  time  of  Christ,  which  made  such  a 
nice  distinction  between  what  was  and  what  loas  not  an 
oath,  that  illiterate  people  Avere  really  incapable  of  compre- 
hending it,  or  indeed  forming  any  idea  of  it :  and  thus  a 
Jew  had  it  in  his  power  to  be  guilty  of  the  grossest  treach- 
ery to  his  neighbour,  even  when  the  latter  thought  he  had 
heard  him  swear  by  all  that  was  sacred.  Who  could  sup- 
pose, for  instance,  that  a  Jew  did  not  speak  seriously,  when 
he  swore  by  the  temple.  Yet  by  this  doctrine,  such  an  oath 
was  a  mere  nothing,  because  the  stones  of  the  temple  icere  7iot 
consecrated.  I  do  not  mean  to  describe  this  morality  by 
passages  from  the  writings  of  the  rabbins,  both  because 
sufficient  collections  of  these  have  already  been  made  by 
others,  and  because  they  are  not  only  too  extensive,  but  also 
.00  modern  for  my  purpose,  as  I  have  principally  to  do  with 
it  as  it  stood  in  the  time  of  Christ.  I  rather  choose  to  take 
what  the  Jewish  moralists  of  his  day  taught,  from  his  own 
mouth,  and  to  accompany  their  doctrine  with  his  refutation. 
The  reader  who  wishes  "to  see  passages  from  the  rabbins, 
may  either  consult  learned  commentators  on  Matt.  v.  33 — 
37.  xxiii.  16 — 22,  or  peruse  what  Wetstein  has  collected 
from  them,  in  whose  New  Testament  he  will  find  a  pretty 
copious  collection  of  such  passages. 

Christ  himself,  then,  in  Matt,  xxiii.  16 — 22,  mentions 
some  specimens  of  their  doctrine,  which  he  finds  it  neces- 
sary to  controvert.  The  Pharisees,  whom  he  censured, 
were  in  the  way  of  saying,  "  If  a  man  swear  by  the  tem- 
ple, he  is  not  bound  by  that  oath  ;  but  if  he  swear  by  the 
gold  of  the  temple,  he  "is  bound."  This  was  a  very  para- 
doxical distinction;  and  no  one  who  heard  their  oaths 
could  possibly  divine  it,  unless  he  happened  to  be  initiated 
into  the  whole  villany  of  the  business.  One  would  natu- 
rally entertain  the  very  same  idea  concerning  it,  which 
Christ  expresses  in  his  refutation  of  it,  viz.  that  "  the  tem- 
ple which  consecrates  the  gold  is  of  greater  account,  and 
belongs  more  immediately  to  God,  than  the  gold."  But  the 
foundation  of  the  refined  distinction  made  by  the  Pharisees 
was,  that  the  gold  was  sanctified,  but  not  the  materials  of 
ihe  edifice.  Again,  the  Pharisees  said,  "  If  a  man  swear 
!<y  the  altar,  it  is  no  oath  ;  but  if  he  •K'ear  by  the  offering, 
(i-^  is  bound ;"  because,  forsooth,  the  offering  was  consecra- 
'  J,  but  the  stones  of  the  altar,  nothing  more  than  common 
stones.  But  to  this  doctrine,  Jesus,  with  equal  reason, 
makes  the  following  objection  :  that  "  the  altar  which  sanc- 
tifies the  offering  is  greater  than  the  offering;"  and  he 
founds  it  on  this  unanswerable  argument :  "  If  I  appear  to 
swear,  and  use  the  language  of  an  oath,  my  words,  though 
perhaps  otherwise  equivocal,  must  be  understood  in  the 
sense  which  they  generally  have  in  oaths.  Thus,  if  I 
merely  mention  heaven,  that  word  may  have  various  mean- 
ings ;  it  may  mean  heaven,  in  the  physical  sense  of  the  term, 
that  is,  either  the  blue  atmosphere  which  we  behold,  or  that 
unknown  matter  which  fills  the  remote  regions  of  space 
above  us,  and  which  the  ancients  called  etlier ;  but  neither 
of  these  is  God.  When,  however,  I  swear  by  heaven,  every 
one  understands  me  as  regarding  heaven  in  its  relation  to- 
wards God,  as  his  dwelling-place,  or  as  his  throne;  and 
thinks  I  forbear  pronouncing  the  name  of  God,  merely 
from  reverential  awe,  and  that,  in  naming  the  throne  of 
God,  I  include  the  idea  of  him  who  sitteth  upon  it;  so  that 
if  my  words  are  to  be  explained  honestlv  and  grammati- 
cally, I  have  really  sworn  by  God.  In  like  manner,  if  a 
man  swear  by  the  temple,  that  is  not  swearing  by  the  stones 
or  other  materials  of  which  the  temple  is  composed,  but  by 
the  God  who  dwelleth  in  the  temple:  and  thus  also,  he  who 
swears  by  the  altar,  is  not  to  understand  the  bare  stones,  as 
such,  but  as  they  form  an  altar,  and  have  offerings  made 
upon  them ;  so  that  he  swears  by  the  altar  and  lohat  is  upon 
it :  an  oath  no  less  solemn  and  binding,  than  that  most  aw- 
fiii  oath  which  is  taken  amid  a  sacrifice,  by  passing  between 
tb^  dismembered  pieces  of  the  victim."  A  most  rational 
exposition ;  without  which  we  can  never,  in  any  compact, 
be  sure  of  understanding  our  neighbour's  words  ;  not  even 
'.hough  he  name  the  name  of  God  in  his  oath,  and  swear 
without  any  mental  reservation  whatever ;  for  the  syllables, 
perhaps,  might  still  be  susceptible  of  another  signification ! 

— MiCHAEUS. 


Ver.  24.  Ye  blind  guides !  which  strain  at  a  gnat, 
and  swallow  a  camel. 

In  these  words,  he  charges  them  with  being  extremely 
scrupulous  about  very  small  matters,  while  they  betrayed  a 
glaring  and  criminal  negligence  about  things  of  great  im- 
portance. But  as  the  Pharisees  could  not  literally  swallow 
down  a  camel,  Cajetan  supposes  a  corruption  in  the  text ; 
and  maintains  that  our  Lord  did  not  mention  a  camel,  but 
a  larger  species  of  fly,  which  might  actually  be  swallowed 
in  drinking.  Without  admitting  this,  he  contends  the 
words  contain  no  proper  antithesis.  But  as  all  the  ancient 
versions  of  this  text  harmonize  with  the  Greek,  a  corrup 
tion  cannot  be  admitted.  Nor  is  the  objection  of  any  im- 
portance; for,  does  not  our  Lord  say,  "  Why  beholdest  thou 
the  mote  that  is  in  thy  brother's  eyej  and  considerest  not  the 
beam  that  is  thine  own  eye  1"  Is  it  usual  then  for  a  beam 
to  be  in  the  eye  1  Our  Lord,  who  knows  all  things,  knew 
that  a  camel  cannot  be  swallowed ;  but  on  this  very  account 
the  proverb  was  proper ;  because,  while  the  Pharisees  were 
extremely  precise  in  little  things,  they  readily  perpetrated 
crimes,  which,  like  the  camel,  were  of  enormous  magni- 
tude. The  design  of  our  Lord  was,  not  to  teach  that  a 
camel  could  be  swallowed,  but  that  the  minutiae  of  the  law 
in  which  they  displayed  such  scrupulous  accuracy,  as  the 
tithing  of  mint,  anise,  and  cummin,  were  as  much  inferior 
to  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law,  as  a  gnat  is  inferior  to 
a  camel. — Paxton. 

Ver.  27.  Wo  unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees, 
hypocrites !  for  ye  are  like  unto  vvhited  sepul- 
chres, which  indeed  appear  beautiful  outward, ' 
but  are  within  full  of  dead  men^s  bones,  and  of 
all  uncleanness.  28.  Even  so  ye  also  outwardly 
appear  righteous  unto  men,  but  within  ye  are 
full  of  hypocrisy  and  iniquity.  29.  Wo  unto 
you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites  !  because 
ye  build  the  tombs  of  the  prophets,  and  garnish 
the  sepulchres  of  the  righteous. 

The  tombs  of  the  lower  orders  are  constructed  of  stone, 
at  a  small  distance  from  their  cities  and  villages,  where  a 
great  extent  of  ground  is  allotted  for  that  purpose.  Each 
family  has  a  particular  portion  of  it  walled  in  like  a  gar- 
den, where  the  bones  of  their  ancestors  have  remained  for 
many  generations ;  for,  in  these  enclosures,  the  graves  are 
all  distinct  and  separate,  having  each  of  them  a  stone  placed 
upright  both  at  the  head  and  feet,  inscribed  with  the  name 
of  the  person  who  lies  there  interred ;  while  the  intermedi- 
ate space  is  either  planted  with  flowers,  bordered  round 
with  stone,  or  paved  all  over  with  tiles.  The  graves  of 
more  wealthy  citizens  are  further  distinguished  by  some 
square  chambers,  or  cupolas,  that  are  built  over  them. 
The  sepulchres  of  the  Jews  were  made  so  large,  that  per- 
sons might  go  into  them.  The  rule  for  making  them  is  this : 
he  that  sells  ground  to  his  neighbour,  to  make  a  burying- 
place,  must  make  a  court  at  the  mouth  of  the  cave,  six  feet 
by  six,  according  to  the  bier  and  tjiose  that  bury.  It  was 
into  this  court  that  the  women,  who  visited  the  sepulchre 
of  our  Lord,  entered.  Here  they  could  look  into  the  sep- 
ulchre, and  the  several  graves  in  it,  and  see  every  thing 
within.  The  words  of  the  sacred  historian  are :  "  And  en- 
tering into  the  sepulchre,  they  saw  a  young  man,  sitting  on 
the  right  side,  clothed  in  a  long  white  garment,  and  they 
were  affrighted." 

These  different  sorts  of  tombs  and  sepulchres,  with  the 
very  walls  likewise  of  the  enclosures,  are  constantly  kept 
clean,  whitewashed,  and  beautified;  and  by  consequence, 
continue  to  this  day  to  be  an  excellent  comment  upon  thai 
expression  of  our  Saviour's :  "  Ye  are  like  unto  whited 
sepulchres,  which  indeed  appear  beautiful  outward,  but 
are  within  full  of  dead  men^s  bones  and  rottenness.— Wo 
unto  you,  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites !  because  ye 
build  the  tombs  of  the  prophets,  and  garnish  the  sepulchres 
of  the  righteous."  It  was  in  one  of  these  chambers,  or  cu- 
polas, which  were  built  over  the  sepulchre,  that  the  demo- 
niacs, mentioned  in  the  eighth  chapter  of  Matthew,  proba- 
bly had  their  dwelling.— Paxton. 

Ver.  37.  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that  kill- 


Chap.  23  -25. 


MATTHEW. 


591 


est  the  prophets,  and  stonest  them  which  are 
sent  unto  thee  :  how  often  would  I  have  gather- 
ed thy  children  together,  even  as  a  hen  gather- 
eth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  \70uld 
not! 

The  Psalmist  says,  "  Hide  me  under  the  shadow  of  thy 
wings."  "  The  children  of  men  put  their  trust  under  the 
shadow  of  thy  wings."  The  word  wing  primarily  signifies 
PROTECTION,  and  not  comfort,  as  some  have  supposed.  They 
appear  to  have  gained  that  idea  from  the  comfort  which 
chickens  have  under  the  wing  of  the  hen.  In  the  East, 
hawks,  kites,  and  other  birds  of  prey,  are  continually  on  the 
wing ;  hence  it  is  difficult  to  rear  chickens,  because  at 
every  moment  they  are  in  danger  of  being  pounced  on 
and  carried  off.  Hence  the  eye  of  the  mother  is  continu- 
ally looking  up  to  watch  the  foes,  and  no  sooner  does  she 
see  them  skimming  along,  than  she  gives  a  scream,  and 
the  brood  for  protection  run  under  her  wings. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

Ver.  17.  Let  him  which  is  on  the  house-top  not 
come  down  to  take  any  thing  out  of  his  house. 

"  It  was  not  possible  to  view  this  country  without  calling 
to  mind  the  wonderful  events  that  have  occurred  in  it  at 
various  periods  from  the  earliest  times :  more  particularly 
the  sacred  life  and  history  of  our  Redeemer  pressed  fore- 
most on  our  minds.  One  thing  struck  me  in  the  form  of 
the  houses  in  the  town  now  under  our  view,  which  served 
to  corroborate  the  account  of  former  travellers  in  this  coun- 
try explaining  several  passages  of  scripture,  particularly 
the  following:  In  Matt.  xxiv.  17,  our  blessed  Saviour,  in 
describing  the  distresses  which  shortly  would  overwhelm 
the  land  of  Judea,  tells  his  disciples,  '  when  the  abomina- 
tion of  desolation  is  seen  standing  in  the  holy  place,  let  him 
whc  is  on  the  house-top  not  come  down  to  take  any  thing 
out  3f  his  house,  but  fly,'  &c.  The  houses  in  this  country 
are  all  flat-roofed,  and  communicate  wiih  each  other:  a 
person  there  might  proceed  to  the  city  walls  and  escape 
mto  the  country,  without  coming  down  into  the  street." 
(  Willyams's  Voyage  up  the  Mediterranean.)  Mr.  Harmer 
endeavours  to  illustrate  this  passage,  by  referring  to  the 
ea»-tern  custom  of  the  staircase  being  on  the  outside  of  the 
house :  but  Mr.  Willvatps's  representation  seems  to  afford 
a  more  complete  elucidation  of  the  text. — Burder. 

Ver.  18.  Neither  let  him  which  is  in  the  field  re- 
turn back  to  take  his  clothes. 

The  oriental  husbandman  is  compelled,  by  the  extreme 
heat  of  the  climate,  to  prosecute  his  labours  in  the  field  al- 
most in  a  state  of  nudity.  The  ardour  with  which  the 
farmer  urged  his  labour,  even  under  the  milder  sky  of  Italy, 
required  the  same  precaution.  "  Plough  naked,  and  sow 
naked,"  said  Virgil;  "winter  is  an  inactive  time  for  the 
hind." 

Aurelius  Victor  informs  us,  that  the  Roman  messengers, 
who  were  sent  to  Cincinnatus,  from  Atenutius,  the  consul, 
whoni  he  had  delivered  from  a  siege,  found  him  ploughing 
naked,  beyond  the  Tiber.  But  the  truth  is,  neither  the 
Syrian  nor  Italian  husbandman  pursued  his  labours  in  the 
field  entirely  naked,  but  only  stripped  off  his  upper  gar- 
ments. An  Oriental  was  said  to  be  naked  when  these  were 
laid  aside.  This  enables  us  to  understand  the  meaning  of 
the  charge  which  our  Lord  gave  his  disciples :  "  Neither 
let  him  who  is  in  the  field  return  back  to  take  his  clothes." 
The  Israelitish  peasant  when  he  proceeded  to  his  work  in 
the  field,  was  accustomed  to  strip  off  his  upper  garments, 
and  leave  them  behind  in  the  house,  and  to  resume  them 
when  his  task  was  finished. — Paxton. 

Ver.  28.  For  wheresoever  the  carcass  is,  there 
will  the  eagles  be  gathered  together. 

Tt  has  often  appeared  to  me  that  the  sight  and  scent  of 
birds  of  prey  in  the  East  are  keener  than  those  of  the  same 
species  in  England.  Any  garbage  thrown  from  the  kitchen, 
or  in  the  wilderness,  will  soon  attract  these  winged  scav- 
engers. Should  there  be  a  dead  elephant  or  any  other  beast 
in  the  jungle,  vast  numbers  of  ravenous  birds  and  animals 


hasten  to  the  spot.  The  eagles,  kites,  and  crows,  begin  to 
tear  at  the  carcass  and  attack  each  other,  and  the  jackals 
snap  at  their  feathered  rivals ;  thus,  though  there  is  enough 
for  all,  they  each  try  to  hinder  the  other  from  eating. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  birds  of  prey  are  very  use- 
ful in  the  East,  as  they  carry  off  the  putrid  matter  which 
would  otherwise  infect  the  air.  Hence  Europeans  do  not 
often  destroy  such  birds,  and  in  the  city  of  Calcutta  there 
is  a  law  to  protect  them  from  being  injured. — Roberts. 

Ver.  41.  Two  women  shall  be  grinding  at  the 
mill ;  the  one  shall  be  taken,  and  the  other  left. 
See  on  Ex.  11.  5. 

CHAPTER  XXV. 
Ver.  4.  But  the  wise  took  oil  in  their  vessels 
with  their  lamps. 

Sir  John  Chardin  informs  us,  that  in  many  parts  of  the 
East,  and  in  particular  in  the  Indies,  instead  of  torches  and 
flambeaux,  they  carry  a  pot  of  oil  in  one  hand,  and  a  lamp 
full  of  oily  rags  in  the  other.  This  seems  to  be  a  very 
happy  illustration  of  this  part  of  the  parable.  He  observes, 
elsewhere,  that  they  seldom  make  use  of  candles  in  the  East, 
especially  among  the  great;  candles  casting  but  little  light, 
and  they  sitting  at  a  considerable  distance  from  them.  Ezek. 
i.  18,  represents  the  light  of  lamps  accordingly  as  very 
lively. — Harmer. 

Ver.  6.  And  at  midnight  there  was  a  cry  made, 
Behold,  the  bridegroom  cometh ;  go  ye  out  to 
meet  him. 

An  eastern  wedding  is  always  celebrated  in  the  night  ; 
for  though  the  fortunate  hour  foi  performing  some  parts  of 
the  ceremony  may  be  in  the  day,  yet  the  festivities  of  the 
scene  will  rwttake  place  till  night.  When  the  bridegroom 
goes  forth  to  the  house  of  the  bride,  or  when  he  returns  to 
his  OAvn  habitation  or  to  that  of  his  father,  he  is  always  ac- 
companied by  numerous  friends  and  dependants,  who  carry 
lamps  and  torches.  When  he  approaches  either  house  the 
inmates  rush  out  to  meet  him,  and  greet  him  with  their 
best  wishes  and  congratulations.  The  path  is  covered  with 
"  garments,"  and  lamps  like  fire  flies  sparkle  in  every  di- 
rection.— Roberts. 

A  similar  custom  is  observed  among  the  Hindoos.  The 
husband  and  wife,  on  the  day  of  their  marriage,  being  both 
in  the  same  palanquin,  go  about  seven  or  eight  o'clock  at 
night,  accompanied  with  all  their  kindred  and  friends ;  the 
trumpets  and  drums  go  before  them  ;  and  they  are  lighted 
by  a  number  of  flambeaux  ;  immediately  before  the  palan- 
quin walk  many  women,  whose  business  it  is  to  sing  verses, 
in  which  they  wish  them  all  manner  of  prosperity.  They 
march  in  this  equipage  through  the  streets  for  the  space 
of  some  hours,  after  which  they  return  to  their  own  house, 
where  the  domestics  are  in  waiting.  The  whole  house  is 
illuminated  with  small  lamps ;  and  many  of  those  flaip- 
beaux  already  mentioned  are  kept  ready  for  their  arrival, 
besides  those  which  accompany  them,  and  are  carried 
before  the  palanquin.  These  flambeaux  are  composed  of 
many  pieces  of  old  linen,  squeezed  hard  against  one  an- 
other in  a  round  figure,  and  thrust  down  into  a  mould  ©f 
copper.  The  persons  that  hold  them  in  one  hand,  have  in 
the  other  a  bottle  of  the  same  metal  with  the  copper  mould, 
which  is  full  of  oil,  which  they  take  care  to  pour  out  from 
time  to  time  upon  the  linen,  which  otherwise  gives  no 
light. — Paxton. 

Ver.  7.  Then  all  those  virgins  arose,  and  trimmed 
their  lamps. 

The  nuptial  lamps,  probably,  were  highly  decorated; 
the  trimming  was  to  prepare  them  for  burning.  The  fol- 
lowing account  of  the  celebration  of  a  wedding  taken  from 
the  Zendavesta,  may  throw  some  light  on  this  place.  "  The 
day  appointed  for  the  marriage,  about  five  o'clock  in  the 
evening,  the  bridegroom  comes  to  the  house  of  the  bride, 
where  the  mobed,  or  priest,  pronounces,  for  the  first  time, 
the  nuptial  benediction:  he  then  brings  her  to  his  own 
house,  gives  her  some  refreshment,  and  afterward  the  as- 
sembly of  our  relatives  and  friends  reconduct  her  to  her 


592 


MATTHEW. 


Chap.  25—17. 


father's  house.  When  she  arrives,  the  mobed  repeats  the 
nuptial  benediction,  which  is  generally  done  about  mid- 
night ;  immediately  after,  the  bride,  accompanied  with  a 
part  of  her  attending  troop,  the  rest  having  returned  to 
their  own  houses,  is  reconducted  to  the  house  of  her  hus- 
band, where  she  generally  arrives  about  three  o'clock  in 
the  morning.  Nothing  can  be  more  brilliant  than  these 
nuptial  ceremonies  in  India :  sometimes  the  assembly  con- 
sists of  not  less  than  2000  persons,  all  richly  dressed  with 
gold  and  silver  tissue ;  the  friends  and  relatives  of  the 
bride,  encompassed  with  their  domestics,  are  all  mounted 
on  horses  richly  harnessed.  The  goods,  wardrobe,  and 
even  the  bed  of  the  bride,  are  carried  in  triumph.  The 
husband,  richly  mounted  and  magnificently  dressed,  is  ac- 
companied by  his  friends  and  relatives ;  and  the  friends  of 
the  bride  following  him  in  covered  carriages.  At  inter- 
vals, during  the  procession,  guns  and  rockets  are  fired,  and 
the  spectacle  is  rendered  grand  beyond  description  by  a 
prodigious  number  of  lighted  torches",  and  by  the  sound  of 
a  mulntude  of  musical  instruments." — Burder. 

Ver.  10.  And  while  they  Avent  to  buy,  the  bride- 
groom came ;  and  they  that  were  ready  went 
in  with  him  to  the  marriage:  and  the  door 
was  shut. 

At  a  marriage,  the  procession  of  which  I  saw  some 
years  ago,  the  bridegroom  came  from  a  distance,  and  the 
bride  lived  at  Serampore,  to  which  place  the  bridegroom 
was  to  come  by  water.  After  waiting  two  or  three  hours, 
at  length,  near  midnight,  it  was  announced,  as  if  in  the 
very  words  of  scripture.  Behold,  the  bridegroom  cometh,  go 
ye  out  to  meet  him.  All  the  persons  employed  now  light- 
ed their  lamps,  and  ran  with  them  in  their  hands  to  fill  up 
their  stations  in  the  procession ;  some  of  them  had  lost  their 
lights,  and  were  unprepared,  but  it  was  then  too  late  to 
seek  them,  and  the  cavalcade  moved  forward  to  the  house 
of  the  bride,  at  which  place  the  company  entered  a  large 
and  splendidly  illuminated  area,  before  the  house,  covered 
with  an  awning,  where  a  great  multitude  of  friends,  dress- 
ed in  their  best  apparel,  were  seated  upon  mats.  The 
bridegroom  was  carried  in  the  arms  of  a  friend,  and  placed 
on  a  superb  seat  in  the  midst  of  the  company,  where  he  sat 
a  short  time,  and  then  went  into  the  housCj  the  door  of 
which  was  immediately  shut,  and  guarded  by  Sepoys.  I 
and  others  expostulated  with  the  door-keepers,  "but  in  vain." 
(Ward's  View  of  the  Hindoos.)— Burder. 

Ver.  36.  Naked,  and  ye  clothed  me :  I  was  sick, 
and  ye  visited  me :  I  was  in  prison,  and  ye 
came  unto  me. 

It  is  more  easy  in  the  East  to  visit  imprisoned  friends 
than  it  is  in  Europe,  Thus  Rauwolf  tells  us,  that  he  was 
allowed  at  Tripolis,  in  Syria,  to  visit  his  confined  friends 
as  often  as  he  liked.  "  After  we  had  gone  through  small 
and  low  doors  into  the  prisons  in  which  they  were  confin- 
ed, their  keepers  always  willingly  let  me  in  and  oat ;  some- 
times I  even  remained  in  the  prison  with  them  during  the 

night," — ROSENMULLER. 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

"Ver.  18.  And  he  said,  Go  into  the  city  to  such  a 
man,  and  say  unto  him,  The  Master  saith,  My 
time  is  at  hand ;  I  will  keep  the  passover  at  thy 
house  with  my  disciples. 

When  a  man  believes  himself  to  be  near  death,  he  says, 
"  Go  tell  the  priest  I  am  going  on  my  journey,  mj^  time  is 
at  hand."  When  dead,  it  is  said  of  him,  "  His  time  has 
gone,  he  has  fallen." — Roberts. 

Ver.  23.  And  he  answered  and  said,  He  that  dip- 
peth  his  hand  with  me  in  the  dish,  the  same 
shall  betray  me. 

See  on  John  13.  23. 

The  practice  which  was  most  revolting  to  me  was  this : 
■when  the  master  of  the  house  found  in  the  dish  any  dainty 
morsel,  he  took  it  out  with  his  fingers,  and  applied  it  to  my 
mouth.    This  was  true  Syrian  courtesy  and  hospitality; 


and,  had  I  been  sufficiently  well-bred,  my  mouth  would 
have  opened  to  receive  it.  On  my  pointing  to  my  plate, 
however,  he  had  the  goodness  to  deposile  the  choice  morsel 
there.  I  would  not  have  noticed  so  trivial  a  circumstance, 
if  it  did  not  exactly  illustrate  what  the  Evangelists  record 
of  the  Last  Supper.— Jo wett. 

Ver.  30.  And  when  they  had  sung  a  hymn,  they 
went  out  into  the  Mount  of  Olives. 

This  was  the  Hallel  which  the  Jews  were  obliged  to 
sing  on  the  night  of  the  passover.  It  consisted  of  six 
psalms,  the  hundred  and  thirteenth,  and  the  five  following 
ones.  This  they  did  not  sing  all  at  once,  but  in  parts.  Just 
before  the  drinking  of  the  second  cup  and  eating  of  the 
lamb  they  sung  the  first  part ;  and  on  mixing  the  fourth 
and  last  cup  they  sung  the  remainder;  and  said  over  it 
what  they  call  the  blessing  of  the  song,  which  was  Psalm 
cxlv.  10.  They  might,  if  they  would,  mix  a  fifth  cup,  and 
say  over  it  the  Great  Hallel,  which  was  Psalm  cxxxvi.  but 
they  were  not  obliged  to. — Gill. 

Ver.  34.  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Verily  I  say  unto 
thee,  That  this  night,  before  the  cock  crow, 
thou  shalt  deny  me  thrice. 

See  on  Mark  14.  30. 

Ver,  69,  Now  Peter  sat  without  in  the  palace : 
and  a  damsel  came  unto  him,  saying,  Thou  also 
wast  with  Jesus  of  Galilee, 

The  Greek  words  are  more  accurately  translated  by, 
"Peter  sat  without  in  the  court,"  This  court  {a'aXfi)  in 
which  Peter  was  at  the  fire  in  the  palace  of  the  high- 
priest,  was,  according  to  the  usual  old  and  oriental  mode 
of  building,  the  inner  part  of  the  house  enclosed  on  all  sides, 
which  was  not  roofed,  but  was  in  the  open  air. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Ver.  2.  And  when  they  had  bound  him,  they  led 
him  aw^ay,  and  delivered  him  to  Pontius  Pilate 
the  governor. 

The  Street  of  Grief,  or  Dolorous  Way,  derives  its  appel- 
lation from  its  being  the  supposed  site  of  the  street  through 
which  the  chief  priests  and  elders  of  the  Jews,  after  binding 
Jesus  Christ,  led  him  away  and  delivered  him  to  Pontius 
Pilate.  (Mat.  xxvii.  2.)  It  proceeds  from  the  gate  of  Saint 
Stephen  up  to  an  archway,  which  appears  to  have  been  at 
one  time  called  "  the  Gate  of  Judgment,"  because  malefac- 
tors were  anciently  conducted  through  it  to  the  place  of 
execution.  This  archway  is  exhibited  in  the  annexed  en- 
graving. At  the  period  of  the  crucifixion,  this  gate  stood 
in  the  western  wall  of  Jerusalem :  but  now  it  is  in  the  cen- 
tre of  the  city.  The  wall  above  the  archway  is  supposed 
to  have  formed  a  part  of  the  house  of  Pilate ;  and  the  cen- 
tral window  is  reputed  to  have  been  the  place  whence  our 
Saviour  was  shown  unto  the  people. 

The  "  Street  of  Grief"  rises  with  a  gradual  ascent,  be- 
coming narrower  towards  Calvary,  where  it  terminates. 
It  is  diflScult  to  pass  along  it,  owing  to  the  stones  being 
broken  up,  and  it  is  completely  out  of  order. — Horne. 

[See  Comprehensive  Commentary,  07l  Ps.  122.  3,  and  the 
engraving  there  of  an  arched  street  in  Jerusalem. 

Ver.  7,  And  they  took  counsel,  and  bought  with 
them  the  potters'  field,  to  bury  strangers  in. 

It  lay  immediately  without  the  wall  of  the  city,  on  the 
southeast  corner,  about  a  mile  from  the  Temple,  "  On  the 
west  side  of  the  valley  of  Hinnom,  is  the  place  anciently 
called  the  potters'  field,  and  afterward  the  field  of  blood, 
but  now  campo  sancto.  It  is  only  a  small  piece  of  ground, 
about  thirty  yards  long,  and  fifteen  broad;  one  half  of 
which  is  taken  up  by  a  square  fabric,  built  for  a  charnel- 
house,  that  is  twelve  yards  high.  Into  this  building  dead 
bodies  are  let  down  from  the  top,  there  being  five  holes  left 
open  for  that  purpose,  through  which  they  may  be  seen 
under  several  degrees  of  decay,"  (Maundrell.) 
■  Why  a  potters'  field  should  be  preferred  to  any  other  as 


Chap.  27. 


MATTHEW. 


593 


a  burial-place,  may  be  conjectured  from  the  following  ex- 
tract, as  in  all  probability  the  same  causes  which  prevented 
its  being  convertible  to  aVable  or  pasture  ground,  must  have 
existed  in  an  equal  degree  in  Palestine.  A  burial-ground 
was  one  of  the  few  purposes  to  which  it  could  have  been 
applied.  , 

*'  We  travelled  eleven  hours  this  day,  and  the  last  six 
without  once  halting .  The  ground  over  which  we  travelled 
seemed  strewed  over  with  small  pieces  of  green  earthen- 
ware, which  was  so  plenty  that  many  bushels  could  be 
gathered  in  the  space  of  a  mile.  I  inquired  into  the  oc- 
casion of  it :  the  information  which  we  received  from  our 
sheik  and  others  in  the  caravan,  was,  that  in  former  ages 
the  greatest  part  of  this  plain  was  inhabited  by  potters,  as 
the  soil  abounded  then,  as  it  does  at  present,  with  clay  fit 
for  their  use :  that  they  moved  their  works  from  place  to 
place,  as  they  consumed  the  clay,  or  it  suited  their  con- 
venience. They  now  make  at  Bagdad  such  kinds  of 
earthenware,  with  a  green  glazing  on  it.  When  the  sun 
shines  it  appears  like  green  glass,  which  is  very  hurtful  to 
the  sight.  They  cannot  plough  this  ground,  as  it  would 
cut  the  feet  of  both  men  and  oxen."  (Parsons'  Travels  in 
Asia.) — BuRDER. 

Ver.  26.  Then  released  he  Barabbas  unto  them ; 
and  when  he  had  scourged  Jesus,  he  delivered 
him  to  be  crucified.  29.  And  when  they  had 
platted  a  crown  of  thorns,  they  put  it  upon  his 
hea(i,  and  a  reed  in  his  right  hand :  and  they 
bowed  the  knee  before  him,  and  mocked  him, 
saying,  Hail,  King  of  the  Jews ! 

Mohammed  Zemaun  Khan  was  carried  before  the  king. 
When  he  had  reached  the  camp,  the  king  ordered  Moham- 
med Khan,  chief  of  his  camel  artillery,  to  put  a  mock- 
crown  upon  the  rebel's  head,  bazubends  or  armlets  on  his 
arms,  a  sword  by  his  side,  to  mount  him  upon  an  ass, 
with  his  face  towards  the  tail ;  then  to  parade  him  through- 
out the  camp,  and  to  exclaim.  This  is  he  who  wanted  to  be 
the  king.  After  this  was  over,  and  the  people  had  mocked 
and  insulted  him,  he  was  led  before  the  king,  who  called 
for  his  looties,  and  ordered  them  to  turn  him  into  ridicule, 
by  making  him  dance  and  make  antics  against  his  will :  he 
then  ordered,  that  whoever  chose  might  spit  in  his  face. 
After  this  he  received  the  bastinado  on  the  soles  of  his  feet, 
which  was  administered  by  the  chiefs  of  the  Cagar  tribe, 
and  some  time  after  he  had  his  eyes  put  out. — Morier. 

Ver.  29.  And  when  they  had  platted  a  crown  of 
thorns,  they  put  it  upon  his  head,  and  a  reed  in 
his  right  hand :  and  they  bowed  the  knee  be- 
fore him,  and  mocked  him,  saying,  Hail,  King 
of  the  Jews ! 

Among  other  circumstances  of  suffering  and  ignominy, 
which  accompanied  the  death  of  Christ,  it  is  said  that  they 
platted  "  a  crown  of  thorns,  and  put  it  upon  his  head."  Has- 
selquist  says :  "  The  naba  or  nabka  of  the  Arabians  is  in 
all  probability  the  tree  which  afforded  the  crown  of  thorns 
put  on  the  head  of  Christ :  it  grows  very  commonly  in  the 
East.  This  plant  was  very  fit  for  the  purpose,  for  it  has 
many  small  and  sharp  spines,  which  are  well  adapted  to 
give  pain;  the  crown  might  be  easily  made  of  these  soft, 
round,  and  pliant  branches ;  and  what  in  my  opinion 
seems  to  be  the  greatest  proof  is,  that  the  leaves  much  re- 
semble those  of  ivy,  as  they  are  of  a  very  deep  green. 
Perhaps  the  enemies  of  Christ  would  have  "a  plant  some- 
what resembling  that  with  which  emperors  and  generals 
were  used  to  be  crowned,  that  there  might  be  calumny  even 
in  the  punishment," — Border. 

Ver.  31.  And  after  that  they  had  mocked  him, 
they  took  the  robe  off  from  him,  and  put  his 
own  raiment  on  him,  and  led  him  away  to  cru- 
cify him. 

Crucifixion  was  a  very  common  mode  of  inflicting  the 

fmnishment  of  death  among  several  ancient  nations,  name- 
y,  among  the  Egyptians,  Carthaginians,  Persians,  Greeks, 
and  Romans.  The  cross  consisted  of  a  long  pole,  and  a  short 
75 


transverse  beam,  both  of  which,  as  the  ancients  affirm,  were 
united  in  the  form  of  a  Greek  and  Roman  T ;  a  little  piece 
of  the  perpendicular  beam,  however,  generally  projected  at 
the  top,  to  which  the  writing,  containing  the  cause  of  the 
punishment,  was  affixed.  In  the  middle  of  the  perpendicu- 
lar poles  there  was  a  wooden  plug,  which  projected  like  a 
horn,  on  which  the  person  crucified  rode  or  rested,  that  the 
weight  of  the  body  might  not  tear  the  hands  loose.  The 
cross  was  erected  on  the  place  of  execution,  and  fastened 
in  the  ground ;  it  was  generally  not  high,  and  the  feet  of  the 
criminal  were  scarcely  four  feet  above  the  ground.  The 
person  condemned  was  raised  up,  quite  naked,  upon  the 
projecting  plug,  or  pulled  up  with  cords ;  his  hands  were 
first  tied  with  cords  to  the  transverse  beam,  and  then  nailed 
on  with  strong  iron  nails.  Cicero  against  Verres  calls 
crucifixion  the  most  cruel  and  horrid  punishment;  and  in 
another  place,  a  punishment  w^hich  must  be  far,  not  only 
from  the  body  of  a  Roman  citizen,  but  also  from  his  eyes, 
and  even  his  thoughts.  It  was,  therefore,  properly  de- 
signed among  the  Romans  only  for  such  as  had  been  guilty 
of  murder,  highway  robbery,  rebellion  against  the  govern- 
ment, and  violation  of  the  public  tranquillity.  A  learned 
physician,  George  Gottlieb  Richter,  has  proved  in  a  treatise 
dedicated  to  this  subject,  that  the  tortures  of  crucifixion  muse 
have  been  indeed  indescribable.  Even  the  unnatural  con- 
strained situation  of  the  body,  with  the  arms  stretched 
upward,  sometimes  for  days  together,  must  have  been  an 
inexpressible  torment,  especially  as  not  the  slightest  motion 
or  convulsion  could  take  place  without  causing  excrucia- 
ting pain  over  the  whole  body,  particularly  in  the  pierced 
limbs,  and  on  the  back,  mangled  by  previous  scourging. 
Besides  this,  the  nails  were  driven  through  the  hands,  and 
sometimes  through  the  feet,  exactly  in  places  where  irri- 
table nerves  and  sinews  meet,  which  were  partly  injured 
and  partly  forcibly  compressed,  by  which  the  most  acute 
pains  must  have  been  excited,  and  constantly  increased. 
As  the  wounded  parts  were  always  exposed  to  the  air,  they 
became  inflamed.  The  same  also  probably  occurred  in 
many  other  parts,  where  the  circulation  of  the  juices,  was 
impeded  by  the  violent  tension  of  the  whole  body.  As  the 
blood,  too,  which  is  impelled  from  the  left  ventricle  of  the 
heart  through  the  veins  into  all  parts  of  the  body,  did  not 
find  room  enough  in  the  wounded  and  violently  extended 
extremities,  it  must  flow  back  to  the  head,  which  was  free, 
unnaturally  extend  and  oppress  the  arteries,  and  thus  cause 
constantly  increasing  headache.  On  account  of  the  imped- 
iment of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  in  the  external  parts, 
the  left  ventricle  of  the  heart  could  not  entirely  discharge 
itself  of  all  the  blood,  and,  consequently,  not  receive  all  the 
blood  which  comes  from  the  right  ventricle ;  hence  the 
blood  in  the  lungs  had  no  free  vent,  by  which  a  dreadful 
oppression  was  occasioned ;  under  such  constantly  increas- 
ing tortures,  the  person  crucified  lived  generally  three  days, 
sometimes  even  longer.  Hence  Pilate  did  not  credit  the 
account  that  Jesus  had  expired  so  soon,  and,  therefore, 
questioned  the  centurion  who  had  kept  watch  at  the  cross. 

—  ROSENMULLER. 

Ver.  48.  And  straightway  one  of  them  ran,,  and 
took  a  sponge,  and  filled  it  with  vinegar,  and 
put  it  on  a  reed,  and  gave  him  to  drink. 

What  most  tormented  crucified  persons  was,  dreadfiil 
thirst,  which  must  naturally  be  occasioned  by  the  heat  of 
the  wounds  or  fever.  Out  of  a  spirit  of  humanity,  one  of 
the  soldiers  keeping  watch,  gave  Jesus,  at  his  request,  a 
sponge  dipped  in  vinegar.  It  is  probable  that  they  gave 
Jesus  such  vinegar  as  they  had  standing  there  for  their 
usual  drink.  An  example,  in  more  modern  times,  of  giv- 
ing, in  the  East,  a  sponge  dipped  in  vinegar,  to  such  as 
were  to  be  executed  by  slow  torture,  in  order  to  refresh 
them,  is  mentioned  by  Heberer,  in  his.  Description  .of  big 
Slavery  in  Egvpt.  *'  When  this  Greek  had  hung  upon  the 
hook  beyond  the  third  day  in  much  pain,  one  of  the  keepers 
was  at  last  prevailed  upon,  by  the  presents  of  his  friends, 
secretly  to  give  him  poison  upon  a  sponge,  under  the  ap- 
pearance of  refreshing  him  a  little  with  vinegar,"— Burder. 

Ver.  51.  And,  behold,  the  vail  of  the  temple  was 
rent  in  twain,  from  the  top  to  the  bottom '  and 
the  earth  did  quake,  and  the  rocks  rent» 


594 


MATTHEW. 


Chap.  28. 


"  About  one  yard  and  a  half  distance  from  the  hole  in 
which  the  foot  of  the  cross  was  fixed,  is  seen  that  memo- 
rable cleft  in  the  rock,  said  to  have  been  made  by  the  earth- 
quake which  happened  at  the  suffering  of  the  God  of  Na- 
ture, when  the  rocks  rent,  and  the  very  graves  were  opened. 
This  cleft,  as  to  what  now  appears  of  it,  is  about  a  span 
wide, at  its  upper  part,  and  two  deep,  after  which  it  closes; 
but  it  opens  again  below,  (as  you  may  see  in  another  chapel 
contiguous  to  the  side  of  Calvary,)  and  runs  down  to  an 
unknown  depth  in  the  earth.  That  this  rent  was  made  by 
the  earthquake  that  happened  at  our  Lord's  passion,  there 
is  only  tradition  to  prove ;  but  that  it  is  a  natural  and  gen- 
uine breach,  and  not  counterfeited  by  any  art,  the  sense 
and  reason  of  every  one  that  sees  it  may  convince  him; 
for  the  sides  of  it  fit  like  two  tallies  to  each  other;  and  yet  it 
runs  in  such  intricate  windings  as  could  not  well  be  counter- 
feited by  art,  nor  arrived  at  by  any  instruments."  (Maundrell.) 
"  The  far  end  of  this  chapel,  called  the  Chapel  of  St.  John, 
is  confined  with  the  foot  of  Calvary,  where,  on  the  left 
.side  of  the  altar,  there  is  a  cleft  in  the  rock :  the  insides  do 
tesiify  that  art  had  no  hand  therein,  each  side  to  the  other 
being  answerably  rugged,  and  these  were  inaccessible  to 
the  workmen:  that  before  spoken  of,  in  the  chapel  below, 
is  a  part  of  this,  which  reacheth,  as  they  say,  to  the  centre." 
( Sandys.) — Burder. 

Ver.  60.  And  laid  it  in  his  own  new  tomb,  which 
he  had  hewn  out  in  the  rock :  and  he  rolled  a 
great  stone  to  the  door  of  the  sepulchre,  and  de- 
parted. 

The  sepulchres  were  not  only  made  in  rocks,  but  had 
doors  to  go  in  and  out  at ;  these  doors  were  fastened  with 
a  large  and  broad  stone  rolled  against  ihera.  It  was  at  the 
shutting  up  of  the  sepulchre  with  this  stone  that  mourning 
began :  and  after  it  was  shut  with  this  sepulchral  stone,  it 
was  not  lawful  to  open  it. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 
Ver.  6.  He  is  not  here ;  for  he  is  risen,  as  he 
said.     Come,  see  the  place  where  the  Lord  lay. 

The  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  with  the  Sepulchre  it- 
self, is  a  prominent  object  of  attention  to  the  devout  pil- 
grim. The  Holy  Sepulchre,  in  which,  according  to  an- 
cient tradition,  the  body  of  the  Redeemer  was  deposited  by 
Nicodemus,  after  he  had  taken  it  down  from  the  cross, 
'John  xix.  39— 42,)  stands  a  little  north  of  the  centre  of  this 
church,  and  is  covered  by  a  small  oblong  quadrilateral 
building  of  marble,  crowned  with  a  tiny  cupola  standing 
upon  pillars,  and  divided  into  three  compartments.  Over 
the  entrance  to  this  edifice,  the  reader  will  observe  a  tem- 
porary covering  of  canvass  extended  by  means  of  cords,  the 
object  of  which  is  to  prevent  the  voice  of  the  preacher,  who 
lectures  from  the  door  of  the  Sepulchre  during  Passion- 
week,  from  being  dissipated  in  the  dome  above  and  rendered 
inaudible.  The  first  compartment  is  an  antechamber,  which 
may  contain  six  or  eight  persons :  here  the  pilgrims  put  off 
their  shoes  from  their  feet,  before  they  enter  upon  the  holy 
ground  within ;  where,  occupying  half  of  the  second  part 
of  the  building,  is  "  the  place  where  the  Lord  lay."  (Matt, 
xxviii.  6.)  The  third  compartment  is  a  small  chapel  ap- 
propriated to  the  Copls,  which  is  entered  from  behind,  and 
which  has  no  internal  communication  with  the  others. 

Dr.  E.  D.  Clarke,  the  traveller,  (whose  skepticism  con- 
cerning some  of  the  sacred  antiquities  of  Jerusalem  was  as 
great  as  his  credulity  in  others,)  was  of  opinion  that  the 
spot  now  shown  as  the  site  of  the  sepulchre,  was  not  the 
place  of  Christ's  interment,  from  the  variance  of 'its  present 
appearance  with  the  accounts  in  the  Gospel.  His  reasons 
for  disbelief  are  as  follows:—!.  The  tomb  of  Christ  was  in' 
a  garden  without  the  walls  of  Jerusalem;  the  structure 
whidi  at  present  bears  its  name  is  in  the  heart  of,  at  least, 
the  modern  city ;  and  Dr.  Clarke  is  unwilling  to  believe  that 


the  ancient  limits  can  have  been  so  much  circumscribed  to 
the  north  as  to  exclude  its  site.  2.  Further,  the  original 
sepulchre  was  undoubtedly  a  cave  :  the  present  offers  no 
such  appearance,  being  an  insulated  pile,  constructed  or 
cased  with  distinct  slabs  of  marble. 

Bishop  Heber,  however,  in  his  elaborate  critique  on  Dr.  , 
Clarke's  Travels,  has  shown  that  these  arguments  are  in- 
conclusive.   For, — 

L  One  of  the  Discourses  of  Cyril,  patriarch  of  Jerusa- 
lem, incidentally  proves  two  facts ;  viz.,  first,  that  the  sepul- 
chre, as  we  now  see  it,  was  without  the  ancient  wall ;  and, 
secondly,  that  before  it  was  ornamented  by  the  Emperess 
Helena,  (with  whom  he  was  contemporary,)  it  was  a  simple 
cave  in  the  rock. 

2.  Further,  that  the  present  sepulchre,  defaced  and  alter- 
ed as  it  is,  may  really  be  "  the  place  where  the  Lord  lay," 
is  likely  from  the  following  circumstances :  "  Forty  yards, 
or  thereabouts,"  says  Bishop  Heber,  "  from  the  upper  end 
of  the  sepulchre,  the  natural  rock  is  visible:  and  in  the 
place  which  the  priests  call  Calvary,  it  is  at  least  as  high 
as  the  top  of  the  sepulchre  itself  The  rock  then  may  have 
extended  as  far  as  the  present  entrance ;  and  though  the 
entrance  itself  is  hewn  into  form,  and  cased  with  marble, 
the  adytum  yet  offers  proof  that  it  is  not  factitious.  It  is  a 
trapezium  of  seven  feet  by  six,  neither  at  right  angles  to  its 
own  entrance,  nor  to  the  aisle  of  the  church  which  con- 
ducts to  it,  and  in  no  respect  conformable  to  the  external 
plan  of  the  tomb.  This  last  is  arranged  in  a  workmanlike 
manner,  with  its  frontal  immediately  opposite  the  principal 
nave,  and  in  the  same  style  with  the  rest  of  the  church.  It 
is  shaped  something  like  a  horseshoe,  and  its  walls,  naeas- 
ured  from  this  outer  horseshoe  to  the  inner  trapezium,  vary 
from  five  to  eight  feet  in  thickness,  a  suflicient  space  to  ad- 
mit of  no  inconsiderable  density  of  rock  between  the  outer 
and  inner  coating  of  marble.  This,  however,  does  not  ap- 
ply to  the  antechamber,  of  which  the  frontal,  at  least,  is 
probably  factitious ;  and  where  that  indenture  in  the  mar- 
ble is  found  which  induced  Dr.  Clarke  to  believe  that  the 
whole  thickness  of  the  wall  was  composed  of  the  same  cost- 
ly substance.  Now  these  circumstances  afford,  we  appre- 
hend, no  inconsiderable  grounds  for  supposing,  with  Po- 
cocke,  that  it  is  indeed  a  grotto  above  ground:  the  irregu- 
larity of  the  shape  ;  the  difference  between  the  external  and 
internal  plan;  the  thickness  of  the  walls,  so  needless,  il 
they  are  throughout  of  masonry,  all  favour  this  opinion ; 
nor  is  the  task  ascribed  to  Helena's  workmen,  of  insulating 
this  rock  from  that  which  is  still  preserved  a  few  yards 
distant,  at  all  incredible,  when  we  consider  that  the  labour, 
while  it  pleased  the  taste  of  their  employer,  furnished  at 
the  same  time  materials  for  her  intended  cathedral." 

3.  Although  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  has  been 
burnt  down  since  Dr.  Clarke's  visit,  yet  the  "  rock-built  sep- 
ulchre of  the  Messiah,  being  of  all  others  the  least  liable  to 
injury,  has  remained  in  spite  of  the  devouring  element." 

The  Holy  Sepulchre  is  a  sarcophagus  of  white  marble, 
destitute  of  ornament,  and  slightly  tinged  with  blue;  6  ft. 
li  in.  long,  3  ft.  Of  in.  broad,  and  2  ft.  li  in.  deep,  measured 
on  the  outside.  It  is  but  indifferently  polished,  and  ap- 
pears as  if  it  bad  at  one  time  been  exposed  to  the  pelting  of 
the  storm  and  the  changes  of  the  seasons,  by  which  it  has 
been  considerably  disintegrated.  Over  it  are  suspended 
twelve  massy  splendid  silver  lamps,  the  gifts  of  monarchs 
and  princes:  these  are  kept  continually  burning,  in  honour 
of  the  twelve  apostles.  The  sarcophagus  occupies  about 
one  half  of  the  sepulchral  chamber,  and  extends  from  one 
end  of  it  to  the  other.  A  space,  not  exceeding  three  feet 
wide,  in  front  of  it,  is  all  that  remains  for  the  reception  of 
visiters,  so  that  not  more  than  three  or  four  persons  can  be 
conveniently  admitted  at  a  time.  Over  the  sarcophagus  is 
a  large  painting,  representing  Christ  bursting  the  bonds  of 
the  tomb,  and  his  triumphant  ascent  out  of  the  grave  on  the  J 
morning  of  the  resurrection.  A  Greek  or  Latin  priest  al-  J 
ways  stands  here  with  a  silver  vase  of  incense,  which  he 
waves  over  the  pilgrims. — Horne. 


THE    GOSPEL    ACCORDING   TO    MARK 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  3.  The  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness, 
Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord,  make  his  paths 
straight. 

When  a  man  of  rank  has  to  pass  through  a  town  or  vil- 
lage, a  messenger  is  despatched  to  tell  the  people  to  prepare 
the  way,  and  to  await  his  orders.  Hence  may  be  seen  some 
8-w^eeping  the  road,  others  who  "spread  their  garments  in 
the  way,"  and  some  who  are  cutting  "  down  branches  from 
the  trees"  (Matt.  xxi.  8)  to  form  arches  and  festoons  where 
the  great  man  has  to  pass.—  Roberts. 

Ver.  6.  And  John  was  clothed  with  camel's  hair, 
and  with  a  girdle  of  a  skin  about  his  loins ; 
and  he  did  eat  locusts  and  wild  honey. 

The  Jews  were  allowed  to  eat  locusts,  and  when  sprinkled 
with  salt,  and  fried,  they  are  not  unlike  our  fresh  water 
Cray  fish.  The  Acridophagi  must  have  preferred  them  to 
almost  every  other  species  of  food,  since  they  derived  their 
name  from  their  eating  locusts.  We  learn  from  the  valua- 
ble work  of  Dr.  Russel,  that  the  Arabs  salt  and  eat  them  as 
a  delicacy.  Locusts  were  accordingly  the  common  food  of 
John,  the  precursor  of  Christ,  while  he  remained  in  the 
wilderness.  In  feeding  on  that  insect,  the  Baptist  submitted 
to  no  uncommon  privation,  and  practised  no  savage  rigour, 
like  many  of  the  hermits  who  inhabited  the  deserts;  but 
merely  followed  the  abstemious  mode  of  living  to  which 
the  people  were  accustomed,  in  the  less  frequented  parts  of 
the  country.  The  food  upon  which  he  subsisted  in  the  wil- 
derness appears  to  be  particularly  mentioned,  merely  to 
show  that  he  fared  as  the  poorest  of  men,  and  that  his  man- 
ner of  living  corresponded  with  the  meanness  of  his  dress. 
Much  unnecessary  pains  have  been  taken  by  some  squeam- 
ish writers,  to  prove  that  the  locusts  which  John  used  for 
food,  were  the  fruit  of  a  certain  tree,  and  not  the  carcass  of 
the  insects  distinguished  by  that  name  ;  but  a  little  inquiry 
will  fully  clear  up  this  matter,  and  show,  that  however  dis- 
gusting the  idea  of  that  kind  of  meat  may  appear  to  us,  the 
Orientals  entertain  a  different  opinion.  Many  nations  in 
the  East,  as  the  Indians  of  the  Bashee  islands,  the  Tonquin- 
ese,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Madagascar,  make  no  scruple 
to  eat  these  insects,  of  which  they  have  innumerable  swarms, 
and  prefer  them  to  the  finest  fish.  The  ancients  affirm,  that 
in  Africa,  Syria,  Persia,  and  almost  throughout  Asia,  the 
people  commonly  eat  these  creatures,  Clenard,  in  a  letter 
from  Fez,  in  1541,  assures  us,  that  he  saw  wagon  loads  of 
locusts  brought  into  that  city  for  food.  Kirstenius,  in  his 
notes  on  Matthew,  says,  he  was  informed  by  his  Arabic 
master,  that  he  had  often  seen  them  on  the  river  Jordan; 
that  they  were  of  the  same  form  with  ours,  but  larger;  that 
the  inhabitants  pluck  off  their  wings  and  feet,  and  hang  the 
rest  at  their  necks  till  they  grow  warm  and  ferment;  and 
then  they  eat  them,  and  think  them  very  good  food.  A 
monk,  who  had  travelled  into  Egypt,  asserts,  that  he  had 
eaten  of  these  locusts,  and  that  in  the  country  they  subsist- 
ed on  them  four  months  in  the  year.  In  Bushire,  they  are 
used  by  the  lowest  peasantry  as  food.  The  Arabs  fee'd  on 
them  to  this  day,  and  prepare  them  for  use  in  the  following 
manner :  They  grind  them  to  flour  in  their  handmills,  or 
powder  them  in  stone  mortars.  This  flour  they  mix  with 
water  to  the  consistency  of  dough,  and  make  thin  cakes  of 
it,  which  they  bake  like  other  bread  on  a  heated  girdle ;  and 
this,  observes  Hasselquist,  serves  instead  of  bread  to  sup- 
port life  for  want  of  something  better.  At  other  times  they 
poil  them  in  water,  and  afterward  stew  them  with  butter, 
fUid  make  a  soft  of  fricassee,  which  has  no  bad  taste.— 

PAXTON. 


Ver.  10.  And  straightway  coming  up  out  of  the 
water,  he  saw  the  heavens  opened,  and  the 
Spirit  like  a  dove  descending  upon  him. 

See  on  Matt.  3.  II. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  3.  And  they  come  unto  him,  bringing  one 
sick  of  the  palsy,  which  was  borne  of  four. 
4.  And  when  they  could  not  come  nigh  unto 
him  for  the  press,  they  uncovered  the  roof 
where  he  was ;  and  when  they  had  broken  it 
up,  they  let  down  the  bed  wherein  the  sick  of 
the  palsy  lay. 

Among  other  pretended  difficulties  and  absurdities  rela- 
ting to  this  fact,  it  has  been  urged,  that,  as  the  uncovering, 
or  breaking  up  of  the  roof,  as  mentioned  by  Mark,  or  the 
letting  a  person  down  through  it,  as  recorded  by  Luke,  sup- 
poses the  breaking  up  of  tiles,  spars,  rafters,  &c.,  "  so,"  says 
the  infidel,  "  it  was  well  if  Jesus,  and  his  disciples,  escaped 
with  only  a  broken  pate,  by  the  falling  of  the  tiles,  and  if  the 
rest  were  not  smothered  with  dust."  But  if  the  construction 
of  an  oriental  dwellingbe  recollected,  we  shall  find  nothing 
in  the  conduct  of  these  men  either  absurd  in  itself,  or  haz- 
ardous to  others.  Dr.  Shaw  contends,  that  no  violence  was 
offered  to  the  roof,  and  that  the  bearers  only  carried  the 
paralytic  up  to  the  top  of  the  house,  either  by  forcing  their 
way  through  the  crowd  up  the  staircase,  or  else  by  convey- 
ing him  over  some  of  the  neighbouring  terraces,  and  these, 
after  they  had  drawn  away  the  orly??,  or  veil,  let  him  down 
along  the  side  of  the  roof  (through  the  opening,  or  impluvi- 
um)  into  the  midst  of  the  court  before  Jesus.  But  this  in- 
genious explanation  is  encumbered  with  several  important 
difficulties.  The  natural  and  obvious  idea  which  the  text 
suggests  to  the  mind  is,  that  the  roof  of  the  house  was  ac- 
tually opened,  and  the  paralytic  letdown  through  the  tiling, 
or  roof,  into  the  upper  apartment,  where  Jesus  was  sitting; 
while  an  elaborate  process  of  criticism  is  necessary  to  elicit 
the  sense  of  the  learned  author:  this  is  a  circumstance 
strongly  in  favour  of  the  common  exposition.  Besides,  he 
has  produced  no  proof  that  areyri  ever  signifies  a  veil,  for 
which  the  sacred  writers,  in  particular,  employ  other  words, 
as  KaXv/j/ia,  KaTaTreraorjia  ;  but  its  usual  meaning  is  the  roof, 
or  flat  terrace  of  a  house,  and,  by  an  easy  transition,  the 
house  itself.  Nor  has  he  assigned  a  sufficient  reason  for 
the  use  of  the  strong  term  e^opv^avres,  by  which  he  is  evi- 
dently embarrassed.  He  endeavours,  in  the  first  place,  to 
get  quit  of  it  altogether,  by  observing  that  it  is  omitted  in 
the  Cambridge  manuscript,  and  not  regarded  in  the  Syriac, 
and  some  other  versions.  But  conscious  it  could  neither 
be  expunged, nor  disregarded  upon  such  authority,  he  thinks 
"  it  may  be  considered  as  further  explanatory  of  oOTo-rty  ao-ai' : 
or,  as  in  the  Persian  version,  referred  either  to  the  letting 
down  of  the  bed,  or,  preparatory  thereto,  to  the  making 
holes  in  it  for  the  cords  to  pass  through."  But  the  word 
cannot,  with  propriety,  be  considered  as  a  further  explana- 
tion of  aTrsffTeyarrav;  for  it  has  quite  a  different  meaning;  it 
signifies  to  dig  out,  to  break  up,  or  pluck  out,  and  always  in- 
volves the  idea  of  force  and  violence ;  but  no  violence,  and 
but  very  little  exertion  was  necessary,  to  fold  back  the  veil, 
which  was  expanded  by  cords  over  the  court.  Nor  can  it 
be  referred  to  the  removal  of  other  obstructions,  for  when 
the  veil  was  removed,  no  further  obstruction  remained.  It 
cannot,  in  this  place,  signify  to  tie  the  four  corners  of  the 
bed  or  bedstead  with  cords,  for  it  bears  no  such  meaning  in 
any  other  part  of  ihe  holy  scriptures,  or  in  any  classic- 
author  ;  and  since  it  is  more  naturally  constructed  with 
oTcyr]  than  with  KpaPParor,  it  ought  to  be  referred  to  the  for- 


596 


MARK. 


Chap.  2—6. 


mer.  Pearce,  in  his  Miracles  of  Jesus  Vindicated,  offers  an- 
other solution ;  according  to  him,  they  opened  the  trap-door, 
which  used  to  be  on  the  top  of  the  houses  in  Judea,  and 
which  lying  even  with  the  roof,  was  a  part  of  it  when  it  was 
let  down  and  shut.  But  with  regard  to  this  exposition, 
Parkhurst  justly  observes,  that  the  most  natural  interpreta- 
tion of  a-:ro<TT£Ya^eiv,  is  to  uuroof,  break  up  the  roof,  and  that 
the  verb  is  twice  used  by  Strabo,  as  cited  by  Eisner  and 
Wetstein,  in  this  sense;  which  also  best  agrees  with  the 
following  word  e^opv^avreg.  The  history,  as  recorded  by 
the  evangelists  Mark  and  Luke,  seems  to  be  this;  Jesus, 
after  some  days  absence,  returned  to  Capernaum,  and  to 
the  house  where  he  used  to  dwell.  And  when  it  was  re- 
ported that  he  was  there,  the  people  crowded  to  the  square 
court,  about  which  the  house  was  built,  in  such  numbers 
that  there  was  no  room  for  them,  even  though  they  filled 
the  porch.  The  men  who  carried  the  paralytic,  endeavour- 
'  ed  to  bring  him  into  the  court  among  the  crowd  ;  but,  find- 
ing this  impossible,  they  went  up  the  staircase  which  led 
from  the  porch  (or  possibly  came  from  the  terrace  of  a 
neighbouring  house)  to  the  flat  roof  of  the  house,  over  the 
upper  room  in  which  Jesus  was,  Kai  e^opv^avres ;  and  having 
forced  up  as  much  both  of  the  tiles  or  plaster,  and  of  the 
boards  on  which  they  were  laid,  as  was  necessary  for  the 
purpose,  they  let  down  the  paralytic's  mattress,  Sia  Ta)v 
K£oaiiO)v,  through  the  tiles  or  roof,  into  the  midst  of  the  room 
before  Jesus.  This  operation,  under  the  careful  manage- 
ment of  these  men,  who  must  have  been  anxious  not  to  in- 
commode the  Saviour  and  his  auditory,  could  be  attended 
with  no  danger.  The  tiles  or  plaster  might  be  removed  to 
another  part  of  the  flat  roof,  and  the  boards  likewise,  as 
they  were  broken  up ;  and  as  for  the  spars,  they  might  be 
sufficiently  wide  to  admit  the  narrow  couch  of  the  sick 
man,  without  moving  any  of  them  from  their  places.  It 
may  be  even  inferred  from  the  silence  of  the  two  evange- 
lists, that  the  company  suffered  not  the  least  inconvenience ; 
and  the  infidel  can  produce  the  testimony  of  no  writer  in 
support  of  his  insinuations.  But  though  we  were  unable  to 
remove  the  objection,  or  silence  the  ridicule  of  the  unbe- 
liever, it  is  in  every  respect  better  to  abide  by  the  natural 
and  obvious  sense  of  the  passage.  Many  of  the  oriental 
piinces  and  nobles  have  a  favourite  upper  chamber  to  which 
they  retire  from  the  fatigues  of  state  and  the  hurry  of  busi- 
ness. To  such  a  retired  apartment  the  Saviour  and  his 
disciples  withdrew  to  celebrate  the  passover  before  he  suf- 
•  lered. — Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  And  when  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  saw 
him  eat  with  publicans  and  sinners,  they  said 
unto  his  disciples,  How  is  it  that  he  eateth  and 
drinketh  with  publicans  and  sinners. 

At  this  period  there  were  in  the  Roman  empire  two 
Classes  of  men,  who  might  be  called  publicans,  {piiblicani, 
Tshovai.)  First,  such  as  farmed  the  revenues  of  whole  prov- 
inces. These  were  generally  Roman  knights,  frequently 
highly  respected  men,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  picture 
which  Cicero  draws  of  some  of  them  in  his  speeches  for 
the  Manilian  law  and  for  Plancus.  These  were  properly- 
called  publicani,  but  they  are  not  mentioned  in  the  Evan- 
gelists. They  likewise  did  not  collect  the  taxes  themselves ; 
they  employed  for  this  purpose  their  freedmen  and  slaves, 
to  whom  they  gave  as  assistants  as  many  natives  as  was 
requisite.  These  sub  tax-gatherers  were  indeed  also  called 
publicans,  (^publicani,  rsWvai ;)  but  their  proper  Latin  name 
was  portitores.  Their  places  were  united  with  great  tempta- 
tions ;  for  as  they  had  farmed  the  taxes  for  a  fixed  sum,  they 
tried  to  press  as  much  as  possible  from  individual  persons. 
Besides  this,  gathering  the  taxes  for  a  foreign  power,  is  un- 
doubtedly a  detested  employment  in  every  country,  and 
among  the  natives  generally  only  people  of  the  meanest 
rank,  and  of  a  low  way  of  thinking,  lend  themselves  to  it. 
Among  the  Jews,  the  ill-will  towards  ptMiple  of  this  class 
was  increased  by  pride  and  zeal  for  the  independence  of 
the  nation  ;  and  such  of  their  countrymen  as  sufl^ered  them- 
/  selves  to  be  employed  in  gathering  taxes  for  heathens,  they 
considered  as  apostates  to  their  religion.  Publicans  and 
sinners  were  among  their  synonymous  names. — Rosen- 

MULLER. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  38.  And  he  cometh  to  the  house  of  the  ruler 


of  the  synagogue,  and  seeth  the  tumuh,  and 
them  that  wepi  and  wailed  greatly. 

See  on  Gen,  45.  2. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  3.  Is  not  this  the  carpenter,  the  son  of  Mary, 
the  brother  of  James  and  Joses,  and  of  Jnda,  and 
Simon  ?  and  are  not  his  sisters  here  with  us  ] 
And  they  were  offended  at  him. 

It  was  a  common  practice,  in  almost  every  country,  to  distin- 
guish a  person  from  others  of  the  same  name,  by  giving  him 
asurname  derived  from  the  trade  or  occupation  of  his  parent. 
The  English  language  furnishes  us  with  examples  of  this 
in  the  surnames  of  Baker,  Taylor,  Carpenter,  and  the  like; 
and  what  is  still  more  to  the  point,  it  is  at  this  day  the  cus- 
tom in  some  of  the  oriental  nations,  and  particularly  among 
the  Arabs,  to  distinguish  any  learned  and  illustrious  man, 
who  may  chance  to  be  born  of  parents  who  follow^  a  particu- 
lar trade  or  art,  by  giving  him  the  name  of  such  trade  or 
art  as  a  surname,  although  he  may  never  have  followed  it 
himself.  Thus,  if  a  man  of  learning  happen  to  be  descend- 
ed from  a  dier  or  a  tailor,  they  call  him  the  tailor's  son  or 
the  dier's  son,  or  frequently  omitting  the  word  son,  simply 
the  dier  or  the  tailor.  According  to  this  custom,  the  re- 
mark of  the  Jews,  in  which  our  Saviour  is  termed  the  car- 
penter, may  be  considered  as  referring  merely  to  the  occu- 
pation of  his  reputed  father:  and  that  t£kto)v  ought  to  be  un- 
derstood in  this  place  as  meaning  nothing  more  than  b  rov 
TCKTovog  viog,  the  son  of  the  carpenter.  This  explanation  of 
the  term  is  supported  by  the  authority  of  another  evan- 
gelist, who  resolves  it  by  this  very  phrase."  (Mosheim.) — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  8.  And  commanded  them  that  they  should 
take  nothing  for  their  journey,  save  a  staff 
only ;  no  scrip,  no  bread,  no  money  in  their 
purse. 

See  on  Mat.  10.  9. 

Ver.  11.  And  whosoever  shall  not  receive  you, 
nor  hear  you,  when  ye  depart  thence,  shake  off 
the  dust  under  your  feet  for  a  testimony  against 
them.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  It  shall  be  more 
tolerable  for  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  in  the  day 
of  judgment,  than  for  that  city. 

When  a  person  is  made  angry  by  another,  he  says,  "  1 
will  shake  thee  off"  as  I  do  the  dust  from  my  sandals."  "  I 
have  washed  my  feet ;  never  more  shall  they  tread  that 
place." — Roberts. 

Ver.  13.  And  they  cast  out  many  devils,  and 
anointed  with  oil  many  that  were  sick,  and 
healed  them. 

The  people  of  the  East  give  a  decided  preference  to  ex- 
ternal applications;  hence  when  they  are  directed  to  "  eat" 
or  "  drink"  medicine,  they  ask,  can  they  not  have  something 
to  apply  outside  1  For  almost  every  complaint  a  man  will 
smear  his  body  with  bruised  leaves,  or  saffron,  or  ashes  of 
certain  woods,  or  oils;  and  he  professes  to  derive  more 
benefit  from  them  than  from  those  medicines  which  are 
taken  internally:  at  all  events,  he  knows  they  cannot  do 
him  so  much  harm.  It  ought  to  be  observed,  that  they  do 
not  attach  any  miraculous  effects  to  the  being  "  anointed 
with  oil."— Roberts. 

Ver.  21.  And  when  a  convenient  day  was  come, 
that  Herod,  on  his  birthday,  made  a  supper  to 
his  lords,  high  captains,  and  chief  estates  of 
Galilee. 

The  Orientals  have  nearly  all  their  great  feasts  in  the 
evening :  thus,  to  give  a  supper  is  far  more  common  than 
a  dinner.  Those  evening  festivals  have  a  very  imposing 
effect :  what  with  the  torches  and  lamps,  the  splendid  dresses 


Chap.  9—12. 


MARK. 


597 


jewels,  processions,  the  bowers,  the  flowers,  and  the  music, 
a  kind  of  enchantment  takes  hold  of  the  feelings,  and  the 
mind  is  half  bewildered  in  the  scenes. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  41.  For  whosoever  shall  give  you  a  cup  of 
water  to  drink,  in  my  name,  because  ye  belong 
to  Christ,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  He  shall  not 
lose  his  reward. 

In  the  sacred  scriptures,  bread  and  water  are  commonly 
mentioned  as  the  chief  supports  of  human  life ;  and  to  pro- 
vide a  sufficient  quantity  of  water,  to  prepare  it  for  use, 
and  to  deal  it  out  to  the  thirsty,  are  still  among  the  princi- 
pal cares  of  an  oriental  householder.  To  furnish  travel- 
lers with  water  is,  even  in  present  times,  reckoned  of  so 
great  importance,  that  many  of  the  eastern  philanthropists 
have  been  at  considerable  expense  to  procure  them  that 
enjoyment.  The  nature  of  the  climate,  and  the  general 
aspect  of  the  oriental  regions,  require  numerous  fountains 
to  excite  and  sustain  the  languid  powers  of  vegetation ;  and 
the  sun,  burning  with  intense  heat  in  a  cloudless  sky,  de- 
mands for  the  fainting  inhabitants  the  verdure,  shade,  and 
coolness,  which  vegetation  produces.  Hence  fountains  of 
living  water  are  met  with  in  the  towns  and  villages,  in  the 
fields  and  gardens,  and  by  the  sides  of  the  roads  and  of  the 
beaten  tracks  on  the  mountains  ;  and  a  cup  of  cold  water 
from  these  wells,  is  no  contemptible  present. 

In  Arabia,  equal  attention  is  paid  by  the  wealthy  and 
b-snevolent  to  the  refreshment  of  the  traveller.  On  one  of 
the  mountains  of  Arabia,  Niebuhr  found  three  little  reser- 
voirs, which  are  always  kept  full  of  fine  water  for  the  use 
of  passengers.  These  reservoirs,  which  are  about  two 
feet  and  a  half  square,  and  from  five  to  seven  feet  high, 
are  round,  or  pointed  at  the  top,  of  mason's  work,  having 
only  a  small  opening  in  one  of  the  sides,  by  which  they 
pour  water  into  them.  Sometimes  he  found,  near  these 
places  of  Arab  refreshment,  a  piece  of  a  ground  shell,  or 
a  little  scoop  of  wood  for  lifting  the  water. 

The  same  attention  to  the  comfort  of  travellers,  is  mani- 
fested in  Egypt,  where  public  buildings  are  set  apart  in 
some  of  their  cities,  the  business  of  whose  inhabitants  is  to 
supply  the  passenger  with  water  free  of  expense.  Some  of 
these  houses  make  a  very  handsome  appearance  ;  and  the 
persons  appointed  to  wait  on  the  passengers,  are  required 
to  have  some  vessels  of  copper,  curiously  tinned  and  filled 
with  water,  always  ready  on  the  wingow  next  the  street. 
Some  of  the  Mohammedan  villagers  in  Palestine,  not  far 
from  Nazareth,  brought  Mr.  Buckingham  and  his  party 
bread  and  water,  while  on  horseback,  without  even  being 
solicited  to  do  so  ;  and  when  they  halted  to  accept  it,  both 
compliments  and  blessings  were  mutually  interchanged.* 
Hence  a  cup  of  cold  water  is  a  present  in  the  East  of  much 
value,  though  there  are  some  other  refreshments  of  a  su- 
perior quality.  When  Sisera  asked  a  little  water  to  drink, 
Jael  brought  him  milk,  which  she  thought  he  would  natural- 
ly prefer;  and  in  the  book  of  Proverbs,  the  mother  of  Lem- 
uel instructed  him  to  give  strong  drink  to  him  that  is  ready 
to  perish,  and  wine  to  those  that  were  of  heavy  heart.  Still, 
however,  the  value  of  a  cup  of  water,  though  to  be  num- 
bereJ  among  the  simple.^  presents  the  traveller  can  re- 
ceive, is  of  great  value  in  those  countries.  If  this  be  duly 
considered,  the  declaration  of  our  Lord,  "  Whosoever 
shall  give  you  a  cup  of  water  to  drink,  in  my  name, 
because  ye  belong  to  Christ,  verily  I  say  unto  you.  He 
shall  not  lose  his  reward,"  is  of  greater  importance  than 
Ave  are  apt  at  first  sight  to  imagine.  The  general  thought 
is  plain  to  every  reader,  That  no  service  performed  to  a 
disciple  of  Christ,  out  of  love  to  his  master,  although  com- 
paratively small,  shall  remain  unrewarded  ;  but  the  inhab- 
itants of  more  temperate  climates  are  sometimes  ready  to 
think  that  the  instance  which  our  Lord  mentions,  is  rather 
insignificant.  It  certainly  would  not  appear  so  now  to  an 
inhabitant  of  the  East,  nor  did  it  then,  we  have  reason  to 
believe,  appear  so  to  them  who  heard  the  Saviour's  decla- 
ration. But  the  words  of  Christ  evidently  contain  more 
than  this ;  they  lead  up  our  thoughts  to  the  character  of 

*  "In  this,  as  in  most  of  the  other  villages,  is  a  hut  with  a  large  jar 
of  water  in  it,  by  the  road-side,  for  travellers.  When  there  are  no 
houses,  this  jar  is  generally  placed  under  a  fme-tree."  (Waddington's 
Travels  inEtliiopia,  p.  35.)--B. 


him  for  whose  sake  the  cup  of  water  is  given.  Ao  act  of 
benevolence,  how  small  soever,  is  certainly  pleasing  in  the 
sight  of  God,  so  far  as  it  proceeds  from  proper  motives,  is 
performed  in  the  appointed  manner,  and  directed  to  the 
proper  end,  and  particularly  if  it  be  connected  with  the 
name  of  his  own  Son.  But  to  give  a  cup  of  water  to  a  dis- 
ciple in  the  name  of  Christ,  and  because  he  belongs  to  him, 
must  signify,  that  it  is  given  in  honour  of  Christ ;  and  this 
is  the  particular  reason  of  the  reward  which  the  remuner- 
ative justice  of  God  bestows.  An  article  in  the  Asiastic 
Miscellany,  quoted  by  Dr.  Clarke  in  his  edition  of  Har- 
mer,  will  "set  this  in  a  very  clear  light.  In  India,  the  Hin- 
doos go  sometimes  a  great  way  to  fetch  water,  and  then 
boil  it,  that  it  may  not  be  hurtful  to  travellers  who  are  hot ; 
and  after  this,  stand  from  morning  till  night  in  some  great 
road,  where  there  is  neither  pit  nor  rivulet,  and  otiisr  it 
in  honour  of  their  gods,  to  be  drunk  by  the  passengers. 
Such  necessary  works  of  charity  in  these  hot  countries, 
seem  to  have  been  practised  among  the  more  pious  and 
humane  Jews  ;  and  our  Lord  assures  them,  that  if  they  do 
this  in  his  name,  they  shall  not  lose  their  reward.  This 
one  circumstance.  Dr.  Clarke  justly  remarks,  of  the  Hin- 
doos offering  the  water  to  the  fatigued  passengers,  in  hon- 
our of  their  gods,  is  a  better  illustration  of  our  Lord's 
words,  than  all  the  collections  of  Mr.  Harmer  on  the  sub- 
ject.— Paxton. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  46.  And  they  came  to  Jericho :  and  as  he 
went  out  of  Jericho  with  his  disciples,  and  a 
great  number  of  people,  blind  Bartimeus,  the 
son  of  Timeus,  sat  by  the  highway-side,  beg- 
ging. 

Here  again  the  picture  is  teeming  with  life.  See  that 
blind  man  seated  under  a  shady  tree  "  by  the  highway 
side,"  he  has  occupied  the  place  from  infancy.  The  trav- 
ellers who  are  accustomed  to  pass  that  way  always  expect 
to  see  the  blind  beggar ;  and  were  he  not  there  they  would 
have  a  sense  of  discomfort,  and  anxiously  inquire  after 
the  cause.  So  soon  as  he  hears  the  sound  of  a  footstep  he 
begins  to  cry  aloud,  "  The  blind  1  the  blind  1  remember  the 
blind!"  He  knows  almost  every  man's  voice,  and  has 
always  some  question  to  ask  in  reference  to  the  family  at 
home.  Should  a  stranger  be  passing,  he  inquires,  Ath-d?, 
i.  e.  Who  is  thaf?  Those  who  cannot  walk  are  carried  to 
their  wonted  place,  as  was  the  man  who  was  "  laid  daily 
at  the  gate  of  the  tempie,  which  is  called  Beautiful,  to  ask 
alms  of  them  that  entered  into  the  temple."  Some  cripples 
are  carried  about  in  a  basket  by  two  men,  who  have  a 
share  of  the  alms.  Sometimes  they  have  tremendous 
quarrels,  as  the  bearers  take  too  great  a  share  of  the  money 
or  provisions,  whigh  induces  the  lame  man  to  use  his 
tong)ie:  they,  however,  generally  get  the  victory  by  threat- 
ening to  leave  the  poor  fellow  to  get  home  as  well  as  he 
can.  Some  of  the  blind  mendicants  have  not  the  pa'tience 
to  remain  in  one  place  :  hence  they  get  a  person  to  lead 
them,  and  here  again  they  have  a  constant  source  of  quar- 
rel in  the  suspicions  of  the  one  and  the  rogueries  of  the 
other.  The  guide  falls  into  a  passion,  and  abuses  the  beg- 
gar, tells  him  he  is  cursed  of  the  gods,  and  pretends  to  take 
his  departure ;  the  blind  man  retorts,  and  calls  him  a  hnc 
caste,  a  servant  of  beggars,  and  tells  him  he  shall  not  hav 
any  more  of  his  rice.  They  both  having  expended  a' 
their  hard  words,  become  a  little  calmer;  and  after  a  few 
expostulations,  once  more  approximate,  and  trudge  ofi"  in 
pursuit  of  their  calling.— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Ver.  1.  And  he  began  to  speak  unto  them  by 
parables.  A  certain  man  planted  a  vineyard 
and  set  a  hedge  about  izf,  and  digged  a  place  for 
the  wine-fat,  and  built  a  tower,  and  let  it  out  to 
husbandmen,  and  went  into  a  far  country. 

I  was  particularly  struck  with  the  appearance  of  several 
small  and  detached  square  towers  in  the  midst  of  vine- 
lands,  said  by  our  guide  to  be  used  as  watch-towers,  from 
which  watchmen  looked  out  to  guard  the  produce  of  the 
lands  themselves  even  in  the  present  day. — Buckingham, 


598 


MARK. 


Chap.  13,  14. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  15.  And  let  him  that  is  on  the  house-top  not 
go  down  into  the  house,  neither  enter  therein, 
to  take  any  thing  out  of  his  house. 

See  on  Matt.  24.  17. 

"When  the  houses,  were  not  contiguous,  the  staircase,  ac- 
cording to  the  description  of  some  travellers,  was  conduct- 
ed along  the  outside  of  the  house ;  but  when  they  were 
built  close  together,  it  was  placed  in  the  porch,  or  at  the 
entrance  into  the  court,  and  continued  through  one  corner 
of  the  gallery,  or  another,  to  the  top  of  the  house.  For 
the  sake  of  greater  privacy,  and  to  prevent  the  domestic 
animals  from  daubing  the  terrace,  and  by  that  means 
spoiling  the  water  which  falls  from  thence  into  the  cisterns 
below  the  court,  a  door  was  hung  on  the  top  of  the  stair, 
and  kept  constantly  shut.  This  door,  like  most  others  to 
be  met  with  in  those  countries,  is  hung,  not  with  hinges, 
but  by  having  the  jamb  formed  at  each  end  into  an  axle- 
tree  or  pivot ;  of  which  the  uppermost,  which  is  the  longest, 
IS  to  be  received  into  a  correspondent  socket  in  the  lintel, 
while  the  other  falls  into  a  similar  cavity  in  the  threshold. 
Doors  with  hinges  of  the  same  kind  are  still  to  be  seen  in 
the  East.  The  stone  door,  so  much  admired  by  Mr.  Maun- 
drell,  is  exactly  of  this  fashion,  and  very  common  in  most 
places.  "  The  staircase  is  uniformly  so  contrived,  that  a 
person  may  go  up  or  come  down  by  it,  without  entering 
into  any  of  the  offices  or  apartments;  and  by  consequence, 
without  disturbing  the  fami'ly,  or  interfering  with  the  busi- 
ness of  the  house.  In  allusion  to  this  method  of  building, 
our  Lord  commands  his  disciples,  when  the  Roman  armies 
entered  Judea,  to  "  flee  to  the  mountains ;"  and  adds,  "  Let 
him  that  is  on  the  house-top  not  go  down  into  the  house, 
neither  enter  therein,  to  take  any  thing  out  of  his  house." 
They  were  commanded  to  flee  from  the  top  of  the  house  to 
the  mountains,  without  entering  the  house;  which  was  im- 
possible to  be  done,  if  the  stairs  had  not  been  conducted 
along  the  outside  of  it,  by  which  they  could  escape. — Pax- 
ton. 

Ver.  35.  Watch  ye,  therefore :  for  ye  know  not 
when  the  master  of  the  house  cometh,  at  even, 
or  at  midnight,  or  at  the  cock-crowing,  or  in 
the  morning. 

See  on  ch.  14.  30. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Ver.  3.  And  being  in  Bethany,  in  the  house  of 
Simon  the  leper,  as  he  sat  at  meat,  there  came 
a  woman,  having  an  alabaster  box  of  ointment 
of  spikenard,  very  precious;  and  she  brake  the 
box,  and  poured  it  on  his  head. 

While  the  entertainment  was  going  on,  the  master  of  the 
family,  to  show  his  respect  for  the  company,  and  to  prevent 
the  hurtful  consequences  of  indulgence,  caused  the  ser- 
vants in  attendance  to  anoint  their  heads  with  precious 
unguents,  and  perfume  the  room  by  burning  myrrh,  frank- 
incense, and  other  odours.  Hence  the  act  of  Mary,  in 
anointing  the  head  of  her  Lord,  as  he  sat  at  meat  in  the 
house  of  Simon,  was  agreeable  to  the  established  custom 
of  the  country,  and  she  did  no  more  on  that  occasion  than 
what  the  rules  of  politeness  required  from  his  entertainer. 
It  was  at  once  a  signal  testimony  of  her  veneration  for  the 
Saviour,  and  a  pointed  reproof  to  Simon  for  his  disre- 
spectful omission.  "  As  Jesus  sat  at  meat,  there  came  a 
woman,  having  an  alabaster  box  of  ointment  of  spikenard, 
(or  liquid  nard,  according  to  the  margin,)  very  precious, 
and  she  brake  the  box  and  poured  it  on  his  head."  The 
balsam  was  contained  in  a  box  of  alabaster,  whose  mouth 
was  stopped  with  cotton,  upon  which  melted  wax  was 
poured  so  as  effectually  to  exclude  the  air.  When  Mary 
approached  to  anoint  her  Lord,  she  broke  the  cemeiil 
which  secured  the  stopple,  not  the  box  itself,  for  this  was 
quite  unnecessary;  and  we  know  thai  in  the  language  of 
the  East,  the  opening  of  a  vessel,  by  breaking  the  cement 
that  secured  it,  was  called  breaking  the  vessel. — Paxton. 

Ver.  30.  And  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  Verily  I  say 


unto  thee.  That  this  day,  even  in  this  night,  be- 
fore the  cock  crow  twice,  thou  shalt  deny  me 
thrice. 

The  cock-crowing  was,  properly,  the  time  which  inter- 
vened between  midnight  and  the  morning ;  which  is  evident 
from  the  words  of  the  evangelist  just  quoted.  Availing 
themselves  of  this  circumstance,  the  Romans  divided  their 
day  and  night  into  various  parts,  which  they  distinguished 
by  appropriate  names.  Midnight  was  the  point  at  which 
their  day  commenced  and  terminated  ;  then  followed,  what 
they  called  the  inclination  of  midnight;  after  that,  the 
cock-crowing;  then  the  conticinium,  or  time  of  silence, 
when  all  was  still;  this  was  followed  by  the  dawn,  which 
ushered  in  the  morning ;  and  this  in  its  turn  was  succeeded 
by  the  noonday.  The  Greek  term  which  denotes  the  cock- 
crowing,  is  often  used  in  the  plural  number,  because  that 
wakeful  bird  announces  more  than  once  the  approach  of 
light.  He  begins  to  chant  at  midnight;  and  again  raises 
his  warning  voice,  between  midnight  and  the  dawn  ;  which, 
on  this  account,  is  often  called  the  second  cock-crowing. 
Thus  Juvenal : 

"  Quod  tamen  ad  cantum  galli  facit  ille  secundi, 
Proxitnus  ante  diem  caupo  sciet."— (Sat.  ix.  1.  106.) 

The  second  cock-crowing  corresponds  with  the  fourth 
watch  of  the  night;  for,  says  Ammianus,  he  ascended 
Mount  Casius,  from  whence,  at  the  second  crowing  of  the 
cock,  the  rising  sun  might  be  first  descried.  But,  according 
to  Pliny,  from  the  towering  height  of  Mount  Casius,  the  sun 
might  be  seen  at  the  fourth  watch,  ascending  through  the 
shades  of  night.  But,  although  the  cock  crows  twice  in  the 
night,  yet,  when  any  thing  is  said  to  be  done  at  the  time  of 
the  cock-crowing,  without  stating  whether  it  is  the  first  or 
the  second,  it  must  always  be  understood  of  the  last,  which 
is  by  way  of  distinction  called  the  cock-crowing,  either  be- 
cause the  warning  is  more  loud  and  cheerful,  or  because  it 
is  more  useful  to  mankind,  as  it  rouses  them  from  their 
slumbers  to  the  active  scenes  of  life;  or,  in  fine,  because 
the  time  of  the  first  warning  is  called  by  another  name,  the 
middle  of  the  night.  Thus,  the  evangelist  Mark  agrees 
with  the  uninspired  writers  of  antiquity,  in  placing  the 
lime  of  the  second  crowing  between  the  hour  of  midnight 
and  the  morning.  And  Isidore,  as  quoted  by  Bochart,  says, 
it  was  called  the  cock-crowing,  because  then  the  cock  an- 
nounced the  approach  of  day.  Hence  it  is  evident  he  meant 
the  time  of  the  second  crowing.  Horace  also  refers  to 
the  same  hour  in  these  lines: 

"  Agricolum  laudat  juris  legumque  peritus 

Sub  galli  cantum  consultor  ubi  ostia  pulsat." — (Sat.  i.  1.  10.) 

It  appears  from  these,  and  many  other  testimonies,  which 
the  learned  reader  will  find  in  Bochart,  that  the  same  time 
was  now  called  simply,  the  cock-crowing ;  and  now  more 
expressly,  the  second  cock-crowing :  from  whence  it  has 
been  justly  thought,  that  Mark  may  be  easily  reconciled  with 
the  other  evangelists,  in  relation  to  the  time  when  the  apos- 
tle Peter  thrice  denied  his  Lord.  According  to  Mark,  the 
Saviour  informed  his  presumptuous  disciple,  "  Before  the 
cock  crow  twice,  thou  shalt  deny  me  thrice."  As  the  Sa- 
viour had  foretold,  the  cock  crew  after  the  first,  and  a  se- 
cond time  after  the  third  denial ;  but  according  to  the  other 
evangelists,  the  cock  did  not  crow  before  he  denied  him 
the  third  time.  The  words  of  Christ,  according  to  Matthew, 
are  these:  "  Verily  I  say  unto  thee,  that  this  night  before 
the  cock  crow,  thou  shalt  deny  me  thrice."  In  Luke:  "  I 
tell  thee,  Peter,  the  cock  shall  not  crow  this  day,  be-bre  that 
thou  shalt  thrice  deny  that  thou  knowest  me!"  In  John  : 
"  Wilt  thou  lay  down  thy  life  for  my  sake  1  Verily,  verily, 
I  say  unto  thee,  the  cock  shall  not  crow,  till  thou  hast  denied 
me  "thrice."  But  it  is  no  difficult  task  to  reconcile  thes^ 
different  accounts  ;  for  the  prediction  clearly  refers  to  tl 
time  of  the  second  crowing,  before  when,  according  to  all 
the  four  evangelists,  Peter  had  thrice  denied  his  Master. 
These  phrases,  The  cock  shall  not  crow,  or.  Before  the 
cock  shall  crow,  are  the  same  as  if  he  had  said,  Before  the 
time  of  the  cock-crowing,  or  the  cock  shall  not  give  that 
loud  and  cheerful  alarm,  from  which  the  time  called  em- 
phatically the  cock-crowing  {n\tKTnpo,bmna)  is  dated,  before 
thou  shait  deny  me  thrice.'  No  doubt  can  reasonably  be 
entertained,  that  Mark,  who  was  the  disciple  of  Peter,  re- 
corded the  very  words  of  Christ,  as  he  received  them  from 
the  apost»fe.    But  it  was  sufficient  for  the  others  to  mentioR 


Chap.  15. 


MARK. 


599 


the  principal  fact,  that  Christ  not  only  foresaw  and  predict- 
ed the  threefold  denial  of  Peter,  but  also  fixed  the  time 
when  it  should  happen,  before  the  second  crowing.  The 
words  of  our  Lord  are  certainly  to  be  understood  of  the 
second,  because  this  only  was  simply  called  the  cock-crow- 
ing; yet  Mark  expressly  asserts  it,  and  declares  also,  that 
the  first  denial  of  Peter  preceded  the  first  cock-crowing. 
Here  it  may  be  objected,  that  between  the  first  and  second 
crowing,  the  fourth  part  of  the  night  commonly  intervenes ; 
which  at  that  time  was  nearly  three  hours ;  for  in  Judea,  at 
tne  time  of  the  year  when  our  Lord  was  crucified,  the 
nights  are  more  than  eleven  hours  in  length ;  but  between 
the  first  and  second  denial  of  Peter,  scarcely  the  half  of 
that  time  could  have  elapsed.  This  appears  from  the  nar- 
rative of  the  evangelist  Luke,  in  which  it  is  stated,  that 
when  the  terrified  apostle  had  first  denied  his  Lord  to  the 
maid,  as  he  sat  by  the  fire,  "  A  little  after,  another  saw  him, 
and  said.  Thou  art  also  of  them.  And  Peter  said,  Man,  1 
am  not ;"  which  was  the  second  denial.  "  And  about  the 
space  of  one  hour  after,  another  confidently  affirmed,  say- 
ing, Of  a  truth,  this  fellow  also  was  with  him;  for  he  is  a 
Galilean."  "  And  Peter  denied  the  third  time,  and  imme- 
diately the  cock  crew."  To  this  objection  it  may  be  sufi[i- 
cient  fo  reply,  that  the  statement  of  the  evangelist  is  ex- 
tremely brief;  and  while  Peter  endeavoured  to  clear  himself 
of  the  charge,  many  words  might  pass  on  both  sides,  which 
are  not  put  on  record,  and  the  discussion  be  protracted 
through  a  great  part  of  the  night.  Nor  will  it  follow  from 
the  phrase  which  Luke  uses,  after  a  little  lohile,  that  no 
^time,  or  only  a  very  short  interval  passed,  between  the  first 
'and  second  denial;  for  the  apostle  John,  in  his  gospel, 
mentions  many  incidents  which  happened  in  that  time; 
and  the  third  denial,  which  Luke  says  happened  about  the 
space  of  one  hour  after  the  second  denial,  is  in  Matthew 
and  Mark  said  to  have  taken  place  "  a  little  after."  Hence, 
this  phrase  may  denote  a  much  longer  space  of  time  than  is 
commonly  supposed.  Besides,  Luke  does  not  say,  that  the 
third  denial  happened  precisely  at  the  distance  of  one 
hour,  but  about  the  space  of  one  hour,  which  might  there- 
fore be  considerably  more.  In  fine,  although  the  fourth 
part  of  the  night  commonly  intervenes  between  the  first 
and  second  crowing,  it  is  not  always  the  case  ;  for  it  is  well 
known,  that  these  birds  do  not  always  crow  at  stated  times. 
Some  cock,  therefore,  after  the  third  denial  of  Peter,  might 
anticipate  the  usual  time  of  announcing  the  approach  of 
morning,  by  one  hour.  It  may  be  objected  again,  when 
Peter  denied  his  Lord,  the  scribes,  the  priests,  and  the  elders, 
were  met  in  the  house  of  Caiaphas,  and  sitting  in  judg- 
ment on  the  Saviour ;  while  the  apostle  wailed  the  issue, 
among  the  servants  in  the  hall.  But  it  is  not  likely  that 
the  council  would  prolong  their  sitting  through  so  great  a 
part  of  the  night.  Who  can  believe,  that  so  many  persons 
of  the  first  rank  among  the  Jews,  would  spend  almost  the 
whole  night  on  the  judgment-seat,  when  the  cause  for  which 
they  were  assembled  could,  with  equal  convenience,  be 
referred  to  another  time  1  But  this  objection  is  urged  in 
vain ;  for  the  fact,  that  they  actually  did  so,  is  certain. 
This  will  appear,  when  it  is  considered  how  many  things 
were  done  that  night,  before  the  apostle  denied  his  Lord 
the  third  time.  When  the  evening  was  come,  that  is,  at  the 
setting  of  the  sun,  our  Lord  celebrated  the  passover  with 
his  disciples  ;  he  then  washed  their  feet,  and  addressed  them 
on  the  occasion.  After  finishing  this  discourse,  he  insti- 
tuted the  supper  ;  then  he  reproved  his  disciples  for  their 
contentions  with  one  another  about  the  supremacy.  When 
he  had  finished  this  reproof,  he  sung  a  hymn,  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  Talmudical  writers,  consisted  of  a  number 
of  psalms.  This  act  of  devotion  being  ended,  he  went  out 
to  the  mount  cf  Olives, — came  to  the  garden  of  Gethsemane 
— withdrew  f.ora  his  disciples  to  pray — and  after  praying 
an  hour,  he  returned  to  the  disciples,  whom  he  found  asleep, 
and  reproved  them  for  their  unseasonable  indulgence  ;  this 
he  did  a  second,  and  a  third  time.  In  the  meantime,  Judas 
arrived  with  a  numerous  party,  and  apprehended  him ; 
and  led  him  away,  first  to  Annas,  and  then  to  Caiaphas,  in 
whose  house,  the  scribes,  the  priests,  and  the  elders  were 
assembled.  Into  the  hall  of  judgment,  Peter  with  difficulty 
obtained  admission  ;  and,  being  recognised  as  one  of  his 


followers,  denied  his  Lord.  Christ  was  placed  at  the  bar. 
and  interrogated  by  Caiaphas ;  this  being  done,  Peter  de- 
nied his  Master  a  second  time,  and  again  in  the  space  of 
an  hour.  It  will  appear  to  every  reflecting  and  candid 
mind,  that  these  transactions  must  have  occupied  the  greater 
part  of  the  night.  The  despatch  which  the  high-priest  and 
his  council  made,  indeed  would  seem  quite  extraordinary, 
if  we  did  not  consider  that  the  passover,  their  most  solemn 
festival,  was  just  ready  to  commence,  and  that  the  worst 
passions  of  their  depraved  hearts  were  now  in  a  state  of  high 
excitement  against  the  Redeemer.— Paxton. 

Ver.  35.  And  he  went  forward  a  little,  and  fell  on 
the  ground,  and  prayed,  that,  if  it  were  possi- 
sible,  the  hour  might  pass  from  him. 

How  often  are  we  reminded  of  this  by  the  way  in  which 
the  heathen  worship  their  gods !  they  fall  prostrate  before 
the  temples  and  repeat  their  prayers.  In  our  own  chapels 
and  school  rooms,  natives  sometimes  prostrate  themselves 
at  the  time  of  prayer. — Roberts, 

Ver.  5L  And  there  followed  him  a  certain  young 
man,  having  a  linen  cloth  cast  about  his  naked 
body :  and  the  young  men  laid  hold  on  him. 
52.  And  he  left  the  linen  cloth,  and  fled  from 
them  naked. 

See  on  Judg.  14.  12. 

Pococke  observes,  in  describing  the  dresses  of  the  people 
of  Egypt,  that  "  it  is  almost  a  general  custom  among  the 
Arabs  and  Mohammedan  natives  of  the  country,  to  wear  a 
large  blanket,  either  white  or  brown,  and  in  summer  ablue 
and  white  cotton  sheet,  which  the  Christians  constantly  use 
in  the  country:  putting  one  corner  before,  over  the  left 
shoulder,  they  bring  it  behind,  and  under  the  right  arm, 
and  so  over  their  bodies,  throwing  it  behind  over  the  left 
shoulder,  and  so  the  right  arm  is  1  eft  bare  for  action.  When 
it  is  hot,  and  they  are  on  horseback,  they  let  it  fall  down  on 
the  saddle  round  them  :  and  about  Faiume,  I  particularly 
observed,  that  young  people  especially,  and  the  poorer  sort, 
had  nothing  on  whatever  but  this  blanket ;  and  it  is  probable 
the  young  man  was  clothed  in  this  manner,  who  followea 
our  Saviour  when  he  was  taken,  having  a  linen  cloth  casi 
about  his  naked  body ;  and  when  the  young  men  laid  hold 
on  him,  he  left  the  linen  cloth,  and  fled  from  them  naked." — 

BURDER. 

CHAPTER  XV. 

But  the  chief  priests  moved  the  people, 
rather  release  Barabbas  unto 


Ver.  1 
that  he  should 
libera. 


Another  mode  of  capital  punishment,  to  which  the  in- 
spired writers  refer,  is  crucifixion.  It  was  used  in  Greece, 
but  not  so  frequently  as  at  Rome.  It  consisted  of  two 
beams,  one  of  which  was  placed  across  the  other,  in  a  form 
nearly  resembling  the  letter  T,  but  with  this  difference, 
that  the  transverse  beam  was  fixed  a  little  below  the  top  of 
the  straight  one.  When  a  person  was  crucified,  he  was 
nailed  to  the  cross  as  it  lay  upon  the  ground,  his  feet  to  the 
upright,  and  his  hands  to  each  side  of  the  transverse  beam ; 
it  was  then  erected,  and  the  foot  of  it  thrust  with  violence 
into  a  hole  prepared  in  the  ground  to  receive  it.  By  this 
means,  the  body,  whose  whole  weight  hung  upon  the  nails 
which  went  through  the  hands  and  feet,  was  completely 
disjointed,  and  the  sufterer  expired  by  slow  and  agonizing 
torments.  This  kind  of  death,  the  most  cruel,  shameful, 
and  accursed  that  could  be  devised,  was  used  by  the  Ro- 
mans only  for  slaves,  and  the  basest  of  the  people.  The 
malefactors  were  crucified  naked,  that  is,  without  their 
upper  garments:  for  it  does  not  appear  they  were  stripped 
of  all  their  clothes,  and  we  know  that  an  Oriental  was  said 
to  be  naked,  when  he  had  parted  with  his  upper  garments, 
which  were  loosely  bound  about  him  with  a  girdle.— Pax- 


THE   GOSPEL  ACCORDING  TO  LUKE 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  78.  Through  the  tender  mercy  of  our  God  ; 
whereby  the  day-spring  from  on  high  hath 
visited  us. 

A  king's  minister  once  said  of  the  daughter  of  Pande- 
yan,  after  she  had  been  in  great  trouble  on  account  of  the 
danger  in  Avhich  her  husband  had  been  placed,  "  She  had 
seen  the  great  ocean  of  darkness,  but  now  she  saw  the 
rising  sun,  the  day-spring  appeared." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  4.  And  Joseph  also  went  up  from  Galilee, 
out  of  the  city  of  Nazareth  into  Judea,  unto  the 
city  of  David,  which  is  called  Bethlehem,  (be- 
cause he  was  of  the  house  and  lineage  of  Da- 
vid,) 5.  To  be  taxed  with  Mary  his  espoused 
wife,  being  great  with  child. 

A  Jewish  virgin  legally  betrothed,  was  considered  as  a 
lawful  wife  ;  and  by  consequence,  could  not  be  put  away 
without  a  bill  of  divorce.  And  if  she  proved  unfaithful  to 
her  betrothed  husband,  she  was  punished  as  an  adulteress; 
and  her  seducer  incurred  the  same  punishment  as  if  he  had 
polluted  the  wife  of  his  neighbour.  This  is  the  reason  that 
the  angel  addressed  Joseph,  the  betrothed  husband  of  Mary, 
in  these  terms:  "  Joseph,  thou  son  of  David,  fear  not  to 
take  unto  thee  Mary  thy  wife ;  for  that  which  is  conceived 
in  her  is  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  The  evangelist  Luke  gives 
her  the  same  title :  "  And  Joseph  also  went  up  from  Gali- 
lee unto  Bethlehem,  to  be  taxed,  with  Mary  his  espoused 
wife." — Paxton. 

Ver.  7.  And  she  brought  forth  her  first-born  son, 
and  wrapped  him  in  swaddling-clothes,  and  laid 
him  in  a  manger ;  because  there  was  no  room 
for  them  in  the  inn. 

It  will  be  proper  here  to  give  a  full  and  explicit  account 
of  the  inns  or  caravansaries  of  the  East,  in  which  travellers 
are  accommodated.  They  are  not  all  alike,  some  being  sim- 
ply places  of  rest,  by  the  side  of  a  fountain  if  possible,  and 
at  a  proper  distance  on  the  road.  Many  of  these  places  are 
nothing'more  than  naked  walls ;  others  have  an  attendant, 
who  subsists  either  by  some  charitable  donation,  or  the  be- 
nevolence of  passengers  ;  others  are  more  considerable  es- 
tablishments, where  families  reside,  and  take  care  of  them, 
and  furnish  the  necessary  provisions. 

"  Caravansaries  were  originally  intended  for,  and  are 
now  pretty  generally  applied  to  the  accommodation  of  stran- 
gers and  travellers,  though,  like  every  other  good  institu- 
tion, sometimes  perverted  to  the  purposes  of  private  emol- 
ument, or  public  job.  They  are  built  at  proper  distances 
through  the  roads  of  the  Turkish  dominions,  and  afford  to 
the  indigent  or  weary  traveller  an  asylum  from  the  iDclem- 
ency  of  the  weather:  are  in  general  built  of  the  most 
solid  and  durable  materials,  have  commonly  one  story  above 
the  ground-floor,  the  lower  of  which  is  arched,  and  serves 
for  warehouses  to  store  goods,  for  lodgings,  and  for  stables, 
while  the  upper  is  used  merely  for  lodgings ;  besides  which 
they  are  always  accommodated  with  a  fountain,  and  have 
cooks-shops  and  other  conveniences  to  supply  the  wants  of 
lodgers.  In  Aleppo,  the  caravansaries  are  almost  exclu- 
sively occupied  by  merchants,  to  whom  they  are,  like  other 
houses,  rented."    (Campbell.) 

The  poverty  of  the  eastern  inns  appears  from  the  follow- 
ing extract.  "  There  are  no  inns  anywhere ;  but  the  cities, 
and  commonly  the  villages,  have  a/ large  building  called  a 


khan,  or  caravansary,  which  serves  as  an  asylum  for  all 
travellers.  These  houses  of  reception  are  always  built 
without  the  precincts  of  towns,  and  consist  of  four  wings 
round  a  square  court,  which  serve  by  way  of  enclosure 
for  the  beasts  of  burden.  The  lodgings  are  cells,  where 
;  ou  find  nothing  but  bare  walls,  dust,  and  sometimes  scor- 
pions. The  keeper  of  this  khan  gives  the  traveller  the  key 
and  a  mat,  and  he  provides  himself  the  rest ;  he  must  there- 
fore carry  with  him  his  bed,  his  kitchen  utensils,  and  even 
his  provisions,  for  frequently  not  even  bread  is  to  be  found 
in  the  villages.  On  this  account  the  Orientals  contrive  their 
equipage  in  the  most  simple  and  portable  form.  The  bag- 
gage of  a  man,  who  wishes  to  be  completely  provided,  con- 
sists in  of  carpet,  a  mattress,  a  blanket,  two  saucepans  with 
lids  contained  within  each  other,  two  dishes,  two  plates, 
and  a  coffee-pot,  all  of  copper  well  tinned;  a  small  wooden 
box  for  salt  and  pepper ;  a  round  leathern  table,  which  he 
suspends  from  the  saddle  of  his  horse  ;  small  leathern  bot- 
tles or  bags  for  oil,  melted  butter,  water,  and  brandy,  (if. 
the  travellei  be  a  Christian,)  a  pipe,  a  tinder-box,  a  cup  of 
cocoa-nut,  some  rice,  dried  raisins,  dates,  Cyprus-cheese, 
and  above  all,  coffee-berries,  with  a  roaster  and  wooden 
mortar  to  pound  them."    (Volney.) 

"  The  caravansaries  are  the  eastern  inns,  far  different 
from  ours ;  for  they  are  neither  so  convenient  nor  hand- 
some :  they  are  built  square,  much  like  cloisters,  being 
usually  but  one  story  high,  for  it  is  rare  to  see  ofle  of  two 
stories.  A  wide  gate  brings  you  into  the  court,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  buildmg,  in  the  front ;  and  upon  the  right  and 
left  hand,  there  is  a  hall  for  persons  of  the  best  quality  to 
keep  together.  On  each  side  of  the  hall  are  lodgings  for 
every  man  by  himself  These  lodgings  are  raised  all  along 
the  court,  two  or  three  steps  high,  just  behind  which  are 
the  stables,  where  many  times  it  is  as  good  lying  as  in  the 
chambers.  Right  against  the  head  of  every  horse  there  is 
a  niche  with  a  window  into  the  lodging-chamber,  out  ol 
which  every  man  may  see  that  his  horse  is  looked  after. 
These  niches  are  usually  so  large  that  three  men  may  lie 
in  them,  and  here  the  servants  usually  dress  their  victuals." 
(Tavernier.) — Burder. 

The  following  graphic  sketch  will  afford  the  reader  a 
still  more  correct  idea  of  an  eastern  inn,  or  caravansary. 
"  After  descending  for  about  two  hours,  we  met  with  an 
isolated  khan,  (inn,)  beneath  magnificent  plantains,  on  the 
edge  of  a  fountain.  It  will  be  proper  to  describe,  once  for 
all,  what  is  called  a  khan  in  Syria,  as  well  as  in  every 
other  eastern  country ;  it  is  a  hut,  the  walls  of  vi'hich  are  of 
ill-joined  unceme/ited  stones,  affording  no  protection  from 
wind  or  rain;  these  stones  are  generally  blackened  by  the 
smoke  of  the  hearth,  which  continually  filters  through  the 
open  spaces.  The  walls  are  about  seven  or  eight  feet  high, 
and  covered  over  with  pieces  of  rough  wood  retaining  its 
bark  and  largest  branches;  the  whole  is  shaded  with  dry 
fagots,  answering  the  purpose  of  a  roof  The  inside  is 
unpaved,  and  is,  according  to  the  season  of  the  year,  a  bed 
of  dust  or  of  mud.  One  or  two  stakes  support  the  roof  of 
leaves,  and  the  traveller's  cloak  and  arms  are  suspended 
thereon.  In  one  corner  is  a  small  hearth  raised  upon  a 
few  rough  stones;  a  charcoal  fire  is  constantly  burning 
upon  this  hearth,  and  one  or  two  copper  cotfee-pots  are  al- 
ways full  of  thick  farinaceous  coffee,  the  habitual  refresh- 
ment and  only  want  of  the  Turks  and  Arabs.  There  are 
in  general  two  rooms  similar  to  the  one  I  have  described. 
One  or  two  Arabs  are  authorized,  in  return  for  the  tribute 
they  pay  to  the  pacha,  to  do  the  honours  of  the  dwelling, 
and  to  sell  coffee  and  barley-flour  cakes  to  the  caravans. 
When  the  traveller  reaches  the  door  of  these  Khans,  he 
alights  from  his  horse  or  camel,  and  removes  the  straw 
mats  or  damask  carpets  which  are  to  serve  him  for  a  bed ; 
they  are  spread  in  a  corner  of  the  smoking-room ;  he  sits 
down,  calls  for  coffee,  lights  his  pipe,  and  waits  until  his 


Chap.  2—4. 


LUKE. 


601 


slaves  have  collected  some  dry  wood  to  prepare  his  repast. 
This  repast  usually  consib^s  of  two  or  three  cakes,  half- 
baked  on  a  heated  pebble,  and  of  some  slices  of  hashed  mut- 
ton, which  is  boiled  with  rice  in  a  copper  pot.  It  rarely 
happens  that  rice  or  mutton  can  be  procured  in  the  khan  ; 
the  traveller  must  then  bo  satisfied  with  the  cakes  and  the 
excellent  fresh  water  whicn  is  always  found  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  khans.  The  servants,  the  slaves,  the  moukres, 
(camel-leaders,)  and  the  horses,  remain  round  the  khan  in 
the  open  air.  There  is  generally  in  the  neighbourhood 
some  noted  and  long-standing  tree,  which  serves  as  a  bea- 
con to  the  caravan ;  this  is  mostly  an  immense  sycamore 
fig-tree,  such  as  I  have  never  seen  in  Europe  ;  it  is  of  the 
size  of  the  largest  oaks,  and  grows  to  an  older  age.  Its 
trunk  sometimes  measures  thirty  or  forty  feet  in  circumfe- 
rence, and  is  often  larger ;  its  branches,  which  begin  to 
spread  at  an  elevation  of  fifteen  or  twenty  feet  from  the 
ground,  at  first  extend  in  a  horizontal  direction,  to  an  im- 
mense distance;  the  upper  branches  then  group  themselves 
in  narrower  cones,  and  resemble  from  afar  our  beech-trees. 
The  shadow  of  those  trees,  which  Providence  seems  to  have 
scattered  here  and  there,  as  an  hospitable  cloud  over  the 
burning  soil  of  the  desert,  extends  to  a  great  distance  from 
the  trunk ;  and  it  is  not  unusual  to  see  perhaps  sixty  camels 
and  horses,  and  as  many  Arabs,  encamped,  during  the  heat 
of  the  day,  under  the  shadow  of  one  of  these  trees.  In  this, 
however,  as  in  every  thing  else,  it  is  painful  to  notice  the 
indifference  of  eastern  people  and  of  their  government. 
These  plantains,  which  should  be  preserved  with  care,  as 
inns  provided  by  nature  for  the  wants  of  the  caravan,  are 
left  to  the  stupid  improvidence  of  those  who  benefit  by  their 
shade ;  the  Arabs  light  their  fires  at  the  foot  of  the  syca- 
more, and  the  trunks  of  most  of  these  splendid  trees  are 
blackened  and  hollowed  by  the  flames  of  Arab  hearths. 
Our  little  caravan  settled  itself  under  one  of  those  majestic 
sycamores,  and  we  passed  the  night  wrapped  up  in  our 
c  ioaks,  and  stretched  on  a  straw  mat  in  a  corner  of  the 
1  han,    (De  Lamartine's  Pilgrimage.) — B. 

Ver.  25.  And,  behold,  there  was  a  man  in  Jeru- 
salem, whose  name  was  Simeon ;  and  the  same 
man  was  just  and  devout,  waiting  for  the  con- 
solation of  Israel ;  and  the  Holy  Ghost  was 
upon  him. 

The  Jews  often  used  to  style  the  expected  Messiah,  the 
consolation ;  and,  may  1  never  see  the  consolaiio7i,Vf a.s  a  com- 
"aon  form  of  swearing  among  them. — Gill. 

Ver.  44.  But  they,  supposing  him  to  have  been 
in  the  company,  went  a  day's  journey;  and 
they  sought  him  among  their  kinsfolk  and  ac- 
quaintance. 

We  are  assisted  in  our  view  of  this  subject  by  the  large 
companies  which  go  to  and  return  from  the  heathen  festi- 
vals. Ten  or  twenty  thousand  sometimes  come  together  to 
one  ceremony,  and  it  is  almost  impossible  for  friends  and 
relations  to  keep  together ;  hence,  in  going  home,  though 
they  cannot  find  each  other  in  the  way,  they  do  not  give 
themselves  any  trouble,  as  they  consider  it  to  be  a  matter  of 
course  to  be  thus  separated. — Roberts. 

As  at  the  three  great  festivals  all  the  men  who  were  able 
were  obliged,  and  many  women  chose,  at  least  at  the  pass- 
over,  to  attend  the  celebration  at  Jerusalem,  they  used,  for 
their  greater  security  against  the  attacks  of  robbers  on  the 
road,  to  travel  in  large  companies.  All  who  came,  not  only 
from  the  same  city,  but  from  the  same  canton  or  district, 
made  one  company.  They  carried  necessaries  along  with 
them,  and  tents  for  their  lodging  at  night.  Sometimes,  in 
hot  weather,  they  travelled  all  night,  and  rested  in  the  day. 
This  is  nearly  the  manner  of  travelling  in  the  East  to  this 
hour.  Such  companies  they  now  call  caravans;  and  in 
several  places  have  got  houses  fitted  up  for  their  reception, 
called  caravansaries.  This  account  of  their  manner  of 
travelling  furnishes  a  ready  answer  to  the  question,  How 
could  Joseph  and  Mary  make  a  day's  journey,  without  dis- 
covering before  night'that  Jesus  was  not  in  the  company'? 
In  the  daytime  we  may  reasonably  presume  that  the  travel- 
lers would,  as  occasion,  business,  or  inclination  led  them, 
mingle  with  different  parties  of  their  friends  or  acquaint- 
76 


ance ;  but  that  in  the  evening,  when  they  were  about  to  en- 
camp, every  one  would  join  the  family  to  which  he  belong- 
ed. As  Jesus  ('id  not  appear  when  it  was  growmg  late, 
his  parents  firtt  sought  him  where  they  supposed  he 
would  most  probably  be,  among  his  relations  and  ac- 
quaintance ;  and  not  finding  him,  returned  to  Jerusalem. — 
Campbell. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  22.  And  the  Holy  Ghost  descended  in  a 
bodily  shape  like  a  dove  upon  him ;  and  a  voice 
came  from  heaven,  which  said,  Thou  art  my 
beloved  Son ;  in  thee  I  am  well  pleased. 
See  on  Mat.  3. 16. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  1.  And  Jesus,  being  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost,, 
returned  from  Jordan,  and  was  led  by  the  spirit 
into  the  wilderness. 

Mr.  Maundrell,  in  his  travels  in  the  Holy  Land,  saw  the 

Slace  which  was  the  scene  of  Christ's  temptations,  and  thus 
escribes  it :  "  From  this  place  (the  Fountain  of  the  Apos- 
tles) you  proceed  in  an  intricate  way  among  hills  and  val- 
leys interchangeably,  all  of  a  very  barren  aspect  at  present, 
but  discovering  evident  signs  of  the  labour  of  the  husband- 
man in  ancient  times.  After  some  hours'  travel  in  this  sort 
of  road,  you  arrive  at  the  mountainous  desert  into  which  our 
blessed  Saviour  was  led  by  the  spirit  to  be  tempted  by  the 
devil.  A  most  miserable  dry  barren  place  it  is,  consisting  of 
high  rocky  mountains,  so  torn  and  disordered  as  if  the  earth 
had  suffered  some  great  convulsion,  in  which  its  very  bowels 
had  been  turned  outward."— Border. 

Ver.  16.  And  he  came  to  Nazareth,  where  he 
had  been  brought  up :  and,  as  his  custom  was,] 
he  went  into  the  synagogue  on  the  sabbath-day, 
and  stood  up  for  to  read. 

The  custom  of  reading  the  scriptures  publicly  was  an  ap- 
pointment of  Moses,  according  to  the  Jews.  It  was  also 
usual  to  stand  at  reading  the  law  and  the  prophets.  Some 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament  were  allowed  to  be  read  sitting 
or  standing ;  as  particularly,  the  book  of  Esther,  Common 
Israelites,  as  well  as  priests  and  Levites,  were  allowed  to 
read  the  scriptures  publicly.  Every  sabbath-day  seven  per- 
sons read  ;  a  priest,  a  Levite,  and  five  Israelites.  And  it  is 
said  to  be  a  known  custom  to  this  day,  that  even  an  un- 
learned priest  reads  before  the  greatest  wise  man  in  Israel. 
—Gill. 

Ver.  20.  And  he  closed  the  book,  and  he  gave  it 
again  to  the  minister,  and  sat  down.  And  the 
eyes  of  all  them  that  were  in  the  synagogue 
were  fastened  on  him. 

The  third  part  of  the  synagogue  service  was  expounding 
the  scriptures  and  preaching  to  the  people.  The  posture  in 
which  this  was  performed,  whether  in  the  synagogue  or  in 
other  places,  was  sitting.  Accordingly,  when  our  Saviour 
had  read  the  haphtaroth  in  the  synagogue  at  Nazareth,  of 
which  he  was  a  member,  having  been  brought  up  in  that 
city,  instead  of  retiring  to  his  place,  he  sat  down  in  the 
desk  or  pulpit ;  and  it  is  said  that  the  eyes  of  all  that  were 
present  were  fastened  upon  him,  as  they  perceived  by  his 
posture  that  he  was  going  to  preach  to  them.  And  when 
Paul  and  Barnabas  went  into  the  synagogue  at  Antioch,  and 
sat  down,  thereby  intimating  their  desire  to  speak  to  the 
people  if  they  might  be  permitted,  the  rulers  ot  the  syna- 
gogue sent  to  them,  and  gave  them  leave.    Acts  xiii.  14, 15, 

— BURDER. 

Ver.  23.  And  he  said  unto  them,  Ye  will  surely 
say  unto  me  this  proverb,  Physician,  heal  thy- 
self: whatsoever  we  have  heard  done  in  Caper 
naum,  do  also  here  in  thy  country. 

In  the  same  way  do  the  people  recriminate  on  each  other. 
"  You  teach  me  to  reform  my  life !  go,  reform  your  own." 


502 


LUKE. 


Chap.  5. 


"  Doctor,  go  heal  yourself,  and  you  shall  then  heal  me." 
"Yes,  yes,  the  fellow  can  cure  all  but  his  own  wife  and  him- 
self."— Roberts. 

Ver.  29.  And  rose  up,  and  thrust  liim  out  of  the 
city,  and  led  him  unto  the  brow  of  tiie  hill 
whereon  their  city  was  built,  that  they  might 
cast  him  down  headlong. 

The  Mount  of  Precipitation,  as  it  is  now  called,  is  about 
a  mile  and  a  half  distant  from  Nazareth,  according  to  Dr. 
Richardson,  but  two  miles  according  to  the  observations 
made  by  Mr.  Buckingham  and  the  Rev.  W.  Jowett ;  though 
Dr.  E.  D.  Clarke  maintains  that  the  words  of  the  evange- 
list explicitly  prove  the  situation  of  the  ancient  city  to  have 
been  precisely  that  which  is  occupied  by  the  modern  vil- 
lage. Mr.  Jowett,  however,  has  (we  conceive)  clearly 
shown  that  the  Mount  of  Precipitation  could  not  be  immedi- 
ately contiguous  to  Nazareth.  This  village,  it  will  be  ob- 
served, is  situated  in  a  litile  sloping  vale  or  dell  on  the  side, 
and  nearly  extends  to  the  foot  of  a  hill,  which,  though  not 
very  lofty,  is  rather  steep  and  overhanging. 

'*  The  eye  naturally  wanders  over  its  summit,  in  quest  of 
some  point  from  which  it  might  probably  be,  that  the  men 
of  this  place  endeavoured  to  cast  our  Saviour  down,  (Luke 
iv.  29 ;)  but  in  vain  :  no  rock  adapted  to  such  an  object  ap- 
pears. At  the  foot  of  the  hill  is  a  modest  simple  plain, 
surrounded  by  low  hills,  reaching  in  length  nearly  a  mile; 
in  breadth,  near  the  city,  a  hundred  and  fifty  yards ;  but 
farther  on,  about  four  hundred  yards.  On  this  plain  there 
are  a  few  olive-trees  and  fig-trees,  suificient,  or  rather 
scarcely  sufficient,  to  make  the  spot  picturesque.  Then 
follows  a  ravine,  which  gradually  grows  deeper  and  nar- 
rower, till,  after  walking  about  another  mile,  you  find 
yourself  in  an  immense  chasm  with  steep  rocks  on  either 
side,  from  whence  you  behold,  as  it  were  beneath  your  feet, 
and  before  you,  the  noble  Plain  of  Esdraelon.  Nothing 
can  be  finer  than  the  apparently  immeasurable  prospect  of 
this  plain,  bounded  to  the  south  by  the  mountains  of  Sa- 
maria. The  elevation  of  the  hills  on  which  the  spectator 
stands  in  this  ravine  is  very  great;  and  the  whole  scene, 
when  we  saw  it,  was  clothed  in  the  most  rich  mountain- 
blue  colour  that  can  be  conceived.  At  this  spot,  on  the 
right  hand  of  the  ravine,  is  shown  the  rock  to  which  the  men 
of  Nazareth  are  supposed  to  have  conducted  our  Lord,  lor 
the  purpose  of  throwing  him  down.  With  the  Testament 
in  our  hands,  we  endeavoured  to  examine  the  probabilities 
of  the  spot:  and  I  confess  there  is  nothing  in  it  which  ex- 
cites a  scruple  of  incredulity  in  my  mind.  The  rock  here 
is  perpendicular  for  about  "fifty"  feet,  down  which  space  it 
would  be  easy  to  hurl  a  person  who  should  be  unawares 
brought  to  the  summit;  and  his  perishing  would  be  a  very 
certain  consequence.  That  the  spot  might  be  at  a  consid- 
erable distance  from  the  city  is  an  idea  not  inconsistent  with 
St.  Luke's  account ;  for  the  expression  *  thrusting'  Jesus 
'out  of  the  city,  and  leading  him  to  the  brow  of  the  hill  on 
which  their  city  was  built,'  gives  fair  scope  for  imagining, 
that,  in  their  rage  and  debate,  the  Nazarenes  might,  without 
originally  intending  his  murder,  press  upon  him  for  a  con- 
siderable distance  after  they  had  quitted  the  synagogue. 
The  distance,  as  already  noticed,  from  modern  Nazareth 
to  this  spot  is  scarcely  two  miles — a  space  which,  in  the 
fury  of  persecution,  might  soon  be  passed  over.  Or  should 
this  appear  too  considerable,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  but  that 
Nazareth  may  at  that  time  have  extended  through  the  prin- 
cipal part  of  the  plain,  which  lies  before  the  modern  town: 
in  this  case,  the  distance  passed  over  might  not  exceed  a 
mile.  It  remains  only  to  note  the  expression — '  the  brow 
of  the  hill,  on  which  their  city  was  built:'  this,  according 
to  the  modern  aspect  of  the  spot,  would  seem  to  be  the  hill 
north  of  the  town,  on  the  lower  slope  of  which  the  town  is 
built;  but  I  apprehend  the  word  '  hill'  to  have  in  this,  as  it 
has  in  very  many  other  passages  of  scripture,  a  much  larger 
sense ;  denoting  sometimes  a  range  oi  mountains,  and  in 
some  instances  a  whole  mountainous  district.  In  all  these 
cases  the  singular  word  '  Hill,' '  Gebel,'  is  used,  according 
to  the  idiom  of  the  language  of  this  country.  Thus,  '  Gebel 
Carmel,'  or  Mount  Carmel,  is  a  range  of  nicnmtains :  '  Gebel 
Libnan,'  or  Mount  Lebanon,  is  a  mountainous  district  of 
more  than  fifty  miles  in  length :  '  Gebel  ez-Zeitun,'  the 
Mount  of  Olives,  is  certainly  a  considerable  tract  cf  moun- 


tainous country.  And  thus  any  person,  coming  from  Jeru- 
salem and  entering  on  the  Plain  of  Esdraelon,  would,  if 
asking  the  name  of  that  bold  line  of  moimtains  which 
bounds  the  north  side  of  the  plain,  be  informed  that  it  was 
'Gebel  Nasra,'  the  Hill  of  Nazareth;  though,  in  English, 
we  should  call  them  the  Mountains  of  Nazareth.  Now  the 
spot  shown  as  illustrating  Luke  iv.  29,  is,  in  fact,  on  the 
very  brow  of  this  lofty  ridge  of  mountains ;  in  comparison 
of  which,  the  hill  upon  which  the  modern  town  is  built  is 
but  a  gentle  eminence." 

This  intelligent  traveller,  therefore,  concludes  that  this 
mountain  maybe  the  real  scene  where  our  Divine  Prophet, 
Jesus,  experienced  so  great  a  dishonour  from  the  men  of  his 
own  country  and  of  his  own  kindred.  In  a  valley  near 
Nazareth  is  a  fountain  which  bears  the  name  of  the  Virgin 
Mary,  and  where  the  women  are  seen  passing  to  and  fro 
with  pitchers  on  their  heads  as  in  days  of  old.  It  is  justly 
remarked  that,  if  there  be  a  spot  throughout  the  Holy  Land 
which  was  more  particularly  honoured  by  the  presence  of 
Mary,  we  may  consider  this  to  be  the  place ;  because  the 
situation  of  a  copious  spring  is  not  liable  to  change,  and 
because  the  custom  of  repairing  thither  to  draw  water  has 
been  continued  among  the  female  inhabitants  of  Nazareth 
from  the  earliest  period  of  its  history. — Horne. 

We  went  out  to  see  the  hill  from' which  the  inhabitants 
of  Nazareth  were  for  throAving  down  Christ  when  he 
preached  to  them.  This  is  a  high  stony  mountain,  situated 
some  gun-shots  from  Nazareth,  consisting  of  the  limestone 
common  here,  and  full  of  fine  plants.  On  its  top,  towards 
the  south,  is  a  steep  rock,  which  is  said  to  be  the  spot  for 
which  the  hill  is  famous :  it  is  terrible  to  behold,  and  proper 
enough  to  take  away  the  life  of  a  person  thrown  from  it. — 

HASSEr.QUIST. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  5.  And  Simon  answering,  said  unto  him, 
Master,  we  have  toiled  all  the  night,  and  have 
taken  nothing :  nevertheless,  at  thy  word  I  will 
let  down  the  net. 

In  general,  the  fishermen  of  the  East  prefer  the  night  lo 
any  other  time  for  fishing.  Before  the  sun  has  gone  down 
they  push  ofFlheir  canoes,  or  catta-ma rams,  edch  carrying  a 
lighted  torch,  and,  in  the  course  of  a  few  hours,  may  be  seen 
out  at  sea,  or  on  the  rivers,  like  an  illuminated  city.  They 
swing  the  lights  about  over  the  sides  of  the  boat,  which  the 
fish  no  sooner  see  than  they  come  to  the  place,  and  then  the 
men  cast  in  the  hook  or  the  spear,  as  circumstances  may  re- 
quire. They  have  many  amusing  savings  about  the  folly 
of  the  fish  in  being  th,us  attracted  by  the  glare  of  a  torch.— 
Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  And  when  they  could  not  find  by  what 
waj/  they  might  bring  him  in  because  of  the 
multitude,  they  went  upon  the  house-top,  and  let 
him  down  through  the  tiling,  with  his  couch, 
into  the  midst  before  Jesus. 

From  the  gate  of  the  porch,  one  is  conducted  into  the 
quadrangular  court,  which,  being  exposed  to  the  weather, 
is  paved  with  stone,  in  order  to  carry  off  the  water  in  the 
rainy  season.  The  principal  design  of  this  quadrangle  is, 
to  give  light  to  the  house,  and  admit  the  fresh  air  into 
the  apartments;  it  is  also  the  place  where  the  master  of 
the  house  entertains  his  company,  which  are  seldom  or 
never  honoured  with  admission  into  the  inner  apartments. 
This  open  space  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  the  implu" 
vium  or  cava  (tdium  of  the  Romans,  Avhich  Avas  also  ai 
uncovered  area,  from  whence  the  chambers  Avere  lighted^ 
For  the  accommodation  of  the  guests,  the  pavement  ia 
covered  with  mats  or  carpets;  and  as  it  is  secured  agains" 
all  interruption  from  the  street,  is  well  adapted  to  public 
entertainments.  It  is  called,  says  Dr.  Shaw,  the  middle 
of  the  house,  and  literally  answers  to  the  r»  incrnv  of  th< 
Evangelist,  into  which  the  man  afflicted  with  the  pabj 
was  let  down  through  the  ceiling,  Avith  his  conch,  befor^ 
Jesus.  Hence,  he  conjectures  that  our  Lord  Avas  at  thi 
time  instructing  the  people  in  the  court  of  one  of  the 
houses ;  and  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  the  qua< 
rangle  was  to  him  and  his  apostles  a  favourite  situatic" 
while  they  were  engaged  in   disclosing  the  mysteries 


Chap.  6,  7. 


LUKE. 


603 


redemption.  To  defend  the  company  from  the  scorching 
sunbeam,  or  "  windy  storm  and  tempest,"  a  veil  was  ex- 
panded upon  ropes  from  the  one  side  of  the  parapet  wall 
t:>  the  other,  which  might  be  folded  or  unfolded  at  pleasure. 
The  Psalmist  seems  to  allude  either  to  the  tents  of  the  Be- 
douins, or  to  some  covet;ing  of  this  kind,  in  that  beautiful 
expression  of  spreading  out  the  heavens  like  a  veil  or  cur- 
tain. We  have  the  same  allusion  in  the  sublime  strains  of 
Isaiah  :  "  It  is  he  that  sitteth  upon  the  circle  of  the  earth,  and 
the  inhabitants  thereof  are  as  grasshoppers;  that  stretcheth 
out  the  heavens  as  a  curtain,  and  spreadeth  them  out  as  a 
tent  to  dwell  in." — Paxton, 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  38.  Give,  and  it  shall  be  given  unto  you; 
good  measure,  pressed  down,  and  shaken  to- 
gether, and  running  over,  shall  men  give  into 
your  bosom.  For  with  the  same  measure  that 
ye  mete  withal,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you 
again. 

Instead  of  the  fibula  that  was  used  by  the  Romans,  the 
Arabs  join  together  with  thread,  or  with  a  wooden  bod- 
kin, the  two  upper  corners  of  this  garment ;  and  after  hav- 
ing placed  them  first  over  one  of  their  shoulders,  they  then 
fold  the  rest  of  it  about  their  bodies.  The  outer  fold  serves 
them  frequently  instead  of  an  apron,  in  which  they  carry 
herbs,  loaves,  corn,  and  other  articles,  and  may  illustrate 
several  allusions  made  to  it  in  scripture :  thus,  "  One  of 
the  sons  of  the  prophets  went  out  into  the  field  to  gather 
herbs,  and  found  a  wild  vine,  and  gathered  there  of  wild 
gourds,  his  lap  full"  And  the  Psalmist  offers  up  his  prayer, 
;hat  Jehovah  would  "  render  unto  his  neighbours  sevenfold 
into  their  bosom,  their  reproach."  The  same  allusion' oc- 
«urs  in  our  Lord's  direction  to  his  disciples  :  "  Give,  and  It 
shall  be  given  unto  you ;  good  measure,  pressed  down,  and 
shaken  together,  and  running  over,  shall  men  give  into 
your  bosom."  It  was  also  the  fold  of  this  robe  which 
Nehemiah  shook  before  his  people,  as  a  significant  em- 
blem of  the  manner  in  which  God  should  deal  with  the 
man  who  ventured  to  violate  his  oath  and  promise,  to 
restore  the  possessions  of  their  impoverished  brethren : 
"Also,  I  shook  my  lap,  and  said,  So  God  shake  out  every 
man  from  his  house,  and  from  his  labour,  that  performeth 
not  this  promise,  even  thus  be  he  shaken  out,  and  emptied." 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  48.  He  is  like  a  man  which  built  a  house, 

and  digged  deep,  and  laid  the  foundation  on  a 

I      rock :  and,  when  the  flood  arose,  the  stream 

beat  vehemently  upon  that  house,  and  could 

not  shake  it:  for  it  was  founded  upon  a  rock. 

In  the  rainy  season,  the  clouds  pour  down  their  trea- 
sures at  certain  intervals  with  great  violence,  for  three  or 
four  days  together.  Such  abundant  and  violent  rains,  in  a 
mountainous  country  like  Judea,  by  washing  away  the  soil, 
must  often  be  attended  with  very  serious  consequences  to 
the  dwellings  of  the  inhabitants,  which  happen  to  be 
placed  within  the  reach  of  the  rapid  inundation.  At  Alep- 
po, the  violent  rains  often  wash  down  stone  walls ;  and  Dr. 
Russel  mentions  a  remarkable  instance  of  a  hamlet  with  a 
fig  garden,  in  the  Castravan  mountains,  being  suddenly  re- 
moved by  the  gelling  waters  to  a  great  distance.  It  was 
to  an  event  of  this  kind,  which  is  by  no  means  uncommon 
in  those  regions,  that  our  Lord  refers. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  3.  And  when  he  heard  of  Jesus,  he  sent  unto 
him  the  elders  of  the  Jews,  beseeching  him  tiat 
he  would  come  and  heal  his  servant. 

^  This  IS  the  oriental  way  of  making  an  inquiry  or  a  propi- 
tiation. Does  a  man  wish  to  know  something  about  another, 
he  will  not  go  himself,  because  that  might  injure  him  in 
his  future  operations  ;  he  calls  for  two  or  three  confidential 
friends,  states  what  he  wants  to  ascertain,  and  tells  them 
how  to  proceed.  They  perhaps  first  go  to  some  neighbour 
to  gain  all  the  information  they  can,  and  then  go  to  the  m«n 


himself,  but  do  not  at  once  tell  him  their  errand  :  no,  no, 
they  TRY  the  ground,  and  make  sure  cf  their  object,  before 
they  disclose  their  purposes.  Should  they,  however,  be  ir 
doubt,  they  have  the  adroitness  to  conceal  their  plans ;  and 
if  asked  what  they  want,  they  simply  reply  "  chuma,"  i.  e. 
nothing  ;  they  only  came  to  say  salam,  "  had  not  seen  the 
honoured  individual  for  a  long  time,  and  therefore  wished 
to  set  their  eyes  on  him."  When  a  person  desires  to  gain 
a  favour,  as  did  the  centurion,  he  sends  an  elder,  a  respect- 
able person,  to  state  his  case,  and  there  is  generally  an 
understanding  that  the  messenger,  if  he  succeed,  shall  share 
in  the  benefit.  If  flattery,  humiliations,  and  importimities 
can  do  any  thing,  he  is  sure  to  gain  the  point.— Roberts. 

Ver.  36.  And  one  of  the  Pharisees  desired  him 
that  he  would  eat  with  him,  and  he  went  into 
the  Pharisee's  house,  and  sat  down  to  meat. 

The  tables  of  the  ancient  Jews  were  constructed  of  three 
distinct  parts,  or  separate  tables,  making  but  one  in  the 
whole.  One  was  placed  at  the  upper  end  crossways,  and 
the  two  others  joined  to  its  ends,  one  on  each  side,  so  as  to 
leave  an  open  space  between,  by  which  the  attendants  could 
readilv  wait  at  all  the  three.  Round  these  tables  were 
placed,  not  treats,  but  beds,  one  to  each  table;  each  of  these 
beds  was  called  clinium,  and  three  of  these  being  united  to 
surround  the  three  tables  made  the  tridiniurn.  At  the  end 
of  each  clinium  was  a  footstool  for  the  convenience  of 
mounting  up  to  it.  These  beds  were  formed  of  mattresses, 
and  were  supported  on  frames  of  wood,  often  highly  orna- 
mented. Each  guest  reclined  on  his  left  elbow,  using  prin- 
cipally his  right  hand,  which  was  therefore  kept  at  liberty. 
The  feet  of  the  person  reclining  being  towards  the  external 
edge  of  the  bed,  were  much  more  readily  reached  by  any 
body  passing  than  any  other  part. 

The  Jews,  before  they  sit  down  to  table,  carefully  wash 
their  hands;  they  consider  this  ceremony  as  essential. 
After  meals,  they  wash  them  again.  Wheii  they  sit  down 
to  table,  the  master  of  the  house,  or  chief  person  in  the 
company,  taking  bread,  breaks  it,  but  does  not  divide  it; 
then  putting  his  hand  to  it  he  recites  this  blessing :  Blessed 
be  thou,  O  Lord,  our  God,  the  king  of  the  world,  who  pro- 
ducest  the  bread  of  the  earth.  Those  present  answer, 
Amen.  Having  distributed  the  bread  among  the  guests,  he 
takes  the  vessel  of  the  wine  in  his  right  hand,  saying,  Bless- 
ed art  thou;  O  Lord,  our  God,  king  of  the  world,  who 
hast  produced  the  fruit  of  the  vine.  They  then  repeat  the 
23d  psalm.  They  take  care  that  after  meals  there  shall  be 
a  piece  of  bread  remaining  on  the  table.  The  master  of 
the  house  orders  a  glass  to  be  washed,  fills  it  with  wine,  and 
elevating  it,  says,  Let  useless  him  of  whose  benefits  we 
have  been  partaking;  the  rest  answer.  Blessed  be  he  who 
has  heaped  his  favours  on  us,  and  by  his  goodness  has  now 
fed  us.  Then  he  recites  a  pretty  long  prayer,  wherein  he 
thanks  God  for  his  many  benefits  vouchsafed  to  Israel ;  be- 
seeches him  to  pity  Jerusalem  and  his  temple ;  to  restore  the 
throne  of  David  ;  to  send  Elijah  and  the  Messiah,  and  to 
deliver  them  out  of  their  long  captivity.  They  all  answer, 
Amen.  They  recite  Psalm  xxiv.  9,  10.  Then  giving  the 
glass  with  the  little  wine  in  it  to  be  drank  round,  he  takes 
what  is  left,  and  the  table  is  cleared.  These  are  the  cere- 
monies of  the  modern  Jews. — Calmet. 

Ver.  38.  And  stood  at  his  feet  behind  him  weep- 
ing, and  began  to  wash  his  feet  with  tears,  and 
did  wipe  them  with  the  hairs  of  her  head,  and 
kissed  his  feet,  and  anointed  them  with  the  oint- 
ment. 

During  my  travels,  I  was  in  the  custom  of  having  a  lan- 
cet always  about  me,  in  case  of  accidents,  and  when  I  took 
this  out  of  my  pocket-book,  piU  it  into  his  bands,  and  told 
him  it  was  for  himself,  he  looked  at  me,  and  at  it,  with  his 
mouth  open,  as  if  he  hardly  comprehended  the  possibilitv 
of  my  parting  with  such  a  jewel.  But  when  I  repeated  the 
words.  It  is  yours,  he  threw  himself  on  the  ground,  kissed 
my  knees  and  my  feet,  and  wept  with  a  joy  that  stifled  his 
expression  of  thanks.— Sir  R.  K.  Porter. 

Ver.  44.  And  he  turned  to  the  woman,  and  said 
unto  Simon,  Seest  thou  this  woman?     I  entei> 


604 


LUKE. 


Ch  ^p.  7—10. 


ed  into  thy  house,  thou  gavest  me  no  water  for 
my  feet:  but  she  hath  washed  my  feet  with 
tears,  and  wiped  them  with  the  hairs  of  her 
head. 

The  first  ceremony  after  the  guests  arrived  at  the  house 
of  entertainment,  was  the  salutation  performed  by  the 
master  of  the  house,  or  one  appointed  in  his  place.  Among 
the  Greeks,  this  was  sometimes  done  by  embracing  with 
arms  around ;  but  the  most  common  salutation  was  by  the 
conjunction  of  their  right  hands,  the  right  hand  being  rec- 
koned a  pledge  of  fidelity  and  friendship.  Sometimes 
they  kissed  the  lips,  hands,  knees,  or  feet,  as  the  person 
deserved  n\ore  or  less  respect.  The  Jews  welcomed  a 
stranger  to  their  house  in  the  same  way ;  for  our  Lord 
complains  to  Simon,  that  he  had  given  him  no  kiss ;  had 
welcomed  him  to  his  table  with  none  of  the  accustomed 
tokens  of  respect, — Paxton. 

Ver.  45.  Thou  gavest  me  no  kiss ;  but  this  wo- 
man, since  the  time  I  came  in,  hath  not  ceased 
to  kiss  my  feet. 

See  that  poor  woman  whose  husband  has  committed 
some  crime,  for  which  he  is  to  be  taken  to  the  magistrate  ; 
.she  rushes  to  the  injured  individual,  she  casts  herself  down 
and  begins  to  kiss  his  feet ;  she  touches  them  with  her  nose, 
her  eyes,  her  ears,  and  forehead,  her  long  hair  is  dishevel- 
led, and  she  beseeches  the  feet  of  the  offended  man  to  forgive 
her  husband.  "  Ah  !  my  lord,  the  gods  will  then  forgive 
you."  "  My  husband  will  in  future  be  your  slave,  my  chil- 
dren will  love  you,  the  people  will  praise  you  ;  forgive,  for- 
give, my  lord."    (See  on  John  xii.  3.) — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  59.  And  he  said  unto  another.  Follow  me. 
But  he  said,  Lord,  suffer  me  first  to  go  and  bury 
my  father. 

It  is  considered  exceedingly  desirable  for  children  to  be 
•with  their  parents  when  they  die;  they  then  hear  their  last 
requests  and  commands,  and  also  can  perform  the  funeral 
rites  in  such  a  way  as  none  but  themselves  can  do.  It  is 
just  before  death,  also,  that  the  father  mentions  his  property ; 
especially  that  part  which  he  has  concealed  in  his  house, 
gardens,  or  fields.  It  is,  therefore,  a  very  common  saying, 
"  When  I  have  buried  my  father,  I  will  do  this  or  that." 
Should  a  young  man  be  requested  to  do  that  which  is  not 
agreeable  to  his  father,  he  says,  "  Let  me  first  perform  the 
funeral  rites,  and  then  I  will  dolt," — Roberts. 

Ver.  62.  And  Jesus  said  unto  him.  No  man  having 
put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  and  looking  back, 
is  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God, 

The  plough  used  in  Syria  is  so  light  and  simple  in  its 
construction,  that  the  husbandman  is  under  the  necessity  of 
guiding  it  with  great  care,  bending  over  it,  and  loading  it 
with  his  own  weight,  else  the  share  would  glide  along  the 
surface  without  making  any  incision.  His  mind  should  be 
wholly  intent  on  his  work,  at  once  to  press  the  plough  into 
the  ground,  and  direct  it  in  a  straight  line,  "  Let  the  plough- 
man," said  Hesiod,  "  attend  to  his  charge,  and  look  before 
him ;  not  turn  aside  to  look  on  his  associates,  but  make 
straight  furrows,  and  have  his  mmd  attentive  to  his  work," 
And  Pliny :  "  Unless  the  ploughman  stoop  forward"  to  press 
his  plough  into  the  soil,  and  conduct  it  properly,  "  he  will 
turn  it  aside."  To  such  careful  and  incessant  exertion  our 
Lord  alludes  in  that  declaration :  "  No  man  having  put  his 
hand  to  the  plough,  and  looking  back,  is  fit  for  the  king- 
dom of  heaven," — Paxton, 

CHAPTER  X, 

Ver.  4.  Carry  neither  purse,  nor  scrip,  nor  shoes : 
and  salute  no  man  by  the  way. 

The  object  of  this  instruction  was  to  prevent  their  being 
hindered  by  unnecessary  delay  in  their  journey.  It  was 
not  designed  to  prevent  the  usual  and  proper  civilities  which 


were  practised  among  the  people,  but  to  avoid  the  impedi- 
ments occasioned  by  form  and  ceremony  :  and  this  was  the 
more  necessary,  since  it  was  a  maxim  with  the  Jews,  pre- 
vent every  man  with  a  salutation.  How  persons  might  thus 
be  prevented  and  hindered  will  clearly  appear  in  the  fol- 
lowing extract.  "  The  more  noble  and  educated  the  man, 
the  oftener  did  he  repeat  his  questions.  A  well-dressed 
young  man  attracted  my  particular  attention,  as  an  adept  in 
the  perseverance  and  redundancy  of  salutation.  Accosting 
an  Arab  of  Augila,  he  gave  him  his  hand,  and  detained 
him  a  considerable  time  with  his  civilities :  when  the  Arab 
being  obliged  to  advance  with  greater  speed  to  come  up  ^ 
again  with  his  companions,  the  youth  of  Fezzan  thought  he 
should  appear  deficient  in  good  manners  if  he  quitted  him 
so  soon.  For  near  half  a  mile  he  kept  running  by  his  horse, 
while  all  his  conversation  was,  How  dost  thou  fare  1  well, 
how  art  thou  thyself?  praised  be  God,  thou  art  arrived  in  ' 
peace  !  God  grant  thee  peace !  how  dost  thou  do  1  &c," — 

HORNEMAN. 

Our  Lord  commanded  his  disciples  to  salute  no  man  by 
the  way.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  that  he  would  require 
his  followers  to  violate  or  neglect  an  innocent  custom,  still 
less  one  of  his  own  precepts ;  he  only  directed  them  to  make 
the  best  use  of  their  time  in  executing  his  work.  This  pre- 
caution was  rendered  necessary  by  the  length  of  time 
which  their  tedious  forms  of  salutation  required.  They 
begin  their  salutations  at  a  considerable  distance,  by  bring- 
ing the  hand  down  to  the  knees,  and  then  carrying  it  to  the 
stomach.  They  express  their  devotedness  to  a  person,  by 
holding  down  the  hand ;  as  they  do  their  affection  by  rais- 
ing it  afterward  to  the  heart.  When  they  come  close  to- 
gether, they  take  each  other  by  the  hand  in  token  of  friend- 
ship. The  countrypeople  at  meeting,  clap  each  other's 
hands  very  smartly  twenty  or  thirty  times  together,  without 
saying  any  thing  more  than,  How  do  ye  do'?  I  wish  you 
good  health.  After  this  first  compliment,  many  other 
friendly  questions  about  the  health  of  the  family,  mention- 
ing each  of  the  children  distinctly,  whose  names  they  know. 
To  avoid  this  useless  waste  of  time,  rather  than  to  indicate 
the  meanness  in  which  the  disciples  were  to  appear,  as 
Mr.  Harmer  conjectures,  our  Lord  commanded  them  to 
avoid  the  customary  salutations  of  those  whom  they  might 
happen  to  meet  by  the  way. — Paxton, 

Ver.  19.  Behold,  I  give  unto  you  power  to  tread 
on  serpents  and  scorpions,  and  over  all  the 
power  of  the  enemy ;  and  nothing  shall  by  any 
means  hurt  you. 

See  on  Ezek,  2.  6. 

Ver,  30.  And  Jesus  answering,  said,  A  certain 
man  went  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho, 
and  fell  among  thieves,  which  stripped  him  of 
his  raiment,  and  wounded  hijn,  and  departed, 
leaving  him  half  dead. 

This  is  thus  illustrated  by  a  recent  traveller  who  "  went 
down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,"  under  the  protection  of 
a  tribe  of  Arabian  shepherds,  and  the  conduct  of  two  ol 
their  number.  "  After  going  through  the  pass,  we  descend- 
ed again  into  deeper  valleys,  travelling  sometimes  on  the 
edges  of  cliffs  and  precipices,  which  threatened  destruction 
on  the  slightest  false  step.  The  scenery  all  around  us  was 
grand  and  awful,  notwithstanding  the  forbidding  aspect  of 
the  barren  rocks  that  everywhere  met  our  view;  but  it 
v.^as  that  sort  of  grandeur  which  excited  fear  and  terror, 
rather  than  admiration." 

"  The  whole  of  this  road  from  Jerusalem  to  the  Jordan, 
is  held  to  be  the  most  dangerous  about  Palestine,  and,  in- 
deed, in  this  portion  of  it,  the  very  aspect  of  the  scenery  i« 
sufficient,  on  the  one  hand,  to  tempt  to  robbery  and  murder, 
and  on  the  other,  to  occasion  a  dread  of  it  on  those  who 
pass  that  way.  It  was  partly  to  prevent  any  accident  hap- 
pening to  us  in  this  early  stage  of  our  journey,  and  partly, 
Eerhaps,  to  calm  our  fears  on  that  score,  that  a  messenger 
ad  been  despatched  by  onr  guides  to  an  encampment  of 
their  tribe  near,  desiring  them  to  send  an  escort  to  meet  us 
at  this  place.  We  were  met  here  accordingly,  by  a  band 
of  about  twenty  persons  on  foot,  all  armed  with  matchlocks, 
and  presenting  the  most  ferocious  and  lobber-like  appear- 


Chap.  11—13. 


LUKE 


605 


ance  that  could  be  imagined.  The  effect  of  this  was 
heightened  by  the  shouts  which  they  sent  forth  from  hill  to 
hill,  and  which  were  re-echoed  through  all  the  valleys, 
while  the  bold  projecting  crags  of  rock,  the  dark  shadows  in 
which  every  thing  lay  buried  below,  the  towering  height 
of  the  cliffs  above,  and  the  forbidding  desolation  which 
everywhere  reigned  around,  presented  a  picture  that  was 
quite  in  harmony  throughout  all  its  parts. 

"  It  made  us  feel  most  forcibly  the  propriety  of  its  being 
chosen  as  the  scene  of  the  delightful  tale  of  compassion 
which  we  had  before  so  often  admired  for  its  doctrine,  in- 
dependently of  its  local  beauty.  One  must  be  amid  these 
wild  and  gloomy  solitudes,  surrounded  by  an  armed  band, 
and  feei  the  impatience  of  the  traveller  who  rushes  on  to 
catch  a  new  view  at  every  pass  and  turn ;  one  must  be 
alarmed  at  the  very  tramp  of  the  horses'  hoofs  rebounding 
through  the  caverned  rocks,  and  at  the  savage  shouts  of  the 
footmen,  scarcely  less  loud  than  the  echoing  thunder  pro- 
duced by  the  discharge  of  their  pieces  in  the  valleys; — one 
must  witness  all  this  upon  the  spot,  before  the  full  force  and 
Deauty  of  the  admirable  story  of  the  good  Samaritan  can  be 
perceived.  Here,  pillage,  wounds,  death,  would  be  accom- 
panied with  double  terror,  from  the  frightful  aspect  of  every 
thing  around.  Here  the  unfeeling  act  of  passing  by  a  fel- 
low-creature in  distress,  as  the  priest  and  Levite  are  said  to 
have  done,  strikes  one  with  horror,  as  an  act  almost  more 
than  inhuman.  And  here,  too,  the  compassion  of  the  good 
Samaritan  is  doubly  virtuous,  from  the  purity  of  the  mo- 
tive which  must  have  led  to  it,  in  a  spot  where  no  eyes  were 
fixed  on  him  to  draw  forth  the  performance  of  any  duty, 
and  from  the  bravery  which  were  necessary  to  admit  of  a 
man's  exposing  himself  by  such  delay,  to  the  risk  of  a  simi- 
lar fate  to  that  from  which  he  was  endeavouring  to  rescue 
his  fellow-creature." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Ver.  5.  And  he  said  unto  them,  Which  of  you 
shall  have  a  friend,  and  shall  go  unto  him  at 
midnight,  and  say  unto  him,  Friend,  lend  me 
three  loaves ;  6.  For  a  friend  of  mine  in  his 
journey  is  come  to  me,  and  I  have  nothing  to 
set  before  him  ? 

The  eastern  journeys  are  often  performed  in  the  night, 
on  account  of  the  great  heat  of  the  day.  This  is  the  time 
in  which  the  caravans  chiefly  travel:  the  circumstance 
therefore  of  the  arrival  of  a  friend  at  midnight  is  very  prob- 
able.— Harmer. 

Ver.  7.  And  he  from  within  shall  answer  and  say, 
Trouble  me  not :  the  door  is  now  shut,  and  my 
children  are  with  me  in  bed;  I  cannot  rise  and 
give  thee. 

See  on  Eccl.  4.  17. 

Maillet  informs  us  that  it  is  common  in  Egypt  for  each 
person  to  sleep  in  a  separate  bed.  Even  the  husband  and 
the  wife  lie  in  two  distinct  beds  in  the  same  apartment. 
Their  female  slaves  also,  though  several  lodge  in  the  same 
chamber,  yet  have  each  a  separate  mattress.  Sir  John 
Chardin  also  observes,  that  it  is  usual  for  a  whole  family 
to  sleep  in  the  same  room,  especially  those  in  lower  life, 
layingtheirbeds  on  the  ground.  From  these  circumstances 
we  learn  the  precise  meaning  of  the  reply  now  referred  to : 
"  He  from  within  shall  answer  and  say.  Trouble  me  not :  the 
door  is  now  shut,  and  my  children  are  with  me  in  bed  ;  I 
cannot  rise  and  give  thee  :"  it  signifies  that  they  were  all 
in  bed  in  the  same  apartment,  not  in  the  same  bed. — Bur- 

DER. 

Ver.  47.  Wo  unto  you !  for  ye  build  the  sepulchres 
of  the  prophets,  and  your  fathers  killed  them. 

"We  visited  what  are  called  the  sepulchres  of  the  pro- 
phets, close  to  the  spot  where  we  had  halted.  "We  de- 
scended through  a  circular  hole  into  an  excavated  cavern 
of  some  extent,  cut  with  winding  passes,  and  forming  a 
kind  of  subterraneous  labyrinth.  The  superincumbent 
mass  was  supported  by  portions  of  the  rock,  left  in  the 
form  of  Avails  and  irregular  pillars,  apparently  once  stuc- 


coed ;  and  from  the  niches  still  remaining  visible  in  many 
places,  we  had  no  doubt  of  its  having  once  been  appropria- 
ted to  sepulture  :  but  whether  any,  or  which  of  the  prophets 
were  interred  here,  even  tradition  does  not  suggest,  beyond 
the  name  which  it  bestows  on  the  place. — Buckingham. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Ver.  35.  Let  your  loins  be  girded  about,  and  your 
lights  burning. 

They  who  travel  on  foot  are  obliged  to  fasten  their  gar- 
ments at  a  greater  height  from  their  feet  than  they  do  at 
other  times.  This  is  what  is  understood  by  girding  up  their 
loins.  Chardin  observes,  that  "  all  persons  who  travel  on 
foot  always  gather  up  their  vest,  by  which  they  walk  more 
commodiously,  having  the  leg  and  knee  unburdened  and 
disembarrassed  by  the  vest,  which  they  are  not  when  Chat 
hangs  over  them."  After  this  manner  he  suppases  the 
Israelites  were  prepared  for  their  going  out  of  Egypt,  when 
they  ate  the  first  passover.    (Exod.  xii.  11.) — Harmer. 

Ver.  55.  And  when  ye  see  the  south  wind  blow, 
ye  say.  There  will  be  heat ;  and  it  cometh  to 
pass. 

This  circumstance  accords  perfectly  with  the  relations 
of  travellers  into  Syria,  Egypt,  and  several  parts  of  the 
East.  When  the  south  wind  begins  to  blow,  the  sky  becomes 
dark  and  heavy,  the  air  gray  and  thick,  and  the  whole  at- 
mosphere assumes  a  most  alarming  aspect.  The  heat  pro- 
duced by  these  southern  winds  has  been  compared  to  that 
of  a  large  oven  at  the  moment  of  drawing  out  the  bread ; 
and  to  that  of  a  flame  blown  upon  the  face  of  a  person 
standing  near  the  fire  which  excites  it.  (Thevenot.) — 
Border. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  7.  Then  said  he  unto  the  dresser  of  his  vine- 
yard, Behold,  these  three  years  I  come  seeking 
fruit  on  this  fig-tree,  and  find  none :  cut  it  down ; 
why  cumbereth  it  the  ground  ? 

This  similitude,  by  which  Jesus  illustrates  the  patience 
and  forbearance  of  God  towards  sinners,  is  founded,  it  is 
true,  in  the  experience  of  all  countries,  and  we  find  in  it 
nothing  difficult  or  unintelligible.  But  our  Saviour  prob- 
ably alluded  to  a  certain  custom  of  eastern  gardeners,  men- 
tioned by  an  Arabian  writer,  Ibn-al-Uardi,  in  his  work  on 
geography  and  natural  history,  called  Pearls  of  "Wonder- 
ful Things.  In  the  tenth  chapter  of  this  work,  which 
treats  of  some  curiosities  of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  of 
which  the  Swedish  author,  Charles  Aurivillius,  in  a  Dis- 
sertation, published  in  Upsal,  in  1752,  has  given  in  Arabic 
and  Latin  that  part  which  relates  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
palm-tree,  we  find  the  following  observations.  Among  the 
diseases  to  which  the  palm-tree  is  subject,  is  barrenness. 
But  this  maybe  removed  by  the  following  means:  "You 
take  an  axe,  and  go  to  the  tree  with  a  friend,  to  whom  you 
say,  '  I  will  hew  this  palm  down,  because  it  is  unfruitful.' 
The  latter  replies,  '  Do  not  do  it,  it  will  certainly  bear  fruit 
this  year.'  But  the  former  says,  '  It  cannot  be  otherwise,' 
and  strikes  the  trunk  three  times  with  the  back  of  the  axe. 
The  other  prevents  him,  and  says,  '  For  God's  sake,  do 
not  do  it;  you  will  certainly  have  fruit  from  it  this  year; 
have  patience  with  it,  and  do  not  be  precipitate  ;  if  it  bears 
no  fruit,  then  hew  it  down.'  It  will  then  certainly  be  fruit- 
ful this  year,  and  bear  fruit  in  abundance."— Burder. 

Ver.  32.  And  he  said  unto  them.  Go  ye,  and  tell 
that  fox,  Behold,  I  cast  out  devils,  and  I  do 
cures  to-day  and  to-morrow,  and  the  third  day 
I  shall  be  perfected. 

At  Nice,  in  Asia,  at  night,  "  I  heard  a  mighty  noise,  as 
if  it  had  been  of  men,  who  jeered  and  mocked  us.  I  asked 
what  was  the  matter.  I  was  answered,  it  was  only  the 
howling  of  certain  beasts,  which  the  Turks  call  ciacals,  or 
jackals.  They  are  a  sort  of  wolves,  somewhat  bigger  than 
foxes,  but  less  than  common  wolves;  yet  as  greedy  and 
devouring  as  the  most  ravenous  wolves,  or  foxes,  of  all. 


606 


LUKE. 


Chap.  14,  15. 


They  go  in  flocks,  and  seldom  hurt  man  or  beast ;  but  get 
their  food  by  craft  and  stealth,  more  than  by  open  force. 
Thence  it  is  that  the  Turks  call  subtle  and  crafty  persons, 
especially  the  Asiatics,  by  the  metaphorical  name  of  ciacals. 
Their  manner  is  to  enter  tents,  or  houses,  in  the  nighttime ; 
■what  is  eatable  they  eat;  gnaw  leather,  shoes,  boots;  are 
as  cunning  as  they  are  thievish :  but  in  this  they  are  very 
ridiculous,  that  they  discover  themselves  by  the  noise  they 
make ;  for  while  they  are  busy  in  the  house,  devouring 
their  prey,  if  any  one  of  their  herd  without  doors  chance 
to  howl,  they  all  set  up  a  howling  likewise."  (Busbequius.) 
— Border. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Ver.  8.  When  thou  art  bidden  of  any  man  to  a 
wedding,  sit^not  down  in  the  highest  room,  lest 
a  more  honourable  man  than  thou  be  bidden  of 
him ;  9.  And  he  that  bade  thee  and  him  come 
and  say  to  thee,  Give  this  man  place  :  and  thou 
begin  with  shame  to  take  the   lowest  room. 

10.  But  when  thou  art  bidden,  go  and  sit  down 
in  the  lowest  room;  that  when  he  that  bade 
thee  Cometh,  he  may  say  unto  thee.  Friend,  go 
up  higher:  then  shalt  thou  have  worship  in 
the  presence  of  them  that  sit  at  meat  with  thee. 

11.  For  whosoever  exalteth  himself  shall  be 
abased ;  and  he  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be 
exalted. 

See  on  Mark  9.  39. 

When  a  Persian  comes  into  an  assembly,  and  has  salu- 
ted the  house,  he  then  measures  with  his  eye  the  degree  of 
rank  to  which  he  holds  himself  entitled;  he  straightway 
wedges  himself  into  the  line  of  guests,  without  offering 
any  apology  for  the  general  disturbance  which  he  produ- 
ces. It  often  happens  that  persons  take  a  higher  seat  than 
that  to  which  they  are  entitled.  The  Persian  scribes  are 
remarkable  for  their  arrogance  in  this  respect,  in  which 
they  seem  to  bear  a  striking  resemblance  to  the  Jews  of  the 
same  profession  in  the  days  of  our  Lord.  The  master  of 
the  entertainment  has,  however,  the  privilege  of  placing 
any  one  as  high  in  the  rank  of  the  assembly  as  he  may 
choose.  And  Mr.  Morier  saw  an  instance  of  it  at  a  public 
entertainment  to  which  he  was  invited.  "When  the  assem- 
bly was  nearly  full,  the  governor  of  Kashan,  a  man  of 
humble  mien,  although  of  considerable  rank,  came  in  and 
seated  himself  at  the  lowest  place ;  when  the  master  of 
the  house,  after  numerous  expressions  of  welcome,  pointed 
with  his  hand  to  an  upper  seat  in  the  assembly,  to  which 
he  desired  him  to  move,  and  which  he  accordingly  did. 
These  circumstances  furnish  a  beautiful  and  striking  il- 
lustration of  the  parable  which  our  Lord  uttered  when  he 
saw  how  those  that  were  invited,  chose  the  highest  places. 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  16.  Then  said  he  unto  him,  A  certain  man 
made  a  great  supper,  and  bade  many :  1 7.  And 
sent  his  servant  at  supper-time  to  say  to  them 
that  were  bidden,  Come,  for  all  things  are  now 
ready. 

See  on  Matt.  22.  2,  3. 

Ver.  19.  And  another  said,  I  have  bought  five 
yoke  of  oxen,  and  I  go  to  prove  them :  I  pray 
thee  have  me  excused. 

This  was  not  such  a  trifling  affair  as  some  have  sup- 

eosed,  for  it  should  be  remembered  it  is  with  oxen  only  the 
Orientals  perform  all  their  agricultural  labours.  Such  a 
thing  as  a  horse  in  a  plough  or  cart,  among  the  natives,  I 
never  saw.  A  bullock  unaccustomed  to  the  yoke  is  of  no 
use ;  they  therefore  take  the  greatest  precaution  in  making 
such  purchases,  and  they  will  never  close  the  bargain  till 
they  have  proved  them  in  the  field.  Nor  will  the  good  man 
trust  to  his  own  judgment,  he  will  have  his  neighbours  and 
friends  to  assist  him.  The  animals  will  be  tried  in  plough- 
ing softly,  deeply,  strongly,  and  they  will  be  put  on  all  the 


required  paces,  and  then  sent  home.  When  he  who  wishes 
to  purchase  is  fully  satisfied,  he  will  fix  a  day  for  settling 
the  amount  and  for  fetching  the  animals  away. — Roberts. 

Ver.  21.  So  that  servant  came,  and  showed  his 
lord  these  things.  Then  the  master  of  the  house, 
being  angry,  said  to  his  servant,  Go  out  quickly 
into  the  streets  and  lanes  of  the  city,  and  bring 
in  hither  the  poor,  and  the  maimed,  and  the 
halt,  and  the  blind. 

While  the  higher  orders  in  the  East  commonly  affect 
so  much  state,  and  maintain  so  great  a  distance  from  their 
inferiors,  they  sometimes  lay  aside  their  solemn  and  awfui 
reserve,  and  stoop  to  acts  of  condescension,  which  are  un- 
known in  these  parts  of  the  world.  It  is  not  an  uncommon 
thing  to  admit  the  poor  to  their  tables,  when  they  give  a 
public  entertainment.  Pococke  was  present  at  a  great  feast 
in  Egypt,  where  every  one,  as  he  had  done  eating,  got  up, 
washed  his  hands,  took  a  draught  of  water,  and  retired  to 
make  way  for  others  ;  and  so  on  in  a  continual  succession, 
till  the  poor  came  in  and  ate  up  all.  "  For  the  Arabs,"  he 
says,  "  never  set  by  any  thing  that  is  brought  to  table,  so 
that  when  they  kill  a  sheep,  they  dress  it  all,  call  in  their 
neighbours  and  the  poor,  and  finish  every  thing."  The 
same  writer,  in  another  passage,  mentions  a  circumstance 
which  is  still  more  remarkable,  that  an  Arab  prince  will 
often  dine  in  the  street  before  his  door,  and  call  to  all  that 
pass,  even  to  beggars,  in  the  usual  expression  of  Bismilkh, 
that  is,  in  the  name  of  God,  who  come  and  sit  down  to  meat, 
and  when  they  have  done,  retire  with  the  usual  form  of  re- 
turning thanks.  Hence,  in  the  parable  of  the  great  supper, 
our  Lord  describes  a  scene  which  corresponded  with  exist- 
ing customs.  When  the  guests,  whom  the  master  of  the 
house  had  invited  to  the  entertainment,  refused  to  come,  he 
"  said  to  his  servants,  go  out  quickly  into  the  streets  and 
lanes  of  the  city,  and  bring  in  hither  the  poor  and  the  maim- 
ed, and  the  halt  and  the  blind.  And  the  servant  said,  Lord, 
it  is  done  as  thou  hast  commanded,  and  yet  there  is  room. 
And  the  lord  said  unto  the  servant.  Go  out  into  the  high- 
ways and  hedges,  and  compel  them  to  come  in,  that  my 
house  may  be  filled." — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Ver,  16.  And  he  would  fain  have  filled  his  belly 
with  the  husks  that  the  swine  did  eat :  and  no 
man  gave  unto  him. 

That  Ktpariov  answers  to  siliqua,  and  signifies  a  husk  or 
pod,  wherein  the  seeds  of  some  plants,  especially  those  of 
the  leguminous  tribe,  are  contained,  is  evident.  Both  the 
Greek  and  Latin  terms  signify  the  fruit  of  the  carob-tree,  a 
tree  very  common  in  the  Levant,  and  in  the  southern  parts 
of  Europe,  as  Spain  and  Italy.  This  fruit  still  continues 
to  be  used  for  the  same  purpose,  the  feeding  of  swine.  It 
is  also  called  St.  John's  bread,  from  the  opinion  that  the 
Baptist  used  it  in  the  wilderness.  Miller  says  it  is  mealy, 
and  has  a  sweetish  taste,  and  that  it  is  eaten  by  the  poorer 
sort,  for  it  grows  in  the  common  hedges,  and  is  of  little  ac- 
count.—Campbell. 

Ver.  20.  And  he  ar.ose  and  came  to  his  father. 
But  when  he  was  yet  a  great  way  off^  his  fa- 
ther saw  him  and  had  compassion,  and  ran, 
and  fell  on  his  neck,  and  kissed  him. 

The  Orientals  vary  their  salutation  according  to  the  rank 
of  the  persons  whom  they  address.  The  common  method 
of  expressing  good-will,  is  by  laying  the  right  hand  on  the 
bosom,  and  inclining  their  bodies  a  little  ;  but  when  they 
salute  a  person  of  rank,  they  bow  almost  to  the  ground,  and 
kiss  the  nem  of  his  garment.  The  two  Greek  noblemen  at 
Scio,  who  introduced  the  travellers  Egmont  and  Heyman 
to  the  cham  of  Tartary,  kissed  his  robe  at  their  entrance, 
and  took  leave  of  him  with  the  same  ceremony.  Sandys 
was  present  when  the  grand  seignior  himself  paid  his  people 
the  usual  compliment,  by  riding  in  great  state  through  the 
streets  of  Constantinople.  He  saluted  the  multitude  as  he 
moved  along,  having  the  right  hand  constantly  on  his  breast, 
bowing  first  to  the  one  side,  and  then  to  the  other,  when  the 


Chap.  iB--i7. 


LUKE 


607 


Eeople  with  a  low  and  respectful  voice  wished  him  all 
appiness  and  prosperity.  Dr.  Shaw's  account  of  the 
Arabian  compliment,  or  common  salutation,  Peace  be  unto 
you,  agrees  with  these  statements ;  but  he  observes  further, 
that  inferiors,  out  of  deference  and  respect,  kiss  the  feet, 
the  knees,  or  the  garments  of  their  superiors.  They  fre- 
quently kiss  the  hand  also  ;  but  this  last  seems  not  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  token  of  equal  submission  with  the  others ;  for 
D'Arvieux  observes,  that  the  women  who  wait  on  the  Ara- 
bian princesses,  kiss  their  hands  when  they  do  them  the 
favour  not  to  suffer  them  to  kiss  their  feet,  or  the  border  of 
their  robe. 

All  these  forms  of  salutation  appear  to  hav^  been  in 
general  use  in  the  days  of  our  Lord,  for  he  represents  a 
servant  as  falling  down  at  the  feet  of  his  master,  when  he 
had  a  favour  to  ask ;  and  an  inferior  servant,  as  paying  the 
same  compliment  to  the  first,  who  belonged,  it  would  seem, 
to  a  higher  class :  "  The  servant,  therefore,  fell  down  and 
worshipped  him,  saying,  Lord,  have  patience  with  me  and  I 
will  pay  thee  all."  "  And  his  fellow-servant  fell  down  at  his 
feet,  and  besought  him,  saying,  Have  patience  with  me  and 
I  will  pay  thee  all."  When  Jairus  solicited  the  Saviour  to 
go  and  heal  his  daughter,  he  fell  down  at  his  feet :  the  apos- 
tle Peter,  on  another  occasion,  seems  to  have  fallen  down 
at  his  knees,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  modern  Arabs  fall 
down  at  the  knees  of  a  superior.  The  woman  who  was 
afilicted  with  an  issue  of  blood,  touched  the  hem  of  his  gar- 
ment; and  the  Syrophenician  woman  fell  down  at  his  feet. 
In  Persia,  the  salutation  among  intimate  friends  is  made  by 
inclining  the  neck  over  each  other's  necks,  and  "then  incli- 
ning the  cheek  to  cheek ;  which  Mr.  Morier  thinks  is  most 
likely  the  falling  upon  the  neck  and  kissing,  so  frequently 
mentioned  in  scripture. — Paxton. 

Ver.  25.  Now  his  elder  son  was  in  the  field :  and 
as  he  came  and  drew  nigh  to  the  house,  he 
heard  music  and  dancing. 

To  express  the  joy  which  the  return  of  the  prodigal  af- 
forded his  father,  music  a.nd  dancing  was  provided  as  a  part 
of  the  entertainment.  This  expression  does  not  however 
denote  the  dancing  of  the  family  and  guests,  but  that  of  a 
company  of  persons  hired  on  this  occasion  for  that  very 
purpose.  Such  a  practice  prevailed  in  some  places  to  ex- 
press peculiar  honour  to  a  friend,  or  joy  upon  any  special 
occasion.  Major  Rooke,  in  his  travels  from  India  through 
Arabia  Felix,  relates  an  occurrence  which  will  illustrate 
this  part  of  the  parable.  "  Hadje  Cassim,  who  is  a  Turk, 
and  one  of  the  richest  merchants  in  Cairo,  had  inter- 
ceded on  my  behalf  with  Ibrahim  Bey,  at  the  instance  of 
his  son,  who  had  been  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Mecca,  and  came 
from  Judda  in  the  same  ship  with  me.  The  father,  in 
celebration  of  his  son's  return,  gave  a  most  magnificent  fete 
on  the  evening  of  the  day  of  my  captivity,  and  as  soon  as  I 
was  released,  sent  to  invite  me  to  partake  of  it,  and  I  ac- 
cordingly went.  His  company  was  very  numerous,  con- 
sisting of  three  or  four  hundred  Turks,  who  were  all  sitting 
on  sofas  and  benches,  smoking  their  long  pipes.  The 
room  in  which  they  were  assembled  was  a  spacious  and 
lofty  hall,  in  the  centre  of  which  was  a  band  of  music,  com- 
poser) of  five  Turkish  instruments,  and  some  vocal  per- 
form<^fs :  as  there  were  no  ladies  in  the  assembly,  you  may 
suppose  it  was  not  the  most  lively  party  in  the  world,  but 
bemg  new  to  me,  was  for  that  reason  entertaining." — Btm- 

DER. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Ver.  3.  Then  the  steward  said  within  himself, 
What  shall  I  do,  for  my  lord  taketh  away  from 
me  the  stewardship?     I  cannot  dig;  to  beg  I 
am  ashamed. 

How  often  are  we  reminded  of  this  passage  by  beggars 
when  we  t^ll  them  to  work.  They  can  scarcely  believe 
their  ears ;  and  the  religious  mendicants,  who  swarm  in 
ever}'-  part  of  the  East,  look  upon  you  with  the  most  sover- 
eign contempt  when  you  give  them  such  advice.  "  I  work ! 
why,  I  never  have  done  such  a  thing;  I  am  not  able." 
"  Surely,  my  lord,  you  are  not  in  earnest ;  you  are  joking 
with  me."— ^Roberts. 

Ver.  19.  There  was  a  certain  rich  man,  which 


was  clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  fared 
sumptuously  every  day. 

This  view  will  enable  the  reader  to  form  a  correct  judg- 
ment of  the  streets  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  which  (it  will 
be  seen)  are  partly  open  and  partly  covered.  The  apart- 
ment, which  stands  over  the  archway  in  the  distance,  forms 
part  of  what  is  called  "  the  house  of  the  rich  man,"  who  is 
mentioned  in  the  narrative  of  St.  Luke,  (xvi.  19—31.}  It  is 
one  of  the  best  in  Jerusalem.  The  fountain,  which  is  a 
prominent  feature  in  our  engraving,  is  executed  in  bold  re- 
lief; although  of  Saracenic  workmanship,  it  is  conjectured 
by  Mr.  Catherwood  to  be  derived  from  the  style  of  archi- 
tecture introduced  by  the  crusaders.  In  common  with  the 
other  fountains  in  Jerusalem,  this  fountain  is  supplied  from 
the  pools  of  Solomon,  which  lie  a  few  miles  to  the  south- 
west of  Bethlehem.  The  water  is  conducted  through  a 
small  aqueduct,  partly  under,  and  partly  above  ground:  it 
is  of  excellent  quality,  but  the  supply  is  not  sufficiently  co- 
pious for  the  consumption  of  the  inhabitants,  who  make  up 
the  deficiency  from  the  water  supplied  by  the  cisterns  which 
are  filled  by  the  periodical  rains. — Horne. 

[See  engraving,  and  see  also  Comprehensive  Commentary 
on  Ps.  122.  3,  aiid  the  engraving  there.'] 

Ver.  22.  And  it  came  to  pass,  that  the  beggar 
died,  and  was  carried  by  the  angels  into  Abra- 
ham's bosom :  the  rich  man  also  died,  and  was 
buried. 

How  offensive  to  good  taste,  and  to  the  figure  of  the 
text,  is  the  notion  of  some  painters,  who  represent  Lazarus 
in  heaven  as  reposing  in  the  bosom  of  the  patriarch.  Such 
attempts  have  a  tendency  to  lessen  that  veneration  and  awe 
which  we  owe  to  subjects  of  so  sacred  a  nature.  This 
world  is  the  legitimate  field  for  the  painter,  but  let  him 
not  presume  to  desecrate  with  his  pencil  the  scenes  beyond. 
A  beloved  son,  though  at  a  distance,  is  still  said  to  be  in 
the  BOSOM  of  his  parents.  "  The  king  is  indeed  very  fond 
of  that  man,  he  keeps  him  in  his  bosom."  "  Yes,  the  servant 
is  a  great  favourite  with  his  master,  he  has  a  place  in  his 
bosom."  "  Why,  Muttoo,  do  you  never  intend  to  allow 
your  son  to  go  "out  of  your  bosom  T'  The  ideas  implied 
by  the  term  bosom  are  intense  affection,  security,  and  com- 
fort. But  objects  of  endearment  are  sometimes  spoken  of 
as  being  in  the  head.  "  He  not  fond  of  his  wife !  he  keeps 
her  in  his  head."  "  My  husband,  you  are  ever  in  my 
head."  "  Yes,  beloved,  you  are  in  my  eye ;  my  eye  is  y^^u^ 
resting-place." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Ver.  6.  And  the  Lord  said,  If  ye  had  faith  as  ? 
grain  of  mustard  seed,  ye  might  say  unto  thir 
sycamine-tree,  Be  thou  plucked  up  by  the  root 
and  be  thou  planted  in  the  sea  ;  and  it  should 
obey  you. 

The  sycamore  buds  late  in  the  spring,  about  the  latter 
end  of  March,  and  is  therefore  called  by  the  ancients, 
arborwm  sapientissima,  the  wisest  of  trees,  because  it  thus 
avoids  the  nipping  frosts  to  whidh  many  others  are  exposed. 
It  strikes  its  large  diverging  roots  deep  into  the  soil;  and 
on  this  account  our  Lord  alludes  to  it  as  the  most  difficult 
to  be  rooted  up  and  transferred  to  another  situation :  "  If 
ye  had  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  ye  might  say  unto 
this  sycamine-tree,  be  thou  plucked  up  by  the  root,  and  be 
thou  planted  in  the  sea,  and  it  should  obey  you."  The  ex- 
treme difficulty  with  which  this  tree  is  transferred  from 
its  native  spot  to  another  situation,  gives  to  the  words  of 
our  Lord  a  peculiar  force  and  beauty.  The  stronger  and 
more  diverging  the  root  of  a  tree,  the  more  difficult  it  must 
be  to  pluck  it  up,  and  insert  it  again  so  as  to  make  it  strike 
root  and  grow ;  but  far  more  difficult  still  to  plant  it  in  the 
sea,  where  the  soil  is  so  far  below  the  surface,  and  where 
the  restless  billows  are  continually  tossing  it  from  one- side 
to  another ;  yet,  says  our  Lord,  a  task  no  less  difficult  than 
this  to  be  accomplished,  can  the  man  of  genuine  faith  per- 
form with  a  word ;  for  with  God  nothing  is  impossible, 
nothing  difficult  or  laborious. — Paxton. 


608 


LUKE 


Chap.  18—23. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ver.  5,  Yet,  because  this  widow  troubleth  me,  I 
will  aveng-e  her,  lest  by  her  continual  coming 
she  weary  me. 

The  word  vTrama^eiv,  to  weary,  properly  signifies  to  beat  on 
the  face,  and  particularly  under  the  eye,  so  as  to  make  the 
parts  black  and  blue.  Here  it  has  a  metaphorical  meaning, 
and  signifies  to  give  great  pain,  such  as  arises  from  severe 
beating.  The  meaning  therefore  is,  that  the  uneasy  feel- 
ings which  this  widow  raised  in  the  judge's  breast,  by  the 
moving  representation  which  she  gave  of  her  distress,  af- 
fected him  to  such  a  degree  that  he  could  not  bear  it,  but 
to  get  rid  of  them  resolved  to  do  her  justice.  The  passage 
understood  in  this  sense  has  a  peculiar  advantage,  as  it 
throws  a  beautiful  light  on  our  Lord's  argument,  and  lays 
a  proper  foundation  for  the  conclusion  which  it  contains. 
— Macknight. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Ver.  5.  And  when  Jesus  came  to  the  place,  he 
looked  up,  and  saw  him,  and  said  unto  him, 
Zaccheus,  make  haste,  and  come  down;  for 
to-day  I  must  abide  at  thy  house. 

Zaccheus  did  not  appear  to  have  seen  our  Saviour  before, 
but  he  would  not  be  surprised  when  it  was  said,  "  I  must 
abide  at  thy  house."  Hospitality  may  almost  be  called  a 
sacred  rite  in  all  parts  of  the  East ;  and,  were  it  not  so, 
what  would  become  of  travellers  and  pilgrims  1  In  gen- 
eral there  are  no  places  for  public  entertainment,  for  the 
rest-houses  and  choultries  are  seldom  more  than  open 
places  to  shelter  passengers  from  the.  sun  and  rain.  View 
the  stranger  passing  through  a  village,  he  sees  a  respecta- 
ble house,  and  having  found  out  the  master,  he  stands 
before  him,  and  puts  out  his  right  hand,  and  says,  para- 
theasi,  i.  e.  a  pilgrim  or  traveller :  he  is  then  requested  to 
be  seated,  and  is  asked,  whence  he  came,  and  whither  he  is 
going  1  His  temporal  wants  are  supplied,  and  when  in- 
clined he  pursues  his  journey.— Roberts. 

Ver.  40.  And  he  answered  and  said  unto  them,  I 
tell  you,  that  if  these  should  hold  their  peace, 
the  stones  would  immediately  cry  out. 

Has  a  man  been  greatly  favoured  by  another,  he  says, 
"  Ah !  if  I  ever  forget  him  the  stones  will  cause  me  to 
stumble."  "  I  cease  to  recollect  his  goodness  !  then  will 
the  stones  make  me  to  stumble  and  die.'"  The  idea  appears 
to  be,  they  will  arise  up  and  cause  him  to  fall. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XX. 
Ver.   18.  Whosoever  shall  fall  upon  that  stone 
shall  be  broken  ;  but  on  whomsoever  it  shall 
fall,  it  will  grind  him  to  powder. 

Here  is  an  allusion  to  the  two  different  ways  of  stoning 
among  the  Jews,  the  former  by  throwing  a  person  down 
upon  a  great  stone,  and  the  other  by  letting  a  stone  fall  upon 
him. — Whitby. 

CHAl>TER  XXI. 
Ver.  18.  But  there  shall  not  a  hair  of  your  head 
perish. 

«  Well,  friend,  have  you  heard  that  Chinnan  has  gone 


to  the  judge  to  complain  against  you  *?"  "  Let  him  go,  not 
a  hair  of  this  head  will  be  spoiled  by  that."  *'  I  advise  you 
to  take  care,  for  the  Vedan  has  sworn  to  ruin  you."  "  He ! 
the  jackal  cannot  pull  out  a  single  hair."  "What  care  I 
for  thy  anger  1  thou  canst  not  pull  out  one  hair."  "  He 
injure  my  son !  let  him  touch  a  single  hair." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXIL 
Ver.  34.  And  he  said,  I  tell  thee,  Peter,  the  cock 

shall  not  crow  this  day,  before  that  thou  shalt 

thrice  deny  that  thou  knowest  mc. 
See  on  Mark  14.  30. 

Ver.  48.  But  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Judas,  betrayest 
thou  the  Son  of  Man  with  a  kiss? 

See  on  2  Sam.  20.  9. 

Ver.  64.  And  when  they  had  blindfolded  him, 
they  struck  him  on  the  face,  and  asked  him, 
saying.  Prophesy :  Who  is  it  that  smote  thee  ? 

This  usage  of  Christ  refers  to  that  sport  so  ordinary 
among  children,  called  nvivSa,  in  which  it  is  the  manner 
first  to  blindfold,  then  to  strike,  then  to  ask  who  gave  the 
blow,  and  not  to  let  the  person  go  till  he  named  the  right 
man  who  had  struck  him.  It  was  used  on  this  occasion 
to  reproach  our  blessed  Lord,  and  expose  him  to  ridicule. 
— Hammond. 

CHAPTER  XXIIL 
Ver.  31.  For  if  they  do  these  things  in  a  green 
tree,  what  shall  be  done  in  the  dry? 

The  venerable  Mr.  Wesley  has  caught  the  idea  when 
he  says  on  this  passage,  "  The  Jews  compare  a  good  man 
to  a  green  tree,  and  a  bad  man  to  a  dead  one."  Thus  still 
an  abandoned  character,  a  decided  profligate,  is  called  a 
PATTA-MARAM,  i.  €.  &  dried  or  a  dead  tree.  '*  Why  water 
that  tree  T'  "  Your  money,  your  influence  is  all  wasted 
there :  cease,  cease  to  attend  to  that  dead  tree."  "  The 
tree  is  dead,  there  are  no  leaves,  it  will  never  more  give 
blossoms  or  fruit,  it  is  only  fit  for  the  fire."  A  spend- 
thrift or  one  who  has  been  unfortunate  says,  "  I  amapatta- 
rmram,  I  have  been  struck  by  the  lightning."  A  good 
man  is  compared  to  a  talita-maram,  i.  e.  a  tree  which  has 
"  spreading  shady  branches."  People  may  repose  there 
during  the  heat  of  the  day:  they  have  defence  and  com- 
fort. Jesus  was  the  "  green  tree"  under  whom  the  Jews 
might  have  reposed.  If,  then,  they  did  such  things  to  the 
"  green  tree,"  what  would  be  done  to  themselves,  the  dry, 
the  leafless  trees  of  the  desert  1  The  lightnings  of  heaven 
did  strike  them ;  the  Roman  eagles  did  pounce  on  them  ; 
thousands  were  cut  to  the  ground,  and  thousands  went  as 
slaves  to  the  land  of  the  conquerors. — Roberts. 

Ver.  48.  And  all  the  people  that  came  together 
to  that  sight,  beholding  the  things  which  were 
done,  smote  their  breasts,  and-  returned. 

Grief  is  often  far  more  violent  in  the  East  than  in  Eng- 
land. The  frantic  mother,  bereaved  of  her  son,  or  the 
wife  bereft  of  her  husband,  beats  her  breast  as  if  she  in- 
tended to  burst  a  passage  to  her  vitals.  I  have  sometimes 
been  amazed  at  the  blows  which  in  their  agony  they  thus 
inflict  upon  themselves.  *'  Alas !  alas !  that  amvia  (i.  e. 
lady)  will  never  cease  to  beat  her  breasts."— Roberts. 


Mnm 


THE    GOSPEL    ACCORDING   TO    JOHN. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Ver.   15.  John  bare  witness  of  him,  and  cried, 
saying,  This  was  he  of  whom  I  spake,  He  that 
Cometh  after  me,  is  preferred  before  me :  for  he 
was  before  me. 

Before  we  reached  Mayar,  we  were  met  by  Mirza  Abdul 
Cossim,  a  confidential  officer  of  the  governor  of  Ispahan, 
by  a  hakeem  or  doctor,  one  of  the  learned  of  the  city,  and 
by  several  other  men  of  respectability.  These  deputations 
were  called  Peeshwaz,  openers  of  the  way,  and  are  one  of 
the  principal  modes  among  the  Persians  of  doing  honour  to 
their  guests.  The  more  distinguished  the  persons  sent,  and 
the  greater  the  distance  to  which  they  go,  so  much  more 
considerable  is  the  honour. — Mobier. 

Ver.  32.  And  John  bare  record,  saying,  I  saw 
the  Spirit  descending  from  heaven  like  a  dove, 
and  it  abode  upon  him. 

See  on  Matt.  3.  16. 

Ver.  42.  And  he  brought  him  to  Jesus.     And 
when  Jesus  beheld  him,  he  said.  Thou  art  Si- 
mon the  Son  of  Jona :  thou  shalt  be  called  Ce- 
I  phas,  which  is,  by  interpretation,  A  stone. 

Names  were  frequently  given  to  preserve  the  remem- 
brance of  particular  circumstances.  And,  as  will  ap- 
pear in  the  following  extract,  frequently  as  contrasts  to  the 
character  and  condition  of  those  on  whom  they  were  im- 
posed :  "  Among  the  people  of  the  house,  who  attended  us 
here,  was  a  hhabshi,  or  Abyssinian  slave,  an  old  man,  of 
hideous  deformity,  entitled  Almas,  or  the  diamond.  And 
I  observed  that  at  Shiraz,  Fassa,  and  other  towns,  the  Afri- 
can slaves  were  distinguished  by  flowery  names  or  epithets, 
in  proportion  to  their  natural  ugliness  or  offensive  smell. 
Thus,  I  have  known  Yasmin,  the  jessamine;  Sumbul,  the 
hyacinth ;  Jauher,  the  jewel ;  and  Makbul,  the  pleasing,  or 
agreeable."    (Sir  W.  Ouseley.)— Burder. 

Ver.  48.  Nathanael  saith  unto  him,  Whence 
knowest  thou  me  ?  Jesus  answered  and  said 
unto  him,  Before  that  Philip  called  thee,  when 
thou  wast  under  the  fig-tree,  I  saw  thee. 

The  oriental  garden  displays  little  method,  beauty,  or  de- 
sign ;  the  whole  being  commonly  no  more  than  a  confused 
medley  of  fruit-trees,  with  beds  of  esculent  plants,  and  even 
plots  of  wheat  and  barley  sometimes  interspersed.  The 
garden  belonging  to  the  governor  of  Eleus,  a  Turkish  town, 
on  the  western  border  of  the  Hellespont,  which  Dr.  Chan- 
dler visited,  consisted  only  of  a  very  small  spot  of  ground, 
walled  in,  and  containing  only  tw^o  vines,  a  fig  and  a  pome- 
granate-tree, and  a  well  of  excellent  water.  And  it  would 
seem,  the  garden  of  an  ancient  Israelite  could  not  boast  of 
greater  variety ;  for  the  grape,  the  fig,  and  the  pomegran- 
ate, are  almost  the  only  fruits  which  it  produced.  This 
fact  may  perhaps  give  us  some  insight  into  the  reason  of 
the  sudden  and  irresistible  conviction  which  flashed  on  the 
mind  of  Nathaniel,  when  the  Saviour  said  to  him,  "  When 
thou  wast  under  the  fig-tree  I  saw  thee."  The  good  man 
seems  to  have  been  engaged  in  devotional  exercises,  in  a 
small  retired  garden,  walled  in,  and  concealed  from  the 
scrutinizing  eyes  of  men.  The  place  was  so  small,  that  he 
was  perfectly  certain  that  no  man  but  himself  was  there; 
and  so  completely  defended,  that  none  could  break  through, 
or  look  over  the  fence ;  and  by  consequence,  that  no  eye 
▼as  upon  him,  but  the  all-seeing  eye  of  God ;  and,  there- 
t  T7 


fore,  since  Christ  saw  him  there,  Nathaniel  knew  he  could 
be  no  other  than  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  promised  Messiah. 
— Paxton. 

Ver.  50.  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him,  Be- 
cause I  said  unto  thee,  I  saw  thee  under  the 
fig-tree,  believest  thou  ?  thou  shalt  see  greater 
things  than  these. 

On  account  of  the  thick-spreading  branches  and  broad 
leaves  of  the  fig-tree,  which,  in  warm  eastern  countries, 
grows  much  larger  and  stronger  than  with  us,  it  was  very 
suitable  for  the  purpose  of  overshadowing  those  who  sat 
under  it,  Hasselquist,  in  his  Journey  from  Nazareth  to 
Tiberias,  says,  "  We  refreshed  ourselves  in  the  shade  of  a 
fig-tree,  under  which  was  a  well,  where  a  shepherd  and  his 
herd  had  their  rendezvous,  but  without  either  tent  or  hut." 
— Burder. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  6.  And  there  were  set  there  six  water-pots 
of  stone,  after  the  manner  of  the  purifying  of 
the  Jews,  containing  two  or  three  firkins  apiece. 

Gana  still  exists,  and  was  visited  a  few  years  ago  by  Dr. 
Clarke  and  his  fellow-travellers,  who  breakfasted  there  as 
they  passed  through  it  in  their  way  from  Nazareth  to  Ti- 
berias. He  says,  "  it  is  worthy  of  note,  that  walking  among 
the  ruins  of  a  church,  we  saw  large  massy  stone  pots,  an- 
swering the  description  given  of  the  ancient  vessels  of  the 
country,  not  preserved  nor  exhibited  as  relics,  but  \y'mg 
about,  disregarded  by  the  present  inhabitants  as  antiquities 
with  whose  original  use  they  were  unacquainted.  From 
their  appearance,  and  the  number  of  them,  it  was  quite  evi- 
dent that  a  practice  of  keeping  water  in  large  stone  pots, 
each  holding  from  eighteen  to  twenty-seven  gallons,  was 
once  common  in  the  country." — Burder. 

Ver.  10.  And  saith  unto  him,  Every  man  at  the 
beginning  doth  set  forth  good  wine ;  and  when 
men  have  well  drunk,  then  that  which  is  worse: 
but  thou  hast  kept  the  good  wine  until  now. 

The  Abbe  Mariti,  speaking  of  the  age  of  the  wines  of 
Cyprus,  says,  "  the  oldest  wines  used  in  commerce  do  not 
exceed  eight  or  ten  years.  It  is  not  true,  as  has  been  re- 
ported, that  there  is  some  of  it  a  hundred  years  old ;  but  it 
is  certain  that  at  the  birth  of  a  son  or  a  daughter,  the  father 
causes  a  jar  filled  with  wine  to  be  buried  in  the  earth,  hav- 
ing first  taken  the  precaution  to  seal  it  hermetically ;  in  this 
manner  it  may  be  kept  till  these  children  marry.  It  is  then 
placed  on  the  table  before  the  bride  and  bridegroom,  and  is 
distributed  among  their  relations,  and  the  other  guests  in- 
vited to  the  wedding."  If  such  a  custom  prevailed  former- 
ly, it  throws  great  significancy  into  the  assertion  of  good 
wine  being  first  brought  out  upon  such  an  occasion ;  and  if 
this  supposition  is  admitted,  tends  to  increase  the  greatness 
of  the  miracle,  that  notwithstanding  what  had  been  drank 
at  first  was  peculiarly  excellent,  yet  that  which  Christ  by 
his  divine  power  produced  as  an  after  supply,  was  found  to 
be  of  a  superior  quality. — Burder, 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  8.  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and 
thou  hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell 
whence  it  cometh,  and  whither  it  goeth :  so  is 
every  one  that  is  born  of  the  Spirit. 

When  a  man  is  unhappy  because  he  does  not  understand 


610 


JOHN. 


Chap.  4. 


his  circumstances,  when  things  come  upon  him  which  can- 
not be  accounted  for  by  himself  or  by  others,  it  is  asked, 
"  Do  you  know  whence  cometh  the  wind  1"  "  You  say 
you  know  not  how  this  matter  will  end :  do  you  know  in 
what  quarter  the  present  wind  will  blow  the  next  moment  V 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  29.  He  that  hath  the  bride  is  the  bridegroom : 
but  the  friend  of  the  bridegroom,  which  stand- 
eth  and  heareth  him,  rejoiceth  greatly  because 
of  the  bridegroom's  voice.  This  my  joy  there- 
fore is  fulfilled. 

Among  the  Jews,  in  their  rites  of  espousals,  there  is  fre- 
quent mention  of  a  place  where,  under  a  covering,  it  was 
usual  for  the  bridegroom  to  discourse  familiarly  but  pri- 
vately with  his  spouse,  whereby  their  affections  might  be 
more  knit  to  one  another,  in  order  to  marriage,  which  how- 
ever were  not  supposed  to  be  so  till  the  bridegroom  came 
cheerfully  out  of  the  chuppah,  or  covered  place.  To  this 
David  refers,  (Psalm  xix.  5,)  when  he  speaks  of  the  sun, 
"  which  is  a  bridegroom  coming  out  of  his  chamber,  and 
rejoiceth  as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race."  It  is  affirmed 
that  this  custom  is  still  observed  among  the  Jews  in  Ger- 
mar^y  ;  either  before  the  synagogues  in  a  square  place  cov- 
ered over,  or  where  there  is  no  synagogue,  they  throw  a 
garment  over  the  bridegroom  and  the  bride  for  that  pur- 
pose. While  this  intercourse  is  carrying  on,  the  friend  of 
the  bridegroom  stands  at  the  door  to  hearken ;  and  when 
he  hears  the  bridegroom  speak  joyfully,  (which  is  an  inti- 
mation that  all  is  well,)  he  rejoices  himself,  and  communi- 
cates the  intelligence  to  the  people  assembled,  for  their  sat- 
isfaction,— Hammond. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  5.  Then  cometh  he  to  a  city  of  Samaria, 
which  is  called  Sychar,  near  to  the  parcel  of 
ground  that  Jacob  gave  to  his  son  Joseph. 
6.  Now  Jacob's  well  was  there.  Jesus,  there- 
fore, being  wearied  with  his  journey,  sat  thus 
on  the  well :  arid  it  was  about  the  sixth  hour. 

"  At  one  third  of  an  hour  from  Naplosa,  we  came  to 
Jacob's  well,  famous  not  only  on  account  of  its  author, 
but  much  more  for  that  memorable  conference  which  our 
blessed  Saviour  here  had  with  the  woman  of  Samaria.  If 
it  should  be  questioned  whether  this  be  the  very  well  that 
it  is  pretended  for  or  not,  seeing  it  maybe  suspected  to  stand 
too  remote  from  Sychar  for  women  to  come  so  far  to  draw 
water,  it  is  answered,  that  probably  the  city  extended  far- 
ther this  way  in  former  times  than  it  does  now,  as  may  be 
conjectured  from  some  pieces  of  a  very  thick  wall  still  to 
be  seen  not  far  from  hence.  Over  the  well  there  stood  for- 
merly a  large  church,  erected  by  that  great  and  devout 
patrone3«  of  the  Holy  Land,  the  Emperess  Helena  ;  but  of 
this  the  voracity  of  time,  assisted  by  the  hands  of  the  Turks, 
has  left  nothing  but  a  few  foundations  remaining :  the  well 
is  covered  at  present  with  an  old  stone  vault,  into  which 
you  are  letdown  through  a  very  straight  hole  ;  and  then  re- 
moving a  broad  flat  stone,  you  discover  the  mouth  of  the 
well  itself.  It  is  dug  in  a  firm  rock,  and  contains  about 
three  yards  in  diameter,  and  thirty-five  in  depth,  five  of 
which  we  found  full  of  water."    (Maundrell.) 

"  The  principal  object  of  veneration  is  Jacob's  well,  over 
which  a  church  was  formerly  erected.  This  is  situated  at 
a  small  distance  from  the  town,  in  the  road  to  Jerusalem, 
and  has  been  visited  by  pilgrims  of  all  ages ;  but  particu- 
larly since  the  Christian  era,  as  the  place  where  our  Sa- 
viour revealed  himself  to  the  woman  of  Samaria.  This 
spot  is  so  distinctly  marked  by  the  evangelist,  and  so  little 
liable  to  uncertainty,  from  the  circumstance  of  the  well  it- 
^'•If,  and  the  features  of  the  country,  that  if  no  tradition 
existed  for  its  identity,  the  site  of  it  could  hardly  be  mis- 
taken. Perhaps  no  Christian  scholar  ever  attentively  read 
the  fourth  chapter  of  St.  John  without  being  struck  with 
the  numerous  internal  evidences  of  truih  which  crowd  upon 
the  mind  in  its  perusal:  within  so  small  a  compass,  it  is 
impossible  to  find  in  other  writings  so  many  sources  of  re- 
flection and  of  interest.    Independcmly  of  its  importance  as 


a  theological  document,  it  concentrates  so  much  informa* 
tion,  that  a  volume  might  be  filled  with  the  illustration  it 
reflects  on  the  history  of  the  Jews,  and  on  the  geography 
of  their  country.  All  that  can  be  gathered  on  these  subjects 
from  Josephus  seems  but  as  a  comment  to  illustrate  this 
chapter.  The  journey  of  our  Lord  from  Judea  into  Gali- 
lee ;  the  cause  of  it ;  his  passage  through  the  territory  of 
Samaria ;  his  approach  to  the  metropolis  of  this  country ; 
its  name;  his  arrival  at  the  Amorite  field,  which  termin- 
ates the  narrow  valley  of  Sichem ;  the  ancient  custom  of 
halting  at  a  well ;  the  female  employment  of  drawing  wa- 
ter ;  the  disciples  sent  into  the  city  for  food,  by  which  its 
situation  out  of  the  town  is  obviously  implied ;  the  question 
of  the  woman  referring  to  existing  prejudices,  which  sep- 
arated ihe  Jews  from  the  Samaritans ;  the  depth  of  the 
well;  the  oriental  allusion  contained  in  the  expression, 
living  water ;  the  history  of  the  well,  and  the  customs  there- 
by illustrated;  the  worship  upon  Mount  Gerizim  ;  all  these 
occur  within  the  space  of  twenty  verses  ;  and  if  to  these  be 
added  what  has  already  been  referred  to  in  the  remainder 
of  the  same  chapter,  we  shall,  perhaps,  consider  it  as  a  re- 
cord, which,  in  the  words  of  him  who  sent  it,  we  may  lift 
up  our  eyes,  mid  look  upon,  for  it  is  white  alread/y  to  harvest" 
(Clarke.) 

"  In  inquiring  for  the  Bir-el-Yakoab,  or  Jacob's  well,  we 
were  told  by  everybody  that  this  was  in  the  town ;  which 
not  corresponding  with  the  described  place  of  the  well  we 
were  desirous  of  "seeing,  led  to  further  explanation;  and, 
at  length,  by  telling  the  story  attached  to  it,  we  found  it  was 
known  here  only  by  the  name  of  Ber  Samarea,  or  the  well 
of  Samaria.  Procuring  a  Christian  boy  to  accompany  us, 
we  went  out  by  the  eastern  gate  ;  and  passing  through  a 
continuation  of  the  same  valley  in  which  Nablous  stands, 
thickly  covered  with  olive-trees,  we  reached  the  end  of  it 
in  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  on  foot,  the  pass  opening  into 
a  round  and  more  extensive  vale,  and  the  mountains  east 
of  the  Jordan  being  in  sight.  On  the  right  were  some 
Mohammedan  buildings ;  on  the  sides,  at  the  foot  of  Mount 
Gerizim,  either  mosques  or  tombs,  now  called  mahmoodeea, 
and  said  to  stand  over  Joseph's  sepulchre.  On  the  left,  at 
the  foot  of  Mount  Ebal,  were  several  well-hewn  grottoes  in 
the  rocks  ;  some  with  arched,  and  others  with  square  doors; 
most  probably  ancient  sepulchres  without  the  old  city  of 
Sichem,  or  Sychar.  These  grottoes  were  called  here 
khallat  rowgh-ban  ;  but  we  had  no  time  to  examine  them. 
From  hence,  in  another  half  of  an  hour,  we  reach  the  well 
of  Samaria  ;  it  stands  at  the  commencement'  of  the  round 
vale,  which  is  thought  to  have  been  the  parcel  of  ground 
bought  by  Jacob  for  a  hundred  pieces  of  money,  which,  like 
the  narrow  valley  west  of  Nablous,  is  rich  and  fertile. 
Over  this  well  stood  anciently  a  large  building,  erected  by 
St.  Helena  ;  of  which  there  are  now  no  other  remains  than 
some  shafts  of  granite  pillars,  all  the  rest  lying  in  one  un- 
distinguished heap  of  ruins.  The  mouth  of  the  well  itself 
had  an  arched  or  vaulted  building  over  it ;  and  the  only 
passage  down  to  it  at  this  moment  is  by  a  small  hole  in  the 
roof,  scarcely  large  enough  for  a  moderate  sized  person  to 
work  himself  down  through.  We  lighted  a  taper  here ; 
and  taking  off  my  large  Turkish  clothes,  I  did  not  then  get 
down  without  bruising  myself  against  the  sides  ;  nor  was  I 
at  all  rewarded  for  such  an  inconvenience  by  the  sight  be- 
low. Landing  on  a  heap  of  dirt  and  rubbish,  we  saw  a 
large,  flat,  oblong  stone,  which  lay  almost  on  its  edge, 
across  the  mouth  of  the  well,  and  left  barely  space  enough 
to  see  that  there  was  an  opening  below.  We  could  not  as- 
certain its  diameter ;  but,  by  the  time  of  a  stone's  descent, 
it  was  evident  that  it  was  of  considerable  depth,  as  well 
as  that  it  was  perfectly  dry  at  this  season,  the  fall  of  the 
stones  giving  forth  a  dead  and  hard  sound.  Not  far  from 
the  well  of  Samaria  is  the  bir-yusef,  over  which  is  a  modern 
building ;  and  it  is  said  to  be,"even  at  this  day,  frequented 
for  water  from  Nablous.  The  well  of  Samaria  might  also 
have  been  so,  therefore,  from  Sychar,  although  that  city  is 
said  not  to  have  extended  further  east  than  the  present  town ; 
and,  indeed,  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  in  Syria,  as  I  myself 
have  often  witnessed,  for  water  to  be  brought  from  a  much 
greater  distance.  It  is  highly  probable,  therefore,  that  this 
is  the  identical  well  at  which  the  interesting  conference 
between  Jesus  trnd  the  woman  of  Samaria  really  happened." 
(Buckingham,  V— Border. 

Ver.  6.  Now  Jacob's  well  wa?  there.    Jesus,  there- 


Chap.  5. 


JOHN. 


6U 


fore,  being  wearied  with  his  journey,  sat  thus 
on  the  well :  and  it  was  about  the  sixth  hour. 

The  learned  have  been  greatly  divided  in  their  opinions 
::oncerning  the  true  meaning  of  the  particle  ovtms  in  John 
iv.  6,  which  is  rendered  thus,  in  our  version:  Jesus,  there- 
fore, being  wearied  with  his  journey ,  sat  thus  on  the  well :  and 
it  wa;  about  the  sixth  hour ;  which  everybody  knows  with 
the  Jews  meant  noon.  But  an  attention  to  the  usages  of  the 
East,  and  of  antiquity,  might,  I  think,  ascertain  its  meaning 
with  a. good  deal  of  exactness.  Our  version  of  the  word 
thus,  gives  no  determinate  idea.  We  know,  on  the  con- 
trary, what  is  meant  by  the  translation  of  a  celebrated 
writer,  who  renders  the  word  by  the  English  term  immedi- 
ately, but  that  translation,  I  think  by  no  means  the  happiest 
he  has  given  us.  It  conveys  the  idea  of  extreme  weariness : 
but  nothing  in  the  after  part  of  the  narration  leads  to  such 
an  interpretation  ;  nor  can  I  conceive  for  what  imagin- 
able purpose  the  circumstance  of  his  immediately  throwing 
himself  down  near  the  well,  before  the  woman  came  up, 
and  which,  consequently,  it  is  to  be  supposed  she  knew 
nothing  of,  is  mentioned  by  the  evangelist.  Not  to  say 
that  the  passage  cited  in  proof  of  this  interpretation.  Acts 
XX.  11,  which,  instead  of  so  he  departed,  he  thought  signi- 
fied the  immediateness  of  his  departure,  by  no  means  gives 
satisfaction.  It  is  not  so  expressed  in  his  own  translation 
of  that  passage,  nor  does  it  appear  so  to  signify.  The  sim- 
ple meaning,  I  apprehend,  of  the  particle  is,  that  Jesus, 
being  wearied  with  his  journey,  sat  down  by  the  well,  like 
a  person  so  wearied,  as  to  design  to  lake  some  repose  and 
refreshment  there :  to  which  St.  John  adds,  it  was  about 
the  sixth  hour.  If  this  be  just,  the  translation  should  have 
been  something  like  this :  "  Jesus  therefore  being  wearied 
with  his  journey,  sat  down  accordingly,  or  like  such  a  one, 
by  the  well.     It  was  about  the  sixth  hour." 

The  panicle  certainlv  expresses  coiiformity  to  an  account 
to  be  given  after  ;  so  John  xxi.  1,  Jesus  shotccd  himself  again 
to  his  disciples  at  the  sea  of  Tiberias ;  and  on  this  wise  he 
himself,  referring  to  the  account  about  to  be  given.  .And 
sometimes  it  signifies  conformity  to  an  account  that  had 
been  before  given :  so  John  xi.  47,  48,  What  do  we  7  for 
this  man  doth  many  miracles.  If  we  let  him  thus  aloive,  after 
this  manner  doing  many  miracles,  all  men  will  believe  on 
him.  So  ch.  viii.  59,  Then  took  they  up  stones  to  cast  at  him: 
but  Jesus  hid  himself  and  went  out  of  the  temple,  going 
through  the  midst  of  them,  and  so  passed  by :  passed  by,  by 
hiding  himself  after  this  manner.  After  this  latter  manner 
it  is  to  be  understood,  I  think,  here  :  Jesus  being  wearied 
with  his  journey,  sat  down  like  a  weary  person  by  the  side 
of  the  well,  and  in  that  attitude  the  woman  found  him,  pre- 
paring to  take  some  repose  and  repast.  The  disciples,  it  is 
said,  ver.  8,  were  gone  away  into  the  city  to  buy  meat ;  but 
it  does  not  at  all  follow  froni  thence  that  they  all  went,  nor 
is  it  so  probable  that  they  did,  leaving  him  alone;  but  that, 
on  the  contrary,  some  of  them  stayed  with  him,  making 
such  preparations  as  indicated  a  design  in  them  to  eat  bread 
there. — Harmkr. 

Ver.  9.  Then  saith  the  woman  of  Samaria  unto 
him,  How  IS  it  that  thou,  being-  a  Jew,  askest 
drink  of  me,  which  am  a  woman  of  Samaria  ?• 
(for  the  Jews  have  no  dealings  with  the  Samar- 
itans.) 

In  Atleet,  on  the  road  from  Nablous  to  Jerusalem,  pass- 
ing out  of  a  gateway  similar  to  the  other,  at  the  opposite 
extremity  of  the  wall,  w^e  crossed  a  marsh,  and  remounting, 
were  proceeding  on  our  way,  when  some  women  were  dis- 
covered drawing  water  at  a  well  near  the  track,  and  the 
day  being  hot,  I  desired  my  servant  to  ask  if  they  would 
give  me  some  to  drink ;  but  they  refused  the  indulgence, 
one  of  them  exclaiming,  "  Shall  I  give  water  to  a  Chris- 
tian, and  make  my  pitcher  filthy,  so  that  I  can  use  it  no 
more  for  ever  1"  This  happened  within  the  precincts  of 
Samaria,  and  was  a  proof  how  little  change  the  spirit 
of  the  people  has  undergone  within  the  last  eighteen  cen- 
turies. Tnese  women  were  young  and  handsome,  with 
fu^l,  dignified,  and  stately  figures :  a  dark-coloured  fillet 
bound  the  head,  and  passing  under  the  chin,  left  the  face 
entirely  covered. — Munroe's  Summer  Ramble  in  Syria. 


Ver.  11.  The  woman  saith  unto  him,  Sir,  thou 
hast  nothing  to  draw  with,  and  the  well  is  deep : 
from  whence  then  hast  thou  that  living  water  ? 

See  on  Gen.  24.  20. 

In  those  dry  countries  they  find  themselves  obliged  to 
carry  with  them  great  leathern  bottles  of  water,  which  they 
refill  from  time  to  time,  as  they  have  opportunity ;  but  what 
is  very  extraordinary,  in  order  to  be  able  to  do  this,  they, 
in  marry  places,  are  obliged  tb  carry  lines  and  buckets  with 
them.  So  Thevenot,  in  giving  an  account  of  what  he 
provided  for  his  journey  from  Egypt  to  Jerusalem,  tells  us, 
he  did  not  forget  "  leathern  buckets  to  draw  water  with." 
Rauwolf  goes  further,  for  he  gives  us  to  understand,  that 
the  wells  of  inhabited  countries  there,  as  well  as  in  deserts, 
have  oftentimes  no  implements  for  drawing  of  water,  but 
what  those  bring  with  them  that  come  thither :  for  speak- 
ing of  the  well  or  cistern  at  Bethlehem,  he  says,  it  is  a 
good  rich  cistern,  deep  and  wide ;  for  which  reason,  '•  the 
people  that  go  to  dip  water  are  provided  with  small  leathern 
bucKets  and  a  line,  as  is  usual  in  these  countries ;  and  so 
the  merchants  that  go  in  caravans  through  great  deserts 
into  far  countries,  provide  themselves  also  with  these,  be- 
cause in  these  countries  you  find  more  cisterns  or  wells 
than  springs  that  lie  high."  In  how  easy  a  light  does  this 
place  the  Samaritan  woman's  talking  of  the  depth  of  Jacob's 
well,  and  her  remarking  that  she  did  not  observe  that  our 
Lord  had  any  thing  to  draw  with,  though  he  spoke  of  pre- 
senting her  with  water. 

Wells  and  cisterns  differ  from  each  other,  in  that  the 
first  are  supplied  with  water  by  springs,  the  other  by  rain  : 
both  are  to  be  found  in  considerable  numbers  in  Judea,  and 
are,  according  to  Rauwolf,  more  numerous  in  these  conn- 
tries  than  springs  that  lie  high,  than  fountains  and  brooks 
that  are  of  running  Water.  Some  of  these  have  been  made 
for  the  use  of  the  people  that  dwell  in  their  neighbourhood, 
some  for  travellers,  and  especially  those  that  travel  for 
devotion.  Thevenot  found  two,  made  a  little  before  his 
time  for  the  use  of  travellers,  by  Turks  of  distinciion,  in 
the  desert  between  Cairo  and  Gaza.  And  from  a  history 
D'Herbelot  has  given  us,  it  appears  that  the  Mohammedacr^ 
have  dug  wells  in  the  deserts,  for  the  accommodation  ol 
those  that  go  in  pilgrimage  to  Mecca,  their  sacred  city, 
where  the  distance  between  such  places  as  Nature  had 
made  pleasant  for  them  to  stop,  and  take  up  water  at,  were 
too  great :  for  he  tell  us,  that  Gianabi,  a  famous  Moham- 
medan rebel,  filled  up  with  sand  all  the  wells  that  had  been 
dug  in  the  road  to  IVlecca  for  the  benefit  of  the  pilgrims. — 
Harmer. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  2.  Now  there  is  at  Jerusalem,  by  the  sheep- 
man rZ;e^,  a  pool,  which  is  called  in  the  Hebrew 
tongue,  Bethesda,  having  five  porches 

This  was  the  name  of  a  pool,  or  rather  bath  of  water, 
having  five  porticoes :  and  so  called  from  the  miraculous 
cures  performed  there.  They  still  show  you  "  the  pool  oi 
Bethesda,  contiguous  on  one  side  to  St.  Stephen's  gate,  on 
the  other  to  the  area  of  the  temple."  Maundrell  says  it  is 
a  hundred  and  twenty  paces  long,  forty  broad,  and  at  least 
eight  deep :  at  its  west  end  may  be  discovered  some  old 
arches,  which  are  now  dammed  up.  "  A  little  above,  we 
entered  the  city  at  the  gate  of  St.  Stephen,  where,  on  each 
side,  a  lion  retrograde  doth  stand,  called,  in  time  past, 
the  port  of  the  valley  and  of  the  flock,  for  that  the  cattle 
came  in  at  this  gate,  which  were  to  be  sacrificed  in  the 
temple,  and  were  sold  in  the  market  adjoining.  On  the 
left  hand  is  a  stone  bridge,  which  passeth  at  the  east  end  of 
the  north  wall  into  the  court  of  the  temple  of  Solomon; 
the  head  to  the  pool  of  Bethesda,  underneath  which  it  (the 
water)  had  a  conveyance,  called  also  probaticum,  for  thtat 
the  sacrifices  were  therein  washed  ere  delivered  to  the 
priests.  Now  it  is  a  great  square  profundity,  green  and 
uneven  at  the  bottom,  into  which  a  barren  spring  doth  drill 
between  the  stones  of  the  northward  wall,  and  stealeth  away 
almost  undiscovered.  The  place  is  for  a  good  depth  hewn 
out  of  the  rock;  confined  above  on  the  north  side  with  a 
steep  wall,  on  the  west  with  high  buildings,  perhaps  a  part 
of  the  castle  of  Antonia,  where  are  two  doors  to  descend 
by,  now  all  that  o-e,  half  choked  with  rubbish  ;  and  on  iht 


612 


JOHN. 


Chap.  6. 


south  with  the  wall  of  the  court  of  the  temple."    (Sandys.) 
— Border. 

Ver.  1 3.  And  he  that  was  healed  wist  not  who  it 
was  :  for  Jesus  had  conveyed  himself  away,  a 
multitude  being  in  that  place. 

Doddridge  translates  the  word  slipped  away,  and  observes 
from  Casaubon,  that  it  is  an  iglegant  metaphor  borrowed 
from  swimming;  it  well  expresses  the  easy  unobserved 
manner  in  which  Jesus  as  it  were  glided,  through  them, 
while,  like  a  stream  of  water,  they  opened  before  him,  and 
immediately  closed  again  leaving  no  trace  of  the  way  he 
had  taken. — Burder. 

Ver.  35.  He  was  a  burning  and  a  shining  light ; 
and  ye  were  willing  for  a  season  to  rejoice  in 
his  light. 

This  character  of  John  the  Baptist  is  perfectly  conform- 
able to  the  mode  of  expression  adopted  by  the  Jews.  It  was 
usual  with  them  to  call  any  person  who  was  celebrated  for 
knowledge,  a  candle.  Thus  they  say  that  Shuah,  the  father- 
in-law  of  Judah,  (Gen.  xxxviii.  2,)  was  the  candle  or  light 
of  the  place  where  he  lived,  because  he  was  one  of  the  mW 
famous  men  in  the  citf  ,  enlightening  their  eyes  ;  hence  they 
call  a  rabbin,  the  candle  of  the  law,  and  the  lamp  of  light. 

— LlGHTFOOT. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  1 .  After  these  things  Jesus  Avent  over  the  sea 
of  Galilee,  which  is  the  sea  of  Tiberias. 

The  present  town  of  Tabareeah,as  it  is  now  called,  is  in 
form  of  an  irregular  crescent,  and  is  enclosed  towards  the 
land  by  a  M'all  flanked  with  circular  towers :  it  lies  nearly 
north  and  south  along  the  western  edge  of  the  lake,  and  has 
its  eastern  front  opposed  to  the  water,  on  the  brink  of  which 
it  stands,  as  some  of  the  houses  there  are  almost  washed  by 
the  sea.  The  whole  does  not  appear  a  mile  in  circuit,  and 
cannot  o.^n  a".n  more  than  six  hundred  separate  dwellings, 
from  the  manner  in  which  they  are  placed.  There  are 
two  gates  visible  from  without;  one  near  the  southern,  and 
the  other  in  the  western  wall,  the  latter  of  which  is  in  one 
of  the  round  towers,  and  is  the  only  one  now  open.  There 
are  appearances  also  of  the  tower  having  been  surrounded 
by  a  ditch,  but  this  is  now  filled  up  by  cultivable  soil.  The 
interior  presents  but  few  objects  of  interest  besides  the  or- 
dinary habitations,  which  are,  in  general,  small  and  mean. 
There  is  a  mosque,  with  a  dome  and  minaret,  now  fre- 
quented ;  and  another  with  an  octangular  tower,  now  in 
ruins.  The  former  of  these  is  not  far  from  the  gate  of  en- 
trance; the  latter  is  nearer  to  the  beach.  There  are  also 
two  synagogues  of  the  Jews  near  the  centre  of  the  town, 
both  of  them  inferior  to  that  of  Jerusalem,  though  similar 
in  design  ;  and  one  Christian  place  of  worship,  called  the 
house  of  Peter,  near  the  northern  quarter,  close  to  the 
water's  edge.  The  last,  which  has  been  thought  by  some 
to  be  the  oldest  place  of  Christian  worship  now  extant  in 
Palestine,  is  a  vaulted  room  about  thirty  feet  by  fifteen,  and 
perhaps  fifteen  in  height;  it  stands  nearly  east  and  west, 
having  its  door  of  entrance  at  the  western  front,  and  its  altar 
immediately  opposite  in  a  shallow  recess.  Over  the  door 
is  one  small  window,  and  on  each  side  four  others,  all  arched 
and  open.  The  masonry  of  the  edifice  is  of  an  ordinary 
kind ;  the  pavement  within  is  similar  to  that  used  for  streets 
in  this  country ;  and  the  whole  is  devoid  of  sculpture  or 
other  ornament,  as  far  as  I  could  perceive.  In  a  court 
without  the  house  of  Peter,  I  observed,  however,  a  block  of 
stone,  on  which  were  the  figures  of  two  goats,  and  two  lions 
or  tigers,  coarsely  executed ;  but  whether  this  ever  belong- 
ed to  the  building  itself,  no  one  could  inform  me.  During 
my  visit  to  this  church,  morning  mass  was  performed  by 
the  abuna,  at  whose  house  we  had  lodged  ;  the  congrega- 
tion consisted  of  only  eleven  persons,  young  and  old ;  and 
the  furniture  and  decorations  of  the  altar  and  the  priest 
were  exceedingly  scanty  and  poor.  This  edifice  is  thought 
by  the  people  here  to  have  been  the  very  house  which  Peter 
inhabited  at  the  time  of  his  being  called  from  his  boat  to 
follow  Christ.  It  was  evidently  constructed,  however,  for 
a  place  of  worship,  and  probably  at  a  period  much  posterior 


to  the  time  of  the  apostle  whose  name  it  bears,  though  it 
might  have  been  erected  on  the  spot  which  tradition  has 
marked  as  the  site  of  his  more  humble  habitation :  from 
hence,  they  say,  too,  it  was,  that  the  boat  pushed  off"  into  the 
lake  when  the  miraculous  draught  of  fishes  was  taken.  Be- 
sides the  public  buildings  already  specified  are  the  house  of 
the  aga,  on  the  rising  ground  near  the  northern  quarter  of  the 
town ;  a  small  but  good  bazar,  and  two  or  three  cotfee  sheds. 
The  ordinary  dwellings  of  the  inhabitants  are  such  as  are 
commonly  seen  in  eastern  villages ;  but  are  marked  by  a 
peculiarity,  which  I  witnessed  here  for  the  first  time.  On 
the  terrace  of  almost  every  house  stands  a  small  square  en- 
closure of  reeds,  loosely  covered  with  leaves  :  these  I  learnt 
were  resorted  to  by  the  heads  of  families  to  sleep  in  during 
the  summer  months,  when  the  heat  of  the  nights  is  intoler- 
able, from  the  low  situation  of  the  town,  and  the  unfre- 
quency  of  cooling  breezes.  The  whole  population  of  Ta- 
bareeah  does  not  exceed  two  thousand  souls,  according  to 
the  opinion  of  the  best-informed  residents.  Provisions  are 
not  abundant,  and  therefore  generally  dear ;  and  fish,  when 
occasionally  taken  by  a  line  from  the  shore,  are  sold  to  the 
aga,  or  to  some  of  the  rich  Jews,  at  an  exorbitant  price. — 
Bdckingham. 

Ver.  1.  After  these  things  Jesus  went  over  the  sea 
of  Galilee,  which  is  the  sea  of  Tiberias.  2.  And 
a  great  multitude  followed  him,  because  they 
saw  his  miracles  which  he  did  on  them  that  were 
diseased.  3.  And  Jesus  went  up  into  a  mount- 
ain, and  there  he  sat  with  his  disciples. 

Tiberias,  one  of  the  principal  cities  of  Galilee,  was 
erected  by  the  tetrarch  Herod  Antipas,  who  gave  it  this 
appellation  in  honour  of  the  Emperor  Tiberius.  It  was  this 
Herod  who  beheaded  John  the  Baptist,  (Matt.  xiv.  3 — 11,^ 
and  who  sought  the  life  of  Christ  himself,  (Luke  xiii.  31.) 
He  probably  resided  in  Tiberias,  which  may  be  the  reason 
why  the  Saviour  never  visited  this  place.  It  was  situated 
near  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  on  a  plain  of  singular  fertility, 
which  was  greatly  increased  by  assiduous  cultivation.  Jose- 
phus  describes  this  region  as  a  perfect  paradise,  blessed  with 
a  delicious  temperature,  and  producing  the  fruits  of  every 
climate  under  heaven,  not  at  stated  periods  merely,  but  in 
endless  succession  throughout  the  year.  The  neglect  of 
agriculture  in  modern  times  has,  of  course,  made  it  less 
productive;  but  the  mildness  of  the  climate,  and  the  rich- 
ness of  the  soil,  are  still  extolled  by  travellers.  When  the 
Romans  made  war  upon  the  Jews,  Tiberias  surrendered 
without  waiting  for  a  siege:  on  this  account  the  Jews  re- 
mained unmolested  ;  and  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
this  city  became  eminent  for  its  academy,  over  which  a  suc- 
cession of  Jewish  doctors  presided  until  the  fourth  century. 
In  the  early  ages  of  Christianity,  Tiberias  was  an  episcopal 
see;  in  the  seventh  century  it  was  taken  by  the  Saracens 
under  the  Calif  Omar;  and  though  it  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  Christians  during  the  crusades,  the  Moham- 
medans regained  the  possession  of  it  towards  the  close  of 
the  fourteenth  century.  Widely  scattered  ruins  of  walls 
and  other  buildings,  as  well  as  fragments  of  columns,  indi- 
cate the  ancient  extent  of  Tiberias.  The  stone  of  these 
ruins  is  described  by  the  Rev.  William  Jowett  as  being 
"  very  black,  so  that  there  is  nothing  about  them  of  the 
splendour  of  antiquity, — nothing  but  an  air  of  mourning 
and  desolation. .  In  this  circumstance  they  differ  so  greatly 
from  the  magnificent  antiquities  of  Egypt  and  Greece,  as 
to  leave  the  most  sombre  impression  on  the  fancy  :  they  are 
perfectly  funereal." 

The  modern  town  of  Tiberias,  which  is  delineated  in 
our  engraving,  is  by  the  natives  called  Tabaria,  or  Taba- 
reeah ;  it  occupies  part  of  the  site  of  the  ancient  city,  and 
is  situated  at  a  short  distance  to  the  east  from  the  Sea  of 
Galilee.  It  is  surrounded  with  walls  and  towers,  which  at 
first  view  are  very  imposing ;  on  a  nearer  approach,  how- 
ever, their  insignificance  is  apparent.  A  few  cannon 
would  put  them  down  in  an  instant,  though  to  an  assault 
from  the  natives  they  would  present,  probably,  a  very  long 
and  effectual  resistance.  One  fourth  of  the  space  within 
the  walls  is  stated  by  Dr.  Richardson  to  be  unoccupied  by 
house  or  building;  and  many  parts  of  the  town  are  in  a 
ruined  and  filthy  condition.  The  population  has  been  com- 
puted at  one  thousand  five  hundred,  or  two  thousand  persons  j 


Chap.  7—10. 


JOHN 


613 


eighty  houses  are  occupied  by  Chiistians,  and  one  hundred 
and  fifty  by  Turks,  but  the  largest  portion  (amounting  to 
two  hundred^  is  tenanted  by  Jews  of  all  nations,  who  come 
here  to  spend  the  rest  of  their  days.  On  the  north  side  of 
the  town,  not  far  from  the  lake,  there  is  a  Greek  church,  the 
architecture  of  which  exhibits  much  of  the  character  of  those 
sacred  edifices  which  were  erected  by  the  Emperess  Helena : 
it  is  said  to  occupy  the  identical  spot  on  which  stood  the 
house  of  the  apostle  Peter,  who,  previously  to  his  becoming  a 
disciple  of  Jesus  Christ,  had  been  a  fisherman  on  the|ake. 

To  the  south  of  Tiberias  lie  the  celebrated  hot  baths,  the 
water  of  which  contains  a  strong  solution  of  muriate  of  soda, 
(common  salt,)  with  a  considerable  intermixture  of  iron 
and  sulphur ;  it  emits  a  powerful  sulphureous  smell.  A 
thermometer  placed  in  difierent  spots  where  the  water 
gushes  out,  rose  to  the  various  heights  of  131,  132,  138, 
and  139  degrees  of  Fahrenheit;  in  the  bath,  where  it  cools 
after  standing  some  time,  its  temperature  was  110.  An  hum- 
ble building  is  erected  over  the  bath,  containing  mean 
apartments,  on  one  side  for  men,  on  the  other  for  women : 
it  is  much  frequented  as  a  cure  for  almost  every  complaint, 
particularly  by  the  Jews,  who  have  a  great  veneration  for 
a  Roman  sepulchre  excavated  in  a  cliff  near  the  spot,  which 
they  imagine  to  be  the  tomb  of  Jacob.  About  a  mile  from 
the  town,  and  exactly  in  front  of  the  lake,  is  a  chain  of 
rocks,  in  which  are  distinctly  seen  cavities  or  grottoes  that 
have  resisted  the  ravages  of  time.  These  are  uniformly 
represented  to  travellers  as  the  places  referred  to  in  the 
gospel  history,  which  were  the  resort  of  miserable  and  fierce 
demoniacs,  upon  one  of  whom  Jesus  Christ  wrought  a 
miraculous  and  instantaneous  cure  :  (Matt.  viii.  28.  Mark 
V.  2,  3.  Luke  viii.  37.) 

The  Sea  of  Galilee,  which  is  seen  in  the  background  of 
our  engraving,  derives  its  name  from  its  situation  on  the 
eastern  borders  of  the  province  of  Galilee  ;  it  was  anciently 
called  the  Sea  of  Chinneretla,  or  Chinneroth,  (Numb,  xxxiv. 
11.  Josh.  xii.  3,)  from  its  vicinity  to  the  town  of  that  name. 
In  1  Mac.  xi.  67,  it  is  called  the  Water  of  Gennesar,  and 
in  Luke  v.  1,  the  Lake  of  Gennesaret,  from  the  neighbour- 
ing land  of  that  name.  Its  most  common  appellation  is  the 
Sea  of  Tiberias,  from  the  contiguous  town  of  Tiberias, 
which  has  been  described  in  the  preceding  paragraphs. 

This  capacious  lake  is  from  twelve  to  fifteen  miles  in 
length,  and  from  six  to  nine  miles  in  breadth ;  along  the 
shore  its  depth  varies,  and  in  some  parts  it  may  be  sixty 
feet.  The  water  is  perfectly  fresh,  and  it  is  used  hy  the  in- 
habitants of  Tiberias  to  drink,  and  for  every  culinary  pur- 
pose. The  waters  of  the  northern  part  of  this  lake  abound 
with  delicious  fish.  It  is  remarkable  that  there  is  not  a 
single  boat  of  any  description  on  the  Sea  of  Tiberias  at 
present,  although  it  is  evident  from  the  gospel  history  that 
it  was  much. navigated  in  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
fish  are  caught  partly  by  the  fishermen  going  into  the  water 
up  to  their  \  aist,  and  throwing  in  a  hand-net,  and  partly 
with  casting-nets  from  the  beach  ;  the  consequence  is,  that 
a  very  small  quantity  only  is  taken  in  comparison  of  what 
might  be  obtained  if  boats  were  employed.  This  accounts 
for  the  circumstance  of  fish  being  so  dear  at  Tiberias,  as  to 
be  sold  at  the  same  price  per  pound  as  meat.  Viewed  from  a 
height,  the  water  looks,  amid  the  surrounding  mountains, 
like  an  immense  reservoir ;  and  from  the  northern  part  be- 
ing covered  with  volcanic  remains,  it  has  been  conjectured 
that  this  lake  was  at  one  period  the  crater  of  a  volcano.  It 
has  been  compared  by  travellers  to  Loch  Lomond,  in  Scot- 
land ;  and,  like  the  Lake  of  Windermere,  in  Westmoreland, 
it  is  often  greatly  agitated  by  winds.  A  strong  current  marks 
the  passage  of  the  Jordan  through  this  lake  ;  and  when  this 
is  opposed  by  contrary  winds,  which  blow  here  with  the 
force  of  a  hurricane  from  the  southeast,  sweeping  into  the 
lake  from  the  mountains,  a  boisterous  sea  is  instantly  raised, 
which  the  small  vessels  of  the  country  (such  as  were  an- 
ciently in  use)  were  ill  qualified  to  resist.  Such  a  tempest  is 
described  in  Matt.  viii.  24 — 26,  which  was  miraculously 
calmed  by  Jesus  Christ  with  a  word.  The  broad  and  ex- 
tended surface  of  this  lake,  "  covering  the  bottom  of  a  pro- 
found valley,  surrounded  by  lofty  and  precipitous  eminences, 
when  added  to  the  impression  under  which  every  Christian 
pilgrim  approaches,  gives  to  it  a  character  of  uiiparalleled 
dignity,"— HoRNE. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  3.    His  brethren,  therefore,  said  unto  him. 


Depart  hence,  and  go  into  Judea,  that  thy  dis- 
ciples also  may  see  the  works  that  thou  doest. 

In  eastern  language  it  is  common  to  apply  the  word 
brother  or  sister  to  those  relations  who  have  no  right  to  it 
in  England.  Thus,  cousins  are  called  "  brothers ;"  i.  e.  the 
sons  of  brothers  are  called  brothers  ;  but  a  daughter,  though 
she  would  be  called  sister  by  her  cousins,  yei  her  children 
would  not  be  addressed  in  the  same  way,  but  "  machdit,'' 
i.  e.  cousin,  would  be  their  proper  title.  The  name  sister, 
which  Abraham  gave  to  his  wife,  is  still  given  to  the  same 
degree  of  relationship.  Gen.  xx.  12.  "  She  is  the  daughter 
of  my  father,  but  not  the  daughter  of  my  mother."— Rob- 
erts. 

Ver.  38.  He  that  believeth  on  me,  as  the  scripture 
hath  said,  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow  rivers  of 
living  water. 

It  is  said  of  divine  sages,  of  great  gooroos,  "  Ah !  in  their 
heads  are  kept  the  rivers  of  life,  or  life-giving  rivers."  The 
figure  in  reference  to  them  is,  I  doubt  not,  taken  from  Siva, 
as  the  Ganges  is  said  to  flow  from  his  head.— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  2.  And  his  disciples  asked  him,  saying.  Mas- 
ter, who  did  sin,  this  man,  or  his  parents,  that 
he  was  born  blind  ? 

The  Hindoos  and  Ceylonese  very  commonly  attribute 
their  misfortunes  to  the  transgressions  of  a  former  state  of 
existence.  I  remember  being  rather  struck  with  the  seri- 
ousness of  a  cripple,  who  attributed  his  condition  to  the  un- 
known fault  of  his  former  life.  His  conjecture  was,  that 
he  had  broken  the  leg  of  a  fowl.  Offerings  are  made  with 
a  view  to  an  honourable  or  happy  birth  at  the  next  trans- 
migration.— Callaway. 

Ver.  7.  And  said  unto  him.  Go,  wash  in  the  pool 
of  Siloam,  (which  is,  by  interpretation,  Sent.) 
He  went  his  way,  therefore,  and  washed,  and 
came  seeing. 

The  following  description  of  the  fountain  of  Siloam  is 
from  the  journal  of  Messrs.  Fisk  and  King,  under  date  of 
April  28, 1823.  (Missionary  Herald,  1824,  p.  66.)  "  Near 
the  southeast  corner  of  the  city,  at  the  foot  of  Zion  and 
Moriah,  is  the  pool  of  Siloah,  (Neh.  3.  15,)  whose  waters 
flow  with  a  gentle  murmur  from  under  the  holy  mountain  of 
Zion,  or  rather  from  under  Ophel,  having  Zion  on  the 
west,  and  Moriah  on  the  north.  The  very  fountain  issues 
from  a  rock,  tAventy  or  thirty  feet  below  the  surface  erf  the 
ground,  to  which  we  descended  by  two  flights  of  steps. 
Here  it  flows  out  without  a  single  murmur,  and  appears 
clear  as  crystal.  From  this  place  it  winds  its  way  several 
rods  under  the  mountain,  then  makes  its  appearance  with 
gentle  gurgling,  and,  forming  a  beautiful  rill,  takes  its  way 
down  into  the  valley,  towards  the  southeast.  We  drank  of 
the  water  both  at  the  fountain  and  from  the  stream,  and 
found  it  soft,  of  a  sweetish  taste,  and  pleasant.  The  foun- 
tain is  called  in  scripture  the  '  pool  of  Siloam.'  It  was  to 
this  that  the  blind  man  went  and  washed,  and  came  seeing." 
— Bush. 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ver.  1.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  He  that  en- 
tereth  not  by  the  door  into  the  sheepfold,  but 
clinibeth  up  some  other  way,  the  same  is  a  thief 
and  a  robber. 

In  summer,  the  flocks  were  enclosed  in  folds,  to  which 
allusion  is  frequently  made  in  the  sacred  volume.  The 
fold  of  Polyphemus,  the  far-famed  Sicilian  shepherd,  was 
a  spacious  "cave,  where  his  cattle,  his  sheep,  and  goats  re- 
posed. In  Persia  the  shepherds  frequently  drive  their  flocks 
into  caverns  at  night,  and  enclose  them  by  heaping  up  walls 
of  loose  stones.  'But  the  more  common  sheepfold  was  an 
enclosure  in  the  manner  of  a  building,  and  constructed  of 
stone  and  hurdles,  or  fenced  with  reeds.  It  had  a  large 
door,  or  entrance,  for  admitting  the  flock,  which  was  closed 


'tH 


JOHN. 


Chap.  U 


with  hurdles ;  and  to  facilitate  the  tithing,  which  was  done 
in  the  fold,  they  struck  out  a  little  door,  so  small,  that  two 
lambs  could  not  escape  together.  To  this  entrance,  which 
is  still  used  in  the  East,  our  Lord  alludes  in  this  declaration : 
"  He  that  entereth  not  by  the  door  into  the  sheepfold,  but 
climbeth  up  some  other  way,  the  same  is  a  thief  and  a  rob- 
ber."— Paxton. 

Ver.  3,  To  him  the  porter  openeth  :  and  the  sheep 
hear  his  voice:  and  he  calleth  his  own  sheep 
by  name,  and  leadeth  them  out.  4.  And  when 
lie  putteth  forth  his  own  sheep,  he  goeth  before 
them,  and  the  sheep  follow  him :  for  they  know 
his  voice.  5.  And  a  stranger  will  they  not 
follow,  but  will  flee  from  him :  for  they  know 
not  the  voice  of  strangers. 

See  on  Is.  40.  11.        ^ 

Having  had  my  atteni,  ^p.  directed  last  night  to  the  words, 
*'  The  sheep  hear  his  vc;*  e,  and  he  calleth  his  own  sheep 
by  name,"  I  asked  my  i  .^  ,a  if  it  was  usual  in  Greece  to 
give  names  to  the  sheep.  ,.^e  informed  me  that  it  was,  and 
that  the  sheep  obeyed  the  snepherd  when  he  called  them  by 
their  names.  This  morning  I  had  an  opportunity  of  veri- 
fying the  truth  of  this  remark.  Passing  by  a  flock  of  sheep. 
Tasked  the  shepherd  the  same  question  which  I  had  put  to 
my  servant,  and  he  gave  .e  the  same  answer.  I  then  bade 
him  to  call  one  of  his  sheep.  He  did  so,  and  it  instantly 
left  its  pasturage  and  its  companions,  and  ran  up  to  the 
hand  of  the  shepherd  with  signs  of  pleasure,  and  with  a 
prompt  obedience.  It  is  also  true  of  the  sheep  in  this  coun- 
try, that  a  stranger  they  will  not  follow,  hut  will  flee  from 
hivi,  for  they  know  not  the  voice  of  strangers.  The  "shepherd 
told  me  that  many  of  his  sheep  were  still  wild  ;  that  they 
had  not  yet  learned  their  names ;  but  that  by  teaching  they 
would  all  learn  them. — Hartley's  JotniNAL  of  a  Tour  in 

&REECE. 

Ver.  5.  And  a  stranger  will  they  not  follow,  but 
will  flee  from  him  :  for  they  know  not  the  voice 
of  strangers. 

The  oriental  shepherd  marches  before  his  flock  to  the 
field,  with  his  rod  in  his  hand  and  his  dog  by  his  side ;  and 
they  are  so  perfectly  disciplined,  that  they  follow  him 
wherever  he  chooses  to  lead  them.  To  facilitate  the  man- 
agement of  his  charge,  he  gives  names  to  his  sheep,  which 
answer  to  them,  as  dogs  and  horses  answer  to  theirs  in 
these  parts  of  the  world.  The  shepherds  of  Egypt  select  a 
ram  to  lead  the  flock,  and  suspend  a  bell  from  his  neck 
that  they  may  follow  him  with  greater  ease  and  certainty. — 
Paxton. 

Ver.  11.  I  am  the  good  shepherd :  the  good  shep- 
herd giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep.  12.  But  he 
that  is  a  hireling,  and  not  the  shepherd,  whose 
own  the  sheep  are  not,  seeth  the  wolf  coming, 
and  leaveth  the  sheep,  and  fleeth:  and  the 
wolf  catcheth  them  and  scattereth  the  sheep. 
13.  The  hireling  fleeth,  because  he  is  a  hire- 
ling, and  careth  not  for  the  sheep. 

Being  wakeful  at  night,  I  occasionlly  heard  noises  from 
the  hills,  which  our  attendants  said  proceeded  from  loolves. 
The  watchful  shepherds  shouted,  and  the  sheep  probably 
escaped.  1  was  forcibly  reminded  of  the  "  good  shepherd  ;" 
were  the  flock  near  our  tent  to  be  forsaken  by  the  shepherd 
for  a  single  night,  it  would  be  scattered  and  devoured.— 
Rev,  R.  Anderson's  Tour  in  Greece. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Ver.  1,  Now  a  certain  man  was  sick,  named 
Lazarus,  of  Bethany,  the  town  of  Mary  and 
her  sister  Martha. 

Bethany  is  a  miserable  village,  containing  between  forty 
and  fifty  wretched  stone  huts,  and  inhabited  solely  by 
Arabs.    It  stands  on  a  rocky  mountain,  well  cultivated, 


and  producing  olive  and  fig-trees,  vines,  beans,  and  ccrn, 
which,  over  the  whole  country,  are  now  ready  for  harvest. 
The  tomb  supposed  to  be  that  of  Lazarus  is  a  cave  in  the 
rock,  to  which  we  descended  by  twenty-six  rude  steps.  At 
the  bottom  of  these,  in  a  small  chamber,  we  saw  a  small 
door  in  the  ground ;  we  descended  by  two  large  steps,  and 
stooping  through  a  low  passage,  about  five  feet  long,  enter- 
ed the  tomb,  which  is  not  hewed  out  of  the  rock,  but  built 
withjarge  stones,  and  arched  :  I  found  it  to  be  seven  feet 
fourinches,  by  eight  feet  two  inches  and  a  half,  and  ten 
feet  high  :  it  is  in  its  original  rude  state,  and  belongs  to  the 
Catholics,  who  say  mass  in  it  occasionally.  In  the  tomb 
are  two  small  windows,  opening  to  lioles'in  the  rock. — 
Turner. 

Ver.  17,  Then  when  Jesus  came,  he  found  that 
he  had  laiii  in  the  grave  four  days  already. 

It  was  customary  among  the  Jews  to  go  to  the  sepulchres 
of  their  deceased  friends,  and  visit  them  for  three  days,  for 
so  long  they  supposed  that  their  spirits  hovered  alDout  them; 
but  when  once  they  perceived  that  their  visage  began  to 
change,  as  it  would  in  three  days  in  these  countries,  all 
hopes  of  a  return  to  life  were  then  at  an  end.  After  a  rev- 
olution of  humours,  which  in  seventy-two  hours  is  com- 
pkted,  the  body  tends  naturally  to  putrefaction  ;  and  there- 
fore Martha  had  reason  to  say,  that  her  brother's  body 
(which  appears  by  the  context  to  have  been  laid  in  the 
sepulchre  the  same  day  that  he  died)  would  now  on  the 
fourth  day  become  offensive.— Stackhouse. 

Ver.  19.  And  many  of  the  Jews  came  to  Martha 
and  Mary,  to  comfort  them  concerning  their 
brother. 

The  general  time  of  mourning  for  deceased  relations, 
both  among  Jews  and  Gentiles,  was  seven  days.  During 
these  days  of  mourning  their  friends  and  neighbours  visit- 
ed them,  in  order  that  by  their  presence  and  conversation 
they  might  assist  them  in  bearing  their  loss.  Many  there- 
fore in  so  populous  a  part  of  the  country  must  haye  been 
going  to  and  coming  from  the  sisters,  while  the  days  of 
their  mourning  for  Lazarus  lasted.  The  concourse  too 
would  be  the  greater  as  it  was  the  time  of  the  passover. 
Besides,  a  vast  multitude  now  attended  Jesus  on  his  jour- 
ney. This  great  miracle  therefore  must  have  had  many 
witnesses. — Macknight, 

Ver.  31.  The  Jews  then  which  were  with  her  in 
the  house,  and  comforted  her,  when  they  saw 
Mary,  that  she  rose  up  hastily,  and  went  out, 
followed  her,  saying.  She  goeth  unto  the  grave 
to  weep  there. 

Authors  that  speak  of  the  eastern  people's  visiting  the 
tombs  of  their  relations,  almost  always  attribute  this  to  the 
women ;  the  men,  however,  sometimes  visit  them  too, 
though  not  so  frequently  as  the  other  sex,  who  are  more 
susceptible  of  the  tender  emotions  of  grief,  and  think  that 
propriety  requires  it  of  them ;  whereas  the  men  commonly 
think  that  such  strong  expressions  of  sorrow  would  misbe- 
come them.  We  find  that  some  male  friends  came  from 
Jerusalem  to  condole  with  Mary  and  Martha  on  account  of 
the  death  of  their  brother  Lazarus,  who,  when  they  suppo- 
sed that  her  rising  up  and  going  out  of  the  house  was  with 
a  view  to  repair  to  his  grave  to  weep,  "  followed  her,  say- 
ing. She  goeth  unto  the  grave  to  weep  there."  It  is  no  won- 
der that  they  thought  her  rising  up  in  haste  was  to  go  to 
the  grave  to  weep,  forChardin  informs  us,  that  the  mourn- 
ing in  the  East  does  not  consist  in  wearing  black  clothes, 
which  they  call  an  infernal  dress,  but  in  great  outcries,  in 
sitting  motionless,  in  being  slightly  dressed  in  a  brown  or 
pale  habit,  in  refusing  to  take  any  nourishment  for  eight 
days  running,  as  if  they  were  determined  to  live  no  longer. 
Her  staring  up  then  with  a  sudden  motion,  who,  it  was 
expected,  would  have  sat  still  without  stirring  at  all,  and 
her  going  out  of  the  house,  made  them  conclude  that  it 
must  be  to  go  to  the  grave  to  weep  there,  though,  according 
to  the  modern  Persian  ceremonial,  it  wanted  five  or  six 
days  of  the  usual  time  for  going  to  weep  at  the  grave :  but 


Chap.  11—19. 


JOHN. 


615 


the  Jews  possibly  might  repair  thither  sooner  than  the 
Persians  do. — Harmer. 

Ver.  38.  Jesus,  therefore,  again  groaning  in  him- 
self, Cometh  to  the  grave.  It  was  a  cave,  and 
a  stone  lay  upon  it.  39.  Jesus  said,  Take  ye 
away  the  stone.  Martha,  the  sister  of  him  that 
was  dead,  said  unto  him.  Lord,  by  this  time  he 
stinketh ;  for  he  hath  been  dead  four  days. 

The  Jewish  tombs,  like  those  of  Macri,  have  entrances, 
which  were  originally  closed  with  a  large  and  broad  stone 
rolled  to  the  door,  which  it  was  not  lawful,  in  the  opinion 
of  a  Jew,  to  displace.  They  were  adorned  with  inscrip- 
tions and  emblematical  devices,  alluding  to  particular 
transactions  in  the  lives  of  the  persons  that  lie  there  en- 
tombed. Thus  the  place  where  the  dust  of  Joshua  reposed, 
was  called  Timnath-heres,  because  the  image  of  the  sun 
was  engraved  on  his  sepulchre,  in  memory  of  his  arresting 
that  luminary  in  his  career,  till  he  had  gained  a  complete 
victory  over  the  confederate  kings.  Such  significant  de- 
vices were  common  in  the  East.  Cicero  says,  the  tomb  of 
Archimedes  was  distinguished  by  the  figure  of  a  sphere 
and  a  cylinder. — Paxton. 

Ver.  44.  And  he  that  was  dead  came  forth,  bound 
hand  and  foot  with  grave-clothes :  and  his  face 
was  bound  about  with  a  napkin.  Jesus  saith 
unto  them,  Loose  him,  and  let  him  go. 

As  the  Jews  did  not  make  use  of  coffins,  they  placed  their 
dead  separately  in  niches,  or  little  cells,  cut  mto  the  sides 
of  the  caves,  or  rooms,  which  they  had  hewed  out  of  the 
rock.  This  form  of  the  Jewish  sepulchre  suggests  an  easy 
solution  of  a  difficulty  in  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus.  The 
sacred  historian  states,  that  when  our  Lord  cried  with  a 
loud  voice,  "  Lazarus,  come  forth,  he  that  was  dead  came 
forth,  bound  hand  and  foot  with  grave-clothes."  Upon  this 
circumstance,  the  enemies  of  revelation  seize  with  avidity, 
and  demand  with  an  air  of  triumph,  How  he  should  come 
out  of  a  grave,  who  was  bound  hand  and  foot  with  grave- 
clothes  ?  But  the  answer  is  easy  :  the  evangelist  does  not 
mean  that  Lazarus  walked  out' of  the  sepulchre,  but  only 
that  he  sat  up,  then  putting  his  legs  over  the  edge  of  his 
niche  or  cell,  slid  down  and  stood  upright  upon  the  floor ; 
all  which  he  might  easily  do,  notwithstanding  his  arms 
were  bound  close  to  his  body,  and  his  legs  were  tied  straight 
together,  by  means  of  the  shroud  and  rollers  with  which  he 
was  swathed.  Hence,  when  he  was  come  forth,  Jesus 
ordered  his  relations  to  loose  him  and  let  him  go ;  a  circum- 
stance plainly  importing  the  historian's  admission  that 
Lazarus  could  not  walk  till  he  was  unbound. — Paxton. 

[This  interpretation,  though  plausible  and  ingenious, 
does  not  well  accord  with  the  letter  of  the  text.  From  this 
it  is  not  easy  to  avoid  the  impression,  that  in  some  way  he 
came  forth  from  the  inner  part  to  the  outer  opening  of  the 
cave,  enveloped  in  his  grave-clothes.  As  to  the  impossi- 
bility of  his  walking  when  thus  impeded,  Ave  may  safely 
admit,  that  if  his  limbs  were  thus  entirely  confined,  he  was 
conveyed  to  the  door  of  the  cave,  by  the  same  Almighty 
power  by  which  he  was  raised  from  the  dead. — Bush.] 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Ver.  18.  I  speak  not  of  you  all;  I  know  whom  I 
have  chosen ;  but,  that  the  scripture  may  be 
fulfilled,  He  that  eateth  bread  with  me  hath  lift 
up  his  heel  against  me. 

See  on  Ps.  41.  9. 

Ver.  38.  Jesus  answered  him,  Wilt  thou  lay  down 
thy  life  for  my  sake  1  Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  thee,  The  cock  shall  not  crow,  till  thou 
hast  denied  me  thrice. 

See  on  Mark  14.  30. 

It  is  very  common  for  people  to  regulate  their  time  in  the 
night  by  the  crowing  of  the  cock :  thus,  "  Idid  not  leave  the 
temple  till  the  Sdma'-Mi,"  i,  e.  midnight  cock.    "  I  left  my 


home  at  the  Vudeya-Mi,"  i.  e.  the  morning  cock.  The 
people  attach  a  high  value  to  those  birds  which  crow  with 
the  greatest  regularity;  and  some  of  them  keep  the  time 
with  astonishing  precision. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
Ver.  5.  And  now,  O  Father,  glorify  thou  me  with 
thine  own  self,  with  the  glory  which  I  had 
with  thee  before  the  world  was. 

Our  Lord  is  undoubtedly  here  praying  to  be  glorified 
with  his  mediatorial  glory.  But  this  was  not  the  glory 
which  he  had  with  the  Father  before  the  world  was,  for 
TprioY  to  the  creation  he  did  not  exist  as  mediator,  and  there- 
fore could  not  enjoy  a  mediator's  glory.  Consequently  the 
phrase,  "which  I  had  with  thee  before  the  world  was," 
probably  means,  "  which  I  had  in  the  divine  purpose,  which 
thou  didst  ordain  and  destine  that  I  should  have  in  the  ages 
to  come."  Bv  a  similar  diction,  Christ  is  termed  "the 
Lamb  slain  from  the  foundat'on  of  the  world."  But  he 
was  not  actually  slain  from  th'  .bundation  of  the  world,  but 
only  in  the  divine  purpose.  o  here,  Christ  prays  to  be 
put  in  possession  of  that  hon^  and  glory  which  the  Father 
from  eternity  had  decreed  s"..  aid  redound  to  him,  in  virtue 
of  his  assuming  the  office  of  Messiah,  and  being  constituted 
Head  and  Lord  of  the  New^  Testament  dispensation.  At 
this  glory  he  looks,  not  with  a  retrospective,  but  with  an 
anticipative  eye, — Bush. 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ver.  3.  Judas  then,  having  received  a  band  of  men 
and  officers  from  the  chief  priests  and  Phari- 
sees, Cometh  thither  with  lanterns,  and  torches, 
and  weapons. 

Norden,  among  other  particulars,  has  given  some  account 
of  the  lamps  and  lanterns  that  they  make  use  of  commonly 
at  Cairo.  "  The  lamp  is  of  the  palm-tree  wood,  of  the 
height  of  twenty-three  inches,  and  made  in  a  very  gross 
manner.  The  glass,  that  hangs  in  the  middle,  is  half  filled 
with  water  and  has  oil  on  the  top,  about  three  fingers  in 
depth.  The  wick  is  preserved  dry  at  the  bottom  of  the 
glass,  where  they  have  contrived  a  place  for  it,  and  ascends 
through  a  pipe.  These  lamps  do  not  give  much  light,  yet 
they  are  very  commodious,  because  they  are  transported 
easily  from  one  place  to  another.  With  regard  to  the  lan- 
terns, they  have  pretty  nearly  the  figure  of  a  cage,  and  are 
made  of  reeds.  It  is  a  collection  of  five  or  six  glasses,  like 
to  that  of  the  lamp  which  has  been  just  described.  They 
suspend  them  by  cords  in  the  middle  of  the  streets,  when 
there  is  any  great  festival  at  Cairo,  and  they  put  painted 
paper  in  the  place  of  the  reeds." 

Were  these  the  lanterns  that  those  who  came  to  take 
Jesus  made  use  of?  or  were  they  such  lamps  as  these  that 
Christ  referred  to  in  the  parable  "of  the  virgins  1  or  are  we 
rather  to  suppose  that  these  lanterns  are  appropriated  to  the 
Egyptian  illuminations,  and  that  Pococke's  account  of  the 
lanterns  of  this  country  will  give  us  a  better  idea  of  those 
that  were  anciently  made  use  of  at  Jerusalem  1  Speaking 
of  the  travelling  of  the  people  of  Egypt,  he  says,  "  by  night 
they  rarely  make  use  of  tents,  but  lie  in  the  open  air,  hav- 
ing large  lanterns  made  like  a  pocket  paper  lantern,  the 
bottom  and  top  being  of  copper  tinned  over,  and  instead  ot 
paper  they  are  made  with  linen,  which  is  extended  by  hoops 
of  wire,  so  that  when  it  is  put  together  it  serves  as  a  candle- 
stick, &c.  and  they  have  a  contrivance  to  hang  it  up  abroad 
by  means  of  three  staves." — Harmer, 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
»Ver.  2.  And  the  soldiers  platted  a  crown  of  thorns, 
and  put  it  on  his  head,  and  they  put  on  him  a 
purple  robe. 

There  still  .exists  a  plant  in  Palestine,  known  among  bot- 
anists by  the  name  of  the  "  Thorn  of  Christ,"  supposed  to 
be  the  shrub  which  aflforded  the  crown  worn  by  the  Saviour 
at  his  crucifixion.  It  has  many  small  sharp  prickles,  well 
adapted  to  give  pain;  and  as  the  leaves  greatly  resemble 
those  of  ivy,  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  enemies  of  Mes- 
siah chose  it,  from  its  similarity  to  a  plant  with  which  em- 


616 


JOHN. 


Chap.  21, 


perors  and  generals  were  accustomed  to  be  crowned ;  and 
rhence,  that  there  might  be  calumny,  insult,  and  derision, 
meditated  in  the  very  act  of  punishment, 

"The  mockery  of  reed  and  robe,  and  crown 

Of  platted  thorns  upon  his  temple  pressed." — Russel. 

Ver.  5.  Then  came  Jesus  forth,  wearing  the  crown 
of  thorns,  and  the  purple  robe.  And  Pilate 
saith  unto  them,  Behold  the  man ! 

On  quitting  the  church  we  proceeded  to  the  Mount  of 
Olives ;  our  road  lay  through  the  Via-dolorosa,  so  called 
from  its  having  been  the  passage  by  which  Christ  was 
conducted  from  the  place  of  his  imprisonment  to  Mount 
Calvary.  The  outer  walls  of  what  was  once  the  residence 
of  Pilate,  are  comprehended  in  this  street.  The  original 
entrance  to  the  palace  is  blocked  up,  and  the  present  access 
is  at  one  of  the  angles  of  the  court.  The  portal  was  for- 
merly in  the  centre,  and  approached  by  a  flight  of  steps, 
which  were  removed  some  centuries  ago  to  Rome,  and  are 
now  in  a  small  chapel  near  the  church  of  San  Giovanni  di 
Laterano.  Very  little  of  this  structure  is  still  extant;  but 
the  Franciscan  monks  imagine  they  have  actually  traced 
out  the  dungeon  in  which  our  Saviour  was  incarcerated, 
as  well  as  the  hall  where  Cesar's  officer  proceeded  to  give 
judgment.  The  place  where  the  Messiah  was  scourged  is 
now  a  ruined  court,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street ;  and 
not  far  from  thence,  but  in  a  direction  nearer  to  Mount 
Calvary,  is  the  arch  which  the  Latin  friars  designate  "  II 
arco  d'ecce  homo,"  from  the  expression  of  Pilate,  as  re- 
corded by  St.  John  xix.  5 ;  upon  an  eminence  between  the 
pillars  which  support  the  curvature,  the  Roman  governor 
exhibited  this  illustrious  victim  to  his  deluded  countrymen. 
Between  this  place  and  the  scene  of  his  crucifixion,  Christ 
is  said  to  have  fainted  under  the  weight  of  the  cross.  Tra- 
dition relates,  that  he  sunk  beneath  its  pressure  three  times ; 
and  the  different  stages  are  supposed  to  have  been  actually 
noted ;  they  are  severally  designated  by  two  columns,  and 
an  indenture  in  the  wall. — Jolliffe. 

Ver.  23.  Then  the  soldiers,  when  they  had  cruci- 
fied Jesus,  took  his  garments,  and  made  four 
parts,  to  every  soldier  a  part,  and  also  his  coat : 
now  the  coat  was  without  seam,  woven  from 
the  top  throughout. 

The  dress  of  the  Arabs,  in  this  part  of  the  Holy  Land, 
and  indeed  throughout  all  Syria,  is  simple  and  uniform  ;  it 
consists  of  a  blue  shirt,  descending  below  the  knees,  the  legs 
and  feet  being  exposed,  or  the  latter  sometimes  covered 
with  the  ancient  cothurnus,  or  buskin.  A  cloak  is  worn  of 
very  coarse  and  heavy  camel's-hair  cloth,  almost  universal- 
ly decorated  with  broad  black  and  Avhite  stripes,  passing 
vertically  down  the  back ;  this  is  of  one  square  piece,  with 
holes  for  the  arms;  it  has  a  seam  down  the  back;  made 
without  this  seam,  it  is  considered  of  greater  value.  Here, 
then,  we  perhaps  behold  the  form  and  materials  of  our  Sa- 
viour's garment,  for  which  the  soldiers  cast  lots,  being 
"  without  seam,  woven  from  the  top  throughout."  It  was  the 
most  ancient  dress  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  country. — 
Clarke. 

Ver.  89.  And  there  came  also  Nicodemus,  (which 
at  the  first  came  to  Jesus  by  night,)  and  brought 
a  mixture  of  myrrh  and  aloes,  about  a  hundred 
pound  weight. 


The  Old  Testament  historian  entirely  justifies  the  account 
which  the  evangelist  gives  of  the  quantity  of  spices  with 
which  the  sacred  body  of  Christ  was  swathed.  The  Jews 
object  to  the  quantity  used  on  that  occasion,  as  unnecessarily 
profuse,  and  even  incredible  ;  but  it  appears  from  their  own 
writings,  that  spices  were  used  at  such  times  in  great  abun- 
dance. In  the  Talmud,  it  is  said,  that  no  less  than  eighty 
pounds  of  spices  were  consumed  at  the  funeral  of  Rabbi 
Gamaliel  the  elder.  And  at  the  funeral  of  Herod,  if  we 
may  believe  the  account  of  their  most  celebrated  historian, 
the  procession  was  followed  by  five  hundred  of  his  domestics 
carrying  spices.  Why  then  should  it  be  reckoned  incredi- 
ble that  Nicodemus  brought  of  myrrh  and  aloes  about  a 
hundred  pounds  weight,  to  embalm  the  body  ol  Jesus  1 — 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Ver.  5.  Then  Jesus  saith  unto  them.  Children, 
have  ye  any  meat  ?     They  answered  him,  No. 

Thus  did  the  risen  Saviour  address  himself  to  his  disci- 
ples. In  this  way,  also,  do  spiritual  guides,  and  men  of 
learning,  and  aged  men,  address  their  disciples  or  depend- 
ants. In  the  Scanda  Purana,  it  is  said,  "  Sooran  asked 
Kasipan  what  he  should  do  1  to  which  he  replied.  Children, 
1  will  mention  one  thing  as  a  security  for  you,  which  is,  to 
perform  glorious  austerity."  Again,  in  the  same  work, 
"  Thus  proceeding,  Singu  Maggam,  who  Avas  to  him  as  his 
own  life,  following  Velly,  took  him  into  his  hall,  and  seat- 
ed him,  and  heartily  welcomed  him  with  good  words,  and 
asked,  Children^  what  are  you  come  for  1" — Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  Therefore  that  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved, 
saith  unto  Peter,  It  is  the  Lord.  Now,  when 
Simon  Peter  heard  that  it  was  the  Lord,  he  girt 
his  fisher's '  coat  unto  him,  (for  he  was  naked,) 
and  did  cast  himself  into  the  sea. 

The  fishermen  in  the  East,  when  engaged  in  their  voca- 
tion, are  generally  naked,  excepting  a  small  strip  of  cloth 
round  their  loins;  so  that,  without  any  inconvenience,  they 
can  cast  themselves  into  the  sea.— Roberts. 

Ver.  18.  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  When 
thou  wast  young,  thou  girdedst  thyself,  and 
walkedst  whither  thou  wouldst:  but  when  thou 
shalt  be  old,  thou  shalt  stretch  forth  thy  hands, 
and  another  shall  gird  thee,  and  carry  thee 
whither  thou  wouldst  not. 

It  was  customary  in  the  ancient  combats  for  the  van- 
quished person  to  stretch  out  his  hands  to  the  conqueror, 
signifying  that  he  declined  the  battle,  yielded  the  victory, 
and  submitted  to  the  direction  of  the  victor.  So,  Turnus 
in  Virgil : 

"  Viclsti  et  victiim  tendere  palmas 

Ausonii  videre."— ^n.  lib,  xii.  1.  936. 

"  You  have  overcome,  and  the  Ausonians  have  seen  thy 
vanquished  foe  stretch  forth  his  suppliant  hands."  To  this 
custom  our  Lord  alludes  in  his  prediction  to  Peter: 
"  When  thou  shalt  be  old,  thou  shalt  stretch  forth  thy 
hands,  and  another  shall  gird  thee."  The  aged  apostle 
was  to  stretch  out  his  hands  as  a  token  of  submission  to 
that  power  under  which  he  would  fall  and  perish.— Pax- 
ton, 


rHE  ACTS  OF   THE  APOSTLES 


CHAPTER  I. 
Ver.  26.  And  they  gave  forth  their  lots :  and  the 
lot  fell  upon  Matthias ;  and  he  was  numbered 
with  the  eleven  apostles. 

The  account  which  Grotius  gives  of  the  manner  in  which 
lots  were  cast,  seems  very  probable  and  satisfactory.  He 
says,  they  put  their  lots  into  two  urns,  one  of  which  con- 
tamed  the  names  of  Joseph  and  Matthias,  and  the  other  a 
blank,  and  the  word  apostle.  In  drawing  these  out  of  the 
urns,  the  blank  came  up  with  the  name  of  Joseph,  and  the 
lot  on  which  was  written  the  word  apostle  came  up  with 
the  name  of  Matthias.  This  being  in  answer  to  their 
prayers,  they  concluded  that  Matthias  was  the  man  whom 
the  Lord  had  chosen  to  the  apostleship, — Burder. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  1.  And,  as  they  spake  unto  the  people,  the 
priests,  and  the  captain  of  the  temple,  and  the 
Sadducees,  came  upon  them. 

There  was  a  garrison  placed  in  the  tower  of  Anlonia, 
for  the  guard  of  the  temple.  This  tower  stood  in  the 
northeast  corner  of  the  wall,  which  parted  the  mountain 
of  the  house  from  the  city.  It  was  built  by  Hyrcanus  the 
Asmonean,  the  high-priest.  There  he  himself  dwelt,  and 
there  he  laid  up  the  holy  garments  of  the  priesthood,  when- 
ever he  put  them  off,  having  finished  the  service  of  the 
temple.  Herod  repaired  this  tower  at  a  great  expense, 
and  named  it  Antonia,  in  honour  of  Antony.  It  was  used 
as  the  depository  of  the  priest's  garments,  till  the  removal 
of  Archelaus  from  his  kingdom,  and  the  confiscation  of 
his  estate.  The  tower  then  came  into  the  hands  of  the  Ro- 
mans, and  was  kept  as  a  garrison  by  them.  The  high- 
priest's  garments  were  then  kept  there  under  their  power, 
till  Vitellius  restored  them  to  the  Jews.  The  captain  here 
spoken  olF  was  the  commander  of  the  company  who  had 
the  keeping  of  the  castle. — Lightpoot. 

Ver.  34.  Neither  was  there  any  among  them  that 
lacked :  for  as  many  as  were  possessors  of  lands 
or  houses,  sold  them,  and  brought  the  prices  of 
the  things  that  were  sold,  35.  And  laid  them 
down  at  the  apostles'  feet :  and  distribution  was 
made  unto  every  man  according  as  he  had  need. 

When  a  person  takes  a  present  or  an  offering  to  a  priest, 
or  a  spiritual  guide,  or  to  a  distinguished  scholar,  he  does 
not  give  it  into  the  hands  of  his  superior,  but  places  it  at 
his  feet.  It  is  called  the  pdtka-kdniki,  i.  e.  the  feet-offer- 
ing. Ananias  and  Sapphira  also  brought  a  part  of  the 
price  of  the  land,  "  and  laid  it  at  the  apostles'  feet." — Rob- 
erts, 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  6.  And  the  young  men  arose,  wound  him  up, 
and  carried  him  out,  and  buried  him. 

The  bier  used  by  the  Turks  at  Aleppo,  says  Russel,  is  a 
kind  of  coffin,  much  in  the  form  of  ours,  only  the  lid  rises 
with  a  ledge  in  the  middle.  Christians,  according  to  the 
same  author,  are  carried  to  the  grave  in  an  open  bier  of 
the  same  kind  as  that  used  by  the  people  of  Nain.  But 
the  Jews  seem  to  have  conveyed  their  dead  bodies  to  their 
funerals  without  any  support,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the 
history  of  Ananias  and  his  wife  Sapphira :  "  And  the 
young  men  arose,  wound  him  iip,  and  carried  him  out  and 
buried  him."  With  equal  despatch  they  carried  forth  Sap- 
78 


phira,  and  buried  her  by  her  husband.    No  hint  is  given 
of  a  bier  in  either  case. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Ver.  40.  But  Philip  was  found  at  Azotus;  and, 
passing  through,  he  preached  in  all  the  cities, 
till  he  came  to  Cesarea, 

The  present  state  of  Azotus  is  thus  described  by  Dr. 
Wittman: — "Pursuing  our  route  through  a  delightful 
country,  we  came  to  Ashdod,  called  by  the  Greeks  Azotus, 
and  under  that  name  mentioned  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles, a  town  of  great  antiquity,  provided  with  two  small 
entrance  gates.  In  passing  through  this  place  we  saw 
several  fragments  of  columns,  capitals,  cornices,  &c.,  of 
marble.  Towards  the  centre  is  a  handsome  mosque,  with 
a  minaret.  By  the  Arab  inhabitants  Ashdod  is  called 
Mezdel.  Two  miles  to  the  south,  on  a  hill,  is  a  ruin, 
having  in  its  centre  a  lofty  column  still  standing  entire. 
The  delightful  verdure  of  the  surrounding  plains,  together 
with  a  great  abundance  of  fine  old  olive-trees,  rendered 
the  scene  charmingly  picturesque.  In  the  villages,  tobac- 
co, fruits,  and  vegetables  are  cultivated  abundantly  by  the 
inhabitants ;  and  the  fertile  and  extensive  plains  yield  an., 
ample  produce  of  corn.  At  this  time  the  wheat  was  just, 
coming  into  ear,  the  harvest  taking  place  so  early  as  towards 
the  latter  end  of  April  or  Ibeginning  of  May  ."-—Burder. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  5.  And  he  said,  Who  art  thou,  Lord  ?  And 
the  Lord  said,  I  am  Jesus  whom  thou  persecu- 
test:  it  is  hard  for  thee  to  kick  against  the 
pricks. 

See  on  Judg.  3,  31. 


Ver.  1 1.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  him.  Arise,  and 
go  into  the  street  which  is  called  Straight,  and 
inquire  in  the  house  of  Judas,  for  one  called 
Saul  of  Tarsus  :  for,  behold,  he  prayeth. 

Tarsus,  the  place  of  Saul's  nativity,  was  at  that  time  the 
most  celebrated  school  in  the  world,  and,  for  polite  litera- 
ture, far  surpassed  Athens  and  Alexandria.  Strabo,  who 
lived  in  that  age,  gives  the  following  account  of  it:  "  The 
inhabitants  of  this  place  cherish  such  a  passion  for  philoso- 
phy, and  all  the  various  branches  of  polite  letters,  that  they 
have  greatly  excelled  Athens  and  Alexandria,  and  every 
other  place  in  which  there  are  schools  and  academies  for 
philosophy  and  erudition.  But  Tarsus  differs  in  this,  that 
those  who  here  devote  themselves  to  the  study  of  literature, 
are  all  natives  of  that  country :  there  are  not  many  from  for- 
eign parts  who  reside  here.  Nor  do  the  natives  of  the  coun- 
try continue  here  for  life,  but  they  go  abroad  to  finish  their 
studies,  and  when  they  have  perfected  themselves  they 
choose  to  live  in  other  places.  There  are  but  few  who 
return  home."  He  also  says,  that  "  Rome  can  best  witness 
the  great  number  of  learned  men,  the  natives  of  this  city ; 
for  it  is  full  of  literati  from  Tarsus  and  Alexandria." — 
Burder. 

Ver.  34.  And  Peter  said  unto  him,  Eneas,  Jesus 
Christ  maketh  thee  whole :  arise,  and  make  thy 
bed.     And  he  arose  immediately. 

Mattresses,  or  something  of  that  kind,  were  used  for 
sleeping  upon.  The  Israelites  formerly  lay  upon  carpets. 
(Amos  ii.  8.)    Russel  says  the  "  beds  consist  of  a  mattress 


618 


THE  ACTS. 


Chap.  9—12, 


laid  on  the  floor,  and  over  this  a  sheet,  (in  winter  a  carpet, 
or  some  such  woollen  covering,)  the  other  sheet  being  sewed 
to  the  quilt.  A  divan  cushion  often  serves  for  a  pillow  and 
bolster."  They  do  not  now  keep  their  beds  made;  the 
mattresses  are  rolled  up,  carried  away,  and  placed  in  cup- 
boards till  they  are  wanted  at  night.  Hence  we  learn  the 
propriety  of  our  Lord's  address  to  the  paralytic,  "  Arise, 
lake  up  thy  bed,  and  walk."— Harmer. 

Ver.  36.  Now  there  was  at  Joppa  a  certain  disci- 
ple named  Tabitha,  which,  by  interpretation,  is 
called  Dorcas :  this  woman  was  full  of  good 
works  and  alms-deeds  which  she  did. 

It  was  common  not  only  among  the  Arabs,  but  also 
among  the  Greeks,  to  give  their  females  the  names  of  agree- 
able animals.  Tabitha  appears  to  have  been  a  word  used 
in  the  Syriac, which  being  interpreted  is  Dorcas ;  that  is,  an 
antelope,  an  animal  remarkable  for  beautiful  eyes.  On 
this  account  it  might  have  been  given  to  the  person  here 
designated  by  it.    (Parkhurst.) — Burder. 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ver.  23.  Then  called  he  them  in,  and  lodged  them. 
And  on  the  morrow  Peter  went   away  with 
them,  and  certain  brethren  from  Joppa  accom- 
panied him. 

The  people  of  the  East  have  a  general  propensity  for  as- 
sociates in  all  their  transactions  and  all  their  journeys.  Has 
a  man  from  a  distant  village  some  business  to  do  with  you, 
he  does  not,  as  an  Englishman  would,  come  alone ;  he  brings 
a  large  company  of  his  neighbours  and  friends.  Go,  ask 
any  of  them,  why  have  you  come  1  the  reply  is,  (pointing  at 
the  same  time  at  the  man  of  business,)  "  I  came  because  he 
did."  It  is  often  surprising  to  see  people  at  a  great  distance 
from  their  homes,  having  no  other  reason  than  "  we  came 
with  him."  See  the  man  going  to  a  court  of  justice,  he  is 
accompanied  by  a  large  band  of  his  acquaintances,  who 
canvass  all  the  probabilities  of  the  case,  and  who  have  a  salvo 
for  every  exigency.  Perhaps  a  love  of  show  is  one  motive ; 
but  the  d&sire  to  have  witnesses  of  what  has  been  said  or 
done,  and  to  have  help  at  hand  in  case  of  any  emergency, 
are  other  reasons  for  their  love  of  company.  The  Oriental 
is  like  the  granivorous  animals  of  his  native  deserts,  who 
are  all,  more  or  less,  gregarious  in  their  habits ;  and,  as  it 
is,  so  it  was  in  the  most  "remote  antiquity.  The  Psalmist 
says  of  those  who  were  travelling  to  the  temple  at  Jerusa- 
lem, "  they  go  from  strength  to  strength ;"  but  the  margin 
has  it,  "  from  company  to  company."  Thus  did  they 
stretch  on,  from  one  party  to  another,  till  they  each  appear- 
ed before  God  in  his  earthly  "  Zion."  In  the  conduct,  there- 
fore, of  Peter  and  his  six  companions,  in  the  arrangement 
of  our  Divine  Master  in  sending  forth  his  disciples  "  by  two 
and  two,"  and  in  very  numerous  passages  of  scripture,  we 
see  the  simplicity,  caution,  and  affection  of  those  concerned. 
— Roberts. 

Ver.  25.  And,  as  Peter  was  coming  in,  Cornelius 
met  him,  and  fell  down  at  his  feet,  and  worship- 
ped him.  26.  But  Peter  took  him  up,  saying. 
Stand  up ;  I  myself  also  am  a  man. 

Mr.  Harmer  contends,  that  Cornelius  the  centurion,  when 
he  fell  down  at  the  feet  of  the  apostle  Peter  and  worshipped 
him,  did  not  intend  to  pay  him  divine  honours,  but  merely 
to  salute  him  with  a  reverence  es'teemed  the  lowest  and 
most  submissive  in  the  ceremonious  East.  He  allows  there 
was  something  extraordinary  in  the  behaviour  of  Cornelius, 
but  no  mixture  of  idolatry,  *But  it  is  to  be  feared  the  verdict 
which  this  respectable  writer  pronounces  for  the  excellent 
Roman,  is  too  favourable.  The  apostles  did  not  at  other 
times  refuse  the  eommon  tokens  of  respect  and  civility 
from  those  around  them ;  and  if  the  act  of  Cornelius  meant 
no  more,  the  refusal  cannot  be  accounted  for,  upon  the  com- 
mon principles  of  human  nature.  But  the  words  of  the 
evangelist  ought  to  decide  the  question  ;  he  says  expressly 
that  Cornelius  worshipped  him ;  Tpo(T€Kvvr)(Tcv ^  the  term  which 
Luke  and  other  inspired  writers  commonly  use  to  express 
the  homage  which  is  due  only  to  the  Supreme  Being.   This 


term,  it  is  admitted,  is  often  employed  by  writers,  both  sa- 
cred and  profane,  to  denote  merely  civil  respect ;  but  it  can- 
not with  propriety  be  so  understood  here,  because  the  reason 
which  the  apostle  assigned  for  his  refusal,  derives  all  its 
propriety  and  force  from  religious  worship :  "  Stand  up  ;  I 
myself  also  am  a  man."  But  surely  it  is  not  inconsistent 
with  the  character  of  a  man  to  receive  an  extraordinary 
token  of  respect  from  another.  Mr.  Harmer  thinks  the 
conduct  of  the  apostle  John,  in  throwing  himself  at  the  feet 
of  the  angel,  is  to  be  viewed  m  a  somewhat  different  light. 
"  John  did  nothing  at  all,"  says  our  author,  "  but  what  was 
conformable  to  the  usages  of  his  own  country,  when  the 
people  of  it  designed  innocently  to  express  great  reverence 
and  gratitude,"  But  if  the  apostle  meant  only  to  express, 
by  his  prostration,  the  ordinary  feelings  of  civil  respect, 
why  did  the  angel  refuse  it ;  and  that  because  he  was  one 
of  his  fellow-servants  1  That  it  was  actually  more  than 
civil  respect — that  it  was  really  divine  honours  which  John 
meant  in  the  tumult  of  his  feelings,  or  from  a  mistaken 
view  of  the  angel's  character,  to  pay,  is  quite  evident  from 
the  charge  which  the  celestial  messenger  gave  him,  to  ren- 
der unto  God  the  homage  which  he  intended  at  this  time 
for  him.  But  surely  God  is  not  the  proper  object  of  civil 
respect,  but  of  religious  adoration;  and  therefore,  it  must 
have  been  the  latter  which  John  intended.  Though  he  was 
a  Jew  by  descent,  an  enemy  to  all  idolatry,  and  a  zealous 
preacher  against  it,  still  he  was  but  a  man  of  like  passions 
with  others  ;  and  although  under  the  supernatural  influence 
of  the  Divine  Spirit  as  an  apostle,  he  was  not  infallible  as 
a  Christian,  and  by  consequence  he  was  liable,  highly  fa- 
voured as  he  certainly  was,  to  deviate  from  the  path  of  duty ; 
and  had  be  not  at  this  time  done  a  very  improper  thing,  the 
angel  had  not  reproved  him,  nor  used  terms  so  expressive 
of  his  abhorrence  :  "  See  thou  do  it  not ;  for  I  am  thy  fellow- 
servant,  and  of  thy  brethren  the  prophets,  and  of  them  which 
keep  the  sayings  of  this  book ;  worship  God,"  That  his 
conduct  on  this  memorable  occasion  had  at  least  a  mixture 
of  idolatry,  is  evident  from  the  command  he  receives,  to 
reserve  such  homage  for  God  al(Mie,  to  whom  it  is  due. — 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  Xlt. 
Ver.  10,  When  they  were  past  the  first  and  the 
second  ward,  they  came  unto  the  iron  gate  that 
leadeth  unto  the  city;  which  opened  to  them 
of  his  own  accord :  and  they  went  out,  and 
passed  on  through  one  street ;  and  forthwith  the 
angel  departed  from  him. 

One  method  of  securing  the  gates  of  fortified  placesi 
among  the  ancients,  was  to  cover  them  with  thick  plates  of 
iron ;  a  custom  which  is  still  used  in  the  East,  and  seems  to 
be  of  great  antiquity.  We  learn  from  Pitts  that  Algiers 
has  five  gates,  and  some  of  these  have  two,  some  three 
other  gates  within  them,  and  some  of  them  plated  all  over 
with  thick  iron.  The  place  where  the  apostle  M-as  impris- 
oned, seems  to  have  been  secured  in  the  same  manner;  for, 
says  the  inspired  historian,  "  When  they  were  past  the  first 
arid  second  ward,  they  came  unto  the  iron  gate  that  leadeth 
into  the  city,  which  opened  to  them  of  its  own  accord." 
Pococke,  speaking  of  a  bridge  not  far  from  Antioch,  called 
the  iron  bridge,  savs,  there  are  two  towers  belonging  to  it, 
the  gates  of  which  are  covered  with  iron  plates,  which  he 
supposes  is  the  reason  of  the  name  it  bears.  Some  of  their 
gates  are  plated  over  with  brass;  such  are  the  enormous 
gates  of  the  principal  mosque  at  Damascus,  formerly  the 
church  of  John  the  Baptist.  To  gates  like  these,  the 
Psalmist  probably  refers  in  these  words :  "  He  hath  broken 
the  gates  of  brass ;"  and  the  prophet,  ih  that  remarkable 
passage,  where  God  promises  to  go  before  Cyrus  his  anoint- 
ed, and  "break  in  pieces  the  gates  of  brass,  and  cut  in  sun- 
der the  bars  of  iron," 

But  the  locks  and  keys  which  secure  these  iron  and  bra- 
zen doors,  by  a  singular-  custom,  the  very  reverse  of  what 
prevails  in  the  West,  are  of  wood.  The  bolts  of  these 
wooden  locks,  which  are  also  of  wood,  are  made  hollow 
within,  which  they  unlock  with  wooden  keys,  about  a  span 
long,  and  about  the  thickness  of  a  thumb.  Into  this  key 
they  drive  a  number  of  short  nails,  or  strong  wires,  in  such 
an  order  and  distance,  that  they  exactly  fit  others  within  the 
lock,  anJ  so  turn  them  as  they  please.    The  locks  and 


Chap.  12—14. 


THE   ACTS. 


619 


keys  which  shut  the  doors  and  gates  in  countries  adjacent 
to  Syria,  are  fabricated  of  the  same  materials,  and  in  the 
same  form.  But  those  cities  which  were  fortified  with 
more  than  ordinary  care,  had  sometimes  bars  of  brass,  or 
ircwi.  In  describing  the  superior  and  almost  impregnable 
strength  of  Babylon,  which  Cyrus  was  chosen  by  the  Al- 
mighty to  subdue,  the  prophet  particularly  mentions  the 
gates  of  brass  and  bars  of  iron.  According  to  this  view,  the 
emphasis  of  the  following  passage  is  much  greater  perhaps 
than  is  commonly  apprehended :  "  A  brother  offended  is 
harder  to  be  won  than  a  strong  city,  and  their  contentions 
are  like  the  bars  of  a  castle,"  that  are  extremely  difficult  to 
be  removed,  both  on  account  of  their  size,  and  of  the  strong 
and  durable  materials  of  which  they  are  made. — Paxton. 

Ver.  21.  And  upon  a  set  da^r,  Herod,  arrayed  in 
royal  apparel,  sat  upon  his  throne,  and  made 
an  oration  unto  them. 

Josephus  gives  the  following  account  of  this  matter,  but 
omitting  to  make  any  mention  of  the  TyriansandSidonians 
on  the  occasion:  "  In  the  third  year  of  Herod's  being  king 
of  all  Judea,  he  exhibited  shows  to  the  people  in  honour  of 
the  emperor ;  and  he  appeared  in  the  theatre  at  Cesarea, 
dressed  in  a  robe  made  all  of  silver  tissue,  of  admirable 
workmanship.  As  the  sun  was  then  rising,  the  rays  of  it 
coming  on  his  robe,  made  it  shine  so  bright,  that  the  people 
cried  out.  Forgive  us,  if  we  have  hitherto  reverenced  you 
only  as  a  man,  bnt  from  this  time  we  shall  acknowledge 
you  to  be  something  superior  to  what  is  mortal.  The  king 
did  not  reprove  them,  nor  reject  this  blasphemous  flattery ; 
and,  before  he  went  out  of  the  theatre,  he  was  seized  with 
pains  in  his  bowels,  so  as  to  cry  out,  I,  whom  you  called 
your  god,  am  now  going  to  die !  From  thence  he  was  car- 
ried to  his  palace  immediately,  and  in  the  space  of  five  days 
he  died  of  those  pains  which  he  first  felt  in  the  theatre,  in 
the  fifty-fourth  year  of  his  age,  after  he  had  reigned  four 
years  over  Iturea  and  Abilene,  and  three  more  over  all 
Judea."  "  The  king  generally  appoints  for  the  reception  of 
ambassadors  such  an  hour  as,  according  to  the  season,  or 
the  intended  room  of  audience,  will  best  enable  him  to  dis- 
play in  full  sunshine  the  brilliancy  of  his  jewels.  The  title 
of  bright,  or  resplendent,  was  added  to  the  name  of  one 
sovereign,  because  his  regal  ornaments,  glittering  in  the 
sun's  rays  on  a  solemn  festival,  so  dazzled  the  eyes  of  all 
beholders,  that  they  scarcely  could  bear  the  effulgence : 
and  some  knew  not  which  was  the  monarch,  and  which  the 
great  luminary  of  day.  Thus  Theophylact  relates,  that  the 
Persian  king  Hormisdas,  sitting  on  his  throne,  astonish- 
ed all  spectators  by  the  blazing  glories  of  his  jewels.  Jem- 
shid,  having  triumphed  over  the  blacks,  and  the  dives  or 
demons,  caused  immense  quantities  of  jewels,  obtained  as 
spoils  from  the  enemy,  to  be  piled  upon  his  throve,  so  that 
all  might  behold  them ;  as  the  sun  shone  through  the  win- 
dows on  those  jewels  and  the  gold,  his  whole  palace  was  il- 
luminated by  their  reflected  brilliancy.  He  caused  his 
throne  to  be  placed  in  such  a  manner,  facing  the  east,  that 
when  the  rising  sun  beamed  on  his  splendid  crown,  the 
multitude  exclaimed.  This  is  the  dawn  of  a  new  day."  (Sir 
W.  Ouseley.)— BuRDER. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  14.  But,  when  they  departed  from  Perga, 
they  came  to  Antioch  in  Pisidia,  and  went  into 
the  synagogue  on  the  Sabbath-day,  and  sat  down. 

If  we  had  not  seen  the  aqueduct,  the  quantity  of  immense 
squared  blocks  of  stone  and  sculptured  fragments,  which 
we  saw  all  the  way  to  the  khan,  would  have  convinced  us 
at  once  that  we  were  on  the  site  of  a  great  city.  We  felt 
convinced  that  we  had  attained  the  great  object  of  our 
journey,  and  were  really  on  the  spot  consecrated  by  the 
labours  and  persecution  of  the  apostles  Paul  and  Barnabas. 
Leaving  the  town,  and  going  on  the  north  side  of  it,  in  the 
direction  of  the  aqueduct,  we  were  soon  upon  an  elevated 
plateau,  accurately  described  by  Strabo  by  the  name  of 
'yo(pog.  The  quantity  of  ancient  pottery,  independently  of 
the  ruins,  told  us  at  once  that  we  were  upon  the  emplace- 
ment of  the  city  of  Antioch.  The  superb  members  of  a 
temple,  which,  from  the  thijrsus  on  many  of  them,  evidently 
belonged  to  Bacchus,  was  the  first  thing  we  saw.    Passing 


on,  a  long  and  immense  building,  constructed  with  prodi 
gious  stones,  and  standing  easi  and  west,  made  me  entertain 
a  hope  that  it  might  be  a  church — a  church  of  Antioch  1 
It  was  so;  the  ground-plan,  with  the  circular  end  for  the 
bema,  all  remaining!  Willingly  would  I  have  remained 
hours  in  the  midst  of  a  temple — ^perhaps  one  of  the  very 
earliest  consecrated  to  the  Saviour ;  but  we  were  obliged  to 
hasten  on. 

The  next  thing  that  attracted  our  notice  were  two  large 
magnificent  arches,  a  souterrain  running  far  beneath  the 
hill,  and  supporting  the  platform  of  a  superb  temple.  A 
high  wall  of  immense  stones,  without  cement,  next  occurred, 
part  probably  of  the  gale  of  the  city,  and  near  it  the  ground- 
plan  of  another  building.  From  hence  ran  a  wall,  at  least 
its  ruins,  along  towards  the  aqueduct,  crowning  the  brow  of 
the  hill,  and  abruptly  terminating  where  the  hill  became  so 
precipitous  as  to  require  no  defence.  The  remains  of  the 
aqueduct,  of  which  twenty-one  arches  are  perfect,  are  the 
most  splendid  I  ever  beheld:  the  stones,  without  cement,  of 
the  same  massy  dimensions  as  in  the  wall.  The  view, 
when  near  the  aqueduct,  Avas  enchanting,  and  well  entitled 
Antioch  to  its  rank  of  capital  of  the  province  of  Pisidia. 
Inthe  valley  on  the  left,  groves  of  poplars  and  weeping  wil- 
lows seemed  to  sing  the  song  of  the  Psalmist,  "  We  hanged 
our  harps  upon  the  willows,"  &c.  mourning,  as  at  Babylon, 
for  the  melancholy  fate  of  this  once  great  Christian  city. 
Not  a  Christian  now  resides  in  it,  except  a  single  Greek  in 
the  khan.  IT'ot  a  church,  nor  any  priest  to  officiate,  where 
Paul  and  Barnabas,  and  their  successprs,  converted  the 
thousands  of  idolaters  to  the  true  faith  ! 

Behind  the  valley  in  the  east  rises  a  rugged  mountain, 
part  of  the  Paroreia  ;  and  in  front  of  the  place  where  I  sat 
is  the  emplacement  of  the  city,  where  once  stood  the  syna- 
gogue, and  the  mansions  that  hospitably  received  the  apos- 
tles, and  those  of  their  persecutors  who  drove  them  frona 
the  city — all  now  levelled  to  the  ground  !  Behind  the  city, 
in  the  "middle  distance,  is  seen  the  modern  city  or  town  oi 
Yalabatz,  the  houses  intermixed  with  poplars  and  other 
trees,  in  autumnal  colouring,  and  so  numerous  as  to  resem- 
ble a  grove  rather  than  a  city.  Beyond  is  a  plain,  bounded 
by  the  heights  of  Taurus,  under  which  appeared  a  lake, 
probably  of  Eyerdir.  On  the  right,  in  the  middle  distance 
also,  the  plain  bounded  by  mountains,  and  these  overtopped 
by  the  rugged  Alpine  peaks  of  Mount  Taurus,  covered  with 
show.  In  the  foreground,  the  aqueduct.»with  the  plains  and 
groves  of  Yalabatz  appearing  through  its  arches.  Behind 
us  rose  an  amphitheatre  of  round  low  hills,  backed  by 
mountains,  naked  and  lofty.  Reserving  a  fuller  examina- 
tion for  the  morrow,  we  returned  to  our  khan, seeing  incur 
way  an  inscription  on  a  fountain,  which  with  the  others  we 
shall  notice  hereafter. — Arundell. 

Ver.  15.  And  after  the  reading  of  the  Jaw  and  the 
prophets,  the  rulers  of  the  synagogue  sent  unto 
them,  saying.  Ye  men  and  brethren,  if  ye  have 
any  word  of  exhortation  for  the  people,  say  on. 

The  custom  of  reading  the  law,  the  Jcm^s  say,  existed  a 
hundred  and  seventy  years  before  the  time  of  Christ.  The 
division  of  it  into  sections  is  ascribed  to  Ezra.  The 
five  books  of  Moses,  here  called  the  law,  contained  fifty- 
three  sections,  so  that  by  reading  one  on  each  sabbath,  and 
two  in  one  day,  they  read  through  the  whole  in  the  course 
of  a  year,  finishing  at  the  feast  of  tabernacles,  which  they 
called  "the  rejoicing  of  the  law."  When  AntiochusEpiph- 
anes  burnt  the  book  of  the  law,  and  forbid  the  reading 
of  it,  the  Jews  in  the  room  of  it  selected  some  passages  out 
of  the  prophets,  which  they  thought  came  nearest  in  words 
and  sense  to  the  sections  of  the  law,  and  read  them  in  their 
stead ;  but  when  the  law  was  restored  again,  they  still  con- 
tinued the  reading  of  the  prophetic  sections ;  and  the  section 
for  the  day  was  called  the  dismission,  because  usually  the 
people  were  dismissed  upon  it,  unless  any  one  stood  up  and 
expounded  the  word  of  God  to  them.  This  is  the  reason  of 
the  message  sent  to  the  apostles,  "  Ye  men  and  brethren,  if 
ye  have  any  word  of  exhortation  for  the  people,  say  on." — 
Gill. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Ver.  13.  Then  the  priest  of  Jupiter,  which  was 
before  their  city,  brought  oxen  and  garlands 


THE   ACTS. 


Chap.  14—18. 


unto  the  gates,  and  would  have  done  sacrifice 
with  the  people. 

When  the  gods  are  taken  out  in  procession,  their  necks 
are  adorned  with  garlands ;  the  priests  also  wear  them  at 
the  same  time.  On  all  festive  occasions  men  and  women 
have  on  their  sweet-scented  garlands,  and  the  smell  of  some 
of  them  is  so  strong  as  to  be  oiFensive  to  an  Englishman. 
Does  a  man  of  rank  offer  to  adorn  you  with  a  garland,  it 
is  a  sign  of  his  respect,  and  must  not  be  refused.  In  the 
latter  part  of  1832  I  visited  the  celebrated  pagoda  of  Rami- 
seram,  (the  temple  of  Ramar :)  so  soon  as  I  arrived  within 
a  short  distance  of  the  gates,  a  number  of  dancing  girls, 

griests,  and  others,  came  to  meet  us  with  garlands  s  they 
rst  did  me  the  honour  of  putting  one  around  my  neck, 
and  then  presented  others  for  Mrs.  Roberts  and  the  chil- 
dren.— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  11.  Therefore,  loosing  from  Troas,  we  came 
with  a  straight  course  to  Samothracia,  and  the 
next  day  to  Neapolis. 

The  view  of  the  ancient  Sichem,  now  called  Napolose, 
otherwise -Neapolis,  and  Napoleos,  surprised  us,  as  we  had 
not  expected  to  find  a  city  of  such  magnitude  in  the  road  to 
Jerusalem.  It  seems  to  be  the  metropolis  of  a  ^ery  rich  and 
extensive  country,  abounding  with  provisions,  and  all  the 
necessary  articles  of  life,  in  much  greater  profusion  than 
the  town  of  Acre.  White  bread  was  exposed  for  sale  in  the 
streets,  of  a  quality  superior  to  any  that  is  to  be  found  else- 
where throughout  the  Levant.  The  governor  of  Napolose 
received  and  regaled  us  with  all  the  magnificence  of  an 
eastern  sovereign ;  refreshments  of  every  kind  known  in 
the  country,  were  set  before  us :  and,  when  we  supposed  the 
list  to  be  exhausted,  to  our  very  great  astonishment  a  most 
sumptuous  dinner  was  brought  in.  Nothing  seemed  to  gratify 
our  host  more,  than  that  any  of  his  guests  should  eat  hearti- 
ly; and,  to  do  him  justice,  every  individual  of  the  party 
ought  to  have  possessed  the  appetite  of  ten  hungry  pilgrims, 
to  satisfy  his  wishes  in  this  respect. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  Holy  Land  finer  than  a  view  of 
Napolose,  from  the  heights  around  it.  As  the  traveller 
descends  towards  it  from  the  hills,  it  appears  luxuriantly 
imbosomed  in  the  most  delightful  and  fragrant  bowers;  half 
concealed  by  rich  gardens,  and  by  stately  trees  collected  into 
groves,  all  around  the  bold  and  beautiful  valley  in  which  it 
stands.  Trade  seems  to  flourish  among  its  inhabitants. 
Their  principal  employment  is  in  making  soap ;  but  the 
manufactures  of  the  town  supply  a  very  widely  extended 
neighbourhood,  and  they  are  exported  to  a  great  distance 
upon  camels.  In  the  morning  after  our  arrival,  we  met 
caravans  coming  from  Grand  Cairo ;  and  noticed  others 
reposing  in  the  large  olive  plantations  near  the  gates. — 
Clarke. 

Ver.  13,  And  on  the  Sabbath  we  went  out  of  the 
city  by  a  river  side,  where  prayer  was  wont  to 
be  made ;  and  we  sat  down,  and  spake  unto  the 
women  which  resorted  thither. 

The  Jewish  proseuchas  were  places  of  prayer,  in  some 
circumstances  similar  to,  in  others  different  from,  their 
synagogues ;  the  latter  were  generally  in  cities,  and  were 
covered  places ;  whereas  for  the  most  part  the  proseuchae 
were  out  of  the  cities,  on  the  banks  of  rivers,  having  no  cov- 
ering, except,  perhaps,  the  shade  of  some  trees,  or  covered 
galleries.  Their  vicinity  to  water  was  for  the  convenience 
of  those  frequent  washings  and  ablutions  which  were  in- 
troduced among  them. — Border, 

Ver.  22.  And  the  multitude  rose  up  together 
against  them ;  and  the  magistrates  rent  off  their 
clothes,  and  commanded  to  beat  them. 

It  was  usual  for  the  Roman  magistrates  to  command  the 
lictors  to  rend  open  the  clothes  of  the  criminal,  that  he  might 
the  more  easily  be  beaten  with  rods.  No  care  was  taken  of 
the  garments  on  these  occasions :  but  they  were  suddenly 
and  with  violence  rent  open.  Thus  were  Paul  and  Silas 
treated  in  this  instance. — Border. 


Ver.  24.  Who,  having  received  such  a  charge, 
thrust  them  into  the  inner  prison,  and  made 
their  feet  fast  in  the  stocks. 

It  is  generally  supposed  that  these  stocks  were  the  cippi, 
or  large  pieces  of  wood  used  among  the  Romans,  which 
itot  only  loaded  the  legs  of  prisoners,  but  sometimes  dis- 
tended them  in  a  very  painful  manner ;  so  that  it  is  highly 
probable  the  situation  of  Paul  and  Silas  here  might  be 
made  more  painful  than  that  of  an  oftender  sitting  in  the 
stocks,  as  used  among  us,  especially  if  (as  is  very  possible) 
they  lay  with  their  bare  backs,  so  lately  scourged,  on  the 
hard  or  dirty  ground  ;  which  renders  their  joyful  frame, 
expressed  by  songs  of  praise,  so  much  the  more  remark- 
able. Beza  explains  it  of  the  numellae,  in  which  both  the 
feet  and  the  neck  were  fastened,  in  the  most  uneasy  posture 
that  can  well  be  imagined. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XVm, 
Ver.  3.  And  because  he  was  of  the  same  craft,  he 
abode  with  them,  and  wrought :  (for  by  their 
occupation  they  were  tent-makers.) 

It  was  a  received  custom  among  the  Jews  for  every  man, 
of  what  rank  or  quality  soever,  to  learn  some  trade  or  han- 
dicraft ;  one  of  their  proverbial  expressions  is,  that  who- 
ever teaches  not  his  son  a  trade,  teaches  him  to  be  a  thief. 
In  those  hot  countries,  where  tents  (which  were  commonly 
made  of  skins,  or  leather  sewed  together,  to  keep  out  the 
violence  of  the  weather)  were  used  not  only  by  soldiers, 
but  by  travellers,  and  others  whose  business  required  them 
to  be  abroad,  a  tent-maker  was  no  mean  or  unprofitable 
employment.  This  custom,  so  generally  practised  by  the 
Jews,  was  adopted  also  by  other  nations  in  the  East.  Sir 
Paul  Rycaut  observes,  that  the  grand  seignior,  to  whom  he 
was  ambassador,  was  taught  to  make  wooden  spoons.  The 
intention  of  this  usage  was  not  merely  amusement,  but  to 
furnish  the  person  so  instructed  with  some  method  of  ob- 
taining their  living,  should  they  ever  be  reduced  to  want  and 
poverty. — Burder. 

Ver.  6.  And  when  they  opposed  themselves,  and 
blasphemed,  he  shook  his  raiment,  and  said 
unto  them,  Your  blood  he  upon  your  own 
heads  :  I  am  clean :  from  henceforth  I  will  go 
unto  the  Gentiles, 

"  The  shaking  of  his  coat,  a  very  common  act  in  Tur- 
key, is,  no  doubt,  an  act  of  the  same  kind  and  import  as 
that  of  St.  Paul,  who,  when  the  Jews  opposed  themselves 
and  blasphemed,  shook  his  raiment."  (Morier.)  "  Our 
Tchochodar  Ibrahim,  at  sight  of  "this  people,  immediately 
grasped  his  carbine,  and  shaking  the  hem  of  his  pelisse, 
made  signs  to  us  to  be  upon  our  guard."  (Clarke.)  This 
is  a  sign  of  caution  universal  among  the  Turks. — Burder. 

Ver.  19.  And  he  came  to  Ephesus,  and  left  them 
there:  but  he  himself  entered  into  the  sjma- 
gogue,  and  reasoned  with  the  Jews. 

Ephesus  was  a  celebrated  city  on  the  western  coast  of 
Asia  Minor,  situated  between  Smyrna  and  Miletus,  on  the 
sides  and  at  the  foot  of  a  range  of  mountains  which  over- 
looked a  fine  plain,  watered  and  fertilized  by  the  river  Cays- 
ter.  Among  other  splendid  edifices  which  adorned  this 
metropolis  of  Ionia  was  the  magnificent  temple  of  Diana, 
which  was  two  hundred  and  twenty  years  in  building,  and 
was  reckoned  one  of  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world.  This 
edifice  having  been  burnt  by  the  incendiary  Herostratus, 
B.  C.  356,  in  the  foolish  hope  of  immortalizing  his  name,  it 
was  afterward  rebuilt  with  increased  splendour  at  the  com- 
mon expense  of  the  Grecian  states  of  Asia  Minor.  The 
remains  of  ancient  Ephesus  have  been  discovered  by  learn- 
ed modern  travellers  at  the  Turkish  village  of  Ayasaluk. 
The  ruins  delineated  in  our  engraving  comprise  ail  that  is 
supposed  now  to  exist  of  this  far-famed  structure,  which  in 
the  time  of  St.  Paul  had  lost  nothing  of  its  magnificence. 
Here  was  preserved  a  wooden  statue  of  Diana,  Avhich  the 
credulous  Ephesians  were  taught  to  believe  had  fallen  from 
heaven,  (Acts  xix.  35,)  and  of  this  temple  small  silver  mod- 


Chap.  19,20. 


THE  ACTS. 


621 


els  were  made,  and  sold  to  devotees.  (Acts.  xix.  24.)  Nero 
is  said  to  have  plundered  this  temple  of  many  votive  images 
and  great  sums  of  gold  and  silver.  This  edifice  appears 
to  have  remained  entire  in  the  second  century ;  though  the 
worship  of  Diana  diminished  and  sunk  into  insignificance, 
in  proportion  to  the  extension  of  Christianity.  At  a  later 
period  "  the  temple  of  the  great  goddess  Diana,  whom  Asia 
and  all  the  world"  worshipped,  (Acts  xix.  27,)  was  again 
destroyed  by  the  Goths  and  other  barbarians  ;  and  time  has 
so  completed  the  havoc  made  by  the  hand  of  man,  that  this 
mighty  fabric  has  almost  entirely  disappeared. 

During  three  years'  residence  in  this  city,  (Acts  xx.  31,) 
the  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  was  enabled,  with  divine 
assistance,  to  establish  the  faith  of  Christ,  and  to  found  a 
flourishing  Christian  church.  Of  his  great  care  of  the 
Ephesian  community  strong  proof  is  extant  in  the  aflfect- 
ing  charge  which  he  gave  to  the  elders,  whom  he  had  con- 
vened at  Miletus  on  his  return  from  Macedonia,  (Acts  xx. 
16—38;)  and  still  more  in  the  epistle  which  he  addressed  to 
them  from  Rome.  Ecclesiastical  history  represents  Tim- 
othy to  have  been  the  first  bishop  of  Ephesus,  but  there  is 
greater  evidence  that  the  apostle  John  resided  here  to- 
wards the  close  of  his  life :  here,  also,  he  is  supposed  to 
have  written  his  Gospel,  and  to  have  finally  ended  his  life. 
Besides  the  ruins  which  are  delineated  in  our  engraving, 
widely  scattered  and  noble  remains  attest  the  splendour  of 
the  theatre  mentioned  in  Acts  xix.  31,  the  elevated  situation 
of  which  on  Mount  Prion  accounts  for  the  ease  with  which 
an  immense  multitude  was  collected,  the  loud  shouts  of 
whose  voices,  being  reverberated  from  Mount  Corrissus, 
would  not  a  little  augment  the  uproar  caused  by  the  popu- 
lace rushing  into  the  theatre. 

The  Ephesian  church  is  the  first  of  the  "apocalyptic 
churches"  addressed  by  the  apostle  John  in  the  name  of  Je- 
sus Christ.  "  His  charge  against  her  is  declension  in  re- 
ligious fervour,  (Rev.  ii.  4;)  and  his  threat,  in  consequence, 
(ii.  5,)  is  a  total  extinction  of  her  ecclesiastical  brightness. 
After  a  protracted  struggle  with  the  sword  of  Rome  and 
•the  sophisms  of  the  Gnostics,  Ephesus  at  last  gave  way. 
The  incipient  indifference,  censured  by  the  warning  voice 
of  the  prophet,  increased  to  a  total  forgetfulness ;  till  at 
length  the  threatenings  of  the  Apocalypse  were  fulfilled ; 
and'Ephesas  sunk  with  the  general  overthrow  of  the  Greek 
empire,  in  the  fourteenth  century."  The  plough  has  pass- 
ed over  this  once  celebrated  city :  and  in  March,  1826,  M'hen 
it  was  visited  by  the  Rev.  Messrs.  Arundell  and  Hartley, 
green  corn  was  growing  in  all  directions  amid  the  forsaken 
ruins :  and  one  solitary  individual  only  was  found,  who 
bore  the  name  of  Christ,  instead  of  its  once  flourishing 
church.  Where  assembled  thousands  once  exclaimed, 
"  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians  !"  the  eagle  now  yells, 
and  the  jackal  moans.  The  sea  having  retired  from  the 
scene  of  desolation,  a  pestilential  morass,  covered  with  mr^id 
and  rushes,  has  succeeded  to  the  waters,  which  brought  up 
the  ships  laden  with  merchandise  from  every  country.  The 
surrounding  country,  however,  is  both  fertile  and  healthy  : 
and  the  adjacent  hills  would  furnish  many  delightful  situa- 
tions for  villages,  if  the  difficulties  were  removed  which 
are  thrown  in  the  way  of  the  industrious  cultivator  by  a 
despotic  government,  oppressive  agas,  and  wandering  ban- 
ditti.— HORNE. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

Ver.  11.  And  God  wrought  special  miracles  by 
the  hands  of  Paul :  12.  So  that  from  his  body- 
were  brouofht  unto  the  sick  handkerchiefs  or 
aprons,  Ind  the  diseases  departed  from  them, 
and  the  evil  spirits  went  out  of  them. 

At  a  short  distance,  near  the  road-side,  we  saw  the  burial- 
place  of  a  Persian  saint,  enclosed  by  very  rude  walls. 
Close  to  it  grew  a  small  bush,  upon  the  branches  of  which 
were  tied  a  variety  of  rags  and  remnants  of  garments.  The 
Persians  conceive  that  these  rags,  from  their  vicinity  to 
the  saint,  acquire  peculiar  preservative  virtues  against 
sickness  ;  and  substituting  others,  they  take  bits  away,  and 
tying  them  about  their  persons,  use  them  as  talismans. 
May  not  this  custom  have  some  distant  reference  to  Acts 

xix.  11,  121 — MORIER. 

Ver.  28.   And  when  they  heard  these  sayings, 


they  were  full  of  wrath,  and  cried  out,  saying, 
Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians. 

The  temple  of  Diana,  at  Ephesus,  always  has  been  ad- 
mired as  one  of  the  noblest  pieces  of  architecture  that  the 
world  has  ever  produced.  It  was  four  hundred  and  twenty- 
five  Roman  feet  long,  two  hundred  and  tAventy  broad,  and 
supported  by  one  hundred  and  twenty-seven  columns  of 
marble,  sixty,  or  as  some  say,  seventy  feet  high,  twenty- 
seven  of  which  were  beautifullv  carved.  This  temple, 
which  was  at  least  two  hundred  years  in  building,  was 
burnt  by  one  Herostratus,  with  no  other  view  than  to  per- 
petuate his  memory  :  however,  it  was  rebuilt,  and  the  last 
temple  was  not  inferior,  either  in  riches  or  beauty,  to  the 
former;  being  adorned  by  the  works  of  the  most  famous 
statuaries  of  Greece.  This  latter  temple  was,  according  to 
Trebellius,  plundered  and  burnt  by  the  Scythians,  when 
they  broke  into  Asia  Minor,  in  the  reign'  of  Gallienus, 
about  the  middle  of  the  third  century.  The  cry  of  the 
Ephesian  populace  Avas  a  usual  form  of  praise  among  the 
Gentiles,  -when  they  magnified  their  gods,  for  their  benefi- 
cent and  illustrious  deeds.  In  Arislides,  a  similar  passage 
occurs  :  "  There  was  a  great  cry,  both  of  those  who  were 
present,  and  of  those  who  were  coming,  shouting  in  that 
well-known  form  of  praise,  Great  is  ^sculapius."  (Sii 
R.  K.  Porter.) — Border. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

Ver.  7.  And  upon  the  first  day  of  the  week,  when 
the  disciples  came  together  to  break  bread, 
Paul  preached  unto  them,  ready  to  depart  on 
the  morrow;  and  continued  his  speech  until 
midnight. 

Bishop  Pearce,  in  his  note  on  this  passage,  says,  ^'  In  the 
Jewish  way  of  speaking,  to  break  bread  is  the  same  as  to 
make  a  meal :  and  the  meal  here  meant  seems  to  have  been 
one  of  those  which  was  called  arairai,  love-feasts.  Such  of 
the  heathen  as  were  converted  to  Christianity  were  obliged 
to  abstain  from  meats  offered  to  idols,  and  these  were  the 
main  support  of  the  poor  in  the  heathen  cities.  The  Chris- 
tians therefcrre,  who  were  rich,  seem  very  early  to  have 
begun  the  custom  of  those  arairai,  love-feasts,  which  they 
made  on  every  first  day  of  the  week,  chiefly  for  the  benefit 
of  the  poorer  Christians,  who,  by  being  such,  had  lost  the 
benefit,  which  they  used  to  have'for  their  support,  of  eating 
part  of  the  heathen  sacrifices.  It  was  towards  the  latter 
end  of  these  feasts,  or  immediately  after  them,  that  the 
Christians  used  to  take  bread  and  wine  in  remembrance  of 
Jesus  Christ,  which,  from  what  attended  it,  was  called  the 
eucharist,  or  holy  communion. — Burder. 

Ver.  9.  And  there  sat  in  a  window  a  certain 
young  man  named  Eutychus,  being  fallen  into 
a  deep  sleep ;  and,  as  Paul  was  long  preach- 
ing, he  sunk  down  with  sleep,  and  fell  down 
from  the  third  loft,  and  was  taken  up  dead. 

Chardin  informs  us,  that  the  eastern  windows  are  very 
large,  and  even  with  the  floor.  It  is  no  wonder  Eutychus 
might  fall  out  if  the  lattice  was  not  well  fastened,  or  if  it 
was  decayed,  when,  sunk  into  a  deep  sleep,  he  leaned  with 
all  his  weight  against  it. — Harmer. 

Ver.  17.  And  from  Miletus  he  sent  to  Ephesus, 
and  called  the  elders  of  the  church. 

The  present  state  of  this  city  is  thus  given  by  Dr.  Chan- 
dler :  "  Miletus  is  a  very  mean  place,  but  still  is  called  Palat, 
or  Palatia,  the  palaces!  The  principal  relic  of  its  former 
magnificence  is  a  ruined  theatre,  which  is  visible  afar  ofl^, 
and  was  a  most  capacious  edifice,  measuring  457  feet  long. 
The  external  face  of  this  vast  fabric  is  marble.  On  the 
side  of  the  theatre  next  the  river,  is  an  inscription,  in  mean 
characters,  rudely  cut,  in  which  the  city  Miletus  is  men- 
tioned seven  times.  This  is  a  monument  of  heretical 
Christianity.  One  Basilides,  who  lived  in  the  second 
century,  was  the  founder  of  an  absurd  sect,  called  Basili- 
dians  and  Gnostics,  the  original  proprietors  of  the  many 
gems,  with  strange  devices  and  inscriptions,  intended  to 


622 


THE  ACTS. 


Chap.  21,  2^ 


be  worn  as  amulets  or  charms,  with  which  the  cabinet  of 
the  curious  now  abound.  One  of  the  idle  tenets  was,  that 
the  appellative  Jehovah  possessed  signal  virtue  and  effica- 
cy. They  expressed  it  by  the  seven  Greek  vowels,  which 
they  transposed  into  a  variety  of  combinations.     This  sti- 

Serstition  appears  to  have  prevailed  in  no  small  degree  at 
liletus.  In  this  remain  the  mysterious  name  is  frequent- 
ly repeated,  and  the  deity  six  times  invoked :  Holy  Jeho- 
vah, preserve  the  town  oi'  the  Milesians,  and  all  the  inhab- 
itants !  The  archangels,  also,  are  summoned  to  be  their 
guardians,  and  the  whole  city  is  made  the  author  of  these 
supplications;  from  which,  thus  engraved,  it  expected,  as 
may  be  presumed,  to  derive  lasting  prosperity,  and  a  kind 
of  talismanical  protection.  The  whole  site  of  the  town,  to 
a  great  extent,  is  spread  with  rubbish,  and  overrun  with 
thickets.  The  vestiges  of  the  heathen  city  are  pieces  of 
wall,  broken  arches,  and  a  few  scattered  pedestals  and  in- 
scriptions, a  square  marble  urn,  and  many  wells.  One  of 
the  pedestals  has  belonged  to  a  statue  of  the  Emperor  Ha- 
drian, who  was  a  friend  to  the  Milesians,  as  appears  from 
the  titles  of  saviour  and  benefactor  given  him.  Another 
supported  the  statute  of  the  Emperor  Severus,  and  has  a 
long  inscription,  with  this  curious  preamble:  '  The  senate 
and  people  of  the  city  of  the  Milesians,  the  first  settled  in 
Ionia,  and  the  mother  of  many  and  'great  cities,  both  in 
Pontus  and  Egypt,  and  various  other  parts  of  the  world.' 
From  the  number  of  forsaken  mosques,  it  is  evident  that 
Mohammedanism  has  flourished  in  its  turn  at  Miletus. 
The  history  of  this  place,  after  the  declension  of  the  Greek 
empire,  is  very  imperfect.  The  whole  region  has  under- 
gone frequent  ravages  from  the  Turks,  while  possessed  of 
the  interior  country,  and  intent  on  extending  their  conquests 
westward  to  the  shore.  One  sultan,  in  1175,  sent  twenty 
thousand  men,  with  orders  to  lay  waste  the  Roman  provin- 
ces, and  bring  him  sea-water,  sand,  and  an  oar.  All  the 
cities  on  the  Meander,  and  on  the  coast,  were  then  ruin- 
ed ;  Miletus  was  again  destroyed  towards  the  end  of  the 
ihirtecnth  century,  by  the  conquering  Othman." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Ver.  1 1,  And  when  he  was  come  unto  us,  he  took 
Paul's  girdle,  and  bound  his  own  hands  and 
feet,  and  said,  Thus  saith  the  Holy  Ghost,  So 
shall  the  Jews  at  Jerusalem  bind  the  man  that 
owneth  this  girdle,  and  shall  deliver  him  into 
the  hands  of  the  Gentiles. 

This  was  significant  of  what  was  to  occur  to  the  apostle. 
Does  a  person  wish  to  dissuade  another  from  some  project, 
he  acts  in  such  a  way  as  to  show  what  will  be  the  nature  of 
the  difficulties  or  dangers.  Thus,  should  he  doubt  his  per- 
sonal safety  or  fear  disgrace,  he  puts  off"  his  sandals,  to  inti- 
mate he  will  die  or  be  beaten  with  them.  Or  he  takes  oflT 
his  turban,  unfolds  it,  and  ties  it  around  his  neck,  or  gropes 
as  if  in  the  dark,  to  intimate  the  difficulty. — Roberts. 

Ver.  2 1 .  And  they  are  informed  of  thee,  that  thou 
teachest  all  the  Jews  which  are  among  the  Gen- 
tiles to  forsake  Moses,  saying,  that  they  ought 
not  to  circumcise  ^Aeir  children,  neither  to  walk 
after  the  customs. 

In  every  part  of  the  world  man  is  too  often  the  slave  of 
custom ;  but  in  all  the  old  countries  of  the  East,  where  in- 
novations have  not  been  made,  the  people  are  most  tena- 
ciously wedded  to  their  customs.  Ask,  Why  do  y  ou  act  thus  1 
the  reply  is,  "  It  is  a  custom.''^  Their  implements  of  agri- 
culture, their  modes  of  sowing  and  reaping,  their  houses, 
their  furniture,  their  domestic  utensils,  their  vehicles,  their 
vessels  in  which  they  put  to  sea,  their  modes  of  living,  and 
.heir  treatment  of  the  various  diseases,  are  all  regulated 
by  the  customs  of  their  fathers.  Offer  them  better  imple- 
ments, ^nd  better  plans  for  their  proceedings,  they  reply, 
"  We  cannot  leave  our  customs .-  your  plans  are  good  for 
yourselves,  ours  are  good  for  ourselves :  we  cannot  alter." — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  40.  And  when  he  had  given  him  license, 
Paul  stood  on  the  stairs,  and  beckoned  with  the 


hand  unto  the  people.  And  when  there  was 
made  a  great  silence,  he  spake  unto  them  inthQ 
Hebrew  tongue. 

The  object  of  Paul  in  beckoning  with  his  hand  was  to 
obtain  silence.  See  that  man  who  has  to  address  a  crowd, 
and  who  wishes  for  silence,  he  does  not  begin  to  bawl 
out.  Silence,  that  would  be  an  affront  to  them;  he  lifts  up 
his  hand  to  its  extreme  height,  and  begins  to  beckon  with 
it,  i.  e.  to  move  it  backward  and  forward;  and  then  the 
people  say  to  each  other,  "pasdthe,  pasdthe"  i.  e.  be  silen^ 
be  silent. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
Ver.  3.  I  am,  verily,  a  man  which  am  a  Jew, 
born  in  Tarsus,  a  city  in  Cilicia,  yet  brought 
up  in  this  city  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel,  and 
taught  according  to  the  perfect  manner  of  the 
law  of  the  fathers,  and  was  zealous  towards  God, 
as  ye  aJJ  are  this  day. 

This  form  of  expression  is  only  used  in  reference  to 
great  saints  or  great  teachers.  "  He  had  his  holiness  at 
the  feet  of  the  gooroo,  or  his  learning  at  the  feet  of  the 
philosopher." — Roberts. 

With  respect  to  the  schools  among  the  Jews  it  should  be 
observed,  that,  besides  the  common  schools  in  which  chil- 
dren were  taught  to  read  the  law,  they  had  also  academies, 
in  which  their  doctors  gave  comments  on  the  law,  and 
taught  the  traditions  to  their  pupils.  Of  this  sort  were  the 
two  famous  schools  of  Hillel  and  Sammai,  and  the  school 
of  Gamaliel,  who  was  St.  Paul's  tutor.  In  these  seminaries 
the  tutor's  chair  is  said  to  have  been  so  much  raised  above 
the  level  of  the  floor,  on  which  the  pupils  sat,  that  his  feet 
were  even  with  their  heads.  Hence  St.  Paul  says,  that  he 
was  brought  up  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel. — Burder. 

Ver,  22.  And  they  gave  him  audience  unto  this 
word,  and  then  lifted  up  their  voices,  and  said, 
Away  with  such  a  fellow  from  the  earth ;  for 
it  is  not  fit  that  he  should  live.  23.  And  as  they 
cried  out,  and  cast  off  their  clothes,  and  threw 
dust  into  the  air,  24.  The  chief  captain  com- 
manded him  to  be  brought  into  the  castle,  and 
bade  that  he  should  be  examined  by  scourging ; 
that  he  might  know  wherefore  they  cried  so 
against  him. 

A  great  similarity  appears  between  the  conduct  of  the 
Jews  on  this  occasion,  and  the  behaviour  of  the  peasants  in 
Persia,  when  they  go  to  court  to  complain  of  the  governors, 
whose  oppressions  they  can  no  longer  endure.  "  They 
carry  their  complaints  against  their  governors  by  com- 
panies, consisting  of  several  hundreds,  and  sometimes  of  a 
thousand ;  they  repair  to  that  gate  of  the  palace  nearest  to 
which  their  prince  is  most  likely  to  be,  where  they  set 
themselves  to  make  the  most  horrid  cries,  tearing  their 
garments,  and  throwing  dust  into  the  air,  at  the  same  time 
demanding  justice.  The  king,  upon  hearing  these  cries, 
sends  to  know  the  occasion  of  them :  the  people  deliver 
their  complaints  in  writing,  upon  which  he  lets  them  know 
that  he  will  commit  the  cognizance  of  the  affair  to  such  a 
one  as  he  names  ;  in  consequence  of  this,  iustice  is  usually 
obtained." — Paxton. 

Ver.  25.  And  as  they  bound  him  with  thongs, 
Paul  said  imto  the  centurion  that  stood  by,  Is 
it  lawful  for  you  to  scourge  a  man  that  is  a 
Roman,  and  uncondemned  ? 

Scourging  was  a  very  common  punishment  among  the 
Jews.  It  was  inflicted  in  two  ways ;  with  thongs  or  whips 
made  of  ropes  or  straps  of  leather  ;  or  with  rods,  twigs,  or 
branches  of  some  tree.  The  oflTender  was  stripped  from 
his  shoulders  to  his  middle,  and  tied  by  his  arms  to  a  low 
pillar,  that  his  back  might  be  more  fully  exposed  to  thfc 
lash  of  the  execulioner,  who  stood  behind  him  upon  a  stone, 


CiiAP.  23-^28. 


THE  ACTS, 


6f23 


to,  have  more  power  over  him,  and  scourged  him  both  on 
the  back  and  breast,  in  open  court,  before  the  face  of  his 
judges.  Among  the  Arabians,  the  prisoner  is  placed  up- 
right on  the  ground,  with  his  hands  and  feet  bound  to- 
gether, while  the  executioner  stands  before  him,  and  with  a 
short  stick  strikes  him  with  a  smart  motion  on  the  outside 
of  his  knees.  The  pain  which  these  strokes  produce  is 
exquisitely  severe,  and  which  no  constitution  can  support 
for  any  length  of  time.  The  Romans  often  inflicted  the 
punishment  of  the  scourge ;  the  instruments  employed  were 
sticks  or  staves,  rods,  and  whips  or  lashes.  The  first  were 
almost  peculiar  to  the  camp ;  the  last  were  reserved  for 
slaves,  while  rods  were  applied  to  citizens,  till  they  were 
removed  by  the  Porcian  law. — Paxton, 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 
Ver.  2.  And  the  high-priest  Ananias  commanded 
them  that  stood  by  him,  to  smite  him  on  the 
mouth. 

The  Persians  smote  the  criminals  who  attempted  to  speak 
in  their  own  defence  with  a  shoe,  the  heel  or  which  was 
shod  with  iron ;  which  is  quite  characteristic  of  the  eastern 
manners,  as  described  in  the  sacred  volume.  The  shoe  was 
also  considered  as  vile,  and  never  allowed  to  enter  sacred 
or  respected  places ;  and  to  be  smitten  with  it  is  to  be  sub- 
jected to  the  last  ignominy.  Paul  was  smitten  on  the 
mouth  by  the  orders  of  Ananias :  and  the  warmth  with 
which  the  apostle  resented  the  injury,  shows  his  deep  sense 
of  the  dishonour:  "  Then  said  Paul  unto  him,  God  shall 
smite  thee,  thou  whited  wall :  for  sirtest  thou  to  judge  me 
after  the  law,  and  coramandest  me  to  be  smitten  contrary  to 
law  V — Paxton. 

"  Call  the  Ferashes,"  exclaimed  the  king,  "  and  beat  these 
rogues  till  they  die."  The  Ferashes  came,  and  beat  them 
violently ;  and  when  they  attempted  to  say  any  thing  in 
their  own  defence,  they  smote  tnem  on  the  mouth  with  a 
shoe,  the  heel  of  which  was  shod  with  iron.  (Morier.) 
The  shoe  was  always  considered  as  vile,  and  never  allow- 
ed to  enter  sacred  or  respected  places  ;  and  to  be  smitten 
with  it,  is  to  be  subjected  to  the  last  ignominy.  "  As  soon 
as  the  ambassador  came  in,  he  punished  the  principal  of- 
fenders by  causing,  them  to  be  beaten  before  him ;  and  those 
who  had  spoken  their  minds  a  little  too  unreservedly,  he 
smote  upon  the  mouth  with  a  shoe,  which  in  their  idiom 
Uiey  call  kufsh  khorden,  eating  shoe."  "  By  far  the  great- 
est of  all  indignities,  and  the  most  insupportable,  is  to  be 
hit  with  a  shoe,  or  one  of  the  pandoufles,  which  the  Hin- 
doos commonly  wear  on  their  feet.  To  receive  a  kick 
from  any  foot,  with  a  slipper  on  it,  is  an  injury  of  so  un- 
pardonable a  nature,  that  a  man  would  suffer  exclusion 
from  his  caste  who  could  submit  to  it  without  receiving 
some  adequate  satisfaction.  Even  to  threaten  one  with  the 
stroke  of  a  slipper  is  held  to  be  criminal,  and  to  call  for 
animadversion."  (Dubois'  Description  of  the  People  of 
India.) — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

Ver.  40.  And  when  they  had  taken  up  the  anchors, 
they  committed  themselves  unto  the  sea,  and 
loosed  the  rudder-bands,  and  hoisted  up  the 
mainsail  to  the  wind,  and  made  towards  shore. 

Bishop  Pococke,  in  his  travels,  has  explained  very  partic- 
ularly the  rudder-bands  mentioned  by  St.  Luke,  Acts  xxvii. 
40,  and  my  plan  excludes  that  accoimt  from  these  papers ; 
but  Sir  John  Chardin  has  mentioned  some  other  things  re- 
lating to  this  ship  of  St.  Paul,  which  ought  not  to  be  omitted. 

First,  the  eastern  people,  he  tells  us,  "  are  wont  to  leave 
their  skiffs  in  the  sea,  fastened  to  the  stern  of  their  vessels." 
The  skiff  of  this  Egyptian  ship  was  towed  along,  it  seems, 
after  the  same  manner,  v.  16,  We  had  much  work  to  come  by 
the  boat. 

Secondly,  They  never,  according  to  him,  hoist  it  into  the 
vessel,  it  always  remains  in  the  water,  fastened  to  the  ship. 
He  therefore  must  suppose  the  taking  it  up,  vv  apavrss,  men- 
tioned ver.  17,  does  not  mean  hoisting  it  up  into  the  vessel, 
as  several  interpreters  have  imagined,  but  drawing  it  up 
i  close  to  the  stern  of  the  ship;  and  the  word  ■xa'XaaavTMv, 
which  we  translate,  in  the  thirteenth  verse,  letting  doysninio 


the  sea,  must  mean  letting  it  go  farther  from  the  ship  into 
the  sea. 

Thirdly,  He  supposes  this  ship  was  like  "  a  large  modern 
Egyptian  saique,  of  three  hundred  and  twenty  tons,  and 
capable  of  carrying  from  twenty-four  to  thirty  guns." 

Fourthly,  These  saiques,  he  tells  us,  "  always  carry  their 
anchors  at  the  stern,  and  never  their  prow,"'  contrarily  to 
our  managements ;  the  anchors  of  St.  Paul's  ship  were,  in 
like  manner,  cast  out  of  the  stern,  ver.  29. 

Fifthly,  They  carry  their  anchors  at  some  distance  from 
the  ship,  "  by  means  of  the  skiff,  in  such  a  manner  as  al- 
ways to  have  one  anchor  on  one  side,  and  the  other  on  the 
other  side,  so  that  the  vessel  may  be  between  them,  lest  the 
cables  should  be  entangled  with  each  other."  To  St.  Paul's 
ship  there  were  four  anchors,  two  on  each  side. 

AH  these  several  particulars  are  contained,  though  not 
distinctly  proposed,  in  his  remarks  on  the  vessel  in  which 
St.  Paul  was  shipwrecked :  the  curious  will  probably  con- 
sider them.  If  the  mode  of  navigating  eastern  ships  had 
been  attended  to,  it  is  possible  the  jocular  and  lively  re- 
marks of  some  indevout  sailors,  bordering  on  profaneness, 
would  never  have  been  made  upon  this  part  of  the  narra- 
tion of  St.  Luke  ;  and  some  clauses  would  have  been  differ- 
ently translated  from  what  we  find  them  in  our  version. — 
Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 
Ver.  3.  And  when  Paul  had  gathered  a  bundle  of 
sticks,  and  laid  them  on  the  fire,  there  came  a 
viper  out  of  the  heat,  and  fastened  on  his  hand. 
4.  And  when  the  barbarians  saw  the  venomous 
beast  hang  on  his  hand,  they  said  among  them- 
selves, No  doubt  this  man  is  a  murderer, 
whom,  though  he  hath  escaped  the  sea,  yet 
vengeance  sufFereth  not  to  live.  5.  And  he 
shook  ofTthe  beast  into  the  fire,  and  felt  no  harm. 
6.  Howbeit,  they  looked  when  he  should  hav« 
swollen,  or  fallen  down  dead  suddenly :  but  af- 
ter they  had  looked  a  great  while,  and  saw  no 
harm  come  to  him,  they  changed  their  minds, 
and  said  that  he  was  a  god. 

The  certain  and  speedy  destruction  which  follows  the 
bite  of  this  creature,  clearly  proves  the  seasonable  inter- 
position of  Almighty  power  for  the  preservation  of  the 
apostle  Paul.  Exasperated  by  the  heat  of  the  fire,  the 
deadly  reptile,<leaping  from  the  bushwood  where  it  had 
concealed  itself,  fixed  the  canine  teeth,  which  convey  the 
poison  into  the  wound  which  they  had  made,  in  his  hand. 
Death  must  have  been  the  consequence,  had  not  the  power 
of  his  God,  which  long  before  shut  the  lions'  mouths,  that 
they  might  not  hurt  the  prophet,  neutralized  the  viper's 
deadly  poison,  and  miraculously  preserved  the  valuable 
life  of  his  servant.  The  supernatural  agency  of  God  is 
clearly  taught  in  these  words  of  the  historian  :  "  He  shook 
off  the  beast  into  the  fire,  and  felt  no  harm  ;"  for  he  who 
had  been  wounded  by  a  viper,  could  not  be  said  to  have 
been  exempt  from  all  harm.  The  disposition  of  the  en- 
raged reptile  to  take  its  full  revenge,  is  intimated  by  the 
word  KaQanrciv,  to  fasten  and  twine  itself  about  the  hand  of 
Paul.  Some  interpreters  render  the  term  to  seize  upon, 
others  to  hang  from  the  hand,  and  others  to  bite ;  but  ac- 
cording to  Bochart,  it  properly  signifies  to  bind  or  intwine, 
a  sense  which  seems  entitled  to  the  preference ;  for,  when 
a  serpent  fastens  on  its  prey,  it  endeavours  uniformly  to 
strangle  the  victim  by  winding  round  its  body.  The  viper 
on  this  memorable  occasion  exhibited  every  symptom  of 
rage,  and  put  forth  all  its  powers ;  the  deliverance  of  Paul, 
therefore,  was  not  accidental,  nor  the  effect  of  his  own  ex- 
ertion, but  of  the  mighty  power  of  that  Master  whom  he 
served,  whose  voice  even  the  deadly  viper  is  compelled  to 
obey.  This  conclusion  was  in  effect  drawn  by  the  barba^ 
rians  themselves ;  for  when  "  they  had  looked  a  great 
while,  and  saw  no  harm  come  to  him,  they  changed  their 
minds,  and  said  that  he  was  a  god :"  they  did  not  hesitate  to 
attribute  his  preservation  to  divine  power ;  they  only  mis- 
took his  real  character,  not  the  true  nature  of  that  agency 
which  was  able  to  render  the  bite  of  the  viper  harmless. 

This  was  to  them  a  singular  and  most  unexpected  iccur- 


624 


ROMANS. 


Chap.  3— IS 


rence,  for  they  looked  when  he  should  have  swollen  and 
fallen  down  dead  suddenly.  We  are  informed  by  natural 
historians,  that  under  the  action  of  this  dreadful  poison,  the 
whole  body  swells  to  an  extraordinary  size,  and  in  about 
seven  hours  death  relieves  the  hopeless  and  agonized 
sufferer  from  his  torments.  These  barbarians,  it  would 
seem,  had  been  taught  by  their  own  experience,  or  the  tes- 
timony of  others,  that  the  poison  of  this  creature  proves 
fatal  in  a  much  shorter  time,  for  they  waited  some  time  in 
die  confident  expectation  of  seeing  Paul  suddenly  expire. 


They  knew,  perhaps,  what  has  been  fully  ascertained,  that 
the  bite  of  this  animal  is  more  pernicious,  according  to  the 
place  of  its  abode,  the  aliment  on  which  it  feeds,  its  age,  the 
heat  of  the  season  when  the  wound  is  inflicted,  and  the  de- 
gree of  provocation  it  has  received.  On  this  occasion,  it 
must  have  been  exceedingly  provoked;  and  the  high  state 
of  excitement  in  which  the  Melitese  saw  it  fastened  upon 
the  hand  of  the  stranger,  was,  perhaps,  the  true  and  the 
only  reason  which  induced  them  to  believe  the  poison 
would  produce  a  sudden  effect. — Paxton. 


ROMANS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  13.  Their  throat  wan  open  sepulchre;  with 
their  tongues  they  have  used  deceit ;  the  poison 
of  asps  is  under  their  lips. 

Of  a  deceitful  man,  of  one  who  speaks  in  smooth  language, 
it  is  said,  "  Ah !  at  the  tip  of  his  tongue  is  ambrosia,  but 
under  it  is  poison." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ver.  24.  O  wretched  man  that  I  am !  who  shall 
deliver  me  from  the  body  of  this  death  ? 

"  Wretched  man  that  I  am !"  "  Do  I  often  cry  out,  in  such 
a  circumstance,  with  no  better  supports  and  incitements 
than  the  law  can  give,  *  Who  shall  rescue  me,  miserable 
captive  as  I  am,  from  the  body  of  this  •death'?'  from  this 
continual  burden  which  I  carry  about  with  me ;  and  which 
is  cumbersome  and  odious  as  a  dead  carcass  tied  to  a  living 
body,  to  be  dragged  along  with  it  wherever  it  goes  1"  Thus 
are  the  words  paraphrased  by  Dr.  Doddrige,  to  which  he 
subjoins  this  note :  "  It  is  well  known  that  some  ancient 
writers  mention  this  as  a  cruelty  practised  by  some  tyrants 
on  miserable  captives  who  fell  into  their  hands ;  and  a  more 
forcible  and  expressive  image  of  the  case  represented  can- 
not surely  enter  into  the  mind  of  man."  That  such  a  cru- 
elty was  once  practised  is  certain  from  Virgil : 

"  Quid  memorem  infandas  csedes  1  quid  facta  lyranni !"  &c. 

"  Why  should  I  mention  his  unutterable  barbarities  1  Or, 
why  the  tyrant's  horrid  deeds  1  May  the  gods  recompense 
them  on  his  own  head  and  on  his  race.  Nay,  he  even 
bound  to  the  living  the  bodies  of  the  dead,  joining  together 
hands  to  hands,  and  face  to  face,  a  horrid  kind  of  torture  : 
and  them,  pining  away  with  gore  and  putrefaction  in  this 
loathed  embrace,  he  thus  destroyed  with  lingering  death." 

— BURDER. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Ver.  24.  For  if  thou  wert  cut  out  of  the  olive- 
tree  which  is  wild  by  nature,  and  wert  grafted 
contrary  to  nature  into  a  good  olive-tree ;  how 
much  more  shall  these,  which  be  the  natural 
branches,  be  grafted  into  their  own  olive-tree. 

This  practice  is  so  far  contrary  to  nature,  that  it  is  not  usual 
for  a  branch  of  a  wild  olive-tree  to  be  grafted  in  a  good  olive- 
tree,  though  a  branch  of  the  good  is  frequently  grafted  into 
the  wild.  Pliny  says  this  latter  was  frequently  practised  in 
Africa.  And  Kolben  tells  us,  that  "  long  ago,  some  garden 
olive  slips  were  carried  to  the  Cape  from  Holland,  and  graft- 
ed on  the  stocks  of  the  wild  olives  at  Constantia,  a  seat  so  call- 
ed in  the  Capian  colony."  Theophrastus  takes  notice  of  both 
the  abovementioned  modes  of  graftiny  olives. — Burder. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
Ver.   13.  Distributing  to  the  necessity  of  saints; 
given  to  hospitality. 

Hospitality  has  always  been  highly  esteemed  by  civilized 
nations.  It  has  been  exercised  from  the  earliest  ages  of  the 
world.  The  Old  Testament  affords  numerous  instances  of 
its  being  practised  in  the  most  free  and  liberal  manner.  In 
the  New  Testament  it  is  also  recommended  and  enforced. 
The  primitive  Christians  were  so  ready  in  the  discharge  of 
this  duty,  that  even  the  heathens  admired  them  for  it.  Hos- 
pitable as  they  were  to  all  strangers,  they  were  particularly 
so  to  those  who  were  of  their  own  faith  and  communion. 
In  Homer  and  the  ancient  Greek  writers,  we  see  what 
respect  they  had  for  their  guests.  From  these  instances  we 
turn  with  satisfaction  to  view  the  kind  and  friendly  dispo- 
sition of  less  polished  people.  Modern  travellers  often 
mention  the  pleasing  reception  they  met  with  from  those 
among  whom  they  made  a  temporary  residence.  Volney, 
speaking  of  the  t)ruzes,  says,  "  whoever  presents  himself 
at  their  door  in  the  quality  of  a  suppliant  or  passenger,  is 
sure  of  being  entertained  with  lodging  and  food  in  the  most 
generous  and  unaffected  manner.  I  have  often  seen  the 
lowest  peasants  give  the  last  morsel  of  bread  they  had  in 
their  houses  to  the  hungry  traveller.  When  they  have 
once  contracted  with  their  guest  the  sacred  engagement  of 
bread  and  salt,  no  subsequent  event  can  make  them  violate 
it."  '*  An  engagement  with  a  stranger  is  sometimes  accept- 
ed as  an  excuse  for  not  obeying  the  summons  of  a  great 
man,  when  no  other  apology,  hardly  even  that  of  indisposi- 
tion, would  be  admitted."    "(Russei) 

The  Hindoos  extend  their  hospitality  sometimes  to  ene- 
mies, saying,  "  the  tree  does  not  withdraw  its  shade  even 
from  the  wood-cutter." — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  4.  For  he  is  the  minister  of  God  to  thee  for 
good.  But  if  thou  do  that  which  is  evil,  be 
afraid ;  for  he  beareth  not  the  sword  in  vain : 
for  he  is  the  minister  of  God,  a  revenger  to 
execute  wrath  upon  him  that  doeth  evil. 

This  is  spoken  agreeably  to  the  notions  and  customs  of 
the  Romans  at  the  time  when  the  apostle  wrote.  Thu8 
Suetonius  says,  (in  Vitell.  cap.  15,)  that  Vitellius  gave  up 
his  dagger,  which  he  had  taken  from  his  side,  to  the  attend- 
ing consul,  thus  surrendering  the  authority  of  life  and  death 
over  the  citizens.  So  the  kings  of  Great  Britain  are  not 
only  at  their  inauguration  solemnly  girt  with  the  sword  of 
state,  but  this  is  afterward  carried  before  them  on  public 
occasions,  as  a  sword  is  likewise  before  some  inferior  ma- 
gistrates among  us. — Burder. 

Ver.  14.  But  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 


Chap.  1—9. 


1   CORINTHIANS. 


625 


and  make  not  provision  for  the  flesh,  to  fulfil 
the  lusts  thereof. 

"  To  be  clothed  with  a  person"  is  a  Greek  phrase,  signi- 
fying to  assume  the  interests  of  another,  to  enter  into  his 
views,  to  imitate  him,  to  be  wholly  on  his  side.  Chrysostom 
particularly  mentions  this  as  a  common  expression,  O  Seiva 
Tov  Seiva  sveSvcraTo,  Such  a  one  hath  put  on  siich  a  one.  So 
Dionysius  Halicarnassus,  speaking  of  Appius  and  the  rest 

of  the  decemviri,  says,  ovketi  nerpia^ovTes  aX\a  tov    TapKVviov 

cKeivov  evSvofjievoi —  Theij  were  no  longer  the  servants  of  Tar- 
quin,  but  they  clothed  themselves  with  him.  Eusebius,  in  his 
Life  of  Constantine,  says  of  his  sons,  they  put  on  their 
father.  The  mode  of  speech  is  taken  from  stage-players, 
who  assume  the  name  and  garments  of  the  person  whose 
character  they  represent. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Ver.  2.  For  one  believeth  that  he  may  eat  all 
things ;  another,  who  is  weak,  eateth  herbs. 

Thousands  of  Hindoos  never  (to  their  knowledge)  taste 
of  any  thing  >yhich  has  had  animal  life ;  and  to  eat  an  egg 
would  be  as  repugnant  to  their  feelings  as  to  eat  flesh,  be- 
cause it  contains  the  germ  of  life.    They  live  on  herbs, 


roots,  fruit,  grain,  milk,  butter,  and  honey.  They  appear 
to  be  as  strong  and  as  healthy  as  those  who  live  on  flesh, 
and  they  avoid  the  "  sin"  of  taking  life.  They  believe  that 
all  who  take  life  for  the  purpose  of  food  will  assuredly  go 
to  one  of  the  seven  hells.  It  has  a  distressing  effect  on  their 
minds  to  show  them,  through  a  microscope,  the  animalcules 
which  exist  in  the  water  they  drink :  for  they  are  convinced 
by  this  they  must  often  destroy  life. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  16.  Salute  one  another  with  a  holy  kiss. 
The  churches  of  Christ  salute  you. 

Saluting  one  another  on  the  face,  in  token  of  respect  and 
friendship,  was  an  ancient  and  common  custom  among 
both  Jews  and  Gentiles ;  and  was  continued  for  some  time 
among  the  primitive  Christians  in  their  religious  assemblies, 
and  particularly  at  the  end  of  their  prayers,  before  the  cele- 
bration of  the  Lord's  Supper,  to  testify  their  mutual  love. 
It  was  therefore  called  the  holy  kiss,  to  distinguish  it  from 
that  which  was  merely  of  the  civil  kind.  By  this  symbol 
they  showed  that  Christians,  as  such,  were  equal ;  because, 
among  the  Persians  and  other  eastern  nations,  equals  kiss- 
ed each  other  on  the  cheek,  but  inferiors  kissed  only  the 
hand  of  a  superior. — Burder. 


THE  FIRST  EPISTLE   OF  PAUL,   THE  APOSTLE,  TO 

THE   CORINTHIANS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  28.  And  base  things  of  the  world,  and  thmgs 
which  are  despised,  hath  God  chosen,  yea,  and 
things  which  are  not,  to  bring  to  naught  things 
that  are. 

"  All  things  which  are  not."  The  venerable  Mr.  Wes- 
ley says,  "  The  Jews  frequently  called  the  Gentiles  *  them 
that  are  not,'  in  such  supreme  contempt  did  they  hold  them." 
When  a  man  of  rank  among  the  Hindoos  speaks  of  low- 
caste  persons,  of  notorious  profligates,  or  of  those  whom  he 
despises,  he  calls  them  alld-tha-varkul,  i.  e.  those  who  are  not. 
The  term  does  not  refer  to  life  or  existence,  but  to  a  quality 
or  disposition,  and  is  applied  to  those  who  are  vile  and 
abominable  in  all  things.  "  My  son,  my  son,  go  not  among 
them  who  are  not."  "  Alas !  alas !  those  people  are  all  alld- 
tha-varkul."  When  wicked  men  prosper,  it  is  said,  "  This 
is  the  time  for  those  who  are  not."  "  Have  you  heard  that 
those  who  are  not  are  now  acting  righteously  1"  Vulgar 
and  indecent  expressions  are  also  called  "  words  that  are 
not."  To  address  men  in  the  phrase  "  are  not,"  is  provo- 
king beyond  measure ;  their  eyes  will  soon  brighten,  and 
their  tongue  and  hands  begin  to  move  at  the  individual  who 
thus  insults  them.  The  Lord  did  select  the  "  base  things 
of  the  world,  and  things  which  are  despised  hath  God 
chosen,  yea,  and  things  which  are  not,  to  bring  to  naught 
hings  that  are." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  9.  For  I  think  that  God  hath  set  forth  us 
the  apostles  last,  as  it  were  appointed  to  death : 
for  we  are  made  a  spectacle  unto  the  world, 
and  to  angels,  and  to  men. 

In  t'ae  word  etrxarovi,  last,  which  the  apostle  here  uses, 
there  is  a  reference  to  the  Roman  custom  of  bringing  forth 
79 


those  persons  on  the  theatre  in  the  after  part  of  the  day,  to 
fight  either  with  each  other,  or  with  wild  beasts,  who  were 
appointed  to  certain  death,  and  had  not  that  poor  chance  of 
escaping  which  those  brought  forth  in  the  morning  had. 
Such  kind  of  spectacles  were  so  common  in  all  the  prov- 
inces, that  it  is  no  wonder  we  should  find  such  an  allusion 
here.  The  words  antkiiev,  exhibited,  and  Qtarpov,  a  spectacle 
on  the  theatre,  have  in  this  connexion  a  beautiful  propriety. 
The  whole  passage  is  indeed  full  of  high  eloquence,  and 
finely  adapted  to  move  their  compassion  in  favour  of  those 
who  were  so  generously  expiring,  and  sacrificing  them- 
selves for  the  public  good. — Doddridge. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  6.  Your  glorying  is  not  good, 
not,  that  a  little  leaven  leaveneth 
lump? 


Kiiow  ye 
the  whole 


This  is  said  of  the  man  who  corrupts  others ;  also  of  a 
bad  servant;  "the  more  sour  the  leaven,  the  better  the 
bread."  When  a  mother  has  to  administer  nauseous  medi- 
cine, she  says,  "  My  child,  take  it ;  do  you  not  know  the 
more  sour  the  leaven,  the  better  the  bread  7"  Meaning, 
because  the  potion  or  powder  is  offensive,  it  will  produce 
better  effects. — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Ver.  7.  Who  goeth  a  warfare  at  any  time  at  his 
own  charges?  who  planteth  a  vineyard,  and 
eateth  not  of  the  fruit  thereof?  or  who  feedeth 
a  flock,  and  eateth  not  of  the  milk  of  the  flock? 

The  wages  of  the  shepherds  in  the  East  do  not  consist  of 
ready  money,  but  in  a  part  of  the  milk  of  the  flocks  which 
they  tend.  Thus  Spon  says  of  the  shepherds  in  modern 
Greece,  "  These  shepherds  are  poor  Albanians,  who  feed 


626 


1  CORINTHIANS. 


Chap.  9. 


the  cattle,  and  live  in  huts  built  of  rushes ;  they  have  a  tenth 
part  of  the  milk,  and  of  the  lambs,  which  is  their  whole 
wages :  the  cattle  belong  to  the  Turks."  The  shepherds 
in  Ethiopia,  also,  according  to  Alvares,  have  no  pay  except 
the  milk  and  butter  which  they  obtain  from  the  cows,  and 
on  which  they  and  their  families  subsist. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  24.  Know  ye  not,  that  they  which  run  in  a 
race,  run  all,  but  one  receiveth  the  prize?     So 
•  run,  that  ye  may  obtain. 

Games  and  combats  were  instituted  by  the  ancients  in 
honour  of  their  gods ;  and  were  celebrated  with  that  view 
by  the  most  polished  and  enlightened  nations  of  antiquity. 
The  most  renowned  heroes,  legislators,  and  statesmen, 
did  not  think  it  unbecoming  their  character  and  dignity 
to  mingle  with  the  combatants,  or  contend  in  the  race; 
they  even  reckoned  it  glorious  to  share  in  the  exercises, 
and  meritorious  to  carry  away  the  prize.  The  victors 
were  crowned  with  a  wreath  of  laurel  in  presence  of  their 
country ;  they  were  celebrated  in  the  rapturous  effusions 
of  their  poets ;  they  were  admired,  and  almost  adored  by 
the  innumerable  multitudes  which  flocked  to  the  games 
from  every  part  of  Greece,  and  many  of  the  adjacent  coun- 
tries. They  returned  to  their  own  homes  in  a  triumphal 
chariot,  and  made  their  entrance  into  their  native  city,  not 
through  the  gates  which  admitted  the  vulgar  throng,  but 
through  a  breach  in  the  walls,  which  were  broken  down 
to  give  them  admission  ;  and  at  the  same  time  to  express 
the  persuasion  of  their  fellow-citizens,  that  walls  are  of 
small  use  to  a  city  defended  by  men  of  such  tried  courage 
and  ability.  Hence  the  surprising  ardour  which  animated 
all  the  states  of  Greece  to  imitate  the  ancient  heroes,  and 
encircle  their  brows  with  wreaths,  which  rendered  them 
still  more  the  objects  of  admiration  or  envy  to  succeeding 
times,  than  the  victories  they  had  gained,  or  the  laws  they 
had  enacted.  But  the  institutors  of  those  games  and  com- 
bats had  higher  and  nobler  objects  in  view  than  venera- 
tion for  the  mighty  dead,  or  the  gratification  of  ambition 
or  vanity;  it  was  their  design  to  prepare  the  youth  for  the 
profession  of  arms ;  to  confirm  their  health ;  to  improve 
their  strength,  their  vigour,  and  activity ;  to  inure  them  to 
fatigue;  and  to  render  them  intrepid  in  close  fight,  where, 
in  the  infancy  of  the  art  of  war,  muscular  force  commonly 
decided  the  victory. 

This  statement  accounts  for  the  striking  allusions  which 
the  apostle  Paul  makes  in  his  epistles  to  these  celebrated 
exercises.  Such  references  were  calculated  to  touch  the 
heart  of  a  Greek,  and  of  every  one  familiarly  acquainted 
with  them,  in  the  liveliest  manner,  as  well  as  to  place 
before  the  eye  of  his  mind  the  most  glowing  and  correct 
images  of  spiritual  and  divine  things.  No  passages  in 
the  nervous  and  eloquent  epistles  from  the  pen  of  Paul, 
have  been  more  admired  by  critics  and.  expositors,  even 
in  modern  times,  than  those  into  which  some  allusion  to 
^these  agonistic  exercises  is  introduced;  and,  perhaps, none 
are  calculated  to  leave  a  deeper  impression  on  the  Chris- 
tian's mind,  or  excite  a  stronger  and  more  salutary  influ- 
ence on  his  actions,— Paxton. 

Ver.  25.  And  every  man  that  strivethfor  the  mas- 
tery is  temperate  in  all  things.  Now  they  do 
it  to  obtain  a  corruptible  crown ;  but  we  an  in- 
corruptible. 

The  honours  and  rewards  granted  to  the  victors  were 
of  several  kinds.  They  were  animated  in  their  course  by 
the  rapturous  applauses  of  the  countless  multitudes  that 
lined  the  stadium,  and  waited  the  issue  of  the  contest  with 
eager  anxiety ;  and  their  success  was  instantly  followed 
by  reiterated  and  long-continued  plaudits ;  but  these  were 
only  ia  prelude  to  the  appointed  rewards,  which,  though  of 
little  value  in  themselves,  were  accounted  the  highest  hon- 
our to  which  a  mortal  could  aspire.  These  consisted  of 
diflferent  wreaths  of  wild  olive,  pine,  parsley,  or  laurel, 
according  to  the  different  places  where  the  games  were  cel- 
ebrated. After  the  judges  had  passed  sentence,  a  public 
herald  proclaimed  the  name  of  the  victor;  one  of  the 
judges  put  the  crown  upon  his  head,  and  a  branch  of  palm 
into  his  right  hand,  which  he  carried  as  a  token  of  victo- 
rious courage  and  perseverance.    As  he  might  be  victor 


more  than  once  in  the  same  games,  and  sometimes  on  the 
same  day,  he  might  also  receive  several  crowns  and  palms. 
When  the  victor  had  received  his  reward,  a  herald,  pre* 
ceded  by  a  trumpet,  conducted  him  through  the  stadium, 
and  proclaimed  aloud  his  name  and  country;  while  the 
delighted  multitudes,  at  the  sight  of  him,  redoubled  their 
acclamations  and  applauses. 

The  crown,  in  the  Olympic  games,  was  of  wild  olive  ; 
in  the  Pythian,  of  laurel ;  in  the  Isthmian  or  Corinthian, 
of  pine-tree;  and  in  the  Nemsean,  of  smallage  or  parsley. 
Now,  most  of  these  were  evergreens ;  yet  they  would  soon 
grow  dry,  and  crumble  into  dust.  Elsnor  produces  many 
passages,  in  which  the  contenders  in  these  exercises  are 
rallied  by  the  Grecian  wits,  on  account  of  the  extraordi- 
nary pains  they  took  for  such  trifling  rewards;  and  Plato 
has  a  celebrated  passage,  which  greatly  resembles  that  of 
the  apostle,  but  by  no  means  equals  it  in  force  and  beauty : 
"  Now  they  do  it  to  obtain  a  corruptible  crown,  but  we  an 
incorruptible."  The  Christian  is  called  to  fight  the  good 
fight  of  faith,  and  to  lay  hold  of  eternal  life  ;  and  to  this 
he  is  more  powerfully  stimulated  by  considering  that  the 
ancient  athletge  took  all  their  care  and  pains  only  for  the 
sake  of  obtaining  a  garland  of  flowers,  or  a  wreath  of 
laurel,  which  quickly  fades  and  perishes,  possesses  little 
intrinsic  value,  and  only  serves  to  nourish  their  pride  and 
vanity,  without  imparting,  any  solid  advantage  to  them- 
selves or  others ;  but  that  which  is  placed  in  the  view  of 
the  spiritual  combatants,  to  animate  their  exertions,  and 
reward  their  labours,  is  no  less  than  a  crown  of  glory 
which  never  decays:  "  a  crown  of  infinite  worth  and  dura- 
tion ;  an  inheritance  incorruptible,  undefiled,  and  that  fa- 
deth  not  away,  reserved  in  heaven  for  them."  More  than 
conquerors  through  him  that  loved  them,  and  washed  from 
their  sins  in  his  own  blood ;  they,  too,  carry  palms  in  their 
right  hands,  the  appropriate  emblems  of  victory,  hardly 
contested,  and  fairly  won.  "  After  this  I  beheld,  and,  lo, 
a  great  multitude,  which  no  man  could  number,  of  all  na- 
tions and  kindreds,  and  people,  and  tongues,  stood  before 
the  throne,  and  before  the  Lamb,  clothed  in  white  robes, 
and  palms  in  their  hands."  But  the  victory  sometimes  re- 
mained doubtful,  in  consequence  of  which  a  number  of 
competitors  appeared  before  the  judges,  and  claimed  the 
prize ;  and  sometimes  a  combatant,  by  dishonourable  man- 
agement, endeavoured  to  gain  the  victory.  The  candi- 
dates, who  were  rejected  on  such  occasions  by  the  judge 
of  the  games,  as  not  having  fairly  merited  the  prize,  were 
called  by  the  Greeks  a^oKijioi,  or  disapproved,  and  which 
we  render  cast  away,  in  a  passage  already  quoted  from 
Paul's  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians :  *'  But  I  keep  under 
my  body,  and  bring  it  into  subjection,  lest  that  by  any 
means,  when  I  have  preached  to  others,  I  myself  should  be 
{a6oKmoi)  a  cast-away,^'  rejected  by  the  Judge  of  all  the  earth, 
and  disappointed  of  my  expected  crown. — Paxton. 

Ver.  26.  I  therefore  so  run,  not  as  uncertainly ;  so 
fight  I,  not  as  one  that  beateth  the  air. 

In  order  to  attain  the  greater  agility  and  dexterity,  it 
was  usual  for  those  who  intended  to  box  in  the  games,  to 
exercise  their  arms  with  the  gauntlet  on,  when  they  had  no 
antagonist  near  them,  and  this  was  called  aKiofia')(^ia,  in 
which  a  man  v^^ould  of  course  beat  the  air.  In  the  foot- 
race, the  runners,  of  whatever  number  they  were,  ranged 
themselves  in  a  line,  after  having  drawn  lots  for  their 
places.  While  they  waited  the  signal  to  start,  they  prac- 
tised, by  way  of  prelude,  various  motions  to  awaken  their 
activity,  and  to  keep  their  limbs  pliable,  and  in  a  right 
temper.  They  kept  themselves  breathing  by  small  leaps, 
and  making  little  excursions,  which  were  a  kind  of  trial 
of  their  speed  and  agility;  in  such  exercises,  they  might 
be  said  with  great  propriety  to  run  micertainly,  towards 
no  particular  point,  and  with  no  direct  or  immediate  view 
to  the  prize.  Both  these  allusions  occur  in  the  declara- 
tion of  the  apostle:  "  I  therefore  so  run,  not  as  uncertain- 
ly; so  fight  I,  not  as  one  that  beateth  the  air."  He  did 
not  engage  in  his  Christian  course  as  one  doubtful  in  him- 
self whether,  in  pursuing  the  path  of  duty,  he  should  have 
the  honour  of  being  crowned  at  last  or  not ;  as  they  are, 
who  know  that  one  only  receives  the  prize;  nor  did  Ke 
exercise  himself  unto  godliness,  like  boxers  or  wrestlers, 
who  sometimes  fight  in  jest,  or  merely  to  prepare  for  th« 
combat,  or  to  display  their  strength  and  agility,  while  they 


Ghap.  9—11. 


1   CORINTHIANS 


627 


had  no  resistance  to  enconnter,  no  enemy  to  subdue,  no 
reward  to  merit ;  but  he  pressed  on,  fully  persuaded  that, 
by  the  grace  of  God,  he  should  obtain  an  incorruptible 
crown  from  the  hands  of  his  Redeemer. — Paxton. 

Ver.  27.  But  I  keep  under  my  body,  and  bring  it 
into  subjection  :  lest  that  by  any  means,  when  I 
have  preached  to  others,  I  myself  should  be  a 
cast-away. 

See  on  ver.  25. 

Like  the  Grecian  combatants,  the  Christian  must  be 
wellborn — born,  "not  of  corruptible  seed,  but  of  incorrupt- 
ible, by  the  word  of  the  Lord,  which  liveth  and  abideth  for 
ever ;"  he  must  be  free — "  a  citizen  with  the  saints,  and  of 
the  household  of  faith;"  he  must  "abstain  from  fleshly 
lusts,"  and  "  walk  in  all  the  statutes  and  commandments  of 
the  Lord,  blameless."  Such  was  Paul;  and  in  this  man- 
ne/he  endeavpured  to  act:  "But  I  keep  under  my  body, 
and  bring  it  into  subjection :  lest  that  by  any  means,  when 
I  have  preached  to  others,  I  myself  should  be  a  cast-away." 
The  latter  part  of  this  verse  Doddridge  renders,  "  Lest  after 
having  served  as  a  herald,  I  should  be  disapproved ;"  and 
says  in  a  note,  "  I  thought  it  of  importance  to  retain  the 
primitive  sense  of  these  gymnastic  expressions."  It  is  well 
known  to  those  who  are  at  all  acquainted  with  the  original, 
that  the  word  Krip^ag,  means  to  discharge  the  oflice  of  a 
herald,  whose  business  it  was  to  proclaim  the  conditions  of 
the  games,  and  display  the  prizes,  to  awaken  the  emulation 
and  resolution  of  tnose  who  were  to  contend  in  them.  But 
the  apostle  intimates,  that  there  was  this  peculiar  circum- 
stance attending  the  Christian  contest — that  the  person  who 
proclaimed  its  laws  and  rewards  to  others,  was  also  to  en- 
gage himself;  and  that  there  would  be  a  peculiar  infamy 
and  misery  in  his  miscarrying.  AJoxi/kos,  which  we  render 
casl-awaij, '  signiries  one  who  is  disapproved  by  the  judge  of 
the  games,  as  not  having  fairly  deserved  the  prize,— Pax- 
ton. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  25.  Whatsoever  is  sold  in  the  shambles,  that 
eat,  asking  no  questions  for  conscience'  sake : 
28.  But  if  any  man  say  unto  you,  This  is  offer- 
ed in  sacrifice  unto  idols,  eat  not  for  his  sake 
that  showed  it,  and  for  conscience'  sake :  for 
the  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  the  fulness  thereof 

These  verses  refer  to  articles  of  food  which  had  been 
presented  to  the  idols,  and  were  afterward  sent  to  the 
shambles  to  be  sold.  The  heathen  make  large  presents  to 
the  temples  of  grain,  fruit,  milk,  and  other  eatables,  and 
therefore  the  priests  send  what  they  do  not  require  to  the 
market  to  be  sold.  The  fruit  called  plantain  (banana) 
may  be  known  as  having  been  offered  to  idols  by  having  a 
small  piece  pinched  off  one  end ;  and  the  other  articles  have 
generally  some  sign  by  which  they  may  be  known.  It  is 
however  impossible  at  all  times  to  ascertain  the  fact,  and  I 
doubt  not  that  most  Englishmen  have  at  one  time  or  an- 
other eaten  things  which  have  been  offered  to  idols. 

The  apostle  is  very  particular  in  his  directions  to  the 
Christian  converts,  (v.  27 :)  "  If  any  of  them  that  believe 
not  bid  you  to  a  feast,  and  ye  be  disposed  to  go,  whatsoever 
is  set  before  you,  eat,  asking  no  questions  for  conscience' 
sake."  We  see  the  converts  were  not  forbidden  to  go  to  a 
feast,  ♦.  c.  a  family,  not  a  religious  festival ;  but  the  phrase, 
"  If  ye  be  disposed  to  go,"  shows  there  were  doubts  and  hes- 
itations as  to  whether  they  ought  to  go.  The  moment 
they  found  the  food  had  been  offered  to  idols  they  were  to 
•*  eat  7iot" — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Ver.  5.  But  every  woman  that  prayeth  or  prophe- 
sieth  with  her  head  uncovered,  dishonoureth 
her  head :  for  that  is  even  all  one  as  if  she 
were  shaven. 

It  is  still  customary  to  this  day  in  the  East,  when  you 
accidentally  meet  a  woman  in  her  house,  that  she  instantly 
covers  herself  up,  and  even  runs  away,  and  will  not  appear 
before  a  man ;  nay,  even  if  a  person  lives  among  them  as  a 


physician,  and  eventually  has  free  access  to  their  rooms, 
he  has  yet  great  trouble  to  get  a  sight  of  their  feces,  unless 
they  have  a  defect  there ;  nay,  he  can  scarcely  ask  it  of 
them,  though  in  diseases  much  may  be  perceived  and 
judged  of  by  the  countenance.  Now,  as  in  these  countries 
modesty  requires  that  women  should  cover  themselves, 
even  when  at  home,  before  all  men,  and  particularly  be- 
fore young  people,  it  would  have  been  extremely  improper, 
if,  when  speaking  publicly  in  the  congregation,  they  had 
exposed  themselves  to  everybody's  view. — Rosenmuller. 

Ver.  10.  For  this  cause  ought  the  woman  to  have 
power  on  her  head,  because  of  the  angels. 

The  head-dress  of  the  women  is  simple :  their  hair  is 
drawn  behind  the  head,  and  divided  into  several  tresses : 
the  beauty  of  this  head-dress  consists  in  the  thickness,  and 
in  the  length  of  these  tresses,  which  should  fall  even  down 
to  the  heels,  in  default  of  which  they  lengthen  them  with 
tresses  of  silk.  The  ends  of  these  tresses  they  decorate 
with  pearls,  and  jewels,  or  ornaments  of  gold,  or  silver. 
The  head  is  covered  under  the  veil,  or  kerchief,  (couvre  chef,) 
only  by  the  end  of  a  small  bandeau,  shaped  into  a  triangle . 
this  bandeau,  which  is  of  various  colours,  is  thin  and  light. 
The  bandelette  is  embroidered  by  the  needle,  or  covered 
with  jewellery,  according  to  the  quality  of  the  wearer. 
This  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  ancient  tiara,  or  diadem,  of  the 
queens  of  Persia  ;  only  married  women  wear  it ;  and  it  is 
the  mark  by  which  it  is  known  that  they  are  under  subjec- 
tion, {^c^est  Id  la  marque  a  laquelle  on  reconnoit  qu'elles  sont 
so^is  PUISSANCE — fovjer.)  The  girls  have  little  caps,  instead 
of  this  kerchief,  or  tiara  ;  they  wear  no  veil  at  home,  but 
let  two  tresses  of  their  hair  fall  under  their  cheeks.  The 
caps  of  girls  of  superior  rank  are  tied  with  a  row  of  pearls. 
Girls  are  not  shut  up  in  Persia  till  they  attain  the  age  of 
six  or  seven  years  ;  before  that  age  they  go  out  of  the  se- 
raglio, sometimes  with  their  father,  so  that  they  may  then 
be  seen.  I  have  seen  some  wonderfully  pretty.  They 
show  the  neck  and  bosom ;  and  more  beautiful  cannot  be 
seen. — Chardin. 

The  wearing  of  a  veil  by  a  married  woman  was  a  token 
of  her  being  under  power.  The  Hebrew  name  of  the  veil 
signifies  dependence;  great  importance  was  attached  to  this 
part  of  dress  in  the  East.  "All  the  women  of  Persia  are 
pleasantly  apparelled ;  when  they  are  abroad  in  the  streets, 
all,  both  rich  and  poor,  are  covered  with  a  great  veil,  or 
sheet  of  very  fine  white  cloth,  of  which  one  half,  like  a 
forehead  cloth,  comes  down  to  the  eyes,  and,  going  over 
the  head,  reaches  down  to  the  heels,  and  the  other  half 
muffles  up  the  face  below  the  eyes,  and  being  fastened  with 
a  pin  to  the  left  side  of  the  head,  falls  down  to  their  very 
shoes,  even  covering  their  hands,  with  which  they  hold  that 
cloth  by  the  two  sides,  so  that,  except  the  eyes,  they  are 
covered  all  over  with  it.  Within  doors  they  have  their 
faces  and  breasts  uncovered  ;  but  the  Armenian  women,  in 
their  houses,  have  always  one  half  of  their  faces  covered 
with  a  cloth,  that  goes  athwart  their  noses,  and  hangs  over 
their  chins  and  breasts,  except  the  maids  of  that  nation, 
who,  within  doors,  cover  only  the  chin,  until  they  are  mar- 
ried."— Thevenot, 

Ver.  14.   Doth  not  even  nature  itself  teach  you, 

that  if  a  man  have  long  hair  it  is  a  shame  unto 

him? 
See  on  1  Pet.  3.  3, 
Ver.  15.  But  if  a  woman  have  long  hair,  it  is  a 

glory  to  her :  for  her  hair  is  given  her  for  a 

covering. 

The  eastern  ladies  are  remarkable  for  the  length,  and 
the  great  number  of  the  tresses  of  their  hair.  The  men 
there,  on  the  contrary,  wear  very  little  hair  on  their  heads. 
Lady  M.  W.  Montague  thus  speaks  concerning  the  hair 
of  the  women :  "  Their  hair  hangs  at  full  length  behind, 
divided  into  tresses,  braided  with  pearl  or  nband,  which 
is  always  in  great  quantity.  I  never  saw  in  my  life  so 
many  fine  heads  of  hair.  In  one  lady's  I  have  counted  one 
hundred  and  ten  of  these  tresses,  all  natural ;  but  it  must  be 
owned  that  every  kind  of  beauty  is  more  common  here 
than  with  us."  The  men  there,  on  the  contrary,  shave  all 
the  hair  ofi' their  heads,  excepting  one  lock;  and  those  that 


628 


I   CORINTHIANS. 


Chap.  14,  15. 


wear  hair  are  thought  effeminate.  Both  these  particulars  are 
mentioned  bjj  Chardin,  who  says,  they  are  agreeable  to  the 
custom  of  the  East :  the  men  are  shaved,  the  women  nour- 
ish their  hair  with  great  fondness,  which  they  lengthen, 
by  tresses  and  tufts  of  silk,  down  to  the  heels.  The  young 
men  who  wear  their  hair  in  the  East,  are  looked  upon  as 
effeminate  and  infamous. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
^  Ver.  7.  And  even  things  without  life  giving  sound, 
whether  pipe  or  harp,  except  they  give  a  dis- 
tinction in  the  sounds,  how  shall  it  be  known 
what  is  piped  or  harped  ?  8.  For  if  the  trum- 
pet give  an  uncertain  sound,  who  shall  prepare 
himself  to  the  battle  ? 

The  words  of  St.  Paul,  in  1  Cor.  xiv.  7,  will  appear  with 
the  greatest  energy,  if  we  consider  them  as  signifying,  that 
for  want  of  a  due  distinction  of  sounds,  those  by  whom  a 
procession  according  to  the  usages  of  the  East  should  pass, 
might  be  at  a  loss  to  know  whether  they  should  join  them 
with  expressions  of  gratulation,  or  in  words  of  lamentation. 
Irwin  has  given  an  instance  of  such  a  joining  in  the  latter 
case,  where,  speaking  of  the  singing  in  a  funeral  procession, 
that  went  by  his  house,  he  says,  "  There  was  an  Arabian 
merchant  on  a  visit  to  us,  when  the  funeral  went  by  ;  and 
though  in  company  with  strangers,  he  was  not  ashamed  to 
run  to  the  window,  and  to  join  audibly  in  the  devotions  of  the 
train."  If  a  pipe  was  designed  to  regulate  the  expressions 
that  were  to  be  made  use  of,  if  it  gives  an  uncertain  sound, 
and  sometimes  seemed  to  announce  a  triumph  or  a  wed- 
ding, and  sometimes  a  procession  on  account  of  the  dead, 
how  should  a  bystander  know  how  to  behave  himself? 
"  Even  things  without  life  give  sound,  whether  pipe  or 
harp ;  except  they  give  a  distinction  in  the  sounds,  how 
shall  a  man  know  what  is  piped  or  harped  1"  How  shall  a 
man  know  what  the  music  is  designed  to  produce,  congrat- 
ulation, or  condolence'?  This  is  a  much  stronger  sense 
than  the  supposing,  if  the  sounds  were  irregular,  the  apostle 
meant  it  was  impossible  to  tell  what  dance  was  intended. 
In  truth,  such  an  explanation  would  not  well  agree  with 
..le  extemporaneousness  of  eastern  dances,  for  the  hearer  of 
the  music  might  in  that  case  know  what  was  to  be  done, 
and  all  that  would  follow  from  it  would  be,  that  if  the  music 
was  irregular,  so  would  the  dance  be. — Harmer. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Ver.  24.   Then  cometh  the  end,  when  he  shall 
have  delivered  up  the  kingdom  to  God,  even 
the  Father  ;  when  he  shall  have  put  down  all 
rule,  and  all  authority,  and  power. 

If  the  opinion  of  the  eminent  critic,  Storr,  may  be  ad- 
mitted, that  the  kingdom  here  said  to  be  delivered  up  to 
the  Father  is  not  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  but  the  rule  and 
.dominion  of  all  adverse  powers — an  opinion  rendered  very 
probable  by  the  following  words  :  "  when  he  shall  have  put 
dovm  (Gr.  done  away,  abolished)  all  rule  and  all  author- 
ity and  power,"  and  ver.  25,  "  till  he  hath  put  all  enemies 
under  his  feet" — then  is  the  passage  of  identical  import 
with  Rev.  xi.  15,  referring  to  precisely  the  same  period : 
"  And  the  seventh  angel  sounded ;  and  there  were  great 
voices  in  heaven,  saying,  The  kingdoms  of  the  world  are 
become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  his  Christ ;  and 
he  shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever."  It  is,  therefore,  we  con- 
ceive, but  a  peculiar  mode  of  denoting  the  transfer,  the 
tiwMng  over  of  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  from  their  for- 
onoer  despotic  and  antichristian  rulers  to  the  sovereignty  of 
Jesus  Christ,  the  appointed  heir  and  head  of  all  things, 
whose  kingdom  is  to  be  everlasting.  If  this  interpretation 
be  correct,  we  are  prepared  to  advance  a  step  farther,  and 
suggest  that  the  phrase,  he  shall  have  delivered  up,  (Greek, 
parado,)  be  understood  as  an  instance  of  the  idiom  in  which 
the  verb  is  used  without  any  personal  nominative,  but  has 
reference  to  the  jntrpose  of  God  as  expressed  in  the  scrip- 
tures; so  that  the  passage  may  be  read,  "  Then  cometh  the 
end,  (i.  e.  not  the  close,  the  final  winding  up,  but  the  per- 
fect development,  expansion,  completion,  consummation 
of  the  divine  plans,  in  regard  to  this  world,)  when  the  pro- 
phetic announcements  of  the  scriptures  require  the  deliv- 


ering up  (i.  e.  the  making  over)  of  all  adverse  dominion 
into  the  hands  of  the  Messiah,  to  whose  supremacy  we  are 
taught  to  expect  that  every  thing  will  finally  be  made  sub- 
ject."— Bush. 

Ver.  32.  If  after  the  manner  of  men  I  have  fought 
with  beasts  at  Ephesus,  what  advantageth  it 
me,  if  the  dead  rise  not?  let  us  eat  and  drink ; 
for  to-morrow  we  die. 

The  barbarous  custom  of  making  men  combat  with 
wild  beasts  has  prevailed  in  the  East  down  to  the  most 
modern  times.    Jurgen  Andersen,  who  visited  the  stales  of 
the  great  mogul  in  1646,  gives  an  account  in  his  Travels, 
of  such  a  combat  with  animals,  which  he  witnessed  at  Agra,  ' 
the  residence  of  the  great  mogul.    His  description  affords 
a  lively  image  of  those  bloody  spectacles  in  which  ancient 
Rome  took  so  much  pleasure,  and  to  which  the  abave 
words  of  the  apostle  refer.    Alamardan-Chan,  the  gov- 
ernor of  Cashmire,  who  sat  among  the  chans,  stood  up, 
and  exclaimed,  "  It  is  the  will  and  desire  of  the  great 
mogul,  Schah  Choram,  that  if  there  are  any  valiant  he- 
roes who  will  show  their  bravery  by  combating  with  wild 
beasts,  armed  with  shield  and  sword,  let  them  come  for- 
ward :  if  they  conquer,  the  mogul  will  load  them  with 
great  favour,  and  clothe  their  countenance  with  gladness." 
Upon  this  three  persons  advanced,  and  oftered  to  under- 
take the  combat.     Alamardan-Chan  again  cried  aloud, 
"  None  should  have  any  other  weapon  than  a  shield  and  a 
sword,*  and  whosoever  has  a  breastplate  under  his  clothes, 
should  lay  it  aside  and  fight  honourably."    Hereupon  a 
powerful  lion  was  let  into  the  garden,  and  one  of  the  three 
men  abovementioned  advanced  against  him ;  the  lion,  on 
seeing  his  enemy,  ran  violently  up  to  him;  the  man  how- 
ever defended  himself  bravely,  and  kept  off  the  lion  for  a 
good  while,  till  his  arms  grew  tired ;  the  lion  then  seized 
the  shield  with  one  paw,  and  with  the  other  his  antago- 
nist's right  arm,  so  that  he  was  not  able  to  use  his  weapon  ; 
the  latter,  seeing  his  life  in  danger,  took  with  his  left  hand 
his  Indian  dagger,  which  he  had  sticking  in  his  girdle, 
and  thrust  it  as  far  as  possible  into  the  lion's  mouth  ;  the 
lion  then  let  him  go ;  the  man  however  was  not  idle,  but 
cut  the  lion  almost  through  with  one  stroke,  and  after  that 
entirely  to  pieces.    Upon  this  victory,  the  common  people 
began  to  shout,  and  call  out,  "  Thank  God,  he  has  con- 
quered."   But  the  mogul  said,  smiling,  to  this  conqueror, 
"  Thou  art  a  brave  warrior,  and  hast  fought  admirably ! 
But  did  I  not  command  to  fight  honourably  only  with  shield 
and  sword  7    But,  like  a  thief,  thou  hast  stolen  the  life  oi 
the  lion  with  thy  dagger."    And  immediately  he  ordered 
two  men  to  rip  up  his  belly,  and  to  place  him  upon  an  ele- 
phant, and,  as  an  example  to  others,  to  lead  him  about, 
which  was  done  on  the  spot.    Soon  after  a  tiger  was  let 
loose  ;  against  which  a  tall,  powerful  man,  advanced  with 
an  air  of  defiance,  as  if  he  would  cut  the  tiger  up.    The  ^ 
tiger,  however,  was  far   too  sagacious  and  active,  for,  in 
the  first  attack,  he  seized  the  combatant  by  the  neck,  tore 
his  throat,  and  then  his  whole  body  in  pieces.     This  en- 
raged another  good  fellow,  but  little,  ana  of  mean  appear- 
ance, from  whom  one  would  not  have  expected  it:  he 
rushed  forward  like  one  mad,  and  the  tiger  on  his  part 
undauntedly  flew  at  his  enemy ;  but  the  man  at  the  first 
attack  cut  off  his  two  forepaw^s,  so  that  he  fell,  and  the 
man  cut  his  body  to  pieces.    Upon  this  the  king  cried, 
"  What  is  your  name  ?"  He  answered,  "  My  name  is  Gey- 
by."     Soon  after  one  of  the  king's  servants  came  and 
brought  him  a  piece  of  gold  brocade,  and  said,  "  Geyby, 
receive  the  robe  of  honour  with  which  the  mogul  presents 
you."    He  took  the  garment  with  great  reverence,  kissed 
it  three  times,  pressing  it  each  time  to  his  eyes  and  breast, 
then  held  it  up,  and  in  silence  put  up  a  prayer  for  the 
health  of  the  mogul ;  and  when  he  had  concluded  it,  he 
cried,  "  May  God  let  him  become  as  great  as  Tamerlane, 
from  whom  he  is  descended.    May  he  live  seven  hundred 
years,  and  his  house  continue  to  eternity  !"    Upon  this  ha 
was  summoned  by  a  chamberlain  to  go  from  the  garden 
up  to  the  king,  and  when  he  came  to  the  entrance,  he  was 
received  by  two  chans,  who  conducted  him  between  them 
to  kiss  the  mogul's  feet.    And  when  he  was  going  to  re- 
tire, the  king  said  to  him,  "  Praised  be  thou,  Geyby-Chan, 
for  thy  valiant  deeds,  and  this  name  shalt  thou  keep  to 


Chap.  3—10. 


2  CORINTHIANS. 


629 


eternity.    I  am  your  gracious  master,  and  thou  art  my 

slave." — ROSENMULLER. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

Ver.  9.  For  a  great  door  and  effectual  is  opened 
unto  me,  and  there  are  many  adversaries. 

The  chariot  races  were  the  most  renowned  of  all  the 
exercises  used  in  the  games  of  the  ancients,  and  those 
from  which  the  victors  derived  the  greatest  honour ;  but 
the  writer  can  find  only  one  or  two  allusions  to  them  in 
the  sacred  volume,  and  those  involved  in  some  uncertainty. 
One  occurs  in  Paul's  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  where 
he  informs  them  of  his  great  success  in  collecting  a  church 
at  Ephesus :  "But  I  will  tarry  at  Ephesus  until  pente- 
cost;  for  a  great  door  and  effectual  is  opened  unto  me, 
and  there  are  many  adversaries."  The  inspired  writer, 
it  is  thought,  alludes  here  to  the  door  of  the  circus,  which 
was  opened  to  let  out  the  chariots  when  the  races  were  to 
begin;  and  by  the  word  avTUKtifitvoi,  which  is  translated  ad- 
versaries, but  which  Doddridge  renders  opposers,  means 
the  same  with  antagonists,  with  whom  he  was  to  contend 
as  in  a  course.  This  opposition  rendered  his  presence 
more  necessary  to  preserve  those  that  were  already  con- 
verted, and  to  increase  the  number,  if  God  should  bless 
his  ministry.  Accordingly  a  celebrated  church  was  planted 
at  Ephesus ;  and  so  far  as  we  can  learn  from  the  tenor  of 
his  epistle,  there  was  less  to  reprove  and  correct  among 
them  than  in  most  of  the  other  churches  to  which  he 
wrote. — Paxton. 


Ver.  22.  If  any  man  love  not  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
let  him  be  anathema,  maran-atha. 

The  expression  used  by  the  apostle, "  Let  him  be  anathema, 
maran-atha"  is  so  remarkable,  that  it  has  attracted  general 
notice.  It  is  usually  understood  to  be  a  Syriac  exclama- 
tion, signifying,  "  Let  him  be  accursed,  when  the  Lord 
comes."  It  certainly  was  not  now,  for  the  first  time,  used 
as  a  new  kind  of  cursing  by  the  apostle,  but  was  the  ap- 
plication of  a  current  mode  of  speech,  to  the  purpose  he 
nad  in  contemplation.  Perhaps,  therefore,  by  inspecting^ 
the  manners  of  the  East,  we  may  illustrate  the  import  of 
this  singular  passage :  the  nearest  approach  to  it  that  I  have 
been  able  to  discover,  is  in  the  following  extract  from  Mr. 
Bruce ;  and  though,  perhaps,  this  does  not  come  up  to  the 
full  power  of  the  apostle's  meaning,  yet,  probably,  it  gives 
the  idea  which  was  commonly  attached  to  the  phrase  among 
the  public.  Mr.  Bruce  had  been  forced  by  a  pretended 
saint,  in  Egypt,  to  take  him  on  board  his  vessel,  as  if  to 
carry  him  to  a  certain  place — whereas  Mr.  B.  meant  no 
such  thing;  but,  having  set  him  on  shore  at  some  little  dis- 
tance from  whence  he  came,  "  we  slacked  our  vessel  down 
the  stream  a  few  yards,  filling  our  sails  and  stretching 
away.  On  seeing  this,  our  saint  fell  into  a  desperate  pas- 
sion, cursing,  blaspheming,  and  stamping  with  his  feet ;  at 
every  word  crying  '  Shar  Ullah  1'  i.  e.  '  May  God  send, 
AND  DO  JUSTICE  1'  This  appears  to  be  the  strongest  execra- 
tion this  passionate  Arab  could  use,  q.  d. '  To  punish  you 
adequately  is  out  of  my  power :  I  remit  you  to  the  ven- 
geance of  God.'  Is  not  this  the  import  of  anathema,  ma- 
ran-atha ?" — Taylor  in  Calmet. 


THE   SECOND   EPISTLE   OF  PAUL,  THE   APOSTLE, 
TO  THE  CORINTHIANS. 


CHAPTER  III. 

'  Ver.  11.  For  if  that  which  is  done  away  was  glo- 
rious, much  more  that  which  remaineth  is  glo- 
rious. 

This  verse,  as  any  who  consults  the  original  will  see,  is 
undoubtedly  susceptible  of  a  much  improved  rendering. 
An  exact  translation  would  not  vary  essentially  from  the 
following: — "  For  if  that  which  was  done  away,  (was  done 
away)  by  glory ;  much  more  that  which  remaineth,  (re- 
maineth) in  glory."  That  is,  since  that  which  was  done  away, 
v/as  done  away  by  means  of  a  greater  glory  and  splendour, 
then  certainly  that  which  remains  must  remain  glorious. 
The  reasoning  of  the  apostle  may  be  illustrated  thus :  If  the 
light  of  the  stars,  which  vanishes  at  the  rising  of  the  sun, 
was  done  away  by  the  superior  light  and  brightness  of  the 
sun;  much  more  shall  the  light  of  the  sun,  having  thus 
eclipsed  that  of  the  stars,  remain  glorious.  So  since  the 
glory  of  the  gospel  has  availed  to  abolish  that  of  the  law, 
the  gospel  is  hereby  evinced  to  be  superlatively  great,  and 
/hat  of  the  law  will  never  be  able  to  equal  it. — Bush. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  7.  But  we  have  this  treasure  in  earthen  ves- 
sels, that  the  excellency  of  the  power  may  be 
of  God,  and  not  of  us. 

Cups  of  the  most  beautiful  appearance,  and  ornamented 
m  the  most  costly  manner,  are  formed  out  of  the  nautilus. 
Such  drinking-vessels  are  frequent  in  China.  Perhaps  to 
such  beautiful  vessels  as  these,  containing  the  most  costly 


liquor,  the  apostle  alludes  when  he  speaks  of  earthen  ves- 
sels, literally  vessels  made  of  shell. — Burder. 

In  a  Cingalese  pottery,  I  have  seen  hundreds  of  erathen 
vessels  for"  hoarding  money  in.  They  are  nearly  round, 
and  in  size  something  less  than  the  twO  fists.  They  have 
no  opening  but  a  small  hole,  like  that  in  a  till  to  slip  in  a 
coin ;  and  are  said  to  be  mostly  bought  up  by  children,  to 
hide  the  profit  of  their  play  in,  and  other  such  sums. — 
Callaway. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  1 4.  Be  ye  not  unequally  yoked  together  with 
unbelievers:  for  what  fellowship  hath  righte- 
ousness with  unrighteousness  ?  and  what  com- 
munion hath  light  with  darkness  ? 

See  on  Deut.  22.  10. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Ver.  14.  For  we  stretch  not  ourselves  beyond  cur 
measure,  as  though  w^e  reached  not  unto  you  ; 
for  we  are  come  as  far  as  to  you  also  in  preach- 
ing the  gospel  of  Christ. 

Within  the  measure  and  determinate  limits  of  the  sta- 
dium, the  athletffi  were  bound  to  contend  for  the  prize, 
which  they  forfeited  without  hope  of  recovery,  if  they  de- 
viated ever  so  little  from  the  appointed  course.  In  allusion 
to  this  inviolable  arrangement,  the  apostle  tells  the  Corin- 
thians, "We  will  not  boast  of  things  without  our  measure, 
but  according  to  the  measure  of  the  rule  which  God  haih 


630 


2   CORINTHIANS. 


Chap.  11,  12. 


distributed  to  us,  a  measure  to  reach  even  unto  j'-ou.  For 
we  stretch  not  ourselves  beyond  our  measure,  as  though 
we  reached  not  unto  you ;  for  we  are  come  as  far  as  unto 
you  also,  in  preaching  the  gospel  of  Christ."  It  may  help 
very  much  to  understand  this  and  the  following  verses,  if, 
with  Hammond,  we  consider  the  terms  used  in  them  asago- 
oiistical.  In  this  view  of  them,  the  measure  of  the  rule  al- 
ludes to  the  path  marked  out,  and  bounded  by  a  white  line, 
tor  racers  in  the  Isthmian  games,  celebrated  among  the 
Corinthians ;  and  so  the  apostle  represents  his  works  in 
])reaching  the  gospel  as  his  spiritual  race,  and  the  province 
to  which  he  was  appointed  as  the  compass  or  stage  of 
ground,  which  God  had  distributed  or  measured  out  for 
him  to  run  in.  Accordingly,  "  to  boast  without  his  meas- 
ure," and  to  stretch  himself  beyond  his  measure,  refer  to 
one  that  ran  beyond  or  out  of  his  line.  "  We  are  come  as 
far  as  to  you,"  alludes  to  him  that  came  foremost  to  the  goal ; 
and  "  in  another  man's  line,"  signifies  in  the  province  that 
was  marked  out  for  somebody  else,  in  allusion  to  the  line 
by  which  the  race  was  bounded,  each  of  the  racers  having 
the  path  which  he  ought  to  run  chalked  out  to  him,  and  if 
one  stepped  over  into  the  other's  path  he  extended  himself 
over  his  line. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XL 
Ver.  19.  For  ye  suffer  fools  gladly,  seeing  ye 
yourselves  are  wise. 

The  Orientals  pay  a  particular  respect  to  lunatic;?. 
"  The  Arabs,"  says  Poiret,  "  show  a  kind  of  reverence  to 
1  unatics  according  to  the  principles  of  their  religion.  They 
look  upon  them  as  saints,  as  beings  endowed  with  peculiar 
privileges,  and  favoured  by  Heaven.  I  met  such  a  man  in 
the  duar  (villages  of  the  Bedouin  Arabs)  of  Ali  Bey.  He 
was  quite  naked,  went  into  all  the  tents,  and  showed  himself 
to  the  women,  without  the  men  being  offended  at  it.  It 
would  be  considered  as  a  criminal  action  to  send  away 
such  a  man,  or  to  treat  him  ill.  He  could  eat  where  he 
pleased  ;  nothing  was  denied  him.  Ali  Bey  himself  bore 
his  freedoms  and  importunities  with  a  degree  of  indulgence 
that  astonished  me."  Lempriere  says,  that  in  Morocco  in- 
sane persons  form  a  peculiar  class  of  saints.  The  Moors 
believe  that  such  men  are  under  the  especial  protection  of 
God.  They  consequently  find  everywhere  compassion 
and  support.  To  treat  their  excesses  with  rigour  is  thought 
to  be  as  criminal  as  to  lay  hands  on  the  person  of  the  em- 
peror. The  consequence  of  this  ill-judged  humanity  is, 
that  worthless  vagabonds  feign  lunacy,  and  commit  the 
greatest  crimes,  no  one  venturing  to  hinder  them.  A 
lunatic  of  this  description  went  about  without  restraint  in 
Morocco,  who,  under  the  appearance  of  being  immersed  in 
his  devotions,  strangled  with  his  rosary  several  persons 
who  came  too  near  him.  Stephen  Schultz  relates  a  story 
of  a  Franciscan  monk,  who,  being  pursued  by  the  populace 
in  the  streets  of  Alexandria,  saved  himself  by  feigning 
madness,  dancing  and  playing  strange  antics,  so  that  he 
not  only  escaped  the  shower  of  stones  that  threatened  his 
life,  but  was  treated  with  the  greatest  respect.  (Edmann 
applies  these  observations  to  illustrate  the  words  of  the 
apostle  in  the  above  passage.  Paul's  adversaries  in  Co- 
rinth, endeavoured  to  lessen  the  reputation  he  enjoyed,  by 
extolling  their  own  merits.  He  therefore  found  it  neces- 
sary to  compare  his  merits  with  those  which  these  people 
assumed,  fcuch  self-praise  he  declares  to  be  folly :  but  as 
it  was  extorted  from  him,  he  requests  them  to  judge  favour- 
ably, or  at  least  to  grant  him  the  indulgence  which  they 
afford  to  a  man  whose  mental  faculties  were  deranged. 
"  You  are  accustomed,"  says  he,  "  to  treat  mental  weakness 
with  indulgence,  to  give  proof  of  your  own  understanding. 
You  disregard  it,  when  such  an  idiot  in  his  madness  treats 
vou  as  slaves,  consumes  what  is  yours,  or  appropriates  to 
himself  what  belongs  to  you ;  or  is  proud  and  fancies  him- 
self above  you;  nay,  even  if  he  strikes  you  in  the  face. 
This  indulgence  you  will  not  refuse  me,  now  that  I  have 
been  compelled  to  be  guilty  of  the  weakness  of  speaking  in 
mj'  own  praise." 

The  above  account  of  the  opinion  entertained  of  lunatics 
by  the  Orientals,  serves  to  illustrate  what  is  said  of  David, 
1  Sam.  xxi.  10,  when,  to  escape  the  pursuit  of  Saul,  he  fled 
to  Achish,  king  of  the  Philistines,  but  was  discovered ;  then 
he  feigned  himself  mad,  and  thus  saved  his  life. — Rosen- 

WULLER. 


CHAPTER  XII. 
Ver.  2.  I  knew  a  man  in  Christ  above  fouiteen 
years  ago,  (whether  in  the  body,  I  cannot  tell ; 
or  whether  out  of  the  body,  I  cannot  t^ll :  God 
knoweth;)  such  a  one  caught  up  to  the  third 
heaven. 

Macknight  says,  "  That  the  apostle  speaks  of  himself  here 
is  evident  from  verses  6  and  7."  This  is  the  eastern  way 
in  which  a  man  modestly  speaks  of  himself.  Has  an  indi- 
vidual performed  a  great  exploit  which  he  does  not  like  to 
mention  in  plain  terms  as  having  been  done  by  himself,  he 
simply  says,  in  relating  the  afiiair,  "  I  know  the  man  who 
did  it."  NdTi-arevain,  i.  e.  I  know.  Do  people  express 
their  pleasure  or  surprise  in  the  presence  of  a  person  at 
some  work  which  has  been  accomplished  by  himself,  and 
should  they  inquire,  "  who  is  the  man,"  he  will  say,  "  I 
know  him:"  he  will  not  say  he  is  the  man,  because  some 
would  perhaps  not  be  disposed  to  believe  him  ;  and  the 
slight  intimation  conveyed  in  the  terms,  I  know  him,  is  quite 
sufficient  lo  convince  others  he  is  the  fortunate  individual. 
Should  a  person  receive  a  favour  from  an  unknown  hand, 
he  will  make  many  inquiries ;  and  when  he  thinks  he  has 
found  him  out,  he  will  go  to  him  and  talk  on  the  subject, 
and  then,  should  he  be  right,  the  individual  will  say,  "  I 
know  him."  But  in  this  way  also  the  people  praise  them- 
selves, by  saying,  "  I  know  a  man  who  performed  such  a 
penance:  I  am  acquainted  with  one  who  gave  such  gifts 
to  the  temples :  I  know  one  who  performed  an  extraor- 
dinary fast,  or  went  on  such  a  dangerous  pilgrimage." — 
Roberts. 

Ver.  7.  And  lest  I  should  be  exalted  above  meas- 
ure through  the  abundance  of  the  revelations, 
there  was  given  to  me  a  thorn  in  the  flesh,  the 
messenger  of  Satan  to  buffet  me,  lest  I  should 
be  exalted  above  measure. 

The  following  communication  from  a  Mr.  Stephen,  in 
a  letter  to  Mrs.  Hannah  More,  presents  an  interpretation 
of  this  passage,  so  highly  ingenious  and  plausible,  that  it  is 
well  entitled  to  a  place  in  the  present  work  : — 

"  When  are  we  to  have  our  new  or  improved  views  of  St. 
Paul  1  With  such  a  subject,  and  such  an  artist,  we  may 
reasonably  be  impatient  for  the  exhibition.  Does  it  fall 
within  the  plan  or  general  character  of  the  work  to  notice 
the  thorn  in  the  flesh,  the  messenger  of  Satan,  and  to  give 
any  conjecture  as  to  the  infirmity  alluded  to  7  I  have  an 
interpretation  of  this,  which,  as  far  as  my  reading,  or  that 
of  Wilberforce's  and  some  others,  goes,  is  original,  and  yet 
it  is  admitted  by  them  to  be  as  probable,  or  more  so,  than 
any  other  of  the  many  conjectures  they  have  seen.  For 
my  own  part,  I  hold  it  almost  demonstrably  the  true  soli>- 
tion.  St.  Paul's  infirmity  was  one  well  known  in  hot 
climates,  a  chronical  ophthalmia.  Hence  he  was  what  is 
called  blear-eyed,  and  was  often,  perhaps,  obliged  to  wear  a 
shade.  It  made  his  personal  presence  mean,  it  was  a  visi- 
ble infirmity  in  his  flesh,  it  hindered  his  usefulness,  and 
therefore  he  besought  the  Lord  anxiously  that  it  might  de- 
part from  him :  but  was  answered, '  My  grace  is  sufficient 
for  thee.'  It  made  it  for  the  most  part  painful  and  difficult 
for  him  to  write.  Hence  he  generally  employed  an  aman- 
uensis, and  regarded  it  as  a  great  matter  when  he  used  his 
own  pen.  '  You  see  how  long  a  letter  I  have  written  to 
you  with  mine  own  hand.' — '  The  salutation  of  me,  Paul, 
written  with  mine  own  hand.'  It  is  thought  that  he  might 
abstain  from  writing  to  save  his  strength  or  time ;  why 
then  did  he  work  at  tent-making  1  A  man  who  maintained 
himself  by  that  sedentary  labour,  might  as  well  have  been 
at  his  desk,  for  we  cannot  suppose  that  the  wages  of  a  jour- 
neyman tent-maker  were  greater  than  those  of  an  aman- 
uensis. It  exposed  him  to  contempt  and  derision  among 
strangers,  and  therefore  he  gives  praise  to  the  Galatians, 
that  when  he  preached  the  gospel  to  them  at  the  first  through 
infirmity  of  the  flesh,  his  temptation,  which  was  in  *  his 
flesh,  they  despised  not.'  That  the  infirmity  was  of  a  bodi- 
ly kind  seems  to  me  quite  indisputable.  Doddridge,  and  a\. 
the  best  commentators,  take  that  aside.  It  is  literally  so 
described ;  and  the  calling  it  a  '  messenger  of  Satan'  is 
perfectly  consistent  with  its  being  a  bodily  disease.    Satan, 


Chap.  12. 


2  CORINTHIANS. 


631 


in  fifty  places,  is  represented  as  the  immediate  author  of 
corporal  defects  and  maladies.  The  passages  cited  show- 
it  was  something  visible  to  others.  How  could  a  temptation 
to  a  particular  sin  be  so  unless  it  was  complied  with  7  It 
would  be  derogatory  to  the  character  of  the  apostle,  and 
even  of  an  Antinomian  tendency,  to  suppose  this  to  have 
been  the  case.  The  Galatians  ought  to  have  despised  him, 
if  in  preaching  the  gospel  he  had  exhibited  before  them  the 
strength  of  a  temptation  by  the  commission  of  open  sin. 
They  would  have  deserved  no  |)raise  for  not  despising,  but 
the  reverse ; — i.  e.  for  not  despising  the  temptation,  if  but 
for  the  visible  sin,  which  was  its  evidence.  In  short,  I 
am  astonished  how  many  pious  and  judicious  commenta- 
tors should  think  this  '  thorn  in  the  flesh'  a  thorn  in  the 
conscience. 

"  If  it  was  bodily,  it  was  also  some  bodily  infirmity  of  an 
unsightly  appearance,  making  his  ^  person^  or  aspect 
^TTiean,'  and  exposing  him  to  contempt.  How  shall  we 
find  a  more  probable  hypothesis  to  suit  those  and  the  other 
preconceptions  1  He  was  not  lame — witness  his  great  bodily 
activity. 

"  Doddridge  supposes  that  the  view  be  had  of  celestial 
glories  might  have  effected  his  nervous  system,  so  as  to 
occasion  stammering  in  his  speech,  and  some  ridiculous 
distortion  in  his  countenance.  (Exposition,  2  Cor.  xii.  7.) 
But  it  is  at  least  equally  probable  that  those  heavenly  vis- 
ions, or  the  supernatural  light  which  blinded  him  at  his 
conversion,  might  have  left  a  weakness  and  disease  in  the 
organs  immediately  affected.  It  is  notorious,  that  after  a 
severe  inflammation  in  the  eyes,  they  are  extremely  liable 
for  a  long  time,  or  through  life,  to  a  return  of  the  complaint. 
It  maybe  even  presumed  from  analogy,  that,  unless  the 
miracle  which  restored  Paul  to  sight  removed  also  a  na- 
tural secondary  effect  of  the  temporary  injury  the  organs 
had  received,  there  must  have  been  a  predisposition  after- 
ward to  the  complaint  which  I  suppose  him  to  have  had. 
Now  that  frugality  in  the  use  of  means  which  has  been 
observed  even  in'  the  miraculous  works  of  God,  may  be 
supposed  to  have  permitted  that  predisposition  to  remain,  it 
being  designed  that  the  apostle,  for  his  humiliation  and 
the  exercise  of  his  faith  and  patience,  should  have  a  per- 
manent infirmity  of  the  flesh  to  struggle  with  in  future 
life. 

"  The  choice  of  the  metaphor  by  which  St.  Paul  describes 
his  infirmity,  also  weighs  much  with  me ;  indeed  it  first 
excited  my  conjecture.  The  pain  of  ophthalmia,  when 
severe,  exactly  resembles  the  prick  of  a  thorn  or  pin,  I 
once  had  it  very  severely  indeed  in  the  West  Indies,  It 
made  me  blind  in  a  manner  for  about  three  weeks,  and 
during  that  time,  if  a  ray  of  light  by  any  means  broke  into 
my  darkened  chamber,  it  was  like  a  thorn  or  pin  run  into 
my  eye,  and  so  I  often  described  it.  I  felt  also  the  subse- 
quent effect  for  years,  which  I  suppose  to  have  been  ex- 
perienced by  St.  "Paul, — a  predisposition  to  inflammation  in 
the  eyes,  which  extreme  care  and  timely  applications  pre- 
vented from  recurring. 


"  I  see  a  further  possible  source  of  this  idea  in  his  mind,  in 
the  fact  that  thorns  in  the  eyes  are  figuratively  used  in  dif- 
ferent parts  of  scripture  to  signify  troubles  and  temptations, 
(see  Numbers  xxxiii.  55,  and  Joshua  xxiii.  13.)  Now  if 
this  metaphor  had  an  affinity  with  the  actual  bodily  sensa- 
tions of  the  apostle,  it  was  natural  he  should  think  of  and 
use  it ;  but  as  natural  that  he  should  vary  it  into  the  more 
general  term  /esA,  that  he  might  not  confound  the  pro- 
per with  the  metaphorical  sense,  and  be  understood  to 
mean  that  a  thorn  actually  thrust  into  his  eye  had  produced 
the  disease. 

"  This  maybe  thought  perhaps  too  refined.  But  the  strong- 
est argument  of  all  remains,  and  appears  to  me  nearly,  if  not 
quite,  decisive.  It  rests  upon  Galatians  iv.  15.  After  prais- 
ing them  in  the  preceding  verse  for  not  despising  his  flesh- 
ly infirmity,  (whatever  that  was,)  he  here  subjoins,  /  bear 
you  record,  that  if  it  hud  been  possible,  ye  would  have  plucked 
out  your  own  eyes,  and  have  given  them  to  me.  How  natural 
this  context  on  my  hypothesis !  How  little  so  on  any 
other  !  Was  it  a  moral  infirmity,  a  temptation  shown  by 
its  fruits  1  It  might  then  have  pardon,  it  might  have  char- 
itable and  respectful  indulgence,  in  consideration  of  the 
great  and  good  qualities  which  were  seen  in  the  same 
character ;  but  it  could  not  give  rise  to  such  glowing  affec- 
tion, such  ardour  of  sympathetic  kindness,  as  these  words 
import.  Again,  was  it  a  bodily  infirmity  affecting  some 
other  member  than  the  eyesl  how  extremely  unnatural 
this  expression  of  the  sympathy  which  it  produced.  Let  us 
take,  for  instance,  Doddridge's  conjecture,  'You  saw  my 
paralytic  distortions  in  my  mouth  and  cheeks,  you  heard  my 
stammering  tongue,  when  I  first  preached  the  gospel  to  you ; 
but  you  despised  not  those  infirmities.  On  the  contrary, 
you  would,  if  it  had  been  possible,  have  plucked  out  your 
own  eyes  and  given  them  to  me.'  Suppose  lameness,  or 
some  sharp  internal  disease,  (as  others  have  supposed,  not- 
withstanding the  visible  character  of  the  infirmity,)  and  the 
incongruity  is  not  much,  if  at  all,  less.  But  if  the  apostle 
was  speaking  of  his  diseased  eyes,  which  made  his  aspect 
unsigntly,  and  prevented  perhaps  much  of  the  natural  ef- 
fect of  his  preaching,  to  which  they  nevertheless  respect- 
fully listened,  and  with  affectionate  sympathy  did  all  they 
could  for  his  comfort  and  relief,  how'  natural,  how  appro- 
priate this  grateful  close  of  the  encomium!  Such  was 
your  generous  and  tender  sympathy,  that  I  verily  believe 
if  you  could  have  removed  those  sufferings  of  mine,  and 
that  obstacle  to  my  more  perfect  usefulness,  by  taking  the 
infirmity  in  my  stead,  by  plucking  out  your  own  sound 
eyes,  and  transferring  them  to  my  use,  you  would  have 
been  willing  to  do  so. 

"  If  parental  fondness  for  a  supposed  discovery  of  my  own 
does  not  deceive  me,  these  reasons,  when  taken  together, 
are  nearly  conclusive.  The  point  to  be  sure,  after  all,  is 
of  no  great  importance ;  but  if  Mrs.  H.  More  thinks  it  worth 
her  while  to  notice  the  guesses  on  this  subject  at  all,  here 
is  what  I  suppose  to  be  a  new  one,  for  her  considers  tion."— 
(Memoirs  of  Mrs.  Hannah  More,  vol.  ii.  p.  224,)-  B. 


THE  EPISTLE  OF  PAUL,  THE  APOSTLE,  TO  THE 

GALATIANS. 


CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  9.  And  when  James,  Cephas,  and  John,  who 
seemed  to  be  pillars,  perceived  the  grace  that 
was  given  unto  me,  they  gave  to  me  and  Bar- 
nabas the  right  hands  of  fellowship ;  that  we 
should  go  unto  the  heathen,  and  they  unto  the 
circumcision. 

"  Pillars,"  i.  e.  "  the  principal  supporters  and  defenders 
of  the  gospel."  It  is  said  of  those  who  have  done  much  to 
support  a  temple,  or  who  are  zealous  in  its  religious  cere- 
monies, '•  They  are  the  pillars  of  black  stone  belonging  to 
*he  temple." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  24.  Wherefore  the  law  was  our  schoolmas- 
ter to  bring  us  unto  Christ,  that  we  might  be 
justified  by  faith. 

The  Hindoos  have  some  books  which  they  call  school- 
master, etdsdriyan,  or  rather  schoolmaster-book,  raeaningf  they 
will  teach  science  without  the  help  of  a  master.  When  a 
man  who  was  formerly  in  poverty  has  learned  how  to  pro- 


cure a  comfortable  living,  he  says,  "  Ah  !  my  adversity  was 
my  teacher ;  it  has  guided  me  into  this." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  15.  Where  is  then  the  blessedness  ye  spake 
of?  for  I  bear  you  record,  that  if  it  had  been 
possible,  ye  would  have  plucked  out  your  o\vn 
eyes,  and  have  given  them  to  me. 

"  Ah !  how  great  was  her  love  for  him;  had  he  asked  her, 
she  would  have  given  him  her  own  eyes."  "  Dearer,  dearer 
than  my  own  eyes." — Roberts. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  7.  Be  not  deceived ;  God  is  not  mocked : 
for  whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he  also 
reap. 

The  Tamul  proverb,  on  this  subject  is,  "  virtti-aruppdn" 
i.  e.  he  reaps  what  he  sowed.  "  Ah!  the  wretch,  he  cast  in 
cruelties,  and  is  now  reaping  ihem."  "Yes,  yes,  he  has  a 
large  harvest ;  his  lies  have  produced  fruit."  "  Go,  go  to 
thy  harvest,  fiend." — Roberts. 


THE  EPISTLE  OF  PAUL,  THE  APOSTLE,  TO  THE 

EPHESIANS. 


CHAPTER  II. 
Ver.  14.  For  he  is  our  peace,  who  hath  made 
both  one,  and  hath  broken  down  the  middle 
wall  of  partition  between  us. 

Some  think  that  this  refers  to  the  ancient  manner  of  living 
among  the  Gentiles,  who  always  endeavoured  to  reside  in 
some  place  by  themselves,  and  to  have  a  river  or  a  waJl 
between  them  and  their  heathen  neighbours.  Some  others 
refer  it  to  that  partition- wall  in  the  temple,  which  separated 
the  court  of  the  Gentiles  from  that  into  which  the  Jews 
entered,  and  on  which  was  written,  that  no  alien  might 
go  into  it,  it  being,  says  Josephus,  a  sanction  of  Antiochus, 
that  no  foreigner  should  enter  within  the  enclosure  of  the 
temple. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  8.  Wherefore  he  saith,  When  he  ascended 
up  on  high,  he  led  captivity  captive,  and  gave 
gifts  unto  men. 

The  highest  military  honour  which  could  be  obtained  in 
the  Roman  state,  was  a  triumph,  or  solemn  procession,  in 
which  a  victorious  general  and  his  armyadvanced  through 
the  city,  to  the  capitol.    He  set  out  from  the  Campus  Mar- 


tins, and  proceeded  along  the  Via  Triumphalis,  and  from 
thence  through  the  most  public  places  of  the  city.  The 
streets  were  strewed  with  flowers,  and  the  altars  smoked 
with  incense.  First  went  a  numerous  band  of  music,  sing- 
ing and  playing  triumphal  songs ;  next  were  led  the  oxen 
'to  be  sacrificed,  having  their  horng'gilt,  and  their  heads 
adorned  with  fillets  and  garlands ;  then  in  carriages  were 
brought  the  spoils  taken  from  the  enemy;  also  golden 
crowns  sent  by  the  allied  and  tributary  states.  The  titles 
of  the  vanquished  nations  were  inscribed  on  wooden  frames; 
and  images  or  representations  of  the  conquered  countries 
and  cities  were  exhibited.  The  captive  leaders  followed 
in  chains,  with  their  children  and  attendants ;  after  the  cap- 
tives came  the  lictors,  having  their  faces  wreathed  with 
laurel,  followed  by  a  great  company  of  musicians  and  dan- 
cers, dressed  like  satyrs,  and  wearing  crowns  of  gold  ;  in 
the  midst  of  whom  was  a  pantomime,  clothed  in  a  female 
garb,  whose  business  it  was,  with  his  looks  and  gestures,  to 
insult  the  vanquished ;  a  long  train  of  persons  followed, 
carrying  perfumes ;  after  them  came  the  general,  dressed  in 
purple,  embroidered  with  gold,  with  a  crown  of  laurel  on 
his  head,  a  branch  of  laurel  in  his  right  hand,  and  in  his 
lefl  an  ivory  sceptre,  with  an  eagle  on  the  top,  his  face 
painted  with  vermilion,  and  a  golden  ball  hanging  from  his 
neck  on  his  breast;  he  stood  upright  in  a  gilded  chariot, 
adorned  with  ivory,  and  drawn  by  four  white  horses,  at- 


Chap,  6. 


EPHESIANS. 


633 


tended  by  his  relations,  and  a  great  crowd  of  citizens,  all 
in  white.  His  children  rode  in  the  chariot  along  with  him, 
^is  lieutenants  and  military  tribunes  commonly  by  his  side. 
After  the  general  followed  the  consuls  and  senators  on  foot; 
the  whole  procession  was  closed  by  the  victorious  army 
drawn  up  in  order,  crowned  with  laurel,  and  decoratea 
with  the  gifts  which  they  had  received  for  their  valour, 
singing  their  own  and  their  general's  praises.  The  trium- 
phal procession  was  not  confined  to  the  Romans ;  the  Greeks 
nad  a  similar  custom,  for  the  conquerors  used  to  make  a 
procession  through  the  middle  of  their  city,  crowned  with 
garlands,  repeating  hymns  and  songs,  and  brandishing  their 
spears  ;  the  captives  "followed  in  chains,  and  all  their  spoils 
were  exposed  to  public  view. 

The  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  alludes  to  these  splen- 
did triumphal  scenes,  in  his  epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  where 
he  mentions  the  glorious  ascension  of  his  Redeemer  into 
heaven  :  "  When  he  ascended  up  on  high,  he  led  captivity 
captive,  and  gave  gifts  unto  men."  These  words  are  a  quo- 
tation from  the  sixty-eighth  Psalm,  where  David,  in  Spirit, 
describes  the  ascension  of  Messiah,  in  very  glowing  col- 
ours: "  The  chariots  of  God  are  twenty  thousand,  even 
thousands  of  angels ;  the  Lord  is  among  them,  as  in  Sinai, 
in  the  holy  place.  Thou  hast  ascended  on  high,  thou  hast 
led  captivity  captive,"  or  an  immense  number  of  captives ; 
"  thou  hast  received  gifts  for  men,  yea,  for  the  rebellious 
also;  that  the  Lord  God  might  dwell  among  them.  Bless- 
ed be  the  Lord,  who  daily  loadeth  us  with  his  benefits,  even 
the  God  of  our  salvation ;  Selah."  Knowing  the  deep  im- 
pression which  such  an  allusion  is  calculated  to  make  on 
the  mind  of  a  people  familiarly  acquainted  with  triumphal 
scenes,  the  apostle  returns  to  it  in  his  epistle  to  the  Colos- 
sians,  which  was  written  about  the  same  time:  "Having 
spoiled  principalities  and  powers,  he  made  a  show  of  them 
openly,  triumphing  over  them  in  it."  After  obtaining  a 
complete  victory  over  all  his  enemies,  he  ascended  in  splen- 
dour and  triumph  into  his  Father's  presence  on  the  clouds 
of  heaven,  the  chariots  of  the  Most  High,  thousands  of  holy 
angels  attending  in  his  train ;  he  led  the  devil  and  all  his 
angels,  together  with  sin,  the  world,  and  death,  as  his  spoils 
of  war,  and  captives  in  chains,  and  exposed  them  to  open 
contempt  and  shame,  in  the  view  of  all  his  angelic  attend- 
ants, triumphing  like  a  glorious  conqueror  over  them,  in 
virtue  of  his  cross,  upon  which  he  made  complete  satisfac- 
tion for  sin,  and  by  bis  own  strength,  without  the  assistance 
of  any  creature,  destroyed  him  that  had  the  power  of  death, 
that  is,  the  devil.  And  as  mighty  princes  are  accustomed 
to  scatter  largesses  among  the  people,  and  reward  their 
companions  in  arms  with  a  liberal  hand,  when,  laden  with 
the  spoils  of  vanquished  nations,  they  returned  in  triumph 
to  their  capital ;  so  the  Conqueror  of  death  and  hell,  when 
he  ascended  far  above  all  heavens,  and  sat  down  in  the 
midst  of  the  throne,  shed  forth  in  vast  abundance  the 
choicest  blessings  of  the  Spirit  upon  people  of  every  tongue 
and  of  every  nation. — Paxton. 

Ver.  26.  Be  ye  angry  and  sin  not ;  let  not  the  sun 
go  down  upon  your  wrath. 

One  of  the  apartments  in  the  houses  of  some  rich  men  is 
appropriated  to  a  very  curious  purpose,  viz.  when  any  mem- 
bers of  the  family  are  angry,  they  shut  themselves  up  in 
,  this  room,  called  krodhagaru,  the  room  of  anger,  or  of  the 
angry.  When  any  individual  is  gone  into  this  room,  the 
master  of  the  family  goes  and  persuades  him  or  her  to  come 
out.    (Ward's  View  of  the  Hindoos.) — Burder. 

CHAPTER  VL 
Ver.  14.  Stand,  therefore,  having  your  loins  girt 
about  with  truth,  and  having  on  the  breast- 
plate of  righteousness. 

The  breastplate  is  frequently  mentioned  in  the  sacred 
volume.  It  was  properly  a  half  corslet,  defending  the  breast, 
as  its  name  imports,  but  leaving  the  back  exposed  to  the 
enemy.  Breastplates  were  not  always  formed  of  the  same 
materials ;  some  were  made  of  line  or  hemp  twisted  into 
small  cords,  and  close  set  together ;  but  these  were  more 
frequently  u'sed  in  hunting  than  in  war.  The  most  ap- 
proved breastplates  were  made  of  brass,  iron,  or  other  met- 
als, which  were  sometimes  so  admirably  hardened  as  to 
80 


resist  the  greatest  force.  Plutarch  reports,  that  Zoilus,  an 
artificer,  having  made  a  present  of  two  iron  brigandines  to 
Demetrius  Poliorcetes,  for  an  experiment  of  their  hardness, 
caused  an  arrow  to  be  shot  out  of  an  engine  called  cata- 
pulta,  placed  about  twenty-six  paces  ofi",  which  was  so  far 
from  piercing  the  iron,  that  it  scarcely  rased  or  made  the 
least  impression  upon  it.  These  facts  may  serve  to  display 
the  inestimable  value  of  "  the  breastplate  of  righteousness," 
which  the  apostle  recommends  to  the  hearers  of  the  gospel : 
a  piece  of  spiritual  armour  which  the  fiery  darts  of  the  devil 
cannot  pierce.  The  scales  of  brass,  which  composed  the 
breastplate  of  the  ancient  warrior,  often  reflected  the  light 
so  as  to  dazzle  the  eyes  of  his  antagonist,  and  strike  him 
with  terror. 

The  military  girdle  was  another  piece  of  defensive  ar- 
mour; it  surrounded  the  other  accoutrements;  the  sword 
was  suspended  in  it,  as  in  modern  times  in  the  soldier's 
belt ;  and  it  was  necessary  to  gird  the  clothes  and  armour 
of  the  combatant  together.  This  was  so  essential  to  a  war- 
rior, that  among  the  Greeks,  ^ovwadai,  to  jE;ird,  came  to  be  a 
general  name  for  putting  on  armour.  Homer  thus  intro- 
duces Agamemnon  commanding  the  Grecians  to  arm ; 

ArpeiSriS  <5£  Porj^ev,  i6e  ^covvvaOai  avoyyEv. — Iliad,  lib.  ix. 

"  Atrides  strait  commands  them  all  to  arm,  or  gird  them- 
selves." We  learn  from  Plutarch,  that  the  Romans  had 
the  same  custom ;  and  it  prevailed  also  among  the  Persians^ 
for  Herodotus  relates,  that  Xerxes  having  reached  Abdera, 
when  he  fled  from  Athens,  and  thinking  himself  out  of 
danger,  \veiv  rw  ^lovriv,  loosed  his  girdle,  that  is,  put  off"  his 
armour.  The  same  phrases  occur  in  many  parts  of  the  sa- 
cred volume,  the  military  belt  being  not  less  necessary  to  the 
Hebrew  soldier,  on  account  of  his  loose  and  flowing  dress. 
To  gird  and  to  arm,  are  therefore  synonymous  terras  in 
scripture ;  for  those  who  are  said  to  be  able  to  put  on  ar- 
mour, are,  according  to  the  Hebrew  and  Septuagint,  girt 
with  a  girdle;  from  whence  came  the  expression  of  girding 
to  the  battle.  This  was  the  species  of  girdle  which  Jona- 
than bestowed  on  David,  as  one  of  the  pledges  of  his  entire 
love  and  friendship.  He  stripped  himself,  not  only  of  his 
wearing  apparel,  but  what  a  warrior  valued  at  a  much 
higher  price,  his  military  habiliments  also,  his  sword,  his 
bow,  and  his  girdle,  and  gave  them  to  David. 

The  girdle  is  mentioned  by  the  apostle,  in  his  particular 
description  of  the  Christian  armour,  addressed  to  the  church 
at  Ephesus :  "  Stand,  therefore,  having  your  loins  girt  about 
with  truth."  As  warriors  are  accustomed  to  gird  them- 
selves with  a  broad  belt  to  keep  up  their  long  garments,  to 
bind  them  and  their  armour  close  together,  and  to  fortify 
their  loins,  that  they  may  be  stronger,  and  more  fitted  for 
the  labours  and  fatigues  of  war;  so  must  believers  encom- 
pass themselves  with  sincerity  and  uprightness  of  heart, 
and  with  truth  and  honesty  of  conversation,  that  righteous- 
ness may  be  the  girdle  of  their  loins,  and  faithfulness  the 
girdle  of  their  reins,  that  they  may  be  steady,  active,  and 
resolute  in  every  spiritual  encounter. — Paxton, 

Ver.  15.  And  your  feet  shod  with  the  preparation 
of  the  gospel  of  peace. 

The  legs  of  the  Grecian  warrior  were  defended  with 
greaves  of  brass,  copper,  or  other  metals.  Potter  thinks  it 
is  probable  that  this  piece  of  armour  was  at  first  either  pe- 
culiar to  the  Grecians,  or  at  least  more  generally  used  by 
them  than  any  other  nations;  because  we  find  them  so  per- 
petually called  by  the  poet  {svKvriiiiSei  A^atoi)  the  well-greaved 
Achaians.  But  they  seem  to  have  been  equally  common 
among  the  warriors  of  Canaan,  and  other  eastern  countries. 
When  Goliath  appeared  in  complete  armour,  and  challen- 
ged the  armies  of  Israel  to  furnish  a  man  able  to  contend 
with  him  in  single  combat,  he  wore  greaves  of  brass  upon 
his  legs.  This  piece  of  armour  is  also  recommended  by 
the  apostle,  in  these  words :  "  And  your  feet  shod  with  the 
preparation  of  the  gospel  of  peace."  The  soldier  is  wont 
to  wear  greaves  of  brass,  or  a  sort  of  strong  boots,  to  guard 
his  feet  and  legs  against  briers  and  thorns,  the  iron  spikes 
which  the  enemy  scatters  in  his  way,  and  the  sharp 
pointed  stones  which  retard  his  march  ;  so  must  the  heart 
and  life  of  the  Christian  be  disengaged  from  worldly 
thoughts,  affections,  and  pursuits,  that  would  hinder  him 
in  his  heavenly  course ;  and  be  filled  with  holy  resolutions, 
by  divine  grace,  to  hold  on  his  way,  in  spite  of  every  hard' 


mi 


PHILIPPIANS. 


Chap.  1,  2. 


ship  and  danger,  fortified  against  the  many  snares  and 
temptations  that  beset  him  in  his  progress,  and  prepared 
for  the  assault,  from  what  enemy  or  quarter  soever  it  may 
come. 

The  feet  were  protected  with  shoes  of  stout,  well-prepar- 
ed leather,  plated  or  spiked  on  the  sole,  to  prevent  the 
combatant  from  slipping.  Moses  seems,  at  least  according 
to  our  translation,  to  have  had  some  allusion  to  shoes  of  this 
kind,  in  his  farewell  address  to  the  tribes:  "  Thy  shoes 
shall  be  iron  and  brass,  and  as  thy  days,  so  shall  thy  strength 
be."  And  the  apostle  Paul,  in  his  description  of  the  spirit- 
ual armour  :  "  Having  the  feet  shod  with  the  preparation 
of  the  gospel  of  peace."  "  Not  iron,"  says  Calmet,  "not 
steel ;  but  patient  investigation,  calm  inquiry,  assiduous, 
laborious,  lasting;  if  not  rather  with  firm  footing  in  the 
gospel  of  peace."— Paxton. 

•  Ver.  16.  Above  all,  taking  the  shield  of  faith, 
wherewith  ye  shall  be  able  to  quench  all  the 
fiery  darts  of"  the  wicked. 

See  on  Ps.  57.  4. 

The  Hebrew  soldiers  used  two  kinds  of  shields,  the  (njs) 
tsinna,  and  the  (po)  magen.  From  the  middle  of  the  tsinna 
rose  a  large  boss,  surmounted  by  a  dagger,  or  sharp  pointed 
protuberance,  which  was  extremely  useful  in  repelling 
missive  weapons,  and  bearing  down  their  enemy  when  they 
came  to  close  fight,  A  shield  of  this  construction  was 
partly  a  defensive  and  partly  an  offensive  weapon.  Martial 
Beems  to  allude  to  the  tsinna  in  this  line  : 

"In  turbam  incideris,  cunctos  umbone  repellet." 

"  Should  you  get  into  a  crowd,  your  slave  with  his  boss 
w^ould  repel  them  all."  The  ancient  bucklers  generally 
covered  the  whole  body ;  for  Virgil  represents  the  troops 
as  standing  close  covered  under  their  bucklers : 

— "olypeique  sub  orbe  iegnaiyw.^'—^n.  lib.  ii.  1.  227. 

And  in  Tyrtaeus,  the  mighty  buckler  covered  the  thighs, 
legs,  and  breast,  belly,  and  shoulders  too.  The  magen  was 
a  short  buckler  intended  merely  for  defence,  and  of  great 
ser  nee  in  the  warfare  of  those  days.    To  these  must  be 


added  the  (x-in"«D)  sikara,  or  round  shield  ;  and  these  three 
differed  irom  one  another,  nearly  as  the  scutum,  clypeus,  and 
parma,  among  the  Romans.  The  tsinna  was  double  the 
weight  of  the  magen,  and  was  carried  by  the  infantry  ;  the 
others,  as  being  more  light  and  manageable,  were  reserved 
for  the  cavalry.  These  different  shields  were  also  used  by 
the  Greeks.  The  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  earnestly  re- 
commends this  weapon,  among  others,  to  the  use  of  the 
churches  under  the  present  dispensation :  "  Above  all,  taking 
the  shield  of  faith,  wherewith  ye  shall  be  able  to  quench  all 
the  fiery  darts  of  the  wicked." — Paxton, 

Ver.  17.  And  take  the  helmet  of  salvation,  and 
the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  which  is  the  word  of 
God. 

The  first  piece  of  defensive  armour  entitled  to  our  noticCj 
is  the  helmet,  which  protected  the  head.  This  has  beea 
used  from  the  remo\est  ages  by  almost  every  nation  of  a 
martial  spirit.  The  champion  of  the  Philistines  had  a  hel- 
met of  brass  upon  his  head,  as  had  also  the  king  of  Israel, 
who  commanded  the  armies  of  the  living  God.  This  mar- 
tial cap  was  also  worn  by  the  Persians  and  Ethiopians  in 
the  day  of  battle.  The  Grecian  helmets  were  very  often 
made  of  the  skins  of  beasts  ;  but  the  helmet  of  the  Jewish 
warrior  seems  to  have  been  uniformly  made  of  brass  or  iron ; 
and  to  this  sort  of  casque  only,  the  sacred  writer  seems  to 
refer.  In  allusion  to  this  piece  of  defensive  armour,  Paul 
directs  the  believer  to  put  on  for  a  helmet  the  hope  of  sal- 
vation, which  secures  the  head  in  every  contest,  till,  through 
him  that  loved  him,  he  gain  a  complete  victory  over  all  his 
enemies.  That  well-grounded  hope  of  eternal  life  which 
is  attended  with  ineffable  satisfaction,  and  never  disappoints 
the  soul,  like  a  helmet  of  brass,  shall  guard  it  against  fear 
and  danger,  enable  it  patiently  to  endure  every  hardship, 
and  fortify  it  against  the  most  furious  and  threatening  at- 
tacks of  Satan  and  all  his  confederates.  Such  adversaries, 
this  solid  hope  is  not  less  calculated  to  strike  with  dismay, 
than  was  the  helmet  of  an  ancient  warrior  in  the  day  of 
battle  his  mortal  foes,  by  its  dazzling  brightness,  its  horrifi  i 
devices  of  gorgons  and  chimeras,  and  its  nodding  plumes 
which  overlooked  the  dreadful  cone. — Paxton. 


THE  EPISTLE   OF  PAUL,   THE  APOSTLE,   TO   THE 

PHILIPPIANS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver,  7.  Even  as  it  is  meet  for  me  to  think  this  of 
you  all,  because  I  have  you  in  my  heart ;  inas- 
much as  both  in  my  bonds,  and  in  the  defence 
and  confirmation  of  the  gospel,  ye  all  are  parta- 
kers of  my  grace. 

This  peculiar  expression  intimates,  not  only  that  the 
apostle  cherished  for  the  Philippians  the  most  sincere  and 
ardent  affection,  but  that  they  were  ever  in  his  recollection, 
and  that  he  was  thus  animated  to  promote,  in  every  possible 
"Way,  their  spiritual  benefit  and  prosperity.  If  not  strictly 
similar,  the  following  instance  may  be  considered  as  nearly 
approaching  to  this  phraseology :  "  The  old  man  followed 
us,  with  his  women,  to  a  distance  from  the  village,  and,  at 
parting,  recommended  me  to  his  relations.  '  He  is  your 
brother,'  he  said  to  his  son  :  *  and  there,'  opening  his  son's 
waistcoat,  and  putting  his  hand  upon  his  bosom,  *  There  let 
him  be  placed.'  A  way  of  recommendation  much  in  use 
in  the  Arabian  desert  likewise."    (Burckhardt.)— BuanER. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  15.  That  ye  maybe  blameless  and  harmless, 
the  sons  of  God,  without  rebuke,  in  the  midst  of 
a  crooked  and  perverse  nation,  among  whom 
ye  shine  as  lights  in  the  world. 

This  metaphor  has  an  allusion  to  the  buildings  which 
we  call  light-houses,  the  most  illustrious  of  which  was 
'raised  in  the  island  of  Pharos,  when  Ptolemy  Philadelphusj 
built  that  celebrated  tower,  on  which  a  bright  flame  was  al- 
ways kept  burning  in  the  night,  that  mariners  might  per- 
fectly see  their  way,  and  be  in  no  danger  of  suffering  ship-l 
wreck.    Some  of  these  light-houses  were  constructed  in  thej 
form  of  human  figures.    The  colossus  at  Rhodes  held  in.| 
one  hapd  a  flame  which  enlightened  the  whole  port,     Thes 
lights  were  also  sometimes  moveable,  and  were  used  to  di- 
rect the  marches  of  the  caravans  in  the  night.     Pitts  thiT*^ 
describes  them:  "  They  are  somewhat  like  iron  stoves,  int 
which  they  put  short  dry  wood,  which  some  of  the  came^ 
are  loaded  with.     Every  colter  hath  one  of  these  prlr" 


Chap.  2. 


COLOSSIANS. 


885 


belonging  to  it,  some  of  which  have  ten,  some  twelve 
of  these  lights  on  their  lops,  and  they  are  likewise  of  differ- 
ent figures,  one  perhaps  oval,  another  triangular,  or  like  an 
N  or  M,  &c.  so^hat  every  one  knows  by  them  his  respect- 
ive cotter.  They  are  carried  in  the  front,  and  set  up  in 
the  place  where  the  caravan  is  to  pitch,  before  that  comes 
up,  at  some  distance  from  one  another."  The  meaning 
of  the  passage  from  these  representations  is  obvious.  "  Ye 
shine  as  elevated  lights  in  the  dark  world  about  yon,"  that 
ye  may  direct  those  that  sail  on  this  dangerous  sea,  and  se- 
cure them  from  suffering  shipwreck,  or  guide  those  who 
travel  through  this  desert  in  their  way  to  the  city  of  rest. — 

BURDER. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  2,  Beware  of  dogs,  beware  of  evil-workers, 
beware  of  the  concision. 

The  champion  of  Gath  inquired  of  David,  "Am  I  a  dog?" 
And  David,  when  pursued  by  the  infatuated  and  cruel  Saul, 
asked,  "  After  whom  dost  thou  pursue  1  after  a  dead  dog  1" 
The  term  ni,  i.  e.  dog,  is  an  expression  of  sovereign  contempt 
for  the  faithless,  the  ignoble,  and  the  outcasts.  "Never 
more  will  I  go  to  the  house  of  that  dog."  "  You  call  me  a 
dog!  then  (running  at  him)  I  will  bite  thee."  "  Here,  dog, 
are  some  bones  for  thee."  "Yes,  yes,  he  will  be  a  dog  in 
the  next  birth." — Roberts. 

Ver.  14.  I  press  towards  the  mark,  for  the  prize 
of  the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus. 

The  most  remarkable  parts  of  the  stadium,  were  its  en- 
trance, middle,  and  extremity.  The  entrance  was  marked 
at  first  only  by  a  line  drawn  on  the  sand,  from  side  to  side 
of  the  stadium.  To  prevent  any  unfair  advantage  being 
taken  by  the  more  vigilant  or  alert  candidates,  a  cord  was 
at  length  stretched  in  front  of  the  horses  or  men  that  were 
to  run;  and  sometimes  the  space  was  railed  in  with  wood. 
The  opening  of  this  barrier  was  the  signal  for  the  racers 
to  start.  The  middle  of  the  stadium  was  remarkable,  only 
by  the  circumstance  of  having  the  prizes  allotted  to  the  vic- 
tors set  up  there.  From  this  custom,  Chrysostom  draws  a 
fine  comparison :  "  As  the  judges,  in  the  races  and  other 
games,  expose  in  the  midst  of  the  stadium,  to  the  view  of 
the  champions,  the  crowns  which  they  were  to  receive  ;  in 
hke  manner,  the  Lord,  by  the  mouth  of  his  prophets,  has 
placed  the  prizes  in  the  midst  of  the  course,  which  he  de- 
signs for  those  who  have  the  courage  to  contend  for  them." 

At  the  extremity  of  the  stadium  was  a  goal,  where  the 
foot-races  ended ;  but  in  those  of  chariots  and  horses,  they 


were  to  run  several  times  round  it  without  stopping,  and 
afterward  conclude  the  race,  by  regaining  the  other  extrem- 
ity of  the  lists  from  whence  they  started.  It  is  therefore 
to  the  foot-race  the  apostle  alludes,  when  he  speaks  of  the 
race  set  before  the  Christian,  which  was  a  straight  course, 
to  be  run  only  once,  and  not,  as  in  the  other,  several  times 
without  stopping. 

According  to  some  writers,  it  was  at  the  goal,  and  not  in 
the  middle  of  the  course,  that  the  prizes  were  exhibited  ; 
and  they  were  placed  in  a  very  conspicuous  situation,  that 
the  competitors  might  be  animated  by  having  them  always 
in  their  sight.  This  accords  with  the  view  which  the 
apostle  gives  of  the  Christian  life:  "  Brethren,  I  count  not 
myself  to  have  apprehended ;  but  this  one  thing  I  do,  for- 
getting those  things  which  are  behind,  and  reaching  forth 
unto  those  things  which  are  before,  I  press  towards  the  mark 
for  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus." 
L'Enfant  thinks  the  apostle  here  compares  our  Lord  to 
those  who  stood  at  the  elevated  place  at  the  end  of  the 
course,  calling  the  racers  by  their  names,  and  encouraging 
them  by  holdmg  out  the  crown,  to  exert  themselves  with 
vigour. — Paxton. 

Ver.  19.  Whose  end  is  destruction,  whose  god  is 
their  belly,  and  whose  glory  is  in  their  shame, 
who  mind  earthly  things. 

"When  a  pandarum  is  reproved  and  told  to  serve  the 
gods,  he  exclaims,  "  What !  is  not  the  belly  the  god  1"  "  I 
will  tell  you  all  about  him,  his  god  is  in  his  belly."  "  Belly, 
belly,  nothing  to  the  belly,"  bawls  the  beggar  at  your  door. 
— Roberts. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  3.  And  I  entreat  thee  also,  true  yeke-fellow, 
help  those  women  which  laboured  with  me  in 
the  gospel,  with  Clement  also,  and  with  other 
my  fellow-labourers,  whose  names  are  in  the 
book  of  life. 

This  expression  refers  to  the  custom  of  those  cities  which 
had  registers  containing  the  names  of  all  the  citizens,  from 
which  the  names  of  infamous  persons  were  erased.  Agree- 
ably to  this  we  read  of  names  being  blotted  out  of  God's  book, 
Rev.  iii.  5.  Those  citizens  who  were  orderly  and  obedient 
were  continued  on  the  roll,  from  whence  they  could  easily 
obtain  their  title  to  all  the  immunities  and  privileges  com- 
mon to  all  the  members  of  the  city ;  and  to  be  excluded  from 
these  was  both  disgraceful  and  injurious. — Burder. 


THE  EPISTLE   OF  PAUL,   THE   APOSTLE,   TO  THE 

COLOSSIANS. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  14.  Blotting  out  the  handwriting  of  ordi-' 
nances  that  Avas  against  us,  which  was  contra- 
ry to  us,  and  took  it  out  of  the  way,  nailing  it  to 
his  cross. 

See  on  Zech.  11.  7. 

The  handwriting,  ^sipoypa^oi',  signifies  a  bill  or  bond 
whereby  a  person  binds  himself  to  some  payment  or  duty, 
and  which  stands  in  force  against  him  till  the  obligation  is 
discharged.  In  these  words  the  apostle  alludes  to  the  differ- 
ent methods  by  which  bonds  formerly  were  cancelled;  one 
was  by  blotting  or  crossing  them  out  with  a  pen,  and  another 


was  by  striking  a  nail  through  them.  In  either  of  these 
cases  the  bond  was  rendered  useless,  and  ceased  tc  be  valid. 
These  circumstances  the  apostle  applies  to  the  death  of 
Christ. — Burder. 

Ver.  15.  A7id  having  spoiled  principalities  and 
powers,  he  made  a  show  of  them  openly,  tri- 
umphing over  them  in  it. 

The  most  grand  and  magnificent  procession  the  ancients 
ever  beheld  was  a  Roman  triumph.  After  a  decisive  bat- 
tle gained,  the  most  illustrious  captives  in  war,  with  their 
wives  and  children,  were  led  in  fetters  before  the  general's 
chariot,  through  the  public  streets  of  Rome,  scaffolds  being 


636 


1  THESSALONIANS. 


Chap.  4,  5. 


every^vhere  erected,  and  the  public  places  crowded  to  be- 
hold the  sight.  It  was  also  accompanied  by  vast  numbers 
of  wagons,  full  of  rich  furniture,  statues,  pictures,  plate, 
vases,  and  vests,  of  which  they  had  stripped  houses  and 
palaces;  carts  loaded  with  the  arms  they  had  taken  from 
the  enemy ;  the  coin  of  the  empires  they  had  conquered 
and  enslaved:   these  preceded  the  triumphal  car.    The 


temples  Were  all  thrown  open,  and  adorned  with  garlands; 
they  were  filled  with  clouds  of  incense  and  perfume.  The 
spectators  were  clothed  in  white  garments.  Whole  heca- 
tombs of  victims  were  slain,  and  the  most  sumptuous  en- 
tertainments were  given.  The  captives,  after  being  public- 
ly exposed,  were  generally  imprisoned  and  put  to  death,  or 
sold  for  slaves. — Burder. 


THE   FIRST  EPISTLE   OF  PAUL,  THE   APOSTLE 
THE  THESSALONIANS. 


TO 


CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  17.  Then  we,  which  are  alive  and  remain, 
shall  be  caught  up  together  with  them  in  the 
clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air ;  and  so  shall 
we  ever  be  with  the  Lord. 

See  on  2  Tim.  4.  7,  8. 

CHAPTER  V. 
Ver.  8.  But  let  us,  who  are  of  the  day,  be  sober, 
putting  on  the  breastplate  of  faith  and  love; 
and  for  a  helmet,  the  hope  of  salvation. 
See  on  Eph.  6-17. 
Ver.  17.  Pray  without  ceasing.  « 

We  learn  from  church  history  that  an  ancient  sect,  called 
Euchitae,  gathered  from  this  and  similar  passages,  that  it 
was  the  duty  of  Christians  to  pray  literally  without  ceasing, 
making  prayer  the  whole  means  of  salvation  and  the  whole 
business  of  the  Christian  life.  A  slight  acquaintance  with 
the  idiom  of  the  original  languages  of  the  scriptures,  will 
enable  us  to  correct  this  as  well  as  many  other  errors  which 
have,  at  different  times,  crept  into  both  the  practical  and 
speculative  theology  of  the  church.  It  may  be  laid  down 
as  a  canon  of  philological  interpretation,  that  adverbs  of 
time  expressing  perpetuity,  sometimes  denote  only  fre- 
quency or  regularity  at  stated  times  and  seasons.  This 
will  abundantly  appear  from  the  following  examples :  Ex. 
xxvii.  20,  "  To  cause  the  lamp  to  burn  always."  (Hebrew, 
tamid.)  -That  this  is  not  to  be  taken  strictly,  but  merely 
as  equivalent  to,  "  from  evening  to  morning,"  appears  from 
the  ensuing  verse :  "  Aaron  and  his  sons  shall  order  it  from 
evening  to  morning."  That  the  lamp  of  the  tabernacle  did 
not  burn  during  the  day,  is  evident  from  1  Sam,  iii.  3 : 
"  Ere  the  lamp  of  God  went  out  in  the  temple  of  the  Lord." 
Again,  it  is  said,  Ex.  xxviii.  30,  "  And  thou  shalt  put  in 
the  breastplate  of  judgment,  the  Urim  and  the  Thummim; 
and  they  shall  be  upon  Aaron's  heart,  when  he  goeth  in 
before  the  Lord  ;  and  Aaron  shall  bear  the  judgment  of  the 
children  of  Israel  upon  his  heart  before  the  Lord  continu- 
ally ;"  i,  e.  whenever  he  went  into  the  inner  place  of  the 
sanctuary,  as  is  clear  from  the  preceding  clause,  by  which 
the  word  "  continually"  is  to  be  limited.  So  2  Sam.  ix.  7, 
David  says  to  Mephibosheth,  "  Thou  shalt  eat  bread  at  my 
table  continually ;"  i.  e.  at  the  stated  hours  of  meals.  In 
Uke  manner,  "to  pray  without  ceasing,"  is,  to  pray  con- 
otantly,  morning  and  evening,  at  the  stated  hours  of  prayer. 
In  this  precept,  the  apostle  seems  to  have  had  reference  to 
the  injunction  of  the  Mosaic  law,  Ex.  xxix.  38,  42:  "  Now 
this  is  that  which  you  shall  offer  upon  the  altar:  two  lambs 


of  the  first  year,  day  by  day,  continually.  The  one  lamb 
you  shall  offer  in  the  morning,  and  the  other  lamb  you 
shall  offer  in  the  evening.  This  shall  be  a  continualhuint- 
offering  throughout  your  generations."  At  those  stated 
hours  of  sacrifice,  viz.  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
at  three  in  the  afternoon,  the  devout  Jews  used  either  to  go 
up  to  the  temple  to  pray,  or  to  pray  in  their  own  houses. 
This  duty  the  apostle  would  haye  the  Christian  disciples 
still  observe;  and  the  word  here  used,  (adialeipioes,  with- 
out ceasing,  continually,)  is  applied  to  their  praying  statedly, 
morning  and  evening.  The  same  rule  of  interpretation 
will  throw  light  upon  numerous  other  passages  of  scrip- 
ture, which  are  frequently  misapprehended  by  the  English 
reader,  such  as  David's  saying  that  he  would  "  dwell  in 
the  house  of  the  Lord  for  ever ;"  that  he  would  "  bless  the 
Lord  at  all  times ;"  that  he  would  "  meditate  in  his  law 
day  and  night."  So  Luke  ii.  37,  it  is  said  of  Anna  the  pro- 
phetess, that  "  she  departed  not  from  the  temple,  but  served 
God  with  fasting  and  prayers  night  and  day ;"  by  whicli 
is  implied,  not  that  she  took  up  her  permanent  abode  at  the 
temple,  but  regularly  resorted  thither,  at  stated  times,  and 
was  uncommonly  assiduous  in  her  devotions.  Compare 
with  this,  Acts  xxvi.  7 :  "  Unto  which  promise  our  twelve 
tribes,  instantly  serving  God  day  and  night,  hope  to  come." 
This  is  in  accordance  with  our  Saviour's  direction,  Luke 
xviii.  1,  "  That  men  ought  always  to  pray,  and  not  to  faint ;" 
i.  e.  that  they  should  continue  in  the  regular  discharge  of 
this  duty  every  day  at  the  appointed  times ;  and  that  they 
should  not  desist,  though  their  prayers  should  not  be  im- 
mediately granted.  According  to  the  same  usage,  from 
the  apostles  going  up  to  the  temple  at  the  stated  hours  of 
prayer,  they  are  said  to  have  been  "  continually  m  the  tem- 
ple, blessing  and  praising  God."  To  this  circumstance  of 
the  temple-worship  there  is  a  beautiful  allusion.  Rev.  iv.  8, 
where,  concerning  the  four  living  creatures,  it  is  said, 
"  They  rest  not  day  nor  night,  (or  at  the  morning  and  even- 
ing sacrifices,)  saying.  Holy,  holy,  holy.  Lord  God  Al- 
mighty, which  was,  and  is,  and  is  to  come."  In  the  same 
sense,  Cornelius  is  said  (Acts  x.  2)  to  have  "  prayed  to 
Godi  always."  And  through  Christ  we  are  said  to  "offer 
unto  God  the  sacrifice  of  praise  continually."  And,  finally, 
in  this  sense  of  the  words  are  we  to  understand  all  such 
passages  as  the  following,  in  which  the  apostle  speaks  of 
the  unremittingness  of  his  prayers  and  praises  to  God  on 
the  behalf  of  Christians.  Rom.  i.  9 :  "  For  God  is  my  wit- 
ness that,  without  ceasing,  I  make  mention  of  you  always 
in  my  prayers."  Col.  i.  3 :  "  Praying  always  for  you." 
1  Thes.  i.  2,  3 :  "  We  give  thanks  to  God  always  for  you  all, 
making  mention  of  you  in  our  pravers ;  remembering, 
without  ceasing,  your  work  of  faith."  2  Tim.  i.  3 :  "  I 
thank  God,  whom  I  serve  from  my  forefathers  with  pure 
conscience,  that,  without  ceasing,  I  have  remembrance  of 
thee  in  my  prayers  night  and  day." — Bush. 


THE  FIRST    EPISTLE    OF    PAUL,   THE   APOSTLE,   TO 

TIMOTHY. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  9.  In  like  manner  also,  that  women  adorn 
themselves  in  modest  apparel,  with  shame-faced- 
ness  and  sobriety  ;  not  with  broidered  hair,  or 
gold,  or  pearls,  or  costly  array. 

See  on  1  Pet.  3.  3. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Ver.  7.  For  we  brought  nothing  into  this  wor^d, 


a?id    it    is  (fertain    we    can    carry   nothing 
out. 

"  My  friend,  why  are  you  so  anxious  after  thi^  world  1 
How  much  did  you  bring  into  it  1  How  much  will  you 
take  out  V  "  Ah  !  my  son,  be  charitable  to  ail ;  recollect, 
you  brought  nothing  into  the  world,  and  be  assured  ydu 
will  take  nothing  out."  "  That  wretch  would  like  to  carry 
his  money  and  lands  into  the  other  world."  "  Tamby,  did 
you  bring  these  fields  into  the  world  with  you'?  No";  and 
they  will  remain  when  you  are  gone." — Roberts. 


THE   SECOND  EPISTLE   OF  PAUL,   THE  APOSTLE, 

TO  TIMOTHY. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  5.  And  if  a  man  also  strive  for  masteries,  yet 
is  he  not  crowned,  except  he  strive  lawfully. 

Those  who  were  designed  for  the  ]3rofession  of  athletae, 
or  combatants,  frequented  from  their  earliest  years  the 
academies  maintained  for  that  purpose  at  the  public  ex- 
pense. In  these  places  they  were  exercised  under  the  di- 
rection of  different  masters,  who  employed  the  most  effectu- 
al methods  to  inure  their  bodies  for  the  fatigues  of  the  pub- 
lic games,  and  to  form  them  for  the  combats.  The  regi- 
men to  which  they  submitted  was  very  hard  and  severe. 
At  first  they  had  no  other  nourishment  than  dried  figs,  nuts, 
soft  cheese,  and  a  gross  heavy  sort  of  bread  called  (xa^a ; 
they  were  absolutely  forbid  the  use  of  wine,  and  enjoined 
continence. 

"When  they  proposed  to  contend  in  the  Olympian  games, 
they  were  obliged  to  repair  to  the  public  gymnasium  at 
Blis,  ten  months  before  the  solemnity,  where  they  prepared 
themselv^es  by  continual  exercises.  No  man  that  had  omitted 
to  present  himself  at  the  appointed  time,  was  allowed  to  put 
in  for  any  of  the  prizes ;  nor  were  the  accustomed  rewards  of 
victory  given  to  such  persons,  if  by  any  means  they  insinu- 
ated themselves,  and  overcame  their  antagonists ;  nor  would 
any  apology,  though  seemingly  ever  so  reasonable,  serve  to 
excuse  their  absence.  No  person  that  was  himself  a  no- 
torious criminal,  or  nearly  related  to  one,  was  permitted 
to  contend.  Further,  to  prevent  underhand  dealings,  if 
any  person  Avas  convicted  of  bribing  his  adversary,  a  severe 
fine  was  laid  upon  him  ;  nor  was  this  alone  thought  a  suf- 
ficient guard  against  unfair  contracts  and  unjust  practices, 
but  the  contenders  were  obliged  to  swear  they  had  spent 
ten  whole  months  in  preparatory  exercises ;  and  besides  all 
this,  they,  their  fathers,  and  their  brethren,  took  a  solemn 
oath,  that  they  would  not  by  any  sinister  or  unlawful 
means  endeavour  to  stop  the  fair  and  just  proceedings  of 
the  games.  The  spiritual  contest,  in  which  all  true  Chris- 
tians aim  at  obtaining  a  heavenly  crown,  has  its  rules  also, 
devised  and  enacted  by  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness, 


which  require  implicit  and  exact  submission,  which  neither 
yield  to  times  nor  circumstances,  but  maintain  their  su- 
preme authority,  from  age  to  age,  uninterrupted  and  unim- 
paired. The  combatant  who  violates  these  rules  forfeits 
the  prize,  and  is  driven  from  the  field  with  indelible  dis- 
grace, and  consigned  to  everlasting  wo.  Hence  the  great 
apostle  of  the  Gentiles  exhorts  his  son  Timothy  strictly  to 
'oljserve  the  precepts  of  the  divine  law,  the  rule  of  his  con- 
duct in  the  hand  of  the  Mediator,  without  which  he  can  no 
more  hope  to  obtain  the  approbation  of  God,  and  the  pos- 
session of  the  heavenly  crown,  than  a  combatant  in  the  pub- 
lic games  of  Greece,  who  disregards  the  established  rules, 
can  hope  to  receive  from  the  hands  of  his  judge  the  prom- 
ised reward  :  "  And  if  a  man  also  strive  for  masteries,  yet 
is  he  not  crowned,  except  he  strive  lawfully,"  or  according 
to  the  established  laws  of  the  games, — Paxton. 

Ver.  19.  Nevertheless,  the  foundation  of  God 
standeth  sure,  having  this  seal.  The  Lord 
knoweth  them  that  are  his.  And,  Let  every 
one  that  nameth  the  name  of  Christ,  depart 
from  iniquity. 

See  on  Ezek.  d.  h 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Ver.  6   /*or  I  am  now  ready  to  be  offered,  and 
the  cime  of  my  departure  is  at  hand. 

This  is  an  allusion  to  that  universal  custom  of  the  world 
of  pouring  wine  or  oil  on  the  head  of  the  victim  imme- 
diately before  it  was  slain :  the  apostle's  emphatical  word 
signifies,  wine  is  just  now  pouring  on  my  head,  I  am  just 
going  to  be  sacrificed  to  pagan  rage  and  superstition. — 
Blackwall. 

Ver.  7.  I  have  fought  a  good  fight,  I  have  finish- 
ed my  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith :  8.  Hence- 


TITUS, 


Chap.  2, 


forth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righte- 
ousness, which  the  Lord,  the  righteous  Judge, 
shall  give  me  at  that  day :  and  not  to  me  only, 
but  unto  all  them  also  that  love  his  appearing. 

The  officers  and  soldiers  also,  were  rewarded  according 
to  their  merit.  Among  the  Romans,  the  noblest  reward 
wJiich  a  soldier  could  receive,  was  the  civic  crown,  given 
to  him  who  had  saved  the  life  of  a  citizen,  made  of  oak 
leaves,  and,  by  order  of  the  general,  presented  by  the  per- 
son who  had  been  saved  to  his  preserver,  whom  he  ever 
after  respected  as  a  parent.  Alluding  to  this  high  distinc- 
tion, the  apostle  says  to  his  son  Timc^thy :  "  I  have  fought 
a  good  fight — henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown 
of  righteousness,  which  the  Lord,  the  righteous  Judge,  shall 
give  me  at  that  day ;  and  not  to  me  only,  but  imto  all  them 
also  that  love  his  appearing."  And  lest  any  one  should 
imagine  that  the  Christian's  crown  is  perishable  in  its 
nature,  and  soon  fades  away,  like  a  crown  of  oak  leaves, 
the  apostle  Peter  assures  the  faithful  soldier  of  Christ, 
that  his  crown  is  infinitely  more  valuable  and  lasting : 
"  Ye  shall  receive  a  crown  of  glory  that  fadeth  not  away." 
And  this  account  is  confirmed  by  James :  "  Blessed  is  the 
man  that  endureth  temptation,  for  when  he  is  tried,  he  shall 


receive  the  crown  of  life,  which  the  Lord  hath  promised  to 
them  that  fear  him." 

The  military  crowns  were  conferred  by  the  general  in 
presence  of  the  army ;  and  such  as  received  them,  after 
a  public  eulogium  on  their  valour,  were  placed  next  his 
person.  The  Christian  also  receives  his  unmerited  reward 
from  the  hand  of  the  Captain  of  his  salvation :  "  Be  thou 
faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a  crown  of  life." 
And  like  the  brave  veteran  of  ancient  times,  he  is  promo- 
ted to  a  place  near  his  Lord  :  "  To  him  that  overcometh, 
will  I  grant  to  sit  with  me  in  my  throne,  even  as  I  also 
overcame,  and  am  set  down  with  my  Father  on  his  throne." 
The  saints  must  all  appear  before  the  judgment-seat  of 
Christ,  who  will  produce  the  proofs  of  their  fidelity  beforf 
assembled  worlds,  to  justify  the  sentence  he  is  about  to  pro 
nounce.  Holy  angels  will  applaud  the  justice  of  the  pro 
ceeding,  and  condemned  spirits  and  reprobate  men  wit 
have  nothing  to  object;  then,  while  he  pronounces  a  sen 
tenee  which  at  once  eulogizes  their  conduct,  and  announ* 
ces  their  honourable  acquittal,  "  Well  done,  good  and  faith- 
ful servants,  enter  ye  into  the  joy  of  your  Lord  ;"  he  will 
set  upon  their  heads'a  crown  of  purest  gold,  put  a  palm 
of  victory  into  their  right  hand,  clothe  them  in  robes  of 
celestial  brightness,  and  place  them  around  his  throne: 
"  And  so  shall  they  be  for  ever  with  the  Lord." — Paxton. 


THE  EPISTLE   OF  PAUL  TO  TITUS 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  5.  To  he  discreet,  chaste,  keepers  at  home, 
good,  obedient  to  their  own  husbands,  that  the 
word  of  God  be  not  blasphemed. 

Jealousy  is  so  common  and  powerful  among  the  people 
of  the  East,  that  their  wives  are  very  much  confined  to 
their  houses.  Russel  informs  us,  that  "  the  Turks  of" 
Aleppo  being  Very  jealous,  keep  their  women  as  much  at 
home  as  they  can,  so  that  it  is  but  seldom  that  they  are  al- 
lowed to  visit  each  other.  Necessity,  however,  obliges  the 
husbands  to  suffer  them  to  go  often  to  the  bagnio,  and 
Mondays  and  Thursdays  are  a  sort  of  licensed  days  for 
them  to  visit  the  tombs  of  their  deceased  relations,  which 
furnishes  them  with  an  opportunity  of  walking  abroad  in 
the  gardens  or  fields  ;  they  have  so  contrived  that  almost 
every  Thursday  in  the  spring  bears  the  name  of  some  par- 
ticular sheik,  (or  saint,)  whose  tomb  they  must  visit  on  that 
day.  (Their  cemeteries  and  gardens  are  out  of  their 
cities  in  common.)  By  this  means  the  greatest  part  of  the 
Turkish  women  of  the  city  get  abroad  to  breathe  the  fresh 
air  at  such  seasons,  unless  confined  (as  is  not  uncommon) 
to  their  houses  by  order  of  the  bashaw,  and  so  deprived 
even  of  that  little  freedom  which  custom  had  procured  them 
from  their  husbands."  The  prohibitions  of  the  bashaws 
are  designed,  or  pretended  to  be  designed  at  least,  to  pre- 
vent the  breach  of  chastity,  for  which  these  liberties  of 


going  abroad  might  be  supposed  to  aflford  an  opportunity. 
For  the  same  reason  it  may  be  apprehended  that  St.  Paial 
joins  the  being  chaste  and  keepers  at  home  together.— Har- 

MER. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  12.  When  I  shall  send  Artemas  unto  thee, 
or  Tychicus,  be  diligent  to  come  unto  me  to 
Nicopolis:    for   I  have  determined  there  to 
winter. 

Concerning  the  annals  of  Nicopolis,  only  a  few  trifling 
memorials  are  to  be  gleaned  from  the  works  of  historians. 
How  soon  it  enjoyed  the  light  of  Christianity  is  not  pre- 
cisely known,  but  that  it  was  honoured  early  with  the  pres- 
ence of  that  great  champion  of  the  faith,  St.  Paul,  we  may 
infer  from  his  intention  expressed  to  Titus,  of  spending 
the  winter  there,  on  his  return  from  Macedonia;  from 
whence  it  is  extremely  probable  that  he  had  many  Nico- 
politan  converts  already  established.  Its  reign  of  splen- 
dour was  but  short,  for  it  soon  experienced  those  bitter 
reverses  of  fortune,  which  all  the  other  unhappy  provinces 
endured  in  the  decline  of  the  Roman  empire.  The  city 
mentioned  by  St.  Paul  could  not  possibly  have  been  (ac- 
cording to  the  surmise  of  some  critics)  Nicopolis  on  the 
Danube,  or  that  of  Thrace,  for  these  were  both  built  by 
Trajan.    (Hughes's  Travels  in  Sicily.)— Burder. 


THE   EPISTLE   OF  PAUL,   THE   APOSTLE,  TO  THE 

HEBREWS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  8.  But  unto  the  Son  he  saith,  Thy  throne, 
O  God,  is  for  ever  and  ever ;  a  sceptre  of  righte- 
ousness is  the  sceptre  of  thy  kingdom. 

The  apostle  here  cites  a  passage  from  the  45th  Psalm, 
in  which  the  Psalmist,  and  not  the  Most  High,  is  the  speaker. 
Consequently  this  is  not  an  address  of  the  Father  to  the 
Son,  as  might  be  thought  from  our  present  translation. 
"He  saith,"  should  properly  he  rendered,  according  to  a 
common  idiom,  "  it  is  said,"  or,  if  a  nominative  be  sup- 
plied, "  the  scripture  saith,  thy  throne,  O  God,"  &c.  The 
same  remark  is  applicable  to  the  same  expression,  ver.  7 : 
"  And  of  the  angels  he  saith,  (it  is  said,)  Who  maketh  his 
angels  spirits,  and  his  ministers  a  flame  of  fire."  A  simi- 
lar phraseology  occursf  1  Cor.  vii.  16:  '•' What,  know  ye 
not  that  he  which  is  joined  to  a  harlot  is  one  body  1  for 
two,  saith  he,  (i.  e.  it  is  said  in  the  scriptures,)  shall  be  one 
flesh."  Rom.  xv.  10 :  "  And  again  he  saith,  (again  it  is 
said,)  Rejoice,  ye  Gentiles,  with  his  people."  James  iv.  6  : 
"  Wherefore  he  saith,  (it  is  said,)  God  resisteth  the  proud, 
but  giveth  grace  unto  the  humble."  It  may  also  be  re- 
marked, that  the  true  rendering  of  the  preposition  (pros) 
m  this  passage,  and  in  fact  the  whole  context,  is  not  "  to," 
but  "  of;"  "  in  respect  to,"  "  concerning ;"  "  of,  or  as  to,  the 
Son,  it  is  said,"  &c.  This  import  of  the  original  is  so 
common  and  so  obviously  pertinent  to  the  text  in  this  con- 
nexion, that  it  will  be  unnecessary  to  attempt  to  establish  it 
by  an  array  of  parallel  passages. — Bush. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Ver.  8.  But  that  which  beareth  thorns  and  briers 
is  rejected,  and  is  nigh  unto  cursing ;  whose 
end  is  to  be  burned. 

The  land,  which,  notwithstanding  the  most  careful  cul- 
tivation, produces  nothing  but  thorns  and  briers,  or  noxious 
weeds  of  diflTerent  kinds,  is  rejected,  or  given  up  as  imim- 
proveable  ;  its  briers,  thorns,  and  brushwood  burnt  down ; 
and  then  left  to  be  pastured  on  by  the  beasts  of  the  field. 
This  seems  to  be  the  custom  in  husbandry,  to  which  the 
apostle  alludes.  The  nature  of  the  case  prevents  us  from 
supposing  that  he  refers  to  burning  in  order  to  further 
fertilization.  This  practice  has  been  common  from  very 
early  ages, 

S?epe  etiam  steriles  incendere  profuit  agros, 
Atque  levem  stipulam  crepitantibus  urere  flammis. 

(Virgil,  Geor.  i.  ver.  84.) 

I/Ong  practice  has  a  sure  improvement  found, 
With  kindled  fires  to  burn  the  barren  ground  ; 
When  the  light  stubble  to  the  flames  resigned, 
Is  driven  along,  and  crackles  in  the  wind. 

(Dryden.)— BuRDBR. 

Ver.  20,  Whither  the  forerunner  is  for  us  enter- 
ed, eve?i  Jesus,  made  a  high-priest  for  ever  after 
the  order  of  Melchisedec. 

"  The  forerunner."  The  metaphorical  allusion  here  is  to 
the  person  who  carries  the  anchor  in  a  boat  within  the  pier 
head,  because  there  is  not  water  sufficient  to  take  the  ship 

in. — BURDER. 

CHAPTER  XL 
Ver.  35.  Women  received  their  dead  raised  to 
life  again:  and  others  were* tortured,  not  ac- 
cepting deliverance ;  that  they  might  obtain  a 
better  r-jsurrection. 


The  ancients  sometimes  exposed  criminals  to  a  particu- 
lar species  of  torture,  by  means  of  a  tympanum  or  drum, 
on  which  they  were  extended  in  the  most  violent  manner, 
and  then  beaten  with  clubs,  which  must  have  been  attend- 
ed with  exquisite  pain.  To  this  mode  of  punishment, 
Doddridge  is  of  opinion  the  apostle  alludes  in  his  epistle  to 
the  Hebrews,  where  he  describes  the  sufferings  of  ancient 
believers:  "  Others  were  tortured,  not  accepting  deliver- 
ance ;"  because  the  word  ervfjiTraiveffdrjaav,  tortured,  is  not  a 
general  term,  but  one  which  signifies  the  specific  torture  of 
the  tympanum.  It  is,  however,  generally  understood  by 
interpreters,  not  as  a  mode  of  punishment  distinct  from 
others,  but  as  a  general  term  for  all  kinds  of  capital  pun- 
ishment and  violent  death ;  but  the  opinion  of  Doddridge 
ought  to  be  preferred,  because  the  original  word  possesses 
a  specific  character ;  and  the  passage  viewed  in  that  light 
is  precise  and  impressive, — Paxton, 

Ver.  37.  They  were  stoned,  they  were  sawn 
asunder,  were  tempted,  were  slain  with  the 
sword ;  they  wandered  about  in  sheep-skins 
and  goat-skins,  being  destitute,  afflicted,  tor- 
mented. 

The  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  describes  some  of  the  ancient 
sufl^erers  for  piety  and  virtue,  as  driven  out  from  the  socie- 
ty of  their  countrymen,  and  wandering  about,  like  miser- 
able outcasts,  in  deserts  and  mountains,  with  no  better  vest- 
ments than  sheep-skins  and  goat-skins  ;  referring,  probably, 
to  some  in  the  beginning  of  the  opposition  made  by  the 
Maccabee  family,  to  the  attempts  of  the  Syrian  princes  to 
force  the  Jewish  people  to  abandon  the  religion  of  their 
forefathers,  and  unite  with  the  heathens  in  their  idolatrous 
customs.  It  may  be  acceptable  to  the  reader  to  learn,  that 
there  are  numbers  of  such  miserable  outcasts  from  common 
society,  in  that  very  country,  to  this  day :  not  indeed  on  a 
religious  account,  "for  they  are  all  Mohammedans;  but 
from  national  prejudices,  and  distinctions  arising  from  that 
source. 

Doubdan  frequently  met  with  such  in  his  peregrinations 
in  that  country.  He  sometimes  calls  them  Moors,  by  which, 
I  apprehend,  is  meant  the  descendants  from  the  old  natives 
of  that  country,  who  inhabited  it  before  the  Turks,  a  branch 
of  the  Tartars,  overran  these  parts  of  Asia.  Some  of  the 
Arabs  he  met  with  are  not  described  as  in  more  elegant 
circumstaBHies:  these  are, another  eastern  nation,  who  are 
attached  to  the  living  in  fents,  and  will  by  no  means  be  in- 
duced to  dwell  in  more  fixed  habitations,  and  commonly 
dwell  in  deserts,  and  very  retired  places. 

Upon  leaving  Jerusalem,  in  order  to  embark  at  Joppa, 
they  halted  some  little  time  on  a  short  plain,  not  far  from 
the  Holy  City,  to  give  time  to  the  caravan  to  assemble, 
with  which  they  were  to  travel :  while  waiting  there,  he 
says,  "  We  saw  six  Bedouins  pass  along ;"  he  means  these 
wandering  Arabs ;  *'  who  had  no  other  clothing  than  a 
sheep-skin  on  their  shoulders,  and  a  rag  about  their  loins, 
emaciated  and  burnt  up  with  the  heat,  of  a  horrible  as- 
pect, their  eyes  fiery,  and  each  with  a  great  club.  These 
people  are  Arabs,  and  the  greatest  robbers  in  all  the  coun- 
try." » 

He  describes  some  of  the  Moors  in  the  neighbourhooc' 
of  Bethlehem,  who  live  in  the  village  where  the  shepherds 
dwelt  to  whom  the  angel  of  the  Lord  appeared,  according 
to  the  tradition  of  the  country,  in  much  the  same  manner. 
He  says,  "  it  is  a  poor  hamlet,  of  twenty  or  twenty-five 
hovels."  That  he  was  informed  "  its  inhatiitants  are  some 
of  the  poorest  and  most  miserable  people  of  the  country. 
That  they  saw  some  who  looked  like  true  savages,  almost 


640 


HEBREWS. 


Chap.  12. 


entirely  naked,  sunburnt,  black  as  a  coal,  and  shining  with 
Ihe  grease  and  oil  with  which  they  rub  themselves,  horrid 
in  their  countenances,  with  a  surly  voice,  with  which  they 
keep  mumbling,  and  terrify  those  that  are  not  accustomed 
to  meet  them.  More  especially  when,  upon  their  going  to 
visit  a  certain  place  to  which  their  devotion  led  them,  they 
saw  four  poor  miserable  Moors  running  to  them  across  the 
$elds,  huge,  frightful  creatures,  all  of  them  naked  and  sun- 
Durnt,  two  armed  with  bows  and  arrows,  the  other  two  with 
cudgels,  threatening  to  use  them  with  severity,  if  they  did 
not  give  them  money." 

The  same  scenery  is  exhibited  in  other  places,  and  re- 
presents, I  imagine,  excepting  the  violence,  an  accurate 
picture  of  those  poor  persecuted  Hebrews,  who  wandered 
about  in  sheep-skms  and  goat-skins,  destitute  of  many  of  the 
comforts  of  life,  emaciated,  tormented  with  the  burning 
heat  of  the  sun,  and  afflicted  with  many  other  bitternesses 
in  that  wild  and  rough  state. — Harmer. 

Ver.  38.  (Of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy ;) 
they  wandered  in  deserts,  and  in  mountains, 
and  in  dens,  and  caves  of  the  earth.  39.  And 
these  all,  having  obtained  a  good  report  through 
faith,  received  not  the  promise. 

Such  places  were  frequently  used  as  habitations.  "  In 
returning  to  Achmetchet,  we  stopped  to  water  our  horses 
in  the  steppes  or  plains,  where  the  dwellings  were  entirely 
subterranean.  Not  a  house  was  to  be  seen,  but  there  were 
some  holes  as  entrances  in  the  ground,  through  one  of 
which  we  descended  to  a  cave,  rendered  almost  suffocating 
by  the  heat  of  a  stove  for  dressing  the  victuals  of  its  poor 
owners.  The  wall,  floor,  and  roof,  were  all  of  the  natural 
soil,"  (Clarke.)  "  At  eleven,  we  arrived  on  the  plain 
and  a  better  road,  but  being  excessively  hot,  and  seeing  a 
village  with  many  low  houses,  or  rather  huts,  we  struck 
out  of  our  path,  and  arrived  there  about  noon,  when,  in- 
stead of  houses,  we  found  them  to  be  caverns,  dug  in  the 
earth,  and  vaulted,  with  only  the  upper  part  appearing  above 
ground.  The  people  received  us  kindly ;  both  men  and 
horses  descended  into  one  of  the  caverns,  and  immediately 
felt  such  a  comfortable  coolness  as  was  extremely  delight- 
ful. The  cavern  which  we  were  now  in  was  more  than  one 
hundred  feet  in  length,  and  near  forty  wide,  entirely  vault- 
ed the  whole  wav,  and  very  lofty.  It  was  divided  into 
apartments  on  each  side,  in  some  of  which  were  grain,  in 
others  flour,  in  others  oil,  all  in  very  large  jars,  buried 
half  way  in  the  earth :  in  other  divisions  were  roosts  for 
poultry;  in  others  cows  were  kept;  in  some,  goats  and 
sheep ;  and  some  served  as  places  to  sleep  in.  The  mid- 
dle part  was  kept  clear  as  a  passage  to  each  room  or  divis- 
ion."   (Parsons.)— BuRDER. 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Ver.  1.  Wherefore,  seeing  we  also  are  compassed 
about  with  so  great  a  cloud  of  witnesses,  let  us 
lay  aside  every  weight,  and  the  sin  which  doth 
so  easily  beset  us,  and  let  us  run  with  patience 
the  race  that  is  set  before  us. 

The  athletse  took  care  to  disencumber  their  bodies  of 
every  article  of  clothing  which  could  in  any  manner  hin- 
der or  incommode  them.  The  pugilists  at  first  used  a  belt, 
with  an  apron  or  scarf  fastened  to  it,  for  their  more  decent 
appearance  in  the  combats ;  but  one  of  the  combatants  hap- 
pening to  lose  the  victory  by  this  covering's  falling  off, 
modesty  was  in  future  sacrificed  to  convenience,  and 
the  apron  was  laid  aside.  In  the  foot-race  they  were 
anxious  to  carry  as  little  weight  as  possible,  and  uni- 
formly stripped  themselves  of  all  such  clothes  as,  by  their 
weight,  length,  or  otherwise,  might  entangle  or  retard 
them  in  the  course.  The  Christian,  also,  must  "  lay  aside 
«very  weight,  and  the  sin  which  doth  so   easily  beset" 


him :  in  the  exercise  of  faith  and  self-denial,  he  must "  cast 
off  the  works  of  darkness,"  lay  aside  all  malice  and  guile, 
hypocrisies,  and  envyings,  and  evil  speakings,  inordinate 
affections,  and  worldly  cares,  and  whatever  else  might  ob- 
struct his  holy  profession,  damp  his  spirits,  and  hinder  his 
progress  in  the  paths  of  righteousness. 

The  Olympic  games  generally  opened  with  races,  and 
were  celebrated  at  first  with  no  other  exercise.  The  lists 
or  course  where  the  athletse  exercised  themselves  in  run- 
ning, was  at  first  but  one  stadium  in  length,  or  about  six 
hundred  feet ;  and  from  this  measure  it  took  its  name, 
and  was  called  the  stadium,  whatever  might  be  its  extent. 
This,  in  the  language  of  Paul,  speaking  of  the  Christians' 
course,  was  "  the  race  which  was  set  before  them,"  deter- 
mined by  public  authority  and  carefully  measured.  On 
each  side  of  the  stadium  and  its  extremity,  ran  an  ascent  or 
kind  of  terrace,  covered  with  seats  and  benches,  upon  which 
the  spectators  were  seated,  an  innumerable  multitude  col- 
lected from  all  parts  of  Greece,  to  which  the  apostle  thus 
alludes  in  his  figurative  description  of  the  Christian  life  : 
"  Seeing  we  are  compassed  about  with  so  great  a  cloud 
of  witnesses,  let  us  lay  aside  every  weight." — Paxton. 

Ver.  4.  Ye  have  not  yet  resisted  unto  blood,  stri- 
ving against  sin. 

The  exercise  of  boxing  was  sometimes  performed  by 
combatants,  having  in  their  hands  balls  of  stone  or  lead. 
At  first  their  hands  and  arms  were  naked  and  unguarded, 
but  afterward  surrounded  with  thongs  of  leather,  called 
cestus,  which  were  used  both  as  d^ensive  arms,  and  to  an- 
noy the  enemy,  being  filled  with  plummets  of  lead  and 
iron,  to  add  force  to  the  blows. 

This  was  one  of  the  rudest  and  most  dangerous  of  the 
gymnastic  combats,  because  the  antagonists  ran  the  hazard 
either  of  being  disabled,  or  losing  their  lives.  They  some- 
times fell  down  dead  or  dying  upon  the  sand;  or  they  quitted 
the  fight  with  a  countenance  so  disfigured,  that  it  was  not 
easy  to  know  themselves ;  carrying  away  with  them  the 
sad  marks  of  their  vigorous  resistance,  as  bruises  and  con- 
tusions in  the  face,  the  loss  of  an  eye,  their  teeth  knocked 
out,  their  jaws  broken,  or  some  more  considerable  fracture. 
It  is  to  this  rude  and  dangerous  exercise  the  apostle  refers 
in  his  reasoning  with  the  Hebrew  converts  :  "  Ye  have  not 
yet  resisted  unto  blood,  striving  against  sin."  The  contest 
in  which  they  were  engaged  with  their  adversaries,  had 
been  severe  and  of  long  continuance  ;  they  had  sustained 
no  small  loss  of  liberty  and  property,  which  they  cheerfully 
resigned  for  the  sake  of  Christ,  in  hope  of  a  better  inherit- 
ance in  heaven  ;  they  were  in  danger  of  becoming  weary 
and  faint  in  their  minds,  from  the  length  of  the  contest ;  but 
though  their  antagonists  had  often  tried  to  defeat  and  foil 
them,  they  had  not  been  permitted  to  shed  their  blood,  or 
take  away  their  lives,  as  they  did  to  many  of  the  saints  in 
preceding  ages.  The  combatant  in  the  public  games,  who 
gave  up  the  contest  before  he  had  lost  a  drop  of  his  blood, 
merely  because  he  had  received  a  few  contusions,  or  been 
roughly  handled  by  his  opponent,  would  have  been  infalli- 
bly branded  with  infamy.  Not  less  shameful,  and  infinitely 
more  dangerous,  it  would  have  been  for  any  of  these  He- 
brews to  flinch  from  their  duty,  or  desist  from  their  Chris- 
tian course,  on  account  of  the  slighter  difficulties  and 
losses  they  had  met  with  in  striving  against  sin. — Paxton. 

Ver.  6.  For  whom  the  Lord  loveth  he  chasteneth, 
and  scourgeth  every  son  whom  he  receiveth. 

It  is  said,  in  the  East,  of  a  truly  good  father,  when  he  is 
obliged  to  punish  his  son, — 

"  Adikam,  oru  Id  ; 
Anikam,  oru  ki." 
One  hand,  chastises; 
One  hand,  embraces. 

Showing,  that  though  he  is  obliged  to  inflict  punishment' 
with  one  hand,  yet  in  his  heart  he  embraces  him  with  the 
other.— Roberts. 


THE   GENERAL  EPISTLE   OF  JAMES 


CHAPTER  II. 

Ver.  2.  For  if  there  come  unto  your  assembly  a 
man  with  a  gold  ring,  in  goodly  apparel,  and 
there  come  in  also  a  poor  man,  in  vile  raiment. 

By  the  assembly  here  mentioned  we  are  not  to  under- 
stand a  congregation  convened  for  public  worship,  as  is 
commonly  represented,  but  a  court  of  judicature,  in  which 
men  are  too  apt  to  favour  the  cause  of  the  rich  against  the 
poor.  The  phrase,  sit  thou  under  my  footstool,  naturally  re- 
fers to  courts  of  justice,  where  the  judge  is  commonly  ex- 
alted upon  a  higher  seat  than  the  rest  of  the  people.  The 
apostle  also  says,  that  such  a  respect  of  persons  as  he  here 
speaks  of  is  contrary  to  the  law,  and  that  those  who  are 
guilty  of  it,  are  convinced  of  the  law  as  transgressors.  Now 
there  was  no  divine  law  against  distinction  of  places  in 
worshipping  assemblies,  into  those  which  were  more  or 
less  honourable;  this  must  therefore  refer  to  the  law  of 
partiality  in  juogment.  "  Ye  shall  do  no  unrighteousness 
m  judgment ;  thou  shalt  not  respect  the  person  of  the  poor, 
nor  honour  the  person  of  the  mighty,"  Levit.  xix.  15. 
The  Talmudists  say  it  was  a  rule,  that  when  a  poor  man 
and  a  rich  man  pleaded  together  in  judgment,  the  rich 
should  not  be  bid  to  sit  down,  and  the  poor  to  stand;  but 
either  both  shall  sit,  or  both  shall  stand.  To  this  rule  or 
custom  the  apostle  seems  to  refer,  when  he  insinuates  a 
charge  against  them  of  saying  to  the  rich  man, "  Sit  thou  here 
in  a  good  place,  and  to  the  poor.  Stand  thou  there."— Jennings. 

"  A  man  with  a  gold  ring."  By  this  circumstance  the 
apostle  describes  a  rich  man.  Among  the  Romans,  those 
of  the  senatorial  and  equestrian  orders  were  distinguished 
from  the  common  people  by  wearing  a  gold  ring.  In 
time  the  use  of  them  became  promiscuous.  The  ancients 
used  to  wear  but  one.— Border. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  6.  And  the  tongue  is  a  fire,  a  world  of  in- 
iquity: so  is  the  tongue  among  our  members, 
that  it  defileth  the  whole  body,  and  setteth  on  fire 
the  course  of  nature ;  and  it  is  set  on  fire  of  hell. 

The  original  is  very  beautiful,  and  is  an  allusion  to  a 
vrheel  catching  fire,  as  not  unfrequently  happens,  by  its 
rapid  motion,  spreading  its  flames  around,  and  at  last  in- 
volving the  whole  machine  in  destruction.  The  true  ver- 
sion IS,  It  setteth  on  fire  the  wheel  of  human  life,  and  thus 
finally  destroyeth  the  whole  body.  The  original  word  for 
course,  Upo^^oi,  signifies  a  wheel. — Border. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  13.  Go  to  now,  ye  that  ^ay.  To-day,  or  to- 
morrow, we  will  go  into  such  a  city,  and  con- 
tinue there  a  year,  and  buy,  and  sell,  and  get  gain. 

The  merchants  of  the  East  have  ever  been  famous  for 
their  trading  peregrinations;  and  often  are  we  reminded 
of  the  "  company  of  Ishmaelites  (who)  came  from  Gilead, 
with  their  camels  bearing  spicery,  and  balm,  and  myrrh, 
going  to  carry  it  down  to  Egypt."  See  the  young  adven- 
turer; he  has  received  a  certain  sum  from  his  father,  and 
goes  to  another  town,  where  he  has  relations  or  friends, 
and  he  c^w^iowsZi/ commences  his  business;  he  never  loses 
sight  of  frugality;  and  should  he,  in  the  course  of  a  few 
years,  have  gained  a  competency,  he  returns  to  his  native 
place,  there  to  husband  out  his  davs.  But  should  he  not 
prosper,  he  goes  to  another  town,  for  his  affairs  are  so  ar- 
ranged in  reference  to  rents  and  other  matters,  he  finds  no 
difficulty  in  removing.  But  another  trader  will  not  thus 
settle ;  he  carries  in  two  or  three  bags  various  spices,  (which 
are  needed  by  everv  family,)  and  gums,  and  drugs,  or  cloth 
and  silk,  and  muslins,  or  jewels,  or  precious  stones,  and 
81 


after  a  year  or  so  he  returns  with  the  proceeds  of  his  jour- 
ney.— Roberts. 

Ver.  15.  For  that  ye  ought  to  say.  If  the  Lord 
will,  we  shall  live,  and  do  this,  or  that. 

It  was  a  custom  among  the  Jews  to  begin  all  things  with 
God.  They  undertook  nothing  without  this  holy  and  de- 
vout parenthesis.  If  God  will.  They  otherwise  expressed 
it,  if  the  name  please  ;  or,  if  the  name  determine  so.  The 
phrase  was  so  common  that  they  abbreviated  it,  using  a 
letter  for  a  word.  But  this  was  not  peculiar  to  the  Jews  ; 
it  was  common  with  all  the  eastern  people.  Few  books 
are  written  in  Arabic,  but  they  begin  with  the  word  bis- 
millah — in  the  name  of  God.  With  the  Greeks  the  expres- 
sion is,  <rvv  Qcw  :  with  the  Latins,  Deo  volente. — Burder. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Ver.  7.  Be  patient,  therefore,  brethren,  unto  the 
coming  of  the  Lord.  Behold,  the  husbandmai* 
waiteth  for  the  precious  fruit  of  the  earth,  and 
hath  long  patience  for  it,  until  he  receive  the 
early  and  latter  rain. 
In  our  climate,  where  it  rains  at  all  times  of  the  year,  we 
have  no  notion  of  "  early  and  latter  rain  ;"  but  nothing  is 
more  natural  than  this  division  in  a  climate  like  that  of 
Palestine,  where  in  the  summer  months  it  seldom  or  never 
rains.  It  was  not  till  after  the  autumnal  equinox,  about 
the  seed-time,  when  the  Jews  began  their  civil  year,  that 
the  autumnal  or  winter  rains  set  in ;  and  these  they  called 
the  early  rains;  the  latter  rain  was  that  which  fell  in 
March  and  April,  towards  harvest  time.  "  The  rain," 
says  Korte,  "  which  falls  in  October,  November,  and  De- 
cember, is  called  the  early  rain,  and  that  which  comes  in 
March  and  April,  the  laitter  rain.  Respecting  this  latter 
rain,  it  is  to  be  observed,  that  about  the  time  of  the  greatest 
heat,  there  are  many  years  when  it  rains  only  a  few  hours, 
or  half  a  day,  or  at  the  outside  two  or  three  days  succes- 
sively. This  rain  is  extremely  propitious  to  the  standing 
nellu,  (rice,  resembling  our  barley,)  which  is  beginning  to 
ripen,  and  needs  nothing  more  than  such  a  good  wetting, 
to  make  the  grain  fuller  and  more  solid,  and  to  mature  it. 
This  rain,  therefore,  which  comes  in  the  hot  season,  is 
very  different  from  the  rain  in  the  rainy  season,  and  is 
very  favourable  to  the  standing  corn.  In  the  rainy  sea- 
son, at  the  end  of  the  year,  as  soon  as  it  begins  to  rain  copi- 
ously, and  the  ground  is  thereby  softened,  and  rendered  fit 
for  the  plough,  the  farmer  loses  no  lime  to  commence  his 
operations  and  sow  his  grain." — Rosenmoller, 

Ver.  14.  Is  any  sick  among  you?  let  him  call 
for  the  elders  of  the  church  ;  and  let  them  pray 
over  him,  anointing  him  with  oil  in  the  name 
of  the  Lord. 
"  In  Yemen,  the  anointing  of  the  body  is  believed  to 
strengthen  and  protect  it  fromthe  heatof  the  sun,  by  which 
the  inhabitants  of  this  province,  as  they  wear  so  little  cloth- 
ing, are  very  liable  to  suffer.  Oil,  by  closing  up  the  pores  of 
the  skin,  is  supposed  to  prevent  that  too  copious  transpira- 
tion which  enfeebles  the  frame ;  perhaps,  too,  these  Arabians 
think  a  glistening  skin  a  beauty.  When  the  intense  heat 
comes  in,  they  always  anoint  their  bodies  with  oiL  At  Sana, 
all  the  .Tews^  and  inany  of  the  Mohammedans,  have  their 
bodies  anointed  whenever  they  find  themselves  indisposed," 
(Niebuhr.)  That  in  some  degree  explains  the  direction  of 
the  apostle  James,  the  meaning  of  which  will  be,  to  do  that 
solemnly  for  the  purpose  of  healing,  which  was  often  done 
medicinally;  and  accordingly  we  find  Solomon,  in  many 
places  of  his  Proverbs,  speaking  of  administering  ointment, 
which  rejoices  the  heart,  which  maybe  a  healing  medicine 
to  the  navel,  &c, — Burder. 


THE  ^IRST  EPISTLE   GENERAL  OF  PETER 


CHAPTER  I. 

Ver.  4.  To  an  inheritance  incorruptible,  and  un- 
defiled,  and  that  fadeth  not  away,  reserved  in 
heaven  for  you. 

See  on  1  Cor.  9. 35. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  3.  Whose  adorning,  let  it  not  be  that  out- 
ward adorning  of  platting  the  hair,  and  of 
wearing  of  gold,  or  of  putting  on  of  apparel. 

The  eastern  females  wear  their  hair,  which  the  prophet 
emphatically  calls  the  "  instrument  of  their  pride,"  very- 
long,  and  divided  into  a  great  number  of  tresses.  In  Bar- 
bary,  the  ladies  all  affect  to  have  their  hair  hang  down  to 
the  ground,  which,  after  they  have  collected  into  one  lock, 
they  bind  and  plat  with  ribands ;  a  piece  of  finery  which 
the  apostle  marks  with  disapprobation  :  "  Whose  adorning, 
let  it  not  be  that  outward  adorning  of  platting  the  hair,  and 
of  wearing  of  gold,  or  of  putting  on  of  apparel."  Not  that 
he  condemns  in  absolute  terms  all  regard  to  neatness  and 
elegance  in  dress  and  appearance,  but  only  an  undue  atten- 
tion to  these  things ;  his  meaning  plainly  is :  "  Whose 
adorning,  let  it  not  chiefly  consist  in  that  outward  adorning 
of  platting  the  hair,  but  rather  let  it  be  the  hidden  man  of 
the  heart,  in  that  which  is  not  corruptible,  even  the  orna- 
ment of  a  meek  and  quiet  spirit,  which  is,  in  the  sight  of 
»God,  of  great  price."    The  way  in  which  the  apostle  uses 


the  negative  particle  in  this  text,  is  a  decisive  proof  that 
this  is  his  true  meaning ;  it  extends  to  every  member  of  the 
sentence ;  and  by  consequence,  if  it  prohibit  the  platting  of 
hair,  it  equally  prohibits  the  putting  on  of  apparel.  But  it 
never  could  be  his  design  to  forbid  women  to  wear  clothes, 
or  to  be  decently  and  neatly  dressed ;  therefore,  the  negative 
inust  have  only  a  comparative  sense,  instructing  us  in  the 
propriet3r  and  necessity  of  attending  more  to  the  dispositions 
of  the  mind,  than  to  the  adorning  of  the  body.  And  as  one 
inspired  writer  cannot,  in  reality,  contradict  another,  the 
command  of  Paul  must  be  explained  in  the  same  way,  not 
as  an  absolute,  but  comparative  prohibition :  "  In  like  man- 
ner, that  women  adorn  themselves  in  modest  apparel,  with 
shamefacedness  and  sobriety,  not  with,"  or,  according  to 
this  view,  rather  than  with  "broidered  hair,  or  gold,  or\ 
pearls,  or  costly  array."  Where  nature  has  been  less 
liberal  in  its  ornaments,  the  defect  is  supplied  by  art,  and 
foreign  is  procured  to  be  interwoven  with  the  natural  hair. 
The  males,  on  the  contrary,  shave  all  the  hair  of  their 
heads,  excepting  one  lock ;  and  those  who  wear  their  hair 
are  stigmatized  as  effeminate.  The  apostle's  remark  on 
this  subject,  corresponds  entirely  with  the  custom  of  the 
East,  as  well  as  with  the  original  design  of  the  Creator : 
"  Does  not  even  nature  itself  teach  you,  that  if  a  man  have 
longhair,  it  is  a  shame  unto  him 7  But  if  a  woman  have 
lon^  hair,  it  is  a  glory  to  her ;  for  her  hair  is  given  her  for 
a  covering."  The  men  in  the  East,  Chardin  observes,  are 
shaved ;  the  women  nourish  their  hair  with  great  fondness, 
which  they  lengthen  by  tresses,  and  tufts  of  silk,  down  to 
the  heels. — Paxton. 


THE   SECOND  EPISTLE   GENERAL  OF   PETER. 


CHAPTER  III. 

Ver.  12.  Looking  for  and  hasting  unto  the  coming 
of  the  day  of  God,  wherein  the  heavens  being 
on  fire  shall  be  dissolved,  and  the  elements  shall 
melt  with  fervent  heat. 

1  he  word  **  unto"  has  here  been  supplied  without  autho- 
rity.   The  original  {speudontas  teen  parousian)  exhibits  no 


preposition,  and  properly  requires  a  transitive  rendering, 
viz.  accelerating,  or  hastening  on,  the  coming,  &c.  Thus  un- 
derstood, the  words  convey  the  very  interesting,  and  solemn 
intimation,  that  Christians  are  not  only  earnestly  to  cxpea 
the  great  day  of  God,  the  day  of  the  restitution  of  all  things, 
but  by  their  devoted  lives  and  a  pre-eminent  sanctity  of 
spirit,  they  are  to  be  instrumental  in  expediting  its  approach. 
According  to  their  conduct,  as  marked  by  all  manner  of 
holy  conversation  and  godliness,  or  the  reverse,  will  be  the 
speediness  or  the  tardiness  of  its  arrival. — Bush. 


THE   GENERAL  EPISTLE   OF  JUDE. 


Ver.  4.  For  there  are  certain  men  crept  in  un- 
awares, who  were  before  of  old  ordained  to  this 
condemnation  ;  ungodly  men,  turning  the  grace 
of  our  God  into  lasciviousness,  and  denying  the 
only  Lord  God,  and  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

»  Those  who  were  summoned  before  the  courts  of  justice 
were  said  to  be  rcpoycypanfiEvoi  en  Kpiaiv,  because  they  were 
cited  to  appear,  by  posting  up  their  names  in  some  public 
place ;  and  the  judgment  of  the  court  was  published  or  de- 
clared in  writing.  Such  persons  the  Romans  called  pro- 
scriptos,  or  proscribed,  that  is,  whose  names  were  posted  up 
in  writing,  in  some  public  place,  as  persons  doomed  to  die, 
with  a  reward  offered  to  any  that  should  kill  them.    These 


are  the  terms  which  the  apostle  Jude  applies  to  the  ungodly, 
who  had  crept  unawares  into  the  church :  they  were  before 
of  old,  TzpoyeypannEvoi,  ordained  to  this  condemnation ;  per- 
sons who  must  not  only  give  an  account  of  their  crimes  to 
Gcd,  but  are  proscribed  or  destined  to  the  punishment 
which  they  deserve.  In  Persia,  malefactors  were  not  al- 
lowed to  look  on  the  king ;  this  was  the  reason,  that  as  soon 
as  Haman  was  considered  a  criminal  they  covered  his  face. 
From  Pococke  we  find  the  custom  still  continues,  for  speak- 
ing of  the  artifice  by  which  an  Egyptian  bey  was  taken  off, 
he  says,  "  A  man  being  brought  before  him  like  a  malefac- 
tor just  taken,  with  his  hands  behind  him  as  if  tied,  and  a 
napkin  put  over  his  head,  as  malefactors  commonly  have, 
when  he  came  into  his  presence,  suddenly  shot  him  dead." 
— Paxton. 


THE   REVELATION   OF   JOHN   THE   DIVINE. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Ver.  9.  I  John,  who  also  am  your  brother,  and 
companion  in  tribulation,  and  in  the  kingdom 
and  patience  of  Jesus  Christ,  was  in  the  isle 
that  is  called  Patmos,  for  the  word  of  God,  and 
for  the  testimony  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Patmos  has  an  excellent  harbour,  and  the  town,  being 
situated  on  the  loftiest  part  of  the  island,  makes  a  pretty 
appearance  on  entering.  The  houses,  being  constructed  of 
a  white  freestone,  have  a  peculiarly  neat  aspect.  It  has 
been  calculated  that  the  town  has  an  elevation  of  nearly 
five  hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  In  its  centre 
is  a  large  convent  dedicated  to  St.  John  the  Evangelist,  who 
was  banished  to  this  island.  Here  he  wrote  his  Revela- 
tion. We  saw,  in  walking  to  the  summit  of  the  hill,  the 
grotto  in  which  he  is  said  to  have  .composed  them.  The 
convent  has  a  resident  bishop,  with  a  considerable  number 
of  monks,  and  is  a  college  for  the  education  of  young  men 
of  the  Greek  persuasion.  In  those  parts  of  the  island  which 
the  inhabitants  are  able  to  cultivate,  we  saw  several  small 
fieJds,  or  patches  of  corn,  banked  up  with  stones  to  prevent 
the  soil  from  being  washed  away  by  the  rains.  It  appeared, 
however,  to  be  capable  of  producing  but  an  inconsiderable 
quantity  of  grain.  The  inhabitants  procure  sheep  and  cat- 
tle from  the  neighbouring  islands.  The  town  contains 
fibout  two  hundred  houses.  The  women  are  to  the  men  in 
proportion  of  five  to  one.    (Wittman.)— Burder. 

CHAPTER  11. 
Ver.  1.  Unto  the  angel  of  the  church  of  Ephe- 
sus  write ;  These  things  saith  he  that  holdeth 
the  seven  stars  in  his  right  hand,  who  walketh 
in  the  midst  of  the  seven  golden  candlesticks. 

See  on  Acts  18.  19. 

Ver.  8.  And  unto  the  angel  of  the  church  in 


Smyrna  w^rite ;  These  things  saith  the  first  and 
the  last,  which  was  dead,  and  is  alive. 

Smyrna,  situated  at  the  extremity  of  a  beautiful  bay  on 
the  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  was  one  of  the  principal  cities  of 
the  ancient  region  of  Ionia :  its  early  history  is  involved  hi 
some  obscurity.  According  to  the  geographer  Strabo,  it 
derived  its  name  from  an  Amazon,  so  called,  who,  having 
conquered  Ephesus,  had  in  the  first  instance  transmitted 
her  appellation  to  that  city.  The  Ephesians  afterward 
founded  the  town  to  which  it  has  since  been  appropriated. 
Herodotus,  however,  states  that  Smyrna  originally  belonged 
to  the  ^olians,  who  received  into  the  city  some  Colophonian 
exiles.  These  subsequently  taking  advantage  of  a  festival 
held  without  the  town,  to  which  festival  the  Smyrnseans  re- 
sorted in  great  numbers,  shut  the  gates  and  became  masters 
of  the  place.  From  that  time  Smyrna  ceased  to  be  an 
^olian  city,  but  was  received  into  the  Ionian  confederacy. 
Of  all  the  different  cities  which  laid  claim  to  the  honour  of 
being  the  birth-place  of  Homer,  Smyrna  seems  to  assert 
her  claim  to  that  distinction  with  the  greatest  zeal  and 
plausibility. 

Though  the  Smymaeans  successfully  resisted  the  attacks 
of  Gyges,  king  of  Lydia,  they  were  subjugated  by  his  de- 
scendant, Alyattes;  and  in  consequence  of  this  event  the 
city  sunk  into  decay,  and  was  deserted  for  the  space  of  four 
hundred  years.  Alexander  proposed  to  rebuild  it ;  which 
design  was  carried  into  effect  by  Antigonus  and  Lysiraachus, 
the  latter  of  whom  completed  the  new  city ;  the  streets  of 
which  are  said  to  have  been  remarkably  handsome,  being 
well  paved,  and  drawn  at  right  angles.  Numerous  fine 
porticoes,  temples,  theatres,  and  a  public  library,  with  the 
splendid  and  lofty  acropolis,  rendered  it  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  cities  of  Ionia.  Various  grants  and  privileges 
were  conferred  upon  the  Smyrnaeans  by  the  Roman  senate, 
for  the  part  which  they  hacl  taken  during  the  wars  with 
Antiochus  and  Mithridates*  Under  the  Roman  emperors, 
Smyrna  flourished  greatly ;  and  its  schools  of  eloquence  and 
philosophy  were  held  in  considerable  repute.  Under  the 
Greek  emperors  Smyrna  experienced  great  vicissitudes. 
Having  been  taken  by  Tzachas,  a  Turkish  chief,  towards 


644 


REVELATION. 


Chap.  3. 


the  close  of  the  eleventh  century,  it  was  nearly  destroyed  by 
a  Greek  fleet  under  the  command  of  John  Ducas :  the  Em- 
peror Comne.^.us  subsequently  restored  it,  but  it  again  suf- 
I'ered  very  severely  from  a  siege  which  it  sustained  against 
the  forces  of  Tamerlane.  Not  long  after  this  event  it  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  Turks,  in  whose  possession  it  has  re- 
mained ever 'since. 

Modern  Smyrna,  by  the  Turks  called  Ismir,  is  beauti- 
fully situated  at  the  foot  of  a  lofty  mountain,  that  stretches 
along  the  shore  to  a  great  extent,  and  has  upon  its  summit 
the  castellated  building  seen  on  the  right  of  our  engraving, 
which  looks  towards  the  bav.  From  this  elevation  the 
prospect  is  truly  grand  ;  ,and  this  is  perhaps  the  finest  port 
in  Asia,  as  a  large  fleet  might  ride  in  it,  and  vessels  receive 
and  discharge  their  cargoes  close  to  the  shore.  Upon  this 
mountain  was  founded  one  of  those  churches  which  became 
the  peculiar  care  of  the  apostle  John,  who  addressed  to  its 
angel  (presiding  minister  or  bishop)  the  solemn  admonitions 
in  Rev.  ii.  8—11.  This  church  isdedicated  to  Polycarp,  the 
first  bishop  of  Smyrna,  who  suffered  martyrdom  here  A.  D. 
166,  being  committed  to  the  flames.  The  population  is 
commonly  estimated  at  100,000  or  110,000;  but  the  Rev. 
John  Hartley,  who  was  here  in  the  year  1825,  is  of  opinion 
that  it  is  greatly  overcharged.  He  thinks  that  Smyrna  does 
not  contain  many  more  than  75,000  inhabitants ;  of  whom 
about  45,000  are  Turks,  10,000  Greeks,  8000  Armenians, 
8000  Jews,  and  less  than  1000  Europeans  of  different  na- 
tions. The  English  residents  may  be  upwards  of  one  hun- 
dred: they  dwell  in  the  British  factory,  which  is  very  ex- 
tensive, and  is  enclosed  with  gates.  The  streets  are  narrow, 
and  many  of  the  houses,  which  are  built  of  clay,  are  low  ; 
most  of  them  have  roofs  of  pantiles,  some  of  which  are  flat, 
while  others  are  gaudily  painted.  There  are  twenty 
mosques :  the  Greeks  have  three  churches ;  the  Armenians, 
one ;  the  Latins,  two ;  and  the  Protestants,  two  :  the  Jews 
have  eight  synagogues.  Frank  street,  where  the  Euro- 
peans reside,  and  in  which  many  sign-boards  are  exhibited, 
is  by  far  the  best  street  in  Smyrna :  by  the  English  it  has 
been  named  Bond  street ;  but  the  Turks  call  it  Ghul  Ma- 
baia,  or  the  Rose  Gluarter. 

Smyrna  has  been  subject  to  several  awful  visitations.  In 
1743  it  was  destroyed  by  fire,  and  in  1750  by  an  earthquake ; 
in  1752,  1758,  and  1760,  it  was  depopulated  by  plague;  fire 
again  consumed  almost  the  whole  of  it  in  1763,  1769,  and 
1778  ;  and  in  1814  there  were  40,000  persons  cut  off"  by  the 
plague.  Earthquakes  and  the  plague,  indeed,  are  the  great 
calamities  of  this  place:  the  condition  of  the  Christians  re- 
siding here  (which  is  not  the  most  secure  under  the  Turk- 
ish government)  is  said  to  be  better  than  in  that  of  any  other 
of  the  sites  of  the -seven  churches  mentioned  in  the  Apoc- 
alypse, as  if  the  promise  was  still  in  some  measure  made 
good  to  Smyrna  : — "  Fear  none  of  those  things  which  thou 

shalt  suffer Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  an4  I  will 

give  thee  a  crown  of  life."    (Rev.  ii.  10.)— Horne* 

Ver.  12.  And  to  the  angel  of  the  church  in  Per- 
gamos  write ;  These  things  saith  he  which 
hath  the  sharp  sword  with  two  edges. 

Pergamos,  or  Pergamus,  was  the  ancient  metropolis  of 
M3'sia,  and  the  residence  of  the  Attalian  kings,  who  col- 
lected here  a  noble  library,  containing  two  hundred  thou- 
sand volumes,  which  was  afterward  transported  to  Egypt 
by  Cleopatra,  and  added  to  the  library  at  Alexandria.  •  It 
IS  situated  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river  Ca'icus,  about 
fnxty  miles  to  the  north  of  Smyrna. 

Against  the  church  at  Pergamus  was  adduced  the  charge 
of  partial  instability;  but  to  its  wavering  faith  was  prom- 
ised the  all-powerful  protection  of  God.  (Rev.  ii.  12—17.) 
The  errors  of  Balaam  and  of  the  Nicolaitans  have  been 
purged  away  ;  Pergamus  has  been  preserved  from  the  de- 
stroyer ;  and  three  thousand  Christians,  out  of  a  popula- 
tion of  fourteen  or  fifteen  thousand  inhabitants,  now  cherish 
the  rites  of  their  holy  religion  in  the  same  spot  where  it 
v.'as  planted  by  the  Apostle  Paul ;  though  the  poor  Greeks 
are  restricted  to  one  small  and  mean  church,  under  the 
Acropolis,  or  citadel  of  the  ancient  city,  where  the  hymn 
ot  praise  to  their  Redeemer  is  whispered,  rather  than  sung, 
for  fear  of  oflTending  the  fanatical  Turks. 

Numerous  ancient  ruins  of  a  fortress,  a  theatre,  and  a 
naumachia,  attest  the  magnificence  of  this  once  royal  city. 
The  modern  town  of  Bergamo  is  seen  through  the  mag- 


nificent arch  on  the  right  of  our  engravmg.  It .  iB»  partly 
on  the  slope  of  the  hill,  and  partly  in  the  plain.  On  the 
summit  of  the  hill,  upon  the  left,  is  the  Acropolis,  on 
which  is  a  castle  nearly  covering  its  whole  summit,  inclu- 
ding about  eight  acres,  together  with  some  remains  of  a 
heathen  temple.  A  neighbouring  cemetery  has,  for  ages, 
been  supplied  with  marble  embellishments  from  the  theatre, 
which  are  collected  in  great  profusion  to  ornament  the 
graves,  near  to  which,  if  not  on  that  site  itself,  was  once 
placed  the  celebrated  temple  of  yEsculapius,  which,  among 
other  privileges,  had  that  of  an  asylum.  Here  also  are 
massive  ruins  of  the  church  of  .Agios  Theologos,  con- 
jectured to  be  one  of  those  which  the  Emperor  Theodosius 
caused  to  be  erected.  There  is  another  ancient  church  in 
the  town,  that  of  Saint  Sophia,  which,  about  thirty  years 
since,  was  desecrated  by  being  converted  into  a  Turkish 
mosque.  The  scenery  from  the  Acropolis  is  grand,  but 
sad.  The  fine  plain  before  Pergamus,  -which  seems  ready 
to  start  into  fertility  at  a  touch,  is  sparingly  cultivated,  ex- . 
cept  on  the  very  edges  of  the  town;  but  that  touch  is  want- 
ing. The  unrestrained  flood-courses  of  the  Caicus  and  its 
tributary  streams  have  cut  the  plain  into  broad  sandy  veins. 
In  1828,  when  this  place  was  visited  by  Mr.  Macfarlane, 
a  collection,  in  a  Greek  school,  of  about  fifty  volumes, -in 
Romaic,  or  modern  Greek,  was  called  "  the  library,"  and 
represented  the  ancient  store  of  two  hundred  thousand 
volumes,  which  had  been  formed  by  the  munificent  mon- 
archs  of  Pergamus:  and  a  dirty  little  Italian  quack,  igno- 
rant and  insolent,  was  head  practitioner  of  medicine  in 
the  city  which  gave  birth  to  Galen,  and  of  which  iEscu- 
lapius  was  the  tutelary  divinity.  The  town  was  as  dull  as 
the  grave,  except  during  the  night,  when,  as  it  happened 
to  be  the  Ramazan  of  the  Turks,  there  was  some  stir  among 
the  Mohammedan  portion  of  the  inhabitants. — Horne. 

Ver.  17.  He  that  hath  an  ear,  let  him  hear  what 
the  Spirit  saith  unto  the  churches  ;  To  him  that 
overcometh  will  I  give  to  eat  of  the  hidden 
manna,  and  will  give  him  a  white  stone,  and  in 
the  stone  a  new  name  written,  which  no  man 
knoweth,  saving  he  that  receiveth  it. 

It  was  a  custom  among  the  ancients  to  give  their  votes . 
by  white  or  black  stones;  with  these  they  condemned  the; 
guilty,  with  those  acquitted  the  innocent.  In  allusion  tO' 
this  ancient  custom,  our  Lord  promises  to  give  the  spirit- 
ual conqueror  "a  white  stone;  and  in  the  stone  a  new 
name  written,  which  no  man  knoweth,  saving  he  that  re- 
ceiveth it ;"  the  white  stone  of  absolution  or  approbation, 
and  inseparably  connected  with  it,  a  new  name  of  dignity 
and  honour,  even  that  of  a  child  of  God  and  heir  of  glory, 
which  is  known  only  to  himself,  or  the  inhabitants  of  that 
world  to  which  he  shall  be  admitted,  and  who  have  already 
received  it.  When  sentence  of  condemnation  was  pro- 
nounced, if  the  case  was  capital,  the  witnesses  put  their 
hands  on  the  head  of  the  criminal,  and  said,  Thy  blood  be 
upon  thine  own  head.  To  this  custom  the  Jews  alluded, 
when  they  cried  out  at  the  trial  of  Christ,  "  His  blood  be  on 
us,  and  oh  our  children."  Then  was  the  malefactor  led  to 
execution,  and  none  were  allowed  openly  to  lament  his 
misfortune.  His  hands  were  secured  with  cords,  and  his 
feet  with  fetters  ;  a  custom  which  furnished  David  with  an 
affecting  allusion,  in  his  lamentation  over  the  dust  of  Abner : 
"  Thy  hands  were  not  bound,  nor  thy  feet  put  in  fetters."— 
Paxton. 

CHAPTER  III. 
Ver.  1.  And  unto  the  angel  of  the  church  in  Sar- 
dis  write ;  These  things  saith  he  that  hath  the 
seven  Spirits  of  God,  and  the  seven  stars :  I 
know  thy  works,  that  thou  hast  a  name,  that 
thou  livest,  and  art  dead. 

Sardis,  or  Sardes,  the  capital  of  the  country  of  Lydia,  in 
Asia,  was  a  city  of  great  antiquity,  the  founder  of  which  is 
not  certainly  known.  It  was  situated  in  a  fertile  plain,  at 
the  foot  of  the  northern  slope  of  Mount  Tmolus ;  which 
rears  its  majestic  head  in  the  background  of  our  engraving, 
and  commands  an  extensive  view  over  the  circumjacent  coun- 
try. The  river  Pactolus,  (now  an  insignificant  brook,)  which 


I 


Chap.  3. 


REVELATION. 


645 


is  also  seen  in  our  view,  flowed  through  the  forum.  To  the 
south  of  the  plain,  on  which  Sardis  was  erected,  stood  the 
temple  of  Cybele,  the  fabled  mother  of  the  gods,  accordmg 
to  pagan  mythology:  it  was  a  very  ancient  and  magnificent 
edifice,  constructed  of  white  marble.  Of  this  temple  the 
two  noble  columns  which  are  delineated  in  the  foreground 
of  our  engraving,  together  with  a  few  mutilated  fragments 
of  other  columns  scattered  on  the  sward  or  sunk  in  it,  are 
all  that  now  remain  :  these  columns  are  buried  nearly  to  the 
half  of  their  height  in  the  soil,  which  has  accumulated  in  the 
valley  since  their  erection,  most  probably  by  the  destruction 
of  the  continually  crumbling  eminence,  on  which  stood 
the  acropolis  or  citadel.  The  columns  which  have  been 
destroyed  have  been  blown  up  by  gunpowder,  reduced  to 
blocks,  and  sold  to  masons  and  cuiters  of  tombstones:  and 
as  other  materials  are  wanted,  the  two  columns  which  are 
yet  standing  in  all  probability  will  be  blasted  in  the  same 
manner ;  and  the  traveller,  who  may  hereafter  visit  this  spot, 
will  vainly  seek  for  a  vestige  of  the  Sardeian  temple  of 
Cybele. 

After  experiencing  various  fortunes,  Sardis  became  a 
great  and  flourishing  city  in  the  reign  of  CrcEsus,  king  of 
Lydia,  by  the  fame  of  whose  riches  and  hospitality  men  of 
talents  and  learning  were  attracted  thither.  On  the  over- 
throw of  this  monarch  by  Cyrus,  B.  C.  545,  Sardis  continued 
to  be  the  chief  town  of  the  Persian  dominions  in  this  part 
of  Asia.  On  the  revolt  excited  by  Arisiagoras  and  His- 
tiaeus,  the  lonians,  with  the  aid  of  an  Atheriian  force,  sur- 
prised this  city,  except  the  citadel,  which  was  defended  by 
a  numerous  Persian  garrison.  Though  burnt  to  the  ground 
on  this  occasion,  Sardis  was  again  rebuilt ;  and,  soon  after 
the  defeat  of  the  Persians  at  the  battle  of  the  Granicus,  it 
surrendered  to  Alexander  the  Great,  who  commanded  that 
the  Lydians  should  regain  their  liberty,  and  resume  their 
ancient  laws  and  usages.  During  the  reigns  of  the  Greek 
sovereigns  in  Asia,  this  city  sustained  numerous  reverses  ; 
and  from  Antiochus,  the  last  king  of  Syria,  it  passed  into 
the  possession  of  the  Romans,  having  surrendered  to  the 
two  Scipios,  B.  C.  187.  Sardis  was  indebted  to  the  Emperor 
Tiberius  for  its  restoration,  after  a  disastrous  earthquake, 
which  had  reduced  it  to  a  heap  of  ruins. 

We  have  no  information  in  the  New  Testament  at  what 
time  Christianity  was  planted  at  Sardis ;  but  probably  it  was 
not  till  after  Saint  Paul  had  founded  the  church  at  Ephe- 
sus ;  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  metropolis  of 
Lydia  is  included  in  St.  Luke's  declaration,  that  "  all  they 
which  dwelt  in  Asia  heard  the  word  of  the  Lord  Jesus, 
both  Jews  and  Greeks,"  (Acts  xix.  10,)  and  also  in  the  sal- 
utation of  "all  the  churches  of  Asia,"  (1  Cor.  xvi.  19.) 
This  is  rendered  manifest  by  the  book  of  Revelation,  where 
Sardis  is  expressly  named  among  the  seven  churches  of 
that  province.  When  the  warning  voice  was  addressed 
"  Unto  the  angel"  or  bishop  "  of  the  church  in  Sardis,"  it 
was  evidently  in  a  declining  state.  (Rev.  iii.  1—5.)  Sub- 
sequeiitly,  this  city  became  the  seat  of  a  bishoprick;  and 
ecclesiastical  history  mentions  more  than  one  council 
as  having  been  held  here. 

Sardis  continued  to  be  a  flourishing  city,  through  the 
Roman  emperors,  to  the  close  of  the  Byzantine  dynasty. 
In  the  eleventh  century  the  Turks  took  possession  of  it,  and, 
two  centuries  later,  it  was  nearly  destroyed  by  Tamerlane. 
This  once-celebrated  capital  of  the  Lydian  kings  is  now 
reduced  to  a  wretched  village  called  Sart,  consisting  of  a 
few  mud  huts  occupied  by  Turkish  herdsmen,  and  erected 
in  the  midst  of  extensive  ruins  ;  among  which  Lieut.  Col. 
Leake  observed  the  remains  of  a  large  Christian  church. 

"  If"  (savs  the  Rev.  Mr.  Arundell,  who  visited  this 
place  in  1833)  "  I  should  be  asked  what  impresses  the  mind 
most  strongly  on  beholding  Sardis,  I  should  reply,  its  in- 
describable solitude,  like  the  darkness  in  Egypt, — darkness 
that  could  be  felt.  So  the  deep  solitude  of  the  spot,  once 
Ihe  '  Lady  of  kingdoms,'  produces  a  corresponding  feeling 
of  desolate  abandonment  in  the  mind,  which  can  never  be 
forgotten.  Connect  this  feeling  with  the  message  in  the 
Apocalypse  to  the  church  of  Sardis:-—'  Thou  hast  a  name 

that  thou  livest,  and  art  dead I  will  come  on  thee 

as  a  thief,  and  thou  shalt  not  know  at  what  hour  I  will 
come  upon  thee.'  (Rev.  iii.  1,  3.)  And  then  look  around 
and  ask,  '  Where  are  the  churches,  where  are  the  Chris- 
tians of  Sardis  V  The  tumuli  beyond  the  Hermus  reply, 
'  All  dead,'  suffering  the  infliction  of  the  threatened  judg- 
ments of  God."— HOBNE. 


Ver.  7.  And  to  the  angel  of  the  church  in  Phila- 
delphia write;  These  things  saith  he  that  is 
hol3r,  he  that  is  true,  he  that  hath  the  key  of 
David,  he  that  openeth,  and  no  man  shutteth ; 
and  shutteth,  and  no  man  openeth. 

Philadelphia  was  a  very  considerable  city  of  Lydia,  in 
Asia  Minor,  which  derived  its  name  from  its  founder,  At- 
tains Philadelphus,  brother  of  Eumenes,  king  of  Pergamus. 
It  stands  in  the  plain  of  the  Hermus,  about  midway  between 
that  river  and  the  determination  of  Mount  Tmolus.  Be- 
sides the  Hermus,  which  divides  the  plain,  numerous  brooks 
and  rills  give  beauty,  verdure,  and  fertility,  to  the  neigh- 
bourhood ;  which,  however,  is  but  little  cultivated. 

This  city  has,  at  various  times,  suffered  greatlv  from 
earthquakes.  Tacitus  mentions  it  among  the  towns  re- 
stored by  Tiberius  after  a  more  than  ordinary  calamity  of 
this  kind.  (Annal.  lib.  ii.  c.  47.)  Not  long  before  the  date 
of  the  apocalyptic  epistle,  (Rev.  iii.  7—13,)  Philadelphia 
had  suffered  so  much  from  earthquakes,  that  it  had  been  in 
a  great  measure  deserted  by  its  inhabitants,  which  may,  in 
some  degree,  account  for  the  poverty  of  its  church,  as  de- 
scribed in  that  epistle.  "  Philadelphia  appears  to  have  re- 
sisted the  attacks  of  the  Turks,  in  1312,  with  more  success 
than  other  cities.  At  a  distance  from  the  sea,  forgotten  by 
the  emperor,  encompassed  on  all  sides  by  the  Turks,  her 
valiant  citizens  defended  their  religion  and  freedom  above 
fourscore  years,  and  at  length  capitulated  with  the  proudest 
of  the  Ottomans,  (Bajazet,)  in  1390.  Among  the  Greek  colo- 
nies and  churches  of  Asia,  Philadelphia  is  still  erect— a 
column  in  a  scene  of  ruins."  Whatever  may  be  lost  of  the 
spirit  of  Christianity,  there  is  still  the  form  of  a  Christian 
church  in  this  city,  which  is  now  called  Allah-Shehr,  or 
the  City  of  God,  by  the  Turks,  and  which  possesses  a  few 
remains  of  heathen  antiquity. 

Philadelphia  is  now  a  considerable  town,  spreading  over 
the  slopes  of  three  or  four  hills.  Many  remains  of  the 
.walls,  Vv^hich  once  encompassed  it,  are  now  standing,  but 
with  large  gaps :  the  materials  of  its  fortifications  are  small 
stones  with  strong  cement.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Arundell  (by 
whom  our  view  is  sketched)  is  of  opinion  that  these  Avails 
are  not  much  older  than  the  last  days  of  the  lower  empire, 
if  indeed  they  are  so  ancient.  He  describes  the  passage 
through  the  streets  as  being  filthy  in  the  extreme ;  though 
the  view  of  the  place,  as  the  traveller  approaches  it,  is  very 
beautiful.  The  prospect  from  the  hill  is  magnificent:  high- 
ly cultivated  gardens  and  vineyards  lie  on  the  back  sides  of 
the  town,  and  before  it  is  one  of  the  richest  and  most  ex- 
tensive plains  in  Asia. 

Philadelphia  contains  about  three  hundred  houses  occu- 
pied by  Greeks,  and  nearly  three  thousand  which  are  in- 
habited by  Turks.  There  are  twenty-five  churches,  in  five 
only  of  which  divine  service  is  performed  once  every 
week :  in  the  larger  number  it  is  celebrated  but  once  a  year. 
A  solitary  fragment  is  shown  as  the  remains  of  the  church 
of  the  Apocalypse,  dedicated  to  St.  John.— PIohne. 

Ver.  14.  And  unto  the  angel  of  the  church  of 
the  Laodiceans,  write ;  These  things  saith  the 
Amen,  the  faithful  and  true  Witness,  the  be- 
ginning of  the  creation  of  God. 

Laodicea  was  one  of  the  largest  cities  in  the  province  of 
Phrygia  Magna,  at  the  commencement  of  the  Christian 
asra ;  though,  originally,  it  was  an  inconsiderable  place. 
This  increase  was  chiefly  owing  to  the  fertility  of  its  sur- 
rounding soil,  and  to  the  inimificent  bequests  and  donations 
of  various  opulent  individuals.  Its  earlier  name  was 
Diospolis  ;  but  after  it  had  been  enlarged  by  Antiochus. II. 
king  of  Syria,  it  was  called  Laodicea,  in  honour  of  his 
consort  Laodice.  Situated  on  a  volcanic  eminence,  this 
city  was  frequently  exposed  to  earthquakes,  in  common  with 
the  surrounding  towns  and  villages.  Its  inhabitants  derived 
great  profit  from  the  sale  of  the  fine  wools  produced  by 
their  flocks,  which  fed  in  the  adjacent  plains. 

In  the  early  age  of  Christianitv,  Laodicea  possessed  a 
flourishing  church,  St.  Paul's  zeal  for  which  is  attested  bv 
the  mention  which  he  makes  of  it  in  his  Epistle  to  the  Co- 
lossians  :— "  I  would  that  ye  knew  what  great  conflict  I  have 
for  you,  and  for  them  at  Laodicea,  and  for  as  many  as  have 
not  seen  my  face  in  the  flesh."    (ii.  1.)    ATid,  "  when  this 


646 


REVELATION. 


Chap.  4 — ^9. 


epistle  is  read  among  you,  cause  that  it  be  read  also  in  the 
church  of  the  Laodiceans ;  and  that  ye  likewise  read  the 
epistle  from  Laodicea."  (iv.  16.)  From  the  mention  here 
made  of  the  epistle  from  Laodicea,  it  has  been  conjectured 
that  the  Apostle  had  written  a  special  letter  to  the  converts 
in  that  city,  which  is  now  lost ;  buHt  is  with  more  proba- 
bility supposed  that  he  refers  to  another  of  his  epistles,  either 
that  to  the  Ephesians,  or  the  first  Epistle  to  Timothy. 

The  book  of  the  Revelation  of  St.  John  contains  a  severe 
rebuke  of  the  Laodiceans  for  their  lukewarmness  and 
worldly-mindedness,  and  threatens  them  with  that  ruin 
which  has  been  so  completely  accomplished.  (Rev.  iii. 
14 — 19.)  In  our  engraving  several  arches  of  a  once  mag- 
nificent aqueduct  are  seen ;  and  the  remains  of  an  amphi- 
theatre and  other  edifices  attest  the  ancient  splendour  and 
extent  of  Laodicea.  Inscribed  altars,  columns,  friezes,  and 
cornices,  are  dispersed  among  the  houses  and  burying- 
grounds.  The  doom  of  the  church  at  Laodicea  seems  to 
have  been  more  severe  and  terrible  than  that  of  the  other 
apocalyptic  churches.  Not  a  single  Christian  is  said  to  re- 
side at  Laodicea,  which  is  even  more  solitary  than  Ephesus. 
The  latter  city  has  a  prospect  of  a  rolling  sea  or  a  whiten- 
ing sail  to  enliven  its  decay ;  the  former  sits  in  widowed 
loneliness.  Its  temples  are  desolate,  and  the  stately  edifices 
of  ancient  Laodicea  are  now  peopled  by  wolves  and  jackals. 
The  prayers  of  the  Mohammedan  mosque  are  the  only 
prayers  heard  near  the  yet  splendid  ruins  of  the  city,  on 
which  the  prophetic  denunciation  seems  to  have  been  fully 
executed  in  its  utter  rejection  as  a  church. — Horne. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Ver.  10.  The  four  and  twenty  elders  fall  down 
before  him  that  sat  on  the  throne,  and  worship 
him  that  liveth  for  ever  and  ever,  and  cast  their 
crowns  before  the  throne. 

This  short  expedition  was  brought  to  a  close  by  the  per- 
sonal submission  of  Abool  Fyze  Khan,  who,  attended  by 
£ll  his  court,  proceeded  to  tEe  tents  of  Nadir  Shah,  and 
laid  his  crown,  and  other  ensigns  of  royalty,  at  the  feet  of 
the  conqueror,  who  assigned  him  an  honourable  place  in 
his  assembly,  and  in  a  few  days  afterward  restored  hirn  to 

-o  throne, — Malcolm's  History  of  Persia. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Ver.  2.  And  I  saw  another  angel  ascending-  from 
the  east,  having  the  seal  of  the  living  God:  and 
he  cried  with  a  loud  voice  to  the  four  angels, 
to  whom  it  was  given  to  hurt  the  earth  and 
the  sea. 

See  on  Ezek.  9.  2. 

Ver.  3.  Saying,  Hurt  not  the  earth,  neither  the 
sea,  nor  the  trees,  till  we  have  sealed  the  ser- 
vants of  our  God  in  their  foreheads. 

See  on  ch.  13.  16. 

Ver.  9.  After  this,  I  beheld,  and  lo,  a  great  mul- 
titude, which  no  man  could  number,  of  all  na- 
tions, and  kindreds,  and  people,  and  tongues, 
stood  before  the  throne,  and  before  the  Lamb, 
clothed  with  white  robes,  and  palms  in  their 
hands. 

Sec  on  John  12.  13,  14,  and  1  Cor.  9.  25. 

Ver.  13.  And  one  of  the  elders  answered,  saying 
unto  me,  What  are  these  which  are  arrayed  in 
white  robes?  and  whence  came  they?  14.  And 
I  said  unto  him.  Sir,  thou  knowest.  And  he  said 
to  me,  These  are  they  which  came  out  of  great 
tribulation,  and  have  washed  their  robes,  and 
m&'V  them  white  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb. 

in  order  to  'ihP'-k  with  absolute  precision  the  meaning  of 
the  original  iii  i**"  latter  clause,  the  preposition  "  in"  should 
be  translated  "  Uf."    It  is  not  the  purport  of  the  passage,  to 


intimate  that  the  robes  of  the  Martyrs  and  Confessors  here 
spoken  of,  were  actually  died  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb,  as 
Joseph's  coat  was  in  that  of  the  wild  beast  slain  by  his 
brethren  for  the  purpose  ;  for  this  would  have  made  them 
red,  not  white,  at  least  unless  we  allow  the  words  to  do  the 
greatest  violence  to  metaphorical  congruity.  But  the  sacred 
writers  are  not  apt  to  outrage  propriety  and  congruity  in 
this  manner.  In  the  present  case,  the  idea  doubtless  is,  that 
it  Avas  by  the  blood  of  Christ,  by  suffering  unto  death  for 
his  name's  sake,  by  shedding  their  blood  for  his  cause, 
which  he  graciously  accounted  as  the  shedding  of  his  own, 
that  they  had  been  enabled  to  make  their  raiment  Avhite,  or, 
in  other  words,  had  become  entitled  to  be  arrayed,  by  way 
of  reward,  in  the  white  robes  of  salvation.  Their  own  suf- 
ferings, in  connexion  with  the  merits  of  the  Saviour's  blood, 
had  been  the  means  of  conferring  this  honour  upon  them. 
The  blood  of  the  Lamb  M^as  rather  the  medium  by  which, 
than  the  fountain  in  which,  their  garments  had  been  thus 
blanched  into  the  lustrous  and  pearly  whiteness  of  the  ves- 
ture of  the  risen,  rewarded,  and  beatified  saints. — Bush. 

Ver.  17.  For  the  Lamb,  which  is  in  the  midst  of 
the  throne,  shall  feed  them,  and  shall  lead  them 
unto  living  fountains  of  waters,  and  God  shall 
wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes. 

See  on  Ps.  23.  1—3. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Ver.  4.  And  the  smoke  of  the  incense  which  came 
with  the  prayers  of  the  saints,  ascending  up  be- 
fore God,  out  of  the  angel's  hand. 

There  is  a  pagan  rite,  mentioned  by  C.  Dampier,  as  prac- 
tised by  the  nobility  of  Touquin,  which  greatly  illustrates 
this  passage.  When  they  pray  with  their  families,  the 
prayer  is  written  upon  a  paper ;  and  being  recited  by  a  prop- 
er officer,  is  thrown  into  a^re  of  coals,  where,  probably, 
incense  or  some  other  perfume  is  thrown  at  the  same  time, 
so  that  the  prayer  ascends  up  with  the  smoke. — Daubuz. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Ver.  1.  And  the  fifth  angel  sounded,  and  I  saw  a 
star  fall  from  heaven  unto  the  earth;  and  to 
him  was  given  the  key  of  the  bottomless  pit. 
2.  And  he  opened  the  bottomless  pit ;  and  there 
arose  a  smoke  out  of  the  pit,  as  the  smoke  of  a 
great  furnace ;  and  the  sun  and  the  air  were 
darkened  by  reason  of  the  smoke  of  the  pit. 

Commentators  at  the  present  day  are  almost  univer- 
sally agreed  in  regarding  the  fifth  trumpet  as  symboli- 
zing and  predicting  the  appearance  of  the  Arabian  im- 
postor, his  spurious  religion,  and  his  Saracen  followers. 
But  as  it  is  by  no  means  evident  how  Mohammed  himself 
can  properly  be  represented  as  "  a  star  falling  from  heav- 
en," the  usual  symbol  of  an  apostate  Christian  teacher,  or 
of*  number  of  them,  we  apprehend  the  design  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  this  imagery  to  be,  to  teach  us  that  Mohammedan- 
ism is  to  be  considered  as  the  fruit  or  product  of  a  Christian 
heresy.  The  star  Jiad  fallen  before  the  time  of  the  false 
prophet,  in  the  person  of  Arius,  and  other  gross  heretics; 
and^  as  the  consequence  of  their  apostacy  from  the  truth, 
the  providence  of  God  so  ordered  it,  that  the  desolating 
delusion  of  Mohammedanism  should  arise  and  overspread 
some  of  the  fairest  portions  of  the  Church.  This  view  of 
the  arch-imposture  of  Islamism  has  been  taken  by  some 
very  able  writf;rs  of  modren  times,  particularly  by  Mr. 
Whitaker,  in  his  "  Origin  of  Arianism."  The  grand  here- 
sies, therefore,  of  the  Christian  church,  previous  to  the  time 
of  Mohammed,  seem  to  be  here  personified  in  the  fallen 
star,  and  represented  as  being  instrumental  in  introducing 
this  master-plague  of  error  and  superstition  into  the  world. 
The  poetical  machinery  of  the  vision  is  supposed  to  be 
taken  from  the  sacred  oracular  caves  of  the  ancient  Pa- 
gans, which  were  often  thought  to  communicate  with  the 
sea,  or  the  great  abyss,  and  which  were  specially  valued, 
when  (like  that  at  Delphi)  they  emitted  an  intoxicating 
vapour:  it  is  used,  therefore,  with  singular  propriety  in 


^^^:tf>r/i^'^ 


SARD IS. 

Rev.  3:1.   Page  645. 


Chap.  9. 


REVELATION. 


647 


foretelling  the  rise  of  a  religious  imposture.  There  may 
possibly  be  an  allusion  also  to  the  cave  of  Hera,  whither 
the  prophet  was  wont  to  retire  for  the  purpose  of  excogita- 
ting his  system,  and  from  which  it  really  emanated.  The 
opening  of  the  bottomless  pit,  therefore,  and  the  letting 
out  the  vapour  and  smoke  of  the  infernal  regions,  aptly 
represents  the  wicked  and  diabolical  system  of  religion, 
the  dense  and  noxious  fumes  of  the  corrupt  theology  which 
he  broached,  and  by  means  of  which  so  large  a  portion  of 
Christendom  was  finally  obscured  and  involved  in  darkness. 
The  preternatural  darkening  of  the  sun  foreshows  the 
eclipse  of  the  true  religion ;  and  that  of  the  air  prefigures 
the  uncontrolled  dominion  of  the  powers  of  darkness.  As 
a  striking  coincidence  with  the  signs  here  predicted,  it  is 
worthy  of  note,  that  a  remarkable  comet  immediately  pre- 
ceded the  birth  of  Mohammed ;  and  that  an  eclipse  of  the 
sun,  of  extraordinary  degree  and  duration,  attended  the 
first  announcement  of  his  pretended  mission. — Bush. 

Ver.  3.  And  there  came  out  of  the  smoke  locusts 
upon  the  earth;  and  unto  them  was  given 
power,  as  the  scorpions  of  the  earth  have 
power. 

Arabia  has  long  been  noted  for  giving  birth  to  prodi- 
gious swarms  of  locusts,  which  often  overspread  and  lay 
waste  the  neighbouring  countries ;  and"  it  is  remarkable, 
that  in  a  genuine  Arabian  romance,  the  locust  is  intro- 
duced as  the  national  emblem  of  the  Ishmaelites.  The 
symbol,  therefore,  of  the  locusts  issuing  out  of  the  smoke 
strikingly  represents  the  armies  of  the  Saracens,  the  mar- 
tial followers  of  the  prophet,  first  engendered,  as  it  were, 
amid  the  fumes  of  his  religion,  and  then  marching  forth, 
at  his  command,  to  conquer  and  to  proselyte  the  world. 
The  pages  of  history  must  be  consulted  to  learn  the  devas- 
tations of  those  hosts  of  destructive  Saracens,  which,  under 
the  guidance  of  Mohammed  and  his  successors,  alighted 
upon  and  wasted  the  apocalyptic  earth.  Yet,  notwithstand- 
ing the  phantasms  that  came  forth  from  the  pit  of  the  abyss 
bore  a  general  resemblance  to  locusts,  they  were  marked 
by  several  peculiarities,  by  which  they  were  more  per- 
fectly adapted  to  typify  the  people  designed  to  be  thus 
shadowed  out.  These  we  shall  consider  as  we  proceed. — 
Bush. 

Ver.  4.  And  it  was  commanded  them  that  they 
should  not  hurt  the  grass  of  the  earth,  neither 
any  green  thing,  neither  any  tree;  but  only 
those  men  which  have  not  the  seal  of  God  in 
their  foreheads. 

By  the  command  that  they  should  not  hurt  the  grass,  nor 
the  trees,  but  men  only,  it  is  evident  that  these  were  not 
natural,  but  symbolical  locusts;  and  also  that  Ihey  were 
under  providential  control.  The  same  thing  appears  from 
other  attributes  assigned  them,  which  plainly  belong  to 
the  objects  signified,  and  not  to  the  sign;  as  the  human 
face,  the  woman's  hair,  the  golden  crowns,  the  iron  breast- 
plates. But  it  is  very  common  in  the  symbolic  diction  of 
prophecy,  to  find  the  literal  and  the  allegorical  sense  in- 
termixed, and  that  even  in  the  same  passage.  We  are 
thus  furnished  with  a  clew  to  the  real  meaning  of  the 
symbols.  By  the  precept  here  given,  the  emblematic  lo- 
custs were  required  to  act  in  a  manner  perfectly  dissimilar 
to  the  ravages  of  natural  locusts :  and  yet  how  faithfully 
the  command  was  obeyed,  may  be  inferred  from  the  fol- 
lowing very  remarkable  injunction  of  the  Calif  Abube- 
ker  to  Yezid,  upon  setting  out  on  the  expedition  against 
Syria,  the  first  undertaking  of  the  Saracens  in  the  way  of 
foreign  conquest.  It  can  scarcely  be  doubted,  that  these 
instructions  have  been  preserved,  under  the  providence  of 
God,  for  the  express  purpose  of  furnishing  an  illustration 
of  this  prophetic  text.  "  Remember,"  said  Abubeker,  "  that 
you  are  always  in  the  presence  of  God,  on  the  verge  of 
death,  in  the  assurance  of  judgment,  and  the  hope  of  par- 
adise. When  you  fight  the  battles  of  the  Lord,  acquit 
yourselves  like  men,  without  turning  your  backs  ;  but  let 
not  your  victory  be  stained  with  the  blood  of  women  or 
children.  Destroy/  no  palm-trees,  norburn  any  fields  of  corrS; 
Cut  dovm  no  fruit-trees ;  nor  do  any  mischief  to  cattle,  only 
such  as  you  kill  to  eat.    When  you  make"  any  covenant. 


stand  to  it,  and  be  as  good  as  your  word.  As  you  go  on, 
you  will  find  some  religious  persons,  who  live  retired  in 
monasteries,  and  propose  to  themselves  to  serve  God  that 
way :  let  them  alone,  and  neither  kill  them,  nor  destroy 
thefr  monasteries.  And  you  will  find  another  sort  of 
people,  that  belong  to  the  synagogue  of  Satan,  who  have 
shaven  crowns :  be  sure  you  cleave  their  sculls,  and  give 
them  no  quarter  till  they  either  turn  Mohammedans,  or 
pay  tribute."  It  has  accordingly  been  noticed,  that  those 
parts  of  the  Roman  empire  which  were  left  untouched  by 
these  Saracen  hordes,  were  those  in  which,  as  it  appears 
from  history,  the  remnant  of  the  true  church  of  God  was 
still  found  residing:  they  were  only  to  hurt  the  men  who 
had  not  the  mark  of  God  on  their  foreheads. — Bush. 

Ver.  5.  And  to  them  it  was  given  that  they  should 
not  kill  them,  but  that  they  should  be  torment- 
ed five  months :  and  their  torment  was  as  the 
torment  of  a  scorpion,  when  he  striketh  a  man. 

Mr.  Gibbon's  undesigned  commentary  on  these  words 
will  show  how  the  commission  was  fulfilled.  "  The  fair 
option  of  friendship  or  submission,  or  a  battle,  was  proposed 
to  the  enemies  of  Mohammed.  If  they  professed  the  creed 
of  Islam,  they  wer^ admitted  to  all  the  temporal  and  spirit- 
ual benefits  of  his  primitive  disciples,  and  marched  under 
the  same  banners,  to  extend  the  religion  they  had  embraced. 
The  clemency  of  the  prophet  was  decided  by  his  interests ; 
yet  he  seldom  trampled  on  a  prostrate  enemy,  and  he  seemed 
to  promise,  that  on  the  payment  of  a  tribute,  the  least  guilty 
of  his  unbelieving  subjects  might  be  indulged  in  their  wor- 
ship." The  period  assigned  for  the  power  of  the  locusts,  in 
this  prediction,  is  "five  months."  Prophecy  has  its  pecu- 
liar mode  of  computing  time.  A  day  for  the  most  part 
stands  for  a  year.  Five  months,  therefore,  of  thirty  days 
each,  amount,  in  the  computation  of  prophecy,  to  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years.  As  five  literal  months  is  the 
utmost  term  of  the  duration  of  the  natural  plague  of  the 
locusts,  so  the  prophetic  five  months  accurately  denote  the 
period  of  the  main  conquests  of  the  Saracen  empire,  com- 
puting from  the  appearance  of  Mohammed  to  the  founda- 
tion of  Bagdad.  "  Read,"  says  Bishop  Newton,  "  the  his- 
tory of  the  Saracens,  and  you  will  find  that  their  greatest 
exploits  were  performed,  and  their  greatest  conquests  made, 
within  the  space  of  five  prophetic  months,  or  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years, — between  the  year  612,  when  Mohammed 
opened  the  bottomless  pit,  and  began  publicly  to  teach  and 
propagate  his  imposture  ;  and  the  year  762,  when  Alman- 
sor  built  Bagdad,  and  called  it  the  City  of  Peace."  The 
comparison  of  the  locusts'  torments  to  that  of  the  scorpion 
will  be  considered  subsequently. — Bush. 

Ver.  6.  And  in  those  days  shall  men  seek  death, 
and  shall  not  find  it ;  and  shall  desire  to  die, 
and  death  shall  flee  from  them. 

This  prediction  has  usually  been  considered  as  awfully 
expressive  of  the  hopeless  sufferings  and  despair  of  eastern 
Christendom,  under  the  lawless  insults,  violences,  and  op- 
pressions, systematically  practised  by  their  Saracen  mas- 
ters. We  would  not  deny  that  this  may  have  been  alluded 
to ;  yet,  as  it  would  seem  that  men  desirous  of  escaping 
suffering  by  death,  might  easily,  in  a  thousand  ways,  have 
accomplished  their  object,  it  may  be  suggested,  whether 
the  Saracens  themselves  are  not  the  persons  here  referred 
to,  as  coveting  death  in  battle,  from  a  view  to  the  honour 
and  the  rewards  of  such  a  decease.  The  following  passage 
from  the  Koran,  is  worthy  of  special  note  in  this  connex- 
ion. "  Moreover,  ye  did  sometimes  wish  for  death,  before 
that  ye  met  it."  On  these  words  Sale  remarks,  in  a  note, 
"that  several  of  Mohammed's  followers,  who  were  not 
present  at  Beder,  wished  for  an  opportunity  of  obtaining, 
in  another  action,  the  like  honour  as  those  had  gained  who 
fell  martyrs  in  that  event."  The  import  of  the  language, 
therefore,  may  be,  that  God  should  give  to  the  Moslem 
hosts  such  an  uninterrupted  tide  of  conquests,  they  should 
so  uniformly  come  off  victorious  in  their  engagements,  and 
that  with  such  inconsiderable  losses,  that  numbers,  in  the 
height  of  their  enthusiasm,  should  pant  in  vain  for  the 
glorious  privilege  of  dying  in  the  field  oi  battle. — Bush. 

Ver.  7,  And  the  shapes  of  the  locusts  were  like 


648 


REVELATION. 


Chap.  9. 


unto  horses  prepared  unto  battle ;  and  on  their 
heads  were  as  it  were  crowns  like  gold,  and 
their  faces  were  as  the  faces  of  men. 

"  Arabia,"  says  Gibbon,  "  is,  in  the  opinion  of  natural- 
ists, the  native  country  of  the  horse."  The  horsemanship 
of  the  Arabs  has  ever  been  an  object  of  admiration.  "  The 
martial  youth,  under  the  banner  of  the  emir,  is  ever  on 
horseback,  and  in  the  field,  to  practise  the  exercise  of  the 
bow,  the  javelin,  and  the  cimeter."  In  correspondence, 
therefore,  with  the  hieroglyphic  of  the  prophet,  the  strength 
of  the  Saracens  consisted  very  much  in  their  numerous 
cavalry,  and  the  unrivalled  speed  of  the  Arabian  coursers 
forms  the  most  striking  possible  emblem  of  the  rapid  career 
of  the  Saracen  armies. 

"  And  on  their  heads  were  as  it  were  crowns  like  gold, 
and  their  faces  were  as  the  faces  of  men." — "  Make  a 
point,"  says  a  precept  of  Mohammed,  "  of  wearing  tur- 
bans ;  because  it  is  the  way  of  angels."  The  turban,  ac- 
cordingly, has  ever  been  the  distinctive  head-dress  of  the 
Arabs,  and  their  boast  has  been,  that  they  wore,  as  their 
common  attire',  those  ornaments  which  among  other  peo- 
ple are  the  peculiar  badges  of  royalty.  The  notice  of  the 
"  faces  of  men"  seems  to  be  intended  jnerely  to  afford  a 
clew  to  the  meaning  of  the  emblem  ;  to  intimate,  that  not 
natural  locusts,  but  human  beings,  were  depicted  under 
this  symbol. — Bush. 

The  Mamalukes  wearing  their  beards  long  and  rough, 
with  grave  and  stern  countenances,  having  strong  and  able 
bodies,  used  such  cunning  in  all  their  fights  and  battles, 
that  after  they  had  given  the  first  charge  with  their  lances, 
they  would  by-and-by,  with  wonderful  activity,  use  their 
bows  and  arrows,  casting  their  tai-gets  behind  them ;  and 
forthwith  the  horseman's  mace,  or  crooked  cimeter,  as  the 
manner  of  the  battle  or  place  required.  Their  horses  were 
strong  and  courageous,  in  make  and  swiftness  much  like 
unto  the  Spanish  jennets :  and  that  which  is  of  many  hardly 
believed,  so  docile,  that  at  certain  signs  or  speeches  of  the 
rider,  they  would  with  their  teeth  reach  him  up  from  the 
ground  a  lance,  an  arrow,  or  such  like  thing ;  and  as  if 
they  had  known  the  enemy,  run  upon  him  with  open 
mouth,  and  lash  at  him  with  their  heels,  and  had  by  nature 
and  custom  learned  not  to  be  afraid  of  any  thing.  These 
courageous  horses  were  commonly  furnished  with  silver 
bridles,  gilt  trappings,  rich  saddles,  their  necks  and  breast 
armed  with  plates  of  iron  :  the  horseman  himself  was 
commonly  content  with  a  coat  of  mail,  or  a  breastplate  of 
iron.  The  chief  and  wealthiest  of  them  used  head-pieces  : 
the  rest  a  linen  covering  of  the  head,  curiously  folded  into 
many  wreaths,  wherewith  they  thought  themselves  safe 
enough  against  any  handy  strokes ;  the  common  soldiers 
used  thrumbed  caps,  but  so  thick  that  no  sword  could  pierce 
them. — Knolles. 

Ver.  8.  And  they  had  hair  as  the  hair  of  women, 
and  their  teeth  were  as  the  teeth  of  lions. 
9.  And  they  had  breastplates,  as  it  were  breast- 
plates of  iron;  and  the  sound  of  their  wings 
was  as  the  sound  of  chariots  of  many  horses 
running  to  battle. 

The  Arabs,  as  Pliny  testifies,  wore  their  beards,  or 
rather  mustaches,  as  men,  while  their  hair,  like  that  of 
women,  was  flowing  or  platted.  The  "teeth  like  those  of 
lions,"  has  reference  to  the  weapons  and  implements  of 
war;  and  the  "  breastplates  of  iron,"  to  the  armour  made 
use  of  by  the  Saracen  troops  in  their  expeditions.  The 
*'  sound  of  their  wings  as  the  sound  of  cnariots  of  many 
horses  running  to  battle,"  is  but  a  part  of  the  same  expres- 
sive imagery  denoting  warlike  scenes  and  preparations. — 
Bush. 

Ver.  10.  And  they  had  tails  like  unto  scorpions ; 
and  there  were  stings  in  their  tails :  and  their 
power  was  to  hurt  men  five  months. 

The  interpretation  of  the  symbols  of  the  Apocalypse 
must  be  sought  for  in  the  Old  Testament.  From  the  fol- 
lowing words  of  Isaiah  (ch.  ix.  14,  15)  it  appears  that  the 
tail  of  a  beast  denotes  the  false  doctrines  or  the  supersti- 


tions which  he  maintains :  "  Therefore  the  Lord  will  cut 
off  from  Israel  head  and  tail,  branch  and  rush,  in  one  day. 
The  ancient  and  honourable,  he  is  the  head;  and  the 
prophet  that  teacheth  lies,  he  is  the  tail.^'  The  emblem, 
therefore,  strikingly  represents  the  infliction  of  spiritual 
wounds  by  the  propagation  of  poisonous  and  deadly  er- 
rors and  heresies.  And  nothing  is  more  evident  from  the 
page  of  history,  than  that  the  Moslem  followers  of  Moham- 
med have  scattered,  like  scorpions,  the  venom  of  their  doc- 
trines behind  them ;  and  whether  conquering  or  conquered, 
have  succeeded  in  palming  a  new  creed  upon  those  with 
whom  they  have  had  to  do.  By  this  symbol,  then,  we  are 
plainly  taught,  that  the  plague  of  the  allegorical  locusts 
consisted  not  only  in  the  ravages  of  war,  but  in  the  suc- 
cessful propagation  of  a  false  religion,  of  which  the  doc- 
trines should  be  as  deleterious  in  a  spiritual  point  of  view, 
as  the  sting  of  a  scorpion  in  a  natural.  In  like  manner, 
when  it  is  said  (ch.  xii.  3,  4)  of  the  "  great  red  dragon  hav- 
ing seven  heads  and  ten  horns,  that  his  tail  drew  the  third 
part  of  the  stars  of  heaven,  and  did  cast  them  to  the  earth," 
the  explication  is,  that  the  antichristian  power  shadowed 
out  by  this  formidable  monster  should  be  permitted  to 
instil  the  most  pernicious  errors  into  the  minds  of  the  pro- 
fessed ministers  of  the  truth,  and  thus  bring  about  their 
entire  defection  from  Christianity. — Bush. 

Ver.  11.  And  they  had  a  king  over  them,  which 
is  the  angel  of  the  bottomless  pit,  whose  name 
in  the  Hebrew  tongue  is  Abaddon,  but  in  the 
Greek  tongue,  he  hath  his  name  Apollyon. 

Both  these  terms  signify  destroyer.  Since  the  locusts 
are  at  once  secular  conquerors  and  the  propagators  of  a 
false  religion,  their  king  must  stand  to  them  in  the  double 
relation  of  a  temporal  and  spiritual  head.  Such  accor- 
dingly were  Mohammed  and  the  Califs  his  successors,, 
who  must  be  viewed  as  jointly  constituting  the  locust-king 
Abaddon ;  for  in  the  usual  language  of  prophecy,  a  king 
denotes,  not  any  single  individual,  but  a  dynasty  or  king- 
dom. The  chief  of  the  locusts,  when  they  first  issued 
from  the  pit  of  the  abyss,  was  Mohammed  himself;  but 
during  the  allotted  period  of  the  wo  which  they  occasioned, 
the  reigning  destroyer  was,  of  course,  the  reigning  Calif. 
If,  therefore,  we  were  to  suppose  the  genius  of  Mohamme- 
danism under  the  Califs  to  be  personified,  and  this  sym- 
bolical personage  to  be  designated  by  the  most  appropriate 
title,  Abaddon,  the  destroyer,  would  be  the  appellation. 
As  the  portion  of  the  prophecy  thus  far  considered,  has 
reference  to  the  origin  of  Mohammed's  imposture,  and  to 
the  rise,  progress,  and  conquests  of  the  Saracens,  its  ear- 
liest abetters  and  propagators,  so  the  remaining  part  an- 
nounces the  commencement  and  career  of  the  Turkish 
power,  the  principal  of  its  later  supporters.— Bush. 

Ver.  13.  And  the  sixth  angel  sounded,  and  I  heard 
a  voice  from  the  four  horns  of  the  golden  altar, 
which  is  before  God. 

It  is  impossible,  from  the  train  of  events,  and  from  the 
quarter  of  the  world  in  which  we  are  directed  to  look  for 
the  irruption  of  these  prodigious  multitudes  of  horsemen, 
to  mistake  to  whom  the  prophecy  refers.  The  four  angels 
who  are  described  as  bound  in  the  regions  bordering  on 
the  river  Euphrates,  not  in  the  river  itself,  are  the  four 
contemporary  sultanies  or  dynasties,  into  which  the  em- 
pire of  the  Seljukian  Turks  was  divided  towards  the  closa 
of  the  eleventh  century:  Persia,  Kerman,  Syria,  an:? 
Rhoum.  These  sultanies,  from  different  causes,  were  lonj_ 
restrained  from  extending  their  conquests  beyond  wha. 
may  be  geographically  termed  the  Euphratean  regions,  but 
towards  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  four  angels 
on  the  river  Euphrates  were  loosed  in  the  persons  of  their 
existing  representatives,  the  united  Ottoman  and  Seljukian 
Turks.  Gibbon,  the  historian  of  the  Decline  and  Fall  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  must  of  necessity  be  the  guide  to  any 
English  commentator  on  this  part  of  the  prophetic  history. 
The  following  is  his  testimonv  as  to  the  immense  number 
of  the  Turkish  cavalry :  "  As  the  subject  nations  marched 
^der  the  standard  of  the  Turks,  their  cavalry,  both  men 
and  horses,  roere  proudly  computed  by  millions.  On  this 
occasion,  the  myriads  of  the  Turkish  horse  overspread  k 


Chap.  9. 


REVELATION. 


649 


frontier  of  six  hundred  miles  from  Taurus  to  Erzeroum." 
— Bdsh. 

Ver.  17.  And  thus  I  saw  the  horses  in  the  vision, 
and  them  that  sat  on  them,  having  breastplates 
of  fire,  and  of  jacinth  and  brimstone :  and  the 
heads  of  the  horses  were  as  the  heads  of  lions ; 
and  out  of  their  mouths  issued  fire,  and  smoke, 
and  brimstone.  18.  By  these  three  was  the 
third  part  of  men  killed,  by  the  fire,  and  by  the 
smoke,  and  by  the  brimstone,  which  issued  out 
of  their  mouths. 

These  prophetic  characteristics  of  the  Euphratean  war- 
riors accord  in  the  most  perfect  manner  with  the  descrip- 
tion which  history  gives  of  the  Turks.  They  brought 
immense  armies  into  the  field,  chiefly  composed  of  horse, 
and  from  their  first  appearance  on  the  great  political  stage 
of  nations,  their  costume  has  been  peculiarly  distinguished 
by  the  colours  of  scarlet,  blue,  and  yellow,  which  are  here 
denoted  by  the  terms  "fire,"  "jacinth,"  and  "brimstone." 
Rycaut's  "Present  State  of  the  Ottoman  Empire,"  pub- 
lished towards  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century,  will 
satisfy  the  reader  on  this  point. 

"  And  the  heads  of  the  horses  were  as  the  heads  of  lions, 
and  out  of  their  mouths  issued  fire,  and  smoke,  and  brim- 
stone." "We  have  here  a  symbol  which  is  not  elsewhere 
to  be  met  with  in  the  scriptures.  The  prophetic  horses 
are  represented  as  vomiting  out  of  their  mouths  "  fire,  and 
smoke,  and  brimstone,"  by  which,  it  is  added,  "  the  third 
part  of  men  was  killed."  Mede,  Newton,  Faber,  and  most 
other  eminent  expositors  of  the  Revelation,  agree  in  sup- 
posing that  the  flashes  of  fire  attended  by  smoke  and  brim- 
stone, which  seemed  to  proceed  from  the  mouths  of  the 
horses,  were  in  reality  the  flashes  of  artillery.  The  Turks 
were  among  the  first  who  turned  to  account  the  European 
invention  of  gunpowder  in  carrying  on  their  wars.  Can- 
non, the  most  deadly  engine  of  modern  warfare,  were 
employed  by  Mohammed  II.  in  his  wars  against  the  Greek 
empire ;  and  it  is  said  that  he  was  indebted  to  his  heavy 
ordnance  for  the  reduction  of  Constantinople.  The  pro- 
phet, therefore,  is  to  be  considered  as  depicting  the  vision- 
ary scene  of  a  field  of  battle,  in  which  the  cavalry  and 
artillery  are  so  mingled  together,  that  while  flashes  of  fire 
and  dense  clouds  of  smoke  issued  from  the  cannon,  the 
horses'  heads  alone  would  be  dimly  discerned  through  the 
sulphureous  mist,  and  would  seem  to  the  eye  of  the  spec- 
tator to  belch  forth  the  smoky  flames  from  their  own 
mouths.  As  the  design  of  this  striking  imagery  is  to 
describe  the  appearances  rather  t'aan  the  reality  of  things, 
the  prophet  employs  an  expression,  "  in  the  vision,"  or 
rather  "in  vision,"  i.  e.  apparently  as  it  seemed,  which  evi- 
dently conveys  the  idea  that  the  phantasm  of  a  battle  scene 
was  presented  to  the  imagination.  We  may  now  see  how 
far  history  confirms  this  interpretation  :  "  Among  the  im- 
plements of  destruction,"  says  Mr.  Gibbon,  "  he  (Moham- 
med II.)  studied  with  peculiar  care  the  recent  and  tremen- 
dous discovery  of  the  Latins ;  and  his  artillery  surpassed 
whatever  had  yet  appeared  in  the  world."  "  The  Ottoman 
artillery  thundered  on  all  sides,  and  the  camp  and  city, 
the  Greeks  and  Turks,  toere  involved  in  a  cloud  of  smoke, 
which  could  only  be  dispelled  by  the  final  deliverance  or 
destruction  of  the  Roman  empire."  "  The  great  cannon 
of  Mohammed  has  been  separately  an  important  and  visible 
object  in  the  history  of  the  times.  But  that  enormous  en- 
gine, which  required,  it  is  said,  seventy  yoke  of  oxen  and 
two  thousand  men  to  draw  it,  was  flanked  by  two  fellows 
almost  of  equal  magnitude:  the  long  order  of  Turkish 
artillery  was  pointed  against  the  wall ;  fourteen  batteries 
thundered  at  once  on  the  most  accessible  places ;  and  of 
one  of  these  it  is  ambiguously  expressed,  that  it  was  mount- 
ed with  a  hundred  and  thirty  guns,  or  that  it  discharged  a 
hundred  and  thirty  bullets." — Bush. 

Ver.  19.  For  their  power  is  in  their  mouth,  and 
in  their  tails :  for  their  tails  were  like  unto  ser- 
pents, and  had  heads,  and  with  them  they  do 
hurt. 

The  emblematic  import  of  the  tail  of  a  beast  we  have 
82 


already  considered.  The  imagery  in  the  present  symbol, 
is  slightly  difierent  'from  that  of  the  Saracen  locusts,  which 
had  the  tails  of  scorpions;  but  the  import  is  the  same. 
Here  the  tails  of  the  horses  terminated  in  a  serpent's 
head;  and  it  is  not  a  little  remarkable,  that  the  Turks 
have  been  in  the  habit,  from  the  earliest  periods  of  their 
history,  of  tying  a  knot  in  the  extremity  of  the  long  flowing 
tails  of  their  horses,  when  preparing  for  war ;  so  that  their 
resemblance  to  serpents  with  swelling  heads  must  have 
been  singularly  striking.  Striking  too  is  the  fact,  that  so 
slight  a  circumstance  should  have  been  adverted  to  by  ihe 
historian  so  often  quoted,  who  thought  as  little  of  being 
an  organ  to  illustrate  the  predictions  of  scripture,  as  the 
Turks  themselves  did  of  being  the  agents  to  fulfil  them. 
Speaking  of  Alp  Arslan,  the  first  Turkish  invader  of  the 
Roman  empire,  he  says,  "  With  his  own  hands  he  tied  up 
his  horse's  tail,  and  declared  that  if  he  were  vanquished, 
that  spot  should  be  the  place  of  his  burial."  The  scope  of 
the  hieroglyphic  here  employed  is  to  predict  the  propaga- 
tion of  a  deadly  imposture  by  the  instrumentality  of  the 
same  warlike  power  which  should  achieve  such  prodi- 
gious conquests.  The  event  has  corresponded  with  the 
prophecy.  Like  the  Saracens  of  the  first  wo,  the  Turks 
were  not  merely  secular  conquerors.  They  were  anima- 
ted with  all  the  wild  fanaticism  of  a  false  religion  ;  they 
professed  and  propagated  the  same  theological  system  as 
their  Arabian  predecessors ;  they  injured  by  their  doctrines 
no  less  than  by  their  conquests ;  and  wherever  they  estab- 
lished their  dominion,  the  Koran  triumphed  over  the  gos- 
pel. Thus  writes  Mr.  Gibbon  :  "  The  whole  body  of  the 
nation  embraced  the  religion  of  Mohammed."  "  Twenty- 
five  years  after  the  death  of  Basil,  his  successors  were  sud- 
denly assaulted  by  an  unknown  race  of  barbarians,  who 
united  ihe  Scythian  valour  with  the  fanaticism  of  new  con- 
verts." 

Sufficient  proof  has  now  been  afforded,  if  we  mistake  not, 
that  the  appearance  of  the  Arabian  prophet  in  the  world, 
and  the  rise,  progress,  and  results  of  his  imposture,  are 
clearly  foretold  in  the  sacred  volume.  Indeed,  it  would 
not  be  easy  to  specify  any  admitted  subject  of  prophecy, 
upon  which  history  and  Providence  have  thrown  a  stronger 
or  clearer  light,  than  that  which  we  have  been  considering. 
Interpreters  have  been  justly  struck  at  the  surprising  exact- 
ness of  the  delineations,  and  their  perfect  accordance  with 
the  details  of  history.  "  The  prophetic  truths,"  says  Dr. 
Zouch,  "  comprised  in  the  ninthchapter  of  the  Apocalypse, 
are,  of  themselves,  sufficient  to  stamp  the  mark  of  divinity 
upon  that  book.  When  I  compare  them  with  the  page  of 
history,  I  am  filled  with  amazement.  The  Saracens,  a 
people  which  did  not  exist  in  the  time  of  John,  and  the 
Turks,  a  nation  then  utterly  unknown,  are  there  described 
in  language  the  most  appropriate  and  distinct."  If,  then, 
the  considerations  commonly  adduced  to  account  for  the 
rise,  progress,  and  reign  of  Mohammedanism,  appear  tc  be 
inadequate,— if  the  human  causes  usually  quoted  to  expjairi 
the  astonishing  success  of  Mohammedan  imposture  stiJi 
seem  to  us  to  leave  many  of  the  phenomena  inexplicable, 
and  the  greatest  revolution  in  the  world  connected  with  th'j 
history  of  the  Church,  stands  forth  an  unsolved  problem,— 
why  should  we  hesitate  to  ascribe  it  directly  to  the  deter- 
minate will  and  counsel  of  the  Most  High,  and  thus  find  a 
clew  to  all  the  mysteries  connected  with  if?  Why  should 
we  be  anxious  to  escape  the  recognition  of  a  Divine  inter- 
ference in  the  rise  of  this  arch-heresy '?  If  we  have  been 
correct  in  our  interpretation  of  the  preceding  predictions  of 
Daniel  and  John,  the  Mohammedan  delusion  is  as  real  and 
as  prominent  a  subject  of  prophecy,  as  any  in  the  whole 
compass  of  the  Bible.  Now,  to  insist  upon  the  operation  oif 
merely  human  causes  in  the  production  of  an  event  which 
is  truly  a  subject  of  prophecy,  is  in  fact  to  take  the  govern- 
ment of  the  world  out  of  the  hands  of  God.  And  this  prin- 
ciple pushed  to  the  extreme  will  inevitably  lower  and  im- 
pugn the  sure  word  of  prophecy;  for  it  makes  God  the 
predicter  of  events  over" which,  at  the  same  time,  he  has 
no  special  superintendence  or  control.  Such  a  principle 
cannot  stand  the  least  examination.  When  Daniel  foretels 
the  fortunes  of  the  four  great  empires ;  or  when  Isaiah 
speaks  of  Cyrus  by  name,  as  one  who  should  accomplish 
certain  great  purposes  of  the  Infinite  Mind,  is  it  to  be  sup- 
posed, that  the  events  predicted  were  to  happen  exclusivn 
of  Providential  agency '?  As  easily  and  as  justly  then  we 
may  acknowledge  a  special  pre-ordainment  in  the  rasr  o^ 


650 


REVELATION. 


Chap.  10—21. 


Mohammed,  whose  still  more  formidable  dominion  and 
more  lasting  and  more  fatal  agency  in  the  affairs  of  men, 
are  equally  the  theme  of  unquestionable  predictions.  No 
admission  of  this  nature  militates  with  the  free  agency  of 
man,  or  at  all  affects  the  moral  character  of  his  actions. 
The  mere  fact  that  an  event  is  foreknown  or  foretold  by 
the  Deity,  neither  takes  away  nor  weakens  the  accounta- 
bility of  the  agents  concerned.  Of  this,  the  whole  scrip- 
ture is  full  of  proofs.  But  the  reflecting  reader  will  de- 
sire no  further  confirmation  of  so  plain  a  position. — Bdsh. 

CHAPTER  X. 
Ver.  5.  And  the  angel,  which  I  saw  stand  upon 
the  sea,  and  upon  the  earth,  lifted  up  his  hand 
to  heaven,  6.  And  sware  by  him  that  liveth  for 
ever  and  ever,  who  created  heaven,  and  the 
things  that  therein  are,  and  the  earth,  and  the 
things  that  therein  are,  and  the  sea,  and  the 
things  which  are  therein,  that  there  should  be 
lime  no  longer :  7.  But  in  the  days  of  the  voice 
of  the  seventh  angel,  when  he  shall  begin  to 
sound,  the  mystery  of  God  should  be  finished, 
as  he  hath  declared  to  his  servants  the  prophets. 

The  solemn  asseveration  of  the  angel  here  cited  is  very 
frequently  misunderstood.  It  contains  no  intimation  of  the 
actual  and  absolute  cessation  of  time,  for  in  the  part  of  the 
prophecy  in  which  it  is  introduced,  the  spirit  of  inspiration 
IS  not  speaking  of  the  end  of  the  world,  the  winding  up  of 
all  sublunary  concerns,  or  of  any  thing  pertaining  to  it,  but 
of  the  ushering  ^?^^!o  the  world  of  a  state  of  triumph  and 
glory.  The  object  of  the  angel  is  simply  to  announce  be- 
forehand that  this  grand  event  shall  take  place,  without 
longer  delay,  under  the  seventh  trumpet.  A  translation 
that  should  give  the  exact  scope  of  the  original,  would,  dis- 
regarding the  present  punctuation,  read  thus:  "that  there 
should  be  delay  no  longer,  than  unto  the  days  of  the  voice 
of  the  seventh  angel,"  &c.  The  original  word  for 'time' 
{chfGiws)  is  in  several  instances  in  the  sacred  writings  used 
in  the  sense  of  delay,  as  is  also  the  verb  chronizo,  formed 
directly  from  it,  as  Matt.  xxiv.  48,  "  And  if  that  evil  ser- 
vant shall  say  in  his  heart,  My  Lord  delayeth  (chronizei) 
his  coming."  That  the  Greek  alio,,  but,  is  used  in  the 
sense  of  except,  than,  unless,  &c.  is  expressly  shown  by 
Schleusner,  in  his  N.  T.  Lexicon.  The  conclusion  there- 
fore may  be  safely  rested  in,  that  the  burden  of  the  angel's 
oath  in  this  place  is  not  that  time,  considered  in  itself,  should 
then  end,  but  that  the  consu-mmation  of  a  certain  great 
event,  called  the  "finishing  of  the  mystery  of  God,"  should 
not  be  deferred  any  longer  than  to  the  period  of  the  seventh 
trumpet.  What  ihis  event  is,  is  clearly  intimated  Rev.  xi. 
15,  "  And  the  seventh  angel  sounded ;  and  there  were  great 
voices  in  heaven,  saying.  The  kingdoms  of  this  world  are 
become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  his  Christ ;  and  he 
shall  reign  for  ever  and  ever."  But  this  is  an  event  which 
is  certainly  to  take  place  during  the  course  of  time,  and  not 
after  its  close. — Bush. 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Ver.  16.  And  he  causeth  all,  both  small  and  great, 
rich  and  poor,  free  and  bond,  to  receive  a  mark 
in  their  right  hand,  or  in  their  foreheads. 

It  was  a  general  custom  in  the  East  to  brand  their  slaves 
in  the  forehead,  as  being  the  most  exposed ;  sometimes  in 
other  parts  of  the  body.  The  common  way  of  stigmatizing 
was  by  burning  the  member  with  a  red-hot  iron,  marked 
with  certain  letters,  till  a  fair  impression  was  made,  and 
then  pouring  ink  into  the  furrows,  that  the  inscription 
might  be  more  conspicuous.  Slaves  were  oflen  branded 
with  marks,  or  letters,  as  a  punishment  of  their  offences ; 
but  the  most  common  design  of  these  marks  was  to  distin- 
guish them  if  they  should  desert  their  masters.  For  the 
same  reason,  it  was  common  to  brand  their  soldiers,  but 
with  this  difference,  that  while  slaves  were  marked  in  the 


hand,  with  the  name,  or  some  pecuiai  character  belonging 
to  their  masters;  soldiers  were  marked  in  the  hand  with 
the  name  or  character  of  their  general.  In  the  same  man- 
ner, it  was  the  custom  to  stigmatize  the  worshippers  and 
votaries  of  some  false  gods.  Lucian  affirms,  thai  the  wor- 
shippers of  the  Syrian  goddess,  were  all  branded  with  cer- 
tain marks,  some  in  the  palms  of  their  hands,  and  others  in 
their  necks.  To  this  practice  may  be  traced  the  custom, 
which  became  so  prevalent  among  the  Syrians,  thus  to  stig- 
matize themselves ;  and  Theodoret  is  of  opinion,  that  the 
Jews  were  forbidden  to  brand  their  bodies  with  stigmata, 
because  the  idolaters,  by  that  ceremony,  used  to  consecrate 
themselves  to  their  false  deities.  The  marks  employed  on 
these  occasions  were  various.  Sometimes  they  contained 
the  name  of  the  god ;  sometimes  his  particular  ensign,  as 
the  thunderbolt  of  Jupiter,  the  trident  of  Neptune;  the  ivy 
of  Bacchus :  or  they  marked  themselves  with  some  mysti- 
cal number,  which  described  the  name  of  the  god.  Thus 
the  sun,  who  was  denoted  by  the  number  DC  VIII,  is  said 
to  have  been  represented  by  the  two  numeral  letters  XH. 
These  three  ways  of  stigmatizing,  are  all  expressed  by  the 
apostle  John  in  the  book  of  Revelation :  "  And  he  causeth 
all,  both  small  and  great,  rich  and  poor,  free  and  bond,  to 
receive  a  mark  in  their  right  hand  or  in  their  foreheads ; 
and  that  no  man  might  buy  or  sell,  save  he  that  had  the 
mark  or  the  name  of  the  beast,  or  the  number  of  his  name.'' 
The  followers  of  the  beast  received  a  mark  in  their  right 
hand,  because  they  ranged  themselves  under  his  banners, 
ready  to  support  his  interests,  and  extend  his  dominions 
with  fire  and  sword;  they  bore  the  name  of  their  general, 
the  bishop  of  Rome,  Larcivoj,  and  the  number  of  his  name, 
which  is  (!>(SQ.  But  they  also  received  the  mark  of  slaves 
on  their  foreheads,  to  denote  that  they  were  his  absolute 
property-,  whom  he  arrogated  a  right  to  dispose  of  accord- 
ing to  bis  pleasure;  who  could  neither  buy  nor  sell,  live 
with  comfort,  nor  die  in  peace,  without  his  permission. 
But  they  were  not  only  soldiers  and  slaves  ;  they  were  also 
devotees,  that  regarded  and  acknowledged  him  as  a  god, 
and  even  exalted  him  above  all  that  is  called  God  and  is 
worshipped ;  in  token  of  which  they  received  a  mark  in 
the  palm  of  their  hands,  or  in  their  foreheads.  The  prac- 
tice of  marking  the  soldier  and  the  devotee,  although  of 
great  antiquity,  may  be  traced  to  one  origin,  to  a  custom 
still  more  ancient,  of  marking  a  slave  with  some  peculiar 
stigma,  to  prevent  him  from  deserting  his  master's  service, 
or  rendering  his  discovery  and  restoration  certain  and  easy. 
To  this  custom  the  prophet  Ezekiel  refers :  "  Go  through 
the  midst  of  the  city,  through  the  midst  of  Jerusalem,  and 
set  a  mark  upon  the  foreheads  of  the  men  that  sigh,  and 
that  cry  for  all  the  abominations  that  be  done  in  the  midst 
thereof."  Another  instance  may  be  mentioned  from  the 
Revelation :  "  Hurt  not  the  earth,  neither  the  sea,  nor  the 
trees,  till  we  have  sealed  the  servants  of  our  God  in  their 
foreheads."  In  both  instances,  it  is  the  symbol  of  protec- 
tion and  security  both  to  the  persons  and  privileges  of  the 
people  of  God. — Paxton. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
Ver.  19.  And  the  foundations  of  the  wall  of  the 
city  were  garnished  with  all  manner  of  precious 
stones.  The  first  foundation  loas  jasper  ;  the 
second,  sapphire  ;  the  third,  a  chalcedony ;  the 
fourth,  an  emerald. 

This  is  not  only  a  description  of  what  must  be  exceed- 
ing beautiful  in  its  appearance,  but  is  moreover  manifestly 
corresponding  with  the  mode  of  building  among  the  ancient 
Romans,  who,  it  is  well  known,  constructed  their  walls 
from  the  bottom  to  the  top  with  alternate  layers,  or  rows  of  . 
bricks,  and  of  white  stone,  and  sometimes"  of  black  flints. 
Each  of  these  layers  was  alwa)'s  of  a  considerable  thick- 
ness, or  breadth  ;  and  while  their  different  colours  formed 
a  beautiful  appearance  to  the  eye,  and  were  a  most  elegant 
kind  of  ornament,  this  mode  of  placing  materials  of  differ- 
ent dimensions  and  substance  in  alternate  rows  greatly 
strengthened  the  work. — King. 


I 


INDEX 


(lBEL,  asking  counsel  at,  227, 

ABIATHAR,  how  far  concerned  in  the  plot 
against  Holomon,  249. 

ABIDING  under  a  tree,  what,  167. 

ABNER'S  mode  of  promoting  the  interests  of 
David,  185,  186. 

ABRAHAM  and  other  patriarchs,  pastoral  life 
led  by,  19 ,"  his  entertainment  of  the  angels, 
20  ;  compared  with  a  modern  Arab  emir,  23  ; 
Lazarus'  being  carried  to  his  bosom,  what 
meant  by,  607. 

ABSALOM'S  character  and  conduct,  217 ;  pil- 
lar. 22.3. 

ABSTINENCE  from  food  through  vexation, 
176,  271. 

ADAR,  festival  of,  323. 

ADDER:  description  of  the,  399. 

ADULATION  paid  to  eastern  monarchs,  389. 

AFFECTIONATE  mode  of  address  by  fa- 
thers, 156. 

AGE,  reverence  for  in  the  East,  168,  347'; 
ages,  the  four  among  the  Hindoos,  457. 

AHITHOPHEL'S  counsel  illustrated,  220. 

ALABASTER-BOX,  breakin-i  of,  598. 

ALIGHTING  as  a  token  of  respect,  32,  282. 

ALLIANCES  formed  by  Arab  families,  33, 

ALMOND-TREE,  natural  history  of,  486. 

ALOE-TREE,  described,  98. 

AMALEK,perpetual  war  threatened  against,61. 

AMMONITES,  David's  treatment  of,  214 ;  pro- 
phecies concerning,  531. 

ANGARII,  or  Persian  messengers,  580. 

ANGELS,  term  how  applied  in  the  East,  216. 

ANGER,  spoken  of  as  burning,  320. 

ANIMAL  FOOD,  seldom  eaten  by  the  Hindoos, 
625;  animals  how  designated  in  the  East,  161. 

ANKLETS,  eastern  described,  singular  cus- 
tom in  respect  to,  451,  633. 

ANOINTING  of  the  body,  supposed  effects 
of,  641. 

ANT,  natural  history  of,  420 ;  the  white  spe- 
cies. 580. 

ANTELOPE,  account  of  the,  184,  251,  443,  444 ; 
mode  of  hunting  the,  456. 

ANTIOCH  in  Pisidia,  account  of,  619. 

ANTONIA,  town  of,  described,  217. 

APOLOGUES,  the  Orientals  much  addicted  to 
the  use  of,  130,  254,  290. 

APPLE-TREE,  of  little  value  in  the  East,  443; 
apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver,  430. 

ARABS,  their  mode  of  life,  19;  their  mode  of 
warfare,  23 ;  addicted  to  plunder,  326  ;  He  in 
wait  for  caravans,  488;  dress  of,  in  the  Holy 
Land,  616. 

ARARAT,  mount,  description  of,  13;  ascent 
of,  14. 

ARBOUR,  eastern,  account  of,  444, 562. 

ARCHIVES,  kept  of  important  events,  311 ; 
sometimes  read  to  princes,  321. 

ARIEL,  why  Jerusalem  so  called.  466. 

ARM-HOLES,  pillars  sewed  to,  528. 

ARMOUR,  of  eastern  warriors  described,  161. 

ARMY,  silent  approach  of  compared  to  dew, 
2il ;  armies  of  Israel  originally  footmen, 
293 ;  num^ousness  of  ancient,  301. 

ARROWS,  poisoned,  the  practise  of  using,  331, 
384 ;  shot  into  an  enemy's  country,  290 ; 
used  for  pestilence,  399 ;  term  ap'phedto  the 
tongue,  491 ;  children  sometimes  so  called, 
413;  burning,  what,  367. 

ASCENTS  by  steps,  made  in  honour  of  an  em- 
peroi",  255. 

ASHES  thrown  in  the  air,  55. 

ASHKELON,  prophecies  concerning,  504,  566. 

ASS,  account  of,  304 ;  peculiar  value  of  in  the 
East.  341 ;  saddle,  mode  of  travelling  with, 
279,  280;  female,  why  more  valuable  than 
the  male,  324;  wild,  description  of,  353; 
white,  riding  upon  by  persons  of  distinction, 
13G.  140,  431. 

ASSEMBLY,  poor  man  coming  into,  641. 

ASSOCIATES  desired  by  eastern  travellers, 
618. 

ATHLET.E,  or  combatants,  how  trained,  637. 

ATTIRE  OF  HARLOTS,  described,  420. 

AUGURS,  covered  with  a  mantle  when  con- 
sulted. 176. 

AVENGING  the  blood  of  relations,  99,  100. 

AWAKING  one  from  sleep,  443, 


AZOTUS,  present  state  of  described,  617. 

BAAL'S  PROPHETS,  did  not  ordinarily   eat 

at  Jezebel's  table,  264  ;  their  conduct  illus- 
trated, 264. 
BAAL-ZEBUB,  god  of  flies,  274,  583. 
BABEL,  tower  of,  with  what  design  erected,  18. 
BABYLON,  prophecies  concerning,  457,  513— 

519. 
BACA,  valley  of,  what  place  meant  by,  397. 
BADGER'S  SKINS,  wliat  meant  by,  66. 
BAGGAGE,  how  managed  in  travelling,  527. 
BAKING,  mode  of  in  the  East,  26,  214 ;  how 

done  for  families,  501,  528. 
B.^LBEC,  enormous  stones  among  its  ruins, 

234. 
BALDNESS,  made  for  the  dead,  109 ;  use  of 

term  explained,  454. 
BALD-HEAD,  phrase  how  used,  276. 
BANNERS,  carried  in  processions,  370 ;  dis- 

l)laving  of,  phrase  how  to  be  understood,  386. 
BANQUET,  where  often  spread  in  the  East, 

210,  567. 
BAREFOOT,  when  Orientals  walk,  218. 
BARLEY  BREAD,  a  common  eastern  (lish,139. 
BASHAN,  hill  of,  what  meant  by,  388;  bulls 

of,  expression  how  used,  371. 
BATHING,  accounted  a  great  luxury  in  the 

East,  206 ;  mode  of,  473. 
BATS  AND  MOLES,  allusion  to,  450. 
BATTERING-RAM,  description  of,  309. 
BATTLEMENTS,  on  the  roofs  of  houses,  117. 
BAY-TREE,  green,  allusion  to,  375. 
BEAR,    furious  passions  of  the  female,  221, 

425 ;  makes  a  loud  noise  in  parturition,  481  ; 

symbol  of  the  empire  of  the  Medes  and  Per- 
sians, 545. 
BEASTS,  fallen,  kindly  cared  for  in  the  Mosaic 

law,  116. 
BEARD,  held  in  great  reverence  in  the  East, 

205;    shaving    the,  a  mark    of  subjection, 

206 ;  sometimes  died  black,  225. 
BEATING  the  breast  through  grief,  608. 
BEAUTY,  female,  eastern  notions  of,  447 ;  of 

form,  highly  prized,  M2. 
BEDS,  eastern,  construction  and  arrangement 

of,  274,  421. 
BED-CHAMBER,  what  meant  by  in  the  East, 

289,300. 
BEDSTEAD  of  Og,  king  of  Bashan,  103. 
BEDOUIN  ARABS,  habits  of,  372.  506. 
BEES,  expressions  relative  to,  103 ;  how  kept 

in  the  East,  ICO;  how  their  honey  deposited, 

125;  opinions  of  the  ancients  respecting,  142. 
BEGGARS,  very  common  in  the  East,  607. 
BEHEMOTH,  what  kind  of  animal,  358-360. 
BELLS,  used  upon  garments,  68 ;  hung  on  the 

necks  of  horses,  569. 
BENJAMIN,  compared  to  a  wolf,  52. 
BESIEGED  IN  WAR,   how  used   to  defend 

themselves,  489. 
BESOM  OF  DESTRUCTION,  phrase  explain- 
ed, 459. 
BETHANY,  description  of  its  present  state, 

614. 
BETHESDA,  pool  of,  611. 
BETHLEHEM,  description  of,  575. 
BIER,  use  of  in  funerals,  187,  617. 
BILES,  much  dreaded  in  the  East,  327.  _ 
BIRDS,  employed  in  ceremonial  cleansing,  75 ; 

nifetling  near  the  altar,  396. 
BIRTH,  coming  to  the,  phrase  how  used,  294 ; 

of  a  son,  season  of  great  festivity,  576. 
BLACKNESS  OF  FACE,  521,  572 ;  gathering, 

phrase  explained,  553. 
BLANKETS,  a  single  one  worn,  599. 
BLACK  AND   WHITE   GARMENTS,  when 

used,  305. 
BLASPHEMY,  deemed  as  aheinous  crime,  81. 
BLEMISHES,  personal,  not  allowed  in  priests, 

81. 
BLESSING,  importance  attached  to,  32. 
BLOOD,  practice  of  eating  in  Abyssinia,  17 ; 

forbidden  to  be  eaten  by  the  Israelites,  21 ; 

mixed  with  idolatrous  sacrifices,  369. 
BLUE,  colour  of,  greatly  in  esteem  among  the 

Jews,  531. 
BODIES  of  executed  criminals  exp<  sed,  179. 
BOLSTER,  easternj  described,  170. 


BONES  of  men  buret  upon  the  altar,  258; 
scattered  at  the  grave's  mouth,  416  ;  of  the 
dead  burnt,  555,  557. 

BOOK,  the  writing  of  by  an  adversary,  351 ; 
oriental,  account  of,  376. 

BOOTY,  how  divided,  178,  303. 

BOSOM,  term  how  used  in  the  East,  109,  384  j 
putting  fire  in  the,  420. 

BOTTLES,  eastern,  described,  129,  411 ;  ex- 
pressions concerning,  411, 582. 

BOW,  account  of  the  early  use  of,  181,  235 ; 
treading  upon,  what  meant  by,  367;  ancient- 
ly used  by  the  Persians,  456';  oriental,  how 
carried.  565. 

BOWSHOT,  distance  of,  28. 

BOWELS,  said  to  be  hot,  250. 

BOWING  to  the  earth  as  a  token  of  respect, 
40, 163. 

BOWLS  and  dishes  of  the  Arabs,  137. 

BOXING,  exercise  of,  640. 

BRACELETS  of  eastern  ladies  described,  451 ; 
worn  by  princes,  180. 

BREAD,  how  eaten  in  the  East,  331 ;  eating  of 
the  same,  a  pledge  of  friendship,  376 ;  casting 
of  upon  the  waters.  440. 

BREAKFASTS  of  the  orientals  described,  445. 

BREAKING  BREAD,  what  meant  by,  621. 

BRICK,  the  soil  about  Babylon  peculiarly 
adapted  to  making,  18  ;  employed  for  build- 
ing in  Egypt,  455 ;  dried,  not  burnt,  502, 528. 

BRIDE  AND  BRIDEGROOM  conducted 
through  the  streets,  490. 

BRIERS  AND  THORNS,  tearing  with  as  a 
punishment,  139. 

BRIGaNDINJE,  what  kind  of  #rmour,  503. 

BRIMSTONE,  burning  of,  336 ;  how  spoken  ot 
in  reference  to  a  country,  123. 

BROTHER,  term  I'low  applied  in  the  East,  613. 

BUILDING,  remarks  on  the  state  of  in  the 
East,  425,  480 ;  on  the  sand,  phrase  explain- 
ed, 581. 

BULLOCKS  unaccustomed  to  the  yoke,  499. 

BULLS  OF  BASHAN,  expression  how  used, 
371. 

BUNDLE,  term  how  used,  169. 

BURDEN,  term  how  used  in  prophecy,  570. 

BURIAL,  desired  near  the  tombs  of  saints, 
258;  generally  without  the  walls  of  cities, 
461 ;  sometimes  within,  308. 

BURNING  TO  DEATH,  an  eastern  punish- 
ment, 543 ;  of  dead  bodies,  181 ;  over  the 
dead,  179. 

BUTTER,  how  made  in  the  East,  135, 316, 434. 

CAIN'S  sentence  explained,  12. 

CAMEL,  much  used  in  travelling  in  the  East, 
38;  remembers  an  injury  long,  138;  his 
habits,  1.39 ;  remarks  upon  the  loading  of, 
285;  how  said  to  pass  thi-ough  the  eye  of  a 
needle,  .587  ;  Camel's  hair,  materials  of  rai- 
ment, 576;  Camel's  milk,  value  of  to  the 
Arabs,  39 ;  sometimes  compared  to  a  ship, 
333. 

CaMPHIRE,  how  used  in  the  East,  442. 

CANA  OF  GALILEE,  by  what  rehcs  distin- 
guished, 609. 

CANAAN,  conquest  of  by  the  Israelites  jus- 
tified, 136 ;  surrounded  by  drearv  deserts, 
103;  original  fertility  of,  10-3, 106.  131. 

CANCELLING  OF  HANDWRITING,  mode 
of,  635. 

CANDLES,  in  night  encampments,  346, 

CAPTIVITY,  scriptural  idea  of,  365;  captives, 
how  procured  in  the  East,  53^ . 

CARAVAN,  description  of  an  eastern,  485; 
sometimes  divided,  39, 

CARAVANSERY  OR  INN,  eastern,  127,  600. 

CARMEL,  Mount,  description  of,  448,  5.58. 

CARPETS,  spread  in  honour  of  idols,  555. 

CARVED  WORK.  Orientals  verv  fond  of,  253. 

CASTING  DOWN  FROM  A  ROCK,  306. 

CATERPILLARS,  rough,  remarks  upon,  305, 

CATTLE,  apt  to  wander  in  travelling,  537. 
CAVALCADE,  eastern,  description  of,  321. 
CAVES,  sometimes  residence  of  eastern  shep 

herds,  348 ;   places  of  concealment,    375 ; 

scenes  of  idolatry,  526 ;  and  dens  places  ot 

habitation,  640. 


652 

CEDAR-TREE  described,  98;  of  Lebanon, 
252,  456,  568. 

CHAFF,  custom  of  burning  after  winnowing, 
577. 

CHAMBER,  prophets',  how  constructed,  279. 

CHANGES  of  fortune,  how  described  in  the 
scriptures,  374. 

CHAPPING  of  the  earth  in  the  East,  494. 

CHARIOTS,  of  iron,  anciently  used  in  war, 
131 ;  expressions  concerning,  275 ;  races  of, 
629. 

CHEEK,  smiting  the,  335. 

CHEESE,  mode  of  making  in  the  East,  161. 

CHERETHITES  AND  PELETHITES,  what, 
204. 

CHERUB,  term  how  applied  to  Tyre,  535. 

CHILD,  people  compare  themselves  to,  250. 

CHILDREN,  punished  for  the  sins  of  fathers, 
63 ;  passing  through  the  fire,  108,  290 ;  ear- 
nestly desired  in  the  East,  142;  disgraceful 
not  to  have,  343 ;  destroyed  by  bears,  276 ; 
otfered  in  sacrifice,  278;  sold  by. their  pa- 
rents, 278;  brought  up  by  nurses,  287  ;  com- 
pared to  plants,  416 ;  how  carried  in  the 
East,  476 ;  piping  in  the  market  places,  584 ; 
term  of  endearment.  616. 

CHOLERA,  its  ravages  in  the  East,  394. 

CHURCH  of  Holy  Sepulchre  described,  594. 

CISTERNS  and  water  works  of  Solomon  de- 
scribed, 435. 

CITRON-TREE  of  the  East  described,  443. 

CLAY,  turned  to  the  seal,  phrase  explained, 
352. 

CLEAN  and  unclean  beasts,  distinction  of, 
72.  80. 

CLEFT  in  the  rock  of  Calvary,  594. 

CLIENTSHIP,  an  ancient  custom  in  Arabia, 
337. 

CLODS  of  the  valley,  allusion  to,  341. 

CLOTHES,  given  in  pledge,  64;  numerous 
suits  of,  344;  clothed  with  a  person,  phrase 
explained,  625. 

CLOUDS,  precursorsof  rain,  266. 

COACHES  filled  with  female  slaves,  320, 

COAL,  quenching  of  one's,  216. 

COCKATRICE,  remarks  upon  the,  481. 

COCK-CROWING,  time  of,  593. 

COFFIN  carried  round  at  feasts,  440 ;  not  ge- 
nerally used  in  the  East,  290. 

COINED  MONEY,  great  antiquity  of,  40. 

COLDNESS  of  H^e  nights  in  Palestine,  500. 

COMBAT,  single,  common  in  ancient  times, 
163. 

COMFORTERS  visit  mourn'ers,  328. 

COMPASSING  one's  steps,  369. 

COMPLAINTS  against  oppressors,  how  con- 
ducted. 022. 

COMPLIMENTARY  forms  of  speech,  216. 

CONCEIVING  INIQUITY,  phrase  how  used, 
367. 

CONCUBINE,  the  Levite's  cut  to  pieces,  146. 

CONEY,  what  kind  of  animal,  409. 

CONGREGATION  OF  ISRAEL,  what  meant 
by  the  term,  89. 

CONSECRATE,  term  how  used,  68. 

CONSOLATION,  THE,  a  title  of  the  Messiah, 
601. 

CONSUMING  of  the  life  or  soul,  215. 

COOKING,  performed  hastily  in  the  East,  176. 

COOLING,  parlours,  mode  of  in  the  East, 
133. 

CORN,  parched  and  roasted,  148 ;  ground  at 
break  of  day,  187,441,498;  how  preserved, 
263;  parched,  still  used  for  food,  222;  trod- 
den out  by  oxen,  289 ;  taking  off  the  ears  of, 
343  ;  withholding  of,  in  times  of  scarcity,  423. 

CORNELIUS,  whether  he  intended  to  pay  Pe- 
ter divine  honours,  618. 

CORNERS  of  a  field,  left  to  be  gleaned,  81 ;  to 
sit  in  corner,  mark  of  honour,  556. 

CORN-STACKS,  destroyed  by  fire,  64. 

COTTAGE  in  a  vineyard  described,  449. 

COURTESANS,  heathen,  dedicated  to  the 
temple,  561. 

COURTS  of  eastern  houses,  602. 

COVERED,  to  be,  sign  of  mourning,  462 ;  cov- 
ering the  lips,  sign  of  mourning,  531. 

CRACKLING  of  thorns  under  a  pot,  437. 

CREATION,  account  of,  considered,  10. 

CRIMINALS,  where  executed,  394 ;  cast  into 
the  sea,  587. 

CRIMSON  or  scarlet,  the  favourite  colour  of 
ancient  heathen  prostitutes,  449. 

CROCODILES,  Egyptian  princes  compared  to, 
536 ;  ways  of  taking,  537 ;  object  of  terror  to 
the  Earyptians,  332. 

CROWNS,  ancient,  remarks  upon,  414 ;  em- 
ployed at  marriages,  445 ;  civic,  given  as  a 
reward  to  Roman  soldiers,  638 ;  of  thorns, 
remarks  upon,  593. 
CRUCIFIXION,  remarks  upon,  593;  created 

dreadful  thirst.  593,  599. 
CRUISE,  what  kind  of  vessel,  275. 
CRYING  to  ttie  gods  in  trouble,  372. 
CUP-BEARER,  office  of,  213. 


INDEX. 

CUPS,  beautiful,  formed  of  the  Nautilus,  629. 

CURES,  supposed  to  be  effected  by  touching 
the  part  diseased,  281. 

CURSE  God  and  die,  phrase  illustrated,  328 ; 
cursing  in  war,  98 ;  term  how  to  be  under- 
stood, 586. 

CURTAIN,  hung  before  a  tent-door,  68. 

CUSTOMS,  ancient,  held  in  great  reverence 
in  the  East,  622. 

CUTTING  the  flesh  of  the  dead,  79  ;  on  what 
other  occasions  practised,  265,  507. 

CYMBALS,  what  kind  of  instruments,  417. 

DAGON,  temple  of,  how  built,  145. 

DAN,  his  blessing  explained,  50. 

DANCES,  eastern,  described,  58,  178,  198 ;  and 
music,  when  practised,  164;  dancing  girl, 
Hindoo,  ornaments  worn  by,  450;  dancers, 
eastern,  solicit  money  from  the  company, 

.5a5. 

DARKNESS,  plague  of  56. 

DAUGHTERS,  how  given  in  marriage,  35; 
soiTietimes  deceit  practised,  36 ;  dedicated 
to  prostitution  in  the  East,  79 ;  of  Israelites 
allowed  to  marry  out  of  their  tribes,  102. 

DAVID,  a  man  after  God's  own  heart,  phrase 
explained,  188,  189;  removes  the  ark,  193, 
194,  195 ;  kills  a  Hon  and  a  bear,  162 ;  his  an- 
swer to  Achish,  171,  172;  released  from  his 
connexion  with  Achish,  176;  his  attack  upon 
the  Amalekites,  178;  his  conduct  towards 
Ishbosheth,  182;  his  dancing  considered, 
198 ;  his  treatment  of  the  Moabites,  201 ;  his 
victory  in  the  valley  of  salt,  203 ;  his  conduct 
towards  Uriah,  207,  208;  his  treatment  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Rabbah,  212 ;  his  alleged  in- 
dulgence to  his  children,  215;  his  conduct 
towards  Joab,  224. 227,  241 ;  towards  Mephib- 
osheth,  225 ;  towards  Saul's  house  at  the  in- 
stigation of  the  Gibeonites,  228;  towards 
Shimei,  224. 

DAYS,  time  computed  by,  17;  day,  great,  com- 
mon phrase  in  the  East,  35. 

DAY-SPRING,  rising  of,  600. 

DEAD,  how  laid  out,  and  mourned  in  the  East, 
29. 

DEAD  DOG,  term  of  contempt,  168,  635. 

DEAD  BODIES,  how  deposited  in  tombs,  615  ; 
dead  carcass,  tied  to  hving  bodies,  624. 

DEAD  SEA,  account  of,  20—22. 

DElATH,  personified  as  having  snar*s,  369. 

DECAPITATION,  an  eastern  punishment,  180. 

DECREES,  eastern,  modes  of  making,  455. 

DELIVERANCES  from  danger,  how  spoken 
of,  413. 

DEMONIACAL  possession  believed  in  in  the 
East.  584. 

DESERTS,  African,  described,  107;  of  Meso- 
potamia, great  scarcity  of  water  in,  29. 

DESOLATE  PLACES,  what  meant  by,  328  ; 
desolate  houses,  commen  in  the  East,  458. 

DEVOTED  things  not  redeemable,  89. 

DEVOTION,  apparent,  of  the  Hindoos,  312. 

DEWS,  very  copious  in  the  East,  181,  548. 

DIAL  OF  AHAZ,  shadow  upon.  296. 

DINNER,  a  Persian  described,  589. 

DISMOUNTING,  a  token  of  respect,  169,  635. 

DISSOLVER  OF  DOUBTS,  phrase  how  used, 
544. 

DIVINATION  by  arrows,  530  ;  other  modes 
of  548. 

DOGS,  licking  the  blood  of  the  slain,  272,  286 ; 
character  of,  in  Arabia  and  Africa,  371 ;  re- 
turning to  their  vomit,  phrase  explained, 
431 ;  term,  used  by  way  of  reiiroach,  163. 

DOORS,  custom  of  loose  women  sitting  at, 
422 ;  of  the  ancients,  how  constructed,  431 ; 
door  keepers  in  the  East,  allusion  to,  397. 

DOVE,  the,  remarks  upon  the  natural  his- 
tory of,  387;  conjugal  chastity  of,  447 ;  dove's 
dung,  what  rendered  it  valuable,  283 ;  flying 
to  their  windows,  482 ;  Spirit  of  God  likened 
to,  577. 

DRAGONS,  or  large  serpents,  350. 

DRAUGHTS,  intoxicating,  given  to  malefac- 
tors, 498. 

DREAMS,  much  thought  of  in  the  East,  IW. 

DROMEDARY,  remarkable  for  his  swiftness, 
482. 

DRY  TREE,  bad  man  compared  to,  608. 

DUNGHILL,  to  embrace,  phrase  explained, 
510. 

DUST,  strewed  on  the  head,  180 ;  licking  the, 
phrase  explained,  389. 

DWELLING  DEEP,  phrase  explained,  510. 

EAGLE,  peculiarities  of  the,  124;  the  golden, 

529;  the  bald,  567. 
EARLY  RISING,  common  in  the  East,  39. 
EARS,  the  digging  or  opening  of,  376 ;  of  corn, 

plucking  of,  119. 
EATING  under  the  shade  of  trees,  350;  mode 

of  in  the  East,  427 ;  early  in  the  morning 

disgraceful,  440 ;  eaten  up,  when  one  said  to 

be.  388. 


EDOM,  prophecies  concerning,  507,  511,  540. 
EGYPT,  land  of  compared  with  Judea,  108  j 

prophecies  concerning,  535. 
ELDERS,  or  Senators,  term  explained,  334. 
ELEPHANTIASIS,  perhaps  Job's  disease,  327. 
EMERODS,  severe  disease  in  the  East,  123 ; 

images  of,  157. 
ENCAMPMENTS,    eastern,    how   regulated, 

170,  311. 
ENGEDI,  village  of,  why  so  called,  168. 
ENTRANCE  to  eastern  houses  made  low,  426. 
ENTREATING  a  wife  by  a  husband,  337. 
EPHAH  borne  by  two  women,    Zechariah's 

vision  of  explained,  567. 
EPHESUS,  city  of  described,  620;  temple  of 

Diana  at,  621. 
ESHCOL,  grapes  of,  94. 
ESPOUSALS,  precede    marriage  by  ten  or 

twelve  months,  142;   how  performed,  370, 

575,  610. 
EUNUCHS,  black,  in  the  Levant,  502. 
EUPHRATES,  water  of  muddy,  487. 
EVIL,  in  the  eyes  of,  phrase  explained,  153  ; 

evil  eve,  allusions  to  the,  429. 
EXECUTIONERS,  public,   the,   167;  execu- 
tions in  the  East  very  prompt,  424. 
EYES,  thrust  out  as  a  punishment,  160,  293, 

474,  502;   the  custom  of  staining,  287;  the 

seven  of  the  Lord,  phrase  explained,  567; 

of  carcasses  picked  out  by  ravens,  434  ;  of 

the  dove,  remarks  upon,  447. 

FACE,  to  see  one's,  phrase  how  itsed,  169, 
216 ;  to  put  away  one's,  iil8,  334  ;  to  entreat 
one's,  2o8 ;  to  turn  to  a  holy  place  in  prayer, 
2.S4.  367 ;  to  put  between  the  knees,  265. 

FAIRNESS  of  complexion,  how  esteemed  in 
the  East.  365. 

FALSE'  BALANCES,  punishment  for  employ- 
ing, 422. 

FAN,  eastern,  form  of,  467. 

FARE,  scanty,  of  the  Arabs,  423. 

FATHER,  term  how  used  in  the  East,  455. 

FEAR,  a  prominent  effect  of  heathenism,  291 ; 
of  wild  beasts,  its  effects,  428. 

FEASTING,  from  house  to  house,  in  turn, 
324  ;  eastern,  how  conducted,  429. 

FEASTS,  given  in  the  East  to  the  poor  as  well 
as  the  rich,  589,  606  ;  how  tables  arranged  at, 
589,  603. 

FEET,  to  be  at  one's,  phrase  e.xplained,  135; 
of  travellers,  washed  in  the  Ease,  26 ;  of 
criminals  secured,  187 ;  and  fingers,  speak- 
ing with,  420 ;  placed  upon  the  neck  of  a 
conquered  enemy,  49, 131. 

FEMALES  in  the  East  not  generally  able  tD 
write,  271. 

FESTIVALS,  religious,  expediency  of,  110. 

FIELDS  said  to  complam  of  their  owners,  351 

FIG-TREE,  particularly  valuable  in  Canaan- 
.551  ;  grow  in  oriental  gardens,  609. 

FIGURES,  representing  captivity  of  Israel,  292 

FINGERS,  dipping  in  a  dish,  592. 

FIR-TREE,  felling  of  with  an  axe,  458. 

FIRE,  treading  or  walking  on,  291. 

FIREBRAND,  term  how  applied  in  the  East, 
567. 

FIRST-BORN,  privileges  of,  116. 

FISH,  in  the  Red  Sea,  92. 

FISHERMEN  prefer  the  night  for  fishing,  602 

FLAGONS,  supporting  one  with,  443. 

FLESIIMEAT  little  eaten  in  the  East,  63,  429. 

FLEA,  David's  comparison  of  himself  to,  172. 

FLOATS,  eastern  manner  of  construction, 
252.  460. 

FLOCKS  in  the  East  kept  by  women,  129 ;  ol 
goats,  269  ;  driven  to  the  shade  at  noon^ 
443 ;  numbered  daily,  500. 

FLOORS  and  ceilings  in  the  East,  253. 

FLY  OF  EGYPT,  remarks  on  the,  454. 

FOOD  presented  to  idols,  627.       . 

FOOLISH  WOMEN,  alluded  to  By  Job,  who 
meant  by  them,  328. 

FOOT  set  in  a  wide  place,  phrase  explained, 
374. 

FOREHEADS  marked  by  idolaters.  527. 

FORERUNNER,  term  how  used,  639. 

FOUNTAINS  of  water,  frequently  places  of 
danger,  136  ;  armies  assembled  at,  176  ;  .stop- 
ped in  time  of  war,  310;  sealed,  phrase  ex- 
plained, 445. 

FOWLING,  mode  of  in  the  East,  373. 

FOXES,  particularly  fond  of  grapes,  445,  518  ; 
Samson's  catching,  143. 

FRECKLED  spots  in  leprosy,  74. 

FROGS,  plaffue  of  .'"4,  410. 

FRONTLETS,  Moses'  words  concerning  ex- 
plained,  105. 

FRUIT-TREES,  not  willingly  cut  down  in  the 
East,  115. 

FUF.L,  what  kind  of  used  in  the  East,  156 ; 
scarcity  of  how  compensated,  486.  .'v^I. 

FUNERAL,  attending  upon  made  one  unclean, 
89;  chariots,  described,  286;  feasts,  in  hon- 
our of  the  dead  496. 


INDEX 


653 


FURNACE,  fiery,  mentioned  by  Daniel,  543. 
FCRNITIJRE  of  eastern  houses,  462. 

GAME,  how  taken  in  hunting,  420. 

GAMES  and  cooibats  among  the  Greeks,  626. 

GARDENS,  how  watered  in  the  East,  107,  366, 
4-50,  481 ;  oriental,  described,  423. 

GARDENERS,  eastern,  custom  of  alluded  to, 
606. 

GARLANDS  employed  on  festive  occasions, 
620. 

GARMENTS  taken  in  pledge,  120  ;  laid  down 
as  carpets,  286;  frequently  changed  in  the 
East,  407 ;  the  keeping  of  white,  438. 

GATES  of  cities,  common  places  of  judica- 
tion, 116,  149  :  of  the  daughter  of  Zion,  what 
meant  by  phrase,  868;  of  fortified  places, 
how  secured,  618. 

GIBEON,  Solomon's  sacrifices  at  considered, 
249. 

GIBEONITES,  sentence  pronounced  against 
them  considered,  129. 

GIDEON'S  hastily  prepared  meal,  137. 

GIFTS,  often  pompously  presented  in  the 
East,  133. 

GILEAD,  mountains  of  described,  125. 
;1RDLES,  how  used  in  travelling.  57  ;  bestow- 
ed as  a  mark  of  esteem,  222 ;  use  of  in  east- 
ern dress,  494,  583,  605. 

GIVING  a  cup  of  cold  water,  584. 

GLEANING  after  reapers,  79, 147. 

GLORYING  over  one,  phrase  explained,  55. 

GNASHING  of  teeth  in  rage,  411. 

GOAT,  wild,  described,  408;  symbol  of  Mace- 
don,  546. 

GOEL.  or  avenger  of  blood,  99. 

GOING  out  to  meet  a  person,  178. 

GOLD,  qualify  of  how  tried,  569. 

GOURD,  wild,  what,  281 ;  mentioned  by  Jonah, 
what,  560. 

GRAIN,  product  of  Syria,  395;  where  lodged 
after  winnowing,  551,  577  ;  various  kinds  of 
sowa  in  Palestine,  468. 

GRANARIES,  made  under  ground,  303. 

GRAPES,  large  and  abundant  in  Holy  Land, 
94;  juice  of  trodden  out,  125,  140. 

GRASS,  generally  found  in  the  vicinity  of  wa- 
ter, 263;  grows  with  great  rapidity  in  the 
East,  337. 

GRAV^E.  spoken  of  as  ahabitsttion,  349. 

GRAVING  on  the  palms  of  tlie  hands,  475. 

GRAY  H.^IRS,  objects  of  special  reverence 
in  the  East,  427. 

GREAVES,  military,  described,  161,  633. 

GREECE  and  Pei'sia,  prophecies  concerning, 
546. 

GRET^DY  of  gain,  piiiHse  explaineu,  418. 

GREEN,  liow  term  applied  to  persons,  405. 

GRIEF,  eastern  mode  of  expressing,  156. 

GRINDING  the  face,  phi'ase  explained,  450. 

GROVES  anciently  made  use  of  for  temples, 
485. 

GUESTS,  dismissed  from  feasts  with  presents, 
200:  liowlionoured  at  entertainments,  244. 

GUIDES  in  tiie  wildernesses  of  the  East,  90. 

GUITAR,  people  of  the  East  very  fond  of,  350. 

HAGAR,  circumstances  of  her  sending  away 
considered,  28 

HAIL,  plague  of,  55;  hailstones  of  enormous 
size,  1.30. 

HAIR,  liow  worn  by  eastern  women,  216,  642; 
(if  evil-(]oers  cut  off  as  a  punishment,  317; 
standing  up  tltrough  terror,  329;  how  dress- 
ed by  eastern  ladies,  451;  cutting  off  in 
mourning,  406  ;  worn  by  females  very  long, 
627. 

HAKIMS  or  doctors,  much  in  esteem  in  the 
East,  578. 

HAND,  whon  said  to  be  sealed,  352 ;  hands 
st_^retching  out  towards  an  object  of  devotion, 
377,  391  ;  Yiuht,  accounted  more  honourable 
tiian  tiie  left.  391,  410;  use  of  as  a  signal  to 
servants,  412:  hand  joined  in  hand,  plirase 
e.xplaineii.  407;  hand's  on  the  head,  what  in- 
dicated flierebv.  488. 

HAND'S-BRGADTH,  life  compared  to,  376. 

HANGING  upon  a  pillar,  311 ;  by  the  hands, 
522. 

HANGINGS,  used  in  temples,  297;  in  courts 
and  gardens,  318. 

H.\NUN'S  treatment  of  David's  servants,  204. 

H.VREMS  of  the  East,  considered  as  sanctu- 
aries, 273. 

H  ARES,  eastern  modes  of  cooking,  423. 

HARNESSED,  term  explained,  58. 

HART  and  fallow-deer,  what  kind  of  animal, 
250 ;  pantins  for  water  brooks.  376. 

HAWKS,  how  distinguished,  357. 

HAZAEL'S  murder  of  Benhadad  considered, 
28."). 

HEAD  of  a  conquered  enemy,  how  disposed 
of  164:  taking  away  from,  phrase  explained, 
275 ;  decapitated,  how  disposed  of,  283 ;  of 
tlie  way,  plirase  explained,  53U. 


HE-GOATS  travel  before  the  flock,  513. 

HEALING  in  his  wings,  phrase  explained,  572. 

HEAT  of  the  day,  Orientals  repose  during, 
284 ;  in  eastern  countries  often  fatal,  279. 

HEAP  of  stones,  as  sepulchral  monuments, 
223. 

HEART,  to  be  placed  in  one's,  634. 

HEATHEN,  term  how  applied  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, 366. 

HEAVENS  spread  out  as  a  curtain,  phrase 
explained,  407. 

HEBREW,  the  original  language,  11 ;  Hebrews 
not  a  warlike  people,  162. 

HEDGE  placed  around  one,  324 ;  of  thorns, 
breaking  through,  424. 

HELMET,  piece  of  ancient  armour,  162;  and 
shield,  account  of,  624. 

HELP-MEET,  a  wife  so  termed  in  the  East,  11. 

HERBS  and  flowers  planted  upon  graves,  464. 

HEROD,  Josephus'  account  of  his  exhibition 
of  himself,  619. 

HERMON,  mount,  the  dew  upon,  415. 

HEZEKIAH'S  display  of  his  treasures,  297. 

HIDDEN  treasures,  discovery  of,  329. 

HIGHEST  seat  at  entertainments,  G06. 

HIGH-WAYS,  frequently  deserted  by  travel- 
lers, 136. 

HILLS  and  high  places,  anciently  the  seat  of 
worship,  273,  291. 

HIND,  bringing  forth  her  fawn,  353.  373,  495  ; 
allusion  to  feet  of,  370 ;  celebrated  for  affec- 
tion to  its  mate,  419. 

HINDOOS  beheve  in  numerous  gods  and  de- 
mons, 585. 

HIRING  out  for  bread,  156. 

HOGS,  wild,  numerous  and  destructive  in  the 
East,  394. 

HONEY,  found  in  the  rocks  in  Palestine,  396  ; 
not  always  wholesome,  430 ;  comb,  delicious- 
ness  of,  370. 

HOOK  in  the  nose,  phrase  explained,  469 ; 
hooks  and  fish-hooks,  557. 

HORN,  worn  by  females  in  the  East,  155,  369 ; 
also  by  soldiers,  272,  390. 

HORNETS,  sent  as  a  iudgment,  66 ;  very  an- 
noying in  the  East,  101. 

HORSES,  not  allowed  to  the  kings  of  Israel  to 
multiply,  112,  307;  of  conquered  enemies, 
how  dealt  with,  130;  brought  by  Solomon 
from  Egypt,  257 ;  the  bride  in  Soiomon's 
Song  compared  to,  442;  of  the  sun,  279 ;  an- 
cient mode  of  shoeing,  453;  sometimes 
Eainted  red,  567 ;  led  in  the  wilderness,  484  ; 
ells  hune  upon  their  necks,  569. 

HORSE-LEECH,  remarks  upon  the,  433. 

HORSEMEN  spreading  themselves,  564.  ' 

HOSPITALITY,  distinguishing  trait  of  the 
Orientals,  351,  588,  603. 

HOUSE  of  burial  described,  168 ;  of  sheep- 
shearing,  what,  288 ;  dedication  of,  374. 

HOUSE-TOPS,  how  constructed,  159,414,461; 
dwelling  upon,  427;  walking  upon,  691. 

HUNTING,  mode  of,  practised  in  the  East  235 

HUSBANDMEN,  in  the  East,  labour  almost 
naked.  .591. 

HUSHAI'S  treachery  considered,  218. 

HUSKS,  import  of  original  term  for,  606. 

HUTS  or  booths  for  oriental  shepherds,  538. 

HYMN,  sung  on  the  night  of  the  Passover,  592. 

HYSSOP,  what  kind  of  plant,  383. 

IBEX,  or  wild  goat,  described,  408. 

IBIS,  the,  particularly  venerated  in  Egypt,  396. 

IDOLS,  great  number  of  in  India,  450. 

IDUMEA,  vide  Edom. 

IMAGES,  graven  and  molten,  what,  122,  549. 

IMAGERY,  oriental,  remarks  upon,  416. 

IMPRECATION,  form  of,  268. 

INHERITANCE  might  be  exchanged  in  Israel, 
271  ;  inheriting  the  wind,  phrase  explained, 
423. 

INSOLENCE  of  Rabshakeh's  speech,  293. 

INSTRUMENTAL  music,  employed  in  reli- 
gious services,  417. 

INTERMENTS  of  the  dead,  frequently  hurri- 
ed in  the  East,  116. 

INQUIRY,  oriental  modes  of  making,  603. 

IRON,  found  in  Mount  Lebanon,  106 ;  and 
clay,  mixture  of  in  Nebuchadnezzar's  vis- 
ionary image,  543. 

IRONY  and  satire,  common  in  the  East,  353. 

ISHMAEL,  the  prophecies  concerning  him 
considered,  24. 

ISRAELITES,  their  land  protected  while  ab- 
sent at  Jerusalem,  69. 

ISSACHAR,  his  blessing  explained,  50. 

IVORY,  e-mployed  as  a  material  for  beds  in 
the  East,  557. 

JACKALS,  devouring  human  bodies,  387; 
further  account  of,  60-5, 

JACOB'S  wages  changed  by  Laban.  37. 

JAEL,  her  conduct  towards  Sisera  considerpd, 
135  ;  her  offering  him  milk  and  butter  ex- 
plained, 135. 


JAW-BONE,  from  which  Samson  drank,  con- 
sidered, l44. 

JEALOUSY,  very  common  in  the  East,  420 ; 
effects  of,  638. 

JEBUS,  speech  of  the  inhabitants  of,  to  David, 
explained,  189. 

JEPHTHAH'S  vow  considered,  140. 

JERICHO,  the  curse  denounced  upon  him  who 
should  rebuild  it,  129;  state  of  the  country 
around,  604. 

JERUSALEM,  vast  numbers  gathered  thereat 
the  festivals,  65;  enthusiasm  of  pilgrims 
upon  coming  in  sight  of,  390 ;  how  it  could 
contain  so  great  multitudes,  298;  Volney's 
account  of  approach  to,  413. 

JEWELS,  the  Hebrews'  borrowing  of  the 
Egyptians  considered,  50;  worn  in  the  nos- 
trils, 422;  on  the  cheeks,  423;  worn  profuse- 
ly by  Jewish  brides,  482.' 

JEWS,  forbidden  by  Adrian  to  enter  Jerusa- 
lem, 453. 

JOAB  slain  by  Bcnaiah,  249. 

.TOB,  structure  and  scope  of  the  book  of,  .3215. 

JONATHAN'S  mecliug  David  in  the  wood  il- 
lustrated, 107. 

JORDAN,  the  river,  described,  20,  127. 

JOSEPH  compared  to  a  fruitful  vine,  51 ; 
where  interred  and  why,  132. 

JOT  or  tittle,  term  explained,  579. 

JOURNEY,  when  the  Arabs  begin,  280 ;  those 
of  princes,  how  distinguished,  470. 

JOY,  how  expressed  by  femaies  in  the  East, 
289. 

JUDAH,  why  compared  to  a  lion,  49  ;  cover- 
ins  of,  phrase  explained,  461. 

JUDEA,  remarks  on  the  soil  of,  453,  473  ;  land 
of  desolated  according  to  prophecy,  88,  463, 
461,  525. 

JUNIPER-TREE,  account  of,  266;  coals  of, 
phrase  explained,  411. 

KEEPER  of  the  head,  phrase  how  used.  171. 
KEY,  sometimes  worn ''upon    the    shoulder 

462 ;  given  in  token  of  conferring  authority 

536. 
KID,  seething  in  its  mother's  milk,  65. 
KINDRED,    laws    respecting    marriage    be 

tween,  78. 
KINGDOM,  delivering  up  the,  to  the  Father 

638. 
KINGS  and  princes  dishonouted  after  death, 

309  ;  memory  of  the  good  honoureil,  309  ; 

how  nursing  fathers  to  the  church,  476. 
KISIION,  the  river,  described,  136. 
KISSING  the  beard,  184,  227;  the  feet,  604; 

sacred  oblations,  267 ;  the  hand  a  token  of 

respect,  350 ;  the  wiitten  decrees  of  prince.s, 

429 
KNEAD' NG-TROUGHS,  eastern,   described 

57,  r23. 
KNOWING  a  person,  phrase  how  used,  3:^2 
.    one  afar  off,  4 15. 

LABOURERS  collected  for  employment,  589. 

LACHRYMATORIES,  used  by  the  ancients, 
534. 

LADIES,  eastern,  veiled  when  they  appear  in 
public,  350. 

LAMB,  emblem  of  meekness.  480. 

LAMENESS  and  dumbness,  effect  of  walking 
in  deserts,  469. 

LAMPS,  much  used  in  the  East,  257;  lamp 
despised,  phrase  explained,  333;  of  Cairo 
described,  615. 

LAND  of  Israelites,  not  to  be  permanently 
sold,  87 ;  division  of  among  heirs,  303 ;  bear- 
ing  thorns  and  briers,  639. 

LAND.MARKS,  not  to  be  removed,  115, 122. 

LANGUAGE,  the  original,  what,  11. 

LAODICEA,  account  of,  645. 

LAP,  shaking  the,  313. 

LAPPING  water  Mke  a  dog,  13S. 

LATTICE  through  which  Ahaziah  fell,  274. 

LAUGHING,  expression  when  used  by  Orien- 
tals, 27. 

LAYING  aside  every  weight,  640. 

LEANING  upon  one's  words,  310;  upon  the 
bosom  at  meals,  395. 

LEAVEN,  corrupting  influence  of,  62.5. 

LEBANON,  mount,  description  of,  103;  how 
an  object  of  comparison,  447;  fragrant 
odour  "  of  its  wines,  448,  550 ;  storms  and 
tempests  upon  very  severe,  466;  violence  of, 
565 ;  glory   of,  471 ;  cedars  of,  550. 

LENDING  upon  usury,  109 ;  upon  pledge,  119, 

LEPERS  obliged  to  cover  their  lips,  74 ;  expel- 
led from  camps  and  cities.  281. 

LEPROSY  described,  73,  74 ;  leprosy  in  gar 
ments,  74  ;  in  houses,  75. 

LETTERS,    eastern,  form  of,    315;     usually 

taken  by  travellers,  313. 
LEVIATHAN,  Job's  account  of  considered, 

3(10-,365. 
LEVIRATE  lawe.xplaincd,  150. 
LICE,  plague  of  55. 


854 


INDEX. 


LTFE  compared  to  a  story  or  dream,  398. 

LIFTING  up  the  feet,  34 ;  the  countenance,  89. 

LIGHTS  always  burning  in  Egyptian  houses, 
498. 

LIGHT-HOUSES,  alhision  to,  634. 

LIGHTNINGS,  Jrequent  in  Syria,  415. 

LILY,  eastern,  often  very  magnificent,  581. 

LIP,  protrusion  of,  a  mark  of  contempt,  371. 

LIVING  WATER,  wliat  meant  by,  487. 

LOCKS,  eastern,  described,  133,  446. 

LOCUSTS,  account  of,  305 ;  operation  in  lay- 
hig  their  eggs,  504 ;  their  destructive  ravages, 
551 ;  syujbol  of  the  Saracens,  649. 

LOINS,  custom  of  girding  up,  266,  352. 

LONG  LIFE,  especially  desired  by  the  Orien- 
tals 484. 

LOOKING  BACK,  how  understood  in  the 
East,  27. 

LOTS,  casting  of  among  the  Orientals,  .320, 617 ; 
employed  to  settle  contentions,  426. 

LUNATICS,  highly  reverenced  in  the  East.  630. 

LYING  upon  the  left  or  right  side,  525. 

MACHINE,  for  throwrlng  stones,  524. 
MAJESTY,  how  reverenced  in  the  East,  542. 
MAKING   bare  the  arm,  phrase    explained, 

478,  479. 
MAI.E  CHILD,  birth  of,  328;   male  children 

principally  desired  in  the  East,  497. 
MALEFACTORS,  not  allowed  to  look  at  kings, 

322. 
MANDRAKES,  what  they  were,  36. 
MANNA  described,  60. 
MANOAH,  his  history  illustrated,  142. 
MANTLE,  the  transfer  of,  ^68;  Jewish,   an 

upper  garment,  582. 
MANY  DAYS,  phrase  how  used,  249. 
MARINERS,  eastern,  their  conduct  in  a  storm, 

559. 
Marks  imprinted  on  the  person  in  honour 

of  idols,   124 ;    for  other  purposes  on   the 

hands  and  arms,  474. 
MARRIAGE  FEASTS^   sometimes  continued 

for  seven   days,  143;    marriage  ceremony 

performed  in  the  open  air,  151 ;  delay  of,  con- 
sidered by  the  Hindoos  as  a  disgrace  and 

calamity,  394;    processions,   customs  con- 
nected with,  592. 
MARRING  aland  with  stones,  27a 
>f  ASTER  anischolar,  phrase  explained,  571. 
Mats  or  cai^ts  employed  by  the  Orientals 

in  praver,  480. 
MATTRESSES  used  for  sleeping,  617. 
MEAT-OFFERING,  what,  70. 
MEDICINES,  externally  applied,  596. 
MEETING  friends  or  guests,  the  custom  of, 

178. 
MELONS,  and  other  fruits  of  Egypt,  91. 
MEN  at  one's  feet,  phrase  explained,  135. 
MERCHANTS  of  the  East,  for  what  famous, 

641. 
MESHA,  his  tribute  of  lambs,  279. 
MESSENGERS  in  the  East  travel  rapidly,  332. 
MICE,  the  Philistines  scourged  by,  157. 
MIDDLE  wall  of  partition,  632. 
MILCH  camels,  very  valuable  in  the  East,  39. 
MILETUS,  present  state  of,  621. 
MILITARY   operations    commenced    in   the 

spring,  206. 
MILK,  how  kept  by  the  Arabs,  129 ;  poured 

out  at  funeral  ceremonies,  33i3;  sometimes 

afforded  by  fathers  to  their  offspring,  341 ; 

great  part  of  the  diet  of  the  Orientals,  432. 
MILLET,  account  of  the  plant  so  called,  525. 
MILLO,  a  place  in  Jerusalem,  191. 
MILLS,  eastern,  described,  91. 
MIRAGE  of  the  desert,  allusions  to,  469,  495. 
MIRRORS,  what  kind  in  use  in  the  East,  69, 

432. 
MOAB,  prophecies  concerning,  505,  507. 
MODEST  way  of  speaking  of  one's  self,  630. 
MOHAMMEDANISM  announced  by  fifth  trum- 

petr646  ;  votaries  sKict  in  their  religion,  562. 
MOLOCH,  children  sacrificed  to  by  passing 

through  the  fire,  113. 
MOMENT,  a,  Tamul  mode  of  expressing,  374. 
MONEY  put  up  in  bags,  289,  334 ;  changers 

among  the  Jews,  588. 
MONSOONS,  severe  in  the  East,  352. 
MORDECAI'S    demeanour  towards   Haman 

illustrated,  321,  323. 
MORTARS,  how  made  in  the  East,  56,  572 ; 

pounrling  in  as  a  punishment,  432. 
MOTIIWORM,  description  of,  329,  344. 
MOUNT  HOR  described,  %. 
MOURNING,  eastern,  described,  211,  583 ;  ex- 
pressions usual  in,  492;  mourners,  female, 
hired  in  the  East,  491. 
MOUTH,  opening  the,  wide,  395 ;  of  a  strange 

woman,  phrase  explained,  425. 
MOWINGS,  the  king's,  phrase  explained.  5.57. 
MUD  walkni  buildinsrs,  short  duration  of,  342. 
MUJELII'.E  among  the  ruins  6f  Babylon,  458. 
Ml  I-HF.IIRY,    the,    whether    mentioned    in 
•cripture,  240. 


MURDERER,  no  satisfaction  to  be  taken  for 

the  lite  of,  192. 
MUSIC  and  dancing,  usual  at  entertainments, 

607;,  in  the  night,  467;  as  an  expression  of 

respect,  279. 
MUSTARD-TREE,  natural  history  of,  585. 
MUZZLING  of  oxen,  120. 
MY  I,ORD,  phrase  how  used,  30. 
MYRRH,  allusion  to  explained,  446. 

NAILS  of  female  captives   to  be  pared,  115 ; 

nails  fastened  by  masters    of  assemblies, 

441 ;  fixed  in  a  sure  place,  463. 
NAMES  given  to  women  and  slaves,  155 ;  how 

varied  in  the  East,  315  ;  sometimes  bestowed 

from  occupation,  596 ;  other  grounds  of  be- 

stowment,  609,  618. 
NAMING  of  the  living  creatures  by  Adam,  11. 
NAVEL   of  infants,    allusions  to  explained, 

419. 
NAZARETH,  description  of,  576. 
NAZARITISiVI,  vow  of,  155. 
NEAPOLIS,  present  state  of,  620. 
NECK,  wlien  one  said  to  have  hold  of,  236. 
NEHEMIAH,  expenses  of  his  table,  315. 
NEIGHING,  term  how  used  in  the  East,  489. 
NET,  being  compassed  in,  explained,  337. 
NICOPOLIS,  present  state  of,  638. 
NIGHT,  often  time  for  travelling  in  the  East, 

316,  605;  principal  time  for  heathen  rites, 

369 ;  for  the  roaming  forth  of  wild  beasts, 

409  ;  night  dew  very  heavy  in  the  East,  138  ; 

sometimes  the  season  for  agricultural  labour, 

149;  often  severely  cold  in  the  East,  38. 
NILE,    waters  of  pleasant  to  the  taste,  53; 

changed  into  blood,  54. 
NINEVEH,  description   of,  559;   prophecies 

concerning,  563. 
NO-AMMON  in  Egypt  described,  503. 
NORTH  WIND,  Solomon's  allusion  to,  430. 
NOSTRILS  distended  in  anger,  329. 
NUMBERING  the  people,  David's  sin  in,  236. 
NURSES  in  the  East,  31. 

OATH,  ceremonies  in  taking,  254,  288;  very 
common  among  the  heathen,  264  ;  doctrines 
of  the  Jews  concerning,  590. 

OBEISANCE  made  by  women  to  men,  Oil. 

OBLIGATIONS,  written,  how  cancelled,  569. 

OIL,  treasures  of,  how  kept,  303 ;  burnt  in 
honour  of  the  dead,  549 ;  how  used  in  sacri- 
fices, 70;  poured  upon  the  head,  415;  oil- 
olive,  what.  68. 

OINTMENTS  in  great  esteem  in  the  East,  215. 

OLD  AGE.  the  winter  of  life.  330. 

OLIVE-TREE,  utility  of,  16;  how  injured, 
335  ;  grafting  of,  624 ;  olives  and  grapes,  how 
gathered  and  gleaned,  459. 

OPENING  the  mouth  in  speaking,  579,328; 
open  hands,  109. 

ORACLE.Hebrew,compared  with  heathen,192. 

ORDAINED  to  condemnation,  phrase  ex- 
plained, 643. 

ORNAMENTS,  Rebecca's  considered,  31 ; 
worn  by  females  in  the  nose,  31 ;  laid  off  in 
time  of  mourning,  312. 

OSTRICH,  natural  history  of  the,  355 ;  dole- 
ful noise  of,  561. 

OVENS,  eastern  described,  70. 

OWL,  a  bird  of  evil  omen  in  the  East,  457 ; 
emblem  of  desolation,  457. 

OXEN,  view  of  their  services,  300 ;  custom 
of  trying  or  proving,  600,  606. 

PAINTING  the  eyes  and  face,  287. 

PALANQUIN,  effects  of  bearing,  535. 

PALM-TREE,  account  of  the,  404, 493. 

PANTING  for  the  dust,  phrase  explained,  555. 

PARENTS,  one's,  reproached  by  enemies  as 
an  expression  of  anger,  166. 

PARTING,  ceremony  used  at,  580. 

PARTRIDGE,  account  of  the,  171. 

PARTURITION  of  eastern  women  easy,  53. 

PASSOVER,  circimastances  of  eating  the  first, 
57. 

PASTORAL  or  wandering  tribes  in  Syriai,  494. 

PASTURES  carefully  guarded,  399. 

PATMOS,  present  state  of,  643. 

PAVILION,  eastern,  description  of,  268. 

PEACOCK,  account  of  the,  256 ;  exceedingly 
numerous  in  the  East,  355. 

PEARLS,  casting  before  swine,  581. 

PELICAN,  account  of  the,  405. 

PERFUMES  poured  upon  the  heads  of  guests, 
372,  431,  479 ;  boxes  of  suspended  from  the 
neck,  442 ;  burning  of  at  feasts,  529 ;  per- 
fumed garments,  common  in  the  East,  34. 

PERGAMOS,  account  of,  644. 

PETRA,  ancient  city  of,  described,  554. 

PHILADELPHIA  described,  645, 

PIGEONS,  building  nests  in  rocks  and  hollow 
places,  507  ;  carrier,  still  employed  in  the 
East.  3&1,  440. 

PILLAR,  or  column,  a  seat  by,  289;  pillars, 
term  how  applied,  632. 


PILLOW  of  goats'  hair,  phrase  how  to  be  un- 
derstood, 166. 

FIT,  criminals  cast  into,  352;  used  for  catch- 
ing wild  beasts,  368,  529. 

PITCHERS  or  jars,  used  for  carrying  water 
instead  of  leathern  bottles,  139. 

PLOUGH,  the  Syrian,  described,  554.  604. 

PLOUGHING,  how  managed  in  the  East,  117, 
118 ;  upon  the  back,  414 ;  often  done  in  win- 
ter, 427. 

PLUCKING  out  the  right  eye,  579. 

POINTS  of  the  compass,  how  expressed,  108. 

POLITENESS  of  the  Orientals,  how  evinced, 
30. 

POLYGAMY  piodtictive  of  many  evils,  36; 
among  the  Jews  considered,  152. 

POMEGRANATE  JUICE,  employed  as  a 
drink,  95. 

PORTIONS,  custom  of  sending  to  friends  and 
to  the  poor,  316,  322. 

POTTAGE,  people  of  the  East  very  fond  of, 
32 ;  how  made,  281. 

POTSHERD.  Avhat  meant  by  the  term,  327. 

POTTED   flesh  in  use  in  the  East,  222. 

POTTER'S  wheel,  what,  497;  potter's-field, 
a  burial  place  for  strangers,  592. 

POURING  water  on  one's  hands,  277. 

PRAY  without  ceasing,  phrase  explained,  63G. 

PRAYERS,  frequency  of  among  the  Brahmins, 
384  ;  ascending  up  before  God,  640. 

PRECIOUS  stones,  forming  foundation  of 
New  Jerusalem,  650. 

PRECIPITATION,  mount  of  at  Nazareth  de- 
scribed, 602. 

PRESENTS  given  in  the  East  at  the  close  of 
a  meal,  40;  sent  to  procure  help,  260;  of 
garments,  306  ;  valuable  made  to  governors, 
571. 

PRISONERS,  oriental,  miserable  condition 
of,  394  ;  how  treated,  501 ;  generally  easy  to 
be  visited,  592. 

PRISONS,  eastern,  described,  502. 

PROPERTY  of  executed  criminals  confisca- 
ted, 271. 

PROPHETS,  performed  on  musical  instru- 
ments, 160;  mode  of  consulting,  259;  se- 
pulchres of,  605. 

PROSEUCH.^,  or  Jewish  places  of  pi  lyer, 
620. 

PROSTRATION  practised  in  prayer,  590. 

PROVENDER,  carried  for  beasts  of  burden 
on  a  journey,  251. 

PROVERBS,  or  aphorisms,  ancient  mode  of 
conveying  instruction,  418. 

PROVISIONS,  how  demanded  by  public  of- 
ficers, 314. 

PSALM  149th,  on  what  occasion  composed, 
417. 

PUBLICANS,  where  their  houses  built,  582  ; 
office  of  described,  596. 

PUFFING  at  one's  enemies,  368. 

PURCHASES,  how  made  in  the  East,  499. 

PUTTING  the  hfe  in  the  hand,  141 ;  putting 
on  Egypt  as  a  garment,  phrase  explained,  503. 

QUAILS  miraculously  brought,  92;  Moses' 
accoimt  of  considered,  58,  93,  391;  abound 
in  Asia,  93. 

RABBI,  when  title  began  to  be  used,  589. 

RAINS  in  Judea  described,  123  ;  when  fall  in 
the  East,  261,  374  ;  the  sound  of,  265  ;  some- 
times falls- in  neighbourhood  of  Red  Sea, 
387;  former  and  latter,  4S4,  641;  very  vio 
lent  in  the  East,  433,  603 ;  makers  of  pre- 
tended, 495. 

RAISING  up  evil,  phrase  how  to  be  under 
stood,  211. 

RAMAH,  city  of  described,  132. 

RANK  and  opulence,  how  distinguished,  438. 

RAVENS,  made  to  provide  food  for  Elijah,  2G1. 

REACHING  beyond  one's  measure,  629. 

REAPING,  customs  connected  with  in  the 
East,  147. 

RECORDER,  what  kind  of  office,  204. 

RECORDS,  how  preserved  in  the  East,  499. 

REDEMPTION  of  land,  87;  of  the  first-bom, 
95. 

REED  grows  abundantly  in  Egypt,  332 ;  lurk- 
ing places  in  for  wild  beasts,  388  ;  sweet 
smelling,  489. 

REGISTERING  the  names  of  citizens,  635. 

RENDING  of  garments,  phrase  explained,  436. 

REPHAIM,  term  for  deceased  giants,  343. 

REPIIIDIM,  rock  of,  described,  61. 

REPUBLIC,  Hebrew,  form  of,  89. 

RESPECT,  attitudes  and  expressions  of,  16a 

RESURRECTION,  Job's  anticipation  of,  338 ; 
curious  notion  of  the  Jews  concerning,  376, 
563. 

RETALIATION,  Mosaic  law  of  considered,  83. 

RICE,  eating  one's,  how  considered,  314. 

RIDING  into  houses,  505. 

RINGS,  usually  worn  in  the  East,  99;  given 
as  a  token  of  atfection,  320. 


INDEX 


655 


RIPPING  up  women  with  child,  285,  555. 

RIVERS  in  Arabia,  often  dry  up,  331 :  cut 
among  the  rocks,  345 ;  fertihzing  etfects  of, 
468  ;  drying  up  of,  477. 

RIZPAH,  her  conduct  illustrated,  234. 

ROAD  in  a  wilderness,  473. 

ROBBERS,  cunning  of  eastern,  438. 

ROBES  stripped  off  to  confirm  engagements, 
164  ;  washed  in  the  blood  of  the  Lamb,  646. 

ROCK,  the  shadow  of  a,  467. 

RODS  of  the  Egyptian  magicians,  53 ;  or  staff, 
how  mentioned  in  the  scriptures,  280, 366. 

ROOF,  breaking  up  the,  account  of  consider- 
ed, 595. 

ROSE,  very  fragrant  in  the  East,  442. 

RUDDER-BANDS,  term  explained,  623. 

RUNNING  FAST,  sign  of  news,  2^. 

SABBATICAL  YEAR,  law  of  considered,  88. 

SABEANS,  who  they  were,  324. 

SA  doles,  eastern,  described,  29. 

SALAAM,  or  salutation  of  peace,  311. 

SALT,  covenant  of,  95;  the  effect  of  on  vege- 
tation, 124 ;  salting,  term  used  for  mainte- 
nance, 310;  salt  plains  of  the  East  dreary 
and  desolate,  497  ;  salting  the  bodies  of  new- 
born infants,  529. 

SALUTATIONS  in  travelling,  280;  of  guests 
at  entertainments,  604  ;  our  Lord's  direction 
in  regard  to,  604  ;  mode  of,  606. 

SALUTING  or  blessing  a  house,  583;  on  the 
face,  625. 

SAMARIA,  description  of,  253. 

^AMIEL,  tlie  destructive  wind  so  called,  268. 

SANDALS,  disgraceful  to  be  beaten  with, 
555  ;  custom  of  loosing  from  the  feet,  577. 

SANHEDRIM,  Jewish,  91. 

SARDIS,  account  of,  644. 

SAVOURY  meats  described,  a3. 

SCAPE-GOAT,  eastern  custom  respecting,  77. 

SCEPTRE  and  staff;  terms  how  used,  372, 520- 

SCORPION,  effects  of  its  sting,  257,  524. 

SCOURGE  of  the  tongue,  330. 

SCOURGING,  a  common  punishment  in  the 
East,  622. 

SCRIBES,  thenature  of  their  office,  110;  mode 
of  teaching,  578. 

SCRIP,  a  garment  used  for  carrying  money, 
281. 

SCRIPTURES,  custom  of  reading  in  public, 
601,  609. 

iSEAL  sot  upon  the  heart,  448. 

SEATS  in  the  streets,  347. 

SEBASTE,  the  ancient  Samaria,  described,  465. 

SECRETS  not  usually  confided  to  women  in 
the  East,  143. 

SEE  eye  to  eye,  phrase  explained.  479. 

SEED-TIME,  attended  with  danger  to  eastern 
Imsbandmen,  413,  532. 

SENNACHERIB,  his  vam  boastings,  456,-  de- 
struction of  his  army  considered,  295. 

6EIR,  mount,  prophecies  concerning,  538. 

SEPULCHRES,  liow  constructed,  .30,  458. 

SERPENTS,  fiery,  or  seraphs,  described,  97; 
their  bite  alluded  to,  340;  some  supposed  to 
he  deaf,  385 ;  serpent  charmers,  335, 438, 490. 

SERVANTS,  in  what  manner  orders  given  to, 
40 ;  Jewish,  regained  their  freedom  on  the 
seventh  year,  110  ;  how  treated  in  the  East, 
215 ;  scriptural  use  of  the  term,  410. 

SETTING  the  eyes  upon  one,  405. 

SEVEN,  the  number,  used  for  many,  431 ; 
frecjuent  use  of  that  number,  587. 

SHADE,  essential  to  oriental  luxury,  443. 

SHADOW,  emblem  of  protection,  95,  399. 

SHAKING  out  the  lap,  603. 

SHAVING,  and  rending  the  mantle,  326. 

SHEATH,  term  how  apphed  to  the  body,  545. 

SHEBA'S  rebellion,  226. 

SHEEP,  employed  in  making  a  covenant,  29  ; 
large  tails  of,  68;  shearing  of,  169;  great  fe- 
cundity of,  4ie  ;  hearing  the  voice  of  the 
shepherd,  614;  folds  of,  how  constructed, 
613 ;  skins  of  and  of  goats,  made  into  cloth- 
ing. 639. 

SHEMINITH,  title  of  some  of  the  Psalms, 
367. 

SHEPHERDS  in  tiie  East  accountable  for  the 
flocks  under  their  charge,  38 ;  why  the  oc- 
cupation of  offensive  to  the  Egyptians,  4^; 
allusions  to,  470 ;  duty  of  to  provide  water, 
472;  figures  drawn  from  the  occupation  of, 
372 ;  Syrian  exposed  to  the  seasons,  533. 

SHIELD,  highly  valued  by  the  ancients,  181 ; 
uses  of,  367  ;  furbishing  and  anointing,  460. 

SHILOAH,  gentle  waters  of,  454. 

SHIMEPS  conduct  illustrated.  220. 

SHIRTS  worn  by  the  Arabs,  143. 

SHITTIM-WOOD,  what,  67. 

SHOES,  origin  of  the  use  of,  23  ;  taken  oflT  in 
temples,  53 ;  in  the  presence  of  kings,  129 ; 
also  in  confirming  a  bargain,  150. 

SHOULDER  of  a  lamb,  a  luxury,  159. 

SiHOW,  c-.haracteristic  of  false  religions,  580. 
SICKNESS  often  feigned  by  Asiatics,  214. 


SIGNET  worn  on  the  little  finger,  478, 

SILENT  praise  practised  by  the  Hindoos,  387. 

SILOAM,  fountain  of,  241,  613. 

SIMOOM,  account  of,  294. 

SINAI,  wilderness  and  mount  of  described, 

62 ;  flaming  of  trees  upon,  63. 
SINGING  on  a  journey,  477. 
SINS,  the  supposed  source  of  all  losses  and 

afflictions,  316;    term  how  apphed  by  the 

Hindoos,  ^38. 
SITTING  at  meals,  33 ;  in  prayer,  201 ;  on  a 

cushion,  157 ;  at  the  feet  of  a  teacher,  622. 
SKIN  for  skin,  phrase  explained,  326;  of  one's 

teeth,  phrase  explained,  337. 
SKIRT,  spread  over  as  a  sign  of  protection, 

149. 
SLAVES,  how  used  in  the  East,  64,  104,  399 ; 

branded  in  the  forehead,  650 ;  female,  gen- 
erally given  to  a  daughter  upon  her  marriage, 

560. 
SLEEPING,  arrangements  in  the  East,  437, 

605. 
SLIME-PITS  near  Sodom,  account  of,  22. 
SMELL  of  valuable  gifts,  171. 
SMITING  with  a  shoe  on  the  mouth,  623:  the 

hands  together,  530. 
SMOKE,  term  how  applied  to  an  angry  man, 

SMYRNA,  account  of,  643. 

SNAIL,  remarks  upoji  the,  385. 

SNOW  ]fi  Salmon,  phrase  explained,  388. 

SODOM  AND  GOMORRAH,   destruction  of 

considered,  27. 
SOLDIERS,  their  valour  how  excited,  313. 
SOLOMON'S  treatment  of  Adonijah,  249 ;  his 

decision  in  regard  to  the  two  children,  255 ; 

splendour  of  his  drinking  vessels,  256. 
SON,  term  how  used,  164,  169;  numerous  in 

families  where  polygamy  is  practised,  287. 
SORCERY,  common  in  the  East,  114. 
SOULS,  superstition  concerning,  344. 
SOUNDS,  distinction  of  in  a  procession,  628; 

.sound  of  one's  feet  at  the  door,  Wi. 
SOUTH  WIND,  effects  of  in  Egypt,  418;  else- 
where, 605. 
SP.\RROW,  habits  of  the,  407. 
SPICES,    large    quantities    of   employed   in 

swathing  dead  bodies,  616 ;  burnt  in  honour 

of  the  dead,  307. 
SPITTING  in  the  face,  94,  121. 
SPOILS  of  a  conquered  enemy  dedicated  to 

the  gods,  166. 
SPORT  made  by  prisoners,  145. 
SPRING  discovered  in  the  wilderness,  98. 
STADIUM,  description  of  the  ancient,  635. 
STAIRS,  secret  places  of,  phrase  explained, 

444  ;  staircases,  how  arranged,  598. 
STAFF,  shepherd's,  allusion  to,  372. 
STANDARDS  of  the  tribes    described,  89; 

standard-bearer,  allusion  to,  446. 
STEPS,  taking  hold  of,  341. 
STICKS  provi'led  for  fuel,  263 ;  ancient  mode 

of  writing  upon,  541. 
STOCKS,  punishment  of  described,  334,  620. 
STONES,    anointed  by  the  ancients,  84;  of 

great  size  in  building,  300;  stone  pitchers 

made  use  of  for  baking,  386 ;  white,  custom 

of  giving.  614. 
STONING  to  death,  63,  80. 
STORK,  account  of  the,  408,  490. 
STREETS,  making  in  Damascus,  phrase  ex- 
plained, 270 ;  having  a  name  in  the,  337 ;  one 

m  Jerusalem,  592. 
STRIPPING  the  dead  bodies  of  enemies,  179. 
STREWING  flowers  and  branches  of  trees 

before  great  men,  588. 
STRIKING  HANDS,  what  meant  by  phrase, 

STRETCHING  forth  the  hands,  616. 

STRIFE  between  herdsmen,  common  in  the 
East,  20. 

STRINGS  of  African  bows,  of  what  made,  548. 

STUBBLE  and  grass,  burning  of,  475. 

STUMBLING-BLOCK,  on  wliat  allusion  found- 
ed, 455. 

SUBJECTS  seldom  admitted  to  the  tables  of 
princes,  321. 

SUBMISSION,  outward  tokens  of,  269  ;  by 
what  phrase  expressed,  304. 

SUBORNED  swearing  in  the  East,  271. 

SUMMER  parlour  described,  133;  summer 
fruits.  Orientals  fond  of,  562. 

SUEZ,  present  state  of,  273. 

SUN,  intense  heat  of  in  the  East,  412. 

SURETISHIP,  ceremonies  relating  to,  419; 
very  often  hazardous,  425. 

SWALLOW,  remarks  on  the  habits  of,  470 ; 
swallow  up,  phrase  how  used,  473 ;  swallow- 
ing one's  spittle,  332. 

SWARTHINESS  of  eastern  women,  489. 

SWEARING  by  the  head  or  life  of  a  king, 
579. 

SWORD,  bearing  the,  624. 

SYCAMORE-TREE,  account  of  the,  304,  558, 
607. 


SYMPATHY  of  the  Orientals  with  the  afBicttti 

365. 
SYRIANS,  precipitate  flight  of  illustrated  bfy 
parallel  case,  284,  285. 

TABERNACLE,  the,  resembled  an  eastern 
tent,  67. 

TABLES,  for  writing,  of  great  antiquity.  564. 

TABOR,  mount,  described,  134,  398,  578,' 586. 

TAIL,  how  used  figuratively,  123. 

TAKING  hold  of  instruction,  phrase  explain- 
ed, 419. 

TANNOOR,  or  oven,  eastern,  described,  70. 

TARES,  still  sown  by  enemies  in  the  East,  584. 

TARGETS  and  shields,  how  to  be  understood. 
2i55. 

TARSUS,  Paul's  birthplace,  account  of,  617. 

TASTING  of  a  person,  phrase  how  employed, 
375. 

TAXES,  how  levied  in  Persia,  and  elsewhere 
in  the  East,  2-50,  391. 

TEARS,  drinking  of,  expression  common  itt 
the  East,  394. 

TEMPLE,  Solomon's,  mode  of  building  illus- 
trated, 253. 

TEMPTATION  of  Christ,  place  of,  described, 
577,  601. 

TENTS,  Turcomans  sit  at  the  door  of,  25; 
custom  of  living  in  part  of  the  year,  37,  299 ; 
of  the  Arabs  covered  with  black,  441. 

TENT-PINS,  how  used  in  the  East,  136. 

THIGH,  putting  the  hand  under  in  swearing, 
36. 

THINGS  which  are  not,  phrase  explained,  625. 

THIRST  terrible  in  eastern  deserts,  410. 

THORNS  in  the  sides,  phrase  explained,  99 ; 
and  thistles,  enemies  compared  to,  535 ;  of 
Christ,  name  of  a  plant,  615;  in  the  flesh, 
Paul's,  what,  630. 

THRASHING-FLOORS,  how  constructed  in 
the  East,  138,  239,  366 ;  thrashing  out  grain, 
mode  of,  465,  472. 

THRONE  of  Solomon,  its  magnificence,  255 ; 
similar  ones  in  Persia,  255. 

THUMBS  and  toes  cut  off;  133. 

THUNDER-STORMS  and  showers  in  Syria, 
160. 

TIBERIAS,  its  present  state,  612. 

TIDINGS  of  victory  announced  to  idols,  300. 

TIMBRELS  described,  395. 

TIMBER,  different  modes  of  felling,  531. 

TIME  measured  by  the  length  of  the  shadow, 
332 ;  shall  be  no  longer,  phrase  explained,650. 

TIN  mixed  with  silver,  449. 

TITLES,  flattering,  to  give  to  one,  351. 

TOMBS,  of  lower  orders,  how  constructed, 
590 ;  visited  by  eastern  women,  499,  614 ;  an- 
ciently inhabited,  582;  how  closed,  615. 

TONGUE,  the,  compared  to  fire,  641, 

TOOTH,  temple  of,  235. 

TORCHES  and  flambeaux,  when  used  ia  the 
East,  .591. 

TORRENTS,  figures  taken  from,  413. 

TOWERS  of  protection  for  animals,  303 ;  fig- 
urative use  of  the  term,  426  ;  in  gardens  and 
vineyards,  453,488,597. 

TRADE,  every  Jew  expected  to  follow  one, 
620. 

TREASURES,  how  disposed  of  in  the  East, 
437.  474  ;  practice  of  hiding  in  the  earth,  585. 

TREES,  often  planted  about  houses,  254;  te- 
nacious of  life  in  the  East,  334;  planted  in 
courtyards,  405;  cut  down  by  enemies,  495. 

TREADING  of  grapes  and  oUves,  483. 

TRIUMPH,  military,  described,  632,  635. 

TROOPS  said  to  be  chosen,  not  levied,  58i5. 

TROUGHS,  stone,  used  in  childbirth,  53. 

TRUMPETS  employed  in  war,  162. 

TURBAN,  eastern,  described,  347. 

TURTLE-DOVE,  account  of,  390;  plaintive 
note  of,  526. 

TUTELARY  deities  presiding   over  places, 

TYMPANUM  or  drum,  mode  of  punishment, 

639. 
TYRE,  prophecies  concerning,  533. 

UMBRELLA,  its  use  very  ancient,  412. 
UNCLEANNESS,  contracted  by  attending  a 

funeral,  89, 
UNICORN,  what  kind  of  animal  intended  by 

the  term,  399—404. 
UPPER  CHAMBERS,  eastern,  described,  498. 
UPPER  GARMENTS  taken  in  pledge,  579. 
USURY  and  extortion  common  in  the  Eaat, 

5.30. 
UZZAH,  the  fate  of  considered,  198. 

VALI,EYS  filled  up  to  prepare  a  highway.  483. 
VEGETATION  short-lived  in  the  East,  398. 
VEHICLES,  eastern,  of  conveyance,  197. 
VEILS  worn  by  brides  in  the  East,  32 ;  a  tbken 

of  subjection,  629. 
VESSELS,  earthen,  how  made  unclean.  73. 
VILLAS  in  eastern  gardens,  443. 


656 


INDEX. 


VINE,  luxuriance  of  in  Canaan,  49 ;  running 
over  "walls,  51 ;  why  Joseph  compared  to,  51 ; 
how  injured  by  insects,  123  ;  of  Egypt,  de- 
struction of,  393 ;  made  to  grow  about  houses, 
414  ;  how  fenced  in  the  East,  429,  438. 

VINEGAR,  refreshing  quality  of,  388. 

VINEYARDS  injured  by  cattle  in  the  East, 
64  ;  highly  valued  in  Asiatic  countries,  270. 

VIPER,  remarks  upon  the,  623. 

VIRGINS  sleeping  with  the  aged,  240;  be- 
trothed, how  considered,  600. 

VISITS  of  the  Orientals  very  ceremonious,301. 

VOWS  to  be  sacredly  performed,  437  ;  of  the 
eastern  women,  155. 

WADY  GHARENDEL  described,  59. 

WAGES  of  shepherds,  625. 

Walking  upon  the  roof  of  a  house,  544; 
softly,  phrase  how  used,  272. 

Wall,  term  how  applied,  169  ;  of  Aphek,  its 
fall  explained,  269 ;  a  bowing  or  tottering,  al- 
lusions to,  387 ;  erected  around  eastern 
dwellings,  541 ;  of  fire,  phrase  explained,  567. 

WAR.  religious  rites  preparatory  to,  157. 

Warriors  interred  in  complete  armour,  537. 

Washing  the  hands  of  or  from  any  thin^, 
115 ;  the  feet,  an  eastern  custom,  170 ;  clothes 
by  the  side  of  streams,  221. 

WATCHES  in  the  East,  how  announced,  483 ; 
watchmen  in  the  East,  398,  460 ;  stationed  in 
a  tower,  223. 

WATER  carried  by  women  in  the  East^  30,  31 ; 
bitter  made  sweet,  58 ;  scarce  and  valuable 
in  the  East,  96,  466 ;  poured  upon  the  ground, 
158;  from  the  well  of  Bethlehem,  236  ;  pro- 
vided by  the  humane  for  birds,  423;  for  the 
refreshment  of  travellers,  597  ;  drawn  from 
wells  bv  women,  611. 

WATERING  a  garden,  mode  of,  294. 


WATER-SPOUT,  allusions  to,  376. 

WEANING  children,  27. 

WEARYING  one  by  continual  coming,  41,  608. 

WEAVER,  allusion  to  in  Isaiah's  prayer,  469. 

WEEPING  over  the  dead,  181. 

WEDDING,  mystical,  of  Christ  with  his 
church,  377—383 ;  eastern,  when  celebrated, 
591 ;  use  of  lamps  at,  591. 

WEIGHING  griefs  and  sorrows,  330  ;  a  king 
in  a  balance,  544. 

WEIGHTS,  divers,  forbidden,  121 ;  exactness 
in  required,  424. 

WELLS,  stopping  of,  how  considered  in  the 
East,  32  ;  furnished  with  means  of  watering 
cattle,  25;  closed  to  keep  out  sand,  34;  a 
place  of  concealment,  221 ;  figurative  allu- 
sions to,  422;  .lacob's  visit  to,  610,  Gil. 

WHEELS  and  living  creatures  in  Ezekiel's 
vision  explained,  5^,  523. 

WHIP  for  a  horse,  allusion  to,  430. 

WHISPERING  in  the  ear,  159. 

WIFE,  addressed  by  that  title,  259 ;  contentions 
of  how  represented,  426 ;  wives,  many  not 
allowed  to  the  kings  of  Israel,  113;  pur- 
chased by  dowry,  165 ;  taken  with  ease  in 
the  East,  207 ;  of  deceased  emperors  how 
disposed  of,  227 ;  temporary,  common  in  the 
East,  548. 

WHIRLWIND  precursor  of  rain,  27S ;  com- 
ing from  the  north,  545. 

WILD  BEASTS,  combats  with,  628. 

WILDERNESS  of  the  Red  Sea,  account  of, 
486. 

WIND,  violent  eastern  described,  348. 

WINDOW  from  which  persons  thiown.  287. 

WINE,  time  of  drinking  in  the  East,  320 ;  red 
particularly  esteemed  in  the  East,  391,  429 ; 
tarrying  long  over,  429;  custom  of  cooling, 
430 ;  mixed  with  water,  449,  478 ;  kept  upon 


the  lees,  464 ;  poured  from  vessel  to  vessel, 
5Cp6  ;    r  oil,  poured  on  the  head  of  a  vie;; 
637. 

WINE-PRESS,  the  treading  of,  317;  re  ii 
on  the,  453. 

WINGS,  figurative  application  of  term,  4:; 
symbol  of  protection,  591. 

WINTER  in  the  East,  how  divided,  444;  how 
the  inhabitants  spend  their  time  durinu  144  ; 
winter  and  summer  houses,  distinction  be- 
tween, .''56 ;  severity  of  how  relieved,  .0'J7. 

WIPING  Jerusalem  as  a  dish,  phrase  explain- 
ed, 271. 

WISDOM'S  house  with  seven  pillars,  421. 

WITCH  OF  ENDOR,  Saul's  consulting,  173. 

WOLF,  habits  of  the,  489. 

WOMEN,  love  of,  phrase  how  used,  182 ;  not 
admitted  to  eastern  banquets,  318 ;  custom 
of  the  Persians,  exception,  320;  womens' 
apartments  inviolable,  320 ;  a  king  going  iiUo, 
sign  of  execution  to  criminals,  321 ;  vvomaui,  a 
beautiful,  compared  to  a  roe,  419;  wom;n 
confined  in  eastern  countries,  421 ;  Egyptian, 
carried  on  commerce,  435;  of  Samaria  rj. 
fusing  in  modern  times  to  give  water  to 
travellers,  611;  seek  concealment,  627 1 
head-dress  of,  627. 

WOODY  tracts  in  the  Holv  Land,  222,  521. 

WORDS  of  the  law,  how  to  be  revealed,  122. 

WORMS  in  the  human  body,  340. 

WRESTLERS,  probable  allusion  to  tke  cus- 
toms  of,  335. 

WRITING,  the  most  ancient  way  of,  333  ;  on 
stone  alluded  to,  339 ;  on  fine  sand,  497 ;  wr» 
tings  how  sealed  in  the  East,  526. 

ZIBA'S  present  of  summer  fruits,  what,  219 

David's  conduct  towards,  219. 
ZION,  mount,  present  state  oi;  561. 


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